The next chapter is finished and waiting. I will know by your feedback that you have caught up and I will zip the next section to you.
It deals primarily with Xani and Obi-Wan's first meeting. You may be surprised at Xanatos' reaction to Kenobi just as Sidious was.
XOXOX
"You doubt what you see before you? You question my very existence, too unorthodox to believe I am real? Oh Padawan mine what am I to do with you?"
Obi-Wan had begun to think he would never see his adored first master, Tahl. Now, now the time was at hand. She was there. All his worry and fear of his present master, Qui-Gon Jinn fell by the wayside with the knowledge he thought he had, that Tahl would never allow anyone to bring him harm; not with her right beside him once more.
A laugh, as horrendously macabre as the dark side itself tore from the Tahl before him but Obi-Wan failed to hear it. His sense of sight was the most prominent and his vision honed in on the one person he thought never to gaze upon again.
Before Tahl revealed herself to him, Obi-Wan thought if he should be blessed to see her again she would come in the form of the notorious rumored blue ghost figure, not the as the embodied master who died. He knew full well she died.Obi-Wan heard of her demise as witnessed by his new master and watched her body burn; with it the return of her soul to the force.
The bitterly cold air which now came in his makeshift home from the pulled away wall by Tahl was not the reason the boy stood and shook. He was in shock and absolute awe of what or who stood in front of him; a living breathing and appeared to be in the flesh Tahl; not adorned with the blue hued mystical mantle that Jedi rumored returned from the force came back as.
Obi-Wan reached out to touch his master Tahl when he noticed the weird sinister smirk on her face. She was no more than vaguely like his Tahl in appearance after all. That was all the time allotted him to reason why his master seemed so unlike herself.
A loud crashing sound of the corrugated wall behind him being ripped away caused him to want to turn his attention to the rear of him. Padawan Kenobi didn't have time to look and find out what caused the earsplitting noise. He only felt the brutual jab of a hydro spray being plunged sadistically through his tender skin, between his neck and his shoulder; through muscle, all the way painfully to the apprentice's collar bone.
His eyes fluttered once and he saw his former master, a most cruel and deviously looking Tahl smiling heartlessly down at him before finally and gratefully blessed oblivion claimed the teen.
XOXO Jinn, Dorrie, and cowardly Bruck XOXOX
Two days of non-stop searching for Jinn's apprentice had put everyone on edge. Their nerves along with their stamina had beenpushed to beyond reasonable expectancy, even for the most powerful of Jedi.
Master Starworth, in Qui-Gon's opinion had been too silent on the matter of his lost apprentice. Normally he would have expected her to be down his throat for what happened between him and Obi, especially with how cruelly he had been to the mere child in Dorrie's eyes. He himself felt guilt over that but Dorrie remained silent, too silent. The condemnation Jinn was sure would come did not. After two days of searching, Qui-Gon began to think maybe there was a reason for Dorrie's silence. He decided the best way to find out, was to ask.
When they finally found a resting place along with something to eat, Qui-Gon began his interrogation of Master Starworth, with a nervous Bruck Chun watching.
"Do you know something I don't about my apprentice?"
Dorrie couldn't think fast enough for Qui-Gon not to notice her hesitation. She stammered out a one word reply.
"No .."
When Qui-Gon did not reflect any suspicions over her wavering one word answer, she attempted to cover over her nervousness laced through her reply with a more believable answer.
"I mean no of course not. How could I? I only know what Bruck related to us of the incidence and kidnapping."
Jinn brushed his unkempt and disheveled dreds from his face and nodded his head.
"Good, very good for I would hate to think you are keeping something from me at a time like this, with my apprentice lost."
"Like you care all that much for Obi-Wan's disappearance or for the youngling's overall well-being.. Besides we don't know if Obi-Wan is "gone" by happenchance, choice, or something more dastardly like his capture by those who kidnapped Bruck."
Dorrie hadn't meant to sound so callous but pent-up-out-of-control guilt had away of doing strange things to people and right now Dorrie carried more guilt for Obi's disappearance than Jinn or her apprentice, Bruck Chun knew about.
Bruck was oblivious to the fact that his master knew he lied on Obi, knew the basic truth of what happened when he was kidnapped, and knew enough to piece together the real truth; Bruck was bold face liar.
"We will find him."
Jinn's brow creased deeper with concern.
"I hope so. It has been over forty-eight hours and not a trace of him."
"He has to be here on this planet somewhere. Have you felt him?"
Now it was Jinn's turn to be evasive. His stuttered started before he finally replied to the worried Dorrie
"Well you see… Yes he is still on this planet… I think. What made you say that, to place more doubt in my mind?"
"Qui-Gon let me turn your question to me back to you. Is there something you are not telling me about your apprentice? Have you felt him through your training bond? I know it is weak at best but there should be a flicker of existence once in awhile."
"Don't you think I know that? That is what brings me concern. There is not hint of the bond we share. Shared and…and.."
"What Jinni old boy now it is you who should be suspected of holding back something. What is it?"
"I can't feel him. The hell with the small tendril of our training bond that has always been elusive. I can not feel the boy through the force by his signature, the imprint always present in a Jedi blessed with the force as he is.. The feeling I have is a mirror of what I felt when death tore Tahl's love bond from me. "
"Nothing?"
It alarmed Dorrie to hear Jinn explain his concern for Kenobi's bond and evidently absent force signature.
Jedi should be prepared for anything. Dorrie was definitely not prepared for Jinn's confession about the dormancy of the bond with Obi-Wan.
"No nothing. Not long after he disappeared our bond did the same. It ceased to exist in my head like it had been broken or tampered with in some way."
Jinn hadn't told the other master about the blow by blow battle that was carried out in his head between their shared dead friend Tahl and his master Yoda, and didn't intend to either.
"Dead. Oh Qui can that be true, Obi-Wan dead?"
Dorrie melodramatically gripped Jinn's forearm so hard her nails dug in his tough tanned skin.
Qui-Gon did not answer her right away. He just stood there and observed the scene they had created; Dorrie latched soundly to his arm with a questioning glare directed right at him. Bruck in pained misery at the chance of the truth about his lies being revealed, continued to take in the two master's conversation. Jinn desperately attempted to think of what to say or do next that would placate Starworth enough for her to release her death grip on him.
"Is Obi-Wan dead. Is that what you think?"
"No, I don't think he is dead. I think Obi-Wan is in much more cataclysmic dilemma than passing into the hands of the force……."
In his meditation before they continued on their search, something flickered within Jinn's head again. A familiar yet ominous and dreaded touch to his mind; a nearly eerie connection that came just as mysteriously as it left. He first thought a return confrontation with Tahl was just about to occur, but no. This slight stirring of a bond was only fleeting but Jinn knew it was deeper than Tahl's former bond with him and so too did that leave Obi-Wan out of the choices he had as to who it could be… Gone as quickly as it came and with itsjolting withdrawal from his mind so did his concern for it. Obi-Wan's disappearance weighed too heavily in his thoughts to worry about anything else.
XO Yoda and Mace headed to rescue Jinn but from what? XO
Mace regretted even getting into a conversation with Yoda especially in the foul mood he was still in. However he made the dreaded mistake of asking questions, questions Yoda vehemently opposed answering.
"Conscious of more than just my surroundings I am. If attuned to the force more vigilantly you were, aware of things foreseen you would be. Did not get to be 800 years plus by living in the immediate present. Look to the force to aid and guide me more astutely than you or most Jedi. Head Jedi that makes me and not you. Fly the ship you should, and leave me to think these pressing matters through."
"Forgive me Master Yoda could you walk me through this again? Just why are we going to meet up with Qui-Gon and the other Jedi?"
"Lost your hearing have you or just misplaced you ability to understand the simplest of phrases formed in the most comprehensible way I can think of, have you? Jinn is where the problem originates from I suspect. Problem begins and ends with Jinn and Starworth. If it does then be there I also plan to be. Make sure I do what happened to the last group of Jedi masters on Telos happens not to my apprentice and the others with him on Gunray's home world."
Mace was not convinced that Yoda still was not in some way delusional, a suspicion he certainly did not plan to voice to Yoda. He wouldn't admit it but yes he came on this mission with Yoda to protect him but more than that. He humored Yoda's whim. A whim that if the council got wind might gettry them both ex-communicated from the Jedi order.
"O.K now you have lost me again."
"Maybe better you not ask question if understand the answer you can not. Pilot the ship you should. Can do that without confusion in that head of yours, can you not?"
Yoda was indeed in a sour mood and most of the verbal part of his grumpiness was being directed to the only other being on the ship, Mace Windu.
"Master Yoda, there is no reason to take your apprehension for Qui-Gon and the others with him out on me. Have you foreseen something that tells you that danger you allude too is centralized around Qui-Gon? Yes, yes I know about the other masters' death on Telos. No need to refresh my memory on that. But as of yet we have no reason to believe Jinn is in the kind of offensive as the masters were on Telos. We haven't even found out why the masters on Telos were ambushed and mercilessly slaughtered, let alone suspect the same is in the realm of possibility for Jinn. We have nothing to make us suspect his well-being and mission is jeopardized or compromised as was the masters' on Telos."
"Know it I do."
Yoda's voice settled down to be a little less coarse, but words spoken wereno less condescending.
"Question me further you wish or concentrate on the meteor in front of us you intend to do. Veer your course by eight furlongs to the east and three furlongs higher up you should if wish it to avoid the meteor we are on collison course with."
Mace looked down at the radar screen in front of him with the tiny little red bleep flickering warningly. Sure enough there was a large meteor that showed as the red dot on the radar.
With the meteor's immense size, if they crashed head-on it could very well knock them out of orbit and send them uncontrolibly whirling into one of the many unexplored black holes that were scattered through this section of deep space.
Yoda hung his head and formed the tiniest of smiles on his face before he pulled his cloaked head back up and stared stone faced at Mace.
"Question now me of knowing what I do. Just saved you and I from sure death, I did. Now question me again about this mission you should not."
Yoda shook his little gnarled gimer stick at Mace threateningly but also humorously.
"Or feel the wrath of this little stick you will. On one knee or both, my preference not yours it will be."
"Just one more thing?
Yoda rolled his little bug eyes.
"And that is what?"
"How do you plan to justify to Qui-Gon your rush to protect him, a grown man not your apprentice any longer."
"Justify to my padawan I will not. Question me he won't dare. Unlike a council master I know that at this moment sits too close to me he does."
Yoda closed his eyes and feigned sleep. Mace knew it was his way of letting him know that their conversation had come to a definite end with no more questions from Mace being answered.
T.B.C.
ewen