Chapter 46
Be Well, My Angry Angel

Little Galen sat alone, gazing skyward, wondering what it felt like traveling among the stars. He'd wrestled very few stories from his parents' recollection. His mom said nothing could be gained wishing for a life that would never be yours.

But Galen thought he knew better, that he wouldn't be trapped on Mareth forever, that dreams could become real, if you fussed over them like a delicate garden.

And then his parents died, living the lie of a dream until they starved.

For a long time he didn't dare to dream. Until he met The Nothing Man. He showed Galen, unequivocally, that with will and dedication the boy could do anything. If he listened to his teacher, Galen could become the most powerful being who ever lived—and he could make the world perfect—make the galaxy perfect.

Palmer slithered down beside him, smiling furtively. "Hello, young man."

"Hi, Mister Palmer."

"I wanted to thank you for my knee," grinned Palmer. "I've never seen such magic, not even on Dathomir."

Galen felt genuinely happy. "You're welcome, sir."

"How did you do it?"

"It's a secret. I promised not to tell."

"Magicians have a code. I certainly understand," Palmer beguiled him. "But try bending the rules just this once. I'll take it to the grave, on my Jedi honor."

Galen didn't grasp the distinction between current and former Jedi. Thus he took the oath to heart.

For some time he'd yearned to share the weight with another. He loved Wilk more than anything, but Wilk wouldn't understand. Already the wolf feared Galen's power. Couldn't he tell Mister Palmer—only Mister Palmer?

"Evening, gentlemen," Landon approached.

The boy's head snapped up. "Hello, Mister Landon."

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Palmer didn't force a smile. "Not at all. As a matter of fact, I wanted to talk to you." He rose to his feet and told Galen: "I'll be right back, son."

He followed Landon to discrete distance. Coiled inside was the cold rage he'd spent his life sating.

"Look, Trask," Landon growled, "I don't want you talking to him. Ever. Do you hear me?"

How precious, pathetic that this scoundrel—this jester—thought genuflecting to Kenobi made him less of an amusement.

"I hear a bird squawking at a lion," Palmer said. "Not only is it inferior. Not only could the lion tear it from the sky and lay bare its organs. The lion knows the bird's terrible secret..."

Landon's breath caught. His brow wrinkled and he was very still.

Palmer smiled cruelly. "And so the lion tells the bird, 'Never again will you squawk, at me or anyone. Because if you do, all the little birdies will learn what happened to the one called Miler.'"

Behind the scoundrel's stony countenance, the seed of fear bloomed into fields of poisoned thorns. Landon blinked and made a fist, but did absolutely nothing.

And it felt familiar.

Landon set down Galen, turning so he blocked Palmer's view. But he avoided his eyes.

Bramble partially secreted the entrance to the cave. Obi-Wan cleared it impatiently. For his trouble, thorny twigs cut and stabbed him.

The camoflauge gone, he shined his beacon inside. At ground level there was only a small ledge. The cavern floor proper was thirty feet down.

Wilk posited, "Vorka's ruffians are here already."

"I think we go in small, Boss," Landon told Obi-Wan. "The others follow..."

"Just me and Kenobi," Brummel interjected.

Obi-Wan turned quizzically. Brummel worked his jaw and said, "The Force showed me its will. I'll give it one last shot before I spit in its eye."

"It's a bad idea, Boss," Landon said.

Obi-Wan smiled puckishly. "The will of the Force so often is. But I won't ignore it. We'll clear the way alone. The rest of you—"

"—will take the mountain pass," Brummel interrupted. "There's another way into the cave. Find it and meet us."

Palmer said, "And what if we can't find it?"

"Aren't you a mystical archaeologist?" Coda nettled him. "Put yer back into it."

Obi-Wan pursed his lips, meeting Padme's worried stare. Whatever message the Force had delivered to Brummel, it didn't reach Obi-Wan. To follow its will second-hand required a leap of faith. But that's all this mission was.

"Trust your feelings," Obi-Wan told Palmer. "You'll find the way in."

Brummel breezed past, shocking Coda when he lightly grasped her. His touch glided along her arms, along her shoulders and neck, before he held her face in his leathered hands. Coda's head felt light. Her hammering heart pulsed in her neck.

His lips brushed hers in introduction and promise. Coda's hands splayed on his back, but before she could clutch him to her, Brummel had pulled away.

Coda grabbed his hand, squeezed it to her heart, crying tears of elation. She was certain that in the two million years wiped from her mind, she'd never felt to free, so cosmically alive as she did right now.

She shut her eyes and attacked him with a hug. Brummel's arms awkwardly encircled her.

"Be well, my angry angel," Coda whispered.

Obi-Wan dropped off the ledge, plunging thirty feet to the the cavern floor.

All around him was stone, dimly lit by neon-blue lichen. On either side were two statues inset from the walls.

Above, vine and stalactites hung partly visible from the endless dark.

At Obi-Wan's feet was a skeleton: femurs snapped, skull fissured. A light breeze, whisping through the hollows of the massive cavern, rustled these bones like a spectral ghost.

Brummel dropped down beside Obi-Wan. His eyes narrowed, and he sniffed the air. "We're not alone in here."

"I sense something else... something..."

"Worry about what's in front of you," Brummel said.

Obi-Wan surrendered to the sentiment, proceeding forward, pebbles kicking, crunching under his leather boots. "You never told me what you saw in your vision."

"That's right. I didn't."

"I saw Padme," Obi-Wan told him. "I saw our children, and my friends, of which you were miraculously one."

"The Force is mysterious."

"I think I could make it real, when all of this is over."

Brummel's voice was deliberately terse. "Yeah, that's bright. Pin it all on your one-in-a-billion shot at winning the war."

"One in a billion?" Obi-Wan scoffed. "I didn't bring an abacus—"

"She's not a bad woman. And that's a compliment. She came on this mission for fear you weren't coming back," Brummel said. "You can argue the odds, but we both know you're not a safe bet. Do something about it while your blood's inside you."

The Jedi's mouth clamped shut. Every word that came to mind was eaten by logic, leaving crumbs of excuses, stale and worthless. In truth, nothing prevented him from acting on his love.

"You're a little bleak for a matchmaker," Obi-Wan said.

"Yeah, well—" The men froze, hearing voices.

The path was blocked straight ahead, forcing them to climb to the next plateau, or cut through endless stalagmites, which flanked the plateau like pits of spikes.

Obi-Wan leapt twenty feet, planting his climbing knife. He hung a moment before finding a foothold.

"This is ridiculous," an Angry Man barked. He kicked some pebbles over the edge, into Obi-Wan's face. "We're in the middle of the jungle! Does he think some Jedi—"

Obi-Wan threw himself into a somersault. Mid-air he found targets: two unready mercs.

He kicked Angry Man's shoulder, sent him falling to the pit, where stalagmite impaled him.

Obi-Wan's saber threw off a blaster bolt. He rolled by merc two, cutting his knees. Then popping to a crouch, he took his head.

Under the pile of severed parts, a comlink cried: "Davies, report! Was that blaster fire?"

Brummel joined him, wearing his skeleton mask. With a flick of the Force he crushed the comlink.

He walked to the end of the plateau. Down below were two islands surrounded by water, across which the path continued.

A group of henchmen privy to the blaster fire snapped their rifles. "Up there! The Sentinel!"

Brummel flipped through the air, waving away every shot. He grabbed a man with the Force, pulled him like a doll so they met mid-air, Brummel's claws buried in his skull. He jammed a grenade in the corpse's mouth. Then he hurled the body, knocking two men down.

They exploded in a shower of flaming flesh and metal. Brummel landed among the fire—retarded by his suit—taking stock of the final two mercs.

He drew at once his blade and blaster. His hurled saber cut one man in two; the other fell to his gun, a neat, smoking hole in the middle of his head.

"Wother, report! … Donnelly, come in! … Does anybody read me?! Sing, are you out there?!" A second, calmer voice jumped on the com: "No more chatter. Fall back for reassignment."

Brummel grinned darkly. "Gather up, little boglings..."

Obi-Wan dropped down, inspecting his work. He took special note of a blaster wound. "So uncivilized."

"Says the guy behind a plague."

"That wasn't me," Obi-Wan argued.

"Really? 'Not guilty' by time travel?"

"I'll account for my past, but not my future."

"For me, it is the past," Brummel said.

"I know. But it won't become mine."

Across the lake, they scaled another wall. At the top they looked out on a great chasm. Two pitiful posts, rotted lean, suggested a bridge crumbled thousands of years ago.

Here the ceiling was lower, rife with stalagtites, so as to resemble a crown turned over. Vines like cables hung at various lengths, the only good option to traverse the abysm.

On the other side were three boulders, raised ten feet from a flat, winding path.

"What do you think?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Age before beauty."

"Well, I can't go twice."

"As handsome as Yoda, as humble as Windu," Brummel said.

"And as droll as myself."

Obi-Wan called a vine to his hand with a pull of the Force.

"You are so very Jedi," Brummel said.

"I will take that in the spirit it wasn't intended."

Obi-Wan leaned his weight back, before leaping forward, swinging over the chasm. The air cooled his ruddy face, blowing open a door in his mind's eye, and on the other side was sweet Padme, smiling gently, wearing—

Obi-Wan yelled. The vine was gone and he was falling. Burning stone shrapnel rained from above. Pelting his face. Making holes in his tunic.

Large chunks of stalactite followed like meteors. He threw them clear with the Force. Then called another vine. One hand caught it, and one arm held him up, and the tork of his sudden stop almost tore his shoulder.

He swallowed a scream and climbed.

On the other side of the chasm a merc hung in the air, the flames of his jetpack throwing light on a shoulder-mounted cannon.

Suddenly a stalactite—as thick as Kenobi—ripped from the ceiling to hover beside him. Blessing Brummel's timing, he used it as a ramp.

The merc aimed and fired.

Obi-Wan leapt as the rock exploded in flame. The shockwave hurled him at the merc.

Flying past he caught a strap on the jetpack. The men spun through the air like vertigo dancers. Reaching the other the side, they tumbled on the ground.

The merc rose first, resetting his cannon. Obi-Wan called a rock and jammed it in the barrel.

The cannon exploded, blasting super-heated metal in every direction, melting the merc's face like a time-lapsed candle, before he vanished inside a black mushroom cloud.

Obi-Wan shielded himself with aid of the Force. He thrust his palm and the corpse fell burning down the chasm.

In an instant he turned—saber ignited.

Six mercs charged toward him, unloading blasters. Every bolt met whirring blue. Two men fell to reflected fire.

The remaining four, drawing vibroblades, made a circle around him.

Obi-Wan's saber twirled in his grasp. "Let's talk," he said pleasantly. "It would please me greatly if I could pass unmolested. The alternative is... gauche."

A Man rushed, swinging high. Obi-Wan blocked, grabbed the man's holstered blaster, and gunned down another foe. It was knocked from his hand then. He grabbed the Man's belt and threw him to the ground.

Foes Three and Four rushed. Obi-Wan waved his hand. Three buried his sword in his comrade's gut, only to have his head sliced from his shoulders. Four staggered around, pulling at the sword, before finally dropping.

There was motion down the path. A sniper perched on a ledge, while three mercs assembled an E-Web cannon.

"Not that again," Obi-Wan mumbled.

"I've got it," Brummel said, sweeping by.

"There you are. You took your time..."

"Don't be critical."

Brummel advanced with outstretched arm, his open hand slowly clenching. In his mind he saw the cannon like a cosmic blueprint: every slide, bolt, and rivet. In moments he telekentically crushed it.

The mercs—aghast—fumbled for their guns, even as Brummel raised them from the ground.

A red rifle dot appeared on his chest. Brummel heaved the three mercs at the sniper's perch. The sniper leapt clear, finding another ledge, while the mercs smashed rock, falling to the earth in a broken pile.

Brummel turned his head to acknowledge Obi-Wan. When it swiveled back, the sniper had vanished. "She resisted my powers," Brummel said. "A Sith, I imagine."

Obi-Wan wrinkled his brow. "Her aura felt... wild. She's strong in the Force, but I think untrained."

"Never doubt raw ability."

His forced smile couldn't banish the sadness from his stare. His saber disengaged with a gentle hiss. "'Raw ability.' What I saw in Anakin."

"I'm sure you did your best," Brummel said.

"My best isn't good enough. Not against Vader," Obi-Wan said. "You have the power of an Architect—and my own—inside you. To say nothing of the strength you had at birth. If we meet Vader, you must face him."

Brummel studied him a moment. "Self-flagellate in private. We're not done with these mercs."

The path was flat for a hundred meters, before taking the form of jagged islands, leading up to a narrow ridge, beyond it a muddy slope that went on forever.

Measuring the nearest island, Obi-Wan Force-leapt. Two mercs in jetpacks appeared shooting blasters.

Obi-Wan's saber ignited mid-air. He landed true, batting fire straight down.

One merc hit his throttle, launching at the Jedi like a human missile. Obi-Wan lured him in, bending back at the last moment, slashing a line from neck to stomach. It pierced the merc's armor but didn't kill him.

From that position Obi-Wan flipped clear, the Second merc blasting his shadow.

Immediately upon landing he was forced to leap again. From island to island Obi-Wan jumped, dodging and blocking, waiting for his opening.

Brummel scaled the wall leading to the ridge. He gave a shout, drawing one Merc's attention.

Obi-Wan hurled his saber, bisecting the jetpack. The merc fell from the sky, splattering below, body engulfed by a jetfuel explosion.

Obi-Wan leapt to another ledge. He caught his saber in time to stymie death.

Up on the ridge the sniper appeared. He knew the face: Aurra Sing. Disillusioned padawan turned gun for hire. Lithe, albino, with just one clump of hair held back in a ponytail. Sing's strangely long fingers steadied her rifle.

Obi-Wan whirled, blocking her shot, but the Second merc's blaster skimmed his shoulder. It sent him tumbling from the ledge. He righted mid-air and landed on another.

Sing quickly retargeted. Brummel's hand shot up. He grabbed the barrel. Still hanging from the wall, he used his grip on the rifle to throw her from the ridge.

She caught a ledge and held on. But her rifle was lost.

Brummel stood on the ridge, spraying fire at Sing. To his surprise she drew a saber, batting away bolts with a crimson blade.

She leapt to an island. Obi-Wan met her, forcing Sing to parry. From there they traded blows standing in place.

The Second merc dove at Brummel, rockets on full. The Sentinel stood, arms at his side, and watched a smile bloom on his foe.

In the crucial moment he snapped his claws. Blood sprayed from the merc's throat. His last thought was, what?, before his jetpack exploded.

Metallic smoke billowed from the fire, paired with the stench of rotting carbon.

Sing threw a roundhouse kick that Obi-Wan ducked. He swept at her legs, but she leapt to a ledge, using it as a springboard to get to the ridge.

Brummel met her, claws hacking and slashing. Sing could only deflect the powerful blows.

He went high with his claws, low with his saber. Sing dove between them, down the muddy slope.

She entered a crouch, skidding along the mud as it sprayed in her face. Brummel pursued her in like fashion. He tried to slow her with the Force, but Sing resisted.

At the bottom of the slope was a massive door. Five techs sought entry with plasma torches.

Sing tucked and rolled, coming up on her feet. One of the techs turned, seeing Brummel on the slope, and reached for a blaster.

Brummel tossed a grenade. Sing dove from the blast zone as durasteel shrapnel massacred the techs. Feet, arms, fingers lay about like rotted meat. Entrails and blood palled the doors' hieroglyphs.

Skidding to the floor, Brummel stood over Sing. He called to the Force, lifting and choking her. Sing hung in the air grasping her throat.

Brummel's cool eyes portended no pity.

Sing rasped, "Burn... in hell... Jedi."

"I just might."

Brummel turned his clenched hand and heard something snap.

Sing fell with a thud.

He turned his head at a groan. Crawling across the bloody floor, through the hetacomb of techs, a lone survior moaned and retched.

Brummel kicked away a blaster as Obi-Wan approached.

"You didn't question her?" Obi-Wan asked.

"No, but I left you this one."

Obi-Wan sat the man up, checking for injuries. Just superficial cuts. He'd been perfectly postioned behind another tech. "Tell me your name," Obi-Wan said.

"C—Callum Adler."

"Mister Adler, why are you here?"

"Why do you think? Because Vorka paid a fortune," he stammered. "He wanted the best engineer on the planet. And, well, that's me."

Brummel eyed the carnage. "It is now, at least."

Obi-Wan stood at the ancient doors, scored with glowing plasma in a horseshoe pattern. They'd barely made a dent. He doubted even his saber was up to the task.

The doors were marked with intricate carvings. He focused on a section where towering trees, like those of the jungle, bracketed a pathway, on which walked an anthropomorphized wolf, carrying a torch lit not with fire but what looked like the letters of a long-dead language.

"Look, this was a job!" cried Callum. "A great job! I could've retired on this. He said there'd be ancient tech—like, real tech—not Early Man stuff. But that's all I know! Whatever's going on with you and Vorka—"

Obi-Wan threw him a pitying glance. "Mister Adler, I will not harm you. There are too many dead already."

Callum jumped as a flicker of purple light jutted from the rockface. A circle of red appeared around it.

The purple light carved a door, before someone or something punched out the rock. Dust and pebbles scattered in the air.

Palmer stepped through, followed by the remainder of their party.

Landon looked about. "Holy God..."

Coda ran to Brummel, hugging him tightly, kissing his armor. She pulled back to assess him, finding him whole.

Padme saw the bleeding burn on Obi-Wan's arm. She took the medkit and set about wrapping it. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said softly, intimately.

Bo-Katan studied the doors, noting the failed effort at melting the stonework. "How thick is this?"

"Too thick for plasma torches," Brummel said.

Obi-Wan stretched his arm. "I don't see a mechanism, or a keyhole. Perhaps it opens one way."

"Maybe," said Coda, studying the carvings. "Or maybe it's a test."

Callum came from a dark corner. "Oh, please. Spare me the shamanic idiocy. It's just a stupid door."

Everyone paused, heads turning at the tech.

Landon said, "Who the hell are you?"

"Ah, yes," Obi-Wan cringed, "this is Mister Adler. He came with Vorka's expedition. Please extend him your courtesy."

Landon scoffed, "Boss, this party's getting big..."

Coda ran her finger along the outline of the wolf carving. In ancient Marethene culture, the wolf sometimes symbolized a Mercian scholar, known as Keepers of Words.

Her finger moved to the torch, and to the words that filled it in the shape of fire. The alphabet was the oldest known: first-era Marethene.

A slow grin spread over her face.

"Obi-Wan, the key is our voice," Coda said, laughing. "The key is our voice! The key is our silly voices!"

The Jedi turned, smiling gently. Hope and curiosity shined in his eyes. "Tell me... in words I'll understand..."