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Ben barely waited for the landspeeder to stop before he hopped out of it, grinning broadly as he walked over to the tiny hut. It was cramped and had the aesthetic appeal of the average Jawa, but it had not been touched for as long as Ben could remember. In a way he could not really define, it felt like his.
Maybe it was because he had been named for its last occupant. Old Ben Kenobi had been long dead by the time his young namesake was born, but the myth was still there, as long-lasting as the desert itself. It was said that Kenobi had been able to scare Sand People away with a single glance - that he terrified stormtroopers so much that they would not dare approach him - that he had murdered a moisture farmer and his wife so he could steal away their son. Sasha had delighted in telling Ben that the old man's ghost was still haunting his former home, hunting for the men who had surely come for him in the middle of a dark, starless night. She claimed that even krayt dragons would not come near this place.
Ben did not believe that. To him the old hut had always felt peaceful - almost benevolent. If he had been imaginative enough to believe in spirits, he might have said that something did indeed lurk here. But it was good, surely - a gentle product of a better time.
Helping Blue out of the rundown landspeeder, he stepped inside, carefully closing the squeaky door behind him to keep out sand. Maybe it was silly, but he felt that this was his home in some way, an inheritance from that inscrutable old hermit, and if there was one thing Ben knew how to do, it was look after things that he had been trusted with. He was, after all, nothing else if not dependable.
"Think Uncle Gavin would notice if I stayed here all night?" He collapsed on a stool and leaned against a weathered old workbench. "He's probably too angry at Sasha to notice I'm gone."
Blue beeped consolingly and made his slow, unsteady way to a low table. If Ben had not known better, he would have said the little droid was watching it.
"I know, I know." Ben ran his fingers through his sun-bleached hair. "You know, I'm not really mad at them. It's just that they're all crazy. The Empire, the Rebellion - they're all so far away. It doesn't matter here." He propped his chin on his hands and stared off into space. "I think the entire settlement's..."
He was barely aware of his voice trailing off. The cold was back, a biting chill that reached his bones. "Oh, come on," he snapped at the unfairness of the universe in general and the old hut in particular. "I'm taking care of you!" When the hut quite naturally did not respond, he hugged himself and glared at the single flickering light. No way was he being chased out again. Not even if all the fragging climostats on Tatooine malfunctioned.
Run.
And yet, somehow, it was possible to get even colder. There's no one here. I know there's no one here. Ignoring Blue's curious beep, ignoring the chill in his blood, he stood up slowly and scanned the shadows. "Hello?"
Run.
Something sounded in the distance. Another landspeeder?
No, he realized suddenly. No one had a landspeeder like that. He was listening to a repulsor swoop. A big one. Only crime lords could afford something that expensive.
Run, Ben. Run
Was it a memory? A warning? He did not know and, at that moment, he did not care. He grabbed a warped resonance measurer from the workbench. He did not think it would do much against anyone who could afford such a large repulsor swoop, but it was certainly heavy enough to wound. "Blue. We're leaving."
A high-pitched whine sounded over the thrum of the repulsor swoop. Ben strained his ears, trying to pick up familiar sounds. It was probably a speeder bike, but something that ran that cleanly had to be well-made or at least in good repair. A bodyguard? he wondered silently. Sometimes tough men and women on speeder bikes came buzzing through Draco's Well, intent on business elsewhere. No one asked where they were going because, when one got right down to it, no one wanted to know.
No time. Hide. Quickly!
Shocked into action more by the urgency in that not-voice than anything else, Ben shoved Blue towards the back of the hut. There was nothing he could do about the landspeeder; he could only hope that it looked abandoned. It certainly was old enough.
Indistinct voices reached his ears. His heart hammering against his ribs, Ben shoved Blue roughly down into what looked like the water storage basement and dove after him, all but dragging the droid into the shadows. He fought the urge to call out to the voice. There was no one here but him and Blue. Or there had not been until these people had showed up. He was just going crazy.
"Search the premises," a woman's voice snapped. No one in Draco's Well ever commanded like that. No one in holonovels did, either. "Take apart everything. I don't care how dusty it is."
"Yes, Admiral."
Suddenly Ben knew why he was hiding in a basement. He knew why he had been warned, whether by his own instincts or an imagined voice - or maybe, as much as he would have ordinarily scoffed at the thought, at the old hermit's benevolent spirit. That curt, mechanical voice had never belonged to any crime lord's lackey. Those were Imperial stormtroopers.
And he knew without a doubt that they were after the Inner Councilor's message.
***
Rowan glowered at the hut, shivering slightly as she stared at the too-neat interior. Someone - probably this Rebel messenger - had kept it in good order. That did not stop her from feeling as if someone was staring at the back of her head. Rowan knew the local folklore about Hermit's Hut. The sooner we're off this planet, the better. The Grand Admiral had better be right about this.
Leaving her trusted few to hunt carefully through the tools and empty chests, she walked into the smaller back room. The bed had not been made, but it had also been cleaned of sand. A single window had been left closed, although it also looked too neat for such an obviously unlived-in hut. The tiny door leading down into the dark basement was cramped and looked mostly undisturbed. But someone had left a landspeeder outside and they were either in the basement or under the bed. And anyone under the bed would have to be the size of one of this planet's disgusting scavenger creatures.
She started for the basement.
"Don't think so." A soft hum sounded behind Rowan. She froze, hardly daring to breath as she felt a tingle against the small of her back. The Rebel had pulled a vibroblade on her.
Slowly the tingle began to make its way up to the back of her neck, then around her collarbone as the Rebel circled her. Even in the half-light of the bedroom she could see the white teeth glinting bright against the girl's dark skin. She looked like a typical swoop racer, complete with goggles and a durable scarf to protect her nose and mouth. But this child - this young woman - moved like a warrior. Like a rancor, she realized with a sinking heart. Like Rage.
"You have the message," she said quietly, trying not to move her body too much. One sliced artery and she would bleed to death in moments. No amount of physical training and agility could change that. "I have five men in the other room. They will be here momentarily. If you cooperate, you may live."
The girl's smile widened. "Appreciate the offer, Admiral Archimedes, but I don't have any message. I'm just here to see what you're doing in my hut."
There was a soft, indignant, decidedly mechanical squawk from the basement. The girl's smile never faltered, nor did her eyes leave Rowan, but she raised her voice above the barest whisper. Her breath smelled like old, singularly awful drink. "Come up before I send a detonator down there."
A boy's head poked out of the basement, wide-eyed and frightened. Rowan stared at him. This was one of the Rebels? He looked more like a scared settler than anything else. The girl laughed softly. "Don't tell me you're on my side. You look like a - "
Rowan moved.
***
Ben saw the Imperial dive away from the girl and reach for her blaster. The girl snarled and slashed with her vibroblade, driving the Imperial toward him. She tumbled once, catching herself with one hand and dove at the girl, knocking the vibroblade out of her hand with a chop and punching her in the face, driving her to her knees. Breathing hard, the Imperial turned and started for the door, already reaching for her comlink.
Reacting more out of instinct and sheer stupidity than anything else, Ben hit her with the resonance measurer.
She collapsed without a sound. Ben swallowed hard and fought rising panic. I hit an Imp. Her rank pins glittered in the faint light. Oh, Maker. I hit an Imp admiral. I'm going to be executed. Sith and sand!
The girl glared at her unconscious opponent, smile gone. "Kriffit. They're going to come check any minute." She started for the basement. "Well? Get down there, hero. That swoop isn't going to steal itself."
Ben tried to form a coherent sentence and failed utterly. "You're…How did you…?"
"Climbed through the window. My speeder bike's outside. Can we go now, oh mighty hero? There's a tunnel up to a cave near here. Hurry up."
"There's…" Ben gaped at her. His brain was screaming something about running and hiding, but the rest of him was still dealing with the fact that he had hit an Imperial officer - and that the girl he was trying to talk to was very probably a dangerous, traitorous Rebel.
The girl sighed. "Look, if it helps, my name is Jessa. Jessa Calrissian."
That, at least, got through. "Ben Darklighter." He took one last look at the Imp and swallowed hard. "We'd better go, huh?"
"Quicker than a spiced swooper, aren't you?" Jessa sighed. "Move it, space waste."
For once Ben did not argue. He ran into the basement as fast as he could, Jessa a half-step behind him.
***
Neither child was afraid, the Emperor noticed with a slight nod of approval. Most adults showed less dignity than these two golden-haired youths as they made their way to the base of his throne and knelt formally. The boy was twelve and wore a black veda cloth robe in imitation of his father. The girl, only six and petite for her age, had adorned her hair with a wreath of expensive septsilk flowers and mladong metalwork.
"You wished to see us, Your Majesty." The boy did not yet know not to speak out of turn, but he showed the proper respect.
In truth he had merely wished to observe them and test them. They were, after all, the Prince and Princess of the Empire - the closest thing in his domain to a true royal family. But there were other matters that needed to be addressed. "You are concerned about your betrothal, Mikel."
The boy glanced up at him. He was a brave one, even if mild manners hid that fact most of the time. A true pity his strength in the Force was so negligible, especially considering his more than impressive lineage. "Your Majesty, I do not want to marry the Hapan Princess. I hardly know her."
"He shouldn't have to if he doesn't want to," the girl added. Her jewel-blue eyes blazed as she actually started to climb to her feet. Only a warning touch from her brother slowed her. Little Denilee had much more brashness than Mikel - and, it might be argued, considerably less sense, even for one as young as herself. As it was, she barely subsided back to a sullen glower.
For the time being, the Emperor ignored her. "You are questioning my decision." It was a statement of fact.
The boy flushed - in embarrassment, not anger or fear. Perhaps he had been too lenient on these children. "It's not that I disapprove, Your Majesty. But I hardly know her. And she probably doesn't want to marry me, either."
"What either of you want is no concern of mine," he snapped. Why his apprentice put up with these brats was beyond him. If the boy had not been so clever - if the girl did not have such courage…
They would have been executed. And their fawning mother with them. "You are dismissed."
The children looked at each other. Mikel bowed quickly and backed out as quickly as dignity and diplomacy allowed. Denilee waited until her brother was too far back to grab her, then climbed to her feet and actually took a step toward the Emperor. "You don't scare me," she said softly. "My daddy's stronger than you and one day he's going to see that you're just a mean old man."
"Denilee!" Mikel grabbed the girl and dragged her out bodily out of the chamber, shielding her with his own body as they made their way out the door.
The Emperor smiled tightly. The raw emotions in that girl were completely wasted on her; her connection to the Force made her brother's look strong. Her words did not worry him. Darth Rage was a loyal man no matter what his horrible daughter might say.
All the same.
He had seen visions lately. Nightmares of the one who would slay him. For all the Circle claimed, his eventual killer would be two impossible things: a descendant of the Chosen One - and a woman.
And Princess Denilee Ismaren Rage was the only one who fit that description.
***
Ben felt Jessa Calrissian push past him as he made his way over to Blue. The Rebel had drawn a blaster from somewhere and carried it loosely in one hand as she made her way to a cluttered, dusty shelving unit. He had not entered the basement before because it seemed as if he was somehow invading the hut's history and its former owner's privacy, but now he felt guilty, as if he had failed to take care of something entrusted to him.
I'm being stupid, he told himself angrily. It's just an old hut. Nonetheless, he tried to step carefully around the condensing canteens and dried foodstuffs, even if his heart was trying to climb up into his throat. Suddenly he was very glad that he had not eaten much at dinner, because if the way his stomach felt now was any indication, it would have been all over the floor. And that would probably not have done anything to win him points in Jessa's eyes.
While she felt along the wall, presumably looking for the door she claimed was hidden down here, Ben occupied himself with poking through the shelves, searching for anything that would be more useful than a bent resonance measurer. Behind a stack of old gears and cracked datacards, his hand closed on a long, thin cylinder that had some nice heft to it. He pulled the strange tool out and held it in front of him, thumbing the activation switch as he listened for any sounds of pursuit.
A beam of emerald-green light sizzled through the air, solidifying into a blade solidly attached to the cylinder. Ben bit back a yelp and tried to shake the thing off his hand, but common sense stopped him. Dropping it would accomplish little more than slicing off his own foot. Besides, with the way Jessa was marching toward him, he might need a weapon.
"Sith-loving idiot!" she hissed as she made a grab for the cylinder. Ben yanked it away from her, almost slicing off his own fingers in the process. "Do you have any kriffing idea what that is?"
"A lightsaber." Some part of his brain jolted itself awake. A lightsaber. You sun-blind fool, you're carrying a lightsaber! He swallowed hard and hit the switch again. The beam disappeared, leaving only the innocent-looking cylinder again. "I – I found it on the shelf. I thought it was a tool or something."
"A tool. They don't come any stupider than you, do they?" Jessa sighed and grabbed him by the sleeve. "I don't know why I'm risking my neck for you," she muttered as she dragged him toward the far end of the basement. A carefully camouflaged door had been opened, revealing a dark tunnel. "Hey, droid!" she whispered. "Get your rusty behind over here!"
"But – " Ben tried to uncurl his fingers from around the cylinder, but that cold feeling was back again and suddenly having a weapon – even a lightsaber – seemed like a really, really good idea. Don't tell me this was Old Kenobi's, he thought desperately as he was shoved into the tunnel.
No. It is yours.
Oh, man. This was getting really strange. Ben made himself wait by Blue until Jessa pulled the door closed and sealed it shut. "Now where?" he asked softly.
"Down the slughole, space waste."
"It's Ben," he muttered as he started to feel his way along the rough-hewn rock wall.
"What?"
"Ben. That's my name, remember?"
"Oh. Same difference."
He glared in her general direction. "Hotshot."
"Farmboy."
"Sith."
A slap landed on his shoulder. "Watch your language."
***
The prefab shelter that served as the Naboo center of government was crowded with all manner of humans and Gungans. Anakin found himself sticking close to Lucéa simply to avoid getting lost in the crowd.
And, he added angrily, to avoid being lynched.
"Yousa too young to be rememberen what happened last time Jedi came." An aged Gungan in a simple robe glared at Lucéa furiously. "Wesa no dealen with him." Shouts echoed through the tiny room – a few jeers from the younger guerillas, but definite agreement from those old enough to remember a time before the Empire. Anakin could almost see the waves of fear and hatred radiating off of them. What worried him was that they were not even directed at the idea of Jedi so much as at him in particular.
"I thought you were Queen," he muttered to Lucéa. "Can't you settle this quietly?"
"Of course I can." The ruler of the Naboo pulled out her blaster and fired it at the ceiling. Chunks of duracrete rained down on the crowd, but at least they settled down. Glaring at her representatives, she holstered the weapon and raised her voice to be heard over the persistent murmurs.
"I don't think any of us remember why the Imps decided to destroy us," she said bluntly, "but they're doing a good job. We're fighting TIEs with fambaa shields and cestas – and we aren't gaining any ground."
"His kind are the reason!" someone shouted from the back.
Lucéa shook her head. "That's the official version. Last I checked, anyone who bought into that was doing hard labor on Kessel. Now shut up and let Solo speak, or my next shot won't be through a ceiling."
There was dead silence.
Great. Anakin sighed and imagined himself as stern and aloof. If Mother could manage it, I can too. He drew himself up and prayed to every deity he could think of that he would not get shot by the people he was trying to help. "The Rebellion is dying," he said, making the understatement of the millennia in the process. "So are the Naboo and the Gungans." Keep them separate, Lucéa had said. They got touchy about being lumped together. "The Empire is trying to destroy you and your world for a crime forgotten and probably imagined. If you are willing to help us, there is a chance that you might be able to take back your planet. I'm not saying it's definite, but anything is worth a try now."
He took a deep breath and tried to keep going. He had their attention, at least. "There is a Jedi prophecy known as the Circle. One of our agents was able to steal it from Imperial Center and divide it into three sections for safety – one transmitted directly to the Rebellion's flagship, one stored on a data chip and given to a trusted courier, and the last stored in special circuits and only accessible by a single person. Once the pieces are assembled, we will be able to predict the Emperor's moves and launch a strike on Imperial Center."
"So why do you need us?" a scrappy young man in military fatigues asked.
"We need ships diverted from Imperial Center. If the Naboo and the Gungans together were to stage a full assault on the forces stationed here, the Emperor would be forced to send warships here unless he wanted another Yavin Four on his hands."
Lucéa looked at him for a long moment, her face a hard mask. "You're asking me to sacrifice my people on the slight chance that a single assault and a Jedi prophecy can shake off the Emperor. This doesn't sound like another Yavin Four, Solo. It sounds like another Endor."
Anakin sighed. He had really not been expecting anything else. "You wouldn't be alone. There are two people in the Rebellion still capable of carrying a lightsaber: me, and Corran Horn. We would stay with you and help defend Naboo."
"I see." Lucéa was still unreadable; even her presence in the Force was muted. She knew what he was not saying – what he could not really bring himself to think about. The last son of the Suns would have to be turned before the Emperor could be destroyed. Anakin was the namesake and grandson of Darth Vader. Aside from his first cousin Mikel, a boy too weak in the Force to carry a lightsaber by all accounts, he was the last male descendant of the Skywalker family. Which meant that until he fell to the Dark Side, the Rebellion had no hope.
She knew all that. And yet she turned to her assembled subjects and spoke strongly. "We are dying," she agreed. "And I think that Solo's plan may be our last chance. Tell your cells that we move as soon as all three components reach the Rebellion's commander."
"Thank you," Anakin murmured as the men, women, and aliens began to slip out. Some of the looks they gave him bordered on openly hostile. "I was afraid you wouldn't listen."
"I listen, Solo." Lucéa's hard face was suddenly full of worry. "I did it, didn't I? I just got us into a war."
"You didn't have a choice, if that helps."
She shook her head. "No. It doesn't."
***
It was not that Ben minded the dark. It had never bothered him before - not necessarily a bad thing when enterprising Jawas sometimes swiped generator components from Draco's Well. It was the walls that made him feel closed-in. He did not want to be among the stars, but he certainly wanted to be able to see them. They made him feel safer and more secure.
"You're getting jittery, Ben." At least Jessa was using his real name now. She turned her glow rod full on in his face. "Missing the light?"
"Missing the sky." He prodded Blue around a rock. "Missing not having Imps after me, too. I kind of liked that."
Surprisingly, she chuckled at that. "Trust me. You get used to Imps really fast."
"You haven't been a Rebel very long." When she gave him one of those dangerous looks, he took a step back and almost fell over Blue. "Not that I'm saying that's bad. It's just that you're younger than I am."
"Want to bet? I'm seventeen standard, space waste."
"I'm eighteen."
She glared at him. "I've been running guns since I was fifteen. That's what I ran away from home to do. Bet this rock isn't that exciting."
Ben sighed. "I don't want excitement. Why doesn't anyone understand that?"
"You like the stars, don't you?"
"You can like the stars without wanting to go fly a TIE in them." He looked away from her, suddenly grateful that the glow rod's green light hid the flush he knew was coloring his cheeks. "Someone told me my mother would watch me from them, okay?"
He waited for her to laugh, but she did not. If anything, her expression softened. "Your mother's dead?"
"And my father. A sandstorm tipped over their landspeeder. I barely remember them."
"Oh." She watched him earnestly as she made her way through the hot tunnel. "What were they like?"
"Why should I tell you?" he snapped. "You've been treating me like bantha dung, remember?"
She grimaced. "Sorry. My parents and I..." Her smile was bitter. "Let's just say we haven't spoken in a couple years. I'm glad yours loved you."
"My father liked to fly." He remembered that much. "We must have had a swoop or something. Once he took me up so high that I thought I was up in space. I think my mother was stronger than him, though. I always felt safe with her."
"You don't remember what they look like?"
"Not really. My father had green eyes and I think my mother had red hair. My uncle says I look like my mother, but I don't have any holos of either of them, so I don't know."
For a long time the only sound was the scrape of their boots on the rock. Ben worked up his courage to ask Jessa something about her family, but he could not bring himself to do it. "Why are there Rebels here?" he asked finally.
"Not a lot of Imp presence. Black Sun looks the other way when you pay them enough." She smiled faintly. "Or do you mean why am I here?"
"Both, I guess."
"I was trying to deliver a message. I picked up the Imps' transponder and I got a little sidetracked. My guess is whoever I'm supposed to meet is still sitting in Mos Eisley wondering where the frag I am." A few of her tiny braids caught in the light as she moved; she had some sort of cheap metallic threads interwoven with them. "Hold up. I think I found the way out."
Ben waited patiently while she forced a rusted door open. He did not recognize the small cave they stepped into, but he was sure that it was one of the hundreds peppering the Jundland Wastes for miles around. The night air was a relief after the heat of the tunnels.
"About time," Jessa muttered as soon as they were all out of the tunnel. She closed and locked it before she shut off the glow rod. "We're less than a mile from that hut. If we're lucky, we can get back there in less than a chrono and the Imps won't be the wiser."
"We'll have to wait until morning."
She looked at him. "Now what?"
"It's too dangerous with all the Sand People. Your blaster won't be much good if they get a gaffi stick under your guard."
"Great. Kriffing wonderful." She settled herself on the sandy ground and glared at him as if he had put the Sand People had been put of Tatooine in the first place. "Good thing you knew to hide from the Imps, huh?"
"It was just a feeling." He sat down across from her and leaned on Blue. "That, and I don't think the Imps would believe me if they searched Blue."
A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Stolen parts?"
"No. Just random noises. I installed a replacement receiver and he picked up something from an Inner Councilor of all things. Whoever wanted to get the message probably isn't too happy right now."
Jessa did not say anything. She just looked at him. Finally she seemed to get her words into order, spitting them out rapid-fire. "Which Inner Councilor, Ben? I need to know which now!"
"I don't know!" Ben tried to scoot away from her, but there was nowhere to hide in the tiny cave. "A young one. A human woman. She said something about someone named Akim Hannibar."
Jessa pointed to the droid. "Your droid picked up a message to the Bakuran Vice Governor from Inner Councilor Thanas?!"
"He did?"
She pulled a small datadot out of her pocket and held it out to him. "Thanas found information vital to the Rebellion. She transmitted one part and gave me the second part to deliver to a courier. She said she was going to send the last part personally to someone she trusted - and she would voice-lock it so only that person could open it."
Ben shook his head slowly. "And that means what?"
"It means that your droid's going to Bakura, space waste."
"No." Ben moved in front of Blue, who squealed anxiously. "This isn't my droid. It's my Uncle Gavin's. He'll skin me alive - and that's if I'm lucky!"
Jessa sighed. "Can I download the data, then?"
Whew. He nodded and tried to settle down. "Sure. My uncle's got some old equipment in our garage. We can do it tomorrow."
"All right. We'll take that landspeeder."
"What makes you think the Imps won't take it?"
She looked at him. "It's probably older than that hut, that's why. Get some sleep, Ben. I'm taking first watch."
"I'll just stay up, if that's okay with you."
She laughed, not unkindly. "Good night, space waste."
He gave up. Uncle Gavin's going to kill me. That could wait until tomorrow, he decided. "Good night."
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