They all felt her leave. But by the time they had gotten to the bridge and told the Captain that no, she did not have orders or even permission to go, she was already jumping to hyperspace.
"What is she thinking?" Obi-Wan asked in exasperation.
"Maybe she had some kind of bobby trap programmed in…" Anakin remarked without thinking.
"She is not a droid." Luminara responded rather sharply to Anakin. "Let's see what she was researching."
It was, not surprisingly, Artoo who got some results. Unfortunately they weren't too helpful.
"Flying manuals, planetary systems ... current status of those systems…."
"Well, at least it's nothing classified." Anakin had an odd, focused look on his face.
"Do you have any ideas?" Obi-Wan eyed him.
Anakin slowly shook his head. "I've got the feeling ... that I should know. Or will know. It's something to do with me ... "
"Please Anakin. Meditate on it. She may yet be in danger."
"All right." He paused. "I sure hope she realizes there is a big difference between reading about flying and actually doing it."
The call from the Temple came in then, too late. The scientist was Ardzin Sloil. A creature from a little know world called Bazaree that was almost totally devastated by a civil war fifteen years before. He was partly to blame for the crisis, he'd created a plague that wiped out a great deal of life just to kill the other side.
"Apprehend and question him you must! If a connection to the Sith he has, answers he may have!"
"Yes, Master Yoda, but we have another dilemma. Our Barriss has flown off somewhere on her own."
"Hmm..Find her as well you must. Separate you must. Hurry too, return soon to the front lines you will be needed." Yoda's hologram faded.
"I cannot say I miss the front lines." Luminara sighed.
"Nor do we." Obi-Wan stated.
"Anakin, you go after Barriss."
He looked surprised. "I thought Luminara…"
She shook her head. "I have no sense of where she is headed. You are close to an answer. I feel it."
Barriss landed her borrowed ship with difficulty. Smoke came out of the back end. She'd told the security patrol outside the planet that she was in trouble and needed emergency repairs. She wasn't really lying. It was an emergency and the ship would need repairs due to her inexperienced landing.
She peered around the capital city of Iziz, reaching out with the Force. What if she was wrong? What if Ahsoka was not here? What if she didn't want to see her? After the other Barriss had treated her so horribly, she could well understand why she'd hesitated to free her. She wandered the streets, holding her robed hood closed so no-one would recognize her. She kept alert with the Force in an attempt to feel for Ahsoka. Her eyes roamed, alert for any sign of the colorful togruta. So far all she'd seen were humans and humanoids.
Ahsoka found her. She had only a brief tremor of the force before the girl landed in front of her, more than half hidden by a hooded cloak.
"What are you doing here?" She demanded.
"Looking for you."
"Why? I thought Anakin took you to the temple."
The cloned girl hesitated. "Can't we talk in private?"
Ahsoka glanced around at the crowds. She nodded shortly. "Right. This way."
Ahsoka radiated uncertainty and wariness. Barriss the clone felt uncomfortable. "I know every time you look at me, you think of what ... she did. I am so sorry."
Ahsoka opened the door and led her into a building. The apartment was spartan as a jedi's quarters. "You haven't done anything to be sorry for. Do you remember doing it? Choosing to betray the order?"
"No."
"Then it's really not your responsibility."
"You live here?" The clone girl wasn't sure how to answer Ahsoka, given that her sense said one thing and her words another.
"Let's say I'm … meditating on my future."
"Oh. In a way, that is why I'm here. I think….you should know what we found…"
The clone Barriss paused again, worried. "They did say to keep it secret…but it involves you, so I thought…"
Ahsoka sat down. "I've kept secrets before. I may have left the Jedi, but I won't betray them."
The clone pulled out an encrypted holodisk, showing the data Artoo had found.
"That is so sick." Ahsoka snarled when they'd finished viewing.
"Yes." Barriss folded her hands and looked at her.
"So what are you calling yourself?"
"Barriss."
"But…"
"Perhaps you could help me choose a nickname?" The clone's eyes closed, than opened to peer at her. "That is what…I was supposed to keep secret. They want me to pose as the real Barriss. Let the others believe that it was the clone that betrayed you. They hoped it would draw out the attacker or even the Sith."
Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "And I thought it was already confusing."
"Ahsoka, why did you not return to the order?"
Ahsoka's lips pressed together. Her eyes shifted away, thinking. Finally she looked back.
Barriss hastened to add, "I wouldn't ask except….I don't know who to trust either. It feels wrong inside, to imitate the real Barriss. Yet that is what the Jedi council asked of me. People my…..memory, her memory, says to trust. And I know that she was deceived about what they had done. Yet they ask this…"
"War makes all the lines of right and wrong blurry. Not like growing up in the temple where it was all clear." Ahsoka hugged her knees. "I believed in them, trusted them and thought I knew them. Even Anakin. Then, I got framed, and I found out I didn't know them as well as I thought. They were more fallible, they doubted me ... and if they doubted me and I doubted them, how could I follow them into battle? How could I trust them when it was literally life or death."
"Anakin misses you."
"I miss him too. And he knows ... I think he's always known that life wasn't as clear as it seems being raised in the temple. Maybe because he came late." Ahsoka's eyes watered. "But I have to figure out my own way now. It's not that I don't trust him, exactly ... but I know he's fallible. He makes mistakes too."
Barriss leaned on one hand on the carpeted floor, she frowned at her. "So…what should I do?"
"What does your heart tell you?"
"I believe their logic is sound. That this may draw out whoever poisoned Barriss to the light and created me. But I am not comfortable with the deception. Still it may save others the same fate. If so, isn't my discomfort ... well, isn't it selfish to put my own discomfort first? Who am I, just a clone, that would put her instincts above the whole of the Jedi who have a bigger picture."
"I think they get so caught in the big picture the forget the little ones have names too sometimes." Ahsoka sighed sadly. "And if so, the original Barriss has a point."
The other girl's eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
"Oh, don't look at me like that. I would never agree with what she did. Her explanation is no excuse for murder." Ahsoka studied the girl. "You are a person, by the way, not just a clone. So, you've been still studying as a padawan then?"
"Yes. Brushing up as Master Luminara calls it. But I can tell I make them uncomfortable. Especially your master. I know everyone has said that even clones are individuals. But I have no memory of a life of my own. Only that of Barriss. And yet her memory confuses me. How can I remember being her and yet not understand why she did what she did? And why did the same people who convinced her create me?"
"Anakin is not my master anymore." Ahsoka's eyes slid half shut and she sounded a touch sad. "Don't take it personally. He never asks anyone to do what he wouldn't do himself. And he's harder on himself than on anyone else. And aren't all these questions what you are investigating?"
"I think if I had my own name, at least in private, it would help. Anakin … Master Skywalker suggested it." Barriss cocked her head. "Master Skywalker said that you gave him his nickname."
Ahsoka smirked. "Yeah, well, I was pretty flippant back then." She frowned. "Do they know where you are?"
"No ... I feel bad about that. But I had a feeling you didn't want to be found. I had a vision of you and had to search many planets databases before I found this one."
"I'll bet. Well, I'll think on the nickname. It's tricky if you have to be called Barriss. Maybe something that sounds the same so that people just think they misheard if someone calls you the nickname at the wrong moment. But ..." She hesitated, shook her head. "I sure hope the plan works. If they bring the Sith into the open, maybe the Order itself will be able to figure itself out and stop making compromises we can't afford."
The new Barriss glanced sideways at her. She didn't ask but she wondered what Ahsoka meant by 'we'. We as in Ahsoka thinking of herself still as a Jedi? Or we as in the galaxy at large?
Luminara glared at the planet below. It felt dark in the force. It gave her stomach an uncomfortable feeling. She looked at Obi-Wan. He was pale.
"Are you all right?"
"Fine. Bit of a headache, but I'll live." He said shortly.
"If it feels this bad from here, the planet itself will be no better."
"Then we'd best get it over with."
The planet's main spaceport was red rock. Even the metal seemed the color of blood. Partly this was the sun's reflecting the red rock and sand. But both Obi-Wan and Luminara could almost hear the twisted cries of agony of those who'd died here. It took a conscious effort to block them out. It was instantly clear that no-one lingered here. There were various species in the spaceport, all waiting for refueling or repairs.
Leaving the spaceport they found the streets largely quiet. Every few minutes a speeder zoomed past, or a robohack. Walking brought them to what was once a large hotel and bar. "We'd best check in." Obi-Wan murmured reluctantly.
"Yes. It will give us better cover."
The four armed manager was also desk clerk and bartender. He grunted and gave them two of the few available adjoining rooms. Only part of the place was functional.
Luminara sat on the bed and studied the map.
Obi-Wan removed his robe in the refresher and shook it out. He coughed. "Good heavens." Red dust was flying everywhere. He ran water over it to clean it off and left it hanging. He took a moment to dampen his beard and hair and found the cloth came away colored red. "Hmph."
Luminara handed him the map and exchanged places.
"Well," he said as she returned, freshly dampened and looking relieved to be free of the dust…. "there are only so many places his lab could be hidden I suppose."
"Can you sense it?"
"Perhaps if we were closer." He said gloomily. "I seem more sensitive since Zigoola. But right now the whole planet is so dark I feel like I'm drowning!" He paused. "I know this world isn't listed as a former sith one, but I haven't felt anything like this since my last trip to Korriban."
There was a sudden, familiar, clank clank, outside the window. They peered out warily. A battledroid patrol went by.
"So the Separatists are here."
"So far they are downplaying security. Perhaps that's intentional. After our mission to Lanteeb they may have realized the extra security is offset but the fact that it draws attention."
"Or they have focused it all inside the lab."
"There is a cheery thought." Obi-Wan rose. "Perhaps if we follow those droids discreetly, we will find it."
Elsewhere, Anakin Skywalker was less then thrilled with his mission to find Barriss' clone. The more he meditated, the more he circled. He knew his own impatient frustration was blocking him. Finally he got a flash of the clone Barriss talking to Ahsoka. Or was it the real Barriss? But that was the past ... no. The surroundings were different.
He lost the vision, sighed, and reached for it again. He had Artoo going over all the files Barriss had gone through. He hoped the droid had better luck than he was.
He was startled out of the mental search just as he made progress. This was a place he knew. Not only was the vision familiar because of his former apprentice, but also because of location. He could almost put his finger on it.
Artoo came in whistling. He opened his eyes, annoyed. But before he could speak, Artoo plugged in and showed Anakin the star systems Barriss had been researching. Anakin leaned over the table, paused….there. "There Artoo. I can feel it. Onderon."
Onderon. Lux Bonteri, last he knew, was on Onderon. And Ahsoka had feelings for Lux. It would explain their odd conversation right before he dropped her off and took the clone Barriss to the temple.
"Okay. Let's set course for Onderon." Anakin considered. Barriss wanted to find Ahsoka, why? He searched the Force for an answer, but found none. At least that meant he also sensed no immediate danger to her. Former padawan or not, he was sure he would know.
to be continued
Notes:
Obi-Wan's adventures on Zigoola are told in "Wild Space" by Karen Miller.
Anakin and Obi-Wan's adventures on Lanteeb are told in "Stealth" and "Seige" by Karen Miller