Disclaimer: I wish I could take credit for creating Star Wars, but alas, I am not George Lucas, and I have no intention of getting sued.
Summary: As Qui-Gon, Anakin, and Bant protect the Republic from Darth Sidious, another Sith Lord emerges – Qui-Gon's presumably dead, former apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi. Can the Jedi save the Republic, or is it already too late? The third story in the Jedi Trials series.
Author's Notes: Sorry about the longer-than-usual wait for this chapter...the past couple of weeks have been hectic, especially last weekend. I also apologize for it being slightly shorter than the last few chapters have been, but don't fret, they should get longer starting chapter sixteen. Thank you to all my lovely reviewers, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Revenge and Regret
By Kekelina
-----
Chapter Fourteen: Kamino
-----
"Are you…all right, Ani?" Qui-Gon asked between the gulps of air he was using to calm his fluttering nerves, which flapped madly about his body like the delicate wings of a passing flutterby.
One look into his normally bright blue eyes revealed dark orbs, charred by the scorching flames of his vision. His heart wept. Anakin, a senior Padawan, was by no means innocent anymore, yet his curious sky-blue eyes, always so vibrant and full of life, secreted a sense of childlike innocence (which competed frequently with righteous anger). But to see them so dull, so…injured…was almost too much for the Jedi Master to bear.
Blasted prophecy! Though Qui-Gon had first shown interest in the boy because of his unusual conception and strong Force-presence, he often wished that Anakin could simply be a normal Padawan Learner, one who wasn't haunted by his inevitable duty and the strange, harmful visions of the future.
"No," Qui-Gon corrected in a haunted whisper. Just a possible future.
Bant cleared her throat, laying a hand on both Qui-Gon's and Anakin's shoulders as she gently sent them a calming wave of the Force. The suggestion spread through his body like a warm cup of tea after a harrowing mission to a frigid, desolate ice planet. He nodded his thanks. "We should move you both to the Healers."
"Take Anakin," he agreed, struggling to his feet, ignoring the wooziness such an action produced. "I must go find Yoda."
"Qui-Gon!" Bant argued stubbornly, her mouth ajar to resist him further. He silenced her with a single, upraised finger.
"Yoda must be informed."
-----
"Sensed great pain in you and young Skywalker, I did," Yoda greeted as the door to his private quarters slid open with a hiss. "What has happened?"
Qui-Gon strode in as fast as his recovering mind would allow and began pacing the length of Yoda's common room. Had he not been trying to sort out all of his thoughts at the same moment, their chaotic buzz confusing and distracting him, he would've noticed that the glowlamps in the diminutive, green Jedi Master's private meditation chambers were set to full power and that a plastoid cup of water had been knocked on its side, the contents dripping on the well-worn, synthetic fibers of the carpet.
"Master, Anakin had a…a vision," the tall Jedi struggled to begin. Visions were usually frowned upon by the Jedi, as it was taught that the future was never pre-ordained. "But this one was different, Master. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before."
"You…?" Yoda began, but Qui-Gon cut him off.
"Anakin was in great pain," he explained rapidly, every word falling from his lips faster than the previous one. The explanation meant little in the large scheme of things. "So I tried to remove it through our bond. When I did, I received the images Anakin saw." An involuntary shudder swept through his body, an unwelcome attack on an already weak vessel. Although now tucked away in the recesses of his mind, the images would never stop haunting him.
The wizened Master's ear twitched. "A vision, you say?" he asked thoughtfully, more to himself than Qui-Gon. For a few moments, there was silence as Yoda leaned against his gimer stick, thinking. Then, he "hmmphed" and asked, "Show me what you saw, will you?"
Qui-Gon stopped pacing abruptly. How could he revisit it once more? How could he watch a possible future where both his sons were forced to fight one another to the death?
Is it only possible? It seemed so fated.
No, there had to be another way. There was always another way…
In either case, he did not want to relive the death and destruction ever again.
"Trust me, you must," Yoda's backward-speak broke through his fears. "Harm you, I will not. See these visions, only I will…"
Hesitantly and a bit stiffly, Qui-Gon lowered himself to his marrowbones. Even on his knees, his large body far surpassed Master Yoda in height. To substitute for the difference, Yoda grunted and climbed up on his stimcaf table with an ease no other eight-hundred-seventy-four-year-old possessed.
Now at eye-level with one another, Yoda reached out and placed his clawed hands on Qui-Gon's temple. With a last resistant hesitancy, he lowered his shields and allowed the Jedi to enter his mind.
-----
Through layers of clouds, thunder, electricity, and rain, Darth Dementor maneuvered his ship down to the watery surface of Kamino. Why Sidious had chosen such a despicable planet, he would never know. All he did know was that this little trip was costing him precious hours, and if this endeavor took up too much of his time, someone's head would be subsequently detached from that someone's shoulders.
Blast the cloners for needing to meet him in person! The army of clones had been made for the Republic, his (former, Dementor reflected with glee) Master had informed him from the beginning. Therefore, a representative from the Republic was required to retrieve them from the planet. In other words, a Jedi ambassador.
"Blast them to the Corellian hells!" he cursed as his anger took hold, empowering him into a rather steep dive and subsequent risky landing on the rain-covered landing pad despite his repugnance for flying.
A solitary figure, clad in drenched Mandalorian armor, greeted the once-Jedi-turned-Sith with a quick tilt of his head and a reluctant "Lord Dementor." Dementor hopped out of his ship and pulled his hood over his face as rain dripped from the sky in steady, heavy torrents, saturating even the water.
"This will be quick," he warned Jango Fett as he brushed past him, leading them both to the dry, sterile environment of the enclosed city.
The transparisteel doors opened. "Of course, my Lord." A tall figure glided gracefully over to greet them.
Having never before seen a Kaminoan, Dementor was impressed by their luminous skin and onyx eyes as deep and dark as the night sky, surrounding ethereal orbs of light reminiscent of the pinpricks of diamond-esque stars against a blanket of the finest black silk available in the galaxy. This Kaminoan in particular, who Jango introduced as Taun We, held herself with a dignity and grace, apparent in everything from her walk to the smooth words that trickled from her thin lips, that Dementor admired.
"Master Jedi, how wonderful it is to meet you." Her accent rounded her words nicely. "We were beginning to think you weren't coming. When Jango told us of your impending arrival, we made sure every part of your delivery was in order."
"Good," Dementor replied shortly, too short if he wished to successfully impersonate a Jedi. With an annoyed sigh, he added, "I'm glad to hear it."
"Our Prime Minister is very anxious to meet you." Dementor stifled another sigh as she led them to a chamber at the end of the corridor, just as white and brightly lit as the rest of the indoor city.
Upon greeting Prime Minister Lama Su, Dementor reluctantly and humiliatingly bowed low in the fashion of the Jedi he despised so much. After brief small talk – not brief enough in his opinion – the two Kaminoans and the bounty hunter led him through a series of transparent, illustrious hallways to view the massive army of genetically reproduced soldiers they had created.
It was very, very impressive.
"There are two-hundred-thousands units ready, with a million more well on the way."
Gazing over the battalions of armor-clad clones, a sea of white figurines that seemed to stretch to infinity, rivaling the number of planets in the galaxy, he nodded and allowed a small, devious smile to grace his thin, pale lips as the faint song of victory reached his ears.
"Excellent."
-----
Yoda wearily placed a hand over his heart, disturbed by what he had just witnessed and experienced.
So much pain… So much suffering…
"A dark future, this is," he mumbled to himself, fighting to regain control of his haphazardly spinning mind. This vision explained everything he had felt earlier. No wonder Qui-Gon had looked so ragged when he had arrived.
"Master," Qui-Gon began hesitantly, "do you think this will really take place?"
The venerable Master "hmmphed" half-heartedly, but it sounded more like a weary, reflective sigh. Know not I do, he wished to say, but instead reprimanded, "Know you do, Master Qui-Gon, that always in motion the future is. Rely on such visions as these, we must not."
"But Master," the maverick argued, "these are not normal visions. You know this as well as I do."
"No," Yoda retorted sharply. "Know that, I do not. Lies in the Unifying Force, your strength does not. Enough experience with visions to interpret them, you have not. Know this, you do." He sighed and dropped his voice. "Blinding you, your attachments to your former Padawans are." To his credit, Qui-Gon did not deny this statement.
It was a dangerous and risky business to base one's actions around a vision, Yoda knew. Such precaution could even lead to the unwanted future unfolding as it had in the vision – a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There were too many variables and too little details to act, even on such a strange vision as the one Yoda had observed. "Be wary, we must," the green Jedi conceded, not so much because of the vision as because of the darkness he felt creeping among them, seeping into the Force like toxic gas from the ventilation system, slowly suffocating the light until there was nothing left but absolute and terrifying darkness.
-----
The Other Author's Notes: Stay tuned for Chapter Fifteen: Past, Present, and Future - Obi-Wan heads for Coruscant, and the Galactic Republic teeters on the verge of destruction. Don't forget to review!
Author's Edit: 8-21-2007