TWENTY-SIX

The Force, and all life it permeated, never ceased to fascinate Jeriya; the issues of life and death, of the Force from which and to which they flowed, were intricately mingled, ceaseless currents suffused with joy and pain, ecstasy and desperation, at once terrible and beautiful.

The path of the Jedi Healer, Master Obuk believed, embraced the tangled weave, subtleties of mind and breath, Light and voice, more intimately than any other, even that of the peacekeeper. Theirs was, he maintained, a path saturated in the warp and weft of the Force itself.

Breathe in... Healing, restoring, she was the Force's conduit to sustain life, mending the broken. Even in moments when life made its return to the constancy of the Force, she could offer comfort, soothe pain, even ease the transition… Breathe out. The meditation was as familiar, as basic as her connection to the Force itself, etched into her memory from her earliest days as Obuk's Padawan-learner.

Sometimes, Jeriya had found in the days and years since, the Force would surprise her anew by gathering to itself a life barely breathed into existence or conversely, by fanning into fresh flame the embers of one nearly spent. It was, she imagined, the occasional reminder that in the end, her role in this meditation could only begin and end in the will of the Force.

Emerging from the gradations of Light and lifeblood, ethereal melody underpinning subtle, even respiration, Jeriya opened her eyes and her lips curved into a slow smile. Master Kenobi, Obuk had oft noted, had inherited his master's tenacity, and whether it was this lingering fingerprint of Qui-Gon Jinn, or a gift of the Force itself, the Jedi master in her care remained stubbornly alive.

Jeriya's greeting was reciprocated; a ghost of a smile appeared on her patient's pale features as his eyes found her there beside him. Rising with her customary grace, she came to Obi-Wan's side and rested slender fingers atop a slack hand. She was pleased to see him lucid, cognizant of his surroundings and of her company.

"Are you in pain?" she asked softly, already extending her senses toward him in a delicate tendril of inquiry that Obi-Wan was incapable of perceiving, much less evading, or refusing. "Master Kenobi?"

"No," Obi-Wan replied at length, in a voice soft and hoarse, muffled by the breather. Cerulean eyes blinked drowsily up at her, and as with the brief smile, there was just a hint of his usual acerbic humor lurking there. "If…I was," he continued weakly, "I suspect…your Master just might…drug me sense…less."

The Lherin healer grasped the subtle sarcasm easily enough; it was hardly her first encounter with this particular master's wit. Force willing, it wouldn't be the last, despite his indelicate reference to being subjected recently to such medicinal meddling. Of course, the irony was not lost on either of them that he was entirely correct.

"Your…senses, Master Kenobi, required some relief," Jeriya replied, eyebrow arching coolly, and if he happened to find some semblance to her former master in that expression, she would not deny it. However, it melted into genuine concern when Obi-Wan winced heavily in spite of himself, and she redirected her inquest. The Force reflected back to the healer in distressed echoes, the discordant notes of Obi-Wan's affliction and she began to understand its current nature, beyond physical discomfort.

Closing her eyes, Jeriya nudged lightly against fairly non-existent mental barriers, imposing her will ever so gently over the suffering being visited upon the mind she touched. Be at peace, she murmured, infusing the mental injunction with the persuasion at her command, feather-light and yet adamantine in its determination. She sought to share her meditative calm with Obi-Wan, knowing he had not found his center since the onset of the toxin's destructive rampage.

Jeriya's posture stiffened by degrees, and her brows gathered together in tense focus. The delicate whispers of mind, of memory, cascaded unbidden as if carried on the tide of the Force itself and washed upon the shores of her awareness. Each wavelet left its impression before melting away and casting new imagination at her feet.

What will happen to me now? Keep your mind in the here and now, where it belongs. Initiate Kenobi, an answer have you? Ataru, hm? Let's see how you do against something other than remotes…c'mon, Kenobi, let's see what you've got. Yes, Master. Obi-Wan…it…it's too late… You will be a Jedi, I promise. Dreams pass in time. Then we decided to come rescue you. Be mindful of the Living Force, Padawan…

Wave after wave, the rising floodtide of a lifetime, Obi-Wan's lifetime, crested and broke over them, from crèche clan to perhaps just days ago, a procession of people and places, triumphs and struggles. Qui-Gon Jinn, Master Yoda, Master Windu, Cin Drallig, Garen Muln, Siri Tachi, Quinlan Vos, Anakin, Master Obuk, Bail Organa, Padmé Amidala, Tahl Uvain...

As suddenly as it had begun, the tidal swell receded, returning to the Force in whose care it remained. Jeriya blinked back sudden moisture in her eyes, perceiving herself a bit of a voyeur; hard on the heels of delicate sorrow emanated bitter chagrin. She turned her gaze to Obi-Wan, intent on apology, but the gentle smile she found there halted the words.

Suddenly, Jeriya realized the intimate moment was much more than a prying look into the reticent Knight's mind. Unable to release his self-adjudged anxieties and failures into the Force in meditation himself, Obi-Wan had made good use of the peaceful balm the healer had projected into him, allowing her to be the conduit she had so recently imagined.

"Tell…tell Anakin." Strength nearly spent by the effort simply to concentrate, to focus, Obi-Wan's request was soft and weary, but Jeriya could sense a good deal of affection behind the words. Perhaps that was the shadow of attachment, but she also understood Anakin Skywalker well enough to know this parting message would be more than necessary upon his return to the Temple.

"I will, Master," Jeriya promised, curling her hand around his and squeezing lightly. "Be at peace," she impressed upon him once again, and the scintillating waves of mind and memory collapsed upon themselves as Obi-Wan submitted at last to her ministrations, her firm resolution to soothe.

A sense of gratitude lingered, that faint amusement still upon his features right up to the brink. As with newly entrusted reminiscence, the moment between awareness and unawareness stretched out between them, suspended like a jewel in the void. Jeriya held Obi-Wan's drowsy gaze as steadily as she held the hand now cradled in her own.

"May…the…Force…be…with you…Jeriya." The whisper was hoarse, yet determined. With it, however, Obi-Wan's reserves were depleted. Cerulean eyes closed in a flutter of lashes; longed-for release from unremitting pain expressed on a ragged exhalation, the hand in hers growing lax.

Jeriya's throat constricted and she bowed her head. She could sense him slipping away, not yet to the cradle of the Force, but sinking far below those waves of consciousness, deeper than she would defy as the predicted coma descended on Obi-Wan without mercy.

"He's all but gone," she said softly. "His light is so hard pressed, so dim now." The sound of soft footfalls and the susurration of cloth behind her as she was joined were the only reply for long moments.

"But never extinguished," Master Obuk's gentle reminder of the Code, the precepts that whispered, there is no death, there is the Force, was as natural as the breath in Jeriya's lungs. "That said, my Padawan, his is a luminance kindled rarely in the Force. We will not see its like again."

"Not even in his Padawan, the 'Chosen One?'" Jeriya asked trenchantly, reflecting the bitterness of impending defeat. She felt her mentor's disapprobation in the Force as a mild rebuke. A hazard, she supposed, of continuing to work so closely together, the natural inclination to correct and guide. "No, Master," she resisted, earlier meditation abandoned to the disturbed sense burning in her heart. "Anakin had no right to abandon his master to…to this."

"And to what, exactly, do you refer, young one?" Obuk prompted flatly, unceremoniously going to the heart of Jeriya's ire. "'Luminous beings, not gross matter,' if you recall. 'This,' as you describe, holds no fear over Obi-Wan, and you well know it, Jeriya." His voice was gentle and sophistic, tending a wavering blossom back to its supporting trellis.

"'There is no death, there is the Force,'" Jeriya murmured, the adage appropriate if a little lackluster in its delivery. "That said," She echoed her former master, hands tucking into opposite sleeves; "Anakin has done far more than simply reject the Council's mandate." A flash of unhappiness graced her features before Jeriya schooled it into something more disciplined. "He's dishonored his master and that's killing Obi-Wan as much as the poison."

"You're forgetting something most germane to this discussion, Jeriya," Obuk interjected, in a quiet enough tone to arrest his disappointed companion's attention, and as she turned at last to look at him, he favored her with a warm smile. "The will of the Force… As you were so recently pondering, were you not?"

Jeriya's lips thinned a little as she considered her response. While it offered peace and refuge, while it could be called upon for aid, the Force did not cosset or coddle; it was not subject to the passions and predispositions of those sentients pledged to its service. She knew this; yet in this grim moment, it offered scant comfort as she turned her gaze away from Obuk and back to Obi-Wan.

"'Ever a son of Light…'" she murmured, and at Obuk's openly curious expression, Jeriya sighed. "Something Master Yoda said," she explained. In one swift stroke, the Force breathed life on a small ember of hope within, one nearly extinguished by Obi-Wan's slow deterioration, fanning it into a nascent flame of certainty.

The validity of Anakin's quest to save his master was abruptly neither here nor there; Obi-Wan had already prevailed in this, his final trial, simply by accepting what is, without the longing for what was and without fear of what would be. Even without the Force's perceived touch, the Jedi had surrendered to the coma with full knowledge that when his flesh had finally accepted the same, he would return unsullied and untrammeled to that which birthed his existence.

With the return of such insight, Jeriya grasped another, which her recently soured point of view had nearly smothered. Whether or not the Force deigned to spare Obi-Wan Kenobi through his padawan or by its own whim, in sharing this trial with him, she had become an instrument of his victory. Rekindled flame now leapt into fresh, singular joy.

If she didn't know better, she would have thought the unconscious master's lips were, just barely, curved into a smile of triumph.

The last dregs of sunlight played through the summit chamber of the Jedi Temple's central spire, a dance adagio of light and shadows, day's fervor waning into night's hidden depths, but to those gathered within, it seemed almost a portent of things to come.

"Desire it, we did not, and treacherous it is, yet walk this path, we will."

Yoda's words dropped like stones into a pond already disturbed, adding their own concentric ripples of unrest. Next to him, Ki-Adi Mundi exhaled sharply at their impact, but he offered no denial either.

"It is done, then?" Depa Billaba asked rhetorically, almost hoping against hope that the Force would provide them another answer, one that would not call for the Order to join the machinations and machines of war.

"Yes, it is," Yoda answered after a beat, hands crossing atop the ever-present gimer stick. "Ratified by the Senate, the Inclusion Measure now is…granted command authority in the clone army to the Jedi Order, it has. Decide, we must, who assigned first to these new fronts will be."

"There are several well-qualified candidates from which to choose," Plo Koon stated the obvious with a great deal of enviable calm in the face of the storm.

"And what honorific have they deigned to grace us with?" Depa interjected again, revulsion for the entire horrendous calamity echoing in her tone and in the Force. It was a shared sentiment, certainly, but one that would have to be held in check if they were to guide the Republic—and the Order—through this ordeal to the best outcome possible.

"Conferred the rank of General, upon commanding Jedi, will be." Yoda's succinct delivery did little to quell the communal disquiet undulating through the Council chamber. Nor was there much pause between one thought and the next as the Order's Grand-Master declared, "Most delicate and pressing, the situation on Bahreen. Dispatch our first General, to the Republic battlegroup there, we must. Then, select others to lead at the rest of the front."

The universal current binding together, mind and mind, heart, voice and even flesh, seemed to groan beneath the harsh mantle placed upon their shoulders; the bitter taste of war accompanying each name put forth. The lingering dusk without gave itself over to pitiless night, while within Light pulsed and writhed against the encroaching Dark, a stubborn, guttering candle atop the shadowed edifice below.

A predawn mist draped everything in a pall of indistinct grey, a near forbidding mantle hanging low over stone and tree, flower and leaf. Deceiver and protector, the heavy fog transformed all it touched into ghostly tableau only dimly sensed in some fantastic netherworld.

Until, however, one was right on top of the object with which one was trying to avoid collision in the first place; looming apparitions emerged full-grown from the murk, challenging passage as the mist grudgingly gave up its treasures.

A fallen tree here, a thick half-buried root there, Nature threatened to undo the unwary; unless, of course one could navigate such environs by aid of the Force. Swift-moving through the dense vapor, three such creatures were on the hunt, understanding that what their physical eyes could not see, most likely could not see them in return.

Stealth was their aim, of course, in the present moment and therefore they traversed the enshrouded landscape without even the utility of a glowing 'saber blade, but that didn't keep Anakin from tightly clutching his weapon in his cybernetic hand as he ran. With the Force-resonant crystal in the lightsaber hilt singing battle-readiness in his blood, he dodged obstacles with little effort, ducking here, swerving left or right, or flipping up and over there. Narrowly missing a tree root that would have sent him sprawling onto the muddy ground, Anakin stretched his senses still further, beyond the edges of sightless mist.

He was conscious of his fellow hunters, to his left and right; Master Windu and Master Gallia keeping pace just meters away, but as with the mist-laden surroundings, the Jedi Masters were concealed from the padawan's physical sight.

"It's just ahead," Anakin murmured with just enough volume to be picked up by Force-enhanced hearing. "The target is in the bunker beneath the structure." A ripple of doubt moved swiftly through the mist; Anakin dismissed it. "Trust me, Master," he reassured. "It's there."

They reached the edge of the copse nearly at the same moment; Anakin released a long, centering breath as his master had taught him and when he opened his eyes the Grey curtain melted away, revealing only his Jedi companions and the fog-banked plain ahead of them. Effortlessly delving into the grey vision, he'd swiftly located their quarry; through the Force, he could sense Padmé's presence.

As the curling mists faded from his inner sight, Anakin was astonished to find how easily he'd begun to blend the nascent talents of Grey with the more honed gifts of Light to best advantage. It made him wonder, just briefly, if his earlier failure to wield them in tandem had been simple inexperience or perhaps some design on Aunoth's part meant to train him in the use of the grey arts.

"There," Master Gallia murmured, interrupting Anakin's musings with her voice and a graceful sweep of her hand. "Maintenance hatches. One of them should suffice."

"So long as they're not ray-shielded or some such nonsense," the other Master retorted with a soft chuff.

"Sensors?" Master Gallia wondered aloud. Anakin cocked his head slightly, eyes narrowed in concentration as he swept his senses outward, asking Grey to aid Light once more. Suddenly his hand shot outward, fingers twitching slightly; his eyes scrunched closed and his head bowed gradually as he sought to manipulate the scanning units that most likely were aimed in their direction.

They were, after all, expected.

"Fried 'em," he declared as he lifted his head. "Well. I reversed polarization of the scan matrix; it'll take weeks to unscramble it."

"From this distance?" Master Windu raised his eyebrows. "Impressive, Skywalker. Are you certain you got them all?"

Anakin nodded, and confidently walked from the cover of the tree line, into the broad space between them and their chosen point of ingress. Behind him, the Council Masters exchanged a wary glance before emerging from the trees; he could sense their amused surprise when no weapons' fire met their swift, silent advance.

The service entrances were marked, not in Aurebesh, but in an unfamiliar script.

"Shame that Obi-Wan's not here," Master Gallia murmured softly as they examined the markings; it would be preferable to enter a passage leading to an area, say, near the control center rather than an incinerator or a plasma junction. "This sort of thing is more along his line; he's probably fluent in it."

Anakin was hard-pressed not to smirk; obscure academia was a near-passion with Master Obi-Wan. Fark's sake, the man could not only understand but also reasonably converse in Wookiee. Making an intelligent guess here was not only well within the scope of his master's abilities, it was more than likely to be much less of a guess than one might initially imagine.

One picked up a thing or two in the wake of such a teacher.

"Let me see," he said, giving the Masters a respectful nod for good measure, and then shouldering his way in closer. Blue eyes narrowed, he studied the characters several moments before rubbing a thumb over the weather-worn, encrusted surfaces. "That's better," he declared as the markings became clearer.

"Well?" Master Windu intoned; his expression bland.

Maybe he hadn't picked up much of this particular gift from his master.

Anakin frowned sharply, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't…" he started. Abruptly he grinned, unfolded his arms and pointed at the lettering on one of the adjacent pressure seals with his cybernetic hand. "This one is a variant of Huttese, I'm sure of it; somebody thought it would make a good code. And I'm pretty sure it leads to the main 'cycler system. From there, we should be able to go anyplace we want."

"Well, then, let's get on with it," the Korun Jedi declared, turning aside to examine the access panel. Security measures were a certainty, and he stretched out into the Force, probing the recesses of the internal mechanism for just the right—

A blazing length of sapphire leapt to life, illumining the murk around them briefly before plunging directly into the panel at just about the spot Master Windu's head had been moments before; subtle manipulation cast aside in favor of sheer power. In moments the panel had been reduced to a satisfying slag of molten plating and circuitry, and the 'saber blade withdrawn with a jaunty flourish vaguely reminiscent of Master Obi-Wan's own Soresu styling.

"Nice," Master Gallia commented simply; as he clipped his 'saber back into place, Anakin did his best to ignore the pointed and rather disgruntled expression Master Windu leveled at her. Some things, he'd learned the hard way, were better off unknown, and whatever had happened over the course of their search for him, definitely belonged under that classification.

Reaching up with both hands, he manipulated the Force to pry open the unfortunate gateway denying them admission. Without its requisite security controls, it yielded initially to his will, partially opening before becoming stubborn on decaying hinges. Brows drawing together in concentration, Anakin slowly fisted his hands as he gathered the Force to himself and pulled.

The service hatch submitted at last to his persistence with a brief, hideous metallic groan, twisting completely from its moorings. A flick of his wrists directed the mangled remains some distance away to release them somewhere within the fog-banked tree line.

"That was subtle," Windu declared dryly, arms folded across his broad chest.

"And yet," Master Gallia interjected, as she ducked her head to clear the threshold with Tholothian headdress intact, "There are no 'droids rushing out to…greet us, and no alarm has been raised. I'd say Padawan Skywalker's…direct approach has gained us some time. Come on," she cajoled as she walked further into the corridor which lay beyond the remains of the service entrance.

"Thank you, Master," Anakin responded, with just the right amount of insouciance to gain a sharp glare from their companion, the expression Anakin had dubbed the 'don't start look' during his initial weeks with Master Obi-Wan.

The realization that he might not ever see that, or any other look on Obi-Wan's face, hastened his entry into the building after Master Gallia.

Adi gave him a slight smile as he caught up with her. "The trick, Padawan Skywalker, is in knowing where the line is before you cross it."

Anakin grinned back. "Yes, Master."