Lineage XI

Chapter 1

It was with justifiable trepidation that Docent Vann committed the unthinkable violation of protocol her office presently demanded, a brash overstepping of bounds precious few – even among the full-ranking members of the Jedi Order – would have dared.

She interrupted the High Council in plenary session.

A mildly gifted Force-sensitive and an integral part of the Temple community since youth, she bravely withstood the brunt of gusting displeasure that whipped through the plenum at her unannounced entrance into the high circular chamber atop the southern spire. She kept her eyes fixed on Master Yoda, at the apex of the circle, studiously avoiding the sight of Master Windu's stern visage.

"I take it a crisis of dire proportions has arisen, Docent?" the Korun master rumbled, his thunderous tone vibrant incentive to spit out the news and have done with it.

The unfortunate herald quailed in place, wringing her fingers together in a mannerism seldom seen within these hallowed walls. "Yes, Master… the door wardens wish for instruction. There is a supplicant upon the front steps – at the main gates. He has been kneeling there for hours, Masters, and he will not depart until he has spoken with you. He is very obstinate, and the wardens did not wish to leave their post."

At this, a frisson of curiosity rippled about the circle's perimeter as the gathered Councilors speculated upon the visitor's identity.

"A name, did he give?" Yoda inquired, clutching his gimer stick's haft in both gnarled hands.

Docent Vann swallowed. Rumor flew, even within the Temple precinct, and she was not guiltless of indulging in its prurient pleasures. Face coloring, she cleared her throat and awaited the inevitable explosion with mingled dread and anticipatory delight. This would ruffle even the High Council's feathers.

"It is… it is Master Jinn."

The Order's most elite echelon did not disappoint. Adi Gallia gasped audibly; Ki Adi Mundi sat up straighter in his chair; Mace Windu's jaw twitched; Yan Dooku's blue hologram even seemed to blanch to a paler hue. A murmuring as of restless wind filled the Force. Only Master Yoda remained unperturbed, his ears unfurling to an expressive rigidity even as he sprang onto his clawed feet, pounding the stick against the inlaid marble floor.

"Qui-Gon, eh?" he cackled, stumping across the luminous space. "Qui-Gon, Hmmmph! Adjourned we are, until fourth chime. Speak with him, I shall. Fine discussion we shall have," he added, dangerously.

This snuffling pronouncement was as confounding to the gathered Masters as it was to hapless courier; the ancient Jedi stumped his creaking way into the adjacent lift shaft amid a chorus of murmurs and shocked expressions. And Docent Vann followed, eager to escape the penetrating stares of her far superiors.

Of course, she was even more unsettled by the Grand Master's wicked, wheezing chortle as they sped downward to the mezzanine levels and the main concourse leading to the Temple's formal grand entrance. Mercifully he saw fit to dismiss her at the base of the tower.

"Return to your other duties, you may," he rasped, waving the stick vaguely in her direction. "Require assistance to handle Qui-Gon Jinn, I do not."

"Would you let me help you, for farks' sakes?"

Cerasi did not wait for reply, but launched her assault without further warning, seizing the dwindling tube of bacta ointment and the pressure bandage roll from her victim's fumbling grip before he could issue objection. She batted away his protesting hands and finished cleaning the oozing wound that marred his chest from collarbone to navel in one sinuous, half-healed line of angry, crusted red.

"….Ow, " came the grumpily issued rejoinder as she scrubbed at an offending patch of dried blood.

"I just don't understand why this won't heal. It's not infected, it's not deep, it's not anything dangerous or complicated. Maybe this bacta's contaminated."

"It's not. I would be able to tell."

Cerasi's fists balled upon her hips. "Maybe you're overdoing it a bit… you were out fourteen hours last night. I was worried."

Obi-Wan Kenobi shoved his overgrown hair out of his eyes with one hand and allowed himself the luxury of collapsing backward upon the flimsy palette in the drainpipe he called home. "I had a long way to go."

He did not mention that when he had wakened from the seizure, or coma, or whatever it was – the affliction that had come to haunt his days, recurring with greater and greater frequency, leaving him more and more exhausted and wrung out in its wake – he had been many klicks' hike outside the city, knee-deep in slain bodies of the Fallen, and with absolutely no recollection how he had come there or what had transpired in the meantime. Well, almost no idea. The zombie warriors had, after all, clearly been decapitated and dismembered by a lightsaber blade. And he had been all alone.

He rubbed grit out of his eyes, and relaxed into the brusque routine of tending his perpetually unhealed wound. It was ludicrously, absurdly slow to mend… "How long has it been, Cerasi?" Somewhere in the midst of desperate strife, in the whirl of survival, he had lost count of days and weeks.

"It's been nine standard months," she replied, tightly "And no, no sign of Republic aid or intervention." A bitter snort. "Stop hoping for the impossible."

He scratched at his chin, resenting the prickling stubble that had already made an itching appearance in its cleft. He might as well let the beard grow out, he reflected. The blasted thing seemed determined to thwart his every pathetic effort at grooming. And the life that had hitherto dictated formal guidelines for his appearance seemed… a distant memory at best.

Or less than a memory – nine months and no investigation, not even a Jedi Guardian sent to assess the situation? Not a scrap of communication, not a message of any kind? He had certainly been buried in the oblivion to which all Lost members of the Order were consigned, condemned to be a mere footnote to history as his present companions had been abandoned forty years ago and more. Melida-Daan was a graveyard, a place where the dead preyed upon the living and reigned in undisputed glory, a world dyed in the blood of defeat.

Not that he could stop fighting, any more than he could stop breathing.

"Nield is going to need your help later," Cerasi apologetically informed him. "Something about improvising more ammunition for the fighter.. and the starboard stabilizer's on the fritz again, he wonders if you two can hack it together again."

Obi-Wan nodded wearily. The Young fought hard to keep what little technology they had salvaged in working order; they fought harder to scrounge up enough edibles to sustain life. Trade ships had ceased arriving long ago… and with only the dead, who ate their own compatriots, on the surface, there was nothing else to steal. Starvation was a looming threat they had not yet discussed – but when the last hoarded cargo boxes were emptied, then what?

"Oh, and – I'm sorry, you're not going to like this either – we've got another situation brewing between the Melida and the Daan. Another altercation. With weapons."

"Lovely." He closed his eyes, blotting out the bleak stretch of grey duracrete above him, the brutally circumscribed bounds of his existence. Nine months of living together as desperate refugees form a ravening horde of undead soldiers, and the warring partisans had still not learned to coexist in harmony. Or even bare tolerance. His diplomatic skills had already been put to the severest test facilitating their tenuous accord, damping the wildfires of their vendetta. There was little more to be done but to punish the infraction with all the merciless vigor of martial law, of a ship's captain quelling a mutiny.

Cerasi finished dressing the wound. "It can wait a little longer," she assured him. "But not very."

He nodded once, vaguely, already clawing his way toward sleep like some blooded foxill limping and dragging its way back to the protection of a dark burrow. "I'll handle it," he slurred, disappearing into the warm hovel of oblivion with one last painful effort.

Sleep. Peace. Cessation.

At the very core of existence there shone a single ember of the Force, a smoldering shard of Light that would not be stamped out. He curled himself about its small, still presence and escaped – for a short while- the nightmarish demands of time and place.

"I am so sorry, Master Dooku," the Nemoidian lisped, insincerely. "We have absolutely no record of a Trade ship itinerary anywhere near Melida-Daan. As you may be aware, the planet has been under Republic interdiction for upwards of four –"

"I am keenly aware of the legalities surrounding the issue," the Sentinel smoothly assured his nervous host. "And I did not ask whether your records included such a delivery."

The reptilian swallowed, his fleshy throat bulging as his jaw slackened in dismay.

"I asked whether you had sent a ship to make the specified delivery."

Now the Trade Federation envoy swelled indignantly, nictitating membranes flashing over glassy eyes. "If you are suggesting that we engage in illegal transactions or proscribed contractual arrangements – "

Dooku glowered, causing the cowardly Nemoidina to shrink into his seat. "I am not suggesting any such thing. I know it to be the truth beyond a shadow of doubt. Now: the delivery. Who initiated it?"

"I, ah, there are no records-"

"Enough!" the Jedi master stood, black cloak cascading off his shoulders into the reflecting pool of his ire. "If you do not tell me, I shall identify your employer and pass on your kind regards instead."

"No, no no no!" the flustered Trade mogul whined. "That is not necessary… I do not wish my regards to be sent to anyone.. the contract was informal, if you follow my meaning… an agreement between friends…"

"Highly paid," Dooku translated. "Continue."

The reptilian's mottled hands twisted together in agitation. "The.. ah… Republic Defense Fund." An unhappy pause in which the Nemoidian's lipless mouth turned further downward at the corners. "We were promised immunity, Master Jedi."

Yan Dooku's brows beetled together, his right hand sliding over the smooth saber hilt at his hip. "I see."

"If there is anything else we can do for you, of course, ah – please do not hesitate to ask. The Trade Federation is scrupulously committed to promoting the prosperity and internal security of the Republic."

The silver haired Jedi nodded once, tersely, and took his leave without another word, the stench of corruption thick in his nostrils, souring the back of his tongue. Republic Defense fund, indeed. Another hairline crack appeared in the foundation of his loyalties, a tiny scar across a monumental edifice of devotion.

He strode out of the sleek offices' foyer and onto the air-pad far above Coruscant's scintillating geometry, his gaze reaching of its own accord across the hazy distance to the distant spires of the Temple.

He decided to return to Council in person, given the day's unexpected… developments.

Qui-Gon Jinn waited.

And waited, and waited, his aching knee joints cursing him for his Jedi fortitude and resolve. The polished white marble beneath him warmed gently as the afternoon sun passed zenith and ascended over the Temple's massive ramparts, light glinting now in blinding intensity upon the pale steps to the grand ceremonial gates, upon the pale folds of the Ieng'lis' cloak draped over his shoulders. He knelt and waited, aware of the small pedestrian crowd gathering at the foot of the stairs, upon the broad public plaza below, of the door wardens' suspicious and uneasy regard, of another presence descending steadily, unhurriedly to meet him.

At last.

His heart skipped when the wizened green form stumped out from beneath the foundation's shadow and tapped its way forward.

Clack. Clack. Scrap, clack…Clack.

"Hhhmph," Yoda welcomed him home. "Traditional this is, for you, Qui-Gon Jinn. And unusually humble."

"Yes, Master, I –"

He yelped like a stricken pup when the gimer stick caught him upside the head. He dared not raise a hand to feel whether the gnarled surface had broken the skin above his ear, but a warm trickle of moisture amid his silvering hair informed him that the blow had indeed been delivered with earnest precision.

The Grand Master snorted again. "Strayed you have."

He bent forward, pressing his forehead to the smooth marble at the ancient Jedi's clawed feet, a full kow-tow. "I beg pardon for my folly and crave a place of service in the Order's ranks." When no trenchant rebuttal met these words, he added heartfelt plea. "I have traveled far and learned much, my master."

Old Yoda emitted a grumbling sigh, a peevish complaint shared with the Force alone. "Come," he chuffed, turning his hunched back and leading the way back into the Temple, past the astonished door wardens, and into the Hall of Peace. "Long have you been absent, Qui-Gon. And much to answer for, you have."