Saga End of an Era: Obi-Wan's Diary of Episode I

Discliaimer: Everything ultimately belongs to george Lucas, although I borrowed some stuff from Jude Watson's JA series and from Michael Reeves' Darth maul: Shadow Hunter.

Author's Note: Next chapter will be the actual mission.

Prologue: Attachments

I sighed and stared out the transparisteel window of the Republic Cruiser that was transporting my Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, and me to the watery world of Naboo in the fringes of the Republic. There wasn?t much to look at, frankly, since the cruiser had jumped to hyperspace an hour ago. That meant that even the stars appeared to whizz by us like a yellow blur against an endless background of obsidian, though, in reality, we were really shooting by them.

To be completely honest, as much as a Jedi, even a Padawan, can be regarded as hating anything, I loathed flying. Flying on the surface of a planet was awful enough, but I absolutely despised interstellar hyperspace travel. The entire notion of the jump to hyperspace, which was always an atom-juggling, light-smearing, and molecule-twisting experience that caused all my midichlorians to scream in protest, made me extremely queasy.

Let me be plain. When I said queasy, I didn't mean just to imply nauseous, as in sick to my stomach, which I was considering having surgically removed by a medic because Jedi rarely received anything truly scrumptious to consume anyhow, but also spiritually uncomfortable.

Still, I had accepted the fact that it was necessary for a Jedi such as myself to utilize hyperspace travel as a means of going from Point A to Point B, and from Point B to Point C. After all, it would literally take lifetimes, even with the longevity the Force can grant a polished Jedi, to travel to any world outside the Coruscant system by sublight, and the beings a Jedi is intended to serve really couldn't wait that long, I supposed, even if patience was a virtue.

However, the unease that hyperspace journeying always inspired in me was not the epicenter of my discomfiture currently. Actually, I was reflecting upon my previous assignment on Coruscant, striving to find closure in a matter that only created more haunting inquiries in me the more I contemplated it.

It should have been a relatively simple and routine mission, which was why the Jedi Council and Master Qui-Gon had sent me on it alone, as preparation for my trails, which both Qui-Gon and I recognized that I would be ready to face soon. Yet, it turned out to be rather complicated.

A little more than two days ago now, Qui-Gon had sought me out during my typical morning meditation in the soothing Room of a Thousand Fountains. He had slipped down on a rock beside me and explained that Darsha Assant, a female Padawan my age, had gone missing in the course of her trial. She had been assigned to ferry a Black Sun gang member witness from a safehouse in the Crimson Corridor, a region in the underbelly of Coruscant?s equatorial area where the sun really never shines and an invading herd of banthas would be constituted as gentrifying the neighborhood, to the Jedi Temple, so that he could testify against a bunch of his fellows in the court of law. In theory, this was a routine mission, but she had obviously blundered somehow if she had disappeared, and her Master, Anoon Bondara, had apparently gone after her and had vanished, as well.

When Master Qui-Gon provided me with this update, I immediately volunteered to embark on a search for them, not only because it was my duty as a fellow Jedi to rescue them if possible, but also because I had immense respect for the skills of Master Bondara, who was a brilliant warrior. Moreover, I was fairly close to Padawan Assant. Although we were not best friends like Bant Eerin, Garen Muln, Reeft, and even Siri Tachi, and me, she had been in many of my classes, and I had always been impressed with her quick wit, which was sharper than a vibroblade. We had talked to each other regularly at the Temple between missions. We had also sparred twice with her winning the first match, and me emerging the victor from our second

 

Foreboding Feelings

I was leafing through the holofiles Archivist Jocasta Nu had provided us with prior to our departure from Coruscant, reviewing all the data I could upon the history of the dispute over taxing trade routes, on the economy and society of Naboo, and the policies of the Trade Federation, for what must have been the tenth time, at least, when the Republic Cruiser dropped out of hyperspace, something that always causes me immense relief. Oddly enough, I don?t mind exiting hyperspace, because my body and brain realize that I?m leaving the abnormal state of traveling at the speed of light, and am returning to the standard sublight speeds. It?s when I?m entering the void of hyperspace that my whole body protests quite vocally.

However, my relief at exiting hyperspace was transformed to disquiet in record time when I spotted the Trade Federation battleships that engulfed the small, watery world of Naboo. Sure, I had known, intellectually, that they would be there, but actually affixing my eyes on them was still a shock.

Uncannily reminiscent of plump, white maggots, they spread through space like a lethal virus, preventing all access to the planet, just like any self-respecting navy would do when instigating a blockade. Pursuing my heartening metaphor of maggots, I noted that for maggots to be so healthy-looking, they would need to be feasting on a corpse, in this case, Naboo.

Shaking my head to clear it of this rather revolting image, I pushed myself out of the chair, and headed into the cockpit, where Qui-Gon was conversing with the captain and her co-pilot. After my years of studying under the man, I knew as surely as I knew my own name that Qui-Gon would be eager to start the mission as soon as possible, so that this issue could be resolved before the people of Naboo could be further harmed or endangered, and we would need to disembark the ship through the ramp in the cockpit.

When I arrived in the cockpit, I saw that the captain was just concluding a communication with the viceroy of the Trade Federation. Since her words had not been audible to me, I figured that the captain had been requesting that we board at once, as Qui-Gon would doubtlessly have asked her to do. However, I couldn?t be positive that the viceroy had agreed. After all, he wasn?t Force-sensitive, so he wouldn?t realize that we were Jedi, unless Qui-Gon told him, and he might have the audacity to deny entrance to the ambassadors from the Supreme Chancellor. With this in mind, I murmured to my Master, ?Are we to board??

?Yes, the viceroy will meet with us,? Qui-Gon responded, bobbing his head slightly in affirmation. Then, he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, taking my measure, as he had before every mission we had gone on together, ever since I became his Padawan at thirteen. Once upon a time, that accessing gaze had made me anxious, but it didn?t anymore. Now, I understood that it took in the strengths as well as the vulnerabilities, and wasn?t necessarily intended to be critical.

?Why Naboo, do you think, my young apprentice?? he continued, returning his gaze to the viewport as our captain landed us in the docking bay of the flagship of the Trade Federation fleet. I couldn?t discern whether he was musing aloud, or prompting me to think about the ramifications of the situation, or if his aims were a combination of both, so I remained safely silent upon the subject, permitting him to press on, ?Why blockade this particular planet, when there are so many others to choose from, most larger, and more likely to feel the debilitating effects of such an action??

Throughout my reading, I had puzzled over this conundrum myself. In the end, I decided that, since the Neimoidians who managed the Trade Federation were cowards, they would not have selected any world that could muster a formidable force to combat them, as it is far easier to assail an enemy that you know will be incapable of resisting your assault. Thus, they were compelled to blockade a planet that was renowned for its pacific nature, such as Alderaan,