Title: In the Hands of Virtue and Terror

Author: RownaSeria

Rating: PG/PG-13 (because I don't trust myself)

Warnings: none so far :) at least for the rating given.

Summary: When discussions go horribly wrong, will Obi-Wan be able to reach Qui-Gon in time? They came to prevent a war, but are now trapped in an unpredicted upheaval and without allies.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by George Lucas. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

In the Hands of Virtue and Terror

Chapter 1: The Fall

"Master... Master?" Obi-Wan called through the smoke filled rubble.

The delegation had been attacked, and where once stood the grand and ancient meeting hall of the Lenoians on the planet Varsis was crumbling heap of bricks and mortar, twisted steel, shattered glass, and remnants of furniture sprinkled with roof tiles. Obi-Wan picked his way through the debris, his head swimming, breathing labored. When he reached a beam that had once supported the elaborately decorated and painted ceiling the young jedi could no longer resist the cough that had been building in his throat and hacked painfully into his sleeve. He let his head rest on the beam, angled in a way that reminded Obi-Wan paradoxically of a fallen tree in the forest, except that instead of tangled undergrowth he was surrounded by a maze of wreckage. The young man waited for the world to stop spinning around him, snot threatening to run out of his nose. This was a most inconvenient moment to be suffering a severe cold, but Obi-Wan could not rest. His master was somewhere in this rubble, probably hurt, possibly even dead or dying, and Obi-Wan needed to find him.

Everything had gone wrong. In the distance the padawan could hear the riots, distant shouts, the roar of the mob. Chaos and looting lay beyond and help was not coming, because the government had fallen. That meant Obi-Wan, as sick and faint as he was, was the only hope now for Qui-Gon, and the young man would never knowingly let his master down.

With a deep breath Obi-Wan lifted his head from the beam, the world swimming for a second before he felt stable enough to continue. Taking in his surroundings, Obi-Wan decided to clamber over the beam, the rubble being particularly tangled on either side, as he wasn't sure he'd be able to get back up if he crawled underneath. Dropping heavily down on the other side, with none of the usual Jedi grace and another, smaller cough, Obi-Wan resumed calling, hoping, straining to hear any whisper of a reply. This particular part of the hall was the location where the delegation had originally been scheduled to meet, but it was long, and the meeting table was now buried beneath the rubble, the space nearly unrecognizable with the half tumbled in, scorched walls, the floor a sea of destruction.

Once more Obi-Wan had to pause and cough uncontrollably, the dust swirling in the air, other figures moving, groaning somewhere near and yet indescribably distant. If only he hadn't caught such a bad cold, Obi-Wan could have been there with Qui-Gon, And what then? another part of his mind chided, You would have been trapped along with him, and would good would you be to him buried under brick? At least, they would have been together...

Obi-Wan rubbed his eyes, attempting to stop the useless argument with himself. "Be mindful of the present," Qui-Gon often told him. If there was any time to follow that advice, this moment was it. Attempting to breath deeply without setting off another bout of hacking, he reached for force. It came to him wavering, but within reach. Obi-Wan's head was beginning to hurt, and that combined with the dizziness, made it difficult to focus. Even so, Obi-Wan pressed forward, reaching for the spark in the force that was uniquely Qui-Gon's. Normally it would have been easy for him to locate his master's bright presence in the force, but now everything felt cloudy and muted, possibly from his illness, although it was also likely Qui-Gon's aura was dimmed because the man was unconscious, or worse.

Had the older man been caught in the middle of it? Had he felt some warning from the force and found a place of relative safety? Had he been crushed helping other delegates escape? Obi-Wan knew only that his master had been here when the room was ripped apart by explosions, the old building no mach against the imported, technologically advanced weapons. Obi-Wan had been in their chambers, located in one of the side wings far away from the site of the disaster. He'd been startled awake from his nap by an intense feeling of warning from the force, possibly from his master. Moments after he heard the explosion, felt the aftershocks shake the entire building to its foundations.

There was silence, and then the screaming began.

He's been nearly out the door when a thought caught up with him and Obi-Wan got dressed in more than just his sleeping clothes, making sure he had his light saber clipped to his belt. He almost wandered from the room again before remembering weapons weren't aloud in the negotiation chamber, and he went back and grabbed Qui-Gon's light saber as well.

The halls were madness, servants were screaming, guards were yelling, trying to induce order where there was none. No one seemed to have been drilled for this type of emergency, or if they had it was forgotten. Then the revolutionary's came, or the terrorists, depending on the point of view. Each had the distinctive blue and yellow bandana chosen to represent the revolutionary movement, and they ruthlessly cleared the halls of guards and other marked officials, leaving the servants and minor bureaucrats and aides to fend for themselves. Obi-Wan managed to slip past them, thanks to the force or perhaps their indifference. Either way he was glad, his cold having dulled his senses.

Now, the rush of strength he'd felt at the beginning of the crisis having worn off, Obi-Wan was beginning to wear down. He stumbled over something that may have once belonged to a chair, and a leg belonging to someone completely crushed by the falling debris. It was little consolation that the blue legging meant it was not his master, as the twisted and battered form seemed to stay in Obi-Wan's mind even after he looked away. It was becoming harder for him to focus as more physical evidence of the death toll became apparent, there was a mounting tension in his chest and his vision began to blur. His voice had long since given out, but even if he had been in good health, the clenching he felt would have made it impossible to call out. Stumbling blindly over shattered chairs, smashed data pads, a dead, reaching hand from beneath rubble that had once been a column, he finally paused, blinking until he could see clearly before him a water glass, miraculously preserved but for a single crack. Obi-Wan focused on breathing, though he could only seem to take shallow breaths, the air stinging with dust irritating his already congested respiratory system; anything deeper and he would have burst out into a rough coughing fit, and he could feel if that happened it would be extremely painful.

Finally in a little more control of himself, Obi-Wan looked up. There, just a little ways ahead, a scrap of fabric was visible. This wouldn't have been so remarkable, the robes of delegates, tapestries and curtains being strewn about rubble in tatters, except that this particular scrap looked like rough, dark brown homespun. The elite of Lenoia always wore the finest of weaves, and dressed their servants and buildings in matching splendor. Before he even made a conscious decision to move, Obi-Wan found himself beside the scrap. The hem of his master's cloak had torn, trailing beneath a rubble heap. With a burst of strength he didn't know he still possessed, Obi-Wan shifted aside the brick, stonework and beams in the way and found Qui-Gon. His body was sheltered by a pillar that crashed against the wall, creating a barrier which deflected most of the debris to either side. One of Qui-Gon's legs was bent in a way no human leg should bend, and he appeared to be coated in a fine layer of dust. Obi-Wan quickly knelt beside his master and felt for a pulse. When he found the feeble, but oh, so blessedly present beat, the young jedi let out a breath he hadn't known he's been holding in. His master was merely unconscious.

That breath induced another fit of coughing, his nose running in the most undignified and inconvenient manner, and Obi-Wan dug for the handkerchief he'd tucked away in his robe what felt like a lifetime ago. Nose wiped and cough quieted, the rather sick padawan took a moment to still his swirling emotions and access the force in order to the asses the damage. Obi-Wan was not nearly as skilled in this use of the force as he would have liked, being more often the recipient of such attentions, but he gathered what little knowledge he had and gently probed for injuries using his hands as well as the force. Most of the injuries did not seem to be life threatening. The Jedi Master would certainly be sporting some spectacular, but mostly superficial bruises. He had a few cracked ribs, but Obi-Wan was willing to admit he might not be able to tell if they were broken or worse. Then there was, of course, the broken leg. Obi-Wan felt confident enough to roll his master ever so slightly so that he could see his other side, and that was when he found something truly horrible.

The right side of his master head was a mess of congealed blood and matted hair. Obi-Wan felt his stomach roll as the dizziness returned with a vengeance, the sensation forcing him to close his eyes and physically swallow down the bile rising in the back of his throat. It wasn't that he hadn't seen blood before, or even such a dramatic injury, but his weakened immune system combined with his fear for his master's safety to throw him completely off balance. Even after his nausea had abated, Obi-Wan opened his eyes to find his vision blurred, and it wasn't until he felt a tear trickle down and land on his master's brow that he realized he was crying.

Furiously wiping his eyes with his sleeve, the padawan struggled to curb his swelling emotions before they spun out of control. He needed to put all those jedi lessons into practice, to think logically instead of letting emotion rule him, to pull back and stand firmly on his center, rather than letting himself reel off, unbalanced. Even with that awareness it was difficult with his master lying in such a state. Obi-Wan had no way of knowing if the head wound was just a bad cut that had happened to bleed profusely, or a fracture, or perhaps something more sinister, such as bleeding on the inside.

Dimly, the sound of footsteps and what sounded like a blaster being cocked filtered through Obi-Wan's distress. "Wait!" he attempted to yell while looking up, although it came out as more of a pitiful croak.

The Lenoian behind the blaster hesitated, lowering his weapon by a fraction. Not a cold blooded killer than, though he was wearing the bandana of the rebellion. "We're Jedi… ambassadors from Coruscant…" Obi-Wan managed to voice, clearing his throat violently. The tawny skinned, whiskered man seemed to be listening, "If you kill us, there will be repercussions… the Jedi counsel, if not the Senate, would send out… forces."

Obi-Wan chose his words carefully, well aware they could be the difference between life and death. The blaster lowered a little further. The Lenoian called out in the lilting tongue of the planet, and very shortly another member of the rebellion walked up, and a quick discussion ensued. The newcomer was obviously of higher rank, even without the slightly more formal garments, he carried an air of command and inner confidence. Soon he turned to Obi-Wan and the young man found himself staring into the bottomless black eyes of the natives. Though he had been on the planet for over a week, the lack of whites or even irises was disturbing. Obi-Wan, however, did nothing to display his insecurity, the impassive mask of a jedi firmly in place.

The newcomer's voice was rough and hard, much like the scarred angles of his face, but he spoke common well, "My comrade says you are Jedi, that you are from Coruscant. He says you believe there will be… repercussions if you were to die. He says that you told him this."

"Yes," Obi-Wan said.

Though there had been no question, the silence after the man's bald statements seemed to demand some form of acknowledgement. When he still made no move to reply, Obi-Wan found himself continuing to speak, "As the ambassadors from Coruscant we are here merely as impartial intermediaries… the Jedi Council and the Senate would interpret any violence done to us as a hostile act…" Obi-Wan felt himself beginning to waver under the Lenoian's relentless gaze, "Please," he hated the way his voice cracked at that plea, but foraged ahead, "my master is severely injured and in need immediate treatment."

After a few more moments intense staring, the scarred man called out and waved over one of his colleagues. He rapped out a few curt orders and turned back to Obi-Wan, "We will give him treatment. The Party Leaders will decide your fate."

"Thank you," the young man replied, but the Lenoian remained unmoved.

It seemed an eternity as they waited for whoever the commander had summoned. With nothing but the two rebels staring and his master's shallow breaths beside him, Obi-Wan finally heard the sound of blasters in the background. It took him a while to gather his wits enough to realize what it meant, but when the answer came he felt his gut clench. The rebels were shooting the survivors, as he and Qui-Gon had nearly been shot. Many top government officials of both factions had attended the negotiations. Lenoia had only recently come out of a vicious civil war and was very near the breaking point again, which was why they had requested an intermediary. It was known on Coruscant the situation was very close to being explosive and it had been decided to send in Jedi Knights. What they didn't know back on Coruscant was that the trouble the Lenoian government called "isolated terrorist attacks" was more along the lines of a full scale rebellion. Now Obi-Wan was caught in the middle of social upheaval with Qui-Gon unconscious and no idea what was going on outside the immediate area.

A wave of relief washed through the young man when two rebels bearing a stretcher arrived, but when Obi-Wan stood up to make room, the world began to spin. Before he realized what had happened, he felt an arm supporting him. A dim part of his mind noted that it was the Lenoian who had first found them and that the man was also giving him a pat down, removing the two lightsabers from his belt and handing them to the commander, but the dizziness remained and Obi-Wan could not get his limbs to respond. Exhaustion was catching up with him: his eyelids heavy, the persistent itch in the back of his throat begging for release. Thankfully the Lenoian continued to support him as Obi-Wan was no longer certain he could stand on his own. The grip was firm and unyielding, but without cruelty. However, when the rebel turned to lead him away, he was not so considerate and padawan nearly tripped and fell.

"Wait!" he found himself yelling, and then coughing painfully, "Please, be careful with my master…"

As he looked back he could see the two Lenoians bearing the stretcher were already preparing to move the Jedi Master. The closer one looked back over his shoulder and said, "Don't worry, kid, we'll take good care of him."

He had the same unnerving black eyes, but his smile was kind, and the tone of his voice reassuring. Obi-Wan could do little more than let himself be lead away.


A/N: Oh man, has it been a while since I wrote anything this involved! Some constructive criticism would truly be appreciated. I have the next chapter in mind, but from there I'm going to have to decide whether to make it short (and actually finish something for once) or try to keep going. Any way, I hope you enjoyed it at least a little, and please review!