Chapter Text
A child stolen is a hope lost.
Qui-Gon entered into the cockpit just as they passed into Mandalorian space.
As usual, Obi-Wan didn’t have to turn to see him coming, just called out a greeting as soon as Qui-Gon came near, still studiously keeping an eye on the piloting.
Obi-Wan was very nearly sixteen now, and growing into it with ill-temper. He clearly did not appreciate the growth spurts or voice changes. His padawan’s braid, much longer now, was decorated with more beads than Qui-Gon could count— white for Healing, blue for mechanics, red for piloting, green for precognition, and yellow for lightsaber skills. At this point there were going to be more accomplishments than hair.
“We’re almost there, Master,” Obi-Wan said. “Do you want to take the con?” This part was asked almost hopefully. Despite his piloting skills, Obi-Wan never seemed to like flying much. He was better, even, than Qui-Gon, but whenever Qui-Gon told him so he laughed, like Qui-Gon was telling a joke.
“No, sorry,” Qui-Gon said. “I’m still reading up on Mandalore.”
Obi-Wan gave him a surprised look, then shook his head, as if remembering. “Right,” he said. “We’ve never been there before.”
Qui-Gon didn’t comment. Obi-Wan could see the future— this was one of the many things one got used to when Obi-Wan Kenobi decided he was your padawan.
“Do you know what your friend Jango wants from us?” Qui-Gon asked. “I mean really?”
Obi-Wan shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I have a… feeling.”
“Bad feeling?”
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan said. “I don’t think so. There’s something big coming. But I don’t know what.”
“Unusual for you,” Qui-Gon said, and grinned at the annoyed look that earned him.
Jango Fett, a bounty hunter who had helped the Jedi a few years ago in catching some rogue Sith, had called them again for assistance. Theoretically, it was to help investigate some complaints at one of the spaceports involving Republic citizens. Mandalore held no love for the Republic; they typically hated the Jedi only slightly less. But the Jedi were neutral, which meant the investigation was a good job for them.
But in reality Qui-Gon didn’t think that was a big enough reason to call in the Jedi. Typically the Mandalorians took care of their own problems. Historically, quite violently.
Qui-Gon thought this might be a reach— however slight— towards the Republic as friends. For reasons known only to Qui-Gon’s padawan, Obi-Wan had greatly encouraged Jango Fett and Master Dooku to stay in contact after their mission together. They talked, begrudgingly, though so far as Qui-Gon could tell it was mostly arguing about politics. Mandalorians and Jedi were not typical bedfellows.
Still, the acquaintanceship had come in handy during an incident on some distant planet, whereupon Jango’s sect of Mandalorians had clashed with some other sect of Mandalorians, and the Jedi had been called in to help. Galidraan could have been a disaster if Dooku and Fett weren’t regular holochess partners.
So maybe that was the reason behind this summoning to Mandalore— a tentative step towards alliance with the Republic, or at least with the Jedi.
Qui-Gon looked at Obi-Wan, who had his head cocked as if he was physically listening to the Force, an odd little habit of his.
Maybe.
The atmosphere got a little rocky as they passed towards the planet itself. Obi-Wan didn’t seem to notice, flying with almost lazy ease. If Obi-Wan didn’t think he was very good at piloting, Qui-Gon looked forward to meeting the person who was better than his padawan.
Obi-Wan set them down at the port. Qui-Gon could see a group of armored Mandalorians milling around the ship, but nothing looked overly threatening— just cautious.
“Ready, my young padawan?”
“Ready,” Obi-Wan said, wrestling himself into his robes, which it appeared they were going to need to replace again. The boy was growing like a weed. He stopped mid-step to the door. “Something…” he muttered.
“Danger?” Qui-Gon asked, hand straying to his lightsaber.
“No,” Obi-Wan said. “It’s like…” he shook his head, thoughtfully. “It’s all right, Master.”
“Then stay centered on the moment,” Qui-Gon reminded him, and led them out the ramp.
Two of the armored figures stepped out to approach them as they exited. It was impossible to tell their genders, ages, or species. They were hard to read in the Force, but again, they just seemed on guard, not as if they were going to attack at any moment.
“Greetings, Jettise, ” said the first one. “Welcome to Mandalore.”
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan bowed.
The second warrior said something to the first in Mando’a, sounding of an insult, and Qui-Gon’s lips twitched. Obi-Wan was fluent in Mando’a, yet another mystery about the boy considering they didn’t teach it in the Temple.
The first elbowed them. “We will take you to the Mand’alor.”
“Thank you,” Qui-Gon said, and they followed after the warriors as they led them out of the spaceport and into a village.
It was a surprisingly quiet area— quaint, mostly one-story homes, some shops, children running back and forth, most of them not yet in armor. Most of the adults, but not all, were wearing at least some form of Mandalorian armor, and some put on their helmets as the Jedi passed by. Not aggressive, just watching.
Qui-Gon leaned over to Obi-Wan. “What’s the Mand’alor?” he asked in an undertone.
“Master,” Obi-Wan said, fondly exasperated. “I thought you read the history of the planet.”
“I did,” Qui-Gon said. “Once you get going through about fifteen different wars you start to go a little cross-eyed.”
Obi-Wan grinned. “Jango’s in charge here— you didn’t know that?”
“I did not know that,” Qui-Gon said. “Why did he come to blow up a Trade Federation factory with us then?”
“I believe he thought it would be fun,” Obi-Wan said.
The rude Mandalorian looked back and saw them whispering. They said something in Mando’a to their friend, loud enough for the Jedi to hear. Obi-Wan grinned.
Finally they reached a little circle of houses, green grass growing around them, a garden half climbing up a wall.
“Here you are,” said one of the Mandalorians.
“ Vor entye,” Obi-Wan said cheerfully. “ Ret'urcye mhi, ori’ramikadase.”
There was an embarrassed silence.
“You speak Mando’a,” one of them said.
“I do,” Obi-Wan said.
“You did not,” the other one said, “Think to inform us of this before?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Obi-Wan said, looking up at them completely guilelessly. “That would be rude.”
There was another silence. Then the Mandalorians laughed. “No wonder the Mand’alor likes you!” one said. They reached over and ruffled through Obi-Wan’s hair, which he endured as though this was the height of indignity. The Mandalorian whistled. “Jango! Get out here!”
“Bye kid,” the other one said, and they wandered back into the village as one of the doors opened and a few people stepped out.
Jango Fett, without his helmet, walking with a woman.
“Oh,” Obi-Wan said.
He was looking at the woman. Qui-Gon realized he recognized her too; it was the woman from Cato Neimodia, Fett’s guest. Shmi something.
More specifically, he was looking at the bundle in Shmi’s arms. A baby, not more than a year old. Obi-Wan was laser-focused on the kid, eyes a little dreamy in that way he only got when he was seeing the possibilities of a future.
“ Su cuy'gar,” Jango said. Again, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon bowed. “Welcome. Thanks for coming.”
“Of course,” Qui-Gon said, and Jango and Shmi came closer to greet them.
“I’m Shmi Skywalker,” the woman said, introducing herself. She didn’t have a Mandalorian accent, but she was wearing a bit of armor, just over her torso, and vambraces on her arms, with a long dress underneath. She looked at Obi-Wan, and her eyes crinkled. “It’s good to see you again.”
“An honor to be invited to Mandalore,” Obi-Wan said, with another bow.
“And who’s this?” Qui-Gon asked, peering at the baby. As he did it stirred and blinked up at them.
“Little Ani,” Shmi said fondly, uncovering the baby’s face to show them. Wisps of blonde hair and baby blue eyes stared up at them.
“Nice to meet you, little one,” Qui-Gon said.
“Hello, Anakin,” Obi-Wan breathed, reaching out to the baby. It reached back, and wrapped a chubby hand around Obi-Wan’s finger.
The Force thrummed between them— Qui-Gon looked at the baby in surprise. He was Force-sensitive. It was impossible to tell how much without a real test or without seeing him manipulating the Force when he got a little older. Maybe that was how he would fit into the future.
Qui-Gon took a very relaxed approach to the futures his padawan foresaw. They would happen, or they wouldn’t. No use worrying about it in Qui-Gon’s eyes. Not if he didn’t want to go mad.
Obi-Wan and Anakin detangled from each other and Obi-Wan stepped back, behind Qui-Gon where padawans traditionally stood.
“Thanks for coming,” Jango said. “You got our briefing on the situation?” They nodded. “All right. Some of the town elders want to meet you, then we can talk.”
They moved to follow.
“Can you spare your apprentice to help me?” Shmi asked, hefting the baby. “I’m making tea.”
“Of course,” Qui-Gon said, not without envy. Obi-Wan got to help with the housework while Qui-Gon had to deal with the politics. “Go along then, Obi-Wan.”
Shmi led Obi-Wan into a different home than the one she and Jango had come out of. It was clear as soon as Obi-Wan stepped inside that this one belonged to Shmi. It had the telltale cleanliness of most slave quarters, and was not overly cluttered— she could pack up and move at any time.
But she had started to collect personal effects too; holos, books, and a whole section of baby things by the crib. Mandalorians loved children— Obi-Wan was sure she’d had no difficulties finding things for little Anakin.
Shmi put Anakin in a bouncing chair hovering by the table, and moved over to the kitchen to make tea. “Thanks for coming,” she said.
“For two or three people missing at a spaceport?” Obi-Wan asked dryly. He’d wondered the real reason behind Jango calling them in, but here it was. Bouncing in his high chair.
Obi-Wan could not see the future— not any more than living through it allowed you, anyway. Obi-Wan was not fifteen years old. He was sixty-something. It was a whim of the Force, or a desperate attempt at balance, or something else entirely that Obi-Wan had never figured out. Either way, he was back, and he was making the most of his gifted time.
Shmi rolled her eyes at him. She put the kettle on the stove and went over to Anakin, sitting beside his rocker. “He’s like you, isn’t he?”
Obi-Wan sat on the other side of the table. “He is,” he said. “When did you know?”
She gave him a sardonic look. “Well, the whole immaculate conception thing was a pretty good clue,” she said. “But, well… it became obvious after only a short while. He cries when people are upset around him. He knows when I am coming, even when I’ve left him with someone else for the day. The other day, I dropped his pacifier.”
“And he caught it,” Obi-Wan said, nodding. This was a common story with Force-sensitive children. Not, of course, to this great a degree. There really was no one like Anakin Skywalker. “Without touching it.”
“Exactly,” Shmi said.
Anakin was burbling, just baby-nonsense, in his rocker.
“May I?” Obi-Wan reached for him.
“Go ahead.”
Obi-Wan picked him up. He was a fat, cheerful baby, and he giggled when Obi-Wan put him onto his lap. He bounced him a few times on his knee, and little Anakin laughed again and patted his cheeks cheerfully.
Obi-Wan reached gently for Anakin in the Force. Anakin reached back, clumsy but instinctive and bright in the Force.
It was familiarity, destiny, a sense of rightness.
“There you are,” Obi-Wan said, and smiled.
“I dream of him, sometimes,” Shmi said, and Obi-Wan looked at her. “That ghost. The one of the future that is no more.”
Shmi had been, briefly, possessed by the Force ghost of Anakin from the future, who had then returned to the Force forevermore. It was a complicated situation.
“He was so strong,” Shmi said. “So determined to stop the bad things from happening. But also… so sad. So much grief.” They watched Anakin fuss, then settle as Obi-Wan started to bounce him again.
“He’s strong in the Force,” Obi-Wan said. “But that won’t be him. The future has changed.”
“Is he going to find trouble?” Shmi asked.
“Oh, of course,” Obi-Wan said, letting Anakin play with his braid. Then he realized how that could possibly be construed as alarming to a new mother. She had a very interesting look on her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I only mean that Anakin is going to be very powerful, for good or for ill. You’ll have to protect him from people who might want to use that power, and you’ll have to protect him from himself.”
Shmi was quiet. “Do I have to give him to the Jedi?”
Obi-Wan shook his head. His braid swung, and Anakin grabbed for it clumsily. Shmi gave him a toy instead, which Anakin rattled, pleased. “No,” Obi-Wan said. “Despite what you might hear, the Jedi are not baby-snatchers. We won’t take him unless you give him up. And even then you don’t have to decide for a little while yet.”
Shmi held out her arms; with a little reluctance, Obi-Wan gave Anakin back. “But is giving him to the Jedi the right thing to do?” she asked. “You can see the future.”
“Not that,” Obi-Wan said. “You’ll have to decide for yourself.”
“But he would be a great Jedi,” Shmi said.
“The best,” Obi-Wan said. “But that’s not all that’s important.”
Shmi looked down at Anakin, smoothing a hand over his head. Anakin must have sensed her mood, because he dropped his toy and whined. “I’ll think about it,” Shmi said.
Obi-Wan inclined his head at her.
The tea kettle whistled.
Qui-Gon finished up with his interminable go-around with the local leaders just as Obi-Wan and Jango’s— wife?— apparently finished laying out tea. The baby chewed on a soft toy in a bouncer chair.
They sat down at the table, and Obi-Wan poured the tea— he was the youngest there, which traditionally made it his job.
“Tell us about these problems you’ve been having,” Qui-Gon said, as they settled in. Meeting with the local Mandalorians had suggested that if Jango really was trying to reach out a hand to the Jedi, it wasn’t the most popular decision— but Qui-Gon sensed that they would follow what he chose. The Mand’alor, apparently, was a very respected position.
Jango and Shmi explained in turns.
People had gone missing in one or two of Mandalore’s spaceports— or so the ships that brought them there claimed. People had gotten off one ship, gone into the port, and never gotten on another. They had also, so far as Mandalore could tell, never left the port either.
“We’ve put some people on it. But they’ve all come up empty so far,” Jango said, spreading his hands in a kind of what are you going to do gesture. “Maybe your Jedi magic can get further.”
“The Republic does not appreciate its citizens going missing,” Shmi said. “But we don’t want them poking around here either. Hopefully you can help us solve this.”
“We will do our best,” Qui-Gon agreed. It was small business, but no less important, and sometimes a calm mission was a relief.
Well, in theory. He wasn’t quite sure he and Obi-Wan had ever had one.
They finished tea, and were led out to a two-person speeder— theirs, for the duration of the time they were on Mandalore. Qui-Gon had never seen the model before, but Obi-Wan, unsurprisingly, seemed familiar with it.
“Good luck,” Jango said, and dug in his pockets for something. He came out with a handful of sweets. “Here, kid. You like rrdush candy?”
“I’m not a child,” Obi-Wan said, affronted, and Qui-Gon glared at Jango. It was clear for anyone to see that the Mandalorian stereotype of being voracious adopters of various pathetic lifeforms was true. If Jango Fett had his way, Qui-Gon was sure, Obi-Wan would have his own armor by now. Jango rattled the handful of candy. Obi-Wan sighed. “Yes, I do like it.”
Jango grinned. He poured the wrapped candy into Obi-Wan’s hand, who transferred it into the pocket of his robe, looking long-suffering. “Knew you would. Not a lot of beings could handle spicy Mandalorian candy, but you’re manda through and through, aren’t you?”
“I am in fact,” Obi-Wan said, “a Jedi.” Qui-Gon tried not to look too smug.
Jango laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “All right. What’s the saying? May the Force be with you.”
Obi-Wan was very well-acquainted with the back alleys and roads less travelled of Mandalore. When he was here, as a child— when he was really a child— it had been almost solely how they had travelled. Being recognized could mean a death sentence.
Things were better now.
Though they didn’t advertise that they were Jedi, more or less nondescript under the robes, it also probably wouldn’t mean too much if they were discovered. Unfriendliness, maybe, or aggression from Mandalorians who didn’t respect the Mand’alor as much as the others did. Nothing they couldn’t handle.
They got off the speeder at the first spaceport.
Obi-Wan pulled down his hood so he could squint at the datapad. “This is where the first two went missing,” he said. “A Twi’lek travelling to Coruscant for work, and a human on an extended academic trip. Studying flies, apparently, in various sectors of the galaxy.”
“Fascinating,” Qui-Gon said dryly. “I’m sure their research is dearly missed.”
“You’re such a cynic, Master,” Obi-Wan said, and pulled up his hood again as they entered the spaceport.
When you had been to enough spaceports, every one in the galaxy started to look exactly the same, and this one was no exception. There were benches scattered around, a stand selling foods of dubious quality, ticket counters for different transport lines.
Several private shuttles from planet to planet operated out of this port, but they reported their passengers rigorously and they all claimed none of the missing people had gotten on board their ships.
Qui-Gon was observing the port with the same practiced ease. “Go mingle,” he said. “I’m going to speak with the security chief.”
“Yes Master,” Obi-Wan said, and ducked away into the crowd.
It was easy enough to get a feel of the room. Parents bouncing fussing children on their laps. A Fiumerian sleeping with her eyes open on a bench. There were a couple doors whose purposes weren’t entirely clear.
Obi-Wan got into the first one by virtue of an employee absentmindedly holding the door for him. It turned out to be just a break room, with some of the spacers inside playing cards or smoking t’bac. Obi-Wan left before anyone noticed him.
Most of the rest of the station was like that. Obi-Wan found a VIP lounge, a control room, and a storage closet where a group of very shady beings were swapping death sticks.
But finally he encountered a very nondescript door off a hallway. The Force told him to take notice of it. All the other employee doors needed keycards, but this one required a biometric scan.
Obi-Wan examined the door. He was sure he could slice through it, given enough time, but this was a public place and people tended to frown on that sort of thing. He felt the access panel, wondering if his Temple slicing classes had paid off enough that he could use the Force to manipulate something this delicate. Probably not.
“Hey!” someone said behind him.
Obi-Wan turned, taking great care to avoid looking startled.
“What are you doing here?” It was a human man, in something like a uniform but not the ones the employees at this port wore. His face didn’t soften much when he saw Obi-Wan wasn’t an adult. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”
Obi-Wan gave him an innocent look. “Yes I am,” he said. “I’m meeting my buir here— we’re going on a trip.”
“No,” the human said, “You’re not.”
“But—” Obi-Wan said.
“Let’s go, kid,” the human said, grabbing Obi-Wan’s arm and starting to drag him away. His grip was very tight, wrapped around his bicep. He wasn’t leading Obi-Wan back towards the crowd, though— instead, towards an emergency exit, probably leading to some back alley.
He could turn and slice off the man’s arm with his lightsaber. But he was pretty sure that would create a bigger scene than they wanted at the moment. Obi-Wan started planting his feet. “Let me go!”
“We’ll see if you’re telling the truth soon enough, brat,” the man said. “Stop wiggling.”
Obi-Wan tried to wrench out of his hold. But then— a familiar Force presence. He stopped struggling just as a shadow loomed across the hallway.
“What’s going on here?” Qui-Gon rumbled. Obi-Wan turned to look. His Master looked suitably menacing, his arms folded and a thunderous look on his face.
“I told you I was meeting my dad,” Obi-Wan said. Finally, the man let him go, after looking at Qui-Gon and visibly measuring the considerable height difference between them.
“Your kid was trespassing,” the man said, but he was already taking a step back.
“Was he?” Qui-Gon asked neutrally.
“No,” Obi-Wan said, indignantly.
“Come on,” Qui-Gon said, beckoning Obi-Wan over. He came, shooting the guard a smug look. “Thank you for taking care of him,” he said, and spun Obi-Wan, marching them both the other direction. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” he told Obi-Wan.
“It’s not my fault,” Obi-Wan said. “I was lost.”
Qui-Gon chuckled. “Come on,” he said. “The spaceport security has agreed to help us.”
He led Obi-Wan into the security office, which was outfitted with a huge wall of camera monitors and a Twi’lek security chief, looking decidedly glassy-eyed. “You’re back!” he said cheerfully. “I’d be happy to help you!”
“Oh, Master,” Obi-Wan said reprovingly. “You can’t try diplomacy once?”
“This was faster,” Qui-Gon said, of the clearly mind-tricked security chief. “Hello again, Chief Cotan. That trouble we saw on the monitor was only my wayward apprentice.”
“That’s nice!” said poor Chief Cotan.
“Did you find anything?” Obi-Wan asked.
“They don’t know anything here,” Qui-Gon said. “And there’s too much security footage to sift through to track the movements of all the missing people. At least, there was before. Chief Cotan, what’s behind the restricted door off hallway two?”
“Um,” Cotan said.
“Don’t worry,” Qui-Gon said, waving a hand. “You want to help us. We’re harmless.”
“You’re harmless,” Cotan repeated. “Well, I guess I might as well tell you! We’ve been taking bribes to open that up as a private hangar.” Then his face scrunched, as he tried to puzzle out why he’d said that.
“That is, so far as I’m aware, illegal,” Qui-Gon said.
“Yeah,” Cotan said. “But most places do it. Don’t worry— they’re not criminals or anything. They’re just trying to avoid Republic taxes. And who can blame them, am I right?”
“Let’s see the footage of that area,” Obi-Wan said.
Cotan scrambled to obey. Soon enough he pulled up the holocam footage of the hallway Obi-Wan had almost been caught in. It was easy enough to find the dates where the two missing passengers had gotten off one ship and never gotten on another.
They scrolled through. It took a while, with several hours of footage and more passengers and guards passing through frame. But eventually both passengers were seen, being escorted by someone in the same guard uniform as the one who’d grabbed Obi-Wan, going into the door and not coming out.
Neither looked in distress or under duress, walking calmly at the guard’s side, holding their travelling bags. That didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t in trouble, but at the moment it really did appear they had just chosen to take a cheaper and more inconspicuous mode of transportation.
But then— why didn’t they ever arrive?
“Hey…” said the Chief, slowly. “Why did I—”
“Time to go,” Qui-Gon said, and they hustled out of the office and disappeared back into the crowds of the spaceport before he could come to his senses enough to really notice them.
The footage had caught more than just two passengers going inside the private hangar; people as of yet unidentified.
“I think we’ll need to get the real authorities involved on this one,” Qui-Gon told Obi-Wan. “We’re guests here, after all, and the Mandalorians might not appreciate it if we start kicking down doors.”
“Probably not,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Jango will be able to get the accounting of their off-the-books operations, but that means they won’t operate in this area again— if we want to find the people behind the smuggling, we’ll probably end up chasing them all over the galaxy.”
“Then let’s hope,” Qui-Gon said, “we can just find the missing people and send it to someone higher up the chain than us.”
“Are we ever that lucky?” Obi-Wan asked.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan went back to the village while the Mandalorians descended upon the spaceport, slightly terrifyingly. They had given the Jedi a copy of the security tapes before they went, and Qui-Gon pulled up the holo over the kitchen table now. Anakin was sleeping in a cradle in the corner, as they had retreated once more to Jango Fett’s home.
“Here’s the guards in charge of the private bay,” Obi-Wan said, fast-forwarding through, to a still of one of them leading someone Qui-Gon didn’t recognize, who looked like a well-worn traveller, through the door. It struck Qui-Gon that the crew of this ship did not look very equipped for hospitality, but that they were equipped for a fight. There was something bigger going on here. “The people at the port didn’t think anything of it— they see private security teams all the time.”
Shmi frowned at the screen. “Zoom in on the uniform, please,” she said.
Qui-Gon did. It revealed a patch on the shoulder— a triangle, with some kind of flower inside it. It hadn’t come up in any preliminary searches as of yet, and Obi-Wan hadn’t recognized it, which was kind of a rarity.
Shmi hissed through her teeth. “Jujuminmee sleemos,” she said, and swore some more. In Huttese, not Mando’a, so far as Qui-Gon could tell, which was interesting.
“Slavers?” Obi-Wan said, frowning. He put a hand on his chin and peered at the holo.
“You’d think they’d know better than to operate here,” Qui-Gon said. “Are you certain? What is that symbol?”
“I’ve seen it. They’re a small slavery operation,” Shmi said. “They call themselves the Controllers. They’re trying to move up in the world— they sell to the Hutts, the mines, everybody. Demagolka.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” Obi-Wan said thoughtfully.
“They will not operate on Mandalore,” Jango said.
“You’ve gotten reports of people missing, but I assume that is only a very small fraction,” Shmi said. “The ones you know of are only the ones who will be missed. Most of them wouldn’t be.”
That was disquieting.
The baby stirred and started to cry.
Jango got up and plucked him out of the cradle, bouncing Anakin on his hip. “They won’t be welcome on my planet again,” he said. “But that won’t stop the supply line. Not to mention that it won’t get them back.”
“Your supercommandos are taking them into custody right now,” Obi-Wan said. “They may know the next stop on the trail.”
“If there’s information to find, my soldiers will find it,” Jango said. He was still rocking his son up and down, and the boy was slowly calming. “Give us a little while.”
With nothing more to do for the moment, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were allowed to roam the town freely. Shmi herself went out to a little garden behind one of the homes, and invited the Jedi to join her if they so wished.
Obi-Wan shot Qui-Gon a pleading look— he was good enough with plants, but Qui-Gon was sure an afternoon of gardening was not the epitome of excitement for someone his age. Qui-Gon waved him off, and his padawan gratefully trotted over to a knot of Mandalorian children about his own age.
Shmi settled down in the earth, and put her son in a playpen, off to the side, where Anakin could play around in the garden and she could keep an eye on him. She lent Qui-Gon a pair of gloves, and they weeded quietly for a time. The garden was mostly food, good carb-heavy fare that would last a long time, but there were flowers too, clustered almost shyly at one corner of the yard.
Qui-Gon loved almost nothing more than good honest gardening, getting mud caked under his fingernails and watching the Force breathe through nature.
“Is this your job here?” Qui-Gon asked Shmi. “To tend the gardens?”
Shmi laughed. “Oh, goodness, no,” she said. “Mandalore’s fields are much bigger, much more complicated. I’m afraid I don’t have much experience with horticulture at all. I actually work in the mechanic’s bay.” Gently, she helped a plant stand up, leaning on a stake. “But when I got here, the idea of growing my own food, a little space of life on my own— well, I wanted to try it out.”
“You know a lot about slavery,” Qui-Gon said, careful not to offend. “You’re not from here.”
“Not all Mandalorians are born on Mandalore,” Shmi said, with a wry smile. “And not all beings are born free.”
Ah. “I am truly sorry to hear that,” Qui-Gon said.
Shmi shrugged. “Perhaps it was your Force which brought me out of it. Or maybe that is not giving people enough credit— kind people, who knew I should be free.”
“The will of people and the will of the Force work in tandem,” Qui-Gon said.
“It is a nice thought,” Shmi said.
A burbling sound— Anakin, chattering to himself as babies did— drew both their attention. He was playing in the dirt, pushing mud around with his baby-fat hands. There was a flower there, wild, wilting into the ground.
Anakin was obviously displeased with the state of it. Still babbling, he poked at the leaves. The flower straightened on its own, infused gently with power, greener than before.
“He has the Force, you know,” Qui-Gon said.
“Your boy told me,” Shmi said quietly. Then she looked at him sharply. “He also said I didn’t have to choose yet.”
“You don’t,” Qui-Gon said, amused. “Don’t worry. I don’t make a habit out of taking babies and running.” No matter what the Council may have liked to tease him about. “But it is better, especially for a child of his power, to stay in the Temple. It will help him learn to control his abilities.”
Shmi looked again at her son. “I don’t know if I could do it.”
“Some parents change their minds as the children get older,” Qui-Gon said. “Force-sensitive children can become quite a handful.”
“Nothing Anakin could do would make me want to give him up,” Shmi said. “He’s my son.” She smiled. “No matter how much mischief he may get into in the future.”
A cheer rose up from the children playing in the square. They were playing some kind of game Qui-Gon didn’t recognize, but that Obi-Wan had seemingly already known. The Mandalorians had quickly enveloped him in the fold, and as they chased after the ball it would have been difficult to pick Obi-Wan out of the crowd if it wasn’t for his much lighter hair and his trailing braid.
Sometimes it was difficult to know if Qui-Gon was teaching Obi-Wan more than Obi-Wan was teaching him. “I suppose I could see where you’re coming from,” he said.
The children’s shyness about an outsider quickly wore off, and soon enough Obi-Wan was asked to spar, the game abandoned. This was about as normal as play for Mandalorian children, like Jedi children might have been curious to lightsaber fight someone new in the Temple.
Obi-Wan agreed, and they had a pretty good time wrestling playfully in the dirt— Obi-Wan only used the Force by request, and the kids who already had their beskar left the weapons out of it. Some of the older kids decided to teach him their own fighting method, which was unsurprisingly a lot dirtier than the way they taught hand-to-hand in the Temple. It was actually kind of educational.
“It’s a good stance,” one of the girls, half stripped out of her beskar for range of motion, said. “But you’re reaching too far. You have a smaller range of motion than you think you do. Were you trained by someone much bigger than you?”
That was when Qui-Gon chose to make his appearance, behind them. Jango was with him— Obi-Wan could sense both their presences without having to look. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, raising a wry eyebrow.
“By the ka’ra, ” the girl muttered. “Big is a bit of an understatement.”
“All right, all right,” Jango said. “Scatter off somewhere else, kids. We’ve got stuff to do.”
There was a chorus of protests and groans.
“Shoo!” Jango said, and lurched forward, growling. They screamed and giggled, scattering off in all directions.
“Ret'urcye mhi, Obi-Wan!” they called out as they left.
“Ret’! ” Obi-Wan said, waving as he returned the goodbye.
“How do you make friends so fast?” Qui-Gon asked.
Years of diplomatic experience, but also because being under the tutelage of Qui-Gon Jinn often meant making friends before his Master could cause trouble. Usually so he could convince them to help them out of it. Also, and Obi-Wan might deny this one, he sort of had his own tendency of picking up pathetic life-forms. Obi-Wan did not say any of this.
“Did you find the slavers?” he asked.
“The ones we got our hands on were mostly recruiters,” Jango said. “They find people who seem desperate, have no one who will miss them, and they offer them passage on their ship. When they find out they’re not going to be getting to their destination, it’s already too late.”
“That’s awful,” Obi-Wan said.
“They don’t know who the leader is or what the final destination is. They pointed us to Feriae Junction,” Jango said. “Said that’s the next stop on the tour.”
“That’s where we’re going next?” Obi-Wan asked, mostly to Qui-Gon and slightly hopefully.
“That’s where we’re going next,” Qui-Gon said, tugging at Obi-Wan’s braid. “But you get to explain to the Council.”
It was not, of course, that easy, which is why they waited until they had already boarded the ship meant for Junction, and were already in hyperspace, until they called in the Council.
“Only you two could get sent on a milk run mission and uncover a slavery ring,” Mace Windu said, flickering blue over the communications console.
“It could happen to anyone,” Qui-Gon said.
“I am so sure,” Mace said, “That it could not.”
Obi-Wan grinned.
“This is technically under the Senate’s purview,” Mace said. “They’re the one with anti-slavery taskforces.” And the taskforces had even been running faster lately, with both Palpatine and the Trade Federation and Banking Clans out of the way. But that only meant faster, not fast. Acting quickly when others could not was what the Jedi were for.
“I think it would help with diplomatic relations on Mandalore,” Obi-Wan said. “They’re taking this very personally. They would appreciate Jedi help.”
Mace pinched the bridge of his nose. “Granted,” he said. “But not on your own— I’m sending you some backup. Slavery operations can get nasty.”
“Tahl?” Qui-Gon suggested.
Obi-Wan shook his head. “She and Bant just finished the mission on New Apsolon.” Entirely successfully, too— Obi-Wan knew this because he had been in increasingly panicked contact with Bant for the past week.
Obi-Wan had kept up a habit once he’d gotten to the past of keeping track of his friends. Sometimes this was through his misused Council codes, sometimes it was through his excellent grasp of gossip, and sometimes he just talked to them. “Dooku and Bruck are stuck doing agricultural mediation on the other end of the galaxy, Garen and his master are on a long-term mission… Quinlan and Master Tholme are the closest,” he decided.
“It’s good to know someone in this Order can keep track of all the wayward Jedi,” Mace said, and hung up without saying anything else.
“He loves us,” Obi-Wan said.
“Most certainly,” Qui-Gon said.
Notes:
We're back already! Thanks to everyone who supported the first fic in this series.
You guys had some awesome questions and theories about what the next part would be about... this is, for the most part, not that fic. Lol. But I promise we're building up to it!
I hope you enjoy!
Chapter header from TCW - 3X04 Sphere of Influence
Mando'a translations:
Jettise - Jedi
Vor entye - Thank you
Ret'urcye mhi - Until we meet again/goodbye
Ori'ramikadase - Supercommandos
Su cuy'gar - Hello; literally, ‘so you’re still alive’
Manda - The state of being Mandalorian
Buir - parent
Demagolka - worst kind of monster
Ret' - byeHuttese translations:
Jujuminmee - to kidnap
Sleemo - slimeballThere will be less translations needed in upcoming chapters, don't worry!
Chapter Text
Anything that can go wrong will.
Feriae Junction, typically just known as Junction, was an industrialist trading world— it didn’t produce anything except a place for people to sell their wares. People were in and out constantly, up to business both legal and not. It was a good place to hide your ill doings.
It was also crowded, hot with exhaust steam and warm bodies, and so devoid of plant life that it made Qui-Gon’s skin crawl.
“Stay close,” he told Obi-Wan.
“If I was any closer, Master, we’d be sharing a cloak,” Obi-Wan grumbled, and Qui-Gon’s lips quirked.
Shmi had taken one look at the crowd and elected to stay onboard the ship with the baby. Qui-Gon didn’t blame her. Jango, their other Mandalorian guest, had slipped into the mass of bodies almost as soon as he’d gotten off the ship, to go do recon. You wouldn’t think such distinctive armor would blend into a crowd so well, but as soon as he didn’t want to be seen he was almost impossible to spot.
It was fair enough; a little knowledge of what they were getting themselves into would not go remiss, and Qui-Gon and his padawan had a meeting to get to anyway.
They found Tholme and his padawan Quinlan, somewhat predictably, in a bar. This was usually where Tholme wanted to meet up on covert missions, though considering the handful Quinlan was, it made sense he wanted to get a drink.
Quinlan saw them first and perked up. “Kenobi!” he said gleefully, and hopped off his barstool to sweep Obi-Wan into a hug.
Qui-Gon could feel Obi-Wan’s shields tightening a hair; deference to his friend’s psychometric abilities. Though Qui-Gon doubted Quinlan could get a glimpse into Obi-Wan’s head if he tried— nor could, possibly, anyone. Qui-Gon had gotten just a few peeks into his future-seeing padawan’s head, and he could understand why he might want to keep it to himself.
“Vos,” Obi-Wan said back, looking beleaguered but sounding fond. He endured the hug, then elbowed Quinlan and made him drop him back onto the floor.
“Hello, Tholme,” Qui-Gon said, sliding into Quinlan’s abandoned seat and gesturing to the bartender to bring him a drink. “Still alive, I see.”
“For now,” Tholme said.
They grinned and clasped arms, forearm to forearm. “Good to see you,” Qui-Gon said. “Did the Council brief you?”
“So much as they could,” Tholme said. “Not a lot of information to go off yet. But I’ve been looking into it.”
“And?”
Tholme whistled Quinlan over— stopping him, apparently, from giving Qui-Gon’s own apprentice a rather heartfelt noogie. “Quinlan— our intel?”
“Oh, yes, Master,” Quinlan said, adopting a straightened posture— the classic look of a padawan trying to impress their Master. Too bad Qui-Gon almost never saw it on Obi-Wan. “The Controllers,” he recited. “An up-and-coming slavery operation.” He shifted from foot to foot, clearly trying to recall all the information at once. “Um, we couldn’t find out who they’re working for right now, but lately the Controllers have been rounding people up for labor camps in the Outer Rim.”
“Why don’t I know of them?” Obi-Wan asked, frowning.
“I guess there’s still things in this galaxy that can stump you,” Quinlan said. “Who knew?”
“Ha- ha, ” Obi-Wan said.
Tholme grinned and slugged back the last of his drink. “People have been going missing all over, though,” he said. “More little pockets of trafficking like the one you found on Mandalore, I’d wager.”
“Troubling news,” Qui-Gon said. “Even if we stop it here, it will be just like Mandalore— they’ll just move on to another location.”
“The way of most slavery operations,” Tholme said grimly.
“I guess that means we have to take them out at the root,” Jango said, sliding onto a stool next to them. None of the Jedi jumped, too trained out of the reaction, though Qui-Gon was surprised. Jango looked disappointed not to have scared them. “I found their base of operations here. They set off tomorrow.”
“That was quick,” Tholme said.
Fett’s helmet was off; he flashed a smile. “I work fast.”
“The Council has authorized us to take out the slavery ring if we can,” Qui-Gon emphazised. “And simply rescue the prisoners and gather information if not.”
Not to say that Qui-Gon always followed the suggestions of the Council.
“But if things happen to go that way…?” Obi-Wan asked.
“Then that is the will of the Force,” Qui-Gon said.
“Oh, good,” Obi-Wan said. “Because I have some ideas. But I don’t think you’re going to like them.”
Obi-Wan was usually right about these types of things.
Qui-Gon had not liked the plan. Neither had Master Tholme. But in the end, they’d had to agree, for simple lack of better options.
They were standing outside of the very shady shipyard Jango had led them to, Obi-Wan and Quinlan dressed in civvies, the adults gathered around.
“Here,” Jango said, passing out two small devices. “We call ‘em worms— two-way communications system, undetectable on preliminary scans.”
Obi-Wan was familiar with them, though the GAR had called them Covert Communications Devices. He put it behind his ear and it burrowed in— just like a worm.
“Oh, gross,” Quinlan said. “Do I have to?”
“Sorry, little nipper,” Jango said.
Quinlan grimaced and put the device in his ear, making a face when it went in.
“So long as you turn them off, they’ll hold up against cursory scans, just to make sure you don’t already have a slave chip or an open comm, but anything deeper than that and they’ll detect the worms,” Shmi said. “So take care that doesn’t happen.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Quinlan said.
“We’ll be listening in,” Qui-Gon said.
“You give the word if things look like they’re going sideways,” said Tholme. “We’ll come in.”
“Got it,” chorused Obi-Wan and Quinlan.
Qui-Gon still looked apprehensive. Jedi very often sent their younglings on risky missions— it was the only way to learn, after all. But their Masters were usually with them, and missions did not usually involve being intentionally captured.
“We’ve got it, Master,” Obi-Wan said.
“All right,” Qui-Gon said, and held out a hand. Obi-Wan carefully put his lightsaber into it. Qui-Gon gave Obi-Wan’s padawan braid a sharp, affectionate tug, then tucked it into his nerf-tail, tying it off with one of the leather ties Qui-Gon usually used to put his own hair up.
Quinlan and Tholme were performing a similar operation next to them, Quinlan’s saber hanging off Tholme’s belt as he bundled Quinlan’s braid into his dreads.
“Keep your heads down,” Shmi advised. “Don’t look anyone in the eye. Be careful and smart.”
“Those are our middle names,” Quinlan said, and grinned.
“Which one are you supposed to be?” Obi-Wan asked. Quinlan laughed.
They waved at their Masters one more time, and went into the shipyard.
This area of Junction was much more informal than the spaceport on Mandalore— just an open market-type area with ships scattered around in a very wide semicircle. They would range from legitimate traders to transporters to personal vessels. You could almost always try to hire one or get transport on one, very especially if you were looking to be discreet.
He and Quinlan skirted the edges.
“Seems like a slow way of operating,” Quinlan said. They couldn’t make a beeline for the Controllers, not without arousing suspicion. So they took a slow, circuitous path. “Collecting slaves one-by-one.”
“In a way,” Obi-Wan said. “But it’s also much more subtle than enslaving entire populations, or taking over a full planet. They can use them to fill out personnel like Offworld used to do.”
Actually, Offworld Corporation had been very quiet on that front lately— they had switched from slave labor to very quietly using the paid workforces of already-dying economies. This meant that Offworld could usually get a subsidy from those governments for providing jobs; more money, even, than they would have made with unpaid labor.
Trust Xanatos du Crion to do the right thing and the sensible thing at the same time.
“Not to mention that once they have a good little contingent of slaves built up, they can use that money to buy bigger and better slave-making operations,” said Jango’s voice bitterly in their ears.
“Stay on task,” Tholme said.
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Quinlan said.
“I might have said, yes, Master,” Tholme said inside their ears.
“Well, I haven’t even been knighted yet, but if you want to call me Master, go ahead,” Quinlan said, and Obi-Wan heard the unmistakable sound of a laugh being stifled from the other end of the comm.
“You know I could have taken on a different padawan,” Tholme said. “Any number of wonderful padawans from the Temple.”
“Yes, Master,” Quinlan said cheerfully.
Obi-Wan grinned. Then he caught sight of the Controller ship and nudged Quinlan. It was an ugly ship, half-hidden by the exhaust steam that always accumulated around so many ships. This type of freighter was used very popularly by smugglers.
“There we are,” said Quinlan. “Are you ready to get kidnapped?”
It was a risky plan, but not a stupid one. Tholme and Qui-Gon were too big and too threatening-looking to ever be seen as an easy target; same with Jango. Shmi had a kid, of course, and she wasn’t trained like a Jedi was. That left Obi-Wan and Quinlan.
Obi-Wan had taken on much more dangerous missions than letting himself be picked up by a two-bit slavers’ operation, and Quinlan was just crazy. They weren’t nervous.
“More than,” Obi-Wan said.
There was a Rodian, very big and bulky for his species, coming down the open ramp of the ship— he stopped and visibly brightened when he saw them. He was wearing the uniform with the Controllers’ insignia on it.
Experience had taught Obi-Wan how to identify slavers— both by going after them for arrest, or them going after him to take him captive. They had a certain look to them, in person but also in the Force. Anyone who kept slaves was not a good person, and their Force presence was usually greasy and unwelcoming. It was the same for this man.
Obi-Wan and Quinlan continued to pretend to be cheerfully oblivious, focused on gawking at the sights around them.
Just a couple of young, naive kids. Out to see the sights— not at all acquainted with the horrors of the wider universe. That was, of course, pushing it if you knew anything at all about Quinlan and Obi-Wan.
“Let them think they’re pulling you in,” Jango said.
“We’re not shinies,” Obi-Wan said, amused. “We know what we’re doing.”
The Rodian approached, and waved to get their attention. He looked open and friendly, but his Force signature roiled with greed.
“Hey, kids,” he said. “You lost?”
“Nope!” Obi-Wan said cheerfully. “We’re looking for passage on a ship. Do you know where we could find someone to take us?”
“What’s your destination?”
“Anywhere!” Quinlan said. “We want adventure.”
Dollar signs almost appeared in the Rodian’s galaxy eyes. “Oh,” he said. “You’re in luck. I might just have some spots available on my ship. But should two kids be travelling alone? Don’t you have someone worried for you?”
Obi-Wan was offended on behalf of his alias’ intelligence— he was supposed to pretend to not think anything was strange about a question like that? But his bright, wide-eyed look didn’t falter.
“We left our families back on Barkesh,” Quinlan said. “We didn’t want to be farmers forever— we set out to see the universe.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” said the Rodian. “My name’s Aige. We’d be glad to have you onboard.”
“Great!” Quinlan said. “Should we talk about payment?”
“Oh,” Aige said, “There’ll be plenty of time for profit later.” He put an arm around each of their shoulders and steered them towards his ship.
“I’m turning off the worms,” Shmi said, and the line went dead. It was just in time, too; out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan saw Aige tapping at a wrist comm. Activating a scanner.
The worms wouldn’t show up on a cursory scan, unlike regular communications equipment. But a deeper one would detect the device whether it was active or not— they had to hope the slavers weren’t that well-prepared.
Aige seemed pleased enough with the results.
“Great, boys,” he said. “Lucky you— we’re taking off in just a few minutes here. We weren’t able to pick up as many passengers as we wanted. Good thing you came along.”
“Lucky us,” Obi-Wan said.
Aige led them up the ramp and through the ship. Obi-Wan and Quinlan tapped their earpieces back on, subtly. Aige kept up friendly chatter as they passed through the ship— several other Controllers saw them and grinned or snickered. The questions Aige asked were hardly subtle; he was making sure they were who they said they were.
But Obi-Wan and Quinlan were good partners, and Obi-Wan could almost always sense what Quinlan’s next move was going to be. Overall, they gave the impression of a pair of well-meaning but not very experienced boys, out to see the world. No one to miss them until it was too late, and not enough sense to stay where it was safe.
“Where are we staying for the trip?” Obi-Wan asked.
“We’re almost there,” Aige said, with a mean smile. Obi-Wan had never seen a Rodian as big as he was— his grip on their shoulders would have been very difficult to get out of, had they wanted to try.
Obi-Wan was not sure why he’d never heard of the Controllers before, but he had a bit of a bad feeling about it. It wasn’t that Obi-Wan had been familiar with every criminal syndicate in the galaxy, though it had sometimes felt like it. But it seemed like the Controllers were on the way up, which meant that Obi-Wan should have heard of them— through the Council, through gossip in the marketplace on Tatooine, through his wartime missions.
But he hadn’t.
“And here we are.”
Quinlan and Obi-Wan looked at the room he was indicating. It could not more clearly have been a cell— little barred window built into the door, keypad lock on the outside, everything.
“Hey,” Quinlan said. “That’s not—”
Aige pushed them inside. Then they closed the door behind them. “Hey!” Obi-Wan said, knocking on the bars with his hands. The slaver turned to leave, and Obi-Wan pouted. “This is illegal!”
Some people found Obi-Wan creepy, but Quinlan never would.
He had known Obi-Wan almost his whole life, after all, and besides his Master, there was no one in the galaxy that Quinlan trusted more.
Obi-Wan had always been weird, but not this kind of weird— that had all come later, after his prescient abilities had developed.
He was the same Obi-Wan now, the Obi-Wan that had helped Quinlan when his psychometric abilities had really started hitting him, the same Obi-Wan who used to flash with temper at any little injustice he saw.
But he was different too. Settled, but with something burning underneath, like he was more than this little scrawny fifteen-almost-sixteen year-old, watching with amusement as everyone else around him did exactly what he expected them to.
Quinlan loved Obi-Wan a lot. But sometimes, he could admit, he was a little unnerving.
Like now.
They had been taken captive three or so hours ago, and they hadn’t heard from the slavers except for when they passed by every so often to bang on the bars of the cage and watch them jump.
Obi-Wan would jump a moment too early; Quinlan a moment too late. Quinlan wasn’t scared, and Obi-Wan had probably seen it coming a mile away.
But while Quinlan was itching with boredom— and possibly with other things, since the cell was disgusting; he made a point of keeping his gloves on — Obi-Wan was passing the time quietly meditating, not moving at all except to jump, almost as an afterthought.
Quinlan didn’t know anyone else their age who mediated for fun.
Obi-Wan was perfectly still, eyes closed, legs crossed. He barely breathed. He looked dead.
He opened his eyes. “There’s something strange going on here,” he said.
“Just one thing?” Quinlan asked.
“What is it, Obi-Wan?” Master Jinn asked over their earpieces. They were following along in the ship, staying just out of sight but tracking with the worm things. The plan was to let the slavers take them wherever it was they were going; find the operation there and take it down from the inside and outside all at once.
“They’re nervous,” Obi-Wan said.
“The prisoners?” Jango Fett asked.
“The guards,” Obi-Wan said. “There are other prisoners too— at least ten— and they’re scared, but not like this.”
“That’s concerning,” Quinlan, who had only been able to sense a general miasma of misery, pain, and terror, said.
That was another thing Obi-Wan was good at. He always seemed like he knew where everyone was at all times. It was impossible to sneak up on the guy. Quinlan had attempted to replicate this skill, by extending his Force senses out so he could do the same thing. In the end all he’d really accomplished was a screeching headache and a vague sense of paranoia.
“What do slavers have to be scared of?” Master Tholme asked.
“Bigger slavers,” Lady Skywalker said, with an air of quiet finality. Quinlan had seen her baby while they were planning for the mission— he wondered why a family with a kid would know so much about slavers, or hate them so much.
“There’s only one slavery cartel big enough to be a threat to others,” Obi-Wan said, a little worriedly.
“The Hutts,” Master Jinn said.
Master Tholme sounded like he was a little further away— at a console with access to his various databanks of intelligence, probably. “There are no known ties between the Controllers and the Hutts.”
“Uh-oh,” said Obi-Wan and Lady Skywalker at the same time.
“What does that mean?” Quinlan asked.
“It means the Controllers haven’t been paying taxes to the Hutts for allowing them to move slaves independently of them,” Shmi said. “Which means that they will not be very popular among the Hutt Cartel at the moment.”
“Thus the nervousness,” Obi-Wan said. “They must have finally caught up.”
“Which means it’s only a matter of time,” Master Tholme said. They hadn’t jumped to hyperspace yet, so they had been assuming wherever the Controllers were taking their captives, it was close. Which also meant that if the Hutts were going to try to stop them, that would be soon too. “We’re coming to get you.”
“Master,” Quinlan and Obi-Wan complained.
“He’s right,” Master Qui-Jinn said. “We were sent to take down a little smuggling operation. We don’t have the resources or the authorization at the moment to get into a fight with the Cartel. Not to mention we don’t know what will happen if they clash with you two and all the hostages onboard.”
“But with two of us, if we stayed—” Obi-Wan started.
“No,” Qui-Gon said. “It’s too risky.”
“We could,” Quinlan said.
“We’ll be coming to get you and the slaves onboard the vessel. We can revisit the Hutts at a later date,” said Master Tholme.
Obi-Wan opened his mouth again to argue, but then shut it again, with a soft huff of frustrated air. “All right,” he said.
“We’ll intercept you once we catch up,” Jango Fett said. “Can you free yourselves and go to Plan B?”
“Can we free ourselves, he asks,” Quinlan said, offended.
“That means yes,” said Obi-Wan.
“All right, then,” said Shmi Skywalker. “We’ll see you soon.”
Nothing more to say at the moment, the comms went silent, leaving Quinlan and Obi-Wan alone in the cell.
“Are we—?” Quinlan said.
“No,” Obi-Wan said, with a sigh. “They’re right. We can’t take on the entire Hutt Empire just because—” he looked away and folded his arms over his chest. “We’re not going rogue on this one.”
“Aw, man,” Quinlan said.
“However,” Obi-Wan said, and Quinlan brightened. “We’re not going to let them get away with it . There has to be something to show for all this.”
He put a hand up to his ear, where the worm was. As Quinlan watched with a mixture of horror and fascination, he manipulated the Force so it slowly drew the comm out, though the skin at the back of his ear, and into his hand.
“Ew!” Quinlan said.
“They don’t come out without the transceiver,” Obi-Wan said, amused. He poured more Force energy into the skin where the worm had come out, which was bleeding a little, and slowly the wound closed up, leaving only a small scratch behind.
“They’re not supposed to come out without the transceiver!” Lady Skywalker said, this time just into Quinlan’s ear. “Did he just take his out!”
“ Maay -be,” Quinlan said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Obi-Wan said, towards his unheard audience. “They won’t find the bug until it’s too late.”
“That’s not what was concerning us,” Master Jinn said.
“Don’t tell me,” Quinlan said. “Kenobi, you’re making me look like the good one for once.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Obi-Wan said, poking at the earpiece. “Can they hear out of this?”
“Yes,” Master Jinn said begrudgingly.
“Yep, they hear you,” Quinlan said. “Can we get out of here now?”
“After you,” Obi-Wan said.
“Let’s do ‘he’s dying’,” Quinlan said, beaming.
“‘He’s dying’ is stupid,” Obi-Wan said.
“Help!” Quinlan said. “He’s dying!”
Sprawled on the floor of the cell with his eyes closed, Obi-Wan held back a grimace.
“I’m serious, someone come!” Quinlan said. “He has a condition!”
An annoyed Force presence appeared at the door. “Shut up, kid.”
“I don’t think he’s breathing!” Quinlan said. “Help him!”
“Why do the stock always die before we can sell them?” asked the person at the door, annoyed. They tapped on the bars loudly, but Obi-Wan didn’t twitch. “Fine. Back up against the wall. I’m coming in.”
Obi-Wan heard Quinlan’s footsteps away, and the slaver’s closer. He waited until the last moment, when he could feel the slaver leaning over him, then whipped out with his feet and knocked them off balance. Obi-Wan opened his eyes just in time to see Quinlan leaping forward and pushing the stumbling slaver into the wall.
They hit with a crack, and lay still.
The cell door was open.
“I don’t like you, Quinlan Vos,” Obi-Wan said, as he sat up and brushed off his pants.
“You love me,” Quinlan said. “Let’s go.”
There was only the one guard on this corridor at least, and no more prisoners. They crept cautiously around the hall. Obi-Wan could feel the other poor souls that had been tricked into coming aboard, scattered throughout the ship so that they couldn’t talk to each other.
They had the keycard from the guard currently locked into their former cell, and probably about fifteen minutes until Qui-Gon and the others came for them. Piece of cake.
All the guards they encountered were on alert— but they were looking for a threat from the outside. They were easy enough to take down, either by knocking them out or giving them a Force suggestion to go to sleep. Obi-Wan found someone who looked important and slipped the bug into her pocket.
“Down there,” Obi-Wan said, pointing. “Prisoners.”
The first cell they came to was housing a Twi’lek woman who flinched up against the wall when she saw them.
“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan said in Ryl. “We’re Jedi. We’re here to rescue you.”
“Jedi?” she repeated.
“Jedi,” Quinlan confirmed, and swiped the card to open her door. “Do you want to get out of here?”
She said something in Ryl under her breath— probably, what do you think? and scrambled to her feet as they opened the door.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos,” Obi-Wan introduced.
“Saxcha,” she said.
“Nice to meet you,” Obi-Wan said, trotting on ahead to where he could sense the next round of prisoners. “You’re one of the people who got taken on Mandalore, right?”
“That’s me,” she said, drawing herself up and visibly shaking off her fear. “I like to think I’m usually smarter than this, but they were so convincing and I was trying to get home…”
“Don’t worry,” Quinlan said. “It happens to a lot more people than you think.”
Obi-Wan stopped them before they went around the corner, tilting his head. There. A guard, slimy-feeling in the Force, just around the corner. Obi-Wan jerked a hand, and sent the guard slamming into the wall— or so he assumed, by the thud.
They poked around the corner. There was a human guard groaning dazedly on the floor. Saxcha kicked him, and he lay still.
It was easier after that to find the others, especially with more and more guards in their wake as they quietly cleared out the ship. There were nine of them, of various species. They found the fly scientist from Mandalore as well. Almost all of them were young and healthy, and they all looked frightened.
One of them couldn’t have been more than eight. He was lagging behind, trying not to cry. He didn’t look anything like Anakin Skywalker— he was a Mon Cala, orange-skinned and gilled— but Obi-Wan couldn’t help but think of Anakin anyway.
“Would you like a lift?” Obi-Wan asked, reaching out his hands. The child, with the functional memory of all younglings, raised his arms up— the universal sign for pick me up. Obi-Wan did.
When Obi-Wan looked over Quinlan was pressing a hand to his heart and making the most obnoxiously soppy face he could. Obi-Wan scowled at him and continued down the hall with his new burden.
“Wait until you get a padawan,” Obi-Wan muttered to Quinlan. “She’ll have you eating out of the palm of her hand, and you’ll regret ever making fun of me.”
“Sure,” Quinlan said, condescendingly even as the little Mon Calamari fisted his chubby little hands into Obi-Wan’s shirt.
“Um, do you have a plan?” asked Saxchi, who had stuck alongside them, and taken one of the guard’s blasters. “Or are we somehow just going to escape in the middle of space?”
“Patience,” Obi-Wan said.
Above their heads, an alarm began to ring. The hostages, as one, turned to give Quinlan and Obi-Wan a frightened look.
“Not to worry,” Quinlan said. “All part of the plan. And here we are.”
They were at the docking bay— the place they had agreed upon when making backup plans for this mission.
There were only so many ways you could board a ship that didn’t want to be boarded in the middle of space, and only so many ways you could do that without incidentally killing everyone onboard. A docking bay was a good way to do that, especially if you already had people on the inside— people who could authorize access for you.
Unfortunately, slicing into the ship’s systems was the easy part. Obi-Wan did that one-handed, still holding the youngling.
“Maybe brace yourselves,” Obi-Wan said.
A moment later, the ship rocked, and the sound of screeching metal almost drowned out the alarms. The docking bay doors slid open, looking into the bay of another ship— the one the Jedi had borrowed for this mission. Qui-Gon and Jango were standing there, Qui-Gon’s hair whipping with movement, Jango kitted out in his full beskar’gam.
This was a tricky operation.
Ships were, generally, designed to link up with other ships, even mid-space. They could refuel, rendezvous, swap illicit packages back and forth, whatever. But usually the ships had stopped moving by then, and usually both ships had agreed to dock together.
Their allies had had to attach to the side of the slaver’s freighter mid-flight, calculating precise angles so they didn’t slam into each other and breach both hulls. It had not been exactly smooth. Bits of metal had sheared off the side, and even now the containment field keeping the air into the slaver ship flickered.
The two ships connected, and the air hissed between them as the atmosphere stabilized.
“All right, everybody across,” Obi-Wan said. The ship rocked beneath them again— the slavers were shooting back, ship-to-ship. They’d be here in person any moment now.
There was a small gap between the ships, sealed by the automatic pressurization. Obi-Wan and Quinlan helped the others begin to cross it. In one deft leap, Qui-Gon reached their side and patted Obi-Wan on the shoulder.
“You are so in trouble, padawan!” Qui-Gon shouted to be heard over the whipping of atmosphere and the creaking of the ships as they struggled to stay magnetized to each other.
Obi-Wan gave him a crooked grin. “Yes, Master!” Qui-Gon huffed a laugh automatically before he could remember to glare.
“You’d better hurry it up,” Jango said, receiving prisoners on the other side. “We’ve got company.”
And again, the ship rocked— from the opposite side. Not Shmi and Tholme in the cockpit, Obi-Wan was guessing. Another ship.
“Kriff,” Obi-Wan muttered, and the little Mon Calamari laughed. “I didn’t say that,” he said. “Come on, across with you.”
Qui-Gon stepped across again and reached his arms out to take the youngling. Obi-Wan pried little fingers off his shirt. “It’ll be okay, young one,” he said. “Go on.”
The ship lurched.
The couplings holding the two ships together started to buckle.
“Kriffity kriff!” Obi-Wan said, and had to let go of the child as Qui-Gon stumbled backwards and Obi-Wan had to catch himself lest he fall forward. The crack between the two ships widened, and started to get very cold. That meant the vacuum seal was starting to fail.
Qui-Gon and the kid seemed fine— Qui-Gon had landed on his shebs and probably gotten the wind knocked out of him, but he’d managed to roll and catch himself enough that the youngling probably didn’t even feel it.
“Obi-Wan!” Quinlan said, steadying Saxcha, one of still a handful of people on their side. Obi-Wan caught her other elbow. “Sorry about this,” Quinlan said, and they tossed her across, fully catching air until Qui-Gon caught her on the other side, still swearing.
They had gotten all over except two when the door into the rest of the ship swished open and someone came out, already firing her laser pistol.
Obi-Wan pulled at her gun with the Force and sent it flying, out past him and, incidentally, out into open space. The bolt struck the ship Qui-Gon was on and loosened another of the magnetic locks keeping the ship together.
There were more Controllers, and none of them seemed happy to see their prisoners getting away.
They all started shooting too, and this time it was Quinlan’s turn to swear.
The hostages screamed and ducked as blaster bolts started flying, from both the Controllers and Jango, who was standing in front of the civilians.
Together Obi-Wan and Quinlan managed to get one more over the gap before the ship gave another almighty lurch and screech. At the same time, the woman who’d lost her gun reached them and tried to push Obi-Wan over the edge.
He recovered, grabbed her jacket, and sent them both in a roll back towards more solid ground. He tried to wriggle out of her grip, but she punched him, and kept hold.
Quinlan still didn’t have a weapon, which Obi-Wan guessed because Quinlan hurtled himself bodily at the remaining Controllers, who had been trying to grab Obi-Wan and drag him backwards. Some of the Controllers went tumbling like dominoes, and Quinlan kicked the ones who tried to grab him, still half in their arms.
Others were still staying back, shooting at Qui-Gon and Jango and the cowering prisoners, even as Jango started to usher them into the safety of the ship.
There was still one civilian on the platform— the fly scientist. Quinlan and Obi-Wan exchanged looks. Then they nodded, and, pushing out with the Force, sent the last civilian flying over the platform, into Qui-Gon’s arms. Qui-Gon had been about to jump over the gap himself.
Obi-Wan headbutted his attacker and struggled to his feet, pulling Quinlan up with him.
Another explosion from the other end of the ship.
Both ships rocked, dangerously, and finally the stress was too much. They came apart.
Obi-Wan tripped, and almost fell over the gap. Quinlan caught him just in time, and pulled him back just as the energy field snapped back into place— firmly establishing the boundaries between this ship and the other once more.
Obi-Wan could see Qui-Gon on the other ship, perfectly fine, grimacing as the two ships got further apart. The containment field separating them was red. Obi-Wan could have laughed.
The remaining Controllers yanked them inside, out of the docking bay, and slid the door shut behind them.
“There’s no need to be rough,” Obi-Wan said. “Honestly, where are the manners?”
“Don’t be so judgemental, Obi-Wan,” Quinlan said. “After all, judging by their smell, they haven’t showered in a while, much less been in polite company.”
“Shut up,” the woman said. They had knocked her out earlier— she’d been guarding one of the cells. Now she was holding onto Obi-Wan’s shoulder very tightly. “Do you two magic brats know how much money you’ve cost us?”
The Rodian, Aige, had a hold on Quinlan. “And now is not a good time to be losing profits,” he said, shaking Quinlan by the arm. “You two are going to pay for this.”
The group of Controllers shoved them into a room.
“Scan them,” the woman said. “They must have had something if they called their friends to come rescue them.”
Obi-Wan winced and reached out a tendril of the Force to Quinlan. He felt for the worm in his ear, and gently, carefully, crushed it. Quinlan jumped a little, presumably at the pop or at a burst of static, but otherwise didn’t betray any surprise, even as the slavers got out a more advanced scanner and ran it over the two of them.
“Nothing,” Aige said. “They must have ditched it.”
“Stupid kids,” the woman said.
Obi-Wan smiled at her.
She scowled and waved a hand, sending some of the Controllers out the door, presumably to deal with whatever other issue they were having at the moment. That left Obi-Wan and Quinlan with a much more manageable number of slavers.
There were escape pods onboard; not enough for all the hostages but they would definitely be enough for two teenage boys.
“You want to let us go,” Obi-Wan said.
“What? No I—”
“You want to let us go,” Quinlan said.
“Oh,” Aige said, blinking. “I—”
“You want to let us go,” Obi-Wan said.
“We—” the woman said. Everyone’s eyes were glassy. The mind-trick wouldn’t last long, not with such a big group of strong-minded people, but if they could get out the door…
A warning, through the Force.
Obi-Wan spun to the doorway just in time to see a Hutt looming there. He should have known by the smell, honestly; a wave of stench hit, swamp-like and forbidding.
It was too late. The Hutt shot a blaster bolt and hit Quinlan in between the shoulderblades as he turned around to look. He went down. But no smell of burned flesh— he was just stunned.
Obi-Wan shoved out with the Force, and knocked the gun out of the Hutt’s hand. He bolted for Quinlan, trying to get him up and get his arm around his shoulders— to go where, he didn’t know.
The Hutt swung one meaty fist at Obi-Wan’s head.
He had just enough time to think oh, this is going to hurt before it connected with his head.
He was right. Obi-Wan hit the floor face-first. Sparks flashed in front of his eyes, and the world spun.
The decking jolted. They were going into hyperdrive— where they couldn’t be tracked.
The last thing Obi-Wan saw before he fully passed out was the stun blaster, pointed at him again.
Now that just seemed overkill.
Notes:
Chapter header from TCW - 3X19 Counterattack
Mando'a translations:
Shebs - butt
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
The young are often underestimated.
Quinlan woke up in a cage.
Unfortunately, he only figured this out because when he sat up really fast, he hit his head on the bars.
“Banthakarking, Sithspit—” he said, and cut himself off when he heard a little giggle.
He looked across from him. There was a little blue Twi’lek girl in a cage across the aisle. Her cage was the same size as his, but unlike Quinlan, she didn’t have to duck her head to fit completely inside. She wasn’t wearing a collar, but— Quinlan poked tentatively around his own neck— he was.
“Real funny, kid,” Quinlan said, rubbing his bruised head.
She giggled again. She was adorable, in a little-kid way, probably about three years old and definitely too young for a place like this.
“Aaylas’ecura,” she said.
“Um, hello to you too?” Quinlan said.
She pouted. “Aaylas’ ecura,” she said, pointing to herself.
“Oh,” Quinlan said. “Your name?”
She nodded excitedly.
“Quinlan Vos,” Quinlan said, pointing to his own chest. “Quinlanvos.”
She laughed again. “Quinlanvos,” she said. “Quinlanvos, friend.” She pointed a wiry little arm though the bars.
Quinlan followed her direction towards the cage next to him— “Kriff!” he said, lurching towards the bars. “Obi-Wan!”
Obi-Wan lay still on the other side.
“He live,” said the little girl. “They check when put him in.”
“Thanks, kid,” Quinlan said, pressing his shoulder against the bars and shoving his hand through, stretching out to his full length to shake Obi-Wan’s leg. “Hey, wake up, Kenobi. Obi-Wan.”
Obi-Wan didn’t stir, blood matted into his hairline. His ridiculously colorful padawan braid had come loose, and he was sporting the same stylish collar as Quinlan was. A Force-suppressor, guessing by the way the Force felt muffled and unpleasantly out of reach.
Quinlan hesitated before pulling off his glove and putting it on Obi-Wan’s ankle. Quinlan made it a point not to try to get in Obi-Wan’s head— that way lay madness. But they were both Force-suppressed, and it was worth a little risk.
Quinlan didn’t feel any psychometric pull, not even the low-level buzz of a shielded presence that touching Obi-Wan usually gave him. But he could feel a pulse, tapping steadily away in Obi-Wan’s ankle. Quinlan breathed a sigh of relief and pulled his glove back on.
“He’s lazy,” Quinlan told the little girl, letting his heart rate go back to normal. “Still sleeping.”
“Lay-see,” the girl repeated delightedly.
By the Force. She really was too young to be here. Quinlan leaned against the cold bars, trying and failing to make himself comfortable. “What about you, little one— are you okay? Is there someone coming after you?” She squinted at him, confused. “Parents?” he tried.
Her face fell and she shook her head, and said something in Ryl. Quinlan didn’t know what she had said, but he was guessing it wasn’t good.
“Sorry,” Quinlan said.
He looked around the room— really, the prison. There were about a half-dozen cages bolted into the floor, including the ones Quinlan, Obi-Wan, and Aaylas’ecura were in. The rest of them were empty, which was a relief. They’d gotten the prisoners off the slaver’s ship and into the hands of their masters. They’d be safe there.
There was a table bolted into the ground by the entrance, two chairs scattered around it. For bored guards to play cards on, probably. Just the one exit, sealed stubbornly shut. A general smell of unwashed, cooped-up bodies permeated the air. No one else was around, at least so far as Quinlan could tell without the Force. It was uncomfortably like being half blind, the world a little duller and a little bit colder.
Without much hope, Quinlan rattled the bars on his cage. They didn’t move.
He sighed.
Quinlan amused himself for the next little while making faces at the little girl, who made them back, her lekku twitching.
Eventually, Obi-Wan stirred.
Quinlan went to the bars separating their cages. ”It’s about time,” he said, forcing a grin. “We were just talking about how you’re missing all the fun.”
“Wha—?” Obi-Wan said blearily, his hand going to the Force suppressor. “Oh, always with the collars,” he muttered, sitting up much more slowly than Quinlan had and thus avoiding the head/cage collision.
“Hiya, Obi-Wan,” Quinlan said, relieved.
“Quinlan,” Obi-Wan said. “Are you all right?”
“Yup. And I even made a friend,” Quinlan said, gesturing at Aaylas’ecura, who looked a little shyer now.
“Oh, hello, Aayla,” Obi-Wan said absently, wiping his bloody head off with a sleeve.
“Can’t I introduce you to someone once?” Quinlan complained.
“Sorry,” Obi-Wan said, not without humor. He looked a little clearer now, surveying the room much as Quinlan had, eyes flickering from the exits to the other cages.
“How!” Aayla said, delighted and surprised at Obi-Wan already knowing her name.
“Jedee,” Obi-Wan said, which was not hard to figure out meant Jedi in Ryl.
She gasped, and pointed at Quinlan.
“Yeah, me too, kid,” Quinlan said. Her eyes widened, and she looked suitably impressed. “Don’t worry, we’ll rescue you.” She looked less convinced of this.
“Speaking of which,” Quinlan said, looking at Obi-Wan, “Any bright ideas, Wonderboy?”
Obi-Wan opened his mouth— at that exact moment, Aayla flattened herself against the back of her cage, not touching the bars, and the door slid open, admitting a Hutt and a contingent of bodyguards.
Quinlan almost gagged as the smell reached him, like nothing he’d ever smelled before.
It was a huge Hutt, the same one Quinlan had briefly glimpsed before his little trip into unconsciousness. None of the Controllers were with him, but the bodyguards looked more than capable.
Obi-Wan had folded himself into a meditation position. Quinlan stuck to lounging artfully.
“See, Vos,” Obi-Wan said, “I told you they didn’t forget about us.”
“When you’re right, you’re right, Kenobi,” Quinlan said. “I would have bet anything they were too busy eating bugs or whatever it is that slugs do.”
“Funny boys,” the Hutt said, in a booming, deep voice. “So funny, little Jedi boys.”
He slid his way over to them, leaving a trail of slime. “Do you like the collars? It’s lucky I had them lying around just for you. The last Jedi I had as a house guest didn’t last long.”
“It doesn’t go with the outfit,” Obi-Wan said.
The Hutt laughed. “I’m your gracious host, Jerga. You two boys cost me a lot of profit.”
“Oops, sorry about that,” Quinlan said. “Our bad.”
“Oh, don’t be sorry,” the Hutt said, reaching down to grab Quinlan’s face behind the bars, almost bruising his chin. This time Quinlan did gag. “You’re going to bring me more profits than I could have dreamed of. Two little Jedi… well, that will pay for a hundred more ships.”
Quinlan struggled against the surprisingly strong hand and managed to jerk back into the back of the cage.
“You intend to sell us,” Obi-Wan said.
“That’s what you do with slaves,” agreed Jerga. “It’s good timing, too. You’ll fetch a pretty price at auction. Especially this one— buyers like a little fire.” He poked at Obi-Wan, and yanked Obi-Wan’s braid until he was forced to come to the front of the cage, or risk having it pulled off. Obi-Wan scowled.
“Pick on someone your own size, you big slug,” Quinlan said, spitting mad now.
“No, Quinlan, don’t—” Obi-Wan said.
Jerga had produced a remote from somewhere. He pressed the button now, and the world erupted into pain.
Now Quinlan knew why Obi-Wan and Aayla had been staying away from the bars. They were electrified, arcing blue electricity off the metal and into Quinlan. Even as he jerked himself backwards, the floor zapped up and through him.
The electrocution stopped after a while. Quinlan’s teeth buzzed.
Obi-Wan was seething at the Hutt. “You can’t sell damaged goods,” he said, icy-cold, his accent even more proper Coruscanti than ever.
“Ha!” the Hutt said, and slammed an amused hand on Obi-Wan’s cage, rattling it. “Very smart. Not like the Controllers. The Controllers are not smart. They try to double-cross Jerga the Hutt. Not very smart. See you later.”
He oozed his way back over to the doors, slow and still stinking.
When the Hutt and his retinue were gone, Aayla said something in Ryl, sounding urgent.
“She wants to know if you’re all right,” Obi-Wan said.
“Just great,” Quinlan said, giving the little girl a thumbs up. “Gave me a nice energy boost. They pay a lot for that kind of thing on the Core.”
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, but his lips were pursed with amusement.
“Now what?” Quinlan asked.
“Now, I suppose,” Obi-Wan said, “We wait.”
“Oh, great,” Quinlan said. “Love it.”
It was lucky they had taken the ship the Temple had given them, which was a little bigger than Jango Fett’s starfighter. As it was, they were cramped.
Shmi and Qui-Gon wound their way through the cargo bay. Qui-Gon was, for the moment, useful for little more than being the pack eopie for the blankets Shmi was handing out to the refugees.
She took one off the stack and gave it to one of the refugees. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We don’t have time to take you somewhere else. We need to be ready to pick up the boys.”
“We understand,” said the refugee, a Twi’lek woman. “They saved us. We want to help too.” She had drawn the Mon Calamari boy close to her, and a Zabrak woman who couldn’t be more than twenty.
They passed out the rest of the blankets and retreated to the cockpit, where Jango and Tholme were frowning over the receiver for the tracking devices. Quinlan’s earpiece had gone completely offline shortly after they’d been recaptured, but Obi-Wan’s, smuggled away into someone’s pocket, was still running.
But they couldn’t track it until the other ship came out of hyperspace.
Shmi collected her son from his father, transferring over the sling Jango was wearing— looking incongruous over the armor— and the child at the same time.
“Any luck?” Qui-Gon asked, and Tholme shook his head.
“There are too many Hutt territories nearby— we’ll have no idea where they’re taking them until they get there,” Tholme said grimly. “And even then we’ll only know where the tracker is, not where they are.”
“Can you feel Quinlan?” Qui-Gon asked, and tried not to feel too selfish at his relief when Tholme shook his head. “They must be Force-suppressed, then.”
“Definitely,” Tholme said.
They could have gotten the padawans back in the first rout if the Hutts hadn’t shown up and started shooting. As it was the risk of letting the hostages fall back into the hands of slavers had been too great, even against Obi-Wan and Quinlan still left behind. The Hutt’s ship had been heavily equipped with weaponry, which they had not been shy about using.
The Hutts had come to pick up the Controllers at just the wrong moment.
“I’ll call some commandos,” Jango said. “They can pick up our strays while we chase after the boys.”
“Then all we can do is wait,” Qui-Gon said. He sat in one of the console chairs, and brought his legs up under him to meditate.
But he didn’t have to wait long before the console beeped, and they all hurried to gather around.
‘There it is,” Shmi said. She bounced the baby on her hip absently, and Anakin waved a hand through the holographic display. “They’ve landed. It’s a Hutt planet after all. Nar Hekka.”
Jango was already punching in the coordinates. “Won’t take us long to get there,” he said.
Qui-Gon still could not feel Obi-Wan through the Force.
“When we do get there, we’re going to need some kind of a plan. Slavers don’t mess around,” Tholme said.
“I was in favor of aggressive negotiations,” Qui-Gon said.
“A subtler approach might be better here, Master Jedi,” Shmi said, amused.
Kriff.
Obi-Wan, Quinlan, and Aayla amused themselves fo a while playing three-way telephone— Obi-Wan translating for the other two, interspersed with Aayla’s less-than-perfect Basic and Quinlan’s attempts at Ryl, as directed by Aayla. She had typically toddler phrases to teach them.
Quinlan had mastered ‘shiny’, ‘pretty kitty’, and was horribly mispronouncing ‘give me ice cream’ by the time they saw anyone else. It was a guard, carrying three trays of food.
He slid them apathetically in front of each cage.
“Thank you!” Obi-Wan called out politely to the guard’s retreating back.
The fare was predictably lean, a couple of protein cubes and a cup of stale-tasting water. “So much for damaged goods,” Quinlan said, rolling his eyes. He picked up the food with his fingers and started to eat. “If they wanted us fighting fit, they’d actually feed us enough.”
“Hutts are not known for their generosity,” Obi-Wan said. But he forced the food down too. That was the first rule of the field— eat when you can, because you don’t know where the next meal is coming from.
There was a licking noise. They looked across the way, and found Aayla already done eating and licking the plate. Obi-Wan and Quinlan exchanged looks
“I’m full,” Quinlan said. “Obi-Wan?”
“Stuffed.”
“Aayla?” Quinlan said, gathering the remains of their meals on one plate and turning it sideways so it would fit back through the bars. “Want the rest of ours?”
Aayla gave them a deeply suspicious look.
“It’s all right,” Quinlan said, with a laugh. “We had a big lunch before we came.” He slid the plate across the way. Aayla reached out and caught it, whip-quick, and pulled it through the bars of her cage. She ate it in a flash.
“ Arni’soyacho ,” she said shyly.
“You’re very welcome, little one,” Obi-Wan said. She tossed the plate back and Quinlan caught it, ensuring that their captors wouldn’t know what they’d done.
Obi-Wan sighed. This was not the worst situation he’d been in, but it certainly wasn’t the best. Judging by the smell of this place— thick and swampy— they were on a Hutt planet. Those were never pleasant, for living in or for continuing your state of being alive.
They had to wait a couple more hours— during which Quinlan got bored enough to teach Aayla a few rowdy drinking songs definitely not appropriate for younglings— before anyone else came.
It was a pair of Tantel guards, a common mercenary hire for Hutts, one of whom grunted at them. “Hands through the bars,” he said.
Obi-Wan and Quinlan complied, and the Tantel wrapped shackles around their wrists, then opened the doors, letting them out very cautiously.
“You too,” the other guard said, pointing his blaster at Aayla and unlocking her cage.
“Where are you taking us?” Obi-Wan asked. Surely they weren’t being sold already.
“Get moving,” the first Tantel said, clearly annoyed at being asked questions. He prodded Obi-Wan in the back with his blaster, and motioned for them to follow the other guard out the door while he took up the flank.
They went. Aayla stuck close to Quinlan’s side, quiet and almost unnoticeable. A good skill to have for someone in their position, and, Obi-Wan thought, there was a little more power behind it than just unobtrusiveness.
The building was very utilitarian— Obi-Wan doubted it had been built by the Hutts, who liked to win or buy or steal their lodgings rather than construct them themselves. Out in the hallway it was sticky-hot, air soupy and humid, especially the closer they got to a set of doors that Obi-Wan presumed led outside.
He got a pretty good look at the security along the way. It was tight, especially without the Force or a lightsaber to aid in an escape. Guards, holocams, blast doors that could come down with a touch of a button.
They stepped outside, into what looked like a private viewing box— over a slave arena. Obi-Wan stopped walking on reflex, only to be shoved forward again. He breathed out through his mouth, releasing fear and other emotions into the Force. This was not Zygerria. This was not Kedavo. Or Geonosis. He stepped forward.
This box afforded a good look out into the arena, shaded from the sun. Or not the sun— Obi-Wan looked up and was interested to note that they were in some kind of a biodome, obviously cultivated to be pleasant to Hutts and miserable to everyone else. He wondered what the atmosphere was like outside.
Inside it was almost marshy, with various swamp plants growing up the walls, up to the top of the open-air arena.
There were a couple people in this box. Jerga the Hutt, for a very noticeable one. He had a couple guards with him, and some scantily-dressed people accompanying him who could only be slaves.
One was a Togruta, little more than a girl, who was keeping Jerga misted with a fine spray of water. She gave them a pitying look. Another, a green Dubravan man, was dancing idly off to the side. A protocol droid was holding a tray of drinks.
Jerga laughed when he saw them. “Little Jeedai,” he said. “You have come just in time.” Though most Hutts Obi-Wan had met preferred to almost solely speak in Huttese, Jerga seemed to have more modern sensibilities than the rest. He reached up and pulled down a hovering droid, speaking into it. “Bring out the slaves!” he boomed across the arena, amplified by some mechanism in the droid.
A door opened on the bottom level and spat out a collection of prisoners, wearing a familiar uniform. The Controllers.
They stumbled out, looking the worse for wear and surrounded by more guards who held blasters or electro-whips.
“Start the bidding!” Jerga boomed.
This explained why Obi-Wan had never heard of the Controllers in his past life. The Hutts were not kind to their business competitors. As of now, the Controllers had been effectively wiped off the map. When the Hutts went for revenge, they got it. Obi-Wan felt, despite himself, sorry for them.
The Controllers were not prime targets for slavery, but that wasn’t really the purpose of this. Making a point was. They would probably be used for manual labor on some distant mine, or sweat away the days in workshops.
A guard flicked an electrowhip at one of the Controllers, and Obi-Wan winced.
“Don’t look,” Quinlan told Aayla quietly, drawing her into his side and turning her away from the scene below.
Bids came up on a screen projected over the arena— overlaid on top of video footage of the scowling prisoners, taken by camera droids. There were other boxes like this one scattered all around the arena, but from here, Obi-Wan couldn’t see who was in there. They must not have been on a planet with a native population, or at least not one that supported slavery, because Obi-Wan couldn’t hear the usual bloodthirsty roar of people there just to watch.
The group was sold. Jerga made a pleased noise and pulled down the droid once more, pressing a button and typing into a keyboard inside— transferring the slaves to their new owners.
They ushered the slaves out of the arena as quickly as they’d come.
“Don’t worry, Jeedai,” Jerga said. “You won’t be sold today. Big prizes like you need to go on the market first.”
He barked an order at the Tantel guards in Huttese, and they once again pushed and prodded Quinlan, Obi-Wan, and Aayla until they went where they wanted them to go. In this case it was a platform off the edge of the box, which went down and lowered them into the arena.
It was much brighter out here, and Obi-Wan had to blink a few times before his eyes adjusted enough to take another look around.
They were in the bottom part of the arena, almost totally flat except for a raised platform in the center, probably where slaves were displayed on the real auction days. Various suspicious stains dotted the dusty ground.
Up above were bleachers for a crowd, all empty, and more private boxes like the one they’d just left. From here Obi-Wan could see into them. They were full of Hutts.
A lot of Hutts, more than Obi-Wan had ever seen in one location at one time. They were crammed into their separate boxes, having brought their own retinues and guards and pleasure slaves.
Obi-Wan tilted his head, watching them.
More camera droids buzzed around their heads. Aayla pressed closer to Quinlan.
“Fine specimens!” Jerga boomed over the speakers. “Two little Jeedai, ripe for the taking! Young! Healthy! Tell your friends! The bidding will start at one million credits each!”
There was a buzz of interest from the stands. Quinlan scowled.
“And the little Twi’lek girl too,” Jerga added, almost as an afterthought. “Five thousand for her.”
Well, at the very least, it was nice to feel wanted.
Quinlan didn’t untense until they were brought back to the cages— home sweet home— and he was sure no one was going to be buying them today. Horror stories had been told in the Temple creches since the beginning of time about what happened to young Force sensitives who were caught out away from their Masters.
Or maybe they just told those stories to Quinlan to stop him from sneaking out and causing so much trouble.
Two more meals came— not, Quinlan thought, necessarily at mealtimes, especially judging by how hungry Quinlan was at each one.
“My name is Quinlan, ” Quinlan said in Ryl, pronunciation intentionally a little bit off so that Aayla would laugh. She did, hiding it behind a hand.
“My name is Quinlan,” she corrected.
“No, I’m Quinlan,” he said, and she laughed again. Obi-Wan let out an amused huff too.
“Silly,” Aayla said. Quinlan had the feeling that when they got out of this, Aayla was going to come out having learned more Basic than Quinlan had Ryl. Hopefully they could just get her back to her family, but considering neither she nor Obi-Wan ever mentioned them, it might be a lost cause.
Eventually Aayla got bored and curled up to go to sleep.
Quinlan and Obi-Wan gathered close to the edges of their own cages to talk. “Don’t you think it’s strange how many Hutts there were?” Obi-Wan asked.
“Not really,” Quinlan said. “But then I don’t know much about Hutts in general.”
“They’re gathered here for something special,” Obi-Wan said.
“Us?” Quinlan asked, but even as he said it he knew it wasn’t right. “Well, they couldn’t get here this fast. So something else then.” It was frustrating not having the Force to guide him, to supplement his own instincts.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan said. “Only I don’t know what.”
“There must be other slaves on this planet,” Quinlan said. “Or else they would have taken us somewhere else— they only would have wanted to come here if it was already convenient for them.”
“We’re not going to figure it out from in here,” Obi-Wan said sullenly, tugging at the collar around his neck.
“I’m with you,” Quinlan said. “I’m all in for escaping this place as soon as possible. But, you know… how?”
Obi-Wan blinked at him, before seemingly realizing this was not a hypothetical question. “My capacities of seeing the future are greatly reduced,” he said.
“In other words, you don’t know.”
“In other words, I don’t know,” Obi-Wan confirmed with a sigh. “But I do know this— it starts with taking these kriffing collars off.”
“Bright ideas?”
“Trust in the will of the Force, young padawan,” Obi-Wan said. Quinlan snorted.
Aayla bounced back to consciousness, drawing again away from the front of the bars, just as they heard the doors open once more and people come through them.
It was the same Tantel guards from before, the guys with the tusk-y helmets, but this time one of them had his off, and was holding it at his side. It was a human man, and it looked like he had recently run a comb through his thinning hair— trying to impress whoever the guest was. The other guard took up post, almost nervously, at the door.
Their guest was another human with slick black hair and a rounded scar under one eye. He looked vaguely familiar.
Quinlan looked at Obi-Wan, just in time to see him quashing a smile.
“That’s them,” said the Tantel, standing up as straight as he could, trying to look impressive.
“Hmm,” said the newcomer. His clothes were obviously expensive and spotless. Definitely not a Jedi. “They don’t look like much, do they?”
The Tantel shrugged. “They say they put up a pretty good fight when they brought them in.”
“Indeed,” the newcomer said, and crouched down so he was at the level of the cages; specifically, in front of Obi-Wan’s. “They’re damaged.”
“Not much,” the Tantel protested. “Too valuable to let die.”
“Of course,” said the other man with a polite but somehow cutting smile. He eyed Quinlan, then Obi-Wan closely. “I’ve never met a Jedi before.”
“Maybe they’ve been avoiding you,” Obi-Wan suggested sweetly. “After all, with looks like that, you could scare off a gundark.”
The man reached out, lightning-quick, and grabbed hold of the front of Obi-Wan’s tunics. He dragged Obi-Wan up to the front of the cage so they were face-to-face.
“Brat,” the man growled.
“Can you find out who has the keys to our collars?” Obi-Wan said softly, apparently unbothered by this. It was quiet enough that Quinlan could barely hear it and there was no way the guard did— definitely the point.
The man dropped him again and stood up, brushing imaginary dirt off his pants. “Thank you for allowing me in to see them early,” he said, and dropped a few credits into the Tantel’s hand. “I may end up watching the auction after all. This was certainly interesting.”
“Our pleasure, sir!” the Tantel said, practically drooling over the coin. “Anything for such a distinguished gentleman as yourself.”
“Mm-hmm,” the man said. “By the way, if I buy them, I don’t have to keep the collars, do I?”
“Well, no,” he said. “But it’s recommended. Like I said, these little Jedi can put up a hell of a fight—”
“Can they be removed or not?”
“Oh, yes sir!” the Tantel nodded eagerly. “In fact, Jerga has trusted me personally with the key. It would transfer ownership to you, of course, after the auction.”
“Very interesting,” the man said, but he didn’t look like he thought it was interesting. He looked bored. “I’m done here.”
The two guards rushed to walk him out, probably partially to impress him and partially because they took a bribe to let him back early and didn’t want to get caught.
Quinlan waited for them to leave, then raised an eyebrow at Obi-Wan.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Obi-Wan said. “Aayla, darling, how would you feel about helping us out?”
Notes:
Chapter header from TCW - 5X07 A Test Of Strength
Ryl translations:
Arni’soyacho - thank you very muchThere's no canonical Ryl word for Jedi! I made this one up, because most of the words we see for Jedi end up looking or sounding a lot like Jedi anyway, so I figured Jedee makes sense. Did I spend too long thinking about this? Yes.
Huttese translations:
Jeedai - JediThank you for reading! <3
Chapter Text
Disobedience is a demand for change.
A dark-clad figure stalked up the ramp of the Jedi ship.
His Force signature wasn’t exactly dark, but it certainly wasn’t light either.
“Xanatos,” Qui-Gon said.
“Qui-Gon,” Xanatos said, and sat down without being invited. He tossed a datapad onto the surface of the table, completely ignoring Tholme glaring at him from the other side of the booth.
No one in this arrangement was completely comfortable with it— Xanatos having betrayed the Jedi and attempted to murder both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon on Bandomeer— but it really was their only option on such short notice.
“Found them,” Xanatos said lazily, putting his boots up on the bench. “Seem fine, more or less.”
“Less?” Qui-Gon asked warily, picking up the datapad. On it was pictures of both Obi-Wan and Quinlan, alive and mostly intact. It was promotional in nature— advertising their sale. They squinted into the sunlight, and both looked a little tired and sore. Obi-Wan’s head had obviously been bleeding at one point, but it was dried by now.
Qui-Gon breathed a sigh of relief and handed the datapad to Tholme so he could see the same.
Jango came in from the cockpit. “Get your feet off the chair,” he said, and Xanatos’ feet thumped to the ground before he could apparently consciously think of doing it. He glared at Jango, and Qui-Gon tried not to smile. “Where did you get this?”
“Invite-only auction, to prevent people like, well, you guys from crashing it. It’s set to be a big one— the possibility of two Force-sensitives is generating even more interest.” Xanatos again ignored Tholme’s nasty look. “What? When you get rich enough you start getting invites to things. It’s not my fault if the Jedi are too boring to get party invitations.”
“This is not a party,” Shmi said, also coming out of the cockpit. She didn’t have her child with her— Qui-Gon assumed that their assurances that Xanatos probably wouldn’t kill them weren’t enough for her, for some reason. “What about the worm?”
Jango shook his head. “That went out when the Controllers were sold. Either they found it or she lost it somewhere along the way.” Or something worse had happened to the woman Obi-Wan had planted the bug on. Considering the situation she was in— well, it probably wasn't good.
“Buying them back is very last-resort,” Qui-Gon said. He was trying not to read too much into the fact that Xanatos was helping them. He had always believed that Xanatos still had good in him, or maybe he had just wanted to believe it. But Xanatos had helped them against Palpatine, and had stayed quiet about any trouble he was causing since then.
Qui-Gon thought that his ex-padawan had a soft spot for Qui-Gon’s current padawan. He had agreed readily enough to come assist them, though not without gloating and demanding payment. In this case, the payment was that he be cleared of his crimes against the Jedi from a few years past.
“Agreed,” Tholme said. “But then the question becomes— how do we get them out?”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” Xanatos said. “I think Kenobi, as usual, has something up his sleeve.”
Aayla was already too canny for her own good.
“If I help,” she said, “What do I get?”
“Um,” Obi-Wan said, patting his pockets. “Oh! Rrdush candy?”
Aayla considered this, and found it acceptable. She held out a hand, and Obi-Wan tossed the candy Jango had given him over to her. Aayla grinned. Obi-Wan got the distinct sense that he was a sucker.
“How is she going to help?” Quinlan asked.
“You’ll see,” Obi-Wan said. “Aayla can do her part. We must do ours.”
It was a simple enough plan— or, well, at least mostly. Aayla was, after all, only three. But she was smart, and too world-weary, and Obi-Wan had seen how quick her reflexes were, how she sometimes knew things were going to happen. She was already growing into the woman she would be.
The next time the guards came in with food, they struck.
“Aww, it’s okay,” Obi-Wan said, craned awkwardly so he could pat Quinlan’s back through the cages. Quinlan was crying, great big sobs that Obi-Wan personally thought were a little over the top. “We’re gonna be fine.”
The guards, who had so far only experienced snarking and swearing when they came in, looked a little uncomfortable. “What’s wrong with him?” asked the one who’d taken off his helmet earlier.
“What if we neh- ever get to go home?” Quinlan said, scrunching up his face so that he would cry harder. It was starting to look a little bit painful.
“He’s scared,” Obi-Wan said, glaring at the guard. They had this one’s attention, but the other was still keeping an eye on the surroundings, staying alert. In other words, doing his job. They couldn’t have that. “Don’t you have any sympathy at all?”
Obi-Wan made his own lip start trembling. The guard started to look like this was way above his pay grade.
“Stop it,” the guard said, kicking at the cage. The other one glanced over. “Stop crying.”
Obi-Wan let just one tear fall. He was nailing this, unlike Quinlan, who in the spirit of one-upmanship curled up on his side and started to cry harder. He was going to get dehydrated.
The other one was still not sufficiently distracted, but he was looking over. He looked annoyed that these kids they’d kidnapped would dare to have emotions about it. Obi-Wan looked him in the eye.
“You,” he said.
There were a lot of misconceptions about Jedi around the galaxy. People feared them, thought that they could do all sorts of magics and mystical things. Especially people with a guilty conscience. When someone was not a good person, they feared someone looking into their soul.
“I curse you,” Obi-Wan said, channeling Ventress, her sisters, all the spooky creatures he’d encountered. “For your crimes, I curse you, with the worst of the Jedi curses.”
Both Tantels were distracted.
Aayla, bouncing at the corner of her cage, reached out a hand and pulled the keys from the first guard’s pocket, face scrunched in concentration. They floated across the room, inch by inch, and into Aayla’s hand.
“May you never know peace,” Obi-Wan said.
“Kriff it!” the guard said, tossing the food down towards the cages and already turning for the door. “Let’s get out of here!”
His friend clearly agreed; they turned tail and fled.
Obi-Wan sat back, satisfied.
“Why am I always the last to know stuff!” Quinlan said, when they were gone. “You never told me you were Force-sensitive, kid!”
Aayla grinned at him.
“She’s not that powerful yet,” Obi-Wan said. “But haven’t you noticed that the guards don’t really pay attention to her unless they have to? That they let Aayla go around with us instead of leaving her alone in the dark?”
“Not all of us can see the future,” Quinlan grumbled, and held out his hands for the keys. Aayla, showing off now, hovered them over to him. “Very cute, very cute,” Quinlan said.
Quinlan unlocked his collar and breathed a sigh of relief before passing the keys over to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan unfastened his own collar and felt the Force rushing back at him, swirling happily around his fingers, though his lungs.
He smiled.
The keys to the actual cells were elsewhere. They could break the locks fairly easily with the Force if they so wanted, but it wouldn’t exactly be subtle.
“Come here, Quinlan, time for part two,” Obi-Wan said.
“Ugh,” Quinlan said, but he came over to the edge of his cage so that Obi-Wan could reach him through the bars. “You’re lucky I trust you, Kenobi.”
“Aayla, keep a lookout, please?” Obi-Wan asked. She gave him a thumbs-up.
Obi-Wan put his hand on Quinlan’s neck, and drew the deactivated worm out of his ear, cupping it gently with the Force until it dropped into his hand. It was still broken from Obi-Wan’s impromptu crushing earlier. Obi-Wan healed the cut behind Qunlan’s ear.
“Can you fix it?” Quinlan asked.
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan said. “I’ll try.”
“Do or do not,” Quinlan said, and Obi-Wan pinched him.
Obi-Wan was fairly good with mechanics, though of course compared to Anakin he knew practically nothing. It took a little while, especially with no tools to work with, but eventually he managed to make the worm spark and let out a little hiss of static.
He and Quinlan crowded close so they could both hear anything that came out of it.
“Master?” Obi-Wan said, adjusting some of the loose wires. “Master, come in, are you there?”
Static, for a moment. Then; “Obi-Wan? Quinlan?”
They grinned at each other. “We’re here,” Quinlan said. “Just checking in to make sure you old people are all right. We’re good, of course.”
“Of course,” Tholme said, crackling along the line. “How— tracker—?”
“It still needs some fiddling,” Obi-Wan said, frowning. “I don’t know how long the connection will last.”
“—working on getting you out,” Qui-Gon said. “Are you safe at the moment?”
“Define safe,” Quinlan said.
“We’re fine,” Obi-Wan said.
“—best time to—” Jango said, still flickering in and out of hearing. “Not sure of your situation— Auction?”
“You’re in contact with Xanatos, I assume,” Obi-Wan asked. “He’ll know when the slave auction is. That will be our best time to strike.”
The security on the facility itself was just too good. Maybe if Obi-Wan and Quinlan had their lightsabers, and no prisoners to worry about, and were fighting droids instead of people. But without that, it was just too dangerous. At the slave auction, there would be opportunities to escape with everyone intact— the guards would be distracted, and the open air of the arena, as proved on Geonosis, could be a downfall in terms of security. Anyone could come in from above.
“We’ll need a better plan than that,” Quinlan said, so they made one. It was difficult with both sides only able to hear about fifty percent of what the other side was saying, but both sets of masters and padawans knew each other very well, and they knew how each other worked. They managed to hash out most of a plan before the worm fritzed out and could not be coaxed back to life.
And for the rest— well, they’d improvise. That was half the fun anyway.
First step was finding out where the other slaves were kept. This would be fairly easy now that they had the stupid collars off, but that didn’t mean if would be comfortable.
“I don’t suppose you have any brighter ideas?” Quinaln asked Aayla. She considered this, eating her candy.
“No,” she said.
“And there we have it,” Obi-Wan said.
“Who can argue with that?” Quinlan said. Now that the Force was back, he was being very careful not to touch the bars or anything else with his bare hands. Even with the gloves on he could feel pain and misery buzzing, echoing in the Force. “Let’s do it.”
They hid the keys and the deactivated bug once more, in case they were searched, which Quinlan guessed they probably wouldn’t be. They’d found the vibroknife he always kept in his boot when they’d taken them in the first time, and had seemed satisfied with the quality of their service since then.
Idiots.
“Okay, do it,” Quinlan said, resigned, putting his arms over his head to protect his dreads the best he could.
Obi-Wan reached up at the ceiling and used the Force to yank downwards. Approximately all the sprinkler pipes broke at once, drenching them in water. Aayla shrieked, half delighted and half surprised.
When the guards came in, all three of them were sitting in the water, which was an inch or so off the floor now.
“Oh gods,” one of the guards said, “We really are cursed.”
They got taken to a different room while a cadre of confused repair droids got sent into their previous lodgings. They wore the collars around their necks still, deactivated, which was almost as uncomfortable as before.
They got taken to a room that was a lot bigger and fuller than the other one. There had to be at least a hundred miserable people crammed into cages, most of whom flinched when the guards walked in.
“Get in,” said one of the Tantels, directing Obi-Wan and Quinlan towards one cage and Aayla towards another.
“She can stay with us,” Quinlan said hurriedly, infusing his voice with a Force compulsion. The guard shrugged and prodded all three of them into one of the little cages.
“This is cozy,” Obi-Wan said dryly.
“This is your fault,” Quinlan said.
Obi-Wan shot him an innocent look. Even leaning on opposite sides of the cage their legs were all tangled up around each other, not to mention their little Twi’lek friend. Quinlan imagined it was as uncomfortable for the others, packed in as much or more as them.
“How is Aayla?” Quinlan asked, in probably terrible Ryl. “Aayla okay?”
“Yes!” Aayla said. “Exciting.”
“All right,” Quinlan said, grinning at her.
“Hello there,” Obi-Wan said, looking through the bars at their next-door neighbor. Quinlan looked; it was the Togruta who had been serving the Hutt when they were brought out into the arena. She was young, but her Force-presence was already sad and weary. This was not her first stint as a slave.
“The Jedi,” she said, half a greeting and half an acknowledgement.
“That’s us,” Obi-Wan said. “Obi-Wan, Quinlan, and that’s little Aayla.”
“Myrgan,” said the Togruta. “But don’t get attached. After the auction, none of us will ever be seeing each other again.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Quinlan said cheerfully. “You’ve just got to have a little hope.”
“The slave markets are where hope comes to die,” Myrgan said. She rolled over, hunched into two other women who were already asleep. “Take your peace now while you can. You’ll not find it again.”
“ Take your peace,” Obi-Wan said. “A good phrasing. How would you like to fight for it?”
That got Myrgan to sit up again. “That sounds like an oxymoron,” she said warily.
“It also sounds like a lot of fun,” Obi-Wan said. “Doesn’t it?”
Slowly, reluctantly, Myrgan smiled.
They spent a restless night among the slaves. Aayla helped Quinlan wring out some of his hair, and then she fell asleep, half on his lap due to the lack of space. She was too skinny, but her warmth and weight was nice, not to mention the implicit sense of trust. Now that the collar was off, Quinlan could get a faint feeling of the Force running through her.
Quinlan took over watch from Obi-Wan halfway through the night after Obi-Wan nudged him awake with a foot. He grumbled, but woke, and spent the rest of the night— he was pretty sure Obi-Wan had stayed up longer than he should have— staring at the walls and listening to the other prisoners breathe.
But morning came eventually, and the guards came back.
“Rise and shine!” they said, hammering at the cages with the butt-end of their blasters. Quinlan grumbled, but followed docilely enough when they started lining up outside the cages.
They started grouping them; different lots to be sold. How many sellers were there exactly? This was going to be a much bigger sale than yesterday.
Quinlan, Obi-Wan, and Aayla got pulled along with their own Hutt’s group, back out and into the arena. It was bright and miserable, especially with everyone else cramped into it now too.
Quinlan looked up. Jerga’s box was still where it had been, with Myrgan lounging in front of Jerga, watching the arena with sharp eyes, and various serving droids and slaves milling around.
The other boxes were all full too, mostly with Hutts. But there were others; rich people, dressed fancily. In one was Xanatos— who Quinlan recognized now even though he didn’t understand why he was working with them— flanked by a slim Tantel guard, helmet obscuring their face.
Most of the slaves were cowering in various groups around the arena, some shackled but mostly just kept docile by the looming guards and the impossibility of escape. They all looked hungry, beaten, but— the thing that the slavers didn’t seem to notice— hopeful.
Jerga let the hovering droid cover his mouth so he could project across the whole space. “Lllllleeet the auction… beeegin!”
The crowd roared.
It was a little intimidating. Obi-Wan, of course, looked as if this was a perfectly regular day. He had his head tilted, listening to the Force. Timing would be important on this one.
It seemed like Quinlan and Obi-Wan were set to be the showpieces for the auction— which made sense. Quinlan was a star anywhere he went. They were up first.
Guards pushed them into the center of the arena, where someone had brought in a platform raised above the rest of the slaves; almost a stage.
“First lot up for bidding is verrry special today!” Jerga said. “Two youngling Jeedai! On special sale!” Droids hovered around their heads, projecting video of them from all angles up on big screens at the side of the arena.
So the cameras caught it when both of them smirked at the exact same time.
An audible sound of confusion went over the crowd. Quinlan grinned outright.
Up in one of the boxes, a figure shed her helmet and pulled out a weapon. Down on the ground, one of the guards turned and punched out the other. Obi-Wan and Quinlan dropped their collars.
And up in Jerga’s box, things seemed to be going awry for the Hutt. The green-skinned man was struggling with a guard. Myrgan had gotten up, no longer laying on the floor but at her whole height, snatching at the vulture droid— the one with control of all the slave chips.
She freed them all at once.
Obi-Wan moved to the side and caught his lightsaber without looking; Quinlan looked back and found Qui-Gon Jinn pulling off another guard helmet and tossing Quinlan’s saber over.
“Get them!” shrieked a Hutt in another box.
Quinlan ignited his lightsaber at the same time as Obi-Wan and Master Jinn, and, up in the stands, Xanatos turned on his saber as well, lighting himself and Shmi, still dressed as a Tantel, in red.
The Jedi turned and whirled in time to catch several blaster bolts and deflect them directly back at the offenders. Xanatos jumped showily out of the box and into a neighboring one, running several armed mercenaries through. Shmi had a grappling hook gun— Mandalorians — and she shot off across the arena to do much the same thing with her blaster.
Quinlan jumped several feet in the air, and landed in front of some of the former slaves. “I’m sure you felt it, but that little pop in your necks was all of your chips deactivating, permanently,” he said. “Do you want to help?” He used the Force and called several guns, the owners of which who would no longer be needing them, to the ground at his feet. “If so, this is for you.”
“It’s true!” said a slave, “You’ve come to save us!”
“Actually,” Quinlan said, “I think you’ll come to find that you’re freeing yourselves.”
Indeed, even as Obi-Wan ran sideways up a wall and sliced the barrels off several blasters without even looking, and Master Jinn gave out several more weapons, the slaves were getting to work.
Quinlan watched half in horror and half in awe as Myrgan, the green-skinned man, and a few other slaves absolutely decimated Jerga. There were no weapons up there, which didn’t seem to be bothering them any. They had broken several of the delicate little wine and cocktail glasses, and were using them to stab Jerga, over and over.
Myrgan, face covered in thick, greenish Hutt blood, raised her arms with a scream of triumph and completely severed one of Jerga’s hands from his body.
Quinlan decided to look elsewhere.
The slaves, growing bolder, were starting to do most of the work for them. Spectators were running for it, but slaves caught them by the ankles and hit them or scratched or punched them.
A Hutt shouted something in Huttese, and a Trandoshan mercenary gathered up a rocket launcher and aimed it. Quinlan was too far away to do anything about it, but—
Out of the sky swooped Jango, on a jetpack, and Quinlan’s own Master Tholme, looking like he was having considerably less fun as Jango held him aloft. Jango let Tholme go, and he rolled with the fall, landing in front of the rocket launcher and springing to his feet.
He kicked the Trandoshan in the chest, then spun and stuck his lightsaber down the barrel of the launcher, completely destroying it. Then he deactivated his saber and used the hilt of it to knock the Trandoshan out.
Quinlan was already more or less there; with a Force-assisted jump, he leapt up next to his Master. “About time,” he said.
“Padawan,” Master Tholme said. “Remind me to look up the rules and regulations on permanently grounding an apprentice to the Temple when we get back.”
“Sorry, Master,” Quinlan said. “If I look at the rules for too long I get hives. Maybe ask Obi-Wan.”
Tholme laughed, big and booming.
They moved as one, taking down the slavers— nonlethally when they could. For the most part they ignored the Hutts, who by and large weren’t armed and were very slow. And Quinlan didn’t really want to get in the way of the slaves, who had taken their freedom and run with it. They did not seem to have any lingering good feelings towards the Hutts.
Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were a similar whirl of blue and green sabers, in step and deadly as they moved. Kenobi was always good with a partner. Quinlan didn’t know why.
Xanatos swept almost lazily through the arena— but he was helping. Quinlan moved to block a blaster bolt coming for Shmi, and she returned the favor by shooting a mercenary off Quinlan’s shoulder.
He heard a familiar voice— Aayla. She was shouting in Ryl; swearing, he was pretty sure. She was also biting a slaver repeatedly on the hand as he tried to pick her up and back away from the fight, trying to get his profits and get out while he could.
Quinlan leapt down and used the Force to pull her out of his arms, into his.
“Fun!” Aayla said, then Quinlan could feel her poking around the edge of his Force signature, trying to get a feel for what he had done. Then, to Quinlan’s utter amusement, she got it, and used it immediately to push out and trip the slaver’s feet out from under him.
“All right!” Quinlan said, and they high fived. He put her back down on the ground, but she didn’t run away towards the safety of the other slaves— the ones who couldn’t or weren’t fighting, huddled in a corner and well protected. Instead, she clung to Quinlan’s pant leg.
Quinlan spun his lightsaber and looked for another opponent, only to find that there were none. They’d won.
The remaining bad guys had, smartly in Quinlan’s opinion, decided to surrender. Others had run away, and some had even made it.
“Well, how ‘bout that?” Quinlan said.
“That,” Shmi said, “Was very therapeutic.”
Notes:
Chapter header from TCW - 5X05 Tipping Points
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter Text
Adaptation is the key to survival.
It was almost too easy. All that was left was the cleanup, which was better than the battle any day.
Shmi had handed Anakin over to Obi-Wan— a show of trust Obi-Wan doubted anyone but he and Shmi understood the significance of— while she helped coordinate with the slaves. Qui-Gon and Tholme went in for what was bound to be a very awkward holocall with the Council.
Obi-Wan assisted with the injured, bouncing Anakin in the birikad, strapped to his front. Anakin was docile and sweet, despite the less than hospitable environment. Obi-Wan crouched to examine a slave who had taken an injury; a long cut up her arm.
“Not fatal,” Obi-Wan told her, giving her a reassuring smile. “You’ll be all right. Wait over there, please.”
Triage came almost naturally to Obi-Wan, as a man who had been on both ends of it many a time.
Two Twi’leks, an adult and a youngling, approached Obi-Wan next. They looked similar enough that Obi-Wan thought they were probably related. A happy incidence, then, that they had been found now. A few more days and they probably never would have seen each other again.
“He got trampled, in the fighting,” the older said, anxiety in his eyes.
“May I?” Obi-Wan asked, still crouched. Anakin was a comfortable weight on his chest, and didn’t stir, letting Obi-Wan have his hands free. The youngling nodded warily. He gently probed along the child’s wrist, first with his fingers then with the Force. “Broken,” he said, then repeated it in Ryl. “Hurts?”
The child nodded, lip wobbling.
“Let’s see what we can do about that, then, yes?” Obi-Wan asked. Gently, he held the broken wrist and wrapped the Force around it, dulling the pain and snapping the bone into place all at once. His Healer’s skills were coming in handy.
The child’s eyes widened, and so did the other Twi’lek’s. “Thank you,” said the youngling, then the older. “Thank you.”
Obi-Wan waved them off, embarrassed. He stood, cupping Anakin’s head, and turned to the next round of triage. He directed a sprained ankle to low priority and a slightly more serious concussion over to immediate treatment.
Some of the slaves had medical experience; folk medicine, developed for helping people as quickly and inexpensively and unobtrusively as they could. Obi-Wan could bet that he could learn more from them than he could in a couple years at the Temple.
“You shouldn’t be expending the Force so easily,” Qui-Gon said, coming up behind him. “Not after so long being cut off.”
“I won’t overextend,” Obi-Wan said. “I know my limits.”
The slaves from the first trip, the “guests'' of the Controllers, had set down by now too. They were helping where they could, bandaging wounds or keeping watch over the captured slavers and hired guns.
Qui-Gon gave him a doubting look, but let it lie. “Hello, Anakin,” he greeted.
Anakin gave him a cheerful look and a nonsensical babble in return.
“Indeed,” Obi-Wan said, as if agreeing with him. “How did it go?”
“Well, technically, we didn’t interfere. The slaves more or less did this on their own, and we merely helped out in order to rescue our padawans,” Qui-Gon said. “Not to mention that now the slaves
and
the Mandalorians have now actually requested our help on this. What kind of Jedi would we be if we didn’t help?”
“They bought that?”
“Not at all,” Qui-Gon said.
Obi-Wan grinned. “Did you get permission to arrest the Hutt syndicate? We have pretty good evidence that they were breaking Republic laws in Republic space.”
“These ones, yes,” Qui-Gon said. “Not the ones on Nal Hutta or any of the other Hutt worlds. Though the Senate is not happy about even this.”
“I’ll bet.” More planets than cared to admit it relied on the Hutts to stimulate the economics of their planets without Republic control. Things had gotten better since Palpatine had been very thoroughly removed from office, but politicians could always be counted on to be politicians.
“The audio from the worm you slipped into one of the Controllers’ pockets helped too,” Qui-Gon said. “Evidence enough of their atrocities.”
Obi-Wan perked up. “You got useable audio?”
“Yes,” Qui-Gon said. “Actually, Tholme and I were just going over the recording— I had hoped to get you or Shmi to translate this.” He dug in the pockets of his robe and found a small recording device.
Obi-Wan bounced Anakin idly up and down as they listened.
At first it was typical posturing threats from Jerga and a few other Hutts— one of which, Obi-Wan was fairly sure, was Jabba. His nose crinkled with distaste. The female Controller clearly understood Huttese, but like a lot of people preferred not to speak it. The Hutts almost all understood Basic anyway, and they just liked making people translate for them as a power play.
“Mama won’t be happy about this,” said one of the Hutts. “She doesn’t want us bringing attention to the Summit.” Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. That sounded promising.
“What’s the point of leaving home if we’re not going to make a profit off it?” another Hutt grumbled.
“We’ll do a quiet auction,” said another. “Just for a couple credits. Just to make the trip worth it.”
Hutts were, if nothing else, eminently predictable.
“What are they saying?” Qui-Gon asked.
Obi-Wan frowned. “Can you get Shmi over here?”
While Qui-Gon waved her over, Obi-Wan listened to the recording, tilting his head.
“ We’ll sell the upstarts, then get the rest of the cargo gone,” Jerga said.
“No!” the Controller burst out in Basic, this apparently being too much for her. This was probably what had interested Tholme and Qui-Gon in the first place, as opposed to the minutes of Huttese that they couldn’t understand. “Look, I’m useful! I can fight! You don’t have to get rid of me. I could be a good bodyguard! A hired hand!”
The Hutts laughed.
In real life, Shmi approached. She didn’t ask for Anakin back— another show of trust. Instead she just patted his head. “What is it?”
“Do you recognize what this is?” Obi-Wan asked, scrolling through the recording. “I know the word, but not in this context.”
He played the clip again— the Hutts talking about something called the Summit. Shmi’s eyes widened. She uttered a soft oath.
“The Summit,” she said. “The Hutt Business Summit.”
Obi-Wan started to grin.
“And what’s that?” Qui-Gon asked.
“It’s a very rare event,” Shmi said thoughtfully. “Not more than once every few years. It is when the Hutt families gather to break bread, count up recent profits, and resolve any leadership disputes. All slaves know of it— it is usually a holiday on slave worlds. Even the cruellest master usually tightens their grip once the Hutts are gone.”
“And it’s here,” Obi-Wan said, almost bouncing now. Anakin picked up on his excitement and started waving his hands and babbling.
“Why’s that good?” Qui-Gon asked.
Shmi had a hand over her mouth to cover the slowly growing smile on her own face. “The Senate would never go after all the Hutts at once. Too much political and economic power, not to mention the sheer logistics—”
“You’re right,” Obi-Wan said. “We’d never get permission for that. But what we do have is permission to arrest every Hutt on this planet.”
“We could take out most of the galaxy’s slavery operations in one swoop,” Shmi said, awed.
“Just so long as they don’t get away,” Qui-Gon said.
“I think that can be arranged,” Obi-Wan said.
Qui-Gon’s comm beeped. He answered it, and Xanatos popped up over the device, flickering blue. “You were right, a few Hutts got away,” he said. “I found them. They’re getting on a sail barge right now.”
Shmi and Obi-Wan exchanged looks. Without a word, she started helping him wrestle out of Anakin’s baby harness, transferring him smoothly over to Shmi.
“Where?” Qui-Gon asked.
“There’s a hangar down here,” Xanatos said. Qui-Gon looked to Obi-Wan, who nodded. He had been in enough bases to know where the hangar would probably be— a place where ships could take off, especially something as big as a sail barge, slightly underground but opened up to a clear shot for space— yes, Obi-Wan had seen a door on their way through the facility that would probably lead them there.
“All right. We’ll be right there,” Qui-Gon said.
Obi-Wan leaned into field of the hologram. “Get a speeder warmed up for us.”
“Yes sir,” Xanatos said dryly.
Qui-Gon shut off the comm.
“Go,” Shmi said.
Obi-Wan and his master took off in a blur. Traversing the facility was much easier now that the former slaves had cleared out all the bad guys and liberally destroyed almost everything they could see.
Obi-Wan had been right about the hangar bay. It was easy enough to find, and they got there just in time to see the Hutt’s sail barge taking off into the distance.
Xanatos pulled up next to them in an open-air speeder. “What now?” he said.
“Let me drive!” Obi-Wan said, clambering over him into the seat.
“Force, kid, manners,” Xanatos said, being jostled into the backseat as Qui-Gon got into the passenger. “Where are we goi— kriiiiff—”
Obi-Wan shot the speeder forward at full speed.
Hutt sail barges were popular sources of on-planet transportation for the Hutts and whatever slaves or servants they decided to bring along. They were big hulking things but surprisingly fast, which meant if they let it get too far away they could lose them.
And the Hutts, being smart business-wise but having few other priorities quite like keeping themselves safe, would be making a beeline to the closest safe haven. In this case, it would be where all the Hutt elders had holed up. The matriarchs and patriarchs of the Hutts were usually too big and too venerable to move about. If they were anywhere, they would be keeping themselves safe somewhere with a lot of food and far away from their offspring.
“Slow down,” Xanatos said, and Obi-Wan noticed that even Qui-Gon was looking quite pale.
“I know what I’m doing,” Obi-Wan said, affronted, taking the speeder towards the sight of the barge in the distance. “We can’t lose them.”
“Yes, we have to stop them from leaving the planet, but we can’t if we die—” Qui-Gon said, his knuckles white where they gripped the side of the speeder.
Obi-Wan was starting to sympathize with Anakin Skywalker, something he tried not to do if at all possible. Really, if they were going to complain about a little flying, which wasn’t even that crazy to begin with— Obi-Wan swerved around a column on a hairpin turn— they just as well might not have come. At least when Obi-Wan scolded his padawan for flying crazy, it was because he was flying them through electrical couplings or leaping from the speeder in mid-air.
“Don’t be fussy,” Obi-Wan said. “Oh, hold onto something, we’re about to reach the edge of the biodome.”
Obi-Wan realized he had no idea what lay outside the artificial life inside the dome. He had been fairly busy being unconscious when they were brought in here. Well, if it was something bad, now was the time for Qui-Gon, Xanatos, or the Force to warn him.
They zoomed through the permeable edge of the dome with a thick, soupy feeling. The atmosphere was immediately different, from thick and humid to arid and, well—
Obi-Wan yelped. “Cold!”
“Nar Hekka,” Qui-Gon said, with grim amusement. “Not suitable for life until the Hutts established their domes.”
“Force,” Obi-Wan said, only stopping himself from taking his hands off the steering wheel to tuck them under his armpits with conscious effort. There was white snow in all directions— flat and featureless, with very few rock or ice formations. A dead planet.
“We have to go back,” Xanatos said, hunched in on himself in the back. Freezing air, interspersed with bits of ice, flung itself at them as the speeder kicked it up. “They’ll see us immediately on this landscape.”
“So we hitch a ride with them,” Obi-Wan said. “No big deal.”
“I’m starting to be afraid of what that means in your world,” Xanatos griped. “Just hurry up and do whatever you’re going to do before I freeze off my… lightsaber.”
Obi-Wan grinned. “Hutts like warm planets. They won’t be out on the sundeck. Which means they won’t spot us if we come up behind them.”
“Yes, but we can’t stay so close forever without crashing into them or making an error and straying too far,” Qui-Gon said, over the wind.
“That’s why we get a ride from them,” Obi-Wan explained again, missing Anakin— the adult one— once more. They rarely even had to discuss their plans, just a wink or a nod or a brush of the goatee, and they were off. “Just hold on. You’ll see.”
The Hutt yacht was visible now. It was an ugly thing, designed for gaudy luxury and impressive heights more than anything. It wasn’t the one Obi-Wan had seen rarely in the distance on Tatooine, the one he’d watched from the other world while Luke and his friends destroyed it, but it might as well have been. It was designed very similarly, except it would move over ice better than sand.
Obi-Wan pulled the speeder up within a few feet or so of the barge.
“Take the controls, please,” Obi-Wan said, and didn’t wait for Qui-Gon to respond before climbing out onto the nose of the speeder. Qui-Gon lurched to grab the steering.
“You’re crazy, padawan,” Qui-Gon said.
“Don’t worry,” Obi-Wan shouted back. “I’ve done this a hundred times!”
“No you haven’t!” Qui-Gon said.
“Oh,” Obi-Wan said, with a grin. “Right. This should be fun then.” He jumped and grabbed onto the back of the barge deftly. He heard Xanatos swearing behind him, and smiled again to himself.
Obi-Wan prodded the panelling on the metal, and was unsurprised when he revealed a small panel set into the ship. It opened, revealing a keypad. Obi-Wan took a hand off the ship— inciting more swearing behind him— to use the Force to help him slice into the mechanisms. The panel blinked green, and the back of the ship began to open.
Access panel. Everyone always forgot to secure those, because they were mostly used by droids and servants.
Obi-Wan hung onto the side and gestured for Qui-Gon to fly the speeder inside. Qui-Gon glared, but he did, and Obi-Wan set the door to close again before flipping neatly and landing inside the speeder as it powered down inside the barge.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” Qui-Gon said.
Obi-Wan didn’t think that was very funny. “They won’t be coming down here,” he said. “We can hide here safely for a while.” They disembarked the speeder.
It smelled like engine grease and motor oil down this deep, where the Hutts would not care to go— away from the drinks cart and various lounging couches up above. Various pipes and wires hung from the ceiling above, crowded in with tools and mechanical parts.
An ominous pair of glowing red eyes suddenly flickered in front of them. Xanatos ignited his lightsaber quickly.
“No, don’t!” Obi-Wan said, as the light of the saber illuminated the room, and along with it several droids. “They’re harmless.”
The eyes proved to belong to a protocol droid, a clunky old model with several parts grafted onto it. It whirred.
“Don’t be afraid,” Obi-Wan said. “Come here, my little friend.”
“They’re Hutt droids,” Xanatos said. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at him.
“Please don’t tell the Hutts that we’re here,” Obi-Wan said to the droid. It tilted a head at him. “I’m going to remove your restraining bolts, all right?”
Various other droids emerged from the shadows, beeping hopefully. Little B-D units, valet droids, astromechs. Many of them had been modded to hold drink trays or other functions outside their original purview. It was not a difficult leap to bet they were not happy with their lives here.
Removing a droid restraining bolt was easy enough, especially the cheap type the Hutts were using, the same kind that two-bit smugglers used all over the galaxy. A droid could pry it off themselves if it hadn’t been programmed into the bolt not to let them, and if they were willing to endure a little electric shock, and if they knew to do it in the first place.
They were eager enough to get their restraining bolts off— one droid rolled forward first, bravely.
“Wha—” Obi-Wan said. “Artoo!”
R2D2, in the flesh, beeped at him suspiciously.
“Of course I know you!” Obi-Wan said, getting down on his knees to be on R2’s level. “You’re R2D2!” He started working on R2’s bolt, one hand resting on his familiar metal dome. He had never been particularly close with Anakin’s droid, but he was glad to see him now. He had always assumed R2 was of Nubian make, but he supposed he had never really known the droid’s true backstory before the fateful day on the Queen’s cruiser.
Artoo whistled. “I am not weird ,” Obi-Wan said, offended.
The restraining bolt popped off, and Artoo let out a delighted beep, spinning in a few testing circles.
Obi-Wan grinned. He finally remembered he had an audience when the lights flickered on, and looked up sheepishly to find Xanatos with his hand on a lightswitch and Qui-Gon giving him a fond and exasperated look.
“Sorry, Master,” Obi-Wan said. “I got us in, didn’t I?”
The other droids clustered around for their turns.
At least it would give them something to do.
Notes:
Chapter header from TCW - 3X18 The Citadel
Mando'a translations:
Birikad - baby carrying harness.Yes, they have a word specifically for that.
Also (shameless self-promotion) to distract myself from writing part three in the series, I have posted another short, unconnected Clone Wars era story! Go check it out if you want. :)
Chapter Text
A failure in planning is a plan for failure.
The Hutt barge rocked gently under their feet as it moved across the plains. It was cold down in this bay but not unbearably so, especially with the servers of the droids whirring away around them. Restraining bolts all removed, and nothing else to do for the moment, Qui-Gon’s incorrigible padawan was making minor repairs to the droids as they requested— yet another set of new best friends.
Obi-Wan had also drawn Xanatos, somewhat unwillingly, into helping him.
“Hold this down,” Obi-Wan said, pushing Xanatos’ hand into place while Obi-Wan braced a foot on the bench to get the leverage to yank off an aftermarket music speaker embedded on one of the droids. If Qui-Gon hadn’t known Obi-Wan so well he would have said his padawan was oblivious to the disgusted look Xanatos was giving his now greasy hands.
Qui-Gon had a pang of regret. This was how it was supposed to be; their lineage, together— Xanatos could have snuck Obi-Wan out of the Temple to get into mischief, Obi-Wan could have bothered Xanatos in his new Knight quarters. Well. Xanatos had made his choices. Most of them bad.
Qui-Gon managed to get very patchy reception for his comm, just long enough to contact Tholme. Tholme was irritatingly not surprised by the series of adventures that had ended up with them on a Hutt sail barge, and agreed to keep coordinating things from where he was. The connection didn’t last long enough for either of them to know where the hell Qui-Gon was, which was, he supposed, a problem for later.
He had only been able to get the comm to work from a specific spot in the corner, and he returned now to see what kind of chaos Obi-Wan and Xanatos had gotten into.
The blue and white droid Obi-Wan had picked up stayed near his hip, though Obi-Wan had already cleaned it off and replaced one of its sensors. The other droids jostled for their turn next, beeping and whistling.
“How did you know it would work?” Xanatos asked, as Obi-Wan fixed the scomp link on one of the smaller droids.
“It’s not that hard; all you have to do is—”
“I mean being nice to the droids so they wouldn’t call their masters,” Xanatos said. “How did you know that would work?”
“I’ve told you before,” Obi-Wan said. “Everyone wants to be free. And it’s not just organic beings.” The blue droid— Artoo— beeped, and Obi-Wan bumped it affectionately with a leg. “The Hutts are notoriously cruel to their droids.” Obi-Wan slanted a smile at Xanatos. “Maybe you would know these things if you remembered to be nice every once in a while.”
Xanatos folded his arms and scowled, but he didn’t say anything more.
Qui-Gon stepped forward. “Tholme is holding down the fort,” he said. “All that’s left to do is wait, I suppose, and hope these Hutts lead us to the others.”
“And make sure they don’t escape when they get there,” Obi-Wan said.
“What makes you want to take on the slavery cartels so badly anyway?” Xanatos asked, nastily on the surface but a little softer beneath, enough to almost surprise Qui-Gon.
Obi-Wan’s eyes went a little distant. “A lot of suffering could be prevented in the galaxy,” he said. “So much unnecessary pain and hate…” he shook his head. “Did you know that the Jedi took down the Zygerrian Slave Empire?”
“No,” Xanatos said.
“It was years ago, when we had more freedom to work outside of the Senate’s purview.” Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon shared much of the same opinions on the Senate, especially since a prominent senator and several others had been ousted. Obi-Wan shrugged. “But they did it, and very effectively. Not only did they break up the royal family and free the slaves, but then they sent Jedi to help revitalize the economies affected, help refugees… imagine that. A world where all the Jedi did was help people in need.”
“That is, more or less, what the Jedi already do,” Qui-Gon said.
“What?” Obi-Wan said. “Oh, yes. I know.”
Qui-Gon’s heart skipped a beat, as it often did when Obi-Wan accidentally implied things about the future that really did not bode well. As usual, he elected to ignore it. “Well, maybe after this is over you can outline some ideas on how to do that in the present day to the Council.”
Obi-Wan beamed at him.
The ship pitched forward and then back. They were stopping.
“Showtime,” Xanatos said, and stood. “Ow, geddof.” He nudged a mouse droid away from him, winding a foot up to kick it until Obi-Wan gave him tooka eyes. Then he just grumbled and pushed the droid further, but gentler.
It was windowless down here— to get any idea of what was going on outside they’d have to get a better vantage point. Qui-Gon tried to recall the layout of the barge that he’d seen from the outside, and came to the conclusion that they’d probably be all right to take a look.
They opened the same entrance they came in and left though it very carefully. They rounded the ship just in time to narrowly avoid the group of Hutts making their slow way from the decking of the barge and into the snow.
Qui-Gon had little experience with Hutts, but he never saw one run, and usually saw them transporting themselves on some sort of hoverbed or bier held by slaves. Certainly never over so much snow or freezing terrain. That explained how much complaining he heard.
They hid, covered by the curve of the gigantic yacht. There must not have been an indoor shipyard, or at least not one that could be accessed from the ground. Thus, the Hutts hoofing it. Well, whatever Hutts did.
Obi-Wan shivered, breath coming out of his mouth visibly, and Qui-Gon pulled him under the cover of his robe automatically.
“Now what?” Obi-Wan asked from the depths, and Qui-Gon watched as Xanatos resolutely did not smile.
Qui-Gon checked his comm without much hope, and was unsurprised to see it didn’t connect with anything. Even back in the slave complex they’d had to find the actual communications room before they could get anything out.
“We should take the speeder back and wait for the Republic forces to arrive,” Qui-Gon said. Obi-Wan and Xanatos started to complain. It would still be another day at least before the Republic backup they’d called would get here, even if they were already on their way. “ But,” Qui-Gon said, and they perked up, “It’s probably too cold for that. And too far.”
“If we’re already here I suppose we might as well go make sure the Hutts won’t be taking off anytime soon,” Obi-Wan said from within the cloak.
“Indeed,” Qui-Gon said, and they followed after the trail the Hutts had left in the snow.
Most of the droids stayed back in the transport or set off determinedly into the snow, but the little blue R2 unit trundled along at Obi-Wan’s heels. Obi-Wan did not seem surprised, though he rarely did.
This facility was a lot better hidden than the other, which was designed for large crowds to be able to find; this one was much more like a safe house, made of some kind of white material and half sunken into the snow.
“Stay alert,” Qui-Gon advised, and they sidled through one of the side entrances.
The difference in temperature was immediate. Qui-Gon instantly broke out into a sweat, his body trying to adjust to the quick change. If the dome they had been in before was muggy, the artificial atmosphere in this building was absolutely swamp-like, air thick enough to drink and buzzing here and there with hot-weather gnats.
It smelled terrible, which lent credence to the idea that there had been Hutts living there long-term. Xanatos coughed and put a hand over his mouth.
“Have you been here before?” Obi-Wan asked the droid at his feet, which beeped eagerly. “All right, great. Do you know a way through to wherever they keep their transports?”
The droid let out another series of beeps and took off down the hall. Obi-Wan jogged after it unquestioningly.
Obi-Wan looked back to see if they were coming, and for a moment, Qui-Gon would swear he was expecting to see someone else behind him. But then the moment passed and Obi-Wan waved them forward.
The droid led them to a ventilation shaft. He rolled forward, then back, clearly indicating them to go inside.
“I am not going in there,” Xanatos said. “I’ll get my pants dirty.”
R2 beeped.
“What did he say?” Xanatos asked suspiciously.
“Um, nothing,” Obi-Wan said.
“Move out of my way,” Xanatos said, and pushed his way into the vents.
R2 let out a warbling sound suspiciously like a chortle, and Obi-Wan grinned at him before hopping into the vents himself. Qui-Gon followed after.
The vents were tall enough that the droid was able to roll through them, but that the humans in the party had to resort to crawling on their hands and knees. This was somewhat more difficult for Qui-Gon than for either of the smaller other two.
When he bumped his head for the third time, Xanatos and Obi-Wan turned back to glare at him with eerie synchronicity.
“We’re trying to be quiet, Master,” Obi-Wan said.
“Is that what we’re doing?” Qui-Gon said.
The droid led them through the ductwork. They were very labyrinthine, and Qui-Gon had to admit that they probably wouldn’t have found their way through the facility without a guide. Every so often they would see, through a grate, a guard walking the grounds. Obi-Wan stopped an instant before the Force warned Qui-Gon.
There were voices below.
They stopped to listen, and Qui-Gon got a slightly dizzying look through the gaps of a fan inset into the floor.
The Hutts from the arena were gathered in front of a series of chairs containing another set of much larger Hutts. The stench was so much here that it actually tasted; flies buzzed around and Qui-Gon pressed a hand to his mouth, feeling green.
The younger group of Hutts looked a little like abashed younglings. Hutts, if Qui-Gon remembered correctly, could live a long time, and they never really stopped growing. That meant the big ones were the matriarchs and the patriarchs.
They were speaking in Huttese; Obi-Wan translated softly.
“Our idiot children,” one of the elders growled. “All you had to do was not draw attention to the family.”
“But it’s the first rule of business!” one of the younger protested. “Never miss out on opportunity for a profit. And the slaves were just… there.”
“We do not invite other people to the planet with the Summit! You’ve endangered us all. And we lost many good Hutts.”
“Not to mention!” another elder said, “You involved the Jedi! Everyone knows that they fight like mother nexu for their Jeedailetts. And not only did you get good Hutts killed, from good clans, but worse, you let others get caught by the Jedi!”
The young Hutts snivelled. “But—”
“Our profits in the Outer Rim are increasing exponentially,” one of the younger said. “The cartel is doing good this season. Why do we need to have a meeting about it—” this set off another round of angry Huttese, too fast for Obi-Wan to translate all at once.
Obi-Wan looked thoughtfully at R2D2. “Can you—” he said, and the droid beeped lowly. Obi-Wan smiled. “Thanks.”
“We need to get off this planet before the Jeedai find us,” said one of the elders, which was their cue to stop eavesdropping and be on their way.
There was only a little ways more to crawl. The droid tried to lead them directly into the ship bay, but Qui-Gon shook his head.
“A maintenance closet?” he asked. “Or somewhere we can regroup first?”
The droid considered this, dome spinning, then beeped cheerfully and led them onwards into a passage that proved to let out into a small, dusty room that seemed to be used as a locker room in a previous life. Probably the Hutts weren’t here often enough to use it.
“There are guards out at the ships,” Obi-Wan said. “Trandoshans, I think. Several of them.”
Qui-Gon winced. Trandoshans were prolific bounty hunters; strong and fast, a difficult opponent even for a fully-grown Jedi, not to mention a teenage boy and a half-trained dark Jedi who could barely be trusted.
“Artoo could start a fire,” Obi-Wan suggested.
“How?” Qui-Gon asked, at the same time that the droid spun in a circle and looked like Obi-Wan had made its year, beeping in far too much glee.
“It would distract the guards, at least for a little while. Somehow I get the sense that you could make a pretty big fire,” Xanatos said, to the very obvious flattery of the droid. “If we set charges in the hangar, we can blow all the Hutt ships at once.”
Obi-Wan gave him an exasperated look. “Which would also blow the whole compound,” he said.
“Which would kill people,” Qui-Gon added when Xanatos still didn’t appear to see the problem. “Which we prefer not to do unless absolutely necessary.”
Xanatos and R2D2 exchanged a look, indicating that they were just indulging the Jedi in this one. “All right, fine,” Xanatos said. “So what do we do?”
“We don’t need to take out all the ships,” Obi-Wan said. “Just the ones capable of transporting several Hutts at once.” At their confused looks, he explained, “If there’s limited space, the Hutts will spend enough time fighting about who gets to leave that none of them will actually have time to do it. They’re too selfish and greedy for anything else.”
“I like it,” Xanatos said. “Play off their natural weaknesses, make them take each other out.”
It didn’t seem worth arguing Jedi philosophy at the moment.
“Sabotaging the landing gears and the hydraulics would be the quickest and the quietest,” Qui-Gon said.
“Quiet,” Obi-Wan said dubiously. “That’s us.”
The R2 unit rolled out ahead of them, unmolested. The mercenaries left it alone; after all, so far as they knew it had a restraining bolt and was meant to be there.
Qui-Gon knew that Artoo had made it to the other side of the hangar because he heard screams shortly, and started to smell burning motor oil. He didn’t want to know.
They swept, Force-fast, out of the locker room, and split off into the hangar.
There were quite a few ships— Hutts liked showiness. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Xanatos took it by quadrants, the two younger taking the sides while Qui-Gon disabled the ships in the middle.
There was a particular weak spot on ships that were not built for combat. When they were on the ground, and if the ramp was left open, you could fairly easily get to the important wires and hoses that housed the landing gear and the mechanisms to close the door again. Qui-Gon ignited his saber and sliced through all of them in one swoop, leaving no more evidence than an oily smell and a spatter of hydraulic fluids on the ground.
He repeated the process several more times.
Things were going well, up until the moment that they weren’t.
A door at the far end of the hangar slid open, and a group of Hutts rushed through, clearly well on their way to escaping. The fire was now down to smoldering remains— they weren’t distracted by it for long, unlike the guards, who had been frantically trying to put it out for the past few minutes.
“Get them, you useless skugs!” yelled one of the Hutts, spotting Qui-Gon and Xanatos and pointing. Obi-Wan had vanished into some slip of a shadow just seconds earlier; sensing what was coming, probably. “It’s the Jeedai!”
Blast. Qui-Gon darted away, and the Trandoshan guards ran straight for him. Already Qui-Gon could see Xanatos’ distinctive red lightsaber flashing— his former padawan was doing fine for now.
A blaster bolt whistled by Qui-Gon’s head. Without looking, he blocked it, then two or three more that flew by. A grunt behind him; he’d deflected at least one into the shooter.
Qui-Gon ran, and found himself backed into a corner made up of supply crates and mechanical parts. The Trandoshans had wised up and stopped shooting, and now they were just approaching very slowly and cautiously, with their guns up.
“Do you really want to fight a man with a lightsaber?” Qui-Gon tried.
The mercenaries looked at each other. Then they surged forward towards Qui-Gon as one. One of them had an electrostaff, which was not impossible to fight with a lightsaber but was rather tricky. It got even tricker when you added in a few friends with vibroknives and clubs.
Qui-Gon spun and whirled. The staff was tricky— it brushed by his shoulder and gave him a nasty shock that made the fingers on his non-dominant hand go numb. He dodged a knife next.
The Force warned him, and Qui-Gon, as ever, listened, darting to the side a moment before Obi-Wan dropped down from above. Obi-Wan landed nimbly on his feet and sliced through the electrostaff in one movement.
“You’re supposed to go for the regulator,” Obi-Wan said cheerfully.
“Brat,” Qui-Gon said.
They managed to push several of the Trandoshans away and they tried to run for it again. Xanatos caught up, taking steps backward until he was level with them.
These bodyguards were well-trained, and they didn’t seem to care about their fellows getting killed or otherwise injured, just so long as they weren’t. A blaster bolt zinged by, then another and another— the quantity over quality style of combat.
A shot nicked Xanatos’ arm, and he yelped.
Obi-Wan looked— only to get tackled off to the side by a particularly aggressive mercenary. Everyone was close enough now that lightsabers meant as much chance of running yourself or your companions through as your enemies.
Qui-Gon deactivated his and did what no one expected a Jedi to do in a fight— start throwing punches.
In the distance, he heard the Hutts realize their ships were, for the most part, non operational. He didn’t need to know the language to recognize swearing.
Obi-Wan was still wrestling with his Trandoshan. As Qui-Gon watched, Obi-Wan was physically picked up and slammed into the crates that were hemming them in. Qui-Gon winced.
But Xanatos’ arm was weakened from being shot, and Obi-Wan could usually take care of himself. Qui-Gon moved to cover Xanatos’ side. It was almost, but not quite familiar after all this time apart.
Qui-Gon headbutted a Trandoshan, who fell immediately to the ground, unconscious. Qui-Gon’s ribs were definitely bruised, a few minor cuts to his face and one on his back. His hair had come loose from its ponytail.
Still six remaining.
Qui-Gon took a deep breath, centering himself within the eddies of the Force.
There was a loud, shrill beep, almost like a scream. Then, from the depths of the ship bay, R2D2 came hurtling at full speed. They all stopped to watch, fascinated.
R2 stopped, skidded, and ejected a huge puddle of oil from somewhere within his mechanisms. Most of it got on the Trandoshans, though there was a lot on the floor too.
R2 flicked a lighter open.
“Don’t,” one of the Trandoshans said nervously.
R2 lowered it towards the floor.
Suddenly, a lot of things made sense.
The flame went closer to the puddle of motor oil.
“Kriff thisss,” one hissed, and bolted. The rest followed his example, slipping and sliding, and occasionally swearing.
“Wow,” Qui-Gon said, impressed. No wonder Obi-Wan liked the droid— they had the same fondness for destruction. Speaking of which—
“Obi-Wan?”
Qui-Gon turned and saw his padawan slumped against one of the crates. The man he had been fighting was on the ground nearby, clearly dead. Qui-Gon reached Obi-Wan in a few quick strides.
He was alive. Qui-Gon kneeled in front of him, frowning. What had looked from a distance like Obi-Wan’s usual freckles instead turned out to be a light dusting of— he sniffed— spice. The crate had been filled with it. It must have broken open.
Obi-Wan was still breathing, shallowly, and apparently deeply unconscious. He must have inhaled a lot of the drugs.
“Hah,” Xanatos said, and Qui-Gon almost jumped. He hadn’t noticed Xanatos coming up beside him, much less crouching down. “Little spice-head.”
Qui-Gon glared, and Xanatos’ smirk dropped. “What?”
“Spice overdose,” Qui-Gon said. “It has been known to cause vivid flashbacks of the past, and in rare cases, a brief glimpse into the future.”
“Oh,” Xanatos said. “What about for a kid who’s already—?”
Qui-Gon shook his head, unsure. He patted Obi-Wan’s cheeks, dislodging some of the spice from his hair. “Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, wake up.” Obi-Wan twitched a little, but didn’t awaken.
The droid beeped anxiously.
“We don’t have time,” Xanatos said.
Qui-Gon hated to agree. He stood and pulled Obi-Wan up over his shoulder. His ribs protested— definitely bruised. “Back to the speeder,” he said. “R2D2, can you lead us back out to where we left it on the barge? Not the stealthiest route; just the fastest.”
The droid beeped an affirmative, spinning its dome worriedly before taking off in the opposite direction. They jogged after it.
Obi-Wan occasionally twitched, but didn’t seem to register anything that was happening, or react to Qui-Gon’s prodding at their apprenticeship bond in the Force. Of course, it was difficult to get a sense of what Obi-Wan was feeling on a regular day. Qui-Gon released his fears into the Force.
They rounded a corner and encountered a surprised guard, who shot reflexively and was immediately taken down by his own shot and Xanatos’ lightsaber.
They ran through the compound, encountering a few guards until they burst out into the freezing air outside the artificial atmosphere. Qui-Gon could see the sail barge in the distance, dishearteningly far but not impossible to reach.
Especially because— yes, Qui-Gon reached out his senses and felt the mercenaries and the Hutts inside readying to make a move.
The ground was tough ice and difficult to traverse at a fast pace, especially while carrying someone, but Qui-Gon called on the Force and his steps were sure. They reached the barge and the droid shot straight up the ramp.
“Get the speeder started?” Qui-Gon asked, and Xanatos nodded shortly before striding inside. They could try to steal the barge, but the amount of time it would take for such a large vehicle to warm up in this atmosphere, not to mention how long it might take just to find the bridge and the controls, not to mention security failsafes…
Qui-Gon put Obi-Wan down so that he was half-standing, enough at least that Qui-Gon could take off his own cloak and wrap it around him. Snowflakes were beading in his hair.
Obi-Wan stirred. Qui-Gon held him upright. “Padawan? Obi-Wan, wake.” Obi-Wan pried his eyes open with apparent effort. His pupils were way blown, and he looked very dazed.
“Wha—?” Obi-Wan said. “Hnnuhh?”
Qui-Gon held his chin up. “Padawan, how do you feel? I think you need to start filtering the spice from your blood.”
“Um,” Obi-Wan said. “Dizzy. Not good. Um.” He leaned over and dry-heaved into the snow, reminding Qui-Gon just how little he’d probably had to eat over the last few days. “Sorry, Master.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Qui-Gon said, but he was still holding most of his weight. “Filter out the toxins. I know you know how to do this.”
But Obi-Wan wasn’t listening, staring out into the distance glassily. Qui-Gon swore quietly. A Jedi could filter out drugs, poisons, all sorts of things— but it was conscious, and it required concentration. That was why it was easy enough to filter out the first drink but it was too late by the fifth.
Qui-Gon shook him. Xanatos emerged from the depths of the sail barge, driving the speeder. He was fairly unsurprised to see the R2 unit along for the ride. “Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said, shaking him more. “Do you know where you are right now?”
“Ah,” Obi-Wan said. “Orto… Plutonia?” Then he leaned over and threw up again.
“Not quite,” Qui-Gon said, and gave into Xanatos’ frantic gesturing for him to come and bundled Obi-Wan into the speeder. Qui-Gon climbed into the back with him and settled his padawan against his chest. Unnervingly, Obi-Wan didn’t pass out again, just stared blankly ahead.
“So?” Xanatos asked, pointing the speeder the opposite direction and revving it up.
“Medical attention,” Qui-Gon said.
“Right,” Xanatos said, and gunned the engine forward at full speed. The droid was navigating, Qui-Gon realized with some amusement.
There was the whine of more speeders in the distance. Qui-Gon looked back and saw the guards had rallied, and they were coming after them in more landspeeders like their own. From the looks of things, they were bringing a lot of weaponry with them.
When it rained… Qui-Gon pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said.
Obi-Wan startled and tried to sit up. Qui-Gon pushed him back down, gently. “You have to tell the men to get up on the ridge,” Obi-Wan said blearily. “They’re going to come at us from the valley.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Qui-Gon said. Particularly considering there was no valley and no ridge. “We’ve got it handled.”
“ Commander, ” Obi-Wan protested.
“It’s fine,” Qui-Gon said, which was when a blaster bolt whistled over their heads. He cleared his throat. “It’s fine.”
“It would be a lot more fine,” Xanatos said from the front, “If you could please get rid of these guys.”
“I am a little busy,” Qui-Gon said. Another shot flew towards them, and Xanatos had to jerk the speeder to the side to avoid it. The energy blast hit the ground and sprayed hard ice and rock up at them. “That is not a blaster,” he added.
“Ground-to-air cannon,” Obi-Wan said. “They shot us down. I think Trapper’s leg is broken…” he devolved into incoherent mumbling.
“Great,” Xanatos said. “Perfect time for him to lose it.”
“Shut up,” Qui-Gon said, very un Jedi-like, and stood, catching his balance.
There were four speeders coming after them. Two of them were mounted with the cannons they’d just been shot at with, and the other two were packed with a few extra guards, all with handheld blasters or rifles.
Qui-Gon ignited his lightsaber just in time to catch a shot on it and send it back. It hit one of the Trandoshans in the speeders, who fell. Their friends didn’t come back for them. The cannon charged up. “Left!” Qui-Gon shouted, and Xanatos swerved just in time for it to miss them; Qui-Gon felt the heat.
Obi-Wan twitched miserably. “Please don’t,” he said.
One of the speeders was drawing close— Qui-Gon deflected the next shot into the engine instead, which blew up satisfyingly.
The wind whipped past, faster and faster, and ice cold. It made Qui-Gon wish for his robes back. Then Obi-Wan tried to sit up again, cheeks flushed and his hair spiky in every direction, and he was glad he’d thought to give them to his padawan.
“I will take the boy…” Obi-Wan said, his legs twitching, “And watch over him.”
“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said, “Stay down.”
More shots. Qui-Gon ducked, and used his free hand to push Obi-Wan’s head down. He went with it, slumping again bonelessly back on the seat.
Another speeder got close, and Qui-Gon deflected a volley of shots. But it was a distraction— for one of the mercenaries to leap into their vehicle, and try to yank the wheel from Xanatos.
Xanatos swore, and leaned to the side, sending them, for a moment, frictionless as the speeder spun. Xanatos elbowed the Trandoshan away, but he hurled himself back at Xanatos, who had to keep at least one hand on the controls.
Qui-Gon moved to help, but the speeder had taken advantage of their distraction and attached a grappling hook to the side of their vehicle. It pulled them with a grinding noise as the engines struggled against each other.
Qui-Gon moved his efforts to slicing through the grapple line.
The Trandoshans seemed to have been expecting this— one wrapped an electro-whip around Qui-Gon’s wrist while another leaned between the two speeders and tried to yank the lightsaber out of his hand.
They had forgotten he had another perfectly good hand. To their apparent surprise, Qui-Gon let go of his lightsaber, let it drop a little ways, then used the Force to call it back up into his other hand.
In the front, Xanatos seemed to be turning things around. R2D2 used a little taser to shock the Trandoshan, who yelped and let go of Xanatos out of surprise. Xanatos used the freedom to draw his own lightsaber, standing up in a whir of red. He used the Force to keep the controls steady.
Qui-Gon used his saber to slice through the chest of one of his attackers, knock out another, and send the last scrambling away. At the same moment, Xanatos’ new friend went tumbling out of the speeder, headless.
Quickly, Qui-Gon sliced the line away from their speeder.
The speeders jerked, and started to pull away from each other. Qui-Gon leaned in, intent on returning to his own speeder, only to feel a yank. One of the Trandoshans had caught his trailing hair and pulled.
Qui-Gon snarled, turned, and shoved the man away with the Force. The man toppled off the edge, leaving the speeder finally unattended. Unfortunately, Qui-Gon was still sort of balanced on that speeder, and when it careened away and impacted with the ground, Qui-Gon almost fell.
But a pair of hands caught the front of his tunic and pulled him back inside.
Qui-Gon tumbled in and caught himself before he crushed his padawan, who was looking at him with surprisingly lucid eyes. “Padawan,” Obi-Wan said, “How many times have I told you not to be so reckless?” Then he passed out again.
Xanatos laughed. Qui-Gon felt oddly chastised.
Qui-Gon checked to make sure Obi-Wan was breathing well— could be better, but not too worrying— and climbed into the front seats, squeezing between Xanatos and the droid.
“Now what?” Xanatos said. The two speeders with the cannons were still following them, and seemed content to stay away from their lightsabers, shooting off cannon blasts from far away. Another hit the ground in front of them, and Xanatos wheeled around it.
“I’ll let you know,” Qui-Gon said.
“That means you have no kriffing idea,” Xanatos complained.
“Oh, good,” Qui-Gon said. “You remember.”
Xanatos grumbled something that definitely would have gotten him in trouble had he still been Qui-Gon’s padawan. Qui-Gon suppressed a smile.
Another cannon blast, more ice broken off the ground.
But this time… Qui-Gon craned his head to look backwards. The snow and ice had been blown away, revealing a little of the ground below. The landscape wasn’t as solid as he had assumed, made up below of ice caverns and crevasses.
“Hmm,” Qui-Gon said. “I now have a plan.”
Xanatos had seen the same thing as he had, and Xanatos, for good or for ill, was a very smart man. He didn’t need to be told twice.
The speeders drew closer.
Qui-Gon and Xanatos turned, threw out their hands— and pulled the ground out from under their pursuers. Landspeeders were not made to float in midair. They needed solid ground to generate the lift needed underneath them.
The Trandoshans fell.
Qui-Gon didn’t see where they landed, but there was a telltale explosion a few seconds later which made him feel a little better about things.
Xanatos smirked. Then he chanced a look back at Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon followed his gaze, and watched his padawan shiver, engulfed in Qui-Gon’s cloak. They both frowned.
“This path is too exposed,” Xanatos said. “The Hutts will send more. There’s no cover out here.”
“I know,” Qui-Gon said. “We’ll have to find somewhere to hunker down and try to contact our allies.”
Xanatos gave him a doubting look. “Out here?” As far as the eye could see, there was only snow. Even the arena they’d come from wasn’t visible from here, covered by falling snow and the curve of the earth.
“The Force will provide,” Qui-Gon said.
The droid beeped. On the navigation screen, it displayed a little map of the area; including a small ice cave hidden some ways off.
Qui-Gon liked to believe the Force could work through droids too.
Notes:
Chapter header from TCW - 3X08 Evil Plans
Huttese translations:
Jeedai - JediThank everyone so much for all the nice comments so far!!
Chapter Text
The most dangerous beast is the beast within.
They found the cave after little enough time; it was just broad enough at the entrance to fit the speeder through it, and wider at the back.
Qui-Gon was glad to see the back of the cave. Nothing lurking behind to snatch them— at least, nothing living. The floor was worn but it didn't look like anything had been living in there. It was as safe as they were going to get at the moment.
Qui-Gon propped Obi-Wan up against the wall while Xanatos tried their communicators. Obi-Wan’s eyes opened into slits.
“How are you?” Qui-Gon said, checking his pulse and fighting not to frown. It was much too fast.
Obi-Wan squinted at him. “It’s like time is all mixed up,” he said. “Like I think I’m then, but then I remember then is actually the future. And that now is then, but it’s different now. And my past is your future.” He blinked. “You know?”
“Sure,” Qui-Gon said.
“I don’t,” Xanatos said, approaching with the droid at his heels. He looked at Qui-Gon. “No dice on contacting anyone.”
“Artoo?” Obi-Wan said. “Where’s C3PO?”
The droid beeped, sounding confused.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Obi-Wan asked. “I almost never see you without—” He jerked, looking up at Qui-Gon and Xanatos as if registering their presences for the first time. “It’s not real,” he said, in an exhaled breath. “It’s not real, it's a trap, you’ve found me—”
“Padawan—” Qui-Gon said, reaching for him but stopping when Obi-Wan flinched, hard, against the wall.
“I always knew you could be cruel,” Obi-Wan said, burying his face in his knees. “Wearing his face won’t help you. I won’t tell you anything.”
Obi-Wan was unstuck in his timeline. Not good, when you saw the kinds of futures Obi-Wan did. Qui-Gon had seen some of them. He still tried to forget. Obi-Wan startled again when Qui-Gon reached for his wrist, but he didn’t attack, which meant he was at least a little lucid. He could take out his old master if he put his mind to it; they both knew it. Obi-Wan’s heart was absolutely racing now, certainly too fast to be healthy and not sustainable. He was also running a fever despite the chill, his eyes unfocused and hands unsteady.
Qui-Gon held Obi-Wan’s wrist too tightly for a moment. Kriff. His padawan was only a child. Very rarely did Obi-Wan look completely young— there was something old and sad about his eyes that made him look much older and tended to make people listen to him. But now he looked every day his age and a little younger, not even quite sixteen and still in his padawan braid.
They needed to get his heart rate down. “Go to sleep,” Qui-Gon said, pushing a Force suggestion into Obi-Wan’s head. He realized it was a bad idea only a moment after he’d done it, and then Obi-Wan’s mental barriers shoved him back, so strong and completely efficient that Qui-Gon jerked with the force of it, overbalanced, and landed on his back.
Xanatos’ face appeared above him. “Idiot,” he said, amused.
“Thanks,” Qui-Gon said.
Obi-Wan had extremely strong mental shielding. Qui-Gon had assumed they would be a little weaker in his drugged state; in fact, it seemed like they had tightened. Like Obi-Wan knew what could happen if he didn’t draw up his defenses around himself when he couldn’t fight back.
He sat up and they both looked at Obi-Wan again. He was mouthing words to himself again, shivering.
“Kark,” Xanatos said.
They stayed there for an hour or so as Obi-Wan got steadily worse. He mostly seemed confused, and was very forgetful. He called for several people, most of which Qui-Gon didn’t recognize— Cody and Rex and Padme and Ahsoka and Cerasi and, oddly, Anakin. The implications of that were worrying and probably not worth thinking about for that reason. Sometimes he called for Qui-Gon too.
Qui-Gon sensed more Trandoshans in the distance— searching for them.
He and Xanatos attempted to coax Obi-Wan into drinking some water, melted and filtered with one of the filtration pods Qui-Gon had on his belt.
“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said, plucking at Qui-Gon’s sleeve. “I’m sorry. I trained the boy, like you asked. I trained him. But I failed—” He kicked out weakly, and his back arched.
Xanatos glared at Qui-Gon, who felt guilty even though he hadn’t done anything yet. “No you didn’t,” Qui-Gon said, heart clenching. “You did great. Rest now. It’s fine.”
“I failed everyone,” Obi-Wan said, and ignored the cup Xanatos shoved under his mouth. He stared up at the ceiling. “All of them.”
“You’re too young to be a maudlin drunk,” Xanatos said. He poured the water in between Obi-Wan’s lips, which while not being the most compassionate tactic was at least effective. “Wait till you come of age. I’ll come kidnap you from the Temple and we’ll get fun drunk in one of the clubs on the lower level.”
“You will not,” Qui-Gon said.
Xanatos, of course, ignored him. Obi-Wan too, but at least he had an excuse. Xanatos was not being nice, but for him this was downright cuddly. He really did have a soft spot for Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan had a way of doing that.
Obi-Wan coughed a little water out of his mouth. His hands clutched at Qui-Gon’s shirt, apparently having forgotten he was holding it. He searched Xanatos’ face. “I failed you too,” he said. “I never had enough faith. Luke was the only one of us who knew— you can come back. You can come back.” He shuddered. “But I watched you die. I was only a kid. I could have been faster. I could have been better, if I’d known.”
Xanatos jerked back, surprised, but Obi-Wan had returned to being mostly nonresponsive.
Qui-Gon sighed and smoothed a hand over Obi-Wan’s head.
Xanatos was still looking spooked; he retreated to the mouth of the cave and peered out the entrance.
After a moment, Qui-Gon got up and followed him. The droid rolled up to Obi-Wan’s side, presumably to keep watch. Having seen that droid’s capabilities, Qui-Gon worried more for the sake of anyone who tried to hurt them than for Obi-Wan.
Xanatos stared broodily out at the landscape.
He was no Jedi. That was Qui-Gon’s responsibility to bear, not his padawan’s.
“I’d be dead if not for him?” Xanatos asked, not looking at Qui-Gon.
“His visions are not precise,” Qui-Gon said. “And he’s very tight-lipped. Normally. We may never know.” Xanatos scowled at him, and Qui-Gon relented. “Yes, he mentioned it once, by accident. He seemed to think you were supposed to die.”
“Stupid kid,” Xanatos said. “I’m not supposed to owe him more.”
Qui-Gon grinned.
In the corner, Obi-Wan twitched. “ Gedet'ye,” he said. “ Gedet'ye.” He was panting now, open-mouthed and much too fast.
“He’s not going to last a lot longer with a heart rate and a fever like that,” Xanatos said. “He needs to detox. He needs to purge the spice from his system.”
“He can’t concentrate like this,” Qui-Gon said snappishly. “I don’t think he even knows he’s been drugged.”
“And trying to get past his shields to try to shake him awake is more likely to hurt us than help him,” Xanatos said.
Qui-Gon hesitated. “A psychometric managed to slip past once,” he said. It had not been pretty, for anyone— the psychometric Master had been Kadrian Sey, who had then turned to the Sith and tried to destroy them all.
Xanatos tilted his head consideringly. “The Vos kid?”
“He’s very naturally gifted, but Obi-Wan’s mental defenses are durasteel. Not to mention that Quinlan is there and we are here.”
Xanatos squinted out at the snowy landscape. “Yeah,” he said. “We can fix that. I’ll go pick him up.”
Qui-Gon gave him a disapproving look. “I assume you haven’t forgotten about the— now very angry— Hutts and their hired guns who are after us.”
Xanatos lifted his arms above his head and stretched. “Sounds like a good challenge.” When this earned him another look, he shrugged. “The kid shouldn’t be moved like this— not when that means being treated to my fancy flying. But I can do it on my own. I’ll get there.”
“Xanatos—”
“I’m going,” Xanatos said. He grinned. “The Republic can pay me for services rendered later.”
Qui-Gon shook his head, exasperated. There was certainly a commonality between the padawans he tended to pick, or who picked him. They were all too stubborn and too smart for their own good. “At least take the droid with you,” Qui-Gon said. “He knows the way.”
The droid beeped proudly. “Yeah,” Xanatos said. “Annoying little thing. No wonder Obi-Wan likes you.” The droid beeped again, this time decidedly more threatening. Xanatos gave it a friendly sneer. It brandished the taser at him. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
Qui-Gon supervised them as they loaded up into the speeder, and told Xanatos to be careful— earning an eye roll— and then returned to his padawan.
“Just us now,” Qui-Gon said, hearing the speeder take off in the distance. He would just have to trust that Xanatos would come back. He would. Qui-Gon had a good feeling about it. “How are we doing?”
Obi-Wan made a whining noise.
“Right,” Qui-Gon said, and settled in for the long haul.
He gathered Obi-Wan into his side for the warmth and leaned his own head back on the wall, falling into a very light meditation. He was roused only a short time later, when Obi-Wan started moving around.
Qui-Gon opened his eyes quickly. Obi-Wan was sweating; thrashing. He clawed at his arms. “Pleasegetthemoffgetthemoff,” he said, raising a hand to his face— Qui-Gon grabbed his arms before he could. “Pleaseithurts—Master—”
Qui-Gon gritted his teeth, trying to send calming waves though the Force. If Obi-Wan felt it, he didn’t indicate. “It’s all right,” he said, a little helplessly.
Obi-Wan tried to wriggle out from under his hands, his arms already scratched up from his efforts earlier.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Qui-Gon said, in the sternest voice he could muster, “Get ahold of yourself.”
For some reason, this worked. Obi-Wan stilled, falling limp.
He shuddered and closed his eyes. When he blinked them open, they had lost much of the blurriness of before.
“Padawan?” Qui-Gon asked cautiously, as he blinked up at him. Slowly, he let go of his arms. “Are you all right?”
“I was dreaming of the fire beetles again,” Obi-Wan said. “Isn’t that funny? I haven’t dreamed of them since the Sith planet.”
The implications of which were very worrying.
“Do you know where you are?” Qui-Gon asked.
“Of course I do,” Obi-Wan said. “I have suns-stroke again.” He leaned his head against the wall, smiling a little. “Beru is going to kill me if she has to send Owen out here with electrolyte-solution again.”
“I don’t believe I know any Berus or Owens,” Qui-Gon said, running his fingers over Obi-Wan’s braid. He was clearly not completely with it still, but things were calm for now at least. Maybe these were people who could have been in Obi-Wan’s past, or a couple they would meet on a mission someday. Maybe Jedi, ones who would keep Obi-Wan out of trouble once Qui-Gon’s knees were too creaky to do it himself.
“No, you never met them,” Obi-Wan said.
“Shame,” Qui-Gon said. “They sound like good people, if they’re taking care of you.”
Obi-Wan smiled again. “Sap. I miss you, you know.”
“Well, I’m right here,” Qui-Gon said.
“Yes, but not really,” Obi-Wan said. His eyes flashed with humor. “They call me the Wizard of the Wastes, you know, because I keep running around shouting at you. I do believe everyone thinks I’m quite mad.”
Qui-Gon was confused but he didn’t show it, just continuing to run his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair. “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.”
“Sometime,” Obi-Wan said, closing his eyes. “You should see the boy, Qui-Gon. He looks so much like his father. His mother, too. They’d be proud, if they could be.”
Qui-Gon felt he was intruding. “Just sleep it off,” he said, and Obi-Wan slumped obediently, falling into another restless sleep.
Qui-Gon sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. Apprentices. Too much work. This was why he hadn’t wanted another one— you started caring about them too much.
Obi-Wan didn’t come to consciousness like that again, just shook and muttered and sometimes— which was the worst— didn’t scream, just made noises like he was keeping them in.
After a while of this, Qui-Gon heard the sound of an engine. He had his lightsaber ignited and was on his feet almost before he registered the noise.
Then a familiar presence brushed his mind— Tholme. He relaxed a little. Keeping one eye on Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon looked out the entrance of the cave. Xanatos had not brought the speeder back; instead, he’d brought a full ship, complete with weaponry.
They demonstrated this weaponry by shooting another hoverspeeder of mercenaries, a group that had apparently managed to regather themselves, off the face of the earth.
The ramp came down in midair and Tholme leaned out over the edge. “Need a little help?” he asked, loudly over the sound of the engines.
Qui-Gon grinned at him, but it was tenser than he had meant it to be and Tholme sobered a little. “I had it under control,” Qui-Gon said, and turned back to the cave to get Obi-Wan.
When Qui-Gon entered the ship, carrying his padawan, Shmi was already laying down a blanket in the resting berth, and Xanatos was coming out of the gunner’s seat. Tholme and Quinlan were waiting anxiously; Jango in the front piloting. They had brought two children with them— Shmi's son and the blue Twi'lek girl who had attached herself to Quinlan.
“All aboard?” Jango called out.
Obi-Wan startled at the voice and squinted towards the cockpit. “Cody?” he asked.
“Sorry, you've got me confused with another handsome son of a bantha," Jango said, with good enough humor.
“Is Obi-Wan okay?” Quinlan said. “Xanatos said he needed my help.”
“Spice,” Shmi said with authority, settling a pillow under Obi-Wan’s head. “He’s overdosing— he needs to see a Healer.”
“I don’t even know if that would help him now. It’s like he’s in a feedback loop of himself, trapped within the Force,” Qui-Gon said.
“That’s where I come in?” Quinlan asked, grimly determined.
Qui-Gon nodded. “Only if you agree. Your psychometry may be enough to break through his shields, just for an instant. Then we can get in his head to pull him out.”
Quinlan just pulled off his glove in response, kneeling by the cutout into the wall where Obi-Wan was resting. “What do I need to do? I’ve never tried to get a reading on him, but it’s never happened by accident either, which means I don’t think it will be easy.”
“No,” Qui-Gon agreed. “Which is why you get in, I go in and help him out of it. Like a partnered meditation.”
Quinlan gave him a dubious look.
“You don't have to do it,” Tholme said. “It may be dangerous.”
“It’s Obi-Wan ,” Quinlan said, as if that was enough of an explanation for him. “Let’s do this.” He flexed his uncovered fingers. The little Twi’lek girl gave him a thumbs-up.
“Don’t go too far,” Qui-Gon reminded him sternly as he kneeled next to Quinlan. “Just skim his surface thoughts.”
“This Jedi magic is going to help?” Jango asked, blatantly skeptical.
Qui-Gon ignored him. He centered himself in the Force, and felt his senses expand around Quinlan and Obi-Wan both. Quinlan let him twine his Force signature with his, feeling nervous but resolved.
Quinlan touched Obi-Wan’s arm.
Nothing happened.
He frowned. “I’m sorry, Master. He’s just not letting me in. I’m trying, I promise.”
“It’s not your fault,” Qui-Gon said.
“Here, let me see if I can help,” Tholme said, joining them on the floor. Throughout this, Obi-Wan sweated and moved about listlessly. He was increasingly pale.
Tholme spread his awareness in the Force as well— Qui-Gon felt it brushing his mind. Tholme bolstered his padawan's Force abilities, drawing some of his own power into him.
“Oh!” said the little girl. “That feels funny!” She hopped over and took Quinlan’s free hand. To Qui-Gon’s surprise, she immediately connected with him through the Force. It wasn’t quite a bond, but it was clear that things could easily head that way if they wanted to in the future. Qui-Gon stifled a smile. That was sure to be a troublesome partnership.
After a moment, Xanatos joined them on the floor and added his power.
Together, all of them bolstered Quinlan in the Force. Again, Quinlan reached out with his psychometry. This time there was a noticeable effect; Quinlan pressed into Obi-Wan’s mind with a noticeable bounceback, like rubber springing back into place.
“Force,” Tholme said, with sweat visible on his brow. “What are you teaching this kid?”
“He came like that,” Qui-Gon said, trying not to be proud, because this really was a serious situation. “Here, let’s try this a different way.”
This time, they focused their energies on bringing Obi-Wan to some form of consciousness. After a moment, Obi-Wan’s eyes fluttered halfway open.
“Wrghh?” he said.
“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said quickly, before he slipped back under. “You need to let your shields go. You need to let me in.”
Obi-Wan shook his head.
“Yes,” Qui-Gon said. “Obi-Wan, you have to let your Force presence go.”
Obi-Wan tried to roll off the bed. “I can’t,” he said. “The Inquisitors. That’s how they find you.”
“They will not,” Qui-Gon said. “Let your shields down.”
He shook his head again. “No. They got— I felt them kill Luminara last week. I can’t let that happen to me. I have a purpose here—” Qui-Gon saw Quinlan visibly flinch. Luminara Unduli was one of his and Obi-Wan’s friends, if Qui-Gon recalled correctly. She wasn’t much older than Quinlan himself.
“Padawan,” Qui-Gon said. “Listen to me. I promise you that I will not let anyone get to you while we do this. I promise I will protect you.” He grinned. “Don’t you trust me?”
Obi-Wan blinked. Considered this blearily.
Then his shields went down, just for a fraction of an instant.
It was enough. Quinlan touched him again and drew on his psychometry, and all the Force-sensitives in the room felt it as he took advantage of the brief dropping of the shield, using each of their offered extra power in the Force. And someone else’s too— the baby. Somehow, Anakin added his own strength to the fight, and they broke through into Obi-Wan’s mind.
Quinlan screamed. Qui-Gon thought, for a moment, that he had disobeyed and tried to dive solo into Obi-Wan’s mind— but no. That was just from touching the very surface of Obi-Wan’s thoughts.
Still, Qui-Gon didn’t hesitate when it came to taking the opening Quinlan had given him. He dove into Obi-Wan’s Force presence.
It was dizzying. He was standing at the edge of a shore made of lava; sizzling hot magma flew in droplets at his face and he raised an arm to protect himself. When he lowered his arm he was losing his footing in a gunship plummeting towards the ground. Then he stumbled into a battlefield where someone in Jedi robes was fighting a legion of blank-faced droids— he could only see them from behind but he was sure the Jedi was Obi-Wan.
Then he was pushing through a crowd, watching another someone who had to be Obi-Wan going through the crowd as well, covered fully in the kind of sand-resistant clothes and scarves you found on a desert planet. No one in the crowd seemed to notice Qui-Gon’s presence.
Obi-Wan, younger than he was now, not dressed in Jedi clothes but rags, shooting a blaster at a row of adults coming up the hill. The lava again, this time with a sickening smell of burned flesh. A white medical room where a pregnant woman screamed and screamed.
Nothing in any of the visions as they passed by saw Qui-Gon at all; not the droids or crowds or white-armored men which sometimes showed up. Qui-Gon tried to call out to Obi-Wan when he saw flashes of copper hair or a blue lightsaber, but his padawan never seemed to notice.
Jango Fett, a new scar on his eye, handed a lightsaber to another Jedi-cloaked figure, and the voice that spoke, though again too far for Qui-Gon to see, was Obi-Wan.
“What would I do without you?” Obi-Wan asked, his voice older but no less Coruscanti crisp.
“You don’t want to know the answer to that, sir,” Jango said dryly, and Obi-Wan laughed.
The visions swirled around him again, spice-tinged.
He couldn’t trust anything here, he reminded himself. They were, at best, visions of futures that had never come to pass or would never come to pass, and more likely just hallucinations.
“Obi-Wan!” he called. “Obi-Wan!”
There was no answer, just more moving of the vision— Qui-Gon was walking through Illum, standing at the top of a waterfall in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, holding onto a seat as a fighter ship went wildly out of control. Dark beasts snarled and scratched, ripping through the fabric of the world as if a cloth.
Then Qui-Gon heard Obi-Wan scream, and the world rocked. Qui-Gon landed on his feet.
This place was different. It had none of the raw edges of the other visions, kind of soft and blurred. Like a dream within a dream.
Obi-Wan was older. Unsettlingly, he was wearing armor, just on his forearms, but it looked well-used and a little scuffed. He stood straight and tall, every inch the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon knew he would someday be. He’d grown a beard.
He was talking to a woman who, Qui-Gon could tell, though he didn’t know how, was not any kind of being he’d seen before. She looked… human-esque, or at least human-shaped. But there was a subtle glow about her, not as a luminescent species— like something was lighting her from within. She hovered a few inches off the ground, her unnaturally long, greenish hair waving as if touched by an invisible breeze.
Obi-Wan was holding what looked like the hilt of a dagger, but with no blade attached to it. He tried to give it to the woman, who refused it.
The two turned to leave— they were in some kind of big, mystical cavern. For lack of better ideas, Qui-Gon followed. “Thank you,” Obi-Wan said. “I know this can’t be easy for you. To kill your own brother— it must be difficult.”
The woman smiled, very sadly. “Someday you may be faced with the same choice, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
The older Obi-Wan looked startled. “Has The Son already gotten to—?”
She gave him an enigmatic look, gentle and sorrowful. “You may have to do the same thing I am doing now.”
“No,” Obi-Wan said, shaking his head firmly. “I would never.”
“Then all may be lost,” the woman said. Then she looked airily out at the exit to the cavern. “Come, we must away. There is little time.”
Obi-Wan went obediently, but he still looked perturbed. The woman made to follow after him, but then she turned— and looked right at Qui-Gon.
He stepped back a little, surprised and a little unnerved. He looked behind himself, but there was nothing there she could be looking at. Just at him.
“Ah,” Qui-Gon said. “Hello?”
She broke out into a smile. “Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn.”
“You’re not real,” Qui-Gon told her. "That's not how this works. You’re just a vision— a possibility."
"Not for mortal souls, maybe," she said. "But I'm a little bit different. I’m not bound by the same constraints you are. Not in time, or in space.”
Qui-Gon gave her a skeptical look. She still smiled. “I need to talk to Obi-Wan,” he said, for lack of better conversation ideas.
“That you do,” she said. “For he may be lost in his own memories if he stays here too long. And we can’t have that, can we?”
“We can’t,” Qui-Gon echoed dubiously. He didn’t know what kind of creature could infiltrate a vision. Certainly there were some species with above-average psychic abilities, not to mention the Sith and the Dark Jedi, but he was starting to get the bad feeling that this had more to do with the Force, and that he might never really understand.
“He’s special,” the woman said. “Perhaps more than you know.”
“I know my padawan,” Qui-Gon bristled.
She looked amused. “He is loved by the Light.” She hovered gently still. “I will help you,” she said. “I have no great powers with the mind— not in this state. I’m not real, you know.” She tilted her head. “But I can stir the waters of his mind in a particular direction, I think. I can send you into a happy memory.”
“A vision,” Qui-Gon corrected. She gave him another strange smile.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “Travel well.”
And the world spun sickeningly around him once more; stars wheeling by, blaster fire whizzing near his face, falling, falling—
Then he found himself in a clearing made up of yellow trees and flowers. In the distance there was the clearest natural pool Qui-Gon had ever seen, with a Togruta girl and a human man with a shiny arm playing in the water. It was too far away for him to see their faces, but he could hear peals of laughter and shrieks coming from their direction.
Obi-Wan was the right age again, almost sixteen, padawan braid trailing behind his back. He was watching the two young people play. He looked wistful.
Qui-Gon stepped up beside him, tentative.
Obi-Wan turned to look at him and grinned. “It’s easy to forget they’re more than just the war,” he said. “Ahsoka made us stop at four different shops before she found that swimsuit. I didn’t even know there were that many options. Her Master almost had a heart attack when he saw how little fabric it was made out of though.”
Qui-Gon folded his arms, oddly reluctant to leave this little content moment. Maybe because he knew how many bad ones there were. “It’s just part of being a teenager,” he said. “They like to make you worry about them.”
“Trust me,” Obi-Wan said, “I know.”
“Obi-Wan!” called the young man. “Come join us!”
The dream flickered, into black corridors and the snap-hiss of a lightsaber. Then there was a soft breeze, somehow feeling like the woman he’d met in the cavern, and it went back to the pool.
“In a moment,” Obi-Wan said to them, with a laugh.
“Obi-Wan, you need to wake up,” Qui-Gon said.
Obi-Wan turned to him, puzzled. “I have so few pleasant dreams,” he said.
“This is not a dream,” Qui-Gon said. “Wake up.”
Obi-Wan stared at him. In the soft sunlight, a red creature appeared and bared its teeth. Its eyes were yellow. Then it disappeared.
“Wake up,” Qui-Gon repeated, seeing that he was getting somewhere.
A blonde woman in a fine dress appeared, then clutched a wound on her stomach and vanished from existence again. The water in the pool sloshed.
“Wake up,” he said, a third and final time.
“Oh no,” Obi-Wan said in a small voice, and Qui-Gon gasped awake.
Notes:
Chapter header from TCW - 2X19 The Zillo Beast Strikes Back
Mando'a translations:
Gedet'ye - pleaseLots of inspiration here from the Mortis arc of Clone Wars.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Obi-Wan woke.
He felt terrible.
Worse than that time he and Quinlan had gotten drunk after a hard mission, worse than the time he’d been poisoned and woken up in the medbay on the Negotiator throwing up blood. Worse than the headache he’d gotten when Anakin had gotten it into his head that he was going to learn to play the hallikset.
He became aware of a general air of alarm and panic, and opened his eyes quickly and sat up, hitting his head on the upper ceiling of a sleeping berth on a ship.
“Oww,” he said, partially about his new self-induced concussion and partially about the rest of his body, which ached down to his toes. Then he looked at, and was taken aback by, the group staring at him from the floor outside his bunk.
Qui-Gon looked like he had just woken up maybe a second before Obi-Wan had. The others— Xanatos, Quinlan, Master Tholme, and Aayla, were all gathered around, watching him with wide and anticipatory eyes.
“Um,” Obi-Wan said. “Hello there.”
“Obi-Wan!” Qui-Gon said, looking relieved. “Do you know where you are?”
“Not… really?” Obi-Wan said. “A ship? How did I get here?”
His Master looked relieved.
“You got a faceful of spice,” Quinlan said. “I never thought you’d be the drug addict in the family.”
“That’s really funny,” Obi-Wan said, and kicked him.
“Is that any way to treat the guy who just saved your life?” Quinlan asked. “You’re so ungrateful—”
“All right, all right,” Shmi said, pushing her way to the front of the pack. “Give the boy some space.” She shooed them away with a wave of her hand. “Drink some water,” she said, handing him a cup. She also put a blanket around his shoulders, which confused him until he realized there was frost melting from his hair.
He looked at Qui-Gon, confused.
“She’s right, back up,” Qui-Gon said, and the various Force-sensitives dispersed around the ship, grumbling.
“Thank you,” Obi-Wan told Shmi, about the water and the blanket.
She smiled at him. “Don’t do that again,” she said, and returned to the front of the ship, where Jango Fett was holding Anakin.
“You look pale,” Obi-Wan told Qui-Gon, who laughed. Obi-Wan scooted over, wrapping himself in the blanket, and patted the bed next to him. Qui-Gon heaved himself in, and had to scrunch his legs up lest they stick out over the side.
“How do you feel?” Qui-Gon asked, pulling him into his side.
“Fine,” Obi-Wan said. Qui-Gon snorted. “Disoriented,” Obi-Wan admitted. “We were at the Hutt base, then…” well, it had felt like Mustafar, but obviously it wasn’t. He thought he remembered other things too; the Clone Wars, Melida/Daan, bad missions he’d survived as a padawan. “I don’t know.”
“You missed an exciting speeder chase,” Qui-Gon said. “And a brief dive into your head.”
Obi-Wan must have looked alarmed, because Qui-Gon chuckled.
“We’ll have to talk about the unnecessary strength of your shields later,” Qui-Gon said. “But you let me in in the end. I didn’t see much— just flashes.” Obi-Wan felt a little guilty at how relieved he was at that. “I managed to pull you out.”
“Well, then, thanks,” Obi-Wan said. At least Qui-Gon didn’t look like he was about to have a mental breakdown. But then Bruck Chun hadn’t gone evil; just Master Sey, soon to be Darth Inimic. Maybe it wasn’t what they saw there but what they chose to do with it. That was a little comforting.
He still ached. Any remaining traces of the spice in his blood, he must have instinctively evaporated when he’d realized he needed to snap out of it. He was tired.
“I need, like, five minutes to meditate,” Obi-Wan said. “Will you redo my braid?”
“I’d be honored,” Qui-Gon said, and started unraveling the dishevelled padawan braid. He looked like he needed the familiar, relaxing activity just as much as Obi-Wan did.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes and slipped into meditation.
Every Jedi had, at some point in their lives, fallen asleep during a meditation. Obi-Wan had not done so since he was actually, truly a teenager. He did now, but at least when he awoke Qui-Gon was sleeping on his shoulder.
He opened his eyes to see what had disturbed him and saw Jango standing there. His helmet was tucked under his arm. Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at him.
“Sorry to wake you,” Jango said. “But I thought you’d want to see this next part.”
When a Mandalorian was too gleeful about something, you knew you had to see it.
Obi-Wan awoke his Master, who only got up after a little while of grumbling and complaining. Obi-Wan himself felt much better for the meditation and the rest, only a lingering headache and sore neck to show for his recent misadventures. When they stumbled to the front of the ship, everyone else was gathered in the cockpit too, looking out the viewport. Quinlan held Aayla up so she could see out.
Obi-Wan looked out too. “The Hutt base?” he asked.
“They’re regathering to escape,” Jango said, sliding into the copilot’s seat; Shmi was already at the controls.
“That’s not good,” Obi-Wan said, leaning forward further to see the ground below. The ship bay they had sabotaged was not open-air, hidden instead within the building with a large hangar door that would let them fly outside. The door was open now, and judging by the steam— created when exhaust pushed the warmer artificial air into the real, cold atmosphere beyond— the ships were getting ready to take off inside.
“Those slavers are not escaping on my watch,” Shmi said. She took the ship up high, and set off— a flare?
Not just any flare, Obi-Wan realized, starting to grin. A Mandalorian hunting flare.
Very few non-Mandalorians had seen that flare and lived.
“What—?” Qui-Gon asked, which is when their backup swooped out of the sky.
Mandalorian ships; at least six or seven of them.
Jango grinned. “We called them to pick up the original hostages; meant they were able to get here much faster than the Republic, who have to come from the Core.”
The comm crackled on.
A woman’s voice came through, Mandalorian-accented. “Reporting for duty, ‘alor, ” she said. “Ready to kick some butt or take some names. Either one.”
“Slugs will be slithering out of that base in a hurry any second now,” Jango said cheerfully. “Make sure they don’t.”
“You got it,” said the captain. “I’ll pass it down the line.” Jango ended the connection.
“Wait,” Qui-Gon said, “How do you know that they’re in a hurry?”
And, relevantly, where was Artoo? Obi-Wan was starting to get an idea of where he could be.
Xanatos grinned. Below, smoke started trailing out of the compound. It was impossible to hear from up here, but Obi-Wan got the general sense of chaos and destruction.
Two things happened at once; ships started pouring out of the hangar like the fires of the hells were at their heels, and some unlucky saps tried to escape though the front entrance on more speeder bikes.
They were followed, with impressive determination, by a squad of droids with R2D2 at the head. It was all the ones from the sail barge, and a couple that looked like cleaners. Whatever they were doing, they certainly had the ones on hoverspeeders on the run.
It looked like for the most part the Hutts had abandoned their security forces, leaving them to fend for themselves on the planet— probably because the number of ships was now limited. Always count on the Hutts to make the selfish choice.
The droids were chasing them away, with malicious intent if Obi-Wan had to guess. They had a lot to get revenge for. They had probably caused the smoke and the quick exit of the Hutts too.
The Hutt ships shot out into the sky, only to run into the Mandalorian vessels. Most of them veered off quickly, trying to maneuver out of their way and get to open space, where they could go into hyperspace and escape.
Some actually tried to blast their way through; this was, very clearly, a mistake. The Mandalorian ships were well-trained and more than eager to blast a few Hutts out of the skies. Ship-to-ship cannon fire filled the air from both sets of ships.
“Ooh, can I shoot our guns?” Quinlan asked.
“No,” Tholme said.
“Aww,” Quinlan said.
“None of this matters if we don’t get the elders,” Shmi said. “They can keep control of all the Hutt systems all on their own.”
“Which one are they in?” Jango asked.
“That one,” Obi-Wan said, pointing out the viewscreen. Hutts were notoriously hard to sense through the Force, but he had met the Hutt that called herself Mama on Nal Hutta when he and— future— Quinlan were chasing after Ziro. He had a pretty good sense of her Force signature, and he could feel her now. He could also get a sense of several other similar presences around her, dark and thinking only of themselves.
Jango pressed the comm again. “Leave be the Merchandiser's Jewel,” he said. “That one’s ours.”
There was a chorus of lek s over the comm. Shmi turned the ship on an expert dime and dove towards the Jewel, where the Hutt elders were trying to make their escape. Whoever was piloting was not very good; Shmi managed to get in front of them and physically ram their shield generators, shorting them out.
Xanatos slipped down to the gunner’s seat once more.
Jango activated ship-to-ship communications. “Do you want to take the lead?” he asked Shmi, and she grinned.
The form of a Hutt, blue and holographic, popped up over the array. They were very large and corpulent— definitely one of the elders.
“This is Lady Skywalker,” Shmi said pleasantly. “I am calling the Hutt cartel to stand down or you will be made to stand down. You are under arrest. Thank you.”
There was a moment of incredulous silence from the other end. “I don’t know who you think you are or why you think you can escape the wrath of the families,” the Hutt said in Basic, “But you are making a mistake which will haunt you for the rest of your days, which I can assure you will be very short.”
“All right,” Shmi said. “So you don’t intend to surrender?”
The Hutt laughed. “Our empire is stronger than you will ever be, humanlett. I recognize that accent. It is a slave accent.”
“It is,” Shmi said calmly.
The planet’s atmosphere was becoming increasingly choked with fighting. Obi-Wan noted with some surprise that the Mandos seemed to be forcing the ships down, nonlethally if they could. Orders from Shmi, then.
“You have no authority over us,” said the Hutt. “What crime have we committed?”
“The very worst,” Shmi said. “And if I have no authority here I will make it. Have a nice day.” She hung up.
The Jewel, plainly irritated, opened fire. Shmi swerved the ship out of the way and backed it up so Xanatos had a clear shot at them. Xanatos fired just as the Hutt ship shot forward, trying to make an escape not up through the sky, but along the terrain.
The shot impacted with the engines and sent the aft side reeling. It was a bigger ship than their own, but Obi-Wan had taken down much bigger cruisers in nothing more than a starfighter or two.
“Maybe you oughta strap in,” Jango said, as the ship rocked under their feet— the Hutts were laying down a volley of fire.
“They’re not trying to hit us,” Obi-Wan said, squinting in thought out at the Jewel, ignoring Jango’s suggestion. What were they trying to do?
He found out a moment later when the bay doors on the Jewel opened and spat out a ragtag group of mercenaries. They clomped out like insects, right over the hull of the ship— magnetized boots. They were still in Nar Hekka’s atmosphere, so they could breathe without masks or helmets.
It wasn’t all the same group of Trandoshans who they’d tangled with in the base— most of them, Obi-Wan gathered, had not made it out alive. Instead it was a collection of what must have been the best bodyguards, all different species, that the Hutts could gather on such short notice. The elite of the elite.
The mercenaries, locked confidently onto the exterior of the ship, began shooting; not blasters but some kind of specialized cannons. One of the Mando'a ships came too close, and a blast hit it.
The cannons were not very long-range, but what they were was incredibly powerful and efficient. The ship it hit immediately sparked and started losing atmosphere. The pilot was obviously skilled, and managed to half-land, half-crash without too much further incident. But it showed what these weapons could do.
“Any ship that gets too close is going to be in danger,” Tholme said. “We can’t keep them here forever if we have to keep our distance.”
“The ship has to keep a distance,” Qui-Gon said, with that famously crazy look in his eye.
Unfortunately, crazy was catching. “That sounds like a lot of fun,” Obi-Wan said.
“What does?” Quinlan asked warily. The caution was, probably, wise.
Jango and Shmi, being Mandalorian, had a couple extra pairs of mag-lock boots, and, as it occurred, a jetpack.
“Are you sure you know how to use that thing?” Qui-Gon asked nervously as Obi-Wan strapped it on.
“Of course,” Obi-Wan said. “What do I look like?”
Qui-Gon gave him a dry look.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan said. “I know how to use a jetpack.”
They did, to be fair, take quite some time to learn how to use safely, without burning one’s legs, clothes, or other important body parts. It was just that Obi-Wan had a lot of practice.
Jango, of course, had suited up in his full beskar’gam and jetpack, and Shmi had added one to her minimal chest armor, plus a buy’ce— helmet. Obi-Wan hadn’t been expecting that for some reason and he took a moment to observe it. Her helmet was a little narrower than Jango’s, and the eyepiece was more rounded. It was painted a gold-ish orangy color, and had script circling around the crown of the helmet. It wasn’t in Huttese or Mando’a; instead, it was one of the very old slave languages, the kind only the lower classes spoke on Tatooine and wasn’t used for saying anything that wasn’t important.
Obi-Wan could read it. It said, in shimmering gold script; I am as free as the stars. I am as shifting as the sand. I have broken my chains and they will not be reforged. I am liberated. Obi-Wan politely looked away.
Jango had a mischievous look on his face.
“Oh no—” Obi-Wan said, just as Jango shoved a helmet over his head. “I don’t need a buy’ce,” Obi-Wan said, modulated but sure he was getting his disdain through. His padawan braid trailed a little down the bottom of the helmet.
“Twenty minutes ago you were watching pink banthas dance around the room,” Jango said. “Forgive me if I get the feeling you’re accident prone.”
Obi-Wan swiveled his head to give his Master an indignant look through the helmet, and was betrayed by Qui-Gon’s laugh.
“It would reduce a lot of my stress if there was something protecting that hard head of yours,” Qui-Gon said, and knocked on the helmet with his knuckles.
“Very funny,” Obi-Wan said. Somewhere out there in the Force, Cody was laughing.
“Done?” Shmi asked, but her body language read amused. “Good.”
She turned and tucked Anakin into Aayla’s arms; then gave them both a kiss on the forehead and tucked Aayla into the sleeping berth where they’d be safe. Quinlan and Tholme would be co-piloting the ship, Xanatos on guns.
Shmi smacked the button that would open the cargo bay door, and the air started to whip around them loudly.
“May the Force be with you,” Jango said, with an ironic salute.
“ Oya," Obi-Wan said. Jango laughed. Obi-Wan dropped backwards out of the ship, catching the wind and igniting his jetpack. He stabilized just as Shmi and Jango dropped out; Jango carrying Qui-Gon since there was no way either of the others would have been able to take his weight.
Midair, Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber just in time to catch one of the missiles on the blade. It was a much harder impact than a usual blaster bolt, making his hands tingle, but it reflected just the same.
The unfortunate mercenary who had fired it at him caught a faceful of the blast and fell off the side of the ship.
Obi-Wan landed safely on the hull and felt his compatriots do the same not a moment later. Obi-Wan’s boots magnetized to the metal.
Mag-lock boots were really not ideal for close combat fighting. They were usually for crew members who had to do outer-hull repairs mid-space, paired with a suit. They stuck you to whatever you wanted stuck to, but the whole point was that they didn’t detach easily. Such as might be useful in a fistfight.
They were also too close for the mercenaries to use the launchers at them— not without risk of blowing themselves, their friends, or the ship they were standing on up.
The Jewel was still in the atmosphere, perfectly breathable, if a little hard on the lungs without the help of a helmet with a rebreather in it. It was still attempting to skim along, but with its engine so damaged, at the moment all it was doing was hovering, and occasionally shooting forward a few feet before stuttering again.
It made for unsteady footing, and combined with the wind whipping past, it was almost impossible to keep your feet under you if you weren’t locked in.
A Rodian mercenary noticed Obi-Wan and snarled, sheathing the big cannon on her back and pulling out a smaller handheld blaster instead. She shot and stepped forward at the same time— one boot demagnetized, then put back down on the floor, then the other. A tedious process.
Obi-Wan, on the other hand, detached both boots at the same time and used the jetpack to rocket forward in time to kick the gun out of her hand. He landed on his feet, re-magnetized, and ducked the Rodian’s punch.
He detached the boots, didn’t bother to turn the jetpack back on, and jumped; he did a midair cartwheel and used his saber to cut the soles off her boots on the downswing. She stumbled and fell over the edge. Obi-Wan reached out a hand and caught her with the Force, lowering her most of the way to the ground before dropping her in a snowbank.
He turned his boots back on just as his feet hit the ship once more. He landed next to Qui-Gon.
“Show off,” he said. Obi-Wan gave him an innocent look.
Jango and Shmi were using their own jetpacks with similar efficiency, occasionally picking up the mercenaries to drop them to the ground like giant prey birds. Qui-Gon, like Obi-Wan, often deactivated the magnet boots, but instead of using the jetpack to control his flight he more or less hurtled himself at the various enemies. As a very large man, this was pretty effective.
Around them, the battle continued in the air. With the mercenaries sufficiently distracted, the other ships didn’t have to worry about getting too close. They could— and did— shoot the remaining Hutts out of the sky. One by one, the other ships started to fall.
Obi-Wan used the Force again to pull up the panelling under a human mercenary’s feet, and the wind immediately started to pull him backwards. But the mercenary managed to catch the hull plating with one hand, and, kind of impressively, shoot a blaster at Obi-Wan with the other. It singed by Obi-Wan’s head.
He had to turn to look at where it was going— blasted helmet— to see if the shot was going to hit any of his allies. It came near Shmi, but she lifted up an arm and deflected it with a gauntlet when Obi-Wan shouted a warning.
This was why Obi-Wan hated wearing full armor, and not for any of the reasons certain people liked to tease him about— the main theory being just plain contrariness. It was hard to feel connected to the Force when your face was hidden behind layers of artificial metal or plastisteel. It was why Jedi preferred to wear robes made of soft, natural cotton, and other accessories made of leather.
Obi-Wan’s distraction caught up to him. Jango, engaged elsewhere, expertly shot the man’s hand away from the ship and he fell off, but there was already someone else who had their eyes on Obi-Wan. A Besalisk, i.e.; four arms, hand as large as Obi-Wan’s head, about twice his width.
“This is going to hurt,” Obi-Wan said. The Besalisk barreled forward, grabbed him by the shoulders, and tried to crush his ribcage. It hurt. “Now there,” Obi-Wan wheezed, “If you wanted to cuddle, you should have just said so.”
The Besalisk squeezed harder, and detached one of his hands from Obi-Wan to grab at a vibroknife. It let him wriggle out of his grasp. Obi-Wan demagnetized his boots from the ground and, with wild hope, kicked at the knife. It stuck to the bottom of the boot.
That was, admittedly, kind of cool.
Obi-Wan’s next move was to try to demagnetize the boot again and fling the knife off the ship, but the Besalisk grabbed the boot in an attempt to get his blade back. Obi-Wan kicked him in the face. The Besalisk yanked.
The boot came off.
“This is just embarrassing now,” Obi-Wan said, and did a spin kick, knocking both boot and knife out of the Besalisk’s hand, and both flew over the edge. The Besalisk stumbled back a little, but he still had both his shoes, and they worked to his advantage this time; he was planted to the ground like a tree.
He reached for Obi-Wan again. Obi-Wan was not in the mood to have his ribs broken today, and he brought his head forward desperately, helmet meeting forehead. A keldabe kiss, which was accompanied by a loud crack as Obi-Wan’s helmet definitely broke something in his opponent’s face.
Obi-Wan deactivated his remaining boot and let the wind blow him backwards; he did a backflip midair and landed neatly a few feet away. Qui-Gon was fighting, saber-to-staff, a few feet away. Jango was apparently having a fun time sniping mercenaries from a spot he’d staked out, and Shmi was flying quickly, darting in between her opponents so quickly they almost didn’t have time to register her.
The Besalisk, enraged now, started running forward. Obi-Wan took off his helmet and hurled it at him. It connected, and the Besalisk fell backwards in mid-stride with his boots still deactivated. Obi-Wan pressed the gap and shot forward on his jetpack, connecting with the Besalisk’s middle and sending them both reeling backwards. They impacted, hard on the hull.
This outer portion of the ship was inside the artificial atmosphere of the dome. That meant that just as Obi-Wan started to feel the cold, he was thrust back into the heat. Their clothes steamed faintly, and the decking was hot beneath his back. Obi-Wan twisted, rolled, and kicked the Besalisk towards the edge.
The Besalisk used three arms to hold onto the hull and used the fourth to punch Obi-Wan in the stomach. Obi-Wan released his air in a whoomph, and pulled his lightsaber off his belt.
There was a loud crash, and the ship lurched to the side. The fight above was getting more vicious— a stray shot had hit the Jewel. In the sky above, Obi-Wan saw Xanatos shoot the ship who’d done it away, but it was too late; the Jewel was going down.
The engines stuttered again and the ship moved, bringing them back out of the artificial atmo into the real, freezing one. This was getting ridiculous. Obi-Wan ignited his saber and sliced the Besalisk’s hand off. When he grabbed the stump in agony, Obi-Wan kicked his knee out from under him and finally sent him off the edge of the ship. Obi-Wan repeated the same trick with the soft landing, though he felt a little uncharitable about it considering how bruised his body was now.
The ship spun into the heat again, then back out. Obi-Wan got to his feet gingerly, sticking his one remaining boot to the plating of the hull, and holding the bare one somewhat gingerly off the icy cold ground.
Obi-Wan deflected a blaster bolt without thinking about it and looked to see who they were aiming at— Shmi, who flew over to him on her jetpack just as the reflected bolt hit its mark and another mercenary went down.
“Thanks,” Shmi said.
“Don’t mention it,” Obi-Wan said tiredly. The engines of the ship made a concerning grinding noise.
“That’s not good,” Shmi said. “This ship is going down.”
“Then I suppose we’d better get off it,” Obi-Wan said.
Shmi shook her head. “The Hutt elders must survive to stand trial. This must be legitimate in every way we can make it.”
Obi-Wan looked down at the hull, which was starting to lose plating as the ship vibrated and started to tear itself apart. It wasn’t quite the Invisible Hand, but…
“Yeah, we can manage,” Obi-Wan said, and knelt down to start carving a hole they could drop through. The sounds of the mercenaries dropped off into nothing. Obi-Wan could still feel his Master and Jango, alive and well. “Can you tell the others to get over here?”
“Where’s your buy’ce?” Shmi asked, but relayed the message over her own internal comms anyway.
“Lost it somehow,” Obi-Wan said, and tossed the circular sheet of metal carelessly off to the side with the Force. Without the helmet, he was a little sweaty and flushed from the rapid changes in temperature. His braid stuck to his face, and he brushed it back.
He helped Shmi inside the hole in the ship then deftly jumped down himself. Only a moment later, Qui-Gon and Jango joined them.
“Thanks for waiting,” Jango said. “Can’t leave all the fun to you two.”
“What happened to your shoe?” Qui-Gon asked.
“I think this fashion will be all the rage in Coruscant next year,” Obi-Wan said.
The ship creaked and tilted, the hallway becoming a slight slope. They caught their feet.
“Not much time,” Shmi said, and led the way.
Things were definitely falling apart in here, sparking on occasion and making unsettling creaking noises. The Hutts must have sent all their bodyguard forces out to their defence, because no one stopped them now. The corridors were an odd temperature, a mixture of the hot artificial Hutt atmosphere and the naturally snowy one of the planet. Mist had started to pool around the corners.
When they reached the control room, the Jedi stepped back. This was not their fight now— just theirs to support.
Their entrance was a little anticlimactic, because when they walked in, all the Hutts were too busy panicking about the crashing ship to notice their arrival at first. It was the control room but no one really seemed to be piloting or trying to vent systems or anything they should have done to try to salvage the ship. It seemed they’d sent their pilots out to fight too. They were shouting at each other in a cacophony of voices.
Jango solved that problem by shooting into the air.
The shot burned a hole in the top plating but didn’t go all the way through; it also succeeded at scaring every Hutt in the room witless. They cowered up against each other, each pushing to be the one furthest away from the line of fire.
“Thank you for giving me your attention,” Jango said. “Shmi?”
“Hello,” Shmi said. “I’m Lady Skywalker. I suppose you would like to surrender now?”
That earned her some nervous muttering.
“The ship is going down anyway,” one brave Hutt said, folding his arms and drawing himself up. He failed to look intimidating. “We are all going to die. Why should we listen to you?”
“I don’t know if you noticed, but we’ve got a couple Jedi with us,” Jango said.
Obi-Wan waggled his fingers at them.
“I’ve heard tell the Jedi can do miracles,” Jango said. “I suppose they could probably fix your ship for you.”
“ If,” Shmi said, “You submit to us and agree to go quietly to the custody of the Republic.”
That one looked like it was going to incite more arguing, but another part of the ship blew; the ship rocked and then abruptly dropped a few feet. Not enough to even get them close to the ground, or for a significant drop in pressure, but it was enough to scare the Hutts again.
They really were going to crash at this rate. Subtly, Obi-Wan flicked his fingers and started messing with the navigation equipment. None of the Hutts were looking at the console but judging by the surge of amusement from his companions, the humans in the room could see the dials and switches moving on their own.
“You can’t do this!” the Hutt said. “Do you want money? We’ll pay. We have a lot of money between us.”
“You’ll pay for your crimes,” Shmi said, untempted. “Don’t worry about that.”
Another Hutt blustered, narrowing her eyes at Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. “You wouldn’t leave us here to die,” she said.
“I don’t think anyone could blame us for leaving the ship as it is now,” Obi-Wan said, quite truthfully. After all, they were not, at the moment, currently crashing.
“Wh— you can’t!” said the Hutt. Obi-Wan gave her his Negotiator smile, the one that brought dread into the heart of even politicians.
That alarmed the Hutts, who went into hushed conference, this time with a lot more swearing in Huttese. They waited patiently for the crime lords to finish. Cinematically, the ship rocked again.
“Okay, fine!” yelped the Hutt who had so rudely taken Shmi’s call earlier. “Fine! We surrender! Save us!”
“After you,” Jango said, gesturing them to go to the console while he watched their backs, blaster at the ready.
“You can fix this ship, right?” Qui-Gon asked Obi-Wan lowly as they approached the controls.
“Sure, probably,” Obi-Wan said.
For some reason, this didn’t seem to reassure him very much.
The ship’s systems were built for humanoid pilots; Hutts rarely did anything themselves that they could hire someone to do, or, even better, get a slave to do for them. Obi-Wan slid right into the pilot’s seat, Shmi into the co-pilot’s.
“No one even vented the engines,” Shmi grumbled, pressing buttons fervently. Obi-Wan checked the displays; like he thought, they were going down. It was just a matter of how they did it.
“This may get a little bumpy,” he said. “You may want to hold onto something.”
Shmi had her son’s natural flying aptitude— or, he supposed, he had hers. Her brows furrowed, concentrated and a little worried, but she kept her cool and her hands were steady. “Altitude is decreasing,” Obi-Wan said. “Master, can you read off our speed?”
Qui-Gon positioned himself behind the readout. It wasn’t too bad. Certainly not as bad as the time he and Anakin had caused several million credits worth of damage to a Coruscant landing pad. Obi-Wan looked over and thought he caught a hint of Anakin’s mischievous smile in the smirk Shmi sent his way.
It took a little fancy flying— he and Shmi detached the back airlock, pulled some definitively unrecommended maneuvers with their fuel consumption. But they found a clear stretch of empty snow. Qui-Gon read off their speed. A little too fast.
Obi-Wan bit his lip. Well, he’d done it before, if on a smaller scale.
“Ah, not to worry you, Obi-Wan…” Qui-Gon said.
“I’m not,” Obi-Wan said. He closed his eyes, which as a rule he didn’t usually do when he was responsible for flying a multi-ton hunk of metal. But he needed a lot of concentration to do this. Luckily, he was used to tuning out much more stressful things than this, such as warzones, dogfights, and his apprentice trying to make dinner in the other room.
He let the world fall away, and let the Force infuse him. Obi-Wan never knew it, but he was loved by the Force. It came to him now, when he called it gently. Anakin, shining like a beacon up above. His Master, quietly supportive and strong. His allies. He stretched out his senses, felt each and every corner and crack and bolt of the ship.
He shut the engines off.
Then, when everyone was panicking— besides Shmi, who had an interested look on her face— Obi-Wan grasped the ship with the Force and took control of it. He manipulated each part, filling it with the Force and letting it speak to him. It was heavy, but the Force was with him, and it gave the ship a nudge when Obi-Wan’s strength started to falter. He helped it glide down to the ground with only a slight jolt and a harder-than-usual thump.
They landed in the snowy field.
There was already a team waiting there to arrest the Hutts; not Mandalorians as Obi-Wan had expected but the first group of captives they’d rescued from the Controllers. They had been armed and they looked very ready to take the Hutts into custody.
Everyone stared at Obi-Wan.
“Another happy landing,” Obi-Wan said, and ran a hand through his hair. “Ow, Force,” he said, “I think I pulled a muscle.”
Notes:
Chapter heading from TCW - 3X03 Supply Lines
Mando'a translations:
Lek - yes
Beskar’gam - armor, metal skin
Buy’ce - helmet
Oya - let’s huntSome inspiration from Obi-Wan being cool and showing off in the "Wild Space" novel.
We're almost done! There will be one more story in this series after this. Thanks so much to everyone who's stuck around, commented, and bookmarked. It encouraged me to keep going :)
Chapter 9
Notes:
Hozier - Sunlight
All the tales the same
Told before and told again
A soul that's born in cold and rain
Knows sunlight, sunlight, sunlight
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When we rescue others, we rescue ourselves.
The freed slaves and the Mandalorians, working together, had what Obi-Wan considered a slightly worrying amount of fun converting the cells in the arena complex into holding areas for the surviving Hutts and bodyguards.
Qui-Gon and Tholme made several apologetic calls with the Council and the Senate. Obi-Wan had a chat with Madame Nu over a holo. Some Council members arrived, slightly late, with a few members of the Senate.
No one looked amused except for Bail Organa, who gave Obi-Wan a friendly smile, and Yoda, whose ears were twitching in suppressed entertainment.
They all gathered up into the communications room, where Shmi had more or less gotten things running so they could communicate with the outside world again. Some of the former slaves had begun work on the facility— moving in. There were plenty of quarters, with things moved out, and Obi-Wan bet that soon enough shops and mechanics and all sorts of other things would move in. There was a sort of poetic justice to that.
Shmi had brought Anakin and Jango, as well as Myrgan, the one who had helped to kill Jerga, as her backup.
Chancellor Vallorum himself had come to help sort out their mess, which was a compliment in its own way. He pinched the bridge of his nose now. “The Hutts and the Republic have long had a standing… unspoken agreement.”
Qui-Gon blinked innocently at him. “I suppose we didn’t know,” he said. “It being unspoken at all.” Several of the politicians and Mace gave him a death glare.
“In the end, we didn’t do much of the revolution,” Tholme said. “Only took advantage of the activities to free our padawans— young Republic citizens, you see, and Force-sensitive. You can see why we wouldn’t leave them to the slavers.”
Obi-Wan and Quinlan endeavored to look like respectable young Republic citizens. Vallorum looked less than convinced.
“We were in our rights for a citizen’s arrest,” Jango said lazily.
That caused a round of eye twitching from most assembled. “Yes,” said one of Vallorum’s aides. “The…
Mandalorian
citizens.”
“You’re welcome,” Jango said.
“You promised you would arrest them,” Shmi said severely.
“And we will,” said another advisor. “The situation is simply delicate. Though we are, technically, in Republic space, Nar Hekka is a Hutt planet.”
“Not legally,” Obi-Wan said, and everyone looked at him. “I had a conversation with our archivist, Master Nu. We trawled through a few hundred years of records— as it happens, Nar Hekka does not legally belong to any of the Hutt families. They stole it several years ago when they finished enslaving the planet who it did belong to.”
“Who knew we could just commit genocide and get all the planets we want?” Shmi said. “Maybe more people should try it.”
Vallorum cleared his throat. “We will arrest the Hutts,” he said.
“And help the refugees,” Shmi added.
“And help the refugees,” Vallorum said reluctantly.
“The Jedi Temple will help with that, at least,” Mace said. He looked like he had quite the headache. Obi-Wan couldn’t imagine why. “As well as some of the inevitable unrest that will result from taking down, and I can’t stress this enough, all the crime lords from the cartel that controls huge parts of the galaxy.”
Obi-Wan folded his arms. “The Jedi are peacekeepers,” he said. “What is the point of us if not to keep the peace?”
“There’s a difference between negotiating treaties and starting revolutions,” protested one of the Senators.
“Slavery is not peaceful,” Shmi said. “If you think otherwise you’re a fool.”
Quinlan covered a snort with his hand.
“Go to the courts, this will,” Yoda said. “Prosecuted, the Hutts will be. The right way. Yes. The will of the Force, this is.” He looked pleased with the proceedings. Obi-Wan was feeling pretty pleased too, though he made it a point never to look too smug in front of politicians. Yoda’s support seemed to go a long ways with the politicians, who began to look less annoyed and more speculative. Everyone liked to be known for doing the right thing.
“Oh, I know something that might be of some assistance with that,” Obi-Wan said, and moved aside so that Artoo could roll cheerfully into the circle of the meeting. Artoo beeped triumphantly and rocked back and forth a few times on his treads.
“What’s he saying?” Bail asked, sounding a little too amused.
Obi-Wan patted the droid gently on the dome, and R2 spat out a hologram— the same one Obi-Wan had asked him to take when they were hiding above the Hutt elders in the vents. “Artoo got several minutes of the Hutts talking about their plans for slavery, squeezing local economies, and a few assassinations,” Obi-Wan said. “Does that help anyone?”
“Yes,” said Chancellor Vallorum, looking exasperated. “That will help.”
They were interrogated for approximately a million hours about all their actions since taking the mission up until the end of it before they let Obi-Wan and his friends go.
Mace, Yoda, Adi Gallia, and Plo Koon— the members of the Council who had presumably lost the drawing of straws to be sent to deal with this— stayed behind, and indicated the other Jedi should do so too.
“Qui-Gon Jinn,” Mace said, when everyone else had filed out. “Tholme. I should have known better than to send you two out into the galaxy without supervision.”
“Hey!” Quinlan said. “ We were supervising them.”
“Very well, I’m sure,” Master Gallia said. “A better job than they did at watching over you, I’d bet. What’s this I hear about someone doing drugs?”
She was greeted with several innocent faces.
“And the complaints from the Hutts that you threatened to kill them if they didn’t comply?” Mace added.
“I did not, ” Obi-Wan said indignantly. Implication was not the same as threatening, after all, and he hadn’t even implied he was going to kill them, just to let them die. Really, what was the point of these subtleties if people didn’t even appreciate them? “Shmi helped me save them, which I would say is the opposite of murder.”
Plo chuckled. “In the end, the four of you did a very good thing, even if it was not what was recommended by the Council,” he said.
“Please never do it again,” Mace added.
“No promises,” Qui-Gon said.
“Work, you have created,” Yoda said, “For the Senate, and for the Jedi.” His ears wriggled contemplatively. “Good work, this is. Good, it is, for us to remember that it is our duty to deal with the struggles of the galaxy. Too long we have been focused on the problems of our own insular Order.”
“You’ve been talking to Dooku,” Qui-Gon accused.
“Perhaps so,” Yoda said, smiling, leaning on his gimer stick. “Dismissed, you are. May the Force be with you.”
They dispersed at last. Obi-Wan found the young Senator Organa, who had rapidly been rising up the ranks of the Senate, outside the chamber.
“Bail,” Obi-Wan said, genuinely pleased to see him. They had been friends since the early days of the Clone Wars, and even in this lifetime Bail had adapted quickly to Obi-Wan’s eccentricities and struck up a camaraderie. “How are you?”
“I ought to be asking you that,” Bail said. “I’m not the one recently sold into slavery.” They started walking idly. Down in the former arena, Obi-Wan could smell someone cooking dinner. The Force was generally light and relieved.
“Please,” Obi-Wan said, “There was no purchase involved.”
Bail laughed.
“How is Breha doing?” Obi-Wan asked.
Bail’s dark face flushed lightly. “She’s doing fine,” he said. Bail and Breha Organa were recently married, to the surprise of no one who had seen the two lovebirds around each other— except for possibly Bail, who still looked starstruck every time he spoke of his new wife. “She wants to invite you and your Master to Alderaan someday soon.”
“I’m not sure if you want to inflict us on your planet,” Obi-Wan said dryly. “This mission started with us looking for two missing people.”
“You do attract trouble,” Bail said.
“Why, thank you,” Obi-Wan said.
Bail grinned. “I’ve come to offer my services,” he said. “As a member of the anti-slavery taskforce, but also as the Prince Consort. Alderaan has a long history of taking in refugees— I get the feeling these ex-slaves will need somewhere to get back on their feet.”
“It’s very generous of you,” Obi-Wan said, though truthfully he had expected nothing less. “I’m sure some will take advantage of your offer.”
“Only some?” Bail slanted him a teasing smile.
Obi-Wan grinned. “Mandalorians are well-known for taking in strays,” he said.
“Mandalorians and Jedi working together,” Bail said, shaking his head. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“The Force is a pathway to all sorts of extraordinary deeds,” Obi-Wan said, in his snootiest teaching Master voice.
“It certainly is,” Bail said, significantly more impressed-sounding than Obi-Wan had meant to engender.
“You’ll have to speak to Shmi about this,” Obi-Wan said. “She’s become sort of the accidental leader of the liberated slaves— she’d know best what they need.”
“My ears are burning,” Shmi said, and stepped out of one of the observation boxes, the one that had been repurposed as the children’s playroom. She was holding Anakin, who was apparently coming off of a nap. The little Mon Calamari from the Controllers’ ship tried to make a break for it behind her, giggling.
Obi-Wan scooped him up. “Hi, do you remember me?” he said.
The Mon Cala stuck his tongue out at him.
“How can I argue with that?” Obi-Wan asked. He stuck his tongue out back, which made the little boy giggle again. Saxcha, the orange Twi’lek from the same ship, poked her head out.
“There you are,” she told the Mon Calamari. Obi-Wan handed her the boy. “Thanks.”
“Obi-Wan, save me,” came Quinlan’s voice from inside. “I’m fading away.” Obi-Wan, Bail, and Shmi craned their necks around to look inside. There were only about a half dozen children overall, but most of them seemed to be concentrated on wrapping a prone Quinlan Vos in blankets.
Aayla, apparently the main perpetrator, waved cheerfully at Obi-Wan, who waved back. Obi-Wan used the Force to shut the door.
Quinlan let out an annoyed scream.
“It’s fine,” Obi-Wan told the other two, who looked eminently amused.
Shmi shrugged. “Here, will you hold Anakin?” She gave him to Obi-Wan.
Anakin peered at Obi-Wan’s face. Then he started to fuss. “What’s wrong?” Obi-Wan asked, and lightly brushed Anakin’s mind, the way the masters did in the creche. “Ah,” he said, and fixed Anakin’s tiny little sock, which had started to fall off his foot. “All better?” Anakin considered this then fisted his hands into Obi-Wan’s shirt to fall asleep.
When Obi-Wan looked up Shmi was watching her son closely. She shook her head and looked back at Bail. “Thank you for your offer, Senator,” she said, continuing their idle round of walking. “But I’m afraid you don’t really know what you’re getting into.”
“Why do you say that?” Bail asked.
“Some of them will need places to stay,” Shmi said, “But even more of them actually have places to go back to. Or families they need to find, which is another difficult undertaking, especially when families have been sent across the galaxy to a hundred different masters.”
“Hmm,” Bail said contemplatively. “That will be quite the challenge. But I think Alderaan is up to the challenge, if you are. There are several other planets with who will probably put in their support as well, ones allied with Alderaan. Naboo, for example, is known for providing refuge to those in need.”
A Senatorial aide, who looked harried, hurried up to them. “There you are, Senator Organa. The Chancellor wants to talk to you—”
“Duty calls,” Bail said with a smile. “We’ll have to speak of this more later. It was nice to meet you, Lady Skywalker. Obi-Wan, good to see you again.” He gave them a small, courtly bow. Obi-Wan bowed back, and Shmi inclined her head in farewell before Bail rejoined with the anxious aide.
“He’s a good man,” Shmi said, watching him go.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan said. “He’ll keep his promises.”
Shmi looked nervous. Obi-Wan waited her out, bouncing Anakin softly. “You know Jango and I called you for Anakin, not the missing travellers.”
“Of course,” Obi-Wan said.
“How did you know?” Shmi asked, and Obi-Wan gave her a quizzical look. “Anakin,” she said. “You know what he was fussing about— it took me a month to realize that he gets restless when his socks are uncomfortable.”
“He told me, sort of,” Obi-Wan said. “Not in words, just… his intentions in the Force. It’s easy enough to do as a child. Practically every youngling in the creche does it by instinct.” He saw Shmi’s interested look and grinned. “It makes childhood a little different than for most people— when one youngling skins a knee, half the Clan starts crying; before we learned to shield, the Crechemasters could tell if we were up to no good a second after we decided to do whatever it was.”
Shmi laughed softly. “If only all mothers could tell what their children were thinking,” she said.
“I loved growing up in the Temple,” Obi-Wan said gently. “It is not so solemn as people think. Quinlan and I grew up together, you know— he’s a little bit older, and we figured out how to shield way before a lot of the other Initiates so that we could get away with his pranks.”
Shmi shook her head. “To grow up without your mother’s hugs, to be forbidden to marry, to not have a parent but a master… I could give him a good life. A happy life.”
Obi-Wan gave her Anakin back. Anakin, sensing his mother’s mood, grabbed sleepily at one of her braids and tugged reassuringly.
“The Order has always been my family,” Obi-Wan said. “I never felt lesser for it.”
Shmi looked relieved to have Anakin back in her arms. “It’s not the same,” she said.
“He’d never know the difference,” Obi-Wan said, not unkindly.
“Oh,” Shmi said.
They spent a few days on Nar Hekka— or, Qui-Gon supposed, what was formerly known as Nar Hekka. The refugees had been talking about changing the name. Master Nu back at the Temple was working on the rights to this planet, but it was likely that the original owners, a race who were mostly dead or enslaved now, wouldn’t contest them for it.
Finally they were cleared to leave for Coruscant— on a separate ship than the Council members, possibly because the Council was already sick enough of them without adding hyperspace travel into it.
It was early enough in the afternoon by then. Someone had been working on the temperature controls of the artificial atmosphere biomes, turning it into less of a hellish swamp and into a day that was moderate and almost pleasant.
Qui-Gon pried his padawan from the grips of the makeshift creche so that they could be on their way. Because Obi-Wan could make friends within minutes of stepping on any given planet, he was followed out by a chorus of goodbyes and hugs.
Quinlan Vos, surprisingly, had to be removed from the creche as well, and he was followed out by something much more concrete. Qui-Gon looked down at the Twi’lek following the padawan cheerfully.
“Master Tholme already said she can come with us,” Quinlan said defensively. “And the Council agreed— they checked her midichlorian count. The creche is going to take her in.”
“Aayla Secura, then, is it?” Qui-Gon said, smiling down at the girl. “You want to be a Jedi?”
“ Ka!” Aayla said cheerfully, monkeying up Quinlan’s back. He accommodated her weight easily. “Yes! I be like Quinlanvos and Obiwan.” She considered for a moment. “But not get hurt so much.”
“Oh, ha-ha, very funny, see if anyone picks you as a padawan with a mouth like that—” Quinlan said, trying to wrestle her off his shoulders as he made his way over to his Master, who was waiting by the ship talking to Yoda.
Obi-Wan was hiding a smile behind his hand. It didn’t take seeing the future to see that Quinlan and Aayla would grow up to be a good pair. Qui-Gon grinned and drew his padawan into his side, half crushing his opposite shoulder.
“Master,” Obi-Wan protested, squirming, though Qui-Gon could feel that he was pleased.
“You did a good job on this mission,” Qui-Gon said. Obi-Wan’s Force presence bloomed like a sun coming out behind a cloud, then was reined in. “Even if you do try to give me a heart attack at least once a day.”
“Someone has to remind you that you’re not infallible, oh great Master,” Obi-Wan said, and slotted him a mischievous smile that made him look even younger than usual.
Xanatos had been conspicuously absent while the Council and the politicians were about— even though he was no longer wanted by the Order— but Obi-Wan glanced off into the shadows a moment before Qui-Gon sensed Xanatos’ presence.
His former padawan stepped out, swiping his hair roguishly back from his face as he made his dramatic entrance. “If you ever figure out how to do that, let me know,” he said.
“Xanatos,” Qui-Gon said, lips twitching. “What have you been up to?”
Xanatos stretched, exaggeratedly lazy. “You know. A few investments here. Some political maneuvering there.”
“Profiting off of the fall of the Hutt Empire,” Obi-Wan translated. “You had some decidedly inside information.”
“Possibly,” Xanatos said. “Think of it more like a public service. Someone has to step into the economic gap the Hutts left.”
“Luckily you have some practice in changing the economies of societies getting away from slavery,” Obi-Wan said cheerfully. “I still have some of my papers from my Rights of Sentients class, do you want to borrow them?”
“Kriff off,” Xanatos said, aiming a punch at Obi-Wan’s shoulder which Obi-Wan ducked. Obi-Wan stuck his tongue out at him and Xanatos sneered.
Qui-Gon couldn’t quite help the glow of contentment watching them. Obi-Wan’s feverish words rung in his head; you can come back. Xanatos would never be a Jedi, and perhaps that was Qui-Gon’s failing, or not, but perhaps he could be something new. Maybe with the help of Qui-Gon’s very strange padawan, the galaxy could be just a little brighter.
“All right, I’m off,” Xanatos said, waving a hand. “Just came to make sure my pardon was all legal and everything.”
“It is,” Qui-Gon said. “Just don’t do any more crimes for a while, will you?”
Xanatos scoffed, which was not a promise. “Bye, kid,” he said, and ruffled Obi-Wan’s hair. “Next time you get sold into slavery, I’m not helping you.”
“You couldn’t afford me,” Obi-Wan sniffed.
Xanatos rolled his eyes and turned to go.
“Xanatos,” Qui-Gon said, and he paused, turning back. Qui-Gon bowed at the waist. “May the Force be with you.”
“Cheesy,” Xanatos said, and disappeared into the shadows once more, pulling his hood up over his head. He felt a little more cheerful as he went, though.
On the landing platform, the engines whined. The ships were getting warmed up to leave. There were still a few goodbyes to say.
One of them came up now. It was Shmi Skywalker, still in her Mandalorian vambraces but minus the helmet, with her hair in a long braid and her son, as usual, strapped to her chest. Qui-Gon was beginning to have doubts that Jango Fett was, in fact, the father— so far as he knew, Mandalorian parents were much more involved with their children than he was. Jango was helpful enough with the boy, and clearly cared about him, but he left the decisions about Anakin to his mother. That was, however, none of Qui-Gon’s business.
“Thank you both for all your help,” Shmi said. “And the other Jedi too. Your kindness, your assistance… it gives me faith in the Jedi.” She patted Anakin’s head. “However, I will not be sending my son with you.”
Obi-Wan looked unsurprised.
“He is very strong in the Force,” Qui-Gon told her. “It would be best to be among his own people.”
“He already is,” Shmi said. “I will not change my mind. I could give him up, if I needed to, if I knew he would be getting a better life. But I don’t need to. Anakin stays.”
Qui-Gon sighed— the boy, already strong in the Force, would only grow more powerful. The Force told him Anakin would be a great Jedi. But it wasn’t his decision. He looked instead to Anakin. “You’re a lucky boy, you know that?” he asked, and the baby chewed his fist and stared at him. “As you wish, Lady Skywalker.”
“You call if you need help,” Obi-Wan said.
Shmi smiled.
“Looks like I don’t have to shoot anyone after all,” Jango said, striding up. “Shame. I could use the practice.”
“Rumor has it several of the former slaves are shipping off to Mandalore today,” Obi-Wan said.
“Yup,” Jango said. “The ones that aren’t going out to free other slaves now that Hutts are gone, anyway.”
“Are there a lot of former slaves turned freedom fighters, then?” Qui-Gon asked.
“You have no idea,” Shmi said, looking pleased. “No one has a claim to the Hutt properties now that they’re gone— the Hutts weren’t ones for heirs. A lot of lieutenants and seconds-in-command will be trying to take over their operations. We don’t intend to let them.”
“Sounds like a properly Mandalorian fight to me,” Obi-Wan said.
Jango grinned— apparently, this was a compliment. “You could join us,” he said. “Anyone who can handle a sen'tra like that has to be manda. If you won’t join the clan we can at least work out some kind of joint custody thing with the Jettise.”
Obi-Wan laughed but Qui-Gon glared at Jango, because he knew he was not joking. He almost did the I’m watching you hand sign, but resisted because he was pretty sure it was undignified for a Jedi Master.
“We’re going back to Coruscant,” Qui-Gon said loudly, and Jango gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Come on, Obi-Wan, let’s go.”
A loud screech belayed that plan, attracting the attention of everyone on the platform. It was R2D2, who came barreling up the ramp and viciously knocked into Obi-Wan’s legs. Obi-Wan stumbled and almost fell, but then he patted the droid gently. “Don’t worry, little friend. I wasn’t going to leave you.”
“I suppose we’re keeping him then?” Qui-Gon asked.
“I’m not his owner,” Obi-Wan said, looking wistful for a moment. “But I suppose we can keep each other company for a while— that is, if you’re up for it, Artoo.”
The droid whistled and beeped.
“Well, not every day is this exciting,” Obi-Wan said, and laughed at the disbelieving whine the droid let out. “Not always,” Obi-Wan said. “But if you really want to come along, you’re more than welcome.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?” Qui-Gon grumbled halfheartedly.
“Nope,” Obi-Wan said, and the droid beeped something easily understandable as the same.
By the ships, Tholme let out a loud whistle. “Hurry it up!” he said, cupping his hands around his mouth when they looked over at him. “We don’t have all day!”
Aayla looked delighted with the noise he had just produced and stuck her own fingers in her mouth, attempting to reproduce the whistle. Though it was too far away to hear, Qui-Gon was sure Quinlan was egging her on.
“Duty calls,” Obi-Wan said wryly.
Shmi reached out and enveloped Obi-Wan into a hug that made his padawan let out a surprised squeak. Obi-Wan relaxed into it eventually and returned it with enough vigor that Qui-Gon suspected he had probably not been giving his padawan enough affection.
Shmi turned and gave Qui-Gon the same treatment, making him grunt in surprise and Jango snort a laugh. Finally Shmi released him and gave him a pat on the head that was very similar to the one people often gave Obi-Wan— even though Qui-Gon loomed a good few inches taller than her.
Aayla succeeded in her whistle and everyone winced as the high-pitched noise hit their ears. It was time to go— Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan turned to Jango.
“I’m not gonna hug you,” Jango said, his mouth twitching. He clapped a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “ Ret'urcye mhi,” he said.
“ Ret’,” Obi-Wan said cheerfully.
“You should wear a bucket more often,” Jango told him.
“I will not,” Obi-Wan said.
Jango grinned, and, despite his words, lifted Obi-Wan into a back-cracking hug. Despite their similar heights Obi-Wan’s feet dangled. He swore at him until Jango set him back down and tugged at his braid.
Qui-Gon settled on just bowing at him when Jango turned to him.
“Take care,” Jango said, which was pretty fond for him.
“You too,” Qui-Gon said.
“Seriously, you call when Anakin starts giving you trouble,” Obi-Wan was telling Shmi. “And Anakin is going to give you a lot of trouble.”
Everyone looked at the baby on Shmi’s chest, who chose that moment to yawn adorably and blink at them.
“Troublemaker,” Obi-Wan told the baby sternly, and a wave of Force energy— from both sides— clashed into each other. Anakin smiled toothlessly, then went back to sleep. Obi-Wan smiled.
“All right, enough,” Qui-Gon said, grabbing Obi-Wan by the scruff of his cloak and starting to haul him off towards their ride home. “If we pick up any more pathetic lifeforms I daresay we won’t get off the ground.”
“That is so funny, Master,” Obi-Wan said, in a tone that suggested the opposite. Obi-Wan turned around to wave goodbye to Shmi and Jango one more time and they waved back, laughing.
“Finally,” Quinlan said, when they reached the ship.
“Are you ready to go?” Tholme asked.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, and the Force swirled gently, cheerfully, around them. “I suppose we are.”
Notes:
Chapter header from TCW - 5X08 Bound For Rescue
Ryl translations:
Ka - yesMando'a translations:
Sen'tra - jetpack
Manda - the state of being Mandalorian
Ret'urcye mhi - Until we meet again/goodbye
Come on, Shmi wasn't going to give up Anakin! She's way too smart to let him get involved with the Jedi.
That's the last chapter!!! Thank you so much for following along so far. I had so much fun writing this. The next part of this series is already written! It will most likely be out next Monday as usual.
Questions? Comments? Ask below.
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