Chapter Text
When Qui-gon wakes the next day, it is to a little creature sneaking into his cot, which barely fits just him, nevermind the addition of a child. Obi-wan burrows into the blankets and Qui-gon's cloak, carefully curling around his immobilized broken hand. He adjusts the sheets just so and settles in with a content little sigh.
Together, we are warm.
Obi-wan relaxes into sleep, and Qui-gon drifts off soon after.
He dreams of blasterfire in the Temple.
He needs to get Obi-wan off this planet, which is stymied by the fact that he has no form of transportation whatsoever and also must stay to investigate who'd abducted his Padawan.
In other words, he needs backup.
He places a call.
“What have you done?” Mace asks like a man walking to the gallows, which, rude. He's right, but hey.
“My Padawan and I are together and whole,” Qui-gon says, whispering because Obi-wan is dead asleep lying across him.
Mace gives him the stare of the damned.
“We made it to Mandalore,” he offers.
“Qui-gon.”
Ooh, government name, he's serious. Well—
The Senate had claimed that the civil war on Mandalore was over, and that the faction most-aligned with the Republic, the New Mandalorians, had requested assistance from the Jedi Order in negotiations with the other factions.
Qui-gon had a number of misgivings about bringing Obi-wan into yet another potential warzone. He was assured multiple times that the civil war was over. Done with.
A public transport getting shot down from atmosphere does not seem very done to him.
The whole craft had dropped like a brick without the engines to support it, and the only thing that kept Qui-gon and Obi-wan from getting flattened into pancakes in the Mandalorian wastes was the fact that the blast had also destroyed most of the structural integrity of the ship. The walls and flooring had ripped apart in chunks as they plummeted, and frankly, Jedi do not generally die from falling.
Much trickier was rescuing two dozen other panicking beings in freefall and blocking shrapnel as it rained down on their group. Then they had to deal with the carcass of the transport crashing down on them all.
The effort was exhausting, but they caught everybody and shunted to transport off to the side somewhere. However, Qui-gon—who was probably concussed—grabbing Obi-wan—who was definitely concussed—sitting on a boulder, and announcing that they were going to sleep had inspired some alarm among the newly rescued passengers and crew.
He'd woken up next in a Sundari infirmary, and Obi-wan was gone.
Mace’s gaze could melt durasteel.
“I would like to reiterate that I have located my wayward Padawan,” he says when Mace says nothing for a full minute.
“You're in Keldabe now, aren't you.”
“Whatever made you think that?”
“You aren't?”
“No, we are, I just don't know what made you think that.”
Mace rubs his forehead. Qui-gon smiles winningly.
“Tholme and Padawan Vos are the only Jedi in the same sector at the moment. I'm not thrilled at the idea of adding Vos to this situation. I'll divert them to you, pending anybody else within acceptable travel distance. Put me in contact with the king before you accidentally declare war.”
The call clicks shut before Qui-gon can protest his innocence, which is probably for the best since he has none to speak of. And also all this talking has disturbed Obi-wan, who stirs and grumbles and radiates exhaustion and hunger down their bond—gnawing emptiness, bone-deep fatigue.
Well, that won't do.
Qui-gon sits up, but Obi-wan clings to his robes like a koala, hanging onto his front with clenched little fists. He grumbles a little and burrows deeper.
Healer Gilamar chooses this exact moment to appear.
Helmet-less, Mandalorians don't really have sabacc faces, Qui-gon discovers. Gilamar visibly softens at Obi-wan then remembers himself and schools his face into a frown, which immediately melts when Obi-wan grumpily pretends to be one with the blankets.
He approaches with the bribe of a red, bumpy fruit and visibly restrains himself from cooing when Obi-wan pokes his head out to inspect the offering suspiciously.
The offering is acceptable. Obi-wan snatches it and retreats back into the blankets.
“Obi-wan.”
“Thanksh, Healer,” he says, mouth full of fruit.
Gilamar pulls a stool over. “You're feeling better?” He coaxes. He's brought something like porridge in a thermos and is dispensing it into a bowl. Obi-wan eyes it ravenously. He’s already devoured the fruit, dull spiky skin and all. Based on the look on Gilamar’s face, Qui-gon doesn't think Obi-wan was supposed to eat that part. “Both of you? Any discomfort?”
“No, Healer,” Obi-wan says, like a liar. He makes grabby hands towards the bowl, and Gilamar pushes it his way with a look.
“I'm fine,” Obi-wan insists, already eating.
Gilamar looks at Qui-gon, who smiles. “A couple tests couldn't hurt,” he says.
“But Master!”
He sulks through the scans and needles and IVs then gleams with unrepressed smugness when Gilamar reads off the reports in disbelief: the drugs are largely gone from his system. He's mostly just exhausted and hungry.
Gilamar squints at them suspiciously. “Is this some kind of jetii osik?”
“...yes?” Qui-gon says belatedly.
He shakes his head and slides them the whole thermos of porridge. “Eat. Sleep. Alor will visit this afternoon. If Obi-wan feels up to it, some light exercise like walking up and down the hall is permitted.”
“Oh, well if we have your blessing.”
Gilamar looks at him balefully. Qui-gon smiles winningly. It doesn't work.
Obi-wan devours all the food within sight then passes out. He doesn't even twitch when the Mandalorian king, who apparently has not had a single night of peace since taking up the position, stops by. King Jaster ‘Just Call Me Mereel’ gives Qui-gon full access to the case file in return for never referring to him as a monarch again.
Done.
The apparent perpetrators of this attack are from Kyr'tsad, Death Watch. They're the third major player of the Mandalorian Civil Wars. Or. Well. Were. Still are? Whatever.
The name seems ominous, and the kidnapping certainly doesn't endear them to Qui-gon, but he can't seem to get a straight answer about like. Who they are. And what they do. Opinions seem mixed on whether they're alive. New Mandalorian intel had made no apparent differentiation between Death Watch and True Mandalorians, and it seems like that is a deadly oversight.
Qui-gon has asked three different people in hopes of getting at least one coherent answer, but they all get a bit too worked up about it and all he gets is a lesson in Mandalorian expletives.
He seizes the opportunity to ask the next time Mereel drops by. Surely the man waging war against them would know best what they are and what they stand for.
“No idea,” Mereel informs Qui-gon, which is incredibly unhelpful. He fully ignores Qui-gon and pulls up a stool and a datapad. “They started trying to kill us one day. So a couple updates—”
- The ship Obi-wan had destroyed was New Mandalorian. Mereel reports this in a very of course it couldn't be that easy kind of tone.
- There is only one party of New Mandalorians in Keldabe.
- The New Mandalorian ambassador is in a cell. Sundari has had a predictable reaction to this.
- The ambassador came with a handful of guards. They have disappeared.
“This feels awfully like a trap,” Qui-gon notes.
Mereel grinds a palm into his forehead in agreement.
Skirata taps his shoulder and hands him something. It is a bright blue stress ball. He throws it in Skirata’s face.
Well. It seems like Death Watch and the New Mandalorians teamed up to send the Jedi and True Mandalorians on a collision course, but Mereel says they would never collaborate. The New Mandalorians would never partner with Death Watch, would never partner with the True Mandalorians. They have irreconcilable differences in ideology.
“How do you have irreconcilable differences if you don't know what Death Watch believes?”
Mereel raises both eyebrows. “They’ve been trying to kill all of us for the past decade.”
Well. It doesn't get much more irreconcilable than that.
“Their opening salvo was bombing a school on neutral territory for not deciding to join them fast enough,” Mereel continues with a face like stone.
Qui-gon wouldn't be overly fond of them either.
“We can get you some face-time with the ambassador if you want,” Mereel says, already standing.
Qui-gon glances back at Obi-wan, who had devoured everything edible in his reach then passed out cold for the full day into the night. “Jango will watch over him,” Mereel says.
The prince twitches in a way that says he was not aware of this but breaks off from the group to take a seat next to Obi-wan.
The cell the ambassador is in is quite nice by holding cell standards. The man inside is a little—frazzled.
“Jinn, this is—” Mereel pauses.
“Jerec,” Skirata supplies helpfully.
“Right. Jerec.”
A tall, thin human man whose clothes and hair are very disarrayed stands up behind the laser shield door. “Master Jedi,” he greets icily.
Qui-gon says, “Ambassador.”
“So this is the official stance of the Republic,” he says. “Siding with killers and barbarians.”
Eyes rove between the two of them.
Qui-gon does not know what he's talking about. He doesn't think he represents anybody’s official stance on anything. The Republic would throw him to the wolves for fun and stick around to place bets. He's pretty sure Mace would publicly disown him over a parking violation.
“Huh,” he says. “And the ‘barbarians and killers’ here are… the True Mandalorians?”
The ambassador says nothing.
“You know, your intel could've incited war between the Jedi and the True Mandalorians,” Qui-gon says casually. Watching as Jerec stills. He tilts his head and decides. “We haven't decided if it was actively malicious or a very foolish oversight. And, well, my apprentice was found on your ship. This is indisputable—” Jerec makes a face at that—“so the way it looks to me, the New Mandalorians partnered with Death Watch to incite war between Jedi and the True Mandalorians.”
Jerec’s surprise is obvious, along with a burst of confusion from Mereel—he'd already explained why this was very unlikely. The surprise becomes indignation. It rings genuine in the Force. Qui-gon tilts his head.
The ambassador flounders and casts around for a proper response before he, apparently, defaults to an aristocratic disdain that would make Master Dooku proud. He draws himself up and looks down his nose at Qui-gon. “The New Mandalorians do not tolerate violence of any kind. The idea that you think we would collaborate with those—those monsters is anathema to all we are.”
The Force rings true. He's genuine. Qui-gon raises both eyebrows. He'd thought—well, perhaps Death Watch had sent an impostor, but no. This is a real New Mandalorian.
“Okay, that's all I needed,” he says to Mereel who looks at him like he's lost his mind.
“That's it?” Mereel says.
Qui-gon thinks for a moment. “Yeah. No, wait—” he turns to Jerec—“How many guards did you come with, again?”
Jerec has no idea. Qui-gon watches him flounder for a moment before turning back to Mereel. “Okay, now I'm done.”
As they leave, Qui-gon ponders the situation.
Jerec is not an impostor. He's not working with Death Watch. But he was ferrying around eight Death Watch soldiers and maybe Tor Viszla, nevertheless.
“There were six guards,” Skirata provides cheerfully as they haltingly move away, handing Qui-gon a pad. “What hell did you get out of that?”
“He’s a genuine believer,” Qui-gon says. “He was well and truly convinced about everything he said.”
They walk along in silence for a moment longer.
“Your Force told you that?”
Qui-gon shrugs.
They continue on for a couple minutes as everybody mentally reviews the current state of matters.
“What the fuck is going on,” Mereel says. Qui-gon agrees.