Survivor: A Star Wars Story

Chapter XXVI

OBI-WAN KENOBI

"I'm sorry, come again?  Garqi?"  The door snapped shut promptly, as if sensing the sensitivity of the proposition.  Damp cerulean light blanched the colours of their shared quarters, washing Reina's grim stare in a ghost shade.  "Start from the beginning." he ordered.

Obliging without complaint, his Padawan concisely filled him in.  She recited the call with troubled heaviness - a spectacular amount of events having happened in relation to the short time frame that had passed.  From the murder of a high-security prisoner in Coruscant's top prison to the fact that a Separatist spy was running loose with Temple information, each new sentence springing from her mouth evoked an ever more concerning matter to be dealt with.  Kenobi didn't interrupt or stop her; he was a good listener, allowing her to fill out the whole picture in frame currently before he questioned on the rest of the image.

"None of it sounds trustworthy to me." he expressed gravely. 

Her arms crossed defensively as she rocked back on her bunk, the most comfortable substitute for a seat aside from the chair to the workbench, inlaid to the rear wall and currently hopelessly swamped in holopads and other gadgets relating to his student's studies.  "Which were precisely my thoughts at first.  But what other reason would she have to wait until now to contact me?"

He listed motives off with too much ease.  "Revenge.  Capture.  Assassination."

Her lips pressed into a thin line.  "You didn't see her on the call.  She had been upset... really upset." 

"Such things can be faked." he insisted, receiving a frustrated sigh in return.  "I'm telling you this for your own good.  You could very well be walking into a trap."

"As most situations are in war!  Is there really a point in playing the "stay safe" card in the current climate?" 

Kenobi corrected her sternly, "We do not blindly run into confrontation.  Even if I hadn't taught you that, you know better."

A short battle of wills commenced, the girl working her jaw in vexation.   Then she deflated, realising the line she was edging over.  Taking a deep breath, she tried again, calmer.  "There is someone out there feeding information on Jedi sanctuaries away to the enemy.  If they were to attack them, catch them completely off guard..."

Lacing his fingers, he empathised greatly with her worries.  Even if he couldn't sense it rippling from her Force-signature like the tremors from the strings of an instrument, the dispersing erratic beats of anxiety around her aura echoed his own concerns as a Jedi Master.  "I understand how it can be stressful for you in particular..." He eased into the subject.  "But you mustn't project onto what could happen.  It leads to suffering.  Unless..." A hand waved itself through the air, motioning for a response.

"No." She shook her head, braid swinging in their serpentine coils.  "I still haven't "seen" anything."  

Whilst the window of time that had passed since Jabiim was minute, it was just enough to tempt with the dull lure that her vision had been a fluke - something fleeting, as was with most Jedi.  But Kenobi's instincts that had always been so keen still told him it was too early to call it, experience reinforcing the conclusion even more.  Yet Reina seemed more than happy to leave it in the past, hardly eager to pursue such a talent.  If she continued to take such little care, it would ultimately leave her unprepared for a reality in which it was commonplace.  In a display of cruel prioritisation, he knew that lesson would have to be left for another day, more pressing matters taking precedent.

"Then we have to assume the Temples will remain safe.  Do you know where they were meeting in Pesktda?"

"She only mentioned in a south city cantina." she admitted quietly, reading the dismal expression on her master's face.  "I know it isn't ideal-"