Master of Disguise (9781484719763)

by Watson, Jude

  “Maybe he didn’t need a team,” Obi-Wan said. “Maybe he could do it himself.” He waved at the holofiles surrounding them. “Think about it. Look at what he’s done over the years. Look at the fact that he doesn’t employ many people at all. It would have been impossible for Omega to have done what he did in his career without some serious scientific knowledge. Which means,” he said, turning to Jocasta excitedly, “he would have to have had some serious study. Can you search the records of the finest scientific institutes in the galaxy?”

  Jocasta raised an eyebrow. “All of them?”

  Obi-Wan nodded.

  “I’ll start with the Core Worlds,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Obi-Wan was sipping a cup of tea in the Room of a Thousand Fountains and trying to calm his mind when his comlink signaled. It was Jocasta.

  “He attended the All Science Research Academy on Yerphonia,” she said.

  “Can we contact them?” Obi-Wan asked eagerly.

  “I already have. He was granted his degree only seven years ago. He was a star student. His home world is a small moon called Nierport Seven.”

  Obi-Wan knew the place. It was less than a day’s travel from Coruscant.

  Within an hour, he was on his way.

  Chapter Nine

  “Again,” Soara said.

  Anakin ran at the wall again. He no longer knew how many times he had done so. Fifty? Seventy? Two hundred, five hundred? His brain didn’t register numbers. There was just him and the wall.

  He ran up the wall, flipped over into a backward somersault, and landed on his feet again. It was a basic Temple exercise. He’d learned it when he was nine. But with Soara he was discovering that it was a much more complex maneuver than he’d imagined. Apparently his shoulders were wrong. His landing was too hard. And the whole thing took too long for him to accomplish.

  “Stop.” Soara’s voice cut through him like the cold wind that howled down the deserted alley straight to the secluded lot where they were training. The building in front of him was sheer durasteel, slippery now with morning dew. The sun was just rising.

  “Close your eyes,” Soara said.

  Anakin closed his eyes.

  “Get rid of that impatience,” Soara said. “Now.”

  Anakin tried to obey.

  “Nothing is solid,” Soara said. “The hardest wall is just a connection of particles. Find the spaces between the particles, and the wall will yield. It will push you off. Listen to the wall and hear the wind through the gaps.”

  Listen to the wall? Anakin felt his impatience rise again.

  He remembered Darra’s words. She’ll push you hard, and then she’ll tell you something strange, something you don’t want to understand. That’s what she wants. The more tired you are, the emptier you are. That’s when she really starts to work.

  He listened to the wall. And then the sound of the wind changed. He heard the howl of it, but he also heard the whisper. He heard it stir a piece of trash on the street, disturb a pebble. And then he heard it whistle softly through the gaps. Nothing felt solid. Not the ground under his feet, not the buildings around him.

  He felt the Force move, even though he hadn’t summoned it. He saw the wall in his mind, and this time, it shimmered. It wasn’t a solid thing. It would yield to him.

  He ran at the wall. He ran easily, as if it were the first time. He felt the wall give against his boots. He pushed off and the wall sprang against him, helping him propel. He somersaulted and flew backward, landing lightly, gracefully, his lightsaber held at the ready.

  He blinked. He had fought with the help of the Force before. But never like that.

  He looked at Soara, amazed.

  She didn’t smile or nod or show by even a flicker of an eyelash that she was pleased. But she didn’t correct him, and that meant something. Anakin made sure his own pleasure didn’t show on his face.

  “That’s enough for today,” she said crisply.

  Anakin deactivated his lightsaber. For the first time, he felt that he had glimpsed a future in which his connection to the Force and his lightsaber skills would be so meshed that he would truly be the best he could be. He could also see how far he was from that goal, but it didn’t bother him as it would have the day before. He would get there.

  They had walked to the training site, and Soara had already left for the Temple. She rarely said good-bye. Anakin looked down at his tunic and made a face. There was a ragged tear down the side, and it was stained with sweat and filth. He had already gone through five tunics since he’d begun training with Soara.

  He started to trudge toward the lift tube that would bring him to the Senatorial level. From there he could take a series of connecting walkways to the Temple. It would be good to walk and see the morning bustle begin. He felt as though he had been facing nothing but a blank wall for hours.

  Anakin grinned. He had.

  Soara seemed to know every hidden corner of the seamier side of Coruscant. Over the past few days he’d climbed over junk heaps and through half-demolished buildings, crawled through tunnels, and even fought a battle with training droids in an airspeeder garage. He’d fallen into a vat of oil. That was a lesson he wouldn’t forget.

  Anakin zoomed up on the turbolift with a crowd of workers. At least he was too tired to dwell on his disappointment that Obi-Wan had left for Nierport Seven without him. His Master had assured him that he was going only for research purposes. When and if Obi-Wan decided to pursue Granta Omega, he would bring his Padawan with him. Obi-Wan had promised that.

  Yet Anakin knew that Obi-Wan might run into surprises on Nierport Seven. He might find a clue he had to pursue immediately. He might not have time to send for Anakin. He could be left behind after all.

  There was nothing he could do about it, however. The turbolift doors opened and Anakin stepped out, carried along with the crowd for a few steps until he broke away. The sun was rising now, the pink rays flashing on the cruisers in the space lanes and the buildings surrounding him.

  He chose the least crowded walkway, the one that would bring him down the center of the fountains that lined one quadrant of the Senate complex. The coolness of the water freshened the air. He felt the droplets hit his skin. His weariness lifted, and he began to think about the morning meal ahead of him at the Temple.

  A man sat on the edge of the fountain, his face lifted toward the spray. Then he turned and saw Anakin and waved.

  For a moment, Anakin couldn’t place him. Then he realized it was Tic Verdun, one of the scientists from Haariden. Verdun was now dressed in a cloak made of deep blue veda cloth. He looked completely different from the weary scientist he had met on Haariden.

  “I’m so glad to see you!” Tic said, hurrying toward Anakin. “At this exact moment I was thinking of you. I didn’t want to be forward, but I was wishing I could go to the Temple and inquire about the young girl.”

  “Darra will be fine,” Anakin said. “The blaster bolts carried a chemical compound, but the medics were able to find the antidote.”

  “That’s good news,” Tic said warmly. “I will see the others at the hearing, and they’ll be happy to hear it, too. We’ve submitted our final report and now we have to answer questions from the committee.” He sighed. “Too bad the expedition ended badly. We didn’t get to do the experiments on Haariden that we hoped. We could have put a stop to that bloody civil war if we had.”

  “How?” Anakin asked.

  “The two tribes are fighting over possible titanite deposits,” Tic explained. “If we had found exactly where the titanite was and how much there was, the Senate might have been able to come up with a plan to divide it equally. Instead, the two tribes are fighting over something that might not even exist.”

  “That’s too bad,” Anakin said.

  Tic nodded, discouraged. “The worst part of it is, there was another scientist on Haariden who was also conducting experiments. If we could talk to him, maybe he had found out more. But nobody
can seem to locate him.”

  “Another scientist? Who?” Anakin asked.

  “Granta Omega,” Tic Verdun said. “We ran into him on Haariden.”

  “You mean you know him?” Anakin asked, amazed.

  Tic nodded. “Not well. But I’ve met him several times.” He noted the interest on Anakin’s face. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because we’re looking for him,” Anakin said. “The Jedi would like to talk to him, too.”

  “Popular fellow.” Tic frowned. “You know, I’m here on Coruscant with a group of friends. Some of them are scientists, some involved in business. We’re having a kind of reunion. Most of them know Omega, too. Or they’ve met him, at least. Maybe if we put our heads together, we could come up with a lead for you. There’s a chance we could know things you don’t know.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard,” Anakin said ruefully. “We don’t know much.”

  “I’ll talk to them and see if I can come up with anything,” Tic said. “They would be happy to help the Jedi, I am sure.”

  Anakin agreed enthusiastically. He said good-bye to Tic and hurried toward the Temple. He wouldn’t contact Obi-Wan about this, he decided. Not yet. First he would compile information.

  Wouldn’t it be amazing if he were to be the one to find Granta Omega?

  Chapter Ten

  Nierport Seven was within the Core, but its desolation reminded Obi-Wan of an Outer Rim planet. It was a cold, barren moon with only one small settlement. Nierport’s meager vegetation appeared to be a wild bush with red thorns well over a meter long. It was said the bushes bloomed with beautiful violet flowers in the summer, but the summer only lasted a month. The rest of the year was numbingly cold and bleak. The buildings were built with thick blocks of stone designed to keep out the cold wind.

  Nierport Seven was one of seven moons in a small system that was notable only because it was a convenient refueling stop on the way to Coruscant. Most of the intragalactic travelers chose to refuel on the planet Eeropha, which at least had several small cities. But Nierport Seven was able to support a refueling stop of its own and a few small guesthouses, all serving the kind of pilots who could not afford to scrounge up even the low prices Eeropha charged.

  At least the moon was small, Obi-Wan told himself. The population was clustered around the refueling station. It did not take him long to locate several people who had known Granta Omega.

  That was the good news. The bad news was that no one knew very much about him.

  There was only one café on Nierport Seven, and it was next to the refueling station. The café was called Food and Drink, and the owner turned out to be as cut and dry as the title of his establishment.

  “Never knew him personally. Heard of him. He left.” That was all the owner had to say.

  “Is there anyone else who would know him?” Obi-Wan asked. “Anybody who still lives here? He left seven years ago.”

  “Most folks leave in three years,” the owner said. “Can’t take any more.”

  Obi-Wan waited. He had learned this from Qui-Gon. Most beings would come up with additional information if you just stayed quiet.

  “Might try that trio in the corner,” the owner said gruffly. “They’ve stuck around. They were born here and they’ll die here.”

  The three natives of Nierport sat around the table. They were wearing grease-stained clothes that told Obi-Wan they had just finished a shift at the refueling station.

  Obi-Wan nodded a hello. They looked at him warily.

  “Jedi?” one of them said. “Never seen your kind here.”

  Obi-Wan eyed their empty glasses. “Anyone for a refill?”

  Their empty glasses were pushed away and they looked at him hopefully. Obi-Wan signaled for another round. “And I’ll have the same,” he told the bartender.

  The drinks arrived. They clinked the smeared glasses.

  Obi-Wan peered at the red liquid. “What is this?”

  “Claing juice,” one of the men said. “It’s native to the system. We extract the juice from the thorns of the native bush.”

  Obi-Wan took a small sip. The juice seared his lips and tongue and then burned like blazing fire going down. He managed not to cough, but his eyes streamed tears.

  The three men laughed uproariously.

  “Claing can even bring a Jedi to his knees,” one of them chortled.

  “I’ll say,” Obi-Wan choked out.

  His streaming eyes and burning throat were worth it. He had passed a test. The trio decided to befriend him. He asked about Granta Omega, and they nodded.

  “He was a boy when he left,” one said. “Went to study somewhere, I think. His mother Tura died two years later. He never came back to see her.”

  “Not even for the funeral,” someone else said.

  “What about his father?” Obi-Wan asked.

  “Never knew him,” the first man said. “Tura Omega showed up one day, got a job at the refueling station, had this three-year-old boy. Nobody asks questions on Nierport Seven.”

  “Except for Jedi,” another one said, and this caused them great amusement.

  “I could show you his house,” the first man offered. He licked his lips. “I could use another claing, though.”

  “I’ll buy you one afterward,” Obi-Wan said.

  They walked out into the numbing cold. The ground was brittle with frost. They walked through the main street and then turned down a smaller road. It wasn’t far to the outskirts of the settlement. The man pointed to a small house. It looked no different from the others. It was built with rounded walls and seemed to hunch against the wind.

  “That there is his house. A space pilot owns it now. Uses it on stopovers. Lots of pilots do that here. It’s cheap and convenient.”

  Obi-Wan peered into the window. The house was empty except for a stove and a bedroll. The room was small and low-ceilinged. Even with furniture it would look bleak. There was nothing to see here. There was nothing to learn. It was typical of his search for Granta Omega.

  “You said his mother worked at the refueling station?” Obi-Wan asked. “Did she have a good job?”

  The man laughed. “If you call hauling lubricant hoses around all day for no money a good job.”

  “So how did she manage to send her son to study off-planet?” Obi-Wan wondered.

  “She had nothing to do with it,” the man said. “The boy had brilliance. Everybody knew that. She found him a sponsor on Eeropha. He sent him to a scientific institute.”

  “Do you know who the sponsor was?” Obi-Wan asked. “Does he still live on Eeropha?”

  “He lives on Coruscant now. Big fancy person now. He’s the Senator from Eeropha. Name is Sano Sauro,” the man said.

  Obi-Wan felt a chill. He knew Sano Sauro. He was once a prosecutor. Ten years before, Obi-Wan had to undergo an investigation into a fellow Padawan’s death. Sauro had grilled him mercilessly about Bruck Chun’s fall.

  Obi-Wan had since found peace about Bruck’s death, but he wasn’t looking forward to meeting up with Sauro again.

  He pressed some credits in the man’s hand. “Thank you. Buy your friends another claing.”

  The man grinned. “Sure you don’t want to join us?”

  Obi-Wan winced. “I don’t think I’d survive.”

  The man took off. Obi-Wan looked down the street, then across the frozen wasteland. He could understand a boy wanting to leave this place. He could understand how poverty might mark him. But why Granta Omega wished harm on the Jedi, he still didn’t know. He had a feeling that if he solved that mystery, he would find the man.

  Chapter Eleven

  Anakin had expected that after his breakthrough his next practice session with Soara would bring him to the next level. Instead, she had him do more simple drills. At least this time he did not have to leave the Temple.

  He had to activate his lightsaber from different positions, again and again. He had to practice a midair thrust. He had to practice a double reversal. He had to practi
ce moves he had done a thousand times before.

  Not once did Soara mention the spaces between particles, or concentration, or the Force. She just repeated, “Again,” over and over until he thought he would break his lightsaber hilt in two.

  And then the session was finished. Anakin leaned over, trying to catch his breath. Disappointment swelled in him and he felt as though he were choking on it. After getting a glimpse of the fighter he could be, he was reduced to being a student again.

  He slammed his training lightsaber back in his belt. What he needed was something to eat and a fresh tunic. He took the long way back to his quarters in order to compose himself.

  The illumination banks were mimicking dusk as he passed by the lake. The green water looked inviting. The splash of the waterfall in the deep pool was tinted pink. He thought about taking a quick swim, but he was too hungry. Soara had kept him a long time, and he had missed the midday meal. He had a feeling she had kept him deliberately. She wanted him to feel hungry and empty. She wanted to see how far he could push himself. He hoped he had passed the test.

  Then he realized that his test was yet to come.

  He was tired. So tired that he almost missed the blur at the corner of his vision. A lightsaber had been activated and someone hurled at him from a tree branch above. It was another one of Soara’s sudden attacks. She had enlisted another Padawan to surprise him.

  Anakin forgot his fatigue and jumped back just in time. To his dismay, he saw that his attacker was Ferus Olin.

  If only it had been anyone else! Anakin didn’t like to see Ferus under the best of circumstances. He certainly didn’t want to fight him when he was tired and hungry.

  Soara appeared on top of the waterfall where she could watch. He knew he had no choice. As Ferus came at him with a somersaulting reversal, Anakin kicked into fight mode. She had sent the best Padawan fighter in the Temple against him. She wanted to see what he would do.

  He would win.

  What Soara could not know was that this time, friendship would not gentle him. Not with Ferus.