Neniae: Wow. That was a long review. Put it this way. At the moment it's physically impossible for Qui-Gon to find Obi-Wan at the slave market because he's already been sold into a factory, so he won't be finding Obi-Wan that way. Isn't it sad, becasue i've made him search for Obi-Wan in the wrong place for 6 months. Aren't i mean? Thankyou for your offer on the lyrics but i won't take it up because i've based like the whole theme of the story on the 'windmill lyrics'. I even named the story after it so i'll just re-use the lyrics, in an attempt to imprint them onto your mind! MUAWHAHAHAHA! Arigatou anyway!
Obiwanfan: I did get my 50 reviews!!!! YAY! YAY! YAY!!!!! I"m sooooo happy!! I'm sooo happy!!! Hang on, i'm going to get myself slightly intoxicated to celebrate this special event!!! I might even print them off and frame them!!!
Culf: Trust me, this one has got a while to go. I think it's going to be a trilogy. I think this one will go to about Ch12 and then i'll continue on another one. But put it this way, it will be pretty long. Thanks for your vote of confidence!
Can someone please tell me the name of the 'Bashing of Obi-Wan' book? I might get my library to order it in, it's the very first one in the series isn't it? What's it called? I really want to read this!
****Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
- The Windmills Of Your Mind
****Obi-Wan looked at his pitiful ration of food and carefully divided it in two. Making sure that no one was looking his way he wolfed down one portion and then scraped the other portion into his hand which he stored in his pocket. He gave Billy his best 'sad-puppy-dog-eyes' and said, "I'm still hungry!"
Billy rolled her eyes and tried to keep her face still as she looked at Obi-Wan trying to look 'cute', "Well, duh. You were the one that suggested that we should stockpile some rations and therefore decided to cut our already small rations in half! So now, in our room, we have around 5 days worth of food, which I might add is going off! Although this unpleasant turn of events is countered by the fact that since we have so much mould growing on the food we're probably carrying enough bacta or penicillin to heal the world!"
Obi-Wan winced at her tone of voice, "So you think that that was a bad idea?"
Billy allowed her straight face to crumple and she broke into a grin. "Well, no. The fundamental idea was okay………"
Obi-Wan relaxed, although something was bothering him. Billy's straight, devoid-of-emotion-face had given him a weird sense of deja-vu. The feeling had made his stomach churn with….with what? Sorrow, mental anguish and pain, guilt, remorse, love, pride? It was complicated. (What is with me? Memories about non-existing Hutts, a friend called Bant??? And now this. Why would a straight face cause so many emotions so widely ranged?) Obi-Wan debated silently with himself if he should tell Billy.
(Tell her, shes your friend!)
(But she wouldn't understand)
(Why not, shes been with you this whole time)
(Well, yeah but---)
(Through thick and thin)
(Hang on but---)
(When she just met you she befriended you)
(Yeah, but listen to me---)
(When the guards were starving you)
(But this is dif---)
(She got you food)
(Wait up!---)
(When the guards were beating you up)
(Hey! Stop using this agains---)
(She was there to clean you up)
(Yes but---)
(And shes been there for you every since she met you)
(SHUTTUP!!!)
(I think she deserves to be told)
(SHUTTUP!!)
(Well, you wanted an informed opinion)
(I wanted a fair debate!)
(I call that fair, you now know which side you should take)
(I know what I side I should take, therefore I won't tell her!)
(Hang on----)
(HAH! You shut up for once, what the hell do you know???!?!?!)
(As much as you actually….)
Obi-Wan sighed, fighting against yourself was a losing battle, no matter who won. But for some reason he had decided to not tell Billy. (God knows what she'd think of me then). Obi-Wan realized that he was actually a coward.
(Well, not actually a 'coward' in speaking, just shying away from the painful, uh, truth? Truth is not the word for it….)
(SHUTUP!) Obi-Wan mentally shot, strangled, and threw the inner voice into the deepest, darkest dungeon and broke off the key in the lock. (TAKE THAT!) Obi-Wan woke up to the fact that someone was talking to him.
"456! 456! Are you listening to me?"
"Huh?" Obi-Wan grimaced inwardly, Billy was not going to like the fact that he had zoned out on her, (But I had a good reason………..) he tried to make up feeble excuses.
"Am I really that boring?"
"I don't know. I stopped listening about 2 minutes ago." He grinned nervously trying to break Billy's emotionless face. (That face. My stomach. Why does a blank face bother me so much?).
Billy let a grin creep around her face and shook her head. (No matter what, he's always busy doing something else).
"I said, I can't find any way to get out of this building. It's like a trap or something. There is absolutely no way that I can find to leave it. Apart from that, what are we going to do about the transmitters and stuff?" Billy threw her hands up for emphasis.
Obi-Wan shrugged, "I'm sure a situation will present itself………….."(Hang on, what did I say? Why would I think that?)
"Oh, it will will it? Why do I think not?" Billy lifted her eyebrows, "You're very………relaxed about the whole thing shall we say?"
Obi-Wan dropped his head into his hands and massaged his temples, "I'm sorry Billy. I just feel, I don't know. I'm feeling pretty tired and all. Let's just talk about this later or something ok? Lets just take this food back to our rooms." He stood abruptly and left.
Billy stared at his retreating back with an agape mouth (Ok, did he just snap at me?? That boy just snapped at me. When he has never said anything curt before. Do boys experience PMS?). Then she came to her senses and rushed after Obi-Wan, "Hey, 456! Wait up! What's wrong?"
Obi-Wan sighed as the girl skidded to his side, "Nothing. I'm sorry Billy. I just haven't been feeling well these last couple of weeks."
"What's wrong?" Billy's voice grew motherly and she gently lay her hand upon Obi-Wan's forehead to check his temperature.
"NOTHING!" Obi-Wan snapped, angry at himself for arguing with himself, angry at himself for not knowing what these flashes are, angry at himself for getting these strange feelings, angry for being a slave, angry for Billy caring and most of all, angry for not knowing who he is.
Billy withdrew her hand startled by the harshness in the boy's voice, "Ok, then. What ever you think 456." She started walking quickly in front and called back over her shoulder, "Let's get this food away shall we?"
Obi-Wan cursed at his roughness and tried to offer a branch of peace, "Look I'm sorry Billy………."
"Look, you can do and think what you want 456. You don't need me to answer to everything." Billy didn't even turn around but kept on walking.
Obi-Wan skidded in front of her, forcing her to stop, "Look. Please Billy. I'm really, really sorry. I can't do this without you. I really can't. Please, I'm sorry." He spoke to her desperately, feeling his heart hammering inside his chest.
Billy looked the boy up and down and allowed a grin to form around her face, "Ok 456. Just don't do it again."
"Deal!" Then trying to get back on track, "So how much food do you think we have?"
"Around 5 days, give or take."
"Ok. Well, we still need to find a way out, how to disable our transmitters and how to escape the juanks."
"Oh shit. I forgot about them. What are we going to do about them?"
"Run."
"Run?"
"Yep. Run really really fast!"
"Oh, great plan 456. I can see that that one took a lot of planning. Are you so sure that you want to go through with this?"
"Yes Billy. I've said it over and over again. I'm going to get out of here, with or without your help!"
"Alrite, alright, calm down boy!" Billy spread her hands in front of her.
"I've been here for almost ½ a year. Don't you understand Billy? I can't stay here for the rest of my life. I need to find out who I am, where I came from, I need to find my family." The boys eyes had misted over and he looked solidly at the floor.
"I do understand 456. Trust me I do." Billy sighed (I don't have any family. Mine were killed in front of me. I don't have any loose ends to clean up. I know who I am. I am Billy the slave. I've been one since I was 7. It is now my life.)
"Then you understand why I have to go?"
"Yes" They were at the dorms. Billy climbed up the ladder first to get to their bunks. Obi-Wan stood at the base of the bunk, holding the food. "Ok, 456. Chuck it up here!"
Obi-Wan took aim and carefully threw the food up to Billy who gracefully caught it. She then opened up the bunk and cautiously stashed the food under the padding and cloth. It had taken her and Obi-Wan a full night to carefully cut away the cloth, move the padding aside to create a little niche in which to store the food. They had then replaced the padding and cloth on top of the food to make it look normal and to stop them from unconsciously crushing the food in their sleep.
Suddenly a voice echoed through the hall, "Who's there? Show yourself!"
"Shit! Guards!" Obi-Wan hissed through clenched teeth, "Get down NOW Billy!" He watched anxiously as Billy slid silently down the ladder and came to stand alongside him, "What now?"
"Now, I guess we show ourselves. You do the talking."
"Ok" she whispered to Obi-Wan then raising her voice and keeping her head meekly down she said to the guard, "It's only us slaves."
The guard visibly relaxed. He was new to the job and still trying to work out what to do and what not to do. "Alright then. Come out here into the light."
Billy and Obi-Wan quickly but silently came to stand in front of the guard, making sure they offered a humble appearance. The guard took in the 2 bedraggled, gangly, ½ starved figures in front of him with astonishment. He was only new and seeing humans treated like this was definitely a new experience. So he took pity on them, "You slaves aren't meant to be here but I'll let you go this one time. If I catch you again I'm afraid that I'll have to report you to the authorities."
Obi-Wan and Billy shivered slightly but a feeling of deep relief washed over them at the man's unusually kind words.
The guard consulted his datapad and continued, "You are to proceed to the main auditorium, apparently the whole work force is being given new work stations and destinations."
The relief had been in the two were suddenly swept away under the heavy feeling of apprehension. (What are they going to do?) Instead, Billy replied, "Thank you sir." Gave a slight bow, turned and walked quickly away. The guard watched them go and continued on his rounds.
"What are they doing?"
"As you said, it's been nearly 6 months so they might be rotating the work force around to give them new jobs, or there's going to be a purging of the system or a group are being sold and the remaining have to take up their jobs or something like that. To be quite frank with you 456, I have absolutely no idea. I just pulled that all off the top of my head."
"Oh, ok. That's not very comforting. What happens if we get separated?"
"Hopefully, we won't."
They entered the auditorium and Obi-Wan ruthlessly crushed his feeling of fear and apprehension. He had never actually been in here before and the auditorium was huge. It managed to fit all the slaves, which counted up to be around 5000, easily. Everyone was already assembled there and the slave-masters were on the stage. As Obi-Wan and Billy joined the ranks the master's voice reached them effortlessly.
"A group of slaves have been sold off-world to our sister-company. If your number is called you will be taken right now, loaded onto a ship and taken away. If you try to resist you will be terminated." The voiced droned on without any compassion, not even noticing the level of fear in the building. Obi-Wan and Billy held hands and offered up prayers to anyone that was listening, that the chosen ones would not be them.
"894, 345, 257, 482, 567, 908, 123, 234, 231, 352, 245, 444, 5657, 34876, 68786, 67468, 5787689, 564, 68789, 78895, 67895, 6799585, 673, 6886, 679568, 3464, 5687……." The voice just kept on going, listing the slaves. Obi-Wan had his eyes shut and breathed an audible sigh of relief when the master finished and neither him nor Billy had been sold.
"Those called move now." There was a ruffle of cloth throughout the building as around 100 slaves left. Obi-Wan looked around and saw the many tears sliding people's cheeks, saw the anguish written on their faces, saw the unabashed relief on other people's faces. Doesn't matter that they were slaves to these people this place was their home. (But being a slave doesn't exactly offer you stability) Obi-Wan darkly thought.
"Right. Listen up!" The master's voice cut through the slaves despair, "Since it is ½ way through the year, we will be having stocktake. A few select few will be trained in using the computers to keep record and trace every part that we've used to assemble our weapons. They will record every shipment that we've sent off, and who we've sent them to, and how much it cost. Those whose numbers are called will leave the auditorium now."
Obi-Wan once more closed his eyes and hoped that it would not be him or Billy.
"567, 435, 768, 67876, 78656, 5674, 56787, 56778, 56758, 2343, 456, 21123, 4567, 23552, 4563."
He heard Billy gasp and felt her hand tense inside his, he opened his eyes slowly (Oh, no. Please no. Please tell me I heard wrong.) He turned to stare at Billy and saw tears in her eyes but she rapidly blinked them away and whispered frantically to him, "It's ok. It just means that we won't see each other while working. You'll still be in the same dorm, we can still eat lunch together. All that changes is that you'll be working on the computers rather then carrying boxes around. It'll be fine." She gave him a quick hug as he turned to leave.
"See you tonight Billy." He murmured softly and then slipped away through the crowd.
"Yeah. See you tonight 456." She replied to no one. She hardly heard the rest of the master's instructions. She and Obi-Wan hadn't been away from each other ever since they met. They were at least always in the same room. (But everything will be fine. What can go wrong? Argh, those words always spell doom when used in the same thought with 456). All she gathered from the master's instructions was that she was going to be on the assembly line as normal, except they were going to have to work harder, having to make up for the lost slaves. She sighed, (Great. Work harder. Work faster. Why don't they just install droids????) She then answered her own question with a frown (Because we are expendable, you can't mistreat droids, they cost too much.)
"I hope 456 is alright." She whispered as she too left the building, heading in the opposite direction to the one the Obi-Wan went. "Please let him be alright."
****Just in case anyone was wondering. Nothing is going on between Obi-Wan and Billy and nothing will continue to happen between them. They are just very close friends and that's it. If you want romance, i'm afriad that you're going to have to look elsewhere. Sorry.