School of Fear (9781484719770)

by Watson, Jude

  Now they stared at him, or down at their empty hands. There was a beat, a moment of silence and surprise. Anakin pulled out and ignited his lightsaber, holding it in a posture any Jedi would recognize as offensive. He was ready to strike. He did not want to hurt anyone. That was his first concern. But he had to stop the squad’s mission.

  “Just don’t move,” he told them.

  Anakin sensed movement behind him and turned slightly. Rana Halion had taken a step inside the hangar. As soon as she saw the lightsaber, she hit a button on her cuff.

  Gillam smiled. “Looks like your luck has run out, Jedi.”

  “Jedi don’t need luck,” Anakin said, just as the attack droids swarmed into the hangar.

  Blaster fire erupted from the droids, aimed at Anakin but scattered enough so that he feared for Marit and the others. The squad dropped, scrambling for their blasters. Anakin saw at once his problems. Gillam and Rolai had found blasters and were trying to aim at him as he moved. Fire from the droids was heavy. Marit had ducked behind a starfighter. He did not think he could count on help from her. She seemed dazed.

  He saw the smile of triumph on Gillam’s face as he retrieved and aimed his blaster, and Anakin’s anger returned. He reached out to the Force. He remembered the lessons he had learned from Soara Antana, the great Jedi Master. The Force comes from stillness, she had said. Find your still center, even in the midst of battle.

  He saw time unspool before him like a ribbon. He saw it freeze like ice on a river. He saw that he had infinite time to do everything he needed.

  With an outstretched hand he knocked the blaster from Gillam’s grasp and sent it flying across the full space of the hangar. It hit the wall so hard it shattered. Gillam’s smile disappeared.

  At the same time he was moving, diverting the droids’ blaster fire from where Tulah and Hurana had taken cover, pushing Ze behind a durasteel container, and knocking out one attack droid with a thrust to its control panel.

  Suddenly the laser cannons from the starfighter on his right began to fire. Gillam had slipped inside the cockpit.

  Anakin did not lose his sense of frozen time. He was the master of time. He did not worry about the laser cannons any more than he’d worried about the attack droids. It all seemed so easy. He seemed to see the fire before it came, and he knew how to move to avoid it. His movements were like shimmersilk, so fluid it was as though he did not have muscles and bones, only will.

  Now his Master was here. He could feel that, too. But he did not need him.

  He spun in midair, taking out two battle droids while he leaped through the laser cannonfire straight at the cockpit of the starfighter. With one backward slash he took out the final droid. He had a flash of Gillam’s shocked face as he cut through the windscreen with one slice. With one hand, he threw Gillam out of the pilot’s seat and then dropped into it. He turned off the engines and disabled the laser cannons.

  Siri and Ferus stood, lightsabers drawn, guarding Rolai, Marit, Hurana, Tulah, and Ze. Obi-Wan had captured Rana Halion.

  Across the space, he looked at his Master. He waited for Obi-Wan to acknowledge him. The mission was over. He had been successful. He had found Gillam and thwarted an invasion.

  He waited, standing in the cockpit, looking down. He could feel the flush of triumph on his cheeks. Siri glanced at him, as did Ferus. He could see the astonishment on their faces. But his Master never looked up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Never had Obi-Wan seen such a display of the Force from a Padawan. From the great Jedi Masters, yes. From Qui-Gon, near the end of his life. But from someone so young? Anakin’s power astonished him. He had glimpsed it before, but now he had seen it unfurl, and it staggered him.

  He had not had a chance to move, to help. Anakin had been a blur. He had seemed to be everywhere at once. He had destroyed ten attack droids, disarmed his aggressors, and disabled two laser cannons without hesitation, with even a slight smile on his face.

  He could see that Siri and Ferus had been just as astonished at Anakin’s deep connection to the Force, the way he had seemed to know what was going to happen before it happened, the way he was able to dodge fire before it occurred. Astonished, yes—and disturbed.

  Unease settled into Obi-Wan’s bones, joining his disappointment and the anger he had tried to eliminate from his heart. To have a Padawan so gifted who was capable of being so wrong—it was his gift to be able to teach him. It was his burden as well.

  At first he could not even look at Anakin. He had to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  Rana Halion tried to glide away from him, but with a lifted lightsaber he stopped her. “How dare you!” she cried. “I assure you, I have no idea what this renegade band is doing here. My security team alerted me that there was a break-in and I arrived to see a battle.” Her eyes swept the secret squad as if she had never seen them before.

  “And why did you send in droids to attack a Jedi?” Siri asked.

  “How ridiculous. I didn’t know there was a Jedi here,” Rana Halion said. “We sent in the droids because it is the usual procedure when there is a security breach.”

  The girl called Marit raised her chin and fixed Rana with a contemptuous stare. “She is lying,” she said. “About everything. I’m not a student anymore, but I can see I’ve learned my first real lesson today. Betrayals are the way the galaxy works.” She looked at Anakin.

  He shook his head at her, as if to apologize. “I believed in what you believed,” he said.

  “Then you were as foolish as I was,” Marit said softly.

  “You’ll take her word over mine?” Rana Halion huffed.

  “This is a matter for the Senate to sort out,” Siri said. “These students will testify, no doubt. They’ve already been expelled, so they’ll certainly be available.”

  “Expelled? I don’t think so,” Gillam said. “I want to talk to my father!”

  “Your father might not want to talk to you after he discovers that you were trying to set him up for murder,” Obi-Wan said.

  “Who told such lies?” Gillam asked. “I barely escaped my captors with my life. She kidnapped me!” he shrilled, pointing at Rana Halion.

  “You scrawny brat!” Rana cried.

  Ferus held up Gillam’s datapad. “You might want to reconsider what you’re saying, Gillam. Do you recognize this?”

  Gillam went pale, but only for a moment. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t even know him. I’ve never seen that datapad. He’s just another jealous student, no doubt.”

  “No, he is a Jedi,” Siri said.

  Gillam looked alarmed. “He’s a Jedi, too?”

  “They’re everywhere,” Tulah said, dazed.

  “I never realized how much you lie,” Marit said to Gillam. “You breathe, you lie. This squad was never about us. It wasn’t about banding together to do something good. It was really all about you. And if you think the rest of us are going to support your lies, you’re not only a liar, you’re crazy. Like you said, Gillam, we all have nothing left to lose.”

  “Affirmatively true,” Ze said, and Tulah nodded.

  Gillam looked flustered. He opened his mouth and then clamped it shut. He crossed his arms. “I want to see my father,” he repeated.

  “You’ll see him soon enough,” Siri said. “We’re taking you all to Coruscant. The Senate authorities can straighten out this mess.”

  Siri led a protesting Rana Halion away. Ferus herded the squad toward the open doors of the hangar.

  Obi-Wan was left alone with Anakin. At last it was time for him to speak to his Padawan. Yet he could not find the right words. He knew, glancing at his Padawan’s eager face, that Anakin meant well from the bottom of his heart. If Obi-Wan saw a shadow on that heart, he knew it would pain his Padawan to know it. In many ways, Anakin was still a boy. A wounded, loving, anxious boy with great gifts he did not fully understand.

  Yet he was also a young man, close to maturity, who could do great harm. To others, yes. To hi
mself, most of all.

  “They were going to conduct a raid on Andara,” Anakin said, tired of Obi-Wan’s silence. “But first they were going to kill me—”

  “I know,” Obi-Wan said. “Everything was on Gillam’s datapad. Which you would have known if you had searched for Ferus.”

  Anakin flushed. “I didn’t know where he was.”

  “You did not look.”

  “I thought perhaps he was on Ieria or Andara. I thought the secret squad knew where he was—”

  “You did not even look!” Obi-Wan shouted. “Your fellow Jedi was missing, and you did not even look!”

  “I thought it best to continue under cover,” Anakin said. His face showed his surprise at Obi-Wan’s harshness. Obi-Wan never raised his voice. “I had infiltrated the squad. I thought my best chance of finding both Gillam and Ferus was to continue.”

  “You were willing to participate in a raid that would have started a war,” Obi-Wan continued. He had to struggle to keep his voice level. He needed to keep as calm as possible.

  “I didn’t know about the raid!” Anakin protested. “I mean, I knew they were going to do something, but it was a dry run, designed to show the Andarans that they had the capability of invading their airspace. I didn’t know they had plans to destroy their fleet. As soon as I did, I sabotaged the laser cannons.”

  “Anakin, you left your fellow Jedi imprisoned and went off on a mission with a group of beings who you had no reason to trust,” Obi-Wan said. “You were wrong at every point. Can’t you see that?”

  Anakin said nothing.

  “You did not contact me to tell me Ferus was missing—”

  “I would have compromised our cover—”

  “You had a responsibility!” Obi-Wan’s voice cut like a laser whip. “Just as I had one to Siri. You betrayed me and the Order by your actions. And your inability to see that troubles me the worst of all.”

  “I am sorry, Master.”

  Obi-Wan shook his head. Grief rose in him. “Those are words you speak so easily, Padawan.”

  Anakin’s mouth closed in a line. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  Honesty. Loyalty. Patience. Obedience. Obi-Wan thought these things but did not say them. Because, after all, they were only words, too.

  “I can only show you the path,” Obi-Wan said. “You must choose to walk on it.”

  “I just…” Anakin stopped. He took a ragged breath. “I thought you would be proud of me.”

  I am proud of you. Obi-Wan wanted to say the words. They were true. He was proud of so much in Anakin. But now was not the time to tell him that.

  Or was it?

  Help me, Qui-Gon.

  But no matter how hard Obi-Wan listened, he could not hear the quiet wisdom of his Master. And now it was too late. Siri returned and signaled to him. It was time to go.

  “I will take this matter up with the Council,” he said.

  “Of course,” Anakin said. “The Council. We can’t take a step without it.”

  “That’s enough!” Obi-Wan snapped. “Come. The others are waiting.”

  Anakin hesitated. The set of his mouth was stubborn.

  “Come, Padawan.” Obi-Wan’s tone rang with authority. Anakin’s hesitation cast a chill on his heart.

  Anakin followed him. Obi-Wan did not glance back again.

  He felt shaken. Did Anakin understand that he had violated an essential part of the Jedi code? Did he know he had broken something between them? He had not fully trusted Obi-Wan. And so Obi-Wan had lost his trust in him.

  Not for good, he tried to reassure himself. And maybe not for long.

  Still, his step was heavy as he climbed up the loading ramp of the transport. His anger faded. Left behind was a feeling he was not used to experiencing. It was fear.

  About the Author

  JUDE WATSON is the New York Times best-selling author of the Jedi Quest and Jedi Apprentice series, as well as the Star Wars Journals Darth Maul, Queen Amidala, and Princess Leia: Captive to Evil. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest.