HUNTERS.....Qui-Gon--Obi-Wan

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

HUNTERS
by Anne Davenport


Qui-Gon Jinn walked down the pedestrian way, his padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi just behind him. The people around them, anticipating their passing, managed to find other places to look, reasons to step aside without glancing their way, other directions to go in. A few unwary droids and non-Tavlemi crossed their path, but most seemed to have been warned of their presence.

Qui-Gon stopped at a large, public fountain at an intersection of many paths of pedestrians. He looked up at the gloomy patch of gray sky above amidst the tall, urban canyons around them; cars and transports flitted by overhead. Tavlemi shuffled past, making a wide empty space around the two humans. Their thoughts flitted by, whispers in the slight breeze, everyday thoughts quickly smothered in dread as soon as they realized what was among them. Doors slammed and windows high up in the buildings closed around the fountain, a little island of running water and green, growing plants. The miniature, flowering garden freshened the crowded air of the city. The smells of soil and water mixed with the staleness of many bodies and the fried street fare at a vendor’s cart at one corner of the intersection. Qui-Gon closed his eyes, reaching far out with the Force. He sensed the nervousness, the anticipation of fear around him. Next to him, his padawan’s thoughts joined his. Obi-Wan had learned this well, Qui-Gon noted with some satisfaction. High above them, there were traces, like deadly memories on the empty rooftops. Perhaps there was a flicker of interest there? But it was intangible, with no direction.

A small, incautious Tavlemi child stood up on the flat, stone edge of the fountain and stared at the pair of robed Jedi, disturbing Qui-Gon’s concentration. Undeveloped and something between male and female, its slender body stood erect on two thin, clawed feet. She wore a cheery, bright yellow jumpsuit with fuchsia decoration at the borders. Its delicate, vestigial wings quivered behind it, visible over a narrow, angular head. Qui-Gon mercilessly stared back, his piercing blue eyes conveying his disquiet, his thoughts open on his dire mission. But instead of running, the child froze in place, suddenly terrified. Qui-Gon did not relent until an older relative rushed up, snatched the child away and disappeared into the widening edge of the crowd.

He felt his apprentice’s uncertainty next to him and Qui-Gon turned his withering stare down on him. Obediently, Obi-Wan cleared his discordant thoughts with an inhaled breath, squashing any empathy for the people around them. Qui-Gon had made it quite clear to his padawan that nothing less than his complete focus on this mission would be tolerated. No one should feel safe around them. Because they weren’t.

He led them out of the intersection, toward another passageway between the buildings. The people darted away before them, but their thoughts still lingered all around, unable to get away fast enough.

They passed the food cart and Obi-Wan reached out and took a wrapped bun without asking. The vendor ducked her head, one wing coming up, conveniently blocking her view of the taking as she suddenly fulfilled a need to count her supplies. Obi-Wan munched the filled bun silently. He did not offer any to his master. If Qui-Gon wanted to eat, he would. They carried survival supplies on their belts, but they were only to be used if needed, if the hunt took them from any other sustenance. Obi-Wan noted the succulent, flavored filling and crispy crust with Jedi dispassion and kept his thoughts on the sky and the roofs. He saw nothing, but he sensed a flicker of dark thoughts above, but it had no substance, no place. They kept moving. When Obi-Wan finished bun he dropped the crumpled green paper on the black pavement. The rest of the foot traffic flowed around them, heads ducked, wings up, protectively. Voices died around them, but the volume of fear increased. When the way became too narrow, people simply disappeared into doorways or turned around and fled ahead of them until they could escape.

After many long, winding streets, they came to another intersection. This time Qui-Gon paused at the entrance. Obi-Wan stopped by his side, sensing the dark disturbance in the Force above them. Qui-Gon’s thoughts radiated their deadly purpose before he rushed into the open space. Tavlemi silently scattered around them, other’s further away hooted and called to others too far away or insensitive to their thought-touch. The Jedi leaped upon the ivy encroached sculpture in the center of the intersection from which all others frantically fled. The used the Force as Obi-Wan and his master nearly ran up the rock and metal shapes until they were as high up as the could get, four stories above the ground, but still well below the uneven, slanting roofs that encircled them.

Qui-Gon activated his fiery green lightsaber and held it at the ready, Obi-Wan’s blue joined it a fraction of a second later. The wind seemed to pick up. The sounds of frantic footsteps died away and no more traffic passed overhead. The intersection was empty.

Wings flitted above. Silhouettes jumped from roof to roof, getting lower, closer to them. Obi-Wan felt the Force strong around them, like certainty. Rarely did he ever feel his master so oppressively display his power. A figure dove toward them from the pale, gray sky above. And stopped.

The Okaju hovered slightly above them, out of reach. The delicate features of the Tavlem twisted into this withered and wiry body, now light enough for flight. The healthy browns of skin and hair had mutated into a pale greenish-gray of a neutered quasi-death. It wore nothing, no cloth, no decoration that would weigh it down.

Qui-Gon held his light saber up at his side and held his free hand out to it. The Okaju’s green eyes stared back with hatred and disdain. But Obi-Wan sensed how the being craved their lifeblood; its lust to consume, to create death, pressed in on him.

But it held back. It would be its own death for an Okaju to even touch a Jedi. That was why they were there.

This one had to be the leader, the brood master. Its thoughts radiated its pride and hatred out far beyond the Tavlemi’s usual limited, telepathic range. But its longevity and cunning ruled its instincts to drain the life from the living. It could have existed for centuries. It very likely had secretly haunted this city decades ago while Qui-Gon and a team of two other Jedi had dispatched a brood of seven in another city a thousand kilometers away on this same world.

“We will accept imprisonment,” it rasped at them. Above them, Qui-Gon sensed hunger and outrage and he knew that this was not a unanimous decision of the brood. But this one was the strongest and spoke for them anyway. He pulled his hand back and swung his lightsaber downward.

“Land. All of you.” The Okaju hissed. Then a terrible scream came from its lipless mouth to its companions and Qui-Gon wondered that the sound alone didn’t shake this fragile creature apart. Many wings fluttered above, but Qui-Gon didn’t look. He kept his eyes on the leader who returned it with loathing. Others of its kind swirled around them, lower and lower. When the sounds of wings had died Qui-Gon’s gaze flicked down and back to the leader.

“Have them all stand together.” The leader hissed again. Qui-Gon sensed the strength of this being’s will, its thoughts wordlessly forcing the others to obey and not take the living beings before them. The Jedi could not sense any words in the commands, but the intent was clear. The Okaju below formed a group. Qui-Gon waited.

“They are not all together,” Qui-Gon said coldly.

The leader screamed again and dove. It flushed out another, larger one of its kind from a cavity in the sculpture below them. Apparently strong willed itself, the rebel hissed back, but still allowed itself to be herded into the group below. Qui-Gon stared down at the assemblage. Many eyes fixed on him. There were far more of them than expected.

He leapt up and out and down. The Force slowed his decent, the air billowing out his robe, dislodging his hood. He kept his gaze steady on the gathered Okaju as he crouched and stood, his lightsaber still activated. He heard Obi-Wan’s boots land on the pavement just behind him. The two lightsabers hummed ominously.

There were more than two dozen Okaju of varying sizes, though not even the tips of their wings came up to Qui-Gon’s shoulders. Many of them appeared to be younger, emaciated and feral, less in control of their instincts. Only the leader held them in check. It was worse than Blazumajin had feared. His sister, the Okaju hunter, Miyanem, had hardly had a chance against so many. She had been the best hunter on Tavlem. When she had been killed, the government had contacted the Republic, to ask the Jedi to come to this small, isolated world.

A few lights had come on automatically in the empty area they gathered in; the day waned. All other living things had fled as far and fast as they could, just as they had all evacuated the upper levels of the city, where the hunt was most likely to be pursued when the Jedi had arrived.

With his free hand, Qui-Gon reached back to his larger belt pouch and pulled out a cord with a series of binding rings on it. Obi-Wan took his out as well. They didn’t have nearly enough rings for so many, but some of them were so small, their arms so tiny that Qui-Gon planned to confine pairs of them together on the same rings. Silently Qui-Gon held out his hand and Obi-Wan gave him his binders. Stringing them together would make flying away or attacking much more difficult.

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

Obi-Wan took out his comlink and signaled the droid transport to pick them up. The pit was prepared outside the city. They could be maintained on animals and questioned and studied in relative safety there. There was no hope for a cure to the illness that turned them into such creatures, but the empathy of the Tavlemi drove them to look for some way to change them, try to find another way of dealing with the Okaju besides killing them.

Qui-Gon signaled to the leader and held up the first binder.

“Nooo!” The large rebel howled, leaping forward. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wans’ lightsabers sent it back, its wings stretching out threateningly.

“We are many; they are few! We must not!” it berated its leader, who turned swiftly and struck it down.

“This is your doing! I should never have made you to make these. There cannot be so many,” the leader waved its skinny arm at the gathering. “You have brought hunters down on us.” Its hungry eyes returned their captors. “The ones that cannot be defeated.”

“Would you live in a pit while vermin, too fearful to even bear our death cries throw lesser vermin to us out of pity until we waste away?” the larger one spat back. Its pale gray eyes squinted at the Jedi. “We killed the hunters. We will kill these,” it promised, its hate filling the air. Qui-Gon saw most of the others lean toward the rebel. Their blood lust rose. They wanted to follow the rebel.

“Fool!” the leader hissed, forcing the other one back. “You know nothing.” He looked at the Jedi and then back at his challenger. “Kill them? You couldn’t even take the small one,” he said, waving toward Obi-Wan. Rage filled the rebel Okaju.

Qui-Gon sensed the impending attack through the Force. He swung his lightsaber going for a quick kill, but the rebel dove to the side. And seized the leader’s head, its clawed hand plunging into the eyes and deep into the brain. The leader convulsed and the rebel rolled, pushing the body and wings into Qui-Gon’s lightsaber and pushing itself away. The death scream came like a shock wave with many voices.

The other’s took flight all at once.

Qui-Gon’s next swing went clean through a frenzied attacker, but its forward momentum still carried the two halves into him while six more came right behind. More than twice as many descended on Obi-Wan, his blue lightsaber spinning in defensive circles, cutting down three at once. New death screams crashed into the echoes of the first in Qui-Gon’s head. He twirled his lightsaber, scorching wings and limbs, severing a few heads with deadly accuracy. The deaths of death-givers filled his mind with the pressure of every life they’d drained, now released all at once. No matter how far they’d fled, every Tavlemi in the area would feel it. But better to kill them clean with a lightsaber than the other way.

Too late, Qui-Gon felt a claw around his boot, trying to dig through to his ankle. A needle pain pierced his temples and he saw the last two he defended himself against through a tunnel of light. Completely maddened now they came at him together, claws out, desperate to reach him. He cut them down and spun around the body parts.

Another needle pain stabbed his temple, his stomach tightened and he stumbled as he turned. There were still more and he drew the Force to him, his focus overriding the pain, the mental cacophony. His green blade, blazed even brighter than the tunnel as he cut through two Okaju. Another one turned and barely evaded him, but he got it on the back swing. Another pain drove into his mind. The world around him had lost all sense of reality; he only saw through the Force. It felt like a tangible light around him, with ferocious, dark predators around him. One of them leapt and fell into agonized death over the outline of his padawan, lying on his back. Qui-Gon staggered and took up a defensive pose over Obi-Wan; the Force felt positively inflamed around them both.

Four more Okaju hopped and swayed out of reach. They knew what would happen, but their craving overwhelmed all sense. Okaju existed on the physical fluids and flesh of the Tavlemi that they had once been. But they were driven even more to consume the very life essence of their prey like addicts with a drug. Okaju were sensitive to the Force, but only as far as it led them to the next victim that they might gorge themselves on.

A Jedi drew strength from the Force, from all the living things around them; from the whole galaxy. A Jedi must surely look like a feast beyond imagining to the Okaju. And one that they could not possibly consume. They would latch on to feed, but the Force would rush into them until they quite literally exploded, in a state of total bliss as they were ripped apart. Every Tavlemi for kilometers around had likely collapsed by now.

Qui-Gon lowered his lightsaber blade to draw them in. He breathed deeply, clearing his thoughts of pain and the thoughts of the dead. Everything else shrank to nothing save the motions of the remaining four surrounding him. They bobbed and ducked in and out of striking range, each one desperate for the prize, but even more eager for its neighbor to take the first blow.

When one behind him leapt up to attack, Qui-Gon’s lightsaber was there to meet it. His saber hummed loudly over the last death screams as he killed the other three in a single sweeping arc around him. The remains fell to the ground, one outstretched arm less than a meter from his foot.

Only the lightsaber and the breathing of the living remained. Obi-Wan stared up at his master’s last swing. His vision had cleared of all light except for the green blade above him and its afterglow. He’d known what could happen, but a description of indescribable pain simply wasn’t the same as experiencing it. Long moments passed while Qui-Gon stood alert over him. He finally deactivated his lightsaber and looked down, his bearded face expressionless, the gray sky above him beginning to grow dark. Qui-Gon reached down, his long, brown hair hanging down off his shoulders. Obi-Wan took his hand and his master helped him up.

Immediately Obi-Wan felt disoriented. His hand felt empty and he looked down to see his lightsaber lying on the black pavement. He didn’t remember dropping it, but it had made a large gouge on the ground before deactivating. He reached out and it sprang up into his hand and he reattached it to his belt. He thought it strange that it came to him so easily; he felt lightheaded and queasy, the Force one huge disturbance around him. Then his head started to hurt, a growing pain behind the eyes. Qui-Gon was still tense, looking about.

Obi-Wan froze and Qui-Gon swiftly turned. Obi-Wan pointed.

Above them, at the pinnacle of the sculpture three Okaju still perched, the large rebel and two other wide-eyed ones that it clutched at the shoulders. Qui-Gon’s lightsaber flashed green and he leapt up onto the stone and metal again. But the rebel launched itself into the air, dragging the other two with it. Qui-Gon threw back his arm and flung his lightsaber spinning after them. But their flight was too erratic and the energy blade cleaved only one of them. The rebel and the other one ascended even higher as the lightsaber went off and plummeted to the ground with their slain companion.

Obi-Wan took deep breaths as his master leapt back down, his lightsaber flying back to his hand. Obi-Wan started to follow Qui-Gon after the two escapees. They would be especially dangerous now; they would need to feed after the fight. But the motion of running was just too much for him. He hadn’t regained his focus and the migraine overwhelmed him. He had to stop and vomit on the pavement.

Qui-Gon looked in the direction of the two fleeing Okaju, then to his padawan and then back toward the Okaju. Desperate as the situation was, it was a bad idea to be separated. While Obi-Wan heaved up the contents of his stomach, Qui-Gon retrieved the binders dropped in the melee and then signaled Blazumajin and told him and the mayor of their situation. A hazardous materials team would be dispatched to their location to clean up the remains. The Jedi would pursue the two fugitives. The mayor already knew about the fight. Distressed Tavlemi had already been calling the city government.

Obi-Wan had stopped throwing up and now spat to clear his mouth out. Qui-Gon unhooked a water bottle from his belt. Obi-Wan took a couple of gulps and spit them out. Qui-Gon placed his hand on Obi-Wan shoulders and leaned next to him. He didn’t say anything, but he stroked his padawan’s neck, the short hair at the base of his skull, willing strength and calmness to him through the Force. Obi-Wan had really done extraordinarily well, but this mission demanded more.

After another moment Obi-Wan straightened and nodded, handing back the water bottle. They hurried to a building at the intersection with a door with a red marker on it. Every intersection in the city had a building with a door with a red marker on it. Qui-Gon slid the door aside. There was a speeder bike inside for the Jedi. The time for hunting the Okaju by stealth had passed. They hadn’t known how many Okaju their were, so the Jedi had walked the streets of the city as bait, hoping to lure some of them into revealing the whole group. Okaju could be drawn a Jedi’s affinity with the Force, with life itself, from a great distance. But they had not anticipated that the brood would be so large or well organized.

Qui-Gon had Obi-Wan sit pillion behind him on the speeder. Obi-Wan firmly grasped the passenger handles while Qui-Gon engaged the motor and kicked in the antigravs. They sped away into the growing twilight after the Okaju as soon as they’d cleared the tops of the buildings.

There was no traffic below them. The speeder automatically broadcast a signal on an emergency frequency to all others. Vehicles were down and parked below them, no people in sight, all life hidden. Obi-Wan felt the Force guiding his master. The Okaju were ahead of them. They were hungry. A chill filled him. They were feeding. The speeder dove down between the buildings, yellow lights winking on for them and going off in their wake. They sped over the narrow pedestrian ways. Everything was deserted, empty. Once the fight had begun, the warning would have spread outward, telepath to telepath. The Tavlemi could only read thoughts clearly for very short distances and only among their own species, but this warning would spread like a fire.

Qui-Gon halted the speeder at a garden intersection. A Bothan and two Tavlemi lay dead, their eyes wide and lifeless, their throats and chests slashed. Okaju could influence Tavlemi into coming out to them, their minds twisting the thoughts of their prey into wanting to be killed, to be drained of all life.

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

Qui-Gon sensed a fluttering down one side street and he zoomed after it, Obi-Wan hanging on behind him. The Okaju couldn’t possibly outrun a speeder, but they knew the city well, and where to hide where an anti-grav wouldn’t fit.

But so had Miyanem. The Okaju hunter had planned to capture the Okaju, arranged the droid transports, the roof evacuations, the pre-positioned speeders. Before she’d been taken. And eaten. The Jedi now inherited her plans.

The Tavlemi preferred to capture Okaju. While the Okaju could mask their kills in the midst of a crowded city of telepaths, they couldn’t hide their own deaths. And they possibly didn’t want to. They howled their demise out painfully to the minds around them, one last attack. It wasn’t dangerous to most Tavlemi, except to the very young and old and infirm. But it was magnified a hundred-fold when their life energies immolated themselves on the Jedi. Brain ruptures, heart attacks, trauma, death would have broken out all around their confrontation; how many depended on how far the people had fled. Qui-Gon had quite failed to capture the Okaju with as little damage as possible.

Qui-Gon hovered between rooftops. He sensed Obi-Wan’s alertness and he caught a glimpse of wings, disappearing behind a corner.

“They’ve separated,” Qui-Gon noted. He closed his eyes and sensed the stronger one, the rebel, ahead. The speeder bike accelerated forward in pursuit. The lesser one would likely follow its leader on its own. But even with the speeder the Okaju eluded them. Qui-Gon would rush after it as it slipped into dark crevices between buildings, out of reach. And with many exits at the other faces of more buildings Qui-Gon would have to ascend high to see where it came out, increasingly difficult in the growing twilight. And when the Okaju did come shooting out, it would have enough time to get to another nearby crevice and a new set of buildings. It was frustrating.

And it was also obvious to Qui-Gon that the Okaju was leading him somewhere.

Qui-Gon spotted the Okaju speeding from its latest hiding place to a darkened building top, flat with many blocky surfaces. There were places to hide, but none that Qui-Gon couldn’t get to. This was the place.

Qui-Gon dove, a swift path toward his quarry, crouched amidst the dark shapes on the roof.

Obi-Wan’s lightsaber flared blue and deflected the sudden blaster fire from a nearby roof. Qui-Gon veered to the side, circling low, down into the canyons between the buildings where the blaster couldn’t reach. When he shot upward again behind the sniper’s position he saw the other Okaju behind a mounted blaster rifle. They saw each other at the same time and Okaju swivelled the gun around to fire again. But Qui-Gon had his lightsaber out. Its green energy flashed, deflecting the blaster bolts as he accelerated with his other hand and guided the speeder bike with his knees.

Too late, the Okaju realized that its shots were not connecting to the onrushing enemy. Its pale face horrified, it dove for cover. Obi-Wan’s lightsaber beheaded it on a down swing and sliced through the blaster as their velocity took them past. Its death scream quickly faded.

Qui-Gon came to a rapid stop, facing the Okaju rebel across the empty space between the two buildings. For the first time it actually showed surprise. Then the hate returned to fire its expression. Qui-Gon accelerated again, zooming over to the other roof, flying and circling above its uneven surfaces. The Okaju went to one edge to launch itself, but Qui-Gon cut it off. It backed up and tried again with the same result.

The Okaju rebel backed up to the wall of a hut jutting up out of the center of the roof. Its back covered, it faced the Jedi as Qui-Gon landed and both dismounted and advanced.

Silently, Qui-Gon reached back to his pouch and took out the binder cable. He held it up. One last offer. The Okaju hissed.

“I will NEVER be taken by vermin like you. I CHOSE my destiny.”

It was not unheard of, for a Tavlemi, lured by the promise of near immortality, of flight, freedom from all the bindings of living, to ask an Okaju to “make” him. To ritually pass on the virus that created this near-death state.

“I see you provided for yourself in advance.” Qui-Gon gestured back to the blaster that Obi-Wan had destroyed and now they could see that there was another mounted gun on this roof as well that this Okaju hadn’t gotten to. It hissed back at him, glancing up and then back at Qui-Gon’s lightsaber. Fly and be struck down? Or fight and die?

Okaju lived on the wind. Existing completely outside of society, they had no need for its comforts and mechanisms; they were completely free. Capture was no longer an option, if it ever had been. Qui-Gon tossed away the binders.

They took a few steps forward, closing in. Its eyes shifted from one to the other of them in momentary indecision about which Jedi to attack. But its hateful gaze finally rested on the older Jedi; it tensed.

Qui-Gon struck, leaping forward with the Force, striking down in a wide arc. The Okaju ducked, dodging just under the sweep of the lightsaber, diving down and up at Obi-Wan

And met the full length of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. The two halves of its body fell to the ground. Qui-Gon lowered his saber and stepped over to his padawan. A scream passed through their minds as the Okaju went from its half life to nothingness. It was not nearly as intense as the brood leader had been; it had many fewer voices, but it was angrier.

They looked down at the charred and crumbling pieces. The green light went out. Then Obi-Wan’s blue lightsaber went out as well. There was only shadow now. It was night. The lights from the city bathed them in a colorless gloom. The breeze picked up, catching the edges of their robes and the ends of Qui-Gon’s hair.

“Are they all dead?” Obi-Wan asked.

Qui-Gon closed his eyes. “I think so.” He opened them. “But we’ll have to stay a few days to make sure.” He shook his head. Obi-Wan saw his master let his head fall back; he took a deep breath and let it out. Obi-Wan felt the energy go out of him, the oppressive power of the Force ran away like water. Qui-Gon’s shoulders dropped and he put his lightsaber back on his belt.

Obi-Wan remained standing while his master turned away and went and sat down on a stone block near the edge of the roof. He bent forward, head down, arms resting on his knees. Obi-Wan moved closer.

“You should contact the mayor, tell him where we are, so they can pick up the remains,” Qui-Gon said, looking up, out at the city. Obi-Wan took out his comlink and signaled Blazumajin and the mayor and gave them their position. The mayor formally thanked them for their service
and told them that they’d be arriving soon. Obi-Wan put his comlink away. Qui-Gon hadn’t moved.

“How do you feel?”

“Master?”

“How do you feel, Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon continued to look out over the city as he spoke. Obi-Wan hesitated. He had no words.

“I don’t feel anything. I’ve been concentrating on the mission,” he admitted.

“Ah.” Qui-Gon did not look disappointed. He almost smiled. “Possibly because that is what I told you to do.” He accepted this, his eyes still looking out at the lights in the darkness.

“Qui-Gon.” This time he looked back at his padawan, his face in shadow. Obi-Wan’s pale face, his tunic and pants were visible in the distant light, his brown robe and hair black in the gloom. “How do you feel?”

“I do not care for this sort of mission, Obi-Wan. For the task of executioner.”

Obi-Wan swallowed. “We were successful. We did destroy them.” He moved closer to Qui-Gon.

“Yes, we did destroy them. But at some cost, I fear.” He turned back to the lights of the city, the darkened rooftops. But it was quiet, the only sounds coming from far away. The Tavlemi around them would have felt the demise of the last two Okaju. And they would have had no warning. Obi-Wan sat down next to Qui-Gon.

“I do not think we could have captured them,” Obi-Wan stated quietly.

“No. It was a vain hope at best. We couldn’t possibly have contained so many.”

“Blazumajin though that there were only five of them at most.”

“Yes. He did. He was wrong.” Qui-Gon closed his eyes and bowed his head. They sat silently together. Obi-Wan laid his hand on his master’s shoulder and leaned closer to him.

“Did you feel this way, last time?”

“No,” Qui-Gon confessed softly. “I felt nothing. Because that was what Master Urlan told me and Iyadiki to do. She was the one who had hunted the Okaju before. We captured four of them. But there were only seven in the brood then, and there were three of us. But later...” Qui-Gon’s voice lowered to a near whisper. “The people came to us and begged us for the memories of the Okaju we had destroyed.” Qui-Gon smiled sadly at Obi-Wan’s surprise. “Do you have any memories to give them, Obi-Wan?”

Pain. Somewhere in the middle of intense, throbbing pain Obi-Wan had a fleeting impression of the last remaining thoughts of the Okaju and the people they had killed being crushed into nothingness. But he had no sense of individuals, of lives lost with no hope.

“You said that hunters, like Miyanem, were trained to captured the Okaju, and their thoughts.”

“Yes. Even if they are forced to kill the Okaju, they can still gather those last fleeting thoughts to give to back those who had known the Okaju and their victims. They are desperate to retain at least that. Otherwise, they would just send out droids to kill them. We at least have a better chance of capture; the Okaju know that they cannot defeat or escape us. But we are the hunters of last resort.”

Qui-Gon reached up and laid his own hand over Obi-Wan’s, still resting on his shoulder. In the distance, they both saw the blinking lights of a transport rise up among the buildings and head in their direction.

“We were not successful, Obi-Wan.”


— FIN ---

[Jan-Qui Coran]

I have to admit at the beginning I was quite confused as to what was going on but as I completed the story it was very interesting but quite sad.