Legacy 4

Chapter 14

Qui-Gon left the borrowed eopie in the scant shade afforded by the shuttle's hull and made his way round to the boarding ramp, eager enough despite his Jedi stoicism to attain the cool refuge of its interior. Unfortunately, he found his way deliberately blocked by an ashen-faced and peevish former padawan.

"Obi-Wan."

The younger man smiled tautly, eyes flashing. He looked peaked, his presence fever bright. "Master."

The tall man raised his brows. "You've let yourself get heatsick; you should know better by now."

He was rewarded with that singularly insufferable look, the bland ironic one that had ruffled his calm since the beginning of their acquaintance. "We need to talk," Obi-Wan said, feet planted shoulder's width apart, subtly forbidding further egress.

The sun was beating down the Jedi master's back. It had been a long ride. "Perhaps somewhere cooler," he pointedly suggested.

"Perhaps somewhere private," his young friend retorted.

Shifting impatiently to avoid having his soles scorched straight through, Qui-Gon released his pique on a steady exhalation. His tunics were soaked front and back with perspiration, his hair heavy with gritty moisture. He was not having this discussion on the star-forsaken boarding ramp. "If this concerns the boy –"

Obi-Wan's features hardened. "Did you actually discuss the possibility of training with him? Of taking him to the Temple?"

The elder man lifted his chin. Enough. "I may exercise certain prerogatives, as a Master of this Order," he reminded his obstinate comrade. "I assume you respect my right to do so."

A muscle in Obi-Wan's jaw twitched. He stepped aside, silently simmering at the curt reminder of rank and authority.

It was blessedly cool inside the ship; Qui-Gon tapped the regulator controls, and stripped off his tabards and outer tunic. "Thank the Force," he muttered.

"Mister Qui-Gon sir?" a puerile voice called out from the next compartment.

He ducked through the partition before Obi-Wan could further importune him. "Anakin. I am glad to see you are well."

The boy had the good grace to make a show of contrition. "I'm sorry about last night…. I just needed to test out my racer, and – "

"You made a foolish and dangerous decision," the tall Jedi cut him off. "One which caused your mother much grief. I expect that you will not do such a thing again."

Anakin scuffed the decks with one toe. "Sorry," he repeated. "Can I go home now?"

"In a moment… perhaps you could do us a service first."

Blue eyes flitted upwards, eager to make amends for his transgression.

"Here, in the cockpit. The magnetic compass needs recalibrating… would you lend your expertise to the problem?"

"Sure!" Anakin piped, springing through the forward hatch like a frisky nerf calf.

"Thank you," Qui-Gon gravely replied, sealing the door panel between them. He turned to his disgruntled companion. "Very well; we have privacy. Speak your mind."

Obi-Wan pressed his back against the closed panel. "He told me he has no intention of attending any – and I quote – dumb Jedi school. One wonders how such an outlandish notion occurred to him in the first place."

"The mind of a child is a wonderful thing."

"Don't quote Master Yoda at me! We cannot recruit him as an initiate. The idea is…. absurd." The younger Jedi cut the air with one hand, lending sardonic emphasis.

The tall man exhaled slowly, outwardly calm. "Why?"

"Why?" An exasperated sideways glance. "Qui-Gon. He's far too old. He's a slave, on a system outside Republic jurisdiction. And he's…. "

"What?"

Obi-Wan lowered his voice to an intent whisper. "The boy is dangerous. I sense it; the Council will sense it also. Why can't you?"

The Force tautened another notch, binding them in a heated opposition apparent in neither bearing nor intonation. "It is possible, my young friend, that my experience greatly exceeds your own; and that your prediction of the Council's judgment borders on presumption."

The young Knight fell silent, the furrow between his brows a sharp exclamation mark of displeasure at the reprimand. "Forgive my arrogance," he said, barely penitent.

Qui-Gon reached out to touch his friend's shoulder, though no answering warmth presently suffused the Force. "External circumstances can be managed; justifiable exceptions can be made to any guideline; and as for danger… since when does that deter you, Obi-Wan?"

He received no reply; but the utter stillness of his comrade's expression assured him that the strike had sunk deep, and true to its mark. He leaned in. "If a Sith is here, and if a Sith wants the boy, then the danger of leaving him is much greater than any other, whoever and whatever else he might be."

They stood silent for a long moment, the dispute brought to an instant stalemate.

Until the cockpit hatch slid open again to reveal a round and triumphant face. "Got it!" their exuberant underage technician proclaimed, cockily. "Piece of cake."

Cliegg Lars opened his front door to the collective presence of his nearest neighbors – a score of weather-beaten men, clad in faded garments, armed with rifles and handheld blasters. He nodded once, understanding without explanation the meaning of this convocation – in times of trouble the moisture farming community banded together. They seldom otherwise crossed paths, nor communicated save in town; the arrival of a veritable posse upon his doorstep meant only one thing.

"Come in," he grunted, issuing them all into the farmhouse's central courtyard, open to the evening sky above. Neon hues glowed in the sky's arched roof: lurid yellows and pinks, deepest violet. Clouds of inert gases mocked the water-starved dwellers below. No rain would fall from these tattered banners, no benison from the planet's skinflint heavens. He offered his guests water; all had the good manners to refuse such munificence.

"What is it?" Cliegg grunted, settling at his table with creaking joints. A few of the men joined him; others stood darkly around the perimeter of this makeshift council.

"A dead beast, out over the westward dunes, under the Black Hills," Corrk informed him, voice reduced to a wheezing rasp by two decades' remorseless bacci-smoking. "Krayt, actually. Huge one. It's attracted more scavnegers'n you can shake a stick at. "

Bad news indeed. That many beasts vying for a share of the kill was a recipe for disaster. Territorial disputes, pecking order, survival of the fittest would all insure that many hopeful predators would slink away hungry, rejected by their competitors... and that bode ill for families and domestic animals. The carcass was a beacon flare summoning every toothed and clawed form of trouble for hundreds of klicks around.

Cliegg sighed.

"We're thinking to go over that way at dawn," Corkk continued. "Pick off a few of the biggest feeders, burn the rest the corpse. It's the only way." Thiers was a life of brutal pragmatism. "You in?"

A shake of the head. "I'm due in town for the races," Cliegg protested.

"I'll go," Owen volunteered. "Don't look at me like that Da! It's not Tuskens, or anything. Just a bunch of womprats and such. And a dead krayt."

The boy had a point, and basic decency demanded that the household contribute at least one member to the cooperative endeavor. "All right," Lars agreed, reluctantly. "But be careful. Take my new rifle with you."

"I will, Da."

"Pack your bag," Corkk instructed. "We'll camp at my 'stead and head out at first-rising. The sooner we clear up this mess the better."

Anakin happily contemplated the grav-bike's engine compartment, toolkit haphazardly spilled upon an oilcloth at his feet upon the sand. "This'll just take a sec, Mister Qui-Gon sir!" he called over one shoulder, then plunged into the fray, thrusting both arms in to the knotted mess of the machine's bowels like an intrepid veterinarian plying his trade.

Obi-Wan looked away. The sight was slightly…. nauseating.

Beside him, Qui-Gon chuckled softly. "I do believe you still occasionally let your imagination run away with you."

They backed up a pace, into the hull's shelter. Evening shadows clawed across the dunes, stained the jagged foothills indigo.

"At least I don't literally run away," the younger Jedi muttered. "And I'm not sure quite how I ended up with the eopie end of this deal."

His companion spared a smug smile. "Seniority."

Obi-Wan snorted against the interior insulating panel with tightly folded arms. "You've been invoking that clause rather frequently of late," he grumbled.

The tall Jedi scrutinized his friend carefully, gently probing with the Force. To his surprise, the solicitous invasion of privacy was not rebuffed. An amorphous dread lurked at the edges of Obi-Wan's psyche, a thing prowling for admittance but kept at bay by adamantine will. "You're on edge," he gently prompted.

Blue eyes flitted sideways, evading direct inquisition. "The Force is disturbed here, Master. As I've never felt it before. " A familiar line appeared between his brows. "The boy. Every time we're together…."

"It's the vergence," Qui-Gon quietly asserted. "It is the will of the Force that you encounter him, Obi-Wan. Few are privileged with such …extravagant guideposts along the Way. It would be folly to persist in denial."

However softly couched, the admonition stung. The younger man cocked a brow, mouth thinning. "So now I'm his sponsor?"

"There was a time," the Jedi master reminded him, "When you were more willing to extend compassion to a pathetic life form here and there. Perhaps you should see him in light of potential – someone who might benefit from, say…. proper mentorship."

Obi-Wan looked utterly apalled, now. "Stop daydreaming," he groused. "The boy is… is disobedient. Reckless. Headstrong. Volatile. Obstinate. And he talks too much."

The older man's rich chuckle was a cascade of honey-gold in the Force.

His former padawan scowled ferociously. "It is not funny, Master."

"You're right," Qui-Gon smiled, forcibly suppressing his upsurge of mirth. "It is sublime justice."

"Now I know you've lost your wits," his companion snarked. A dismissive hand gesture. "There's no point in discussing this with you."

The smaller of Tatooine's two suns dipped below the bleak horizon. "Not at this time, anyhow," the Jedi master concurred. "We need to get head back… and you have your own objectives to meet. Be careful out there, Obi-Wan."

Disharmony smoothed into habitual camaraderie. "I won't do anything you wouldn't," came the inevitable smirking rejoinder. "So how bad can it be?"

Grimacing, Qui-Gon gripped his friend's shoulder. "I will make arrangements to take Anakin back to Coruscant – for his own safety. It's the only option. After that, the Council will decide his fate. " His fingers applied an encouraging pressure. "Let that suffice for you."

Obi-Wan dipped his head, in gracious surrender to the inevitable, the reasonable. "As you say…. though I still have a bad feeling about it," he sighed.

"And this changes what?"

They exchanged one last rueful smile and sallied down the ramp, just as the subject of their heated interchange finished "tuning up" the bike.

"Okay!" the lad beamed. "Ready to ride. And I disabled the fuel efficiency monitor, too, so we can go choobazzi fast!"

"He's finally gone round the bend," Obi-Wan decided. "Too much Living Force communion…. addles the brain. There was that fellow mentioned in one of Master Seva's memoirs - a Jedi who identified so strongly with plants that he eventually lost contact with other sentients and took to living in the Temple's meditation gardens… Ben To insists that the tale is apocryphal, of course, but I'm inclined to believe it. What do you think?"

The eopie flapped its prodigious nostril-slats and plodded onward, complacent.

"I haven't time to champion the cause of every grimy-faced prodigy we encounter in the wide galaxy. I've pirates to apprehend, for one thing. I let them take the swoop already, so Little Ani-kins can get to bed on time. I've done my part."

His placid mount snorted its condolences and ambled onward, wide feet navigating the treacherous sand slopes with practiced ease.

The young Jedi shifted on the hard saddle, wishing the local customs included stirrups. Hardy and sure-fotted the eopie might be – and marvelously adapted to a climate without water – but a smooth ride its halting, jerking gait was not. He was beginning to identify with Torbb's complaints about the grav-bike seats. He squinted over the night-blanketed landscape, estimating the distance to his destination. A hearty sigh escaped him, echoed by his amicable steed.

"You're telling me," he grumbled.

The eopie shook sandfleas from its hide and plodded on.

The Jedi hunched vexedly beneath his voluminous cowl, and brooded on.