Legacy VI
Chapter 7: Omission and Commission
"Peremptorily expelled from the magisterial ranks," Qui-Gon chuckled, setting his empty stewbowl upon the waitron droid's tray with a gracious nod of thanks.
"There is such a thing as doing a thing too well," his former apprentice reminded him, smugly.
And," the Jedi master shrewdly appended, " There is a man of my acquaintance who knows precisely where the line between excellence and excess lies, down to the last micrometer's distinction."
"Precision is a virtue." Obi-Wan straightened the rigidly parallel lines of his utensils.
"I have high hopes your padawan and the Force will cure you of it one of these days soon."
The droid returned with a pot of mediocre refectory-standard tea, which they were both content enough in the moment to enjoy. "I've not yet told Anakin we're likely to be assigned a mission soon."
Qui-Gon's brows rose. "I did not see your name on the active duty roster."
His companion faltered slightly in his pouring of two precisely equal bowls. "What?"
"You are nowhere to be found on the diplomatic or relief corps lists, nor on any journey mission allocation. Nor are you listed as resident in Temple." Qui-Gon pilfered a sucron cube and popped it in his mouth. "I found the omission … intriguing."
A soft crease appeared between Obi-Wan's brows. "I cannot take Anakin on a covert mission," he objected.
The tall men kicked his chair back onto the rim of its support disc, and contemplated the arched ceiling. "Indeed not. "
"He hasn't a clandestine bone in his body .. and besides, he's far too young. And unseasoned. The Council must know that…. I wonder…."
The older man stretched his long shanks out beneath the table and gravely accepted his tea-bowl. "I would expect your convenient disappearance from official records has less to do with undercover peril and more to do with Senatorial oversight."
"Oh. Yes." A long draught of hot liquid. "The new protocols."
Qui-Gon smiled wanly at his friend's subtle lip-curl of disgust. "It is a remarkable day when I find myself in agreement with Master Dooku.. but I will confess that direct 'Senatorial Supervision' of the Order does seem… problematic."
"You just have an endemic authority problem, Master."
They shared a wry laugh at that.
"Still. While the current Chancellor retains his wits, the legalities remain merely formal. We can hope that Valorum's successor is possessed of an equally enlightened outlook."
"Elections are not for a few years yet. I'm not fretting."
The Jedi master lifted a warning finger. "And by then, you will have a padawan in full-blown adolescence. May the Force be with you."
"Direct senatorial supervision of the Order is not merely problematic," Dooku scoffed. "I should characterize it as asinine." He dismissed the very notion with a wave of one perfectly manicured hand and a lift of one supercilious, silver brow. "The audacity of swill-fed swine adopting a pretense of power. Without the Order, the Senate, and indeed the Republic itself, would long ago have collapsed beneath the weight of its own fetid corruption."
"Speaking off the record," Obi-Wan quipped.
The senior Sentinel spared him an appreciative half-smirk. "It is to be hoped private conversation might remain free of bureaucratic prurience."
"Indeed, Master."
They strolled along the outside perimeter of aoli trees, the line of tall evergreen spears planted in decades recently, as a screen against Coruscant's ever-encroaching pollution and air-traffic. Even the Temple's mighty edifice stood in danger of being swallowed by the megalopolis' tumescent growth.
"Our politician friends' vapid squabbling looks to commerce and taxation rights as the source of instability… they have no inkling what true power threatens their security."
Obi-Wan frowned, lifting his face to the dusking skies overhead. Ambient light masked the stars, cast a sickly phosphor glow upward upon the scudding veils of cloud. There was no nighttime clarity to be had here, on the city-planet's frenetic surface. Only the Force could provide that.
"You are disturbed," Dooku remarked, pausing to prod with one booted foot at a coiled succulent planted beneath the sheltering stoop of a deformed yarba bush.
The thing snaked out a tentacle to ward off his unwelcome attentions.
"I am under the impression that the Senators are not alone in their willful ignorance."
The senior Jedi breathed out slowly, lips curving into a humorless smile.
Obi-Wan continued, undaunted. "One of our own initiates recently informed me that there is no such thing as a Sith."
Dooku lost interest in the kinetoflora specimen and moved onward. "Ah, but ignorance is bliss, my young friend; and some would argue that bliss is a prerequisite of docility."
The plant's stray tentacle wrapped amorously about the younger Jedi's ankle as he passed, relinquishing its fond grip regretfully as he strode on in the Sentinel's wake. "I intend to train my padawan in different fashion," he said, grimly.
"Have a care," Dooku advised, tones as silken as ever, "if you wish to play with fire. It is not a game to be undertaken by the inexperienced. Even Qui-Gon found himself burned once upon a time, toying with alternative pedagogy. Expose a young mind to the Dark too wantonly… and it seeps in."
Obi-Wan's posture stiffened. "I am surprised to hear you say so, Master. With respect."
The Shadow's thin chuckle echoed off the watchful aoli colonnade. "Have a care, Master Kenobi," he repeated, cultured voice dangerously smooth, like the dark meniscus of wine clinging to a goblet's bottommost curve. "You still have much to learn."
They parted ways at the path's end, at the entrance to the Temple's humble lower levels on the west-facing side. Obi-Wan ducked inside the light and warmth kindling within the ivory walls, while Dooku remained outdoors, contemplating the long twilight.
"Choobazzi!" Anakin yelped, making a rambunctious circuit of the common room. He vaulted over the mandrangea bean seedling's demurely drooping form and bounced happily onto a meditation cushion. "We're gonna travel!"
"Presumably. Though I must warn you, space travel may not be as glamorous as you think."
"I came here," the youngling insisted. "I love flying!"
Obi-Wan was on the point of issuing a warning about the hard living conditions to be expected during a mission to far-flung sectors, but reminded himself at the last moment that his padawans' stint as a slave boy on the most backward dustball in the Outer Rim had already indelibly inured him to deprivation and hostile surroundings. In some ways, Anakin was a parsec ahea d of his contemporaries in the Temple, who – though certainly raised in an ascetical milieu – had no real experience of insecurity. He even blushed to think of his own youthful indignation: I've never met such evil people, Master! …. This child sitting so eagerly at his feet had seen more of life's seedy underside than many a person twice and three times his age.
The boy would never be taken unawares by the banal, or the malicious. It was forbearance, patience, subtlety which bemused his mind and eluded his immediate grasp. Trickier to patch together a prematurely shattered innocence than to gently break a virginal spirit to the harsh realities of life.
"Aw, I hate it when you do that," the child complained.
"Hate is a strong word. What you mean is –"
"I mean you're looking at me like I'm all transparent and squishy on the inside like those Chapa beetles with the guts that show through and stuff. And I can't tell what you're thinking."
It had taken several months' effort to master shielding his perceptions and emotions from the overinquisitive prurience of his new charge; even now, though, the prodigy could occasionally burrow beneath his most assiduously maintained mental wards with the ease of a molska ploughing through moist soil. Obi-Wan instinctively brushed away the prying psychic tendril that nudged at his uppermost thoughts.
"You don't need to. And may I pointy out that simply because we are available for a mission, it does not follow that we will be assigned immediately. It could be days or weeks – "
"Or hours!" Anakin enthused. "I'm already packed. I'm totally ready,Master! What system do you think we're gonna see first? I hope it's like somewhere nobody has ever been before!"
"Unlikely that we should be called upon to keep the peace of an unoccupied planet," his teacher retorted, dryly.
"Oh. Yeah. But still! And I was wondering: do I get a weapon since we're going on a mission?"
Obi-Wan cocked a brow. "One lightsaber should be sufficient. A weapon is not – "
"I'm a crack shot with a blaster," the boy asserted. "At least, I'm pretty sure I would be. If I got a chance to try one out."
The young Jedi held up a hand. "And that would be a no."
The resultant pout lasted all of a half-second before the padawan leapt up again and bounced to the door, anticipating the soft chime by a full two seconds.
Garen Muln stood grinning upon the threshold, a hefty synthfiber sack slung over one shoulder, weight casually propped upon the cane in his left hand. "Good evening."
Anakin gasped in delight. "Mister Garen sir! You got one for me!"
Their visitor sidled apologetically past the gaping youngling and caught his friend's eye. "I was going to ask your permission, of course – "
"Of course," Obi-Wan growled.
Garen had the good grace to blush. "Well, all right – it was a bit of a conspiracy, but it's harmless, Obes –"
"So you say."
"It's wizard!" Anakin yelped, peeking into the sack's loosely-bound opening. "Please please Master can I keep him I won't do anything bad ever again I'll do all my assignments without complaining and I won't cuss and I won't fight with Ferus Olin and I'll be patient and everything! Please!"
Obi-Wan's arms folded over his chest. "A Jedi does not beg—"
" Yes he does," Garen snorted, upending his heavy burden upon the polished floor. Metal and circuitry rattled and clattered into a disorderly pile. One or two small objects rolled into corners; a thing disturbingly like a hand lodged itself beneath the scarred common room table.
"What in Force's name is that?"
Garen had the temerity to laugh in his face; Anakin in the meanwhile was capering about like an inebriated monkey lizard.
"Awww, it's totally rugged! Are all the pieces there? What about the processor? Does it have a central integrator circuit? And what kind of motivator unit? And how 'bout the faceplate… is it in that pile?"
The senior padawan gestured with his cane's blunt end. "All inclusive. Well, mostly. You'll have to make some new armature bits – he's missing a few plates and both optic lenses, but the motivator's intact. Wiring is a mess, but you can set that to rights in a trice. Oh, and here's a spare vocabulator, courtesy of the refuse yard supervisor on Vandor – apparently the previous owner had the old one ripped out. Must be a story behind that, eh?"
Obi-Wan clamped down hard on his student's shoulders. The child positively quivered beneath his restraining hold. "But what in the blazes is it?"
"It," Garen announced, "- or rather he, is the broken remains of what must have been a doozy of a protocol unit. I mean, voicebox ripped out and then the whole thing dismembered – you gotta wonder."
"It sounds like a dreadful failure at its role."
"Huttese owner, Obes. Lay off the poor scrapheap. Have some compassion."
"I'm gonna rebuild him!" Anakin peeped. "Please Master Obi-Wan! Please!"
This was too much to be borne with Jedi equanimity. "We have absolutely no need for a star-forsaken translator droid."
The child cast his gaze down, instantly deflated. Garen scowled.
"And I did not invite you to play conspirator," the young Knight snapped at his agemate.
"I took the initiative," the miscreant fired back. "And this took some serious diplomacy. It was a steal at the price, in fact."
Bristling, Obi-Wan glared at his childhood friend. "Don't say another word. I don't wish to be implicated."
"It's okay, Mister Garen sir," Anakin sighed, making a despondent beeline for his small bedchamber. "I don't really need it. But thank you." The door closed behind him with a mournful hiss.
"Well done, gundark brains," the senior padawan growled. "Break the kid's heart and make me look like a goon."
"You are a goon, Muln."
"Go kark your all- holy self, Kenobi. You're not my master. Thank the Force."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"What's the harm in letting him have a project? This was a pain in the pula to obtain, by the way."
"My condolences. And my padawan is my business, not yours."
"Let the youngling build his vaping droid. Hells, he might have a companion that cares about him."
Obi-Wan gritted his teeth. "You are far over the line."
"Yep. And you're short of the mark, if this is your best imitation of Qui-Gon."
Color suffused the young Knight's face. His expression flash-froze into an icy composure. "Good night."
Garen bowed stiffly, balancing on the cane. Anger ruddied his cheeks as well. "You're welcome," he snarled, turning stiffly to take his leave.
He had stumped into the outside corridor before Obi-Wan wrestled his pique into submission. "Wait! Garen."
The dark-haired Jedi hesitated, mouth a thin line, eyes glinting with obstinacy.
A bow. "Forgive my ill temper. And thank you for the gift. I am sure Anakin will find it… highly distracting."
The other young man grinned, and waved him away with one hand. His slightly syncopated gait echoed down the corridor, loud against the Temple's evening hush.
Obi-Wan ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. The protocol unit lay in scattered bits upon his common room floor, somehow mutely accusatory. He nudged one or two stray circuits back into the heap, noting that the macabre nature of droids was only heightened by the spectacle of their disemboweled innards. Faced with the mess of lifeless circuitry and vaguely humanoid …limbs…-and was that a head?—he could almost fancy himself an innate adept of the Living Force.
Qui-Gon had always graciously accommodated their very distinct and sometimes polar temperaments, while still maintaining his teaching authority, had he not?
"Master?" Anakin appeared tentatively upon the threshold of his room, probably sensing an abrupt shift in the Force's currents.
Expectation weighted the silence between them. And then -
"You may keep it. Him. So long as he does not get underfoot."
The boy bolted from his retreat with a whoop of triumph and gratitude. "Yes, Master! Thank you! Don't worry – once I finish, you're just gonna love him!"
