Clone Wars Gambit: Siege Read online

“I can’t guarantee he’ll listen to me, either,” he said. “He’s pretty stubborn, Sufi.”

  Thin arms folded, she pulled a wry face. “I’d noticed. Must be something they look for when they’re choosing Jedi.” And then she hesitated. Her smock-dress was baggy on her, draped in wrinkles and folds. She’d lost weight since the first time he saw her. “Anakin—”

  And here we go again. He touched her hand, seeking to comfort. “Sufi, I’ve been fighting on the front lines since the war began. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that a battle can turn from lost to won in a heartbeat. But if you give up before the end? If you accept defeat as inevitable? You’ll never live to see victory.”

  She sucked in her cheeks, staring at all her sick friends and neighbors. “I hope you’re right. Now go away—and take your friend with you.”

  “Yes, Teeba,” he said, and left her to brood.

  So exhausted was Obi-Wan, coming out of his healing trance, that he didn’t even realize a Jedi was standing practically on top of him. Anakin waited a minute, then risked taking hold of his shoulder.

  “Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan. Come on. Let’s go.”

  Startled, Obi-Wan looked up. “Anakin. The power plant? The shield generators?”

  He dropped to a crouch. “They’re holding. Don’t worry. Come on. Sufi wants you out of here for a while.”

  “Anakin…” Obi-Wan frowned. “You look dreadful.”

  “You think so? Then do yourself a favor, Obi-Wan. Don’t go near a mirror.”

  “Me? I’m fine,” Obi-Wan said vaguely. “But you should get some rest. And when was the last time you ate?”

  Hooking a hand under Obi-Wan’s elbow, Anakin got them both on their feet. “Don’t remember. But if you want to nag me about it, you’ll have to do it outside.”

  “In a minute,” said Obi-Wan, and looked down at his green-sick patient. “I just need to—”

  “No, you don’t,” he insisted. “You’re relieved of duty, Master Kenobi. And that’s an order from General Sufi.”

  On the other side of the sick room, as though she’d heard her name mentioned, Sufi turned, caught Obi-Wan’s eye and pointed silently at the open door. Her severe expression was like a shouted command.

  “Oh,” said Obi-Wan. “Right. I see.”

  Outside the sick house the fast-falling night was strobed with brilliant flashes of blasterfire, and the cool air shivered from the constant concussions. Standing on the front step, Obi-Wan stared across the village to the distant shield, still holding. Still protecting them.

  “How long before it fails?” he asked, very quietly, so the villagers gathered on the square nearby wouldn’t hear him.

  “I don’t know.” Anakin shoved his hands into his pockets. “You going to say I told you so?”

  “I’m too tired,” said Obi-Wan. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

  With the village’s food and water supplies so perilously low, Jaklin and Rikkard had declared that all meals would be cooked and served from a central location. A makeshift kitchen had been set up on the square, and teams of people cooked and cleaned there from dawn till dusk each day. Tables and chairs had been hauled out of the cottages and arranged in a large outside dining area. With nearly all of Torbel’s power being diverted to the shields, the food was cooked over open pits and the dining section lit with burning torches. Under different circumstances it might have felt festive.

  This early, most of the diners were children. A few adults sat with them, helping the youngest and keeping order among the rest. Gazes lifted from plates, watching the Jedi make their way to the serving area. Anakin felt fear, bewilderment, uncertainty, hope—a tangle of raw emotion in each unblinking stare.

  He could easily have staggered beneath the weight of their regard. Should I have sided with Obi-Wan, and surrendered? Have I condemned all these younglings to death? There was no point in having second thoughts, because there was no going back. Still, he couldn’t help it. Every frightened face, every caught breath and tear reproached him.

  There was still no sign of the droids’ bombardment easing. Blat… blat… boom… blat… boom… boom… boom…

  “Don’t listen to it,” said Obi-Wan as they reached the serving area. “Don’t think about it. We are where we are, Anakin. Best to focus on what we can do next, not what we’ve already done and can’t change.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” he muttered. “But I—”

  “Teebs,” Jaklin greeted them, looking up from her meager scramble of eggs. Like everyone in the village she was dirty and tired. “You want feeding?”

  “Jaklin,” said Obi-Wan, and reached across the bench to take her wrist between his fingers. “How are you? Any sign of greensickness?”

  She pulled her wrist from his grasp. “No. Any sign of the help you promised?”

  So bitter, she was. Having been overruled by her fellow villagers, by Rikkard’s blind faith and his sense of obligation, she resented every sacrifice Torbel was making because they hadn’t given themselves up. Resented them for the nine funeral cremations the day after the droids’ attack. Resented them most of all for Brandeh, her murdered friend.

  “Not yet, but soon, I hope,” said Obi-Wan, refusing to be baited. “Jaklin, you must come to the sick house if you start to feel unwell.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped, slopping eggs and a miserly portion of wilted greenstuff on a plate. “How’s Rikkard?”

  Obi-Wan took the plate she shoved at him, and then a chipped cup with its mean ration of water. “Like Arrad, he’s holding his own.”

  “Not dying?” She partly filled a second plate, her chin trembling. “Word was he’d likely not make it to sunrise.”

  Anakin took his plate from her. “Don’t let yourself get caught up in rumor, Teeba. If Obi-Wan says Arrad’s not dying, then he’s not.”

  She shoved her serving spoon back into the sloppy mess of scrambled eggs, poured him some water and thrust the cup in his face. “And why should I believe one word out of your mouths? With us trapped here like beetles, waiting to be squashed.”

  The other two women working service with her slowed their cleaning to listen. Anakin opened his mouth to answer hotly, tired of her hostility, but Obi-Wan nudged him silent.

  “We understand your anger, Jaklin,” he said, his voice cracked with weariness and strain. “Nothing has worked out the way we wanted it to.”

  Her eyes were dulled by too much fear and not enough sleep. “How much longer?” Her voice was a fierce whisper. “You said if it came to it, you’d hand yourselves over. How much longer must we suffer before you do the right thing?”

  “Jaklin—”

  “I’m the only leader now. With Rikkard greensick the weight bears down on me. And I give you Jedi fair warning—if the help you promised isn’t here within a day then I’ll see you’ll make good on your word. You’ll give yourselves up.”

  “Teeba,” said Obi-Wan. “We hear you.”

  As they retreated to eat their insufficient meal, Anakin looked at him. “How soon before you can get Rikkard back on his feet? Because she wasn’t joking, Obi-Wan. She’ll throw us to those droids, and then what?”

  “Rikkard’s very ill,” said Obi-Wan, heading slantways across the square, away from the dining area and back to the street. “It might be days before he’s well enough to think about us.”

  “Obi-Wan, you heard her! We don’t have days!”

  Obi-Wan shrugged. “Anakin, we don’t have days regardless of what Jaklin decides.”

  It was true. Though every mouthful was rationed, Torbel’s food supplies were rapidly dwindling. The water pump had been damaged so badly not even he could repair it. The sick and wounded were barely holding their own. And they were burning through the stockpiled liquid damotite so fast he almost didn’t dare look at the capacity gauges.

  It’s a miracle the villagers have remained this calm. But I don’t think it’ll be long before they start to panic. And when they do…

  “You think we shoul
d give up?”

  “Not yet,” said Obi-Wan, after a moment.

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  For safety’s sake two battery-powered lights marked the street corner. Obi-Wan stopped, then lowered himself onto the front step of the nearest dark, empty building.

  “Let’s just eat, shall we? The food’s marginally better when it’s not stone-cold.”

  Which might be true, but it wasn’t saying much. Nothing short of a miracle was going to make Jaklin’s dreadful eggs palatable. Anakin eyed the scrambled mess with acute dislike, then forked up a mouthful and swallowed it, gagging.

  “You know, I’d almost be willing to give myself up right now if it meant never having to eat this ootlish again.”

  Obi-Wan chuckled. “Trust me, Anakin. You haven’t suffered until you’ve eaten raw gundark.”

  “You never ate raw gundark!”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Well—no, of course not, but—Obi-Wan, nobody eats raw gundark.”

  “Not twice, at any rate,” said Obi-Wan, sardonic. “And it wasn’t by choice the first time, I promise you.” He laughed outright, the memory easing the shadowed tension in his face—but then he started coughing. Even after drinking his water ration, it was a long time before he stopped.

  Anakin offered his own water, but the cup was waved away. “Look,” he said, after a moment. “You can’t keep on like this, Obi-Wan. What you’re doing? Spending hours helping Devi at the power plant and then more hours in the sick house? Even with that little girl helping, it’s killing you.”

  “I do what I must,” said Obi-Wan, and forced down another mouthful of food. “These people are sick and I can help them and that’s the end of it.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he retorted. “Obi-Wan, why are you—” And then he realized. Stang. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. I pushed to stay in Torbel. I made promises I couldn’t keep. You have to stop punishing yourself for my decisions.”

  “Punishing myself,” Obi-Wan muttered, looking away. “What nonsense, Anakin.”

  He put his almost-emptied plate to one side on the step. “Then what is going on? You’re the one who’s always telling me to slow down, be sensible, conserve my strength for the long haul in a mission. And look at you. Your hands are shaking. Your pulse is racing. I’m not a healer and I can feel your headache!”

  Obi-Wan turned on him. “Are you saying I should let these people die simply to spare myself some trifling discomfort? I am a Jedi. I have the power to help them and so I must help them. I cannot—I will not—stand by and watch them suffer. I won’t prove our critics right!”

  “Critics?” Anakin said, baffled. “What critics? What are you talking about?”

  For a long time Obi-Wan sat in silence. The boom boom blat of the droids’ bombardment continued. Permanently tuned to the vagaries of the vulnerable shield, Anakin listened for a change in its subliminal hum, a sign that one or more of the generators was struggling. But no, his frantic patchwork repairs still held. And they would keep on holding. They had to.

  At last Obi-Wan sighed, and put down his own plate. “It’s something Bail said once. On the way to Zigoola. He was angry because I’d been so perfectly healed after that terrorist blast, when others who were injured languished in medcenters, many of them maimed. He wanted to know why the Jedi healed themselves first and left others to linger.”

  “So this is Organa’s fault?” he said, incredulous. “Obi-Wan, come on. Don’t fall for that. He didn’t even know you then. He didn’t know anything about the Jedi. He still doesn’t, not really. And now you’re going to—”

  Obi-Wan lightly slapped his knee. “Peace, Anakin. He had a point. This war has taught me that we Jedi have allowed ourselves to become too detached. Too distant from the Republic we’re sworn to serve. Look at how suspicious these people of Torbel were of us. And still are. You’ve said it yourself, more than once. We’ve lost the common touch.”

  “Yeah, well, it can stay lost if it means you don’t try to kill yourself healing people,” he retorted. “And I’m telling you, it has to stop. Tonight. Because we both know you can’t take any more.”

  “Anakin—” Obi-Wan shook his head. “I will take as much as I need to take. I have to, if for no other reason than to get your ally Rikkard back on his feet.”

  There was the merest hint of acid in that remark. Anakin rubbed his hands over his face, feeling the thickened stubble, the dried sweat, the gritty dirt. With his eyes covered, the bombardment’s boom boom blat sounded louder than ever. And even with them covered he could still see the bright flashes of plasma impacting the shield.

  This is my doing. I’ve been wrong every step of the way. And now it’s too late to make up for any of it.

  “So,” he said, when he could trust his voice. “I guess you were right after all. I guess I am dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” said Obi-Wan blankly. “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t remember?” He shrugged. “Well. It was a long time ago.”

  Coruscant at night, awash with brilliant color. A landing platform crowded with the Queen of Naboo’s starship, busy with staff and droids, humming with tension. Young and alone, he was missing his mother so badly, was so angry because the Jedi Council had smashed his dreams to dust. His only hope was Qui-Gon, tall and strong and somehow elemental—a shield and a shelter and a newfound friend. Not like Obi-Wan. He’d been young, then. Impatient, sharp-tongued, and just as angry—because Qui-Gon had said he wanted to train one small, strange boy.

  “The boy is dangerous. They all sense it. Why can’t you?”

  Anakin shivered, remembering. And then the puzzlement in Obi-Wan’s face faded, replaced with a dawning realization as he remembered too. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, Anakin…”

  There was shame in Obi-Wan’s voice. Regret. And shock, to think his fleeting anger, his thoughtless words, could have left such an indelible impression.

  But they did, Master Kenobi. They really did. And now I can’t help wondering… were you right, after all?

  “Anakin,” said Obi-Wan intently. “Listen to me. I was wrong. In that moment I was hurt, I was angry.” He swallowed. “Anakin, I was jealous.”

  Some part of him had always known that. Even as a child, abandoned to the care of an astromech droid on that landing platform, he’d felt those hot, roiling emotions in Qui-Gon’s quicksilver apprentice. Even when he’d been too young to understand everything, he’d always understood how other people were feeling. That was just another part of being a Jedi. The Chosen One. The boy who grew up as something more than a boy.

  And now, years later, stranded on a planet staring death—or worse—in the face, that boy was a man and the quicksilver apprentice was the man’s former Master. His friend. His brother. His comrade-in-arms.

  Strange times.

  Anakin shook his head. “Forget it. I never should’ve brought it up.”

  “But you did bring it up,” said Obi-Wan. “Anakin, you are not dangerous and you are not responsible for the trouble we’re in now. If there’s a finger to be pointed, let it be pointed at me. I’m older than you, I’m more experienced, and at any given moment I could’ve pulled the plug on this mission. But I didn’t.”

  Anakin, you are not dangerous. It warmed him, to hear the words, to hear the sincerity in Obi-Wan’s tired voice, and see it in his tired face.

  But if he knew about Tatooine, and what really happened with my mother. About Padmé. About how I feel sometimes when the Force turns scarlet and bursts through me like hot blood. If he knew all that, what would he say?

  He didn’t know. He never wanted to find out.

  Burying those thoughts before Obi-Wan could sense them, he cleared his throat. “So why didn’t you pull the plug?”

  “Because I wanted you to be right,” Obi-Wan said after a long silence. “I wanted to give you the chance to prove me wrong, for once.” He ran a hand down his face. “We call you the Chosen One but
we don’t often give you the chance to prove it, do we?”

  “Yeah, well…” He had to clear his throat, and blink hard to unblur his vision. “I haven’t exactly proven it this time.”

  Blat… blat… boom… blat… boom… boom… boom… and the night sky beyond the fragile shield burned like a dying sun.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Obi-Wan, very gently. “We’re not dead yet, Anakin. And that means—”

  The Force’s spurring was blunted, but they both felt it. Something was wrong. Something was—

  “There!” said Obi-Wan, pointing across the square. His hand was unsteady. “What shield sector is that? Four? Five?”

  Anakin squinted through the shadows. “Four. Stang. I thought I’d fixed it. I thought—”

  “Never mind what you thought,” said Obi-Wan, pushing to his feet. “Come on. There’s not much time.”

  None of the villagers had noticed the tiny flutter in the shield that meant its particle beam was losing integrity. And Durd’s droids hadn’t noticed, either; they were still merrily blasting away. But they would see it, any moment now, and then they’d bring all their blasterfire to bear on that one vulnerable section.

  It didn’t matter that running hurt, that they were gasping as much as breathing. Matching Obi-Wan stride for stride, Anakin heard his comlink crackle and dragged it out of his pocket.

  “Anakin! Generator Four, it’s—”

  “I know, Devi!” he said, stumbling in the dark and the dirt, pounding the pitted ferrocrete as he and Obi-Wan raced down the road. “We’re on it. Nurse the power feed to that generator. Whatever you do, don’t let it surge!”

  “I’ll try,” she said, her voice frightened. “Anakin, hurry. It’ll go offline any minute!”

  Every footstep drove a spear of pain through his spine. He felt his own pain, he felt Obi-Wan’s. It couldn’t matter. They had no hope of Force-sprinting, all they could do was run. So they ran, panting and desperate.

  Reaching the generator, they staggered to a halt and clutched at each other to stop themselves from falling. To save time in an emergency, every shield generator had its own hastily rigged tool kit. While Anakin wrenched open the shield’s housing, Obi-Wan opened the kit and upended it onto the grass. Overhead, the faltering section of shield began to hum a discordant tune, loud enough for the nearest droids to hear it.