by Jude Watson
“Now that he’s settled, I think we should leave for Coruscant,” Ferus said. “We’ve no time to lose.”
Here it was. Here was the moment he would disappoint him. “I’m not coming with you, Ferus.”
Ferus looked saddened, but not surprised. “I guess I knew that. I just hoped you’d change your mind.”
“I have given you as much help as I can give.”
“What about Garen? He’s your friend!”
“I’m leaving him in a place he can be cared for.”
“Yes, he needs care. That’s my point. We found Garen, and we know there is another Jedi who needs our help.” Ferus shook his head. “I don’t understand how you can walk away from that.”
“And I can’t explain.” There are some things you just can’t know.
Ferus snorted. “Your secret mission again.”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you. If you need my help from time to time, I’ll help you. But I can’t build this base for you. I can’t travel the galaxy with you. I have my place in this struggle already mapped out.”
He could see the impatience on Ferus’s face. “So you’ll abandon the ones who need you, like your best friend?”
“They have you. This is your mission, Ferus. You chose it.”
Ferus looked away, furious.
Obi-Wan’s own feelings were a tangle inside him. He couldn’t say that he didn’t think Ferus had a point. Part of him wondered if he was abandoning Garen, and he worried about this fragile group. Toma and Raina were courageous and resourceful, but they could only do so much. Trever was sharp and inventive, but he was still a boy. Garen was ill and frail. And Ferus was just putting his feet back on the path. He took on too much, thinking he was still as powerful a Jedi as he used to be.
And he was leaving all of them to fend for themselves.
He was doing the right thing. He knew that. But to go on, to do that thing, to not have regrets…that was something he wasn’t capable of.
Acceptance doesn’t guard you from regret.
It was a memory this time, and it rang clear as a bell in Obi-Wan’s mind. He and Qui-Gon having one of their many talks after a mission. He couldn’t remember now what it was that he regretted, or what he had been asking. But he remembered a blazing sunset and the beginnings of the night sky above it, and he clearly remembered Qui-Gon’s answer.
To be a living being is to live with regret. Those who say they regret nothing are liars or fools. Accept your regret the way you accept your mistakes. Then move on.
Obi-Wan looked at Ferus, and he felt pain in his heart. Ferus was so brave, and there was so much ahead of him. Yet he must leave him. The fact that his heart could break, the fact that he could be filled with this confusion…that was something he hadn’t felt in a long while. It was something he’d hoped never to feel again. Yet here he was, his heart full of feeling.
And then he knew, as surely as he knew his mission, why Qui-Gon had told him he wasn’t ready for training with the Whills.
When you know why you are not ready, you will be ready, Qui-Gon had told him.
Now he knew. Now he was ready to return.
“I have two things to ask of you,” Obi-Wan said. “One is Garen.”
“I will see that he’s cared for,” Ferus said stiffly. “You don’t have to ask. I’ll never abandon him.”
“Thank you. Now I must ask you something else. I’m afraid that Malorum is looking into Polis Massa. It’s best if you don’t know why. I managed to deflect the inquiry for a time, but I don’t know what Malorum knows or what he’s planning to do next. The answers to those questions can endanger every Jedi—and the fledgling resistance.”
“I’ll track him for you,” Ferus said. “It may take some time.”
“Do your best,” Obi-Wan said. “If he continues to investigate, I’ll need to know. On your way to Coruscant, I need you to drop me on Tatooine. It’s time for me to get back.”
“You’re treating me like an apprentice,” Ferus said. “You won’t tell me what you’re doing, and you’re giving me orders.”
“It seems that way,” Obi-Wan said. “But I don’t think of you as an apprentice.”
“What do you think of me as, then?” Ferus asked irritably.
“A Jedi,” Obi-Wan said. “One of the last.”
Ferus’s troubled gaze cleared. He took a deep breath that seemed to calm him.
“It’s been so long since I was a Jedi,” he said. “The old ways are ingrained in me, but I have to struggle to rediscover them. Acceptance, right? Acceptance without judgment. That’s what I need.”
“It’s something to strive for, anyway.”
Ferus turned to face him. Obi-Wan saw that Ferus didn’t understand him. Hadn’t forgiven him. But he had taken a step on the path. “Then I will try.”
They landed Toma’s ship outside the settlement of Mos Eisley. Obi-Wan wrapped his cloak around him. The wind was up, and the sand outside was blowing crazily. Good. Everyone tended to stay in their shelters during sandstorms. He would have a solitary walk to his dwelling.
“Good-bye, Trever,” Obi-Wan said. “We’ve had an interesting journey together. May the Force be with you.”
“Back at you, ’Wan.”
Trever went back into the ship, and Obi-Wan stood at the top of the ramp with Ferus. Particles of sand stung their cheeks and exposed skin.
“Charming place,” Ferus remarked. “I can see why you want to stay.”
“And your asteroid is a garden?”
“Ah, but it will be.”
Obi-Wan paused. There was a part of him that wanted to stay with Ferus, to hold on to this one human link to the past. But he knew what he had to do, and that he had to do it alone.
“I’m glad our paths crossed again,” he said now.
“You were kind to me as an apprentice,” Ferus replied. “I admired you more than any Jedi…you and Siri. Now I guess I have to trust you, too. That’s not as easy.”
“Qui-Gon would say that when it comes to the Living Force, trust is the only currency,” Obi-Wan said.
Ferus nodded. “You said you would help me if I needed it. I pledge the same to you. May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“May the Force be with you,” Obi-Wan said. “Find them and gather them. Make them safe.”
With his hand on his new lightsaber, Ferus strode back up the ramp. Obi-Wan stepped back onto the rocky soil of Tatooine. He retreated to the relative shelter of a cliff overhang to watch as Ferus did a flight check before departure.
A voice entered his head.
I never said trust was the currency of the Living Force. This time, Qui-Gon sounded dry, amused.
Obi-Wan smiled. “You didn’t?”
I don’t think I’d say anything that pompous. It sounds more like you.
Obi-Wan leaned against the rock wall. “It’s good to be back.”
Something has changed with you. I sense it.
“I know now why I wasn’t ready to receive the training,” Obi-Wan said. “I had lost my connection to the Living Force. You taught me, my life had taught me, Siri taught me…how to connect to the Living Force. I learned to live with an open heart. But then Anakin turned to the dark side, and I lost my perspective.”
You felt only rage and blame and you turned it on yourself.
“There was much to blame myself for.”
Maybe.
“But still, I couldn’t see my way out of it.”
You bore all the responsibility for what happened. You went over and over your mistakes. You must know this, Obi-Wan—it is Anakin who chose to turn to the dark side. Grief did not push him there. You did not push him there. He made the choice.
“There were so many things I should have seen. So many places I should have corrected him.”
Yes. But you must accept your regret the way you accept your mistakes. Then move on.
“Someone told me that once, long ago.”
The smile had come back into Qui-Gon’
s voice. Pity you didn’t listen.
Obi-Wan felt something lift. Qui-Gon was right. Blame was crippling him, and now it was gone.
He had learned to forgive himself. He had learned to open himself up to pain again.
He was no longer the same man he was when he first exiled himself on Tatooine. He had wanted to exile more than himself. He had wanted to exile his heart.
Well, he would live here, and he would watch over Luke, but he wouldn’t stop living.
And he would start with forgiveness for his mistakes. He knew now that he was part of one great struggle. The galaxy did not turn on his failures. It did not rest on his success.
The power of the Empire was awesome. Fearsome. But Luke and Leia were alive. Ferus was alive, and maybe other Jedi were, too. Someday, a rebellion would rise.
Obi-Wan watched the gray ship lift into the air and disappear from sight. Ferus was the future. Ferus would take up the fight that Obi-Wan could not join.
Obi-Wan readied his mind. He felt Qui-Gon’s presence, steady and sure.
“I am ready to begin,” he said.
Ferus eased the ship into the crowded express space lane toward the surface of Coruscant. Trever had never seen so much space traffic. The lanes were dense with vehicles, all jockeying for position.
“Never seen anything like it, right?” Ferus asked.
“Never.”
“It has just about anything you’d want,” Ferus said, waving a hand at the thousands of buildings. Trever felt awed. He’d never seen so many lights, and behind every light was a business, a home, a dwelling. “And I have contacts here. It might be a place for you to put down roots.”
An ache twisted Trever’s stomach. He’d thought he and Ferus were partners. Sure, he’d thought about leaving him on Ilum, but he hadn’t. Now Ferus was taking the first occasion to dump him.
Ferus saw the look on his face. “What is it?”
Trever’s face hardened. “Ready to unload the space garbage, huh?”
“No,” Ferus said. “But I have a new goal now. It’s dangerous. I don’t know where I’ll be going, how I’ll be living. I can’t drag you into that.”
“You’re not dragging me.”
“And you can’t tell me that you haven’t thought of leaving,” Ferus said. “There are easier ways to live.”
“Okay, I’ve thought about it,” Trever admitted. “And I can’t say I’m crazy about this Jedi-base business. But I don’t know, I feel kind of stuck with you. That’s the awful, new-moon truth.”
Ferus laughed. “Thanks. I guess.”
Trever stretched out and propped his feet on the console. “So if you don’t mind, I’m not going anywhere just yet.”
Ferus knew he should keep a low profile. He knew he should dock at the most crowded spaceport and lose himself in the vast crowds.
But he couldn’t resist passing the Jedi Temple. He had to see.
It rose before him. At first, it seemed a mirage, unreal, a holo-projection. Because this couldn’t be real.
The towers—broken. The top half of the Temple spires—scorched by fire.
It was ruined. The gracious rooms, the hallways, the gardens, the fountains.
Gone.
A deep tremor went through him. His hands shook on the controls. Beside him, even Trever was silent.
Had he really absorbed the loss of the Jedi until this moment? It didn’t seem so. Now it filled him up. He choked on his rage, on his pain. On his sorrow.
They would be in danger on Coruscant every moment. He didn’t know where to start looking for the imprisoned Jedi. He didn’t know which of his old contacts were dead. Some could now be spies for the Empire. He was in a new galaxy now, and he wasn’t sure he had the tools to maneuver through it.
But with his eyes on the devastation of the Temple, he was more certain than ever of his path.
Why him? The visions had accused him of arrogance. But Ferus knew the answer was simple. He was the only one who could. He would find the last of the Jedi and bring them home.
