Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [131]
He is the ultimate Jedi.
And he is proud to be Anakin Skywalker’s best friend.
“Artoo, where’s that signal?”
From its socket beside the cockpit, R2-D2 whistled and beeped. A translation spidered across Anakin’s console readout: SCANNING. LOTS OF ECM SIGNAL JAMMING.
“Keep on it.” He glanced at Obi-Wan’s starfighter limping through the battle, a hundred meters off his left wing. “I can feel his jitters from all the way over here.”
A tootle: A JEDI IS ALWAYS CALM.
“He won’t think it’s funny. Neither do I. Less joking, more scanning.”
For Anakin Skywalker, starfighter battles were usually as close to fun as he ever came.
This one wasn’t.
Not because of the overwhelming odds, or the danger he was in; he didn’t care about odds, and he didn’t think of himself as being in any particular danger. A few wings of droid fighters didn’t much scare a man who’d been a Podracer since he was six, and had won the Boonta Cup at nine. Who was, in fact, the only human to ever finish a Podrace, let alone win one.
In those days he had used the Force without knowing it; he’d thought the Force was something inside him, just a feeling, an instinct, a string of lucky guesses that led him through maneuvers other pilots wouldn’t dare attempt. Now, though …
Now—
Now he could reach into the Force and feel the engagement throughout Coruscant space as though the whole battle were happening inside his head.
His vehicle became his body. The pulses of its engines were the beat of his own heart. Flying, he could forget about his slavery, about his mother, about Geonosis and Jabiim, Aargonar and Muunilinst and all the catastrophes of this brutal war. About everything that had been done to him.
And everything he had done.
He could even put aside, for as long as the battle roared around him, the starfire of his love for the woman who waited for him on the world below. The woman whose breath was his only air, whose heartbeat was his only music, whose face was the only beauty his eyes would ever see.
He could put all this aside because he was a Jedi. Because it was time to do a Jedi’s work.
But today was different.
Today wasn’t about dodging lasers and blasting droids. Today was about the life of the man who might as well have been his father: a man who could die if the Jedi didn’t reach him in time.
Anakin had been late once before.
Obi-Wan’s voice came over the cockpit speakers, flat and tight. “Does your droid have anything? Arfour’s hopeless. I think that last cannon hit cooked his motivator.”
Anakin could see exactly the look on his former Master’s face: a mask of calm belied by a jaw so tight that when he spoke his mouth barely moved. “Don’t worry, Master. If his beacon’s working, Artoo’ll find it. Have you thought about how we’ll find the Chancellor if—”
“No.” Obi-Wan sounded absolutely certain. “There’s no need to consider it. Until the possible becomes actual, it is only a distraction. Be mindful of what is, not what might be.”
Anakin had to stop himself from reminding Obi-Wan that he wasn’t a Padawan anymore. “I should have been here,” he said through his teeth. “I told you. I should have been here.”
“Anakin, he was defended by Stass Allie and Shaak Ti. If two Masters could not prevent this, do you think you could? Stass Allie is clever and valiant, and Shaak Ti is the most cunning Jedi I’ve ever met. She’s even taught me a few tricks.”
Anakin assumed he was supposed to be impressed. “But General Grievous—”
“Master Ti had faced him before, Anakin. After Muunilinst. She is not only subtle and experienced, but very capable indeed. Seats on the Jedi Council aren’t handed out as party favors.”
“I’ve noticed.” He let it drop. The middle of a space battle was no place to get into this particular sore subject.
If only he’d been here, instead of Shaak Ti and Stass Allie, Council members or not. If he had been here,