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=CHAPTER 1 START=
Obi-Wan Kenobi didn’t boast. It wasn’t in his nature, and even if it had been, events in his life from Bandomeer, to Melida/Daan, to Mandalore, to Naboo, and even the Clone Wars, would have trained that response right out of him.
So it was only the truth when he faced Darth Vader – formerly known as Anakin Skywalker, his first and only padawan learner – and said, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
Of course, he himself had no idea what form that more powerful might take, but he trusted in the Force absolutely.
Trust, though, was not all that he needed. Decades spent minimizing his use of the Force, even hiding from the darkness that had blanketed the galaxy and the Force with it, meant that his connection to the Force was not as strong as it had once been.
Where once he could have endured Vader’s assault without much effort, now he struggled to access the Force in even the most simplistic of ways. It was only a matter of time before Vader, even the cyborg version of him, triumphed, and Obi-Wan could return to the Force which birthed them all.
Speaking of which – Obi-Wan couldn’t die until he had completed his mission. He spared a moment to extend his awareness through the Force to check on the Skywalker twins and their companions.
All of them were back at the Millennium Falcon, or only a few steps away. Excellent.
He needed only to buy them another moment or two so they could make their escape.
He blocked another of Vader’s strikes and spun away rather than counter-attack.
The Force sang around him, its old, familiar song a comfort he’d been denied for so long.
Obi-Wan stepped back into a neutral stance, his blade held vertically before him, and smiled. It was time.
Vader struck...
…the Force flinched…
…and Obi-Wan found himself staring at someone he hadn’t seen in more than forty years.
Bruck Chun stared back at him, his lightsaber at the ready and a barely-suppressed sneer stretching at his lips.
Obi-Wan’s own lightsaber wavered as he stretched out his senses, testing the Force to try to discover what had happened. In a heartbeat, the reality of the situation hit him.
The Force had somehow transported his consciousness from one defining moment of his life – indeed, the final moment of his life – to the first defining moment he remembered, the duel that resulted in Qui-Gon Jinn refusing to take him as a padawan.
A quick touch to the Force confirmed the presence of several masters, more knights, and most of the initiates approximately his age. Yes, this was the duel he thought it was.
But – why? Why had the Force sent him here? Why now?
The questions had barely formed in Obi-Wan’s mind before Bruck took advantage of Obi-Wan’s distraction and attacked.
Reflexively, Obi-Wan brought his lightsaber up in a Soresu defensive move – and then cursed himself for ten kinds of idiot.
An initiate shouldn’t know Soresu. Most padawans, even most knights, never learned Soresu at all, but it had been Obi-Wan’s preferred form since shortly after Qui-Gon’s death, and in the moment, startled by an attack that was far more brutal than necessary for a duel between initiates, battle-honed defensive instinct had taken over.
And, in all honesty, Bruck’s attack was vicious enough that Soresu’s defining characteristic – endurance – would serve Obi-Wan well for now, giving him a few precious moments to think.
Oh, later Obi-Wan would have to meditate, to try to understand why the Force chose this moment to return him to. For now, he had to determine what to do in this moment.
He would not display the anger he’d shown before – how could he when, with the decades of experience and meditative reflection he now had, he understood that Bruck was simply a greedy and arrogant child who hadn’t had the opportunity to grow out of that phase?
More to the point, Obi-Wan couldn’t allow himself to be sent off to Bandomeer again. What was the point of the Force sending him back in time just to re-live his life without making any changes?
Yet another question he’d need to meditate on – later. After this duel, and after his future with the Order had been determined.
But first, he had to determine what he wanted that future to look like.
Bruck’s blade connected with his own, and Obi-Wan deflected it almost absently.
shock-awe-disbelief
The emotions battered at Obi-Wan’s shields – necessarily thinner than usual, to allow the Force to guide his movements through the Form of Endurance – and he nearly stumbled.
Nearly, but not quite. He’d survived too many battles in war to stumble in a duel against an initiate with barely a tenth of the experience Obi-Wan had.
And that thought decided him.
He evaded Bruck’s next strike and stepped back, disengaging from the duel and lowering his lightsaber, though he didn’t extinguish it.
“I yield,” he said.
shock-disbelief
Across from him, Bruck Chun continued the attack he’d begun before Obi-Wan spoke. Obi-Wan stepped aside, allowing the other initiate to rush past him-
-and all but trip over his own feet. Bruck stumbled and staggered before falling on his backside rather than run into – of all people – Master Yoda, who observed the bout with an expression even more inscrutable than usual.
“You clumsy oaf!” Bruck’s voice was choked with fury as he scrambled to his feet and ignited his lightsaber once more.
Obi-Wan readied himself for another attack, planning again to step aside, but Master Yoda slammed his gimer stick onto the floor with a solid, echoing thud. All movement in the training salle stilled. Even Bruck aborted whatever he’d intended, standing with his lightsaber humming.
“Yield, Initiate Kenobi did,” Master Yoda said. “And yet, attack him again, you did. Unbecoming of a Jedi, it is, to attack after an opponent yields. Apologize, you should.”
Obi-Wan wanted to cut in, to say no apology was necessary – not least because it wouldn’t be sincere – but that would only draw more attention to himself than his Soresu moves already had.
So he accepted Bruck’s brusque apology and escaped the training salle as quickly as he could without causing undue offense.
He desperately needed to meditate.
=BREAK=
Obi-Wan returned to the initiate dorm in time for latemeal, if only just, and slipped into an empty space in the center of the common table. He glanced around, allowing himself to enjoy the sight of old friends.
Siri Tachi. Bant Eerin, who waved at him when she felt his gaze. Garen Muln. Quinlan Vos.
So many years since he’d seen any of them, and yet to them, they’d been together earlier that day. Their friendships would never be the same, and he allowed himself to grieve the loss for a moment before reaching for a bowl of rice.
“Surprised you had the guts to show up,” Bruck called from down the table. “Considering how you ran away after I beat you in the tournament.”
Obi-Wan didn’t look up from where he ladled spiced stew over his rice. “You didn’t beat me, and I didn’t run away.”
“Sure looked like it to me,” Bruck declared, and a few others around him laughed.
Obi-Wan debated with himself only briefly before he met Bruck’s gaze. “You didn’t win. I yielded, and-”
Bruck smirked. “And that means I won.”
“It would,” Obi-Wan allowed. “Except that immediately after, you attacked me again. You didn’t follow the rules of the spar, which means you forfeited. And after I did you the favor of yielding.”
He shook his head, his disappointed expression exaggerated so no one would miss it.
Bruck flushed a red so dark it verged on black. “So why’d you run away?”
Deciding not to make an issue of Bruck’s terminology, Obi-Wan waved a hand to summon a chunk of bread from the far end of the table. “I needed clarity. So I meditated.”
Bant blinked her large eyes slowly. “Clarity? About what?”
Obi-Wan spooned up some rice and tubers, using a bit of bread to keep it on his spoon. “About what I’ll do if no master chooses me.”
“You still have a few weeks,” Garen declared. “Someone will choose you.”
Quinlan added, “I’m honestly shocked nobody’s chosen you yet.”
Obi-Wan made a humming noise that might be agreement but focused on taking another bite of stew to avoid answering.
Bant cleared her throat. “Did you? Decide, I mean?”
He glanced up to smile at her, briefly. “I think so.”
She smiled broadly before turning back to her own meal.
When he was done with his stew, Obi-Wan rose and took his dishes and silverware to the cleaning unit, running one item at a time through the cycle and adding them to the stacks of clean items on the other side of the unit.
He turned around and came face-to-neck with Bruck Chun. Bruck fumbled his own dishes for a moment, righting them with a scowl.
Obi-Wan breathed a resigned sigh into the Force and held up a hand before Bruck could speak.
“You’ve bullied me for years, and I’m done with it. The next time you try anything, you’ll learn exactly why I yielded.”
He slipped past Bruck, already ashamed of his aggressive stance with the other initiate. He’d spent decades as a consular Jedi, had even been nicknamed the Negotiator, and his instinctive reaction to his fellow initiate was to threaten him.
An old saying of Qui-Gon’s echoed in his memory. Informing others of the consequences of their actions is never a threat; it’s a courtesy.
Obi-Wan smiled and headed toward his dorm. At least he’d treated Bruck courteously.
=BREAK=
Throughout the week since he’d returned to the past, Obi-Wan spent most of his free time in the archives.
He’d prefer to spend all of his free time in the archives, but it was such a joy to see his old friends alive again – and young again – that he made sure to spend time with them each day, too. He understood those friendships would change, but he preferred them to change rather than fade away.
But once he had spent some time with his friends, he retreated to the archives to study. And plan.
To store his notes on the future he’d lived through, Obi-Wan encrypted a datapad to Tatooine and back with codes that wouldn’t be invented for several decades and, as an added layer of security, did so in the Mando’a alphabet.
He had a list of people and a rough timeline of events – meaning that he remembered the order of events, if not the exact timing – that he updated daily after meditating and asking the Force to enhance his memories.
While he trusted the Force to tell him what he needed to know when he needed to know it, in this instance Obi-Wan felt it was better to be over-prepared than not. So he retreated to study closets in the archives to read up on those people and events, to later meditate on how they pertained to the changes he needed to make.
During his first tenure as a padawan, he’d had to write an essay on the ethical implications of time travel, as even the smallest change could have massive repercussions and ramifications over the years, decades, centuries, millennia.
In that essay, he’d taken five thousand words to argue his point that any time traveler should minimize any changes made, because any single change could result in genocide, where genocide is defined as people not being born who had been/should have been in the original future.
But.
His underlying assumption for that essay was that the time traveler did so accidentally, not at the will of the Force.
Obi-Wan’s time travel was the will of the Force; that was the first question he’d sought clarity on during his first meditation in the past. And clearly the Force wanted him to make changes.
Still, there was no need to throw a thermal detonator when a few precise cuts with a lightsaber could accomplish the same objective.
So he studied.
Today’s topic was Sheev Palpatine. The man had been Senator for Naboo and the rest of the Chommell Sector for ten years already, but Obi-Wan was more concerned with Palpatine's life before he’d been elected. In those details, perhaps he’d finally be able to discern who the other Sith, Palpatine’s own master, was. So he opened up the earliest articles about the man he could find, and began to read.
Of all places, it was in an at-home-with article that Obi-Wan found the first lead.
At first, he’d skimmed past the holos that accompanied the article, but once he’d read the whole thing, he studied the holos in more detail.
One of the holos showed Palpatine in a room that appeared to function as a combination study and office. On a shelf half-hidden by the smiling figure of an absurdly-young Sheev Palpatine, a blink-and-you-miss-it object on display caught Obi-Wan’s attention.
He had to enlarge the holo so much that the image of the object became blurry, but even so, there was no denying that the polyhedral sculpture was a holocron. The coloring and inlaid design further marked it as a Sith holocron.
Sith artifacts in general, and holocrons in particular, were rare and therefore expensive, so only a relative few people could afford to acquire one on the black market or, at more cost, sponsor an expedition to search for one.
He needed to look for wealthy individuals with an interest in dark or Sith artifacts.
But how?
Before Obi-Wan could even begin to answer that question and formulate a strategy, a soft knock sounded on the door to the study closet he’d claimed.
The door opened before he spoke, and a Cerean padawan – a senior one, judging by the length of her braid – leaned inside.
“Initiate Kenobi? You’re wanted in the hangar.”
The hangar? Obi-Wan blinked at her, bringing his thoughts to the present.
“Thank you,” he said after a moment. “Let me return these to the archive droid, and-”
“The matter is urgent.” The Cerean’s tone didn’t change, but she allowed a hint of the urgency she felt to bleed into the Force so that Obi-Wan could sense it.
“Then you’ll explain to Master Nu why these materials remain unshelved.”
But he wouldn’t leave his datapad behind, no matter how encrypted it was. He closed the display and tucked the datapad into a pouch on his belt as he fell into step with the Cerean.
=BREAK=
The Cerean led him to the flight control deck, where a human male in the ExploraCorps uniform greeted them with a frown.
“Initiate Kenobi, as requested.” The Cerean bowed and withdrew.
Obi-Wan bowed to the flight controller. “I’m afraid I-”
“There’s a ship asking permission to land,” the man – some variant of human - said. “Doesn’t have proper codes, but said you’d vouch for them.”
“But I don’t-” Obi-Wan broke off his instinctive protest, instead opening his awareness to the Force to learn exactly what was going on.
The moment his senses expanded, familiar presences washed over him, shining brightly in the Force.
Oh.
“Yes.” He swallowed hard. “Yes, I know them. Please let them land.”
=CHAPTER 2 BREAK=
The unknown vessel, you are cleared to land; follow the beacon to bay three turned out to be a LAAT/i gunship, which was notable more for what it implied than what it actually was.
The larties, as the clone troopers had called them, had no hyperspace capability, which likely meant that a carrier ship – did Obi-Wan dare hope it was a Venator-class destroyer? Perhaps even the Negotiator? – lingered somewhere nearby.
Exactly how many clones had come back with him? Enough, hopefully.
Obi-Wan shared his anxiety and curiosity with the Force and breathed slowly and deeply to further his calm façade as the larty came in for a gentle landing. Almost before the engines had fully cycled down, the hatch yawned open.
White plastoid armor accented in golden yellow-orange gleamed in the harsh light of the hangar.
Obi-Wan’s throat swelled with the joy that comes with tears as he counted visible helmets. One, two, five, a full dozen clones in armor, including full weapons kit, stood at the hatchway opening.
The ramp touched down with a soft clink, and the dozen fully-armored troopers marching in perfect time in three columns of four descended and stood in formation before the ramp.
Obi-Wan swallowed past the lump in his throat and crossed the hangar to face the clone in the center of the first row, a clone – a being – he’d know anywhere.
CC-2224. His commander. Cody.
Obi-Wan smiled. “Hello there.”
“General.” Cody’s head didn’t move, but Obi-Wan knew that he was surveying the far side of the hangar, where curious knights and masters were straggling in.
“Do we need to run an extraction?” Cody asked seriously.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Obi-Wan assured him, and felt Cody’s dubious expression as clearly as if he’d seen it through the helmet.
“If you’re sure, sir.”
“Quite.” Obi-Wan allowed himself a small sigh. “Though for once, your timing is a little off.”
He felt confusion rolling off each of the clones, but Cody said only, “Sir?”
Obi-Wan smiled briefly. “This time next week, I’ll no longer be a Jedi.”
A wave of shock, fury, and disbelief rolled from the clones – Ghost Company, Obi-Wan knew – and Cody stiffened even further, if that were even possible.
“No longer. A Jedi,” he said, his flat tone made even flatter thanks to his vocoder. “With all respect, sir – what the kriff?”
Before Obi-Wan could respond, a gasp – an actual, audible gasp echoed through the hangar.
The gasp was followed by a bass, humanoid voice that Obi-Wan didn’t recognize. “Too early.”
The words were quiet, as though the being hadn’t meant to be heard but someone or something else – the Force, presumably – did mean it to be heard.
Then the sound of hurried footsteps and a presence in the Force drawing closer and more agitated with every step.
Cody took a step to one side and raised his blaster. “Behind us, sir.”
Obi-Wan opened his Force-sense for a quick assessment of the situation, realized that not only knights and masters but half the Council had arrived, and shook his head.
“Apologies, Commander.” Obi-Wan turned to face whoever approached. Cody’s Force presence rang with fond exasperation and anxious uncertainty in almost equal measure.
The person – the master, which made his rushed approach even more startling – closing rapidly appeared to be a human male with dark hair and skin the color of weak tea. Obi-Wan understood, then, why he hadn’t recognized the voice.
This was Master Sifo-Dyas, whom Obi-Wan had never met in his first life. But he recognized the face of the man who had – purportedly, at any event – ordered the clone army.
Just as Sifo-Dyas came within proper range, Obi-Wan bowed. The movement must have caught the master off guard because he stopped a few feet away.
Obi-Wan straightened and asked, “Is there anything we can assist with, Master Sifo-Dyas?”
The clones behind him tensed at the name. Cody had shared with him once that a number of the alpha and command classes had wanted to be assigned to Sifo-Dyas so they could express their displeasure at their situation and treatment.
Sifo-Dyas stared at the clones. “I’ve seen you in visions. But you-” he focused on Obi-Wan “-were much older. Something’s happened.”
“I’ll say.”
That voice Obi-Wan knew, and he looked up to see Mace Windu approaching with Master Yoda perched on his non-dominant shoulder.
“Kenobi’s always had a number of shatterpoints,” Mace continued. “But now? And the newcomers? They’re all covered in them.”
Master Yoda – the only member of the Council Obi-Wan had never felt comfortable addressing without a title, even when he himself was on the Council – surveyed them, humming briefly.
“Ask for Initiate Kenobi by name, you did,” he said. “Know his name, how do you?”
Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Perhaps we could discuss that somewhere other than this hangar, Master?”
Qui-Gon stepped forward, his expression severe. “Master Yoda asked a question, Initiate Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “And we are willing to answer, Master Jinn.”
The troopers stiffened, and Obi-Wan was certain that under other circumstances, they’d have brought their blasters to bear on Qui-Gon Jinn.
Obi-Wan ignored their response for now and continued smoothly, “But some things require operational security.”
One of the troopers snorted, and all of them radiated amusement into the Force.
Despite the tension around Mace’s eyes, he quirked an eyebrow at Obi-Wan. “How much security, Initiate?”
Obi-Wan took a breath and let it out, releasing his anxiety with it. “In the interest of operational security – you, Master Yoda, Sifo-Dyas, and the Master of Shadows.”
He hesitated, but there was no choice but to add, “Though I want to speak with Master Dooku, Master Jinn, and Master Tahl as well.”
Mace looked thoughtful for a moment before asking, “And your companions?”
“If you think you’re going alone,” Cody murmured just loud enough for Obi-Wan to hear.
“All of them,” Obi-Wan told Mace. “Some refreshment for them would doubtless be welcome.”
=BREAK=
In the end, the small(ish) group retreated to the Council chamber, which currently sat empty. The word of Masters Yoda and Windu would ensure the chamber remained empty of any uninvited guests.
Before any of them could be seated, Cody signed search-sweep-bugs, and the other clones swept into the Council chamber and searched it with silent, ruthless, efficiency. Cody remained at Obi-Wan’s side, protective, as he had throughout so much of the war.
“Is that-?” Mace began, but Obi-Wan held up a hand, and was surprised when the master subsided.
One of the troopers – Trapper, if the paint on the armor remained consistent and their Force presences hadn’t changed – approached the group that lingered just inside the doorway. On his outstretched palm rested four listening devices.
Obi-Wan’s mouth tightened, and he nodded once.
Trapper produced a small, presumably insulated, container from one of his belt pouches and dropped the bugs inside. Only when the container was securely fastened did he nod, and Obi-Wan allowed himself to relax. A little.
“We’ve activated jammers. The room is secure, sir,” Trapper reported.
“Thank you, Trapper.” Obi-Wan turned to the masters and gestured them into the chamber as though he were hosting a party.
Obi-Wan himself moved to the center of the room, where he’d stood so many times before to make mission reports to the Council. Cody kept pace with him while the other Ghosts took up stations along the perimeter of the room, standing casually in parade rest.
Masters Yoda, Windu, and Sifo-Dyas were, of course, the first masters to join them, but a cloaked and hooded figure Obi-Wan assumed to be the Master of Shadows joined them only moments later.
“Necessary, that was?” Master Yoda asked, his expression severe.
“That and more, Grandmaster,” Obi-Wan answered.
The shock rippling through the Force made him wince. “My apologies – it was the habit of decades.”
“Decades?” Mace Windu echoed. “You’re not even through your second decade yet, Initiate Kenobi.”
“Not this time around.” Obi-Wan straightened and lowered his shields so the masters could sense the truth of his words. “During my spar with Bruck Chun last week, the essence – the consciousness and memories – of my fifty-seven-year-old self slammed into this body.”
Masters Yoda, Windu, and Sifo-Dyas exchanged glances that suggested they were having an entire conversation no one else was privy to.
Obi-Wan knew that expression from his own time as a councilor. Still, he continued, “The transfer happened at the instant of my death some forty-five years from now at the hands of a Sith called Darth Vader.”
Sifo-Dyas flinched – actually visibly flinched. Master Yoda’s mouth tightened, and Mace Windu dropped his head into his hands with a groan.
Wooley took a step forward, stopped himself, and said, “Do you need assistance, General Windu?”
Mace – and it was impossible for Obi-Wan not to think of him as Mace after the years they’d spent on the Council together – raised his head and smiled briefly at the trooper.
“Thank you, no, but – General?”
“Yes, sir,” Wooley answered. “Masters and Knights are addressed as General.”
Ignoring that byplay, Sifo-Dyas straightened in his chair and focused on Obi-Wan. “So you lived through it? The war I have been seeing?”
Obi-Wan inclined his head. “I was one of a handful of Jedi who survived.”
Shock radiated from all three masters, but Obi-Wan continued before any of them could speak.
“I never met you in that life, Master Sifo-Dyas. Would you answer something for me?”
“If I can.”
Obi-Wan met the master’s gaze evenly. “Where did you get the funding to order an army of clone troopers?”
In a surprising lack of control, shockdisbeliefhorror rolled off the master, and his jaw dropped even as his face paled.
“I – I did what?”
Obi-Wan steadied himself against the wave of emotion. “When I found the cloning facility, I was told that Master Sifo-Dyas had ordered the army.”
Sifo-Dyas shook his head. “No – no, I would never do such a thing. Jedi revere all life. I couldn’t order an army of living, sentient, sapient beings only for them to be thrown into war as if they didn’t matter.”
A flood of relief washed through the Force, and Obi-Wan would gladly admit a large portion of it was his own.
During his years on Tatooine, he’d had too many hours to think about, well, everything that had brought him to that place. He’d made peace with many of those events, but he’d never understood how a Jedi could sanction the creation of the clone army.
Mace rubbed a hand over his forehead, frowning. “It sounds like we have much to discuss.”
Several clones snorted, though none were rude enough to have their vocoders activated. Still, Mace glanced around with a wry grin.
“Yes, I understand that’s an understatement.” He sobered and focused on Obi-Wan and Cody. “You asked for Masters Dooku, Jinn, and Tahl. All of them are waiting outside the chamber. Is your business with them simple enough that you can handle it now, and then we can address everything else?”
Obi-Wan shot a questioning glance at Cody, who’d cocked his head, indicating to anyone who knew clone body language, that he was considering the question thoroughly. Possibly, he was even conversing with the others over closed comms.
Finally, Cody nodded once, signing plan ready.
Obi-Wan smiled before focusing on Mace. “Insofar as anything we have to discuss is simple, then yes.”
“Individually?” Mace asked.
Obi-Wan gently questioned the Force, but received no indication either way. “Your preference.”
Almost before he’d finished speaking, the doors opened and the Council’s administrative padawan gestured the three masters in.
“Masters Dooku, Jinn, and Tahl,” she announced before withdrawing and closing the door.
The clones had straightened even further, almost painfully so, at the announcement, and protectiveanger washed through the Force for just a moment before they, almost as one, got their very basic shields back in place.
Still they remained distrusting and watchful, and Cody moved a step closer to flank Obi-Wan. From past experience, Obi-Wan knew that if the situation called for it, Cody wouldn’t hesitate to remove him bodily from the vicinity of any threat.
Obi-Wan signed safe and was rewarded with a sense of deep skepticism. Hiding a smile, he repeated the sign once more as Mace spoke.
“The Force has given Initiate Kenobi glimpses of your futures.”
All three of the newcomer masters blinked. Qui-Gon recovered first.
“The future is always in motion,” he said.
“True, yes,” Master Yoda said sagely. Then he slumped a little in his chair. “But wrong I have been. Ignore gifts from the Force, we should not.”
“Visions of the future – of possible futures,” Sifo-Dyas corrected, “are like any other intelligence. They should be examined, meditated upon, and compared to other information. They are not absolute guides to our behavior, nor should they be.”
Obi-Wan let the three masters he’d asked for absorb those words for a long moment before he took a breath and met each of their gazes in turn. He lingered on Tahl the longest, though even that was barely a second.
In his first life, he’d never known her before Melida/Daan, before the torture that took her eyesight. Here and now, she stood tall and proud, unbroken, a Jedi in full command of her abilities and herself, and Obi-Wan easily understood how Qui-Gon had fallen in love with her.
He hoped he’d be able to get to know her. First, though, he had warnings to give.
“Within the year,” he began, “each of you will be given a mission that has far more reaching consequences than anyone could imagine. Each of those missions will be compromised because you lack full knowledge of the situation.”
The three masters exchanged glances. Of course it was Dooku who spoke.
“Are you suggesting that the Senate is deliberately undermining the Jedi?” he asked.
Obi-Wan lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Hundreds of beings constitute the Senate. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that some of them wish to see the Jedi Order extinct.”
That sent a ripple of uneasy shock through all of the assembled masters, not just the three he currently addressed.
“But,” Obi-Wan continued, “I meant only that no one and nothing is perfect, not even mission briefings. I’ve seen things that will make those briefings a little more thorough.”
Of course it was Qui-Gon who spoke next. “Given that the future is always in motion, wouldn’t we be better served with this information closer to the actual missions?”
Obi-Wan didn’t bother to conceal a grin. “Given that the future is always in motion, we can’t be certain we’ll have the time for this discussion before each mission.”
Tahl laughed, and Obi-Wan blinked. The sound was brighter, lighter, than the few bits of laughter he’d heard from her in his previous life.
“He’s got you there, Qui,” she said before turning her smile to Obi-Wan. “Spoken like a true knight. I welcome any insight you can give me, Initiate Kenobi.”
He couldn’t resist smiling back, though he sobered quickly. “Your mission is to Melida/Daan, which has been at war for centuries.”
Tahl’s eyes widened. “Centuries?”
Obi-Wan nodded grimly. “So long that nobody remembers how or why the war started between the Melida and the Daan. But they will request someone to negotiate the peace.”
“After all this time,” Tahl murmured. “Why now?”
“A third faction wants to end it.” And that was about all Obi-Wan could say without breaking into tears for the children who’d died on Melida/Daan in his first lifetime and would die in this one before the request for aid made its way through the Senate.
Tahl nodded once, thoughtfully. “What do I need to know?”
That was the simplest of the advice Obi-Wan had to give any of the three masters. “Don’t go alone.”
Tahl raised a sardonic eyebrow at him. “Any single Jedi is considered a one-being army.”
“Rightly so,” Cody murmured.
Obi-Wan flashed him a quick grin but kept his attention on Tahl. “Any single being can be overwhelmed. Or taken by surprise.”
Qui-Gon cleared his throat softly. “The Senate rarely authorizes more than a single master or a knight-padawan pair.”
Obi-Wan grimaced. The Senate was another problem to address, but for the moment he focused on the three masters and their upcoming missions.
“But peace is only the first step,” he said. “The MedCorps and AgriCorps can assist with rehabilitating the wounded rebuilding their world.”
Tahl smiled again, grimmer. “And the Senate doesn’t much care what the various Corps do.”
Then she nodded, determined. “Thank you for your advice, Initiate Kenobi. A little research into the origins of the conflict won’t be amiss, I expect.”
“Very likely not,” Obi-Wan agreed and took another breath before raising his gaze to meet Qui-Gon’s. “Master Jinn.”
Qui-Gon inclined his head. “Initiate Kenobi.”
Though he’d long ago made peace with Qui-Gon’s choices and actions when it came to taking him as a padawan, in this moment Obi-Wan felt a nudge from the Force, encouraging him to address the issue now.
“I understand,” he said softly.
Qui-Gon raised one eyebrow. “What do you understand, initiate?”
“Why you don’t want me as a padawan.”
Obi-Wan’s tone was casual, but that did nothing to stop angerdisbelief from the clones stationed around the room.
All three masters he currently faced blinked in surprise.
“A good pair you would be,” Master Yoda declared. “Seen it, I have.”
“In one universe, yes,” Obi-Wan said. “Tumultuous, perhaps, but good.”
“But not this one?” Qui-Gon asked.
“Not this one.”
“Still.” Qui-Gon raised a sardonic eyebrow. “What is there to understand? I have told you why I don’t want you as a padawan. You are too angry.”
A couple of the clones – Obi-Wan didn’t bother to identify them – scoffed. Through their vocoders, so they intended to be heard. By everyone.
He kept his attention on Qui-Gon. “You haven’t processed your anger and grief over Xanatos du Crion.”
A ripple of confusion came from the clones, so Obi-Wan continued for their benefit, “He was Master Jinn’s second padawan and the first one that he chose from the pool of available initiates at the time. I don’t know the details, but Xanatos fell to the Dark Side. And that hurts. I know that hurts, to see a youngling you raised, trained, and loved as your own child fail and fall.”
Obi-Wan’s voice broke, and he wasn’t certain whether he actually wanted Cody’s hand on his shoulder, but the touch served to ground him in the present moment.
“So, yes,” he finished, keeping his voice steady by force of will and long practice, “I understand why you don’t want to take me – or anyone else – as a padawan right now. I grieve your loss, and I wish you peace.”
Qui-Gon swallowed hard and inclined his head in acknowledgment before asking, “And the mission you wish to warn me about?”
Obi-Wan took a breath. “Bandomeer.”
Qui-Gon’s minute flinch told Obi-Wan the mission had already been assigned, but Qui-Gon said only, “What about it?”
Obi-Wan held his gaze. “He may be there. Xanatos.”
Qui-Gon shook his head, an instinctive, automatic denial. “No. He left-”
“Yes.”
The agreement came, perhaps not surprisingly, from Sifo-Dyas. Obi-Wan joined the others in turning to him.
Sifo-Dyas’ gaze had gone distant, as though he were peering at something none of the others could see.
“Yes,” Sifo-Dyas repeated. “You will encounter your former padawan on Bandomeer. Remember he knows you as well as you know him and be careful of your steps. The path ahead of you is treacherous.”
“Send another, should we?” Master Yoda asked softly.
“Xanatos walks in shadow,” Sifo-Dyas responded.
Mace Windu nodded, his expression tight. “We will send a Shadow as well, Qui-Gon.”
Qui-Gon bristled. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You need support,” Obi-Wan put in. “And you have since Xanatos fell. Let yourself accept it now.”
=CHAPTER 3 BREAK=
Qui-Gon and Tahl left shortly after the discussion of their upcoming missions. Obi-Wan hadn’t asked for that, but Mace – at a suggestion by Master Yoda? or perhaps Sifo-Dyas? – had thanked them in a way that was clearly a dismissal.
So they’d left. Obi-Wan could only hope they’d both have better ends to their missions than they’d had in the previous timeline.
After they’d gone, Dooku regarded Obi-Wan with an expression somewhere between disdain and curiosity.
“And what of my mission?” he asked.
Obi-Wan straightened. “Their missions could lead to personal harm to them. Yours could lead to harm to the entire galaxy.”
Dooku blanched. Actually, visibly, blanched.
For long moments, no one spoke. Finally Dooku cleared his throat.
“What is the mission?”
“Galidraan,” Obi-Wan said.
“Galidraan,” Dooku repeated, apparently committing the word to memory. Then, “What should I know about Galidraan?”
Obi-Wan blew out a breath, banking on his apparent youth to excuse the emotional display. “That all is not as it is presented to you, and – like Melida/Daan – there’s another faction in play. It will be difficult, given the information presented, but you must remain calm and speak to all sides. Don’t just rush in with sabers blazing.”
Cody cleared his throat, and Obi-Wan grimaced.
“Right, sorry.” He flashed Cody an apologetic grin before focusing on Dooku once more. “There will be Mandalorians there. One of them, the one in black armor edged with blue highlights – speak with him before you take any adverse action against any faction.”
“Who is he, that I should speak to him?” Dooku didn’t quite keep the disdain from his tone. Obi-Wan hoped it was merely disdain for Mandalorians in general as they had long been opponents of the Jedi.
Before Obi-Wan could respond, Cody cleared his throat again. Obi-Wan turned to him with a frown.
“We need to go with him.” Cody’s vocoder made the statement sound vaguely like a threat. Or perhaps that was just Cody? Obi-Wan couldn’t be sure.
While Obi-Wan considered that question, Dooku all but snorted, ever so politely.
“And why should I take a bunch of children into a war zone?”
Cody kept his gaze on Obi-Wan when he answered. “It’s the only time we know for sure where he will be until-”
Cody broke off, but Obi-Wan understood. Until Kamino.
Not that Obi-Wan knew what Cody was planning to do with Jango Fett, but he knew Cody and knew the commander had been planning since whenever he’d woken up in this time. Obi-Wan would ask later.
“Yes, of course, Cody, you’re quite right.” Obi-Wan turned back to Dooku. “We will speak more when we’re en route to Galidraan.”
Dooku turned a disbelieving frown on the assembled councilors. “You agree with this – this child?”
Mace Windu inclined his head. “You will take Initiate Kenobi and his companions with you.”
Obi-Wan glanced at Cody. “More that we’ll be taking him?”
“We have room.” Cody flashed the sign for their ship, the Venator-class Negotiator.
At that, something unclenched inside Obi-Wan. They had a ship. No, they had their ship, the ship they’d served together on for more than two years, the ship they’d fought multiple battles from.
They had their ship, and nothing had stopped it before. Nothing would stop it now.
They’d make sure.
“Then I will see you when the mission is assigned.” With a sniff that stopped just short of being disdainful, Dooku turned and left.
The door had barely closed behind Dooku before, “Why those three missions specifically?”
Obi-Wan blinked and looked around for the speaker even as the troopers came to full alertness.
Then he realized he was an idiot.
“My compliments, Master of Shadows.” He smiled a little, and the troopers relaxed. “Despite my asking for your presence, I had quite forgotten you were here. May I know your identity?”
“Unusual, that is,” Master Yoda said.
“Not even the entire Council knows the master’s identity,” Mace added.
“And that’s a relief,” Obi-Wan countered, his gaze finally finding the Master of Shadows. “When we arrived, my men found listening devices, which means the Council chamber is compromised. Perhaps – only perhaps, mind – the enemy do not already know the master’s name and have not yet targeted him for elimination.”
“The enemy.” The Master of Shadows came forward from where thon had stood in the back of the room. “Traditionally, that word has a specific meaning among Jedi.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “And I use it in the traditional sense.”
“Then we have much to discuss.” The Master of Shadows lowered his hood to reveal a brown-skinned Iridonian Zabrak. “Eeth Koth.”
Obi-Wan couldn’t help chuckling. “We served on the Council together for several years, and I never suspected. Well met – again.”
Eeth nodded in acknowledgment and focused on the immediate moment. “Why those three missions?”
Obi-Wan took a breath, letting it out slowly as he centered himself. “In my first timeline, I was due to age out. I understood that the only master looking for a padawan at that time was Master Jinn, and he didn’t want me. I turned thirteen on Bandomeer in a slave collar that Xanatos du Crion put on me.”
“That won’t happen this time,” Cody muttered – through his vocoder.
Eeth studied Obi-Wan a long moment. “And the Shadow that goes with him?”
“Presumably, Xanatos won’t see that coming,” Obi-Wan said. “Ideally, they’ll take Xanatos into custody so he can be questioned.”
“You think he’s a Sith apprentice?” Eeth asked.
“I think we need to find out.” Obi-Wan blew out a breath. “We knew of four Sith – Darth Maul, whose master was Darth Sidious. After I killed Maul, Sidious took on a new apprentice, Darth Tyranus. Sidious’ master was Darth Plagueis.”
“Five,” one of the troopers put in. “After the war, Darth Vader was Sidious’ final apprentice.”
“Not this time.” Obi-Wan’s certainty rang through the Force.
“Wait,” the same trooper – and now that Obi-Wan concentrated, he thought that it was Boil – “you know who Vader is? But he just appeared out of nowhere. The Temple fell, the Empire rose, and there was Vader.“
And that was a discussion Obi-Wan didn’t want to have, so he said only, “Plagueis is the only one whose identity we never learned. I have plans for the others.”
“Sir.” Cody’s quiet voice cut off anything else Boil might have said.
“Yes, Cody?”
“Crys and Blackout are working on that.”
Obi-Wan opened his senses to the Force, then frowned in realization. He’d been so overwhelmed by the presence of his Ghosts that he hadn’t identified each one. Now, he recognized that Crys and Blackout were not, in fact, with the others.
“How, exactly?”
“That question you asked earlier. We asked it, too.”
Obi-Wan smiled. He and Cody had only been partners for a couple of years, but wartime brought them closer, faster, than anyone would have expected. It was no surprised they thought similarly.
“They’ve been planning this for years,” Cody continued. “Decades, even centuries. There will be hints of it now, and we know what to look for. With luck – if the Force is with us, I should say – we can stop the war before it ever starts.”
“Certain, are you, the correct path this is?” Master Yoda asked.
Obi-Wan met Cody’s gaze, one eyebrow barely lifting. Cody shook his head, a millimeter of a movement that most would’ve missed.
Obi-Wan turned to face his onetime grand-master. “No, Master Yoda. But I am certain it’s a better path than the one I lived through before. War, the destruction of the Jedi, the fall of the Republic, the rise of the Empire under the Sith. Almost anything would be better than that.”
He glanced at Cody. “Have I missed anything, commander?”
“It was an excellent summary,” Cody replied. “If a little short on detail, sir.”
“Forty-odd years of memories will take some time to report,” Obi-Wan observed, then turned his attention back to the three – no, four; even with his hood down, Eeth Koth seemed to blend into the background – masters with him.
After considering the possibilities a long moment, he said, “I can share them in meditation.”
=BREAK=
As it turned out, sharing forty-five years of memories took just over forty-five minutes of meditation.
Granted, they’d focused on the first twenty-three years and the last few days, largely skipping twenty years of self-imposed exile, but still Obi-Wan thought the sharing should’ve taken a little longer.
Still, when they returned to normal awareness, each of the four masters looked grim – though Sifo-Dyas’ expression was edged with triumphant sorrow.
Of course – he’d seen much of what Obi-Wan had lived and then been ignored when he reported his visions to the Council. Having his visions validated, horrific as they were, must have brought some satisfaction.
“Resign, I must,” Master Yoda said more softly than Obi-Wan had ever heard him before.
The other masters frowned, but Eeth Koth spoke. “I don’t follow.”
“Clear, it is. Fell, members of my lineage did. Three members.”
Obi-Wan spoke before he thought. “But that’s not your fault.”
Eeth nodded. “Their choices were their own.”
“He’s right,” Mace added.
Master Yoda was silent for a while, clearly considering what Obi-Wan and Eeth had said. Finally, he cleared his throat.
“My fault, it may not be. But responsibility I bear.”
“Some,” Obi-Wan agreed, and the other three masters glared at him. He glared back – which probably looked ridiculous considering he was less than half of any of their ages, and not even a tenth Master Yoda’s age.
“He bears responsibility,” Obi-Wan said, “for, well, remaining stagnant in the Force and the Order. It is not his fault that the rest of us revere him for his age, experience, and understanding. It is especially not his fault that we do so to a detrimental degree.”
“Spoken like a true Jedi,” Sifo-Dyas murmured.
Before Obi-Wan could fade into the Force in embarrassment, Eeth spoke up.
“The memories you shared are an excellent starting point,” he said. “But before the Galidraan mission is assigned, perhaps you could share more specifics on the most important, or at least the most near, events?”
Obi-Wan inclined his head. “Of course. As soon as I see the troopers to quarters.”
Mace held up a hand. “Depa can see to your guests.”