STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT
by ardavenport
Qui-Gon Jinn's arm tensed.
Betle remained still. Had she woken him when she moved? The fabric of his clothes rustled. The covering that they shared shifted over them whenever either Jedi moved. Sometimes the movement would briefly breach the layer of body heat that their covering carefully preserved. The cold air would push in before the opening was covered up again. The large arm that intruded on her right side twitched, then relaxed.
The body on her left shifted position slightly. She heard low throat sounds - not words, not even syllables - coming from her left.
Layers of fabric separated her from the bodies of complete strangers and their occasional outlines of chests, hips, arms and legs pressed to her sides. But mostly they were arms, shoulders to elbows, covering and sometimes poking her. The only difference between them in the darkness was that the arms and body on her right were larger.
Above and below them, the breath of freezing air stung any part of her that she was careless enough to expose. The insulating sheet spread out on the floor of their cave protected them from the layer of snow under them, but their bodies' heat still seeped downward toward the frigid ground below. Within insulated clothes, cloak and robes, their three bodies conserved warmth together. The air under their cover felt moist and thick compared to the dry, frigid stillness of the ice cave they sheltered in. But the coolness suppressed the embarrassment of sharing body odors along with their heat.
Darkness worse than space pressed down on her; at least space had stars in it. If she kept her eyes closed, she could at least pretend that there was some light somewhere. If she opened them, the walls of the cave closed in like a box with no opening. With no constant light and power sources Betle felt smothered by how utterly black the absence of light really was. No survival training had ever mentioned this. The insides of her eyelids were alive with the afterimages of her brain thirsting for the expected illumination.
Qui-Gon Jinn moved again, his upper arm rubbing against her side.
A few seconds later, Obi-Wan Kenobi shifted position. Betle wondered if they dreamed together.
She stayed wakeful, waiting to feel tired. Betle should have been able to sleep right away, even with the bruises and strains. They had been traveling for hours, until the encroaching darkness had forced them to seek shelter for the night. Betle did not know why they couldn't use a light. Were the ships that had destroyed the Comm Nexus Tower looking for them? She had not heard any pursuit, or seen any craft above, but anything in orbit could be cloaked.
The Jedi would not tell her. It wasn't important for her to know why explosions had suddenly thrown her out of her chair and under the trans-rec computer boards. When a long-haired, bearded Jedi had emerged from the hole that had once been a bank of holo-net displays, he had looked quite surprised when he saw her.
She did not know what was in the memory chits that the Jedi had taken from the encoded com channels. They would not say. That wasn't important for her to know either. And if the Jedi hadn't even known that she was there, then was it important that she even existed? Her value, her solitary home and the job that she thought she had done so well were gone, blasted apart in a huge orange fireball, bright even in daylight.
Betle fought down the sudden self-pity. It was too soon for her to miss all the accumulation of her life that had been exploded and flung out as blackened clunks and debris into the ice canyons around the stub of her tower.
At least the Jedi had thought she was worth taking with them. Through terrifying jumps and bruising falls and slides into mazes of ice, she had kept her mouth shut and gone in the same direction they were going, up and down slippery rises, around twisting, sparkling curves, through the weird white Ice Wilderness. Even so, her best efforts had not been good enough and she had been picked up and carried over the taller Jedi's shoulders more than once. She had cried out a few times, but not in complaint. She was just surprised; he never asked or warned her before he acted.
A tear ran down her cheek. She clenched her teeth. It was too humiliating to indulge in a wallow over what would happen to her now, not huddled under cloaks with two strangers who would not know what to do if she gave in to her panic and anguish. There was no way for her to sneak off and do it in private and come back. She would be fine if she could, even if they needed to blow something else up.
She sniffed, then immediately covered her face. It was so loud in the cave, where there was barely enough room to sit up. Making it worse, her sudden movement sounded as loud as an avalanche. Anything she did could be heard, observed. She pulled her arms inward to her own space under the cloaks and robes.
The silence was as bad as the darkness. In the Comm Nexus Tower there was always something running. She usually left a holo-channel on just for background noise, and even if she didn't, there were the droids or the monitors or the power core or something making some hum or whir.
Now her ears rang with the quiet.
Somebody's stomach or bowels gurgled and Betle knew it wasn't hers. Qui-Gon took a loud breath and let it out slowly. A shoulder motion followed that. Then Obi-Wan exhaled with a tiny throat sound and moved his leg. If either one of them moved a big toe, Betle knew she would feel it.
Betle wanted to laugh at them now. Maybe she wasn't the only one who felt trapped. She could fill up her need for self-pity with wondering about these two.
Supposedly, Obi-Wan Kenobi was taking the first watch, but he didn't seem to be watching anything. He was some kind of Jedi apprentice, but she had not thought they let them out of their Temple until they were Knights. He was generically Human and looked like he was barely twenty. With pretty gray-blue eyes and a dimpled chin. And smooth, pale skin and short thick brown hair on his head that was subltly more golden when the light hit it right and a skinny braid on one side. He was slender under his shapeless brown robe.
iCradle-robber/i, she told herself. Her daughter was older than he was.
Qui-Gon Jinn was closer to her own age. He was well built with no middle-aged sag in his body at all. With long, wild brown hair, faded in places, he was a hairy variety of Human with it growing all over his chin and around his lips. His arms were very strong. But he was too tall, especially when she was out of breath and looking down from the height of his shoulders at the white, icy ground below.
Neither Jedi had said much to her at all. From the moment they had appeared they had always been leaping, running, arms and legs working to keep moving, keep balance, keep from falling. All she recalled were orders to get her outdoor clothes and curt non-answers to the few questions that she had asked. She had stopped asking. There was a ship hidden somewhere. They needed to reach it as soon as possible, fleeing some terrible deadline. And she was slowing them down.
Every time they had stopped to check their direction, she had seen Qui-Gon Jinn's intense deep blue eyes glance her way and she knew what he was thinking, the calculations he was making about how much extra time she was costing them. She would shiver and say nothing.
Their flight had not ended until it was nearly dark. Apparently, the Ice Wilderness was too dangerous to travel in the dark, even for Jedi. She wondered if they could have continued on without her. She could not read Qui-Gon Jinn's expression in the gloom. They had each taken a small portion of a nutritional concentrate and the Jedi had melted ice with their hands, through their gloves. Along with their leaping and inexhaustible energy for running over ice without slipping, their Jedi powers could somehow generate heat, too. Betle would never have crawled into the dubious shelter of the ice cave with them if she hadn't seen it in that thin trickle of water that they drank from.
Her insulated outer cloak was enough to protect her from the cold and the two warm bodies on both sides of her kept her from freezing. They radiated heat; all she did was try to keep from getting cold. Betle had tried to collect some survival gear from the Comm Tower, but Qui-Gon Jinn had torn it from her hands. He had leaped with her from the gaping hole in the tower with Obi-Wan Kenobi close behind. After it exploded in their wake Betle had decided that Qui-Gon Jinn was right when he had brusquely told her that there was no time.
Obi-Wan Kenobi tensed. There was something unidentifiably different about this motion. The slide of fabric on insulating cover had purpose.
Betle froze, only her eyes moving toward the younger Jedi. Was he awake? She felt suddenly exposed, as if her thoughts could be seen.
Something outside their cave moved.
A scraping sound and then a soft thumping in the snow and ice below their refuge grew steadily louder. It paused. Then it resumed with huffing sounds. Some creature outside snuffled, sampling the air. Betle wondered, was it a wampal. . . . a yoost? Nearly all the creatures of the Ice Wilderness were carnivorous. There being few plants to sustain them, they preyed on each other, or any other creature they could make a meal of.
The arm on her left lifted. He was awake.
Her heart beating louder and louder, Betle thought only of breathing as quietly as possible.
The creature outside whuffed. Snow and ice shifted and crunched as it moved away. Betle couldn't tell from the sound how many legs it had.
The oppressive silence returned. She felt Obi-Wan Kenobi's arm lay back down, partially on her before quickly withdrawing so that it only lay next to her, where their clothes were pressed together.
Betle turned her head toward him.
"What was that?" Her whisper sounded loud enough to fill their cave.
He sniffed, at first not answering. She wondered if he had heard her.
"I don't know what they're called here," he finally whispered back, his face turned toward her.
She could have listed all the most likely animals in the wilderness, but she did not want to make any more noise that would possibly attract another predator to their cave. Or worse, wake up Qui-Gon Jinn.
"It's gone now," he continued. "It won't come back."
"How do you know that?" she couldn't resist asking.
"Um. . . .it's complicated to explain," he finally responded. "Sorry," he amended.
"It's alright," she added automatically, without thinking.
Still tense, she looked up, breathing the cold air that took away her heat with every exhale. Warmth pressed next to her sides, from the bodies of strangers.
"I'm sorry your outpost got blown up," Obi-Wan Kenobi whispered. He was still turned toward her in the dark.
"It's alright," she told him. She didn't even know how to address him. Knight? Jedi? Obi-Wan? Wan-Kenobi? Or was it all one word, ObiWanKenobi?
"We didn't know anyone was supposed to be there."
"Oh." Again, silence.
"We're almost to the ship. As soon as it gets light enough, we'll go." Morning was hours away.
"Oh."
"We were trying to get there before nightfall." He still whispered, every syllable distinct. Faint warmth from his breath and one tiny flick of spit touched her face. "I'm sorry we had to push you so hard."
"Oh." Betle wet her lips; they were dry from the dry air and she didn't have anything to put on them. "Should we be talking?"
"There aren't any more creatures outside."
Sure that the explanation would also be complicated, she did not ask him how knew that.
"What about your friend?" she did ask.
"Oh. Qui-Gon sleeps like a stone. We would have to make a lot more noise to wake him up." Betle could believe that. He had been asleep minutes after their uncomfortable settling of their bodies in the cave. Obi-Wan Kenobi had answered another question as well; he was called Qui-Gon, not Gon-Jinn, or QuiGonJinn.
"I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go now."
"Now?" he asked.
"I mean, when we leave. The com maintenance people come from Yalexity, but the Comm Nexus Tower was owned by IridisCorp. I work for them and they're on Falas Four. The first thing they're going to do is ask for is I.D. and I don't have anything. I don't know how I could get there anyway."
"Oh." There was a pause. "I'm sure we could work something out." Even though Falus Four was in a nearby system, he did not offer to take her there. He sounded like he wanted to help, but couldn't promise anything.
"That's alright." She minimized her needs. "If you could leave me at Yalexity, I could contact IridisCorp from the ToxCo Office; they're the maintenance subcontractors. At worst, I could com my sister. Her daughter-in-law does my accounts and she could verify who I am."
"Um." He shifted position a little bit. "I'm not sure we can do that."
"You can't?" she asked, surprised. She pictured herself being abandoned by them on the open tundra of the pole, their ship disappearing into the morning sky. Because they didn't have time to take her anywhere.
She knew that this was ridiculous. But the idea suddenly felt horribly possible.
"I would recommend that you find a new employer," Qui-Gon Jinn said. Betle started. He did not whisper. Though he spoke softly, his low voice filled their confined space. "It would not be safe for you to contact them.
"We were deliberately misinformed about your outpost. It was supposed to have been uninhabited."
Betle shifted, turning toward Qui-Gon's voice.
"I've been there for six years. I have a ten year contract with them," she said, not whispering now.
Qui-Gon Jinn exhaled audibly. "You will have to come with us. We can protect you."
"From what?"
Her eyes looked toward him. She saw only blackness, but the side of her next to his heavy robe was warm.
"That is uncertain. We were given false information, but I don't believe that you were deliberately targeted. However, some people might be hostile to your survival." He evaded her question, answering his own.
"Is this about the data you took from the computer? Why you have to get back to your ship?"
"That is no longer important." He sounded resigned, weary. The urgency was gone. He had only thrown curt, abrupt words toward her when they fled through the snowy, twisting ice canyons and gullies. Now his tone had softened to a gentle Coruscant accent like Obi-Wan Kenobi's.
"I'm sorry I slowed you down."
"It's alright," he said quickly, in the same tone she had used about the tower being destroyed. It wasn't alright. She had no way to know how not alright it was. Had lives depended on it? Jedi did things like that. Saved people.
Like me? she wondered.
She wanted to ask what would happen next. If her possibly former employer was really trying to kill her, how long could the Jedi protect her? Was it the whole company? The top management? Anybody she knew? Would she have to go live with her family? Would that put them in danger if she did?
For one panicked moment she thought that she would nOt be paid before she remembered the quarterly statements that her son's wife had been sending her. Her copies of them were gone, but Plassa still had hers. Everything she had made was already in the bank, but her plans of traveling after her ten year contract was done were gone. She would have to look for a new job and she hated that, and she probably would not find something that paid so well. If IrdisCorp were trying to kill her she didn't think she would get a good reference and that would make it much harder, but. . . .
The debris of her future problems crowded into her cold present. Details that would taunt her and multiply the longer they festered while she had to extract what she could of her life. Would there be lawsuits? How many years would that go on, suing for breach of contract with IridisCorp? Would it be worth it to try?
There was movement on her right. The cloak lifted up off of her, letting in some cold air, as Qui-Gon turned himself on his side, facing her. He laid his hand on her stomach. Through his glove and her insulated outer clothes and layers of fabric, she felt the warmth from it immediately.
"It really is alright," he said softly, his head lying near hers. "What is done is done. We will go forward in the morning." His warm breath stirred her hair.
More motion on her left, a disturbance of cloak and air over her. Obi-Wan Kenobi turned over on his side, one hand slid over hers.
"It will be morning soon," the younger man said.
Betle closed her eyes. It wouldn't.
Morning was still a long time away. And these two had no idea what she was going to have to do after they were long gone, her life plans having crashed into fragments that needed to be repeated or searched for or reassembled.
Must be nice, she thought. Jedi did not have to look for jobs or worry about moving in with relatives. Now turned in toward her, they were both more than just an impression of arms and elbows through fabric. Jedi would always have some fabled Temple to return to and never have to worry about places to live or work or their employer trying to blow them up. The brief disturbance of coverings and cold had gone. The body heat built up between them again.
Must be nice.
Qui-Gon's arm, lying over her, was relaxed. His breathing had slowed to what sounded like sleep again. His body next to hers warmed her down to her booted feet.
Obi-Wan Kenobi did not feel any different; the folds of the hood of his robe lay over her shoulder. She supposed he was still wakeful. Well, she wouldn't have to worry about disturbing him then. His hand, still over her own, moved slightly, a single stroke, but his fingers continued to caress, a faint murmur of fabric that broke the oppressive stillness of the cave.
Betle's thoughts drifted away from her possibly murderous employer or which family member she would land on and stay with. For now, the night comfortably isolated her from the potential future, just as the Jedi insulated her from the cold. She knew little more about them now, but. . . .
They no longer felt like strangers.
- - END
(Originally posted on tf.n - 10-Dec-2006)
Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.