ROUGH PLACE
by ardavenport
- - - Part 1
"Be mindful, my young Padawan. This place can be a little rough."
"I am prepared, Master."
Obi-Wan caught an amused glance from Qui-Gon from under the hood of his robe. But if his Master did not believe his sixteen year-old apprentice, he said nothing about it. He followed.
The back of Qui-Gon Jinn's dark brown robe and hood descended the narrow stairs, the broad shoulders blocking the dim yellowish light, casting long dark shadows on the pale, grimy walls. He turned right at the landing, under the light. Obi-Wan saw another landing, the stairs leading down to the left. Behind him, Obi-Wan heard heavy footsteps starting down from the entrance, but he did not look. He saw the entrance below. He wrinkled his nose. He could smell it, too.
A weapons detector plate on either side of the archway at the bottom of the stairs flashed and whirred when Qui-Gon passed through it. But no one stepped up to either Jedi. Obi-Wan saw a couple of tough, burly characters with enormous gray tusks, dented body armor and blasters in shoulder holsters. They narrowed their quad-eyes in their direction, but nothing more. Apparently, a lightsaber power cell wasn't enough to bother them.
The large room was dim, the tables full of multi-species customers, chatting, chattering, grunting, whistling. The yellow and orange table lights hardly dispelled the gloom. The cantina air was thick with the mixed body odors, antiseptic intoxicants and salty, sulphurous aromas that might have been either food or excrement. Obi-Wan stayed close as his Master made his way among the patrons.
Obi-Wan arched his back, away from the hand, or some type of appendage, suddenly running down his backside.
F f f f f f f z z z z z z z z z z t t t t t t t t t t t !!!!!
"Sheevee-evie-evie-evei!!"
Obi-Wan kept completely still, his Master's lightsaber blade less than a finger-length from his right ear. The touch on his back vanished and he heard someone shuffling away quickly. Qui-Gon, his face shadowed under his hood, glared over his head at whoever it had been. Obi-Wan did not look.
The bright green energy blade vanished. Qui-Gon turned around and continued. Obi-Wan kept close.
A serving counter, staffed by several tender droids took up most of the far wall, but Qui-Gon turned to his right, toward one of several side rooms of tables and booths along the wall. Stopping at one small booth, Qui-Gon just stared down at the two occupants. The female hissed, baring pointed teeth. The younger male nervously twitched his veined, flower-like ears, one of them tattered on a bottom edge.
Qui-Gon raised a hand. "It is time to leave." Obi-Wan felt the strong hint of threat in Qui-Gon's mind influence on them.
Still hissing and twitching, they edged out of their seats, staying as far away as they could from Qui-Gon. His Master slid into the newly vacated bench seat. Obi-Wan did the same.
Their backs to the wall, Obi-Wan scanned the room, his own face safely shadowed under his hood. The eyes and sensory stalks of a few neighboring patrons glanced toward them and then quickly away. His Master was not concerned with the whole room knowing that they were Jedi.
Beyond their table, Obi-Wan searched for a tall, broad shouldered Traguun. Perhaps there was a few possibilities on the far side of the room, but he couldn't be sure. There were too many people in the room, too much noise, too many beings in the way to see past them.
"Don't strain, Obi-Wan."
He started. And then lowered his gaze to the tabletop, the residue of previous food and drink barely cleaned off of it. "Yes, Master."
He quieted his thoughts. Their meeting place was specific, but the time vague, between second and third meals. The Traguun, Y'Takr Ayr, sent a message addressed directly to Qui-Gon at the Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan had only found out about it that morning when Qui-Gon told him they were leaving to meet her. More than twenty years ago Ayr had first helped him on a mission to prevent an assassination on Crowchat. And his Master had only met up with her three times since then, the last time a couple years before Qui-Gon had taken Obi-Wan as his Padawan.
She was no one of any great rank, intellect or influence. She irregularly worked for clans much richer and more powerful than her own. She arranged travel, procured entertainments and other things for them. Not all of them legal, though Qui-Gon said she was not really a criminal herself.
She did have contacts. She worked for important people. But her message had contained only vague references to information about corruption in the sector government. And they were traveling half way across the galactic core to meet her.
As their ship left Coruscant, Obi-Wan asked why Ayr's message was so important. Qui-Gon looked surprised and answered, "It's not important. But meeting someone who was of assistance to me in the past, is. You must learn to value the people you meet, Obi-Wan. As Jedi, we come to serve, but we must always be mindful of those who offer their service to us. Even a Jedi needs allies. Or friends."
Obi-Wan now pushed aside the distractions of the busy room, the suspicion at the tables all around them, the swirl of aromas, the noise, the dim lights. Their Traguum ally could be nearby already. And his Master might already be aware of the expected presence as well.
Without moving his head, Obi-Wan's eyes flicked up to the server who approached. She was young and lithe, slender blue-green arms and wide, curvy hips. Her shiny red dress clung to her torso, apparently concealing only as much as necessary for local standards. A matching cap covered her elongated skull. She looked from one to the other of them, her eyes accented in bright red and dark blue.
Qui-Gon lifted one finger on his left hand.
"Two d'ynas." He tossed a golden chit of local currency on the table that landed right in front of her.
Again, she looked from one to the other of them. Obi-Wan did not know what else she might expect from them. The chit disappeared under her slender fingers and she left.
Obi-Wan continued to observe. Silently minding the room around them. As instructed by his Master before they had arrived.
The patrons at three of the five other tables immediately around them were visibly armed. Three of them pushed their chairs back and with suspicious glares at the Jedi, left. Two Guthadians scurried up onto the vacant chairs as soon as they were gone. A bare-chested server with a silvery headdress that looked like the rings around a planet appeared and cheerfully asked for their order.
A dull gray metaloid droid server carrying a huge round platter loaded with plates piled high with steaming food stopped at a table on their right. One of the four people there scooped up a couple of goopy flats before the droid could lower the platter down to the table. Across the room, a couple of Quermians slipped through a dark doorway between two more tusked, burly guards. In another direction a group raised their mugs and cheered some mutual success. Others just huddled around the small yellow or orange table lights as if for warmth.
Another droid rolled up to their table, lowered its tray and deposited two clear, stout cups of amber liquid, one in front of Obi-Wan, one in front of his Master. As soon as the droid swivelled around and moved away, Qui-Gon's hand emerged from under the dark sleeve of his robe. He raised the cup to his lips and sipped.
Obi-Wan stared down at the clear amber. His hand cautiously approached it. Raising the cup, he sniffed. It smelled like it could kill even the fiercest microbe. He tasted it and his whole mouth stung. Then his throat from the little bit that he'd taken in. He watched Qui-Gon, who took another sip, before putting the cup down.
Should he take another sip? When did minding his Master become mindless? He already couldn't draw in air without tasting the antiseptic sweetness of the d'yna, the other smells around him now completely veiled by the drink.
Though he had certainly been to cantinas far rougher than this one, he had never partaken of their intoxicants before. Qui-Gon knew that. Obi-Wan did not even know what d'yna was. A simple alcohol intoxicant? Or did it have more convoluted effects? There were nearly limitless possibilities, but his Jedi training included using the Force to metabolize many of them quickly.
Obi-Wan just wasn't very experienced with using them.
He took another cautious sip, but his senses, already slighted deadened by the first one, did not react as strongly to it.
A broad torso blocked out the light from the long serving counter. Y'Takr Ayr had arrived. She pulled out the chair opposite Qui-Gon and sat with a glance over her armored shoulder. She was clearly not comfortable with her back to the crowd.
The three pale fleshy protuberances that crowned her head were heavily tattooed with colored swirls and accented with gold studs. Her lips and eyes were painted with green outlines, making them look larger. She wore dented black shoulder armor and gauntlets on her muscular forearms over her rough dark shirt, plus large pouches on her belt over each hip.
Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows at her. "You look well."
Her thick lips puckered upward. "Older, I look, Master Qui-Gon. Well, that never is," she answered in an age-roughened, but otherwise strong, steady voice. Her species did not appear to be too vulnerable to wrinkling, sagging skin. And she had no hair to gray with age. But her dark clothes looked well worn, frayed and faded. "Your years, you Jedi wear better than I."
"On the outside at least."
Ayr's lips curled in a smile. "Settle for that, I would."
Qui-Gon's eyes glinted with sympathy for her.
"You said that you had information?"
She hunched her shoulders. "Me, it is not who has your information. Here, she should be now. Daughter of power, she is. Knows things she says, that only to a Jedi she will tell. Big things." She leaned forward. "Very big," she half whispered.
Qui-Gon looked bored. "Is she a usual informant for you?" Qui-Gon picked up his drink and sipped again. Obi-Wan's eyes flicked down at the lone glass in front of him. He could still taste it. He felt nothing from it . . . . but there was something. . . .
"Talk she does. A youngest daughter of big ambition, but minor talent. Knows so much about dark dealings, she brags. But reliable, she usually is." Ayr frowned thoughtfully.
"Could she have been delayed by her 'dark dealings'?" Qui-Gon speculated.
Keeping still, mind and body, under his robe, Obi-Wan felt an undefined tension in his chest through Force, growing rapidly in urgency. His eyes looked down at the single, small cup of amber fluid before him. Could half a swallow of d'yna do that? He took in a long, slow breath to quiet his mind, but now the Force tasted like d'yna.
"More talk than action, she has always been," Ayr grumbled.
Uncertainty dimmed Obi-Wan's perception. Staring forward at the orange half-globe top of the table light, he stopped his thoughts. The noise and the dim crowded room and even the after-taste of the d'yna faded.
"Talk can be dangerous." Qui-Gon sipped his d'yna thoughtfully. "Did she tell you anything? Perhaps a hint about who she had information about?"
At Obi-Wan's center, there was the Force. His Master and Y'Takr Ayr on either side of him, facing each other. Outward, the room full of people, talking, drinking, doing other things, and beyond them. . . . There was a danger. Behind him. The d'yna was just a distraction. Under the table, he reached his foot out and tapped the top of his Master's boot.
"Hsssssssssss. A pretender, she is. All talk. Thought she could at least do that, I did. Thinks she can best her family as outlaw. Placate her they do; money they give her. Always bad, that is."
"So, she has bought her way into the local underworld? That would be exceedingly dangerous, if she is as short on talent as you say," Qui-Gon said with not even a glance toward Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan tapped his Master's boot again, harder.
"If wishes to throw money she does, foolish it would be not to catch it. But not that stupid, she is. Patronize her, her purchased outlaw friends do. See that, even she can. So, turn on them, she will. Tell all to Jedi, she says," Ayr replied, her voice rising and falling in sarcasm.
Obi-Wan brought his foot down - -
- - and touched the floor.
Qui-Gon's foot came down on his, pressing hard on his toes for just an instant.
Her brows lowered, Ayr squinted toward Obi-Wan when he jerked. A small motion, but enough to draw her attention. He lowered his eyes. There on the table, between his hands, was the small cup of d'yna.
Don't think - - - act - - -
- - - End Part 1