Assassin (A Star Wars Fan-Fiction) Book 4

Chapter Nine

Obi-Wan could sense his wife's killer nearby as he walked down the shuttle's ramp to the Kaminoan platform below. He could feel them through the Force, their thoughts, the beat of their heart as their adrenaline began to pump through their veins and panic slowly began to strangle their lungs. They were scared. Of what, he had no clue. But the fear Denali's killer felt for whatever they were facing now was nothing compared to what they'd feel when word of his presence met their ears.

Rain thundered around him; his feet splashed through puddles of water with each step he took. Obi-Wan could recall the last time he'd visited Kamino. It was for a diplomatic mission to inspect a clone army the Kaminoans had prepared for the Republic, and, to his delight, he'd been accompanied by Denali. The duo turned the visit into a short honeymoon, since they'd never had the chance before when they first got married to have a special time to themselves.

The memory of his love caused his fists to clench and his heart to burn with a horrible pain he'd grown all too familiar with in the past few months. She'd been his everything, the reason he woke up in the mornings and fought through life each day. The idea of a future with her, of possibly starting a family with her once the war was over was something he constantly held dear.

But now it was gone.

And it was all his fault. 

If he'd left the Order when she was kicked out, if he'd gone after her when the threat of Windu coming for her became prominent, if he'd followed Anakin out of that damned diner the day he accused Obi-Wan of being a spineless coward before rushing to Denali's side...things would've been different. Much different.

The doors to the cloning facility slid open and he strode down the carpeted hallways with the grace and ease of a predator searching for his prey.

The guilt of her death was heavy on his shoulders, but no one would've been able to tell as he stalked through the suspiciously empty facility. It was strange, he thought, considering just how busy and crowded the building was the last time he'd been there. At one point, the hallways were bustling with people, all given a job and prepared to fulfill it as quickly as possible. Now they were a shell of what used to be, eerily silent and haunted by the ghost of what once was. Silent... except for the speeding heartbeat that didn't belong to himself echoing in the man's ears.

He was getting closer.

Obi-Wan began to run now and removed his lightsaber from his belt, ready to be used as soon as the time came. He turned left when the hallway split into two different directions, then came to a door leading into the room of the monster he was looking for. Eyes narrowed in rage and an angry snarl etched onto his lips, he waved his free hand in front of the control panel and the door slid open.

He'd been prepared to see the face of his wife's killer, the face of the person responsible for Denali's and his own downfall. It was going to be over in a matter of seconds.

What he hadn't been prepared for was the three bacta tanks containing three children.

**********

"But..." Denali glanced from the body in the casket to the man next to her, then back to the casket, and back at the man at her side. "But you're right here. The real you. We were cloned. Why would they make clones of us, harm them, and then leave them in a coma in some strange device?" She questioned frantically. Danik didn't say anything in reply. "This is insane! Why would they do such a thing?"

She knew why as she examined the wounds on the woman's body. The hollowness of her stomach where developing children used to be, the burns on her body from an explosion she hadn't fully recovered from... This was the originally Denali.

"We're not clones." She denied.

"Denali-"

"We're not clones!" She practically screamed in Danik's pale face. Her chest began to heave and her heart began to pound quickly for the second time that day. "We're not! I'm not! I can't be!" Her feet stepped away from the caskets, though she couldn't remember telling them to. "I'm not a clone!" Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes, tears of utmost sorrow and pain and as her heart began to shatter, and Danik began to piece together why she was falling into such despair.

"Denali-"

"Those are my babies!" She shouted. "Mine! Not hers! Mine!" Her back pressed against the metal wall and the tears began to fall. 

Denali- or whoever she was- closed her eyes and held her head in her hands. She knew the truth, but she didn't want to believe it. If she really was a clone, then those children she'd named weren't hers to name. Those babies she'd adored at first-sight weren't hers to adore. They weren't her family, they belonged to a dead woman slowly rotting away in a machine. She wasn't a mother, just a copy of a lady who never had the chance to become one.

Danik could've been a complete jerk about this. After all, he'd cracked jokes about situations like this before when they'd both been imprisoned. But, somewhere deep down in his cold, dead heart, he felt that this wasn't the proper time for it. There were plenty of situations he knew he could poke at when given the opportunity; he wasn't going to touch this one with a ten-foot pole. Instead, he closed the caskets and walked over to his sister.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short as the clones banging on their door suddenly became silent, and a heavy presence became known through the Force, thickening the air and weighting the atmosphere. Denali opened her tear-stained eyes and looked at the door as well.

"You sense that?"

"Yeah," He confirmed as a wave of red flooded his senses and sent a shiver down his spine. The presence was getting closer and with each step the person took, the harder it became for the duo to breathe. "Whatever it is, its pissed. We still up for that truce from earlier?"

Denali stood beside her brother, still cradling her injured hand, and waited for whatever or whoever was about to walk through that door. The metal barrier slid to the side, revealing what had scared away the armies that couldn't break in. Danik's fists shook at the sight before him and rage hammered into his heart.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you the same thing." Anakin Skywalker growled.