Chapter Three: The Secret Keepers

When Obi-Wan closed his eyes, it was almost possible to imagine he was in the Temple as it had been. Extending his perceptions through the Force, he could feel the blades of grass beneath him, the roots of the great tree in the center of the courtyard digging deep into the last soil of Coruscant. The tree itself was a scraggled shaft of light, its branches splitting outward into hundreds of separate trails through the Force. A low breeze brushed past his face, cooling his skin, its whispers a faint music only he could hear. Everything else fell away—it was simply him, and the garden, and the universe beyond.

Then, unbidden, searing red flashed across his vision, piercing through his eyelids and into his brain. Fire, sweeping over everything.

The premonitions had begun shortly before the attack. Linked, Obi-Wan had believed—the connection was so obvious it was impossible to think it could be anything else. But of course, as his master would have said, if something is so obvious it has to be true, it very likely isn't. And sure enough, even after the mingled Confederate and mercenary ships had fled Coruscant's orbit, the fiery images had persisted.

As quickly as it had come, the burning left, taking with it the reserves of concentration Obi-Wan had built up. The Jedi plunged back into himself, his eyes and ears snapping open and reminding him that he was not remotely alone.

Murmurs filled the courtyard. Where usually it would host a handful of the Temple's occupants at various points of the day, now it was a constant meeting place, pairs or groups of three congregating to sit on the grass or pace along the perimeter and whisper their concerns. It was only natural, of course—the courtyard and the tree within had long been a symbol of serenity, and peace and strength were both in short supply these days. It was just unfortunate that everyone had had the same natural desire for peace and strength at once.

Seen with Obi-Wan's eyes and not the Force, the tree looked remarkably . . . old. Weary. Twisted wood groaning with the burden of age, its foliage present but perhaps a shade less green than it had been a year ago. It reminded the Jedi of the way his master had looked on Dagobah, the last time he'd been there. Age brought wisdom, but it also brought fragility.

These days, it was hard to tell whether the tradeoff was worth it.

Sighing, Obi-Wan cast his eyes to the ceiling above. Stars twinkled overhead, not the harbingers of oncoming night but the heralds of early morning. No one had been sleeping well around here for the last several weeks, himself least of all. If it wasn't searching for ways to help or flinching from visions of flame, his mind was fixated on one thing: worrying about his friends. Many of whom were within these walls, but most of whom were out there, whether that phrase signified distant worlds or the planet above.

And for some of them, rose the unbidden thought, before his insomnia-addled brain could chase it away, the two might as well be the same thing.

Shoving those thoughts down, he knew, never did any good, but he was too tired to do anything else. They're both alive, he scolded himself, you know that much. Thinking about it further won't do any good right now.

Still. He did. If he was honest with himself, he hadn't once stopped.

Suppressing a groan as he rose to his feet and felt his limbs fight off stiffness, Obi-Wan looked toward the nearest exit—one which led in the direction of the Temple dining hall. Aware of the gnawing in his stomach—had he skipped dinner last night?—he decided that if he wasn't going to be able to fight off his errant worries with sleep, he might at least try with some food.

Before Obi-Wan could take his bowl of stew and quietly retreat to a corner, he saw Cin Drallig wave her hand at him from her breakfast group. "Kenobi, join us."

He wasn't in the state of mind for a conversation with one person, let alone a table of them, but neither was he inclined to rudeness, especially where the Temple's battlemaster was concerned. Nodding, he crossed over to the table and took a seat.

Drallig's flinty gaze was as alert as ever despite what Obi-Wan knew had been endless shifts keeping guard just inside the Temple's concealed entrance. Beside her, Luminara Unduli, another Knight, looked as though she were ready to fall asleep in her meal at any moment, though she wrenched herself upright to greet Obi-Wan. The other two members of the party were healers—Barriss Offee, a Mirialan like Luminara, and another relatively young face, human, that Obi-Wan didn't recognize. When exactly did I stop knowing the new people? he wondered as he blew on a mouthful of stew, put it in his mouth, and discovered it was still too hot. When had young faces become a category separate from his own?

Swallowing the burning food as quickly as was polite to do so, he replied to Drallig's inquiry as to his well-being, "As good as can be expected. Wishing I could do more, of course—I've another free hour before my shift at the tunnel junction begins. Though from what I hear we may be winding down on extra guard duty for Knights fairly soon?"

Nodding, Drallig shifted the crags of her face into a frown. "Not my decision, but I was outvoted at the council. Wish you'd been there and not on watch, Kenobi, I could have used a spare Master's vote."

Barris Offee spoke before Obi-Wan could. "It's for the best, Master Drallig, isn't it?" Luminara, the girl's master, woke up remarkably quickly at this, shooting her apprentice a warning gaze, but the young woman ignored it. "Keeping the Temple healers on constant notice just to treat Jedi injuries seems selfish. We've got to start going out and helping the rest of the planet."

Drallig was a bit notorious for being hard-nosed—Obi-Wan remembered an occasion when as young Knights he and Qui-Gon had kept a bet running as to whether the battlemaster or Dooku would be the first to snap and throw Qui-Gon in a holding cell for some smart remark. With Barris, however, she simply narrowed her eyes a little and then sighed. "Of course we need to help them. But we won't be of much help if something finds its way into the Temple and starts wreaking havoc. We've lost enough Knights lately as it is. I don't like sending more out from these walls than we can spare."

The young Jedi Obi-Wan hadn't been able to place spoke up, tapping his fingers on the table as if conscious that he was pushing his luck. "But the Confederates are already gone—"

"We don't know that, Oren," she snapped at him. "Palpatine says they may still have troops hidden all throughout the underworld, and for once I think the man has a point."

"But Master Drallig," put in Barris, glancing at Oren much the same way her master had with her a few moments ago, "if that's true, they could stay on the planet for years if they hid. Are we supposed to just stay cooped up in here that whole time?"

The battlemaster's patience had evidently reached its end. Raising her voice enough that Obi-Wan instinctively looked around the dining hall to make sure they weren't being overheard, she said, "Taking reasonable precautions is not the same as—"

"Master Drallig, if I might," Obi-Wan cut in, before Barris or Oren could get themselves a further lashing. Feeling a little foolish at the instinctive urge to shrink back that hit him when she turned to look at him—he hadn't lost as much of his youthful self as he'd thought—he said, "I understand your concern, of course. But the Temple's concealments wouldn't be easy for any clones to penetrate even if they were on the planet. No one has found us in all the time we've been here, and the clones aren't exactly given to independent thinking. Even if some of the mercenaries down below are on the enemy's side, I can't see them finding this place."

"And there's also the public to consider," put in Luminara, blinking her bleary eyes and pulling herself focused. "Medical teams all over Coruscant are already overwhelmed, and people are going to keep dying. There are already whispers asking why the Jedi didn't do more to fight off the Confederates, if we exist. If we don't do more to help innocent people recover, that resentment toward us will start to boil over."

Drallig waved her hand, though her eyes had begun to waver a bit. "If they don't believe we exist, how can they believe we aren't helping?"

This time Oren spoke up again, in a voice that was far less hesitant than before—it was as though hearing Obi-Wan and Luminara speak in his defense had given him confidence. "With all due respect, Master, you've stayed here in the Temple for the last fifteen years. You don't venture outside the way Barris and I do—the way Master Kenobi and Master Unduli do," he added.

Obi-Wan could feel the faint thrill the boy experienced at being able to speak on behalf of two masters, and despite the circumstances had to suppress a tiny smile.

"The Jedi aren't what we used to be," Oren continued, and looked from side to side before leaning in closer. "People talk about us now. They don't all believe we exist—I don't even know if most of them do—but they wonder. And they wonder why we can't be the heroes we're supposed to be, if we're out there."

The battlemaster scoffed, but Obi-Wan could sense that beneath her veneer this information had dislodged a tiny piece of security. He could sympathize. "At any rate," she said, "the question isn't about the secrecy of the Order."

"No," Luminara spoke up again. "It's about doing the right thing."

"Prioritizing the Order's safety, then?" Drallig asked, the challenge just under the surface making the forced good humor of the question worse.

"I . . . Master Drallig, I can't say that Oren is wrong. It's not just about saving people here on Coruscant—it's about the war." Leaning in and lowering her voice to ensure neighboring tables couldn't hear, Luminara said, "We've overextended the people we have out there on the front lines. Those who are fighting can't do much good, and the gaps we leave bring suffering and death. We're keeping too many people in reserve in the enclaves, or sending people we can't afford to lose out on . . . witch hunts." Even as she said these last words, Obi-Wan saw her incline her head slightly, as if to lean into an oncoming blow—she'd gone too far and knew it.

"So fighting the Sith is a witch hunt, is it?" barked the battlemaster, loud enough that Obi-Wan winced—he could see several Jedi nearby turn their heads at the outburst, then quickly return to their food. Drallig's prior hesitation had toppled over into outright anger, a sudden seething in the Force.

Luminara too flinched at the volume and at the sensation of outrage, but kept her own voice level. "It is if we do it without purpose. Killing Maul won't end the war singlehanded. Taking care of the Sith won't wipe out all threats to the Order. And the people we're throwing away against him could have saved so many other lives if they'd lived."

Drallig gathered herself up, ready to shout again. And then, for the first time since Obi-Wan had joined the table, she broke eye contact from everyone present, looking intently down at her plate as she chopped at it with a fork.

It was disconcerting to see her this way. Obi-Wan's mind again flitted to Yoda, and the tree in the courtyard. To his own face in the mirror these days.

Looking around the faces at the table and then back at Drallig, he said softly, "Surely there's a compromise that can be reached. Something that lets us keep our people safe and do what we're meant to do at the same time. If it means protecting our healers when they venture outside, I'm happy to serve as bodyguard for any of them."

The battlemaster looked up and snorted, a weary smile suggesting itself. "The Negotiator, after all this time. I thought you'd stopped being a general, Kenobi."

"One never quite loses the habit, I suppose," he replied, allowing himself an encouraging smile of his own.

With a sigh so short it resembled a cough, Drallig speared a piece of meat with her fork. "It could be a possibility. At the next council I'll bring it up—and don't pick up any more extra shifts, Kenobi, I want you there to vote with me."

"Who says he'll vote with you?" asked a new voice just behind Obi-Wan.

Jumping at the unexpected sensation, the former general turned around in his seat. It was a face whose stony nature matched Cin Drallig's, though it was smooth instead of furrowed, the lip curled in reflexive disdain. Mace Windu, in usual form.

Before Drallig could bark at him for rudeness, Windu locked eyes with Obi-Wan. "Kenobi. A word?"

His stomach rumbled faintly—he'd only managed a few bites of his stew—but Mace Windu didn't go out of his way to talk to anyone, which meant this had to be at least somewhat important. Sighing inwardly, Obi-Wan nodded and pushed himself back from the table. "Forgive me, everyone."

"Goodbye, Master Kenobi," said Barris, while Oren gave a nod of his own. Luminara waved and passed along a mental message of gratitude—Thanks for saving them from a dressing-down.

Sending back a pulse of acknowledgment, he turned and followed Windu, who was already exiting the dining hall. As he rushed to catch up, Obi-Wan cast one last look back at his abandoned bowl of stew and felt his stomach clench longingly. The Force, it seemed, was to be his only source of energy for the time being.

"How you holding up?" Windu grunted.

"Fine, I—Mace, is this really the place for a conversation?"

They'd taken the spiral staircase all the way down to the Hall of the Fallen, where Windu had shut the door behind them. The two men stood in front of an army of stone plinths, each bearing a foot-long metal cylinder pointed upward—lightsaber hilts of Jedi who'd died in battle. Obi-Wan was not given to superstition, but the idea of having a casual talk here felt irreverent, as though they were disturbing a congress of ghosts.

"Only place in the Temple I know we're not likely to be followed," replied Windu, as he began to pace down an aisle of recovered weapons. "I'd rather not have people like Drallig drop in on us."

After a moment, Obi-Wan started down the path adjacent to Windu's. Part of him felt the perverse urge to reach down and run his fingers along the sabers as he passed; banishing the thought, he turned to look at his companion. "And what's so secret that you'd rather not have us dropped in on?"

"How's Skywalker?"

This was said with the same underlying contempt Windu said most things, but it startled Obi-Wan to hear that it wasn't just reflex this time. Windu meant it. "I . . . I can't say that I know. We haven't spoken in—well, a long time."

Before he could stop himself, he was reliving the moments he'd spent rambling into his commlink a few days ago—the sinking feeling of This was a terrible idea that had come over him the instant he hit send on the message to his former student. Windu must have sensed the dismay, or seen it in Obi-Wan's face; he was silent for a moment, and then said, "Well that's a hell of an ending for the dream team."

Obi-Wan was almost grateful for the irritation that rose up inside him at the remark—it gave him something else to focus on. "And my friendship with Anakin is relevant to you—why, exactly?"

The other Jedi snorted. "Take it easy. I can't reach out to him myself, and I haven't spoken to Amidala since Naboo, so I don't think she'd take very kindly to my going through her. Just figured you might still be in touch. Might be able to ask him some questions."

They'd traveled about halfway across the sea of upturned weapons—Obi-Wan could dimly make out the back of the room, the door to the final chamber. "Mace, I'm afraid I haven't time for this. I have a shift in a little while, and I should try to—"

"Did Amidala ever tell you what happened on Naboo?" Windu broke in, suddenly halting and locking eyes with him.

Ah. So that was what this was about.

In the scattered times he'd spent with Padmé in the last two years—a hurried lunch here, five minutes spent waiting to see Bail there—there had been one constant, unspoken rule: Anakin was not brought up. At first this had been largely for Obi-Wan's own sake, he thought—Padmé trying not to talk about the friend the Jedi never got to see anymore. But in the last year or so, Obi-Wan hadn't been able to shake the conviction that the rule was no longer for his benefit. Padmé was the one who didn't want to talk about Anakin. Or, more specifically, his job.

But the last time he'd seen her had been different. It had been a couple of months ago, before the world had come crashing down around their ears—she'd called him with such chipperness that Obi-Wan knew she was faking her good mood, and asked if he'd care to join her on her day off. So they'd met at the diner Obi-Wan frequented in the Works, and rather than the usual hour of hurriedly wolfing down food and tipetoeing around areas of conversation they'd rather not touch, they'd talked all afternoon. It had been . . . nice.

Just before they'd finally paid the check and gone their separate ways, he'd plucked up the courage to say: "Much as I'm delighted to have been your companion for the afternoon, I would think you'd have preferred to spend it with Anakin. Is he away?"

Just like that, the sense of ease they'd fallen back into had whisked away like air through a viewport. Padmé, whose sudden bitterness Obi-Wan could have sensed from a building away, had replied, "Well, technically he's here. But when he's not sleeping he's running himself ragged day and night for the glorious leader. They had some kind of function to attend today."

He'd intended, then, to hastily change the subject, try to salvage their parting moments together. Before he could, though, she'd asked, "Have you guys been . . . keeping an eye on him?"

For a moment guilt had welled up inside him as he panicked, wondering if she knew about all the times he'd almost called, or had kept his eyes moving from person to person as he walked through the Senate in hopes of catching a glimpse of him. But then he realized she wasn't talking about Anakin.

"On Palpatine? I . . . as close as we do on any chancellor." A good deal closer, in fact, though that didn't mean much—they could only keep so many agents in the Senate building, and they could only get so near. He'd thrown a glance behind them to make sure no one was in the nearest booth, then leaned closer and said, "Not that we have spies hiding behind his curtains or anything. Getting caught in that position would not be any way to get the Order into the Republic's good graces. Why?"

Padmé too had looked behind herself, then turned back to him and lowered her voice to a whisper. "A couple years ago, when I ran into Tyyria Nox on Naboo? We weren't necessarily there for a fundraiser. We—"

At that moment, an oncoming squeaking noise had startled both of them upright in their seats—the server droid glided by, her none-too-oiled wheel complaining as it rolled. It passed them without a backward glance, but when Obi-Wan returned his attention to Padmé, she'd closed down, as though invisible blast shields had lowered in front of her eyes.

"Talk to Mace Windu sometime," she'd told him, and then they'd been saying their awkward goodbyes.

He'd meant to, of course. But then more pressing concerns had come for them all.

Even had Obi-Wan been in the mood to explain all this to Mace, they hadn't time—his shift would begin soon, and he didn't want to stay down here any longer than he had to. Instead, he simply said, "I know enough to know that I don't want you to tell me anything about her part in whatever happened. Or Senator Organa's."

Windu nodded. "We didn't find what we were searching for anyway. We needed concrete. What we got was . . . ghosts. Patterns. They're enough for me, but not enough for anyone who matters."

The other Jedi clenched his fists slowly, deliberately. Obi-Wan's mind flashed to shatterpoint, to the fear of what could happen here if that power were used upon one of the hundreds of crystals filling the hall, but Windu wasn't making the gesture out of frustration. On the surface, at least, his aura felt as cool as ever.

"What if this were all him, Obi-Wan?" The question, when it left Mace's lips, wasn't a question—it was a certainty, as if he'd asked, What if gravity worked? "Not just the new peacekeeping corps, the executive orders, martial law. What if he was the one who set the whole thing spinning and then stood back to watch?"

"I . . . Mace, you can't mean the war. He wasn't even in office then—that was . . ." Bail, he didn't finish, though he felt his face flush with guilt anyway. Me.

"Oh, Organa was the one who lit the fuse, sure," replied Windu evenly, unblinking. "But someone had to pour the gunpowder."

He stepped around the plinth between them so that they both stood in the same aisle, never moving his eyes from Obi-Wan's. "Think about it, Kenobi. Who's benefited every step of the way for the last four years? Despite every defeat, every setback, even Coruscant being bombed, who has only gotten more and more power while we sat back and watched him take it? Who's got the police force he created patrolling the streets while Drallig and the others"—here he gestured savagely at the Temple above, his fist coming so close that Obi-Wan had to take an alarmed step back—"hole up and dither?"

It wasn't the first time Obi-Wan had heard the line of thought. He and Bail had spoken plenty of times about the executive measures, the excuses for greater wartime powers, the consistent erosion of legislative checks. But even though Bail had occasionally hovered on the edge of going further, whatever he and Padmé and Mace and Tyyria had gotten into on Theed hadn't been enough for him to believe what Mace evidently did. He'd never taken the plunge. Nor would Obi-Wan himself have done so. "Taking advantage of a crisis is not the same thing as starting one, Mace. The scale of what you're talking about—it's unthinkable."

"Well," replied Windu, his lip curling in contempt. "A few weeks ago we would have said the idea of the Confederate flagship plowing a hole into the capital was unthinkable. Now look."

For the second time that day, Yoda's words flashed through Obi-Wan's head. If impossible you say a thing is, take care that's not because you wish it to be so.

He looked away from Mace and toward the back of the hall—to the chamber at the rear wall. If he were to go inside, there would be twenty lightsabers arranged in a circle—the owners not dead in battle, but vanished centuries ago. Yet another piece of the unthinkable, until it hadn't been.

As he turned back to Windu, the younger Jedi gestured for him to follow. "Come over here for a second."

Obi-Wan following, he strode back to the front rows of the hall, to a cluster of plinths that lay in shadow near the western wall. They matched the rows and rows of others, save in one respect: no lightsabers stood atop them.

Fallen but not recovered. It was a group whose members had grown in a steady trickle over the course of the war.

"You and I both know where most of these come from," said Windu, glaring down at the empty plinths not with contempt but with what Obi-Wan could perceive as raw fury. "How many Knights have been sent after Maul now? A dozen? We know it won't work, but they keep getting thrown away. Because when it's a Sith, wasting lives, time, resources—that's understandable.

"But when it comes to any threat that's not a black-cloaked freak waving a red lightsaber around—well then we have to wait. We have to be cautious. Keep an eye on it, but don't be hasty. Not until it's setting up its own police forces right next door.

"Well, I did my waiting, Kenobi. For the last two years, I've been patient. And all that's done is let the Confederacy wind up on our doorstep and Palpatine turn that to his advantage. We need to do something."

Rather than answer, Obi-Wan studied the empty plinths—the space that hung above them felt like a yawning gap far wider than it actually was. It had become something of a minor ritual at this point in the war. Send out a Knight to go after Maul. Stop receiving communications from them after a short period of time. Wait several months before declaring all hope lost. Install a barren pillar in the Hall of the Fallen.

Every time it happened, Obi-Wan would feel a twinge of guilt in the same place. If I'd beaten him, none of this would have happened. These people. Qui-Gon. Serenno. Maybe even the war.

What if he's right? he thought, feeling Mace's presence beside him even as his eyes stayed focused on the plinths. What if you could stop something before it happens, this time?

But even as the question's rush of adrenaline pulsed through his system, Obi-Wan recalled one of the principles he'd tried to live his life by. Hasty action was almost always action wasted, and seemingly easy resolutions always made things harder. And trying to bring down Palpatine in the midst of a war wouldn't just endanger the Order. It could destroy us.

He wouldn't risk that possibility for easy satisfaction. No matter how cathartic it might feel.

With a sigh, he returned his gaze to the other Jedi's. "Mace, even if you're sure of this, you yourself have admitted there's nothing to back it up. Besides, Anakin hasn't told me anything. And were I to ask him on your behalf, he would refuse to help. He's devoted to Palpatine. He has been since they first met."

Windu simply stood still for a moment. Then he sneered, and nodded. "The Negotiator. Fitting title for a coward."

"Mace, I—"

"It's funny, you'd think after you faced Maul twice you would be the one they're sending out after him. Or maybe they know better. Maybe you don't have what it takes."

"Mace, what is it you plan to do?"

The other Jedi had already turned his back on Obi-Wan, and was headed for the entrance to the hall. Without looking back, he replied, "What I have to, Kenobi."

The door slammed closed behind him. With no other sound to mask it, the echo haunted the hall for a long time.

Obi-Wan looked down at the plinth to his right. The saber there was wrapped in leather, the handgrip cracked and hardened with age. A jagged tear ran through the material on the side nearest him, exposing the metal beneath. Funny, he thought, again possessed by a perverse urge to pick the weapon up. Its owner must have been young when they died, if they were killed in battle. Now the only thing that's left of them is this. A relic, in the company of other relics, any use it once had gone long ago.

None of what you told him was a lie, he told himself, watching the saber gleam in the faint light of the hall. Anakin wouldn't do it.

Are you saying that because you mean it? something whispered back. Or because you don't want Anakin to choose between you and the chancellor?

Rather than trying to smother the thought, Obi-Wan just let it go. He didn't have the luxury of arguing with himself right now.

He had a watch to take.

Jedi Archives: Concerning the Continued Pursuit of the Sith Lord Maul

[excerpt from the dissenting opinion, authored by Master Luminara Unduli, for a Jedi Council vote concerning the Order's effort to defeat the Sith called Darth Maul]

Have we all forgotten that Maul leads the war we've so selfishly recalled our Knights from? That perhaps, rather than repeatedly throwing away Jedi lives on this hunt for a single Sith Lord, we'd have a better chance of encountering and defeating Maul by returning those Knights to the fight against his Confederacy?

Beyond that, I cannot help but feel there is a better option. To date we have only fought Maul in mutually unfamiliar territory—or worse, in places he calls home. The Sith seek to destroy the Jedi, do they not? Let him come to us. We stand a far better chance of defeating a Sith Lord on our own terms, here in the Jedi Temple, united as a whole Order.

Therefore I put forth a motion to abandon this myopic pursuit of Darth Maul and instead shore up our defenses here at home while returning our Knights and Healers to the war. We may yet accomplish our goal of destroying the Sith—but more importantly, this returns us to a place of assisting a galaxy in need. Is that not our charge as Jedi?

[Archivist's note: Master Unduli's motion was voted down in Council]