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Chapter 29

Spirit in the Mask

Aayla's thin fingers glided on the console. "I don't like that he's keeping secrets. Why didn't he tell us what you learned?"

R2's answer displayed as computer text. "Master has his reasons. At least he always says that."

This was entirely dissatisfying. Obi-Wan preached about trust while he held things in reserve. Perhaps her friend was no different than the rest of the Council. In recent days, she'd been grappling with new perspective about her service.

The serenity of Masters Mace Windu and Yoda hid a dark underbelly of Machiavellian scheming. The Council denied agency to rank-and-file Jedi, treating them as pawns in its personal war game. Even Eisley, her mentor, withheld from Aayla deep secrets of the Force.

And then there was "no attachments." Feelings are not a faucet. You can't merely turn a knob. The Council's notions about love bordered on infantile. Suppressing emotions allows no growth in coping with them. She understood now this was why Jedi fell.

Aayla shook off her reverie and focused on her task. "Okay—somehow the Sith found the cipher for the planetary shield. I understand that. But what's this 'anomaly' Obi-Wan mentioned?"

R2 said, "Every day for ten years, the shield has dropped for one one-millionth of a second. Each time, a small data packet transmits to the planet."

"And Obi-Wan wants us to find where it goes."

"Affirmative."

"It's a needle in a haystack," Aayla said. "But if we—"

R2's mewl drew her eyes to the monitor. On the infirmary security cam, a panicked Landon slithered from his bed.

Aayla took a breath that seemed to exit through her pores before it could reach her lungs. Any notion of decorum exited with it. She was already gone before R2 could protest. With every footfall through the Tangent, the Force gathered around her, guiding Aayla to the thing it knew was inevitable.

Landon staggered to a table. When it moved on its wheels, he found new harbor: an IV pole attached to his bed.

He knew he was alive. He knew he was on the Tangent. But the rest was suspended in cognitive amber.

His hand was by his ear, clenching and releasing the pole that held him up. With each minor movement, he heard whirring servos like a protocol droid's. Then came sensation. Or rather it didn't. His fingers flexed on command, but he couldn't feel anything. Why? What was—why was—?

A Twi'lek silhouette appeared in the doorway. Suddenly everything came rushing back.

"What's wrong?" Landon mumbled. Miler pulled him to his feet. "There's only one tank," he said, helping Landon into his suit.

"One tank..."

"We'll make do," said Miler.

He tested his voice, an octave too high. "Aayla..."

"I've been waiting for answers," Aayla said. "You're going to tell me everything."

"Of course I will. You deserve that much."

Landon returned to bed. Aayla slowly sank into Julian's office chair. Days of misery, and confusion, culminated now in her piercing stare.

Landon shuddered and gulped. "It's—it's my fault he died. He came back to save me. We reached the airlock, but—"

"Landon!" He ran to the door, pounding on the window. "Landon, what are you doing?! Open the bloody door!"

Miler's heart blasted. Fear swelled in his eyes like leveed water. "Landon! You're killing me! Open the door! Open the bloody door!"

"—but Neecho's men—there were just too many." This was true, from a certain point of view. That's what he told himself. Even as bile flirted with his throat. "It happened so fast. He was just—gone."

Aayla reached through the Force, but Landon's mental defenses were as formidable as Jedi's. His thoughts and feelings were one great fog.

"I know how you feel," Landon said.

Aayla hissed through her clenched teeth. The chair arm cracked from the force of her grip.

Landon was determined to make her see his pain. "I watched my son die. That's my load to carry. I'm so sorry that you have one, too."

Her face showed no empathy. The kinship attempted burned away clean. "Why did this happen? What were you to Neecho?"

Landon's eyes turned down. "A long time ago, I took some money that didn't belong to me. Neecho didn't forget it. He hunted me for years."

"And now Miler's dead," Aayla choked out. "Because you've lived like a wretch. Everywhere you go, you ruin more lives."

Landon considered Neecho and Han. In the boy's own mind, the murderer was his father.

Tears welled in his eyes but did not fall. "Yes, and I've paid for that. My family is gone. I'm alone in this universe—and I deserve to be alone. You could never hate me more than I hate myself."

Aayla's hand was too close to the saber on her hip. "I could try," she growled.

The city was alive, but the sky was empty. Only their speeder's running lights cut through the cloudy day. The building spires were a thousand small pins that would stick a fallen angel. Coda never liked the view from here. Too much perspective, too little to ground her.

Logan didn't respond to their radio inquiries. Obi-Wan's comfort was perfunctory and hollow.

During the ten-minute flight, he explained events off-world. Coda was shocked to discover the Republic's coming collapse. Obi-Wan's voice held no emotion, but it leaked from his eyes.

"We could certainly use a Jedi here," Coda mused. "But it sounds like there's none to spare."

Obi-Wan said, "Things appear peaceful."

"For the most part, they are. Thanks to the Sentinel. If we didn't have him, the Black Novas would run wild. They're traffickers, killers. Karn's government ignores it. Everyone's on the take."

"Who is the Sentinel?" Padme asked.

"Karn calls him a vigilante. If you ask me, he's an angel," Coda said. "He makes life for the Novas a living hell. No one knows who he is—but Karn has a bounty on him."

This hardly surprised Padme, who'd spent her career battling the government. "It sounds like Mareth's revolution didn't accomplish anything."

The great pain of wisdom darkened Obi-Wan's face. "Every tyrant takes power by first ending tyranny."

Coda wondered idly what all he had seen, which scars and which screams had brought understanding. He was very young to appear so weary. "There's always hope," said Coda. "If there were none, you wouldn't be here."

"Hope is finite. It slowly bleeds out of us. I have enough, for now."

Padme ached seeing the stiffness of his shoulders. She pictured herself kneading them while she whispered assurances. But there was no room for such comforts in their careful intimacy.

"Coming into range," Obi-Wan said.

Logan's residence reflected his life's work. The walkway was ancient stonework, recreated with exacting accuracy, bracketed by finely sculpted Rakatans and lush cordova trees. The house itself was a tribute to ancestral masonry.

Padme hung back with Obi-Wan while Coda walked ahead. "She's very pretty," Padme blurted out. Her cheeks burned and she wouldn't look at him. "Don't you think so?"

"I hadn't noticed."

"You may be a gentleman. But you're still a man."

Obi-Wan fought back a smile. "It makes you no less beautiful that she is as well."

Coda pounded on the door but received no response. There was no light in the house or sign of movement. Obi-Wan forced the lock with a mental suggestion.

The stench of ozone waited in the foyer. Sith lighting? A saber? Obi-Wan followed it to Logan's living room. On the floor was a shattered vase. He could tell from the broken shards it was smashed on a humanoid.

Coda's concern graduated to nausea. "Blood..."

"Logan's?" asked Padme.

Obi-Wan said, "Let's find out," tapping his comlink. "Doctor, are you are there?"

Julian's voice answered: "I read you, General. We downloaded the medical info to a memory stick. We're returning returning to the Tangent."

Obi-Wan scraped some dry blood into a container. Then he ported it with his comlink. "I'm sending you a blood sample. I need a readout."

"Stand by..." It took only moments for the doctor to report: "Zabrak male. Fifteen thousand midichlorians. Looks like you found a Sith."

Obi-Wan cut the link. Rising from the floor, he paced to the wall.

Palmer said, "Your friend didn't cooperate. I admire his spunk, but the Sith will torture him."

Padme asked Coda, "What about his cognator? Could the constable use it to locate him?"

The dull shock in her chest delayed Coda's answer. She forced down her feelings to be reckoned with later. "Every cognator has a tracker. But bringing the constable over here is asking for trouble." She lowered her head before snapping it sharply. "There's another way. I'll claim urgent bureau business as a pretense for tracking him."

Palmer grinned. "Abusing power: my favorite thing."

Landon wanted to confess, to awaken her rage, so the choice to live or die would not be his own. Too long he'd been allowed to choose for himself and others.

Her eyes were more bleak than he'd ever seen anyone's. "I'm sorry, Aayla," Landon said. "I know you and the kid—you were swapping spit."

The dam suddenly broke between Aayla and the Force. Glass tubes began to shatter. The walls shook violently. Julian's instruments flew about the room. Her misery had become a telekinetic beast, threatening to rip the infirmary apart.

Aayla's saber flashed on. She was on her feet without knowing it. "You're a rot in the Force!" she found herself screaming. "I should cut you out of it, before you spread any farther!"

Blood fled his face and his eyes were full of dread. His only armor was the truth as he knew it. "I'm worse than you know," Landon's voice trembled. "I never cared what sort of man I was except the kind who breathed. But if he were here, and not me, he'd cry over my bones, in spite of what I am. I know it's wrong that I lived when the galaxy needs him. When you need him. I'm sorry, Aayla. I'm so sorry that I'm here..."

The crisp light of her saber framed his pitiful face. Like an interrupted signal, contemplation of killing him receded to static.

Her blade disappeared. The hilt shook in her hand. Aayla was aghast at what she'd nearly become.

The infirmary door opened. Julian sauntered through.

He jerked back at seeing Aayla. He found Landon shrunken, ghost-white, wheezing through his broken nose.

Aayla's countenance scared him. It was molten lava cooling into rock in the wake of an eruption.

"I was just leaving," Aayla said.

Her Jedi associates waited on the street. Coda had to present this as a mundane matter.

The Office of Inquisition had an undefined mandate. Some saw it as law enforcement, others as human services. They had powers of investigation, administered cognators, and fielded citizen complaints on myriad subjects. Their reputation with each function was meager at best.

Inquisitor Edo leaned on his desk. "May I ask the nature of your emergency?"

"Nope," Coda said.

Edo smiled tightly, consulting his database. When the search returned nothing, he gave a huff of false disappointment. "His tracker is inactive. He must have removed it."

"He wouldn't take it off," Coda insisted.

"Then perhaps the Sentinel killed him," Edo said.

Coda's face turned red. The last thing she needed was the scandal of slapping him. "For your sake, Inquisitor, I'll pretend you didn't say that."

Edo's smile faltered. Ever so slightly, he sank in his chair.

Coda sighed angrily. "He didn't take off his cognator. The Sith must've paid them to erase it from the database."

"There's always a plan B," Obi-Wan said.

She grabbed the hair on her shoulder, pulling on the ends, a nervous habit from always. "There's only one other person who can access a tracker. The Memory Master."

Padme knew the name. "I thought he was a myth." She caught Obi-Wan's stare and continued, "As the story goes, he's over 300 years old. He invented the process for transferring memories."

"He's not a myth," said Coda, "but I don't know who he is. No one does. Unless..."

Obi-Wan watched her bite the inside of her cheek. He found it refreshing: there was nothing hidden, no subtext with Coda. He poked at her indecision: "I won't pretend I'm doing this for your friend. But we want the same thing: finding him safe."

Coda looked off. It wasn't the time to get stingy. "They're only rumors. But some people think the Memory Master... may be aiding the Sentinel."

Obi-Wan's eyes brightened and he turned down the sidewalk. Padme demanded, "Where are you going?"

"We need a scoundrel," Obi-Wan said.

Commanders focus on a task to the exclusion of all else. This was Obi-Wan's strength, and his weakness. One day earlier, he'd browbeat Landon to explain Miler's fate. But this interest was suspended in deference to the mission.

Obi-Wan gathered the crew for a briefing. "This 'Sentinel' is the key to finding the Memory Master. He works against a crime syndicate called the Black Novas. They deal in murder, drugs, and slaves. We'll use the Black Novas to draw out the Sentinel."

Padme said, "So much for keeping a low profile."

Obi-Wan asked Landon, "I'm sure you've been through here. Did you deal with the Novas?"

Landon cast a glance down. His muted voice sounded nothing like his own. "Yeah, boss. But that was over ten years ago. Pretty good odds my guy kicked the bucket."

"We've had enough bad luck," said Padme. "I'd say we're due for a minor miracle."

Aayla clenched her stomach. Bad luck. Bad luck. Would Obi-Wan's corpse arouse such nonchalance? Padme wasn't her friend. A friend wouldn't say that. No one in this room was worthy of his sacrifice. She wanted to scream, to reach through the Force and choke their shadows.

Obi-Wan was oblivious. "I'll make contact. And offer them a sale of two hundred lightsabers."

"Two hundred lightsabers?" Landon scoffed.

"I have no intention of completing the deal. But it should suffice to get the Sentinel's attention."

Julian said, "You're placing a lot of faith in a vigilante."

"It is not worth the risk," Quinn echoed.

"I'll note that in my log," Obi-Wan deadpanned. "Aayla, Quinn: grab your gear. You're coming with me."

The crew disbanded, leaving Obi-Wan, Coda, and Julian alone in stellar cartography.

Coda said, "I don't love your plan."

"If this Sentinel is an 'angel,'" Obi-Wan said, "we'll have nothing to worry about, will we?"

"People are going to die tonight. I just hope it's the Novas."

Coda exited left, Obi-Wan right. Julian walked double-time to catch up with the Jedi. He was almost breathless, not from strain but anxiety. "General, I need to speak with you..."

Obi-Wan waved him off. "Later, Doctor."

Prior to the outbreak, Landon brokered a deal between Neecho and the Novas. His contact, Tratton, found humor in violence. He smiled through every murder, like a cat plays with a bird it does not know is dead. Landon didn't trust anyone whose conscience didn't haunt him.

Lighting split the sky open, and a hard rain fell. Quinn and Aayla carried the crate of sabers.

The reptile said, "I hope you know what you are doing."

"I'm as eager as you to find out," Obi-Wan answered.

The street lights were fitful, shaking in their stanchions from the punishing rain. Rotting garbage filled the alleys they slunk through silently.

In an empty part of downtown, fifteen shadows gathered by a warehouse. Lightning flashed overhead, placing the men in unwanted relief.

"Hello there," Obi-Wan said.

Tratton peeled back the hood of his jacket. His face and neck were a canvass of scar tissue. One eye was prosthetic, beneath melted brow, its red center expanding as it magnified Obi-Wan.

"Lightsabers: pretty rare," said Tratton. "I wonder where you got them."

In a rare abuse of the Force, Obi-Wan scanned his mind. Tratton had no suspicions, nor did he even regard seriously his mystery seller. His thoughts were wholly devoted to the specter of the Sentinel. It loomed as children fear monsters are imagined into being.

Obi-Wan signaled for Quinn to unlatch the crate. The polished chrome of the sabers gleamed in the rain.

Tratton turned to his lieutenant. "Bexley, put it on the truck. I don't wanna be here when—" Tratton's head erupted into a fine red mist. Half his skull was vaporized. Brains spilled from the maw onto his boots.

Bexley's heart stopped. He fumbled for his blaster. His hand was severed before he saw anything. Then three metal claws jammed in his belly.

The cloaked man who brought death stared down the others. Beneath his hood was a white mask in the likeness of a skull. He discarded his blaster. A second set of claws deployed from his other glove.

Aayla reached for her saber, but Obi-Wan stopped her.

The Novas began an immediate retreat. They fired clumsily behind them as the Sentinel followed. Defying all reason, none of their shots hit true. Bolt after bolt seemed to bend and change course, bracketing the Sentinel but never harming him.

The Sentinel's cloak fell away, revealing a black bodysuit with various weapons. He lobbed a concussion grenade at the fleeing criminals. The resulting wave scattered the Novas. They slammed on the pavement, breaking noses and ribs.

The Sentinel approached a bloody man, who grasped at his leg, trying to get up. He allowed the attempt until the man reached his knees. He thrust his claws through his head temple to temple.

"Please!" cried another. "I'll give you anything—!" A scream died in his throat, then a geyser of blood.

Three Novas grabbed blasters. They never raised them. Their heads snapped in tandem as three thrown daggers lodged in their skulls.

The Sentinel took up a rifle, gunning everyone down until one Nova lived. Tears streamed down the face of the grizzled gangster. "I have a family!" mewled the Nova. "They need—!" His eyes bulged and went vacant with a flick of the wrist.

"—a fresh start," the Sentinel finished. Hard rain restored his claws to their bloodless shine. They retracted into his gloves.

The Sentinel turned to face Obi-Wan, who stood patiently waiting. So unnervingly slow did the Sentinel move that you couldn't help but imagine a spirit in the mask.

Obi-Wan didn't know the black figure's intentions. Futile were attempts to inspect his mind. Where his signature should have been, there was an inky void where the Force couldn't go. Somehow he was separate from the tapestry of life.

At Obi-Wan's telekinetic will, eight lightsabers flew from the crate, igniting to form a wall that halted the Sentinel. "That spot should do nicely," Obi-Wan said.

The black figure waved a hand, and the sabers disengaged, clattering in a pile all around his feet. Obi-Wan was startled by the Force demonstration.

"This puppet has no strings," came a mechanized voice. "If you seek something from me, you will ask me as a man... Master Obi-Wan Kenobi..."

Obi-Wan chilled at the Sentinel's recognition. This time when Aayla drew her saber, he didn't stop her. It crackled into being like lighting and thunder.

"Then you will answer me as a man," Obi-Wan said. "Are your loyalties to innocents—or merely to yourself?"

"The arrogance," replied the Sentinel. "Ask yourself the question. The Jedi Council is an oligarchy, molding the galaxy so it matches their vision. Your morals are twisted. The ancient Jedi would condemn this Order of decay."

Obi-Wan said, "Not everyone has the luxury of playing nihilist."

"Not everyone is proud enough to pretend to be heroes."

"I'm no hero," said the Jedi, "but I do have a mission. And you're going to help me. Not because you respect me, but because you can't stand to be out of the action. So I ask you, as a man: where is the Memory Master?"