Lineage VII

Chapter 25

The Republic shuttle reverted with a sudden nauseating lurch, the formless sworls of hyperspace yielding them over to a reality in which Praxis' ghostly curve loomed stark against blackest night. The Force was turgid with death, with destruction.

"Qui-Gon!"

He needed no prompting; ahead there languidly spun a nebula of debris, a gruesome halo of slag and blasted wreckage, grim evidence of a battle just completed.

The tall man ran the scanners, his breath baited. "There are two large masses in orbit – The active scanners register significant organic life."

They shot forward, descending into the gravity well and signaling the Republic Service Corps as they chased these elusive objects around the planet's equator.

"There they are." Just over the terminator between night and day, the unmoored cargo holds of the freighter drifted, two oblong boxes set to float like rudderless boats in the cold sea of Praxis' skies. "They've jettisoned the holds… what does that mean?"

Qui-Gon's hands tightened on the yoke, the Force whispering the likely answer in his reluctantly attentive ear. "They were ambushed," he replied, throat tightening.

Adi's face froze, the truth closing her own airway. "And sent the passengers to safety." She coded a new message to the Service Corps, giving the location of the cargo pods, which must be evacuated with all due speed. "They did well, Qui-Gon."

He nodded, denial marching in strident protest within his very blood. They must be alive… surely he would have felt – surely he could still feel – he closed his eyes, reaching through the Force's churning expanse, into the boundless depths of Light, seeking his student across their bond, that placeless timeless connection forged so delicately, so excruciatingly, over so many years…

Obi-Wan. Padawan. Hear me.

He could not say with certainty whether the response, feeble and undefined as it was, were real or the phantom yearnings of his imagination. But he clung to it steadfastly, as a drowning man to a splinter of flotsam. "The northern pole," he said, at last. "They… crashed."

Adi's liquid eyes widened minutely, a world of grief threatening to overflow their luminous banks… but she turned resolutely to the controls again. "We must at least find the site."

"Yes." It was all they could do. Neither of them dared to consider what they might find.

For an eternity there was only blackness, and then only cold, and then only pain.

But after the first measureless aeon, something woke him: a firm imperious pressure deep in his mind, a faint yet irresistible command sounding out of the icy depths. Darkness surrendered him up for one last moment, releasing him back into bitter awareness.

He cracked open his eyes, watching the stinging white blurs drift slowly down upon his face, the firmament overhead gray and ghastly, fretted with smoking ribbons, slow-coiling fire. It spun, and twisted, and the world reeled beneath him.

"Master…?" he whispered, but the sense of another's presence, of being sought, faded as he strained to meet it, temples throbbing with rare fire at the effort. He turned his head, staring now at a shard-littered deck, at spattered crimson droplets.

There was blood everywhere. He wondered whose it was.

And a cold weight pressed against him, leaden limbs tangled among his own.

"Siri," he rasped, but she did not move. White flecks crowned her tousled hair. There was blood in it, too. And it hurt.. or maybe he hurt. Pain closed over his head, a black tide, and then subsided, leaving him gasping. "Siri?"

But she was cold, and there was so much blood, and he couldn't really move. And the white fluttered gently down, numbing everything to a cosseting and comfortable nothingness, a welcome oblivion….

And then his brief respite was ended, and the blackness called for him, and he sank again, perhaps forever, into its depths.

Just before he lost consciousness, he smelled mandrangea blossoms floating in a golden sunbeam, raining softly down upon both their faces - memory's last sweet benediction from a time now infinitely long ago and far, far away.

A gaping crater marked the crash site; snow piled into the open grave, the mournful tears of a gray sky, gently burying the past and the future in a white rainfall.

It took the two Jedi masters far too long to find a suitable landing place for their own vessel; and far too long again to hike and climb to the broken summit where their apprentices' bodies presumably lay, if they had not been utterly pulverized in the crash. The ascent was arduous, the wind biting. Icy flakes bit at their cheeks, froze on moist lashes, hardened faces gaunt with expectation as they made the pinnacle, and then found the gutted hull of the freighter., like the decayed cadaver of some slain beast, its ribs open to carrion birds and the scouring elements. They clambered over the ruins, seeking the central control deck.

"Oh sweet Force," Adi Gallia breathed, sliding over the last mangled rampart of durasteel, into the blackened ruins of the freighter's bridge. Behind her, Qui-Gon waved aside crushed panels of metal and plastoid bulk insulation, lifted a piece of blasted wreckage – the remains of a console?- out of the way. The decks were littered with circuitry, slag, the jagged shards of the imploded viewport… and a pair of bodies, a twist of crimson stained cloth, limbs tangled, tightly pacted in courageous despair. Siri's hair spilled in a wide halo over both their faces; fingers still clutched at each other's tunics, frozen stiff by cold.

Adi reached them first, dropping to her knees. "Force, no."

She brushed golden hair aside, pressed hands against a white throat. "Qui-Gon!"

He crouched down, one broad hand smoothing a forehead sticky with clotted blood, with grime and clinging frost, heart skipping a beat before he sensed the faintest embers of life still smoldering deep beneath the surface.

"They're still alive. Quickly – help me."

Together, they pried the Padawans apart, loosening clinging fingers, gently unraveling the close knot of arms and legs, feeling for fractures and dislocations, breathing heat and life back into laboring lungs and hearts, bodies half-dead with cold and injury.

"We should wait for the emergency team," Adi decided, cupping Siri's cheek in one hand. "The Service Corps is on its way."

The other Jedi master nodded, tersely, his hands still checking over the multitude of lacerations scoring his apprentice's back and arms. Red seeped in alarming puddles through his clothing; but the cuts were moderately shallow, nothing bacta could not heal. He rocked back on his heels, releasing a breath of purest relief, spreading one hand protectively over the young man's chest.

"Thank the Force," Adi murmured. She closed her eyes. "I thought we had lost them both."

Qui-Gon glanced up, wondering whether this might not still – in some sense – be the case. Either one of them would be a fool to deny the implications of the scene: Obi-Wan and Siri had faced death not shoulder to shoulder as comrades, but pressed together heart against heart, the desperately melded embrace of lovers.

Adi met his gaze, eyes limpid with understanding. "They survived by the will of the Force," she said, finally. "All else will find its rightful disposition in time."

He blinked in utter shock, and the Living Force laughed at his naïve reaction.

"We teach, we learn," Adi added, laconic. She lowered startling azure eyes, tracing over her Padawan's sickly pale face. "They learn, they teach."

"The Code – " he began, feeling that he had just this moment made Adi's true acquaintance.

"They will find their way," she assured him, mellifluous voice ringing with a confidence springing from the deep wellsprings of premonition. "As must we all."

"..Master?"

Qui-Gon quickened at the sound, surfacing from a light meditative trance back into the bland sterility of the medcenter recovery room. A hovering droid paused outside the cubicle, peering at the biomonitor briefly before burbling away again on another errand.

"Don't make a fuss," the Jedi master warned, restraining Obi-Wan with one hand. "You still need to heal. We'll be here a while yet."

His apprentice frowned muzzily up at him, focus wavering between his face and some invisible distance where fragmented memory still flitted elusively out of his reach. "Here?" he asked, at last.

"On Praxis. I leave you unsupervised for a few days, and you arrive at the rendezvous with a significant blaster burn, cuts, bruises, sprains, dislocations, hypothermia, and a concussion. You've kept the clinicians here rather busy."

Obi-Wan blinked at him, the line between his brows deepening. "Praxis?" he asked, helplessly.

The tall man leaned forward, humor crinkling the corners of his eyes. "You made quite the dramatic entrance- especially for someone who doesn't like flying."

But the jest inspired no pawky retort. "I don't… master, where are we?"

The medics had perhaps been a trifle heavy-handed with the sedatives, Qui-Gon decided. A smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. "We are here, Padawan."

"…Oh."

"We'll talk later. You need to rest."

"Yes, master."

But instead of resting as instructed, Obi-Wan scowled vaguely at the ceiling, blue eyes tracing over its faint hairline cracks and the outline of the ventilation grating as though deciphering some esoteric message inscribed therein. The Jedi master folded his arms across his chest, affectionate smile twisting into one of exasperation.

The Padawan bolted upright, setting one of the machines to shrill beeping. "Siri!" he exclaimed, a bright flare of certainty dispelling all lingering fogginess. "She was with me – the crash – "

Qui-Gon held him by the uninjured shoulder. "Peace. She is here, too. You both survived, to the general astonishment of the emergency responders, Master Gallia, and myself." He held up one hand, forestalling the next urgent query. "And yes, the passengers in the freighter's hold were also evacuated and taken to safety. You and Padawan Tachi did well."

This assurance had the desired effect; the young Jedi slumped back against the pillows, exhaling in relief. "That's good," he said, upon due consideration. Then, after another thoughtful pause, "… I'm tired."

"That is to be expected. Why don't you rest now?"

It was more than a suggestion and less than an imperative. Over-medicated or not, Obi-Wan still had to have the last word. He dredged up a faint scrap of mettlesome wit and managed an insouciant half-smirk. "Because my garrulous old master won't hold his peace?"

The jibe called for a swift braid-tugging. "Wretched brat."

Satisfied that right order had been restored to the universe, the subject of this fond rebuke slid into a comfortable daze, eyes drooping closed as he floated drowsily on the Living Force's ephemeral currents. Qui-Gon was left to reflect, with a pang of nostalgia, that his brat had all but outgrown the familiar nickname, as evidenced by the infant beard adorning his jawline and the subtle deepening in his Force signature, the bittersweet tang of new and aching inner horizons. The tall man sighed, carded his fingers through the Padawan's slightly overgrown hair, and took his leave with solemn step.

Qui-Gon watched from the doorway, forcibly suppressing a smile, as his apprentice steadily worked his way through a third helping of mediocre fare sent expressly from the medcenter cafeteria.

"It would be a great pity, Padawan, if you were to explode as a consequence of over-indulgence."

Obi-Wans' brows rose, but he did not waste breath on any pert retort. Not when there was still a scrap left on his tray. He polished off the meal with a long draught of muja nectar.

"Muja?" Qui-Gon inquired. "How did you convince the nurses to permit that?"

The Padawan settled back against his mound of pillows with a singularly self-satisfied look, not offering any explanation. Qui-Gon sat on the cot's edge, cocking an admonitory eyebrow.

"There was no mind trick involved, master!"

The older man was not fooled. "There are other ways to abuse the privileges granted by one's natural endowments besides direct mind influence," he said, sternly, ignoring the slightly mutinous glimmer in his apprentice's eyes. "And do not pretend innocence. I overheard the young ladies gossiping in the staff break room. You are a very popular fellow here."

"I did not actually say or do anything –"

"Indeed, I suspect they might find a way to delay your release, say, indefinitely – if you give them any further incentive to bend the rules."

This had a galvanizing effect. "Master! You wouldn't let them! I'm perfectly fit and they can't hold a Jedi against his will, anyhow. It's against galactic ambassadorial regulations."

"Just as sugar-laden delicacies are against medcenter nutritional policies."

The young Jedi came dangerously close to rolling his eyes, but he settled for fidgeting irritably with the sling holding his left arm immobilized against his chest.

"We will return to Coruscant as soon as both you and Padawan Tachi are recovered sufficiently. I'm sure you can exercise uncharacteristic patience for your friend's sake?"

This was playing dirty, and they both knew it, but Qui-Gon had never been one much to scruple over the rules of engagement.

"Yes, master," came the faintly sullen reply. Then, soberly, "Did you succeed in gaining an audience with Gallion?"

Qui-Gon sighed and looked out the narrow slit-window opposite. "Director Er'kvan of the Republic Service Corps conveyed my message to him, but no… he refuses to meet me, and – I am given to understand – had strong words to say on the subject."

"So he won't even give you an opportunity to explain? Or to answer his accusations?"

"No." Qui-Gon's voice bore little bitterness. "It is not to be," he said, simply.

But Obi-Wan bristled. "That is cowardly and dishonorable!"

"He had fine things to say about you, however, young one," the Jedi master added, with a small smile.

"That means nothing to me."

"Oh?" The tall man's brows rose, and he affectionately grabbed his apprentice's foot beneath its thick layer of covers. "You are entitled to your own virtues, Obi-Wan, and the recognition of the same. Indeed, there will someday come a time when you must rely on them exclusively. I do not require you to share in whatever ignominy or infamy I have earned for myself over the decades."

Obi-Wan did not like this answer; his mouth hardened in a stubborn and loyal line.

"Padawan –" Qui-Gon began again, but subsided as one of the young nursing aids bustled into the room, bearing a large stack of holobooks in her arms.

"Oh, Padawan Kenobi," this individual simpered, delivering the volumes to the bedside table. "I couldn't find all the ones you requested, but here are a few." She lingered solicitously, putzing about with the covers and the empty tray. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Thank you. Perhaps ," Obi-Wan replied, shooting a smirk at his mentor behind her back, "more muja nectar?"

"Let me check the bandaging on your shoulder," the pretty young humanoid decided, easing his medcenter gown open to reveal a well-toned chest, and examining the healing blaster wound at a leisurely and contemplative pace.

It was the Jedi master who rolled his eyes this time. "Thank you," he pointedly told the nurse. "That will be all. And Padawan Kenobi does not require any further special attention."

Slightly dazed, she nodded. "Yes. That will be all. No more special attention." And she stumbled out of the room, forgetting to take the empty dining tray.

"Master! Did you just –"

"My prerogative, Padawan. Why don't you carry on with your reading?" He handed the topmost volume to his protégé, who meekly activated the flickering text display and settled in for a long and studious perusal of its contents.

"Hm," Qui-Gon snorted, still casting a smoldering glance in the direction of the now vacant corridor outside, and not relaxing his vigilant position at the bed's foot.

The medcenter was provided with a viewing balcony on its top level, a solarium drenched in late afternoon warmth and offering a panoramic view of the mountain's stark majesty. Sunlight caressed the snow-laden slopes, gold and orange rivers running upstream into the dusking purples and blues of cold rock beyond. Above, the three moons were already visible, winking down on the scene, a chorus of admiration.

"Brooding, my Padawan?"

Obi-Wan turned away from the vista at the Jedi master's approach, dipping his head in respectful welcome.

Qui-Gon joined him before the east-facing window, eyes tracing over the slow kaleidoscopic play of light on shadowed peaks.

"Do you think I could see Siri soon?" the Padawan inquired, quietly.

The older Jedi raised his brows. "She is in good hands," he gently rebuffed the young man's hope. "Your concern is laudable, but I think it is too soon."

"We thought…. Well, we did not expect to survive," Obi-Wan said, hesitantly. "I haven't been able to speak with her yet…"

"Patience, young one. There will be time. Master Gallia has spent most the duration of our stay here with her Padawan - It is natural for the master to want time alone, in private, to discuss affairs with her student. We should not impose quite yet."

"…Yes, master." Obi-Wan studied the floor, then raised his eyes back to the glorious landscape without, sinking into a pensive silence once more.

The Jedi master tilted his head to one side, assessing. "Is there perhaps something which we ought to discuss, as well? I sense much unease in you."

The Padawan tore his eyes away from the luminous spectacle, briefly meeting Qui-Gon's penetrating gaze, and then returned his attention to the distant tumble of rock and ice, his expression determinedly grave.

"Brooding will only wear trouble deeper into your heart," Qui-Gon reminded him. "You should unburden yourself."

A deep sigh, a tentative inhalation, and then, "Yes, master." But nothing more.

The tall man opted for the direct approach. "Come. Walk with me."

There were few places in the bustling facility which provided any degree of privacy. They ended up in the main lobby, where a rambunctious gaggle of Rodian younglings played tag among the padded benches, and an elderly Quermian snoozed in a corner. The attendant at the front desk eyes Obi-Wan suspiciously.

"Patients aren't permitted outside the building without medical clearance," the officious woman snipped.

"I'm an exception," the Padawan blithely informed her, fingers curled in the gesture of compulsion. The Force wheedled and cajoled, melting her reservations away.

"You are exceptional," she muttered, glassy-eyed, as he swept past the tall counter and out the main doors, Qui-Gon in tow.

"You are exceptionally bold today, young one," Qui-Gon sternly addressed his apprentice's back. "I do not recall teaching you to abuse your power."

"I'm sorry, master." Obi-Wan led the way through the adjacent park, eventually seeking out a low bench situated behind a screen of sculptured aoli bushes. White petals lay scattered on the manicured lawn. The young Jedi sank down on the duracrete slab, shoulders hunched against the chill air. Qui-Gon settled beside him.

"Now," the tall man prompted. "Out with it."

"I don't know where to begin, master." A single pale blossom drifted upward in defiance of gravity and settled in the young man's palm.

Qui-Gon released a slow breath, folding his arms. "Why don't we start where we left off. My only account of events has been from Jass Caulff, who – though enthusiastic – is not perhaps the most objective witness."

"Caulff," the Padawan snorted, brows rising.

"Do not say it, Padawan: Jass proved essential to your survival. Your only thought should be that of gratitude."

An apologetic sigh. "Yes, master. … He was needed – he saved our lives, in fact –"

"Yes, he was very keen to point that fact out," the Jedi master smiled. "Repeatedly, in fact. He also took credit for smothering a full-scale forest fire … of your making?"

Obi-Wan squirmed a bit, shivering in the damp air. "It was necessary. Siri and I created a distraction to hold off the droids while the Civilized made it to the freighter in safety – we had only one 'saber, and, um.."

"You were already injured. I have never met anyone, Jedi or not, with as great a talent for trouble as you possess."

The young Jedi's mouth twisted wryly. Qui-Gon shrugged out of his cloak and draped it around the young man's shoulders, eliciting a small sound of protest.

"Not a word, Padawan. Now, let us strike a bargain: I shall forgive you the wanton destruction of living creatures – on this one occasion – if you work your way round to the point and tell me what has you so disturbed. It concerns Padawan Tachi, does it not?"

If any doubt lingered in his mind, the brilliant flush creeping up the young man's cheeks would have laid such doubts to their final rest. But the master wisely kept silent, waiting patiently for whatever revelation his student chose to make.

Obi-Wan crushed the flower between his fingers and let it drop, bruised and battered, to the lawn between his boots. "Do you… did Master Gallia tell you… what happened, in the prison, before we arrived?"

"Ah." Qui-Gon's expression softened. "Yes. I was sorry to hear it." He watched his own apprentice carefully as the young Jedi scowled down at his interlaced fingers, the drape of the oversized cloak's hem.

There was something amiss in the intensity of that stare, something far beyond compassion for a wounded fellow. The master's heart sank, the image of the two half-dead Padawans entwined upon the ruined ship's deck branded indelibly upon his inner eye, the implications settling in his gut with a leaden certainty.

He sighed. "Obi-Wan… it sometimes happens when two young people work in such close proximity, under such stressful conditions – "

The trite beginning earned him a flashing rebuttal. "Do not belittle it!" Obi-Wan exclaimed, anger glittering in his eyes now. "I – I acknowledge the mistake, the danger – but do not tell me this is some youngling's infatuation."

"What is it, then?" Qui-Gon softly inquired.

His Padawan bowed his head, not answering. His hands moved to the edge of the bench, knuckles whitening as he gripped the curved stone.

"What happened on that ship before the crash?" the tall man pressed. "Tell me now."

"It was worse than abuse of power, master…" Loathing flitted over the young Jedi's face, swiftly replaced by a mask of stoic calm. "I almost killed a man in anger," he accused himself, flatly, looking straight ahead.

"I see." Another jolt of dread. How close, how perilously close, had they come to the edge of madness. And within days.

"It was Orrissk. The one who …. The one who hurt Siri. I had him at saber point, master. I was going to maim him- cut him in half, slowly…"

"Padawan."

Obi-Wan buried his face in his hands. Petals drifted in the chill breeze.

Qui-Gon exhaled slowly, absorbing the blow. To kill in anger was utter anathema…. But Obi-Wan said almost. Almost. There was hope in that. "What stayed your hand?"

"I.. I don't know, master. At least… the Force. It told me not to. So I didn't. But I still wanted to. I hated him."

"Hated… or still hate?"

The young Jedi slumped. "He's dead, master - I don't feel … now when I think of him I only feel sick."

They sat, miserable in their shared failing, student and teacher together. At last, Qui-Gon reached out one strong hand and gripped his apprentice's knee. "I am proud of you – that you had the strength to tell me this openly. As you always do."

Obi-Wan nodded. The air knifed through their garments, bitter cold.

"We will deal with this later, after our return to the Temple," the master decided at last. "We are seekers, not saints, Obi-Wan." He stood, inviting the younger man to follow. "In the meantime, I am sure the staff are having a conniption looking for you. And it is far too cold to remain out here."

He shepherded his stricken apprentice back indoors, the chill of the night air seeming to linger impalpably within their hearts as they ascended back to the cloying confines of the fourth level recovery ward.