Lineage V
Chapter 14
The stolen freighter was welcomed into the Offworld hangar bay with open arms; a fleet of hover-lifts and cybernetic assistants waited dutifully on deck, ready to disgorge the cargo hold of its coveted contents.
They seemed taken aback at the appearance of three Jedi masters in lieu of the expected pilots; and positively affronted by these strangers' disregard for protocol. The cloaked newcomers simply pushed through the confused deck crew as though shoving aside bothersome reeds in some marshland, making it as far as the interior hangar doors before one of the more highly programmed managerial droids had an epiphany and thrust one accusatory metal digit into the air.
"Intruders!" it declared, setting the gathered company into a frenzy of disapproval. "Activate security patrols!"
Dooku and Moll had their sabers in hand before the observant droid had finished uttering the command; Qui Gon would have sworn that the Iktotchi's harsh features were alleviated by the faint suggestion of a grin, while Dooku's anticipatory delight was evident only in the elegant Makashi salute he executed in the hall's tight confines, and the casual grace with which he prowled forward down the hall.
Moll indicated a lift shaft to the right. "Jinn," he said curtly. "You find the boy; Yan and I will entertain our hosts."
A klaxon wailed overhead, alerting the entire building to their presence. Qui Gon wasted no time in disappearing up the open shaft while the two Shadows continued down the passage, 'sabers thrumming in lethal harmony as the rumble of approaching droids filled the echoing space.
The heavy insulation inside the vertical tunnel did not entirely muffle the sudden cacophony of blaster shots, nor the discordant shriek of plasma blades wreaking havoc among their foes. He smiled grimly and sprang swiftly up the sides of his chosen route and through the opening to the next floor.
He didn't even break stride as he carved his way through the unsuspecting detachment of droids set to gueard the laboratory level.
The Tarbool facility was a ramshackle hut compared to the monstrous sprawl of the Arbor institute; it required almost no effort to find the right door.
Qui-Gon located the room easily, and stepped over the pile of scrapped security droids, kicking a sparking head to one side. His 'saber still purred with delight in his hand, the emerald plasma blade pulsing steadily. The seal on the door resisted his initial application of the Force; temper flaring, he plunged the blade straight through the metallic panel and carved a molten line through its width, a hot and searing scar, the indelible brand of his displeasure.
He kicked the round opening through to the other side and stormed in. The medical droid ended as slag and spare parts upon the tiled floor. His 'saber screamed louder than the soundless yell of fury welling in his heart, and then hissed back into its hilt, a spitting tongue of lightning retreating into its thundercloud.
"Obi-Wan."
No answer – but the Padawan was still alive, as deathly pale as he was, as weak as his presence might be. And – by the sweet Force!- he looked worse than Tahl had, if that were possible.
Qui-Gon made short work of the restraints and the electro-collar, and then paused, noting every bruise and abrasion, the dark hollows and ashen, sweat-slicked skin. His initial volcanic flow of wrath cooled, deadening into a cold and icy resolution. His hands shook as he once more removed his own cloak, tucking it around Zan Arbors' latest victim. "Padawan."
They would have to traverse several hallways to make it back to the hangar; and security droids might still be roaming the building. He would not be able to effectively defend against possible assault with his arms full of deadweight and gangly apprentice. He laid a hand against the young Jedi's cheek and tried to rouse him, pressing inward against his mind with the Force. "Obi-Wan. Wake up. Listen to me."
A familiar furrow appeared between the Padawan's brows, a sharp line of concentration or pain, as though this command were under the most exacting analytical scrutiny. "…I don't …," came the hoarse and somewhat ambiguous verdict.
"Argument will earn you extra chores, meditation, and training circuits around the Temple perimeter. I suggest you cooperate." The master forced a smile, though it was empty of mirth.
Bloodshot eyes cracked open, squinting at him through fair lashes. "…Master?"
"We don't have time to negotiate," Qui-Gon advised him. "Here." He hauled his apprentice upright into sitting position, eliciting a groan. "Obi-Wan. Stay with me." But his words apparently were doomed to fall on deaf ears, for the young Jedi slumped forward against his chest, unresponsive.
This state of affairs was, at least, an improvement over the bitter mutual resentment they had recently experienced – or so he told himself, with a wry twist of the mouth. "Padawan. Wake up."
But it was no use, and time was running short, in more than one sense. He lifted Obi-Wan in both arms, grunting a bit. At nearly sixteen, the boy was not exactly a light burden. With a pang, the Jedi master recalled the slight ten-year-old he had met at their first introduction so many years ago. That Obi-Wan had been impish and round-faced; this one was paradoxically much stronger and much weaker. He shifted the awkward weight as his student's head lolled against his shoulder. If they encountered any resistance, he would have to drop his ailing apprentice unceremoniously upon the floor to reach his 'saber. But there was little he could do about it now.
He stepped through the glowing-edged makeshift doorway into the bare corridor beyond, and hurried on his way, heart constricted into an explosive knot of cold fury.
And the Force flowed darkly in his wake, waiting upon the moment of retribution, the reckoning to come.
"…can walk," Obi Wan slurred.
Qui Gon rounded the next corner, every nerve stretched taut with anticipation, the Force restless with danger - not imminent but not far enough away, either.
"I doubt it," he grunted, a corner of his mouth quirking upward. They had just turned into the last corridor- the broad main passage bisecting the building into two symmetrical wings. "But try anyway." This arrangement would at least leave his sword arm free.
"No try," Obi Wan reminded him, almost dragging Qui-Gon down with him as his knees gave way. He struggled up again, leaning heavily on the tall man's left side. "Uh," he panted, with the shadow of a wry grin. "Only do not."
Footfalls sounded, pattering down another intersecting passage ahead, and a flash of white coat disappeared around the far corner through a wide storage bay door.
Qui Gon's heart skipped a beat. Zan Arbor. The evil woman left a mephitic stench in the Force, a palpable ripple of malice.
Obi Wan made a small, nearly inaudible sound – a hissing growl of indrawn breath, a visceral act of revulsion. Every muscle tautened into a rigid expectancy.
"Stay here," the tall man ordered, lowering his apprentice to the polished floor. He pulled the cloak's voluminous folds closed, fingered the dangling braid. "I'll be back shortly."
"No! Master –"
"Stay." He stood, glancing once over his shoulder as he hurried into the storage bay, 'saber in hand. They had come to stop Zan Arbor, and he would not leave without seeing it done.
The roof here was high, fretted with crude durasteel girders, piled with plastoid crates and shipping palettes. Footfalls echoed among the walls of the labyrinth, inviting chase, bouncing and skipping off the ceiling and metallic support beams, a mocking chorus of clowns and buffoons, the Force full of their lilting and cruel laughter. Qui-Gon was not in a mood for their jests; the Force rose hot in his veins, and he swept a hand viciously through the air, felling a high stack of containers, and then another, pulling the neat rows and columns into crashing disarray, the explosive clatter and roar of their destruction punctuated by a woman's shrill scream of rage.
His 'saber flared out of its hilt, and he advanced, a novel and dangerous fire kindling in his blood.
Obi-Wan won his contest with gravity, standing unsteadily upon braced legs, both hands splayed upon the cool wall. Up. Up. He was standing. The whole building lurched unaccountably, as though it were a ship guided by a bad pilot. He rolled with the motion, as he had been taught, balancing precariously as the world's axis shifted beneath him.
Go, go, go, the Force urged him, flatly contradicting Qui-Gon's mandate to stay.
It wasn't disobedience, because he would be lucky to take a single wobbling step in the right direction. He tried it, and directly crashed to his knees, the cloak getting tangled about his legs in the process. He panted, steadied himself against the wall again, and pushed back up.
Danger, the Force told him.
"I'm trying," he groused, deciding that the wall was his friend. He staggered forward, trailing one hand along its length, sometimes leaning heavily against it, sometimes bumping into its smooth surface as the floor took an unexpected spin or dive. The edges of his vision swam, until his focus was a blurry tunnel ending at the bay doors through which Qui-Gon had passed a few minutes earlier.
He stumbled across the threshold, grasping at the broad support frame. "Master!"
But his voice was a broken whisper, and the Force shook with deafening thunder, a tempest brewing upon a dark horizon. Qui-Gon descended like a black cloud upon his foe, saber growling low, full of protective rage, bright actinic fury spilling off it in sparking waves as the cold air was ionized about the plasma blade.
The Padawan clung to the door support. "Master!" he bellowed, heart pounding, throat closing as he looked upon the unfolding scene, the Jedi master closing in upon Zan Arbor like a jungle colwar waiting to drop upon its prey.
Qui-Gon advanced, pinning his enemy against the far wall with one outstretched hand, his strides closing the fateful gap with lethal grace, the set of his shoulders and head bespeaking an awful, simmering power. The woman writhed, struggling vainly against the Force grip, her features contorted in a snarl of hatred.
"Noooo!" the young Jedi screamed, as the Dark rose like a tidal wave. "Master, no!"
For one timeless moment, at the teetering apex of destiny, Qui-Gon held evil incarnate in the palm of his hand, the Force flowing volcanic through his veins, the righteous indignation of hundreds, perhaps a thousand, nameless victims blending into his own hot rage, his soundless howl of loss and horror.
The thing called Jenna Zan Arbor, the blank and gasping mask under which the Dark played out its macabre puppet-show, writhed and choked against the wall, an invisible hand clamped about its throat, cutting it off from the pure sweet air it did not deserve to breathe, squeezing its malicious, hateful existence away into nothingness.
And that same molten wrath, that anger of Light, threatened to burn him away in its efflux; for it erupted from some bottomless pit of existence, some place hidden in his soul all these decades - until this moment, when the hard scars of training and discipline had been ripped away by raw uncaring cruelty, leaving that empty wound gaping wide, a place where the Dark bled through, staining his very soul. And he did not care. He only cared to see this thing destroyed, and would willingly be destroyed himself in the process.
It was the desperate, clarion-pure call of Light that saved him, pulled him from the brink of that hell into which he would have fallen, if he could but drag Zan Arbor with him.
"Nooooo! Master, no!" that voice cried, bright like a newborn's first wail, weary and broken as a dying man's last moan.
He turned away from the burning shores of his anger, toward that voice, and the Light, and the compassion it commanded. Zan Arbor dropped to the hard floor, her red and splotchy face crumpled into terror-stricken lines, her lab coat and tunics rumpled and disheveled, her hands clawing frantically at walls and deck as she scrambled to her feet, disbelieving.
Qui-Gon's saber disappeared into its hilt. He closed his eyes, his strength draining from him with the Dark to which it had been wedded, his fear and anger and sorrow leached away with his reserves of power, leaving him scoured clean, hollow and empty as his Padawan.
He staggered a little, relieved beyond words, grateful beyond reckoning.
"Obi-Wan," he said, turning toward the young Jedi leaning heavily against the far wall, blue eyes wide with a nameless dread.
"Master!" the Padawan shouted, the Force flaring star-bright with alarm.
Qui Gon spun, 'saber blazing to life an instant too late.
Syfo-Dyas dropped like a hawkbat from above; veiled and obscured, his presence shielded with that same skill that had once made him such a formidable Sentinel, his attack was unheralded, a sudden lightning storm falling on an open plain.
Qui Gon was fast, and powerful, his green blade humming a ferocious battle anthem as he surged to meet the new threat, deflecting and blocking the unremitting assault, the swift and merciless rain of Makashi strikes that hammered against his lagging defenses. Syfo-Dyas drove forward relentless, lips drawn back in a cold snarl.
Obi Wan stretched out his hand, reached…strained… begged the sluggish, indifferent Force to hear him, to accomplish this one thing. His saber hilt still hung at the former Jedi's belt. Zan Arbor was running, running for the far exit….getting away….
Nothing. Nothing. He took a few halting steps forward, the world spinning madly with his motion.
Qui Gon reversed grip and parried another strike, the two sabers yowling in discordant tones, sparks dancing between the contestants. Zan Arbor disappeared through the far doors, her panicked footfalls echoing in the passage beyond. Syfo-Dyas changed tactics, circled, feinted, lunged and feinted again, made a high counterattack and then came in low, beneath the other man's guard, flicking his blade inward and singing Qui-Gon's wrist. The green 'saber clattered to the decks, expiring.
"No!" Obi-Wan felt the Force rise, a fountain of strength, one bringing his 'saber sailing, as though of its own accord, into his open palm, even as Syfo-Dyas unleashed its torrential power upon his foe, smashing the Jedi master into the wall beyond with a sickening thud.
Qui Gon tumbled to the decks, cloak crumpling about his body. Syfo-Dyas pounced forward, blade singing in a high circle, ready to deliver the death blow; Obi-Wan sprang, with a strength most assuredly not his own, to plant himself firmly between the Shadow and Qui-Gon, his blue blade leaping ecstatic from its hilt, sweeping down, back, across, down – the Makashi defensive kata in which Dooku had drilled him to the point of pain.
"Whelp!" Syfo-Dyas spat out, redoubling his effort.
The Padawan did nothing; the Force did everything. His 'saber seemed to cry out defiance in its clear, sonorous voice, a last song, a final impossible gift. He fought, defending his master's life with his last breath, until sweat blurred his vision to stinging tears and his leaden limbs would no longer obey even the luminous power suffusing them, and he made a fatal slip.
The fallen Jedi knocked the Padawan's blade to one side, leaving his entire front side unguarded, and then flicked his own weapon around and down, trailing a kiss of pure agony from collarbone to navel, the signature Makashi mark of dishonor.
The young Jedi collapsed backward, falling atop Qui Gon, his gasp of pain strangled in his throat, his hands clutching at the Jedi master's limp form even as the Shadow loomed over them both, black-cloaked and maleficent, his 'saber promising them a single, simultaneous death.
The blow never fell.
A green line barred Syfo-Dyas' blade, a bar of pulsing light fending off destruction.
Obi Wan moaned, rolled halfway over, raised astonished eyes to see Yan Dooku meet the former Sentinel's attack with a majestic grace, lethal speed and accuracy driving his opponent backward, his blade carving an endless flowing arc as he closed in, tighter, tighter, faster, faster, bending Syfo-Dyas' own skill against him , weaving a tightening noose, a damning circle of light, until –
"Ahh!" The pain seemed to explode in the Force, everywhere and nowhere; Syfo-Dyas howled with it, staggered back, one hand clutching at his shoulder, where Dooku's blade had passed clean through, leaving a smoldering hole, the scent of burned flesh hot in the ionized air.
And then another flash, a great thunderclap of power, the violent rebound to this wound. A girder high overhead wrenched free of its moorings and fell, plummeting straight down onto the injured Jedi lying below.
Dooku wheeled, one arm extended rigidly, face taut with effort as he seized the hurtling durasteel beam in midair and stopped its descent; Syfo-Dyas leapt for the open roof, the Force churning into a bitter frenzy in his wake; Qui Gon startled awake, throwing a protective arm across Obi Wan as death crashed down headlong upon them; and the massive girder wobbled, wavered and then shifted to one side, dropping with a crushing finality half a meter to the side of its intended targets.
Dooku had saved them, and Syfo-Dyas had escaped.
The warehouse blurred and spun. Obi-Wan clutched at his burning, throbbing injury with one hand while the other held fast to Qui-Gon's arm, as the Jedi master knelt beside him. The Force warped and shifted, pain and relief and illness and gratitude sliding like diaphanous veils over his mind, one after another. In the confusion, he could hear both Dooku's and Qui-Gon's voices, feel the touch of hands upon his face, upon his wound.
"…Escaped," he protested, urging them to go, to finish the mission… but neither seemed inclined to listen.
"Can you manage?" Dooku's voice inquired, and he struggled to form a coherent thought, a phrase that might explain his current condition -
But the question, it woudl seem, had actually been addressed to Qui Gon. "I'll be fine, master," the familiar voice murmured.
There was a soft scuffling of boots, the whisk of a cloak against the decks, and then a broad and dizzying sweep of motion as he was lifted again, or perhaps dropped? Or was he simply flying? No... floating away from his pain on a sea of inviting warmth. The last thing he felt was the brush of fingers across his temple, before the currents of that ocean carried him utterly away.