One Too Many


10:27 standard local time

"So, what'll it be for you gents?" the paunchy Rodian barkeep inquired, leaning over the countertop on both elbows.

Obi-Wan eyed the rows of intoxicants lined up upon their shelves with a cagey and calculating air.

"You're not ordering a virgin anything, master." Anakin forestalled the obvious evasive tactic. "I'll have a Alderaana Slammer. And he's having the same as me." He turned to his friend. "Unless you're getting too old for this kind of thing."

Obi-Wan's brows rose yet again. "Make mine a double," he blithely addressed the 'tender, sending a credit chit sliding along the greasy bartop.

The Rodian nodded his thanks, stumpy aural tubes bobbing as he mixed up their poison of choice.

Anakin looked at the neonium posters, mainly portraying garishly made-up dancing girls or burly starfighter pilots lounging at their ease with various brand-name cocktails in hand. Sleasy, like Mos Espa. He felt at home, in a strange way. And then he remembered the last time he'd been on Vandor, to check on the 501st's training barracks. That had been with Ahsoka.

But that was something else they never talked about – at all, ever – by mutual unspoken consent. He accepted his drink when it was set before him and threw it down in several long gulps, choking a little on the burning aftertaste.

Obi-Wan considered his own drink contemplatively, sending the liquid sloshing in a carefully controlled ellipse as he turned the tumbler in his hand. And then down it went, in one go.

Anakin snorted. "Where'd you learn that?"

"Qui-Gon," came the laconic response.

Another topic they never discussed. It clearly wasn't gonna be one of those special bonding occasions, so they might as well get down to work. In a minute.

"Another round?" the Rodian asked, opalescent eyes bulging a bit as he spotted the saber hilts peeking from beneath their cloak hems.

"One more for the road," Anakin decided. "We're on the lookout for a terrorism suspect."

This revelation earned him a reproving glare.

"What?"

"Admiral Tarkin requested that this operation be considered a matter of internal military security. Discretion, Anakin. You might consider looking the term up sometime. Certainly your vocabulary could stand improvement."

The Slammer left a kindling warmth beneath his solar plexus. "To hell with that," he smirked. "I got a big enough vocabulary to tell you exactly what kind of a chob-sucking barve Tarkin is."

Obi-Wan didn't answer, so that counted as tacit agreement.

They downed their second round of drinks in brotherly silence.

"Let's go," Anakin grunted. He preferred to keep on the move. And they had work to do.


10:53 standard local time

For some reason, Vandor looked like a nicer place when they reemerged from the Jerzzil Shores cantina.

"So now what, master? You're the discretion expert."

Obi-Wan surveyed the crowded docking port, arms crossed and eyes squinting half-shut in the glaring late morning sunshine. "The last intelligence report says he hijacked a small freighter near Devaron. He'll have modified the transponder and possibly the hull identification codes, perhaps have made other alterations. We should start by having a look at the ships docked here within the last week."

"Right." The younger man swept his own gaze over the motley collection of junkers and wrecks. "Leave that to me. I can spot a fake anywhere."

"Good. I'll speak to the port authority."

Obi-Wan sauntered away across the fractured tarmac with just a tad more swagger than usual, cloak rippling at his heels.

Anakin shrugged and meandered his way back to their Deltas, sitting wingtip to wingtip at the edge of the huge landing pad. A permit had been issued in their absence, the fighters' Jedi insignia sufficient to authorize unlimited use of the overfull facility. Artoo whistled a greeting as he clambered back into the open cockpit and sprawled casually in the pilot's seat.

"Okay, buddy. Give me a broadband wave signal between .6 and 3.6, ascending frequency. Let's see how many of these scrap-piles' security systems we can trigger."

The astromech issued a guttural cautionary razzle.

"I know – that's the whole point. Whichever one's alarm doesn't go off is the one we're looking for. It would have been fried when our friend hijacked the ship."

Another dubious string of bleeps and tootles.

"Just shut up and do it," the young Jedi irritably replied. He was sick and tired of mutiny in the ranks.

Miffed, his personal mechanical assistant promptly obeyed – sending a high frequency signal through the fighter's internal amplifiers. Instantly, several dozen screeching and shrilling shipboard alarms sounded off, wailing klaxons shaking Vandor's crisp ocean air with a cacophonous chorus of objection.

All except one battered clunker on the left-hand side, that is.

Anakin vaulted lightly to the deck and made a beeline for his target, ears ringing and blood buzzing with the pleasant heat of two Alderaana Slammers. After all, discretion might get you respect, but this was how you got things done.