Legacy
Book I
Chapter 6
In the dead of night, Qui-Gon jolted awake, chill premonition racing down his spine, a bright actinic flare seeming to set his blood alight as he leapt upright in one powerful motion, 'saber hilt springing into his hand.
The spheroid probe droid's repulsors thrummed like the wings of a stinging wasp, a menacing whir as the dark shape dropped stealthily from the tree-tops, black against blacker night, only the tiny glimmer of its targeting light betraying its presence behind the inky veil of night. The Jedi master's blade snapped into life, emerald fury raised to meet the challenge, the weapon's voice deeper, louder, truer than the shifting whine of the seeker-droid's engines. The enemy drew closer, closer –
-and a second shape plummeted from on high, a storm-cloud spitting merciless sapphire lightning. A screaming blade passed through the droid's carapace, cleaving it neatly in two; a lithe form dropped to the soft undergrowth with a muffled thump, and the sparking carcass of the hunter rattled and bounced from jutting branch to sweeping bough, landing at the feet of its conqueror.
Qui-Gon's blade hissed back into its hilt at the same moment Obi-Wan's did.
"Not much gets past you," the tall man observed, noting his private pang of mingled pride and chagrin that his former padawan seemed to have sensed the threat before he had.
A small shrug. "I don't sleep well." Obi-Wan replaced his 'saber at his belt. "As you know. It's a distinct advantage in the anticipating ambush department. …I wonder what we've got here."
They knelt together beside the mangled remains of the probe unit, examining the slagged pieces by the lurid radiance of a glowrod. The younger man turned the broken components over in his hands, curious. "I've not seen this sort before."
Qui-Gon rolled back on his heels, chuckling grimly. "And that is where the advantage of age is most apparent – these models went out of manufacture before you were born. I remember a few, though."
"What is it? Obviously some sort of recon unit – this cannon is useless, it hasn't a swivel mount, the entire droid would have to shift trajectory to get off a shot."
The Jedi master peered at the underside of his half. "The weapon is merely for clearing away obstacles – these are not hunter-killers, merely surveillance drones."
This elicited a frown. "I felt danger… why would a mere spy bot create such a disturbance in the Force?"
Qui-Gon pointed to the seam joining upper plates to the motive center. "See if you can extract the comm circuits. If the thing itself does not account for the threat, then its purpose must."
The young Knight nodded, absorbing this answer with characteristic seriousness. "It's the forerunner of trouble." He slipped two fingers between his calf and the inside of his left boot, extracting a beautiful Vespari steel knife from its hidden sheath. "But I think it's met its match," he grinned, flashing a wolfish smile for a fleeting instant before somberly applying himself to the task.
"Look – just here."
The two Jedi crouched together beneath their shelter, watching the holo- playback spin and scroll above Qui-Gon's compact projector plate. The shimmering coordinate sequences alternated with longitudinal cross-section maps, one after another in rapid succession. Obi-Wan allowed the recording to roll through one more time before pausing it . "There." His finger traced a taut, eager circle over the transparent geological display. "Those are the hills just behind us. The relay station must be up there somewhere…maybe at this summit. We could trace this back to source. It's related to the attacks – I can feel it."
The older man was not so impetuous in his ambitions. "I agree – the drone is important. But our first priority should be to make contact with the sentient population. Living witnesses may prove more helpful to our cause than a tech trail which may, after all, prove a dead end."
Obi-Wan pitched his voice low, as though addressing a fractious delegation. "It may, of course… but we've not yet encountered them – and here is a lead, at hand." He lifted his brows, marginally. "An opportunity in the present moment."
It was a sales pitch honed perfectly to its intended audience, but Qui-Gon was not in a buying mood. "Our primary aim here is to determine the truth of rumored events; and truth is something better sought within the experience of living beings than through a data-trail."
Nettled, Obi-Wan crossed his arms, settling back on a fallen log. "If you say so."
"I do."
"Well. Your confidence in human honesty and goodness is ... inspiring."
The sentiment rang of Yan Dooku' s supercilious cynicism; Qui-Gon skewered his former padawan with a look that once upon a time would have instantly reduced all such impudent protestation to silence, if not outright apology – but there had been a subtle sea-change wrought even here, in the unspoken lexicon of gesture and expression. The young Knight's mental shields lowered a trifle, allowing a hint of genuine regret to shine through the dark curtain of his outward disapproval, but this paltry peace offering was the only concession he made.
"Good. We'll continue on our present course of action." Having thus forcibly wrested the disagreement into a simple concord, for lack of any defined authoritative prerogative, Qui-Gon stood, disconnected the holo-plate, and brusquely stowed it in a belt pouch. "Let's get going – we should be able to cover a good deal of ground today."
His companion fell in beside him, ill temper slowly disintegrating into the Force's broad currents as they set off into the grasslands beneath a sky luminous with endless strife. The rising sun set fire to the horizon's rim, a thin coronet of liquid gold banded about the world's extremities, dividing raging heaven from cowering earth, day from night, and memory from present reality.
The wide green expanse rolling out from the mountains' feet was clearly an ancient glacial plain, one still strewn with the looming shapes of massive boulders, stark white shapes thrusting like bizarre sculptures in a meditation garden, the soft ripples of grey-green groundcover swirling about their feet. The plants turned out not to be thin, stalk grasses such as predominated similar landscape on other worlds, but rather hardy low-lying nets of flat-leaved, quasi-succulent vine. Their boots made not a sound as they passed along this velvety, never-ending carpet, watched over by the monumental white stones and a perpetually glowering sky.
Several klicks out, when the line of hills had receded into the background, a dark speck appeared on the western horizon, keeping pace with them but never venturing nearer. A thin, whining note of menace sounded in the Force.
"Another," Obi-Wan grunted, glancing sideways at the cautious sentinel droid.
"Hm." The Jedi master strode onward, unconcerned. "Its presence suggests that this is a populated area… we're sure to find a nomadic group out here."
"We're sure to lead trouble their way, too," the younger man observed.
"And if we do," Qui-Gon countered, "We shall meet it head on."
Which was a sufficient plan for their present circumstance and degree of information – but he could sense his companion's lack of ease. Melida-Daan had taught its own harsh lessons: the survival of the fittest, the need to protect at all costs, the innumerable stresses of defending the few against insurmountable odds had all worn deep channels of wariness, of ruthless tactical cunning, into the young Jedi's soul. In many ways, he was older than his scant twenty years; in other ways, perhaps, younger. Or cheated of youth. Qui-Gon slowed beneath the nearest boulder, a solitary slab of white-blue mineral jutting at a drunken, skewed angle from the earth. "Obi-Wan," he said, resting one hand against the smooth side of this monolith.
The inquiring gaze that met his own was open, curious.
"Whatever threat may lurk behind these probes," Qui-Gon reminded him, "Is no match for the Force." he gestured expansively, encompassing the entire wind-swept plain, the thundering dome above, and finally, the two Jedi themselves. "You are not without allies, here."
The reassurance shafted home, and then rebounded as gratitude laced with pain. Memories splintered like lightning, afterimages darkly branded upon the Force, across their bond. Obi-Wan looked down, then back up. "I've… I've grown used to being alone." He exhaled, slowly. "Even the Force was darkened there…. I knew it was a losing battle, the entire time." His eyes sought Qui-Gon's, riveting the older man with hard-edged fact, truths lacking the barbed edge of accusation, yet still razor-sharp. "You left. Dooku left. The entire Republic had abandoned them. And then… I feared that I had fallen, that I was a threat as well. I can't …"
"You triumphed, in the end."
Obi-Wan's somber expression did not waver. "Yes. But it's hard to remember… what it was like before. This is the first time…"
The tall man risked a step forward, and gripped his former padawans' shoulder. "This is not Melida-Daan. We are not the hunted." He nodded his head at the hovering speck, patiently keeping its distance. "We are not bringing trouble. We are trouble… for whomever is initiating these attacks."
He knew Obi-Wan well, and he knew that the invitation to mischief would spark a guttering fire to vibrancy. He was rewarded with a fierce flare of warmth in the Force, but also a rueful half-smile. "I'm sorry,…Master. I should not be so imbalanced. I am a Knight , and –"
"And Master Yoda himself suggested without censure that you might benefit from, say… thirty five years' superior experience?"
The jest was weighted with a heavy ballast of affection, a counterweight to keep them level amid turbulent seas.
"And here I thought it was a ploy to rejuvenate your waning vitality," Obi-Wan quipped, dodging expertly around the unspoken truth, thus acknowledging it without running them aground on treacherous rocks.
They pressed onward, their unwelcome pursuer remaining steadily at the periphery of vision, a tiny itching ripple in the Force like a bothersome tisska-fly.
The land dipped to form a natural basin, a place where some long-ago seismic disruption had carved long natural terraces, a stairwell now carpeted in dappled green moss and tiny wildflowers. At the center of this depression stood another scattered ring of stone, stray sheep from the petrified flock above. And amid these hunched white stones, blue and indigo in the shadow of the bowl, campfire smoke twisted skyward in sinuous ribbons.
The Force shuddered delicately, subliminal thrumming widening into a prismatic melody: sentient beings, busy about their tasks.
Qui-Gon Jinn smiled in satisfaction and led the way down the steep causeway, bounding lightly from step to step. The Jedi's arrival attracted notice, but no open hostility; though a few of the ragged company that gathered shyly to meet them had old-model blaster rifles in hand, the weapons were grasped loosely at their sides, or else kept holstered entirely. The band of nomads was a startling medley of different species, representing most the major ethnological groups populating the Outer Rim in this sector. At their head stood a human in his sixties, or perhaps a vigorous seventy.
When the visitors stopped a cautious handful of paces away form the slowly-growing crowd, this man gestured his companions to wait, and strode forward boldly.
"Well met," he greeted them, voice rasping like a habitual bacci-smoker's. His slightly jaundiced eyes surveyed their clothing. "You , eh, recent runaways?"
The Jedi exchanged a fleeting glance. "What makes you say that?" Qui-Gon responded, relaxed posture and open stance bespeaking confidence but not aggression.
The old man cocked his head to one side. "Your togs ain't worn much – so you can't a been out here too long. But you ain't native – don't nobody venture this far past the cities without a blaster." He squinted at them. "Still, you look too healthy to be Hutt or Togo property – you two from the fighting rings out on Paxel?" A low whistle. "That's serious chisszzk, they say."
"We have not seen the fighting rings in person."
"Well, then - you're lucky. Most glads don't make it out alive... nor with everything intact." The old man's assessing stare narrowed. "THe one thing we don't take here among the stones is criminals. You on the lam?"
Obi-Wan smiled thinly. "No more than you are," he responded. "There are rumors of slave-raids here."
"Not rumors," the elder snorted, bitterly. "But we have a hospitality law among the Wanderers. No man is turned away from the fire." He raised a hand, signaling to the others, who swarmed forward, eagerly peering and whispering. "I'm Kerrn; these are the Folk of the Stones. You can tell us more later – the storm's going to break tonight, and that means we need to get to the Wormholes."
Obi-Wan caught his companion's eye, but the older man merely shrugged.
"Come on, you lot, stop gawking. We'll get the whole story out of 'em later." Kerrn shooed his comrades away, flapping hands at them like a farmer rousting fowl from their roosts. "You too, Glads! Time's wastin'. You want yer head blitzed off by lightnin'? No? Then get movin."
