Great
by ardavenport
The Great Builder slowly ground forward, toward the reviewing stands set high up in the cliffs. It's progress was ponderous and majestic. It was a gray machine mountain of metal and hardened ceramic composites. It hovered over the ground below as it glided forward on its mighty repulsor field. A train of smaller, but still massive supply drones lined up behind it.
A fanfare began. Prefect Zorakz stepped forward to the bank of holo-recorders and voice amplifiers. Zorakz inhaled and announced the beginning of the new city.
The crowds, in the viewing stands below, cheered.
"Glorious, glorious." Engineer Moratz breathed. She swelled with pride.
Next to her, Jedi Knight Dooku pressed his lips together and kept his attention on the ceremony. Pride in one's work was one thing, but Engineer Moratz, the Builder of the Great Builder, carried it to extremes. He acknowledged that she was a brilliant young engineer, but she puffed herself up as if she had constructed that huge city-builder single-handedly and that the team of thousands of sub-engineers and droids that worked for her had been mere observers. Dooku was simply grateful that the rumors of sabotage seemed to have been false and that after the ceremony and celebrations their mission would be done.
Thankfully, Zorakz knew the value of brevity and after only a brief mention of the ancient war that had laid waste to the valley before them and many years of struggle that had gone into reclaiming it, the prefect announced their new beginning.
The crowd cheered even louder.
Zorakz praised and introduced the genius behind this great endeavor. Moratz proudly stepped forward and with an over dramatic flourish, laid her large hand on the ceremonial activation control on the podium.
The Great Builder hummed with power. Panels on it's sides slowly slid aside and arms as wide around as buildings extended in preparation for the laying of the first foundations of the Great City.
The great Builder groaned.
CLUNK!!! THWAM!!!! BANG!!!!
Even to Dooku's uneducated ears, these deafening sounds, still echoing around them, were ominous. Moratz had frozen. Horror and shock radiated from her through the Force.
Starting out low, metal strained, the sound growing in volume to an agonizing shriek.
EeeeeeEEEErrrreeeeeekkkKRRREEEEEEEEEEEE-AAAARRREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
!!!!! [b]!!!! THUUUUME !!!![/b] !!!!!
Dooku looked downward. A cloud of dust rose up from the base of the Great Builder where it had impacted and sunk down into the hard ground. Cracks radiated outward from the new depression. Dooku sniffed. A gust of air from the Great Builder smelled of friction, metal straining against plastisteel with too little oil between.
BANG!!! BANG!!! BANG!!!
Some of the extended arms fell down to the sides of the Great Builder.
The crowd was silent. The Prefect and assembled dignitaries watched in stunned horror. Utterly unprepared for this calamity, Moratz stood there, wide-eyed and paralyzed with panic.
Dooku looked downward, his eyes guided by a familiar flash of green at a small forward vent near the base of the Great Builder. He saw a lone figure, tiny next to the mammoth machine, drop down to the ground and nearly slide down into the crater before crawling back up to level ground.
His Padawan, Qui-Gon Jinn, staggered, wandering away from the Great Builder like a poisonous insect after delivering its fatal sting, leaving behind a felled behemoth.
[i]So that's where the boy got to.[/i]
Dooku had sent Qui-Gon to follow Moratz's assistant on a hunch that she was a sympathizer of the Yeders, the fanatical faction that wanted to preserve the Destroyed Lands. Qui-Gon had failed to return for the ceremony.
ZZZZzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!!fffffffffzzzzzztttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dooku's lightsaber activated, swung up and back in one swift motion, it's deadly blue blade neatly cutting through the hand of Moratz's assistant, and the blaster it had held. The man fell to his knees, clutching his arm and crying out in pain. Dooku sighed and raised his eyebrows. Apparently there was more substance to the rumors of sabotage after all.
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Qui-Gon kept his head down and continued forward, forward, forward. There was a wall of rock before him, but it didn't seem to be getting any closer. He knew he had to get there, though his escape would be pointless if he had missed any of the connections to the bomb. Even with the Force he wouldn't be able to get far enough away from a blast that large. But he was sure that he got them all. He was sure. He was sure. He was sure.
The ground kept tilting, impeding his progress. His thoughts kept sliding into gibberish.
"Whumph!"
The sound came out of him, unaided by thought.
He groped the new obstruction, which was so unlike the unyielding walls that tried to crush him, the slabs of plastisteel slamming into him, or huge pistons driving down to squash him. This thing was soft and flexible. He sagged against it. He felt the Force flowing through him, not the desperate, frantic pull of survival and motion; this was strength and renewal and he sighed into it.
"Well, I see you've been busy, my Padawan," Master Dooku's deep voice said over his head.
Immediately, Qui-Gon's feet scrabbled on the ground. Getting his legs under him again, he stood, facing his Master.
Qui-Gon knew that he was covered with black, oily grime and he could see that Dooku's light brown tunic was now smudged and disheveled from it. He opened his mouth to apologize. A hacking cough came out.
Dooku's arm clasped him about the body, supporting him. Qui-Gon stumbled forward again, propelled now by Dooku at his side and not just his own will to move.
"You really have outdone yourself this time, Qui-Gon," Dooku told him. Qui-Gon detected no rebuke or criticism in his Master's tone. In fact, he sounded amused. "We can only hope that your solution was not worse than the original problem."
Qui-Gon could only cough in return, keep his body upright and wonder whatever his Master could mean by that.
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Obi-Wan Kenobi walked down the ship's ramp to the landing platform, just behind and to his Master's right.
The Mayor of Great City stood before them. Flanked by her underlings, she stood tall and proud in her deep blue robes of office. The towers of the city, that she was reputed to have built, rose high above them. Though not as impressive as the city-planet of Coruscant, where the Jedi Temple was located, Great City was large and modern, filling the valley it occupied and beyond with immense buildings, busy commerce and air traffic.
"Mayor Moratz." Qui-Gon bowed low to her. "I am Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn. And this is my apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, at your service."
There was a long pause.
Mayor Moratz's face had paled. 'Qui-Gon Jinn. . . ' Obi-Wan saw the white-haired, older woman mouth his Master's name with. . . .dread? Leaning forward, he saw a pleasant and perfectly innocent smile of his Master's bearded face.
When they had been assigned this mission to assist the local government with persistent saboteurs, Qui-Gon had told him that he had seen the city built and had met Moratz. But Qui-Gon had also said that it many years ago and that he doubted that she would remember him. Obviously the mayor remembered him very well.
Mayor Moratz seemed to recover and greeted them formally before inviting them to her city. Her voice had a slight tremor when she said it.
Obi-Wan could only follow and wonder whatever the Mayor thought that Qui-Gon was going to do.
– END –
(This story was first posted on tf.n: 19-Nov-2006)
Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.