Magister Vedic had passed from shock to fury to defeat. Now he
was simply listless.
They might as well return home. The Zininz would be thrilled.
Likely that Haddoc and his cronies would gain even more power
from this disaster. His people did not look well upon failure.
He had taken such a risk to come here, hoping, praying that it
would pay off.
It had not. The one man he had thought he could trust to do
right by him had betrayed him. The only ally he had thought he
had in this land of strangers. It was a slap in the face, the
knowledge that his world would most certainly descend into
chaos and civil war now. At least three factions that he knew
of back home had the power to take control of the Protectorate.
And one for certain had the fanatical drive.
He sighed and tightened his long fingers around the hilt of his
fruit knife, slicing easily into the tough gorfruit that he'd
brought with him from Biss. His ministers had turned on him as
well. To a man, they had not wanted to make this journey, to
enslave themselves to the Republic. Why become one of a million
meaningless faces when they were kings in their own corner of
the universe?
He had asked himself that question every night since he had
determined this course, and he had always come up with the same
answer. Because people were fading in the streets, starving as
climactic droughts ate away every viable resource, and dying in
civil war. They had nothing but a newfound Duranium supply,
which none of his xenophobic people wanted to make use of. The
number of spacecraft on his planet could be kept in one hangar.
And what else was Duranium for but manufacturing ships? They
had a bargaining chip and they had to play it. Why did
no one else see it?
Because they did not take notice of the masses who had no food.
The warring factions only saw the conflict and the power that
would be gained at the end of it.
That was why he was still here even after the incredible insult
that had been done to him and his ministers. Because he simply
couldn't go home and face that. Everyone had urged him to
simply take up and leave, even Teede. And he just couldn't do
it. Even at the risk of his own pride and his people's pride.
A shadow fell across his contemplation and he looked up,
expecting the familiar face of Teede. It was not his assistant.
His face stiffened.
"May I sit?" The Jedi had the good grace to look contrite, and,
even though it was going to take a great deal more than just an
apology to make up for the insult done, he couldn't contain an
internal thrill of hope. Maybe it wasn't too late after all.
"Sit then." He said coolly, slicing another juicy chunk off the
large orange fruit. He did not offer the Jedi any, instead he
chewed it himself, letting his fingers toy with the decorative
whorled handle of the knife idylly...allowing his chilly body
language to communicate his extreme displeasure.
Qui-Gon, tall for a human, sat down and folded his hands before
him on the table, meeting his eyes firmly and frankly.
"I can only apologize, Magister. I realize that you put your
faith in me. I have no excuse beyond a weakness for my
student's life." There was no dissembling or insulting excuses.
His honesty was startling and Vedic set his knife down,
listening. "I will continue the negotiations if you wish me
to."
"You will need to make that apology to my ministers, and they
will have to agree before we can start again." Vedic said, his
voice not at all softening. If he didn't need the Republic so
badly...
"Of course." The man bowed his head in acquiescence, genuinely
regretful.
Vedic let the silence hang between them for a moment longer and
then he cleared his throat.
"So...your apprentice? How is he?"
"He is..." The Jedi paused, his brow furrowing slightly. "He
seems fine." Even Vedic, with no empathic skills whatsoever,
could tell that not all was well. He chose not to dig, seeing
with eyes long used to reading people, that Qui-Gon would not
tell him anything more on the subject.
Teede poked her head out of the suite, taking note of the new
arrival.
"Would you like a refreshment Master Jinn?" she asked, her
voice tight. She clearly felt similar to the ministers on the
matter of this particular Jedi. Qui-Gon did not answer her.
Instead he seemed suddenly mesmerized by the view off the open
patio, staring at an enormous building that sat directly across
and down from the massive Diplomatic Towers. Craning his neck,
he tried to see what the human was looking at.
It was some sort of alien temple, a graceful structure with
four separate spires thrusting upwards into the sky,
silhouetting white against the blue of the afternoon sky. He
frowned, not seeing anything in particular that would catch the
man's attention.
He finally looked back, and Vedic did not miss the sudden
calculation that crossed the man's face. It happened so fast,
he might have imagined it, but he didn't imagine the sudden
frisson of disquiet that suddenly seemed to claim him.
It had been strangely like being aware of your own lack
of awareness. He could describe it no other way. He remembered
knowing that he was disconnected. As if someone had
hijacked the cockpit of his mind and taken it for a spin around
the galaxy without him.
"Why don't you lie back down, Benny. I'll make you something to
eat if you want." He glanced at Kenda almost in surprise. He'd
nearly forgotten she was there, even sitting only inches away.
The look in Qui-Gon's eyes, the turmoil and...fear that he felt
in his Master were disturbing to him in more than just the
usual ways. There was something that the older man was not
telling him. Something important. Something to do with the
strange way he'd been acting since he'd woken with 4 days of
his life missing.
"Not hungry." He muttered, pushing to his feet. His arm was a
blaze of agony, but it was lessening with each passing minute
as he used long learned techniques to bleed the pain away from
his awareness. He walked towards the open balcony, ignoring the
irritation that suddenly blazed from his notoriously impatient
friend. "Besides Kenda, you can't make anything that doesn't
come in a freeze-dry packet."
He heard the snort behind him and suddenly a hand closed over
his short ponytail, yanking him backwards almost off his feet.
He yelped, his arms windmilling for balance as she began to
pull him along, clearly heading towards the bedroom. Once in
the door, she spun him around and gave him a shove with the
Force, sending him sprawling onto the bed. He rolled over,
looking up at her with angry eyes.
She stood in the doorway with folded arms, glaring at him.
"I just watched you, blank-eyed as a sea-cucumber, slice into
your own arm with a kitchen knife. I may not be your Master,
but I am a Knight, and I outrank you, Padawan. So
lie there and close your eyes. I don't care if you pretend to
sleep, or if you actually do sleep.. but you're lying there and
you're resting. If you want something to eat, ask. If you want
something to drink, ask. But you are not getting up off that
bed. Got me?"
Her voice was as soft as a paper-cut. He twisted his lips at
her, opening his mouth for a scathing comment, but all that
came out was "All right".
She nodded in satisfaction and with a swirl of her robe, left
the room, pointedly leaving the door open. He knew he should be
annoyed at the juvenile treatment he was receiving, but he was
still dizzy from the events of the past hour. He carefully
settled his head back on the pillows, staring up at the ceiling
and cradling his arm to his chest gently.
He had felt someone, he thought. Someone touching his mind. But
he wasn't sure it wasn't a dream or a hallucination. He wasn't
sure if he was searching for reasons to explain what had
happened. He wanted something to beat back the helplessness he
felt, the impotence. The shadows of the coming evening were
lengthening on the smooth texture of the ceiling, reaching
across from the windows with long, opaque arms.
Suddenly sleepy, he let his eyes fall shut, lashes tickling his
cheeks.
Something chittered in the back of his skull, actually
startling him. He ripped open his eyes, staring intently around
him into the gathering reddened shadows of the room. He was
alone. He realized that he hadn't heard it with his ears, but
with his mind. Swallowing, he considered calling Kenda, but
thought against it. What was she going to do?
He slowly, gingerly, closed his eyes again, his heart suddenly
rattling against his ribcage in fearful anticipation of the
sound. Nothing and nothing.
He waited, unwilling to relax, but it didn't repeat itself. It
was only once he started to drift off that it happened again.
It was a black, shiny, chitinous sound, chattering and
scrabbling in his head. Gasping, he shot upwards into an
upright position, looking around the room once more, gooseflesh
prickling his skin that had nothing to do with a chill.
The setting sun bled red through the window, painting his bare
chest with its hues, turning the room crimson and black with
light and shadow. Again, he considered calling Kenda, and
again, he rejected the thought. Taking a deep breath, he lay
back down again and this time, opened his senses up, waiting
for the sound... the presence, to return.
He waited much longer this time, and the sun was fully down,
the sky a purple indigo, when it skittered across the corners
of his thoughts again. This time he accepted it, surrounded it,
tried to examine it.
And was simply devoured by it.
It was dark in his quarters when he returned, Kenda was asleep
on his low couch, her robes crumpled up under her head for a
pillow. A few loose hairs around her face lifted and danced in
the night breeze that blew in the open balcony doors.
He briefly considered waking her so that she might be able to
return to her rooms, but decided against it. It wouldn't hurt
to have an extra set of Jedi sense around, at least until he
knew the nature of the threat they faced. Besides, she had
gotten about as much sleep as he had the past four days. Which
was hardly any.
He moved cat-quiet past her to the bedroom, peering inside to
see Obi Wan asleep on top of the bed, his slender body glowing
slightly alabaster in the light of Coruscant's night. He was
still clad only in the light sleeping pants, the bandage on his
forearm whitely luminescent in the dark. He keyed the door shut
behind him as he stepped over the threshold and slowly stripped
his clothes off.
He had spent the better part of the night after he had left the
Magister and his only slightly mollified ministers... using all
his clout to see the Tower records on who had a view of the
Korude Temple that sat across the way. The sight of those four
spires had prodded the experience he had had in Obi Wan's mind
earlier out into the light, and he knew that he had the most
solid clue yet to unraveling the reasons behind the attack on
his Padawan. Whoever it was who had done this was in the
Diplomatic Towers. They had a high suite that overlooked the
Temple. He was going to find them.
Unfortunately it wasn't that easy. There were almost 500
possible rooms that overlooked the Temple at a matching height,
and nearly all of the rooms were occupied. He had checked the
unoccupied ones and found that the view did not match the one
he carried in his head. As for the occupied ones, it would be a
tricky search. As it was the Diplomatic Towers, most, if not
all, of the occupants were high ranking members of the Republic
from other worlds. Searching their quarters was out of the
question.
And after several hours trying to convince the Tower Security
of his need without actually giving away what it was that he
was looking for, he'd realized that he had very nearly been put
back at square one.
He slid into bed with his sleeping Padawan, foregoing the light
sheet as Obi Wan had done, and curled his larger frame around
the youth, letting his arm encircle the leanly muscled chest.
He buried his nose into the back of Obi Wan's neck, breathing
in the unique, slightly spicy scent of the young man and
closing his eyes. Obi Wan was alive, and back. Just for now,
that would have to do.
Kenda opened her eyes, seeing the darkened ceiling. Something,
some sixth sense, had awakened her. She sat up in one smooth,
soundless motion, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, her
Jedi senses quickly taking stock.
Movement by the door. She saw with some surprise that it was
Obi Wan, and she relaxed only slightly. The vision of him
cutting his own arm was still fresh in her mind. She sat up and
watched him suspiciously, growing more concerned by the moment,
as he leaned out the front door, bending to pick something up
that was out in the hallway. A moment later the door shut and
she eyed him, still unmoving, as he walked a straight,
unswerving line back towards the room he shared with his
master. Her instincts were starting to set up a shriek, but it
was only when he was nearly through the doorway that she was
galvanized into action. A stray shaft of light from the city
beyond had caught the dull evil glint of metal in his hand.
He was through the doorway a moment later, but she had already
shoved herself into a blur of movement. As a precaution against
a repeat of the earlier events, she had stripped the entire
apartment of anything that might be considered a weapon. It was
obvious that he had gotten whatever he was carrying, likely a
knife, from out in the hall. There was no time to wonder what
it had been doing there.
Qui-Gon's name burst from her lips and mind just as she entered
the bedroom, just as she saw her friend lift the knife and
drive it downwards into the sleeping Jedi.
But Qui-Gon was not sleeping any longer. Her shout had roused
him, and the knife only grazed his arm with a confetti spray of
blood as he rolled off the bed and flipped to his feet with a
speed and grace that made it obvious that he deserved his rank
of Master. The knife blade sank into the mattress ticking,
sending a puff of fabric stuffing into the air. She didn't
pause to consider the situation, instead she flung herself at
Obi Wan from behind, taking advantage of the fact that he
seemed utterly focused on little beyond sheathing that wicked
looking knife deep into Qui-Gon. There was actually a snarl of
hatred twisting his lips that looked horribly out of place on
his normally amiable features.
Her arms snaked around his lean form, her right hand's fingers
digging cruelly into the pressure points of Obi Wan's knife
hand, trying to get him to drop the weapon. It was like he
didn't even notice his own body's reactions. Was it even
possible to override an automatic command to the brain like
that? Blocking the movement of the muscle responsible for
gripping the knife should always produce the same result, and
yet his hold on the long blade was still just as unshakable.
But now Qui-Gon was in the struggle, moving like a big cat,
none of his dignity removed by the fact that he was naked as
the day he was born. He came flying over the bed to where she
struggled with the writhing youth, doubly trapping the
straining wrists by grabbing them himself. Obi Wan was like an
animal now, growling and wrenching himself from side to side,
trying to free his arm. He was obscenely strong.
Kenda knew that he was likely pulling muscles left and right,
but she couldn't let go, not until the knife was out of his
hand. Qui-Gon did not have that problem, he attacked the hand
itself, using brute force to pry the whitened fingers off the
hilt. She saw the black splatter that indicated someone had
been cut and she realized that it was her. He had wrenched the
knife back enough to slice into her forearm. The thing was
razor sharp.
Ignoring the pain, she concentrated on holding him still long
enough, just long enough...
And then Qui-Gon had the knife. And just like that, it was as
if someone had pulled the plug on Obi Wan. He collapsed, limp
as a child's doll, into her arms. His weight began to bear her
much smaller frame to the floor before she drew on the Force to
bolster her.
Qui-Gon activated the tableside lamp with a tap of his mind,
flooding the room with dim yellow light. Throwing the knife
into the other room, he took the burden of his unconscious
Padawan into his own arms, laying the youth on the bed.
"You're hurt." He said matter-of-factly, barely glancing at
her. There were spots of blood on both Obi Wan's naked arms and
the sheets of the bed.
"It's nothing." She said stiffly, still breathing hard,
pressing her palm to the thin wound. Her eyes were angry as she
looked at her friend. He lay, pale as a ghost and limp as a rag
on the bed, his chest heaving like a bellows. "What in all the
hells is going on here?" She snapped. Qui-Gon didn't answer
her, instead he picked up his discarded robe and slipped it on,
returning to the bed to sit down next to the supine form of his
apprentice. He shook his head after a moment, moving to
tenderly stroke the youth's pale chestnut hair back from his
slack face.
The emotions in the room were all her own, she realized
suddenly. Qui-Gon had to be shielding tightly indeed. Was he
trying to hide something?
"Someone is controlling him." Qui-Gon finally said. She could
have guessed as much, but he made it sound like fact. She
didn't ask how he knew, it was clear that he and Ben had a
fairly deep connection. She also didn't ask what they could do
about it. Since it was obvious from the angry, fearful look on
the Master's face that he didn't know himself.
"Where in the world did he get that damned knife?" Qui-Gon had
not stopped the almost obsessive petting of his Padawan, nor
did he look up. Kenda walked the few steps out of the room and
retrieved the thing, carrying it back inside to look at it in
the light.
"He got it from the hallway. My guess is whoever is working
through him left it there for him. Unless someone else here in
the Temple Towers tends to simply drop alien knives randomly in
the hall?"
At the mention of the knife, the big man finally turned from
the unconscious youth and stared at the thing as if it were
alive. He slowly reached his hand out and she felt the surprise
and shock that he failed to shield from her as he took it from
her grasp.
"What? What is it? Do you recognize it?" She asked, her hand
returning to press against the still bleeding cut on her arm.
His voice, when he spoke was a mix of fury and disbelief.
"This ... is a Bissian knife. I last saw it in the hands of
Magister Vedic himself not hours ago."
Suddenly, everything had changed. He stared at Kenda and then
at Obi Wan, not lifting his eyes from the unnatural slumber his
Padawan had fallen into. His jaw was so tight she half expected
his teeth to shatter.
"I have something for you to do while I take him to the Med
Center, Kenda. And I have something that I need to share
with...-no-... I have something I need to show you."
Why was she afraid to hear?
Jaerra had not moved from his favorite chair all night long,
nor had he slept. There was something. Something tickling his
intuition, his spider sense. He'd always listened carefully to
it when it woke, and now was no exception.
Was it something to do with his mysterious alien employers?
They had paid him, he had made sure that all leads to himself
were snipped, killing a perfectly good communications expert
and ally to do it...so why did he feel so uneasy?
It was unnerving and exhilarating at the same time that he had
managed to outwit the vaunted Jedi, but he knew that, unlike
the Coruscant Authority, the Jedi would not give up once they
hit a dead end. They would come at it from another angle,
attacking like wolves until a weak spot was revealed. He had
faith that there was no chink in his armor...but there was
always something that even the best mind overlooked.
Always something.
Right now, the thing that he kept coming back to was the alien
control device that he had used on the boy. There was a chance
that they would never figure out the nature of the alien
synthetic parasite that he had used, but thinking that way
would get him caught. He had to assume they would discover its
nature and learn of its black market availability. He had
covered his tracks carefully in that respect, it was unlikely
that anyone would be able to even find the dealer that had sold
him the goods...and even if they did, he had had Xerd pick up
the boxes.
He was paid in full now. He was safe.
So why the blast was he so afraid?
The sun had not quite shown its face over the horizon when he
felt himself shaken from sleep. Blinking groggily through the
dim light of early morning, he found Teede's face peering at
him with a worried expression on her face.
"Magister," her voice was slightly breathless, "There are
people here from the Jedi Temple to see you." He wrinkled his
forehead in confusion. Was it time for the Talks so early? It
was still dark.
She was holding his robe up for him and he slipped into it,
belting it against the slight chill in the room. Coruscant was
not a cold planet, but it was considerably colder than Biss and
he was having a hard time adjusting. He paused at his door to
compose his features, trying to will himself to full alertness.
There were four creatures in his foyer, one was the small human
woman that had come in place of Qui-Gon to the Talks 4 days
previous. The other three were large males, all dressed in
stark uniforms that looked vaguely similar to the Jedi garb.
"Magister?" The small woman stepped forward, her face stony,
her strange alien eyes hard.
"Yes, what is the meaning of this? Do you know what time it
is?"
"Magister, we have reason to believe that you or someone in
your entourage has committed harmful acts against the Jedi
Knights."
His jaw dropped, his face registering shock before he could
school his features.
"What?" The single word burst from his mouth like a small
explosion.
"We have been given the right by the Diplomatic Council to
search your quarters." She gestured slightly and the three men
immediately dispersed from her side, heading in different
directions into his chambers. His mouth worked a few times, and
no sound came out. It was Teede who managed to speak, her small
voice squeaky with outrage.
"This is a terrible insult! How dare you! What right do you
have...?" Leti did not change her expression as she slowly
raised her hand, showing a thin transparent bag...his own fruit
knife contained within.
"My knife! Where did you--" his outburst was interrupted.
"Qui-Gon's apprentice tried to kill him with this last night."
"What does that have to do with us?" Vedic forced himself not
to watch as the big men began to rifle through his things.
"Just because he stole that knife from me..."
"Someone was controlling him. He is in the Med Center right
now, being checked for foreign agents in his system. We don't
doubt that we'll find them. Someone gave him this knife
to use, and then made him use it."
Vedic had nothing to say, he was completely frozen as his mind
whirled like the gears had snapped free. His own blasted fruit
knife. Something terrible occurred to him suddenly, just as a
deep voice called out from his sleeping chambers. The small
Jedi stalked past him, her shiny dark hair fairly bristling
with her controlled ire.
Vedic and Teede followed her helplessly.
The man who had called out was standing at the mouth of his
closet, holding up his personal bluesheen cloak triumphantly.
"Look here Kenda. I'll bet you half my week's salary that this
cloak matches those blue fibers they found on Obi Wan!"
Jedi Kenda Leti turned her eyes from the clothing item towards
him and he shivered slightly under their brittle cold.
"This is your cloak, Magister?" she asked tightly.
He could do nothing but tell the truth.
"Yes"
Hands had already grabbed him, not ungently, from behind. The
clatter of the binders clicking around his wrists seemed to
echo in his ears.
Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to set him up.
Too bad there were so many to choose from who might go to the
effort.
"I've discovered what it is."
The words did not inspire any hope in the tall Jedi. The
Doctor's voice was too grim for that. If anything, it made his
heart begin to thud painfully against his ribs. His eyes found
the still form of his apprentice behind the medical glass of
his isolated room and tried to draw comfort from the fact that
the youth seemed to be sleeping comfortably. How bad could it
be?
"It's an organic weapon. Outlawed in the Hevida Quadrant, which
is where it came from." The doctor held up a data pad to read
from, his brow creasing. "We would never in a million years
have thought to examine your Padawan for it if you hadn't
suggested we research control devices. This is a nasty one."
The eyes flicked briefly up to Qui-Gon and then retreated
hastily back to the pad as if burned by what he saw in the
Jedi's face. "Uses an alien parasite called a Loqui that
attaches itself directly to the brain...integrates itself with
the dreaming centers. Then it communicates via though thought
waves that a special transmitter is designed to read and
manipulate. All organic, that's why our earlier chemical scans
found nothing. We were looking for drugs."
Qui-Gon listened, growing more and more impatient.
"Doctor," his voice sounded strained, "I'm happy that this
thing is so efficient. What I would like to know is how to get.
It. Out."
The look that passed across the Alderaanian's face chilled his
blood. The man was hedging because he didn't want to speak the
bad news out loud. He could sense it as surely as he knew his
own name.
"Tell me" he bit the two syllables off.
"We've been in communication with a doctor on Hevida and he
tells us that the weapon is reliably unstable. It controls for
only a very short time before it inevitably starts to decay.
Unfortunately, it always takes the brain with it."
Qui-Gon suddenly felt incredibly tired. It was as if a thick,
choking shroud of weariness had suddenly enclosed his body. It
was suddenly an effort not to simply slide down the wall and
close his eyes. He did not speak, seeing that the doctor had
more to say. He knew that he didn't want to hear any of it.
"There is no way to extricate it from the brain. If it worked
as its designers intended, it might be possible for it to
coexist with Obi Wan to the end of his days. Unfortunately,
it's flawed. From its first use, it had already started to take
over more and more of the brain. Because it's not sentient, has
no purpose, no intelligence...it won't know what to do with the
body's functions. His systems will begin to shut down stage by
stage...at an exponentially faster rate." The doctor, Qui-Gon
found he suddenly couldn't remember his name, rubbed at his
forehead as if he were suddenly as weary as the Jedi before
him.
"He will die. From what I've learned from the Hevidans,
he has perhaps 10 or 20 hours left at the very most."
Darkness is textured, he decided. Not a pure thing like a child
might paint on piece of paper...carefully filling in each empty
spot to denote utter black, but consisting of depth and a
tactile roughness. Like the pores in your skin, dipping and
rising, a hair here, a mole there. Uneven and patterned.
The quiet of his own mind, he thought. There were things
missing, a sort of heavy fuzz lying over memories he might be
perusing or reliving, interfering with the simple trail of his
thoughts.
There was no one with him in the dark and he knew enough to
know that it was wrong that way. There was always someone with
him, even in the deepest, coldest parts of his own oblivion. A
warmth that he sensed was missing now, making him feel
adrift...as if someone had gently shoved him from shore into a
still lake in an oarless boat.
And the darkness was losing its texture even as he watched.
Kenda had given up on any semblance of Jedi decorum and simply
run to the Chancellor's audience chamber, her robe
forgotten where she had let it fall on the floor of her rooms.
She had returned from settling Vedic in the Detention Center to
find several messages blinking on her comm. One sketched a
brief outline of the investigation she'd initiated into the
man, Xerd Bilara, telling her that nothing new had come to
light. The second was from Qui-Gon.
It had been brief and stark in its simplicity.
She shoved past the Guards who stood at the entrance to the
large room and burst inside. The tension was heavy -- almost a
physical touch on her skin, and it took her a moment to
recognize it as extreme anger. Much of it seemed to be coming
from the Chancellor himself, who stood before the seated
remains of the Bissian delegation. None of the tall, pupilless
aliens were speaking, but she could sense a mix of both fear
and grim elation among them. Hard to tell which came from who.
A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side. She found
herself looking up into the tight, icy features of Qui-Gon. The
older man looked like he had aged a decade in the span of a few
hours. Her lips parted to ask the questions she desperately
needed answered...but he shook his head almost imperceptibly
and returned his attention to the slightly disheveled
Chancellor. She followed his lead.
"....this blatant attack. We will NOT allow you entry into the
Republic. We will detain Magister Vedic here on Coruscant for
trial and punishment. You will be escorted from this system and
closed from all Republic imports. I speak for the Senate when I
say that we never want to see any of you or your kind near a
Republic world again."
Kenda was slightly surprised at the Chancellor's vehemence, but
she realized immediately that the leader of the Republic relied
a great deal politically on good relations with the Jedi. A
Duranium deposit, no matter how valuable, could not interfere
with that. It had been that way for hundreds and hundreds of
years. The Senate would always side with the Jedi in a
political conflict.
"Chancellor, may I speak?" One of the older Bissians rose to
his feet, staring straight ahead and not making eye contact
with the other 6 ministers. Vallorum nodded, clasping his hands
behind his back and eyeing the Bissian coldly.
"I am Minister of Agriculture on Biss. I realize that this
attack on your Jedi is a very serious matter, but I implore you
to think of the millions of people who are, even now, starving
from the 15 year drought on Biss. Our economy is depleted with
no way to stimulate it. Trade with the Republic, limited as it
has been, has been our only means of support for the past
decade. You cannot doom all of us because of the actions of one
foolish man." The accented voice echoed in the huge room, the
last syllables of the plea rattling around against the back
wall where they stood. "A single man, Chancellor. For I assure
you that the rest of us had nothing to do with this." One long,
narrow hand gestured back at the other Ministers.
Kenda could tell that he was uncertain in his own claim, but,
surprisingly, she also noted no definite tones of guilt or
defiance among the ministers. Several were against the
Agriculture Minister's plea, but none showed any signs of
hidden duplicity. Of course, these were politicians, and they
were adept at controlling their thoughts. She did, however, get
a strong muted sense of satisfaction. Many of them were glad
that they had been turned away.
The words had a calming influence on the heated anger in the
Hall, but only a little. A sweeping murmur lifted in the room
like a breeze through the trees, and Kenda glanced up to look
at the Jedi Master by her side again. His face was still as
stone. It chilled her slightly to think of the man as allowing
himself to be influenced by anger. He was one of the most
powerful Jedi alive. With an effort, she forced her thoughts
and her eyes away from Qui-Gon, and returned them to the
chamber floor.
The Chancellor was a politician before anything else, and he
proved it a moment later. His sweeping pace came to a stop in
front of the arrayed Bissians.
"We have no way of knowing, my dear Minister Kilpris, if you
were not all in on this hideous attempt to kill Master
Jinn through his apprentice. If we receive a confession or
proof of complicity, anonymous or not, from any of you or your
fellow Bissians by...this time tomorrow, we will reconsider."
The muttering in the room stepped up another notch, going from
breeze to gale, and as one, three of the Ministers surged to
their feet, cloaks swinging around their long legs. For some
reason, the sight of those colorful hems swirling around their
ankles set off something in her mind. She frowned, trying to
get her mind to let her know what it was thinking of.
"What?! How can you make such demands of us? How can we bring
you evidence of a conspiracy if none exists?! What if Vedic was
working alone? Are we doomed to be turned away if we don't
manufacture something that will satisfy you?"
The Chancellor folded his arms, glancing back at his own
advisors, several of whom were Jedi. Kenda could feel Qui-Gon
tense beside her, an odd emotion vibrating from him.
"We have examined the facts. We know now that at least 4
Bissians were involved in the kidnapping of the young Jedi. We
have proof of that." Another swell of muttering swept the room,
and this time she could feel real panic from Kilpris. He
covered it well, simply sinking back down into his seat with a
stunned look on his face.
She knew he was talking about the skin cells. She had told them
to re-calibrate the sensors after suspicion of the Bissians had
been brought to light. Four Bissians. The Ministers were the
only other Bissians in Vedic's delegation, it had to be some of
them. It also reminded her that there was still one human
unaccounted for in the evidence they'd collected from that
room. She clamped her teeth around her lower lip in irritation.
She hated loose ends.
Another minister had stood, not introducing himself.
"We...we will make inquiries. It is the best we can do. And if
one of us has indeed perpetrated this thing with the Magister,
then we will bring him forth to you." The voice was tight and
angry. More politics, Kenda thought with annoyance. A hand on
her shoulder alerted her to Qui-Gon's presence again and she
followed him out into the huge hall, leaving the upswelling
sound of the hastily called meeting behind them.
"What did you mean by your message?" It was the first thing
that burst from her mouth, her eyes were narrow as they stared
up into the face that seemed so different from what she knew.
"Obi Wan is dying." He repeated the words as if they were a
mantra, something that he must have repeated so often to
himself that they had taken on a life of their own. She shook
her head almost violently.
"How?" It was all she could push past her numbed lips.
"The control device that we suspected is there. It's
unstable, and it's going to kill him within 10 to 15 hours."
She felt as if all the muscle control in her legs suddenly
vanished, and she slumped against an ornately carved pillar,
her eye blank. 10 hours? 15 hours? Suddenly her friend had an
expiration date?
Qui-Gon still showed no signs of any emotion on his icelike
exterior, but she could almost feel the maelstrom of
grief, helplessness and fury that battered the walls of his
control like a hurricane against a seawall.
Her own emotions were getting the better of her, a great sob
welling up
from somewhere deep in her soul. She was helpless against the
wave of memories that suddenly engulfed her...memories of a
charming little boy with hazel eyes putting squirming spotted
p'ribbs into her drink in the Creche, a gangly teen flushed
with pride over his first mission and his new, infamous Master,
a charismatic beauty of a young man whom she'd tumbled into the
grass with one drunken night under the stars.
A hand gripped her upper arm, and she wasn't sure whether it
was to keep her upright or to share grief.
"He's not dead yet, Kenda." Qui-Gon growled. "He won't be, if I
have anything to do with it." His blue eyes glittered like
pieces of cut glass. "And I do."
I too, Master Jinn. She said silently. She did not have many
friends ...she was not going to lose of the best of them.
At that moment, the door to the Hall opened behind them and a
small delegation of miniature Q'igs walked out chattering to
each other, their little cloaks dragging on the floor behind
them in a grand sweep that somehow only made them look smaller.
She frowned, her heart picking up its pace a bit. The cloaks
again. Her eyes widened as she realized just what it was that
had struck her earlier about the cloaks. She a cautiously
excited look up to the tall Jedi beside her.
"What?" He could tell immediately that she had something.
"I think we need to pay Magister Vedic a visit. I have a theory
to share with you. And with him."
The sun had struck his face hours earlier, and still he had not
moved. There were things that he knew now he was going to have
to do. Things to ensure that he retained his freedom to spend
the money he had just made. He disliked the levels of paranoia
that were spurring him onto this path, but he knew in his heart
that, eventually, the Jedi would find him.
He had been blinded by the money and the challenge at first,
completely ignoring the risk factors that might have normally
made him turn the job down flat. The Jedi were not going
to stop looking for him once that boy died. He knew that as
surely as he knew his own name. And there was only one more
connection that might lead them to him.
The aliens that had employed him.
Tricky. He thought. And dishonorable. But if he wanted his life
to remain as it was, if he didn't want it to shift completely
out from under his feet, he was going to have to do it. There
was no use in berating himself for taking on the job in the
first place. He had to work forward.
The blue cloak was the trail he would use. The alien had made
no attempt to hide the unusual garment from the prying eyes of
the Sub Levels. It clearly had its own reasons for that, but he
suspected that it hadn't thought it through from the other
side. Perhaps it had wanted to be noticed, but whatever the
reason, he would retrace the things footsteps.
And he would sever that last string that connected him to the
Jedi.
Vedic huddled on the thin bench that was set against the wall
of his small quarters in the Detention Center. Hardly a dank
prison, but he was trapped nonetheless. His mind had refused to
settle on his problem since he'd been thrown in here by the
Jedi woman, but now he began to calm himself.
His cloak. His knife. His people.
He pressed his face into his hands, shivering slightly in the
chill of the room. Damned Coruscant. He should never have come
here. He had known that Haddoc's Zininz would try something and
yet he had not warned anyone. Not Qui-Gon, not the Admittance
Delegation, not security...no one. He'd hoped that they had
left their planet's problems behind when they'd taken off.
Apparently not.
His mind went to his Ministers, trying to determine which of
them it was who had set him up. Someone would have had to have
gotten into his quarters for the knife and the cloak.
Unfortunately, his Ministers would have had free access to his
rooms if they had wished to. It was a simple matter to walk
down a hall and open a door if there were no guards. And there
hadn't been. He had declined the Admittance Committee's offer
of guards, not wanting to irritate his Ministers further with
the presence of the foreigners.
Jovva? The Minister of Defense was a hothead, but Vedic hadn't
thought him smart enough for a setup like this. Kilpris was out
of the question. He was the only one of those he had brought
who truly understood why they needed to join the Republic. The
others...he sighed. Fact was, it could really be any one of
them. He knew for a fact that Haddoc, the leader of the Zininz,
had at least two of them in his pocket. He just didn't know
which ones.
He shook his head, muttering to himself. These were things he
had needed to discover before he had come out here.
Thousands were going to die, including an innocent stranger,
because he had been too blind to the discord among his own
people.
The doors cycled open and he shot to his feet, ignoring all the
myriad aches and pains his old age inflicted on him.
Qui-Gon Jinn and the small Jedi woman entered and the doors
shut behind them. The woman had some sort of bundle under arm.
He was not empathic, but he could actually feel the tight heat
of strong emotions in the room. He stood in front of them for a
long moment, his posture slumped and defeated, his hopes gone,
his guilt powerful.
"I want to know what you've been hiding from us, Vedic."
That was all the human said, blue eyes grinding into him from
where he stood across the room.
Vedic swallowed and nodded, sinking back down onto the narrow
bench.
"There are several factions vying for power back on Biss right
now. My position is much less stable than I might have led you
all to believe. There is one group, quite fanatical and very
powerful...the Zininz, they would go to any lengths to see to
it that these negotiations fail. They are violent
isolationists. I managed to leave the single Minister I was
certain supported them, behind. I thought that would be the end
of it. That we would join the Republic and use your military
support to rid Biss of these ridiculous reactionaries."
He looked up to see how the humans were taking his words, but
neither showed any signs of emotion whatsoever.
"And what of my apprentice?" Here, Qui-Gon's voice roughened
slightly. "Was it these Zininz that have condemned him to die
for their plots?"
Vedic shook his head and spread his hands helplessly.
"I can't say, Jedi Jinn. I do not know for certain who it is. I
only know that it was not I. That I have been set up."
The two Jedi exchanged glances sidelong and then Kenda Leti
nodded slightly. She pulled the bundle out from under her cloak
and shook it out. It was that thrice-damned blue cloak.
"Please try the garment on, Minister." Qui-Gon said quietly.
Vedic frowned. Was this some sort of trick? Would trying his
own cloak only damn him further? He hesitated only momentarily
before sighing and taking the rich fabric into his hands,
slipping the thing around his shoulders and pushing his arms
through the long slits in the sides.
The Jedi looked down at his feet and then up at each other.
There was a guarded triumph in the woman's face and he wondered
if that was that. He was going to spend the rest of his life on
some foreign world locked in a room. Qui-Gon held out his hand
silently for the cloak, and Vedic took it off with some relief.
Then, without speaking, Kenda Leti lifted the hem up to show
him.
In the dim light of the room, he could see that the hem of the
cloak was filthy.
As if it had been dragging on the ground.
His eyes returned to the ice chips that were his old friend's.
"What does this mean?" he asked.
"We don't know if you still didn't have a hand in this,
Magister. You may have. But this cloak has obviously been worn
by a much shorter person, and given the other facts we have in
our possession, it is likely that you were not the one directly
responsible...since I find it doubtful that you would have set
yourself up."
Vedic's heart was thundering in his ears as he blinked at them.
"Who has been wearing this? Do you know?"
Kenda Leti shook her head.
"No Magister, but I think we've come up with a way to find out.
We will need your help, and quickly."
Qui-Gon paused outside the door to Obi Wan's room for a long
moment, his limbs trembling as if he were going to meet his own
death instead of his Padawan's. He took a deep breath, pushing
down a grief so intense he thought it might devour his soul.
Perhaps if it did, the pain would stop.
The doors hissed open and he stepped inside the dim room,
sensing Obi-Wan's faint, fluttering presence more than he saw
him. He moved over to the bed and settled on the edge of it,
foregoing the chair that was already pulled up alongside it.
Obi Wan had deteriorated so quickly. Within a matter of hours,
he looked like he was on death's door...just as the doctor had
warned.
He took the young man's chill, limp hand into his, trying to
ignore the fact that his Padawan's breath was uneven and
labored. Machines and Nanites were trying to keep his systems
functioning for as long as they could, and they had actually
been known to be able to carry the body along after brain
death. But they would fail eventually. Only the brain knew the
proper way to run the body, and it was rapidly losing control.
He simply lay his head down on the boy's chest and listened to
the heartbeat...still strong. A shudder wrenched its way
through Qui-Gon's body and he finally gave way to the tears
that had burned in him for the past hours. Deep, gut-tearing
sobs shook his frame as his fingers curled into the thin
blanket that covered the one soul that he'd loved more deeply
than anything in his life.
It was a long time that he hunched over the motionless boy in
that dark room. A long time before his body stilled and his
tears dried on the blanket. But he did not move, still
listening to the thudding of Obi Wan's heart, his eyes closed
as he tried again and again to regain contact with that sharp,
clever mind...and failing each time.
He struggled to recall the last time that Obi Wan's eyes had
been open. The last time that they'd sparkled with that energy
that always seemed to make Qui-Gon feel decades younger. It had
been before he'd left him to visit Vedic and smooth things over
with the delegation. He had been worried. How could he have
left him like that? Duty be damned! The guilt was tearing at
him, even knowing that the synth-parasite in his Padawan's
brain had already been at work by that time and there was
nothing he could have done differently.
He brought the slender, chilled fingertips to his lips and then
pressed the youth's palm to his cheek, closing his eyes as
another wave of pain surged through him. The emotional
rollercoaster of the days before were nothing to this...this
knowledge that he only had a matter of hours left with the
other half of his heart. Obi Wan's disappearance had clued him
to the depths of his attachment, what would his death
do?
He wasn't certain he could manage without the boy anymore. The
thought of a life without him was too terrible to imagine. He
knew he would move on. He knew that he would continue to do his
duty...but here, now, in this bed, his soul lay dying. And he
didn't know if anything would matter anymore after that.
It was doubly worse knowing that he would never be able to say
goodbye. The boy would not wake up. He would only get worse and
worse until he failed entirely. He had told Obi Wan many times
how much he loved him, and had heard it returned just as many.
But somehow none of those times mattered as much as this last
time.
Against his will, his eyes went to the chrono on the wall and
he swallowed. It was almost time. Looking back at his
apprentice, his friend...his love, he let out a shuddering
sigh. He took up both cold hands once more and pressed another
kiss to each of them.
"Wait for me Obi Wan. I'll be back. Please wait." His voice was
barely audible.
He did not say goodbye. He would not. Instead he got to his
feet and walked out the door without looking back once at the
still, pale figure.
"You are sure this will work?" Qui-Gon asked her as they
settled into the slender seats behind the pilots. She narrowed
a glance at him that reminded him that he had already asked
that same question over 5 times. She could not muster any of
her usual wit or sarcasm, however. Not under the circumstances.
They were all working under conjecture at this point, and they
had had to trust Vedic. Something neither of them wanted to do.
Choices were few and far between. At this point, the only thing
they really wanted was to force the conspirators into the light
so they could discover if there was any kind of counter-agent
for the terrible thing they had done to Obi Wan.
The doctors had already said that there was no such thing, that
it didn't work that way at all...but both she and Qui-Gon had
refused to give up on that one hope. It seemed completely out
of the question that Obi Wan should die this way. Decaying in a
bed.
The larger question of the Bissians' entry into the Republic
seemed like a distant concern now, though it was the facade
they were laboring under.
Kenda took a deep breath, peering out the cockpit window at the
streaks of crimson cloud in the sky as the sun set. It had
taken the better part of the day to get everything arranged
with Vedic. The hard part, and the crux of the entire thing,
had been to plant the information properly.
Haddoc. Zininz. These foreign words, so meaningless to her,
held deeper roots for the Bissians. When these words were
uttered, no matter their political sympathies, they listened
with pricked ears.
Qui-Gon's hunch, her intuition...these were all either of them
had at the moment. She could only send out a silent prayer that
they were both right.
The ship landed on the lower level platform with a gentle bump
and she glanced back at Kilpris, uneasy and pale in his
borrowed clothing. The Bissians all tended to look somewhat the
same to her, but she had been assured that there was a
resemblance from a distance. A closer look would crumple the
illusion, but hopefully all they would need was a moment.
There was no one out on the darkened platform and she felt her
heart sink. No one. Had the conspirators sensed the trap? She
glanced at Qui-Gon, and the older man settled her with one
gesture of his hand. 'Wait' he said without speaking.
She leaned forward to peer out into the grunge of the sub-level
port. Damn, but she hated this planet. Why did she have such a
terrible feeling?
Nothing moved out in the dock except the occasional cargo
droid, carrying huge containers here and there.
She caught Qui-Gon's motion out of the corner of her eye as he
gestured for Kilpris to lower the gangplank. The hiss and thud
of the door echoed slightly in the uneasy silence of the
docking bay. She was sure that the pilot in the cockpit with
them could hear her heart beating.
The plank was what did it. She caught a silhouette in the red
light of the setting sun, a tall slender form...then two. Then
three. She did not recognize them, but she could tell that they
were Bissians. Bissians that were not the ministers.
It was as Qui-Gon had guessed. There was an entirely different
group of them that had somehow been smuggled onto Coruscant.
Not a difficult thing in and of itself, especially if you
brought your ship in under customs' reach...and to one of the
unofficial ports such as this one.
But there was a link between the two groups of aliens. There
had to be. Otherwise these three would never have gotten the
planted information that Vedic had whispered only to his
ministers one by one. The claim that he had information that
Haddoc himself was coming secretly to Coruscant to join their
cause with the Republic and call his Zininz to heel. Utter
nonsense on the surface, but the guilty party might be
emotionally invested enough to let Haddoc's supposed betrayal
cloud their reason.
Three Bissians stepped out into the dim circle of flickering
dock-lights that had come up automatically as the sun had
faded, long shadows stretching on the pitted plascrete of the
bay floor.
She could practically feel the tension in her companion as they
waited for the three to move closer. She lifted her comlink to
her lips to give the order to the hidden Republic Guard in the
shadows. Qui-Gon's touch on her arm stopped her words.
"Look." he said softly, gesturing the three who waited
uncertainly for their false leader to descend the plank. She
looked...and frowned.
They were all tall and slender, as most Bissians were. The
wearer of the blue cloak, the one who it seemed was the center
of this whole thing...was short. And clearly not here.
The failure she felt at that moment was intense. They would
capture the lackeys. Not the leader.
"Wait." Just a moment more, his cool gaze insisted. They didn't
have long before the Bissians in the Bay would get suspicious
about the fact that no one was disembarking from the ship.
Already they were glancing around with more than a little
paranoia. These three would not get away, they were surrounded
on all sides by both Temple Guard and Coruscant Authority...but
the final one, surely he was here somewhere.
"Wait" This time it was only a whisper.
And then, out of the shadows near the entry, a figure stepped.
Small. Her breath left her in a rush as she realized that it
had worked.
She felt a surge in the force just as Kilpris made his first
step down the plank. It came from outside, far up on one of the
walls that surrounded the docking bay. A sharp white flash
strobed the semi-dark of the bay and she felt the shock and
horror fairly blast her from Qui-Gon as the short figure
suddenly crumpled to the plascrete.
"NO!" He shouted, his voice ringing through the cockpit, a
mixture of rage and despair. The mysterious figure had been the
source they had been counting on to tell them how to restore
Obi Wan. He was gone from the cockpit even as she saw the flash
again and another Bissian dropped like a felled tree.
Gasping from the adrenaline surge, she spun to follow Qui-Gon,
who was already racing down the plank into the filtered light
of the docking bay, his cloak billowing behind him.
She burst into the Docking Bay in his wake to see two of the
Bissians lying dead on the plascrete, the shorter one a dark
mass slumped under a fall of fabric a ways back. She stretched
her senses out in a wide sweep, discovering that Qui-Gon had
already vanished into the wide tunnel that led towards the main
port, his flying footfalls silent.
She could sense his intentions...understood that she was to
protect the single living Bissian while he went for the sniper.
Another flash from the wall sent her flying across the wide
space and leaping behind a tall pile of cargo containers,
casting for the last conspirator.
The survivor was only a few meters away, huddled behind a
container just to the other side of one she crouched behind,
breathing heavily...his thoughts a jumbled twist of fear and
fury. It was clouding his mind, dulling his good sense, and she
knew that any minute now he was going to flush from his hiding
place like a rabbit from the brush.
Whoever it was up there, he was cool and deadly. Each of his
shots but one had hit their targets dead on and she could tell
he was simply waiting for the Bissian to emerge. Like a cat
outside a mousehole. He had all the patience it would take.
She realized with little surprise that the sniper was the last
man. The final string. The second human. She could feel his
surface thoughts. He was a professional criminal, and he was
good at what he did. He planned on making sure that no one
would be able to follow these Bissians to him. His own fear of
the Jedi was what had driven him to this place at this time. He
killed for no other reason than to cover his tracks. She could
see glimpses of Benny in his mind, Bissians and even the dead
man...Xerd.
She stretched her senses out more carefully, getting an exact
location on the Bissian. It was only then that she realized
that the surrounding Temple Guard and the Coruscant Authority
were not there. A closer look told her that they were dead. All
of them.
Shaking her head slightly in amazement at the deadly competence
of the man, she slunk around the back of the cargo box and
touched the Bissian on his shoulder.
Wide, pupilless eyes snapped to her in shock, the long body
tensing up as if to run. She grabbed one of the skinny arms and
shook her head with a frown.
"You want to die?" she hissed. "We're going to make it back to
the ship now and wait for reinforcements. Got it? You can come
with me and face a trial, or you can get shot by that guy up
there." she gestured with her hand, glaring daggers at the
alien.
He stared at her for a long time and then nodded.
Smart guy.
Qui-Gon could feel him above, could nearly pinpoint where he
squatted. In the dark, under cover of spotty shadows and dim
dock-lights. He had managed to dash across the open bay to the
tunnel without being spotted. Likely the killer had been too
busy sighting Bissians to notice him. It was the only good luck
Qui-Gon could recall having since the damned aliens had arrived
on Coruscant 5 days earlier.
He had no doubt that this man was the final piece in their
puzzle. Qui-Gon could sense his surface thoughts and they all
matched. He caught a glimpse of Obi Wan in them, and it was all
he could do not to let his emotions overwhelm him.
He forced calm into his veins, washing the rage and the fear
away with long practice if not ease. He would have to stay cool
if he wanted to capture this man. He knew instinctively that
Obi Wan had very little time left. He already sensed that if
anyone had knowledge of how to save him, it would be this man.
Not the blue-cloaked conspirator after all. He could almost see
a soft, opalescent sac pulsing on his Padawan's face. It was an
image he forced away, knowing it would only distract him.
The Jedi moved, whisper-quiet, past a fallen corpse of one of
the Temple Guard who had surrounded the Bay. The Corellian man
had been killed with a garrote, an assassin's silent weapon.
He came to a balcony that overlooked the labyrinthine maze of
corridors that connected the illegal port's Bays together. The
sniper was just above on a deep pocketed ledge, the perfect
vantage for an assassin. Qui-Gon could make out the calm mind
behind the blast rifle. He was simply waiting for the right
opportunity to fire and finish the job.
Qui-Gon could wait too. He would wait for the perfect moment,
not any sooner. It would come. He knew that Kenda would give it
to him. He poised himself to leap.
He didn't have long to wait. Below in the Bay, Kenda took a
hold of the Bissian...and, using the Force to shield them with
an empty cargo box, they ran for the ship. The mind above did
not flicker. Instead Qui-Gon could feel the calculation as he
waited for the right moment, knowing that the cargo box would
not be able to shield both of them for the entire dash.
It was his chance to move, while the man was concentrating, and
he leapt...twisting his body easily with the Force, using it to
propel him upwards.
The man finally showed some sign of shock, his mind snapping
with it as Qui-Gon suddenly appeared on the ledge beside him.
He recovered quickly, and stepped forward to swing the end of
the blast rifle at the Jedi's head...whipping it around with
one smooth motion.
The killer was a compact man, not short, but not too tall. Lean
with muscle, he had sharp, dark eyes and short cropped brown
hair. And he was coolly confident. That was what made him
dangerous.
Qui-Gon blocked the blow easily, knocking it aside and trying
to twist the weapon from the man's hands. The quarters were too
close on the ledge for his lightsaber, but he didn't need it.
He had only to stay on the ledge and overpower the man without
killing him.
No words were exchanged between them. There was an odd silence
as they grappled for purchase, the clatter of the man's gun as
it spun down into the Bay the only sound breaking the quiet.
Qui-Gon fought his own inner rage as much as he fought the man
himself. He wanted nothing more than to bury his fingers in the
man's neck and crush his throat. This bastard had used his
apprentice like a tool, had used him and discarded him for
nothing but money.
He glared down into the dark, remorseless eyes...still fighting
his anger, and it was then that he felt the knife slip between
his ribs.
Shock coursed through Qui-Gon's body, his grip loosening as
strength seemed to ebb out of his muscles against his will. His
blue eyes were wide as he stared down at the man he'd been
fighting. His adversary's thin lips curled up in a humorless
smile as the man lifted a knife, stained red with Qui-Gon's
blood, and then gently pushed him. Letting the Jedi topple
backwards over the side of the ledge towards the unforgiving
plascrete of the Bay floor.
The sensation of falling was brief before he twisted his body,
grabbing his opponent's ankle. His whole frame jarred with the
impact of stopping his fall...bloodloss already spreading a
dull lassitude through his body. Quickly, he closed his eyes,
keeping a tight grip on the ankle above, and he sent the pain
outwards through his system, letting the shock fade, channeling
strength back into his limbs.
The surprise of the man was an advantage, and he brought up his
other arm and shoved. Again the unexpected was his ally. The
man had been bracing for Qui-Gon to try to pull back up and he
was bringing his knife down to cut into his grasping hand free.
Instead...with the Jedi's shove... they both went flying off
the side, plunging the 50 feet to the solid floor below.
Qui-Gon stopped them before they hit, easily gathering the
Force like a net and catching both of them inches before
impact.
Not wasting a moment of surprise, nor letting his adversary
gain even a moment to gather himself, he quickly wrapped the
Force around the man...thickly, tightly...until he was trussed
as soundly as any dinner fowl.
Gasping, he pushed his body up, gaining his feet with an
effort. The stab wound was bad, but not life-threatening. He
could feel that it had missed his lung, slipping between organs
and nicking a rib. He pressed a taut hand to his side, trying
to staunch the flow of blood. Primitive metal weapons did not
cauterize as they wounded. He would have to watch for blood
loss, but for now, he had other matters on his mind.
Kenda had watched from the ship, apparently, because she was
running across the Bay, her sand-colored uniform a wisp of
light color in the dim light. She pulled up in front of him,
staring down at the bound man with a slight sneer on her face.
Her eyes then traveled to him, widening when they saw the
blood. An indrawn breath hissed past her teeth and she leaned
forward to get a better look.
He waved her off, still not speaking, and moved across the Bay
floor, leaving the man behind, but still tightly wrapped in the
Force bonds. Kenda opened her mouth to complain, but shut it
when she saw where he was going.
She joined him silently as they knelt next to the short, fallen
figure and watched as he pulled back the hood.
And still, neither spoke as he revealed the familiar features
of Teede staring up at them, gasping short and softly, like she
was drawing her last breaths.
Wide pupilless eyes stared up at the Jedi Master and Kenda
could sense a flash of hatred and fear so strong it set her
back on her heels a little. Such mistrust, it was almost
choking.
"You..." She found herself leaning forward slightly to catch
what the woman said to Qui Gon, the words were light as air but
heavy with hate. "I knew...I thought it might be a trap. Haddoc
would never...betray us like Vedic already has..."
Qui Gon shook his head, his face tight. Kenda knew he was
thinking of his Padawan, lying near death...all because of this
woman's fear. She was not surprised to see that Qui Gon was not
going to debate with her or question her own betrayal of a man
she had served for three decades. There was no point in it. She
knew that he could feel the woman's irrational fear as strongly
as Kenda could. You could not argue with something like that.
And Teede was dying anyway, before their very eyes she could
see the Force fading in the woman's flesh.
"There is no way to undo the damage you have done to my
apprentice, is there?" His words were flat, furious and,
underlying it all, despairing.
She started to laugh then, a short, wheezing sound that clearly
caused her pain. Kenda was openly glad for it, her own agony
squeezing all compassion for the dying traitor out of her. She
wanted to shake the woman, slap her, slam her head against the
ground. Her own rage was shaking her limbs with the effort to
control it.
It was all unnecessary a moment later. Without even laying a
hand on the Bissian, Kenda watched as she drew her last
bubbling breath, the wide pupilless eyes fading to a dull gray.
Her own rage faded with the eyes.
Leaving only the bitter taste of helplessness in her mouth.
Jaerra tried, unsuccessfully, to see the face of the alien that
he had betrayed. Even with his entire life over before his
eyes, he still had an inane curiosity to see who he'd been
talking to.
Neither of the Jedi had said a word to each other or him, and
their silence was unnerving. He could hear the faint, unique
whine of approaching engines that he recognized as belonging to
the Coruscant Authority. The others in the ship must have
called the reinforcements in.
He sighed softly, closing his eyes and trying to collect
himself. It wasn't over. It wasn't over until it was over. A
thousand opportunities could present themselves between now and
when he got reprogrammed or wiped. Just what was the penalty
for killing a Jedi, he wondered? It couldn't be good.
The Authority Transports roared overhead, three of them, and he
could hear them looping around to come in for a landing in the
bay. Once more he tested his invisible bonds to no avail. It
was like a giant fist was squeezing him. He calmed himself and
let himself settle to wait for an opportunity.
"Poor Vedic." The big Jedi said softly, finally breaking the
silence, his large frame crouched down over the still form. "He
never would have guessed Teede. She's been with him since he
was made Magister."
He could see another, older, Bissian dressed in heavy robes
coming across from the ship, looking at the results of Jaerra's
cleanup efforts with ill concealed shock.
"I don't know these," he said softly, gesturing at the corpses
and shaking his head. "Nor the one on the ship."
The small woman looked up at the newcomer, gesturing sharply at
the form she knelt beside.
"It's Teede, Minister Kilpris. She was the one behind this
whole thing. The attempt on Qui-Gon, the framing of the
Magister..."
If anything, the old Bissian's odd eyes widened more and he
settled his own long limbs down next to the corpse. Jaerra
watched with only vague interest as long fingers twined their
way into the fallen Bissian's robe, hunting for something. A
moment later he withdrew a small round stone the color of
night.
"What's that?" The woman asked, sitting back on her heels
again.
"Its the symbol the Zininz have taken for their own. A small,
round stone, perfectly black with its lack of imperfections. No
flaws, pure and self-contained. What they want Biss to be." A
rattling sigh from his old lungs was lost against the roar of
retros firing as the three transports landed just beyond,
kicking wild gusts of wind up. "My people have always had an
uncommon fear of change, my friends. It is why we have remained
isolated for so long."
He tossed the stone aside dismissively, letting it roll into
the shadows of the Docking bay where it clattered and skittered
from sight.
Jaerra was the only one who caught the big Jedi's sudden shift
in focus from the dead Bissian to himself. Blue eyes bored into
him like lasers and he couldn't help but shudder, helpless as
he was. Quicker than anyone had any right to be with a stab
wound in the ribs and blood soaking his tunic, the Jedi was
upon him, lifting him up by the front of his dark jacket and
shaking him ever so gently. It was the only time in his life
that a soft touch had scared him.
"You." The voice was delicate and hard at the same time. "You
put that thing into my apprentice. I saw it," a
long finger came up tap him between the eyes, "...here."
Jaerra found himself swallowing, the click of his esophagus
working echoed in his own ears. It was an outward sign of fear,
like baring his throat to the enemy, and it was entirely unlike
him. He tried to blank his mind, tried to think of nothing, but
he quickly learned that silencing his thoughts was one
discipline he had never mastered. Why would he? He had never
planned to ever have to go up against a Jedi. The blue eyes
slitted in the face before him and he had no choice but to nod.
"I did. The credits...it was worth it." He didn't know what
came over him to say such a thing to a man who held complete
control over his body and mind, but he'd always been foolishly
brave. Or stupid, he amended as the grip tightened.
The gaze held, unblinking, and against his own control, he felt
himself start to sweat.
"You will tell me," the voice was so cold, "if there is a way
to strip it from his system."
In that moment, Jaerra was tempted to lie, even with the
knowledge that the man would know the moment he did, he was
still ready to do it. To pretend that there was a way.
"He will die. They...always die" His voice squeaked as the grip
tightened, and he tried to remain calm. He could sense that the
presence of the newly arrived Guard was part of the
self-imposed restraint that the Jedi was struggling against.
The tall man stared at him for a long moment more and then,
without a sound, he turned and dragged his helpless body
towards one of the shuttles. Whether he was headed for prison
or death, he didn't know.
Things were shifting out and away, the darkness was paling
now...as if dawn were coming. He could feel himself breaking
from the clutches of the darkness, drifting into a pale, watery
light that seemed to fill his entire being.
He was leaving the eyes behind. The chittering, gibbering,
stifling shroud.
And he was free.
Qui-Gon had lived through a number of terrible experiences in
his life. He'd seen worlds and races and conflicts rise and
fall. He'd had several loves and more than that of lovers. He'd
fought for freedom and ethics and morals and his own personal
agendas. His life had been centered around principles and
beliefs and he had held firm to those things, believing that
they would see him through. That they would guide him down the
path when things were the darkest.
And none of it was enough.
Nothing would have ever been enough to prepare him when he
entered the small, dim Med Bay dragging his instantly worthless
prisoner, only to find his Padawan shrouded in a clean white
sheet. The cloaked chest was still, the monitoring droid dark
and silent.
Oddly, he did not weep or rail or threaten. That was Kenda.
With a small choking noise, she sank into a corner like a child
and gave way to tears in a manner that Qui-Gon was distantly
sure she never allowed herself publicly.
His numb hand slowly fell from the fabric of Jaerra's shirt as
if he had forgotten that he stood there.
One step forward. Another.
Qui-Gon let his eyes fix on the silent droid across the cot
without looking down at the form the sheet still obscured. The
pain from his stab wound had faded into nothing. It was as if
he had lost the ability to feel.
"When?"
A single light flared to life on its chest console when it
replied.
"6.2 minutes ago" The metallic voice startled Kenda slightly,
he saw her jerk a little from her huddled spot in the corner.
But she did not raise her head from her arms.
Too late. Of all the things that Obi Wan had to be punctual
about...
The morbid humor tightened his throat painfully and he fought
back a hysterical bark of laughter, only a thin wisp of pained
sound issuing from his lips. His fingers, wet with his own
blood, curled slowly into the thin fabric of the sheet and
pulled.
The sense of unreality, of the world shifting beneath his feet,
enclosed him in its unforgiving fingers as he finally let his
eyes drop to the bed's silent occupant.
It was somehow so wrong that the soft, short pelt of
bronze-gold hair still shone in the muted light. Long lashes
rested on cheeks washed of their color in double crescent
smudges of chestnut gilt. The lovely curve of his mouth was
relaxed, his lips ever so slightly parted, as if he were about
to ask a question.
A trembling, blood-wet hand reached out to smooth its way down
one lightly stubbled jawline, still faintly warm, leaving a
crimson smudge on the pale skin. The energy and mischief that
were so much a part of his Padawan's being had vanished,
leaving him as just another quiet boy. A shell. Qui-Gon was
suddenly enormously grateful that Obi Wan's eyes were closed so
that he didn't have to see those sparkling, impudent orbs dead
and lifeless.
Qui Gon's fingers trailed back up to the temple, smoothing back
a mussed hair and tucking it behind an ear before running the
silken texture of Obi Wan's gleaming braid between his finger
and thumb. He noted dully that there was a strange blackened
fluid darkening the pillows beneath his apprentice's ears. The
remains of the synth-parasite, he supposed blankly.
He found himself slowly bending towards the bed, as if the
youth he'd spent the last 7 years with was his center of
gravity, inexorably pulling him down...and he let his lips
brush the cool softness of that suddenly tamed mouth one last
time before pulling himself stiffly upright.
After everything he had experienced, all the death he had
witnessed, he found himself suddenly unable to come to grips
with the end of this one life. It was nothing as trivial as the
death of an apprentice or even the death of a lover... but the
death of a soul. His soul. His compassion. His reason. Without
remorse or even dismay, he watched as those things simply faded
away.
There were a number of paths he could have taken then. A
million memories might have surfaced to draw him back from the
brink of the abyss he leaned over. Remembrances of moments
shared, glories fought for, vignettes of both passion and
poignant love. There might have been bittersweet tears or even
an appeal to the fates.
But there was nothing.
He was bereft. Dry of anything but pain and anguish. And a
blossoming of pure, perfect, crimson rage.
He had been skirting the edges of it for a week, flirting with
fear and weakness, but now he did not even flinch as those
blunted jaws swallowed him whole, darkening his eyes to steely
lapis. It was as if Obi-Wan's fragile claim to life had been
the remaining barrier between him and the monster behind the
wall. The mortar had crumbled to dust, the bricks had eroded
and Qui Gon actually welcomed the roaring despair that flooded
through his veins.
Then, within the hollow tunnel of his own rage, the dull,
violent throbbing of every beat of a heart that was now only
half of itself, he felt something...external.
It was a memory. A memory not his own.
Through the warp of another's eyes, he could suddenly see a
sallow woman lying on a cot, a familiar black fluid drying on
her ears and neck, staining the dirty white of the blanket she
rested on. He could see a healer bending over her, working
feverishly. And he watched thin eyelids drag open.
He wasn't even aware he had moved. All he knew was that one
moment he had been standing over his Padawan's motionless
corpse and the next he had picked Jaerra up by his shirt and
slammed him into the wall hard enough to bring a cracked, dazed
look into the mercenary's eyes.
"What was that?" He hissed, only millimeters from the man's
face. He didn't hear Kenda's slight mental gasp of shock at his
blatant breach of the Jedi Code of privacy. His eyes were slits
of cold, blue fire, devoid of any kind of rationale. His
fingers tightened on the man's shirt, knowing that he had flesh
as well as cloth between his fingers, and glad of it. He only
squeezed harder.
Jaerra's throat clicked loudly as he swallowed, his face a
study in stunned fear that just fed the Jedi's anger. Qui Gon
leaned closer, not asking a second time, giving no quarter...
simply taking.
He plunged through the man's mind, scattering memories and
secrets like shredded paper in his wake, only wanting the one
thing that he was not interested in waiting for. He had no
compassion left, nothing but raw need. He was not aware of the
man's thin screaming, nor of Kenda's hands yanking frantically
at him... trying to pull him off the mercenary. His hands were
clamped down, white at the knuckles and crusted with drying
blood, digging into flesh even as his mind ruthlessly stripped
everything contained within Jaerra's thoughts.
It was there. The man had seen it once in his countless uses of
the synthetic control agent. Once. A woman had been revived
after she'd been killed by the parasite. It had died when she
did, vacating her body... and the doctors had been able to save
her.
Once.
Abruptly the hands that had been pulling at him ceased their
attempts to yank him away. Kenda had been unable to avoid
seeing what he had witnessed in Jaerra's thoughts and was not
above using what she had learned. Distantly, he was aware of
the fact that the young Knight was yelling for the doctors,
snapping orders at the med-droid.
Blinking back the red haze of his rage with an enormous amount
of effort, he looked down and saw the limp form of the
mercenary hanging from his grip, eyes half-mast, blood running
from his nose, weeping softly.
His fingers loosened and the man fell to the floor with a
hollow, boneless sound that didn't even register. It was not
shock that he felt at what he had done to the criminal before
him. It was only a dim satisfaction, something not quite close
to revenge. He slowly turned to look at Kenda hovering over the
shell of his Padawan, at the tide of doctors and droids she had
summoned ebbing and flowing around the narrow cot.
His anger did not dissipate, it simply re-channeled into a need
so great it threatened to reduce him to charred ash. The
murderer was forgotten in the same span of time it had taken
the Jedi to break him. He was moving inexorably closer to the
narrow cot, helpless to think or feel anything beyond the cruel
hope that was trying to germinate inside his ruined heart.
Qui-Gon felt himself falling to his knees at the bedside,
stretching out with every ounce of his considerable,
emotion-fueled strength. Fearful at first, tentative. Terrified
that he would find nothing at all in the void. He bent his head
over onto the blankets, taking up the cold hand in his
bloodstained fingers and pressing it to his cheek.
Never once in his life had he wanted something more than he
wanted...needed...that pulse to leap to life under his touch.
Drawing on every part of him that had ever thrilled at Obi
Wan's presence in his life, every experience shared or
sensation felt...he gathered himself and pushed. The first time
he'd seen the boy. The first time he'd touched the man. The
first time he'd known what he felt was more than the love of a
mentor for a favored student. The first time he realized he
wasn't complete without him.
And he could feel him there. Close. Close enough to sense, but
not touch.
He was not aware of the frenzied activity that swirled around
him and the motionless boy on the bed like currents around a
boulder. Knees and hands jarred him, and he did not move, did
not lift his head nor open his eyes. He still didn't feel the
tickle of his own blood dripping down his side and pooling
against his belt. He did not feel hands on his shoulders or the
taut grip of fingers grinding into the muscles, but he did feel
Kenda's presence, adding to his own, helping him stretch just a
bit further.
Something had tethered the boy's spirit, kept it near, kept it
from soaking into the living Force completely. He and Kenda
could feel him, nearly touch him...dancing just out of reach.
It was indeed Obi Wan, the mischievous, impudent flare of his
soul as clear as a white birch among black pine.
Even through the rioting fire of his savage emotions, Qui Gon
could sense the peace of the void, the calm lure of the clean,
pure Force that surrounded every part of him...making him feel
like an interloper. The soul that hung just out of reach could
never be approached. Obi Wan would have to decide on his own to
return. He could only reach out and pray that his hand would be
taken up. That it was worthy to be taken up. There in that
place, he felt the darkness that had settled him over the past
days all the more, poisonous and dirty.
He was not aware of the tears that leaked silently from the
corners of his eyes as he lay motionless against his
apprentice's hand. He was only aware of the waiting, the silent
cry that he knew Obi Wan might not hear. The pain of knowing
that the soul he loved more than anything else could simply
choose to drift away. And he would be powerless to stop it.
He wanted to howl into the darkness, he wanted to beg and
demand and rage. But he couldn't. He could only wait.
And when the light finally came closer, touching him, flooding
his spirit with his own feelings returned a hundredfold, he
finally felt the tiny pulse leap against his cheek. Only then
did he let himself feel again.
Appalling, bone-deep shame was the first thing that engulfed
him, fighting painfully with his shining joy at the knowledge
that Obi Wan would live. He didn't have to look behind him to
see the slumped figure of the man he'd shredded with his mind,
he could sense him. He could still feel the residue of his
rage, coating every aspect of his self with a miasma of
corruption.
His eyes dropped down to look at Obi Wan's fingers clasped
between his. The sight, innocent as it was, jarred him to his
soul. His Padawan's hand, slender and elegant, lay unmoving in
the steel trap of his own bone-white, blood-crusted claws. The
imagery was not lost on him and he dropped the warming fingers
quickly, as if they had burned him with the very life he had
bought with his rage.
Trembling like a leaf, he shoved violently to his feet, backing
away from the cot almost instinctively. Through decades of
discipline and self-control, he had never let his anger rule
him. Yet, in the span of one week, he had allowed all those
years of his life, his experience, to lose all meaning and
honor. Nausea welled up inside him and, sickened, he spun from
the sight of the shaky, newborn rise and fall of his Padawan's
chest.
He fled the room, not with blind cowardice, but aching
deliberation, only knowing that the one thing he couldn't bear
at that moment was to see his Padawan's eyes open and
reflecting the monster before him.
Kenda stretched one slim leg out of the awkward curl she'd
forced it into, shifting once again in an attempt to get
comfortable in the hard plastic of the Med-bay chair. A hand
rose to rake through her dirty hair and she glanced at the
chrono with bleary eyes.
9 hours now since the doctors had dragged Obi-Wan back to the
land of the living. 27 hours since she had last eaten. 42 hours
since she'd snatched a few broken moments of sleep on Qui-Gon's
couch. And more hours total than she had ever wanted to stay on
Coruscant again. She ran a tongue across teeth that felt coated
in fuzz and debated the merits of returning to her temporary
quarters for a quick fresher.
Obi Wan seemed to hear her thoughts and chose that moment to
stir on the narrow cot, a faint muttering issuing from his
lips, the trace of a frown on his forehead.
Both her feet hit the floor with a thunk and she scooted the
chair closer to the bed, leaning over her friend and touching
his face. A face she had been certain she would never see
flushed with life again.
He leaned into her touch and suddenly his eyes dragged open,
peering groggily up at her in the dim light of the Bay. She
could literally feel the disappointment that he was too
tired to mask when he saw her face. She managed to quirk a
grin, too smart to be hurt by the fact that he had been hoping
to see a totally different visage leaning over him. Her hand
spread out to cup his cheek tenderly.
"Hey." she said softly.
He managed a slightly confused smile, blinking at his
surroundings with more than a little disorientation. Looking
for something. Or someone.
"You're in the Med Center." she said in answer to his unspoken
question. She didn't want to answer the other, more obvious,
question. Not yet. "You've had a rough time of it."
"What..." his voice sounded like sandpaper on granite, and he
cleared his throat. "...what's going on? I don't..." his brow
had furrowed, "I don't remember anything."
She shook her head tiredly.
"Its a long story. Lets just say that you're fine now. That
everything is alright."
Everything was not alright. She could hear it as if he had
spoken it out loud.
She sighed, heading the question off.
"He's not here. He's continuing the mediations with the
Bissians."
Now Obi Wan's face smoothed out into an emotionless mask that
told her more than a frown would have.
"What aren't you telling me?" he croaked finally.
She bit her lip and reached down to pick his hand up, staring
intently at the back of his wrist as if there were words
written there.
"I don't know, Benny. I don't think I should be the one to talk
about it. He didn't do anything that most of us wouldn't have
done under the circumstances. The Council itself won't even
consider reprimanding him...."
Obi Wan's eyes were liquid with his emotions. The boy had never
been good about concealing them. If she hadn't already been
bludgeoned with the strength of the bond between her friend and
his master all throughout this nightmare, she would have known
it all in that moment. Fear battled with confusion across his
features.
"What happened?" His voice was nearly a growl as he struggled
to sit up. She didn't even bother with restraining him, she
simply tucked a pillow up behind his back before sitting back
in her chair and tunneling her arms into her sleeves.
"You died, Ben. Don't you remember anything?"
He was staring openly at her, the usual curve of his lips set
in a thin line.
"Nothing past going to sleep that night...after the kitchen
knife..." he grumbled. "What happened?" The question was
sharper this time.
"There was a synthetic parasite in your brain, essentially
allowing you to become a remote controlled pawn. You tried to
kill Qui Gon, and then you just blacked out." She quickly
sketched out the events of the past days, leaving out most of
the details and stopping once she arrived at Qui Gon's abrupt
departure from the Med Bay.
"And the man? The man who did this to me?" he asked, his face
blanked with shock.
"The doctors say he's shaken, but fine. It's more than he
deserves. You weren't the first one he's used that thing on,
and he's wanted for just about every crime you can imagine, on
more than one planet." As Jedi, neither of them should have
ever let themselves indulge in the luxury of thinking that the
mercenary might have deserved what he got, but Kenda was
obviously as stringent about the Code as Qui Gon was. She
shrugged, her brow furrowing. "He's not talking to anyone about
it, but its obvious he's disappointed in himself."
That was putting it mildly, and she could tell that Obi Wan
knew it. She didn't know the Master Jedi very well, but she
knew enough from the past week to know he was obsessive with
both honor and duty. It was both shield and buffer for him. He
might not follow the Code to the letter, but he followed the
spirit of it. His personal breach of control was something that
he was going to have to work out before he could allow himself
to heal. And Obi Wan would figure very heavily into that
process. After all, it didn't take a genius to figure out that
this particular Padawan was the very heart of the problem
behind Qui Gon's cracked walls.
She could see that Obi Wan was thinking the same thing as a
deep line formed a crease between his brows, his eyes
unfocusing. He was likely stretching out his senses along the
connection he shared with his Master, and she could almost see
the moment when he hit the inevitable wall the Jedi had
constructed.
It prepared her for when he flung the sheet aside and swung his
feet over the side of the cot, obviously intent on leaving. It
was an easy matter to push him back into the cot mattress. He
was as weak as a child.
"You have to stay here, Ben. You have a lot of recovering to
do, at least a day in the Bacta tank now that you're conscious
again. Your Master has been trying to mend the negotiations
between the Republic and the Bissians. I'll tell him that
you're awake."
It was clear to both of them that that might not necessarily
mean he would come. And though she didn't say it, she already
knew that he wouldn't face his apprentice just now. Perhaps not
even ever.
Force forfend that anything should be simple.
Qui Gon stood as still as a statue in the early morning light,
his features set, even his clothes unmoving. Only his eyes
showed life, watching the stasis containers holding the Zininz
saboteurs bodies as they were loaded into the cargo hold of
Vedic's ship. He wondered idyly how taking a traitor's body
back would serve any point, but decided that he didn't really
care.
A flicker of his eyes to the left showed the Magister himself
further down, more stooped and bowed under his robes than he
had been only two weeks earlier, talking quietly with Commander
Gridin. Beyond them both squatted Gridin's shuttle, waiting to
take the stout woman up to the flagship cruiser that would head
the relief mission to Biss. Three frigates stuffed with
Hydroponics technology, medical supplies, drought-resistant
crop species and 10,000 Republic Guard Troops to help end the
Civil War waited in orbit.
The Bissians had been allowed entry.
It was through no small effort on his own part. He had thrust
every iota of energy he had into convincing the Senate to give
the Bissian delegation another chance. Now that they were
leaving, he could feel that starkly honest part of his brain
telling him that it was through no particular sense of
altruism. Far from it, in fact.
His real reasons had been much more cowardly.
His eyelids dipped briefly closed. How could he explain it to
Obi Wan when he could barely explain it to himself? What was it
that was keeping him from the one place he most wanted to be?
Was it more than the shame that was eating him alive?
A noise at his side had his eyes flicking open again, not
needing to look down to see who it was.
"They're on their way at last?" Kenda asked. He nodded, dying
to ask, but not daring. She didn't need to hear the question.
"He's back in your quarters now, the doctors released him early
this morning. He's fine. He would have been better if you'd
shown up even once," she muttered.
"It couldn't be avoided," he lied. "I've been busy with the
Bi-"
"Yes, with the Bissians. Good thing too." Her voice was sharp
with sarcasm.
"They wouldn't have anyone el-" She cut him off again with a
wave of her hand, her dark eyes narrowed as she continued to
watch the Bissian's prepare for their journey home.
"Right. No one else. Funny, that. I was just talking to Master
Lydie, and she told me that after they released the Magister
from lockup, he had expressed his desire to continue the talks
with whomever would mediate. For some reason, he had thought
you might be busy helping your apprentice recover." Her voice
was cool, but the blades were hidden below the surface.
Qui Gon refused to let her bait him. Instead he folded his
hands deep into his wide sleeves and thinned his lips.
"You don't have half a clue about-" And she cut him off for the
third time, no longer bothering to hide her annoyance.
"You're the one who doesn't have a clue." She snapped, grabbing
his arm and spinning his much-taller frame around so he could
finally look down at her. "You're hiding from a boy half your
age, you big coward. What are you so afraid of? It's become
clear, at least to me, that you're so scared of losing
your precious control that you're willing to sacrifice not only
your own feelings, but Obi Wan's!" She was hissing now, her
fingers digging into his arm. "You lost it in that med bay,
yes. But that happens to the best of us, Qui Gon. Haven't you
learned that yet? Especially when it comes to someone you
love!"
He stared down at her, her words sliding around him and over
him... not quite sinking in. He opened his mouth to refute her
claim, but she stopped him with a raised hand.
"I'm not done. Wallow in your precious guilt if you must, drink
it, drown in it.. but don't you dare hurt Obi Wan for some
hollow personal lesson in selfishness. The bloody Council
itself agreed that what you did to save Obi Wan's life was,
while not condoned, at least understandable. Certainly
they seem to comprehend your bond. More, apparently,
than you do. That murdering bastard is fine, no matter how much
he deserved to die. So snap out of it!"
This time Qui Gon waited for a full minute before he moved to
open his mouth, making sure she was done, not caring to get
interrupted again.
And after that small span of time, when he parted his lips, he
found that he had nothing at all to say.
She was glaring at him almost triumphantly, as if she
knew that he had nothing to counter her with. As if she
knew she was speaking the truth. They locked eyes for a time
longer, and he could see the fierce loyalty she had to his
apprentice. Both of them shared that quality, he thought with
an internal sigh. Loyalty always seemed to come before
everything else with the pair of them. Perhaps he had something
left to learn after all.
He was spared further self-recrimination by Vedic's slow
approach. The Bissian had aged in his short time on Coruscant.
Much of it was the simple fact of Teede's betrayal. The elderly
Magister had not taken the news well. The woman had been his
faithful aide for more years than Obi Wan had been alive. He
was going to have to come to terms with that particular loss in
his own way and in his own time.
"Jedi Qui Gon." The man said, his tired voice full of genuine
warmth and gratitude. He reached out and clasped the Jedi's
forearms tightly, smiling into his eyes. "I can't thank you
enough." When his long hands fell away, they gestured towards
the stocky figure of the commander as she made her way towards
her own shuttle. "We have the aid we need now, and I think,
with the Republic's help, we will soon be able to stop the
civil war."
Qui Gon nodded, forcing a small smile across his tight face. It
was harder and harder by the moment to think of anything beyond
the fact that Obi Wan had returned to their quarters, and that
Kenda might just have made a point with her inelegant words.
"I'm glad that the Republic reconsidered, Magister. You will
make a welcome addition."
"As will our Duranium." Vedic quipped with a hint of humor.
Both of them knew that the rich ore had been the main reason
the Republic had allowed admission. It had been the only reason
in the beginning and had remained so till the end.
The Magister turned towards Kenda and bowed slightly.
"Thank you too, Jedi Kenda Leti. It appears that Qui Gon is not
the only of his kind with honor."
The words rang with irony for him, and it took a concerted
effort not to twist his mouth in self-contempt. He flicked his
eyes towards Kenda to see her staring at him out of the corner
of her hooded eyes. Staring with something akin to contempt of
her own. It pierced him more sharply than any of her words had,
and he knew then, for certain, that she was right. He had been
selfish and afraid.
One would think that after 42 years of life, a few vital
lessons would be learned. Apparently not.
Magister Vedic was turning back towards his ship after bowing
again to both of them, and they watched him move slowly away.
The others in the Bissian's delegation had already boarded. He
was the last. A few moment later both the Bissians' shuttle and
the Republic Commander's shuttles lifted off and vanished in
the lightening blue of the morning sky.
A deep sigh lifted out of the depths of his chest and he tipped
his head back to watch the vanishing specks of the shuttles'
afterburners. Kenda's voice broke through the new silence on
the platform.
"That's the last of my farewells. I've already said good-bye to
Ben. My ship is waiting and I've been here way too long as it
is." She slanted a sly glance at him. "Don't you have somewhere
to be?" Her voice was softer now, as if she could sense
something in him that he had not yet come to terms with.
The first traces of a smile to touch his mouth in two weeks
appeared on his face as he looked down at her. One hand came up
to stroke down the side of her cheek.
"I can see why Obi Wan likes you." He said. Her eyebrows rose
at that.
"Obi Wan likes everybody," she snorted, "but he loves you." She
rose up on tiptoe and kissed his scratchy cheek. "You'd do well
to remember that." Shrugging her robe up around her shoulders
more firmly, she spun and walked briskly off down the causeway
towards the main platform.
He watched her go for a long moment and then, as quickly as he
could without running, he strode off in the opposite direction.
The ceiling was getting less interesting by the moment and he
suspected that it wasn't going to be moreso anytime in the
future. Kenda had left him lying despondently on the couch an
hour before, saying that she would see to it that Qui Gon would
be returning soon, even if she had to drag him by his hair.
That would have been a picture, he chuckled humorlessly. He
hadn't said anything, but Kenda didn't know Qui Gon very well
if she thought she was going to force him into anything. And it
was very, very clear that his Master wasn't interested in
seeing him.
Perhaps he should simply get dressed and go out and hunt the
man down. A frown creased his forehead at the thought, a
stubborn irritation rising in him. No. There was no way he was
going to do that. Qui Gon would have to come to him in his own
time. The older man certainly knew where to find him.
He rubbed an idle hand across his bare chest, slipping down to
scratch at the waistband of the sleeping pants he'd pulled on
after his shower. His eyes were still on the ever-exciting
ceiling when he decided he'd had enough of lying down.
With an annoyed grumble, he rolled off the couch and strode out
onto the balcony, folding his arms on the railing and looking
down. When he had been younger, he had loved to hook his knees
over and under the metal bars and hang out over oblivion. The
Jedi's Temple was by no means the tallest building on
Coruscant, but it was tall enough. Tall enough that whenever
his master had caught him hanging over the edge with his arms
flung wide, he usually wound up scrubbing some floor somewhere
for a week at a time, with a fingernail brush.
His lips twisted wryly. Why the hell not?
Clambering up onto the rails, his bare feet curling around the
metal rungs, he carefully wedged his knees around the bars and
slowly stretched his body out over the side.
The sense of vertigo was exhilarating as the winds that
buffeted the upper reaches of the tower bit and tugged at him,
alternately tightening and ballooning his loose pants around
his legs. Slowly, he stretched his arms out wide, arching his
neck back and closing his eyes, enjoying the feeling of nothing
but empty space on nearly every side of him.
It was frustrating, he thought, cool fingers of air slipping
and sliding around him...gravity's claws cleverly insisting
that his body simply let go and fly. Frustrating that he had
been unable to do more than just wait for Qui Gon to
decide that he was worth coming back to. Frustrating that he
didn't know exactly what was keeping his master away.
Terrifying to imagine that he might not return at all.
He was beyond rage or even tears. Both of those things he had
done already in his first few nights alone in the Med Center.
Qui Gon was afraid of something, and he would simply have to
determine what it was and alleviate it.
Hopefully it wasn't him. He had never felt so alone in his
entire life.
His limbs were starting to tremble from the strain of hanging
himself out over the abyss, his arms weakening from holding
them out and away like he was. He didn't move, a tiny part of
him wondering what it would be like to simply let his muscles
relax. To let himself fall. The air rushing all around him in a
roar of noise and motion, his limbs pressed back by the rate of
his descent. Would he be conscious before he hit? He'd always
heard that you lost consciousness before you met the ground in
such a fall, but how did anyone know that? It sounded oddly
like something someone would say to comfort those who were left
behind.
A noise behind him was his only warning before he was caught up
and yanked backwards off the rails, breath harsh and hot on his
neck, a warm body pressed almost painfully close to his. Arms
encircled his chest like iron bands, cramping his breathing,
biting into his bare skin.
He didn't attempt to break away, instead freezing in place, not
wanting to do anything that might make those arms withdraw. The
hard body behind him was shaking almost imperceptibly, and he
could feel the tight walls that his Master had raised against
him. Walls that had always been worthless between them.
Gently, without moving, he let his mind carefully slide along
their bond, pushing past the steel doors of Qui Gon's barriers
like they weren't there, embracing every fear and need in the
turmoil of the older man's mind. Embracing it all and accepting
it without judgement. Finally understanding.
The gasp in his ear was half a sob and the arms tightened
convulsively before pulling away entirely, leaving him chilled
in the cool breezes of the heights. He turned to slowly face
the man who now stood several feet away, glowering at him.
"Don't you think you're a little old for such foolishness?!" he
snapped. It was not a question that deserved an answer and they
both knew it. Qui Gon's anger was as transparent as the walls
he'd tried to shut his Padawan out with.
So they simply stood silent, staring at each other like
strangers for a few long heartbeats. Obi Wan swallowed the lump
that was forming in his throat. His master looked terrible.
Haggard and unshaven and unkempt. The blue eyes burned with
something that he thought he recognized as utter self-contempt
and the mouth was set in a thin line. He looked terrible and
oh, so beautiful.
There weren't any real words to exchange between them. Obi Wan
had already seen into his mentor's soul. Qui Gon had only to
accept that his Padawan was indeed alive and that the youth did
own part of his soul. That the older man had always had part of
Obi Wan's, was not in question. Obi Wan had never hidden that
fact. He had passed his fear long ago.
It was obvious that his Master was only now reaching that
point.
Swallowing softly, Obi Wan lifted his chin slightly, letting
Qui Gon continue to look at him, continue to fight whatever
internal battle was raging behind those blue eyes. He rested
his hands on the railing behind him, standing straight under
that heavy regard. Was he worth it? He asked silently... Was he
worth the pain and the fear? Was he enough?
The answer came upon him so quickly he almost lost his balance.
Qui Gon had him against the rail, his wide palms sweeping up
the curve of Obi Wan's spine and crushing him close. There was
no apology or explanation that Obi Wan wanted beyond this. And
none was needed. Everything had been said in their silence.
Qui Gon's hands were like branding irons on his skin and he
arched up against the body that held him. Hands were cupping
his ass, pulling him up until he sat on the top bar of the
railing, his legs parted, his knees to either side of his
master's hips. Cool wind rushed up his back, ruffling his hair
and lifting Qui Gon's longer locks up and away from his strong
face in flyaway tendrils. His master was pressing him over
further, over the side, until his head was hanging back over
the abyss, his back bent over strong forearms.
Gasping with the sensation of the blood rushing to his head and
the vertigo of the dizzying heights, he moaned and pressing his
fully hard cock hard into his Master's belly, legs coming up
and around to hook behind his ass. Qui Gon's beard scratched at
his bare stomach as a hot, wet tongue dipped and swirled into
his navel, alternately sucking and biting, sending waves of
Goosebumps across his skin. His mouth opened slightly, his head
hanging even further back, braid flapping and slapping against
his neck in the updraft.
His thin sleeping pants were dampening in the crotch and he
could feel the chill of the breeze cooling the wetness, the
sensation only enhancing his arousal. Qui Gon's own cock was
pressed almost roughly between his legs, the hard length lying
hot between the cheeks of his ass. The mouth was moving up
instead of down, traveling to his chill-taut nipples, biting
and licking eagerly while that teasing erection continued to
thrust sensually against him, nudging at the underside of his
tight balls with the occasional jolt of ecstasy.
His whole body was arching backwards now, his spine folded
tautly over his master's arms, those muscles the only thing
holding him up over the pit. It was exhilarating, having only
his lover between him and death. It quickened his breath almost
shamefully and he moaned harshly through lips suddenly thick
and soft with arousal and blood-rush. He forced his hands to
let go of their grip on his master's shoulders, spreading them
slowly out to either side.
Qui Gon's breath was hot and harsh against his skin as he
sucked greedily at the hollow of his sternum, biting gently
along the under-ledge of his ribcage. He could feel one hand
easing the loose waistband of his pants down, leaving his
support to just one straining arm across his back. He could
feel the trembling of his master's strong muscles as he
continued to hold his Padawan suspended.
And then his cock was free, the strong breezes cooling the warm
fluid that was welling from the tip. Still, Qui Gon did not
touch him in that place that so ached for it, instead, Obi Wan
felt his master's hardness pressing against the entrance to his
body, wet and slippery with his own arousal. One inch, slowly,
spreading him wide. Another, so slow, the friction
mind-boggling. Obi Wan was whimpering, his face hot and almost
throbbing with blood. His spread arms were trembling, the
endorphins racing thorough his body, enhancing each and every
sensation. Thin, mewling sounds were issuing from his lips,
lost in the swirling updraft of the tower heights.
Another inch. So good. He wanted to fall, to fly with his
master.
And then he felt it. The thin but strong weave of the force
that cradled him. He would not fall. His master would never let
him fall. There was still a buffer between Qui Gon and his
fear.
He forced his muscles to obey him, pulling upright and into Qui
Gon's arms, seeing the surprise on his master's face. He only
smiled, lightheaded and drunk with desire as he slipped free of
the penetration, reluctantly releasing the man's erection. His
own cock was an aching, throbbing burn between his legs.
"No." He whispered softly. "You can't be in control for this.
Not this time."
He pushed his master back from the railing, bearing him down to
the hard, plascrete of the balcony floor and straddling him
before finally asking him:
"Are you still afraid?"
His body was on fire, every nerve alive and throbbing almost
painfully. He was so attuned to the young man who hovered over
him, he fancied he could feel Obi Wan's heart beating from
where he lay. He was almost trembling with need, his erection
aching painfully from its brief taste of Obi Wan's tight body.
His skin was reminding him how desperate it was to touch and be
touched again. Forcing himself to stay away from the Med Center
for the week's duration had been the hardest thing he'd ever
done.
Funny. He'd always hated martyrs.
"Are you still afraid?" Obi Wan's voice was soft, but cut right
to the heart of it with a surgeon's precision. And the question
itself was enough to tell him, finally, that he might always
be, just a little. But that it was part of it all.
Beautiful, he thought automatically, as he always did. But
never so much as he was now. Alive and real. Not a concept to
cling to in his heart, a shadow of the soul he'd loved...a
memento to press into a locket to remember. These eyes sparkled
with the same irreverent humor and infinite compassion of the
boy he'd trained and the man he loved.
And they were fully, vibrantly, alive.
Without even thinking, he reached his palm up, sliding it
against the curve of his Padawan's cheek with a shudder,
curling his fingers through the soft hair and cupping the side
of his head.
Alive.
He answered Obi Wan's question without words.
The mouth, when it touched his, was at first firm and pliant
against his own, and he shivered slightly at the mere contact.
It was as if a tiny spark arced between them then, and he felt
Obi Wan press closer, his lips demanding. He could feel the
burning ache of his Padawan's arousal like a fire in his mind,
feeding the inferno that already blazed in his own body.
Alive.
The shadow-vision, the memory of a pale dead body finally
washed away...replaced by a warm, living, breathing youth. The
man that now filled his arms.
A flood of fire washed through his entire being and he clutched
his Padawan tighter to him, threading his other hand across Obi
Wan's scalp until his head was cradled between his palms while
they fed off each others' mouths.
"I heard you calling me in the dark..." the voice whispered
harshly in his ear as Obi Wan's devouring mouth crawled up his
jawline, pausing to bite at the his earlobe. "I wanted to tell
you that... but you never came..." Already Qui Gon could hear a
catch in the timbre of his Padawan's voice that spoke of that
distant hurt, but there was no blame. He closed his eyes and
sucked a breath in at the words, the pain of the memory biting
at him. But it was dulled now, and growing duller with each new
touch of Obi Wan's mouth. A silky mouth that was moving down
his neck, leaving a trail of wet behind it.
Qui Gon gasped out loud as Obi Wan pressed his lithe, hard body
more fully against his, working his lean legs between the
larger man's thighs, easing them outwards. He was hot all over,
fully aware of each dip and swell of muscle inherent in the
body that was grinding gently against his. The mouth was
sinking towards the flesh of his collarbone, eager hands
shoving aside the fabric of his tunic to clear the way.
I'm not going anywhere now.
It was hard to say which one of them thought the words, they
twined into two voices inside Qui Gon's head, cutting through
the fog of heat in his brain and his arms came up, gripping the
youth's arms tightly enough to bruise. Enough to lift the
tormenting mouth off his skin and raise those remarkable
crystalline eyes to his own.
He stared into his lover's face for an indeterminable moment,
his breathing harsh, his throat working as he tried to find the
language to describe his own fear in that place. That pure,
perfect place where he had not known if Obi Wan would go or
stay...and helpless to do anything about it.
"No fear." Obi Wan whispered finally, and let his mouth take
the option of speech away from his master.
Qui Gon felt his clothes being peeled away, layer by layer,
through a rising tide of need. Never in his life had he needed
anything as much as he needed to feel his skin against his
lover's. His own broad palms were scraping their way back and
forth across the lean chest above him, feeling the hardened
nubs of Obi Wan's nipples straining against his fingertips, the
muscles of his torso working under silky skin as the youth
worked to remove the physical barriers that remained.
And then there was nothing left between them. Not fabric, not
fear, not even titles. The plascrete of the balcony floor was
cold and rough against his back, as Obi Wan's strong thighs
clamped tightly around his hips. Qui Gon could feel his cock
trapped between them, the occasional glancing contact with his
lover's erection sending jolts of incendiary pleasure straight
into his brain.
Obi Wan seemed set to prove that he was not anything but
blazingly alive, and his mouth was like a branding iron on his
master's skin. Trailing from collarbone to sternum and then
lower to his navel, Qui Gon couldn't refrain from squirming
under lips that had mapped every single hot spot on his body.
The older man gasped slightly in anticipation as he felt his
knees suddenly lifted up, the firm muscles of Obi Wan's back
now pressing against the back of his calves. Cool air caressed
the insides of his thighs and he felt the hotter, moister air
of his lover's breath against balls that already felt heavy and
tight.
The back of his head hit the hard Crete with a thunk, oblivious
to the dull pain as he felt Obi Wan's tongue curl under his
scrotum, sucking both his testicles into the hot, wet cavern of
his mouth. His hips arched involuntarily upwards as waves of
fire swept up and over his body, flushing his face and bringing
his hands up to curl into the short, soft silk of Obi Wan's
hair. The talented tongue was sweeping under and around the
textured skin, the lips tightening as he brought his whole
mouth into play, teasing and licking. Multicolored lights were
exploding behind Qui Gon's eyelids, his thighs trembling with
the effort to control the sensations that were flooding his
body. He could feel the dampness on his belly where his cock
lay, seeping warm wetness.
Fingers were sliding down his hips, curling under the sweeping
muscle of his flank and gently spreading him open. He barely
had time to squeak a mild protest before the wet heat of Obi
Wan's mouth had pulled away from his scrotum with a soft sound,
and he felt that tongue slip even lower, his thighs hoisted up
and even further apart.
Qui Gon's mouth gaped like a dying fish's as the wet, hot
tongue pressed against that most intimate area. He had always
tended to be the one controlling the pace, it was usually
him... but not this time. Obi Wan was making his point, proving
to him that he was alive and that the fear was part of it. And
worth it.
Further thought was almost an impossibility when the tip of the
tongue probed the taut opening, sending shock waves through
him, setting his entire body to shaking like a leaf buffeted by
a windstorm.
"Obi Wan..." he gasped out, without even knowing why he had
called the name. His fingers were still curled in the soft
hair, his heels digging into the hard muscles of his lover's
back. Obi Wan was relentless, pressing and thrusting with his
tongue, long fingers efficiently spreading him wide, thumbs
slipping closer and closer in.
When those thumbs met at his center, digging gently down into
the newly slicked orifice, the mouth finally left him, quickly
engulfing his neglected, throbbing cock almost hungrily.
All Qui-Gon could do was whimper and hang on to the remnants of
reality. Obi Wan's mouth had been known to elicit howls from
him. This windy, late morning looked to be no exception. His
throat was vibrating with containing his cries as the slippery
thumbs thrust deeper, opening him efficiently and thoroughly
while Obi Wan bit, sucked and licked at his cock.
He was squirming under the hands and the tongue, panting
heavily caring not one whit that he would likely have a
plascrete rash on his ass after this was over.
Even knowing it was coming, he was unprepared when Obi Wan
abandoned his cock with a wet popping sound and with one even
thrust, buried himself in Qui Gon's slickly opened body.
He finally did howl then, the cry threading and thinning into
the updrafts as he was filled wholly and completely. His hands
clawed into the cold, gritty floor as he forced himself to open
his eyes, to see Obi Wan's gold-washed form thrusting into him.
More beautiful than he would have thought possible, the planes
of his muscled body lightly painted in sweat and sunlight, his
mood-changing eyes half-closed in the transcendence of his
passion.
Alive.
It was that, even more than the intense lightning-bolts of
pleasure that shot through him with each of Obi Wan's powerful
thrusts, that finally sent him up and over. His entire body
arched upwards, his heels digging into his Padawan's back, his
mouth open in a cry that he didn't care if the Senate itself
heard. He could feel his lover rising up with him, wrapped as
tightly as they were one, in mind and body, exploding in a
confetti burst of bone-shaking ecstasy.
Alive indeed.
They were motionless on the floor of the balcony, only twined
tightly in each others arms now. Qui Gon had buried his face
into his Padawan's neck, breathing the familiar scent, reveling
in the heat of his skin and loving every throb of the youth's
pulse against his cheek. Neither of them spoke and Qui Gon was
enjoying the simple silence in the gentle whisper of the wind.
The beat of Obi Wan's heart was enough conversation for him.
"Are you still afraid?"
That same question rumbling against his ear, a repeat, started
the older man slightly, drowsy as he was with expended passion
and the calming beat of blood through his lover's veins. He
blinked, a slow smile climbing across his features as he looked
down into the charming beauty of Obi Wan's dancing eyes. He
brought a single finger up to touch the corner of the young
man's sweetly curved mouth.
"It's worth it."
END
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