Before - Legends Fast Forward - Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon mission - action - one-post - no dialogue

Title: Fast Forward
Author: ardavenport
Timeframe: pre-Episode I, pre-TPM
Genre: action
Characters: Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi
Keywords Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, space skimmer, orbit
Summary: Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon escape. Obi-Wan pilots.
Notes: There's a challenge on the Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan thread in resources for all dialogue and no dialogue stories. This is for the no dialogue part of it. Typo is my middle name, with missing words and errors that spell checkers don?t catch being my speciality ? if you see any, just post a reply or send a PM with the what and where and I will kill them with no mercy.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to George and Lucasfilm; I?m just playing in their sandbox



Another explosion followed them through the corridor. Brown bits of ceiling and wall pelted them from above and all sides. Obi-Wan caught himself on the side of the doorway for balance as he rushed into a small room. Ahead of him, Qui-Gon turned about, his dark brown robe swirling around his body, briefly clinging to his legs. They seemed to be in a storage room, built like a cave, like the rest of the installation, the rooms formed from plasticized mud and ground organic matter. The scent of roots and decay increased with every rain of debris after every explosion.

Obi-Wan looked up. Qui-Gon followed his gaze to the small, rounded window above. The pane that had covered it lay shattered on the floor. Obi-Wan rushed forward. Qui-Gon's cupped hands easily lifted him upward and he quickly positioned his feet on his Master's broad shoulders.

He could see the landing field outside, their goal. Red and orange fireballs bloomed up and around it, and the building shook with each one. The fighters and larger craft were gone, of course. They were now diving and engaging the ships that were firing on the settlement. But there were still some orbital space skimmers, three of them in a row just outside the lift-line of the field. Small and cheap, but fast, they were useless in a fight and had been left behind, not even worth protecting from the powerful blaster fire from above.

With Qui-Gon pushing upward, Obi-Wan scrabbled through the broken, jagged window frame. His robe and clothes caught and tore one a few sharp edges that otherwise did not touch his skin.

Scrabbling up onto the ground, almost level with the window, he ran a weaving path over debris and through random blaster fire toward the nearest skimmer. A small and skinny teenager, he easily evaded it. Reaching the first skimmer, he slapped the canopy release with his palm. Nothing happened. Nothing activated.

An explosion close by threw pebbles and chunks of buildings at him, some of them heavy. One crashed into the canopy of the skimmer. It cracked.

Running to the next one, Obi-Wan fleetingly thought about the Force, guided by his outstretched hand releasing the hatch on the skimmer. But he knew the advance thought poisoned the action. Do or do not. He didn't have time to try.

The canopy of the next skimmer rose immediately after he slapped the access panel. Engines hummed and lights inside the cockpit flashed as he climbed inside. The seat was big and too far back and the restraint straps too loose, but the engines fired up immediately, the computer blinked yellow, then green for lifters, lift boosters, acceleration dampeners, thrusters, thrust boosters, internal atmosphere, auxiliary life support. There were no weapons. And only orbital impact and heat shields.

Nothing happened when he clicked on the seat adjust, so he scooted forward, the loose safety straps sagging over his shoulders. He gripped the control stick in his right hand. The weight of the ship vanished, the lifters cancelling out the planet's gravity. The ship immediately drifted to the left and he corrected, then swung it around back toward the meeting buildings.

There was a huge, gaping hole over the window that he had escaped from, black smoke billowing up into the clouded sky. Qui-Gon popped up from behi

 

Ah, very good.
I was expecting one of them to say something any moment.

You did a fantastic job,

with no dialogue

 

You gotta love that ending, with Qui-Gon somehow giving a dignified burp. Your descriptions, particulary the action-centered ones, were breathtaking. Great job.

 

Ahah, this was great! The flying action sequence was splendid! Well done! Ahah, the language they spoke reminded me of how kids and a few kids at heart would burp the alphabet. Aha. Great job! Great story!

 

Great Job!!!

No dialogue. I don't think I could do it....but, you did a great job with that one.

 

OMG she strikes again!

Holy

btw did i detect the four-tone 'message' from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.....?

Can't believe you delivered such a compelling little fic without a single word of dialogue, but then, compelling is what you do.

Great job.

 

I read this earlier and didn't get to leave feedback. But I wanted to make sure I cam back and said: WOW!

This was incredibly well done. Writing such a wonderful story, and yet not including a single word of dialogue, should be impossible. But you did it.

And very well.

 

That was great. I loved the airfight scene and how Obi-Wan couldn't really get away with Qui-Gon in back and on low air. The personal combat was also impressive but I loved that Qui-Gon let Obi do it by himself.

The belch at the end was priceless.

Great job.

 

Gkilkenny: Thank-you! The no talking part was part of the challenge; I'm glad it worked out.

LuvEwan: Thanks! When I got to the end there was no other way to end it without Qui-Gon 'saying' something, so that's really where the burp came from.

Cole_Kenobi: Thanks! I'd been thinking that I haven't really written much with ships and things going fast and this being Star Wars it seemed about time that I should.

hyperspace_police: Thanks and thanks for reading!

ratna: Thank-you! I like description, but you never realize how much description is in dialogue until you do without it. About the four tone sound, I was actually thinking about a Led Zeppelin song, the one about the Vikings. Close Encounters of the Third Kind had a five-tone sound I think.

VaderLVR64: Thanks for the reply! I think that having lots of action helped a lot with moving the story without dialogue

dianethx: Thanks for reading! A lot of the story was about Qui-Gon trusting Obi-Wan; he's young but Qui-Gon knows he's capable. And Qui-Gon is the kind of guy who could make a belch look good; he just needs to give Obi-Wan lessons in that.

 

Qui-Gon sighed, looked down at the Tzoomah and croaked out the word for him to rise.

Well, it's wasn't a croak. It was a belch.

There simply wasn't any other way to form the Tzoomahti words without pushing the air up from the stomach through the throat. At least not without having them sound weak, their meaning unintelligible. Obi-Wan had tried, but he had not gotten enough volume into it. Qui-Gon had assured him that he would do better in the future.

After the defeated Tzoomah rose, Qui-Gon told him that they would be discussing the status of the planet and the settlements.

It was rude and crass and Qui-Gon still managed to make it look and sound dignified. Fortunately, Tzoomahti used short, curt words. And when they returned to the settlement they would be using the protocol droid they had brought with them.

Head lowered, the Tzoomah scowled, but he rumbled his agreement.

Obi-Wan kept his mouth shut and grinned. With as much dignity as he could manage. His eyes forward, he took his place beside and just behind his Master.

Loved the part about the belch!

Wonderful action! You conveyed the emotions very well without using dialogue. That's a tough thing to accomplish.

 

Wow, another truly great story of yours, ardavenport and one where I can still reply!

I am new here and are working my way through the many great stories with Qui-Gon Jinn in this forum, and I'm glad I found yours. I haven't read them all yet, but those I did read are all wonderful, descriptive, great on emotions without overdoing them but they are still so clear - and also they give me a sense of truly being in another galaxy, full of strange lifeforms. I love it. You have great imagination. And then there's how you describe the Jedi ways and what can I say, I think you've been in the Temple!

I especially love how you write Qui-Gon, compassionate yet dangerous if need be. Wonderful.

This one has great action and Qui-Gon ending up in the storage compartment where he has minimal survival possibilities, forcing Obi-Wan to do what he does I found inspired. As the trust he sent to Obi-Wan.

Three other stories of yours I want to name specifically are Bedballs, Heart of the Jedi (yes, from now on that for me is the relationship between Jedi and their light sabers) and Hunters (wow, talking about edge of the seat reading!!!!), but, again, I love them all and are very much looking forward to reading the others.

 

p_stotts: Thanks! When I got to the end I knew someone had to say something and an alien language is a good dodge to avoid dialogue with. And Qui-Gon is a big guy; I'm sure he can produce impressive belchs if he needs to. And young Obi-Wan might be a bit inhibited to go that far.

Action just requires very visual and emotional description and events. And its Star Wars; I was thinking I was a bit deficient in space battles.

Seremela: Thank-you! And thanks for reading my other stories, too! I like reading visual fics, so that's what I write. And it seem important for a story to be very visual (or heavily descriptive or emotional in some way) for Star Wars since that originate from film.

And part of the point of this story is to have young Obi-Wan in charge with Qui-Gon near but unable to directly help him. Young Obi-Wan always seems to bring out the emotion in a story.

 

Wow, how did I miss one of yours?

Fantastic space sequence and ground fight - yeah, I too loved Qui's trust in Obi.

 

Aaaaah, I almost missed your reply. Anyway, I was sort of feeling like I haven't written enough space battles - this being Star Wars and all - and it seemed much more natural for Obi-Wan to be flying than Qui-Gon. Then it became a matter of trust since Obi-Wan suddenly had to lead. Qui-Gon would have faith in him.