by Greg Bear
He could never see the face of a father.
Obi-Wan sloshed past the fall into the pilothouse. “Charza is done with his younglings,” he said. “They’re in training now to tend the ship.”
“So fast?” Anakin said.
“Life is short for some of Charza’s kin,” Obi-Wan said. “You look thoughtful.”
“I’m allowed, aren’t I?” Anakin asked.
“As long as you don’t brood,” Obi-Wan said. The look on his master’s face was both irritated and concerned. Anakin suddenly jumped out of his chair and hugged his master with a fierceness that took Obi-Wan by surprise.
Obi-Wan held the boy gently and let the moment flow into its own shape. Some Padawans were like quiet pools, their minds like simple texts. Only in training did they acquire the depth and complexity that showed maturity. Anakin had been a deep and complex mystery from the first day they met, and yet Obi-Wan had never felt such a strength of connection with any other being—not even Qui-Gon Jinn.
Anakin drew back and looked up at his master. “I think we’re going to face real trouble down there,” he said.
“Think?” Obi-Wan asked.
Anakin made a face. “I can feel it. I don’t know what it is, but … I did some forwarding. Feeling ahead. It’s trouble, all right.”
“I’ve suspected as much,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Even when Thracia Cho Leem was—”
The bridge was suddenly filled with a crowd of fresh, young, bright pink food-kin, all clattering and clacking with enthusiasm as they took their stations. Charza pushed through the shallow water onto the bridge with great dignity and weariness, as if he had accomplished something both satisfying and exhausting.
“Life goes on,” he chuffed to Anakin as he took his seat. “Now … let us see if there has been an answer from the planet.”
Raith Sienar entered the observation deck of his flagship, the Admiral Korvin, and stepped up on the commander’s platform. He looked over the weapons arrayed within the circular assembly bay of the former Trade Federation heavy munitions cruiser, an antiquated hulk. He was both critical at the selection and dismayed that he was expected to coordinate this ragtag force.
To make matters worse, there was not a single craft of his own manufacture on board, a serious oversight, he believed, and perhaps a treacherous one.
Tarkin had either not described the force accurately, or he had remembered it with blind optimism.
Sienar flipped up the weapons list. E-5 droids … His lips curled.
The cruiser carried three landing craft, one hundred Trade Federation troops, and over three thousand droids. Three smaller and decidedly less useful vessels completed the squadron that Tarkin was now handing over to him.
It was not inconceivable that one could conquer a planet with these ships: a backwater planet, in the dark ages of technology …
But nothing more advanced than that. And conquer, but not then control.
“You are not impressed,” Tarkin said dryly, joining him on the platform.
“I have never believed in droids as frontline fighters,” Sienar told him. “Not even these new ones. Naboo was lost even though the forces deployed by the Trade Federation were hundreds of times larger than this.”
“As I told you, these droids have been altered to be capable of independence, and they are considerably more rugged than earlier models,” Tarkin said with some irritation.
“Would you trust them to carry out a complicated battle plan on their own?”
“I might,” Tarkin said, sucking in his cheeks as he stared down the ranks of weapons and delivery vehicles. “I must say, Raith, I don’t prize complete independence as much as you seem to. The Neimoidians gave central control a bad name. The controllers on this ship are quite competent and flexible. Zonama Sekot is only lightly populated, as you well know. It is mostly forest. These should be more than sufficient.”
“Be honest with me,” Sienar said, stepping closer to his old classmate. “For both our sakes. If Zonama Sekot were a pushover, as planets go, we could make do with a small expeditionary force. This squadron seems at once too much and perhaps too little, and that worries me.”
“It is the best I can put together. The Trade Federation squadrons are being handed over to Republic control day by day, and this is all that they could hold aside.”
“Perhaps it is the best you can persuade them to send, with your rank and the quality of your contacts,” Sienar said.
Tarkin gave him a surprised, mock-hurt look, and then chuckled. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “When did a military man ever have everything his way? It’s what you do with what you have that wins wars. We would both have preferred to design and build our own force, using more imaginative strategic thinking. But the Trade Federation has suffered from this economic downturn as much as the Republic has. A veritable swarm of petty villains have moved in with their old freighters to run the most lucrative goods illegally between systems. Fighting them and reclaiming trade routes and privileges was a matter of life and death for the Trade Federation. Now the Republic will have to police the trade lanes. And the Republic’s armaments are, if anything, even sorrier. Frankly, I was lucky to procure even this.”
“Spare me the weepy details,” Sienar said coldly. “You have put me in charge rather than go yourself, though you are the more experienced in battle tactics. Failure of this mission will taint the commander—will taint me—irrevocably.”
“Now who is engaging in weepy details?” Tarkin asked, even more coldly. “Raith, for a decade you have sequestered yourself with your collections, executing small contracts, trying to promote a strategy of small, elegant weapon design long out of fashion, complaining bitterly about lost opportunities and unimaginative buyers. During that time, I have been working my way up a very long ladder. We must make do with what we have. I chose you … because you are nearly my equal in tactics, and you will understand Zonama Sekot’s factories better than I ever could.”
Sienar regarded Tarkin narrowly. The two were breathing slightly faster, as if they might go after each other with fingernails and fists at any moment.
But that was not likely. They were gentlemen of military bearing and training, of the old school. Their dignity, at least, would not crumble under this pressure, even if other dustings of honor had long since been swept away.
“I swear, you’ve pushed me into this deliberately,” Sienar said quietly, breaking their gaze in a way that showed such a contest was beneath him. “Looking at this equipment, I’m not at all sure of your motives.”
“There you go again,” Tarkin said, trying for a tone of amusement. “You have a large-capacity and heavily armored flagship with three landers, and three utility vessels—a Taxon-class probe ship, a fleet diplomatic boat that can double as a decoy, and a mobile astromech repair station. Battle droids, sky mines … Your squadron is more than sufficient to accomplish our mission.”
“And you’ll be in just the right place to repair any damage my failure might cause?” Sienar asked.
“I am staying on Coruscant to support the effort politically. That is likely to be far more difficult than conquering a jungle planet.” Tarkin shook his head. “We both of us have far to go up the ladders of this new way of life that is coming. You, my friend, need opportunities to shine. So I give this job to you, not without ulterior motives, to be sure. I am certain you will not fail. Now.” He drew himself up. “I must return to Coruscant. Ah, here is Captain Kett.”
The captain of the Admiral Korvin approached Sienar and bowed his head quickly before speaking. “We are to leave orbit in twenty minutes, Commander. There is one last load of weapons to take aboard. Droid starfighters, I believe. They will be stowed in ten minutes.” The adjutant glanced at Tarkin with a flicker of recognition.
“There, Raith,” Tarkin said. “More than I hoped for. If you can’t win this planet with droid starfighters … Well.”
Sienar acknowledged Kett’s message with a curt twist of his head. “A
llow me to escort you to the transport deck,” he said to Tarkin.
“No need,” Tarkin said.
“I insist,” Sienar told him. “It is the way things are done … on my ship.”
And it would also insure that Tarkin had no time to make last personal arrangements with any secret cadre inside the cruiser. Suspecting as much was churlish, to be sure, but this was rapidly becoming an age of churls.
Sienar felt very much out of place in this age, and on his own flagship.
He would have to do something about that, and quickly.
Your ship is recognized,” the voice of orbital control from Zonama Sekot said—masculine and probably human, Obi-Wan judged. “You have registered as an authorized client transport vessel. Yet the account of your last delivered client is in doubt.”
Charza Kwinn seemed to be cleaning his bristles before he spoke. He drew himself up to the full height of the cabin bulkhead, and a shower of food-kin spilled off him. Anakin shielded his face as they clattered and leapt around the cabin.
Obi-Wan did not shield his face and received a fair-size pink shell square across the lips.
“Apologies,” Charza murmured. Then he switched on the return link. “This is Charza Kwinn, registered owner of Star Sea Flower. I do not recall personally guaranteeing client accounts.”
“No,” the controller admitted, “but we prefer our client transports to bring us reliable customers.”
“I will return my previous client to her homeworld, if she so desires, for free, and at no cost to you,” Charza said innocently. “Where is she?”
There was a lengthy pause. “That will not be necessary,” the controller said. “Landing permission granted. Use the northern plateau. Coordinates have not changed.”
“Wastes fuel,” Charza huffed. He switched off the link. “An equatorial landing site would be much better.”
Obi-Wan watched the surface of Zonama Sekot roll by beneath. “Odd. I’ve never seen such a perfectly divided weather system.”
“It has not changed since we were last here,” Charza said.
The Star Sea Flower flashed its sublight drives for a few thousandths of a second and began the quick drop from orbit. Just as they entered the upper atmosphere, Obi-Wan thought he spotted an anomalous brown desert or rift in the wide, deep green, but it quickly passed out of view.
Atmospheric shields protected them from the buffet, and a beautiful plume of ionized air flared around the ship, blocking his view for a few seconds. When the glow cleared, the landscape below, a smooth carpet of green from orbit, quickly acquired mottled detail. Mountain ranges sparsely dotted with huge reddish boras, and valleys filled with thick green growth, stood out in shaded relief against the glancing light of a westering sun.
“Dextrorotation,” Anakin observed. “Very little axial tilt. It looks normal enough, except for the southern weather.”
Obi-Wan nodded. Vergere had provided them with so few details that all this was new information. “Temperature at the landing point?”
“Last time, it was above freshwater freezing,” Charza said. “But only a little. The landing point is near the pole, a slender flat plateau surrounded by ice-covered seas.”
“Are the seas salty?” Anakin asked.
“I do not know,” Charza said. “Anything I do up here, such as sending a laser beam down for spectrum analysis, becomes known to the planet’s managers. They do not appreciate prying.”
“Curious,” Obi-Wan said.
“They love their secrets,” Charza said.
The northern plateau where they had been cleared to land was easily a thousand kilometers long and narrow as a finger, covered with broken blocks of snow and ice. The top of the plateau showed little relief, and the square field, beside a small cluster of hemispherical buildings, was nothing more than smooth rock cleared of snow.
Charza swung the Star Sea Flower around in a graceful arc, relying on atmospheric propulsion jets, and brought it down gently in the middle of the field. Two other ships—atmospheric transports, not spacecraft—were parked in the open at the edge of the field, both lightly dusted with snow.
Snow was falling in large rainbow-hued flakes outside the craft as Charza dropped the ramp. Food-kin retreated from the draft of frigid air. Anakin drew up his robes, slipped out of his waterproof overboots at the top of the ramp, and walked to the bottom. Obi-Wan tossed him their kits and removed his own boots.
Charza watched them, bristles and spikes knocking together in the cold.
Anakin descended the ramp, with Obi-Wan a few steps behind. He saw a single figure, heavily bundled, standing away from the overhang of the ship: their lone reception.
Charza brought the ramp up behind them, and the ship lifted a meter or so and moved slowly to its berth beside the other two vessels.
“Welcome to Zonama Sekot,” a woman’s voice said through the red face filter of a snow mask. Her midnight blue eyes were barely visible above the thick heat trap. She held up her hand in brief greeting, turned before they were even close, and walked toward the nearest dome.
Anakin and Obi-Wan looked at each other, shrugged, and followed.
Anakin was disappointed by both the reception and his first glimpse of life on Zonama Sekot. He had hoped for scale, spectacle, something to fit the vivid preconceptions of a twelve-year-old boy. What they saw, entering the first dome, was an empty shell, its interior so cold their breath clouded.
Obi-Wan, however, had carefully kept preconceptions from taking hold. He was open to anything, and thus found the reception and the spare quarters—if quarters they were—interesting. These people did not feel the need to impress.
The woman removed her helmet and mask and shook out a thick fall of gray-white hair. The hair quickly arranged itself into a neat spiral that hung with a springlike flex down the back of her suit. Despite the color of her hair, her face was free of wrinkles. Obi-Wan would have thought her younger than he, except for the cast of wary resentment in her deep blue eyes. She seemed very experienced, and tired.
“Rich, are we, and bored?” she asked curtly. “Is this your son?” She pointed to Anakin.
“This is my student,” Obi-Wan said. “I am a professional teacher.”
She shot off another question. “What do you hope to teach him here?”
Obi-Wan smiled. “Whether or not we are rich, we have money to buy a ship. What the boy learns here will begin with your gentle answers to our questions.”
Anakin tipped his head in her direction, showing respect, but unable to hide his disappointment.
The woman looked them over with no change in expression. “Bankrolled by somebody else, or a consortium, too locked in luxury to come by themselves?”
“We are given funds by an organization to which we owe our education and our philosophical stance,” Obi-Wan told her.
The woman snorted in derision. “We do not provide ships for delivery to research groups. Go home, academics.”
Obi-Wan decided against any mind tricks. The woman’s attitude interested him. Contempt often veiled bruised ideals.
“We’ve come quite a long way,” Obi-Wan said, undaunted.
“From the center of the galaxy, I know,” the woman said. “That’s where the money is. Did they tell you—the traitors who do most of our essential advertising—that you must prove yourself before you come away with whatever prize Zonama Sekot will offer? No visitors are allowed to stay more than sixty days. And we have only resumed accepting customers in the last month.” She flung her hand out at them. “We’ve seen all the tactics here! Customers … a necessary evil. I do not have to like it!”
“Whatever our origins, we would hope to be treated with hospitality,” Obi-Wan said calmly. He was about to try a subtle bit of Jedi persuasion when the woman’s whole aspect changed. Her features softened, and she looked as if she might have suddenly seen the face of a long-lost friend.
She stared over their shoulders.
Anakin turned his head to look. The thr
ee of them were alone in the shelter.
“What did you do?” he whispered to Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan shook his head. “Pardon me,” he said to the woman.
She looked down from a vague distance and focused on Obi-Wan again. “The Magister tells me you are to go south,” she said. “Your ship can remain for four more days.”
The abrupt turnaround caught even Obi-Wan by surprise. She did not seem to be equipped with an ear-receiver. Some other comlink was concealed in her clothing, he surmised.
“This way, please,” she said, and gestured for them to go through a small hatch on the opposite side of the empty dome. There, they found themselves again outside, in the middle of a biting, almost horizontal blast of snow.
Obi-Wan looked up at a ghostly shadow descending through the storm. Though the woman showed no concern, his hand slipped automatically through his jacket to his lightsaber.
What had alerted him? What stray bit of clue from the future had made him feel threatened by the expected arrival of a transport, of all things?
Not for the first time, he regretted this mission and its possible impact on his Padawan. The danger he felt came from no specific source but from all around—not threat of physical harm, but of a possible imbalance in the Force so drastic it overshadowed anything he had ever imagined.
Anakin Skywalker was not so much at risk as he was a possible cause of this imbalance.
For the first time since the death of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan felt fear, and he quickly drew up the discipline instilled by long Jedi training to control and then quash it.
He reached out to grip Anakin’s shoulder. The boy looked up at him with a brave grin.
“Your ride south,” the woman announced over the wind as a broad, flat, disk-shaped transport landed in the blowing drifts of snow.
Obi-Wan lifted his own small comlink and opened a channel with the Star Sea Flower. “We are leaving the plateau,” he told Charza Kwinn. “Stay here as long as they allow, and after that … maintain a position nearby.”
Given that Obi-Wan felt he could trust no one, flexibility was essential.
