Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [164]
“Droids are not our only problem!” Palpatine pointed across the hangar bay. “Look!”
On the far side of the bay, masses of wreckage were shifting, sliding toward the wall against which Anakin and Palpatine stood. Then debris closer to them began to slide, followed by piles closer still. An invisible wave-front was passing through the hangar bay; behind it, the gravitic vector was rotated a full ninety degrees.
Gravity shear.
Anakin’s jaw clenched. This just kept getting better and better.
He unspooled a length of his utility belt’s safety cable and passed the end to Palpatine. The wind made it sing. “Cinch this around your waist. Things are about to get a little wild!”
“What’s happening?”
“The gravity generators have desynchronized—they’ll tear the ship apart!” Anakin grabbed one of the zero-g handles beside the hatchway, then leaned out into the firestorm of blaster bolts and saber flares and touched Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “Time to go!”
“What?”
Explanation was obviated as the shear-front moved past them and the wall became the floor. Anakin grabbed the back of Obi-Wan’s collar, but not to save him from falling; the torque of the gravity shear had buckled the blast doors—which were now overhead—and the hurricane of escaping air blasting from the corridor shaft blew the Jedi Master up through the hatch. Anakin dragged him out of the gale just as pieces of super battle droids began hurtling upward into the hangar bay like misfiring torpedoes.
Some of the super battle droids were still intact enough to open fire as they flew past. “Hang on to my belt!” Obi-Wan shouted and spun his lightsaber through an intricate flurry to deflect bolt after bolt. Anakin could do nothing but hold him braced against the gale; his grip on the zero-g handle was the only thing keeping him and Obi-Wan from being blown out into space and taking Palpatine with them.
“This is not the best plan we’ve ever had!” he shouted.
“This was a plan?” Palpatine sounded appalled.
“We’ll make our way forward!” Obi-Wan shouted. “There are only droids back here! Once we hit live-crew areas, there will be escape pods!”
Only droids back here echoed inside Anakin’s head. “Obi-Wan, wait!” he cried. “Artoo’s still here somewhere! We can’t leave him!”
“He’s probably been destroyed, or blown into space!” Obi-Wan deflected blaster bursts from the last two gale-blown droids. They tumbled up to the gap in the blast doors and vanished into the infinite void. Obi-Wan put away his lightsaber and fought his way back to a grip beside Anakin’s. “We can’t afford the time to search for him. I’m sorry, Anakin. I know how much he meant to you.”
Anakin desperately fished out his comlink. “Artoo! Artoo, come in!” He shook it, and shook it again. Artoo couldn’t have been destroyed. He just couldn’t. “Artoo, do you copy? Where are you?”
“Anakin—” Obi-Wan’s hand was on his arm, and the Jedi Master leaned so close that his low tone could be heard over the rising gale. “We must go. Being a Jedi means allowing things—even things we love—to pass out of our lives.”
Anakin shook the comlink again. “Artoo!” He couldn’t just leave him. He couldn’t. And he didn’t exactly have an explanation.
Not one he could ever give Obi-Wan, anyway.
There are so few things a Jedi ever owns; even his lightsaber is less a possession than an expression of his identity. To be a Jedi is to renounce possessions. And Anakin had tried so hard, tried for so long, to do just that.
Even on their wedding day, Anakin had had no devotion-gift for his new wife; he didn’t actually own anything.
But love will find a way.
He had brought something like a gift to her apartments in Theed, still a little shy with her, still overwhelmed by finding the feelings in her he’d felt so long himself, not knowing quite how to give her a gift which wasn’t really a gift. Nor was it his to give.
Without anything of his own to give except his