Strays

                                By Moriah Organa

                                Disclaimer: Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and the Star Wars Universe is the property of
                                George Lucas, (aka 'The Maker'). Callie, Mithel and Riss however owe more
                                than a little to James Schmidt's 'Witches of Karres'.
 

                                He came in at the perfect moment, a tall powerfully built man with a kind face and Callie knew
                                her Luck was working again. She slipped under the arm of her outraged owner and hid
                                herself behind the new customer.

                                "Please don't let him beat me!"

                                Geeto glared at her in justifiable indignation. He was a decent enough type. The worst he'd
                                done, under considerable provocation, was a few open handed slaps. Callie was almost
                                sorry to have made so much trouble for him.

                                "What seems to be the problem?" the customer asked mildly.

                                "She put something in last night's special that brought half my customers down with the belly
                                ache!" The restranteur huffed.

                                "I didn't!" Callie denied passionately, "There was nothing in the food that shouldn't have been
                                the Guild testers said so!" tilted her head way back to give the tall stranger full benefit of fluffy
                                blond curls, tearful blue eyes and waiflike appeal. "It isn't fair, he always blames me for
                                everything that goes wrong."

                                "Things only started going wrong after I bought you!" Geeto shouted.

                                "Bought?" the customer echoed, eyebrows lifting slightly.

                                "The girl's an indigent," the resturanter explained hastily, "I bought her labor contract from the
                                city."

                                "I see." Owning people was against Republic Law but owning their labor was a different
                                matter. "You seem dissatisfied with your bargain."

                                "She's a jinx!" Geeto declared vehemently. "I never used to be a superstitious man but this girl
                                -"

                                "He'll beat me!" Callie cut in quickly, before Geeto could say too much. "Or lock me in the cellar,
                                or send me back to the labor pool!" clutched desperately at her protector's long brown robe.
                                "Please buy me, I'm a good worker, really I am!" looked imploringly up into grey-blue eyes and
                                *pushed* the way Grampa had taught her, to nudge his mind the way she wanted it to go. It
                                didn't always work - didn't seem to now, she felt no give - but the stranger turned to Geeto.

                                "How much would this contract cost?"

                                The resturanter was more than ready to be rid of her. The bargain was concluded with
                                dispatch and at an insultingly low price.

                                Callie followed her new owner out into the street. This one was going to work out fine, she
                                had a feeling. But she couldn't quite make him out. He'd volunteered that his name was
                                Qui-Gon Jinn but nothing else. His clothes were rough and plain yet he'd parted readily with
                                the credits for her. Either he wasn't as poor as he looked or he really needed laborers. A
                                farmer from the back country she decided, they could always use extra hands.

                                She gave a couple of skips to come abreast of him. He looked kindly down from his formidable
                                height and shortened his stride for her benefit.

                                "I have two little sisters." she explained. "They split us up when we were sold. They're *very*
                                little, you could buy them real cheap - cheaper than me." Callie tried another push, still no give.
                                It wasn't working she was sure now.

                                Yet he said, "Do you know where your sisters are?"

                                Maybe he was just a very nice man.

                                Little girls - like Callie and her sisters - were purchased as an investment to be trained into
                                whatever their owner required. F'harthon only knew what the antiquities dealer had hoped to
                                make of Riss. Callie'd told her to be troublesome, so when the time came her owner'd be glad
                                to part with her, she should have known the kid would overdo it.

                                The first thing they saw when they entered the shop was Riss, a freckled flame top of eight,
                                tied to an eleventy-first century Uruban pillar of yellow jade carved with a spiral freize of
                                struggling demons. Callie sensed both outrage and a niggle of amusement from her new
                                owner.

                                Riss spotted her and piped "Hi Callie!" at the same moment *reaching out*. Across the room a
                                meter and a third tall Gantor tusk carving split neatly down the middle - the two pieces falling
                                in opposite directions.

                                *Stop that!* Callie sent.

                                Riss shrugged. *Okay. Who's the tall old guy?"

                                *Our new owner, don't scare him off!*

                                "Did you see that?" the dealer, a haggard man rapidly going gray, demanded. "Tied hand and
                                foot and halfway across the room yet she still broke it!"

                                "Surely not," Qui-Gon soothed, "there must have been a fault in the tusk - some chance
                                vibration -"

                                "That's what I told myself at first." the dealer nodded almost convulsively. "Chance,
                                coincidence, couldn't possibly be the child. But it is!" his voice rose taking on a shrill note of
                                pure hysteria. "She's bewitched I tell you! Possessed! The uncanny, demonic, devilish little -"

                                Still tied to her pillar Riss batted green eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to look innocent. Callie
                                rolled her own despairingly. Damn the kid, she always went to far!

                                "Would you be interested in selling her?" her Qui-Gon cut in quickly.

                                The other man stared, struck temporarily speechless, then croaked. "You're serious?"

                                "Quite. I'm not superstitious."

                                The Dealer laughed drearily. "Neither was I once. Take her and welcome!"

                                Mithel had been bought by a high fashion clothier, probably intending to make her into a model.
                                Slim, dark and supple Callie's ten year old sister already had a certain elegance. She'd wear
                                clothes well, if she felt like it. The clothier's haunted, hollow eyed face made it clear she hadn't
                                felt like it. He was too far gone to protest the intrusion of the tall drab robed man and his train
                                of ragged little girls into the exquisitely decorated showroom, didn't even seem to notice them
                                until Qui-Gon addressed him.

                                "I understand you have a girl named Mithel here, I'm interested in buying her contract."

                                The clothier's hands clenched convulsively at the name then relaxed in astonishment. "You
                                are?"

                                "I'm not superstitious." Qui-Gon explained.

                                Mithel's owner smiled bitterly. "I know what you're going to say - she's just a child, quite a
                                pretty girl in her dark way, it's ridiculous for a grown man to be afraid of her." He leaned
                                forward, voice dropping. "But there's something there I tell you, something uncanny -
                                *dangerous*!"

                                "Callie," Qui-Gon said firmly, "find your sister."

                                "Yes sir."

                                She followed her feelings to a closed door in the warren behind the show stage. Knocked.

                                Mithel opened it promptly. She was dressed in black and looked pleased with herself.

                                "What did you *do* to that poor man?" Callie demanded.

                                She shrugged. "Nothing much, he did most of it to himself. He's got a ba-ad conscience that
                                one!"

                                Callie just looked at her.

                                "Bad dreams mostly." Mithel conceeded. "And didn't he just have tons of material for them."
                                she looked smug. "I've done him a favor really, he'll probably reform."

                                Her older sister sighed. "C'mon, we're buying you. We already got Riss."

                                "Terrific." Mithel ducked back to grab a bag, came out shutting the door behind her.

                                "What's that?" Callie asked suspiciously.

                                "Clothes." Defensively. "Look he'll just burn them if I leave 'em behind. I got some stuff for you
                                and Riss too."

                                Callie shrugged. Oh well, the clothier'd probably never miss them.

                                "So what's this new guy like?" Mithel wanted to know.

                                "Nice. I think he's a farmer."

                                A groan. "Oh *great* he'll have us hoeing crops!"

                                "No, it'll be good. I feel it." Callie insisted.

                                The expression on Obi-Wan's face when he saw his Master arrive trailed by three ragged
                                little girls of twelve, ten and eight was a memory Qui-Gon would treasure for the rest of his
                                life. He fought back a grin as he performed the necessary introductions. "Obi-Wan Kenobi,
                                meet Callie, Mithel and Riss."

                                "Hi!" the girls said in bright chorus as Obi-Wan turned his appalled gaze on them. They stared
                                right back, Callie appreciative, Mithel calculating, and Riss cheerfully indifferent.

                                "Let's get back to the ship." Qui-Gon suggested.

                                "Master, this is not the time." Obi-Wan said desperately. "We're in the middle of a mission - we
                                *can't* take three little girls into the Cloud!"

                                "Obi-Wan -"

                                "Bad enough we're going to have the crew of the cruiser to worry about but *children* -"

                                "Obi-Wan!" Qui-Gon repeated loudly, cutting his Apprentice off. "We can't leave them behind.
                                The Force is strong in them and they've been taught how to use it."

                                His Padawan stared.

                                "Callie tried to mindtrick me twice. I saw Riss use the Force to break a Gantor tusk carving
                                taller than she is and Mithel plagued her owner with illusions and dreams. They've obviously
                                had some kind of training but *not* Jedi-Bendu training."

                                Qui-Gon was right and Obi-Wan knew it. Rogue Force users were *always* trouble - even
                                when they weren't Dark - a danger to themselves and others. "But the mission." he said
                                helplessly.

                                "We have no choice Obi-Wan." and that ended it.

                                "Not a farmer." Mithel said drily.

                                "No." Callie frowned. She knew a Republic cruiser when she saw one. What she didn't know
                                was what Qui-Gon and his cute friend were doing aboard it. They were obviously not Fleet
                                officers or Senate diplomats yet just as obviously in charge - what was going on here?

                                "You said you had a good feeling about him." Riss reminded her, bouncing experimentally on
                                one of the bunks in their new cabin.

                                "I did - I do." she shrugged. "I'd just like to know where we're going."

                                "Wherever it is it's got to be better than Quatooine!" Mithel said decidedly, pulling clothes from
                                her bag, shaking them out and hanging them in the wall locker.

                                "Yeah." Riss agreed. "That was the worst!"

                                "It's a Republic ship it must come from the Core Worlds." Callie mused hopefully.

                                "Think the act would go over there?" Mithel asked.

                                "Sure it will!" Riss had no doubts. "We're *good*."

                                "Yeah but we'll have to jazz it up a bit." Callie decided. "The Inner systems are supposed to be
                                more sophisticated than the Rim."

                                "At least we've got some good stage clothes now." Mithel said, admiring a glittery black
                                number before putting it away.

                                Riss snorted gently. "Be a few years before you can fill that out!"

                                "We're getting to a bad age." Callie said ruefully. "Too old to be cute, too young to be sexy."

                                "Yeah," Mithel put in, "but in another six standards - watch out Galaxy!"

                                Callie laughed. Grampa'd always said they'd be beauties when they were grown - real assets
                                to the act. Maybe if that cute Obi-Wan was still around in six years....

                                "Think Qui-Gon'll let us do the act?" Riss asked.

                                "Maybe. We could make him a lot of credits after all." but somehow Callie doubted money
                                would have much influence with their new master.

                                "As long as he doesn't turn out to be a religious fanatic like Timna." Mithel said pessimistically.

                                "C'mon, she was nice." Riss argued. "She just had different ideas from us."

                                "I never said she wasn't nice." Mithel responded. "I just didn't want to spend the rest of my life
                                meditating and sewing thought tapestries."

                                "It wouldn't have been the rest of our lives, just till we were grown." Callie said sharply. "It
                                was a good place - if those pirates hadn't come -"

                                "We should send her a holo," Riss interupted, "let her know we're okay."

                                "Sure. As long as Qui-Gon doesn't get the idea we want to go back to her." from Mithel.

                                Riss gave one of her unladylike snorts. "He paid good money for us, he's not going to just give
                                us away you know."

                                Callie wasn't so sure. Qui-Gon'd had a reason for buying them she realized - beyond simple
                                sympathy. Soon they'd find out what it was - and who *he* was.

                                                                                              To be continued ->