WOUNDED WARRIOR

by ardavenport

- - - Part 3

"Obi-Wan."

He opened his eyes, waking to a quick, rough touch on his cheek, but when he looked up toward his Master, he only saw Qui-Gon's back, turned away, going to the medical droid at the other end of the room.

Sitting up, Obi-Wan blinked. The light outside had gone to a ghostly, sterile white. It was already well past red sunset, leaving only the planet's tiny white dwarf star in the sky.

Obi-Wan swung his feet off the recliner and saw a tall white and silver cylinder standing upright by the door. Surprised, he looked from the medical capsule to his Master who was impatiently giving instructions to the droid.

"There are no injuries for me to attend to -"

"Correct." Qui-Gon cut the machine off with a wave. "However, you will appear to behave as if you are tending a seriously injured patient."

The droid blinked, red and orange. Something inside it whirred softly.

"Please specify the nature of the injuries to be simulated."

Qui-Gon scowled, apparently unsatisfied with the droid's initiative and imagination.

"Shock. Dehydration. Blaster burns to the torso and extremities," he ordered.

Obi-Wan wondered if he would survive. The droid confirmed the instructions, and that they were only simulated injuries. Qui-Gon went to the medical capsule and activated it. The cylinder swivelled down into its cradle, hovering over the floor. The clear-plas opening slid back with a gentle whoosh.

Qui-Gon finally turned back and actually looked at him.

"We will be returning to the ship. Senator Bladdos has requested that you be transported in a suitable fashion."

"Requested?" Obi-Wan asked with a grin.

"Demanded, Padawan." Qui-Gon's hard glare invited neither discussion nor questions. He was not just hurried; Obi-Wan saw only unyielding purpose and no compassion at all.

"Yes, Master." He nodded, gathered up his belt and lightsaber, and limped to the capsule, keeping his weight off of his injured toe. Qui-Gon stepped aside for him. Obi-Wan laid his hand on the smooth clear-plas, preparing to climb in.

The office door slid open.

"What is he doing standing?" Bladdos snapped, then whirled about, confirming that the door had shut behind him before aiming his ire at Qui-Gon, who lifted his head slightly, his expression severe.

"You said he would look the part," Bladdos pointed a thick finger up at the Jedi Master. "He can't have his miraculous Jedi healing until after he's back at the ship."

Obi-Wan stood there, frozen as if the contempt between Master and Senator had thickened the air around him. While he had slept, the two had transformed into enemies.

"My Padawan is quite capable of performing his part for your. . . . display. Your concern, such as it is, is misplaced."

Bladdos snarled. "Then get on with it," he ordered in a derisive tone that he used for delegates who used up thirty words complaining about another delegation being allowed six more words than they had.

Qui-Gon turned away from the politician. He folded his arms into the sleeves of his robe, an unhurried gesture that Bladdos followed with narrowed eyes.

"Obi-Wan, you will assume the appearance of the injuries that I have instructed the droid to simulate treating." Qui-Gon did not quite look at him as he spoke, his expression cold with what a Jedi Master might only privately admit was anger.

"Yes, Master." Obi-Wan did not hesitate or question. Anything other than obedience would put him right in the middle whatever conflict now divided his two seniors.

He climbed into the medical capsule, putting aside the folded covering as he did so. As soon as he had lain down, Qui-Gon spread the shiny fabric over him, effectively concealing his lack of injury. The ends of his long hair briefly brushed over Obi-Wan's face and neck as he brushed the covering smooth, the edge a neat line across his chest and the end of his thin Padawan's braid.

"Here, take these." Obi-Wan looked up to see Bladdos waving the ruined boots at Qui-Gon, who did not reach for them. Bladdos tossed them into the medical capsule. Obi-Wan barely caught them and pushed them down under the covering with his belt and lightsaber. The blackened toe left a large smudge on the covering.

Bladdos slapped the closure on the capsule and the clear-plas slid back into place, sealing him in. The air intake immediately purred into life.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts on lowering his body temperature. It was the quickest method of achieving the expected unhealthy pallor. He sank into a controlled cold numbness while his mind retreated into detachment. While the medical capsule muffled the shouting outside his refuge, the emotions still blazed over him through the Force.

Bladdos did all the shouting, though the words were indistinct even to his trained senses. He had witnessed quite a lot of shouting from the Senator. Anger and insults were part of his negotiating technique. It was nothing new. But Qui-Gon's thoughts dwelled darkly on the quickest methods he could use to silence the Senator.

The image of Qui-Gon's lightsaber blade held up under Bladdos's heavy chin, leaving a black, searing scar behind, almost broke Obi-Wan's concentration, but he separated himself from it, bleeding the color from the horror, consequences, and savage, delicious enjoyment. It wouldn't do any good. Bladdos would not be intimidated. By anything. The rules that applied to others were beneath him.

This last thought came from Qui-Gon as his fury dissipated. Obi-Wan felt no relief as it dissolved like smoke; he felt nothing at all but the cool of his body, his heartbeat as if in sleep. He heard nothing, saw nothing other than the Force. The confrontation above him ended. The shouting stopped.

The medical capsule began to move.

The motion was steady, taking him out into the conference room, Bladdos ahead, Qui-Gon behind. There were other people, standing, watching, getting out of the way. Things flitted overhead. And they continued to move forward, slowly and unstoppable.

There were even more beings in the entrance hall, their many presences made most visible through the Force since all their attentions focused on them, the medical capsule, the Jedi Master, the Senator. Others joined Bladdos, but Obi-Wan could not discern anything other than gloom, grave sense of the moment and the familiar presence of the senior delegates.

They passed into the courtyard.

Hundreds peered down on the procession. Beyond the courtyard there were thousands. Many thousands, waiting to see them pass, their presence oppressive in the Force, surrounding them from above. Obi-Wan heard nothing, saw nothing and dared not revive himself enough to take even an eye blink of the sight around them. But he did not need to. Through the Force, their presences echoed on all his senses, glowing, murmuring, bodies with heated breaths pressing down on them.

They moved faster. They had boarded a transport through the city that watched them from towers above and below, the audience always growing larger. Millions of them.

Their transport glided onto the immense spaceport platform. After only a brief pause, the medical capsule moved again.

There were Jedi waiting for them.

Obi-Wan could feel them. Two? Three? There were three with others - not Jedi - standing, then bowing, greeting Bladdos and the ministers, delegates. But Qui-Gon stayed by the medical capsule. Silent.

Obi-Wan remained non-moving. Their audience still watched, hovering above while the delegates communicated their grave sentiments. Bladdos was almost indistinguishable from them, he was now so much of a part of their tasks.

The medical capsule and Qui-Gon now rose into the ship. The loading ramp retracted, the ship hull closed, finally separating them from the vast gathering of watchers just as the enclosing cylinder isolated Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan floated in the silence. Waiting.

A click. And a whoosh. He took a deep breath, pulling the air deep into his lungs, warming them.

"Obi-Wan."

A warm hand nudged his cold cheek. He opened his eyes, blinking.

Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows at him. The backs of his fingers lightly rubbed the skin on his face. Obi-Wan felt the warmth spread to the rest of his body. He sat up.

"Hmm," Qui-Gon said approvingly. "A very miraculous recovery." He nodded, smiling. Obi-Wan swung his legs over the opening of the capsule and stood.

And pitched forward when the pain from his left big toe shot up his leg when he put his weight on it.

Qui-Gon caught him easily..

"Perhaps not," Qui-Gon remarked with amused consolation. Supporting him under his arms, he pulled him upright and Obi-Wan stood with all he weight on his right foot. Qui-Gon guided him toward a chair.

"Is that expected, Qui-Gon?" he asked. "A miraculous recovery?"

Obi-Wan knew that he had made a foolish mistake by not keeping the holo-com on while he waited in the empty office. Even amidst the replays of earlier events, useless blather and sometimes insulting commentary, there still would have been information about the status of the unification. Now he had no idea what had just happened.

"After a suitable amount of time, yes." Qui-Gon leaned on the rounded edge of a shelf. Obi-Wan looked about; the medical droid was gone and they were back in their cabin on Senator Bladdos's ship where everything was silver and gray metal curves with maroon striped edges.

Qui-Gon suppressed a yawn.

"Um, who was here to greet us?"

"Aaah." Qui-Gon nodded. "Master Peill, Master O'Fozzl and Master Chuma. Senator Bladdos had become unhappy with our service, particularly mine, and demanded that the Jedi Order send better representatives."

Obi-Wan grimaced at hearing the names of such senior Jedi, including a Council member.

"Will they be displeased with you?"

"They are already displeased with me," Qui-Gon stated lightly.

"Are you not concerned then?" Obi-Wan asked, confused by his Master's casual manner.

"No. I have no doubt that after suitable exposure to Senator Bladdos that they will see my point in the argument."

"You were arguing then," he stated. He had not even been able to allow his thoughts to wonder why until now.

"Yes," the older Jedi answered. "Senator Bladdos wanted me to injure one of the delegates with my lightsaber. One of the ones who had first fired on the conference. As a demonstration. Nothing life-threatening, of course, but painful, and visible." Qui-Gon drew his finger across his neck to indicate where Bladdos wanted the scar. "I refused. Bladdos was not pleased. Unfortunately, there were holo-facz recorders hovering nearby and while our words were effectively screened, it was a visible disagreement. So, not having information, the com channels invented several scenarios. Bladdos decided to use this to his advantage and hinted to some particularly credulous holo commentators about me demanding that someone be physically punished for your injuries. And that he was heroically negotiating for a compromise with myself and the Jedi Order."

Qui-Gon gestured toward him. "Your speedy recovery, though the Jedi Healing Trance, will redeem enough of the delegates' honor so that they can seal the compromises that Senator Bladdos has maneuvered them into and proclaim the official unification."

"Healing trance?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Apparently there is supposed to be some ceremonial chanting and raising of the Force on my part as well. According to Senator Bladdos." Qui-Gon now openly yawned.

Obi-Wan recoiled. The Jedi exaggerations had escalated beyond anything reasonable.

"And Senator Bladdos made that up?"

"Yes," Qui-Gon confirmed. "There was also something about Jedi Mind Twisting, Force disembowelment and a Blood Debt to the Jedi Order, but I missed the first part of that conversation."

"And Bladdos is using this? This. . . . invention?" Obi-Wan's tone rose a little higher than he had intended.

"He is." Qui-Gon sighed. He turned and extended his hand to a wall com. It clicked. A holo appeared above an inset desk. The channels shifted from transparent chattering heads to close-ups of Obi-Wan, pale and death-like in the medical capsule to the faces of worried delegates to images of the medical capsule traversing the courtyard, the crowds parting before it. And a hooded and glowering Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan saw that his Master had been glaring at the back of Bladdos's neck while he marched solemnly behind the medical capsule.

". . . .And there is still no comment from the Jedi Order about. . . ."

"The Jedi Order is notoriously secretive. Their mysterious warrior ways. . . ."

". . . .the honor of all the Staretz systems hangs in the balance. . . . "

". . . .Now the Mu'melg and Alk'melg delegations have announced that they will agree. . . ."

". . . .an historic compromise might yet be salvaged, if only. . . . "

Qui-Gon rolled his eyes, went to one of the cabin's bunks and, removing robe and lightsaber, stretched out on it. He began loosening the hair tie on the back of his head.

Obi-Wan turned back to the holo images.

The unification talks had transformed into a cheap drama, where now all the delegates were desperate to compromise, to complete their now desperate tasks. Had Bladdos really engineered that?

The holo image zoomed in on Senator Bladdos, addressing a small group of delegates. And behind him stood three very unhappy looking senior Jedi Masters. They all had stern and tight-lipped expressions, though Obi-Wan had to admit that Even Piell always looked unhappy to him.

"Master, how can the Jedi Order allow such blatant misinformation?" he asked out loud.

"And how would you propose they not allow it, my young Padawan?" Qui-Gon queried back, a little sleepily. "We were sent to serve, to support the unification. Now it is the Council's turn." Qui-Gon smiled up at the ceiling.

Obi-Wan had no answer. Though the Force filled the universe, the Jedi Order was only a very tiny group in it. And if the true nature of the Jedi could be shouted out to every the being he had sensed watching them, would they listen?

The holo image zoomed in on Senator Bladdos, addressing a small group of delegates. Obi-Wan remembered his sense of Bladdos, his purpose united with the delegates, that he appeared the same as them through the Force. And he realized that of course Senator Bladdos had not manufactured this hyperdrive drama on his own. He had his staff, and the delegates, the strongest advocates of the unification, and their staffs and their supporters, and perhaps. . . .the holo-facz, too?

A succession of excited transparent, chattering heads intruded upon the images of delegates, Bladdos, staff and grim-faced Jedi. Had Bladdos already told them to shut up and look big and mean for the holos? A grin crept across his lips.

He turned toward Qui-Gon, but his Master was already asleep on the bunk, his long hair spread out over the pillow.

Obi-Wan looked about and extending his hand outward, he called a pillow from the other bunk with the Force. A storage crate slid across the deck to him. He carefully placed his foot on the pillow, which rested on the crate. Then an upper storage unit opened and containers of food and drink came out to him.

On the holo, a pretty commentator breathlessly reviewed the notable deeds and status of the three Jedi.

Behind him Qui-Gon breathed slowly and deeply, oblivious to the noise.

His fatly bandaged toe poking upward before him, Obi-Wan settled down to watch.

OOO END OOO

(This story was first posted on tf.n: 8-Dec-2007)

Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.