The Unbroken Vow of a Jedi

by TheBadArtist

After the grueling Clone Wars have come to a crossroad, Anakin Skywalker must face the consequences of his killing the Chancellor while coming face to face with the one he loved but could never have. As the Jedi fight for their lives against the ruthless Order 66, a storm of political intrigue, assassination attempts, and chaotic battles ensue in the wake of the Dark Lord's death.

6. Chapter 6

Everything belongs to Lucasfilm - all disclaimers apply

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Unbroken Vow of a Jedi: Chapter 6

The Mend

In a sobering attempt to teach the Younglings about the values that are central to Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi tells them the story he endured on Lothal along with his Padawan learner, Anakin Skywalker. Obi-Wan delves freely into the cunning machinations of their former informant, Alta Umba, who had once been their key to finding the being that was behind the Quandanium alloy shipments to Geonosis. And, most importantly, Obi-Wan recalls a time when the bond shared between he and Anakin had broken, and he explains how - through the events on Lothal - Anakin came to forgive his Master.

Realizing that the mission of Lothal is a valuable lesson to remember for himself as well, Obi-Wan humbles himself and teaches the Younglings the importance of foregoing attachments.

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*Just a side note: this chapter doesn't have any romance, BUT it is a Romance/Action-Adventure story, and this chapter is just action-adventure. This chapter is best suited for those who enjoyed the Clone Wars*

*Warning: do not read if you have trauma from 9/11*

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Three ½ Weeks After the First Battle of Geonosis

On Lothal

The last beep sounded as it flew back towards its owner, and the following combustion scorched the outside of Bendi's Cantina. Panels trembled, holovid outputs shook from their mount on the walls and broke offline, and any untouched carton of alcohol burst at the hands of the shockwave.

There was a hearty, resounding clap of fire about them all, and then the following boosh from an impressive aftershock. The squeal of a child wailed out.

Much to the bewilderment that Obi-Wan felt emanating from the guest-bomber, he could tell that no one within the cantina had come to harm. After he had warned his Padawan about the bomb and yielded it back towards its source, Anakin had acted appropriately and made haste to shield the attacker and the entrance to the bar. But thanks to the shockwave itself, Obi-Wan found his senses somewhat befuddled as he took stock of the state of the environment. He was satisfied to say that the bar couldn't have looked any worse for wear than it already had been, and Bendi was already long out for the count. And this new aggressor, who was held firmly to the tiles of the port's boulevard by Anakin's outstretched hand, writhed in panic as Obi-Wan slowly emerged from the beast of smoke that coursed from the bar's mouth.

The bomber spluttered out, utterly stupefied. "H-how? How did that- what happened!?"

Obi-Wan ignored her as he assessed the state of the adjacent businesses, food stands, and unlucky townsfolk. Through his pleasure in finding that the civilians - while scattering over themselves in a panic – were relatively unharmed, he found himself saddened by the derelict state of the port city.

A light could be sensed, and he could feel it, but just beyond it was an antagonizing mass of dilapidation and ruin. For now, the light prevailed, as it had done for hundreds of millennia.

The planet of Lothal had once been settled by early Jedi warriors some three millennia ago and remained to be the bearer of an ancient Jedi Temple, along with a considerable affinity for the light side of the Force. And in direct conflict with that nugget of history, stood before Obi-Wan a vagrant and corrupted port city that thrived on shaving the planet's precious resources to the bone, that thrived on the backs of kidnapped children, and that thrived upon the pockets of morally dodgy men such as Bendi. Obi-Wan shallowly wondered if the atrocities committed against the planet's ecosystem and atmosphere by the mining facilities and spice refineries alone would be enough to one day corrupt the planet's natural light side vergence.

Obi-Wan nearly shivered at the thought before turning his attention back towards the bomber. He appraised her carefully before saying, "You, my dear, are not the person I had the hopes of meeting today."

She gave a haughty chuckle. "You're not the only one I've-" she started to say before she stopped herself short.

There was a small sob from within the bar.

Obi-Wan felt where her sentence had been leading. "Disappointed today? I would imagine so, seeing as how my friend and I haven't had our atoms divided and dispersed about the cantina."

"It was very close," Anakin murmured as he came to Obi-Wan's side, his outstretched bionic fingers simmering a bit.

Her panic began anew at the sight of Anakin, and Obi-Wan kneeled before her reassuringly. "Please, we mean you no harm so long as you remain harmless. But try anything like that again and we will take any steps necessary to ensure the safety of others as well as ourselves."

Her eyebrows trembled in a show of courage. "So, you saved me for what I know?"

"For what you can tell us," Anakin said. "And, from your timing and obvious directive, I'm assuming that you're in cahoots with a woman named Alta Umba? Or are we to reason that this little attempt was all up to coincidence?"

The woman shrugged. "Isn't everything?" She said before shuddering. "My-my head feels like it's on fire."

Obi-Wan looked at Anakin suspiciously, but he could see that his Padawan was doing nothing other than holding her down with the Force.

"Don't look at me," Anakin said before releasing his hold as she began to writhe once more.

"It hurts! H-help!" She said with imploring eyes towards Anakin. He started to move towards her before Obi-Wan protested.

"Wait, Anakin, I don't sense anything wrong with her."

Anakin obeyed instantly. "I don't either, Master," he said dully, pulling back to where he stood beside his Master.

Obi-Wan waited. "Then why did you go for her?"

"Better than waiting her problem out. Even if she were to get me, she wouldn't be able to do anything much with you standing back."

Obi-Wan gave his consent with a gesture of his hand. "Okay, we'll see what she does then."

Anakin resumed his move towards the woman as she continued to lay squirming in pain, the settling smoke whishing about them all as he did. And, as Obi-Wan predicted, the woman aggressively head-butted Anakin in the nose before he was even fully crouched at her side. Not even a half-second had passed before she revealed a compact neural stunner around her wrist to set it upon the side of Anakin's throat.

She dashed away before Obi-Wan could properly assess the damage, but other than Anakin's hair giving off a little smoke, he seemed to be fine.

"Master, she's getting away!" Anakin said in confusion as Obi-Wan refrained to ensue the chase.

"Just making sure you were still alive, my young Padawan," Obi-Wan assured him as he began to quickly judge the body of the port city. The buildings that stood closest to the water stood at a reasonable height of about four to five meters. However, when facing southeast with their back towards Bendi's Cantina, opposite to the sea, one had to tilt their head upwards to see any semblance of a horizon as the buildings grew in both height and number.

When watching as the perpetrator made a weaving pattern in a direction that was vaguely southward, Obi-Wan made the quick decision to scale the ten-meter building just across from the cantina.

Anakin followed without question and the usual revisionary side-note.

"You do seem to be having a tough time of it today," Obi-Wan added as he made his leap to the building's roof.

Anakin said nothing in return, and Obi-Wan no longer found it strange.

They vaulted without synchronization - but with plenty grace – over the architecture, domes, and building intervals, making a direct beeline for the alleyway that they saw the unknown woman go down.

"Anakin, see if you can cut her off at the right!" Obi-Wan instructed, pointing out with his right hand to dismiss their formation. Anakin immediately banked off to the right, making a substantial leap over a smaller boulevard, narrowly missing being t-boned by a civilian speeder in the air traffic. When he landed, he bolted off out of sight, speeding off to outreach the assailant's path while Obi-Wan stayed on his current course; anywhere behind her path.

Finally landing a visual on the woman once more as he made his way towards the buildings that sided the large alleyway she ran along, Obi-Wan prepared himself for the leap and the resulting landing that would put himself just behind her. The garb she wore didn't particularly stand out among the everyday citizens of Galof, but after the contained explosion at Bendi's Cantina happened, and after the initial panic, normal people remained to stand mostly still and speak loudly to one another in groups as they tried to gossip about what happened. The assailant was the only person that was running, and she knew it.

And she was quick to rectify the situation just as Obi-Wan landed behind her with a shoulder roll.

"Quick! Run! There are bombs sea-bound! Lots of them! Get out of here!" She screamed to the populace about her, causing a resounding panic as the loud murmurs turned into frightened yelps as a stampede began to slowly boil about in the alleyway.

Obi-Wan knew to save his breath when it came to crowd control, so he opted rather to try and trust this new Clone army in the ways of damage control with everyday beings.

His comlink rose and he called out, "Womwell, read me!"

The reply was immediate and crisp. "Yes General."

"Hone in on my current location and come to the coordinates. The populace is under a panic due to false claims that there are bombs nearby. The hysteria needs to be quelled immediately as to not expose this mission. I leave it up to you, trooper." Obi-Wan wanted to leave the objective's execution entirely up to the Clones as a gesture of expensive faith. He was curious to discover how well the Clones could handle themselves in facets that didn't demand the same protocols and tactics as a battlefield would. He imagined that their humanity would bring with it a knack for ingenuity and problem-solving, and he hoped that his gumption wasn't wrong on the matter.

"Consider it done, General. Womwell out."

As the unsuspecting civilians scurried before and around him, rammed into him, and caught at him, effectively congesting the entire surface area of the alleyway, Obi-Wan found very quickly that he would need to get creative. Moving towards the wall of the alleyway, Obi-Wan sprung his right leg against its side mid-stride and heaved against it, guiding the leap with the Force to jump over the crowds and to land on the tops of the many scattered food carts. The perpetrator, very aware of her surroundings, caught on to the motion - as well as the sight of Obi-Wan - and began to cut her way forcefully through the crowd by docking out a blaster from within her back-satchel. Obi-Wan, counting on sandwiching the woman in preference for a peaceful surrender, spotted Anakin (about thirty meters before them) who ran towards them both along the rooftops of the adjacent buildings, right on time.

The woman seemed to spot Anakin a little after Obi-Wan did, and, in a moment of desperation, quickly spun around to give Obi-Wan a quick-fire of around ten bolts.

The crowd's panic tripled.

Apart of him in both mind and body, his new lightsaber came into his hand the moment it was summoned for, ignited the moment after, and gently clapped back at the three bolts that would've caught Obi-Wan's person. Each retracted bolt soared high into the air, as harmless as a firework.

Just before the woman could turn back around to resume her flight, Anakin jumped above her, lightsaber ignited and cleaved the blaster within her grasp into two. Obi-Wan, ever the comprehensive teacher, mentally critiqued the movement of his Padawan's lightsaber and found himself pleased with it. It was a rather pacific movement, even by his standards, and could be equated to the passage of a feather as it fell. His Padawan was in control, and the woman was unharmed.

However, on her last whim, the perpetrator grabbed at a young adolescent from the crowd as a shield between herself and Anakin. The teenager squealed in fright as he was carted off with her to the nearest building. Anakin knew that Obi-Wan's position meant that she was trapped either way and therefore made no risky movements as he glided cautiously behind her.

The woman then began to climb the architecture of the nearest building, and Obi-Wan thought it was a good idea to get away from the stampeding crowd. With a modest bound from the food carts, Obi-Wan landed on the paneled rooftop above her before quickly levitating her up and over the building, deciding to save her the effort of the climb. He could tell that she knew she had been bested by the time Anakin joined them on the rooftop as she glared at the two Jedi with a vengeance.

Just then, Obi-Wan's comlink beeped against his wrist. "This is General Kenobi."

The determined admission of Clone trooper Womwell, the captain of the Clone unit that had led the mission on Lothal long before Obi-Wan and Anakin were assigned, rang back out through the comlink. "This is Womwell, Sir. We are coming into the coordinate on foot, and I'm reading that you're still on site. Do you have any further standards before we begin, Sir?"

"No. You are permitted to continue, trooper," Obi-Wan replied as Anakin bound the woman with cuffs. "Now," he said, turning his attention back towards her, "May we at least get your name?"

The woman considered the prospect before saying, "Call me D," through gulping breaths of air.

"Easy enough. So, Dee, it has come to our attention that the woman we are looking for, the former informant and now enemy Alta Umba, has hired you to kill us. But you're not a bounty hunter, are you?"

She pursed her lips, looking insulted. "I guess not. Was I that bad?"

"So then how do you know Umba well enough to do her dirty work for her?" Anakin asked, ignoring her second question.

D shrugged. "I was just passing by and found the droid working for her give me the job. Never actually met her. Don't know anything besides her name."

Anakin shook his head before saying, "Really? She just assigned a random passerby to kill Jedi? Gave out free homemade hand-charges to this random passerby at that? Much more unlikely than being a bounty hunter; you should've stuck to that cover."

She smiled sweetly up at Anakin. "Well then I guess I'm a bounty hunter-"

"You know her, don't you?" Obi-Wan summarized. "You have a peculiar accent..." It was the same as Alta's, in fact, which meant that they at least must have been from the same planet.

Anakin nodded. "Perhaps she does. I remember from the briefing that Umba asked for her smuggling crew to be set free from this mission as she claimed that they didn't know anything. Maybe Dee was a part of her crew?"

D paled by the slightest value, and Obi-Wan knew then that his Padawan was onto something.

Anakin continued. "But that would mean that Umba lied when she told the troopers that she had never met her crew before the smuggling mission to Geonosis."

"J-just because I have the same accent as her doesn't mean I've ever met her before!" She stammered out, making the mistake that Obi-Wan had baited her into making.

"I never said that you had the same accent that she did, which means that you have at least met her," Obi-Wan pointed out.

Anakin, becoming more confident in his theory that D was a part of Alta's crew, sighed. "Look, we can go around playing word games all day, but the fact of the matter is that Alta Umba may or may not have access to firepower of the explosive kind. And, judging by the hand-charge that you chucked at us, I'm willing to bet that she does have access. And whatever she is planning, whether it be another attack against us or an attack against the spice factory she has been asking after, we need to stop her to keep the people here safe; that as well as their home and way of life safe. Explosives aren't discriminant."

D laughed darkly at that, knocking her bound hands against the bridge of her nose in what Obi-Wan thought to be an expression of conflicted resentment.

"You know, Jedi, there are some people here on this blasted planet that deserve to have their safety, homes, capital, and whatever else stolen from them! Whatever can be taken!"

There was the barest trace of moisture in her eyes as she said this, and Obi-Wan was intrigued by this.

"So you are in cahoots with her," Obi-Wan appraised before sharing a concerned look with Anakin. D all but confessed to the collective intention between her, Alta Umba, and possibly the rest of the smuggling crew to inflict damage upon Lothal in some way. When looking at the rust-colored stains surrounding D's mouth, Obi-Wan was able to guess where their wrath might have been intended at. "You're a spice-user, I see. And, judging by it, a heavy one. Do you still have the craving for it?" he asked.

D seemed to be greatly disturbed by the question. "N-no, we're trying to do better-"

"We?" Anakin implored. "You, the entire crew, and Umba? So, to that end, you've known each other for years? Enough to have been feeding an addiction, at least."

D thought for the longest moment before coming to a consensus and nodding. "Yes, I- we, did know her before the smuggling mission to Geonosis. The entire crew."

Obi-Wan nodded convincingly, pleased to gain some traction. "And where is the crew now? Have you all been reunited?"

"Y-yes. Yes. We are all here… for the spice. We only took up the job for the money, hoping that it would pay well."

"Where were you hired?" Anakin asked.

"Riosa," she answered through heavy breaths. "We transferred from the metal refineries to the shipment job to Geonosis for the pay-grade. The metal shipped to Riosa comes off from the mining facilities here in Lothal, so it was easy enough to make the career change. We just wanted a life off of Riosa."

Remembering their main mandate of discovering the reason behind such a large shipment of Quandanium alloy, Anakin continued. "Do you happen to know why such a smuggling operation of the alloy was called for?"

D shrugged, uncaring. "All we know is that whoever did it was making big money at the expense of others. We didn't know and didn't care as to the reason why that bug-planet needed it. But, I have heard that a war is in the brewing and that it just so happened to start there not too long ago. That's how we got caught, isn't it? We smuggled right into the middle of battle, didn't we?"

"Indeed. Geonosis aligned itself with the Separatist cause. The planet is under complete control of the Republic now," Obi-Wan answered. "And we were sent here to apprehend the war profiteer who is benefitting from making business with the Separatists at the expense of the Republic. That is why we required the intel of Umba in the first place due to her claims that she knew information on her employer… but now it seems to me that she knew nothing of this war profiteer after all."

"That's correct," D said quickly. "We were hired on Riosa, as I said, and we've never been commanded directly by the head honcho. Alta… she took the job that your Republic offered her in order to make it here to Lothal where the spice factories are. She made sure that we weren't taken in with her so that we could gather resources and meet up so we could sack the spice factory and take the spice for our use."

Anakin's eyebrow jumped. "Didn't you just say that you were trying to fight your addiction? But now you're saying that you intend to sack an entire factory just to attain spice?"

D paled once more.

"We- we want they money, as I said!" she countered, obviously losing her nerve. "We were going to sell it to- to make a new life!"

Anakin crossed his arms over his chest tightly as he stared down at her.

"Do you suspect something, Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked after appraising his Padawan.

Anakin's eyes almost made eye contact with Obi-Wan's before he shook his head. "It's nothing Master, it's just that…"

"If you have something to say, you know you are free to say it," Obi-Wan said gently, trying to invite Anakin's own opinion on the matter.

"Something isn't adding up, Master."

"How so?"

"Why kill us over spice? Alta Umba knew that we couldn't care less about spice when it comes to our actual mission. Sure, she knew that we might come looking for her, so why did she try to kill us instead of claiming that she knew nothing of this war profiteer? If she had met up with us like we had planned, only for us to discover that she had been unable to contribute to the mission, we would have eventually had to let her go after she served the minor punishment dealt by the smuggling mission. But she stayed with us until a certain point, only to turn around and try to kill us. It looks to me like she wanted information from our investigation before deciding to kill us instead. Logically, it makes no sense to believe that Umba thought that we would go after her for some spice. No, I think she tried to have us killed because we are in her way somehow."

Obi-Wan shrugged. "Or, maybe she wanted to help us out in any way possible in the hopes that we would free her of any guilt as we did with her crew. And she might have also figured out that the idea of her bombing a place wouldn't sit right with us. The information she needed was the location of the spice factory from Bendi." Seeing that Anakin was unconvinced, Obi-Wan sighed. "How could we be in her way? There is no connection between the spice factory and the Quandanium alloy, and we need to remain focused on our actual mission. Don't make a mound out of a grain of rice, my young Padaw-"

Anakin's look of concern aggressively turned into what Obi-Wan could only describe as a scathing glare before it was wiped away by an expression of total detachment. It took a second for Obi-Wan to recognize the error in his words.

'Dreams pass in time.'

He had said them before. And he was still paying the price for it.

In the wake of his unmindful rebuke, Obi-Wan conceded to Anakin with a nearly submissive nod. "Alright, you believe something is not right. If you think there is more to Umba's intentions than stealing from the spice factory, then I think it might be circumspect to heed your instincts."

Anakin's eyes fell to the ground in resignation, and Obi-Wan's frustration doubled, at a loss for how to rectify it. But a sudden beep from Obi-Wan's wrist saved him from further racking his mind over it.

"General Kenobi, this is Womwell. The civilians within this sector have been successfully extinguished. Do you have any further suggestions, Sir?"

Pleased at the news, Obi-Wan walked towards the edge of the roof to get a view of the alleyway. At first glance, he could see that the troopers had lined themselves up horizontally to the alley, sectioning off the crowd by ten meters each. It seemed to have been a very good method at halting a stampede. While the sight could have very easily had the after-taste of oppression against the populace, the Clones had countered this by making the difficult decision to go at calming the crowd unarmed and with extended hands. All of them had discarded their helmets, and Obi-Wan acknowledged that the showing of their faces was meant to be a token of peace. Each Clone steadily spoke words of ease and reassurance to the crowds, making sure to answer any questions that they could and even going as far as exchanging pleasantries and picking up the messes left behind by the panic to return them to their respective owners.

They were, indeed, an army of humanity.

"You have done exactly as I have asked and then some; with quite a courtly execution at that. No further orders from me. Very well handled, Sargent."

"Thank you, Sir. Any further news on the capture of the intel Alta Umba, General?"

"We are coming to understand that the situation is slightly more complicated than it had previously seemed." Sparing a glance towards Anakin, Obi-Wan continued. "So I will be sending my Padawan to check out Umba's possible location for reconnaissance. No further aid will be required until he reports back."

"Understood, General. Womwell out."

Anakin didn't turn away from D as Obi-Wan came back beside him. "The spice factory Umba asked about was in Sector 1.00.2. Am I right in assuming that this is the same factory that Umba is currently residing at?"

D refused to respond as she glared at Anakin's feet.

"Seems so. Now, since we aren't sure how this can go, you need to make sure that you aren't discovered. We need to know if her target is truly the spice factory, or if it's something more. Either way, we need to know if she has enough explosives to be a threat."

"I understand, Master."

Obi-Wan straightened and looked back at D. "I will stay here and see if Miss Dee will give me a straighter story-" but stopped short once he saw that his Padawan was already long gone.

When looking at the actions of Umba, as well as when considering D's story with a higher form of scrutiny, Obi-Wan could admit that there might have been more to the issue at hand than he had realized.

In truth, there was. And Anakin, who was slightly more gifted than his Master when it came to not underestimating people, had been able to see the warning signs before Obi-Wan did. But Obi-Wan would not come to realize this until it was too late.

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Anakin could always immediately identify the Red District of any city, and the Red District of Galof just so happened to be his destination. Sector 1.00.2.

It also was not a difficult task to spot the spice factory itself. Even if the establishment managed to continue its inner workings without being discovered by operating under the pretense of a healthcare unit for the lower-class, Anakin knew that any respectable place would A: not reside in the Red District, and B: not billow out beasts of black smoke from faux air-refinery ducts.

Despite the shoddy appearance of the spice factory, Anakin could tell from its enormous size that the factory worked on a grand scale. This made it obvious to him that whatever crime syndicate that operated the factory was prospering off of the port city: where there were ships, there were shipments. Anakin wondered briefly if this gave any indication to the factory's exports, believing that perhaps the factory's target customers were off-planet.

He couldn't give it more thought as he surveyed the compound for any security with his aerial view from the vicinity's tallest building. To his surprise, there was no security, but he shrugged it off to that being in line with managing the factory's low profile.

Quickly spotting an entrance through an air-duct that wasn't functioning, Anakin vaulted down from his perch to make his way towards the factory's roof. His passage was swift, clean, and silent. The musky scent of spice extract permeated around him, causing his eyes to water from the insulting stench. Falling straight through the duct landed Anakin through the bowels of the offline air-valve systems that were standard in most medicinal refineries. Spice extract lined the pipe-work with centimeters of a black substance that retained the same consistency as custard with pieces of ash mixed in. Even Anakin had to fight the urge to gag.

But, even through the malodor of the extract, Anakin could still catch the barest whiff of fuel.

"Not good," he mumbled, apprehensive, but suddenly relieved to be on his own and without the bearing presence of his Master.

When he made his way in the direction of what he thought was the main cavity of the refinery by going against the flow of the congested air, Anakin saw that the air ducts passed over the main control room. He shuffled quicker and made the necessary movements before finding himself in the abandoned control room that overlooked the actual refinery room. Tanks the size of transport ships dominated the view of the room, each filled with a red liquid with variances in substance and consistency. He presumed that it was the spice, and stopped to look at the panel interfaces to gauge which spice tanks were finished – as well as which were ransacked.

None of them were empty, but the interface showed that about 1/4th of the tanks were done with their mixtures and ready to be transported to the packaging and shipment phases.

"She is here," he said to himself in thought, speaking plainly to his absent Master. He could feel an agitation in the distance that he had felt from Alta before. With the spice in the factory left untouched, Anakin was further convinced that their main goal had nothing to do with the spice.

He paused and reached out to the building around him, suddenly aware of the absence of any workers. He knew then that a large number of people had been gathered in a concentrated area not far from him; possibly even within the warehouse of a room that he overlooked.

It was only when he searched through the footage interface of the camera system throughout the factory when he found out where the commotion was. At the furthest end of the tank room, and where the room dropped off slightly to merge to the floor below it, sat a crowd of semi-conscious people. Some were handcuffed to the wall, and some were completely unconscious. Anakin could tell that they were the factory's workers as they were dressed in the necessary equipment.

The people that stood guard around them were dressed like ordinary citizens; completely inconspicuous… had they not been armed with the occasional blaster and many packs filled to the brim with what Anakin assumed was some form of blazer bombs due to the smell of fuel.

"…Not good at all," he repeated.

---

Obi-Wan continued to study D in silence, staring at her as if she were a puzzle to be solved. He could tell that she wasn't taking too kindly to the inquisition.

"Why are you even bothering?!" She whined out after finally snapping. "This has nothing to do with finding out why the alloy was sent to Geonosis in the first place! Just hand us over for your new army to deal with and get off our backs! Mind your business!"

Obi-Wan crossed his arms and shrugged. "If my Padawan says that there is more to this, then I am inclined to believe him. Although I personally don't see any threat from a group that was foolish enough to lie to us, use us to gain access to Lothal for its spice, and then try to bomb us out of all things. And that's on top of taking on a spice-ring with a few explosives in the hopes of stealing from it."

D smiled. "I'm starting to see why Alta wanted you dead. You… you mess with things that you have no right to mess with! And you're self-righteous about it too." Her smile turned into a grimace as her eyes became shiny. "We just wanted…"

"What?" he asked as he kneeled before her, reaching out to her mind, giving her the compulsion to speak it.

"Closure."

Obi-Wan paused. "You said that you knew Alta and her crew before you began the shipment to Geonosis. Did you work together? How long have you all known each other?"

D chuckled, suddenly looking exhausted. "Since we were kids."

"Then do you know why Alta accepted such a mission? The real reason, I mean. If she knew nothing about the war-profiteer and knew nothing about what was going to happen to the alloy on Geonosis, then her lying about it doesn't make sense. And why would she accept it just because of the spice factories on Lothal? I've never been to an Outer-Rim planet that hasn't produced spice. So why Lothal?"

D's lower lip trembled. Obi-Wan could sense her fear.

"I'm scared she's doing something that isn't right," she said, her eyes shifting about her warily.

"Umba?"

She nodded. "I knew that she would accept the proposition to become your intel once Lothal was mentioned. It isn't just some random place that produces spice. It's where our supply of spice came from."

"The spice that is produced on Lothal is shipped to Riosa?" Obi-Wan asked for clarification.

She nodded again. "It happened after the first workforce strike took place in the metal refinery on Riosa. We were being paid in food for back-breaking work. When we wised up to that and started to grow our own food, and protested against the conditions, they introduced spice into our streets. They made it free for about a week or two, evangelizing its medicinal benefits." Her eyes gazed off into the distance. "And to those of us that had been worked to the bone… we bought into it. Became addicted. Worked for it. Paid by it.

And Alta was the loudest one out of all of us. She swore that she would find whoever was doing this to us and make them pay for ruining our lives."

"Revenge against your spice dealer? A bit extreme, is it not?"

D shook her head. "That spice dealer has done worse," she roared. "He was the reason we ended up on Riosa in the first place! You asked 'why Lothal,' well, it was all about Lothal."

His wrist began to beep once more, but he hardly noticed.

"How so? And if you truly wanted to exact revenge, why not exact it upon your employer instead of-"

And that was when he understood.

"You are after your employer," he said, neither a question nor an accusation.

Her smile was grim. "It is our 'employer' that owns the metal refinery on Riosa. And… he just so happens to be the owner of the spice factory as well. The war-profiteer, the employer, the spice-dealer… they're the same person, Jedi. That's how he was able to distribute it in exchange for cheap labor. That's how he was able to refine the alloy cheaply and sell it off to the highest bidder for the highest profit. And that highest bidder just so happened to be on Geonosis. But yet, we don't even know his identity. But he- you know, he knows ours!"

When D used the words 'cheap labor,' Obi-Wan knew. He considered the age of the woman before continuing. He guessed that she couldn't have been more than eighteen years old.

"You were stolen from Lothal as children, weren't you?"

D spoke with a nod that shook her body. "The cheapest route to legal slavery. Cause, you know, children are good at keeping quiet and under wraps because we don't know better. So he stole us from Lothal to work in the metal refineries, only to force spice down our throats when we tried to rise against it. That's why. That's why Alta followed along with your mission. She figured that she could find out his identity from you since you were searching for him as well. But, when it became obvious to her that - as soon as you got your hands on the scum – that our chances of getting rid of him were practically nothing, well, she gave up on trying to work with you. We want to deal with this on our terms, not yours! We won't be satisfied with just locking the scum up!"

Obi-Wan shook his head calmly. "We are not as interested in the person as you may think. We simply want to know the reason behind the shipments. We did not come here to get tangled up with the machinations of a crime lord; our sole priority is to uncover the Separatist plot behind the Quandanium alloy," he reminded her. "We only sought your employer because Geonosis was completely bare of any evidence that would hold up against such a need for the alloy. We can help you serve justice against him – whoever he or she, or they are. But we cannot allow you to blow up anything."

"You're going to have to stop Alta, first."

Suddenly taking the gumption of his Padawan more seriously, Obi-Wan answered the query of his comlink.

"Kenobi here."

Anakin's explanation rang through the static of the line. "Master, the situation just got a lot worse; there is a crew of people here who have captured the refinery workers and held them hostage. Each crew member has a pack of around fifteen or so incendiary bombs. From the looks of it, the bombs are homemade and were created within the factory recently. The spice that is being produced here has been left untouched as of now. I'm still not sure if their main target is the spice or not-"

Obi-Wan cut him off. "It isn't. The situation has changed entirely. As it turns out, we seem to all be after the same man. Dee confessed that the man behind the shipment of Quandanium alloy to Geonosis is also the owner of the spice factory here on Lothal. He owns the metal refinery on Riosa and the spice refinery."

"That doesn't make sense, why would they want-"

"It's a revenge mission, Anakin. They were abused by their employer after they were taken off of Lothal as children as cheap labor for his refineries. Then they were forced into a life of addiction and slave labor from his access to spice. They knew we would try to stop them from Alta's experience with us, so they tried to have us killed.

Anyways, the situation has turned completely on its head. Get out of there now before you're spotted; we can't alert Umba to our knowledge and have her jump onto whatever nefarious plan she has in mind; assuming she doesn't know that we aren't dead, that is. We will need to find this employer before they do, otherwise, we will never get to the bottom of this."

Obi-Wan brought the comlink closer to his ear as a static silence breathed through the speakers.

"I think that's what they are trying to do right now. After all, how else can you get to the top of the chain unless you start at the bottom?"

"Are you suggesting that they captured the factory workers to draw out their boss?"

"Yes, I am. Those who work in drug rings know that the people that work under them are as culpable as they are a liability for exposing them. The employer probably already knows about the factory's takeover, and he's probably going to send out his more capable and trusted employees here to clean up the mess as reinforcements. His spice is too valuable of an asset to do otherwise. Umba and her people are hoping for them to come; they seem to be ready for it too. If they can manage to capture them, then they can get the identity of the employer from them – and maybe the employer's location as well."

Obi-Wan considered the prospect, spared a glance towards D, and nodded as he began to understand his Padawan's reasoning. "I agree, that does seem plausible. Stay there then and see if you can learn anything about the employer from them. Contact me as soon as you do, and if all things go well, I'll get there before they do. It is imperative that you stay undiscovered-"

"I know," was all that was said before the connection ended.

Obi-Wan nearly grumbled. "Typical."

---

The Leader of Riosa's Crew:

The spice refinement factory

"Alta!" a steady voice cried out.

Alta Umba stopped the movement of her hands as she scratched at the crate she sat upon, enjoying the heated breeze she felt from the exhaust of the freighter shuttle.

"Hm?"

"A report: Flavian and Nero have spotted some movement coming down on us from the northwest, about thirteen sectors down. We believe that 'Spice' has sent their men as you foresaw. They have the same equipment as the guards of the factory did."

A slim smile bent Alta's face at the use of the unknown employer's proxy name, 'Spice.' She thought it fitting when thinking that the being who once owned them was nothing more than an identity of persecution and dominance. Like a slave owner who didn't see fit to lower themself to the standards of their products by ever being revealed.

Alta straightened her back to look upwards at Perina, the bags under her second in command's eyes a testament to her exhaustion and determination. Unlike the rest of her crew, she could see no fear in Perina's eyes. She knew she would never hesitate, just as she knew that Dera wouldn't have. Even BG-99 stated that the explosion at Bendi's Cantina was acceptable. The fact that the Jedi proved to be more durable than the attempt had planned for did not leave Dera at fault.

Alta trusted that Dera would get herself out of the situation, as she always did.

"Then I'm sure the same tactics we used against the guards will be equally effective against this attack force," Alta said with ease.

Perina was less convinced. "We had the element of surprise with the guards; the attack force will be on the offensive."

Alta chuckled. "We don't have the element of surprise if we engage them at a place where they are expecting engagement. Flavian and Nero have their orders to pick one off from the pack. One is all we need, and… we all know the effects of this particular mixture of spice. Especially against those who don't have a tolerance built up against it like those factory workers. They become delirious and… very truthful."

Perina nodded, knowing all too well of the effect. Alta knew that she was still dealing with the side effects after using it for the past eight years. She herself was no exception; her loose tongue had put the mission at risk as it was. Their attempt to kill the Jedi had been their only hope to rectify that.

"Any news from Dera?"

Perina's face fell. "BG-99 reported that she has been captured by the Jedi."

Alta froze, her hand coming up to the smooth skin of her scalp to rub it in anxiety.

Perina continued. "This may mean that the factory has been compromised-"

"They already knew about the factory from that Trandoshan blime. All they can learn from Dera is…"

"Everything."

Alta flinched. "Do you expect me to believe that our Dera will expose us?" She sounded with a harsher fashion than she had intended.

"She explained her offense with your plan."

"Dera is more loyal than the rest of them, and she knows that 'Spice' is the unrivaled contributor to the child-labor ring on Lothal. She also lacks the basic moral code that the rest of the uninventive inhabitants of society seems to operate under. Those of us who were obvious red flags will remain to be the targets of the attack force as punishment until they come to their senses on the matter. But I trust Dera in the end," Alta argued. "However, the Jedi have their tricks. I saw the Jedi learner coerce the head of the mining facility with a wave of his hand. He spilled out everything he knew – which was nothing at all – to them and they accepted it like it was the truth."

"So they could know what we are truly after! We need to change our course of-"

"No need to act hastily, dear Perina. Let me first see if the Jedi still has the transponder ring on his person. But if Flavian and Nero succeed with extracting the necessary information out of 'Spice's' attack force, then we will be on our way and out of here shortly. We'll know 'Spice's' identity and location. Our mission will reach its final stage, and we will reach our inevitable goal. No need to worry about the Jedi if they are two steps behind."

"Then I will have the shuttle loaded immediately!" Perina pounded her fist in rejuvenation. Bunches of her sweaty black locks trembled as she turned to the rest of the crew about them. "Sicily! Ander! Stand watch at the back entrances until we hear from Nero. The rest of you: gather all of the droids and load up the shuttle, and buckle up! You all know the plan!"

The crew's previous state of inaction changed into a swift scurrying about as the shuttle became the center of attention. Countless pounds of explosives began to line the surface area of the ship's storage compartments.

But when the hasty entrance of Perina's closest subordinate, Jeckup, came into the room with a shaky shout, the scurrying suddenly turned into a gated pause as all eyes turned onto Alta.

"One of the Jedi is here in the factory!" Jeckup yelped as he bolted to Alta's side. She found his little melodramatic show to be entertaining and wondered why they all thought that it would matter. "Our setup showed that he entered through the air ducts and is scoping out the command room-"

Alta silenced him by placing a strong finger against his lips. "We are about to blow this place to kingdom come, and you think that him being in the middle of a soon-to-be exploded factory is a bad thing? We disabled the cameras within this hanger; he doesn't know we are here. Odds are, he's more preoccupied with the people who are guarding the factory workers," she said with a surety that calmed the entire mass. "Tell me, which Jedi was it?"

Jeckup swallowed compulsively. "He had like short-cropped hair, and-"

"That's a shame. He was my favorite. And no doubt with his presence, his Master is either with him or not far from his tail."

On cue, Perina brought up the transponder ring's twin interface. "Actually, the coordinates show that the other Jedi is not too far from Bendi's Cantina. That's assuming he still has it on his person."

"He wouldn't care about it unless he knew that we knew that he is still alive. The ring's location is a good place to start."

"I'll send BG-99 back to Dera's location to check out that hunch," Perina added quickly. Alta nodded approvingly.

"Unless the Jedi come to discover the identity of 'Spice' before we do, they aren't much of a threat to us," Alta reminded them.

"But," Jeckup protested, "What if the young Jedi finds us and engages us?"

Alta pounded her fist into the palm of her hand, her face contorting into a wicked grin. "Then I suggest that we hurry up and blow this place before the strike force gets here."

"And what about Dera?" Perina suddenly asked, visibly nervous at the thought of one of their closest partners coming to harm.

It didn't sit well with Alta either. Before she could answer, Ander and Sicilly returned to the hanger and came to Alta with the news they had all been waiting for.

Sicily gently grasped Alta's sinewy shoulder. "Nero and Flavian returned briefly to tell us the location of the attack force's boss."

Alta's eyes narrowed. "And are you sure that their boss is 'Spice'?"

"Positive. They were able to capture one of the attack force's people without being noticed and they spilled everything. You were right; 'Spice' sent his best men to assure his assets here."

Her heart jumped to her throat. "And I apparently sent my best men to retrieve this information. Where are Nero and Flavian now?"

"They retraced their steps to make sure that the attack force is directed to the main production room of the factory and away from the hanger. The attack force was about eleven sectors away as they last saw it."

"Good men. That gives us plenty of time for our escape. Enter the coordinates they gave you into the shuttle's log. We are done here."

"Perfect; the rank of the spice here is driving me crazy," Sicily said before boarding the shuttle.

Alta would have begun helping her fellow crew-mates in preparing the shuttle if it hadn't been for Perina's pointed gaze. "…And Dera?"

Alta pulled at the braided cord of white hair at the base of her neck as she thought deeply on the issue. "I agree… we must do something for her. And there is no guarantee that the Jedi don't know that we're after the same person they are after because of her. And I hate to admit it, but it's possible that they could've found out something about 'Spice' shortly after I left them. The liability that they pose is still too great."

They stared at each other, both of their minds desperately trying to come up with a rescue plan.

Perina suddenly looked hopeful, and Alta was glad to see it. "The Jedi learner! If we can cut off his communications with his Master and trap him here, we can use his life as a bargaining chip. That would leave their focus off of 'Spice' and onto here."

Alta clasped Perina's shoulder in a show of solitude. "That'll do. After dealing with them for a while, I think it will work. I have an idea for how we can take care of Anakin. But first, we'll need to find the Master through BG-99. I'll give him the ultimatum and give you the all-clear to subdue the baby Jedi. While we do that, the rest of the crew will set things up as we planned. Then all three of us can join them to implement the final mission."

"Alright, just tell me what you need me to do."

Alta's eyebrow arched. "You're going to need to locate another port of access to the factory's spice tanks."

Meanwhile, beyond the walls of the factory, the attack force continued their advance.

---

Anakin's wait for the employer's reinforcements took longer than he had expected. Although he had been unable to locate Alta Umba as he waited, he had been able to better acquaint himself with the layout of the factory for a worse-scenario escape plan.

The presence of bombs always made things messy. Especially when they were homemade and unpredictable.

As he had declared, the reinforcements did come. But what he could not predict was the slaughter that would come afterward. The reinforcements had surged within the factory, guns blazing towards the crowd that was grouped at the far end of the tank room, disregarding the presence of their own people.

The fight was short, brutal, and chaotic.

"Blast."

---

"There is more," Obi-Wan urged D. "You must tell me. Others are in danger here – your crew has just captured innocents and have incendiary bombs."

Dera's head lolled to her right shoulder. She gave a gentle smile. "All I know is that we're a bunch of clueless children on a crusade. We only got this far because Alta's smarter than everyone else. She has her own sense of right and wrong…. And I think she's more than an equal rival to the both of you."

"You said that you were scared that she's was doing something wrong. Please, I can tell that you're frightened, and you have no hope." Obi-Wan kneeled before her and grasped her hands within his own. "What did she do that scares you so?"

Her lip trembled. "I would die for her. She — she always protected me, protected all of us. She's never let us down before, but — she knows that some of us aren't okay with what she has planned. She knows that some of us are scared of her. She's become so… vicious in her vision for revenge. So much so that she used those who objected against her plan as bait. She knows that's she's putting them in danger, but she is so set against her plans that… it's like she's a different person.

For the first time in our lives, we're not following a directive; we're using the autonomy that we've only dreamed of having before and now… it's all crumbling before us. She's crumbling before us."

Obi-Wan felt for the girl's plight and did his very best to try and empathize with her, Alta, and those who followed them. She was becoming delirious in her hopelessness and was speaking things that weren't far from straight nonsense.

Tears started to fall down Dera's cheeks. "I'm sorry for trying to kill you. It was wrong of me to follow such a violent plan with complacency. I don't — I don't know what to do anymore. I've always followed Alta. But I see now that I can't do that any longer."

Obi-Wan's hand came to rest atop D's shaggy brown head. It could be said, in the sincerest of moments, and in the shortest of moments, that Obi-Wan Kenobi became blindingly aware of the confines of his wisdom.

'Master, please, please tell me what to do! What can be done, she's slipping away before my very eyes and I feel so lost!'

A sigh escaped Obi-Wan's lips, and Anakin stiffened at the sound.

'You must learn to let go, Anakin. Nothing can be done. You should know that the passing of life is necessary and common.'

The confines of his wisdom, indeed.

And Anakin had paid the price. Shmi Skywalker had paid the ultimate price.

So, in turn, Obi-Wan decided at the moment that he would pay his own dues with resounding humility.

He spoke with a light breath that held the steadiest words. "You have had a terribly hard life, and I cannot hope to ever know what you are truly going through. I learned about the limitations of my empathy from my Padawan, who was once a slave just as you were. I see the lashes on his heart just as I see yours, and I am loathed to admit that, for the both of you, I really don't know the best course of action to quell your duress. My only balm for suffering comes from Jedi banalities. Teachings of the Living Force has no meaning within the heart of the common person, and it is a pretentious and egotistical view to expect otherwise."

And, with that truth, his heart hurt at the memory of the all-embracing distress his own words had afflicted against his Padawan. He had denied the only thing that Anakin had desperately needed for once in his life; forgiving empathy and guidance.

And Anakin rightly resented him for it. The very idea made Obi-Wan curse the day Qui-Gon left him alone to train the boy in the first place. To fail his Master's dying wish so resoundingly was a wellspring of hurt in itself. But to lose the promise of the bond and friendship that was the reward every Master was gifted, with his only Padawan learner at that…

Obi-Wan knew that amends could never be made. Shmi was long cold in her early grave, and he knew that such an outcome couldn't be forgiven.

He would never be forgiven and he knew he had to make peace with it. The evidence of Obi-Wan's failure had always been apparent, even through his attempts to ignore it.

The feelings of his Padawan were lost to him now. Their connection; lost. Anakin's desire to be around his Master was gone. Anakin's instinct to protect his Master; gone. Their conversations were curt and silent on Anakin's part. Not once since Shmi's death has Anakin confided to him or come to him willingly. Not once has Obi-Wan been able to crack a genuine smile from him.

He would have given a great deal for Anakin to offer an inappropriate quip at just the wrong moment once more. Or to disobey him once more. Or to challenge his way of thinking once more — an undertaking that only Qui-Gon had been more gifted at.

But Obi-Wan was afraid that the good times with Anakin had passed.

Through his deep contemplation, he could see that Dera's look of understanding fleetly turned into a look of fright as she spotted something just over his shoulder. "BG-99?" She asked suddenly.

Obi-Wan's eyes shifted to the side as he nodded to Dera. "I see him too," he answered back.

The intruder, which seemed to be a classic-model Viper probe droid, was hovering about eight meters beyond Obi-Wan's right flank. It clung to the side of the building, its rotors making only the slightest of noises.

"No!" Dera cried as she began to lose her composure once more.

"Calm down," Obi-Wan advised as he ripped the droid from its perch. A squeal of beeps bleated out from the little droid as it squirmed in his clutch.

"That's Alta's droid – it's her eyes and ears. She's been watching us!" Dera exclaimed.

"Well, that puts a kink in the works. Now she knows that we're still alive, and have you under interrogation." Passing the droid to Dera, Obi-Wan ordered up Anakin's signal. "Here, see if you can deactivate it."

"Yes, Master?" Anakin's voice crowed out, and Obi-Wan could hear his perturbation.

"We've been compromised. Alta has had a droid on sight and now knows that we're alive, as well as our location and possibly even what we've been talking about. It is quite feasible to believe that she knows your location at the factory and knows our plan to stop her. You need to get out of there as soon as possible, but are you close to figuring out the employer's location?"

"I think that plan fell through, Master. The employer's reinforcements have decimated Alta's crew entirely. It was a total bloodbath."

Obi-Wan gave an acute gaze to Dera, hoping that she would take the invitation to explain Alta's plan further as he knew that anyway for them to perceive such a course of action from Alta was entirely lost to them. But Dera only managed to clamp the deactivated droid closely to herself.

"Do you happen to know if Alta was a part of the skirmish?"

"No, I have been unable to identify any of them. The reinforcements are scouting the area, so I haven't had the leg-room to check. But as far as I know, she's no longer in this building," Anakin mused.

"Hm. If it weren't for the droid, I would suspect that she and her crew had taken part in the skirmish and died with the rest of them. But now it doesn't seem so simple."

"…I suspect that we'll find answers through Dee, or by finding something here in the factory. It could be that those who died were only part of her crew-"

"Wait! You're right – Dee said that Alta used those who defied her as bait. I think she meant as bait for the employer's reinforcements."

"If that's the case, they had to have been a diversion for the main crew's escape plan from the factory. But since they never made contact with the reinforcements, they can't know about the employer! Maybe they sent the droid after us to check if we were dead, and maybe it remained with you to see if we know more than they do."

Obi-Wan ran his fingers through his beard in thought. "Likely. But we don't know for sure. See if you can capture one of the reinforcements and try to get some infor-" He began to demand, but was cut off by the hail of interference and the sudden hum of machinery. "Anakin?"

"Ma-s" Anakin tried to bleat out, but the interference continued.

"Anakin! What's going on? If you're compromised then you must return, we need to regroup-"

"There's-" Was all Obi-Wan could hear before the comlink bled out a guttural pouring sound as if Anakin was being inundated by gallons of water.

"Ana-"

The comlink went dead.

"Anakin!"

"She killed them," Dera whimpered out, but Obi-Wan's clemency was quickly finding its short straw.

"Do you know what is happening?" He asked her, ignorant of the sudden tremor in his polished voice.

Dera's imploring eyes glossed over his own. "I think she's trying to finish the job."

---

Anakin heard the frenzied hollers of some other individuals within the factory, but he figured that they were about as helpless as he was given the situation. There had been no time for reaction as he watched the hundreds upon hundreds of gallons of processed spice begin to spill from their unhinged tanks. The factory's automated machinery had come alive under some unknown deviant, and they were all being buried under layers of spice as a result. The spice that filled the command room had come from a tank that had been raised to the air duct systems to stream into the room, flushing over every surface with a synthetic and glutinous conflation. As it was, Anakin laid submerged with only part of his left side above the surface.

"It's going to get pretty hard to breathe in here," he mumbled uselessly to himself as the particles of spice in the air began to dry and turn to dust. He tried to wrestle his right hand out from the pit of chemicals around him but the movements caused his upper body and head to further sink. Nausea at a scale he had never felt before began to creep over him, and the room rocked to the sides of his peripheral.

With his free left hand, Anakin reached for his partially sunken lightsaber but soon discovered that the tip was congested by spice. He didn't know the particulars of the flammability of the liquid he was drowning in and knew that he couldn't take that chance.

After struggling without purchase, Anakin eventually gave up only to sink deeper from the lack of tension when his body relaxed.

"Great."

He knew then that, if his Master didn't get there in time, they'd have an Anakin-sized spice-capsule on the pyre.

---

"Finish the job?" Obi-Wan repeated. "Do you think she is about to kill your employer? Does she have that information?"

She shook her head. "The job to get the two of you off her back."

There was the sound of a speeder approaching from above, and Obi-Wan moved fast to shield himself with the blade of his lightsaber in anticipation. He quickly recognized the long white braid that grew from the base of her neck as it flew about her. She halted her speeder after lowering it to the rooftop adjacent to the building they stood upon and eyed Obi-Wan carefully.

He gave her a pleasant smile. "You're a little late for the rendezvous; we have a schedule to keep, you know."

Alta put her hands in the air and returned the smile crudely. "As do I," she laughed. "But I wanted to give you the heads up that your Padawan is being smothered as we speak. So, I am about to give you two choices in the hopes that you make the decision quickly for Anakin's sake."

Obi-Wan's smile turned into a neutral passivity that remained unreadable. "Go on."

She nodded agreeably. "On one hand, you can return Dera to me, and go retrieve your Padawan in return for leaving Lothal as fast as your little Clone brigade can march onto the nearest Republic shuttle. Or, you can try and stop us and I can blow him up instead." She grabbed a detonator from within her poncho to make the point. "And, should you decide to continue with your petty little investigation after Anakin is returned to you, then I must advise against it. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there isn't enough time for that; we know who the man is, and we are going to kill him for it."

"Just like how you killed Zeko and the rest of them?" Dera asked in a broken whisper.

Alta's face bloomed with surprise and blatant hurt. "Dera, that-" She bit at her cheeks in self-disdain as she came closer, her arms stretched towards Dera imploringly. "That wasn't part of the plan. I wrongly assumed that they would fend for themselves for a while, and it doesn't mean what you think it means Dera, I promise."

Dera shook her head, not wanting to hear any of it. "But what you're about to do will kill more people besides just him. People that never hurt us as he did."

"What are you going to do?" He asked plainly.

Alta gave him a seething stare. In the second it took for her to say the words, Obi-Wan could read her face as easily as if there were words written into the skin. What he saw told him that she was nothing more than a frightened little girl.

"We're going to blow up his entire conglomerate along with him."

"May I ask why?"

"They are the ones that allow the child-labor ring to continue legally. They are the original authors for the idea itself! And-and if we don't stop them now, his plague will spread to other planets, just like it did with Riosa!"

Obi-Wan could tell that her rationale was not present. He knew that there was no point in trying to dig someone out of a pit with reason if they dug themselves in without reason. There was one thing on her mind and one thing only: revenge. And there was no room for reason in the mind that was clouded with 'righteous' vengeance.

But he had to try.

"If you're looking for a way out of this, but think that you're already in too deep, I want to let you know that you aren't. You and your crew can leave Lothal and Riosa behind forever and remain free. You can bring about the foundations of a relief group that seeks to aid stolen children and to make the according laws binding – you can bring about change with your passion, but you can only stoke the flames with your brutality. This course of action is wrong-!"

"Your Padawan's time is coming close, and I've already considered the things you're trying to preach. So tell me to either go ahead and end him now or leave us be and save him. Your mission will be a failure either way," she contested with a dry shrug.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and took a long breath. He knew that Anakin was in trouble; his last transmission with him left no room for misunderstandings there. And, at the end of the day, he knew that his apprentice's life was not equal to the lives of hundreds of defenseless beings.

He knew he would have to choose the mission, but he found that it was getting harder and harder to even recall what the original mission was.

"Agree with you on this matter we do, Master Kenobi. Travel to the mines of Lothal, then, with your Padawan to uncover this Separatist plot on Geonosis. A highly valuable and resilient alloy, this Quandanium metal is. The production of an overpowering army or weapon made with this material, we cannot allow."

The lives of millions could've been on the line, and he knew he would not yield without sufficient cause.

He opened his eyes on Alta and narrowed them in scrutiny. "You're bluffing. If there really is no time to stop you, then why come to me in the first place? Why give me this diversion? There has to be enough time – either because your bombs have not been planted or because you don't actually know who he is yet. I'd imagine that infiltrating a crime syndicate with an infantry of explosives will be quite the extensive task, one that is above your current firepower, my dear."

Her face remained expressionless. "Then go save your Padawan and find out."

His face grimaced ever so slightly. "I cannot allow you to harm others in your pursuit of vengeance. If it is my Padawan's fate to die, then… so be it."

Despite his innate belief of what was true, Obi-Wan also knew that Alta was bluffing and trying to buy time. Otherwise, she wouldn't have wasted time in coming to him.

"I am calling your bluff, and I am going to go retrieve Anakin. Then we will come after you together."

It was Alta's turn to grimace.

Obi-Wan bowed his head in recognition. "So, unless you're going to blow him up, you can go ahead and give me that detonator."

Alta gripped it tighter between her hands as if she expected him to levitate it from her by his own 'magical means,' as she had once put it.

"You can't, can you?" Obi-Wan urged her. "To kill an innocent man would unwind the moral labyrinth that you have been traversing through thus far. You believe that you are doing the right thing, but allow me this one iota of truth, Youngling: our morals have this funny way of turning into a mantra of what we want them to be, not what they need to be."

She spared a discouraged glance towards Dera. "Won't you… won't you come with me…?"

Dera's silence was the only answer.

Alta nodded harshly as the tears gathered in her eyes. Without giving another second of her attention to the Jedi, she turned back on herself and mounted the speeder within the span of a few seconds. The engine and repulsorlift revved, and she lost herself in the tide-winds that blew over the buildings of Lothal's port city.

The blade of Obi-Wan's lightsaber disappeared as the sight of Alta's escape did, and his Force-leap towards the direction of the spice-refinery left him soaring through the air.

Obi-Wan Kenobi may have had his mission to fulfill, but he also had the dying wish of Qui-Gon Jinn to uphold.

And he had a Padawan who depended on him.

His passage was silent and efficient; graceful and intentional. Not a movement was too forced; not a step was without deliberation. He could see the stacks of smoke from a burning building in the designated Sector; he didn't question that this was where Anakin was. He didn't have further to go. He swung through opened archways, sided across the architecture, bounded against the smooth white siltstone. The factory was within sights, he could sense his Padawan-

The resounding heave that quaked the land was followed by a short-duration high-pressure shock wave that flew Obi-Wan back as he leaped through a decorative archway high in the air. He rocketed back down to the ground like a missile, but righted himself before he made contact with the ground-

"-!"

But then a sturdy object collided with his front, causing his impact to the side of the nearest building to knock the air from his lungs. He gasped and looked up in time to see the dark, human-sized object land on him directly. Obi-Wan thought that he was about to spit up a piece of his lung at this point. He could do nothing but lay there against the slope of the wall uselessly, despairingly, until his ribcage stopped vibrating.

"Anakin!" He called out uncharacteristically to his dead Padawan, unable to think clearly.

The object that sat atop of him started to move.

"I didn't mean to land on you, Master," the voice mumbled with stinging abashment.

"Oh," Obi-Wan sighed nonchalantly, entirely thunderstruck. "…You're heavy, Anakin." And sticky, he thought to himself.

"…Forgive me, Master?" Anakin replied back, sounding confused about how that was his fault.

"For landing on top of me, or for being heavy?"

The stout weight over Obi-Wan's barrel righted itself and kneeled beside the gasping Jedi Master.

Anakin ignored Obi-Wan's question as he half-heartedly looked him over for serious injuries. "You'll survive."

"I'm surprised to find you in a similar state," Obi-Wan remarked as Anakin started to wipe at the slime on his person in vain. His entire right side was covered in a burgundy goo that smelled obscene. "You escaped from the factory? I was under the impression that you were subdued."

"Partly."

Obi-Wan nodded as Anakin looked down at him without passion. "Glad to hear it. Now if all is well, we must track down Alta and her crew immediately. Although it's possible she was bluffing, she warned me that she had found the employer's location. She is following through with her plan by tonight. And Anakin – it is most likely a terrorist attack. She plans on using her bombs to implode the entire crime syndicate owned by the employer we're after."

Anakin's eyebrows knotted. "She found you?"

Obi-Wan nodded.

He gave a distraught huff. "She slipped through our fingers; right under my nose! I knew she was there in the factory with me-"

"Not now, Anakin," Obi-Wan warned. "We have to find her, now, we don't have much-"

A bright light flashed across Anakin's face. They both turned to see the older sister of explosions erupt high on the horizon as a skyscraper in the uptown Sectors of Galof combusted. The sound of the attack followed seconds after. Obi-Wan and Anakin watched in horror as the building's integrity fell apart with the distinct sound of its supports cracking under its own weight. They could see the building's evacuation alarms blaring hopelessly as the structure tottered, combusted once more at the point of entry, and fell in on itself. Anakin slowly stood in hallow trepidation as the monumental building hurtled towards the city below in an asteroid of fire, molten metals, and black smoke. The chemical flames emanating from the factory lit up their backs all the while.

Obi-Wan sat up and closed his eyes. He needn't see everything; to feel it happen around him was a more suitable punishment. His chest cavity became gripped in coldness as the Force-signature of Lothal shifted without constraint. An entire population of innocents that were just too close let out a haunting thunder that echoed throughout Galof's skies.

Alta Umba had called her bluff.

"We must help evacuate the city," Obi-Wan murmured. "We have failed."

"She flew a ship into the building!" Anakin said in an agonized voice.

"As it would seem," Obi-Wan offered numbly.

Anakin turned on Obi-Wan. "Why didn't you stop her?! She was there with you! She told you her plan!" He accused, his anger putting the factory's flames to shame.

Obi-Wan knew that his accusations were valid, and, as Anakin's teacher, knew that humbling himself by explaining his fault on the matter would be beneficial. "I thought that she had been bluffing when she said that everything was already in motion. It didn't make sense for her to come to me and bargain over your life, otherwise. Now I see that she came to me to retrieve our assassin, who must have meant a great deal to her. Going after her directly would have put you at risk so I figured that the best plan of action would be to assure your life before we made our next move to stop her. I affirmed to myself that we had enough time. I was mortally wrong; she hadn't been bluffing."

With the last few sentences, Anakin's face was wiped clean of its anger to be replaced by a sense of marvel at his Master. "You came for me?"

Obi-Wan didn't have the energy to be hurt by his Padawan's arrant disbelief. "It was the wrong course of action to undertake; I underestimated that you would be able to save yourself, my young Padawan, and we have failed because of it. The fault lies entirely with me," he crackled out as he fought to gain his footing. The knock against his cranium proved to keep his sense of balance out of the sorts, and he would have faltered back to the roof's surface if it hadn't been for Anakin suddenly moving to firmly grasp his shoulders. Anakin moved his forearm behind Obi-Wan's head as he gently hoisted his Master to his feet.

Obi-Wan felt something immense shift within his Padawan at that moment: the bond had been rekindled by the tiniest warmth, the faintest note of endearing trust. He felt Anakin's emotions once more as surely as he felt his own, and it stunned him.

"General Kenobi!" Obi-Wan's comlink immediately called out, "This is Womwell! An explosion just occurred in Sector Minor 2: rough coordinates (-82.04, 301.76). What are your orders, sir!?"

"Go to the Zone of Conflict and follow through with a full-scale evacuation of the entire sector! Call up a frequency with the local militia and police force for better coordination, and remember that they attain full jurisdiction in the matter. Order one of your men to ask for Republic assistance at the highest priority; make sure that this officer informs the Council on this crisis so that they can dispatch any humanitarian resources that they deem proper."

"At once!"

"My Padawan and I will do what we can to aid you; we will arrive shortly."

"Do you require transportation?"

"Don't worry about us, Womwell," Obi-Wan answered.

"And the informant, Alta Umba? Has she been captured and in need of transportation?"

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. "She was behind the attack on the building. I don't believe that she is alive anymore." A shared look with Anakin confirmed that he felt this was true as well.

"Understood, sirs. Womwell out!"

"Master, you need medical attention, call Womwell back up."

"I'll be fine, Anakin, and we cannot delay any longer. We must do our duty. We don't have time for respite; people are dying," he said before hobbling towards the edge of the building.

Anakin's firm grip on Obi-Wan stopped his advance immediately, and Obi-Wan found himself surprised at the strength with which he was held back. "How can you do anything other than get in the way if you're in this state?"

Obi-Wan gave a firm look to his Padawan. "A Jedi must atone for their actions if people suffer as a result of their poor judgment."

"Patience, Master! You're of no help to us if you can hardly stand! A Jedi must also be aware of his limits," Anakin petitioned.

Obi-Wan briefly consulted the wisdom of Anakin's words and nodded. "You are right." He brought Womwell's frequency up once more. "Womwell, Kenobi here. On second thought, we might find use for that transportation offer after all."

---

An Hour Later

At a Stronghold Near the Fallen Building

Obi-Wan approached behind the crowd of troopers and local militia as they hung on Anakin's every word as he assessed the full extent of the damage, the hot zones, the places of high victim-placement probability, and of areas that showed lapses in building integrity.

Anakin caught onto his Master's presence as he joined them. "Are you stable enough to help out, Master?" He asked, visibly concerned.

Obi-Wan nodded, surprised at his question and trying to be reassuring about it. "Yes, the medical droid stated that I had sustained a mild shock to the system from the impact, but I'm getting over it."

Anakin nodded in return, and Obi-Wan expected that he would step to the side to allow his Master to lead the designs of the operation as he had always done of late.

A "Temporary loss of motivation," Master Windu had diagnosed it.

Obi-Wan had called it "Forced self-submission," and he disliked it to an equitable degree for it went far below Anakin's previous "Can-Do" behavior. Anakin was a man of action and intention, not of silence and passivity.

So one could imagine Obi-Wan's delight in seeing that his Padawan refused to give up the spotlight in favor of relaying his very own course of action.

"I suggest that we scan the areas for life-forms that remain trapped under any rubble; any void areas can be put out by extinguishers. Areas that are not must be extinguished personally and carefully so that the survivors won't be stifled. I have ordered for construction droids to be on-site to fortify any structure or pile-up that exhibits dubious integrity. Remember; it is of utmost importance that we save any survivor, but we cannot do so at the cost of another collapse. Make judgments with gravity in mind, men. However," He said with the beginnings of a self-satisfied smile, "I have ordered the local militia to supply our boys with basic repulsorlift engines and sticky-presses. So, when push comes to shove, you'll have your options."

Obi-Wan spared a weak private smile to himself at his Padawan's ingenuity.

The men seemed to think the same.

Womwell chose that moment to speak up. "And what do you think, General?" He asked Kenobi.

Obi-Wan gave Anakin a look that spoke of the General's complete confidence in the young man. "I think we should get to work."

---

Back to the Present

The Temple on Coruscant

Freya Galina hardly gave two seconds for Obi-Wan to rest his voice after the telling of his long tale before he burst out with questions. "So you never found out the reason behind those shipments to Geonosis? Did Alta and her crew really die? What about the survivors in the collapsed building – were you able to save most of them?"

Obi-Wan gave a gruff chuckle, knowing that he should've seen these questions coming. Even so, he was impressed that the Younglings had managed to hold their tongue throughout the story.

"No, we never really were able to find out why Geonosis needed the alloy. The employer, who turned out to be a run-of-the-mill Toydarian capitalist, had died in the explosion from Alta's attack. Many of his employees died along with him; but then, so did many innocents. We even traveled to Riosa to see if we could uncover anything, but the main operations happened on Lothal, so we had no luck there. We scoured Geonosis once more and again; no evidence. We had to call in the mission as a resounding failure."

"And what happened to Alta's assassin, Dera?" Galina asked.

"Well, to answer your previous question; only Alta died in the attack. She had been the pilot that crashed the shuttle filled with explosives into the crime syndicate. She left the crew behind at a safe distance, and they found us afterward to tell us their story in a petition to get a mild sentence. It was never the plan for Alta to pilot the shuttle into the building, but her crew told us that she did it because she was afraid that we would stop her in time otherwise.

And as for the mission regarding the lives of those who were caught in the crossfire of the attack, I am happy to report that, through Anakin's brilliant plan of action, we were able to limit the casualties to the crime syndicate by a great number. Now, do not misunderstand me by believing that I am downplaying the catastrophic death toll. This story ended with a tragedy, and as such, it should never be put upon a pedestal."

The Younglings nodded sincerely.

Galina brought two tiny fingers to her mouth and chin in a show of earnest introspection. "And how did Master Skywalker get out of the factory on his own?"

Obi-Wan gave Galina a repressed look. "One question at a time, my little friend. Dera eventually found us and helped us retrieve the survivors of the attack. Due to her aid, as well as her compliance, she was given a lesser sentence than the rest of her crew.

And, when Anakin was trapped within the spice mixture, he simply used a pipe from the factory's control room as a lever to hoist himself out."

The Younglings murmured softly to each other as they expressed their awe at the minor feat, and Obi-Wan enjoyed their excitement but refused to encourage it.

Vel-Nossa looked to the ground and rubbed his hand through his short hair as he ignored the mood of the room. "But I still wonder, Master Kenobi – why did you let Alta go? You could've stopped her for the sake of the mission; for the sake of innocent people. But you let her go. Why?"

Obi-Wan had expected this question as well; he had been counting on it, for answering it had been the entire point of the message he was trying to convey. "Because my dear friends; we are not infallible. You may express your wonder at the stories told of us, but you must understand that we are worthy of committing severe miscalculations; especially when we never expect it. So, I want you to remember, my dear friends, that the Clones have committed such a severe miscalculation as I once did; and, as I said before, the fault lies with factors outside of their control.

They have caused the deaths of thousands, just as I have. None of us are clear of blame.

As I say this, you must also acknowledge that our attachments to the Clones cannot be condoned; just as our attachments to each other cannot be condoned. Or attachments in general. Should we cave into the temptation of attachments, then we will inevitably try to keep those attachments by our sides, even if it puts others at risk; just like how I put people at risk by letting Alta escape in favor of preserving Anakin's life. At that time, Anakin's death was not the Will of the Force; it wasn't supposed to happen, but I didn't trust that it wasn't supposed to happen. That is where I failed."

Vel-Nossa bowed his head, the first respectful mannerism that Obi-Wan had witnessed from him. "I understand, Master Kenobi."

Obi-Wan mirrored the bow.

"Master Kenobi?" Galina asked out timidly.

"Hm?"

"Why did Master Skywalker act the way he did?"

"Ah," He began, "That. I asked him about it when the entire ordeal was over as I was curious about it myself. And you know what he said? He said that he thought he would've become a Knight faster if he had just done everything by the book."

Vel-Nossa's head tilted to the side. "It sounds as if he just didn't want to be around you anymore," he blurted.

Obi-Wan nearly laughed. "You would be correct with that assumption. He was strictly sick of me."

"Why?" Vel-Nossa continued with genuine curiosity. "Why had there been conflict between the two of you – with all due respect? What happened that damaged the bond?"

Obi-Wan's mustache crinkled along with his smile, but he didn't feel obligated to tell the Youngling the entire truth in defense of Anakin's personal life. "I had slighted him in a deeply intimate way, young one. And, to this day, he still suffers from the trauma that my failure wrought. But, even though I failed my mission on Lothal, the willingness I showed him through my endeavor to protect him restored his trust in me.

You see, this lesson that teaches the importance of forgoing attachments remains to be the most challenging thing for Anakin to learn. I made the mistake of assuming that I could teach this lesson to him at the worst possible time in his life. But when the tide had turned and I showed that I had been unwilling to learn the very same lesson when it came to him… never once did he call me out for being a hypocrite. Even though I pester him constantly for failing to show proper Jedi restraint, he never acknowledged out loud that I failed to reign in my restraint at an infinitely critical moment."

Vel-Nossa narrowed his eyes critically. "So, he never learned this lesson? If he was too loyal to highlight your wrongdoings, then that must be the case."

Obi-Wan watched the Youngling with close scrutiny as he continued.

"Master Kenobi," Vel-Nossa added in a hauntingly sweet voice. "Do you think that Master Skywalker would twist his morals into what he wants them to be to preserve his attachments?"

At that, Obi-Wan was taken back to a conversation he had with Master Yoda and Master Windu mere days ago.

"For Anakin," Obi-Wan said at length, "there is nothing more important than friendship. He is the most loyal man I have ever met – loyal beyond reason, in fact. Despite all I have tried to teach him about the sacrifices that are the heart of being a Jedi, he – he never will, I think, truly understand."

He looked over at Yoda. "Master Yoda, you and I have been close since I was a boy. An infant. Yet if ending this war one week sooner – one day sooner – were to require that I sacrifice your life, you know I would."

"As you should," Yoda said. "As I would yours, young Obi-Wan. As any Jedi would Any other, in the cause of peace."

"Any Jedi," Obi-Wan said, "except Anakin."

"Is that why the Council refused him the rank of Master?" Malreaux asked.

Obi-Wan recoiled slightly at the turn of the conversation, unwilling to unpack his young apprentice's misgivings to a heard of curious Younglings.

But Obi-Wan was never one to ignore a question. "Anakin remains to be a very young Jedi, and achieving the rank of Master requires a knowledge of the Force that is the bearings of many years of pursuit," he offered weakly. The Younglings seemed unconvinced, but, with a spit of relief on Obi-Wan's part, he discovered that the Council meeting would soon commence; his time with the young ones had ended.

"And with that, Younglings, I must make my departure," he said politely as he stood to his full height. "I shall convince other Jedi to partake in the action and regale you all with their own stories, for your troubles," he added with a good-humored wink.

Their disappointment was palpable, and the more outspoken ones made a small fuss over it, many of them declaring that they still have questions to ask him.

"No, no," he admonished them. "Till next time, now… but do not hesitate to call for me should some of you deem it entirely necessary, I suppose," he said for their benefit.

This seemed to pacify them for the time being, and Obi-Wan took it as an invitation to retreat from the premise.

He stopped only when a guarded, "See you next time, Master Kenobi," sounded out from Vel-Nossa's whispery voice.

He turned to the brilliant Youngling for a second and was rewarded with a bow before he departed the Archive Room to make haste towards the Council chamber.

"Indeed," Obi-Wan Kenobi said, but no one heard him.

---

*Contains a few paragraphs quoted directly from the Revenge of the Sith novel by author Matthew Stover*

This chapter was my attempt at trying to recreate the excitement I feel when I read Star Wars books such as Revenge of the Sith, Ahsoka, Queen's Shadow, The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark, Labyrinth of Evil, Attack of the Clones, etc etc.

Also: I wasn't inspired by 9/11 in the least, it just simply made sense. This has absolutely no allusion or connection with 9/11.