Chapter Nineteen: Matters of Research
"You know," Qui-Gon said, "when you first asked me on one of these little expeditions, I thought to myself, 'Ahh, here's a chance to make myself useful. Just use the Force and call them right to the boat!'" She leaned back against the stern of the boat, wincing a little as the curve of the wood dug into her back. "Only to find that fish are too stupid for that sort of thing to work on them."
Her companion, though he held himself in careful concentration as he hovered his spear over the water, chuckled. "If it's to be weak-minded, it has to have a mind to begin with."
It was a beautiful day—the rainy season was due to begin soon, but you'd never know it looking at the sky, only a few lonely clouds floating in the higher reaches. Lor had asked her if she wanted to come with him while they had the chance—she'd almost protested, but then thought ahead to week-long storms cooping her up inside and decided to make the most of the offer. Now, smelling salt-laced air and listening to the water's motion rock the boat back and forth, she was glad she had.
From the bow, there was a sudden burst of motion as the spear darted down into the waves—when it emerged, a wriggling set of scales nearly two feet long sprouted from the end. With a grunt of satisfaction, her companion slid the catch off the weapon and into a bucket, then jabbed down quickly at the head. "Just goes to show you," he said, lowering himself back into the boat and looking over at his passenger. "Sometimes crude matter is the best tool for the job."
Crude matter, Qui-Gon thought, was a good way to sum up Lor San Tekka in general. He was young—a good ten years younger than her at least, and she suspected more than that—but already his entire self had seemed to cure, skin gone tough and hair bleached into ivory. He looked most at home weaving a net or making repairs to a structure that had been pecked at by salt and moisture and sand, or doing what he was now, turning life to meat. She liked him for the same reasons she liked most everyone in the settlement—he was solid, patient, reliable, like a good walking stick.
It was that quiet tenacity that had restored the old lighthouse. Unearthed the ruins further inland. Built a new home around the pieces that had been left behind thousands of years ago.
That was why she'd been welcomed so immediately upon her arrival. After all this time, the village had told her, it was like the Jedi finally coming home again.
And what a homecoming that had been—she'd arrived at the peak of last year's rainy season, and almost crashed her ship into the bay for her trouble. Looking over at Lor preparing to skewer another catch, she suppressed a snort at the image of him doing the same thing to fish her out of the water.
"I may move some of the things from the lighthouse into my home before the rain hits, if it's all the same to you," she said aloud to Lor. "I don't mind occasionally getting wet on my way to study things, but in general I'd prefer saving myself some trips."
The young man shrugged, then lowered his spear and raised a hand to his eyes to chance a look at the sun hanging in the sky. "This would be the week for it. Not my place to say—have to ask the elders. But I think they'll say yes." The straight line of his mouth curved in the suggestion of a smile. "After all, Jedi relics are meant for Jedi Knights. They'll do you more good than they'd do any of us sitting in there."
"Not a Knight," she corrected automatically, a bit harsher than she'd meant. "Not anymore."
He shrugged, lowering himself into the boat and turning his attention to the gently pulsing water. "But still a Jedi."
Qui-Gon craned her neck to look over her companion—Lor stood a good foot taller than her, and didn't sit so much as loom. Past him was the shore, the lighthouse a distant pillar atop the jutting cliff that rose from the sand. And past that, she knew, though she couldn't see it—the village. The cluster of buildings, with their few hundred inhabitants, which had welcomed her with open arms when she touched down here a year ago. Not for who she was, but for who she represented.
It's like the Jedi finally coming home again.
"You know, I'm glad it took me so long to track this place down," she told Lor, fidgeting to work the kink out of her back. "That no one else came knocking. And sometimes when you talk like that, it makes me wish even I hadn't."
Lor's brow didn't furrow so much as slightly deepen the crevasse that already ran across it. "Madame Jinn?"
"Qui-Gon, Lor, please." Right there was the reason. "Your village has been here for thousands of years. I just showed up . . . yesterday, as far as you're concerned. Nothing gives me any more insight into this place than you. You've been taking care of it all this time. I'm just . . ." A tourist, she finished in her head, thinking back to what Dooku had said to her those weeks ago.
"And in all this time," he told her, picking up the spear and waving it idly to punctuate the point, "none of us have been able to do what truly matters. Touch th—"
"Yes, yes," she said, sending out a dart of mental energy to brush the spearpoint from getting too close, "the Force. And a lot of good it's done me, wandering the ruins waiting for something to happen."
Lor simply sat there, his stony face still betraying confusion. Finally, Qui-Gon looked off to watch the sun glint against the water and sighed. "I'm sorry. This was meant to be relaxing. Then I bowl everything over." Again.
"If you'd like to help me relax, you could always try summoning a few fish again."
Smiling despite herself, she crooked a finger of her right hand—a moment later, Lor cried out as the butt of his spear rapped sharply against his head. "I suppose it has done me some good," Qui-Gon conceded, crossing her arms and leaning back. "You're lucky I'm not inclined to tip the boat over."
"I'd enjoy watching you try to swim back to shore," Lor retorted, rubbing at his forehead.
Closing her eyes, Qui-Gon let herself focus on the warmth of the sun on her face and the lapping of waves at the wood beneath her. Really, this kind of self-absorption wouldn't do. You're with a friend, and he's catching dinner, and that's all. Be in the moment.
You used to be good at that.
Crackling scarlet.
A spiderweb of dark, spreading its strands outward to every point of light across the galaxy.
A whisper, one formed by silences: Take up the burden, in this twilight hour.
Qui-Gon opened her eyes.
It wasn't a twilight hour at all—judging by the shadows that enveloped her room, it was early morning, sunrise still some time off. And she wasn't watching the galaxy from some bird's-eye view—she was here, in bed, sheets a reassuringly scratchy presence against her skin.
From behind, something wrapped around her, then clutched a white hand against her brown one. "You had a dream."
It wasn't a question. "Did I wake you?"
A faint rustle indicated a shaking head. "I was awake. You mumble, sometimes."
"God," she muttered, wrinkling her nose at the taste of her own sour breath, "this is why I should have stayed a free agent. You get them in bed and you lose all your mystique."
Rolling over, she touched her lips against alabaster skin, feeling the resistance of the cheekbone underneath. "I did wake you. Sorry."
Jesmyn turned their head, brushed their own lips against Qui-Gon's, a faint taste of anise mingling with the morning staleness. "Nothing to be sorry for. And stop changing the subject."
"Sneaky little thing you are." She rolled back over to stare up at the ceiling, a crumpled dome of stone. In the dark, it looked almost like an inky ocean whose waves broke above her head. "It was . . . nothing. Or something, but vague enough to be good as nothing."
"But it was the Force." Again, not a question.
"You can tell all that just from what I mumble, hmm?" She'd been hoping for a perfunctory chuckle from the Arkanian, but when none came she sighed and replied, "Yes. It was. For all the good that does. The last time I had one of those, it wound up sticking me with a limp."
Jesmyn gnawed at their lip, the glint of their eyes just visible through the predawn shadow. It still made Qui-Gon's heart stir a little, seeing concern there—from the wrong person it might come off as pity, but that was something she knew the Arkanian had never felt for her. Not even Obi-Wan could say that much. "You would . . . tell me, if you knew it meant something bad, yes?"
Of course it's bad. Who's being sent good premonitions, these days? Aloud, she hesitated before replying, "If I thought I could do something about it."
A surprisingly firm hand planted itself against her shoulder—Jesmyn pushed themselves upright and looked down at the Jedi, their hair falling to brush against her forehead. "Well, you're the person here who can do the most about it by default, whether you've a limp or not."
"I liked you better when you were kissing me. It's too early for arguments."
"And you're going to have to learn that flirting like an adolescent only distracts me for so long." They said it as faux-casually as Qui-Gon had, but the Jedi could detect the bones of genuine frustration beneath the words.
Reaching up with her free hand, the Jedi placed it against the back of Jesmyn's head. Felt the hair that ran from it like silk. Pushed down gently. "You're not the only one who can apply leverage, dear."
When the kiss had broken apart, Jesmyn kept their body atop hers. The base of Qui-Gon's spine twitched the beginnings of a warning, but the assurance of the weight overrode any discomfort. It was warm, tangible, present—the opposite of whatever it was the Force had been teasing her with.
Ugh, there it was again, sneaking back into her thoughts precisely because of the distraction she was trying to provide herself. Reminding her that she did owe the person currently blanketing her an explanation. "I talked with Lor when we were fishing yesterday. He was of the same opinion you are. That I've got a leg up on everyone here simply by virtue of being a Jedi." Careful not to test any stiff muscles, she carefully let her own leg wrap around the back of Jesmyn's, nestled between their calves and the bedding. "A few weeks ago, I talked to . . . a friend." Best not to mention Dooku in front of them. At least not this early in the morning. "They wondered if I wasn't letting my connection to the Order hobble me. I think I'm starting to wonder the same thing."
The Arkanian spoke into the pillow beneath Qui-Gon's head. "And you chose a Jedi archaeological dig as your place to wonder. Sensible."
"That's just it, though," she sighed, thinking back to her talk with Lor. "When I left the Temple—left active service—to go on this exploration, I thought digging into the Order's past might help me to know where we went wrong. But the past is . . . well, it's the past here. Dead." Dead as the tree in that damn lighthouse, she thought to herself. "Lor's people have been waiting all this time for us to come back, and now that I have I sit in an old building and meditate all day and wait for relics to tell me something. Give me a miracle cure for what ails us."
With a groan, Jesmyn rolled back to their side of the bed, staring up at the ceiling just as Qui-Gon did. "So you want to leave. Go back to heroics. Fight off the Sith and hope the third time's the charm."
The way they said it—the declarative thud of the sentences, the flat affect as they looked anywhere but at her—it sounded like something they'd asked themselves before this. As if they'd pictured Qui-Gon once again limping into battle with a freshly made cane courtesy of Qlik and the Temple. Leaving them alone.
"Actually," the Jedi replied, "I was thinking of . . . staying."
When she let her head fall to the left, her bedmate's had whipped right to hold her gaze. The light from the outside was brighter now, enough that Qui-Gon could make out the contours of their face, the hollows of their eyes gone wider with surprise. "But not as a Jedi?"
"There are so many things to do here, Jesmyn. Heal those who get hurt . . . bring in enough food to keep the settlement running . . . just live. And there's only one thing here that requires me to be a Jedi. The thing I've been failing at for a year."
A furrow split the Arkanian's perfect brow. "I suppose . . . I'd just assumed you wanted to get back out there. Lately whenever you're not killing time, you're mucking about with the ship and checking for messages and . . . looking other places."
Oh no.
In an instant, the vestiges of slumber that had still lingered around her awareness vanished. "The ship, I knew I forgot something."
She felt a wave of confusion emanate from Jesmyn, who shot upright an instant after Qui-Gon did. "What are you talking about?"
The Jedi was already pushing herself out of bed, reaching for the robe she'd left on the floor. "I was in the cockpit checking the comm unit yesterday and the weather was so nice I kept it open. Left it open."
"And?"
"If any flyers get in there again, they might make off with something important. Damage the comm" Stupid, so stupid, she'd been sitting in there poking at buttons and doing nothing and somehow hadn't even remembered to close the damn thing—
"If you think we should stay," Jesmyn asked, "then what do you care about the comm unit?"
They were actually mad now, Qui-Gon knew. It always came out in that sharpness in their voice—rather than lapsing back into their natural accent, they heightened their annunciation, made every syllable come out flawlessly. The Jedi had joked with them more than once that they must have gotten very angry with whoever it was that had taught them Basic.
"Someone might try to call sometime," she replied, shoving on her shoes and grimacing as her heels caught on the backs. "And I don't want them thinking I'm dead."
Not that anyone did try to call, really. Obi-Wan here and there, though nothing lately. But—
Jesmyn stared long and hard at her as she finished her frantic routine of getting dressed. Finally, in one deliberate motion, the Arkanian slid back down into the sheets and turned their head to face the far wall. "I'm going back to bed," they said, in a tone that indicated they were far too irritated to do anything of the sort. "Wake me up when you want to actually finish the conversation."
She could have apologized. Kicked off the shoes, slid back under the sheets, held them. But now that the image of flyers rooting around at the controls, ripping out wiring, had lodged itself in her mind, she had a fear coursing through her that she knew she wouldn't be able to suppress until the job was done.
They're not right, she thought to herself as she headed for the door. I don't want any more adventures. It's just . . .
It's best to keep one's options open. Wasn't that what Dooku was saying, multiple paths and all that?
Had he been there, he would have chided her for putting words in his mouth. But he wasn't, and she was already striding outside.
There was a small garage of sorts next to the dwelling, designed to house one of the few ancient speeders the villagers had managed to keep in working order, but even the relatively small ship Qui-Gon and Jesmyn had brought here was too big for it. Instead it stood alongside the structure, making a mountain range out of the tarp that covered it. Imperfectly—the edge of one engine nacelle visibly protruded from beneath the covering, a faint speckling of rust forming on the metal. And the cockpit remained perfectly open to the elements, as Qui-Gon had left it yesterday.
Idiot, she thought to herself as she mounted the small ladder leading to it. Were you really so distracted that you didn't think what could happen if it rained?
It hadn't, though when she looked out at the sea it was no longer one expanse of blue meeting another. Across the distant hints of sunrise far offshore, grey was roiling—still a long way out, but moving. The clouds would hit the village soon, even if the storms held off for a bit longer.
It'll keep the flyers away, anyway. The other bane of the ship's existence lo these last dry months—reptilians that sought out metal deposits in the stone, until her ship had come along and given them a much tastier target. Harmless enough to living beings, but she'd already had to have Jesmyn repair the damn thing last time after the creatures had chewed hell out of it, and she was in no mood for that to happen again.
Sliding into the pilot's chair, she let her eyes roam over the interior in a brisk scan. Not much to inspect, fortunately—the two-seater was bigger than the one Bail had given her all those years ago but not by much, to the point that she and Jesmyn had risked getting sick of each other while traveling inside. Two leather chairs, the instrument board, and then the back wall and the door that led to the sadistically tiny refresher unit.
Absolutely ridiculous for her to feel any nostalgia for the thing. It had been an inconvenient necessity, to be used and then abandoned as soon as they arrived at their destination. But Jesmyn wasn't entirely wrong. She had been coming back to check on it more and more often lately—and while sometimes it was to look for any new messages, or make sure everything was still in optimal condition, sometimes—like yesterday—it had simply been to . . . sit. For an hour or so. Lie back in the seat with her eyes closed, hands wrapped around the control yoke, feeling the wind across her face—never mind the fact that there was no breeze in space.
They're right, you know, she told herself, looking back out to the bay, the water growing dark in the distance as the clouds cast their long shadow over it. If you really mean it, you should just lock this thing up and walk away. Give the key to Jesmyn so if ever they end up getting bored of you they can leave.
Something niggled at her as she had the thought—annoyed, she pushed back at her mind, trying to reclaim her attention span. You need to think about this, damn it, not push it off for a distraction yet again—
Then she realized, it wasn't her own head. It was the Force, clearer than it had been in a long while.
Time to wake up, it seemed to be saying. You're not alone.
She wondered what on earth that could mean—it wasn't Jesmyn, she would have sensed them—but then she looked down at the instrument panel and realized. The ship's comm unit was blinking a staccato burst of red light.
Frantic disbelief overcame her for a moment. She'd never actually received a call in person in all the time she'd been here—unless she counted her one talk with Dooku. She and Obi-Wan would fire messages back and forth, and Qlik would drop the occasional line with an update on Temple business, but it was easy to lose one's sense of time here—even if she'd wanted to talk to someone in real time, she'd have had no idea how to arrange it. For someone to call now, at a time when she would never normally be out here—
Maybe I've misjudged you after all, she thought to the Force, and punched at the comm unit.
"Hello?"
"Qui-Gon? Hey, is that you?"
The signal was weak, patches of static corrupting the message, but she knew the voice—heavier than it had been the last time they spoke, and older, but still the same. "I—Anakin? My god, how are you?"
When he replied, it seemed hearing her say his name had rejuvenated something in him—she could hear a trace of the old Skywalker grin around the words. "How am I? How are you? How's unraveling the secrets of the universe?"
A snort escaped her. "I do hope I didn't make it sound as grandiose as all that when I left. I'm afraid you're doomed to disappointment if I did—I'm a homebody now, really." She didn't think she'd sounded too sad, but just in case she added a firmly cheerful, "I'm glad to hear the clones couldn't kill you! Not that there was ever any doubt, but still. Old friends' voices are reassuring to hear these days."
"Tell me about it." She could tell he meant it, but through the static she wondered if the cheeriness in his own voice hadn't dipped down into a deliberate register. A moment later, he added, "So seriously, no mysteries or adventures or anything? You know I'm not the person to be modest with."
"Some very enthralling architecture, anyway," she said. "The Jedi may not have left Aquilae much, but they did leave it some fine museum pieces."
"Aquilae?" His frown carried over the comm line. "I haven't heard of that system."
"You wouldn't have. I had to spend those years cooped up in the Temple researching something, after all. This was one of the main ones. Jesmyn and I spent a year sorting out the rest of the clues after Serenno. Made a hyperspace jump, crossed our fingers . . . wound up here. Ancient outpost of the pre-Republic Jedi. Now gathering rust."
She didn't think she'd said anything particularly outrageous, but there was a barely perceptible intake of breath from the other end of the line. "Wait, pre-Republic?"
At this, she chuckled. She could picture Dooku now, one of his muttered harangues from back in the old days—there was no sense of history left in the Jedi, if one wasn't a Scholar they knew as much about the Order's past as any credulous citizen plucked off the street. "The Republic's pretty new, all things considered. A thousand years on a galactic timescale . . . not very long. We were around long before that."
There was a long silence; Qui-Gon could picture Anakin's expression, that look of punch-drunk wonder he always got when someone told him an assumption he'd long held wasn't true. The Jedi suppressed another chuckle—he'd always looked a little like a lost dog when that happened. Finally, he said, "You know, it's funny. When I was still . . . when I was in the Order, there were so many things I didn't think to ask. Questions I didn't even know were questions. And now even though I'm not in the club anymore, I keep finding out new things."
You and I both, she thought, looking out at the bay. The sun had begun to poke through the distant clouds with a bit more force, a few holes in the grey burning at the edges with orange and pink. She could make out the distant pillar that was the old lighthouse against the new illumination, standing stoic for the latest day in a line that stretched back so far as to be innumerable. "Well," she murmured, fancying to herself that she could see things becoming clearer by the second as more and more sun strained against the mass of dun, "that's the way of things. Even things that happened a few centuries ago get harder and harder to dig up. It's a big galaxy."
One of the reasons she'd been so keen on making her way here. The idea of a Jedi outpost stretching back to the old times, preserved in amber by those who'd failed to note its place on a map . . . Things could be so different there, she'd thought. Maybe they won't have lost their way. But of course amber didn't preserve everything.
When Anakin spoke again, he was curiously quiet. "Yeah. There's things that went on just . . . four hundred years ago that I never knew about. That I don't think even Obi-Wan knew about."
Qui-Gon frowned.
If there was one thing the Anakin she'd known didn't do, it was beat around the bush. He was direct to a fault, to a degree that she knew had caused Obi-Wan endless grief. And yet whatever question lay behind this admission, he was afraid to ask her.
You haven't been talking to Dooku, have you? she almost asked as the absurd notion popped into her head. Immediately, she stopped herself. Touching the raw wound of Serenno wasn't something Anakin would have done, she didn't think—besides which, there was very little chance Dooku would have wanted to speak to him either. But if it wasn't him . . .
She'd been silent too long, she realized, as the young man called her name with some alarm. "I'm here, I'm here," she reassured him, turning back to the comm and forcing herself to look at its blinking indicator light. Focus. The Force steered you here for a reason—it wants you to help him.
"What things," she asked, "might those be?"
"Did you know the Jedi fought wars?"
Ah.
She answered back with her usual level of glib circumlocution—of course the Clone Wars weren't our first time, hard to exist for a few thousand years without getting your hair mussed. But as her tongue danced on its own, her mind was furiously processing where he could have heard about this.
The Order didn't talk about it. The standard texts glossed over the matter. It was an antipresence, a gaping black hole in their coverage of the Jedi's recent history.
An all-out war against the Sith. One that had left bodies from both sides strewn across the outer reaches. One that had only ended because the Sith had burned themselves out like a flame devouring all oxygen within reach.
One the Jedi had failed entirely to resolve.
Again, she was tempted to ask if he'd been speaking with Dooku. But she held herself back. You're here to help, so help. Don't shut down on him.
"I was doing some reading," he told her. "Taking after you, I guess. And I came across this . . . this journal about what happened. About how things would have pushed into the Republic and turned it into a galactic war."
"We are good at that, I suppose. Just look at how Had Abbadon turned out."
He was quiet for a moment; then, "Look, you know what I'm talking about, right?"
There it was.
Qui-Gon threw a glance over her shoulder back at her home, as though worried that someone might be listening in—like she and Anakin were sitting together in the Temple library, and Madame Nu was just around a corner. "I do, yes. Is that why you're calling?"
"I mean, no, I—I did want to just check in on you. But . . . I was thinking you might know someone who's looked into the whole thing. Especially the end of it. Malachor. Darth Plagueis."
"I—who?"
A gull startled and flew away, shrieking—Qui-Gon winced, wishing she could somehow take the loud hiss she'd made and smother it.
"The one who ended it. That's what . . . what I read, anyway."
It was at that moment that she almost brought things to an end. Almost panicked and demanded that he tell her who he'd been talking to.
The version of this history that she'd been privy to had been from one of Dooku's old books—one of the titles he'd gotten in trouble for assigning her to read. A Chronicle of the Something-or-Other, very dull material—save for the chapter that had dealt with the great hole in the record. The closest Jedi and Sith had ever come to revealing themselves out in the open—hundreds of combatants on battlefields, engagements happening across the outer territories, lightsaber-slashed corpses strewn in a bloody trail across the galaxy.
And then, it had stopped. On a distant world called Malachor—one that, as far as Qui-Gon knew, had not been inhabited before or since.
This much the histories said. They said nothing of a Darth Plagueis.
The Jedi swallowed, willing saliva to wet her suddenly dry throat, but no moisture came. Suppressing a cough, she said aloud, "I have to say, Anakin, I'm impressed at the level of research you've put into this. Darth Plagueis . . . it's not a commonly known name."
She expected him to hem and haw a little before dropping the front. Telling her where he'd heard the name. Instead, he asked, "So it's true, then? The war ended in a battle on Malachor?"
There was an eagerness there that she didn't like at all.
So much, in fact, that she chose to be stupid. "Anakin, I have to ask—where did you dig all this up?"
His response was so quick that even looking for hesitation she wasn't able to spot it—he was too excited to pause, to try to come up with an explanation. Instead he barreled right past her question. "And what do you think about the theory he had? About . . . balancing the Force?"
Plagueis she'd never heard of. That concept . . . well.
"The last I heard of it," she replied, clutching her robe tighter around herself as a sudden salt breeze whistled in from the coast like numbing fingers, "it wasn't a Sith theory at all. It was a mutual acquaintance of ours, in fact."
"Obi-W—?" He cut himself off before he could finish the name, then corrected himself in a tight murmur. "Dooku."
She nodded, rolled her eyes when she remembered he wouldn't see that. "Toward the end of his time with the Jedi, when he was looking more and more into other schools of thought, he told me he thought the Order had grown too strong. Too spread out. In fact"—she chuckled here, forced in the moment but born of genuine amusement—"I believe he lectured me about it around the time I was beginning my cover job with Interplanetary Outreach."
Closing her eyes she could see the memory now—the two of them strolling through Capitol Plaza, the Senate looming behind her master. Powerful light implies powerful darkness, he'd told her, cape fluttering in the morning breeze. The brightest light casts the darkest shadow. The more we attempt to burrow into every crack of the Republic, the more we fill the way behind us with murk.
I always hated metaphors, she'd shot back, smirking and tossing a stray coil of hair away from her face in that jaunty way he'd always associated with impertinence. The dark side isn't going to suddenly smash down on the Republic because I took a job, Master.
You're arrogant indeed, if you think the balance between light and dark rests on you, Madame Jinn, he'd replied, in a tone so withering she'd had to laugh.
He'd always hated that—the professor in him didn't take to dismissal. But this once, he'd eventually given a low chuckle in return.
I'm going to miss you, you know, she'd said. Being a Knight and working in politics . . . it doesn't leave much time for socializing. Promise you'll have tea for me if I want to drop by your office?
Always.
For a while they'd simply wandered in silence, boots gently clacking against cobblestone. Then, his tone stern again without warning, her master had added, The Order of the past shone brightly, Qui-Gon—but it did not seek to burn the dark out entirely, to fill the galaxy with itself. If your glow becomes a flame, the darkness that countermands it will burn as well.
She'd felt a pang in the Force then—a deep foreboding echoing outward and into her skin. Not her own worry, but his. So by fighting those who use the dark side for evil, we only make them stronger.
Fighting them? No. But seeking power upon power to do so . . . He'd sighed then, and stared off toward the distant Senate dome. Forgive me. You don't want to hear this.
It had been his way of changing the subject, and she'd let him. And for years she hadn't thought of it at all.
Then a Sith had nearly killed her. Ever since, the dark side's power had been . . . a pressing concern.
"Qui-Gon?"
With an echo of Dooku's remembered sigh, she spoke. "Sorry. Yes, the notion of light and dark constantly balancing each other out, the Force as an arms race of sorts . . . it's not unheard of. Especially in times like these, when the Jedi for all our reach can't finish off the enemy. Grow too powerful, and all you do is multiply your enemies. If one side grows too strong, the other will meet them—light or dark, Jedi or Sith."
"Multiply . . . but the Sith haven't. There's only two. If this theory were true, wouldn't they be spread throughout the galaxy too?"
"If the only kind of power is the kind that the Jedi have achieved. But I doubt Dooku would say numbers are the only kind of power."
Nor, she was quite sure, did Anakin think this.
In the distance, she could make out a trio of gulls silhouetted against the sunrise as it finally crested the clouds. Their distant calls echoed back on the breeze, mindless and hungry.
Qui-Gon shivered.
After a long silence, he spoke again. "I wish you were closer. Or . . ." Whatever possibility he'd been about to suggest trailed off. "I'm gonna have to look into things myself, I guess. There's just so much going on lately . . ."
A flame leapt in her chest, compelling obedience. Qui-Gon opened her mouth and, before she was aware of what she was saying, replied, "Oh Anakin Skywalker, if you really think I'm going to let you attempt reading books on your own we've been apart too long."
After a moment, he exploded into surprised laughter, as if it were taken aback by its own existence. "Excuse me?"
"Research has never been your strong suit, we both know that." It was easy, all of a sudden—she wasn't choosing the words, just letting them flow, a cheerful smile on her face and leaking into her voice. "And I've got nothing but time here. If you want someone to tell you more about Malachor and old wars, I think the choice is obvious. After all, you did call me."
Finally, when he replied to her she seemed to have broken through any pretense; he sounded almost sheepish as he said, "It wasn't just about that. Really."
"Oh, you don't fool me."
"You're sure you want to do that."
"Pssh. You'll save me from boredom. Jesmyn is going out of their skull with how bad I've been lately." She chuckled, wondering what they would say if they saw her sitting in a cockpit talking to no one at the crack of dawn. "Maybe I could even take a vacation there, give them a break."
"That would . . . hey, if you do that, swing by the Core systems. Say hi sometime."
"It has been far too long since I saw you. Or Obi-Wan. Or Padmé, for that matter."
The hiss of static on the other end lasted just a second too long before Anakin said, "Yeah, that'd be great."
Quickly as it had risen within her, the flame was beginning to die. "Look, Anakin," she said, "I should probably be going. But it's been lovely. I don't hear too much from anyone out here. I promise I'll let you know what I find out."
"Thanks, Qui-Gon. Seriously," he said, in what sounded like relief.
May the Force be with you, she almost said; and then, "Bye for now."
As soon as the line clicked off, she sagged.
Trust the Force to nudge you into making an impossible promise.
Something had nudged her out here, and that same something had steered their conversation toward the end. Ignoring that would be pointless. But . . .
You called me here, she said, doing her best not to gesticulate at the empty air as she argued with it. You don't want me to just leave when I can help the people here, I know that much. So why send me on a wild goose chase to some other planet, after a war that ended centuries ago?
No response. The only sensations she received were the cold of the air and the lapping of distant water.
"Well, you're a great help," she muttered aloud. "I'll just keep meditating on it then. See if I can dig up the name 'Darth Plagueis' in the archives. Try to get my partner not to be angry with me. Thanks very much for the help on that front."
The childishness made her ashamed even as she spoke. But she didn't take it back.
Say one thing for Anakin. When he gets you to agree to something, generally there's a concrete goal at the end of it.
Not that you have agreed to anything. Beyond research.
She sneered at her own insistence, and clambered down from the ship.
Republic Archives: Geogecko
Gekko geometallusis, more commonly known as the "geogecko," is a species of reptile found across much of the western Wild Space and Outer Rim regions. The native planet of the geogecko is not known; it is speculated they were first spread across the galaxy by "hitchhiking" aboard an exploratory vessel.
Their natural diet consists of metal deposits found within a planet's rock formations—though they are more notorious for feeding on sentient constructs such as buildings and starships. The color of a geogecko changes based on the metal they consume; this has the added benefit of allowing them to blend into whatever structure they have chosen to feed on.
Though its eggs are incredibly resilient, and the lizards themselves can go dormant in low nutrient environments, the geogecko is not considered an invasive species by most settled worlds due to its incredibly slow rate of reproduction. However, vessels with geogecko infestations are typically not permitted to dock on worlds with active mining operations.
Despite common misconception, geogeckos cannot fly. The webbed membrane connecting their limbs is only useful for gliding short distances and quickly moving through water.
