The Best Medicine
by Russet McMillanPart 3
The first round of negotiations went poorly. BaswiIIrn was inclined to be troublesome, pushing on the weapons question and any other issue where Qui-Gon displayed reluctance. Part of the chieftain's attitude was a sound negotiation tactic, as he repeatedly pointed out that the Avoorn needed nothing from the Jedi as much as the Jedi needed their crystals. But another part of it, Qui-Gon gathered, was mere posturing. The chieftain's questions became more aggressive whenever others were present, as he emphasized his dominance before all available witnesses.
At the end of four hours, Qui-Gon left the colony feeling that he had made little progress except in the arena of learning more about his opponents. He made it back to the tri-phib with very little air remaining in his last breather, and a thrill of alarm flashed through him as he discovered that Obi-Wan hadn't returned yet.
Reaching out along their bond, he sensed excitement and distraction, but no distress. Apparently Obi-Wan had simply lost track of the time. Qui-Gon wished that the boy's telepathic abilities would hurry up and manifest so that they could begin to communicate across distances. The ship's only comlink still lay on the control console where they had left it earlier, not anticipating that they would become separated.
Qui-Gon had to be content with sending a strong sense of disapproval down their bond. As the minutes passed and Obi-Wan remained oblivious, Qui-Gon considered going in search -- but his breathers had not recharged yet. Wryly, he wondered if it would work better to project an impression that he was in danger. Obi-Wan had always reacted quickly to that particular message.
At last Qui-Gon felt a surge of surprise and sheepish compliance from his apprentice. Obi-Wan was on his way back to the ship, a full hour late. The tri-phib's scanners showed a small Avoorn approaching along the surface of the ocean, and as they drew nearer Qui-Gon was able to make out a human figure being towed along by his new friend.
Obi-Wan popped up from the pool of water in the lock and tossed a damp braid back over his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Master!" he gasped, pulling the breather from his mouth. "I didn't realize it was so late."
"That's the sort of mistake that can get you killed, Padawan," Qui-Gon said gravely.
"I know you said no more than four hours -- but we were at the surface! I was hardly even using my breathers. Look, I still have a full spare left. And I was in the sunshine, so I didn't get cold."
"You did get a sunburn, though." Qui-Gon brushed a hand across the back of his apprentice's neck and felt the boy flinch away even from that gentle touch. "You should know better than to go unprotected on a world with a hot blue sun like this one."
Obi-Wan hunched guiltily as he hooked his used breathers onto the recharger. "I really am sorry, Master. I won't do it again."
"Indeed you won't. I want you to stay with me tomorrow."
The boy sighed gustily. "Yes, Master."
"Change out of those wet things and tell me where you went. I never had the chance to see much of the Avoorn pod -- did you?"
Obi-Wan disappeared into the 'fresher, where the sound of damp cloth hitting the floor resounded moistly. "Oh, yes. HaruOOo took me to the labs -- or I suppose you would call them workshops -- where they make things. They do the most detailed work by hand!"
"Shouldn't that be 'by whisker?'" Qui-Gon returned in amusement, handing the boy's robe through the door of the 'fresher.
"I suppose so. Oh, thank you. And then we went to visit one of HaruOOo's friends, and I saw how they live. They sleep in sort of sling-cradles, a bit like the sleep sacks people use in zero gravity. The slings keep them up near the ceiling where the air is."
"That makes sense," Qui-Gon reflected.
"Then a group of us went out to visit the farms. They let me try a seed fruit from one of their seaweed-tree thingies."
Qui-Gon swung around as his padawan emerged from the 'fresher, robe wrapped close about him. "You ate their food?"
"Only a few bites. It tasted weird -- sort of salty. I didn't expect that from a fruit."
"It could have had a deadly concentration of metals," Qui-Gon snapped. He headed for the side panel that held their medical kit and pulled out a blood-reader.
"That's why I only had two bites. I don't think it was too poisonous."
"Finger," Qui-Gon said brusquely.
Obi-Wan held out his hand obediently, restraining a flinch when the reader drew blood. "And then we went up to the reef, where the water is really shallow. They showed me how to wave-ride where the big swells break over the reef. It was so fun, Master! With just a little Force-push, I could ride one wave all the way to the other side of the reef."
Qui-Gon scowled at the results from the sample and drew four drink-bulbs of water from the chiller. "Drink those. Every one. And then an hour of healing trance to make sure your kidneys are purging the poisons."
"After dinner?" Obi-Wan suggested, popping the seal on the first water bulb.
Qui-Gon's stomach roiled at the thought of food, but he nodded. "Very well. It will give you time to absorb that water, anyway."
They sat down to a cold meal, which Obi-Wan, as usual, attacked with the appetite of a starving rancor. Qui-Gon regarded his own portion with disfavor. "I gather the other young people were as friendly as Haruooo?" he asked, struggling with the inflection of the name.
Obi-Wan hastily swallowed a large mouthful. "Oh, yes. Well, except for one of them. He seemed sort of...bigoted. He kept making stupid jokes and nasty comments about humans."
"What sort of comments?" Qui-Gon needed to understand Avoorn attitudes toward off-worlders if he was to negotiate successfully. Perhaps the young bigot's sentiments reflected those of the chieftain.
"Oh, you know, how could I swim with such tiny flukes, that sort of thing." Two spots of color were appearing above Obi-Wan's cheekbones. "I think...some of it was sexual. But those words weren't on the language tapes."
"Hmm." Qui-Gon contemplated his padawan's reaction for a moment. "Well, it's hardly surprising that a seven-meter-long adolescent would have some emotional issues about size."
Obi-Wan giggled, his embarrassment evaporating in a moment. Then he glanced in surprise at his master's bowl. "Aren't you going to eat?"
Qui-Gon scowled at the food. "I suppose I had better." He started in on the meal, one careful bite at a time.
Obi-Wan set his own empty bowl to one side. "Are you all right, Master?"
"Just a little queasy, Padawan." Qui-Gon kept eating determinedly.
Obi-Wan looked alarmed. "You're not sick, are you? Did you do a reading on your own blood?" He stood and headed for the medical kit.
"I'm fine, Obi-Wan. My heavy metal concentrations were less than half as high as yours. It's just the motion of the waves putting me off, I think."
Obi-Wan paused. "We could take the ship down a few meters below the surface. It wouldn't rock so much that way."
Qui-Gon had already considered the possibility. "We'll get more fresh air by staying at the surface."
"We can program the ship to rise every six hours or so for an air flush. That's how often the air gets exchanged anyway."
"I didn't realize it could do that."
"Oh, sure! Calamarians build *smart* ships. This little thing will do whatever you tell it."
Qui-Gon blinked. "In that case, I believe I would feel better if we move deeper. Thank you, Padawan."
Obi-Wan beamed and sat at the console to program the ship. As the pressure changed and the ship's lift bladders filled halfway, Qui-Gon cleared away the last of their meal. Once their position under the water had stabilized, he urged his padawan to an early bed.
"Off you go and start that healing trance. Take care of your kidneys *and* your sunburn."
"Yes, Master." Obi-Wan sighed, but trudged dutifully to bed.
Qui-Gon sat up for a few hours himself, searching the computer for interpretations of some of the words he had missed during the negotiations. He still didn't know the meaning of the title the chieftain had assigned to his second, although he was fairly sure by now that the second was male and therefore not HaruOOo's mother -- unless childbearing among the Avoorn was significantly different than in most species.
Eventually, after the ship had made its programmed rise to the surface and descended again, Qui-Gon headed for the bedroom. The Calamarian tri-phib had only one sleeping room, which was exactly the same size as the 'fresher across the hall. Space that was capacious for a 'fresher -- mostly because of the large bathing pool that occupied the center of the room -- somehow seemed cramped for sleeping accomodations. The two beds built into opposite walls were traditional Calamarian sleep couches with therm-plast instead of mattresses. The surface seemed hard on the first contact, but it gradually conformed to the contours of any warm body. It was comfortable enough until the sleeper decided to change positions, and the bed took another fifteen minutes to adjust.
Qui-Gon felt eyes upon his back as he stripped off his clothes. He turned, half-expecting to find Obi-Wan pretending to be quite unconscious. But the boy just blinked at him and smiled sleepily, then rolled over to face the other way.
Qui-Gon was relieved to see that Obi-Wan had apparently gotten over the brief infatuation that had started a few months earlier on Alderaan. He wasn't sure what he would have done if the boy had continued to desire him. He hadn't handled that phase at all well when it happened with Xanatos. Then again, Obi-Wan was easier to work with in almost every way than his previous apprentice.
Qui-Gon folded his clothes away and slipped into bed naked, grateful that the Calamarian ship at least provided blankets -- though he wished they had been made from a proper soft material instead of the slick waterproof cloth that slid so coolly across his skin. He searched for a position that was halfway comfortable and held it determinedly, waiting for the bed to adjust.
When Obi-Wan rolled over once more to his original position, which allowed a clear view of Qui-Gon, the master naturally attributed it to the unyielding nature of the therm-plast rather than any adolescent longing.
As planned, Qui-Gon started out the next day's negotiations with Obi-Wan at his side. He had thought it would be an advantage, since the padawan had had more opportunity to observe the Avoorn way of life, their attitudes and needs. But the chieftain simply used Obi-Wan's presence as an excuse for more grandstanding.
After a fruitless hour, Qui-Gon told his apprentice to go back to the ship. Obi-Wan was disappointed and hurt, taking it for a form of punishment, and Qui-Gon couldn't explain properly in the short, distorted sentences necessitated by speaking underwater. Qui-Gon kept the comlink with him and watched his padawan swim away with an unhappy crease between his brows.
Things moved a little more smoothly once Obi-Wan was gone, since Qui-Gon was dealing with just the chieftain and his second. BaswiIIrn still showed a tendency to show off his importance in front of his second, though not quite so much as when others were around. It was more important than ever for Qui-Gon to understand the relationship between the two, but in his uncertainty he was reduced to referring to WeiihuOOo in neutral terms.
Perhaps not neutral enough -- at one point, the chieftain reared back suddenly in surprise. "What did you say?"
Qui-Gon repeated his words. "If you or your...companion would be willing to show me the kinds of vehicles you use, I could be more specific about the propulsion systems that might work with them."
"What did you call my [something]?" BaswiIIrn's posture was unmistakably showing dominance and anger. Also...was it fear? Qui-Gon wished for the hundredth time that he could get a clear reading on the chieftain without all the Force-resonant jewelry.
"I'm sorry. Would 'assistant' be a better word?"
At the last moment, Qui-Gon felt danger approaching from behind, and he turned quickly. But his reactions in the sluggish water were too slow to prevent WeiihuOOo from pressing something to his head, and then the ceiling fell on him.
Qui-Gon awoke to a throbbing pain in his neck and head, vaguely surprised to find himself alive at all. The breather was still firmly clenched between his teeth, although he didn't know how much time had passed or how much air was left. His eyes wouldn't focus on anything but dim green light at first, but he could hear Avoorn voices singing in muted tones nearby.
"...take his air away?"
"No, it must look like an accident." Those were the chieftain's deep notes. "We can return later and remove the [something]. Then summon the others to see that he was trying to steal from us and became trapped."
"What of the other one?" The voices were receding now, but they resounded through the water enough for Qui-Gon to make out a few words.
"Sink...into the [something] trench. Make it look...attack from the Mavauu pod. That small ship will never...pressures of the deep."
Qui-Gon pulled himself to full consciousness as he realized they were talking about his padawan. He found himself down near the sea floor surrounded by fields of gleaming rock surfaces. These must be the crystal beds, he realized, making out a vent of warm gases bubbling from a fissure some distance away. These waters were laden with poisons.
His left hand was buried forearm-deep in a crystal deposit, with the sharp shards of rock pressing tightly against his skin. It was certainly an incriminating set-up, he reflected, but all he had to do was remove his hand and escape. He reached out for the Force...
And felt nothing.
After a few minutes of trying futilely to access the energy that had always pervaded his world, Qui-Gon's free hand discovered the collar around his neck. Somehow it was impeding his connection with the Force. He couldn't sense the Living Force around him, couldn't draw upon the Unifying Force...he couldn't even send a warning to Obi-Wan. He had never known such a thing was possible -- perhaps the collar made use of those crystals which proved such an effective screen in the chieftain's jewelry. But the collar around his neck seemed to have no joint, latch, or seam; he could find nothing that would help him get it free.
He turned to his trapped hand instead. By prying at one of the largest crystals until his fingers bled, Qui-Gon was able to break it away and free himself some space to move -- only to discover that it wasn't the crystals that truly held his hand trapped. There was another smooth, seamless ring encircling his wrist, locking it to the rocky ground as if it had grown there. He could see now that it was made of the same pearlescent substance the Avoorn used for much of their architecture. But how did they shape the stuff?
He spent long minutes searching for a solution, sawing at collar and cuff with the broken crystal until his breather ran out and he had to switch to a spare. At last he had to face the inevitable. BaswiIIrn and WeiihuOOo had gone off in search of Obi-Wan; he had to get to his padawan before they succeeded in drowning the boy in a deep-water trench. And the only thing holding him back was his left hand.
Stripping off his belt one-handed, Qui-Gon wrapped it tightly about his upper left arm across several of the pressure-points. He closed his eyes and let himself slip into a light trance that would mask physical pain. Then, gripping the jagged-edged crystal tightly in his right hand, he went to work.
Obi-Wan's head hurt. His neck hurt. And he was cold. Water was flowing past him -- no, he was being pulled *through* the water.
He remembered waiting inside the ship, wondering why his master was so annoyed with him. Then a flare of alarm along their bond, and ...nothing. He had tried the comlink, had stretched out with his weak telepathic skills, but he couldn't get any response from Qui-Gon. He hoped that didn't mean the older Jedi was dead. Surely he would know, wouldn't he?
He had set out toward the Bavwauu settlement, determined to do whatever was necessary. Halfway there he had been met by the chieftain and his second-in-command, who told him that Qui-Gon needed his help. But before he could ask what was wrong or what he could do, the second had moved in close and he felt a sharp pain in his head.
And now he was being dragged through water that seemed to be growing colder by the minute. His wrists had been bound together somehow, and he was being towed along by a powerful grip that didn't yield when he pulled back experimentally. He still had a breather tucked in his mouth; if he'd spit it out while he was unconscious, he wouldn't have awakened at all. There was an engine throbbing somewhere nearby, and he still couldn't sense Qui-Gon. In fact -- Obi-Wan reached out -- he couldn't sense *anything*. It was like being in the deadness of interstellar space, or worse.
For a moment, he wondered if whatever they had done to his head had made him permanently Force-blind, but he pushed that thought aside and the panic that came with it. They were slowing down, and he heard Avoorn voices speaking nearby.
"The young one is awake."
"It doesn't matter. He won't know what we're saying. I took away his mouth [something]."
Obi-Wan's teeth clenched reflexively on his precious breather before he realized that they were talking about the translator unit. Somehow, they must have gotten the impression that the translator worked both ways and he couldn't understand Avoorn speech without it. He kept quiet and listened, waiting for a moment when he could break free.
He was rewarded when the grasp on his wrists -- one of the chieftain's whisker-tentacles, he realized -- suddenly let go. At once he kicked out and tried to turn away, only to discover that his ankles were also bound together. He couldn't pull them apart. There was another binding -- a sort of collar -- around his neck, but it didn't seem to be attached to anything. Unable to kick or paddle effectively, cut off from the Force, he hung useless in the water and began to rise slowly toward the surface.
The sea seemed much colder now than it had before. At first Obi-Wan thought it was a side-effect of his period of unconsciousness, but slowly he recognized that it was a real temperature difference. HaruOOo had mentioned a current of cold water a few hours' swim from the colony; normally the cool, dense waters would sink, but there was a place where an odd kink in the continental shelf brought chill streams up from a deep subduction trench. Obi-Wan shivered and looked down through the water below him. It seemed darker and more hostile than the waves he had played in yesterday, and he couldn't make out a bottom here.
The Avoorn voices approached again, and Obi-Wan twisted around to see the tri-phib floating not far away. The engine he had heard was some sort of external propeller that had towed the little ship here. Now the Bavwauu chieftain and his second were swimming slowly around the vessel, studying it.
"...crippled its flukes," the second was saying. "It won't swim again under its own power. If we cut through here, the whole thing should go straight down. No one will ever find it."
"But if they do, they'll think it was the Mavauu?"
"Yes, this is just the kind of weapon they use."
The chieftain's fluke-skirts rippled in acknowledgment. "Do it, then. If the ship is found, we can use it as an excuse to attack the Mavauu."
The second maneuvered an ugly-looking device with jagged teeth up to the side of the tri-phib. There was a rending squeal, and streams of air bubbles gushed up around the chewing device. When the thing was disconnected, the streams turned to a veritable eruption of air through a meter-wide hole. The tri-phib began to list and sink down into the cold water.
"Good. Now put him in."
Obi-Wan tried to pull away, but he had no way of moving through the water. The second came right up to him, wrapped a tentacle around his ankle-binders, and towed him to the hole in the side of the sinking ship. He was buffeted by a confusion of air and water, then the swirling currents and a sharp push from the Avoorn sent him tumbling into the crippled tri-phib. Everything spun around him, and he couldn't reach out with arms or legs to stabilize himself. He fetched up hard against a wall, and the sudden expulsion of air from his lungs popped the breather out of his mouth.
He struggled against the currents, first trying to recover the breather and then giving that up to look for any spot where he wouldn't be battered against the walls by turbulence. He fetched up at last in the corridor between the sleep-room and the 'fresher, where he caught one quick breath from an air bubble.
With the ship tilted over on its side, the sleep-room was below him. The door was open, and the room was already full of water; a blanket billowed just under the doorway. The 'fresher door, less than a meter above his head, was closed. His little reserve of air was rapidly diminishing as cold water sloshed through the ship. If he could just get into the 'fresher and seal the door behind him, he could buy a little time.
He ducked down under the water and braced himself against the obliquely-tilted lintel of the bedroom door. Kicking off sharply, he brought himself up high enough to hit the palm-lock for the 'fresher door. It hissed open, and water began to splash into the fresher through the lowest corner of the door. If he didn't get inside and close that door quickly, the 'fresher would fill with water as well and would change the balance of the ship.
Descending once more and kicking upward as hard as he could, he managed to get his elbows over the edge of the 'fresher doorway and inelegantly levered himself up. The door control was on the opposite side of the opening; he had to reach across with water slapping in his face to hit the control button. At last the door slid shut and Obi-Wan collapsed down against the slanting wall, gasping for breath.
Water trickled along the walls and floor of the room, sloshing back and forth with each motion of the tri-phib. Obi-Wan could still hear rushing and splashing sounds from the rest of the ship, but they were beginning to fade as all the open space was filled up. He was safe in the 'fresher, for the moment; all the compartments of the ship were designed so they could be sealed off if necessary. But a soft creaking reminded him that the ship was sinking ever faster through the cold water, and eventually the pressure would become too much even for the Calamarian tri-phib. The 'fresher, along with any other air-filled compartments, would crumple like a used drink-bulb.
Somehow, he had to get the ship back to the surface. That meant sealing off the hole in the hull and getting the engines functional again. Obi-Wan didn't know if it would be possible to fix the damage to the small ship, but he knew he would have to start by freeing his hands.
He studied the binders around his wrists: smooth rings of a shell-like material molded neatly to his arms, flowing into each other as if they had grown that way. And they had, Obi-Wan realized; he had seen artifacts made of the same material in one of the workshops HaruOOo had shown him. Apparently the stuff became malleable when it was treated with a light electric current. He had wondered at the time if a trickle of Force would accomplish the same thing, but he never had a chance to try it. And now he couldn't reach the Force.
Again the thought rose that his disability might be permanent. Obi-Wan smothered the fear and centered himself as well as he could under the circumstances, calling the Force to himwith all his might. Nothing. But he did notice an odd sensation, like a trembling in his throat...
Abruptly, he realized that the collar around his neck was vibrating. As his eyes flew open in surprise, the vibration stopped. He reached for the Force again and felt the same faint tingle.
It was the *collar* that was keeping him from accessing the Force! There was nothing wrong with him after all. Obi-Wan sighed with relief. All he had to do was get the collar off, and he would be fine.
But he had merely exchanged one impossible task for another. How could he remove the collar? When he felt around it, it seemed to be made of the same material as the wrist and ankle binders. He could think of no source of electrical current that would let him remove any of them. Very few of the tri-phib's systems were electrical, so he couldn't simply cannibalize the door controls or the lights that still shone steadily from the ceiling.
If he could get to the tools stored in the control console, some of them might help him. But the groaning of the ship was getting louder, warning him that he'd better not open the 'fresher door unless he was prepared to deal with a flood of water bursting inward under high pressure.
Frowning thoughtfully, Obi-Wan tried once more to use the Force. This time he focused deliberately on the controls for the bath spigots, trying to turn them just a little. He noticed that the vibration of the collar intensified as his concentration narrowed.
The collar had to work on the same principle as the Force-reactive crystals that grew in the volcanic beds near the Bavwauu colony. Probably the collar actually contained some of the crystals, which were resonating and absorbing the Force as he called upon it. And resonance, Obi-Wan reasoned, was always strongly dependent on frequency. If he could somehow change the frequency of the Force he was accessing, maybe he could get around the crystals.
He had never heard of anyone doing such a thing, but he tried anyway. He stared at the spigots and tried thinking high, shrill thoughts first, then deep rumbling bass tones. None of it seemed to make any difference to the collar. Perhaps he couldn't change frequencies at all; it might be part of his individual Force-signature, something beyond his conscious control.
Well then, if he was exploring the analogy of vibrations, perhaps he could change the amplitude instead. If he made the crystals resonate strongly enough, they might overload and break down. But how could he do that if he couldn't actually touch the Force around him? His own reserves of energy wouldn't be enough...
...unless he added to them somehow.
Obi-Wan's face heated as he remembered his talk with Qui-Gon on Alderaan, just a few months earlier. That had been the most boring mission he'd ever been on as a padawan, yet it some ways it was the most significant. His view of his master had changed forever on that day, and so had his relationship with the Force.
He had done some experiments on his own, as Qui-Gon had suggested, and he recalled the way the Force could rise up so strongly within him, like a blazing fire. Would that kind of energy be enough to overload the crystals?
It was worth a try, he decided. He couldn't think of anything else that would work. For once, he had all the privacy he could wish for -- and truly, he had only to think of his master in *that* way and he was ready to reach into his pants and go to work.
He hoped Qui-Gon was all right and not trapped somewhere, hurt or drowning -- no, he wouldn't think about that. He had to get out of his own predicament first, and then he could help Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan tugged the waist of his pants down to his thighs and leaned back against the slope of the wall, closing his eyes.
He pictured his master's back, as he had seen it in the dim light of the sleep room last night. Muscles rippled on either side of the spine as the tall man bent to strip off his leggings.
And when the leggings descended, more intriguing shapes were revealed. Obi-Wan stroked himself faster as he thought of doing to his master the things he had only read about so far. He would press himself against that gleaming skin, let his hardness rest between the firm globes...
He felt the Force rising within him, and the collar around his neck began to hum.
Obi-Wan imagined kissing his master's back, a fervent pressing of his lips to let Qui-Gon know of his admiration. Perhaps he would even lick up the nubbled spine. He had always thought that sounded a little strange, licking another person's skin, but he felt certain that Qui-Gon would taste delicious.
He remembered the moment last night when Qui-Gon had turned, and he had glimpsed what nestled between his master's thighs. Not that he had never seen It before, but Qui-Gon had been more circumspect recently, and Obi-Wan hadn't looked closely before. Last night, for the barest instant, he had gotten a clear view of the sweet shaft of flesh growing from a thicket of curling hair.
He imagined touching It, stroking as he stroked himself. Would Qui-Gon groan at his touch? Obi-Wan groaned experimentally, but the sound seemed small and strange in the echoing 'fresher, inside a sinking ship -- he ruthlessly turned his mind back to more erotic thoughts.
Definitely Qui-Gon would groan, he decided. Perhaps Qui-Gon would ask him to take It in his mouth. That was harder to imagine, and not quite so arousing, so Obi-Wan reversed the scenario. Qui-Gon would kneel before him, running a hand lightly down his ribs as he sometimes did when checking for injuries. But this touch would be more lingering and intimate. Qui-Gon would brush his fingers down to Obi-Wan's hips and then inward, taking the padawan's erection in hand -- just like that, yes -- in his large, warm palm, and he would dip his head downward...
Obi-Wan arched against the wall, panting. The collar was thrumming against his throat, against his pulse, as if his heart had gone into hyperdrive.
And Qui-Gon would lick, oh, yes...
Obi-Wan lifted his hands for just a moment to swipe his tongue across the back of his knuckles. Qui-Gon's tongue would feel just like that, only down there, where he wanted and needed it. The collar felt hot against his skin.
And Qui-Gon would draw him in. Obi-Wan pulled on himself, trying to imagine it -- the heat, the wetness and suction. It must be wonderful. It *would* be wonderful, someday.
His mind took off on flights of its own, flashing images past his inner eye almost too fast for him to register: Qui-Gon pressing down above him, huge and warm; Qui-Gon lifting him as if he weighed nothing, spreading his legs and pressing in between them; Qui-Gon with his head arched back and his face blurred in ecstasy; Qui-Gon crying out in his lovely warm, rich voice.
Obi-Wan's own voice cried out, and this time he was too absorbed to be self-conscious about it. The collar was burning and shaking against his neck, and his hand was burning and trembling upon his shaft, and the Force was rising within him -- the Force was building to a peak along with his own pleasure...
Obi-Wan froze, his spine arched into a bow, as the sweet spasm came over him. A moment later, his pleasured cries turned to yelps of pain. The collar really *was* burning him! Still spurting helplessly, he raised his bound hands to his neck --
And the thing came away in pieces in his grasp. The power of the Force had shattered the crystals and melted the pearly matrix that held them.
Obi-Wan gaped for a moment at what he had done. The Force was still singing through his body, seeming louder than ever for the silence he had just experienced.
Then a loud, ominous cracking noise from somewhere on the ship roused him to what he still *had* to do. Free his hands and feet. Get out of this 'fresher. Fix the ship. Find Qui-Gon and save him from whatever the Avoorn had done to him. And get off this soaking planet.
It took Obi-Wan a few minutes to figure out how to loosen his bindings with the Force. Instead of softening into the nice malleable substance HaruOOo had demonstrated, they melted into a gooey liquid that ran along his arms and stuck to the fine hairs on his legs. But they weren't restraining him anymore, and that was good enough.
Next he turned to the door, with some apprehension. He had no breathers on him; he was deeply regretting disobeying Qui-Gon's orders never to leave the ship without a full complement of three spares in his beltpouch. There had been three on the recharger when he rushed out to his master's aid, but would they have been shaken free by the turbulence of the inrushing water? If Obi-Wan couldn't find a breather when he left this compartment, it might be a long time before he got any air. Apparently those physio-control techniques would be coming in useful after all.
He breathed deeply for a full minute to hyper-oxygenate before palming the door panel, and then he had to override two levels of safety warnings telling him that the water level and water pressure were very high on the other side of that door. As soon as the door slid aside, water began to burst inward. It took a considerable amount of Force and muscle-power for him to push past the gushing flow. By the time he got the door closed again, the volume of air in the 'fresher had been reduced by more than half -- but it was still there if he had to retreat for a breath.
He swam out into the main compartment, which looked strange underwater and sideways, with the lights gone all green and dim. The recharger was not only empty, but gone -- ripped away from its mounting on the wall. Rather than waste time on disappointment, he moved quickly to the control console, blessing the design that allowed almost all the systems to work even while fully immersed.
Holding onto the pilot's chair and floating sideways next to the console, he tried first to start the water engines, and was unsurprised when they failed. But the nature of the failure gave him some diagnostic information, and he called up those displays. The second had been telling the truth when he claimed he had crippled the ship's "flukes." There was something -- Obi-Wan imagined a large lump of the shell-stuff -- blocking the motion of the impeller blades, and some of the blades had been sheared away entirely. The water engines would never run again without extensive repairs.
The jet engines that powered the tri-phib in space and in thinner atmospheres were still intact, but they couldn't function underwater. The attitude thrusters were likewise unbroken but useless. The lift bladders were empty of water but half-crushed by the pressure; even at full capacity, they couldn't compensate for a flooded ship. One thing that *would* be useful was the set of pumps responsible for equalizing the pressure inside the ship. If Obi-Wan could find a way to seal the hull, he could pump out the water and replace it with air from the reserve tanks. The living compartments themselves could act as supplemental lift bladders.
Starting with the one opening in the hull that was easily controlled, he closed the water lock in the ship's belly. He would have to visit the air pocket in the 'fresher before he could do anything about the hole the Avoorn had made; it would probably be his last chance to breathe until the pumps got to work. But as he was turning away from the lock controls, something caught his eye: a breather had gotten trapped in the gap between the wall and the control console.
Obi-Wan snatched it free, delighted to find that it was fully-charged and not the half-used one that he had spit out when he was tossed into the ship. With enough air to keep him going even through physical exertions, his chances of getting this ship back to the surface had just about doubled.
He went to the breach in the hull to take a look, noting that the water on the other side was completely black and getting colder by the minute. The hole was roughly circular, and nearly half his armspan across. He couldn't think of any moveable object on the ship large enough to plug it.
But there *was* something that could cover it. Obi-Wan swam to the bedroom, where he had seen...yes, there was the blanket still rippling softly in the currents in the corner of the room. The thick, Calamarian, *waterproof* blanket! It was large enough to cover the hole, and smooth enough to bond well to an adhesive. Now he just had to find an adhesive that would actually work underwater.
Fifteen minutes later, having used up all the resin in the toolbox, most of the skin-sealer in the medical kit, and some of the goo he'd coaxed off of his arms with the Force, Obi-Wan was satisfied that the hole was thoroughly covered. The blanket wasn't strong enough to withstand much of a pressure differential, though; the fabric itself would rip even if the edges remained glued to the hull. But he could probably have the pumps reduce the pressure inside to at least a little below the ambient water pressure, which would let the craft begin to rise slowly on its own.
He had to trample more safety interlocks in order to persuade the pumps to vent *all* of the air reserve into the main compartment. Since air was extremely compressible under pressure and water wasn't, that meant the air that had been gathered at atmospheric pressure during the last exchange would now fill up only a fraction of the main compartment. Obi-Wan managed to conserve a little by tipping the ship back upright and freeing the air trapped in the 'fresher. Then he closed the doors on the 'fresher and sleep room and left them full of water with only a small air bubble in each. A little judicious reprogramming of the pumps persuaded them to lower the pressure in the two sealed rooms while leaving it near the outside pressure in the main compartment. Under these manipulations, the tri-phib began to rise again through the chill, dark waters.
Another alarm was triggered when the craft's rate of rise exceeded the safety limits for human passengers. Obi-Wan cut it off ruthlessly; he would be responsible for keeping his own blood from boiling. As the pressure outside the ship dropped, he had more and more of the water pumped from the main compartment, until the air pocket up at the ceiling was large enough for him to pop up and take occasional breaths. He tucked the half-used breather carefully into his beltpouch; he would need it later.
At intervals, he tried to reach Qui-Gon's comlink -- which was still unresponsive -- or the transport waiting in orbit above the planet. Apparently the ship was too deep for the signal to get through, but he triggered the automated distress call anyway. *I'm coming, Master,* he sent through the Force, hoping that Qui-Gon would sense the call somehow even if he couldn't respond.
According to the chronometer, it was nearly three hours since Qui-Gon had left the ship that morning, and two hours since something had gone wrong. Assuming that Qui-Gon was still alive and still underwater, Obi-Wan had just over an hour to find his master before his last breather would run out. But it would take him many times that long to swim from the continental shelf to the Bavwauu colony, especially if he had to stay in the turbulent surface waters. He *had* to get this ship moving somehow, or there would be no hope for Qui-Gon at all.
Obi-Wan's last idea was to try the jet engines. Obviously the combustion reaction wouldn't work properly underwater, or at these kinds of pressures -- but the engines also had fans, intended for cooling in certain kinds of atmospheres. Those fans might work as low-power impellers, if only Obi-Wan could get them going. He suspected that this sort of use would destroy the fans sooner or later; the question was how far he could get before they fell apart. If he waited until the ship was in shallower water, where the pressure wasn't so high...*maybe* it would get him to Qui-Gon's side in time.
By the third time he had to override the safety programming, Obi-Wan was beginning to wish the Calamarians hadn't made this ship *quite* so smart. The ship didn't want to start its air engines underwater; it didn't want to run the fans when the engines were not running, or even warm; it didn't want the fans to turn at the speed he chose. He ran through menu after menu, pushing buttons and reading warning messages until his lungs burned and he had to pop up to the ceiling and breathe. But by the time the water outside the ship began to lighten and the edge of the continental shelf appeared, Obi-Wan had the fans spinning slowly. The ship began to push forward through the water.
Obi-Wan tinkered with the fan speed, making the ship go faster until his instincts warned him that the fan blades would buckle if he pushed them any harder. At this rate, it would take him perhaps half an hour to reach the colony. He would be stretching Qui-Gon's air reserve, even assuming he could find his master right away. And even if he got to Qui-Gon in time, it seemed likely the Avoorn would not welcome his presence -- especially considering that two of them had just tried to kill him.
He was sorting through the toolbox, searching for anything that could be used as an underwater weapon against very large opponents, when the comm chimed. He splashed through the water -- now waist deep in the main compartment -- and slapped a hand down on the console. "Master?"
There was a pause. "Master Jinn? Are you there?" It was the pilot of their transport.
Obi-Wan sank into the seat before the console, forcing himself to speak calmly. "No, this is Padawan Kenobi."
"We're receiving a distress signal. Are you all right? Where is Master Jinn?"
"I'm...not injured. We've had a problem here. Our hosts just attempted to murder me and sink this tri-phib. I don't know what's happened to Master Qui-Gon; I haven't spoken to him in nearly three hours. Can you get a fix on his comlink from up there?"
Another long pause. "No, we get nothing. Are you certain it's still working?"
"I'm not certain of anything." Obi-Wan started to descend into dark musings, then shook himself. "I managed to save the tri-phib, but I doubt it will ever fly again."
"Do you need a pickup? We don't have any other craft capable of landing in the water, but we can get close enough for you to meet us halfway." The pilot had dealt with Jedi long enough to have an idea how high they could jump.
"Not just yet," Obi-Wan returned slowly. "I must find out what happened to Qui-Gon first, and help him if I can. But we may need to take you up on that offer at short notice. Stay on alert. And keep trying that comlink."
"We'll be ready."
"Kenobi out." Obi-Wan checked the chronometer again, wishing he could get even a faint sense of how his master was doing or where he was. All the padawan had to guide him was a formless urgency that might be coming from his own fears as easily as from the Force. He knew Qui-Gon would have told him to trust his feelings, but that was hard to do when his feelings were vague and full of foreboding.
All he could think to do was to get there as soon as possible and be ready for anything. Grimly, Obi-Wan turned the fan speed up another notch and aimed the tri-phib toward the colony.
The cooling fans might be a part of the tri-phib's jet engines, but they had never been intended to provide propulsion -- especially not underwater. Obi-Wan was pushing them to their limit, and he could hear them laboring, could feel the uneven vibrations as the fan blades slowly deformed. But he could feel the Force urging him on more clearly now. He might not be able to sense Qui-Gon directly, but *something* was telling him to hurry. A soft thread of instinct guided him a little to the south of the shortest path to the colony, and he followed it without question.
He was still several klicks from the colony when a spiking danger sense caught at him and he reached to kill the fans. A moment later, the ship's proximity alarm went off. Obi-Wan studied the scanner, wondering if there was any point in bringing the tri-phib's weapons online. The energy weapons would be little use underwater, but the ship had a limited supply of projectiles as well. They weren't easy to aim, however, especially not for a target that was close by and fast-moving.
But the scans showed only one Avoorn near the ship. A rather small Avoorn, at that -- Obi-Wan started as he recognized HaruOOo. The youngster swam cautiously closer to the tri-phib, keeping slightly below the level of the ship in a gesture Obi-Wan realized was meant to indicate harmlessness.
Then a strange sound echoed through the hull of the ship. It repeated once before Obi-Wan recognized it.
"Ohhh-BiwaAAu," HaruOOo said a third time.
Obi-Wan flipped on the ship's external speakers. He had no idea what had happened to his translator, but perhaps he could manage a few simple words. "HaruOOo," he intoned as well as he could.
The small Avoorn circled away from the ship, then drew in close once more. "Chehhh-daIIi," he called, the high notes almost inaudible through the hull.
At first Obi-Wan thought it was just another address for himself, until he realized there was no way an Avoorn could manage the glottals in Qui-Gon's name. HaruOOo was talking about his master! "Take me to him," he said through the speakers, then cursed as he remembered the words weren't being translated. "Aawa eiiraUU EEwaau," he sang, sliding up and down the scale.
HaruOOo stilled, his fluke-skirts flattening uncertainly.
Obi-Wan tried again, his hands working the speakers' volume and pitch controls to add inflections. "Aawa eiiraUU EEwaau." He knew he could never get the harmonics and overtones right; HaruOOo would have to grasp his meaning just from the fundamental tones.
Suddenly the young Avoorn flipped his flukes and turned, swimming away at an angle. He paused and looked back a moment towards the tri-phib, then started off once more decisively.
He was going to lead Obi-Wan to Qui-Gon! Exultant, the padawan started the fans up again -- only to hear them groan and clank as the blades gave way at last. Either the sudden stop or his forceful attempt at restarting had been too much for them. The ship was now crippled for both air and water travel.
HaruOOo stopped and swam back to the ship, looking puzzled at the strange noises. Obi-Wan thumped a fist on the console in frustration, then pushed himself out of the seat. He wasn't going to give up now! Pulling the last, half-used breather from his belt pouch, he opened the lock in the belly of the ship and headed down the steps.
He couldn't speak to HaruOOo at all without the help of the ship's amplifiers, but the other day he had amused his new friend by demonstrating a few human hand signals. He gave the young Avoorn a thumbs-up sign to indicate his gratitude, then held his hands out and made grasping motions: *Give*.
They had done this before; HaruOOo sidled close and Obi-Wan stretched out along the top of the Avoorn's broad head. He held his hands down near HaruOOo's mouth, and a pair of tentacles wrapped tightly around his wrists. He grimaced as they pressed against the bruises left by the binders and by the chieftain's less friendly grasp, but he would endure much worse if necessary to save Qui-Gon.
Then they were moving, surging through the water much faster than Obi-Wan could have traveled by himself. HaruOOo angled south of the colony and down toward the sea floor. As they swung wide around a series of volcanic vents, Obi-Wan realized they were heading for the famous crystal beds.
Time was running out for Qui-Gon. He had wasted precious minutes breaking away enough of the crystals so that he could reach his wrist below the cuff. The work was slow enough that he had even considered trying to go through his forearm above the band, but he doubted the crystal was strong enough to cut bone. The elbow might work, but it would bleed more. He wouldn't do Obi-Wan much good if he bled to death before even finding the boy. And he thought the wrist would go faster, if he could just reach it.
So he tore his shirt and wrapped the layers around his free hand and broke three crystals free until he could reach the trapped hand. The joining of the cuff to the rocks of the sea floor appeared unbreakable even at a closer look; it would have to be the hand after all. He started cutting at the back of the wrist, planning to leave the major blood vessels until the last. Even the smaller veins along the top of his hand were enough to fill the water around him with a cloud of blood.
And it hurt. Despite his mental disciplines, the pain was like nothing he'd ever known. Qui-Gon had suffered his share of severe injuries, but always before he'd had the Force to turn to. He could release his pain into that Living embrace, or in the worst cases even cut off the nerve function to the injured area. Now, neither of those options was available to him. All he could do was breathe steadily and keep going.
He was down to the cartilage when breathing became difficult and he realized his air had run out. He stopped cutting and reached into his belt pouch for the last spare. In the moment when his head was raised, a shadowy movement caught his eye.
Aquatic carnivores were circling out there in the dusky light, drawn by the taste of blood in the water. Qui-Gon had read a little about these predators in his sparse briefing; they were three to four meters long, perpetually hungry, and aggressive in seeking prey. Probably the only reason they hadn't attacked already was that they were unfamiliar with the taste of human blood.
Qui-Gon reached down and sorted through the crystals he had broken off to find the one which had a sharp point but no good edge. He had discarded it as useless for cutting, but it might work as a weapon. It would have to be a last resort, however; if he cut one of the predators, the others would know the new blood in the water was from one of their kind. It might set off a feeding frenzy, or they might turn on him in revenge -- it depended on the exact nature of these creatures, a detail which hadn't been included in the briefing.
Setting the stabbing crystal carefully by his knee, he returned to his cutting. He was hampered by the thickness of his makeshift saw. The crystal couldn't reach between the ends of the bones that met in his wrist. He might be able to break the bones free, or at least pull them apart enough to cut between, but he needed more leverage. It would have been easy enough with the Force at his command, but now he was reduced to twisting the wrist one way and the other, digging as far in as the crystal would go.
He was missing the touch of the Force in more ways than one, and he wanted the inhibiting collar gone. The Force had been comforter, guide, and early warning system since his earliest childhood, and now he had none of that to help him. He had no strength but his own to draw upon in bearing the pain he was inflicting on himself. He had no way of knowing whether such drastic steps were truly necessary to help his padawan -- or whether it was already too late for Obi-Wan. And he had nothing to warn him if one of those predators should approach from behind...
Something touched his leg and Qui-Gon kicked out violently, catching one of the carnivores on the side of the head. It swam away half-dazed, and the others drew back a little at the sudden motion. But before Qui-Gon could return to his task, another one was darting in to try its luck. Then a third came close, and the circle began to draw tighter around him.
He fended them off with kicks and the occasional well-placed punch for as long as he could, but gradually they began to realize he had a weak spot if they approached from a certain angle. He could only twist around so much, and when one arrowed in from ahead and to his left, where his right-handed punch would be weakest, he saw no alternative but to stab it with the pointed crystal.
The predator pulled away sharply, trying to turn as if to catch whatever had bitten it. A stream of dark green blood spilled from its wound, diffusing through the dim waters. The patterns of the other predators began to change. One darted in and butted the wounded one hard, causing a new gust of blood to billow through the water. Another soared right over Qui-Gon's head, battering him with its tail-fluke as it tore a chunk of skin from its bleeding fellow.
A riot of feeding was about to start, and Qui-Gon would be caught at the heart of the conflict. He gripped his crystal and waited for the beginning of the end.
Unexpectedly another, larger shape came pushing through the crowd, butting into carnivores and knocking them aside with superior momentum. It was an Avoorn -- a young one -- helping Qui-Gon for reasons he couldn't begin to understand.
Then a smaller figure drew his eye, gleaming white as it sped through the water toward him. Qui-Gon's heart lifted when he recognized his padawan, but he stared in alarm as Obi-Wan swam directly up to the wounded predator. Laying one hand on the afflicted creature's head, the boy gave it a small push. Still dazed, the predator began to swim away, trailed by a stream of hungry followers.
The whites of Obi-Wan's eyes showed as he came to his master's side. Neither of them could talk properly, but there was nothing that truly needed to be said. Qui-Gon dropped his crystal and laid his scratched and bleeding hand upon his padawan's shoulder, squeezing warmly. He felt dizzy with relief to see Obi-Wan safe and well.
Or perhaps the dizziness was more than simple relief. Obi-Wan pulled the breather from his mouth and pushed it sharply at his master, until Qui-Gon realized that his own had run out and its indicator was showing red. He accepted Obi-Wan's in its place, waiting for the padawan to pull a spare from his belt. But Obi-Wan merely clamped his lips shut and turned to examine Qui-Gon's trapped hand.
Qui-Gon nudged his apprentice and gestured at the boy's belt. Obi-Wan shook his head and ignored him. Angrily, Qui-Gon pulled the breather from his mouth and held it out. Obi-Wan took it, drew a single lungful, then shoved it back in Qui-Gon's mouth with a glare.
Qui-Gon subsided for the moment, but watched his padawan closely for any signs of distress.
Obi-Wan reached down into the crystal bed where his master's hand was trapped, frowning as he felt around the cuff.
"Stuck," Qui-Gon bubbled around the breather in his mouth. "Cut free."
Obi-Wan scowled again, then his eyes widened and he spun around, lashing out sharply with one booted foot. He caught an incoming predator hard enough to make the creature thrash back and forth for several seconds before it swam away, thoroughly dissuaded. Most of the other predators had already disappeared in pursuit of their wounded fellow, trailed in turn by the young Avoorn that had appeared with Obi-Wan.
"Cut free," Qui-Gon insisted again.
Obi-Wan shook his head. Instead he reached down and wrapped both hands around his master's bloody wrist, closing his eyes in concentration. Nothing happened, as far as Qui-Gon could tell, and bubbles trickled from the boy's lips as he hissed in frustration. Obi-Wan began to jerk at the few remaining crystals in the bed, grimacing with effort until he apparently found some way of using the Force to help him snap them off.
After two more crystals had come free, Qui-Gon nudged his student with the breather, and Obi-Wan grudgingly took another breath. Then the boy reached again for Qui-Gon's hand, and this time something was different. The binder around the master's wrist softened enough that Obi-Wan could pull it away from the surrounding rock.
Qui-Gon lifted his bloodied hand free and stared at it in astonishment. But Obi-Wan was already pulling at him, drawing him up away from the crystal bed.
A few meters above the sea floor, Obi-Wan stopped him and frowned at the thing on his forearm. It softened further and then pulled cleanly away, taking only a few of Qui-Gon's hairs with it. Obi-Wan tossed it aside and wrapped some trailing strips of Qui-Gon's shirt around the gaping wound. Then the apprentice jerked a thumb upward. Qui-Gon nodded and they rose together toward the surface.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6