FATHERLESS
by ardavenport
- - - - - PART 3
Just before Ot-Koff's family and heirs arrived, Inspector Aaah-Zhiss pointed at the police droid sternly and ordered, "Not a word from you, Cee-Tu, this time. Not. One. Word."
The droid drew back, but complied with a resigned wave of it's two primary appendages and parked itself by a wall next to a blocky statue of some violent and bloody-looking deity.
There were no introductions when the family arrived with a contingents of four armed police droids, so Obi-Wan had no idea how they were related to each other, but he could make some guesses. Wife, son, daughter, brother, uncle, niece, nephew, son-by-marriage, nephew, niece, sister-by-marriage. They were all well dressed, the older ones with tall ornate head-dresses. Two adult males and a youngling girl strongly resembled the victim. The police droids lined up by a wall in front of a display of electro-pikes.
Someone in the group shrieked.
It took a moment for the commotion and outrage at the exposed body 'in such a state' died down a bit. Some of them bravely looked while others turned away. And a few more gloated. Obi-Wan watched from the safety of the shadows under his hood and remained still, his arms folded before him.
A thin son/nephew-like person pointed. "Who are they? What are they doing here?"
"Aaaaaaah." Inspector Aaah-zhiss acted as if she had just noticed them herself. She waved an arm in their direction. "That is Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi. They happened to be on Stewjon for other business and were kind enough to assist me in my investigation.
"Actually," she lowered her tone, "the Jedi Order takes great offense to outsiders using their sacred weapons for ill purposes. Master Qui-Gon is using his Jedi mental abilities to determine exactly who desecrated this lightsaber." He paw stroked the hilt though Obi-Wan could see she kept well away from the activation switch.
The identity of the murderer became immediately apparent when a thin woman in the middle of the group clasped her hands to her mouth, her painted eyes suddenly brimming with tears. She was elegantly dressed in a pale green, floor length sheath that looked like two halves joined with string criss-crossing down her front, the openings revealing only a few parts of her young body. Matching fingerless gloves covered her arms up to her elbows. Shimmering sticks pointed upward from the thick brown hair piled on her head.
One surly Ot-Koff-look-alike seemed unimpressed. "Yeah, well when? Looks like they're just sitting there right now."
Inspector Aaah-zhiss ignored the derisive tone. Having spotted the panicky woman in the middle, she continued to pour on the drama. "Since the crime was committed with a Jedi weapon, we're not clear about the jurisdiction. It could be declared a capital crime against the Galactic Republic."
"Wait! What are you talking about?" A young man in a loose blue tunic and matching slicked back hair clasped the woman in pale green; she clung to him like a lifeline. "First you say this was just an accident, now it's murder? Our father was waving that thing in front of all of us! What proof do you have that one of us did this?"
"Yarm Ot-Koff could not have caused so much damage to himself if he were holding the weapon." The Inspector held the lightsaber out, pointed away from everyone else, and turned it on. The family group flinched back from the blazing green blade. The police droids alerted, their necks extended higher, their eye sensors scanning the action.
She dropped it and the blade immediately went out as soon as it left her paw. She scooped it up from the carpet.
"As you can see, if Ot-Koff had just impaled himself it would have been a simple injury though probably still fatal. But given that he was cut multiple times, I can only conclude that someone else was holding it for him."
The woman in pale green cried out and hugged the man closer, burying her face in his shoulder. Everyone else in the group had now noticed her and began voicing their reactions.
"You've got to be kidding." "Lessmi? Lessmi? She killed that poisonous old miser?" "That simpering little - - " "Skewered by his favorite; that's rich!" "She couldn't have!" "Well, I guess she's dumb enough - - "
"Shut up! Shut up!" The man clutching Lessmi shouted at the people around him. "Don't tell me you all wouldn't have done it if you had half the chance!"
"But none of us did it." A short, broad-shouldered young man with receding hair pointed accusingly. "I shall not pretend to be sorry it happened," he continued with a grin, "or that someone else will be taking the blame."
"You little duzhcref eater," the man snarled back. The woman clinging to him whimpered, "It was an accident it was an accident it was an accident. . . " into his shirt.
"Lessmi Ot-Koff." The Inspector stepped forward, the rest of the family backing up. "I must inform you that anything you might impart, verbal or otherwise, will become part of this - - -"
"AAAAAAA-aaaaaiiiii-iiiiiieeeee!"
Eyes wild, Lessmi shrieked, whirling and lunging at the Inspector.
Qui-Gon smoothly pushed himself up from the chair, his robe falling to the ground behind him.
The old lightsaber zipped away, from the Inspector's paw and Lessmi's grasping fingers, across the room to Qui-Gon's outstretched hand. It ignited, along with his own.
Obi-Wan tensed, hesitating about joining his Master now advancing on the group, lightsabers in each hand angled downward.
Immediately, his hesitation became his decision. Obi-Wan did not move from where he stood.
Qui-Gon swept past the gruesome body on the carpet toward the suddenly fearful family.
A shot, a single red blaster bolt zipped toward his Master. Without breaking his stride he brushed it aside with a lightsaber. It harmlessly singed a light fixture shaped like a blaster cannon. In a room full of weapons, it seemed almost reasonable that the family of a well-knows weapons collector would be armed. Obi-Wan swiftly unclipped his own lightsaber, activating it . The family cowered back away from Lessmi and her supporter, leaving a clear space around them. Lessmi shrieked and trembled.
Qui-Gon slowed and the two lightsaber blades vanished with dual snapping hisses. He towered over the terrified woman.
"Thank-you Master Jedi," Inspector Aaah-zhiss said, smoothly inserting herself between the Jedi and her suspect, "for that exceptional demonstration.
Obi-Wan stopped, deactivating his own lightsaber.
The Inspector turned back to Lessmi Ot-Koff and continued instructing her about her legal options and status. The police droids had their guns up and ready but still dithered about what to do, their heads indecisively swivelling from side to side.
Completely shut out from the police business, Qui-Gon looked around and stepped back. The family members fearfully divided their attention between the arrest and the Jedi. But they did put away their weapons, mostly small concealable blasters and stunners. When the inspector finished, she cued one of the droids, it stepped forward and escorted Lessmi and the man out. The other family members grumbled loudly to Sub-Minister Lallot about being invited back downstairs for more statements for the police investigation as they all followed, escorted by the rest of the droids.
"I don't know how you get away with these theatrics," Cee-Tu complained as it left with Lieutenant Fifi. Last, the Inspector gave them an appreciative wink and a bared fang before leaving. The door slid closed behind them all.
Qui-Gon sighed, clipped his lightsaber to his belt. He sadly considered the old one, the murder weapon. Obi-Wan joined him.
"Was it an accident?" Obi-Wan had a sense that the woman had not been murderous, just terrified by what had happened, and what would happen to her now. But Qui-Gon easily would have seen her motives more clearly.
"Oh, yes." The older man sighed. "She was horrified by what happened. But she has not accepted that she might have been responsible, only that other people might find her guilty because she hated her father. She loved him as well. As did most of the others. I suspect that Yarm Ot-Koff's offspring were quite similar to him."
Qui-Gon handed Obi-Wan the old lightsaber. He held it reverently, his fingers stroking the scratched and dented emitter. They would take it back to the Temple and the Archive droids would identify the Jedi who made it. He hoped that it had just been lost in an accident; sometimes things like that happened. And sometimes killers took the lightsabers from dead Jedi as valuable prizes, to be illegally sold for a high price or kept for status. Eventually, they tended to find their way to collectors like Yarm Ot-Koff, who had now inadvertently surrendered it back to the Jedi.
Qui-Gon bent down and picked up the discarded sheeting, shook it out, a huge billowing pink wave in the air that he lowered over the body, restoring the privacy of the deceased.
The door slid open again. Lieutenant Fifi and Cee-Tu returned.
"We need the lightsaber back," Fifi told them in a very polite tone, her large brown eyes apologetic, her small hands clasped before her. She inclined her head toward Obi-Wan and smiled, one shapely hip shifting in his direction.
Qui-Gon silently shook his head. Obi-Wan clasped the lightsaber in both hands and didn't move though he shrugged with a little sympathy back to Fifi. His Master held his hand out and Obi-Wan gave it to him.
Cee-Tu straightened officiously.
"That lightsaber is evidence. You can't just take - - "
Hhhhffffsss-sssss-ssss-sssssssss-ttttttt!
"Aaah!"
Cee-Tu's head alerted, stiffly as high as it could go on its small neck, but still perfectly still, the glowing green blade of the old lightsaber less than a finger length away from the ear-grid on its side. Qui-Gon kept his eyes on Lieutenant Fifi whose expression had hardened, her lips pressed together. The lightsaber blade clicked off.
"As I told the Inspector, the Jedi Antiquities Laws supercede all of your local laws. The lightsaber stays with us. We are available for any statements that the Inspector requires before we leave. But there will be no more demonstrations."
Fifi's small mouth pouted, her expression calculating. "At least let Cee-Tu take some extra scans of it."
"As long as Cee-Tu performs them here."
Fifi gave him a quick nod. Qui-Gon went to a large display table of detonators (Obi-Wan presumed that they had been inerted) and placed the lightsaber on an empty space at the end. He stepped back, letting Fifi and the droid have plenty of room. Cee-Tu fearfully kept the Lieutenant between it and Qui-Gon..
Obi-Wan joined his Master.
"What were you going to say to her?"
Qui-Gon looked down at him, his expression curious.
"What were you going to say to Lessmi Ot-Koff?"
"Aaah," Qui-Gon turned toward where they had been sitting and they walked together. "I was going to tell her that her father died. She was quite traumatized by the accident. I don't believe that she had comprehended that reality."
They reached the end of the room and Qui-Gon stooped to pick up his discarded robe while Obi-Wan tried to puzzle out what he had said earlier.
"She loved and hated him?"
Qui-Gon nodded, shaking out the dark brown robe. "Yes. That happens quite often with fathers."
Obi-Wan hunched his shoulders, remembering the morning.
"I suppose I don't know about that."
Qui-Gon paused, his robe hanging off of one shoulder. Then he finished shrugging it on. He put his arm around Obi-Wan's shoulders
"I suppose I don't know anything about it either."
- - - - - - END - - - - - -
This story was first posted on tf.n: 13-September-2010
Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.
