Growing Pains
Freezing Point
"I can't understand what they're saying," Obi-Wan hissed, a twisting skein of panic warping the Force's steady currents.
Qui-Gon watched blood trickle down the boy's forehead. That cut should have closed; and the padawan's lack of focus bespoke something more worrisome. He suspected concussion, but did not voice the thought aloud. Outside the brig, Shrakka-Nuur's brigandly crew spoke among themselves in heavily accented Huttese.
"It's all right," he assured his young companion. "The Force is with us. They've decided that killing us aboard the ship would bring bad luck."
"How enlightened of them," Obi-Wan griped.
"I may have helped them reach that most convenient conclusion," the Jedi master admitted.
His apprentice's brows rose, communicating wry disapprobation. Qui-Gon's penchant for capitalizing on local superstition by means of subtle mind influence was by now familiar to him; however, its questionable conformity to the Code was surely offset by its usefulness as a means of escaping premature death.
"They've decided to maroon us instead. Good."
"Your idea of good and mine are very different, Master."
The tall man gingerly shifted his weight, biting back an exclamation as his dully throbbing ribs and spine protested the motion. He would not add to his padawan's distress by bringing attention to his own injuries. "Focus on the positive, Obi-Wan."
It was a remark guaranteed to provoke snide repartee – and therefore to keep the boy alert. They would need their wits about them.
The young Jedi did not fail to rise to the proffered bait. "Oh yes," he drawled, perking up a bit, "I do so long to be abandoned without shelter, sustenance, or weapons on an uncivilized planet in some star-forsaken backwater sector. Perhaps there will be angry predators, too," he added as a bright afterthought.
"We will be given our weapons," Qui-Gon amended, blandly. "Traditionally, one leaves the victims of marooning with an easy means of final exit from their plight. A dark mercy, as it were."
The padawan rolled his eyes, but then quickly snapped back into tactician's mode. "So we will fight, at the moment we get our 'sabers back?"
"I do not think that would be…. wise," the Jedi master gently admonished him. The battle that had landed them in their present predicament had been severely taxing, and nearly disastrous. Neither would count it a loss, per se, considering that they had liberated twenty some miserable prisoners from the pirates' clutches, destroyed the fleet's flagship, and planted a homing beacon on this vessel- but they were in no shape to undertake another grueling combat against overwhelming odds.
Obi-Wan grumbled something unbecoming under his breath and chafed against the binders pinning his hands behind his back. "Could we not at least – "
"Patience."
"Patience," the boy repeated, releasing a frustrated sigh. "Yes, Master."
Their wait was not of great duration. A tell-tale lurching of the decks beneath them proclaimed the ship's reversion to realspace. Soon enough, the sublight thrusters and grav compensators had kicked in as well, meaning that they were descending toward some choice planet's barren surface.
"I suppose it's too much to hope for a tropical paradise," Obi-Wan commented, dryly.
Qui-Gon privately laid his odds on desert wasteland, deadly jungle, or lifeless oceanic expanse. But he had issued advice to focus on the positive so he held these speculations in reserve. "The beacon will have transmitted coordinates immediately after reversion. Master Tinn's team will be in transit."
"By which time our friends here will be long gone," the padawan groused.
"Hopefully, however, the other Jedi team will be prudent enough to send a search party to the surface before giving chase."
It was a thin hope, though not unfounded. Obi-Wan struggled to his feet. "Someone's coming."
The tramp of heavy boots on scuffed deck plating, and a party of six heavily armed guards appeared with the formidable Shrakka-Nuur himself in their midst.
"Bring them," he commanded.
Much shouting and gesticulating and prodding with electrostaves later, the Jedi found themselves herded to the head of the ships' aft boarding ramp. Shrakka-Nuur grinned, revealing sharpened teeth filed to decorative points, and made a great show of personally fastening his captives' lightsaber hilts back upon their belts. Hands still secured behind their backs, they made no move to attack nor any sign of acknowledgement.
The pirate captain gave a terse nod.
"We haven't landed," Obi-Wan muttered, tension bleeding through his voice.
Qui-Gon shrugged nonchalantly.
And then the ramp was opened, the sneering guards jabbed excitedly with their pikes, and a great gust of wind threatened to suck them through the rapidly widening aperture. Obi-Wan glanced upward at his mentor once, clearly expecting some signal to resist, to fight- but the tall man merely thrust his chin up defiantly and stepped sideways and back, toppling himself out through the gaping hole in an elegant backflip- and forcing his padawan out with him.
Frigid wind slammed into them as they fell, the Force binding student to master in a tight knot. Shards of ice whipped about them, surreal voices keened in their ears as they plummeted, flipped, gasped for breath against the maelstrom of cold air, and then – whump!
A snow drift swallowed them whole, muffling their impact and smothering them in freezing white.
Within seconds, Qui-Gon had unlocked his binders with a tiny nudge of the Force, and then swiftly freed his apprentice. "Obi-Wan. Up. Now. There's no time."
The young Jedi panted, struggled, then found his center of gravity Enclosed in tomblike darkness punctuated only by the glimmer of grey sky above where they had fallen through the mountainous drift, they stood pressed against one another, limbs already shaking with cold, manifold bruises and insults to their dignity aching worse than ever.
Two 'saber blades ignited, paired dragon tongues flickering with wrath. The snow evaporated into a cloud of mist, into a river of slush. They sloughed their way free, waist deep in melting crystals, and found the relative safety of an ice-coated promontory.
"M-mas-ter," the younger of the pair gasped, teeth violently chattering. Soaked to the bone, and facing deadly temperatures, their expected life span could be estimated in minutes; with the Force's aid, hours.
Qui-Gon flung one arm about his charge's trembling shoulders, already numb fingers clutching at the pathetic frost-flecked cloth. Their breaths coalesced into delicate vapor sculptures, artistry as ephemeral as life itself. "Focus," he ordered, yoking his own reeling mind to the same task. "Use the Force."
The power that flowed through them, penetrated them, bound them together – the invisible penumbra of Light – sparked to swift-burning vitality within their veins, supernal energy consuming itself, consuming gross matter, a bonfire of life's very essence. They warmed with it, groaning a little as circulation thrummed back into leaden fingers and toes, as vital fire seemed to blossom within belly and chest.
"Ow…ow…ow," the padawan growled.
Qui-Gon breathed in, out – the world's bitter assault on his senses held at bay for as long as could sustain the inner flame, a defiant beacon-light amidst consuming void. A sidelong glance at his apprentice: Obi-Wan was strong in the Force, but still young… he would not last as long. They needed shelter.
"Where are we?" the young Jedi wondered aloud, curiosity creeping in between the cracks of his thawing mind. "Hoth?"
"Or the polar region on any number of hellholes," Qui-Gon suggested. "It matters little."
Something hulking and vaguely furry moved on the far horizon. They stilled, watching its blurred silhouette disappear again in to the obscurity of endless white. "Oh good. Predators," the padawan remarked. "Now we won't be bored."
The tall man silenced him with a sharp look. The Living Force nudged at his mind, guiding his tear-filmed eyes to the place – there, a short march away , the barest slit of darkness against a curtain of dimensionless ice… a doorway, a gate to some primeval underworld .
"Quickly," he commanded. "There is a natural cave- half a klick or so."
"Wampa lair," Obi-Wan darkly prognosticated, but he fell into halting step beside his mentor readily enough.
In such conditions, over such treacherous terrain, the short hike proved punishing. They attained the ragged slit-opening in a buried cliff-face after a seeming eternity, sagging against the cold edges of the gap, gaspong for breath that only burned feverishly in cold-parched throats. Perspiration beaded on their foreheads and was transfored instantly to ice droplets. Snow decked the bristled spikes of Obi-Wan's hair; icicles clung to the Jedi master's short beard.
"In we go." He thrust a hand into the gloom beyond.
Obi-Wan's face twisted. "It stinks like…. " he shrugged. "Something nasty. This is not a good idea, Master."
"We don't have other options, Padawan." A firm grip on the boy's elbow, and he dragged them both through the narrow fissure. Within, the air was distinctly warmer. They pressed on in pitch blackness, boots crunching on ice underfoot, hands tracing the frost-slicked walls of the winding passage, eyes and ears straining for hints of danger ahead…
..And came to a cathedral deep within the stone, a cave fretted with luminous pillars, pendant chandeliers of ice. A faint light shone from the walls, phosphorescent, eerie – and the entire sanctuary was filled with coiling steam, delicious and enticing, diaphanous and soft and very, very hot.
Qui-Gon exhaled, his gratitude beyond the bounds of expression. Hot springs. "Thank the Force."
Obi-Wan stumbled to the edge of the nearest pool beside him, dumb-founded, strength trickling away like the rising tendrils of steam emanating from the spring's roiling surface. "Volcanic hot springs?" he said, blinking. The awful smell was stronger than ever, recognizable now as a sulphurous compound.
"Mineral laden, too." Qui-Gon wasted no time; he stripped off his clothing and dropped hs 'saber atop the crumpled pile before plunging into the life-saving bath. The water felt magmaic in its heat, a simultaneous scalding of every pore, a molten liquid pain-pleasure. He groaned aloud, sinking down neck deep and taking up position on a rough-hewn ledge beneath the surface.
Obi-Wan still stood aghast at the edge.
Foolish youngling. "Now, Padawan."
"But-"
"Now."
Weary beyond the point of reason, and therefore beyond the point of arguing, Obi-Wan followed suit, blushing violently as he divested himself of clothing, lip curling as he eased himself more cautiously into the bubbling pit beside his master. He yelped aloud at the first touch of the water, its heat magnified to obscene proportions by the contrast of temperatures, then squeezed his eyes shut and submerged himself to the collarbone, teeth gritted. Steam surrounded them in mesmerizing curtains; the pale light of the cave roof seemed to float above; the heat of the spring melted muscle and aching bone into itself, smoothed away every ill.
Silence took up its natural throne. The Force welled within the endless burbling of the water, a sweet chiming of the unexpected, of unlikely grace.. The Jedi listened and waited, sumptuously warm, meltingly content.
"I hope the rescue party doesn't make haste on our account," Obi-Wan decided, smugly sliding down until the water reached his chin.
Renewed circulation and the heat had set the cut along his scalp to bleeding again; Qui-Gon wiped away trailing crimson and pressed fingers against the wound, sending the Force's healing balm to smooth away at ragged edges, to dampen the ugly spurt of blood. "This is deeper than I thought," he observed, frowning. "Ben To will have to patch you up at the Temple."
"Mmm," his student affably replied, against all expectation.
"Don't fall asleep on me," the Jedi master warned.
But all temptation to succumb to the pools' soporific qualities was dispelled in the next instant, for a lumbering and shaggy shape emerged from the outer entrance, followed by a much smaller such apparition. Master and apprentice sank deep into the foaming water, scrutinizing the newcomers through shifting columns of steam.
"Wampa," Obi-Wan breathed.
They were indeed – a runty juvenile and its massive dam, both vaguely bear-like in physiology, possessed of fearsomely clawed forelimbs, slavering jaws and small, unintelligent eyes. Qui-Gon drew an obscuring veil of the Force around himself and his companion, an impalpable barrier to perception. The mother wampa shuffled past, her offspring in tow, and proceeded onward to a larger spring at the cave's far end. Splashing and grunting proclaimed that the little family was enjoying much the same salutary soaking as the Jedi themselves.
"We could be here a very long time," the padawan muttered.
"Their presence does not affect the length of our stay," Qui-Gon pointed out. "And the alternative is not desirable."
Eventually the wampas did heave themselves from the springwater; they shook themselves violently, scattering burning droplets in all directions before the moisture in their coats could freeze to ice. The mother snorted and huffed, her young one howling and whining as it slunk at her heels. They passed within meters of the Jedi's hiding place, oblivious to the intruders, and then disappeared back into the wasteland without.
"The young one was starving," Obi-Wan observed, with a pang of regret.
"You are not suggesting we offer ourselves as sustenance?" the Jedi master teased.
A melancholic pause. The guttural murmur of the pools echoed forlornly off the cave ceiling; the faint glow of the subterranean chamber dimmed and dissipated; the moment spun out into an endless wait.
"My skin is wrinkled like a Dressalian's. Reeft would be pleased."
"Yes… it is possible to have too much of a good thing."
"Patience, Master."
Not that they had a choice- to exit the mineral bath now would be to court swift death, without thermal gear or blankets to ward of the razored cold.
When Obi-Wan started to droop, eyelids closing against his will, the Jedi master jolyed him awake. "Stay awake. Tell me a story. Preferably something scandalous."
His padawan ran a hand through hair heavy with condensation. "Oh. Um… once there was a master –padawan team that went missing during a touchy assignment. The other Jedi sent to collaborate on the mission with them were able to determine that they had been taken captive by hostile forces, and that the enemy ship had reverted near a Force-forsaken ice ball somewhere in the margins of nowhere. They set out on an expedition to rescue their unfortunate friends, braving the fearsome elements and repelling bands of marauding wampas, until, at long last they discovered their beleaguered companions in a remote ice cave, where they had retreated to await rescue or death in a manner befitting the most stalwart of Jedi warriors – to wit, luxuriating shamelessly in a bubbling hot tub. The end."
Qui-Gon chuckled heartily. "That is, indeed, exceedingly scandalous."
"So we will omit a few pertinent details from the mission report?"
The senior Jedi snorted. "I think not. I do have a reputation to maintain, you understand."
Obi-Wan luxuriated most shamelessly. "Yes, Master."
The tramp of approaching footsteps warned them of another intrusion – but the brash flaring in the Force, and the exotic shadow cast upon the textured walls by the newcomer's silhouette quickly assured them that their visitors were not more wampa, but rather Jedi master Saesee Tinn and three thickly muffled companions. The rescue team carried thermal gear and a hover-gurney, and gazed round in undisguised astonishment at the pulchritude of their surroundings.
The Iktotchi Jedi approached the mineral pool slowly, something akin to amusement in his deep set golden eyes. His horns sloped down either side of his face, a merciless framing to rough-cut features. "Master Jinn," he rumbled.
"It is a pleasure to see you, my friend," the maverick master replied, politely inclining his head. "Will you join us?"
"I think not," Tinn grunted. "We've been on this blasted uk'shtabast long enough."
"Master," Obi-Wan whispered, "What does-"
"Later, Padawan." Qui-Gon smiled. "I think, alas, we must accept that our rescue has arrived, and quit the premises."
They reluctantly hauled themselves out of the bath, and were summarily wrapped in thermal sheets and provided with appropriate sub-zero apparel. Master Tinn led the way out, ice tramping beneath his heavy boots. As they departed, Obi-Wan cast a last wistful glance over one shoulder.
"You know... we ought to be marooned more often, Master."
Qui-Gon cocked a brow and blew out a small puff of white vapor. "Come along, Padawan."
