LUX BONTERI

Lux studied the piece of paper – Ahsoka’s note – in his hands. He was looking for a way to decode the message that she had somehow hidden in the letter. He squinted his eyes and thought hard.

Then he knew what it was. “That’s it!” he said, nearly yelling, but then he remembered that there were others – some as young as five years old – sleeping nearby.

Lux ran out to the nearest campfire, shuddering at the cold air on his skin after the warm tent, and grabbed a piece of charcoal to write with. Then he ran back inside and started writing.

He had noticed that some of the letters, seemingly at random, were much darker than the others, nearly black, in fact, as if she had used two different pieces of charcoal to write. Underneath her message, he wrote the letters in black in a line. 

allfoodinfecteddonteatitnanodroidscontactWindugoingtomoseisleyCantinatatooineIloveyou

The capital letters were probably to indicate names or places. He separated the random mash of letters into words, and came up with:

all food infected don’t eat it nanodroids contact Windu going to mos eisley Cantina tatooine I love you.

All food infected. Don’t eat it, nanodroids. Contact Windu. Going to Mos Eisley Cantina, Tatooine. I love you.

Lux swore under his breath. Nanodroids! Now he understood why he had been so certain earlier that there was something wrong with the food, but had found nothing!

He dug through his bag of things from the Lookout until he found what he was looking for: a handheld scanner for the presence of an electro-magnetic charge. With this in hand, he ran into the kitchens.

Sure enough, as he turned the scanner on and held it over the food, the screen showed the pinpoints of moving, fully functional nanodroids. Everything was covered! A light in the corner of the screen lit up, indicating that they were highly explosive.

Then he considered the rest of the message. She had written something about the cantina on Tatooine, the one that she had visited when she had been looking for Obi-Wan Kenobi. She was meeting someone unfriendly there. Could it be that she was a hostage, or being blackmailed?

And she would have him contact Windu. That would be a little harder. It sure wasn’t going to be pretty when he interrupted him in the middle of his meditative retreat on Tatooine. But he would need the wise Jedi Master’s help if he were to go after Ahsoka.

She had written that she loved him. Thinking about it made him tear up a little. He loved her too, like crops loved the sun, and more. She was a necessity for him. But he felt a spark of something for Chenai as well, and now he was faced with a difficult decision.

They had both chosen him. Now which one would he choose?

OBI-WAN KENOBI

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu sat in the light and airy back room of his little house on Tatooine. They were in deep meditation, thinking about the future, and looking for guidance from the Netherworld of the Force.

Suddenly Windu shuddered, almost as if in pain. Obi-Wan blinked an eye open to see what was the matter, and picked up on his friend’s thoughts. He was seeing things that were as black as night, and he heard hushed cries and the moans of those in pain.

“Master Windu? Master Windu! What have you seen?” he asked, now fully alert and ready.

The Jedi Master opened his eyes. “I’ve seen… horror. I have a feeling that Ahsoka and her padawans are in trouble.”

“Are the Sith involved?”

“I’m not sure. Wait– yes. And someone who I thought I recognized, but can’t be positive that I did.”

Kenobi sighed thoughtfully. “Then I guess it’s best to let the Force guide us now.”

Mace Windu nodded, closing his eyes again. But then his comlink rang, its shrill note piercing the air. And that could only mean one thing.

Something had gone horribly wrong on Cialone.