Whispers of Menace
A Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Alternate Universe
Chapter Three:
Landing and Jar Jar Binks
I ran through the forest at top speed, boosting the strength of my muscles with the Force as I wove between representatives of several native species. Still, it wasn't enough to let me outrun the droid-piloted scout craft behind me, or the line of tanks sweeping away the trees behind them. It seemed like every third straight step turned into a dodge.
If I hadn't been sure of it before, I'd have known right then that I despised battle droids of any kind.
My directional sense quickly fixed on the hastily-memorized Force-signatures of my human comrades. Just off to one side, I could feel Qui-Gon Jinn. His former Master, Yan Dooku, had told me some things about him during our frequent sparring matches; for one, he'd lost a Padawan to the Dark Side. Though he'd been reluctant to take another, Master Dooku claimed that the High Council had all but coerced him into working with young Kenobi, which had resulted in their training bond.
I heard splashes as the trees began to thin, and grabbed the rebreather from my belt, getting it into my mouth just as the water came into view. My headlong flight turned into a shallow dive, and then I was swimming with a number of apparently amphibious creatures.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, I could tell, was a bit further away than his Master. He was about ten years younger than me, and had actually started phasing out of the Order when Jinn finally accepted their bond. Aside from being rumored as one of the best pranksters in the Temple, he was known to be fairly close to his small group of age-mates, though one had distanced herself from the rest.
I shook off the thoughts of the past as I neared Master Qui-Gon, with Kenobi approaching rapidly. The elder Jedi's grim determination and the abject terror of the Force-blind sentient with him urged me to even greater speed as I surged out of the water.
Somehow, I managed to come out of the underbrush right in front of a kriffing droid scout that had started to come about for another strafing run on the pair in the clearing. One swing with a lightsaber removed its legs at the knee joint, along with a large part of its transport. With two of us present, the remaining irritants didn't last long.
"Oyi, mooie mooie!" The words coming from the mouth of the gangly being clambering to its feet next to the Jedi Master sounded like gibberish to me. "My luv yous!"
"Are you brainless?" the man snapped back. "You almost got us killed!" I blinked, taken aback by both his tone of voice and the unusual appearance of our new acquaintance. The creature's torso looked absurdly short compared to its long arms and legs, and the pale golden-orange of its skin with the darker squiggles that had to constitute as camouflage somewhere on the planet only added to the ridiculous picture. Most of all, the long, sinuous neck, dangling ear-flaps with vestigial claws, and the head shaped like a water-bird's except for almost copper eyes on long stalks made the being difficult to take seriously.
"I spake," it replied cautiously.
"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent." It—he—flinched away from my razor-tongued retort. "Go on now, get out of here while you still can."
"No, no!" he protested. "Meesa stayin'… Meesa yous humble servant." He attempted to bow, stumbling and nearly pitching himself face-first into the forest floor.
"That won't be necessary." I could easily understand why Master Jinn wouldn't want the native tagging along, as well as a reason or two of my own. I'd heard some pretty awful manglings of Basic before—Master Yoda came to mind—but this was the worst yet, by far.
"Oh, boot 'tis! 'Tis demunded by da guds," the long-limbed being insisted. "'Tis a live debett, 'tis. Meesa culled Jah Jah Binks."
"We don't have time for this," I growled, feeling danger looming. The faint hum of repulsors echoed through the mist.
"Say what?" Binks' question was answered almost instantly as Obi-Wan hurtled into view, three more droid scouts hot on his heels. "Oh, nooo!" The creature's eyes seemed to actually get larger, and the eyestalks longer. "Weesa gunna—"
The older human body-checked the idiot, knocking him to the ground just before two blaster bolts passed through the space where they'd been standing. "Stay down!" he ordered as his lightsaber reignited.
"—dieeee!" Binks finished, his head popping up, but otherwise doing as he'd been told.
I tried deflecting shots so that they would hit the droids, but success eluded me. The best I could do was graze metal, and my companions were faring little better. Then I managed a double block—from one blade to the other and then to my target—which hit a fuel tank. Bits of shrapnel peppered the clearing, and the droid closest to the explosion dodged straight into a tree. Obi-Wan jumped toward another tree, rebounded off its trunk, and somersaulted, bringing his blade down through the last flyer as he spun.
"Nice," I told him as he straightened from his landing crouch. "Flashy, but nice." The kid's face went pink, and I had to squash a laugh. It wouldn't have helped the situation one bit.
"Excellent timing on both your parts," Qui-Gon added.
"Yousa sav-ed my again!" Binks scrambled to his feet, looking at each of us as though he couldn't decide which to thank first.
"What's this?" Kenobi almost sounded like he was saying, 'Oh, not another one…'
"A local," the older man replied, sounding exasperated. "Let's go, before more of those show up."
"Mure? Mure, did you spake?" None of us paid any attention to the creature as we turned to leave the clearing. "Ex-squeeze me, but da moto grande safe place would be Otoh Gunga. 'Tis where my growen' up. 'Tis safe city." We all turned to stare at him.
"A city! Can you take us there?" I happily let Master Jinn take charge; he did have something like twenty-five years more experience than I did.
Binks looked down, putting his hands behind his back and kicking at fallen leaves like a youngling who'd been caught misbehaving. "Ahh… well, on secon' tawt… no, not weely."
"'No'?" Uh-oh. The Jedi Master had gone from annoyed to irritated.
"'Tis embarrasin', boot…" He averted his face. "My afrai' my been banished. My forgoten' da Bosses would do tewwible t'ings to my. Tewwible t'ings if my goen' back dere." A glance at my comrades told me how we would get Binks' cooperation.
"Do you hear that?" Qui-Gon asked conversationally, drawing attention to the growing noise of the advancing droid army. The native nodded, trembling.
"That," I purred, deliberately flashing my sharp predator's teeth, "is the sound of a thousand terrible things headed this way." My target flinched.
"When they find us, they will crush us, grind us into little pieces, and then blast us into oblivion!" Obi-Wan looked like he might even be having a bit of fun intimidating the poor creature.
"Oh! Meesa seein' yousa point." Binks suddenly became most agreeable. "Dis way! Huwwy!"