Hmm, I bet you guys thought I'd abandoned this story, didn't you? Uh huh, I see you nodding your heads. :-p In all actuality though…I forgot about it. ^_^; But school's out now and I have nothing better to do, so it looks like I'll be posting regularly again. Enjoy!
--Marie Kenobi
Previously, on "Patience is Key": Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Garen, and Marie revisit Ceal Verune's former mansion, only to run into more trouble…
See Chapter One for disclaimer
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Chapter 14
"I have a bad feeling about this."
Obi-Wan turned confused eyes to his cousin. He saw her back and shoulders stiffen considerably. "What is that supposed to mean?" he hissed.
Marie turned to look at him briefly and he felt a tickling sensation move along his spine.
"Master Jinn?"
"I feel it." The tall Jedi nodded. "Obi-Wan, Garen—Leave."
Both apprentices began to complain, but the master cut them off. "We cannot let them see what you are wearing. It will ruin the entire plan."
"But—" Obi-Wan tried.
His master fixed him with a stern glare. "It won't be dark forever, Padawan. Dawn is coming. Now go!"
With obvious reluctance, Obi-Wan nodded. The Force swirled momentarily before it surged around the two young men. Garen and Obi-Wan were over the wall in a heartbeat with the same agility they'd displayed earlier—even if their clothes were a few sizes too small now.
Marie smiled sympathetically at the Jedi Master, but he merely shook his head. "As much as I hate yelling at him—"
"It's for his own good."
"Yes. Now, where are those friends of yours?"
"I would hardly call them 'friends', Master Jinn."
"Is that so?"
"Well, yes—" Marie stopped midway through her sentence. Her eyes sought to see her companion's face in the dark. "That wasn't you, was it?" she asked, referring to what she thought he had previously said.
Qui-Gon reached for his weapon, an expression of deep seriousness causing the wrinkles on his face to stand out more so than usual. "No…it wasn't."
A golden light as bright as the sun suddenly flooded the yard behind the house. Momentarily blinded, the two Jedi had to rely solely on their trust in the Force—and each other—to deflect the blaster bolts that were unexpectedly screaming towards them. But, although the two had occasionally worked together at the Temple—under controlled circumstances—they did not share a bond, and this made things difficult.
Qui-Gon was accustomed to working with other Force wielders whom he shared no bond with and knew how to alter his fighting style to better be able to work with his partner. Marie, however, was still fairly sheltered by Temple life. Usually she fought by herself, as apprentices of the UJP were taught to survive alone. An undercover Jedi never knew when their identity might be discovered and they needed to know how to survive until they could either make it off planet themselves or help arrived to take them back to the Temple.
The lack of teaching cooperation in the UJP was something that would have to be re-looked at, Marie decided, letting her thoughts stray from the present to—what she hoped—was the near future when she returned to the Temple and debriefed the Council of her findings.
It was a great flaw in the training method she learned under and could not be allowed to stand.
And it was because of this very flaw that her movements had to be compensated greatly from their usual free flowing arcs and spins, to shorter, choppier blocks when Qui-Gon retreated to stand back to back with her.
The Jedi Master was able to deflect all of the laser bolts aimed at him, but Marie found it difficult to deflect all of hers. One managed to barely slide past her blade. Remembering at the very last moment that Qui-Gon was behind her, she bumped into him, putting him off balance while at the same time saving him from a blaster bolt in his shoulder blade. In knocking her comrade off balance, however, she caused him to miss an incoming shot. It soared past the green lightsaber and grazed the younger Jedi's leg.
Marie stumbled briefly, inhaling sharply as her mind registered the pain and attempted to release it through the Force. Qui-Gon was there immediately to make up for the shots she missed. "How bad is it?" he asked quickly.
She rotated her blade in front of her face, a maneuver Qui-Gon recognized as something that she must have picked up from his Padawan, and listened as she said through clenched teeth, "Not bad."
Nodding, he lunged forward to stop two blasts, then pivoted on the ball of his left foot to block another.
Then, without the slightest indication, the onslaught ceased. For the first time since the fight began, the two Jedi, breathing heavily through their noses and realizing their eyes had been closed nearly the entire time, took a look around their surroundings, which were still bathed in golden light. Huge spotlights kept the glow constant from where they were set in the gargantuan wall and old, twisted trees.
"I never knew you dreaded night so much that you had to have such a bright display of light installed," Qui-Gon remarked dryly.
"Neither did I." Marie took in the sight of numerous guards surrounding them on all sides but one and instinctively tightened her grip on her weapon, not bothering to wipe away the sweat that had gathered there. Choosing to ignore the fire shooting up from her leg wound, she took in a deep, shaky breath.
At the small sound of a whistle, the soldiers began to melt away from the Jedi and convene near the house. As they moved, Qui-Gon saw the bodies of many men that had been struck down by their own shots deflected back at them during the fight. He hated to kill if it could be prevented, but the Force had flown so easily through him that his recollections of the fight were blurry at best. He did remember, however, that his young friend was wounded and instinctively moved closer to her, just as he would have had she been his own Padawan. A growl leapt from the young woman's throat as he neared her and Qui-Gon looked to see what had attracted her attention so fiercely.
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Obi-Wan crouched on the wall high above the group in the yard. "Garen—look!"
"Yeah, yeah, I saw it," he said, referring to how all of the warriors had suddenly ceased fighting and moved to gather around a single figure.
Antiyo Ganfor.
"They're outnumbered and I think she took a laser bolt in the leg," Garen murmured, sidling closer to his friend to see his comrades better.
"Mmm," Obi-Wan replied, looking around for something to distract or help fight Antiyo and his goons. His eyes took light when he found something they could use.
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"Well, if it isn't two of my closest friends in the entire galaxy—the great Qui-Gon Jinn and little Miss. Marie Kenobi. What brings you back to my humble abode?"
Marie's nostrils flared as she struggled to release the rage she felt within her. Qui-Gon laid a comforting hand on her shoulder and stepped forward, tilting his head toward their opponent in greeting.
Antiyo smiled.
"So you are the great Jedi Master I have heard so much about." Sarcasm dripped from his every word like a waterfall. "I should have killed you when I had the chance. If it weren't for you, my beloved—deceased—wife-to-be would be preparing for our wedding and she would have galactic fame for being the first scientist to discover the secrets of the Force. But now, because of all of your meddling, she is dead."
"It was her own choice," Qui-Gon replied calmly.
The Jedi Master's calm manner infuriated Antiyo. He had hoped to intimidate the Jedi with all of the soldiers but it seemed his plan hadn't worked. With blinding rage flashing in his dark eyes and his face flushed with anger, he reached behind him and snatched a blaster away from one of his personal bodyguards. He shot it—and it landed harmlessly in the dirt near the Jedi's booted feet without either one of them so much as blinking. Marie stepped forward to be equal with the elder Jedi, her expression calm now except for the slightest hint of scheming and mockery in blue-green eyes.
"I suppose that makes you feel better," she stated matter-of-factly.
Qui-Gon spared her a confused glance. She was purposely trying to rile up the deranged medic, but why? He reached out to her when she began to close the distance between the two sides, but the young Jedi halted him with a look that begged the elder to trust her. Qui-Gon let her go.
"I mean, sneaking up on two unsuspecting people—"
"I hardly believe you were unsus—"
"Excuse me; I wasn't finished!" she retorted with the same unnerving calm that Qui-Gon had used earlier.
Antiyo clamped his mouth shut, much to everyone's surprise—but no more than his own.
"You bombarded us with blaster bolts and intense lights without any warning what-so-ever, taunted, teased, and mocked us—not to mention threatened us—and then you have the guts to throw a temper tantrum? What's your deal man?"
For a fleeting moment the yard was silent—and then Antiyo seemed to realize he'd just received a diatribe, a rather surprising diatribe, from a rather surprising young Jedi. With something akin to murder in his eyes, he raised the blaster still clasped tightly in his perfect, sandy colored hand and pulled the trigger.
To her credit, Marie had expected the raged medic to do something, but she had not known exactly what he would do. When the shot from the blaster came within centimeters of her black boots, she exclaimed something that sounded close to an "Eep!" and back-flipped, only to have another shot shower her with dirt half-way through a second show of acrobatic skills.
Green and blue-green blades sprung into existence once Marie was finally able to reach Qui-Gon's side. The master deflected a wild shot Antiyo sent his way before looking at the young woman, whom was attempting to release the burning pain from her leg wound into the Force.
"I'm hoping there was a reason for upsetting that raving lunatic," he grunted, twisting to the side to avoid a shot.
Marie, whom was standing at his shoulder now instead of at his back chuckled softly. "He's not a raving lunatic; he's just very misunderstood. Very misunderstood," she added with an amused shake of her head.
Marie thought she heard the elder Jedi mumble a few obscene words in a language he probably didn't expect her to understand as a dozen soldiers, plus their psychotic leader, opened fire. But she understood what he had said—completely.
"And you should know me well enough by now, Master Jinn, to know I never do anything without a reason. Heads up!"
Qui-Gon looked up just in time…to see a large tarp fall rapidly through the air—much faster than it would have naturally without Force propulsion—and land deftly over Antiyo and his guards on the front line.
Lifting his companion into his arms, the Jedi Master soared over the wall to regroup with the two triumphant Padawans that awaited them, not even bothering to question what had just occurred.
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Huddled in the warm embrace of Qui-Gon Jinn's bantha wool cloak, Marie traced a rough map in the dirt with her fingers. She had only recently awaken from a healing trance and explained to her elder that she had seen what the other two Padawans were doing atop the wall, thus explaining how she knew about the tarp. Now, as she looked up, Garen spotted the same, steely determination in her eyes that he had seen so often in his best friend.
"Tomorrow marks the first day of the Slave Festival," she said quietly. "It's now or never gentlemen, it's as simple as that. Either we make our move tomorrow…or we don't make it at all."