Chapter 8

Velk stood facing the small hover droid in one of the service buildings in an attitude of both anger and supplication.

"Come on, give it up," he commanded the shiny semi-domed shape. The mechanical made several beeps that sounded like 'I haven't the faintest clue what you are talking about' and went silent.

Velk scowled at it. He came close to punching his fist into its small blank screen, but sighed instead. He'd tried everything he could think of to get it to report the numbers he needed from the field. What next?

"What's wrong?" asked Obi-Wan, who had walked into the outbuilding and softly approached him from the side.

Velk admitted he had not been too enthusiastic at first about having the two Jedi observing his workday. But the strong tradition of hospitality encouraged in his family, and on his world was something he treasured, despite whatever he might grumble. He thought he would be slowed down, but he'd found this had not been the case the last two days. He really liked this Obi-Wan Kenobi. He found himself forgetting he was only twenty years old, and in fact had started feeling as though he was accompanied by someone his equal. This made him begin to wonder if he was really not as mature as he thought he was, or perhaps this young man had already been through enough challenges that he seemed far older than his years. He hoped it was the latter. In any case, he'd found Obi-Wan to be curious and helpful, and he was good with machines. The serious look he wore most of the time covered a deep-down friendly personality, and a dry sense of humor that occasionally surfaced. Velk had actually enjoyed having him around, someone who was interested enough to explain things to. His son was a little too young to accompany him yet, or understand the details of what he was doing.

In exchange, Velk had gotten the factual answers to every question he had ever had about Jedi Knights.

"Damn droid won't give me the brix values from sector 12 A," Velk told him.

Obi-Wan cocked his head. "Bricks?"

Velk looked at him and then laughed softly. "Oh. No. Brix. That's the sugar content of the fruit. It's the main indicator we use to tell when it's ready to harvest. See these sensors?" He pointed to small feeler-like parts on the front of the droid. "These can measure the sugar without damaging the fruit. When it reaches a certain average, then we send the harvest crew out to that area." He turned his attention back to the droid. He frowned and popped open a panel on the side of the droid. He tried a few keys to re-run the data retrieval functions. Nothing happened. He scratched his head, and rather than swear colorfully in front of Obi-Wan, he thought the words to himself instead.

"Hey, what's going on?" Valia asked cheerfully, coming up behind them. Qui-Gon towered a few steps behind her.

"Do you know how to get this thing to spit out the brix numbers it's supposedly been collecting all morning?" Velk half challenged, half pleaded.

"I don't know, I haven't worked with anything like this in a while," Valia said, inspecting the silent droid.

"Pop's going to want all the numbers before we start. I have them all except these, and of course in his eyes, these are going to be the most critical ones of all," Velk said.

"Don't you have a tech on the place who can take a look at this?"

"We're sharing one with the Dekkars. Supposedly to save money," Velk rolled his eyes. "Pop's idea. They're getting more expensive every year. The way we're running this one ragged, he's either going to double his contract price, or keel over first." He reached for a small transmitter attached to his belt and sent a call to page the agricultural droid expert. He busied himself with cleaning a mowing droid and made small talk with his sister and their Jedi guests. Not even a minute elapsed before the sound of a small swoop-like air bike approached. A short creature nearly tumbled off the seat and hurried through the open door of the building, running as fast as his short legs could carry him. No taller than Velk's waist, he stopped before him, huffing and puffing as though he had run the length of the farm to get there. He was a Tsorigan, a species believed to share an ancient common ancestor with the Ugnaughts. They were very similar in appearance to them but had thicker hair. The field technologist's pink skin was blotched with darker pink on his high forehead and forearms from doing some sort of repair work out in the sun, and from his state of high excitement over the emergency page.

"Sire, you called?" His squeaky voice was broken by his breathing.

"Take it easy, Taras," Velk hooked the toe of his boot on a stool and pulled it toward him with a long leg. "Sit down and take a minute to catch your breath. Then when you've done that, take a look at this droid, will you? It won't give me any data."

"No numbers, no pictures?" His triangular, pushed-up nose wriggled.

"Nada. Zilch. Nothing."

"Oh woe, sire. Need brix today, right now, before Poppa Sire sees?"

"That's what we love about you, Taras. You're quick to get to the heart of the problem."

"I will have a look-see. Clear away, clear away..." he flapped his stubby hands at all of them.

"Come on. He's a genius, but he hates anyone watching him while he works," Velk said leading them outside. He headed for a shady patch on the wall of the outbuilding, pulled out a slender dark green cigar and lit it with a beam from his pocket lighter. He leaned against the wall, settling comfortably for a smoke. Valia eyed him, wanting to ask him if he had another. She hadn't smoked anything, not even a water pipe for weeks, and the fresh smoke was tempting her. But she suspected Qui-Gon would have his subtle way of showing his disapproval of the habit, like refusing to kiss her directly on the mouth afterward.

"No wonder Pop keeps a laser eye on you, when you lounge around so much," Valia remarked.

"Oh, peel it and stuff it," he said, taking a long, sweet drag. "Hey, you want to go practice some shots this afternoon?"

"I thought you were too busy for any fun right now."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, you do have a point. It won't be any fun at all proving I'm still a better shot than you."

"Is that so?"

"Are you going to tell me you've done any target shooting on that city-planet of yours?"

"As a matter of fact, I have."

"Shooting at what? Pickpockets and muggers? Maybe you live a rougher life than I thought."

"There are actually several excellent indoor shooting ranges an easy taxi ride from my apartment."

"Ahhhh, sissy stuff. You need to be outdoors, with the wind, the weather, the variables, the fresh air."

"All right then, nature-boy. This afternoon."

"Sorry I can't offer you any more sophisticated entertainment, like what you're probably used to."

"And how, pray tell, would you know what I'm used to?" Valia folded her arms and struck a defiant pose, one hip angled upward.

"Isn't she adorable when she gets riled up?" Velk asked as an aside to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

You have no idea, thought Qui-Gon with a smile.

"I'm talking all your operas and plays and citified club-hopping you were bragging on the last time you were here," Velk said.

"Bragging on? Well, for your information, I have nothing to 'brag' about. I have had time to see only two plays and one dance performance in the last six years."

Velk struck a foppish pose and pranced, arms outstretched, wrists dangling. Valia raised one eyebrow and exhaled a long-suffering sigh. "Of course. I forgot. Your idea of high drama is a seed-spitting contest, or taking bets on how far the dung will fall from the crack end of the duffalop."

While brother and sister good-naturedly filled the time by trading increasingly vulgar and creative insults about each other's lifestyles, Obi-Wan exchanged a look with Qui-Gon and they waited patiently and silently.

There was a clank of metal on metal and the sound of something being dropped inside the building. A frustrated chittering and muttering followed it.

"Sounds like this might be serious," Velk remarked, contemplating the dark outer leaf wrapping on his half-smoked cigarette. "Speaking of serious," he turned to address Qui-Gon, "your protege' here dropped some interesting information on me yesterday. Seems this Daru Insai was a real Jedi Knight."

"Indeed, she was. Your story is based in fact, but in the five centuries since she lived, some of the details have been changed or embellished."

"So it's true? 'He' was really a 'she'? I was wondering if Obi-Wan was handing me a load of dung."

"That's something Obi-Wan very rarely does," said Qui-Gon. "Although if he does, I can't imagine who he would have learned it from." He slid a covert smile at Valia, who shot a sweet smile of her own right back at him.

"Shame on you, Obi-Wan, shattering my little brother's image of his childhood hero," Valia teased.

"A Jedi's duty is to spread the truth wherever there is harmful falsehood," Obi-Wan quoted and inclined his head in a meek bow that didn't quite hide the boyish smile on his face.

Taras flew out of the building's door, searching for Velk. "Tampered!" he nearly shrieked when he saw him.

"What?" The remaining end of the cigarette dropped out of a startled Velk's mouth. "Tampered? How?" He crushed out the smoking butt with his heel, and followed the scuttling Taras back into the shed.

"Show you." Taras led Velk back to the workbench on which several components of the droid lay neatly in a row.

"Here. Visual module destroyed first." he pointed to a tiny, black scar, barely noticeable amid the busy pattern on the surface of the removed part. "Linked to sound capture, so that went blewie, too." Taras' blunt but nimble fingers pointed out the tiny parts. "Very close to data storage, maybe sloppy-careless, fried that next," he explained.

"You're telling me this was deliberate?" Velk growled. He was used to outdoor equipment breaking down all the time. It was simply an accepted part of farming.

"Oh, for sure, sire."

"Is this some kind of a joke? This is no time for pranks."

"No funny business from me, sire! Never! Already not enough time to fix all that needs fixing, never, ever think of this!"

"Take it easy, Taras, I didn't mean you. Are you sure it this isn't some failed circuit?"

The little Tsorigan frowned and snorted. "AG-619 built to last, can take whatever weather dish on it, sire!" He displayed as much indignation as if he had designed the droid himself.

Velk sighed. "All right, I believe you. Now, the question is, who did this? And why? And I need those brix numbers. Any way to retrieve them?"

"Answer to first question: none. Answer to sire's second question: none. Answer to last question: maybe likely never stored, sire. If this done at night, nowhere for data to go this morning."

Velk's scowl deepened. Taras fidgeted and shifted nervously from one foot to the other, waiting for some kind of outburst that usually followed when he gave the straight but unsatisfactory facts to his employers.

"How many workers would have the knowledge to do this type of sabotage?" Qui-Gon asked Taras. The short tech turned to peer up at him. Velk looked at him too, with a questioning look and a silent mouthing of the word 'sabotage'.

"Not many, not many, sire. Three, maybe four, all I know on Dekkar and Traxis farms."

"I'll want their names, Taras," Velk said.

"Taras is not pointing any of his fingers!"

"You are not pointing fingers, you are just giving me information, which I asked for. No one's been accused of anything," Velk sighed. "Look, fix whatever you can on this thing. Order whatever parts you need."

"Whatever parts, sire?" There was a hopeful gleam in the tech's eyes.

"Whatever parts you need for this droid," Velk clarified with a dark look.

"Yes, sire." Taras said with a shrug and climbed back on the stool in front of the workbench. He began tinkering with the innards of the droid and chittering and snuffling in his own language.

Velk ran a hand through his short hair. "Well," he sighed. "I suppose I could program another floater to go out to that area to get those numbers," he said half to himself. "Or I could go out there and do it the old-fashioned way. By hand." He frowned at that idea.

"Wasn't someone here just now singing the praises of fresh air, wind, variables...?" Valia said. Velk grumbled something that sounded like yeah, dammit under his breath as he rummaged through some shelves.

"Do you really need that area done? The ones on either side of it are measured."

"Lia, you remember how freelas are. You know how spotty they ripen." He was on the edge of sounding peevish now.

"Well then, come on, give us some hand units and we'll all go out and measure brix. Between all of us, we'll have enough numbers in a few hours." Belatedly she looked at Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. "That is, if you two don't have any other plans." She looked meaningfully at Qui-Gon.

"We'll be happy to help," said Qui-Gon easily. Valia sighed and began to wonder exactly what day she would be able to leave and get home again.

Velk gathered the equipment they would need, and they all climbed into the cab of an orchard crawler. Velk jammed a faded, grungy hat on his head, took the driver's seat and touched several controls on the console and with a lurch, the crawler moved forward. The large, old-fashioned wheeled vehicle was the best thing for travelling between the rows of trees. Couplings at the rear enabled it to pull one or more flat bed fruit harvesting cars, and the powerful engine could handle as many as six fully loaded cars. But it was slow. The rear tires, which were taller than Qui-Gon, turned at a regulated speed, and the four of them settled in for a long ride. Velk touched another control and the strains of homegrown music filled the cab. He softly tapped his foot to the lively, folksy rhythm as a local singer yodeled about the ups and downs of being in love.

They passed the time looking out the open windows of the high cab over the tops of the endless freela trees. Their branches were loaded with purple-red fruit, and the warm breeze tossed the leaves and carried the rich scent of soil and ripening fruit to their noses.

Qui-Gon recalled the previous day's conversation with Tak Traxis, and the man's unapologetically sexist views toward his and his neighbor's children. Then again, he was merely a product of his culture. He'd seen cultures where females were barely allowed to show their faces in public, and while this world was not nearly that extreme, how different it was from the Order in which he had been raised, where males and females were equals, and each perfected their unique abilities. Valia would have been more than equal to the task of running a place like this, he thought as he watched a group of workers ready a harvester trailer, attaching it to the back of one of the other orchard crawlers. She had been groomed to be in charge of all this, until... He felt a keen pain for her. She had never told him that bit about the Growers' Association meeting. He looked down at her sitting beside him. The sun and breeze caught the loose strands of her hair, and the sleeve of her blouse as she casually leaned her elbow out the window. She turned to look at him when she felt his eyes on her and broke into a bright smile. The sight of that helped put things in perspective for him. It didn't matter today, in the here and now.

"Supposed to get some rain this afternoon," commented Velk to no one in particular, gesturing at a data screen set in a bank of controls above the forward windows. "But I don't think it's going to happen."

"It's coming," said Obi-Wan, who was in the front seat next to him, after a deep breath of the air and a glance at the blue sky.

"Are you sure you don't want to be a farmer when you're done with your apprenticeship?" joshed Velk.

"How far out are we going?" asked Valia from the seat behind Velk.

"The section that droid was assigned to is on the border with the neighbors," Qui-Gon told her.

"That's right," said Velk, wondering at the scope of the older Jedi's memory. The day before he had only briefly shown them the diagram of the droid patrol patterns at the control center. He'd seen the number on the droid's side and must have remembered. It was a little spooky.

The passage of the crawler startled a herd of dark brown herbivores. They raised their tails in alarm and trotted away through the trees away from the vehicle. The sight of them provoked some toned-down swearing from Velk.

"Damn things don't really bother the fruit, they just eat the leaves and tear up the branches," he said, aiming a lethal look out the window in the direction the herd had gone. This sparked the topic of guns and blasters again between Velk and Valia.

"You mean to tell me you haven't bought anything new since you moved to Coruscant?" Velk asked in disbelief.

"No. I have my old blaster at my first store because it's near an area that's popular for protests and demonstrations. It made the neighborhood a little rough when I first opened. And I have the one I practice with."

"You're still shooting with that piece of crap?"

"It's perfectly fine for my purposes."

"Lia, Lia, Lia," Velk shook his head in dismay. "You're going to shame the family name. Listen, I feel so bad for you, I'll let you choose a piece from my own collection to take back with you."

Valia stared at him, expecting some smart-ass punch line.

"I'm serious."

"Then I'll hold you to it," she leaned her forearms on the back of his seat and gave his shoulder a friendly poke with a finger.

Velk checked the coordinates on the position finder in the console of the crawler. They had entered the disabled droid's assigned patrol area. Velk pulled the lumbering vehicle to a halt. "This ought to be close enough," he said, shutting everything down.

The four of them climbed out of the cab and down the ladder to the ground. Qui-Gon reached up to help Valia with the last step. She thought of turning and playfully wrapping her legs around his waist so he couldn't set her down. But at the last second she decided she ought not to, and lightly hopped to the ground. She looked up at him and saw a smile as though he knew what she had been thinking.

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan paced a short distance away from the vehicle, their eyes sweeping the area, and Valia was sure their ears and noses and other mysterious Force-powered senses were engaged in surveillance as well. Velk watched them as he popped a hatch on the side of the crawler and took out brix-sensing devices.

"Are they always this paranoid?" he asked in a whisper to Valia.

"Well, maybe paranoid isn't quite the word," she said. "It's just what you would call a natural watchfulness whenever they're somewhere they've never been before," she told her brother, wondering how long she was supposed to keep him in the dark about why they were really here, and feeling a bit in the dark herself at the moment.

"Compared to all the places they must have been, there's nothing much to watch here. Except a whole lot of fruit ripening." He passed a sensor to Valia and quickly reviewed with her how to use it. "Come on, let's get started," he said, with two more sensors in his hand for Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

After two hours of walking from tree to tree and randomly measuring, they paused for a water break and to download their numbers into a port in the crawler's console. Qui-Gon had not returned. Velk, Valia and Obi-Wan ate some freelas as they waited for him, while Velk predicted the numbers would add up to tell them the fruit in this area needed a few more days to ripen. They were discussing the lack of warm nights recently that were needed to speed the ripening when Qui-Gon appeared, striding through the long dry grass and ducking his head to avoid a low branch in the nearest row of trees.

"Do you normally store chemicals this far out in the field?" he asked, handing his sensor to Velk.

Velk looked confused. "No, we usually keep anything in the bigger sheds near the main house. Why?"

"There's a cache of some kind back that way," he said, gesturing southward in the direction he had been. Velk frowned. Now what, he wondered, loading the last sensor's data into the crawler's databanks. There shouldn't be anything left out here, as they had finished treating for insects weeks ago. Could someone, a hired hand, have been careless enough to leave chemicals or containers lying around out here? The four of them set out between the trees, following Qui-Gon's lead.

"How far?" asked Velk, his long legs nearly matching Qui-Gon's stride.

"Right in front of you." Qui-Gon stopped and pointed.

"Where?"

"In here," said Obi-Wan, pushing aside some grass beneath a tree. There, neatly bound on a plastic pallet and inside a rough, weathered wooden crate-like shelter were about thirty tall, narrow silvery canisters, with a black stripe up the side of each. There were no identifying markings on them except for a bright patch where an identifying code may have been scoured or blasted away. The grass had grown high around it, and since there were other shelters like these scattered throughout the groves, this would certainly attract no eye.

"What in blazes is this?" Velk muttered.

"Maybe it's that CXG98 the Dekkars are using." suggested Valia.

"But why would it be on our side of the property line?"

"Maybe the supplier goofed up and dropped it off in the wrong place."

"Maybe..." Velk echoed doubtfully. He reached for the comm device on his belt. "I'll call their place and see if they're missing something."

"No." Qui-Gon's quiet authority stopped him.

"And why not?" Velk's fingers stopped punching keys.

"You are certain these are not supposed to be here?"

"You bet your ass they're not," said Velk, his irritation and confusion rising.

"We've seen these kinds of canisters before. They aren't agricultural chemicals, if my suspicions are correct."

"Then what are they?"

"Chemical weapons. For chemical warfare," said Qui-Gon.

"Say again?" Velk asked, incredulous. These guys really were paranoid.

"Poisons. Nerve toxins. Don't touch anything," Qui-Gon cautioned Valia sharply as she stepped forward for a closer look at the harmless-looking canisters.

"Next question," said Velk. "What are they doing on our land?"

"Someone doesn't wish them to be found. Someone doesn't expect them to be looked for here," Qui-Gon said. "And if they are found, on your doorstep, if you will, then the blame may be laid there as well."

"This 'someone'...any ideas who that might be?" Velk asked tightly.

"That's what we plan to discover next," answered Qui-Gon.

Velk stood in angry silence staring at the almost completely hidden stash. Hidden, yet nearly out in the open, in plain sight. They would never have been seen if not for their errand out here because of the malfunctioning droid. And if not for the sharper eyes of the Jedi, they might still be there unseen. Fear put a bright edge on his anger. Who had left these here, whatever they were? Who had brazenly walked onto his family's land, into their groves and placed these here? And for what purpose? He rubbed the back of his neck, scowling.

"I strongly suggest we leave the area immediately," said Qui-Gon softly, scanning the area again. "Obi-Wan, cover any tracks or signs that we may have left here."

"Yes, Master."

"Wait just a minute." Velk stepped forward. "We ought to be reporting these. Making sure they are what you say they are. And most importantly, getting the flaming things out of here."

"At the right time. For now, we want to make it look as though we have no idea these are here."

" 'We' do?" asked Velk, whose voice was beginning to take on a surly tone.

"Could these have something to do with Jax?" asked Valia.

"What does Jax have to do with this?"

Qui-Gon faced Velk squarely. "It's time we told you why we are here. We're not exactly here to rusticate," he said. He felt the young farmer's anger, fear and frustration. Now was the time to completely enlist him to their cause, but also to calm him and reassure him that his family and property would be protected. "We're here to apprehend someone we believe is, or once was a neighbor of yours, Jax Dekkar. Operating under the alias of Relf Razuul."

"Well, unless he's hiding out here in a crate, too, you guys are out of luck. Jax has been gone for years."

"We have information he's here."

"Why are you after him? What did he do?"

"Smuggled untold numbers of firearms; murdered civilians and enforcement officers, and was involved in killing two guards escaping from a prison on Corellia. We also suspect he may be involved in arming extremist segments of Tarrin on Darrat III," Qui-Gon said.

Velk looked from Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan and back to Valia. There was no evidence of any of them playing an elaborate practical joke on their faces.

"No. Not good old Jax. He always did have his sights set on leaving here and getting involved in something he thought was more exciting than farming, but he never could have done all that," said Velk, shaking his head in denial.

"The evidence says otherwise," Qui-Gon said, leading them back to the crawler. "Have you heard anything at all as to where he might be?"

"No. But I can ask."

"Do so carefully. If those chemicals are there because of him, things have gotten far worse."

"I can't even picture him running guns. Are you sure he's the guy you're after?"

"Our sources are reliable. And your sister identified a holo of him for us."

Velk turned to look at Valia. She met his eyes briefly and looked back down at her feet moving through the dry grass.

"You knew about all this?" he asked her in disbelief.

"Sorry, brother dear. I guess I didn't come here to rusticate either." She reached up and draped an arm over his shoulder. "If nothing else, this will liven up an otherwise routine freela harvest."

Velk sneered at her. "Liven up? I'm not like you, Lia. I happen to like routine and boring and predictable," he said. "Especially when it comes to the family livelihood."

"I'm sorry, but did you think I came all the way back here just to see you?" she asked in a half-hearted attempt at teasing.

"I don't know what to think, after this morning," he said, lengthening his stride and pulling away from her arm. "After everything I've seen." He glanced back at Valia. "I don't know what's going on here, but if anything happens to Prawni, or the kids, or--"

"Rest assured we will do everything in our power to see that your family is not harmed," Qui-Gon said, walking alongside him. He held out an arm to gently stop Velk, and faced him. "Will you help us?"

The question caught Velk off guard. Instead of taking charge and ordering him around, which Velk was expecting him to do, here was a simple invitation to help him and his apprentice. Velk met the blue-eyed Jedi's level gaze and could not help feeling he was telling the truth, and that he sincerely meant it when he said he would safeguard his family. As if it were his very own. Obi-Wan reappeared almost silently and stood at his side, the loyal apprentice. There was the same serious determination in his green eyes.

"You'd better believe it," Velk said with another wary glance back through the trees toward the hidden canisters. The sky was beginning to cloud up from the same direction. It looked as though they'd have that rain after all, as predicted. He sighed. Maybe it was his turn to be paranoid.