Secrets Of The Jedi (звёздные войны)

by Джуд Уотсон

  "The interdiction field," Siri said as soon as she was sure. "It's sucking our power."

  The ship groaned and shuddered. Stars seemed to wheel and crash as they entered realspace. The ship bumped and slammed against what felt like a wall. But it didn't explode.

  The pirate ship was waiting.

  Laser cannon boomed. Obi-Wan sprang forward to the controls. "I can't maneuver. We have no firepower. "

  "They're going to board us," Siri said. "The escape pod?"

  "They'll blast us right out of space," Obi-Wan said. He stood. He drew his lightsaber. Siri drew hers.

  "Stand behind us, Taly," Obi-Wan said. "Just stay behind us. Don't try to fight."

  They felt the shock of the landing craft hitting the loading bay. They heard the pounding of boots. Many, many boots. They heard the clack clack clack of droids. Obi-Wan glanced at Siri. He saw the same knowledge in her eyes. They didn't have to see them. They were too many.

  They raced forward. Surprise was their only ally. They burst through the doors, into the thick of it — row after row of heavily armed pirates. They were a mangy group, all species, all sizes. What they had in common was weaponry and greed. Their faces were painted in bright colors, their belts hung with trophies from their many captures. He had never seen such a collection of fierce, ugly beings.

  The corridor filled with smoke as small rocket fire ripped holes in the walls and thudded into the floors. Metal peeled back like durasheets.

  Obi-Wan supposed that this was their warning shot, because the pirates didn't move.

  A squat, powerful being walked forward. His thick black hair hung to his waist.

  "What do we have here? Jedi? Ha! What luck! Do you know there's a bounty out for you?"

  But he wasn't looking at Siri and Obi-Wan. He was looking at Taly.

  Siri sprang forward. She was all energy, like a pulsating beam of light. The pirates fired, blasters and blaster rifles, rockets and darts. She flowed and struck and moved and rolled and leaped. Fire singed her tunic and did not slow her down. Obi-Wan felt sweat dampen his back as he struck again and again, knocking droids down, evading the pirate fire, and always, always, keeping himself between the attacking troops and Taly.

  He was not tiring, not yet, but he could feel the hopelessness of the situation. Still, he had promised Taly not to surrender, and he would not.

  And then, suddenly, over the thud of rockets and ping of blaster fire, he heard a scream.

  "No! Take me!" Taly ran through the fire. Amazingly, he was not hit. Coughing from the smoke, he yelled, "Take me, you cowards!"

  "Taly, no!" Siri yelled.

  "I can't let you die for me!" Taly called to them as a pirate swept him up and threw him back. The pirates roared as they tossed him like a toy, farther and farther back, to the end of the line. The last pirate holding Taly ran, while the others kept up a steady barrage at Siri and Obi-Wan.

  Retreating, the pirates kept up the intense fire. Siri and Obi-Wan could not get to Taly. The pirates leaped onto the ship and took off into space with Taly, leaving Obi-Wan and Siri aboard a smoking, dying ship.

  Chapter 16

  "We need a landing site, and fast," Siri said. Beads of sweat matted her hair. The expression in her eyes was ferocious as she gazed out at the galaxy, as if challenging it to dare to defy her. As if space itself was obliged to hold up the dying ship.

  The power was draining so fast that soon it would hit all systems. Then they would be unable to choose a course or guide it to land. They could see smoke billowing out from the port side. The attacking ship had chosen their blast sites carefully, it was clear. The escape pod bay was a mass of molten metal. Another blast on the port side had taken out all the weapons, and the ship listed to the side, constantly in danger of spinning out of control.

  "Refueling stop on a satellite," Obi-Wan called out. "There's a huge spaceport there, plenty of landing platforms. Ten minutes away. Can the ship hold on for ten minutes?"

  Siri gritted her teeth. "This ship is going to do what I tell it to do."

  Obi-Wan sat in the copilot seat, although there really wasn't anything else he could do but watch Siri battle with the controls. Keeping the ship on course took tiny adjustments and a constant eye on the readout systems.

  "Adi crash-landed on purpose," Siri said. "But this is going to be different, Obi-Wan. I might not be able to control what happens once we land."

  He knew what she was telling him. They might not survive the crash.

  "I understand," he said. "I trust you."

  She shot him a quick look that was so full of courage he could only marvel at how strong she was.

  "Coming up on the spaceport," Obi-Wan said.

  The spaceport was on the edge of a red nebulae. The color was deep and seemed to pulse. To Obi-Wan's eyes, it seemed an impossible sight, a blooming flower in space. They would have to fly into the heart of its beauty.

  "Here we go," Siri muttered.

  And then the spaceport loomed at them, coming impossibly fast.

  "I can't slow it down," Siri said, panic in her voice.

  At this speed, the craft would surely disintegrate on contact with the unforgiving ground. Obi-Wan no longer felt he was diving into a flower. All poetry left his soul, and he saw duracrete and metal, hard substances that would pulverize this ship like a plaything.

  "Cut the power!" he shouted to Siri.

  She looked at him wildly. "But I won't have control — "

  "They'll be enough left in the hydraulics for a few seconds. It will be all over by then, anyway."

  She reached over and cut the power. The ship stopped careening but it was now in free fall, and they could just make out beings below running to safety. Obi-Wan saw one tall figure shaking his fist at them before racing to get out of the way.

  "Here we go!" Siri screamed, using the manual controls to steer the ship away from the other cruisers and one large freighter. She had just enough power left in the hydraulics to aim the ship toward the empty section of the platform and pull it up so that it wouldn't smash nose-first into the ground.

  He had time for a flash of a look, that was all, and then the ship was down, starting to skid with a terrible jolt that sent metal screaming and smoke billowing. Obi-Wan felt his jaws snap together. His body lifted through the air. He grabbed at the edge of a console on the way down but his legs flew up again and his body slammed down, wrenching the console from his grasp. He hit the ceiling, then the floor. He had never felt so helpless. He didn't know his limbs could move in so many directions at once. Pain rocketed through him. He could feel the ship sliding on its belly, scraping against the duracrete platform. He smelled fire.

  Siri. Siri. Her name was like a drumbeat inside him. Through the smoke, through his own flailing limbs, he searched for her.

  Jedi could make time slow down. Did that mean his death and hers would take forever?

  He saw the glint of her hair through the smoke. She was slumped on the floor.

  No!

  He fought his way to her as the ship burned and slid. "Siri!"

  He felt the pulse on her neck. It fluttered against his fingers.

  He felt a surge of purpose. She was alive. He was alive. He would save them.

  Somehow he managed to get out his lightsaber. With one arm around her, he dragged her across the floor of the cockpit. The ship was still skidding out of control across the ground, the friction heating the shell. The metal floor was already hot. Soon it would start to melt, to peel away. He willed his body. He reached out for the Force. This would take everything he had.

  He half-crawled, half-slid across the floor. Siri began to stir. As soon as her eyes opened, she let him know by pushing him away. She never accepted help if she could do something herself. And she would will her body to obey.

  He saw her wince as she reached for her lightsaber, but she joined him on the floor, crawling toward the wall of the spaceship. The ship was still out of control, but the crash had probably only been going on
for three or four seconds.

  He had time to do this. The ship would hold out. Obi-Wan activated his lightsaber and began to cut through the ship's wall. Siri joined him, sweat streaking through the grime on her face. It was so unbearably hot.

  Coughing, they buried their lightsabers in the hot metal and it peeled back. Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of rushing sky and then he pushed Siri out, balancing on the toes of his boots. She reached a hand down for him and hauled him out with her amazing strength.

  They balanced for a moment on the side of the sliding ship. They looked into each other's eyes. They gauged the speed and knew the jump would be hard. They called on the Force and leaped.

  The Force helped them. They timed the leap high and wide so that they would be able to slow their descent. Still, the shock of the ground radiated up through their knees, and they rolled across the duracrete, putting as much distance between themselves and the ship as they could.

  Ahead of them, the ship exploded.

  They turned away from the blast, covering their heads. Molten metal rained down. Obi-Wan felt a piece sear his shoulder.

  They slumped together, hardly daring to believe that they were still alive.

  A tall being with arms almost to the ground came running. Obi-Wan recognized the being he'd seen shaking his fist at them. "What do you think you're doing?" the being yelled.

  Siri and Obi-Wan stared at him.

  "Surviving?" Siri said.

  She giggled. Obi-Wan had never heard her giggle before. The relief flooded him. They were alive. They were alive. He began to laugh. They laughed and laughed, holding each other as they lay on the duracrete platform.

  "Somebody's going to pay for this," the spaceport manager said, and they only laughed harder.

  Obi-Wan waited for Siri in the hangar. They had separated in order to clean up. He had given the furious spaceport manager the registry number of the crashed ship, as well as Magus's name. Obi-Wan had no doubt that the spaceport manager would track him down somehow and demand payment for the damage.

  Siri strode toward him, her hair wet and tucked behind her ears. "What now?" she asked as she came up.

  "I found a pilot who will take us to Rondai-Two," Obi-Wan said. "She said that anybody who survived that crash deserves some help. It's a sublight cruiser. We leave in a few minutes. We could be landing by midday."

  Siri nodded. "Nice to have some good news at last."

  "We've got to get to Taly."

  Siri's gaze clouded. "If he's still alive. Those pirates are going to turn him over to the bounty hunters for the reward."

  "I feel that he's alive. We almost didn't make it ourselves."

  "I know."

  "But now that we have…"

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. All around them, workers pushed through the hangar. But to Siri and Obi-Wan, it was as if no one else was there. They just looked at each other, remembering what they'd confessed on the ship. They tested it. Was it a result of circumstance, of being so close to death?

  No. It was real. It was still between them.

  "What do we do?" Siri asked. "What we feel… it's forbidden."

  "But we can't just stop," Obi-Wan said. "We almost died. That could happen at any time, on any mission. I understand that. I accept it. But I won't accept going on without being together."

  Siri swallowed. "What are you saying, Obi-Wan? We're Jedi. We can't be together. Attachment is not our way."

  "Why?" Obi-Wan burst out. "It doesn't have to be that way. Rules can change. The Council can change the rules, they can find a way for us. We can still be Jedi and still…"

  ". love each other," Siri finished softly. "Let's name it. Let's not avoid saying what we know."

  She reached out and touched his sleeve. "You know and I know that they won't change the rules for us. The Jedi Order doesn't work that way. The rules are there for reasons that go back thousands of years."

  "All the more reason to change them," Obi-Wan said. "We could wait a few years, until we are Masters. Then we could be a team. We could go on missions together!"

  Siri's eyes sparkled. "We would be such a great team." Then her gaze dimmed. "They won't allow it. And I won't let you leave the Jedi. I know what it cost you last time."

  "I don't want to leave the Jedi. And I know you couldn't."

  "It's everything to me," Siri said. "It's part of me. It's home." Her voice was soft. "But so are you."

  "We'll just have to keep this secret." Even as he said it, Obi-Wan felt his heart fall. Keep a secret from Qui-Gon? Could he do that?

  He's kept secrets from me.

  But he was the Master. He had that right. Obi-Wan dismissed the thought. He knew it was born in the resentment he felt against anything that stood between him and what he wanted. It wasn't fair to blame Qui-Gon.

  He could dismiss his resentment easily. What he could not dismiss was the awful feeling of concealing his heart from Qui-Gon.

  "It would be hard."

  Siri's gaze was cloudy. "It's the only way. Or else we decide we turn away from this."

  Turn away? Obi-Wan couldn't bear it when her fingers dropped from his sleeve. In a matter of hours he had come to realize that Siri was as necessary to him as breathing. She was part of him. She was his heart and his lungs and part of what kept him standing.

  He swallowed. "I can't turn away from this. I can't let you go."

  Siri's eyes filled with tears, and that was the worst thing of all.

  "We'll keep the secret, then? We'll see each other when we can, how we can."

  Obi-Wan felt so dizzy. So full of relief at just being alive. So grateful that Siri was standing beside him. So full of joy that she loved him. But when he looked ahead, he saw deceit. Could he walk that path?

  "We need to find Taly first," Siri said. "End the mission. Then we can decide what to do."

  "Taly is the most important thing," Obi-Wan agreed. Everything seemed against them, but strangely, he felt hopeful. They would find a way.

  Chapter 17

  The pilot left Adi and Qui-Gon off at the main spaceport on Rondai-2, telling them that the Jedi were "one amazing nova of a group." He'd be happy to help them out anytime.

  It was close to dawn. The sky was still dark, but was beginning to gray. Qui-Gon and Adi lost no time in hurrying to the meeting site. Their two-day journey had given them plenty of time to plan. The Ulta Center was an exclusive conference site that had been built specifically to host high-level corporate and diplomatic meetings.

  The center took up a large compound in the city of Dal. On the journey Qui-Gon and Adi had done their research. The center boasted top-level security for the most private of meetings and retreats. They had their own landing platform on the roof where guests could arrive in secret. No one was allowed inside unless he or she was a guest. It was necessary to reserve rooms months in advance, and guests from different groups did not ever see each other, as there were separate wings for each meeting. Every guest had to undergo a high-level security check. There was no way that Qui-Gon and Adi could simply stroll in.

  "Any ideas?" Adi asked. "We have to get in so we can figure out the plan of attack. We don't want to advertise the fact that we're Jedi. Better if the bounty hunters don't know we tailed them here."

  Qui-Gon glanced around. "That cafe is just opening. It's a fine morning to sit outside."

  Adi looked exasperated. "Surely we have better things to do." She scanned the area for a moment. "Oh, I see. We can conduct surveillance from there. Is that your purpose?"

  "It is," Qui-Gon said. "And I'm thirsty."

  Adi raised an eyebrow instead of smiling, but he was used to that.

  They ordered a pot of Tarine tea and sat at a table outside. The chill in the air began to lessen as the sun began to rise. The Rondais began to emerge from their homes and go off to work. They walked past, some with purpose, some enjoying the morning. Several stopped in at the cafe. It seemed to be a popular morning spot. Qui-Gon was glad of the company. It would conc
eal them more effectively. Rondai-2 was a cosmopolitan world with many visitors. No one gave them a second glance.

  Everything here was mild — the weather, which never dipped to freezing; the landscape, which had no high mountains, only rolling hills; and the tempo of the cities, which was busy, but not frenzied. Everything at the conference center had been designed to conceal its high security and make it blend in with its pleasant surroundings.

  A security wall curved around the conference center. The entrance was staffed with two security guards. The wall was softened by fountains that flowed invisibly from the top and splashed down in a continuous, musical stream to a long pool that served as a moat around the curving structure. Colored lights that were concealed underwater presented a constantly changing array of soft blues and violets. In front of the pool, flowering shrubs massed in the same colors, shading to deep purple and navy.