Legacy

Book I


Chapter 3

Coruscant Intergalactic Spaceport was pandemonium given corporal form; amplified droid voices blared out arrival and departure times, cybernetic porters and recklessly piloted hover carts zipped and ploughed their respective paths through the churning pedestrian concourses, vendors hawked food and cheap souvenirs, crewmembers and port officers shouted and gesticulated and sent a buzzing swarm of courier-bots flitting overhead. The high girders rang with cacophony, the air stank of industrial lubricants and ionized metal, the flexi-mat conveyor decks of the swift tubes reverberated with the harried and hurried feet of ten thousand anxious travelers.

"This place is more uncivilized every time I see it," Obi-Wan groused, hands shoved deep into the wide hems of his cloak sleeves.

Beside him, unperturbed by the seething currents of sentient life, and standing astride the moving walkway with a tranquility that suggested to an observer that it was the world flowing past the Jedi master rather than the reverse state of affairs, Qui-Gon lifted his brows. "Says the man journey-bound to the Outer Rim."

The younger Jedi snorted sardonically, distastefully eyeing a garish neonium billboard. The scantily clad Twi'Lek in the holo-ad wrapped one lekku seductively about a Solar Soda bottle and exhorted the eager potential consumer to Get a Little Fresh. "I hardly need have bothered, apparently."

The two Jedi stepped off the moving conveyance and threaded their way across the bustling plaza to their assigned boarding gate, where a triple queue was already forming along a massive freighter's open ramps. Droid ticketing clerks scanned data chits and ushered passengers into the hold in small clusters of two and three. Automated luggage carriers stacked valises and gleaming hardcases on floating trolleys.

Obi-Wan shifted testily as they joined the line issuing into the more private forward hold, where individual cabins and other luxurious amenities were to be found. "I do hope the ship isn't wired for sound… if I have to listen to twelve hours of canned synth-band tripe, I'll turn to the Dark Side."

The tall man cast an assessing sidelong glance at his irritable traveling companion and then excused himself. "Hold our place," he ordered, shamelessly asserting the prerogatives of seniority. His long shanks carried him across the echoing hangar at a brisk clip.

Obi-Wan scowled mildly at the abrupt abandonment – but his solitude was of short duration.

"Excuse me, sir… young Master!"

The speaker was an elderly Dressalian accompanied by her even older spouse. The two tall beings were stooped and hunch-backed, their already mournful, wrinkled faces even more deeply scored by time.

"My husband has been pick-pocketed! There is a thief somewhere here… can you find him? The security droids wouldn't do a thing about it, the incompetent buffoons!"

Obi-Wan cast out into the tumultuous crowd, questing through the Force – but there were far, far too many shifting eddies of intention and desire for him to ferret out a single petty criminal. "I'm sorry," he told the aggrieved Dressalian woman. "Have you lost much of value?"

"Not many credits," the elder lamented, "But our boarding passes are gone! Whisked clean away. How will we get home without them?- The ship departs in twenty standard… no time to deal with the all that front desk rigamarole."

The young Jedi sighed softly to himself. Of course this would happen – the Force had a way of issuing strident reminders about patience, tolerance, and humility. Mouth twisting ruefully, he bowed to the distraught couple once again. "Here. These passes are for a private forward cabin – please make use of them. I'll speak to the droid about a transfer."

The recipients of this generosity beamed in astonished pleasure and were mortifyingly effulgent in their praise; he edged away so soon as courtesy would allow, and sidled over to the nearest clerk-bot. "Excuse me."

The thing's optics skimmed him over, head to foot. "Master Jedi."

"My companion and I require transport on this vessel. Is there a berth available?"

Galactic statutes bade captains and charter vessel owners to provide transport to members of the Order at short notice; legal provision was made for compensation, though customarily the favor was granted gratis, out of respect for the Jedi's peacekeeping role. And besides, the legendary Knights were well-known not to be fastidious about accommodations.

A fact which the droid – or its skinflint programmers- seemed to calculate into its response.. "All we have available are bench seats on the mid-deck," it informed him. "I will register you as grade D passengers."

Grinding his teeth, Obi-Wan hoisted the two small travel bags over his shoulder again and made his way to the distant end of the aft-section queue, where the less privileged castes of society jostled and vied for a position in the first-come-first serve converted cargo holds.

Qui-Gon appeared at his elbow a few minutes later, bearing a plasti-foam cup brimful of steaming argees.

"What's this?'

The Jedi master's grey eyes gleamed with hidden amusement. "There is no tea to be had for a parsec 'round… but I thought this would suffice in a pinch." When the jest provoked only an uncertain narrowing of the young Knight's eyes, he added, "Our early departure seems to have cost you a certain disruption of habits.. and mood."

Obi-Wan accepted the cheap offering with a sarcastic grunt. But the dark and oily brew did possess a certain bitter charm all its own, bracing and soothing at once. He sipped at the hot liquid and relaxed his rigid stance fractionally, still idly scanning the Force for some sign of brigandly satisfaction or sneaking guilt among the gathered sojourners.

"I take it there is some good reason we have been downgraded three full classes," Qui-Gon remarked, craning his head over the long line to survey the foot of the last ramp on the starboard side.

"Oh….yes." His companion gave a wry lift of the shoulders, gaze sliding evasively sideways.

The tall man tilted his head. "Oh? Succoring pathetic life forms and we haven't even left the docking pad yet? This bodes not well…especially where leg room is concerned."

"A Jedi shall crave not material comforts nor luxury in his surroundings," Obi-Wan grumpily retorted.

"Hm." Qui-Gon released a grumbling sigh and then lapsed into a disgruntled silence as they shuffled slowly forward into the shadow of the massive freighter's hull.


Fortunately, the Jedi master's cunning proved equal and proportionate to his partner's gallantry – a skill developed, perhaps, in response to crises provoked by his own acts of impulsive generosity over the passing decades. No sooner had the tall man laid eyes upon the stark rows of plastimold seats bolted to the passenger hold's scuffed deck plates, than he had turned on his boot heel and gone in search of one of his notorious improvisational "solutions", once again leaving Obi-Wan to fend for himself.

The young Knight took up station leaning against the nearest bulkhead, one fold of his cloak open just enough to provide a glimpse of his 'saber hilt to any prurient observer. The subtle hint earned him a comfortable margin of personal space into which none dared trespass, and fended off unwanted small talk. He stalwartly endured a half-hour's worth of canned synth-band music filtering through the ship's interdeck comm system, distracting himself from its grating, simplistic modulations and moronic lyrics by mentally reciting Twi"Lek irregular verb conjugation patterns.

Ruar'e; rua'o, rua'ay, ruaien, rua'os, rua'yan, ruaienis…

"Oh baby, just maybe, maybe maybe baby - you got so many 'tennae, so many many 'tennae - can you feeeeeeeeeel me maybe baby?!"

Tythim'e; tythimio, tythim'ay, tythien, was it? No. Tythim'ien, tythim' stis, that one always threw him for a loop –

"Feeeeeeeeeeeeel me up, feel me down, get yo 'tennae in my face, feel me feel me feel me, send me into hyperspace!"

For stars' kriffing sake. Tythim'ien sol-cha, tythim'ios sol-mu…

"Oh – whoa!" a delighted humanoid voice interrupted his deep contemplation of the pluperfect tense.

He glanced up, suddenly aware that Qui-Gon had reappeared with an actual flesh and blood stewardess in tow. The uniformed girl – a callow new hire no older than Obi-Wan himself – was gazing in awestruck admiration at her Jedi agemate.

Off balance, and embarrassed at his preoccupied mental state, he blushed and executed a neat bow to cover his momentary confusion.

"Well," the girl hesitantly mused. "I mean…. I guess…. Oh hells! Just come with me – I know where you can go. This way." She gestured to the pair of them and led the way back through the packed hold, shouldering between weary passengers and piles of carry-on luggage, the Jedi following nimbly in her wake.

"Why do I have the feeling I've just been used?" Obi-Wan grumbled at his former mentor's back as they entered the connecting passage and made a sharp left hand turn.

"You maneuvered us into this situation," the tall man blithely countered. "You should be happy to make amends in kind – besides, it is not your person as such but certain generic endowments of nature that proved useful."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't need to."

The stewardess keyed open a narrow door and waved them inside the crew's galley and dining room. "Here…just, keep it on the down low, okay? I mean, nobody uses it during this shift. I just don't want any trouble from the bridge officers."

"Your resourcefulness is appreciated," Qui-Gon assured her, with a polite bow.

"Sure," she replied, dreamily addressing the younger of the pair. "Anytime." And she backed out, the door hissing closed behind her.

"You are an unscrupulous scoundrel," Obi-Wan accused his companion, who wasted no time in taking a seat at the table and stretching his long legs out beneath its generous width.

"What? We now have privacy and legroom, and yet you persist in taking exception to my methods?"

The young Knight ran a hand over his chin. "I'm going to grow the beard back," he threatened.

"As you will," the Jedi master smirked. "…But in your position I should simply be grateful that she did not possess many many 'tennae."


Obi-Wan took manifest consolation in the convenient presence of a dataport inside the miniscule galley. 'Pad hardwired into the ship's mainframe and commsatt relay, he happily settled in for the obligatory preparatory research, a tiny furrow of concentration contracting his brows. Qui-Gon prepared a light tea – the galley's supplies were not first-rate, but they were better than nothing – and watched his young counterpart at work.

He knew, because he had been told, that Obi-Wan had been deprived of so much as a single flimsi-bound book during his year-long exile on Melida-Daan. The young Jedi had spent the past six months indulging his already well-developed scholarly interests to the point of passion – though whether this were a healthy compensatory action, an imbalance potentially detrimental to true Jedi serenity, or a mere quirk of native temperament, the tall man had not yet decided. Nor, he reflected, was he under obligation to do so – as his former padawan had pointed out on many occasions, his status was that of former padawan.

But Qui-Gon had never paid much heed to the dictates of such outward obligation. Formal ties may have been severed, but the Force still thrummed consonantly between them, despite the sometimes strife-fretted years that lay behind. Student, teacher, the Force: these are one – so declared the solemn ritual of braiding. Things woven so dexterously together on the flawless loom of destiny were not so easily unbound by a simple act of will.

The transparent glimmering planes of the holo-projector's display were reflected as bright blue beacon-flames in the young Jedi's eyes. They shuffled, disappeared, and rearranged themselves in a whimsical pattern, and then froze. Obi-Wan's keen, unconsciously forward-leaning posture stiffened as he drew himself up and favored the last virtual screen with a severely arched brow.

"What have you there?" Qui-Gon inquired.

His companion's disapprobation was suddenly widened to include the speaker. "The meterological survey for Niffrendi," he replied, a faint thread of accusation in his tone. "I will assume you are familiar with the violent atmospheric phenomena occurring in the planet's ionosphere? The lightning storms which bear the charming indigenous moniker "Heaven's Scythe?""

"They are intermittent, not perpetual," the Jedi master told him, pacifically.

"Yes, well, that is only intermittently encouraging," came the inevitable dark riposte. Obi-Wan's disgusted expression mellowed into grim irony. "I suppose we ought to decide which of us will be burdened with piloting the shuttle down through Heaven's Lovely Scythe,"

A good point. Qui-Gon threw down the proverbial gauntlet. "A game of sabaac, then. Loser takes the helm."

His young friend flashed a fierce grin, mute acceptance of the terms of challenge.

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