Master Apprentice
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Auto da Fé 1: Faith
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Title: Auto da Fé 1: Faith
Author: WriteStuff (Writestufflee@mindspring.com)
Archive: Certainly on M&A. Others please request.
Pairing: Q/O, occasionally O/Other
Category: AU, Series, Drama, Action-Adventure, Non-Con
Rating: Adult
Warnings: SQUICKY FIC. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART OR WEAK OF STOMACH. NOT KIDDING! Life-like situations and sometimes nasty surprises. You pays yer money and yer takes yer chances. No spoilers. Not much sex.
Disclaimer: George's Boyz, George's Universe. Not only not making money, I'm hemorrhaging it in this endeavor.
A couple of characters from the YA Jedi Apprentice series appear or are mentioned here: Bruck Chun, Obi-Wan's tormentor; and Qui-Gon's failed apprentice, Xanatos. I don't own them, either.
Notes:
Huge thanks to Mrs. Hamill (where are you?) for her wise suggestions and comments on the first part of this story. It would be in much worse shape than it is without her. All errors are still mine.
Tenth installment in The Long Shadow series, in The Warrior's Heart universe ( which can be found in the archives and in order (eventually) at http://home.mindspring.com/~writestufflee/index.html).
The Long Shadow Series runs as follows, so far:
Love Letter I
The Long Shadow
If Memory Serve Me
Padawans and Lovers
The Amazing Adventures of Ass Master & Slut Boy
Love Letter II
Ships in the Night
Love Letter III
Spare the Rod
Auto da Fé 1: Faith
Summary: Some old business comes home to roost in a painful way.
Feedback: Any sort is a pleasure to receive if you care to give it.
[ô0tÇ-dc-f~, ou0tÇ-] auto, act + da, of + fé, faith
Part 1. Faith
"You'll be careful." Qui-Gon said, no hint of question in his words as he watched Obi-Wan dressing. "All of you."
"We'll be careful," Obi-Wan affirmed, no hint of either amusement or annoyance in his reply as he tucked his sash in neatly and buckled his belt around it.
There was nothing funny about either this assignment or Qui-Gon's uncharacteristic display of worry. One, in fact, was no doubt leading to the other and they both knew it. Hence Obi-Wan's patience. In truth, he felt all of them had good reason to be worried. Any mission that could command the attention of one knight, two masters, and those master's senior padawans was nothing to take lightly. He didn't need his own prescience prodding him to know that this wasn't going to be a good mission, no matter what happened, and Qui-Gon didn't need to be told, either. Obi-Wan just hoped all of them would come out of it alive; at least one of them was not going to be safe.
Qui-Gon, for his part, was not fooled by Obi-Wan's calm. His face and manner betrayed nothing, but the bond between them was pinched and sour with disquiet, if not outright fear, and Qui-Gon couldn't blame him. His young knight had volunteered for this mission, knowing exactly what it involved, after discussing it first with Qui-Gon. Though his impulse as Obi-Wan's lover had been to say don't go, as a Jedi he had seen the Council's logic in requesting him specifically. In the end, as Obi-Wan had surely known he would, Qui-Gon had weighed the dangers with him but said only that he must make up his own mind. He'd never taken a mission quite like this one, knowing exactly what he was getting into, and Qui-Gon found this more nerve-wracking than his going into the unknown. But he was determined to do nothing to add to his lover's burden and so did not mention his own fears. Instead, he let all the love and pride he felt for this powerful, capable, and exemplary young knight well up in their bond, hoping it would provide the support Qui-Gon wanted to give him.
Obi-Wan looked over at him with a smile, knowing exactly what he was doing. Still barefoot, he walked to the bed where Qui-Gon was perched while watching him dress, stood between his knees and cupped his former master's face in his hands. "If I am up to this task, My Master," he said quietly, "it is only because I was trained so well."
"And if you were trained so well," Qui-Gon replied, hands spanning his former padawan's slim waist, "it's because I had such fine material to work with." They kissed tenderly and with great affection, tongues tasting each other at leisure, the kiss holding all else in suspension while it lasted.
"You'll be late," Qui-Gon murmured when they parted again.
"No, I won't," Obi-Wan replied, smiling. Nonetheless, he returned to the last of his dressing, pulling on his socks and then his boots. In another few efficient minutes, he had gathered his cloak and his pack and given Qui-Gon one last, lingering kiss before letting the door slide silently shut behind him. Qui-Gon stood watching it for a moment, arms crossed, as though willing it to open again and return his lover to him. Then he shook himself and went on about gathering his materials for the class he was teaching shortly. Obi-Wan would be back—or he wouldn't. There was nothing to be done about it except release his anxiety to the Force. That would take some hours on his knees later this evening, and for evenings to come.
The team assembled, as agreed, at the Temple's east docking bay, where their ship—a sleek corvette, heavily armed for its size—awaited them. Bruck and his master were already waiting, the former insouciantly leaning against the corvette's fuselage and kicking one heel. His master, a Lannik with a merry disposition, stood quietly beside his padawan, uncharacteristically solemn.
"Knight Kenobi." Andreth greeted him with a more formal bow than Obi-Wan expected. Bruck followed it with an stiff little bow of his own: "Obi-Wan."
"Obi-Wan"? he wondered as he returned the greetings with the same level of courtesy. When was the last time B-boy had called him Obi-Wan? They were all nervous and unhappy about this mission and perhaps that accounted for their formality and the uneasy silence that fell between them now. Garen Muln and his master, Clee Rhara, appeared as he was puzzling it over. Garen greeted him with even more of his usual cool politeness with its undertone of disapproval; his master was only neutral at best. It wasn't just the team dynamics then, though those weren't the best. It was something else.
Some of it became clear to Obi-Wan during their final briefing once they were outbound. He understood at last that they were distancing themselves emotionally from the role he was playing. None of them liked it any better than Qui-Gon did. Garen, surprisingly, seemed physically repulsed by his choice to play it, which mystified Obi-Wan. Duty was duty, hard, dangerous, distasteful or not. He'd gotten used to Garen's strait-laced views about Bruck and their relationship, but this was something different that he didn't quite understand.
When the briefing was through, only Bruck lingered behind, turning his mug idly in his hands, looking as uncomfortable as he had when they'd met at the docking bay. This wasn't a good way to start a mission.
"Everything all right?" he said, making Bruck start guiltily. What he wanted to say was, What's with the "Obi-Wan" thing, B-Boy?
"No," Bruck said, and took a deep breath. "It's not. I don't like this. I don't like you volunteering for it."
"I'm the only one available that makes sense."
"I know. I still don't like it. I don't understand why it has to be done this way. If something happens to you—"
"I don't think there's much question of that."
"That's not what I mean."
Obi-Wan nodded. He knew what Bruck was afraid of. He knew Garen was afraid of the same thing. What if you get killed on my watch?
"B-Boy, whatever happens on this mission, I know that you'll have done everything you could do."
Bruck snorted. "It's not your opinion I'm worried about."
Obi-Wan ducked his head so Bruck wouldn't see his smile. You liar, he thought with affection. "Qui knows it too."
Bruck said nothing.
"You think our trust in you is misplaced?"
"I guess we'll have to see," Bruck replied sourly, pushing himself away from the table. He leaned over it, grabbed the back of Obi-Wan's neck and kissed him hard. "You stupid bastard. Be careful. Don't let it go too far, if you can help it."
And Obi-Wan found himself alone in the galley, which is where he spent most of the journey out unless the team was meeting. Upon reflection, Obi-Wan decided it was better this way, that Bruck's instincts were right. They were gearing themselves up for this mission, each in their own ways, and they all needed some emotional distance from each other.
There were no farewells when the ground team, headed by Bruck, donned their undercover uniforms and debarked. The two padawans were dropped off together at one location, complete with fake transfer orders, and Obi-Wan was left in the middle of nowhere with nothing but his wits and a set of coordinates to find his own way to his assignment's contact.
Here we go, he thought, shouldering his pack and trudging into the wild lands to the appointed place, down the road to hell.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Qui-Gon listened with his full attention to Anakin's account of his day while peripherally noticing they'd been joined by Mace. He breathed carefully through the little spike of fear that prompted and checked the bond, which revealed only Obi-Wan's new unease but no actual discomfort.
"—and Chiara's going to meet me in the sand garden tomorrow to try them out!" the boy finished breathlessly, excited as always by the new mechanical gizmo he'd built. His lightsaber was going to be an interesting construction, when the time came. It was good to see he was at last making friends. It had taken the boy longer than it should have, considering his sunny disposition.
"That's excellent, Anakin. If they work, perhaps you could show them to the Tech Master. I'm sure she'd find them interesting."
The boy's eyes lit up like a droid's. "Really, Master Qui-Gon? That'd be so wizard! I'd better check them over again. Uh, may I be excused, Master?"
Qui-Gon surveyed the boy's tray, which had somehow been all but licked clean during his report. Having grown up hungry, Anakin never had to be told not to waste food. "Off with you, Ani. Homework first, though."
"Yes, Master! Master Windu," Anakin replied, sketching a quick bow and bolting off with his tray.
The two masters watched him go, and Qui-Gon returned to his own meal. "Mace. Not eating?"
"Finished already, thanks. I thought I'd drop by and see how you're holding up."
Qui-Gon looked up. "Fine. Do you know something I don't?"
"No, quite the opposite. I thought your bond—"
"No," Qui-Gon shook his head. "He's . . . uneasy, more so than usual on a mission. But that's all."
"But you would sense if he were in trouble, or injured."
"I don't know, Mace. I assume so. But it's not like a training bond; we can't communicate through it. And we've had precious little time together to test its limits and capabilities. To some extent, it depends on how well we both shield."
"I see." Mace was silent for a few moments, and Qui-Gon took a sip of his water and sopped up the last of his gravy with a bit of bread, waiting for him to divulge what he was really about. "When Obi-Wan returns, I'll try to get you some time together to test this bond out. It's—"
"—between Obi-Wan and me. It's not at the Council's disposal, whatever it turns out to be." Qui-Gon got to his feet with his tray and departed. Mace watched him go silently.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Soften him up, Muln," their Isani CO ordered.
The mission was a horror to begin with and the people whose army they'd infiltrated were barbarous, obviously, or they wouldn't be here. Working with Chun was bad enough, but being under his command was just—wrong. What the hell had the Council been thinking? How could they trust him with two other lives, particularly one of their best new knights? How chummy Chun and Kenobi were said nothing about Chun's trustworthiness or competence. The whole situation was a nightmare, one Garen never wanted to repeat.
Now it had just gotten worse.
The prisoner knelt in front of them with his hands bound, filthy hair in his eyes, one of them already blackened and a cut on his lip still oozing blood into his beard. He spat at Garen's feet, his blood spattering Garen's boots.
"Yes, soften me up, soldier boy. Like you have softened up all the others: children and old men and grandmothers. Godless infidels, all of you. Why are you here? You were not invited!"
For some reason, Garen hadn't really anticipated this situation, though he'd been briefed thoroughly for the mission. This was exactly what they'd been sent to find, this mistreatment of prisoners in clear contravention of numerous civilized accords and conventions signed by all members of the Republic. He and Chun had seen it everywhere in the prison they'd infiltrated in their undercover guises as new recruits to the Indu branch of the army. They'd had to participate in some of it, to keep their identities intact. Chun, in fact, seemed particularly good at it, to enjoy it, even, which was disgusting but not surprising. Garen had questioned prisoners before but had never found it necessary to do more than spell out the possibilities. So far he'd avoided actually hurting anyone. The Jedi's reputation preceded them enough that generally imagination did the work for them, and Garen's size only helped.
That wasn't going to work this time.
His CO must have seen the sudden panic on his face. "What, you know this one or something, Muln? What's the problem?"
"No problem, ser," Garen replied automatically, chagrined to hear his voice cracking like an adolescent. He could feel Chun glaring at him. He took a step forward, felt Chun's hand close on his shoulder.
"I'll do it, ser. Muln's been feeling a bit off today."
"Not losing your stomach for the job are you, kid?"
"No, ser," Garen replied, relieved. "Something I ate yesterday. And this fucking heat."
Their CO paused for a bit, giving Garen the evil eye, then apparently decided he looked pale enough to be telling the truth. The woman nodded. "Carry on, Chun."
He'd seen Chun at work before and knew somehow that this wasn't any more brutal than he'd been with the others. It only seemed so this time. Chun grabbed a thick handful of the prisoner's hair and dragged his head sharply back, pulling him off balance. With his hands bound behind him, he had no way to catch himself and Garen heard the wind go out of him when he hit the ground on top of his bound hands. Expertly, Chun rolled him over until he was on his stomach, put a knee in his back and pulled his head back once more until his back bowed uncomfortably. The man grunted but said nothing.
Chun planted the stun stick they all carried against the base of the prisoner's spine and pushed, dropping him simultaneously to keep from getting shocked himself. This was only a quick jolt, sending a strong shuddering through the man's body and pulling an involuntary gasp from him. While his muscles were still twitching, Chun jolted him again, twice more, the last shock eliciting a harsh cry of pain. Garen had no doubt it was real.
"Motherless bastards!" The man's eyes were leaking tears. The stun stick had hurt, obviously. Garen felt a little sick, as he always did. It was just harder to hide than usual.
Chun grabbed another fistful of black hair and pulled the prisoner nearly upright again. "Oh, that's nothing, you whiny little piece of shit. You guys are all alike. Bluster and tripe until somebody gives you a bit of your own medicine. You're out there blowing people up, half of them your own, and can't take a bit of rough handling. You'll fold like a fan in another two minutes. Why not just tell me where your other pals are now and save yourself the pain?"
"What makes you think I know anything?" the man snarled.
"Oh, you know something, all right. And we'll find out what it is." Chun shoved him and aimed a hard kick into his midsection. He curled up, retching and gasping.
"Ser, is this really necessary?" Garen blurted.
"Shite, Muln—" Bruck swore, and kicked the prisoner again in apparent frustration. This time, it produced a sick moan.
"Go get some air, soldier," their CO said, exasperation in her tone.
"I'm all—"
"That's an order."
"Ser. Yes, ser," Garen saluted, face flaming, turned smartly on his heel and headed for the prison's yard.
Unsurprisingly, it was empty of prisoners, only the guards patrolling the ramparts just visible from the ground. Garen found himself a bench and lit one of the smokes that seemed to be ubiquitous among soldiers—another thing Chun seemed to like. It was astonishing, really, how easily he blended in with these people, how much he seemed like them. Garen felt he stuck out like a boil here, though he'd never had this trouble before. It was working with Chun that was doing it. Obsequious little shit. This just wasn't going right at all. He'd have run this mission much differently than Chun did, sucking up to the CO all the time. The mission itself was bad enough without having to work with somebody who should have been eliminated from the padawan pool early on.
The Isani army had taken over the city jail, where Garen sat now, when they'd "liberated" the city, which was the capitol of this small principality. As their new prisoner had said, no one had invited them in. A well-armed guerrilla insurgency had risen almost overnight in attempts to drive them out. The general population claimed to know none of them, but were undoubtedly sheltering and provisioning them. Prisoners had been taken, and word of their treatment had leaked out to the Senate. Normally, this would be an internal planetary affair, but there were rumors of professional interrogators being shipped in from offworld and prisoners being shipped out for special treatment.
Garen thought Kenobi was insane for volunteering for this mission, though given the result of his pain trails Garen had to admit the man was the logical choice. They'd shipped out together, discussed the mission together, been briefed together, role-played together, gotten into character together, then split up when they'd landed. As planned, Garen and Chun had presented their forged transfers and Kenobi and gone off to get himself captured as one of the insurgents. Somewhere, Chun's and his own master were monitoring the situation as much as possible. Mostly, they were on their own, with Chun the designated mission leader while they were inside—a situation that made Garen none too happy.
It had taken Kenobi eleven days to get himself captured, or at least for him to show up here at the central holding facility. In the meanwhile, Garen and Chun had gathered plenty of evidence of prisoner abuse, more than enough in Garen's opinion. If he'd been running this show, they'd have cut and run the moment Kenobi showed up, but Chun was determined to confirm the presence of outside interrogators, even at the cost of Kenobi's health.
What had startled Garen this afternoon wasn't just the transformation Kenobi had effected. He'd watched it begin on board ship when Kenobi had blackened his beard and hair and darkened his skin. The transformation he'd seen this afternoon involved more than the facade. Kenobi's usual pleasant, cultured enunciation was completely gone, replaced by the broad vowels and harsh consonants of another language along with the rage and defiance burning in the one eye that hadn't swollen shut. Garen was surprised too at how much Kenobi's injuries affected him. And there was no telling what kind of shape he was in after Chun had worked him over.
The smoke had burned down almost to Garen's fingers by the time Chun found him in the yard. He flung himself down next to Garen and leaned over and made a show of wiping the toes of his boots off with a rag. "What the fuck's wrong with you, Muln," he subvocalized as he leaned over. "Shape up. You've got the CO suspicious now. She'll reassign your ass if she thinks you can't handle this, and we need to stay together until they move Kenobi." Bruck sat up again. "Tough little bastard," he said aloud. "I think they're going to have to bring somebody in for him. He barely even squeaked."
"Surprising, considering it was you working him over, Chun," Garen retorted. "I know how much you like your work."
"Yeah, I do," Chun replied, grinning.
"You make me sick," Garen muttered and walked away.
Bruck took a couple of deep calming breaths and forced himself to unclench his fists. I may kill him before this mission is over, or make sure he becomes collateral damage, he thought. The image of "accidentally" shoving Garen into the line of fire without his saber was deeply appealing. Muln was obviously having a very hard time separating Padawan Chun the mission leader from "Corporal Chun," his persona for this mission.
Corporal Chun did like his work—a lot, in fact. Corporal Chun was a good soldier who thought the insurgents were ungrateful, troublemaking little bastards, and that his army's invasion of this backward part of the world was right and just. He loved his world, and his own part of it especially, and the people there who were paying him to do this duty. Padawan Chun, however, found even faking torture an odious duty, though he recognized the need to do it. He was just as good at it as Corporal Chun—probably better, in fact—but there was nothing enjoyable about it.
He'd come to terms with that some time ago, thanks to the help of the man he'd just been ordered to kick the shit out of. He'd hurt Ben more than he liked using the stun stick, though it had been dialed as low as possible, but everything else had been a very finely choreographed fake. A quick check along their faint but still useful lover's bond let him know Ben was okay. Unlike Muln, they both had a clear idea of what their duty involved and knew there was nothing personal in it. Garen seemed to be making everything about this mission personal.
Bruck took another deep breath, realizing it was up to him to make sure all of this stayed on a professional level, whether Muln liked it or not. If there were personal emotions to untangle as a result, they'd deal with it later—in the salles at home, preferably. Right now, the two paramount goals were gathering evidence and keeping Ben as safe as possible. He hoped they weren't mutually incompatible.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glad that's over, he thought, as he looked around his new cell. The intake medical exam he'd gotten after Bruck had finished with him had been brutal and reminded him of nothing so much as the examination he'd endured from a slaver some years ago as Qui-Gon's padawan, right down to the gloved fingers shoved up his ass. He'd been stripped, poked, prodded, thumped, stuck, cavity searched—a deeply humiliating act for someone of the ethnicity he was pretending to be—numbered, and issued a set of flimsy drawstring pants and a thin shirt but no underwear or shoes, then shoved in here after being roughed up a bit more on the way. But only after he'd managed to knee the guy who'd done the rectal exam.
Intractable. They were calling him that already, which was good for purposes of the mission, but bad for his personal prospects.
They'd locked him in a narrow cell, cramped and hot, which was a change from the usual cramped and dank, but no less unpleasant. It was singularly old-fashioned as well, constructed of stone like the rest of the building, and fitted with metal bars rather than a force field. There was no bunk and the cell stank from the rudimentary nature of the sanitary facilities. And there was, of course, no privacy. The light inside was blinding and he knew it was not going to be shut off to allow him to sleep. That was the last thing they wanted him to do.
They'd taken his binders off, which was a relief, but left him no water or food. He eased himself down onto his haunches gingerly in the posture habitually adopted by the people he was impersonating. It pulled his hamstrings in a way it wouldn't have if he'd been doing it all his life, but the stiff awkwardness could easily be written off as pain from his treatment now. The stun stick had hurt like hell, though it was harmless, dialed to its lowest setting as he knew it was. Bruck had made sure they were quick and not in sensitive spots. But the pain had slowed him down a little and one of the kicks had connected with his kidney more solidly than Bruck intended. Even so, the damage was superficial, which made it easier to play the part of intractable, non-cooperative prisoner.
Wincing, he settled into a more comfortable posture, back against the wall, knees drawn up, and rested his head on his crossed arms. Just as he might have been drifting into sleep, an ear-splitting whine filled the cell, jolting him into alertness again. It went on just long enough to make him tense up. He'd been waiting for something like that and was not surprised by it, but it was no less unpleasant for his suspicion that it was coming. It would probably go on all night, too. Well, there were ways around that. It wouldn't do to let them wear him down too early.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paired with another guard, Bruck made the scheduled tour of the cells before the night's lockdown. This included a stroll past the interrogation wing, where he and his partner were diverted from their rounds by a man in civilian clothes who flashed ID at them and waved them down the hall to one of the interrogation rooms. Bruck suppressed the grim satisfaction that filled him at finding someone out of uniform. They'd expected it, but it wasn't a good sign. In this instance, he would rather have been wrong.
The sight of the body made him wish he was.
"Oh, shit," his partner muttered.
"Yeah," Bruck agreed. "What the hell—"
"Not your problem, soldiers. Just take it down and move it out to the meat wagon waiting at the loading dock."
Bruck did as he was told, fetching a stretcher, holding the body still as his partner unlocked the manacles that kept it chained to the top of the wall, the toes barely touching the floor. The rest of the body hadn't stiffened yet but the legs felt strangely rigid beneath the cloth encasing them. There were bruises on the man's face and his hands were grossly swollen from the manacles. Blood had trickled down his wrists and crusted on his arms.
Bruck took the body's full weight when the prisoner was free and laid the man gently on the floor, though it didn't much matter now. His partner rolled the body onto the stretcher with his foot.
"Hey, easy," Bruck protested.
"He's dead, Chun."
"And death deserves a little respect."
"It's just a sand-eater."
"You know," Bruck, said in a quiet voice, arranging the limbs into a semblance of dignity and covering the body with the sheet he'd fetched, "I've told you I don't much like that term. Don't use it around me again. Get your end, there," he finished, kneeling to hoist the head of the stretcher. "And take some care."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He hadn't slept much in the last day or so. Less than he would have liked, but more than the average prisoner would. The deprivation had continued longer than it should have, by accepted practices. There was a lot that went on here that wasn't "accepted practice," from what he'd seen. There hadn't been any food or water in the interval, either, and that was also a contravention. Deep meditation was a useful skill, but it didn't substitute for sleep or hydration or nourishment in the long run.
He was meditating when the cell door clanged open and he was rushed by two enormous soldiers who picked him up by the arms, slammed him against the wall and pinned him, then manacled his arms over his head and pulled a black, stifling, tight-fitting cloth bag down over his head. He heard growling and snarling, reached out with the Force and sensed a dim but trained animal intelligence leashed and directed by the ones who held it. The animal shoved its nose into his groin, still growling, making him flinch involuntarily. Laughter followed and the beast nosed him a little harder, snarling now. It was only a command away from a maiming bite, but there was no sense in hurting something that was only obeying its trainers.
He lashed out with a Force-aimed kick and caught the creature's handler in the elbow with his heel, heard a sharp crack of bone and a human howl accompanied by teeth sinking into his own leg. Down! Off! he pushed into the creature's mind, and it backed away, confused and whining, but not before it had punctured skin and muscle at his shin. Blood quickly soaked the leg of his loose trousers and trickled down his ankle. Three hard blows fell on the side of his other leg, just above his knee. A couple more of those, he knew, and he'd be crippled, possibly permanently.
His guards were screaming at him, right up in his face through the hood. One ripped it off again and kept screaming at him in one of the local planetary dialects he didn't know, apparently expecting some sort of an answer he couldn't give even if he'd been inclined to. He spit at the man and was punched in the face for it. He felt his nose shatter and his mouth fill with blood. The blow blinded him instantly and stunned him enough that he stopped struggling. The hood went down over his head again, leaving him blind and with nowhere to spit out the blood in his mouth.
Then they left him alone.
He swallowed, gagging on his own blood, and tried to concentrate on getting the bleeding stopped. It was hard to do while he was struggling to breathe through the stifling, blood-soaked cloth of the hood, but eventually his mouth stopped filling. The pain was a steady throb through his face and his legs and his arms were numb.
Numb, he thought dully, barely able to think through the pain in his face. Shields, he thought, checking them frantically. They'd slipped when he'd been stunned and Qui would be feeling this too, and worrying about him. He shored them up and tried to center himself again to meditate, hoping Qui-Gon hadn't felt too much of the beating. Hoping there wouldn't be much more to come.
Qui-Gon stopped in mid-sentence, one hand flying to pinch the bridge of his nose at the sudden flare of pain. It blinded him momentarily until he could strengthen his own shields, and he knew immediately what it was from his own previous experience. They'd found him, then, and it had begun.
He looked up at his students, who were watching him quizzically, found his place in his lecture notes, and went on. There was nothing else to be done.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was shivering, still fighting off shock when they came in again a while later and unshackled him. They brought him to another room with a chair and a table where there was a medic, and they sat him in a chair, binding his arms behind him. The medic looked him over, set his nose, cleaned and stitched—stitched!—the bite wounds, all without anesthetic. No bacta wasted on prisoners, apparently.
"You could die in those shackles," the medic told him in a heavily accented version of the language he'd learned.
"I could be killed in them, you mean," Obi-Wan retorted.
"Have it your way," one of his guards said, holding him down in the chair while two more taped his mouth shut and blindfolded him. With his nose so swollen and mouth taped shut, it was hard to breathe and he did his best to regulate it. Then they hauled him out of the chair and pushed him down across the table, two of them holding him down. A third smacked his head into it, hard, and held it there. Someone else pulled down his already bloodstained trousers.
Even though he knew what was coming it was still deeply unpleasant. The baton was hard and thick and unlubed and it hurt like hell. After they fucked him with it, they took it out and beat him with it.
Afterwards, they tore off the tape, shackled him to the wall again with his pants still around his ankles, pulled the hood over his head without bothering to remove the blindfold. When he asked for water, they laughed and soaked the hood with it. Afterwards, they shocked him with stun sticks until his muscles wouldn't stop seizing and he couldn't breathe. Only then did they ask him unanswerable questions.
Tough little bastard, he heard one of them say later, when he could exhale without screaming. We'll have to ship him out.
Maybe he's innocent.
Don't be stupid. Why would he fight then?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"We need to go now, Muln. He's not here, I'm telling you. We're losing time looking for him." Bruck wasn't sure how long it had been since they'd lost the signal on Kenobi's tracking implant. The last he'd checked it had been before going to bed. There'd been nothing when he'd gotten up six hours later. Muln's receiver had lost it as well. He'd gone off to search while Bruck centered himself and tried to sense Kenobi's presence in the compound. He'd been able to earlier, especially once they'd started hurting him, but their bond was tenuous at best and his own sense of it had never been strong. It had always manifested as a warm presence that grew more intense with proximity. He knew Kenobi was still alive, but was pretty certain he was nowhere nearby.
"You can't know where he is. We need to search, first."
"Look, this isn't just a bunch of patriotic amateur quiz masters getting their rocks off here. I helped dispose of a body three days ago, and it wasn't pretty; it was an Agency interrogator's work if I ever saw it. We're not getting any signal from Ben's tracker, and I know he's not here. I know it, you don't, and I'm the mission leader."
"Oh, fuck you and your mission leader crap, Chun. You're practically collaborating with these people," Muln hissed. "And fuck your woo-woo bond shit, too. I don't know what you think you've got going with Kenobi, but I don't believe it can tell you where he is. Even a training bond can't do that. I'm going on with the search. If he's not here, then I'll leave. Not before."
Seething, Bruck grabbed a handful of Garen's uniform and slammed him against the stone wall. "You listen to me, dumbshit. We'll search because I'm not leaving you here alone. But if anything happens to him because you delayed us, I'll—" Later, later. Kick his ass later, Bruck told himself, making himself back off. They had to stay together and if Muln wasn't moving until he'd searched the compound, then it would go faster with two. He shoved Muln away and went down another corridor to examine the cells.
Hours passed and they found nothing but more evidence of abuse, which they documented as they went. The search was made more difficult by several factors: the size of the compound, their need for stealth, and the fact that they were both supposed to be on duty and were presumed AWOL. Sneaking out was even harder due to heightened security triggered by their apparent desertion. They managed to whammy their way out the gate and melt into the dark city streets, but they were full of patrols and it took them another three hours to make their way to the rendevous point and set up their pick-up signal, and another five hours before Clee and Andreth could pick them up without being noticed. By the time they were aboard ship in a secure location again, almost a full rotation had gone by. There was no telling where Kenobi'd been taken by now.
Andreth leaned against the bulkhead and watched his padawan. This was something far out of his own league, as well, but Bruck had absorbed a great deal from Padawan Kasir in the time they'd spent together, pranks notwithstanding. Even that didn't seem to be enough. As it was, he didn't hold out much hope of finding Kenobi still in one piece. Muln's stubbornness had cost them a good deal of time.
"Shit, I wish Isa were here. She's a way better cracker than I am," Bruck muttered, getting up from the systems console in frustration. He'd gotten into the secure military net, thanks to the security chip he'd palmed from a whammied officer on their way out, but getting into the transfer orders was proving to be a problem. The sector was heavily encrypted and Bruck knew he just wasn't creative or patient enough to do this. What would Isa do? he asked himself, pacing. He'd watched her often enough, cracking her way through the Temple's systems for fun and profit, leaving no trace of her presence, and she'd been happy to share her knowledge. But she was one of the best, with a frighteningly logical programmer's mind and an intuitive sense of the hardware that he didn't have. She'd tracked Garen's little break-in to her own system in no time at all—
"You're wasting time, Chun," Garen growled. Seeing Bruck's shoulders tighten, Clee started to pull her padawan away from Bruck and into the galley.
Bruck turned on him, a fevered light in his eyes. "Garen, I can't do this without your help. I'm no cracker. Not like you and Isa. You need to be doing this, not me."
"Move it, then," Garen said, standing up from the jumpseat from which he'd been watching.
Without a word of protest, Bruck did. If it meant they'd find Ben faster, he'd kiss Muln's hairy ass twice a day for the rest of his life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It wasn't bad, not really. Not yet. Not like his pain trials. Not like the nanites or the shock stick that had been shoved up his ass, then. These shocks had been short and sharp, momentarily excruciating. The toothed clips were almost, but not quite, erotic.
It would have been a good lie if he'd known Bruck and Garen were going to find him, but he'd already lost hope of that. He'd been in here too long for that to be the case. They should have extracted him days ago. He wondered what was holding them up.
At least he'd gotten a bit of physical rest on the way out, even if it was in a sensory deprivation chamber. That had actually made the meditation easier, if they'd only known. His old wounds were healing nicely now, though his nose still hurt and was too swollen to breathe through.
Once he'd arrived in this new place, which was somewhere offworld as far as he could tell, his captors had slashed his clothing from him with knives, splayed him out on the wall with non-conductive binders, and fastened the little sawtoothed clips and their trailing wires to his nipples and scrotum, to his foreskin, his fingers and toes. Then they'd put another black, stifling hood over his head and left him there without doing anything for hours, or maybe it was days. He couldn't tell now. He'd slept and meditated, pushing the discomfort away, hoarding his strength, releasing the fear they intended to break him with.
He could sense that his serene demeanor frustrated his interrogators, though they didn't show it. Instead, they turned on the juice.
By this time, he'd settled into saying nothing coherent, but allowed himself to react freely to the pain as he channeled it into the Force. That frustrated them more. The shocks went on for some time more, accompanied by questions, until it became clear this prisoner wasn't going to cooperate, despite the smell of burned flesh in the air. Instead, they put the hood back over his head again and left him hanging.
It was harder to meditate let alone sleep through the pain now, but he managed it somehow out of sheer exhaustion. He knew it would only get worse and he wondered exactly how long he could hold out, if he should even bother. Were Bruck and Garen still searching for him or had they given him up for dead? Would it be worth it to reveal he was a Jedi? He suspected that the moment he did that, they'd kill him. Perhaps it was just better to attempt an escape before he was too weak and injured to do it. He suspected it was already too late for that.
When his new interrogator arrived, he knew he'd missed his chance. She was everything his previous interrogators had not been: icy, detached, business-like. Obi-Wan sensed an aloof coldness about her that spoke of extensive and specialized training. She was also just a little Force sensitive—not enough to make her useful to the Jedi, or probably to even realize herself that she had the ability, but enough to sharpen what she would think of as intuition and gut feelings.
She peeled off his hood, stepped back and looked him up and down appraisingly, in a way designed to make him feel like an object rather than a person. It was singularly unsuccessful, almost laughable, after his previous experiences as a padawan. This time, he'd been chained hand and foot from the ceiling in the middle of the room, and she walked around him slowly, observing, cataloging. His skin prickled as she stopped behind him. After a moment, she stepped up and ran her hands through his hair and beard. It wasn't a sensual gesture; she was obviously looking for something. It was hard not to react when her fingers slid behind his left ear, over the almost unnoticeable bump there. A moment later, she pressed something to the skin over it and he jerked at the sharp pain. Blood trickled down his neck. She'd found the tracer.
He felt her fingers on his skin, which was still darkened, tracing the Old Danjii characters for serenity and passion between his shoulder blades and Qui-Gon's monogram nestled above his crack. She moved up behind him and pressed herself against him, her hands coming around him and gliding over his hips and between his thighs as she rubbed herself against him. "These are very sexy," she murmured in his ear, drawing her nails down his chest, over his raw nipples. "What do they mean?"
He said nothing, gave her no reaction at all, not even a physical one, that she could use, and after a while, she stepped back and completed her circuit around him. They eyed each other, Obi-Wan blinking in the bright lights after being under the hood, both sensing a formidable adversary. He tried pushing into her mind but couldn't gather the strength or concentration to do it without her knowing.
"You're not what you'd like us to think you are, are you?" she said, finally.
Something in her tone made him very afraid.
Qui-Gon sat in their bed in the deep night, covers around his waist, hugging his knees and shuddering as Obi-Wan's pain flooded the bond. It had woken him earlier, not long ago, though it felt like hours. At first it had been a slow accumulation of growing aches, spreading and growing sharper by the moment. Now it was constant pain. He was cold, his hands hurt—a sharp throbbing ruled by his pulse—his chest and abdomen ached with each breath from what had clearly been a beating. His face still ached in a pattern radiating out from his nose. Above all, his hands hurthurthurt. Qui-Gon found himself cradling his own together, rocking with the pain.
Obi-Wan was trying to shield in the middle of all of it, trying so hard not to pass along what he was feeling., thinking first of his lover and not himself. Qui-Gon's heart ached for him at the same time love for and pride in this remarkable man filled him. He sent as much comfort as he could back along the bond, but it was like swimming against the tide, the sensation of pain was so strong. Qui-Gon wished he better understood what Obi-Wan had done for him on Naboo, so he could duplicate it now. He thought, impossibly, that he could hear Obi-Wan screaming. Maybe he was, himself.
It was the door chime, another voice calling him. He looked up into Depa's warm brown eyes, saw concern and pity there.
Without a word, she sat on the bed next to him, put her arm around his waist and held him. He leaned into her small body, shivering, Obi-Wan still screaming in his head. His hands were on fire now, as though they were being dipped in acid. He tried to rub the pain away. He could hear himself making small noises, echoing Obi-Wan's screams. Terror flooded the bond suddenly and there was no shielding from either it or the sudden agony crushing the bones in his hands. He heard himself cry out.
There were other hands on him now, not just Depa's. He recognized Ayana's voice above the cacophony but couldn't make out her words. She was kneeling beside him, her hands wrapped around his, and there was Isa, no longer Ayana's shy little padawan but a young woman, kneeling in front of him, stroking his temples with gentle hands. He felt himself eased back onto the bed, every muscle protesting. A cool, slim hand rested on his forehead for a moment. Sleep; the command pushed hard into his mind, overwhelming his defenses and drowning out the screams that had grown hoarse, leaving oblivion behind, and silence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"It's time, Bruck," Andreth's voice drew him out of an exhausted sleep into the near-instant wakefulness that was the norm on missions.
"Ben," he murmured, the name coming out of him almost as reflex.
"Nothing new," his master told him. "We're dropping into lunar orbit shortly. Time to get ready."
Bruck hauled himself out of his bunk, not feeling at all rested after the marathon session they'd spent with the ship's computer. In the end, it had been intuition, or a nudge from the Force, or blind, stupid luck that had gotten Muln into the transfers list after nearly another rotation's worth of fruitless cracking tricks. They'd review it later to figure out exactly what he'd done, but for now the only thing that interested him was getting Kenobi out of the hell-hole he'd been taken to.
If he was still alive.
The station he was being held in was technically outside Republic territory in the Corporate Sector and the Jedi had no jurisdiction here. Neither did the Agency, but they were apparently maintaining a base here. The location meant they'd never be able to prove Agency complicity, but they had plenty of evidence against the Isani government. This would only clinch it.
Bruck just hoped the cost wouldn't be Ben's life.
Muln got them into the base, too. Bruck had sent him off to reconnoiter, not feeling fresh enough himself to do it and one thing Muln was good for was observation. He had a sharp eye for weak spots and returned, as Bruck hoped he would, with a plan for getting them inside. He had, in fact, already secured the uniforms to do it in, by ambushing a couple of the station's guards, trussing them in monofilament, and locking them up securely in an out-of-the-way storage shed. The uniforms weren't the best fit, but they'd do. Or as Clee said, "they'll pass in the dark with a push and a mind whammy."
Getting in and getting Kenobi out turned out to be the easy part. They sauntered through the checkpoints with their badly fitting uniforms and fake IDs and generous Force suggestions that nothing was out of the ordinary and they were just a couple of regulars on leave returning to base. Bruck accessed the prisoner locations when they were well inside the installation by "suggesting" to one of the guards that it was information he needed. Kenobi's cell turned out to not even be in the maximum security wing. Once they were inside, it was clear why.
Kenobi was a naked, whimpering ball in a back corner of the cell, curled up around himself with his arms tucked against his chest. It wasn't hard to see the bruises and blood and charred skin in the bright light flooding the room. Chun swore feelingly if quietly and knelt beside him. Garen stood near the door, covering it as though they really were here for a prisoner transfer and not a breakout.
"Ben, it's Bruck," Chun murmured. "We're going to get you out of here. Just take it easy. I'm going to get this around—Little Gods—what—what'd they do to your hands? Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Fuck them, fucking bastards," Chun railed in an incongruously quiet voice, all the while wrapping Kenobi up in a thermal sheet. The movement, despite Chun's care, made Kenobi cry out and thrash weakly. Chun fumbled in his belt pouch for a sedative patch and smoothed it over the big vein in Kenobi's neck. After a moment, the whimpering and movement stopped.
"You take him. I'll cover our asses," Chun barked. "We have to get him out of here. Now."
Clearly, manual labor and guarding was all Garen was good for on this mission in Chun's mind, but he recognized this was no place to argue. He slung Kenobi over his shoulder as gently as he could and headed down the hall, one hand on his blaster.
Thanks to their uniforms, no one challenged them until they reached the main gate in the transport truck. Garen drove, Chun riding shotgun, with Kenobi bundled in the back, loosely bound in the thermal sheet and currently unconscious, though he drifted in and out.
"Prisoner transfer," Chun told the guard who stopped them.
"We didn't get any notification,"
"You don't need any notification," Garen said quietly, pushing the Force suggestion into his mind. He watched with smug satisfaction as the guard's eyes glazed over slightly.
"I don't need any notification," he murmured.
"We're good to go."
"You're good to go." The guard waved them through, giving the clear sign to the guard at the barrier. The field shimmered off and Muln drove them through. Chun was tense as a wire beside him, clearly expecting trouble even as they put distance between themselves and the base. Frankly, he did too; it had been too easy. "We're out, Andreth," Chun told his com several klicks down the road. "ETA about 20 minutes. Have the med droid standing by."
"Acknowledged. Good job, you two," Master Rallin's voice came back tinny but pleased. "We're ready to lift as soon as you're aboard. How is Knight Kenobi?"
"Shocky and not doing well. He's—shit, we've got heat, Master. Later."
"I see them," Garen said, and swerved the transport, pushing the accelerator hard just as a blaster shot that would have struck them whizzed by.
Bruck's lightsaber seemed to materialize out of nowhere and Garen wondered briefly where he'd been hiding it.
"No sabers," Garen reminded him. "We're in Corporate Sector territory."
"Fuck that," Bruck snapped. "So's the Agency and this is their fault. Let them deal with the diplomacy."
In seconds, there was a hole in the roof of the cab and Bruck was standing on the seat, picking off their pursuers with their own blaster fire from an angle they didn't expect. Two were down before they knew what hit them. One gunned his speederbike up beside Garen's window and found himself facing a blaster aimed over Garen's elbow while he drove with the other hand; his pursuer abruptly let his speed drop. A second later, Bruck picked him off too. That bought them a little breathing time.
"Corporate Sector security," Garen observed as he flipped on their finder, "not Agency." He took a sudden sharp turn down an alleyway, nearly throwing Bruck, who cursed but managed to hang on as they careened through several tiny streets barely wide enough for their transport to squeeze through. Bruck remained standing on the seat, scanning for pursuers. It wasn't long before another group found them.
"Hang on!" Garen shouted, juicing it as two vehicles started to block the entrance to the alleyway up ahead. They shot forward, glancing off one speeder and flipping another around entirely. The only reason their own stayed upright was Garen's skill. What all the maneuvers were doing to Kenobi in the back didn't bear thinking about, though they'd secured him as much as possible.
"Nice job, Muln," Chun panted.
Garen shot him a look, not sure if he was being sarcastic or not, decided he was sincere. "Thanks," he replied with a brief smile. No time to get cocky. They were still being pursued and nowhere near home free yet.
Moments later, another group on speederbikes swung in behind them, firing on them occasionally but mostly just hanging back and following. "They can guess where we're heading by now. They're going to head us off at the port, try and block us in," Garen said.
"Yeah. Can you blast us through?"
"We'll have to wait and see. We've only got light arms and this transport isn't heavily armored enough to go through a blast door."
The rest of the short trip passed in silence. Fortunately, when the port entrance hove into sight, there was no blast door blocking their way, merely vehicles and the plasteel gates.
"Can you flip the speeder on the left out of the way?"
Bruck wasn't sure he could. "`Do or do not,' as Master Yoda says."
"Right," Garen said, heading straight for the speeder on the right. "Flip the one on the left and get down low as you can when I say so."
"Got it."
Bruck focused all his will on the left-hand speeder, which began to rock but showed no signs of flipping over and out of their way.
"Move it, Chun!" Garen bellowed.
"You're heading for the wrong one!"
"You do the flipping, I'll do the driving!"
Oh man, I've never been good at this. Do, or— Bruck reached out with both hands in front of him, as though picking up the speeder's front end from fifteen meters away, and heaved, grunting. The vehicle pinwheeled away and at the last impossible moment, Muln swerved them into the gap it created while several shoulder-fired ion cannon blasts obliterated the right-hand vehicle and blew a jagged hole in the plasteel gate beyond it.
"Down!" Muln roared, heading straight for the hole. Bruck was pretty sure they weren't going to fit. Garen was too.
They screamed through the hole, the remaining plasteel of the gate shearing off the top of the transport's cab from the windshield up, as well as the top of the cargo box, peeling it like the top of a can and jerking the transport to a spinning stop just inside. Within seconds, Muln was out of the front and slinging Kenobi over his shoulder once again. Bruck, still a little stunned and wobbly from the impact, followed a few seconds later. More Corporate Sector security boiled through the hole after them.
"Go!" Bruck yelled, igniting his saber and charging the squadron, who backed up momentarily in surprise.
It gave Muln a head start with his burden—not much of one, but enough to count, Bruck hoped. In a moment, he was in among their pursuers, lightsaber like a scythe, too close for them to shoot without catching each other in the crossfire, which was just what he'd intended. Poor bastards never really had a chance, he thought with regret.
Then reinforcements arrived, pushing through the gates that were now rolling back. Bruck turned and ran.
In a few moments, he'd caught up to Garen and Kenobi. With the layout of the port and its hangars, it wasn't possible to put on any Force speed except in short bursts, but it put them enough in the lead that Bruck could at least watch their back now. Their own hangar wasn't too far inside the perimeter and they managed to find it before security could cut them off again. Their ship was sitting on the landing apron with the ramp down, hot and ready to lift. Garen Force-sprinted the last hundred meters, and charged into the ship.
Chun backed up the ramp behind them, saber deflecting blaster shots in a blur of yellow until the ramp rose under his feet. He ducked and slid like a surfer down the last couple of meters into the ship, rebounded off a bulkhead with a harsh grunt, and flung himself into a jumpseat even as Garen headed for the medbay.
Kenobi was hyperventilating and writhing weakly in pain by the time Garen put him on the pallet. He had just enough time to do that, pull the safety netting over him and grab a handhold himself as the ship shuddered beneath him in liftoff. He held on for dear life as they did a flatly illegal and nearly vertical five-g climb out of the atmosphere while executing evasive maneuvers and taking a few shuddering hits on their reinforced shields. That had to be his master at the controls, he thought with grim pleasure. Nobody handled a ship the way Clee did.
Unaffected by the ship's wildly shifting orientation, the med droid went about its business. Garen watched in horror as it lifted one of Kenobi's arms. He understood now why Bruck had been cursing. The sight made him far queasier than the rough ride did. From wrist to fingertips, Kenobi's hand was nothing but a raw piece of meat. The skin was gone, his hand literally degloved, nailbeds bare and oozing, the whole of it crushed as well as flayed. The other, he saw, was equally mangled. The rest of him was a mass of bruises and burns, his nose broken, eyes swollen nearly shut. He was barely conscious, still breathing raggedly and moaning.
The jump alarm went off and Garen dove for a seat to strap himself into. Moments later, they were in hyperspace, safe on their way to Coruscant. Boot heels immediately sounded on the deckplates in a quick tattoo as Chun appeared in the medbay. Ignoring Garen, he went straight for Kenobi's side, just managing to stay out of the droid's way. Bruck's master appeared a few moments later. Garen, unable to bear it any longer, unstrapped himself and went forward to the cockpit.
As he suspected, the co-pilot's seat was empty and his master was at the controls. Garen threw himself into the empty chair and sank his head into his hands.
"Gods I'm glad that's over," he muttered.
"How's Kenobi?" Clee asked.
"Not good." He described the injuries, still feeling queasy at the memory. His master closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. "I think we got him out just in time," Garen finished.
"It sounds like it. At least we have incontrovertible evidence."
"If the shock doesn't kill him first."
"Unlikely, at this point," Clee replied. "And we have testimony from you and Padawan Chun."
"Two spies who participated in the atrocities. Kenobi's more credible."
Master Rhara reached across and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Don't devalue what you've done, Garen. You did well."
"Thank you, Master," Garen murmured, though he couldn't shake the feeling that something had gone wrong, somehow.
Andreth gently maneuvered his padawan away from the sickbay pallet to get him out of the droid's path. Bruck hissed and shied from his touch, and that was the first either of them noticed he'd been injured. Bruck was amazed he hadn't felt anything before this. There was a hole burned in his ill fitting clothing and the blaster bolt had gone right through his upper arm. The moment he recognized that, the wound started to hurt. That almost made him laugh. It also made him a little shaky with delayed shock. Andreth steered him to a seat and eased him into it, then set about examining the wound.
"It doesn't appear to have hit the bone," he noted after cutting away the sleeve, "or a significant blood vessel. How much pain are you in, Padawan?"
"A bit. It's not bad. I can still move it." In truth, it had started to throb nauseatingly, but he suspected that was due more to adrenalin metabolites than pain and he barely paid attention while his master cleaned and packed the wound with bacta then bound it up and immobilized his arm. His gaze was fixed instead on Ben, the bruises covering him, the suppurating burns in horrible places, the other injuries. The droid had put him out and intubated him, and Bruck found that limp, immobile helplessness all the more frightening for the mass of injuries. Quickly and efficiently, the droid cleaned and sealed and sprayed and wrapped until there was very little of Ben's skin showing anywhere, including his face. What did show was livid with bruises. His hands were simply undifferentiated lumps of bacta bandage at the ends of his arms.
"He shouldn't have been hurt this bad," Bruck muttered through gritted teeth. "If we'd gotten him out earlier—"
"And what have you learned from that, Padawan?" Bruck's master asked in a mild tone.
"Never to work with Garen Muln again," Bruck snorted.
"Hmmpf, you already knew that," Rallin retorted. "That's not new."
Bruck thought about the way the mission had gone, about the choices he'd made. "I don't know. I could have left Muln, instead of trying to keep the team together. I knew he was wrong. It felt just as wrong to split up, though."
"Do you think that was a good decision in retrospect?"
"I wouldn't have sliced that code in time. It probably would have been harder to get Ben out alone too. I'd have been less conspicuous, but it would have been tougher to manage the pursuit, too, and I think that was almost inevitable."
"I agree," Rallin said, "given how quickly it materialized. So?"
"I don't know that I could have done anything differently, given the circumstances. If I'd left Garen behind, he might have been captured, I might have failed to get Ben out, and I might be dead or captured, too. Keeping the team together seems the only logical decision. If only Garen would have cooperated."
"Agreed. But you're not responsible for Padawan Muln's decisions or actions."
"But I was—"
"Mission leader, yes. A leader of equals. You can only lead those who accept your authority. Padawan Muln didn't, though that was part of his assignment." Rallin patted his leg. "Despite that, you gathered a great deal of evidence and got all your teammates out safely. You did very well, Bruck."
"Thanks, Master," he murmured, thinking, I'd still feel a lot better about this mission if Ben were in better shape.
Rallin held out a hand with a pill in it. "Take this and go get some rest. You deserve it. I'll keep an eye on Obi-Wan for you."
The adrenalin had flushed out of his system and Bruck felt every bit as tired and ill as he should have. The wound was still throbbing, though slightly less for the local anesthetic. "I will. I just want to get some food first."
"I'll bring some in to you. Go lie down."
Bruck smiled. "Thanks, Master. It's not very often I get pampered by you."
"Don't get too used to it," the Lannik threw over his shoulder as he headed for the galley.
"With you?" Bruck riposted with a weary grin. "Not likely."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Qui-Gon met them at the landing pad, of course. They'd gotten med-evac landing clearance and there was no way Obi-Wan's former master and long-time lover was going to miss meeting them.
Bruck came down the ramp first, arm in a sling, and went straight for Qui-Gon. Garen slunk past unnoticed as the healers made their way up the ramp and into the ship. Bruck wanted to plant a boot up his ass but refrained more for the sake of his own dignity than any true regard for Garen's rectum.
"He's going to be okay, Qui-Gon," were the first words out of Bruck's mouth. "But I suppose you know it wasn't good. You look like bantha droppings yourself." The older master was grey and gaunt and hollow-eyed, shoulders hunched as though he were in pain himself. Bruck thought he probably was.
"How bad is it?" he said hoarsely. "What have they done to his hands?"
"His hands." Bruck repeated, wondering where to start. "His hands are—"
But Qui-Gon wasn't listening suddenly. He was striding over to Obi-Wan's side instead, walking beside the pallet being guided down the ramp by the healers. Bruck followed. Seeing them together, Bruck wasn't sure which one of them looked worse. Qui-Gon drew aside the thermal sheet even as they were moving away, a look of horror coalescing on his face. For a moment, Bruck wasn't sure what he would do. He looked as though he wanted to repeat the injuries on the perpetrators, and then that passed, replaced by anguish. Bruck took his arm gently and steered him to the Healers Halls, both of them silent, Qui-Gon walking alarmingly like an old man.
The ship's droid had done a thorough job, but it was still limited in its resources. What remained to be done, the healers told them, was the work on Kenobi's hands, which would involve implanting bone matrices where necessary and fusing everything that wasn't too badly broken. Bruck hoped the joints and knuckles weren't irreparably damaged. That would leave Ben facing multiple surgeries, therapy, and possible permanent crippling.
Qui-Gon, who was no doubt brooding about the same thing while Bruck's injury was being re-examined, stood a little straighter to meet the healer who joined them eventually.
"I'm Healer Valerin. Master Jinn, Knight Chun, is it?"
"Padawan," Bruck corrected. Valerin nodded.
"Knight Kenobi, you'll be glad to know, will be fine, though it's early to say much about his hands yet. He'll be in the bacta overnight, so I would suggest some rest for you, Master Jinn. And I would suggest you take the sedatives I gave you as well. There's no reason not to, now."
Uncharacteristically, Qui-Gon not only didn't argue, but actually agreed. And for the first time, the pain on his face seemed to ease. He asked a few questions about Obi-Wan's injuries, thanked the healers and Bruck, bowed, and left. Bruck stared after him in astonishment. He'd never known Qui-Gon to leave Obi-Wan unattended in the Halls.
"He could feel it, you see," Valerin said quietly, when Bruck turned a puzzled look in his direction. "Through their bond. And he wouldn't take any sedatives. I'm sure he's exhausted by now. It's a wonder he can stand up."
"I see," Bruck replied, his disgust with Garen returning full-force. He stayed on until Obi-Wan was suspended limply in the bacta tank, various lines snaking from him. By that time, he had decided he had a few things to say to Garen Muln.
Ayana intercepted Qui-Gon just outside the Halls. Obviously, she'd been lying in wait for him, but he was too exhausted to waste the effort to chide her. And if he were honest with himself, he had to admit he was grateful for her company. She'd been with him almost continuously since that awful night, lending both physical and emotional support. He'd continued to experience Obi-Wan's pain until Bruck and Garen had retrieved him from his cell and drugged him senseless; Ayana and Isa had done their best to help him manage it, but it had been almost a ten of difficult days and nights. Qui-Gon doubted he would have been able to cope with it on his own. Now, without slowing, she slid her arm through his and continued down the corridor with him, matching his long if tired stride.
"You look better already, Master. How's Obi-Wan?"
"Unconscious, in the bacta, as expected," Qui-Gon growled. "Though they're decanting him in the morning, in fact. The wounds are mostly superficial, thankfully, aside from the crushed bones in his hands, some of which have been ground nearly to powder," he finished in acid tones.
Ayana winced. "That explains the look of rabid fury in your eye. And it seems rather extreme tactics for your average interrogators."
"Oh, I think there was nothing average about this lot. The previous reports suspected that at least some of them were Agency employees, and I don't doubt it now."
"No, it wouldn't exactly be surprising, would it, with the new free rein they've been given by Chancellor Palpatine."
Qui-Gon said nothing. The fear that had been gnawing at him since he'd woken to Obi-Wan's pain was gone now, and the anger was fading with it. In its place was mere exhaustion, brought on by days of shared suffering, and disgust that anyone would sanction any acts that caused suffering of that magnitude—or even think it necessary or useful. He stumbled a little and Ayana caught him without seeming to, steering him into the lift, down the next corridor, and into his own quarters, where she divested him of robe and boots.
"Food and then sleep," she said, directing him into his favorite chair. He didn't bother arguing.
Later, he remembered consuming something hot and sustaining, but couldn't say what it was. In the morning, after the first deep and restful sleep he had had in days, he woke to find his clothing on the bench at the foot of his bed, folded more neatly than he could possibly have done himself at the time.
Lucky old man, he thought, to have two such devoted padawans.
And indeed, Ayana was just setting out breakfast for him when he emerged from the bedroom. For the first time in too long, he found he had the appetite for it.
They ate in congenial silence born of a long friendship, falling back briefly into their first roles of master and padawan as Ayana cleared up and prepared to follow him out the door.
"Thank you for being here, Ayana," he said, taking his boots from her. "Thank you for watching over your foolish old master."
The younger woman snorted. "Old, indeed," she teased. " And you're a fool for that young knight of yours, certainly. You love him quite desperately, don't you?"
"I suppose that's rather obvious even to strangers, let alone my first padawan," Qui-Gon admitted, smiling.
Ayana leaned up and pecked his cheek. "I'm glad, Qui-Gon. He's good for you. I'm glad he's going to be all right, too. But you've got to do something about your shielding. Whatever this bond is, it could do you more harm than good in the future."
"A point I cannot argue. I'll take your recommendation to talk to Saesee at the first opportunity."
"Very good. Now be off with you. I know you're frothing to go see Obi-Wan."
"I am not `frothing,' Padawan. Third Degree Masters do not `froth.'"
Ayana, who was nearly a Second Degree Master herself, just rolled her eyes and shooed him out the door ahead of her.
Watching Obi-Wan come out of a bacta tank was always one of the most difficult tasks for Qui-Gon, one he found himself doing far too frequently. The generally short time between when he was cleaned up and re-examined and reassessed and when Qui-Gon was allowed to touch him always seemed to stretch into nauseating hours, no matter how short it was in reality. For some reason, only the feel of Obi-Wan's skin beneath his fingertips could reassure him everything would be well.
This time, that wasn't necessarily so.
The healers conferred for some time behind his back while Qui-Gon made his own inspection. In the tank, Obi-Wan's skin had faded to its natural color once again and the black was rapidly growing out of his hair, so at least he looked more like himself. Most of the external injuries were now covered in new, smooth, pink skin, though the hollows around his eyes were still bruised and his nose still swollen. Unlike Qui-Gon's, it had been carefully reset so eventually there would be no evidence of the break. There was still some light bruising over his ribs, but generally he seemed to be healing well—except for his hands. Though the layers of dermis that had been peeled away were largely grown back along with the nails, it would apparently be some time before anyone could be certain the bones were healing correctly. Inevitably, this brought to Qui-Gon's mind the memory of his sister's twisted fingers curled around her cane. Seeing Obi-Wan crippled that way would be intolerable, especially if it could have been prevented.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ben was already out of the bacta and propped up a little in bed, sleeping, when Bruck returned to the healers halls. Kenobi looked pale yet, but his color was better than it had been, Bruck thought. His arms lay propped on pillows outside the covers, the hands looking like mechanical constructs on the ends of them, pierced with bracing pins connected to an exterior frame that supported the growing bone matrix inside. Qui-Gon sat in a chair beside him, reading through a data pad with a thunderous frown on his face and tapping his nose with the stylus. He looked up and smiled a welcome when Bruck stepped through the door.
"How is he?" Bruck said in a voice just above a whisper.
"The healers aren't sure about his hands yet, and it will be some days before they know anything for certain," Qui-Gon replied equally quietly. "Everything else was comparatively minor: burns and cuts, a cracked rib, and some internal and external bruising. The shocks left him a bit twitchy, but that should wear off shortly, according to the healers. In the meanwhile, they're keeping him sedated for the pain. He's high as a senator's bar bill and quite happy, at present. And Bruck—thank you."
"For what?" Bruck was genuinely surprised.
"For minimizing the damage. Others were killed in there, according to your reports."
Before he could reply, Ben woke. "Hey," he rasped, and then coughed a little. Kenobi's voice was slurred with painkillers, but he was smiling sleepily when Bruck turned around. He leaned over and kissed Ben's forehead.
"Doing okay?"
Kenobi nodded and blinked with the exaggerated movements of the massively drugged. "`M fine. Whatever zis, itsa nize high. Better'n th' blue thingies at th' club."
Bruck laughed and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. He wanted to hold one of Ben's hands but they were not only prickly with splints and pins, but colorfully bruised where the metal entered his flesh and shiny pink with new skin. He put a hand just above Ben's knee and squeezed it a little instead. "Ben, I'm s—"
"Shhhhhhuddup. Y'din hurt me. We played rougher'n that. Jes a few bruises."
"—about your hands."
"Han's?" Kenobi looked comically puzzled. " Y'din' do this."
Bruck sighed. "Maybe I should come back when you're not so dopey—though that would require you growing a brain at some point. I meant I'm sorry I didn't get to you in time. Before this happened."
"S'all right, B-Boy. Knew th' risks when I took th' job. So'd you."
"Was that, `so did you' or `sod you'?"
"Yer choice." Ben grinned goofily. Bruck couldn't help but laugh.
"Wow. You are really flying, aren't you?"
"Yep!" Kenobi crowed. "Tol' you they were good."
Bruck ruffled his hair affectionately and stood up. "Go back to sleep, you moron. You won't even remember I've been here, the state you're in. I'll come back later."
Qui-Gon followed him out to the hall. "I meant what I said, Bruck. He's in much better shape than I expected him to be, even with his hands like this. If you and Garen hadn't gotten him out as quickly as you did—"
"Yeah, I shudder to think. I just wish we hadn't lost so much time.. . ." he trailed off, lips pressed together, frown creasing his forehead.
"I read the reports. It doesn't speak well of Garen. But it does of you. I hope you know how well you did."
"Thanks, Qui-Gon. Coming from you, that really means something. Let's hope the Council agrees."
"When are you meeting with them?"
"Garen and I are due there in a couple of hours. Our masters are there now."
Qui-Gon squeezed his shoulder. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, Bruck."
Bruck was less sanguine about that himself. And what he was about to do wouldn't help.
"Hey, Muln."
It was Chun's voice, harsh and full of the same coldness he had heard during the interrogations they'd participated in. Garen let the weights down carefully and sat up as Chun approached and stopped at the foot of the bench. His arm was still immobilized, but like Garen, he'd gotten himself cleaned up, eaten, and rested in the day's rotation since they'd been back. They were due to see the Council in a few hours to give their own reports after their masters. Garen said nothing and the room, full of senior padawans and masters and knights working out as he was, fell into the same silence around them, so Bruck's voice filled it easily.
"Just a warning," he went on in a perfectly normal tone of voice. "If Kenobi ends up crippled from this mission, I'll return the favor the next time you set foot in the same salle with me. And I don't care what it costs me. Clear?"
Chun stood waiting until Garen realized he actually expected an answer. He couldn't believe Chun had the nerve to do this in such a public place. "Perfectly," he snapped.
Chun strode away as though he owned the place, not like the outcast he had been all these years. It was only then that Garen felt the weight of the watching eyes in the room on him, not on Chun as he walked away.
Slowly, others resumed their activities around him and normal noises filled the room again, though Garen didn't really hear them. He considered going back to his routine but decided he might as well get ready for their council appearance. He got up and went to the showers to wash and dress, finding the tabards and sash strangely awkward under his fingers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Thank you both for your reports," Windu said finally.
They'd met their masters coming out of the Council room, both of them uncharacteristically expressionless. It was unusual enough that masters and padawans were reporting separately, but meeting that sabaac-face on Andreth afterwards had been enough to give Bruck the chills going in.
Despite his sense of foreboding, it had gone moderately well, he thought. At least until now.
"Wait outside please, Padawan Chun. We'd like to speak to Padawan Muln."
"Yes, Master Windu. Thank you, Masters," Bruck murmured. He bowed and walked out of the room without meeting Muln's gaze, wishing he had his cloak to wrap up in. The council room always seemed cold to him, and today was no exception. He took a seat in the chamber's anteroom and went over again in his head the report they'd delivered. Each of them had written up their own and then given verbal reports, as well. Muln's reasons for searching the Isani facility sounded perfectly reasonable in his report, with no mention of his lack of cooperation. In fact, it made Bruck sound downright negligent, the more he thought about it. While Muln wasn't the golden boy Kenobi was, he was a lot higher up in the Council's good graces than Bruck. In fact, he'd been shocked when they'd appointed him mission leader instead of Muln. Garen's status and his interpretation of events, added to Bruck's very public threat this afternoon had probably made him look like an incompetent, at the very least, and a reckless hothead at worst.
What you are, he thought with resignation, is a self-destructive asshole, Chun.
As if to prove his assessment, Muln exited the council chambers and threw him a sly, barely discernible smile. The meaning was almost telepathically clear, at least to Bruck. You're screwed, Chun.
Fucking Muln, Bruck thought. One of these days, I actually will kill him. And I won't be sorry about it, either. —And that'll be the end of your career as a Jedi, you moron, he could almost hear Ben's tart retort.
"Padawan Chun?" the chamberlain called.
Chun was so screwed.
Garen threw him an almost invisible smirk as he waltzed out of the council chambers. He knew Chun caught it by the sudden smoldering fury in his eyes. Maybe now that Chun had had a little responsibility and fucked it up, the Council would decide he was a hopeless case and ship his ass out the way they should have a long time ago.
On the other hand, Garen thought he'd come out of this smelling pretty good. Okay, maybe they should have spent less time searching the prison and more time trying to get into the transfer files to find out where Kenobi'd been taken. That delay had cost them—and cost Kenobi too, there was no denying it—and Garen felt bad about that. He'd seen how it had affected Master Jinn, too, so maybe there was something to the bonds Bruck nattered on about. There was certainly something between Kenobi and Jinn. His own bond with Clee was nothing much, just enough to give them some sense of each other's emotional state and occasionally to let her goose him when he wasn't paying attention, but she hadn't had to do that in years. Basically, they hadn't had much use for their bond since Garen had become a senior padawan.
There was one more thing he wanted to do before he found Clee to let her know how it went. He was pretty sure Chun was just bullshitting him about Kenobi's hands—there wasn't much the healers and their droids couldn't fix—but he wanted to make sure so he could throw that taunt back in Chun's face later.
Luckily, he ran into Tianna just inside the halls and flagged her down. She was a newly minted Healer now, only promoted a quarter before.
"Oh, it's you," she said in a voice just next door to frozen hydrogen.
Garen wondered what that was all about. "Hey Tianna. How's Kenobi doing? He's out of the bacta, right?"
"No thanks to you. And no thanks to you, he might just lose the use of his hands, Garen."
Garen's stomach did a flip. Chun hadn't been shitting him. "Wait a minute! No thanks to me?"
"Everybody knows how much you despise Bruck, but he was your mission leader and it's pretty obvious that your decision to go off half-cocked on your own left Ow high and dry for just long enough to get to himself badly mangled. Does that answer your question? Good. Now piss off."
Garen just stood gaping after her as she turned and strode away from him. He'd never seen her in such a mood. And how would she know—oh, of course. The healers would have access to all their mission reports. For the first time, he began to wonder if maybe he should have gone along with Chun, just for the sake of the mission. For Kenobi's sake.
His insides now in knots, Bruck got to his feet and re-entered the council chamber. He stopped and bowed, standing alone in front of Windu, who'd been doing most of the questioning, as usual. He'd been here so many times before, on his own, usually on his knees, that he hardly thought about it anymore. Usually. This time it seemed different somehow, though he couldn't say why.
"Just a few more questions, Padawan Chun. Tell me about your bond with Knight Kenobi. What made you so certain he wasn't at the first facility anymore?"
"It's not very strong, Masters. Not like a good training bond, or anything like what he's got with Master Jinn. I can't sense what he's thinking or feeling or doing. But I know when he's near, and even when he's not—say when I'm at temple and he's out on a mission—I still have a, an awareness of him, if I concentrate. It's stronger when we're in close proximity. If I come in from a mission and he's here, I know it without checking the roster. I've never been wrong."
"So you could sense he wasn't nearby anymore, when his tracking device failed." It was less a question than a statement.
"Yes. I was positive they'd taken him off-planet."
"But nothing alerted you as to when they'd done it?"
"No. It's not that kind of bond. It wouldn't wake me out of sleep. It hasn't ever before. I had to think about it to know he was gone, when I realized we weren't getting signal anymore."
Windu nodded, apparently accepting his explanation, though it was hard to tell with the big councillor, he was always so stonefaced. Master Yoda's ears were up, however, which was usually a good sign.
"You knew you had no jurisdiction in the Corporate Sector, yet you made it plain that you were Jedi by using your lightsaber . Did you consider the consequences? We have something of a diplomatic snarl on our hands now, as a result."
"I'd do it again, Masters," Bruck replied without hesitation. "We were in imminent danger and if we didn't get out, the mission would have failed. The Agency was already an illegal presence there and they created the problem, not us." Hey, send Qui-Gon in. He'll smooth it all over, he wanted to say. He quashed the thought quickly as Master Yoda's ears went up a little higher and a mischievous glitter appeared in his eyes.
"Very well. Thank you, Padawan Chun. Our congratulations on a successful mission. May the Force be with you."
"Thank you, Masters. And with you," Bruck replied, bowed, and headed for the door.
"Oh, Padawan Chun," Windu added. Bruck stopped and turned around, waiting resignedly for the final cutting remark. Windu could never seem to let him go without kicking his ass verbally. "That little conversation you had with Padawan Muln this afternoon? Don't do that again. At least not in public."
Bruck blinked, caught off guard at Windu's sudden tolerance, and then nodded. "Yes, Master." He'd expected a much harsher reprimand, but he'd be damned if he'd apologize.
"Time to get our bets down you will give us though," Master Yoda added.
Windu looked exasperated and annoyed but Bruck grinned and gave an insouciant bow. "Of course, Master Yoda." The rest of the Council made amused noises.
"Go away, Chun," Windu sighed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Obi-Wan started awake, breathing harshly, too much of the whites of his eyes showing in the semidarkness of his room in the healers halls. Qui-Gon got up from his chair, where he'd been reading his datapad—it wasn't very late yet—and moved toward him, bringing up the light beside his bed. Obi-Wan flinched back against the pillows and stared at him with wild eyes for a moment until recognition set in. Then he shuddered a little and closed his eyes, sighing.
"All right, kosai?" Qui-Gon murmured, and brushed his lips over Obi-Wan's forehead, tasting sweat. "You're a little warm."
"I'm fine," he responded, sounding entirely too lucid despite the drugs he was on. " Just a bit disoriented."
"Were you dreaming?"
"I suppose I was. I thought I was back in that cell, afterwards. That's . . . going to stay with me for a while, I'm afraid."
"I'd be surprised if it didn't."
"The others, the Isani, I got the sense they were just doing a job, one they didn't like very much. It's why they were so rough. They wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. I don't think they were trained very well. It's really their superiors I blame for contravening the conventions. But that Agency—bitch," he said it with such venom that it startled Qui-Gon. "The last one. It was more than a job to her. It was a vocation. A calling."
"Did she suspect you were Jedi?"
"She knew I wasn't an insurgent. I thought about telling her."
"But you didn't."
"She never gave me a chance. She never asked," he spat. "She just . .. hurt me. She hurt you. Until I passed out." He was quivering with rage, breathing hard. What came through the bond was nauseating hate and the echo of a terrible fear that it sprang from. "I want her, Qui. I want her taken out of action. I want her dead."
"The painkillers are wearing off. Your hands hurt," Qui-Gon murmured. Obi-Wan nodded. "Time for another dose, then." Qui-Gon peeled the old patch off and replaced it with a fresh one, then sat stroking his fingers through the younger man's hair. Gradually, the rage and pain faded out of the bond, Obi-Wan's lashes fluttered, his breathing slowed, and he slipped into sleep.
Qui-Gon went back to his chair, shaken, and not sure what to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bruck sat in the refectory picking at his breakfast in a daze. He had no classes anymore, wasn't yet cleared for sparring because of his injury and felt more than a bit at a loss. This morning, he'd slept in and his master had let him, but when he'd finally gotten up, everything had suddenly changed, with absolutely no warning. I have some good news and some bad news, Padawan, Andreth had said when he'd finally wandered bleary-eyed out to the table. Gimme the bad news first, Bruck had sighed, stirring his tea. The bad news is that Garen Muln has failed his trials. The good news is that you didn't.
At which point he had dropped both his jaw and his cup.
Andreth had laughed uproariously at that, and seemed not at all surprised by the news or his padawan's reaction. Of course, he'd known the whole time that their mission had been both padawans' trials. Apparently there'd been a long-standing bet and Andreth had collected quite a few credits from Mace Windu.
Figures Windu would bet against him.
He ought, he supposed, to feel happier than he did. After all, it was nothing short of a miracle. He'd pretty much resigned himself to his apprenticeship being an exercise in futility; he'd expected to fail his trials and go somewhere else with his education if he lived through them, and make a new life for himself. Instead, he'd passed. And Muln, his nemesis and arch-pain-in-the-ass, hadn't. He wasn't sure which part of the equation stunned him more.
So why wasn't he happier about it? Why wasn't he, in fact, ecstatic? Why wasn't he rubbing Garen's fucking nose in it? Why hadn't he even told Isa yet? Or anyone else, for that matter?
Disgusted with himself, Bruck quit picking at his food, got up and bussed his tray and was just turning away when he was hit by a tall, red-headed missile that nearly knocked him back into the wall. He had an instantaneous flashback of running into Ben at nearly the same place six years before. But this red-head was a little taller and much more boisterous and not averse to wrapping her long legs around his waist in public, which she did now, whooping deafeningly in his ear and hugging him hard enough to crush the air out of him. He struggled for a moment to get his balance and free his arms then wrapped them around her and squeezed back.
"Knight Chun!" she yelled and whooped again. He decided the only way to shut her up was to kiss her, so he did.
"Easy, Hypergirl," he laughed a couple of hot, pulse-pounding minutes later.
She unwrapped her legs from his waist and instead started to bounce in front of him, arms still around his neck, living up to her nickname. "I knew you'd do it! I knew it I knew it I knew it! Didn't I tell you? Now you can tell Windu to go piss in his boot, just like Master Jinn."
"Shhhhh! They haven't cut my braid yet. I'm sure they'll have second thoughts if they hear you saying stuff like that about me. And it's really distracting when you jump up and down like that," he added, gaze following the motion of her breasts. He was half hard from the kiss and the scent of her body and the stimulation of her wriggling against him.
Isa frowned and stopped bouncing. "What's wrong? I heard Muln bottomed out, too. Fitting for a bottom feeder."
"What's wrong is that Ben might lose the use of his hands," Bruck said. "And that's too big a price for my knighthood."
"Have you told him? Or Qui-Gon?"
"No."
Isa gave him a disgusted look. "You are such a jerk sometimes, B-Boy. I assume he can have visitors?"
"Yeah, but—"
She grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the refectory without another word.
It was a different scene this time, but similar to the one from yesterday: Ben dozing, or appearing to be, Qui-Gon in a chair near the bed. This time, it was drawn up closer, and Qui-Gon's elbows rested on the edge of the mattress, his hands arcing over Obi-Wan's, a soft glow leaking through his own fingers. Bruck and Isa watched silently, not wanting to disturb them. Finally, the glow softened and Qui-Gon sat back, looking a little drained, still unaware of his visitors.
"Healing meditations?" Bruck said.
Qui-Gon looked up and smiled. "Something like that. He has a hard time concentrating through the painkillers, so I help him into the trance."
Bruck had a feeling that wasn't quite what had been going on, but said nothing.
"In between lesson plans?" Isa asked, nodding at the stack of chips and datapad stacked on the bedside table.
"Yes. Advanced Intercultural Relations, as it happens."
Isa made a face and Qui-Gon chuckled. "I still haven't studied for the exam."
"I thought you might be getting a refresher on the Corporate Sector after our little fiasco," Bruck said.
"That remains to be seen. I rather think it's more the Agency's problem than ours, though we seem to do a lot of cleaning up after them."
"How's he doing?" Bruck nodded toward the bed.
"About the same, with a bit of a difficult night thrown in. He's having flashbacks, which is not surprising."
"No," Bruck agreed, gaze shifting nervously from Qui-Gon to Ben and back again. "I have some news, if you haven't heard it already."
"About your trials?"
"You knew, then."
"I suspected. The teaming was a good indication, at least to a practiced eye. I assume we'll be welcoming you to the ranks shortly."
"But not Garen."
"Ah. I see," Qui-Gon replied, not seeming at all surprised. "You're an interesting contrast, you two: Garen's mistakes caught up with him, finally, and you managed to leave yours behind while still learning from them."
"I think I have you to thank for it, as much as anyone else."
Qui-Gon waved his comment away. "All Andreth and I did was make sure you had a chance. You did the rest yourself, Bruck. Now, you need to share the news with Obi-Wan."
"I don't want to wake him."
"He'd want to know. Go ahead. I find I'd like some tea," Qui-Gon said, rising from his chair. "What about you, Isa?"
"Sure," she agreed, winking at Bruck. "Maybe I can practice my negotiating skills and wheedle the exam answers out of you on the way."
He swam up out of the trance gradually, the pain still distant and the light and warmth through the bond a steady comfort. Someone called his name and fingers combed through his hair gently. "Ben." Then there were warm lips on his forehead, his cheek. "I've got some news for you."
There was B-Boy looking down at him with a frown.
"What?" he rasped. Bruck held a straw to his lips, made him take a sip.
"You're going to have to start calling me Knight Chun in a couple of days."
It took a moment for it to sink in, but when it did he grinned hard enough to hurt. "Knew you'd do it," he mumbled.
"Did you?" Bruck said. "Know this was my trials, I mean?"
"Knew it was Garen's, not yours."
"He failed them."
"Failed? Nobody—"
"Fails? Apparently that's not so. Unfortunately, the net gain for this mission doesn't look so good, does it?"
Even through the fog of painkillers he could hear the bitterness in Bruck's voice. He wanted to grab him, shake him, but had to settle for bringing his knee up under the covers to bump Bruck's rump. "This's not your fault. Not Garen's. Just one person. She did this, not you. Not anybody else. You earned it."
"I'm just not sure it's worth it, if this mission leaves you crippled."
He wanted to tell Bruck that he'd felt the same way, that Qui-Gon's injury and near death had been too high a price to pay as well. He wanted to tell Bruck that there was always a price, for everything they did as Jedi, and they spent their lives paying it. He wanted to tell Bruck that the guilt faded after a while, or it had for him. He wanted to remind Bruck that he was already carrying around enough guilt without adding this load to it, when it had nothing to do with him. He wanted to say, besides, they didn't know he'd be crippled, or if he were, how completely. It would be days, perhaps tens before they did. He wanted to say all those things, but the drugs made him stupid and inarticulate.
"Give it time," was all he could manage for now. Some day, he might manage to tell Bruck that the tracking device had been meant to fail.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Qui-Gon dressed him for Bruck's ceremony, not in the civilian party clothes he would have worn under better circumstances, but in his dress blacks, the theory being Obi-Wan was only staying for the ceremony and his leather pants would be too difficult for him to get into. It turned out to be rather more difficult getting him into his dress uniform than it usually was getting him out of it. "You're the one who likes the pants so tight," was Obi-Wan's unsympathetic response. To get the tunic on, Qui-Gon had to slit the sleeves to get them over the metal frames bracing the bones in Obi-Wan's fingers and then pin the cloth together. Thrifty as always, Qui-Gon did it carefully enough along the seams so the tunic could be mended later.
Under other circumstances, heObi-Wan would have enjoyed having his lover's hands all over him; now it was just frustrating and somewhat humiliating because he could do so little for himself. At least the healers had finally let him come home. Though he'd felt fine aside from his hands, he'd fought Qui-Gon about that for a while, citing his utter inability to dress or feed himself or even wipe his own ass, but in the end, the desire to sleep in his own bed and Qui-Gon's argument that he was already caring for him, which was true, won out.
It was a much smaller ceremony and party than his own knighting. Of course, his own friends had had much more time to plan and not as many of Bruck's friends were in temple for the occasion, since it had occurred within a ten of passing his trials, rather than the half-year Obi-Wan had waited. The filing of forms and actual scheduling had taken longer than anything else, and Bruck's vigil had gone off without any particular hitches, or at least he hadn't been forthcoming about any.
Obi-Wan wished he'd been able to give Bruck the kind of celebration his friends had thrown for him at his knighting, but he considered himself lucky to be able to attend at all. He was glad to see that Isa managed to whip together a respectable group of their mutual friends from the circle she'd drawn him into, and a few of Bruck's own, including Suri Asul. Bruck's eyes widened when he noticed her face in the crowd at the ceremony, standing next to Isa. The two of them were chatting amiably and Suri winked at him when Bruck caught her eye. There were few of their own agemates there besides Obi-Wan: Bant, who'd made it a point of honor to support Bruck, and Tianna, who'd learned her own lesson in humility from him. Qui-Gon and Andreth and several other masters in their circle made their own appearances, only Qui-Gon staying on afterwards to make sure Obi-Wan would be able to leave when he needed to without spoiling anyone else's fun. Mace, unsurprisingly, was not among the guests.
"He's always been a sore loser," Qui-Gon quipped when Obi-Wan pointed it out.
And Garen—nobody seemed to know where Garen had gone, though it was rumored he'd moved out of his quarters within hours of being told he'd failed.
Obi-Wan's hands throbbed throughout because he'd let his pain medication wear off, wanting to be clear-headed for the ceremony, at least. This was the first he'd been without it since Bruck and Garen had extracted him from his cell, and it wasn't pleasant. He'd almost reached the limits of endurance when Andreth finally cut his padawan's braid and said the magic words: "Your padawan oaths to me are fulfilled. I release you. Rise, Knight Bruck Chun."
Bruck went through the ceremony with a solemn yet somewhat stunned look on his face, as though he still couldn't believe it. Since he couldn't applaud, Obi-Wan started it by giving the same loud whoop Bruck had at his knighting. Isa, true to form, picked it up from there. Only then did Bruck start to grin like a bandit. He picked both Isa and Suri up in turn and swung them around, giving his own whoop, and got a hearty clap on the back from his master, who had to reach to deliver it.
Obi-Wan lost sight of him in the crowd of well-wishers and found himself a wall to lean against, taking it in with satisfaction and a pleased but tired smile.
"How are you feeling?" Qui-Gon asked.
"I'll want a patch as soon as I can find a chair. B-Boy's used to me being high when we're out, but perhaps it will help ruin my reputation as the uptight knight if a few other people see me that way."
"Not likely when it's prescribed by the healers," Qui-Gon said drily. "I'll tell him we'll meet him at the party, so you can get a seat and stay out of the crowd. I don't want anyone jostling your hands accidentally."
Obi-Wan winced at the thought. "Nor I."
By the time Bruck finally caught up to them at the reception, Obi-Wan was ensconced in a chair and wearing the silly grin familiar from many nights of club-hopping together. Bruck leaned over and kissed him, giving it some attention and a great deal of affection. It brought a wider, sleepier smile to Obi-Wan's face and another round of applause to the room that made Bruck laugh.
"Congraja'lations, B-Boy. Always knew you'd make it."
"That's Knight Chun to you, Kenobi."
"`M still senior t'you. But you get to be on top once in a while now."
"Oooo, that's worth the price of admission right there," Bruck replied, smiling. "Thanks for coming. And for always being there when I didn't have anybody else. I know I wouldn't be here right now if you hadn't. How're you feeling?"
"Loopy," he said. "Again. `N tired. `M gonna have to go soon. `M sorry."
"I know. It's okay. I think Isa can keep the party going without you. If I can keep her from prying my secrets out of Suri. I never should have let those two into the same room with each other."
"Just make sure you enjoy it," Obi-Wan admonished, carefully enunciating each word. "You deserve this. Promise me."
Bruck looked uncharacteristically grave. "I will, Ben. I promise. Go home. Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow at the healers."
They walked back through the halls slowly, Obi-Wan a little unsteady on his feet and leaning into Qui-Gon, who had an arm around his waist. He was half asleep, really, letting Qui-Gon guide them, and barely noticed their surroundings. For the moment, he was content, though he would have liked to stay at the party. Bruck and he would have one of their own when—
"Obi-Wan."
His eyes snapped open at the sound of the familiar voice and he pulled away a little from Qui-Gon, head clearing instantly as though he were ready for a fight, such were his first instincts. Qui-Gon apparently had the same reaction. He touched Obi-Wan's elbow as though to draw him back, protecting him. It was easy to see why: the man standing in front of them wore civilian clothing and not just a blaster but a lightsaber as well. For a second Obi-Wan wondered how he'd gotten into this part of the temple. Then he realized who it was.
"Garen. I thought—"
"Thought I'd gone? Conveniently disappeared? Tail between my legs?" Obi-Wan was surprised to hear no bitterness in his voice, only regret. "Yeah, well, that's the plan. At least until the hearing. I can't get out of that. But afterwards, yeah, I'm gone."
"You're not joining the pilot corps?" That would have been the choice of most people with Garen's abilities and training.
"No. I've, I've had enough of Coruscant. I just wanted to say I'm sorry. That's all."
And he was gone before Obi-Wan could reply. "He's still got his saber," he murmured to Qui-Gon. Having failed his trials, Garen had lost the right to wear it and his master should have seen to it that it had been destroyed.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Qui-Gon said quietly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bruck was indeed there in the healers' waiting room when they arrived early the next morning, looking surprisingly alert despite what Obi-Wan suspected was a massive hangover. This time it was he who leaned over and kissed Bruck's forehead, straightening up in time to catch the wince.
"That bad?"
"I haven't been to bed yet. Just washed up."
"Oh, that good, then," Obi-Wan amended. "I'm glad."
"I figured I'd just keep drinking if necessary. If, you know, it's not—"
"If the news is that bad, we'll stick a straw in it and I'll join you," Obi-Wan drawled.
"You're awfully chipper for this early in the morning," Bruck complained.
"Drugs will do that," Qui-Gon said. "It's about all that will. Or a good, hard f—"
Fortunately, the apprentice healer minding the clinic called Obi-Wan then. He followed her, shooting Qui-Gon a glare over one shoulder. When he'd gone, Bruck looked over at Qui-Gon, who was smirking slightly, and started to laugh. It very nearly got out of control, but he managed to rein it in before he lost it completely.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm still trying to get a grip on everything. I mean—"
"Perfectly understandable," Qui-Gon replied, ignoring the unfortunate pun.
"I'm surprised you didn't go in with him."
"That was Obi-Wan's idea. He said he—he preferred some time to digest the news alone."
"He thinks it's going to be bad, then."
"Yes," Qui-Gon said heavily.
"Would you like a moment, or shall I call Master Jinn?" Healer Valerin asked him gently.
"I'll, I need a moment, please. I'll find him," Obi-Wan answered, hardly aware of what he was saying. Part of him was still thinking, It hasn't even been two tens; how can they be sure? and another part of him had known the verdict all along. He could feel it. Most of the joints were fusing, losing mobility. He had two options; well, three, really: break apart the joints that were fusing and try again, this time with an articulating external brace and a painful regimen of physical therapy to keep the joints limber; replace both hands with prosthetics; or wait and see how completely the joints fused. In other words, learn to live with it. The latter choice would end his career in the field.
He looked at his hands, still swollen and bruised, lying in his lap like useless lumps, and shuddered. He didn't remember much of how they'd been turned into this, thankfully. Shock had taken care of that, though he knew it was buried somewhere deep in his mind. Occasionally the memory surfaced in his sleep or when the painkillers first kicked in, when his defenses were down. As a rule, though, all that was readily accessible these days was the pain and the hate. He hated the woman who had done this because it was better than self-pity. He hated her, though he knew it was wrong, because it gave him strength to keep from giving up. And he hated her because he couldn't stop himself—and because it was better than blaming Garen. Still, it was hard to feel much sympathy for him when he knew Garen's inability to follow Bruck's orders had left him in that woman's clutches.
Through the bond came a sudden wash of warmth and love from Qui-Gon that nearly broke him. Valerin had told him, then. He knew if he didn't appear soon, Qui would come after him to make sure he was all right. He wanted to have his mind made up before then, to be resolute about something so he didn't go to pieces in the face of Qui-Gon's sometimes relentless tenderness. It was time to make some decisions.
The third option was no option at all, as far as he was concerned. She would win then, and he was not going to let that happen. The second option wasn't much better, but he would take it as a last resort, to save his career, though the idea of never again being able to touch Qui-Gon with his own hands made him sick. So, that meant a quarter-year, possibly a half-year of pain and helplessness and hard work. Valerin had mentioned returning to Arkania, and perhaps that would be best. Qui couldn't be expected to take care of him for that length of time.
And he'd have to keep Bruck from going after Garen, wherever he was. The thought made him smile. At least that had gone right. Bruck was knighted, despite Xanatos, against all of Mace's expectations, and the expectations of many others. His stubborn perseverance had paid off.
Surely there was a lesson to be learned there, he thought. He got up and tripped the door's motion sensor, then walked out to find Qui-Gon and Knight Chun.