Star Wars is the property of George Lucas, this is an infringement of copyright, yadda yadda yadda. I'm a student, you wouldn't get anything from me anyway. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real Jedi, living, dead, or otherwise, is purely coincidental.
Feedback is always welcome at the usual address (johinsa@hotmail.com). Flames will be used to cremate minor characters. Feel free to archive, distribute, print, quote in English class essays, and otherwise disseminate this story, as long as all credit and disclaimers are attached.
by Johinsa
Part One: Darkness
"There's so many different worlds, so many different suns,
and we have just one world but we live in different ones..."
--Dire Straits, "Brothers in Arms"
Something was very wrong.
Obi-wan lay in a shaft of sunlight, too tired to get up and too well-rested to go back to sleep. Light streamed through his bedroom window, making a long liquid bar across the bed and the floor. By the clock on the wall, it was midmorning, and he would have to get up sooner or later. Reluctantly he pushed the covers aside and stretched, yawning.
Something was wrong. He crossed the floor in his bare feet and took a robe out of the closet, pulling it around his shoulders and checking the mirror to make sure his appearance was tidy. There was a flicker of movement behind him and he turned.
The woman standing in the doorway smiled at him. She wore a robe similar to his own, almond-coloured with a white shirt underneath, and a matching beige headband encircled her shaved scalp. She had no facial hair at all; no eyelashes, even. Her eyes were a deep brown-black, studded with tiny flecks of red.
"Master Dellalee," Obi-wan said, dropping to one knee in a deep bow, his fingers brushing the floor. It was the way he always greeted her, and though it wasn't Jedi tradition, he did it because it made her happy. She was from a world called Ferrilas, a stiff and formal place, and it comforted her to be surrounded by forms. Obi-wan disliked the stifling protocol that she seemed to have for every occasion; but it was what Dellalee was used to.
"Apprentice?" she said from above his head. He realized suddenly that he was still kneeling in front of her, when he should have gotten up almost immediately. There was concern in her voice. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he said quickly, but his voice betrayed the lie. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
She bent down and touched his cheek with her hand. Her fingers were very cold. Of course, Ferrilai had a lower blood temperature than humans; he had always known that. Why should it surprise him now?
"Obi-wan, how do you feel?" Dellalee asked worriedly. It was a measure of her concern that she called him by his first name; even when he was a child, she had done so only on rare occasions. Something was wrong.
"I feel well, Master," he said, "but--" He shook his head, unable to express what he felt. "There's--" He fell silent.
"I think you had better go to the infirmary," she said. "Do you want me to call someone and have them take you?"
Obi-wan shook his head. "I can find my own way, but I don't think there's any need. I really am fine."
"That wasn't a request, Apprentice," Dellalee said sternly. "Go. I'll wait here until you come back."
He stopped in the doorway and turned around. Dellalee was watching him, her nearly lipless mouth curved in an almost-smile. It was a human expression she had never quite mastered; he remembered her practicing it in front of a mirror when he was a boy. Why did it seem that the wrongness he felt was somehow connected with her?
"Are you going or not?" she asked.
"I'm going." He hurried out the door.
Most of the Jedi he passed in the hall were armed, as usual. He recognized a few of them, Knights mostly, and some of the older apprentices; he knew nearly everyone his age by sight at least. That was no mean feat: by the time he had been brought in, the Jedi had been working on increasing their numbers for nearly fifty years, and Obi-wan's class was larger than any of those before it. Though not so large as the groups that were being recruited now; this year's batch of new apprentices held more than twice as many as Obi-wan's year had.
He spotted someone he knew more than casually, and waved. "Hey! Beller!"
"Kenobi!" Beller Keese, short and yellow-haired and dumpy, stopped midstride to wave back. "Haven't seen you in awhile. What's up?" He frowned and squinted at Obi-wan's face. "What's wrong? You don't look so good."
"Everybody keeps saying that," Obi-wan said with a rueful shrug. "My Master thinks I'm sick for some reason. She sent me to the infirmary."
"Maybe it's your arm or something," Beller suggested.
"My arm?" Obi-wan glanced down at his arm, which was, of course, covered by his long brown sleeve. "What about it?"
Beller grinned. He always seemed to be grinning about something. There was a sort of forceful joviality about him, as if he thought he might be punished for not being cheerful enough. "Funny, Kenobi, very funny. Maybe you've got a fever or something; you know, if you get cut it can get infected or something. You should go down to the infirmary and get it looked at."
"I am going there," Obi-wan said patiently. "I just said so."
"Right, well, have fun. I've got to get back to the workshop." With another wave of his hand, Beller continued on his way. Obi-wan lingered behind until the other apprentice was out of sight, and then pulled up his sleeve, trying not to be conspicuous. A red scar ran diagonally across the inside of his arm, puffy and swollen like a half-inflated hose. He wondered why he hadn't noticed it while dressing. Experimentally, he poked at it with his other hand. It didn't hurt.
He had gotten the scar three or four days ago--four, he thought. He and Beller and Stadderick and a few other apprentices had been doing a weapons drill in the gym, and Stadderick had gotten careless as usual and grazed Obi-wan's arm with a knife. Stadderick and Obi-wan had both been thoroughly chewed out by their Masters for the accident. "Do you think we've got so many apprentices here that we can afford to lose one?" Dellalee had raged upon being summoned to the medical bay. "What if you'd lost an eye, or an arm, or something? What if you'd bled to death?" She was always prone to hyperbole when angry. Of course he couldn't have been seriously hurt, not with half a dozen other apprentices there and the medical droid standing by. Still, he had apologized to her, and Stadderick had done the same, his face red and sweaty and earnest. He seemed to be more upset by the whole thing than Obi-wan was.
Shaking his head, Obi-wan continued down the corridor. It was strange that he hadn't remembered the incident before. For an instant, the feeling of wrongness returned, but he suppressed it. It was just nerves, probably. He had every reason to be nervous.
He would have to make a token stop at the infirmary, at least. He didn't feel sick, but Master Dellalee would certainly check to make sure he'd gone, and the last thing he wanted was to get in any more trouble with her. She always got upset so easily, especially now. Worse, she would probably grow suspicious if he lied to her about his whereabouts. There was so much suspicion in the Temple these days.
The infirmary was nearly empty, which was unusual. Fully three-quarters of the beds stood unoccupied, and the patients that were present seemed mostly to be sleeping. "Yes, how can I help you?" a medical droid greeted Obi-wan in a prissy voice. "You don't look hurt. Are you hurt? Or sick?"
"My Master sent me here for a checkup," Obi-wan answered patiently. He wondered if whoever had designed the droids had made them sound so annoying on purpose.
"A checkup? Is that all? How inconsiderate of you. Coming in here when we have far more urgent things to deal with--"
"You're not busy," Obi-wan pointed out, looking around at the sparsely occupied room.
"Yes, but even if we were, you'd still insist on being looked at, wouldn't you? No consideration at all." Clicking with irritation, the droid rolled over to an empty examination table. "Come on, come on, hurry up. I don't intend to wait all day for you."
Obediently Obi-wan climbed onto the table and removed his outer robe. The room was uncomfortably cold. "Have you been healthy lately?" the droid said. "Any particular complaints?" One metal extension probed the scar on his forearm. "How old is this?"
"Yes, no, four days," Obi-wan answered tiredly. He hated dealing with mechanicals. "Ouch!" He jerked his arm back. There was a drop of blood on his wrist.
"Just taking a blood sample," the droid said. "Honestly, you Jedi. You're all so jumpy. I swear, sometimes it's enough to make me want to retire altogether. Maybe I could set up some sort of private practice on one of the outer worlds--"
"Could you please just finish this?" Obi-wan demanded. "I have more important things to do than--" He stopped. Patience, young apprentice, a man's voice said in the back of his mind. He didn't recognise it. "I mean--please--carry on."
"Thank you." The droid buzzed around for several moments, clicking and humming to itself as it took samples and ran tests. "You're fine," it said at last. "There's nothing wrong with you. You're in perfect health. Strong as a lothbar. In short, this has been a complete waste of your time and mine."
"Thanks," Obi-wan said wryly. "I appreciate it."
"No charge, no charge. I should start charging you Jedi for your silly complaints, I'd make millions. Now get out. I have patients to see to."
Obi-wan started for the door, and then hurriedly stepped back as it slid open before he reached it. A pair of Jedi in black robes staggered into the infirmary, one of them supporting the other, who seemed to be barely conscious. A third one, much younger--a padawan, maybe--limped inside behind them, her face ash-grey and her robes spattered with blood. "Medic!" she shouted. "Where's the medic? We've got wounded here!"
"How many?" the droid demanded, as the Jedi in front laid his burden on an examining table. "Just you three?"
The Jedi shook his head. "More coming. Six or seven, I think--not sure--who made it--" He swayed, and the padawan caught him before he fell, easing him to the floor. A second droid appeared with a scanner, but he waved it off. "No time," he gasped. "Tell the Council--tell them--"
"Master?" the padawan said, her voice breaking. "Master Kefann, hold on, please--"
"Tell them--broken through at point sixty--we were overrun and we couldn't--" He looked up imploringly at Obi-wan. "Padawan Siloann promoted to Knight--my authority--tell them--"
"I will," Obi-wan promised. "I'll tell them right away." The Jedi nodded and closed his eyes. The second droid, who had been readying the scanner, gave a mechanical shrug and turned away.
"No!" the padawan shrieked. "Chaos, no! Do something! Someone do something!"
"He's dead," Obi-wan snapped. "Be quiet and let the medics see to you. You're Siloann?" She nodded, her lip trembling. "You've been promoted, it seems. Where were you stationed?"
"P--point fifty-four. We went to help when they--they called--"
"Fine. Let the droid see to you and then get back to your post as quickly as possible. You'll be needed there. I'll go inform the Council. You can make out a full report for them when you're recovered." He glanced at the medical droid. "If there's nothing else?"
"Go," the droid said irritably, and Obi-wan went.
A few steps down the corridor, his words suddenly struck him. He'd been horrible to that child, who had just seen her Master die--what was he thinking? Almost, he turned around and went back to apologise, but he had to speak to the Council as soon as possible, that was the procedure--
Anyway, what does it matter? he asked himself. We've all seen plenty of death. She'd better get used to it now. Nobody coddled you when Qui-Gon Jinn died, did they? And you were only seven--this Siloann's easily twelve or thirteen. She'll cope.
Yes, but even so, you didn't have to be so harsh with her. Would it have cost you anything to take a few seconds and comfort the poor kid?
Why am I thinking like this? What's wrong with me? Something's wrong--
The corridor seemed to waver around him, doubling and redoubling. He stumbled, putting out a hand to steady himself, and even the cold metal wall seemed unstable. Something is very wrong, he thought, and with those words, all the events of the day seemed to crash in on him at once. Master Dellalee...Beller Keese...the medical droid...Kefann and Siloann...the Council...
"I have to see the Council," he said aloud. A few passers-by glanced up at him, then hurried on without speaking. He could feel them trying to ignore him. There's so much suspicion in the Temple these days--and everyone's armed, why is that, that isn't normal--no, of course it is--
The Council. They would help him. He had to tell them about Kefann and the others, and the rest of this. They'd know what to do. Obi-wan ran to the nearest lift and punched the button for the Council chamber. The lift doors closed behind him, and the feeling of unreality disappeared. The Council would know what to do.
He waited impatiently as the lift climbed to the top of the Temple. At the height of the crisis the Council had met on the lower floors for awhile, feeling that the meeting chamber presented too great a target, but thankfully there was no need for that now; they were still besieged, but no longer in immediate danger of obliteration. The lift stopped only once, for a contingent of black-uniformed Knights, who got off three floors later. The rest of the time, he was alone.
Obi-wan got off and headed for the Council chamber. There were three Knights on guard in front of the double doors. "Council's busy," one of them said. "Closed session. Sorry."
"I have to talk to Master Yoda," Obi-wan snapped. "It's urgent."
The Knight shrugged, looking mildly interested. "Is he talking to the Council today? I didn't hear he was back on Coruscant already."
Obi-wan rubbed at his forehead with the edge of his thumb. It was so hard to think. "No--I mean--" It took him several moments to come up with a name. "I need to talk to Master Window. Windu. Mace Windu."
The Knight looked dubious. "I'll ask." He disappeared through the curved doors. Obi-wan leaned against the cold wall, his strength seeming to drain away. The other two guards stared straight ahead, seeming to ignore him, though he sensed they were ready to leap for their weapons if he made any kind of aggressive move. Obi-wan didn't feel as though he could move at all. His vision doubled and doubled again, and eight Jedi Knights watched with disinterested attention as he crumpled to the floor.
Part Two: Halflight
"A friend is someone who won't stop until he finds you, and brings you home." Sgt. Robert Fraser, RCMP
"Obi-wan? Can you hear me?"
He heard, but he couldn't answer. His head seemed filled with water; it sloshed heavily as he tried to move. Voices mumbled and roared in his ears.
"Apprentice, please listen to me. I'm certain you can hear me. You are not injured. Whatever is wrong with you, you can fight it. I know you can. We are doing all we can for you, but you must help yourself or we cannot help you."
I'm fine, Master Dellalee, Obi-wan tried to say, but he couldn't. Besides, it wasn't true; he wasn't fine, and he knew it. The voice might not even be Master Dellalee, for all he knew. It was so distorted that it could have been anyone. He thought it was Dellalee, though. The mix of exasperation and worry and love/warmth/security that he felt in the Force was comfortingly familiar--and yet, there was a difference about it.
"Is he gonna be okay? Master Dellalee? Is Kenobi all right?" That was almost certainly Beller Keese. Odd, that Beller should be easier to recognise than--
"We can only hope so, Apprentice." That was Dellalee--and it was not the same person who had spoken before.
"Well, what are they doing about it? What happened?"
"No-one knows, Padawan Keese. He collapsed outside the Council chamber, on his way to deliver a routine report on a perimeter breach. The guards called a medic."
Beller sounded alarmed. "A breach? Where?"
"Point sixty. You needn't worry; it's under control. In any case, the medics found him like this. He's been out since then. I can't get to him even through the learning bond. It's very strange."
"Is he dying?"
There was a pause. "Physically, they say he's stable, but there's no way to tell if his mind--" The ocean noise swallowed the last of her words, and Obi-wan lost them. It was dark, and things moved in the darkness. Something eyeless and terrible was sliding through the water, searching, and unless he kept very still, it would find him.
He kept his eyes tightly shut and strained to listen through the pounding of the sea.
"You've been here for almost three days. Get something to eat or something. You can't do anything for him now."
"If he needs me, I will be here with him." That was the first voice again, stiff and formal. "I must be here. I must--"
"Sleep, you must," said someone else, and Obi-wan thought, Master Yoda? I didn't know he was back on Coruscant--no-- "Correct Mace Windu is. Nothing can you do for your apprentice at this time. Informed you will be, if any change there is."
"Master Yoda is right, Qui-Gon," Mace Windu said. "I'll watch him myself, if you like."
Obi-wan stiffened. Qui-Gon. Master Qui-Gon. But he's dead--Am I dying? Is that what this is? Master Qui-Gon!
Obi-wan! he heard.
"Is something wrong, Qui-Gon?"
"I heard him. Through the bond, I--at least, I think I did. Obi-wan?" Obi-wan? Do you hear me? Can you answer?
Frightened, Obi-wan twisted away, for the moment not thinking of the terror in the dark below him. Again Obi-wan could hear Master Dellalee somewhere distant. Her voice was familiar, and he moved toward it, seeking the light like the first ancient fish to break the surface of the primeval ocean--
"Master Dellalee! I think his eyelids moved!"
"What happened? Mace, what just happened?"
"Stay calm, Padawan Keese."
"Stay calm, Qui-Gon."
"He's coming around."
"We're losing him--"
Obi-wan opened his eyes. Everything was blurred and seemed far too bright, but he could see Master Dellalee's face and the light reflecting from her scalp. "Apprentice," she said, nodding. "We were concerned."
"I'm fine," Obi-wan said. He tried to get up, but found that he was tied to the bed.
"You were thrashing around a fair bit, Kenobi," Beller explained, as Dellalee unbuckled the straps that held Obi-wan down. "They were worried you'd hurt yourself. Are you sure you're okay? You look really bad."
"So do you, and you haven't got the excuse of being sick," Obi-wan said with a grin. Beller grinned back. "It's good to see you. What happened, anyway? The last thing I remember was going to see the Council--did Master Kefann's message get through?"
"The breach is contained," Dellalee assured him. "Knight Siloann told them."
"Oh. Good. Where is she now?"
"She has gone back to her station. As you should, Padawan Keese," Dellalee added, turning to Beller. "Your Master will be looking for you. Best not to alarm her." Beller bowed and hurried off, waving to Obi-wan over his shoulder as he left the infirmary. "As for you," Dellalee continued, "are you well enough to get up? I've been assigned to point fifty-one to cover the vacancies the last attack left in our perimeter guard, and I'd like you with me."
Obi-wan sat up carefully and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He stood and tried a few experimental steps. "I think I'm all right," he said. He shook his head, but everything still looked odd. "I can't see very well, though. Everything's all--bright."
"Bright?" Dellalee repeated. She beckoned to a nearby medical droid. "Is there any reason why there should be something wrong with his eyesight?"
"Not that I know of," the droid answered. Obi-wan wondered if it was the same one he had seen before. The light reflecting from its surfaces was almost blinding. "Of course, if someone would bother to explain exactly what happened to him--"
"That's your job," Dellalee snapped. "We've told you what we know."
"Yes, yes, that's what you always say, and then it's Oh, by the way, he spent the last month in the plague zone on Alderaan or Oh, yes, he got his leg chopped off in a firefight on Sterba, sorry we forgot to mention it. How am I supposed to figure out what's the matter if you don't tell me anything?"
"If you can't do your job, droid, then you're fit for the scrap heap and I'll tell Dr. Tamling so," Dellalee said evenly. "Can you give him something for his vision?"
"It's really all right, Master," Obi-wan said. "I can make things out just fine. I must just be having trouble adjusting to the light after being out so long--how long was I out?"
"Half an hour or so," Dellalee said. "In that case, if you think you're fit for duty, come with me. We're to report to point fifty-one as soon as possible."
Aside from training visits, Obi-wan had never been out to a perimeter post before. It was a long ride, which, according to the pilot of their skiff, was a good sign. "Been pushing 'em back all year," he commented as he skillfully wove in and out of the ill-defined air traffic lanes. "Do you realise I used to be able to make the run from the Temple to point forty-four in less than half an hour? Now they've got seventy points and it takes three hours to get to the perimeter. That's gotta be a good thing."
"Just fly the ship, please," Dellalee said tiredly, pushing the sleeping Knight beside her off her shoulder again. The eight-person skiff was carrying seventeen Jedi, and the engines whined and the air stank. Even three hours aboard was far too long.
"Sure, sure. They said you folks are reinforcements, right? Say, I heard there was a battle out there today. How bad was it? I mean, if they're sending you all out at once--"
"Not as bad as you've heard," another Master said, from her place on the floor. "You understand, we're being sent to different points in the fifty-group, not all to the same place. Much of this is routine rotation."
The pilot snorted. "That's why you're all smashed in here like legfish, is it?"
"Transportation out to the perimeter is kind of limited for Jedi," Obi-wan pointed out, thinking, Legfish? It might be something alien, or just a new mutation that had lasted long enough to be given a name. Or the pilot might have just made it up on the spot, he thought. Aloud, he said nothing.
"There's that. I sure wouldn't be taking you there if the Council didn't pay so well."
Dellalee, meanwhile, had taken a portable reader out of her robes and was studying the tiny screen. Obi-wan leaned over to look. "What's that, Master?"
"A status report from Master Fell at point fifty-one," Dellalee answered. Her lipless mouth twitched itself into a smile, or at least a reasonable attempt at one. "He sent you one as well. I left it in your quarters. No doubt you've read it already, since you don't seem to have it with you."
"I haven't been in my quarters since I woke up," Obi-wan pointed out. "You hurried us out of the Temple so quickly that I didn't have a chance to pack."
"Of course." Dellalee passed him the reader, and he scanned it quickly, squinting against the brilliance of the lighted screen. It was nothing particularly extraordinary: the enemy had struck at points fifty-nine and sixty simultaneously. The Jedi at fifty-nine had repelled the attack, but at sixty, the defense had crumbled. Three Jedi had died there, and the remainder, overwhelmed and many of them wounded, had fled back to the Temple. Two more, Kefann and another, had died shortly after arrival. Meanwhile, reinforcements from the surrounding points had beaten back the assault on point sixty, but they were spread far too thinly right now to provide adequate protection. There was nothing in the report that Obi-wan hadn't expected; if anything, he was surprised that the casualties had been so light. It was likely that there would be a lull for now, as there usually was after a major attack, but it might be fatal to assume so. Vigilance had to be maintained.
His eyes hurt, and he set the reader aside, leaning his head back against the padded seat. The odd brightness he had noticed after waking up hadn't gone away, and it was still a strain to look at things for too long. He closed his eyes.
A sudden bump jarred him fully awake again, just as the pilot called "Point fifty-one!" The door opened, and the occupants of the shuttle squeezed aside to let Dellalee and Obi-wan pass. The pilot followed them out. The air smelled like exhaust fumes and abrasive chemicals, and the light was grey, filtered through the dingy panels in the landing bay's ceiling.
Master Caiopta Fell came out from the service doorway, dressed in robes of austere grey, with a hulking yellow-furred Knight a step behind him, silent. Both wore their lightsabers in plain view. "Welcome," Fell said gravely. He did not bow. Dellalee did, sinking to one knee, and Obi-wan followed suit with a more traditional Jedi bow.
"I'm honoured to be under your command," Dellalee said. "My name is Dellalee Lanai. This is my apprentice, Obi-wan Kenobi." Obi-wan bowed again. "Force be with you."
"And Chaos avoid," Fell completed the phrase. "I am pleased." He turned to the pilot, who was watching the ritual in amused silence. "Thank you for bringing them. I suggest you leave now. Even for non-Jedi, this place isn't safe."
"Right," the pilot said, glancing up at the open hatch. "Strap in, people," he called. "We're heading out."
The Jedi stood at the edge of the landing platform and watched as the ship lifted off and angled west before veering northwards toward the next scheduled stop. Obi-wan wondered if that was a deliberate gesture, a reminder that westward was the border that no Jedi could easily cross. The flash of sunlight from the ship's wings as it turned seemed to flaunt the small craft's freedom. Obi-wan shook his head, deciding he was reading too much into the movement, and turned away.
When the landing bay doors were closed again, Fell seemed to relax. "I hate these ceremonies," he told his companion. "Damn silliness." Dellalee looked faintly disapproving, and Fell laughed. "You haven't changed a bit, Lanai, have you? Come inside, come inside. Make yourselves at home. You'll be here awhile."
The main living area of the post was small but cheerful. It was decorated comfortably, with a computer screen dominating one wall and a melange of amateur holographic stills on the other three, all in bright colours. A trio of padawans, all quite young, sat around a battered table, concentrating intently on a board game of some kind. A fourth padawan, older, lay on some cushions on the floor, reading. She jumped to her feet as the party entered.
"This is Astrave, my apprentice," Fell introduced her. He glanced back at the yellow-furred Knight behind him. "Oh, and this is Traskinn din Hnnh."
"Tras," the Knight rumbled.
Dellalee looked around approvingly. "Very nice. Which of these is your padawan, Knight Tras?" She gestured at the three children. She had painted her nails at some point during their journey, Obi-wan saw; they were brownish-black now, the same colour as her eyes. The skin on her hands looked almost white in contrast.
"All of them," Tras answered calmly. "This is Paoxh, this is Abbahai and this is Yosua." The children nodded in turned, then returned to their game.
"Lanai--" Fell said, but Dellalee had already reached out with the Force toward the children. As one, they looked up at her.
"It's true," she said, her face going blank with surprise. "You've taken three apprentices? Why?"
"Lanai, we had to do something," Fell told her. "Their Masters were killed in an attack four months ago. There was no way they could get back to the Temple, you know how hard it is for Jedi to travel alone this close to the border, and we couldn't go with them and leave the post unmanned. We wouldn't even have had you two if there hadn't been a need for reinforcements at point fifty-nine."
"I understand the necessity," Dellalee said impassively. "But you've broken the Code, the two of you. You know there'll be repercussions from this."
Fell grimaced. "Assuming we all live that long. Lanai, if I make it back to the Temple at the end of my term here, I'll gladly take whatever punishment the Council decides on; until then, I'm not going to worry about it."
"And you?" Dellalee asked, turning to Tras.
"It was the only way," Tras said, his deep voice sounding slightly defensive. "I'll deal with the consequences when they happen." His bravado was only a shadow of Master Fell's confidence, but Dellalee nodded, apparently satisfied.
"As long as you understand," she said. "I will have to report this."
Unexpectedly, Fell chuckled. "You really haven't changed, have you, Lanai."
"Apparently not," Dellalee agreed dryly.
"In that case," Fell said, "if you don't plan to have us arrested in the next few minutes, then I'll show you to your quarters. Abbahai, would you go and start dinner, please?" One of the younger apprentices got up silently and left the room. The other two began carefully packing away their game. "This way," Fell said.
Obi-wan lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. His headache had gotten worse, and even the dim baseboard lights seemed too bright. He buried his face in his pillow. Thankfully, he and Master Dellalee had been assigned separate rooms; he knew she would worry if she saw him like this. He didn't think it was anything serious, but he was tired and the strange brightness of things was aggravating. He began running through one of the elementary pain-blocking disciplines, not really concentrating on it.
He hadn't brought much with him: two sets of robes, his lightsaber, a sturdy pair of boots. Few apprentices owned much more. He emptied his pockets and found a book from the Temple Library, a piece of wire, and a wooden practice knife. These he lined up on the windowsill, along with his spare set of robes, neatly folded. His bed was the only piece of furniture in the room, and took up most of the floor; evidently the room was only for sleeping. He was probably expected to study in the common area with the other apprentices--if there was time for studying, of course.
Master Fell hadn't explained the schedule of guard duty to him yet, but it was clear that it would be fairly rigorous. Fell was already back on guard, and one of the younger apprentices with him. The guard areas of the different points overlapped, Fell had explained, so that each individual point didn't have to keep a guard all the time; they coordinated their schedules to allow for rest times and emergencies. It was an efficient system, worked out over the sixty years since the Jedi had beaten back the enemy and first established the perimeter. Since then it had expanded to cover nearly a quarter of Coruscant's surface, and it continued to grow every year, though slowly. There was even talk of establishing border circles on other worlds, though as yet that was premature. It was too dangerous to travel outside the protected zone; the Jedi Order could not afford the random losses that would inevitably occur. Even Masters wouldn't be able to keep watch all the hours of the day, and some would be killed or altered or simply disappear. The universe outside the perimeter, the world controlled by the enemy, was too random and destructive to be trusted.
Obi-wan ran through the pain-blocking discipline once more, then sat up and looked deliberately at the lights that ran along the base of the wall. The room still looked as though it was bathed in full sunlight, but his eyes no longer hurt.
"Kenobi?" Someone knocked on his door. The voice was a young girl's.
"Come in," he said.
Fell's apprentice, Astrave, pushed the door open. The light from the hallway was dazzling. "Master Fell wants you to come for supper," she said.
"I'm on my way," Obi-wan answered. He got up from the bed and followed her out, wincing in the light. He told himself that his eyesight was improving, though he knew that really wasn't the case. It was really very strange.
He realised that he'd stopped in the doorway, and that Astrave was looking at him quizzically. "Are you all right?" she asked, very quietly. "If you're going to go crazy, I'd appreciate some advance warning."
Obi-wan forced a chuckle. "No, I'm fine."
"Well, good." She nodded, satisfied, and turned away again.
"Astrave?" Obi-wan asked, on impulse. "How long have you been here?"
"On Coruscant?" she said. "Eight years, ever since I was apprenticed. On the border, fifteen months."
"That's a long time."
She shrugged. "We were sent. We haven't been called back yet. Master Fell says we won't until the enemy is defeated. But I think that's going to be a long time." Her voice was very matter-of-fact, but Obi-wan could feel the tremor in the Force around her. "I miss the Temple. Don't you?"
"I haven't had time to yet," Obi-wan admitted, but even as he spoke, he was struck with a sudden surge of homesickness--for Beller Keese and the teachers, for his old rooms that he shared with his Master, for the familiar hallways of the Temple that he might not see again for years, if ever--and, strangely, for Qui-Gon Jinn, his first Master, who had died when Obi-wan was only a child. Why am I thinking about him now? The corridor seemed to grow insubstantial, and Obi-wan felt again the sense of intense wrongness that had assaulted him just before his collapse outside the Council chamber.
No, he told himself fiercely, not again, and by sheer force of will he managed to keep himself standing upright. Astrave, walking ahead, didn't notice, and in a moment the feeling passed. The brightness in the corridor had dimmed to almost bearable levels. Shaking his head, Obi-wan hurried to catch up with his guide.
Part Three: Shadow
"We have stars to light us, hands to hold us, and gods to guard us...but what we need is mercy most of all." --Helen Cassandra King
He took his first shift on guard duty the next day.
They took Obi-wan to a small room on the western edge of the building, windowless and smelling of abrasive chemicals. It might once have been used for storage. The floor was bare, and there was no furniture.
They took his lightsaber. He removed his outer robe and his shoes without being told, and one of the stone-faced children carried them gravely outside. Tras stripped himself similarly, handing his clothes and his weapon to the other child. "You're not keeping your lightsaber?" Obi-wan asked, surprised. "I thought--"
"The idea is to protect you, Obi-wan," Tras said, with a hint of amusement. "If you are attacked--which isn't likely, not today--cutting you in half isn't going to help anyone. Besides, you won't be rational, they never are. It won't be difficult to subdue you."
"You've been through an attack before?" Obi-wan asked. "Against you personally, I mean?" Tras nodded.
"Twice. Before I took on the apprentices. Now Master Fell only lets me do backup; if I were killed, he'd have to take care of four, and he's not willing to do that. He and Astrave and my three rotated the watch among them, until you came." He grimaced. "I was hoping you two would both be--I mean, I hoped whoever came wouldn't have an apprentice. I'd rather be on guard."
"Sorry," Obi-wan said ruefully.
Tras shrugged his massive shoulders. "Not your fault. Still--ah, well, no point in worrying about it." He glanced at the two children. "Who's on the other watch?"
"Astrave," one of them answered. "Master Dellalee's sleeping, and Master Fell's flying circuit as far as point fifty-four." Only a Master could be trusted with that duty, since anyone less experienced would be far more vulnerable to attack, and so the duty was rotated among the various points in the region. Tras had explained this to Obi-wan, as he had explained the other details of the daily operation of the post. Obi-wan had tried to memorize them all, knowing his life might depend on them one day soon.
Tras dismissed the children, whose names Obi-wan still wasn't sure of, and then got up and locked the door. Only his handprint would open it from the inside now; Obi-wan would be unable to let himself out. It was the only way, but he still felt uneasy. Tras sat down with his back against the wall. "It's your show," he said. "Have fun."
Obi-wan knelt on the floor. It was cold, and the metal seemed to leach the heat from his flesh. He concentrated on that, closing his eyes, feeling the coldness through his skin. Affirm your existence, he reminded himself. You're here. You're Obi-wan Kenobi, Jedi padawan. Don't forget that.
He exhaled slowly, sinking into a meditative trance almost without effort; he had been doing this since he was five years old, and by now it was second nature to him. He was aware of everything around him, of the sparkles they made in the Force: the silent, careful presence of Tras nearby; the calm glow of Astrave--who was on guard, as he was--and the jittery sparkle of Tras' two apprentices who were guarding her; the contented aura of the third apprentice reading in the common room; the familiar sense of Master Dellalee, dimmed with sleep. More distant, as Obi-wan pushed further out from the confines of the perimeter point, was the bright alertness of Master Fell, flying circuit somewhere out by point fifty-three, and the multitude of smaller sparkles that made up the non-Jedi population of Coruscant. They were too weak in the Force for him to distinguish them individually unless he concentrated, but together they made up an indistinct cloud, fuzzy but definitely present.
There was a difference between the people within the perimeter and those outside, a difference that Obi-wan had noticed before but that had never been so clear to him as now: stability. Those fortunate enough to live inside the protected zone could at least be certain that they would not die random victims of the enemy. There was still death, sickness, violence, all the other evils of the common humanities, but at least the enemy was held at bay, and it made a great difference.
Obi-wan reached out further, off Coruscant. It was the same there, or worse. He skimmed the surface of the community of minds, occasionally dipping into their surface impressions, and more often than not, the most vivid ones were those affected by the enemy's chaos. On Sterba, a woman awoke screaming from a nightmare, and then screamed again as she saw the stunted creature that had been her husband when she went to sleep. On Hoth, a hunter on the pack ice watched in terror and incomprehension as a rain of fire smashed through the frozen sea. On Kashyyk, blind ground-dwelling things burrowed desperately into the loam, wailing at the first light to touch their earth in centuries, as miles of the great world-spanning forest simply vanished. On Alderaan--Obi-wan barely touched Alderaan before pulling away as though from a furnace.
Most terrifying of all, though, were the blank spaces, the areas where whole worlds, or even whole star systems, had simply been annihilated, leaving a nothingness far bleaker than mere empty space. He had been cautioned by both Fell and Dellalee to avoid probing too deeply into these places; more than one Jedi, older than Obi-wan, had looked too far inside and had simply gone mad. Obi-wan remained at a careful distance, focusing instead on the safer--though still unpleasant--regions that were merely cruelly chaotic rather than utterly destroyed.
On impulse, he reached for Alderaan again, steeling himself as if for a blow. The people there were suffering one of the longer-lasting caprices of the enemy, and their pain was difficult to experience, even second-hand. People and lower lifeforms alike changed randomly and constantly, and although often the things they became were non-viable, a surprising percentage survived the shifts. On Alderaan, a certain bacterium had been altered several years ago, and the result had proved incredibly successful--for the bacterium, anyway. The plague depopulated most of the planet before a workable quarantine could be imposed, and only drastic measures had kept it from being spread outsystem. The Alderaan plague zone was now closed to the rest of the galaxy, except for those few species too different from the Alderaanians for the fantastically adaptable plague to latch onto.
It was one of these that Obi-wan noticed particularly. He could hardly fail to; the mind he had touched was another Jedi, and an incredibly strong one. That was no surprise--only the strongest Masters were allowed to venture outside the perimeter at all, let alone offworld--but what was surprising was that the mind was one that Obi-wan recognised.
Master Yoda's off Coruscant right now, he remembered one of the Knights outside the Council chamber saying, or something like that; apparently the diminutive Jedi was on Alderaan. A slightly stronger Force touch would have allowed them to speak together, but instead Obi-wan pulled back slightly. He had no reason to contact Yoda, and no explanation for the sudden urge to call to him that had suddenly leapt into his mind. Be careful, Obi-wan warned himself. The enemy has many tricks. As far as anyone knew, the enemy was not a conscious thing, but it often seemed that way; it could influence or destroy the mind of someone foolish enough to touch it deliberately, or even someone who came in contact by accident. That was why Jedi routinely went armed even within the Temple, and why even the smallest aberration of behaviour raised such suspicion: an insane Jedi could wreak incredible havoc unless he was brought down swiftly.
Obi-wan brought his thoughts back to Coruscant. Looking outwards was all very well, but it wasn't his assignment. He began methodically searching his section of the perimeter, looking for weak points and shoring them up. The perimeter was the greatest single Force construction in the recorded history of the Jedi, and it required constant maintenance.
There was a weak spot about halfway between this point and the next one; Obi-wan touched it, saw that a Jedi at point fifty was already repairing it, and moved on. Quickly he found another weakened area and concentrated on it, closing it up. He could almost imagine the enemy howling with frustration as he sealed the tiny gap. I am stronger than you, he told the darkness, as he finished his work and moved on. Hours might have passed already; it was hard to judge time, here. He could still feel his body, dimly, motionless in the cold room, but the section of the perimeter before him filled his awareness.
Someone grabbed his arm, jolting him back toward consciousness. "Obi-wan! Obi-wan, help!"
"Not now," he snapped, trying to stay focused on the rapidly ebbing impression. He sent out simultaneous messages to points fifty and fifty-two: I'm being interrupted. Cover for me for a few minutes? He waited to receive confirmation from both points, and then began slowly to withdraw.
"We're under attack!"
That brought him out of trance and back into the waking world with a suddenness that was almost painful. The room was dark; he could barely see. "Who? Where?" He jumped to his feet, ignoring the ache of muscles too long inactive. Tras was curled up against the wall, fists jammed against his temples. The training bond, Obi-wan realised, reaching out automatically toward Tras' mind. Something's happened to one of his apprentices.
It was one of the other apprentices, almost crying, that had grabbed Obi-wan's arm. "I can't find Master Fell and I didn't know what to do and Master Dellalee said to come and get you and I did and I don't know what--"
"Calm down, Abbahai," Obi-wan said soothingly. "It's going to be all right." Tras moaned.
"I'm Paoxh," the boy said indignantly.
"Sorry," Obi-wan said. He put both his hands on the boy's shoulders and projected waves of reassurance at him. Calm. It's all right. Everything will be fine. We're in control. Belatedly, he extended the reassuring thoughts to Tras as well, and the Knight climbed shakily to his feet. "Take us there."
There was blood in the air. He could smell it as he came down the corridor, feel the traces of death in the Force. There were three focal points, two dead, one not, not yet. With the child and the Knight behind him, he entered the room.
Tras' other two apprentices were dead, one sprawled across the bunk, the other lying in the doorway where he had been cut down from behind as he attempted to flee. The walls were burned, as though by a wildly flailing lightsaber, and the computer console had been smashed. The third person in the room was Astrave.
Obi-wan ran to her side, but she didn't seem to see him. She was sitting curled in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her lips were flecked with blood and foam. "Astrave?" Obi-wan said tentatively, crouching beside her. "Are you hurt?" He reached out with the Force and gasped. She was empty inside, but not completely; there was a great hole in her mind, as though something had been torn away, and life still pulsed at the ragged edges, incoherent and screaming. Obi-wan could feel the tendrils of her thoughts pulling at him, trying desperately to grasp hold of something solid.
His Master's presence interposed itself, breaking Astrave's hold. "Apprentice, stay back," Dellalee ordered, and Obi-wan gratefully withdrew his mind. "I will handle this. Knight Tras, call Master Fell, please." The Knight nodded and began fiddling with the damaged console, trying to get a fix on Master Fell's ship's frequency.
"Master, what happened to her?" Obi-wan asked.
Dellalee shook her head. "She has been consumed. The darkness holds her now."
"There's no--" Obi-wan stopped. No, of course there was no hope. "What should we do, Master?"
Astrave began to laugh, slowly, still staring straight ahead. "What should we do, Master?" she murmured. "Strike them down. Strike them all dead." She reached blindly for her lightsaber. Obi-wan tensed, then realised that Astrave's lightsaber wasn't at her waist. Looking around, he spotted it across the room, near the dead apprentice in the doorway. "This is the end," Astrave said. "This is the end of the world." Her eyes, light blue, grew wider. "Do you see them, Jedi? Do you see your doom?"
Dellalee reached out with a practiced Force touch. "She's gone into trance. I didn't think there was enough left of her."
"What's happening?" Obi-wan asked.
"She's seeing a vision. I don't--" Dellalee shook her head, frustrated. "There's almost nothing of her left in her body; she is almost completely within the Force. I can't go deep enough to see what she's seeing."
"Why does it matter?" Obi-wan said. "She's obviously insane. Look at what she did to--" He gestured at the two corpses, realising he didn't even know their names. Ab-something--Abbai? And Yosha? Something like that. Damn.
"I've contacted Master Fell," Tras said in the silence. "He's on his way back. Do you want me to contact the Temple as well?"
"Yes, yes, go ahead," Dellalee said. "Apprentice, she is insane, but she's seeing a clear vision. I must know what it is, but I can't--" Her hands clenched involuntarily at her sides, then, with an effort, they relaxed. "Astrave," she said, in a gentle voice, "what are you seeing?" Obi-wan felt his Master reaching out with the Force, with a complex probe that he could barely follow. She was obviously trying to make the damaged apprentice more coherent, though. It seemed to be working.
"I see them dying, Jedi," Astrave murmured, rocking back and forth. "The city is dying. Do you see them? Obi-wan, do you see them?"
Obi-wan put his hand on her shoulder, trying to be comforting, though he was surprised she even knew who he was. "Who, Astrave?"
"The children are dying. The stones bleed--" Astrave blinked, once, slowly. "This ends here, Jedi. It ends in death. It ends in the streets of the broken city. This battle ends here, with--with--" She stopped rocking, and her mouth grew slack.
"How? How will this end?" Obi-wan asked her. Behind him, Tras continued giving orders in a hushed voice into the comlink, trying to ignore them. "Tell me," Obi-wan pressed. "How will this end?"
Astrave turned toward him, her light eyes seeming to swallow his gaze. "In fire..."
Part Four: Daybreak
"Fiat justitia ruat caelum. - Let justice be done, though the heavens should fall."
"How was this allowed to happen?" Caiopta Fell raged. "Where were you, Lanai?"
"Asleep," Dellalee answered, smoothing her robes across her lap. "I have no need to oversee my apprentice every minute of the day. He is fully capable of handling a simple assignment on his own."
"Then how do you explain this?" Fell demanded, sweeping out an arm to include the other occupants of point fifty-one in this. Astrave was dead at last, after holding on for nearly six hours of the night. She and the other two corpses had been stored in one of the two guardrooms, there being no other place to put them. Tras, inconsolable, had withdrawn into meditation, trying to cope with the severance of his two padawans' training bonds; the third apprentice, Paoxh, had had to be sedated and was asleep in his room.
"It's been adequately explained," Dellalee said tiredly. "The breach was halfway between the points; Obi-wan found it, saw that it was being dealt with, and moved on. It's the responsibility of whoever was on guard at point fifty, not of my apprentice."
"Master--" Obi-wan said. Dellalee rounded on him, her flecked eyes flashing.
"You will wait to speak until you are addressed, Apprentice," she said flatly. "Whatever you have to say can wait. Master Fell and I have another matter to discuss." Her expression dared him to argue. Obi-wan bowed low, touching the floor with his hands as he was accustomed to doing before his master, and withdrew.
"What other matter?" Fell asked when the apprentice was gone.
"You know already, I think," Dellalee said with a sigh. "What's to be done with Padawan Paoxh?"
"He still has a master," Fell said.
Dellalee grimaced. "Barely. This is why the Code forbids taking more than one apprentice, Fell! The rules are there for a reason!"
"We had no other choice," Fell answered. "I still say that."
"Perhaps. But in any case, things can't stay the way they are. Tras clearly isn't equipped to take care of Paoxh while he's dealing with the loss of the other two. Keeping them bonded to each other would be--unhealthy, to put it mildly."
Fell turned away, studying one of the holographic prints on the wall. "If we were in the Temple, Lanai, I'd agree. But here, with only the five of us, I can't see any other alternative." He stopped; then, just as Dellalee was about to speak, "No. I will not agree to it."
"It may be the only--"
"I will not!" Fell snapped, turning to glare at her. She tilted her head to the side, studying him, and after a moment he shook his head and slumped into a chair. "I have lost an apprentice as well, Lanai, and just because I am better equipped to deal with the situation than Knight Tras does not mean I am capable of taking on another so soon. It would be no better for him than leaving things as they are. You can see that I--" He gestured helplessly. "I am having some difficulty with control. It will pass, but--"
"I understand," Dellalee said.
He looked at her. "Do you really?"
"No," she admitted. "Not really. I've never lost an apprentice; Obi-wan is my first padawan. But let me be blunt." She folded her hands in her lap. "Tras was in their minds when they died. He will not be able to function for days, perhaps weeks or months, and neither will Paoxh if we keep them together. The three of us cannot keep an adequate guard by ourselves, and reinforcements will not be sent. We need Paoxh functional, and that means separating him from Tras."
"I've told you, I can't take him. How much clearer can I be? The boy's already suffered through the death of one master, before he was given to Tras; to take him from Tras now and put him with me, before I've managed to remove the remains of my bond with Astrave--it could do him permanent damage, Lanai."
She was silent for a moment, studying her brown-nailed hands. "It probably would, eventually," she agreed, deliberately cold. "But it shouldn't interfere with his duties for at least a few months, and that's really all the time we need, until the next group of reinforcements arrive."
Fell stared at her, clearly not sure if she was serious. "Lanai!"
"You know I'm right," Dellalee said relentlessly. "Sentiment shouldn't play a part in this decision. We're at war. We have to protect the border." She shook her head. "I know this is a difficult choice. But if I were in Paoxh's place, I would want you to do what's necessary."
"I believe you would," Fell murmured. "But then, duty's always come easily to you, hasn't it."
"Yes," she said simply.
"I'm glad," Fell said. "Because there's another way. As you say, you've never lost an apprentice. Paoxh would find it much easier to be your padawan than to be mine."
"No," Dellalee said flatly.
"Lanai--"
"No. I will not hear this."
"Sentiment shouldn't play a part in this," he threw her words back at her.
"It doesn't," she snapped. "This is against the Code, Fell. I shouldn't be surprised that you'd come up with something like this, but I'll have no part of it."
He glared at her. "We're desperate. We were desperate then, too. Do you think Tras wanted to take Paoxh and Abbahai, when their masters died and he already had Yosua to take care of? We argued about it for days before he saw reason. The Code was never meant to apply in a situation like this one."
"The Code applies in every situation," Dellalee said. "If we abandon our principles, we've as good as lost the war already."
Fell jumped to his feet and stalked across the room, his robes rustling around him. "Do you honestly think this is a war of principle, Lanai? We're fighting for our survival, nothing less, nothing more. The Code was written millennia ago, for a universe that was completely different. They didn't have to face the enemy back then. The Jedi were the guardians of order for the entire galaxy; we weren't huddled on a single planet with the darkness pressing in on every side."
"We're winning the war!" Dellalee protested.
"Take a look at my apprentice and tell me that!" Fell shot back. "We may have made some territorial gains in the last few years, but we lose far more Jedi every year than we can compensate for by recruitment. We've lowered our recruiting standards drastically, we take in children who we would have rejected a decade ago for being too old or too weak in the Force, and it still isn't nearly enough. The more we cling to outmoded ways of thinking, the sooner we'll go under. It's only a matter of time."
"I won't listen to this!" Dellalee cried.
"You'll listen because it's true. Behave like a Jedi Master, Dellalee Lanai. Search your feelings. You know I'm telling you the truth." Dellalee shuddered violently, shaking her head. "We have to do something soon," Fell persisted. "The other points are covering for us today, but they're understaffed too; everyone is. We have to get back up to strength and start pulling our share of the weight again. You need to take Paoxh."
She crossed her arms stubbornly. "Not while I have Obi-wan."
"Then promote him," Fell said. "He's old enough. He seems old enough."
"He's not ready."
"Now, that is sentiment," Fell said. "Tras wasn't ready to take on three apprentices. Astrave wasn't ready to stand guard alone, and she did that for months--Lanai, fifty years ago, when we were first pushed back to Coruscant and had to abandon the galaxy, we manned the perimeter with only Masters. Now padawans are doing it."
"I opposed that," Dellalee said quietly. "When they brought it before the Council, I went to them and spoke against it, but I was only a Knight and they wouldn't listen--"
"I know," Fell said. "And you could easily have been right. It was desperate, but it was necessary, and it worked. People can handle surprising responsibilities if there isn't any choice." He leaned forward and touched her shoulder. She nodded reluctantly, accepting his words, though it was plain that she still wasn't happy. "Your Obi-wan is a good man, Lanai. He'll be fine."
Obi-wan stared at his Master. "I'm what?"
"I am not accustomed to repeating myself, Apprentice," Dellalee said calmly, keeping her face and thoughts perfectly composed so that her apprentice could see no sign of her inner turmoil. "You are being promoted. We will perform the ceremony as soon as we can get another Master to come here, but in the meantime we will consider it a--a battlefield promotion, you might say, and you will be released from my tutelage at once."
Obi-wan still looked stunned. "But why, Master?"
"You're aware that it is--very difficult for a Jedi to lose an apprentice," Dellalee began. Obi-wan nodded. "Knight Tras lost two, and he has only recently been promoted himself and is still uncertain in his mastery of the Force. The loss has--unbalanced him somewhat. If his remaining apprentice stays with him, it is likely that the boy will become unbalanced as well. This is why the Code forbids us to take more than one apprentice at a time. You understand that."
"Yes, I suppose so, Master," Obi-wan said. "And that's why--"
Dellalee nodded. "After all, someone has to take care of him."
"Oh." Obi-wan took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "All right. I understand. But, Master--"
"Yes?" Dellalee said.
"Wouldn't it be better if you took care of him? I mean, I'm not even sure I'm ready to be promoted yet, let alone take on a padawan."
It took Dellalee a moment to realise what Obi-wan meant, and when she did, she couldn't help but be amused. "That is what we're going to do, Apprentice," she said, attempting a brief smile. "I certainly didn't intend to assign him to you. You take too much on yourself." Her words were overlaid, though, with pride for him: he was certainly doing his best to accept his responsibilities, whatever he perceived them to be. Fell was right; Obi-wan was ready.
"Oh," Obi-wan said, blushing. "I thought--"
"You enthusiasm is commendable, Apprentice," Dellalee said. "You will do well." Then, her face still expressionless and slightly averted, she dropped to one knee on the common room floor, her fingertips tracing a line in front of her: the Ferrilai bow of respect-between-equals, which she had never given him before. After a moment, Obi-wan copied the gesture. Dellalee rose gracefully to her feet, turned away, and left, her skirts trailing behind her ankles like smoke.
"Ship coming in," Tras reported, his rumbling voice dull and devoid of emotion. He had slept nearly a full day, and his aura was still blood-black, so that Obi-wan shuddered to touch it. "From outside the border."
"What identification?" Obi-wan asked, looking up from the text he was reading. After a moment, he realised he hadn't been heard, and repeated the question. Tras shook himself as though emerging from water.
"Temple registry six-seventeen," he said, reading the numbers from the console. "Master Yoda and Knights Jamedeh and Suster. They were assigned to Alderaan, some kind of classified Council business. They aren't due back for another three months." There was no hint of curiosity in his tone.
"Alderaan?" Obi-wan repeated, alarmed. "Have they been decontaminated?" Tras shrugged. Obi-wan sighed, decided it would be quicker to check for himself, and reached behind the furred Knight to bring up the information from the ship's beacon. What he saw reassured him: the three Jedi aboard all belonged to species that had been cleared for the plague zone, and the ship itself had been thoroughly decontaminated before crossing the heliopause out of the Alderaan system. Tras was right, though; they weren't supposed to be back for months yet. Obi-wan sighed and touched the communications panel. Dellalee would want to be woken up for this.
"Master Yoda," Dellalee said, making a formal bow, her robes rustling. "It's an honour to--"
"Time for that there is not," Yoda said impatiently. "To your padawans I must speak." Behind him, the two subordinate Knights looked uneasy, although Dellalee told herself that she was probably projecting her own anxiety onto them. They were both Markalah, resembling sixteen-tentacled squid with glowing red eyes, and seemed to have very little in the way of facial expression.
Dellalee blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Your padawans I must see!" the wizened old Jedi repeated, thumping his walking stick on the deck. The metallic ring reverberated through the docking bay. "All of them! Now!"
"There are only two here," Dellalee said. Her voice was steady. "The rest are dead. We were attacked a few days ago, and three of our apprentices--"
"Dead? Hmm. Not important. Reported this to the Council, you have, mm?"
"Yes, Master Yoda, but we're seriously undermanned--"
Yoda grimaced and thumped his stick again. "Important this is not! Your padawans I must see! Fetch them!"
Dellalee bowed deeply, hoping Yoda couldn't tell how angry she was--not that there was much hope of that. "Yes, Master Yoda, immediately." Obi-wan? she called silently through the training bond.
Master Dellalee. Is something wrong?
Find Paoxh and bring him here immediately.
He's guarding Master Fell. I'll get Tras to stand in for him. What's going on?
Just hurry. She broke the link, aware as she did so that this might well be the last time she spoke to her apprentice through the bond. With Yoda here, they had enough Masters to make up a quorum; Obi-wan could be promoted today.
Obi-wan emerged from the doorway a few moments later, Paoxh trailing behind him. The younger padawan's eyes were slightly unfocused, and he was clutching Obi-wan's robe. Obi-wan spotted the three new arrivals and bowed; Paoxh hurriedly followed suit.
"Master Yoda," Dellalee said, her voice still calm, "this is my apprentice, Obi-wan Kenobi, and Knight Traskinn din Hnnh's apprentice, Paoxh Lieb. What do you want with them?"
Yoda didn't appear to hear her. He shuffled forward slowly across the metal floor toward the two padawans. Obi-wan stood watching him, transfixed. As Yoda approached, Obi-wan sank to one knee so that his head was on a level with the diminutive Master's. Yoda looked searchingly into his face for a moment, then nodded. "As I thought," he murmured. "End in fire, it will."
"That's what Astrave said," Obi-wan agreed, without really knowing what he was saying. "Master Yoda, what--"
"Time we have not. Come, come." He turned back toward the ship, then glanced over his shoulder at Obi-wan, still crouched on the floor, unmoving. "Well? Waiting for something, you are? Come!" Almost without thinking, Obi-wan rose.
"Stay where you are, Obi-wan." Dellalee's voice cracked like a whip, arresting him mid-motion. He straightened awkwardly, looking from one to the other. Paoxh sniffled and tightened his hold on Obi-wan's robe.
"Council business this is, Dellalee Lanai," Yoda said ominously.
"He is my apprentice," Dellalee answered, her voice tight.
Obi-wan watched the two of them as their gazes locked together. Somehow he knew that anything he might say would only make the situation worse. "Intending to promote him soon, you are," Yoda said. "See this I can. After that, authority over him you will not have. With me he must come."
"We need him," Dellalee snapped.
"Master Yoda?" One of the squid-like Knights lifted a tentacle in a tentative gesture. "Should I prepare the ship to leave?"
Yoda glanced back at him, then sighed. "No." Dellalee looked at the small Master in surprise, and her angular face softened slightly.
"We can't decide anything yet," she said. "Whether he stays or--or not, Obi-wan has to be promoted. I need to take on a new apprentice--I don't know if you're aware of our situation here--"
"Somewhat aware, I am," Yoda said dryly. "Much to answer for, Master Fell has. But later."
"Later," Dellalee agreed. The challenge was still there in her voice, but veiled: two old adversaries agreeing to a draw. "For now, we'll get the three of you settled. I regret that we have no bedrooms suitable for Markalah here--"
"Stay in their quarters in the ship, they can," Yoda said. "And quarters I will not need, if planning to promote your apprentice tomorrow we are. Stand the vigil tonight, we will, yes?"
"Yes," Dellalee agreed. "I'll let the other guard stations nearby know, so they can cover for us for awhile. Master Fell will want to get some sleep this afternoon. We'll begin at sundown?" It wasn't quite a question, but Yoda nodded in agreement. "Very well, then. Obi-wan, if you have any preparations you'd like to make, now would be a good time. We have about an hour until the sun sets. Paoxh, would you please go back inside?" Paoxh looked up at Obi-wan for reassurance, then darted back through the door to the common area. The two massive Markalah padded back to the shuttle, and the doors closed after them. Dellalee and Yoda looked at each other, then headed together after Paoxh.
Obi-wan was left alone in the dim landing bay, staring at the floor. There were gouges and streaks of black grime on it that looked centuries old. For the first time, it occurred to him to wonder just how old this place was. Obviously it had only been in use as a border point for less than sixty years--the Border itself was no older than that, and this point would have been far outside its original circumference--but the building could be a thousand years old or more.
He knew he was procrastinating. In a minute or so he would have to go in, and then things would never be the same again. Face reality, Kenobi, he told himself. Nothing stays the same. No matter what Master Yoda and Master Dellalee decide, things are going to change, and probably for the worse. He sighed. Force, I hope it's not too much worse.
He took a deep breath, and followed after his Master.
They had converted one of the unused guardrooms for the night's vigil. It had a window facing westward, toward the invisible Border, and the setting sun turned the dull silver floor to blood and beaten copper. The floor was smooth under Obi-wan's bare feet, and cold. It seemed to him for a moment that it should be warm and wet, covered in blood like a temple of some religion of human sacrifice. He shook his head, dismissing the disturbing image.
In the distant past, of course--a time that seemed like legend, now, though it was within living memory for at least one of the Masters here--there had been tests, trials for new apprentices to go through, to determine their fitness for promotion. There were none such now. If you had survived long enough that your master had no more to teach you, then by definition you were ready. All that remained of the old rituals now was the vigil, and the sense of things changing, of endings, that Obi-wan guessed every apprentice must have felt ever since the Jedi first were founded.
The three Masters entered the room, and Dellalee, last, closed the door. Obi-wan knelt on the floor, still facing the window, his back to the three. He could sense them in the Force: their auras were ancient, somehow, imbued with the authority that millennia of tradition gave to them. They were the Council, the three of them, the embodiment of Jedi strength.
"Why have you come before the Jedi Council?" Dellalee asked. Her voice was cold, alien.
"I would make a request of them," Obi-wan answered, the formal words coming easily to his lips, though he had never heard them before.
"What would you say to the Jedi Council?" Master Fell intoned.
"I would serve them," Obi-wan said, his voice almost a whisper.
"How would you serve the Jedi Council?" Yoda asked.
"If it please the Council, and if I am able, in the Force," Obi-wan said, "I would serve as a Jedi Knight."
"Then approach the Council." Obi-wan turned away from the wide window. There were candles glowing against the three walls, small bobbing lights, yellow and familiar. The three masters stood in a semicircle around him. Obi-wan wished his robe had pockets; he wasn't sure what to do with his hands.
They stood, unmoving, fixed in tableau. After a long moment, Dellalee closed her eyes. The other two did likewise. Obi-wan, nervous, followed suit.
The silence was oppressive. All he could hear was his own breathing. The normal hum of the city, the background drone of life that Coruscant-dwellers took for granted, was muffled somehow by the shadows. Red shapes of candle flames danced on his inner eyelids.
Obi-wan. It was Dellalee, of course. Be calm. All is as it should be. He felt a strange tickling sensation on the underside of his scalp, ghostly fingers skittering across his cerebral cortex. The feeling was utterly alien, and yet, because it was Dellalee, familiar. He tried to relax, focusing his thoughts.
Slowly and with great care--this was something that had to be done delicately, and she had never done it before--Dellalee severed the psychic linkages that bound her mind to Obi-wan's. He felt them part like silk, and as they did the presence of her mind, always a background part of his fort as long as he could remember, grew faint. For a moment he panicked, set adrift, and she broadcast reassurance to him. Calm, Obi-wan. You've done well. Let go.
He let go. It was as though he were floating, weightless, able to move effortlessly in any direction with a flick of his hands and feet. "It is done," Fell said aloud. Dellalee nodded. She had not moved, in all this time--how long? It was full dark outside, now, and the stars were warring in brilliance with the city's light-displays. Obi-wan unclenched his hands, flexing stiff fingers. Carefully, he probed at the hollow in his mind, drawn to it as though to a missing tooth. He could still feel Dellalee's presence in the Force, but no more distinctly than those of the other two Masters in the room. Less, he realised: she was by far the weakest of the three. He hadn't noticed it before.
"It is done," Yoda agreed. "Obi-wan Kenobi, an apprentice you are no longer. Ready to accept your pledge, the Council is."
Obi-wan swallowed hard. "In the presence of the representatives of the Jedi Council, I, Obi-wan Kenobi, swear my allegiance to the Jedi Order and vow to defend, uphold and protect the principles on which the Order is founded." He saw Dellalee and Fell glance at each other; the look that passed between them was indecipherable. "I ask the Council to accept my oath," Obi-wan finished. He drew his lightsaber, ignited it, and laid it on the air in front of him. It hovered, humming slightly, and he put all his concentration into holding it completely steady.
One of the Masters--he thought it was Yoda, but he wasn't sure--took hold of it from him, turning it upright. Obi-wan's hands closed around the hilt. "Accepted, your oath is," Yoda said. "Meditate tonight on that, Knight Kenobi. Tomorrow, your duties you will assume." Dellalee seemed about to speak, but it was not part of the ritual, and she said nothing.
The Masters bowed, turned, and filed out. Warm air from the corridor washed over Obi-wan in a transient wave. Sill clasping the upraised lightsaber, he sank to his knees. Tomorrow, he thought, in the vaults of his mind, and knew no-one would hear him. Changes, endings. Tomorrow.
He came out of deep trance feeling refreshed and invigorated, as he always did. There was a pale wash of light on the floor, silver and pink, from the west-facing window, though the sun wouldn't be directly visible until afternoon. Through the not-quite-soundproof door of the abandoned guardroom, Obi-wan could hear raised voices. Curious, he deactivated his lightsaber--was it burning all this time? he wondered--and went to the door, stepping into his soft-soled boots.
"The right I have," Yoda was saying. "A member of the Council I am. Refuse you may not."
"You mustn't do this, Yoda," Dellalee said, her emotions strained enough to break through her usual formality. "We need him. We can't spare anyone."
"This I understand," Yoda told her. "Knight Kenobi," he said, turning abruptly to face the Jedi loitering in the doorway. Obi-wan started with surprise; he hadn't thought he had been noticed. "A shuttle can you pilot?"
"I, uh--I know the basics," Obi-wan said. "I'm not qualified to fly in combat, but I learned in the simulator like everyone else. Why?"
"Remain here Knights Jamedeh and Suster will," Yoda told Dellalee. "Guarded a border post they have not before, but quick learners you will find them. A sufficient replacement they will make, yes?"
"Yes, certainly," Dellalee said, taken aback.
"Good. Good. Then the shuttle Kenobi will pilot. To my assignment I must return, and Kenobi I must have with me."
"Master Yoda," Obi-wan said, "I've never flown a shuttle in space before, not outside the simulators. Wouldn't it be better if you were the pilot?"
"Hmph." Yoda glared up at him. "In the Force, size matters not, but in a shuttle, matters it a great deal. Designed for someone my size, the controls were not." Tras snorted, smothering a laugh. Obi-wan looked at him in surprise; it was the first sign of positive emotion the yellow-furred Knight had shown since before the attack. "Come. Wait longer we cannot. Belongings have you any?"
Obi-wan shook his head, picturing easily the contents of his quarters: a spare robe, a book from the Temple library--someone will have to return that, I guess--a few teaching tapes, a puzzle Paoxh had lent him, a practice knife-- "No, Master Yoda, nothing in particular." He had his lightsaber with him, and his clothes, and a pair of well-worn boots that fit his feet; few apprentices had more.
"Good. Then come now you must." Yoda shuffled into the shuttle.
Obi-wan looked at Dellalee. She didn't say anything. "I'll come back," he told her. She nodded. "Tell--" Tell who? Tell Qui-Gon, he had wanted to say, but he had no idea why, or what message he would have given her. "The Force be with you," he said instead, taking refuge in formality.
"And with you also," she answered. Her face was blank, now, no counterfeits of human expression. Obi-wan turned away and stepped up onto the shuttle's ramp into the cockpit.
That quickly, they were leaving. Obi-wan could see Dellalee from the shoulders up, blurry and indistinct through the streaked window panel. The shuttle door slammed closed. Goodbye, Obi-wan, he heard, or thought he heard, through some last vestige of the training bond. Then she turned away, her form wavering like a heat mirage through the glassteel window, and was gone.
"Where are we going?" Obi-wan asked Yoda as they belted themselves into their seats. He touched the console in front of him and the controls lit up in obedient green. He realised suddenly that the light level inside the shuttle was almost normal. It had been awhile since that had been the case. Maybe whatever had been wrong with his eyes was going away.
"Alderaan," Yoda answered. "A mission I have there. Complete it we must, yes."
"Alderaan?" Obi-wan yelped. He would have leapt from his seat if the restraints weren't already fastened. "Master Yoda, I'm human! You can't take me--I can't survive there!"
"Survive you can, Obi-wan Kenobi." The reflections of the green console lights gave an odd cast to Yoda's eyes. "Certain of that I am. Certain very little is anymore, but about you I am not mistaken." The intensity with which he spoke the words took Obi-wan's breath away.
Then the moment passed, and Yoda leaned back in his chair. "Set our course, Kenobi," he said. "Then sleep. A long journey we have ahead."
Part Five: Morning
"Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
the cry is still: They come."
--Shakespeare, "Macbeth"
Obi-wan carefully banked the fire, packing chunks of insulating moss around the edges to keep the heat in. Outside, rain drummed on the wide wooden roof and hissed into the water. It was almost fully dark.
They had been on Alderaan three days. Obi-wan was still unable to suppress the uneasiness that gnawed at him whenever he allowed himself to realise that he was outside the protection of the Border; but the terror of the first few hours after landing was over, and he was in control again.
He had no idea why he was still alive.
The Alderaan plague was not the enemy's most spectacular havoc; in a galaxy ruled by the forces of chaos, there was room for an infinite number of unique horrors. Alderaan, though, had been one of the founding worlds of the Republic, and still maintained sporadic communications with Coruscant, so the plight of its people was very well known. Some parents on Coruscant frightened their children with it, as did Jedi Masters with their padawans, though for a different reason. The images relayed from Alderaan were shown to the apprentices in early training, as a warning: this is what we guard against. Obi-wan had had nightmares about it for weeks afterward, being six years old at the time and highly impressionable.
He should be dead.
The locals here had only seen alien Jedi in the last sixty years, and by now it was part of local folklore that Jedi were immune to the plague and to the other effects of the enemy, but Obi-wan didn't understand it. He shouldn't have been protected. It was true that Jedi were generally immune to diseases and degenerative conditions; their sensitivity to the Force gave them an understanding and control of even the smallest detail of their bodies. For most Jedi, such control was automatic--if they had the strength. In a place like this, though, where so much of one's Force ability would be tied up in shielding oneself from the enemy, there would be little to spare for other kinds of protection. Obi-wan was alive, still, so he was protecting himself from the plague; he had a fair knowledge of what his own strength was, and he would not be able to do both. That meant he wasn't shielding himself from the enemy at all. And yet he was still alive and sane.
He shouldn't have been protected. For that matter--He sighed, sitting back on his heels, staring into the flames.
"Still troubled, you are," Yoda observed from behind him.
Obi-wan nodded, his eyes still on the fire. "Of course I am." The rain pounded on the walls. Somewhere far away, thunder crackled. "I don't understand anything."
"The path to wisdom, that is," Yoda said dryly. He moved to sit beside the young Knight, laying his walking stick on the floor. "A question you have?"
"The same one you've been dodging for the past three days," Obi-wan said. "Why are we here? And don't tell me it's to Search out new padawans; I didn't buy that even on the shuttle in. Even if you find any Force-capable kids in this madhouse, they'll be infected with the plague and you won't be able to take them anyway."
"Clever, you are," Yoda murmured. Obi-wan couldn't tell if it was sarcasm or not. "Searching for new apprentices we are, but our primary mission it is not."
"Well, what, then?" Obi-wan demanded. Yoda's eyes flickered green in the reflected firelight.
"Guessed, you have not?" he asked.
"No," Obi-wan said honestly. "I haven't got a clue. I don't know why you asked for me, or what you were doing here, or why I'm not dead of the plague or crippled by the enemy, and in three days you haven't explained a damned thing!" He realised he was shouting, and stopped. "I'm sorry, Master Yoda. That was uncalled-for."
"But understandable," Yoda said. "Kept you in the dark I would not have this long, but necessary it was, while forming my conclusions still I was."
He folded his hands in his lap and looked up at Obi-wan. "Wondered, you have, why kept a watch we have not?"
"Well, yes, of course," Obi-wan admitted. "I know you're strong enough in the Force that you protect yourself automatically, even asleep, but I don't. I'm not stronger than average."
"In the Force, yes," Yoda said. "But other strengths there are." Obi-wan didn't seem to follow. Yoda sighed. "Taught to think in dualities, you have been," he said. "Order and chaos. The Force and the enemy. Natural and unnatural."
"Is there something else?" Obi-wan asked.
"Under Council Seal this is, Obi-wan Kenobi," Yoda warned him. Obi-wan nodded understanding: to speak a word of it to anyone not on the Council would be to face severe punishment, even death if the Council felt it was warranted. "When first came this crisis, sixty years ago, much study there was to determine the enemy's nature. Scientists brought inside the Border were, to be protected, to create a defense. None they found, and for good reason. Present I was at that meeting; remember it well I do. Determined, they had, that a natural process the enemy was. A theory there is that there exists an infinite number of universes. One of many this is, and it is losing cohesion. The breakdown of the universe's underlying structure the enemy is, as drift further from the path of maximum probability this universe does--nothing more. The math I do not understand, but explained in this way it was. Increasingly improbable our universe is, and dissolving back into nothingness. Keeping it at bay, the Jedi are, but a temporary measure only it is."
"It's worked so far," Obi-wan protested, his mind unwilling to grasp the terrible enormity that Yoda was proposing.
"For sixty years, yes. Work for six hundred, you think it will, hmm?" Obi-wan had no answer to that. In the silence, thunder rumbled again.
"So why are we here?" he asked again. "Here on Alderaan, I mean?"
"Because--you--are--stable." Yoda jabbed his finger at the air to emphasise each word. "In a universe where stable nothing is, stable you are. First feel it I did when contact me you did, standing watch for the first time at the Border."
"Oh," Obi-wan said, turning red. "I didn't mean to--"
"Fortunate it was that you did, Knight Kenobi," Yoda said. "But certain I was not then, and certain I had to be. So bring you here I did, away from Coruscant, away from Jedi, away from the Border, to see if protect yourself you would."
Obi-wan felt a cold chill wash through his skin, despite the heat of the sinking fire. "If you had been wrong--I would be dead," he said slowly. Yoda nodded.
"But wrong I was not," he said. "And know this now, we do. Explain it I cannot, but somehow stabilised you have." He shook his head. "Explain it I cannot," he repeated. "Nothing of this I sensed when young you were. Recent it must be, but why?" He seemed to be speaking mostly to himself now.
"You knew me when I was young?" Obi-wan asked, as much to draw Yoda out as anything. "When? I don't remember it."
"Very young you were," Yoda said. "Your master's master I was once; visit you both sometimes I did."
Obi-wan frowned. "I thought Master Dellalee trained under Master Saesee Tinn."
Yoda cocked his head. "Not her. Forgotten you have?"
"Master Qui-Gon," Obi-wan realised. There was a sudden roaring in his ears, like the pounding of waves against the shore, a dark and ominous sound. Everything seemed dark, suddenly; he could barely see even the fire. Not again, he told himself, but there was no force in it, no strength, and nothing he could do as he crumpled bonelessly to the floor.
He was sinking into deep water, unable to halt or even slow his descent, and dimly he realised that he was headed somewhere. Obi-wan! he heard someone shout.
I know you, he managed. Who are you? I know you somehow.
Obi-wan, it's Qui-Gon Jinn. It's me. Please, come back. Try.
You're dead, Obi-wan protested weakly. It was so hard to think with the surf pounding in his ears. I don't want to die.
I'm not dead, Apprentice. Listen to me. Something's happening to you, we don't know what, but somehow your mind is fading in and out of reality. I'm the only one who can reach you at all anymore, and I've been trying for days. Obi-wan, I know we can bring you back, but you have to help us.
How do I know what you really are? Obi-wan demanded. You could be some trick of the enemy, some--
The enemy? He felt genuine puzzlement from Qui-Gon, if that was indeed who it was. I sense a darkness in your mind when you say that, but I don't know what you mean.
You're not Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-wan said, his suspicions confirmed. The enemy killed him when I was seven. I won't let you trick me!
Don't go, Obi-wan, the voice that sounded like Qui-Gon pleaded. Come back. Let us help you. Please, Apprentice--
I am a Jedi Knight! Obi-wan shouted, and pulled away with all the strength he possessed. The water had turned to syrup, impossibly viscous, sucking at him, dragging him down. He flailed with heavy limbs for something, anything, to hold onto.
Open your eyes, Obi-wan, someone said. He grasped at the voice like a drowning man clutching a rope, and hauled himself blindly toward the sound.
He opened his eyes. It was dark, but no darker than it should be, in a wooden shack with only a fire for light. There was a dull agony in his left hand and forearm, and gingerly he held it up to look at it. The training scar from weeks ago was now half-hidden by blisters.
"Burned it in the fire when you fell, you did," Yoda said, hobbling into his field of view. "All right, are you?"
"I'm fine, I think," Obi-wan said. "I don't exactly--"
He opened his eyes. The lights in the Temple infirmary were blinding. He groaned and rolled over on his side, wondering if they deliberately designed the lights to shine right in people's eyes when they awoke.
"Obi-wan? Obi-wan!" Qui-Gon grabbed his shoulders, abandoning Jedi decorum, and pulled him into a rough hug. He smelled faintly like cinnamon. Why is he so old? Obi-wan wondered. There were streaks of grey in Qui-Gon's hair, and lines around his eyes that Obi-wan didn't remember. His memories of Qui-Gon were still sharp despite the time that had passed since his death--no--
He opened his eyes. Yoda looked down at him, concerned. "Something happening is?" he asked. "Feel it I can, but what is it?"
"I don't know," Obi-wan said. "I don't know--"
He squeezed his eyes shut against the light pressing against his eyelids, throwing his left arm over his eyes to shield them further. His arm didn't hurt, and there was no scar, but he couldn't quite grasp why that seemed odd. "What's happening to me?" he demanded.
"Stay calm, Apprentice," Qui-Gon said. "We're doing everything we can. Stay calm."
"I'm a Jedi Knight," Obi-wan mumbled.
"He keeps saying that," Qui-Gon said to someone unseen. "And I can't reach him through the training bond anymore. It's as though he actually has been promoted--there's no tearing, no mental damage, the bond has just been removed. I don't understand it."
"Nor I," came the reply. "But understand it we must. Sit by we cannot while destroying itself his mind is."
Obi-wan opened his eyes. "Master Yoda?"
"Yes, Knight Kenobi?" Yoda said. "Help you I can?"
"What's happening to me?" Obi-wan demanded. He tried to raise his head and couldn't. It was as bright as daylight in the cabin. "What's happening to me?"
"We're trying to figure that out, Obi-wan. Can you describe what you're feeling right now? It may help us to understand your condition."
"I want Master Dellalee," Obi-wan said plaintively, like a small child. "I want to go home--"
"Home you are already, Kenobi. Try to focus, you must. Concentrate. Somehow shifting between realities you are; understand it I cannot, but sense it I can. Anchor yourself you must. Focus."
Focus. He drew himself inward, ignoring the voices buzzing around him, and gathered the Force about himself. He could feel Qui-Gon, controlled but desperate, and the cool spark that was Master Yoda, and Yoda again, strangely doubled, and all the others whose auras were far more dim. Focus. But where? He expanded his Force sense, slowly, careful not to jar his delicate balance.
Pain. He almost drew back, but didn't. The nearby Alderaan community of Tiamme, where three dozen villagers lay burning with the ravages of the plague. Pain all around, blanketing the planet, blurring all other senses. Obi-wan knew, without knowing how, that this was confined to one of his realities, that the enemy--he still thought of it in those terms, despite Yoda's explanation--had no foothold in the other. He focused on the pain, the terror, the uncertainty, blocking out everything but that. Slowly, unbearably slowly, the voices began to clear.
He opened his eyes.
"Returned you have," Yoda said.
Obi-wan nodded. "Yeah." Speaking hurt. His throat felt like cracked sand. "How long--"
"Eleven hours it has been," Yoda said. For the first time, Obi-wan noticed that it was day. Grey light streamed in through the chinks in the wooden walls. "Most concerned I was. Glad to see you yourself again, I am."
"I'm not myself." Obi-wan pushed himself to a sitting position, ignoring the ache in his burned arm. "Master Yoda, I remember. I know what's happening, I know where I'm from, I know--" He stopped. "I know how I got here," he said. "And I think--I'm not sure, but I think I know how to get home."
"Home?" Yoda repeated.
"Yes--" Obi-wan stopped, took a deep breath, tried to organise his thoughts. "We were on a ship," he said at last. "Master Qui-Gon and I. He's not dead, he--I never met Master Dellalee. There, I mean. I don't even know if she exists, there."
"On a ship, you were," Yoda prompted.
"Right. Our hyperdrive had malfunctioned coming out of the Lydoon Expanse. We set down to make repairs on an uninhabited planet. Draylin. It was called Draylin." Huge sun-drenched forests, tall straight trees as wide as grain silos or as narrow as his fingers, with leaves like ferns, curled and fractal. "Master Qui-Gon and I went out to explore the perimeter, make sure it was safe, while the engineers worked on the drive. We walked. There was a river, I think--" He squeezed his fists against his temples as if to force out the thoughts. "I'm not sure, exactly. We followed it, I remember that--" Slipping on moss-covered rocks, stepping in the water. Sunlight sparkling on little waves. Small jewel-eyed creatures peering out of deep grass. "I just don't remember why. We were on guard, we wouldn't have just wandered off." He shook his head. "It isn't quite coming clear. I'm missing something."
"Guide our actions, the Force does, sometimes," Yoda said, his gentle face intense. "Perhaps necessary it was, that you go where you went."
"You think so, Master?" Obi-wan asked. Yoda nodded.
"Certain it is that for all of us here, fortunate your arrival was." He saw Obi-wan's questioning look and waved a hand dismissively. "Later. Later. Explain now."
"We followed the river," Obi-wan said, "and--"
"Master--oh!" The girl who had pushed the door open hurriedly bobbed a curtsey, seeing Obi-wan awake. She held a tray with two earthenware bowls of soup and a clay pitcher of water. "I brought your dinner, Master Yoda," she said unnecessarily. She was very plain, with plague-scars on her face and neck. "And for the other Jedi as well--I mean, I wasn't sure he'd be awake, but--"
"Thank you, Jore," Yoda said, taking the tray. "Go now you may."
"Yes, Master Yoda." She curtseyed again and left.
Yoda watched her go with a strange expression. "Most unfortunate," he murmured. "Some strength in the Force she has. A good apprentice she would have made, if born on Coruscant she had been. Sad. Sad."
"You know her?" Obi-wan asked.
"Jore Ballaset, her name is. Own this place, her father does. Known them for months I have." Yoda picked up one of the bowls and sipped the soup. "So."
Obi-wan nodded. "We followed the river a very long way--"
The building was imposing: tall, higher than the ship that had brought the two Jedi here, and old. Obi-wan could feet the age radiating from it in waves, like heat rising from sunburnt stone. It was shaped like a truncated pyramid, flat-topped, and half-buried in the side of a hill. Water ran down the slope near the edge of the uncovered face, trickling into the stream they had followed here.
Obi-wan and Qui-Gon looked at each other. "Now what, Master?" Obi-wan asked.
"Perhaps--" Qui-Gon started to say, but whatever he might have proposed went unsaid as the exposed face of the pyramid began to glow.
"You have come," a voice said, seeming to come from a point just behind their heads. Both Jedi turned reflexively to look for it, but there was nothing there. "Guardians of order. Summoned, you have come."
It was not an attractive voice, not at all musical or pleasant; it sounded for all the world like a baritone with a sore throat trying to imitate a rock tumbler. If mountains could speak, Obi-wan thought, they would sound like this. "What do you want?" he asked, addressing his words to the glowing wall.
"What are you?" Qui-Gon asked at the same moment.
"Stand forward," the voice said. Obi-wan obeyed, placing his hand palm down against the pyramid, and then wondered why he had done so. In the corner of his eye, he saw Qui-Gon doing the same. There was a tingling sensation running through him, concentrated in the soles of his feet and in his jawbone: not unpleasant, particularly, but unnerving. "What do you want?" he asked again, finding it difficult to form words against the pervasive vibration. "Why have you brought us here?"
"To fight chaos," the voice answered. "To fight legends. Is this not why you are? Summoned, will you go?"
"Go where?" Qui-Gon asked. His eyes were watering slightly, and Obi-wan realised his own were starting to fill as well: the tingling had become a kind of itching ache, crawling up the backs of his legs and around his jaw to his spine. He fought to keep still, his hand still pressed to the glowing surface. It never occurred to him to try to pull away.
"To what may have been, and is, and soon will not be," the voice said.
"You're talking in riddles," Qui-Gon said irritably.
There was a sudden crackle and a spark, and Qui-Gon was flung away from the face of the pyramid to land on his back in the stream. He shook his head slowly, trying to sit up. The dry, autumn-thunderstorm smell of electrical discharge hung in the air. "You are--unsuitable," the voice pronounced.
"Apprentice, step away from there," Qui-Gon warned, climbing heavily to his feet, his robes dripping. Obi-wan could feet his master's concern through the bond, but it somehow seemed far-off, unimportant. The ache was fading, turning to a pleasing warmth that spread throughout his body.
"Guardian of order," the voice repeated; "summoned, will you go?"
Obi-wan nodded. "I'll go," he said. He was very calm, unnaturally so. "To fight chaos. Like you said. That's what we do."
"Obi-wan, step back," Qui-Gon said insistently. He reached out for his apprentice, there was another arc of energy, and he was flung back again. This time, he didn't move.
"Summoned, you will go," the voice said. "Going, you will forget. Forgetting, you will triumph." It sounded joyful, exultant. "Triumphant, you may return."
"May?" Obi-wan repeated, trying to push his thoughts through the warm haze in his mind. "What do you mean, may?"
"All things are possible," the voice replied unhelpfully. "All possibilities occur. Forget, now, and go."
The warmth grew, filling him. He saw without surprise that his arms were glowing under his robe, the same pale colour as the wall. He stumbled forward, his forehead and cheek burning against the slope, and then--then--
"And then what?" Yoda asked.
Obi-wan shrugged. "Then nothing. The next thing I remember, I'd woken up in my quarters in the Temple, here."
"And strange this did not seem?" Yoda pressed.
"No--" Obi-wan frowned, thinking back. "No, not really. I mean, I seem to recall thinking there was something wrong, but I might just be--you know--projecting, or something. I remembered my life in the Temple with Master Dellalee up until the previous day; there was no discontinuity. Look." He pushed back the sleeve of his robe to above the elbow, and touched the faint white line that ran like a snail's trail up the inside of his arm. "I got this four days earlier, in a training accident with Beller and Stadderick. Four days before I woke up in this place, and I remembered it. And I knew Beller Keese, and Master Dellalee, and everyone else. I remembered them. I have a past here. I didn't just--just suddenly fall out of the sky, or something. Somehow I've taken your Obi-wan's place here, with all his memories intact."
"Hmm." Yoda pondered, gazing intently into the long-empty soup bowl as though the secrets of the universes might be found therein. "An exchange this was, perhaps? Inhabiting your old body, our Obi-wan Kenobi now is?"
Obi-wan shook his head. "No. No, I don't think so. When I collapsed outside the Council chamber, I was able to hear them talking--Master Qui-Gon, I mean, and some other people. I gather I was in some sort of coma. I think they'd taken me back to Coruscant, to the Temple hospital. Whatever happened to the other me, he's not walking around in my body back home."
"Hmm. No. But what, then? Understand this we must." Yoda put down the bowl and hobbled to the door to set the dinner tray outside. Jore Ballaset, lingering outside the door, picked it up unobtrusively and carried it away. "Perhaps to the Council we should bring this matter. Ideas they may have."
"Master Yoda?" Obi-wan said. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but why are you doing this? I mean, the Council's busy with the defense; what's so important about me?"
"See it you cannot?" Yoda asked. "Told you already, I have. Stable you are, Obi-wan, and understand why we must. Perhaps because stable your universe is, some property of it you bring with you. Brought something, you have. See the forces of chaos, you can. I know." He tapped his forehead with one thick finger. "I know."
"Is that what it is?" Obi-wan asked wonderingly. "I can see--"
"Darkness and light," Yoda said. "Chaos and defense. Somehow, part of your stability it is. Understand it I do not, but studied it must be. If duplicate it we can--think of the possibilities, Obi-wan! Stabilize others we could. People, ships, planets, whole star systems--resume a normal existence we could. Trade and interchange would return. How it was once, remember it, I do." He sounded wistful. "A true Republic we could have again."
"It's a noble dream," Obi-wan admitted. "And I'd be honoured to play a part in it. But--" He paused. "Do you think there's a way for me to get home?" As he said the words, a wave of homesickness broke over him. He wanted Coruscant, and Master Qui-Gon, and the freedom of the starlanes and the quiet of space. Rain trickled down from the eaves outside, monotonously distracting. He thought then of Astrave, and the last time he had been homesick, and was momentarily amazed that he could feel the same longing for two so very different worlds.
Yoda looked somber. "Perhaps," he said. "Perhaps. Say for certain I cannot. For now, to Coruscant we must return, and consult with the Council. Come."
"Now?" Obi-wan said, following him out into the sunlight. Yoda glanced wryly back at him, cocking his head.
"Something more to do here, you have? Holding you back, something is? Perhaps luggage you have still in transit?"
Obi-wan chuckled ruefully and touched his lightsaber. "This and my boots and what's in my head are all I have. I thought you were committed here, though. Didn't you and those two other Knights have some kind of assignment from the Council?"
"Searching, I was, for those who could use the Force, as I said. Believe it you did not before, but true it was, mostly. Train them here, we would; to leave the planet they would be unable, of course, but perhaps establish their own Border here they might. Investigating the feasibility of this plan, I was."
"And now?" Obi-wan asked, as they reached the ship.
"If the source of your stability can be found, then obsolete all Borders will be," Yoda replied. "If a failure this is, come here later I can and continue building walls. To delay this awhile I am willing, on the chance that all walls may be unbuilt. Come. Come."
Knight Jamedeh sat crouched on the guardroom floor, motionless. Tras watched him, nervous. For this guard rotation, he had kept his lightsaber, as he was uncertain of his ability to take down the hulking Markalah barehanded. There had, however, been no sign of incursion in the past three hours of the rotation, and the squidlike Knight seemed to be doing well enough.
Tras sighed and stretched, working the kinks out of his stiff arms and shoulders. Jedi discipline should enable him to sit for hours in perfect alertness and comfort, but he was having difficulty with Discipline lately. It seemed that every time he tried to use it, it brought back the old pain, the last moments of terror that had burned along the bond as Abbahai and Yosua were cut down. It had grown easier, the past few days, until Master Fell had finally pronounced him fit for duty again, but he still awoke screaming at night, still avoided the meditation trance when he could.
He closed his eyes, tired, then snapped them open again. You're on guard. Pay attention. The voice in his mind sounded like Abbahai's, but he had been imagining things like that, lately. Hearing the voices of his two dead apprentices was bad enough; hearing Paoxh, out loud or silently, was worse. Their bond was gone, severed--delicately, but still gone: a surgical amputation, in contrast to the two hacked-off stumps of the others. Less painful, but still traumatic. Paoxh must be suffering the same way he was, Tras knew, but Paoxh was young and resilient, and he had Dellalee in his mind to comfort him. What did Tras have? Nothing but solitude, and memories, and Paoxh's face in front of him all the time, tormenting him.
He shivered, rubbing the pads of his hands along his arms to fluff up his fur. It was too damned cold in this building, it was always cold. Jamedeh muttered something, gurgling deep in his throat--or what passed for one--and shifted position absently, the tip of one of his tentacles drawing an aimless curve on the floor. Tras watched with the hypnotized fascination of the truly bored. He'd been warned, they all had, that boredom was a Jedi's enemy, that it led to a lack of alertness, but right now he couldn't really bring himself to care.
A shadow seemed to pass in front of his eyes. Startled, he glanced up, and realized that the sun had dropped below the level of the window, and night was coming on. He hadn't thought it was that late.
Jamedeh gurgled again, the odd half-strangled sound he'd been making all afternoon. Tras wondered if it was the Markalah equivalent of snoring, and if Jamedeh even realised he was doing it. It was damned annoying, whatever.
"Traskinn--" Jamedeh's voice rumbled suddenly.
Tras blinked. "It's been eight hours already?" He must have dozed off. Sleeping on watch--that's unforgivable, Master Traskinn! He shook his head, his great mane shimmering around him. "All right, let's get going."
"Traskinn," the Knight repeated haltingly. "Tras--" One of the Markalah's rubbery tentacles wrapped around his bare upper arm. Tras had expected Jamedeh's skin to be clammy and cold, but it was warm as fresh-baked bread, and surprisingly soft. The contact briefly intensified Jamedeh's Force aura, and for a moment there was a connection between them.
"No!" Tras pulled away in horror. "Force, no!" Jamedeh gurgled again; it sounded almost like a sob. Not aimless sounds, but a desperate attempt at communication--how long? Force and Chaos, how long had it been? Tras reached out frantically toward the Border, searching for the neighbouring guard points, ignoring the groping of Jamedeh's shattered thoughts. How long had this sector sat undefended, while he was lost in self-pity, while Jamedeh tried desperately to reach him? Minutes, hours? He didn't move, Tras' mind gibbered. I thought he would move if something happened to him. He just sat there. Oh, Force, it's my fault--
On the other side of the window, the lights were coming on with the rising of the night. He could hear the faint hum of air vehicles through the not-quite-soundproof glass, see the fluorescent displays and the people moving to and fro. It was a picture of normality, and Tras breathed easier.
Then he heard the screams begin outside, and knew it was too late.
"Anything?" Yoda asked. Obi-wan sighed.
"They're not answering. The signal's transmitting fine, and the receiving computer's acknowledging the frequency lock--there's just nobody picking up at the other end." He fiddled with the volume dial, idly turned down the squelch circuit, and was rewarded with a blare of static. Hastily he turned it up again, and picked up the microphone. "Coruscant surface relay, Coruscant surface relay, this is the Tirigott, over."
"Most peculiar this is," Yoda commented. "Tried any other channels, have you?"
"Just the surface relay and two of the orbital stations. And the planetary defense band," he added ruefully, "before I remembered it doesn't exist here. Anyway, there's been nothing."
"Hmm. Tried the distress band, have you?"
"You can't transmit non-emergency calls on the distress channel," Obi-wan pointed out. "It's against interstellar law."
Yoda's voice was gently chiding. "As a member of the Jedi Council, my permission you have, Obi-wan. Full responsibility will I take for any fines incurred." He picked up the microphone and flipped the frequency selector, and all at once the cabin was full of noise.
"Coming around the north side," a woman's voice said rapidly. "Six of them, I think. We've lost point forty-nine for sure--"
"Scramble all flyers," someone else said over the tail end of her words. "We'll try and--"
"--thirty-six, point thirty-six, calling anyone who can hear me. We've been overrun. Everyone here is dead--is anyone listening? This is Knight Siloann, point thirty-six--"
"--cut them off against the factory district, but they're running amok down there, I can't see--"
"Scramble! Scramble!"
"--the Jedi! Where are they? Why aren't they doing something?"
"Coruscant Traffic Authority calling all flyers. Reroute travel paths to avoid Jedi sectors. Repeat, avoid the Border area. This is a Coruscant Traffic Authority level one warning."
"We're bringing reinforcements," someone else said, and Obi-wan jumped as though he had been shot, recognising Dellalee's voice. "Heading for the Leng-Shivata tunnel by way of the central arc. Any points still active between twelve and twenty-eight, please respond."
"Nash chevast! Chagat geshevast Jedi shanat!"
"--Knight Siloann, point--"
"--proceed to point fifteen, he said, but we can't--"
"--cut off down here! We'll try and make our way through--"
"--drevenni, drevenni--"
"--dear sweet god, what have we--"
"--the whole goddamn sector's on fire--"
"This is Mace Windu," the voice of the Council's head broke in through the chaos, overriding the others. "All Jedi are to abandon the western sector and proceed with all possible speed to points between one and twenty-two. Maintain the eastern stretch of the Border. We should be able to defend an area that--" There was a sudden crackling sound that Obi-wan recognised: a lightsaber being ignited. "No! It isn't possible! We're guarded here, we--" Repeated crackling blows, two lightsabers repelling each other. "Adi Gallia. Listen to me. I am your friend. Try to control--"
Another blow, and a shout of pain, and a growl of triumph too savage to be entirely sane. Obi-wan and Yoda stared at each other in horror. There was a blast of static, deafening, and then silence.
Part Six: Zenith
Civilization is just a temporary failure of entropy. - Christine Nelson
It was Yoda who broke the silence in the shuttle cockpit. "Return we must, I think," he said, his voice heavy. "Too late we will be, by far too late, but perhaps save something we can."
"What could we possibly save?" Obi-wan asked dully. "It'll take days to get back to Coruscant, and by then--" He remembered Astrave, and shivered, thinking of the madness and terror that full Jedi Masters, similarly afflicted, would spread.
"Regroup they might," Yoda said, though he sounded doubtful. "Sixty years ago, repel a similar assault the Jedi did. Much stronger we were then, but more of us there are now. Possible it is. And if not--" He shrugged. "Jedi we both are, Obi-wan. Other Jedi there are on other missions. Survive the Order will, even if dies every Jedi on Coruscant. The Archives we might save, and begin again elsewhere."
Obi-wan stared at him, jolted out of his black reverie. "You were expecting this," he accused. "That woman, Jore Ballaset, and the others you've found here--it wasn't just to establish a new Border, it was--it was some kind of backup plan. You were expecting this?"
Yoda shook his head sadly. "Expecting, no. Fearing--mm. An undesirable emotion fear is, but sometimes prudence it is to listen. Wondered, you have, why sent off-planet so many high-level Jedi are, when to maintain the Border everyone is needed? Planned even for this, we have."
The sadness and resignation in his voice made Obi-wan's chest contract painfully. "Maybe--maybe it won't be as bad as you think," he said.
Yoda nodded. "Perhaps." He pulled himself to his feet, leaning on his gnarled cane. "For now, return we must, and see what aid we can give. Meanwhile, to communicate with other off-planet Jedi I will try. Take us into orbit for decontamination, you should; a problem I suspect it will not be, but safety is important." He cocked his head, a flash of wry humour showing. "Fortunate it is that we were returning anyway, mm?" Obi-wan had to smile at that, a little. "Hm. Worried about your way home, you are, I think."
The thought hadn't even crossed Obi-wan's mind yet, he had been so overwhelmed by the thoughts of death and disaster that the desperate transmissions had evoked. "A little," he said. "But there's nothing I can do about it right now. Once we figure out what--how much can be saved, then--then there'll be time to think about it then, I guess." He shrugged, and felt a strange lightness, as though a heavy weight had been taken from his shoulders. All the possible paths, all the new and old responsibilities, all the myriad ways he might go from here, had narrowed to a single line stretching to infinity ahead of him, and there were now no choices at all.
Beller Keese crouched in the darkness of the great empty Temple kitchen, clutching his broken lightsaber. A stray blaster bolt had sheared off the power pack and part of the handle, narrowly missing his fingers, and had rendered the weapon useless. He held onto it anyway. It was comforting. Maybe he could bluff people with it, if nothing else. Not, he admitted, that the crazies were likely to be scared of him. They didn't seem scared of anything--or even aware of much, really. He shivered, drawing himself further back into the narrow space between two of the giant freezers. The coils on the back were warm and gave off a little bit of red light. It was really a very good hiding place. He'd found it years ago, playing hide-and-seek with Obi-wan and Stadderick and the other apprentices. It all seemed so terribly far away, now.
He could feel his Master, about two kilometers lateral distance away and six levels up. There were others with her, but Beller's Force sense wasn't attuned enough to identify them. They were searching for other survivors, and other victims. Find a safe place, Beller's Master had told him. You're not strong enough to fight them. Find somewhere to hide, and wait there for me. She had put her hand on his wrist; she was too short to reach his shoulder. Go, Beller. Go. He had gone. He was good at doing what he was told.
His skin and his white robe were weirdly shadowed in the ruddy glow of the freezer coils. Above him, the vaulted ceiling--why did the Jedi who built this place have such an obsession with height?--was festooned with lights, all shut off now. To either side stood aisles of freezers, ovens, chopping blocks, sinks, and storage cupboards: enough to feed an army, which was, after all, what they were for. Everyone was gone; he didn't know how many Jedi were dead or insane by now, but the survivors were out trying to save what could be saved, and everyone who wasn't Jedi had run away.
Shadows moved at the end of the aisle. "Beller!" someone hissed. Beller yelped and tried to back up further, leap to his feet, fade back into the shadows, and activate his lightsaber, all at the same time. He tripped over a power cable lying on the floor, and his shoulderblades scraped the wall as he stumbled back. His thumb clicked uselessly on the activation switch of his weapon. Oh. Right.
"Force, Beller, you're such a klutz sometimes." A black-robed figure detached itself from the shadows and became a red-faced adolescent boy, taller and fatter than Beller, with unkempt brown hair that nearly hid his padawan braid.
Beller sagged. "Stadderick."
"Looks like we had the same idea," Stadderick said. "This place is about as safe as we're going to get, I guess. Have any of them come this way yet?"
"Them?" Beller asked.
Stadderick grimaced. "You know. Them."
"Oh. Them. No. No, not yet. I've been--my Master told me to hide--" He stopped. Stadderick's face was odd, twisted, as though he were trying not to cry. "Where's your Master, Rick?" Beller asked, as gently as possible.
"Master Amgwis is dead," Stadderick blurted. "They shot her. Master Windu and somebody. She was--she went--it got her." Suddenly he was sobbing, his face turned away from Beller, toward the door.
"Hey--" Beller patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. "Hey, come on, don't cry. Don't cry, Rick, they'll hear us. Come on."
"Yeah. I know." Stadderick wiped his face with his sleeve and sat down with his back to one of the freezers. He took out his lightsaber and studied it intently, holding it in both hands in his lap, his teeth pressed hard into his lower lip. Beller knew that look, and kept silent.
After a while, Stadderick said, "We should go help them."
"My lightsaber's broken," Beller pointed out. "And Master Du-Fan told me to stay here."
"Oh." Stadderick nodded, looking lost. The red glow of the coils flickered across his face. "Okay."
"We'd better stay here," Beller continued. "If you've got a working lightsaber, we'll at least be able to defend ourselves, and--" Flickered? He stopped, looking around. The coils were steady; the flicker was coming from somewhere else.
He got up, squeezed past Stadderick, and peered out of their hiding place. The flickering light, more orange than red, really, was coming from the open archway that was the door to the corridor, just in front of them. Fire? Beller wondered. But why haven't the alarms gone off, then? He turned back. "Hey, Stadderick--"
The far wall exploded inward in a gush of yellow-hot flame. Beller dove forward, miscalculated the angle, and smashed into one of the freezers. Clutching his shoulder, his mouth open in agony, he curled into a ball as the heat of the explosion pounded on his back and neck.
"Beller!" Protected from the full force of the blast, Stadderick watched with horror as Beller crumpled. "Mother of Chaos, Beller, get in here!" Beller didn't move. Stadderick swore softly, took a deep breath, and, shielding his face with one arm, grabbed Beller's cowl with the other hand and hauled him back into the comparative shelter between the freezer units.
The blast subsided. Fire was licking at the far wall and appeared to have burned through the floor to the next level below, but the wave of the explosion had receded and it didn't seem to be moving toward them now. Beller coughed and sat up, rubbing his shoulder gingerly. "Thanks."
"Yeah."
"We can't stay here," Beller said.
"Yeah." Stadderick looked around. "Force, it's been awhile since I've been in here. That way goes out to the padawans' cafeteria, doesn't it?" Beller nodded. "Okay. Where should we go? Where's your Master? They're fighting the--the crazy ones, yeah?"
"That way," Beller answered, pointing over his left shoulder with the unerring certainty of the bond. "But she said I shouldn't--"
"Oh, Chaos take it," Stadderick snapped. "We can't stay here and we haven't got anywhere else to go. I for one would rather go down fighting. Come on."
The airspace around the Jedi Temple was empty. As Dellalee's band of survivors approached in the aircar they had taken, she found herself unable to take her eyes from the eerie sight. Lane beacons still hovered, broadcasting their signals to the vacant sky, but there was no sign of anything alive.
"They can't all be dead," Tras said beside her, divining her thought. "Just because no-one's answering the radio doesn't mean--"
"The emergency system's supposed to be manned at all times," Dellalee said. "They wouldn't have abandoned watchkeeping if they could possibly maintain it."
"Not everyone's as devoted to the rules as you are," Tras pointed out. "From what we heard, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had run."
"Still--"
"We'll know soon enough, you two, stop it." Segoval, the pilot, whom they had picked up at point forty, turned to grin at both of them. "For all we know, the radio on this junkheap is broken and everyone is fine."
Dellalee frowned. "Or they might--"
"Or they might all be dead. I know. Doesn't do any good to worry about it now, does it?" His console buzzed loudly and he swung back around with a theatrical sigh. "Damn beacons. We're the only car in the sky and still they're worried about me keeping to my lane." He kicked affably at the housing of the radio.
Ignoring him, Dellalee twisted in her seat as far as her safety harness would allow. "How is he?" she asked.
"Alive," Paoxh said succinctly. The other padawan beside him, one-time apprentice of one of Segoval's now-dead comrades, looked apprehensively at him and hunched her shoulders as though trying to disappear. "His mind's still strong," Paoxh continued, placing one hand on Caiopta Fell's chest. "He's just unconscious. It doesn't feel like--it's not--"
"All right," Dellalee said quickly, before the terrified images sliding into her mind from her new apprentice's could grow stronger. "Keep an eye on him." Paoxh nodded, his full attention on his task. Dellalee wanted to watch the injured Master herself, but her attention and Tras' were on protecting the group from the enemy. Paoxh was too tired, his mind too bruised from the shock of the first deadly attack, to be any good as a guard. He and Padawan Tsen were more use taking care of their casualties than they would be in repelling another of the enemy's probes.
"We're entering Temple airspace," Segoval reported. "Where should I land?"
"On the roof," Tras said. "The platforms are no good; the lifts will be out of commission. Besides, I don't want to take the chance of a power failure while we're getting off."
"Agreed," Dellalee said. "Land on the roof. Paoxh, when we get down there, I want you and Tsen to stay aboard and look after Master Fell and Knight Suster. Can you do that?" Paoxh only nodded. He didn't argue, and the slightly glazed look in his eyes told Dellalee, as much as the feel of his mind through the still-new bond, that this was a bad sign. Shock, she told herself. He's overwhelmed by all this, we all are. That's all. "All right. We're counting on you, you know. Keep them safe."
"I will," Paoxh said solemnly. Dellalee made herself smile, a twisting of her knife-slash lips that had never quite felt natural. Paoxh didn't seem comforted. Force, keep them safe, she thought, as Segoval touched down on the roof and the three of them prepared to disembark. Keep us all.
This is not a rescue mission, Obi-wan repeated to himself, over and over, as he picked his way through the near darkness of the fifth-year dormitory. Get the Archives and get out. That's what matters right now. The rest can wait.
They had confirmed from orbit what the transmissions had made them suspect. The Border was gone. They could sense the new terror of millions of minds, that part of Coruscant's population that had been protected from chaos for sixty years, now exposed. As far as Obi-wan and Yoda could tell, very little had actually happened to them yet; life could continue, in whatever fashion, as it did on the rest of the planet and in the rest of the galaxy. But their security had been ripped away from them, and they were in panic. There had been riots already, and some were still going on; the Tirigott had overflown the remains of point forty-two and seen it under attack by a mob of civilians, tearing apart anything that came to hand. How destroying Jedi property, and abandoned property at that, was going to help matters, Obi-wan couldn't fathom, but frightened people were seldom rational, especially in large groups.
A faint shadow touched his mind, and his shields snapped into place almost without conscious volition. It was all very well for Yoda to talk about him being stable and protected, but he wasn't about to take chances. This place had him jumping out of his skin. The fact that it was so familiar, from both his childhoods, made it even worse now that it was deserted.
He was just outside the Third Hall now, one of the large assembly areas used for public events. Through here, up two flights of stairs, along a kilometer or so of corridors through the residential wing, and he would be at the Archives. Fifteen minutes or so, running, under normal circumstances. In darkness, walking carefully, feeling his way ahead with his mind before he moved, it could be a good deal longer.
He put his hand on the door handle, then jerked it back as though he had been burned. The violent Force imprint coming from the room ahead made his chest tighten as though the air had suddenly turned solid and unbreathable. Obi-wan forced himself to inhale, then, holding his shields in place with all his strength, he reached out for the door again.
"Amgwis! Stop! Someone do something!"...
...blood staining the walls, dried black and glistening red...
..."They'll be fine, Lind," Master Amgwis said, smiling. The fifty or so children in the Hall, those who had just recently been brought in and were still too new to have been assigned individual Masters, sat in untidy rows on the polished floor. A few were crying, but most sat silently, sensing their elders' worry. "This is all just a precaution. You and the rest of the nursery staff will be right here to watch them, and Master Pallisk and I will see that none of them come to any harm."
Lind smiled. "Well, we're glad of your help, I'm sure."...
..."--gone crazy! Please, help us, she's killing them! Master Windu--"...
..."I'm not sure I like the idea of having so many of them together. What if something goes wrong?"...
...A lightsaber was a clean weapon, cauterizing as it cut. It spilled very little blood, usually, but when this many had been killed...
...Mace Windu tried to count the bodies and failed. He wiped his face with a sleeve already soaked with sweat. So many dead...
Obi-wan staggered back, gasping for breath as the vision faded. He dug his nails into his palm, forcing himself to focus on the layout of this wing. Back two corridors, up the service elevator and into the residential wing that way. He couldn't go through here, shields or no. Praying he wasn't losing too much time, he turned and sprinted the other way.
Yoda sat cross-legged on the deck of the Tirigott, reaching out. Come, he thought. Come to me, you that still live.
That Obi-wan would make it to the Archives, he had no doubt. Yoda could feel the young Knight moving purposefully through the lower floors of the Temple, intent on their goal. He would be safe, the Archives would be safe. But as for the rest--
Coruscant was doomed. That, Yoda had known since the first messages had been received. The future was always cloudy and uncertain, but these events he had seen, burning a crimson path through the grey fog of possibility. Only a handful of Jedi were left, and of those few, most would refuse to leave. The citizens of Coruscant, exposed to the enemy for the first time in their lives and frightened beyond reasoning, would turn on their protectors. Jedi would be hunted; Jedi would be killed. There was no safety here anymore, no chance at rebuilding unless they went elsewhere.
Yoda closed his eyes and called, searching for those who would listen. Come you must. While there is time. Come now. Come now.
They heard. He could sense four in another ship, two injured and two very young. They would come. And three others, just entering the Council Hall-- He looked through their eyes for a moment and mourned for the dead that he saw. Friends of his, all of them, even through the years he had been away. He pulled back a little, touching the newcomers' minds. Come.
No sign of it showed on his face, but inwardly he was rocked with surprise at who he found. Symmetry, always symmetry there is, he thought. That she should be here now, as Obi-wan is--always symmetry in the Force, always. Study the two of them together, I must, later, when safe we are.
With that thought came another, strong, with the power of prophecy. He would never study it, never have the chance. Why? he demanded of the fading certainty. Too busy I will be? Dead? Forget I will? What?
There was no response. Yoda sighed. The future had a way of being simultaneously informative and unhelpful. There was nothing to do about it now, anyway. He turned his thoughts outward again. Come. I need you. Come to me.
"Where is she?" Stadderick demanded. "I thought you said she was up here."
"We're nearly there," Beller snapped. "Keep your boots on."
"Quiet!" Stadderick hissed. "Do you want everyone on this level to hear you?"
"Well, they wouldn't if you didn't keep on--"
"Shut up."
"You shut up." Beller stalked ahead, one hand on the lightsaber at his hip. He didn't know whose it was, couldn't recall offhand which apprentice's blade was dark mauve, but they had found it in the corridor near one of the innumerable clusters of bodies, and it seemed to work well enough. He wasn't sure how much use he'd be in a fight--his arm was stiff and aching, and he was having to use Discipline to block the pain of his scorched back--but it was good not to feel defenseless.
"Hey, Stadderick," he said over his shoulder, "do you think we maybe ought to get out of here? I mean, Master Du-Fan did say to hide, and I don't think the Temple's really the safest place to be right now--" He trailed off, waiting.
There was no reply. Beller looked over his shoulder and saw his friend standing in the middle of the corridor, looking off into nothing. "Rick?" Beller said, poking him in the shoulder. He didn't move. Unwillingly, Beller reached out with his mind. He touched the edge of a shadow, and recoiled.
No. Oh, Chaos, no. Beller drew his borrowed lightsaber and ignited the blade. "Stadderick," he said, carefully keeping his voice level, "say something. Please." I can't do this, don't make me do it. Force, don't make me--
Stadderick blinked, once, twice. "Turn that thing off, Beller," he said, his voice distracted. "It's not your colour."
"Force and Chaos, Rick, don't do that!" Beller exploded.
Stadderick shook his head. "Sorry. I felt--it was--there was a shadow, did you feel it? Then it was gone. Something--drove it away. This way." Without waiting to see if Beller followed, Stadderick turned abruptly down a side corridor, his boots clicking on the polished floor. Shaking his head, half numb with relief, Beller hurried after him.
"The Archives?" he said, when he saw the arch at the end of the hall. "Why are we going there?"
"Whoever stopped it is in there," Stadderick said. "One of the Council, maybe."
"Beller! Stadderick!" Both their heads jerked up at the unexpected shout. Then someone was flying out of the archway to pound Stadderick's back in a powerful hug.
"Obi-wan!" Beller exclaimed, grinning. He backed away hurriedly. "Don't touch me, we had kind of a rough time getting here."
"Oh. Sorry." Obi-wan grinned back. "It's good to see you guys. Hey, guess what! I'm a Jedi Knight!"
Beller stared at him. "No kidding?"
"Nope." You're being childish, Obi-wan, stop it, he told himself, but he couldn't help smiling. After all the death and terror that filled the rest of the building, it was such a relief to see someone he knew, alive and relatively whole. He led the two of them back into the Archives and stopped before the computer he'd been using to download the Archives onto compressed data solids.
"So what are you doing here, anyway?" Stadderick asked, on cue. "I thought you were out at the Border."
Briefly, Obi-wan recounted where he had gone, and why he and Yoda had come back. "The plan was to install extra computer capacity on the Tirigott back on Alderaan--which we did--and then uplink with the Archives from orbit," he explained. "We'd never have had to land at all. But the Temple radio relay's been smashed, we saw it on the way in. It'd take days to repair it, even if we had the parts at hand. So we decided one of us should come in and take out the data on solid, and here I am."
"Well," Beller said with a shaky laugh, "I'm glad you're here."
"Me too," Stadderick said. "Wish I wasn't. How long?"
"Another ten minutes." Obi-wan glanced over at the archway, but there was no-one there. He sighed. The construction of the Archives room was supposed to promote openness and contemplation, but it wasn't defensible, not by a long way.
I could leave, he thought, not for the first time. I could go home. He thought he knew how, now. He could feel the threads in his mind that bound him to his other world, and if he tried, he could follow them. This isn't my home. I don't belong here, not really. I'll help them escape with the Archives, and then I'll go.
The flicker of a shadow in the arched entrance made him glance up again. He hadn't imagined it this time; there was something there, staying out of sight. It might just be a maintenance droid--he'd seen some of them out in the halls, making a futile effort to clean up the place--but somehow Obi-wan didn't think so. Cautiously, he reached out with his mind toward the presence outside.
The shadow exploded into a blur of motion, and before he could more than blink, Obi-wan had been shoved back against the carrel and a lightsaber blade was hovering a fraction of an inch from his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Stadderick similarly held; Beller had been pulled back toward the archway, but it didn't look like he was being threatened. "You two have three seconds to convince me you're not crazy," snapped the silver-haired woman who was pinning Obi-wan.
"Loyalty to the Jedi Order supersedes all bonds of family, state, species, guild and clan," Stadderick babbled, the words of the Sixth Canon spilling from his lips. "Master Windu, it's me, I had you for Traditions last year, don't you remember me?"
"Master Windu?" Obi-wan repeated. The woman holding him lifted the lightsaber slightly so that he could turn his head. Stadderick's captor was indeed the leader of the Council. "We thought you were dead," Obi-wan said. "We heard the radio relay get cut off, and we thought--"
"Who's we?" Mace Windu asked, as his blade vanished and he replaced his lightsaber at his waist. "Sorry about that. It's all right, Lind, let him go. We thought you might be damaging the Archives."
Lind. The name jogged Obi-wan's memory, and he recognised her: one of the nursery workers whose image was embedded in the Force imprint in the Third Hall. She must have escaped with Master Windu after he'd managed to stop Master Amgwis. Aloud, Obi-wan said, "Master Yoda and myself. We were on Alderaan."
"Yoda's alive?" Windu said, sounding surprised. "Well, thank the Force for that. I'd heard he'd returned to Coruscant, and when I couldn't reach him, I assumed the worst."
"We were off-planet when all this happened." Obi-wan rubbed absently at his reddened throat. It felt like a mild sunburn. Lind didn't look particularly contrite. "The rest of the Council?"
"Dead." Windu's voice was flat. "Saesee Tinn is on Nal Hutta, so he's probably all right, but the rest of the Council is dead. Adi Gallia killed four of us, and nearly me as well, before I managed to stop her." He shook his head. "This is a black day, Kenobi."
Obi-wan nodded. There wasn't much he could say to that.
"What are you doing down here, then?" asked the woman who had grabbed Beller. He was clinging to her robes, his knuckles white. Knight Du-Fan sa Gri, Obi-wan remembered from one of his childhoods, and Beller's Master from the other. She must have been promoted young. That happened a lot, here.
"C--copying the Archives, Master," Beller stammered. "Obi-wan said--"
Du-Fan smiled at Master Windu. "Looks like they had the same idea we did, Mace. You have a ship as well, don't you, Padawan Kenobi?"
"Knight Kenobi," he corrected, trying to sound offhand about it. "Yes, we do."
"Congratulations." She made a brief bow. "Mind if we join you? We were going to steal one, but this is much easier."
Obi-wan looked at his friends and shrugged. "The more the merrier. I'll--"
The computer pinged and spat out the last data solid. Obi-wan picked it up and slipped it into his belt pouch with the others. "That's it," he said. "Let's go. Master Yoda's waiting for us."
Part Seven: Blaze
"People say I'm strange; does that make me a stranger?" - dc talk
They stood on the landing platform, fourteen Jedi, the survivors. Behind them, the Tirigott crouched on its extensionals like an animal ready to spring. Obi-wan looked at the others, waiting for someone to speak. Dellalee's face was blank, as usual, and Mace Windu and Yoda were inscrutable as befitted Masters of their rank. Fell and Suster were still unconscious, and the four padawans just looked scared, though Stadderick, at least, was trying to seem brave. The other adults--Lind, Du-Fan, Tras and Segoval--all seemed determined, though Obi-wan didn't know them well enough, except for Tras, to be able to tell how much fear they were hiding. As for himself, he was terrified, and hoped it didn't show. This was so--final. They were abandoning the Temple, abandoning everything, starting over. Fourteen Jedi to build a new world.
"You know, the Order wasn't started here," Lind said, looking down at the spires of the buildings below the platform. It was late afternoon, and the air this high was cool and clear above the smoke. "In the oldest parts of the Histories, it talks about the building of the Temple. There are references to a great journey--it's all very vague, but it's certain the Jedi weren't founded on Coruscant."
"I never knew that," Dellalee said quietly.
Obi-wan kept silent. He had known; he'd thought it was common knowledge. Perhaps the records were better preserved in his own world.
"I'll show you once we've got the Archives in the computer," Lind said. "You may not be able to read them, the language is very old, but it's certain. We didn't start here."
"So it's fitting that we not end here, I suppose?" Segoval said with a grin. "Come on, then. Let's get moving while we can."
The interior of the Tirigott was dangerously crowded. The only areas not too cramped or dangerous to inhabit during takeoff were the cockpit and crew quarters, and of the three cabins, two had belonged to the Markalah and were unusable by the non-amphibious. It took three adults to strap Suster into the acceleration couch in his quarters. He never moved. Nor did Fell as they put him in the safety restraints in one of the seats in the cockpit, though Paoxh reported that he did seem to be breathing easier than he had. Segoval took the pilot's seat, and Obi-wan found himself elected as copilot. The others sat on the floor, wedging themselves between bulkheads and stanchions as well as they could. There was almost no room to walk between them. Obi-wan noticed Segoval dialling the air recycling system up to maximum capacity as the pilot made his preflight checks.
"All set to go," he reported a moment later, looking at Mace Windu. "What's our course once we get into orbit?"
"For now, the refuelling station on Sterba," Mace Windu said. "Then Nal Hutta, to find Saesee Tin, if he's still there; another member of the Council would be a great asset. After that--" He shrugged. "We'll decide where to go once we get there."
Segoval nodded. "Ready for takeoff," he said. "Engines on--now."
The engines burned to life like three miniature suns. "Lateral thrusters active," Segoval said. "Beginning climb, twenty degrees."
The ship lifted ponderously from the landing platform and nosed forward, angling upward on a gradual slope. The Tirigott's main thrusters were at the rear, and her takeoff was therefore very gradual, nearly horizontal. She would make almost a quarter of an orbit before reaching escape velocity, and use a great deal of fuel pushing through atmosphere. Space flight has obviously not been a priority here, Obi-wan thought, and felt another surge of homesickness. They don't need me here anymore, not really. We've gotten away. I could go now, if I wanted to.
If he wanted to. That was the question. This wasn't really his world, and yet it was; he remembered growing up here, remembered it every bit as vividly as his life with Qui-Gon Jinn. Dellalee had been Master and mother, teacher and friend, for more than a decade of his life, and those years were just as real now as they had been when they were the only ones he remembered. Without a doubt, life back home was easier, but he was enough of a Jedi to know that that was no criterion to choose by. And they did need him here; every Jedi was essential, and would be for decades, perhaps centuries, until their numbers were rebuilt. And he was stable, whatever that might mean, and that made him even more needed. Could he in good conscience leave?
"You're drifting," Segoval said in a low voice. Startled, Obi-wan looked up guiltily. "Keep your mind on what we're doing. I don't know how much flying you've done, but you'd better be good enough to spell me once we're in orbit, so start practicing now."
Obi-wan nodded. It would be pointless, not to mention confusing, to explain that he'd probably logged more flight time than all the other Jedi here combined. Besides, Segoval was right: he shouldn't be daydreaming on watch. There would be time to figure this out later.
Dellalee suddenly looked behind her, a moment before Paoxh exclaimed, "Master! Master Fell's awake!"
Fell was shaking his head, trying to pull his arms free of the crash webbing. Quickly Paoxh disentangled him and maneuvered the seat upright. "What happened, Lanai?" Fell demanded, spotting Dellalee.
"We were attacked," she answered. "Do you remember?"
He nodded uncertainly. "--attacked?"
"Yes."
"Remember--it got Jamedeh. We were retreating--" He shook his head. "Don't remember any more."
"We were on route to point twenty-one to reinforce them there," she said. "A power plant in the central arc exploded as we went over. You hit your head while we were trying to regain control."
"Huh. Stupid." He tried to get up, but the crash webbing around his chest and legs restrained him.
"Master Fell, please sit still," Paoxh said with unexpected firmness."
"Quiet, padawan," Fell snapped. "If we are under attack, we need to get to the Border."
"The Border's gone, Cai," Mace Windu told him, with barely a hesitation. "We're leaving Coruscant."
"Oh." The news seemed to stun him for a moment, and then he nodded, absorbing the shock. He looked wryly at Dellalee. "Sometimes, Lanai, it is no consolation to be right."
"No," she agreed. Fell seemed about to say something else, but then he shook his head as though deciding not to bother and lapsed back into silence. A look passed between Dellalee and her apprentice: Take care of him. Paoxh nodded.
"We're almost to the Border now," Segoval reported. "We should be out of atmosphere in another five to seven minutes. We--" He twitched his shoulders, grimacing. "Sorry. I'm a little--"
"Feel it as well, I do," Yoda said sharply. "Brace yourselves. An attack this may be."
It was.
Segoval suddenly stiffened, clutching his head with both hands as his spine arched backward as far as the seat allowed. The nose of the ship dropped. Obi-wan lunged for the stabilizer controls. Lind screamed, digging her fingers into the arm of Du-Fan, who was closest.
"Get this ship level!" Dellalee snapped. The Tirigott lurched suddenly, and the lights flickered wildly on and off. Obi-wan barely noticed; to his eyes it had grown dark a few seconds before, just as Segoval was seized. He groped for the controls, trying to remember where they were. Force, it's like flying a museum piece! he thought. Lind screamed again.
"Dellalee, Tras, shield the padawans," Mace Windu snapped. "Yoda, help me with Segoval. Fell, watch Kenobi, if you can; we can't lose our other pilot."
"Fine he will be," Yoda assured him, as they stumbled across the uncertain deck to the pilot's station. "Protect himself, Obi-wan can, hmm, yes."
"I'd still prefer--Damn it!" One of Segoval's flailing feet had caught Mace's kneecap. Mace grabbed the pilot's head, forced his eyes open with fingers and thumb. "Look at me, Segoval. Look at me. Build a glass wall in your mind. Keep the enemy out. See yourself behind the wall." Segoval moaned. "See yourself! Build it higher. That's right. You can see the enemy, but it can't reach you. That's good." Slowly, Segoval stopped struggling. Mace released him. "That's better."
Lind had stopped screaming. Obi-wan, who had managed to stabilize the ship as the air lightened, looked over and saw that Du-Fan had her hand over the other woman's mouth. "Is everyone all right?" Dellalee asked. There were murmurs of assent throughout the cabin. "Tsen, will you go and check on Suster, please?" The padawan nodded and got up to head for the rear cabin.
Obi-wan looked at Segoval, then switched the main controls over to his own console. The shaken pilot didn't protest. Obi-wan started to check their course, when all of a sudden the world darkened like the sudden descent of a curtain. "Get ready!" he shouted. "It's happening again!"
Lind pulled free of Du-Fan's hands and shrieked at the top of her lungs. Du-Fan grabbed for her and missed. Segoval drew his knees up to his chest and huddled in his chair. "Return to the Temple, we must!" Yoda shouted, his furry voice a whipcrack above the sounds of panic. "Turn the ship around!"
Turn around. Obi-wan yanked the control yoke sideways, guessing at the heading. Don't look for it. Use the Force. He tried, and his mind reeled backwards, struck with shadow. His Force sense was blind as well, smothered in darkness. "Master Yoda! Where am I going?"
There. The direction was suddenly clear in his mind. Whether it had come from Yoda or himself or somewhere else, whether he had even managed to speak aloud, he wasn't sure, but he grasped at it, fixed it in his mind, flung the ship like a thrown spear toward the light.
His vision brightened, narrowed, focused to flying. The others in the ship were distractions, incidental; he ignored them. He was unaware of anything until the solid kchunk! of the landing struts striking metal brought him suddenly back to himself.
"Get out," Segoval gasped. He stabbed at the hatch release on his console and missed, tried again and missed. Mace Windu reached over the pilot's shoulder and smashed his hand down on the button. The hatch swung ponderously open, and, tearing off their safety restraints, they tumbled out into the relatively fresh air of the city.
"It never--it's never been that bad before," Du-Fan burst out, when they could breathe again.
"No," Dellalee agreed, "it hasn't." She was holding Lind gently by the shoulders, letting the older women cry into her robe. Mace Windu took Lind's arm and helped her sit down with her back against the ship. Dellalee nodded gratefully and sat as well, smoothing her skirts around her. "It seemed to be coming in waves, I thought."
"I felt that as well," Mace agreed. "Very erratic. It doesn't seem to be nearly as bad here, though. I can barely feel it. I wish we knew more about all this!" There was silent agreement from the others.
"Physics, you do know," Yoda said at last. "Chivok's Fifth Law of Relation: for every action, an equal and opposite reaction there is. For sixty years, pushed the enemy from this place we have, and now pushing back it is."
"Do you really think that's it?" Dellalee asked.
He shrugged. "Broken the dam we have; rush in the waters will. Yes, think so I do. Affected we will not be for awhile yet, here at the center, but soon expand inward the zone of turbulence will. Escape it we must before then."
"How long?" Tras demanded.
"Know that we cannot," Yoda said. "Data we have not. But soon."
"Maybe we could try flying straight up," Beller suggested. "It can't be as bad right above us as it is over the old Border." How quickly we've gotten used to saying that, Obi-wan thought. The old Border. Gone. We don't even hesitate anymore.
Segoval snorted. "Dirt-grubbers," he muttered. "Boy, this ship doesn't go straight up. It's designed for a long lateral takeoff; it's not a bloody hovercraft."
"Well, we should steal a hovercraft, then!" Beller retorted.
"From where?" Mace Windu asked. He gestured around them, over the edges of their platform. It was a clear evening, and they could see the smoke rising from a thousand fires. Theirs was the only platform in sight; those controlled by the municipal power plants must have crashed when the generating stations were destroyed. "Where are we going to find a usable ship in this mess? No, there has to be some way we can get the Tirigott out of here."
"Physics, you do know," Yoda repeated. "Padawan Keese." He lifted one finger. "If a dangerous excess of energy you have, what do you do?"
"Shunt it elsewhere," Beller answered promptly. "Find some way to divert it or absorb it." He stopped.
There was a moment's silence.
"Someone needs to absorb it," Obi-wan said, understanding. "Someone has to draw it away, draw enough of it in that--"
"--that the others will be able to escape," Mace Windu agreed. "It needn't be for very long, just long enough to get out of the area we've been protecting all these years. Low orbit should be far enough. Say twenty minutes."
The words were matter-of-fact, the tone of voice even. Someone has to stay behind. Whoever did this couldn't be aboard; they would be creating a tunnel of order, a clear space, drawing chaos to them like a sun pulling in flecks of interstellar dust. They would have to stay behind.
You want me to volunteer, Obi-wan thought, and knew, at the same time, that he might easily be wrong. You take too much on yourself, he heard Dellalee's voice say again. He looked at her, and at Paoxh, and the others. Maybe.
"Twenty minutes." Obi-wan nodded. "I can hold it that long."
"Obi-wan, no!" Dellalee protested. "You'll be destroyed."
I might, he thought, but didn't say so. I'm stable, I can protect myself, Yoda said so, but if I have to intentionally let the enemy in, am I really going to be any better off than anyone else?
Instead, he smiled at her. "No, I won't," he said. "I have a way out, remember? I'm probably the one person here who can survive this for long enough and get out alive afterward." He looked over at Master Yoda, perched on the ship's ramp. "Tell her."
"Correct, he is," Yoda said. His thoughts were clear on his face, to Obi-wan at least: You know the risk you take. But it is necessary, and you volunteered. "Much as I like it not. But go we must, and soon. Let him stay."
The two of them locked eyes for a moment. "Why do I get the feeling--" Dellalee started, then shook her head. "Never mind. You're right, of course. Obi-wan--"
"Go," he said. "No goodbyes. We don't have time."
Taking him at his word, she turned and swept into the shuttle after Yoda. The others followed, finding whatever space was available: twelve passengers in a shuttle meant for three, and Segoval as pilot. Beller was last. He turned back for a moment. "Obi-wan, you will be okay, won't you?"
"I'll be fine," Obi-wan assured him with a grin. He didn't think his friend could tell how forced it was. "Go on. I'll come after you when I can." Beller nodded, looking reassured, and stepped back into the ship. The ramp folded up, and the engines fired.
Obi-wan closed his eyes and let the swirling blackness enter his mind. "Come on, then," he murmured. His fists were clenched together as though around the hilt of a lightsaber, but when he raised his hands, they were empty. "Come on. I'm ready."
He never moved. That, Qui-Gon would think later, was the strangest part. Whatever struggles were being waged in his mind and soul, Obi-wan's body showed no sign of them. His eyes remained closed and still, his face composed, and he lay on the bed like a dead thing.
But that was later; for now, Qui-Gon had no idea that this hour, this minute, was any different from any of the other hours and minutes of his vigil. He sat in a high-backed chair beside Obi-wan's bed, one hand resting on the young man's shoulder, ignoring the clicking and whirring of the medical droids around them. He was alone at this hour, the other Jedi who had been watching with him gone off for sleep or other business. Qui-Gon planned to sleep here as he had done the past several nights.
He was alone, but he knew that he was watched; if Obi-wan slipped away completely, someone would be there immediately, to help Qui-Gon deal with the first shock of the broken bond. Of course, Qui-Gon admitted to himself, it was entirely possible that the bond was somehow broken already. He hadn't been able to sense his apprentice for days. That was one reason among the many that kept him here: the fear that Obi-wan would slip away, and he wouldn't even know.
Fear spiked through him at the thought, as it had so many times over the past days, and he forced it down and away. Calm, he told himself. Stay calm. You won't do him any good if you get agitated. Calmness was essential to Obi-wan's recovery, the Master in charge of the infirmary had told him. Negative emotions would only disturb him and slow the healing process.
He tried to push the feeling away, but a trickle of it remained, tickling his hindbrain: fear, and desperation, and hope, and resolution--Twenty minutes, I just have to hold it that long--
Qui-Gon frowned. The source of that thought was obscure, and the images attached to it--a woman's face, and a ship receding into the sky, and a shadow--were even more so. He concentrated, feeding the thoughts back on themselves, following them back to the source. The bond. Obi-wan. Obi-wan!
Master! No! Stay away! There was no doubt about it: that was Obi-wan. Stay away from me! I can't hold it if you distract me!
Dimly, Qui-Gon could sense his apprentice's presence, but it was wrapped in an almost impenetrable darkness. Flashes of brightness showed through, but the darkness seemed far stronger. Obi-wan? He sent the thought tentatively, trying not to distract Obi-wan from the fight. How can I help you? How can I help?
Help--
How can I help you? How?
His eyes were closed for concentration, and he could hear the droids scuttling around him, their humming sounding more concerned than before. "I'm fine," he mumbled, waving them off. "Go away." He gathered himself and dove down into the darkness, toward the fading sound of Obi-wan's voice.
He fell, and fell, the darkness slowing his fall but not stopping him. There was a bitter taste in the back of his throat, like salt and old copper, and his skin tingled unbearably. Where are you? he called, and was answered without words as the darkness seemed to lighten in one direction. The pressure on all sides was increasing, pressing against his eyes, crushing him.
Then, all of a sudden, it was gone. He stood in a pool of pellucid light, the sky above him eye-piercingly blue, the ground an unbroken white. "Master," Obi-wan said, behind him. His voice was tight with strain. "You shouldn't have come."
Qui-Gon turned. Halfway between the two of them, the light faded abruptly. Obi-wan was the center of a circle of darkness, visible by a light that seemed to come from under his skin. "I can't see you, Master," Obi-wan said. "You can hear me, can't you?"
"Yes, Obi-wan, I can hear you," Qui-Gon said, trying to be calm. "What is this place?"
"Fifteen minutes," Obi-wan said. "I think. Fifteen minutes. I just have to hold on."
"Let me help you," Qui-Gon said again, and reached out toward his padawan. The clear light reached with him, spreading out in the direction of his hand. He focused on it and pushed, and the light spread further, until it had penetrated almost to the center of the darkness. Obi-wan's head lifted, his eyes bright.
Then the darkness pushed back, and Qui-Gon staggered, the light around him dimming. He was being swallowed, engulfed, buried in black water. "Don't try to fight it," he heard Obi-wan say, the words distorted. "Hold it in, as much as you can. We just have to hold it a little longer."
"Is this real?" Qui-Gon demanded. There was a low chuckle from Obi-wan.
"Are you real? I'm not sure anymore. I'm not sure of anything. I just have to see them safely away." Then, plaintively, "I just want to go home, Master--"
Qui-Gon tried to reply, but his throat was full of water. The taste of brine was on his tongue. Help! he shouted, sending the word skating along the filigreed lines of the Force. Help us! We need your aid!
"Qui-Gon!" He turned slowly, unable to move fast against the sucking blackness, and saw Mace Windu standing in another circle of light. "Where are we? What's happening to you?"
"It's Obi-wan," Qui-Gon said, pointing, though he was no longer quite sure in which direction his apprentice lay. "Call the others. Call everyone. We have to help him."
"Help him we will, Qui-Gon," Yoda said, and the blackness lightened further, revealing Obi-wan now on his knees, his skin still glowing as if afire. More pockets of light appeared in all directions as Yoda and Mace and, finally, Obi-wan added their strength to Qui-Gon's call.
"Don't fight it," Obi-wan gasped again. "Embrace it. Hold it. We have to buy them time."
"Time for what?" asked Master Amgwis, the Jedi in charge of the infirmary. There was an odd expression on Obi-wan's face as he answered her.
"Time to get away. Time to escape. We need to clear a path for them." He shook his head, frustrated. "We don't have time."
To Qui-Gon's left, one of the Knights who had just appeared gave a sharp cry and vanished. "Difficult to hold on to this place, it is," Yoda said. "Returned she has. Fine she will be." His own voice was perfectly composed, but there were fine lines of strain around his forehead.
More of the Knights and padawans around them were disappearing as they found it impossible to keep themselves in place. Help us! Qui-Gon called again, the voices of the others riding the thread of his sending. It seemed to twist somehow as it reached Obi-wan, and another group flickered in, hazy and indistinct, the light around them dimming almost to nothing as soon as they appeared. They looked familiar, somehow, but they were too faint for Qui-Gon to recognise them. Obi-wan, though, obviously did. "Go back!" he said quickly. "I wasn't calling you. You have to stay clear."
"You're not going to make it, Obi-wan," a male voice said, cracking with fear. "We have to--"
"You have to get away is what you have to do. Go!"
Some of them vanished immediately; others, more reluctant, followed suit a moment later. Finally there was only one left. "I won't see you again, will I?" she said. Qui-Gon could see nothing of her, and he didn't recognise the voice, but he felt some sort of kinship with her, something he couldn't quite explain.
"Maybe somewhere," Obi-wan answered. "Go, Master. They need you."
She nodded. "Force be with you, Obi-wan, and Chaos avoid." Qui-Gon blinked at the odd phrasing, and missed the strange woman's departure.
"Five minutes," Obi-wan mumbled, his head bowed as though by a heavy weight on his neck. His palms were flat on the ground, supporting him, and his nails dug into the loose white earth. "Hold on--"
Hold on--
Hold on--
Hold--
Qui-Gon struggled to keep the darkness from crushing him, even as he strove to hold it as close as possible. He was walking a knife's edge; they all were. The others had vanished, unable to stand the strain, all but Mace Windu and Yoda. Qui-Gon was surprised that Obi-wan could bear it; perhaps the padawan had become acclimatised somehow, if he had been fighting this for awhile.
Then, suddenly, there was a change in the darkness: not a lessening, but an alteration, one that Qui-Gon couldn't quantify. Obi-wan's shoulders slumped. "They're away," he whispered. "Go. Go."
"Go!" Qui-Gon shouted to the other two, who clearly hadn't heard. Mace, startled, blinked out immediately; Yoda studied the other two for a moment, then nodded and disappeared.
Qui-Gon gathered himself for the leap back to his body, and was about to go when he realised that Obi-wan wasn't preparing to go with him. Instead he was huddled in on himself, looking around in terror. "Obi-wan?" Qui-Gon said gently. "What's wrong?"
"I can't find the way back," Obi-wan said. His voice was rough, scraping across his throat. "The threads are broken. I can't find the way."
Qui-Gon reached for the training bond, part of his mind still pushing back the blackness as he searched. The bond was gone--faded, somehow, severed so gently that he hadn't even felt it go. Deftly he redrew the Force lines in their familiar pathways, binding the two of them together. Obi-wan shivered, staring at him out of haunted eyes as the last of the lines fell into place. "I'm a Jedi Knight," he whispered.
"No, Apprentice," Qui-Gon said gently. "It's time to go home now." Holding Obi-wan close to him through the bond, Qui-Gon flung himself upwards, into the light.
Epilogue: Reflections
"...and evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land
Nor now the long light on the sea
And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on..."
-- Archibald MacLeish
Obi-wan swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "I'm leaving," he said.
The droid glared at him, as well as it could. "You're still on the sick list," it said peevishly. "Has someone checked you out?"
"I'm checking myself out," Obi-wan snapped, and strode past it to the entrance area. He palmed the locker where his boots and lightsaber were, and put them on while the droid was still sputtering indignantly. No apprentice has much more than this-- He shook off the flash of memory. He was getting better at ignoring them now, and they troubled him much less frequently than they had in the days just after he'd woken up. He had to move on. Master Qui-Gon had said so.
Qui-Gon's memory of the device on Draylin seemed to be different from Obi-wan's. An ancient alien artifact, he'd said. An automated defense system. It had hit Obi-wan with some sort of energy field when he'd gotten too close, rendering him comatose for several days. The team sent back to Draylin to study the artifact had reported it melted into unidentifiable slag; apparently it had burned out in doing whatever it had done.
He had been confined to the infirmary since his awakening, but he had had computer access and plenty of visitors. He read the Council's daily bulletins and spoke to friends and teachers who came to see him. He learned that the Council had declared the strange shared vision some sort of transient Force effect caused by Obi-wan's own trauma; that the strange Jedi who had appeared as part of that link were Obi-wan's imagination; that further investigation of Draylin would serve no purpose, now that the artifact was destroyed; that they did not, when all was said and done, really believe him.
Obi-wan left the infirmary and walked briskly down the corridor toward the nearest elevator. It was mid-afternoon, and the halls were crowded with padawans hurrying to and from their lessons. A few of them looked with curiosity at Obi-wan's lightsaber; it was unusual to see an apprentice armed within the Temple walls. Obi-wan felt a momentary flash of dizziness, and looked around automatically to see if the lights had dimmed, but the subdued opal lamps glowed steadily and his vision was unchanged. Of course. Of course.
He had been heading for his quarters, but when he stepped out of the elevator on his level, he realised that he didn't want to see Qui-Gon right now. Instead, he turned and headed for one of the observation balconies.
It wasn't that he was unhappy to be back with his Master. Qui-Gon was a kind man, if demanding, and Obi-wan knew that he would probably not have survived the final struggle with the enemy alone. But--he had been a Jedi Knight, and Qui-Gon didn't believe him, and now the bond was back between them, and Obi-wan was a child again. It was only sensible: he had not, after all, passed the Trials, and the Council had no proof that anything he had told them was more than hallucination. It was right, it was fair, and yet, somewhere inside--too deep for even Qui-Gon to sense, he hoped--it burned him with its injustice.
He stood on the narrow balcony, looking out at the late-afternoon city. People thronged and bustled through the great walkways and plazas, and lights gleamed in the buildings and on the flying vehicles overhead. It was a living world, a fearless world, the nerve center of the known galaxy. Obi-wan stood and watched the interplay of twelve hundred kinds of humanity, letting the tides of life wash over him.
It was growing dark when Qui-Gon found him there, gazing up at the indigo sky. The lights above and below washed out most of the stars, but Coruscant was close enough to the galactic core that a few still managed to shine through. Obi-wan, his elbows resting on the balcony railing, was gazing up at one of them, a blue-tinted spark low on the eastern horizon. "Apprentice?" Qui-Gon said quietly.
"Here, Master," Obi-wan said, without looking at him.
"Master Amgwis told me you'd left the infirmary," Qui-Gon said. "We can resume your training tomorrow, if you feel well enough." Obi-wan nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Qui-Gon stood in the doorway for an awkward moment. "Well, you'd better get some sleep, then," he said at last, for lack of anything better. "Come inside."
Something in his voice reminded Obi-wan of Dellalee, and Obi-wan's buried resentment began to fade. He had missed Qui-Gon, and he turned to tell him so, but the older man had already turned away, and the moment passed.
"Yes, Master," Obi-wan said simply, and followed Qui-Gon back into the Temple to sleep.
End.