Covalent Bonds

Chapter 10

Home. Home, home, home. Back to meetings, debriefings, more meetings and ... the salles. Two weeks after their return to the Jedi Temple, Anakin pulled his opposite foot back with a crack! with his mechno-hand, then repeated the stretch with his flesh hand.

He bent, he squatted, he walked up the wall and back-flipped. Opposite the padded wall containing the door, Obi-Wan flexed, walked on his hands, spun on his back and whipped himself to his feet using a triple spin. Bemused, Anakin observed his Master. "Ready?" he asked.

"In a Coruscant minute." Obi-Wan glowed with health and had insisted on wearing loincloths for this warmup wrestling match. Later on in the day, Soara Antana had promised to show them what she had been working on for the past week. She had been coy about what it had been. "All the bettah to tease you with," she'd said, and made them grin with her adoption of a Neimoidian accent. Geonosis had eased her sense of humor until it resembled Clee Rhara's, Obi-Wan thought. That, or Soara hung out too much with Ry-Gaul, whose taciturnity would make anyone overcompensate. Obi-Wan loosened his loincloth to a dangerous level.

"Um, Obi-Wan, you might lose your clothes if I get the advantage ... " Anakin didn't want to think of the distraction that this would cause.

"I don't think so. I'm prepared to trounce you this morning." Obi-Wan's wide, white smile gleamed. "Ready."

"Trounce away." With no further words, the two lunged at each other's ankles for a trip and went immediately to floor work, straining for a quick win. Oh, submission grappling? All right, Master. Anakin had patented his leglock, but Obi-Wan was wilier this morning than Anakin had ever seen him. He dove immediately to choke Anakin in an advanced move, but Anakin wanted to draw out the combat for exercise's sake. Anakin rolled as if down an Olaneti slope, eluding Obi-Wan's grasp. Before he stopped revolving, Obi-Wan crawled over the mat faster than a suubatar could gallop and joined in the roll, ending with Anakin on top, face to face. Anakin looked down at forbidden beard-dusted lips and paused, fatally. Quicker than lightning, Obi-Wan hardly seemed to strain as he rolled to his left side, sliding a rock-hard muscled left leg across Anakin's midsection, rolling Anakin on top of him back to chest as he hooked the ankle of the crushing left leg behind the knee of his own bent right leg. He squeezed and Anakin grunted, Obi-Wan used the momentary laxness of his opponent to slip his left foot in between Anakin's legs, from the back. I bound myself up tightly in the loincloth, Obi-Wan, but don't dig with your toenails or something important might be injured. In the meantime, Obi-Wan's muscled left arm firmed Anakin's head in a choke-hold while his right arm braced itself flat on the mat for balance. Obi-Wan squeezed tighter.

I bet Ferus doesn't know this move. Obi-Wan tempered his strength with just the right amount of caution. This move could be deadly with a snap of the head to the side to break the pivot vertebra, it could be debilitating to a serious degree with a rough move against an opponent's privates, it could crush a spleen with a Force-pressure of an encircling leg. Obi-Wan held Anakin as tightly as he ever had, even in the drowning brown waters of the River Trow. I win.

Anakin slapped the mat. That was all that it took for Obi-Wan to release him. They remained silent as they headed for the showers.

"Good match." Anakin placed his arm neatly on the bench, grabbed Obi-Wan's elbow as Obi-Wan was about to enter the shower cubicle. "Tell me about that hold. You felt like an anakkona with a mad on."

"You're close." They walked side by side into the cubicle, said, "On!" and the showers started. Sonics hummed and Anakin and Obi-Wan turned slowly in front of the emitters, raising and lowering arms and legs to ensure cleansing of every crevice. Anakin's stump buzzed pleasantly with the vibrations. They ruffled each other's hair and bent and spread at the end, palms on knees.

"So what's the move called?"

"The Anakkona Rear Mount."

"Oh. Train me in it?"

"You know I will." Obi-Wan straightened up before Anakin did. He backed up to the sonic emitter's four-head stand as if to clean off some lingering sweat from the back of his head, slyly hiding something behind his back. "Oh, Anakin."

"What, M---aaahhh! No!" Anakin fled from the handheld sonic gun used for even more thorough washes, ordinarily held in its clip on the circular showerstand. The Padawan raced around Saesee Tiin's bulk, who was just beginning his ablutions with horns lowered.

The Iktotchi glowered at the two Jedi chasing each other, grumbling deep in his throat as the sonics distracted him from saying something negative. He turned his back on the emitter and worked his powerful weathered neck muscles with his hands. Maybe Adi is right.

Gotyou, gotyou ... where did you go? Obi-Wan glanced up just in time to see Anakin leap off the tiled divider wall to land directly in front of him. "Stop, please. I give."

"Again? Where's your compet---"

"We're both going out tonight and it's time to meet Master Antana. Play later?" Something like Force sabacc, something ... tamer.

"Spoilsport. All right then." I'm feeling bumptious, don't know why. Did I embarrass myself in front of Tiin?

After they dressed in their standard tunics and sparred briefly, Soara met them back in the salles, coming through the doors with an outstretched hand, the base of a holoemitter with bright markings resting on her saber-callused skin. "Obi-Wan, I've been honored."

Obi-Wan handled the holoemitter, reading the script aloud. "'Test your lightsaber skills with the best. Be a Jedi, be a Force-sensitive, be Force-blind, build any avatar that you wish to spar with the renowned ... Master Soara Antana. Parents' permission required. Not for younglings under the age of five.'"

Anakin itched to get his hands on it. "May I, Obi-Wan?"

"It is your area of expertise."

Anakin looked it up and down before glancing for affirmation at Soara, who nodded. He thumbed the base switch, and a hand-sized Soara jiggled in a low-cut tunic, waving her lightsaber dangerously near her legs. "Artistic license, you understand, but wait until he activates it. Go ahead, Padawan." Soara's face showed her pleasure as her avatar bounced, backflipped, thrust and parried and riposted, never mussing her hair. "Well, Obi-Wan?"

It's not Jedi-like. "How ... interesting. A prototype for Initi---" No, it said 'parents.' "Well, I don't know what to say, but you seem pleased, so I am."

"Thanks. It is for the Vice-Chancellor's new Jedi Children's Museum, an interactive display room for younglings of all species to learn more about what we do. You know, the revised Code? Be more open with the public?"

"Master Yoda approves?"

"Well, of course he does. He's working very closely for months with the Vice Chancellor to push the funding through, even if we are at war." Soara placed her holoemitter in a padded pouch and squared off with the two Jedi. "Two on one, what do you say?" She bounced on her heels.

"You're on." Our meeting with Master Yoda tomorrow should be quite interesting, Obi-Wan thought as he took his stance.

The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly.

Later that day ...

Siri palmed open the door to her quarters, thinking that Jedi, one and all, were devoted to good manners. Even Dooku would probably offer them a cup of kopi tea and some longbread biscuits before discussing the manner of their execution. Nearly every problem could be solved if everyone had good manners, she remembered a pre-Padawan Kenobi saying in a squeaky, changing voice. Siri liked the Jedi as well as she respected the Code, even its new version that Master Adi despised. When she asked Adi why she found no common ground between revised and old Code, Adi had said that change ought to be discussed, thought about, discussed some more, and then accepted or rejected. After one year, Adi had rejected the new Code. "It's based on self, just like the Sith code. It elevates the self up to the status of an ideal, when none of our 'selves' should be."

"'Should' is shit."

"Who taught you that? 'Should' is what makes us rise above our natures. Where did you learn such things? Not from me." Adi hadn't been irrational these past fifteen years since Qui-Gon's passing, but she had definitely gained an edge. It made her a better pilot, but a poorer ambassador. Adi's diplomat parents would have been disappointed, in Siri's opinion.

And tonight would be more of the same, Siri thought dispiritedly as she eased into an evening outfit. She won't like this, just like she doesn't approve of the unisuit. Tough yot beans. She had barely tied the loose sash to her black septsilk tunic when the door chimed. I've got plans, Master. Don't ruin my mood.

"Good evening, Siri."

"Good evening, Adi." Adi spotted the untidy pile of clothing on the sofa and raised her eyebrows. Siri flipped the pile onto a chair. "I'll tidy up later. Drink?"

"No. No, thanks. You're looking better than on Olanet."

"It was a campaign, we sort of won and we sort of lost. The Separatists are off the planet, Adi, but the cost to the clones was nothing to ignore. The lab reports haven't helped Plo much."

So that's why he's been avoiding me. "I know how hard a worker he is." Adi noted the level of liquor in the decanter that her ex-Padawan poured with a deft hand. It was half-full. And half-empty. "I saw them at the barracks."

"When?"

"Yesterday. It's good for the Masters who are in-Temple to Visit The Sick, even if they are clones. I feel like they are an extension of the Jedi, somehow." Adi smoothed her headdress.

"You do?" This, I did not expect. Give me another. Siri poured a half-thimbleful of her favorite liquor, Whyren's Reserve Special Distillation Number Eighteen.

"And why not? We are responsible for their very being. I must say, they put on a pitiful showing, stumbling and trembling in their bad cases of nerves. I did so want to try to help them into Force healing trances."

So we agree on something. "That was part of your duties, you say." She downed the drink and relaxed.

"Yes, it is, and I wanted to do it, too. I might be saying farewell to them soon, Siri, just like we talked about last month."

Here we go. "You sound convinced it's the correct path."

"It's right for me and I hope it will be right for you. Just now, off this campaign, you've given your all to the Order." Protect an ex-Padawan, it's been hard-wired into me.

"No, I haven't, and I don't want to leave, Adi. I spent weeks thinking things over after I came out of deep cover all those years ago and I decided to stay with the Order. It's not perfect, but it's home. The Code --- "

"We can't seem to agree about the new Code." Adi stiffened.

"I guess not." Master, I'll not let you bring me down. I'm having fun tonight. "Obi-Wan's coming over in a bit. We're ordering sliders from Dex's and watching two vids."

"Two? That will be a late night for you, Siri." Blast that Code. Discipline has gone all to pieces in the Order.

"Ohhhh ... mmm ... sometime, maybe you and I could --- "

Maybe, before I leave. "It could be entertaining. But only one per evening."

"He'll be here shortly, Adi. Sure you don't want a little something before you leave?" Gentle, gentle.

I can take a hint. "I'm fine. Enjoy your evening. Good night, Siri."

"Good night, Adi." That wasn't too bad. And she'd never leave for good without saying goodbye. Siri and Adi did not linger over farewells in the doorway. It had never been their style.

TBC

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