Chapter 26: Storm Rolls In
Qui-Gon surfaced from another fruitless meditation, opening his eyes with a long sigh. Then he blinked—Julune sat before him, cross-legged on the ground in the sun of the garden, looking at him earnestly. For a moment the image blurred, and he remembered completing another meditation, opening his eyes to find another person watching him with almost the same expression of concentration. He blinked, and the wavering of his sight resolved itself, and he saw Julune again.
"Any luck?" she asked softly.
Qui-Gon shook his head, swallowing. "I . . . I think I've undone the suppression on my side, though of course I can't know for sure without an expert telling me. I can feel through the bond again, in any case. But when I reach out . . . nothing. I can't feel Obi-Wan at all." His chest heaved. "It, it's like exploring a cave with a rope tied around your waist, getting lost, following the line back. You think you can feel a steady presence on the other end, a tugging responding to your own, but then suddenly you reach the end of the rope . . ." He pulled in another deep breath, struggling to continue. "And—and it's cut, sheered off, snagged on something, leaving you alone in the dark. The tug you thought you felt was just an echo of your own. He isn't there, Julune. I can't feel him."
She leaned forward and cupped his face in her hands, stroking his cheeks, her eyes pools of grief and understanding. Of course she had never seen many of the sights he had, explored so many corners of the galaxy, experienced what he spoke of. But she understood the loss, the despair, the hope crushed painfully to the ground, continually raising weakly only to be stomped into the dust again.
"Maybe the bond is still suppressed on his end," Julune said. "Maybe he doesn't know how to reverse it, or hasn't been able to for some reason."
"Yes, that must be it." Qui-Gon raised his hands to touch hers, holding them against his skin. "Of course it is. He's out there. We just need to find him."
She nodded firmly. "Of course." Her head tilted slightly, brow wrinkling. "Have you gotten any direction from the Force on where you ought to begin looking?"
He sighed in frustration, frowning. "It doesn't make any sense. I keep getting the feeling that I ought to stay here. But that can't be right. It's been too long, far too long. It's already been almost a week since we talked to Master Yoda. Obi-Wan could be anywhere in the galaxy."
Qui-Gon heaved himself to his feet, suddenly unable to remain sitting any longer. The sun was too bright and cheerful, the tropical breeze too warm and soothing. It didn't seem right that the world remained so beautiful while their boy was lost in the darkness.
Julune rose with him, clutching his arm. "Your friends will be here tomorrow, won't they? And then you'll head out and start looking. Perhaps the Force will be more clear once you head out from Thyferra."
He nodded absently, holding himself back from pacing only because his wife was attached to his arm. It had taken a number of comm calls to track down one of his pilot buddies from his days as a wanderer, and Guber Triln had been almost on the other side of the galaxy from Thyferra when he got the message. But he had immediately agreed to come and help his old friend search for his missing boy. Qui-Gon had saved his life more than once, and the pilot had not forgotten. Besides, Guber had always had a soft spot for kids—the only such the grizzled old arms-runner possessed, beyond a fierce protectiveness for his crew.
Qui-Gon had made other calls, too, alerting his own network of contacts, calling in old favors. It was a smaller net than that spread by the Jedi Temple, no doubt, but it was more diverse, perhaps even a bit wider. Something would turn up. It had to.
He refused to consider any other possibility.
"Come into the house," Julune entreated, gently tugging his arm. "Supper's ready. And it looks like a storm is coming in."
Qui-Gon squinted up at the sky. In his irritation at the sunlight, he hadn't noticed the darkly boiling clouds approaching on the northern horizon. It seemed to be a fast-mover, like most storms in this season—quick, cold, and powerful. It would be gone by morning, but the night would be worried with howling wind and sheeting rain.
He looked back down into Julune's worried face, and managed a slight smile for her sake. He wasn't hungry. But he would eat, for her. "Sounds good, dearheart. Maybe we'll be able to read for a while this evening, shut out the storm, just we two. Three." He trailed his fingertips over her stomach, his smile widening, more genuine.
Julune's face opened in weary delight, eyes bright beneath the shadows, at the prospect of a long, warm cuddle on the couch. "That would be lovely. You're a wonderful reader. C'mon, let's eat."
She tugged his arm again, and he followed.
X
Obi-Wan peered out the front screen at the dark clouds rolling over the sky, obscuring the tropical sun. He had made it. He was here, only a few steps away from home. For a moment he was dizzy with the understanding, but still, it did not seem real.
Almost, he reached out to touch the Force, the movement aborted before he began. Even before he had slipped away from his "rescuers," he had known he could not touch that power again. The invisible world was cold and empty around him, held away from him by a shield of denial. He couldn't. He didn't dare. Ability did not equal right. Absently his hand rose to finger the fading welt around his neck, the mark of the collar that had rested there only three days ago.
"This is right, friend Obawan?" a voice asked softly at his elbow. "This is your home?"
Obi-Wan nodded, turning to face the Phindian pilot, face concerned beneath his flight cap and goggles. Obi-Wan could not reach out to the Force to test the rightness of it, to contact Qui-Gon, but the address he had memorized months ago was still firmly impressed on his mind. "Hilara City, Thyferra. This is it. Where I need to be. Thank you, Paxxi."
His throat closed up, and he could not speak. But there was so much more he needed to say, to thank the two strangers who had gone far out of their way to help him. He had been in a blind panic when he ran into that strange spaceport, looking for somewhere to hide, to stow away, deathly afraid that he would be found and taken back, though he didn't know which would be worse—Belimi or the man who had taken him away from there.
It must have been the kindness of the Force that let him find these Phindian brothers, gave him strength to gasp out that he needed to go to Thyferra before he collapsed into their long, rubbery arms. When he awoke they were already in space, and someone was talking softly as he tended his wounds, explaining that he, too, had been a slave once, on a mining platform on an ocean world, and Guerra and Paxxi Derrida would never betray a fellow escapee for all the credits in the galaxy.
Without question they had agreed to take him to Thyferra, though it must have been out of their way. Without question they had done everything they could to ease him, to comfort him, to heal him. Obi-Wan had lost any faith he'd once held that anyone could have such immense compassion and kindness for a stranger, but they had given it back to him. That was worth almost more than anything else they'd done.
"Thank you," he said again, helplessly, wishing there was some way to express the deep gratitude he felt. It seemed impossible.
"No worry, Obawan," Guerra said, coming up behind Paxxi and reaching over his brother's shoulder with his long arm to pat the human's shoulder. "It is our great happiness to bring you somewhere safe. Maybe someday you do something for us, yes?"
"Such foolishness, my dear brother," Paxxi scoffed, slapping Guerra's arm. "We are great and bold pilots who will never need help from anyone. Not so, I lie! Always we would be happy to know that we can call on our great friend, Obawan." He grinned at the boy, shrugging nonchalantly. "Never can know what might happen in this great galaxy."
Obi-Wan smiled back, weakly, almost despite himself. The Derrida brothers seemed to respond to the sorrow and pain of the universe by turning it all into one enormous joke. He couldn't help appreciating it, though he didn't know if he would ever be able to see anything with such cheerful optimism, himself.
"Is there anything else you need?" Guerra asked, sobering now. "Sorry to say so, but we cannot stay here long. Our cargo is due on Ryloth tomorrow. If we leave now we will arrive much too early. Not so, I lie! Just on time, we will be."
Obi-Wan shook his head. They had given him so much—there couldn't possibly be anything else.
"At least use the comm to call your friend, this Gon-Jinn," Paxxi said, waving a hand at the console in the wall. "We would like to see you safely with him before we leave."
"Oh. Of course." Obi-Wan slowly stepped to the wall. His hand hesitated in the air, trembling slightly, then entered the frequency swiftly and surely. He thought his heart would beat right out of his chest, it pounded so fiercely and rapidly.
The comm was audio-only, the Derridas' ship not among the most luxurious in the galaxy. But the sound of Qui-Gon's voice almost sent the boy to his knees yet again, and it was only Guerra's arm around his waist that held him up. "This is the Jinn residence. Is that you, Guber? Here early, you old pirate?"
The voice was anxious, tense, but amazingly warm, wonderful, strong and deep. It wrapped around Obi-Wan like a blanket, familiar and right, so right. Obi-Wan opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Listen, whoever you are, I have no time to waste on pranksters." The voice was stern now, almost angry. "If you don't have a good reason for calling, get off the comm. I need it open."
"Qui-Gon," Obi-Wan whispered.
"Hello?"
"Qui-Gon!" It was a shout this time, desperate and grief-stricken and joyful beyond words.
A split second of silence, and then a torrent of words poured out of the comm, filling the small cockpit to overflowing with joy and sorrow and anxiety and guilt and love, love warm and deep and tender and aching. "Obi-Wan! Obi-Wan! Is that you, little one? Please, please, don't let this be a joke! Is it you, is it really you? Where are you? Where have you been? Are you all right? Are you hurt? Obi-Wan!"
Obi-Wan's words emerged in breathless sobs, broken and disjointed. "It's me! It's me! Qui-Gon! I'm at the spaceport. I got away. I'm not all right, not at all, but I'm here, I'm here."
"The spaceport! Oh, that's too far away! It will take me half an hour to get there! I'm coming, Obi-Wan, I'm coming right away! Don't you move! I'm coming!"
A distinct click as the comm shut off, and Obi-Wan leaned, boneless, against his Phindian friend, struggling for breath. Paxxi supported him on his other side, long arm twining around his brother and the young human. After a moment Obi-Wan struggled to stand, pushing against their rubbery arms. "I have to go . . . get outside . . . be ready to meet him . . ."
"We have time, friend Obawan. No need to hurt yourself." But the Phindians let him rush through the ship to the hatch, following at his heels.
"He didn't stop to ask which docking bay—I should go to the front of the spaceport, wait for him there . . ."
Obi-Wan took one running step across the open duracrete, before a gentle hand on his shoulder pulled him back and turned him around. The Derridas stood just outside the hatch, one looking nervously up at the sky while the other wrinkled his nose at Obi-Wan.
"A storm is coming very quickly. So pleasant it will be to fly in that weather," Paxxi said.
"Not so, brother, you lie!"
Paxxi nodded eagerly. "True, I did, I lied." He squinted amiably at Obi-Wan. "We must go now, though we are sorry not to meet your Gon-Jinn. But from his words, I know that he will take great care of you."
"It is our happiness to know this," Guerra said earnestly. "You will be well, friend Obawan. And happy, and strong, and a great good friend to these two silly Phindians."
"You aren't silly," Obi-Wan said softly. "You have been my great good friends, not the other way around. I can't thank you enough."
"There is no need. We did very little, but we are glad to give what we can."
The brothers said good-bye by wrapping their long arms around Obi-Wan and squeezing gently, three times. Then Obi-Wan backed up to the edge of the docking bay and watched their strange, clunky little ship lift off and fly away into the darkening sky. He waved until he couldn't see it anymore, then walked as quickly as he could through the spaceport to the main entrance, ignoring the questioning looks thrown his way by every Thyferran he passed, pilots and security guards and officials. He knew he looked like a waif, with his ragged slave clothes and pale, bruised face, and no doubt they would throw him out if he wasn't already leaving.
He didn't have the energy to run as he had begun, and once outside, his steps began to slow, his vision narrowing as strength slipped away like water through a sieve. He was vaguely aware of rain, voices, people running to get out of the weather, but he had nowhere to go. Why was he still walking? Couldn't remember . . . didn't matter . . .
By this time Obi-Wan knew only one thing, but he clung to it. It was the only thing that mattered. Qui-Gon Jinn was coming. Didn't matter how far away he was, how long he took, what tried to stop him. He was coming, coming to get Obi-Wan and take him home.
It was cold, wet, miserable. Dark. Obi-Wan didn't like the dark. He huddled in on himself, shivering. He had to get out ofthe rain . . . It was beating against him, stinging through his flimsy garments. The wind pummeled his thin body, pushed him against a wall. Slowly, painfully, he inched his way along the rain-slick plaster, found a recessed doorway.
With a sigh of thankfulness, he sank down to a sitting position and waited for Qui-Gon.