A/N: Hello, dear readers! I have an update for you, and a forewarning. My second baby is due in a couple of weeks time and once she's here they'll be no more fic writing for me for a good while. I may or may not have time to write more chapters before she arrives, but please don't be surprised if there are no more updates after this one for several months; I'll have my hands full! I'm sorry this fic hasn't been updated very frequently but I hope to see it through to the end at some point in the future. Thanks as always for the comments, they are probably the only reason I keep writing!
Chapter Fifteen
To Terminus
Chloe was watching the footage for the fifth time when a young woman entered the lab, introduced herself as Padawan Nika, and relayed a message from Obi-Wan asking Chloe to meet him at his quarters. Confused as to why she wasn't being summoned to the war room, and still disturbed from the footage of the laboratory, Chloe thanked Nika and hurried to Obi-Wan's apartment.
His door was open, and Obi-Wan was busy on his comlink when she arrived. Noticing her by the doorway, he waved her inside and carried on talking.
"… have them ready as soon as you can. Our provisional departure time is fifteen hundred hours. Commander Skywalker will be travelling with us to Terminus. Good. Kenobi out."
"Terminus?"
"Yes." Obi-Wan pocketed the comlink and indicated for her to sit down. "It's a space station in the Arkanis sector. An old spice-trading outpost. A couple of decades ago it was converted to a surveillance station by the Republic. We have used it from time-to-time for the launching of covert operations. And it looks like it will be convenient for this mission. All evidence points to the lab being located in the Nelvaan system, less than a parsec away."
"So the Council are sending both you and Anakin?"
"Not quite. I'll be going to Nelvaan while Anakin follows up another lead nearby. Look Chloe, will you sit down, please. There's something I need to ask you."
Chloe sat. "What is it?"
Obi-Wan paused, as if trying to gather his thoughts before he spoke. "Arkanis is in the Outer Rim. Terminus is near enough to Coruscant for radio contact to be possible, but far enough for that contact to be patchy. The Council believe you could make a very valuable contribution to this mission, both in terms of your skills and your… possible knowledge of the suspected lead scientist. The station itself is fairly secure, but of course not one hundred percent safe."
"Sorry, I don't follow."
Obi-Wan sighed. "The Council would like you to accompany us to Terminus and work directly with the field support team."
Well, she certainly hadn't been expecting that.
"You can take some time to think about it," Obi-Wan continued. "You will be away from the front line but we are at war; I can't guarantee your safety. As your superior officer I would value your expertise but as your… friend I should probably advise you to stay here."
Friends? Is that what he considered them to be?
Another thought struck her. "Do the Council know that we are a little more than colleagues?"
"Master Yoda is aware of it, yes."
"Is that not a problem?
"I have assured him that it will not interfere with the mission, should you decide to come."
So Obi-Wan did want her to go, even at risk to her own safety. He was right, of course; a great many lives were at risk. The potential impact scale of the Z-toxin was terrifying.
She answered him quickly. "I'll go."
"Are you sure?"
Chloe stood up, and managed a small smile. "Beats waiting around here." It was the truth. If her father was somehow involved in this, she needed to know, and sooner rather than later. Fear and uncertainty over what might have happened to him overshadowed any anxiety she felt at travelling into a war zone.
Obi-Wan studied her face for a few moments before he was satisfied she meant it. "Good. I need to go and arrange transport. I suggest you go back home and pack some essentials. We should be able to leave mid-afternoon. And please don't mention this to… anyone."
"You mean Matty?"
Obi-Wan paused by the door, and hesitated before he answered. "Yes."
"I do understand the basic principles of military protocol." Her tone was sharper than she intended.
Obi-Wan's expression softened and he moved towards her. "Of course you do. And I know the situation concerning your father must be hard to handle." She let him cup her cheek and kiss her forehead. "But," he continued, "I'm afraid that, if you do come with us, there can be no concessions, either due to your personal involvement or in the way I treat you. It may seem harsh, and if you are uncomfortable with that and would rather stay here it's perfectly understandable. No-one will think less of you."
Chloe looked up at him, feeling the warmth of his hand on her cheek, willing her heart to harden.
It didn't. But, she thought, perhaps this was the perfect opportunity to learn how to cope. Play it tough, see if she could fool everyone, maybe even herself.
"I understand," she said, placing her hand over his and removing it from her face. "I'll be back in about an hour to start on the briefing notes."
It was standard Jedi procedure to use non-military craft when departing Coruscant on classified operations. So, later that afternoon, Chloe should not have been surprised to find herself on a small, run-down commercial ship named the Star Eagle. Still, given the hectic and intense few hours of preparation, the set-up seemed a bit of an anticlimax. The only crew consisted of three clone troopers and their commander, along with Obi-Wan, Anakin and herself. They would meet the rest of the clone troopers, along with a small team from the Republic Intelligence Corps, at the space station.
That night, alone in her small, hot bunk room, Chloe couldn't sleep. She couldn't stop thinking about her father, going over the possibilities again and again, but making no real progress. Her brain was too tired to come up with anything useful, but it would simply not shut up.
Unable to stand it any longer, she got up, dressed quickly in loose-fitting pants and a top. She grabbed her personal datapad on the way out of the room, and headed off along the corridor, hoping to find somewhere cooler. Passing Obi-Wan's door she paused for a second but then thought better of it. No special treatment, he had said. So, even in the presence of a handful of clone troopers, they had to act as if their relationship was strictly professional.
The Eagle's galley was the only part of the ship that, in the original design at least, must have been intended to be comfortable. At one side was a small kitchen area containing a sink, a chiller cabinet and an oven to heat pre-prepared ration packs. Opposite, a long, narrow durasteel table, marked with the crude graffiti of a century of merchant crewmen, stood beneath a floor-to-ceiling window. At some point in the past the window would have afforded an impressive view, but now the thick glass was scratched and discoloured, smudging the stars beyond. Chloe found a cup in the cupboard and filled it with drinking water.
She took a seat at the table and sipped her water, wrinkling her nose at its strong, metallic taste. Then she opened her datapad and brought up the mission briefing notes, thinking it wouldn't hurt to go over them again. When they arrived at Terminus, Obi-Wan would take his clone troop platoon and travel to the Nelvaan system to follow up the lead on the laboratory. If, and when, he found it, his first objective would be to attempt to obtain a sample of the Z-toxin, or ideally, if he could track one down, a ready-engineered anti-toxin. That complete, he would call for reinforcements to capture key personnel for questioning, and then leave, taking out the lab as he went.
Anakin's task was more straightforward. He would travel to Tatooine to meet the contact, Zak Roden, who claimed to have information about a scheduled test of the toxin. This man, Roden, had regularly sold information to the Republic, and Anakin, as a former citizen of Tatooine, had dealt with him before. This time, Roden seemed to be particularly cagey about the details in advance, and had refused to give any more information before being paid an extortionate fee. Unfortunately, he appeared to be shrewd enough to understand precisely the value of the information he held, and the Jedi had to assume that the planned attack was imminent.
Chloe's role in all this was to stay on Terminus and work on systems and intel in the support team for Obi-Wan's mission. Somehow, the team from the Intel Corps would also be involved, but no-one seemed to know whether they were field agents or would be working in support like Chloe.
Regardless of the details, Chloe had to come to terms with the fact that, in a matter of hours she could find herself face-to-face with a man that appeared, to all intents and purposes, to be her father. She had daydreamed frequently, over the years, of what she would say to him, should she see him again. But she had never considered it could actually happen, and never like this. And, of course, she had always believed his disappearance was a tragic accident, not a deception perpetrated by an enemy she had spent the last six years working to defeat.
Now, she just wanted answers.
Karl O'Brian had been well known amongst his peers for his strict principles. He had led committees on the ethics of cloning, for heaven's sake. Merely based on his professional reputation, the idea that her father was working on something that could allow mass murder was ridiculous. But it wasn't just that; no one really knew him like she did. Even in her teenage years she had been closer to him than she had been to her mother, and he to her.
To the outside world, her father often appeared to be intense, complicated and eccentric, but, she knew the personality he projected was just his way of coping with the pressures of his position. Chloe remembered the long weekend walks they used to take in the park of Coruscant's university district: one moment they would be debating the principles of evolution, the next he would fall silent, shushing her and pulling her into the trees so they could watch a rare jaerbird tend to her young, or a pair of redhorn stags in a standoff over territory. Then on the way home they would buy ice-cream at the sports field and laugh together, comparing the behaviour of the humans there with the animals they had just been watching.
She remembered the time when she was thirteen, and she failed a long-dreaded chemistry exam. Chloe had been terrified of telling her father, and she knew by the expression on his face the he was disappointed. But he didn't say anything. He just quietly announced, a few days later, that a student had volunteered to teach one of his lunch-time lecture courses, meaning he'd have a few hours spare to tutor Chloe for the retake. She never stopped hating those horrendous chemical formulae, but she got through the exam thanks to his help, and her natural desire to please him.
In fact, she realised, sitting here in the middle of the night, in the galley of this run-down ship, she had unconsciously been working to please him ever since.
Even when she knew he would never be there to see her graduate from his precious Academy.
But the idea that he had faked his disappearance; left her and her mother, let them believe he had died. It was unthinkable How could he do that? It was impossible.
And then the solution struck her.
There could only be one explanation. The obvious explanation. So obvious, it was embarrassing that she hadn't thought of it before.
"There's juice in the chiller."
Obi-Wan's voice made her jump.
He opened the chiller. She blinked against the sudden brightness of the light.
"Sorry," he said, crossing the room and placing two metal cans down on the table. "I didn't mean to startle you. Too much of the space water isn't healthy on the digestion. That is the unfortunate voice of experience speaking." He pushed her half-empty cup away, flashing her a crooked smile.
Chloe's heart fluttered, and she instinctively smiled back, grateful for the distraction. What she would give, right now, to be sat with him at Dex's in the late afternoon sunshine, banter flying between them, her only worry being the idea that she might actually and possibly be quite hopelessly in love.
"Couldn't sleep?" Obi-Wan said.
She shook her head. "Mind wouldn't switch off, so I came out here to think. And I just thought of something, sitting here. Something about my father, if it really is him in the video clip."
"What is it?"
"Double agent."
Obi-Wan sat back in his seat. "Given his reputation, it did cross my mind. But surely, if he was, then we would know about it."
Chloe found herself irritated. "Perhaps someone does, but they're just not choosing to telling you."
Obi-Wan frowned. "I'm not a believer in conspiracy theories. The simplest explanation tends to be the best."
"I knew him, Obi-Wan. And believe me, it's not the simplest explanation, it's the only explanation."
"Then let's hope we're lucky, and you'll be able to hear it first hand."
Lucky? She didn't like the sound of that.
Obi-Wan got to his feet. "You really should get some rest now. There may be little opportunity over the next few days."
"Not sure if that's possible. It's horribly hot in my cabin. I could hardly breathe."
"Typical. Mine's colder than midwinter on Hoth."
"Perhaps we should swap."
"You could join me."
Chloe raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure that would be appropriate, err, General."
Obi-Wan flashed her his most charming smile. "Very convincing, Agent O'Brian. But you don't need to start acting quite yet. The troops are occupied on the bridge and Anakin sleeps like a baby, and he knows about us anyway."
"To be honest, I don't know if I'm quite in the right mood..."
He took a step back. "Chloe, sweetheart, what do you take me for, a cold-hearted, sex-obsessed scoundel?"
With an inner sigh of relief, she understood. Relishing the opportunity to release the tension that had grown between them, she grinned and tapped her finger against her lips, as if contemplating the possibility.
He tutted and leant down, putting his hand over hers. "I'm not propositioning you, sweetheart. I said you needed to rest. If you can't sleep, then I'd like to help. In whatever way you'd like. Besides…" he paused and looked down at the table. "I never sleep as well alone as I do when I'm with you. But if you'd rather be on your own, just say-"
"No. Of course not. I wouldn't want you to lose sleep, General, sir, because of me."
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, and turned to leave.
"I never sleep as well alone either," she called after him.
He chuckled, and waited for her to lead the way out of the room.
The window in Obi-Wan's cabin was clearer than the one in the galley. Outside, multi-coloured streaks of light charted their progress in hyperspace. They lay together on the bed, facing the window, Obi-Wan's body curled around Chloe's back.
Beneath the blanket, Obi-Wan's arm was tucked around her waist, his lips resting against the back of her head, and Chloe was finally beginning to relax. It was so comforting, to be with him like this, after the turmoil of the past sixteen or so hours. It suddenly occurred to her that she had not even begun to worry about the prospect of him willingly setting foot inside a Z-toxin lab – and potentially facing a weapon against which a lifetime of Jedi training and an affinity with the Force was no defence.
But she had promised herself she would act her part, so not worrying about Obi-Wan was good, wasn't it? After all, he must have faced dangers such as this before, countless times. He certainly didn't appear fazed. She listened to his breathing. It was slow and steady. Just as she had decided he'd probably fallen asleep, he spoke.
"I've sometimes wondered, you know, what it would be like to be able to be together, like this, every night."
"What, stuck in a tin-pot ship en route to the back of nowhere to put yourself in mortal danger? You actually want to do that more often?"
"You know what I mean. To be with someone, like this, without compromise."
Of course, Chloe did, and there was no way she could admit how many times she had thought exactly the same. Kind of exactly equal to the number of times they had spent the night together. She bit her lip. "You mean giving up everything you have been trained to believe in, not to mention your duty and your vocation, in a time of war, to leave and be with…"
…the person you love, she'd so very nearly said. But Obi-Wan was speaking theoretically. He'd said "someone," not "you." She bit her lip and tried again "…this someone."
"So you wouldn't consider it, if you were in my position?"
Chloe sighed. Why did he have to bring this up now? She desperately wanted to turn over and look into those blue eyes, to see if the depth of emotion she felt for him was reflected just the tiniest bit… But that would go against her resolution. She had to try to play it tough, to be as detached as him…
She pressed the side of her head hard into the pillow. "Honestly, Obi-Wan, I don't think I'm really qualified to understand your position. I only know what you've told me."
"Mmm," he said sleepily, pulling her more tightly against him. "Stupid idea, huh?"
Chloe pressed her eyes shut. After this mission, she would tell him. After the situation with her father had been resolved, then she would have enough emotional energy to make her big confession, and deal with his reaction.
"Yeah," she said, feeling a sudden, inexplicable urge to memorise the sensation of Obi-Wan's arms around her. "Stupid idea."