The Clone Wars: Wild Space

by Karen Miller

  Nothing.

  With a grunting effort he opened his eyes… and was dazzled by weak sunlight, pale yellow washed with red. An overcast from the nebula, that baleful scarlet curtain. Blinking slowly, he let his gaze track from side to side and waited for his battered mind to make sense of what he saw and felt.

  He was still in the ship. Lying neatly on his back in the corridor running between the cockpit and the passenger compartment. The deck was buckled beneath him, digging into his midspine and lifting his knees. The hull overhead was torn wide from nose to tail. This was a starship that would never fly again.

  So I’m imprisoned here. We’re imprisoned, if Organa still lives. A slow death, instead of a swift one. The Sith win after all.

  No. That was defeatist. A Jedi did not think such things.

  He closed his eyes and took closer stock of his condition. Everything hurt, yes, but it wasn’t the same kind of pain he’d felt after flying into the Coruscant terrorist attack. Then he’d been broken, and the pain had been diamond and scarlet and bright. This pain was a sluggish sullen crimson. An echo of his previous hurts only, which were healed but not forgotten.

  With difficulty he lifted his head and stared into the cockpit itself. The helm had been crushed, as though a giant had hammered it with one angry fist. The transparisteel viewport was a mass of jagged splinters. Charred wiring, some of it intermittently sparking, dangled from the ceiling and lay on the deck in colorful intestinal tangles.

  As though sight had spurred his other senses into action, now he could hear and smell his surroundings. The flat tang of that burned wiring, the acrid sizzle of spilled hydraulic fluids. In the cool outside air drifting through the breached hull, metallic smoke and floating ash, coating his tongue with a patina of soot. It mixed with his saliva, a horrible taste. And crackling through the silence, what sounded like flames. Not huge flames, not devouring flames, just cheerful campfire flickers. What did that mean? Was the ship on fire? If it was on fire, was he about to burn to death?

  A hideous thought. Tayvor Mandirly. Get up. Get up. Don’t just lie here. But his bones seemed disjointed, his muscles lax, without tone. His disobedient body ignored the command. Deep in his veins, the black sludge weighed him down. And deeper still, faint but insistent, he heard a gleeful, spiteful Sith whisper.

  Die Jedi, die Jedi, die Jedi, die.

  A fresh surge of adrenaline drowned the command. His mind cleared again, and he realized the flames were burning outside the ship. Its superheated hull must have ignited dry grass or deadwood around the crash site. There was no strong wind blowing, that would help to keep the fire contained. How much available fuel was there to feed the flames? There were trees… he thought he remembered trees in those last desperate moments before they struck the ground… but since he didn’t appear to be in the midst of a raging forest inferno…

  Perhaps I won’t be burned alive after all.

  But he could still starve. Or bleed to death from an untreated wound. Or freeze, if Zigoola’s night temperatures plunged. The ship could be perched on the edge of a cliff. One earth tremor or a strong wind could send it hurtling into a ravine and he’d be crushed to a paste.

  In other words, Kenobi, don’t just lie here. Get up. Get out. Take control, and find a way out of this mess.

  Still his recalcitrant body refused to listen.

  Die Jedi, die Jedi, die Jedi, die.

  Without warning, with a swiftness that stole his laboring breath, the ship vanished around him and he was back on Taanab. Thirteen years old again, skinny and scared, screaming in horror as the firebeetles feasted.

  Qui-Gon! Qui-Gon, help me!

  But Qui-Gon couldn’t hear him. Qui-Gon was dead.

  Suddenly he was twenty-five, still a Padawan, fighting the Sith. Trapped between force fields he saw the Zabrak assassin strike. Saw the shock and pain in his Master’s face as the Sith’s scarlet lightsaber thrust home. Felt the Sith’s vicious triumph, felt his own grief and rage.

  And on the floor of the cavern on brutal Geonosis, rendered helpless by two lightsaber cuts, he watched Dooku toy with bold, rash Anakin. Silver hair gleaming, teeth bared in a smile, the ageless Sith, the treacherous Jedi, prowled around Anakin with insolent ease. Deflected each blinding attack with casual, consummate skill. Forced the error—and took Anakin’s arm.

  He came back to himself shouting. “Anakin! Anakin!”

  “Sorry,” said a tired, familiar voice. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

  Organa.

  The Senator knelt beside him, a steadying hand on his shoulder. Confusion and horror surrendered to a deluge of relief. He let his head fall back. “You’re not dead.”

  “Not quite,” said Organa. “Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are.”

  His olive skin had a greenish cast to it. He had a black eye and a split lip. His left arm was supported by a makeshift sling: the sleeve of a sacrificed shirt. His usually immaculate clothing was dirt-smudged and wrinkled, his trousers torn at both knees.

  Obi-Wan’s heart eased its racing. “Senator.”

  “Master Kenobi.” Because of the split lip, Organa spoke slowly and with great care. “So… do you want to say it first, or will I?”

  He frowned. “Say what? I told you so? And how would that help?” His head was pounding. “Where have you been?”

  “Outside,” said Organa. “Exploring.”

  Exploring. “Wonderful.”

  The Senator raised an eyebrow. “It’s been nearly an hour since we crashed. You were unconscious. I got bored.”

  “So you played tourist. And what did you find?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “There’s a fire.”

  Organa shrugged, one-shouldered. “I started that. Thought we might need it come nightfall. Given what’s happened, I’m not prepared to accept the sensor readings at face value. If this place does have predators, fire should make them think twice about attacking us.”

  “Very enterprising.”

  “Thank you.” Organa sat back on his heels. “Our bad luck with communications equipment continues, by the way. The ship’s comsat array is completely destroyed, and the emergency transponder beacon’s smashed. No hope of getting a message out, even if anyone was listening for us.”

  Which was unlikely. The chances of his last message reaching the Temple were slim to none. “I see.”

  “Look, you’re banged around,” said Organa, “but I don’t think anything’s broken.” He grimaced. “At least not… physically.”

  Their predicament wasn’t the least bit amusing… it was light-years from amusing… but still he felt his lips twist in a smile. “Is that your diplomatic way of asking if I’ve gone insane?”

  “The thought did cross my mind.”

  Die Jedi, die Jedi, die Jedi, die.

  He closed his eyes. Felt his blood-caked eyelashes scratching his skin. “And mine.”

  “But… you’re all right now?”

  Firebeetles. Qui-Gon. Anakin’s severed arm. I have no idea, Senator. “Yes,” he said. “I’m fine.” He opened his eyes. “Are you?”

  Organa’s expression was a muddle of bewilderment and anger. “I’ll mend. What the hell happened?”

  “What do you think? We sprang a trap.”

  He tried to sit up. Flopped like a landed fish. Organa helped him, one-handed. Dizzy, heart pounding, he leaned against the damaged corridor wall. Organa propped himself up opposite, and they stared at each other in silence.

  The Senator spoke first. “Alinta wouldn’t betray me. She was used. Manipulated, somehow.”

  Loyalty was an admirable trait. “Perhaps. But it’s a sad fact, Senator, that most people have a price.”

  “You don’t.”

  The crackling of little flames, the sighing of a rising breeze. A metal screech as branches scraped their starship’s twisted hull.

  “No,” he said at last. “And neither do you.”

  Organa sat a little straighter, wincing as the moveme
nt jarred his hurt arm. “So who was the trap for, do you think? You, or me?”

  Die Jedi, die Jedi, die Jedi, die.

  He shrugged, trying to ignore the gibbering whisper. The pain behind his eyes drummed, relentless. “We each have enemies. But I suspect the Sith want both of us dead.”

  “Both of us? You I understand… but me?”

  “Come, Senator,” he said. “Don’t be so modest. Like the Jedi, you are becoming a familiar public person.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t explain why the Sith would want to kill me.”

  “Put at its simplest, they are a corruption of the Jedi,” he said. “Like us, they can… see things. Perhaps you’re destined to become an obstacle to their ambitions.”

  “So they used Alinta to get to me. And they used me to get to you.” Another silence, as Organa made his fretful peace with the truth. Then his face twisted. “Obi-Wan, I am sorry.”

  “I know. So am I.”

  “I wonder how they—” Organa shook his head. “Oh well. I don’t suppose it matters now. Alinta and her people are dead.”

  It mattered. And if they survived this, he’d make it his business to learn the truth. But first, of course, they had to survive…

  Another silence. Then Organa cleared his throat. “I need to know, Obi-Wan. Before. When you—”

  “When I lost control of myself and tried to kill us?”

  “Yeah,” said Organa, uncomfortable. “Then. You said it was the Sith, but—how is that possible? We were still a long way from Zigoola’s surface. And you’re saying they still were able to—to reach out and control you? Are they truly that powerful?”

  Obi-Wan let his gaze drop. Stared at his filthy, bloodstained leggings. “It would seem so, Bail.”

  “And you weren’t expecting that.”

  So hard to admit it… “No.”

  Organa picked at a rip in his trousers. “That’s… a worry. I find that worrying. How much, exactly, do you know about these Sith?”

  “Not enough, apparently.”

  “You think this is funny?”

  He looked up. “I’m not laughing.”

  But Organa wasn’t mollified. And beneath his anger was turbulent fear. “So was Alinta wrong? Are there Sith on this planet, Master Kenobi? Are they coming for us now? Should we—I don’t know—run?”

  So much for first-name pleasantries. “Run?” he echoed. “Run where, do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know! Away?”

  “Senator, I was not attacked by an individual Sith,” he said carefully. “I suspect the source of the onslaught was some kind of Sith technology. A modified holocron, perhaps.”

  “Whatever that is,” Organa said, impatient. “But if you’re not sure, you could be wrong. You said it yourself, you know hardly anything about them. There could be a whole tribe of Sith somewhere out there and here we are waiting for them to come and kill us.”

  Die Jedi, die Jedi, die Jedi, die.

  “Calm yourself, Senator,” he snapped, then took a deep breath. Eased it out with care. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Beware the dark side, Jedi… “There is no tribe. There are only two.”

  “Two?” said Organa, taken aback. “That’s all? Are you sure about that?”

  “Quite sure.” He was equally certain he shouldn’t have mentioned it, but under the circumstances…

  “All right,” said Organa warily. “If you say so. But they could still be here.”

  “They’re not.”

  Baffled, the Senator stared at him. “You say that like it’s a foregone conclusion, but how do you know?”

  Time to end this unfortunate conversation. “Because I am a Jedi. Accept it.”

  “Oh, enough with the lofty Jedi pronouncements!” said Organa, pushing untidily to his feet. “You flattened your moral high ground when you crashed my ship. What proof do you have that the Sith aren’t here? How can you state with any degree of certainty we won’t face them? Unless—”

  Obi-Wan saw the realization dawn. Watched Organa make that inconvenient, intuitive leap. Felt the man’s jolt of disbelief… of incredulous anger…

  “You know where they are,” Organa breathed. “Don’t you? Where are they, Master Kenobi?”

  He held Organa’s hot stare steadily. “Not here.”

  “What else do you know? What else did you lie about? Do you know who they are, too?”

  “Even if I did, and I told you, what purpose would that serve?”

  “You—you—Jedi!” said Organa, then pressed the back of his hand to his lips, heedless of his hurt, as though struggling to contain a torrent of foul abuse. “I want to know everything. And I want to know now. Tell me, Master Kenobi, or I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” he said, suddenly so tired. “Send me to bed without my supper? Must I remind you again, Senator? I am not—I have never been—answerable to you.”

  “Oh yes, that’s right,” Organa retorted, seething. “You’re answerable to Master Yoda and the Jedi Council. And who are they answerable to? Themselves. How convenient!”

  “Your insinuation is insulting,” he said coldly. “Master Yoda is the most honorable—”

  “I don’t care! I’m not interested! I want the Sith’s names, Kenobi. You might as well tell me because I’m not going to stop asking. I’m going to drive you mad with questions until you tell me—or kill me.”

  “I don’t need to kill you, Bail,” he said gently. “There’s every chance Zigoola will do that—sooner, rather than later.”

  Organa spat out an incoherent curse in some angry alien tongue, then stamped out of the corridor. Then came a groaning sound of metal as the ship’s damaged hatch was shoved aside.

  Obi-Wan let his head fall back against the uneven wall behind him. His headache was ferocious now, and the black sludge in his veins was bubbling. It clogged his heart. Darkened his vision. The only thing he could see was death.

  Die Jedi, die Je—

  No. He scrambled upright, then fell against the wall, panting. Fought against the words. Fought against corrosive despair, against capitulation, fought to feel the light side in this place of utter dark. Threw his nearly thirty-five years of Jedi training and discipline at the gibbering Sith voice that was bent upon his obliteration.

  The dark retreated. Not far, but far enough. Barely.

  Nauseous, dizzy again, he staggered along the corridor, found the half-crushed hatchway and pushed himself outside. Looked for Organa, worried the Senator had stormed off in his fury and even now was breaking his leg… or his neck…

  But no. Organa was standing a stone’s throw away, by the fire he’d made, feeding it some of the dead branches he’d collected. If he knew he was being watched, he gave no sign. Anger billowed off him like the heat from his flames.

  More than happy to leave him alone, now that he was assured the man hadn’t let temper lead him into disaster, Obi-Wan stared at their surroundings. They’d crashed onto a plateau. Stunted trees, their foliage drab-brown and scanty. Scattered red rocks. Yellowish brown soil. A ragged, jagged ravine. No sight or sound of water: the river that had formed it must be long dead. Or this was the dry season. If Zigoola had seasons. Beneath the acrid stink of smoke and crashed starship the air smelled cold. And old. No birdsong. No beast sounds. No paw prints in the dirt.

  And everywhere the dark side, a slurry in his blood.

  The pale blue sky, washed with hot red behind it, wheeled high overhead. The fire roared. Tayvor Mandirly screamed as his fingers splintered, one defenseless bone at a time. A tall man, a thin man, dying for principle. Dying with courage. Murdered by greed. His eyes were gouged from their sockets so he couldn’t see his own blood. His tongue was cut out so there were no cries for help. No pitiful pleas for mercy. When they set him on fire, he wasn’t yet dead.

  Obi-Wan, on his hands and knees, retched and retched. Nineteen years old he’d been when Mandirly died. Barely younger than Anakin. He’d wept like a youngling, and Qui-Gon did not
reprove him.

  Exhausted, he collapsed onto the cold dirt of Zigoola, the memory so raw, like the firebeetles, like Qui-Gon and Anakin. The worst of his past dredged into the daylight, as fresh and as frightful as when it first happened.

  “Kenobi.”

  He dragged open his eyes and rolled his head to the side.

  “What was that?” said Bail Organa, standing a few paces distant. His face was stricken. “What the hell is going on?”

  He tried to speak. Had to cough and spit again. Used the time to consider how best to reply. Did Organa need the details? No. He didn’t. “It’s still the Sith, I think,” he croaked. “The dark side. Using difficult memories against me. Bail, you must be careful. Beware negative emotions. This place will feed on them. It will glut itself and gorge on you until you die.”

  “Obi-Wan, I’m fine. You’re the one in trouble. Whatever this is, it’s affecting your mind!”

  His mind. His body. His bones were scouring thin. His blood was getting thicker, turgid with the dark. Aching, he sat up. “I’m fighting it.”

  Instead of answering, Organa went back into the crashed ship. Obi-Wan braced his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands. On a deep breath he reached within for the Force, reached for the light side…

  …and instead drowned in the dark.

  A warm hand touched his back. “Hey. Hey. It’s all right. We’ll figure this out.”

  Obi-Wan gathered the shreds and tatters of his self-control. Stared at the cloth and bottle of water Organa held out to him.

  “Your face is covered in dry blood,” said the Senator. “If you don’t clean up I’ll be the one having nightmares.”

  He touched his cheeks. His chin. Felt the truth of Organa’s words. Took the cloth and bottle and washed his face, his beard. Tried to wash the foul taste from his mouth, and couldn’t. The dark side was a poison, permeating his flesh.

  Die Jedi, die Jedi, die Jedi, die.

  Dropping cloth and bottle, he clapped his hands to his ears. As if that could make a difference. As though the voice were not inside him. Its spiteful whispering continued. He let his hands fall away.

  Organa stepped back. “Are you—you’re not… really going crazy, are you?”