"Well, mending perfectly well, Master Jinn; perfectly!" Doctor Monta gleefully reported the next morning in the medcenter. When the three Jedi had arrived, the doctor had made them all drink sleeping draughts as he mended Qui-Gon so they could all get the sleep they needed. Not accustomed to being made to drink a drug-laced drink to catch some good sleep, all of the Jedi had been snoring within minutes.
Qui-Gon smiled slightly at the round little doctor's enthusiasm but refrained from saying anything other than, "So did the bacta tank heal it solidly enough for me to walk on it right now?"
Doctor Monta nodded eagerly. "Yes, yes but you still will need one more dip in the tank, Master Jinn, to avoid further complications. Take it easy and don't leave this medical center again until you've taken that dive in the tank, eh? I'll let your apprentice in to see you now. He's been awake two hours longer than you and has been very persistent to come in, very persistent."
Obi-Wan practically burst through the recovery room door as the doctor left the room, grinning from ear to ear. "Master! How good to see you looking so well today!"
"Yes," Qui-Gon dryly commented, experimentally lifting and bending his knee on the bed. "So the doctor was just telling me. How are you feeling today?"
"Great!" Was the automatic reply, but Qui-Gon sensed that something was troubling him. Raising a bushy eyebrow, he prompted a sheepish, "Well, maybe not all that great, Master. It has to do with Luke."
"Oh?"
Obi-Wan's grin now had faded completely and his face was earnest. "Master, I can't feel him at all anymore. I used to have those strange reactions whenever we were close together but now it's as if he's not even in the Force."
"Where is he now?" Qui-Gon inquired. "Have you seen him at all this morning?"
Obi-Wan shook his head. "No, Master. He was in the other recovery room next to yours but the doctor won't let me in. I was too concerned about your condition to really think about why."
Gently swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed and gingerly testing his weight on his mostly-healed leg, Qui-Gon glanced at his Padawan. "Then we'd better go see about our 'future' guest, shouldn't we?"
"Yes, Master."
With Obi-Wan following him, the older Jedi emerged into the main room that housed the bacta tank and found himself staring at a grim Doctor Monta. The little man had his arms folded over his chest and looked as impassable as a stone wall.
"I'm afraid I know what you want, Master Jinn, and I cannot allow you in there," the doctor stated resolutely.
Slightly taken aback, Qui-Gon blinked but said calmly, "Doctor, we have to figure out how much time we have to get him back to his era. We need to see him to discuss exact details of this explosion he was in so we can try to recreate it."
The doctor thought for a moment, sized up his and Obi-Wan's determined looks, and then sighed as he unfolded his arms. "There's not much time, I'm afraid, Jedi. There won't be much talking, do you understand? Please don't tire him out too much." With that last warning, Doctor Monta crossed to the other recovery room's door, unlocked it with a specific passcode and opened the door to let them enter the dimly lit room.
When Qui-Gon saw Luke, he silently agreed that there indeed was no time left for the Jedi from the future. Luke was now the height of a ten-year-old and was currently breathing with the help of a strange-looking breathing apparatus that also monitored his heartbeat. His heart was functioning erratically, pausing in-between beeps every once in a while.
"Oh no…" He heard Obi-Wan breathe from behind him.
Very softly, Qui-Gon called out Luke's name while focusing the Force into his call to reach the Jedi on the other plane of existence that he dwelled in. For a few moments, nothing happened except the silent watchfulness of the doctor pressing in on the Jedi.
With a rapid surge in heartbeat, Luke opened his eyes, still the ice-blue of his maturity. Taking the mask off of his face, he propped himself up on one elbow gently. "Yes?" He asked, his deep voice sounding eerie in the ten-year-old body.
"While you are with us, please state again what happened before you woke in the bacta tank in our time era," Qui-Gon requested, keeping his voice soft only for the benefit of the jumpy doctor.
Luke frowned. "I was tracking pirates and there was an explosion. One of the pirates stated something about an exploding gas and also said that it was a 'special cargo'. I don't know what kind of gas it could have been."
Obi-Wan's eyes were wide as he turned to Qui-Gon. "Master, if the gas caused the explosion to be massive enough to rent time itself…" He trailed off, his excitement growing, his mind churning with the very few possibilities.
Qui-Gon sensed where his Padawan's thoughts were running through their bond and a smile began to blossom on his face as well. Turning to Luke, he said, "There are two gases that are explosive that would also be considered 'special cargo' to pirates and smugglers, at least in our time. Nibenna and Clanoric. Nibenna is an odorless, tasteless gas that is highly explosive. When impacted with proton torpedoes or even blasters, it has the ability to level five city blocks and more. Clanoric is the same, but is slightly less explosive and burns brightly when fired at. Which do you think this could be?"
Closing his eyes tightly to allow himself to focus more deeply into the Force, Luke pondered for a moment. When the Force prompted him, he answered with every certainty, "Nibenna."
Exchanging looks between themselves, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan nodded. "We can get that," they said together, smiling.
"NO! No, no, no, no, no! You are not taking my patient out of here at this critical time and simulating a blast that could very well kill him! No! I forbid it!" Doctor Monta exclaimed, waving his pudgy arms in the air like a windmill.
"But I don't," came a tired voice from behind him. Turning around, the doctor saw the rapidly shrinking Luke being supported by Obi-Wan Kenobi as they exited the recovery room. "Doc, I have to try. I don't belong here and I'm messing things up while I'm here. Even if this kills me, I'm going to die anyway slowly and painfully as my body shrinks into nothing. Truth be told, I'd rather die in one single blast of battle than just simply becoming nothing." Luke smiled a little from his now three-foot height.
Doctor Monta dropped his arms and looked a little deflated as he saw Luke's resolve. Pondering the strangeness of the galaxy for a moment, the doctor let out an exasperated sigh. "Are all Jedi stubborn?"
Obi-Wan forced a smile. "Most of us." Now that it was time for Luke to leave, Obi-Wan found that he had millions of unasked questions about the future that he wanted to ask. Now he would not have a chance to talk to Luke without his master's constant presence. A source full of the unspeakable, changing future right here, leaning on him, and now they were going to attempt to blow him up to get him back to where he belonged. Life was full of ironies.
The doctor followed Obi-Wan and Luke outside to where Qui-Gon waited with a borrowed landspeeder. Inside the landspeeder also sat the woman from the house where Obi-Wan and Luke had found Qui-Gon the night before and a man with a strong jaw line and flaming red hair.
As Luke was helped into the back of the landspeeder by the woman and man, Obi-Wan leaned over the driver's side to talk to his master. "Who is the man?"
Qui-Gon smiled. "He's a jumpy sort, Padawan. He'll only give me his last name and that is a strange one. He wants me to call him Jade. The woman still won't reveal a first or last name to me. She says all I need to know is that she's the man's girlfriend. I think they've been so long on the opposite side of the law from Jedi that having three of us in one place has them rather scared out of their wits." He chuckled at the situation.
Luke suddenly beamed, listening as he was to their conversation. "Jade, was it?" He asked the man.
Instantly suspicious, the man sank backwards into the seat beside Luke. He eyed the short, child-like Jedi. "Yeah. Why?"
Luke laughed, a genuine belly laugh that left him breathless for a moment. When he was able to talk again, he choked out, "No reason I can tell you."
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. It must be something with the future that dealt with this couple. No wonder Luke had seemed to have a strange perplexity when he had met the woman.
The doctor was wringing his hands. "I still don't like this; don't like this at all but if you're determined then I wish you luck, Master Skywalker. I suggest you hurry, though, before the process is irreversible."
Qui-Gon nodded. "We will return, Doctor Monta, after the process to let you know how it worked." So saying, the elder Jedi quickly set off for the spaceport to where the ship he and Obi-Wan had come in on still was berthed with Luke's ship inside it. The pilot had decided to take a vacation while he could.
Obi-Wan, in the front passenger seat, turned around to face Luke. "What's your ship called? How fast can it go? Does it have hyperdrive? How many engines? Does it fit an artoo unit or something else?"
Qui-Gon could not help himself from laughing at his apprentice's barrage of questions. "Obi-Wan…" He started to try to rebuke as he steered into the main city area.
Luke, the size of a six-year-old, held up a hand to show Qui-Gon he didn't mind. Smiling as he remembered his own love of anything that flew when he was younger and stuck on Tatooine, he could understand Obi-Wan's questions. He bet Obi-Wan had been waiting to ask him the entire time they had accidentally met, but Qui-Gon's capture had stalled their conversation.
"It's called an X-wing because of the way it looks with its wings separated in battle. Yes, it has hyperdrive; it can go point four past lightspeed now that Han has worked on it—never mind, someone I met after I met you in the future; it has two engines and it does fit an artoo unit. In fact, I recall that I triggered Artoo to escape right before the blast caught up with me. I wonder if he made it outside the blast area…" He trailed off as emotions overtook him. He missed his sister and friends, and especially Mara. Sitting beside her parents made him ache to hold her again in his arms. If this recreation didn't work…
Sobering, he rode the rest of the way to the landing bays in silence. The other Jedi sensed his mood and left him alone, Obi-Wan smothering his many questions to give him space. Wincing as a stomach spasm hit him, he squeezed his eyes shut briefly. The spasms all over his body were getting more frequent. Usually, after a bad spell of spasms, he'll find that he had shrunk another inch or so. If this kept up, he wouldn't make it into his X-wing.
The landspeeder jolted to a halt, forcing his eyes open again. To his surprise, they were directly in front of a landing bay already. The landing bays he knew of Tangoria stretched for hundreds of kilometers in either direction of the city. Obviously, that build up of the planet must happen further in the future.
Qui-Gon bent down to pick Luke up. Luke wanted to protest but he seriously suspected his legs, shortened as they were, would not hold his weight.
Mara's mother and father were standing, looking all around them at the ships, trying to find the closest one off-planet. Finding one three bays down, the couple linked arms after giving the Jedi short waves, and rushed off to try to buy passage. Seeing them retreat down the dusty road made Luke even sadder.
"Come on," Qui-Gon said softly. "It's time to return you to where you need to go."
The three Jedi entered the landing bay where the medium-sized transport waited, the dull lights gleaming off the polish of the ship. Since Luke had been unconscious and half-dead when they had all been here that first day, Luke soaked up the sights of the past models of the modern transports he flew occasionally now. Not much was different, actually.
When Luke saw the condition of his X-wing, still slanted sideways in the bay of the transport, he groaned out loud. "Let me down, please," he commanded in despair, his eyes absorbing the extent of the damage. Qui-Gon complied without a word and stood beside Obi-Wan as Luke forced his legs to take him closer to the ship that he had had since he joined the Rebellion.
Running a hand along the scorch marks all over the once-sleek nose of his ship, he wanted to cry—an absurd thing for an aged Jedi to do over a mechanical. Only by seeing the damage to the X-wing did he for the first time fully see how close he had been to joining his father and Ben in the Force.
Ben…
He turned back to face the young Obi-Wan. The thought of Ben's spirit and his death predominately in his mind made him dizzy as he faced the living, younger version of Ben. He almost fell as his leg chose just then to spasm so he sat down heavily, the borrowed robe of Obi-Wan's pooling around and under him.
Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon approached him slowly, seeming like two brown-robed ghosts coming to finally take him to his final peace. Sighing, Luke allowed Qui-Gon to once again pick him up and to place him in his cockpit—which was extremely big to him now. He could barely see over the front controls.
He reached out to toggle the switch that would close the cockpit canopy, his sleeve hanging well over the end of his fingers, but found he was several inches too short to reach it. Frowning slightly, he focused into the Force and flipped the switch, just to see if the canopy would lower to protect him from the atmosphere and airlessness of space. Once he was satisfied that the canopy hadn't been too damaged in the first explosion, he once again flipped the switch to retract the canopy.
"Satisfied?" An amused Obi-Wan called up to him.
Luke grinned. "Let's get this show on the road," he yelled back.
Qui-Gon gestured to a few extremely large barrels that had bright red tape drawn across them. "There's the Nibenna. We'll let you get out in front of the barrels and then use torpedoes on them, just like the first time. Our job is to observe and, if needed, try to rescue you if this doesn't work."
Luke nodded. "I don't know how fast she can go, but I suggest you hang well back so that we don't have a reverse situation on our hands, Master Jinn."
Qui-Gon gave Luke a small nod of his own. The two Jedi stared at each other for a moment, past and future, seeing what the Force had allowed them to see through a trick of time being rent.
Finally, Luke turned his attention to Obi-Wan. "You never mention Master Jinn to me, Ben," he informed the youth. "You told me Yoda was your teacher. Care to explain that before I go?"
Obi-Wan seemed really confused. "How am I supposed to know what I say in the future and why I say it?" He asked.
Luke shrugged. "Just wondered. I…" He broke off as a powerful spasm shook him all over his body, making his body jump and twitch. After a few moments, it passed but he noticed that he could no longer see the two Jedi over the top of the side of his cockpit. "Perhaps we should hurry," he called out.
"Padawan, stay here until we reach space, just in case he needs something," Luke heard Qui-Gon telling Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan agreed and footsteps echoed and retreated toward the cockpit.
A faint thrum and the transport was into the atmosphere shortly after warming up. Luke sat silently and patiently in his cockpit, letting thoughts mix with memories to pass the time. He tried to suppress the spasms but he really had no control over them as they reached a new intensity. By the time he heard Obi-Wan call up to him to watch out as his helmet soared into his lap, he was the size of a three-year-old and felt exhausted.
"Luke!"
Lifting his head with great effort, he saw that Obi-Wan was perched on the nose of the X-wing, staring at him with great concern. "Luke, we're ready. Can you hold on long enough?"
Too physically drained to nod, Luke sent a tired agreement through Force as he blinked slowly. Obi-Wan hesitated for a fraction of a second and then jumped out of Luke's sight.
"Master, hurry!" He heard Obi-Wan shout. A few seconds later, he also heard Obi-Wan grunt as if in pain. Mere moments afterwards, Luke felt another spasm hit but he was mostly detached from any emotion now.
Qui-Gon ran into the cargo bay of the transport right after he felt Obi-Wan's mental shock of anguish. He had put the transport on standby for the moment already, intending on jettisoning the gas into space where he estimated they had first seen the time rent when Obi-Wan had sent his wordless cry.
Skidding to a halt, Qui-Gon saw that Luke was slumped, semi-conscious and now the size of a two-year-old, in the cockpit of his X-wing and Obi-Wan was lying in a heap near the landing skid of the ship. Kneeling beside his apprentice, Qui-Gon cradled Obi-Wan's head in his lap.
"Padawan, do you hear me? Obi-Wan, talk to me," he urgently insisted, not completely understanding what was happening but not liking his suspicions.
Obi-Wan groaned and his eyelids fluttered. "Master…" He panted heavily. "My head…have to get Luke out of here…hurry…Leave me, Master."
Qui-Gon obeyed without comment, sensing in the Force that Luke's time was critical and no more time could be spared. Running to the cockpit of the X-wing, he jumped to reach the canopy switch to lower it as he slapped at it, and then landed on his feet in a crouch. Sprinting back to his moaning Padawan, Qui-Gon scoped him up in his arms and, without breaking his speed, rushed into the adjoining corridor that led to the cargo bay.
With the distance from Luke, Obi-Wan seemed to regain some of his senses and the pain in his head lessened somewhat, though a strange pressure still remained. Leaning heavily against the wall, he watched the door to the cargo bay close at the same time the canopy to the X-wing sealed its occupant inside the cockpit of the small fighter. He watched dully as Qui-Gon worked the controls next to the door to release the field that kept the oxygen from leaking out into space. Staggering to the door to lean on it to watch through its window, Obi-Wan saw the barrels of gas float alongside the X-wing into the darkness of space. Once all barrels and the X-wing had cleared where the field would normally be, Qui-Gon reinstated the field and lightly touched Obi-Wan's arm.
"Come on, Padawan. Let's help Luke return to his time."
Making their way into the spacious cockpit of the transport, both Jedi Master and Padawan watched as the X-wing drifted, its power still off, past their starboard side. Qui-Gon motioned that Obi-Wan should attempt to communicate with Luke through the comm as the Jedi Master focused on slowly maneuvered their ship away from the free-floating barrels of highly explosive Nibenna gas.
Trying to concentrate past the pressure on his brain, Obi-Wan toggled the appropriate switch. "Luke?" He called. "Luke, respond. Luke?"
After a few moments, a very groggy-sounding Luke cleared his throat through the comm and rasped, "Here, Ben."
Obi-Wan lightly shook his head at the obviously familiar nickname he had given to Luke to call him in the future and replied, "Can you start your X-wing? You don't need to be directly in the focused blast, just the shockwave. We need you to get powered up." He didn't add an admonition about the time passing—Luke more than any one of them was aware of that fact.
To Obi-Wan's anxious eyes, it seemed as if it took Luke forever to get the X-wing powered up as much as it could, crippled as it was from the first blast. Briefly, he wondered if they should have tried to fix the X-wing some with what they had available to improve Luke's chances of survival providing this insane chance worked. Too late now, he supposed.
The running lights on the X-wing flickered but stayed on as Qui-Gon silently continued to move them away from the mass explosion that was to come. Obi-Wan felt a strange sort of sadness as he watched the X-wing grow smaller in their viewport. This was a part of his future that he was trying to save, though he did not fully understand the particulars of it.
"It's for the best, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon softly remarked, in tune to his emotions as closely as ever. Obi-Wan nodded at the Jedi Master. After another moment of drifting away, Qui-Gon added, "It's time."
Taking a deep breath, Obi-Wan unconsciously leaned forward to stare at the speck of the X-wing in front of him. "Luke? Time to go."
Luke's voice was frayed and cracked when he answered. "Could you feed me the coordinates of the barrels since I can't see them myself and the X-wing isn't targeting correctly?"
"Coming up," Qui-Gon answered, punching in commands on the console. "Feeding…"
"Got them," was the answer. After a short pause, Luke said, "I appreciate all that you have done for me, Master Jinn. If this doesn't work…well, I appreciate all of your efforts.
"Obi-Wan…Ben?"
Obi-Wan found a lump in his throat prevented him from speaking so all he did was grunt.
"It was nice to meet you before…It was nice to get to know you a little better. The Force does strange things to compensate for future events," Luke said, his voice sounding weaker with each word.
Obi-Wan smiled a little. "I am very pleased to meet you, too, Master Skywalker," he responded formally, sensing somehow that formality was needed now at their parting of the ways. "Now, will you please shoot those barrels before it's too late?"
Luke chuckled. "Yes, sir. Have a nice life."
Obi-Wan followed the X-wing with his eyes as it swung around on the heading that Qui-Gon had given it. Two bright spots of fire shot out on each side of the X-wing's nose and sped toward the grouped barrels. The darkness of space was interrupted with an intense light as the gas exploded soundlessly and expanded.
In the light of the initial explosion, Obi-Wan had momentarily lost sight of the X-wing. Now he frantically searched for it as the shockwave of the explosion began to speed toward where it had been. He shouldn't have worried; the X-wing was moving as fast as possible in its damaged condition in the direction opposite the core of the explosion. Moving swiftly, the shockwave caught up to and engulfed the X-wing. Another few moments passed before the light died and the gas had run out of heat. In the absence of light, there was no trace of the X-wing or of debris.
Obi-Wan turned to Qui-Gon, unaware that tears coursed down his face or that the pressure on his brain was gone as if it had never been. Forcing a smile, he commented, "Not exactly something the Jedi Council will believe, Master."
Qui-Gon returned his smile. "No, Padawan." His gaze returned to where Luke's X-wing had been. Very quietly, he repeated, "No, not at all."