You Are Being Served
by ardavenport
"Agent Talamas, I am sure that you understand that Director Chaf is very busy -"
"And I am sure that Director Chaf realizes that a summons from the Courts of the Republic is not to be ignored," the shorter, Human woman shot back to the tall, blue-crested being barring her way. The two large Judiciary officers flanking her changed their postures to something more threatening, but the local official grinned back, her lips peeling back from a frightening line of small glistening teeth. Every guard, every sentry droid in the thoroughfare turned their way. None of the other pedestrians on their ways to and from the inner city noticed the blasters, still lowered, but pointed in the general direction of three gray, Republic uniforms.
"If you give me the summons, I can deliver it -" One blue-clawed hand reached forward, but Talamas whipped the official cylinder away, her hand unfastening a pouch closure on her gray pants.
"This is an official court document. I cannot surrender it to anyone, other than Director Chaf." She held the cylinder loosely, and even after if flew out of her hand behind her back, she continued to motion as if she were tucking it away. "I wouldn't want it to get lost. Like the others." The blue crest came to offended attention at the implied insult.
Unnoticed, the cylinder zipped past pedestrian knees, rising only to disappear into the palm of a hand inside a wide, dark brown sleeve. Two hooded and cloaked persons, one tall and dark brown, one shorter and medium brown blended in among the crowd moving away from the official confrontation.
They passed through the throngs of beings of various species ending up at a less traveled entryway to the walled inner city meant for persons of status. The guard there somehow failed to notice the shorter person flicking off the droids and the yellow weapon warning signal on the scanner board as the two brown robes passed through the portal.
The two robes silently continued on, ignoring and ignored by any others they passed toward the center tower. It rose above the city as they got closer, it's circular plateau a smoky crystal against the glittering city dome high above. They paused in the midst of a thicket of greenery and tall crystals plinths that surrounded the base of the tower. No idle shoppers or business persons came here.
Obi-Wan Kenobi looked up at his Master, their eyes meeting in a wordless communication. They had passed through the outer areas without raising an alarm. But they could no longer conceal themselves. The next part of their mission required speed. The swiftness of the a Jedi and the Force. Qui-Gon Jinn nodded.
They burst out of their cover together. They had nearly reached the base of the tower when the blaster fire started, wide stun blasts that could not be deflected with a lightsaber. They dove, evading the worst effects of it. The stun prickled their skin and clothes, but harmlessly washed past their bodies, the Force like a slick sheet keeping them dry in a storm.
Their lightsabers came out when they crashed into the lobby. Long strides took them toward the center bank of lifts. First Qui-Gon, then Obi-Wan plunged their sabers into the doors of the two private lifts, the ones that went all the way to the top level of the tower. Obi-Wan's lightsaber cut a molten red line through crystal panels, metaloids and plastisteel in a zigzag. He could feel through the drag on the hilt of the saber that he cut through more than door. This lift was there and now disabled. A glance toward the hole in the ruined door behind his Master confirmed that the other lift was inoperative well.
Many footsteps came toward them from all directions. They dashed away. Guards and droids converged, trying to trap them. Qui-Gon ran straight toward one stubborn sentry standing in the middle of open double transparisteel doors. The Jedi Master took the full stun in his chest. It didn't even slow him down, but Obi-Wan stayed protected at Qui-Gon's back.
"Aaaaah!!!" the guard cried out.
The tip of Qui-Gon's bright green lightsaber cut neatly through the muzzle of the blaster as he leaped up, flipping over the guard. Obi-Wan followed though he hardly needed to leap so high over the guard, now on the polished floor and scurrying to get away.
Outside, they veered to their left. Together they hurled their liquid cables high, the pronged ends catching on the edge of a balcony several levels above. The mechanisms of their cable launchers carried them up over the spiny hedges and translucent flowers.
They leaped in unison over onto the balcony, tugging the ends of the cables loose as they went. Qui-Gon landed and threw his cable up again and followed it in one smooth motion, but Obi-Wan took a step to catch his balance before zooming upward.
Keeping his eyes on Qui-Gon's boots and fluttering robe to guide him, he followed and emotionlessly discarded his intention to match his Master's ascent. He would follow and keep pace now.
They were more than halfway up when his blue lightsaber blade swung outward, a motion guided by an instinct through the Force. The fiery blaster bolt aimed at Qui-Gon bounced off his blade and exploded an elaborate crystalline window frame on their right.
The firing from the ground did slow them down a little as they continued upward, leaping from balconies and ledges. But five levels below the top their cable launchers were useless. Elaborate crystal growths and sculptures covered the entire upper exterior of the tower. No windows, no balconies, no flat ledges. Nothing but smooth, slippery surfaces and deadly slicing edges. The blaster fire and shouts from below stopped.
Qui-Gon leaped up. One booted foot thumped on a flat surface and propelled him higher to the next step, like a vertical run.
Eyes fixed upward at the line of uneven crystalline spikes at the top, Obi-Wan jumped. His boot landed on the same surface Qui-Gon had used. Obi-Wan let muscle and bone and the Force propel him upward. Thinking would be far too dangerous.
Qui-Gon's hand grabbed him as soon as he popped up over the upper rim. Obi-Wan exhaled as Qui-Gon pulled him down and they both crouched low on an upper ledge over the plateau garden of the tower. Their goal, the private meeting chamber at its center shimmered with more elaborate crystal sculptures with points reaching high overhead.
Below, multi-hued glints danced and drifted in the air, covering the ground, clinging to every plant, every rock, every crystal surface with millions of clear, shiny orbs that made Obi-Wan's stomach muscles tighten.
The garden surrounding the outer walls of the chamber was filled with bubbles.
Qui-Gon's deep blue eyes flicked toward him.
Follow, they said.
Obi-Wan's tiny head motion affirmed that he would, but Qui-Gon did not see it. His eyes had gone back to the flood of bubbles below them. Obi-Wan felt the Force grow around him, through him, a sustained pressure wave radiating outward from Qui-Gon's body.
They pulled their robes closed, the hoods covering their heads.
Qui-Gon suddenly stood. His eyes staring blankly before him, under the dark folds of his hood, he stepped outward and dropped down from the high ledge over the garden. A well opened up among the bubbles and Qui-Gon dropped neatly into it. Obi-Wan landed right behind him. His feet immediately skipped back off the hem of Qui-Gon's robe.
Swirling madly in the air, the bubbles fled briefly before falling back toward them, eager to fill the void Qui-Gon had created. But the steady pressure outward kept them bobbing and bouncing outside their own large bubble of air. Obi-Wan felt pressure on his ears, his face nearly touching the brown fabric on his Master's back.
The bubbles were a jumble of all sizes, from tiny spherical specks to wobbly, fist-sized globes. They silently glinted with transparent sheens of sickly greens, cobalt blues and bright magentas that blended crazily together.
Qui-Gon straightened and moved forward, Obi-Wan slowly stepping with him. Knee deep bubbles pushed away ahead of them, creating crazy eddies and swarming on their sides. Bubbles silently slumped into the path behind them.
Continuously looking all around and above them, Obi-Wan thought he spotted a few strays drifting downward toward Qui-Gon's head. The Force thrust outward from his hand, pushing them away, but as soon as the quick impulse was gone they wobbled in place, only mildly disturbed by Obi-Wan's aggression. Constantly in motion, soundless, the agitated bubbles ceaselessly tried to find a way through Qui-Gon's powerful, continuous push outward.
They advanced steadily past sculptures and freshly poisoned, wilting plants under the shadowless city dome above. Drifts of bubbles pushed aside, revealing the wide double doors of the chamber. Qui-Gon stopped.
Crouching, Obi-Wan peered around Qui-Gon. No energy or blockage held the door closed. Arm extended, his hand swept before them in a short arc that invisibly touched the mechanism beyond.
The door split open smoothly, its whoosh the first substantial sound Obi-Wan had heard in the deadly garden. Cries of outrage came form inside. Qui-Gon glided forward.
Well dressed beings fearfully backed away from them and a few stray bubbles that floated in ahead of them. The door slide shut, cutting off the crystalline light outside. On the far side of the room, a fleshy male in a tailored gray suit uselessly pressed on the panel next to a closed lift door.
Tall yellow tinted windows and bluish white lights shone down on the room's huge centerpiece table. Two veiled, spiny-skinned Obots scurried away from Qui-Gon as he moved around the table and chairs. Still seated in the ornate head chair, Director Umutubo Chaf leaned back from the tall dark-robed being looming over him. Obi-Wan took his position at the opposite end of the table, his arms folded before him, his robe concealing his body and face, just as Qui-Gon's did.
Qui-Gon's hand slammed down on the table before Director Chaf.
The data cylinder activated. A tiny, blue-tinged, transparent court official appeared.
"Director Umutubo Chaf. You are commanded, by official summons of the Five-Hundreth and Thirty-Fourth Sector Superior Court to answer to the charges of proprietary neglect of your holdings of the Mekkee Four Colony brought by the citizens of - "
"Aaaaauuuuggggghhhh!!!" His cheek-sacks taut and bulging, Chaf howled his outrage.
++(o)++(o)++(o)++(o)++(o)++(o)++
Qui-Gon patiently waited while the hazmat droids scanned and began their decontamination on Obi-Wan, who, like himself, had stripped for the procedure. They were the last two. Everyone else clustered on the other side of the droids' demarcation line in Chaf's private penthouse chamber. They wore pink drapes that verified their scrubbed and unsullied status.
Sitting amidst bulky equipment stacked on squeaky floor sheets, Qui-Gon observed Chaf's fleshy, scowling face over Agent Talamas's petite blond head. Occasionally, Chaf's large violet eyes would peer over toward the Jedi, but the Director's gaze always averted whenever he found Qui-Gon looking back at him.
Qui-Gon crinkled his nose at the sterile chemical smell that wafted in his direction. The droids liberally sprayed Obi-Wan's short brown hair. His Padawan sighed, accepting the temporary indignity. None of them needed medical attention, but the vigilant droids were determined to neutralize any possibility of even a molecule of toxin escaping their attentions. Their clothes and equipment had already been treated and boxed up with the others. Qui-Gon knew he would not put them back on until every aromatic molecule of the hazmat process had been removed with a second cleaning.
It had been a short, simple mission. Of course, the people of Mekkee Four would not be free of their overlord until there was a court ruling, but Chaf's case was so weak that a quick settlement was expected.
Once they returned to the Temple, Qui-Gon intended to begin an intensive training regime with Obi-Wan on sustained control of the Force. His twenty year-old apprentice had the focus, concentration and the skill but he needed the practice. Qui-Gon pondered which other Masters might be available to participate. He could still feel a trace of the deep imprint of the Force on his whole body, a glow from within. He was satisfied with Obi-Wan's performance for this mission, but Qui-Gon Jinn knew that the teachings of other Jedi Masters would enrich the training for his Padawan, and himself.
The droids finished with Obi-Wan and threw a pink covering on him. He glanced back, his gray-blue eyes unhappy but relieved. Then he sneezed, twice.
Qui-Gon smiled back. He stood to take his turn with the droids.
++(o)++(o)++(o)++(o)++(o)++(o)++
Regretting her hasty choices for a planet-side lunch, Judiciary Agent Murum Talamas finally finished her business in the fresher and carefully cleansed her hands in the basin. The Jedi in the cabin outside had not knocked, so she presumed that they didn't mind. There were three freshers on the ship. One for the pilots who always disdained passengers intruding on their territory. One in the larger cabin that the rest of her team occupied, and the one in the smaller cabin, where the Jedi were staying.
They were on their way back to Coruscant. After the decontamination and some extended meetings with Chaf's lawyers there was no reason to stay any longer. They had boarded their ship, everyone segregating into the groups they had chosen on the trip out. Talamas grimaced to herself as she cleaned her nails. She did not know why her subordinates held the Jedi apart. No one was rude to them at all, just distantly respectful.
They had all been on missions with Jedi before; this was her first one. But Master Jinn was easy to talk to and his apprentice was friendly. They had both been quite understanding when she had blurted out, like an idiot, that they were the first Jedi that she had ever met. She did not announce things like that to anyone of a species she had never met before and she had no idea what had inspired her to do so then. But neither Jinn nor Kenobi had taken any offense.
Talamas finished with her hands and nails and began checking her face and her short blond hair in the mirror. She decided that if missions with Jedi always went this well she should start requesting them. They were stunningly effective, immune to nearly every civil lawsuit in the Republic because of their dual legal status as law enforcement officers and clergy. And best of all, Jedi had no overhead cost at all. The only thing that had come out of her case budget was the time spent making the application to the Jedi Temple and the follow-up interview. All the Jedi were covered by a special appropriation from the Senate completely unrelated to the Judiciary.
Finally satisfied with her appearance, Talamas exited the fresher. She stood there, the door closing behind her, her mouth open, her apology for taking so long unspoken.
The Jedi were asleep. Or meditating. Talamas could not really tell the difference. They were wrapped in their brown robes on the cushioned bench seat along one wall of the small cabin. And their eyes were closed. It looked closer to sleeping to her.
Talamas quietly left them alone. She did not see the one deep blue eye open and observe her leaving. After the door slid closed again Obi-Wan Kenobi sighed in his sleep. Qui-Gon Jinn smiled, closed his eye and contentedly settled down into the folds of his robe.
++(o)++(o)++ END ++(o)++(o)++
(This story was first posted on tf.n: 21-June-2007)
Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.