Jedi Temple

Throughout the ages of the Republic information had been gathered through many different means. There were computers to provide data. There were archives. There was torturing of individuals. There always were drugging people. But what Qui-Gon Jinn found the most effective was observation.

When Obi-Wan went around his exercises in a daze, Qui-Gon had thought that the boy was just tired and had sent him to his quarters to rest. But when Obi-Wan had started to wander around the temple, showing signs of restlessness, Qui-Gon began to think otherwise.

Qui-Gon watched as Obi-Wan sat down on the grassy sod, next to the lake in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. It was the exact same spot where Qui-Gon had smelt that familiar smell that morning. The two ends started to connect in his mind.

So it was Obi-Wan's friend that Qui-Gon had smelt.

"Youth itself is puzzling," Mace Windu interrupted Qui-Gon's thoughts.

Qui-Gon turned to face the Jedi council member. His dark face, which was always quick to smile at a joke, was straight and grim. It struck Qui-Gon that this was the time of day when the Jedi high council met, and Master Windu never missed a meeting, not when he couldn't help it.

"Is anything wrong?" Qui-Gon asked.

"I've just been contacted by the Supreme Chancellor," Mace Windu started. "I've been informed that a newly arrived counselor is listed as missing."

"Missing?" Qui-Gon echoed. "Is he sure?"

"A Senator Palpatine had dropped by to inform the counselor of the happenings in the senate late this afternoon. What he found was a thrashed room and blood drops. But no counselor," Windu continued. "It's pretty safe to say that this politician is missing."

"Have there been any leads?" Qui-Gon questioned.

"Those that were willing to talk said that someone leapt out of the counselor's window, with the counselor, onto a waiting speeder and flew off." Pulling a data card from out of the folds of his robe, Windu presented it to Qui-Gon. "The speeder type and the description of the assailant are in here, as well as all that we could get from the chancellor. It's a skeleton outline of the counselor's recent background, residency, and current finances."

"Does this counselor have a name?" Qui-Gon mused over the surprising lack of information.

Windu shrugged his shoulders. "I'm afraid that the senate is very closed-mouth about this."

"There must be something in the counselor's past that their afraid of and hiding, or they just don't know themselves," Qui-Gon concluded.

Windu nodded. "The council reached the same conclusion." Windu nodded his head once more in dismissal. "May the Force be with you." With that, Windu left for the Jedi high council.

Qui-Gon glanced down at the data card in his hand, and then put it away in his robe. Personally, Qui-Gon would rather have stayed and watched and observed his Padawan for a longer time. But there was danger around the counselor, and, if they weren't fast enough, they might have a dead counselor on their hands.