Jedi Apprentice – Skywalker's Rescue
Chapter 7
Obi-Wan woke up feeling unsettled. He didn't like how he'd left things with Anakin last night.
It was easy to forget how young Anakin was because of how gifted he was. Maybe he'd been too harsh. But then again, it was well known that younglings who were caught fighting with practice sabers were almost never chosen as Padawans. But then again, Anakin was already his Padawan. And when Obi-Wan was that age, hadn't he struggled with knowing the difference between standing up for yourself and giving in to angry impulses?
Obi-Wan shook his head to clear those thoughts away. Today was a new day and he would make things right.
He opened the kitchen cabinets, took out the antique tea set that had belonged to Qui-Gon and set about making a special herbal tea. Qui-Gon had fixed this particular blend for him on many occasions. It worked as a mild pain reliever and promoted healing, the perfect thing to help a weary apprentice recover from a difficult mission or a relentless sparing session.
He knocked on Anakin's door once. When there was no response he reached out with the Force. He sensed nothing. It was not the nothing of no movement but rather the nothing of no Anakin.
The door opened and sure enough, the room was empty.
"Anakin!" he called out.
It took seconds to search the apartment. With only two small bedrooms, a common room attached to the kitchen, and a refresher, there weren't many places to look.
Obi-Wan's feet took him to the Temple cafeteria, to the Infirmary, to the quiet halls of the Archives, to the study rooms and sparring rooms reserved for training young Padawans, even to the workshop where droids were repaired. He went back to their apartment twice to see if Anakin had returned. He was rushing down yet another hallway when he bumped into someone, nearly knocking them both over.
A hand grasped his arm, helping him to regain his balance.
"Kenobi!" exclaimed Jedi Knight Luminara Unduli.
"I'm so sorry!" Obi-Wan rushed to bow his apologies and be on his way, but Luminara had caught a glimpse of his face.
"Kenobi, what's wrong?" she asked.
Obi-Wan froze. He knew Luminara could spot a lie a parsec away. And the barely contained panic in his gut was starting to seep out into the Force in flickering waves.
"I can't find my Padawan," Obi-Wan confessed.
"You've misplaced your Padawan?" Luminara raised one perfect eyebrow, but Obi-Wan was in no mood to be teased.
"I can't find him!" he repeated, "I've searched practically the whole Temple!"
Luminara took him by the shoulders and anchored him to the present.
"Look to the Force, and you're sure to find him," she said.
Obi-Wan felt a flash of embarrassment. Why hadn't he thought of that? He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, centering his thoughts, reaching out through the Force, past Luminara standing in front of him, past the busy hallway, the classrooms, the open areas and all the bright signatures of Jedi masters, knights, and students, letting them all fade to the back of his mind until he found…nothing.
"He's not in the Temple."
"Thank you, Luminara. I really must go!" he bowed again. In his rush he mixed the formal gesture with her first name.
Luminara smiled after him, "May the Force be with you!"
Outside the Temple grounds, Obi-Wan moved slowly along the wide walkways. People and droids rushed by. Anakin had left the Temple some time during the night. What was he thinking? Where had he gone?
Look to the Force. Obi-Wan turned his thoughts inward. He replayed his memories of the night before, each word spoken, each angry, hurt expression on Anakin's face, searching for clues, remembering each outburst, each misunderstanding, each lecture from the past months… He almost walked into a tall Wookie. He needed to focus.
Obi-Wan replayed his memories again, but this time he was looking into Anakin's room, discovering him missing. He'd only spent a few seconds looking through the door, but it was enough. He slowed the images down, like Qui-Gon had taught him with all those painstaking exercises when he was younger.
Anakin's desk was messy, tools and bits of wire and metal strewn about, but his bed was carefully made. So he'd been working on something and he hadn't slept. The closet door was open and inside, his clothes were still hanging like usual but his brown robe was missing. And there was an empty space at the bottom of the closet, where Anakin hid the old backpack that Obi-Wan had tried to throw away after giving him a new bag.
With a sinking feeling, Obi-Wan walked to the nearest transit station. He didn't need to look at the display boards. He knew this section of the transit map like the back of his hand; the Jedi Temple, the Senate Building, the space port, the shopping district, and the exclusive Courscant Crescent residential towers. He got onto the next pod headed towards the space port.
Before the pod slowed down, Obi-Wan moved and stood in front of the door so that he could step off first, but when the announcement said "Courscant Star Port East Entrance. Doors opening left side," in Basic then cycling through several more languages, he hesitated. People pushed past him, grumbling.
"Sorry," Obi-Wan apologized, trying and failing to shift out of the way, "Sorry!"
"Jedi poojah," somebody muttered, and he was prodded by multiple elbows before the last of the passengers exiting left and new passengers boarded, allowing him to move back towards the center of the pod.
He stood still, watching each station pass by, waiting for that familiar nudge from the Force to tell him where Anakin had stopped. As each stop took him further into the lower levels of the city, he wondered if he'd missed the feeling, until finally, with a flash of annoyance because if Anakin had stayed on the transit pod much longer, it would have circled back around on the route and he would have found him already, he stepped off.
Outside, only a little sunlight filtered down between the buildings. The walkways were lit by the colorful glare of holo adds. A small ping notified Obi-Wan of an alert. He flipped open his commlink and read 'Multiple unauthorized access attempts on Republic Datapad registered to SKYWALKER, A. Passcode has been reset.'
"That is not good," Obi-Wan said to himself.
The Jedi datapads had a useful tracking function, even Jedi younglings were notorious for loosing things, but it only worked when connected to the Temple's network. Obi-Wan made a mental note, more than half seriously, to find a more sophisticated tracker for his Padawan.
He started walking. In this part of the city there were none of the cleaning droids that were ubiquitous in the upper levels and from time to time there was a strong smell of smoke from a nearby factory that the air recyclers failed to filter out. A few people glared at Obi-Wan from shadowy doorways. One even pushed off the wall and made to follow him, but Obi-Wan paused, pretending to look around an intersection as if checking that he was going the right direction, causally resting his hand on his hip so that the hilt of his lightsaber was visible. The hooded figure spun on their heels and immediately headed in the opposite direction, off to look for an easier target.
When Obi-Wan looked ahead again, he was surprised to see a young Togruta with dirty clothes, barely a teenager, skid to a stop right in front of him. The boy looked him up and down with wide eyes, clearly fixing on his lightsaber.
"Oh wow, I guess the kid was telling the truth!" he said.
…
TBC!
Preview: Finally, Obi-Wan has made some progress tracking down his lost Padawan! Will he make it to Anakin in time?