A/N: Once again, apologies for the very long wait. A lot in my life has been going all kinds of pear shaped the last few months. My job just got upended, I've had some what-I-thought-were ride or die friends pretty much dump me, I've been struggling with mental health, and I've just finished moving into a new apartment, after only having a few months notice to apartment hunt and find a place to live. In short, I've been… fairly preoccupied.
It's crazy that I started writing this story 6 years ago. I'm grateful to all of you who continue to follow along. It may be silly, but this story and the community that has grown around it are one of the more stable things in my life right now, and I appreciate you, your enthusiasm, and your kind words more than I can say. I'm really bad at replying to comments (I rarely know what to say except "Thank you" a million times over) but I love reading through your thoughts and seeing you interact with each other and find kindred minds. You are all wonderful, and your affection for this story and your kind words of encouragement keep me going.
Also I wanted to quickly say: I have no words for what has been happening in Ukraine, but the unfathomable pain and unparalleled bravery of her people is a testament to both the darkest depths and the brightest, most defiant hopes of the human species. To any readers I may have in Ukraine, please know that I stand with you and your countrymen as you resist the criminal aggression of a paranoid madman. There is little I can do from here at my desk across the ocean except hope and donate and pray, but please know you have been first in my thoughts for many long days and nights, and will continue to be so.
I hope this new chapter can offer all my readers a spot of distraction and escape from whatever you're facing right now. Hang in there, and know you're not without friends.
Over the next several weeks, Palpatine continued to tap Anakin for a wide variety of personal assignments. He played bodyguard one day, arbiter the next, once he even accompanied Palpatine on a visit back to Naboo for a diplomatic appearance at an important ceremony, the significance of which Anakin had not been able to relate to his master because his mind was too occupied with itineraries and his ever-looming final exams, which were suddenly mere weeks away. Even so, amidst the chaos of a 20-year-old Padawan's final courses that would launch him into the next steps toward knighthood, the council continued to approve his work with the Chancellor, much to his master's chagrin.
Ben had interrogated Anakin after he returned from staffing Palpatine's conference, but the apprentice had been bone-tired and vague in his responses. The next morning the padawan was up before dawn and hard at work in his studies, and Ben didn't find an opportunity to confront him about Palpatine again until the next time the Chancellor requested him.
"Anakin," he'd began over dinner, where Anakin wouldn't be able to run away in a hurry, "you must be aware, Palpatine is a… formidable person to have as a friend," he'd only been trying to offer a warning, but Anakin's shoulders had deflated before Ben could even get to his point.
"Not you too, master," He'd seemed genuinely hurt. He'd leaned back from the table and regarded Ben with visible frustration and hurt. "Is it so bad that he thinks well of me? That he wants to give me opportunities to practice the work of a knight?"
"No, of course not, Anakin—I want every opportunity for you to succeed—"
"Then why are you constantly trying to hold me back?" Anakin had asked earnestly. He didn't sound angry; he sounded tired. That had shut Ben up with the pure shock of it. His jaw had worked at the air like a fish, and Anakin sighed.
"I know he's a politician. That's what you were going to say," Anakin had picked at his food halfheartedly—and Anakin was never halfhearted with food. "I'm not stupid. Politicians are… you know. But he's a kind man, he's helped me a great deal, I'd even call him a friend, by now, though I know you'll hate that."
Ben had sat there in silence, mouth twitching uncertainly. What could he have said? If Anakin was so close to Palpatine already, Ben could've hardly spilled the news that Palpatine was a Sith. Anakin had never been adept at keeping his mouth shut around uncomfortable secrets, especially around those he cared for. If Ben accused Palpatine of being a Sith, or even of aiding the Sith, it seemed as though Anakin had made fast enough friends with Palpatine that surely, Anakin would reveal the truth to him, even by accident. And if Palpatine learned that they knew…
Even worse, Anakin might not believe a word Ben said, and it would drive him away from his master entirely into the waiting arms of the enemy himself.
He couldn't tell him. But he couldn't not tell him. What was there to do? Ben's eyes had grown watery and he'd looked down at this dinner, feeling out of control of himself, his destiny, the galaxy. Anakin had seemed taken off guard by such a response.
"Master…?" he'd asked softly.
"You know who you are, padawan," Ben had said, annoyed at how thick his voice came out. "You know what you are. All I ask," Ben looked up at length, "is that you listen very carefully to the Force, and do not lose sight of what you mean to the galaxy." And to me, he didn't say, food catching uncomfortably in his throat. "I want every opportunity for you. But I do not want you to be led astray."
Anakin's eyebrows had twitched together, and he'd looked like he wanted to say something more, but in a rare display of self control, he held back. He'd looked back down at his food. "Yes, master."
The tension between master and apprentice remained, and as Anakin flitted back and forth between Palpatine's many assignments and his ongoing studies, he had little time to meditate on Ben's words, or ponder what he'd meant by them.
It was cold. Freezing, even. Even so, he was hot and sweaty, from exertion or fever, he couldn't tell. The colors of life seemed washed away by shades of grey, and yet amid the gloom there were those eyes, a blue unlike anything Anakin had ever seen—or were they pink? They glowed bright and dangerous like lightning, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end whenever he met their gaze.
"My son," the voice said, a face coming into view, lined with wrinkles and sharp at the corners. A thin mouth quirked up into a weary smile as he said, "where have you been?"
Another figure appeared, reaching out his hand. Through the mist, he looked surprisingly like Anakin himself, with tufts of sable hair drifting in an invisible breeze. He wore loose-fitting clothes, not entirely like what the Jedi wore, but watching them flutter in the breeze made him think of Ben.
When Anakin did not take his remained due hand, the man gave an encouraging smile.
"We've been looking for you," he said, and his voice made Anakin feel as though he were stepping home, "for so long. I thought we'd never find you."
"Anakin, listen to me," Another voice cut in, flickering like a holo with a bad connection. The man who looked like Anakin jumped in surprise and looked sharply to his left, beyond the blue-eyed sage. Anakin couldn't keep his own gaze from following. The figure was real, flesh and bone, but somehow she was flickering in and out of existence, as if she were fighting against an invisible curtain between them.
She was tall, as tall as the man who glared at her, and had dark skin patched with vitiligo. She was covered in scars—one of them marred the lower half of her face quite gruesomely, one half of her broad lips puckered and pulled taught by some old wound. Her coily hair was dyed green and shorn close to her scalp; beneath it, Anakin saw several patches of dried blood. Her clothes were filthy and torn in places; at some point in time, Anakin imagined they must have been white.
"Listen to me," she said again, and Anakin found himself compelled to look her in the eyes. They were dazzlingly gold. "This is not your path. This is not who you were meant to be."
"Anakin," said the man, warily eyeing the frantic woman whilst offering his hand again, "come with me, we ought to get away from here. She's not meant to be here—"
Anakin reached out his hand, eyes still inextricably locked on those of the woman. He felt the heat of the man's hand just under his fingertips. Gold eyes grew wide in terror.
"Anakin, no, wait!" Anakin took the man's hand and turned to see him, but the man no longer appeared as he had moments before.
Anakin jerked awake to the sound of someone yelling, and immediately began tugging his hands free of his bedsheets. He didn't realize it was hewho was yelling until his hands were free and the lights were on and Ben was there in his nightclothes, grey hair mussed every which way.
"-a dream," Ben was saying—had he been talking this whole time? Had Anakin really been shouting over him? "It's a dream, padawan, only a dream." Ben sat on the edge of his apprentice's bed and grasped his arm, and Anakin focused on the touch as he tried to calm down. Just breathe, isn't that what they always say? Just breathe, in and out, in and out…
"That's it, take it slow." Ben patted his back.
It was the middle of the night. In his panic, Anakin hadn't noticed until just now. He must've been squinting into the artificial light, because Ben waved a hand and the halo lamps dimmed to a quiet glow.
"Was it the same as last time?" Ben asked quietly. Anakin drew in a shaky breath and released it.
"Yes." There was a long stretch of silence between them. Ben rubbed soothing patterns into Anakin's arm.
"That's twice in the same month, padawan."
"Yeah." Anakin looked down at his lap. He didn't have visions. For all his powers, he'd never had that proclivity. Or at least, he hadn't, until recently.
"Have you meditated on them at all?"
Anakin shrugged helplessly. "I tried, I just… nothing. It's never clearer than before."
"Was anything different this time?"
"I guess… I guess they all looked a little clearer this time."
"Has that revealed anything?" Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose and wracked his brain. "No," he admitted seconds later. The dream was already beginning to fade.
"Hmm," Ben nodded sagely, giving Anakin's arm another squeeze. "Visions are like that sometimes."
"Yeah, apparently." Anakin sighed and rose from his bed, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he went out to their small kitchenette, where he filled and chugged a large glass of water.
"Is there anything I can do, padawan?" Ben asked quietly, helplessly, still standing in the bedroom door.
"Not unless you can tell me what it all means."
"I'm sorry, Anakin." Anakin chugged another glass of water.
Ben leaned against the back of the lift car, eyes fixed on nothing in particular as he waited out his long trip down, down, down. The car wobbled as it shifted to the next level of the progressively more ancient shafts, and Ben wobbled with it, still staring into the middle distance with a lost expression. When at last he reached basement level four hundred and fifty-nine, the doors rumbled open and Ben stepped through, calling to hand the small halo lamp he'd brought with him.
As ever, the Force was thicker down here, thicker than anywhere else he'd ever been. He was grateful for it now, for its density buoyed him so that he may continue walking forward, a teetering ship held fast only by the currents that caressed its unseen keel.
Ben wasn't sure why he was surprised the old hall of rites had remained exactly as it'd been upon his last visit, as if hundreds, thousands of years were nothing in comparison to the last eight he'd personally endured. His eyes drew inextricably upward as he stepped into the massive hall, fascinated as he'd always been by the sheer height of the place, the way the arching structure disappeared into his own atmosphere of darkness, and how the intricate paintings and carvings followed it into obscurity. He paid only passing glance to the jutting triangle of granite under which he'd come into this strange second life so many years ago, past the ledge where had once told Obi-Wan of all that had once been, and found a ruined block of stone, roughly bench-height and far deeper than Ben was tall, and climbed atop. Pulling his feet into a relaxed lotus, he sighed and rubbed at his eyes.
Obi-Wan knew from a Yoda long since gone that Anakin had experienced visions, near the end. At the time, Obi-Wan had been befuddled by the grandmaster's confession, for Obi-Wan himself had raised Anakin from a child, and never once did the boy show even a partial affinity for the Unifying Force. He was like Qui-Gon in that way; so rooted in the Here and Now, it'd taken more than a little enough effort to remind him that the Unifying Force even existed, much less that it could impart special knowledge.
But he had had visions, Yoda had insisted, even after a much younger Obi-Wan Kenobi had protested. Recurring visions. Of death, of pain. They'd tortured him, hadn't left him alone. Ben had done the maths on the timeline of his past life often enough to know that they'd only started after Palpatine had embedded his claws deep into Anakin's psyche.
Twice in a single month. Obi-Wan rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and wondered if this second iteration of the galaxy was drawing close to its end, after all.
"Ben?" Someone called. Ben started and opened his eyes, having not remembered closing them. Obi-Wan was peering at him in equal parts surprise and confusion, a small glowing sphere hovering over his hand.
"Obi-Wan," he said, equally as surprised.
"I heard shuffling, I thought it must be rats, but rats rarely sigh like that. When did you get here?"
"Oh," Ben shrugged, "not too long ago. I'm sorry for disturbing you."
"No, don't be." An awkward silence passed between them, before Obi-Wan clambered onto the stone slab alongside his counterpart and fell into a cross-legged seat. "What troubles you?"
"Oh," Ben waved him off, "Just the worries of an old man."
"You wouldn't come down here if it were something simple," Obi-Wan said, and Ben glanced at him in chagrin. There were certain benefits to having a companion who knew you as intimately as you knew yourself; but there were certainly drawbacks.
"Anakin," He said eventually. "I worry for him. Working so much for Palpatine."
"Ah," Obi-Wan said, looking away. The ease with which the younger man seemed to accept Ben's point did not assuage the master's worry; it rather made it worse. "I admit, I've been more than a little baffled as to how that's all happened," Obi-Wan admitted, "Palpatine picking him out like that, the Council agreeing." Unspoken was the fact that Obi-Wan, too, knew how it had all fallen apart last time.
"It's all political, I'm afraid," Ben said, bags under his eyes feeling heavy.
"As most things in this city seem to be," Obi-Wan grumbled, finding a grove in the rock in which to set his spherical lamp. "I can't say I missed that, back when I was allowed to leave." That, at least, made Ben smile.
"Surely you're not under complete house arrest," Ben teased, "I thought you would've paid your dues by now."
"Officially, I'm not, but…" Obi-Wan leaned slightly to the right, feeling the weakness in his side. "The Council does not think I'm… the right choice for the field."
"The Council?"
"Well, Master Windu." Ben nodded in understanding and couldn't help but smile.
"He does have a stubborn habit of having his way, doesn't he?"
"The worst thing is, he's right. I've outlived my time leading the charge, I'm too beat up."
"You're scarcely thirty-five," Ben turned to fix Obi-Wan with an admonishing grin, "and yet you speak as though you're ready to retire."
"I'm not saying I'm old, only that my scars are aging my body faster than time alone could manage." That, at least, Ben could understand. "And so," the younger man leaned back a bit, eyes wandering up the walls of the vast chamber, "Obi-Wan Kenobi is reduced to a Temple Scholar at the ripe old age of thirty-five."
"It's not so bad," Ben told him, "You'd be an invaluable asset for non-combative assignments, the Council knows that."
"What non-combative assignments?" Obi-Wan asked, and surprised himself with how sharply he'd said it. He looked away as the last edge of his question rang off their stone surroundings. "The Jedi are practically at war," he looked down at his own hands, interlocking his knuckles and squeezing until they showed white. "The Sith have managed to raise entire armies under our noses, and the Senate is fit to censure the entire Order. They might call me the Sith Killer when they think I'm not listening, but I don't think I'd survive another go at it." Ben listened in measured silence, keeping his eyes off of Obi-Wan so the younger man could vent free of expectation. "Force knows not many others are, either—including the Sith. So now I'm stuck here not so much training Jedi to kill Sith, but to just not die at the hands of Sith. And for what? Either we kill them all or rehabilitate them, which based on our track record is a one-in-a-million chance." Obi-Wan looked over at Ben. "Jedi aren't meant to kill this much. We aren't meant for war."
"No," Ben said, and for a moment he thought he could feel the press of clone armor over his robes, "we're not." Obi-Wan sighed helplessly.
"The mission to Botor was a failure, I'm sure you've heard."
"I've not yet heard details, but, yes."
"Do details even matter, anymore?" Obi-Wan asked, "We lost two knights in exchange for four trainees, all dead. One of them was seventeen. He left the Order when he turned thirteen." Ben winced, eyes closing in sorrow. "Four years. Four measly years on the run, and they managed to sink in their claws so deep he'd die at our hands before coming to his senses." There was nothing Ben could say to that, so he said nothing.
"I'm doing what I can," Obi-Wan said at length, "working with knights, before they're sent out. Going over intelligence with Mace over and over, trying to keep them alive. But who knows who's out there, right now? Former Jedi, rejected Jedi trainees, ripe for capture and corruption by some coven we've yet to detect. Today's orphan is tomorrow's…" his words faded and he scrubbed a hand over his face. When he spoke again, his voice had shifted to something softer, sadder. "Master Drallig has had me working with initiates and padawans. Mace encouraged him to bring me on, to get my mind off of things, but…" suddenly Obi-Wan ducked his head lower and shoved his hands into opposite sleeves where he dug fingertips into wrists. "I worry for them," he said quietly, voice thick with sudden emotion.
Ben absorbed this in sad silence. He worried for Anakin, naturally. That the Chosen One was once again being hunted by the Sith, that Ben could do nothing to stop it, that was nightmare enough. But for Obi-Wan to feel the weight of an entire generation of knights and padawans on his shoulders, that was a different kind of nightmare.
"You alone are not responsible," Ben comforted. "The Force guides us all, even our youngest."
"I know," Obi-Wan said. "Truly, I do. But I know I have to do what little I can. And seeing so many young, fallen Jedi, I… There's one student in my classes. She's a corps trainee, not an apprentice. She's not going to last long in the corps, everyone knows that. The way things are, she'll probably leave the Order altogether." Obi-Wan did not have to mention Bandomeer for the thought to enter Ben's head. "And what with all the…" Obi-Wan shrugged, gesturing broadly. "I can't sleep for dreams of what could happen to her, if she leaves. Allows bitterness and desperation to take her her—she's so young. I… I feel compelled to… but I'm not sure it's the Force, or my own anxieties, or even Mace…"
"What is?"
"I feel… I feel like I should train her."
"What, as your apprentice?"
"Yes."
"Oh," Ben was genuinely surprised. "Is that why you've come down here?" He asked. Obi-Wan sighed.
"I thought it would clear my mind to meditate on it here. But I'm not sure… is it just guilt that's compelling me? Surely guilt is a horrible motivator for such a decision." The image of Anakin came to mind, young and cloaked at Qui-Gon's funeral, looking up at Obi-Wan even as the knight's heart lay on the ground in pieces.
"It is," the master agreed. "But do not use your preoccupation with guilt to deny what the Force is telling you." Obi-Wan did not respond, only nodded pensively, eyebrows drawn in thought. Having imparted what counsel he could, Ben waited a moment to sate his curiosity:
"This trainee, what's her name?"
"Ahsoka Tano."
The dark gloom all around became unexpectedly, immediately brighter. If joy were a tangible thing, Ben's heart would be full to bursting.
"Ahsoka Tano?" He asked, eyes blown wide in surprise, voice disbelieving. Obi-Wan turned to look at him, in turn surprised by Ben's surprise.
"Yes," the knight said, bemused but realization slowly dawning. "You know her?"
"Knew her," Ben's face broke into a smile, laughing. "Yes, yes, I knew her well. She's—She's been at the temple this whole time? I thought perhaps in this life she hadn't… that is… Force, she must be—a trainee, she's what, fourteen?"
"Yes," Obi-Wan was eying Ben's euphoric smile with skepticism now. "I get the feeling you must've gotten on with her a bit better than she's getting on with me."
"What? Why?"
"She introduced herself to me by accusing me of being a liar, in the middle of a kata, in front of all her classmates."
Ben burst out laughing, the sound ringing loudly off the walls and pillars, echoing up into the darkness. "Oh, Ahsoka," He said through his laughter, which continued for several long peals even as Obi-Wan spectated in confusion. Eventually, Ben reached up to wipe his eyes as the laughter subsided into chuckles, "yes, that sounds exactly like her. Oh, Force, I've missed her."
Obi-Wan was reeling from this revelation, and had no idea what to ask first. "How did you—I mean, when you met her, did she—who was—did you train her?"
"No," Ben said, still smiling wide, "not me. Well, I mean, I helped a great deal. She often said I was her second master. No, Anakin was her master."
"Anakin?!" Obi-Wan exclaimed, voice pitched high in shock. "Anakin is—they let a twenty-year-old train an apprentice? Train Ahsoka?" Ben laughed anew.
"I took on Anakin when I was twenty-five, you know." Obi-Wan only shook his head, speechless. That Ben had taken on an apprentice so young had long astonished him, but to hear that Anakin had done it even younger…
"A grandmaster at thirty-five, Force damn…" Obi-Wan put a hand to his head. Ben chuckled.
"So you see why I acted more like a second master. Anakin and Ahsoka got on like a house on fire. Sometimes, literal fire. I was the one following them around with a proverbial bucket of water." Obi-Wan snorted.
"You're not encouraging my convictions, you know."
"Oh don't be that way. She's a great deal like Qui-Gon—if Qui-Gon were more mouthy."
"Perish the thought."
"You and I don't thrive unless we've got a lunatic to bicker with," Ben said cheekily. "Why do you think I subjected myself to Anakin all over again?" At that, Obi-Wan finally gave in to his laugh. It was tired.
"It seems… frivolous, somehow, to take an apprentice at such a time. To go through the motions of the old traditions even while our Order is on the brink of existential crisis."
"All the more reason to do it," Ben said. He leaned back and looked up at the hall all around them, and thought of Anakin. "There is a deep kind of comfort in ancient things," he said. Obi-Wan looked upward with him. "And hope, as well."
As a young Jedi knight, long before he'd ever considered taking any apprentice, Yan Dooku had been a Shadow, an officially nonexistent subset of Jedi who operated on the darkest fringes of the galaxy to pursue intelligence and justice through the blackened backchannels of the Republic. For decades, he'd sunk his fingers deep into the dark, dangerous networks that made his work possible, and as a matter of survival, he'd kept a small library of commlinks to connect with separate spheres of people. The habit had never died, and even in his old age he still kept two separate commlinks, though he almost exclusively used the primary one issued to him by the Jedi Order.
About two hours before dawn, his secondary comm began to chirp. It kept chirping, over and over again, until the master at last awoke and stumbled in the dark over to his desk, opened the drawer, cleared out the mess of datapads and holodisks, and scrambled for the buzzing, blinking device.
"Dooku," He answered, bass voice propelled into contrabass by the early hour.
"Uncle," said the voice on the other end. Yan blinked away his sleep, confused.
"Adan? How did you get this number?" He asked, confused rather than confrontational.
"You gave it to me many years ago, for emergencies, you said, but I've never had a reason to use it until now. They've found a Sith outpost on Vandor. It's big. The Council of Reconciliation hasn't been told—yet."
All remnants of sleep disappeared like steam, and Yan Dooku flipped on the lights with the laser focus of the Shadow he'd once been.
"Tell me everything."
Dooku told Mace, and Mace told Yoda, and in the rapid progression of planning that is usually only possible during wartime, the Jedi leaders had assembled a rough plan to propel their investigation forward faster than word traveled to the Council of Reconciliation.
Vandor was a sparsely populated planet, inhospitably cold and technologically ill-equipped. Apparently, the only reason anyone had uncovered the Sith hideaway was by sheer chance. A week prior, a detoured research vessel from nearby Bothawui's Institute for Quantitative Studies had been forced to land and repair on Vandor following technical difficulties with their hyperdrive. During their many hours idling on the frigid planet surface, one of the waylaid passengers—a student of statistical analysis and apparently a true crime aficionado—had noticed some suspicious signs of activity that reminded him of things he'd read in the news. Bored and without much else to do, he'd meticulously cataloged and quantified what he saw and began analyzing the data against existing databases of crime and intergalactic phenomena.
A few days later, when all of his queries had run their course, his computer could not tell him that it was a Sith training facility he'd seen on Vandor, but it could tell him that, based on what he saw, the sector likely had an 87% higher instance of lightsaber encounters than average Mid Rim space, while the chance that a Jedi had recently visited the area was 38% lower than average. A oxymoronic outcome in peacetime; a potential landmine today.
A rising academic looking for recognition of his work, he'd forwarded his findings to his dean, who forwarded them to the Institute's president, who forwarded them to the local governor, who forwarded them to the world's Republic Senator, who happened to be a personal friend and former classmate of Adan Dooku.
"Bothawui's unmanned reconnaissance vessels returned yesterday evening," Adan was telling the room, Mace sitting at the table beside the commlink with brow furrowed and Dooku pacing by the windows with arms crossed and head down, listening.
"And?" Mace asked.
"Well, it's not as though the Sith put up street signs, but if it's not a Sith outpost, we need to reevaluate how we've been identifying them, because it sure does look like one." As that information settled, the Count assumed a more casual tone as he asked, "has the Order considered stats analysis work before? The kid who uncovered this is sharp. Annoying, but sharp."
"I think the Order likes to handle such things ourselves," Yan Dooku answered him, ceasing his long-legged pacing to take a seat next to Mace. "A pity, as our resources often fall behind the times." Mace gave him a stern side eye, but Dooku's returning look offered no apology.
"In any case, both the Institute's data and the Governor's reconnaissance report is with Senator Shantulli's office. He's agreed to delay reporting it to the Council for another few days, but he can only wait so long without risking consequences if it gets out how long he knew and did nothing."
"Then act quickly, we must," said Yoda, which made both Mace and Dooku look up quite suddenly as neither had heard their old master enter the apartment, but there he was, ambling across the room with his cane in hand. "An opportunity to investigate without interference, this is."
"Yes," Mace agreed, quickly shaking off the surprise of Yoda's arrival. "I've spoken with a knight who's been teaching at the Institute. She's spoken with the president, and has just sent in a report alerting the High Council to the possibility of a base on Vandor. Officially, her discovery of the findings have nothing to do with me or Senator Shantulli. It is with this report that we will justify a mission to Vandor."
"And how will you justify acting without the Council of Reconciliation's blessing?" Dooku prodded. Mace shrugged magnanimously.
"As far as the High Council is concerned, a Jedi Knight reported it, not a Senator. The Council of Reconciliation answers to the High Council, not the other way around, whether they like it or not."
"A dangerous game it is, to play coy with the Supreme Chancellor," Yoda said, coming to stand by the table alongside his former pupils. "Corrupted Jedi, he has, more than we yet know. Powerful he is."
"With all due respect, Master Yoda," Adan Dooku spoke up over the comm, "playing coy with the Supreme Chancellor seems to be one of the few avenues of agency we have left."
"The Count is right," Yan said. "The Council of Reconciliation is hardly the only cadre of knights who've ever played fast and loose with Order hierarchy, but we cannot allow them to get too comfortable in the pockets of Pikes and Sith. To do so would be to admit we know more about their corruption than we let on."
"A mission, then," the Master of the Order said. "A large one—that won't be hard to justify, based purely on our track record. Speed will be everything. Aola Tarkona recently came back on the roster and is only a few sectors away; she'll lead the efforts. I've identified five other knights stationed in that region—we will direct them to rendezvous with her, and will send an additional five after them, the best we have from our training efforts. They should all be able to assemble within two days. By the time they're on the ground, the Senator will only just be delivering the news to the Council. It will be too late for them to alert anyone on Vandor." A silence fell over the group, Yan Dooku stroking his chin, Master Yoda frowning in thought. Adan spoke up again,
"I apologize, masters, but out of an abundance of caution I think this is where I shall take my leave. I've already heard too much—I do not wish to know any more, in case it ever comes into question."
"Of course, Adan," Yan said, voice kind. "You have done an invaluable service today. May the Force be with you."
"And also with you uncle, masters."
After the comm went dead, Dooku stood and went to the kitchen to begin preparing a tray of tea. Yoda clambered up onto a seat next to Mace, who was staring into the middle distance with a tense from. Over the years as Master of the Order, the particular expression had produced a number of corresponding wrinkles, which Yoda regarded in familiar silence before saying,
"A gamble it is."
"The odds are better than we've had in months—years. We can't let the opportunity go to waste."
"Still worried you are." Mace heaved a sigh.
"I trust Aola. I worry for her, too. She has never faced a Sith in combat, though she's well enough acquainted with them and their methods. She's the most logical choice, given everything, and I have full faith in all our knights. But…" The quiet hiss of steam and clinking of porcelain filled the space as Dooku prepared their tea. At length, Mace huffed and sat back, hands rubbing out his anxiety against his trouser legs. "Force, I wish Kenobi were still in fighting shape."
"Contradict yourself you do," Yoda chided, "such lectures you've given him on his value here in the Temple, now wish to send him out into the field you do, hmm?"
"No—yes—I want someone I know can face them," Mace said. "Obi-Wan has faced Sith more times than anyone else alive."
"And bears many scars for his troubles he does," Yoda reminded. "Pained is he, weary. Burden him with more trials we must not. Dwell on the past we must not. Dictate the future it never does—tell you that another Kenobi could." Mace sighed at the blunt and completely accurate bit of advice, a reaction he'd had much practice in as an apprentice. "Besides," Yoda continued, "preoccupied with other obligations knight Kenobi is. Wrong it would be to distract him now." Mace frowned and looked over at the Grandmaster, who was looking appreciatively up at Dooku as the taller man approached with the steaming tray of tea.
"What other obligations?" Mace asked as Dooku moved to sit.
"Petitioned the Council to take an apprentice, knight Kenobi has," Yoda told him. The carefully assembled tea tray rattled noisily as it fell onto the table still in Dooku's grasp. Mace's eyes went wide in shock, and he sat up straight. The fine wrinkles wrought across his face flickered through several microexpressions of surprise, indignance, and yes, anger.
"He what?" Mace demanded. Yoda summoned one of the teacups from the tray and poured himself a cup, swirling it around so he could appreciate it's aroma.
"Approve his request we did, of course. Away from the morning's session you were, wished to trouble you I did not." Mace stood violently from the table, nearly knocking his chair over, and strode purposefully toward the door, muttering and cursing under his breath. The air where he had been still moved gently as the door hissed shut. In the wake, Dooku sat in silence with his old master, eyebrows high and face open in surprise. Yoda sipped his tea and hummed appreciatively.
"Love this tea, Mace always has," the master observed thoughtfully. "As an apprentice always leave it too long he did, until it was cold. Always drink it anyway he did," which garnered a quiet snicker from the ancient Jedi, "learn, he never has."