Ack, two months – my apologies!! This part was hard.

First, to answer bluedragongirl's questions (without giving too much away): the Lamarin implant is physical – I'll be explaining about the exact nature of the implant very soon. As for what went on in "Finding Grace", all I can say is that the neural web wasn't implanted here. Don't worry, all should be revealed in the next few parts -

Second, it's probably a good idea to reread the very beginning of Part 1 (the dream sequence), as there are a lot of references to it throughout this part that might cause confusion.

So, finally, here's part 7! On with the show…

Gone From Danger - Part 7/?

It was a nightmare turned real, terrible pain filling his head to the boundaries of his tolerance and beyond, his body writhing against the restraints that held him in the metal chair. His screams, which had reverberated hollowly in the darkened cabin seemingly hours ago, had been reduced to a continuous, keening whimper, broken by hitching, convulsive gasps for breath when the pain subsided a little. On occasion, he would kick out fitfully, the bare metal deck ringing beneath his boots in a valiant attempt to drown out the sound of his agony, but it would always fade and leave him with his own voice filling his hearing once more.

Unbearably tired and increasingly resentful, he cursed the Lidregan bounty hunter, Deril, for lying to him, uncaring of whether she heard him or not. She had said the pain would stop, but if anything it had gotten worse. His head dropped forward, chin resting on his heaving chest, until the pinching sensation of Deril's inhibitor device on his neck forced him to lift it again; in a fleeting moment of anger, he rubbed the flat disc savagely against a raised shoulder, hoping to dislodge the wretched thing. He had attempted this several times earlier, his neck bleeding and raw from the repeated chafings, and as before the device failed to come off, its grasping hooks burrowing deeper into his flesh.

Unlike the other times though, it emitted a short beep, and the pain seemed to fade slightly…perhaps Deril had not attached it properly? And a lot of use it was, too. The Lamari who had supplied the bounty hunters with the inhibitor had obviously deceived their temporary employees into believing that it would prevent him from using the neural web. However, Obi-Wan knew that its horrifying power was still available to him, and that all the new device was doing was restricting the web's growth.

Panting and defeated, Obi-Wan moaned and slumped into the uncomfortable angles of the chair, feeling a chill from the metal seep through his tunics and welcoming the coolness on his overheated skin. As the pain dissolved slowly into more manageable proportions, his cries ceased and he brought his breathing under control. He pulled feebly at the binders around his wrists that secured his arms behind the chair in an almost half-hearted attempt to free himself, a gesture of necessary defiance to his absent captors that was needed more to settle his pain-addled thoughts than to aid his escape.

Escape… His mind clung greedily to that notion even while he realised that it was a faint possibility at best. Finding a way out of here had to be his focus – there were other things pressing for his attention, thoughts that might well draw him into an obstructive and potentially damaging depression if he dwelt on them too long. As it was, images skitted about on the verge of his concentration, maddening in their insistence but too frightening to acknowledge, and he shook with the effort of keeping them out.

There was one thought that he could not suppress, and it was one that had tormented him since shortly after his capture: what had become of Qui-Gon? Had the bounty hunters killed him…left him for dead on that nameless planet? The Force, massing around him through no action of his own, offered no solace or resolution to his fears, and even if he had trusted himself and the Lamarin neural web enough to seek a more active communion with the Force, he doubted it would help. There were limitations to his bond with Qui-Gon that both Master and Padawan had tested and mapped, and the largest restriction was distance. Emotional and physical states were simple enough to gauge through the Force, given that the two were in close proximity; more effort was required when a considerable distance was involved, in terms of planetary measurements, and then it was possible to gain only a very general idea of well-being. He had never maintained a connection with Qui-Gon at interplanetary or interstellar distances. Perhaps with the aid of the neural web, he might be able to overcome that constraint, but the risk of losing control was too real.

"Master." The soft word, whispered unintentionally, was lost in the gloom surrounding him, and he pulled up his unrestrained legs until his feet rested on the edge of the seat, his knees close to his body, curling farther into the uncompromising chair in deepening misery. What hope had he of escape, on a ship in hyperspace and amongst bounty hunters that had shown little difficulty in subduing two Jedi Knights? Without the Force, there was nothing he could do to help himself.

A hissing noise intruded on the overbearing silence of the cabin, and Obi-Wan stilled, remaining in a huddled posture as his eyes watched the door open, spilling green-tinted light across the metal deck and silhouetting a slim, jumpsuit-clad humanoid standing in the doorway. He already knew who his visitor was before his vision adjusted to the rapid increase of light.

Mek'Lee, the apparent leader of the bounty hunter team, stepped delicately into the cabin as though afraid of disturbing him, peering at him intently; Obi-Wan turned his head away, making a display of staring at the opposite wall while surreptitiously inspecting the woman for weapons. She was unarmed, wearing only an empty blaster holster and carrying nothing but a bowl in her hands, which she extended to him gingerly, the rounded pads of her fingertips curling around its rim.

"Are you hungry?"

The question surprised him and he looked at her in confusion, unable to form a reply at once. "Hungry?" he repeated after a moment, his booted feet slipping off the chair and back to the deck as he straightened, leaning over slightly to study the bowl and its contents: fruit of various types that he had never seen before, separated into segments.

Mek'Lee, emboldened by his lack of response, both verbal and physical, walked toward him and approached to within a few metres. "I'm a bounty hunter, little Jedi, not a barbarian. Would you like some food?" She balanced the bowl in one hand and picked out one of the fruit slices with her other, holding it out to him.

"No," he said softly, looking away again. "And no, you're not a barbarian," he went on, anger creeping into him. "You're much worse…you're a civilised killer, and a naïve one at that." He glared up at her, but the anger was leaving him, despondency returning. "I doubt you have any idea what is at stake here."

"Okay, settle down." Mek'Lee, refusing to be riled by the Padawan, dropped the fruit slice back into the bowl and closed the gap between them, reaching down to deposit the bowl in his lap, but Obi-Wan flinched and kicked out, knocking it from her hands. The flattened bowl struck the deck and split into a number of uneven pieces that clattered on the metal amidst strewn sections of fruit. He shuddered, pain from his internal injuries flowering inside him to supplement the retreating mental agony, and lashed out again.

"Enough!" Mek'Lee stepped around the wild blow, smacking him in the face.

Obi-Wan froze when he felt sharp points rake across his jaw, drawing blood, and stared at Mek'Lee's withdrawing hand. Claws. He was certain he had not seen those when he had looked at her fingertips only a minute earlier…

Something jolted in his mind, and he blinked. A nightmare turned real indeed, like the dream he'd had just before Qui-Gon had left for Banis. The chair, the internal injuries, and to some extent the darkness – all the same. And now the scratches, as though to confirm a horror he already knew. If it had been a premonition, and the similarities between that terrible nightmare and his current situation were too many to be coincidence, then there was still more suffering to come before he even left this ship.

"Very well," Mek'Lee snapped, bothered by his suddenly vacant gaze. "Starve, for all I care. The Lamari are welcome to you." She scuffed her boot on the deck, rearranging the shattered bowl fragments and fallen fruit, her small claws retracting back into the hard, keratinous sheaths embedded in her fingers; why she had uncovered them when she had struck him, she was at a loss to explain. Her claws were vestigial, a remnant trait of a distant ancestor, and she rarely exposed them to anyone – they were crude, primal weapons, for which she had no need. Had this human, this Jedi, angered her so much that she would unsheath them simply to inflict more damage? Or had her fear of him and his power been so base that she had responded to even the smallest threat from him with instincts that were equally primitive?

Disconcerted, the bounty hunter hurried toward the open door, eager to be away from this unsettling young man, but something stopped her at the doorway and she looked back, her heart quickening at the dark stare focused on her, augmented by the shadows cowering in those corners of the cabin that the light beyond the door didn't reach. There appeared to be a sense of restraint in Obi-Wan's hunched shoulders that implied he was holding off more than mere pain, almost a warning of danger to the unwary and the underestimating. What have I gotten us into? she found herself thinking as she stepped out and sealed the door behind her.

Blackness closed in around Obi-Wan, but he continued to gaze at the place where the door had been, now hidden by the dark, his mind not on the image of the bounty hunter's silhouette when she had been momentarily framed in the doorway against the light, but of the open door itself.

Escape. The word thundered in Obi-Wan's head, taunting him, and the gouges across his jaw throbbed in counterpoint, blood seeping down his neck. Escape. His foot twitched, stirring the scattered pieces of bowl and fruit like Mek'Lee's had. With the woman's brief visit, the crushing doubts concerning Qui-Gon's fate dissipated a little, the reality of his own fate acquiring momentum among his thoughts. He had to get out of here, off this ship – the Lamari could not be allowed to regain possession of the technology within him, regardless of what his premonitions had revealed to the contrary.

Matters not, what you have seen. Matters, what you do. That had been Yoda's comment on Obi-Wan's fledgling Force-visions, years ago. Possibilities, the Force reveals to us, not certainties.

His decision was immediate; the neural web reacted instantly and Obi-Wan gasped explosively, his body abruptly awash with the Force. Behind him, the binders opened and slipped off his wrists, clanging on the deck. Obi-Wan drew his arms forward, hugging them around his stomach - the bacta backs that Healer Raeshin had bound against him were still there, steadily repairing the damage to his body. Grimacing, he struggled to his feet and wavered there, bolstering his flagging strength with the Force…how easily it came to him now, and the web was responding to him. Maybe the event at Banis had been a once-off, a miscalculation on his part. Maybe his anxieties had been for naught.

And yet…

No. He couldn't allow room for doubts. The web was in his control and it had to stay that way if he was to escape. He had no way to deactivate it, and losing command of it could well destroy both himself and the ship. Days ago, that might have seemed like the best solution, but his priorities had changed with his tenuous influence over the web and it was now a last option. Besides, annihilating the bounty hunters who were responsible for the injury – deaths? – of three Jedi, of his Master, felt too much like revenge even if his reason was justifiable.

Obi-Wan took a grounding breath against the dizzying euphoria of his heightened Force-awareness and used the time his body needed to adjust to the unexpected connection to formulate a plan to capture the ship's bridge. It would take more than raw power, which was available to him in amounts that were numbing to contemplate, to take the ship intact and its crew alive. He didn't want to put the bounty hunters in a position where they would sacrifice their own lives in an attempt to keep the craft under their command.

Braced by the Force, his senses already extending far past his accustomed range, he advanced through the darkness, putting one hand out not to help him find his way but in an unconscious gesture to direct the Force. His fingers brushed the sharply cold metal of the door and he recoiled, chiding himself impatiently for his nerviness and placing his hand fully against the door, mentally seeking the locking mechanism within the adjacent bulkhead. Electronical, not manual as he had hoped, which meant that the bounty hunters would be alerted to his escape sooner than he would have liked.

The inhibitor on his neck whirred irritably and bit deeper into him, a belated reaction to the activation of the web, but Obi-Wan ignored it, intent on the lock's circuits. It was a trivial problem to be dealt with later, once he had control of the ship and contacted the Temple. Nothing could come in his way.

With a low thunk, the door unlocked and retracted, opening onto the green-lit corridor, which seemed darker than it had before. Tentatively, Obi-Wan took a step out and peered around the edge of the bulkhead, sharpening his senses with the Force and testing the immediate area for any indication of danger. Almost immediately, a warning flare returned and he ducked back inside, narrowly missing a blaster bolt that struck the bulkhead, scarring the naked metal.

Apparently, the bounty hunters had known he would at least try to escape. From where he was crouched on the deck inside the doorway, he could see two of them only metres away down the corridor, reduced to faceless shapes in the unnatural green light, both armed and moving cautiously toward the open doorway. There was a lightsaber dangling from the larger one's hip, cradled in a makeshift harness – Tiperis', not his own. Their minds, as he brushed lightly against them, were strong; he could attempt coercion, but he doubted he could be successful or fast enough to overpower their wills before they had a chance to fire on him again. Confrontation seemed to be inevitable.

Obi-Wan flung himself out into the corridor, both hands outstretched as he drew on the Force for aid, calling the stolen lightsaber to one hand while focusing the Force for a push with the other, driving the pair of bounty hunters farther back. Snatching the lightsaber out of the air, he activated it with a grim look of satisfaction and swept the yellow blade in an arc before him, settling into a defensive posture and hesitating when he recognised Mek'Lee as one of his two opponents.

"I knew it." She glared at the blinking device still affixed to Obi-Wan's neck. "I knew it! Rakking Lamarin liars!" she snarled, lapsing into her native language in her anger and gripping her blaster so tightly that her hand shook.

Obi-Wan reached up and tapped the object of her rage, smiling faintly. "You've been taken for a fool," he said harshly. "This thing is all but useless, and it's not going to help you now."

He hadn't yet finished speaking when the Force leapt to his mental touch, alerting him to the other bounty hunter's intentions a fraction of a second before the man fired his blaster. The bolt was deflected into the bulkhead with an almost casual, one-handed stroke from the lightsaber; the blaster was torn from the human's grasp and batted against the opposite bulkhead with a second deceptively light blow.

"I have no intention of hurting you," Obi-Wan continued, taking the lightsaber in both hands again. "All I want is the ship."

"You can't have it."

Obi-Wan blinked at Mek'Lee. "I wasn't asking you for it. I'm taking it."

"And you think I'm going to let you?" the female bounty hunter demanded, her eyes narrowing. "I have an appointment to keep. It's not my fault you got yourself into trouble."

"But it is your fault that my companions are dead," Obi-Wan responded, ignoring the emotions aroused by that sentence. "And many more might die if you keep that appointment." There was a sense of unrealism to the situation now. He couldn't justify to himself why he was wasting time trying to reason with this woman when he had the power to resolve the conflict immediately, but it seemed necessary. Another feeling bothered him as well…dread.

"Not my problem," she replied, waving a hand dismissively, but the conviction in her voice wavered. "Money is money. Unfortunately, it's something I can't do without."

She's stalling. This thought had barely come to him when the deck lurched beneath his feet.

A self-satisfied smile appeared on Mek'Lee's face. "It's time to get paid."

The device on his neck screeched shrilly and vibrated; gasping, Obi-Wan felt the Force ripped from him, and he plunged forward in a desperate attempt to get past the bounty hunters, but was driven to his knees by blinding pain, slumping sideways into the bulkhead on his left. "No!" he cried, his mental grasp on the neural web slipping and leaving him completely alienated from the Force and its support. The inhibitor thrummed against his skin, warming with its increased activity, and Obi-Wan scrabbled at it, prepared to tear the thing out if he had to.

"You can't remove it," Mek'Lee informed him, her expression mocking. "That little contraption is more than adequate to stop you and your precious Force powers. Right now, it's releasing a drug into your system capable of disabling you within a minute. Even if you had the Force, you wouldn't have time to purge it before it takes effect."

Obi-Wan shuddered, the lightsaber falling from his hand and turning off automatically, clattering across the deck to rest at the feet of the male bounty hunter who snatched it up gleefully.

"Please, take it off!" He pulled at the inhibitor futilely, knowing what would happen – despite what Mek'Lee was saying, he hadn't been wrong about the device's inability to obstruct the neural web. It was activating on its own again, but something felt different this time, a larger power stirring inside him, touching parts of him that had so far been left unscathed by the web.

No, no! This isn't what I wanted! His struggle turned inward as the web expanded with a sudden, rapid burst of growth, tendrils of the artificial material penetrating specific areas of his brain and isolating others. It was gathering energy for another devastating purge, just like Banis…harvesting the Force-matrix and concentrating its power in his body, preparing to deal with the immediate threat of the inhibitor, as well as the perceived threat of the bounty hunters and, by extension, their ship.

"Take it off!" he howled at Mek'Lee, hunching into himself. Reason and purpose were vanishing swiftly, consumed by the web's filaments as they probed further into his brain, darkness seething through his thoughts. He reached out toward the woman imploringly, his face a contortion of pain and effort, battling unsuccessfully to regain control of the web. "Please! If you w-won't help me…h-help yourselves!"

Obi-Wan's frantic pleas appeared to be having an effect on Mek'Lee, her smile fading into an expression of apprehension, then alarm, slowly realising that something was amiss and that the Jedi should have lost consciousness by now had the drug been working properly. She drifted closer to him, her movements tense, but Obi-Wan knew that whatever action she might have taken was now too late. The web, achieving its climax, began expelling the Force levels that had accumulated in Obi-Wan's body in a gradual Force-push, focusing first on the inhibitor, which shrieked terribly and cracked, the flat metal casing splitting down the middle and breaking apart. Its hooked metal appendages pulled out of his neck, and the precisely halved pieces of the inhibitor dropped to the deck, liquid oozing from the breached, hollow shell.

Mek'Lee swayed back, buffeted by the push. "Tell me what to do!" she shouted at Obi-Wan, instinctively bringing her hands up against the invisible pressure.

Retching dryly and fighting for coherent thought, the Padawan gestured weakly at her blaster, which was still in her hand. "Shoot me," he gasped.

"What?" Mek'Lee faltered, staring at him. Around her, the bulkheads groaned and the very ship itself seemed to shudder with the stress of the Force-push, which was growing stronger with every passing second.

"Shoot at me. The…" His voice broke as a wave of agony washed through him, but he pressed on regardless. "The web should discharge completely by responding to the threat."

Mek'Lee lifted the blaster uncertainly, her hand shaking now not from anger, but fear, then let off a wildly-aimed bolt, the weapon jerking in her grip, before flinging it away from her. There was an excruciating heave through Obi-Wan's body and he screamed as the web emptied itself in a single, violent surge, overwhelming his senses and slamming him into the bulkhead. He heard a cry from Mek'Lee and a frightened shout from her companion, but his attention was on the awful sensation of the Force draining from his body, and the nauseating pull on his mind. The process took no more than a few seconds, leaving him trembling in its wake, as hollow and empty as the leaking inhibitor beside him on the deck. Blood spread wetly across his scalp where the impact of his skull against the bulkhead had opened a laceration, and his cheekbone throbbed harshly, but he was ignorant of both these fresh injuries and the old ones, capable only of frenzied relief. It worked…with the danger removed, the implant was slipping back into dormancy.

Dragging a breath into his aching lungs, Obi-Wan opened his eyes and saw Mek'Lee crouched on the deck, clutching her head protectively; farther up the corridor, the other bounty hunter stood aghast, Tiperis' lightsaber dangling loosely in his hand. The light around them flickered and brightened, shifting to a paler colour, and Obi-Wan stared about him, appalled by the damage he saw. Doors had buckled, some blown inward; the plates of the deck had warped, and even the bulkheads had been distorted; broad, ugly streaks of discolouration tarnished the metal. Mek'Lee's blaster, the focal point of the web's purge, had been mangled almost beyond recognition.

What had he been thinking, trying to manipulate the neural web? He had known better, yet he had ignored common sense in his urgency to escape, his judgement overridden by his concern for Qui-Gon. By the Force, he could have destroyed the whole ship, and how would that have helped his Master?

Perhaps aiding Qui-Gon wasn't the dominant factor in this situation – his loss of control had felt external, as though it had been taken from him rather than a fault on his part. He had been in command of the web, he was certain of it, so who had the power to seize control? Not the bounty hunters, for they had been utterly dependant on the inhibitor to disable him. Who?

The answer came to him quite literally: a woman appeared at the end of the corridor, moving confidently past Mek'Lee and the human and coming to a stop in front of him, settling easily onto her knees and taking his face in her hands. "Obi-Wan…I'm sorry, child." Her eyes were dark as she stroked his unharmed cheek, the slim fingers of her other hand gently probing at the wound across his temple and following it toward his ear. "I couldn't let you escape."

Sashri, the High Priestess of Lamari – the woman who, for a few short days, had been his mentor, his friend; who had betrayed him and damned him in those same days. She was here, and she had betrayed him once more. "I trusted you," he whispered, frozen in shock.

"I know," she replied, bowing her head and leaning back. "I can't ask you to understand, and I can't explain my actions, but you have to come with me. We will bring an end to this soon, I promise, and then you won't have to suffer anymore."

His head drooped forward, touching hers, his eyes closing and tears seeping between the clenched eyelids. "You're going to kill me." His voice was soft, loud enough only for her to hear, and he choked on a sob when he felt her nod silently, then slumped forward against her as she touched a hypospray to the back of his neck.

Master…I tried.

tbc…