Fallout
Chapter 18
No sooner had he finished his makeshift repairs to the Delta, than Anakin began to feel weariness tug at his mind and body, a seductive invitation to rest. He couldn't allow that, however; to sleep now, despite the taxing stretch of hours that lay behind, and the harrowing task that lay ahead, would be a betrayal. He and he alone kept vigil over the distant surface of the planet, and its hidden refugees. By his will, by his power, by his singular attention, he would hold off assault upon the Friends and his master for as long as possible. He felt that were he to slacken that focus one iota, malice would sneak past his guard and strike, before he was ready.
Before he could be there to help.
That had happened on Tatooine. It could never happen again. He could not be too late to save anyone, ever, ever again.
And so he stayed awake. Meditation helped a little. But fear helped more. Not that Anakin felt fear – no, he was far past that, a Knight of the ranks, and a General who dined with death every other night, when he had no other engagements. Fear was his companion, his vassal. It was always present at his elbow, attendant upon him, obedient to his bidding. It whispered counsel in his ear, obeisant and humble. Obi Wan had tried to teach him release, the banishment of fear. His would not be so easily exiled. Instead he had tamed fear, made it his friend and ally, a thing to be used just as a tool was used. And that counted as mastery over fear, didn't it?
Now, in the endless night of the star system's outer fringes, suspended in an agony of waiting while the promised reinforcements crawled sullenly through a hyperspace tunnel, like reluctant children chivvied out of bed to attend dreary lessons, he permitted fear to keep him awake with its mutterings. It was a dutiful jester, leaning into his regal ear and spouting a fair torrent of nonsense, all edged with just enough poison to jolt his weary senses into new alertness.
If the droids overrun the bunker, Obi Wan will have to fight them alone. How many can he hold off, and for how long? If he has to sacrifice himself to assure the Friends' safe exit, he will. He'll collapse the whole place on top of the droids, taking himself out with them. I'll never be able to find him, to dig him out. Or they'll take him captive.. what if I can't get back in time and they drag him off to Dooku before I can rescue him? What then? Master Yoda said to stay close, and here I am, far far far away, just when danger is brewing. Then it's my fault. What if he dies down there in the battle because he won't wear Sith-damned kriffing armor and a random bolt flies past and hits him in the side or the chest, and I wasn't there to watch his back?
This whole stupid mission was Obi Wan's idea. The Council didn't send them on this one – no, that was his old master, obeying some inexplicable impulse, some supposed vision from the Force. How about that? What in the kriff were they doing out here in the first place? Obi Wan had no right to go endangering his own life on the prompting of every fleeting premonition. He had obligations that superceded personal whim – obligations to the Order, to the Republic, to Anakin.
Who cared about the Friends anyway? Sen Sen Xerxes got them into their mess, and he could kriffing well get them out again without calling in Obi Wan to do the dirty work for him.
"Master Skywalker, sir." He started badly, enough for Cody to see him if the clone commander was paying attanetion, which Anakin hoped he hadn't been.
"Yes?"
The commander's dark eyes bored into his, challenging. That last question might have been a bit snarky, but Cody could just shove it, wipe that mildly dispproving look off his face. You'd swear he was taking lessons from Obi Wan, the way he stood there with his arms crossed just-so over his chest.
"The reinforcements have arrived, sir. They reverted six points off the outer orbital lane. Captain O'Cheo would like a holo-conference with you, General."
"Right." He followed Cody back to the bridge, where a shimmering blue figure stood waiting above the projector equipment. O'cheo was no clone; hard-faced, graying, he was an naval officer of some experience. His eyes slitted in disapproval when the young Jedi appeared in camera range.
"General Skywalker," the man sniffed, raking Anakin up and down in patent disapproval. "I understand that we need to effect an evacuation from a level three radiation hazard environment. Let us discuss naval tactics. I strongly disrecommend taking the cruiser down into atmosphere. Briefing materials are indicative of a strong risk to stabilizers and dampers."
Anakin stiffened. "It's my command, Captain. And I'm ordering a tactical descent. Your ship will come in on the far side, sunward, while the frigate draws fire from the first line of attack. We'll release the gunships in the stratosphere, and take them down to the rendezvous point from there. I'll need you to wait for our signal before returning to orbit."
O'Cheo's dark eyebrows beetled together. "There are enemy ships in orbit as we speak," he said tartly. "Your plan involves a great drain on our defensive shielding. I will order a gunship drop from orbit without risking atmospheric damage to this vessel."
"No you won't," the young Jedi growled. That was suicide for the men; the only thing it would preserve would be the cruiser's paint job, and O'cheo's personnel. Anakin wasn't about to sacrifice half his troops to make sure the arrogant Captain came out of this engagement with a clean casualty record.
O'cheo waved a thin datapad before the holocamera. "My commission, General Skywalker, places me in command of this vessel and mandates that we provide suitable support for your ground operations. It does not entitle me to indulge in reckless waste of life and resources. You may be a Jedi, my young sir, but I refuse to play at god."
Wrath exploded in the Force, stealing Anakin's breath. He held up a hand, crushed the fingers into a hard fist. Macro-klicks away, O'cheos' datapad burst into fragments, sparks and circuits dropping from the man's shaking hand.
"Consider yourself promoted, then," Anakin growled, rage rasping in his throat, girding his voice with steel.
Silence. O'Cheo swallowed. The clones behind Anakin stilled into awe-filled submission. The Force churned, thickened into a hot and turgid shadow.
"As you say, General," the Captain choked out. "We'll follow your lead."
Artificial dusk settled gently upon the Friends' domain: the glow-globes dimmed to a deep orange, labor and chattering ceased as the denizens of the subterranean world retired to sleep, the pervasive sweet scent from the central gardens spread in a thick blanket as the diurnal rhythm shifted.
Obi Wan found himself alone with the ancient Thisspiasian Jedi again. They walked – and slithered – along the main corridor connecting the deeper levels to the original bunker system, scales and bare feet issuing hardly a sound as they passed, the Force flowing placidly about them, an invisible mantle lending warmth against the chill of oncoming danger.
"You will wish to sleep, of course," Master Xerxes remarked. "I have long since laid aside slumber in favor of meditation, but you are quite young."
Obi Wan's eyebrows rose. He should rest, particularly since he anticipated taxing battle ahead, but he doubted such a reprieve would be granted him. Not when there was so much to… brood upon. "May we speak of your earlier offer first?" he asked, coming to a halt.
The ancient Jedi peered at him intently, the silver of his hair and beard cast in a ruddy light by the soft glowlamp beyond. He might have smiled, but it was difficult to discern his expressions. "Come," he said, waving open the door to a small chamber, a tiny cell provided with a low sleeping mat and adorned on one side with a strange carving, pockmarks and holes arranged in a vaguely script-like pattern.
"Ichth'chtxl artisanship," Sen Sen Xerxes explained. "Alas, in all these years I have never yet learned to decipher their writing system. It relies on pheromone traces in the indentations, you see. They tell me this is a poem, extolling the fierce loyalty and love of one generation for the next. Their people bloom and fade quickly, you know; in a century, we have seen seventeen generations here."
"Ah." Interesting, perhaps, but he was preoccupied with the impending attack – and even more distracted by the question that had been posed to him earlier that day. They sat, gravely contemplating one another across the small space.
"You have considered my offer, then," the Thisspiasian stated. "Are you willing?"
Obi Wan inclined his head slightly. "I have considered it, yes." He hesitated. The Force was placid, offering no counsel, nor any warning. The crossroads lay before him, yet no indication was given that this way or that was the path to destruction. "I do not desire immortality, master. That is not the Jedi way."
Master Xerxes breath fluttered the loose strands of his long beard. It might have been an amused chuckle. "I do not offer you a Dark path," he assured the younger man. "Do you not trust me?"
Their eyes met. "With respect, master, I am well aware of your past disagreements with the Coucnil. I know that your way is not Dark… yet I do not know that your way is the path of tradition."
"It is not," the ancient Jedi affirmed. "Does that disturb you?"
Did it? Well, of course it did! What sort of a question was that? He smiled wryly, deflecting the uncomfortable inquiry. "Our tradition has been safeguard and guiding light for millenia," he said, firmly. It was true; he knew it. He had learned it, the hard way. "I would not presume to look past it. I am only an individual."
The Thisspiasian tilted his silver head to one side. "Yet that tradition was founded by individuals and is interpreted and developed and applied by individuals, at every moment. Your Council is nothing more than an alliance of individuals. You yourself have many times embodied this tradition according to your own individual conscience and will, else you would be an automaton, a drone."
"Yes, but…immortality. A Jedi does not crave such things."
Sen Sen Xerxes sighed and repositioned his coiling tail beneath himself. He interlaced his long fingers. "You do not crave death, either."
"Of course not. But I will accept it when the time comes."
"Master Kenobi: I would not have offered you this wisdom if I thought you craved immortality. But will you accept it, if the time comes?"
Obi Wan released the breath which had crouched, waiting, at the bottom of his lungs. It slid out into the warm room, to mingle with the scent of the fungal garden, with the glittering laughter in the Force, just beyond conscious perception. His belly twisted with a nervous tension he had not felt since the age of thirteen, when he first looked death squarely in the eye and accepted it.
"It is a gift, not a temptation, which I offer you. Will you accept that which you do not understand?"
Who was he to accept such honor, to claim such high mysteries as his own? "Master, I am not… such wisdom, such teachings… they are not for me. I thank you for you offer, but I decline. I am a servant of the Force. I need nothing more than what has been allotted me already."
Master Sen Sen Xerxes appeared shocked, almost disbelieving. He was silent for a long moment, the Force faintly ringing with astonishment, and then humor. "Ah," he murmured softly, as though speaking to himself. "He is more than worthy… I agree with you there. But he is not yet ready."
"Master Xerxes?"
"Forgive me, my friend." The Thisspiasian spread his gnarled hands. "I understand your decision. And now I will leave you to your rest." He rose on his powerful lower extremity, and gazed down on his guest. "May the Force be with you."
When he had departed, sliding the door shut behind him, Obi Wan remained sitting, eyes tracing somberly over the contours of the Ichth'chtxl inscriptions on the opposite wall. The space seemed suddenly chill, and he longed for his cloak, to shed the exotic saffron cloth of the Friends' robe and armor himself in the symbols of Jedi anonymity, submission, humility. The sleeping mat waited behind him in clear invitation, but he doubted his mind would find release.
He closed his eyes and reached instinctively into the Force, into the Living center.
It was a good answer, but not the only one. You have much to learn still.
"I know that." He winced at the truculence underlying his own tone. He really should sleep. And stop talking to himself.
I agree. Rest now.
Warmth surged within the Force's depths, suffusing blood and bone, weighting limbs with longing, smoothing over thoughts like a hand brushing across childish scrawling in the sands. He rolled onto the sleep mat, feebly resisting for a moment. And then the soft tide of light washed over him again, achingly familiar and yet infinitely distant. He exhaled, and surrendered.
It's a beautiful poem, by the way.
But he was too tired to respond, or even to comprehend..