Chapter 3 – Jeopardy's Beginning
The first thing reached Obi-Wan's awareness when he woke up was the weird floating sensation he felt through his body. He felt oddly drowsy, but was not awake enough to work out the reason behind this wave of drowsiness. Where is he? Obi-Wan leafed through his memory and remembered, someone kicked him in the chest…trying to get up but unseen hands seized him and throw him onto the floor again…the pain in his shoulder…then…nothingness. He must have been captured by the attackers! Obi-Wan wondered if Qui-Gon, DeLowk and the Mayor had been able to escape.
Obi-Wan tried to open his eyes but felt something pressing on his eyes. blindfold! There must be something they wanted to keep private. He took a deep breath to calm himself. Then he decided against it when sharp pain spread in his chest and shoulder.
He tried to move but realised that his wrists and ankles were tightly bonded, rather too tightly for the young Jedi to be comfortable. Almost as an automatic reaction, Obi-Wan tried to use the Force to work on the lock on the binders, only to find that the Force was completely out of his reach. Every time he tried to grasp it, the Force slipped through his fingers like water. That explains the drowsiness, they must have used some kind of Force inhibitor drug on me. Without the Force, Obi-Wan felt utterly alone and helpless.
He wondered momentarily why they hadn't killed him. They were shooting at them at first and surely had the wanted to kill them. He was alive at least, Obi-Wan pushed the other questions away. You are alive and that's all that matters now.
Obi-Wan suddenly realised that he was on a shuttle, for the cool metal floor beneath him was vibrating slightly. A shuttle? Wonder where they are taking me. Obi-Wan turned his head to free his other ear, straining to hear if there is anyone nearby. Hearing nothing, the young Jedi tried rubbing his face against the metal floor, attempting to rub the blindfold off his face, so he could at least see where he is and finding a way to escape. Just then, he heard a door slid open and booted feet pounded on the floor.
Obi-Wan immediately froze in mid-action, pretending still to be unconscious. But the man was obviously not fooled by this for he squat down in front of the apprentice and Obi-Wan heard a menacing voice closely above him. "I know we would meet again, Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Obi-Wan felt the hair on his neck prickled and his breath quickened. He knew the voice, he had heard it from a year ago and he would never forget it. He had not even turned thirteen when he heard the voice for the first time. The legendary apprentice of Master Qui-Gon. Initiates talks about him often at the Temple. It was know to all that Qui-Gon's former apprentice had betrayed him and disgraced the Jedi, but the rumour said that he was dead. But the event on Bandomeer hand certainly proved him wrong. Not only Xanatos was very alive but evil to the core, could do anything to give Qui-Gon a painful death. Obi-Wan, though not Qui-Gon's apprentice then, was mercilessly dragged into Xanatos' cruel plan for revenge as well. The memory sent a chill down his spine and Obi-Wan flinched involuntarily.
Xanatos seemed to have noticed the change for he laughed coldly. "Still remember me, boy? I don't expect you to forget our last encounter easily anyway. You have grown quite close to Qui-Gon now haven't you? Don't think that I didn't see you during the time of my disappearance. I had always kept an eye on you and your Master, boy. Always trying to find the best moment to attack…now that I've found it, I will succeed, I have an even more painful death installed for your Master. One he would regret that he hadn't let me kill him last time." Xanatos began his cold laughter once more. His words pounded in Obi-Wan's ears, I have an even more painful death installed for your Master. "No, you won't succeed, your past failure proves that. You will never succeed."
The cold laughter abruptly stopped. Obi-Wan knew that Xanatos was angered by his words. Though he could not feel his anger with the Force, the heavy breathing was an indication. Obi-Wan was sure that Xanatos would lash out at him, and readied himself for the blow. To his surprise once more, he did not, only an even colder laughter broke the silence.
"You could never grow up can you, Obi-Wan. You haven't changed one bit since we last met face to face." Xanatos took in his injures and his laboured breathing, "Not exactly in a good shape to fight now, are you? Still so stubborn, that's one quality that I value in you, and still so headstrong, so immature, have so much faith in Qui-Gon. All the times I have been watching, even I had finally realised that Qui-Gon chose you only because he pitied you. Your life is so worthless, that you would willingly blow it up without considering if there is any other option to open the door. And what made you think that he would trust you again after you had betrayed him on Melida/Daan."
Obi-Wan's face flushed and he practically shouted at Xanatos, "He did not chose me because he pitied me! And how dare you talk about betrayal of Qui-Gon! You tried this trick before and you should know that I won't fall for it twice!" this outburst made Obi-Wan's chest hurt even more. He felt anger rose in him and tried to contain it, but it's not working.
Xanatos whispered into his ear once more. "Quick anger, that's another quality that I value in you. A great quality of the dark side. It's such a pity to have this quality wasted through your useless Jedi training to suppress it. If you come to the dark side, Obi-Wan, you would make a great Sith lord. By that time you would be stronger than Qui-Gon, stronger than Yoda, stronger than any Si –"
Obi-Wan had heard enough, he cut Xanatos off in mid-speech, "I don't care what power the darkness would give me, all I care is to become a Jedi Knight, that's all I wanted in my life. So stop wasting your time Xanatos, your attempt is futile."
Again, silence followed. Xanatos seemed to be considering his words. "You know, I don't have to keep you alive. You are a such a nuisance, I could just kill you now and save myself the trouble."
Obi-Wan's heartbeat quickened at his word, but he refused to show Xanatos his fear. If he were to die after all, he would accept his fate, die bravely, like a Jedi.
"But I won't kill you, not yet. You are an important part of my plan for revenge. Without you, the whole thing would be unworkable." Xanatos paused for a moment to feel the apprentice's relief, then he continued, leaning closer to his ear, "But I will not hesitate to kill you when I'm done with Qui-Gon. I will kill you slowly and painfully. No one will be there to save you then, and," Xanatos added darkly, "I'll enjoy every moment of it."
With this, Xanatos left the room with a swish of his cape, left Obi-Wan alone in the darkness and silence which was only broken by his laboured breathing.
"Supreme Councillor, our fleet had been attacked by alien ships, we are greatly outnumbered!" A fluster officer shout through the holo-com above the background noise of cross fire.
DeLowk frown at the information, "How could this happen? The military sensors hadn't showed starfighters are vessels."
The officer shouted back, "The aliens must have advanced cloaking devices. We could see them directly in front of us, but the sensors don't show! They have more advanced weaponry and armours. Their single beam could blast as into oblivion but our guns could not penetrate their hull!"
"Command retreat whole fleet, set a course straight to Coruscant."
"But Supreme Councillor, what about y - "
"Don't worry about me, I have plenty securities down here, besides I'm with the Jedi. I do not wish to lose more life than necessary. Go, now."
"Yes, Supreme Councillor." The officer gave a final salute and the hologram dissolved into a stream of statistics.
DeLowk shut off the holo-com and shook his head. "Had we had the meeting on Coruscant, the aliens would surely have seized it by now."
Qui-Gon nodded, but he only half listened. At the moment, he was more concerned about Obi-Wan than anything else in the entire galaxy. Had it only been an hour since they parted. It seemed like a life time, just sitting here thinking hard about what to do. He had tried to contact Obi-Wan through their training bond, but something is blocking it. He could still feel the boy's presence, but he could not reach him. Qui-Gon wondered what Xanatos had done to him.
They have gone over all the possible places the shuttle would have went. They were very sure that the shuttle never left the planet for the fleet in orbit reported none leaving the atmosphere. There are very few possible places shuttle full of armed guards could go, and they already had the security forces checked those places and found none. This left them to only two other possible places, the sea, or the jungle.
The sea was not very vast, nor is it very deep, a normal sea shuttle could do the job. The jungle, however, would be tricky to search, the canopies are so thick that there is no way anyone could see what's under it from the sky. Therefore, the search had to be taken under the canopies, where the trees are so thick that so spaces between tree trunks could barely squeeze in a man, which meant more difficulty for a speeder to pass through and the search had to be made by foot. The jungle continent takes up almost half a planet and it would take all the security forces months to search the whole place if not more. This required time that Qui-Gon does not have. The longer Obi-Wan remains in captive, the greater the danger he would be in.
Not only does Qui-Gon fear that Xanatos would harm him, but he might even try to seduce Obi-Wan to the dark side. Half of Qui-Gon's mind spoke to him in determined voice that Obi-Wan would never, ever, turn to the dark side. The other half was not so sure, it whispered beneath his conscience that Obi-Wan was no more than a child, that he was too young to be able to resist the dark side, he had never seen the dark side before and would not be ready to defend himself against it. Who knows what Xanatos' wicked mind would dream up to seduce the boy to the dark side? Qui-Gon flinched at the thought, Xanatos might hurt Obi-Wan enough to really frighten him, and fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the dark side. No, he cannot let this happen, he could not let Xanatos to pollute Obi-Wan's bright light with his darkness, he could not. He would have to act fast.
To the comlink, he spoke to the security forces. "Begin the search, now."