Chapter Forty-Eight: Friends Long Gone
The hollow wind of each labored breath filled Anakin's ears as he paced back and forth in the hallway of his apartment building. Each footfall vibrated through him, each weighty beat of his heart rattling in his chest.
Every time he walked past his apartment door, distant words gnawed at his brain. The sounds of Tarkin demanding to know where Obi-Wan Kenobi was. Demanding that he be the one to tell them.
The hunt was on now. The truth had been laid bare before the entire Senate. Obi-Wan was a member of the Jedi Order. By the end of the night it would be all over the holonet. Everyone would know what he was.
And no one would buy the fact that his former partner knew nothing of his whereabouts. Director Tarkin certainly didn't believe it.
Maybe Palpatine doesn't either.
Anakin squeezed his eyes shut, willing the dark voice within to be silent as his strides carried him once again past the front door of the apartment. He knew what he had to do now.
He'd heard tales from his time in the Jedi Order—stories of how to foster certain visions of the Force. One could feed off the echoes of another person's energy, the legends said. Feel their histories. The things they'd touched. The places they'd been.
Anakin's mechanical hand hovered inches from the door, its servomotors whirring as an unsteady shaking flexed each metal digit. He could deliver Obi-Wan to them. All he had to do was open the door and reach out into the Force—
Stop lying to yourself.
As the dark voice spoke, Anakin's hand became still.
You don't want to find him.
His jaw clenched, molars grinding against each other. He wanted to shout back in objection. Scream that the voice was wrong, that it wasn't true—
So open the door, then.
Anakin didn't move.
See? You can't bring yourself to do it. You want plausible deniability. As long as you don't know where Obi-Wan is, you can claim ignorance. Stay neutral. Protect him without disappointing Palpatine.
"Shut up!" Anakin hissed, his voice barely above a whisper as his right hand moved to touch the door.
When he threw it open, Anakin was immediately greeted by a puff of dust. A thin layer coated nearly every surface in the residence; much of the furniture was still overturned, the cabinets thrown open and their contents tossed about. He'd been in the apartment only once since Padmé and Obi-Wan disappeared—since then he'd made his home elsewhere, sleeping aboard the Arbiter or beneath the desk in his office of the Executive Complex. The last time he'd been here was the night that Palpatine found him alone, ashamed, standing in the ruins of his relationship.
The night he forgave you. Gave you a purpose again. And this is how you thank him, the dark voice sneered in his ear.
You're here again. And you can feel it. The echoes of Kenobi are all around you. Reach out.
Find him.
Beads of sweat had begun to form on the back of Anakin's neck; his hand shook again as he extended an arm to shut the door behind him.
The moment it closed, a rush of energy seemed to force its way into his mind—and the Coruscant apartment changed around him.
. . . . . . . .
The buzz of outside speeder traffic became birdsong. The floor beneath his feet was grass now—dry and crisp, nearly dead. The air was chilled—not by climate control, but by wind rushing off the distant snow capped mountains. Before him stood a settlement. Prefabricated structures surrounded by gardens, an agro-droid poking at the plants—
. . . . . . . . .
"No!" Anakin shouted. Then, quieter: "No. You're right. I don't want to know."
He hurried away from the apartment's front door, toward the panoramic window which bathed the furnished sitting area in afternoon sunlight. Stretching his senses beyond the window, he desperately clung to the flurry of life passing by. Perhaps, he hoped, it would drown out the noise. The remnants of Obi-Wan's presence seeping throughout the apartment.
It doesn't work like that, the voice said in a taunting singsong. Anakin spun to look at the source of the words—they were no longer coming from within his head. They seemed to be occupying a real space, as if a person seated on the couch were speaking to him.
But when he turned to face the furniture, it was empty. Empty, save for a pulsing glow in the Force. The spot where Obi-Wan always sat—
. . . . . . . . .
A man in tattered robes wandered through the dormant grass, the rising—or was it setting?—sun bathing him in reddish orange. He held a box of tools in one hand as the other hand ran along the jagged planks of a dilapidated fence. A gust of wind pulled the hood back from his head. His hair was unkempt, its color accentuated by the sunlight—though it contained more streaks of grey than it had the last time Anakin saw him—
. . . . . . . . .
"Stop!"
Anakin darted away from the window, desperation carrying him across the apartment as he vaulted over the couch and shoved aside a dining room chair.
You can't hide behind plausible deniability forever, you know, the voice said. It was moving around the room now, every third or fourth word coming from a different place. Anakin pivoted as it spoke, trying and failing to track its location.
Even if you don't know where Kenobi is, what if Palpatine finds out something else? What if he asks about Vader's investigative unit?
"Don't," Anakin said. "Don't say it—"
What if he finds out you haven't even been looking for Jedi most of the time? You've been after something else, wasting the Republic's resources to search for something Valis asked you to find.
Sidious.
"I'm not looking because of her!" he said, a pathetic high pitch squeezing his voice.
But she's the one who piqued your curiosity. And now you're trying to find Sidious for selfish reasons. That might be even worse.
The room melted away again.
. . . . . . . . .
The man sat perched atop a rock, on a hillside overlooking the cluster of prefab buildings. There were weathered books scattered all around him. In his hands he held a shard that glinted in the moonlight. This was Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master. Meditating. Watching over things. Preparing for something.
Anakin forced himself to turn away, to not look up at the night sky. Stars were clues, their positions a hint as to where the man had gone. He couldn't know.
As he turned his back on the man, Anakin heard a sound rise above the gentle nighttime breeze. A weary sigh, escaping from the lips of his old friend.
. . . . . . . . .
With a wordless yell, Anakin tore himself away from the unwelcome vision yet again.
What if Palpatine finds out that you tried to warn Kenobi? the voice asked, its sinister tones bouncing around the room yet again. Plausible deniability won't save you from that either. You learn the man has disappeared, and the first thing you do is send him a message? Tell him not to come back? What does that say about where your loyalties lie?
"That's enough!" Anakin screamed, rushing across the apartment toward the open bedroom door.
When he reached the room, he slammed the door shut behind him. For a moment, there was blessed silence. Even amidst the chaos of the overturned furniture, of the wardrobe's contents strewn about the floor, he allowed himself to exist in the one place in the apartment Obi-Wan had never been.
Smart, the dark voice said—it was back inside his head again, gnawing at his inner ear. But not smart enough.
Remember, he's not alone. To find Kenobi, you don't have to find Kenobi.
She's with him too. And her echoes are everywhere.
Padmé's presence washed over him like a rushing river, and Anakin could feel the world around him begin to fade. Even as he pushed back, steeled his senses against the onslaught, he could tell that it would fail.
The floor swallowed him whole.
Dead grass scratches at Anakin Skywalker's ankles. The prefabricated colony shelters around him cast ill-defined shadows across the dry ground, their edges blurred by the dull sun overhead. In the center of the compound, two people stand and stare at him.
One his visions have shown—a tattered cloak surrounds the man, its hood withdrawn to reveal a weary face. The other he has not—she is dressed in white, her dark hair whipping across her face in the breeze.
A thought darts across his brain. Perhaps, Anakin realizes, this is his chance to warn them. To deliver the message that failed to reach the Spice Dancer. To reach out through the Force and urge them never to return to Republic space.
He opens his mouth and calls out their names, takes a step in their direction.
His next words—the words of warning—catch in his throat.
Part of it, he knows, is uncertainty. Hesitation. A deep and undeniable fear that somehow, someone will find out.
Part of it is the way they look at him. Their expressions are not ones of joy, or relief. There is no exuberance at this reunion of the mighty trio. They are not excited to see the long-lost friend, the husband long gone.
Obi-Wan has drawn his lightsaber, its blade angled in a defensive stance. Padmé has raised a hand to her chest, a fist closed tightly around the wooden necklace that Anakin once carved for her.
And painted on their faces is sheer terror. Absolute, undeniable fear.
Fear of him.
Come on, Skywalker, the dark voice whispers from behind him. You know what we have to do.
As it speaks, the voice seems to move again—and this time, when Anakin turns to look at the source of the words, there is someone there.
Himself.
It is him, and yet it is not. The face is the same, the hair is no different, the scar across his cheek he has carried since childhood is plain as day. But something is wrong. The lopsided Skywalker grin he can't help practicing in the mirror from time to time is twisted into a snarl. His gaze is sinister, the eyes a piercing yellow.
This, he realizes, is what Obi-Wan and Padmé are afraid of.
"No," he says to the voice—to the other Anakin—but it does not listen. It begins to walk forward, each footstep resounding with another crunch of dry grass. "No," he calls out again, louder this time.
And even as the other Anakin approaches Obi-Wan and Padmé, they do not move. They do not run. The Jedi Master does not shift his stance, does not prepare to strike first.
Anakin Skywalker can only watch as this apparition, the other him, closes the gap. Reaches out to grip the Jedi's throat in his mechanical fist. Squeezes.
As Obi-Wan collapses to the ground, the other Anakin turns toward Padmé and raises a clenched fist.
"NO!" Anakin screams. He wills his eyes to squeeze shut. They do not listen. He cannot look away.
Just before the other him strikes Padmé, Anakin wakes up.
The sound of his ringing commlink yanked him back into reality. Sprawled across the bedroom floor and drenched in his own sweat, he rose to his feet with a pained groan.
Beyond the sweeping windows of the bedroom, afternoon had turned to the sparkling lightshow of a Coruscant night—the dots of thousands of glowing windows set against a black sky marked by streaks of barely visible clouds.
His hand shaking, Anakin withdrew the commlink from his pocket and depressed a button to silence it.
Nicely done, the dark voice said. You did exactly what you wanted. Kept your plausible deniability. You saw just enough to say you tried. Not enough to actually help.
The commlink rang again—Anakin ignored it, along with the voice, as his mind raced to make sense of what he saw.
Obi-Wan and Padmé feared him—but they would never fight him. They would only stand their ground as he moved in for the kill.
Which is what you'll have to do.
When you find them, you will have to destroy them. It's what's expected of you.
His commlink continued to ring as he cradled it in his mechanical hand—squeezing a fist shut, he crushed the device in his metal grip.
Silence lingered in the air for the briefest moment before the ringing continued. Not from the destroyed commlink still sizzling in his hand, but from the wall-mounted residential comm unit near the bedroom door.
Bewilderment played across Anakin's face as he gazed at the device and furrowed his brow. "No one knows I'm here," he whispered to himself.
Maybe he does, the voice said.
Anakin said nothing for several seconds. Then the voice continued.
Don't you think it's possible he had you followed after the hearing? Tarkin planted the idea in his head that you're sabotaging the investigation, and now he doesn't trust you. He wants to make sure you're behaving.
"That's not—"
You gonna answer that? the voice said as the wall comm continued to ring.
Anakin moved over to the comm unit, dragging his feet across the floor with each step. When he reached the wall, he swallowed in a fruitless attempt to wet his throat, then raised a hand and pressed his thumb against the comm panel.
"Skywalker," he said, his voice weak.
"The chancellor requests your presence at dinner this evening," a voice called back—artificial, Anakin thought. One of the administrative scheduling droids at the office. He felt a strange comfort in knowing a machine, rather than a person, was calling. Droids were easier to lie to.
So we're lying to the chancellor now? the dark voice asked. Anakin ignored it.
"Shall I send an airspeeder?" the droid's voice sounded through the comm.
"Yes," Anakin said between gasps for air. "To my apartment complex, please."
"Very well, sir. There is one waiting for you outside."
Without another word, he thumbed the comm unit off and allowed himself to slump against the wall.
He knows, the dark voice said through the silence. He already had a speeder waiting here. He knows what you're up to. He knows you're hiding something.
The question is, what are you going to do about it?
Jedi Archives: Echoes
[translation of a carving found within the halls of the Jedi Temple]
The Force remembers
Embrace the Echoes it has left behind
They are around you, if you open your eyes to see Them
To see what was, to see what is to come