No expectations. Just acceptance.
And as he thought the words, his mind cleared. Now that he was sitting
quietly with her, he allowed himself to truly look at her, not just her
changed hair and clothes, but what her face revealed. Yes, she was distant
and remote. But if he removed his own feelings from the situation, he could
see more clearly.
Something was wrong. He was picking up something.
Fear. She was afraid. But of what?
"So you are returning soon," Anakin said.
"The day after tomorrow. I am anxious to see my son and Didi."
Obi-Wan leaned back, still studying Astri without seeming to. She
looked away, twining her fingers through the handle of her cup.
"So has Bog seen what Dex has done to the old place?" Anakin asked in
a jovial tone, gesturing toward the red stools and the curved counter.
Excellent, Anakin. A casual question, but it would give them the
information they needed to know. Was there a connection between Bog and the
safe house?
"Yes, he's been here." Astri pushed away her empty cup. The subject of
her husband didn't interest her. But they had the answer they wanted.
Bog had been the one to bring food from Dex's Diner to Omega and the
others. There was a link between them now. Not a link he could prove. But a
link.
Astri began to slide out of the booth. "I should go. I'm late. It's
always good to see you, Obi-Wan. Anakin."
She hurried out the door, not waiting for their goodbyes. As she left,
she almost collided with a cloaked figure who was also leaving.
Obi-Wan stared after her. Even the way she moved was different. He
remembered Astri striding down the streets, her curls flying, her face
uptilted, her eyes alight, taking everything in. Now she walked with her
head down, her hands thrust into the deep pockets of her tunic.
"She's afraid," he said out loud.
"Yes," Anakin said. "But not for herself. For her son."
Obi-Wan wrenched his gaze from the departing Astri and looked at his
Padawan. More and more, he was recognizing that Anakin's sensitivity to
others was growing and surpassing his in some cases. Anakin often seemed to
know what secrets were inside others, what drove them to do the puzzling
things they did. It had something to do with his command of the Force, but
it was more than that.
He remembered the words of Ferus, when he had confessed his doubts
about Anakin to Obi-Wan on RomIn. He had said that Anakin wanted to control
everything. Anakin's gift of seeing inside beings could turn dangerous if
he tried to control the feelings he found instead of just observing them.
But that was a Jedi lesson ingrained in every Padawan. Anakin knew
that.
"Master, I have to ask you something," he said now. "Supreme
Chancellor Palpatine has offered me a chance to observe the proceedings he
attends over the next few days. He thinks I would gain insight into the
political arena of the Senate."
"I agree," Obi-Wan said. "I have no objections, as long as it doesn't
interfere with our pursuit of Omega. You could learn something valuable
that could help us. It is a great honor that Palpatine has bestowed on you,
my young Padawan."
Dexter waddled out from behind the counter, wiping his four hands on
his greasy apron.
"Obi-Wan! My friend! Why didn't you come back to the kitchen and greet
me?" Dexter's wide face creased in an enormous grin. "And you brought the
tadpole with you!"
Anakin winced at the nickname. Then he stood up. He had grown since
the last time Dexter had seen him, and Dexter burst out with a shout of
laughter.
"Well, you showed me, you did, young Skywalker. I'd say you were full-
grown now!" He hooked one enormous foot over a chair rail and dragged it
over to the booth, then eased his bulk onto it.
got a stew cooking with bantha meat, cooked long and slow to make it
tender. I know they say banthas taste like old boots, but they haven't
tasted Dex's stew! I'll tell you my secret, boys." Dex leaned over. "I
leave the hooves in the pot while it's cooking."
"Sounds delicious, Dex, but we've come for information," Obi-Wan said
quickly, as Anakin's face paled. "We're on the trail of some galactic
criminals, and we believe they have a taste for your slider garnish."
Dex slapped his knees with two of his hands. "And who doesn't? I've
got to remember to bottle it. I could make my fortune! One of these days,
when I get a minute away from the stove, ha!"
"One of the criminals is Jenna Zan Arbor."
Dex whistled. "A nasty piece of work. Wouldn't know her to see her,
though. And I haven't heard she's back on Coruscant."
"How about Senator Bog Divinian?"
"Astri Oddo's husband? Sure, he's been here. Likes my sliders. You
know, some people find them addictive! Picks up his dinner many a time and
brings it back to his lodgings."
Obi-Wan briefly described the Slams. "Have you seen them?"
Dex stroked his chin. "Don't think so, and haven't heard of them,
either. Hard to say. Here's the problem - we've been too busy here lately
to notice much of anything except dirty dishes. And things are set to get
even busier tomorrow, because the All Planets Relief Fund Ceremony will be
held right across the way." With one fat finger, Dex pointed out the window
to the plaza. "This is the kind of area the Fund will be trying to improve.
Anyway, I'll keep my eye out. Many will be coming to see the big shots like
the Chancellor. But most will come, I'd wager, to see a fortune being
transferred. Everyone likes to be close to vertex, even if they don't have
any themselves. They feel richer for looking at it - at least until they go
home and look around at what they've got!" Dex laughed heartily.
Anakin looked at Obi-Wan. Fortune? Vertex? "What do you mean, Dex?" he
asked.
"Don't you know the drill? Every planet in the Senate is donating
vertex to the new fund. They present it to Palpatine, and then his personal
guard brings it to the vault." Dex pointed across the plaza. "The Bank of
the Core. Now don't be thinking there will be hanky-panky," he said,
waggling his finger. "There will be security like you've never seen.
Coruscant security and the Chancellor's Red Guards. Tomorrow they'll be
cordoning off walkways and placing officers around the plaza. A journalist
for the HoloNet news even paid me to keep her airspeeder out back so she'd
be able to take off quick tomorrow to get to her vidcam studio hookup. I
said yes because she was a looker - or maybe it was the credits she put in
my hand, ha! Then she goes and parks it so it blocks my food-delivery
doors. Left it locked tight as a drum. Now you know I don't stand for that.
" Dex chuckled. "So I got my pal Acey to break in and I moved it myself
behind a dumpster."
Dex's words washed over Obi-Wan. There was something here. Item after
item clicked in, but he couldn't add them up.
"Can we see that airspeeder, Dex?"
Dex gave him a
puzzled look. "Don't see why, but what I have is yours,
Obi-Wan. This way."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Anakin and Obi-Wan followed Dex through the steamy kitchen noisy with
clattering pans and spattering grease, through the rear exit doors into the
alley. A long airspeeder was parked in an angle, wedged between a dumpster
and durasteel trash bins.
"It'll smell like old fish tomorrow, but I can't help it. They can't
block my kitchen," Dexter said.
"It's a Ralion B-14." Anakin said.
"Can you show me how it was parked before you moved it, Dex?" Obi-Wan
asked.
Dexter stamped his enormous foot. "Right here. In the way."
Obi-Wan bent over and studied a round cover sunk into the duracrete
street. He knocked on it with his knuckles. "Utility tunnel."
"For my water delivery," Dexter said. "I know because my water froze
last winter, and that's where they crawled down to fix it."
Anakin and Obi-Wan exchanged a glance. It was all adding up.
"Got to check on my stew. You two come in when you have more time. You
know I like to feed you." Dexter waddled back into the diner.
"Must have been Valadon in disguise," Obi-Wan said. "The airspeeder is
for their getaway. And here," he said, stamping his foot on the cover, "is
one of the entrance points for the Zone, most likely."
Anakin prowled around the airspeeder. "Doesn't seem to be juiced up,
at least on the outside. No extra exhaust valves. Seats four, five in a
crunch." He opened the door and slid inside.
Obi-Wan entered the speeder from the other end. "Looks clean."
"Fully fueled," Anakin noted.
Obi-Wan reached over toward the door on his side. Something had
drifted down to the floor when he'd opened the door, the tiniest wisp of a
thing. Attuned to notice every scrap, he bent over to pick it up. It was a
thread. He held it up. Blue.
"Anything?" Anakin asked.
"I'll send it to the Temple lab for analysis, but it looks like
standard cloth," Obi-Wan said, carefully placing it in his utility belt.
"Certainly not the septsilk and veda cloth that both Zan Arbor and the
Slams like to wear."
Anakin murmured a reply, busy studying the engine specs. "This doesn't
make sense," he said. "The transport body style doesn't fit the engine. In
speeders, you maximize every particle of space. I'd guess there is about
three centimeters unaccounted for."
"That's not very much."
"Oh, yes it is." Anakin looked over at his Master. "It's just like the
Slams' ship. They knew how to hide secret compartments in tiny spaces."
Anakin was already reaching under the dash. Obi-Wan felt along the
floor and the edges of his seat. He had found a few compartments on the
Slams' ship, but Anakin had found all of them.
"Got it." A drawer popped out toward Anakin. He reached inside, then
tossed an item to Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan examined the palm-sized datapad. He switched it on. "It's a
map of the plaza," Obi-Wan said as he accessed the file. "With notations on
street closings and space lanes." Obi-Wan pressed a few more indicators.
"And the water transport tunnels are marked."
"Omega, Zan Arbor, and the Slams are planning to heist the new Relief
Fund treasury," Anakin said.
"That's what they're after. Not only will it give them a fortune to
operate with, it will embarrass Palpatine."
"It will be a political victory as well as a personal one. That's most
likely why Bog and Sauro got involved - they are looking at a way to strike
a blow against Palpatine. And if they profit from it as well, why not?"
"With the help of the Zone, a small band like the Slams can get around
the entire Coruscant security force," Anakin said, shaking his head.
Obi-Wan nodded. "And in his arrogance, Omega expects to defeat the
Jedi, too. If the Jedi Order allows the heist to happen, they will be
disgraced. That will help Bog and Sauro pass their petition - or win a no-
confidence vote against the Chancellor."
His eyes gleamed at Anakin, and Anakin caught the spark. He felt a
spurt of excitement. The pieces were falling into place.
"At last we are one step ahead of Omega," Obi-Wan said. "Now all we
have to do is set the trap."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Anakin expected his Master to explode into movement. Obi-Wan never
wasted time. Instead, Obi-Wan just looked at him.
"So?"
"So?" Anakin asked cautiously.
"What next?"
"You want me to decide?"
Obi-Wan nodded. "When you become a Jedi Knight, you'll have to
strategize as well as act."
There were a number of things to be done, and at first, they crowded
Anakin's brain so that he wasn't sure which to do first. But then a moment
later everything was clear and he knew what to do.
"First, we should contact Siri and Ferus and tell them what we know,
so that they can concentrate their study of the water system on the area
around the plaza," Anakin said. "Then, we should contact-Master Windu. The
Jedi Council needs to come up with its own plans to protect the vertex
during the ceremony."
"Good."
"And we should request a meeting with Chancellor Palpatine," Anakin
went on. "It's the only way we can get across the seriousness of what we
think is going to happen. After all, it's just guesswork, and it could be
easily dismissed. But we should be able to convince him to increase
security and put monitors on the water systems. Though..." Anakin tapped
his fingers on the dashboard "... if we do nothing and simply allow them to
sabotage the system with the Zone, we have an advantage."
Obi-Wan frowned. "We do?"
"The Jedi will not be affected, but our enemy won't know that. Omega
and the Slams will be lulled into the belief that they have succeeded. In
other words, we give them what they want in the beginning. But we control
the outcome."
"But Anakin, that means exposing thousands of beings to the Zone."
"It's not toxic. The beings will have an extraordinarily pleasant
morning, that's all."
Obi-Wan's frown grew deeper. "We don't know that.
You experienced it early on. We don't know what Zan Arbor has done to
it since then. Are you forgetting the four workers who died?"
"But we have every reason to believe the system has been perfected."
Anakin hesitated. He could see that he had displeased his Master. "But of
course we don't know that for sure. So we must guard the entry ports to the
system so the Zone cannot be deployed."
Obi-Wan nodded. "Anything else?"
Anakin thought briefly. "No. Not at the moment." "I agree. Let's go."
They headed for the Senate. While Obi-Wan called ahead to request a
meeting with Chancellor Palpatine, Anakin brooded on his mistake. He had
seen the uneasiness in his Master's eyes, though it had passed quickly.
Sometimes he made mistakes and wasn't sure why they were wrong. He knew
that his Master's deepest desire was to capture Omega. Anakin wondered how
much it was permissible to risk in order to accomplish that. How much risk
was too mu
ch? Who was best to judge? He wished he could ask Obi-Wan those
questions, but he didn't want to displease him further.
As soon as they arrived at the Chancellor's office, they were ushered
in to see him. He stood at the large window behind his desk, ready to
receive them.
"Sly Moore tells me this is urgent," he said. "She is not accustomed
to such vehemence. I hope it's not bad news."
"Well, that depends," Obi-Wan said. Quickly, he filled Palpatine in on
what they had discovered and what they suspected.
"Naturally," Obi-Wan concluded, "the best thing to do is to cancel the
ceremony."
"I think not," Palpatine said. "This fund has been the result of years
of steady work on the part of many worlds. It is a tribute to the very
ideals the Galactic Senate was founded upon originally - cooperation and
benevolence. I hardly think that canceling the ceremony would help us in
any way."
Anakin wasn't surprised, and neither was Obi-Wan.
"Then security must be increased," Obi-Wan said.
"I assure you, the best measures are already in place," Palpatine