But Anakin wasn’t listening. He was slumped a little on the edge of the desk, brooding.
“What’s the matter?”
Anakin stirred. “Look. Obi-Wan. About this morning. Chancellor Palpatine.” He sighed. “He means well. He’s my friend, all right? He worries about me.”
His instinct was to urge caution. Just because Palpatine meant well didn’t mean his lavish praise was a good thing. On the contrary. Too often the Chancellor’s uncritical support encouraged Anakin’s regrettable tendency toward brash overconfidence.
But I daren’t say it. He’s so fiercely loyal to his friends. He’ll just get angry and defensive if I criticize Palpatine—which won’t do either of us any good.
He nodded. “I know.”
“I don’t agree with him,” Anakin added. “About me being taken for granted. Or that I’m single-handedly defending the Republic. We all risk ourselves. We’re all ready to die in this war. The Chancellor just—he gets carried away, Obi-Wan. That’s all.”
“It’s fine, Anakin. My feelings aren’t hurt. I understand.”
“Do you?” said Anakin, cautiously hopeful. “Really?”
“Of course.”
It was true. He understood completely. Palpatine always did have a soft spot for Anakin… and there was a part of Anakin that would always need emotional ties. Having lost his mother and Qui-Gon—and then being denied Padmé—of course he’d turned to Palpatine. A benign, uncritical father figure. A source of unconditional support. Anakin had come to the Temple years too late for anything or anyone to undo his need for love.
And what cannot be cured must be endured.
Shoving his chair back from the datastation, Obi-Wan stood. “I’ve been sitting for hours. I’m going to stretch my legs. Care to join me, or do you still have reports to file?”
Anakin shook his head. “No. They’re done. But I was thinking I might take Artoo down to the droid workshop and give him a tune-up. He’s seen some pretty heavy action over the last couple of months, and I’ve only had the time and equipment to make running repairs.”
Tinkering, again. Anakin and his blessed machines. He should have known. “Fine. Just don’t get any bright ideas for upgrading him. Or if you do, check before implementing them. Remember what happened the last time you got creative?”
They left the Archives’ private cubicle, Anakin hotly protesting under his breath. “That wasn’t my fault. Fleet Maintenance shouldn’t have changed my onboard weapons protocols without telling me. If I’d known they’d recalibrated the targeting computer, I’d never have rewritten Artoo’s rapid-response interface and—”
“—you wouldn’t have accidentally shot me down. I know,” he said, with weary forbearance. “Mistakes were made all around and hopefully we’ve learned from them. I’m just suggesting—”
“All right, all right,” said Anakin, as they passed through the Archives’ main doors and onto the Level 6 concourse beyond them. “Point taken. I won’t upgrade anything without checking with Fleet first. You satisfied?”
“I’m ecstatic,” he said drily. “Have fun. I’ll comm you later.”
They parted company.
Lacking any clear purpose for the first time in weeks, and finding the absence of urgency unnerving, Obi-Wan wandered the wide, stately concourse with its towering marble columns and artworks donated from countless worlds throughout the Republic. He smiled at the little flocks of younglings he encountered, so focused and serious as they were herded from one task to the next, and felt a wistful melancholy, remembering himself at that same tender age. He passed groups of older Padawans, a little less serious, a little more in tune with the Force. The awe in their eyes as they recognized him made him feel profoundly uncomfortable.
I am not a hero. I’m merely older than you.
He had several hours yet before he was due to meet with Bail. What to do, what to do? He supposed he could spend some time in the arboretum, meditating. Last night Vokara Che had strongly advised just that, once she’d finished what Pioneer’s med droid had started and repaired the lingering echoes of damage from those inconvenient transparisteel shards.
“I know you’ve not forgotten our last talk, Master Kenobi,” she’d said. “And I know you resent what has happened to you. But resenting it changes nothing. Your body is different now. You must find a way to work with those differences, not against them.”
Differences forced upon him by the Sith. By the dark side. Differences whose deleterious effects, Vokara Che believed, would accumulate over time. That he would find a way to conquer if it took him the rest of his life.
“Obi-Wan!”
His heart thudded, once, then settled back into rhythm, almost unchanged. Slowing, he turned. Stopped. Smiled. “Taria.”
“I heard you were back,” Taria Damsin said, joining him. Long blue-green hair tugged into a careless braid, athletic physique wrapped in dark green stretchskin, she looked fit and vital and burningly alive. Nobody would ever guess, looking at her, that she was dying. “And I heard you were injured. Again.”
“You should know better than to listen to gossip.”
She raised one strongly arched eyebrow. “I hope you bluff more convincingly than that when you’re negotiating, Master Kenobi.”
They’d been friends since childhood. More than friends for a short while, those memories cherished. The old friendship resumed, undiminished, when it was time.
He grinned. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.” She looked him up and down, a critical inspection worthy of a nerf breeder. “And even more pleased to see you’re not prostrated this time.”
Prostrated. She chose the most absurd words. She was a most absurd woman. She can’t be dying. It’s too cruel. “Taria, I’m fine. How are you?”
“Me? I’m fighting fit,” she said, the sudden glint in her eyes a warning. It was almost impossible to get her talking about the disease that was slowly consuming her. “But desperate. I’ve an advanced lightsaber class to teach and my assistant’s managed to give himself food poisoning. I don’t suppose…” She trailed off, invitingly.
Well, here was a conundrum. Tedious meditation in the arboretum or the always entertaining rough-and-tumble of a lightsaber session with Taria.
Hmm. Let me think…
“I’d be delighted to stand in for your unfortunate assistant, Master Damsin,” he said. “Although—” He hesitated, wondering briefly if he should continue. But he decided to risk her displeasure, because they were never less than honest with each other. They had never shielded each other no matter the temptation or consequences. “Truth be told, Taria, I’m a little surprised you’re still teaching advanced classes. Are you sure that’s wise?”
Instead of snapping, she let her gaze slip sideways. No quicksilver temper, that warning glint fading. He’d rather she raged at him. The fear he could feel in her closed his throat.
“Taria,” he said, wishing they were alone, his voice brimful of unspoken sorrow. A broken promise: he’d sworn he wouldn’t burden her with his grief.
Her chin tilted, and suddenly he was reminded of Padmé. That same stubborn strength and pride and courage.
“I’m in remission, Obi-Wan,” she said, carefully self-contained again, shutting him out. “For as long as it lasts I’ll live my life on my terms. Now come on. I need to set up the dojo and we don’t want to be late. How would that look? Our poster boy Jedi tardy to class.”
He didn’t protest her distancing of him. When she was ready, they’d talk. They always did. Falling into old, bad habits—how fortunate Anakin wasn’t here—he used the Force to tug her long braid. “Call me a poster boy again and I’ll tell your students about the time you tangled with that dragon-beast on—”
“You wouldn’t dare!” she breathed, retreating. “You promised, you swore, you said you’d never—”
Wickedly grinning, he followed her. “Who’s the Jedi poster boy?”
“Not you,” she said
, flinging up her hands in surrender. “It was never you. In fact, there isn’t one. I made it all up. Happy now?”
“I could weep with joy. Do lead the way to class, Master Damsin.”
And so, with the problem of what to do with himself solved for the moment, he walked with Taria from the concourse to the largest dojo on Level 9, where her eager students awaited… and where he could, for a little while at least, leave the war and his worries behind.
The Kaliida Shoals Medcenter was a terrible place.
Ahsoka felt guilty for thinking that, but Master Yoda was very strict about Padawans not denying their thoughts. Good or bad they must flow through the mind, neither provoking nor denying action. Only when a Jedi was at peace with his or her thoughts could the right course of action be decided.
She didn’t like Kaliida Shoals and she wasn’t too fond of the Kaminoans, either. Nala Shan and her colleagues were brilliant scientists and miracle-working doctors, but it seemed to her that Anakin felt more connection to machines than the Kaminoans did to the clones they created. When they didn’t think she was listening, they referred to Rex and Coric and the others as units. Units. They weren’t units, they were men, living breathing laughing hurting brave and reckless men, who would lay down their lives for her and for one another without ever once stopping to think first and she loved them for that. So did Anakin. And Master Kenobi, well, he respected them.
But the Kaminoans? No love. Not even respect. Just pride. They were proud of their work. They were terribly impressed with how much damage a clone could sustain and how fast they could heal his torn flesh and broken bones. But care about them? Feel sympathy for their pain, or grief at their loss? No. She hadn’t seen a hint of that. The Kaminoans were very detached. They were so detached they made Jedi like Master Yoda and Master Windu and Master Kenobi look like giddy, hysterical children.
With her fractured ribs swiftly and neatly healed and her other scrapes and burns and bruises consigned to memory—the Kaminoans even fixed the slight defect in her central montral, which was good of them, she grudgingly allowed—she was free to wander the unrestricted areas of the uncomfortably white and high-ceilinged medcenter, or keep up with her lightsaber drills along any handily empty circular corridor she could find.
What she wasn’t allowed to do was contact Anakin with an update, or sit with Captain Rex and Sergeant Coric while they were in their bacta chambers, or visit with any other Torrent Company clones who’d been consigned here. And she hadn’t been permitted to bid farewell to those who’d died in this sterile place despite the Kaminoans’ best efforts to save them.
And that wasn’t fair.
Being a refitted space station the medcenter had one observation platform, sited at the very top of its flat-topped spindle. It afforded a panoramic view of the Kaliida Nebula, and the beauty of that distracted her—at least for a little while—from darker thoughts.
Nala Shan’s assistant, Topuc Ti, found her there a short time before lunch, local time.
“Padawan Ahsoka, it is permitted for you to receive a holotransmission from your Jedi Master,” the ethereal Kaminoan informed her. “Please follow me to the communications center.”
Anakin. Leaping up from her cross-legged meditation, Ahsoka tried to calm her scudding heart. Did they have new orders? Had another battlefront opened up? Would she have to leave Rex and Coric and the others alone here to their uncertain fates? She didn’t want to do that. The notion felt like a betrayal, like she’d be abandoning them. As though, like these Kaminoans, she didn’t care.
“Come,” said Topuc Ti, one elongated pale hand beckoning. “Your Jedi Master seemed most impatient.”
“Sorry. Yes. I’m coming,” she said, and scrambled after him.
“Ahsoka!” Anakin’s hologram jittered and warped, the signal struggling to punch through the nebula’s interference. “What took you so long?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I was right up in the—”
“Never mind. What’s going on? You were supposed to give me regular updates!”
Was it the poor transmission quality or was his face practically black with oil? “I tried, Master, only—” She looked around, but the two Kaminoans sharing the comm center were busy with their own conversations. Still, to be on the safe side she hunched over the holotransmitter and lowered her voice. “They wouldn’t let me, Skyguy. They took my comlink and they won’t give it back!”
“It’s probably procedure,” said Anakin. “How’s Rex? How’s Coric? Have you seen them? When will they be discharged?”
“I don’t know!” She was practically wailing, and she didn’t care. “All I know is that Rex was hurt a lot worse than I realized. The last time I saw him he was talking, he didn’t look like he was—” She couldn’t say it. “But they won’t let me see him, or the sergeant, and they won’t tell me anything except they’re not dead.”
Anakin sighed. “That’s probably procedure, too. But if they’re not dead—that’s something. That’s good, Ahsoka.”
He sounded so relieved. It made her feel better, knowing he was as sick with worry on Coruscant as she was here. It made him seem less far away.
“Skyguy, what’s happening at home? Do we have another mission?”
“No. We’re on furlough. Everyone’s in a holding pattern until we eliminate all the computer viruses and figure out a way around Grievous’s comm jammer. Word’s just in the Seps have used it again. Twice.”
Well, that wasn’t good. Did that mean another influx of wounded clones?
“What happened?”
“Our forces disengaged.”
She couldn’t stifle her shocked gasp in time. “We ran?”
“No, Padawan, we executed a strategic retreat,” Anakin retorted. Not even the poor-quality holotransmission could disguise his frustrated anger. “You don’t win wars with vainglorious last charges, Ahsoka. You fight smart or you waste lives. This was fighting smart.”
“Yes, Master,” she said meekly. “Master, if you’re on furlough, would it be all right if I stayed here until Rex and Coric wake up? They’re still in bacta treatment. They could be swimming in gel for a few days yet.”
“Are you sure you want to? It must be pretty boring there on your own.”
“I don’t mind. It’s just—” She hesitated. “When they do wake up, they’re going to be—I thought they might like—”
“To see a friendly face?” Mercurial as ever, Anakin smiled. “Nice.”
“I’m keeping up with my drills, Master. Lightsaber and general phsyical. I’m not being idle.”
“That must mean you’re fighting fit again.”
“Me? Oh, I’m fine. I just wish…”
Anakin smiled again. “I know. Ahsoka, you—hold on.” His head turned. “What? Oh. Right. Thanks, Artoo. Tell him I’m coming.” Looking at her again, he pulled a face. “Sorry. I’m late for a dinner engagement. I’ll call again tomorrow. But if anything happens in the meantime that I should know about, and you can’t reach me, contact Master Yoda. If the Kaminoans have a problem with that, throw your weight around until you get what you need. Okay?”
Her weight? She didn’t have any weight. She was a lightweight. On the other hand, he was a heavyweight. As the Jedi who’d led the raid to save the medcenter, his name meant something around here. Up till now she hadn’t used it, because that wasn’t what a Jedi did.
But now he’s given me permission. And I really, really want to sit with Rex and Coric.
She nodded. “Yes, Master.”
Somewhere out of holotransmit range, Artoo whistled and beeped. He sounded almost frantic now.
“I know, Artoo! I’ll be right there,” Anakin snapped. “Ahsoka—” He frowned. “Can you get access to the Kaminoans’ information database?”
Their database? “I guess. Why?”
“If you can, and if you can poke around in there without setting off any alarms—and if you can wipe your fingerprints off any searches you do—see what you can dig up about a
planet called Lanteeb.”
“Lanteeb?” she said, baffled. Where was Lanteeb? She’d never heard of it. “All right. But—”
“Good. And keep it quiet. I don’t want any alarm bells ringing on this, Ahsoka. You understand?”
Oh, stang. What is he getting mixed up in now? “Yes, Master. I understand.”
“Good. I’ll comm you tomorrow. Remember—low profile on this, Padawan. It stays strictly between us.”
“Yes, Master. And Master—”
But he was gone.
Bemused, Ahsoka stared at the deactivated holotransmitter. Lanteeb. How very mystifying. And she’d look into it like Anakin asked. Soon. But first she was going to start throwing some of his weight around.
Hang on, Rex. Hang on, Sarge. I’ll be right there.
Chapter Eight
Obi-Wan was a neat, flamboyant speeder pilot—with a long-standing habit of sticking to Coruscant’s orthodox, tried-and-true traffic routes. Looking at him, recognizing the familiar signs of displeasure, Anakin cleared his throat.
Here goes nothing.
“Actually, if you wanted to make up a bit of time, I know this really good shortcut over to the—”
“No, thank you,” said Obi-Wan, very clipped. “I’ve had enough of your shortcuts to last me a lifetime. And if you’d kept an eye on your chrono we wouldn’t need a—”
“Hey, I said I was sorry!”
“Yes, yes, you’re always apologetic afterward, Anakin, but—”
“Obi-Wan, I’m sorry.” He grabbed hold of the speeder’s passenger-side door as his former Master dropped them out of their crowded traffic lane into the cross-cutting corridor that would lead them away from the sprawling admin district and over to one of Coruscant’s most expensive and exclusive residential enclaves. He knew the area intimately. Padmé’s apartment block was hardly a stone’s throw from Bail Organa’s. They’d be there by now if he’d been flying the speeder. But Obi-Wan, tight-lipped at being kept waiting, had ignored his offer to take the controls.