Anakin found himself staring at the open bay door long after Altis had vanished. Maybe there was a solution after all. The old Master seemed to have more answers than he admitted to.
Could I live without her?
Would I let her go?
Anakin felt uneasy, as if he were looking down into a well with his hands firmly on the sides, but starting to slip as he stared in dismay at something emerging from the depths. He pulled back. Maybe this wasn’t the time to ask himself those kinds of questions, not here in the aftermath of battle. He’d leave it until he had a quiet moment to meditate. That sense of not wanting to look was … misleading. It had to be.
Altis couldn’t be right about everything, after all.
Anakin decided the first thing he’d do when Leveler dropped out of hyperspace was to comm Padmé and tell her.
She’d never want to leave him, anyway, nor would he ever leave her. Altis’s question didn’t really apply.
Did it?
TRANSFER DOCK, KEMLA SHIPYARDS
THERE WAS STILL WORK TO BE DONE. CALLISTA SAT WITH ASH, saying nothing, thinking a lot, and watching Geith sparring playfully with one of the Ryn who occasionally traveled with them.
“You wouldn’t believe we’d just fought a battle,” Ash said.
Wookiee Gunner eased onto one of the berthing piers at Kemla’s transfer dock, an insect alongside Leveler. The damage to the assault ship was now painfully visible in the high-output illumination that bathed the orbiting dock in harsh, blue-white light. She was a mass of scorch marks, buckled plates, and missing spars. Dockworkers were already putting lines on her and marshaling tiny pilot vessels into place around her.
Callista nodded in the direction of the warship. The battered hull filled most of the viewport on that side.
“Oh, I believe …”
“What did it feel like to merge with the missile system?” Ash asked.
Callista could now only recall brief but vivid freeze-frames of the event. The moments of machine-like clarity stayed with her, though. She was sure that was why her Force senses didn’t feel quite the same even now.
“There was a point at which I thought I might never separate from it,” she said. “I think I quite enjoyed being a machine for a while.”
But not a battle droid. One step too far.
She thought of Rex, and wondered if she’d be able to check up on Joc, Boro, Hil, or Ross, to see that they were okay. The speed with which folks formed bonds in combat still surprised her, even though she should have known it was always that way.
“Do you think,” she said, “that combat binds us tighter than everyday friendships because it’s a defense mechanism? That we’ve evolved to stick together with the beings most likely to fight to defend us?”
“That’s a very … machine-like view.”
“You’re laughing at me now.”
“Not at all. But I’d rather think that we bond more strongly in adversity because we see others for what they really are—prepared to die to save us, rather than run away.”
Not everyone.
Just the good ones.
“That’s near enough for me,” Callista said.
Yarille was the next stop. It was a world nobody cared much about; even the fighting there had been brief and had moved on, as if the place wasn’t even worth conquering. The Republic’s meteorological information service said Yen Bachask—the worst-hit town—was facing a harsh winter, and that the snows had already started.
Master Altis wandered across to her, no sign of impatience while they waited for the transit shuttle. Geith gave up his mock boxing bout with the Ryn boy—even a Jedi had to struggle to get a punch past his guard—and flopped down on the seat beside her.
“I hope we didn’t upset the general and his Padawan too much,” Callista said.
“Oh, a little challenge to our beliefs every day is a bracing walk for both the intellect and the soul.” Altis stared at Leveler. “I certainly had a few challenges to mine in the last few days.”
“I meant that I don’t want to call down the Jedi Order on our heads, Master.”
“I doubt that’ll happen, my dear. We’ve had an arrangement for some time, after all.”
“But what kind of arrangement can we have if we think they’re wrong about this war?” Callista stood and offered him her seat. “We can’t ignore it.”
Altis shook his head politely and pointed to his lower back, indicating that it was playing him up again.
“I’d be a liar if I said that I didn’t feel negative about Master Yoda sometimes,” he said. “So I ask myself why, and recognize that I have to deal with my own insecurities and conceits. But when I strip that away, and I look at what worries Geith, then I find more objective grounds to concern me.”
“Then what do we do about it?”
“We deal with what the war presents us, as if there were no Jedi leading the Republic’s forces. It’s not a matter of being on their side or not. We are on the side of those who need us most.”
“Then we may well end up fighting for the Republic.”
“And there will be days when we won’t.” Altis held up his finger, distracted for a moment as if he’d interrupted himself. “Correction. When I won’t. Because I won’t dictate matters of conscience to the rest of you.”
“Is there no point talking to Master Yoda? He might see sense.”
“He already believes he does, and I think I see sense, too, but we see very different things. Do you think I could sway him? That’s a genuine question.”
“I don’t know him.”
“I fear my own negativity. But if I try to stand back from my emotion, then I’m simply left with a question—whether a being who has lived for centuries can possibly understand what’s best for the majority of beings whose time is much, much shorter.”
“Master, emotions aren’t inherently bad,” Geith said. “Why set them aside this time?”
“Because I need to be sure I oppose Yoda’s position for the right reasons, and what it is that I actually oppose. Supporting the Republic even when it’s flawed? Using clone troops? If I put aside emotions, what reality am I left with?”
“Emotions are our programming, the reactions that keep us alive and help us understand what’s right and wrong. If I’m upset when someone treats me as having no worth or rights, isn’t that how I work out that I shouldn’t treat a clone trooper the same way, or a servant or anyone else? If it offends me, then it probably offends others.”
“A good point, Geith, but beware the assumption that all beings react as you do.”
“Master, I’d lay down my life for you, but I don’t accept an argument that says if others are not like us, we can treat them differently. That’s an excuse for exploitation. That is the path to the dark side.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that. Just that understanding others’ motives and being able to see the world as they do is the key both to compassion … and to success in battle.” Altis ruffled Geith’s hair. “And while I’m touched by your devotion, I would much rather you lived a long and happy life, influencing others by your example, and raising children to do the same. You, too, young woman.” He patted Callista’s head. “Enough of the sacrificial tendencies. A little selfishness keeps you alive to do more good for others, yes?”
The transit shuttle swung into view and settled with its docking ring against the bulkhead. The air lock sealed, warning lights flashed, and the interior doors parted. It was time to go.
“You go ahead,” said Altis. He shooed them forward. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“If you miss this shuttle, the next circuit’s not for another half an hour.”
Altis shrugged. “Do you mind waiting for me?”
“Master … where would we go without you?”
“I’m not the community. You are. One day, it will have to go ahead and leave me behind.”
“Never.”
“Never is a long time. So if you then decide to hand my mortal rema
ins to a taxidermist, and display me somewhere in the ship,” Altis said stiffly, “I shall return as a ghost and ruin every game of sabacc you ever play.” He smiled. “I’ll wait.”
Callista hung around with him until the last moment, until the pilot droid hit the warning light for embarkation and Ash shooed her on board after the others.
“It’s someone important,” she said.
“Everyone’s important to the Master,” said Callista.
She stared out the viewport as the shuttle pulled away on the short journey to dock with Wookiee Gunner, until Altis was just a small speck of charcoal gray in the brightly lit bubble of transparisteel and plastoid of the transit area.
Yes, everyone mattered. And every action they took mattered, too.
CAPTAIN’S CABIN, LEVELER, ORBITAL DOCK, KEMLA SHIPYARDS
GIL WAS BUSY WITH THE SHIPYARD SUPERVISOR, AND HALLENA had never been good at farewells.
He’d understand. It wasn’t forever. But it had to be now.
She had no luggage; that didn’t matter. Gil’s steward and one of the clone supply officers had cobbled together a few items—Fleet gray coveralls, man-sized underthings she could alter later, toiletries—and she stuffed them in a small fabric bag. She also had untraceable credits she could convert to cash creds. That was the great thing about being a spook: Rep Intel had trained her to vanish, to leave no traces, and given her the means to do that and survive anonymously in the field. Now she could do just that. She’d have to make the cash cred hit in one go, though, or else her constant dips into the untraceable account would get their attention, and they’d shut it down.
I don’t really need much. I’m a survivor.
As she looked at herself in the mirror on Gil’s cabin bulkhead, she wondered if the lump on her head was somehow connected to her decision to go into hiding. It was, after all, not her style; she’d always imagined herself storming into Isard’s office, calling him everything but a Hutt’s backside, and telling him what he could do with his job. That day hadn’t even really featured in her fantasies, though. She accepted—less willingly, less easily with each passing day—that she may not like her job, or even be able to sleep well after some parts of it, but that it had to be done. Her job was to go to the dark places where nobody else could.
The trouble was that she’d found the dark place within herself. It wasn’t a place she could live any longer.
There was nobody to apologize to; there was nothing she could do here to atone. But she looked up at the deckhead, because up was the only direction that felt appropriate.
“Sorry, Vere. Sorry, Ince. Sorry, Shil. Sorry, everyone who died so I could have a second chance. I’m not going to waste it. I promise.”
She should have apologized to Gil, too, but theirs was a more complicated relationship, and always would be. She finished writing the letter—real flimsi, a proper letter for a gentleman who cared about such things—and sealed it carefully before kissing it and leaving it under the syrspirit decanter.
He’d look there.
He’d be the only one who would read it and understand its meaning.
And then he’d know where he could find her.
If she didn’t leave now, then she never would, and Rep Intel were fully aware of her last known position. The decent thing to do was to relieve Gil of all complicity in her disappearance.
No prisoners. No hostages.
And, because he loved her, he would let her go—and for the time being, she had to.
THIRTEEN
We Jedi are tainted by our connections to the Republic. Many see us as its enforcers. We’re on the wrong side. We should be helping to bring the Republic down, once and for all.
—Jedi Knight SORA BULQ
YARILLE, OUTER RIM
IT WAS YET ANOTHER WASTELAND; ANOTHER SHARD OF THE BIGGER war, and more shattered lives.
Altis stood on the loading ramp of the Wookiee Gunner and stared at the devastation with a sinking heart that did not befit a Jedi Master.
We can deal with this. Really, we can.
A brand-new city had sprung up on the tundra, a city of tents. Behind it, like a shattered vase, the regional capital of Yen Bachask lay in ruins. The area was so unrelentingly flat that Altis was sure he could see another bombed town in the far distance.
Maybe it’s a mirage. Can you get mirages in cold climates?
Geith put his hand on the Master’s shoulder. Neither man said anything as little dark shapes emerged from the tents to stand and stare back—refugees displaced by the fighting that had hit their world, then moved on.
“Let’s do it,” Geith said. He scanned the horizon, hands on hips. “Not even a tree. What a miserable place.”
Callista, Ash, and the others who acted as section leaders moved out from the ship onto the thin dusting of snow to begin walking with slow, deliberate, we’re-here-to-help care toward the tent city to make contact. It was always a good idea to send the females in first. Altis had known so many lethal, violent women that he wasn’t sure why that usually reassured the scared and suffering; but refugees reacted better when the first hand extended to them was a woman’s. Perhaps it was because soldiers tended to be male, right across the galaxy.
He waited until a few of the locals, huddled in heavy coats against the bitter wind, stepped forward and exchanged handshakes with Callista and Ash.
“She’s a good girl,” Altis said, more to himself than Geith.
“I know,” Geith said. “She always bounces back. That computer thing really scared her. But she seems fine now.”
Altis hadn’t been thinking of that. But Callista had changed subtly, and he made a mental note to keep an eye on it. He took a wide path around the makeshift camp to see what might be dragged from the town and salvaged. As they neared the town walls, he found himself walking on an increasing density of debris, tan and white, metal and plastoid.
It was the remains of droids and clone troopers.
Ince. Vere. Those young men, allowed to know nothing else.
It wasn’t so much the realization of what he was walking upon that stopped him in his tracks and made his stomach lurch, but what he sensed. The Force seized him by the collar, shook him, made him look. See what your kind have done, Altis. Feel the pain and misery that empty piety begets. He had no choice but to listen to it.
“Yoda, you fool—you fool.” He dreaded going farther. He knew he would see bodies, and he knew that somehow the bodies of troopers would disturb him even more than those of civilians. He would ponder on that. “And you wonder why the dark side has been growing these many years? Because we’re letting it creep up on us a step at a time.”
Geith caught his arm. “Master?”
“I’m fine, Geith.” Altis put his hand on Geith’s and patted it rather than shake it off. He didn’t want to be touched. He felt unworthy of concern or sympathy. “I just have moments of clarity that cut me to the bone.”
He walked on anyway, and, yes, there were bodies. He would arrange cremations. He would try to notify next of kin. Troopers had none, but surely somebody—somebody—kept records of their individual existence and passing. Rex cared. Therefore if nobody else would mourn them, then at least a clone brother would want and need to know.
There is no passion, only serenity.
“Garbage,” Altis spat. “Garbage. Where’s the passion for justice? Where’s the passion for peace? The passion for rights? We need passion! No passion—only complacency! We forgot what we were put here to do.”
Geith, like the rest of his students, was used to these angry Altis-versus-Altis debates. He walked alongside his Master patiently.
“We all feel the darkness coming, Master.”
“It’s not separate!” It was so clear now; the Force was shaking him and demanding that he listen. “It’s not a separate entity! It’s not another being! It’s us, it’s in us, it’s part of us. It’s our blindness, that we think our little identichip that says GOOD GUYS exempts us from looking at our own acc
eptance of evil. It’s so much easier to point to Dooku and blame him. Isn’t it? Dooku was a good man when I knew him. A principled man, a man with honest passions. We drive such men to extreme actions when we refuse to look at what troubles them. We are the dark side, all of us. It’s what we all do—and don’t do.”
Geith was a good man, just like Dooku had once been. He had a fine mind; he never accepted authority because it stood over him with a fist or a disapproving look. He was unflinching in examining his own shortcomings. But it wasn’t enough to examine and think. Every being had to do. Good intention wasn’t enough.
Good intention, and blind eyes turned to a nagging reality, had killed the soldier who lay crumpled a few meters away in the shelter of a doorway. He could have been asleep, huddled against the biting wind, had it not been for the fact that a large part of his body was missing.
Who planned such an army? And how did they know war was coming?
“I think the time when that problem could have been solved was over long before you were even born, Master,” Geith said. “So before you blame yourself for this, for withdrawing from mainstream Jedi life—don’t.”
“That,” Altis said stiffly, “is the denial of personal responsibility. We can all make a difference.”
“Master, if one man could change the galaxy—you’d have managed it by now.”
Altis steeled himself to squat down and turn over the body. It was stiff, not from rigor mortis but from the cold. He wondered whether to remove the helmet, but he couldn’t bear to see the face. He’d looked into Rex’s eyes once too often. Geith put his hand under his elbow and helped him stand upright.
His back hurt. It had been a hard few days, and he wasn’t getting any younger.
“We’ve tried to stay away from Republic business,” he said. “But it won’t stay away from us.”
“Master,” Geith said softly, “it doesn’t mean we’ve compromised.”
“We have to stop this war.”