Jedi Quest 4: The Master of Disguise

They couldn't make it. He took a deep breath as they went straight into the top of the wave. He felt the power of the water drive them backward. The controls shook in his hand. He heard the engine whine. He could only see water, and he was confused now. Were they heading up or down?

Then the Force entered him, and he did not see the water as a wall. He saw it for what it was. Full of particles, full of gaps, honeycombed with light. He headed for the gaps, willing the swoop engine to obey him.

They broke through the water into the air. Mellora clung to Obi-Wan, gasping.

Omega was a speck in the distance, heading away from them.

"He would have killed me!" Mellora choked.

Anakin hovered in the air, watching the speck disappear. They had lost him again.

"Head for our ship, Padawan," Obi-Wan said.

Anakin turned back toward safety. He did not believe that Omega wanted to kill Mellora. He had pushed her off knowing that the Jedi would save her. He just wanted to get away.

But it was better that Mellora not know that.

"I know where he is going," she told the Jedi. "I know where he goes when he loses. I can take you there."

"You don't have to," Obi-Wan said. "I know where he is going, too."

Chapter Seventeen

Because of the eruption, hostilities had ceased temporarily on Haariden. They left Mellora with the authorities there with instructions to hold her until the Senate could send a ship for her. But they could not be certain how long she would be held. It was clear that she was prepared to lie her way out of trouble.

"She hates him now," Obi-Wan said as they hurried to their ship. "I only hope she sees what he really is. He would sacrifice her young life to save his own."

"But he knew we would catch her," Anakin said.

Obi-Wan shot his Padawan a curious look. "Are you certain of that?"

Anakin said nothing. Disquiet settled inside Obi-Wan as they both jumped into their craft. He plugged in the coordinates for Nierport Seven.

They were so close behind Granta Omega. They just might catch him.

"How do you know where he is going, Master?" Anakin asked as they shot into hyperspace.

"It was the ship within a ship that told me," Obi-Wan explained. "I remembered his boyhood home. The walls were thicker than the other houses, but not too thick that they didn't blend in. But when I thought about it, I realized that the proportions were slightly off. I think there is a hidden room there. A room in the walls themselves."

Dusk was settling on Nierport Seven when they arrived. They landed on the outskirts of the settlement and hurried to the house.

There were no lights inside. Obi-Wan took out his lightsaber and cut a hole in the door.

The house was empty. Even the bedroll and stove were gone.

"We are too late," Anakin said.

"Yes," Obi-Wan said. "He must have assumed that Mellora would tell us what she knew."

He felt along the walls, knocking them with his lightsaber hilt. When he found what he was looking for, he cut through the walls with his lightsaber. Here the stone was only centimeters thick, bound to durasteel walls.

Beyond the wall was a room filled with datascreens. Obi-Wan and Anakin climbed through the hole.

Obi-Wan began to access the files. One after another he called up the holofiles. They were coded, but he was confident that the Jedi could crack them. He would take them back to the Temple.

"These must be his companies," he said. "His aliases are here, text docs, his other homes, bases of operations… it's all here. We've got him.

All his secrets are now ours."

"It looks like he has an entire fleet of starships on some planet in the Outer Rim," Anakin said. "The planet's name is coded."

As he read the file, the letters began to fade. "Master — "

"The files are disappearing," Obi-Wan said. He quickly hit the keys, tapping furiously. "I can't stop it."

They watched as the information disappeared into fragments of light.

The light dissolved into particles.

"He instituted a wipe from wherever he is," Obi-Wan said. "Now it is as though he never existed. He truly is a void."

They stared at the empty air. It was as if Granta Omega were mocking them from wherever he was. "Now he has no past," Anakin said.

"And he's just become more dangerous than ever," Obi-Wan said. "He has nothing to lose."

Obi-Wan watched the emotion flit over his Padawan's face. Confusion was there, and wonderment. Granta Omega had touched something in Anakin that Obi-Wan could only guess at. Perhaps it was their similar origins, the desolation of the places they'd known as children. Perhaps it was the way they had left their pasts behind. Perhaps it was simply that for the first time, Anakin had seen evil coupled with charisma, and was struggling to understand it.

He wasn't sure what it was. But it worried him.

Yes, the Jedi had a dangerous enemy. It wasn't Omega's cleverness that concerned Obi-Wan. It wasn't his desire to impress a Sith Lord he had never met. It was the strange pull he had for his Padawan. Granta Omega might turn out to be the most dangerous enemy they would ever have to face.