Before - Legends Freefall--Response to the Writers Race Challenge #3

Things couldn't possibly get any worse. It was true that they were not abandoning ship while in the vacuum of space, but Obi-Wan had never had much of a desire to leap to his death, even if staying put meant a fiery and rather painful death.

He was 19 and far too young to die.

Qui-Gon, however, assured him that, between the emergency landing supplies and the will of the Force, everything would be fine.

He wanted to argue, but was too worried about trusting the Force in a moment of panic to do so. Instead, he donned the parachute pack as Qui-Gon explained the procedure, then pulled himself with the handholds to the ragged opening in the hull of their shuttle. He had just mustered enough courage to take the flying leap when Qui-Gon seized him by the pack and pulled him back.

"Don't Jump."

Have you lost whatever mind was left after that concussion?

"You can't be serious," he shouted back.

"Someone has tampered with the parachutes," Qui-Gon countered evenly.

Obi-Wan looked at his Master with wide eyes. "How can you be so calm, while you're telling me this?"

His Master glanced out at the landscape speeding by at a rather terrifying rate, then shrugged with the calm of someone observing a slow smashball match.

"I just let the Force guide me."

The Force is guiding us down very fast, Master. You've got to give me something more than that.

Nevertheless, he was not one to express distrust of his Master or the Force he served in ways that Obi-Wan felt he would never understand.

"What is the Force telling you?"

"'Ask Again Later,'" Qui-Gon deadpanned.

The object he had been clutching since the moment the blast happened began to vibrate in a rather alarming manner.

"Where did you get the black object?" He pointed to it.

Qui-Gon did not seemed alarmed, only held up the now-glowing object.

"From the deepest depths of the Jedi Temple basement."

Oh, perfectly logical answer. Trust anything you dig up in solitary confinement.

"Any idea of what it is?"

"A pretty reassuring one," Qui-Gon commented mildly.

Somehow, I don't believe that.

"Do you go there often?"

"Only on alternate Saturdays when Yoda's D&D group plays there."

A vibrating, glowing object that had been found near Yoda's toys. This deal was getting worse all the time.

He had no idea why the object seemed to reassure the man who was about to be plastered face-first against a rimarek tree. He had no idea why it was now making a peculiar beeping sound or what that had to do with the fact that the ship was beginning to flicker in and out of existence.

Oddly enough, he didn't find that any more alarming than their previous circumstances.

"Yoda, eh?" he sighed.

"He is a very strange person," Qui-Gon muttered.

"That may be, but we're still stuck."

Now Qui-Gon was beginning to flicker as well, as if he were a recording coming through a bad comm line.

"No, actually only you're stuck."

"You wouldn't leave me here?"

Panicking, he leapt for Qui-Gon, arms wrapping around him just as the ship flickered out of existence...

And stayed that way.

They were not falling, did not seem to be moving at all, but they were presumably not dead yet. If they were dead, Obi-Wan's heart wouldn't be beating its way out of his ribcage and the gash on his forehead wouldn't be smarting like that.

"I don't understand," he admitted, not for the first time that day.

"Patience, young one," Qui-Gon said with a slight smile. "The Force guides us, even when our path is unsure."

In the next moment, it guided them rather abruptly into a durasteel floor. Obi-Wan's arms released his Master at the shock and tumbled onto his back with a loud "UMPF!"

"Hello, there," a cool voice said dispassionately.

The odd object being aimed at his forehead was being held like a weapon, so he assumed it was this society's excuse for a blaster, but beyond that, he couldn't identify exactly what his situati

 

Author's Note: This a response to the "You Knew It Was Coming" challenge in Writer's Race. A bunch of people speed-wrote two dialogue/plots and then we were told to write a story including every word of those stories. The bolded words are what was in the challenge. The rest is mine. Yes, it's very weird.

 

I was laughing toward the end. The whole "uncharacterstic move" line really got me.

And Qui-Gon was so calm about the whole thing!

Yeah, it was all a very bad dream.

 

Well, I personally was one of the people cheering when Spock died in Star Trek II...

 

Cute! You managed to stitch together the two existing stories into a coherent whole. Not necessarily a very serious whole, but a coherent one nonetheless. And I, too, loved how calm Qui-Gon was about all this. New universes? Higher powers? Weird aliens? Ah, whatever. Let's play some sabacc!

-duskwings

 

LOL, yup. He's got enough of the living Force, enough of weird people with Obi-Wan around.

 

No comment. Thanks for thinking it was...logical.

 

I almost couldn't find this one. [face_shocked] I had to hunt and hunt... You must have been fast Ish! Good job making a coherent whole from such disparate halves.



KD

 

I tend to be one of the early submitters, since most of my days involve me sitting at a computer and helping my mom rewrite sentences.

 

I'm not sure that was necessary," Qui-Gon obseved.

"It was for the good of the galaxy," LOL poor Spock all of the racers are out to get him.

That is going to be one long card game.

 

It's not my fault. I personally like killing spock outside of insane race challenges...