Calraen ran as quickly and as quietly as she could into the darkness. The flashes and sounds of the battle dimmed as she passed beyond the area of the factory that she’d explored the last time they were there. She ignited her lightsaber for a light source, and held it over the items in the rack closest to her. Durasteel plating, droid motivators, comlink headsets… She wished the items were in some kind of logical order. Impatience and frustration rose up and she quickly expelled them. She needed to focus. She still had a few minutes.

Pausing in the aisle, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, drawing the Force around her. When she opened them again, her eyesight sharpened and the glow of her lightsaber seemed to cast a wider circle of light. She glanced around her and ahead, then moved off at a jog. Now she was able to take everything in as she ran past. She trusted her abilities. She knew she wouldn’t miss anything.

She hoped Obi-Wan would be able to hold the battle. Then she admonished herself – as if he would have any trouble. He could probably do it in his sleep. It was ridiculous to feel any kind of concern for him.

Still, she hoped he was doing okay.

He didn’t – wait. She stopped abruptly and backstepped. There they were. A whole stack of the solar power units she’d been looking for. They were each about the size of a loaf of bread, but she knew they contained panels that would expand to be metres across. She retracted her lightsaber and clipped it to her belt before picking one up. They were heavy, but she stacked three in her arms like a pile of books. She figured once she got back to the others, they could take one each.

With the Force helping her balance the stack, she set off at a run back to the battle, but within seconds, she heard the roar of a ship arriving overhead, and knew it must be their lift out. She looked up at the roof as she ran, wondering how Garen was going to get to them, but her question was answered right away.

With an explosion that nearly threw her off her feet, the roof disappeared. Floodlights from the ship’s belly blinded her for a second, but she waved up in the ship’s general direction anyway. It only took him another two seconds to send a grapnel down to her, and she clipped it to her belt quickly. She just had time to brace herself and the power units before she was pulled upwards.

“How’s it going?” Garen asked, grabbing the back of her tunic to haul her in.

“Not so good. We think Kar’ima’s brother tipped the garrison off. We need to get him and Obi-Wan out quickly.”

“Right.”

He dived back into the pilot’s seat and edged the ship over towards the entrance of the factory. They were being fired on now, but the ship’s shields were holding out nicely. So far.

“There they are,” Garen muttered, locking the ship in position and leaping back to the hatch again. Calraen carefully stored the solar batteries before joining him. The ship shuddered at the impact of laser blasts.

“We can’t sit here much longer. We’re at point blank range and if they get a missile onto us – go and check, will you?”

He was reeling in the grapnel as Calraen ran to the viewport and scanned quickly. She couldn’t see anything, but a warning light started flashing on one of the panels.

“Master Muln, I think they are setting up a missile launcher, but it’s behind us.”

“Oh, of course they would,” he muttered with annoyance as he pulled Kar’ima in. He jumped back into the pilot’s seat and swivelled the ship around, and Calraen saw him make a quick decision.

“Obi-Wan,” he yelled into the comlink. “Can you get yourself out?”

Calraen had a sinking feeling in her stomach. They were going to leave him.

“I’ll be fine,” Obi-Wan’s voice came back, mixed with static. “Go.”

Garen immediately pulled the ship up and accelerated as Kar’ima grabbed the comlink out of his hands.

“I can’t wait more than five minutes to set off the charges. Get as far away from there as you can!”

There was no reply, just the sound of blaster fire and the hum of a lightsaber.

Calraen hesitated for a second, then snatched the comlink from Kar’ima. “Be careful, Obi-Wan,” she said into it, rather lamely.

There was no reply for a few seconds. She expected him to be unable to respond. Then his voice came through, “I’ll see you shortly.”

She almost snorted as his absurd casualness. Then she cut the connection and handed Garen his comlink back.

They were clear of the base now, and Garen steadied the ship.

“We should cut the lights,” Kar’ima said from the seat up the back, and Calraen reached for the switch over her head. They were thrown into almost complete darkness. Garen lowered the ship so it sat just above the treeline. It was as disguised as he could make it.

“Okay, let’s get a trace on our Jedi Master,” he said, swivelling his chair to face a different screen. Calraen watched carefully over his shoulder as a thermal image of the jungle in front of them came up. Garen plugged in his comlink and specified Obi-Wan’s homing beacon. He zoomed in on the image, and in a few seconds they made out a figure coloured in green, distinct from the red and black of the rest of the image, leaping over something and heading towards them.

Garen calculated the distance, then called back to Kar’ima, “He’s fifty metres from the factory. What’s your estimated blast radius?”

“More than that. But it is enough.”

“Then do it.”

Kar’ima hit the button on his transmitter. A few seconds passed, then a mushroom cloud appeared in front of them, and then the sound hit.

Calraen yelled and covered her ears. The ship spun wildly in the shockwaves. She didn’t know how long it lasted.

Somehow, Garen had managed to stop them from crashing. When he’d steadied the ship again, she glanced back at the thermal monitor. The green figure wasn’t moving.

“Blast it,” Garen muttered, firing the engines again. “Strap up, I’ll send you down to get him.”

Calraen nodded, running back to the hatch. She grabbed a harness off a hook and stepped into it, tightening the straps around her hips. She checked the grapnel was secure, then called back to Garen, “I’m ready!”

“Okay, go. We’ll be there in a few seconds.”

Calraen’s stomach lurched slightly at the sight of trees flashing past below them. She let the fear go. She had to get Obi-Wan.

She leaned backwards out of the hatch, releasing the grapnel as she dropped. Her feet left the edge and she swung wildly for a few seconds, but she didn’t stop lowering herself. Soon the ship paused overhead, and she dropped faster through the canopy.

Five clone troopers surrounded the body on the ground, something she hadn’t expected. But then, they hadn’t expected another Jedi to drop out of the sky, either. She Force pushed two of them back into a tree, hard. Even though she was hampered by the grapnel line, with her lightsaber she managed to deal with the other three quickly. Then she turned to Obi-Wan. He was slumped face down on the ground, his arms in front of his head as though he’d dived. She figured he could have been blown forward in the shock waves, but why wasn’t he moving? Then she noticed a blood stain on his side. She rolled him over carefully, and found a blaster wound in his stomach. A serious injury. But he would live.

“Wake up, Obi-Wan,” she muttered, slapping him on the cheek. He groaned.

She pulled out her comlink and signalled Garen. “Pull us up.”

She hooked her arms under Obi-Wan’s from behind in something like a half Nelson. It wasn’t the best way to lift an injured person, but it wouldn’t be for long. Branches hit her as they scraped through the canopy, and then she was being pulled into the ship once again.

“Get us out of here,” Kar’ima called, and Garen closed the hatch and piloted them away.

With an extremely inadequate goodbye, they left Kar’ima near the town and headed East. Garen had received a message from Captain Antilles earlier, with details of a rendezvous point outside the main city. Apparently there had been a change of plan.

Calraen couldn’t bring herself to care much about where they went next, as long as it had a better first aid supply. She let Garen make the decisions, and concentrated on Obi-Wan. She lay him on the floor in the corner, as he’d lain her when he rescued her from the cave. The first aid kit in the ship was seriously depleted and contained little more than bandaids and tweezers, so she sat with both her hands pressed over the wound in his stomach to stop the bleeding. It had slowed now, but she knew better than to release the pressure too soon, despite the fact that he was now more awake and telling her he was fine.

They docked with Antilles’s ship within 15 minutes.

“We’ll wait for a stretcher,” Calraen told Garen before he stepped out to greet the Alderaanians.

“I don’t need a stretcher,” Obi-Wan declared.

“I think you’ll find you do.”

“Well, it really doesn’t matter what you think, because I’m the Master and you’re the Padawan.”

Obi-Wan pushed himself up into a sitting position, but only got halfway. He grunted and lay back again.

Calraen snorted, and dabbed at a cut on his temple with a small bacta wipe. “You’re sure about that?”

He sighed. “Well, it is also true that the Master should in turn learn from his Padawan.”

Calraen’s heart rate quickened. “But I’m not your Padawan,” she said carefully.

“You could be,” he replied, quietly, glancing at her then away again as if he was nervous. “If you wanted to.”

Here it was, finally. But somehow she felt that it had been there longer than she’d realised – she noticed Obi-Wan was almost sweating, waiting for her answer. He was nervous! Then she berated herself for thinking that he wouldn’t be. Of course he was nervous. He was worried about failing. But she knew he wouldn’t fail her – because she wouldn’t fail him.

“I’d like that,” she said, finally. He broke into a smile just as the medics arrived up the ramp. She helped him onto the stretcher, and he went without complaint. He just smiled.

Calraen felt her heart settle. Everything was alright. Then she followed the medics with Obi-Wan out the hatch and onto the Alderaanian ship. The day wasn’t over yet.