Yoda, Dark Rendezvous

by Sean Stewart

  war would carry weight. At the very best, it's diplomatically damaging, and a

  public relations nightmare." Obi-Wan turned and slogged back to their ships.

  They had landed far from any settlements, to avoid drawing undue attention to

  themselves, but for a weary moment Obi-Wan was missing a cozy bar with a good

  fire and a chance to drink off one tumbler of excellent Arkanian sweet milk—a

  demure term for a creamy mead that could leave a strong man under the table.

  "Come with me for a moment," Obi-Wan said, waving Anakin away from his own

  ship. Anakin followed him into his starfighter. "Wipe your feet, or you'll get

  wet prints all over," Obi-Wan said. "You know the artoo hates that."

  "When do we get your old artoo back?"

  "When its repairs are done. Given the amount of fire it's seen riding shotgun

  with me, I'm sure it's in no hurry to report for duty," Obi-Wan said dryly,

  settling himself in front of the comm console. "You've been sending private

  messages back to Coruscant."

  Anakin flushed. "You've been tracing my outgoing—" He stopped. "You just

  guessed."

  "I am a wise and powerful Jedi Knight, you know," Obi-Wan said, allowing

  himself a small grin.

  The little R2 rolled into the nav-and-comm area and wheeped unhappily at

  their wet bootprints.

  An awkward pause.

  "Since part of my duty as your Master is to pass on my vast wisdom—" Obi-Wan

  began.

  "Here it comes," Anakin said.

  "—I suppose I should officially remind you that a Jedi has no room in his

  life for . . . some kinds of entanglement.

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  "Nonattachment is a fundamental precept of the Order, Padawan. You knew that

  when you signed up."

  "I guess I didn't read the Toydarian print," Anakin growled.

  For the first time, Obi-Wan turned away from the holocomm transceiver. "How

  serious are you about this girl, Anakin?"

  "That's not the point," Anakin said, still flushed and angry. "The point is,

  we are out here asking people to support a Republic that barely knows they

  exist, and backing it up with a, a police force of Jedi sworn not to care about

  them! And we wonder why it's a hard sell?" He waved out through the front

  viewscreen. "What if Serifa is right? What if we are the ones who have lost our

  way? I trust what I can feel, Master. That's what you have always taught me,

  isn't it? I trust the living Force. I trust love. The 'principle of

  nonattachment' . . . ? That's an awfully abstract thing to pledge loyalty to."

  "Do you trust hate?" Obi-Wan said.

  "Of course I don't—"

  "I'm serious, Padawan." Obi-Wan held the younger man's eyes. "To follow your

  heart, to either love or hate, in the long run is the same mistake. Your

  judgment becomes clouded. Your motives, confused. If you are not very careful,

  Padawan, love will take you to the dark side. Slower than hate, yes, but no less

  surely for that."

  The air between them crackled with tension, but Anakin lowered his eyes. "I

  hear you, Master."

  "You can hardly help that," Obi-Wan said tartly. "It's whether you believe me

  or not that matters." He sighed. "For what it's worth, most Jedi make the same

  mistake. Learn from it; grow through it. If the Order were made up only of those

  invulnerable to love, it would be a sad group altogether." He turned back to his

  holocomm transceiver, scanning Arkanian news as he set the encryption key for

  the transmission he would send back to Coruscant.

  "Does that mean there is a woman to be discovered in even Master Obi-Wan's

  past?" Anakin inquired. "Tall, I imagine, and dark-haired. Pathetically

  desperate to have anyone at all, that much goes without saying—"

  "Anakin," Obi-Wan breathed, staring at the news flashing across his monitor.

  "Be quiet."

  "I was only joking!"

  Obi-Wan swiveled around in his chair. He had never felt so completely at a

  loss. "It's Master Yoda," he said. "He's dead."

  "What?" Padme cried.

  "Ambushed just outside the Ithor system," her handmaiden said. "The Ithorians

  have confirmed debris from the Master's ship."

  Thoughts of disaster hurtled through Padme's mind like meteorites. The loss

  of Yoda was a crippling blow to the Republic—surely Dooku must have been behind

  it—what would it mean to Anakin? Anakin loved Yoda, of course they all did; but

  he also said the old Master never completely trusted him, always held him

  back—if it was true, who would take up the mantle as head of the Order? Mace was

  a soldier in a soldier's time, but he did not get on so comfortably with

  Chancellor Palpatine...

  So her thoughts whirled madly, like snowflakes, drifting down to settle

  finally on one cold fact: Yoda dead, and the whole universe a little darker for

  it.

  Courage, she told herself. Hope. When the time grows dark, hope must shine

  the brighter. If I could trade my life for a chance of a brighter day for the

  next generation, would I do it?

  In a heartbeat.

  "I'm going to the Senate chamber. The Chancellor will have the best and most

  reliable news." In the doorway Padme turned to look back over her shoulder at

  her handmaidens. They seemed shaken and afraid—far more so than if the

  Chancellor had died. And who could blame them? After more than eight hundred

  years, it was only natural to think Yoda would be around forever. "I wouldn't

  write the old Master off yet," Padme said. "I'll believe he's gone when I see

  them bring his body back. Not before."

  "Thank you for receiving me, Chancellor," Mace Windu said tightly to the

  holographic image of Chancellor Palpatine projected in the Jedi Council Chamber.

  "I am indeed extremely pressed for time, Master Windu, but I value your

  opinion exceedingly." Palpatine's intelligent face creased with a small, dry

  smile. "I think you may safely presume that given a choice between listening to

  the council of Mace Windu, or that of, say, the honorable Senator from Sermeria,

  with his startling ability to bring any topic under discussion to a close

  analysis of its impact on the trade in his homeworld's root vegetables, why, I

  would rather listen to you."

  Mace Windu had his weaknesses, but an easy susceptibility to flattery was not

  one of them. "Thank you," he said briskly, "but may I ask why you have not

  issued an immediate denial of the reports about Master Yoda? I know—"

  Palpatine interrupted him. "This channel is hard-encrypted, Master?"

  "Always."

  "I assumed as much, but my security forces tell me that Coruscant is

  presently infested with spies of every description, including the electronic

  kind. An unfortunate side effect of our policy of allowing unrestricted free

  movement to practically everyone, with only the flimsiest of security checks."

  "The best security, Master Yoda once said, lies in creating a society that

  nobody wishes to attack."

  "Of course! But having somehow failed to convince the Trade Federation, we

  must play the cards as they have been dealt," the Chancellor said. "This is not

  a perfect world, and not all our choices are easy ones." This was obviously

  true,
and the kind of hard truth Mace Windu found more comfortable than the

  Chancellor’s little sallies into gallantry and compliment. "Leaving the question

  of spies aside, I accept your assurance that this transmission is confidential.

  Carry on, Master Windu."

  "I know Yoda was not in the starship destroyed by Asajj Ventress. You know—"

  "It was Ventress, then? I think you sent me a file on her some time back."

  "Yes, Chancellor. Or at least, it was certainly her ship. It's a distinctive

  design, patterned after Count Dooku's. We have analyzed the recordings from the

  fourth pilot—"

  "Who will face a court-martial for cowardice by tomorrow evening, with a

  swift and public sentence," Palpatine said grimly.

  "---And the ship is clearly Ventress's Last Call. My point being," Mace Windu

  said doggedly, "I know Master Yoda wasn't in that ship. I told you Master Yoda

  wasn't in that ship. So why, in the face of news reports of his death that are

  having a very bad effect on morale, does your office not come forth with a

  statement?"

  For the first time, Chancellor Palpatine's tone held the trace of an edge.

  "Master Windu, you may recollect that you only thought to inform me that the

  ship publicly seen to be carrying Master Yoda was a decoy after it had launched.

  In effect, I have only your word that he isn't dead."

  "My word," Mace Windu said deliberately, "is one of the few things in the

  galaxy that a Chancellor of the Republic can trust."

  "Of course I trust you," Palpatine snapped. "It's not enough. We have due

  process for a reason. The Chancellor serves the people and the Senate, not the

  Jedi Order. The Jedi, likewise, cannot be seen to be my private army.

  The people of this Republic must believe their government is directly

  answerable to them and them alone. It's Count Dooku's whole cry that the

  Republic is run by a handful of corrupt Senators and their cronies in the Order

  and the government bureaucracy. If I go before the people and say, I know you've

  seen the footage, but my pals in the Temple tell me the whole thing was just a

  joke, that Master Yoda is still alive, but we don't care to produce him at this

  time . . . how do you suppose that will play?"

  Wearily Mace Windu rubbed his face. "You're the politician."

  "I am, Master Windu. Not a profession you hold in much esteem, but I am a

  politician—a superb politician—and until such time as you hear me giving you

  helpful tips on how to wield a lightsaber, I beg you to consider I just might

  know what I'm doing."

  After a brief silence, the Chancellor sighed and the asperity left his voice.

  "Master Yoda arranged for a decoy so he could travel undetected on his very

  delicate mission. Tragically, several beings have died to carry out that

  deception. Shall we throw away their sacrifice? Or shall we honor it, and give

  Master Yoda a few more days to travel in secret to Vjun, and perhaps end this

  terrible war?"

  "Very well," Mace Windu said at last. "I just hope we're doing the right

  thing."

  "So do I," Palpatine said gravely. "In the meantime, I would take it very

  kindly if you would take over, on a more formal basis, the daily briefings

  Master Yoda used to give me."

  "Of course."

  An aide appeared at the edge of the transceiver's view of Palpatine, telling

  the Chancellor in a low voice that he was very late for his next appointment.

  "Duty calls," Palpatine said, moving to cut the comm channel. Then he paused.

  "Master Windu, since we are being frank with one another today, let me add that

  in these briefings I wish to hear your own unvarnished opinions—not what you

  think Master Yoda would have said. He is a great being—perhaps the greatest in

  the Republic. But Master Yoda is a teacher at heart. You are a warrior.

  Regrettably, this sad age of the world may be your time more than his."

  "Master Yoda is many things, and I am not his equal in peace or war," Mace

  said.

  "That's too bad," the Chancellor said, "because right now you are all I have.

  I expect your best service."

  "For the Order and the Republic, I will give anything and everything,

  including my life."

  The Chancellor reached to cut the channel. "Good," he said. "We may need

  that, too."

  "And in this time of crisis," Senator Orn Free Taa of Ryloth rumbled on, "of

  may I say deepening crisis, the apparent death, the willful assassination of the

  Grand Master of the Jedi Order underscores the urgent need for an entirely new

  level of security. The Jedi will naturally attempt to carry on their good work:

  but they are spread too thin. Master Yoda's tragic death makes that shockingly

  plain."

  Muttered agreement throughout the vast Senate chamber

  "What we need," the Twi'lek Senator continued, "is a massive, expert,

  committed security and counterintelligence force. My fellow legislators, a war

  such as the one we find ourselves in may be won in battle with great difficulty,

  but far more easily lost through treachery and sabotage. The resolution I place

  before you seeks to create such a large, dedicated, aggressive force, not under

  the jurisdiction of any of our innumerable, glacially slow bureaucracies, but

  answerable directly to the Chancellor's office and, through it, to us. It is

  time to put the security of the Republic first," he cried. "It is time to put

  the security of the Republic directly in the hands of her people!"

  Meaning us, Senator Amidala thought, looking at her fellow Senators. All

  around her, her colleagues cheered, stomped, whistled, and applauded. Padme's

  heart sank. Of course, everyone badly wanted to get some control over a

  situation that felt increasingly uncontrollable. But if the resolution

  passed—and it looked very likely to pass—then at some level, the charge of

  securing the Republic was being shifted from the cool, dispassionate,

  professional hands of the Jedi Order into the shouting, emotional, highly

  politicized mob of her colleagues.

  Somehow, that didn't make her feel any safer.

  The ship on which Whie, Scout, Maks Leem, Jai Maruk, and Master Yoda found

  themselves finally heading for the Outer Rim had originally been christened the

  Asymptotic Approach to Divinity when she came off her Verpine assembly line,

  intended as a pilgrim boat for a colony of mathemagi cultists. Unhappily, they

  had lost their communal savings in an investment banking scandal, leaving the

  Approach without a buyer. Rechristened the Stardust, she had gone into the

  glamour cruise business, taking well-heeled sophisticates on tours of exotic

  galactic sites and events, such as the Black Hole of Nakat, or the

  much-anticipated nova of Ariarch-17. Unfortunately, a miscalculation of the

  shock wave coming off the dying star had caused a dramatic and unexpected

  failure of the ship's artificial gravity, from which dozens of lawsuits ensued.

  The litigation lasted two generations, until the lawyers defending the

  Stardust's owners seized her in lieu of fees owed, renamed her Reasonable Doubt,

  and sold her off to Kut-Rate Krui ses, whose maintenance protocols basically

  consisted of filling the ship up with breathable atmosphere an
d then waiting

  around in spacedock a couple of days to see how fast the air was leaking out.

  The Verpine, though excellent starship engineers, were essentially

  two-meter-tall bipedal insectoids who communicated instantly through radio waves

  produced in their chests, and whose visual acuity was so extreme that they could

  distinguish between male and female lice in a nerf's fur at twenty paces. In

  consequence, the beds on Reasonable Doubt were no more than a hand span wide,

  the intercom system was nonexistent, and the ship signage, while no doubt

  screamingly obvious to other Verpine, was completely invisible to Scout. On

  their first day in space, it had taken her nearly an hour to find a refresher

  station, wandering the corridors with increasing agitation until she finally

  broke down and asked a crew member for directions. Embarrassing as that had

  been, coming out two minutes later to confess that she couldn't figure out which

  bits of plumbing to use had been worse.

  Three days later she and Whie were lost, again, trudging through the

  labyrinth of corridors that were all slightly too narrow for human comfort.

  Master Yoda, who loathed being trapped in the R2 shell but was still trying to

  maintain his disguise, had sent them out to get food well over an hour ago.

  (Kut-Rate Kruise Lines had no time for frills such as room service.) Other

  luxury services—bedding, for instance—were also conspicuous by their absence.

  Scout had spent literally all her life dreaming of the day she would fly

  offplanet, escaping the Jedi Temple and crowded Coruscant for the wonders of the

  galaxy. But there had been some kind of mix-up in customs that kept them sitting

  at spacedock for hours, so that she had actually been asleep for the moment of

  liftoff, dozing fitfully on what was more like a plank than a bed, still dressed

  and wrapped in her cloak, aware of the great moment only because a sudden lurch

  had dumped her onto the floor. It had been a bit anticlimactic, and she had been

  grumpy ever si nce.

  Plus she was now quite certain that Jai Maruk, her Jedi Master, didn't like

  her at all. But she wasn't going to let herself think about that just now.

  As for the food ... Scout shuddered. Master Yoda ate it without complaint,

  but then, perhaps he had evolved beyond ordinary mortal concerns.