Lineage IV

1.

"It has tentacles, master."

Jedi master Qui Gon Jinn emptied a canister of purified water into soil surrounding the thing's root ball, and nonchalantly tossed the lightweight metal bottle over his shoulder.

His Padawan caught the smooth object in one hand. "And teeth."

"Don't center on your anxieties, Obi Wan."

The young Jedi heaved in a resigned breath and set the bottle upon an inset ledge with crisp precision. "Yes, master. I'll be sleeping outside tonight."

Qui Gon half-turned, looking at his apprentice suspiciously over one shoulder. The smile lines around his eyes deepened slightly. "To avoid an intimate encounter with this plant?" he inquired, teasingly.

"I prefer my bedfellows to be neither carnivorous nor tentacled."

The tall man's brows rose humorously. "I was not aware of your particularities in that regard…You've become quite a man of the world while I wasn't paying attention."

The young Jedi flushed a deep crimson and bowed curtly. "I'll be in the Agri Dome… communing with the Living Force," he grumbled, and departed at a smart clip, leaving Qui Gon alone with his latest pathetic life form.

It wasn't a bad plant, really, the Jedi master mused. But Alepo Sator, the director of the Agri-corps station here on Ord Ursolon, had banished it from the protective enclave of the greenhouse domes on grounds of aggressive and invasive behavioral patterns, dooming it to an untimely demise in the wastelands outside the cultivated region tended by the Republic Service Corps. Qui Gon had rescued it, of course; and while some – such as his young and precociously cynical Padawan – might regard the creature as a nuisance, the magnanimous Jedi master knew that much depended on one's point of view, and that this manifestation of Life's infinite variety deserved continued existence no less than any other individual.

And the Jedi existed to protect the downtrodden, did they not?

He chuckled and folded his hands into opposite sleeves, glancing through the pre-fab housing unit's narrow window. His apprentice was visible outside, crossing the lamentably dead lawn with its "Do not Tread on the Grass" sign posted in six common Galactic languages, making a rapid beeline for the glittering curve of the nearest greenhouse dome. Inside the agri-bubbles, it was warm and humid; out there, on Ord Ursulon's winter-stricken surface, the temperature was bitter, and the dust laced with an acidic tang that slowly scoured away skin and stung in the eyes. Obi Wan was moving fast, his long stride bespeaking strength and grace. Four weeks of more or less quiet service under Alepo's watchful and stern eye had done much to insure the young Jedi's recovery from illness… as well as his understanding of the Jedi path, and the humility demanded of those who aspired to Knighthood in the Order.

When the youth had disappeared inside the dome's shelter, Qui Gon turned from the window and went to coax the dilapidated comm. equipment into making a brief transmission to Coruscant.

Senior Healer Ben To Li stroked his silver-streaked beard. "Yes, I've perused the med droid's latest scan… this all looks very good. Of course, it's not the same as a personal examination. But he appears to be quite recovered. How much longer is your assignment out there?"

Qui Gon adjusted the holotransmitter to eliminate some of the static interference, focusing BenTo's image more clearly. "Two more standard weeks. The Council stipulated a full duty-rotation. And I think Alepo Sator has been a very salutary influence."

The healer snorted. "I defy any sentient being to truly curb your Padawan's spirit." He held up one gnarled hand, placatingly. "But two more weeks won't do any harm. Send me another blood sample tonight, and if all's well, I'll clear him for light exercise. That should make him happy."

Qui Gon nodded. "Thank you, Ben To. May the Force be with you."

The healer pointed an admonitory finger at the holocam. "And don't even think about smuggling home some Force-forsaken rare specimen. I remember a certain incident thirty-some years ago, when-"

"The past no longer exists," Qui Gon reminded him, and cut the link.

"Is that all of them?" Alepo Sator, horticulturalist extraordinaire, demanded. "Every last stinking one?"

Obi Wan wiped his hands on his pants. "Yes, sir."

The hunchbacked botanist snorted in satisfaction. "Good work. Those little barves would have overrun this entire facility in a month's time – most aggressive plant I've ever encountered in the galaxy. Nasty piece of chisszk, and hard to uproot."

The young Jedi nodded. He'd been obliged to use the Force to rip several of the more tenacious specimens out of their moorings. And some of those he had pulled up by hand had left him with a stinging rash, even through the protective cloth of his gloves. "What are they?" he asked, curious.

But Alepo shrugged, his misshapen back rising and falling with the motion. "Who knows. Never seen them anywhere else. I suppose you should keep a specimen or two. You can run them through the analyzer later, send a report in to the Astrobiological Society. They'll want a tissue sample, too – think you can extract one without mixing in your own cells? I don't want a frantic transmission incoming telling me I've got a vaping Force-sensitive weed on my hands."

Obi Wan grinned, and persisted at it until the botanist's somber face gave way, splitting into a reluctant reflection of his mirth.

"I'll do my best, sir."

"Kriff it, boy, your best is a sorry excuse for mediocre. You aren't cut out for a farmer, though you do work hard."

"I could learn," the Padawan protested, though he understood, after four long weeks of Alepo's cantankerous company, that his venom was mild, and empty of real malice.

The horticultural expert wiped sweat from his brow. It was sweltering under the transparent dome roof. Filtered afternoon sunlight beamed down upon the teeming greenery. "Just finish digging that irrigation trench on the east side, then get that sample out to the Society and grab some dinner. I'm done with you for the day. I 'spect your Jedi master has some mystical nonsense for you to do this evening."

Obi Wan bowed, and grabbed a digging tool. "Yes, thank you," he said, jogging away to work on the backbreaking trench project.

Alepo Sator adjusted his wide-brimmed hat and kicked the bucket of dead weeds. "Kriffing filthy little barves," he muttered. "Not under my roof, you don't."

Obi Wan eyed the newcomer warily as he entered, bearing a laden tray. The plant did not acknowledge his presence with so much as a wriggling tendril.

"I thought you were sleeping outside tonight?" Qui Gon enquired, rising from his meditation and helping set the dinner things upon the room's single low table.

"There's a dust storm forecast," the young Jedi informed him placidly, helping himself to a towering heap of foodstuffs. "…I didn't want you to be lonely and afraid when the wind starts blowing."

The tall man inclined his head. "You are a paragon of compassion."

"I could get used to this," the Padawan remarked, savoring his first bites. "The kitchen staff here could teach the Temple droids a thing or two."

"Hm. I'm glad you are enjoying yourself," Qui Gon replied, serving himself. "Ben To hinted that you might need to stay here convalescing another six weeks."

His apprentice's dismay was a vibrant pang in the Force.

"Not so, I lie," Qui Gon smirked.

Obi Wan scowled and applied himself to his supper again. "What did he really say?"

"That you seem well on the path to recovery and he might consider clearing you for light exercise – which," he hastened to add, "Does not mean sparring."

When they had finished the excellent meal, fabricated entirely from locally grown produce, Qui Gon withdrew a sampler from his compact medkit and drew the requisite drop of blood from his apprentice's finger. The tiny device slotted easily into his comlink. "I'll send this to BenTo when the dust storm subsides. In the meanwhile, what about a hand of sabaac to while away the lazy hours?"

Obi Wan shrugged nonchalantly. "As long as our friend isn't playing." He jerked his head in the direction of the potted menace lurking discreetly on the ledge between the room's two narrow sleep-cots.

"You're no match for it, anyway," the Jedi master assured him.

The dust storm arrived as promised in the darkest stretches of Ord Ursolon's long night. The roof of the Agro-Corps housing structure rattled and groaned like a junk freighter hitting a solar flare, but remained mercifully intact. Qui Gon woke to the noise and the general disturbance in the Force, noting with a wry smile that his Padawan suffered no such interruption in his sleep. The boy was sprawled across his sleep cot, one leg and most the thermal blanket hanging over its edge in an untidy bundle. Almost entirely recovered was not equivalent to entirely recovered; the ability to sleep soundly through a class three storm indicated a certain lingering weariness, a need for rest. Qui Gon nudged one of the carnivorous plant's tentacles away from the Padawan's ear, where it had been fondly coiling, tiny suckers extended in a slow botanical caress. He briefly considered moving the pot altogether, but there was no need to be fastidious.

Outside, the howling storm obscured all but the hump-backed silhouettes of the protective domes. The massive transparisteel canopies seemed so many ephemeral bubbles compared to the violence of the assault; and yet they withstood the gale, the scourge of particulate matter the winds threw against them. Beneath their curves, young green things flourished, growing in peace until they were hardy enough to weather the planet's harsh climate on their own. If this dust storm was anything to judge by, it would take many long generations to fully establish the restoration of Ord Ursolon's ecosystem. It was along term cause, fought for tooth and claw in hundreds of minor skirmishes against the power of nature. He watched the screaming, red-hued wind in fascination.

"Master?"

"So you are awake. The storm?"

"I was thinking."

The tall man quirked a smile his apprentice could not see, still watching the progress of the furious storm.

"You've killed before, master."

It was not a question. Qui Gon did not answer immediately. What a night, and how wrathful the whipping eddies of wind, into what a moaning did they set the rafters of this flimsy shelter. "Yes," he replied eventually.

"How did you choose to do it?" his Padawan wanted to know.

The Jedi master turned then. Obi Wan lay still, twisted around his blanket, face highlighted in red by the angry light filtering through the window. "It was not I, but the Force, that made that decision," he said heavily. "Each time."

The Padawan frowned. "And you chose to serve the Force's will."

He nodded. "I have sworn an oath. That is my life."

"So then, you chose to kill." Obi Wan pushed the logical conclusion.

Qui Gon thoughtfully sat upon the edge of the narrow cot. "From a certain point of view, perhaps. It is not one which brings wisdom, but neither is it one which should be ignored. Why do you ask?"

Obi Wan stared at the ceiling, the ugly acoustic paneling, as though wondering whether it would blow apart under the stress of the pressure differential outside. Qui Gon half wondered the same thing. "I committed genocide today," the young Jedi announced, with a crisp enunciation that indicated emotional distancing. His mouth twisted a little to one side, a bitter laugh just squeezing past his reserve.

"In the greenhouses," Qui Gon clarified, not liking this black vein of humor.

"Alepo felt it was best," Obi Wan continued, academically. "It was only a plant species. A weed, in his judgment. And it would have choked out all the others. But we uprooted every bit of it; there isn't any left."

Qui Gon sighed. "I am rubbing off on you," he smiled, heart heavy.

His apprentice let his head roll sideways, toward the wall. "Alepo made the decision easily. For the common good, of course," he said, flatly. "It was a simple matter."

"From his point of view," Qui Gon reminded him, leaning down to pick up the forgotten blanket. He gathered its folds in his broad hands, letting the soft fabric trail through fingers lightly calloused by decades of martial training. "He is a fierce and prudent guardian of his crops and orchards."

"And we are guardians of peace," Obi Wan added.

There were two 'sabers resting on the ledge beneath the unadorned window: his and Obi Wan's. Weapons of deadly power. Symbols of peace. "Yes."

A heavy silence. "I think Alepo is sleeping soundly right now," Obi Wan observed.

"No doubt," his mentor agreed. He reached over and tugged on the boy's short braid, regaining his attention. "As you should be also."

He spread the blanket out, and pressed a hand against his apprentice's furrowed forehead, nudging him back into slumber, and then deeper, almost a healing trance. The storm made the support struts of their shelter creak and snap, but the plasteel did not break under the strain.

Qui Gon lay back down upon his own narrow bed. But it was long before sleep finally claimed him..