Legacy
Book I
Chapter 12
"Please, please, let us become better acquainted," the lisping Nemoidian suggested, waving the Jedi master into his private salon and snapping webbed fingers at the protocol unit standing dutifully in one corner. The droid- fitted with the standard insectoid model head favored by non-humanoid species – shuffled to a sideboard and fetched a tray with glasses and a carafe.
Qui-Gon accepted the traditional Nemoidian hospitality offering, sipping cautiously at the sweetened kom'chubba tea, a tincture of fermented fungus popular among Cato Nemoidia's hypochondriac upper classes. The brew was notoriously healthful, and quite an acquired taste for foreigners.
The reptilian sat in his molded chair, sumptuous but frayed robes tucked primly about his knobbled knees. "It is not often that we encounter fellow business men here on Niffrendi… or anywhere in this sector," he wheezed.
The Trade Federation doubtless counted on that fact. Qui-Gon nodded, amiably. "I'm just passing through. Rumor on the market has it there is money to be made out here."
The Nemoidian spread his pudgy hands. "Ah, an entrepreneurial spirit. Unfortunately the only viable market out here is already cornered. My franchise provides shipping services for the planet's only valuable export."
The tall man set his galss down and examined his own hands, abstractedly. "I don't recall seeing any exports on the planetary register."
This provoked a conspiratorial chuckle, a wet and hiccupping sound issuing from the other's fleshy throat. "Bookkeeping details.. I am not in the accounting department, if you take my meaning."
"I do." The Jedi master nodded, offering his interlocutor a thin smile. "So. Suppose I was interested in … obtaining a share of this cornered market. Myself and my associates. What opportunities might present themselves?"
The Nemoidian's glazed eyes shifted. "We are always looking to hire talent at the ground floor. I assure you, theTrade Federation rewards initiative in our independent contractors. If you are interested, I suggest submitting an application. I can arrange an interview, perhaps, when this last purchase goes up to orbit?… That is, if you can persuade your friends to sell low."
Qui-Gon kicked one booted foot up upon the greedy merchant's desk. "I recommend that you buy high… this particular supplier is not one you wish to alienate."
This had the reptilian's attention. "You know something about their ionite source?"
"Let's just say they have connections."
"Well… I see…in that case… we can arrange a mutually satisfactory price. Perhaps you would care to submit your qualifications?" A datachit was pressed into Qui-Gon's hand by the attendant droid. "Fill out the application forms in triplicate with documentation and transmit to the imbedded code. I look forward to learning more about you."
The feeling was mutual, both in its intensity and degree of suspicion. They stood, bowed stiffly to one another, and then parted ways.
When the tall man reappeared on the arcade, Kerrn was impatiently pacing.
"Well? D'jya talk sense into that slimy wart? Or we leavin'?"
"They will pay a fair price this time. How long will you and your people need to purchase supplies in the city?"
The elder made some swift private calculation. "Say, four standard hours. We'll take our leave afore sundown. Don't pay to be out late on the plains – more rain's on the way, and odd happenins with them pirate raids."
"Odd indeed." The Jedi Master watched the Folk unload their cargo for appraisal again, wondering just how very odd the aforementioned happenings might be.
"Well, I suppose the tracking equipment might be used to monitor their inventory," Obi-Wan admitted, commlink grasped loosely in one hand while his other still idly manipulated the database's interactive display. "Especially since they seem to be using the Folk as free labor."
"Highly underpaid labor, at least," Qui-Gon concurred.
"And this is older technology – they must have set up the relay system decades ago, when the mines went dry and they began relying on nomadic groups as gatherers."
"It seems likely. I think you have your explanation – there is little more to be learned from the surveillance system. You should turn your attention to that Raptor we saw descending. Another raid may be planned soon."
The younger Jedi scrolled through another data-field, squinting at the shimmering blue lines and columns. He frowned. "I feel it, too," he replied, the stirring of premonition beneath his ribs a constant source of unease now.. and yet….
"What is it?" Qui-Gon's voice was clipped by static, bereft of its characteristic patience.
"I'm not finished here," the young Knight decided, the Force chiming in affirmation.
There was a tense silence on the other end of the link. "Obi-Wan. I need to pursue this Trade Federation trail to its source; that leaves you to ascertain what the Paxellian scout ship is doing here. If there is a danger to the nomadic community brewing, it is our duty to prevent it."
The needless reminder rankled. Obi-Wan set the comm link down on the console, folding both arms tight against his chest and indulging in an outward show of exasperation made acceptable by the voice-only mode of this transmission.
Unfortunately, the Jedi master did not need a hologram to see it. "This is not an academic debate," he growled. "Lives are at stake."
His former student stood, galvanizing fire surging through his veins. "I am well acquainted with real risk situations," he snarled, alarmed by his own unexpected flare of temper. Calm. Think. Do not react like a youngling.
"As am I," the older man reminded him, curtly. "I was not aware this was a contest of relative familiarity."
Contest. Obi-Wan shut his mouth, abruptly aware that his jaw was agape like the hypothetically posited youngling he did not wish to emulate. Since when did a simple difference of opinion constitute an open challenge, an invitation to hostility?
"With respect," he tried again –
But the tall man cut across his tentative effort at negotiation with a tight refusal to listen. "Save the diplomacy for another occasion," he advised.
So they were locked in a contest- one of wills, as they had so often been before, the obduracy of youth pitted against the equally obstreperous habits of age. They could hear – feel – each other's long, centering breaths. The Force expanded and contracted, yoked to their conflict, responsive yet somehow immutable.
"I will not order you to seek out the Paxellian ahip," Qui-Gon managed at last, a grudging concession. "But I am strongly counseling you to move on."
Which was an unfair tactic. Obi-Wan dropped his gaze, unsettled by this unfamiliar battleground, in which his eventual capitulation was not, any longer, inevitable. "I'm sorry, Qui-Gon," he said, at long last. "I must do what the Force shows me."
Over your head, if need be.
The older man's slow exhalation was audible over the link. "I see." There was mingled triumph and defeat in the words, pride and chagrin, admiration and resentment.
And fear.
Obi-Wan clenched his jaw, reeling in that sick-making realization. Fear. "Master," he began.
"No," Qui-Gon cut him off, before rapprochement could be made. "That is your prerogative. May the Force be with you."
The link was severed.
"But I –" still want your guidance. When it is needed. "Blast it!"
If this was anything like having a padawan, he was never setting foot down that confounded and confounding path. There was no point in working with someone who never listened, who subtly, incessantly impugned one's capability, who always impulsively hared off on whatever immediate intuition might present itself in the Force-forsaken present moment, whose self-assurance took on the proportions of a sub-developed culture's oracular deity–
Stop. Stop.
He released the flood of difficult emotion, clamping down with every iota of control he could muster… He was a Jedi, and he would do his duty first, personal feelings be damned. Or at least, deferred indefinitely.
He was more than capable, in that regard.
Qui-Gon craved the tranquility of meditation, but duty called. He thrust his commlink back in its belt pouch, threw his shoulders back and strode down the echoing interior corridor with head high.
Partnership was a perilous thing, one he had avoided most his career. Teaching flowed with the Living Force, obedient to its own laws, coursing along a sinuous bed formed and smoothed by generation after generation, a perpetually evolving heritage. To guide, to nurture, to succour pathetic life forms… this he understood. His pace quickened, as a pang of self-knowledge illumined his introspective murk. He had never been so adept at cooperation, at concession. Infamous all his long career – and before, if he cared to revisit the painful memories of his own apprenticeship – for rebellion, for headstrong insistence on his own point of view, for maverick tendencies and indocility to Council decrees, he had made of his own name a byword among generations of Temple initiates, and not a few of his peers.
But I serve the Force. Above all else.
He released a bitter breath of laughter. That sentiment presented a quite different façade when viewed from the other side. Obi-Wan's arrogance mocked him, mirrored his own, smacked of fate's irony. With a hearty unvoiced curse, he swept down the passage and into the city's main thoroughfares, where the Wanderers haggled and bargained with shopkeepers and suppliers, stocking their sleds with provisions for the oncoming winter.
But however far he walked, he could not outpace the Force's stern admonition, nor that elusive specter of anxiety that haunted his steps. For that which would not be commanded could not be protected, either.
And therein lay his deepest fear – for how could he atone for the past, or safeguard the brilliance he foresaw in the future, in that rarely-granted glimpse of destiny, if he were debarred from that role most integral to his heart?
" Hells take it, Obi-Wan."
An hour later, the younger Jedi felt the initial stirrings of corrosive doubt; what if Qui-Gon was right? Who was he, Obi-Wan, to tell a master of such superior experience and wisdom that his perception of the Force's will was skewed, or lacking? Was not willful pride a broad and seductive path to the Dark?
And what had he found here, after all? Nothing.
A pathetic prize for which to barter the respect and affection of one to whom he owed much, from whom he still hoped for …what? Had it not been his own idea to partner with his former master, to place himself within the lamplight of Qui-Gon's warm radiance in the Force? Had he not specifically craved what wisdom the maverick had to bequeath, what comradeship he so generously offered?
He wanted, and he did not want; he revered, and he resented. A dull ache formed itself beneath his sternum, a contracting of vital breath. I'm trying, Force help me – even if there is no try.
Blast it.
Frustrated, as he had not been since before his apprenticeship – when his mentality had been a sea of answers waiting for their proper questions, platitudes without context, innocent belief not yet forged iron hard by suffering and wisdom. There was something to be said for obedience to a concrete authority in the end – for the subtle prompting of the Force could be a will-o-wisp lantern forever elusively flitting between shadow and light, past and present, potential and actual.
He exhaled, slowly. Show me. Make this worth it.
The blinking panels glimmered, keeping silent vigil. The translucent holo-display rotated slowly in mid-air, The Force rippled, as faint as the last luminous echo of that tantalizing beacon… and opened a tiny aperture in the bland finality of his perspective, a window into a whole new vista.
Oh. Yes. Oh no.
He sat again, fingers nimbly flying over the input screens, instinct now in the lead, a baying hound running down its quarry, heedless of obstacle or distance, sense and intellect dashing madly behind/ New displays sprang up over the projector, inventories and tracking feeds cross-referenced and then eliminated one by one until…
He stared at the string of encrypted signals, unable to decipher them but not needing to do so. A location glimmered on the coordinate overlay; a series of independent programming commands relayed to multiple roving units with one-way transponders.
Tanks. Like those they had fought upon the hills' lower reaches, only in much greater numbers, and possibly automated rather than piloted. Originating not from the estimated position of the Paxellian raiding party, but from the capitol itself.
Headed directly for the Wormholes.
He was out the door and sprinting for the cliffside in the next breath, doubts obliterated and washed away in the new and thundering tide of certainty. The Folk were facing an imminent attack – one they had no hope of withstanding.
