Assassin (A Star Wars Fan-Fiction) Book 2

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter EIghteen

"She's not coming." Anakin stated sadly, his heart in his throat. Padme put her hand on his shoulder, but Anakin shrugged it off. He really wasn't in the mood for her puppy-love actions of affection. Especially when the woman he truly loved was gone. Obi-Wan didn't speak. He felt like he couldn't breathe. Did that really just happen?

"What do you mean she isn't coming back? She has to come back....She....she said she wouldn't leave me!" Boba shouted. Padme put her hand on Boba's shoulder, but he quickly shoved her away. They could all see the tears beginning to form in his eyes, but he tried his best to hide them. Quickly turning on his heals, he sprinted away from the group, avoiding the hands of clones as they attempted to stop him.

"Let him go. He won't get very far." Obi-Wan sighed.

But he was totally wrong.

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Denali coughed as she examined the hyperdrive, well, more like what was left of it. The crash onto the dusty waste-planet of Tatooine hadn't been very fun. Mainly because it had been her own fault. While trying to control her powers, Dooku had purposely distracted her and she accidentally zapped the hyperdrive controls with her uncontrolable cursed fingers.

Not only was the hyperdrive in pieces, the engine was spouting poisonous fumes, the landing gear was obliterated, the hull of the ship was completely crushed from the landing, and the front thrusters were non-exsistent. There was absolutely no way her ship would be up and running again.

"That was a beautiful landing, wasn't it?" Dooku taunted from his chair in the corner where his remaining wrist was chained to the arm-rest. Denali turned around and glared at him and his eyes widened. "Master Bleway, I'd go look in the mirror if I were you."

"I know I'm a mess, you piece of Bantha poodoo. You don't need to point it out." she spat as she stood with her hands on her hips, attempting to think of a plan. Dooku smirked and rolled his eyes.

"I'm not talking about your face, which is already ugly beyond compare." he snickered.

"Shut up before I slice off your other arm." she hissed. After a moment of silence, she ran out and into the refresher room. Her hands slammed against the sink counter as she looked into the mirror. At first, she didn't realize anything different. Her face was covered in grease and oil from trying to fix the hyperdrive, her hands were layered thick in engine fuel, and her jedi robes were covered in black stains. But then she looked a little closer....

.....and screamed.

She fell back against the wall, her spine slamming against the hard metal. A sob escaped her lips as she began to shake. She quickly put her hand over her mouth, then Denali took a deep breath. Her hand fell to her side as she tried to regain her balance on her two feet, then risked another look at the mirror. Her right eye was the beautiful blue it had always been, but her left was yellow rimmed with a red glow.

"No..." she whispered to herself as the tears started to fall down her cheeks. But then she stopped herself and quickly wiped the little drops of water from her skin. She couldn't cry, otherwise that would make the blood rush to her face and turn herself red, which would only make herself look worse than she already did. She refused to let Dooku see herself like this.

Instead, she grabbed a towel from the counter beside her and turned on the water. The cold liquid ran out through the faucet and soaked the towel. When the piece of cloth was completely drenched, she lifted it up to her face and began to wash the grease smudges from her cheeks and forehead. When she was through with that, her face looked like it was glowing. Denali attempted to smile at herself in the mirror, but failed.

She washed her hands next, then changed out of her dirty Jedi robes. Instead of putting on a pair of clean robes, she pulled on a white cotton t-shirt and black pants, plus a pair of black boots. After untangling her long braid and pulling her long locks back into a ponytail, she glanced at herself in the mirror one last time. Denali looked like a regular person now. She didn't look like the honorable Jedi she had always wanted to be ever since she joined the Jedi Order. Now she looked like a garage worker, a mechanic before they had attempted to fix a protocol droid.

 She decided she would change that.

She pulled on a black sleeveless vest, black gloves that reached her wrists, an eye-patch that covered her red eye, and a holster with a blaster around her right thigh. She sighed, knowing that Jedi weren't usually welcome on Tatooine anymore. So she removed her lightsaber and slipped it under the sink, connecting it to the pipes with a piece of tape so Dooku wouldn't find it easily if he broke free from his chains.

"I'm going to go see if anyone in the nearest town could help us." Denali announced to Dooku, who was still attached to his chair. He looked at her and his jaw dropped. "Don't even think about commenting on my outfit. And while I'm gone, don't light any matches. Otherwise this ship's going to explode with you inside it." she said, gesturing to the engine that was still emitting poisonous fumes.

"You wouldn't leave me here like this." he hissed. She smirked.

"Actually, I would." and with that, she walked out of the room.

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She entered the small town of Beega, which was inhabited with bounty hunters, Jawas, slave traders, and Hutt messagers. The buildings were tall and made of petrified wood bricks, which was something not many towns on Tatooine had. She wondered how they built houses like that, but she didn't dwell on it too long. Knowing that she wasn't going to get alot of progress by just standing around in the streets, she stepped into the nearest bar, which happened to be called 'Gwolla's Drinks'.

She stepped inside, trying to act like any other normal bounty hunter as she sat down in a booth near the farthest wall. The bar was filled with drunk shop-owning Rodians, intoxicated slave-trading Toydarians, and wasted Gamorrean guards. She wasn't suprised by how awful the place smelled after seeing the Gamorreans.

"Well, hello there." one of the drunk Rodians slurred. Denali smirked and tried to act as highly and important as possible. "What's your name, sweet heart."

"My name is none of your buisness. Now go back over to your own table. This one's mine." she hissed.

"Leave her alone, Jinka." a voice said behind her. Denali didn't turn around as a young Togrutan girl entered the picture. She had blue and white head-tails and horns that reached just below her rib-cage, golden eyes, and red skin with white accents. She wore a white tube-top covered in a vest of silver armor, skinny grey pants, high black boots with buckles, and black arm bands that covered a third of her forearms. Attached to her arm bands were blaster-bullets that were meant to be used with the blaster that was in its holster around her waist.

"You never let me have any fun, Mi." the Rodian pouted as he stood up and left the table. Denali sat there silenly and looked at her hands, thinking the Togrutan had left. But a second later, she looked up and saw the girl staring right back at her.

"What do you want?" Denali spat.

"Oh, nothing." the girl said, and was about to walk away, when Denali spotted something.

Her blaster.

Denali grabbed the girl's wrist and flipped her over onto the table, causing the other bar-goers to shout in shock. But the Togrutian wasn't going to go down that easy. She kicked Denali in the face, making Denali's grip slip. She pulled her hand free and was about to leap from the table when Denali punched her in the face. The Togrutian flew, her back slamming against the wall. The girl shrieked in pure anguish as Denali grabbed her blue and white head-tail, swiping the girl's own blaster from the holster on her hip and holding the barrel to her forehead.

"You'll have to do better than that." Denali said with a smirk as she tasted blood from her bleeding nose, where the girl's foot had made contact with her face.