Archive of Our Own

Wrenched shards of doonium drifted in the vast emptiness, portents of a tumultuous past.

Altogether, they made up the shattered remains of a Providence-class carrier, drifting silently in orbit above the long forgotten world of Anthelas IV.

The bulk of the wreck was wreathed in the glittering ice of life support in vacuum, shimmering softly with each turn.

It rotated slowly, inexorably, like a dying beast shifting in its sleep, trapped in the grip of physics and momentum from whatever final blow had split it. The once-proud Separatist vessel had been split near the midline by turbo-laser fire, its spine fractured, its command bridge half-melted into a slag of ruin.

A relic, still finding its new place in the cold.

Before the dormant vessel floated a hyperspace ring, an old syliure-31. Its work was complete for now, temporarily relegated to spinning and drifting gently in the planet's gravitational wake.

Into this wreckage, a Jedi starfighter parsed through the drifting cloud. Sleek, agile, the fighter's blue markings caught the cold light of the system's star.

Inexperienced hands moved carefully over the controls, matching the carrier's lazy spin with delicate thruster adjustments.

"Steady," A Jedi Master murmured, considerate. "Feel the rotation, don't fight it."

The young pilot of the craft, fourteen and already as tall as their Master, nodded without breaking their concentration. Their limbs were folded close in a monkish smallness, their braid swaying with the subtle inertia of their spiraling approach.

From behind the wreckage the system's star glimmered, dappled by the wreckage and casting everything in a flickering light, before abandoning it once more for perfect shadow.

Light,dark, light,dark… a cosmic clock marking time in the empty void.

"There," the young pilot said quietly, finding the rhythm. The fighter's trajectory curved to match the wreck's spin perfectly, coasting without noise through the torn gash that was the hangar bay.

As the light swept back over the two Jedi, their identities were revealed.

Inside the cockpit sat Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi—older now, but more immersed than ever in the infinite wisdom of the Force. The lines around his eyes had grown deeper with time, the beard more salt now than rust, but his hands moved with the same patient steadiness they always had, guiding his Padawan Luke Skywalker with gentle adjustments to the controls.

"The Separatist designation matches," the Padawan said, checking the readout. "This was the Lucid Voice. It should have been en route to Muunilinst two standard days ago. Manifest confirms it carried archival cargo—unidentified encrypted crate, hull-marked with Jedi glyphs."

"A holocron," Obi-Wan murmured. "It survived Kalee, only to be intercepted this far north. Curious."

They landed on the outer end of the hangar bay, the mag-locks of their starfighter engaging with a hiss. "Beyond the hangar it is pressured... blast shielded. Your breathing mask, Luke." His Padawan nodded.

Click-hiss

The fighter opened to the dark, cavernous space. A light globe washed it all in cold light.

Slowly, his age necessitating patience, the Master stood before the student, balancing against the fighter's edge as he fastened his cloak across his shoulders. He cast a wary glance at the empty hangar before nodding to his Padawan.

Nodding back, Luke followed in practiced silence, clipping his training saber to his belt.

The two Jedi climbed out of the fighter and began their search.

Their breathing masks reverberated, echoing ominously off of the unseen places.

Pssshhhhhh...kkkkuhhhhhh

After some walking they came upon a door on the bulkhead, entering into the still-pressurized interior. With care, they took off their masks and continued into the shadowed space.

The inside was tomb-still.

A great eerie emptiness.

Dark.

Cold.

But not consistently so.

The ship's rotation meant that every few minutes, brilliant sunlight would sweep through the damaged sections of hull, illuminating frozen breath on viewports and frost-covered panels before plunging everything back into shadow.

The passageways rang with a mechanical groan every now and then, reminding them of their vulnerability with every sad echoing lament.

They moved forward in the intervals of darkness, pausing when the light swept through to check their surroundings.

Then they paused.

"Master," Skywalker said, voice hushed. "Do you feel it?"

"Yes. A presence..."

The aged master placed a hand on one wall, creasing his brow in concentration.

The Padawan watched the Master intently, as if he could learn from simply observing.

Finally, Obi Wan opened his eyes.

"...Familiar."

They turned a corner into a forward deployment chamber just as the sunlight began its sweep through a massive hull breach. The light crawled across the space in a brilliant, creeping line, revealing destruction in stages.

Dozens of storage crates lay shattered, looted and destroyed. Droid racks still held their folded beige figures.

And then, as the light continued to peel back this story of ruin, they found figures still standing. Droids were scattered about, frozen mid-stride. Blasters were raised toward the empty air. Heads were tilted toward a threat long gone, now.

Skywalker stilled at the sight.

There were dozens of them. Rank upon fearsome rank, inexorable against the infinite darkness beyond. They held each others shoulders with steadying hands; they crouched behind cover, ready to fire.

The light continued to creep forward, but the young Jedi held back. Fearing ambush he withdrew deeper into the shadow, an alcove in the wall, only catching himself when he noticed his Master pressing on. Obi Wan kept pace with the advancing edge, toeing the very line between light and dark, using one to see and the other to stay hidden.

On his left and right, the shining edge revealed more as it travelled with time. A tactical droid stood behind a line of crates, its arm extended, accusing finger pointed toward a shrapnel-strewn wall. Its photoreceptors were dark, but the intent remained. Luke had never seen one of their kind before.

Obi Wan's hand brushed against it, his eyes trailing the glinting form of a B2. Its bulky form held arms extended, shadowing over a group of cowering B1.

At the sight of the B2, Luke tensed, wondering how he could fight one of these, let alone so many. He lifted his saber from his belt, inspecting it before such a large machine of war. He was interrupted from his thoughts by his Master, who looked to Luke and beckoned. The Padawan returned to his master, and they continued to the end.

At the end of the chamber, as the light reached the far wall in a burst of light, one impossible, distinct shape made itself known.

General Grievous.

His cloak was more tattered than in days long past, the fabric a faded red edged with silver trim. The harshness of his eyes had softened with time, or perhaps wisdom. In his clawed hands, he cradled a deactivated OOM command unit, its body battered but intact. The old commander droid, painted in yellow command stripes, bore pockmarks from a dozen campaigns. Its head lolled slightly in the general's grip.

Grievous had not heard them.

He turned slowly when Luke gasped.

The MagnaGuards stepped forward at once, electrostaves crackling to life, their red photoreceptors flaring to life. Grievous raised his head, and with a mechanical whir, translucent green lenses slid down over his eyes—night vision engaging with a flash of emerald light that made Luke step back involuntarily.

For a moment, the General looked truly alien, those green-lit goggles studying the young Padawan learner with an intensity that belonged to nightmares.

One of his arms shifted to lay the OOM unit gently against a broken console. Then the cyborg raised his hands.

"Peace," he rasped, voice dry like sand scraped against stone. "I did not expect you, Jedi."

Luke thumbed the activator.

"No, Luke," Obi-Wan said calmly, placing a hand on the boy's wrist.

The sunlight swept past them again, casting long shadows that stretched and contracted as the wreck continued its eternal spin.

Grievous' armor shone in a bone white in the light, and the General did not move against the Jedi. After a moment, the lenses retracted with a soft click, apparently satisfied with what he'd seen.

"You raised him well. Not like the last."

Luke noticed as his master drew himself up, as Kenobi placed a firm hand on his Padawan's shoulder.

"He was a victim of the times."

Grievous, looking somewhere far past the two of them, agreed.

"We all served the whims of the Force."

A quiet moment came and went, strange and still, only marked by the constant pirouette of light and dark as the two regarded each other - the patience of the old and wise. Luke, naturally, fidgeted.

Then Obi-Wan chuckled, and broke the strange, twisting serenity.

"And here I thought I was the only ghost on this wreck."

Grievous' chassis gave a low whine that might, in another life, have been a laugh.

"And you are still just as dramatic, Kenobi."

"And you still collect corpses." Obi-Wan nodded to the OOM. "An old friend?"

"Hypori," Grievous said simply.

Luke continued to look between them, confused and wary, as darkness fell again.

Obi-Wan offered his Padawan a soft smile in the shifting light.

"Luke, meet General Grievous. Jedi killer. Confederate warlord. Rogue of the Rim." He smiled mischievously. "And apparently... nostalgic tinkerer."

The cyborg seemed to huff. "Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi," Grievous countered, his tone almost fond, "The Negotiator revered, known to the Rim as a hero and a bane both, for those with long memories. If you would like to know, Padawan Luke... Kenobi was always full of unearned bluster..."

The Padawan looked to his Master, fighting a smile as his braid swayed.

Obi-Wan only raised an unaffected brow.

"Hm. Well, at least I don't talk to droids as if they're my grandchildren."

The MagnaGuards looked to their General, uncertain how to proceed.

And then, surprisingly, Grievous laughed. A dry, wheezing, utterly inhuman laugh. Skywalker stared in stunned silence as these two warriors—so often legends whispered in the same breath as death itself—stood in the dim light of a shattered warship and exchanged the hard-earned memories of survivors.

"I suppose we should explain. Me and my Padawan are searching for a crate," Obi-Wan said after a moment. "Something your people were transporting. Jedi-made."

Grievous' eyes narrowed.

"Then you are late. Your crate, and all others of value, were taken by scavengers two hours ago. They were raiders... Imperial-tagged. It seems my border is thinner than I thought."

Obi-Wan sighed.

"Then I suppose we have more traveling to do."

Grievous bent again, carefully lifting the OOM unit into his arms. One of the Magnaguards stepped forward to take it, but Grievous waved it off. He turned back to Obi-Wan as the sunlight made another pass, gilding his elder frame in gold for just a moment.

"Consider these words permission to cavort with my lands, Jedi. And you have earned my further warning. Be careful, Obi-Wan Kenobi. This galaxy is full of younger men, with sharper blades."

Obi-Wan gave a wry smile.

"You sound like our old Masters."

Grievous paused, the idea sitting heavily between them.

Then, without another word, he turned, cloak dragging.

One of the Magnaguards bowed to the Master, before the two shadows melted into the darkness, the three were heard long after, metal clicking against durasteel.

Luke watched them fade away, uncertain.

"Master," he said softly. "He didn't seem like the monster of legend."

Obi-Wan stood in the trailing silence for a long time, finally nodding to his pupil.

"Most monsters don't. Not up close. Not after time."

He turned back toward the corridor, toward the long walk to the starfighter.

The wreck groaned once more, continuing its patient tumble through the void, and above them, cold pinpricks pierced the veil of infinite night.