The Moment of Truth

by Jude Watson

  not be facing invasion now."

  Mezdec stood. "I am beginning to wonder who the traitor is here!" he

  bellowed.

  Shalini put her hand on her husband's arm. "Sit," she said softly.

  After a moment's deliberation, Mezdec sat down. "Would anyone like

  another protein bar?" Obi-Wan tried. Everyone ignored him again.

  The tension was thick in the room. It was no wonder, Obi-Wan thought.

  They had been together for over a year. They had been hunted by the

  Vanqors. There had been a saboteur in their midst. They were afraid they

  would never make it off-planet.

  He understood their testiness, but he wasn't too excited about having

  to listen to it.

  "I think I'll check on Anakin," he said.

  The hangar was located in the back, past the utility rooms. There was

  only one transport and a few speeder bikes that had been dismantled for

  parts. All Obi-Wan could see were Anakin's legs, sticking out from

  underneath the transport. Obi-Wan leaned down.

  "Any luck?"

  Anakin's voice was muffled. "Maybe. But what I wouldn't give for a pit

  droid."

  "Consider me a pit droid," Obi-Wan said. "What can I do?"

  Anakin slid out. "You need some servodrivers for hands and a grease

  pump instead of a nose." He said the words grumpily.

  "Well, let me do something," Obi-Wan said. "Have you pinpointed the

  problem?"

  "Sure," Anakin said. "That's the easy part. It's the power generator.

  The transfer wires from the sublight engine are fused together, which means

  that the fusion system is completely blown."

  "Can you replace the transfer wires?"

  "Sure. But then the backup from the power feeds would trigger a

  response."

  "And that response would be.. "

  "The ship would blow up."

  "Not optimum," Obi-Wan said.

  "I can see where Mezdec tried to improvise. But he keeps running into

  the same problem." Anakin tapped his finger on the shell of the ship.

  "Here's what I can't figure," he said. "Why would Samdew disable the ship

  completely? If he killed all the crew here, how would he get off-planet?"

  "Maybe he didn't need the ship," Obi-Wan said. "The Vanqors would pick

  him up."

  "Okay," Anakin said. "But if I were a spy stuck on a remote moon, I'd

  want a back door, just in case. I wouldn't assume that everything would go

  as planned."

  "Things rarely do." Obi-Wan nodded thoughtfully. "Meaning there must

  be a way to fix the ship."

  "I just don't know what it is yet." Anakin ducked back under the ship.

  "But I'll find it. Hand me that fuse-cutter, will you?"

  Obi-Wan reached for the tool. For the next hour, he silently helped

  Anakin try one route, then another, to fix the ship. He admired Anakin's

  focus. It was as though the engine were an ailing organism that he was

  coaxing back to life.

  Mezdec wandered out to help, and he and Anakin conferred. Obi-Wan lost

  the thread of the conversation, which skimmed over fuse switches,

  overrides, and surges. He knew something about engines, but not nearly as

  much as Anakin.

  At last Anakin replaced the engine plate, entered the ship, and eased

  into the pilot seat. He hesitated before firing the engines.

  "You might want to back up," he told Obi-Wan, who had also entered the

  ship.

  "How far?"

  "To the next star system." Anakin grinned. "Only kidding." He engaged

  the throttle and the engine roared to life.

  Mezdec yelled from the outside, "The kid knows his stuff."

  "That he does," Obi-Wan agreed as he exited.

  Anakin powered down the engines and leaped out of the ship. "I can get

  it started, but I can't restore full power. That means no deflector

  shields. We had to bypass the weapons delivery system to juice up the

  generator, so we won't have turbolasers, either. In other words, we'll have

  a slow ride, and we'll be exposed if the Vanqors track us on radar. And

  then there's the fuel problem."

  "Which is?"

  "We don't have much. I ran our options through the computer. The only

  way to get to Typha-Dor is by the shortest route. That's going to bring us

  right into Vanqor airspace."

  Obi-Wan grimaced. "This just keeps getting better." He looked back at

  the shelter, where the four crew members waited. "We'll have to risk it.

  Our only chance is to slip through their surveillance. Space is big."

  "Space is big?" A flash of humor made Anakin's eyes sparkle. "That's

  your strategy? I guess I can stop worrying."

  The mischief in Anakin's eyes suddenly lightened Obi-Wan's heart. He

  saw the flash of a boy he'd once known, a boy who liked to fix things, a

  boy who had yet to understand the great gifts he had been given. A boy

  untroubled by those gifts who believed the galaxy would unfold for him,

  show him the promise of his dreams.

  I can't let him lose that spirit. I can't let him lose the boy he was.

  He grinned back. "Thanks," he said. "I just thought of it."

  As they exchanged smiles, something changed. Something lightened, and

  the tension between them eased, just a bit.

  But then, just as the moment passed, Obi-Wan saw sadness in Anakin's

  eyes. He caught the same feeling. It was no longer possible to fix things

  between them with a joke, a light moment. Things ran too deep for that now.

  "I'll get the others," Obi-Wan said.

  Shalini stood, her hands on her hips, surveying the main room.

  "I sure hope you can make that thing take off," she said.

  There was nothing left of the shelter. It was now an empty shell. The

  team's instructions were to destroy anything that could be of use to the

  Vanqors. Shalini and the rest had used soldering equipment and tools to

  fuse and destroy the comm and surveillance suites. They had destroyed all

  their files and everything they could not carry aboard ship.

  Anakin sat behind the controls, with Mezdec next to him. "The takeoff

  could be bumpy," he told the others. "We don't have enough power for a

  smooth ride. Once we get into the upper atmosphere we should be okay."

  Anakin started the engines. The retractable roof of the hangar slid

  back. Watching the instruments carefully, Anakin gave the engines power and

  they rose, too slowly for Obi-Wan's comfort. The ship shook with the

  effort.

  Anakin's face was completely calm, but Obi-Wan noted the sheen of

  perspiration on his skin. The controls shook in his hands. The shuddering

  ship rose over the icy wasteland. It slid sideways, dangerously close to

  the side of the mountain. Obi-Wan saw Thik close his eyes. Shalini touched

  her belt, where the disk lay hidden.

  Anakin gave another boost to the power, and the ship shot up into the

  upper atmosphere. "That was the hard part," he announced to the others.

  "Next stop, Typha-Dor."

  If we are lucky, Obi-Wan thought. If we are very, very lucky.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Anakin glanced at the radar. There was no traffic in the vicinity.

  Most transient ships stayed clear of the Uziel system, due to the troubles

  there. Now that Vanqor controlled the airspace, no one was eager to tangle
r />   with it.

  Safe for the moment, Anakin let Rajana take over the piloting. He

  needed to keep a closer eye on the instruments.

  Mezdec looked up from the navigation screen. "Everything all right?"

  "I just want to take a look at the stabilizer controls," Anakin said.

  "Without full power, we'll be in trouble if something malfunctions. I had

  to reroute the cables from the left stabilizer in order to get lift. I want

  to make sure we didn't pull too much power on the takeoff. I'm going to run

  a full status check."

  He set the status check in motion and watched as the computer ticked

  off the different indicators. Anakin decided to do a second check, this

  time manually. He couldn't be too careful in a ship operating at less than

  full power. He scanned through the warning sensors.

  "That's odd," he said to Mezdec. "I'm getting an indicator green on

  three power feeds on the escape pod. I'm showing two anti-gray generators."

  "The pod does have two anti-gray generators," Mezdec said. "It was

  upgraded in case it had to be used as a primary transport to get all the

  way back to Typha-Dor. Samdew sabotaged the pod, too."

  "I saw that," Anakin said. "But there was no console indicator for an

  extra generator and three power feeds."

  "The feed indicators are in the pod itself," Mezdec said.

  "I see. I'll check them there, then." Anakin went back to the escape

  pod. He did a status check. Then he stopped by the small area where Obi-Wan

  had settled himself in the rear of the craft.

  Anakin eased into a seat next to him. He leaned over casually and

  spoke in a low tone. "The escape pod is double-boosted. Highly unusual for

  this model. The indicators don't run through the sensor array in the main

  cabin. In other words, I found Samdew's back door. If I'd checked the pod

  itself, I could have fixed the problem on the transport. All that needed to

  be done was a rewiring job to suck power from the pod and bring it to the

  transport. We could have taken off with full power."

  "Can you do it now?"

  Anakin shook his head. "Not while we're flying. But that's not the

  issue. I have one question."

  "Why didn't Mezdec figure it out?" Obi-Wan interjected in a low tone.

  "Could it be an oversight?"

  Anakin shrugged. "Sure. If he's not very bright. But he seems to know

  his stuff. And he had a month to try to fix the transport."

  Obi-Wan frowned. "Something has been nagging at me. There were scorch

  marks on the comm console. Mezdec said that he came out of the sleeping

  quarters and saw Samdew at the comm unit. He saw that Sam-dew was sending a

  communication to the Vanqors."

  Anakin nodded. "So he blasted the comm console to stop him."

  "A blast from that distance shouldn't have left scorch marks on the

  panel," Obi-Wan said.

  "Not unless he shot from very close," Anakin agreed. "Maybe he was

  mistaken about where he was standing."

  "If he was close enough to blast the panel to leave scorch marks,

  wouldn't you think he'd be close enough to stop Samdew without shooting?

  Why did he have a blaster, anyway? He said he'd been sleeping, and it was

  the middle of the night," Obi-Wan said. "Anyway, the point is that he lied.

  "

  "But the others came out and saw what happened," Anakin said. "And

  Samdew shot Thik."

  "Think back, Padawan," Obi-Wan said. "You are telling me the

  impression you got, not the words that were actually said."

  Anakin thought back, annoyed at himself. He had spoken quickly,

  without reviewing the conversation in his mind. That wasn't consistent with

  his training.

  He focused, as a Jedi should. He remembered the conversation clearly

  now, in the exact words and sequence the others had used. An exact memory

  was one of the tools of a Jedi mind.

  "Samdew was dying when he tried to shoot Mezdec," Anakin said. "That's

  what Rajana and Thik saw. Thik just got in the way. So Samdew could have

  been shooting at Mezdec because Mezdec was the spy. But what about Samdew

  activating the fire system?"

  "We only have Mezdec's word for that, too," Obi-Wan said. "We only

  have Mezdec's word for everything, including the disabled transport."

  "Do you think he's the spy?" Anakin asked. "I don't know," Obi-Wan

  said.

  Shalini had seen them talking, and she slid into a seat next to Obi-

  Wan. "Everything all right?"

  Anakin glanced at his Master. Mezdec was Shalini's husband. As the

  head of the group, she had a right to know what they were thinking. But

  where would her loyalties lie?

  "Fine," Obi-Wan said. "Tell us something. Did you have any other

  evidence that Samdew was the saboteur?"

  "What more evidence did we need?" Shalini said. "He killed four of us.

  "

  "What do you think his plan was before he was interrupted?" Obi-Wan

  asked.

  "We knew he was beginning his transmission to the Vanqor fleet,"

  Shalini said. "Luckily Mezdec intervened before they got a lock on our

  position. I imagine that his message would be that we had the invasion

  plans. Then he would kill us and take off."

  "In the disabled transport?"

  "The Vanqors would send a transport, I suppose," Shalini said. "What

  are you suggesting?"

  "It seems an inefficient way for a spy to behave," Obi-Wan said. "Far

  better to alert the Vanqors that their plans had been retrieved, then stay

  in place and hope for more chances to betray Typha-Dor."

  "Maybe he was an inefficient spy," Shalini said. "Maybe his mission

  was over. Maybe he was tired of the cold." She eyed Obi-Wan curiously. "Why

  don't you say what you mean?"

  "There could be another spy," Obi-Wan said. "Or Samdew might have been

  innocent. He did not get a chance to defend himself."

  "He shot Thik!" Shalini said.

  "He was aiming at Mezdec," Obi-Wan reminded her. "The only person who

  had identified him as a spy."

  "What are you saying?" Hostility tinged Shalini's words now.

  Shalini's voice had risen, and Thik and Olanz looked over. Rajana and

  Mezdec could not hear.

  "We're just going over what happened," Obi-Wan said. "We want to make

  sure that what you think happened really happened."

  "I know what happened," Shalini insisted.

  "You know what Mezdec told you," Obi-Wan said. "There is a difference.

  It could be a crucial one. Are you willing to gamble your planet's freedom

  on your faith in him?"

  "Yes," Shalini said with complete certainty.

  "I'm not," Olanz said quietly, coming up with Thik. "The Jedi might

  have a point, Shalini. We are relying on Mezdec for our proof."

  Shalini looked at the two of them with disbelief. "Mezdec is not a

  traitor. He is as loyal to Typha-Dor as I am, as committed to bringing the

  plans back as I am."

  Anakin noticed that she touched her utility belt when she spoke.

  "May we see the disk?" he asked.

  Shalini looked at him angrily, but she reached into a hidden pocket on

  her belt and handed Obi-Wan the disk.

  Obi-Wan accessed it on his datapad. It was empty of information.

 
; Shalini stared at the disk in shock. "I don't know how..."

  "Was the disk ever out of your sight?" Obi-Wan asked urgently.

  She bit her lip. "No, never. But Mezdec checked my blaster and my

  emergency supplies on my utility belt before we left. He said he wanted to

  do it, to make sure I would be safe...." Her voice trailed off. "I have a

  second disk. I didn't tell Mezdec. The invasion plans are safe."

  Rajana's voice rose. "I'm getting radar activity. I think it's a

  destroyer."

  "Where is Mezdec?" Shalini cried. Mezdec had disappeared.

  Anakin and Obi-Wan sprang up. "Emergency pod," Obi-Wan said.

  They raced to the rear of the ship. Mezdec was accessing the emergency

  door. He ran inside.

  The ship suddenly shook as laser cannonfire erupted.

  "We're under attack!" Rajana shouted from the cockpit. "I need help

  here!"

  Both Jedi leaped toward the closing door to the escape pod. It locked