"Don't like the Queen?" Obi-Wan Kenobi turned to his young apprentice with a puzzled look. "What gives you that idea?"
The thirteen-year-old boy hoisted himself onto the counter beside the console, swinging his feet. "Whenever we come here, you're always in a hurry to leave."
"That's not true."
"And you feel uncomfortable. I can tell."
"It's not me that's in a hurry to leave. Our business demands us else where. With things in the Republic as they are, we have precious little time for visiting."
"If our missions are so important, then, how come you're leaving me here?"
"This time, my Padawan, I must go alone."
"Is it dangerous?"
"Very."
"Is it exciting?"
"Danger usually is."
"Will there be fighting?"
"I hope not, but probably."
"Then I should go with you!"
Obi-Wan sighed and wondered if he'd been this much trouble to his Master, Qui-Gon. Upon reflection, he thought not, for he had been identified and inducted into Jedi training when he was barely out of infancy, whereas Anakin hadn't been accepted by the Council until three years ago. "Anakin, you're not ready for a mission of this sort."
"I helped you on Endor's moon," the youth pointed out. "That was entirely different. And look how it turned out." He gave Ani a stern look. Abashed, the boy pretended to find the utmost fascination with the tuft at the end of his thin braid. "I didn't mean for things to go bad. I was just telling them stories. How was I supposed to know they'd take it so seriously? Besides, what harm could it do?"
"Don't ever say that," Obi-Wan advised. "Those are the words that will come back to haunt you."
The ship settled to a stop, and the pilot came into the rear compartment. "Naboo Royal City," he announced. "There's a greeting party on the way."
"All right!" Anakin hopped down and smoothed his cream-colored Jedi tunic. "How do I look?"
"Very presentable."
The portal open and a ramp extended smoothly onto the marble flagstones. Directly ahead of them was a mammoth arch of pale stone, elaborately sculpted and decorated. Obi-Wan and Anakin moved forth into the clean, sweet-smelling air to meet the approaching group. The boy rushed ahead. He had shot up several inches in the past three years, and thanks to his rigorous training, his build had kept up with his height, so that he lacked the gangly appearance of most teens.
He stopped, swept his dark brown cloak behind him, and executed a gallant bow. "I once believed angels came from the deep reaches of space," he said to the central figure of the group. "Now, having been over half the galaxy, I know I was wrong. They come from this world."
Queen Amidala, her slender body unbowed by the weight of her elaborate ceremonial gown and headdress, smiled brilliantly at Anakin. Her blush couldn't be seen through the layers of white make-up, but Obi-Wan could sense that it was there.
"Welcome, honored Jedi," she said. Her warm gaze shifted from Anakin to include Obi-Wan. There, it lingered, and grew even warmer, until he had to avert his eyes and will his own face not to redden.
"Majesty." Obi-Wan inclined his head. "I'm afraid I must impose upon the generous hospitality of your people once more."
"We are always pleased by your visits. It's hardly an imposition."
"He's dumping me here," Anakin said brightly. "While he goes off on a adventure. Hey! Artoo!" A flurry of excited blips, beeps, and whistles issued from the squat droid as it trundled forward to meet Anakin.
"Oh... I see." Amidala looked at Obi-Wan again.
"If that is agreeable to your Majesty. I would have sent word ahead, but this all fell together with rather short notice. If we might speak privately...?" he finished reluctantly.
The Queen nodded graciously and her party escorted them into the palace. Obi-Wan could hear Anakin regaling Artoo with the stories he'd spun for the poor primitives of Endor, blithely answering the droid's questions as if he still hadn't realized how unusual was his ability with languages both organic and mechanical.
"We are prospering under the guidance of the new Senate," Amidala said by way of small talk as the Jedi followed her to her private chamber. "Chancellor Palpatine is working most diligently to drive out corruption. Some criticize his methods as harsh, but he assures me it is necessary to lead with a firm hand."
"I'm sure his wisdom is a credit to his office," Obi-Wan said.
Her orange-gowned handmaids flanked her as she slowly lowered herself onto the throne. Each bore a vague resemblance to Amidala, and Obi-Wan wasn't sure which was the one who replaced the Queen as a decoy in times of trouble. It could, he reasoned, be any of them. But he'd no doubts that the one he was speaking to was the true Queen. "I apologize again for the suddenness of my request, Majesty, and I am very grateful that my apprentice will be able to await my return here. However, should I... fail to do so promptly, the Jedi Council will send for him."
Concern filled her dark eyes. "Is there a significant chance that you will fail to return quickly?"
Anakin laughed. "Don't worry, Padmé. He's always saying things like that." A few of the handmaids and most of the guards bristled at the youth's casual address of their Queen, but she paid it no mind.
"I must go..." Obi-Wan said heavily, "to Rannok."
"The prison moon?" Amidala's voice stayed even, but he felt her spark of alarm and fear.
"Governor Tredze of Lancas has been usurped and taken there secretly. Some fear that he may be slated for execution."
"That cannot be allowed! The Governor is among the most just and reasonable members of the Republic. His death would be intolerable!"
"Which is why it must be prevented."
"Surely there are other means. A plea to the Senate ..." she broke off with her lips pursed, perhaps remembering how well her pleas to the Senate had gone when the Trade Federation invaded her system.
"There's no time, your Majesty."
"No one has ever escaped Rannok."
"No one's ever had a Jedi come rescue them," Anakin said.
"Why just one Jedi?" Amidala asked. "Why ... you?" This time the roil of fear that didn't show in the Queen's outward composure was more intense. Even Anakin caught it. He looked sharply at Obi-Wan, a line of suspicion creasing his forehead.
Focus on the living Force, Obi-Wan thought to stop his impatiens to get the better of him, he hadn't time for explanations but sensed that the Queen wouldn't let him continue on his mission without one. "The Governor knows me. He will recognize and trust me. That will save valuable time that might otherwise be spent convincing him of our intent. One Jedi, alone, stands a better chance of entering the prison undetected."
"It's not getting into the prison that's the hard part," Anakin remarked. "Which is why I mean it when I say there is a chance I might not return promptly," Obi-Wan said pointedly. "And should I not, I will be counting on you to -"
"Come rescue you?"
"No!" Obi-Wan dropped both hands on the youth's shoulders. "That, you shall not do. You'll return to the Jedi Council and complete your training. What happens to me is not important."
"How can you say that?" Amidala protested, and Artoo chirped in agreement.
He ignored them, fixing his will on Anakin. "Qui-Gon believed in you. So do I. You won't disappoint us, but neither will you throw your life away."
Anakin's lower lip jutted stubbornly. "I'm supposed to be your Padawan."
"You are. And a good one. And that means I'm responsible for your well- being. I cannot, in good conscience, lead you into a situation like this."
"You're going to die, aren't you? Just like Qui-Gon. Then I'll be handed off to some other master. It's like being a slave again."
"Ani!" Amidala gasped.
"It is not like that," Obi-Wan said, giving Anakin a little shake. "Don't you believe it, no matter what Master Yoda might say. You will be a Jedi Knight, and a great one."
"But in the meantime, I get left behind."
"Yes, I'm afraid so. But hardly as the unwanted baggage you'd make yourself out to be," he added with a smile. "After all, aren't you the Hero of Naboo?"
Anakin grinned. "Well, I guess ..."
"That's better. Now, Majesty, if you'll excuse me, I must be going."
"Our thoughts go with you," she said.
"Thank you. May the Force be with you." He bowed, and left the throne room.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"I've got Cahaldra in view," Jefin Valtac said.
The pilot's voice roused Obi-Wan from a state that was part doze and part meditative trance. "Let's have a look." The screen filled with the image of the gas giant, which hung in space like a clouded marble of violets, blues, greens, and yellows. The bands of colors swirled and revolved with slow grandeur in a smooth flexion of colors that gave lie to what Obi-Wan knew must be the truth of the planet's atmosphere. The winds would be screaming, the storms sheeting acid.
"The God's Eye is just coming around." Jefin tapped the edge of the screen. A colossal storm, bright violet with a brilliant yellow 'eye,' appeared as the orb continued in its rotation. Even from this distance, it was shot with flashes of electric blue lightning, each flash large enough to incinerate an entire city. "We should be picking up the Eye's interference sweep in ..." he consulted his instrument panel, "six-point-five."
"Where is Rannok?"
Jefin called up the image of a small moon, dark and featureless. "Not much to see, I'm afraid." He enlarged it until they could detect a few glimmers of light -- signs of civilization. "That's the main prison compound. I'll set you down here, two clicks away, past these rock formations. We'll make our initial pass when the moon is under the sweep of the Eye, so they won't be able to detect us. Our window won't last long. I'll have time to land and take off again, and somewhere in there, you'll want to jump out. You'll have to make your way overland to the compound, and then meet me back at the same drop site."
"When?"
"How long do you think you'll need?"
"I wish I knew ... give me forty-eight hours, and if I'm not there to meet you, another forty-eight. After that, assume that I've failed."
"Understood. This sensor will track the sweeps for you."
Obi-Wan pocketed it and leaned closer, studying the view intently. "Rock formations ... they look too regular for that. Almost like ruins."
Jefin chuckled. "Trick of the eyes. Without regular supply ships and power generators, even the prison colony couldn't survive. Nothing grows. The only light and heat that dead moon gets is from Cahaldra itself, what the astrogators call a 'brown dwarf.' The system's star won't look much different from anything else in the skies from this far out. We're almost closer to Nachu, the next star over."
"Still, there's something ..." he let his eyes go half-closed and pressed his fingertips to the screen. "I sense something down there."
The pilot gave him a sidelong look. "Um ... we're almost into the interference sweep; I need to shut down all non-essential systems until we get through it."
"Fine." Obi-Wan sat back, only the slight furrow of his brow betraying his troubled state of mind. Rannok was a tidally-locked moon, the same face of it always turned toward Cahaldra. That side was barely hospitable, with a thin but breathable atmosphere created by gases issuing from fissures in the moon's crust. The surface was bathed in dim, flat, blue-violet radiance that was more shadow than light. The other side, facing away from the gas giant toward the far reaches of space, was eternally frozen and dark.
Not a place that many would willingly go. The perfect choice, some twenty years ago, when the Republic had authorized Minister of Justice Dol Bethra to oversee the construction of a prison compound. Like most things that turned out badly, Obi-Wan reflected grimly, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. But misuse of power, and the corruption that Chancellor Palpatine was fighting in the Senate, had turned Rannok into a hellhole where enemies of those in power, not even necessarily criminals, could be kept out of the way.
"Entering the sweep now," Jefin said.
The cabin was lit only by the amber glow of the instrument panel. The ship dipped slantways as if caught by atmospheric turbulence. Irregular patterns skittered across the screens. Outside, beyond the viewports, violet flickers sparkled and swirled in the emptiness.
"How wide is it?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Like a cone," Jefin replied. "It widens but disperses, weaker the farther from the planet it gets. We should be coming through in a few more minutes. Then I'll swing around the back side of Rannok and wait for the next sweep."
Obi-Wan rose from his seat, bracing himself with both hands as the ship continued rocking side to side. He made his way into the rear compartment. His pack was there, and he mentally went over the contents yet again. It was always a challenge to balance what might be needed against what was too much to carry.
The ship's motion smoothed out. Jefin spoke over the intercom. "We're through, and beginning the approach. Should be just shy of an hour until landing." "I have some things to attend to back here," Obi-Wan replied. "Alert me when we're close." He sat down and shut his eyes, turning his thoughts inward to clear them and prepare himself for the mission at hand. The sought-after state of alert serenity didn't come as easily as usual. Distractions kept intruding.
The look in Queen Amidala's dark eyes.
A recent meeting with Yoda, in which the diminutive Jedi Master insisted for the thousandth time that there was still fear in Anakin, that it was a mistake and a dangerous one for Obi-Wan to carry on with his training.
His own concern that Yoda was right, overpowered by the promise he'd made to the dying Qui-Gon.
One by one he pushed the distractions aside. Focus on the precense, on the living Force. Heed the future and the past, but not at the expense of the now. At last, his mind relaxed and opened.
He quested outward. There. The mild disturbance in the Force that was born of people, prisoners in torment. Flavored with the cruel malice of their Wardens and the savage sadism of the Kadav warriors who served as guards and inquisitors. He let it flood fully into him until he was faint and shaking from the horror of it, then began systematically constructing barriers against it to keep from being overwhelmed.
As he was finishing, he felt again what he had briefly noticed before. Something ... someone ... a presence. He reached for it, and for a bare moment was assailed by a wave of icy anger. It wasn't directed at him; had it been, he might have been knocked flat. Someone strong with the Force. But no Jedi; he was sure of that.
What, then?
"Landing in two-point-eight," Jefin announced over the intercom. "Ready?"
He came out of himself to the realization that the ship was rocking again, back in the interference sweep. He looked out the view port and saw the bleak and uninspiring landscape of Rannok getting closer. "Yes." He shouldered his pack and moved to the hatch at the rear. When the ship touched down, the hatch in the floor slid open and Obi-Wan was looking down at black stones scoured clear of dust by their descent.
"Forty-eight hours!" Jefin called back. "During the first sweep after that! Be here!"
"I'll do my best." He dropped through the opening, ducked, and hurried out from beneath the craft. Jefin immediately lifted off again. Obi-Wan spared a moment to watch the graceful ship wheel and soar into the distance. Then he was alone, with Cahaldra filling half the pale violet sky above him.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Obi-Wan broke into an easy jog that carried him swiftly toward the rock formations between him and the prison compound. As he neared them, he slowed. His earlier instinct had been right. They weren't rock formations at all. He saw the tumbled wreckage of octagonal columns, and the shattered dome of the roof they'd once supported.A rubble-strewn flight of wide steps leading nowhere. A tilted obelisk of some obsidian-like substance, half-buried in the earth as if it had sunk. At its base, an opening in the ground with stairs leading down, but only a few feet before the passageway was choked with debris. Further on, a broken statue of a woman in a draped sleeveless gown lay face-down in the middle of what might have once been an avenue lined with large decorative pots.
Obi-Wan trailed his hands across the objects, and the clamor of the past filled his head. He heard voices crying out in agony and fear, silenced one after another with brutal suddenness. He smelled blood and fire. He felt the ground trembling beneath him, heard the topple and crash of buildings being destroyed.
The past ... but not the far distant past that he might have expected. Not terribly recently, either ... but sometime between ten and a hundred years ago.
He moved on, more cautious than ever, hand poised near his light saber. Every now and again, like whiffs of an elusive aroma, he caught faded impressions of that cold angry presence. It had been here. Whatever ... whoever ... it was, it had
been here.
Nothing grows, Jefin had said. That wasn't true. Vines snaked among the ruins, their color a dark gold, their leaves veined and edged in a purple that matched the sky. Matched, also, the clusters of tiny berries dotting the vines. Black mushrooms, their flat tops merging into large soft plates, sprouted in the hollows.
He found part of a fountain, the basin cracked into shards but water still trickling from its central spout. It was cool and slightly oily to the touch, and when he brought a drop of it to the tip of his tongue, it tasted of minerals.
Ahead of him, a ridge of heaped stone blocks barred his way. He scaled it carefully, keeping his head low until he could see what was on the other side. The blocks had once made a wall around a courtyard. The building across from Obi-Wan was impossible to identify; it had been reduced to a heap, the very stones nearly pulverized. But that wasn't what drew his attention. The bones ...
A huge mound of them, their ivory painted lavender by Cahaldra's glow, filled half of the courtyard. They were laced together by more of the golden vines. He even saw the tiny fragile bones of children. Hundreds of people. Obi-Wan made his way down the far side of the ridge and approached. A great and inexpressible sadness washed over him. He reached out, but stopped before touching any of the pitiable remains. "May the Force be with you," he said softly.
Questions filled him but he had no satisfactory answers. He was glad to put that terrible sight behind him, although the sight ahead of him once he reached the edge of the ruins was not much better.
By every report, the prison on Rannok was to have been a simple thing. Long low dormitories to house the prisoners, a few sentry towers to monitor them, a fenced perimeter. The moon itself was their prison; there was nowhere to go and no way to survive even if someone did escape. Why, then, was he looking at a fortress? The walls were sheer cliffs of stone topped with razored coils of bladewire, the gaping eyes of motion and infrared sensors set into them every few yards.
Obi-Wan crouched low, blending himself with the terrain, and dug his scanner out of his pack. Kadav warriors restlessly prowled walkways on both sides of the walls, their grey-white skin and four-armed shapes unmistakable. On many planets, their vulnerability to sunlight made them nearly useless; here, they could be as formidable as they were on their own home world.
According to Dol Bethra, his guards were to be armed only with stun-batons. Yet those were Nachuran whip-knives at their waists, and most of them paced with blaster rifles resting on their shoulders. Security drone droids moved in precise patterns over the compound.
Some of the structures within bore a striking resemblance to the architecture of the ruined city he'd just come through. Others were clearly of another design, solid and functional. The prison had been constructed on and incorporating some existing
buildings that had already been on Rannok, long before Dol Bethra had informed the Senate that the barren and uninhabited moon would be a perfect site.
Bethra's duplicity aside, Obi-Wan was faced with a more immediate problem. He began a wide, stealthy circle of the walls, looking for a way in and not finding one. There was a landing station atop the highest tower of the fortress, presumably where the supply vessels docked, but no gates.
Obi-Wan waited and watched for several hours. With the moon tidally locked, there was neither day nor night on Rannok. Just Cahaldra, always looming in the heavens, always shedding that strange light. Thus, no one time looked to be any better than another. No concealing cover of darkness to ease an escape.
He let down his mental barriers and viewed the fortress through the Force rather than his sight. What he'd felt on the ship came back now, stronger than ever. Pain and misery. Savage malice. But when he sensed the presence of that icy anger again, it wasn't from within the fortress but from the ruins behind him. Even as his mind touched it, he felt it burst into a killing rage. And heard ... with ears as well as the Force ...
...the familiar and startling sound of a light saber flaring into readiness.
As he ran, he heard the sharp snap of whip-knives, blaster fire, and the death-bellow of a Kadav, so loud it shook the earth. Mingled through it all was the resonant hum and clash of a light saber. He rounded a corner and stopped short as a blaster shot blew off a chunk of wall just above his head.
Two wide avenues intersected at a large square that might have once been a marketplace. The buildings around the square were demolished. At the center was a vine-entwined octagonal dais with steps leading up to a round well. Half of the columns
rising from the dais were sheared off. The remaining four still supported the domeroof, though as another blaster shot smashed a hole through the dome and the whole thing shuddered, Obi-Wan didn't think it would last much longer.
Six Kadav were converging on the dais. A seventh was on the ground with two hands clamped across the cauterized stubs of his other two arms, veins bulging and jaw tooth-cracking tight in an effort to keep from screaming. An eighth was beyond such concerns, sprawled on his back with his torso laid open from collarbones to belt, his organs bulging out between the charred edges of the blow that had killed him.
The violet light was brighter here, coming not just from the sky but from the light saber wielded by a woman in black. It was an amethyst streak as she spun and sliced through a stun-baton. Sparks showered as the baton exploded, sending the Kadav head over heels down the dais steps. The woman threw back her head and voiced a laugh part triumph, part challenge.
She was clad in black from head to toe -- boots to the thigh, close-fitting trousers, a long-sleeved tunic that fell in front and back panels to knee level but was open to the hip on the sides, and a cloak very much like the one Obi-Wan himself wore. The cowl was thrown back, and violet energy spilled across her face. Her hair was as black as her clothes, drawn back in a braid.
The nearest Kadav charged at Obi-Wan, shouting a guttural warning in his own language. Obi-Wan's light saber, vibrant blue-white, cut an arc through the dimness of the day. He caught the woman's astounded expression, then put it from his mind because the battle was upon him.
The Kadav's whip-knife lashed toward him, each of the thousands of tiny needle-sharp blades winking in the blue-white glow. But Obi-Wan anticipated its path, and severed it. He thrust his other hand at the Kadav. With a single push of the Force, he sent the four-armed warrior flying backward.
He deflected a blaster shot from the second Kadav into the leg of the third, then made a cart wheeling leap and came down right in front of the one who'd fired. Even as the Kadav's eyes widened in surprise, Obi-Wan had sheared his blaster into pieces.
The first Kadav regained his footing and swung at Obi-Wan with a stun-baton in each of his lower hands. The third, injured, flicked his whip-knife at an awkward angle.
Obi-Wan leaped over the whip-knife, parried both stun-batons, came down, pivoted, kicked the first one in the head, drove his elbow into the face of the second one who had been rushing him from behind, took a blaster shot from one of the others through the flapping hem of his cloak, realized he wasn't going to be able to get out of this without killing them, beheaded the first, and hit the second on the juncture of shoulder and neck, leaving a deep burnt score diagonally across the pale chest.
The third Kadav was up and running despite his wounded leg. Obi-Wan pushed out at him again, a hard sharp thrust of the heel of the hand, and the Kadav soared headlong into a section of wall. It broke apart and fell on him, sending up a gout of dust.
Looking swiftly around, Obi-Wan saw that there was only one Kadav left moving. He had the woman cornered on the lip of the well, or so he thought, but as he lunged, she jumped-flipped over backward, cloak flying, and landed neatly on the far side. The Kadav wasn't so lucky, striking the lip of the well at knee-level and plunging straight down. After what seemed a very long silence, a crunch echoed up the well's stone throat.
Now it was just the two of them, Obi-Wan and the strange woman, regarding each other warily through the glow of their light sabers.
Her eyes were a rich emerald green, like the eyes of a cat. He searched them. "You're no Jedi," he finally said. "What are you?"
"Revenge," she replied. TO BE CONTINUED...