by Jude Watson
that he never seemed to have time to address the problem of the tension
between them. Every day was packed with things to do, with travel, with
missions or Council meetings. The galaxy teemed with trouble. The Senate
was sometimes mired in procedures. The problems of an apprentice and his
Master got lost in the chaos that surrounded them.
Obi-Wan was all too aware that guilt and shame could percolate and
turn into anger, and he was alert for the signs of it. So far, Anakin just
seemed remote. This, he had to remind himself, was normal for a young man
of sixteen.
That is what you keep telling yourself. But is it true?
His mind had circled around to the beginning. Obi-Wan let out a puff
of exasperation, which he hoped Anakin did not hear. He concentrated on his
steps through the icy snow.
The kilometers passed in silence. The outpost was tucked into a
mountain range that rose from the glaciers. Obi-Wan thought he could make
out its outline in the distance with the electrobinoculars, but it was hard
to be sure. Land and sky merged in a sea of white. The clouds seemed to
lower as they walked, and a few flakes separated from the thick blanket
above them and drifted lazily down. Soon the flakes thickened and the wind
freshened, driving the snow against their faces.
Obi-Wan looked at the horizon. A silvery clump of snow seemed to be
falling fast against the white sky. But he wasn't seeing snowflakes. It was
a cruiser.
"Surveillance," he said crisply to Anakin. "Drop down."
It was the only thing to do. There was no cover. They dropped to the
ground, their faces in the snow. From above, their white survival gear
would blend with the landscape. They heard the whirr of the engines above
and stayed perfectly still. The ship was going slowly, tacking over the
area in a sweep. Obi-Wan slowed down his breathing and his life processes,
a Jedi technique. He knew Anakin would do the same. It would make it
difficult for a life-form sensor to pick up their traces. The cold would
help them, too.
Obi-Wan didn't think of the cold, or the imminent danger. He let his
mind slow as his body processes had. He made himself a blank, just another
piece of white against a white background.
The whirr of the engines softened and waned. They waited until they
could hear nothing, concentrating so hard that Obi-Wan heard the tiny plink
plink of the icy snowflakes hitting the ground beside him.
Anakin rolled over. Ice had caked in his hair. He blinked the snow off
his eyelashes. "I feel like a frozen jujasickle."
"You look like one, too. But it's better than being shot at."
"If you say so." Anakin stood and dusted the snow off his legs.
"They'll be back. We'd better hurry." Obi-Wan consulted the map on his
datapad. "We're close. We have to be careful now. We don't want to lead the
Vanqors to the outpost."
"Let's hope they don't find the - "
A loud explosion suddenly sounded. Obi-Wan and Anakin turned back the
way they had come. Obi-Wan put the electrobinoculars to his eyes. He saw a
thin plume of smoke.
"They blew up our ship," he said.
They didn't need to say out loud what they were thinking. If the ship
at the outpost wasn't operable, they could be stuck on the moon for some
time. If the outpost was destroyed, they would have no shelter.
They found the strength to move faster. There wasn't much daylight
left, and traveling in the darkness would be difficult. At least moving
faster kept them warmer. The snow continued to fall and then turned into a
blizzard. The falling temperature transformed the flakes into icy pellets
that stung their cheeks. Despite his discomfort, Obi-Wan was grateful for
the storm. It would hamper the search effort by the Vanqors.
"The shortest route will be over the glaciers," he yelled over the
noise of the storm to Anakin. "It's also the hardest."
"Let's do it," Anakin shouted back. They both knew that the sooner
they found shelter, the safer they would be.
The glaciers loomed ahead, tall blocks of ice hundreds of meters
thick, some rising up to create mountains of ice. They began to climb
upward, using their cable launchers to haul themselves directly up the
sheer face of the ice. Despite their thermal gloves, their fingers felt
frozen. It was hard to grab the cable and find purchase on the ice. Obi-Wan
saw the effort and strain on his Padawan's face, and he felt it in his own
body as he pushed forward, every meter a battle now.
After several hours of hard climbing, they were close to the
coordinates of the outpost. The climbing was more gradual now, and they
were able to move faster. The darkness grew around them.
Obi-Wan checked the coordinates. "The outpost should be right here."
He squinted ahead in the now-gloomy light. He saw nothing, just the
same blank whiteness that they'd been traveling in since they'd started.
Had his eyesight been affected? He checked the coordinates again.
"I know where it is," Anakin said suddenly, striding forward.
Obi-Wan followed him. He relied on coordinates. Anakin relied on his
perceptions. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it.
Ahead, what at first appeared to be a sheer ice cliff was really the
wall of the outpost. Obi-Wan could now see that ice had completely covered
the structure, which was made of a thick white material able to withstand
extreme cold without cracking.
There seemed to be no entry, and no way to alert anyone inside that
they were there. Anakin pounded on the wall. There was no response.
Now that they were standing still, the wind and cold cut into them,
insinuating cold fingers inside their clothes. Obi-Wan wondered if they
would have to set up camp and try again in the morning.
Just then the ice began to groan. A door slowly eased open, pushing
against the ice that caked it. It stopped halfway.
A slender human woman stood, her hands on a blaster pointed at them.
"We are Jedi, sent by Typha-Dor," Obi-Wan said. "You must be Shalini."
He had studied the text docs of the crew during the journey from the
Temple. Shalini was the crew leader. Her husband, Mezdec, was the
communications officer.
Slowly, the blaster lowered. Shalini's silvery eyes sent them a sharp
glance. "So our leaders have remembered we exist."
"They could not reach you. Your comm unit is down."
"I'm aware of that. It's been down for over a month. Glad they decided
to check on us." She stood aside. "Come in."
Obi-Wan ducked his head to get through the doorway. They stood at the
entrance to a small room. The lights were at half power. A weapons rack
stood to one side. On the other was a console with surveillance and data
equipment. Another console was near the doorway. Obi-Wan noted that it was
damaged, with scorch marks indicating close blaster fire. Positioned around
the room were four other crew members, all with blasters pointed at the
doorway.
"It's all right," Shalini said. "They've been sent by Typha-Dor." She
tucked her blaster into her belt.
; One man leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He looked weak
and pale. "About time."
A tall, muscular woman slipped her blaster into a shoulder holster.
"Past time."
The welcome wasn't quite the friendly one Obi-Wan had imagined. Then a
tall man in a thick pullover strode forward. "Don't mind us. It's been a
long haul. We're very glad to see you."
"This is Mezdec," Shalini said. "He's our first officer. I am Shalini,
the leader of the group. The others are Thik" - the weak-looking man nodded
at them - "Rajana, and Olanz." The muscular woman nodded curtly at them,
and the other man, bald and as tall as Mezdec, raised a hand in greeting.
"But where are the rest?" Obi-Wan asked. "There are supposed to be ten
of you."
"Not anymore," Shalini said. "We had a saboteur in our midst. Samdew
was the communications officer. We discovered that he was a spy for the
Vanqors. He destroyed our comm system right after we were able to intercept
the Vanqor invasion plans."
"He also disabled our transport," Mezdec said. "So we've been stuck
here. We're almost out of food, so we're especially glad to see you."
"In that case, let's begin with a meal." Obi-Wan reached for his
survival pack. "We brought extra rations in case."
He and Anakin doled out the protein packs. The group sat down and
split up the food. While they ate, Obi-Wan scanned the equipment. He took a
second look at the damaged comm control console. "What happened?"
"It was the middle of the night," Mezdec said. He swallowed and pushed
the rest of his food away. "I was awake, and I heard Samdew at the comm
unit. I thought he was doing a sweep - we monitored the channels
constantly, and I assumed he was checking to see if anything turned up. I
was awake anyway, so I got up to see if anything was happening."
"There was quite a bit of chatter on the system," Shalini said. "The
Vanqors knew we had been able to monitor their comm channels. In order to
confuse us, they'd flood us with information. That made Samdew a crucial
member of our team. He was our senior information analyst."
"I stood in the doorway. He didn't hear me," Mezdec said, his eyes
clouding at the memory. "And I saw that he wasn't monitoring transmissions.
He was transmitting to the Vanqor fleet. I realized he was a spy. I blasted
the console. I didn't know what else to do. It was the fastest way to stop
him. I didn't want to kill him. But he turned and moved toward me, and the
next shot hit him in the chest."
"It's all right, Mezdec," Shalini said quietly. She put her hand on
his arm.
"I heard the blaster fire," Rajana said, taking up the account, as
Mezdec had fallen silent. "I heard Samdew fall, and I ran in. While he was
on the ground, he tried to shoot Mezdec just as Thik came in after me. Thik
was hit in the knee and went down." Rajana looked at Mezdec. "I was the one
who fired the fatal blast. Not you."
"Samdew died," Shalini said. "What we didn't know was that before he
died, he activated the fire system in the sleeping quarters. The room goes
into lockdown, and all the oxygen is sucked out."
"He had disabled the warning siren, but not the procedure. Four of our
crew were in there," Mezdec said. "They suffocated. By the time we realized
what had happened, they were dead."
"He meant for all of you to be in there," Anakin said.
"Yes," Shalini said. "We imagine that he was sending his last
transmission. He didn't need to be undercover anymore, and the easiest
thing to do was get rid of us."
"If the Vanqors know your location, why haven't they attacked?" Obi-
Wan asked.
Shalini shook her head. "We don't think they do. We think Samdew was
in deep cover. He never sent a transmission before that night, and Mezdec
stopped him before the transmission went through. All transmissions were
coded and timed, so we would have known if he'd been in contact with the
Vanqors. We assume that his mission was to remain until we had cracked the
Vanqor code and learned something vital."
"Which we did," Rajana said.
"Yes, let's get back to that," Obi-Wan said. "What have you learned?"
"We have the details of the Vanqor invasion plans," Shalini said.
"Troop movements, coordinates, the invasion sites. We have it all on this."
Shalini held up a small disk. "It's crucial that we get the information to
Typha-Dor."
"We'll have to leave from here," Obi-Wan told her. "We have good
reason to believe that the Vanqors have destroyed our ship. I'm afraid it's
only a matter of time before they find this outpost."
"Samdew sabotaged the transport," Mezdec reminded them. "I can fix
anything, but I can't fix it." Anakin stood. "Let me try."
CHAPTER THREE
Anakin disappeared into the transport hangar. Obi-Wan had no doubt
that if anyone could fix the vehicle, it would be Anakin. He had a genius
for fixing the unfixable.
Shalini looked worried. "Mezdec has tried for weeks to fix the ship.
With all possible respect for your apprentice, he'll never be able to get
it up and running. Are you certain nothing can be salvaged from your
transport? Maybe we should chance a walk there. We don't know for sure that
Vanqor has set an ambush. There might be parts we could use. I'll go, if
you can give me the coordinates."
"Shalini, no," Mezdec protested. "It's too dangerous."
"No, it's not," Shalini said. "It's necessary."
"You'd never make it at night," Mezdec argued. "Survival gear can't
protect you from that kind of cold. Besides, you know the rule. We only go
in pairs." He touched her hand. "As you and I do," he said in a gentle
tone.
She smiled, but shook her head. "We should try every avenue. I am
responsible for this disk." She touched her belt, where she had tucked the
disk into a hidden slit. "I have another idea. We could return to the Jedi
ship, expecting an ambush. A few of us could pretend to surrender. Then the
others could attack the Vanqor ship. We could get off-planet in their
transport."
"That's a highly unlikely scenario," Obi-Wan said. "And a last resort.
Let's give Anakin a chance before we make that decision."
Everyone ignored Obi-Wan. "Maybe we should split the team," Olanz
said. "A few of us could go with Shalini at first light. We could take the
missile tube and some flechette launchers."
"Our strength is in our numbers," Rajana argued. "We should remain
together."
"Thik can't travel," Mezdec pointed out.
"I can travel," Thik said. "Just not very fast."
"And what of the ones who remain behind?" Rajana asked. "We're almost
out of heating fuel. Whoever stayed would be facing death."
"We have faced death all along," Thik said.
"That doesn't mean we should invite it in," Mezdec said.
Thik smiled slightly. "Isn't this just like our home-world. We spend
so long arguing about what's the best way to do something that we never get
anything done."
"That doesn't mean we should be invaded," Rajana said sharply.
Shalini turned to O
bi-Wan. "We've been cooped up together for too
long," she said. She gave a tense smile. "When we haven't been trying to
find a way to get off this moon, we've been arguing about the best way to
do it. Thik has a point."
"Typha-Dor is lucky," Thik said. "We are rich in resources. We have
abundant sunshine and water. Our world is large and varied. We have a large
workforce. Yet we have never learned how to truly manage our resources and
turn them into the wealth we need."
"Yes, yes," Rajana said impatiently. "And Vanqor is a small, dusty
planet. Yet they have learned how to get the most out of what they have.
Their industries are booming. They are wealthier than us, despite their
small size. That does not mean they deserve to conquer our star system!"
"I am not defending Vanqor's aggression," Thik said. "You know that,
Rajana. Why am I here, if not to sacrifice my life if I must for my
homeworld? I am just saying that even Vanqor could have lessons to teach
us."
"The Vanqors are greedy and ruthless," Mezdec said darkly. "If they
have something to teach us, I have no desire to learn it."
"It is that attitude that sets us up for conflict in the first place,"
Thik said. "If we had been more willing to negotiate years ago, we would