Master & Apprentice (Star Wars)

by Claudia Gray

  Qui-Gon looked thoughtful. “Interesting.”

  “Okay, I’ve provided midnight advice, and now I’m going back to bed.” Averross rose to his feet, which prompted Qui-Gon to do the same. “Though going back to bed is gonna be a whole lot less fun than I’d planned, since Selbie left early.”

  This joke didn’t earn a laugh from Qui-Gon, only a bent smile. Maybe he’d become a bit of a prig after all. How disappointed Dooku would be, if and when they ever talked it over.

  It had been a long time since Rael Averross felt the need to justify himself to anyone on Pijal, but as he walked Qui-Gon to the door, he found himself saying, “You know, there’ve always been a few Jedi—let’s be honest, more than a few—who see celibacy as an ideal, not a rule.”

  “I’m coming to believe that we must all interpret the Code for ourselves,” Qui-Gon said, “or it ceases to be a living pact and becomes nothing but a prison cell.” Which sounded nice and all, but was a long way from letting Averross off the hook.

  “Get some sleep,” Averross grumbled, “and if you have any more bad dreams, don’t—”

  A scream shattered the midnight silence, and he recognized the voice.

  Fanry.

  * * *

  —

  When Qui-Gon first heard the screams, he thought, It’s coming true already. It’s coming true right now.

  Then duty took over, propelling him through the door of the chamber. Rael had taken off at the first shriek, not even looking back for Qui-Gon.

  He was equally proud and chagrined to see that Obi-Wan was also ahead of him in the corridor; by the time they’d reached the threshold of the royal chamber, Qui-Gon had caught up. So together they saw Princess Fanry appear at the door, breathing hard, her tiny body trembling so pitifully that it seemed she might fall. Her nightcap had been knocked askew, revealing a few bright-red curls of hair.

  “Fanry?” Rael put his hands on the princess’s shoulders. All the nonchalance from earlier in the night had been forgotten, Qui-Gon could see. The man’s terror for his charge was very real. “Fanry, what’s happened?”

  “The alarm went off—I turned to my window, and I saw someone there—” Fanry whipped around to face Cady, the young servant girl who seemed to be the key royal attendant despite being Czerka property. “Did you see anything?”

  “No, Your Serene Highness.” Cady ducked her head so that her long, dark-brown hair fell past her shoulders. It concealed her expression, yet not her wide, wary eyes. “But I found this lodged in the windowsill.”

  Cady held up a small device, silvery and pointed. Qui-Gon didn’t recognize it at first, not until Rael sucked in a breath so sharply that he seemed to be in pain.

  “A slicer dart,” Qui-Gon murmured. Obi-Wan instantly looked at Rael—a tactless gesture, however understandable—but Rael was past noticing it. The man had gone so pale that he seemed to be in danger of falling over.

  Slicer darts were rarely used. The law-abiding had no chance to deploy them, because the darts were outlawed on nearly all civilized worlds; criminals seldom bothered, because the results were so unpredictable. When slicer darts were used, it was usually an act of deliberate cruelty. Qui-Gon had no doubt that was the case here.

  “What did they want to do?” Fanry cried, shrinking back from the bladed thing, even as Rael took it from the girl. “Make me go mad, just before the ceremony?”

  “They could’ve been aiming at me, Your Serene Highness,” Cady said quietly. “Hoping I’d assassinate you.” Fanry covered her mouth with one hand at the mere thought.

  But Qui-Gon knew what the unknown assailant had intended: to hurt Rael Averross. To scare him. To give him notice that Princess Fanry was in danger, and that he could no more protect her than he’d protected Nim all those years ago.

  And surely Rael knew it, too.

  Some Jedi Knights’ sensitivity to the Force allowed them to expertly plumb the emotions of everyone around them, sifting through and assessing feelings in a way that allowed them to perfectly gauge their responses to all. This was a talent Qui-Gon didn’t share. He generally had to assess mood and tempers like any non-Force-user—through tone of voice, expression, things said and unsaid.

  But Captain Deren’s shame and misery were so great that Qui-Gon not only felt them, but shared them as though the pain were his own.

  “I personally checked the perimeter of the palace compound,” Deren said. Though he spoke quietly, his deep voice still commanded the room—specifically, the regent’s audience chamber, the richly decorated suite. It was a sumptuous, pristinely clean place, which led Qui-Gon to suspect Rael rarely came here. No one had gone to sleep since the incident with the slicer dart a few hours ago, and even the moon had set. Despite this, Rael and Qui-Gon agreed that the interviews should take place immediately; potential witnesses’ memories would fade after time and sleep. They needed all the information they could get. But few were able to share anything of use, including Deren. “I myself made a full sweep of Princess Fanry’s rooms. My astromech cycled through all sentry data, and I double-checked those findings. Yet the responsibility must be mine.”

  “We’re dealing with dangerous people here,” Rael said. “Some of you kept telling me that this Halin person wasn’t so bad. That the serious attacks maybe got out of hand. But now they’ve shown their hand. They’re assassins. They’re murderers. And they’re after Fanry. So I don’t ever want to see security slip up again. Got it?”

  Deren bowed his head, as though he’d been condemned. “Yes, Lord Regent.”

  Another official Qui-Gon and Rael interviewed closer to dawn was less subdued. “This is an outrage,” Minister Orth snapped. “That anyone would blame a fourteen-year-old girl for political change—however unasked-for that change may be—and how little the girl herself has to do with any of it—”

  “What?” Rael raised one arched eyebrow.

  Orth lifted her pointed chin, defiant and proud. “You’re the architect of change around here. Not Princess Fanry, not the people, and certainly not me. You’re the one who wants to make Czerka even more at home than they already are. And everyone on both planet and moon knows it.”

  “You’d want Pijal to stay a backwater?” As hotly as Rael spoke, Qui-Gon could tell this discussion had occurred before; both participants seemed very sure of their lines. A sideways glance at Obi-Wan suggested his apprentice had seen it as well. “This planet’s not going to catch up to the rest of the galaxy the way things are going now. This whole planet has no future without change.”

  “There can be no future for Pijal without its leader,” Orth insisted. “Its true leader. And that is Fanry, not some…some…constitutional assembly.”

  “You’ve never lived in a democracy, minister,” Qui-Gon ventured. “Yes, larger governing bodies have their own problems, but they can get things done.”

  Orth laughed. “Tell that to the Galactic Senate! Unless they’re too busy posing for their reelection holos.”

  Qui-Gon said no more. He didn’t want to argue with Orth—particularly when so many senators answered to her description.

  After the meetings were over and Rael had dismissed them from his chamber, Qui-Gon walked a good distance down the palace corridor before saying to Obi-Wan, “Your thoughts?”

  “They’re angrier with each other than they are with the Opposition. Perhaps they blame each other for the Opposition rising up in the first place.” Obi-Wan shook his head. “Such displays of temper seem counterproductive at best.”

  “Very true. Yet last night, that anger took a turn—as did our mission.”

  Obi-Wan frowned. “Why do you say so?”

  “The fate of Nim Pianna isn’t widely known beyond the Order,” Qui-Gon said. “Slicer darts are unreliable weapons, thank the Force, or else we’d see them more often. Last night’s attacker got close enough to have, say, tossed in a therm
al detonator. Or fired a blaster. Or gone after Fanry in any number of ways that would’ve been far more likely to kill her.”

  Understanding lit up Obi-Wan’s eyes. “You mean, the weapon was deliberately chosen. It was meant to send a message to Averross.”

  With a nod, Qui-Gon said, “And whoever did it knows Rael well enough to know exactly how to hurt him. This isn’t just an assassination attempt. It was also an attack on Rael Averross.”

  * * *

  —

  The sun had not yet risen when Qui-Gon finally went to bed, but the horizon had become faintly grayish, warning that dawn would be on them soon. A meditative trance would allow him to reset his mind, greatly reducing the amount of sleep he’d need, but he was not yet calm enough to attempt one. No single element of the current situation disturbed him so deeply that rest was impossible—but they jarred and jostled with one another in his brain.

  * * *

  —

  Someone wishes to hurt both the princess and, through her, Rael Averross.

  Rael wants to protect the princess so much that it may color his judgment.

  Rael is desperate to make up for failing Nim.

  I have failed Obi-Wan.

  The Opposition’s efforts to disrupt the treaty signing have accelerated rapidly in the past weeks, even since our arrival on Pijal.

  Both lives and the treaty are in imminent danger.

  * * *

  —

  All true. All troubling. Yet—to Qui-Gon’s chagrin—none of these critical problems captured as much of his mind as the constant soft whisper in his memory: the kyber that is not kyber.

  And his dream, presaging trouble for the crown princess of Pijal, trouble that was already coming to pass—

  That, surely, was only his subconscious working faster than his conscious mind, scarcely an unfamiliar phenomenon. He must’ve picked up on discrepancies in the behavior of those around him, intuiting imminent trouble.

  Yes, that would explain the dream. Rael had been correct, last night, not to overreact to what Qui-Gon had seen.

  But while subconscious warnings explained the dream, they didn’t explain the kohlen crystals. The kyber that wasn’t kyber.

  Qui-Gon groaned. How calm he’d been, discussing this with Obi-Wan, explaining that the lure of the ancient prophecies was no more than intellectual curiosity. He hadn’t shared how different it had been for him as a boy—about the days when he’d believed it all, when he and Dooku had shared their fascination with these visions of what would be—

  He hadn’t been honest with Obi-Wan primarily because he hadn’t been honest with himself.

  Maybe Yoda had glimpsed this hint of zealotry in him all along. If so, no wonder he’d disapproved of inviting Qui-Gon onto the Council.

  * * *

  —

  Qui-Gon slept as much as he could, which wasn’t enough rest for the kind of search he and Obi-Wan needed to conduct that day. He could meditate enough to make up for the lost sleep, though, and so he headed to one of the balconies that looked out onto the sea. The soft thunder of the waves would be ideal for lulling him into a deep meditative state.

  But as soon as he stepped outside, he heard a different, even lovelier sound: hundreds of voices raised in song.

  He went to the railing and looked down at the waters. There, arranged on floating platforms, stood choruses of singers—most human, like the majority of Pijali citizens, but including some Twi’leks and Pantorans, and even one little Ugnaught in the front row. They wore plain gray robes that hung open at the front to reveal golden garments beneath, and directed their attention to another balcony, farther up in the cliffside palace. Qui-Gon followed their gazes to see Princess Fanry standing there, listening with apparent delight.

  Who in the blazes allowed her to step outside hours after an assassination attempt? Qui-Gon thought. Before he could call Deren, however, he detected the faint shimmer of a shield around Fanry’s brown dress and headscarf. Relaxing, he recalled that Rael had mentioned this event before—some sort of tradition associated with the coronation. Probably the royal security team had planned adequate protections for Fanry even before the incident with the slicer dart.

  But they hadn’t plumbed the sea. Bubbling water disrupted the waves, and the singers, whose voices faltered as they struggled to remain upright on their platforms. Qui-Gon prepared himself to leap down and help anyone who fell in the water—it would be a long dive, but one he could survive—but the bubbles popped as an enormous black sphere emerged from the waves and rose into the air.

  Qui-Gon’s alarm shifted to bewilderment. The intruding force was…a balloon?

  The balloon’s upward journey stopped short when its cable tether reached its limit. That tug of resistance made the black surface shimmer, then shatter into dust swiftly blown away by the ocean breeze. Now the balloon was revealed as white, with a message painted in red letters at least two meters high:

  END TYRANNY! END CZERKA!

  After that, nothing. The balloon bobbed at the end of its cable, casting shadows on the confused, but stabilized, singers beneath. Fanry, who had been pulled back by her guards at the first sign of trouble, tentatively stepped forward again. It had been no more than a harmless protest prank—the sort of thing the Opposition had been known for in the beginning.

  Why, Qui-Gon wondered, would terrorists shift from an assassination attempt to a mere political stunt?

  Yet one more answer he’d search for on the moon.

  After Qui-Gon had been Dooku’s Padawan for almost a year, they’d achieved a kind of rapport. Not friendship, not even informality, but Qui-Gon now understood what his Master’s expectations were, what support would be given, and what he would need to handle for himself.

  For instance, Dooku would never, in a thousand years, help Qui-Gon with his homework. He would, however, let Qui-Gon do that homework in the main room of his Jedi Knight’s quarters, where he could munch on leftovers.

  As he labored over his latest research report, Qui-Gon was startled to hear the door slide open. Dooku never came home early—

  “And here’s the kid.” Rael Averross came striding in, a wide grin on his face.

  “Rael!” Qui-Gon got up to greet him; he didn’t hug Rael, but wished he could. “What are you doing here?”

  “Finished up on Shurrupak, so it’s back to base until I get my next mission.” Rael flopped down on Dooku’s couch, looking absurdly out of place. Dooku kept his quarters pristine—everything sleek and shining, glass and metal, as though it had never been touched. How had Rael Averross ever kept company with Dooku, much less for years? On Shurrupak, Qui-Gon had assumed Rael dressed like that because of the difficulties of war. Yet here he was on Coruscant looking even sloppier than before. “Come to think of it, what are you doing here? The schedule said Dooku’s tied up in conference with some muckety-muck from Badtibira for another few hours.”

  “He lets me do my homework in here, if I won’t be disturbing him.”

  “Homework.” Rael made a face. “What’ve they got you stuck doing?”

  “A report on the different schools of theosophy a century ago.”

  Rael’s grimace went from mock to real. “Theosophy? The worst. Did you get on your teacher’s bad side or something?”

  Qui-Gon admitted, “I picked the topic. I knew it wouldn’t be interesting, but…it seemed easy. It isn’t.”

  “Say—is it too late for you to change your topic?”

  “No, why?”

  With a grin, Rael rose from the sofa and motioned for Qui-Gon to follow. “Let me show you some history worth studying.”

  Several minutes later, Qui-Gon sat next to Rael in the Jedi Archives, looking at the one and only holocron that had ever interested him—the one that held the ancient prophecies. Some were majestic. Some were mysterious. A few seemed laughable.
But they were all fascinating. Qui-Gon kept reading, unable to stop.

  * * *

  —

  Only through sacrifice of many Jedi will the Order cleanse the sin done to the nameless.

  The danger of the past is not past, but sleeps in an egg. When the egg cracks, it will threaten the galaxy entire.

  When the Force itself sickens, past and future must split and combine.

  A Chosen One shall come, born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance in the Force be restored.

  * * *

  —

  “The ancient mystics had these visions in trances?” Qui-Gon asked.

  Rael nodded. He sat on the opposite side of the long table, going through holocron archives as raptly as Qui-Gon himself. “I don’t even want to know what kind of spice they were smokin’.”

  Qui-Gon wondered whether, or how, he might be able to learn more about that. That was something to worry about later. Right now, his head buzzed with all the prophecy he’d read, all the possibilities of the future they hinted at. The entire universe seemed to have grown larger in an instant—full of incredible possibilities.

  But should he trust it?

  “Dooku said I shouldn’t pay attention to this holocron,” Qui-Gon said. “He doesn’t believe in the prophecies.”

  “Since when?” Rael’s confusion was totally sincere. “He’s the one who turned me on to it. Used to be, you could hardly pry this holocron out of his quarters.”

  “I don’t know when, or why. He didn’t explain.”

  “I’m going to have to ask him about that,” Rael said. “If that changed—wow. Then a lot’s changed about Dooku.”

  “Don’t ask him yet!” Qui-Gon protested. When Rael looked at him in surprise, he shrugged. “Not until I’ve finished my report, anyway.”