Some Other Future's Past
Chapter Five
~
Long day, Obi-Wan thought wearily, did not begin to describe it.
Looking around the Quad between the Greater House of State and the Lesser House of State, he scanned the darkness for anyone who might be tailing him.
First, he had been prodded into temporarily scrapping his nascent beard. Then Amidala had sandbagged him when she conferred that appointment upon him. When the Council contested it, he had opened his mouth to advise her - as she had asked - and…
The Jedi huffed indignantly.
There had been no call to exert that type of pressure. It nettled him that Rabé had been able to slip under his guard – among other things - in the first place. What made it worse was that any effort to extricate himself might have… hurt. Whenever he moved, she would twist just a little and remind him that his future progeny were very much at stake.
Sensing only small nocturnal animals, Obi-Wan sprinted across the Quad into a tunnel of feather-leaf trees.
After Anakin had left with Rabé, Obi-Wan's feeling of relief was short-lived. He had found that perhaps his place as a Jedi was not between the rock and the hard place after all. The private audience has lasted until the chimes sounded for Afternoon Court and in that time he had needed all the training of a Jedi just to keep his equanimity. For every bit of advice the young queen had asked him to provide, the Council seemed to oppose it simply on the virtue of it having come out of his mouth.
The Chancellor had not been much help at all. For all that his comments were calm and well considered, they seemed to have the effect of fanning the flames of resentment developing between the Naboo and the Jedi Council. The Council's treatment of Qui-Gon and Anakin had been the spark and it had taken every shred of diplomacy that Obi-Wan possessed to keep a war from breaking out in the chamber.
Stealthily, he crept down the pink graveled pathway. Not even a pebble moved under his booted feet the whole length of the tunnel.
Afternoon Court had been lengthy, with some complicated petitions from interests allied with the Trade Federation. The Banking Clans wanted the Crown to rescind sanctions that had been imposed when the depth of financing they had extended to the trade Federation had been revealed. They blamed the actions of a small group within the organization that had operated without the knowledge of the regulatory body. Amidala referred the petition to the Minster of Finance without comment.
Reaching the end of the tunnel, he tucked and rolled into a stand of copper tubes that played music as the warm night wind passed over their angled mouths.
"So far, so good,'' he muttered. The closer he was to the Queen's Palace, the closer he was to refuge. As it was, his goal was only two circles over and he had three routes to choose from.
The Mining Consortium contested its eviction from the Naboo system, saying it had only moved into abandoned properties in the moons and asteroid belts and claiming ownership through adverse possession. When Obi-Wan pointed out that those installations were abandoned because all the inhabitants had been forcibly removed to Trade Federation concentration camps, the petition was withdrawn with breathtaking haste.
The Commerce Guild asked to be allowed to take up Trade Federation franchises. Amidala said only that she would take the matter under advisement.
Others who were looking to reinstate themselves in the Crown's good graces withdrew their petitions without comment. Amidala was no puppet Queen, even at the Mining Consortium's outrageous petition she had kept her cool mask firmly in place. Even if she had been all but spitting with rage afterwards, it was in private.
Choosing the terraced garden paths along the Lesser Falls, he blew through the sculpture garden and down the river-rock stairs to the first terrace. It was not the quickest path, but with the periodic evening showers, it was the least likely to have anyone on it.
On the brighter side, the Protector of Innocents had winnowed the first of five hundred likely pages out of the rolls of kinless youngsters. Once the rooms could be made available and schedules agreed upon, the eight-to-thirteen year-olds would be moved into the palaces. In groups of ten and under the supervision of a nurturing authority figure, the children would act as messengers and heralds for the Court, as well as assorted Councils and Ministries.
After Court, he put his foot down and insisted that the Queen and her Handmaidens eat something. It wound up being a working lunch in Amidala's office with a Minister of this or Governor of that barging in at every other bite. When Amidala went to ready herself for her evening speech on the local holonet, Obi-Wan went looking for a place where he could meditate in solitude.
Instead he found himself dealing with members of the assorted interests looking for Obi-Wan to influence the oh-so-young and perhaps a tad naive ruler. Perhaps he could persuade the idealistic youngling of the vital importance of the influential guilds to her people's recovery. Certainly, there had been some moves made by the guilds that might be construed as – well – opportunistic. However, at the time, Trade federation control had been an accomplished fact and high officials had legitimately made the offers.
Obi-Wan merely made noncommittal noises. He would be certain to bring this to Amidala's attention, but perhaps not in the exact way that the representatives would prefer. From what the representatives let slip, it seemed that they must have known about the Trade Federation's intentions weeks – possibly months - before the siege and invasion actually took place.
Someone – and Obi-Wan sincerely doubted that it was Rune Haako, Nute Gunray or Lott Dodd – was coordinating this. Naboo was small and isolated. The people were mostly pacifistic, with only a small system defense force. The main products exported were gemstones and decorative stone, with metals and exotic gasses from the outlying planets, moons, and asteroid belt. Imports were apt to be technology, luxury goods, and building materials like durasteel and transparisteel.
The shadowy, hypothetical someone wanted a nice fat duck to carve up. Peaceful, prosperous, generous Naboo – far removed from the powerful worlds of the Core and Inner Rim – had been ripe for the plucking.
Who would coordinate something like this? And to what purpose? All that would be served was to turn people against the guilds, certainly the Nemoidians were experiencing major backlash from many worlds. Some larger systems were refusing to admit Federation ships at all even as the Nemoidian government tried at the same time to distance itself from Gunray's actions and placate the other guilds.
After Evening Court – with Anakin and Rabé still not in evidence – he again went looking for peace and quiet. In the Garden of the Windbells he found Masters Plo Koon, Mace Windu, Eeth Koth and Ki-Adi-Mundi. He went in tired and came out two hours later even more so with a headache for a bonus.
Master Yoda and Master Yaddle had cornered him in the library. Backwards was he thinking when his leaving they did permit.
Finally, he tossed his dignity to the winds and went sneaking like a padawan returning to his room with illicit goods. He was accosted singly by Yarael Poof, Oppo Rancisis, Evan Piell and Saesee Tiin, causing him to wonder if padawans actually got away with half of what they thought they got away with.
In all cases, the subjects were the same. The inappropriateness of his appointment of Councilor, followed immediately by a complaint about Amidala's conduct on Anakin's behalf. There would then be long lecture about Qui-Gon Jinn and his habit of letting the Living Force get in the way of his perception of the Unifying Force, and exhortations for Obi-Wan to pay heed to the Council instead of tilting at it.
By the time he escaped the grim lecture of Saesee Tiin, he heartily wished the Council back to Coruscant and himself anywhere but here.
The final indignity was having Adi Gallia, Depa Billaba and Shaak Ti follow him into a public 'fresher and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
"Are you well, Knight Kenobi?" called Master Billaba.
In a holoseries, the hero would toss off witty comments to confuse his captors while using a pocket laser cutter to slice his way out of the stall. He would then fall with perfect timing – and hair - into a waiting speeder where he would throw his arms around the pneumatically enhanced fem driving it. After a closeup of the lip-lock, he would toss off another witty comment and the pair would ride off into the Coruscant sunset.
Since he was Obi-Wan Kenobi, he had to settle for wiggling out of a small window, falling into the bushes and then running as if half of hell were chasing him. He had hidden in a tree until nightfall.
It depressed him to think that his career as a Jedi was beginning so inauspiciously.
Nearing the Palace, he stopped and reconnoitered. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but he did have good reason. Between the petitioners and the Council members ambushing him, he was as jumpy as a kaadu!
A bush rustled and there was a sound of stone on stone. The back of a colorful frieze in a grotto lowered like a drawbridge and Amidala… no… Padmé slipped down to help her smaller companion out.
"This one comes out in the river terraces, Ani, and all you have to do get back in is…" At the sight of him, both younglings froze in response to the primitive prompting of their limbic systems.
Anakin muttered something under his breath of which the least obscene component was, "We're screwed."
Obi-Wan felt his face settling into an expression he had had only seen and never really tried on for himself. Stern simply did not feel right on his face.
"What, my young friends, do you think you're doing?" Crossing his arms on his chest, he awaited their answer.
~
Gutter argot to be garnered from multiple languages and sources in a sleazy, third-rate spaceport was plentiful and Anakin a quick study.
Cursing, Shmi Skywalker had told her son, should be reserved for the situation where it will have some effect. To curse all the time for no reason at all simply showed lack of intelligence and wit. Anakin took the advice very much to heart – after a couple of incidents with sun-pepper sauce and time in his room to think about it.
However, on top of the day that he just had, and the day that Padmé looked like she had, having Obi-Wan pop out of nowhere like a Jedi jack-in-the-box was just enough to override his internal editing process.
Come to think of it, Obi-Wan did not like he was having a Faire Day, either. His hair was standing up in spikes, his eyes wide and for a Jedi he looked … twitchy.
"We're doing the same thing that you are, sneaking." Anakin knew that he was not diplomatic at the best of times and right now he was too tired and keyed up to even make a token attempt. "If you've had people chasing you down like a womp rat the way Pad and I have, that's exactly what you're doing."
Obi-Wan ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it even more. "You haven't seen any Council members, have you?"
"Masters Adi Gallia, Shaak Ti, Depa Billaba." Padmé sounded as weary as she looked as she slowly sat on the grass. "I've had lectures from all three about acting precipitously and in anger. I was told that my actions concerning you and Master Jinn were admirable, but that there were other Jedi whom might more adequately fill the roles of advisors."
Anakin fell backwards onto the soft, springy turf. It was nearly as soft as a bed and smelled wonderful, the way everything here did.
"I feel like I've been turned inside out. I've never had tests like that in my life. They did everything but open my head and stir my brains," the child mumbled. "Then I get back to Padmé's palace and Jedi are all over the place like krik bugs. They questioned the girls, then the one with the big pointy head, the red lady, and the one with the breather cornered me and I was… rude."
The pointy-headed master had been very taken aback when Anakin asked where they bought him, to be treating him like a slave. That had been followed with some of the choicest invective he possessed, coupled with libelous speculations about their personal habits, and flourished with scurrilous suggestions concerning their destinations and activities in the afterlife.
Obi-Wan sighed. "How rude?"
"Really rude. Mom would have been ballistic." She'd make him drink a cup of sun-pepper sauce if she had heard what he'd said. When he managed to contact her, he would still tell her, though. Anakin then added with a shrug, "The red lady told me to tell you that 'no matter where you go, there you are.' Whatever that means."
"She's telling me that I can't run. Now, the question was, what are you two doing?" he meant to sound stern, but it came out as a sigh.
"Ahhmmmm… Padmé was just showing me around." Anakin's lower lip settled into a stubborn curve. He mostly trusted the younger Jedi – not as much as Master Jinn - but this was Padme's secret. "Tomorrow is Rest Day, so since we couldn't sleep anyways…"
"I was showing Anakin some of the secret passages, Jedi Kenobi. Theed is riddled with them and I thought he should know what goes where." Her voice was tight, shadowed with worry. "If someone should… come after him, he needs to…"
Padmé stopped, shaking, tears standing in her eyes and when Anakin hugged her, he could feel her heart pounding like a drum in her chest.
"S'okay, Pad. I'm going to be fine, Who's going to get me here? Huh?" he put every bit of reassurance into his voice as Padmé tried to hug him flat again. "Besides, Angel, I said I was going to marry you, and I have to grow up to do that, right?"
Bloody…
Anakin nearly bit his tongue out of his head in dismay. What he felt for Padmé, even the nickname he had given her, was something he kept very close to his heart. There was something between them, some sort of bond on a level that he could not quite reach, but was aware of nonetheless. Padmé admitted to feeling something, too, but still said that he was far too young to even a passing thought of marriage.
"Highness… Padmé," Obi-Wan knelt beside them. "I won't let anything happen to him, or to you. But you asked me to advise you, how can I advise you - or teach you, Anakin - when I'm not trusted?"
There was frustration in the man's tone, but no anger.
Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, Padmé looked at Anakin and it was almost as if he could feel her question in his head.
Slowly, one eye on Obi-Wan, Anakin nodded in response.
A small line appeared between Padmé's brows.
Then, faint and distorted, as if a gnat whispered in his ear. ::: … you sure …? :::
Feeling a similar line form between his own brow, he concentrated on each word until he could see the characters that made it.
::: What happens if we don't trust him? :::
The question suddenly caught his attention the way a shiny bit of metal could hypnotize a womp rat. What if he… they… did not trust Obi-Wan? What would…
It was as if the ground fell away from beneath his feet. As if he was slapped skyward by some monstrous hand and into a void so dark that it hurt his brain to look at it. Images rampaged through his senses like the mother of all sandstorms.
The red-and-black face of Padmé's nightmares looked at him with mad yellow eyes and a mocking smile, "Young brother…"
Anakin felt his chest compress, his mouth open and throat corded.
The scream was swallowed by the roar of fire and flame, the stink of sulfur and molten rock and he was burning oh all of him was burning. In utter horror he raised his hand and could see his bones blacken and puff into dust and vapor.
Padmé lay on a funeral bier, burning, her hair lifting in the heat and flame until she took on the appearance of an angel with wings of orange fire.
Not just Padmé was aflame, but the whole world, even scores of worlds burned. Lives by the billions flashed into bright sparks and then winked out, gone forever but for the taste of ash and smoke.
And all of it was his fault. Padmé's death, all of the death and pain and misery was going to be because of him.
The Sith looked at him. "Death may have me, but I will still win. Young brother." It smiled.
Anakin Skywalker fell within himself, fleeing into the deepest part of his mind and soul, there to hide in utter terror.
~
Once, on a mission with Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan had been graced with the experience of an earthquake. Something woke him from a sound sleep, refused to let him rest, and had sent him leaping out a window when the shock reached the surface an hour later.
The disturbance in the Force slammed into him now with the same strength, only it was Anakin's mind that seemed about to shake apart. The boy's throat corded, but only a silent rush of air escaped. His eyes shifted and darted at sights only he could see. Torrents of emotion flew outwards like a star shedding shells of gasses before going nova. The boy suddenly went limp, his eyes rolling back in his head. Padmé was too frozen in shock to do anything but stare at the body of her friend lying in her arms.
As Obi-Wan reached for the boy's presence in the Force, he could only hope that the Council remained as blissfully ignorant of this as they seemingly were about everything else. Whatever it was that had happened, it had sent Anakin into full retreat. It was as if the boy had pulled everything inward, hiding deep within himself so that only the faintest trace of his presence could be felt at all.
The waves of emotion came from Padmé as she fought for calm; her emotional state was severely unstable.
"Padmé." He projected calm, wrapped her in it. "Padmé."
Her eyes shifted to him, but her face was too pale, her breathing too rapid. "He heard me."
"What?" Obi-Wan was puzzled.
"I asked him if he was sure that we could trust you. I only got part of his answer and then…" Her breathing hitched with the words. "… this… something we did made this happen… oh Ani…"
"What are you talking…"
"S-sometimes, he knows when I'm having nightmares. I almost always know when he's feeling homesick." The young woman rocked the unconscious body in her arms. "Even when he teases about marrying me, I sometimes almost think that it might not be teasing."
The Jedi rocked back on his heels. It took months, sometimes years, for a bond to develop to the point where two people could impart anything more than vague impressions - and yet this young, entirely untrained pair had managed it a few weeks! The part about marriage he skipped over for now, but the rest of it had staggering implications.
"I need you to tell me everything. I can't help him, or you, if I'm missing vital information." Gently he reached for Padmé, brushing back her hair, keeping his voice as soft as his touch. Keeping her calm. "Even if it seems silly, or trivial, I must know. Please, for both your sakes, let me in."
His master would have said it better - or maybe not have had to say it at all – but it was enough to make Padmé spill everything.
Apparently, the pair told each other things that they had never confided to anyone else. They shared experiences, talked their dreams over with each other, provided each other with support and care that had gone from seed to full flower in almost no time at all. They were friends, confidants, playmates, and protectors – not to mention accomplices, cohorts and conspirators. Anakin's live-for-the-moment and caution-to-the-winds personality was tempered by Padmé's methodical and responsible character. In turn, the boy gave a young woman with much so bear a sense of play and respite.
Obi-Wan had been hoping to wean them away from their mutual attachment – above all else, a Jedi was required to avoid such – but now thought it might not only be impossible, but inadvisable. Gently, he loosened Padmé's hold on Anakin and wrapped the boy in his cloak, standing, bringing Padmé to her feet with him.
"I think I have enough for now. What we need to do is to get Anakin back to his room, or to some place he thinks of as safe, and then we can bring him out of this." Sometimes strong visions could rattle the most attuned master. What such a vision might do to an untrained child… "I do need your help, Padmé. In fact, I don't think that I can do this without you. Now, that tunnel you came out of…"
Padmé nodded and went to what appeared to be a bas-relief three-lobed leaf on one of the stone benches. Carefully pressing inward, the leaf seemed to sink into the stone, stopping with a click. Then she stood in front of the part of the frieze that had folded down, planted one foot on one of the stones ringing a bed of flowers. It began to sink under her weight, and the rasp of stone on stone came again.
The wall folded down, revealing a dimly lit corridor carved out of solid rock. Padmé climbed up and in, Obi-Wan followed her with the weight of the unconscious child in his arms.
~
Padmé was aware that she was babbling, but knew if she stopped talking, she would start screaming instead. Ani was so still and pale in Jedi Kenobi's robe that he looked…
Nonono… not dead… not dead… not like that little boy at Sia. Not like all the little boys who died on my watch… not Ani…how could I tell Master Jinn…please, not my friend… please Lord Death, pass him by, you've reaped so much from this poor world… how would I explain to his mother… how can I explain it to all their mothers…
"The tunnels are color coded." She plucked the first subject that passed through her mind. "Red, blue and yellow are the primary routes. Blue always follows the river, red is for the Government Center and yellow is for the city itself."
By the time they came out of the maintenance closet in the family wing, she had babbled her way through ten millennia years of Naboo's more unsavory history. "… and this is a one-way exit. If you want to get back into the same tunnel, you have to go to the refresher in the fourth room on the left. Flush the sanunit once, then turn on the cold water in the shower. Flush the san twice and turn off the cold water. The back of the shower folds up and you have five seconds to go through…"
They exited into the quiet of the family wing, across from Anakin's room.
Padmé opened the door, and the room's downlighting came on. Obi-Wan started toward the bed, only to have the young woman pull him by the sleeve to the window seats.
"Ani never uses the bed. He likes the window seats because of the waterfall." As many times as she had been here, she knew that. Turning back to the bed as the Jedi laid the still form on the cushions, she tore off the blankets and returned to the window seat. Bundling Anakin in them, she then climbed over him to open the windows, letting the rush of noise and moisture fill the room. "Now what do we do?"
"We wait." Climbing into the embrasure, he settled himself so that Anakin was between the two of them.
Padmé opened her mouth to protest and was fixed with a stern look from the young Jedi. "I know you dislike of waiting, but right now there is nothing else that we can do for him. We can be here to keep him warm and support him in a place he associates with safety, but until he comes back out of himself there is nothing we can do."
"But…"
"Until he is awake and can tell us what the vision was, we can't do anything. I can't tell if the vision is something from inside Anakin or…" Obi-Wan swallowed. "Or is it was… sent."
"Can that be done?" She felt ridiculous, pulling the covers up to her chin like a child afraid of boggles.
"It can. I've read that Sith or Fallen Jedi can set subtle bonds and use them to manipulate the unwitting." The Jedi's face was suddenly an implacable mask. "I fear that we do not need to wait for the Sith to discover him. I think that one already has."
Padmé's mind finished the thought. If the vision had been a Sith attack on Anakin, than that meant that the second Sith was somewhere nearby. The very skin tried to crawl off her body.
"This makes it even more imperative that I train him," Obi-Wan hesitated. "And you as well."
"What?" Just when she thought the day could hold no more surprises.
"Sleep, Padmé." Obi-Wan's voice filled her head and weighed it down to the pillow. Just before her too-heavy eyelids closed, one last thought slipped across her fading perception.
Maybe I will paint myself blue and ride off on that shaak, after all.
~