Chapter 58 - Escape!

Earlier:

Obi-Wan and Yoda stood, highly alert both in the Force and in reality, while Anakin knelt with two probes by a computer terminal's outlet.

"There, I think I have it," Anakin announced as a holographic display popped up from the device.

Yoda and Obi-Wan turned to view the display.

"Of course this would've been a lot easier if I'd been allowed to bring R2 with me." Anakin complained.

"And if that droid had been caught, the Empire would know where we came from." Obi-Wan pointed out.

His former Padawan rolled his eyes. "The way I see it, the main computer powering the tractor beam is here." He pointed to the display. "Whoever designed this did a really lousy job. The tractor beam is coupled with the main reactor in seven locations. If we cause a power loss at one of the terminals, it'll shut down the tractor beam.

Obi-Wan studied the data. "One of them, you say."

"Yes, I'm thinking we hit all seven for good measure." Anakin smiled a sly grin. Obi-Wan was about to whack him over the head when he noticed a similar sly grin on the grandmaster's face.

"Take them longer to repair, that would," Yoda pointed out.


Later:

Obi-Wan crept along a narrow ledge to the other side of the control panel. Anakin had told him exactly what to alter. He pulled several levers and twisted a knob. When the job was done, he crept back and used the Force to cause two troopers to turn their backs. Expertly, he slipped through a passage out of the area.

"All Units Level Five." A blaring alarm went off and puzzled the Jedi for a second.

'Who's on Level Five? Nothing was on Level Five that Anakin showed us.'

Obi-Wan hid in a narrow passage, as several troopers marched down the main corridor at once, likely headed to whatever disturbance they were all called to.


Even Later:

After shutting down two more terminals, Obi-Wan went to meet up with Anakin and Yoda on the Millenium Falcon. Obi-Wan hurried along one of the tunnels leading to the hangar. Just before he reached it, Darth Vader stepped into view at the end of the tunnel, not ten feet away. Vader Lit his saber. Obi-Wan also ignited his and stepped slowly forward.

"I've been waiting for you Obi-Wan. Where is your precious Chosen One?"

Obi-Wan then reached down his bond and felt a powerful block. Anakin was wisely shielding his location. "Not where you will find him."

"I'd wonder if he'd like to fight a real master?"

"You're a master of evil Darth." Obi-Wan turned his saber into an offensive pose, striking at the dark lord's defenses. The two battled back and forth in that corridor. As he fought Obi-Wan came to a startling realization. He couldn't win this battle. If it continued on, the Sith would look around for targets to weaken his opponent. And if he found Luke, or Anakin… Things would go from bad to worse.

"Your powers are weak, old man," Vader taunted.

'No one calls me Old Man but Anakin,' Obi-Wan thought.

"You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than…" Suddenly Obi-Wan was not standing alone in the corridor anymore. Anakin and Yoda seemed to have leapt to his side, each holding their lightsabers on the offensive.

"Wanted to fight a Master, Tel-Mac?" Anakin spat.


Present:

"Open the door!" Anakin shouted at Luke and whoever else that was standing outside the Falcon. Obi-Wan and Yoda jumped onto the Falcon in a hurry and Anakin began ordering the opposite. "Close the Hatch! Tell Han we've gotta get out of here!"

A loud crack was heard as a dark sider tried to force his way onto the ship.

Anakin paused for a moment as he looked around to see more people than they'd taken off with onboard. They didn't feel like enemies. They felt more like friends. This meant one thing, as Anakin did the math.

"Dad…" Luke tried to say.

Anakin put a finger up. "I told you to stay put."

"But we had to…" Luke tried again.

"Daddy?" a familiar voice interrupted him.

Anakin turned, his eyes growing bigger and wetter by the moment. "Leia, Princess." He fell into a hug, as they both felt the ship take off.

In a minute, Anakin wiped his eyes and pulled his children with him into the engineering bay. Obi-Wan and Yoda followed them.

Anakin folded his arms, "If you think this gets you out of a lecture, you've got another thing coming. I told you to wait onboard."

"But… Dad, I had to try something." Luke argued again.

"Who are the rest of these people?" Anakin asked.

"They're my crew." Leia answered.

"And the real princess." Luke added.

Obi-Wan didn't want to question what 'real princess' was supposed to mean.

"We just went out to see if we could find her in their database. Instead they had a princess they were getting ready to execute." Luke explained.

Leia stood there with her arms crossed. "Don't look to me for help. You weren't supposed to come here at all. I told you specifically…"

"Enough." Anakin silenced her.

"Permission to leave, neither of you had." Yoda said.

"But then it was your idea to split up to go after everyone else." Luke accused.

"Didn't hear you objecting much!" Leia shouted back.

Anakin wiped his hand tiredly down his face.

"A plan, we had. Wait and rescue Leia together, it was," Yoda added.

Obi-Wan spoke up, "Do you realize if you had been captured we would have had to rescue you both. Not to mention the data the empire would've gotten from one of the droids." Both twins looked down in shame. Obi-Wan wasn't finished. "By now, I think overdoing it is a Skywalker family trait."

Anakin gave him a look of betrayal.

"I remember hearing we only needed to shut down one reactor to turn off the tractor beam. You insisted on doing all seven." Obi-Wan then turned to his little green cohort. "And whatever you did to the plumbing on Deck Nine was not part of the plan."

Both Jedi blushed under his scolding. Obi-Wan felt better all of a sudden.


As a Jedi Master who'd taught many younglings, Yoda knew they were tough on the twins. In his time, if a Padawan had disobeyed orders to the extent that his own had done, they would've been disbanded from the order immediately, and likely without a second thought. That's how Yoda felt when he'd first gotten the news of Leia's departure.

She had left him a recording, but Yoda had already heard the one she left for her father. When he got home, he placed the datastick on his table, the message unviewed.

Yoda had his padawans leave before. That didn't make this any easier. In fact, it isn't any easier whether they are a Master or a Padawan. Losing that bond, it cuts into your very soul.

Yoda meditated a lot for the next several days. He kept getting drawn back to an old memory. The unopenable puzzle box he'd given his Padawan. She'd managed to get it open, despite the key not being able to stretch to the box. And what did she say when she'd finally opened it? 'What is it with the rock?'

Yoda then went to look at said trinket. The old Holocron made by his Master. Yoda meditated and again the Holcron opened and the gatekeeper emerged.

"Padawan. Have you missed me? Or have you found yourself with an unsolvable puzzle which must be solved?"

"No solutions to my problems, there are." Yoda said. He felt defeated.

"Really? Is that what the puzzle solver determined? Your Padawan." Yoda's Master leaned in.

Yoda sighed. "She left. A solution with the order, she did not see."

"Then perhaps, that is your solution," The Holocron suggested. Yoda's mouth dropped open in shock. "I did say that an unusual problem requires an unusual solution, more often than not."

In another instant the holocron gatekeeper vanished, and Yoda was left looking in the direction of the table where he'd left Leia's datastick. Gathering up what strength of soul he could muster, he got up and walked over to the table.

Yoda picked up the datastick and placed it into a device. A hologram of Leia appeared. She looked sad. "Master, I record this one last because I'd hoped it would get easier." She gasped. "Alas, it's not easy enough. When you asked me to be your Padawan, you asked me first why I wanted to be a Jedi. I didn't have an answer for you, and you said that we can learn that together. Well, I've learned what I need to do now. Those monsters in the galaxy. The ones that scared me as a youngling, well someone needs to fight them. Master, you helped me to learn this, and I can't thank you for it enough. Now it's time for me to go on my own path. May the Force be with you. Her Holo disappeared as the recording finished.


It was thinking about these events that Yoda went looking for Leia again. In the main hold Anakin knelt by the engineering station, studying it fervently.

"And I told you. There isn't a tracker on my ship. I know her like the back of my hand." Han insisted over the comm.

"There. I found it!" Anakin shouted as he picked up some tools.

"Can it be undone?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Yes, it'll take me thirty minutes."

"Good, Han…" Obi-Wan addressed the comm again. "Deviate off course for thirty as we unwire this thing."

"Alright, I can't believe they put a tracker on you, my baby." Han's voice again came over the comm.

"If you hadn't left the falcon when we said to stay put. This wouldn't have happened," Obi-Wan lectured.

"Touché, Touché." Han acknowledged.

"Where is Leia?" Yoda asked.

Luke pointed up the other passageway. "Back in the number three hold."

Yoda acknowledged it with a nod of his head and continued his search.


When Yoda walked into the rear hold, Leia was setting up a makeshift bedroll on the floor. "How do you settle in?" he asked her.

"Oh fine. We let Mara have the last remaining bunk," Leia replied, not yet giving him eye contact.

"Too bad it is that Mr. Solo lacked foresight to see this possibility," Yoda said.

"Yeah, much of the original quarters was turned into extra hold space. I'm sure it made sense at the time. Hopefully this trip won't take too long." She reluctantly gave Yoda a miniscule amount of eye contact.

Yoda pulled out a string of beads, and Leia's eyes opened wide. "Thought about this a lot, I have. Your request to leave the order I reject. My padawan, you continue to be."

Leia closed her eyes to keep back tears as she shook her head. "No, no. When we get to Alderaan you can go back to Tatooine, but I'm staying with the rebellion."

"In hiding, the Jedi have been. To survive after the purge, it has worked. But no more! For us to join the galaxy's fight, the time has come. Teach me this, you did."

Leia opened her eyes and really looked at her former, or maybe not so former, master. His heart was genuine and bled with attachment. She opened her hand on impulse, and he dropped the beads into her palm. She closed her fingers around the precious beads.

They'd replace the padawan braid she had cut out before she started bootcamp. It was with tears in front of a bathroom mirror that she made the cut, and it felt like an ending. She didn't even keep the severed braid. That was an honor for knights, not drop outs. But this! This was a second chance she didn't know she wanted. As she sat there and started to cry, small hands wrapped around her in a hug.

"My Padawan you will always be." Yoda whispered into her ear.


Hello

For the first parts I wanted to add a bit of angst as to whether Obi-Wan would live. I got some of those lines from the script to A New Hope. But none of us expected Anakin to leave Obi-Wan to fight Vader on his own, really.

Then I am not very good at writing fight scene action shots. And I didn't wholly know how to choreograph the whole thing. So I chose to cut it off there, and do the next scene with them running from Vader.

In case anyone needs the refresher, Vader is really Tel-Mac, the Jedi who fell in chapter twenty four.

I remember reading on Wookieepedia that it was a knight's right to leave the order at any time, but Padawans, being treated as legal minors mostly, had to ask their Master first and the council next. Leia didn't do this, so it's a simple case of her Master saying "no" and she's still a Jedi Padawan. I hope the end scene was cute and fluffy. That's what I was trying for anyways.

I had them both reference some things that happened in previous chapters. Yoda's memory of the unsolvable puzzle box and the holocron from his old Master was in chapter thirty seven. And it was in chapter thirty five that Yoda first chose Leia as a Padawan.