Chapter Twenty-One: Saber Rattling

Beneath the perpetual early dusk, Serenno teemed with life.

Obi-Wan extended his senses and took them all in—people in the thousands wandering the platforms or riding between them, or standing still and looking up into the sky. On Coruscant, the sheer number of citizens could occasionally feel like an assault on his perceptions, choking them out. Here, though, the populace was thinner, bustling but manageable. Feeling them gave him a sense of renewal.

He wondered, glancing toward Dooku, if the Count felt the same standing on the balcony, looking down at his subjects. Qui-Gon's old master was quiet this morning; he'd greeted Obi-Wan courteously when they met again in the throne room, but had lapsed into silence shortly thereafter. Now, he simply gazed from the height of his palace, almost motionless, cape flapping in the vague breeze. His bodyguards were several yards removed, standing near the doorway that led out here; for all intents and purposes, Obi-Wan and Dooku were alone.

Clearing his throat, the general asked, "Do you come up here often?"

Slowly, Dooku nodded. "Sometimes the open air is the best place to think. Don't you agree?"

"Indeed." He felt a pang as another trail of air wafted across his face. "I wish I could experience it more often."

"Space travel, I suppose, does not leave one with many opportunities for it." At this last, he broke his eyes from below and turned to look at Obi-Wan. "I wasn't aware you'd taken command of a Defense Force division until the Temple contacted me to share the news of Qui-Gon. I must say, learning she'd almost died saving the life of a Republic general who I'd passed in the halls on occasion was rather a lot of news to deliver to an aging exile."

Smiling, Obi-Wan said, "Ah, so you did remember me. I couldn't be sure." Looking back down at the crowds, he continued, "I do hope you don't really think it's an exile. I'm sure you'd be welcomed back—"

"A surety that I'm afraid I don't share, General," the Count replied. It wasn't bitter or angry—delivered in the same calm, firm tone in which Dooku said most everything—but Obi-Wan regretted the misstep anyway, wincing inwardly. "And in any case, coming back is not something I anticipate happening, regardless of how this summit is to proceed."

"Of course you had your reasons," the general said.

Dooku sounded faintly amused. "Reasons that, perhaps, you're trying to divine?" Before Obi-Wan could summon a convincing denial, the Count waved a hand dismissively. "I take no offense, General Kenobi—but that is not why you are here."

Sighing quietly, he looked upward into the blue sky. "Speaking of which, I imagine they'll be arriving any minute now."

Indeed they would. Obi-Wan flicked his own eyes upward, stomach twinging faintly. Let's get it over with quickly.

Leaning closer to the Count, he said in a low voice, "I would rather this were not about to take place."

"As a Jedi?" Dooku asked. "Or as a general?"

"Both. The Chancellor is much more given to . . . ostentation than I'd like."

"Ah, General Kenobi, how diplomatic of you," the Count said. Once again, there was faint amusement, but Obi-Wan's heart sank—this amusement was chilled, laced with sarcasm. "'Saber-rattling' is the term I might have used."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to protest, but before this could happen a rumbling filled the air. Through a violet cloud, a distant light began to increase in intensity. Below, the crowds grew still, staring expectantly at the sky.

Then, like a dagger tearing through a curtain, the prow of the Coelacanth pierced the cloud.

The Star Destroyer, a kilometer-long piece of metal, cruised through the air, every single exterior light blazing. Tiny flecks of illumination maneuvered around it in tight spirals—the Sawsharks in their Z-95s, no doubt, as the final touch. It was an easy sight to find awe-inspiring, even beautiful—indeed, below many in the crowd pointed upward, wonderstruck.

Obi-Wan did not share this view.

When Cody had informed him of the instructions Palpatine had passed on, the general had taken a moment to process them. "He wants us to do what with the ship?"

Cody hadn't looked any happier about it than Obi-Wan had. "Bloody grandstanding, if you ask me, but he didn't."

And the general had hoped that's what it would be taken as—grandstanding, obnoxious but not malicious. But Dooku had taken that hope and calmly dashed it against a rock.

Over the distant roar of the Coelacanth's engines, Obi-Wan said to the ruler of Serenno, "I assure you, that is not my intention."

"Your intention. And what of the Republic's?"

As the Star Destroyer floated above the city, Dooku turned once again to look at Obi-Wan. "I sympathize with you, General, truly. I can feel your conflict. A Jedi who is forced to put aside his qualms and obey orders because he is a general; a general who can never truly obey his superiors because he is a Jedi." Arching an eyebrow, he held the general's eyes with his own piercing gaze. "A problem that, I fear, more and more Jedi must be suffering since I left the Order."

Obi-Wan made no effort to tamp down his feelings—Dooku had already sensed what he'd sensed. "I'm afraid I don't take your meaning," he replied.

"It speaks to the Order's oversaturation of Republic positions, does it not, that no less than three Jedi have been sent to negotiate with this world? Two of whom, I might add, are directly involved in making war. 'In the Republic but not of it' is how the expression went, if my memory serves. What distinction there was seems to be breaking down."

It hung unspoken in the air: Why do you suppose I left the Order when Serenno passed to me?

But because it was unspoken, Obi-Wan could not answer it. And besides, it occurred to him as he watched the Sawsharks loop around the Coelacanth that he might not have an answer. Yes, the idea of a Jedi ruling a moon seemed self-evidently absurd. But his own position as a Jedi who answered directly to the ruler of the galaxy was seeming less and less tenable as of late.

For several moments, the pair simply stood in the breeze and watched the Star Destroyer slowly move across the horizon. Eventually, Obi-Wan said, "I assure you that the Republic has no intention of antagonism. We wish for this summit to ensure Serenno's safety from the Confederacy—for everyone to benefit. I do not agree with the Chancellor's taste, but I assure you that is all this is—a lapse in taste."

This time, Dooku did not turn to look away from the Coelacanth. Instead, he simply said, "Your ship may remain until the first day of the summit has concluded. After that, it is to return to orbit. Is that clear, General Kenobi?"

As the Star Destroyer slowly began to dip behind another cloud, Obi-Wan nodded. "Absolutely."

"Karin needs to watch herself, she's gonna clothesline herself on the bridge if she goes any tighter," Anakin said, watching the Sawsharks weave about through his pair of macrobinoculars.

From beside him, Qui-Gon chuckled. "You mean to tell me you can tell who's who from here?"

"I mean, I can't tell tell, but you fly with someone long enough, you pick up on flight patterns." Lowering the binoculars, he glanced over at the other Jedi; she leaned on her cane, watching the show. "Pretty impressive considering they didn't get any practice in beforehand, huh?"

"No question," she replied. "I doubt Dooku will feel the same way, though."

"Aww, come on, he can't be that much of a killjoy."

Qui-Gon chuckled briefly. "Oh, he could. But that's not what I mean. I don't think he takes kindly to having a warship paraded around his moon."

Dooku, Anakin knew, was somewhere above them—he and Obi-Wan had gone to the uppermost balcony of the palace to observe the arrival. He and Qui-Gon had gone to a lower, but still private, viewing spot. Just as well, he thought to himself. Means I can ask her about him.

Striding over to where his fellow Jedi stood, he asked, "So, about him—"

Eyes glittering with amusement, she raised one of her hands. "No, I can't tell you why he left."

"C'mon, it's not classified or anything."

"No, but I'm afraid I don't know why. I don't think it's necessarily as simple as one reason, anyway." She shot a glance back at the Coelacanth just as it began to pass through another cloud. "People are complicated creatures, Anakin. Why have one motivation when we can have a whole cluster of them?"

"Okay then," he said, leaning closer. "Your best guess. Why'd he do it?"

Her eyes trailed across the sky, following the Coelacanth as it dipped fully into the cloud. "Well, first and foremost, there's all this." She waved at the spires rising up below them, at the crowds watching the Star Destroyer's course. "When Dooku's uncle died, it fell to him to rule Serenno. He could have abdicated, gone on with the Order, but he didn't. I imagine he felt it would be a dereliction of duty."

"So why not just stay in the Order and run the moon?"

Turning to look him in the eye, Qui-Gon said, "Let me ask you a question. Why did you resist joining the Jedi for so long?"

"I—"

He remembered the gnawing fear that had lurked within him for years, ever since he'd first realized he was . . . different. The rush that came whenever he used the Force to do something impossible, the terror when he realized that wielding that power felt good—especially when he was angry. The nauseous, gut-deep horror when he'd committed acts of violence, torn living things limb from limb, with the energy that dwelled within him—even when it had saved the people he loved.

"It scared me," he said simply. "I didn't think I could handle it. It could be so easy to . . . to let things go wrong . . ."

"Well," Qui-Gon said gently, "imagine that you're the absolute monarch of a world. Hundreds of thousands of people under your control. And in addition to that power, you work for a network of people who can use the Force, who operate all over the galaxy outside any governmental jurisdiction. See the problem?"

He imagined himself standing at the top of the palace's spire, looking down at an entire world of people under his command. Above them in all senses of the word—in location, in station, in power. All his decisions the law, answerable to no one.

A shudder passed through him.

"Yeah," he replied quietly.

"That, of course," Qui-Gon said, "leads into what I'm pretty sure his other reason for leaving was." Rather than continuing, she simply extended a finger upward.

The entire balcony darkened, thrown under shadow, as the Coelacanth passed in front of Aurora's massive shape, erasing the glowing orb from sight. The white flagstones below their feet shifted into gray; Anakin's mechanical hand, which had intermittently glittered with reflected light, became matte. The Star Destroyer's external lights shone like a constellation; the Sawsharks like luminescent birds.

"Dooku," the female Jedi said, watching the battleship drift overhead like a massive kite, "was never happy with how much the Jedi and the Republic have been blending together. And he left before Obi-Wan was in charge of that eyesore."

"Hey, she's not an eyesore." Lifting his mouth in a sly grin, he added, "And you're the one who owns the racecar, you can't talk."

"I have it on good authority that you like that racecar, Skywalker," she shot back, her own eyes glinting. "At any rate, I got that thing as a gift from a former Chancellor of the Republic. Seems to only feed into my point. There are Jedi in the military, Jedi in government offices. And most of the worlds we protect are in the Republic, besides the Hutt Space enclave." The leftover amusement in her eyes from their trading ship insults began to fade. "Hell, there are Jedi who've helped the Republic colonize new planets before."

"Wait, what?" he asked, his voice rising in surprise.

Qui-Gon nodded. "Mostly Knights who assisted in liberating outsider worlds from dictators, or Scholars who helped establish educational institutes after frontier systems gained membership. Believe it or not, I was as much an outlander as you and Amidala for the first several years of my life. It was a Jedi Scholar who discovered me once my planet was inducted into the Republic."

Anakin supposed that he must have heard of this somewhere before—Qui-Gon didn't speak about the Jedi taking part in this as though it were a secret. But something about the way she described it made him squirm. It felt . . . creepy, somehow. "How'd your parents feel about you leaving?"

"Ah," she said, waving a hand dismissively, "my parents were dead. Got killed in the crossfire when the local tinpot dictator dug in his heels. Barely remember them, to be honest, it was so long ago."

It wasn't a lie, but Anakin could feel that her outward flippancy was a front. There was a deep sadness behind it, tangible through the Force. "I'm sorry," he said simply; then, a moment later, "Is that why you ended up in Interplanetary Outreach?"

"I suppose so, yes. So I could make sure that new worlds joined peacefully, like this."

". . . but then there's that," Anakin finished for her, pointing up at the Coelacanth.

"Yes, well. Not my idea."

As the Star Destroyer's silhouette ceased its eclipse of Aurora and the shadows began to retreat, Anakin was troubled by a new thought. "Qui-Gon, you would never—you don't think Dooku had the right idea, do you?"

"If you're asking whether I'd ever leave the Order, the answer's no," she replied, reaching forward and patting his flesh hand with hers reassuringly. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I'll admit that Dooku's reasons for leaving seem to have been prescient. But I prefer reforming things from within to just walking away."

Stepping back from the balcony's edge, she stretched. "And speaking of walking away, I've got to move before my entire body is stiff. Shall we head back inside to wait for the others?"

Wordlessly, he trailed her back toward the interior of the palace, raising his eyes one more time to watch the Sawsharks in their dance around the Star Destroyer.

Suddenly, the fun had gone out of it.

He didn't have to wonder how Padmé would have felt knowing the Jedi took active part in bringing new worlds over to the Republic. Nor did he have to guess whether she would have approved of him entering the order had she known. And while an adolescent part of him whined, She's not your mother, Skywalker, he knew he wouldn't want to face her if she ever found out.

But is it even wrong? he thought to himself. Padmé certainly thought so. Dooku seemed to be of the same mind, if what Qui-Gon said was true. But making things better was the Jedi's job. Why not help liberate a planet if it was going to

(kill Qui-Gon's parents)

make things better in the long run?

Remember how horrible you thought it would have been for Dooku to rule while remaining a Jedi? he whispered to himself. Having that responsibility for so many people, making the decisions with nothing to check you?

But it's not like that, he argued back, the Jedi aren't making the calls, they're just doing what the Republic wants them to—

Which was another part of Dooku's problem, the inner voice finished.

"Anakin? You coming?"

Startled, he glanced up to see Qui-Gon standing in the doorway, leaning on her cane, staring at him—he must have stopped walking midway across the balcony. A sudden breeze tore at his face, making him shiver.

"Right, yeah," he said, "on my way." Jogging forward, he followed her back into the palace.

Obi-Wan. I need to talk to Obi-Wan about this.

Jedi Archives: Token of Unbinding

Handcrafted medallion bestowed upon those who choose to leave the Jedi Order. During a private ceremony, a Temple Chaplain guides the departing Jedi in one final meditation, concluding with the gifting of the token. No two tokens are identical. They are always crafted by a Jedi close to the one leaving—usually their own master or student.

On one side, a portion of the ritual unbinding meditation is inscribed—"The Order welcomed you in peace, as you now depart in peace. May the light shine upon you as you go. The Force will be with you, always." On the reverse side of the medallion, the crest of the Jedi Order is carved. This serves as a reminder that the departed Jedi is always welcome to return to the Order, should they so choose.