Before - Legends An Improbable Mission (Qui/Mace action/adventure) Ch19 Updated 10/16/05

I'm not sure how long this is going to end up being. It may only be a short story of 3 posts. Or it might end up going longer. We'll all find out together I guess.

This is the result of trying to come up with a response for the Action Qui challenge posed on the Qui-Gon Jinn characterization thread. For more fun responses see the Qui-Gon Jinn Challenge thread.

Mace is Qui-Gon's Padawan in this story because that idea, once it lodged in my brain due to first padawan and timeline discussions on the Qui-Gon thread, has refused to leave.

Without further ado:

Title: An Improbable Mission
Author: Knight_Dilletante
Timeframe: Pre-Jedi Apprentice
Characters: Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, Padawan Mace Windu
Genre: action
Keywords: Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu
Summary: Some 20-30 years prior to the events that would later become known as "The Battle of Naboo" A Jedi Master and his first Padawan undertake an improbable mission for the Jedi Council.
Disclaimer: Obviously, all film and EU characters and other elements recognizable as from or related to Star Wars belong to George Lucas and/or Lucas Film Limited. I have not received financial renumeration of any kind for writing this tale and no disrespect is intended.

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He dropped a good few feet before the cable caught again, stopping with a painful jerk. His body had reacted badly to the sudden free fall and his limbs had all curled inward. Now he was twisting back and forth, and getting much too close to the alarm sensors. He extended his arms and legs again to slow the turning.

How did I get into this? Qui-Gon thought dizzily. This is the sort of thing padawans are for.

The harness was cutting into his body where his limbs joined his torso in a most uncomfortable way. And unless he was very careful it was all going to be for naught in any case. Because if he set off the alarm, there'd be no getting out in time, not even with the Force and Mace Windu to assist him.

He spoke quietly into his commlink. "Just another few feet, Mace. Not so fast this time though, please."

"Sorry, Master. The controller slipped, I think we must have miscalculated the weight of the harness and cable. I've tightened it up a bit."

Qui-Gon felt his body slowly lowering again and focused once more on the jewel encrusted box below, ignoring all the other jewels and artifacts on display in the large room. As it wavered in his view he recalled his first shock on hearing about it. And hearing what the Council proposed to do about it.

"Mission we have for you, Knight Jinn, Padawan Windu. Difficult it will be. Steal you must, Sith artifact from wealthy businessman on Malastare. Knows not what he has, we hope. But sell to us, he would not. Allowed to keep such a dangerous device, he cannot be."

The jewels were mainly blood rubies from Iago. Interspersed with obsidian carvings that glowed with the dark fire indicative of an origin on one of the Bespin moons. The jewels moved in a mesmerizing dance as he was lowered the last few inches. "Stop, Mace."

"Yes, Master"

He came to a halt just above the sensor beams. Reaching out with the Force he traced each one end to end, building a mental map in three dimensions. There was no way to reach through and pull up the jeweled case. He could not even simply float it up using the Force. He would have to use the Force to levitate the box through some rather interesting maneuvers in order to thread it through the openings available and out of the nest of sensor beams.

"We entrust you with this mission Qui-Gon because your skills in manipulation of the Force rival Master Yoda's in areas. Perhaps this is due to your affinity for the Living Force, perhaps it is something else. In either case, your impressive skill in Force Levitation will undoubtedly be useful.

 

Wheeee- I get first reply!

This is great- Kind of like Qui does Mission Impossible!

 

Excellent KD!!! I read this on the challenge thread and I can't wait to read the rest of it! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks Qui would be good for thievery when the Council needs it to be done

 

They are in for some trouble now. I have a feeling its not going to be easy getting out of it. Great job with the action, KD!

 

Well that is quite a beginning! Looking forward to more very soon.

 

Oi! What a twist Mace being Qui's Paddy! hehehehe maybe he won't be such a stick in the mud now!

Loving this so far! Def action packed!

 

Thanks Kitara Well, as you probably know, on the challenge thread someone said something about Mission Impossible and I immediately got this image of Qui-Gon in Cruise's harness from MI. I'm very susceptible to suggestion.

Layren I always say Great Minds... Maybe that's how he got his "rogue" label?

tangled_sphere Why what ever would give you an idea like that? Stay tuned, and... Thanks!

Hi Jedi_Chani Thanks, and Hello. Unfortunately my dsl is being irritating again this morning so more will be arriving this evening but I don't think I will manage to post until after work today. But for more Qui action you should check out the challenge stories thread.

Kynstar! Hiya! Once I had the idea of Mace as Qui's mysterious first padawan I just couldn't get rid of it. I'm not sure it would do anything about his stick-in-the-mud-ness though. Sometimes we react to a parent/mentor who is significantly to one side by becoming very much the opposite. Especially if something happened to cause a rift. I admit that one of the major attractions of the idea of Mace as Qui's first padawan, is the really intriguing twist it puts on the interactions between them that we see in TPM.

Leona Hi! Thanks for coming. I'm glad you're enjoying Mace. I'll have to see if I can get him to talk to me before I can promise it will go further than about 3 posts...

Thank you all for reading! I will post more as soon as I can manage it. Right now I have to get to work and see if I can replace myself this week.

KD
43 and counting

 

Once I had the idea of Mace as Qui's mysterious first padawan I just couldn't get rid of it. I'm not sure it would do anything about his stick-in-the-mud-ness though. Sometimes we react to a parent/mentor who is significantly to one side by becoming very much the opposite. Especially if something happened to cause a rift.

Hehehehe so true too! I'm sooo enjoying this outtake

 

Kyn I'm not even sure it is "stick-in-the-mudness" now that I think about it. But that is a pondering for a different post.

Tonight we have a reader poll instead of the post I promised. I hope you will forgive me.

Some of you have very kindly said that you have enjoyed this enough that you hope the tale will be relatively long running. I thought about that today and have decided that I can come up with a full story instead of a 3 post short-short. But, then I will need to delay the next two or three posts so as to be sure of having enough time to get more written before I need it. So here's the poll:

Would you prefer that I post every 3 days and keep that consistant from now on, or would you prefer that I go ahead and post what I have every other day or even every day even though then there might be a week's wait or longer before there was any more?

I can't post the second bit today anyway because I need to tart it up a bit if it is going to be a longer fic. I can post it tomorrow morning probably though if faster posts to start with is desired.

KD

 

If the every 3 day is easier for you then by all means do that one instead We can wait! I know I'm in the predicament myself and can only post on my story every other week due to this major exercise coming up. Afterward I'm hoping to do the every week bit like I was once before.


So if you need to do it every 3 days or juz once a week, you still have my eyes! Glad you're gonna make it into a story! This idea for Mace being Qui's Paddy is sweeeeeet! Loving it so far

 

Whichever is most convienient for you, KD. Every three days sounds great if you can manage it

 

Ah, I finally got to read it, and that was great. Very exciting. I could so see them doing that. What an interesting idea. I really like it so far. As for posting, do whatever is most convenient for you. I'm not one to demand updates.

 

what ever is easiest for you, as long as you promise not to vanish until it is compelete

 

Athena I'm so glad you came by to read. I hope you continue to like it. I've only got the skeleton for most of the story (now - a few days ago I had a completed three post story - how do these things happen to me?) but I do have that. We will all see where it goes together.

PadawanKitara Oh, you're not getting rid of me that easy. Particularly not if you feed the author with comments like that.

Lovely Readers Here is the plan. I will try very hard to post regularly on Tues evening late and sometime Saturday morningish (all times are Pacific aka board times) in posts of about the current size. I promise not to disappear completely but I may disappear for a week at a time now and again due to work or family "stuff".

Now, on to the story:

When last we left our heros, Padawan Windu had been told to scarper, Master Qui-Gon was hand-over-handing up a cable trying to escape back through his entrance hole in the ceiling, and the outraged property owner had set off the alarms

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Klaxons ringing in his ears, Qui-Gon used the Force to help him clamber the rest of the way up the cable in the flashing red light and through the recently cut opening in the ceiling from which he had descended. Unfortunately, one of the guests noticed the movement.

"Baden! There. The ceiling!" She called out, pointing at Qui-Gon's disappearing boots.

The Force told Qui-Gon to leap back from the opening, and he did so just in time. The blaster shot took another section of ceiling out, damaging the joist on which Qui-Gon stood. He leapt again, to his left, and ran along the beam toward the lift shaft. Looking up he could see Mace. His padawan was not moving nearly as quickly as Qui-Gon knew he was capable of. The master felt a burst of frustration that the boy had so clearly disobeyed orders in order to stay near enough to his master to help. Then he saw the guildsman guarding the lift shaft, and frustration turned to fear for the boy. The guildsmen of this world had a weapon that could hold its own with a lightsaber for a time. And they had an uncanny ability to know when one of their guild was in danger, so reinforcements would seemingly magically arrive. There was no time to deal honorably with the guildsman. Qui-Gon used the Force to close the distance between he and Mace, using an end over end flip to cover more ground than he could have at a run.

Just before reaching Mace's side Qui-Gon gathered more energy from the Force, and expelled it in a burst to knock the guildsman off his feet. The man staggered and fell, but recovered his footing almost immediately, and once more hefted his weapon. It was a metal staff, a bit over a meter and a quarter in length, the end of which held an expensive vibro-blade generator. The matching blade shapes were similar to that of a simple curved ax. Except that the returning metal formed a reverse curve, so that it looked like a round biscuit with two large bites taken out of it at top and bottom. And the reverse curves were also sharpened, the better to hamstring you with. The generators for such a blade combination were very expensive, as they had to be hand calibrated. But Baden had plenty of money with which to equip his guards. And plenty of money for guildsmen's wages, Qui-Gon knew. So the two additional guards that were climbing off the access ladders from the lift shaft another few meters away were probably not the last of the trouble.

"Be very careful, Mace," Qui-Gon said, and he touched the pouch on his belt before drawing his lightsaber.

Mace nodded acknowledgment of the silent instruction to take the pouch and run for their ship if a chance should present itself, and drew his own lightsaber. They needed to get down the seventeen stories to the ground, and over two blocks to the small shipyard where their two-man vessel sat pretending to be under repair.

Qui-Gon feinted right, and the guildsman directly in front of them fell for it. While he was trying to recover, Qui-Gon swung at his battle-axe and knocked it to on

 

Oh great action there! Hehehe loved how Mace was showing that slight defiance in not wanting to get too far away from Qui hehehehe

So those guildsmen are similar to Jedi... well some of the training at least. Definitely a challenge there! Run guys!

Excellent chappie!

 

Whooo hooo go Qui-Gon! What a great action sequence there! Excellent post KD!!! Well done!


I also liked Mace staying anyway Defiant thing isn't he? hehehee.

 

ooooooooooooo, good action post. I like how he finished it off with good old brute force. Nice work.

 

Wow, great action sequence, KD. Love that Qui used a punch to get his man! I could picture this so clearly.

Wonderful. Looking forward to the next post!

 

Kyn Thanks. Just what was Mace thinking? We'll have to see.

Layren Mace, defiant? Wherever would he learn that sort of behavior?

Leona I'm glad you like the guildsmen. They aren't done with our heros yet...

Athena Glad you liked it. I hope you'll like the next bit too.

Diane You liked the punch too? Good. That you say you can see it means I'm doing my job right. Which is a great feeling.

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope that everyone who is reading is enjoying the tale. More on Saturday. First, I have to finish a couple of sections, and get them off to be beta'd.

KD
41 and counting

 

*whine* We have to wait 'til Saaaaaturdaaaaaay? *whine*

OTOH, we already know it will be worth the wait!

 

Silly Renata!

I may end up editing this again once I hear what my beta's "minor suggestion" is but we seem to have lost the string between our tin cans so rather than miss the day completely (embarrassing enough to not manage to post in the morning - which is totally my fault - I didn't get my revision to her until mid-afternoon) I figured I would post now, and if necessary, edit later.

KD

When last we left our heros they were running up the stairwell leading to the roof. Which may or may not provide an escape....

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When they reached the door at the top of the stairwell, Qui-Gon paused to use the Force to determine if the guildsmen had taken the roof already. There seemed to be a heavy concentration of beings to one side of the door outside but it was hard to tell exactly where they were. It seemed as though they moved only in a group. Odd.

He shook his head at Mace, and moved down a step to see if they should consider heading back down. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the tip of a flame-thrower come around the stairwell. An old military model, it still could throw a flame twice the length of his lightsaber and arm combined.

Mace tilted his head questioningly toward the flame-thrower.

"Flame only after our spirits have left the physical universe, Padawan. Let's take our chances in the element of air instead," Qui-Gon said nodding toward the roof access door. "Be prepared for guildsmen, Mace."

They burst out of the door, lightsabers at the ready, expecting to be facing a fusillade of blaster shots. But there was no one there.

"Odd. I would have sworn there were at least a dozen guildsmen up here." Qui-Gon mused, leaning against the door to secure it.

"I am not sure I sensed anyone, Master," Mace said, looking around for something to bar the door with. There was an angle shaped brace of metal supporting the stair enclosure roof on both sides of the door. From that brace a shorter one ran back to the joint of enclosure and roof. Mace sliced through the shorter brace neatly at each end, and when his master stepped out of the way, shoved it through the door handle, preventing the door from opening anymore.

"Hmm," Qui-Gon was still trying to puzzle out the missing guildsmen while simultaneously thinking of a way off the roof. "Possibly I was mistaken or possibly we need to work on your connection to the Living Force."

"Can you tell yet, Master?" Mace asked.

"I will need time to examine it, Mace." Qui-Gon answered gently. The boy had been concerned about this mission from the beginning.

They were returning to their quarters when Mace voiced his first concern about their surprising mission. "Master, I mean no disrespect, but I thought the Order obeyed all laws of the Republic. Why are we to steal something? Even a Sith artifact."

"Yes, Mace, it is true that the Order and its members are all bound by the laws of the Republic just as all citizens are. However, not all citizens obey the laws. And where the Sith are involved, the Order may need to violate the law as well in order to guard the peace. We are first and foremost guardians of peace."

"And justice. Are we not also supposed to be guardians of justice? How can a Jedi be a guardian of justice and violate the law?" Mace asked.

"Are all laws just, padawan?" Qui-Gon asked with a lift of an eyebrow.

"No, Master, I see your point. But while that addresses the general issue it does not address our current mission. Nor explain how it is that we are sent to deliberately break the law."

"If you continue to debate like this, Mace, you may find yourself on the Council at a very early age."

"And that, Master, is an out and out evasion." The boy's teeth flashed in a grin so ephemeral it could have gone unnoticed if Qui-Gon had not been watching his padawan's face."

"I am caught out at last. Actually, Padawan, there is a law, lost to memory outside the Order perhaps, that appoints appoints to the Order the task of deciding the disposition of any object susp

 

Gah! Stupid computer! And I somehow forgot to read this when I saw it updated last night. It was really good. Like Leona said, that's a really good line. I like the mystery of the missing guildsmen and its solution. And I learned a new word: crenellations. Lol, always good to learn things. I definitely like the ending, very suspenseful.