Disclaimer: None of the recognizable Star Wars characters belong to me. I just take them out of their playpins and play with them when I need to beat somebody up. I don't even make any money off of it. Bummer.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Lay'ren and Marian for the borrowing of their character, Kyran Josel. Lay'ren always gets to see my stories before they go out and she's always saying, "Write more!" Her encouragement is priceless. Thanks Lay'ren.
Seventeen year-old Qui-Gon Jinn gradually opened his eyes and immediately wished that he hadn't. His eyes felt like two dry mounds of sandpaper that scratched and burned every time his eyelids moved over them.
"Take it easy there," a female voice echoed and reverberated around in his brain. In his groggy condition, he couldn't tell exactly where the other voice was coming from or even how far away the other person was.
He tried to lift himself up and found that his muscles wouldn't respond to his commands. Instead of moving his arm, a finger twitched once. Not what he was going for.
"I said take it easy," the voice said, a bit harder this time. "They've been keeping you drugged pretty heavily over the past few days. Your muscles will slowly start to obey you but don't rush it or you'll regret it."
He groaned and tried to ask her where he was but the only sound that came out was a faint jumble of incoherent mumbles.
A sound came to his ears of a sliding, almost like someone dragging themselves across a floor. The female voice was closer and more located now. "Hush now. Don't try to talk. The muscles in your lips aren't working either. Let's see…what would you want to know? Probably where you are. Tough. I can't answer that because I don't know either. More than likely you'd like to know how long you've been here. Sorry—I can't answer that either. All I know is that I've been here longer than you, although you look worse than me." Here she chuckled. "I don't know what else you'll want to know, except for who has you and why. I'm not going to answer that because I'm sure that they'll explain that themselves. How are you feeling now?"
Qui-Gon tried again to lift himself and found that this time his arm moved, though little else obeyed him. His eyes felt slightly more lubricated, though now he could feel his muscles aching all over his body, as if he had been in a speeder crash.
Bits of memory came to him then of being in a speeder, high above one of the many levels of Coruscant. He had been trying to find information for…Master Dooku! Someone had been sending threatening messages to his master that related to a mission that Master Dooku had just recently been on. He had been investigating some rumors of who was sending them and had just left a cantina in one of the lower levels….
Qui-Gon frowned as he entered his speeder. The informant that he had just made many painstaking plans to meet and talk to had revealed nothing that would help him discover the source of the messages Master Dooku had been receiving. If he thought more about it, he would have to believe that his 'informant' has simply been wasting his time. But why?
Shaking his head slightly, he powered up and lifted off, ready to return to the Jedi Temple and Master Dooku. He still had some time to meditate on tonight's fruitless journey before his master discovered him missing. Master Dooku did not know that he was conducting his own private investigation of the messages. He would tell Qui-Gon to "leave it be" since the Jedi Council said that nothing harmful would come of the threats to Master Dooku's life, or his own. Yet Qui-Gon couldn't just leave it alone—he felt that there was something more sinister underneath these messages, although he couldn't figure out exactly what it was.
As he began the intricate dance of flying through the buildings, walkways, struts and girders that made up each level of Coruscant, he gradually became aware of the fact that he was being followed. It was an elusive feeling, one that was difficult for him to pin down, but it was there.
Qui-Gon glanced as unobtrusively as possible over his shoulder…and saw a large transport vehicle closing in on him. Eyes widening, he flooded the speeder to make it produce the highest speed it could as he attempted to outrun the transport. His followers evidently realized that their cover was blown and so they began to pursue him in earnest.
Qui-Gon riveted his attention to flying at top speed through the bowels of Coruscant, watching as buildings crammed together whizzed past him, becoming blurs and wisps of sound. He hated flying and he most especially hated flying this fast in a crowded metropolis. Humans and aliens flashed by, shaking fists and shouting at him in a variety of languages to slow down, then having to dive out of the way as the transport came streaking by.
It was when he decided to check on the length of the distance between himself and the transport that he made his mistake.
He turned back to focus on coaxing more speed out of the speeder and saw that he was headed directly for a low-hanging advertisement for a shady cantina/nightclub. He had just enough time to see the brightly lit dancing humanoid women before his speeder plowed into the sign.
Sparks flew around him, burning into his skin, and the speeder coughed, then died. Dropping altitude rapidly, his stomach in his feet, Qui-Gon tried to focus enough of the Force around himself to try to cushion his impact. He would have been more successful had he not spotted several aliens underneath his falling speeder and had to use the Force to yank them out of the way to save their lives.
Then his speeder crashed into the ground, throwing him from it in a mighty upheaval of parts. The ground rushed up to meet him so he rolled himself into the tightest ball possible to try to absorb some of the shock of hitting the unyielding durasteel. His skin and Jedi robes ripped and tore as he bounced along the walkway that he had crashed onto. Humans and aliens screamed and ran to get out of his uncontrolled roll. He had almost come to a stop when his head slammed into a few containers of coolant that someone had stored along the walkway right beside the opening to a club, making him lose what little control he had over his roll. He finally stopped, flat on his back, and lay there, disoriented and his head reeling in circles.
Voices rose around him, asking in different languages and dialects if he was alright but he found himself so dizzy he couldn't think to give an answer. Dimly he wondered if he had a concussion.
Harsh, barking laughter made its way to his buzzing ears and he knew that the occupants of the transport were near him, gloating in their victory over him. And he was so dazed there was nothing he could do—not even concentrate enough to send a distress call to Master Dooku.
"Quick, give 'em the stuff!" One voice commanded.
Another man chuckled. "He's not going anywhere. He doesn't even look like he can open his eyes. The 'big, bad Jedi' is hurt."
Qui-Gon felt an insane need to prove them wrong. Using every bit of strength he had in him, he opened his eyes to gaze coolly at three men who looked like big, hulking clones of each other in black.
One man's eyes widened in fear and he pointed at Qui-Gon, who was attempting to get his feet underneath him. "Look! He's moving!"
The other two men swiveled around, surprise clearly evident on their faces. One of the two, a slightly larger man with blonde hair, grunted. "I give 'em credit for trying." Then he laughed, motioning to the side. "Give it to 'em. We don't get paid if we don't bring 'em in mostly one piece."
Qui-Gon felt a stab in his neck and he looked up in surprise at a fourth man who had been standing out of his line of vision. This man was as different from the three as he could possibly be: slim, dark-skinned, and black haired. He grimaced as he injected a liquid that was like fire into Qui-Gon's veins, almost in silent apology.
The fire spread into his limbs, causing them to go numb and limp. He gasped as he felt it traveling toward his brain and sucked in another breath as it hit his nerve center. His body spasmed once before darkness overtook him and he found himself gradually waking up to the female voice that seemed to both mock and pity him…