Star Wars Read online

  Palpatine looked off cam again, then spoke a few inaudible words. “I have further issues to attend to. But I look forward to your findings, Master Kenobi. We must move quickly.”

  * * *

  —

  The Cadesura disaster stole the gathering’s sense of ceremony, though when the meeting adjourned, Obi-Wan had hoped to express his pride to Anakin. And given the importance of the milestone, he’d figured his old Padawan would have wanted to have a moment together. But Anakin left so fast that Obi-Wan only caught the blur of his dark cloak on the way out. Thoughts stirred in his mind, war commitments keeping their relationship distant in the short span following the promotion. He’d held on to so many questions for Anakin, waiting for a quiet moment: Was his new arm working for him? Did he have any questions about the responsibilities that came with becoming a Jedi Knight?

  What really happened on Tatooine?

  But between the rapidly changing intel on the Separatist insurgencies and the sheer chaos of synthesizing military battalions into the long-standing traditions of the Jedi Order, Obi-Wan and Anakin barely had time to breathe, let alone have a talk. Obi-Wan followed the trail of his former apprentice, hustling from the courtyard to the interior, then down the steps over to one of the Jedi Temple’s wide hallways. He kept pace, though he never got too close—a range that put him in plain sight just in case Anakin decided to slow down and turn around.

  But when it became clear that Anakin’s pace was actually increasing, he reminded himself to let go of that personal desire to catch up. Anakin would come find him when he was good and ready. Besides, the catastrophe on Cato Neimoidia remained his top priority, and the fallout from it meant all sorts of complications, not just for the Jedi, but for every system, faction, and government somehow connected to the war.

  He just had to find a way to start untangling it all.

  Obi-Wan was about to break left toward the stairway leading to the Jedi Archives when he saw Anakin pause down the hall. Despite the distance, he recognized Anakin’s body language, and the shift proved massive enough that it stole Obi-Wan’s thoughts from the war.

  Anakin, so bold in his determination, usually walked with his weight carrying him forward, nearly leaning ahead as if he were chasing the future. But here Anakin stopped and his entire body softened, from the way he held his shoulders to the way his arms hung. His head turned, waiting, and Anakin’s smile grew so large that Obi-Wan saw it across the hall.

  Then he understood why.

  Dashing across to meet him was Padmé Amidala, trailed by a handmaiden and one of Naboo’s security, a woman Obi-Wan recognized as Mariek Panaka. The senator marched directly, wearing a flowing maroon dress with dark-navy trim, a simple bronze headpiece holding her hair tightly in a bun. She took even and controlled steps, presenting the opposite of Anakin’s hurried gait, but the same straight path, like magnets hurtling through space to lock into each other. He’d heard Padmé had been visiting the capital planet on Senate business for a few days, though all senators had been on Coruscant more often than not in the weeks following Geonosis. As much as the Jedi shuffled around the galaxy these days, senators seemingly had withdrawn to the Core, dealing with the hows and whys of a potential civil war while the Jedi commanded clone troopers.

  Padmé’s proximity wasn’t much of a surprise, but her stop at the Jedi Temple was a little out of the norm. Unless she planned on attending the courtyard ceremony for the newly promoted Jedi Knights? It may have been as simple as that, given her history with Anakin—a show of respect and gratitude, something thrown off course by the news of Cato Neimoidia.

  As for Anakin, well, Obi-Wan had known of his former Padawan’s infatuation with the senator for a while now. He understood, having handled his own youthful brush with temptation—one of the few things that still made him equally chuckle and groan when he thought of it. At least until he let the memories drift away into the distance, knowing they’d float back ashore at some point. But here, Anakin’s greeting, though stilted and formal, rippled a wave of emotion through the Force, a very specific frequency that Obi-Wan recognized as everything he knew about Anakin consolidated into a flash.

  Curiosity. Adoration. Joy, anxiety, fear. All of those rippled off Anakin, but above all came something far more dangerous:

  Passion.

  And passion was a liability even during normal Jedi operations. But infinitely more so in the context of war.

  He expected the senator to go on her way, a short greeting before official business. He also expected Anakin to hesitate a second too long, that boyish infatuation pulling his attention more than it should before his sense of duty returned.

  Instead, they stood there. A careful distance apart to be sure, but something was markedly different here. Not that long ago, Padmé had practically brushed Anakin aside when they’d arrived in her apartment following the assassination attempt, right before Geonosis. Yet here, though they held an air of formality between them, they clearly engaged with each other. The senator known for giving impassioned speeches, for her sharp observational skills, for her ability to find a constructive path forward, was lingering to talk with a Jedi known for never slowing down, whether in a speeder or on foot or by any other means.

  But there they were, talking politely, smiling at each other. Padmé even took a quick glance around her, a subtle move that no one would notice up close, but it clearly stood out from above—especially because for the briefest of moments, her bodyguard looked off at something in the distance. She reached up, a quick touch at the spot behind his ear where his Padawan braid had been.

  Then, as if the gesture flipped a switch in her, Padmé’s pose tightened, her chest and shoulders suddenly taller despite her small frame. Anakin too reacted, but not with the expected embarrassment from such a close interaction with the object of one’s infatuation, but rather a scan to either side, similar to Padmé’s yet nowhere near as subtle.

  He soon matched her, returning to a strong stance. Though he towered over her in height, the air of softness surrounded him, and another short conversation passed, words too quiet for even a dedicated observer to pick up. Despite this turn to buckled-down formality, Anakin’s bare emotions continued rippling outward. Even as they parted ways, Anakin’s feelings left a wake in the Force, a clear silhouette of his presence, something that probably only Obi-Wan would recognize. Far too often Anakin let his emotions dictate the situation, the tempering from Jedi training working only as a leash to the impulses that still ruled his actions. But anything that let a Jedi’s guard down for even a moment put the Republic at risk.

  Especially one as powerful as Anakin Skywalker. Especially one prophesied to be the Chosen One, to bring balance to the Force.

  And Padmé, rather than dismissing it as she’d done in her apartment not too long ago, had amplified their connection. What to make of all of this? She was letting Anakin indulge in his infatuation, though to what degree, Obi-Wan couldn’t tell. But there was more to it, and Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he wanted to know where it led.

  “Oh.” The short word escaped him, an expression as unexpected as what he’d just witnessed. He continued watching Anakin, who took a moment to gather himself before stopping to talk with Jaro Tapal and the red-haired youngling who trailed him. And though they talked longer than he did with the senator, no similar feelings projected from him, not in Anakin’s body language nor in his connection to the Force.

  “Oh, hello, Master Kenobi,” Padmé said with a quick wave. “Is the chancellor still here?”

  Obi-Wan must have been so lost in watching Anakin that he completely missed Padmé making her way up the stairs to his location. She stood still, and both her handmaiden and her bodyguard waited equally spaced from her, nearly a precise triangle formation. He nodded to greet the trio, then considered how to answer. “He attended the ceremony by holoconference. But the topic changed quickly.”

  “Because of Cato Neimoidia?”

  “Because of Cato Neimoidia.”

  “Thank you,” she said, a simple and efficient acknowledgment.

  Obi-Wan gave another quick nod, still in his same spot as she moved quickly past to connect with Senator Bail Organa across the hallway.

  It seemed that many senators were suddenly interested in visiting the Jedi Temple. But galactic disaster would do that, especially when Count Dooku publicly goaded the Republic into sending someone to the site of the bombing, possibly even its leader. Obi-Wan shook the mixture of doubts and concerns from his mind, the question of Anakin’s motives pulling him away from the task at hand, though he reminded himself that something like this might not resolve immediately—or could resolve on its own.

  It might even require a conversation with Anakin.

  But right now, the Republic was at war. The Jedi had to intervene. And if he wanted to prevent Palpatine from falling into Dooku’s trap, he needed to convince Cato Neimoidia to accept a Jedi emissary rather than the chancellor.

  Obi-Wan let go of his feelings and started toward the Jedi Archives.

  CHAPTER 4

  ANAKIN SKYWALKER

  Anakin had seen this before.

  In fact, so many times. The backdrop was always different—in some cases, under the overwhelming harsh suns of Tatooine skies. And in other cases, in the deep vacuum of space.

  The experience, though, that always remained true. Speed, lights, obstacles. Turns and g-forces. Whether in a podracer, in a Jedi starfighter, or zipping between buildings on a speeder. Or here, where a few Republic credits to a group known only as the Family gained access to speeder racetracks through abandoned sectors of Coruscant’s underworld. Now nothing but industrial fossils, struc
tures and piping and lights that blinked for decades and would probably blink long after the war ended. Paying to use a Family track during a non–race night was something Anakin dreamed about ever since hearing rumors of their existence. And though somewhere out in the stretches of space, clone battalions fought battle droids and emergency medical personnel tried to save lives on Cato Neimoidia, for one night Anakin shut it all out to be with his wife.

  His wife.

  Such a thought, such a definition still seemed unreal to him. Though it felt like another lifetime; only recently Padmé had been a near-stranger, someone he’d catch glimpses of as she moved in and around Coruscant, or on the HoloNet. He’d dreamed of her, then he’d tried to push those dreams aside.

  And then Naboo happened. And Geonosis.

  And Tatooine.

  Now, married. They’d barely seen each other since that secret ceremony and their short few days stolen away together, the duties of a Jedi and a politician pulling them all over the galaxy, leaving their marriage mostly as a spiritual bond. They’d send encrypted transmissions whenever possible, their conversations timed against the unpredictable formalities of war and duty, but even then he felt like their relationship was a dream, the most impossible and wonderful dream.

  Except she came back to him. Or he came back to her. Not just holos expressing how desperately they missed each other, but tangible feelings and real touches that made it all not a dream.

  And that amplified everything in him, making every moment even more precious, all of the good and bad held tightly as if they were the only things that mattered, even in a time of war.

  Yet in this speeder, as they hurtled through the depths of Coruscant on a highly illegal and very dangerous makeshift course, this was supposed to be their first time together since he achieved the rank of Jedi Knight. Their chance meeting in the Jedi Temple caught him off guard, and it took all of his discipline to not throw his arms around her, to freeze the time and space around them so he could feel the weight of her body against his. But tonight, though he’d claimed to take a walk to focus his thoughts, the truth was he and Padmé had planned ahead for this: not just a few evenings out together when their time overlapped on the capital planet, but in the lower levels, where no one would care enough to notice them—a place where they pledged to not talk about politics or the war.

  Or Cato Neimoidia.

  Though she’d agreed to this activity—and paid for the speeder rental—it became clear as Anakin pushed the throttle forward into a near-vertical dive that she didn’t live and breathe speed the same way he did, even though she had some piloting experience herself.

  “I should have sent Dormé for this,” she yelled over the whipping wind, her cowl blowing off her hair. Had she come out in any of her usual embellished stylings, the sheer velocity of the joyride would have ripped it all apart. But here she wore an unassuming outfit: dark trousers and a muted green cowl that easily blended in with the surroundings, and it matched his own, a simple mechanic’s coat draped over his Jedi tunic to give the appearance of an everyday laborer and not a Jedi Knight. Anakin hit the final turn, easing up on the throttle to make the back end drift, the angle of their glide providing momentum so that a quick burst of the speeder’s booster fired them just through the narrow space.

  “I’m taking it easy,” he said with a laugh, a final drop over the ledge that earned a scream-turned-laugh from Padmé before slamming the vertical boosters, cushioning their descent like a floating cloud made of metal and wire and alloys.

  Like his arm.

  Anakin pushed the thought aside, then reached into the Force with his senses, like sonar through the ether to identify where the path narrowed and twisted, even where previous racers lost control and crashed. He hit the brakes to drift into a twist, a series of controlled flips and dives before finally breaking past the uncontested finish line.

  The speeder stopped, both Anakin and Padmé lurching forward before slamming back into the seats. “Whew,” he said, before looking at his wife.

  This was Padmé Amidala, who’d stared down certain death on Geonosis and charged forward with a blaster to reclaim her planet from Nute Gunray, yet here was breathing heavily with wide eyes and a hand across her chest. “I’m so sorry,” Anakin started, “are you okay? Was that too much? Was I—”

  Sudden laughter echoed out into the industrial bones around them. “Anakin,” she said, her voice broken up by the laughter before she playfully smacked him across the shoulder. “That was exhilarating. And I never want to do it again.”

  He joined her in laughter, then leaned over, bringing them face-to-face. She reached out and took his hand—his mechanical hand—the same way she’d held it during their wedding ceremony.

  Her eyes broke, looking down at the interlace between her fingers and his black glove. The pressure of her hold translated from electric synapses into the nerve endings on the remaining stump of his organic arm. Not too long ago, a mere look from her would make the hairs on that arm stand on end. Now such a thing was impossible. He squeezed her hand back, the microsecond of difference in sensation between his natural movement and this mechanical replacement still throwing him off. Different from combat or illegal racing, where pure instinct and the enhanced sensory intake of the Force tried to compensate. But here, in a quiet moment with his wife, at the start of a marriage as sudden as the replacement of his arm, a microsecond felt like hours.

  “This doesn’t bother me,” Padmé said, placing her other hand over his glove. “It never will.”

  “I know. It’s just not something I’m totally used to yet.”

  “It’s part of you. Besides.” She offered a smaller, more intimate laugh than seconds earlier. “You drove the speeder just fine.” She leaned forward, pressing her lips against his, sensations he burned for during all those hours on cruisers and shuttles, when the hum of a lightsaber and the chatter of clone commanders stole his attention. He leaned in to her, their hands releasing to roam elsewhere, leaving them in a timeless space where only they existed.

  Until the mechanized voice of a droid interrupted.

  “The Family appreciates your business,” said BS-1119, the bouncer droid that looked a lot like a reconfigured HK assassin unit. Anakin looked up to see it approaching, twin pistols hanging from holsters bolted onto its mechanical hips and a single pointing finger indicating that they should leave. Despite its threatening demeanor, the droid came off as overtly polite, probably a quirk of a program balancing security and business needs. “You are welcome to schedule another practice ride through one of the Family’s industrial courses. In addition, bets are open for upcoming races.” From beyond, floating law enforcement droids scanned, and BS-1119 flipped a switch on a nearby control panel on a nondescript wall. “This track is closed. Please pilot your vehicle elsewhere. You must leave now.”

  “It’d probably be in bad taste for a senator and Jedi to be caught down here,” Anakin said.

  Padmé grinned and sat back in her seat. “Let’s grab something to eat instead of getting arrested.”

  * * *

  —

  Husband and wife.

  What a strange thought. Despite their marriage, their lives had prevented them from living as such, what with Padmé handling things like the situation with Hebekrr Minor and Anakin bouncing around the galaxy performing as a mix of warrior, guard, medic, and deliveryperson. Married couples did things like take walks, go shopping, have dinner. Not fight a war or negotiate peace and then collide for several hours because their schedules allowed for it.

  A sudden frustration burned within Anakin, lashing at the galaxy for keeping them apart. But even their joyride a few moments ago acted as a reminder—his body, his mind, his heart were committed to a life of adventure as much as a life with her. Perhaps if Qui-Gon had never found him on Tatooine, he would be on the podracer circuit now, or have found a life with some other dangerous recreation.

  Would his mother still be there in that life?

  But that question led to a dark path of further questions. He buried it deep, locking that night away and reminding himself that he was here with Padmé, in a strange life that intermixed combat and justice with quiet moments as husband and wife.