No Escape from Reality
A blue-white ray of morning sun seeks my attention, darting into my room from a corner of the window-wall to strike my eye as it makes its brilliant arrival between the tops of two building spires.
I shut tight my eyelids, rolling off my bed, letting my bare feet strike the floor.
Oh, cold. I stand up despite the sensation that I'm standing on frozen carbon dioxide, and quickly mince across the floor to slip into my softboots.
Perhaps standing up was a mistake in itself. My sight is quickly dotted with elusive little green spots that effectively block out all vision as corners of blackness begin to edge in slowly from my peripheral limits, hungrily crawling in to gorge on the influxes of dawn light as my head swims dangerously. I swing my hand out wildly to try and find the wall; it makes contact and I crash myself against the solidness, sinking down to the safety of a sitting position. I have heard tell that the body is particularly vulnerable to faintness in my condition after a long period of lying prone.
I grind my teeth with frustration as the coldness of the floor begins to thread its way through my robes. This moderate loss of blood is more obstruction than real hazard to my well-being at the moment. I tug my softboots on, first right then left as I've always done, and wiggle my toes to make sure they're on snugly.
Now comes the real challenge: to stand up without passing out. The thought itself is motivationally embarrassing, and I access the Force to push a little extra blood into my brain before poising myself again. To my delight it works wonderfully, though I'm careful not to move too quickly at first.
I slip into my outer robe, pulling the cowl over my head. The last thing I want at the moment is a cluster of fussing healers milling about me, trying to distract me enough so they can shove a needle or two of anesthetic into my rear end and haul me back to bed. After all, the halls of the medical ward are always bustling in the early hours of the morning and I don't want anyone to recognise me before I reach Master Che. But to access her usual haunt, I will have to smuggle myself to a point just outside the invisible confines of the ward, which can be a difficult task, noting how most healers are incredibly (and oftentimes thankfully) observant.
I've never actually met Master Besu Che, only seen her at the end of another hallway for a brief moment before she carried on. I've heard of her shrewdness and eccentricity, and of course her ability to discern the real meaning behind a dream, but that's about all.
I move quietly into the hall, arms drawn together inside my robe's expansive flaring sleeves, assuming the posture of a member of the Order that does not wish to be disturbed. Keeping my eyes to the floor, I pass by many that don't give me a second look, thankfully.
My passing is not to remain undisturbed, however. It's all very sudden; at first, the floor in front of me is clear, then out of nowhere a young Chadra-Fan appears. I very nearly trip over her.
"What would you like?" she squeaks. I'd seen her around before, and had heard she was one of the healers-in-training, a close acquaintance with the one I seek.
[To see Master Che,] I send, sensing her connection to the Force is wide open.
She pauses for a moment, then nods, turning around. "Come."
Master Che's room isn't far away, soon pointed out to me. I nod my thanks under my hood to my Chadra-Fan guide, who bows quickly and scurries on her way.
I hope I'm not disturbing anything, I think to myself as I hesitantly press on the door panel, unsure of what to expect.
Whatever I had been anticipating, this isn't it. Even as the door shoots open and I begin to step inside, a small form hurtles forward at me, catching me completely by surprise as I stiffen in shock. The impact is fairly hard and I stumble back a step and grab the doorframe on either side of me as small claws dig into my robes, nearly piercing the skin at my shoulders. I find myself face-to-face with a set of inquisitive rodent features, dark liquid eyes studying what they can at this range (which is probably limited to my own eyes and nothing more).
Master Besu Che's mouth splits in a wide grin. "Will you keep acting as door for rest of exercise?"
I shake my head emphatically as my hood slips the rest of the way off, landing on my upper back.
She laughs, a staccato chirping sound, and gives a mighty push, jumping backwards off of me to land on the floor. Master Che is surprisingly energetic for a creature of her obvious years, about half of her dark brown fur turned a silvery gray. "Yes, yes. What you here for, little Padawan? Dream, or breakfast?"
My mouth begins to water at the smells coming from an adjacent room, and I am thankful I'm allowed to eat real food already, as my esophagus was unharmed. [Perhaps both, Master.]
She grins again, and peers up at me. "You the boy they just brought in from Tatooine? What your name?"
I nod. [Obi-Wan Kenobi.]
"Very nice, very nice. Force-words rare, but I am sure you know. Lovely, lovely. Have some fried trollock, then we see about dream. Yes?"
I smile with a little uncertainty, and wonder, What's trollock? Whatever it is, it smells marvellous.
Small Master Che leads me across the room, carpeted with training mats, to the little kitchen with Chadra-Fan sized accessories. She snares a plate off the counter and lightly tosses it to me. I wonder at the occurrence of airborne objects in this room as I manage to catch it, keeping it from slipping between my fingers and shattering on the floor, as it seems a rather delicate piece of ceramic.
"Lai, lai, bienen-douh. Is done." She flips the flat browned bread-like objects over in the pan with a handy utensil, and looks up at me.
Taking the hint, I bend down, lowering the plate. No sooner am I at her level than she whips her spatula under one of the trollock, bringing it up in an arc to smack down onto my plate, steaming under my nose. I back out of the kitchen as she fills her own plate.
"Lovely, lovely." She looks at me critically, and gestures for me to sit down on one of the mats. "Tell if trollock is good to you."
I work myself down into a cross-legged position, Master Che sitting close by. The trollock is tempting and I break off a piece, studying it before popping it into my mouth. There is meat inside the bread, and an assortment of unrecognisable vegetables. Some spice lends a potent flavour, almost making me cough as I swallow. [It's very good.] And I mean that; the rest disappears in short order as I discover the warming and filling properties of a good bit of trollock.
"Way my sire-mother made. Good thing for you it passed down, yes?"
I nod appreciatively. [Do I want to know what kind of meat that was?]
Master Che considers. "Hmm… no. Human stomach grows queasy quickly. Face turns funny green. Very amusing, very amusing. So. You come about dream, little Kenobi?"
[A recurring nightmare, actually.]
"Oh! Why you not come earlier?"
Why not, indeed. [I suppose I hadn't thought of it, Master.] It sounds a bad excuse to me, but she seems to overlook it.
She shifts her position until she sits directly in front of me, also cross-legged, and looks up, studying me once again. "Now. You must do exercise for Master Che. Tell me all Aurebesh letters, starting aurek."
I raise an eyebrow but comply, unsure of what this will do for me. I've intimately known this series of Basic characters since I was in the crèche, as have all the other younglings that pass through and indeed every sentient that is schooled in Basic. If this is a memory exercise, it creates no challenges. [Aurek, besh, cresh, dorn…]
"Good. Calm mind."
[…esk, forn, grek, herf, isk, jenth, krill, leth, mern, nern, osk, peth…]
"Keep clear mind. Lovely, lovely."
[…qek, resh, senth, trill, usk, vev, wesk, xesh, yirt, zerek, cherek…]
"Almost finished. Keep going, little Padawan."
[…enth, krenth, nen, orenth, shen, thesh, onith.] I straighten my posture and look down at her, furrowing my brow. [What was that for, Master?]
"Test of patience," she said, with a reproving tone.
[Did I pass?]
"No. Almost. Again. This time, backwards."
I repeat the entire series of characters to her a second time in reverse, driving uncertainty and impatience from my mind.
"Good, good," she says at long last. "Now. You show me dream. Feed it through Force connection. Ready?"
I hesitate. I do not wish to run the images and feelings before my mind again. I had anticipated merely relating the events of the dream to her.
"Courage, little Obi-Wan. I not want complete lack of fear. Almost impossible, and truly impossible for one without much experience. I want courage. Go despite fear, Padawan. It not hurt you if you not let it. Go."
I take a deep breath, shutting my eyes and opening fully the connection, retrieving the dream from the recesses of my memory where I'd stored it, hoping to let it accumulate dust and rot to nothing after I had finished telling it to Master Che. But that is not what she wants; Besu Che wants the dream itself. Perhaps she can make a more accurate interpretation if she experiences the real thing.
The dream steadily flows through the link in every detail. It is a series of visions that have permanently branded themselves into my mind, stamping every detail of its existence into a vile pattern on my brain.
Master Che stays calm and steady as a rock through the entire thing. I sense she's been fed much worse before this, and the thought does nothing to calm me; rather the opposite. Now I know for certain my dreams have the potential to grow worse.
"Reality harsh. Life unfair. Everyone learns, sooner or later. Keep dream flowing."
Perhaps the connection is more open and two-way than I thought. I keep the nightmare coming through, bit by appalling bit. The process is finished sooner than I felt it would, and I open my eyes to see Master Che's face scrunched up in thought.
"Few questions. This Good Friend, with changing eyes and red-black face. You seen him before in reality, yes?"
I nod and point silently to the scar that makes its glaring line from throat to ear.
"Ahh. Explains. Another question: you had dream when going into healing trance. Rare thing, to have in trance. Did it seize you just before you entered trance?"
I frown. [I'm not sure. It happened very quickly.]
"Not nightmare, then. Vision."
[A vision? Of what?]
"Future," she replies simply. "This Good Friend not good. Bad. Bad Friend will make the seen hole in your Master."
My heart sinks in horror. [Can I not stop this?]
"Possible. But unlikely. Could be destiny. Event could lead to better things." She jabs a small furred finger at me. "Never truly know. Some bad things make good, some good things make bad, later on. But no doubt about Bad Friend. You have seen him before, and maybe see him later. Everything else in dream, about light and dark. You know enough about these sides already, or would not be senior Padawan. Main thing in dream is Bad Friend, and what he wants to do."
[Will this thing happen soon?] I ask anxiously.
Master Che scrunches her face up again. "Uncertain. Why you ask? Is Master gone?"
My heart steadily plunges lower into a pit of seething despair. [He's left to complete a mission on Naboo.]
"Ohh. Padawan, I think you miss significance of something in your dream."
[What?]
"The water. On good side, flows away from your perspective, and begins curving toward wall just before out of sight. On bad side, flows toward, and curves into bad lands from wall just out of sight. Connected. Stream makes a turn, through wall far away. I also see flowers and trees on good side are native species to Naboo. I study some botany, know these plants." She frowns. "Stream leads from Naboo to bad side, carrying dead Master. If happens, will happen on Naboo."
[I have to do something, Master,] I tell her in desperation.
"Really?" she asks. "And what will be consequences if you do? Think, think. Yoda teaches: always in motion, is future. You preserve his life, change course of future. Others may die as result. Prepared to deal with that? Prepared to destroy destiny?"
[I can't let him die.]
Besu Che snorts sceptically. "Your choice, little Obi-Wan. But do something for Master Che."
[What?]
"Think before you do, and know in your heart what must happen. Not what you want, but what must be. You know importance of this. Do this for Master Che."
I slouch down, staring dejectedly at the point where one of my calves crosses over the other, each shin bone crossing under the opposite knee. [Yes, Master.]
All the long way back to my hospital bed, through the halls, my head hidden underneath my robe's cowl I tread.
What I must do.
But what? I wonder to myself. What must I do? Must I wait here, and let Master Qui-Gon face the Zabrak and die? Or must I go to Naboo and spare his life?
It is a terrible decision, weighing down upon me as the entire Temple would if it were crumbled into a pile of ferrocrete and duracrete, and piled upon my chest and shoulders. The thought of others dying if I save him makes little sense to my torn mind. Would we, together, not be able to save more people than me alone? Besides which, the Zabrak in that case would no longer be running free to cause havoc as he would. By saving the life of Qui-Gon Jinn, it only makes sense that I would be able to save more.
I ponder the wisdom of bringing this question to Master Yoda. It is likely he would only give me the same answer, to do what I must. He would also likely provide his opinion, and somehow I know all too well what that opinion would be, sadly as he would deliver it.
They will tell me to leave him, I know, and I decide for myself what I must do. I'd better see if there are any spare spacecraft in the docking bays. Perhaps I'm being a stupid Padawan… but I don't care. I don't care. I mustn't.
I carefully gather my presence into pseudo-slumber mode, which I've put into practice on a few occasions. Any Jedi that will try to contact me through the Force, including my own Master, will immediately assume I am fast asleep or in a trance of some sort. I believe it could be crucial to my Master's survival that he encounter no distractions on my part before I arrive on the very scene. And when I do, I will tell him of the prediction, and he will understand my concern when the tattooed Zabrak comes.
I will be there.
"There is a time for everything,
a season for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to rebuild.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to lose.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak up.
A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace."
— Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
I rise from the quieting embrace of a true healing trance. This one has thankfully passed with no disturbances from Bad Friend, as Master Che labelled him. I had made it upon myself that I should wake upon the alarm that signals the return from hyperspace; sure enough, the proximity light is flashing and I key in a sequence. The dazzling patterns of hyperspace wash over my view once more, then are swept away by the restoration of the cold pinpoints of light, billions of stars freckling the dust-swept vacuum. And there is the planet itself, Naboo, suspended like the stars, beautiful in its blue-green land and streaks of white clouds, an immense marble.
But the Trade Federation blockade demands my attention at the moment. The sensors of the old but prime condition Headhunter I was able to procure from the Temple docking bays indicate I have been noticed, and I cruise in steadily, coming close to one of the starships so as to limit myself as a target to most of its guns.
I begin to weave erratically in evasive movements, well avoiding most of the red fire that the gunning stations spit out toward me. There are several close misses, though; one of the laser bolts brushes against my portside, leaving a nasty-looking black streak of carbon scoring. I gun the engines, ignoring a frantic whistle from the onboard navigation droid.
Random. Unexpected. I dive toward one of the guns, whizzing past it too fast for its sensors to track me, and curve into a brief spin before levelling off. I've made it through the blockade; now I'm too far out of range for the starship guns.
The navicomputer has already made a scan for the capital city Theed, where I know my Master has gone with the Queen. I keep up the pretence of sleep, careful to keep my senses to myself. If I should send out a probing touch to the city, Qui-Gon will know and wonder.
He cannot afford the distraction, I convince myself, the Headhunter punching through the atmosphere. Flames engulf my view for a moment as I head into a near-drop, then my sights clear up as I keep diving down through the air of this most beautiful and now deadly planet.
I am soon skimming meters above the canopy of a lush forest, the traditional structures of Theed looming within view halfway between me and the horizon. I can recall in detail where the main docking bays are situated, on the northern side of the city. It's close to one of the principal waterfalls that stream from a source unknown to me, as mysterious and benevolent as the spirit of Theed itself. The city does seem to have an individual essence, a vitality its people draw from, though it is no doubt fed by them as well. Theed and its population are as symbiotic as a Jedi and her midichlorians, unable to survive in their present form unless tightly knitted together. I think it is the thought of that separation, perhaps, that Queen Amidala is so afraid of, so unwilling to accept and watch happen.
I grit my teeth. One of the Federation's tanks has been stationed by the docking bays, and has sighted me. How I do detest playing tag with laser fire, though I am given little choice when the situation arises in the interest of preserving my life.
I manage to keep myself and the Headhunter from harm, however, and skim in closer to the yawning mouth of the docking bay and the relative shadows inside, the well-lit bays still contrasting with Naboo's brilliant sun.
It feels as if my heart stops as I ease the starfighter in. I expected something to be happening, some kind of fighting or at least desperate negotiations, but nothing like this.
Before my very eyes, three staffs of light spiral in close proximity to each other, landing and parrying blows. Two red, one green. Locked in deadly combat, the pair of humanoid forms pay almost no attention at my arrival, engrossed in anticipation, instinct, and especially survival.
MASTER! I contain the thought just as it is about to escape. Now, of all times, I must afford him no distraction. My mind races frantically as I watch them duel, the Zabrak beginning to gain an advantage over Qui-Gon.
I must do something quickly… I finger the lightsaber clipped to my belt, wondering if I could get there in time. And even if I did, how long would I be able to help my Master before the strenuous activity drained me of strength? My mind riffles desperately through scenarios, through possibilities.
And then I see it. At a wonderful combination of parries and thrusts on the part of my Master, the Zabrak is forced to break away for a moment, cartwheeling off and no doubt planning a speedy retaliation.
Time seems to mercifully slow down for me, the Zabrak's hand gradually smacking against the smooth floor of the docking bay, his body ponderously turning upside-down as momentum seems to consider letting him carry through with the movement. I am easily able to locate my weapons station, activating the guns, lowering the level down to stutterfire so as not to scorch my Master in a wave of heat, as any higher setting would likely vaporise both him and the incarnation of Bad Friend. Locking on to the Zabrak's position, I and the onboard systems track him until he is halfway through the cartwheel.
Then I squeeze the trigger.