THE QUARRY

By: Scatterheart a.k.a. Hallospacegirl

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

CHAPTER SIX: THE OCEAN AND THE WALL

The following evening he placed a sheet of paper before her on the center of the tiny desk. "Try this," he said.

Lena took the paper and flipped it over several times, the chains upon her wrists jingling. She glanced up at him. "It's blank."

"I want you to write it down," Kenobi replied. "If you can't say the name of the Imperial planet, write it down."

She laughed then, a full and sincerely amused sound that saturated the whiteness of the tiny room into something warm and glowing and animated. And bitter as well, Kenobi detected as he stretched out with the Force. Carried on an undercurrent of hurt, like new fire crackling up from a bed of destruction and loss.

She was hiding something dark, but it was completely guarded from him now; the knowing look in her eyes revealed the mental barricade that she had set up against him, a barricade so murky he could not hope to break through. "Is this your idea of an interrogation joke?" she quipped after her laugher had died away. "If so, I admit it's quite funny."

"Anything to make the process easier."

"Always the gentleman. But I regret to tell you that the answer is no." With pale and slender fingers, she slowly ripped the paper down the center, then overlapped the severed pieces together and continued ripping until only a pile of ragged confetti remained on the tabletop. "Give up, Obi-Wan." Her voice was harder now, grave, while the same genial expression remained upon her face.

"I won't. A Jedi never gives up."

"Why?"

He gazed at her briefly as he considered the question, somehow recalling the night he had first met her – the sandstorm had raged like the apocalypse upon the Wastes, but they had stayed within the confines of the hovel and had chatted quietly for hours. Before the trouble with the comlink. Before the lies and the spaceships and the fighting, in which they had tried to tear at each other to shreds, both from the outside and from within…

The black security camera on the ceiling emitted a faint blip, and Kenobi realized that he was smiling. "I find it strange that you're not attempting to verbally murder me at the moment, Lena."

She returned the smile, her pleasant expression rearranging into something cryptic. "Your Rebellion friends gave me a lesson in manners this afternoon. I learned that the more I try to kill you, the more chances Chig Nugla will have to come and take your place. And besides…" The cryptic look deepened. "Maybe I am trying to murder you and you just don't know it. Now, you didn't give me an answer to my original question."

"Why we never give up? We never abandon our causes because we never undertake tasks that we don't fully believe in. I believe in the purpose of the Rebel Alliance."

"And you believe in bringing down Emperor Palpatine?"

"It's necessary to sacrifice one evil individual for the good of all in the galaxy." He sensed that she was about to protest, and he held up a hand. "Lena, I don't say this as memorized propaganda. Listen to me when I tell you, once again, that we're holding more information about the current Imperial and galactic situation than you know—"

"Do you honestly believe that?" she interjected, leaning in. "What you just said about the necessity of sacrificing one for the good of all?"

Her eyes, though for some reason he could not divulge seemed oddly muted, nevertheless pierced into him blindingly. Or it could have been simply her words that were currently worming their way into his gut, dragging out churning sensations of doubt that he didn't know had existed within him before.

Kenobi shifted in the too cold chair. Smiled perfunctorily. "We're soldiers in a galactic war, Lena. I can't deny the truth that I've killed many. So have you."

Did the slightest flinch just cross her stoic features?

"But when you killed – you didn't think about how glorious it felt to end the life of a stranger," he continued, then added, "or did you? When you watched your enemies die, wasn't the bloodshed always for the greater good? Or at least that's what we tell ourselves when we feel the life seep from the slain around us. The excuse that we have to believe."

Blast, his logic was becoming undone. He heard it pulse eerily into his ears as it echoed in the amplification of the tiny room, and in a moment of – surprise? apprehension? fear? – he noticed the glimmering of moisture upon the pale pink rims of Lena's lower eyelids. The Force rippled in distress, like a wavering stone wall seconds before it crumbles under the pressure of the ocean behind it.

Kenobi was unsure if he was the ocean… or the wall.

"Well, Lena, to tell the truth it doesn't matter what we believe – it's all expendable ideology in the face of politics. We've already chosen to be what we are now, and we've already set permanent paths for ourselves. And turning against that would be like turning against…" He struggled to put into coherency the jumble of images and phrases and emotions – yes, emotions; perhaps just this once he would let himself go for a brief moment, for his own sake. Hadn't Bail Organa repeatedly reprimanded him for neglecting his self for the Jedi order? Even during the latter days of the war the senator had informed him of the negative consequences of suppressing emotion for what he deemed "a secular warrior philosophy, not a holy religion."

Kenobi realized his head had been pounding ever since he'd stepped into the room. He sucked in a breath of filtered, cool and stagnant air. He would let himself go for his sake. Oh, Maker… for Lena's sake.

The trembling pools in her eyes.

"Lena, we can't turn away from duty. What matters is that we have some… some peace of mind to hold onto when we're doing what we must, as warriors," he finished.

"What we must? What we must? No, Obi-Wan, don't speak for me. This is your excuse, not mine," she snapped. The tears had spread their way to her thick lashes, and now threatened to fall. "Rescuing me from the sandstorm and then throwing me here to the rancors – is this your so-called duty? Was this a must? Does it feel right to you, Jedi, that we're sitting across from each other in this room? I guess it doesn't matter, because – right or not – you can always tell yourself that it's just a Jedi duty. That's right, Obi-Wan, blame it on the duties of your Jedi order. It sucks out your feelings and gives you peace of mind."

The physical sting that suddenly pierced his heart didn't trigger a sense of retreat, as he had expected, but anger. Anger, and a peculiar ache in his chest that rivaled the pain from the worst battle wounds he had ever received.

"It confounds me how you can say these things without once applying them to yourself," he returned. "If you insist on abandoning your warrior duties for what you feel is right in your heart, then end all this and tell us Palpatine's location. Take your duty to the Empire and toss it in its wretched face."

"Has it ever crossed your mind that I don't want to betray my Emperor?" Her voice was rising to match his. "I have loyalty and – and love, Obi-Wan! Loyalty. And love. But evidently those words don't mean anything to people like you—"

"Love for whom? For Palpatine? By the Maker, Lena, open your eyes—"

"He's done a lot more for me than you!"

Hell.

It registered to Kenobi that Lena was crying. She wasn't weeping audibly or even actively, but the tears were rebelliously tumbling down her face, streaking her skin, sliding along her jaw and trickling down her neck. And maybe she felt the same way as he did; that if she ignored them – that if he ignored them – then perhaps those offending, obscene signals would disappear altogether…

He stretched out and managed to wipe away one warm, glistening orb from her flushed cheek before she swatted him away with as much strength as a boxer. The chain from her wrist whipped across the table and the paper confetti flew in a flurry of snow. "I told you not to do that, Jedi!"

"You shed one more tear for the Emperor, and – may the Maker be my witness – you will end up shedding a whole lot more than that!"

"Are you threatening me?"

"After all that's said and done, it's his threat to you, not mine!"

The last of the paper snowflake descended silently upon the floor. Then Lena said, "Explain what you mean."

"Lena – how can I put it – the Rebellion has information." About your beloved, yet scheming parents, about their corrupted financial deal with Palpatine that will not only end their avaricious lives, but likely yours as well. He bit his tongue, refrained from spilling the repellent details. "The leaders of this Rebel base have information about you and Palpatine that they will not hesitate to use against you. If you cooperate with me now, they'll be too busy organizing an Imperial offensive to care about it any longer, and I can sense that it'll simply be buried away once the new war begins. But if you keep doing what you're doing now – if you keep remaining silent, Lena – then the leaders of this base will have no choice but to vocalize the information to you in this interrogation chamber. Look up there." He nodded toward the small black rectangle in the upper back corner of the room, which blinked and beeped lightly in response. "It's a camera filming us as we speak, making records of our conversation available to every cadet or minor Rebellion officer on Alderaan. And once the information gets recorded onto that holo-camera, Lena, it'll be beyond our control who will see it, and who will spread it about the galaxy like wildfire. At that point, even if you decide to cooperate, that information will be beyond this base's control. Do you understand me?"

She was silent. A single tear hung shivering on her eyelash, shattering into a million droplets as she blinked; he thought he could almost hear it splash against her skin. "I can't trust you, Obi-Wan," she said, finally.

Kenobi sighed. "Lena, I understand." The words rolled off his tongue reflexively, but he admitted with a vague pang that he had meant them, and – inexplicably – thought to the Imperial comlink sewed safely into the cloth of his inner tunic. "But realistically speaking, your options are slim at the moment. You can trust either me or Nugla. The choice is yours."

A humorless smirk touched her moist lips. "Well, if you spell it out for me so eloquently… "

"Tell me the location, Lena."

The smirk died. "Sorry, Jedi. The answer's still no."

Maker, he wanted to – he wanted to – Kenobi clenched his hands beneath the table until he felt the crescents of his nails dig hotly into his palm. Even crying and trapped in shackles she could still stand firm. Unrelenting…

"Lena… please."

"I appreciate your effort, but no."

"Don't tell me you care nothing about what I've just told you—"

She shook her head, cropped black hair rustling. "No information you have about me can possibly make me give in, Obi-Wan, because I have nothing to lose."

Deep down, something snapped. "For the Maker's sake, it's not all about you!" he roared at her with as much uncontrolled fury as he had on the banks of the molten rivers of Mustafar, so, so long ago.

Lena blinked, once. She didn't move, but the Force surrounding her rippled in shock at his outburst, like the waves of a pond after a rock has been wildly hurled in. She began, "I didn't—"

"Blast you, Lena! The consequences of your actions don't end a centimeter before your eyes – they extend to people that you love, and people who love you! Can't you understand that I'm trying to help you? I'm trying to convince you to make the decision that won't burn up everyone else into cannon fodder! Damn it, have some sense of responsibility!" An essence black and elemental licked into the furthest boundaries of his Force sensitivity, and Kenobi instinctively heaved a breath, pulled himself back from the forbidden brink as soon as the darkness flickered into his mind.

He supposed he should have felt frightened at that uncomfortable brush with the Dark Side, but fear would have only dragged him deeper into the abyss; Qui-Gon's training had staunchly prepared him for these rare, yet inevitable moments in a Jedi's life. He distantly wondered through his burning frustration whether even Yoda had experienced times like these, times when he yearned to release those decades of training like birds from a cage and simply fly out with talons extended—

No. An icy shiver had broken out across his forehead; Kenobi sprinted into the safer territories of his mind. That little foray had been unacceptable. For a Jedi, inexcusable. Never again. Never again

Lena was chuckling through her tears, the Force tumbling from her in rivers of sadness and bitter amusement. "You speak as though you know everything about love, Jedi," she said.

"I live," Kenobi replied, and found that his voice could only manage out a rasp. "I know."

"Well, do you know anything of hate, then? You can't have one without the other. Your Jedi cult forbids hatred. So how can you use the word 'love' and have it mean something more than just a word scrolling across a holoscreen?"

Lena… Anakin. And quite suddenly Kenobi remembered his former apprentice, standing aboard the piece of floating debris as the Mustafarian lava flowed between them. He had warned him not to jump – he had possessed the higher ground, and he had brandished his blue-beamed lightsaber in warning.

How many times had he fantasized that he had held out a hand instead? In these dreams he would deactivate the lightsaber and offer his hand, and Anakin would reach and grab that lifeline, and they would weather their way atop the crumbling mountain to where Padmé and the twins and the ship awaited. Then Padmé would awake, and see that out through the fire walked not one, but two people. Both of them saved.

"Larmé Sarena," Kenobi said, "I want you to know that years ago I lost someone very dear to me, infinitely more dear than a student or a friend or a son. As I watched him die before me, I told him I loved him, but that word – love – I don't think it can ever fully describe what I felt toward him as he lay there dying. And then… and then he stretched his burning, dying fingers toward me, and he spat out his last words at me, 'I hate you.' Do you know what that felt like, Lena?" Kenobi slid his arm across the cold, white tabletop, palm facing upward. "Would you like to know?"

Her pale, chain-scarred throat tensed in a swallow. Her wet eyes traveled down to his open-palmed invitation, and up to meet his gaze, and as her pupils burned steadily into him like a living embodiment of Mustafar, she placed one cool, dry hand in his.

And cried out.

Kenobi immersed himself in the sensation of his mind flowing into her, of her mind receiving those fiery memories and mirroring them back, then back again and again in an infinite loop. His palm felt scorched, agonized, and he clasped her cool hand tightly, his knuckles whitening with the effort.

She was sobbing now, staring at him and almost absentmindedly wiping the tears away with the back of her other wrist. "But how – how could – how—"

Kenobi sensed her grief – his grief? – seeping into her devastating eyes and threatening to suffuse her. Now she was crouched over the table, reacting to an old pain that was not hers, and their faces were almost touching…

In a moment of clarity, he realized in alarm that he was actually hurting her. He had wished this simply to be a small demonstration – of what, really? His ability to feel? His ability to keep a calm serenity on the outside while the force of his memories clawed at his insides? But, Maker, whatever he was trying to prove, he was hurting her.

Kenobi tried to wrench his hand from out of her steely grip. "That's enough. I didn't know that—"

"No, I want to know mor—"

"Enough!" He snatched his hand away. But not before he could sense that odd, dark entity within her, that little secret whose presence she had so effectively hidden from him when he had first walked in this evening.

Kenobi recovered from his daze. "Lena, you're hiding something from me. Something happened to you today."

"What?" She jerked back into her seat. Anger and fear filled the room until he could almost see the choking black cloud. "What were you trying to do?" she snarled like a wounded animal. "Was this your way of reading my mind? Get out of here. You deserve every pinch of what you got. Get out of here!"

The cloud grew – he could barely detect her through the Force, and he could only extend his arms, take her shoulders and attempt to pull her closer. "Why are you hiding from me? What is it that I can't know?"

"Leave me alone!" She tore herself free and slapped him. The cuff of the chain sliced across his injured temple, reopened the wound, and warm liquid seeped out as tinny alarms blared in the distance.

Kenobi looked up at the security camera; it was shrieking in warning, red lights flashing. He smiled through the agonizing pain, ruefully. "So now you have the power to send me away. Convenient."

She didn't look at him.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Leia Organa peered out from her hiding place behind the hallway pillar, and watched the strange man called Obi-Wan Kenobi being ushered into the medical clinic by two guards and a hovering medi-droid. She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she noticed the ugly cut on the side of his head. Blood practically gushed out from it, sliding down his face and dribbling all over his white shirt. That cut was worse than anything she had ever received, but he wasn't crying or screaming in pain. In fact, he was acting as though it didn't even exist, and he even smiled at the doctor when he entered the transparent, duraglass-walled clinic.

Leia cringed again. Grownups. Maybe when she grew up she would go off on secret adventures like Obi-Wan as well, and get hurt, but still act like nothing had happened. And maybe she wouldn't have to sneak around the silver palace in the middle of the night anymore, because all grownups stayed up late and never got punished when they were caught.

"Miss Leia, what in the name of space are you doing awake?"

She pouted at the prissy voice behind her. For some reason she couldn't explain, she had felt he would come find her, sooner or later. It was as if her droid C-5MO had eyes on the back of his shiny bronze head, and all of them were capable of X-ray vision. She wheeled around and placed a finger over her mouth. "Be quiet. You're gonna get me caught, Emmo."

The droid huffed electronically. "Well, that is the point of my finding you, Miss Leia. It is two standard hours after midnight, and a young girl like yourself should be sleeping in your room instead of prowling around the headquarters like a nocturnal creature. I have a mind to tell your mother and father…"

He rattled on and on, but Leia had already turned her attention back to the proceedings inside the clinic. Obi-Wan was now sitting on a chair, and the doctor was walking toward him with a tray of little items. Then the doctor took out something from the tray, and—

Leia gasped, rapping on one of Emmo's metallic legs. "Emmo – look!"

"…and you'll be punished for certain. What is it now?"

"The doctor's hurting Obi-Wan with a needle," she said softly. "Obi-Wan's my friend. We gotta save him! C'mon!"

C-5MO emitted a stiff kind of sound that Leia recognized to be droid laughter. "Miss Leia," he explained when she frowned at his reaction in unhappy puzzlement, "the doctor is helping Master Kenobi, not hurting him. It seems that Master Kenobi has sustained a rather large cut upon his temple, and the doctor is using the needle to sew the wound together."

"But why? Needles hurt."

"Yes, my memory banks inform me that by human standards, a puncture to the skin with a needle indeed causes sharp pain," the droid agreed, sounding a little sympathetic. "However," he chirped again, brightening, "stitches are required to keep Master Kenobi's wound from healing with the unsightly appearance of permanent scars. Don't worry, Miss Leia, the doctor will apply a generous dose of bacta-salve to your friend's wound after he finishes sewing it together, and Master Kenobi will be perfectly healthy in very little time."

Leia frowned, squinting as the doctor now led Obi-Wan to a far corner of the clinic and stuck a white, gooey bandage over his cut. Then they shook hands; Leia rapped on C-5MO's leg again. "Is it over? Did the doctor make Obi-Wan all good?"

"Not yet, Miss Leia. My protocol programming tells me that bacta-salve will heal an abrasion in approximately a standard day."

"But that's a long, long, long time…" And especially to a man like Obi-Wan who could get injured in a place as safe as the Rebel headquarters, Leia thought. What really happened to him anyway? Did he run into a tree? Did he fall down the steps? How strange that this could happen to him, since a herd of servant droids and protocol droids usually followed every important grownup in this palace… and Obi-Wan was definitely an important man. From her secret hideaway in her playroom, she had seen his arrival in that odd spaceship, and she had seen the massive crowd that had gathered outside to welcome him. Definitely an important man. And he didn't even own one droid to help him.

Suddenly, an idea struck her head, an idea so brilliant she giggled out loud. The sound echoed in the deserted hallway, and she clasped a hand to her mouth. Obi-Wan, who was currently chatting and walking out the door with the doctor, stopped in his tracks and jerked his head toward the pillar.

Leia scuttled back into the shadows. He hadn't seen her – she could sense it, and her feelings, even though she couldn't understand them, were always right.

"Miss L—" Emmo began; Leia glared at him to shut up.

It was only after she heard the two men start talking again that she motioned for the droid to come closer.

"I know how to help him," she whispered to C-5MO as he knelt in front of her, his knees squeaking lightly. "Wanna hear my plan?"

C-5MO groaned. "I have a bad feeling—"

"Don't be like Daddy! He never lis'ens! Just lis'en!"

"Very well then, Miss Leia. What is your brilliant plan?"

She cupped a hand to Emmo's ears, even though her mother had once told her that C-5MO could hear from all parts of his body because he was a droid. "You don't need to help me now," she whispered. "You go help Obi-Wan."

The droid hopped back a little, looking very shocked for an expressionless machine. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You're my droid, right? I got you for my birthday. So I'll give you to him. Just temp'rar'ly though. When he's all good you can come back."

"But – but!" Emmo shook his head furiously, neck gears squealing. "Miss Leia, you absolutely cannot do such a thing! Giving me away to Master Kenobi like a sacrificial offering? Why, that is preposterous! I am programmed to serve only you, and – in any case – your parents will surely disapprove of my letting you alone, if even for a mere several days. Say…" His round eyes dimmed briefly on the tops and bottoms, like the way grownups narrowed their eyes at her whenever she did something naughty. "This idea must be a clever ruse to rid yourself of me while you traipse off on your tomboy adventures—"

She sighed theatrically, rubbing the sides of her nose with two fingers. "Oh, Emmo. I'm being good to a friend. I'm not – I'm not per… perpos'rous."

"The word is 'preposterous,' Miss Leia, and it means that you will never convince me to deliver myself to Master Kenobi like a gutless, disloyal hunk of jun—"

"You don't like me," Leia declared as sadly as possible. She knew it wasn't true; because C-5MO was her droid, he had been coded to like her no matter what. But since he probably wasn't aware of the programming done to him, he always seemed very surprised whenever she used the trick, and always tried his best to show her that he did like her, very much.

Tonight was no different. Emmo huffed, indignant, and sputtered, "Miss Leia, of course I like you. That is why I want to serve you instead of Master Kenobi."

"But he's my friend and he doesn't have a droid! He needs per'tection! He's hurt! Just a day, Emmo, please, please, please, please…"

Leia could almost hear the parts in C-5MO's brain – or whatever it was that droids had – clunking in thought. Then after a prolonged moment… "Oh… oh, all right, Miss Leia, I will do as you say. But this does not mean I have given you free reign around the headquarters, mind you. You will still have to follow all rules and regulations that your parents and I have established for you, including punctual meals and b—"

"You're the best droid ever, Emmo!" she exclaimed under her breath, not waiting to hear the droid's familiar speech one more time. From the corner of her eye, she noticed that Obi-Wan had bowed to the doctor in a goodbye, and was now walking away down an opposite hall. "Oh no, he's going. Emmo, go!"

"What – now, Miss Leia?"

"Yeah! He's gonna fall in the dark."

C-5MO stood hesitantly, and waddled a few steps toward Obi-Wan's fast disappearing figure before looking back. "You do realize, Miss Leia, that I am your droid, and that I am only undertaking this task to humor you, my master?"

She didn't really know what that meant, so she nodded, enthusiastically.

"Go to bed!" Emmo continued.

"But…"

"Now, or I shall promptly inform your parents."

As she tiptoed from the base of the pillar, she could just barely see C-5MO catch up to that strange Obi-Wan Kenobi, and she couldn't help grinning to herself. Something told her that he needed all the help he could get, and that she had just done him a marvelous favor.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

In one of the rarer moments of Obi-Wan Kenobi's life, he sensed the Force presence of the droid after he heard it approaching from behind him. The sounds of its footsteps, mercilessly clattering in the amplification of the twilight hallway, brought him to a halt, and he twisted around to see a bronze, newer model protocol droid hobbling to him with a bent arm raised in greeting.

"Master Kenobi! Master Kenobi, sir!" it hailed in its impeccable speech when it stopped before him, gears crunching. "C-5MO at your service, sir."

The license code struck Kenobi as familiar, and he searched his memory swiftly. Was it one or two days ago that he had heard it before?

Of course. "You're Leia Organa's droid, C-5MO," he said, attempting a smile that came out as a grimace. Though the wound on his temple was swathed in a bandage of cooling bacta-salve, it still stung whenever he moved his face. And then there was that – meeting, if one could call it by such a term – between him and Lena; it had occurred an entire hour ago, but its residue still clung to him as tightly as ever, matting his back in perspiration, obscuring his mind.

Kenobi pressed the bandage tighter to his wound. "I didn't request a droid to be 'at my service,' C-5MO," he continued, jovially. Perhaps if he feigned normality, everything would settle back into the way they were supposed to be. "Especially not at this hour."

The droid was silent for a moment as its circuitry computed the necessary details. Then it said, "I was summoned here to be of use to you, sir."

He noted the peculiar phrasing of the droid's words – I was summoned here – a subtle and clever way of avoiding mention of the summoner's name. Then again, he realized with an inward smile, it was unlikely the summoner could be anyone else other than Leia Organa, the Skywalker child. It was obvious now that the familiar presence he had felt while he had been inside the clinic belonged to her. She must have seen his distress and wanted to help him.

Well, at almost three standard hours after midnight, she was a mischievous child. Mischievous, with a heart of gold, like Anakin had been, so many years ago before his death and decay…

"If you were summoned here," Kenobi remarked, "then I suppose it would be rude of me to turn you away, C-5MO. Can you walk with me to my quarters? It's in the Far East Wing, and I think I might lose my way in the dark."

"Am I correct that you asked me for directions, sir?" The protocol droid drew himself up to his full height. "Why, certainly, sir, by all means. I have been designed to provide accurate navigation guidance for more than three hundred thousand developed planets in the Inner Rims, and over forty thousand planets in the Outer. It would be my deepest pleasure to guide you, Master Kenobi."

He gave the droid a polite nod, and made a mental note to consult the droid's speech programmer about the importance of brevity. "Very well, Emmo. Lead the way."

"Certainly."

They ambled on in the dimly lit halls, the twin lights from C-5MO's visual sensors providing illumination of elegantly carved pillars and smoothly polished walkways. The designs almost reminded Kenobi of the conference rooms that existed so, so long ago, before the regime change wiped the galaxy into an austere slate of black and Imperial gray. But of course, there were differences. The lack of lighting, for one, spoke only too clearly of the lack of energy – why waste power on light orbs for the scattered late-night prowlers when it could go toward maintaining the army for several days more?

A high-pitched beeping cut through the easy quiet; it belonged to C-5MO, who jumped clumsily in surprise. "Oh! Dear me, I'm sorry, sir. It seems my battery is running low, and I must go to the station to charge. Unfortunately, since the station is located in the West Wing basement, I will need to leave you for now. Many apologies, sir."

"Don't apologize, Emmo. If it must be done, it must be done."

"Thank you, sir. I wholeheartedly agree, sir," it said, almost to itself, as it toddled off. "Only a protocol droid such as I cannot help wishing that the charging station were placed somewhere else, somewhere far from the dreadful mech-droids and mountains of surveillance discs that occupy that infernal basement. After all, I'm—"

Kenobi darted after the droid and grabbed it by its shiny bronze shoulder. Something it had said… "Mech-droids, Emmo? I assume that they're working in some kind of manufacturing or repair room?"

"Oh, yes, sir. A small portion of the basement holds records of the security cameras around the base, but almost everywhere else is dedicated to the upkeep of the Alliance headquarters. Mainly the rooms focus on the repairing of droids, communication devices, and computers, as those things malfunction the most frequently. Not protocol units, of course – the chance of our malfunctioning is three million, five hundred thousand and two, against. We only use it for the charging station."

He fell into step beside the droid. "Then if you don't mind, I'd like to visit the basement with you."

C-5MO frowned, a rearranging of the circular lights in its optical sensors. "Now? Dear me. Only mech-droids are active at this hour, Master Kenobi, because all the higher life-forms that work at the station are asleep. And I must tell you that these droids are mute, brutish beings, hardly worthy of your visit."

"Oh, is that right?" He grinned at this. "No worries, Emmo, I think I can manage without those higher life-forms."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

When they arrived at the basement repair room, C-5MO plugged itself into the nearest charging station, which was located beside a monstrously cluttered communications desk. Two mech-droids were squealing about the table, assembling what seemed to be transmitter crystals for holo-projectors – Emmo impatiently uttered something in an electronic language, and they rolled away to the left side of the room and deactivated.

"Uncivilized machines," C-5MO said, reverting to Basic for the Jedi master to understand. "Now if you'll excuse me, sir, I shall only be an hour."

Kenobi gave a cursory scan of the room. Several large desks, all erupting with spare parts and equipment. Light orbs glowed from three corners of the low ceiling; affixed to the fourth corner was a surveillance camera that blinked mutely down. The only sound came from the gentle hum of the air purifier.

Still, he had to be sure. Those rusty mech-droids that Emmo had deactivated had blended so seamlessly into the mess that it had taken him a while to notice them. "Are there any more mech-droids in this room?" he asked the protocol unit. "I'd like to look around this place, but mech-droids don't appeal to me in the least. As you said, they're beastly things."

"Very true! Very true! My sensors tell me there are four more working at the—"

"Can you deactivate them like you did the others?"

"Oh, yes, immediately, Master Kenobi."

As the four mech-droids rolled out from behind the desks, he gestured to the far corner. "Please send them there, Emmo. It will be less crowded if they're put over there."

"Of course." Another series of electronic commands, and the droids reversed direction to line up against the corner.

Kenobi smiled as the last mech-droid crunched into place. Squarely in front of the black, crane-necked surveillance camera, like bodyguards protecting a royal family. He could hear the desperate whirs of the rotating camera lens behind the four hunks of metal as it angled itself uselessly for a view of the room.

A crafty tactic learnt from the reckless days at the Academy, he thought in amusement. Qui-Gon would have frowned at this trick, chastised him briefly, but he would have done so with a twinkle in those tired, emerald eyes. Political laws never rose above the eternal will of the Force. He had said this many times. Just a mantra from a forgotten era…

Kenobi folded up the heavy bottom edge of his tunic and plucked apart the seam with his nail. The Imperial comlink tumbled from the fabric and rolled silently into his hand like a cool, silver pellet.

He held it up to the protocol droid. "Do you know what this is?"

C-5MO gasped electronically. "Why, bless my motors, how in space did you acquire an authentic—"

"I'm glad you recognize it, Emmo," Kenobi replied. He had managed to block the camera visually, not audibly. "It's just a… souvenir. From my past. It's broken and I was wondering if you could fix it." He paused, feigning nonchalance. "Then again, it's not a very important object to me, and the damage to the interior is extensive. If you're unable to do the task, Emmo, I would gladly toss it away. After all, you're a protocol droid, not a mec—"

"Nonsense," C-5MO exclaimed. Then, as an afterthought: "With all due respect, sir, rapid emergency repair is one of my exclusive specialties."

So droids of superior intelligence could fall victim to reverse persuasion as well, he mused. Kenobi dropped the comlink into its upturned bronze palm. "Then please, Emmo, demonstrate the rapidity of your emergency repair skills. I'll be researching in the surveillance disc library while you work on this, and when I return in an hour, I trust that you'll be charged and finished."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Obi-Wan Kenobi left the droid after he had issued from it a pledge of secrecy, then followed the rusty basement hall to a double-paneled door, several meters away. He glanced at the "keep-out" sign in front of him admitting entrance for authorized personnel only, and pushed his way into the dusky surveillance library.

Bail would not have minded the slight indiscretion. Bail, who let him take virtually full control of the Imperial situation, would surely lend him one further step…

He settled down at the tiny table in front of the towering green super-computer, pockmarked with surveillance tapes like a great exotic cheese, and called the machine to life. A miniature hologram warbled hazily before him.

"Run today's video of Larmé Sarena Narona's containment cell, computer."

"This video is not available for public viewing," the computer replied in a liquid, feminine voice. "Type in your pass-code on the keyboard below."

Pass-code?

He frowned, his confusion echoed by the dull pain at his temple. Who had declared only several days ago that all videos were available for public viewing?

Chig Nugla.

Kenobi's stomach tensed in an unexplainable Force panic at the thought of the secretary's name. Surely, between his double mouths, his multilayered Ithorian brain was masking some crucial detail, some tiny loophole that could flip the meaning of everything that the Jedi had learned…

"Computer, Secretary Chig Nugla informs me that all surveillance tapes can be seen by the public. Please clarify that statement."

The hologram flickered for a brief moment. Then, "Secretary Nugla means that all interrogation tapes can be made public. Containment cell tapes cannot be seen except for first-tier officers. Type in your pass-code on the keyb—"

"Blast your pass-code."

He reached up with unsteady fingers and grabbed the communication wires from the face of the super-computer and ripped them out. The Force was practically tearing itself apart in a wordless, dissonant chant that something was wrong… something was horribly, terribly wrong…

He re-organized a spray of wires, stripping off the multicolored plastic coverings with his nails and twisting the silver, naked strands into new connections. Then he shuffled the wires back into place.

Undoubtedly some green cadet on his sleepy night shift was now being startled awake to capture him after this blatant display of vandalism – Kenobi was certain there were alarms attached to every last bolt of the computer – which left him five standard minutes alone. At the most.

"Computer, bring up today's video for Larmé Sarena Narona's containment cell."

"Affirmative. Video starting shortly."

The hologram wavered and gradually fell into shape.

A minute later, through the overwhelming rush of blood in his ears, Obi-Wan Kenobi heard the door click open and saw the slim, bronze shape of C-5MO enter the room. The droid was chirping something incomprehensible in Basic about making the repairs in record time; it stepped closer, and a pristine silver pellet plopped lightly into Kenobi's palm.

It was shivering. Kenobi looked at the repaired comlink, feeling oddly calm as though it were a tiny water droplet from a planet in another galaxy, and he was watching it from behind the glass of a high-powered telescope. No, the comlink wasn't moving– he was shivering. The Force itself was trembling like speakers turned up at maximum volume, emanating from the hologram and searing through his eyes and through his bones and chilling him until he was numb.

He clenched his hand around the comlink and let his gaze travel back to the running holo-vid. The greenish, snowy shapes playing out a grotesque pantomime that he could not bear to admit…

Oh, Maker… something was wrong, indeed.

Everything was wrong.

How could you hide this from me, Lena?

Kenobi closed his eyes tightly. He thought of Anakin Skywalker, and felt himself change.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

To be continued. I'm back from my travels, so expect more updates. Thanks for reading and reviewing. It gets darker from here on in.