“You weren’t going to say goodbye?” she asked, blinking back huge tears. “You were just going to leave?”

“I’ve been assigned to the Agricultural Corps,” he said, hoping she’d understand hoe humiliating it was for him. “I wanted to say good-bye, but… “

She shook her head. “I heard you were going to a planet called Bandomeer.”

So everyone knew already. Obi-Wan nodded dully just as Bant lurched forward to give him a clumsy hug.

“Yes, that’s where I’m going,” he said. He hugged her. So, my fate is decided, he realized in despair. I will be a farmer. Because this first good-bye would be followed by others. He couldn’t avoid them.

Bant frowned and stepped back. “It will be dangerous. Did they tell you it would be dangerous?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “It’s just the Agricultural Corps. How dangerous could it get?”

“We are not to know,” Bant said.

“We are to do,” Obi-Wan added softly. It was a phrase they had heard many times from the Masters, when they were asked to do tasks that they could not understand the significance of.

“Miss you, I will,” Bant said, echoing Yoda’s strange way of talking. She blinked back tears.

“So sorry, I am,” Obi-Wan answered. He tried to smile, but could not. In answer, Bant hugged him again swiftly, then hurried away to hide her tears.

Chapter 3

With the help of Jedi healing techniques and the Temple’s marvelous ointments, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s burns and bruises were healed by morning. But the pain in his heart had not eased. He slept briefly, then rose well before dawn.

He said good-bye to Garen Muln and Reeft, two boys from different sides of the galaxy who had become inseparable in their years in the Jedi Temple.