Posted 21/2/2019
RESOLVE III
10.
He wasn't sure if he still existed. The weightlessness he experienced was more than an absence of gravity. It was an absence of physicality itself. Yet, as cottony and tangled as they were, his thoughts remained.
Somehow he was still breathing. The air felt like strength, like the rejuvenating chill after the rains in the forests of Tanaab. And that was another conundrum. How could he be cognizant of breathing when his body wasn't there.
It must be there, if I'm still alive, he reasoned within his mind.
And what does it mean to be alive?
The question wasn't generated by his own muddled thoughts. Briefly, he wondered if he should feel threatened. He couldn't remember what he'd been doing before he ended up in this weightless, peaceful void. Clarity was difficult to grasp onto, but a single question formed, using an echo of his own voice, even though he knew his lips didn't move;
Who are you?
No response was forthcoming.
Who are you? He asked into the void once more.
"Who-e-uuu. . ."
A pressure on his face alerted him to his discomfort. His fingers were tingling, his toes, and his eyelids refused to part. Most importantly, he could suddenly feel how heavy his limbs were.
"Don't try to move yet, Master Kenobi," a masculine voice said.
"Why?" He asked, voice hoarse and whisper-soft. There was a quiet hiss near his head, and again he tried to force his eyes open. The effort was exhausting.
"You've exhausted yourself," the voice said. "Rest."
He was getting tired of people telling him to rest, but despite his mild ire he could not ward off the fatigue. Awareness slipped away, and moments later he knew neither the heaviness of his limbs, nor the strange tingling in his extremities.
When awareness came to him next he was able to move an unsteady hand to his face where a line of pressure was still carved from cheek to cheek. Clumsy fingers stubbed against a smooth surface. He managed to crack open his eyelids, but could see nothing in the dim lighting. Nothing except for a handful of blurry, bright spots.
The hiss was still near his head. He forced his disobedient hand to splay the fingers and clamp down around the smooth device attached to his face. Medical mask, his groggy mind supplied. He pulled it off and dropped it, not at all mindful of where it landed.
A tug on the back of his hand alerted him to the needle buried in the vein and the medical tape keeping it in place. He closed his eyes and tried to remember how he'd gotten himself in such a situation. The lack of anti-septic smell meant he probably wasn't in a medcentre. It should have disturbed him, but as woolly as his thoughts were he could still feel the Force, and it wasn't issuing any warnings.
He remembered Alderaan. Bail Organa stowed away, and together they went to Obroa-Skai. Right. He snuck into the Jedi Temple there and retrieved star data from its archives. He met a clone named Rex and then he went back to the ship. Somehow Bail Organa defended them both from a group of trigger-happy clones, and got him aboard the freighter. I underestimated the Prince, he thought.
There'd been three star destroyers. By some mercy Bail Organa had evaded them.
Obi-Wan pushed himself to a sitting position. His muscles wailed their protest against the movement. A deep frown split his brow as a pain like a hammer blow started beating behind his eyes. He inhaled slowly through his nose, then opened his mouth to breath it out. His tongue felt like sandpaper and cotton balls.
The door slid open, flooding the small compartment with bright light. Obi-Wan groaned and raised his left, untethered hand to hide his eyes. The sound of quick footsteps bounced off the walls and a moment later Obi-Wan felt a pair of hands gently gripping his shoulders.
"Maybe you shouldn't be up yet," Bail Organa said.
"How long have I been out?" Obi-Wan asked, voice gravelly and hoarse. Bail moved away and a moment later pushed a cup of water into his hands. Obi-Wan drank slowly, savouring the cool mercy.
"Just under forty hours," Bail said. "I was starting to get worried and almost set course for Alderaan to get you to a medcentre."
Obi-Wan sighed in appreciation after emptying the cup. Bail stepped away again to refill it. "Your skill as a medic seems to have kept me alive," Obi-Wan said, half a grin making its way to his face.
Bail Organa chuckled and rubbed his forehead. "My skills as a medic are barely sufficient for first aid. All I did was make sure your oxygen and hydration levels stayed stable."
"Thank you, Prince Organa," Obi-Wan said in a soft tone. He took a deep breath then and asked, "Where are we?"
"On the Commenor Run, near Tepasi. And please, after you saved my life at Obroa-Skai I think we can drop the formality," Bail said.
"I saved your life?" Obi-Wan asked. "From my point of view the reverse is true. You prevented us getting shot and escaped three star destroyers. By all decorum I should be kowtowing before you."
"You're teasing me," Bail accused, but was unable to keep his lips from twitching into a smile. His face quickly sobered, however, and that didn't escape the Jedi Master's notice.
"What is it?" Obi-Wan asked.
"You don't remember?" Bail said, his expression bordering on reverent.
"Remember what?" Obi-Wan asked, feeling uncomfortable with the scrutiny.
"A destroyer locked on to us, fired its canons. We were dead in space, except you. . . You did something. With the Force," Bail shook his head. "I'd heard tales of Jedi performing miraculous feats, but I never thought I'd witness one myself."
Obi-Wan frowned. "What is it you think I did?"
"You shielded the ship somehow, or deflected the canon fire. I'm not sure," Bail said as he dropped his hands to his knees. "But what I felt was unmistakable. It was like a blanket of warmth and safety. The light was. . . Soothing."
Obi-Wan's brows drew together in thought. He stared at the blanket covering his legs and tugged at his beard. He shook his head. "I don't remember it," he said, fiercely wondering why he could not. He sighed and released his anxiety. It's not important, he thought.
Bail brought his hands together in front of him and glanced around the room. "I'll leave you to rest," he said.
"I appreciate your concern, Bail, but I have a decidedly urgent need to stretch my legs," Obi-Wan said. "Though I'm afraid my equilibrium is still a bit disturbed. Will you give me a hand?"
"You're very pale still, Obi-Wan," Bail tilted his head and half turned away. "I'll bring you something to eat."
"Bail, I was being polite," Obi-Wan raised his brows, and couldn't quite prevent his own amusement from displaying openly on his face. "I need to pass water."
"Right, of course," Bail said, releasing a puff of breath that almost sounded like an embarrassed laugh. "I'll help you to the refresher."
Hours later Obi-Wan sat cross-legged and straight-backed on the floor of the freighter's empty cargo hold. His hands rested on his knees, palms facing up. He opened his eyes, having just completed a deep meditation session. Aches still lingered in his body, but the worst of it was gone, his balance was restored and he no longer felt like a man who hadn't slept in days.
Even so, his limbs felt weak, the intermittent tingling in his fingers and toes still a persistent nuisance. He stood and clenched his hands into fists. The frailty of his grip was troubling, but he knew the debility was likely due to the extreme exhaustion he'd suffered.
During his meditation Obi-Wan had tried to recover the memory of the event Bail mentioned. He'd been mostly unsuccessful, and was still left without any indication of what he'd managed to do. All he remembered was a thunderous sense of the Force, as though it had taken over him completely.
Obi-Wan dropped his hands to his side and his musings to the back of his mind. He made his way to the cockpit where he found Bail Organa studying the star data retrieved from Obroa-Skai. The star systems were displayed as a sizeable hologram in the centre of the cockpit. R2-D2 ooooo'ed at the spheres hanging in mid-air.
"This star map is wrong, or outdated," Bail Organa said.
Obi-Wan turned the co-pilot's seat to face the rear of the cockpit and sat down to observe the projected lights. "It's the oldest known recording of the galaxy the Jedi have," he said. "Thousands of years old."
"Then how is this useful to us?" Bail asked.
"Master Yoda would have picked a place of obscurity," Obi-Wan crossed his arms. "Some place strong in the Force, but not likely to draw the Sith's attention."
"And you think you'll find it in an ancient star map?"
"Possibly," Obi-Wan said, gently tugging at his beard.
"Could they have gone to a world with Jedi ties?" Bail asked. "As I recall Ossus was once the homeworld of the Jedi. Could they have gone there? What about Jedha?"
"I didn't expect you to be so well versed in Jedi lore," Obi-Wan grinned, eyes still roaming the map.
"I'm not," Bail argued. "I just happened to do a lot of reading after the Jedi vanished from the galaxy."
Obi-Wan traced the star systems with his eyes. Following the invisible line from Coruscant in the Leth-9 sector to Ossus in the Resh-6 sector, and finally to Jedha in the Herf-10 sector.
"Ossus would be too obvious and Jedha draws far too much attention from pilgrims and tourists," Obi-Wan said. He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "Master Yoda would have picked a system one couldn't get to through the use of hyperlanes."
"What do you mean?" Bail asked, eyes tightening to convey the perplexity he felt hearing that statement.
Obi-Wan looked away from the map and met Bail's eyes. "The Jedi have kept one of our most sacred worlds hidden for millennia," he said. "No hyperlanes run near it. The Force guides our way to it."
Bail sat completely still, absorbing the words. He would have dismissed the idea out of hand if he hadn't, through Obi-Wan, seen what the Force allowed a mere human to do. "All right," he said. "Then maybe this world is where they went?"
"No," Obi-Wan said. "The climate there is far too inhospitable for a prolonged stay." His eyes drew to the core of the map. Several systems were indicated within the deep core. His eyes locked onto one system in particular, and he carefully manipulated the holomap to magnify the region. One planet stood out to him, and when he looked at its image it was as though the Force swelled within him, as though calling out to him.
"You think they're in the deep core?" Bail asked. "That's a very dangerous place, Obi-Wan. There is a reason the hyperlanes in that region no longer exist."
"Dangerous to hyperlane markers," Obi-Wan said. "Not to a Jedi following the Force's guidance."
Bail sighed and rubbed his eyes, then leaned forward in his seat to rest his forearms on his thighs. He gave the Jedi Master an uncertain look, and said, "Why hide in the deep core? Why not the outer rim or the unknown regions?"
"Because the deep core has something no other region has," Obi-Wan said. "The birthplace of the Jedi Order. The planet Tython." And as he voiced it Obi-Wan felt deep within himself a thread linking him to that place. It felt right.
"All right," Bail said. "If you're convinced you can get us there in one piece I have no objections."
Obi-Wan studied the ancient star map, taking note of previous, long forgotten routes and corridors within the deep core. He'd have to adjust for modern gravitational data to determine a starting point, and was abruptly thankful to have an astromech droid with him. The calculations would likely have taken him weeks to puzzle through.
"Artoo," Obi-Wan said, drawing the still oooo-ing droid's attention to himself. "Please cross-reference this starmap's gravitational data with the present data. I need you to determine the safest point of entry into the deep core."
R-2's dome spun left, then right, and it wiggled from side to side while tootling angrily. Obi-Wan frowned and looked at the ship's display for a translation.
"No Artoo," Obi-Wan said, indignant. "This is not a suicide mission."
Another round of trilling followed. Obi-Wan didn't even look at the translation this time. He simply stood and left the cockpit, throwing over his shoulder as he exited, "Only Anakin would give a droid such robust personality algorithms. . . If travelling into uncharted territory frightens you, Artoo, I can always deactivate you for the journey!"
Every time he came home to her Anakin felt the rest of the world fade away. The war between the Republic and the CIS didn't matter. The Alliance's struggles didn't matter. Not even the slavers mattered.
As far as he was concerned, they were the only two people in existence.
"Padme," Anakin said with gentle affection. He'd been leaning against the door frame of her office, simply watching her, waiting for her to notice him. But she'd been too absorbed in her work. As she finally looked up her face lit up in a smile that Anakin swore was a window to the Force itself.
"Anakin!" Padme said, quick to jump to her feet to throw her arms around his shoulders. "When did you get back?"
"A few hours ago," he said.
"And?" Padme asked, her brows tilting in a show of minor concern. Anakin didn't like when her skin was marred by worry.
"Success. I've secured transponder codes that will allow the Alliance unimpeded travel through the Hutt space hyperlanes."
Padme smiled again, all traces of worry wiped from her face. Anakin smiled along with her.
"That will make matters easier," Padme said. "I don't know how you managed it, but the Alliance is grateful."
"Anything for you," Anakin said, meaning every word.
"I'm glad you've made it back so soon," Padme said, her face relaxing into a more subdued, almost nervous expression. "I have something to tell you."
"What is it?" Anakin asked, scenarios flashing through his head. Was something wrong?
"Anakin," Padme paused, her face flashing from apprehension, to happiness, and back to nervous resolve. "You're going to be a father."
Anakin could barely breath. He was shocked into silence, but then his brain caught up with his heart and the loudest thoughts were of protecting Padme and the new life growing within her.
"Say something," Padme whispered, brows pulling taut in concern.
Anakin smiled and in a loud puff released the breath he'd been holding. He pulled her into his arms and said, "You've made me the happiest man alive."
Travelling through space without the safety of tried and tested navigational equipment wasn't a new experience for Obi-Wan Kenobi. He'd done the same thing several times journeying to and from Ilum. Those had been simpler times, where the most pressing concern had been to successfully obtain a lightsaber crystal.
He remembered how nervous he'd been when, as a boy, he'd entered those caves for the first time. He remembered the grief he carried with him the second time. And he remembered the lightness of his soul the third time. Each journey through the caves of Ilum had left a distinctly different mark upon him, but only once had he set foot on that frozen planet without entering the caves. He'd been as nervous for Anakin as he himself had been as a boy.
That felt like a lifetime ago.
Obi-Wan held his eyes shut as he flowed with the Force, just as he'd learned to do to reach Ilum. Except now there was no experienced Jedi Master to show him the way. He was rediscovering what had been lost. Much as he imagined Master Yoda had done. It was remarkable how the Force increased in clarity the further they ventured into the deep core. Obi-Wan was the space outside, the solar winds, the ship itself. He was the asteroid belt around a shattered planet and he was the unseen particles hurtling through space. Obi-Wan was one with the Force, and the Force bound everything together.
A week had passed since they first entered the mysterious deep core region. Obi-Wan was taking it slow, immersing himself in the Force and travelling with short bursts through hyperspace before reverting and adjusting course. He'd sensed Bail Organa's fear in those first few days, but with every new discovery catalogued by the ship's onboard sensors, the man's tension eased a little. Obi-Wan no longer sensed fear from him, rather, he sensed a carefully controlled anticipation.
An anticipation that Obi-Wan shared as he reverted the ship back to realspace for the last time. Next to him Bail inhaled loudly as the cockpit window allowed them an unobstructed view of a blue and green planet morphing into view with the reversion.
"This is it, isn't it?" Bail asked.
"Yes," Obi-Wan said. He sensed the truth of it. They had finally arrived at Tython.
A moment passed in silence as both men simply stared at the beauty of the globe in front of them. Obi-Wan noted several storm systems dotting the planet's surface. He noted the oceans, the land masses, and was surprised to see that half the planet looked barren.
"Obi-Wan?" Bail asked.
"Hmm?" He answered, distracted by his own thoughts.
"Instruments are picking up minor technological disturbances in the southern hemisphere, as well as signs of life," Bail said. "Shall we take the ship down?"
"Yes," Obi-Wan said, his voice almost a whisper. He piloted the ship towards the planet at just the right angle for entry into the planet's atmosphere. The heat-shielding protected the ship from the incredible friction, but the orange glow it generated was still visible.
And then they were in the atmosphere, flying through dense, white clouds. They travelled over great green valleys and towering, snow-topped mountain ranges. And finally, the mountains opened to a land of green grass and rivers, and in the distance an ancient towering structure stood. Obi-Wan headed straight to it, feeling the Force swallow him like a tidal wave. And then he was certain that his brothers and sisters were down there. So many of them, and yet, far too few.
Obi-Wan rubbed a hand across his face and swallowed thickly. He took a deep breath and slowed the ship after spotting a clear area next to a line of starships. Starships that he recognised.
In the distance he noticed figures running towards them, fanning out around the chosen landing strip. He touched the ship down gently, and powered down its systems.
Bail laughed. "We've made it!" He said.
"We have," Obi-Wan said, a grin slipping onto his face as relief flooded his veins. He stood and left the cockpit, heading straight for the boarding ramp. Bail followed closely behind him, but before Obi-Wan moved to lower the ramp he said, "Wait here please, Bail. Considering the circumstances they will be wary. It shouldn't take long to set everyone at ease."
"Of course," Bail said. "I'll check on Artoo."
Obi-Wan nodded, and watched as Bail disappeared into the galley where the astromech had last parked itself. He turned his attention to the ramp then, and lowered it. Below he could sense fourteen beings. Eight stood near the ramp, while the remaining six were spread around the ship.
They were all incredibly tense, the Force storming through them.
Obi-Wan walked down the ramp with his arms to his sides, raised slightly in a non-threatening posture. Bright sunlight hit his eyes as soon as he was down the ramp, and he had to squint against the glare. Feeling the sun on his face was a welcome sensation after spending well over a week aboard a starship, but he could not lose himself in that particular moment.
Before him the Jedi stood, rigid, hands on the hilts of their lightsabers and hoods raised, obscuring their faces in shadow. None of them moved, and none chose to be the first to speak.
Well, Obi-Wan was good at talking, and so he opened a channel with a simple, gentle, "Hello."
Silence.
Obi-Wan dropped his hands to his sides and sighed. "You know, I've a had an interesting two years," he said. "I'm sure you have as well, but I doubt you've all lost your ability to speak."
"State your business," one of the Jedi said.
Obi-Wan thought that was a rather curious request. He doubted the Jedi got many visitors out all the way on Tython, but he decided to humour them in the most direct way possible;
"I am Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I'm looking for Master Yoda."
A ripple traversed the plenum, resulting in many of the Jedi around the ship relaxing their postures. Obi-Wan even sensed surprise from a few.
"There is someone else aboard your ship," the Jedi to Obi-Wan's left said. His face was hidden, but from his build Obi-Wan surmised he was either human or teevan. Perhaps zabrak.
"Yes, a friend to the Jedi," Obi-Wan said. "Prince Bail Organa of Alderaan."
Footsteps alerted Obi-Wan to the movement of the Jedi behind him. He did not need to turn around to know what they were doing. Still connected to the Force, still flowing with its currents, a part of Obi-Wan was the ship. So when the Jedi began dismantling the ion conversion module of the engines he knew it immediately.
"Is there a reason you're taking my ship apart?" Obi-Wan asked, his voice taking on an edge of tempered steel.
The Jedi continued their task without acknowledging his question, but the one in front of him tilted his head slightly and shifted his feet, as though carefully considering his words. Then, he said, "You will not be needing it."
"And why is that?" Obi-Wan asked. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer. A moment later his feeling proved true.
"No one leaves Tython."