That is what you keep telling yourself. But is it true?
His mind had circled around to the beginning. Obi-Wan let out a puff of exasperation, which he hoped Anakin did not hear. He concentrated on his steps through the icy snow.
The kilometers passed in silence. The outpost was tucked into a mountain range that rose from the glaciers. Obi-Wan thought he could make out its outline in the distance with the electrobinoculars, but it was hard to be sure. Land and sky merged in a sea of white. The clouds seemed to lower as they walked, and a few flakes separated from the thick blanket above them and drifted lazily down. Soon the flakes thickened and the wind freshened, driving the snow against their faces.
Obi-Wan looked at the horizon. A silvery clump of snow seemed to be falling fast against the white sky. But he wasn't seeing snowflakes. It was a cruiser.
"Surveillance," he said crisply to Anakin. "Drop down."
It was the only thing to do. There was no cover. They dropped to the ground, their faces in the snow. From above, their white survival gear would blend with the landscape. They heard the whirr of the engines above and stayed perfectly still. The ship was going slowly, tacking over the area in a sweep. Obi-Wan slowed down his breathing and his life processes, a Jedi technique. He knew Anakin would do the same. It would make it difficult for a life-form sensor to pick up their traces. The cold would help them, too.
Obi-Wan didn't think of the cold, or the imminent danger. He let his mind slow as his body processes had. He made himself a blank, just another piece of white against a white background.
The whirr of the engines softened and waned. They waited until they could hear nothing, concentrating so hard that Obi-Wan heard the tiny plink plink of the icy snowflakes hitting the ground beside him.
Anakin rolled over. Ice had caked in his hair. He blinked the snow off his eyelashes. "I feel like a frozen jujasickle."
"You look like one, too. But it's better than being shot at."
"If you say so." Anakin stood and dusted the snow off his legs.
"They'll be back. We'd better hurry." Obi-Wan consulted the map on his datapad. "We're close. We have to be careful now. We don't want to lead the Vanqors to the outpost."
"Let's hope they don't find the "
A loud explosion suddenly sounded. Obi-Wan and Anakin turned back the way they had come. Obi-Wan put the electrobinoculars to his eyes. He saw a thin plume of smoke.
"They blew up our ship," he said.
They didn't need to say out loud what they were thinking. If the ship at the outpost wasn't operable, they could be stuck on the moon for some time. If the outpost was destroyed, they would have no shelter.
They found the strength to move faster. There wasn't much daylight left, and traveling in the darkness would be difficult. At least moving faster kept them warmer. The snow continued to fall and then turned into a blizzard. The falling temperature transformed the flakes into icy pellets that stung their cheeks. Despite his discomfort, Obi-Wan was grateful for the storm. It would hamper the
He took a second look at the damaged comm control console. "What happened?"
"It was the middle of the night," Mezdec said. He swallowed and pushed the rest of his food away. "I was awake, and I heard Samdew at the comm unit. I thought he was doing a sweep we monitored the channels constantly, and I assumed he was checking to see if anything turned up. I was awake anyway, so I got up to see if anything was happening."
"There was quite a bit of chatter on the system," Shalini said. "The Vanqors knew we had been able to monitor their comm channels. In order to confuse us, they'd flood us with information. That made Samdew a crucial member of our team. He was our senior information analyst."
"I stood in the doorway. He didn't hear me," Mezdec said, his eyes clouding at the memory. "And I saw that he wasn't monitoring transmissions.
He was transmitting to the Vanqor fleet. I realized he was a spy. I blasted the console. I didn't know what else to do. It was the fastest way to stop him. I didn't want to kill him. But he turned and moved toward me, and the next shot hit him in the chest."
"It's all right, Mezdec," Shalini said quietly. She put her hand on his arm.
"I heard the blaster fire," Rajana said, taking up the account, as Mezdec had fallen silent. "I heard Samdew fall, and I ran in. While he was on the ground, he tried to shoot Mezdec just as Thik came in after me. Thik was hit in the knee and went down." Rajana looked at Mezdec. "I was the one who fired the fatal blast. Not you."
"Samdew died," Shalini said. "What we didn't know was that before he died, he activated the fire system in the sleeping quarters. The room goes into lockdown, and all the oxygen is sucked out."
"He had disabled the warning siren, but not the procedure. Four of our crew were in there," Mezdec said. "They suffocated. By the time we realized what had happened, they were dead."
"He meant for all of you to be in there," Anakin said.