Covalent Bonds

Chapter 2

Olanet is cold and the Separatists have hurt Anakin. I hate it. And them. In a small, shuttered room far in the back of his mind, Obi-Wan Kenobi entertained those thoughts as he gunned his lancer speeder bike to breast Siri's. She didn't glance his way. She was at his side, but not with him, not as a fellow Jedi, given their shared history. With Garen, Reeft, Bant and all the rest of his generation, he experienced varying degrees of warmth and lasting friendships. It sustained him on missions, in their Temple days of camaraderie and commiserating over the tribulations and rewards of being Knights and particularly over the trials of having Padawans. How in tune he had felt with his Order when they all expressed joy over his recovery from his illness, even when not one of them truly knew its origin. With Siri, she was his fellow warrior, along with Ferus and all the other Jedi. But that was all. In the small, shuttered room, he felt his hatred thoroughly of the planet and of the Separatists, his and Anakin's and the Republic's enemy. He indulged in a wallow of emotion, and when he was ready a split-second later to release it, he did. It was not difficult. He had been doing it since childhood, since lessons with Master Yoda, Master Drallig, Master Qui-Gon and all his other teachers. He was an adult now, a Knight, a Master, a Councilmember. There was no room for improvement within the Order, no place to advance to. It struck him briefly that he had entertained ambitions and he felt ashamed. More meditation, more self-abnegation, Obi-Wan. But after the battle.

The plan was to pierce the defenses of the reputed second-largest droid factory since Geonosis. After the droids were disposed of, artillery in the form of turbolasers would pierce the factory's shields, their battalion would enter the facility to end resistance. Dooku was not here, Grievous was not here, if their intel was correct, and Master Tholme's information was rarely wrong. There were IG lancer combat droids, but Obi-Wan saw no officers that looked organic. Odd. Were their forces needed elsewhere? What could be more important than protecting a droid factory of this magnitude? Their squadron flared into fighting mode, flying almost stirrup-to-stirrup and then the battle was joined.

As the waves of warriors clashed, time telescoped as reflexes took over. Obi-Wan thrust, hacked and hewed alongside Siri and Ferus, and then a lance from a droid hit his bike dead-on in a jolt that sent him nose-down until his prow nearly scraped the dust of residual snow from last week's blizzard. Obi-Wan tapped into the Force, angled his new stabilizer vane to the degree that the Force dictated to him, and went into a sideways spin instead. Flipping upside down at one point, he swallowed back bile as his head narrowly missed a rocky outcropping. I cannot bring myself to wear a helmet. I am stupid. The spin slowed, he righted, took a breath and zoomed back into the fray. Siri and Ferus had each taken a troop to the outskirts of the droid's formation, working their way inward in a deadly crush. But there was still some fighting left for him.

Obi-Wan caught up with his troop, who were acquitting themselves admirably. He gave the signal for 'to me!', smiling a little as Commander Cody relayed it with one hand signal while firing a blaze of bolts at a droid with the other, starting at the crotch and moving to the gut. The automaton's gyro-balancers targeted by Cody were waist-high; the droid toppled almost comically to one side, spasming a final burst. Obi-Wan's smile disappeared as the last dying blast of the anonymous droid hit Cody's jet-pack, sparking a flame and a sharper yelp of pain than Obi-Wan heard through the helmet's deadening thickness. He sobered further when Cody bent double to spare his hams from a searing burn, the flare from the jet-pack ignited Obi-Wan's jutting afterboosters and Obi-Wan's speeder bike took off raggedly. Soon he was at the maximum speed of six hundred kilometers per hour, and then surpassed it. It was far too fast for him to roll off safely, and he clung with all the strength in one hand to the controls as he reached down to toggle the cutoff switch for the afterboosters. The droid's lance had jarred its connection and it refused to work. I modded extra afterboosters when I added the auxiliary steering vane. And I topped off the afterbooster fuel tanks last night. There was no suitable curse for this situation; not even 'kriff' would do.

Siri looked up after she decapitated two droids at once, stepping over the sparking cylindrical heads neatly. The Force whispered that a danger arose, a Jedi was in serious trouble and that she was the Force's instrument, here and now in the field. She heard a runaway lancer speeder bike scream in the distance and saw someone trailing a brown cloak clinging to it. Closer to her were Cody and his mates gesticulating and slapping at Cody's smoking hindquarters, troopers on the fringe of the group gesturing after the diminishing bike. General Kenobi.

"Ferus! Have you got things in hand here?" He saw it, too. He's going to make Master soon. But not yet. She clipped her lightsaber to a metal ring at her waist, in front of the set-in zippered pocket.

"Everything's --- ungh slash frzzz --- under control, Siri! --- Smash. Clank. Rogerrr ... Rrrog- --- Go for him!"

Siri leaped astride her bike, which had been hovering at her side to provide cover since she dismounted to mop up the droids. She gunned the controls and activated the standard single afterburner when she had cleared the battling troopers. She leaned tightly into the bike, calling out a Force-bubble to smooth her shoulder-length blonde hair from whipping into her eyes. Unisuit. So glad I'm wearing the unisuit. Within one minute she could see Obi-Wan ahead, zigzagging to slow his momentum, his form shaking enough to appear transdimensional. A mound of snow appeared and Obi-Wan's bike sizzled through it. His cloak fell. There could have been rocks under the mound, Obi-Wan. Not smart. A few more minutes and she could reach him, if he continued cutting the distance between them. She calculated his trajectory to mirror his next zig before it zagged and moved to parallel his route, when a larger mound of white appeared and the runaway bike pointed its nose for the stars to miss it.

Obi-Wan feared for the worst and it happened. His third and final afterbooster, reached tardily by the ignition of the first two, roared. And the direction was straight up. Before he knew it, he was at twelve kilometers in altitude and gasping for air. There was a sickening still moment when his fuel depleted at last and he hung as a satellite, suspended above the clouds. Looking down, he spotted someone's speck of a bike chasing him. Thanks, whoever you are. Even if it's too late. He kicked free of the useless bike, spread himself to the winds and prepared to wrench every last second out of his life. Fifteen seconds, tops, of useful concentration up here. Up this high, in the clear ether he spotted an aurora similar to the one that glorified last night's freezing temperatures. I won't be around to see it tonight, he thought, but Anakin will. Anakin. Darling. His passing would devastate Anakin, but not as much as two years ago or, stars forbid, ten years ago. Anakin would mourn, light his pyre and go on. He knew he would. The aurora's blue and violet curtains were the last things he saw before he heaved a final wrenching breath and blacked out. The tingle coming from all sides, penetrating him, binding him, must have been the Force. He surrendered to it.

Siri's eyes widened. He's a rocket. I've got to catch him. She followed as best she could, shooting straight up, keeping an eye on her own fuel. Not much left at this rate of speed. He's off his bike, starting to fall. She couldn't go any faster, so she concentrated on evading the dropping speeder bike and maneuvering to meet his falling corpse. No sense spearing it, upset the troops any more than they have to be. She reached for Obi-Wan's hand, its iciness matching the look in his half-lidded, bleary gaze. He didn't meet her eyes. Oh, yes, he's joined the --- wait. Obi-Wan's corpse blinked. So he wasn't suffocated by the altitude, she thought as she hauled in his limp form across her lap. She clamped a hand around his pauldron to keep him from sliding off her slick unisuit. She began the descent carefully, buffeted by the high-altitude winds. Closer and closer crept Olanet's foothills with their pockets of snow-filled ravines next to the battalion's headquarters camp. With an eye to an easier landing site, she angled her aft port vane down slightly and her aft starboard vane up an infinitesimal degree. The bike responded, slewing to port towards one likely looking white gully. There was a shudder and then the fuel ran out. Too soon! She toggled the fuel switch with her toe. Nothing. She reached a cautious hand downwards towards the recalcitrant switch, poked it savagely and it cooperated. With an uneven flare of fueling, the afterburner roared, the bike skewed further to port. Obi-Wan slid off her lap. She grabbed for him and was rewarded by only a handful of auburn hair. Her bike continued to sputter. The unisuit. I would have to wear the unisuit this duty rotation. She followed Obi-Wan erratically, trusting in the Force that she had been meant this day to slow his fall enough to help him live through this.

Obi-Wan was colder than he had ever been, even last night in their cabin after the fire had died down. He opened his eyes, wiping the tears streaming from them with a slow hand. Did I miss something? He looked down. Pretty. Clouds. Herds of white nerfs, too. Inspiring how the nerfherders keep their ancient occupation going in Olanet's upland valleys in the midst of a war zone. The nerfs appear larger now; I can make out their individual features. Why would that be? Oh. In a burst of unknown strength, Obi-Wan reached out with the Force even as he stretched his arms and legs out as far as he could. The slit of ravine that had the most snow revealed itself, he pinwheeled and it became obvious to him that he was going to make it, he was going to hit his target. I honestly did not think that I could. I feel charged, somehow. And then he hit and the air whooshed painfully out of his lungs.

Anakin rubbed his throat as he exited the medtech tent. Application of bacta to the base of his tugged braid and his abraded neck had done its work, but swallowing the nasty stuff to heal his raw throat made his mouth pucker. He was not given leave to return to battle for another half-day. It rankled being this far away from Obi-Wan, yet they had had a few solo missions in the two years since Trow. He was about to head for the mess tent for some soft, easy-to-swallow mush when a ping! from his imprinted sense of his Master whirled him around to look skywards. Their training bond thrummed with alarm as he spotted an unsteady flame of some speeder bike traveling far above its usual twenty-five meter altitude sputtering to the ground and a smaller figure anteceding its landing by some moments. That's Obi-Wan! By gargantuan leaps and bounds, he headed for the narrow ravine that both bike and man seemed aimed for. Let me get there in time, please don't let it be like Mom, please ... no! At the base of the thirty-meter ravine where the snow was piled thickest, his boots slicked, he scrabbled and clawed with both hands to catch his falling Master. The snow clung to his legs until he thought to initiate small Force-pushes from his calves, but he was still going to be too late, too late. This would not happen. No. Obi-Wan hit the snow, rolled a few meters and hit a snow-shrouded boulder, bounced and was airborne.

"This is going to hurt. This is going to hurt lots," thought Anakin as Obi-Wan hurtled down at him through flying snow. Anakin planted his feet and looked at his Master's approaching limp form. Worth it all. Worth more. Obi-Wan struck him, Anakin dropped to his knees, rolling Obi-Wan on top of him, pulling every back muscle that Anakin owned. Obi-Wan's head snapped back into Anakin's throat, choking him with a hard blow to the pharynx. No, not in the throat again! Anakin couldn't breathe as his throat swelled. He lay with a layer of Obi-Wan covering every centimeter of him, except for the handspan or so due to the differences in their heights. He convulsed as his diaphragm spasmed trying to draw enough air, thinking at the last moment to cradle Obi-Wan's head from smacking down into the gravelly slush beside him where Anakin's boots had worn away the cushioning snow. Before he blacked out, Anakin sensed a change in his imprinted Master, a change that echoed Padmé in some strange, strange fashion. When he came to a half-minute later, wheezing like a steamkettle, he dismissed the notion as a concussion-induced mirage. He felt Obi-Wan's still body all over, and wondered how much of his Master could be saved.

Meanwhile, back on Coruscant ...

"Palo, Palo. Old friend." Padmé's Vice-Chancellor's robes of office required slow, stately steps. She held out her hands to Palo, making certain to squeeze so tight and no tighter. This was business, tinged with slight pleasure. She relinquished his grip and indicated the informal settee reserved for friends who were allowed to sit next to her. They perched like Solleu River ducks on the settee's edge, before looking at each other with a laugh and settling against the brocaded cushions. "You're looking well."

"You, too." With her formal hair ornaments in place and the scar of remembrance etched in red paint onto her lower lip for this solemn holiday memorializing the end of the Trade Federation blockade, she exuded Naboo elegance. Her warm brown eyes darkened. She leaned into his side.

"How is Dormé?"

"Well. She keeps asking about you." Dormé's renewal of handmaiden vows never took place. Palo had reentered Padmé's sphere one year ago during a fundraiser gala, Dormé and he had struck up a romance immediately and married even quicker than had Anakin and Padmé. While she could have stayed in Padmé's service as a handmaiden, she chose to return to Naboo and work as liaison between Senior Senator Jar-Jar Binks' and Junior Senator Ommané Retbax' offices. She discovered the true meaning of the word 'inundated.'

"Palo, you've done well. Mama and Papa frequent your shop and sent me this." Padmé nodded toward the ceramic piece on the caf table before them. It rested on a snowy doily, courtesy of Threepio's tidiness.

Palo spared his work a polite glance. "I'm glad you're enjoying it. It was inspired by a trip to Varykino two years ago."

"You've been to Varykino lately?"

"Ommané Retbax invited me there. We enjoyed a week repulsor skiing together, before I met Dormé, naturally." His nostalgic smile told Padmé everything. "Ommané's left your employ, hasn't she?"

"Yeeess." What advantage could dating Palo have had for her? She rarely did anything just for fun. Except scramball and dancing. "She's the Junior Senator from home, please tell me that you knew that."

"What can I say? The Legislative Youth Group was years ago, I lost interest in politics. I modeled for some years while in art school, then my parents died at the camps during the Trade Federation War and when I gained my majority, I controlled my inheritance and put my works in a shop that I bought." Just recapping our conversation from one year ago, the one you seem to have forgotten. "The shop has done well, and I'd like it to do better." Why did she ask to see me?

Padmé took his hand with her white-nailed one. "I can offer a chance for that. It will involve some risk for you, but it will aid the war effort."

"I don't know, Padmé. I'm as patriotic as the next citizen, but I'm married now. I just don't see what I can do." He laughed. "See this roll of flab? Good cooking did it. Dormé's a wonder in the kitchen. If this requires any aerobic effort, well ... " He withdrew his hand gently. Don't push, Padmé. We haven't remained that close.

Padmé stared at the ceramic piece. "It offers a chance to get revenge on the Trade Federation, the Separatists." She folded her arms inside her bell-shaped sleeves, looking like the Queen she used to be. "It's a plan that involves an art dealer such as yourself. It's a plan that --- "

" --- end the war, it could."

"Yoda?" Palo knew him from the HoloNews, during the rare interview involving Jedi business, and from the hour-long State of the Jedi address given each decade. The one two years ago had made barely a blip on his consciousness. Revision of some Code or other. He'd been more interested in Ommané's scramball tournament, during his attempts to impress her with his sports knowledge. Their fling hadn't lasted long. He could summon up fake interest, but not sustain it for an entire evening. Ommané had noticed eventually.

"Yoda, I mean Master Yoda, when did you come in? Hello, by the way." Padmé's body language changed from formal to informal to formal again, Palo noticed with his artist's eye. If she were sitting for him during a holosculpture session, he would have had to have at least four modes to portray her shifting moods.

"Called me to here, the Force did. Also called the Supreme Chancellor for a meeting this morning. Afterwards, in the neighborhood, I was, and wondered how you would enjoy luncheon with me." Yoda's eyes were half-lidded in what Palo interpreted as sultriness. He felt like he was intruding. "Give me your office entry code, you did, Padmé."

"Yes, I did." But I don't like surprises like this. We'll have to talk. "Please have a seat."

"Stand, I will, if it pleases you. Sitting all morning with Chancellor Organa, I have been. Get stiff if I do not walk frequently, I do." Yoda's eyes crinkled. "But know that, you do, Padmé."

Is Padmé blushing? Difficult to tell under her facepaint. She's biting her scar of remembrance, though. "Mmmmhmm, I do. Well, then. Yoda, as long as you are in the meeting now, would you care to explain our plan to Palo?"

"It won't involve modeling, will it? I'm past the modeling prime by ten years." Palo felt obliged to laugh his way through this meeting. He hoped the awkwardness would be eased by it.

Yoda didn't reply. Instead he pointed with his stick to Palo's Home for Solstice Night resting on its doily. "Art, craft, what difference between them is there?"

This I can answer. "None, Yoda, not to me, at least. The effort to complete one's vision is the same. Perfection must be reached by both the craftsperson and the artist." Palo knew the dangers of being a perfectionist. As one of his art teachers had impressed upon him, the hardest part of doing art was knowing when to quit. He had become a dealer in addition to being an artist to expand his business skills beyond their larval state. So far, he hadn't become disillusioned with art or the business of it.

Padmé interrupted. "Please use his title, Palo."

"Oh, of course. I apologize, Master Yoda." She's defending him. This can't be what it seems like.

Yoda pushed on, coming closer to Padmé's knee and giving it a light tap with his gimer stick. It was nearly a caress. "My politician friend, steeped in the niceties of living, she is, Palo of Naboo. If only all beings shared her sense of fairness, of justice, of ... beauty ... as I hope you do. This plan will put your aesthetic sense to good practical use, if choose to help us, you do."

Palo was intrigued despite himself. Three hours until my transport leaves. May as well listen. You picked this holiday of all holidays to ask me this, clever as always, Padmé, girl.
TBC 

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