by Jude Watson
"We have surprise on our side. No, Padawan. You must remain here."
"I would not fail you this time," Anakin promised.
Obi-Wan saw it then, the hunger on Anakin's face. It was not a hunger for action. It was the need to redeem himself.
Obi-Wan spoke gently. "The best thing you can do for Darra is remain here to protect her."
Anakin looked down, struggling to accept the order. "As you wish, Master."
"You must keep your focus, young Padawan," Obi-Wan murmured, so that the others wouldn't overhear. "This is not a judgment on you. This is the best way to proceed."
Anakin nodded, keeping his eyes down. "All right," he muttered.
Obi-Wan hesitated. Now he could feel the shame behind Anakin's questions. His Padawan's feelings ran deep. His shame was filling him now, and he thought that only action could relieve it. He was wrong, but Obi-Wan would need time to explain why this was so.
He knew that his Padawan needed him. Yet he had to go. He struggled for words to leave behind, but he had none. The only thing left to do was walk away.
Chapter Four
Anakin watched his Master walk away from him. There was no doubt or hesitation in how Obi-Wan moved. Ever. Anakin wanted to move through his own life with the same assurance. Yet time and again he found himself confronting miscalculation and error. Time and again he moved when he shouldn't have moved, said what he shouldn't have said, or turned when he should have stayed still.
It was times like this when his connection to the Force felt like a burden more than a gift. It pulsed around him so strongly and he could feel it so easily that he used it to act instead of to strategize. Obi-Wan had told him the Force must be used for caution and control as well as action.
So far he had not learned that lesson. It was because he did not understand it. During the battle he had seen which way the blaster fire would come. He had exactly determined its movement and speed. But he had not factored in the notion that Darra would be moving, too.
If it had been a Temple exercise, it wouldn't have mattered. Darra would have perhaps received a bruise at most. She would have landed lightly on her feet, the way she always did, and turned to him with a quick retort and a smile. Instead, she was wounded and in shock.
Nothing had gone right on this planet, Anakin thought, almost angry now. He felt lost in a dark world, spinning in a system he did not know.
The scientists had rolled themselves into thermal blankets and were trying to catch a few hours of sleep in the corner. Through the half- demolished roof above, Anakin could see the cold night sky. The constellations were not familiar to him and made him feel even farther away from home.
He crossed the room and crouched by Darra. Her eyelashes cast shadows on her pale cheeks. There was a fine sheen of perspiration on her skin. He watched her breathe in and out.
I'm sorry, he spoke in his mind.
He felt a presence by his shoulder. The scientist TicVerdun looked down at Darra. "It is hard to see a friend this way, I know."
"Yes," Anakin said. He did not want to discuss his feelings with this stranger.
"Yesterday I would have said that Jedi are used to pain and suffering and thus can bear it better than we do," Tic Verdun continued. "Today I find I would be wrong. You seem to feel it more."
"Not more," Anakin said. "It's just that we put ourselves in the way of danger. It is our path. We see one another's strength. We see one another at our best. So we know exactly how much we lose when one of us goes down. And we feel… if only we could have been the one to fall."
He felt Tic Verdun's eyes on him. "I saw that you wanted to go with your Master and Soara Antana. If you wish to follow them, I will take responsibility for Darra Thel-Tanis and the rest of us. The others are tired. I am still strong."
Anakin was impressed. No wonder Tic Verdun had been the group's scout.
He had great courage.
Anakin shook his head. "I can't go. But thank you." He turned away again and sat down next to Darra. He didn't want to be rude, but he wasn't in the mood to talk.
But Tic Verdun didn't get the hint. He sat down, too. "The Force," he said. "You have to see how it would be intriguing to a scientist. Something that cannot be seen, cannot be measured. And it can only be felt by a select few. Here I am with someone who can feel it and use it. I saw it happen just a short while ago. Can you explain how it works to me? Can you tell me anything at all?" He added hastily, "Or is it forbidden to speak of it?"
"It is not forbidden," Anakin said. "But it is not done."
Tic wrapped his arms around his knees. "I see."
Now Anakin was afraid he'd been rude. "It is hard to talk about it. It is something I can feel around me. Something I can gather and tap into, like a deep well. It sustains me and frustrates me — "
"Frustrates you?" Tic's dark eyes were alive, curious. Anakin leaned back against the cold stone wall. He felt very tired. "Sometimes. It is so vast…"
"That you feel small." Tic gave a sad smile. "I study the galaxy. I know how that feels. How simple it is, and yet how intricate and complex.
It is all around you and you are at the center of it, yet you are nothing compared to it."
"Yes," Anakin said. Tic had put into words what he had been feeling.
No one had ever done that before. Not even Obi-Wan. Sometimes the Force made him feel… lonely.
"And you will never truly understand it," Tic added softly, "yet you will spend your life trying. And sometimes you ask yourself, is it worth it? Is it foolish of you to devote yourself to trying to know the unknowable?" He laughed. "All I know is, it can't be wise."
"Wisdom is not what we seek," Anakin said, repeating a Jedi saying.
"Wisdom can only be found."
Tic shook his head, grinning. "Whatever that means. And I thought the scientific institute was hard."
When Tic smiled, Anakin realized that he was younger than he'd thought. He wasn't much older than Obi-Wan. Tic had made him feel better, and he didn't think anyone was capable of that.
Suddenly the sound of explosions split the air. The scientists all jumped to their feet, fear on their faces. Darra stirred but did not wake.
"What is it?" Reug Yucon whispered the words harshly.
Anakin heard the sound of alarmed voices from the Haariden camp. Soara and Obi-Wan had begun their attack. Every muscle seemed to contract with the effort of staying still. He wanted so badly to go.
"Should we leave?" Joveh D'a Alin asked anxiously. "We could be trapped here."
"No," Anakin said. "We'll wait here."
Waiting was the hardest thing. Like him, the scientists wanted to move. But they wanted to run from the source of the explosions. He wanted to run toward them.
"We are lucky to have you with us," Tic said quietly. A small consolation, Anakin thought. But he'd take it.
Chapter Five
If any of the Haaridens were trying to grab some sleep, they were now disappointed. The patrol troops had been so certain that they were safe that they hadn't bothered to post guards. It was easy for Obi-Wan and Soara to sneak into the camp. The Haaridens had left the small arms jumbled together in a heap. Soara and Obi-Wan easily jammed the flechette launchers and the missile tube, and pocketed all the thermal detonators.
Then they tossed a detonator into the brush in order to wake everybody up. While the Haaridens scrambled for their blasters, the only weapons left to them, the Jedi stood, waiting.
Before the quickest Haariden could shoot, Obi-Wan called, "Think first. Surrender is your best option." The Haariden captain spoke up, his blaster leveled at Obi-Wan's chest. "Why should we surrender? We are forty, and you are only two."
"I can think of one good reason," Obi-Wan said, holding up the thermal detonators. "We have ten of these. The blast radius is five meters for each. We can toss these accurately and quickly and demolish this entire patrol in exactly five seconds."
"You'll blow yourself up," the Haariden captain sneered.
Obi-Wan smiled
. "I don't think so."
The next thing the captain knew, Obi-Wan had somersaulted over his head and landed on his other side. "Maybe I need to remind you," Obi-Wan said. "We are Jedi."
The other Haariden soldiers looked nervous. They glared at one another, then at their captain.
"I'm not inclined to find out if they can do it," one soldier muttered.
"Why should we?" another said.
"This isn't even our fight," the first soldier added. "Why can't we just return to our unit?" another asked.
The captain eyed the thermal detonator in Soara's hand, her thumb over the release.
"What happens to us?" he asked.
"We have no quarrel with you," Obi-Wan said. "As long as we have safe passage to our transport."
The captain paused. Then he slowly lowered his blaster.
Soara and Obi-Wan dropped the thermal detonators back into the pockets of their tunics.
"What do you mean, it's not your fight?" Soara asked.
"We were paid to split off from our unit and attack you," the captain said, wiping a weary hand across his forehead.
Soara and Obi-Wan exchanged a glance. "Who paid you?" Soara asked.
The captain looked evasive. "No one we knew. I mean, not a native Haariden. An outlander."
"His name?"
"He didn't say."
"What did he look like?"
The captain was about to answer, but a blank look came over his face.
He shook his head several times. "Isn't that strange," he said. "I honestly don't remember."
A pulse began to beat inside Obi-Wan. He gripped the hilt of his lightsaber.
"What is he to you?" Soara asked. "I would think you would rather have the Jedi on your side."
The captain gave a sad smile. "The Jedi can't help us. We are perfectly capable of destroying ourselves. Yes, he gave me his name. It was Granta Omega."
The name only confirmed what Obi-Wan had already suspected. He had met Granta Omega before. Omega had hired a group of bounty hunters to hunt him down, as well as Anakin and another Jedi. Obi-Wan had still not found out why. He knew that Omega was not a Sith, but he collected Sith artifacts.
Omega was also a void, a person with enough power to appear so neutral as to fade from the memory of those who had met him. He did not have a Force-connection, but he had cunning. And for some reason, he despised the Jedi.
Obi-Wan was not surprised to run into Granta Omega again. But why here, and why now?
Suddenly the horizon lit up with a dull red glow.
"The battle has resumed," the captain said tiredly. "We should return to our unit." He hesitated. "Since you have spared our lives, I will also tell you this — all units have been called to the battle on the other edge of the forest. You will have no trouble reaching your transport safely. Our concerns now lie elsewhere." He bowed. "Captain Noq Welflet, at your service."
He looked at the soldiers, who had dropped back to the ground. Some of them sat, their heads in their hands. Others looked numbly around.
"My soldiers are exhausted," he said. "I took the credits from Granta in order to feed and clothe them. I did not want to fight the Jedi. I do not want to fight at all, actually." He made an attempt at a laugh, but began to cough. "My lungs are full of smoke and ashes," he murmured.
"Why do you continue?" Obi-Wan asked.
Captain Welflet's eyes were red-rimmed above his straggly beard.
"Because I must."
Soara raised a hand to take in the exhausted patrol, the ruined village, the blackened stumps. "And it's worth all this? Your land ruined, your people dead?"
The captain sighed. "I only know there is no alternative."
Obi-Wan and Soara headed back to the others. They were both saddened by their experience on Haariden. There seemed little chance for peace.
They hurried back to the group and told the scientists the good news.
They should reach the transport without incident.
"And the Haariden patrol?" Anakin asked.
"They've gone back to join the war," Obi-Wan said. "They won't bother us." He would tell Anakin about Granta Omega back at the Temple. Now they needed to focus on getting off-planet.
Soara and Obi-Wan fashioned a body sling and tied Darra gently against Obi-Wan's chest. They hiked to the transport, making good time now. The sky lightened and a pale sun rose as they reached the ship.
The scientists boarded with weary relief. Obi-Wan gently set Darra down on a sleep couch and covered her with a thermal blanket. Soara slid behind the controls. Obi-Wan contacted the Temple and said they were on their way.
They shot up into the upper atmosphere of Haariden. Obi-Wan looked down at the planet, glad to be leaving it. He wondered about the disturbance in the Force he had felt since he'd arrived. He had thought it was because of the dark side on this planet. There was so much death and bitterness. But what about his sense of foreboding? Could he have somehow picked up on the fact that Granta Omega was here as well?
The fact that Omega had failed in his attempt to kill the Jedi didn't matter. If Darra had not been ill, if he hadn't pledged to get the scientists to safety, he would have stayed with his Padawan and hunted down his attacker. Omega had tried to kill Jedi twice. He should be brought to justice.
But Obi-Wan had his duties, and he had to leave. He had made the same decision on Ragoon-6. Justice would have to be sought another time. Could it be that Omega only attacked when he knew the Jedi could not retaliate or pursue him? Did he count on a Jedi's sense of priorities to protect himself from reprisals?
Obi-Wan turned away from the planet and looked ahead at the galaxy.
The ship shot into hyperspace, and a rush of stars seemed to crowd the windscreen. This time, Obi-Wan vowed, he would get to the bottom of the mystery of Granta Omega.
Chapter Six
Obi-Wan accessed the door to the Jedi Temple Archive Library and stopped in the doorway. Usually it was a pristine space with not a holofile out of place. Busts of great Jedi Masters lined one wall, and the soft glow of computer panels created a hushed atmosphere. Today it was in chaos.
Holofiles hung in the air while datasheets littered the usually empty counters. Jedi archivist Madame Jocasta Nu stood in the center of the room, two laser pointers stuck haphazardly in her gray wispy bun. Her small, nimble fingers flicked through one holofile after another.
She looked up at him, irritated. "In or out, young Jedi."
It never failed. Madame Jocasta Nu could make him feel like a fifth- year student. She appeared frail but her authority was unquestionable.
She pulled out a laser pointer and frowned at it, then used it to make a correction in a file. "Well?"
Obi-Wan stepped inside. "Am I interrupting?"
"Of course you are. Cleaning day. I have to organize once a month.
Retire old files, organize, send others to deep storage. Not a good day. It always puts me in a bad mood."
"Ah," Obi-Wan said, "well…"
"Which doesn't mean I'm not available," she said crisply. "Just that you won't get the benefit of my usual good humor."
"Ah," Obi-Wan said again. He had never enjoyed the benefit of Jocasta Nu's good humor. Perhaps he'd been at the other end of her private amusement at his failure to keep up with Senate subcommittee agendas. That was the only time he could remember her smiling at him. It hadn't been a very nice smile.
Jocasta Nu shook her head. "Oh, for star's sake, Master Kenobi, stop repeating yourself. What do you need?"
"Some time ago I asked you to research someone called Granta Omega.
You assembled a file — " "I remember."
"Which I need to review."
She sighed. "Today, I suppose?"
"I'm afraid so."
Jocasta Nu crossed the room and began to access a holofile directory.
She hummed a tuneless melody while she tapped one finger on the counter.
"Here we go. I can do a fresh search as well, if you like."
&
nbsp; "That would be helpful."
She flipped through the file. "Though as I remember, this subject's problem was decentralization."
"What do you mean?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Scattered." Her slender fingers wiggled. "Spread out. Diluted."
"I understand what the word means, I just don't — "
"Sorry. One of my own classification terms. Some subjects are solid.
