Attack of the Clones (19 page)

To see Yoda leading the training this day, looking exactly as he had when he had led Obi-Wan’s training a quarter century before, brought a flush of warmth to the Jedi Knight.

“Don’t think … feel,” Yoda instructed the group. “Be as one with the Force.”

Obi-Wan, smiling, mouthed the exact words as Yoda finished, “Help you, it will.”

How many times he had heard that!

He was still grinning widely when Yoda turned to him. “Younglings, enough!” the great Jedi Master commanded. “A visitor we have. Welcome him.”

Twenty little lightsabers clicked off and the students came to attention together, removing their helmets and tucking them properly under their left arms.

“Master Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Yoda said, keeping enough gravity in his voice so that the younglings wouldn’t feel mocked.

“Welcome, Master Obi-Wan!” the twenty called out together.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Master,” Obi-Wan said with a slight bow.

“What help to you, can I be?”

Obi-Wan considered the question for a moment. He had specifically come out here looking for Yoda, but now, in seeing the diminutive Master at his important work, he wondered if he had let his patience fall away too quickly. Was it his place to ask Yoda to help him with a mission that was his own responsibility? It didn’t take long for Obi-Wan to dismiss the question. He was a Jedi Knight, Yoda, a Master, and his responsibilities and Yoda’s were ultimately one and the same. He didn’t expect that Yoda could help him with this particular problem, but then again, Yoda had always been full of surprises, full of going far beyond any expectations.

“I’m looking for a planet described to me by an old friend,” he explained, and he knew that Yoda was absorbing every word. “I trust him and the information he provided, but the system doesn’t show up on the archive maps.” As he finished, he showed Yoda that he had a hologlobe with him.

“An interesting puzzle,” Yoda answered. “Lost a planet, Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing … how embarrassing. An interesting puzzle. Gather, younglings, around the map reader. Clear your minds and find Obi-Wan’s wayward planet, we will try.”

They went into a room to the side of the veranda. A narrow shaft was set in the middle, with a hollow depression at the top. Off to the side, Obi-Wan took up the hologlobe, then moved and placed it in the hollow of the shaft. The shades closed as soon as he put it there, darkening the room, and a star map hologram appeared, glittering distinctly.

Obi-Wan paused a moment before presenting his dilemma, allowing the younglings to get past the initial excitement. He watched with amusement as some reached up and tried to touch the projected starlights. Then, when all quieted, he walked into the middle of the projection. “This is where it ought to be,” he explained. “Gravity is pulling all the stars in this area inward to this spot. There should be a star here, but there isn’t.”

“Most interesting,” Yoda said. “Gravity’s silhouette remains, but the star and all its planets have disappeared. How can this be? Now, younglings, in your mind, what is the first thing you see? An answer? A thought? Anyone?”

Obi-Wan took Yoda’s quiet cue and paused then, watching the Jedi Master look over his gathering.

A hand went up, and while Obi-Wan felt the urge to chuckle at the idea of a youngling solving a riddle that had befuddled a trio of accomplished Jedi, including
Yoda and Madame Jocasta Nu, he noted that Yoda was quite focused and serious.

Yoda nodded to the student, who answered at once. “Because someone erased it from the archive memory.”

“That’s right!” another of the children agreed at once. “That’s what happened! Someone erased it!”

“If the planet blew up, the gravity would go away,” another one of the children called out.

Obi-Wan stared blankly at the excited group, stunned, but Yoda only chuckled.

“Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is,” he explained. “Uncluttered. The data must have been erased.”

Yoda started out of the room and Obi-Wan moved to follow, flicking his hand as he passed the reader shaft, Force-pulling the hologlobe back to his grasp and instantly dismissing the starry scene.

“To the center of the pull of gravity go, and find your planet you will,” Yoda advised him.

“But Master Yoda, who could have erased information from the Archives? That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

“Dangerous and disturbing this puzzle is,” Yoda replied with a frown. “Only a Jedi could have erased those files. But who and why, harder to answer. Meditate on this, I will. May the Force be with you.”

A thousand questions filtered through Obi-Wan’s mind, but he understood that Yoda had just dismissed him. They each had their riddles, it seemed, but at least now Obi-Wan’s path seemed much clearer before him. He gave a deferential bow, but Yoda, already back to his work with the children, didn’t seem to notice. Obi-Wan walked away.

Soon after, not wanting to waste a moment, Obi-Wan was out on the landing platform standing beside his readied starfighter, a long and sleek delta-wing fighter, of
a triangular design, with the cockpit set far aft. Mace Windu was there beside him, the tall and strong-featured Master regarding Obi-Wan with his typically calm and controlled demeanor. There was something reassuring about Mace Windu, a sense of power and, even more than that, of destiny. Mace Windu had a way of silently assuring all those around him that things would work out as they were supposed to.

“Be wary,” he said to Obi-Wan, tilting his head back just a bit as he spoke, a posture that made him seem all the more impressive. “This disturbance in the Force is growing stronger.”

Obi-Wan nodded, though in truth, his concerns were more focused and tangible at that moment. “I’m concerned for my Padawan. He is not ready to be on his own.”

Mace gave a nod, as if to remind Obi-Wan that they had covered this already. “He has exceptional skills,” the Master replied. “The Council is confident in its decision, Obi-Wan. Not all of the questions about him have been answered, of course, but his talents cannot be dismissed, and we are not disappointed in the progress he has made under your tutelage.”

Obi-Wan considered the words carefully and nodded again, knowing that he was walking a fine line here. If he overstated his concerns about Anakin’s temperament, he might be doing a great disservice to the Jedi and to the galaxy. And yet, if he let the magnitude of his assignment in training Anakin Skywalker bring him to silence on legitimate questions, then was he doing great harm?

“If the prophecy is true, Anakin will be the one to bring balance to the Force,” Mace finished.

“But he still has much to learn. His skills have made him … well—” Obi-Wan paused, trying to walk that delicate line. “—arrogant. I realize now what you and
Master Yoda knew from the beginning. The boy was too old to start the training, and …”

The frown spreading on Mace Windu’s face signaled Obi-Wan that he might be pushing a bit too hard.

“There’s something else,” Mace observed.

Obi-Wan took a deep and steadying breath. “Master, Anakin and I should not have been given this assignment. I’m afraid Anakin won’t be able to protect the Senator.”

“Why?”

“He has a … an emotional connection with her. It’s been there since he was a boy. Now he’s confused, and distracted.” As he spoke, Obi-Wan started toward his starfighter. He climbed up the cockpit ladder and into his seat.

“So you have already stated,” Mace reminded. “And your concerns were weighed properly, and did not change the decision of the Council. Obi-Wan, you must have faith that Anakin will take the right path.”

It made sense, of course. If Anakin was to become a great leader, a creature of prophecy, then surely his character tests must be passed. Anakin was waging one of those tests right now, Obi-Wan knew, off in seclusion on a distant planet with a woman whom he loved too deeply. He had to be strong enough to pass that test; Obi-Wan just hoped that Anakin recognized the trial for what it was.

“Has Master Yoda gained any insight as to whether or not this war will come about?” he asked, somewhat changing the subject, though he felt that it was all very connected. Finding the assassin, making peace with the separatists—all of these things would allow him to focus more closely on Anakin’s training and would keep things at a more even keel around the troubled Padawan.

“Probing the dark side is a dangerous process,” Mace
stated. “I know not when he will choose to begin, but when he does, it is quite possible that he will remain in seclusion for days.”

Obi-Wan nodded his agreement and Mace gave him a smile and a wave. “May the Force be with you.”

“Set the course to the hyperspace ring, Arfour,” Obi-Wan instructed his astromech droid, an R4-P unit that was hardwired into the left wing of the sleek starfighter. Silently, the Jedi Knight added to himself,
Let’s get this thing moving
.

I
t was a scene of simplicity, of children playing and adults sitting quietly under the warm sun, or gossiping across neatly trimmed hedgerows. It was a scene of absolute normalcy for Naboo, but it was nothing like Anakin Skywalker had ever witnessed. On Tatooine, the houses were singular, out in the desert, or they were clustered tightly in cities like Mos Eisley, with its hustle and bustle and bright colors and brighter characters. On Coruscant, there were no streets like this one any longer. There were no hedgerows and trees lining the ground, just permacrete and old buildings and the gray foundations of the towering skyscrapers. People did not gossip, with children running carefree about them, in either place.

To Anakin, it was a scene of simple beauty.

He was back to wearing his Jedi robes, the peasant garb discarded. Padmé walked alongside him in a simple blue dress that only seemed to enhance her beauty. Anakin kept glancing her way, stealing images of her to burn into his mind, to hold forever in a special place. She could be wearing anything, he realized, and still be beautiful.

Anakin smiled as he recalled the ornate outfits Padmé had often worn as Queen of Naboo, huge gowns with intricate embroidery and studded with gemstones, tremendous headpieces of plumes and swirls and curves and twists.

He liked her better like this, he decided. All of the decorations of her Queenly outfits had been beautifully designed, but still could only detract from the more beautifully designed Padmé. Wearing a great headpiece only hid her silken brown hair. Painting her face in whites and bright red only hid her beautiful skin. The embroidery on the great gowns only blurred the perfection of her form.

This was the way Anakin wanted to see her, where her clothing was just a finishing touch.

“There’s my house!” Padmé cried suddenly, startling Anakin from his pleasant daydreams.

He followed her gaze to see a simple but tasteful structure, surrounded, like everything on Naboo, by flowers and vines and hedges. Padmé started off immediately for the door, but Anakin didn’t follow right away. He studied the house, every line, every detail, trying to see in it the environment that had produced her. She had told him many stories of her childhood in this house during their trip from Coruscant, and he was replaying those tales, seeing them in context now that the yard was in view.

“What?” Padmé asked him from some distance ahead, when she noticed that he was not following. “Don’t tell me you’re shy!”

“No, but I—” the distracted Anakin started to answer, but he was interrupted by the squeals of two little girls, running out from the yard toward his companion.

“Aunt Padmé! Aunt Padmé!”

Padmé’s smile went as wide as Anakin had ever seen it
and she rushed ahead, bending low to scoop the pair, who looked to be no more than a few years old, one a bit taller than the other, into her arms. One had hair short and blond and curly, the other, the older of the two, had hair that resembled Padmé’s.

“Ryoo! Pooja!” Padmé cried, hugging them and twirling them about. “I’m so happy to see you!” She kissed them both and set them down, then took them by the hand and led them toward Anakin.

“This is Anakin. Anakin, this is Ryoo and Pooja!”

The blush on the pair as they shyly said hello brought a burst of laughter from Padmé and a smile to Anakin’s face, though he was equally ill at ease as the two children.

The girls’ shyness lasted only as long as it took for them to notice the little droid rolling behind Anakin, trying to catch up.

“Artoo!” they shouted in unison. Breaking away from Padmé, they rushed to the droid, leaping upon him, hugging him cheek to dome.

And R2-D2 seemed equally thrilled, beeping and whistling as happily as Anakin had ever heard.

Anakin couldn’t help but be touched by the scene, a view of innocence that he had never known.

Well, not never, he had to admit. There were times when Shmi had found some way to produce such moments of joy amid the drudgery that was life as a slave on Tatooine. In their own way, in that dusty, dirty, hot, and smelly place, Anakin and his mother had carved out a few instants of innocent beauty.

Here, though, such moments seemed so much more the norm than the memorable exception.