Legacy VI
Chapter 1 : Ghost Story
Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, silently chiding himself for the sheer audacity of his present undertaking, rocked back on his heels and squinted at the disparate elements of the dilemma set before him. A bead of perspiration meandered its way toward his loosely folded tunic collars; the furrow deepening between his brows stood out in marked testament to a concentration beyond ordinary beings' capacity. He had - in the course of his eventful and precocious career, in the span of a lifetime thus far numbering but twenty three standard years - disabled subatomic fusion bombs upon the brink of detonation, piloted dying starships through ion storms and to safe landings amid catastrophic atmosphere conditions, negotiated peace between the most barbaric and inveterately rapacious of warring sects, defied impossible odds, fought the Dark Side incarnate, faced down his own extinction and the loss of all he held dear. But this – this was something else entirely.
"Blast it," he muttered, cradling the disconsolate bundle of roots and drooping stems in one hand while he regarded the lump of aromatic potting soil packed into the ceramplast pot with dubious mien.
Did one simply thrust the unfortunate seedling into the muck, willy-nilly? Or was there a proper method, a subtle alignment of its privy parts with the gravitational axis of the planet, the line of the ecliptic, the magnetic poles, or some other occult concatenation of influences? Surely the latter. He frowned, recalling his own brief tenure in the Agri-Corps, ransacking memory for some clue, some helpful prompting of tradition. He came up blank, realizing that his duties during that regrettable adolescent interlude had been primarily punitive in nature, such as toting heavy loads and shoveling odiferous mountains of fertilizer. He rubbed his free hand against a chin disconcertingly textured by chestnut bristle, and sighed. As Master Chakora Seva said, he who calculates a mountain's height has not thereby scaled even the smallest cliff.
" I am truly sorry if my ignorance causes you harm," he assured the wilting sprout, and carefully deposited its delicate underside in the rounded cavity created a moment ago by his right thumb. Tucking the creature up to its proverbial chin in soft, mineral laden earth, and tweaking the angle of its two timidly unfurling leaves, he paused and contemplated his handiwork. The plant, true to its nature, gave little indication whether it approved of its new mooring or was in any sort of discomfort. The young Jedi frowned yet more deeply, feeling certain that Qui-Gon Jinn, revered sage of the Living Force, would immediately have been able to discern whether the tremulous botanical patient was happy or not.
If plants could be happy, that is.
A trickling of clean water upon the spartan domicile's newest resident, and the rites of welcoming seemed complete. The young Jedi stood. It was an uncommonly hot day for temperate Coruscant; the noonday sun pouring through the balcony window beat a radiant cacophony upon floor and walls, resounding and echoing through every corner of the common area. A wave of one hand and a nudge of the Force darkened the self-tinting glass to near opacity, providing instant relief from the assault.
Peace reigned in undisputed splendor for a full five minutes – at which time the much-abused front door rattled into its pocket with a asthmatic wheezing of pressure pistons, simultaneous with the cyclonic arrival of the apartment's younger occupant.
"I'm back," Anakin Skywalker proclaimed, loudly and quite unnecessarily.
"You don't say."
The tow-headed junior padawan callously marooned his holotexts upon the nearest horizontal surface – which happened to be a worn meditation cushion – and proceeded to squat down before the recent addition. "Isn't that pot kinda humongous for that chibi little plant?"
Obi-Wan flicked a few offending granules from his crisp and immaculate tabards. "It will grow, Force willing."
"Huh. It doesn't look very impressive now. Just saying."
"Appearances can be deceiving, my young friend. I once met an unassuming floral specimen that swiftly attained the status of full-blown carnivorous menace under Master Qui-Gon's overindulgent care."
"Wizard! Is this one gonna have teeth and tentacles and stuff too?"
The boy's mentor ran a hand through short auburn hair. "It is a mandrangea bean seedling, Anakin."
"Aw." Instantly losing all interest in the new arrival, the youngling launched without preamble into his customary report on the day's happenings. In the past six months, this rambling debriefing had established itself as part of their quotidian routine as master and apprentice. Though the recitation often devolved into a litany of complaints or an irrelevant technical excursus, it also served as touchstone and diagnostic tool, a window into the boy's mercuric and complex soul – and occasionally an early warning system for trouble stirred up in the otherwise placid Temple community by his blithely volatile presence.
"….so then Master Li said that Ruus T'chello's account of the Teth assault on Archipageus' moons is completely bogus."
Obi-Wan cocked one eyebrow, sharply. "He what?"
Delighted at having elicited such raw disdain from his teacher, Anakin pressed the point. "He said the Teth royal chronicler is unreliable. Because of the ghosts."
The young Knight shrugged into his voluminous cloak. "Local superstition explained events through the lens of the prevailing culture; but simply because the indigenous legend is included in the account, it does not follow that the entire narrative is spurious."
The boy trotted along merrily at his heels as they entered the concourse and made for a lift at the corridor's far end. "But you don't believe in ghosts , do you, Master?"
"Besides," Obi-Wan snorted, indignantly, "the bit about the ghosts was appended by T'Chello's amanuensis. Perhaps Master Li should check his sources. A Jedi should be as scrupulous in scholarship as he is in 'saber form."
"So are you gonna challenge him to a duel, to settle who's right about it?" A gleam of anticipatory glee softened twin orbs of kiln-glazed blue.
The boy was doomed to disappointment. "No," Obi-Wan responded repressively, snapping the li ft doors closed with a flick of his wrist. "I'm going to rebut his absurd assertions quite thoroughly, over mid-meal. And then send you on a mission of mercy."
"Huh?"
"Dispelling the shadows of ignorance is one of the Five Great Compassions. I'll let you have the humble joy of elevating Master Li's spiritual state. Stars know he's overdue for a bit of enlightening. "
"The assault on Archipegeus' moons was ill advised in the extreme," Obi-Wan informed his attentive protégé. "The forty-third emperor was entering his dotage, and had waxed arrogant and overambitious. The naval fleet's wild success in the Rims – or what would later be termed the Rims – led him into a false confidence. Archipegeus is located inside the Sluissi nebula; the Teth shipwrights had no idea against what they were contending. When the assault force was wrecked on the outlying satellites after the first solar storm, Pon-Jo's governor sent a task force to collect any survivors."
Anakin nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, we covered all that. But then it says that the men returned empty-handed, reporting that the enemy ships had been utterly destroyed and that there were no survivors." He poked futilely at his plate with a pair of unwieldy eating sticks, mouth twisted to one side in concentration.
The young Knight corrected his awkward grip. "I think that is indeed what happened."
Anakin dropped a lump of arroz and grunted in acute frustration. "Who eats with these stupid chupa-scuzzo things anyway?"
His companion deftly quartered a succulent scallop and vegetable roll and favored his struggling apprentice with a bland look. "Slow down. Stop trying so hard."
"I'm gonna starve to death, Master!"
"I don't think so. The Archipegean ships did indeed return, with a report of no survivors, and well documented proof that their Teth adversaries' vessels were floating scrap."
Anakin skewered a large hunk of fish with one of his sticks and set to devouring it with predatory relish. "Sure, but it's chintzo to say that ghosts of the dead guys showed up inside the city a day later and took hostages and burned stuff and basically staged a coup and looted and pillaged and then got away. That's why Master Li said the historical vernacity is doubtful."
"Veracity. And Master Li lacks the requisite imagination to be a successful strategist. Which is why he is a healer and not a batte fleet commander."
The tow-headed boy cheated on the last bit of fish, using his fingers and then licking them clean as surreptitiously as possible. "But….ghosts?" he insisted. "That's impossible."
"One can't blame the natives for a colorful explication. It saved face, at the very least. Supernatural interlopers are less shameful an affliction than simply having been duped."
A servitor droid burbled by, repulsors softly humming. "I need a spoon, " Anakin told it. "Please," he added, as an afterthought.
"What actually transpired," his teacher continued, letting the blatant act of mutiny slide, "is this: when the Archipegean scouts arrived on the tertiary satellite, they discovered a small band of survivors. These men made a tactical retreat into the Denashi ridge, which is highly suited to guerilla warfare. The Archipegeans were trained to fight in organized legions and stood no chance against Teth commandos in an irregular environment. The desperate Teth party dispatched all of them, stole their uniforms and weapons, overpowered the remaining crew, and commandeered their ships. They then returned to the main moon –"
Anakin bounced in his seat, warming to the topic. "And pretended to be the other guys and reported no survivors and got let right into the city – like, maybe even into the military headquarters – and then they like attacked form within and did all that other rugged stuff! That's totally sick."
"Victory from the ashes of defeat, in some measure." Obi-Wan confiscated his pupil's utensil the moment the droid delivered it, and handed over his own eating sticks. "You may use these and nothing but these."
Sighing audibly, the padawan fiddled with the resented implements, turning them this way and that between his slender fingers. "But how do you know, Master? Is there some other book that says that?"
"…well, no."
"But then how do you know?"
The young Knight flashed the most fleeting of wolfish grins. "Because that's what I would have done."
His very young apprentice beamed. "And this is what I would have done," he declared, snapping the two thin sticks in half and fanning them into a serviceable four-pronged claw in one hand. He scooped the mangled remnants of his meal up and consumed them with triumphant elan, not bothering to wait for approval or permission.
They exited the refectory side by side, heading for the upper level classrooms and adjoining lecture halls. Clusters of older initiates, groups of younglings shepherded by attentive chaperones, a stray master or two drifted across the Temple's spacious byways, the ubiquitous Jedi robes and white or earth-colored tunics a harmonious medley, so many tranquil leaves floating upon a wide river's currents.
"Wish I could go to your lecture instead of these baby ones," Anakin grumbled.
"You wouldn't find exogenous diplomatic relations nearly as interesting in theory as they are in practice," the young Knight assured his disgruntled charge. "No lightsabers whatsoever, in the classroom version."
The boy's nose scrunched in disappointment. "I could do the senior padawan level," he insisted. "My coursework is too easy."
"Your recent examination results don't seem to testify to that statement."
"Only cause I'm bored." They paused beneath the vaulted archway of a connecting vestibule.
Obi-Wan laid a steadying hand upon his apprentice's shoulder. The stubby learner's braid barely brushed the top of his knuckles, witness to the brevity of their relationship, to the novelty of the arrangement for both parties involved. "Anakin. If you can make it to the end of this tenday without occasioning any of your instructors distress, or reason to level further complaints in my direction, then I shall have Garen take you out in the fighters. "
It took a firm pressure to keep the child from displaying inappropriate enthusiasm in the public concourse.
"Really? Promise?"
"I do not have to –"
"Promise anything, yeah yeah I know. But really truly, Master?"
"Are you calling me a liar?"
"No!" Anakin grinned. "I can do it. Only one more day. And I'm being choobazzi super good this time, I swear it. I haven't even spoken to that sleemo uptight snitch – not even once this whole time and he's in all my sections."
"Initiate Olin is not deserving of your defamation, even when he is not present. Especially when he is not present."
Wilting beneath his mentor's stern gaze, Anakin shifted weight and fidgeted in place. "Okay okay… I gotta go now, I guess."
Obi-Wan released his captive into the wild, watching the boy's slight frame scurry off to join a bevy of young initiates still under the close supervision of a clan-master. The cream-clad group admitted the newcomer to their ranks with a degree of polite aloofness; Anakin's sudden introduction to the Temple community at eight years of age, and his nearly simultaneous acquisition of the coveted padawan status made him at once an object of intense curiosity and inchoate envy.
Not that Jedi felt envy. Properly speaking, anyway. Grown-up, fully trained Jedi, at least.
Rubbing thoughtfully at his chin, and releasing tension in a single vexed puff of breath, he turned on his heel and flowed away upon his own errand, temporarily leaving Anakin to navigate the difficult waters of schooling as he saw fit. Sink or swim was not a universally salutary pedagogical method, but it had its uses, and would surely prove harmless in the short run? At the moment he had other urgent business to attend.
He needed to seek out Master Qui-Gon's sage counsel on the subject of mandrangea bean seedlings, for a start.
