Part 33: A Song of Farewell.
Obi-Wan could not avoid Anakin forever, but at least when he left Qui-Gon's room, albeit sad, but resigned to the promise that was asked of him, he was more prepared to deal with the young man's anxieties. He found his former apprentice pacing about the dockyard, watching as the last of the hover tanks travelled up the ramp of the assault cruiser. The Council was taking no chances, sending a force three systems the size of Utapau, and these battalions of clones with their synchronised genetically designed march followed the vehicle up the ramp.
"Hello, Anakin," he greeted, causing the young Knight to turn round, watching him as Obi-Wan checked over his starfighter, and as Artoo ran through a final system analysis.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Anakin remarked. "You're going to need me on this one, Master."
"It may be nothing but a wild Bantha chase," Obi-Wan tried, knowing through the Force that would not be the case. "Your job here is much more important, Anakin."
"I know. The Sith." Anakin's mouth looked as if he tasted something bitter just in the very word. "I just - I don't like you going off without me like this. It's a bad idea to split up the team. I mean look what happened the last time."
"Don't remind me," Obi-Wan grimaced as he thought of Ventress. Frankly, he had been relieved that Anakin disobeyed orders to go and rescue him. "But I have returned unscathed from solo missions before. The one I undertook for my Knighthood, for example." He stepped away from the starfighter to claim a clutch of Anakin's arm, his callused hand brushing the servos in the finger joints, while his free hand clasped where flesh met machine. "Even when we work separately, we work together. We have the same goals; end the war and save the Republic from the Sith. As long as we are on the same side, everything will come out well in the end. I'm certain of it."
"Well, I suppose you could be right. You are, once in a while. Occasionally."
"Farewell, old friend." Obi-Wan let go of his arm and turned to go.
"Master, wait." Anakin paused to let him turn, then bowed his head in shame, before raising it to face him once more. "I know I've disappointed you in these past few days. I have been arrogant. I have not been very appreciative of your training, and what's worse, of your friendship. I offer no excuse, Master. My frustration with the Council, I know that is none of your fault and I apologise. For all of it. Your friendship means everything to me."
Obi-Wan took his arm once more in the same grip he had before, with the same affection. "You are wise and strong, Anakin. You are a credit to the Jedi Order, and you have far surpassed my humble efforts at instruction."
His former apprentice frowned. "Just the other day, you were saying that my power is no credit to you."
"I'm not speaking of your power, Anakin, but of your heart. The greatness in you is a greatness of spirit. Courage and generosity, compassion and commitment. These are your virtues. You have done great things and I am very proud of you."
Anakin bowed his head, silent in face of the praise. Obi-Wan let him take the words within, then released his arm. "Well, I believe I hear General Grievous calling my name. Goodbye old friend. May the Force be with you."
"May the Force be with you," Anakin returned.
Obi-Wan boarded the cruiser, turning to one of the observation transparisteels, his eyes falling upon the young Knight who stood to watch the ship depart. The Force was singing to him a song of farewell, ominously poignant. He could not help but wonder if this would be the last time he saw any of those he left behind alive or well.
Padmé changed for a Cantham House meeting after Obi-Wan had gone, leaving their daughter in the capable hands of Dormé while she descended the levels to Bail's residence.
The meeting was a short one, merely a formality to exchange news, to alert the political members of the actions of the Jedi Council; the departure of Obi-Wan for Utapau. Bail, Mon and Garm cast her sympathetic looks, which she tried not to take comfort from. To surrender to the knowledge of how deeply she felt his absence would be a betrayal of their love. They had a duty to the Republic, to democracy, even before they met each other. Without it they would be different people, unworthy of each other's devotion.
Senate sessions occupied the rest of her morning, as she negotiated her way through the various committees Naboo was a member of. Few of these meetings held any significance now, or authority for that matter. But to absence herself would only draw attention to her changing loyalties, when so much of her life was too public already.
She returned to the penthouse at Five Hundred Republica for a late luncheon, to find Anakin Skywalker wandering about the living room.
"Ani, what are doing here?" she asked. "Shouldn't you be at the Temple?"
"I should be meditating," he replied, coming to a halt before her. "But I can't find my centre."
She took a moment to observe him, silently contrasting the dark Jedi robes to those her husband wore, their characters, their manners. In many ways they were so similar, and yet so different. Both of them carried many burdens for the Republic, one believing it no trouble at all, the other wishing another could take his place. Doubtless Anakin wished he could take place of him in her heart. There was a reason why she rarely saw him when she was carrying Cordé, and it was not the war.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" She asked. "Obi-Wan taught me some of the basic principles. It helps us."
Anakin flinched the moment she mentioned his name. "Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea." He moved to go.
She caught his flesh wrist, preventing him. "Ani, what have I said?"
"It's just, I can't stand to see you like this," he confessed. "Quick with his child." Carefully he ran his other hand through his hair. "I know that I should, but I can't."
Padmé couldn't say anything to that, only squeeze his hand and look at him in sympathy. They were all too aware that their marriage had done nothing to alter the young Knight's feelings for her, though they had hoped that in time he would come to realise the difference between love and obsession. The true measure concerning attachment within Code.
"I'm sorry," Anakin sighed. "I just - I feel like I'm in free fall. Free fall in the dark. I don't know which is up. I don't know where I'll be when I land. Or crash." He shut his eyes, attempting to prevent the tears which leaked through, but even so, a few escaped. "I think it's going to be a crash."
She wanted to reach up and stroke his cheek. She was tactile in her friendships, it was her way, but she knew that the gesture would wound him, for she represented all that was forbidden to him. So she could only squeeze his hand again, prompting him to reopen his eyes.
"You should tell someone," She advised. "Qui-Gon. Master Yoda. I'm sure if they knew the truth, they'd grant you leave, away from all this."
"I don't know of any place where I could go to make things seem clearer." Anakin replied. "Except the past. Things were possible then." He looked at her.
Padmé met his gaze steadily, remembering the many times during her marriage, when Obi-Wan was away, even when he was only in another room, that Anakin had alluded to this hope of his. Now, as before, she said to him what she always said.
"Ani, I do care for you. But I don't believe that being your wife instead of Obi-Wan's would have changed the conflict inside you. That is something only you can resolve."
"If I could just save you from my nightmares," he murmured.
"That is not the root of your anxieties," she replied.
"Perhaps not, but it would help me choose which side to be on," he confessed, causing her to worry.
She let go of his hand and moved to sit down. "Why do you need to choose a side? Ani, you have a duty to the Order, to the Republic."
"The Republic is changing," he remarked. "So is the Order. You have to know this."
"I know that everything that was good about it is being destroyed before our eyes," she murmured, her gaze drifting from him to the view her penthouse carried of the Temple. The gracefully sculpted building dominated the skyline in view, not because of the power which walked within it's walls, but because of the beauty with which it was designed. The symbol of justice and democracy. Of hope. "I know who's responsible for it," she added, careful not to compromise what she knew. "I just wish there was enough evidence to convict."
"Who is it?" He asked her, suddenly the eager, desperate boy he had been when they were imprisoned on Geonosis. "Padmé, I must know."
She turned to him, and in her mind, heard not just his plea, but that of the Force. It was beckoning her to reply. When she spoke, it was the ancient being's words she used, her voice its vessel. "You know in your heart who it is, Ani. Now you just have to accept it."
Light years away, Obi-Wan shut himself off in his assigned quarters of the assault cruiser, away from the noise of the clone battalions, the beeping of the flight droids, even that of Artoo, in the company of everything except the Force. He sank into its embrace, letting the waves surround him utterly, bathing him in comfort. It was too long since he meditated, so long that he struggled to recall the occasion when Qui-Gon asked him. But it was not so hard that he experienced difficulty in finding his centre.
Yoda was the first one to teach him the art of communing with the Force, when he knew nothing of the world but the Temple, and the beings within in. A precocious crechling, curious to the point of reckless, so mischievous that he had a reputation for pranks which even Anakin, with all his tinkering with the kitchen droids and a certain Grand Master's gimmer stick, had never surpassed. But when he was with Yoda he was calm, willing to listen to what the Force willed of him. Now, older, perhaps wiser, he let it come into his mind, and answered it's silent request.
To possess the Unifying Force was to experience a certain perceived view of the future. In motion though it always was, some outcomes were limited, actions predictable. His mind would receive a vision of the future, similar to Anakin's nightmares, except that these were never a product of his worse fears. Appearances, as he had often learned, could deceive, as would visions. It was a concept which he tried to teach Anakin without success.
He saw a planet of sinkholes, containing droids and clones, battle lines drawn. Animalistic sounds and smells permeated the senses, the cry of a mystical beast, faithful to the last, even at the expense of her life.
The smell of blood, the stench that belonged to death.
Suddenly a cry broke through the silence of his mind, as though a thousand voices had cried out all at once and were suddenly silenced.
A single shot of blaster fire. He was free falling, to where he knew not. Waves of water broke the crash, protecting his body, saving his life.
Beeping paved his escape. Stars flew past his troubled brow. An ancient voice calmed the chaos in his mind, a sweet one the sorrow clawing at his heart.
Flames licked at his vision. Death stalked sacred halls, destroying the peace forever.
Betrayal. A nasty word, it hung on their lips.
You were my brother, I loved you...
The last was familiar, he'd seen it first twenty-two months ago. His love lying upon a surgical table, her eyes forever closed. Something small touched his cheek, encountering hot wet tears of grief.
Everything dies, Padawan. Even the stars burn out.
The Force was speaking to Padmé. Never before had she felt such urgency, such need for her to obey or else fear the consequences.
She left her apartment and sequestered a hovercar, guiding the vehicle through the constant flow of traffic until she reached the window of the Chancellor's office. Just as she pulled along side, the transparisteel broke, causing her to crouch to protect herself from harm as the fragments shot past.
When the sky was clear, she looked up to see the figure of Mace Windu holding the Chancellor at saber point. The sight was no surprise to her, for she knew that they had traced the evidence regarding the Sith to the apartment complex in which Palpatine's residence, along with many of the Senate, including her own, was. She'd suspected his motives for a while, and though now to have her suspicions confirmed was still a shock, there was also a sense of clarity and understanding, in everything from the origin of the wars to the Separatists, to the Trade Federation blockading her world. From the beginning, this was his insidious scheme, to cement his rise to power.
Blue lightning crackled between them, generated by the Force she recalled, remembering when her husband recounted to her his ability to deflect it from Count Dooku on Geonosis. She wondered how he was doing, if he had defeated General Grievous. Palpatine looked frail, as if the lightning had aged the life out of him. He looked to be the victim of a Jedi's fall, but she remembered what Obi-Wan told her; appearances can deceive.
The lightning intensified, and suddenly Mace's lightsaber came flying towards her, the purple blade shutting off due to the internal mechanical inbuilt safeties within the hilt. Padmé adjusted the hovercar to catch the weapon, only noticing then when it landed on the floor between the front and rear seats that the wielder's hand was still attached. The wound did not bleed, another blade had cauterised it.
But Palpatine carried no blade.
She returned to the transparisteel, just in time to see Mace collapse and fall under the Chancellor's abruptly re-energised attack. Again she used the craft to catch him, and he landed in the seat alongside her.
To her surprise he recovered fast, cradling his severed limb in the long sleeves of his battle worn cloak. "We have to get to the Temple."
Padmé did not object with the offer of the med centre, knowing that the Temple healers could perform miracles, as well as being discreet. The Chancellor would put his own spin on this, Mace's life would not be worth the reputation he garnered if they sought the aid of Coruscant's med centre.
She increased the speed and weaved her way through the traffic until they arrived at the gracefully sculpted building, all the while listening as Mace recounted what took place inside the Supreme Chancellor's office. To her surprise, her reaction was calm, composed, even. The news she feared once confirmed did not make her clumsy in her actions, or cause her to crash before they arrived at the Temple.
She grabbed his dismembered hand and then helped him out of the vehicle, keeping an even pace with him until they reached the healer's ward, behind the safety of the Ysalamiri barrier.
"Evacuate the Temple," he ordered her as the healers surrounded him and began to work. "The younglings first and their crechers. Now that we've failed to catch him, the Chancellor will be after every Jedi."
Padmé obeyed, hurrying to the communications room. Giving the precoded order to evacuate, she also sent out a distress code to all the active Jedi, warning them to come back to the Temple at their own risk, and advising them to meet the evacuates at the designated coordinates for the sanctuary planet. The code was dependent on a unique answer from every warrior, a precaution assigned to them after Geonosis.
By the time she saw the first ships depart from the docking area, Mace joined her, his arm in a stasis sling, a mechanised protective bacta bracelet before the flesh of his hand.
"You must come with us, Padmé," he urged.
"I can't," she replied. "The Chancellor will summon the Senate. If I'm not there he'll know something is wrong."
Mace nodded. "Be careful of Anakin, he's no longer himself."
"I know, somehow, I felt it," she murmured, astonished at her calm reaction to what should be a sad and shocking revelation. "I'll attend the Senate, then wait for Obi-Wan. He'll want to find me first."
Mace nodded. "When you're both safe, join us at the coordinates. May the Force be with you."
"And with you," Padmé added, before walking away. To her surprise Mace followed her. "What are you doing?"
"It has to appear that nothing has changed," Mace replied. "That the Jedi were caught unawares. I will prepare things, then leave. I promise."
Padmé returned to her apartment, and spent time at her desk, alerting the members of the Cantham House Committee, contacting Captain Typho to ready her ship for immediate departure. When she entered the living area, her gaze instinctively checking on Cordé and her handmaiden, her brown eyes caught a whisper of flames, and she turned, to see that the Temple was on fire.
Rosy smoke clouded the morning mist, shrouding the slender, slowly crumbling towers. Her hand flew to her mouth, even as her rational mind urged for calm.
A speeder materialised out of the smoke, its rider cutting through the traffic at a speed, recklessness twinge with urgency. Standing still, she watched it as the craft came to an abrupt stop at her balcony dock, the owner finally visible.
She turned to her handmaiden. "Dormé, I need you to decoy for me. There's someone who might come by here, and I don't want them to know that I'm gone."
"Of course, milady," Dormé replied, rising from the floor.
"No of courses, this will be dangerous. If he suspects, even for a moment..."
Her handmaiden's gaze was steadfast. "I won't let you down, milady. I promise."
"Thank you," Padmé knelt to gather her first born from the floor. "Cordé, my heart. We have to go on a little trip with Uncle Bail."
"Daddy," she uttered, her big blue eyes fixed on her mother, reddish blonde curls dancing about her head.
Padmé nodded as she exited the apartment for the Senatorial docking ring on the floor below. "Yes, we're going to see your father."
The icy water shocked him into full awareness, lapping against Obi-Wan's eyes as he risked a glance at his surroundings. Blackness met his blue grey pupils, giving no indication of how deep underwater he might be, or even in which direction lay the surface. Liquid coiled within his lungs, threatening to choke him, yet he paid it no mind.
Relying on the discipline of his vocation, he called his hand to clip the lightsaber hilt which it feverishly gripped to the belt around his sodden tunic, then forced the water from his lungs. A moment's splutter later, and his other hand fetched the emergency breathing device from his waist, putting the device to his lips before he started to swim in the direction which the Force willed of him.
The vision had given him warning, but not preparation. He recalled the sound of the blaster shot, aimed for a direct kill. Boga jumping clear as the ricochet triggered an series of explosions in the rock face, the animal knowing instinctively of the betrayal which the Force attempted to warn him about. She protected him, at the cost of her life.
Obi-Wan mourned her for a moment, then let the grief leave him, just as he should. He focused on the here and now, the journey towards the surface, trying not to think about the rest of his vision.
Trying to ignore the end which the Force presented him with.
Breaking the surface, his fingers sought and found purchase to climb the rest of the way out of the well. He emerged into a grotto, negotiating his way past the creature which it housed, out to the bright light of a docking bay. A very familiar docking bay as it turned out, the one where he defeated Grievous. The remains of the general still littered the deck, along with the starfighter which belonged to that enemy, and a squat blue and white droid, who answered to the designation of R2D2.
"Artoo, what are you doing here?" he asked softly. "I thought I left you with my ship."
His wife's faithful little droid beeped a reply which sounded half way between a reprimand for being ordered to do precisely that and doubting he would abandon him when he was under strict instructions from his mistress to watch over him.
"Well, in that case, I'm very grateful to see you safe and alive, my old friend," Obi-Wan replied. "Now, I don't suppose you can fit in that ship, can you? I think it's the only transport out of here which won't be fired on."
Artoo beeped a passable mimicry of Yoda's 'size matters not,' before trundling towards the craft. Opening one of his blue panels that were arranged across his midsection, he produced his little saw, and firing his booster rockets, created a hole within the craft, directly behind the cockpit, to which he secured himself in, and began speaking to the ship's computer.
Obi-Wan took a last glance at his surroundings, then leapt into the cockpit, taking the starfighter out of Utapau's planetfall so fast he broke the gravity well and made the jump to hyperspace before the Vigilance could even launch its fighters. Jump after jump carried him further and further from the Outer Rim, until he felt safe enough to risk communications.
"You know," he commented to Artoo, "integral hyperspace capability is rather useful in a starfighter; why don't we have it yet?"
The droid's reply scrolled across the viewscreen before him; to keep the Order in line. Not only a quip, but also far too close to the truth for Obi-Wan's liking.
"Do we have anything from the Core?" he asked.
Recall code, Artoo replied. All Jedi to return to the Temple, immediately.
"Order Sixty-six," Obi-Wan murmured, his heart sinking. A part of him had hoped for more warning than this series of coded beeps. It was not to be.
"Emergency Code Nine Thirteen," he said, waiting for the computer to respond.
The silence surrounding the starfighter was deafening.
"Emergency Code Nine Thirteen. This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Repeat; Emergency Code Nine Thirteen. Are there any Jedi out there?"
Further silence.
"Any Jedi, please. This is Obi-Wan Kenobi declaring a Nine Thirteen Emergency."
His heart sank to the pit of his stomach as the silence became poignant. Artoo beeped sympathetically, trying to offer his master some small comfort, before a sudden burst of static conquered the deathly quietness.
"Please repeat," he uttered, daring to hope. "I'm locking on to your signal. Please repeat."
A scaled down form of a familiar friend appeared in blue holo before him. "Obi-Wan, are you alright? Have you been wounded?"
"No I'm not wounded, Bail," he replied, "but I'm certainly not alright! My clones turned on me. I barely escaped with my life."
"There have been ambushes all over the galaxy."
Obi-Wan bowed his head, mourning for the loss of life, the passing of the Order's twilight into night. "Have you had contact with any other survivors?"
"Only one," Bail Organa replied. "Lock on to my coordinates. He's waiting for you."
His legs started to shake as soon as the booted soles hit the deck of the Tantive's shuttle bay. To put one in front of the other with a measured pace was pure agony, but it was all he could do to keep himself from falling into the shock of grief which crawled at his mind, pulled at his thoughts, and dragged tears from his eyes.
Those blue grey windows to his stricken soul glanced almost feverishly around the gleaming white walls of the ship in an effort to find something, anything to focus his concentration on, to stop his thoughts from dwelling on the dark attachment of grief.
She met him upon the threshold of the corridor to the conference lounge, her form clothed in the dress of her handmaidens, signalling to his fractured mind that she had felt it necessary to employ a decoy. He also saw how evident her pregnancy was with only a flame toned gown to conceal quickened swollen flesh instead of the layers of Senatorial garb.
Her glorious henna hair cascaded freely down her back in coils of small curls, crowning a youthful face which when whitened once ruled a whole system. Now it reigned over his heart and he surrendered to her compassionate gaze, allowing her to enfold him into her open arms, pulling him close.
He pressed his face into her hair, swamping his senses in that sweet smell, forcing his weight not to press on hers for she carried not only their children but the future of the Order. He tried to ignore that, for it only served to remind him of the death sentence in the number Sixty-six. To remember that they were warned, but it happened anyway. Thousands of Jedi wiped out with a single command, betrayed by the Republic they once served.
"Remember," she whispered in his ear, her soft lips brushing the cold skin, chilled by recent events, "appearances can deceive."
He drew back, thinking she meant herself, but she shook her head, before telling him what she did to rescue Mace from his encounter with Lord Sidious. Palpatine, the Sith Master. Frightening how suddenly everything that was mysterious about the past thirteen years, from the Blockade of Naboo to the Clone Wars made sense in the knowledge that the Chancellor was behind it.
He almost collapsed when she went on to tell him about the evacuation of the Temple, managed by her and Mace, before she left the sacred building and the Korun Master while he remained behind to employ a deception planned for precisely this moment.
"What about him?" He asked, his voice hoarse as if from overuse.
"Mace promised me he would leave," she replied.
Obi-Wan shook his head, for he knew something which might make the Korun Master change his mind and stay.
A promise he had been asked to fulfil.
"Where's Cordé?" He inquired, his Force sense too occupied in striving to keep himself upright, and in staving off the shock to properly focus on sensing the whereabouts of their precious daughter.
"Breha's amusing her in the conference lounge," Padmé answered, "along with Bail and Master Yoda."
"He fetched her?" Obi-Wan sought to confirm. The Queen of Alderaan rarely left her planet, indicating that something serious must have occurred.
"Bail wasn't sure what happened until he saw me," Padmé explained. "He witnessed a Padawan trying to fight off the clones outside the burning Temple. He flew away to fetch us, then we made planetfall on Alderaan before going to Kashyyyk." She smiled, though her brown eyes were glassy with unshed tears. "She needs the practice."
Obi-Wan understood, his mouth opened in a brief gasp of surprise. Fumbling, his hand found hers, and they walked down the corridor to the Conference Lounge.
"Daddy," Cordé cried, rising up from her place on the floor to embrace her father.
Summoning more strength, he bent down to pick her up, pressing her rosy cheeks to his lips in a silent greeting. Holding her about her small waist, he took the proffered hand of the other Queen in the lounge with his free one and raised it to his lips. "Your Highness."
"None, of that, Master Kenobi," Breha motioned. She gestured to the empty seats. "Let us all be equals here. Titles have little importance now."
He sank down on to a chair, Padmé taking one beside him. Cordé lay subdued against his chest, her sensitive Force abilities realising the need for quiet.
"Heard from no one we have," Master Yoda began, confirming to Obi-Wan the dreadful news that all of those Jedi stationed in the field were probably one with the Force, cut down by their own troops, the gravest betrayal of command.
"What of the beacon?" he asked. "Mace wouldn't have encoded the recall command."
"He didn't," Padmé informed them. "He ordered me to send out the coordinates for the Sanctuary, encoded to each Jedi's own private channel."
"Responsible for the recall, someone else is," Yoda concluded.
"It's clear what we have to do then," Obi-Wan remarked, "there may be those who did not receive the first message."
"What are you saying?" Bail asked, the ends of his mouth drawn downwards to his elegant goatee.
"I'm saying, we have to go back to Coruscant," Obi-Wan replied.
"It's too dangerous," Bail cautioned, "the whole planet is a trap."
"Yes. We - ah," Obi-Wan choked back the name of his brother, for a dangerous truth coiled in the pit of his stomach. "I have a policy on traps."