Jude Watson: Jedi Quest 7: The Moment of Truth

"In other words, we're a little outgunned," Anakin said.

"I suggest evasion as our best course," Obi-Wan agreed dryly.

Laser cannonfire exploded around them.

"Missile on the left!" Obi-Wan shouted.

"I see it!" Anakin streamed up, making a sharp turn to evade the tracking device. The missile hugged their path. At the last second, Anakin veered off, and the missile passed them by a few meters.

"Close," Obi-Wan said. "They're speeding up. We can't outrun them, Anakin."

"Just give me a chance."

"Too risky. Just get us down. We'll land on the Typha Dor moon."

"But we're far from the outpost," Anakin said.

"We stand a better chance down there." Another missile screamed past.

The small ship was tossed by the reverberations of cannonfire. "They'll send a landing ship, but we'll have a head start."

The explosion was close. Anakin gripped the controls and gritted his teeth. His choice would be to keep flying, but he had to obey his Master.

He felt the response of the ship as he changed course. It shuddered, as though it had sustained damage. He glanced at the indicator lights.

Nothing blinked at him. There must be superficial damage on the wing. Not a problem for an experienced pilot.

Anakin dipped the ship and dived into the heavy cloud cover below.

Obi-Wan glanced down at the surface as they dipped lower. He squinted against the glare. The thick clouds didn't diminish the effect. The ground was covered in snow and glaciers, and the light bounced and refracted, making it difficult to see. Anakin skimmed over the terrain, looking for a place to land.

"We'll need to engage the sensors," Anakin said. "No telling how deep that snow is."

Obi-Wan had already turned to the starship sensor array. "I'm getting a solid reading. The ice is meters thick. It will hold the ship." Obi-Wan read out the coordinates. "By the lip of that rock outcropping there. We're far enough away that we won't lead them to the outpost, but it will be a bit of a walk."

Anakin guided the ship to a smooth landing. The cockpit hatch slid back. At first, the silence was overwhelming. The cold settled into the cockpit slowly. At first, Obi-Wan felt it on the tips of his ears. Then his fingers. Then the back of his neck. Soon every millimeter of exposed skin felt numb.

"Cold," Anakin said.

"That's an understatement," Obi-Wan said, vaulting over the seat toward the supply locker. He grabbed the survival gear and tossed a set to Anakin. Then he pulled out a white tarp. "If we secure this over the ship we might gain some time," he said. "At least they'll find it hard to get a visual sighting."

After donning survival gear and goggles, they spent a few minutes securing the tarp over the ship and strapping it down.

Anakin glanced at the sky. "How long do you think we have?"

"Depends on how good they are at tracking," Obi-Wan said. "And how lucky we are. However much time we have, it has to be enough."

They started out across the frozen landscape. Ice had formed in a thin layer on the ground, making walking treacherous. In their thick-soled boots, the Jedi had traction, but it took concentration to move quickly without sliding over the ice. Obi-Wan felt his leg muscles tense, and he knew they would be tired at the end of this journey. He only hoped that what lay at the end of it was a short rest, at least. There was no telling what they would find at the outpost.

After a few minutes Obi-Wan grew used to the rhythm of their journey and the eerie sound of the wind ruffling the snow on top of the ice, creating a low whistle that dipped in and out of hearing. His mind slipped out of its focus on the mission. He brooded, as he often did these days, on the tall, silent boy at his side.

When he had been Anakin's age, sixteen, the thought of the death of a Jedi Master had been inconceivable. He had been in tight spots with Qui-Gon — his Master had even been captured by a deranged scientist named Jenna Zan Arbor, who had imprisoned him in order to study the Force — but it had never occurred to him that Qui-Gon could be killed. He had assumed that a being so strong in the Force could cheat death.

Now he knew better. He had seen Jedi Masters fall. He still remembered the horror he felt as he saw the life drain from Qui-Gon's eyes on Naboo.

Recently the Jedi Order had lost another Master, Yarael Poof.

The galaxy was a rougher, harder place. Lawlessness was growing. Obi- Wan knew now that the Jedi were far from invincible. That knowledge had made him more careful, perhaps a bit less willing to risk too much. Which could be good, and bad, depending. As he settled into his life as a Jedi Master, Obi-Wan was very aware that his need to control situations, to look at all sides of an issue, would conflict with the desires of his headstrong apprentice. He saw conflict ahead but he also saw himself unable to stop his movement toward it.

Anakin was powerful. Anakin was young. These two facts could collide with the power and heat of a fusion furnace.

Obi-Wan had gone over and over in his mind what had happened with Master Yaddle. He could not see any way that he could have prevented it.

His Padawan had relied on his command of the Force and on his absolute conviction that he was taking the only possible path, and events had overtaken him. Obi-Wan had no doubt that Yaddle had seen her own death coming. She had decided it was necessary that she become one with the Force. She had done it to save countless lives, and she must have seen that Anakin's path was mapped out otherwise.

Obi-Wan didn't know how much Anakin blamed himself, but he knew that his apprentice was brooding over what had gone wrong. It was appropriate that he do so, but not appropriate for him to blame himself.

Yet how can I stop him from doing so, if I blame him myself?

Blame was not something a Jedi was supposed to feel. Obi-Wan knew he was wrong. He tried to look at what had happened in a measured way, but he kept circling back to the fact that in his heart, he believed that Anakin could have somehow prevented Yaddle's death.

He told himself that if Anakin had made mistakes, they came from a place that was pure. It was not in the Jedi code to second-guess another Jedi's decisions. But Obi-Wan knew his words of comfort had a hollow core, and he suspected that Anakin knew it, too.

The distance between them continued to grow. Yaddle's death had changed them both.

No, Obi-Wan corrected himself. The distance had been growing before that. Perhaps it has always been there. Perhaps I didn't want to see it.

Anakin's pure connection to the Force meant that in some ways Obi-Wan had little to teach him. At least it seemed that Anakin was beginning to think that. Yet Obi?Wan knew he still had so much to give him. Being a Jedi involved more than commanding the Force — it involved the inner serenity needed to access that Force in the best way. Yaddle's death had shaken Obi- Wan to the core. Was it possible that Anakin had too much power?

Obi-Wan would not give up on Anakin. It was his duty as a Master to teach his apprentice, to help him become a Jedi Knight. All he knew was that he never seemed to have time to address the problem of the tension between them. Every day was packed with things to do, with travel, with missions or Council meetings. The galaxy teemed with trouble. The Senate was sometimes mired in procedures. The problems of an apprentice and his Master got lost in the chaos that surrounded them.

Obi-Wan was all too aware that guilt and shame could percolate and turn into anger, and he was alert for the signs of it. So far, Anakin just seemed remote. This, he had to remind himself, was normal for a young man of sixteen.

That is what you keep telling yourself. But is it true?