Jedi Quest 7: The Moment of Truth (звёздные войны)

by Jude Watson

Obi-Wan waited until the starships were out of sight. He couldn't risk a long transmission to the Temple. But he would have to risk a distress call. The calls would be coded and scrambled, and he would have to hope it could reach the Temple.

  They could lock on his position and send help. It would take almost two days to arrive, but he had to risk it.

  The tracking device tucked in Anakin's tunic beeped a steady signal.

  Obi-Wan trudged back to the ship. He climbed through the hole and went to the rear cargo hold. He had to cut through the crunched door with his lightsaber. He remembered that they had loaded one swoop aboard. They had to leave the rest behind because Anakin needed to lighten the ship's load as much as possible.

  The swoop was dented from slamming back and forth between the cargo hold's walls, but it still worked. Anakin had made sure of that before they left the outpost. Now he had transportation. Obi-Wan only hoped that Anakin was close enough to get to on a swoop. It was small, built for short distances, and it didn't hold much fuel.

  He climbed aboard and took off. The tracking device led him over the high plateaus and desert lands surrounding the Tomo Craters. He looked down as he sped over the terrain, glad he wasn't on foot. The plateaus were high and steep, and trails led to dead ends and switchbacks. It would have taken days to traverse the distance. Obi-Wan stayed as close to the ground as he dared, trying to evade scanners and surveillance from above. The tracking device led him on as the sun slid lower in the sky.

  The fuel read EMPTY and the engine began to sputter. By Obi-Wan's reckoning he was still at least twenty kilometers from Anakin. He had no choice. He had to land.

  He pulled the swoop into a cave, entering the coordinates on his datapad. He might need it later, if he could find some fuel. He started to walk.

  It was hard going. Obi-Wan hiked up and down steep slopes of thin rock shale that occasionally broke into dangerous rockslides. At last he stopped to rest when the source of the tracking device's transmission was in sight.

  Obi-Wan studied the camp through his electrobinoculars. The good news was that the perimeter security wasn't heavy, most likely because the camp relied on its inaccessibility.

  He had reached the heart of the Tomo Craters. A careful survey of the ground made Obi-Wan conclude that camp security was correct not to worry about escaping prisoners. If Obi-Wan could manage to scramble up and down cliffs and hike through canyons without disturbing a nest of gundarks or getting attacked by various other horrifying creatures, he might make it to the outskirts of the camp. Then he would have to scale a sheer rock wall two hundred meters high. He would be vulnerable with every centimeter he traveled. It would be better to go in by air.

  Of course, he didn't have a transport. That could be a problem.

  He sat on a high peak, underneath an outcropping of rocks. He watched the camp operations for the rest of the waning evening. Transports flew in and out in a regular pattern, ferrying supplies and possibly carrying troops back and forth. Obi-Wan guessed that the camp must also be a base of some sort.

  He could wait for a few days to see if his message had reached the Temple. But what if it hadn't?

  Rescue was his first priority. He had to get that disk to Typha-Dor.

  And if Anakin didn't have the disk, what would you do? If Shalini had given it to you, would you take it to Typha-Dor and abandon him?

  The answer should have been easy. As a Jedi, his commitment was to the galaxy. He would have had to go to Typha-Dor without Anakin. Would he have attempted a rescue anyway, knowing that Anakin would be waiting for him? He was glad he didn't have to make that choice.

  The flight pattern of the ships was always the same. They dipped low as they came in, then landed close to the edge of the plateau, where a short landing pad was surrounded by energy fencing.

  Obi-Wan surveyed the area carefully. He thought back on the beginning of the mission, when he'd been brooding about how careful he had become, how much he now weighed risks and thought things through.

  Well, he had thought things through, and he had decided that this plan was crazy. He could get pummeled by rocks. He could crash into a crater hundreds of meters below. He could be spotted and blasted into thin air.

  All of these scenarios were likely. It was a risky plan. It bordered on stupid.

  Which meant that perhaps he wasn't so careful after all.

  Chapter Eight

  Once, Anakin and Obi-Wan had taken a few weeks to travel through the grasslands of the planet Belazura, strictly for pleasure. Obi-Wan considered the planet to be among the most beautiful in the galaxy, and he wanted to show it to Anakin. Anakin remembered Obi-Wan telling him that even the life of the Jedi must include time to reflect among beautiful surroundings. Anakin's only instructions during the trip were to enjoy himself. He had.

  He had seen fields of grasses that ranged from light sunny yellows to deep greens. He had seen golden fields dotted with deep red flowers. Blue skies had surrounded them like a halo of light. He remembered that he was never hot, and never cold. That the breeze against his skin had felt as soft as his mother's touch.

  It had been a peaceful time he had returned to again and again in his daydreams. And now he was experiencing it once more.

  To Anakin's surprise, he underwent no treatments. He was not drugged again. He was not treated like a prisoner. His room was spare, with just a sleep couch and table, but he had access to a sunny area inside and the courtyard outside. Anakin found that he wanted nothing more than to sit there, his face tilted to the warming lights, watching the shadow patterns of the leaves on the wall. He found that it was easy to contemplate the different greens of the leaves for hours. Yet it was not the mindlessness of the meditation he had been taught. He did not leave his body. He did not leave his cares. He could see them as though they were off at a distance.

  They had nothing to do with him. He knew that everything would work out as it should.

  He was not sure how much time had passed. Maybe no more than a day or two. Anakin occasionally thought about escaping. The thought would drift across his mind like a warm breeze, and then disappear.

  One afternoon two med technicians came into the garden and stood before him. "Someone would like to see you, Prisoner 42601."

  Anakin rose and followed them. He felt a slight curiosity. They walked on either side of him, not touching him or restraining him in any way.

  There was no need to.

  Anakin was led into an office. The technicians left, shutting the door quietly behind them. Unlike the rest of the complex, which was comfortable but spare, this office was full of color and luxury. A thick, patterned carpet was on the floor and septsilk curtains in deep blue hung at the windows. He thought he could smell a pleasant perfume. He sat down in a soft chair and leaned back against a rose-colored pillow.

  A human woman walked into the room. Her blond hair was threaded with silver and coiled at the nape of her neck. She was older, he sensed, but he could not tell by her face, which was unlined and smooth. Her eyes were penetrating but warm.

  Instead of sitting behind the desk, she perched on the edge of it.

  "Thank you for coming."

  Anakin nodded. He could hear a ghost in his head, a murmur of the person he had been. That person would have said, Did I have a choice? But now he did not feel like challenging this person, this woman with the pretty hair and the warm smile.

  "I asked to see you," she said. "I am the doctor who invented the Zone of Self-Containment. You have seen that we haven't lied to you. Your experience is about pleasure, not pain. I have a theory that if you are surrounded by pleasant things and no worries, your mind will elevate to that level. Are you happy here?"

  Anakin considered the question. Happy? Suddenly he felt confused. What did the word mean? Had he ever been happy? He remembered a flash of a young boy, running home through narrow streets. He remembered laughing with his friend Tru Veld, a fellow Padawan who he had not seen in a year. He could locate the memory, but not the feel
ing.

  For some reason, his confusion made her smile. "Wrong question. Let me rephrase. Are you content?" That he could answer. "Yes."

  "Good. That is our goal. Now. The reason I asked for you is that the technicians tell me that you were able to fight the paralyzing agent we used when you first arrived. I should explain that the agent is used only to allay any anxiety you might feel. Naturally as prisoners of war you would suspect that something terrible might happen to you. The agent was only used to make the experience more comfortable for you. You needed to be bathed and dressed, and the paralyzer allowed us to do that without you or the technicians getting hurt. It was for everyone's benefit, you see."

  That seemed reasonable, but Anakin said nothing. Although he was perfectly content to talk to this doctor, and was enjoying this wonderful peace he felt, being here had not completely erased the memory of being a Jedi. He did not necessarily trust what this doctor had to say.

  "It is impossible to resist that paralyzing gas, yet you assaulted a technician."

  "I grabbed his collar," Anakin corrected pleasantly. "And you spoke to him."

  "It seemed appropriate under the circumstances."

  She nodded in appreciation. "I see that though you are in the zone, you still have your wits about you."

  "I don't like to abandon them completely, no," Anakin offered.

  She studied him now. Anakin could feel sunlight touch his face. His skin warmed, and he wanted to close his eyes to enjoy the sensation, but he didn't.

  "I feel something in you," she said. "There is a mastery of your body, of your mind. I've seen it before. Have you ever heard of the Force?"

  Anakin did not show by a flick of muscle that the question had startled him. His Jedi training ran deeper than anything else. He felt it stir, and he leaned into it for support. "No."

  She nodded again, slightly. "That may be true, and it may not. If you don't know it already, you might be Force-sensitive. That means you could have special abilities."

  Wary now, Anakin shrugged. He didn't want to discuss the Force with this woman. He wanted to go back to the garden. The quickest way to do this, he knew, was to seem bored by her questions.

  "Did you ever see something happen before it actually happened?" she asked.

  He made himself look blank. "I don't think so."

  "Are your reaction times unusually fast? Do you have an unusually strong focus?"

  He took a long pause that stretched for a moment. She leaned forward in anticipation.

  "Uh, what was the question?"

  She made an impatient gesture. "Were your reaction times unusually fast? Before you came here."

  "I was always the first to reach the table for a meal."

  She leaned back, disappointed. Her eyes went blank. It was as though now that she was bored with him, he didn't exist.

  "You can go back to the garden now."

  Anakin stood and left the room. He walked back to the courtyard. The doctor was working for the Vanqors. She wasn't a native Vanqor. Vanqors were humans, but they all dressed in gray tunics and didn't adorn their clothing. She was an outlander, no question.

  There was a time he would have been on fire to discover who she was and why she was here. But today the sun shone, and it was warm in the courtyard. And it was almost time for the midday meal.

  Chapter Nine

  Even with the help of the cable launcher, it took Obi-Wan hours to scale the peak. The sun was setting as he reached the top and sat down to rest under a rock outcropping that had created a small cave. He would need all his strength for his task.

  Over the wide chasm below, he saw the camp. He was close enough to see without electrobinoculars beings moving about. He watched as a small transport came toward him. He knew he could not be seen, so he was able to study the flight line of the ship. It buzzed overhead, seeming close enough to touch, then zoomed down to land at the camp landing platform.

  Obi-Wan fingered his cable launcher. If he timed it exactly right, he should be able to hook onto the underside of a low-flying transport. They wouldn't be able to feel the drag for that short a distance. He would let himself be towed by the transport and then drop to the ground during the landing. If everything went right.

  If something went wrong, he'd be squashed like a bug against the side of a crater.

  He rolled himself up into his thermal cape and told himself to go to sleep. Worrying about Anakin would only interfere with the rest he needed.

  Yet the sky turned black and many stars had appeared before he felt sleep overtake him.

  He smelled the dawn in his sleep before he woke. The freshness of the air infiltrated his dreams, and when he opened his eyes he felt hopeful.

  He stretched in the chill, trying to warm his muscles. He munched on a protein cube as he made his preparations. He tested the cable several times. His life depended on its strength.

  Trust your materials, but test them twice.

  Yes, Qui-Gon.

  The first transport came in too high. The second, too fast. Obi-Wan crouched in the shadow of the rocks. Patience was necessary. He couldn't make a mistake.

  The next transport came in low and kept reducing speed. It was a midsize cruiser, big enough that it would not feel the jolt of the launcher or the drag of his body — he hoped. He didn't think he'd get a better opportunity.

  As the shadow of the cruiser touched the peak, Obi-Wan aimed and sent the cable flying. It latched onto the underbelly of the ship. He was yanked upward with such force he nearly lost consciousness. He had expected a bad jolt, but not this bad. With the wind whistling past his ears and his body whirling and flopping, he tried to get his hands around the cable. He had to steady himself if this was going to work.

  His arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets as he held onto the cable. He tucked his knees up and his chin down. He kept his finger on the cable control. He brought himself up closer to the body of the ship, knowing he couldn't get too close or he'd be burned by the exhausts as the ship began to land.

  A boulder loomed ahead. He activated the launcher to get closer to the ship. He zoomed up as the rock approached, passing under him by a few meters. He activated the launcher to drop him again, out of reach of the rocket exhaust. He couldn't be this close when the ship began to land or he'd be burned to a cinder.

  A large rock formation appeared out of nowhere. Obi-Wan quickly tucked his legs up, but the ship bumped on an air current and his shoulder slammed against the rock. Pain shot through him. He held on. The ship banked, nearly slamming him into a cliff wall.

  Maybe this wasn't such a smart idea.

  The muscles in his arms and legs began to shake, and his fingers clenched in the effort to hold on to the cable.

  Obi-Wan called on the Force to help him. He was part of the ship, part of the air, part of the cable itself. He would move when he needed to move, he would allow the grace of the ship to pull him to a safe landing….

  The pilot of the transport apparently liked to show off. He dipped the transport sideways and wagged its wings. Obi-Wan was whipped from side to side.

  Safe landing? I'll be lucky if I make it without being squashed.

  The landing platform was ahead. He would have to drop off quickly, very close to the perimeter wall. If not, he could be spotted.

  The ship slowed and dipped. Obi-Wan counted out the seconds. At the last possible moment, he disengaged the cable. Bracing himself, he fell through the air, landing hard. He felt the jolt up to his eyebrows. He rolled and ducked behind a parked ship.

  He caught his breath as the ship he had hitched a ride on came to a stop. Droids began to unload cargo. He saw a small utility shed nearby and quickly headed for it.

  The shed held tools and equipment. Obi-Wan searched and was glad to find what he was looking for, a bin full of greasy coveralls. He pulled a pair on. Then he quickly darted out of the shed. His surveillance through his electrobinoculars had given him a rough outline of the camp. He knew the prisoners filed out into th
e yard at this time. There was always some confusion as they poured out of the buildings. He couldn't have arrived at a better time.

  He walked briskly across the landing pad as if he belonged there. Then he struck out toward the fenced yard. He had tucked a servodriver in his pocket, and he pretended to be checking the energy fence as he moved down, searching the crowd for Anakin.

  He saw Shalini. She sat, removed from the others, close to the fence.

  Her head was bowed and her hands were clasped in front of her. He made his way down the length of the fence toward her.

  She lifted her head as he came near. At first she didn't see him. Her gaze passed over him, just another one of her captors, as she sought the sky. Then she jerked her gaze back to him. Obi-Wan admired her discipline.