Title: The Concert—Part 2
Author: Quiet as a Ninja – [email protected]
Rated: PG-13
Summary: The padawans plan to sneak out to a concert, and end up dealing with more than they bargained for.
Author’s notes: Ok, it all goes down hill from here. So much for my attempt at plot!
Tar’rs and Cean ran back to their seats, trying hard not to attract too much attention.
"Where are the drinks?" Mira asked as she saw her two friends. Soon she sensed their anxiety. "What’s wrong?" Tar’rs got the story out as quickly as possible. Mira and Obi-Wan could not believe what they were hearing.
"How did they get all those past security?" Obi-Wan asked as Tar’rs pointed out the bombs all around the stadium. Cean pointed at the opening band.
"Look," he pointed to the lead singer who had just ripped off his shirt.
"He has the same tattoo I saw on all of them. They must be roadies or something like that." Tar’rs said.
"Okay, lets get a move on. I’m going to contact Master Qui-Gon. Mira, go talk to the authorities. We’ve got to get everyone out of here." Obi-Wan said taking charge. He turned to Tar’rs, "did they say when they were gong to detonate the bombs?"
"No, but two of them have been deactivated, and I don’t think they’ll be able to get it them up for at least 20 minutes. It was a DX92I detonator." He replied. With that they were on their way.
* * *
"You can’t let anyone know or else they’ll panic, and they might then we’ll have no idea what they terrorists will do." Mira was still trying to convince the authorities that something was wrong. They were having a hard time believe that there were bombs in the stadium. It was a high security facility. Plus, the Chancellor’s daughter was in the audience, so security had been stepped up even more. In simple terms they thought she was lying. Mira contemplated Jedi mind whamming them but decided against it.
"Maybe you should come with us and sit down for a little while, we’ll get some medical droids to take a look at you. Did you bump your head any time tonight?" One of the officers said.
"No! Listen to me! I’m a Jedi padawan, we don’t go running around lying about these things. Or lying about anything!" She argued. "Let me talk to your supervisor." Mira tried to calm herself.
"Yea right, like a padawan would be let out of the temple to go to some concert," the other officer said.
"Let me talk to your supervisor," Mira repeated again firmly, this time she waved her hand in front of them. So much for no mind tricks.
"We’ll let you see your supervisor." The officers lead her towards the office.
* * *
"Obi-Wan, could you please repeat that to me again? Slowly this time." Qui-Gon said. His Padawan had told him that he was going out with Bant to see a holomovie, but that was obviously not the case. Obi-Wan repeated himself slowly. He was kicking himself for not paying more attention to his surroundings. He was so caught up with Mira that he didn’t even feel that something strange was happening. "Alright. Stay where you are. Mace and I are coming." Qui-Gon said, after Obi-Wan got the whole situation out to him.
* * *
Tar’rs and Cean wandered the crowed looking for the Bek’ku female again. Tar’rs didn’t know what he was going to do once he found her but he was still looking. He noticed that security seemed to be on the look out as well, he knew that Mira must have spoken to them. Cean stopped Tar’rs once they reached the hallway.
"Stop. Wait. Remember what we were taught. Reach out with the force. We’ll try to pick up their presence or the deactivated bomb, then we’ll go from there. It’s better than just running around like this." Cean said. Tar’rs just stared at his friend for a moment. He had never seen Cean more clam and in control in a situation like this. The two closed their eyes and reached out with the force, looking for some sort of clue.
* * *
Mira couldn’t understand it. Why could she not feel this coming. They were in danger and she didn’t even see it. Maybe she wasn’t as intuned with the force as they all thought she was. She stood with the chancellor’s guards and Obi-Wan awaiting Qui-Gon and Mace’s arrival. She knew that she was going to be in a lot of trouble when the got back to the Temple. That is if they got back to the Temple.
* * *
Cean could feel something coming to him. There was still one inactive bomb and it was backstage. He opened his eyes, at the same moment Tar’rs did. He knew that Tar’rs also understood where they had to go.
The two made their way there, getting backstage easily. Cean was impressed with how well he could use a Jedi mind trick. The force guided them to a dark corner of the stage, where they saw the box.
"If we disable this one for good, we might put a major snag in their plans, or at least delay them enough for our Masters to take care of this." Cean said. Tar’rs nodded as they headed over to the box, they could feel someone coming from behind them. They hid immediately. They woman that they had saw earlier rushed past them for the box. The music from the concert was blaring all around them. Tar’rs was pretty confident that he could sneak up behind her and get her away from the box. He was wrong.
As Tar’rs came up behind her a blaster shot past him. He turned to see one of the men from earlier.
"Hey! What are you doing back here!" He cried. Cean came out and sent the man flying back with the power of the force. Her ran over to pick up the blaster. The woman had now been alerted to their presence.
"Stop!" Cean cried, as help up the blaster at her, but she pulled one too.
"What hell are you kids doing? Put that down. It’s not a toy!" She commanded of Cean.
"Give me the detonator," Cean said as he blasted the base of the box, rendering the bomb useless. "Give it to me!" He repeated. All the woman did was laugh and she began to walk towards him.
"Here," She tossed it over to Cean, "it’s set on a timer. You’ve got 3 minutes." She said, and ran off across the stage. Tar’rs didn’t hesitate to chase after her. Not long after Tar’rs had gone after her, Mira came running in, almost crashing into Cean. She could feel them though their connection and knew that they needed help. She only hoped that she had not arrived to late. Cean gave her the detonator that was quickly ticking down to zero.
"Here, it’s the detonator." Cean quickly gave it to Mira.
"What!" she exclaimed. She took a look at the counter. They had a little over two minutes to figure it out. Mira looked at the device and then up at Cean. She wasn’t sure what to do. Their masters wouldn’t make it here in 2 minutes and she wasn’t sure if she could deactivate it herself. Mira looked up again, just in time to see the Man that Cean had knocked unconscious lunge at her. He knocked her over and sent the hand held detonator out of her grip and crashing onto the floor. She and Cean didn’t have to struggle long with him, their Jedi training had done them well. As the two went over to the device they saw that it had been smashed open, the wires were hanging out. There were 7 if them, and there was less than a minute left.
Mira took a deep breath and held the device in her hand. She stared at the wires, hoping that something would tell her which one to break. She felt an energy run though her body, as if the force were taking her over, before she knew what she was doing she took one of the wires in her hand and pulled it out. It beeped, but the counter still hadn’t stopped. Cean looked at her wide-eyed as they prepared for the worst. As the device beeped again both padawans flinched. It took them a moment to realise that they were still alive. Mira looked back down at the counter. 5:00 flashed on the cracked screen and it started to count down.
"She’s got the read detonator!" Mira cried. With that her Master and several guards burst into the backstage area.
* * *
Tar’rs chased the woman who was running though the crowds. She was headed for the exits. He could feel it, and for some reason he knew that it was imperative to stop her. Tar’rs also knew that security had been alerted to her presence and that they would be after her too. As he followed her up though the aisles he could feel that she was headed right in the direction of another Jedi. He could sense that Jedi, but didn’t know who it was. Tar’rs called out to the other presence in his mind telling them that they were coming. Tar’rs dived for the woman and grabbed her legs to knock her over. They both landed hard on the floor, right at the feet of Obi-Wan.
* * *
Tar’rs and a woman crashed down at Obi-Wan’s feet. He was taken aback, but only for a moment. He knew that they were coming, but didn’t think they would arrive like that. Obi-Wan reached down quickly for her blaster as she shook free of Tar’rs. She knocked the blaster out of Obi-Wan’s hand and kept running. They went after her. They had clearly frazzled her and she had no longer had any idea as to which direction she was heading. The woman ended up running into a dead end. She turned to face the two padawans and pulled out another device, identical to the one that she had given Cean.
"Stay back or I’ll blow this place to bits." She cried. She was panting for breath. "I’ll do it so stay back!" Obi-Wan and Tar’rs didn’t know what to do, they just hoped that security had all the bombs diffused.
"It’s over. They have all the bombs diffused. You’re not going to get away." Obi-Wan said in hopes that she would give up.
"No! That’s impossible!" She screamed as she waved the he arms in the air. She looked at the screen, all the lights but one were still lit. She knew that Obi-Wan was lying. Suddenly she one light flickered off, then another and then another. "No! This can’t be happening!" she cried falling to her knees. You’re Jedi aren’t you? You’re doing some sort of mind trick on me!" she started to sob. Obi-Wan was tricking her, he made those lights go off. He had tried with all his power to make them flicker off and lunged for the device before she noticed that they were back on again. He deactivated each bomb on the screen, and sighed in relief. Apparently they had got to her just in time.
* * *
The padawans followed their Masters back to the Temple in silence. Each one in silent reflection of the events that just took place. None were really preoccupied with thoughts of their punishment, which they knew was going to be severe. Rather, they were thinking about their own actions that night. Mira and Obi-Wan both were rather disappointed with themselves for being so distracted. Cean and Tar’rs were just the opposite, they had proved to themselves that they could one day actually become Jedi Knights.