(Copyright 1994, Genevieve Williams. All rights reserved. Based on characters and situations created by George Lucas. All other elements are the author's creation. Any resemblance to real or fictional persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This piece may be distributed freely with the inclusion of this notice and written notification to the author.) Star Wars: Child of Darkness - Part I by Genevieve Williams K'Tarah stood by the large picture window in her apartment's main room, her narrow features harshly defined by the bright lights of Coruscant's night. Her long, dark hair was tousled, although she had tucked it casually behind her ears. Barefoot, she wore a long, dark-colored robe of some rough-woven fabric, and the expression on her face was a combination of fear and that slightly surprised, sleepy look of one who has been abruptly awakened. But her eyes, as Luke Skywalker could see even from across the room, were clear, and held some starkness in the face of the city lights. At length she spoke, although she did not turn from the window. "You, too?" she asked, her tone one of inflicted calm. Luke's fingers tightened on the armrests of the chair in which he sat, in a corner off to K'Tarah's left. "Yes," he said quietly, watching her with some concern. Once before, in the scant time they'd known each other, this had happened; both of them awakened suddenly by dreams of some deadly, impending disaster. The last time these dreams had been washes of another Jedi's memory, as they had slept in a forest permeated by the old Jedi Master Hane's presence. This time, there was no such obvious source. K'Tarah nodded slowly, the exhalation of her breath a soft sigh in the silence. "Yes. You came from the Imperial palace?" Luke leaned forward to follow her gaze out the window, saw the palace's gargantuan structure rising high on the horizon like the flexing of some hulking winged beast. The old-fashioned chair creaked beneath the shift in weight, an oddly comforting sound. He looked back at K'Tarah and nodded, even though she wasn't looking at him. At last K'Tarah turned from the window, her dark eyes studying Luke until he was tempted to fidget. With some effort he stayed still, waiting for her to complete her thought. "Your sister felt nothing?" she asked at length. Luke dropped his eyes at that, considering. At last he looked up again, shook his head. "When I awoke, I knew I should come here. I would have felt it if the same thing had happened to Leia - she was much nearer to me, and of course I've known her longer. Whatever's going on here, it seems to only involve the two of us." And I know her far better, he thought but didn't say. K'Tarah turned away and slowly began to pace the floor, the cloth of her robe rustling against her ankles with a soft scratching sound. For a long moment neither of them spoke. "What did you see?" Luke finally asked. She stopped, then, but did not turn. Beneath the tangled mass of her hair her back was stiff and straight as a wall, but Luke saw her hands, hanging loosely at her sides, tremble slightly. He realized she was terrified. And well she might be, if her dream had been anything like his. He stood, and walked across the room, his boots sounding uncommonly loud in the silence. He stopped beside her, turned toward her. "K'Tarah, you musn't give in to fear," he said softly. We need to find out what's going on, why this is happening." She was still, silent and - separate. He could feel her shutting him out, as surely as if she had physically shut him out of her way. He looked her in the eye and spoke again. "K'Tarah," he said, his voice still quiet, "you are a Jedi, and the Force is your ally." Her hands moved, rose from her sides, fingers interlaced. She examined one of the rings she wore - a private vanity, those; nothing a Jedi found useful or necessary - and looked thoughtful for a long moment. Her fingers were long, thin, graceful; they did not look to have ever wielded anything harsher than the stringed musical instrument she had played on Terron. Luke knew differently, from their sparring practices together; a grip like iron she had, and wrists so flexible that most of his attempts to disarm during such sessions failed. "There was a child," K'Tarah said at last, stepping away from him to look out the window again. The words and movement startled him, momentarily; they had seemed a tableau, save the nervous working of her hands, and suddenly she stepped from it, out of silence and shadows cast against the city lights of Coruscant's night. "A girl," she added, her words coming in brief outbursts, as if she found speaking to be suddenly difficult, a foriegn activity. "Very young, I think, and pale, with dark eyes." Luke nodded, still standing where he had been when she had moved, now behind her and looking over her shoulder at the moving lights of repulsor-vehicles. "As I did," he said, meaning, go on. K'Tarah's shoulders moved; perhaps hunched just a bit. Her hand reached up; slender fingers played with long, dark hair, gently drawing tangles out. "She stood in a dark place - it was night there, I think. She was not frightened." K'Tarah's head turned; he saw the thoughtful frown in her profile. "And I worried that she was not frightened. I thought that she ought to be, that something waited in that place for her, that it would consume her if it could..." Her voice roughened, as if this were something she had witnessed rather than dreamed, and relived it in this dark moment. "I wanted to take her hand and take her away from there, I wanted to scream 'Run!', I wanted to fight whatever waited there...but I could not move. Something held me back from the child, and then she looked at me. A shift of eyes from some point behind me to my face, and suddenly I was afraid of her. She smiled..." K'Tarah trailed off, crossing her arms, willing away the vision that came upon her again as she spoke of it. The child's smile had not been pleasant, a baring of teeth as the eyes glittered, hard malice and ill intent. "I knew she wanted me destroyed," she said, conscious effort keeping the tremor from her voice. "I held my lightsaber in my hand, but I could not strike. My will was my own, but it would not permit me." She sounded almost puzzled at that, and paused. When she resumed, the look on her face was not entirely pleasant. "Then something dark closed around me, around my mind, and offered the means to do away with this threat before me. And when I refused, the child advanced, and there was laughter..." She stopped speaking, astonished to discover tears welling behind her eyes. She forced them back, refusing to cry over some child she didn't even know, here, in the middle of the night with one of the few people whose opinion of her she valued standing behind her and listening. "Pride," he said mildly, and she set her jaw and looked away. Peace, she needed peace, and calm... A step disturbed her meditation, but it was only Luke, crossing the room again and disappearing into the apartment's tiny kitchen. She stood very still, staring at the city lights and very carefully not thinking, until he returned and placed a cup in her hands - Terron kvi, from the smell. She drank, and relaxed, the sharp scent of the drink clearing the cobwebs from her mind. She glanced at Luke, nodded thanks, and he smiled. "Well," she said, all business again, that quiet confidence that was her casual manner. "What now?" He sobered, settled on the window seat and studied her a moment. The sharpness of her face had relaxed into something calmer - not peace, not while this hung over their heads, but control. "I saw - something a lot like what you did," he said quietly, saw her eyes darken and brow furrow - thoughtfulness this time, concern for him, directed outward. That was good, for her at least; worry held inside did little good, ringing around inside the mind until it burst out, usually at time and place least convenient for dealing with such things. "Except," he continued, "I could see you, as well as the girl; you were holding out your hand to her, and she looked frightened, then - angry, I guess. She wouldn't go. She looked behind you then, but I couldn't see what she was looking at. But when she looked back at you, you - changed. You ignited your lightsaber, as if you were going to attack, and I wanted to stop you. But you stopped yourself," he added, watching her frown deepen. "And just stood still. Then the girl stepped forward, and I knew unless I did something both you and she would die. And then I woke up." He had not looked away from her as he said this; he saw her close her eyes briefly and take a deep breath, then look up to meet his gaze again. "Well," she said, draining the cup. "We have our work cut out for us, don't we?" It was Luke's turn to frown. "What do you mean?" he asked, although he thought he knew. "We have to find this child. Something dark seeks her, Luke; it mustn't take her. The Force knows why it's up to us - " "We are Jedi," he reminded her. "Right now, we're the only Jedi. That's why; you know it as well as I do." She gestured half-helplessly. "Where do we start? We have the whole galaxy to search in." He smiled ruefully, but there was peace in the look he directed at her. "We trust in the Force," he said. "And we wait." For a moment it looked as if she might argue the point - until she remembered to whom she spoke. A Jedi Master. Like Hane. "Yes," she replied hoarsely, nodding assent. Luke yawned and stood, stretching. "Meanwhile, I don't know about you, but I'm beat. Will you be all right?" She nodded, her gaze travelling past him, out over the city again. "I'll be fine," she said, that calm self-assurance she cloaked herself with settling over her again. "Get some sleep, huh?" He nodded in return, headed for the door, touching her shoulder on the way out. Likely she would be all right, he decided as he left. As all right as she could be, until whatever path the Force had set on them reached its destination. His sister Leia was down in the vast traffic-control room, surrounded by monitor screens, control panels and the technicians to work them, and the steady hum of inbound and outbound com. When he joined her, she pointed to one of the screens. Scan images already minutes old showed a strike force, just out of hyperspace and going through first V dump at system edge, a rapid deceleration that wore on the nerves and ship systems alike. "That's Han?" he queried to her unspoken statement, and she nodded. "Just back from Trask, in fact," she said. "Now we find out how far that Imperial governor out there's willing to bend." "Trask," he murmured, more to himself than to her. Something about the name had struck up a resonance, somewhere inside. "When's debriefing?" he asked, louder. Leia sighed. "As soon as he's landed," she replied, fingering the sleeve of her Jedi robe. "I know he'd rather get some rest. But the Council wants that sector, and Trask looks like the best key we're going to get." Luke raised an eyebrow. "You've been asked to go." It was a statement, not a question. She nodded. "I'd rather not, to be honest. But we don't have many with the right kind of training, and most diplomatic personnel are still involved with that skirmish over in the Holan system. So it looks like I'm it." Luke didn't reply; glancing at him, she caught the thoughtful look on his face. "What is it?" she asked. He shook his head. "I'm not sure," he answered. "But once he's through debriefing, both of you come by. There's something..." Leaving the thought incomplete, he turned and headed out the door. Leia looked after him a moment, concerned, then shrugged and went to ask one of the techs to open a line to the Millenium Falcon. Whatever was on Luke's mind, she'd learn soon enough. "So that's it, then?" Luke sounded mildly disappointed. Han shrugged. "I told you, kid, it's nothin' but some old washout making a fuss. Trouble is, he's got enough military force on that miserable heap of a planet to hold the entire system against us, which means that whole sector. Only other known routes out that way would take more time and resources than we've got right now." Luke glanced at K'Tarah, who was sitting to his left, hands pressed together in her lap. "Is that all he's got?" she asked, her voice sounding strained. Han glanced at the young woman in his turn, studying the oddly intent look on her face. He hadn't quite gotten used to her yet; she'd barely arrived on Coruscant when he'd had to go off on this mission to Trask, and it seemed like every time he turned around she and Luke were having another sparring match, or else some bizarre conversation about the Force that only seemed to be half-spoken. It was a little disconcerting, even to an old smuggler - not old, he could almost hear Leia admonishing him teasingly, just weatherbeaten - who thought he'd seen it all in his galaxy-roving days. But he only grinned. "What else were you expecting?" he asked; but at the same time, Leia asked, "What is it, K'Tarah?" He looked at his wife, who now seemed pretty tense herself. Jedi, he thought, remembering, as he did at such times, that there were some things he'd likely never understand. Well, that was life, he thought with healthy irony. Just when you think you know the universe... Luke spoke up again. "We think there might be some dark-side presence there," he explained. Han frowned, knowing that wasn't the whole story. He shrugged. "Well, now that you mention it...some of the com- chatter we picked up - had a hell of a time decoding it, I'll tell you - said something about consulting a wizard or some such. I'll have to get the transcription - but maybe that's it. Smells fishy, though, if you ask me." Luke hesitated, then nodded. "Probably nothing. Thought I'd ask, though." And he changed the subject. But Leia caught the sideward motion of his eyes, saw K'Tarah catch that gaze and hold it a moment. Evidently, whatever it was, they weren't going to discuss it in front of Han. Why? To protect K'Tarah, perhaps, if she's involved with this, she thought doubtfully. What else? We've known each other too long for this kind of subterfuge. They spoke awhile longer, catching up; then Han got to his feet, saying he wanted to check on some repairs Chewbacca was making and get cleaned up. Leia glanced at Luke and K'Tarah a moment longer, wanting to know whatever it was they knew; but Luke met her gaze, then: Later. Deliberately linking her arm with Han's, she led him out of the room, not without a worried backward glance at the two figures remaining within, alike in their black-robed stillness. K'Tarah was the first to speak after Han and Leia left. "It's a trap," she said, loosening her hands' white-knuckled grip on each other. "Consulting a wizard?" Luke smiled ruefully. "Of course it's a trap," he said, and she relaxed, almost smiled in return. "It's too convenient," he said. "I don't like that kind of convenience. I'll tell you - if Trask is it, and I'm almost sure it is, then someone sent us that dream. Someone who wants us, and us in particular - I don't know what for. Nothing good." She sat still, considering that. "Why not your sister?" He shrugged. "I don't know. If it is someone strong in the Force who's baiting us, perhaps he knows Leia'd be going anyway; she's been the New Republic's official envoy for the past few years. But you and I don't go on diplomatic missions; I've only been sent when it looks like the presence of a Jedi Knight would work in our favor, since I resigned my commission." He didn't add what they both already knew: that the Council hadn't decided how the three known Jedi in the entire galaxy were supposed to figure in their governmental system, especially when only one had any diplomatic experience. K'Tarah stood up, paced the floor restlessly. Luke's apartment in the old Imperial palace was even more spartan than her own, almost ascetic. Clearly he, like herself, had learned to travel light over the years; or perhaps it was simply that the Jedi had little need for possessions. "Patience," old Master Hane's voice whispered inside her head, a gentle brush of otherworldly breeze; she relaxed, somewhat comforted by that presence here, where everything - even her own quarters - was dreadfully foreign. Well; one had to get used to such things, if one were in her position. Luke said Trask, and said it was too convenient, too obvious, this news of Han's they'd both known would come, by what agent of the Force she preferred not to speculate, right on the heels of that shared dream. "We go to Trask, then," she said quietly, and Luke nodded. Governor Jacon Kantwel was evidently a man who combined business with pleasure. He conducted most of his dealings from his home near the center of Trask's capital city, which managed to be at once both stately and sprawling. The house itself was older than Imperial rule, and elegant, with its colonnaded covered walkways and tended gardens. It bespoke civilization and civility, like its owner, although he possessed in addition a fair supply of stubborness and testiness. Well; one did not get to be Imperial governor by being pliant, especially if one were Kantwel's age. That was, at least, Leia's thought as she walked with him along one of those walkways, their respective entourages filing behind them and no doubt bored to tears with this odd charade called diplomacy. It was something Leia herself had almost forgotten, in the years following the destruction of Alderaan, living outside the law and among guerillas who favored action over fancy speeches. The complexity of Governor Kantwel's extended monologues was enough to make her nostalgic. Must be all that time spent with Han. Thinking of that, she hazarded a quick glance behind her. Han walked there, looking fidgety and suspicious and entirely displeased with the situation. She couldn't really blame him. Surrounded by Kantwel's aides, with Luke and K'Tarah chased off on some mysterious mission of their own, Chewie down at the landing bay with the Falcon - a nod to Imperial specieism, that - Han was probably wishing for a little more backup just now. She was inclined to agree. Ignoring, for the moment, Kantwel's enumeration of Trask's benefits from Imperial rule, she extended her thoughts outward, seeking her brother and his companion... K'Tarah piloted the modified landspeeder, which had been crammed into the shuttle she and Luke had landed in, both vehicles borrowed from the Mon Calamari star cruiser that was the only vessel of such size in Leia's escort. That had been a sudden change in plans, made almost as soon as they'd arrived in the Trask system, Han and Chewie working braking thrusters to dump velocity, pulling at once with and against the gravity well, the heart- and gut-wrenching V dumps seeming to yank them every direction at once - and Luke and K'Tarah looking at one another with sudden, terrible understanding. Here it was, certainly. They had felt it, before even landing, a certitude absolute and immediate, while Chewbacca pulled scan images already minutes old, insystem updates that showed ships where they'd been instead of where they were, and Han sent com transmissions that had to reach planetary sensors before they could be picked up, let alone considered and replied to. Transmission sent, and Han had leaned back in his chair, patient with the necessity of waiting, while behind him was felt a patience-shattering urgency. Leia had felt it, glanced at her brother who stared at the cloud-enshrouded planet below them much as he had stared at Vader's flagship - so long ago now it seemed - with that at once shocked and eager attentiveness. Attention, and special knowledge. And then he had turned, looked as the cockpit door slid open and K'Tarah stood there, leaning against the doorframe as if for support, her face a mirror of his own. Now they sped over grassy hills, sometimes on the road that wound through them, sometimes not; following that presence that beckoned like a navigation buoy in the darkness and uncertainty of system entry. No knowing what waited for them at the end of this journey; but that they would go was not questioned. Even by Leia, who had looked as if she would rather go with them to whatever they faced, than stay behind, and play the game of diplomacy, not knowing for certain where they were or if they were dead - or worse. But Governor Kantwel was expecting her, even if only to attempt to bend her ear in his favor; even should he do the unexpected and join the New Republic without a fight, no doubt he wished to remain in a position of authority here. And Leia would have to let him, or else ensure his exile from Trask. At the very least. Deposed Imperial governors were dangerous, even if the military might of the Empire that had once supported their rule now suffered a broken back, even if what amounted to a strike force was slewing through planetary orbit overhead, a little extra incentive on the part of the New Republic. Luke closed those thoughts from his mind; galactic politics were not the province of the Jedi. Not yet, with so few of them. And now they risked it all; of that he was certain. Whatever awaited them. Beside him, K'Tarah glanced at him, a quick flicker of eyes before her attention returned to the terrain before them. If she had any worries, she did not show them now; that was K'Tarah, utterly; to keep her own counsel. Unless he were to ask her, pointedly. Peace, he thought. Not now. K'Tarah breathed deeply of this place; another planet, another scent to the air. Hereabouts was mostly grassland; they hadn't seen much in the way of trees, after leaving the city. That departure might have excited some comment; they weren't sure. Leia would know, if Kantwel ever got the upper hand and decided to ask her about it. She cleared her mind of such considerations. There was only what lay ahead, and that, at least, she could fight; she was a Jedi, the Force was her ally, and politics were a game she had no desire to know. The distance slipped away beneath the speeder's repulor field, the wind whipping through their hair at the speeds they were reaching; not haste, not yet, but something pushing at the edges of both their minds, urging them on. It was, therefore, hardly a surprise when Luke glanced westward, then pointed; K'Tarah slewed the speeder around a wide arc, curving gently in the direction he indicated until the plume of black smoke lay directly ahead of them, boiling out of the gentle wrinkle of hills off to the west. "Something's afire," K'Tarah shouted, as the ground below them sloped, the landspeeder rising and falling as it followed the gentle grade of the hills. "Smell it?" He did. Something burning - a sudden flash, skimming across the dunes in a speeder much like this one, topping the crest and seeing - he closed his eyes a moment, opened them to look at K'Tarah. Her face bore a closed, set expression, and he recalled that she had memories of her own, tales told by the fireside, from the Jedi Master who'd trained her, old as the hills and wise. They topped the last rise, saw the fire burning in the bowl- shaped valley below. It had been a township of some kind; they could see crop fields, heavy automated machinery that crawled over the land in mechanical ignorance of the thing they witnessed. K'Tarah touched the brakes; gradually the landspeeder slowed, coasting to a gentle stop some distance from the little settlement. She killed the engines, reached under the seat for a medkit and drew out a pair of filter masks, wordlessly handed one to him. There was a starkness about her eyes, and he saw that she felt it too; the dark presence here was as palpable as the acrid odor of the smoke that mushroomed into the sky, to be carried off by the wind. They climbed out of the speeder, pulling the long-nosed, head-covering masks over their faces, the least precaution when going into smoke of a fire of unknown fuel. The smoke billowed around them in curling tendrils, as if seeking to draw them into its suffocating embrace. Luke could see through the mask's goggles, when a trick of the wind cleared the air a little ways ahead. Small buildings of some synthetic material, looking like they'd melted rather than burned; some taller structures that were probably storage silos, with smoke pouring from every aperture. Whoever was responsible for this was making things expensive for Governor Kantwel...he stopped. Only a few dead could be seen from here, their bodies blackened and still smoking... "Not much left, is there?" K'Tarah asked beside him, her voice hoarse through the mask's filters. It disturbed the moment of shocked silence; he went on. They could hear the crackling of what was left of the fire now, but no voices, and no one moved in that dense cloud of smoke. K'Tarah poked at one or two of the little dwellings, melted and collapsed from the intense heat, then turned to him and shrugged. He couldn't see her face, but there was disgust and horror about her stance, in the set of her shoulders, that such things still happened in the galaxy. That darkness itself could not be defeated entire. He had seen it all before. Perhaps she guessed, from his silence, for she said nothing more for a long moment, only made her way through the smoke. He followed, to keep her in sight. It didn't seem good for either of them to be wandering around here alone. He stretched out, then, felt beyond the smoke and the lifeless hulks of twisted plastic and metal that had once been homes, however cramped and manufactured. The fire was almost out, except for the silos, but what there was seemed to growl like a thing alive against the questing tendril of the Force that he brushed it with. He cleared his mind against that - for now, at least, he had other priorities. Ahead of him, in the direction K'Tarah had gone, he could detect a faint glimmer, unremarkable except that here, it was an anomaly. Then he heard K'Tarah's voice, muffled by her mask but still audible, calling his name. He quickened his stride, moved unerringly through the shifting smoke until he found her, crouched on the ground near one of the collapsed structures. "Here," she was saying, as the twisted hulk of melted material tilted off of the ground, freeing something that seemed caught beneath it. Luke saw what she was about, reached out and seized the still-hot stuff and hurled it aside, while K'Tarah darted forward and lifted something in her arms. Luke carefully dropped the ruined hovel some distance away, then pulled off his cloak and handed it to her. She carefully wrapped it around her burden, then headed off toward the speeder, rapidly disappearing into the clouds of smoke. Luke made to follow her, then paused and looked at the ground where the melted structure had stood. Gobs of plastic, and even metal, were still stuck, and the grass was charred where fire had melted holes in the stuff - so much for fireproofing, he thought - but there was a small area, a kind of pocket in the ground, where the grass was still whole and nothing had melted. He hurried after K'Tarah. The unofficial part of the meeting was over, and now the official part could begin. Instead of walking through Kantwel's expansive gardens, Leia and her contingent - which consisted of two aides and Han, since it would be bad form to bring armed guards to a diplomatic meeting - were seated in a small, comfortable council chamber, at a rectangular table with Kantwel and his assistants sitting across from them. Beside her, Han was still. He'd fidgeted on that long tour through what could almost be considered an estate, but he recognized the importance of this meeting; it would mean a lot less work for all of them if Kantwel was willing to bring Trask to the New Republic now. She returned her focus to the governor. "...So you see," he was saying, in the manner of politicians everywhere, "I cannot with good countenance simply turn the administration of this system over to the New Republic. It is not that I oppose your goals, my dear" - Leia bristled at that, but the man was thirty years her senior, she supposed he'd earned the privilege - "but I well recognize the key position that I hold here. I have a dozen star systems at my back whose administrators were Imperial appointees and greatly enjoy the power they hold. I would not appreciate having the military forces they are capable of throwing in my direction brought to bear." Leia was tempted to sigh, but held her peace. Jedi training had taught her that much - patience was more likely to win the day in this sort of conflict. But Kantwel had been edging around this same argument all day, and she had nothing but the same answer to give him. "As I have pointed out, Governor," she said quietly, "if you were to peacefully join the New Republic, Trask's garrison would remain intact. In addition, the New Republic military would lend support, for the Traskan system would then officially be under our protection." She could predict his next question; either the Force or years of haranguing on the Senate floor enabled her to answer before he even asked. "We seek to establish representative government in every system that joins us, Governor Kantwel," she said. "That means an electoral system. Whether or not you have a place in the resulting structure depends on several factors, not the least of which is how the Traskans view your representation of their interests thus far. The means by which Trask is brought into the New Republic is one of those factors, Governor, as I am sure you're aware." She let him think that one over for a moment, then continued. "The New Republic has grown almost exponentially of late," she said, "and most of those systems which have joined us did so voluntarily - a diplomatic corps was necessary only to ensure a smooth transition of political and military power. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that the majority of the star systems in the galaxy are now under our jurisdiction. Against that, Governor" - and here she focused her gaze on him, seeking not manipulation but understanding - "the military might of one sector is a minor consideration." She held her breath; that statement had been a risk, and Kantwel was testy enough to take offense at it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Han sit up straight. Kantwel's eyes narrowed, but his voice, when he spoke, was still calm and unperturbed. "Excellent point. But I am concerned with who, exactly, would be present to effect this transition of power. And who would be responsible for the garrison that is, at present, still under my jurisdiction." She regarded him narrowly at that, but detected no hostility, only concern. He did not intend to threaten her; the point was legitimate. Point for point, she thought wryly; perhaps he was only countering her previous statement with a potentially challenging assertion of his own. She glanced sideways at Han, saw his eyes sliding to meet her own. There was suspicion there, suspicion of their gracious host, developed over years of evading the law and, too often, confronting it from the wrong side. But if Kantwel was stalling, what was it he had to hide? She thought again of K'Tarah and Luke, sitting so still in Luke's apartment on Coruscant. Of K'Tarah's quiet question, and Luke's equally quiet warning to her. A dark side presence. Here, on Trask. And that transmission Han had picked up on his earlier mission here. When Luke arrived at the speeder, K'Tarah had pulled off her mask and unpacked the medkit. A blanket was spread on the ground, a small, huddled object curled up on it. She looked up as he approached, handed him his cloak. He drew it over his shoulders, smelling smoke and burning plastic. And a sudden, strong wave of fear, from the huddle on the blanket before him. K'Tarah turned back toward that; she felt it too. "It's all right," she said in a soothing voice. "He's a friend." Luke peered over her shoulder. A girl, humanoid and no more than ten, was curled up on the blanket, regarding them both with wide, frightened eyes. K'Tarah placed a hand on the child's forehead, and she relaxed a little. "She's not hurt," his companion murmured. "But frightened half out of her wits. She hasn't spoken." He nodded, rose and went over to the speeder. There was a water bottle under the other seat; he fetched it, brought it back, and settled quietly next to the child. "Here," he said, meaning, Peace. Dark eyes followed his movements fearfully; a thin, bird- claw-like hand reached out and snatched the bottle away from him. He looked up to find K'Tarah's gaze meeting his. "What do you - " he began, but she held up a hand: Later. He nodded, sat back, as K'Tarah spoke softly to the child, her voice strangely accented. The girl answered, a thin, wavering voice, too quiet for him to hear what was said. He rose, walked a little ways away, disturbed by implications that were beginning to filter through. This child was afraid. Afraid of him. He looked back, remembered wide dark eyes in a smooth, unscarred face. Unharmed by a mass of melted plastic and metal, that should by rights have crushed her. A dream he and K'Tarah had shared. This child, laughing mockingly, with the power to kill the very person who now tried to help her. And darkness, in the dream and in this place. His blue eyes searched the horizon, followed the swirls of smoke that was at last beginning to dissipate, carried away on gusts of wind. And he felt, absurdly, that they were observed. A footstep behind him; he turned. K'Tarah stood there, her face calm. "She says her name is Andra," the woman said quietly. "She - lives here. Or did. Her parents were farmers. I can't get much else out of her, understandably; but it sounds like the whole place just went up in flames. Suddenly." She stood there, watching him while he watched the huddle on the blanket behind her, thinking. "Darkness," he said, and she nodded. Leia sighed and rubbed her temples; it had been a long day, and only now, having returned to the suite of rooms allotted to her and Han by Governor Kantwel, did she have any privacy. There was a large main room, with a window looking out onto the inner courtyard of Kantwel's home, which consisted of some of the elaborate gardens they'd walked through that day. Looking at them relaxed her, but only somewhat; a vague disquiet hovered at the edge of her awareness, not so defined that she could get a fix on it. Putting that from her mind for the moment, she turned. Han half-sat, half-sprawled on the room's long couch, watching her with some concern. "You all right?" he asked. She shrugged. "I'm not sure. How do you think it went?" He raised an eyebrow. "Hey, you're the one with diplomatic training. But if you ask me, he's just being stubborn for the hell of it. And he's a bureaucrat to boot." She had to smile at that. "I agree. Mostly." "Mostly?" The other eyebrow went up. She clenched a fist. "I can't help thinking he's stalling. We've given him plenty of reasons to join the New Republic, and pretty much knocked down everything he had to say in return. There's something else going on that he's not telling us." Han smirked. "Tell me something new. You show me a politician that ain't got something to hide, and I'll show you a dead politician." Leia shook her head. "I don't mean that. I" - but she couldn't explain it. How to describe this feeling, which was nothing more than a vague sense that things weren't quite right? "I don't know. I wish I'd gone with Luke and K'Tarah." Han frowned, looked at the lengthening shadows outside. "Where are those two anyway? That must be some sightseeing trip they went on." She shivered, none too reassured by Han's badly concealed worry. "Maybe they found what they were looking for." At the moment she said it, she knew it was true. She curled her fingers around the lightsaber she'd attached to her belt once she'd gotten back to the suite. And wished acutely that she'd gone with them. Governor Jacon Kantwel prepared to retire for the night, dimming the lights in his chamber and darkening the tint on the room's one large window. Slowly the light in the room grew less, and his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. It had been a long day. A long day of dancing diplomatically around this princess-turned-envoy, unable to explain to her why he could not accede to her wishes, and the wishes of the government she represented. There was, quite simply, too much risk. Not that he particularly feared for himself - he was an old man, he'd held the reins of power in this system for too long, and he greatly wished that someone else were being pulled in two directions at once on this issue - but rather for Trask. He had lived here his whole life, or at least as much of it as counted, and although he sometimes felt that he wouldn't care what happened to the planet after he was gone...nonetheless, he cared now. "Enough to risk your life?" The voice was low, quietly mocking. "Or are you prepared for that final step, Governor?" He turned, his face a thin mask of calm, although such masks never worked. Not with him. "You know I do not sanction this," he replied coolly. "Careful, Governor," the voice admonished. Softly, so very softly. "Your usefulness is not infinite. You may yet get what you wish - when my end of our bargain is secure." Kantwel only nodded. "It will be soon," the voice added, now taking on a tone of anticipation. "The snare is laid, the quarry approaches. Make no hasty resolutions." The barest whisper, and the darkness in the corner that was not a shadow melted into the night, the room seeming a little colder for its passage. Kantwel sat down on the bed, sat a long while, collecting a fresh set of arguments for the morrow. He did not think they would convince her. Three Jedi loose on Trask, and one that might guess, in their face-to-face dealings, what he was hiding. But he might yet salvage something, even if he was no longer sure whether it was for Trask's sake - or his own. They camped in a small gully; scant cover, open to ambush from any number of points, but all that was available. And little could pass a Jedi on watch unobserved. That was Luke's duty, just then; K'Tarah was endeavoring to get their small guest comfortable for the night. Andra could not seem to relax around him, which concerned him more than he cared to admit. He thought on it, nonetheless, although the conclusion that he kept circling back to eased his mind not one whit. He turned; K'Tarah rose from where she had knelt by Andra and came toward him. "She's asleep," she murmured. "Would she stays that way." Luke nodded, went back with her to where their efficient camp was set up. "What do you think?" he asked quietly as they sat down. He heard a faint exhalation that might have been a sigh. "We need to find out who attacked her settlement. It must be whoever's been trying to lead us by the nose all this time. This was a rather obvious move on his part." He nodded again, wishing he could see her face. "She is strong in the Force," he said. "And made a pawn because of it." "Yes," she replied. "And - I think she can lead us to whoever did this. She's terrified, Luke - I can feel it." He considered that. Careful, K'Tarah, he wanted to say. Careful of your motives. But memory arrested his voice, and he couldn't speak. She leaned forward, a movement he sensed more than saw. "My destiny, perhaps," she said then. When he didn't reply, she moved away, rolled herself up in her cloak, near the child whose protector she had become. And Luke stood, and paced, thinking, I didn't need that. Memory washed over him then, of times when he had stood on a similar threshold, and thought himself ready for the challenges a Jedi must face. And he wondered if K'Tarah thought herself ready. True, she was not as impulsive as he had been. Not nearly so reckless. You must do what you feel is right, of course...Decide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could, but...If you choose to face Vader you will do it alone. I cannot interfere...Come with me. It is the only way...Then, only then, a Jedi will you be...You cannot escape your destiny. You must face Darth Vader again. The echoes of the past seemed to pile up into the present, spilling out another memory: old Master Hane, K'Tarah's teacher, sending her forth to face her final challenge, her test to become a Jedi Knight in full: I think the time has come for her to make her way beyond Terron for good and all. And: My past will haunt you no longer...your future is yours to make. Did you foresee this, Hane? There was no answer, save the breezes that ruffled the grass all about, whispering in voices that spoke nothing comprehensible. Troubled, he settled down to wait out the night. He awoke to the sound of young laughter, high and clear as crystal shards. Coming on the heels of his dream as it did, it gave him pause, the dark-eyed child of the vision still seeming to mock him from the depths of unconsciousness even as he returned to the waking world. Then full awareness cleared the cobwebs of dream away, and mingling with the laughter was the sound of K'Tarah's voice, the deep clear resonance it had when she sang. Lacking a stringed instrument such as the one she had played on Terron, she sang unaccompanied in the fresh cold of the day, and Andra - he remembered the name now - laughed in delight. He opened his eyes and sat up, looked at the pair who sat a small distance away. Such was K'Tarah's power, that she could ease the wounds of family death with her song, one he had heard before beneath the trees of Terron's forests, with a blazing bonfire offering warmth and the peace of the hearth. He smiled, remembering the tale of the ballad; a Jedi of the ancient past, trained by a recalcitrant Master, whom the apprentice had coaxed out of his retreat to fight a dark lord that had overrun his land and killed the apprentice's family. That was the ballad, anyway; K'Tarah had confided to him at one point that the political mopping-up that took place afterward had required a planetary tribunal and half-a-dozen Jedi Knights, back in the days when a Jedi was a more common sight in the galaxy. A frown creased his forehead at that, and he wondered again at the forgotten wisdom such songs contained. For K'Tarah to sing that song now, with the confrontation yet ahead of them, and Andra now without family or home... He put it aside, stood as K'Tarah finished the song and smiled at him. She seemed more at ease today; not resigned, but prepared. Not at peace, but calm. "I think we should be gone from here soon," she said. "I do not think our presence has gone unnoticed. And I have work still to do." That stopped him cold, in the act of stowing some of what they'd unpacked the night before in the speeder's storage compartment. After a moment, he turned, searched her expression for what she must be feeling. Her face was smooth and calm as a mask. There was a certainty there, and something about it chilled him. Not naive, no - but strength of will there, such that he wondered if she blinded herself to what she faced and why. He put her to the question. "What are your motives, K'Tarah?" he asked her. "Do you know?" She placed a hand on Andra's shoulder; the gesture was protective. "Why her?" she asked, in a voice barely audible. "When all the rest of her people are dead?" She tilted her chin toward the ruined settlement, and Andra looked up at her, dark eyes growing still darker with fear. "She is a target in this, as much as we are. We could take her with us, protect her, hide her - or we could end it here. He will hunt her, you know." That cut deeply, but he did not turn away. It was not, he thought, at all fair for her to dig into his own past - the more so because he had told it to her. To help her prepare, perhaps, for her own battle. But the question itself was just, and if she was cruel it was not for him. He put the example she'd chosen aside, asked another question instead. "Whose battle are you fighting?" And when she looked away, across the windblown grasses of the Traskan plains: "Is it yours - or hers?" "You have likewise fought," she said, and her voice was hoarse. She wouldn't look at him, but he persisted. "I knew my goal," he replied. "I knew my father could be saved - and in turning him away from the dark side, I rejected it myself." It wasn't enough. There was no way to explain it to her, not until she had faced her own challenge - but he wasn't sure that this was it. "Vengeance is not our way," he told her, wishing he could see her eyes. "Redemption, yes. Mercy, justice. When we must consider such things at all." She whirled to face him then, with such a look that Andra drew back with a startled cry, looking back and forth between the two of them as if trapped. K'Tarah ignored her. "And is it not justice to seek out whoever has done this?" she demanded. "Is it not right to seek retribution for her sake?" He went forward then, Andra darting out of his way, and seized her arm, made her look at him. "Redemption, K'Tarah," he reminded her. "Not retribution." For a long moment they stood like that, while the winds rose and Andra stared at them both with wide eyes. He looked down, at his hand on her arm - that was wrong. Then he let go, and she moved away, her back to him. "Do you understand now?" She stood rigid, her dark hair wind-whipped in abrupt contrast, fists clenched at her sides. For another long moment, she didn't move, while he counted his heartbeats and feared that he'd lost her. Ben, did you ever question your wisdom? Did you ever question the things you said to me? Of course. There was a time you thought you would lose me. And you let me go. "K'Tarah." He spoke the name gently, trying to mend things. If they could be. Something in her seemed to relax at his tone, although she didn't turn around. But she was listening to him, now. "Do as you must," he said to her then. "I won't interfere. I cannot." She did turn, then, and something in her face spoke of release. Perhaps this was right, after all. Perhaps she could feel the darkness in herself, and knew only one way it could be resolved, in this time, with the odors of scorched plastic and scorched flesh still heavy on the wind, and Andra, who stood lost and alone, watching with dark eyes. "Very well," she said quietly. She looked to Andra, reached out a hand. The child came forward, took it, her look one of trust and hope and something else, vague and unidentifiable, and unrelated. And something in Luke overturned at that look, as K'Tarah turned from him, and walked away without a backward glance. If you choose to face Vader you will do it alone. I cannot interfere. The wind picked up, as K'Tarah and her small charge reached the crest of the hill and disappeared over the top. It whipped his cloak around him, ruffled heedlessly through his hair, burned his eyes as he stared at the spot where he had last seen her. He hoped she did understand. He hoped he had done right. To be continued...