trans_9 | A Shadow and a Threat

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A Shadow and a Threat

Luke sat crosslegged on a couch on the observation deck, staring out into the Bleed, lost in thought. Things had quieted down on the ship and for that he was glad. Laater, Luke had resolved to go find Tycho later on and make sure he was doing okay (he'd heard of the other's injury), but until he did that, Luke had come up here to think.

There had been a strange darkness at the edge of his mind--not a dire threat, nothing to send his danger-sense into full alarm, but enough to make him worry. It could mean that a Sith had woken up, and if that was so, it couldn't be anyone good. There were several names that came to Luke's mind, and none of those were ones he particularly wanted to put faces to again. With each, though, he was more worried for Ben's safety than his own. Ben had had enough dealings with Sith already. Luke didn't want to put him through that a second time.

But for now he meditated on this strange shadow in his mind, and wondered what he'd do when he ran into the source of it.

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Vestara was very, very thankful to find Luke without Ben around for the time being. Interacting with both Skywalkers at once was entirely too irritating for this hour of the day.

"Master Skywalker," she bowed. "I'm delighted to find you undamaged."

He looked over to this new person. Master Skywalker? She didn't look like a student at the Temple, and despite how much the Order had grown Luke still made it a point to try to learn the names of the apprentices. So somehow, she knew him, and he didn't know her, which meant she was probably from his future.

"I might be old but I still know how to dodge a blaster bolt," he said amiably. "I'm sorry, but do I know you?"

As he spoke, Luke was gathering the Force around him, sending out a probe to try and figure out just who this girl was.

Oh.

"I suppose not for a while," she answered sweetly. "I'm Vestara Khai. We'll work together some day."

There weren't as many lines around his face. His step was lighter; far less tired.

Perfect.

The moment his mental probe touched her presence, Luke sensed the slick, oily feeling of the Dark Side brush against his mind, and recoiled. That sensation--one too familiar to him, all too familiar--could only mean one thing. This Vestara Khai, this girl who said she was going to be working with him in his future, was the source of the shadow that had been growing in his mind since the latest group of arrivals. And that meant she was a Sith.

A Sith? But she's only a girl! She can't be older than Ben.

"I find that hard to believe," he said, a little more cautious now. Luke hadn't sensed a lie when she said they'd work together, but she was a Sith.

"Oh?" Her eyebrows drew closely together.

It was fine if he could figure out where her heart lay. But to find an even younger Luke being just as bull-headed and 'heroic' as his son was a pain.

"May I ask why?" She'd sat down on a nearby couch and folded her hands in her lap.

"Maybe because 'the Grand Master of the Jedi Order' and 'darksiders' go together like water and oil," said Ben, dropping over the side of a couch to sit next to his father. "Sorry, dad, the future's got some irritating people in it."

"Creative ones, too." Luke leaned forward, elbows on knees and keen blue eyes trained on the teenage girl in front of him, until they shifted back to look at Ben over his shoulder. "She says she'll be working with us in the future. I find that a little hard to believe."

Vestara's eyes sparkled.

"I suppose you should explain more, Ben, since it's apparently impossible to comprehend if coming from me. Really, I don't know why I expected anything more from Jedi... "

Her voice trailed off, and she sighed. "My apologies. That was rude of me."

Ben rolled his eyes. "Don't worry about it. You can't get ruder than the time you and your buddies tried to kill us."

It was clear he was missing something here. Luke couldn't think of any reason they'd ally with the Sith--no enemy could possibly be greater than that divide--but he also wasn't sure he wanted to learn too much of his own future. On the other hand, with both of them here, it might end up being inevitable.

"Not impossible to comprehend, Vestara," he said, "But I'm still not sure exactly what it was that caused you to ally yourself with the Jedi in the first place. I think it's pretty safe to say that Jedi and Sith aren't exactly known for being best friends--and if my son says you tried to kill us, then I'm sure you'd understand if I believe him."

Luke gave Ben a look out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't believed Ben before, and it had cost them both too much. Doubting his son's insight wasn't something Luke wanted to do again.

She shrugged. "Attempting to kill you was, in that situation, necessary. You should be thankful that your destiny had other plans in store."

Right. How could she explain this and still have her believe him? Or rather-- she quickly re-evaluated just why she needed to explain everything.

"My tribe made contact with an entity known as Abeloth. We thought she was on my peoples' 'side', as you would call it, but she betrayed us. Myself, you, and your son were the only ones to see her in her true form. Our alliance exists in order to discover what she truly is." Ves looked right into Luke's eyes. "It's a mutually beneficial relationship."

"Back home, maybe," Ben said, shaking his head, "and it's not like your people gave us a choice. Here we should lock you up in the Temple to stop you from selling the whole ship out to the Ohm." Or whatever the real danger is.

"Wait a minute," Luke held up a hand, because it seemed like once Ben and Vestara got going they could argue all day, and something Vestara had said had caught his attention. "What do you mean, your tribe?"

A tribe meant more than one person. A tribe meant a whole group of Force users, probably Sith. And that didn't jive with what Luke knew about the Sith. Weren't there supposed to only be two at a time? And wouldn't the Jedi have noticed a growing group of Sith?

"The Keshiri people," Vestara clarified as if speaking to a small child.

"Not helpful," said Ben. He glanced over at his father. "They're a big gang of Sith working with Ship. There's enough of them to put together a heavy-firepower convoy and clean all the Nightsisters off Dathomir, but they haven't tried anything large-scale enough to alert the Temple." He crossed his arms and turned back to Vestara. "Got anything else to add?"

Luke sat back against the creepily pulsing adipose tissue of the couch, one hand swiping across his face; while he was mostly locked-down now out of cautiousness while being around a Sith, some of his surprise rippled outward from him in the Force. A group of Sith? Enough to amass a fleet of ships and enough force to neutralize the Nightsisters? Sure, they were untrained, but after tangling with the Nightsisters once he wasn't about to dismiss them. They weren't stupid.

More troubling, they'd done it secretly. Operating covertly was pretty much a standard of the Dark Side, but you had to be really good to keep something like this quiet. That made him wonder if two years had really packed more events in than he'd thought. Something like this--it shouldn't have been ignored. Someone--either the Temple or someone in the GA--should have noticed something.

And yet nobody had, for some reason. And now there was a teenage Sith smirking at him.

"That's one way of putting it," Vestara laughed.

It was a tad offensive to have thousands of years of her peoples' civilization condensed in such a manner, from such a simplistic viewpoint.

"Ben left out the most important part. Those oh-so-awful numbers are now allied with you."

"Like I said -- that's back home," Ben corrected, "and not because we asked for it. Dad, if you want to catch up on galactic current events, we can do that when there aren't Sith hanging around," even though I didn't want to tell you what that sleamo Daala did to you. "Right now, we need to figure out what to do with her."

"Well..." Luke conceded that point. Going back and forth like this in front of Vestara wasn't really the best idea. But as to what Vestara's fate should be while on board Stacy... locking her up straightaway in the brig sounded like a real good idea, but probably wouldn't fly with those on board who didn't know much about the Sith--not to mention they didn't have the means here to really effectively neutralize whatever threat she presented. On the other hand, they couldn't really let her wander around this place unsupervised. She may be young, but in Luke's experience, youth didn't imply a lack of cunning.

"I don't know what we can do right now," he said quietly. "Except keep an eye on her and make sure she stays out of trouble. There are some people on board here who wouldn't like it if we locked up a teenage girl, regardless of who we say she is. Do you have any other ideas?"

It was astounding to meet two beings with such a high opinion of their own authority. Even on Kesh, self-affirmed grandeur was always confirmed by actions instead of words.

"You will make sure I say out of trouble. That's your plan." Vestara rose with a whoosh of her robes. "Is this as embarrassing for you as it is for me? I can't believe my people ever thought the Jedi to be a threat."

Ben put his head in his hands, feigning wise Jedi contemplation. "I could airlock you if you'd like."

"I'd like to see you try," she snarled back.

"Then come up with a better idea."

Luke cut in. "Both of you, stop it." He looked between both his son and Vestara. "I'm sorry, Vestara, but even if you gave us your word you wouldn't try to subvert things here, I couldn't trust it. I'm sure you understand."

It's almost sweet.

Vestara rocked back and forth with both hands clasped behind her back.

"My word is as good as gold. If you don't want to put faith in it, that's not my concern."

"Your word is overvalued, malleable, and kind of shiny? Wow. No wonder I'm not putting any faith in it."

"Ben," Luke said, a hint of a warning in his voice. The teen had a point in amongst all the needling, but Luke decided he'd have to talk to his son about rising to the barbs of this Sith girl at some point.

Luke turned his attention back to Vestara. "You aren't exactly in a trustworthy position, not just because of what you are, but because of what Ben has said regarding your--" he smiled "--flexible definition of being honest. Now, if you do something to earn my trust, then we'll talk again."

She crimped an eye. "Doesn't being so clever get exhausting?" Ves titled her head at Ben.

"Master Skywalker, you're calling me a liar based secondary sources. I don't like that. It also doesn't make me want to respect any sort of command you could have over me."

Ben threw up his hands. "You lied about crashing your ship. You lied about losing your lightsaber and the rest of your things. You lied to the Raining Leaves and passed on information to the Nightsisters. You're Sith."

"And I've had some experience with the Sith, I'm sure you've heard." Luke met her eye and did not look away. "I'm giving you the chance to prove me wrong, however, which from what I've heard may be a big deal."

Obi-Wan's presence was unobtrusive as always. He hovered politely at the edge of Luke's perception until he felt it had been long enough to be noticed and moved slowly into the room. After all, the view was, as always, breathtaking.

"Credit for your thoughts?"

Luke shook himself out of his thoughts, turning to give Obi-Wan a smile. "If I had one for all of them, I'd be able to buy myself a planet," he said.

Luke now understood why Obi-Wan had asked him before not to reveal much of his future. Learning that, in two short years, he'd apparently forged an alliance with a group--a group!--of Sith was disorienting enough. To know that their liaison was a girl who couldn't be older than Ben was even more so. And the fact that she was Ben's age opened up a whole separate set of worries that Luke had hoped to avoid until Ben was at least thirty.

"I think I learned more from Ben than I wanted to," he said, gesturing with his head at one of the empty couches around him. It felt odd for Luke to be sitting while the man he looked up to was standing, as though Luke was of higher status. Technically he was, but Luke would never be able to see it that way.

"Maybe I can help?" Obi-Wan offered quietly, unable to stop his concern at the roiling discomfort on Luke's face— force be damned, he still had eyes, didn't he?

Luke shook his head, looking bashful. "Mostly, it's a father instinct, I think," he explained. "Ben's had these two years to grow up more and I don't know so much of what's happened to him--to both of us. And it seems just yesterday that he was born, too."

Obi-Wan's eyebrows rose at Luke's tone. It was— ah, a girl. Anakin might have though he was terribly secretive, but his master had always known.

"I see," he replied, with measured caution. Normally he'd caution against attachment, but it seemed there was no stopping Luke's now-lifelong innovations. And wasn't that his right, as Grandmaster?

"I'm afraid I haven't much good advise. Time will pass, and young men grow up, no matter what we do."

"And here I thought I could keep him as a baby forever," Luke said with a shake of his head. "Mostly I just want him to be safe. But somehow I don't think Skywalkers are physically capable of staying out of dangerous situations."

"Well you won't find any arguments about that from me," And he had to laugh because wasn't that just the truth, "But you must remember, Skywalkers also seem to have an uncanny ability to get out of them as well."

"True." Luke chuckled. "I don't want to think about how many times you had to watch my father get in and out of a tangle."

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A Shadow and a Threat

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