Song: "The Asteroid Field" from The Empire Strikes Back OST
She pulled her blade away, but Dooku wasn't finished with her yet. As she tried to run, an invisible hand pressed against her stomach. She was thrust back near him.
Violent redness slashed upon her organic wrist, cutting her hand from the arm. A ghastly scream tore at her throat, blood spattering across her mask as she lost hold and fell to the ground. Clutching her arm to her chest, Ronderu longed to breathe, but a hand clamped itself over her mouth.
A green light bore through the door of the room, and Arna barged in, his saber ablaze. "You traitor," he snarled at Dooku. "Let her live."
Dooku chuckled regally. "Report this to your Republic. I lose nothing."
"He's....he's right, Arna," Ronderu choked out. Ice spread across her face. "I saw....everything. He is the murderer we're looking for. He's looking to....to assassinate...."
Arna ignited his lightsaber and charged the old man. With massive effort, Ronderu crawled across the floor, gripping the drive between her metallic fingers and holding her stump to her chest. Blood dripped hotly down her breastbone, pooling at the bottom of her bodice, and desperate breaths escaped her mouth.
She made it to the stained-transparisteel window, looking down at the great expanse below. The words she'd said to Qymaen so long ago, when he'd been scared of falling to his death, came to the front of her mind.
Don't worry. If you fall from here, the tree will catch you.
Her head and metal hand slammed against the window. Tiny shards of glass bounced off her scales, and she sent a message to Arna. Jump after me. You're not strong enough.
✺✺✺
Colors exploded in her vision. Her hands went limp. "Ru," his voice called to her, gripping her hand. "Ru, stay with me. It'll be okay. We'll get you fixed up."
She couldn't speak. Several people lifted her up, brought her into a shuttle. She was placed in a frigate. A tube was forced over her mouth.
"Step out, Master Jedi," a voice said. "This requires a surgery. Her regulator broke when she landed."
"I won't leave her," Arna cried out as they pushed him away. "I swore I would protect her."
You're my debtor, Ronderu thought drowsily. Not my friend. Those words might have been true then, but now....
"Keep him....keep him here," she gasped. "Let him stay."
As the medic took her stump and bandaged it, he chuckled. "Your chest will be bare for the replacement, miss."
She began to drift off. "Let....let him...." she murmured before her brain sputtered into unconsciousness.
✺✺✺
She willed swollen eyes to work. Her voice came out in a whisper. "Arna...." She was in an unfamiliar room. "Arna, I need Arna...."
His soft hand touched her jaw, and she turned. "Did you....deliver the drive to the Council?"
"I'm sorry, Ru," he said quietly, running a hand over her forehead. "The drive was destroyed when you fell."
Drive....destroyed.
But she could not put those words together. The image of Qymaen's body crushed beneath the droid pulsed in her vision....his sobbing as he screamed for her to save him....
"There's still another way to get the information needed. Do you have a photographic memory?"
"Not photographic, but...." she sighed. "I've been dreaming about the droid for over a decade."
"I need you to recount to me all the information from before, just as you recall it."
She looked down at what had been her organic hand. She flexed the four-fingered metallic blackness, shuddered, and spoke.
"Dooku had a conversation with someone from back on Kalee...." she swallowed. "About my murder once I returned."
Arna's brows shot up. "Who was it?"
She sighed. "I don't know. Someone who was around during Jenuwaa. It's one of Qymaen's wives. Dooku also...." Nausea welled in her stomach. "He said that he had a purpose for Qymaen. The only good explanation I see is that he plans to kill Qymaen and send this thing to Kalee to rule in his stead as a dictator."
"Why would that be true?" Arna asked gently.
"Qymaen won't join their side," she declared. "He doesn't like the Republic much, but he'd never betray me for the Separatists."
"You also said he would never marry anyone but you; yet here we are."
A tremor rang through her gut. "This is different. And what alternative do you propose? That droid is definitely connected to Kalee. I've seen it in my dreams."
He gave a sigh. "So, Dooku's planning an uprising. He's planning on using the Kaleesh to accomplish this. He wants you and your fiancé dead. Do I understand correctly?"
"Yes," she said, surprisingly quiet. This was the truth—the truth about what had been planned for her and Qymaen this whole time. She clenched her fists, wincing at the electricity coursing through her bad hand. "I have to leave soon. I have to go back to Kalee to warn him."
"At the cost of your own life from this jealous wife of his," Arna pointed out. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you risk yourself."
"Sometimes you have to put your duty before your feelings," she said. "Isn't that what you told me once?"
"This has nothing to do with attachment," he said coolly.
"Arna, only one of us can live anyway." Her throat closed with tears. "He's more prominent, and too important to die. If he dies, Kalee's freedom dies with him." A pause. "You just don't want to let me go, do you?"
"We have an obligation to protect all life."
"Then why are you excluding his? Come back with me if you must. But I will not leave him to die."
"I'm afraid I can't take you back to Kalee until your time is up."
She scowled. "You always have Jedi business," she whispered spitefully. "Always, anytime I bring up the man I swore myself to. And if you think that trapping me in this miserable pit of corruption is going to make me inclined to stay longer, you are sorely mistaken, Master Jedi."
Arna ignored her, picking up a file folder. "I'm going to report to the Council," he said, his voice crystallizing. "When I come back, we shall see if you will get your wish. I'll be legally obligated to let you go if your account checks out."
"Fine then," she said, simmering in rage as he departed, her teeth grinding. "Go and deliver your report."
✺✺✺
Khetsuu crossed the room to rest a hand on Shia's sleeping face. She'd contracted an illness that the doctors hadn't been able to cure, just as the other amas had. Her time was running out.
He sighed. "Shia, can you hear me?"
Her green eyes opened, and she clutched his hand tightly. He spoke through the dryness of his mouth. "Rón is gone. She disappeared."
Shia sighed, as if the last hint of hope in her voice had evaporated. Khetsuu dipped his head. Rónderu jai Kepenia—Ronderu the Smaller. Gone. The desperate state of Kalee would force starving people to resort to cannibalism.
I couldn't even save a little toddler. My own child. Gone. His throat clogged. And all because of what happened with Saikhan. If Shia hadn't been at home tending to the dying women....and if Rón hadn't wandered off....and if I wasn't such a fool....
She turned his face toward hers. "Come, my love," she whispered, wiping his tears away with her soft fingertips. "Soon all will be bright."
And he collapsed into her warm arms as their child kicked against his stomach. Three months left. And through anything Shia might go through—death or otherwise—he had a duty to her child.
✺✺✺
A knock on the door sounded the next morning. Khetsuu dressed in his robes and opened the door, finding one of his pages there. "Your Grace," she said, breathless. "We found Rón. Or rather—the visitor did. Please, you have to meet him!"
Shia was at the door now too. "The visitor?"
But Khetsuu gripped her hand. "Shia, we must go. If they found her, we are indebted to them."
She lowered her gaze momentarily, then met his eyes again. "Yes, of course. You're right. We must go!"
The three of them raced down to the lower level of the house. Khetsuu jammed the hangar door open and gasped. A tall male Muun stood in the doorway. His long, slender finger was gripped by the chubby hand of Rónderu jai Baina as she wobbled on tiny feet next to him.
Khetsuu raced across the hanger, picking up his daughter and holding her tightly against his chest. His firstborn daughter....the light of his existence....
Sinking to the floor, he trembled. "What happened, Rón?" he asked, cradling her to his body.
"Scary people," she said, her voice almost incomprehensible amidst the toddler's babble.
"Yes, well," the Muun said, speaking with such a nasally voice that Khetsuu wrinkled his nose slightly. "We decided to make a grand entrance."
"Thank you," he said, stuttering a bit. "I suppose I should introduce myself as Khagan Qymaen jai Khetsuu. This is my wife, Shia."
The Muun held out his hand. "We know. We have heard of Kalee's plight and have a solution."
"You?" he laughed. "Who do you think you are?"
He grinned, the pointed teeth under his lips glistening. "I am San Hill of the Intergalactic Banking Clan. We have compassion for Kalee, and we offer you a way out of this mess that the Grand Republic has forced you into."
Khetsuu passed Rón to Shia, who nodded intently and smiled. He turned back to San Hill.
Salvation.
True....salvation.
"I'm listening."
✺✺✺
Trigger warning: Suicide contemplated.
His head spun as he walked up to the balcony of his home that evening, looking out over the lights of his people. He had to be alone; the Banking Clan's conversation had left him with too much to think about.
"We will help you," San Hill had said, "for a price. You must become a collection agent for us—scaring the planets that hold debt into paying it."
Khetsuu screwed his eyes shut. The Banking Clan had shown him their wealth. They could repair Kalee. They would....if he accepted this shameful task of being a glorified leg-breaker, fighting people who would rather keep their possessions than die.
But the promises of renewed conflict were tantalizing as well.
He looked over the edge. I could just put myself out of this misery. The image of the Lig sword pressed to his ribs caused him to salivate. All he had to do was jump.
It's selfish to abandon my people now, the nobler part of him pointed out.
Yes, but I'll forsake my own dignity if I accept the task.
The night wind whispered against his face as his eyes filled with tears that he wasn't allowed to show anyone. To choose between two dishonorable paths was unbearable.
Taking a piece of paper and a pen, he scrawled a message and stuffed the paper into his pocket. They would find it on his dead body in the morning.
Shia,
I love you. Goodbye.
His weeping became more insistent, to the point where he had to cover his nose and mouth to hide it. He refused to gaze back at what he was leaving behind. Soon Shia and Rón would join him at Abesmi, killed in the famines.
Three.... He gazed toward the ground, several meters below. If he dove facefirst, he would break his neck and die quickly. He would know how Kaleesh died, having sent his own soldiers to be butchered; how he killed the men who hurt Saikhan.
Two.... He pictured the Khaganate choosing a khagan better than him—a murderous adulterer—to lead their people.
"Ah....pah?" a tiny voice called from the door.
Khetsuu, forcing himself to regain his balance as he leaned back from the balcony, spun around. Rón stood in the doorway, toddling on tiny feet toward him.
His lungs stopped working as she threw herself at him. She smothered his neck and cheeks with tiny kisses. Kisses of a child who thought her appa was the best person in the world.
Oh, if only she knew how he was being destroyed.
Shia rushed out. "What has gotten into you?" she sobbed, rushing into his arms. "What were you trying to do?"
His head hurt. I tried to run out on my family. I tried to abandon them despite my promise not to fail.
He pulled her into an embrace. "I will accept it. I will become their agent." Only if I will never have to let you go again. I will not lose you the way I lost Ronderu.
◈◈◈
Did you know....
● Grievous is supposed to be foreshadowing for what Darth Vader would later become. In the old canon, it was an internal and situational transformation as well as an external cybernetic process. There are many "Vader" nods in his story.
● Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I intentionally wrote Grievous' struggles here to reflect Vader's later in the saga: the fear of loss. These two men are actually fairly similar.
Tell me what you think....
● Which negative character arc of Grievous' do you prefer: the fear of loss, or the fear of the Jedi?
● What role does Rón play in his decision-making?