AN: I hope everyone had a pleasant week. As always, thanks for all your support. A bit of a shorter chapter this week, but it's where this chapter needed to end. Without further ado, here's the next chapter.
Chapter 33 - A New Lead (Haaridan Conflict Part III)
As the Galan starfighter shot through hyperspace, Anakin had some time to rest and think. It was a good thing too because he needed the rest. He didn't want to tell Obi-Wan, but even though the drug had worn off, he still felt like his senses were blurred . . . like there was a veil between him and everything. Still, as the time went on, he felt clarity returning, and he knew he would be fine.
He also needed the time to sort out his feelings about Granta Omega. He was not naïve enough to think that evil announced itself by knocking on one's door with an iron fist. But he had not expected evil to come cloaked in quite so much charm.
He had enjoyed the time he'd spent with Omega and his "friends" when he'd been Tic Verdun and they had been Tic's scientist friends. He'd felt kinship with Tic, even in the small time they'd known each other. Tic had made him feel better on Haariden, but it had all been a lie.
Omega wanted to join with the evil that had killed Qui-Gon Jinn, the being who had saved Anakin from a life of slavery.
Obi-Wan had been in the small ship's library, checking the geological reports on Haariden. He came to sit by Anakin. "Not too much longer. Is there something you want to discuss with me, Padawan?"
He wasn't ready to talk about it.
"No," Anakin said.
Obi-Wan hesitated. "Before I arrived, did you talk much to the others?"
Anakin nodded. "They fed me false information about Granta Omega. They were making things up to tease me even as he sat right in front of me. I see that now. I feel foolish."
"It is not something to feel foolish about. Those who set out to deceive are the true fools." Obi-Wan paused. "And Omega himself? What did you think of him?"
The gentleness in his Master's tone undid Anakin's reserve. "I liked him," he burst out. "How could I like such a being?"
"I would guess that is because he is likable," Obi-Wan said dryly.
His Master's calmness made Anakin feel better. "Shouldn't the Force have alerted me to the dark side in him?"
"Not necessarily," Obi-Wan said. "The Force is not a truth-detector. We can rely on it, but we can't expect it to save us. We must save ourselves. We must use our own intuition, our own intelligence. Your feelings about Granta Omega don't have anything to do with the Force. They have every thing to do with experience."
"Meaning I don't have enough?"
"Perhaps," Obi-Wan said with a shrug. "Some beings are truly gifted in deception. Perhaps his charisma and likeability isn't even a deception. Charisma isn't a virtue. It's a trait. It's not good or bad. Evil people can possess it, and often do. It's what makes many of them so dangerous.
"He says he is a seeker, just as the Jedi are," Anakin said. "He says the Jedi fear the Sith, but they know nothing of them."
"It shows how narrow his knowledge is," Obi-Wan remarked. "The Jedi have deep knowledge of the Sith. We have fought against them for thousands of years. Kastor even lived among Sith back during the Great Galactic War. We understand them, and we know exactly what they are capable of."
"When I think of evil, I think of the Sith Lord that killed Qui-Gon," Anakin said quietly, "but that's part of the problem. I do not see Granta Omega's face when I think of evil."
"Evil has many faces," Obi-Wan responded. "It can masquerade as vision. One must look beneath the words, beneath the mask."
An indicator light flashed. Obi-Wan sprang to his feet.
"We've arrived."
Obi-Wan slid into the pilot's seat. Anakin sat next to him. The starfighter shuddered slightly as they came out of hyperspace. The planet of Haariden lay ahead.
Obi-Wan entered the coordinates for landing. He shot Anakin a quick questioning look. "Are you ready to face him again?"
He was not sure, but he knew he had to be. "I am ready, Master."
**The Will of the Force**
Once they landed, they used swoop bikes to skim over the foothills, making sure to stay clear of the eruption site, but soon they were in the danger zone, and in the distance they could clearly see Kaachtari.
There were deep fissures in the earth and steam rose hundreds of meters high in some places. In the distance were a line of soldiers hiking down the mountain. A quick interaction with the soldiers revealed they were the same group that had tried to fight them last time they were on Haariden, and once again they had been hired by Granta Omega, but once again, they were willing to give up the information that Obi-Wan was looking for. Last time it had been Omega's name as the one who hired them. This time, it was his location.
Soon they were back on the swoops flying up towards a high snowy ridge and as Anakin scanned the ridge, he saw him. He was with Mellora. They were both dressed in white thermal gear to protect them from the cold. They were packing up their equipment and heading for their swoops. They clearly did not trust anyone else to pinpoint the titanite before the eruption.
Obi-Wan leaned over his swoop, urging the machine to go faster. Granta Omega looked up and saw them. Even from that distance, Anakin could tell he was dismayed. He spoke a quick word to Mellora and they took off.
"We'll follow them to the ship," Obi-Wan said. "We can commandeer it and return them to Coruscant."
"It can't be that easy," Anakin said.
"It won't be," Obi-Wan said.
Granta and Mellora did not attempt to lose the Jedi. No doubt they knew they could not. The Jedi gained on them, but Mellora and Omega managed to reach their SoroSuub at the foot of the volcano. Omega activated the landing ramp and they flew inside.
"We can make it!" Obi-Wan shouted as the landing ramp began to close.
Anakin zoomed alongside his Master. They angled their swoops as the ramp slid closed. They slid inside, feeling the whoosh of air as the ramp slid into place.
The cockpit of the ship was empty.
Obi-Wan leaped off the swoop and activated his lightsaber in one motion. He ran through the SoroSuub. It took only a few seconds to discover what had happened.
"They flew out the cargo door as we came in through the landing ramp," Obi-Wan said, disgusted. "He planned it."
He ran to the cockpit controls. He stabbed at the activation key for the landing ramp, then the cargo doors.
"He's locked them." He tried the engines. Nothing happened. "The ship is in complete lockdown."
Obi-Wan's face was dark with anger. Anakin watched, fascinated, as his Master absorbed his anger and then released it.
It didn't matter. They were locked in and outside the mountain peak was disintegrating as the entire side of the volcano became a tremendous landslide.
Obi-Wan tried the engines again. "I don't know how to override this."
"Let me try." There was nothing Anakin couldn't do with engines. He slid open the panel to the engine and slithered inside. "This will take me about twenty minutes."
"We don't have twenty," Obi-Wan said. He had already calculated the speed of the landslide. "We have maybe five before the lava pours out. If we're lucky. We'll have to cut our way out."
Anakin scrambled out and followed Obi-Wan to the opening to the ramp. Obi-Wan began to try to cut the durasteel away.
"Something's wrong," he muttered as Anakin joined him. "The ship's hull should be thin here. We should be able to cut through in minutes."
"It's going to take us longer than that," Anakin said.
The minutes ticked by as they worked at the metal. Obi-Wan looked out the windscreen to check the progress of the eruption. The noise was now like the roar of a fleet of engines. "We're not going to make it."
There had to be another way. There always was.
Lava was now spewing out of the top of the mountain. Whole kilometers of dirt and rocks mixed with hot lava would soon be barreling down the steep slope. Obi-Wan pushed his lightsaber through the door. He began to move it downward, straining with the effort. Anakin joined him, the sweat rolling down his face.
Suddenly and violently, molten lava poured out of the volcano at frightening speed. The avalanche of rock and lava smashed against the ship. The jolt threw them across the cockpit and slammed them against the opposite wall. The craft tilted onto one side, sending them crashing onto the floor. The ship jolted downhill at incredible speed, carried by the force of the landslide.
Anakin's head slammed against the side of the ship, and he held onto a railing as his teeth rattled.
Obi-Wan suddenly pounded against the ship's wall with his lightsaber hilt as they bounced down the mountain, swept along by the lava flow. Anakin had never seen his Master give way to his anger before.
"That's it," Obi-Wan shouted over the awful roaring noise. "It's a ship within a ship. That's why the walls are so thick. Anakin, help me find it."
"Find what?" he shouted.
"The cockpit. The real cockpit!" Obi-Wan scrambled along the wall, knocking on it with the hilt of his light saber. "Listen for something hollow."
The lurching of the ship made it hard to maneuver, but Anakin followed his Master. He knocked against the wall with his lightsaber hilt.
"Here!" Obi-Wan shouted suddenly. He activated his lightsaber and began to cut through the wall.
Anakin grabbed handholds and fought his way toward his Master. He worked alongside him. Obi-Wan was right. The metal was thinner here. It peeled back in strips. They were being pounded by the landslide and it was hard to cut, struggling to finish.
At last there was an opening large enough to crawl inside. To Anakin's surprise, he found a complete cockpit with engine controls.
"Can you fly it?" Obi-Wan asked.
Anakin nodded. He strapped himself into the seat. The ship was on its side. He pushed the left engine and the ship rose straight up. He kept pushing the engine and the ship revolved. Then he accelerated, and they shot through the lava and the pummeling rocks into the clear air above.
Obi-Wan sank back into the seat next to him. "That was close," he panted.
"I wouldn't want it any closer," Anakin admitted. "Where to, Master?"
"They'll be watching from a safe distance," Obi-Wan said. "Along the coast, but out of range of the wave." He bent over the scanner, comparing its readings to the map on the shipboard computer. "Let's try these coordinates." He pointed them out to Anakin.
He nodded and piloted the ship back toward the eruption. He would skirt the worst of it, but they would have a bumpy flight. Rocks hammered down on the shell of the ship, and the air pockets were deep. The ship kept slamming into them.
The cockpit indicators began to swing wildly. The ship lurched to one side.
"I think the power cells were hit," Anakin said. "We've got to land. The power is draining fast."
"We're almost out of range of the eruption," Obi-Wan said, his eyes on the monitor. "Keep going…"
Anakin held onto the controls as the ship lurched again. He heard the whine of the power cells as they powered down. "Master, I'm losing the ship."
"All right. Land it where you can."
Anakin found a smooth area of sand. They were near the coast of the sea here. He set the ship down bumpily. He had just enough energy to land.
The ship settled into the sand and the engines cut out.
"Good thing we still have the swoops," Obi-Wan said.
They climbed out of the concealed cockpit. The swoop bikes were smashed from the rough journey, but still functioned. Anakin activated the landing ramp from the interior cockpit. It squealed as the metal rubbed against metal, but it opened far enough for them to slide out with the swoops.
The air was thick with ash. A strange smell was in the air. It was like burning, but it wasn't born of flame or smoke.
"It is the core," Obi-Wan said. "Metals and molten rock."
They piloted the swoops away from the ship and began to search for Omega and Mellora. At last they came upon them on a plateau that overlooked the sea. There they would be protected from the tidal wave.
Granta Omega saw them coming. There was no way to surprise them. Anakin saw him bend down. He settled something against his shoulder. A missile launcher.
"Master—"
"I see it. Dive, Padawan."
They dived as the first missile headed their way. Its target was Obi-Wan. His Master waved his hand and deflected the rocket with the Force, surprising Anakin slightly with his master's skillful handling of the Force even while driving the swoop.
Anakin glanced back at Omega and saw him scowling. He loaded another missile and launched it, again at Obi-Wan.
"He's only aiming at me," Obi-Wan called. "Get closer, Anakin!"
Anakin zoomed past the missile. He saw Omega smile and target a slowing Obi-Wan again, but Mellora had vanished. He pushed the swoop engines past maximum. He jumped the last few meters just as Omega launched another missile. Anakin glanced back in time to see his Master barely evade it. His swoop seemed damaged by the action.
Anakin's swoop smashed into the platform, and he rolled forward and back up, finding himself facing Omega, who had anticipated his actions. He held the missile launcher against his shoulder, his finger hovering over the activation button. "Your Master's swoop is overheating. He doesn't have good maneuverability anymore. This one might get him. I've always thought that to be personally responsible for the death of a Jedi would truly help me make my mark. Would you really miss him so much, Anakin?" He grinned at Anakin, the ash-filled wind whipping his dark hair across his face.
"Don't," Anakin said. "You will regret it."
"I knew you'd get out of that ship!" Omega cried. "You will make a great Jedi Knight one day, Anakin Skywalker. But you will be even greater if you listen to me!"
Anakin took a step forward, and kicked the rocket launcher, surprising Omega, who dropped the weapon, but then Omega released seeker droids into the air, and Anakin heard the whine of a swoop approaching, and he saw it was Mellora. Anakin swiped at the seeker droids, but was unable to stop Omega from hopping on Mellora's swoop as the two took off away from the platform.
Anakin returned to his swoop, quickly hopping on just as Obi-Wan caught up. Obi-Wan's speeder engine was smoking badly. "I'm overheating," he called to Anakin. "Some shrapnel pierced the engine."
Anakin maneuvered his swoop close to his Master. "Hop aboard."
Obi-Wan balanced on the seat and leaped onto Anakin's swoop. The swoop rocked from side to side, but Anakin straightened it and kept on flying. Obi-Wan stood on the seat behind him, balancing easily. They zoomed after Mellora and Omega while Obi-Wan swatted away the last of the seeker droids.
"Master, the water!" Anakin called.
Far out on the sea, they could see a wave. It was as tall as a Coruscant skyscraper. It was a wall of water moving at more than a hundred kilometers an hour.
Omega and Mellora had gone too far in order to escape. Now they were trapped between the oncoming wave and the Jedi. They hovered in the air, staring at the wave. Omega looked back at the approaching Jedi defiantly. Mellora only looked afraid.
Anakin pulled up the swoop close to Omega. They could hear the eerie sound of the wave now, a sound like no other Anakin had ever heard.
"You must come with us now," Obi-Wan said, his lightsaber raised.
"Granta, it's over," Mellora said, her eyes on the approaching wave. "We must—"
In answer, Omega wrenched the controls from Mellora. He shot the swoop straight toward the wall of water. They could see Mellora's mouth forming a scream before its sound was snatched away by the roar of the titanic wave.
Grimly, Anakin headed after them. He stayed below Omega's swoop, hoping to force them upward. He didn't know if they would be able to clear the wave in time.
Omega swerved up, trying to clear the wave. Mellora screamed, and suddenly she was flying off the swoop as Omega casually put his foot against her and pushed her off the swoop.
She fell toward the wave, shrieking.
Anakin gunned the motor and dove under her. Obi-Wan caught her in his arms.
They zoomed above as the water curled over their heads. They couldn't make it. He took a deep breath as they went straight into the top of the wave. He felt the power of the water drive them backward. The controls shook in his hand. He heard the engine whine. He could only see water, and he was confused now. Were they heading up or down?
Then the Force entered him, and he did not see the water as a wall. He saw it for what it was. Full of particles, full of gaps, honeycombed with light. Just like Soara had taught him. He headed for the gaps, willing the swoop engine to obey him.
They broke through the water into the air. Mellora clung to Obi-Wan, gasping.
Omega was a speck in the distance, heading away from them.
"He would have killed me!" Mellora choked.
Anakin hovered in the air, watching the speck disappear. They had lost him again.
"Head for our ship, Padawan," Obi-Wan said.
"I know where he is going," she told the Jedi. "I know where he goes when he loses. I can take you there."
"You don't have to," Obi-Wan said. "I know where he is going, too."
**The Will of the Force**
Because of the eruption, hostilities had ceased temporarily on Haariden. They left Mellora with the authorities there with instructions to hold her until the Senate could send a ship for her. But they could not be certain how long she would be held. It was clear that she was prepared to lie her way out of trouble.
That was the least of Obi-Wan's concerns however.
Dusk was settling on Nierport Seven when they arrived. Kastor, Rhys, Asuna, Koba, and Des were already there and had locked down the port from anyone leaving.
"How did you know he was coming here?" Rhys asked as he, Obi-Wan, Kastor, and Anakin made their way to Omega's old house.
"He disguised a ship within a ship," Obi-Wan said. "It made me think of this home. The walls were thicker than the other houses. I realized that he might have done the same thing here."
There were no lights inside. Obi-Wan took out his lightsaber and cut a hole in the door.
The house was empty. Even the bedroll and stove were gone.
"We are too late," Anakin said.
"Nobody has left the planet since we arrived," Kastor said. "He must have beat us here and left quickly . . . or he never came back."
"Yes," Obi-Wan said. "He must have assumed that Mellora would tell us what she knew."
He felt along the walls, knocking them with his light saber hilt. When he found what he was looking for, he cut through the walls with his lightsaber. Here the stone was only centimeters thick, bound to durasteel walls.
Beyond the wall was a room filled with datascreens. Obi-Wan and Anakin climbed through the hole.
"Hold fast, Obi-Wan," Kastor said, before he glanced at Rhys who pulled out a datapad.
"Ready," Rhys said, and Obi-Wan accessed the files, pulling up holofiles that were coded, but he was sure the Jedi could crack them. He would take them back to the Temple.
"These must be his companies," he said. "His aliases are here, text docs, his other homes, bases of operations . . . it's all here. We've got him. All his secrets are now ours."
"It looks like he has an entire fleet of starships on some planet in the Outer Rim," Anakin said. "The planet's name is coded."
As he read the file, the letters began to fade. "Master—"
"The files are disappearing," Obi-Wan said. He quickly hit the keys, tapping furiously. "I can't stop it."
They watched as the information disappeared into fragments of light. The light dissolved into particles.
"He instituted a wipe from wherever he is," Obi-Wan said. "Now it is as though he never existed. He truly is a void."
"I managed to save some of the documents," Rhys said, looking at his datapad. "Not everything, but some. We need to get these back to the Temple so we can decrypt them. Hopefully it will help us catch up to him."
"Whether it will or won't doesn't matter," Kastor said. "Eventually, we'll get him. He's too dangerous and too determined to fight us for that not to happen."
"We'll find him, and Force willing, we'll get the Sith Lord at the same time," Obi-Wan said.
**The Will of the Force**
"I only managed to get a quarter of his documents," Rhys said with a grimace, "but I focused on what I thought were the most important or potentially important things. Master Toma Hi'llani is still decrypting some of it, most importantly being the location of Omega's fleet, but we did learn some of Omega's aliases, some of his bases of operations, and we learned something very interesting."
"What?" Siri asked, leaning against one of the walls in the main hold of the Ebon Hawk.
Also present was Kastor, Obi-Wan, Njonne, Asuna, Koba, Des, Adi, and Yoda.
"Omega was the one who put out the bounty on Kastor's alias, Calo Jurgens."
"Sure of this, you are?" Yoda asked with concern.
"Yes, Master Yoda," Rhys said. "It seems he wasn't involved with, or it doesn't seem that he was involved with Magus and that incident, but he was behind the initial and still continued bounty. If I were to guess, I would say that the Sith Lord merely took advantage of the situation."
"Well, that answers one question," Obi-Wan said, frustrated, "but raises a host of new ones."
"I think it lends credence to some of my theories . . . ones I hoped would prove completely baseless," Kastor said darkly. "And it's a start. Plus, you know someone that likely has access to information on Omega."
"Sano Sauro," Obi-Wan said, and Kastor nodded.
"What theories do you have, Kastor?" Siri asked. "Anything that we could be working on?"
Kastor glanced at her and then around the room and sighed.
"The bounty on Calo could have been for any number of things," Kastor explained. "We had no proof that anyone thought Calo was me or at the very least that Calo is a Jedi. While we all suspected the bounty was due to me being a Jedi, we had no proof. The incident with Magus confirmed that somebody out in the galaxy knew of me and knew my history, which lent credence to the Calo bounty being about my identity, however now we know they are separate incidents. That doesn't mean that they are necessarily separate."
"What do you mean?" Des asked.
"There are only so many people who know of my return to the Jedi and my history," Kastor said. "There are then a fair few people who could be used to piece together my possible history: Jedi, the few people I've told my history to, the crew members from Republic vessel . . . and members of the Senate."
Siri, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Adi exchanged grim looks.
"Oh no . . ." Siri muttered, and Kastor nodded.
"There is one man who has shown interest in me and my history, and who profited off of the invasion of Naboo," Kastor said. "And, being who he is, he knows about my cover and thus could have manipulated Omega into placing the bounty while also working the system to, with some luck, get Siri and myself to Ruusan."
"Chancellor Palpatine," Obi-Wan said quietly. "You think Palpatine is behind this all?"
"I don't know if it's Palpatine himself," Kastor said. "It would make sense that he isn't who we are looking for, but I bet he has someone close to him that helps him . . . which means that Palpatine or someone who works for him is likely the Sith Lord."
"You're implying that the Sith have managed to get control of the Chancellorship and even a major hold of the Senate, with how much influence Palpatine has," Asuna said in surprise. "That is a bold claim."
"Yes, well these Banite Sith have hidden in the Republic for a thousand years," Kastor said with a shrug. "It stands to reason that things have not always gone well for them, but it also stands to reason that each Apprentice is provided the resources of their Master and guidance towards whatever their overarching plan is. It stands to reason that the Sith are wealthy and influential, and it stands to reason that they would have influence in the Senate. If it wasn't for the Naboo crisis, I'd think the Sith could be hidden among any number of worlds, but Palpatine gained power in that crisis, and he's only gained more since. It was when he gained his position that he was able to learn about me, and then my cover gained a bounty and months later I dealt with a Sith cult that was ready for me. Someone's pulling strings in the Order, and Palpatine is in a good position to have done so."
"No kidding," Koba muttered
"Dangerous this line of thinking is," Yoda cautioned. "Careful we must be."
"Do we really think the Sith could have taken control of the Senate without our noticing?" Adi asked.
"The Sith have survived within the Republic for nearly a thousand years without us noticing," Siri pointed out. "While there is a possibility they've avoided all interactions with Jedi, it's far more likely that the Sith are able to avoid our detection. While there are other ways the Sith could have discovered Kastor's cover, this isn't something to just be cast aside."
"Which is why I'm not digging hard at the moment," Kastor said. "Unfortunately, if it's not the Chancellor or one of his retainers or close advisors, the greater the likelihood is that it's a Jedi that has betrayed the Order . . ."
"You think one of our brothers or sisters has betrayed us?" Siri asked seriously.
"It's another option that would explain the leak in information," Kastor said wearily. "For now, I'm playing the game, and waiting for the mistake or looking for the mistake that some member of this Sith Order has made in the past thousand years. For all I know, I'm wrong, and there's no point in pissing off one of the most powerful beings in the Republic and a public Jedi supporter with no clear proof, nor do I want to tip off our possible traitor if there is one."
"Hmm, careful we must be," Yoda agreed. "Play the game, we should, as you suggest, Kastor. Dig further into our enemies past, we must. Find our answers and reveal our enemy, we may yet."
"Sounds like Kenobi needs to investigate that Senator for information," Asuna said, and Obi-Wan nodded, agreeing that Sauro needed to be investigated. "Still, I have to ask, why do you all think the Sith is focused on Kastor? Sure, his actions with my people would make him a threat to the Sith, but those actions are recent and still rather unknown. It is reasonable to assume that the Sith are also not aware of your actions towards countering their plans or planning for an Order in hiding, correct?"
"Correct," Kastor admitted. "Truthfully, other than them thinking I might hold the key to longer life, I'm not sure why they would want to kill me, other than just to remove a senior Jedi who has experience fighting the Sith."
"You are dangerous to them," Siri pointed out. "You don't underestimate them. Your record speaks for itself in that you are a Sith slayer, and you have been focused on countering them ever since you were awoken."
"Yes, but the Sith wouldn't have necessarily known that, even after they might have learned about my history," Kastor pointed out.
"Unknown why interested in you, the Sith may be," Yoda said. "Still, careful you must be. Important to us you are, and important to the Force, you seem to be."
"I believe it's time for Calo Jurgens to come back out into the open, and for us to turn up some stones in the underworld, where Omega is likely hiding," Kastor said. "I think Omega is who we should focus our efforts on. I'm sure this Sith Order has made visible waves and we need to find them. I'll be careful . . . but it is imperative we unveil their plot."
"Careful you must be," Yoda warned Kastor. "Connections in the Senate, Omega has. Your actions, brought to light, may be."
"Hopefully the Senate will be just as interested in Omega and will be more focused on that," Obi-Wan said.
"Somehow, I don't think it will be that easy," Adi said sadly.