QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Hell no longer frightens me.
From the Harvesters Journal.
Obi-Wan Kenobi paced restlessly in the spacious reception area of one of Coruscant's most powerful law firms, Wolfram and Hart. In addition to being powerful, Wolfram and Hart had the reputation of being utterly ruthless and unscrupulous in its business dealings. Few beings dared cross the firm. Those who did, more often than not, disappeared.
He had already checked out Narl Organna and his family. They had habitually refused to do business with either Wolfram and Hart or Morgan Enterprises and were often at odds with both companies.
Ever since Narl Organna had initiated the investigation on both Wolfram and Hart and Morgan Enterprises, he ran up against a durasteel wall. When the Brotherhood came into the picture, they too ran up against that same wall. Evidence was gathered, but somehow lost, witnesses turned up dead or went missing. The list went on. Anyone who had business dealings with Wolfram and Hart or Morgan Enterprises were too frightened to speak.
Now that Obi Wan and his master had taken over the investigation, they had begun to suspect both the firm and Morgan Enterprises were a front for something much larger and more sinister. Obi Wan had a further reason to keep on with the investigation, despite the all-too-frequent dead ends. He had not been able to reach his master for several days. Obi Wan frowned as the door opened, revealing a man.
The man was in his late thirties, tall, dark-haired and green-eyed. He was handsome in a slimy sort of way and dressed expensively. Obi-One felt slightly sick as he approached the man. He had the same sort of feeling that he got whenever he approached an open sewer on an under-developed world.
The man smiled ingratiatingly at the boy. Obi-Wan was instinctively on guard and gazed at the man uncompromisingly. "I need information on one of your clients, a Morgan Enterprises." Obi-Wan told him bluntly.
"We are not at liberty to discuss our clients' dossier with unauthorized individuals." The man told him just as baldly.
Obi- Wan stared at the man who was growing increasingly uncomfortable. He was unused to being thrown so off-balance by a mere child. "I am a representative of the Brotherhood. We suspect Morgan Enterprises of murder, among other things. Cooperation would be appreciated."
The man scowled. The Brotherhood was a bad enemy to have and would not give up until they had what they wanted. And the boy was not about to be intimidated by him, nor could he bring out one of the senior partners. One look at them and the boy would know for certain that Wolfram and Hart dealt with those who embraced the dark-side.
He sighed. Morgan could go to hell as far as the law firm was concerned. They were not about to take on the Brotherhood before they were ready to do so. "Follow me. I'll give you what we have on the company."
The boy smiled slightly as the man led him into one of the offices and gave him the information on a data-crystal. "I hope this will be helpful." The man said softly as he handed Obi-One the crystal.
The boy gratefully took the crystal. "Thank you for your cooperation." Obi- One said respectfully and did his best to avoid touching the man. The lawyer frowned. Did he sense something? With Jedi you could never tell.
The lawyer escorted Obi- Wan out of the building and watched as he got on a public transport. He spoke quietly into a comm-link. "The boy has the information. What are your orders?"
"Wait," the voice on the other end commanded. As the man entered the firm, there was a tremendous explosion. When it was over, there was nothing left of either the building or the man.
Obi- Wan saw the fireball and swallowed as the transport rocked with the resulting shock-wave. If he had stayed one moment longer, he too would have been caught in the bomb's blast. This was getting serious.
***
Qui Gon woke slowly, enjoying the relative comfort of lying on something soft and being able to move freely. His head ached fiercely and his muscles felt weak and unresponsive. His throat was sore and raw from screaming.
He breathed deeply, going into the most basic of the Jedi meditation techniques. The headache faded and he realized that most of that was probably due to stiff muscles. He stretched, one muscle at a time. A ligament popped. He opened his eyes and looked around, letting his eyes focus to the cell's light.
The room wasn't that large, maybe one and a half square meters, plus a small bathroom. The only furniture was his and his cellmate's cots. His cellmate? He turned and saw her clearly for the first time. She was sitting on her cot, looking at him silently and she was holding a cup of water in one hand. He unconsciously licked his dry, cracked lips, realizing how thirsty he was.
She walked over to him and helped him sit up, then handed him the cup. Qui Gon was dismayed at how much effort it took to hold the cup. By the time he was done drinking, his hand was shaking. The woman took the cup away from him and set it on the floor.
"Feel better?" she asked.
Qui Gon nodded. He liked the sound of her voice, though he couldn't quite place her accent. He remembered how she had partially healed him and helped him fall into a healing sleep when he could barely think coherently. He curiously probed her aura and was surprised at how dark it appeared. Qui Gon did a double take. That darkness seemed artificial and swirled around her in a way no natural aura should.
He probed further, finding that the perceived darkness was in fact layers upon layers of shadows cleverly switch-backing upon themselves; completely hid her true aura beneath them. Still more surprising was how still the Force was around her. Even among ordinary non-Force sensitive people, there was some sort of disturbance. Around her, he couldn't detect anything
Qui Gon could feel her amusement behind the thickly layered shields around her mind and the shadows around her aura parted for a split second. He reeled back in shock at the maelstrom of energy those shadows concealed. As quickly as it appeared, the roiling energy and light disappeared behind a confusing pattern of shadows. He blinked and looked at her. She nodded, letting him know silently that what he saw was quite real.
"It's more show than substance I'm afraid." She said offhandedly. "I can only use some aspects of that power under special circumstances."
"So I take it that this isn't one of those circumstances," he said dryly. His voice still sounded hoarse, but at least he could control it.
Soralis nodded. She was deliberately being as gentle and as non-threatening as possible. The young Shadowlord knew quite well what he was going through. Torture was never pleasant and the after-affects of that hell was often as bad as the torture itself. She guessed this was the first time he had ever been in a situation like this and could safely assume that he was unused to being completely out of control.
She laughed softly. "No, this isn't one of those circumstances. Pity, isn't it?" she grinned at him. "So, mind telling me how you got caught?"
Qui Gon's hands clenched unconsciously. "I was investigating the murder of a friend who had been found tortured to death on a world called Etti IV. This investigation led me to a company called Morgan Enterprises who was suspected of a number of illegal acts ranging from deliberately infecting a population with plague-viruses to manufacturing banned technologies such as torture droids." He laughed bitterly. Narl Organna didn't know how right he was. Qui Gon only hoped he could live long enough to get the evidence to the Council.
"During the course of my investigation I found invoices for supplies that did not seem to be going to any of Morgan Leigh's legal laboratories and companies. I traced the supplies to an unregistered loading dock. When I entered, I was hit with a ray of energy that knocked me out." He was sweating now as he remembered the droid that had fired the energy-beam. It was an almost exact duplicate of the one that had tortured him.
Soralis cursed softly. She was loosing him. "Qui Gon, relax." She said as she took his hand, squeezing it.
The brief contact brought him back to reality. "Why am I feeling like this?" he asked her softly.
"You're still probably suffering from the after-affects of whatever drugs they fed you." Soralis hazarded. "It takes time for that stuff to work out of your system. That and you're still in shock."
He nodded slowly. It sounded reasonable. Qui Gon looked at her curiously. He knew she was helping him deal with what happened. The question was how did she know how to do it? "Your turn," he told her.
Soralis sighed. She didn't know how much to tell him. It wasn't that she didn't trust him; she just couldn't risk giving their captors any information that could be used against her people.
"Essentially I am a demon-hunter. That is a person who hunts down evil extra-dimensional creatures and kills them before they can do any harm. Like you, I was investigating a torture-murder case. Unlike you, I found that this murder was only one of a string of twenty similar murders ranging across an entire continent. I traced these murders to a city where I learned that the murders were committed by a cult intending to open a portal into the Dead-Realms. This in turn would release a powerful and evil immortal into our Realm." She said.
"Something went wrong," Qui Gon stated.
Soralis smiled. "Very wrong. Before I found out where the cult was hiding, this evil immortal was released. Fortunately he was caught in a temporary time-space bubble on the edge of our Realm. This gave myself and a group of other demon-hunters enough time to locate the cult's hiding place and get there. On the way there, I was caught in a cave in and woke up here."
"You said before you weren't a Jedi. So what are you?"
"A lot of things," she said vaguely. "I really don't want to talk about it right now," she said softly. He got the hint. They were surely being monitored and she didn't want to reveal too much about herself to their captors. She looked at him. "Can you tell me what a Jedi is though?" she asked curiously.
He frowned. "You don't know what a Jedi is? What planet are you from?" he asked seriously.
"Earth. Terra to be more precise. Where that is from here, I have no idea." She replied.
"Have you ever heard of a planet called Coruscant?" he asked. Even Rim- Worlders and those from Wild-Space knew of Coruscant, even if it was only in legend.
She shook her head. "No."
"Oh no," he whispered. That meant she was from a planet that was beyond even the most distant worlds and so far out into the Unknown Regions the Republic hadn't even made contact with her world yet.
"Alright," he said and began to explain the basics, things even Morgan knew.
***
"What are they doing?" Morgan asked the rather bored guard monitoring an array of video monitors.
"Standard get to know your cell-mate routine." He replied and laughed dryly. "Something they all go through one way or another. "
Morgan echoed his laughter as she reviewed both the Jedi's and the alien's vital signs through an implant she had placed in their respective bodies while they had been unconscious.
"He's reacting normally to the side-effects of the drugs. Strange." She said as she looked at the alien's vitals.
"Her body is metabolizing the neuron inhibitor more quickly than I thought it would." She murmured. If the alien regained her ability to communicate to the symbiont that encased her skeletal structure, it would prove disastrous.
"I'm going to have to increase the dosage." She said softly and grinned slightly. Two well-trained force-sensitives of different disciplines to play with. How delightful.
The guard looked at her curiously. "What's so special about these two?" he asked.
Morgan scowled at him. "Watch them. Even weakened Jedi are dangerous and we don't know what this alien is capable of."
He blanched. "Jedi?" They were holding a Jedi captive? "My lady, is this wise?" he asked.
She snorted. "Jedi are no different from any other being. They can be hurt and killed just like everyone else. Remember that." She turned around and left.
Hell no longer frightens me.
From the Harvesters Journal.
Obi-Wan Kenobi paced restlessly in the spacious reception area of one of Coruscant's most powerful law firms, Wolfram and Hart. In addition to being powerful, Wolfram and Hart had the reputation of being utterly ruthless and unscrupulous in its business dealings. Few beings dared cross the firm. Those who did, more often than not, disappeared.
He had already checked out Narl Organna and his family. They had habitually refused to do business with either Wolfram and Hart or Morgan Enterprises and were often at odds with both companies.
Ever since Narl Organna had initiated the investigation on both Wolfram and Hart and Morgan Enterprises, he ran up against a durasteel wall. When the Brotherhood came into the picture, they too ran up against that same wall. Evidence was gathered, but somehow lost, witnesses turned up dead or went missing. The list went on. Anyone who had business dealings with Wolfram and Hart or Morgan Enterprises were too frightened to speak.
Now that Obi Wan and his master had taken over the investigation, they had begun to suspect both the firm and Morgan Enterprises were a front for something much larger and more sinister. Obi Wan had a further reason to keep on with the investigation, despite the all-too-frequent dead ends. He had not been able to reach his master for several days. Obi Wan frowned as the door opened, revealing a man.
The man was in his late thirties, tall, dark-haired and green-eyed. He was handsome in a slimy sort of way and dressed expensively. Obi-One felt slightly sick as he approached the man. He had the same sort of feeling that he got whenever he approached an open sewer on an under-developed world.
The man smiled ingratiatingly at the boy. Obi-Wan was instinctively on guard and gazed at the man uncompromisingly. "I need information on one of your clients, a Morgan Enterprises." Obi-Wan told him bluntly.
"We are not at liberty to discuss our clients' dossier with unauthorized individuals." The man told him just as baldly.
Obi- Wan stared at the man who was growing increasingly uncomfortable. He was unused to being thrown so off-balance by a mere child. "I am a representative of the Brotherhood. We suspect Morgan Enterprises of murder, among other things. Cooperation would be appreciated."
The man scowled. The Brotherhood was a bad enemy to have and would not give up until they had what they wanted. And the boy was not about to be intimidated by him, nor could he bring out one of the senior partners. One look at them and the boy would know for certain that Wolfram and Hart dealt with those who embraced the dark-side.
He sighed. Morgan could go to hell as far as the law firm was concerned. They were not about to take on the Brotherhood before they were ready to do so. "Follow me. I'll give you what we have on the company."
The boy smiled slightly as the man led him into one of the offices and gave him the information on a data-crystal. "I hope this will be helpful." The man said softly as he handed Obi-One the crystal.
The boy gratefully took the crystal. "Thank you for your cooperation." Obi- One said respectfully and did his best to avoid touching the man. The lawyer frowned. Did he sense something? With Jedi you could never tell.
The lawyer escorted Obi- Wan out of the building and watched as he got on a public transport. He spoke quietly into a comm-link. "The boy has the information. What are your orders?"
"Wait," the voice on the other end commanded. As the man entered the firm, there was a tremendous explosion. When it was over, there was nothing left of either the building or the man.
Obi- Wan saw the fireball and swallowed as the transport rocked with the resulting shock-wave. If he had stayed one moment longer, he too would have been caught in the bomb's blast. This was getting serious.
***
Qui Gon woke slowly, enjoying the relative comfort of lying on something soft and being able to move freely. His head ached fiercely and his muscles felt weak and unresponsive. His throat was sore and raw from screaming.
He breathed deeply, going into the most basic of the Jedi meditation techniques. The headache faded and he realized that most of that was probably due to stiff muscles. He stretched, one muscle at a time. A ligament popped. He opened his eyes and looked around, letting his eyes focus to the cell's light.
The room wasn't that large, maybe one and a half square meters, plus a small bathroom. The only furniture was his and his cellmate's cots. His cellmate? He turned and saw her clearly for the first time. She was sitting on her cot, looking at him silently and she was holding a cup of water in one hand. He unconsciously licked his dry, cracked lips, realizing how thirsty he was.
She walked over to him and helped him sit up, then handed him the cup. Qui Gon was dismayed at how much effort it took to hold the cup. By the time he was done drinking, his hand was shaking. The woman took the cup away from him and set it on the floor.
"Feel better?" she asked.
Qui Gon nodded. He liked the sound of her voice, though he couldn't quite place her accent. He remembered how she had partially healed him and helped him fall into a healing sleep when he could barely think coherently. He curiously probed her aura and was surprised at how dark it appeared. Qui Gon did a double take. That darkness seemed artificial and swirled around her in a way no natural aura should.
He probed further, finding that the perceived darkness was in fact layers upon layers of shadows cleverly switch-backing upon themselves; completely hid her true aura beneath them. Still more surprising was how still the Force was around her. Even among ordinary non-Force sensitive people, there was some sort of disturbance. Around her, he couldn't detect anything
Qui Gon could feel her amusement behind the thickly layered shields around her mind and the shadows around her aura parted for a split second. He reeled back in shock at the maelstrom of energy those shadows concealed. As quickly as it appeared, the roiling energy and light disappeared behind a confusing pattern of shadows. He blinked and looked at her. She nodded, letting him know silently that what he saw was quite real.
"It's more show than substance I'm afraid." She said offhandedly. "I can only use some aspects of that power under special circumstances."
"So I take it that this isn't one of those circumstances," he said dryly. His voice still sounded hoarse, but at least he could control it.
Soralis nodded. She was deliberately being as gentle and as non-threatening as possible. The young Shadowlord knew quite well what he was going through. Torture was never pleasant and the after-affects of that hell was often as bad as the torture itself. She guessed this was the first time he had ever been in a situation like this and could safely assume that he was unused to being completely out of control.
She laughed softly. "No, this isn't one of those circumstances. Pity, isn't it?" she grinned at him. "So, mind telling me how you got caught?"
Qui Gon's hands clenched unconsciously. "I was investigating the murder of a friend who had been found tortured to death on a world called Etti IV. This investigation led me to a company called Morgan Enterprises who was suspected of a number of illegal acts ranging from deliberately infecting a population with plague-viruses to manufacturing banned technologies such as torture droids." He laughed bitterly. Narl Organna didn't know how right he was. Qui Gon only hoped he could live long enough to get the evidence to the Council.
"During the course of my investigation I found invoices for supplies that did not seem to be going to any of Morgan Leigh's legal laboratories and companies. I traced the supplies to an unregistered loading dock. When I entered, I was hit with a ray of energy that knocked me out." He was sweating now as he remembered the droid that had fired the energy-beam. It was an almost exact duplicate of the one that had tortured him.
Soralis cursed softly. She was loosing him. "Qui Gon, relax." She said as she took his hand, squeezing it.
The brief contact brought him back to reality. "Why am I feeling like this?" he asked her softly.
"You're still probably suffering from the after-affects of whatever drugs they fed you." Soralis hazarded. "It takes time for that stuff to work out of your system. That and you're still in shock."
He nodded slowly. It sounded reasonable. Qui Gon looked at her curiously. He knew she was helping him deal with what happened. The question was how did she know how to do it? "Your turn," he told her.
Soralis sighed. She didn't know how much to tell him. It wasn't that she didn't trust him; she just couldn't risk giving their captors any information that could be used against her people.
"Essentially I am a demon-hunter. That is a person who hunts down evil extra-dimensional creatures and kills them before they can do any harm. Like you, I was investigating a torture-murder case. Unlike you, I found that this murder was only one of a string of twenty similar murders ranging across an entire continent. I traced these murders to a city where I learned that the murders were committed by a cult intending to open a portal into the Dead-Realms. This in turn would release a powerful and evil immortal into our Realm." She said.
"Something went wrong," Qui Gon stated.
Soralis smiled. "Very wrong. Before I found out where the cult was hiding, this evil immortal was released. Fortunately he was caught in a temporary time-space bubble on the edge of our Realm. This gave myself and a group of other demon-hunters enough time to locate the cult's hiding place and get there. On the way there, I was caught in a cave in and woke up here."
"You said before you weren't a Jedi. So what are you?"
"A lot of things," she said vaguely. "I really don't want to talk about it right now," she said softly. He got the hint. They were surely being monitored and she didn't want to reveal too much about herself to their captors. She looked at him. "Can you tell me what a Jedi is though?" she asked curiously.
He frowned. "You don't know what a Jedi is? What planet are you from?" he asked seriously.
"Earth. Terra to be more precise. Where that is from here, I have no idea." She replied.
"Have you ever heard of a planet called Coruscant?" he asked. Even Rim- Worlders and those from Wild-Space knew of Coruscant, even if it was only in legend.
She shook her head. "No."
"Oh no," he whispered. That meant she was from a planet that was beyond even the most distant worlds and so far out into the Unknown Regions the Republic hadn't even made contact with her world yet.
"Alright," he said and began to explain the basics, things even Morgan knew.
***
"What are they doing?" Morgan asked the rather bored guard monitoring an array of video monitors.
"Standard get to know your cell-mate routine." He replied and laughed dryly. "Something they all go through one way or another. "
Morgan echoed his laughter as she reviewed both the Jedi's and the alien's vital signs through an implant she had placed in their respective bodies while they had been unconscious.
"He's reacting normally to the side-effects of the drugs. Strange." She said as she looked at the alien's vitals.
"Her body is metabolizing the neuron inhibitor more quickly than I thought it would." She murmured. If the alien regained her ability to communicate to the symbiont that encased her skeletal structure, it would prove disastrous.
"I'm going to have to increase the dosage." She said softly and grinned slightly. Two well-trained force-sensitives of different disciplines to play with. How delightful.
The guard looked at her curiously. "What's so special about these two?" he asked.
Morgan scowled at him. "Watch them. Even weakened Jedi are dangerous and we don't know what this alien is capable of."
He blanched. "Jedi?" They were holding a Jedi captive? "My lady, is this wise?" he asked.
She snorted. "Jedi are no different from any other being. They can be hurt and killed just like everyone else. Remember that." She turned around and left.