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‘“So I should let him make his foolish decision,’ Qui-Gon said with a shrug. ‘Let him fight a war he can’t win. Let him stand and watch the massacre that will result. He’ll be lucky to escape with his life.’
‘Ah, see I do.’ Yoda’s yellow eyes gleamed. ‘Unbiased by your feeling, your prediction is?’
Qui-Gon nodded shortly. ‘I see disaster there. The Young cannot win.’”~Jedi Apprentice: The Uncertain Path
Senator Bail Antilles from Alderaan was a man who had built his reputation on fighting corruption. A veteran of the Rotunda and a member of Alderaan’s Elder Houses, he was calm, professional, and slow to anger. Traits that made a good senator, and a better diplomat.
Traits that were not evident as Mace and Yoda entered the committee chambers. Oh sure, his face was a mask of poise but to Mace’s highly trained senses he could see how rigidly the senator held himself at his podium. Could see the white-knuckled grip he had on the pile of flimsi and the nearly imperceptible bags beneath his eyes.
In the Force the man was a maelstrom of righteous anger and protective fury, making Mace wonder, not for the first time, what the kriff Yoda had done. Because it had to have been Yoda—this entire mess stunk worse than the man’s infamous swamp stew and Mace had a feeling that whatever came to light, the man would not be holding his position of grandmaster for much longer.
As they were shown to their seats by an aide, one who seemed eerily familiar though Mace couldn’t quite put his finger on why he knew them, the meeting was called to order.
“Docket 743B, Dash 04: Item pertaining to Jedi Intervention on Melidaan.” The committee secretary, announced.
Mace definitely had a bad feeling about this. Beside him, Yoda exuded tranquility in the Force and Mace knew the man was full of bantha shit.
It was one of the junior senators from a planet Mace couldn’t recall who started things off. “For the record, would you be able to provide further clarification towards the Jedi’s mandate on the planet, at the time known as Melida/Daan?”
Mace was familiar enough with the circumstances of that particular mission to relay the details. “Two years ago, the Senate received an appeal from a man named Wehutti who had identified himself as one of the legitimate leaders of Melida/Daan and was petitioning for immediate assistance and intervention against a group he identified as insurrectionists.” He replied, brows furrowed as he tried to recall what he could about the initial mission and the rescue that followed.
“Per senate protocol, the missive was relayed to our missions desk where the High Council assigned it to Knight Tahl Uvain—a gifted consular jedi and diplomat—to resolve the issue.”
A different senator, this one from Chandrila based off their wardrobe, chimed in. “And the status of Knight Uvain’s mission?”
Yoda stepped up. “Injured, Knight Uvain was. A trap by the Melida, it was.”
The chandrilan senator frowned. “For what purpose?”
Mace held back a sigh. “From what we can speculate, it was a ploy to force the Republic to side with one of the planet’s opposing factions.”
“And Knight Uvain? Master Yoda mentioned she’d sustained an injury?” This senator, a Rodian, seemed incredibly young and Mace couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d been in the Senate.
“Hmm, yes.” Yoda hummed, eyes heavy. “During capture, Knight Uvain suffered most grievously. Lost her sight, she has.”
If Yoda expected this news to garner sympathy, then he was woefully disappointed by the committee’s lack of reaction.
“Please detail how the Order responded to this situation.”
Mace could feel himself frowning. It should have been part of the after-action reports they filed with the Senate every quarter. Though knowing Jinn, the summary was probably sparse when it came to the details. Yoda seemed to freeze beside him, and Mace wondered what the old man knew.
“Following Knight Uvain’s failure to respond to three mandatory check-ins, the Order followed protocol and sent a Master-Padawan team to provide support. Either to see if Knight Uvain had lost the ability to receive communications, or rescue her in the event of her capture.” Mace could see the look Senator Antilles sent towards the aide who had guided them to their seats, who nodded in response.
“Is it normal,” Antilles asked, voice carefully neutral, “to assign a Master-Padawan team to such a situation?”
Mace was forced to answer, as Yoda seemed to have clammed up.
“While we do our best to ensure the protection of our young, part of being a Jedi means responding to situations that are outside our control.” Mace tried carefully. “Search-and-Rescue missions are typically relegated to our more experienced Jedi knights, or to a senior Master-Padawan team.”
The chandrilan senator leaned forward. “And did you know this was a Search-and-Rescue mission at the time?”
Feeling like he’d missed something, Mace nodded. “Yes, mission protocol immediately relegated it as a Search-and-Rescue mission when Knight Uvain failed to respond to three check-ins with Mission Control.”
“And who did the High Council send to respond to this situation?” The question came from the vice-chair, as Antilles was looking over a set of documents his aide had provided.
Yoda cleared his throat. “Sent we did, Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi. Better prepared to deal with situation, they were.”
A pale brow rose in question. “Oh?” The vice-chair asked. “They specialize in Search-and-Rescue missions?” The question, for all its innocence, held the weight of a corinthian stone-viper poised to strike.
“No, our Master-Padawan teams who specialize in such matters were already on other assignments.” Mace said, trying to ignore the burgeoning shatter point that was hovering just behind Senator Antilles’ shoulder.
“Then their selection was based off seniority?” The vice-chair tried instead.
At the question, Mace struggled to remember the reasoning behind sending Jinn and Kenobi. Because even though their search-and-rescue teams were all otherwise occupied, there was still a considerable number of more qualified master-padawan pairs they could have sent instead. Why had they sent Jinn and Kenobi?
A glance at Yoda made Mace wonder if the reasoning had more to do with Jinn’s not-so-secret relationship with Tahl than it did about their qualifications. “No.” Mace finally said after an awkward pause. “At the time, Padawan Kenobi was registered as a junior padawan.”
Another brow rose to join the first as the vice-chair affected a look of surprise at Mace’s careful wording. “At the time?” They asked. “Is that no longer the case?”
The Force hummed in warning, though for what, Mace wished he knew. “Padawan Kenobi left the Order following the completion of the mission.” He said instead.
Whispers erupted throughout the committee at this information, and it was only by Senator Antilles’ call for order that they died down. The man was frowning. “And the padawan’s whereabouts?”
Where before the Force was a gentle hum, now it blared with all the strength of a klaxon alarm and Mace struggled to make sense of it. “We were told he decided to remain on Melida/Daan.”
“Told?” The vice-chair asked, a haughty look on their face. “I was under the impression it was standard procedure to conduct an exit interview with any member who wished to leave the Order?”
Danger. Caution. Danger. The Force bellowed, though Mace was deaf to its warnings. Because it was standard procedure for them to conduct an exit interview, to ensure such decisions hadn’t been made under duress or by compulsion. But for the life of him, Mace couldn’t remember if they’d held one for Jinn’s padawan. If they had, why hadn’t the report come before the High Council?
It was Yoda who stepped in. “Told to us by the boy’s master, it was. Wished to stay, young Kenobi did.” He said, hands rested atop his gimmer stick serenely even though his shields were wrapped around him with a precision that had Mace’s metaphysical hackles raised. What game was Yoda playing at?
“Master Yoda,” Senator Antilles began, face a moue of disdain, “would you care to explain how a thirteen year old padawan came to be abandoned in what—at the time—had been an active war-zone where several substantiated reports confirmed the hunting down and execution of children?”
Yoda sighed, while Mace valiantly struggled to keep the shock off his face because what?!?
“Extenuating circumstances there were,” Yoda started, head tilted in a way Mace knew was intended to make the jedi master appear old and feeble. “Did the best he could, the master did, under the circumstances.”
Using the breathing technique his mind-healer had recommended to curb his aggression, Mace tried to reconcile how Kenobi had been left in a war zone and Yoda kriffing knew about it.
Senator Antilles seemed to be about as impressed with the answer as Mace was. “Really?” He asked dryly, sheets of flimsi rustling with dangerous promise. “Would that also explain why any consequent communiques regarding Melidaan were sealed by the High Council?”
What. Ignoring the hasty platitudes dripping like poison from his colleagues lips, Mace stepped forward. “Senators, as Master of the Order, I can safely say the High Council did not order any such actions.” He shot a glare at the dithering old busybody beside him before returning his attention to the committee. “Nor would we have condoned such actions had we been aware of them.”
If he had hoped this would assuage the senator’s ire, Mace was left disappointed. “Master Windu, do you mean to tell me the Jedi Order are incapable of following the procedural safeguards that are meant to dissuade this kind of gross negligence?”
What answer could Mace provide to that? Because obviously the answer was a loud and resounding no. Yoda seemed to have acted unilaterally from the High Council—all too aware about the circumstances around Kenobi’s departure from the Order. Had managed to seal any information behind a veneer of confidentiality, and without knowledge of their existence, the High Council never would have bothered to look for such documents. How could Yoda handle his great-grandpadawan’s apprenticeship so callously? Why hadn’t the Council of First Knowledge alerted them to Kenobi’s files and the details of the Melidaan mission being sealed when Jinn had petitioned for a new padawan?
Unless Jinn had never bothered to follow protocol?
With a sense of unease, Mace began to wonder what else they had managed to miss?
Taking his silence for the confirmation it was, Senator Antilles scoffed. “This committee formally censures the Jedi order for gross negligence and child endangerment, relating to its handling of the Melidaan situation. We will be recommending a thorough review by the Justice Department’ Internal Affair’s Committee.” Two firm strokes of the gavel resonated throughout the room like a death knell. “This meeting is adjourned.”
As the rest of the committee started to leave, Mace caught the senator’s eye, hoping to relay the Order’s innocence. Only to be thoroughly ignored.
And Mace was left to ponder that their ignorance did not absolve them from their guilt.
’”Word we have received,’ Yoda said calmly. ‘Won the war, the Young have. Forming a government, they are. Understand now do you, Obi-Wan’s decision? Fighting for a lost cause, he was not. A planet ruler, he has become.’
Hiding his surprise, Qui-Gon turned away. ‘Then he is more foolish than I thought,’ he coolly replied.” ~Jedi Apprentice: The Uncertain Path
As so much of a Jedi’s life was not their own, privacy was greatly respected by the inhabitants of the Temple. But news of a padawan being abandoned and the Order being censured blazed through its halls like a wildfire.
Mace supposed he should have thanked Senator Antilles for at least granting them the dignity of a closed door session, as many of the rumor mongers lacked specifics—but even their speculation was enough to bring a pang to his heart. Because he knew that no matter how wild the rumor, none would even come close to how deeply they all had failed Padawan Kenobi.
Because not only had the thirteen year old padawan been left behind on a planet—one that had successfully captured and brutally tortured an experienced jedi knight—but that same padawan had then spent months engaged in a planetary civil war, where the elder combatants had no issue fighting and executing their own children.
And they had all believed the lie that Obi-Wan Kenobi, a child who had wanted nothing more than to be a knight, had left the Order for a girl.
Mace felt older than ever as the events behind Kenobi’s departure began to unfold.
How had they missed this? How had they allowed it to happen? Oh sure some could lay the entirety of the issue at Yoda’s meddling, Force knows Mace wanted to, but Yoda was just one man. How had an entire Order, from their most venerable masters to their youngest initiates, misread the situation so horrifically?
Why hadn’t the council pressed Jinn further when he had returned without his charge? Why hadn’t Kenobi’s friends questioned his disappearance? Why had they all accepted it as though such things were the norm? Went about their lives as though the departure of one of their younglings during a mission was acceptable?
Had the Order truly become so blind?
Despite himself, Mace knew the answer.
They hadn’t questioned it because they had trusted Jinn to act like a Jedi Knight should. They hadn’t pressed him because why would a knight lie?
Kenobi’s friends were all at that tenuous, stress-ridden age where they were desperately seeking a master and likely hadn’t wanted to be accused of attachment without the security of a master-padawan bond to fall back on.
They had accepted the excuse at face value, and had willfully blinded themselves to the truth of the matter. Afraid of its consequences. Afraid of what it could mean for their future.
But as Mace reviewed the issue, he realized that he’d been partially mistaken. There had been one youngling who had faithfully reported his concerns regarding Kenobi’s departure every month without fail. Padawan Vos wasn’t one of Kenobi’s crechemates, being a couple years older. However, Mace knew that the two had formed a friendship. Enough of one that he’d often see Kenobi and Vos meandering through the Temple together. Vos was one of the few among Kenobi’s friends who’d found a master. It shouldn’t have been so surprising that he’d be the one to speak up.
Every month there was a new petition to the council, Vos asking that they investigate Kenobi’s departure.
The knight-administrator who had reviewed the petition had overturned it on the grounds of attachment. Mace knew, with a forbidding certainty, they had allowed prejudice to cloud their judgement. Not only with the Kenobi case, but with Vos as well. The temple rumor mill loved to speculate on the kiffar’s inevitable Fall, seeing the grief and trauma the boy carried like a physical thing. His attachment to his family and their subsequent deaths having already pushed him to the precipice. How much further, they whispered, till he tumbled into the abyss?
Mace had heard it all, and done nothing to dissuade it. Had seen no reason, as it was all just speculation and the boy already had a master who would no doubt be seeing to his care and wellbeing. But what kind of environment was he promoting, if even the Master of the Order turned a deaf ear towards such hate-driven vitriol? Perhaps Senator Antilles was right to censure them.
Perhaps the Order needed to be audited, if they had allowed such things to turn to occur.
Mace Windu, Master of the Order and High Councillor, was tired. How did it come to this?
To say his padawan was unimpressed when the High Council called them to review his petition after faithfully submitting it every month for two years—regardless of where they were in the galaxy—would be putting it lightly.
Quinlan was furious, his discontent bubbling in the Force, though he did an admirable job keeping it contained. Tholme himself was gravely disappointed in the Council for not questioning things sooner—would have gone to search for Obi-Wan if he hadn’t had to worry about Quinlan.
Quite a few councillors had threatened his padawanship, enough for Tholme not to disregard their chattering as idle threats. He’d done what he could, submitting his own reports only to get stonewalled at every turn. His last report had been annotated by the knight-administrator as being ”too emotional, without the objectiveness required of a jedi master”.
Since when were Jedi meant to act as cold, unfeeling, facsimiles of life? Since when had that become their mandate?
It was bad enough how the Temple talked about his padawan. As though Quin was two steps away from falling. Worse, was when the younglings began to copy the knights and masters in their disdain. Now they were expected to be emotionless automatons who only acted at the will of the council and its sycophants?
Obi-Wan had been one of the few younglings who had accepted Quinlan without reservation.
Which is why it came as such a shock when Obi-Wan seemingly disappeared overnight, the council only able to confirm the Jinn-Kenobi team had been sent on a mission off-planet.
Only for Qui-Gon to return without his padawan.
Tholme knew, even without being told, that something must have happened. Something big enough that the council had recalled notoriously recalcitrant masters back from the field. Something they’d done rarely, if ever, in the last twenty years.
And as they stepped before the council, Tholme sincerely hoped that whatever happened, Quin would finally be able to reunite with his friend.
Getting dressed down by a junior padawan while his mater stood grimly behind him, was not an experience Mace would care to relive. Having that same padawan flinch when Jinn had finally provided Kenobi’s lightsaber—and wasn’t that a revelation, realizing the man had left his underaged padawan in a war zone without a weapon—only to then need to be restrained by three temple guards when he went for Jinn’s face, was even more disturbing.
Mace didn’t dare argue when Tholme quietly informed them that he’d be leaving for Melidaan by morning, Kenobi’s saber safely tucked away in his robes. Nor did he say anything when Tholme’s padawan turned his glare towards Jinn and asked if there was anything else of Obi-Wan’s he taken.
His stomach fell when the man, shame-faced, handed over a tattered ginger braid. He’d shorn Kenobi’s padawan braid…
As Tholme and his padawan left, their righteous indignation palpable even from this distance, Mace quietly mourned what had befallen one of the Order’s most promising pupils.
Melidaan was a patchwork of scars and barren fields, centuries of neglect and conflict evident even as Quinlan and Thomle searched for a place to land.
Even with his gloves on, Quinlan could feel the echoes of its recent past. Could sense the hurt, and the pain. But also hope, which seemed to grow stronger the closer they got to Zehava. How had Obes survived so long on a planet rife with bad memories? Without a training bond to ground him?
Without his kyber?
Clutching his friend’s lightsaber closer, Quinlan couldn’t help but feel as though he’d failed him. He should have done more, should have ignored the council, should have—
Before he could spiral any further, a familiar presence tugged on his training bond. Peace Master Tholme soothed, smoothing out the edges of his panic with a familiarity born from years of practice. You did all you could. The fault does not lie on you.
Despite what he’d like to say, Quin knew his master was right. Because he had done everything he could—more than any other of Obes’ so-called friends had. Had continued to submit his reports even after he’d been warned that continuing to do so would be grounds for attachment. But he hadn’t cared—because his best friend, his only friend, was in trouble. Obi-Wan would never willingly leave the Order, not without just cause—and Quinlan did not, for one moment, believe he’d have left everything behind for a girl.
Especially since Quin knew his best friend had no interest in girls—not in the way Qui-Gon had implied. Something was wrong, even if the High Council hadn’t wanted to admit it and Quinlan would not rest until he was able to tell—with his own eyes—that Obi-Wan was okay.
It was two years overdue, but Quinlan felt no victory in his vindication that something had been wrong. Not when he looked out over the crumbling remains that dotted Melidaan like a wound. Not when he could feel the hope and despair that clung to it like a ghost.
Finally landing, Quinlan’s grip on Obi-Wan’s lightsaber tightened.
Quinlan felt like he could finally breathe for the first time in two years.
Because Obi-Wan was alive.
He was alive, and semi-whole, and even though Quinlan wanted to go back and punch that huttspawn for the new shadows haunting his best friend’s eyes, he also didn’t want to leave because Obi-Wan was alive.
Arms wrapped around him, their meager weight heart wrenching though the Force signature that enveloped him was achingly familiar. And Quinlan couldn’t help but curl into their embrace, couldn’t help but sink into the warmth of his first and only friend—into the person who had first taught Quinlan the concept of home.
“Welcome to Tikvah.” Obi-Wan whispered, his voice hoarse. “I missed you Quin.”
And Quinlan..
Quinlan was finally home.