NOT MEANT TO BE
by ardavenport
*-o-*-o-*-o-* Part 3
_._._._._.It was a bit funny, everyone's reaction. At least looking back at it now, it was funny. Not so much at the time, I suppose. And it wasn't just Dooku who was offended, Shaak Ti and Elest looked like Qui-Gon had served up steaming piles of poodoo for a second meal.
"He wanted you to demolish a building?" Obi-Wan had stood up from the meditation pedestal in the Archives' private room. He saw himself, an invisible onlooker, standing with the other Jedi Masters on a platform surveying an enormous, decrepit structure, at least twice as big as the Jedi Temple, deep down in the morning shadows of the metaloid canyons of Courscant. Doombas, his guide, grinned.
_._._._._.Me, Peortamadanatu Bon and Yetor Icin were just surprised. And then we were offended when Qui-Gon Jinn showed us the holo of the owner of that derelict wringing his extensions and profusely thanking the Jedi for helping him in his time need. Seems he fell into some bad luck and didn't have the funds to demolish it. It and the volume it occupied were going to be confiscated by the Coruscant authorities if it wasn't taken down.
"Demolition is not really a job for Jedi." Obi-Wan agreed.
_._._._._.No, it isn't. But it's not exactly out of bounds, either. And if you look at it, you could do all kinds of things with the Force besides wrecking buildings. But the Council and the Code discourage too much creativity, lest it lead you down to the Dark Side. I supposed we were safe from that at least with Master Yoda, the oldest member on the Jedi Council, there with us.
_._._._._.And we weren't just supposed to destroy that old ruin. We had to deconstruct it so the reclaimers could haul off the pieces. Nine lightsabers might have been able to carve up that building, but cutting it up and sorting the pieces. . . . ? I wasn't seeing it getting done in two rotations. It was impossible.
_._._._._.So, we got right to work.
_._._._._.Me, Dooku, Elest, Peortamadanatu Bon, Shaak Ti and Yetor Icin started on the top level right away. Ripping off whole sections with the Force, cutting down everything else. Dooku, Yetor and Shaak Ti took the lead cutting things up. The rest of us sorted it and lowered it down to the base.
_._._._._.Jemjas and Master Yoda knew what Qui-Gon was aiming at already. They just settled down with him for a nice, long two day meditation. I suppose if anyone knew what the secret was, it would be Master Yoda. But I couldn't see it; so I was going to take the hard way with the others.
The sun rose high in the sky, cruising through its day cycle; clouds whizzed by; the traffic lanes turned to a blur in accelerated time. By the time Coruscant's primary star dipped down to the horizon, the shadows in the city canyons darkening to night, most of the top level was gone along with large sections of the one below it. There were at least thirty levels between that and the base where the pieces were stacking up.
The image of Master Doombas sighed.
_._._._._.Like I said, I didn't see us getting it done in time. Jemjas got us food. It was up to us to decide when to rest, get a room back at the hostel for the night if we wanted. None of us did. Dooku considered it a challenge and he was determined that his former Padawan would not best him. Elest and Yetor Icin were competing with Dooku. Don't know why. It's not like you ever get a prize at the end of these things.
_._._._._.And I . . . . I started because I couldn't see not doing it. I kept thinking of that poor sod in the holo who took Qui-Gon Jinn's promise that he would not lose his business. But after a while I forgot about that. I was glad.
Night passed into the second day. The lightsabers, green and blue flashed even faster, yet the bulk of the immense building remained below them.
_._._._._.I had not been handed this kind of challenge in a long time. Where I used all my abilities. Or what I still had left after losing my leg. The Force flowed through my living body. I stopped caring if we would actually finish this insane task pretty quick. The world was simple for a long while with nothing but our lightsabers and taking away what we chopped down. You know this kind of training. You give the student an impossible task; the learning is in finding out how you deal with it when you fail.
General Obi-Wan Kenobi nodded his head. Qui-Gon Jinn could be very devious in assigning his Padawan training like this. But nothing this big. Yet . . . sometimes he wondered. . . . was the Clone Wars an impossible task? It certainly seemed that way sometimes. The Separatists always had more ships, more droid armies. With Count Dooku leading them. But Obi-Wan could not imagine failing to win the war. That was impossible. It could not. It would not happen.
The second day flew by into the second night, everything speeded up. But the dismantlement of the deserted building still moved at a crawl.
_._._._._.I was impatient. I stopped before dawn. I was grimy; my clothes smelled; my artificial leg was making a sound I didn't like. And I needed to relieve myself. I did that on the way back to the viewing platform.
_._._._._.I asked why it took him so long to understand the Living Force when he was a Padawan. Why hadn't his encounter with the criminal on the first night been enough to prove the strength of his connection with the Living Force.
General Kenobi gazed at his former Master's face, a vision brought back by the holocron.
Long dead, but still much missed.
He closed his eyes; Jedi were not supposed to mourn those who passed into the Force. Or yearn for their counsel when hope was scarce. He opened them again. Qui-Gon remained, a gentle smile on his lips as he looked up at Doombas.
Climbing to his feet. Qui-Gon Jinn was a head taller than Doombas, but just as broad. They were both bearded, Qui-Gon with more hair on top of his head, Doombas with much more and grayer hair in his beard.
Kenobi decided that is was still acceptable to prefer that Qui-Gon Jinn not be dead.
"I felt it was wrong that my power should be graded on my ability to dispatch a minor criminal. Strength in the Living Force should not be measured in death. So, I stayed on my quest." He paused. "Despite my Master's disapproval."
"So, what did you do all that time?"
"I worked. A local junk dealer saw the attempted robbery and after my Master and the police left he told me that if I was staying, he could give me room and board in his humble home." Qui-Gon folded his arms before him. Next to him, Jemjas and Master Yoda had gotten up to listen.
"The man's motives were fairly transparent. As long as I was in his home, none of the local criminals would bother him. The accommodations were little more than a cot in a closet, but I did not need more than that.
"Naturally, I helped out when my host asked. He had a family and too many debts and broken droids. I got along very well with one of his sons, Detrim. There was nothing more than comradeship between us, but I did enjoy his approval."
"So, what happened? When did you have your revelation?" Doombas put his hands on his hips and shifted his weight. His mechanical leg whirred and clicked. Behind him, the others had also abandoned the building demolition and climbed up to the viewing platform. Their clothes were sweat-stained and rumpled. Dooku and Elest carried their robes. The sky above was growing lighter, cloudless twilight turning blue. Behind them, the derelict building was still mostly there, the small piles of material at its base dwarfed by the work that was still undone.
"I failed my host."
Master Qui-Gon's face was peaceful as he spoke. "Detrim's father took on a large job that he should not have. Even if all his droids were working, it was too big for him. But he had blithely relied on me. And I helped. We had to remove outdated generators from a housing block and take them away for scrap."
Dooku, Elest, Yetor Icin, Peortamadanatu Bon and Shaak Ti arrived to hear this part of the story.
"We have failed now," Shaak Ti shook her head, her long gray-blue and white striped lekku waving with the motion. "And I feel none the wiser for it."
"I don't know why you asked us to move that mountain when you say you failed to remove some generators," Dooku futilely tried to brush the grime from his tunic and tabbards.
"I was quite capable of moving the generators," Qui-Gon answered. "I had been training hard for many days. My focus was absolute." He gazed downward into this past lesson. "But the building was still occupied with many people, many families with small children. Several of them made it a game to come up behind me. I was totally immersed in the Force, totally aware of my surroundings, but . . . . I did not see them until they distracted me.
"I dropped two generators onto the street. No one was hurt, but they fell quite far and caused a lot of damage. The owner of the building was furious and he fired my host immediately. Soon after, my host had to take his family to a more modest dwelling. I offered to pay their rent; I still had my credit chit, but they refused. I think my host was a bit angry that I had failed him. He told me to go back to the Jedi Temple. I asked Detrim what I could do to help. He was not angry at me. And he was used to his father's erratic fortunes. He sighed with more acceptance than had seen in many Jedi Masters." Qui-Gon and Dooku exchanged a complicated eye-lock of challenge and disappointment.
"He said, 'It wasn't meant to be.' And then he repeated what his father said, that it was time for me to go back to the Jedi Temple. But he said it in a much nicer tone." Qui-Gon quirked a smile.
"And that is when I knew that I had not done anything wrong when I dropped the generators. The Force was with me. Greater strength, more power would not have changed the outcome. My connection with the Living Force was not measured in my power or speed at killing, but in knowing what task I should be doing. And sometimes the will of the Force would be for me to fail. It was time for me to return to the Temple."
Everyone stood silent. Yoda's eyes twinkled with approval. Jemjas's round blue face smiled serenely. The others looked back at Jinn with varying degrees of understanding.
"Really?" Dooku's derisive tone broke the solemn moment. "And is that what you will tell the poor fool who is expecting this thing to be dismantled by now? That your failure the will of the Force?"
"We still have a little time before they arrive." Qui-Gon gazed at the immense building below their platform. "If we all work together, I'm sure we can make some respectable progress toward our goal."
Yetor's bulbous head tilted from side to side, his featureless unblinking black eyes fixed on Qui-Gon. Elest's eyes bulged with shock. "You must have taken leave of your senses. We can't do that!" her arm shot out, pointing. "It's huge!"
"Size matters not. With us, the Force is."
Everyone looked down at Master Yoda, serenely leaning on his cane.
_._._._._.Master Yoda had been telling every one of us about the limitless power of the Force ever since we were younglings. Elest looked like she was hoping a hole into hyperspace would swallow her up. Even Master Dooku had to swallow his pride and try with the rest of us. And he looked like he was going to choke on it.
_._._._._. None of us could say no, it couldn't be done. We had to do it. So we all closed our eyes and reached out with the Force to that old wreck. I could feel the rusting beams and corroded supports like they were my own bones. Story after story. Abandoned rooms, empty doors, stripped equipment. I'd been in it for days. I knew what was there. But there was a whole lot of it. Enough to get lost in. But we could feel each other. All nine of us working together, pulling it apart . . . . "
"Did you do it?" General Kenobi asked softly after a very long silence. "Were you able to dismantle it with the Force?"
_._._._._. No, of course not! We weren't taking apart our lightsabers. That think was huge!
Kenobi jumped back. The Doombas image waved its hands as it explained.
_._._._._. We just sort of loosened the whole structure - which was actually pretty impressive, considering how big it was. It pancaked down on itself. It was a third as tall as it was when we started. But it was still all there. Even worse, parts of it fell on the pieces that we'd sorted, so that was all ruined, too. The dust was still settling when the owner showed up with the reclaimers and Coruscant inspectors. She almost fainted when she saw that it was still there.
"So, you failed. Was she ruined by it?"
Doombas's holo face leered back.
_._._._._. No. The reclaimer announced the he was so impressed that the owner got Jedi to help him that he would cover the costs himself and clear the wreckage, as long as the owner took a half return on the reclaimed materials. She didn't like it. But it spared her from bankruptcy court. The reclaimer had good connections and could get an extension with the Coruscant inspectors. And. . . .
The Doombas image snickered.
_._._._._.The reclaimer's name was Detrim. Jinn had it all set up to have it turn out all right for the owner, no matter we did.
Kenobi shook his head. "I do not understand."
_._._._._. I told you at the beginning that you should take this journey yourself.
"No. I do not understand what you learned from it. You must have learned something, or you wouldn't have made this holocron."
_._._._._. I didn't learn anything at first. I was just as lost as some of the others. But then I saw Jinn paling around with Detrim. Those bastards. But that made me remember what Detrim told Jinn when he was a Padawan learner.
_._._._._. It wasn't' meant to be.
_._._._._. I'd been working with the others for days on that building. The Force strong in us, between us. And when we all worked together, it was even stronger with a single purpose, pure, no emotion, no fear of failure. It was just us and what we had to do. For that time and place the Force could not have been stronger with us because . . . . it matters what you're doing with it. It matters why. Being stronger, faster, more powerful doesn't change that if what you're doing wasn't meant to be.
The holo-image looked down. And suddenly one of the good legs it stood on transformed into clicking metal and plastoid.
_._._._._. I lost my leg in a mission for the Jedi Order. My own Padawan dragged what was left of me into our ship and I lived. I stopped the bleeding with the Force. I blocked the pain and the shock with the Force. I kept my focus and calmed my Padawan who was terrified when she saw my injury. I drew every breath with the Force until we returned to our command ship and the medical droids there stabilized me. . . . .
_._._._._.. . . . but somehow I wasn't strong enough to keep the leg on in the first place with the Force?!
Doombas shouted and shook his fists. And stomped his feet, one real, one artificial.
Then the rage drained out of him. He let it go.
_._._._._.That's when I realized; it wasn't meant to be. And I'd been living with that question inside me for a long time. I was too afraid to admit that it was even there until I went on Qui-Gon Jinn's little quest.
_._._._._.I failed that mission. Spectacularly. And I suppose I could have done other things and succeeded and come out of it whole. But I didn't. And being more powerful, powerful enough to take a whole building apart and stack it up into neat piles wouldn't have let keep that leg.
Obi-Wan bowed his head. He wasn't sure he understood. Being more powerful with the Force didn't matter? Then why were only the most powerful Jedi appointed to the Council? Why were the most powerful Jedi appointed to be generals in the war? He admitted his ignorance. Doombas did not seem to mind.
_._._._._.You're not expected to get it on the first try. Go meditate on it. That's the Jedi cure for all ignorance. But I should tell you something, since you were Qui-Gon Jinn's Padawan . . . .
_._._._._.The others at least saw a glimmer of what Qui-Gon was trying to teach them. But Dooku thought the whole thing was a waste of time. He said so, too. He thought that Qui-Gon was just making excuses for failure. He left the Temple as soon as we got back.
_._._._._.I talked to Qui-Gon Jinn about it, and he admitted that after that first time, he never saw Dooku, his Master, the same way again. And he was disappointed that he had not changed since then. It did not really matter. Qui-Gon Jinn passed his Trials not long after that first journey and he was no longer Dooku's apprentice. I don't know if they ever worked together on a mission again.
_._._._._.Jinn told me that it wasn't meant to be for his old Master. But he looked like he was having a hard time choking down his own lesson. I think he really wanted to see Dooku understand. He didn't.
_._._._._.And given what you told me about Dooku . . . . where has being a more powerful Jedi gotten him?
*-o-*-o-*-o-* END
(Epilogue to follow)