Four Months had passed, and now Obi-wan was in Mos Eisley. During midnight, below the Uscru Satellite Den—Zygerrian slaver territory.
The cantina was carved from ancient stone and bone—low ceilings, shadowed alcoves, grease-stained vents coughing warm, recycled air. Neon tubes buzzed like flies. Drunks huddled around broken sabacc tables, their laughter cracked, sharp, hollow.
In the back, beneath a dead holo-poster of a forgotten Twi'lek singer, Obi-Wan Kenobi sat hunched in a booth that smelled of rust and old blood. His eyes were half-lidded, sunk into the folds of his face like stones dropped into sand.
Two death sticks burned in his fingers, their green glow painting the lines of his beard like battlefield scars.
> One drag for Satine.
One for Padmé.
His throat tightened with each pull, the smoke clawing its way down to his lungs. He wanted it to hurt. Wanted it to burn. Every time the heat filled his chest, he imagined it was something sacred being seared away—his name, his past, his failures.
He hadn't touched the lightsaber in six months.
It lay at the bottom of his pack, wrapped in oilcloth and shame. He didn't need it.
The slug pistol holstered low on his thigh did what the saber never could.
> Silence.
Permanence.
Finality.
No glowing blade. No parries. No hesitation. The pistol barked once and the problem was gone. Dead. Simple.
His bounty puck lay on the grimy table beside a chipped glass of lum. The image flickered—grainy and red in the haze.
> VEX KHANN
Species: Trandoshan
Crimes: Sentient trafficking. Escaped Nar Kreeta tribunal. Slave ring operative.
Status: Active. Dangerous. Unregistered ship. Last seen: Orbiting Zeltros pleasure lanes.
Obi-Wan stared at the reptilian face on the puck. Scarred. Smirking. Eyes yellow like bile.
A Hutt broker had handed it to him earlier that night. No fanfare. Just a datachip and a single whispered line:
> "He sells children. Wookiees. Togrutas. Human girls. You kill him, the Hutts'll look the other way."
No Imperial bounty tag. No pay-through. No guilt-tripped moralizing from the Jedi Code.
Just shadow work.
> Good.
Obi-Wan hadn't spoken a word when he took it. Just nodded, paid his tab, and walked out. But the job stuck in his chest like a nail. Not because of what it was. Because of what it wasn't.
This wasn't justice.
It was balance.
He needed 500 credits to cover Beru's request for vaporator parts. Another 300 for the protein bricks Owen rationed for Luke. And enough left over to bribe the Jawas to stop scavenging vaporator nine.
> Killing Vex Khann would cover that.
More than cover it.
And still leave room for another bottle of lum. Maybe another hour in the arms of women who never asked questions.
He took another drag. Let it sear the roof of his mouth.
He remembered Satine's fingers curled in his palm. Padmé's blood soaking his tunic. Anakin screaming on Mustafar—his eyes twin suns of hate.
> "I hate you!"
The words still echoed.
Obi-Wan's hand twitched toward the pistol.
Not to draw it.
Just to remind himself it was there.
He didn't want comfort.
He wanted something to hold that didn't bleed.
Across the bar, a Nikto smuggler burst into laughter. Somewhere near the back, a dancer stumbled from a VIP room, her collar light blinking red. No one looked. No one helped.
Just another night under Hutt jurisdiction.
And Obi-Wan—once a Jedi Master, once a guardian of peace—sat like a ghost made of old armor, bad memories, and a name no one used anymore.
> "Kenobi."
He didn't answer it.
Not anymore.
He reached for the puck, tapped the image.
Vex Khann flickered once, the smirk still plastered across his scaly face.
Obi-Wan muttered under his breath—flat, dead.
> "You're already dead."
Then he stood.
The chair creaked beneath him. The death sticks fell to the floor, still burning.
And the smoke curled upward.
Like ghosts.
And soon he was at the location. The Pleasure Barge, the Outer Orbit above Zeltros, One hour past local midnight.
The barge drifted like a neon parasite across the stars—obscene, loud, and full of rot. Lights pulsed in slow waves across its chrome skin, casting pinks and golds into the void like a lure for desperate things. Inside, it stank of sex, alcohol, fear, and too many bodies sweating under false promises.
The music hit like a heartbeat—basslines heavy enough to crack ribs. It throbbed through the air, through skin, through the collar bones of dancers shackled to curved rails above the floor. Their movements were smooth, hypnotic—perfectly timed, but utterly hollow. Like puppets dancing on muscle memory and numb compliance.
Obi-Wan stepped through the outer threshold.
Not cloaked. Not robed.
He wore black now. A flak-vest taken off a dead mercenary. Stained synth armor strapped over one shoulder. Low-cut boots caked in sand. His face was hidden behind a visor—a scavenged HUD mask, smeared with carbon scoring. One lens was cracked. It didn't matter.
He wasn't here to see.
He was here to kill.
As he walked through the crowd, bodies parted around him without knowing why. Something in his step, something in his silence—something wrong. A barge guard laughed nervously. A Zeltron woman brushed against his shoulder and froze mid-sway, catching a scent that wasn't spice or sweat but ash and gun oil.
Then a Twi'lek girl danced past him in a Huttese slave-girl costume—if it could be called a costume. Chains on her hips. Translucent veils that clung to her breasts like breath. Her eyes were hollow but sharp. She saw him. Not the man, but the cut he was about to make in the world.
She stopped. Didn't smile.
> "Please," she whispered, voice barely a vibration against the music. "Don't hurt the others. Just him."
He didn't nod. Didn't speak.
He just kept walking.
The hallway to the VIP suites was choked in heat. Dim red lighting pulsed from floor panels, illuminating stains that hadn't been cleaned in weeks. Two guards flanked the suite entrance—Devaronian bruisers, half-drunk, gear slung low like they hadn't seen real combat in months.
Obi-Wan didn't slow.
The first one turned—smirking, saying something—
> Crack.
Obi-Wan's elbow crushed the man's throat. Cartilage split. The Devaronian dropped, choking on his own air.
The second reached for his pistol.
Too late.
Obi-Wan yanked a toothpick blade—a durasteel sliver barely longer than a finger—from his belt and slid it across the man's throat in one motion. Arterial spray hit the wall, hot and red.
Obi-Wan wiped the blade on the man's coat and let the corpse fall beside its twin.
> Two in under six seconds. No saber. No Force. Just experience, and hate.
***
The suite door was glossy black, decorated with golden twine and etched with sensual glyphs. It slid open as he stepped over the second corpse's boot.
Vex Khann was reclined on a lounging couch at the far end of the room, half-naked, leathery skin glistening with oil. A small Togruta girl—no older than fourteen—was on her knees at his feet, bruised, silent, motionless except for the twitching of her lekku.
Khann looked up, annoyed. His voice was nasal, lazy.
> "Who the fu—"
The first slug caught him through the right knee.
It blew out the joint in a wet explosion of bone and gristle. Khann screamed—a high, cracked sound that turned the girl's eyes wide. She bolted, scrambling past Obi-Wan like a shadow. He didn't stop her. Didn't flinch.
Khann writhed, reaching for a panic button.
Too slow.
Second shot—gut. Third shot—left eye.
The slug entered through the socket and painted the wall behind him in a thick red halo.
Then silence.
Not peace.
Just silence.
Obi-Wan stepped fully into the room.
The incense still burned in gold-lit bowls, mixing with the smell of piss and death.
The pleasure suite was gilded and obscene. Velvet floors. Erotic frescos. Chains. Bottles of Zeltron wine. And Khann's corpse, slumped and twitching like a puppet someone had dropped mid-act.
Obi-Wan exhaled once.
That was it.
No justice.
No mercy.
No redemption.
Just balance.
He turned toward the exit and paused.
The Togruta girl had stopped just outside the door. She stared at him, breath ragged, unsure whether to run again or kneel.
Obi-Wan pulled off the cracked visor.
Eyes hollow. Face soaked in shadow.
> "Go."
She ran.
He watched her disappear into the corridor light, bare feet silent on red glass.
And then he looked back at the corpse.
> "You sold children," he muttered.
He holstered the slug pistol. Reached into his pocket.
Pulled out a small white cloth and began to clean his hands, slow and methodical.
Like a butcher after market hours.
Three days after the barge execution, he was in the Mos Eisley, Alley behind the spice lounge.
The alley stank of rusted coolant and rancid oil. Vapor from a busted moisture line hissed near the wall, fogging the base of a flickering neon sign. Somewhere inside the lounge, music pulsed slow and drugged, echoing off duracrete.
Shaari stood in the shadow of a loading chute, lekku hidden beneath a worn hood, arms folded, her expression unreadable.
Obi-Wan emerged from the alley mouth, his gait stiff, blood caked along his right side—an old wound, re-broken, untreated.
She stared at him.
> "You're bleeding again," she said, flat but not cold.
He glanced down at his ribs. A long gouge across the synth-armor plate glistened with drying red. He hadn't even noticed.
> "Didn't matter," he muttered, voice hoarse from smoke and silence.
From behind the service hatch, Niva appeared. Her robe hung loose off one shoulder, revealing soft violet skin and a long scar down her thigh. She walked with caution, but not fear—just the weight of knowing exactly what kind of man stood in front of her.
> "You smell like smoke and blaster oil," she said. "And you look like a corpse someone forgot to bury."
Obi-Wan met her eyes. Hollow. Bloodshot.
Then shifted his gaze back to Shaari.
> "How much to buy you out?"
The wind shifted. Sand scraped down the alley wall.
They both blinked.
> "What?" Niva whispered.
Obi-Wan stepped closer. He reached into the deep pocket of his flak coat and pulled out a credchip, freshly burned with a payout seal. The edges were still hot. He held it up like a confession.
> "Freedom. Both of you. I've got twenty thousand."
Shaari's eyes narrowed. Not from greed. From confusion.
> "Why?" she asked.
Obi-Wan looked down—at the dried blood on his hands, the edge of a burn on his knuckles.
Then at her.
> "Because I can't save anyone else," he said.
There was no plea in his voice.
Only truth.
A Pause. Then:
> "We're not soldiers," Niva said, voice guarded.
> "You don't need soldiers," Obi-Wan replied. "You need a way out. And I need people I can trust."
> "To do what?"
He stepped closer. The alley fell silent.
> "To help me take contracts. Free more like you. Hunt the kind of filth that sells children and pretends they're merchandise."
> "You want us to be bounty hunters?" Shaari asked.
He nodded.
> "I'll train you. Shoot, scout, infiltrate. Whatever it takes. You'll get your shares. Your freedom. Your future."
Niva scoffed. "You think two girls who spent half their lives on their knees are going to turn into assassins overnight?"
Obi-Wan's voice darkened, steady.
> "You're alive, aren't you? That means you survived what others couldn't. You've already done the hardest part."
Another long silence.
Then Shaari said quietly, "What about after?"
Obi-Wan looked at her. Really looked.
> "We build something better."
Inside a maintenance hangar two districts over, under starlight bleeding through a cracked ceiling, Obi-Wan dropped a datapad onto a crate. The screen flicked on.
> D5-Mantis Patrol Craft — Location: Junk port orbiting Orvax IV
Status: Repo'd. Owner dead. Tagged as salvage. Syndicate interest minimal.
Price: 28,000 credits (negotiable)
Shaari looked over his shoulder.
> "That's a ship," she said.
Obi-Wan nodded. "It's more than that. It's movement. It's force. It's choice."
Niva leaned on the crate, eyes still wary. "You don't even know how to be you anymore."
He turned toward her. "No. But I remember how to hurt the right people."
He placed the credchip on the table and looked them both in the eye.
> "You come with me, you won't just be dancers or slaves again. You'll be my crew. My sisters. My blades."
> "And if you stay here…"
His eyes fell to the collar still locked around Shaari's neck.
No one needed to finish the sentence.
The lights buzzed low above them.
Finally, Shaari reached up, unclasped the collar, and dropped it onto the floor.
> Clink.
Niva followed a heartbeat later.
> "Then let's do it," she said. "But you better be worth this second chance."
Obi-Wan didn't smile.
But something behind his eyes flickered.