Chapter 12
Run, Obi-Wan commanded himself. He ignored the painful pinching in his side. Faster. He willed his already tiring legs to move faster. His limbs were a blur of motion as he ran after the escaping speeder. Beads of sweat popped on his temples and evaporated. Velk had been left behind long ago, gasping and clutching his sides.
Jax was apparently making for a cargo ship on the far side of the port. Obi-Wan knew he would have to trap Jax somewhere aboard it, hopefully before it took off.
He put aside his worries about Qui-Gon. Anxious thoughts of him surfaced over and over again. That blood stain on his leg had been ominous-looking. The brief glimpse of it he'd gotten in the warehouse had almost made him run back. But he had seen Qui-Gon ignore some terrible wounds before.
He found a second wind, and ran up the loading ramp into the yawning bay of the cargo ship. The smoking speeder had disappeared into it. The interior was still mostly empty, awaiting fruit shipping containers. Obi-Wan was nearly upon Jax as he climbed out of the speeder. Jax began to whirl, but Obi-Wan was already reaching out to snake an arm around his neck. Anticipating a counter-move, he planted one foot solidly and used the other to jab the back of his knee to bring the smuggler down. Before he could get enough leverage to flip him, he heard the faintest metallic snick. An instinct honed by years of training from the best teacher told him to let go and move away quickly. Obi-Wan sucked in his stomach, arching out of the path of the blade in the heel of Jax's left boot. He had not known where that blade was going to come from until he saw it. His saber was in his hand and ignited before Jax could complete the swing of his leg. The bright blue blade followed his foot and neatly clipped off the knife blade and the heel of his boot. The smuggler's breath hissed as part of his heel was cauterized and the pain of the burn shot up his leg. A precise flick of the saber disarmed the other boot, which also contained a blade. Jax howled and went down as the other foot was burned.
The freighter's two pilots appeared in the bay, attracted by the commotion. They drew weapons and ran into the cargo area. Obi-Wan knew Jax would only be down for seconds, if even that, with his singed feet before coming up with a new weapon. At least he'd have trouble running away now.
"Drop the guns," Obi-Wan commanded the pilots with every ounce of Force suggestion he could muster. They hesitated, and then obeyed, looking at each other with confused expressions.
"Your cargo has been cancelled! Take off," Jax shouted hoarsely at them. Now they really looked confused. Cargo ships never wasted trips by travelling empty. But one of them, apparently comprehending what Jax was talking about, nodded and pulled the other pilot back toward the cockpit area.
Obi-Wan ignored the pilots for now. Jax lay on the floor, breathing hard, glaring up at him. He appeared out of weapons. All the same, he kept the tip of his saber close to the center of his chest, forcing him to stay where he was.
Looking around, Obi-Wan sought something he could use to hold the smuggler with. Anything. He saw a piece of cargo webbing hanging on a hook on a far wall. He stretched out his free hand and used the Force to pluck it from the wall. The folded length of webbing slid across the cargo bay floor toward them and obediently went to his hand. These skills were now second nature to him, thanks to Qui-Gon's diligent and relentless drilling, along with his calm and patient way of imparting lessons. Obi-Wan's mind suddenly turned to his master. He had to find him as soon as he could, and check the extent of his wound. He knew Qui-Gon would wave aside any attention to himself until everything and everyone else was attended to. His worry added haste to his hands as he tightly bound Jax in the webbing. His captive was quiet and apparently out of ways to stab or cut.
Obi-Wan's inattention almost cost him as the smuggler suddenly lunged, teeth bared. He dodged. The guy had actually tried to bite him. Obi-Wan scowled and tightened the webbing as tightly as was still humane from a safe point behind him. For good measure, he ignited his saber and melted all the knots together with the heat. Jax gritted his teeth and glared murderously at him. He breathed hard but refused to flinch away from the scorching blade.
Satisfied that Jax would not be going anywhere under his own power, he ran out of the cargo area and forward to the cockpit area. The engines had been rumbling for at least a minute now, the bay door had been closed, and any second the pilots would finish their hasty checklist and flight clearance and be off the ground. Obi-Wan reached the door to the cockpit and pushed on it. Locked, of course. His saber melted through the lock and a good portion of the sliding door. He wrenched it open.
"Shut the engines down. Now." Obi-Wan gave the quiet order to the one pilot he could see strapped into the chair. The other, the one who had nodded to Jax, leaped from around a corner with a drawn blaster. He promptly found his weapon destroyed, shortened down to the trigger guard, and the tip of a lightsaber hovering beneath his nose. The other pilot did as Obi-Wan had commanded. The first showed none of Jax's relentless drive to keep fighting, and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
Police were now arriving, leaping out of speeders and running to surround the ship in a loosely organized chaos. Obi-Wan reached past the cowering pilots to the bay door control and opened it again. They boarded the ship and saw the tightly bound Jax lying in the center of the cargo area. Velk climbed out of one of the police speeders and ran aboard behind them, looking for Obi-Wan. He saw Jax at the same time he saw the Jedi coming back out to the bay from the cockpit. He grinned with relief when he took in the scene.
He paused then, his grin fading. He still did not quite believe this could be his neighbor, and one-time friend. Was this really the same person he had known? He walked toward Jax, searching the face, trying to see it through the group of police who had surrounded him. They were hauling him to his feet, webbing and all, preparing to drag him off the ship.
The two police holding him shifted, and Velk clearly saw his face. Yes, it really was him. Jax raised his eyes. Velk saw a steady coldness there, the strange fanatic gleam of a suicidal revolutionary.
"Why?" was the only thing Velk could think to say.
Jax jerked his head to shake the hair out of his eyes. It was an arrogant, rough gesture. "Because," he rasped "There are battles out there you peasants know nothing about."
Anger and despair and betrayal warred inside Velk. "You grew up here with us. You..." He didn't know what else to say to someone who had apparently dismissed everything he had known here.
Jax made a noise that might have been a derisive snort or a harsh laugh. The tight webbing made it hard for him to draw in a very deep breath.
"Were those little containers in our field yours?" Velk demanded. Jax said nothing. "Stupid, hiding them almost in plain sight."
"You match the method to the place, Traxis," Jax replied.
Velk clenched his teeth. "You used us."
"Not without help."
Who had aided and abetted him? It must have been the man with him in the speeder who had been shooting, maybe people working here at the spaceport.
"Who? How many are involved in this mess?" Velk stepped forward angrily.
"We'll handle the questioning, young Mr. Traxis," Chief officer Hile stepped forward to urge Velk back. Velk pulled his arm away from Hile. "No, I want to know what made him think he could use us that way!" Obi-Wan placed a hand on Velk's shoulder in a calming gesture.
"Why don't you start with your own family, if you want a list of who made it so easy," Jax said smugly.
Velk's face paled. "What does my family have to do with this?"
Jax said nothing, and continued to wear his smug smile. Velk lunged suddenly. He clenched his good fist and before anyone could stop him, let fly one solid punch. The sound of nose cartilage crunching and upper teeth wrenching loose in their sockets was bittersweet music to his ears before yelling erupted and many arms grasped him to pull him back.
"Here, here now, that'll be enough!" Hile shouted. Obi-Wan pulled Velk back out of the commotion. Police hustled a bloody-faced Jax down the ramp and toward a police speeder. Velk winced in pain and flexed his fingers. He and Obi-Wan watched them push him into the back of a speeder. He turned and met Obi-Wan's level gaze.
"Yeah. I know. Peace over anger," Velk said, his voice hardly sounding convincing.
"We'll get to the bottom of all this," Obi-Wan reassured him.
"I hope so."
"Let us handle it."
"If I had hit him hard enough to kill him, I'd have called the situation handled."
"We prefer a little less violent means of bringing about justice."
Velk inspected his knuckles. "So I'd make a lousy Jedi."
"Rot!" said Valia. She was leaning against the wall of the container, her ear pressed against it, trying to hear what was going on outside. "Stupid droids," she muttered. Surely even they would eventually sense something was wrong and re-open the container. "The weight sensor must have tripped when you climbed in," she explained. "They thought the box was full, and closed it up." She rapped on the wall with her knuckles once more, trying to get someone's attention.
That unforeseen and unfortunate bit of information confirmed the poor decision it had been to climb in here. She had spoken without a trace of blame, it was simply something she had remembered. But now she was in even more danger because of him. Qui-Gon sighed and continued his slow, halting exploration of the container to find the least destructive way out of here. A minute ago he had already found something he had suspected he would find in here. The canisters they had chased all the way from the Traxis groves were stowed in a corner.
"The only other access is the hatch in the top?" Qui-Gon lifted his head, gauging the distance to the ceiling with senses other than his eyes in the pitch dark. A cable launcher should get him up there easily.
"Right. For cleaning, and whatever." Valia answered him tersely. He could hear the fear and tension in her voice. She knocked on the wall and listened as she had been doing for the last few minutes.
"Wait, I think I hear something," Valia said. The wall was thick, and she wasn't sure.
In the next second, all thoughts of how to reach the upper hatch or whether or not noises could be heard outside were driven out of their minds. With a suddenness that knocked the breath out of both of them, the anti-gravity field failed and all the fruit came down around them with a sodden whump.
Even before the last freela settled into place, Qui-Gon knew the fruit was well over Valia's head. He had managed to stay upright and he was buried almost to the shoulders. Her panic and fear burst in his mind like screams. She was suffocating. He lunged toward her, half swimming through the fruit. Unable to stay on top of the soft mass, he sank, but using all his strength, he plowed through it, reaching her in seconds. He used the Force to help, but the effort caused strange white sparks to dance before his eyes. The dizziness was almost overwhelming as he pushed fruit aside and dragged her upwards from where she had been pushed to the floor. Now he was convinced that knife had been chemically altered.
Valia was spitting, gasping for breath and struggling, clutching at him. The fruit was being crushed under its own weight, and the heavy, wet sea of it was pushing them both down and against the wall. Surely it wasn't that heavy, thought Qui-Gon. He felt as though the entire container was bearing down on his back and shoulders. He braced his arms on either side of Valia. That seemed to help slow the awful spinning in his head, and it kept more fruit from collapsing on top of her. He lifted one leg, then the other out of the crushed fruit and juice near the floor and positioned himself more solidly.
"That...that isn't supposed to happen," Valia said in a breathy voice. "The anti-grav field failed."
"Or someone turned it off," Qui-Gon said.
Juice from the broken fruit was pooling on the floor around their ankles. They could feel it rising. In a minute it was halfway to Qui-Gon's knees. He shifted carefully, knowing the stab wound had been wrenched open again from his effort to get to Valia. He could no longer tell if it was blood or juice filling his boot. A bit of juice had seeped into the cut and the raw sting of it was like fire. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, letting the pain tell him the exact size and depth of the wound. Then he did his best to shut it out, willing the blood to clot, to knit the cut together until it could be tended.
He shifted, adjusting the leverage with his arms. Valia was starting to hyperventilate, and he knew her eyes were wide with terror. He ought to be thinking of her first, not himself.
"Lia," he said softly. What he had just mentioned about someone deliberately turning off the anti-grav field had not reassured her, and what he was going to say next probably wasn't going to help her state of mind either. But it would give her something helpful to do, and it might keep him from bleeding any more.
"Lia, I need you to do something. Will you put some pressure on that cut for me?"
"It's that bad?" she asked shakily. He said nothing, not wanting to alarm her further. She made a little sound of dismay, but groped with her hand toward his hip. With his patient instructions, she found the spot and held her hand tightly against his thigh. The idea of him bleeding shook her more than she wanted to admit. She knew he must have many times, but that had been before she had known him, and in places light years away. He was a rock, a tall tree. He shouldn't be bleeding.
The juice was up to Qui-Gon's knees now. It was getting warmer and stuffier in here. Valia's rapid and uneven breathing was loud in the darkness. But her hand was steady and warm on him. It seemed to keep him centered in the strange foggy state he was drifting in and out of. He could feel the uncrushed, living fruit pulsing against his back, warm and heavy. It was almost womb-like in here. Womb-like. Is this what it was like? Warm and dark, somewhere between life and nonexistence... He shook his head to chase away such thoughts. He had to think clearly now.
"Lia," he murmured, putting the Force-suggestion of calm into his voice. "Breathe slowly. We will get out of this." He half hoped for some kind of smart-ass retort, but he only felt her nod and make an effort to slow her breathing. She really must be frightened if she had nothing to say. He felt her stiffness and discomfort being forced this close to him after their argument of the night before. The weight of their unresolved discussion was heavy on him, too. She was doing her best to be brave in front of him, and felt she was failing miserably. Qui-Gon could feel her heart beating in the warm wet darkness. It was rapid with fear, but that, too, somehow centered him.
"I so want to believe you, but..." She didn't finish and say she did not.
"We're far from being out of options yet. If this silly piece of equipment sees me as nothing more than my weight's worth of freelas, then surely we can find a way to outsmart it, and get out, hmm?"
Valia nodded. "I suppose, but what about just cutting out of here with your saber? Won't it cut through these walls?"
"Yes, it will, but all the juice and moisture in here has most likely shorted it out for now." He had thought of using it earlier, and now wondered if that was the first thing he should have done. This hesitation and second-guessing himself was not normal at all. The poison. He moved painfully to shift his weight to one arm to reach for it with the other. The normally simple task seemed monumental.
"You can lean on me," she told him when she felt the quivering in his arm and the weak sagging in his body. He gratefully rested some of his weight on her. The saber he retrieved was indeed useless now, at least for the time being.
The sound of valves popping open was like an explosion inside the container. The hiss of moving air followed. Valia thrashed suddenly, in a panic.
"The chamber's being gassed down!" She would have climbed the wall with her fingernails if she could have. She kicked and struggled, pinned by the fruit and Qui-Gon.
"Lia, be still," he urged her. They could not climb, and she was not helping the situation. He winced as she jostled his leg.
"But we really have to get out of here right now! In another minute, all the oxygen in here is going to be gone. This gas coming in here preserves the fruit in transport. It won't do the same thing for us!" More fruit was rolling inward on them, loosened by her struggling, filling in the hollow Qui-Gon had managed to keep open.
"Lia, my breather," he said calmly as though from a great distance. Had she heard him over the sound of the gas? Knowing the air was quickly going bad, she took a deep breath, and broke into a fit of coughing. "Lia," he said again. He was leaning against the wall with his elbows now, his chin above her head. It was all he could do to hold himself upright. "Reach around and get my breather. Do you remember where it is on my belt?"
Valia stopped to listen to what he was saying. He was speaking barely above a murmur. How could he possibly be so blasted calm and quiet when they were about to asphyxiate? His what? Of course, his breather. It made sense he'd be asking for that. She groped through the fruit around his waist and sought the right belt-pack with her fingers. She felt her heart walloping in her chest, trying to force oxygen into her already deprived tissues. Odd, colored sparks danced in front of her eyes. She was getting sleepy. Warm and wet and sleepy. If they were going to die, there were a lot more uncomfortable ways to go, she thought dimly. Gassed to sleep and shipped off to the stars, just like the fruit they grew.
Qui-Gon felt her manage to work her hand behind him and wriggle her fingers into the right pack and fish out the breather. Oh, bless those strong, talented hands. He was startled out of his semi-conscious fog when he felt her pushing it up toward him and putting it in his mouth. No! What was she doing? Even in his weakened state, he could hold his breath far longer than she could. Using the Force, he pushed the breather away, and placed the strong suggestion in her mind that she use it herself, this instant. Relief coursed through him as he felt her pull it back and push the mouthpiece between her lips. Here and now was the reason for that afternoon in her apartment so many months ago when she had been in an especially playful mood, and had gleefully ransacked all his belt packs and pockets. 'And what, pray tell, is this?' she had laughed. 'Show me how this works.' Thank the Force he had done just that.
He took a quick gulp of the air, and found it was already unbreathable. He would hold his breath as long as he could before taking a turn at the breather. Even then, he would keep it only seconds from her. He knew there was about two hours' worth of oxygen in it. In that time, he could surely repair his saber or attempt to reach the access hatch in the ceiling. There was no need to think about what would happen if no one opened the container from the outside. Did he have the strength to put both of them in an oxygen-conserving trance, should it become necessary? Did he even have the strength to put himself in one? In a minute or so, he would make every effort to fight the lightheadedness and go about getting them out of here. In just a minute. He felt one of Valia's arms wrap around his waist and tighten in fear. He focused on the rhythm of her breathing and her heart. The other arm worked downward as she remembered his stab wound and pressed her hand against it. Qui-Gon brushed his lips across the top of her head and rested his cheek there, for how long he didn't know. He wasn't ready for it yet, but he felt Valia insistently push the breathing device toward his face. The breath of oxygen cleared his mind and his thoughts turned toward his apprentice and how he was doing. Hurry, Obi-Wan, he thought.
There was no sign of life in the warehouse. All the cargo chambers were quiet, either full and waiting to be shipped, or empty and waiting to be filled. It was the quiet itself that was unusual, and Velk pointed this out to Obi-Wan as they entered the building. Fruit loading should have been going on unabated at this time of year. They both hurried past the chambers, searching around each one for any sign of Qui-Gon or Valia.
"Over there," Velk pointed. Two droids stood unmoving, their visual sensors dark. Obi-Wan examined them. "It looks like they've been put in some kind of long-term shut-down," he said. They would be getting no information from them, at least for quite some time. Obi-Wan looked around anxiously, searching for some clue. There was no one else around, organic or droid. An automatic driving system had delivered the waiting load of fruit. He knew this was the area where he had last seen Qui-Gon. He saw a few drying drops of blood on the warehouse floor, and the telltale scuffle marks of the fight. He read these signs and grew more anxious. He took a moment to calm himself and think logically. If Qui-Gon was not here, that might mean he had been in good enough condition to walk away under his own power. He stood where he was and expanded his perception, sweeping his eyes to take in every detail. He looked up and saw the conduit loops near the ceiling; he looked down and saw oil stains and ancient cigarette butts near the entrance; everything in slow motion yet with lightning speed. Then he saw the small smear of blood on the side of the cargo chamber, and he felt a sudden certainty about where his master was. He called to Velk, who was searching the other end of the building.
"We need to open this up," said Obi-Wan.
"You think he's in the box?" asked Velk. "But..." he looked at the control panel on the side. "That's not good news, because this one's already been gassed down."
"Open it," Obi-Wan told him. Velk studied the controls, and found the right switch to open the loading slot. The slot opened and a cascade of fruit dumped to the floor. Velk jumped aside as it tumbled to the floor at his feet. They looked inside and saw there was no way to climb inside, or even see in.
"Oh, no," Velk said in dismay at the sight of the mass of fruit inside, half crushed under its own weight without the anti-grav field. Even though air was now getting into the chamber, what if they were too late? Who had done this? The loading droids surely weren't behind this.
"No," said Obi-Wan firmly, sensing Velk's thoughts. "He's still alive, I can feel it."
"We'll have to go in through the hatch in the top," Velk said turning away to go around the far side of the container to the ladder that went up the side of it. Obi-Wan climbed up behind him.
"Won't open," grunted Velk in frustration as he worked several release controls and tried to twist the lever to open the hatch. He put all his weight into it, and sat back gasping. He slid backwards away from the hatch as a length of blue fire lit the darkness in the warehouse. He watched Obi-Wan plunge his saber blade through the thick metal and cut a hole around the stuck hatch. There was a groan as the metal gave way and the section fell inward. Without waiting for the edges of the opening to cool, Obi-Wan jumped in and sank awkwardly into the fruit. "Master!" he called, moving forward with swimming motions. With a little more hesitation, Velk jumped in behind him. The smell of crushed fruit and preservation gasses nearly overwhelmed them. Coughing, they moved toward the corners of the container, searching and calling, sweeping freelas aside with their arms.
"Over here," Obi-Wan said, gesturing toward a corner. He plowed toward the familiar and much-loved signature he sensed there. He could sense it loudly and clearly now. He pushed aside fruit and reached the corner, where in a small hollow he saw the top of Qui-Gon's head. "Master," Obi-Wan called softly with relief, coming closer so he could see Qui-Gon's face. He seemed to be unconscious and he didn't respond to more of Obi-Wan's calls. His eyes stayed closed. Obi-Wan called out to him with his mind. They opened and blearily tried to focus on Obi-Wan, who took his master's bearded face between his hands and tilted it back to anxiously look into it upside down. Yes, he was injured, but he could move. Obi-Wan understood the dim thoughts Qui-Gon was sending him, but they were fuzzy and confused. There was something very wrong with him, beyond his knife wound. Velk crawled close, and together they dug and struggled to hoist him free.
"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon murmured groggily as his apprentice and Velk each took him beneath an arm and pulled with all their strength to free his big body. "Lia." Qui-Gon said softly.
"Is he asking for Lia?" Velk said straining and digging to push aside the clinging, sucking fruit.
"Must get Lia out first," Qui-Gon struggled to say.
"Lia's in here, too," said Obi-Wan with alarm, pushing aside fruit. Only now did he sense her presence. Now he saw a patch of pale hair in the darkness. There she was, right in front of Qui-Gon. "Lia?" called Velk, alarmed now, too. Qui-Gon seemed to have revived a bit with the air flowing into the chamber. His arms had been around her and he pulled her up with what little strength he had. Velk dug desperately, throwing fruit aside. She emerged from the hollow where she had sheltered between the wall and Qui-Gon, the breather still between her lips. Her eyes flew open, and she struggled to remove it. She took in a great whooping breath of air.
They hauled themselves out of the container. All of them looked as though they were covered in gore. Blood-red juice, pulp and skin clung to them. Qui-Gon and Valia were stained down to the skin. Only Qui-Gon was unable to stand on his feet. A hasty call with Velk's commlink summoned police and transport.