Hold on, Qui-Gon…Help is on the way.
Qui-Gon slowly drifted back into consciousness, the familiar voice fading from the blackness as his awareness sharpened. He felt as if his chest were on fire. Every breath was pure agony that pulled at the sores in his chest. Embarrassingly, he felt like crying.
"Relax, Jedi. They haven't returned since they pushed you in here."
It was the Twi'lek woman bending over him in the darkness. He tried to take a deep breath in the chilly air and winced, moaning in pain. It was as if he could feel every inch of skin on his chest—injured or not.
"How…" He gasped out, then stopped his sentence because of the pain.
He could almost sense the Twi'lek's smile. "How long have you been back in here, Jedi? A day perhaps. No longer anyway. I got the blood to clot so you're not bleeding rivers, though I must say I haven't seen Baine do that much to someone right off. What did you do to him?"
Qui-Gon's head swam. He figured it was because of the amount of blood he lost. He couldn't seem to focus properly on her words. "I…nothing…I…" He stopped, losing his track of thought.
The Twi'lek made a shushing noise. A soft cloth dabbed expertly at his chest. "Never mind for now, Jedi. We can talk more later. Just rest. You seem to be healing pretty fast for what was done to you. Some Jedi trick?"
Perplexed, he shook his head in the semi-darkness. "No…don't know that one yet." Talking was a little better now, though still each word felt like flaming fire through his chest.
Silence stretched between them for a little while, with the Twi'lek cleaning his wounds. Finally, she quietly asked, "What is your name, Jedi? Calling you 'Jedi' gets boring."
Qui-Gon detected a hint of forced laughter in her voice. Trying to respond in kind from his position on his back, he reached a trembling hand out into the darkness where he could almost see her shape. "Jedi Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn, at your limited service."
A strong hand grasped his and shook it lightly. "Raftla'ka, at yours, Jedi Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn. What a pair we make: one wounded Jedi trainee and a coward-criminal."
Qui-Gon settled back down on the hard, cold floor. He let Raftla'ka tend to his wounds and tried to focus on the Force enough to heal himself so that he wouldn't bleed to death. When he was fairly certain that he had stopped the main flow of blood, he let his body relax in mental and physical exhaustion. The quiet and dark pressed in on him as he lay there, hissing through his teeth when Raftla'ka would accidentally press down too hard on his chest. To occupy his mind, he finally asked, "Will you tell me now why you're down here?"
For a moment he thought Raftla'ka was going to deny his request again, then she exhaled audibly. "I am Baine's wife."
Qui-Gon brought his head up sharply in shock, wincing from the pain pulling on his frayed skin caused. "What?! Why are you down here then?"
Roughly she pushed him back down again and swore. "Sithspit! Jinn, if you don't stay in one place…" Quietly, he obeyed and let her tell her story in her own way.
Dabbing at a trickle of blood that had begun again from his movements, she hissed, then began. "I met him while I was dancing for a nightclub on Yenna Prime. There's not much in the way of customers on a small planet like that but dancing isn't the only thing I can do. I'm a slicer and bounty hunter; I just dance to keep my cover. Many's the time someone else got fingered in a sting and the authorities clapped as I twirled near them, never guessing, the fools.
"Baine knew what I did from the moment I met him; I never found out how. He threatened to turn me in to the authorities if I didn't agree to some jobs for him. It made no difference to me either way: hunting's what I do anyway. Over the years we became very, very close—even more so when I didn't get out of the way fast enough of a job gone bad and got wounded. He nursed me back to health and then we signed our papers stating that we were legally a couple and I became his wife. Two years later, the authorities caught me. Baine had already been beginning his own little insurrection but my capture spurred him faster into it. He hired some of his men to break me out and brought me here. I never agreed with his reasoning behind his little anti-government ploy and we eventually had a…disagreement…that turned violent. He locked me in here to keep me out of his way and from leaving him. And here is where I've stayed."
"How long have you been here?" Qui-Gon inquired, shocked at Baine's depth of ruthlessness to have his own wife locked away for a disagreement.
Raftla'ka clicked her teeth as she thought. To pass the time, she continued to treat his wounds, half-distracted. "Hm…" She thought out loud. "Days get long here; weeks even longer until time seems to cease to matter. I would estimate almost a year."
Qui-Gon didn't know if it was the pain that caused him to not understand or the flawed logic he thought he saw in her answer. "How can that be, when he's only fled from Yenna Prime for a few months?"
Raftla'ka stopped her administrations. Her tone was once again cold. "Don't be naïve, Jedi Padawan Jinn. He's had this little hideaway since I've known him—just in case. He doesn't like to be surprised and usually always has another plan for backup."
"Is it on Coruscant?"
Raftla'ka shook her head and Qui-Gon could only tell because the tips of her lekku brushed against his chest. "No. We are in the sector, on a satellite near Coruscant, but not on Coruscant. Too risky to be there with the Jedi so near.
"Now sleep, Jinn. You need natural rest, not pain-induced unconsciousness. I do not know what Baine intends but it seems to me that you are a pawn, accidentally caught in the middle of a personal vendetta. He will not be through with you yet; you'll need your strength," she finished, her voice softening somewhat.
Qui-Gon sighed and blanked his mind of all his questions of this complicated woman. Perhaps later, after he was rested, he could gain more information about her and Baine's past. He might could discover something to use against the tyrant. Filled with thoughts of peace, he drifted to sleep.
Kyran had to concentrate to keep his nerves from showing. The two-day deadline was already half gone and he and Master Dooku were no closer to finding Qui-Gon than they were when they first knew he was missing.
"Maybe we're doing this the wrong way," he suggested, sighing. His fingers tapped lightly on the control panel in front of him where he had tried to match images of the white background behind Qui-Gon as he was being tortured to other similar backgrounds on various inhabited planets using the extensive computer in the Jedi Temple's library.
Dooku raised a graying eyebrow in question. "And how do we do it the right way if we are not sure if we are doing this the wrong way?"
Kyran was tired and worried sick over his friend in the clutches of that madman, Baine, so his tone was a little harsh as he threw his hands up and stated, "I don't know exactly. Maybe it's not a planet. Maybe it's not even populated, besides them. We're just comparing populated planets, which makes sense since most psychos like to hide among other people."
Calmly, Dooku suggested, "Then why don't you run the background against unpopulated planets in the Registry?"
Kyran sighed again. "Yes, Master Dooku." He typed in his request and waited a few moments for the computer to follow his guidelines. As he waited, he frowned slightly. "What are you doing, if you aren't helping me with this background search?"
Dooku turned slightly toward him. "Researching all the past information I have on Baine Goddard. I need to remember everything about him when we go to rescue Qui-Gon. There may be a weakness in here somewhere."
Kyran copied Dooku's eyebrow raising, though his just looked silly. "Find anything?"
A smile tugged on Dooku's mouth and he suppressed a chuckle at Kyran's antics. "I might have. There is a bounty hunter woman named Raftla'ka that is mentioned as having dealings with Baine, even signing a marital contract with Baine, but a year ago she disappeared after being rescued from a prison. Some think she's Baine's right hand through all his recent dealings."
"And what do you think?"
Dooku pursed his lips. "I'm not sure yet, but 'accomplice' doesn't feel right to me."
The computer in front of Kyran beeped, signaling that it was done with its computations. Swinging back around, the Jedi Padawan read the results and stifled the urge to hit something in frustration.
"Find anything?"
Kyran held his anger for a moment, then let it go. "No," he replied, "but I have one more thing to try." He typed in a few more commands and let the computer begin its new search. Turning back to Dooku, Kyran quietly asked, "Is Qui-Gon adjusting to you now, Master Dooku?"
Dooku glanced up from what he was reading about Baine. A mixture of emotions flickered across his face for a moment before his face was collected and controlled again. "Mostly," he answered. "We still have our rough spots with trust issues. Why do you ask?"
Kyran shrugged. "I've been talking to him lately. Just wondered." A devilish light appeared in his eyes and he faced the computer again, adding nonchalantly, "Of course, I did advise him that if he couldn't adjust to you, then we could change places—and masters—save us all some trouble."
"Did you now?" Was the glacial response.
Kyran laughed a little. "Yeah, but he said that he'd rather be with you than with Master Lan'al."
Dooku allowed himself a small chuckle this time. Kyran Josel could always make anyone laugh, no matter what the circumstances. He made a great friend to Qui-Gon as his Padawan grew to trust again after his old master died.
Once again, the computer beeped and Kyran glanced over at it, not really expecting it to find anything. He was greatly surprised to see that the computer had targeted somewhere close to where they were.
"Find something?" Dooku was suddenly peering over his shoulder.
Kyran's fingers flew over the panel as he adjusted the images the computer had found. "I think so, Master Dooku. I had the computer go over satellites when the planets turned up nothing, thinking that perhaps their moons would. I asked the computer to go over the Registry of satellites that were populated and unpopulated. Looks like the computer found a match. And it's right here in this sector."
"Satellite 89647B—unpopulated with lower oxygen levels than Coruscant but filled with caverns where a base had been built over forty years ago," Dooku summarized as he read the glowing words on the screen. "Assumed abandoned." He straightened. "That's our destination."
Kyran nodded. "All the inside walls of the base are made out of cholorosis marble, which is the white background we saw in the film with Qui-Gon. Looks like everything fits exactly."
Dooku turned to leave the small room that they had been occupying for almost the entire past day.
"Where are you going?" Kyran called after him.
Dooku shot him a look that suggested that Kyran was daft. "After Qui-Gon."
Kyran shot to his feet. "Not without me, you don't." Belatedly he added, "Master Dooku." Stubbornly he lifted his chin. "I can be a great asset to you in finding him."
Dooku hesitated.
Kyran folded his arms. "Do you want me to come with you, or do you want to find me as a stowaway on the ship after you take off?"
After a moment, Dooku shook his head, trying to hide his grin. "All right. But let Master Lan'al know where you are going first. I'll be getting us a ship ready."
Kyran grinned.