Covalent Bonds

Chapter 20

"Sorry about last night. He went for a stroll, got back late and we had words."

"It was loud."

"He's gotten it out of his system, I think. And you realize he is concerned about my health."

Siri put down the outdated copy of the Internal Journal and thumbed a hold on Head Tentacle Shrinkage: Are Nautolans Concerned Enough? to read when Obi-Wan's turn came."You're making excuses for him." She shifted on the banque seating, edging close enough to show her growing scowl. Obi-Wan looked away.

"I'm not the most communicative Master at times. I think this mission will do us both good. He needs to practice being on his own."

"I've been busy with my own career, Obi-Wan, and I don't look at the HoloNews much, but don't you think the Negotiator could avoid shouting?" I don't get what they have together. If this is the new Jedi Code in play, maybe Adi is right to leave.

I'm not going into details, but you deserve something. "Two years ago, Anakin and I changed the tenor of our roles. He does know more than I do about some things."

"Well, of course he does, but you don't tell Padawans that!"

"And why not? We were on a mission where our lives were at risk. Something happened to make us closer. I came to treasure him more." Obi-Wan sat straighter. "And why are you surprised? Siri, you've said 'he's our Chosen One, he's our Chosen One' a lot lately. He is different."

"He's under your roof and your care. Somebody has to be Master, and that somebody is you. You don't let a Padawan holler at you, I don't care if he is special." There would be disciplining this morning if Ferus had done that. Instead you two sat together on the transport to New Holstice like nothing had happened.

"Maybe I'm letting the war get to me too much. I'm weary of it, Siri, even though lately I've felt better physically somehow."

"Stars and galaxies, you're in the right place to get checked out. Luminara is the best." She is our mutual friend. She'll help you. "You're putting yourself down and that's not the Obi-Wan that I remember standing up to Qui-Gon Jinn and leaving the Order."

Obi-Wan's lips twisted. "That was a long time ago. We've both mellowed; I'm thirty-eight, you're thirty-six."

Siri's mouth dropped open. "We're at the top of our game. Each of us has passed our Trials, been Knighted, had a Padawan under our belt and speak for yourself, brother Jedi, because I feel great!" She stood up, arms akimbo. "Look at me." Luminara said they were sleeping together when I commed her from Olanet, but I don't see how sharing a bed could lead to insubordination.

Siri had a great deal going for her; if only she could tone it down at times, Obi-Wan thought. He saw her as maverick as Qui-Gon had been. Each one had had issues with being a Jedi, Qui-Gon with obeying the Council and Siri with her past as a slaver cum pirate cum general bully. He felt as if he were being bullied right now. "I see you. I see you. What else do you want me to say?" Would you do this if we weren't alone in the waiting room?

"I want you to say, 'Siri, you make a good partner. Siri, we'll finish up here with whatever niggling thing that healers want to do with me and then we'll head out to that orbital platform and not stop until we know what's what and if there are organics messing around up there, we'll capture them and drag the truth out of them.' Say it."

Kriff. I think I liked it better when we weren't talking to each other. "'Siri, you make a good partner.'"

"And?"

"And you don't understand how things are between Anakin and me, that's all. And I want you to drop it." Fatigue from a restless night washed over him, but he diverted it. Inside the examination room, he sensed a peculiar rigidity in the Force preceding a Praci solidifying itself in preparation to donning its special Jedi uniform with a plasticine lining. Their osmosis was stopped that way and it helped their concentration on staying semi-solid. Obi-Wan knew they had some value to the Order, but they were possibly the most problematical of Jedi and if they weren't so kriffing nice and if they didn't literally wear their hearts on their sleeves, he doubted whether any Praci would be gathered by the scouts that traveled the galaxy to investigate Force-sensitive infants. Praci nearly always wound up in the Council of First Knowledge, reading in that Council's Archives or accessing ancient Jedi knowledge via the holocrons. They needed special equipment for handling the holocrons, too, something to insulate them from any electrical discharge or they could be boiled to scum in a matter of minutes. Sometimes things are just too much trouble. Speaking of which ...

"Obi-Wan, I'm sorry I'm late. Master Tachi, Master Allie wants to see you in her office for a pre-mission checkup."

"Balls. All right, thank you, Padawan. Meet you two at the transport. The sooner we leave, the better." I'm fine, Obi-Wan is fine except between his ears, and Skywalker hasn't been ill since Ferus gave him his cold on Euceron, Obi-Wan says. Waste of time being here. Siri trotted away.

This office of Luminara's had both an entrance door and an exit door, making awkward encounters and questioning looks obsolete. Her waiting room lacked any piped-in music, as if the immediacy of treating Jedi wounded required the utmost of concentration. There would be very little elective surgery here. The silence grew until Obi-Wan registered that Anakin's hands were greasy. "You're dirty. Why?"

"Pre-flight check showed a leak in the franistan supraornal capacitator valve. It's fixed now." Anakin dug at something under his nails. "What do you think she'll say?"

Obi-Wan snorted. "Something about dropping you off wherever you want to go and then leaving for the mission. I'd say the same thing. It's time we" --- separated for a bit --- "got on with the war."

"No, I meant Master Lu."

"We passed the Memory Moth Memorial on the way in, that's why you're worried about me, isn't it." A glowing swirl by night, a pale whirlwind by day, the memorial's whispers of Jedi who had passed on had gotten to Obi-Wan, too. "Anakin, I'm feeling fine. Except that I'm a little tired out from last night."

"I don't like us separating."

Finally it comes out. "It's an observation mission, primarily, and if we need backup, we know where to get it. Padawan, you have done your part by straightening out that tax mess and by signing your holocards." Obi-Wan gave him a moment to digest this, then said, "Master Yoda knows that you and I are the best team, no, the most appropriate team, for the terentatek carpet scheme. Think of that instead."

"I still don't l--- "

"Obi-Wan and Anakin, come on in." A frazzled-looking Luminara waved them into the room, a wet rag in her hand. "Don't mind this my orderly is ill today and I'm swamped great gobs of Praci all over this floor don't slip Obi-Wan no you don't need to get up on the table ... There." She straightened, tossed the rag into the steri-disposal unit and waved her hands under the exam table's blue sterilizing field. "There." Luminara sat on a corner of her desk, looking for all the galaxy like a worn-out rag herself, her cowl askew. But in the Force, her aura glowed with happiness and a thread of what Obi-Wan would call 'scientific curiosity,' a blue-white sharpness spiking in his direction. She beamed at him. "Obs, how are you feeling?"

"Fine. Whatever the med-tech told you, I feel fine. No knee pain, hair's all grown back, see?"

Her discerning gaze included Anakin. "My back is all right, too, Master Lu." She's busy and understaffed if a replacement orderly couldn't be found. Why is she this happy?

I want to shout this. "Obi-Wan, your cristae have increased monumentally. Your midichlorians' electron transport chain's molecules are organized in such neat little bundles, which is so like you, that, that your hydrogen ion gradient is greater than any other Jedi's, except Anakin's." She swung a booted leg in his direction, tapping his knee. "Isn't that marvelous?"

Seize upon the word that you know when conversing with a techhead. "My midichlorians. Like Anakin's."

"Yes, Obs! This means that your midichlorian count is comparable to his, not as high, but comparable. Let me show you." The lights waved off, the holodiagram filling the room attacked his senses, and Obi-Wan tried with all his might to follow the inner workings of his midichlorians which were themselves inner workings of his cells. The cristae were membrane shelves that organized the mechanisms that fed energy to his body, and somehow he had more access to hydrogen and the membrane shelves became more dense as the need arises, thus allowing him more energy ...

"I needed more energy to survive because of my trip to the upper levels of atmosphere on Olanet, so I got more energy from --- "

"From the aurora's radiation, I'm postulating. It was all in the med-tech's report of your 'tingling sensation bathing all parts of you' as you stated. Did you feel the Force up there?"

"I wasn't sure, Lu. It could have been, but I wasn't consciously using it. I blacked out very quickly." I do feel better than I have for some time. "You're not going to keep me here for tests, are you? Siri and I have a mission starting right now." A Healer's authority superceded even Master Yoda's.

Luminara regained some composure. "I'd love to keep you here. But the samples of your tissues and not your bloodwork gave me this information, and since the data showed no change in between one transmission and the next, I'm stating that your midichlorians are in a basal state. I'll take a tissue sample today and compare with past data, but my hypothesis upon observing you these past minutes is that you are showing no inimical symptoms, and that's what I'm concerned about. Sit still." She pressed a metal cylinder to his forehead where the regrown patch of skin was, and then to his hand where he had sustained no injury. "All done. Go on your mission, comm me if anything strange occurs, and May The Force Be With You." She was already at her desk again, tapping the analyzer, taking notes on her datapad. "If I need more samples, use your analyzer to send me another transmission, Obi-Wan. Inside the cheek is fine."

"Master Lu."

"Anakin, yes?"

"His midichlorians are mostly like mine."

"Yes, Padawan."

"So we can be closer like before."

"Yes."

"Oh. That's all. May The Force Be With You."

"May The Force Be With You. Comm me if you observe differences worthy of comment. I don't foresee any since it has been weeks since the incident, but my door is always open to you, Anakin." She embraced them both in a post-Jedi-Code revision hug and kiss goodbye, then buried herself again in her work and missed the dippy smiles on both their faces.

Meanwhile, on Coruscant ...

Healer Regork indulged himself in a bath under his own heat lamp. He lay as still as a granite slug that had just eaten, then flipped slowly over on his diagnostic couch to lie with his snout over the edge. Sso good. Ssusstained warmth, vitamins bathing my hide, making my colorss richer ... ooooh ... All his thoughts calmed, his plans for the future, the war news that he followed assiduously, though he was Temple-based. He contemplated the next holonet auction in a distant corner of his consciousness. Possessionss, can't think of anything elsse than thiss that I need. I'm done with buying off the Holonet. He closed his lids and allowed his tongue to lap over his teeth in total relaxation. After a while he dozed off. He didn't see the blinking light on his lamp or hear padding footsteps and the tiny snick! of metal on metal.

TBC

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