Wild Space, Page 4

Gently, she pulled free. “Maybe. Obi-Wan… I should be the one to make the break with Anakin. If it comes from you, he’ll be angry, resentful, and I don’t want there to be trouble between you. Besides, if it comes from you he might not believe it, and then I’ll just have to tell him anyway.”

  He smoothed his beard, thinking. “All right.”

  “Let Anakin escort me home to Naboo. Saying good-bye is going to be difficult. I’d like our parting to be private. Please, Obi-Wan,” she added, seeing his reluctance. “You owe me that much.”

  He sighed. “I can make no promises, but… I’ll do my best.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Padmé…” He shook his head. “You’re doing the right thing. The only thing that can keep him safe. Anakin will need all his strength, his focus, for what is to come. You don’t see it now but you will, in time.”

  He left her then. Welcoming the solitude, she stood on her apartment’s veranda and stared across the Coruscant cityscape to the distant, imposing Jedi Temple where Anakin lay cradled in his healing trance.

  Have no fear, my love. I won’t let them come between us. And if we stand together, not even the Force will tear us apart.

  Obi-Wan returned directly to the Temple, to Yoda. Duty before personal feelings, always. Seeing his injured Padawan would have to wait.

  Shmi was dead? Oh, Anakin.

  “Done, it is?” said Yoda, cross-legged on the meditation pad in his private chamber.

  Feeling sick, feeling empty, he bowed. “Yes, Master.”

  “Good. Necessary this was. Necessary it would not have been, Obi-Wan, if closer attention you had paid.” Yoda’s eyes narrowed. “Disappointed I am.”

  And that was a lightsaber thrust between his ribs. “I am truly sorry, Master.”

  Yoda tilted his chin, his steady gaze implacable. “A lesson let this be, Master Kenobi. Attachment leads to suffering for a Jedi. School yourself. School your Padawan, while you still can. A Jedi Knight must he become, sooner than we thought.”

  What? No. “Master Yoda, he’s not ready.”

  “Make him ready, you must, Obi-Wan. Your task that is.”

  Given Yoda’s mood it was folly to argue. But he couldn’t stay silent. “Master Yoda, is there really a need to be precipitate? Surely it would be unwise to rush Anakin, especially now. His injury… and Master, his mother is dead.”

  Yoda nodded, short and sharp. “Yes. But mothers die, Obi-Wan. Sad it is, but distract a Jedi death must not.”

  And that was true. It was true, but… Not distract him? Yoda, Yoda, you don’t know Anakin.

  “Yes, Master,” he said with great care. “But while I know our lost Jedi must be replaced, our victory on Geonosis was decisive. Surely there’s a chance Dooku and the Separatists will think twice before escalating this conflict? Now that they’ve seen the military might at our command, they must know it would be madness.”

  Yoda pursed his lips. “Madness, yes. Think Dooku is sane, do you? To the dark side he has turned. Insanity that is.”

  “So war is inevitable?”

  Yoda closed his eyes and lowered his head. “Perhaps,” he murmured. “Wait we must, to see what the Force shows us.”

  And what an agonizing wait it would be. “Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan said. “In which case, while we are waiting…”

  Yoda looked up. “To your Padawan you may go, Obi-Wan. Your support and guidance will he need through this difficult transition.”

  “Yes, Master. Thank you,” he said, retreating to the chamber door.

  “Obi-Wan.”

  Chilled by the grimness in Yoda’s voice, he turned. “Yes, Master?”

  Yoda’s stare was bleak. “Great are the challenges your Padawan will face. To be his friend your heart will urge you. But Obi-Wan, a mistake that would be. A friend young Skywalker does not need. A Master he needs, and a Master you must be.”

  “I understand,” Obi-Wan replied, and took his leave. But as he made his long way to the Halls of Healing, he realized it wasn’t advice he was prepared to take.

  For ten years I have been a Master to Anakin, and all that got me was defiance. The more I criticize him, the more he turns away. The more I withdraw, the angrier he becomes. More criticism, more emotional distance, isn’t the answer. He’s not a typical Jedi. He never has been. Yet I have tried to turn him into one. I’ve tried to contain him. Control him. For his own good, it’s true… but even so. If he’s to be a Jedi Knight soon, that has to end.

  Besides. With the struggle of physical rehabilitation before him… with the death of his dreams about Padmé to come… with the crushing, terrible loss of his mother to face… the only thing Anakin needed now was a friend.

  Tangled in nightmare, Anakin despaired.

  Mom, Mom, stay with me, Mom. So beaten, so brutalized. He’d failed her. You look so handsome. I love you. The pain in her voice, the blood, the shame. She breathed in, she breathed out, and then she didn’t breathe again. Stay with me, Mom… don’t leave me…

  “Mom!” he shouted and opened his eyes. His face was soaking wet; he could feel the hot tears.

  “Hush,” said Obi-Wan. “Anakin, hush. Keep still. You’ve been badly hurt.”

  As if he didn’t know that. As if he couldn’t feel the gaping hole in his chest where his heart had been, where his heart was ripped out, where an ocean of acid turned his world to pain.

  He looked at the man who’d been his mentor and friend for ten years, and all he could think of was what he’d just lost. What he’d given up by joining the Jedi. “My mother’s dead,” he whispered. “And it’s all your fault.”

  Obi-Wan jerked back. “What? No. Anakin, no.”

  “Get away from me,” Anakin said, as the edges of his vision rippled scarlet and black… and the rage that dwelled inside him drew its breath to scream. “I don’t want you here. She’d be alive if you’d believed in my dreams. She’d be alive if I had freed her. Get away from me, Obi-Wan. Leave me alone!”

  But Obi-Wan wouldn’t. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, Anakin. You didn’t dream she was in danger. You didn’t dream she’d die. If you had—if you’d told me—”

  Anakin looked down at Obi-Wan’s hand on his shoulder and shrugged, trying to dislodge it. “Don’t touch me. Are you deaf? I said leave me alone.”

  Still Obi-Wan ignored him. Of course. Because that’s what he did. He gave orders, he never listened. “Anakin, you have to know it wasn’t deliberate.”

  All he had to know was that this man had failed him. Sickened, trembling on the brink of losing self-control completely, he reached out to pluck himself free of Obi-Wan’s grasping fingers…

  In the chamber’s warm, soft light, the golden armature gleamed.

  “What?” he said, confused and staring. His arm? That was his arm? His hand? How was that possible? He wasn’t a droid, he was flesh and blood. “What’s that? I don’t—”

  And then it all came pouring back, a torrent of pitiless, excoriating memory. Kissing Padmé. The Geonosis arena. The slaughter. All those Jedi, murdered in the sun. The desperate chase after Dooku. The duel in the cavern. Obi-Wan cut down, heartbeats from death. And his arm—his arm—

  As though the images were a trigger, as though remembering a thing was the same as reliving it, the agony of that saber cut burst through him like a storm.

  And Obi-Wan held him as he wept.

  Chapter Four

  Now:

  The Clone Wars, Afher the Battle of Christophsis

  “No, Ashoka! Not like that!” said Anakin, frustrated. “How come you don’t listen to me?”

  Glowering at him, Ahsoka stepped back. “Don’t yell at me, Skyguy. I’m doing the best I can. If I’m not doing it right that’s your fault, not mine. You’re the Jedi Master and I’m the Padawan, remember? I’m not supposed to know everything yet.”

  Incredulous, he stared at her; then he turned and stalked away from his insolent apprentice before he got himself in trouble by uttering words more suited to the heat of a ho
tly contested Podrace than the hushed serenity of a Jedi Temple dojo.

  Again, still, he was startled by the lack of a Padawan braid slapping his shoulder in time with his gait. He should be used to its absence by now: weeks had flown by since that brief, solemn ceremony in which Obi-Wan had cut him free of his past, handing him his childhood with a cautiously approving nod.

  They might not have made me a Jedi Knight too soon… but I’m pretty sure I’m not ready for an apprentice. At least, not an apprentice like Ahsoka.

  Glancing up, he saw his former Master standing on the dojo’s observation balcony, arms folded across his chest in that particular way he had. He was hiding an amused smile in his beard.

  Yeah, yeah, it’s funny. It’s a riot. You think this is payback, Obi-Wan, don’t you? You think I’m getting my just deserts.

  Well… and maybe he was.

  He turned back to his apprentice. She hadn’t moved a step, hadn’t lowered her defiantly tilted chin, hadn’t powered down her training lightsaber that zapped but didn’t maim or kill. Instead she just stood there, dangerously close to pouting, tears of anger and frustration shimmering in her eyes.

  He knew that look. Knew how it felt to be wearing it on his face. How many times over the last ten years had he stared at Obi-Wan just like that? Fought the urge to stamp and shout his rage and disappointment… not always successfully.

  His own frustration died then, seeing Ahsoka’s distress. He sighed and walked back to her, deactivating his own training lightsaber. “Look,” he said, halting in front of her. “It’s not that you’re doing a bad job. You’re not. But that’s not the same as doing a good job, Ahsoka.”

  Her chin lifted a little higher. “I did a good job on Christophsis, didn’t I? And on Teth, and Tatooine?”

  “I never said you didn’t. But you got lucky a lot, too. Luck can only take you so far, Padawan. Do you expect me to trust my life to you based on luck?”

  Slowly, slowly, her chin came down. “No,” she muttered. “Of course I don’t.”

  “Good, because I won’t do it,” he said sternly. “Now, complete fifty repetitions of Niman form, level one. By yourself. And I want every stroke perfect, Ahsoka. Identical. Centered in the Force. Don’t rush it. Don’t try and get it over with. Dwell within each beat of the exercise.” He reached into his tunic and pulled out a droidcam. “I’m going to record you, so we can review your style and technique together later.”

  “You mean you’re not going to stay and watch?” she asked, sounding disappointed.

  “I’ll be around,” he replied. “But it shouldn’t matter where I am. It’s where you are that counts. Centered in the Force, remember?” Flicking a switch he activated the drone and tossed it into the air. Once Ahsoka moved, the droidcam would lock on and record her until she finished her task. “Now… begin.”

  While she did as she was told, her training lightsaber humming, he turned his back and walked away. Feeling bad, feeling guilty, that he’d been so hard on her. That he hadn’t let her know he’d been where she was now, very recently, and understood the overwhelming tangle of emotions all Padawans were forced to conquer.

  But this isn’t about me, it’s about her. Every Padawan walks the same path differently. She has to find her own way, in her own time. I can’t help her. She can only help herself.

  Something Obi-Wan had told him, once—which of course he’d resented at the time.

  Clipping his powered-down training lightsaber to his belt, he made his way up the stairs to the observation balcony where his former Master still stood, watching Ahsoka sink deeper and deeper into the Force.

  “She shows great promise, Anakin,” said Obi-Wan, glancing at him. “The small, scrappy ones often turn out the best, you know.”

  And was that a typical Obi-Wan compliment? Oblique. Off-handed. Never effusive. I think it was. “She’ll do,” Anakin grunted. “Though I still don’t understand why Master Yoda sent her to me. Not when you haven’t found a new apprentice of your own.”

  “There’s no hurry for that,” said Obi-Wan. Another smile was lurking. “I’m still recovering from the rigors of my last one.”

  Anakin rolled his eyes. “Ha ha,” he muttered. “Didn’t see that coming.”

  Obi-Wan chuckled softly. “Really? You should have.”

  “I suppose,” Anakin said, indulging in a little sarcasm of his own, “this is when I’m meant to say, Wow, Obi-Wan, I never knew how tough you had it when you were training me. But I get it now. Now it all makes perfect sense.”

  “Something like that, yes,” said Obi-Wan, his smile widening.

  Anakin sighed. “Yeah… well… maybe I do.”

  A comfortable silence fell between them. Anakin welcomed it—the amusement, the banter, the easy camaraderie. In the immediate aftermath of Geonosis, when he was still recovering from his catastrophic injury, it had seemed their relationship was on the brink of unraveling. Only Obi-Wan’s steadfast refusal to be pushed away had saved it. Only his willingness to accept his Padawan’s rage, his grief, his blame, and not take any of it personally.

  And there’d been so much rage. So much grief. Even now the echoes lingered. They always would. He’d never be free of that moment in the Tatooine desert when he’d watched his mother die. Felt her die. He’d never be free of what had happened next. The savage massacre under the stars.

  Obi-Wan knew nothing of that. He never would. Obi-Wan was the perfect Jedi. He could never understand the overwhelming need to kill what had killed the person he loved best.

  In the end, Anakin knew, the only thing that had saved him was Padmé, and the single perfect day they spent together after their secret wedding. Her love. Her patience. Her unquestioning acceptance of everything the Jedi demanded that he deny.

  But Obi-Wan had helped him, too. With his blood-and-bone arm lost, his balance in the Force now irrevocably altered, he knew that without Obi-Wan he’d never have come to trust his skills, himself, again. Never would have found a way past the nightmares of Dooku, the harrowing, nightly reliving of their brief and shocking duel. His failure. His maiming. Never found his way back to laughter, and the joy that came with being a Jedi.

  And there was joy. Oh, there was such joy.

  “It was all my fault, Master,” he had admitted to Obi-Wan on his return from Naboo, after he had completed the private task of constructing his new lightsaber. “My arrogance nearly got you killed. And my impatience led to my defeat. I wouldn’t listen to you. I’m sorry.”

  He’d braced himself then, for the inevitable lecture. A dissection of his myriad shortcomings. Instead Obi-Wan had tried to smile, and failed. “I’ll gladly forgive you that, Anakin, if you’ll forgive me the dreams of your mother,” he replied, his voice not quite steady. “I would have saved her for you if I could.”

  They didn’t speak of either incident again. And what had often been a tense relationship between Master and pupil gently transformed into a simple, unpressured, and unexpected friendship, which deepened during the countless hours they spent on lightsaber practice, preparing for war. Even before he’d been declared a Jedi Knight. A Jedi Knight who had never undergone formal trials, just like Obi-Wan. He was starting to think they had a lot in common after all.

  Of course, they still had their moments. Sometimes Obi-Wan forgot the “former” part of “former Padawan” and lectured, or scolded. Forgot they were both Jedi Knights now, both generals, with equal responsibilities. Men whose lives depended on their leadership. That was… irritating. Sometimes he did wonder if Obi-Wan would ever truly see him as an equal. But mostly he didn’t let it bother him. If he let it bother him he might spoil things—and he didn’t want that.

  Seven weeks after the Battle of Geonosis—not quite three weeks after Anakin farewelled without regret his Padawan braid—Dooku’s Separatist forces launched a brutal multipronged attack on the Republic. He and Obi-Wan fought side by side, defending first Anoth and then Bakura. That was when they got their first sour taste of the monster
Grievous.

  And then had come Christophsis… and everything changed. Looking back now, he realized that Christophsis, and the subsequent missions to Teth, then Tatooine, with Ahsoka, had been the catalyst he’d needed to complete his transformation from Padawan to Jedi Knight.

  Glancing sideways at Obi-Wan, remembering his former Master’s restrained but heartfelt praise of that mission, he felt a twinge of guilt.

  I wish I could tell him about Padmé. The Jedi are wrong. Love doesn’t weaken us. It makes us stronger. I wish Padmé and I could show him that. He’s very alone.

  “What?” said Obi-Wan. “Is there a fly on my nose?”

  Anakin shook his head. “I was just wondering how much longer we’ll be stuck here on Coruscant when every day Jedi and the clone troops and ordinary people are fighting and dying for the Republic. For freedom. It’s been over a week, and it feels wrong to be safe here, when no one’s safe out there. Not as long as Dooku and Grievous and the other Separatists don’t care how much innocent blood they spill.”

  “I know,” said Obi-Wan, and rested a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “If it helps, I’m anxious, too. The sooner we defeat Dooku and his cronies, the sooner we Jedi can return to our first, best purpose… safeguarding peace.”

  “So you don’t know anything?”

  Letting his hand fall, Obi-Wan cocked an eyebrow. “If you mean do I know where and when our next mission will take place, then I must disappoint you. But don’t be in too great a hurry to leave, Anakin. The longer this war continues, the less frequent will our respites at home become. Enjoy Coruscant while you can, my young friend. Something tells me we’ll become strangers to the Temple soon enough.”

  A shiver of apprehension ran down Anakin’s spine. Leaving Coruscant meant leaving Padmé… and it seemed scant moments since they’d been reunited. When he closed his eyes he could smell her subtle perfume, feel her fingers on his skin, her skin beneath his fingers, taste her tears of joy. Missing her was agony, their separation torture.

  Not that he resented the chance to do his duty. He meant every word he’d just said to Obi-Wan: he was desperate to see the Republic victorious against the Separatists. Already this war had brought him to despair. And the longer it continued, the deeper would flow the rivers of blood.