by Watson, Jude
“He says he is a seeker, just as the Jedi are,” Anakin said. “He says the Jedi fear the Sith, but they know nothing of them.”
“He is wrong,” Obi-Wan said. “The Jedi have deep knowledge of the Sith. Have you forgotten that one of them killed Qui-Gon?”
“That knowledge is with me every day,” Anakin said quietly. “But it is also part of the problem. When I think of evil, I see that Sith Lord’s face. I do not see Granta Omega’s.”
“Evil has many faces,” Obi-Wan responded. “It can masquerade as vision. One must look beneath the words, beneath the mask.”
An indicator light flashed. Obi-Wan sprang to his feet. “We’ve arrived.”
Obi-Wan slid into the pilot’s seat. Anakin sat next to him. The starfighter shuddered slightly as they came out of hyperspace. The planet of Haariden lay ahead.
Obi-Wan entered the coordinates for landing. He shot Anakin a quick questioning look. “Are you ready to face him again?”
He was not sure, but he knew he had to be. “I am ready, Master.”
He felt the dark side of the Force gather as they entered the planet’s atmosphere. As they drew closer they could see the large areas of land that had been laid to waste by war.
“I am not happy to see this place again,” Obi-Wan murmured.
The craft skimmed over the foothills. Obi-Wan landed in a valley near an outcropping of trees.
“We need to keep clear of the eruption site,” he said. “We’ll track Omega on swoop bikes. According to Jocasta Nu, we have about an hour before the volcano begins to erupt.”
“Not much time,” Anakin said as they hurried toward the stowed swoops.
“It will have to be enough.”
Anakin swung his leg over the swoop. He was feeling better, but heaviness still seemed to hang on him, clouding his mind. The med staff had assured him that the drug was completely out of his system. He was not sure why he wasn’t feeling himself yet. He suspected it had something to do with the dark feeling of doom he received from this planet.
They took off on their swoops, gliding over the hills and heading for the rugged mountains ahead. One mountain pushed high above the rest, seeming to thrust itself out of the planet’s core. It was topped with snow, its peak hidden in the clouds.
“That’s it,” Obi-Wan said. “That’s Kaachtari.”
They pushed the swoops to maximum speed. The air turned colder as they rose to higher elevations. Suddenly, Anakin saw a column of steam spurt from the ground below. He swerved the swoop just in time to avoid being scalded.
“We’re in the danger zone now,” Obi-Wan said. “Be careful.”
As they rode on, Anakin saw that deep fissures had cracked the earth and split gigantic boulders in two. The steam rose hundreds of meters high in some places. He heard a muffled sound, like a faraway starfighter engine roaring.
“Groundquakes,” Obi-Wan said. “Small ones, so far.”
Anakin looked ahead. He saw a line of soldiers hiking down the mountain. He pointed them out to Obi-Wan.
His Master frowned. “This area was supposed to have been evacuated. Let’s get a little closer.”
They descended. Hearing the noise, the soldiers looked up. Some of them raised blasters.
“Master?”
“Don’t worry.” Obi-Wan suddenly zoomed down, landing directly in front of them. Anakin followed his Master to the head of the line to stand before a gaunt soldier with a grimy face and a beard gray with ash.
“I see we meet again, Captain Welflet,” Obi-Wan said.
The captain nodded a greeting. “I thought you evacuated.” A groundquake shook the area, and the captain staggered. “You should have.”
“We did. We came back. We’re looking for Granta Omega,” Obi-Wan said. “Have you seen him?”
“No,” the captain said. “I have enough worries.”
He stared at Obi-Wan when he said this, but Anakin knew he was lying.
“This area was evacuated,” Obi-Wan said. “The volcano is about to erupt.”
“I know,” Captain Welflet said. “But we had word of enemy patrols in the area. They are using the eruption to gain land.”
“But you will all die,” Obi-Wan said. “The eruption will cover all this.” He swung an arm out. “The scientists know this. The sensors indicate it.”
Captain Welflet snorted. “Scientists and sensors. This is our land. We are not going to lose it.”
“I see you have some new weaponry since I saw you last,” Obi-Wan remarked.
The captain shifted his gaze. “Is the Jedi so interested in our weaponry?”
The mountain rumbled. A steam column suddenly split the rocky ground and spewed into the air.
“We don’t have much time,” Obi-Wan said. “Let me tell you what I think, and what you don’t know. I think you accepted payment in weapons for land that will be useless to you. But you were tricked.”
“That is an interesting supposition,” the captain said cautiously.
“Granta Omega paid you for the rights to the new sea,” Obi-Wan said. “What you don’t know is that he wants it for a reason. The volcano will deposit titanite on the land before the wave brings the water. He will mine it and make a fortune. And you will lose out.”
“He said he wanted it for a fish farm,” the captain muttered. “And we believed him! He had us meet him here to do the deal.” He looked down at the plains below. “It belongs to him now.”
“Tell me where he is, and I might be able to help you,” Obi-Wan said.
“He does not deserve our loyalty,” the captain said. “He is above, on the ridge, conducting experiments. Here are the coordinates.” The captain gave them to Obi-Wan.
“You must get down the mountain as quickly as you can,” Obi-Wan said.
“We have air transport below. But we are on the lookout for the enemy.”
“Forget the enemy,” Obi-Wan said. “If you don’t, you will die.”
“Then we will die,” Captain Welflet said. “But we will die on our land.”
Obi-Wan swung his leg back over the swoop and motioned to Anakin. He plugged the coordinates into the onboard computer.
“We must hurry, Padawan,” he said. “I don’t like the look of this scanner. The groundquakes are intensifying.”
“But the captain and his men,” Anakin said. “How can we leave them?”
Obi-Wan shook his head sadly. “I cannot change his mind, Padawan. They must do what they will do, and we must do the same.”
They took off to the spot where the captain had left Granta Omega. Flying was difficult now, as the steam hissed suddenly into the air, sometimes followed by showers of large rocks. Anakin felt dread rising within him. He did not want to see Granta Omega again. Yet he had to.
They saw him high on a snowy ridge. He was with Mellora. They were both dressed in white thermal gear to protect them from the cold. They were packing up their equipment and heading for their swoops. They clearly did not trust anyone else to pinpoint the titanite before the eruption.
Obi-Wan leaned over his swoop, urging the machine to go faster. Granta Omega looked up and saw them. Even from that distance, Anakin could tell he was dismayed. He spoke a quick word to Mellora and they took off.
“We’ll follow them to the ship,” Obi-Wan said. “We can commandeer it and return them to Coruscant.”
“It can’t be that easy,” Anakin said.
“It won’t be,” Obi-Wan said.
Granta and Mellora did not attempt to lose the Jedi. No doubt they knew they could not. The Jedi gained on them, but Mellora and Omega managed to reach their SoroSuub at the foot of the volcano. Omega activated the landing ramp and they flew inside.
“We can make it!” Obi-Wan shouted as the landing ramp began to close.
Anakin zoomed alongside his Master. They angled their swoops as the ramp slid closed. They slid inside, feeling the whoosh of air as the ramp slid into place.
The cockpit of the ship was empty.
“They flew out the cargo door as we came in through the landing ramp,” Obi-Wan said, disgusted. “He planned it.”
He ran to the cockpit controls. He stabbed at the activation key for the landing ramp, then the cargo doors.
“He’s locked them.” He tried the engines. Nothing happened. “The ship is in complete lockdown.”
Obi-Wan’s face was dark with anger. Anakin watched, fascinated, as his Master absorbed his anger and then released it.
“So here we are,” Obi-Wan said in a measured tone. “Locked in.” He crossed to the cockpit windscreen. Granta Omega and Mellora were nowhere in sight. But the mountain was. It filled their vision as it belched rocks and steam.
As they watched, the ship suddenly shook with the tremor of a huge groundquake. The scene in front of them vibrated. Anakin couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The peak was now disintegrating. Huge chunks of the mountain were falling away. The entire side of the volcano was collapsing in a tremendous landside.
And they were in its path.
Chapter Sixteen
Obi-Wan tried the engines again. “I don’t know how to override this.”
“Let me try.” There was nothing Anakin couldn’t do with engines. He slid open the panel to the engine and slithered inside. “This will take me about twenty minutes.”
“We don’t have twenty,” Obi-Wan said. He had already calculated the speed of the landslide. “We have maybe five before the lava pours out. If we’re lucky. We’ll have to cut our way out.”
Anakin scrambled out and followed Obi-Wan to the opening to the ramp. Obi-Wan began to try to cut the durasteel away.
“Something’s wrong,” he muttered as Anakin joined him. “The ship’s hull should be thin here. We should be able to cut through in minutes.”
“It’s going to take us longer than that,” Anakin said.
The minutes ticked by as they worked at the metal. Obi-Wan looked out the windscreen to check the progress of the eruption. The noise was now like the roar of a fleet of engines. “We’re not going to make it.”
They looked at each other. They hadn’t given up hope. There was a way out. There always was.
They just didn’t have much time to figure it out.
Lava was now spewing out of the top of the mountain. Whole kilometers of dirt and rocks mixed with hot lava would soon be barreling down the steep slope.
Obi-Wan pushed his lightsaber through the door. He began to move it downward, straining with the effort. Anakin joined him, the sweat rolling down his face.
Suddenly and violently, molten lava poured out of the volcano at frightening speed. The avalanche of rock and lava smashed against the ship. The jolt threw them across the cockpit and slammed them against the opposite wall. The craft tilted onto one side, sending them crashing onto the floor. The ship jolted downhill at incredible speed, carried by the force of the landslide.
Anakin hung on to the wall. Looking straight up, he could see through the cockpit windscreen. All he saw was rocks and lava obscuring his view of the sky. He knew where they were being carried. The rock slide would drop them into the sea. They would sink. Or else they would be caught in the giant tidal wave that was forming even now.
His head slammed against the side of the ship. He held on as his teeth rattled. Death was near. Anakin could feel it. Now he understood why he had felt so uneasy on this planet. Here death had waited for him.
Obi-Wan suddenly pounded against the ship’s wall with his lightsaber hilt as they bounced down the mountain, swept along by the lava flow. Anakin had never seen his Master give way to his anger before.
“That’s it,” Obi-Wan shouted over the awful roaring noise. “It’s a ship within a ship. That’s why the walls are so thick. Anakin, help me find it.”
“Find what?” he shouted.
“The cockpit. The real cockpit!” Obi-Wan scrambled along the wall, knocking on it with the hilt of his lightsaber. “Listen for something hollow.”
The lurching of the ship made it hard to maneuver, but Anakin followed his Master. He knocked against the wall with his lightsaber hilt.
“Here!” Obi-Wan shouted suddenly. He activated his lightsaber and began to cut through the wall.
Anakin grabbed handholds and fought his way toward his Master. He worked alongside him. Obi-Wan was right. The metal was thinner here. It peeled back in strips. They were being pounded by the landslide and it was hard to cut, but they struggled to finish.
At last there was an opening large enough to crawl inside. To Anakin’s surprise, he found a complete cockpit with engine controls.
“Can you fly it?” Obi-Wan asked.
Anakin nodded. He strapped himself into the seat. The ship was on its side. He pushed the left engine and the ship rose straight up.
He kept pushing the engine and the ship revolved. Then he accelerated, and they shot through the lava and the pummeling rocks into the clear air above.
Obi-Wan sank back into the seat next to him. “That was close,” he panted.
“I wouldn’t want it any closer,” Anakin admitted. “Where to, Master?”
“They’ll be watching from a safe distance,” Obi-Wan said. “Along the coast, but out of range of the wave.” He bent over the scanner, comparing its readings to the map on the shipboard computer. “Let’s try these coordinates.” He pointed them out to Anakin.
He nodded and piloted the ship back toward the eruption. He would skirt the worst of it, but they would have a bumpy flight. Rocks hammered down on the shell of the ship, and the air pockets were deep. The ship kept slamming into them.
“Master, look!” Anakin pointed ahead. The Haariden captain and the soldiers were trapped on the plain as the landslide headed toward them. They had turned to face it. There was nowhere to run.
“See if we can make it!” Obi-Wan ordered. “Push the engines!”
Anakin accelerated till the engines screamed, piloting the ship straight into the spew of lava and rocks. The ship shook as a boulder struck it. Then another.
Captain Welflet saw them approaching and lifted a hand. Anakin did not know if it was in thanks or farewell. In the next instant the landslide had swept him and his soldiers to their deaths. They were buried under the land they had fought over so desperately.
Shaken, Anakin pushed the engines to rise above the eruption again. He felt a sickness in his stomach.
His Master said nothing, but closed his eyes for a moment.
“I wish I hadn’t seen that,” Anakin said.
Obi-Wan opened his eyes. “Such is the life of a Jedi.”
The cockpit indicators began to swing wildly. The ship lurched to one side.
“I think the power cells were hit,” Anakin said. “We’ve got to land. The power is draining fast.”
“We’re almost out of range of the eruption,” Obi-Wan said, his eyes on the monitor. “Keep going…”
Anakin held onto the controls as the ship lurched again. He heard the whine of the power cells as they powered down. “Master, I’m losing the ship.”
“All right. Land it where you can.”
Anakin found a smooth area of sand. They were near the coast of the sea here. He set the ship down bumpily. He had just enough energy to land.
The ship settled into the sand and the engines cut out.
“Good thing we still have the swoops,” Obi-Wan said.
They climbed out of the concealed cockpit. The swoop bikes were smashed from the rough journey, but still functioned. Anakin activated the landing ramp from the interior cockpit. It squealed as the metal rubbed against metal, but it opened far enough for them to slide out with the swoops.
The air was thick with ash. A strange smell was in the air. It was like burning, but it wasn’t born of flame or smoke.
“It is the core,” Obi-Wan said. “Metals and molten r
ock.”
They piloted the swoops away from the ship and began to search for Omega and Mellora. At last they came upon them on a plateau that overlooked the sea. There they would be protected from the tidal wave.
Granta Omega saw them coming. There was no way to surprise them. Anakin saw him bend down. He settled something against his shoulder. A missile launcher.
“Master—”
“I see it. Dive, Padawan.”
They dived as the first missile headed their way. Its target was Obi-Wan. His Master leaned to one side and the missile missed him by a meter.
Another missile was launched. Anakin dived, but the missile was targeted at Obi-Wan again. His Master practiced evasive action, and this time, the missile missed him by mere centimeters.
Another missile was launched. This one, too, was headed for Obi-Wan.
“He’s only aiming at me,” Obi-Wan called. “Get closer, Anakin!”
Anakin zoomed past the missile. He saw Omega smile and target a slowing Obi-Wan again, but Mellora had vanished. He pushed the swoop engines past maximum.
He jumped the last few meters just as Omega launched another missile. Anakin glanced back in time to see his Master barely evade it. His swoop seemed damaged by the action.
Omega had anticipated Anakin. He held the missile launcher against his shoulder, his finger hovering over the activation button. “Your Master’s swoop is overheating. He doesn’t have good maneuverability anymore. This one might get him. I’ve always thought that to be personally responsible for the death of a Jedi would truly help me make my mark. Would you really miss him so much, Anakin?” He grinned at Anakin, the ash-filled wind whipping his dark hair across his face.
“Don’t,” Anakin said. “You will regret it.”
“I knew you’d get out of that ship!” Omega cried. “You will make a great Jedi Knight one day, Anakin Skywalker. But you will be even greater if you listen to me!”
Anakin took a step toward him. “My Master and I request that you return to Coruscant with us for questioning by the authorities.”
