"Master Yoda, I don't know where Qui-Gon went," Master Dooku said in his calmly modulated tone as he walked very slowly beside the small, ancient Jedi Master. "He wasn't in his room after classes so I presumed he needed meditation time alone. Ever since his first master died, I try to give him space when he needs it; our relationship seems to work better that way."
Yoda's ears twitched. "Aware of this, I am, Master Dooku. Reprimanding you I am not. Still, concerned about Qui-Gon's whereabouts, I am."
Dooku sighed heavily. "I tried to get a sense of him a little while ago, near sunset, through our bond. He's either dampened his end of the bond—which is not unlike him lately—or something has happened to take him by surprise. I came to you, hoping that perhaps you knew something I did not."
"Impulsive Qui-Gon can be, though loyal to you he is becoming," the little green Jedi stated, surprising Dooku. He reflected a moment through the Force. "Nothing of the future can I see, Master Dooku. Confused matters are. Find your apprentice we should. Quickly. No hints in his datapad found you?"
Dooku shook his head, not seeing the splendor of the Temple as they walked. "I couldn't find his datapad, Master Yoda."
"Revealed in his datapad things will be," Yoda stated with firm conviction. "Find it you should."
Dooku nodded, then bowed. "Thank you, Master Yoda."
Yoda gazed at Dooku with concern. "Come to me when new information is found, you should. Grave I sense the danger to be."
Once again, Dooku nodded. "I will." Then he strode off to search every single corner of his Padawan's room, determined anew to find the missing datapad.
"Why are you helping me?"
It was a little easier to move now and his words came out able to be understood, though his injuries from his fall, untreated and some infected, hampered his ability to think much more past the immediate moment.
The woman in the small, dark room with him stayed in the corner that she had placed herself when he had begun to be able to lift his head. She hid in the shadows, unwilling—for some reason—to be seen by him.
A laugh mocked him. "I'm not helping you."
Qui-Gon first felt confusion, and then he was merely perplexed. "Yes you have. You somehow kept them from drugging me so I could become alert again. I consider that helping me. Why did you do it?"
Silence answered him at first. Finally, the woman softly said, "I know by your torn clothes that you are a Jedi. I'm doing this to help myself. If you can get out of here, then you can get me out of here. So I'm not helping you, Jedi—I'm helping myself. I'm helping myself," she repeated even softer.
Qui-Gon grunted. She could believe whatever she wanted as long as she helped him out. His mouth was dry, which prompted him to raise himself as much as he could to look around for anything that would help quench his thirst.
"What are you looking for, Jedi?" The woman inquired.
He sighed. "Water. Or food."
Now she really began to laugh. When she recovered enough, she choked out, "You must have really bumped that head of yours. You're supposed to be out of it and I'm supposed to die. They're not going to feed us."
For a few moments he ignored her laughter. Using what little strength he had recovered, he slowly dragged himself over to a wall and leaned himself against it so he was sitting up instead of lying down. He had feeling back in his upper body, but still no feeling in his legs or lower body. He sighed and then asked, "Why are you supposed to die?"
Her laughter cut off so abruptly that he thought maybe he had imagined it all along. Silence rang in the darkness, making him feel hemmed in and alone. When he thought that she wasn't going to answer at all, she whispered, "I committed the worse crime that could ever be committed, Jedi. That is all you need to know."
"If you committed that bad of a crime, then why should I help you gain your freedom?" He couldn't help himself from asking.
Even in the darkness he could tell she was scowling at him. Her tone of voice was deep and very unfriendly when she replied, "I kept them from killing you outright. When the time comes, I'm sure your Jedi heart will find room in it to save me."
Qui-Gon blinked, taken aback. Uneasy, he turned from her and focused on the pins and needles feeling that was beginning in his lower body. Experimentally, he moved his left leg and, aside from stiffness from being in one position so long, it seemed no worse for the wear. Then he decided to move his right leg. Pain like firebolts sped up his leg, making him gasp. He ignored the sound of a faint chuckle in the direction of the woman's corner and used his fingers to explore what had been done to his leg. Seeing by touch was difficult but he surmised that he must have twisted it when he had done his unceremonial rolling in Coruscant. The muscles were inflamed from being left in their condition for so long. He briefly wondered if it would hold his weight and shifted as if to stand to test it.
"Don't!" The woman barked at his movement.
His surprise caused him to lose what little balance he had gained and he landed hard on his buttocks. "Why not?" He snapped, close to losing his patience. He now doubted if she were human—her eyes were sharper at seeing in the dark than his own.
"They'll notice that," was her reply. "So far they don't know you're awake and moving around but if you stand up that'll change."
Qui-Gon directed a sullen look in her direction. Unable to stand without detection, he decided to try to contact Master Dooku. He only hoped that his head had stopped spinning enough for him to concentrate.
Master, he sent.
And waited.
The only reply he received was the sound of running boots nearing the door to his prison.
"What did you do?" The woman hissed, anger evident in her voice.
"I just used the Force," he shot back.
"Idiot! They're monitoring your brainwaves!"
Qui-Gon scowled. "How was I to know? You're not exactly forthcoming with information, you know."
The boots stopped right in front of where the door most obviously was. Muffled voices bickered for a moment, then a lock clicked and the door swung open. Two men much like the ones that he had seen after his speeder crash stood there, one with a blaster trained on him, the other with a blaster trained on the corner where the woman was.
"You're wanted for questioning, Jedi," the one with his blaster trained on Qui-Gon sneered. "Get up and come along."
Now allowed to get up, Qui-Gon found that his right leg wouldn't let him without considerable pain and difficulty. Using the wall behind him as a prop, stalling to let his eyes adjust to the sliver of light being let in, he slowly levered himself to a standing position. Actually stepping was somewhat more of a problem as the pain increased tenfold with the addition of his weight.
He tried to glance around without being noticed. The prison he was in was a long room with no little comforts of any kind of sanitation or cleansing areas. The walls were ten feet high, one little window high up that he hadn't noticed before because it was nighttime on whatever world he was in. Streaks of light, crossed by another long smear of light, let him guess that he was on Coruscant still since the light streaks looked suspiciously like speeders and transports from a great distance away. Next he glanced to where the woman had been hiding to get a look at who he shared his prison with.
To his surprise, he found himself staring at a lithe Twi'lek girl, her light blue headtails wrapped around her neck, her lekku twitching nervously as her big green eyes met his. Her expression was one of puzzlement as she saw his age and took in his Padawan braid.
And then the two men were shoving him out of the door, nearly causing him to stumble as his twisted right leg protested at its rough treatment. He caught his balance on the opposite wall of the corridor outside his cell door, his boots making clanging noises on the metal flooring. It was then he noticed that his arms and the palms of his hands were scraped and bubbled with dried blood. One long slash on his left arm had a faint twinge of green along the edges—a sure sign of deep and unhealthy infection.
"C'mon, Jedi scum," one of the brutes ordered gruffly, pushing him ahead of them. Both of the men had their blasters trained unwavering on him as they walked down corridor after corridor in what Qui-Gon was beginning to suspect was an abandoned office building. He made a mental note of all the turns and doors as they made their way deeper into the complex, finally stopping at a rather large double door.
One of the men, the one that hadn't touched him yet, pounded in a code next to the door. With a slight hiss, one side of the door slid open to reveal what resembled a bizarre twist of a medical bay. Medical beds lined the walls and the whole room was white, gleaming with shiny instruments on tables beside the beds. A large drainage area was in the center of the floor, causing it to slope somewhat.
He had a bad feeling about this.
"Boss!" The large hulk of a man who seemed to like to push Qui-Gon yelled. "We got a present for ya!"
A thin man with long white-blonde hair emerged from a side room, wiping his bloody hands off on a towel. One finely-shaped eyebrow lifted in recognition of Qui-Gon and the young Jedi felt that the man was extremely surprised to see him.
The man contemptuously gestured to a medical bed that was on the opposite side of the room with the most instruments arrayed around it. Qui-Gon tried to hold his ground but the strength of the men coupled with his twisted leg quickly propelled him toward the bed. He gave little resistance as they strapped him to the bed with seamless restraints, carefully watching all they did in order to figure out how to escape it later.
The two men left, joking loudly about in what condition they expected to find Qui-Gon in later, and the thin man approached him cautiously, as if afraid he would bite.
Finally, in a smoothly cultured voice, he stated, "I did not expect to see you awake at all, young Jinn. I am most impressed. Most sentient beings who find themselves given clariochol are in a near coma for at least a week. The fact that you are awake to visit me shows me that you are more powerful than even your Master may have thought.
"But I am getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Baine. Perhaps you have heard of me?"
Qui-Gon wet his lips before answering. "Are you the one sending those messages to Master Dooku?"
Baine thought for a moment. "I believe I've sent some idle messages to your Master in my spare time, yes. Although, now that I have you awake, I won't have as much spare time as I did."
Qui-Gon narrowed his eyes. "You set me up."
Baine shook his head, his long white-blonde hair flowing with the movement. "Tsk, tsk, young Jinn. Why use such harsh phrases? I merely took advantage of an opportunity that presented itself. You were that opportunity." He turned slightly to the side. "Lak'Phan!"
A Rodian scurried out to bow before Baine. "Yes, Boss?"
"Would you please begin the recording?"
The Rodian, Lak'Phan, nodded and entered a room that Qui-Gon had not previously noticed before. He wondered how many rooms led off of this one that were hidden in the coloration of the walls.
Baine returned his attention to Qui-Gon. "A short explanation, if I may? Since you are awake, and another prime opportunity has offered itself to me, I will prove to your Master that I do indeed hold you prisoner. Perhaps the threat of what I could possibly do to you will convince him more than mere messages to reconsider his decision about the Yanna Prime conflict. Do you think it will? You know him so much better than I do."
Qui-Gon stared at Baine for a moment, convinced that his man had lost his mind somewhere in the Outer Regions of space. Finding his voice, he answered bravely, "No matter what you do to me, he will not retract any decision he has made. I can guarantee it."
Frowning, Baine sighed. "Then that presents us with a quandary, young Jinn. I suppose we'll have to find out if he will, shall we? He'll more than likely need a little…motivation. Let's give it to him. Lak'Phan, record."
Baine calmly bent over Qui-Gon and selected a metal hook, the point gleaming in the sterile lighting. Facing where the recording mechanism evidently was, directly in front of Qui-Gon, Baine said, "You, Master Dooku, have not taken my messages seriously about the Yanna Prime conflict. Your apprentice here decided to try to follow the source to discover who was the one sending them to you. Unfortunately, he was successful. He is also more of a handful than I imagined. You see, he was supposed to spend his time with me in blissful, drugged sleep. Instead, he overcame that somehow and I find myself with altered plans. But then again, perhaps this will better convince you to resolve the Yanna Prime conflict in a matter that I find pleasing—although, your Padawan seems to think not. Let us see which one of is right, shall we?"
Turning back to face a silent and defiant Qui-Gon, Baine let a cruel smile touch his perfect lips. He lifted the hook to let it catch in the light for better viewing, pausing to let the moment stretch while it allowed Qui-Gon to try to focus as much as he could into the Force to try to prepare himself.
The shining hook came down with hard force, jamming into Qui-Gon's chest. Whether by accident or by the Force, the hook had sunk into a space between two ribs and away from any organs. Qui-Gon held his breath, and his facial expression blankly, to keep the pain from making itself known to Baine or his Master.
Baine frowned, clearly not expecting to have a silent audience. Withdrawing the hook with a vicious twist that ripped more skin on its way out than when it had sunk in, Baine carefully placed the blood-covered hook on the little table to the side as his eyes pondered Qui-Gon.
"Young Jinn," he commented softly. "I need your Master to hear your cries, your whimpers, so that he understands the seriousness of this matter. You are not cooperating. Also, your tunic keeps me from seeing where I want to hit. I'm going to remove it. I apologize if the straps are a little chilly on your upper and lower chest."
He's insane! Qui-Gon thought as Baine carefully, without undoing the straps that held him securely in place, lifted his tunic above his head. The skin on his chest pulled on the ragged hole that Baine had made and blood streamed from it to run down his muscular thighs. In dismay, he now knew full well what the drainage area in the floor was for.
"There," Baine spoke with satisfaction, leaning back to look at him as one looks at a particularly loathsome insect. "Now we can have more fun and see what we are doing, can't we?"
Qui-Gon's ire got the better of his mouth. "You're insane!" He voiced his thoughts from earlier. His eyes glittered into Baine's. "Master Dooku is a Jedi and will not give in to your demands, no matter what you do to me!"
Baine merely smiled, though his eyes grew even colder. "We shall soon see, young Jinn."
Dooku felt a strange numbness in his limbs that he couldn't explain. The feeling was almost like an echo of an old injury, though he had never been injured in the past in a way that would account for the feelings traveling up and down his arms and legs.
Sighing, the aging Jedi Master swung himself out of bed. His hunt for Qui-Gon's missing datapad had turned up nothing yesterday, even when he asked Qui-Gon's friends, Mace Windu and Kyran Josel, if they had seen it or known what Qui-Gon was up to. Arranging his robe around his shoulders, Dooku was getting ready to leave when a chime sounded at his door.
"Enter."
Blonde haired, green-eyed Kyran Josel ran into his quarters. The twenty-three year-old Padawan skidded to a stop in front of Dooku, all traces of his usual joviality erased from his face and replaced by anxiety. Dooku knew that ever since Qui-Gon had been five he and Kyran had had a strong mental link with each other that they had learned to shield against.
"What is it, Kyran?" Dooku asked Qui-Gon's best friend.
Kyran straightened his tall, muscular frame and turned beseeching eyes toward Dooku. "It's Qui-Gon, Master Dooku. I dropped my shields to him when you told me of his disappearance and his missing datapad and…" He paused, sucking in a deep breath.
Dooku waited patiently for Kyran to continue but it seemed that Kyran was suddenly not with him any longer. His green eyes were glazed over, as if he were in deep thought, and then he cried out with pain. Dooku caught the younger man as his knees gave out.
"It's Qui-Gon," Kyran repeated, slowly regaining the use of his limbs and once again standing on his own. "He's being tortured, though I can't tell exactly what is happening to him."
Dooku knew better from previous experience with the two young men than to question Kyran's announcement. That would also explain the strange feeling that he himself had had when he woke up in his arms and legs.
He opened his mouth to inform Kyran that he was on his way to see Master Yoda when his communicator beeped.
"Master Dooku?"
Dooku frowned. "Here."
"Please report to the Jedi Council immediately," the young woman's voice stated.
Dooku flipped his comm unit closed and glanced at Kyran briefly. "Come with me, Padawan Josel. I have a feeling you will be useful as well. We'll contact Master Lan'al on the way."
The two headed out toward the Jedi Council chambers at a near run.