Star Wars fic: Bad Moon Rising (3)
Apr. 22nd, 2012 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardOne | Two | AO3
Anakin, when he finally emerged from his bedroom the next morning, did not mention the conversation of the night before. Obi-Wan was fairly certain he remembered it, since he tottered out of his room, took one look at her, blushed bright red, and staggered into the ‘fresher. In the spirit of magnanimity she’d refrained from hauling him out of bed at the crack of dawn as she had originally planned, and had instead occupied the intervening hours with quiet meditation and, as she was doing now, paging slowly through this season’s new Senate bills on a datapad to see if anything leapt out at her. She’d also commed Dooku as per the Council’s orders but against her better instincts, and had been glad to get a protocol droid on the other end instead of Dooku himself.
Anakin wandered back out of the ‘fresher eventually, still looking rather green. Obi-Wan flipped from the Spaceport Beautification Bill (well-meant but doomed) to the controversial Planetary Sovereignty Bill. There was a list of the committee members at the bottom of the HoloNet entry on the bill; Obi-Wan scrolled down it absently, then stopped and scrolled back up. Naboo, Padmé Amidala, near the middle – the Senators were listed by planet instead of surname. Near the top of the list was Padmé’s friend Clovis, as Banking Clan (Scipio), Rush Clovis. It must have been the same committee that Padmé had been in yesterday – the one where Dooku and Obi-Wan had met.
Obi-Wan tapped a finger against the edge of the datapad, reading over the remaining committee members. She didn’t know most of them, but a few names were familiar from reputation. Besides Padmé and Clovis, there was only one other Senator that Obi-Wan knew personally, at the very top of the list: Alderaan, Bail Organa.
“Did you have a good time last night?” she asked without looking up as Anakin edged carefully out of the kitchen, carrying a steaming cup of black, bitter Tatooinian tea. He folded himself into an armchair, balancing the mug on his knee.
“I’m never drinking again,” he informed her sadly. “Can you use the Force to make a hangover go away?”
“You can use it to metabolize alcohol more quickly,” Obi-Wan told him. “It’s the same basic process as purging poison from the body.”
“Oh,” Anakin said, clearly weighing the effort of doing so against waiting out the hangover.
Obi-Wan leaned the datapad against her knee. “Did you learn anything?”
“Devaronians don’t get drunk,” Anakin said.
“They do,” Obi-Wan said. “It just takes them a little longer than it takes humans.”
“A lot longer.” He massaged his forehead. “So, uh, were you with Master Vos last night? Is that why he had Aayla and the others get me out of the Temple?”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but yes,” Obi-Wan said after a moment’s hesitation, finally deciding on honesty rather than prevarication. “Are you guessing or are you using the Force?”
He blew on his tea, then remembered he was a Jedi and put his hand over the top of the mug, leaching the warmth away until it was cool enough to drink comfortably. “I – don’t know?” he said eventually. “I can’t really tell.”
“Hmm,” Obi-Wan said. It didn’t really mean anything; Jedi guesses tended to be unconscious Force use, and it was far from the worst thing Anakin had ever picked up on inadvertently. She hadn’t really been intending on hiding it from him anyway; secrets were the last thing that Master and Padawan needed hanging in the air between them.
“Oh, and Tae Diath mentioned it,” he added. “He’s a telepath. I bet he picked it up from Aayla’s mind.” He scowled. “And Master Diath says my control is bad, he should pay more attention to his own Padawan.”
“Telepaths use the Force differently than the rest of us ordinary Jedi,” Obi-Wan reminded him, running her hand through the myriad tiny braids she’d spent the better part of an hour putting her hair in this morning. “Although Padawan Diath really shouldn’t go around saying things like that.”
“Hmmph.” Anakin wrapped his hands around his mug, sipping slowly. “I thought you said we were going to be running simulations today.”
“We will be,” Obi-Wan said. “You came in pretty late last night – well, this morning – and I thought I’d let you sleep it off so you could start off running the obstacle course with a hangover instead of while still drunk.”
He winced. “Am I in trouble?”
“No. Think of it as a learning experience. Besides, you made some important connections with other Padawans. One day, you’ll all be Knights together.”
Anakin squinted at her over the rim of his cup, looking slightly dubious, but before he could say anything, Obi-Wan’s holocomm beeped at her. She leaned over to thumb it on, hoping that it wasn’t Count Dooku.
It turned out to be her friend Kit Fisto, who was serving a term as Temple gatekeeper while his Padawan took some of the same upper-level classes Anakin was in. “Morning, Obi-Wan,” he said, bowing slightly to her.
Obi-Wan bowed back from her seated position. “Hello, Kit. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve got a senator here asking for you. Shall I send her up or would you rather come down?”
“Amidala of Naboo?” Obi-Wan asked, surprised. She’d seen Padmé only yesterday; she couldn’t think of anything urgent enough to would bring her to the Temple so soon afterwards. Anakin perked up at her name, all his attention going to Kit, like a hound on point.
“Mothma of Chandrila. You know her?”
The name was familiar. Obi-Wan glanced down at the datapad in her lap, spotting Mon Mothma’s name on the list on the list of committee members. “Not personally, no,” she said. “Only by reputation.”
Kit looked vaguely interested. “Shall I send her up?”
“No, I’ll come down and meet her in the water gardens,” Obi-Wan decided, setting the datapad aside. “Thanks, Kit.”
He nodded, but paused before turning off the holocomm to say, “By the way, do you have any idea what our Padawans were doing last night? I think Nahdar’s locked himself in the ‘fresher.”
“I think it’s better if we don’t know,” Obi-Wan said, while Anakin looked rather sheepish.
“You may be correct,” Kit said solemnly, flickering out of sight as the holocomm shut off. Obi-Wan straightened up and went to go find her boots.
“Who’s Mothma of Chandrila?” Anakin asked.
“Another Senator. Padmé mentioned her to me once.”
“Should I come –”
Obi-Wan grinned at him. “See if you can figure out how to use the Force to get rid of your hangover.”
Anakin made a whimpering sound as she picked up her cloak and went outside.
Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila turned out to be a handsome human woman of about Obi-Wan’s own age, with short red hair and a determined expression. She had an aide with her, a pale pink Twi’lek teenager in Chandrilan dress.
“Senator Mothma?” Obi-Wan said, approaching her. “I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“Master Kenobi, what a pleasure,” Mothma said. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, but Padmé Amidala and Bail Organa speak very highly of you. Shall we walk?”
“Of course, Senator,” Obi-Wan said. They fell into step together, Mothma’s aide trailing behind them. It was spring on Coruscant, a clear, warm day. The bright sun struck sparks off the glimmering water all around them – pools and waterfalls and little artificial streams filled with fish imported from a thousand worlds, with various walking paths twining cleverly around them. There were several other Jedi about, quiet and absorbed in their own worlds; they saw that Obi-Wan was with a senator and politely went the other way. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you familiar with the Planetary Sovereignty Bill and the Senate Discretion Bill? They’ve both been introduced this season.”
Obi-Wan tucked her hands into her sleeves. “I know of them, yes, but I’m not terribly familiar – my Padawan and I were off-planet on a mission until a few days ago. The Planetary Sovereignty Bill would limit the Senate’s ability to intervene in planetary affairs, correct? While the Senate Discretion Bill would do the opposite.”
“Essentially, yes. Neither option is terribly attractive.”
Obi-Wan didn’t say anything, waiting. She didn’t disagree – at its most extreme, the Planetary Sovereignty Bill could be taken as the next step to dissolving the Republic, while the Senate Discretion Bill held within it the seed of stripping all member planets of their individual rights. If she read more closely, she suspected she might find limitations on the Jedi Order in each.
“I don’t see where I come in,” she said eventually, when it became clear that Senator Mothma is waiting for a response. “I’m just a Jedi Knight, Senator. I don’t have any influence in the Senate.”
“You have more than you think, Master Kenobi,” Senator Mothma said, obviously choosing her words carefully. Obi-Wan could sense the microseconds of hesitation as Mothma tried to decide how best to convince Obi-Wan – not the way a Jedi would have, but the way ordinary beings did, by guesses and estimates.
“I’m giving a dinner the night before the vote for the committee members that are hesitating about the bill,” Mothma said finally. “The presence of a Jedi would go a long way towards persuading those who are uncertain to vote against it.”
“I see,” Obi-Wan said. “Why me? There are other, more important Jedi in the Order that you could ask – Master Gallia, or Master Tiin –”
Mon Mothma shook her head. “You’re quite well known in some circles for what you did on Naboo, and your association with Senators Organa and Amidala won’t hurt. Your presence at the dinner would go unremarked, while a Jedi Master like Adi Gallia or Saesee Tiin would make the bill seem more important. I don’t want this bill to make it out of committee.”
“I see,” Obi-Wan said, tugging on one of her braids. “You’re on the committee along with Senator Organa and Senator Amidala, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“And you aren’t concerned about the Senate Discretion Bill?”
“Onaconda Farr of Rodia and Lott Dod of the Trade Federation have finally found common ground in their mutual hatred of that bill,” Mothma said, with a slight smile. “And both are on the committee. I am confident that it will be defeated as well. So what do you say, Master Kenobi? I can guarantee that at the least you’ll get a good dinner.”
Obi-Wan released the braid, tucking it behind her ear with the rest. “Will you supply me with everything you have on the bill before I make a decision, Senator? As I said, I’m not terribly familiar with the bill.”
“Of course,” Mothma agreed immediately. “I thought you might ask as much – Griaa, the disc?”
Her Twi’lek aide produced it immediately, holding it out to Obi-Wan. She took it, thanking the girl. “You were that confident, Senator?”
“I’ve known a Jedi or two myself, Master Kenobi,” Mothma said, smiling a little. “Even if you had said no, I would have asked you to take it and look it over to see if it changed your mind.”
Obi-Wan slipped the disc into her pocket. “I’ll be in touch, Senator. How long do I have?”
“The vote is in three days,” Mothma said. “The dinner is in two.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “By the way, Senator Mothma – was this Senator Amidala’s idea?”
“No. I don’t think she’d risk her friendship with you by trying to bring politics into it.” Mothma looked steadily at Obi-Wan. They were the same species, same age, same height and general appearance. A casual observer might have taken them for sisters. From the little Obi-Wan knew of her own birth family, if she hadn’t been discovered by the Order, she might have grown up to follow a very similar path. A thread of the Force told Obi-Wan that Mothma was having the same thought.
After a moment, Mothma went on, “Bail Organa told me that you don’t approve of politics.”
“Approval has nothing to do with it,” Obi-Wan said, looking away at a miniature waterfall. “With a few exceptions, I don’t particularly like politicians – no offense meant, Senator.”
“None taken,” Mothma said, with a faint hint of amusement thrumming through the Force. “Perhaps I can change your mind about at least one more politician, Master Kenobi.”
“I hope so,” Obi-Wan said and smiled at her.
She escorted the senator back to the visitor landing platform, their conversation turning to some of the bills that had survived the gauntlet of Senate committees and were up for the vote before the whole Senate this season. In the current political climate, anything that lasted this long tended to be fluff legislation – harmless and relatively uncontroversial. Mothma seemed frustrated by this, but relatively resigned. Better fluff legislation than anything more sinister, Obi-Wan sensed, and had to agree. Of course, it was legislation like this that led people to suggest that the Republic was corrupt and inefficient.
She saw Senator Mothma off, then went slowly back up to her apartment, where she found Anakin reading through a holofile on lightsaber modifications he’d copied from the Archives. “Why don’t more Jedi have lightsabers that work underwater?” he asked. “I mean, we don’t need it that often, but when we need it, we really, really need it.”
“You have the file, my young apprentice, you tell me,” Obi-Wan said, shedding her cloak and setting the holodisc Mothma had given her aside for future perusal.
“Uh –” He flipped several pages forward. “It’s difficult, and if done incorrectly, it can cause a lightsaber to short out at irregular intervals, including in areas of high humidity or in rain. Or in some cases, explode.”
“Very inconvenient, that,” Obi-Wan told him with feeling.
“When did your lightsaber explode?”
“When I was fifteen and in the middle of a firefight. I had second degree burns up to the elbow on both arms and a hole in my shoulder where a blaster bolt got through.” She rubbed the spot, remembering.
Anakin winced.
“Indeed,” Obi-Wan said serenely. “Though by all means do so, you’re somewhat more advanced at lightsaber engineering than I was at your age.”
He smiled. “I’m not going to make anything explode, Master Obi-Wan,” he said. “I mean, not unless I want it too.”
“Good,” Obi-Wan said. “Fortunately you might be about to get the chance. Come on. I’ve reserved one of the simulation rooms and we’re already late.”
Anakin scrambled up, abandoning the holofile and diving into his bedroom for his lightsaber. He had apparently worked out the trick for getting rid of a hangover with the Force, since he seemed considerably perkier than he had when Obi-Wan had left to meet Senator Mothma. He emerged hopping on one foot, then the other as he pulled his boots, lightsaber clipped to his belt.
“What did that senator want?” he asked, following Obi-Wan out into the hallway.
She swept a hand through her braids absently. “Nothing important.”
*
Sims took up most of the day; when they finally finished up, Anakin staggered into the padawan locker rooms while Obi-Wan dragged herself into the knights’ lockers and stood under the shower for a good fifteen minutes, sluicing dirt and sweat off her skin and hissing when the hot water hit the innumerable tiny scratches she’d picked up.
“Nice, Kenobi,” Kadrian Sey said, slapping her on the shoulder when she emerged. “You and that boy of yours have a talent for chaos.”
Obi-Wan started toweling off. “Well, he has a talent for something, all right.”
Sey straddled one of the benches, relaxed in loose workout pants and a tight top that showed off her muscled arms, with tattoos running from wrist to shoulder, more tattoos on her face. Obi-Wan didn’t know her well; Sey usually worked alone on the Outer Rim, with a reputation for being a little reckless, a little bit of a rebel, a little too eager to push the boundaries of the Jedi Code. Rumor was that she was back on Coruscant for a hearing in front of the Council of Reconciliation, but it could as easily be a regular post-mission debrief. She and Obi-Wan didn’t exactly run in the same circles.
“I heard you did good work on Derith Nahar,” Sey went on.
Obi-Wan let her mouth quirk. “Is this about how the pirate captain wanted to marry me or about how my padawan blew up half a space station?”
“I hear you blew up the other half.”
“Not, I assure you, my preferred method of dealing with pirates,” Obi-Wan said.
“It is mine,” Sey said, and smiled, comfortable.
“That why they pulled you off Nar Shaddaa, Sey?” Quinlan said, breezing into the room with a duffle bag over his shoulder.
“Kark on you, Vos,” Sey snapped over her shoulder.
Obi-Wan reached for a fresh set of clothes and started to dress, pulling her braids free of the collar of her shirt. Quin dropped the duffle onto the bench with a thump and opened it up to pull out his workout clothes, shedding his regular robes for gear he didn’t mind getting scuffed up.
“Actually,” he said, directed at Obi-Wan but pitched for both of them, “I heard it was murder. Some spice supplier, cutting half-rate stuff with poison, dead and comatose kids all over Nar Shaddaa. Even the Hutts started paying attention. You know, the rest of us, it bothers us that much, we mindtrick first and ask questions when we get them in custody.” He dropped his robes on top of his duffle and snaked a hand out towards Sey’s lightsaber. “Someone asks me to read that, what do you think I’ll pull off it?”
Sey punched him in the face.
Quin hit her back, and then Obi-Wan dove over the bench and tackled him to the floor while Ord Enisence grabbed Sey around the waist, holding her off the floor as she shouted and swore and tried to get at Quinlan. Everyone else in the lockers – not too many people, it was around dinner time – looked at them in astonished shock that any Jedi, even two with the reputations of Kadrian Sey and Quinlan Vos, would ever behave that way.
“Come on, Obi-Wan, get off me,” Quin coaxed, comfortable and limp beneath her. “You weigh a ton. I’m going to tell that padawan of yours to feed you less.”
“If you tell Anakin anything, it’s going to be how to do that trick of yours where you walk through a crowded room without anyone seeing you,” Obi-Wan told him, but she did get off him, because she trusted Quinlan not to throw a second punch, even if she didn’t trust Kadrian Sey.
“Let me go, Enisence, I’ve got it under control,” Sey snapped, rolling Enisence’s three-fingered grip off his slim shoulders, hair whipping around. She sneered at Quinlan as he sat up. “And for your information, Vos, there were mitigating circumstances. Self-defense.”
“Maybe on Nar Shaddaa,” Quinlan said, still sitting on the floor with Obi-Wan hovering over him, “But that’s not what I hear about that Duros on Dantooine.”
Sey made another furious move at him, and Obi-Wan got between them, both hands held out and the Force hovering at her fingertips. “Stop it!” she said, in the same voice she used on Anakin when he let his instincts and his temper get the better of him. “Both of you, stop it right now. You’re Jedi, you know better. Master Sey, get out of here and go cool down, Master Vos, just stop aggravating her.”
“This is unfitting for Jedi Knights,” Enisence added in his deep, smooth voice.
Quinlan stepped back, hands held up. “Hey, I’m fine. I’m great.”
“You’re an idiot,” Obi-Wan tells him, which he took with a grin.
“You’re all idiots,” Sey snapped, and shoved past Enisence on her way to the door. She hit the control for it and looked back as it slid soundlessly open. “Except for you, Kenobi. Your taste in companions is awful, but I like your style. Meet you tomorrow on the sparring mats?”
Obi-Wan made an indeterminate motion with her hand that might have meant “yes” or “no,” and Sey just grinned, the smile showing her pointed Zabrak teeth. Her hair whipped over her shoulders as she left.
“What in blazes was that about, Quin?” Obi-Wan demanded as he straightened back up.
“That stunt she pulled on Nar Shaddaa ruined my op,” Quinlan said. He tossed her discarded tunic at her, and Obi-Wan shrugged it on, settling the folds at precise angles across her chest.
“Holding grudges is not in the Jedi Code,” Ord Enisence said pointedly.
“I’m not holding it anymore,” Quinlan grinned.
“Stars have mercy,” Obi-Wan said, pulling her boots on and shrugging her cloak on. “You are an idiot.”
She picked up her bag and followed Sey out, nodding a farewell to Ord Enisence. Anakin was waiting in the hallway, his hair wet from washing; he straightened up from his slump against the wall and fell into step with her. “Who was that who just came out, Master?”
“Kadrian Sey,” Obi-Wan said. “Just back from Nar Shaddaa, apparently.”
“She looked like she was in a bad mood.”
“Quinlan Vos can do that to a person.”
Anakin nodded, though he didn’t say anything else. Obi-Wan didn’t know if he’d heard the rumors about Sey; she assumed he had, since Jedi gossiped like old women, and there had apparently been more than a little of that going on last night. Sey wasn’t her problem, though, and neither was Quinlan Vos; Obi-Wan’s mind was already back in the water gardens with Mon Mothma, running through everything the senator had said to her, and she made a sudden decision.
“Here,” she said, handing her bag to Anakin. “I’m going out. Try not to worry.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see an old friend,” Obi-Wan said, and made a hard right at the next corner, turning down a small corridor that will get her to the speeder platform in less than five minutes. She could feel Anakin staring after her, his curiosity a soft buzz at the back of her mind. Knowing Anakin, he was going to worry anyway.
She took an open speeder, mostly to feel the air on her face. The sun was setting, painting the city in purple and gold, the tall buildings all around her lit up with light. Obi-Wan wasn’t in love with Coruscant – won’t be and can’t be – but the city-planet was the only home that she remembered, if not the only home she’d ever known if her personnel file wasn’t lying. It was funny, in a way, because Qui-Gon had been almost violent in his dislike of Coruscant – or at least as violent as Qui-Gon ever got outside the training rooms or the field, anyway – and Obi-Wan had wondered why for years until she’d finally gotten up the courage to ask him. She couldn’t remember his exact words anymore, but it had been something about how unnatural the planet was – how there wasn’t a single speck of land on Coruscant that hadn’t been manipulated by sentient beings somehow, how it twisted up the Living Force. Obi-Wan mostly remembered the expression on his face when she’d looked at him in astonishment and said, “But isn’t that a part of the Living Force too?”
All around her the Force thrummed with life, millions upon billions of beings going about their business. Obi-Wan basked in it, the familiar pulse of Coruscant, and twisted her speeder comfortably through the streams of moving traffic until she finally reached her destination.
Bail Organa was, as Obi-Wan had suspected, working, sitting at the big dining table in his 500 Republica apartment with flimsiplasts and holofiles spread out around him. Obi-Wan, starting to smile, had one of those terrifying flashes of precognition the Force had been prone to giving her since she’d been child: a layered image, like a badly altered hologram, there and gone between one heartbeat and the next. Obi-Wan breathed in, trying to shake off the sudden double image of a Bail Organa some ten years older, sitting at the same table with a dark haired toddler in his lap, a girl who glanced up at Obi-Wan with Padmé Amidala’s eyes and Anakin’s strong features. It didn’t mean anything – the Force only showed Obi-Wan what might be, not what would be. It was still shocking, the same way it always was, the way it had been when she’d looked at Qui-Gon and Darth Maul in the seconds before Qui-Gon died and seen it happen. Sometimes what she saw was what happened.
She shoved the vision to the back of her mind, bowing to Bail as he came around the side of the table, smiling.
“Master Kenobi! To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“Hello, Senator,” Obi-Wan said, her smile genuine. She and Senator Organa had met several years back, when she’d taken Anakin and a dozen younglings to Alderaan for a training mission and ran smack into the middle of an extensive smuggling operation, to the horror of everyone involved, including the smugglers, who’d reacted to the abrupt arrival of a Jedi Knight, a Padawan, and twelve younglings by blaming the whole thing on Queen Breha. “How are you? How is your wife?”
“Breha is pregnant again,” he said, undertones of worry in his voice. Obi-Wan found herself waiting for a shiver in the Force, something to tell her that the child she’d seen in the vision was the one Queen Breha was carrying, but there was nothing: after that first disturbance, the Force lay quiet and placid around them. And somehow that was worse.
“I’m going back to Alderaan as soon as the current vote is over,” Bail went on, not seeming to notice her minute hesitation.
Obi-Wan dragged her mind back to the matter at hand. “That would be the Planetary Sovereignty Bill?”
“You’ve been talking to Mon Mothma,” Bail said wryly, guiding her to a seat with a light touch on her elbow. “Or Padmé Amidala? I saw you two together the other day.”
“Senator Mothma,” Obi-Wan said. “She’s very intense.”
“Mon is that. She did mention something about you, I guess I should have seen it coming that she’d approach you – this is about the dinner, isn’t it?”
Obi-Wan tipped her head in a nod. “This morning. Can you tell me about the bill?”
Bail nodded, tapping his fingers on the table. “It was proposed by the delegation from Devaron – that’s Elsah’sai’Moro, do you know her?”
When she shook her head, he went on. “It was a bit of a surprise; they’ve been talking about the Senate Discretion Bill, or something like it, for years now, but the Planetary Sovereignty Bill came out of nowhere. You should have seen the Senate when Senator Elsah introduced it; half of them applauded and the other half were having kittens on the spot.”
“That good, hmm?” Obi-Wan said, wrapping a braid around her hand.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He signaled his droid, who poured them both drinks. “In essence, the Planetary Sovereignty Bill would give Republic planets greater independence, allow them to refuse extradition, reduces taxes – for certain taxes, it gives the planet the right to refuse to pay – and it would allow individual planets the right to forbid Republic officials setting foot planetside. Including Jedi.”
Obi-Wan had been trained to control her features, keep the quirk of her lips from betraying her mind, but Bail Organa was a friend; she let the expression on her face speak volumes.
“I thought that might get your attention,” he said.
“I hadn’t heard about that,” Obi-Wan said, frowning.
“It’s buried deep. There are a few other nasty surprises in there – I don’t think Elsah put them in, it’s not her style, but none of the co-authors have come forward yet. We have our ideas, though. There’s been a lot of unrest these past six years – what happened on Naboo was just the beginning. Thousands of planets deal with the Trade Federation, and the idea that the Trade Federation could invade a planet without Republic reprisal really shook them, Jedi or not.” He trailed his fingers over the condensation on his glass, looking down into its depths.
“We’ve been aware of that for some time now,” Obi-Wan admitted. “It backed off a bit immediately after Naboo, but it’s been getting worse in the past year or so – what happened on Derith Nahar is proof of that, even though that wasn’t interplanetary.” She sat back, taking a sip from the glass and finding it was ardees, bitter and alcoholic. “I hadn’t considered that the Senate would be pushing back at the Republic too, but I should have. Most Jedi don’t think about the Senate if they can help it.” She shrugged a little. “Most Jedi don’t have to.”
“I’ve always wondered why the Jedi don’t have representation in the Senate,” Bail remarked. “Surely you have as much right to sit in the Senate as the Trade Federation or the Banking Clan.”
“Traditionally, we do, actually,” Obi-Wan said, dredging up the memory of her political science lessons from her youngling years. “It just hasn’t been used in centuries. Most Jedi would rather eat their own lightsabers than have to deal directly with the Senate.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.” He gave her an edge of a smile. “Don’t tell Mon, she’ll have you answering to ‘Senator Kenobi’ within the week.”
Obi-Wan made a face. “No thanks. Some people already think that the Jedi have too much power; I’d rather not fan that particular flame. And it will be a rare Jedi that says otherwise.” She tugged at a braid. “I probably shouldn’t even have told you that, though it’s not officially a secret.”
Bail shrugged. “Why shouldn’t the Jedi have as much voice in the running of the Republic as anyone else? You’ve certainly done enough to protect it.”
“And that’s where our place is,” Obi-Wan said decisively. “We’ll leave the politics to you, Senator. We’ll keep the peace, you make it.”
He gave her an edge of a smile. “As you say, Obi-Wan. I think the Senate could use some shaking up.”
“Maybe it does,” Obi-Wan said, “but I’m not the one to do it.” She drank more of the ardees, letting the taste blossom on her tongue. “So the bill –”
“Oh, it has its points,” Bail said, leaning back in his chair and playing with his glass, the condensation wetting his fingers. “Otherwise so many senators wouldn’t be convinced by it. Very few people like paying Republic tariffs, and most systems don’t enjoy having outsiders – sorry – poking into their business if some other senator gets it up his nose that there’s Jedi business about. Do you remember the Stark Hyperspace Wars?”
“Vividly. I was there.”
He looked interested. “Really? I hadn’t known that. That must have been almost twenty years ago –”
“Fifteen,” Obi-Wan said. “I was thirteen, a new Padawan. It was one of my first missions with Master Qui-Gon.”
Bail nodded, still looking curious. “Well, this bill would more or less legalize the war. The number of hoops the Senate would have to jump through to do anything would practically double overnight.”
“That war practically was legal,” Obi-Wan scowled. “And don’t take this the wrong way, Bail, but it practically takes an executive order for the Senate to do anything as it is, not without being bogged down in committees for a decade. By which point –” She stopped abruptly, because the words that were next on her tongue had been good Jedi are dead and the problem’s resolved itself.
“Yes,” Bail said. “With this bill, even an executive order wouldn’t have much impact. It would make the Senate obsolete.”
“It can’t be that serious,” Obi-Wan said. “No senator would really put themselves out of a job.”
“Senators are not always the wisest bunch,” Bail said. He took another sip of his ardees and leaned forward. “Obi-Wan, I do think that if this bill makes it through committee, in three years it will be up before the entire Senate and then it will pass. And when it does, within a century there won’t be a Republic anymore. There probably won’t be a Jedi Order anymore, either.”
“There will always be Jedi,” Obi-Wan said automatically, but a faint tremor in the Force told her that Bail was right. “I need to do more research before I can commit myself,” she compromised.
“Of course,” Bail said, standing at the same time she did. “It’s good to see you again, Obi-Wan. It’s been too long. And I’m glad the circumstances are better this time.”
“As am I. Well, we may be seeing each other soon.” She smiled at him. “Give Queen Breha my regards.”
“I will. She’ll be glad to hear from you.” He made a gesture towards his protocol droid, which stepped forward obediently. It showed Obi-Wan back to her speeder, past the sole Senate Guard assigned to Bail Organa – Bail wasn’t so important a senator to rate more than one – and out to the landing pad, which was lively this time of night. Obi-Wan saw a dozen senators that she knew by sight alone, though none that she had any passing acquaintance with. None of them seemed interested to see her here; Jedi weren’t exactly a rare sight on Coruscant, even at 500 Republica.
Obi-Wan thanked the protocol droid politely and climbed back into her speeder, gathering her cloak tightly around herself – the temperature had fallen since she’d arrived, and the wind was cold on her face and her still damp hair as she turned the speeder back towards the Jedi Temple, dropping into the ebb and flow of air traffic. She could see the towers of the Temple lit up a long way off, and felt Anakin’s presence in the back of her mind as she approached, deep in meditation for a change. She could sense him perk up and start to lose control of the meditation as he noted her approach. He must have been trying traditional meditation, not his usual active meditation; he was easily distracted if he didn’t have something to concentrate on. If she was a betting woman, Obi-Wan would have placed money on his coming down to the landing platform to meet her. She was pleasantly surprised to find that he hadn’t when she landed; Anakin didn’t exactly have a habit for patience unless he was coaxing miracles out of electronics.
She went back up to her apartment through the familiar hallways of the Temple, past knights and padawans and groups of younglings who stopped to bow politely to her. The lingering evening light came in through the stained glass windows, writing colors of red and gold across floors and wall. It was so familiar and so loved that Obi-Wan almost missed the faint prickle of the Force across her skin: for half a heartbeat, the colors weren’t stained glass, but fire. Then the vision passed, and it was just stained glass again.
*
tbc
Anakin, when he finally emerged from his bedroom the next morning, did not mention the conversation of the night before. Obi-Wan was fairly certain he remembered it, since he tottered out of his room, took one look at her, blushed bright red, and staggered into the ‘fresher. In the spirit of magnanimity she’d refrained from hauling him out of bed at the crack of dawn as she had originally planned, and had instead occupied the intervening hours with quiet meditation and, as she was doing now, paging slowly through this season’s new Senate bills on a datapad to see if anything leapt out at her. She’d also commed Dooku as per the Council’s orders but against her better instincts, and had been glad to get a protocol droid on the other end instead of Dooku himself.
Anakin wandered back out of the ‘fresher eventually, still looking rather green. Obi-Wan flipped from the Spaceport Beautification Bill (well-meant but doomed) to the controversial Planetary Sovereignty Bill. There was a list of the committee members at the bottom of the HoloNet entry on the bill; Obi-Wan scrolled down it absently, then stopped and scrolled back up. Naboo, Padmé Amidala, near the middle – the Senators were listed by planet instead of surname. Near the top of the list was Padmé’s friend Clovis, as Banking Clan (Scipio), Rush Clovis. It must have been the same committee that Padmé had been in yesterday – the one where Dooku and Obi-Wan had met.
Obi-Wan tapped a finger against the edge of the datapad, reading over the remaining committee members. She didn’t know most of them, but a few names were familiar from reputation. Besides Padmé and Clovis, there was only one other Senator that Obi-Wan knew personally, at the very top of the list: Alderaan, Bail Organa.
“Did you have a good time last night?” she asked without looking up as Anakin edged carefully out of the kitchen, carrying a steaming cup of black, bitter Tatooinian tea. He folded himself into an armchair, balancing the mug on his knee.
“I’m never drinking again,” he informed her sadly. “Can you use the Force to make a hangover go away?”
“You can use it to metabolize alcohol more quickly,” Obi-Wan told him. “It’s the same basic process as purging poison from the body.”
“Oh,” Anakin said, clearly weighing the effort of doing so against waiting out the hangover.
Obi-Wan leaned the datapad against her knee. “Did you learn anything?”
“Devaronians don’t get drunk,” Anakin said.
“They do,” Obi-Wan said. “It just takes them a little longer than it takes humans.”
“A lot longer.” He massaged his forehead. “So, uh, were you with Master Vos last night? Is that why he had Aayla and the others get me out of the Temple?”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but yes,” Obi-Wan said after a moment’s hesitation, finally deciding on honesty rather than prevarication. “Are you guessing or are you using the Force?”
He blew on his tea, then remembered he was a Jedi and put his hand over the top of the mug, leaching the warmth away until it was cool enough to drink comfortably. “I – don’t know?” he said eventually. “I can’t really tell.”
“Hmm,” Obi-Wan said. It didn’t really mean anything; Jedi guesses tended to be unconscious Force use, and it was far from the worst thing Anakin had ever picked up on inadvertently. She hadn’t really been intending on hiding it from him anyway; secrets were the last thing that Master and Padawan needed hanging in the air between them.
“Oh, and Tae Diath mentioned it,” he added. “He’s a telepath. I bet he picked it up from Aayla’s mind.” He scowled. “And Master Diath says my control is bad, he should pay more attention to his own Padawan.”
“Telepaths use the Force differently than the rest of us ordinary Jedi,” Obi-Wan reminded him, running her hand through the myriad tiny braids she’d spent the better part of an hour putting her hair in this morning. “Although Padawan Diath really shouldn’t go around saying things like that.”
“Hmmph.” Anakin wrapped his hands around his mug, sipping slowly. “I thought you said we were going to be running simulations today.”
“We will be,” Obi-Wan said. “You came in pretty late last night – well, this morning – and I thought I’d let you sleep it off so you could start off running the obstacle course with a hangover instead of while still drunk.”
He winced. “Am I in trouble?”
“No. Think of it as a learning experience. Besides, you made some important connections with other Padawans. One day, you’ll all be Knights together.”
Anakin squinted at her over the rim of his cup, looking slightly dubious, but before he could say anything, Obi-Wan’s holocomm beeped at her. She leaned over to thumb it on, hoping that it wasn’t Count Dooku.
It turned out to be her friend Kit Fisto, who was serving a term as Temple gatekeeper while his Padawan took some of the same upper-level classes Anakin was in. “Morning, Obi-Wan,” he said, bowing slightly to her.
Obi-Wan bowed back from her seated position. “Hello, Kit. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve got a senator here asking for you. Shall I send her up or would you rather come down?”
“Amidala of Naboo?” Obi-Wan asked, surprised. She’d seen Padmé only yesterday; she couldn’t think of anything urgent enough to would bring her to the Temple so soon afterwards. Anakin perked up at her name, all his attention going to Kit, like a hound on point.
“Mothma of Chandrila. You know her?”
The name was familiar. Obi-Wan glanced down at the datapad in her lap, spotting Mon Mothma’s name on the list on the list of committee members. “Not personally, no,” she said. “Only by reputation.”
Kit looked vaguely interested. “Shall I send her up?”
“No, I’ll come down and meet her in the water gardens,” Obi-Wan decided, setting the datapad aside. “Thanks, Kit.”
He nodded, but paused before turning off the holocomm to say, “By the way, do you have any idea what our Padawans were doing last night? I think Nahdar’s locked himself in the ‘fresher.”
“I think it’s better if we don’t know,” Obi-Wan said, while Anakin looked rather sheepish.
“You may be correct,” Kit said solemnly, flickering out of sight as the holocomm shut off. Obi-Wan straightened up and went to go find her boots.
“Who’s Mothma of Chandrila?” Anakin asked.
“Another Senator. Padmé mentioned her to me once.”
“Should I come –”
Obi-Wan grinned at him. “See if you can figure out how to use the Force to get rid of your hangover.”
Anakin made a whimpering sound as she picked up her cloak and went outside.
Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila turned out to be a handsome human woman of about Obi-Wan’s own age, with short red hair and a determined expression. She had an aide with her, a pale pink Twi’lek teenager in Chandrilan dress.
“Senator Mothma?” Obi-Wan said, approaching her. “I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“Master Kenobi, what a pleasure,” Mothma said. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, but Padmé Amidala and Bail Organa speak very highly of you. Shall we walk?”
“Of course, Senator,” Obi-Wan said. They fell into step together, Mothma’s aide trailing behind them. It was spring on Coruscant, a clear, warm day. The bright sun struck sparks off the glimmering water all around them – pools and waterfalls and little artificial streams filled with fish imported from a thousand worlds, with various walking paths twining cleverly around them. There were several other Jedi about, quiet and absorbed in their own worlds; they saw that Obi-Wan was with a senator and politely went the other way. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you familiar with the Planetary Sovereignty Bill and the Senate Discretion Bill? They’ve both been introduced this season.”
Obi-Wan tucked her hands into her sleeves. “I know of them, yes, but I’m not terribly familiar – my Padawan and I were off-planet on a mission until a few days ago. The Planetary Sovereignty Bill would limit the Senate’s ability to intervene in planetary affairs, correct? While the Senate Discretion Bill would do the opposite.”
“Essentially, yes. Neither option is terribly attractive.”
Obi-Wan didn’t say anything, waiting. She didn’t disagree – at its most extreme, the Planetary Sovereignty Bill could be taken as the next step to dissolving the Republic, while the Senate Discretion Bill held within it the seed of stripping all member planets of their individual rights. If she read more closely, she suspected she might find limitations on the Jedi Order in each.
“I don’t see where I come in,” she said eventually, when it became clear that Senator Mothma is waiting for a response. “I’m just a Jedi Knight, Senator. I don’t have any influence in the Senate.”
“You have more than you think, Master Kenobi,” Senator Mothma said, obviously choosing her words carefully. Obi-Wan could sense the microseconds of hesitation as Mothma tried to decide how best to convince Obi-Wan – not the way a Jedi would have, but the way ordinary beings did, by guesses and estimates.
“I’m giving a dinner the night before the vote for the committee members that are hesitating about the bill,” Mothma said finally. “The presence of a Jedi would go a long way towards persuading those who are uncertain to vote against it.”
“I see,” Obi-Wan said. “Why me? There are other, more important Jedi in the Order that you could ask – Master Gallia, or Master Tiin –”
Mon Mothma shook her head. “You’re quite well known in some circles for what you did on Naboo, and your association with Senators Organa and Amidala won’t hurt. Your presence at the dinner would go unremarked, while a Jedi Master like Adi Gallia or Saesee Tiin would make the bill seem more important. I don’t want this bill to make it out of committee.”
“I see,” Obi-Wan said, tugging on one of her braids. “You’re on the committee along with Senator Organa and Senator Amidala, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“And you aren’t concerned about the Senate Discretion Bill?”
“Onaconda Farr of Rodia and Lott Dod of the Trade Federation have finally found common ground in their mutual hatred of that bill,” Mothma said, with a slight smile. “And both are on the committee. I am confident that it will be defeated as well. So what do you say, Master Kenobi? I can guarantee that at the least you’ll get a good dinner.”
Obi-Wan released the braid, tucking it behind her ear with the rest. “Will you supply me with everything you have on the bill before I make a decision, Senator? As I said, I’m not terribly familiar with the bill.”
“Of course,” Mothma agreed immediately. “I thought you might ask as much – Griaa, the disc?”
Her Twi’lek aide produced it immediately, holding it out to Obi-Wan. She took it, thanking the girl. “You were that confident, Senator?”
“I’ve known a Jedi or two myself, Master Kenobi,” Mothma said, smiling a little. “Even if you had said no, I would have asked you to take it and look it over to see if it changed your mind.”
Obi-Wan slipped the disc into her pocket. “I’ll be in touch, Senator. How long do I have?”
“The vote is in three days,” Mothma said. “The dinner is in two.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “By the way, Senator Mothma – was this Senator Amidala’s idea?”
“No. I don’t think she’d risk her friendship with you by trying to bring politics into it.” Mothma looked steadily at Obi-Wan. They were the same species, same age, same height and general appearance. A casual observer might have taken them for sisters. From the little Obi-Wan knew of her own birth family, if she hadn’t been discovered by the Order, she might have grown up to follow a very similar path. A thread of the Force told Obi-Wan that Mothma was having the same thought.
After a moment, Mothma went on, “Bail Organa told me that you don’t approve of politics.”
“Approval has nothing to do with it,” Obi-Wan said, looking away at a miniature waterfall. “With a few exceptions, I don’t particularly like politicians – no offense meant, Senator.”
“None taken,” Mothma said, with a faint hint of amusement thrumming through the Force. “Perhaps I can change your mind about at least one more politician, Master Kenobi.”
“I hope so,” Obi-Wan said and smiled at her.
She escorted the senator back to the visitor landing platform, their conversation turning to some of the bills that had survived the gauntlet of Senate committees and were up for the vote before the whole Senate this season. In the current political climate, anything that lasted this long tended to be fluff legislation – harmless and relatively uncontroversial. Mothma seemed frustrated by this, but relatively resigned. Better fluff legislation than anything more sinister, Obi-Wan sensed, and had to agree. Of course, it was legislation like this that led people to suggest that the Republic was corrupt and inefficient.
She saw Senator Mothma off, then went slowly back up to her apartment, where she found Anakin reading through a holofile on lightsaber modifications he’d copied from the Archives. “Why don’t more Jedi have lightsabers that work underwater?” he asked. “I mean, we don’t need it that often, but when we need it, we really, really need it.”
“You have the file, my young apprentice, you tell me,” Obi-Wan said, shedding her cloak and setting the holodisc Mothma had given her aside for future perusal.
“Uh –” He flipped several pages forward. “It’s difficult, and if done incorrectly, it can cause a lightsaber to short out at irregular intervals, including in areas of high humidity or in rain. Or in some cases, explode.”
“Very inconvenient, that,” Obi-Wan told him with feeling.
“When did your lightsaber explode?”
“When I was fifteen and in the middle of a firefight. I had second degree burns up to the elbow on both arms and a hole in my shoulder where a blaster bolt got through.” She rubbed the spot, remembering.
Anakin winced.
“Indeed,” Obi-Wan said serenely. “Though by all means do so, you’re somewhat more advanced at lightsaber engineering than I was at your age.”
He smiled. “I’m not going to make anything explode, Master Obi-Wan,” he said. “I mean, not unless I want it too.”
“Good,” Obi-Wan said. “Fortunately you might be about to get the chance. Come on. I’ve reserved one of the simulation rooms and we’re already late.”
Anakin scrambled up, abandoning the holofile and diving into his bedroom for his lightsaber. He had apparently worked out the trick for getting rid of a hangover with the Force, since he seemed considerably perkier than he had when Obi-Wan had left to meet Senator Mothma. He emerged hopping on one foot, then the other as he pulled his boots, lightsaber clipped to his belt.
“What did that senator want?” he asked, following Obi-Wan out into the hallway.
She swept a hand through her braids absently. “Nothing important.”
*
Sims took up most of the day; when they finally finished up, Anakin staggered into the padawan locker rooms while Obi-Wan dragged herself into the knights’ lockers and stood under the shower for a good fifteen minutes, sluicing dirt and sweat off her skin and hissing when the hot water hit the innumerable tiny scratches she’d picked up.
“Nice, Kenobi,” Kadrian Sey said, slapping her on the shoulder when she emerged. “You and that boy of yours have a talent for chaos.”
Obi-Wan started toweling off. “Well, he has a talent for something, all right.”
Sey straddled one of the benches, relaxed in loose workout pants and a tight top that showed off her muscled arms, with tattoos running from wrist to shoulder, more tattoos on her face. Obi-Wan didn’t know her well; Sey usually worked alone on the Outer Rim, with a reputation for being a little reckless, a little bit of a rebel, a little too eager to push the boundaries of the Jedi Code. Rumor was that she was back on Coruscant for a hearing in front of the Council of Reconciliation, but it could as easily be a regular post-mission debrief. She and Obi-Wan didn’t exactly run in the same circles.
“I heard you did good work on Derith Nahar,” Sey went on.
Obi-Wan let her mouth quirk. “Is this about how the pirate captain wanted to marry me or about how my padawan blew up half a space station?”
“I hear you blew up the other half.”
“Not, I assure you, my preferred method of dealing with pirates,” Obi-Wan said.
“It is mine,” Sey said, and smiled, comfortable.
“That why they pulled you off Nar Shaddaa, Sey?” Quinlan said, breezing into the room with a duffle bag over his shoulder.
“Kark on you, Vos,” Sey snapped over her shoulder.
Obi-Wan reached for a fresh set of clothes and started to dress, pulling her braids free of the collar of her shirt. Quin dropped the duffle onto the bench with a thump and opened it up to pull out his workout clothes, shedding his regular robes for gear he didn’t mind getting scuffed up.
“Actually,” he said, directed at Obi-Wan but pitched for both of them, “I heard it was murder. Some spice supplier, cutting half-rate stuff with poison, dead and comatose kids all over Nar Shaddaa. Even the Hutts started paying attention. You know, the rest of us, it bothers us that much, we mindtrick first and ask questions when we get them in custody.” He dropped his robes on top of his duffle and snaked a hand out towards Sey’s lightsaber. “Someone asks me to read that, what do you think I’ll pull off it?”
Sey punched him in the face.
Quin hit her back, and then Obi-Wan dove over the bench and tackled him to the floor while Ord Enisence grabbed Sey around the waist, holding her off the floor as she shouted and swore and tried to get at Quinlan. Everyone else in the lockers – not too many people, it was around dinner time – looked at them in astonished shock that any Jedi, even two with the reputations of Kadrian Sey and Quinlan Vos, would ever behave that way.
“Come on, Obi-Wan, get off me,” Quin coaxed, comfortable and limp beneath her. “You weigh a ton. I’m going to tell that padawan of yours to feed you less.”
“If you tell Anakin anything, it’s going to be how to do that trick of yours where you walk through a crowded room without anyone seeing you,” Obi-Wan told him, but she did get off him, because she trusted Quinlan not to throw a second punch, even if she didn’t trust Kadrian Sey.
“Let me go, Enisence, I’ve got it under control,” Sey snapped, rolling Enisence’s three-fingered grip off his slim shoulders, hair whipping around. She sneered at Quinlan as he sat up. “And for your information, Vos, there were mitigating circumstances. Self-defense.”
“Maybe on Nar Shaddaa,” Quinlan said, still sitting on the floor with Obi-Wan hovering over him, “But that’s not what I hear about that Duros on Dantooine.”
Sey made another furious move at him, and Obi-Wan got between them, both hands held out and the Force hovering at her fingertips. “Stop it!” she said, in the same voice she used on Anakin when he let his instincts and his temper get the better of him. “Both of you, stop it right now. You’re Jedi, you know better. Master Sey, get out of here and go cool down, Master Vos, just stop aggravating her.”
“This is unfitting for Jedi Knights,” Enisence added in his deep, smooth voice.
Quinlan stepped back, hands held up. “Hey, I’m fine. I’m great.”
“You’re an idiot,” Obi-Wan tells him, which he took with a grin.
“You’re all idiots,” Sey snapped, and shoved past Enisence on her way to the door. She hit the control for it and looked back as it slid soundlessly open. “Except for you, Kenobi. Your taste in companions is awful, but I like your style. Meet you tomorrow on the sparring mats?”
Obi-Wan made an indeterminate motion with her hand that might have meant “yes” or “no,” and Sey just grinned, the smile showing her pointed Zabrak teeth. Her hair whipped over her shoulders as she left.
“What in blazes was that about, Quin?” Obi-Wan demanded as he straightened back up.
“That stunt she pulled on Nar Shaddaa ruined my op,” Quinlan said. He tossed her discarded tunic at her, and Obi-Wan shrugged it on, settling the folds at precise angles across her chest.
“Holding grudges is not in the Jedi Code,” Ord Enisence said pointedly.
“I’m not holding it anymore,” Quinlan grinned.
“Stars have mercy,” Obi-Wan said, pulling her boots on and shrugging her cloak on. “You are an idiot.”
She picked up her bag and followed Sey out, nodding a farewell to Ord Enisence. Anakin was waiting in the hallway, his hair wet from washing; he straightened up from his slump against the wall and fell into step with her. “Who was that who just came out, Master?”
“Kadrian Sey,” Obi-Wan said. “Just back from Nar Shaddaa, apparently.”
“She looked like she was in a bad mood.”
“Quinlan Vos can do that to a person.”
Anakin nodded, though he didn’t say anything else. Obi-Wan didn’t know if he’d heard the rumors about Sey; she assumed he had, since Jedi gossiped like old women, and there had apparently been more than a little of that going on last night. Sey wasn’t her problem, though, and neither was Quinlan Vos; Obi-Wan’s mind was already back in the water gardens with Mon Mothma, running through everything the senator had said to her, and she made a sudden decision.
“Here,” she said, handing her bag to Anakin. “I’m going out. Try not to worry.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see an old friend,” Obi-Wan said, and made a hard right at the next corner, turning down a small corridor that will get her to the speeder platform in less than five minutes. She could feel Anakin staring after her, his curiosity a soft buzz at the back of her mind. Knowing Anakin, he was going to worry anyway.
She took an open speeder, mostly to feel the air on her face. The sun was setting, painting the city in purple and gold, the tall buildings all around her lit up with light. Obi-Wan wasn’t in love with Coruscant – won’t be and can’t be – but the city-planet was the only home that she remembered, if not the only home she’d ever known if her personnel file wasn’t lying. It was funny, in a way, because Qui-Gon had been almost violent in his dislike of Coruscant – or at least as violent as Qui-Gon ever got outside the training rooms or the field, anyway – and Obi-Wan had wondered why for years until she’d finally gotten up the courage to ask him. She couldn’t remember his exact words anymore, but it had been something about how unnatural the planet was – how there wasn’t a single speck of land on Coruscant that hadn’t been manipulated by sentient beings somehow, how it twisted up the Living Force. Obi-Wan mostly remembered the expression on his face when she’d looked at him in astonishment and said, “But isn’t that a part of the Living Force too?”
All around her the Force thrummed with life, millions upon billions of beings going about their business. Obi-Wan basked in it, the familiar pulse of Coruscant, and twisted her speeder comfortably through the streams of moving traffic until she finally reached her destination.
Bail Organa was, as Obi-Wan had suspected, working, sitting at the big dining table in his 500 Republica apartment with flimsiplasts and holofiles spread out around him. Obi-Wan, starting to smile, had one of those terrifying flashes of precognition the Force had been prone to giving her since she’d been child: a layered image, like a badly altered hologram, there and gone between one heartbeat and the next. Obi-Wan breathed in, trying to shake off the sudden double image of a Bail Organa some ten years older, sitting at the same table with a dark haired toddler in his lap, a girl who glanced up at Obi-Wan with Padmé Amidala’s eyes and Anakin’s strong features. It didn’t mean anything – the Force only showed Obi-Wan what might be, not what would be. It was still shocking, the same way it always was, the way it had been when she’d looked at Qui-Gon and Darth Maul in the seconds before Qui-Gon died and seen it happen. Sometimes what she saw was what happened.
She shoved the vision to the back of her mind, bowing to Bail as he came around the side of the table, smiling.
“Master Kenobi! To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“Hello, Senator,” Obi-Wan said, her smile genuine. She and Senator Organa had met several years back, when she’d taken Anakin and a dozen younglings to Alderaan for a training mission and ran smack into the middle of an extensive smuggling operation, to the horror of everyone involved, including the smugglers, who’d reacted to the abrupt arrival of a Jedi Knight, a Padawan, and twelve younglings by blaming the whole thing on Queen Breha. “How are you? How is your wife?”
“Breha is pregnant again,” he said, undertones of worry in his voice. Obi-Wan found herself waiting for a shiver in the Force, something to tell her that the child she’d seen in the vision was the one Queen Breha was carrying, but there was nothing: after that first disturbance, the Force lay quiet and placid around them. And somehow that was worse.
“I’m going back to Alderaan as soon as the current vote is over,” Bail went on, not seeming to notice her minute hesitation.
Obi-Wan dragged her mind back to the matter at hand. “That would be the Planetary Sovereignty Bill?”
“You’ve been talking to Mon Mothma,” Bail said wryly, guiding her to a seat with a light touch on her elbow. “Or Padmé Amidala? I saw you two together the other day.”
“Senator Mothma,” Obi-Wan said. “She’s very intense.”
“Mon is that. She did mention something about you, I guess I should have seen it coming that she’d approach you – this is about the dinner, isn’t it?”
Obi-Wan tipped her head in a nod. “This morning. Can you tell me about the bill?”
Bail nodded, tapping his fingers on the table. “It was proposed by the delegation from Devaron – that’s Elsah’sai’Moro, do you know her?”
When she shook her head, he went on. “It was a bit of a surprise; they’ve been talking about the Senate Discretion Bill, or something like it, for years now, but the Planetary Sovereignty Bill came out of nowhere. You should have seen the Senate when Senator Elsah introduced it; half of them applauded and the other half were having kittens on the spot.”
“That good, hmm?” Obi-Wan said, wrapping a braid around her hand.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He signaled his droid, who poured them both drinks. “In essence, the Planetary Sovereignty Bill would give Republic planets greater independence, allow them to refuse extradition, reduces taxes – for certain taxes, it gives the planet the right to refuse to pay – and it would allow individual planets the right to forbid Republic officials setting foot planetside. Including Jedi.”
Obi-Wan had been trained to control her features, keep the quirk of her lips from betraying her mind, but Bail Organa was a friend; she let the expression on her face speak volumes.
“I thought that might get your attention,” he said.
“I hadn’t heard about that,” Obi-Wan said, frowning.
“It’s buried deep. There are a few other nasty surprises in there – I don’t think Elsah put them in, it’s not her style, but none of the co-authors have come forward yet. We have our ideas, though. There’s been a lot of unrest these past six years – what happened on Naboo was just the beginning. Thousands of planets deal with the Trade Federation, and the idea that the Trade Federation could invade a planet without Republic reprisal really shook them, Jedi or not.” He trailed his fingers over the condensation on his glass, looking down into its depths.
“We’ve been aware of that for some time now,” Obi-Wan admitted. “It backed off a bit immediately after Naboo, but it’s been getting worse in the past year or so – what happened on Derith Nahar is proof of that, even though that wasn’t interplanetary.” She sat back, taking a sip from the glass and finding it was ardees, bitter and alcoholic. “I hadn’t considered that the Senate would be pushing back at the Republic too, but I should have. Most Jedi don’t think about the Senate if they can help it.” She shrugged a little. “Most Jedi don’t have to.”
“I’ve always wondered why the Jedi don’t have representation in the Senate,” Bail remarked. “Surely you have as much right to sit in the Senate as the Trade Federation or the Banking Clan.”
“Traditionally, we do, actually,” Obi-Wan said, dredging up the memory of her political science lessons from her youngling years. “It just hasn’t been used in centuries. Most Jedi would rather eat their own lightsabers than have to deal directly with the Senate.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.” He gave her an edge of a smile. “Don’t tell Mon, she’ll have you answering to ‘Senator Kenobi’ within the week.”
Obi-Wan made a face. “No thanks. Some people already think that the Jedi have too much power; I’d rather not fan that particular flame. And it will be a rare Jedi that says otherwise.” She tugged at a braid. “I probably shouldn’t even have told you that, though it’s not officially a secret.”
Bail shrugged. “Why shouldn’t the Jedi have as much voice in the running of the Republic as anyone else? You’ve certainly done enough to protect it.”
“And that’s where our place is,” Obi-Wan said decisively. “We’ll leave the politics to you, Senator. We’ll keep the peace, you make it.”
He gave her an edge of a smile. “As you say, Obi-Wan. I think the Senate could use some shaking up.”
“Maybe it does,” Obi-Wan said, “but I’m not the one to do it.” She drank more of the ardees, letting the taste blossom on her tongue. “So the bill –”
“Oh, it has its points,” Bail said, leaning back in his chair and playing with his glass, the condensation wetting his fingers. “Otherwise so many senators wouldn’t be convinced by it. Very few people like paying Republic tariffs, and most systems don’t enjoy having outsiders – sorry – poking into their business if some other senator gets it up his nose that there’s Jedi business about. Do you remember the Stark Hyperspace Wars?”
“Vividly. I was there.”
He looked interested. “Really? I hadn’t known that. That must have been almost twenty years ago –”
“Fifteen,” Obi-Wan said. “I was thirteen, a new Padawan. It was one of my first missions with Master Qui-Gon.”
Bail nodded, still looking curious. “Well, this bill would more or less legalize the war. The number of hoops the Senate would have to jump through to do anything would practically double overnight.”
“That war practically was legal,” Obi-Wan scowled. “And don’t take this the wrong way, Bail, but it practically takes an executive order for the Senate to do anything as it is, not without being bogged down in committees for a decade. By which point –” She stopped abruptly, because the words that were next on her tongue had been good Jedi are dead and the problem’s resolved itself.
“Yes,” Bail said. “With this bill, even an executive order wouldn’t have much impact. It would make the Senate obsolete.”
“It can’t be that serious,” Obi-Wan said. “No senator would really put themselves out of a job.”
“Senators are not always the wisest bunch,” Bail said. He took another sip of his ardees and leaned forward. “Obi-Wan, I do think that if this bill makes it through committee, in three years it will be up before the entire Senate and then it will pass. And when it does, within a century there won’t be a Republic anymore. There probably won’t be a Jedi Order anymore, either.”
“There will always be Jedi,” Obi-Wan said automatically, but a faint tremor in the Force told her that Bail was right. “I need to do more research before I can commit myself,” she compromised.
“Of course,” Bail said, standing at the same time she did. “It’s good to see you again, Obi-Wan. It’s been too long. And I’m glad the circumstances are better this time.”
“As am I. Well, we may be seeing each other soon.” She smiled at him. “Give Queen Breha my regards.”
“I will. She’ll be glad to hear from you.” He made a gesture towards his protocol droid, which stepped forward obediently. It showed Obi-Wan back to her speeder, past the sole Senate Guard assigned to Bail Organa – Bail wasn’t so important a senator to rate more than one – and out to the landing pad, which was lively this time of night. Obi-Wan saw a dozen senators that she knew by sight alone, though none that she had any passing acquaintance with. None of them seemed interested to see her here; Jedi weren’t exactly a rare sight on Coruscant, even at 500 Republica.
Obi-Wan thanked the protocol droid politely and climbed back into her speeder, gathering her cloak tightly around herself – the temperature had fallen since she’d arrived, and the wind was cold on her face and her still damp hair as she turned the speeder back towards the Jedi Temple, dropping into the ebb and flow of air traffic. She could see the towers of the Temple lit up a long way off, and felt Anakin’s presence in the back of her mind as she approached, deep in meditation for a change. She could sense him perk up and start to lose control of the meditation as he noted her approach. He must have been trying traditional meditation, not his usual active meditation; he was easily distracted if he didn’t have something to concentrate on. If she was a betting woman, Obi-Wan would have placed money on his coming down to the landing platform to meet her. She was pleasantly surprised to find that he hadn’t when she landed; Anakin didn’t exactly have a habit for patience unless he was coaxing miracles out of electronics.
She went back up to her apartment through the familiar hallways of the Temple, past knights and padawans and groups of younglings who stopped to bow politely to her. The lingering evening light came in through the stained glass windows, writing colors of red and gold across floors and wall. It was so familiar and so loved that Obi-Wan almost missed the faint prickle of the Force across her skin: for half a heartbeat, the colors weren’t stained glass, but fire. Then the vision passed, and it was just stained glass again.
*
tbc