Because I Said So
Chapter 10
"Watch your step," Qui-Gon cautioned his young companion, only to cut the overprotective warning short as his Padawan abandoned the treacherous slope entirely and sailed down the remaining five meters in a single graceful leap.
He slid down the crumbling sea-wall to its base and picked his way across the rock-strewn shore. Surf hissed and burbled among the slippery tide pools.
"Obi-Wan…. it might be prudent to remove your boots."
The young Jedi hastily complied with this good advice and picked his way across the slick landscape, carefully avoiding the luridly colored mollusks and echinoderms sprawling upon the exposed stones.
Chuckling, breathing deeply of the bracing sea air, Qui-Gon followed him out into the wide tidal zone. The Living Force sparkled brighter than the late afternoon sun on the dark waters, vibrant with a million points of light. Surely there could be no better cure for an elusive and ungrounded bad feeling than this.
"We went to Vandor 3 once, to see some tide pools," Obi-Wan happily told him.
"We" meaning Dragon Clan, the Jedi master assumed. His apprentice still stood halfway between childhood and the demands of his new life, reflexively identifying himself as a member of the quasi- familial clan grouping, while facing the reality of his new role bit by bit. Someday soon, "we" would mean the Order as a whole, or conversely the master and Padawan unit. But for now, Troon Palo's boisterous clan still habitually occupied the center of his memories. "Vandor does not boast venomous blue seastars," he blandly observed.
The Padawan started, dropping the brilliant turquoise echinoderm in his hand. It plopped back into a clear pool with a soft splash.
"Of course, neither does X'Naaro," Qui-Gon added.
"Master!"
A brief water war ensued, one ending in a soaked Padawan and a smugly unsullied master.
Content with the victory, Qui-Go set to poking among the rocks and pebbles above the tide line, turning this or that glittering specimen over with a nudge of the Force. After a while, his curious protégé joined him.
"What are you looking for?"
"Nothing," the talk man replied.
His apprentice frowned, bemused, but fell into step beside him, joining in the quest for nothing. He occasionally darted forward and seized some beautiful stone, holding it out for inspection. They had amassed a sizeable collection by the time they reached the end of the beach.
"What do we do with these, master?" Obi-Wan displayed his double handful of treasures, brows raised."My belt pouches are full already, and besides, attachment is forbidden."
Qui-Gon perched upon a jutting boulder under the cliff's edge. "Nothing, of course. Toss them back in the sea."
That perennial game occupied them for several minutes. The Jedi master was surprised to find that he now had a keen rival in the rock-skipping department, a judicious application of the Force sending the tiny projectiles bouncing sixteen or seventeen times over the waves before they disappeared.
"How is your bad feeling now?"
Obi-Wan pulled his feet up under himself and tucked in close beside his mentor, their backs leaning against the rough-hewn wall of granite behind. From this vantage point, the mining ship's dome rose like a mist-wreathed island, a mythical realm just past the boundaries of present reality.
The young Jedi's eyes wandered over the oceans' expanse, resting upon this oddly geometric extrusion. "It's still there, master."
"Hm." Setting a reassuring hand upon the boy's knee, Qui-Gon let his own anxieties dissipate into the moist air, into the Force. The sun sank, blinding them as they gazed over the rippling waters. He pointed to the black half-dome. "The technicians have already started unmooring the storage vessel from the mining shafts. You might get to see your fallen moon rise tonight."
The young Jedi shuddered; Qui-Gon felt the cold hand of foreboding stroke down his own spine, in spontaneous sympathy.
"It is getting late. Perhaps we should make our way back to the Tower."
But not quite yet, it would seem. "Master? You said that a small detail could prove essential to a mission's successful outcome." The boy worried at his lower lip, eyes squinting out over the scintillating waves.
"Yes?"
"Well…" The tell-tale furrow appeared between the Padwan's brows. "The skiff captain said the Orbit Industries inspectors were pimply runts."
Non-plussed, Qui-Gon tilted his head to one side. "Go on."
Obi-Wan flicked his hand, lifting a stray pebble from the shore and sending it spinning out over the foam-capped tide. "What if the pimples were actually Mellsh pox scabs?"
"It is possible, Padawan, given the current epidemic… but how is that relevant?"
His apprentice leaned back into the shelter of the cliff, hugging his knees. "Biocompatible cyberpathways is how," he said, with a resonant note of certainty in his voice, the confident timber of a sure intuition far outstripping his years. And the Force chimed in agreement.
Qui-Gon sucked in a sharp breath, arrested by the thought. "That is either brilliant - or clinically paranoid," he concluded.
"Or both," Obi-Wan wryly offered. "But I'm right, aren't I?"
"Let's go." The sooner they returned to the Tower and shared the outré possibility with the head engineers, the better. Qui-Gon stood, casting an uneasy glance at the Techno Union ship. "That bears immediate investigation."
They hurried back up the shingled stretch of sand - only to be buffeted by a sudden rolling boom, an eruption of fire and steam blasting out of the sea like a geyser.
Obi-Wan halted, wide-eyes, looking in horror at the gouts of boiling water. Before their astonished eyes, another and yet another disturbance scarred the oceans' surface, the waves now writhing in disorder, choppy and storm-like. Another column of fire blasted its way from beneath the surface, sending scalding droplets like acid rain over the beach. The Jedi covered their heads and skidded among the rocks as a shock wave rolled underfoot.
Obi-Wan stumbled into Qui-Gon, clutching at his cloak. "Master!" He gripped at his solar plexus, panting.
The tall Jedi seized his apprentice by the upper arm. "Breathe," he commanded. He too could feel it, the searing cry of hundreds of sentients, terror and pain and utter confusion twisting the Force into a cramping agony. "Obi-Wan. Center."
The boy staggered upright, looking at him in shock, his face pale. It was a hard lesson, and not a welcome one.
Qui-Gon held his shoulders. "Easy." He fortified the boy's mental shields, raising artificial barriers against the overpowering influx. "Focus on me. Better."
His apprentice regained a little color. He thrust an arm out over the waves. "The people!" He choked out. "In the mines, I think. Something – it happened! They need help!"
Qui-Gon restrained him. "Padawan! Stop. Think. Use the Force. You cannot swim into the mines. We will meet the emergency response crew and offer our assistance." He gripped the boy firmly. The desire to rush toward danger, to render aid, was a powerful Jedi instinct – but it needed to be disciplined.
Panting, the young Jedi seemed to recover some of his equilibrium. "Yes, master." he flushed deeply. "I'm sorry, I… I don't know…"
"Put your boots on." Qui-Gon watched the first emergency air-vehicles circling the tumultuous sea about the mining platform. It was likely that part of the sub-surface mines had collapsed, possibly even creating a fissure in the crust, allowing pressurized magma to escape upward into the sea. He did not wish to imagine the consequences for any workers trapped in the connector tubes as they labored to unseal the system.
"Let's go." They leapt back up the stony promontory and sped onward, the Force still roaring with liquid fire and horrified screams.
The X'Naaro paramedic and emergency repair sub plunged deep beneath the roiling waves, ploughing through a murky realm spangled with bright coils of molten mineral and burbling pillars of underwater smoke, ugly and sinuous spouts of toxins writhing their way to the surface.
Obi-Wan sat stony-faced beside his teacher, watching the hellish landscape darken to an oppressive gloom as they reached the ragged floor and the insertion points for pressurized mining shafts.
Qui-Gon peered at the duraplast tubes, translucent spires descending from the storage holds far above to this jagged pile of rock and sand. One of the tubes had cracked in an explosion, and lay in shards upon the ocean floor, partially obscured by dark clouds leaking up from cracks and vents in the rough tumble of stone. The water shimmered with heat where invisible jets of gas escaped their deep graves, rising like angry phantoms.
The X'Naaro emergency crew captain grumbled in his throat, a species-peculiar noise of dissatisfaction. "Scanners are useless. We'll have to go in blind and look for survivors." He stared pointedly at the Padawan crouching beside the tall Jedi master. "With respect, this is no place for –"
"He goes where I go. This is our way," Qui-Gon bluntly ended the argument.
"Fine." The captain waved his men forward. "We'll dock the sub capsule and enter the most stable shaft. From there we'll fan out. If you encounter obstruction or dangerous seismic factors, retreat. We have no idea how much of the infrastructure collapsed, or why."
Though they all harbored the same suspicion: malfunctioning mining bots had activated the tibanna explosives without cause, triggering a depth reaction and possibly creating volcanic vents like those they had seen already. Both X'Naaro and Techno Union technicians had been in the mines, busily dismantling the operation in preparation for the planned orbital docking.
"Had to happen today," the captain muttered. "A few more hours and we'd be in the clear. Mostly only droids is down this far."
"Are you ready?" Qui-Gon quietly asked his apprentice as they filed forward to the pressure seal. The young Jedi nodded, white faced.
The Force was tainted with fear and omnipresent danger.
"It feels like Telos," Obi-Wan whispered.
"Center on the task at hand. Follow me and be mindful." The tall man took the lead, stepping into the compromised connection shaft. A trickle of pressurized air brushed againt his cheek – the atmospheric regulator had held up, thus far at least, but the temperature was oppressively hot.
They quickly passed into a cavernous labyrinth of passages and hollowed out caves, most of them lined with girders and blinking monitor panels. A thin guide rail meandered along the ceiling, parallel to a double row of phospho lamps inset in the gleaming rock.
Obi-Wan did not only follow him, but practically trod upon his cloak hem. "There are people here," he whispered. "On the left."
"I feel them." The other crew members had disappeared into adjacent corridors and shafts, seeking out the center of damage, looking for survivors. They might as well pursue the Padawan's hunch. "We'll check down this way."
The heat increased as they descended, until the air seared in their lungs and perspiration rolled in sticky trails down backs and necks. And then a sickly acid caught at their throats and set them both to violent hacking.
Fumbling a trifle, the Jedi master found his padawans' rebreather and yanked it from its pouch, unfolding the device and thrusting it into Obi-Wan's hands. No further explanation was required; a moment later, they sank down against the hot curve of the tunnel wall, sucking in gasping breaths through the portable filter systems. When his own head had cleared sufficiently, Qui-Gon stood and signaled that they should continue on, pressing forward toward the end of this passage, where the signature of frightened sentients resounded like a frantic bell in the Force.
The ground trembled beneath them, and he reached hand sideways to support his Padawan. The boy looked up at him through watering eyes, a heady mix of dread and determination washing across their bond. This adventure was, perhaps, a bit too intense for a young learner – but they had little choice now.
The earth buckled beneath them, around them, and the very air seemed to scream with renewed terror. A rumbling so deep and pervasive it could not be placed, and then a deafening crack. The phospho lamps were snuffed out in an instant, plunging them into utter blackness.
Ahead, through the inky veils, there appeared a reddish glow, the flickering hellfire of a magmaic flow. Qui-Gon's hand closed about his saber hilt; what surely lay ahead was not for a young Padawan to see. Not like this, without preparation.
The boy went rigid, feeling his cold abhorrence. Yoked in the Force, the older man could feel his student's pulse ratchet into a frenetic rhythm. Images of Telos, of captivity, of Xanatos DuCrion's mocking laughter, of blaster-riddled bodies falling upon hard flagstones, of the endless emptiness of space and the howling of the Dark – these whirled through his own mind, a thread of panic contained only by vital discipline.
The Jedi master exhaled. He must at least check for survivors. Nor he could not possibly leave the Padawan behind, alone in this star-forsaken tunnel. He braced his apprentice's shoulders for a moment, then reached for the blindfold tucked neatly in its place. Despite the smothering darkness all around them, he tied it firmly in place.
Obi-Wan's alarm projected vibrantly through the Force.
Because I said so, the tall man explained, silently, taking the boy's hand firmly in his own. Do as I tell you without question.
And he led the way onward.