Title: Joint Strength
Author: Rene
Rating: PG
Notes: See part one
Summary of this part: Bant finds a way out, Qui-Gon tries to end a battle
quickly, Obi-Wan seeks to help, and Molu startles the Council.
Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only, no profit gained from this
endeavor.
Back by popular demand, a quick synopsis of part fourteen:
Part Fourteen began with Bant considering the empty hallway in front of
the lift. Her qualms about it are soon justified when she encounters Bruck
Chun and he draws his lightsaber, attempting to stop her from leaving the
floor, and bring her to "Morran" as he has been ordered to do. In the midst
of the ensuing scuffle, the lift opens to reveal Qui-Gon and A'ali Cek, and
Bruck, in seeking to avoid striking the Master with his ignited saber,
drives it into the wall and fatally damages the power conduit to the lift,
rendering it completely useless. Qui-Gon instructs Bant to find a way up
the the Council, where he has sent General Molu, and tells Bruck to help
her. He and A'ali then set out to find Obi-Wan. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan, reeling
from the 'pad recording which seemed to show his Master's death and barely
able to move on his injured knee, escapes from Xanatos into the huge main
power conduit for the Temple. Xanatos stalks him there, but is interupted by
A'ali, who in the ensuing exchange is flipped off the catwalk onto a lower
one where she now lies, gravely injured. Xanatos moves in to strike Obi-Wan
down, but is stopped by Qui-Gon's voice: "Your battle is with me."
Joint Strength Part Fifteen
Bant studied Bruck speculatively, comparing the boy she saw before her now to the one who had blocked her access to the lift just a few minutes ago. He stared back, a sheen of hot anger slicking his cheekbones under her measuring gaze.
“Master Jinn said to find a way off this floor,” he said brusquely. “Let’s get to it.”
“I already know a way,” she murmured, and pivoted on the ball of one foot. Without a backward glance, she ran lightly up the hall, and veered into the second cross-corridor. Swallowing a harsh epithet, Bruck glared after her, but his surface anger masked an underlying fear. What was she going to say when they reached the council chamber and made a report. Would she tell of his words and actions, of his drawn saber? For an instant, he hesitated, considering his options, weighing the temptation of letting her go and just brazening the whole thing out, or following her, finding a way to really help and thus make an excellent impression on Master Jinn. Finally, leashing his anger with visible effort, he set off down the hall after her.
She moved effortlessly through the maze of corridors, so confident of her destination that she ran full stride, with no need to pause and consider the next turn. Bruck’s longer legs were the sole reason he was able to keep her in sight, and even then, he turned a final corner only just in time to see her slip into a darkened room.
Her head was tipped back, gauging the distance from the floor to an open ventilation shaft, when Bruck entered the room, eyes bright with irritation. She glanced at him for half a moment, and then turned back to the vent without a word, focusing intently on the task before her. His face darkened. Who did she think she was, this little Calamarian, to dismiss him so easily?
“Qui-Gon Jinn told me to help you,” he growled.
“So he did.” Her voice was soft and completely firm, like sueded steel. “But I think it would be better if I went alone.”
She turned to him then, her silver eyes matching the metallic tone of her words.
“You drew saber on me, Bruck. I’m not certain I can trust you to honor Master Jinn’s command.”
Bruck sputtered, trying urgently to summon up the proper amount of wounded indignation. “Don’t trust me. . .How can you. . .”
Bant ignored him. Striding forward to stand under the vent, she said, “Don’t follow me.”
With a Force-aided leap, she grasped the edge of the shaft opening and propelled herself into it with a strong swimmer’s kick.
Bruck’s expression of injured innocence vanished as he listened to the soft sounds of her progress up the shaft. His eyes narrowed as his anger escaped its leash, and he moved to follow her. But then he stopped, pulling the emotion back in.
Best not to antagonize her, he thought. If she’s angry, she might blurt out first thing that I . . .confronted her, there at the lift. Have to think of a good way to explain that first. Better let her go.v Better go find Morran.
* * * * *
The deep voice charged the molecules of the air, electrifying them with
a heavy current of tension and hope. Obi-Wan’s heart clenched, emitting a
wave of joy so powerful it rocked him back against the railing. He was
almost afraid to look, afraid of some trick perpetrated by his opponent’s
dark talents. But he saw Xanatos’ gaze lift, and his body sway slightly
back as his eyes widened. Abruptly then, Obi-Wan spun, knee crumpling
helplessly beneath him so that he had to clutch the railing to stay upright.
There, on a catwalk hugging the concave wall five meters above them, Qui-Gon Jinn stood tall and still and indisputably alive.
Alive!
The ‘pad recording must have been faked, Obi-Wan thought, wild relief making his hands tremble against the railing.
Qui-Gon’s saber-sharp gaze was pinned on Xanatos, but the hardness melted instantaneously as his eyes shifted to Obi-Wan. A flash of shared emotion arced between them, a mutual gladness, though Qui-Gon’s face grew darker as he considered Obi-Wan’s hunched posture. A memory flared through him: the echo of someone else’s searing pain.
“Are you all right?” he asked, glancing down to the clenched white knuckles of Obi-Wan’s fist.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan answered, although he clearly wasn’t.
“How touching,” Xanatos’ murmur had lost its smooth edge. He felt the Force pulse between the master and apprentice, and knew that the balance of power in this situation had radically altered. His eyes narrowed.
“A reunion.” His voice grew louder, more jagged. “A happy reunion between Master and Padawan. Somehow the Master has escaped Triki despite traps and taboos, and somehow the Padawan is still standing, despite his own clumsiness.”
Xanatos stepped forward suddenly and seized Obi-Wan’s arm, bringing his lightsaber around chest-high. Obi-Wan pressed himself flat against the railing to avoid the blade, his shoulders taut as he fought to hold the awkward stance.
“I was surprised, Qui-Gon,” Xanatos was saying, glaring up at the Master’s expressionless face, “to find that you had taken up another apprentice. But then, when I came to understand this one’s oafishness and . . .lack of wisdom, I realized that of course he is just another of your pitiful charities.”
He spat out the last two words with acrid venom.
Despite everything: the joy of seeing his Master alive, the roaring pain in his knee, the knowledge that A’ali was lying gravely injured down below; despite all of this, Obi-Wan felt his heart contract miserably, folding in on itself to deny entrance to those painful words. But they slid in regardless, like a razor-thin blade, piercing him and laying bare the raw edges of his fears.
“Yes,” his mind whispered darkly. “Why else would he have accepted me?”
He didn’t see Xanatos’ mouth curve in cruel half-smile, eyes glinting a challenge up at Qui-Gon, didn’t see Qui-Gon’s eyes flash momentarily with anger and sorrow. He stood, face averted, fighting to extricate that thought before it took root in his heart. And so, in the half-second of silence following Xanatos’ words, Obi-Wan did not see his Master leap.
Moving with startling speed and grace, Qui-Gon reached for the railing of his catwalk, vaulted his tall form over it and landed with a clang on the walkway in front of them, saber ignited and raised.
But Xanatos did not engage him. Pivoting with lightning speed, he brought his blade down, diagonally, and pulled it to a stop mere centimeters from Obi-Wan’s limp knee.
Qui-Gon held himself utterly still, saber held at ready, eyes boring into Xanatos’ leering face. Obi-Wan’s whole body, pinned back against the railing, shrank away from the blade, as he blinked away a sudden horrifying vision of the lightsaber severing his leg.
“He’s already injured,” Xanatos hissed. “Would you like to see him permanently crippled, or missing a leg? He’s not much of a Padawan, but he’d be even less of one with a prosthesis, wouldn’t he? Back to the Agricorps with him, I think.”
A muscle in Obi-Wan’s cheek twitched, as if a live current ran through his jaw..
Qui-Gon remained motionless, his eyes alive with inexorable purpose.
“Xanatos,” he said, voice formal. “Hear me.”
Xanatos’ lip turned up in a derisive sneer.
Qui-Gon turned his gaze to Obi-Wan, though his voice still addressed Xanatos.
“This boy,” he said, “is the finest Padawan that I have ever seen. And even were he crippled, he would still be, at 13, more of a Jedi than you were at 25.” He looked back at Xanatos, and, strangely, his face was molded with compassion, and sadness for what his former Padawan had become, and for what he now was compelled to say. He leaned forward slightly, voice low and permeated with truth as he said, “Hs is more of a Jedi now than you would have ever been.”
Xanatos’ eyes blazed with seething fury, his whole body tightening, possessed by rage. In that moment of clouded focus, Qui-Gon struck, surging forward and bringing his blade down with such power that the air shrieked along its length. Obi-Wan was leaping too, throwing his body aside and catching the opposite railing with both hands. His knee buckled, and he fell, leg dragging behind like a burden. He pulled his good leg under him with a gasp, and pivoted, seeking the battle desperately with his eyes.
* * * * *
With a quickly indrawn breath, Bant kicked out the vent cover in front
of her, wiggling around to peer through the opening as the cover clattered
to the floor below. The bright illumination on this floor provoked a sigh
of relief; surely a fully-lit floor meant a fully-used floor, one serviced
by the Temple’s main lift banks. She pushed herself out of the shaft,
landing lightly, and after a confused moment spent orienting herself, ran
centerwards.
Around the second corner, she gulped back a triumphant cry. There, at the opposite end of the corridor, she saw the first two doors of a broad bank of lifts, and she sprinted at them as if propelled by a gale-force wind, Obi-Wan’s lightsaber swinging wildly at her side.
* * * * *
The blades whirled and dipped, a deadly, silent dance punctuated only
with the scrape of booted feet on metal, the sabers’ whining, humming power
cells and the clash of opposing energy fields. Xanatos’ face was contorted
with rage and effort as he blocked a lateral slice, letting his own blade
ricochet back up toward his former Master’s grimly set jaw. Qui-Gon parried
it easily, pushing it back with a heave of powerful shoulders and then
disengaging to strike again. He pressed the battle back, away from his
wounded apprentice, giving Obi-Wan the space to escape.
But escape was not his plan.
How can I help? Obi-Wan thought raggedly. How? How? Can’t use hand combat, leg won’t work. Why did I give my saber to Bant. . .?
And then he heard a faint sound, a rustling scrape, from below.
A’ali!
He dragged his eyes away from Qui-Gon and Xanatos, looking down to see that A’ali had moved, rolling onto her side. A smear of blood glistened on the walkway next to her.
She needs help too! he thought frantically.
A thud, the sound of fist on flesh, assailed him suddenly, and he jerked his head back around, to see Xanatos reeling back from a blow to his face, blade askew. The black anger that surged around him abated suddenly, replaced with something that seemed very like fear, or dismay. Qui-Gon pressed the advantage, snuffing his saber with one hand and reaching out with the other. Wielding the Force with a quick twist of his hand, he wrenched Xanatos’ lightsaber out of his grip and sent it spinning out over the abyss.
His hand remained outstretched in the suddenly frozen stillness, his eyes boring into Xanatos’ face.
“Surrender. You cannot win this battle.”
Xanatos’ eyes had been momentarily blank with the shock of losing his weapon, but they sparkled now with malevolent hatred.
‘This one? This particular one? Maybe not. But others. . .”
He whirled. Qui-Gon’s hand dropped and reignited his weapon as he leaped forward. Xanatos lunged ahead, barely evading the sweep of Qui-Gon’s blade. As the arc of the swing carried past him, he pivoted again with shocking swiftness, and pushed Qui-Gon back with a wickedly thrust forearm. Qui-Gon barely stumbled, but the fraction of a second required for him to regain his balance gave Xanatos the time he needed. He took three quick leaping strides forward, leaned over the railing, thrust out his hand, and wrenched A’ali’s lightsaber from her prone body, calling it to him with all the force of his dark power, igniting it the moment it slapped into his palm. Qui-Gon pursued, face intent on ending this battle, and he struck a sharp vertical blow at Xanatos’ outstretched arm. Xanatos only barely managed to tip his blade backward enough to deflect the blow, and then suddenly, from out of nowhere, a shiv was in his other hand and he drove it at Qui-Gon’s heart with all his strength.
“Master!” Obi-Wan lurched forward, trying to close the three-meter gap between he and the combatants with one pained hop.
Only a Jedi’s reflexes could defend a man from such a blow. Qui-Gon’s free hand snapped up in a blur of motion, slapping the blade away from his chest with his open palm, but, quick as it was, this defensive movement could not prevent the shiv from slicing sideways, shearing away the fabric of his tunic and scoring a red gash across the muscles of his upper arm. He flinched away, swinging his lightsaber instinctively toward Xanatos’ body. Snarling, Xanatos jerked the knife back, leaping aside to avoid the strike. His momentum carried him farther then he intended, and he stumbled backward, almost falling at Obi-Wan’s feet.
And from below, Obi-Wan heard a groaning sigh, a sound pregnant with pain. Obi-Wan’s gaze flicked from his Master’s blood-soaked arm as he pressed forward, to Xanatos’ stumbling form, then over the railing to A’ali’s crumpled body.
He knew what must be done.
Xanatos recovered his balance. His eyes locked with Obi-Wan’s, for a fraction of an instant, and he tightened his grip on the shiv, raising his other arm to block Qui-Gon with the lightsaber and aiming the knife at Obi-Wan’s chest..
Qui-Gon pulled back, halting his lightsaber at the apex of his next strike, and Xanatos grinned viciously at him. “What will it be, Master?” His voice robbed the title of all its honor. “Strike me down? You can’t be sure I won’t kill him first. I can destroy him right here.”
Obi-Wan glared at him, muscles bunching along his shoulders as he tightened his grip on the railing.
“That’s true. You can. But there’s one thing you can’t do.” Obi-Wan glanced over Xanatos’ shoulder to Qui-Gon’s face. Master, he thought, I hope you can sense what I’m about to do.
“What’s that?” Xanatos asked, one brow cocked mockingly.
Obi-Wan’s eyes remained fixed on his Master’s, and he saw the flash of comprehension and then the barely visible nod. He looked back at Xanatos and said quietly, “You can’t follow me.”
With his free hand, Qui-Gon seized Xanatos’ wrist and jerked him off-balance. Obi-Wan leaped across the walkway on his good leg, and reached for the Force. He propelled himself into a handstand atop the railing and then pivoted on one hand so that he was facing outward. Dimly, behind him, he heard the discordant clash of sabers as he swung his body out and down, feeling the great weight of the abyss above and the slowly turning menace of huge fan blades below. Then he released his grip on the railing, pushing outward with all his strength.
His body fell, arcing downward. He saw the lower catwalk rushing up to meet him, with A’ali’s curled body silhouetted against the dark metal like a shell on a blackened beach, and wrapped the Force around him.
* * * * *
General Molu could feel their resistance to his words. They were
settled back in their chairs, regarding him dispassionately. He wondered
distantly what it would take to move them to a display of emotion.
A white-haired Master spoke, then, leaning forward slightly. “General, I believe we would have detected Xanatos’ presence if he were truly here at the Temple.”
The small one pursed his lips, ears raising slightly. “Perhaps not. Difficult to see, darkness can be.”
Molu shrugged. “That isn’t my province. I am the messenger only.”
“Qui-Gon Jinn requested us to gather. Why isn’t he here himself to tell us of this?” This from an elegant elderly woman.
“He sensed distress, and has gone to see to the safety of his apprentice.” Molu crossed his arms across his chest.
Polite disbelief drifted gently over the chamber. Molu saw it in the narrowed eyes, the tightened lips, the minute shifting of postures. After a moment of silence, the diminutive Master spoke.
“No apprentice has Master Qui-Gon.”
No apprentice? Molu’s brow furrowed, as he tried to reconcile that statement with what he knew of his Jedi friend, with what he had seen in the last two days. Slowly he shook his head.
“Forgive me, your honors, but I believe you’re mistaken. He does indeed have an apprentice. Someone named Obi-Wan.”
The _sinna_, curled around one of the General’s feet, lifted its head and chirped, “Obi-Wan Kenobi”
A wave of astonishment swept the Chamber. The Masters looked from one to another, seeming almost nonplused. Molu could not help the small smile that curled one corner of his mouth. So that’s what it takes to move them, he thought.
Aloud, he asked mildly, “You didn’t know about this?”
The elegant woman leaned forward suddenly, brow creased in quick urgency. “You said Qui-Gon has gone to see to Obi-Wan’s safety. Does he have some reason to believe the boy is in danger?”
Molu nodded. “He has felt fear and pain, and thought the boy is the source.”
“And I told A’ali to check on him . . .” The woman’s face went bland as she receded from them, and then contorted in sudden worry as her focus snapped back “I can’t find her! All I sense is unfocused distress. . .”
As one, the twelve Masters stood.
“Locate all of them, we should,” the small one said grimly. “At once.”
tbc
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