Legacy 3

Chapter 21

A small hand bunched in his tunics and shook, insistently, a tiny silverfish dispelling the murk from a clotted pond.

Obi-Wan stirred, surfacing reluctantly from heavy darkness, pushing up onto his elbows and squinting in a gloom scented of hot metal and spilled lubricant.

"Master Obi-Wan! Wake up. Wake up. Oh dear…. Wake up!"

Surrendering the fight to achieve perpendicularity, he settled for rolling onto his back. The far bulkhead loomed overhead, in completely the wrong place. A door was set, absurdly, in the center of the wall on his left. Blinking lights and sparking circuits – spilled like reeking intestines – decorated every surface. He frowned deeply.

"Master, please… l need help. They're hungry and some of them are hurt and and.. Garen, he's crying. Master,. I don't know what to do!"

He sat up, then, and his head throbbed fit to burst. Blackness closed round the edges of vision, then retreated. Pain spiked behind his temples, thrilled down his spine. He rolled onto his knees, grasping at the tattered Force. Breathe. Center.

"Please hurry!" Zhoa begged him.

Breathe. Breathe. Memory settled like fine dust, giving form to meaningless sensation: the Paxellian freighter bridge. The crash. Ah… they were at least ninety-degrees off balance, the entire vessel resting on its side, and irrevocably damaged, especially here, where there was no spaceport to make repairs… and here, he recalled at last with a small jolt of curiosity, was Erabythe.

Zhoa leapt to her feet beside him when he clambered upright. "You have to jump through the door now," she explained, pointing to the hatchway now gaping crookedly several meters above the functional floor.

He nodded, a coating of toxic chemicals at the back of his throat tickling his gag reflex, his feet not quite perfectly steady, and gathered himself to spring through the opening behind her.

"Come on, hurry," the tiny Nautolan urged him yet again, and he allowed himself to be chivvied along by her infantile urgency, docile as a pet yarrix, and strangely hollow.

Garen was indeed weeping – not unbecoming wails, but the slow trickling of unbearable pain cascading one liquid drop at a time down his drawn and pallid face.

The crash had thrown him free of the bunk, and sent him careening into the bulkheads, exacerbating an already grave injury. Obi-Wan crouched beside him, choking on the clearly projected waves of agony. The Force was a thicket of razor-thin needles, a barrier about the suffering youth, one difficult to push through. He touched Garen's face, his hands, gaping a little as resounding pain leaked over his own shields.

"Gar, I'm so sorry… Gar, can you hear me?"

The padawan made a small guttural noise, turned his head a fraction. "Obi."

"Help is coming." Please let it be coming. Please.

Garen managed a sickly smile. "Hope they've got strong liquor."

"That's not funny."

The other young Jedi moaned, eyes slipping shut. "Oh Force," he breathed.

"Garen!"

"Can't feel…. Legs are gone. Weird."

Obi-Wan's heart plummeted into his boots. Spinal cord damage. Nausea washed over him, riding on a crest of fear. He ruthlessly suppressed it. Focus on the present moment. "They can help you at the Temple. Master Li is a genius… Bant will be there.."

"Bant," Garen sobbed, face contorting again. "Oh Force, Obi… help me – not - "

Once, when they were both small – clan initiates, nothing more – Garen had broken his ankle playing on the senior obstacle course without permission. They had been together, of course, the infraction one undertaken mutually and with great delight until the fateful moment. When the healers had rushed to the scene, one of them had absorbed the injured youngling's pain, shunting it into the Force. Obi-Wan had watched, wide-eyed and admiring, until Ali Alaan's stern grip had closed round his wrist and led him away to face a well deserved punishment for disobedience.

"I'll try, Gar. Let me, here.."

"No try," Garen reminded him, the faintest echo of smugness under his cracking voice.

Whatever the metaphysical contradiction, he did indeed try – without training and without experience, it was difficult, a slippery messy, touch and go operation, one that ultimately resulted in blessed unconsciousness for Garen and a redoubled headache for his friend.

Obi-Wan left his comrade where he lay – it was too risky to move him, not without proper equipment, even using the Force to levitate his body – and stumbled his way to the aft hold, climbing through the rat-maze presented by the wildly upturned ship.

The hold was empty, the ramp open and pointing skyward, a window to wheeling blue heaven. He heaved himself up and over the curved bulkhead, over the rim of this makeshift gate, and fell heavily to grassy earth a few meters below. The sky spun, tall stalks waved golden against cerulean depths, a warm wind buffeted the ship's scorched hull, caressed his face. Children's voices floated on the wind – some whimpering, others talking in a medley of languages, a few laughing. Zhoa's treble could also be discerned among them, quiet and authoritative, as befit a Jedi. He let his head fall sideways, blotting out the radiance of the sky and the dizzying motion of the waving grass. The entire world smelled of Qui-Gon's favorite tea… sweet silpa leaf, dried and crushed, fragrant and earthy….

If the tall master were here, he would perhaps try to make a bowl of tea from the whole wide expanse, drink the very Living Force from this place, horizon to horizon, a libation without beginning or end, an elixir of intoxicating, bitter proportions…

With a cold jolt, he forced his eyes open and stilled his delirious thoughts. Not good. He peered critically at one hand, noting that the slight tremor, took stock of the sheen of perspiration drying on his skin, the insidiious chill creeping through his limbs.

Shock. Or fever.

He rolled over, and retched until the harsh taste of industrial chemicals was purged from his system, and he tasted only bile. The bridge must have been saturated with poisons.. it was a mercy, really, that Zhoa had found him when she did.

"Zhoa!" His voice was too hoarse, too faint to be heard over the rustling of stalks, the gentle susurration of the breeze. Using the hull to steady himself, he found his feet again and set off toward the younglings' voices, trudging carefully through waist-high stems

The Nautolan padawan's head and shoulders appeared over the edge of this mobile rampart, and a small green hand waved him over, enthusiastically.

He emerged into a trampled clearing, where the entire convocation of escaped slave children squatted or sat, many of them industriously threshing seeds from the felled stalks.

"You can eat these!" Zhoa triumphantly announced. "Try one… it tastes like ulgha grain."

He hesitantly popped a single seed in his mouth, grinding it between his teeth. It did indeed taste of sweet milled ulgha, or a rich barley. He nodded, and sank down amid the circle, scanning over the assorted younglings. Most were half-starved, many bore whip-marks. A few cradles sprains or bruised limbs – likely the outcome of their crash. One or two slept on their sides, ominously quiet. A skinny Arconan boy huddled in on himself, triangular head resting on upraised knees.

The boy would soon die without dactyl crystal, but there was nothing he could do to alleviate the poor creature's suffering. And he did not have the heart to tell Zhoa.

"We don't have any water," the Nautolan informed him, her hands folded tightly together.

He exhaled, mind grinding sluggishly away at this new problem. "The ship must have a condenser unit – in the galley, maybe. You'll have to salvage it, use a spare power cell from something else…"

She scowled. "You aren't going to help?"

His teeth were chattering badly. He gestured to the younglings. "Zhoa. You've done beautifully. Just a little longer… help… Master Tinn – "

"Master? Are you all right?"

Well, that was a foolish question. Obviously he was not all right. He held up a hand, trying to pin the unsteady world in place. "Zhoa," he said, sharply.

Stung into compliance, she dashed away to follow orders, leaving him in peace amid the dancing field. The rescued slaves gave him a wide berth, huddling among themselves, nibbling at the meager sustenance to be gleaned from their surroundings.

A roaring sounded above – no, beneath – the quiet music of the breeze. He glanced down at his stained tunics, at the black spattering upon pure white linen. Sith blood.

I owe you a blooding, Jedi. You are mine and I yours.

Impulsively, he stripped off the gore-speckled tabards and tunic, rumpling them into a ball and hurling them away, far from himself. He sat shivering in the warm afternoon, still-spotless inner tunic clinging wetly to his heaving chest, heart battering against sore ribs.

I am not yours. I belong to the Light, and the Light alone.

Soft radiance poured down, enveloping the grass and the huddled younglings and the sky and earth in a blunting wave, a dissolving golden ocean…. He held fast to his 'saber's hilt, anchor and foundation, and drifted away upon its currents , upon a coracle of fevered dreaming.

"Here he is, Master! I've found him," a resonant female voice called out.

A small grunt of effort; a pair of heavily muscled arms hauled him upright into sitting position. A cascade of silky black fell over his face, tickling his nose.

Obi-Wan sneezed. "…Torbb?"

"Easy, brother. You don't do anything by halves, do you?"

Halves? He frowned. What halves?

The wind was cool now, the world dark. Boots tramped nearer – heavy, measured strides. Another presence crouched beside him – another lantern shining in the Force. He swam up out of cloying depths, aching in every limb.

Saesee Tinn's rasping tones fell clear and brittle upon his ears. "Thank the Force. Kenobi. " A hand grasped his shoulder, a tentative mental probe brushed his shields.

"I'm fine," he responded, automatically.

Torbb Bakk'ile chuckled, her generous bosom rising and falling beneath his back. "Overstatement. You missed the waystation by about five hundred klicks, by the way. And you need remedial piloting school."

Obi-Wan summoned a lopsided smile. "I hate flying," he explained.

"He's all right," Torbb grunted, pulling him to his feet in one fluid motion. One arm remained beneath his shoulders, large hand clamped beneath his arm in an iron vise. "Steady – we're heading home."

"Garen?" he croaked.

The Iktothci master's gimlet eyes flicked out over the darkened field. There, not far away, the dense bulk of the freighter loomed. A pair of figures – cowled Knights, members of the other squadrons, propelled a hovering stasis pod between them.

"He will survive, or recover, if the Force so wills," Saesee Tinn intoned.

It was a cold assurance. Obi-Wan nodded, once, watching the grim procession's slow progress.

"Padawan Pleromata had comported herself with admirable discipline and fortitude," the Iktotchi observed. "She will be commended before the Council. But tell me, who are all these younglings?"

"Slaves," he explained. "Captured by the Paxellians."

Tinn's textured brow ridges rose.

"I freed them, Master." He hesitated. "I need to speak with the Council."

"Concerning this affair?"

He shook his head – a mistake, for it set the headache off again, a shower of firework explosions behind his bleary eyes. "About… a Sith."

Torbb and the older Jedi sucked in a sharp breath, but neither ventured comment.

"We came as soon as your droids relayed the message," the Iktotchi remarked. "But you have been here a long time, nevertheless. It was difficult to locate you with scanners alone. Come – I can see you need rest and perhaps a healer."

He allowed himself to be propelled forward, over the uneven earth, silpa-tea scented and soft beneath his dragging boots. Republic ships waited a short distance away – a shuttle and a larger transport- and he found himself suddenly grateful for Torbb's supporting arm. The short journey blurred into a grey and textureless moment, an ashen epilogue to great strife.

He barely remembered the flight back to home base.

Origination 56'98'140 Baroonda Minor substation

Encrypted shortburst protocol B

-begin transmission transcript—

Master.

The comm droid says you are not yet returned from your mission; I have requested a relay transfer.

I hope you are well.

...

I don't know where to start. Garen is on his way back to Coruscant with several fractured vertebrae and a damaged spine. Feld preceded him by a day or two, and is also badly injured. Zhoa is accompanying them back, with Reeft. She was…

Never mind. I'd rather speak in person.

I've been incarcerated here at the base for a short time. Apparently one of our Service Corps volunteers is a field medic – a traitor in our midst, and a very uncompromising personality. Don't fret – I'm perfectly fine.

Well, from a certain point of view.

I don't know how long I will be here, however, in the long term; Stagg Squadron has been disbanded, for obvious reasons, and I must speak with the Council, urgently. Something happened ….

...

Does the blasted holonet even extend to whatever star-forsaken backwater world you are on?

I'll try again soon.

May the Force be with us all.

-end transmission -