[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(37)

No wonder Jacen wanted to bring a bit of order to the galaxy.

Jedi weren’t exactly invisible, but there was something about wearing a brown robe that gave you a certain neutrality, as Jacen called it. Ben ambled along the catwalks, taking in the detail; and although people glanced at him with vague curiosity, nobody bothered him.

Maybe they’re seeing a kid and not a Jedi.

Ben was passing in front of a small grocery store when he heard the distinctive thrum of a large vessel behind him. He looked back to see a Coruscant Security Force assault ship, the kind the police used for patrols, making slow progress down the skylane with its side hatches open. Maybe the officers were looking for someone. But then he heard a booming voice from the vessel’s public address system.

“… do not use your water supply.” The vessel was almost level with him now and the disembodied voice filled the narrow skylane, reverberating off the walls of buildings. “I repeat, contamination has been found in the water supply, and as a precaution all water has been cut off. Do not use your supply, because water standing in the pipes may be contaminated … please listen to your news station for updates…”

The ship passed, repeating its emergency message as it advanced, and Ben saw four blue-uniformed CSF officers standing inside the crew bay, one with a voice projector clutched in his hand.

“Contaminated with what?” said Ben. But he was talking to himself. People had come out of their homes and businesses to stand on the walkway and stare after the assault ship. One woman came out of a tapcaf with a holonews receiver and set it on one of the tables outside, and customers crowded around. Ben paused to watch.

The news channel was running a live report from someone at one of the water company’s pumping stations. Problems with utilities were rare on Coruscant, but it still seemed to Ben like a lot of fuss for a routine problem. Then he heard the reporter use the word sabotage.

“What’s he saying?” Ben asked, trying to peer between the customers for a better look.

“Someone put toxic chemicals in the water supply,” said the tapcaf woman. “They’ve had to shut down ten pumping stations, and that means half of central Galactic City hasn’t got any water.” She slapped a cleaning cloth down on the table, clearly angry. “Which means I have to shut the ‘caf until they sort it out.”

“If it’s sabotage, you know who’ll get the blame,” said a man clutching a small boy by the hand. “Us.”

“Could be anybody.”

“Disgruntled water employee,” the tapcaf woman muttered.

“Maybe the water company screwed up and put the wrong chemical into the treatment plant,” said another customer.

“And maybe it is us, because the government was asking for it.”

The debate raged. Ben interrupted. “Who’s us?” he asked. Identity was beginning to concern him. “Why would anyone living here want to poison their own water supply?”

The group turned away from the holoscreen for a moment as if they’d just noticed Ben, and the tapcaf woman gave him a sympathetic look. “People do stupid things when there’s a war on,” she said. “Don’t they teach you that at the academy?”

“But there isn’t a war,” said Ben, and didn’t admit he’d never been to any academy. He knew what a war was. War had to be declared: politicians had to get involved. “Not yet.”

“Well, there is now …” The man picked up his son in his arms and began walking away. “Whether we want one or not.”

Ben leaned over the edge of the safety rail on the walkway to see what was happening on the levels above and below him. People had done exactly what the tapcaf customers had: they gathered outside their shops and homes, talking and arguing. He could hear voices carrying. Traffic had slowed to a crawl. The police public address system boomed in the distance.

“Jacen?” Ben spoke quietly into his comlink, but Jacen wasn’t receiving. The message service clicked in. “Jacen, I’m in the Corellian quarter and-” He searched for the words. But there was no point alarming Jacen. “I’m heading home.”

Ben’s sense of danger was becoming acute now. There was anger and violence building up exactly like the pressure before a thunderstorm; he could feel it pressing on his temples, making his sinuses ache, telling him to get away, run, hide at an instinctive level. He hoped he’d learn to read it better one day. Right now it was uncontrolled and animal. He ran back the way he had come, two hundred meters to the nearest taxi platform.

An air taxi was sitting on its repulsors, hovering silently over a dark pool of shadow. The pilot, a thin-faced human with a shaved head, glanced up from his holozine and opened the hatch.