The Chosen Apprentice/Chapter 36

Anakin’s testimony was the last for that day, and soon after he had left the courtroom Flimone had adjourned until the next morning. Retray walked with his client back to the waiting airspeeder, explaining what would happen the next day on the way back to where he was being held in the Republic Intelligence building.

Retray nodded to the guards and Intel operatives they passed as he walked with Gunray back to his cell. When the door was closed and bolted Retray was off, he had a lot to prepare for the morning.

As usual two guards took up their posts either side of Gunray’s door. There was no chance of Gunray escaping, but it served as a way to screen those who claimed they had a right to see him.

--

The address Papanoida gave him took Anakin to a newer part of Coruscant that had been reconstructed since the ending of the war. While he did not know the specifics, he assumed that these new durasteel and transparasteel apartments would be fairly highly priced. Could he assume that Stokra was responsible for Shinai being here?

A dark-eyed woman with red hair around her shoulders answered the door. She looked rather apprehensive as she looked at him from behind the security screen.

“Yes?” she asked rather timidly.

“Martreyea Kittern?” he asked, hoping that he had come to the right place.

“Yes, who wants to…” Slowly her expression changed as she examined him closely. Fear, suspicion. Her eyes rested on his lightsaber. “What do you want?” she asked him coldly.

Used to much more unwelcome receptions involving actual threats, Anakin ignored her lack of civility. “I need to see you about…”

But this was as far as he got, she broke in quickly, almost rudely. “No, no,” she started to draw away from the door. “You can’t have him, I won’t let you, he’s mine…”

“This isn’t about your son,” Anakin interrupted. “I just need to ask…”

“Then it’s about my husband then, isn’t it?” she demanded. “You’ve come to take him back. He told me it was almost impossible to leave the Jedi once you were one of them.”

“No, this isn’t like that at all,” Anakin pleaded.

“Then why are you here?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

Anakin looked up and down the corridor. “It’s not something that I’d really like to discuss in a hallway,” he explained patiently. “May I come in?”

She considered this for a moment, her dark eyes examining him carefully. “All right, then,” she said at last. “But only for a moment.” She deactivated the security screen and let him in.

She was still clearly flustered by his presence, curtly inviting him to sit down and busying herself by straightening the sofa cushions. Anakin took this moment for a chance to look around the apartment. There was a stack of boxes piled up down the hall and the living room was somewhat bare apart from the furniture—clearly they hadn’t lived there for long.

Finally, she turned to look at him. “Is there something you wanted to say to me?”

Before Anakin could answer her, a small boy with hair as red as Martreyea’s walked into the room. “Mom, could you come and—” He stopped talking when he noticed his mother’s visitor. “You’re Jedi Skywalker, aren’t you?” He asked, his eyes wide as he sized Anakin up with some anxiety. “I’m… honoured to meet you, sir…or Master…I don’t know really what to say.”

“That's okay,” Anakin said, Arrin’s reaction reminded him of himself when he had first met Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan.

But Martreyea wasn't impressed. She took her son firmly by the shoulder. “Go and play, Arrin,” she told him.

“But Mom, I want to—”

“Arrin!”

For a moment he looked as if he would object, then walked away sulkily.

Martreyea turned back to Anakin, continuing to stand over him as he sat. “You were saying?”

“I have some questions for you about your husband, Shinai Stel-Ardak,” Anakin told her. “We suspect that he’s been involved in…recent activities.”

“Well why don’t you ask him?” Martreyea demanded.

“I have,” Anakin admitted. “And he hasn’t been exactly cooperative.”

Martreyea stared at him blankly. “Well then, I'm afraid I can’t help you.”

Anakin looked at her carefully. “Sorry?”

“I don’t question my husband,” she said, her expression hurt and angry. “He provides for me and our son, and much better since we left Avingnon. I love him and trust what he tells me.”

“So you don’t know what he is doing?” Anakin asked her.

“No,” she replied. “As long as it does not affect the happiness of our family I see no reason for him to tell me more than he does.”

Anakin wondered if the woman was simple or if Shinai had somehow brainwashed her—Force-assisted or otherwise.

He decided to tell her everything, as clearly she didn’t know.

“I’m investigating an attack on Senator Stokra of the Corporate Sector,” Anakin told her. “You may have heard of him.”

Martreyea nodded, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve. “I have seen him on the Net,” she said. “He’s a horrible man.”

“Did you hear about the assassination attempt on him?” Anakin asked.

Martreyea nodded. “I don’t condone it but whoever did it only did what everyone else wanted to do.”

“Lady.” He spoke to her in a low voice. “Shinai was responsible.”

She blanched, her mouth dropping open. “That’s…that’s impossible! Tell me you are lying!”

Anakin shook his head. “I’m not,” he said. “Stokra hired your husband to do the attack do it would look like a Jedi had done it.”

Martreyea shook her head. “I don’t believe you. Shinai would never do something like this; he’s good to me and to our son.”

“Good people can do bad things,” Anakin told her, “sometimes quite horrible things, for what they think are the right reasons.”

“It’s not possible,” she said, still shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Jedi Skywalker, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” She walked with him towards the door. “I can tell you that Shinai would never do such a thing so we have nothing to talk about.”

“I am sorry about this,” he said as she opened the door. “And I don’t think you should tell your husband that I was here.”

She glared at him. “I intend to!”

“If you want,” Anakin said with a shrug, “but he may take it the wrong way.”

“He won’t,” Martreyea asserted. “I know him too well.”

She shut the door behind him with a loud bang.

--

As he waited for the turbolift Anakin went over the short interview in his mind, particularly Martreyea’s almost blind devotion to her husband. Did she actually trust him or was she just saying that? All the same, he couldn’t fight the gnawing feeling in his stomach that this was going to end badly. Perhaps he should wait until Shinai returned.

When the doors to the turbolift opened Anakin decided against it. For all he knew he could be waiting half the night and there were better things he could to so as to give him some proof, something he was sorely lacking in this mission.

Normally Arrin was very astute to his mother’s emotions, but when he heard the door slam he ran out of his room with a disappointed expression.

“Mom, he’s gone!” Arrin looked accusingly at his mother who was sitting with her head in her hands.

“So much the better,” she muttered, wiping her red eyes.

He then noticed she was crying, he touched her hand gently. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Martreyea lied. “Go and clean up, dinner’s almost ready.”

“When’s Dad coming home?” Arrin asked her.

“He’ll be back in time to put you to bed,” Martreyea said, her voice turning sharp. “Go on!”

With a sullen face Arrin obeyed.

--

While it was no longer common to see Jedi in the Republic Intelligence building, the guards outside Gunray’s cell had no hesitations about letting one inside. He smiled at them from under his hood yet his face was eyeless and he assured them that what he had to do wouldn’t take long.

When half an hour passed and the Jedi had not emerged, one of the guards threw aside the hatch to peep inside Gunray’s cell. He stared. Inside he saw the Neimoidian’s body—or what was left of it—sprawled out on the floor in pieces.

“Good skies!” he swore when he noticed that the Viceroy’s head was sitting on the end of the small bed.

“What’s going on?” the other guard asked.

“Get Commander B’Dun,” the first guard said. “Gunray’s dead!”