The image emerged from the swirling dust, glowing faintly in the darkness. "I will shore up the hallways. You will carry her outside."

Tendrils grew from trunks that pushed up through cracks in the floor. They spread ahead of Anakin, forming red and green vaults overhead, as he picked up Jabitha and slung her over his shoulder. As a deadweight, Jabitha was not easy to carry. He was beginning to regret putting the girl to sleep, but it had been the best thing to do at the time.

She came out of her trance as they passed through the last open doorway, and struggled to get down from his shoulder. "Where are we?" she cried out, and then stared up at the pinwheel in the night sky and the rolling blanket of stars beyond.

A shadow passed over the landing field and their Sekotan ship. It blocked out the pinwheel and then dropped down to cover the ship like a predator pouncing on its prey. This was not another Sekotan ship, and it was not the Star Sea Flower. Anakin heard the whine and roar of repulsor engines pounding against the rock.

It was a sky-mine delivery ship, doing double duty now as a landing craft.

A shaft of light appeared in one side of the hulk. Troops marched down the ramp in quick tight cordons and surrounded Anakin and Jabitha. A squad circled the body of the Blood Carver.

Two officers walked down the ramp with more dignity, as if they had all the time in the universe. Anakin thought they might be brothers, they so resembled each other, though they wore quite different uniforms. Both were thin and carried themselves with assurance and perhaps too much pride. Both looked arrogant. He knew instantly, with instincts he had developed long before becoming a Jedi, that they were very dangerous. They turned toward the boy and the girl.

In the ordinary scheme of things, neither would have cared much for the fate of two children. The taller of the two, by a spare centimeter or two, lifted his hand and whispered something into the other's ear.

"Him," the shorter man said, pointing imperiously at Anakin. "Leave the girl here."

Anakin tried to stay with Jabitha. She reached out for him, and their fingertips gripped for an instant before a bulky soldier dressed in a Republic Special Tactics trooper uniform pulled him away. For a second, the boy's anger threatened to flare again, but he saw they were not going to harm Jabitha, and he could not kill them all.

And would not if he could.

"My name is Tarkin," the shorter of the officers said to him in deeply mannered tones. "You're the Jedi boy who collects old droids, no? And marvel of marvels, you're now the pilot of this ship?"

Anakin did not answer. Tarkin rewarded his silence with a smile and a pat on the head. "Learn some manners, boy." Two soldiers hurried him, struggling, into the innards of the dark ship.

"What about Ke Daiv?" Raith Sienar asked.

"A failure from the beginning," Tarkin said. "Leave him here to rot."

Jabitha yelled for Anakin, but the ramp closed with a hiss and a metallic bang. He felt the ship rise abruptly and climb. Tarkin and Sienar immediately escorted him to the bay where the Sekotan ship had been hoisted and stowed in a catchall harness.

"Stay with your ship, boy," Tarkin said. "Keep it alive. You are very important to us. The Jedi Temple awaits your speedy return."

They'll keep the sky mines away from that ship," Obi-Wan told Shappa as they ducked in and out of the mountain ravines at the cloud line. "No one trusts them in close quarters not to go after friendlies."

Three droid starfighters still doggedly followed, but Shappa's craft was too swift and maneuverable to be caught.

"They'll take the Magister's daughter!" Shappa said grimly. He pushed his hand even deeper into the console, which wrapped its tissues up to his elbow, shoving back his sleeve.

"I don't think so," Obi-Wan said, brow furrowed in intense concentration. He closed his eyes, feeling ahead for all futures, for the knot rapidly coming unwound, for the strands of fate whirling off in all directions, not unlike the pinwheel that filled the sky.

"You're right," Shappa said as they leapt up over the rim of the field and circled. "They've left her behind, and she's alive!"

"Move in and retrieve her," Obi-Wan said. "Leave me on the field."

"But the starfighters will kill you!"

"Perhaps," Obi-Wan said. "But there's nothing more you can do for me, and nothing I can do for you."

Shappa opened and closed his mouth, trying to think of something appropriate to say, then nodded and concentrated on bringing his ship down.

There was no time for farewells. One moment the Jedi Knight sat beside him, and the next, just as the hatch opened, he was gone like a twist of smoke in the wind.

The next thing Shappa knew, the Magister's daughter dropped through the hatch, kicking and screaming.

"Now go!" Obi-Wan shouted after her, and slammed the ship's hull with the flat of his hand.

Shappa did not need encouragement. Starfighters buzzed up over the rim of the landing field. Jabitha held on for dear life as Shappa lifted the ship away.

Obi-Wan Kenobi flung aside the bandages that impeded his free motion and simultaneously drew forth his lightsaber. The blade hummed into angry green life. Once, the weapon had belonged to Qui-Gon. Holding it in his hands, Obi-Wan felt he now had the strength of two. He needed every gram of hope, and if sentiment gave him strength, helped him focus and emulate his former Master, then so be it.

The Force did not disagree. Qui-Gon had had a special relationship with the Force, and he had taught his apprentice well.

"Come on," Obi-Wan whispered as he stalked across the field. Two Starfighters had remained to see what prey they could find on the mountain. The other had gone off after Shappa's craft. "Come on," he repeated a little louder this time.

He walked up to the Blood Carver's body. It lay in a crumpled heap surrounded by boot prints. Something about it troubled him, but there was little time.

As Obi-Wan rose from his stoop, a starfighter dropped from the sky, laser cannons lighting up the shattered landscape. Obi-Wan deflected two of its blasts with his blade, but their force nearly ripped the lightsaber from his hands. A third blast pulsed brilliant red to one side and hit the Blood Carver's corpse square.

Ke Daiv received his ritual cremation then and there.

The second starfighter joined the first, curving high up into the sky.