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 ma.s.s 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 pinp.r.i.c.ks 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 fict.i.tious 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 Ken.o.bi. 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."

Embarra.s.sment, 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 a.s.surance 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 technology 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. m.u.f.fled. 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.

The other night, seeing Ben blindsided by reminders of his mother, seeing how her loss still affected him, and seeing how his father instinctively reached out for him, to comfort him, I was of course reminded of you.

He felt his jaw drop open and closed it immediately, slamming walls down over his own presence in the Force. Vestara was reminded of her father watching Luke comfort Ben? What was going on? What in- And then he understood.

Ben remembered thinking that Vestara walked on a knife blade in dealing with Gavar Khai. It made his own clashes with Luke years earlier seem like unimportant spats. Even at their worst moments, Ben had never experienced the sort of fear Vestara had to face every waking moment-knowing that if you disappointed your dad, you wouldn't get a lecture and a sigh, but a lightsaber to your gut.

She had created a fantasy relationship with the parent who would indeed later try to kill her-whom she would have to slay in order to survive.

"I've seen enough," Ben said, and started to delete the letters.

"No." Vestara was angry at him again now, and he didn't blame her one bit. He felt ... embarra.s.sed. Ashamed, at intruding into this deeply personal moment. Vestara's wistful yearnings for the sort of thing Ben had taken for granted all his life shamed him. He shouldn't have pried-but how could he have known?

"You wanted to read them? Then read them. All of them."

"I ... shouldn't. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable."

She laughed, harshly. "Too late," she said. "Read them."

So he did.

And I wonder sometimes what I would be like if I had grown up with a father who was cold and indifferent, or determined to drive me toward a hard destiny in a more cold and ruthless world. I'm not sure I would like myself, and I'm so happy that you have always been kind and supportive.

There was a second letter, in which Vestara expressed her grat.i.tude for her "Papa's" protective nature. The final letter, the one he had surprised Vestara writing, was the most astounding of all. Gavar Khai, a Jedi Knight? Vestara, his loving daughter and dedicated apprentice? In the letters depicting a completely false reality was a warmth and ease he had never seen between father and daughter in real life. Quietly, he turned off the computer, rose, and turned to face her.

He had released the wrapped blankets and now she lay uncovered, curled up, facing away from him. Words crowded his throat, too many to speak all at once. Ben stood for a while, until it became awkward, then muttered, "Ah, to h.e.l.l with it," and lay down beside her. Knowing he'd get an elbow to the stomach or worse if this was the wrong thing to do, he wrapped an arm around her slender waist and curled his body protectively around hers.

She lay still, stiff in his embrace, and then he felt her shaking with silent sobs. His heart aching for her, he leaned his cheek on her hair.

"I'm so sorry, Ves. I didn't know. I couldn't know ..."

Vestara nodded, still silent, still shaking. Ben reached and gently stroked her hair, as if this fierce and proud young woman were a child in need of comforting, and she accepted it. Ben closed his eyes, melting against her. They lay like that for a long time. Ben was almost asleep when she turned in his embrace.

"Ben?" She lifted her face up to his. "Do ... you think I could?"

"Could what?"

A long, long silence. She had completely dropped her guard. He could sense her in a way he never had before, and knew that whatever she was about to ask meant everything to her. That she was full of hope and fear so strong it almost overpowered her, and that she knew she was opening completely to him. He waited, patiently. In this moment that seemed to stretch out forever, Ben realized that when it came to Vestara, he had all the patience in the universe.

Then, softly, in a voice that quivered, she said the words that made Ben's heart leap. The words he had been wanting to hear for so long.

"... become a Jedi."

For a moment he couldn't speak. He felt her fear grow-fear of rejection, fear of the trust she was offering, and while he struggled for the words he concentrated on sending her rea.s.surance, comfort ... yes, and love ... in the Force.

"Vestara Khai," he said, his voice as soft as hers had been, "I know you can do anything you want. Yes. Oh, yes. You can become a Jedi. And it would be the greatest honor of my life to help you. I'll be there every step of the way. I promise."

Relief and joy and hope emanated from her, chasing away the tense, cold, disabling fear, and she smiled radiantly. Following an impulse, Ben reached and brushed the little scar at the corner of her mouth gently with his thumb. She didn't pull away, instead closed her eyes. His lips followed his touch, pressing a kiss on what he knew she despised most about herself, letting her know he found it beautiful, found her, all of her, beautiful. She understood at once, and he tasted the salt of sudden tears as she turned her head slightly to complete the kiss. He held her tightly, both of them trembling, caught up in the overwhelming release of at last laying down the weapons of suspicion and hatred.

She would become a Jedi-a great Jedi. Finally, she would walk in the light, and feel its warmth, and open her heart to the joy of giving and receiving complete and utter trust.

Trust ... and love.

And Ben would be with her.

Every step of the way.

"I'm glad to hear you're finally coming back to Coruscant," Leia was saying. Her hologram stood before Luke, and he couldn't help but think about the first time he had seen her-just like this, a small hologram. Forty years had come and gone since that time, and they had been through so much together. But at her core, she was still the Leia he had seen then, determined and beautiful, the brave and amazing woman he was proud to call "sister." Jaina sat beside him, letting him do most of the talking.

"We should, I hope, be arriving at the same time," Leia continued.

"I thought you were working with Dorvan and Treen," Luke said. "And you said you wanted to help Padnel ease into his role."

"I was working with Treen and Dorvan, and we were at least able to have dinner with Padnel. From what I've heard, he's doing fine on his own. We ... left for a while to chase a lead on Daala's location."

Luke and Jaina exchanged glances. "Any luck?"

Leia glanced over at something or someone Luke couldn't see and made a slight face. "I'll let you know. We ran into some ... old friends. It's been ... interesting."

Luke couldn't help but chuckle. "Sounds like nothing's changed much then. We'll see you soon."

" 'Bye, Mom. Give Dad a hug for me."

When Leia's image had disappeared, Jaina turned to Luke. "When we get back, I need to talk to Natua," she said. "She thinks she may have a lead on Ship. I didn't want to say anything to Mom until Natua told me about it."