by Джуд Уотсон
She streaked across the space as Obi-Wan was moving to deflect the blaster fire of the droids. She would come between Dooku and Anakin, a dangerous place to be.
Single-minded, intent, Anakin increased his speed. Obi-Wan saw him move from light to shadow, shadow to light. He felt the Force in the room like a pulse, like a heartbeat, like a rolling wave.
"Anakin, Floria!" he shouted.
Anakin shuddered with the effort of stopping his relentless charge. He altered his path to scoop up Floria, tucked her under his arm, and kept his lightsaber moving, deflecting the blaster fire of the droids.
He deposited Floria next to Samish Kash, so lightly and gently in the midst of his soaring leap that not even a hair of Floria's coiled braids was disturbed.
Obi-Wan saw the relief on the face of Samish Kash. Anakin had been right about Floria's love. Now Obi-Wan saw the same love on Samish's face. He would not allow these two to die.
He caught the surging Force from Anakin and embraced it, doubling it, making it grow. The droids re-converged on the rulers. Obviously they were programmed to target them. Anakin leaped again, and Obi-Wan met him in midair. They swept the room in a glance. There were only seconds to decide on a strategy.
Dooku was leaving. They saw his cloak flicker as he moved toward the wall, toward the one door that still stood open.
Lorian saw Dooku moving and ran toward him.
Yura and Glimmer had no weapons. They sat, back-to-back behind a massive chair for protection that was being rapidly decimated by the droid blasts. The expression on their faces told Obi-Wan that they were waiting for death and would meet it bravely.
Floria handed one blaster to Samish and had the other in her hand.
While Samish and Dane tried to protect her, she shot a droid repeatedly with unerring accuracy. It flamed out and fell heavily on the table.
Robior Web took aim at Samish.
Obi-Wan landed, then jumped again, somersaulting in midair and landing against Web's chest with both feet. The assassin flew back and hit a chunk of stone protruding from the wall. He lay still.
Obi-Wan had time to register the chunk of stone with only a flash of his consciousness, but something about it was important. He was busy deflecting blaster fire as it pinged past him toward Yura and Glimmer.
Anakin had managed to herd the group together in one corner of the room so that they would be easier to protect. With a swipe of his lightsaber, he hewed off a chunk of the stone table, then pushed the others behind it for protection.
They could only last so long, Obi-Wan thought desperately. They could not win against these droids.
The chunk of stone — why did it keep rising in his mind? The keystone.
One pull of the keystone and the whole wall comes tumbling down.
Obi-Wan raced back to Anakin. They spoke while they protected the others, deflecting fire. Samish, Dane, and Floria popped out to fire at the droids, then dived for cover again.
"Glimmer has been hit in the leg," Anakin said. "Lorian went after Dooku. We have to help him. We have to get out of here."
"The keystone in the fireplace," Obi-Wan said. "If we herd the others to the opposite end of the room quickly, then pull the keystone, it would knock out most of the droids."
Anakin's eyes traveled over the fireplace wall even as his lightsaber whirled.
"Finding it, of course, is the problem," Obi-Wan said. He felt Anakin gather in the Force then, feeling it shimmer from the stones and the wood and the living beings, feeling it grow… Anakin focused on the wall.
Obi-Wan saw one stone midway up the wall ease out a fraction. He heard a rumble.
"Move!" he shouted, leaping toward the others. He picked up Glimmer, pushed Yura, yelled in Samish's ear, "Go to the doorway!"
They moved, ran, scrambled, as the wall began to move and the rumbling and scraping filled the air. Then the rocks shot forward, tumbling in a lethal avalanche, spewing dust and debris far taller than any person. The rocks and part of the ceiling tumbled on the droids, sending them careening into walls, the floor, and one another.
Obi-Wan and Anakin pushed the others down and tried to cover them with their bodies as the wall collapsed. The dust and smoke bit into their lungs and stung their eyes. They could taste the mountain in their mouths.
But they were all alive.
Three droids were still standing. Obi-Wan and Anakin ran, covered in dust, and brought them down.
Then they faced the pile of rubble. Behind it was the doorway where Count Dooku had disappeared and where Lorian had followed. It would take some time to get out of the collapsed chamber.
"May the Force be with him," Obi-Wan said.
Chapter 26
Lorian had not felt the Force in many years. When he reached out and felt it move, it startled him, as if he'd burned his hand.
But within seconds, it all rushed back, and he knew he could depend on it.
Dooku was ahead of him in the narrow passageway, running toward an airspeeder. Dooku must have known very well that Lorian was behind him, but he didn't bother to turn and engage him. Lorian was sure that Dooku was taking no more notice of him than he would a fly.
He had no time to think of strategy. He knew Dooku was vastly more powerful. Why was he doing this? he thought as he ran. Why? It was a death wish, a fool's errand, and he had never courted death or been a fool.
All the wrongs of his life, all the mistakes, all the unforgivable deeds, all the pain he had caused, all the lives he had broken, they were all here in this dark corridor. They would choke him, they would lay him flat, but the Force had touched him just when he needed it, bringing a memory of a childhood when he knew what was right and wanted to do it.
He had a blaster, but he knew its puny power would mean nothing to Dooku. Within seconds it would be wrenched from his grasp and fly across the corridor.
So why use it? Why use any weapon when Dooku could swat it away like a fly?
Lorian had not stopped running while he thought. What did he have that Dooku did not have? What did he know about Dooku that no one else knew? What did he know about him as a boy that would not have changed?
Did he have a flaw?
Pride. He was vain. He liked to be admired.
That wasn't much to go on.
Then Lorian noticed the airspeeder at the end of the corridor, ahead of Dooku. He was familiar with the model. It was a Mobquet twin turbojet with a boosted max airspeed. Mobquet Industries were known for their swoop bikes, not their speeders. Dooku's transport was a good choice for quick getaways, with its boosted airspeed and high maneuverability. But possibly, just possibly, Dooku did not know this: The Mobquet speeder had a flaw. The data cables that connected the frontal controls to the cabin were mounted behind a thin panel on the underside of the body. It would take Lorian about six seconds to find that panel and fuse those cables with a barrage from his blaster.
All he needed was six seconds.
He called ahead, his voice echoing. "You've done well for yourself, Dooku. But did you ever realize that you couldn't have done it without me?"
Dooku stopped and turned, as Lorian had known he would.
"Excuse me, old friend?"
"The Sith Holocron. You accessed it, didn't you? Sometime later. You could never stand it if I knew something you didn't."
"Why shouldn't I have accessed it?" Dooku asked.
Lorian kept moving forward. "Of course you had the right. Yet you never would have had the courage if I hadn't done it first."
Dooku laughed. "You are unbelievable. Don't you realize how tempted I am to kill you? And now you're provoking me. You certainly live dangerously, Lorian."
Lorian had circled around Dooku and stood near the speeder. Dooku was not afraid of him; he would allow him to come as close as he wanted.
Lorian leaned against the speeder, crossing his leg as though he had all the time in the world to chat. "I realize now that I was wrong when I asked you to cover for me about the Holocron."
"An apology at this late date? I'm overwhelmed."
"I should have taken the responsibility myself. I wouldn't have been kicked out of the Jedi Order. I see that now. But now I wonder… why did I think I would?" Underneath the cover of his cloak, Lorian's fingers searched for the panel.
"I find revisiting the past so tedious," Dooku said. "If you'll excuse me — "
He put one foot on the speeder, ready to leap inside.
"Could it be that you encouraged my fears? Looking back, I find that strange. I would not have done that to you. I would not have fed your fears, but tried to allay them." His fingers slid across a seam. He had found the panel.
Dooku's eyes flared. Lorian brought out the blaster and put the barrel against the panel.
The dark side surged in a shocking display of power, and Lorian found himself flung like a child's doll in the air. He slammed against the wall and then hit the floor, dazed. Somehow, he held on to his blaster.
Dooku saw it, of course. "That was your clumsy attempt at a diversion, I suppose," he said, drawing his lightsaber with the curved hilt. "I think I've shown enough mercy. Let us end now what should have ended then."
He had one last chance. One only. He could blast the panel and prevent Dooku from taking off. Obi-Wan and Anakin would have to do the rest.
If he failed, he would die. If he succeeded, he would also die. He had no doubt about that.
Lorian reached out to the Force to help him. He needed it here, at the last. He felt it grow, and he saw Dooku's eyebrows rise.
"So you haven't lost it completely," he said. "Too bad it isn't enough."
He moved toward Lorian. Lorian remembered his footwork. The attack would come to his left. At the last moment, he rolled to the right, and Dooku's lightsaber hit rock and sliced through it. Expecting an easy blow, Dooku turned a second too late, and Lorian had already begun to run. He knew Dooku expected him to turn and try to get behind him. He would not expect him to run to the speeder.
He had the blaster aimed and ready, but he knew he would get only one shot, and it had to be a good one. It had to be dead solid perfect Behind him was a whisper. That was all he heard. He looked down and saw the lightsaber and he thought, how odd, Dooku is behind me, why is the lightsaber in front of me? Then he realized he had been pierced through.
He fired the blaster, but the shot went wild. He went down.
I have failed, he thought. I have failed.
Dooku stood over him. He saw the dark eyes like hollow caves. He did not want this to be his last sight. He had lived so long with hate, he could not die with it in his vision. So with a great effort, he turned his head. He saw the rocks of the corridor, the stones both smooth and jagged, and noticed for the first time that they weren't gray, but were veined with silver and black and red and a blue the color of stars…
The thought pierced him with the same sure pain as the lightsaber had: What else have I missed?
Too late to find out now.
He drew the Force around him like a blanket, and with an explosion of color lighting his vision, he smiled and let go of his life.
Chapter 27
Anakin sat on the cold ground, watching the streaks of orange cut through the gray, The sun was rising. "It is time to go," Obi-Wan said.
Anakin rose. He was tired after having moved the hundreds of large stones that had barred their exit.
"I've brought Lorian's body aboard," Obi-Wan said. He stood next to Anakin, facing the rising sun. "We will take him back to the Temple."
They had found him in the corridor with a blaster nearby, his eyes open and, oddly, a faint smile on his face. There was evidence of a struggle in the disturbance in the dirt. Blaster fire had marked the rocks. They could see the acceleration blast marks from a speeder.
Dooku had escaped.
"Lorian went up against impossible odds," Obi-Wan said. "He was never more a Jedi than at the last." "So redemption is possible," Anakin said.
"Of course it is," Obi-Wan said. "As long as there is breath, there is hope. If not, what are we fighting for?"
"I wish I didn't feel that I had failed," Anakin said. "Dooku escaped.
The Station 88 Spaceport is saved for the Republic, but for how long?
What is to stop Dooku from trying to kill them again?"
"We are," Obi-Wan said.
"There is such darkness ahead," Anakin said. He stopped outside the cruiser and looked up at the stars. They were fading in the growing light. "I can feel it. It weighs on me."
You worry too much. Qui-Gon had told Obi-Wan this, more than once. Was that his legacy to Anakin? He had tried to give him so much more.
"You didn't fail here, Anakin," Obi-Wan said. "Our mission was to ensure that the spaceport didn't fall to the Separatists, and to gather information. We succeeded. Dooku's villa contains valuable data."
"A small victory," Anakin said with a curl of his lip. "Can we win a war that way?"
He had not reached him. Anakin had wanted to end the Clone Wars here.
He had wanted to destroy Count Dooku. His ambition would always be greater than every mission. Obi-Wan saw that clearly, and it pierced him. He had taught Anakin everything, and Anakin had learned much — but had he missed the most important things?
I have failed, Qui-Gon. I have failed.
They walked up the landing ramp. Anakin slid behind the controls.
Obi-Wan sat at the computer to enter the coordinates for their journey back. On the surface, everything was as it had always been.
Soon they would be ending their journey together.
They both knew it. He had never had to bid good-bye to Qui-Gon as a Master. He was still Qui-Gon's Padawan when he died. Maybe that was the reason he felt so close to him still.
He did not know if Qui-Gon would have left him with words of wisdom, with a direction to follow. Now he had no way of knowing what else he could give Anakin. He had given him everything he could. It wasn't enough.
Sadness filled Obi-Wan as they blasted into the upper atmosphere. He loved Anakin Skywalker, but he did not truly know him. The most important things he had to teach he had not taught. He would have to let him go, knowing that. He would have to let him go.
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