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The mission report in the Council chambers went even worse than Mace had expected, given the team they were debriefing.
“You did what?” Mace said. “I’m sorry, Master Jinn, but I could have sworn you just said that you gambled your ship, and therefore Naboo’s independence, on a nine-year-old’s pod race?”
The look on Padawan Kenobi’s face said that he heartily agreed with Mace’s assessment of the situation, but he was too polite to say anything. How he’d stayed that way after a decade as Jinn’s padawan, Mace had no idea.
The nine-year-old in question was doing his best to hide behind Qui-Gon. Mace felt a flash of pity for him; if he was as Force-sensitive as Qui-Gon claimed, then the Council alone would be intimidating enough, never mind the clash of wills that came whenever this particular team was in the same room with them.
Qui-Gon, of course, looked too damn serene for a man being interrogated. A man who had apparently thought it was a great idea to put a child at risk, and then take that child from his only family to a completely new world with people who had no way of understanding his life experience. Mace might be friends with the man, but this was going too far even for him.
“Clouded, your judgment is,” Yoda agreed.
“It was the only way I saw out of our predicament,” Qui-Gon replied.
“Not like you, it is, to see only one path,” Yoda said. Qui-Gon looked like he had swallowed a lemon. It took all of Mace’s willpower not to laugh.
“Regardless of my methods, the boy is here now. I submit him to be tested by the Council.”
“Too old, he is,” Yoda refuted. “Train him, we cannot.”
The boy had shrunk back at that. Probably afraid that he would be sent back to Tatooine if the Jedi would not train him. Honestly, had Qui-Gon explained anything to him?
“You won’t be sent back to Tatooine,” Mace said as kindly as he could. “If you wish, you can join one of our Jedi Corps, or we can find a foster family here on Coruscant for you.”
The boy – Anakin, Mace remembered – looked uncertain. “But why can’t I be a Jedi, sir?”
Mace reached out with the Force, trying to get a feel for the boy’s emotions. He was nervous, though not as much as he had been. And desperately missing home, which was of course to be expected.
“Did you leave someone, Anakin, back on Tatooine?” he asked.
Anakin nodded. “My mother. She’s still a slave there.”
“If you became a Jedi, you would have to give her up,” Mace said. “You couldn’t visit her again. Do you think you could do that?”
Anakin set his jaw stubbornly. “I knew I wouldn’t see her again.”
“Let me rephrase,” Mace said. “Is that what you want? Is being a Jedi what you want? Or do you want to see what other options there might be, now that you’re free?”
The boy’s lack of response was enough of an answer.
Qui-Gon wasn’t going to let it go, though. “He must be trained,” he insisted. “He is the Chosen One, I’m certain of it.”
“The Council has made its decision,” Mace said. “Let the boy think on it and decide what he wants.”
Qui-Gon’s face took on a look that Mace knew well. Force, why would he not just let this go? “If he won’t be trained as an Initiate, then I will take him on as my Padawan.”
Mace glanced at Padawan Kenobi. The young man’s face didn’t at all reflect the turmoil that he could feel through the Force. Clearly this wasn’t the first time that Qui-Gon had cast aside his padawan. Of course it wasn’t, Mace thought suddenly. This wasn’t even the first time this team had been brought before the Council for something similar. How long had they been ignoring Qui-Gon’s clear mental imbalance? Since Yoda decided that shoving another padawan at him would be better than sending him to the mind-healers. He was going to kill that troll.
“A Padawan you have, Master Qui-Gon,” Yoda said. “Not possible it is, to take another.”
“I’ve taught Obi-Wan all I am able,” Qui-Gon said. “He is ready for the trials.”
Mace wasn’t going to say anything. He really wasn’t. But Qui-Gon just kept digging his own grave, and watching Padawan Kenobi’s face fall was apparently the last straw.
“Sith hells, Qui-Gon,” he burst out. Ignoring the scandalized looks he received from his fellow councilors (and a gleeful one from Anakin), he continued, “Have you lost your damn mind?”
Qui-Gon had the absolute gall to look confused. “What have I done now, Master Windu?”
If Mace were a less dignified man, he would have sputtered. “What have you done? First, you bet a child’s freedom and your only way off planet in a pod race – which the child flew in, I might add. Then, you bring said child to Coruscant, away from his family and his entire life, to maybe join the Jedi Order, without telling him anything about what he’s getting himself into or what the other options might be. Then, to top it all off, you repudiate your Padawan, who, bless him, has put up with your insanity for far too long. Of course Obi-Wan’s ready for his Trials, you’ve just had your head too far up your own ass for the past few years to see it.”
The chamber was silent at the end of his rant, though he caught Skywalker stifling a giggle. Good – let him see that all Jedi weren’t pretentious assholes.
Qui-Gon himself looked as though he’d been struck by a speeder. Mace felt slightly guilty for putting that expression on his friend’s face, but he squashed that down quite thoroughly. It was for the man’s own good.
Yoda laughed a little, clearly very amused by the whole thing. “Not how I would have put it, it is, but correct, Master Windu’s words are.” He jabbed at Qui-Gon with his gimmer stick. “Hoped, I did, that another apprentice, help you it would. But your actions on this mission, too far have they gone.” He hummed in thought. “Grounded, you are. To the mind healers, you will report, when you are ready. Young Kenobi, prepare for your Trials you must. Oversee them, I myself will.”
Padawan Kenobi bowed, looking a little shell-shocked. “Thank you, Master Yoda, Master Windu. I appreciate your faith in me.”
“What of the boy?” Qui-Gon demanded. Such a one-track mind.
“Our responsibility, he now is,” Yoda said. “Decide his fate, the council will, but not now. Rest you all need. With the Initiates, young Skywalker will stay, until the council has deliberated.”
“And the mission?” Qui-Gon asked, sensing that he was not about to get out of this.
“I’ll be taking over the mission,” Mace said. He ignored the stink-eye Yoda sent him. “It’s been a while since I’ve gotten off-planet. And if there really is a Sith…” He left unsaid that of all the Jedi here, he was probably the most equipped to deal with a potential Sith.
“Very well. Decided it is then,” Yoda said. “Go to Naboo, Master Windu will. If Sith there are, find them he shall.”
Oh, he’d find them all right. He was almost looking forward to it.