Master & Apprentice (Star Wars) Read online

  But now it could happen. Would happen. He’d be able to weigh in on the Council’s decisions, and perhaps create some of the change he wanted to see. It was the greatest opportunity of his life.

  “You honor me,” Qui-Gon said. “I ask for some time to meditate upon this before I accept.” Of course he would take the seat on the Council. But in doing so, he wanted to more fully reflect upon how this would change him, and the breadth of the important role he would assume.

  “Very wise,” said Depa. “Most of those asked to join the Council do the same, myself included. If someone didn’t—well, I’d think maybe he didn’t know what he was getting into.”

  Laughter went around the room. Amusement bubbled within Poli Dapatian’s respirator mask. Depa Billaba’s grin was infectious, and Qui-Gon realized he was smiling back at her. Although the Council had never been hostile to him, this was the first time Qui-Gon had felt a deeper camaraderie—the friendliness of equals. Already Teth and the Hutts seemed like a problem from years ago. The future shone so boldly that it threatened to eclipse the present.

  Steady, he told himself. Even an invitation to the Jedi Council mustn’t go to your head.

  “Consider carefully, you must,” said Yoda, the only member of the Council who remained gravely serious. “No hasty answer should you give.”

  “Of course,” Qui-Gon said. Hadn’t he just indicated that he intended to do exactly that?

  Before he could think more on it, Mace said, “In some ways, this invitation comes at an opportune time. This change could, potentially, resolve other problems.”

  Only then did it hit Qui-Gon: If he took a seat on the Council, then Obi-Wan would be transferred to another Master.

  It wasn’t forbidden for a Jedi on the Council to train a Padawan learner; one of Qui-Gon’s crèche-mates had become the Padawan of Master Dapatian, back in the day. Exceptions had been made during times of crisis as well, when everyone needed to take on extra duties. But such exceptions were rare. Serving on the Council required a great deal of time, concentration, and commitment. Balancing that commitment with the equally sacred task of training a Padawan—well, it would be a difficult situation, one potentially unfair to both Master and student. Only those who had served on the Council for a long time, and had adjusted to its demands, contemplated such a step.

  “I see what you mean,” Qui-Gon said. “Perhaps it would be for the best. But I must think upon it.”

  “Of course,” Depa said warmly. Yoda nodded, clutching his gimer stick and saying nothing.

  Mace Windu rose from his chair to put his hand on Qui-Gon’s shoulder. “We will of course keep this invitation private unless and until you choose to join us. At this point, the only person outside this room who knows of it is Chancellor Kaj herself. But if you need to discuss it with Padawan Kenobi, or any other friends, you may feel free to do so, as long as they will promise to be discreet.”

  “Understood.”

  Qui-Gon walked out of the Council Chamber into the Temple in a strange state of mind. He couldn’t call it a daze, because this was in some ways the exact opposite. Every detail of his surroundings struck him with fresh vividness, whether it was the colorful patterns of inlaid marble beneath his feet or the scarlet trim on a young Jedi Knight’s gown. It was as though the invitation to join the Council had given him new eyes. A new way of seeing the world, one that he would no doubt spend the rest of his life learning to comprehend.

  The Council, he said to himself. By the Force, the Council.

  Perhaps another Jedi might have given way to elation, or even the temptation of pride. Qui-Gon Jinn was made of sterner stuff. Besides, he couldn’t bring himself to feel entirely happy when he considered the question of Obi-Wan.

  He’d already come to believe that they were mismatched as teacher and student. The main reason Qui-Gon hadn’t asked for a transfer before was that he knew Obi-Wan would be hurt by it, and would blame himself. The Council’s invitation would allow the transfer to be impersonal, merely practical. Obi-Wan could then be reassigned to a teacher who would serve him better.

  Why, then, did the idea fill Qui-Gon with such a profound sense of loss?

  * * *

  —

  The planet Pijal had a pleasantly warm climate, one that led to lush green hills in summertime, vineyards with the potential to produce top-class wines, and tall, slender conifers that waved slightly in the breeze. It was lovely. Everyone said so. Her Serene Highness, the Crown Princess Fanry, had no reason to doubt them.

  But she would’ve preferred being able to compare for herself.

  “They say Naboo is lovely,” she said to Regent Averross. She kicked her feet back and forth beneath her throne; even now that she was almost fourteen, her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. Her red hair was tucked beneath her ivory-colored scarf, only a few loose curls hinting at the blaze beneath. “Toydaria’s not supposed to be so pretty, but I’m curious about it. And Alderaan. That’s supposed to be the most beautiful planet of the Core Worlds. Naboo has a queen about my age, and Toydaria a king only a few years older—and there’s a crown princess on Alderaan, isn’t there? Breha? We could have a sort of summit. Something like, ‘the next generation of galactic leaders.’ ”

  “Delightfully put,” said Meritt Col, the sector supervisor for Czerka Corporation. Czerka had been doing business on Pijal for so many centuries that their supervisors inevitably had places at court. Col wore it more easily than most. “As a slogan, it’s catchy, punchy, inspiring. You could do well on one of Czerka’s advertising planets—if you gave up the throne, that is.” Col laughed at her own joke.

  Fanry managed a smile, but no more. Like she would ever give up her throne, for anyone or anything, much less to come up with ad copy for Czerka.

  The lord regent paid no attention to Col. Instead he gave Fanry a look. “No time for a vacation,” Averross said. He sat, not in one of the many fine chairs, but in the stone curve beneath one of the tall, pink-tinted windows in the throne room, thumping one of his heavy boots against the carved scrollwork. To Fanry, Averross always seemed like a varactyl kept in an enclosure too small for it—uncomfortable, restless, eager to run. “And you know it.”

  “I didn’t say vacation. I said a summit.”

  “And you didn’t mean either one of ’em,” he retorted. “C’mon, Fanry. Why do you think you’re dyin’ to travel all of a sudden?”

  Fanry suppressed a groan. Having a Jedi for a regent—even an unorthodox Jedi, even one who seemed determined to behave more like a vagrant than a nobleman—meant going on a constant quest for self-knowledge. Personally she felt she knew herself quite well, thank you very much, but she also knew this line of questioning wouldn’t end until she’d provided an answer.

  “The treaty,” she said. “It’s so close. It’s a big responsibility.”

  “Exactly. Of course you want to escape.” He grinned at her, easy and knowing, as he lit a Chandrilan cigarra. “But you’ve never hidden from a fight once, in all the time I’ve known you—not even when you were hardly more than a baby. You may get scared, but you don’t run scared.”

  She nodded, once again taking the measure of the man who had run her planet—and her life—since she was six years old. His face must’ve been handsome once, Fanry mused, before he was old as rocks. (She thought he might even be fifty.) Although his once-black hair was now shot through with gray, and wrinkles on his cheeks hinted at long-ago laughter, he carried himself like someone much younger. Like the warrior he had once been. Rael Averross had lived through things she would never experience and could hardly imagine.

  But not even he could understand the full responsibility of the crown of Pijal.

  Col cleared her throat. “If I may, Your Serene Highness—I’ve just gotten word that the group from the head office has arrived. Shall we greet them?”

  Fanry couldn’t think of a
nything she less wanted to do than go through court formalities with anyone from the head office of Czerka Corporation—even though the company’s power was nearly as great as the Galactic Senate’s. But it had to be done. She nodded toward Rael and allowed him to lead the way toward the Grand Hall of the palace. The hem of her silky gown rustled against the tiled floor as they went. Her servant girl Cady had wanted to hem it shorter, but Fanry insisted it wouldn’t be necessary. Oh, when would she ever grow taller?

  Just before she and Rael reached the giant doors of the hall, they burst open, pushed so hard that they slammed against the wall despite their massive weight. A guard halted what would clearly have been a desperate run, panting and wide-eyed.

  “What is it?” Rael demanded. Already his hand was on his lightsaber, ready to defend her. Fanry wondered why she didn’t feel safer.

  “The moon,” the guard said. “Halin Azucca. The Opposition. Again. And it’s worse this time.”

  “Aw, hell.” Rael dashed toward the hall and its giant viewscreen, with Fanry only a few steps behind. Her heart pounded as she grabbed up her long skirts, the better to run faster.

  When they entered the hall, Fanry didn’t even bother looking for the Czerka representatives, or for her other guards, or for anyone else. She could only stare at the scene projected there, no doubt from one of their satellites: one of the main factories on the moon, or what had been a main factory, before it exploded. Debris lay around the smoldering remains as electrical sparks blinked within the crushed machinery.

  It had seemed so funny, at first, the idea of the Opposition as dangerous terrorists. Nobody was laughing any longer.

  Captain Deren, the head of her guard, stood directly before the screen, his expression grave. “That factory had few defenses to speak of. Perhaps we should’ve expected this. At least no one was killed.”

  “That factory made nutritional supplements. We ‘should’ve expected’ Halin Azucca and her Opposition thugs would take it out?” Rael folded his arms, visibly calming himself. “I guess no matter how little credit we give her, it’s too much. You’re sure nobody got killed?”

  “The factory was empty at that hour,” Deren confirmed. He stood a head taller than Rael Averross, who was not a short man, and his deep voice rumbled like a groundquake. “So far, our attackers have been careful to spare lives.”

  “They may not be for much longer,” Fanry said. Her blue eyes remained focused on the destruction. A shiver ran along her skin.

  “This situation appears more serious than we had been given to believe,” said one of the Czerka muckety-mucks, his hands folded together in what was meant to pass as a gesture of respect. “If the unrest on Pijal and its moon is increasing, we must question the wisdom of further investments by the Czerka Corporation.”

  Fanry startled and glanced at Deren. Before either of them could speak, Meritt Col stepped in. “The unrest hasn’t lasted long. The new treaty and the coronation will change everything. Besides, Czerka must not lose its position at the hub of the new hyperspace corridor.”

  “Of course not,” Fanry said. How many people in the galaxy had ever seen a top Czerka official back down?

  “We get it,” Rael added. “It’s scary. But Czerka’s not going to get scared off that easy, right? Trust me. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this.”

  “With all due respect,” said Meritt Col, “how can we be sure of that, when you’ve failed to find the perpetrators so far? I believe in our work here on Pijal, but we need a far more thorough investigation than we’ve had so far.”

  “We’ll have help.” Rael straightened. For a moment, Fanry thought, he almost looked troubled. But his usual lazy smile came back as he turned to a nearby communications officer and ordered, “Open a channel to Coruscant. To the Jedi Council.”

  The duties of a Padawan varied greatly. Certain kinds of instruction were universal—meditation, lightsaber training—and were studied both in groups at the Temple and privately with one’s Master. But those Masters ranged widely in talents and temperament, which meant that the assignments they gave were diverse, too.

  Obi-Wan’s crèche-mate Prie, for instance, had been partnered with a Master who was expert in two things: forming Force-bonds with animals and unarmed combat. So Prie spent most of her time on undeveloped worlds, protecting new settlements from both wild animals and would-be marauders. Once she had even ridden a horned beast two meters high.

  Meanwhile, his friend Jape studied with a Master who specialized in astrophysics. When he wasn’t in the Grand Orbital Observatory of Coruscant, he was flying around the galaxy to explore unique and interesting phenomena. He’d sent Obi-Wan images from fabulously multicolored nebulae, and from a point just shy of a black hole’s event horizon.

  And what did Obi-Wan get? Trips to the Archives.

  He sat in one of the high-level carrels, his work illuminated by hovering candledroids. From his vantage point, Obi-Wan could scan nearly the entire lower level of the Jedi Archives. Jocasta Nu sat at her desk, patiently reviewing some file or other; a handful of younglings struggled through a dense historical holo, probably for a class project. Otherwise, the Archives were deserted. Most Jedi had better things to do with their spare time, which meant having better things for their Padawans to do in their spare time.

  Qui-Gon’s interest in ancient languages wouldn’t have been annoying on its own—at least, not as annoying—but what really irritated Obi-Wan was the reason for this fascination.

  Nobody puts much stock in the old prophecies any longer, Obi-Wan thought sullenly as he looked over yet more Old Alderaanian. These are only things that may never happen. If they ever do come to pass, then they were truly foretold, and none of our actions can influence them in any way.

  So why does Qui-Gon insist on studying them?

  It would be one thing if Qui-Gon were among the Temple scholars, someone whose entire career had been spent researching antiquity. Obi-Wan at least would’ve known what he was getting into. But in virtually every other way, Qui-Gon Jinn was a realist, plainspoken and practical, almost to a fault.

  “What use are ideals if we cannot fit them to the universe as we find it?” Qui-Gon had once asked him. “If our beliefs tell us one thing, and the needs of real people tell us another, can there be any question of which we should listen to?” This all sounded very lofty when Qui-Gon said it, but in actuality it meant things like, It’s okay to “borrow” a spaceship from criminals if you really need it, or If I can win this tribe’s independence in a game of chance, then it’s worth selling my Padawan’s best robe for chips to get into the game.

  No, Qui-Gon’s interests were generally anything but academic. He just had these two hobbies: ancient languages and ancient prophecies. Two intensely boring hobbies, both of which seemed to require a lot of research support from an apprentice.

  Obi-Wan caught himself just before his annoyance would’ve turned into anger. It wasn’t his job to dictate his Master’s hobbies and interests. It was his job to support them, and if that meant digging up more antiquated scrolls and holocrons, so be it.

  * * *

  —

  Later that evening, in Qui-Gon’s quarters, Obi-Wan dared to say, “So far as I can tell, Master, the prophecies seem…extremely vague.”

  Qui-Gon looked up from the records Obi-Wan had brought him. His long, grayish-brown hair fell loose down his back, a sign that he intended to go to sleep soon. But he had never failed to respond to Obi-Wan’s curiosity. “You’ve learned Old Alderaanian?”

  “Not exactly—but I’ve picked up enough to make some sense of what I’m collecting.” Obi-Wan tugged nervously at his Padawan braid, then stopped as he caught himself at it. It was a bad habit he hoped to break. “One of these prophecies says something about ‘She who will be born to darkness will give birth to darkness.’ It gives no hint at all as to who that is, or what kind of darkness this is,
or when it will happen. Or ‘When the kyber that is not kyber shines forth, the time of prophecy will be at hand.’ How can there be a prophecy about the time of prophecy? Then there’s this one—” He tapped on the side of the holocron of prophecy, which Qui-Gon had taken from the Archives for at least the dozenth time in his apprenticeship. “ ‘When the righteous lose the light, evil once dead shall return.’ That’s so vague it could refer to anything or anyone! And then the whole ‘Chosen One’ nonsense—”

  “Your doubts are understandable, my Padawan,” Qui-Gon said. His tone became dry as he continued, “Certainly they are shared by most Jedi today, including the Council. But I’d warn you not to dismiss this as mere ‘nonsense.’ ”

  Obi-Wan folded his arms. “Why shouldn’t I?” When he caught the irritated glint in Qui-Gon’s eyes, he hastily added, “I don’t mean to be sarcastic; I really want to know. Why should we listen to these prophecies? Master Yoda has always taught that looking into the future is uncertain at best.”

  To Obi-Wan’s surprise, Qui-Gon slowly nodded. “The answer to your question is…complex. Give me a moment to gather my thoughts, so I can give you the reply you deserve.”

  He was pleased to have at least challenged his Master this far. There were few things Qui-Gon loved more than a good question. Sometimes Obi-Wan thought that if he just never stopped asking questions, his whole apprenticeship would’ve gone much more smoothly.

  Qui-Gon closed his eyes, perhaps entering a light meditative state. Obi-Wan would have to bide his time.

  It wasn’t unpleasant to wait in his Master’s quarters. They were small and simple, as all Jedi residences were, and yet this room could not be mistaken for anyone else’s but Qui-Gon Jinn’s. It was individual in a way few things in the Temple were, reflecting its inhabitant’s personality. Qui-Gon had a habit of picking up odds and ends on many of the various planets they visited—a bit of driftwood here, a soft woven blanket there. Over time, these mementos had formed quite a collection. Obi-Wan knew the wind chimes were from Gatalenta, the smooth meditation stones were from Ryloth, and the tea set with its delicate jade-green cups had been given to Qui-Gon by some Bivall as a thank-you gift after he’d helped rescue their stranded ship.