Precipice by shadowsong26

Original Author's Note: Quick note-this chapter takes place a couple months after the last one.

Captain: Chapter 10

"Are you sure you want me to leave you here, Kenobi?" Hondo asked, staring down at the planet's icy landscape from the boarding ramp of his ship.

"Yes, I'm sure," he said. Not that he particularly blamed Hondo for the reaction-Ordo Plutonia was just as uninviting now as it had been on his first visit years ago, early in the war. But that meant that the Imperial presence was minimal, and, since he and Anakin had managed to maintain decent relations with the Talz, despite everything, it was as good a place as any to use as a waystation. "I'm meeting someone here."

"Hmm...anyone I know?" he asked, stroking his ever-present pet thoughtfully.

He raised an eyebrow. "Come, now. You know better."

"Well, you can't blame me for trying," Hondo said, waving a hand and grinning at him.

No, not really, he admitted, at least internally. He and the pirate had cobbled together a perfectly functional working relationship in the two years since Hondo had first very courteously not seen him in his rival's safehouse. It was mostly built on trading information back and forth-Hondo provided Obi-Wan with intelligence about trends in the black market and, in exchange, Obi-Wan helpfully pointed him towards Imperial military stockpiles that wouldn't be too risky to raid, and various locations where he could be guaranteed buyers for just about anything he acquired along the way. Some of those were resistance cells that Obi-Wan couldn't arm or otherwise supply in any other way. Some of them were simply out-of-the-way places, off the major trading routes, with the hope that Hondo's people could fill that niche before the Hutts or Black Sun or the like decided to expand.

Their arrangement benefited them both. Obi-Wan had more pieces of the general puzzle of galactic trade that might help him anticipate some of Palpatine's future maneuvers, or figure out what that massive infrastructure project he knew was being built somewhere really was. Hondo, in exchange, had a fairly steady moderate-risk, moderate-reward income that could hold his crew together when his more typical piracy efforts were less than fruitful. His prices, where Obi-Wan sent him, were always... tolerable, if not quite reasonable. Presumably, Hondo knew that if he pushed that line too far, he'd stop receiving tips at all.

Still, as stable as their working relationship was, Obi-Wan knew better than to trust Hondo too far. There were certain cells, no matter how much they'd benefit from the system, Obi-Wan would never share; certain people and places he kept strictly off-limits to the pirate. And Anakin was one of them, because, while Obi-Wan was nearly certain that Hondo wouldn't hand him over to the Empire without a fairly literal blaster pointed at his head, he wasn't certain how much of that was a practical assessment of the Empire's "gratitude" and how much was the personal fondness Hondo seemed to have for him. If it was too much of the latter, he couldn't trust that protection would extend to Anakin.

He wouldn't have brought Hondo this close, even, but the ship he had until recently been using had had an unfortunate accident with a sentry tower on his last mission, and he hadn't had a chance to acquire another one yet. And, as he and Anakin finally both had a few days to slip off to Dagobah together-three months after they'd first learned that the Emperor had taken a new apprentice, and six weeks after Padmẻ had discovered his name-time was rather a factor.

So, when Hondo had turned up, Obi-Wan had naturally bargained with him for a ride.

"Well, what's it to me?" Hondo said. "You're always doing crazy things in strange places, Kenobi. The day you make sense is the day I worry, yes?" He sighed theatrically and shook his head. "Well! I will leave you to your wasteland, my friend. And hope to see you soon?"

"Always," Obi-Wan said, and bowed. "Thank you for the ride. Until next time." He leapt off the ramp without waiting for a response, landing knee-deep in the snow, and then darted off to get out of range of the backdraft of the saucer's engines as Hondo took off.

He watched until the ship was completely out of his range of vision, then closed his eyes to get his bearings and started off east towards the rendezvous point.

Anakin and the Waterfall were waiting precisely where Obi-Wan had expected them to be, about four kilometers from the armistice point Senator Chuchi had established. The boarding ramp was down, and Anakin was sitting cross-legged on it, fiddling with what looked like the power module for a laser cannon and swearing softly. Judging by the content of his sullen muttering, the balance between retaining sufficient manual dexterity for delicate work and not losing his remaining hand to frostbite was not currently in his favor.

"I do hope that's not something we'll need," he said, when Anakin failed to greet him.

He shook his head. "Replacement," he said. "Guns work okay, but I'm making them better." He finished his immediate task, then carefully replaced the panel over the wiring so it wouldn't get damaged or electrocute anyone.

"Fair enough," Obi-Wan said, smiling a little to himself. Some things never change.

His fond amusement quickly gave way to a brief flash of concern; Anakin stood with a little more care than usual, briefly putting a hand on his side.

"Everything all right?"

"I'm fine," Anakin said, then, catching the look on Obi-Wan's face, somewhat grudgingly admitted, "I cracked a couple ribs on my last mission. Beru taped them up to me."

"I see," he said. Anakin probably wasn't understating his situation too much-their last conversation had been very brief, checking in and advising that their respective latest missions had gone well and confirming the coordinates on Ordo Plutonia-but he hadn't seemed to be in too much pain. Even he could only hide so much.

I can confirm with Rex once we get underway, he decided. Better to be sure-Anakin had somehow managed to only get less careful of his own safety since the Clone War had ended and this new one had begun.

"Rex isn't here," Anakin said-probably not actually responding to Obi-Wan's thoughts; even as close as their bond was, it still took actual, noticeable effort to project or read true words like that. "He decided to stay at the farm and sit this meeting out."

Which was not particularly surprising, now that he thought about it. Obi-Wan and Anakin had sent Master Yoda a message regarding Rex, of course (and he had agreed with them on how to handle the situation), but that likely didn't make an actual encounter any less daunting. Besides which, the topic of the meeting was pretty exclusively Jedi business. The two of them could brief Rex afterwards if anything in their plans for Darth Specter had changed.

It was also something of a relief. Not because of any potential tension, but because Rex had, since rejoining them, become almost as fiercely protective of Anakin as Anakin was of everyone else. If Rex had allowed Anakin to go off alone, even on a trip as unlikely to see danger as consulting Master Yoda on Dagobah, his injuries had to be relatively minor.

"All right," he said, and followed Anakin into his ship, hitting the button to seal the ramp behind them. "Everyone there is doing well?"

"Yeah," he said. "Leia misses you, she kept asking when she'll get to see you again."

"I'll go back with you when you pick up Rex," he said. It had been entirely too long since he'd seen her.

"Sounds good," Anakin said. "All right, strap in."

"With you driving?" Obi-Wan said, already settled into the copilot's seat. "Always."

It took a little over a day for them to reach Dagobah, with all the backtracking and rerouting Anakin now did as a matter of course to avoid potential pursuit. Anakin spent most of the time he wasn't actively engaged in piloting continuing to work on his power module. Obi-Wan worked on updating their target and allies map, ran a few Sabẻr drills (and talked Anakin out of sparring with no little difficulty-but cracked ribs were still cracked ribs, and healed enough to travel or handle an emergency was not license to push without necessity), and played a few rounds of dejarik with Artoo.

They talked, too, of course; about general strategy for the coming months, about when they should start training Leia in earnest, beyond the basic control exercises disguised as creche games. And a little bit about Specter, too. Anakin's crushing waves of guilt seemed to be somewhat lesser as time went on, at least. There certainly hadn't been a repetition of that first incident in the swamp all those weeks ago. But he still clearly found it difficult to put his thoughts into words. They both did.

Still, it seemed to help. Or, at least for Obi-Wan, it got a little easier each time. And it was certainly immense progress from how they would have handled this-how they had handled similar discussions-three years ago.

But finally, they dropped out of hyperspace for the last time. Anakin set about scanning for a solid place to set down, while Obi-Wan used one of his back doors into the HoloNet to see if there were any new atrocities from Specter, or any other information they should discuss with Master Yoda while they were here.

He flipped through a series of press releases from Coruscant-all propaganda and only rarely true, of course, but knowing what Palpatine was saying was almost as useful, in its own way, as knowing what he was doing.

And then one of them caught his eye.

He paused, an scrolled back up to reread it more carefully.

It said the exact same thing the second time.

The Emperor, it seemed, was expecting a child.

That...that can't be right.

A third read-through changed nothing. A child. The mere thought was-

"Master?"

He looked up to see Anakin watch him, worry writ plain on his face. They had landed, while he'd been staring at his 'pad, and he hadn't even noticed.

"What's wrong?" Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan hesitated half a second, then said, "Something we should discuss as a group." Because if I brought it up here, with just the two of us, we'd never get off this ship to meet with Master Yoda. He knew there was no possible way Anakin would take the revelation well, and the longer it took him to storm off and do something stupid to try and fix it, the better chance Obi-Wan had of talking him down.

Anakin stared at him for a long moment. "That bad," he said, quietly.

"Yes."

He paused a second. "It's not-you'd tell me if…"

"It's nothing to do with Luke or Padmẻ ," he assured him. Not...directly, anyway. "We should go."

"Right." Anakin shook his head, and stood up. "Artoo, you coming, or you want to stay with the ship?"

The droid beeped something disparaging-Obi-Wan still didn't really understand binary, but he thought he caught the words 'swamp' and 'crazy' in there somewhere.

"So, staying with the ship, then," Anakin replied, without missing a beat. "Comm if you change your mind."

With that, the two Jedi exited the ship, and found Master Yoda waiting for them at the base of the ramp. Beside him, he felt Anakin relax just a hair, which was another thing that was different-and vastly improved-from the past. He still didn't know exactly what the two of them had said to one another, back on Polis Massa, or at any time since, but it had had a strong, positive impact on his friend.

"Good to see you, it is," Yoda said, bowing for them, which they returned as one. "This way, my home is. Come, and discuss this Darth Specter we will."

"There's not all that much to say," Obi-Wan said, falling into step behind him. "Neither of us has actually run across him yet. We thought it best to watch and wait-there's so much else for us to do."

"And few enough, we are," Yoda said. He was pensive, closed-off. "Disagree with your assessment, I do not. But delay too long, we should not, either. To allow Sith evil to grow unchecked is unwise."

They came through another stand of trees to a small, cozy-looking hut at the base of one of the trees. Yoda pushed open the door and led them inside, gesturing them to a pair of chairs by the fire.

Anakin managed not to hit his head on the ceiling, but it was a very near miss. "That's what I was thinking, Master," he said. "I just-I'm not sure when we make the call to bait him ourselves."

The datapad with its alarming headline weighed heavy in Obi-Wan's hands. Especially with that on the horizon…he couldn't predict how it might affect Specter and his situation, let alone any attempts of theirs to bait the new Sith Lord into attacking them before he was ready.

"A thought, you have, Obi-Wan?" Master Yoda prompted.

"Not directly related," he admitted. "But there's an additional complication." He pulled out the 'pad and called up the relevant file. He passed it first to Yoda, who skimmed it before handing it to Anakin and sitting back, mind once again opaque.

Anakin's, as Obi-Wan predicted, was not. It was whirling, horrified, and-with that same sick undertone of guilt he felt whenever they spoke about Specter.

"We can't-we can't let him do this," Anakin said after a minute. "We can't. He'll-this is a child, we can't leave a child with him." His thoughts whirled again, now focused on Leia. There weren't any words that Obi-Wan could detect, he wasn't projecting enough for that, but he couldn't hide his feelings where his daughter was concerned, couldn't quite mask the horrifying image of a child just like her in-a nightmare.

Obi-Wan's were a little different, on his own near-catastrophic failure. We can't leave a child with him, not again. He should never have allowed Palpatine to cultivate any sort of relationship with Anakin. He knew that now. But he'd been-grieving, and unsettled, and overwhelmed, and it…

What Palpatine had nearly done wasn't his fault. No more than what he actually had done. But at the same time, his action (or inaction) had caused a great deal of pain. And now there was another child, and all he could think was, how much will this child be hurt, if we allow this? Especially since this child would be in the Emperor's hands from a much younger age, and with fewer lifelines to help them cope. And what lifelines they did have would probably have limited access, so there wasn't-there might not be much they could do.

"So, to Coruscant you would go, hmm?" Yoda said. The disapproval was clear in his voice. "Break into the Emperor's palace, steal his child?"

"Yes," Anakin said, immediately.

"How?"

A short pause. He took a breath. "I don't know yet," Anakin admitted. His voice was taut and shaking a little. "I don't-but there's a few months to plan that. Right? We can find a way. We can figure this out." He looked at Obi-Wan, pleadingly.

"It's risky," he said, cautiously. Because it was. It was bordering on insane to contemplate. But he was already starting to put together the basics of a plan. For the first time, he was almost grateful Palpatine had built his palace on the ruins of the Temple. It meant Obi-Wan knew the lay of the land, so to speak. At least to a point.

"And if another, he has?" Yoda asked. "What then?"

And Obi-Wan saw where the whole thing unravelled.

If he wants this-if Palpatine truly wants this-he won't stop until he has it.

"I'll go back for that one, too," Anakin said, defiantly, just shy of snapping.

"And succeed you might, a second time," Yoda said. "But if a third he has? Or another? Fail you would, eventually, to be killed-or worse."

"That doesn't mean we can leave her there!"

"Nothing, did I see, that said a girl the child was," he said, much sharper this time. "Overinvolved in this, you risk becoming."

Anakin's hands clenched a little, and Obi-Wan caught his left wrist, to try and steady him before he broke down again. "Our friends on Coruscant will-do what they can," he said. And he knew it was a hollow thing, such a hollow thing. And the three of them hadn't even touched on what was likely to happen to the child's poor mother, whoever she was.

Anakin jerked away, and said nothing. He was trying to lock down his shields, with minimal success. He was still seething inside, because-some part of him knew Yoda was right. And it was not an easy thing to admit.

"Too few of us, there are," Yoda said, his voice softening again. "And too much other work there is to do. For one child, sacrifice all, we cannot. Save everyone, we cannot."

"But we could save this one," Anakin said. "If you'd just let me try, I could...I could save this one. I could get this one right."

The words hung in the air between them for a minute.

"I'm sorry, Anakin," Obi-Wan said quietly. "I don't...disagree with you. But…" Master Yoda's right. Sooner or later, the odds will catch up with us.

"On Darth Specter, on the larger war, we must focus," Yoda said. "To the Senators, this child we must leave."

After a long, tense moment, Anakin finally nodded. "Fine. I guess. You're right. We don't have-I get it," he said, with no little bitterness. "But whatever happens to this kid-whatever he does to her, at least a part of it's on us. Because we chose not to save her."

Which stung, more than a little. Obi-Wan knew Anakin would vehemently deny it if he tried to make a similar claim for their own, more direct history with Palpatine, but…well, it was what it was.

Although, it wasn't entirely fair of Anakin to say either way. As Yoda had stressed when this all began, they were not to blame for what Darth Sidious chose to do.

No, just for setting up the situations that make it easy for him to succeed.

He buried those thoughts as deep as he could. There were other, more immediate issues to be addressed there, quickly, before this discussion got derailed any further. Behind Anakin's head, he shot Yoda a half-pleading look- I will talk with him later, about projecting his own experiences onto this child and getting overinvested. Please don't make the argument worse right now. I will get him through this later. Please.

Yoda nodded once, and, fortunately, let it slide. "More blame, you attach to us, than we have earned," he said instead.

"I don't-" Anakin took a deep breath, then made a face and rested a hand on his side again. "Fine. That's-fine." He still didn't believe it; Obi-Wan saw it clear as day before his shields slammed back into place.

Yoda stared at them both for a long moment, then sighed, his ears drooping. "Meditate, I think we should. Calm ourselves, then return to our other discussion."

"I agree," Obi-Wan said, touching Anakin's arm lightly. This time, at least, he didn't pull away. We're not going to be very productive, on Specter or any other issue, the way things stand right now.

Anakin nodded. "I'm going to go back to the Waterfall, then," he said. "I need-space, I think. I'll come back in a couple hours." He stood up as best he could, with the low ceiling. Obi-Wan felt a flicker of physical pain, followed by a faint jolt of annoyance-twisting to fit under the ceiling was probably doing his ribs no favors.

"Why don't you call us when you're ready, instead?" Obi-Wan said. "We'll join you."

"Sure," he said, some of the relief bleeding into his voice. "I'll talk to you soon."

"May the Force be with you," Yoda said.

"And with you, Masters," Anakin said, bowing as best he could and then slipping out, leaving them to their own private contemplations.

Original Author's Note: And, with this behemoth of a chapter, Part 3 ends. Sorry for the late update this week, hopefully it was worth it 3

Next week starts Part 4: Commander, which picks up after about a three-year timejump in story. Sadly, I do not have a teaser sentence prepared for you guys, but I have some fun things planned.

Thank you so much for sticking with me this far!

~shadowsong