The Clone Wars: Wild Space Page 20

  “No, we can’t,” he agreed mildly. “It’s only a matter of time before we attract the attention of the Codru-Ji. Which is not advisable.”

  Another glare. “Then what do you suggest?”

  Obi-Wan reached into the Force with his newly honed senses. “An hour,” he murmured, drifting in the light. “Let’s give your contact one more hour.”

  But in the end they waited less than half that. And when Organa’s comlink buzzed this time, and he answered it, there came no coded shortburst—but instead the sound of a living human voice. Mature. Female. Confident.

  “Senator Organa. Do you copy?”

  Organa snatched up the comlink from the console. “Yes! Yes, I copy. I hear you. Who is this? Who am I speaking to?”

  “A friend.”

  “Yes, I know that. But—”

  “Names can wait, Senator. I’ll introduce myself properly when we meet.”

  Organa was gripping the comlink so tightly he was in danger of breaking it. “I’ve been looking forward to that. Where are you, somewhere close?”

  “Close enough,” said the woman. “I’ll shortburst you the nav comp coordinates in a moment.”

  “We thought something had gone wrong,” said Organa. “You took so long to—”

  “A precaution,” said the woman. “We wanted to be certain you were truly alone before allowing you to see us face-to-face.”

  Organa frowned. “Of course I’m alone. Well, aside from—from the Jedi who’s accompanied me. Surely you know by now that I honor our arrangement to the letter.”

  Through the slight background slush came soft, not entirely amused laughter. “These are dangerous times, Senator. It doesn’t pay to take anything or anyone for granted. Not even you. Not even the Jedi.”

  “I appreciate that,” Organa said, after a moment. “And I hope you know I don’t take you for granted. What you’ve done—what you’re doing now—”

  “Thanks can wait too, Senator,” said the woman. “Let’s focus on defeating the Sith. Stand by for our coordinates and transponder beacon frequency. It’ll guide you right to the front door.”

  “Understood,” said Organa. “We’ll see you soon.”

  “These friends of yours are indeed cautious,” said Obi-Wan as they waited for the coded shortburst to come through.

  “I told you,” said Organa. “So it’s a good thing you—” He broke off as the comlink buzzed, then received their next location. When the data was downloaded, he stood. “As I was saying. It’s a good thing you and Master Yoda didn’t try anything tricky—like have another Jedi trail us.”

  Obi-Wan kept his face blank. “Senator?”

  “Don’t tell me you and Master Yoda didn’t discuss it,” said Organa, deceptively reasonable. There was a cold glitter in his eyes. “Back on Coruscant. In my apartment.”

  He sighed. A timely reminder, this, not to underestimate our friend from Alderaan. “What Master Yoda and I discussed then is hardly relevant now, Senator. You and I are here, and about to meet your contact. I suggest you decode that shortburst so we don’t keep these Friends of the Republic waiting. After all, that would be impolite.”

  Organa gave him a look but didn’t pursue the matter, just withdrew to the passenger compartment. On returning to the cockpit he programmed the nav comp, then the transponder beacon.

  “Well?” Obi-Wan asked, as the Senator stared at the readout. “Where to this time?”

  “I don’t know,” Organa said slowly. “The nav comp’s accepted the coordinates, but the destination’s coming up as unknown.”

  For the first time since his vision of Anakin’s battle against Grievous at Bothawui, he felt a prickle of definite, specific unease. “Interesting. What’s the distance between here and there?”

  “Nine parsecs. Which definitely takes us beyond the Outer Rim.”

  “Beyond the Outer Rim and into Wild Space.” Obi-Wan stroked his beard. “A leap of faith indeed, Senator.”

  “Yes,” said Organa, very quietly, the merest shadow of uncertainty ghosting across his face. As though at long last the implications of his actions were beginning to sink in.

  Now do you understand, Senator? Now do you grasp what I’ve been trying to tell you? We are standing on the edge of the unknown, and if we fall… there is no one to catch us.

  “So let’s leap,” said Organa. He engaged the ship’s thrusters. Pushed them away from Munto Codru’s twelfth moon—and jumped them into hyperspace.

  Leaving Organa to distract himself with more legislative brouhaha, Obi-Wan withdrew to the passenger compartment and sank himself into a light trance. That prickle of unease had unsettled him. There was something not right. He could feel it. A potential of trouble approaching. A possibility of strife.

  But what was its source? Was the woman on the comlink in danger? Or did she pose a threat to himself and the Senator? Was this meeting a trap? Was he about to fly into another unanticipated explosion? Would this leap of faith prove fatal? He couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see ahead clearly. It only made him more unsettled.

  He pushed himself deeper, seeking answers… but none came. All he found was a headache, punishment for trying to bully information from the Force. Abandoning his fruitless search at last, he broke free of his trance and went forward to the cockpit, where Organa was muttering under his breath as he made copious notes on a datapad.

  “How far out from our destination are we, Senator?”

  Organa took one look at him and stopped muttering. Tossing the datapad aside, he straightened out of his slouch. “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Something—a feeling—I can’t pin it down.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t pin it down?” said Organa, not quite hiding his alarm. “You’re a Jedi.”

  He dropped into the comsat seat. “Which has never equated to being infallible—breathlessly gushing HoloNet news reports notwithstanding.”

  “But there’s trouble?” Organa persisted. “You’re sure of that much?”

  “I’m sure I have a bad feeling,” he replied. “Which I’d be foolish to ignore. How far out are we?”

  “Oh.” Organa checked the nav comp. “Not far. We’re practically there. What do you want to do?”

  Turn back time so this mission never happened. Or, failing that, tie you hand and foot and stuff you in a cupboard.

  “Proceed,” he said. “I don’t see that we have any choice.”

  “No,” said Organa, a new tension in his voice. “We don’t.” He slid out of the pilot’s seat, collected his various datapads, and carried them back to the passenger compartment. When at length he returned to the cockpit he had a small, lethal-looking personal blaster belted at his hip.

  Obi-Wan bit back a colorful curse. Wonderful. Bail Organa in a shooting match. And if anything happens to him… “Senator—”

  Organa flicked him a forbidding look. “I don’t want to hear it, Master Kenobi.”

  Of course you don’t. Nevertheless, he was duty-bound to say it. “I am expressly mandated to keep you safe, Senator. Therefore I cannot permit you to—”

  “Okay,” said Organa, ignoring him. “Dropping out of hyperspace in three—two—one—”

  As the elongated stars contracted, returning to their usual configurations, Obi-Wan felt a wave of foreboding surge through him, thick and cloying, coating him with dread. Negligently dangling beyond the cockpit viewport was a short squat spindle of tarnished metal, burnished with low lighting. A space station, many decades old, chosen from the economy catalog. Corellian in design, he was almost sure. It had that particular raffishness about it. A reckless disregard for convention and neatness. There was no planetary body in sight; the space station hung lonely against a backdrop of unrelieved black.

  “Well,” said Organa on a long, slow exhalation. “That would explain why the nav comp didn’t recognize the coordinates.” He flicked a glance sideways. “Still got your bad feeling?”

  He nodded. “Oh yes.” />
  “So—maybe it’s not such a good idea to activate their homing beacon.”

  “Maybe not,” he agreed. “I suggest we glide in, Senator. No bells and whistles. No signature at all. A nice, inconspicuous, silent approach.”

  “Uh-huh.” Organa pulled a face. “All right. It’ll be like trying to glide a brick, but I’ll do my best. And have you got a nice big blanket we can hide under while we’re at it? They’re going to have external security cams, you can bet on it.”

  Obi-Wan closed his eyes, feeling his Force awareness hum and thrum with alarm. “If they do, I have a nasty suspicion they’re no longer functioning,” he murmured. “Senator, I strongly suspect we’re flying into mayhem.”

  “Not flying,” said Organa, rolling his eyes. “Gliding. Like a brick. Hold on. Here we go.”

  He powered down all superfluous ship functions, fingers dancing over the helm console, then cut the dull, serviceable Starfarer’s sublight drive. The engine’s subliminal rumbling fell silent, leaving an odd kind of emptiness in its wake. The cockpit lights dimmed almost to darkness. Feeling the ship’s immediate intertial drag, its sluggish wallowing through the void toward the battered space station, Obi-Wan shifted sideways a little and braced himself against the nearest bit of wall.

  Like a brick indeed. May the Force be with us.

  In the fuzzily greenish glow from the helm console, Organa’s face was grim and set, jaw clenched against the effort of wrestling with the deliberately crippled ship. His fingers were bloodless on the helm controls, fighting to keep their course true, fighting to prevent them from crashing into the space station. Obi-Wan, watching him, was prepared to concede his skill. The Senator wasn’t an idle boaster after all; he was in fact an excellent pilot.

  But even the best pilots can sometimes use a helping hand.

  Sinking into the Force, he gathered its measureless power to him. Felt the light fill him, sparkling in his blood. Once he was supremely centered, aware of himself and his place in the universe, aware of Organa’s place, the duet they sang within the Force’s living glory, he extended his senses and control. Wrapped them around the struggling starship, the gliding brick, and cradled it in a cocoon of pure light-side energy. Immediately the ship’s sluggish inertia smoothed. Became malleable. Frictionless now, and rendered opaque to any prying eyes that might be watching, it floated toward their target, the space station.

  “What the kriff?” Startled, Organa almost let go of the helm controls.

  He felt himself smile. “Relax, Senator. There’s no need to worry.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Organa muttered. “What are you doing?”

  “Think of me as your copilot,” he replied. “And be calm.”

  Floating within himself, suffused with the Force, the source of every comfort and joy, he poured more control through the skin and bones of the ship, exerting his will on the lumpen machine. It answered him, a part of his body now, as responsive as his arm or his hand, and through the Force became as his own flesh and blood. His eyes showed him the space station, swiftly filling the viewport.

  Like a shark beneath deep water, unease flicked its tail.

  Soaked in serenity, his focus absolute, he let the darkness flow through him like water through a sieve. Yes, there was danger. He would meet it in due course. But he was in the light of the Force now, and would remain there until his task was complete.

  “Nudge port,” said Organa, shifting the helm control. “We’ve got a clear docking ring.”

  He nodded, dreamily. “I see it, Senator.”

  “We’re still coming in too fast.”

  “I know.” He breathed in deeply, feeling the power surge in his blood. Breathed out, hard, impressing his will upon the stolid Starfarer, tightening the Force around its sturdy frame. The ship lost more momentum. Glided slower. And slower. Slowed further. Was barely moving. And as he slowed the ship, Organa played its helm controls like a master musician, coaxing it to pirouette like a dancer on an opera stage.

  The Starfarer docked with the space station, sweet as a summer kiss.

  Organa released a noisy sigh and sat back. “Now, that was something. That was—that was—”

  “That was the Force, Senator,” Obi-Wan said, and breathed himself free of its sublime embrace. Felt the dreadful wrenching as they were gently sundered. Was overwhelmed, just for a heartbeat, by a dreadful sense of loss.

  And even as the bright light drained from his blood, he felt that cold lash of foreboding, redoubled.

  Organa had powered up the sensor array and was running a scanner over the space station. “Vape it,” he said, looking around. “It’s got some kind of shielding. I can’t read through it.”

  Obi-Wan touched fingertips to his lightsaber, holding his shouting instincts at bay. “I can,” he said grimly. “Senator, are you sure you want to do this? Are you competent to do this? Answer me honestly. We’re on the brink of an abyss.”

  Instead of uttering some bravado reply, Organa looked at him. Even after nearly five days in this cramped starship the man was neat and tidy, impeccably presented, a self-aware politician from groomed head to polished boots. But his eyes were uncertain. In their shadows, lurking fear.

  And then he nodded. “Yes, Master Kenobi. I’m sure, and I’m competent. I must do this. I know it probably sounds crazy, but those are my people in there.”

  Obi-Wan shifted his gaze, letting it rest on the space station. I could drop him in his tracks without laying a finger on him. I should. This man is a civilian. It’s my business to protect him and the people we came to meet.

  Organa unclipped his holster guard. Eased the blaster on his hip. “Master Kenobi, we’re burning daylight.”

  Yes. Yes, they were. Burning daylight, and burning bridges. Those are my people in there. “Then come, Senator,” he said, and snapped his lightsaber free. “Let’s go and save your people, if we can.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  There were three bodies on the other side of the docking ring door. All male; Bail swallowed a nauseating mix of relief and rage seeing them. His contact might still be alive then, even if three of her colleagues were slaughtered. If these men were her colleagues, of course. They could be intruders, cut down by defenders of the space station.

  A buzz hummed beside him. Blaster in hand he turned, his nerves jumping, to see that Kenobi had ignited his lightsaber. The Jedi held it before him, angled slightly across his body, its electric blue light clean and lethal in the sputtering illumination of the small docking bay interchange, with its riveted metal walls and discolored metal ceiling. The door into the space station proper was partially open, the corridor beyond it tinged a dirty reddish orange. Emergency lighting? Possibly. This was certainly an emergency.

  Kenobi dropped to a crouch and checked the pulses of the fallen men. “They’re gone,” he said, rising smoothly again to his feet.

  It would’ve been shocking if they weren’t; each man had an ugly, blood-wet hole burned through his chest. Three blaster pistols were discarded around them on the buckled metal floor. Kenobi stabbed his lightsaber through them in three swift, methodical moves. Melted blaster metal puddled and ran; the air thickened with a scorching stink.

  Bail frowned. “Ah—couldn’t we have used those, maybe?”

  “Perhaps,” Kenobi said, shrugging. “But so could whoever killed these men—and we don’t know yet whose side they’re on.”

  True. Acutely aware of sweat trickling down his spine, down his face, into his eyes, aware of his heart drumming hard against his ribs, Bail nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Soft-footed in his supple leather boots, Kenobi crossed to the half-open door and bent his head, listening. Or maybe feeling. Something Jedi, anyway. He looked unnervingly remote, the lightsaber casting odd blue highlights over his face. Bail was abruptly aware of his own lingering awe.

  He floated a starship with the Force. A whole starship. And he didn’t even break a sweat. I wasn’t expecting that. It’s just not something you
see every day.

  “Senator,” said Kenobi, glancing up. “The corridor is clear. Are you ready?”

  Was he ready? Well, he could handle a blaster, he knew that much. Regular practice on a Coruscant firing range ensured that he was—as the experts said—a crack shot. And of course, being the scion of his House, as a much younger man he’d been taught certain self-defense techniques and tactics. But the galaxy was a different place now. So because he believed in being prepared, no matter how remote the chance of danger seemed; because he’d seen how narrowly Padmé had escaped death on Coruscant; and because he knew that the coming of war changed everything, whether he wanted change or not—he had made it his mission to be further trained by experts in the messy business of a more aggressive self-defense. They’d trained him well. He was indeed… competent.

  But he’d never fired at a sentient being in his life. Never tried to kill anyone. Never had anyone try to kill him. And now he was staring at the likelihood of both experiences—maybe within the next few minutes. There were three men dead on the floor behind him as proof. Men who had shot at other men before. Men who most likely had killed, many times.

  I thought I was ready. I might be wrong about that.

  But he couldn’t afford doubts and second thoughts now. Somewhere in this rickety old space station was a woman who’d risked her life to help him. He wasn’t about to let her down when she needed his help. When her life might depend on that crack shot, Senator Organa.

  Kenobi was waiting for his answer.

  He nodded, his mouth dry. “Lead the way, Master Jedi.”

  “Stay close behind me,” Kenobi said. His forehead was creased, and his eyes were dark with furious thought. “If I tell you to do something you must do it, without hesitation. This is no time for self-importance or pride.”

  Bail opened his mouth to say something cutting—then swallowed the hasty words. Don’t be a fool, Organa. He’s a general in the Grand Army of the Republic. He’s seen more life-and-death warfare in three months than you likely will your whole life. Right here, right now, he outranks you in every way.