Off the Grid
Chapter 2
Anakin strode through the interior entrance to the Jedi Temple's south facing docking bay to find Obi Wan already waiting for him inside a no-frills two passenger air speeder. He hopped over its side into the empty seat, sighing because any trip in which he was not the pilot was bound to be tedious.
"Ahsoka's pretty mad at you, master. She says it isn't fair to leave her behind. I think she took it as a personal insult."
"She'll recover, I have no doubt,"Obi Wan replied blandly. "This mission is no place for a junior Padawan. We're headed for Separatist controlled space with little or no chance of back-up and a very narrow margin of error."
"Just you and me, like old times," Anakin grinned.
"Something like that, yes," Obi Wan smiled briefly as he lifted the speeder off the docking pad and into the busy streams of Coruscant air traffic, heading for the Garlarb district's busy mercantile center, thirty nine districts distant from the Temple precinct.
"You really think Dex is gonna know anything about that region of space?" Anakin asked as they approached CoCo town, where a greasy-spoon establishment known as Dexter's Diner served up fast food to a constant throng of hungry customers.
"I do. The Triburon Ghost Nebula was a famous tibanna mining operation before Subterrel eclipsed it a few decades ago. And Dex has all sorts of mining and prospecting connections. In fact, they are second only to his illegal weapons-running connections."
"And his indigestion connections," the young Jedi quipped. "You ever actually eat at Dex's place?"
"Once," Obi Wan replied darkly.
"That's what I thought. Tell you what. If he's got even a sliver of useful information about Dooku's new hyperlanes, I will personally eat a whole house special."
"A foolish bet," his friend answered dryly. "Suicide is not the Jedi way."
But as it turned out, Anakin was spared a close encounter with food poisoning. Dexter Jettster claimed ignorance.
"I ain't never heard of anyone jumpin' through there," he rumbled, both pairs of enormous hands spread out before him. "Used to be, ya would hitch a ride on one of them minin' barges out from the Rim – might take upwards of three weeks on sublight drives, but way safer fuelwise – an' then ya did a bit o' prosepctin' out there an' catches a ride back on the next slow shippin' transport. Whole show might take months – but then, in those days, ya could get good an' stinkin' rich on a lucky trip." He chuckled, a wet rolling sound deep in his throat, and his reptilian eyes squinted shut with mirth.
"Yes, well, months and weeks is not an efficient time frame for moving large military transports," Obi Wan remarked.
"And you're sure there's no worlds out there besides gas proto-planets?" Anakin insisted.
"Tha's right," Dex asserted, his throat sack waggling as he shook his head. "Ain't even a proper star system, really – just globs o' dust and gas balls, stars and star stuff scattered everywhere. Makes a real pretty sight at night, though. An' there's plenty o' dead junk floating around – asteroids an' such. No atmosphere, mind ye."
"But, Dex…you told me that some prospectors staked a claim and stayed out there for decades," Obi Wan frowned. "Where did they live?"
Dex leaned back in the booth, causing the table between them to creak as his enormous belly squeezed against its edge. "Tha's a trade secret, Obi Wan ol' buddy," the Besalisk grinned. His twin rows of discolored sharp teeth were oddly at variance with the sassy chrome décor of the Diner, and Dex's own dumpy, grease stained cook's apron. "You wouldn't ask me to give away sacred lore, now would ya? – you bein' a Jedi and all."
Anakin glanced from Dex's guarded, half-smiling face to Obi Wan's expression of polite indifference.
The Jedi master raised an eyebrow. "Of course not, Dex. I'm only trying to save the entire Mid Rim from imminent invasion. I would never ask you to violate your principles for such a trivial cause."
The Besalisk slammed four hands down on the table in exasperation, upsetting the salt and pepper shakers and sending a pile of menus sliding to the floor. "Blast you, Obi Wan, you sly dog! Yer always puttin' me on the spot!"
The Jedi righted the mess with two subtle motions of his hand, and looked Dex in the eyes. "I'm sorry, my old friend, but we are at war."
"I know that!" Dex snapped, leaning forward again conspiratorially. "All right…they lives on the asteroids, see? Off the grid is how most people out there want it to be. Don't want interference in their lives. An' that includes any Jedi come snoopin' around. If I gave ya the name of somebody I used to know out there…"
"I understand," Obi Wan assured him. "We won't be subject to a warm welcome, nor likely to receive any degree of cooperation."
"More likely shoot first and ask questions later," Dex corrected him.
"We're used to that," Anakin smiled.
The two Jedi left the Diner a few minutes later, armed with a name and the coordinates of an asteroid field near the edge of the Triburon Ghost Nebula, as well as a to-go box of freshly prepared extra-spicy sliders as a peace offering for Anakin's disgruntled Togruta Padawan, Ahsoka Tano.
"These ought to cut her down to size," Anakin commented, setting the already grease-saturated box on the speeder's floor beside his feet.
Obi Wan rolled his eyes. "I never had much success in teaching that particular lesson," he said pointedly.
"And a good thing, too," his former apprentice replied. "You need me in high spirits – it's a tough job keeping an eye on a wayward senior like you."
Obi Wan fixed him with a fulminating look.
"Don't be touchy, master. It's true. You've got gray hairs coming in all over the place."
"I wonder why," Obi Wan muttered sardonically.
The speeder flitted through the busy traffic lanes, wending its way back to the sprawling Temple precinct. It was time for the Jedi to be on their way to the edge of the known galaxy.
Obi Wan dropped his Delta starfighter, snug inside its hyperdrive ring, back into realspace at precisely the coordinates Dex had so begrudgingly given him back on Coruscant. He sat at a point within spitting distance of the Triburon Nebula; indeed, the whole viewport was filled with a lurid curtain of stars and gases, and a string of asteroids floated in lazy procession around the nearest planet, a seething cloud of gases that seemed to spin on its own blurry axis. A proto-planet, little more than a noxious storm cloud with enough gravitational mass to attract a small crowd of satellites.
The astromech droid, secure in its forward socket, burbled and bleeped a warning, which appeared in translation on the interface screen.
"Yes, I see it," the Jedi grumbled, warily eyeing the hyperdrive's fuel gauge. Just shy of half-depleted. They had plotted their last jump from Ord Tevlon, a bit outside Ansion. Even with the rings stripped down to almost nothing and the fighters relieved of torpedoes and missiles, the lengthy journey had taken them to the limit of their capability. They were, practically speaking, outside the known galaxy. The hyperdrive rings were designed for shorter intragalactic journeys, not what amounted to deep space exploration. But a larger vessel – even a light yacht – would likely draw undue attention if there were any Separatist scouts lurking in the veils of gas ahead. So here they were, in the middle of nowhere, with just enough fuel to make it back to the edge of civilization in one piece.
Next to him - almost on top of him, by navigational standards – Anakin's fighter abruptly reappeared, popping back into sight from the numinous otherworld of hyperspace.
"When I said stay on my tail, I did not mean plan for a collision," Obi Wan snapped into the ship-to-ship comm. The device linked both pilots, as well as their respective astromechs.
"Shut up, R2," Anakin grumbled to his own co-pilot, in response to a string of snide whistles and beeps. Then, "Watch out! We've got company!"
Biting back a curse, Obi Wan checked the external active scanners. Sure enough, an automated droid magnafighter was fast approaching from a portside vector. The computer began rapidly predicting trajectories and calculating firing ranges, but he knew through the Force, with the certainty of honed instinct, that they had less than ten seconds.
"Drop the rings and distract them," Anakin barked.
"I agree." Obi Wan detached his own fighter and swooped forward, leaving the vulnerable ring behind. The destruction of their hyperdrive rings would truly strand them out here. The droid fighter predictably locked on to the new moving targets and gave chase, streaking after the Jedi as they raced for the nebula's edge. The magnafighter was fast – equal to the Deltas, even with their state of the art speed and maneuverability – and much more heavily armed.
"Head into the asteroid field," Obi Wan ordered, sensing Anakin beginning to veer off, potentially into an attack position. "We'll split up and take it by surprise."
"Good idea, master. You're the bait," the younger Jedi calmly agreed.
"I'm always the bait," Obi Wan complained, accelerating hard and dodging around the first of the tumbling rocks. Some were as large as small planetoids, others no bigger than his ship. The droid fighter rocketed after him, almost within firing range. He felt Anakin close by, dancing through the asteroids alongside him and the droid, playing a deadly game of hide and seek among the tumbling frozen rocks. The Jedi swerved and rolled and skimmed through impossibly tight spaces, weaving through the space flotsam in an erratic death-defying pattern…but the hunter doggedly followed, occasionally sending a jet of plasma into an obstacle to blow it out of its pathway. Steadily it gained headway and then opened fire in earnest, adding to the peril of the chase. Bright spears of laser fire and randomly spinning shards of rock blasted apart by them made the moving maze more complex than ever.
The astromech aboard Obi Wan's ship issued a shrill protest as a bolt glanced off their starboard shields.
"I hate flying," the Jedi grumbled through clenched teeth, rolling to avoid another near miss from the droid and then dodging to starboard as a hunk of superheated mineral came hurtling at them out of nowhere.
"You hate everything fun," Anakin barked over the comm..
"You're certainly taking your time!" Obi Wan snapped back.
"I can't get a fix on him – you're flying like a drunken bantha, master. Help me out here, would you?"
"Help you? I'm the bait, Anakin!"
"Well, look wounded, then. Pretend he hit you." The young Jedi's voice was taut with concentration.
"What?" Obi Wan seized the yoke and pulled his agile fighter up and over a suddenly looming crater-pocked asteroid. The hull shuddered as he dove again, avoiding the next annihilating blast from his relentless foe. "Anakin…"
"Okay. See that chunk of rock over there? Lure him over there and I'll take care of him."
Obi Wan breathlessly jinked and flipped his fighter again, squeezing between two careening rocks with no room to spare. The droid predator behind him blew the chunks of icy mineral into fiery smithereens and pursued him, cannons blazing.
"What asteroid?" Obi Wan shouted in frustration. "There are millions of the blasted things out here!"
Anakin grinned, exhilarated as much by his mentor's aggravation as by the thrill of reckless speed. Not that Obi Wan could see the boy's expression – but he could feel it in the Force, confound the cocky young fool.
"R2, help him out," Anakin's voice was saying now. "Lock R4 on target."
"No, Anakin, no!" But it was too late. The infinitesmal delay in timing caused by the astromechs' exchange of remote navigational instructions was just enough to break Obi Wan's concentration. He felt the ship slip out of his Force-enhanced awareness and control for the briefest half-second, felt his co-pilot hastily adjust and revert the helm to full manual, and then felt the violent jolt as a blaster clipped his wing – not hard enough to penetrate the shields but hard enough to send him spinning.
"Hell's moons," he growled, heart stopping in mid-beat as he wrestled the fighter back under control, missing the next two asteroids by a margin he did not dare to contemplate.
He reached through the Force to sense the approach of his enemy…Wonderful. Two missiles right up his tailpipe. He cut the thrusters and pulled straight up, causing R4 to scream in consternation and the two seeker missiles to overshoot him in a roar of fury.
The Delta groaned and warning lights appeared all over console. Ignoring these, he came round to follow the droid – only to nearly collide with Anakin, streaking in from behind at a suicidal velocity, pumping the magnafighter full of plasma bolts with unnerving accuracy and aggression. The seeking missiles curved round and Anakin shot them down too, narrowly avoiding an asteroid as he dove in a long loop to finish off the droid fighter. The downed ship blossomed into fire and began a spiraling descent into the nearest gravitational field – that of a moon-sized asteroid dead ahead.
"Nice work, master," the young Jedi chirped happily over the comm.. "It looked just like he really hit you."
"He did really hit me. Can we please play something different now?"
"If you insist. Land straight ahead. If we're lucky, there might be something left of that droid fighter after the crash."
"Then let's hope we're lucky. It may give us a clue as to its origins. I'm guessing a Separatist refueling station."
CIS tactical droid TX88 watched the inglorious end of the advanced security patrol drone with absolute detachment. Sympathy and regret were, after all, among the response parameters intentionally omitted from his programming. He noted that the fighter had crashed on an insignificant asteroid mass in the outer Triburon field, and then quickly recalculated his strategy based on the data he had gleaned from the dogfight. He came to several swift, certain decisions.
First, he concluded that the two small craft which had triggered the outlying security net alarm and sent the drone into action must have been piloted by Jedi. The Republic insignia and transponder codes were the first obvious indications. The presence of humanoid life forms aboard both vessels was relayed by the drone itself; but the astounding speed and accuracy with which the fighters had traversed the asteroid field meant that these were no ordinary human pilots, even well-trained ones. The response timing of these humans had been 92.6 percent accurate – almost as good as a droid. That could only mean Jedi. They were, TX88 noted, 26.4 standard hours ahead of hs projected timeline – but then, they hadn't actually located him yet, had they?
Second, he concluded that these two Jedi were exceptionally rash and self-confident even for members of their type. There was no other likely explanation for their arrival in such flimsy, under-armed vessels without clones or back-up. A bold clandestine mission, no doubt. He carefully stored away these data for future reference.
His third conclusion, calculating a risk differential of eight percent, was that when the two Jedi did eventually show up on his doorstep, he would be more than ready for them.
"Ha ha ha ha ha," he laughed out loud. TX88 really, really enjoyed his job.
