Chapter Seventy-Four: A Way In
Luminara could feel the lightsaber's activation switch under her thumb, but she was unable to press down and summon the blade. Her eyes darted about, peering past Anakin's shoulders to glance in turn at the armored troopers filing into the pub. Two became four—their movement synchronized, spreading to block any possible path out of the building.
Perhaps the woman at the center of it all, a gilded badge hanging from a chain around her neck, was right. Perhaps they were done.
Wresting her gaze from the soldiers, Luminara looked at Anakin. He was loose, relaxed—ready to spring into action should the circumstances call for it—but the blaster pistol in his hand wasn't trained on any of their new friends yet. He thinks he can talk his way out of this.
"You've got it all wrong, Amina," he told the woman with the badge. The way he spoke to her was . . . familiar, Luminara thought. They know each other. "The Jedi weren't helping Windu, they were trying to stop him."
The woman—Amina—scoffed. "Who told you that? Her?" She began to pace, moving sideways until she could make eye contact with Luminara. "Spreading more lies, are we, Jedi?"
A new voice joined the chorus, filtered through a helmet vocoder. One of the troops—Luminara wasn't sure which. "Careful, ma'am," they said. "She's armed."
Amina smirked. "Oh, I know she is." Then, reaching forward with an open palm: "Hand it over, Jedi. I'd very much like to reunite that with its rightful owner."
Before she could say anything, Anakin took a step forward, his pistol rising just a hair. The troops, in turn, flinched—their weapons wavering for a moment before settling back into steadiness.
They, too, knew him, Luminara realized. His own troops had been sent to bring him in.
She wanted to call out to him, beg him not to do something rash—but she could only manage a weak whisper. "Anakin, don't—"
"Where is he?" Skywalker snarled to Amina.
"Your friend," the cop said—her tone light, almost singsong—"has come by his reputation honestly. 'Kenobi the Negotiator.' You know he tried to talk his way out of being arrested?" She spun on a heel and began pacing in the opposite direction. "Told us we had the wrong man. Opened his cloak, turned his pockets inside out. Showed us that he carried no laser sword, said he couldn't possibly be a Jedi . . ."
At this, Anakin turned his head back to face Luminara. Their eyes met, and she could see that his were beginning to fill with dread. The confident mask had started to crack.
"When it became clear that his"—Amina gestured about with her blaster pistol, searching for a word—"persuasions weren't working, things took a turn for the worse. I'll give him this, he's very good." She came to a stop, and the musical flow of her speech grew flat and icy. "But he's just one man." She turned back to Luminara, stretching out her hand again. "The lightsaber. Give it to me."
"Why?"
Luminara wasn't quite sure where the word had come from—even Anakin turned to look at her, surprise hanging on his face. Amina, however, only seemed irritated. "Excuse me?"
"It isn't mine," Luminara said, "and it isn't his." She gestured toward Anakin with the saber. "But we've both had our hands all over it. I found it down here, hidden away in this run-down bar. Who knows how many people have touched it? It's useless to connect the man you arrested to the Jedi."
The troopers' blank faceplates shifted left and right to look at one another. Amina, however, just barked a humorless laugh.
"Jedi," she said with a shake of her head. "Ever the optimists. We haven't arrested anyone. And that thing? It isn't evidence."
"It's a trophy," Anakin said. His face had gone pale, his voice flat and raspy—and Luminara could see his mechanical fingers were now gripping the blaster tightly.
Amina shrugged. "Tarkin's instructions were very clear. He wanted Kenobi and his weapon—wouldn't accept one without the other. I had hoped to deliver the man in handcuffs." She trailed off, glancing down at her feet before looking up again with renewed venom in her eyes. "Turns out a body bag will have to do. We're just here to collect that saber and pin it to his corpse."
No!
Luminara managed to keep herself from displaying any outward reaction—she did not speak, nor flinch, nor move from where she stood. She could not say the same for Anakin.
The man lunged forward with a snarl, raising his blaster until Amina lay in its sights—but skidded to a stop when four blaster rifles snapped to attention, trained on him. Amina's pistol soon followed.
"Don't." She let the lone word linger in the air for some time—then, when it was clear Anakin had decided to stay still: "Drop the gun, Skywalker."
Through the Force, the young man radiated grief and rage. "You're not going to shoot me, Amina," he spat. Then, stepping back and stretching his arms out wide: "None of you are!" He turned his head to glare back at the woman in charge. "You can't. Palpatine won't let you. If you gun me down like this—no arrest, no fair trial—your career is over."
A chuckle escaped from between Amina's lips. "Perhaps you're right." Then her gun shifted sideways to point at someone else. "But I can shoot her."
Every one of Luminara's nerves seared hot with warnings from the Force. Her thumb grazed against the lightsaber's activation switch, stopping just short of pressing it down.
"Think about it, Skywalker," Amina continued, her eyes never leaving his even as her gun stayed on the Jedi. "Were the men on Tarkin's landing platform stripped of their positions? Were the guards who saved the chancellor from his would-be assassins?"
Anakin said nothing—but the blaster pistol slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.
Amina nodded slowly. Her shoulders relaxed, a satisfied smile growing on her face as she returned her own blaster to its holster—though the troops that flanked her kept their rifles held high.
"Orders, ma'am?" one of them asked.
"We arrest them both," she said—the words were pure ice.
"To Tarkin, then?"
Reaching into her jacket, Amina withdrew a pair of police binders. She began to walk forward. "She can go to Tarkin," the woman said, gesturing with the binders at Luminara. Then, pointing them at Anakin: "He goes to Palpatine. I want them to look each other in the eye. I want the chancellor to see his right-hand man for what he really is: a traitor."
With a flick of her wrist, Amina snapped the binders open and held them in front of Anakin. "You learned a lot from your old friend Kenobi. Let's see if you do any better than him at talking your way out of this."
All at once, he roared—pent-up rage surging forth from his throat—and drove forward.
Luminara could only watch as the shove carried Amina off her feet, sending the entangled pair flying into a nearby bar table. The soldiers raised their rifles—but they dared not fire, for any shot that hit Skywalker was certain to hit his would-be captor.
In mere moments he had pinned Amina to the tabletop, his mechanical forearm pressed across her throat. Her mouth was open wide—but whether she was gasping for air or crying for help, the Jedi couldn't be certain.
"Anakin!" Luminara shouted.
The Force screamed a warning. The soldiers pivoted at her cry, turning their weapons from the brawl on the table to the Jedi standing before them.
At last, her thumb pressed inward. Emerald light sprang from her hand with a deep and resonant thwum.
She ran.
Not away from the danger, but toward it—toward the soldiers and their weapons—for beyond that danger lay the only way out. Red lances of sizzling energy leapt toward her, but each bounced harmlessly off the lightsaber blade as she whirled it about in front of her. The bolts ricocheted in every direction, splinters of synthwood spraying about as blaster fire slammed into the ceiling, the floor, the wall. Throwing her hand outward, Luminara sent out a wave of power, blasting the troopers off their feet.
Then she jumped, tucking her free arm in front of her face and jabbing the lightsaber forward in a messy, unrefined thrust.
The pub's entire front window—a great pane of glass spanning the whole width of the building, pockmarked with scratches and stickers and light-up signage—shattered into countless pieces. Tiny daggers sliced across Luminara's arms, her face, her hands—and as she hit the catwalk outside, latticed metal dug into her skin.
Rising to her feet, she willed the pain to wait for just a moment. As she wiped the blood from her eyes, she stared back through the broken window.
"Go, Luminara!" Anakin bellowed from the back of the bar, still levering down on Amina with all his strength. Tearing his gaze away from his adversary, he looked up and glared at the Jedi with a frightening urgency. "Just run!"
The moment he glanced upward, Luminara saw a flash of motion—Amina's hand, grabbing a knife from atop the table and swinging it at her attacker. Without looking, Anakin held up his metal arm to block the blow. Sparks flew as the blade struck the mechanical limb—and Amina, her neck now free, gulped down a rush of air.
Then, with her other hand, she reached up and punched Anakin in the throat.
Luminara shouted as he reeled backward, his flesh hand grasping at his neck as he struggled to draw breath. In the space of a second, Amina had hauled herself to her feet, a hand upon her holstered blaster pistol.
The world slowed again as the weapon came free. Luminara reached out a hand, willing her mind to tear the blaster from Amina's grip—but the commander's draw had been too swift. There was a flash of red light. Then another.
Smoke curled upward from the tip of the gun—and from Anakin's stomach. A shriek escaped Luminara's mouth.
Anakin Skywalker stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet as he tumbled into a chair, broke through it, and crumpled to the floor. Amina whipped around to face the gaping maw once occupied by the pub's window, blaster pistol still in hand. Squeezed the trigger a third time.
The bolt pinged off the lightsaber blade as Luminara batted it away. It was a reflex. She hadn't thought about it. Her mind was elsewhere—three voices echoed within. One was hers. The others were her fallen friends'. All said the same two words.
Just run.
By the time the soldiers had scrambled back to their feet, Luminara was no longer there. Her feet carried her away, pure instinct driving every step as she forced herself to breathe. Beneath every step, metal rang out—it flexed and warped and sang harshly as she skidded to a stop at the end of the catwalk.
Behind her she could hear the footfalls, plastoid boots clacking against the hard weave of metal. The shouts, warped by vocoders. Soon there would be more blaster fire.
Before her she could see the path's end—a chest-high metal railing, meant to stop those less observant wanderers from careening off the catwalks into the sea that thrashed beneath the city.
Just as before, the only way out was forward, into danger. Tucking the lightsaber deep into her cloak, Luminara wrapped both hands around the top of the barricade and pulled herself upward.
Over.
Falling down.
The air rushed past her—the water's surface toward her. She drew a breath, held it in. Clutched the saber—their saber—closer. Tighter. Squeezed her eyes shut.
Then slammed into the water.
Throughout the central garden of the Jedi Temple, scattered bonfires radiated warmth and light. Errant shadows stretched against the ground, flickering as the tongues of flame danced upward, sputtering in and out of existence.
Each one played host to a handful of the remaining Jedi—eating meals, reading books, whispering conversations under the cover of the imagined night sky that hung above the Force tree. And among the scattered crowd, one Jedi wandered.
Nel Tavos glanced from one bonfire to the next as he walked the path that wound through the Temple garden. He knew it should have warmed his heart to see so many Jedi existing in community, students and teachers alike uniting in the center of the Temple while they could to dine, to train and study, to swap stories. But even the briefest hints of laughter emanating from one group or another carried notes of sorrow.
They weren't just out in the garden for fun, after all.
The dining hall? Too empty to enjoy a meal. The library? Too chaotic to study in peace, as Jedi scrambled to pack away a thousand generations of archived writings. The dormitories? Too deserted to find rest, so hauntingly silent that Nel had, despite his exhaustion, been unable to fall asleep in his own bed.
And so, like the others, he'd come out here. To the one place in the Jedi Temple that didn't feel empty yet.
As he wandered, Nel eventually reached the garden's edge, where winding trails lined by plant life gave way to stone hallways marked by towering statues and glowing sconces. His first step onto the polished rock rang out, echoing down the hallway as if to underscore the solitude that now hung over the Jedi Temple like a shadow.
Then, at the hallway's end, a flicker of light shone from beneath a doorway. His doorway—the passage to the one place in the Temple that Nel Tavos could truly call his own domain. The map room.
Walking faster, Nel strode down the cavernous corridor—each click of a boot heel echoing more quickly than the one before it. Deep breaths accompanied each stride, an effort to ward off the frustration rising within.
I told them not to start packing without me. The map slates were too fragile to be handled by just anyone, too delicate to be boxed up without care for placement and packaging. If whoever was in there had already broken something . . .
Nel threw open the door to the map room, letting it slam shut behind him as he rushed forward, a hand stretched outward. "Wait!" he shouted. "You can't—"
Then the room's only other occupant turned around to face him.
"Oh," Nel said—his voice had dropped to a near whisper. "Master Drallig."
The Battlemaster of the Jedi Order stood beside a wall of wooden drawers, each one no larger than a human hand. Their faces were etched with indecipherable strings of letters and numbers.
"Nel," she said, snapping shut a bound book that sat cradled in her hands. She turned away from the rows of drawers. "Please. It's just us here, call me Cin."
"What're you doing?" he asked, brushing past her request as he took a step toward her.
The battlemaster shrugged, holding up the book in her hand. "I thought I could find what I needed on my own." When a scowl formed on Nel's face, she protested, "You're supposed to be on a rest shift. I didn't want to wake you."
"Couldn't sleep," he said. "I traded rest shifts with Master Qlik. He's been awake even longer than I have." His feet carried him past the other Jedi, until he could reach out and brush the etched drawers with the tip of his fingers. "Was there something specific you were looking for? A certain system or sector?"
Drallig shook her head. "A little more local: just a map of the Temple."
Nel felt a grin tug at the edge of his mouth. "Sure." He dragged his hand along the row of drawers, feeling the depth of each one's carvings until he came across a familiar set of etched characters. A single confident tap of Nel's index finger saw the wooden drawer pop out of its housing just enough for him to grip its edges and pull it free.
"The Temple maps are my favorite," he said, finally breaking into a smile as he carried the little wooden box across the room. Each step sounded with the faintest clink of glass—the row of map slates, each the size of a deck of playing cards, bounced against each other as Nel approached the map room's great projector.
An intricate device of mirrors and lenses, lights and lasers, gears and cranks sat atop a tripod, a candle flame flickering at its center. With a precision and a swiftness that could only be afforded by hours upon hours of practice, Nel snatched a map slate from the box and slotted it into the projector. Gears turned of their own accord, the machine shifting and moving around the slate of glass until light finally shone through the semi-transparent carving. And then, like the bloom of a starship engine, the projector came to life.
Jagged lines danced along the floor of the map room, the shape of the Temple glowing beneath the Jedi's feet. Rooms were labeled with the flourish of a hand-carved script, the signature of a long-lost Jedi mapmaker shining in the corner of the great projection.
"Look at the carving. The scriptwork," Nel muttered, more to himself than to the room's other occupant. Then, raising his head to meet Cin's eyes, he continued: "You ask me, these lost a lot of their charm when we started having droids make them."
"If we were still carving the sector maps by hand, we never could have kept up with the war," Drallig said.
"Well, Cin, perhaps we shouldn't have tried to."
For an instant, she looked surprised; then her usual glare slammed down across her face. The two of them just stood there for a few moments, staring at each other.
Sighing, Nel shifted his gaze to the floor. "Sorry," he muttered. Then, gesturing at the map that still glowed underfoot: "What was it you were hoping to find?"
As she too looked down at the map beneath them, the fierceness left her eyes. "Weaknesses. Choke points, defensible positions. A way to get everyone out." She let the words linger before looking up at Nel again. "A way in."
He raised an eyebrow. "You think they're coming back?"
"I know they are," Drallig answered. "It's just a matter of when. And there are still so many here." The battlemaster began to pace, her steps carrying her across the map—from library to landing bay, the mess hall to the meditation rooms. "We're not the only thing hiding underneath Coruscant. There are sewers, and air ducts, and utility tunnels. All someone has to do is find an adjoining wall." She raised a hand to her head, squeezing her temples as she continued to move about the map room. "I can't put guards at every possible point of intrusion until the last of us are gone. We'd be spread too thin if someone did manage to break through."
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rhythmic click of her shoes against the floor ceased. She stood atop the open square at the center of the map—the Temple garden and its Force tree. "Nel?"
"Cin?"
She made a sweeping gesture with one hand, indicating the entirety of the map she stood upon. "You know these carvings better than anyone."
"I'm not so sure that's true," he said, the reply leaving his mouth as an uneasy stammer. He was all but certain of what she was about to ask, and yet totally unprepared to answer her.
"How would you do it?" she interrupted, talking past his shaky objection. "How would you break into the Temple?"
Nel felt his stomach sink. His mouth dried out, his throat went scratchy. The Jedi swallowed, steeling himself to speak even as he desperately searched his own mind for an answer. Called out to the Force, hoping it would offer one.
Instead it gave him the next best thing: a merciful interruption.
The door to the map room flew open, and a cloaked figure stumbled inward. They collapsed to the floor as they rushed toward the two Jedi who already stood inside. Nel took a single panicked step backward, then stopped as the light from the map projector illuminated the new arrival—a Mirialan. Her robes were completely soaked, a puddle forming on the floor where she had fallen. Her face and arms were covered in tiny cuts, a deep purple blood showing through each one.
"Master Unduli," Nel whispered to himself, before turning to stare at the Jedi Battlemaster. Nel drew his senses inward, focusing his thoughts in Cin's direction.
Was she meant to come back here alone?
Though Drallig never met his gaze, the reply came swiftly, echoing inside his head as the battlemaster strode beyond him and toward Luminara's withered figure.
No.
Then, aloud: "Luminara, what happened?" Drallig's voice barely managed to conceal the worry that Nel could feel radiating in waves off the battlemaster. She knelt beside the younger Jedi, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Where is Obi-Wan?"
