by Jude Watson
“How?” Anakin asked. “We don’t have a ship.”
“We’ll have to take another look at Teleq’s,” Obi-Wan decided.
Floria stood. “At last I can get off this mountain.”
“Well, at least all the bounty hunters have been accounted for,” Anakin said. “We don’t have to worry about being attacked.”
They started back down the trail, their footsteps crunching through the thin skin of ice into the densely packed snow.
Obi-Wan heard a slight whistling noise behind him. A small metal ball whizzed by his ear and caught the light as it arced through the air.
“Hit the ground!” Obi-Wan shouted as he vaulted forward and pulled Floria and Dane down underneath him.
Chapter Fourteen
The explosion sent a shower of snow high into the air. Obi-Wan lifted his head. The thermal detonator had hit thirty meters away. That was close. Detonators had a twenty-meter radius of destruction.
Three Attack Droids headed toward them, gliding just above the surface of the snow with repulsorlift engines.
There was no cover. They could not avoid this battle, even if they’d wanted to. They would have to protect Floria and Dane and foil their attacker. He or she was fighting wisely, attacking without advancing.
At this point, Obi-Wan was getting a little tired of bounty hunters.
Obi-Wan put his hand on Dane’s back. “Stay down,” he ordered him swiftly. “We will take care of this.”
Dane nodded and covered Floria protectively with his own body.
Anakin’s lightsaber blazed in his hand. Obi-Wan nodded and they raced toward the advancing droids, swinging their lightsabers to deflect the blaster bolts. They had to be careful. A stray bolt could hit Dane, who was out in the open.
Anakin leaped toward the first droid. He cut it down with one stroke. Blaster bolts melted the snow around him, but Anakin was already twisting in midair to get out of the way. He landed lightly in precisely the right spot to launch another attack.
He had factored in the icy skin on top of the snow, but his foot still slipped slightly. Anakin took a moment to get his balance. He had forgotten about the thermal detonators. Obi-Wan saw the two balls whizzing toward Anakin. There was no time for him to reach the spot. He reached down and scooped up two large rocks. He threw one with each hand. Each rock flew unerringly toward its target, hitting the thermal detonators in midair, causing them to veer off course. They sailed by on either side of Anakin’s head and fell twenty-five meters away. Too close.
Obi-Wan charged forward. The remaining two droids were trying to outflank the Jedi. He fanned out and Anakin did the same. Then they ran toward each other, each targeting a droid as they jumped, their lightsabers held high. The droids fell with a sizzle in two smoking piles into the snow.
Obi-Wan could see the attacker now. It was another bounty hunter. He was tall and lean and dressed in plastoid armor. Two harnesses were slung crosswise around his body, filled with a variety of weapons. Attached to his belt were more thermal detonators.
He flipped one toward the Jedi. Obi-Wan and Anakin could not deflect it with their lightsabers. They would not be able to get close enough. They had exactly six seconds to move out of the way.
Obi-Wan reached for the cable line on his belt. He lassoed the detonator and jerked the line, sending it in the opposite direction, back toward the attacker. He saw the attacker bare his teeth in an admiring smile at the Jedi’s skill even as he reached up to catch it in his bare hand. Then he flung it backward, where it detonated harmlessly.
The attacker did not have to move. His weapons could be launched from a distance. But Obi-Wan and Anakin had to maneuver through deep snow to get to him. Anakin had his cable line out and was ready to lasso the next detonator. Obi-Wan ran through the snow. The wind had formed deep drifts, and he had to use the Force to guide him. He used his lightsaber to melt the snow when it piled up against him.
The detonators flew toward them furiously. Occasionally they could hit one with a rock, or lasso one with a cable line. But mostly the two Jedi had to outrun them.
Obi-Wan’s legs were beginning to tire from struggling against the snow. He could hear the rasp of Anakin’s breath. How long could they keep this up? Obi-Wan wondered.
Beside the attacker, Obi-Wan saw steam rising from the snow. He caught a glint of water and realized it was a thermal spring.
“Anakin, head right,” he called to his Padawan.
They moved slightly to the attacker’s right. Every time they moved, they brought him closer to the spring.
Ten detonators left on his belt. Obi-Wan took a chance and leaped, ducking to avoid a detonator headed his way. It exploded, and he felt the shock waves against his skin. He landed on the snow awkwardly and slid down the slope toward his attacker.
Anakin leaped in order to land in front of him, blocking his descent. Two detonators headed their way, and Obi-Wan lassoed one and sent it crashing into the other. The two smoking orbs fell into deep snow.
“The thermal pool,” he said to Anakin. “Drive him toward it.”
Anakin nodded. He looked tired. Obi-Wan was, too. Yet he knew that beyond their fatigue lay their stamina.
When they were close enough, Obi-Wan risked a leap straight at the attacker. He knew he would cause him to back up, and the attacker did. He slid on the ice and fell back, crashing into the spring.
The attacker slipped beneath the surface of the water, then emerged, treading water. He shook the hair out of his eyes and gazed at Obi-Wan with a hostile look.
Obi-Wan stood at the edge. He held out a hand. “You have about ten seconds.”
“Yes.”
The attacker knew the extreme heat would cause a fusion reaction. The thermal detonators would blow.
His eyes were a vivid color somewhere between silver and lilac. There was a scar on his upper lip. His hair was long and tied back with a silver cord.
“Come on,” Obi-Wan said, keeping his hand steady. “We won’t hurt you.”
“Not you, but another,” the bounty hunter said. “If I return to him without you, he will kill me anyway. I will have an easier death this way. You don’t know his power. It comes from the pyramid itself.”
“You don’t have to return to him,” Obi-Wan said.
“Ah. But he will find me.” The bounty hunter closed his eyes.
Obi-Wan reached out over the water. “You must give up!”
“I cannot,” the bounty hunter replied, his eyes still closed. “And I must tell you this—neither will he.”
Obi-Wan leaped into the pool. But it was too late. The thermal detonators exploded. Water rose and hit Obi-Wan in the face. He choked and slipped beneath the water, then surfaced, struggling against the waves created by the explosion. Smoke rolled toward him.
The smoke cleared. Deep below the clear surface of the water, he saw the bounty hunter’s body spiral down, down, to a bottomless pool beneath.
Chapter Fifteen
Anakin hurried over to the thermal pool. His Master had hauled himself out and stood at the edge. The steaming water pooled at his feet, melting the snow.
Through the smoke and steam, he could see the sadness on his Master’s face. The Force was strong here. His Master was reaching out to it and gathering it around, as though warming himself. Obi-Wan’s gaze was far away.
“Master? Are you all right?”
“I am saying good-bye to a being I did not know,” Obi-Wan said softly.
The reverence in his tone surprised Anakin. “He could have killed you.”
“Yet he did not. There is always a need for grief when a being dies, Padawan. Qui-Gon taught me that.” Obi-Wan looked down into the steaming pool. “I saw someone take his own life in a pool like this one. It was Xanatos, Qui-Gon’s greatest enemy. A being who hated Qui-Gon and who would stop at nothing to destroy him. Still, when he took his own life, Qui-Gon stopped to mourn his life’s passing. I will never forget it.”
Anakin nodded, though he did
not understand. His greatest enemy so far in his life had been a slave trafficker named Krayn. When he had died, Anakin had not paused to mourn. Far from it. He had rejoiced in his death. It could only be good for the galaxy that such a terrible being had ceased to exist.
Something to meditate on in my next session, he thought. I’ll add it to the list. The difference between Anakin’s thoughts and Obi-Wan’s lessons was sometimes more than he wanted to examine. It was a struggle to reconcile them.
“Why do you think the bounty hunter did that?” he asked.
“That is the crucial question,” Obi-Wan said. “He preferred to end his life rather than meet his fate with Granta Omega. That should tell us something.”
“It tells us that Omega is very powerful,” Anakin said. “And very cruel.”
“Yes, but there is more,” Obi-Wan said, as though to himself.
Anakin wanted to stamp his foot in frustration. What? What are you thinking? But Obi-Wan did not add to his statement. He just looked wise and thoughtful, as usual.
“There must have been six bounty hunters, then,” Anakin said. He counted them off on his fingers. “The bounty hunter with the Stokhli stick. Floria and Dane together. Mol Arcasite. Teleq. Hunti Pereg. And now this one. That makes six. Floria and Dane were wrong.”
“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan said in the same thoughtful tone.
Annoyed, Anakin spun on his heel and trudged off to find Floria and Dane. They had gone off the trail and had hiked up a small rise, where a space cruiser was nestled in a small hollow.
“We have a way to get off-planet,” Floria said excitedly. “This must be his ship.”
Anakin nodded. “Who was he? Do you know?”
Dane shook his head. “We were positive there were only four other bounty hunters. It was important for all of us to know exactly how many bounty hunters were involved. We all insisted on that. If Granta Omega had lied to us, we wouldn’t have been happy. Even Omega wouldn’t want beings like Hunti Pereg and Mol Arcasite as enemies.”
Obi-Wan walked up. “It’s time to leave Ragoon-6.”
“The best words I ever heard,” Floria said with a shiver. Night was falling. Blue shadows smudged the snow.
Anakin swung himself aboard the cruiser. He searched the cockpit, then motioned to Obi-Wan.
“Master, I found something strange. This cruiser belongs to—”
“Hunti Pereg,” Obi-Wan finished.
“Yes,” Anakin said. “But why is it up here, at the peak? Why isn’t it the last bounty hunter’s ship?”
“It is the last one’s ship,” Obi-Wan said. “That bounty hunter was Hunti Pereg. I am sure of it.”
Anakin looked at him, puzzled. “Then who was the bounty hunter with the paralyzed legs?”
“It was not a bounty hunter. It was Granta Omega,” Obi-Wan said softly.
Anakin was stunned. “How do you know?”
“Floria and Dane never met him, so they would not recognize him,” Obi-Wan said. “Even so, he was in disguise. That synth-flesh I took for repair of an injury was designed to conceal his face. I realize that now. He does not want us to know what he looks like because he plans to meet us again.”
“So he wasn’t really paralyzed,” Anakin said.
“No,” Obi-Wan said. “That was also a ruse. He somehow knew that Floria and Dane had lied to him. He knew they were trying to trap him. So he came down to see for himself. He needed to be sure. When he saw us, he was.”
“But how would he know? We were wearing laser cuffs.”
“Young Padawan, if I can teach you one thing, it is this: Never underestimate an enemy. Or a friend. Now tell me. What did you think of the man you saw?”
Anakin thought back to the amiable bounty hunter with the paralyzed legs. “Not much,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t get much of a feeling from him one way or another. I got no sense of the dark side. Or the living Force, either, for that matter.”
“Exactly,” Obi-Wan said. “I have been thinking the same. There are beings that Jedi call voids. At first sight they seem to give off no real energy, rather like a hologram. But only beings with great power can project a simple blank to a Jedi. Sometimes a void can be much more dangerous than a being who pulses with the dark side of the Force. They are clever and focused enough to hide their dark side, and hide it so well they can even hide it from Jedi for a time.”
“I didn’t think Jedi could be tricked that way,” Anakin said.
“Jedi can be tricked, my young Padawan,” Obi-Wan said. “They can be wrong. They can make mistakes. Do not forget that. We try to minimize those things by following our feelings and connecting to the Force. Yet we are not infallible. Now, we must return to pick up Wren. Night is coming.”
Obi-Wan beckoned to Floria and Dane, and the two started up the landing ramp. “Do you remember any details of Hunti Pereg?” Obi-Wan asked them. “What he looked like, or what he was wearing?”
“He was wearing white,” Floria said. “I remember that. And he was tall.”
“He wasn’t very tall,” Dane said. “But his face was very strange.”
“Strange in what way?” Obi-Wan asked.
Dane frowned. “I can’t remember.”
“He had dark hair,” Floria said.
“No, he had no hair at all,” Dane said impatiently.
Brother and sister moved to sit down, still arguing. Anakin fired the engines, and the cruiser rose from the spot. He used the repulsorlift engines for planetary travel and cruised down the mountain.
He knew his Master was troubled. He could sense it. He was tired of comparing his Master–Padawan relationship with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s. He would always come up short. But was it fair for him to be angry at Obi-Wan because of that?
Ahead lay the snowy plain where they had first seen Granta Omega. No one was there.
“How could he have gone?” Dane asked, peering out the viewscreen. “The paralyzing dart couldn’t have worn off so quickly.”
Obi-Wan and Anakin did not answer. It was better that Dane and Floria still think that the man had been Hunti Pereg. Anakin slowed his speed and cruised over the plain. Within moments, he found what he was looking for. Below they could see evidence that a small cruiser had landed. Melted snow and scorch marks showed where the craft had taken off.
“Please land here for a moment, Padawan,” Obi-Wan said. “I would like to examine the area.”
Anakin set the craft down on the snow. He activated the landing ramp and Obi-Wan hurried down it.
Anakin stayed in the pilot’s seat, watching Obi-Wan explore the landing site. Once again, he had been left behind.
Chapter Sixteen
Obi-Wan was disturbed. He felt queasy, almost dizzy. He searched through the snow, but he didn’t know what he was looking for.
You don’t know his power. It comes from the pyramid itself.
Obi-Wan had felt cold ever since hearing those words. The pyramid was a shape revered by the Sith.
The queasy feeling grew stronger. He remembered it well. He had felt it in the presence of the Sith Holocron. On that mission he had been disturbed by the Holocron’s power. He had worried about Anakin’s reaction to it. He did not want his Padawan to know what he suspected.
As if guided by his own unease, Obi-Wan reached down through the snow and put his hand on a small object. He pulled it out of the snow. It was a small black case.
He examined it, swallowing against the nausea that rose in his throat. There was no opening he could see, no seams. It simply appeared to be a cube.
He unsheathed his lightsaber and carefully cut a small seam in the cube. The case broke open. A small pyramid was nestled in black shimmersilk. It blazed to life, and he saw it was a holoprojector.
Unspeakable scenes flashed out at him, so quickly he could not absorb them. Murder. Suffering. Destruction.
Obi-Wan shut the case. He wiped the sweat on his brow. No, his Padawan must not see this.
“Master?”
Anakin had lef
t the ship. He stood uncertainly a few meters away. “Did you find something?”
“It’s nothing.” Obi-Wan tucked the case inside his cloak. “We can take it back to the Temple for examination. Come, Padawan.”
But Anakin did not move. “I need to know what you found. Don’t you think I can feel it, too?”
He saw the sweat on Anakin’s forehead, saw the slight tremor in his knees.
He could dismiss him. He could say, You do not need to know.
Would Qui-Gon have told him? Perhaps not. His Master revealed things in their own time.
Anakin met his gaze boldly. He would not back down. Obi-Wan saw that clearly. He would not allow the moment to pass. He would grab on to it, extend it, bend it to his will. He would do anything to obtain what he wanted.
He is so different from me, Obi-Wan thought again, bemused.
If he is so different from you, why do you treat him as though he is a younger version of you? Why do you act as you think Qui-Gon would have acted with you as his Padawan?
The question startled him. What was especially surprising was that he did not hear Qui-Gon’s voice asking it. He heard his own.
Maybe it was time he stopped trying to be the Master Qui-Gon was. It was time to claim the role for himself.
“It is a Sith artifact,” he told Anakin.
His Padawan swallowed. “I thought so.”
“The bounty hunter mentioned a pyramid before he died. He said that Granta Omega drew his power from it. If the Sith are involved, or a Sith cult, that would explain much. The ruthlessness and cunning of the attack. The use of bounty hunters. The specific targeting of Jedi.”
“Do you think Granta Omega is a Sith?”
“No,” Obi-Wan said. “If he were, we would have known it. I think he is an ordinary being with a gift for concealment on a very deep level. He could have dealings with a Sith, or with a Sith cult. But he himself is not a Dark Lord. I think he wanted us to find this case. He wants us to know exactly how dangerous he is, and how far he is willing to go.”