Stealth

by Karen Miller

“What?” said Obi-Wan, fighting the trundle’s sluggish controls to guide it safely to the side of the street. “Anakin, I thought you’d taken control of this thing!”

  “I did!” Anakin protested. “But how was I supposed to know it had a built-in booby trap?”

  On a deep breath he regained his calm. “You weren’t. It’s all right. It just means we’ll have to make it on foot the rest of the way.” Closing his eyes, he reached out in the Force—and felt it again, that peculiar deflection. “Blast. I cannot place that groundcar. What about you?”

  Anakin nodded. “It comes and goes but yes—I’ve got it.”

  So they abandoned the defunct trundle cart and continued their pursuit, Anakin leading the way. The rain that had fallen on the spaceport must have been a local cloudburst; the buckled, potholed ferrocrete here was dusty dry.

  “I don’t like this, Obi-Wan,” said Anakin after a while, staring around at the deserted street. “I can feel people in these buildings. I can feel their fear. But the area’s like a cemetery. And there’s danger…”

  He nodded. “I agree. We’re too exposed like this. I think we’re going to have to risk a little Force enhancement before someone notices us and raises the alarm. What about the groundcar? Do you still have it?”

  Slowing, Anakin closed his eyes. “Faintly. I think I can just hold on to it.”

  “Then let’s pick up the pace, shall we? The sooner we get out of the open, the happier I’ll be.”

  Lightly blurred within the Force, smearing their presence in the world like a thumb dragged through wet watercolor paint, they broke into a slow jog. Eyes still closed, running purely on Force-informed instinct, Anakin guided them deeper into Lanteeb’s stinking industrial district. Three groundcars hummed by them, but they remained undetected. They jogged past the narrow mouth of a laneway. Glancing sideways Obi-Wan saw four battle droids poking their blasters into a kicked-down door. The blurring held; the battle droids didn’t see or hear them.

  One kilometer. Two kilometers. Three. Five. The polluted air thickened, became hazy and even less comfortable to breathe. He began to feel a distinct uneasiness, a wrongness that grew more pronounced by the minute. He felt a rasping in his throat. Heard the same distress echoed in Anakin.

  And then, without warning, the Separatist microchip in his wrist burst into violent, burning life. Gasping, he let go of the Force. Stumbled into real time and struck the sharp edge of a ferrocrete wall with his shoulder.

  Somewhere up ahead, a klaxon started wailing.

  “Vape it!” said Anakin, in real time beside him. “I can’t believe this Sep security!”

  They’d stumbled into a sensor-monitored restricted zone.

  No need to confer. Grabbing their wrists, they reached for the Force and used it to fuse the microchips’ circuitry. That hurt even worse than the original insertion, but it was better than being found by the Seps. And any trouble the fused sensors caused them later on would have to be dealt with later on. Right now disappearing from the sensor grid was the only thing that mattered.

  The wailing klaxon fell silent.

  Shaking his hand, Anakin stared down the empty street. “With any luck they’ll put it down as a false alarm.”

  Obi-Wan gave him a look. “You know the Jedi place no faith in luck.”

  Anakin snorted. “Right now, I’ll place my faith in whatever I can find. The groundcar’s up ahead.”

  Behind them, the chilling sound of tramping metallic feet and staccato, electronic voices.

  “Roger, roger. Sensor net triggered by unauthorized personnel approach. Will check it out. Roger, roger.”

  “Wonderful,” said Anakin. “Who invited tinnies to the party?”

  They turned and ran.

  It was the darkness that warned him. Ablaze with the Force, running effortlessly in the light, it felt to Anakin like he’d stumbled abruptly into an abyss, a chasm so deep that the hottest sunshine could not reach its cold heart.

  He wrenched himself to a stop, to find Obi-Wan alarmed and halted beside him. They stared at each other.

  “You feel it?” said Obi-Wan, his face pale, his breathing unsteady. “The dark side, like a poison?”

  He nodded. He had the feeling he’d turned a little pale himself. In his belly, a wrenching nausea. “Yeah. And we’re in the right place. The presence I felt on the Sep ship and in the groundcar?” He pointed. “He or she—or it—is in there.”

  There was a massively protected compound, some six hundred meters distant at the end of the street. Its perimeter was marked by a forbidding durasteel wall, ten meters high at least, which was topped with laser turrets at three-meter intervals. A faint crackling in the air told them a laser net burned in front of it. Even this far away the technology was unmistakable. Two wide main gates, locked and laser-protected and guarded by blaster turrets, seemed to be the only way in.

  Terrific. And here’s us dressed like Lanteeban lumberjacks.

  “Anakin,” said Obi-Wan, slapping his arm. “Time to make ourselves scarce.”

  Even as Obi-Wan pointed he felt another sickening ripple in the Force. Looking up, he saw a security cam buzzing their way, flying what appeared to be a random search-and-alert pattern. They had a few moments’ grace, surely; if they’d been actually spotted, that klaxon would be shrieking again.

  “Anakin,” said Obi-Wan. “You can admire the technology later. Let’s go.”

  Well, yeah, except where? Every building at this end of the street had been razed. A few piles of twisted, melted rubble was all that remained.

  But it’ll have to do.

  The security cam swooped left, following its programming. Stopped in hover mode, focusing on something at ground level. The flickering red lights around its base blazed brighter, then held steady. And then it started to hum.

  “Now, Anakin,” said Obi-Wan tightly. “While it’s distracted.”

  As they hurried sideways, heading for the nearest jumble of slagged debris, a laser blast shot out of the security cam’s upper housing. Great. The thing’s armed? Something screamed in brief agony. A native rodent, most likely. Another laser blast. Another scream. And then the security cam was on the move again.

  Deftly, Obi-Wan manipulated the Force to dislodge rubble farther down the wrecked street. The security cam halted, sensors buzzing, then plunged off in pursuit.

  “We don’t have long,” he said. “Hurry.”

  Within heartbeats they were belly-down and scrabbling across broken brick and melted glass toward long, broad sheets of durasteel heat-warped into fantastically impossible shapes. The mound of scorched debris had formed a kind of cave, and that was what they aimed for. Reaching it, they scrambled inside. Found not quite pitch blackness; three thin fingers of clouded sunlight fractured the gloom. Lightsaber banging against his ribs, Anakin stopped scrambling. But before he could look around and get his bearings—

  “Vanish,” said Obi-Wan… and disappeared within the Force. Following his lead, Anakin disappeared after him.

  Oh, I remember this.

  Childhood in the Temple. Playing hide-and-seek with his fellow students because he was still too young to travel the Republic with Obi-Wan. Vanishing was one of a youngling’s most important lessons—but the Temple Masters hadn’t needed to teach him. He knew that Jedi trick already. Much later, he realized he’d been doing it for years. That slavery had given him this one, priceless gift: the ability to disappear at will.

  He’d used it to hide from Gardulla—eventually, not soon enough—when she came ranting with her whip. From his mother when he didn’t want to come in to bed. From Watto, when he was tired of chores in the workshop. From Sebulba and Aldar Beedo and Gasgano, when the Podraces’ most vicious pilots were out for blood and fighting them wasn’t an option. He’d even used it twice while racing. Had somehow managed to vanish not only himself but his Pod, startling his targets so badly they’d both crashed out as he zoomed by, laughing.

  He hadn’t told anyone in the Temple that. Kn
ew they’d never believe him, because that depth of vanishing wasn’t meant to be possible. Certainly not for a child of eight.

  But it had been. He could do that. So now? A man grown, with the Force obedient to his will? Hiding from a stupid security cam was a piece of poodoo. No sweat.

  Like a leaf on a still pond he floated in the light, sharply aware of Obi-Wan floating somewhere close by. A warm presence. A dark gold glow in the Force, steadfast and unfaltering. After a time, since he had nothing better to do and it might prove helpful, he let his mind ride the Force’s rippling currents. Let the Force carry him away from from misery-soaked Lanteeb.

  Visions drifted before his quiet inner eye. Snatches of the past. He saw his mother laughing, and smiled despite the pain. Saw Padmé on her balcony, unbound hair blowing in the breeze. Felt desire flame through him and doused it, with regret. He saw Ahsoka with her lightsaber in the circular halls of Kaliida Shoals, her small face set in fierce concentration. Saw Rex, wrapped in a blue medcenter shift, watching her train with unspoken admiration.

  Then the scene shifted, abruptly, and he was looking at Obi-Wan bending over someone stretched out on the ground. It was nighttime, no lighting, and he couldn’t see where or when this was. “Hold on,” Obi-Wan was saying. “Hold on. I’m with you. Don’t go.” Naked pain in his voice. An awful raw grief he’d never revealed before.

  Shocked, Anakin felt himself plunge out of the vanishing, plunge back into his body and the immediacy of danger.

  Beside him, Obi-Wan swallowed, eyes gleaming in the dim, dust-ridden light. “Anakin,” he said, almost too softly to hear, his lips barely framing the word. “Be quiet. Don’t move. And keep your body temperature down. It’s right on top of us.”

  He froze, again feeling that ominous ripple in the Force. Just audible, the buzzing hum of the Seps’ armed security cam as it flittered over their heads. He held his breath and willed his thumping heart to ease. Willed his body’s core temperature to remain low. Like a swimmer he sank himself just beneath the surface of the Force.

  The security cam moved on.

  Relief, sharp and scouring. He closed his eyes. Dropped his head. Let himself silently laugh, feeling a fierce and feral triumph. Then he opened his eyes again—and froze a second time.

  Obi-Wan’s fingers wrapped tight around his wrist. “I know,” he breathed. “I know. Anakin, you mustn’t make a sound.”

  They were lying on the charred remains of human beings.

  And suddenly he could smell the blackened death in this place. Still and silent now, with that first annihilating, obliterating rush of adrenaline drained away… he could smell it. And he could see it, too, those three fragile fingers of light just bright enough to show him.

  There were people in here when the Seps razed this building.

  Oh. Oh. He was going to be sick. Echoes of fear and agony and despair raged around him, released by his own senses, by sight and smell and touch. Somebody’s ashes were sticking to his skin. He was breathing in the detritus of murdered Lanteebans.

  Looking up, beyond anguish, he stared at anguished Obi-Wan.

  “It’s too dangerous to move around out there in daylight, Anakin,” Obi-Wan murmured. “We’ll have to wait until nightfall.”

  Wait in here? With the dead?

  Obi-Wan’s eyes were full of shadows. “I know.”

  Banishing the horror, pillowing his head in his folded arms, he vanished again.

  Hours passed. Vaguely mindful of not borrowing trouble, Anakin resisted the temptation to seek for more visions in the Force. Instead used the time to rest and replenish himself. Week after week of dire battles had taken their toll. So had the injuries he’d sustained above Quell. Though the Lurmen had treated him on Maridun, and med droids finished the task on Resolute, there remained a lingering… not weakness. Not exactly. More like a memory of damage and pain. This was as good a time as any to summon the Force and allow it to work its will on him.

  And it kept him too preoccupied to dwell on the dead.

  Inevitably, as the sun set, those three fracturing fingers of light faded. First came twilight. On its slow heels, full darkness. His mouth was dry. His belly rumbled. The sweat of nausea had dried sticky on his skin.

  At some point he heard the clanking procession of battle droids as they passed by on patrol.

  “Roger, roger, base. All clear. No disturbances. Repeat, we’re all clear.”

  Stupid blasted tinnies. Long may they stay so dumb.

  Unmoving beside him, close enough to touch in the gathering darkness, Obi-Wan. Drifting in and out of wakefulness. Vanishing, then coming back only to vanish again moments later. Like a Whaladon in the ocean depths, coming up for air. He’d seen Whaladons once, in the waters of Agomar. Just like Obi-Wan they’d seemed monolithic and wise.

  It started to rain.

  The air was still warm and muggy. They weren’t in danger of freezing. But the chemical-tainted water stirred the dead’s ashes to pungent life. The stench was revolting. He felt bile burn his throat and coat his tongue.

  At last Obi-Wan stirred again. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had quite enough of this,” he said, his voice rough. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

  It was a great idea, but—“What about the curfew?” His own voice was just as harsh. He hawked and spat. “If anyone breaking it gets shot on sight, that argues there’s got to be someone around to shoot them.”

  The sound of shifting cotton as Obi-Wan shrugged. “It’s a risk we have to take. We must find a way inside that compound, Anakin. And the cover of darkness gives us our best chance.”

  He grunted. “If you say so, Master.”

  “Master?” said Obi-Wan. “Does that mean if our plan fails, you’re going to blame me?”

  “Well…” He grinned in the pitch darkness. “That’s the general idea, yes.”

  A gentle snort of amusement. “I’m touched. Now get a move on.”

  Crawling out of their hiding space, Anakin closed his mind to the feel of sharp things like sticks, that most likely weren’t sticks, breaking and rolling under his hands and knees. If he let himself think he’d get lost in dangerous anger.

  Free at last of that particular nightmare, they stood on the sidewalk and tipped their faces to the sky. Easing off now, the rain spackled their skin. Dribbled through their hair. There were no streetlights. Hardly any stars. Half a kilometer down the road, the searingly illuminated secured compound, shouting loudly in the night.

  Anakin shivered. “I want the longest, hottest bath…”

  “A cold tap will have to suffice, I’m afraid,” said Obi-Wan briskly. “I just hope we can find one, because at some point we’re going to have to get clean. Although—perhaps not quite yet. Filthy as we doubtless are, it will come in handy as camouflage.”

  “Yeah—that sounds great in theory,” he said. “But it’s more a case of what we’re camouflaged with.”

  Silence. Then Obi-Wan eased out a slow breath. “I know.”

  A longer silence—which was broken by the faintest thrum of an approaching vehicle. Together they turned and caught the dancing nimbus of distant headlights bouncing off the wet ferrocrete road.

  “There’s only one place it could be going,” said Obi-Wan. In his voice, suppressed excitement. This might be their chance. “Anakin—are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Depends,” he said as the vehicle hummed closer. “Are you thinking that’s our way in?”

  “It’s risky,” said Obi-Wan. “If it doesn’t work, we’re almost certainly dead.”

  It was Anakin’s turn to chuckle. “So—same old, same old? Then what are we waiting for?”

  Running lightly, they headed back along the street. The vehicle was close now, headlights burning two holes through the dark. Some kind of delivery truck, looming tall. They reached the first untouched building. Pressed themselves into its wide, deeply recessed doorway, face-first, hands fisted against their chests so their skin wouldn’t catc
h the light. The truck glided by on its antigrav cushion, the driver oblivious to their presence.

  As soon as it was safely past they Force-jumped onto its roof, landing light as snowflakes. Cast themselves facedown, letting the Force pin them in place. Shared one brief, mutually encouraging look—and vanished.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alone in her laboratory, Scientist First Level Bant’ena Fhernan tossed down her electrostylus and pressed her cold, shaking hands to her face.

  I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore.

  A chrono on the blank, pale gray wall opposite ticked away the dwindling dregs of her life. She’d been counting time for days. Weeks. No, it was months now, wasn’t it. Two months, three weeks, and seventeen Corellian days had dragged by since she and her research team were swept up in the chaos and carnage that was the Separatist annexation of Taratos IV.

  If my mother knew where I was, if she thought I was alive and could reach me on a comlink, she’d be saying I told you so. A lot. Very loudly.

  But her mother didn’t know where she was, or think she was alive. Nobody did. Well, nobody she cared about. It was a fair bet her family and friends and even her enemies believed she was dead and decomposing with the rest of her research team on the ruined sands of Niriktavi Bay.

  Her mother, flamboyantly incoherent at the best of times, had begged her not to travel to the barely mapped lip of the Unknown Regions. But she’d long since stopped paying attention to her mother’s tempestuous predictions of doom, and so she’d gone.

  And why wouldn’t she? The war was nowhere near that part of space and the chances of it reaching Taratos IV in the few weeks she’d be there, well. “You’re the gambler, Mother,” she’d said, so scathing. So confident. “The odds are minuscule and you know it. Stop inventing catastrophes. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A career-making chance to impress the right people. Think of all the industrialists and philanthropists with credits to burn.”

  Her working hypothesis about the antibacterial applications of radiologically treated and molecularly manipulated Niriktavi coral had attracted enormous attention. Several major biotech corporations had asked her to bring them her preliminary findings as soon as they were tabulated.