“There were only ten,” Luke said. “They figured out where we were going somehow.”
“I didn’t—” Vestara began.
“I don’t think you did,” Luke replied. “They probably assumed we’d do exactly what we have been doing—investigating planets traditionally associated with Sith history. Khai probably chose this place because of the nexus. They could send a smaller team and still be stronger.”
“Or so they thought,” Jaina said.
“That means that their main flotilla is somewhere else,” Luke said.
“They’re with Abeloth,” Vestara blurted.
“What?” Ben said.
“I sensed it in my father. He—he questioned my loyalties, so I questioned his. And I was right.” She lifted her gaze and met Luke’s blue eyes evenly. “He no longer identifies with the Lost Tribe. He’s with Abeloth now—and I bet the rest of the flotilla is, too.”
“You’re sure?” Luke pressed.
She nodded. “I think … she was doing something to him.”
“Like with Taalon?” Luke recalled the metamorphosis of High Lord Taalon after he had drunk from the Fountain of Knowledge. He had started to become like Abeloth.
“Not that dramatic,” she said. “But … mentally. His mind—he wasn’t the way he used to be. I think that’s why I was able to win against him at all—because he wasn’t as focused. He was so proud of being Sith, so proud of what the Lost Tribe had accomplished. Now he’s—he was—blindly following Abeloth. And if my father succumbed, then I am certain the others did.” She looked away again, swallowing hard. “He was a strong man.”
Ben let out a slow whistle. “So now the Sith have gone from wanting to capture Abeloth to wanting to serve her,” he said. “And we’ve still got no clue as to where to start looking for her—or them.”
“The trail’s gone cold,” Luke said. “I think our best bet, for now, is to regroup and head back to Coruscant. We’ll talk to the historians, share with them everything we’ve learned. Maybe we’ve overlooked something. There are many brilliant minds at the Temple. It’s time we availed ourselves of them. Maybe they can see something we can’t.” He sighed.
Ben smiled. “It’ll be nice to get back,” he admitted. “Kinda tired of attending the Mobile Chapter of the Academy.”
“It won’t be for good,” Luke warned.
“Oh, I know. But it’ll still be nice.”
Ben also knew, though his father would not say so in front of Vestara, that Luke was concerned about the situation with the Jedi and the GA. Everything seemed to indicate that things were going smoothly with the triumvirate system that had been put into place. But it was clearly time for Grand Master Luke Skywalker to return, at least temporarily. All signs pointed to it; it seemed to be the will of the Force.
He looked back over at Vestara. She was doing her best to recover from the shock and horror of being forced to kill her own father, whom Ben knew she had loved. And, tough girl that she was, she was doing a good job. But he still knew she was shattered.
“Come on, stinky,” he said. “You need a sanisteam.”
She gave him a ghost of her old smirk. “All I have to say to that is that it’s a good thing I can block out how bad you smell.”
It was feeble jesting, but Ben was heartened by it anyway. He felt for Vestara, but believed with all his heart that what she had done here today, anguishing though it was, was a good thing. She had freed herself from Gavar Khai and his dark influence forever, and Ben had hope that she had taken a big step along the path that would eventually bring her out of the Sith shadow, into the light.
He hesitated, then held out his hand to her. She took it. Hand in hand, they moved out of the cold shadow of the dark side temple.
“Khai has failed.”
Abeloth’s voice came through loud and clear on the bridge of the Black Wave. These were not the dulcet female tones that Tola Annax was used to hearing; the voice was … liquid sounding, garbled, deep, and raised the hairs on the back of Annax’s neck. Both the sound of the voice and the words shot a thrill of apprehension through her. Ship was visible on the viewscreen, an orange-red eye with wings, seeming to glare balefully at her, and Annax shuddered inwardly. At least, she mused grimly, I don’t have to be the one actually delivering the bad news.
Abeloth still might destroy them, though, and she knew it.
“I very much regret so, yes.” Annax used the Force to keep her voice sounding calm and confident. “We lost all ten of them, some of our best Sabers.”
“A pity,” said the strange, gurgling voice. “I wish we had not. But it is no matter, is it, Captain Tola Annax?”
Relief flooded through her, leaving Annax feeling slightly weak. “No, not at all, no.”
“Then all is well. I have others to serve me—and other plans to execute.” And that quickly, Abeloth’s transmission ended. Annax leaned back in the chair she had occupied since Khai’s departure, and a slow smile spread across her lovely features.
Captain Tola Annax had such a nice ring to it.
Had Abeloth permitted a holographic transmission instead of a simple verbal one, Tola Annax would have seen something that might well have haunted her for the rest of her days, if it had not snapped her mind permanently.
On the “floor” of Ship’s interior was a collection of pulsing, half-formed body parts, attached in a way that no student of any kind of anatomy would recognize. It shifted and writhed, a human foot popping out here, a tentacle there, then subsiding back to a no-shape thing that undulated for a moment, before a face formed with gray eyes to see. It was a human face, peering out from the otherwise formless, undulating mass that was Abeloth.
The gray eyes were fixed on the wall, which was transmitting images from dozens of different holonews channels. Beings of all species were reporting—on uprisings, on the latest word from the interim government of the GA, on the Jedi, on the Imperial Remnant, on the influx of new Senators. Abeloth saw the jowly face of Padnel Ovin of Klatooine, the beaming, charming smile of Rokari Kem of Qaras, the reptilian visage of Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne glaring at holocams being shoved in her face, and the elegant Senator Haydnat Treen courting those same holocams, protestors marching. She saw funeral pyres for the slain Octusi, the grave face of Perre Needmo announcing a scholarship in the name of the late journalist Madhi Vaandt.
The human mouth smiled, widening slowly, stretching across the face as the gray eyes grew black with tiny pinpricks of light.
Oh, yes. Other plans to execute, indeed.
ABOARD THE JADE SHADOW
DEAD. GAVAR KHAI, SITH SABER, WAS DEAD. IN THE BIZARRE PATH THAT had taken him from the Lost Tribe to Abeloth’s side, he had forsaken his people, permitted his wife to die, and attempted to slay his daughter. Vestara Khai was an orphan. And try as she might, she just couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around the cold, brutal fact.
She lay in her cabin aboard the Jade Shadow, sleepless, staring at the ceiling, going over the battle in her mind’s eye, hearing again the heart-lacerating words that cut deeper than any lightsaber.
I will start fresh. A new wife, a new child. Both are easily replaced.
No. They weren’t. Nor was a father.
She saw again the contempt in his dark eyes, felt again the warm wetness of his spittle. The realization of the abandonment—not just of her, but of the Tribe; the out-of-control nature of his fighting; the feeling of savage rightness when she harnessed her own emotions, both the dark and the light, in order to defeat him: these things played over and over again in her mind’s eye, like a holovid on endless repeat.
There was a sickening inevitability about it all. Each mental path she went down led her to the same conclusion. If she had gone with him—he would have killed her. If she had not fought as hard as she could—he would have killed her. The galaxy, so vast and complicated, had suddenly become very small, and very clear. A Khai had needed to die, and when it came down to it, Vestara had been unwilling to be a sacrifice.
Growling softly in her frustration at being unable to sleep, she rose and went to the small computer built into the bulkhead. It had been a while since she had read the two letters, but now she wanted to revisit them. To feel the comfort of the happy and utterly fictitious relationship she had created, now that there was no chance of ever restoring even what they’d once had. Once, she had been loved, in a way, and she knew it.
She hesitated, then dived into the file she had created. She had known it would have been safer to leave the letters in her head, that she was tempting fate to write them down. But seeing the words on the screen had helped. It had given them a reality that had comforted her, and now, she hoped, would comfort her again.
Up they came. She looked down at her folded hands for a moment, then lifted her face and began to read.
Only two. They would soon have one more to keep them company. One final letter, an orphan girl’s wishful memories of a father who had never really lived.
Swallowing hard, she raised fingers that trembled, ever so slightly, and began to type.
Dear Papa,
I know you are gone, and I will never be able to laugh with you, or hug you, or listen to your wisdom ever again. I know that you have become one with the Force, and that in a way you will always be with me. But that gives me very little comfort now, when I am missing you so much.
Master Skywalker spoke with me about how he had felt when he lost his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Even though Obi-Wan had been with him for a very short time, Master Skywalker speaks eloquently of the pain of the loss, and the comfort that he found when “Ben,” for whom my own dear Ben is named, found a way to return to him.
Dearest Papa, you have always guided and supported me, gently steering me through the myriad challenges that have come my way as a Jedi. No daughter could have asked for a better father. No apprentice could have asked for a wiser master. I cannot tell you how much I miss
The door slid open, and Ben stood there, bleary with sleep, concern on his face. “Vestara, I—what are you doing?”
Frantically she rushed to delete the file, then turned, startled and angry at his intrusion.
“What are you doing, Ben? Walking into my room at this hour?”
But she couldn’t distract him. He had suddenly become very, very awake, and he sprang for the computer. She shoved at him, and he whirled on her.
“What were you doing?”
“It’s none of your business,” she said heatedly. “Why are you even here?”
“I heard you crying, and you didn’t answer when I knocked. I got worried, so I overrode the lock,” he said, his voice hard and angry and cold and sharply at odds with the tenderness of the words. She was taken aback, and as she blinked, she realized that there were indeed tears clinging to her dark lashes.
“Apparently I didn’t need to be concerned,” Ben continued. His hands shot out and gripped her wrists. “Move.”
Embarrassment, hurt, and anger rushed through her. Her eyes narrowed and she Force-shoved him back. Not expecting it, although he should have, Ben barely reacted in time to keep from slamming against the bulkhead. He turned in midair, landed, albeit imperfectly, on his feet, and lifted a hand sharply. To her complete shock, Vestara felt an invisible hand crack across her cheek. He had used the Force not to defend himself, or to restrain her, but to strike her in anger.
Her face stinging from the invisible blow, she flicked a finger and her lightsaber sprang to her hand. Ben had gathered himself to leap at her and had to twist his body sharply as she swung, the glowing red blade singing its unique and unmistakable song as it sliced through air. Vestara pursued, forcing her body to calm, even though she was trembling with outrage.
A whirling kick that she should have seen coming a kilometer away knocked the lightsaber out of her hands. Ben extended a hand and it flew to him, and Vestara had the unique sight of Ben Skywalker, Jedi Knight, standing in a dark room with his angry features lit by the red glow of a Sith lightsaber.
She sprang toward him, but he lifted his left hand and the pillows rose to attack her with soft, harmless vigor that nonetheless blocked her vision and pressed in close to her face, smothering her. The precious second she struggled against them gave Ben all the time he needed to pin her against the bed and use the Force to swathe her in the bedsheets.
She struggled against him for a long moment, then suddenly sagged. He stood, catching his breath, his face still eerily illuminated by the scarlet glow, then extinguished the lightsaber.
“Now,” he said, “I’ll let you up if you tell me what the stang you were up to.”
“Just go away, Ben, it’s got nothing to do with you. It’s personal.”
“Everything and nothing is personal with Sith,” Ben growled. He moved over to the computer and frowned. “Where is it? What you were working on?”
“I deleted it.”
“Now it’s my business.”
“Blast it, Ben!” Her voice cracked and he regarded her with surprise. She looked away, fearful that he would see the traitorous tears still glinting in her eyes. “I give you my word, it wasn’t anything against you. Please, just go, okay?”
“I wish I could believe you,” he said. “But if it wasn’t anything important, you wouldn’t be so determined to hide it from me. Do I have to truss you up? I will if I have to. Or I can comm Dad to watch you while I go digging for this stuff.”
Fear and defeat both fluttered through Vestara, and suddenly her body, tense and tight, sagged against the blankets tightly wrapped around her. Ben would do it, too. Then both Skywalkers would see the letters. She could either fight until she killed him, or her secret would be revealed.
And she found, not a little bit to her surprise, that she didn’t want to kill Ben Skywalker. She didn’t want to see him harmed in any way, least of all by her hand. But for him to see this …
She tried one more time, turning her head to look him full in the face. “Ben,” she said quietly, though her voice trembled slightly, “I give you my word. Any word you want, any promise or vow you would believe. What I was doing had nothing at all to do with you, or Luke, or the Jedi, or anything. It was personal and private. That’s all.”
Something flickered across his face for a moment, then his expression grew hard again. “There’s no assurance you could possibly give me that I’d believe. I’m getting awfully tired of being played by you, Vestara. And I’m getting more insulted with each day that you seem to think I’m stupid.”
You’re not stupid, she wanted to say. You’re just … trusting. Which, she supposed, was stupid, when one was dealing with the Sith. She recalled his words some time earlier, when he had asked if she didn’t tire of always mistrusting, of always having her guard up. What he didn’t know was how right he was. She had not understood, until she had come across people for whom this was not second nature, how … exhausting … mistrust was. How complicated it was to spin lies. She felt as though she had suddenly realized that since the day she could talk, she had been carrying a burden that had been draining her life energy.
What would happen if she let that burden go? If she decided not to lie anymore, to open her heart and mind to trusting someone?
You trusted your father, and look what happened. If your own blood could try to kill you, what would a stranger do?
But her father had been a Sith. Ben wasn’t.
Quietly, she said, “Look if you feel you have to, Ben. And you’ll see that I’m telling you the truth.”
“I am going to look. And if you are telling the truth, it would be a first,” Ben muttered. That wasn’t entirely accurate, and both of them knew it. Vestara hadn’t always lied. Sometimes the best deceptions had the most truth in them.
The thought hurt, in an odd way.
She turned her face to her wall and braced herself for the shame and ridicule that were certain to come.
Vestara hadn’t had a lot of time to cover her tracks, which was fortunate. Even though she was relatively new to the technolog
y he’d grown up with, and they hadn’t given her much chance to explore the Jade Shadow unsupervised, the young Sith woman was highly intelligent and keenly observant. If she’d had more than a moment or two, Ben was certain that Vestara would have figured out a way to permanently delete the files or corrupt them so that whatever she’d been doing would never be discovered.
He fumed as he worked, digging deeper into the levels of security to recover the data. He had wanted so badly to trust her. He knew that his dad was at least partially right: Ben was attracted to—okay, maybe even smitten with; just a bit, though, not enough to impair his judgment—Vestara Khai. He wanted her to be redeemable. But maybe Luke was right. Maybe Ben saw in that lovely face with the odd, endearing little scar at the mouth what he wanted to see. Maybe it really was just a mask covering something hideous and horrible.
He stabbed angrily at the keyboard. What had she been doing? Sending—
Letters.
Stang.
He got as far as Dear Papa, before he whirled on Vestara. “I should kill you right here,” he snarled. “This was dated weeks ago! You’ve been spying on us this whole time, just like my dad said!”
She turned to face him. She’d been crying, even though she was trying to pretend she hadn’t, and she wasn’t even bothering to hide her presence in the Force. That presence was usually uniquely sharp, bright, and strong. Now it felt … dull. Muffled. Not frightened, or angry, as it might have been expected to feel to him had she been plotting the treachery he had just uncovered. His brow furrowed in confusion.
“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” she said without rancor. “You’ve found them. You’re reading them, even though I practically begged you not to. Read them all, Ben. Go ahead.”
Uncertainty washed over him. Still frowning, Ben turned back to the screen.
Dear Papa:
I hope you are feeling better, and that the hurts you have recently suffered have been well tended.
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Ascension Page 19
