Title: The Quandary
Author: BaBaKaNuSh13
Category: Action (an adequate amount, anyway), Angst, AU (Age 13) (If only '13' started with 'A', too!)
Summary: AU to the ending of Jedi Apprentice: The Dark Rival. Qui-Gon didn't take Obi-Wan as his apprentice after the incident in the mine, and the young Jedi is faced with the task of trying to stay alive as another prospective master takes an interest in him.
Rating: PG/K+
Spoilers: Minor ones for the JA books
Archive: Yes, of course! That is, if anyone would want it. Just please email me first.
Disclaimer: The Star Wars universe belongs to George Lucas. I'm not making any money out of this, so please don't sue.

A/N: All I can say, in this sweltering heat, is 'please review!' Wow, I'm starting to sound desperate, aren't I? Maybe some of you could get together and start a review fund for me. That would be nice.

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Chapter 6

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Qui-Gon stormed through the front entrance to the main Agri-Corps building.

RonTha hurried up to him. "Master Jedi, what are you doing here?"

"Where is he?" Qui-Gon asked briskly. "Where is Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

RonTha looked startled. "Getting ready for the day, I would imagine. He will have just woken up."

Qui-Gon gave the Meerian a sharp look. "Take me to his quarters."

RonTha seemed about to protest, but stopped midway and bowed slightly. "Follow me."

After pushing the doorcomm to Obi-Wan's room several times, but to no avail, Qui-Gon's stomach dropped. It was as he feared. The boy was in trouble again, he just knew it.

"He must still be asleep," RonTha muttered. He typed in his override code and palmed the door open. Qui-Gon already knew, then and there, that the young Jedi would not be inside.

It was dark within, and RonTha clucked his tongue. He pressed the light switch on to reveal an empty room in utter chaos.

The solitary window, opposite the door, was totally smashed in. Glass littered the floor, and scorches covered the tiles, walls and furniture. RonTha gasped and stood completely still for a moment, before he hurried over to the adjoining bathroom to search for Obi-Wan in there. He came back out a moment later.

"He's not here."

"I know," Qui-Gon said softly, fingering a large slice that had been taken out of the wooden frame of the sleep-couch.

Lightsabre burns. Not just Obi-Wan's; there were others from someone else. Some of the burns were higher up, with a different centre of swing. Someone taller than Obi-Wan, then.

But who would attack Obi-Wan who also possessed a lightsabre?

One name immediately floated to his mind.

Xanatos.

It was the only possibility.

But what did his former Apprentice want with Obi-Wan? Revenge?

Qui-Gon abruptly stood up and walked across the room. The door panel's records indicated that no one had exited the quarters since the previous evening, so his next guess was that Obi-Wan and Xanatos had both also left through the smashed window. He looked out of it, taking care of the glass shards on the sill. There broken twigs littering the ground underneath the solid tree below.

They had left that way.

Qui-Gon raced through the Agri-Corps housing building to the ground, a flustering RonTha in tow. He knelt down to inspect the area, and noticed a few more tree fragments and crushed leaves only metres away. He followed the trail.

Rounding the corner of the building, Qui-Gon's eyes scanned the area in a mere glance.

A courtyard covered in blaster bolt scorches.

Frown deepening, he walked warily over to a group of skips clustered against a wall. The Force whispered at him to look closer at the base of one. Qui-Gon stepped forward and blanched as he saw a patch of recently-dried blood there.

He gingerly touched the area, and an echo of pain slammed into him.

Fire in his side … hurt roaring through his head … body screaming – an electro-jabber.

Qui-Gon jolted back to reality and took a deep breath.

Obi-Wan had been shot.

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A rush of dread flowed through Obi-Wan at the sight of the crashing waves and deep sea below him.

The vision.

He hadn't even seen the cliff as he'd run, disguised as it was at the top of the hill.

The speeder came to a screeching halt behind him, and Obi-Wan turned around to see both whipids leaping out of it, stalking path towards him.

He whirled around to face the edge of the cliff again, searching for a way out. There was nothing.

"Go on, jump!" one whipid yelled in a growl. It was the pilot of the landspeeder.

Flashes of the vision raced through his mind.

It was time to make his choice.

Obi-Wan took a step back from the cliff's edge.

The other whipid gave a gravelly chuckle. "See, I knew he wouldn't be able to do it. Come with us, Jedi boy, and we'll tell Lord Xanatos that you came willingly. He'll be most pleased."

Time to decide between what was safer for him – what was easy – and what was right, yet so much harder to follow through with.

That was it, Obi-Wan thought. Choose the easy way of following Xanatos, which would be safer for him in the short-run, or stand up in a defiance of the man, which would be so much harder to do.

He knew what he would choose.

Taking another step back from the edge, Obi-Wan absently heard the heavy growling laughter of the whipids.

It wasn't so much more difficult a decision really, Obi-Wan decided, and without a second thought, he took a step forward before leaping into open air, leaving the surprised yelps of his pursuers behind him.

Ashis clothes whipped around him, Obi-Wan reached for his cable launcher, grateful that it was still attached to his utility belt. He ripped it off and quickly fired it at the natural sort of ledge that formed beneath the edge of the cliff. It stuck, and Obi-Wan freefell for a moment before the cable pulled taught and he was wrenched to a stop, his shoulders screaming in pain. He heard a pop and knew instantly that he'd dislocated his right shoulder. Obi-Wan bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop from crying out. He tasted blood in his mouth as he bit down harder, his shoulder in agony as he slammed against the side of the cliff. Obi-Wan swung freely in the powerful updraught from the turbulent water below.

Obi-Wan's head swam with the combined pain of his shoulder and the re-opened wound in his side. It was, once again, bleeding sluggishly. Obi-Wan determinedly scrabbled for a handhold on the side of the cliff. Finally finding a slight ledge, he gripped onto it tightly with his left hand, knowing that if he so much as moved his right arm now, then he'd never be able to grab onto the launcher again.

Obi-Wan pulled himself in as close as possible to the cliff face and waited there, his feet slipping desperately as they tried to find purchase. His heartbeat thudded loudly in his ears, quickened in anticipation as he heard the frantic snarls of the whipids above him. He prayed to the Force that the overhang hid him well enough from their searching eyes.

"Gone," he heard one whipid growl nervously as they stepped back from the edge. "Dead. Xanatos is going to murder us."

A commlink clicked into life.

"Yes? What is it?" Xanatos' voice snapped from over the link.

"I – I'm sorry, sir, but – but–'

"What? Speak, you stupid beast!"

"It's the human Jedi boy. He's gone," the whipid finally blurted out. "He jumped off a cliff into the sea. The fall would have killed him."

Xanatos cursed. "I told you to be extra careful with him, you stupid tooth-faced, nerf-brained whipids! By the Force I should rip your heads off! Now check again."

"But, Lord Xanatos, sir–"

"Check again," he snapped.

"Yes, sir."

Obi-Wan heard footsteps crunch closer to the cliff edge, over the dry ground, and tried to readjust his grip on the cliff face. It crumbled beneath his fingers, leaving him scrambling for another hold. He helplessly swung out over the sea, instead. Obi-Wan frantically tried to reach back to the cliff side, but it was too late.

He'd been spotted.

"I see him!" The whipid cried excitedly to his companion. "He's alive, hanging right down there. Look!"

Obi-Wan glanced up to see the second whipid's face appear next to the first's, before disappearing again to talk to Xanatos over the commlink gripped in his furry paws.

"Thought you could hide from us, did you? Jedi scum!" the whipid glanced over his shoulder to call to the other. "Anchor me, I'm going to try and pull him up." He reached down and grabbed onto the cable with a powerful, furred grasp. "Now hold still."

An idea lit in Obi-Wan's mind like a powered-up lightsabre. He waited until his cable swung back closer to the cliff, before pulling his legs up to his chest and gathering the Force around him. With an almighty push against the cliff face, both with his muscles and through the Force, he swung out with such strength that he was sure the cable launcher would pull free out of the ledge. It held firm, however. Using his momentum, when Obi-Wan reached the cliff again, he pushed off once more. He swung out in a circle with help from a controlled pull of the Force, coming up over the cliff's edge. He flew over the heads of the surprised whipids, to land sprawled on the ground between them and the land speeder.

The whipids scrambled to their feet and turned towards Obi-Wan. They pulled out their blasters and aimed for him.

Obi-Wan quickly jumped up and grabbed his lightsabre from his belt. He ignited it and swung single-handedly with his left arm at the stun bolts that raced towards him. He sent them straight back with well-timed deflections, hitting one of the whipids solidly in the chest. He collapsed, falling back and crashing into the other, who let out a yelp of surprise, before both tumbled over the edge.

Obi-Wan winced.

Pushing aside his guilt for the moment, Obi-Wan re-clipped his lightsabre on his utility belt and trotted unsteadily over to the landspeeder. He collapsed against it and panted heavily, attempting to calm his quickened pulse. The events of the past hour rushed back to batter at his mind's defences.

The jump … his shoulder … the whipids' deaths …

Each memory whirled around his mind. They combined with the pain in his shoulder and the fire in his side, to make him feel quite dizzy. He slumped to his knees on the ground, his empty stomach heaving painfully as it tried to vomit up something that just wasn't there. After several moments of laboured convulsing, Obi-Wan gained control over the nausea, willing his body to just relax.

He just wanted this nightmare to be over. He felt so alone, so helpless.

And he resented that.

As he felt each of his muscles loosen again, Obi-Wan shakily stood up, leaning on the speeder. He heaved himself into the pilot's seat. The young Jedi tried to move his right arm, but after all the jolting and jarring it had taken, he could no longer move it. Every time he attempted to, his shoulder screamed in agony.

Obi-Wan glanced down at his blaster wound. He wouldn't be able to strap it up again with only one useable hand, he realised. He tried to reach out to the Force to begin healing, but it just slipped elusively out of his grasp. After spending so much time tending to the plants, combined with the all the events since he'd been kidnapped during the night, Obi-Wan's reserves were depleted.

No, not depleted as such, it was just that he couldn't control his reach to the Force anymore. He was still learning to wield the power, after all.

Obi-Wan sighed. He would just have to get back to the Agri-Corps as fast as he could, then.

Obi-Wan took customary of the alien controls and, after he'd figured them out, powered the landspeeder up. It roared to life, and he swung it around toward where the sun had just risen. He knew that the Agri-Corps lay vaguely in that direction. He gunned the engines and held onto the steering stick with his left hand. He prayed to the Force that there weren't too many tight corners he'd have to manoeuvre around.

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Oh, aren't I just a big meanie to poor little Obi-Wan? I would feel remorseful, but I love the angst too much.

Sorry about taking so long to update, but my sister just had a little baby girl and so I went down to Melbourne to see her. Her name is Milly (short for Amelia) and she is absolutely gorgeous!

Anyway, this note is extraordinarily short today. I decided I'd give you a break … as long as you review! ;D

Oh, wait a second. Look at this :o-) Oh. the ears won't work on this. anyway, they are an equal sign.

It's a bunny! I don't know why I just thought of that. I made him myself, but it looks much more impressive on a mobile screen.

Anyway, to replies:

wyldcat: Thanks about the references. I hope you liked the lightsabre one in this chapter, too, even though I stole the idea from one of the JA books!

And you're from Australia too? Yay! I'm from Vic, so we have VCE, now … where are you from to still have HSC? I have a feeling NSW … I don't know. And IPT? Is that the same as IT?

You're right about me wanting that double cliffie! ;) But it was originally part of a really long chapter that needed to be broken up, so it was more coincidence than anything … though I was so excited when I had a chance to stop there.

About Obi-Wan killing the whipids … I don't think he would if he had a chance to somehow find another way to escape … not intentionally, anyway. Also, they really had the upper hand – I don't think he had much of a choice, though you were right, it would have been much easier for him to just kill them. We don't like making life easy for Obi-Wan though, do we? oo

Anyway, this is an enormous reply (you always right such long reviews anyway, which is awesome, so I feel justified), but I think I need to do one last thing … an Aussie chant over I'll start off:

AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE!

Waiting for your 'oi's:)

Yasona Black: I love when Xanatos toys with Obi-Wan, too … poor boy:( Anyway, thankyou so much for your wonderful support, it's awesome to have a constant reviewer to encourage you. I'll try to update often. Thankyou once again!

charie: thankyou so much for your beautiful review, it made me all fuzzy inside … and not from eating any teddy bears, this time (I used to pull their fur off when I was little and eat it, until I was about seven … that is so weird). Thanks about the origins of the shrimp phrase, I had no idea it came from that movie. You were right about how Paul Hogan is an Aussie, and he was in Crocodile Dundee. It was huge in Australia at the time, but sadly, I've been bad and haven't seen it, so I had no idea that's where the phrase came from. Thanks!

By the Force! I already had these replies pre-written out to save me time since I don't have the net at home, but just discovered I suddenly had a lot more reviews since I'd gone away. So, thanks to those wonderful people who have reviewed, and I'll reply to your reviews next chappie. Sorry! Also thanks to those who've added my fic to their favourites and applied for alerts. You guys are great!

So much for my note being short! This is the longest one yet.

BaBaKaNuSh13