Mace reached through the Force. He’d actually headed in the direction of his headquarters. He figured he probably would pack some things first, maybe even claim he was going away temporarily to whoever he’d leave to run things. Especially if he was hoping to eventually come back, although he might have realized what Mace had, that any deputy he chose would claim everything for himself first, and not welcome him home.
Sure enough, he was there, he mind very occupied, his fear still driving him. “I think he’ll be out by morning,” he said, after another moment or so. “As will I, but I will stay here until he’s beyond the walls, if that makes you feel better.” He could spare that much time. He wanted to at least visit the two signal towers before he left anyway.
That was enough for Edny. The fear she’d been carrying around every second she’d been in his presence decreased substantially. He allowed her to hug him, hard, and the enthusiasm of her thanks honestly stunned him.
But Xador, meanwhile, was looking very cross, even before he demanded, “So am I getting anything out of this? If you tell me my reward will be your not handing me over to the authorities, I swear I’m gonna take your own laser sword and ignite it right in the middle of…”
“I would expect you to be able to provide for yourself amid all the chaos that will soon ensue with this city’s biggest crime boss gone. I don’t suppose it would help that much if you accompanied me to the signal towers, but I could be wrong there.”
Xador seemed to consider it for a moment or so, but said, “There are other places I should be tonight for that. Hey, Edny, do you know…”
“No.” Edny had pulled away from Mace, and now she was drawing herself up and turning away. “I don’t know you, sir.”
“Hey, I just helped save your life!” he protested, moving to grab her.
“There’s no need for this.” Mace placed himself between them. “You won’t get anything out of her if you get violent. Edny, do you actually have any useful information for him?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment or so, and Xador looked a little calmer when she shook her head. “I’ve known nothing he hasn’t surely changed by now.”
“Makes sense,” said Xador, and Mace didn’t sense any deception from her either. “So, fine then. None of the three of us know each other. I’m sure you’ll be happy not to know either of us, Master Jedi.”
“I would be happy not to know you,” sighed Mace. “But don’t think either of you are going to get that lucky if you ever cause trouble anywhere I am.”
“Did we really get so up in your cloak you’ll take the time out?” laughed Xador, but he was already on his way out. Edny watched him leave, then continued to stare at the door for a minute or so, obviously wanting to put some space between herself and him immediately.
Just before she left, she turned to take one last look at Mace, and she said, “May the Force be with you, Master Windu.”
“Thank you, m’am,” he said, and bowed slightly.
He himself stayed behind just long enough look into the Force again, this time concentrating upon the fate of his two companions. For Xador he couldn’t see much, which was to be expected; one could rarely see the fate of a man who lived like he did. For Edny, however, he could see a little. There would be more grief for her, he could tell, and fear, and also a child she would have to raise on her own. But there was also persistence, and love, and not a little amount of joy. Things wouldn’t be easy for her, but she’d be all right.
Both of the signal towers were far away enough Mace took a bus to the first one, which was empty enough he used the chance to contact first Padmé, sending her a quick message telling her he would be setting off to join her. Then he contacted the Temple. By a stroke of luck, he found himself talking to Yoda and Qui-Gon together. When he told them about Big Hargo diverting the ship, Yoda said, “Look into that, we should. Talk with Knight Kenobi, we will?”
He sensed the Dark Side strong around the first of the towers even before he got off the bus. It was the one by the Red Gate, as it was called; Mace had heard three different stories about why. That he’d sensed nothing like it the entire time he and Padmé had been in the spaceport made him suspect that Darth Maul had used that signal tower a lot less. Perhaps he’d thought he would use it, but had found that impractical.
The security on it was better than it had been on Edny’s tower, and breaking in would take more time than he had. So instead Mace spent a little while walking around the perimeter, standing over some of the blocks on the bottom which contained the majority of the tower’s wiring; that was a common feature of Colorpa’s older buildings. He’d gone nearly around when he reached the ones with notches on the end near the wall, which was definitely a sign of being tampered with, especially when, on closer examination, he also discovered it opened on that end.
There was a seal-lock built into the wall, and it was impossible to break it without triggering an alarm. But using just a sliver of his blade, Mace was able to cut a hole just big enough to look through.
He wasn’t quite sure what it was he saw in the box. It looked kind of like a holocron, but while it was not without the Dark Side, it was so weak he hadn’t sensed it until he’d gotten within a hand’s length of it, if only because of the mysterious broken piece of it he was currently carrying around blocking it out.
Because that was the main thing he could determine about it: it was made of the exact same substance as the object in his pouch, and it was the right size that the broken piece could have easily come from it.
Pulling back, Mace gingering slip a pinky finger into the hole. He didn’t even actually have to touch the thing; same feeling of wrong. This time, he was also hit by a strange feeling of distance, as if he would, if he reached out, be able to touch and feel things half a galaxy away, maybe more.
Were the Sith trying to do something like that, to spy on the Jedi, or even cross vast amounts of space within a moment? Had they possibly even succeeded at the former? At least if they managed the latter, the Jedi would know.
He didn’t linger much longer, either by the block, or around the tower. He sensed nothing else out of the ordinary, and he didn’t have time for any more in-depth looking. As dawn rose over Colorpa two and a half hours later, Mace Windu had already left the city, settled in the corner of a long bus where he hoped he wouldn’t even have to sit too close to anyone during the three days it would take to get to Tanzer. He had given Padmé a full update, and learned she and her two companions had reached the city and gone to ground in a motel on its outskirts.
They probably wouldn’t be able to get rid of those two as easily has Mace had his own two; they neither of them had anything to go back to. He found themselves dwelling just a little on whether they could settle them somewhere on this planet, or whether they’d have to take them off it with them. It probably wouldn’t be that much of a bother to get them into a refugee resettlement center, one far enough away from Avvarbor Prime that they could be convinced that nobody there would be interested in hurting or killing them. It was getting them through Colorpa first that might be more of a pain.
Except that Mace also had an uneasy feeling that he himself was never going to set foot in Colorpa again.
He found himself flipping through the creations of Syne Orbs, an inventor from Avvarbor Five who’d died only the previous year. He’d made his living by selling traveling lights and similar, but he also filed paperwork for a device he claimed could be used to listen in on encrypted messages, even ones both sent and received all the way on the other side of the galaxy. When Anakin looked at some of his wares, he was reminded of the lantern Master Jinn had given him back on Sopertlia, on a day that felt so long ago now.
His hadn’t been the only invention to remind Anakin of that lantern. It probably helped that he’d been working with it lately. As his Master had suggested, he now had a way to take the lights on and off of the chain and put them back. Detached, and occasionally floated around, they definitely looked a little like some of the levitatable lights developed on more than one planet.
He was looking further into the various records related to Orbs, noting he’d died of a disease it was very unusual for humans to get, when Obi-Wan came in, and Anakin could sense Master Jinn was close behind him. “Well, Anakin,” he said, “you’ll be happy to hear this: the two of us are to go outside the Temple.”
“Really?” Anakin couldn’t help how his face lit up.
“Yes, really,” said Obi-Wan. “You remember the transport that left Avvarbor Prime and was diverted here, apparently on the orders of the Sith? We’ve been looking into where its various passengers went, especially the Epostulate ones. It looks like most of them have rented out an apartment clump on Level 3011. The Council has decided the two of us are to go down there, see if we can get any information out of the locals, if any of them are Force sensitive.”
“Why us, though?” Anakin was now mature and responsible enough to ask that question. “I mean, any pair of Jedi could do that, and they might even be in less danger than us.”
Obi-Wan let his obvious discomfort show then, as he said, “Qui-Gon brought up the same point. He got the Council to admit that they’re hoping the two of us will attract the Sith’s attention. We’re pretty sure Darth Maul isn’t on Coruscant right now, so he wouldn’t be able to come attack us tonight, but hearing we’ve been there, if the inhabitants have been told to keep an eye out for us, maybe then sending Qui-Gon down there too a few days from now, might draw him back here.”
“You think he’d really do that? Come here, to Coruscant, alone, with all the Jedi right here?” Although he wouldn’t be completely alone, Anakin then thought, since the Sith almost certainly had operatives here, and probably the second one was on the planet somewhere. Or, of course, he might bring fighters with him, like the Sith had twice in the last decade and a half.
“I don’t know, honestly,” said Obi-Wan. “All I know is the Council seems to believe it’s possible.”
Sometimes, when the Jedi went down into Coruscant’s lower levels, they would leave the Temple by an exit on one of the lowest levels still in use. Master Jinn accompanied his former and current Padawan down to it an hour or so later, Anakin trying to remember as they walked where they were in relation to the abandoned areas he’d crept through on that day he’d run into Master Dooku.
The memory of Dooku brought up another worrying thought. Very quietly, he asked, “Does anyone else in the Temple know where we’re going?”
“Of course not,” said Master Jinn. “This is the sort of task that must be done quickly and quietly. You yourself should not talk about it with anyone outside the five of us, and maybe not that much even then.”
Anakin wasn’t sure he liked that, being asked to limit how much he talked about it with Padmé. But maybe things would be different by the time she got back to Coruscant anyway.
For now, he just reminded himself that this meant they shouldn’t have to worry about any spies at all, and he was even cheered when Master Jinn pulled each of them in turn into the kind of fierce hug Anakin didn't always even want anymore. “Come back safe,” he said, and then watched, his care warming them both through the Force, until the door had shut behind them.
Since that first time, when he and Padmé had both still been Initiates and she’d nearly died saving someone, Anakin had traveled down to the deep levels of Coruscant three times, all of them with Master Jinn. It definitely felt less safe than it had ever been, even with Obi-Wan with him, but that was simply because he knew more now. Even during his last visit, a little after he’d turned twelve, he hadn’t quite grasped the full extent of the crime that went on, or how desperate life could be for so many who lived down here, and what could happen as a result.
“Stay close to me, Anakin,” said Obi-Wan. “I know at your age I would feel like I should be more daring, and I know you’ve done things probably more dangerous than this, but all the same, it would be silly of you to get yourself hurt right now.”
Surely Obi-Wan realized how restless that was going to make Anakin. But he did understand the logic of the knight’s words. So he tried to remember all the mantras he knew for keeping himself at peace and patient. Master Jinn had taught him a lot of those over the years. It helped that they spent a significant amount of time walking downward, steady rhythmic steps that gave them both something to concentrate on, combined with their surroundings, though through much of it there weren’t very many lifeforms near them.
He even managed to keep doing them during the brief elevator ride, listening to the hum it made-a little whirry; it could do with a tune-up. When the door opened up, they were blasted by cold air, although Anakin felt more the warmth of all the people crowded together in the space ahead of them, so different from the levels they’d just traveled through or even the places immediately around them.
He noted that last bit to Obi-Wan, saying, “I think they chose a place deliberately away from everybody else. Surely that means they’re up to something.”
“Not necessarily. If they’re refounding their community here, they probably don’t want its members, especially not the younger ones, mixing too much with other people, especially on a planet like Coruscant, where there are so many different kinds of people, and they know so little about any of them. Cult groups are often like that, always afraid of their ways being changed or people abandoning them.”
Anakin couldn’t help then but think of certain things he’d heard said about the Jedi, especially here on Coruscant. Maybe Obi-Wan could tell, because he said, “It has often been the task of the Jedi to avoid that kind of thinking. Our ways are our ways, and while change should not be unheard of, nor should it be undertaken without great care, prudence, and knowledge. But we do not put ourselves above those who aren’t us. On the contrary, we spend our days doing good for them, walking among them, even if we live apart from them. Young Jedi see plenty of the galaxy by the time they are knighted; they do not make that commitment blindly.”
He probably would’ve talked more, too, if they hadn’t now just about reached their destination, a large cluster of buildings, two or three floors, it looked like, clumped against and around each other like pieces of mud. There was absolutely no one outside, and this was big enough a residential cluster that there should have been at least a few people going from one place to another.
They walked to what was roughly the middle of it, hoping the Force would nudge one or the other of them towards one of the buildings, or someone would decide to come out when they saw them. When neither happened, Obi-Wan called out, “I know there are people here, people who are obviously hiding from us. We won’t be much of a bother to you. In fact, we’re trying to protect you. We know who you are, and where you came from, and you did not intend to come here to Coruscant. We also know that your ship was diverted by the mysterious man who came to your city and said he would teach you. I imagine you were fleeing from him, and now he chose your destination, and there’s a good chance he has some further plans for you.
So if you want us to stop him, then any information you have about him could be what allows us to do that. If you don’t want to come out now, you know where to find us.”
This was probably the right course to take, but Anakin couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that it looked like they weren’t going to get much done themselves that day. Even more so when they’d started walking, and were nearly out of the complex.
Until a young woman burst from the entrance from the building at the edge of it, her hood half-falling down as she stumbled in her heavy dress, nearly colliding with them before she skidded to a halt with a, “I believe you. The rest of them don’t, or say they don’t, but I do. And the two people who are in charge of us right now, one of them’s behaving really weird. Master Tenni, he’s mostly all right, focused on getting us the virtual employments and food and stuff, but Master Kolut, he’s not helping with any of that. Instead he says he’s always off trying to find out why we ended up on Coruscant, almost all the day, every day. I think he’s doing something else.”
That definitely sounded suspicious, but Anakin could think of a lot of things Master Kolut might be doing that he had nothing to do with the Sith which he still wouldn’t want his followers knowing about. Obi-Wan was probably thinking the same thing, as he asked her, “Do you know if he has any powers? Or if he was a student of the one you fled from?”
She shook her head. “I never knew those sorts of things. Though I think most of us here don’t have any powers. I know I don’t, and nor does anyone in my family.” As she spoke this she glanced around, as if she’d just heard something.
Obi-Wan of course promptly asked, “Is it safe for you to remain here now?”
“No, I’m not leaving,” she said, and shrank away, and both Jedi knew instantly that it wasn’t.
“You need to come away with us,” Anakin said, before Obi-Wan could stop him. “I know that must seem really scary, but aren’t you scared to go back in there?” She was; they wouldn’t have even needed the Force to sense that.
But she must have been even more scared to go with them, because she just shook her head and started to retreat.
“The choice doesn’t have to be between them or us,” Obi-Wan offered. “There’s a refuge not far from here, level 3038, in the Mustrose Complex, go up the lift just west of here and it’ll be easy to find.” But his words somehow seemed to frighten her even more, and she outright turned and ran back the way she had come.
Obi-Wan shook his head. “You should’ve left it to me, Anakin. I could’ve almost certainly gotten more information out of her.”
“And would you have gotten her out of here?” Anakin asked, as they resumed their walk back to the lift. “Could we have said anything to make her go?” He would feel terrible if they could have.
But instead he felt even worse when Obi-Wan just said, “I don’t know. Someone in her position-it’s hard enough to get them to save themselves even in the best of circumstances, and when she’s newly on a planet like Coruscant, bigger and scarier to her than even the entire galaxy ever was to us, and has reason to believe a great and powerful being is after her…”
“And we have to just walk away from her now, don’t we?” Anakin wasn’t even disputing that; he knew he couldn’t. But he wasn’t going to pretend to like it.
“We can’t force her to leave,” said Obi-Wan. “Jedi can only do that sort of thing when enough is at stake that they can justify it to the Senate. And in this case, even talking to her about it for too long could cause the leaders of this community to file a complaint about us, which we really do not want right now. And yes, I know it’s painful…”
“Painful?” Anakin did his best not to yell it. “It’s way worse than that! What if they kill that poor girl?!”
“I know, I know,” said Obi-Wan, and Anakin knew he did, if only because he knew the knight’s mind. “But the fact remains that if we did other than what we are doing right now, it would likely result in far worse happening.”
Anakin didn’t say anything then. What could he have said? But he was going to be mad for the rest of the day, he decided, and he didn’t care if he wasn’t supposed to be mad just because he was a Jedi.
Back in the elevator, Obi-Wan said, “At least we got the information about their leaders, and she was telling the truth that there wasn’t much Force sensitivity, from what I could sense. Did you get the same impression?” When Anakin said that he had, he said, “We’ll pass that name on. I think Qui-Gon could trace at least some of his activities with neither he nor his followers any the wiser.”
First he was able to talk with Obi-Wan about what had happened with Anakin specifically the previous day, and even a little about how to help him cope with it. “I certainly would’ve felt the same way he did when I was that age,” he commented. “To some extent, I still do.”
“More than just to some extent,” said Obi-Wan, smiling. “Anyone who’s been your Padawan would know that. But that might at least make it easier to get Anakin to listen to whatever you say to him about it.”
He couldn’t stay the entire morning either, though, and Qui-Gon was alone when he sat down to deal with the matter of Ugs Kolut. He’d gotten his full name off the ship’s paperwork the previous night, and from there messaged all of the various friends he’d made around Coruscant over the years with all the details they had on him. A message had arrived in response from one of them, a tech who had been working in the Senate building for over two decades, who had looked in the Visitor’s Log and seen Kolut’s name six times. He’d also asked Qui-Gon to call at home at a certain time when he’d be on break. He was probably using this as excuse to talk to him about some other matter, but Qui-Gon commed him anyway.
Sure enough, when Rozitti answered, there were about ten minutes where he complained about new taxes applied to everyone who lived in the Senate District that didn’t hurt the Senators any, but did very badly hurt those that worked for them. He had to know Qui-Gon and the Jedi couldn’t interfere any with that, but he didn’t try to remind him of that, just heard him out.
Finally, Rozitti said, “And to make it even worse, I’m not sure my boss isn’t secretly looking through our messages. That’s why I didn’t want to go into any more details about your guy Kolut when I wrote you last night. I’ve set this to not archive on my side. But I’m pretty sure your guy’s been to some pretty high places as a visitor, and in the Supreme Chancellor’s office at least one, somewhere between 4:24 and 4:28 of this year.”
“Your private messages?” Qui-Gon demanded, his mission momentarily forgotten in his dismay. “Are they truly allowing that now?”
“According to law, no,” Rozitti answered with a rueful smile. “But even if we could be sure he’s doing it, how would we stop him? Law enforcement on Coruscant doesn’t serve people like us, my friend. You know, if you could ever make yourself of aid to us, you’d have a lot more friends here than just me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, my friend.” He would, too, but now, unfortunately, might not be quite the time. “Meanwhile, are you still willing to give me any more information about who exactly Kolut might have talked to? Even speculation might be useful.”
Rozitti shrugged. “His aides, or some of them, I’d assume. Maybe some other officials? Or other political figures, not even senators, necessarily. I haven’t heard of him coming in or being in with any other visitors in particular, but if there was any serious under-the-console stuff going on, those involved might try to avoid being connected to each other. Be interesting to know if he met with the Chancellor himself; not everyone who goes to his office does, of course.”
Qui-Gon, too, would be very interested in knowing that; he suspected that if the man was meeting with the Sith, he probably didn’t see very many people besides whoever their operative was. “And the other dates he might have come in? Any other details you happen to know?”
He rattled off the dates, but no obvious pattern appeared, and after that he had pretty much told Qui-Gon all he knew. Qui-Gon thanked him then, and added, “Remember, if you ever have serious financial difficulties…”
“I know,” said Rozetti. “Nice doing business with you, Master Jinn.” He was smirking as he disconnected. It made Qui-Gon’s lips curl up a little.