Moment of Truth (9781484719794) Read online

  “Back to the ship!” Obi-Wan called. It would at least offer some cover.

  They ran, the fire behind them now. Shalini tripped, but Anakin picked her up and dove underneath the belly of the ship. Thik was still moving too slowly. He was not keeping up with the others and would be a prime target when the smoke cleared. Obi-Wan grabbed him. He ran forward to push Thik into an empty space where crushed metal had created a cubbyhole.

  He saw too late that there was only room for one. Obi-Wan pushed Thik into the space and kept on going. The smoke was starting to clear. Obi-Wan dived for a boulder and took shelter behind it. He was wedged in between the boulder and a larger one behind him. There was barely room, but he doubted he could be seen from above.

  The starships landed. The group huddled under their own ship. Obi-Wan saw Shalini move toward Anakin. She handed him something and spoke rapidly in his ear.

  The disk. She had handed him the disk.

  Obi-Wan realized that the Vanqors had decided on capture. They could have easily blown up the ship by now if they’d wanted.

  Dozens of troops exited their ship. A squad headed for the downed ship while another peeled off to search the area.

  Obi-Wan searched his hiding place. He realized that if he could squeeze a bit further behind the boulder, it opened up into a small cavelike opening impossible to see unless you were right on top of it. It offered a perfect place to hide.

  He could not do them any good by being captured too. It tore at him to leave his Padawan, but it was his only hope.

  He squeezed back into the hole, then doubled over to fit himself into the space. From here he could see through a crevice in the rock out to the ship.

  Soldiers rounded up the group and herded them onto their starships. Obi-Wan’s heart ached. There was no way he and Anakin alone could fend off dozens of soldiers and well-armed enemy ships.

  The starships took off and shot away into the distance. Slowly, Obi-Wan hauled himself up. He panted out his exhaustion and his frustration.

  Then he made himself stand and turned his thoughts toward rescue.

  Chapter Six

  The soldiers had bound their hands behind them and pushed them aboard the starships. Anakin felt the disk burn against his skin. So far he had not been searched, but he would use the Force to divert attention. Shalini had entrusted the disk to him, and he wouldn’t fail her.

  She had spoken rapidly in his ear. “Take this. It will be safest in the hands of the Jedi. For the safety of my people, please get it back to Typha-Dor.”

  “I pledge my life on it,” Anakin had said.

  The starships flew over the deep fissures of the Tomo Craters. On the lip of a crater, a small compound huddled. Out of the viewport, Anakin glimpsed gray buildings, energy fences, security towers, and a small landing pad.

  “Welcome to paradise,” one of the soldiers snickered. “The Tomo Camp.”

  Dressed in his survival suit like the others, with his lightsaber safely hidden, Anakin was not identified as a Jedi. Shalini refused to give her name, along with the others. The admitting guard didn’t seem to care. They were searched, but Anakin was able to use the Force to confuse his guard, and his cable launcher, his lightsaber, and the disk were not taken. They were stripped of their survival gear and given rough brown tunics to wear. Then they were herded out into a small yard surrounded by energy fencing. The wind was cold and tore at their clothes. Around them swirled other prisoners from other worlds in the Uziel system, planets already conquered by Vanqor.

  Anakin looked around. The walls of the crater were sheer and hundreds of meters tall. It was clear that the only way into the camp was by air.

  How would Obi-Wan rescue him? The ship had been destroyed in the crash.

  The answer was that Obi-Wan most likely would not be able to get to him. It was all up to Anakin. Anakin did not mind this knowledge. He didn’t mind depending on his own skill.

  He had a time limit. Shalini had told them that the invasion was due in only three days. He would have to find a way to escape soon. The key to the survival of the entire planet of Typha-Dor lay hidden in his tunic pocket. He had managed to conceal the disk from the guards, but he didn’t kid himself that he would be able to evade the heavy security measures by the Force alone.

  He had made the mistake once of thinking he was more powerful than he was. He would never do it again. He would not make a move until he was sure.

  An Uziel prisoner in a faded uniform drifted near them. “What’s the news? Have the Vanqors invaded Typha-Dor?”

  Shalini’s eyes glinted. “No. And if they do, we will drive them back.”

  The prisoner looked weary. “That’s what we said on Zilior.”

  “Have there been any escape attempts here?” Shalini asked.

  “One. He’s dead. My advice is to accept your fate.” The prisoner drifted away.

  “I make my own fate,” Shalini said to her cohorts. She looked at Anakin. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Not yet,” Anakin said easily, sitting down on the cold ground.

  “What are you doing?” Shalini asked. “Aren’t you going to do something?”

  “I am,” Anakin said. Tuning out the others, he began to watch.

  There was only one solution. Anakin had to get to the transport pool. The question was when. There were four groups of guards on eight-hour shifts, so that overlap guaranteed that one group was always relatively fresh. In addition, sentry droids constantly buzzed the compound. It wasn’t impossible. But it would take the right timing.

  Anakin still had his lightsaber and his cable launcher. He could launch over the energy fence, but then he would have to cross thirty meters of open space to get to the transport pool. The transports were heavily guarded, but not the ones needing repair. If he made it to the repair shed, he could slip inside. He would just have to hope that he could fix a transport and take off before his absence was noted.

  He couldn’t take the others. He would have to escape alone, and hope to return for them.

  There was no sense waiting. He would escape that night.

  The gate door slid back. An officer entered, surrounded by guards and droids. He began to walk through the crowd as the prisoners shrank back.

  “What’s going on?” Shalini whispered.

  “A sweep,” a prisoner muttered next to her. “They come every few weeks and take several of us.”

  “No one ever comes back,” someone else murmured. “They take them to an unmarked building. There are rumors of medical experiments.”

  The officer pointed a finger at one prisoner, then another. The guards surrounded them and herded them together.

  Then the officer wheeled about and pointed directly at Anakin. “Him.”

  “No,” Shalini whispered.

  Anakin considered resisting. With a glance at the others the guards had herded together, he decided he could not. He knew that if a battle ensued, others would die.

  And there were reasons to submit. Security could be a bit more lax at the facility where they were taking him. Anakin fell into step behind the others.

  They were led to a gray building with no sign outside. When they were ushered inside, Anakin’s nose twitched. It smelled like chemicals. So the rumors could be true. The prisoners exchanged uneasy glances.

  They were prodded along the hallway and pushed into a bare white room. There a holoscreen took up an entire wall. An image of a human male dressed in a med coat appeared on the screen. He smiled gently.

  “Do not fear. You will not be harmed. On the contrary, you are about to enjoy the experience for which we have chosen you. Welcome to the Zone of Self-Containment. A doctor will be with you shortly to explain. In the meantime, relax.”

  “Relax,” one of the prisoners snorted. “Good advice, med-head.”

  The holo image blinked off.

  “What did he say?” another one of the imprisoned soldiers asked. “The Zone of Self-Containment? What are they going to do to us?” He pressed h
is fingers to his forehead. “I feel strange.”

  Anakin, too, felt light-headed. He suddenly realized why the information had been given to them by a holo image instead of a real person.

  “The room is filled with some kind of gas. They’ve drugged us,” he said as his vision blurred. He felt his knees turn to water. One of the prisoners slumped to the floor.

  Anakin felt himself slipping downward. He fought the sensation of the gas. The others slipped into unconsciousness. He held himself in readiness. He tried to move his legs and found that they were too heavy.

  He was the only one conscious when the technicians entered the room in masks. He saw, but he could not move a finger. The technicians began to load the other prisoners onto repulsorlift stretchers.

  “Look at this one, he’s still awake,” one of the technicians said, drawing closer to Anakin. “Never seen that before.”

  “He’s not too happy about being here, either,” another said.

  One of them leaned closer to Anakin. “Don’t fight it, friend. We just want some cooperation in the beginning. I guarantee you’ll like your stay here.”

  Using every ounce of his will and strength, Anakin grabbed the technician by the collar and brought his face even closer. “Don’t…bet…on it.”

  The technician yelped and struggled to free himself. “Help! For galaxy’s sake!”

  The other two rushed over. Anakin could not fight the three of them. He was thrown onto the stretcher and strapped down. He dipped in and out of consciousness as the stretcher was powered down the hall. A door opened. The light hurt his eyes.

  They began to undress him. My lightsaber, Anakin thought. The disk. He had retained his utility belt and concealed the disk inside a hidden slit. He had concealed his lightsaber by lodging it against his body underneath the tunic, strapping the belt tight against the hilt.

  He could not summon the Force enough to distract the technicians from finding it. He was helpless. Only luck could save him from discovery. The belt was unstrapped and hit the tiled floor with a soft thud. His tunic followed. The technician scooped up the bundle and tossed it in a storage box with clothes from the other prisoners.

  Anakin shut his eyes against the harsh light. He felt himself being lifted and slipped into water. He tried to fight, afraid he would drown.

  “Relax, friend,” the technician said. “It’s just a bath.”

  The water was warm. He slid against the side. He was strapped in so that his head wouldn’t slip beneath the surface. Anakin’s mind drifted as though he were floating off on a deep, dark lake.

  He must have slept. When he woke, he was dry and was wearing a fresh tunic, this one a soft material, in dark blue. He was lying on a sleep couch. The sleep had refreshed him. He felt relaxed and energized. He stretched, marveling at how fluid his limbs felt. The paralyzing drug effects had worn off, but strangely, had left him feeling limber.

  He recognized the technician who handed him a pillow. “Feel better? Told you so. Almost time for the evening meal.”

  Anakin shook his head.

  “They all refuse at first,” the med technician said. “Don’t worry, the food isn’t drugged. We all eat together, workers and patients.”

  Anakin shrugged. Maybe the man was telling the truth. Maybe not. Oddly, Anakin didn’t care. It was as though cool water had run through his veins, calming every impulse, every desire.

  He walked to the dining hall. Tables were set up, and other patients and med workers were eating. There was a long table with platters heaped with fruits and vegetables, pastries and meats. Anakin saw that everyone ate from the same plates, so he took some food and ate it.

  He chewed, wondering what would come next. He supposed something would happen soon. When it did, he would react.

  The need to help Typha-Dor seemed so distant now. Someone else would help the planet. There was always someone else to do something, if you waited. He would just pass the time here and see what the Vanqors were up to. That could be valuable to the Typha-Dor, too. He needn’t worry about the invasion right now.

  He ate and followed some other prisoners out into the courtyard. Warming lights had been set up, and the air was comfortable. Flowers grew, and large, leafy trees. Anakin found a bench and sat. He felt something he had not felt in a long, long time, not since he was a little boy nestled in his mother’s embrace: peace.

  I’ll fight it soon. When I need to escape, I will. But right now…right now, would it be so wrong to enjoy it?

  Chapter Seven

  Obi-Wan waited until the starships were out of sight. He couldn’t risk a long transmission to the Temple. But he would have to risk a distress call. The calls would be coded and scrambled, and he would have to hope it could reach the Temple.

  They could lock on his position and send help. It would take almost two days to arrive, but he had to risk it.

  The tracking device tucked in Anakin’s tunic beeped a steady signal. Obi-Wan trudged back to the ship. He climbed through the hole and went to the rear cargo hold. He had to cut through the crunched door with his lightsaber. He remembered that they had loaded one swoop aboard. They had to leave the rest behind because Anakin needed to lighten the ship’s load as much as possible.

  The swoop was dented from slamming back and forth between the cargo hold’s walls, but it still worked. Anakin had made sure of that before they left the outpost. Now he had transportation. Obi-Wan only hoped that Anakin was close enough to get to on a swoop. It was small, built for short distances, and it didn’t hold much fuel.

  He climbed aboard and took off. The tracking device led him over the high plateaus and desert lands surrounding the Tomo Craters. He looked down as he sped over the terrain, glad he wasn’t on foot. The plateaus were high and steep, and trails led to dead ends and switchbacks. It would have taken days to traverse the distance. Obi-Wan stayed as close to the ground as he dared, trying to evade scanners and surveillance from above. The tracking device led him on as the sun slid lower in the sky.

  The fuel read EMPTY and the engine began to sputter. By Obi-Wan’s reckoning he was still at least twenty kilometers from Anakin. He had no choice. He had to land.

  He pulled the swoop into a cave, entering the coordinates on his datapad. He might need it later, if he could find some fuel. He started to walk.

  It was hard going. Obi-Wan hiked up and down steep slopes of thin rock shale that occasionally broke into dangerous rockslides. At last he stopped to rest when the source of the tracking device’s transmission was in sight.

  Obi-Wan studied the camp through his electrobinoculars. The good news was that the perimeter security wasn’t heavy, most likely because the camp relied on its inaccessibility.

  He had reached the heart of the Tomo Craters. A careful survey of the ground made Obi-Wan conclude that camp security was correct not to worry about escaping prisoners. If Obi-Wan could manage to scramble up and down cliffs and hike through canyons without disturbing a nest of gundarks or getting attacked by various other horrifying creatures, he might make it to the outskirts of the camp. Then he would have to scale a sheer rock wall two hundred meters high. He would be vulnerable with every centimeter he traveled. It would be better to go in by air.

  Of course, he didn’t have a transport. That could be a problem.

  He sat on a high peak, underneath an outcropping of rocks. He watched the camp operations for the rest of the waning evening. Transports flew in and out in a regular pattern, ferrying supplies and possibly carrying troops back and forth. Obi-Wan guessed that the camp must also be a base of some sort.

  He could wait for a few days to see if his message had reached the Temple. But what if it hadn’t?

  Rescue was his first priority. He had to get that disk to Typha-Dor.

  And if Anakin didn’t have the disk, what would you do? If Shalini had given it to you, would you take it to Typha-Dor and abandon him?

  The answer should have been easy. As a Jedi, his commitment was to the galaxy. He would hav
e had to go to Typha-Dor without Anakin. Would he have attempted a rescue anyway, knowing that Anakin would be waiting for him? He was glad he didn’t have to make that choice.

  The flight pattern of the ships was always the same. They dipped low as they came in, then landed close to the edge of the plateau, where a short landing pad was surrounded by energy fencing.

  Obi-Wan surveyed the area carefully. He thought back on the beginning of the mission, when he’d been brooding about how careful he had become, how much he now weighed risks and thought things through.

  Well, he had thought things through, and he had decided that this plan was crazy. He could get pummeled by rocks. He could crash into a crater hundreds of meters below. He could be spotted and blasted into thin air.

  All of these scenarios were likely. It was a risky plan. It bordered on stupid.

  Which meant that perhaps he wasn’t so careful after all.

  Chapter Eight

  Once, Anakin and Obi-Wan had taken a few weeks to travel through the grasslands of the planet Belazura, strictly for pleasure. Obi-Wan considered the planet to be among the most beautiful in the galaxy, and he wanted to show it to Anakin. Anakin remembered Obi-Wan telling him that even the life of the Jedi must include time to reflect among beautiful surroundings. Anakin’s only instructions during the trip were to enjoy himself. He had.

  He had seen fields of grasses that ranged from light sunny yellows to deep greens. He had seen golden fields dotted with deep red flowers. Blue skies had surrounded them like a halo of light. He remembered that he was never hot, and never cold. That the breeze against his skin had felt as soft as his mother’s touch.

  It had been a peaceful time he had returned to again and again in his daydreams. And now he was experiencing it once more.

  To Anakin’s surprise, he underwent no treatments. He was not drugged again. He was not treated like a prisoner. His room was spare, with just a sleep couch and table, but he had access to a sunny area inside and the courtyard outside. Anakin found that he wanted nothing more than to sit there, his face tilted to the warming lights, watching the shadow patterns of the leaves on the wall. He found that it was easy to contemplate the different greens of the leaves for hours. Yet it was not the mindlessness of the meditation he had been taught. He did not leave his body. He did not leave his cares. He could see them as though they were off at a distance. They had nothing to do with him. He knew that everything would work out as it should.