“Or if they can survive,” Anakin said.
“Let’s take our chances up there.”
The starfighters were in disarray, their sensors blinded by the sudden shafts of light rising beyond the valley. Cracks formed in the valley floor, and magma rose sluggishly. The entire crust was strained by the force of the huge new engines.
“We’ll have to maneuver through a lot of mines,” Anakin said.
“Do it.” Obi-Wan frowned in concentration, trying to see where all the pathways were going, where their tiny path might converge with much greater events in the immediate future. But nothing was clear.
Anakin brought the Sekotan ship up above the valley walls just as another funnel of searing brilliance scorched a hole through the atmosphere a hundred kilometers north, incinerating all in its path, friend and foe alike. The light seemed to blossom at its base, then darkened to smoky orange and went out, and a wall of debris pushed outward. If that was an engine, it had just failed, but it had cleared a path for them into space.
Anakin bared his teeth, expecting to die at any moment—
“Never give up!” Obi-Wan reminded him.
—And drove them straight up through boiling atmosphere, through fragments of ruined engine and flaming wreaths of fuel.
The stars gleamed clear in a black spot at the end of the tunnel of ionized air. The black spot closed rapidly.
The little ship cleared the atmosphere and climbed with unbelievable speed into space, reaching orbital velocity in seconds. Starfighters gathered on all sides to pursue.
The YT-1150 of Charza Kwinn pushed up from behind. Charza had followed them down the valley floor but could not keep up with them now, so he fell back and drew away the droid ships, spiraling higher and higher, finally achieving orbit. The last they saw of him, he was engaging a defense escort ship.
Then, from the Rim Merchant Einem, just visible over the limb of Zonama Sekot, came a concentrated bolt of turbolaser fire, expertly aimed. It caught their little ship broadside and blinded them for a moment, crisping one lobe.
Anakin felt the ship’s high-pitched, bone-grating signal of pain.
Obi-Wan looked behind, using the senses still supplied by Sekot, and saw engines flare to life across the planet’s northern hemisphere, their intense plasma cones pushing Zonama Sekot slowly, majestically, out of its own orbit. All the renegade ships surrounding the planet had to scramble to keep clear of both the flares and the planet’s new vector through space.
Zonama Sekot had never been more beautiful. She shimmered against the backdrop of the pinwheel and the far, rippling sheets of stars. Her clouds and vast tampasi faded beneath a sunrise that could not compete with Sekot’s own, self-generated energies.
“She’s leaving!” Obi-Wan cried out. He reached out to grab hold of something, an instinctive reaction, completely futile.
All the stars around the planet’s circumference seemed to suck inward and then bounce back. In the pit of his stomach, Obi-Wan could feel a huge emptiness in space and time, unlike anything he had ever experienced.
He lost his extra senses, his connection with Sekot. Only a brief farewell lingered, the last touch of a far-reaching tendril, ancient and young at once.
Anakin was still lost in their ship’s pain. Behind them, Tarkin’s confused fleet scattered as if caught in a great wind. All the ships’ orbits had changed unexpectedly, and the navigational systems could not compensate. Mines collided with mines and starfighters, delivery ships smashed into defense escorts, and at least two escorts rammed the Rim Merchant Einem.
Not his concern. Anakin knew they had only a short time to go where they needed to go. Take us, he told their ship.
He entered a state where he understood the ways of the higher spaces. The vastness of the universe no longer frightened him. The ship rooted him to their reality. Even in her pain, she was teaching him how to navigate the more difficult dimensions.
Anakin in turn gave the ship what considerable skills he possessed.
Together, they took themselves into hyperspace and fled the triple star system that had once held the secret promise of Zonama Sekot.
The ship was indeed faster than anything that had ever flown before.
Obi-Wan slept. Exhaustion caught up with him, and sleep came without his even being aware of it. He awoke a few hours later and saw Anakin also asleep, arms still embedded in the console. The boy’s eyes twitched. He was dreaming.
Obi-Wan stroked the ship lightly. “Any friend of Anakin Skywalker’s is a friend of mine,” he murmured.
The console rippled beneath his touch. A display of the ship’s vital systems appeared before him. She was giving everything she had to get them to where they wanted to go, but that wasn’t going to be enough. The ship’s injuries were too great.
Obi-Wan leaned forward. “There’s another station,” he said. An emergency outpost, a barren, rocky world thousands of parsecs closer than Coruscant, sometimes used by Jedi, unknown to anyone else, and otherwise almost deserted. He had been there only once, after a particularly harrowing adventure with Qui-Gon.
The ship accepted his coordinates. A new display affirmed that the ship could reach this destination.
“And when you can, send a message to the Temple.” He provided the transponder frequencies. “Someone should meet us at the outpost. Mace Windu, or Thracia Cho Leem. Or both. It is very important that my Padawan be counseled by another Master after his ordeal.”
Anakin came awake and blinked owlishly in the warm cabin lights.
“You were dreaming,” Obi-Wan said.
“Not me. The ship,” Anakin said. “Or maybe we were dreaming together. We were traveling around the galaxy, seeing wonderful things. It was so great to just be free. You were there with us. I think you were having fun, too.”
Anakin held out his hand, fingers spread, and Obi-Wan met it with his own hand. A few more years and the boy would reach his full growth.
In more than just size.
“I’m going to give her a name,” Anakin said, looking away.
“What?”
“I’m going to call her Jabitha.”
Obi-Wan smiled.
“It’s a pretty name, isn’t it?”
“It is a pretty name.”
“Do you think they’re still alive?”
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan said.
“Maybe they all just vanished and no one will ever see them again.”
“Perhaps.”
Anakin had a hard time asking the next question. “Our ship is dying, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
Anakin stared straight ahead, face blank.
The boy loses everything he loves, and yet still he is strong.
“Vergere …” Anakin began.
“Tell me more about what Vergere said.”
“I’ll get the ship—I’ll get the Jabitha to show you the entire message.”
Vergere appeared once more in the cabin, head feathers awry, slanted eyes wary, communicating the news of her discoveries to any Jedi who might follow in her path.
The Jabitha lay in a cold and flimsy hangar on the outpost world Seline. The Sekotan ship’s skin was rapidly losing its color and iridescence.
Anakin sat on a bench before the ship, chin in his hands. Outside, winds howled and spicules of ice shattered with a harsh, tinny rattle against the hangar’s thin metal skin.
Anakin tried to imagine the Jabitha back in her birthplace of warmth and lush, tropic beauty, back with her family … wherever they might be.
Seline was a poor place for a Sekotan ship to die.
Obi-Wan and Thracia Cho Leem entered the hangar. Thracia removed her weather gear. Anakin looked up, then returned his gaze to the ship.
Thracia approached the boy.
“Not so young now, Anakin Skywalker?” she asked, sitting on the bench beside him. Anakin slid over a few centimeters to make room for the diminutive Jedi Knight.
Anakin did not answer.
; “Young Jedi, you have learned some hard truths. Power and even discipline are not sufficient. Self-knowledge is the most difficult of our many journeys.”
“I know,” Anakin said softly.
“And sometimes wisdom seems impossibly far away.”
Anakin nodded.
“You must let me feel what is within you now,” Thracia said gently. Then, with the faintest tone of warning, “You are still being judged.”
Anakin screwed up his face, then relaxed and let her probe.
Obi-Wan slowly turned his eyes to the dead ship, now good only for cold and heartless research, and left the hangar. This was not for him to witness. There had to be an objective evaluation; that was half the essence of Jedi counseling.
As for the other half …
That was Thracia’s greatest skill—healing.
There would be many more battles for his apprentice, many more disappointments. And many more joys. More joys than sadnesses, Obi-Wan fervently hoped.
This was how it was, how it felt, to have the heart of a Master.
Coda:
No more Sekotan ships are made. In a few years, all of them are dead or destroyed.
Tarkin and Raith Sienar manage to bring the crippled fleet home. Inspired by what he calls a “great example,” Tarkin redeems himself before the Supreme Chancellor with secret plans for a moon-sized battle station. Tarkin claims sole credit for the design. Sienar does not dispute him; it is a brainchild he is eager to disown. Sienar has a bad feeling about such an expensive concentration of might.
The new order will find both Tarkin and Sienar useful.
Charza Kwinn and his shipmates survive and reach Coruscant, where they are assigned new missions. In later years, with the rise of the Empire and a decline in cordial relations with nonhumans, Charza becomes a smuggler and pirate to feed his food-kin. He limits his prey to Imperial vessels.
A legend grows in the galaxy: of a rogue planet that wanders between the stars, forever lost, ruled by either a madman, a madwoman, or a saint, the legends are never clear which.
Months after Thracia Cho Leem counsels Anakin Skywalker, without explanation, she leaves the Jedi order.
Obi-Wan Kenobi has his work cut out for him. The young man, his Padawan, is growing stronger, overcoming disappointment, acquiring discipline. But the knot in Anakin’s future has not completely loosened. The trial is not over; it may not be over for decades.
No balance.
No balance yet.
GREG BEAR is the author of more than twenty-five books, which have been translated into nineteen languages. His most recent novel is Quantico. He has been awarded two Hugos and five Nebulas for his fiction. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear, and they are parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra. Visit the author’s website at www.gregbear.com.
And there’s more at www.cityattheendoftime.com.
BY GREG BEAR
Darwin’s Radio (Winner of the 2001 Nebula Award for Best Novel)
Darwin’s Children
Dead Lines
Vitals
Blood Music
Moving Mars
and many more
STAR WARS—The Expanded Universe
You saw the movies. You watched the cartoon series, or maybe played some of the video games. But did you know …
In The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia Organa said to Han Solo, “I love you.” Han said, “I know.” But did you know that they actually got married? And had three Jedi children: the twins, Jacen and Jaina, and a younger son, Anakin?
Luke Skywalker was trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. But did you know that, years later, he went on to revive the Jedi Order and its commitment to defending the galaxy from evil and injustice?
Obi-Wan said to Luke, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.” Did you know that over those millennia, legendary Jedi and infamous Sith Lords were adding their names to the annals of Republic history?
Yoda explained that the dreaded Sith tend to come in twos: “Always two, there are. No more, no less. A Master, and an apprentice.” But did you know that the Sith didn’t always exist in pairs? That at one time in the ancient Republic there were as many Sith as Jedi, until a Sith Lord named Darth Bane was the lone survivor of a great Sith war and created the “Rule of Two”?
All this and much, much more is brought to life in the many novels and comics of the Star Wars expanded universe. You’ve seen the movies and watched the cartoon. Now venture out into the wider worlds of Star Wars!
Turn the page or jump to the timeline of Star Wars novels to learn more.
ONE
We have to get access to those hyperspace routes that the Separatist droids haven’t seized yet. Without that, we’ll never be able to take the Outer Rim worlds. Unfortunately, that means we need the cooperation of the Hutts.
CHANCELLOR PALPATINE, on the logistics problems facing the Grand Army of the Republic
ZIRO THE HUTT’S PALACE, USCRU DISTRICT, CORUSCANT
“COULD YOU KILL A CHILD?”
Count Dooku thought it was an odd question, coming as it did from Ziro. The Hutt had been perfectly happy to go along with the idea of kidnapping his nephew’s baby son. But if he’d thought through the reality of grabbing Jabba’s gangland power, then wiping out all rivals, even baby heirs, had to be high on his list of priorities.
Maybe it wasn’t. And that would be a fatal mistake.
“Could you?” Dooku responded casually. “Isn’t he almost your flesh and blood too?”
Ziro blinked, passing the nictitating membranes across his eyes with slow deliberation. It was the Hutt equivalent of raising a sarcastic eyebrow. The private chamber was deserted, with not even a serving droid to overhear them.
“You don’t understand us, even if you speak our language far better than most realize,” Ziro said at last. “He’s Jabba’s bloodline. Not mine. So I do whatever it takes, and my priority is my own offspring.”
Ziro might have been playing the hard case, or he might have been serious. If he was serious, then Dooku hoped for his sake that he was ready to kill Jabba, too, because his nephew would send every assassin in Hutt space after him if he found out his uncle was responsible.
“Try not to be too hasty,” Dooku said. Don’t blow this before I get what I need. The ploy was buying time. “Extract maximum leverage from this.”
“You don’t have to explain long-term strategy to a Hutt,” Ziro rasped.
Dooku tried to stop himself from falling into a chain of reasoning with Ziro. It would bring the delicate edifice of his own operation crashing down if he said anything that made Ziro wonder if this kidnapping was going to achieve anything for him. Dooku wasn’t convinced that taking Rotta would dislodge or even weaken Jabba’s grip on power, but Ziro thought it would reduce his nephew to mere clay in his hands—which was all Dooku needed.
Dooku was certain of one thing, though: harming the Huttlet would unleash a tidal wave of incredible vengeance, and Jabba was going to be around a long, long time to make sure he found everyone involved in the kidnapping and punished them in his uniquely inventive way.
Dooku was counting on it. He wanted the Hutt in the Separatist camp, and the way to do that was to frame the Jedi for Rotta’s disappearance.
But if Ziro’s cover is blown—then he has to be silenced. We can’t have Jabba realizing he’s been maneuvered by us …
It would be too bad if anything happened to Ziro. After Jabba was signed up, Ziro’s fate was inevitable; he would have to be silenced before he implicated Dooku.
Either Hutt would do, though, in a pinch. It didn’t matter if it was Jabba or Ziro who denied hyperspace passage to Republic forces. Dooku wasn’t selling ideology, and he was sure neither Hutt was buying.
“Of course not,” he said, smiling at a being he would kill without hesitation if he threatened his plans. He had no doubt that Ziro would d
o the same to him. “But you do have to consider what you’ll do with Rotta in the longer term.”
Ziro eased his bulk across the marble floor onto a platform strewn with shimmersilk cushions that he swept out of the way. Hutts needed smooth surfaces to move properly; carpeting and upholstery didn’t go well with a lubricating layer of slime. But Ziro surrounded himself with the finest examples of furnishing anyway. It was as if he wanted to show the rest of the galaxy how powerful he was in terms that other species could understand. Dooku didn’t despise that. He felt the faintest pang of pity. It explained the Hutts’ need to flaunt Twi’lek dancers and other glamorous humanoids, so radically, physically different that no Hutt could possibly have found them attractive. They collected them because humanoids coveted them, and so it sent the message clearly: I possess everything you lust after, so I have power over you.
It all came from fear. Hutts felt threatened at a subliminal level. Once Dooku worked that out, it had been far easier to deal with them by pressing gently on their paranoia.
“Rotta should be on Teth soon,” Dooku said, taking a slow turn to look at the doors. He could hear raised voices in the chamber beyond. He sensed anxiety; no unusual thing in a Hutt’s palace with a capricious boss. Maybe the servants couldn’t find whatever overpriced delicacy he’d sent them to procure. “Plenty of time to consider your position at your leisure.”
“I’m expecting confirmation any moment. Tell me, why do you hate your Jedi family so much?”
“They’re not my family, and haven’t been for a very long time,” Dooku said. “Does it matter?”
“Motivation is everything in business.”
“Lord Ziro, I suspect you really have no need to ask. Would you put your future in their hands?”
“I wouldn’t trust the Republic to do anything for Hutts except try to stop us from making a living.”
Ziro saw Jedi and Republic as one entity. Dooku had reached a similar conclusion years before. “And anyone who doesn’t want to be part of their happy Republic family must be a tyrant or an anarchist. If a world wants to leave, it’s accused of being undemocratic, because the will of its inhabitants doesn’t suit Coruscant. Such a beautifully embroidered veil of irony.”