Master of Disguise (9781484719763)

by Watson, Jude

  Omega sighed. “What a kind invitation. I’m afraid I’ll have to refuse. I’m busy, you see.” He inched backward toward his swoop, his finger still hovering over the launch button.

  Anakin leaped feet first. But instead of going for Omega, he kicked the swoop. Omega’s eyes widened in shock as the swoop was knocked over the edge of the plateau. At the same time, Anakin’s arm flew out and came down on the missile launcher, dislodging it from Omega’s shoulder. With dismay, Anakin saw that the readied missile was launched as the launcher hit the ground.

  Omega fumbled inside his tunic. Anakin heard the whine of a swoop engine behind him. He whirled in time to sidestep Mellora, who headed toward them at top speed. Omega tossed a thermal detonator as he clumsily leaped aboard Mellora’s swoop.

  Anakin caught the detonator and tossed it as far as he could. The explosion sent shock waves through the air. He raced back to his own swoop and leaped aboard.

  Omega released seeker droids into the air. There were at least ten, heading toward Obi-Wan like a flock of deadly attack birds. Obi-Wan now had to contend with the droids and the tracking missile.

  Anakin swung at the droids with his lightsaber as his swoop lurched crazily. He was trying to corner Omega and Mellora against the sheer face of the ridge, but the two zoomed below him, heading for the sandy plain.

  It was a tactical error. Now they were heading toward the sea.

  Obi-Wan turned his swoop at the last possible moment and the missile impacted on a seeker droid. He joined Anakin. They zoomed after Mellora and Omega.

  The seekers were as thick in the air as the ash. Obi-Wan and Anakin swung their lightsabers constantly, sending them smashing down to the ground below.

  Obi-Wan’s speeder engine was smoking badly. “I’m overheating,” he called to Anakin. “Some shrapnel pierced the engine.”

  Anakin maneuvered his swoop close to his Master. “Hop aboard.”

  Obi-Wan balanced on the seat and leaped onto Anakin’s swoop. The swoop rocked from side to side, but Anakin straightened it and kept on flying. Obi-Wan stood on the seat behind him, balancing easily. His lightsaber was a blur as he swung it at the attack droids.

  “Master, the water!” Anakin called.

  Far out on the sea, they could see a wave. It was as tall as a Coruscant skyscraper. It was a wall of water moving at more than a hundred kilometers an hour.

  Omega and Mellora had gone too far in order to escape. Now they were trapped between the oncoming wave and the Jedi. They hovered in the air, staring at the wave. Omega looked back at the approaching Jedi defiantly. Mellora only looked afraid.

  Anakin pulled up the swoop close to Omega. They could hear the eerie sound of the wave now, a sound like no other Anakin had ever heard.

  “You must come with us now,” Obi-Wan said, his lightsaber raised.

  “Granta, it’s over,” Mellora said, her eyes on the approaching wave. “We must—”

  In answer, Omega wrenched the controls from Mellora. He shot the swoop straight toward the wall of water. They could see Mellora’s mouth forming a scream before its sound was snatched away by the roar of the titanic wave.

  Grimly, Anakin headed after them. He stayed below Omega’s swoop, hoping to force them upward. He didn’t know if they would be able to clear the wave in time.

  Omega swerved up, trying to clear the wave. Mellora had Darra’s lightsaber and was trying to activate it. Anakin didn’t know why. There was little she could do with it. Perhaps she wanted to force Omega to surrender.

  Omega suddenly reached out and casually put his foot against Mellora. With a push, he shoved her off the swoop.

  She fell toward the wave, shrieking.

  Anakin gunned the motor and dove under her. Obi-Wan caught her in his arms. The lightsaber fell from her fingers, and Anakin lurched to the side in order to snatch it from the air. Then he zoomed above as the water curled over their heads.

  They couldn’t make it. He took a deep breath as they went straight into the top of the wave. He felt the power of the water drive them backward. The controls shook in his hand. He heard the engine whine. He could only see water, and he was confused now. Were they heading up or down?

  Then the Force entered him, and he did not see the water as a wall. He saw it for what it was. Full of particles, full of gaps, honeycombed with light. He headed for the gaps, willing the swoop engine to obey him.

  They broke through the water into the air. Mellora clung to Obi-Wan, gasping.

  Omega was a speck in the distance, heading away from them.

  “He would have killed me!” Mellora choked.

  Anakin hovered in the air, watching the speck disappear. They had lost him again.

  “Head for our ship, Padawan,” Obi-Wan said.

  Anakin turned back toward safety. He did not believe that Omega wanted to kill Mellora. He had pushed her off knowing that the Jedi would save her. He just wanted to get away.

  But it was better that Mellora not know that.

  “I know where he is going,” she told the Jedi. “I know where he goes when he loses. I can take you there.”

  “You don’t have to,” Obi-Wan said. “I know where he is going, too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Because of the eruption, hostilities had ceased temporarily on Haariden. They left Mellora with the authorities there with instructions to hold her until the Senate could send a ship for her. But they could not be certain how long she would be held. It was clear that she was prepared to lie her way out of trouble.

  “She hates him now,” Obi-Wan said as they hurried to their ship. “I only hope she sees what he really is. He would sacrifice her young life to save his own.”

  “But he knew we would catch her,” Anakin said.

  Obi-Wan shot his Padawan a curious look. “Are you certain of that?”

  Anakin said nothing. Disquiet settled inside Obi-Wan as they both jumped into their craft. He plugged in the coordinates for Nierport Seven. They were so close behind Granta Omega. They just might catch him.

  “How do you know where he is going, Master?” Anakin asked as they shot into hyperspace.

  “It was the ship within a ship that told me,” Obi-Wan explained. “I remembered his boyhood home. The walls were thicker than the other houses, but not too thick that they didn’t blend in. But when I thought about it, I realized that the proportions were slightly off. I think there is a hidden room there. A room in the walls themselves.”

  Dusk was settling on Nierport Seven when they arrived. They landed on the outskirts of the settlement and hurried to the house.

  There were no lights inside. Obi-Wan took out his lightsaber and cut a hole in the door.

  The house was empty. Even the bedroll and stove were gone.

  “We are too late,” Anakin said.

  “Yes,” Obi-Wan said. “He must have assumed that Mellora would tell us what she knew.”

  He felt along the walls, knocking them with his light­saber hilt. When he found what he was looking for, he cut through the walls with his lightsaber. Here the stone was only centimeters thick, bound to durasteel walls.

  Beyond the wall was a room filled with datascreens. Obi-Wan and Anakin climbed through the hole.

  Obi-Wan began to access the files. One after another he called up the holofiles. They were coded, but he was confident that the Jedi could crack them. He would take them back to the Temple.

  “These must be his companies,” he said. “His aliases are here, text docs, his other homes, bases of operations…it’s all here. We’ve got him. All his secrets are now ours.”

  “It looks like he has an entire fleet of starships on some planet in the Outer Rim,” Anakin said. “The planet’s name is coded.”

  As he read the file, the letters began to fade. “Master—”

  “The files are disappearing,” Obi-Wan said. He quickly hit the keys, tapping furiously. “I can’t stop it.”

  They watched as the information disappeared into fragments of li
ght. The light dissolved into particles.

  “He instituted a wipe from wherever he is,” Obi-Wan said. “Now it is as though he never existed. He truly is a void.”

  They stared at the empty air. It was as if Granta Omega were mocking them from wherever he was.

  “Now he has no past,” Anakin said.

  “And he’s just become more dangerous than ever,” Obi-Wan said. “He has nothing to lose.”

  Obi-Wan watched the emotion flit over his Padawan’s face. Confusion was there, and wonderment. Granta Omega had touched something in Anakin that Obi-Wan could only guess at. Perhaps it was their similar origins, the desolation of the places they’d known as children. Perhaps it was the way they had left their pasts behind. Perhaps it was simply that for the first time, Anakin had seen evil coupled with charisma, and was struggling to understand it.

  He wasn’t sure what it was. But it worried him.

  Yes, the Jedi had a dangerous enemy. It wasn’t Omega’s cleverness that concerned Obi-Wan. It wasn’t his desire to impress a Sith Lord he had never met. It was the strange pull he had for his Padawan. Granta Omega might turn out to be the most dangerous enemy they would ever have to face.

  About the Author

  JUDE WATSON is the New York Times best-selling author of the Jedi Quest and Jedi Apprentice series, as well as the Star Wars Journals Darth Maul, Queen Amidala, and Princess Leia: Captive to Evil. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest.