[Legacy of the Jedi] - 02(51)

Was it now, or was it twenty years ago?

She lay on the floor of the cockpit in a crashed ship. Her blond head was pillowed in her arms.

He landed on his knees by her side.

He touched her hair. He could not bear to touch the pulse on her neck. He could not bear not to feel life there. “Siri.”

“Blasterfire.” She groaned as she turned slightly so she could look up at him. “Magus.”

Obi-Wan glanced out of the cockpit window where PadmŞ now stood, holding the rifle at the unconscious Magus. She was taking no chances. Taly stood next to her, a blaster in his hand, also pointed at Magus. Obi-Wan could see something working in Taly’s face, a temptation to fire. He had, at his feet, the being who had killed his parents.

Above, in the sky, he saw Anakin diving around the attack cruisers, pummeling them with fire.

“Padme has him covered. We’re safe for the moment.”

“Everything is so gray.”

“That was such a risky move,” Obi-Wan said.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

His relief at her sharp tone was erased when she winced, and he saw she was in great pain.

“I’ll get the bacta…”

“Don’t leave me.” Siri’s hand dropped on his. “I wanted to say - “

“Siri, I must get the med kit - “

“For star’s sake, Obi-Wan, I’m dying. Do you have to interrupt me now? “

Tears sprang to his eyes. “You’re not dying.”

Her fingers plucked at her belt. “I can’t… Get it for me.”

Get what? he almost asked, but then he knew. He slipped her crystal out of her belt and pressed it into her hand.

“No… yours.” She let it fall into his palm. “Now I will never leave you.”

“You will never leave me,” he repeated.

She touched his cheek, and her hand fell. “Don’t worry so much,” she said.

Her eyes closed, and she was gone.

He lay his head on the cockpit floor and held her hand. He did not know, at that moment, what living was for, if he had to carry this pain.

Anakin had been out of his mind with the frenzy to find her. He had attacked the ships again and again, determined to slip through.

When he saw that a ship had crashed, he had thought PadmŞ was dead, and his heart had become a fist. Revenge was all he wanted.

And then as he swooped down he had seen her, blaster rifle in her hand, her face turned up toward him. He held her to him only seconds later.

“I’m afraid for Siri,” she whispered.

Obi-Wan climbed out of the ruined ship. He came toward them. Something in his face, his walk was different.

“She has joined the Force.” He spoke the words to them, but he was looking down at Magus. The bounty hunter was beginning to stir. Taly gripped the blaster tighter.

Anakin saw strain and anguish in his face.

He wants to shoot, Anakin thought.

For the first time since he’d known Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin was afraid for his Master. He saw the way he looked at Magus. His eyes were dead, as if now there was nothing at his feet, not a living being, just clothes and hair and skin.

Obi-Wan activated his lightsaber.

PadmŞ looked at Anakin, her eyes wide. Say something, her face pleaded. Stop him.

Anakin recognized that there was something here he could not stop.

Taly’s breath caught. He did not take his eyes off Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan crouched down and held the glowing lightsaber to Magus’s neck. He locked eyes with Magus. Anakin saw the flare of fear in the bounty hunter’s eyes.

“You kill without thought or feeling,” Obi-Wan said. “But I am not you.”

He stood.

“Take him aboard,” Obi-Wan said. “He is now a prisoner of war.”





CHAPTER 33


The codebreaker was lost in the Battle of Azure Spaceport. The fusion furnace blew, an explosion that came close to leveling the spaceport itself. The smoke that rose served as cover for the evacuation of Republic ships. General Solomahal was captured with the codebreaker as he attempted to escape with it. He blew it up instead of handing it over. Two days later, he managed to escape and was given another command.

The Separatist forces bombed Taly’s laboratory. All his notes and documents were lost. It could take him years to reinvent what he had discovered… if he could reproduce it at all. In the meantime, he was taken in secrecy and transported to a Republic outpost.

On Coruscant, Anakin and Padme met before dawn in her apartment on her veranda. It was their favorite time to meet, under cover of darkness, but with the beginnings of morning freshness in the air. Even in the darkest of times, it made them feel hopeful.

“I am being sent away again,” he told her. “Obi-Wan and I leave this morning.”