Chapter 3 - Wrea
Anakin flew over Wrea, closing in on his intended Island. The largest Island in this particular chain held a Comm tower, built to facilitate faster communication during the recent wars. It also held a now abandoned outpost and a small ghost town for those once stationed here. Anakin saw a single shuttle parked in an open field. He headed for it and landed nearby.
Anakin climbed out of his shuttle and saw a make-shift campsite laid out. Obi-Wan put down a holo-map he was examining. "Anakin." Obi-Wan's tone suggested a lecture was soon to follow.
"Master," Anakin tried to placate.
"You're the chosen one! You were supposed to fight the dark side and bring balance to the force, not run away." Anakin tried to speak, but Obi-Wan did not stop. "If you had stayed with Yoda and I, the three of us together would have stood up against Palpatine, and we wouldn't be in this mess. But because you weren't there when we rendezvoused, Yoda was afraid to bring me with him. He was forced to stand alone!"
"Master, I'm s-so..."
Obi-Wan interrupted him again. "He barely made it out of there alive!"
Anakin bowed his head in shame. "Master, I'm sorry. Things just… Believe me, I didn't have a choice."
"So where were you?" Anakin looked up at Obi-Wan. He expected the question, and had rehearsed an explanation. But now that he was here, his tongue just wouldn't obey. "Where were you for nearly three weeks, away from your comm and ship."
"Mudslide of Lyleks in the Mid-rim. I mean there was a Mudslide near a small village, and then Lyleks attacked once I got the survivors out. I'm sorry, but it was all very urgent, and time sensitive."
Obi-Wan had that face. The face that suggested he didn't believe a word Anakin just said. Fortunately, he finished his interrogation, and turned back to the map. "Yoda originally wanted to go into hiding, but I convinced him we shouldn't hide forever. There are likely others like us, Jedi survivors who are scattered across the galaxy with no way of communicating with each other. We are going to make a way. Using the tech in this tower, we are going to create a secure comm wave we can use for communication. One the Empire can't use to track us."
"How are we gonna do that? Any Comm signal can be hacked," Anakin asked.
"By using the Force." Obi-Wan said. "Yoda was contacted by none other than Master Qui-Gon Jinn."
"Is this a joke? Qui-Gon is dead." Anakin turned, glancing around at the campsite.
"Yes, he is." Obi-Wan smiled, which only confused Anakin more. "He, or his spirit, lives on in the Force. Yoda has learned to communicate with him. He helped Yoda come up with a way we can modify the equipment in the tower, to allow for a way we can use the Force to communicate. The Comm signal will be one of the Force, instead of regular signals. What's more, it'll be light side, so the Sith shouldn't be able to use it, even if they know about it."
Anakin nodded, still not sure if he should be taking his former master seriously or not. "You're going to rewire a comm tower. You hate technology."
"Then I guess I'm lucky you finally answered your Comm," Obi-Wan playfully quipped.
"I guess we better get going. It'll be a day's hike just to get up to the outpost." Anakin didn't mention how strongly he wanted to get back to his wife and kids.
"No, we're not gonna go that way." Obi-Wan shook his head. The Comm tower was on the top of a tall mountain, with no ideal landing sites around it. Halfway up the mountain, on a hiker's trail was a now abandoned outpost.
"The outpost is occupied. If you go that way they'll shoot you down".
"Smugglers, we can handle a den of smugglers," Anakin proclaimed.
"And what do you suppose we do? Arrest them all? The best thing to do is to sneak up without alerting their sentries. I've been looking at these maps all day, and the only way up is to climb the eastern ridge."
Anakin sighed. "Climb a mountain. You've got to be kidding me." He wiped his hands over his face.
"You know, there's no shame in it." Obi-Wan said in a quiet voice. Anakin looked up at him in surprise. "Being afraid to confront Sidious. It's why you left, isn't it."
"Yeah," Anakin lied. This version was much easier than the long story he rehearsed on his way here. "Palpatine was like a mentor, a friend. I thought I could trust him. I thought we could all trust him." This last part came out easily because it was true.
"If it had been you, and I had been asked to confront you, I don't know that I'd be able to do the same. Just wanted you to know that." Obi-Wan says sheepishly.
Both men had been pulling equipment out of the holds on their ships as they talked. Anakin held a long rope, attached to a hook, and a clip at the other end. Obi-Wan held the same.
"Lets go." Anakin walked up to the base of the cliff. He tied the rope around his waist, clipping the end of the rope to itself, and then swung the other end, the one with the hook, throwing it upward. He lifted his hand and used the force to levitate the hook to an appropriate height and location on the rock wall to attach securely. Beside him Obi-Wan did the same.
Both men placed one foot on the rock wall, then reached up to grab another location on the cliff. They pulled their bodies up to allow them to place their feet in increasingly higher footholds. Anakin found the whole climbing process to be far too tedious for his liking. He'd much prefer to charge into the smuggler's den, waving his lightsaber to deflect blaster shots. The careful act of mountain climbing seemed far too much like meditation for his liking. Which meant that Obi-Wan must love this.
About three quarters of the way up, Anakin sensed something, so he swung his body around on the rope, loosing his foothold in the process, and narrowly missed being shot as a blaster fired into the stone wall.
"Someone's shooting at us!" Anakin states the obvious.
"I realize that, Anakin." Obi-Wan swings his body to miss another shot.
"Well, What are we going to do. I didn't bring a blaster up here."
"Neither did I."
Anakin sighs. "Look, we've got to get over that ridge. We're sitting ducks out here. Swing to your right, then go straight up."
Obi-Wan looks where Anakin told him to swing. There was a ledge that seemed out of the way of the blaster shots, protected by an old tree.
Obi-Wan swung, and landed on the ledge. Anakin followed. "Above and to the right some more, there's a similar ledge. Then right of that the cliff side turns, we should be far enough away they won't be able to reach us from their current position," Anakin explained.
When the two finally reached the top of the mountain they were both out of breath. "Not as young as I used to be." Obi-Wan sipped his drink.
"You said it, old man," Anakin quipped back.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. He and Anakin walked up to the door at the base of the tower.
"It's locked," Anakin discovered after banging on the door lock. Obi-Wan patted his clothes, looking for something in his pocket. After a few seconds Anakin grumbled, "Come on. Don't tell me we got all the way up here, and you didn't think of the door." Obi-Wan then smiled, and pulled a key-card out of a hidden pocket of his shirt.
"I wasn't inactive for the past three weeks." Obi-Wan swiped the card into the slot and the door opened.
Getting inside and rewiring the circuits was not eventful. Obi-Wan was less than helpful, and he mostly got frustrated at himself for misreading Yoda's instructions. Anakin was constantly stopping his work to help unscramble what Obi-Wan did, until he finally dismissed Obi-Wan entirely and decided to do the rest by himself.
"Is this even the correct machine?" Obi Wan complains.
Anakin rolls his eyes. "You're holding it wrong." He reaches out and manually turns the holo image coming out of a device on Obi-Wan's wrist.
"No, no, no! Blue wires always connect to the yellow. Yes, even when they are short. You know what would be a big help. Go downstairs and make sure those smugglers haven't climbed the mountain yet."
Obi-Wan looked peeved but did as Anakin suggested.
When Obi-Wan returned, Anakin was finished. "How's this thing supposed to work?" Anakin asked.
"Now we meditate." Obi-Wan sat on the floor of the workshop and Anakin sat in front of him, like they did when he was a youngling learning how to meditate.
In a few minutes Anakin could feel a bit of the force brush through his arm. Anakin opened his eyes wide with shock. Everything around him was a deep blue. The ground, the sky, everything going on forever. And there in front of him was the fuzzy figure of Obi-Wan.
"Where are we?" Anakin asked.
"Not Where, but what, the question is." Anakin turned in a rush to see Yoda hovering behind him in a meditative pose. "One with the force, you are." Yoda was surrounded by several meditating younglings. Anakin recognized them as the ones he rescued from the temple that day.
"The Comm!" Anakin exclaimed. Just then several other Jedi were appearing in the space as if meditating. Yoda motioned to the younglings, and they got up and ran to those Jedi.
"Master Yoda, my apprentice was killed by…" One Jedi ran over to Yoda, and began to tell him her story.
"Master Yoda, my master was slaughtered by…" Another, a Jedi apprentice ran over and interrupted the other.
"Master Yoda, Master Yoda, Master Yoda…" The Jedi were panicked and their requests for help went over one another.
Yoda lifted his arm, and the Jedi around him silenced. "Succeeded in many evils, the Sith has, but separated us, he has not."
This quieted the frantic outcry, and the Jedi began to sit around Yoda as he discussed his plans. Most of the Jedi Counsel were gone, or at this point, missing, but Yoda promised he would be filling those seats in the time to come. In the meantime, he encouraged all Jedi to use the mental-scape, as they were calling it, to communicate.
"Meat up, if you have to. But don't gather in one place. Still pursuing all Jedi, Sidious is, and, he will stop to destroy the order, at nothing." Yoda instructed.
One of the Jedi knights raised a tentative hand. "I know of a few places which could be persuaded to hide a Jedi, if anyone's interested." That Jedi was a young man, Anakin's age, known as Tel-Mac Linnon. He was soon surrounded by interested parties.
Anakin and Obi-Wan stepped back from the crowd. "Are you ready to go now?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Yes, how do we depart?" Anakin asked.
"By completing the meditation." Obi-Wan closed his eyes and in a few seconds he disappeared from the mental-scape. Anakin did the same, and when he opened his eyes again, he was back in the comm tower.
Obi-Wan was putting their tools back into his vest pockets, and doing his best to clean up the scene so it would look like no one had been there. Anakin helped him with this task, then they left the tower and prepared to climb back down the cliff.
Climbing down was a lot quicker. They fixed their ropes onto the top of the cliff, then used the rope to propel down. Anakin was relieved to not be shot at, and he assumed whoever had done so before, must have moved on when they reached the top of the cliff.
When Anakin and Obi-Wan reached the ground they barely had enough time to pull their ropes off the cliff, using the force. They were surrounded by about ten rugged, yet armed men. Anakin and Obi-Wan pulled out their lightsabers and prepared to fight.
"Wait," a dark skinned man stepped out from the crowd. "They're Jedi." He stood between the armed men and the Jedi knights. "We have no issues with the Jedi. Please, put down your weapons." The men around him did so. Anakin squinted, he was sure he recognized the man.
Anakin and Obi-Wan deactivated their sabers. "Hello, I'm Obi-Wan, this is Anakin. We had business in the tower, but we really didn't want to interfere your enterprise."
"Saw, is that you?" It dawned on Anakin. "Saw Gerrera, he led the Onderonian Rebels." Anakin explained to Obi-Wan.
"Skywalker, Master Obi-Wan. Forgive us. We did not recognize you climbing up the mountain."
"And you must forgive me. When I saw the outpost was occupied, I assumed it was by a group of smugglers. Had we known, we would have said Hello."
"I lead a small, but growing group of rebels. It appears that now, your enemy is our enemy. May I count on having the assistance of the Jedi Order?"
Obi-Wan reached up to scratch his eyebrow. "W-we are a bit scattered at the moment. But our actions today will hopefully change that. I will bring this up with the counsel as soon as I can, and we will see."
His answer pleased Saw. His men scattered and left the clearing. Saw proceeded to walk with the two men back to their ships. "This is only one of our outposts. Our other outposts are on…" He proceeded to list worlds, and coordinates for Obi-Wan. Anakin found he couldn't really pay attention to him anymore. All he could think about was going home and getting back to Padme, Luke, and Leia.
"You can tell your fellow Jedi that any of our bases would be proud to offer sanctuary." Saw concluded.
"We thank you." Obi-Wan gave a polite bow, and Saw walked off, back in the direction of the old outpost.
"So-oo" Anakin began. He wasn't sure how he'd shake Obi-Wan, but he'd have to, if he wanted to see his family again.
"I have a safe-house, but I don't think you'll be welcome there. You found your way for three weeks on your own, I trust you can do the same. But Meditate every day at Noon. I'll see you in the mental-scape and we can coordinate our next moves." Anakin almost jumped with joy. "Don-don't do anything stupid." Obi-Wan gave Anakin a warning glance, to which Anakin replied with an innocent face and smile. He jumped in his ship and flew off quickly.
Later on, in the mental-scape, Obi-Wan returned via meditation and took Yoda away from a group of Jedi. Obi-Wan explained to him about Saw's offer and his proposal.
"Tell you why he ran off, did Anakin?" asked Yoda.
"No, but I think I know already. He practically confirmed it. He seems to have, unfortunately, form an attachment to Palpatine. I think it was enough that he reported him to the counsel when he did. We shouldn't ask much more of him yet."
"True. Dangerous, attachments become, when used against us, they are. Grace, we will give him. And think about this proposal of Saw Gerrera, we will. Extreme, his methods are, but desperate are we." Yoda nodded.
"Yes, we are desperate." Obi-Wan looked on, deep in thought.
Ok, I had to get creative again with a lot of this. The whole mental-scape thing is not in cannon, but I hope you buy it. And Saw Gerrera wasn't confirmed on Wrea until later, but he was leading a group of rebels at this time, and I figured, they could have a small outpost on Wrea. Saw Gerrera's Rebels were rebelling against the Separatists who took over their home planet, from what I understand. I only have a basic knowledge from Wookieepedia, so forgive me if I got anything wrong.
Thank you to everyone who has favorited this story. And thanks for your reviews. I write this to practice writing skills and test out different strategies, so your feedback is very useful.
