-- Hunters - part 2
They traveled throughout the busiest parts of the city for the rest of the day, the populace turning away whenever they came. They went from plaza to courtyard, past traffic intersections, under bridges, over skyways. When they went to a public fresher on the street, they waited first for the other patrons to leave it before taking their turn, their presence warning any others away.
That evening, they waited at the outer boundaries of an outdoor café. All the diners moved to tables that were furthest away from them. A nervous Tavelmi server brought out a tray of food and drink containers, but she never looked at them as she put it down on a corner table and left, as if she were making an offering to appease evil spirits.
They took what they needed and left, eating as they continued to cris-cross their way throughout the city. The crowds and overhead traffic thinned out as the evening grew later. Above them, the skies felt restless; they were being followed by hungry minds. It permeated the city, as if the buildings themselves craved their deaths.
On a narrow, nearly empty street, they heard a noise above them, sensed a sudden heat of desperation breaking into uncontrollable bloodlust.
They both ignited their lightsabers at once.
Obi-Wan's bright, blue blade shot straight upward, guided by the Force. He felt the death howl, like chorus of agony, in his mind. Dry, brittle body parts tumbled down on him. Someone screamed nearby and the few remaining pedestrians fled.
Still acting on his Force instincts, Obi-Wan froze in place, his lightsaber above his head. Next to him Qui-Gon's lightsaber hummed and glowed bright green against the darkness that the white and yellow streetlights could not dispel. On the ground, Obi-Wan saw another twisted gray body, its wings cleaved in half. Shocked, he stared down at it. He hadn't even realized that Qui-Gon had been attacked as well.
The moment stretched on. The sense of imminent danger from above diminished, but remained, restrained again. Qui-Gon deactivated his saber. It snapped off, the blade vanishing. Obi-Wan did the same and lowered his arms. Qui-Gon looked very unhappy about the aborted confrontation. He gripped his lightsaber hilt and looked up at the dark edges of the roofs as if he could dare the other to come down and end the hunt.
Obi-Wan clipped his saber to his belt and stepped away from the Okaju remains around him. He brushed at the dried and charred bits still caught in the folds of his robe. Qui-Gon's hands grasped his shoulders, pulling his robe down off of him. Obi-Wan stood by mutely as the older man thoroughly shook the robe out for him and then handed it back. Obi-Wan saw a hint of sympathy and sadness in his Master's dark blue eyes, nearly black in the shadows.
Then Qui-Gon reached out and brushed gray bits out of dust out of Obi-Wan's hair. But when he cringed Qui-Gon gave him a stern look; the moment of sympathy was gone.
After another call to the Mayor, they moved on. The city workers would remove the remains and the ghastly mental echo of the fight would keep the curious away until they arrived.
They came to a park, a pocket of dark green, purple and yellow in among the buildings. The trees and hedges muted the pervasive rumble of the city sounds around it. No overhead traffic disturbed it; the Tavelmi forbade air speeder traffic over gardens and parks. They circled, noting that all of the doors and windows of the buildings were secure and the area was well lit. Qui-Gon picked a curved bench in the open, away from the well-tended trees and flowering bushes.
"We will stay here," he announced, his voice grave.
Obi-Wan took the first watch. He sat straight, cross-legged on the bench, his lightsaber hilt in his hands. He 'saw' the park around him through the Force, felt it, the buildings, the streets, Qui-Gon lying on the bench next to him. People huddled inside the buildings that surrounded them, except at the top floors, which had been cleared all over the city, so they were less vulnerable to the Okaju. Occasional late night pedestrians would pause and stare at them, a young, adult human sitting next to an older, bearded one sleeping on a public bench. Then they would hurry away as soon as the Jedi were recognized.
Obi-Wan paid little attention to them, keeping his mind on his surroundings and the hint of malevolence just outside of perception, watching from above. Their quarry could grasp his intentions, sense them, taste them, so Obi-Wan minded his thoughts, not allowing them to stray beyond their mission and his Master's instructions. Qui-Gon had told him that it was important that the Okaju know that the Jedi wanted them. The Okaju would not be able to resist following. They would pass up other, vulnerable targets for what they thought was a chance to feed on the Jedi.
This was completely irrational to Obi-Wan, but he could see that it was true. The air seemed to thicken with their need as the night wore on. Waves of telepathically generated fear assaulted him from all sides. The spectral terror flowed through him and away in the Force, a foul wind in the night air. Obi-Wan wondered at how easy it was for him to deflect, but he sensed that anyone sleeping in the buildings around them would be having terrible nightmares, if they could sleep at all.
What surprised Obi-Wan the most was that the failure of the Okaju's mental attack seemed to only make them more determined. Gradually, Obi-Wan realized that the Okaju knew that even if they got past their lightsabers, even touching the Jedi would be death to them. That simultaneously kept them away and fed their hunger. They stayed hidden in the dark, only betrayed by a barely heard wing flap and Obi-Wan's sense of them through the Force.
They no longer wanted any other prey. The life energies drained from any being other than the Jedi would not satisfy them now. The Okaju hung suspended between desire and death, like drug addicts that knew that what they desired most was killing them.
Obi-Wan accepted the twisted logic he sensed in the night around him without reacting to it. He minded his thoughts, as Qui-Gon had instructed. He would probe how he felt when the mission was over.
Next to him, Qui-Gon didn't quite sleep. His body relaxed, his eyes were closed, but his mind remained half aware, with no room for true dreams, and ready to immediately respond to anything. This kind of rest was meant to only hold off the effects of sleeplessness. All Jedi trained their bodies for it, to use when a mission required it. If necessary they could go without real sleep for many days.
Halfway through the night, Obi-Wan nudged his Master. He came awake instantly and sat up, a dark silhouette outlined by the streetlights around the park. Obi-Wan silently lay down on his half of the bench; he cleared his mind and soon fell into the trance of a half-sleep.
Qui-Gon sat alone in his wakefulness. Their quarry still lingered in the night. That part of their mission was working. The Jedi Master sensed them, high above. Their hunger drew them. The Jedi had dragged their invisible snare though the city and the Okaju now followed it, but they held back, unwilling to be caught, but unable to tear themselves away from the fabulous prize that the Jedi presented to them.
He sat cross-legged, arms resting on his knees, his lightsaber ready between them. He imagined a faint howling in the wind, his own mental manifestation of what he sensed from the Okaju through the Force. With the crowds gone and his Padawan quiescent next to him, Qui-Gon began to sense individuals. There were many of them; he didn't know how many, but more than they had expected. Qui-Gon had been certain of that earlier in the day, but there were no other Jedi who could reach them for many days.
Qui-Gon sensed a leader among them, a strong one that kept the others back. Okaju, successful ones, always had a leader to control the murderous instincts of the brood, so that they could remain hidden and feeding among the population, sometimes for many years. The leader poured terror down on him. Instinctive, base fear condensed in the cool, pre-dawn air as the others joined in.
Qui-Gon mildly answered it with indifference and the certainty that the Force was a vast ocean of life that drove their hunger into madness, but they dared not drink from it. Somewhere above, the leader flinched; it now knew that Qui-Gon had hunted their kind before. There were no more concerted attacks on his mind, though the bloodlust remained, flitting between rooftops.
All around him, the buildings were sealed, the inhabitants shut in. The earlier deaths had improved their vigilance. Qui-Gon watched a lumbering, early morning street cleaner droid as it slowly ground past them.
The city could not be cleared effectively. Even the most organized evacuation for such a densely populated area would provide cover for their quarry to escape, with far more risk of death and worse. If they were cornered, the Okaju could easily start a panic that would work in their favor.
Just before dawn, as a few Tavelmi and droids appeared on the streets Qui-Gon nudged his Padawan awake. Obi-Wan rose from his nap and the Jedi moved on, wandering the streets again, leaving tremors of fear behind in their wake. As morning turned to noon and then afternoon and then later, both Jedi sensed the increasing tension from above. They were attacked two more times, destroying three more Okaju. No Tavelmi were threatened, or even nearby when the Okaju came down for them. The previous day's deaths had inspired them. The Tavelmi and the various other species of the city had gotten much better at avoiding the Jedi, though their eyes followed them from a distance wherever they went.
- end - part 2 -