Armistice

Scene 38

Anakin drummed the fingers of his prosthetic hand against the comm-terminal's console, the steady staccato tap of neurocompatible alloy against dull plastoid a balm to his overwrought nerves.

"So, yeah," he ended his report. "The little choobazzi-nuba weaseled his way outta prison and all the way over to Deodar. Where he engaged in a bit of espionge and sabotage on the side. He's got a major chip on his shoulder, that's for sure."

Obi-Wan's shimmering blue hologram crossed its miniature arms. "Well, you can't keep a good man down," the Jedi master observed, dryly.

Anakin glanced over his shoulder to the quiet corner of the docking bay where Snips held their prisoner at lightsaber point. Best to be on the safe side with a sneaky barve like Fett Junior. "Speaking of which, how long do we have to keep hold of this guy? He's a pain in the buki."

That question was difficult, even for Obi-Wan. The hologram's brows rose and the static interference doubled as the latter person released a long sigh. "The Kaminoan government is within its legal rights to demand his return."

That made Anakin's stomach churn with bile. "Kriff that, Master! We are not handing him over to those karbuku cloners!"

"I did not say we were," Obi-Wan shot back, tightly.

Stand off. At least he didn't have to listen to a star forsaken lecture on proper custody of the emotions. The longer the war wore on, the fewer bantha-chisszzk spiels on passionless acceptance Anakin had to tolerate, and not just because he had attained rank. Privately, not that Anakin would ever dare accuse an exalted Council member of such egregious violation of protocol, Obi-Wan himself struggled with emotion. It was there, all right – you just had to hunt it down, corner it in a dark corner of the man's labyrinthine soul, and wrestle it out of him.

Of course you would probably pay for your audacity with a figurative arm or leg, but hey.

"You know you hate the idea as much as I do," Anakin pressed.

"I do not hate," Obi-Wan insisted.

Which was utter crap, any way you looked at it. Obi-Wan hated all kinds of things, from "flying" to incompetent droids, to bad table manners and being filthy, all the way down the line to outrageous injustice and bitter violence and unending death. Obi-Wan hated the war with every fiber of his being. He was just too proud to admit it. Anakin snorted his dubiety and folded his own arms, mirroring his friend's stubborn posture.

"We will do what we must," the older man insisted. Even in the hologram, you could see some of the fine lines around his eyes, the lighter streaks in his beard that indicated encroaching grey. "Keep hold of Fett; if necessary, we can employ him as a bargaining chip to force more information out of Kamino."

Somewhere in the background, the sleemo upstart bounty hunter was mouthing off to Snips. Maybe Obi-Wan had a point. Fett was far from lovable when you got right down to it.

"Look," the young Knight reopened negotiations cautiously. "Fett thinks the Kaminoans are making his clones sick on purpose – some kinda ploy to raise the market price by reducing supply."

Obi-Wan chuckled darkly, and leaned back in his chair, causing the projection to blur as he withdrew from optimal focusing range for the holo-cam. "So now he's an economist. We'll have his name on the ballot for the next Chancellior election next." A beat. "Not that elections seem to be all the fashion these days."

"There's no time for an election in the middle of a war!" Anakin resented any suggestion that his friend Palpatine was somehow manipulating circumstances to remain in office longer than the prescribed term. "It's constitutional – and we are not having this discussion right now."

The other Jedi shrugged their mutual annoyance away. "And what did Fett hope to gain by loitering around the training facilty?"

Anakin's mouth twisted. "He was hoping to collect evidence for blackmail. According to him, the Kams owe him his father's back-salary and a stipend in perpetuam."

"Oh, I see."

"Yeah, well." A shared grin. "But what about his theory?"

But Obi-Wan shook his head. "No; I don't think so. Lama Su is just as concerned as the Republic to locate the source of the problem. He is simply desirous of keeping the defect secret. He confessed to me that his own people cannot isolate the contaminant, though he is confident it is located in a genetic matrix used to manufacture certain.. conditioning compounds."

Even at a distance of three hundred parsecs, Anakin could feel his companion's revulsion like a fist to the gut. Obi-Wan also hated anything touching on perverse applications of the medical sciences, a bone-deep aversion that often made his former padawan wonder what traumatic experiences lay behind it.

He focused on the engineering aspect of the problem instead. "That should be easy to fix. Can't they just replace that matrix with the one they use for the clone embryos in the first place?"

"No… I asked him the same thing. But apparently the main genetic code is preserved in a complex stasis unit; to deconstruct its shielding now would be to endanger the integrity of the sample. And without Fett to supply a new version, that means risking the cessation of all production."

Anakin whistled through clenched teeth. "So that's why they want Boba. As insurance."

"Yes. But I'm more curious to know how the matrix was tampered with. And by whom. Premier Su lays his suspicions on a Service Corps intern present in Tipoca City a few months ago." A mask fell over Obi-Wan's features, a sudden neutralizing of his expression that set off alarms in his friend's mind.

"Somebody you know."

"Perhaps. We'll talk later. In the meanwhile, don't allow Fett to escape again."

Yeah, right. Anakin cast one more look at his padawan and her churlish prisoner. "Easier said than done, Master," he groused.

"Just how you like it." And with that parting quip, the Jedi master cut the link.