Chapter Five
Haggia struck Dwine in the face, hard. "What do you think you're doing, you drunken lout? He's Jedi! Not some poor traveler! The Jedi can tell when one of them's in pain and we'll have a whole group here, swarming all over us! What do you propose to do if the Jedi and his brat are dead when that happens? Do you not care about your children at all?" She was a stocky woman, the daughter of pirates who married a pirate. She felt no concern for the Jedi and the Jedi child, but she did fear for her children should the other Jedi find two of their own dead.
Dwine sulked a little. "But Haggia...the Jedi and I made a deal," he said in a slurred voice. "His Jedi child will recover from his illness at the price of his life. He agreed."
Haggai smacked him again. "I don't care!" She yelled in his face. "You get the Jedi brat well, and you get the Jedi well, then you dump them back on Hoth's waste lands. They'll die quick out there, and no one can trace it to us, or our children. You stupid, drunken nerfherder! Get them well! Now!" And she stormed away, muttering under her breath that if he had not been the leader of the pirates she never would have agreed to marry the lousy lout.
Dwine pouted as his wife stormed away. What did she know about it? She was just a woman. He stomped back up to the Jedi's prison to check to see if the Jedi had awoken from unconsciousness. He supposed he should put him in bacta. After all, he might need more blood from him later to do research with.
Haggai checked on the Jedi brat down the hall. "Is he recovering?" She asked his assigned caretaker, Asli.
The petite woman shrugged. "His fever just broke. He got all squirmy a few minutes ago though, mumbled something about his master..."
Haggia snorted. She was right, as usual. The Jedi did feel each other when they were in distress. They'd heal both of their captives as quickly as possible and then dump them to fend for themselves back on Hoth. "Keep an eye out for him. Get him whatever he wants until he's well. I'll be back later."
Asli sighed a little as Haggia left. She glanced down at her charge, who was slowly coming around. "Here, drink this," she said, holding some more medicine to his lips.
Obi-Wan felt slow and dried out. He blinked at the blonde leaning over him. Then he smelled what she held and almost gagged. He tried to mumble 'no', but it was clear she wouldn't take no for an answer so he turned his face away.
Asli grumbled under her breath and grabbed Obi-Wan's throat, forcing his head towards her. "Drink," she ordered.
Obi-Wan groaned, but finally slurped down the terrible smelling concoction. It tasted worse than it smelled and he was left, coughing and gagging, after choking it down.
"I'm doing this to help you," she snapped. "I know it tastes awful, but it'll make you feel better."
Obi-Wan groaned again. "By trying to kill me you're making me better?"
"I'm not trying to kill you. If I wanted to do that I would've done it by now," she grumbled, irritated. "The medicine is not killing you. You're still alive enough to whine."
Obi-Wan couldn't help but chuckle. "Sorry," he choked out, flipping himself over onto his back and feeling as if he were finally awake after a long time. "I've never taken medicine well."
She scowled. "So I've noticed. I hope the Healers at your Temple don't have to put up with you much."
Now Obi-Wan choked again, but this time with laughter. "Oh, you'd be surprised. We have set a record for our visits, my master and I." His eyes widened and he pushed himself weakly up on an elbow. "My Master...how is he? Where is he?"
Asli pushed him back down. "He's alive and that's all you need to know. Rest."
Obi-Wan fell back easily, but now all traces of humor were gone and he saw her for what she truly was: one of his captors. Quietly, he asked, "What do you want with us?"
Asli shrugged. "Honestly, I'm just as clueless about what he wants as you are. He doesn't tell anybody anything around here except for his wife. But even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you, so don't ask."
Obi-Wan sighed and flopped his head down. He was already exhausted from what little movements he had made. "Fine. Sorry I asked," he sighed.
Asli sighed and her features softened slightly. "You'll get better soon. This medicine is already doing its job."
Obi-Wan didn't answer as he turned his back to her. He knew that she herself would not harm him...for now. Now he had more memories of the vision to bounce through his brain and torment him. His master in a cell...blood mixed with some liquid running down his chest from his throat...bacta that did not help... How much of this vision was already coming true? How much had happened while he was here, sick and nearly out of his mind with fever? What if he couldn't save his master and this whole trip after him, disobeying his orders, was a waste? Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut and calmed his thoughts. He would not give in to what ifs and maybes. Uncertainties are many, and a clear path is hard to see, Jedi Master Tahl had told him once. For now, he would focus in the Force to help his master in whatever small way he could.
Qui-Gon sighed deeply as he sat down in front of a door at the end of a long hall. He was so tired. He'd walked in these corridors for what felt like miles. He was tired of walking. He needed to rest.
Don't rest yet...your time has not come, came a sexless voice to his hearing in this empty place.
"But I'm tired," he whined, sounding in that moment like he was a padawan and twelve years old again.
Your resting time has not yet begun. There is too much for you to do. Your padawan needs you.
"He doesn't need me. He'll recover from his illness and go back to the Temple and be trained by someone who'll accept him with open arms," he said forlornly, referring to the fact that he didn't exactly welcome the boy when he was first apprenticed.
Obi-Wan concentrated more deeply into the Force than he ever had. He felt the Force calling to him, just like with his vision of his master dying. Sinking into the Force with an ease he had never experienced before, he suddenly found himself in a long, featureless hall. His master sat at the end, holding his face in his hands. "Master!" Obi-Wan called out. He tried to go to him, but an invisible wall held him from his master. He sensed that it was his own master's shields. "Master!"
Qui-Gon sighed. What was that racket? Who would be disturbing the peace of such a pleasant place? He reached out trying to find out who it was, lowering his mental shields.
Obi-Wan stumbled, the shields gone, and he raced to his master. He knelt at his feet to force him to look at him. "Master?"
"Obi-Wan? What are you doing here?" Qui-Gon asked as he curled his knees to his chest.
Obi-Wan frowned. "I've been searching for you. The Force showed me where to find you. Follow me, Master, and I'll take you back where you belong." He bit his lip, anxious to get his master back closer to the living side of the Force. He sensed his master fading...just like in his vision.
"But I'm so tired. Can't I just rest awhile? It hurts over there. It doesn't here."
Obi-Wan knew that time was running out. He shook his head. "There's no time. You can rest after you follow me." He stood and held out his hand to his master. "Will you follow me?"
Qui-Gon sighed a little and got to his feet groaning as he stood up. "I guess." He mumbled unenthusiastically. "I don't know the way back. I got lost."
Obi-Wan smiled encouragingly at his master...and father figure. "Take my hand. I can show you the way."
"Do I have to?" He glanced back at the door. It was so much more comfortable here. He knew what awaited him if he followed Obi-Wan back.
Obi-Wan frowned. Maybe it was time for tough love. He put a demanding note to his voice that he did not feel as he said, "If you quit on me now, what am I supposed to do? How could you just give up like this? If you're going to just go, then you are not the Jedi Master that I thought I knew." He forced himself to frown. If this didn't work...
"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said warningly. "It is not your place to be so disrespectful. Alright, I'll come with you."
Obi-Wan's heart thrilled within him but he adopted a sullen look and mumbled, "Yes, Master." He then turned around and started walking. "This way."
Qui-Gon sighed and gave the door one last glance then walked back beside Obi-Wan.
Hands roughly shoved at him and Obi-Wan blinked rapidly against the sudden bright light around him. "Wha...?" He saw that it was his torturer and that he was frantic.
"Shut up, Jedi!" Dwine snapped. His earlier relaxation from being drunk was gone, replaced by his fear of his wife and what the Jedi would do if he killed one of their own. "Your Master needs you for somethin' so I'm leaving you with him for awhile."
Obi-Wan allowed himself to be shoved out the door and down the hall toward a different room than he had been taken from while sick a day ago. He was then pushed into a very small room that held only a bacta tank...which housed an unconscious Qui-Gon Jinn. His long hair floated around his body and a recently sewed hole in his throat showed red...inflammation. Obi-Wan gasped. This was one of the images from his vision. Did his trip through the Force not work?
"Look, Jedi," Dwine snapped. "I don't have time for your master to go trying to die on me. Save him and help him recover. Or else."
Obi-Wan opened his mouth to ask what in the galaxy the man could do to him when the door slammed shut and was locked. He sighed and sat down on the chair pushed up against the bacta tank's glass. Master?He sent, trying to see how well his recent excursion into the Force had helped, or not, his master.
Qui-Gon's eyes fluttered open. Obi-wan?he queried as if he were uncertain. He glanced around and saw his padawan sitting down on a chair close by.
Obi-Wan breathed a sigh of relief. It's me,he reassured his master. You have our captors worried, though I'm not quite certain as to why they don't want us to die...
Neither am I. Good, after all they put me through they should be worried.
Obi-Wan chuckled softly. Well, they've just made a very bad mistake, putting the master and the padawan back together again.He noticed his master's broken right leg and the gash on it from the hook that had been used on his own chest. He shuddered, feeling his tunic--whom someone must have placed back on him while sick--rub against his bad burns. He hated bacta...but now he kind-of wished he could be in there with his master. The burns were like pits of fire on his chest, and the hook had not helped them heal at all. With your leg, I suppose we'll have to figure out a really clever way to get out of here.
Unfortunately, my options of escape appear to be very limited—to zero,Qui-Gon said ruefully.
Obi-Wan wasn't willing to give up yet. You just rest, Master, and I'll see what I can find while you're recuperating.He stood, and winced at the soreness from his muscles from sickness.
Wait a minute. You've not recovered fully from your illness,Qui- Gon said through their link, his mental voice sounding a little slurred.
Obi-Wan blocked his master from feeling his weakness. Again, he urged, Rest well, Master.
Obi-Wan. Do not defy my orders again. Twice in one mission—you'd be asking for it when we get back to Coruscant.
Obi-Wan smiled and used a technique that Master Yoda had just taught him to ease someone to sleep who needed it. He focused in the Force, concentrated on his Master, and slowly eased him to restful sleep. Qui-Gon would not be happy when he awoke, but he would be better for it. His eyes flicked back to the walls. Now, to search for a way out...
Haggia struck Dwine in the face, hard. "What do you think you're doing, you drunken lout? He's Jedi! Not some poor traveler! The Jedi can tell when one of them's in pain and we'll have a whole group here, swarming all over us! What do you propose to do if the Jedi and his brat are dead when that happens? Do you not care about your children at all?" She was a stocky woman, the daughter of pirates who married a pirate. She felt no concern for the Jedi and the Jedi child, but she did fear for her children should the other Jedi find two of their own dead.
Dwine sulked a little. "But Haggia...the Jedi and I made a deal," he said in a slurred voice. "His Jedi child will recover from his illness at the price of his life. He agreed."
Haggai smacked him again. "I don't care!" She yelled in his face. "You get the Jedi brat well, and you get the Jedi well, then you dump them back on Hoth's waste lands. They'll die quick out there, and no one can trace it to us, or our children. You stupid, drunken nerfherder! Get them well! Now!" And she stormed away, muttering under her breath that if he had not been the leader of the pirates she never would have agreed to marry the lousy lout.
Dwine pouted as his wife stormed away. What did she know about it? She was just a woman. He stomped back up to the Jedi's prison to check to see if the Jedi had awoken from unconsciousness. He supposed he should put him in bacta. After all, he might need more blood from him later to do research with.
Haggai checked on the Jedi brat down the hall. "Is he recovering?" She asked his assigned caretaker, Asli.
The petite woman shrugged. "His fever just broke. He got all squirmy a few minutes ago though, mumbled something about his master..."
Haggia snorted. She was right, as usual. The Jedi did feel each other when they were in distress. They'd heal both of their captives as quickly as possible and then dump them to fend for themselves back on Hoth. "Keep an eye out for him. Get him whatever he wants until he's well. I'll be back later."
Asli sighed a little as Haggia left. She glanced down at her charge, who was slowly coming around. "Here, drink this," she said, holding some more medicine to his lips.
Obi-Wan felt slow and dried out. He blinked at the blonde leaning over him. Then he smelled what she held and almost gagged. He tried to mumble 'no', but it was clear she wouldn't take no for an answer so he turned his face away.
Asli grumbled under her breath and grabbed Obi-Wan's throat, forcing his head towards her. "Drink," she ordered.
Obi-Wan groaned, but finally slurped down the terrible smelling concoction. It tasted worse than it smelled and he was left, coughing and gagging, after choking it down.
"I'm doing this to help you," she snapped. "I know it tastes awful, but it'll make you feel better."
Obi-Wan groaned again. "By trying to kill me you're making me better?"
"I'm not trying to kill you. If I wanted to do that I would've done it by now," she grumbled, irritated. "The medicine is not killing you. You're still alive enough to whine."
Obi-Wan couldn't help but chuckle. "Sorry," he choked out, flipping himself over onto his back and feeling as if he were finally awake after a long time. "I've never taken medicine well."
She scowled. "So I've noticed. I hope the Healers at your Temple don't have to put up with you much."
Now Obi-Wan choked again, but this time with laughter. "Oh, you'd be surprised. We have set a record for our visits, my master and I." His eyes widened and he pushed himself weakly up on an elbow. "My Master...how is he? Where is he?"
Asli pushed him back down. "He's alive and that's all you need to know. Rest."
Obi-Wan fell back easily, but now all traces of humor were gone and he saw her for what she truly was: one of his captors. Quietly, he asked, "What do you want with us?"
Asli shrugged. "Honestly, I'm just as clueless about what he wants as you are. He doesn't tell anybody anything around here except for his wife. But even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you, so don't ask."
Obi-Wan sighed and flopped his head down. He was already exhausted from what little movements he had made. "Fine. Sorry I asked," he sighed.
Asli sighed and her features softened slightly. "You'll get better soon. This medicine is already doing its job."
Obi-Wan didn't answer as he turned his back to her. He knew that she herself would not harm him...for now. Now he had more memories of the vision to bounce through his brain and torment him. His master in a cell...blood mixed with some liquid running down his chest from his throat...bacta that did not help... How much of this vision was already coming true? How much had happened while he was here, sick and nearly out of his mind with fever? What if he couldn't save his master and this whole trip after him, disobeying his orders, was a waste? Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut and calmed his thoughts. He would not give in to what ifs and maybes. Uncertainties are many, and a clear path is hard to see, Jedi Master Tahl had told him once. For now, he would focus in the Force to help his master in whatever small way he could.
Qui-Gon sighed deeply as he sat down in front of a door at the end of a long hall. He was so tired. He'd walked in these corridors for what felt like miles. He was tired of walking. He needed to rest.
Don't rest yet...your time has not come, came a sexless voice to his hearing in this empty place.
"But I'm tired," he whined, sounding in that moment like he was a padawan and twelve years old again.
Your resting time has not yet begun. There is too much for you to do. Your padawan needs you.
"He doesn't need me. He'll recover from his illness and go back to the Temple and be trained by someone who'll accept him with open arms," he said forlornly, referring to the fact that he didn't exactly welcome the boy when he was first apprenticed.
Obi-Wan concentrated more deeply into the Force than he ever had. He felt the Force calling to him, just like with his vision of his master dying. Sinking into the Force with an ease he had never experienced before, he suddenly found himself in a long, featureless hall. His master sat at the end, holding his face in his hands. "Master!" Obi-Wan called out. He tried to go to him, but an invisible wall held him from his master. He sensed that it was his own master's shields. "Master!"
Qui-Gon sighed. What was that racket? Who would be disturbing the peace of such a pleasant place? He reached out trying to find out who it was, lowering his mental shields.
Obi-Wan stumbled, the shields gone, and he raced to his master. He knelt at his feet to force him to look at him. "Master?"
"Obi-Wan? What are you doing here?" Qui-Gon asked as he curled his knees to his chest.
Obi-Wan frowned. "I've been searching for you. The Force showed me where to find you. Follow me, Master, and I'll take you back where you belong." He bit his lip, anxious to get his master back closer to the living side of the Force. He sensed his master fading...just like in his vision.
"But I'm so tired. Can't I just rest awhile? It hurts over there. It doesn't here."
Obi-Wan knew that time was running out. He shook his head. "There's no time. You can rest after you follow me." He stood and held out his hand to his master. "Will you follow me?"
Qui-Gon sighed a little and got to his feet groaning as he stood up. "I guess." He mumbled unenthusiastically. "I don't know the way back. I got lost."
Obi-Wan smiled encouragingly at his master...and father figure. "Take my hand. I can show you the way."
"Do I have to?" He glanced back at the door. It was so much more comfortable here. He knew what awaited him if he followed Obi-Wan back.
Obi-Wan frowned. Maybe it was time for tough love. He put a demanding note to his voice that he did not feel as he said, "If you quit on me now, what am I supposed to do? How could you just give up like this? If you're going to just go, then you are not the Jedi Master that I thought I knew." He forced himself to frown. If this didn't work...
"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said warningly. "It is not your place to be so disrespectful. Alright, I'll come with you."
Obi-Wan's heart thrilled within him but he adopted a sullen look and mumbled, "Yes, Master." He then turned around and started walking. "This way."
Qui-Gon sighed and gave the door one last glance then walked back beside Obi-Wan.
Hands roughly shoved at him and Obi-Wan blinked rapidly against the sudden bright light around him. "Wha...?" He saw that it was his torturer and that he was frantic.
"Shut up, Jedi!" Dwine snapped. His earlier relaxation from being drunk was gone, replaced by his fear of his wife and what the Jedi would do if he killed one of their own. "Your Master needs you for somethin' so I'm leaving you with him for awhile."
Obi-Wan allowed himself to be shoved out the door and down the hall toward a different room than he had been taken from while sick a day ago. He was then pushed into a very small room that held only a bacta tank...which housed an unconscious Qui-Gon Jinn. His long hair floated around his body and a recently sewed hole in his throat showed red...inflammation. Obi-Wan gasped. This was one of the images from his vision. Did his trip through the Force not work?
"Look, Jedi," Dwine snapped. "I don't have time for your master to go trying to die on me. Save him and help him recover. Or else."
Obi-Wan opened his mouth to ask what in the galaxy the man could do to him when the door slammed shut and was locked. He sighed and sat down on the chair pushed up against the bacta tank's glass. Master?He sent, trying to see how well his recent excursion into the Force had helped, or not, his master.
Qui-Gon's eyes fluttered open. Obi-wan?he queried as if he were uncertain. He glanced around and saw his padawan sitting down on a chair close by.
Obi-Wan breathed a sigh of relief. It's me,he reassured his master. You have our captors worried, though I'm not quite certain as to why they don't want us to die...
Neither am I. Good, after all they put me through they should be worried.
Obi-Wan chuckled softly. Well, they've just made a very bad mistake, putting the master and the padawan back together again.He noticed his master's broken right leg and the gash on it from the hook that had been used on his own chest. He shuddered, feeling his tunic--whom someone must have placed back on him while sick--rub against his bad burns. He hated bacta...but now he kind-of wished he could be in there with his master. The burns were like pits of fire on his chest, and the hook had not helped them heal at all. With your leg, I suppose we'll have to figure out a really clever way to get out of here.
Unfortunately, my options of escape appear to be very limited—to zero,Qui-Gon said ruefully.
Obi-Wan wasn't willing to give up yet. You just rest, Master, and I'll see what I can find while you're recuperating.He stood, and winced at the soreness from his muscles from sickness.
Wait a minute. You've not recovered fully from your illness,Qui- Gon said through their link, his mental voice sounding a little slurred.
Obi-Wan blocked his master from feeling his weakness. Again, he urged, Rest well, Master.
Obi-Wan. Do not defy my orders again. Twice in one mission—you'd be asking for it when we get back to Coruscant.
Obi-Wan smiled and used a technique that Master Yoda had just taught him to ease someone to sleep who needed it. He focused in the Force, concentrated on his Master, and slowly eased him to restful sleep. Qui-Gon would not be happy when he awoke, but he would be better for it. His eyes flicked back to the walls. Now, to search for a way out...