by Karen Miller
What a sight.
On the far edge of hearing, a voice implored him to die. He closed his eyes again. “Senator.”
“Come on,” said Bail, sliding an arm beneath his shoulders. “Up. Now. We don’t have much time.”
Time? Time for what? Please, leave me alone.
Bail hauled him to his feet then swung him around. The damaged knee protested. And then gave way, both his knees gave way, as he stared at the Sith temple and felt its malevolence crash upon him.
“I know,” said Bail, supporting him as he shivered. “I’m sorry. But we have to go in there. You have to find what we need. I can’t tell.”
The black wind was howling inside his skull, trying to batter him into submission. Dark side domination. The brutality of might. “There are artifacts?” he said, his tongue thick and clumsy.
“Lots of them. But I don’t know what any of them do.”
“Of course you don’t.” He dragged himself free of Bail’s supporting arm. Struggled to hold on to the unraveling threads of his sanity. Made himself look at the temple, at the Sith’s beating heart. “You shouldn’t have gone in there, Bail. Nothing Sith is safe.”
“I had to,” said Bail. “I had to see—”
“Yes. All right. But now you have to stay here.”
“No,” said Bail, grabbing his arm again. “Wait. You can’t go in there alone. We can—”
Again, he freed himself. “I said stay here,” he snarled, and turned his back on the man who’d helped him get this far, alive. Dimly he was aware of Bail behind him, struck silent. But he couldn’t afford to worry about the man’s feelings. Couldn’t afford to think of anything but surviving for long enough to defeat the Sith.
Walking—limping—toward the temple’s tall open doors sent his mind reeling. It was like trying to walk into an inferno, or swim through a tidal wave. He put his head down and pushed back, pushed through, feeling the drag against his bones and in his blood. Feeling the Sith’s hatred corroding him like acid.
DIE JEDI, DIE JEDI, DIE JEDI, DIE.
The urge to surrender was almost overwhelming. Surrender. Succumb. Fall down and find peace. Let the darkness close over him. Let the pain finally end. But that would make him Xanatos. Qui-Gon Jinn deserved better. Bail Organa deserved better, because surrender would kill him, too, and make his wife a widow. And Anakin deserved better, much better, than a Master who would willingly give himself to the Sith.
It occurred to him then, with a clarity that was startling, given the dark side hurricane howling through him, that Yoda was wrong about the dangers of attachment. Or at least that he wasn’t altogether right.
It was true that attachment could weaken a Jedi’s resolve. But it could also strengthen it… as he was strengthened now by his love for Qui-Gon, and Anakin. Without them he would have failed long before this moment.
And so, leaning on them, he continued to fight.
Awkward, nearly crippled, nearly weeping because the light side had been so long denied him, because the shouting was so loud, because his body wanted to obey it, he pushed over the temple threshold and into a place that was anathema to him… that hated him as though it were sentient… that with every step and gasping breath tried to end him in the Force.
The moment he set foot beneath the temple roof the building’s bones began to tremble, revolted by his presence. Rejecting him like poison. Deep beneath him a tremor ran through the Zigoolan ground. And the voice in his head began to scream… and scream… and scream…
Mind reeling anew, he staggered across the disturbing Sith floor toward the alcoves that were set into the temple’s walls. The screaming in his head grew louder—wilder—
DIE JEDI, DIE JEDI, DIE JEDI, DIE.
Every step he took was torture. The inferno was inside him now, burning him alive. Almost sightless, hazily aware that the temple was shuddering—that he was shuddering—he fell against the wall and began blindly groping from alcove to alcove for the artifact responsible for his torment. For the hateful thing that wanted him to die. When his fingers closed around it at last he thought his bones had burst into flame.
Through a smearing crimson haze he stared at what he held: an ancient black glass pyramid, Sith sigils tracing its surface blood-red. Holocron. It felt alive in his fingers, vibrant with hate and rage and fear and loathing. Vibrant with raw power. Alive with the dark side as he had never felt it before, or ever thought to. Such a small thing to contain so great and malevolent a power.
His bones were crumbling now, they were turning to ash. He was dying… he was dying… the Sith had won.
With his last breath, he smashed the holocron. And the fires went out.
Lying on his back, on a mosaic floor that shivered and writhed beneath him, he listened to the silence in his mind and couldn’t grasp what it meant. Looked up at the distant ceiling and watched it rock from side to side, uncomprehending. Watched the walls rock. Listened to the Sith temple’s stony lament.
From somewhere outside, someone shouted his name. Shouted again.
“Get out of there, Obi-Wan, you mad fool, the building’s going to come down!”
That was… Bail. Bail Organa. A good man, for a politician.
And suddenly he remembered why he’d come into this dreadful place. He was looking for a way home. Had to find the way home. Had to save Bail Organa, whose life was in his hands. Groaning, retching, he struggled to his fists and knees and then to his feet. So much pain in him now he almost couldn’t see straight.
All around him the temple was shaking. He staggered from alcove to alcove, scrabbling through each collection of artifacts. Books, no. Scrolls, no. The geodes made him retch some more, but there was no sense they could help him. Hurry. Hurry. Every wall was swaying. Now the alcoves were vomiting their treasures, artifacts smashing on the ugly mosaic floor. He found one cache of crystals, danced his fingers lightly across them, but all they did was make him dizzy. No way home there.
Another alcove, a single crystal, red and ruined. As soon as he touched it he shouted in revulsion—because he recognized it. Remembered it. Could feel its echo in his mind. This. This thing. This monstrosity had begun the nightmare. Had reached from this temple into the starship, into him, and warped him. Tried to make him a murderer by compelling him to crash the ship. The stench of death was on it, even though it was destroyed.
Bail’s voice, anger and admiration combined. “Whatever hold the Sith had on you? You broke it. Just before we hit the ground. It nearly killed you, but you broke it. You pulled us out of our nose dive and you—did something with the Force.”
Fresh strength flooded through him. He snatched up the ruined red crystal and hurled it to the floor. The impact shattered it into splinters, and he almost wept with joy. But the ground buckled violently, as if in furious protest, and he lost his footing. Crashing down on his injured knee had him screaming aloud. Another wild tremor and more crystals fell, cracking like rotten eggs all around him. He groped at the nearest alcove for support so he could stand, keep on looking, and only run… try to run… at the last possible moment. His fingers closed on something cold and rough and awful…
…and a window opened deep in his battered mind. He could see across the galaxy as though across a crowded room. For a split second it was wonderful… and then darkness smashed him flat.
Die Jedi, die Jedi, die Jedi, die.
He dropped the black-and-red crystal, spitting bile, and tried to stand so he could continue his search. But the floor was heaving and the ceiling was breaking apart, like river ice at the great spring thaw it was cracking and crazing and if he stayed in here much longer the Sith would get the death he thought he’d denied them.
For the second time, as though it were meant, his fingers found that impossible device. The darkness shouted again, but this time he didn’t let go. Instead he thrust the thing inside his tunic, tried to stand, and had to duck as a chunk of ceiling missed his head by a whisper.
Bail Organa appeared in the dr
unkenly swaying doorway. “Obi-Wan! Get out of here, now!” And then like a fool, like an idiot, just like a politician, convinced the laws of nature did not apply to him, he ran into the dying Sith temple.
“Are you insane?” Obi-Wan demanded as Bail reached him. “You get out!”
“You’re welcome,” Bail panted, dragging him to his feet. “So, it’s run or die, Master Kenobi. Your choice—but choose now.”
Oh, how typical, always striving for the last word.
Slipping and sliding, they bolted for safety… with the Sith temple throwing great jagged slabs of rock at them with every staggering step. They fell through the wildly swinging doors as the first of four walls bowed and buckled. Rolled over the heaving ground, flailed themselves upright and kept running.
With a thundering groan, with a rumbling roar like the death of some dark, ancient beast of legend, the Sith temple fell in on itself, ceiling, walls, and buttresses shattering to pieces. The impact knocked them to the dying grass like a glancing blow from a thug’s fist. Obi-Wan heard Bail curse. Heard himself curse, as every bruise and cut and scrape and tear shrieked in outrage. As he felt a rib crack against the crystal shoved inside his tunic.
Silence. Blessed silence. One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three heart—
Die Jedi, die Jedi, die Jedi, die.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“No!”
Knocked flat and breathless, Bail heard the outraged, desperate cry and somehow scrambled to his feet.
It was Obi-Wan. Bloodied, half stunned, on his knees and screaming with fury at the red-and-black crystal clenched in his right hand. Clenched so tightly that blood seeped between his fingers.
He felt like screaming himself, felt like throwing himself to the ground again and hammering his fists against the hard uncaring dirt. No, vape it, no. Isn’t this over yet? Why can’t this be over?
But he didn’t. It wouldn’t help. Unsteady on his feet, he edged cautiously to the left until he could see the Jedi’s face. It was bone white, smeared with dirt, smudged with bruises, the cut over his eyebrow clogged with grit and glued with blood. His eyes were wild and red-rimmed, sunk as deep as death. It was the face of a man dragged beyond his endurance.
“Obi-Wan?” he said warily. “Obi-Wan, what’s wrong?”
Obi-Wan’s head snapped around. “Get away! Get back! You mustn’t touch it.”
Halting, he raised both hands like a supplicant. Like a prisoner who wasn’t capable of harm. “All right. I won’t. What is that thing? Can it get us home?”
Obi-Wan didn’t answer, just glared at the red-and-black crystal. “It’s still whispering. In my head, it’s all I hear. Die Jedi.”
“Then we’ll get rid of it, Obi-Wan, whatever it is. We’ll smash it. We’ll—”
“Are you mad, Organa?” the Jedi shouted. Oh mercy, he’d become a crazy scarecrow of a man. “This device is going to save us! It’s the only thing that can save us! But it won’t stop whispering, it won’t leave me alone!”
“Okay, Obi-Wan,” said Bail, placating. “Then why don’t you give it to me? It can’t hurt me, I can’t hear it. Let me keep it safe, like your lightsaber, and we’ll figure out a way to shut the kriffing thing up.” He took one cautious step. “How’s that for a plan?”
“I said get back!” said Obi-Wan, and punched his right fist forward. Bail felt the blow in his chest, felt the Force wave take him. Felt himself flying, helpless, to crash spine-first into the rubbled temple some thirty paces away. The impact was far worse than when he’d been flung out of the ship’s cockpit. Then, Obi-Wan had tried to control his compulsion toward violence.
But not this time. This time, the Jedi embraced it.
The impact woke every sleeping pain in Bail’s body. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak or even groan. His nervous system had shut down—the lightsaber was useless to him. All he could do was lie there and wait.
He said this might happen. He said he could turn. But I didn’t believe him. I’m a fool. This time I really am going to die.
But Obi-Wan ignored him. Still on his knees, the red-and-black crystal was pressed to his forehead and his lips were moving. One word, over and over, soundless and desperate… but it seemed that nothing was happening.
“I can’t hear!” he shouted. “Stop whispering at me!”
Taking advantage of Obi-Wan’s distraction, Bail struggled to move, but still his nerve-shocked body refused to obey. And then just when he thought he might truly suffocate, his diaphragm spasmed and he could breathe. Wheezing, gasping, he flexed his arms, flexed his legs, terrified for one blind moment that he’d suffered some dreadful damage. He heard the slither and clink and chink of stone as the rubble began to slide and settle around him. That had him on his feet, heedless of all discomfort, imagining an imminent crushing beneath the crimson-black slabs.
And Obi-Wan sent him flying again.
He landed on open ground, hard on his side. Something tore—his left shoulder, already badly weakened—and white-hot pain flooded every insulted nerve and sinew. He sank his teeth into his split lip, strangling a shout. Dimly he heard Obi-Wan shout, too.
“Be quiet—be quiet!”
What the vape was he trying to do?
Who knows? He’s finally lost his mind. He can smash his skull to pieces now, for all I care.
Except he didn’t mean that. That was his torn shoulder talking. That was days and nights of strain and hunger and thirst and fear. Obi-Wan wasn’t the enemy, he’d been viciously attacked by the enemy, and if he was—if he was—
How can a Jedi like Obi-Wan go insane? After all his years of training, after everything he’s seen and done? He’s a good man. He’s a great man. How is this possible?
The dark side. The Sith.
I never knew I could hate someone like this. Hate so I can taste it. Hate so I could kill.
A long, thin shadow fell across his face. He looked up. Saw Obi-Wan standing over him like a nightmare spat out of the Nine Corellian Hells. He fumbled for the lightsaber, his fingers thick and clumsy. Couldn’t unclip it. Couldn’t find how to turn it on. Didn’t dare turn it on anyway while it was attached to his borrowed belt.
It was over. It was over. Obi-Wan was a Jedi. He could kill with his bare hands. Bail braced himself—thought of Breha—and for the last time waited for the killing blow to fall.
Obi-Wan raised his hand, still clutching the red-and-black crystal. “No. No. Bail. Help me.”
He felt his breath catch. Thought this was some kind of last-living-moments delirium. “What?”
“Help me,” said Obi-Wan. He sounded desperate. And then, as though he were hamstrung, dropped to the ground. Choked as his knees hit the dirt and dry grass. “Crystal is telepathic. It can reach Yoda, at the Jedi Temple.”
One word. Yoda. He’d been calling for help? With a rock?
I will never understand these people. Their world is too arcane for me.
“I don’t—I’m sorry, I—”
Obi-Wan pressed his fingertips against his face, trying to contain some pain beneath the skin. “But I can’t—break through. The Sith whispering won’t stop.”
They’d destroyed the temple and everything in it, except for this one crystal, and still it wasn’t enough? Still the Sith could kill them?
It’s not fair. It’s not fair.
“Obi-Wan,” he said, sitting up slowly, shrinking from the fire in his damaged shoulder, “I don’t know what you think I can do. I’m not telepathic. I can’t broadcast my thoughts through that thing. And if you don’t stop trying, it’s going to burn out your mind.” He held out his hand. “Give it to me. I can rig up a slab of that temple rock and smash it to pieces. You’ll never have to hear a Sith voice again.”
“No!” said Obi-Wan, and snatched the crystal to his chest as though it were precious. As though it were his child. “I can make it work. If you help.”
Still moving slowly, feeling like he was negotiating with a ticking bomb, Bail eased hims
elf to a crouch. “Me? What can I do? You’re the Jedi, Obi-Wan. I’m just the politician along for the ride.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes were feverish. “My lightsaber, Bail. Pain clears my mind. Drowns out the dark side. The ravine. Remember?”
For a moment Bail couldn’t make sense of what Obi-Wan meant. And then comprehension flooded him, and he was on his feet in a heartbeat, heedless of every scrape and bruise and tear. “No, Obi-Wan! Absolutely not! You really are out of your mind!”
Still on his knees, Obi-Wan’s head lowered till his chin touched his chest. He breathed, just breathed, and it was painful to hear. Then he looked up. “You… have a wife, Bail. I am a Jedi. We cannot die here.”
He was going to be sick. His empty belly was churning. First the killings in the space station, and now this? Obi-Wan was crazy even to suggest it.
This is not happening. This is not my life. Senators from Alderaan… Princes of Alderaan… do not find themselves in this position.
Except today they did.
He swung about, so angry, so frightened. “There has to be another way.”
“Would I suggest this… if there were?” said Obi-Wan. His voice was filled with a grim endurance.
Breha. Slowly he turned back again, desolate. “I don’t know. Can’t you think of—Obi-Wan, there has to be a different choice.”
As though he’d run through the dregs of his strength, Obi-Wan folded in on himself until he was sitting on the ground. “There’s not.”
Fingers clenching and unclenching, longing for something or someone to punch, Bail stared at him. “And say I agree to this—this insanity. How am I supposed to—how do I injure you with a lightsaber?”
Obi-Wan’s lips curved in the faintest, faintest smile. “Very… carefully, Senator.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. This truly was madness. Utterly surreal. “Obi-Wan—are you sure? Really sure?”
Obi-Wan nodded.
Oh mercy. He unclipped the lightsaber from his belt. Obi-Wan’s belt. Stared at its black-and-silver elegance as though he’d never seen it before. And in a strange way, he hadn’t. At least not like this.