Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to George Lucas. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction. But I am having an outrageously good time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Evinne was fairly certain she'd never seen anything like this mess before.
There was Kenobi, who was a little too Coruscanti to go wandering about the Outer Rim unsupervised. How did a man cultivate such a prim air at his age, anyway?
There was Ryn, of course, so worried about her missing brother she could hardly see straight and stealing sidelong glances at Skywalker just the same.
There was Skywalker, too, clearly awkward around Ryn (it was obvious that something big had happened last night, but evidently it hadn't gone well) and doing a bad impression of focused Jedi.
That left Makesh, who was doing a good impression of tortured outcast, and Evinne herself, who had some pretty conflicted feelings about the mission in general and Kitraal Orun in particular.
Force, what a band of misfits. It's like the cast of a bad holocomedy.
"Well," she said slowly, "Commander Orun has asked me to begin the briefing, so I guess I'll begin at the beginning. Using the information provided by Padawan Olin, we have sketched an outline of Omega's known business interests. Since we have reason to believe he may be involved with my brother, we have narrowed the list to companies or planets that Clan Ardel has traded with in the past. The most likely candidate appears to be Arabin, a world which until fairly recently was under the control of the Trade Federation and therefore exempt from much Senatorial scrutiny."
Obi-Wan lifted a hand. "The Trade Federation no longer has a presence there?"
"According to my sources -" Hondo, but there was no need for them to know that " - they pulled out just over a year ago, possibly because they had depleted the planet's natural resources to the point that it was no longer a profitable venture. Pirates and smugglers have been using the abandoned spaceports for a staging area ever since. What makes it of particular interest to us is that a branch of K'Rikk Chemical was stationed there under Trade Federation control, part of some sort of corporate sharing arrangement. And according to the lab report, K'Rikk is a manufacturer of the chemical toxin found in the gas grenades used in the attack on Orun's quarters early this morning."
Makesh nodded. "That's a lot of coincidence."
"That's what we thought, too." Evinne took a deep breath. "Anticipating a certain amount of resistance from our leaders, Commander Orun and I, in cooperation with Master Windu, have decided to treat this as a joint mission. Makesh Aravel and I will comprise the Lorethan team, rather than forcing Commander Orun to play both sides. I have prepared assignments for each of us, to be completed no later than six hundred hours, Coruscant Standard Time. If we meet that goal, we should be able to ship out by seven hundred hours tomorrow morning. The clock is running, so we need to move quickly if we are to overturn Omega's plot." She passed out the datapads with assignment details. "Any questions?" Nobody said anything, so she nodded. "Then I will turn the briefing over to Master Kenobi, who is coordinating the Jedi effort."
Surveying his team, Obi-Wan couldn't help but feel a moment's qualm. They were all so young - even Makesh couldn't be much past twenty. And this was a mission Anakin might not be ready for. Obi-Wan trusted his apprentice to stay alert and ready for trouble at the fringe of the galaxy, but he wasn't nearly as confident of his ability to stay emotionally uninvolved. Ryn was an attachment, no doubt about it. Anakin cared for her more deeply than the length and nature of their association could explain. Yet Obi-Wan had come to see that his task was not to remove temptation from Anakin's path, but to help him face and overcome it, as Qui-Gon had once done for him.
Siri ...
Looking back wasn't part of the deal.
Evinne and Makesh were unpredictable, necessary but unwelcome variables in their navigation. And Ryn was ... well, Ryn: determined but conflicted, worried about her brother and struggling with her personal feelings. Obi-Wan trusted her integrity, her courage under fire, her selflessness.
Her judgment was another matter.
She stayed quiet through his part of the briefing, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Anakin - not for much longer, he was gaining height on her at an astonishing rate - with her arms folded and her jaw locked. She was clearly unhappy, but since nothing was apt to help her except finding her brother alive and well, there wasn't much Obi-Wan could do that he wasn't already doing.
Evinne stood off to one side, mirroring Ryn's stance but looking focused rather than tense. She wasn't the type to get nervous in a hurry; Obi-Wan could see why Ryn had pushed for her to take a leading role in this mission.
Makesh leaned discreetly against the wall, attentively silent.
Obi-Wan ran down the list of everything the Jedi knew about Omega so far. He saw a flicker of recognition pass through Ryn's eyes a couple of times and guessed that Anakin had already told her some of what he was saying.
He squashed the feeling of betrayal. Their missions hadn't been confidential, and in any case they could trust Ryn with their lives. There was no reason why Anakin should regard their hunt for Omega as a private matter.
It hurt anyway.
"Omega is dangerous," he concluded. "His obsession with the Force presents a threat not only to the Jedi, but to Loreth's mystics. I know that you will all do your best to assist in his capture, but remember: Omega is wily. Be wary of traps. And do not forget the first Jedi principle of combat: survive."
There was someone she had to see before she left.
Ryn carved out a half-hour somehow and tracked Revin down in the Temple branch of the Agri-Corps, where Padawans destined for service were quartered before they were rotated out. Revin wasn't a Padwan - had no ability to manipulate the Force at all - but he had been given a place as a maintenance engineer on one of the Agri-Corps' transport ships, at least temporarily.
The Jedi hadn't turned him away.
She smiled up at him when he opened the door, trying not to let her worries show in her eyes.
"Ryn?" he said, startled but not displeased.
"I heard the news," Ryn said, as cheerfully as she could. "You're going to be saving the galaxy now, huh?"
"Wha - Oh. The Agri-Corps. Well, it's a job, anyway. Room and board."
That's not much, Ryn thought. "People need to eat," she said agreeably. "It's good work. Meaningful."
"Yeah, I guess." Revin stepped back and waved her into his bare little room, even sparser and sadder than her own.
That'll teach me to feel sorry for myself.
She perched on the edge of a chair and studied Revin. "You're not happy about it," she observed at last. "How can I help?"
"I don't think you can." Revin gave her a small smile. "Not everything is your responsibility, you know."
Maybe I'm picking up bad habits from Anakin. "At least tell me what's bothering you."
"I ..." He tried to pace, which was hard as the room couldn't be much more than three strides long. "It's just ... they're Jedi, you know? And I'm ... not."
Ryn considered this. "They aren't, really," she said carefully. "The Agri-Corps is comprised of the ones who didn't make it to Jedihood."
Revin barked a laugh. "Okay, so they're failed Jedi. And I'm not even that."
Ryn forebore to point out that truly failed Jedi were more likely to embark on careers of galactic destruction than crop rotation. "Is it so important to you?"
"I ... maybe. I don't know," Revin admitted. "I just don't ... belong. They're not like me." He looked down. "They were never slaves."
Oh, this is not good. Ryn could feel the churning mix of shame and anger tainting his soul, and it was far too familiar for comfort.
"The fact that you were once a slave doesn't say anything about you except that you are a survivor," she said firmly.
Revin didn't look convinced. He didn't contradict her, but he shuffled his feet and looked away, unhappy.
Come on ...
"You remember my friend Anakin, right?" Ryn said desperately. Ridiculous question, after the night they'd spent under the threadbare blanket Revin had found, the three of them pressed close for warmth.
Revin shuffled again. "Yeah?"
"He was born a slave."
That got his attention. Revin forgot to be sullen and met her eyes, looking a question at her.
"He won his freedom in a Podrace," Ryn said, by way of explanation. "And now he is one of the most powerful Jedi alive." No need to point out that he may be the most powerful Jedi ever born.
"Is that why the Jedi sent him? Because he knew how to act like a slave?"
Their brief, determined verbal sparring with Obi-Wan's reluctance intruded on her mind; Ryn pushed the memory away. "He volunteered," she said, which was at least a part of the truth. "But it might be why Master Kenobi agreed."
"That's ... really good," Revin said, clearly trying to drum up some enthusiasm. "I'm glad Anakin was able to make something of himself." He paused. "But I'm not like that. I'll never be a Jedi. I don't have any special powers. It's not the same."
Ryn sighed. She obviously wasn't making her point here. She fought the urge to press a hand to her aching head. Regrouped and tried again. "I don't ..." love "... respect Anakin so much because he is a powerful Jedi," she said slowly. "I respect him because he is a decent being. He was better than his circumstances. And so are you."
Revin didn't know quite what to make of that; she could feel his uncertainty. Let him think on it. "Anyway," Ryn said, changing the topic before he could come up with a counterargument - a favorite trick of one Master Kenobi. "What's your first mission?
Saying goodbye to Ferus was harder in a way, because of course Ferus would never recognize - or at least never admit - the need to say goodbye at all. Ryn did it anyway.
"We'll be leaving in a few hours," she said, leaning in the doorway of his bedroom after Siri had let her in.
Ferus nodded. "Still no word from Loreth?"
"No. But once we get through the Outer Rim we should be able to punch a hyperwave through without using the relay stations.
"But it's not a sure thing."
"The only thing certain in life is death."
"Cheerful philosophy."
That rare, slow smile warmed her blood.
Ryn let her cheek come to rest against the doorframe and smiled back at him, crookedly. "Sorry. Just ... take care of yourself, will you?"
"Me?" Ferus said. "You're the one flying off to the ends of the galaxy."
"It's home to me," Ryn countered. "You're the one who's going to be racing around the galaxy like some sort of Jedi."
Ferus laughed. "I'll be careful if you promise to do the same."
"You got it."
She didn't hug him goodbye.
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