KAYWANTHA
by Vicki Vance
Summary: A light mission for Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan turns out to require more involvement than originally planned. Ranges from deep drama to quip humor.
Rated PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing, so I am making no profit from this.
Author's note: You get a golden balloon if you can tell me what the meaning of a certain planet's name is. Here's a clue: it has nothing to do with Star Wars.
It was late afternoon when the Jedi team shuffled into a taxi that would take them from the Temple to the Senate Chambers. They intended to speak to Senator Rebine Roemohn in person in order to gather a way to possibly get Pikinel to go with them. They'd slept in from the previous night's work, planned to be with the senator that afternoon and at the Bass Beat Rock Club that night.
Qui-Gon seated himself by the window; Obi-Wan had lost the rock-paper-laser cutter earlier. Obi-Wan sat rubbing his hot, bruised cheek and wondered how he was going to approach Pikinel again without scaring her or scarring himself.
Qui-Gon felt the taxi shudder and levitate and watched the landing pad beneath them fall away. Building tops skimmed by like passing squares on a checkered board. Every so often the buildings would reorganize from their pattern to another in account of the curve of the planet. The multiple Senate buildings came into view; there were many more than just the Senatorial room. The Congress of the Republic needed a lot of room. Qui-Gon didn't see why. They needed only a place to work, a place to sleep, and a place to communicate with their planets. They didn't necessarily need massive convention rooms, entire strips of diners (every Senator's personal quarters came with a kitchen and room service), soundstages for entertainment, or a random assortment of shops with shopkeepers eager to take their money.
The taxi landed just inside the outskirts of the collection of buildings. They ambled out with the rest of the crowd and split away from them going towards the Senatorial Chambers, the place where the delegates lived.
They were stopped at the gate by a guard.
"Good afternoon, sirs," he said. Although his words were kind, his tone was not. "Help you with something?"
"I'm Qui-Gon Jinn and this is Obi-Wan Kenobi," Qui-Gon said. "We have an urgent meeting with Senator Rebine Roemohn."
Obi-Wan glanced at him. He hadn't been aware the meeting was urgent.
The guard scrolled for their names on a datapad. He stopped and grunted.
"Quee-Gon, you said?"
"Qui-Gon," he corrected.
"All right," he muttered, opened the durasteel door with a press of a button. "Here's his room number."
Qui-Gon took the small card from him. It read 241. It was a number familiar to him from somewhere, but he couldn't remember where.
He followed along the long curving halls. Obi-Wan followed at his heels and cleared his throat.
"I have a question," he said.
"Evidently."
"Why is this meeting urgent?"
"A regular meeting could take weeks to schedule," Qui-Gon explained. "You see, the Congress operates mainly in procedure and planning but, unfortunately, there is little action. Urgent is just a step down from emergency. It means we get in the day we want, today, for instance."
Obi-Wan nodded and didn't ask any more questions. Qui-Gon was pleased to see they'd come to the 420's. He was soon buzzing the door marked 241.
The door opened and a nervous-looking aide was standing in the doorframe.
"Why are you here?" he asked. He sounded like he was trying to be brave but his voice was high and he was obviously scared.
"We are Jedi here to see the senator," Qui-Gon said in a soothing tone.
"Oh, let them in, Frank," some one said from within the room. The aide stepped aside to let them enter. He eyed Obi-Wan with suspicion and Obi-Wan gave him a quizzical look.
Senator Rebine Roemohn rose from his chair at the table, his loose ropey clothes lined with furs hanging lightly from his thin arms and slender shoulders. His face wasn't as red as Qui-Gon had been expecting and he supposed it was a sign of aging. His hair was styled nicely so he could comb it over his balding spot.
"Qui-Gon Jinn, I take it," the senator said, shaking his hand. "I've been expecting you. And this young lad is your son?"
"My Padawan learner," Qui-Gon corrected as Obi-Wan shook his hand. Obi-Wan looked faintly surprised at being asked if he was Qui-Gon's son. The Jedi hadn't been asked often if they were related; most beings understood the tutelage of Jedi and knew he was his student. "His name is Obi-Wan Kenobi."
"You're what, sixteen?" Roemohn asked him. "As old as my Pikinel?"
"I'm fifteen, senator," Obi-Wan said.
"Ah, yes," he answered distractedly. "Have a seat, please."
He continued to ramble on as they seated themselves on the plush U-shaped fur coach across from him.
"I love kids. I have three of them. Pikinel's the oldest and the only one with me here on Coruscant. Terik and Witnam, my two boys, are home on Mebyl with their mother. You know, before I was a senator I worked for a babysitting company back home. What a change of occupations!"
Qui-Gon smiled politely before sobering to a serious face. He wondered if the senator was always like this or if it was nerves. He thought it was probably both.
"I made it clear in my message that we would need more information to successfully bring your daughter back to you," Qui-Gon said. "Obi-Wan has already spoken with her but she doesn't seem keen to returning, at least with us. I believe she finds us intimidating."
Roemohn smiled ruefully. "Pikinel isn't the type of girl that gets intimidated easily. She was always bossing Terik and Witnam around whenever they played together."
"Now she's not playing," Qui-Gon said gently. Roemohn nodded uncomfortably.
"I wish it was still that easy," he said sorrowfully. Qui-Gon saw a worried, nervous father. He was probably hurting a lot, too.
"We want to help as much as we can," Qui-Gon told him. "And to do that we need as much helpful information as we can get our hands on. Can you start by telling us why she left?"
"Oh, Master Jedi, Pikinel is a good girl," he said earnestly. "She's a very intelligent child. A gifted musician, also. I know she is of the rebellious sort, but she's completely harmless."
Qui-Gon half-expected Obi-Wan to say something, but the teen only rubbed his bruised cheek.
"Yes, well, I'd brought her here for what we planned to be a year. She'd be away from school and we could spend more time together. After all, she is growing up and needs her father to buy her cute outfits. But, a month ago, she ran away from me. She took her several hundred credits and just disappeared. I ordered a search of course and the party found her in a nightclub, but she refused to return. Since then she's been hiding between clubs, always on the move, like some silly nomad."
His manner had been wavering from ruefully happy to sad and now was dipping toward depression. It was hard for Qui-Gon to sit and watch the nervous man crumble before him.
"She hasn't spoken to me for as long as she's been gone. The last thing she said to me was she hated me." he said, looking Qui-Gon in the eye. "Do you have any children, Master Jinn? No? Then you don't know how harsh a child can be. You give them love and they slap you. You feed them and they yell at you. You shelter them, clothe them, give them anything they want, and you get nothing but cruelty in return."
"Did she have reason to leave you?" Qui-Gon asked. He had asked the same question five minutes ago, only it was worded differently.
"Well, uh," he said, waving a hand. "The reason is unimportant."
"But there is a reason?" he pressed. "She just didn't up and go? There is an actual reason?"
"Well, I, in laymen's terms, stole Kaywantha."
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan exchanged a glance. Initially, the senator had been making it sound like his daughter was heartless and angry, yet it was he who was turning out to be the bad guy, but the odd thing was he didn't seem to realize it.
"Why did you take the jewel?" Qui-Gon asked.
"Oh, the reason is simple," Roemohn said delicately. "There is, er, doubt that the jewel is genuine. You see, there was a rumor of a heist so perfectly made that no one noticed it. The replacement jewel looked so real no one knew it was fake. Naturally, with such a rumor loose, I didn't want my people to live in that kind of upset wonder, so I brought it with me to Coruscant. I planned to take it to a renowned jeweler to discern if it was real. Unfortunately, Pikinel learned of what I had done and left me."
"How did she learn?" Qui-Gon asked. "I can only assume you kept this acquirement secret, it seems so."
"Well," Roemohn said a bit hotly. "I'll only say that certain aides do not know when to keep their mouths shut." he shot a threatening look at the young man. "Probably flirting with Pikinel for all I know."
"Frank Furder never flirts with any girl who can't drop her look-at-me-I'm-tough act," he said testily.
"Get out of here, elder-hater!" Roemohn snapped. The aide turned a left with a huff.
Unsure of what to think, Qui-Gon asked, "And where is the jewel now?"
The senator squirmed in his fur couch, making a little trench for him to hide in. Unfortunately, he was in very clear view of the Jedi.
"Kaywantha, the Jewel of the Community in Mebyli, is in the hands of my daughter.
"So much for an easy mission," Obi-Wan grumbled as they neared the nightclub.
"Perhaps after this we can baby-sit a fabool," Qui-Gon commented offhandedly. "All right, when you get in there, try to get her where she can't call security."
"And where would that be?"
"Not her dressing room," he said. "Try to speak to her at the close of the night. Try not to appear intimidating and, for Force's sake, don't show her your lightsaber."
"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan muttered, parting from Qui-Gon, who settled into the shadows.
He got in fairly easily, more so than the night before. He knew to be strong when getting past the Trandoshen at the door. He was ready for the explosion of sound that smashed into him when he opened the door inside. His eyes quickly adjusted to scene that lay before, looking no different from the night before. Teens were swaying all around him, junkies huddled in tight masses and the performers pounded out tunes.
He spotted Pikinel right away. She was on the drums, pounding at them like she was tenderizing meat. Obi-Wan thought if that girl ever had a hammer it'd mean the end of the galaxy.
The song ended with a clever and elaborate bass jizz guitar plucking in synch with her steady drumroll. The crowd cheered and the performers waved at them.
Pikinel got up to go to the bass jizz guitar, glancing over the crowd. She stopped short; she'd seen Obi-Wan. It hadn't been hard for two reasons: he was the only person not in black, and he was the only person not cheering. She pulled a pimply-faced girl close to her and whispered into her ear. Obi-Wan instinctively stepped halfway behind an obese Rodian in front or him and watched Pikinel hurry offstage to her room. He started to thread over, but he saw the surly Trandoshen and burly Wookiee that had thrown him out the night before positioning themselves at her door. He melted back into the crowd and began to jump with them to the next song (he couldn't understand at all what the singers were mumbling and roaring).
Luckily for him, he and Qui-Gon had arrived later in the night, expecting to catch Pikinel at the end of the night. Therefore, the song was the last for the night. After it ended, a few kids around him started to get energized.
"Pike is up now," they said. "Every night, she gets closing tune. Stang, I love listening to her."
"She's so pretty."
"Dag, what's the wait?"
"Isn't she supposed to be up now?"
"No, really. Smoking Munto-Dodru grass fertilizer is better than the grass itself."
"Truly? What a serendipity!"
"Oh, bite me, you peedunkel!"
"With pleasure!"
The pimply-faced girl Pikinel had spoken to approached the mike and lowered it twenty centimeters so it she speak into it. The Wookiee who had used it before scratched his head in wonder as she said, "Pike can't sing tonight. She's not feeling too well. I'm sorry."
There was an instant subdued uproar. Apparently, hearing Pikinel sing was the highlight of the evening and it was upsetting a lot of people. Before any fights could break out, the security personnel were escorting the crowd out. Obi-Wan snuck past a Togorian scooting a Chadra-Fan out and inched closer to Pikinel's room.
He suddenly sensed danger. It was unnervingly nearby.
Qui-Gon looked up from the shadows he was standing in. He sensed danger nearby and he didn't like the closeness.
Letting his sense of good will get the better of him he wandered towards the back of the club, the place where he felt the danger emitting from. He lingered there for a little while, his hand on his lightsaber.
To Be Continued…