Holding his breath, Obi-Wan began to ease his way past.
RRRRAAAAWWWWKKK!
The roar split the air. The crater shook with the impact of a gundark's running footsteps. The young gun-dark awoke. Rrrraaaaawwww!
Obi-Wan dropped the distance he'd traveled back to the floor. He ran.
The gundark let out a scream and leaped up, heading straight to its young to ensure it was safe. Then it leaped down to deal with Obi-Wan.
The creature wasn't tall, but the strength of its four arms was immense. A common tactic was to grab prey by the claws of the massive arms that rose from the gundark's shoulders. Then the creature crushed the captured prey to death with the two slender arms that rose out of the muscled chest. The long, sharp claws could also rip a being to shreds. Of course, a gundark was also capable of simply tearing off the head of its prey with the large teeth that jutted out of its lower jaw. Once its bloodlust had been awakened, rare was the gundark that did not achieve its objective of rendering its victim into pieces of flesh and bone.
Obi-Wan was completely exposed, and he knew that caves were all around him. He couldn't hide. He drew his lightsaber even as he backed up but held it by his side, trying to show the creature he did not mean it harm.
But gundarks were not known to be reasonable.
The attack was ferocious. The gundark made for him, all four arms reaching, trying to claw him. Huge teeth snapped and saliva poured out.
Obi-Wan smelled heat and anger. He was forced to slash at the gundark as it came at him relentlessly, its howl filling the cavity of the crater.
He heard the thump of footsteps. More gundarks were approaching. Obi- Wan fumbled for his cable launcher. He'd have to risk it. He sent it flying above. It hit something. He tested the line. He activated the launch, but the gundark grabbed him with one claw and threw him back down on the floor.
He felt the jolt in every bone. He rolled away as the creature swung down to finish him off. The gundark missed, scoring the rock with deep grooves.
Four more gundarks thundered into the space, snarling, ready for the kill. Obi-Wan felt his back hit the wall of the crater. Desperately, he looked above. He reached out to the Force even as he sent up a shout he knew had little chance of being heard.
"Anakin! Anakin, I need you!"
Chapter Thirteen
If Anakin had felt that there was a veil between him and his surroundings before, he was now beginning to feel breaks in that veil.
There were moments of clarity, brief flashes, in which he knew he was seeing reality. During those moments he felt something deep within him, like a hook lodged in his heart, and he was glad to slip behind the veil again.
It was odd that he was able to achieve battle-mind, but he had. The movements were so ingrained in him that he leaped and twisted and ran without feeling the effort, much as he did when the Force was with him. He had taken down at least five security droids on STAPs, and maneuvered so that another two fired at each other. He still had three more STAPs to contend with, as well as the Vanqor guards on swoops. He was fighting as well as he ever had.
When Obi-Wan had been blasted into the crater, Anakin hadn't had more than a second to react. He assumed that his Master could handle whatever was down there. Obi-Wan could get out by himself.
Somewhere inside, Anakin knew this was a curious decision for him to make, one that he wouldn't have made normally. But it seemed logical, too.
Obi-Wan was a Jedi, used to getting out of tight spots.
Besides, Obi-Wan had always told him not to jump into things, to take his time. So why shouldn't he? His first priority was to take care of the droids and get the disk to Typha-Dor.
Anakin felt the veil slip again. It was happening more frequently now.
He missed his calm. He wanted to be back in the garden. He didn't want to feel fear, or apprehension, or pain. He wanted to feel serene, as though nothing could touch him. He wanted it so badly.
Gundarks in the crater suddenly roared. Anakin fended off blaster rifle fire and drew closer to the crater. He thought he heard Obi-Wan calling him. The call came from within him, as though he heard it in his heart.
Something tugged at him. The hook that was buried so deep that he could barely feel it. He did not want to reach for it. He wanted it to lay buried.
Obi-Wan needed him.
But I needed him. And when he came, he asked for the disk. He did not come for me.
The pain this thought caused him to grab the remains of the veil. He wanted to wrap himself into its brand of unconsciousness.
I don't want to feel anymore!
Anakin leaped up and severed a droid in two that had the misfortune to pilot his STAP too close to the ground. Hunks of smoking metal clattered to the rocks below.
He realized what was wrong, what the essential conflict within him was. To be a Jedi was to follow his feelings. But if his feelings tortured him, what was he to do with them?
Grief.
Guilt.
Resentment.
Shame.
He had felt all of these things. Because of leaving his mother, because of Yaddle, because of Obi-Wan. I don't want to feel!
He struck out savagely at a STAP that had come in low, its lone droid pilot firing dual blaster rifles. He cut the droid's head off.
"Anakin!" He could hear Obi-Wan clearly now, his voice strained and desperate.
I don't want to feel!
The hook in his heart seared him, and he knew its name. It was love.
The love he felt for his Master was lodged firmly within him. It was a connection that had grown from the first moment Obi-Wan had told him that he would take him and train him.
He had learned one thing about love: It was besides the point. It didn't make anything smoother, or better. Most of the time, it just complicated things.
Why would he want to feel again, when feeling hurt so much?
Why would he want to remember Shmi with guilt as well as pleasure?
Why would he want to revisit his torment over the death of Yaddle?
Why would he want to take up the burden of caring what Obi-Wan thought or felt about him?
Because it's right.
Anakin groaned aloud. The thing he couldn't get away from, the certainty within him, the essential truth he had learned through all his training at the Temple, that was what he could see now. He knew what was right.
He ripped the veil and felt the Force flood in with all its power. He realized that the Zone of Self-Containment had not allowed him to access the Force except at the most basic level, and he hadn't even known it. Now he felt it grow.
Along with the Force he felt his emotions again. They came at him in a rush, as if they'd been held back and now were free to overflow. They bombarded him as cruelly as the laser cannons shooting above. He wanted to sink to his knees from the tide washing over him, all the emotion he had suppressed and hoped never to feel again.