Fallout

Chapter 4

Obi Wan made his escape the following evening.

"Master!" Anakin's eyebrows rose in surprise, but perhaps not too much surprise, when he waved open the door to his quarters and discovered his friend and mentor standing on the doorstep, triumphantly clad in fresh tunics, 'saber gleaming at his belt, cloak draping to the floor in dark folds, eyes sparkling with satisfaction despite his wan complexion. Anakin stepped aside to admit his guest, and the door hissed shut again.

"You can't keep a good man down," Obi Wan declared smugly, running a hand through his hair and looking for a place to toss his cloak. Every square centimeter of Anakin's small private space was covered in tools and clutter. He settled for draping the robe over a half-disassembled astromech carapace, just the legs and drum with no dome. "Where'd that come from?"

"Picked it up after Kaion," Anakin supplied. "Not sure what I'm gonna do with it yet."

Obi Wan studied the droid remnant with mild repulsion. "It's rather macabre, don't you think?"

"Says the man who carves up droids for a living."

The Jedi master idly levitated a toolbox off the room's sole mediation cushion and took up position in its stead. "I make no profit from scrapping droids. It's an innocent avocation."

Anakin kicked a storage crate onto its side and perched atop it. "So. Master. It's good to see you, but what the kriff are you doing out of the Healers'?"

"Their first mistake," Obi Wan explained, "Was leaving the med droids in charge of the late shift. No doubt one of Li's apprentices is going to receive quite the tongue lashing when they discover my absence. But it's a fait accompli now; the paperwork has all been filed, and you know we mustn't meddle with the database."

"Yeah…but… how did you convince the med droid?"

"The Force can have a powerful influence on the weak-minded, my young friend."

Anakin folded his arms and snorted. "You can't use a mind trick on a droid, master! That's impossible."

"I saw Master Qui Gon do it once." Obi Wan tilted his head just a trifle, daring Anakin to contradict him.

"What? No. I don't believe you." He studied his friend intently, but Obi Wan was projecting a wall of bland sincerity, so there was no way to know whether he was telling the truth or not. "Whatever. I'm not sure I want to know anyhow. But if they come looking for you here, I'm handing you over."

Now Obi Wan feigned deep hurt. "Betrayed by my own brother."

The word slipped out before he could censor himself. Anakin blinked, and they both looked away. One did not give voice to such…sentiment. Obi Wan must really not be feeling quite himself. Anakin hastily changed the topic.

"Well, now that you're free, you can keep your end of the bargain. You promised me an open-minded look at something, and now it's time to pay up."

"Do your worst," Obi Wan said. "I am prepared to do my duty."

Anakin rummaged among his various projects. Truth be told, he wasn't entirely finished. He had been expecting to have a couple more days to make final adjustments and to ponder the rhetorical approach he would need to take, but life seldom waited for anyone to be ready, and his master was in a …sentimental… mood, so this might be the best time after all. He found his latest masterpiece and held it up for inspection.

The Jedi master peered at it critically for a long moment. "And what pray tell is that? It looks like a headpiece for a Felucian carnival parade. Don't tell me you've developed a taste for costume design. The Council won't approve, you know."

Anakin rolled his eyes and brandished his creation. Made of supercompressed plastoid composite, and comprised of a series of overlapping plates like feathers or scales, it had taken far more hours to complete than one might think. "It's armor, master," he said in exasperation. "This is a chestplate. I designed it based on Archive records from ancient times. Jedi used to wear armor just like this back in the days of the old Sith wars."

Obi Wan cocked an eyebrow. "I should hardly have characterized you as a history buff before now," he said suspiciously. "Why the sudden interest in ancient lore?"

Anakin grinned. "You're right. I would have just made something up on my own, but I thought this would appeal more to someone like you."

"Someone like me?" the older Jedi repeated, eyes narrowing.

"Well, you know master: you are pretty old-school."

A deep crease appeared between Obi Wan's eyebrows. "Anakin, I fail to see – "

"This is for you," Anakin pushed forward, brusquely. "Now try it on so I can make the final adjustments."

Obi Wan blinked, momentarily dumbfounded. Then his expression hardened into his most stubborn argumentative mode. "Just a moment, Anakin. I appreciate your concern, and I agree with your assessment that this war places us in great peril – but there are very good reasons behind the traditional saying: a pure heart is the only true shield against darkness."

"Yeah, yeah. But not a blaster bolt through the heart." Anakin's eyes flashed. "In case you've forgotten, you just now left the healer's ward after nearly getting skewered on a battlefield!"

"That was an unforeseen complication," Obi Wan corrected him peevishly. "I think I am as capable as anyone else of –"

"Of getting seriously hurt or killed by a stray bolt deflecting off your saber," Anakin interrupted heatedly. "You always lectured me about the danger of believing in my own invincibility. About how overconfidence is the shadow of pride."

"Well, yes, that's all true, but –"

"No but!" the young Jedi snapped. "Please, Obi Wan. Humor me."

"Anakin, while you may no longer be my Padawan, I feel obliged to point out that our roles have not undergone a complete reversal. I am under no obligation to humor you or to otherwise bow to your dictate or whim."

"You said you would be open-minded, master! You gave me your word."

"Blast it, Anakin." Obi Wan tightened his angry posture, arms crossed defensively over his chest. "Open-minded does not mean empty-minded."

That hurt. Stars, why did his former master have to be such a kriffing gundark all the time? "You're not listening! You never do!"

Obi Wan bit back his next retort and took a deep calming breath. There was a smoldering silence. Then, "I'm listening. I'm sorry."

Anakin sank back down onto his crate, leaned forward, deliberately calmed his own racing breath. "Look. I'm not your Padawan anymore. I'm your friend." Brother. You said it yourself before you remembered not to. "And we're fighting a war together. I need you to do this. I won't be able to concentrate or do my duty if I'm worried all the time. I can't lose you, too, master."

The older mans' sigh was barely audible. "Anakin," he muttered. Deep breath. "That is… very problematic. As you know."

Deflated, Anakin scowled at the floor. "I know." Damn it.

"But I did promise to be open minded. And I shall keep that promise. You may as well outline the remainder of this brilliant plan. I take it there is more to this armor than that star-forsaken thing."

There was still a cutting edge to that statement, but Anakin was grateful for the tiny reprieve. He looked up. "Yes. Arm and leg greaves borrowed from the clone issue stuff. And the energy-dispersal bodysuit underneath, You can wear your Jedi surcoat on top, belt, saber, everything. Oh. And a helmet."

"What?" Obi Wan's look of distaste was almost comical. "Anakin, humoring you is one thing but playing masquerade ball is another. And how are the troops supposed to identify their General when he looks like yet another blasted one of them?"

The young Jedi was undeterred. "You stand out in a crowd, master. They'll be able to pick you out, even with a helmet on. You're the cranky barve giving all the orders."

"No," Obi Wan said flatly, cutting through the air with one hand, posture rigid with defiance. "I absolutely draw the line at a helmet."

"Why? Why not cover your head, for stars' sake?"

"Because I hate it, that's why. Almost as much as I hate flying."

Anakin smirked. He had forgotten about his mentor's absurd claustrophobia regarding his face. "You grew up doing everything blindfolded. I saw the younglings in the crèche. I had to do all the same drills. We practically had to practice pissing blindfolded. You should be used to it, master."

Obi Wan's eyes sparked with outrage. "I said, no."

"Fine. " Anakin knew when to give ground at a negotiating table. "Whatever you say. But everything else. You promised."

"I did no such thing. I promised to be open –minded. I'll think about it."

Anakin decided to interpret this as a minor triumph. He beamed. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm working on another chestplate, for me to wear."

"Oh charming," Obi Wan grumbled, reverting to sarcasm. "We'll match. How very…cute. Perhaps the droid armies will simply fall to bits at the sight of us."

"That's' the idea," Anakin retorted with a ferocious grin. "But not 'cause we're cute."

They glared at each other affectionately for a moment. Then Obi Wan's head turned slightly. He frowned. "Ah. I think… yes. Master Li has sent out a search party. Time for me to move along."

Anakin saw him to the door. "Night."

Obi Wan disappeared into his dark cloak and melted into the shadows of the corridor, a minute or two before a bedraggled looking Padawan from the healer's ward came trotting down the passage.

"Master Skywalker!" the young apprentice panted, looking up at him hopefully.

"I have no idea where he is," he told her.

The balcony was one of the highest in the Temple, situated near the base of the southern spire. It was a favorite vantage point and waiting-place for those who were to be summoned to the Council chamber, or for those who needed to decompress after a tense session. It was a spectacular place to watch a Coruscanti sunset, too; though now the gorgeous spectacle was long past and there was nothing to look upon but the glistening web of air traffic and the distant glow of the city's more vivacious sectors.

It was open to the outside air, to the skies, to the stars above, even though they could not be seen. It was a good place to meditate in tune with the Living Force. Obi Wan lowered his hood and let the cool night air sweep over his skin. He let the noise of the metropolis wash over him, the stink of ozone emissions, the tang of pollution on the back of his tongue, the buzz of the ever-moving speeders in the sky. He preferred solitude and quiet on the whole, but this was an experiment. A stretch in the opposite direction, a pushing of limits.

He knew what to do. Qui Gon had drilled him incessantly until he was proficient enough. But as a Knight, as a Master, he had pursued his own way. The way of unity. The way of wholeness, vision, totality. Perhaps it was time to remember the other aspects of the Force as well, as Yoda had suggested. He remembered not to widen his focus, but to narrow it.

No, that wasn't right. He could almost hear Qui Gon chiding him. Not narrow, deepen. Focus, Padawan. Yes, he could do that. Not narrow. He was accustomed to losing himself in the Force during meditation, melting into the plenum until there was no difference, until his awareness was a mere overtone in the harmony of the whole, and the threads of past and future, connection and influence, all wove a pattern in which he flowed and threaded his way, like water, like fluid light. That was one way. But there were others.

One could simply open one's self to the Force, keeping a solid mooring in a very specific time and place: the here, the now. And then let the rampaging currents of universal energy flood through one in ceaseless, giddying torrent. Dizzying – that was how he had described it to his master once long ago. His complaint had elicited a raised eyebrow and a chuckle. Qui Gon had not hated flying, either.

Anakin was in tune with the living Force sometimes. So much that he was dizzying.

Obi Wan was surrounded by temperaments so different from his own. They challenged him. They balanced him. They…tempted him. Sometimes. He breathed out. Deepen. But stay in the moment. The Force, and yet the now. The here. The Living reality, but still the particular. So strange.

From your point of view, he reminded himself. He loved the other point of view too. Or at least the other people who had been shaped by the Force in its other image. Love. It didn't seem as foreign in this modality. It fit in, somehow. He let the thought go. Deepen. Stay grounded. Open. The Force, always in motion, always the same.

Well met.

Eyes closed, he tensed. He could still hear every detail of the outer world – more, even, than before. And yet that had been an inner voice, and not his own.

Relax.

This was so strange. He felt put upon, in some degree. How dare the Force... behave in such a way?

Impudent as always, I see. But still obedient, I hope. You must go to Rhellis Massa. It's important.

Rhellis Massa, the dead world? Why? Why must he go? But there were no answers. Such things , such queries belonged to the realm of unity, of purpose and destiny. This was the moment, the deep origin point. He was stepping out of bounds, he supposed. But to be told so peremptorily that he must do this or that… In this meditative state, he could even feel his own breath's minute texture: hot, swelling with suspicion and dread, swirling in his lungs, released, the pause between. Had this…voice…consulted with the Council before it began issuing orders?

And then he heard a soft chuckle, not his own. You still have much to learn.

The next instant, he was pulling away, hard. Shallow sensory reality crashed back into place with a jagged throb behind his temples. Oh, no. No no no. The clone medic aboard the cruiser had assured him that there had been no sign of concussion, of serious head injury. He was beginning to doubt the fellow's competence. Sucking in a great lungful of stinging, polluted night air, and turning away from the railing with a sharp movement, he yanked his cloak about his body and strode briskly into the Temple's interior. That had been disturbing – and compelling.

He knew two things with certainty. He needed to speak to Yoda again.

And he needed to go to Rhellis Massa.