Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

                              presents:

                UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
                    -=WARRIORS OF THE OUTER RIM=-

			 THE FULCRUM OF FATE
			       Part III

                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
			      Anne Cross

         with the invaluable assistance of the Usual Suspects
                    and thanks to all the sources

		      Jyuraiologist: Rob Shannon

                (c) 2006 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


		      TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2412
		      NAR SHADDAA, Y'TOUB SYSTEM

	The denizens of the Smugglers' Moon were, by and large, pretty
jaded.  The place saw a lot of action and a lot of weird happenings,
and if you lived and worked there, you quickly got to a point where
you figured you'd seen it all.  Most inhabitants of the spaceport
districts, especially, were so inured to strange and violent
happenings, and so in tune with the prevailing wisdom that it wasn't a
good idea to stick your nose in, that they just ignored anything that
didn't pose a direct danger - and then, paid attention only so much as
they had to in order to get out of the way.
	All but the most hardened skyway rats, though, found the fight
on Vogga Prospect arresting.  Sure, it had started out as a pretty
straightforward merc-gang shakedown of some expensively-dressed fool
from out of town, but things had turned interesting very quickly.
Even on Nar Shaddaa, it wasn't every day that people got to see a
fight between two Jedi Knights.
	Or at least a Jedi and something like one.  The human male in
the expensive clothes had a white lightsaber and demonstrated all the
usual traits of a Jedi: an uncanny sense for what his opponents were
going to do next; exaggerated athletic ability; something like
telekinesis; and a rather unwise reluctance to make the first move.
The Cathar female, on the other hand, was all about the attack.  She
wore black and her blade was red, and she pursued her opponent with
the ferocity for which members of her species were rightly feared in
the places where they were known at all.

	   /*  Michael Kamen  "A Prisoner of the Crusades"
		 _Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves_  */

	Well, so much for keeping any kind of low profile, Leonard
Hutchins thought ruefully to himself.  Dealing with the mercs was one
thing, but I'd say having a lightsaber duel in the middle of the
street has definitely blown whatever was left of my cover.
	He considered his situation in as much detail as he could
focus on while fighting for his life.  A week ago, his opponent in
this fight had been investigating a suspected illegal dealer in Jedi
artifacts on behalf of Bolo Burke, the head of the Jedi Order's
intelligence bureau.  She had left a cryptic but worried note on the
dataterminal in her apartment, saying that she was going to try and
break into the dealer's junk shop after hours to further her
investigation... and then vanished.
	Now she was trying to kill the Jedi sent to investigate her
disappearance and carry on her own case, and a mercenary leader very
obviously employed by the junk dealer (or his masters) had called her
"our 'friend'".
	Len blocked a powerful overhead blow, feeling the shock of it
clear to his shoulders.  Juhani had power and she knew how to use it;
he wouldn't be able to withstand too many attacks like that by main
force.  Lightsaber combat had clearly been a priority in her training,
and her raw athleticism probably surpassed his own.  Thanks to the
solid foundation of kenjutsu training his Jedi combat skills were
built on, he believed he -could- counter her greater strength with
superior technique - but probably not without maiming or killing her.
The Asagiri Katsujinkenryuu was many things, but a non-lethal martial
art it most certainly was not.
	On the other hand, he noticed as he leaped to the top of a
stack of shipping containers and from there to an upper walkway, she
wasn't harnessing the Force very efficiently, even for a darksider.
She had fury, but it wasn't well-directed.  Her Force aspect was
nothing like that of Darth Maul, the Sith Knight who had nearly killed
Len on Naboo, for example.  Maul's training had obviously been superb,
his entire being focused on the power of his inner rage for many
years.  His concentration was like a laser beam of blackness.
	By contrast, Juhani's resembled a storm cloud.  There was
anger there, and strength, but they were at odds with each other
rather than in harmony.  Darth Maul had been a creature of phenomenal
will.  Juhani seemed to have relatively little.  The Dark Side was
using her, not the other way around.
	Still, that didn't make her any less dangerous in physical
terms.  She easily covered the distance from the street to the upper
walkway in a single leap, landing so as to cut Len off from the
entryway he'd hoped to reach.
	"Running away already, Jedi?" she asked, her voice guttural
with anger.  She smirked, baring one wickedly pointed upper canine
tooth, and added, "Despite what you may have heard about the Cathar, I
don't care to play with my food."
	Len's voice and gaze were perfectly level, his breathing slow
and even despite the exertion of the fight, as he replied,
	"Juhani, you don't need to do this.  Something's happened to
you, this isn't who you're meant to be.  Stop this right now and let
me help you."
	She snorted, her smirk becoming a look of hatred.  "You?  Help
me?  Earthmen do not 'help' my people," she snarled.  "They help
-themselves-.  Well, no more.  This is -one- 'cat girl' who won't be
anyone's pet again."
	-Damn-, Len thought, though no trace of emotion crossed his
face.  Burke had given him Juhani's dossier - an abridged version, he
was sure, but he could read certain things between the lines.  He knew
she had been sold into slavery as a child and liberated by the Jedi
Order in her early teens.  Burke's notes claimed she'd moved past it
during her training, in the ordeal Jedi Padawans knew as the Mirror.
	Apparently Burke wasn't quiet as omniscient as he liked people
to believe.
	"I'm not an Earthman, I'm from Zeta Cygni," he replied
calmly.  "Avalon has no tradition of slavery.  Clear your mind and
search your feelings, Juhani.  The Force will tell you I've no wish to
hurt you.  All you have to do is listen."
	Juhani chuckled darkly.  "Listen to the Force, eh?  And are
you a Jedi Master?  I think not, not at your age.  Not with your
pathetic skill with a lightsaber.  But very well.  I will humor you.
I will listen to the Force."  So saying, she closed her eyes and
adopted an attitude of something almost like serenity.
	Finally, Len thought, I'm getting somewhere.
	Then her yellow eyes snapped open again, the pupil slits
contracting to points as they fixed on him.
	"The Force tells me to -kill- you," she told him mockingly,
flourishing her scarlet lightsaber into an en-garde position.  "And so
I shall."
	Leonard sighed.
	"I'm very sorry about this, Juhani," he said - and switched
off his lightsaber.
	Juhani looked surprised.  "What is this?  Are you so weak and
cowardly that you will not even -defend yourself-?"  Then her face
darkened with contempt.  "So be it!"
	With a ringing cry of "DIE, Jedi!" she hurled herself toward
him in a high, arcing leap, intending to bring her weapon down with
all the force of her body and Nar Shaddaa's gravity behind it, leaving
him in two smoking pieces.
	Instead, her lightsaber smote only the duracrete of the
walkway, carving a black scar in the pavement.  The unexpected impact
nearly sent her sprawling headlong, but her Cathar agility saw her
through; she rolled with the crash, sprang upright, and whirled.
Somehow, Len had moved out of her way, shifting a few inches to his
right as if teleported.  With a roar of rage, Juhani yanked her weapon
back into position for another strike.
	Len put out his right hand, palm facing her.  He was a good
two feet away, well out of reach, but the blow struck Juhani full in
the chest like the swing of a wrecking ball - and shattered the
plexiview walkway barrier behind her.  She hurtled out of the walkway
amid a cloud of spinning, twinkling plexi shards, the breath knocked
completely from her lungs.  Instinct took over, twisting her body in
an attempt to right herself before she reached the street, but her
balance was poor and she went down like a ton of bricks.
	Well, that's that card played, Len thought to himself as he
jumped lightly down to street level through the hole he'd just made.
I doubt I could muster another hit like that one any time soon.
	Juhani scrambled to her feet, wiping a trickle of blood from
the corner of her mouth with the back of her left hand.
	"You compensate well for your lack of martial skill," she told
him.  "But you cannot keep that up forever."
	"Hopefully I won't have to," he replied.  "Juhani, please,
listen to me.  I know being a Jedi is your lifelong dream, the goal
you've dedicated yourself to since you were a child.  You lifted
yourself out of poverty and ignorance to walk in the light of the
Force.  Don't throw all that away."  He held out his hand to her.  "I
don't know what's been done to you, but I swear to you I'll do
everything in my power to put things right.  Give me your lightsaber
and -let me help you-."
	Juhani felt herself waver.  He seemed so sincere.  There was
such pain in his clear blue eyes - pain for her and the torments of
her childhood, pain at the thought that all her hard work and
sacrifice would be wasted.  He was a complete stranger, and yet he
really seemed to... to -care-.  He reminded her of another Jedi, the
first Jedi whose eyes she'd looked into...
	(You mean the first Jedi to -betray- you,) snarled the feral
voice at the back of her mind.  (Where is your childhood idol now,
Juhani?  Is she here to guide you?  Does her wisdom light your way?
No.  And why not?  Because she was human like the rest of them.
Because she -abandoned- you when you needed her most.  Just like this
one will... after he's taken advantage of you.)
	"NEVERRRRRR!" she roared, charging straight at him, her weapon
drawn back for the kill.  It was difficult to concentrate with the fog
of hatred clouding her mind, but she knew she had to try.  He might
attempt another one of those clever Force pushes.  She had to gather
the Dark Side around her and use it to further her assault - use her
rage like a wedge of steel to drive through whatever defenses he might
erect.  -Still- he did not reignite his lightsaber!  He -insulted- her
with his refusal to fight like a man.
	(Ah, well,) the dark voice observed.  (He -is- only human.)
	Len watched her charge, felt her harden her aura.  She wasn't
taking any chances on his being able to push her away again.
	But she also wasn't taking into account the fact that he had
alternatives.
	She saw the first cargo container coming out of the corner of
her eye, checked her charge, turned, and thrust it away with the
Force.  The second struck while her back was turned, nearly knocking
her over forward.  She shrugged off the blow, turned, saw the third
coming - and without thinking, slashed it in half with her lightsaber.
	The plasteel cylinder didn't just slice neatly in two and fall
away from her as she had expected, though.  Instead, it seemed to
-explode-, disgorging its contents and deluging her in a huge cloud of
bright red-orange dust.
	Suddenly Juhani was blind, her eyes burning as if someone had
jammed hot pokers into them.  Caught unawares, she sucked in a lungful
of air laden with the red powder.  It made her nose and throat burn
like her eyes.  Gagging, she dropped her lightsaber, fell to her
knees, and clutched at her neck, struggling in vain to breathe, her
whole world blanked in an instant into a featureless void of red
anguish.
	A cool breeze suddenly blew the cloud away, dissipating it
into the air.  Coughing, still choking on the agonizing dust, Juhani
blinked furiously until she could barely make out the grey-and-black
shape of Leonard walking toward her.  She tried to muster her fury
again, use the Dark Side to purge this agony from her body and get
back into the fight, but she could not muster the concentration - and
the Dark Side was not much use for the soothing of pain, in any
event.
	Juhani's hands scrabbled at the pavement for her lightsaber,
but Len called it to his hand before she could find it.  So be it,
then.  She struggled to her feet and bared her Cathar claws, glaring
at him with eyes reddened by pain and hatred, determined to end his
life with her bare hands if need be.
	Leonard avoided her first wild swipe easily.  Placing both
lightsabers on his belt, he stepped inside her next attack, put an arm
around her upper body, and placed the fingers of his free hand to her
forehead.
	"Sleep now, Juhani," he said softly.
	She wanted to spit in his face and tell him of her hate, but
at the warm touch of his fingertips, the Dark Side abandoned her,
draining away and leaving her hollow and exhausted.  She sagged in his
arms, her head lolling, and knew no more.
	Len let out a deep sigh and gathered her up to carry her
away.  As he did so, people started emerging from doorways and stalls
by the side of the street.  Some looked frightened; some pointedly
took no notice of the very -idea- that anything odd might just have
happened.
	A young Devaronian boy, maybe six or seven years old, emerged
from a shopfront to the left and gave Len a curious look.
	"Did you kill her?" he asked.
	Len smiled.  "No," he said.  "Luckily, I didn't have to."  He
turned his attention to the boy's father, who had appeared in the
doorway behind him.  "Was that your canister?" he asked.  The man
nodded.  "Sorry I had to damage it," Len said.  "Send an invoice to
the Jedi Temple on Alderaan; you'll be reimbursed."
	"I... I'll do that," the Devaronian said slowly.
	Len's smile widened a little.  "Thank you," he said.  "May the
Force be with you."
	Then he threw the young boy a wink, turned, and disappeared
into the regathering crowd, unconscious Cathar and all.
	"Wow," the boy said.

			       ALDERAAN

       Alaia ner Ronor cracked the hilt of her dirk and squinted at
the small crystal embedded in the fine tracery of electronics and
power cells.  "My fingers were smaller the last time I did this," she
muttered thoughtfully, then looked over to where Master Obi-Wan was
setting out the tools to work on a new saber of his own.  "Master?
It's been a while," she admitted.
        Obi-Wan Kenobi smiled and reached down to his belt and
unclipped the saber that hung there.  "Would it help to have a
full-size one as a reference?  I don't really need it.  My last
padawan and I had something of a running competition to see whose
lightsaber could be captured, lost, or destroyed in the most
consecutive missions," he added wryly as he hefted it in one hand.
"Replacing them gets to be second nature after a few years of that."
        M'yl'ya Kyn'o'bi, sorting through the corusca gems in the
drawers to search for a pair that felt right to her, blinked at him.
She made a mental note to ask him - later - how many he'd gone through
before the one she'd inherited.
        "Hopefully we won't repeat -that- tradition," Alaia said,
closing the casing of her own weapon and looking at Emmy.  "Do you
still want to borrow my dirk?  It's not going to help me much."
        "Sure," Emmy agreed, taking it and looking it over.  "Wow, you
weren't kidding about fiddly work, were you."
        "I had to scale everything down," Alaia agreed.  "I was kind
of runty at 14, so it wasn't that hard.  But the secondary focuser,
down here - " she squinted over Emmy's shoulder, then indicated the
tiny part with the tip of a screwdriver, " - had to be almost tripled
in proportional thickness to compensate for the increased focus from
the gem.  Otherwise any power surge would cause it to resonate with
the primary and fracture the core crystal... I think."
        "Ahhh," Emmy said, nodding.  "So that's what I did wrong."
She glanced at the pale scars crossing the palm of her right hand.
"No -wonder- it gave out under Sith lightning.  Thank you!  This will
be a big help."
        Alaia's cheeks grew slightly pink at the idea that she'd
managed to teach a full-fledged Jedi Knight - and one who had seen
combat with Sith! - something, and she turned back to Obi-Wan to cover
her blush.  "I know there's a tradition of the padawan making her
saber in the pattern of her master's - how closely should I follow
yours?"
        "As closely as you'd like," Obi-Wan said, offering his saber
to her.  "But it should still feel comfortable in -your- hand.  After
all, you're going to be the one using it."
        "All right, Master Obi-Wa - !"  Alaia's voice choked in her
throat as her hand closed over the saber and the Force surged up her
arm and slammed her square between the eyebrows.
        Obi-Wan saw her freeze - felt her aura flare to coruscating
brilliance in the Force - and then she was gone from his perception,
her eyelids closing and her muscles all going slack at once.  He moved
quickly to catch her before she hit her head on the workbench.
        "I am an idiot," he observed conversationally to himself and
Emmy.  "Three thousand years at one with the Force and you'd think I'd
know better, but no... "
        Emmy glanced at him.  "What the - is she all right?"
        "She's a psychometrist.  The Force gives her flashbacks,"
Obi-Wan began, and then Alaia groaned.
        "Alaia, are you all right?" he asked her, putting aside his
self-recriminations.
        "Din sha," she groaned, and then opened her eyes, staring at
him foggily.  "That lightsaber... that lightsaber has been around a
while, hasn't it."
        Obi-Wan smiled weakly.  "It has," he agreed, glancing up at
Emmy with a rueful expression.  "It's been in my family for many
generations.  I should have thought before I handed it to you, but
your gift is rare enough that it didn't even occur to me."
        "'sOK," she said weakly.  "The Force..." She took a deep
breath and struggled to sit up.  He helped her, and then she looked up
at him.  Her pupils, he saw, were dilated with shock.  "The Force
doesn't show me things all the time.  It could've been safe."
        "Not this time, I'm afraid."
        "No," she said shaking her head.  "No, I saw..."  He felt her
tense, and her voice shook.  "I saw Darth Vader alive.  And he fought
you ages ago - and you... that was you dying, wasn't it?  But you're
alive... and then there was the other Jedi - that was you, wasn't it,
Emmy?  She fought him too, and then did something... with Vader... and
there was a shade... "  She shuddered violently.  "So dark - and she
was so bright - and then you were there again."
        Obi-Wan waited for the inevitable question, but it took Alaia
a couple of moments more of just breathing before she looked back up
at him and said, "Master Obi-Wan, who -are- you?"
        He sighed.  "My name is O'bi-Wann Kyn'o'bi, Alaia."  He
paused, and then smiled.  "Most offworlders can't hear the difference,
but I'm not really human, I'm from a planet called Hyeruul.  I was a
Jedi Knight 3,000 years ago, when Anakyn shar Atrados became Darth
Vader.  He was my apprentice, my padawan learner... before he turned
to the Dark Side.  During the Santovasku Purge, he tracked me to
Hyeruul and killed me there.  This was my lightsaber then."
        Alaia blinked at him, and he watched her face as she put the
pieces together.  Finally, when she looked back at his face, he said,
"M'yl'ya here is my descendent, and she fought Darth Vader with this 
same lightsaber when he awoke from his long hibernation."
        "And she - you - " Her eyes focused on Emmy for a second.
"You helped him draw Master Obi-Wan's spirit back out of the Force,"
she said, sounding more coherent than he expected.
        "Anakyn made a path for me to follow, and she lit the way,"
Obi-Wan said, when Emmy was silent.  "And more than that, I can't
really explain because it's quite muddled even in my head.  But he's
since apologized for killing me - he'd lost his temper, you see,"
Obi-Wan added with a touch of irony.
        "And that other... other shade?  The dark one?  He... echoes
through the Force, and clouded everything around him."
        "That, I don't know."  He looked at Emmy, who shook her head
at him.  Alaia, who didn't seem to notice the byplay, just rubbed her
eyes and groaned.  "I'm sorry, Alaia - it's not something I had
intended to burden you with."
        "No, it's all right," she said wearily.  "It's not anything
-new-, after all, and I did decide I wanted to be a Jedi historian,
and you -are- my Master... I just... "  she shivered.  "That was a
little much all at once.  It's days like today that I like having a
circuit breaker."
        He chuckled.  "Yes, I suppose it's just as well.  With all the
history attached to this saber, you may well have been standing here
all day otherwise.  It's become a family heirloom at this point.
That's why I'm making a new one.  I'll give it back to Emmy when I
have a replacement of my own, and the next Kyn'o'bi after her will
carry it.  Though perhaps... "  He trailed off thoughtfully.
        "I'm afraid -my- replacement isn't going to happen today,
Master," Alaia pointed out.  "This is going to take me a little while
to recover from."
        Obi-Wan smiled.  "Well, you can meditate here just as easily
as you can anyplace else in the Temple, and it will be good practice
for you.  Perhaps I'll have my new one finished by the time you've
recovered, and you can use -that- as a basis to work from."
        Alaia eyed him with an expression that could have been
described as mutinous, and Emmy had to stifle a laugh.  "Yes, Master,"
she said finally, in a grumpy tone of voice, and found herself a seat
by the wall.  Her eyes flicked to Emmy briefly, and then she closed
her eyes and with a determined expression, slowed her breathing.
        Emmy looked at Obi-Wan, who had a tired expression on his face,
and realized that he was more worried about Alaia than he was letting
on.  With a sad shake of her head, she went back to sorting through
the gems.

		     WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2412
			     NAR SHADDAA

	When she had lost consciousness, some part of Juhani had
expected never to wake.  She certainly hadn't expected to wake in bed
in the tiny apartment she'd rented upon her arrival on Nar Shaddaa,
the one she'd left a week ago to go break into Ivan the junk dealer's
shop on Vogga Prospect.
	But that was where she found herself when her eyes - no longer
burning, though they felt a bit hot and gummy - opened again.  She sat
up, surprised anew to find herself unrestrained, and looked around.
	Len was sitting in the corner of the room, next to the door to
the apartment's miniscule fresher cubicle.  He had shed his expensive
gangster's clothes and was dressed in simple grey Jedi robes, his
lightsaber at his side.  He sat in the lotus position, hands on knees,
eyes closed - meditating or asleep, Juhani couldn't tell.
	She took stock of herself.  Someone - presumably the Jedi -
had removed her dark robes, but left her undergarments in place.  She
was unharmed, everything right where it belonged.  Her clothing and
her lightsaber were nowhere to be seen, though.
	Juhani regarded the Jedi again.  He was perfectly still,
showing no sign that he'd noticed her awakening.  Perhaps he -was-
asleep.  It had been known to happen; the line between meditation and
slumber was occasionally a blurry one, especially after hard exertion.
If he -was- asleep, she might be able to get the drop on him - perhaps
even claim his lightsaber as her own and use it to effect her escape.
	... to where?
	Len opened his eyes and smiled.
	"Good morning, Juhani," he said.  "We didn't have time for
introductions earlier... I'm Len Hutchins.  Do you feel better?"
	She felt as if she should have some harsh and snappy answer
for that, but nothing came.  Instead she just blinked in astonishment
and realized that... she -did- feel better.
	"What did you do to me?" she demanded.
	"You did it to yourself," Len said.  "The canister you cut
open was full of powdered kuratai - a powerful spice from the planet
Barsaive.  It's very... aggressive... to humanoid mucous membranes.
So much so that the t'skrang of Barsaive have been known to use it as
a riot control weapon."
	"How did you know that?" Juhani asked.
	Len shrugged slightly.  "I read the label," he said.
	For some reason - the baldness of the statement, perhaps, or
the uncomplicated ease with which he said it - Juhani wanted to laugh
at that.  She only failed to do so because, if there was no rage left
in her, there didn't seem to be any laughter either.
	"I feel... empty," she said finally.
	Len nodded.
	"I gave you a mild sedative," he said.  "To help you stay calm
long enough for us to talk."  He looked around at the apartment
walls.  "I don't relish the idea of fighting a riled-up Cathar in this
phone booth," he added wryly.
	"Oh."  Juhani thought she ought to be outraged that he'd
drugged her, but that wouldn't come either - whether because of the
drug, or because on some level she accepted that it was for her own
good, she couldn't say.  Her mind was far too muddled for such
feelings to be understandable to their owner just now.
	"Do you remember anything after you left here to go to
Ivan's?" Len asked.  "I need to know what happened to you."
	Juhani frowned, her brow creasing.  "I... I went to Ivan's,"
she said slowly.  "It was dark.  The shop was closed.  Breaking in
was... was easy.  I was looking through his files in the back office
when I... I sensed a presence in the front.  Not Ivan.  Someone...
someone more -significant-.  I went to see... I thought I would not be
seen.  I am very good at concealing myself," she added, not
boastfully, but for his information.  "But I -was- seen.  There was a
man in... dark red robes.  Not... not Jedi robes, nor the kind the
Sith wear... but long.  Like... like the men who do magic in your
fantasy holos," she said, giving him a helpless, searching look.
	Len looked perplexed.  "Like a wizard?"
	"Yes.  A wizard.  That is the word.  He spotted me - his face
was in shadows, he wore a hood, but I could tell he was looking at
me.  I drew my lightsaber and challenged him, and he... "
	Juhani's golden eyes glazed.  She clutched at her head,
leaning forward, her whole body suddenly going taut.  "No - !" she
cried.
	Leonard was at her side so fast she never registered an
impression of him actually moving.  "Easy," he said, placing one hand
on her shoulder and applying the other palm gently to her forehead.
"It's all right.  It happened a week ago, whatever it was.  You're
safe now."  He waited until some of the tension uncoiled from her
muscles, then asked gently, "What did he do?"
	"I... I do not -know-," she said, her voice low and husky.
"I... it was like... every bad memory, every painful experience I have
ever had... all happening at once.  I tried to find my inner peace,
block it out, but... it... I... "  She sat back slightly, grabbing at
Len's forearms, and searched his face with desperate eyes.  "The
darkness -took- me.  I... from that moment I served him.  He told me
to stay hidden nearby... that if any other Jedi came to carry on my
work, I should kill him.  And I... I obeyed."  Tears sprang into her
eyes as a look of sick horror spread over her face.  "I -wanted- to
obey.  I was so -angry-.  I -wanted- to kill.  But... nothing felt
-real-.  It was... like a -dream-... "
	"Juhani," Len said quietly.  "What happened was not your
fault.  That man in the red robe... he did something to your mind."
	"I should have resisted it.  I should have been stronger," she
replied.  "A real Jedi would have been.  -You- would have been."  She
hung her head, not meeting his eyes any longer.  "But I was not.  I am
a fool, a Cathar fool.  A fool who thought she was a Jedi."  She made
a disgusted noise.  "Blundering into a trap a child could have avoided.
I am no investigator.  I am no Jedi.  I am a failure.  I am nothing."
	"Juhani," Len repeated, a little more sharply.  "Look at me."
Out of surprise as much as anything else, she did so.
	"My father told me something once," Len went on.  "He was my
first teacher - he taught me the way of the sword, and showed me my
first glimpse of the Force.  And once, when I felt that I had failed
in a task he set for me, he told me: 'You only fail now if you give
up.'"  She blinked at him.  "You are -not- nothing," he went on
firmly.  "You're young, you're strong, you have a huge heart.  Maybe
you're not cut out to be an investigator, that's not for me to judge... 
but there's a place for you in the Order somewhere.  We're more with
you than without you."
	"Your words are kind, but you are in no position to decide
that.  You are not a master," she said bitterly.  "Much less a member
of the Council."
	"No," Len admitted.  "I'm not.  But I am a Jedi Knight... and
I recognize another when I see her."
	So saying, he climbed onto the end of the bed and arranged
himself in a meditative position, facing her.  Juhani gave him an
uncomprehending look, then followed suit.

	     /*  John Williams  "Tales of a Jedi Knight"
		_Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope_  */

	"There is no emotion," Leonard said softly.
	Juhani hesitated, as if unwilling to speak the reply out loud;
as though her recent experience had somehow stained her so that she
would pollute the Code by speaking it.  Only the silent prompting of
his eyes finally spurred her to say, almost inaudibly,
	"... There is peace."
	"There is no ignorance," said Len.
	Another hesitation, but shorter this time.  Juhani closed her
eyes, the reply coming with more strength, more authority:
	"There is knowledge."
	With a slight smile on his face, Len closed his eyes as well
and said, "There is no passion."
	"There is serenity."  The response immediate this time, calm,
measured - and the next lines they spoke together, his voice a gentle
baritone rumble, hers a lightly accented Cathar purr.
	"There is no chaos: There is harmony.
	"There is no death... "
	Both Jedi opened their eyes as one.
	"There is the Force."
	For a moment there was silence.
	Then all the tension and lingering suspicion flowed out of
Juhani like water leaving a basin.  
	"So be it," she said quietly.  "I -am- a fool... but who is to
say a fool may not be a Jedi?"
	Len smiled and uncoiled himself, ducking to avoid bashing his
head on the ceiling while he stepped off the end of the bed to the
floor.
	"If I leave you here for a few minutes, will you be all
right?" he asked.  "I need to go speak to a man about some
mercenaries."
	Juhani narrowed her eyes.  "Are you trying to leave me
behind?" she said.  "I may be a fool, but this is still my case."
	Len grinned.  "I had to throw out your clothes," he said.
"They were full of kuratai dust... but if you tell me your sizes, I'll
go get you something to wear, and then we'll go and put our case to
Ivan together."
	Juhani actually smiled at that; when she wasn't being crushed
under the weight of the Dark Side, her smile was a little bit roguish.
	"It might make more of an impact if I went as I am... but
perhaps Nar Shaddaa is not prepared for that just yet."

			       ALDERAAN

        Emmy ignited her first smallsaber, then her second, examined
the blades to satisfy herself that they matched, and tested their
balance in her hands for a moment before grinning at Obi-Wan.
	"Ready?" she asked.
        "Whenever you like," he said, his own pale-blue lightsaber
glittering in his grip.  "It will be interesting to see how you fight
with both of those at once."
        "It's an art," Emmy said cheerfully, and launched herself at
him like a sprinter from the starting blocks.  Her blades cut a
sizzling path through the air, only to be stopped as Obi-Wan took a
half-step to the side and blocked, barely moving.
        Emmy slid one saber up, cutting for his upper arm while she
tried to keep his saber pinned with the other, but he pulled back,
drawing his saber out from under hers with a scream of blade on blade,
then blocked the cut at his side as she flipped past him, all a swirl
of white silk and bright purple plasma and hair.  She cut for his
back; he spun and parried, his eyes calm and a little half-smile
pulling up at the side of his mouth as Emmy dropped and tried a leg
sweep with one leg - and her saber.  She brought the other saber up
over her head as he jumped over the sweep and came crashing down on
her.  It wasn't enough to stop the blow, but deflected it nicely.
	They pulled back by mutual agreement, smiled, then engaged
again, this time with Obi-Wan on the attack.  His attack was much less
flashy than hers - but the moves all flowed together like water, and
Emmy found herself hard-pressed to hold him back, even with both
sabers on the defensive.
        She had just done a roll under one arm and come up with her
sabers crossed over her head to block a downward strike when the door
to the practice room opened.
        Emmy glanced over at the doorway to see Alaia standing there,
an impressed expression on her face, with a new saber in her hand.
Obi-Wan stepped back.  "Ah, good - finished?"
        "I think so.  Everything...feels right, anyway."
        "Good.  Emmy - if you wouldn't mind?  I'd like to see how
Alaia handles herself with a saber when she's not just recovered from
a broken arm."  Obi-Wan had a wry smile on his face.
        Alaia grinned crookedly.  "Like a few days make that much
difference," she pointed out.
        "Details, details, apprentice," Obi-Wan cajoled her.  "Where's
your sense of adventure?"
        Emmy didn't bother to hide her grin as she got up out of her
crouch while Alaia stripped off her outer robe, muttering to herself
under her breath.
        "Join the Jedi, it's a great opportunity!  See new places,
learn new arts, meet new lifeforms and have them all try to kill you!"
the girl was mumbling, though Emmy could tell she didn't mean it.
Then she straightened.  "OK, let's see if it takes my hand off."
        There was a snap-hiss, and Emmy blinked.  Alaia's new
lightsaber was a pale green color, but it had occasional flickers of
pale purple along the very edge of it.  When she looked at Obi-Wan,
Emmy saw his eyebrows were up too.
        "That's an interesting color," he said finally.
        Alaia nodded.  "The crystal had a note with it, saying it'd
been irradiated at one point.  Somebody found it on an old abandoned
moonbase.  It... likes me.  Please don't ask me to explain that."
        "Well, if it's going to hold up in a fight," Emmy said,
shrugging, "that's the important thing.  Are you ready?"
        "No," Alaia said, walking across to a space opposite Emmy,
"but that doesn't really matter, now does - !"  She cut her flip
answer off as Emmy charged.
        The match lasted less than a minute; Alaia never made it to a
point where she could even try for a single blow.  She blocked
frantically, her breath panting in her lungs with harsh gasps as she
did her best to counter the strikes Emmy was raining down on her.  In
the end, it was only through sheer desperation that she took one hand
off her saber and shoved it at Emmy, knocking the lighter girl back a
few feet and buying herself some space.
        "Enough," Obi-Wan said, when Emmy glanced at him before
renewing her attack.  "Alaia - how much swordplay did you practice
with Master Befin?"
        It took the panting girl close to thirty seconds to answer.
"Clearly... not... enough," she finally got out.  She planted her
hands on her knees and struggled to control her breathing.  "Din...
sha... breth... "
        Emmy shook her head.  She said nothing, but it was obvious
that she was, at best, dubious about the training practices Alaia had
become accustomed to under Befin.  For a moment, Alaia felt defensive
about her dead master's memory - he wasn't here to defend himself and
it wasn't fair of Emmy to judge his methods - but on reflection she
had to admit that, at least in this context, the young Hyelian might
have a point.
        After a couple more deep breaths, Alaia wiped her sleeve
across her face and shook her head.  "I spent a lot of time drilling
with Khash and Anahita," she said.  "So my basics are... well, better
than -that- would lead you to believe.  But I'm not much for the
advanced stuff.  Master Befin was... was more like a wandering monk
than a fighter?  He always would tell us that if we got the forms
down, the rest would come.  Eventually."  There was a long pause, and
Emmy felt Alaia's aura roil with anger before she controlled herself.
"I... have to wonder if he was right after all, now."  And then, more
softly, "But I don't really -like- sparring."
        Obi-Wan nodded soberly.  "Your control is good, Alaia, and
your form is not bad, but you're dangerously slow and you tire much
too quickly.  And then there's the problem of your 'wild talent,' as
you call it.  If someone hits you with an ancient lightsaber, for
example, you're going to lose contact with the Force -and- potentially
lose your arm at the shoulder or worse.  Now, if you don't want to end
up like your Master and his other students, I think you know what
comes next."
        Alaia looked down, and for a moment Emmy thought the girl
might start crying.  Then she took a deep breath, let it out slowly,
and climbed to her feet.  "Yes, Master Obi-Wan," she said, meeting his
gaze.  She looked over at Emmy, who saw steely resolve in the girl's
grey eyes.  "Let's try it again."
        Emmy grinned at her.  "OK," she said, and launched herself
into the attack.
	Despite her new resolve, Alaia fared more poorly the second
time than the first.  Within a minute or so of engaging, she was
visibly fighting off exhaustion as well as Emmy.  When it became
obvious that she was in danger of hurting herself, Obi-Wan halted the
round early, waved Emmy back, and stood before his apprentice as she
stood half-stooped, hands on knees, and tried to get her breath back.
	"Alaia - why are you as fatigued as you are right now?" he
asked.
	She looked up at him quizzically.  "Um... because you and Emmy
have been chasing me around the classroom all morning?"
	"That's not what I meant, Padawan - didn't your Master ever
teach you to use the Force to replenish your strength?"
	"My... "  Alaia trailed off, then slowly straightened up,
shaking her head.  "I'm an idiot."
	"In other words, he did," said Obi-Wan.  "In which case: Why
aren't you doing it?"
	"Because I forgot I -could-," Alaia admitted.  "A month out of
contact with the Force shouldn't be that long, but... I guess it was."
She closed her eyes and concentrated, feeling the life-giving energies
of the Force wash away the weariness in her limbs and the fire in her
chest, and sighed in a combination of relief and embarrassment.
"I'm... I'm ready to try again, Master," she said.
	Obi-Wan nodded approvingly, then took up a ready stance -
apparently he intended to test her himself this time.  Emmy, seeing
this, went to the corner of the room and sat down to observe.
	Fencing with Obi-Wan was a little easier that facing his
descendent, if only because he wasn't as furiously aggressive as Emmy
was.  He -was- very quick and very sure, though, and his mastery of
several forms kept his apprentice on the alert at all times.  She
never knew when he might switch from the near-invulnerability of
impeccably-performed Soresu to the acrobatic assault of Ataru or the
relentless bullrush of an ancient style whose name she could not even
remember, if she had ever known it to begin with.  She had to
consciously stop herself from trying to -study- his techniques from a
historian's perspective, which was difficult.  The man was a living
exhibit of what lightsaber combat must have been like in the Golden
Age of the Jedi.
	This time, she was centered enough and in tune with the Force
enough to lose track of time as they sparred, so she had no really
clear idea of how long it was before Obi-Wan stepped back and shut
down his lightsaber.  Alaia immediately followed suit, bowing.  Only
then did it really strike her that, though sweaty and tired, she was
nowhere near the wreckage she'd been after a few minutes without
benefit of the Force against Hurricane Emmy.
	"Well," Obi-Wan said, "it's a start.  Your basic techniques
-are- solid, but you need to work on your speed and precision, and
most importantly your mental discipline.  You cannot afford to let
your mind wander in combat.  Right now you have to think about what
your opponent is doing and select a maneuver to counter it.  All that
has to be automatic - instinctive."
	Alaia bowed her head.  "Yes, Master Kenobi."
	Obi-Wan stood and gazed at her for a moment with thoughtful
eyes; then he relaxed his almost military bearing, becoming more like
the Obi-Wan she thought she'd come to know in the library days
before.  He walked across the room to her, looked down, and took her
shoulders in his hands, and his face had considerably more warmth in
it as he said,
	"Alaia, if I seem harsh in the dojo, and I'm sure I often do,
it's not because I have something against you; just the opposite.  I
want you to succeed.  More, I want you to -survive-.  I come from an
era when many Jedi - indeed, most Jedi - did not, and I bear some of
the responsibility for that fact.  I won't have it happen again."  He
hesitated, choosing his words, then went on, "I respect and admire
your devotion to lore and history, but you must also be able to defend
yourself - and I won't send you into the galaxy alone until you can."
	Alaia sighed tiredly and mustered a crooked smile.  "Thank
you, Master," she said.  "I suppose that one of the purposes of
-being- a historian is to help people learn from past mistakes, so I
should definitely learn from this one.  But...right now, you'll pardon
me if I say that I really wish it weren't quite so hard to learn."
	Obi-Wan cracked a small grin.  "Well, if a thing's worth
doing," he began, letting the rest of the aphorism hang.  "Hit the
showers, Padawan.  That's enough battery for one day.  Tomorrow we'll
begin some remedial speed drills."
	"Yes, Master."

				JYURAI

	It would not have been obvious to the average denizen of the
galaxy at large that the hospital wing of the Jyuraian Royal Palace
was, in fact, a hospital.  It didn't look like one, for one thing.
Like the rest of the palace, it completely lacked any sort of
industrial overtone.  Everything was made of pale wood with only
occasional metallic accents, usually decorative in nature.  The
lighting was gentle and natural.  Outside the emergency and trauma
areas, the place was entirely free of the usual clutter of medical
instruments, supplies, and paraphernalia that marked medical centers
in the outside galaxy.
	It didn't -smell- like one, either.  There was no harsh
antiseptic tang to the air in the Royal Jyurai Infirmary, only the
fresh, subtle sweetness of a summer's day in a healthy forest.
	But here, in this place so unconventional by the standards of
the medical profession at large, miracles could be made that exceeded
even the imaginations of most physicians.
	Dr. Kirayo Masaki, the royal physician, didn't look much like
a surgeon by Inner Sectors standards, either.  A youthful-looking
woman with incongruously white hair, she was dressed in the
traditional garb of a Jyuraian doctor - elaborately folded and pleated
white robes that would have made an Earther take her for a stage
performer, but devoid of the usual intricate decorative patterns and
embroideries that characterized Jyuraian formal clothes.  Only a green
crescent moon, the ancient Jyuraian symbol for the medical arts,
adorned the otherwise perfect whiteness of her robes.
	At the moment, she stood in the intensive care unit, a
cavernous, pleasantly calm chamber containing two ranked rows of a
dozen large and handsome trees, each surrounded by a small moat of
running water.  To an Earthman they would have resembled sugar maples
on an improbable scale, each fitted with a curious casket-like
arrangement resting at a gentle angle among the roots at its base.
Only closer examination revealed that the chambers were not, in fact,
installed among the roots, but rather grew from them.
	Today, eleven of the trees' caskets stood open, empty but for
a glowing, gently bubbling sap-like liquid.  Only the one nearest the
entrance was closed, its lid snugly sealed.  On the lid's surface,
pigment patterns in the grain of the wood subtly shifted into symbols
that would tell a trained observer what was going on inside.
	Another doctor, a young man with short-cropped black hair,
entered the room, pausing a respectful distance from Kirayo.
	"How fares the patient, Doctor?" he asked quietly.
	Kirayo turned to look at him, then returned her pensive gaze
to the lid of the casket.
	"Astonishingly well, Dr. Nobu, considering," she said.  "Never
in all my years of practicing medicine have I ever seen such a
wreckage still living.  The strength of this man's hold on life is
astounding.  It's as if he's defying death itself through sheer force
of will."  She shook her head.  "Only time will tell if he survives
the reconstruction process, though.  It's out of our hands now."  She
put a hand gently on the casket lid, feeling the warmth emanating from
within.  "Is the young woman still waiting?"
	Nobu nodded.  "Yes, Doctor.  I... don't think she intends to
leave."
	"Hmm."  Kirayo considered this.  "Well, there's no need for
her to sit in the garden for a week, and it'll be at least that long
before we know the patient's fate.  Please ask the Chamberlain to make
proper guest quarters available for her."
	Nobu bowed.  "At once, Doctor," he said.

	Elsewhere in the Jyuraian capital, a slow but inexorable
process was beginning.
	Shortly after the incident at the spaceport, the Jyurai
Security Service commenced a routine investigation into the matter, as
any reasonably responsible police force would after a throwdown in a
spaceport corridor left six dead and one hovering on the brink of
death.  Their inquiries into the identities of the dead would-be
attackers led pretty much nowhere, and the one conscious survivor, a
freelance spacer named Rei Ayanami, could shed no light on their names
or motives.  She had simply been passing by, and had only gotten
involved because one of them had tried, for no really good reason, to
kill her.
	Likewise, she had no idea who the black-clad cyborg was.  He
was as much a stranger to her as the assailants.  For that, at least,
the investigators had a lead.  The spaceport's security systems had
tracked him from the landing bay where he'd stored his vessel - and
the registration code on the ship changed everything.
	"This is just screwy," Chief Inspector Satu Kadoro remarked,
looking at the printout in his hand.  "A diplomatic registration from
-Naboo-?"
	Investigator Matada Kinji nodded.  "That's what it says," she
said.
	Kadoro snorted.  "The damned thing's -armed-.  Who ever heard
of the Naboo arming a diplomatic ship?  And the guy's gear doesn't add
up either - what kind of diplomat wears a mask like that and carries a
-lightsaber-?"
	"Maybe he's a Jedi Knight," Kinji said.  "A lot of them are
diplomats."
	"In -that- getup?"
	Kinji shrugged.  "The foreign office's database only says he's
a member of Queen Amidala's court.  It doesn't specify his actual job.
Maybe he's some kind of bodyguard."
	Kadoro harrumped.  "Maybe.  If so, I'd like to know what he's
doing here alone, getting into swordfights in our spaceport.  Ahh, it
doesn't matter to us, anyway.  That diplomatic code changes
everything.  The case gets handed off to the Palace for handling."  He
sighed and rubbed his eyes.  "You know, Matada, one of these days I'd
like something interesting to happen on this planet that -doesn't-
immediately get taken over by the Foreign Ministry."
	Little did Chief Inspector Kadoro suspect that certain people
in the Foreign Ministry were thinking exactly the same thing in this
case.

			     NAR SHADDAA

	The electronic dinger above the door to Ivan's junk shop
sounded.  Ivan found this mildly annoying, since he had had an
unpleasantly eventful day the day before and had been considering not
opening today.  He looked up from his datapad, intending to tell
whoever had come in to go away, that he was closed for inventory or
something -
	- but his throat closed up tight when he saw who had just come
in.  It was the redheaded guy from the day before, the one who had
tried to put the arm on him about the Jedi artifacts - the one Selven
had assured him the Cathar had taken care of...
	... and the Cathar!  Both of them wearing Jedi robes, no less,
with their lightsabers right out in the open, not even trying to
conceal their nature any longer.
	"Ivan," said Len with an affable smile, "I don't think you
were entirely straight with me yesterday."
	Ivan blanched and stamped down on the hidden button under the
counter.
	"I don't know what you are talking about," he said, painfully
aware that the huge bullets of sweat studding his forehead would put
the lie to that.  "You should leave before I call police."
	Len crossed the cluttered front area of the shop to stand in
front of the counter.  Juhani remained by the door, arms folded,
scowling.
	"I'm afraid Selven won't be answering your call," Len told
Ivan.  "She's... indisposed at the moment."

	Of all the humiliating ways to be cut out of the action,
Selven thought.  Trapped in a portafresher with the door welded shut
by a Jedi lightsaber.  No one back on Taris is -ever- going to let me
live this down.
	I'm going to kill that Jedi bastard some day, if it's the last
thing I ever do.

	When it became obvious that the Jedi was telling the truth,
Ivan felt his panic level rise.  He decided to cut his losses.
	"Fine," he said.  "Fine, I tell you truth.  OK.  I have Jedi
artifacts.  I sell them to... collectors.  People who appreciate...
eh... cultural and historical -significance- of such things."
	Len put his hands flat on the counter, leaned slightly toward
Ivan, and smiled.
	"Actually," he said, "I'm considerably less interested in that
than I was the last time I was here.  I mean, yes, it's nice that
you're finally admitting it, and before I leave I'll be taking your
stock off your hands for you.  But what I really want you to tell me
about right now is your friend in the red robe."
	"I don't - "
	"Know what I'm talking about, yes, we've covered that," Len
cut him off.  "Except you -do- know what I'm talking about.  He was in
your shop after hours a week ago.  The next day he provided you with
another assistant - one who worked cheaper than Selven and her crew,
no doubt.  Didn't you think it was a little odd that your new helper
was the Jedi who had been looking into your affairs just the day
before?"
	"I... "  Ivan cast about frantically for something to say that
might get him out of the mess, but could think of nothing.  Finally,
he caved in entirely, slumping onto a stool behind the counter, the
picture of misery.
	"Is best not to ask too many questions in this line of work,"
he said, as if pleading with Len to understand.  "Yes, man in red was
my... supplier.  He brought Jedi things to me from time to time; I
sell them, give him ten percent.  Was good deal for me."
	"'Was'?  Past tense?"
	"He told me... week ago, he would have no more for me to sell.
Said to sell whatever I had left and keep his cut, he wouldn't be here
to collect it.  'We are leaving sector,' he said."
	"Who's 'we'?"
	"I don't know.  I swear on Saint Gorbachev's bones this is
true!" Ivan insisted.  "My supplier, he had organization behind him,
but as I said, is best not to ask questions."
	"What was his name?"
	Ivan shrugged.  "He gave me name to call him by, but you know
as well as I what such things are worth.  I knew him as Stavros."
	"What species was he?  Human?  Did he have an accent?"
	Another shrug.  "Baseline human.  Could have been Corellian,
could have been Earther, I don't know.  He talked like ... like news
reporter, on television, da?  No accent."  Ivan shook his head.  "I
never even saw his face.  He always wore hood."
	"Didn't you think that was strange?"
	"Of course it was strange!" Ivan said indignantly.  "Many
things about this business are strange.  You learn not to - "
	"Ask questions," Len finished for him.
	"Is right," Ivan said stolidly.  "Don't ask questions, you
stay alive.  Ask questions... "  He shrugged once more.
	Len gave him a long, thoughtful look.  He sensed the man had
been straight with him, as straight as a man who had made a career out
of being bent could be, anyway.  He doubted whether Ivan knew anything
more that would be helpful.  He certainly couldn't be expected to be
well enough versed in Force lore to help place the tradition the man
in red came from, beyond what little Juhani had registered about him
before losing her senses.
	"Well," he said, "then I guess there's only one thing left for
us to do.  I want everything the man in red gave you that you still
have, and a list of the clients you sold the other pieces to."
	"I can't do that!" Ivan protested indignantly.  "Sure, I give
you stock I have left, or maybe you let Cathar eat me or something,"
he added with a gesture to Juhani, who threw him a convincing growl.
"But I give you list of clients, I can kiss any future business
goodbye, and maybe one of them breaks my legs.  You understand these
are not -nice- people, for most part."
	"Cathar don't eat humans," Len told him.  "I'm told they find
us distastefully greasy.  But I'll tell you what, Ivan.  You give me
the list, and I'll do what I can to ensure that your clients don't
know it was you that put us onto them."  He grinned.  "Hell, we're the
Jedi Knights.  When we show up on their doorsteps and ask for our
stolen property back, they'll probably think the -Force- told us where
to look for it."
	Ivan considered this, then smiled.
	"You have devious mind," he said.  "I am beginning to like
you."  He flipped up part of the counter, opening a path to the back.
"Come on back to office.  I get you list."  He glanced back over his
shoulder at Juhani.  "You just... eh... wait here," he said nervously.
	"Fine," she said, then added pointedly, "Smelling your office
once was enough."
	Ivan made a gesture that was part annoyed dismissal, part
invocation against the evil eye, then led Len into the office.

		       FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2412
			     THEED, NABOO

	Cleanup and reconstruction work had been in full swing at the
small fortress on Mobar Point for several days when the site received
its second royal visit.  Queen Amidala arrived unannounced just after
lunch, dressed practically and with minimal retinue.  In fact, since
no work was being carried out in the courtyard of the temple itself
when the royal party arrived, no one at first noticed that they were
there - which suited Her Majesty just fine, since it gave her a chance
to look things over without making anyone feel awkward.
	As such, she stood for a few moments next to her limousine
after dismounting and just took it all in.  The courtyard had been
cleared of its centuries of brush and growth, its ancient paving
stones cleaned and re-set where necessary.  The outside of the temple
itself had been power-washed, revealing the beautiful shading of the
colored stones where it had been hidden under centuries of grime.
They had left the verdigris on the coppery dome surmounting the
structure, and the smaller domes on its four corner minarets, but the
golden metalwork rimming the domes and outlining the windows and doors
blazed bright in the afternoon sunlight.
	Leaving her single guard and lone handmaiden with the vehicle,
Amidala crossed the courtyard, pausing occasionally to take in some
new detail or admire some feature from a new angle.  Men and women in
the dark jumpsuits of the Royal Construction Corps moved here and
there.  As was often the case when she was "out of uniform," so to
speak, most of them took no notice at all of their monarch as she
entered the temple's entry hall.
	Count Vladimir Dooku, taking a busman's holiday from his usual
job as seneschal of the central Jedi Temple in Aldera to supervise the
rehabilitation of the temple at Mobar Point, stood in the center of
the room, hands folded behind his back, watching as a pair of RCC
craftsmen re-hung one of the massive carved doors leading deeper into
the temple's interior.
	"Carefully, gentlemen, please," he said in his rich, booming
voice, a voice that always seemed to Amidala as if it were coming from
a much larger man than the tall, slim count.  "That's solid Salusian
greel, it's much heavier than it looks.  We don't need anyone getting
hurt."
	Then, noticing that Amidala had entered, he pivoted to face her,
drew himself to attention with a click of bootheels, and bowed.
	"Your Majesty," he said.  "Welcome."
	Amidala returned the bow.  She felt slightly silly being
addressed so formally on a visit that was at best semi-official, but
that was part of Dooku's charm.  In their short association, she had
developed a genuine affection for the count, largely because his
impeccable manners weren't an affectation, as that sort of behavior
would be in so many modern men; he really was the consummate
gentleman, an aristocratic throwback to a more civilized time.
	"Thank you, Count Dooku," she said, then smiled.  "You've done
an incredible job.  I hardly recognized the place."
	Dooku beamed.  "Your people have done all the work," he said,
though his pride in the project was obvious.  "I merely stand around
and state the obvious."  One of the workmen setting the door chuckled.
	"Don't let him play that Jedi false modesty routine, Your
Majesty," said RCC Chief Engineer Liana Satoya cheerfully as she
entered the great hall from one of the side corridors.
	A rangy, rugged early-middle-aged woman, tanned from working
outside and youthful despite the streaks of grey in her brown hair,
Satoya wore a jumpsuit and tool belt like all her subordinates and
carried a large sheaf of rolled diagrams in one hand.  She grinned
with obvious fondness at Dooku, who replied with a small bow and a wry
little smile.
	"The count has been most helpful," Satoya assured her queen.
"He knows more about the construction methods used to make places like
this than the architects probably did.  In another life he must have
been an engineer.  It would've taken us a month of Sundays to work out
some of the underlying principles from observation alone.  We'd still
be doing the initial project assessment without him.  Instead, we're
nearly halfway done."
	"Engineer Satoya is over-generous with her praise," Dooku
said modestly, "but I'm glad she finds me helpful.  At any rate, the
project -is- ahead of schedule.  The Temple should be ready for
occupation by the end of next week.  Come - I'll give you the ten-cent
tour."

	After a regrettably short time spent touring some of the
temple's restored areas and a quick overview of what work remained,
Amidala returned to the palace and the full-dress guise of the
planetary monarch for the afternoon's official business.
	Padme Amidala was not, by nature, a clock watcher.  She had
accepted when she'd decided to run for office that a good part of her
time would be spent, if she won, in activities little more exciting
than sitting around waiting for something to happen.  Even the usual
royal audience periods, in which she could do little but sit in her
office (actually a throne room, but she preferred the simpler, less
pretentious name for it) on the off chance that someone might come by
with a petition or grievance, normally didn't weigh on her.  She
enjoyed the idea that she was an accessible monarch, one to whom her
subjects could come if they needed help, rather than facing an
impenetrable and impersonal bureaucracy.
	Today, though, she felt a bit restless, almost edgy.  There
was no real reason for it that she could see.  The rehabilitation of
the Jedi Temple was proceeding well; her homeworld had regained its
economic and political footing after the Federation blockade and
invasion of September.  All was peaceful and beautiful on Naboo
again - and soon the planet would have full-time Jedi protection and
stand as part of the Galactic Alliance, helping to work toward a day
when all the galaxy could enjoy the same standard of peace and freedom
the people of Naboo enjoyed every day.
	Amidala knew there were risks involved in that stance, but she
also knew without doubt that it was the right one to take, and she had
reconciled the risks with that sense of rightness before ever taking
action.  Her planet was at peace and her people were behind her.  So
why did she feel so strangely restless?
	While she was pondering that question, the giant doors leading
to the antechamber of her office swung open and Governor Sio Bibble,
her chief political subordinate, entered.  Bibble carried himself very
upright and stopped just inside the doors, bowing to his queen.
	"May I present Her Royal Highness the Princess Achika Shannon
of Jyurai - Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from the
Kingdom of Jyurai," he announced.
	And in she came - slim, dark-haired, looking exactly as she
had when she'd left Naboo to return to her homeworld a few weeks
before, just after the dust from the invasion had settled.  Achika had
originally come to Naboo as a special diplomatic envoy, the Jyuraian
Crown's representative to Amidala's coronation, and had been trapped
there for nearly a month by the Federation blockade.  She'd helped
turn back the invasion and left as a friend not only of the Naboo
royal government, but also of Padme Amidala herself - and now she was
back, dressed in Jyuraian ambassadorial robes that rivaled Amidala's
own court garments for complexity, albeit in an entirely different
style.
	"Your Majesty," Achika said, bowing to precisely the correct
angle before Amidala's desk.
	Amidala smiled as much as royal decorum would allow, knowing
they would have a chance to catch up more personally later.
	"Welcome back to Naboo, Your Highness," she said.  "It is most
agreeable to see you again."
	"I regret it couldn't be under better circumstances," Achika
replied, "but I'm afraid that wasn't to be.  I've been sent on behalf
of the Jyuraian Foreign Ministry to notify you formally that a member
of Your Majesty's court, Lord Darth Vader, has been involved in an...
incident on Jyurai.  A few days ago he was attacked in the service
area of the capital spaceport.  A passing spacer helped him fight off
his attackers, but he was badly injured and his life support systems
failed."
	Amidala's eyes widened in shock.  "Lord Vader is dead?"
	Achika shook her head.  "No, not yet, or at least he wasn't
when I left Jyurai.  He's under the care of the royal physician, my
cousin Kirayo Masaki.  If anyone can save him, anywhere in the galaxy,
it's her, but... "  Achika paused, shedding some of her veneer of
diplomatic formality, and went on in a more normal voice, "It looks
bad."
	She sighed.  "I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner, but it took
us a while to figure out who he is.  I didn't see him - by the time I
got involved he'd already been removed from what was left of his armor
and put in a regen bath - and no one else on Jyurai would've known who
he was.  It wasn't until our investigators traced his starship
registry and found it was a Naboo diplomatic code that the Foreign
Ministry called me in."
	"When... " Amidala's own mask almost slipped, but that would
never do, not in her office; she mastered herself with an effort of
will and asked with something almost like royal detachment, "When will
we know whether he will survive?"
	"There's no telling," Achika said.  "Jyurai's medical arts are
the best anywhere, but... well, even Kirayo hadn't seen anyone as
badly hurt as Vader, and I'm not just talking about what happened to
him on Jyurai.  Under that black armor he was more machine than man.
Something -horrible- happened to him, a long time ago.  We're just not
sure if there's enough left of him for even our medicine to save."
	Then, reassuming her ambassadorial role, she collected herself
and said, "I have been commanded by Queen Sasami to remain on Naboo -
with Your Majesty's permission, of course - in order to receive
updates on Lord Vader's condition and relay them to your court.  We
feel it's best for information on his condition not to be transmitted
outside our hardest diplomatic cipher, in the event that those
responsible for the attack are monitoring our communications."
	Amidala inclined her head.  "Of course, Your Highness.  Every
accommodation will be made for you.  You are always welcome here."
	"Thank you, Your Majesty."  Letting a little bit of her real
face out from behind the mask again, Achika added, "As you may recall,
my needs are slight."
	Amidala gave another infinitesimal smile at that, then turned
to the handmaiden to her left.
	"Corde, please make certain that Princess Achika is provided
with the best quarters available, and that those quarters include a
diplomatic stellarcomm."
	Corde bowed.  "I'll see to it personally, m'lady."
	The queen nodded acknowledgement, sending Corde on her way,
then turned to the handmaiden on her right.  "Eirtae, I need you to go
to Mobar Point and bring back Count Dooku, quick as you can.  He needs
to be apprised of this development as well."
	"Yes, m'lady."
	Achika, not for the first time, admired the crisp, yet polite
manner in which Queen Amidala issued her instructions.  There was
never any doubt that she was in charge, never any doubt that her
orders would be followed, but she always took care to include the
little touches like "please" or "I need" to make her subordinates know
that their efforts and their loyalty were appreciated.  Achika, who
was born to royalty but hadn't been raised in the atmosphere of a
royal court, found it amazing that someone -elected- to the monarchy
could have such perfect pitch when it came to the exercise of royal
powers - especially someone as young as Padme Amidala.
	Now she turned to Captain Panaka and told him, "Captain,
please alert Captain Olie to prepare the Mercury for launch.  Count
Dooku will probably wish to return to Alderaan as soon as he's
briefed."
	"Right away," Panaka agreed.  "Your Highness," he added with a
short bow to Achika before he strode briskly from the room.
	Having run out of things to do, Amidala sat back slightly in
her chair and suppressed a sigh.
	Well, she thought wryly, not really meaning it.  Now I know
what I was feeling so uneasy about.

		      SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2412
			       ALDERAAN

	Obi-Wan Kenobi stood in the corner of one of the Temple's
larger practice rooms, a wide open space with high, slanting windows
that let in a lot of sunlight, and watched his apprentice spar with
Emmy.
	Alaia had applied herself with diligence (if also slight
reluctance) to the drills he had devised for her, and he was pleased
to see that she did, after all, have some natural athletic talent to
help her in that task.  Now that her connection to the Force was
firmer, she was making good strides in overcoming the slow technique
she'd picked up under a less exacting swordmaster.
	Obi-Wan smiled nostalgically, remembering his own training.
He had studied under some of the greatest masters of the era, both in
the Jedi arts and the traditional swordfighting techniques of Hyeruul.
He could see echoes of several Hyelian fencing forms, most plainly the
East Seacoast Style, in the self-developed form his descendent used
today.  Whenever Emmy held one or both of her smallsabers backward,
that was the East Seacoast Style declaring itself with pride.
	For her part, Alaia had shown herself to have some knowledge
of at least one of the more advanced lightsaber forms as her
confidence improved.  For the most part she stuck to Shii-Cho, the
basic form known rather prosaically in the modern Jedi manual of arms
as Form I, but she knew pieces, at least, of Form VI, Niman - the
"diplomat's form", as it was commonly known.  That fit with what
little Obi-Wan knew of the late Master Befin; Niman was commonly
studied by those Jedi who preferred to allot most of their training
time to subjects other than combat.  A Niman master could be honestly
called competent in all the varied uses of the lightsaber, but truly
great at none of them.
	Well, Obi-Wan could work with that.  He'd never had terribly
much use for Niman himself, but its broad-based structure meant that
he could use it as a foundation for teaching Alaia techniques in which
he had more confidence... but that was all some distance in the
future.  For now, he was happy just to see her getting her feet under
her and learning that she had more potential than she might once have
assumed.  He suspected she would never -enjoy- the lightsaber arts in
and of themselves, as he did, but that was all right.  If all Jedi
were the same, the Order would stagnate and die.  How often had
Qui-Gon pointed that out?
	The door at the far end of the room opened and, at first
unnoticed by the combatants, a number of diminutive figures filed in.
It was, Obi-Wan saw, a class of youngsters - perhaps twenty of them,
mostly humans or close humanoids, all around the age of ten.  At the
head of the column, no taller than his charges (and in many cases
already quite a bit shorter), was Yoda.
	Alaia noticed them first, when she turned in their direction
following a marginally successful riposte to one of Emmy's scything
double attacks.  Immediately, she disengaged, stepping out of the
pattern and swinging her lightsaber up in salute before switching it
off.  Emmy, at first puzzled, deactivated her smallsabers and stowed
them in the opposite sleeves before turning and noticing Yoda and the
students as well.
	"I apologize, Master Yoda," said Obi-Wan, stepping away from
the wall.  "I wasn't aware this room would be needed today."
	"No harm have you done," Yoda assured him.  "Instructive your
padawan's training may be for these young learners."  Slowly he
crossed the room to stand looking up at Alaia.  "Completed a new
lightsaber you have, I see.  Examine it may I?"
	Alaia blinked.  "Of... of course, Master Yoda," she said.  She
removed the weapon from her belt and handed it over.  It was almost
comically large in the tiny Grand Master's hands, despite being on the
small side as full-size lightsabers went, but he handled it with
authority, examining its construction carefully before igniting it and
regarding the blade with raised eyebrows.
	"Mm!" he said.  "Found the moonbase crystal you have, I see.
A fascinating specimen it is.  Attempted to use it many padawans
have... "
	Alaia gave him a wary look.  "And... ?"
	Yoda shook his head.  "Responded to their attentions it did
not.  Mm.  Interesting that is.  Most interesting."  He switched off
the saber and returned it to its owner, then bowed slightly to her.
"Excellent the workmanship is.  A fine blade you have constructed.
Carry on, Padawan."
	"C... carry on - ?  Oh!  Of course, Master Yoda."
	Wonderful, she thought as she returned to an en-garde stance
facing Emmy.  Not only do I get chased around the room some more, I
have to do it in front of a gaggle of fifth-graders and Grand Master
Yoda.  I'll probably set those poor kids' training back two years...
	Then, pushing such thoughts aside as unproductive, she
recentered herself in the Force and nodded to Emmy, who drew her twin
sabers in a flash and leaped to the attack.
	"Observe, students," Yoda said to the children after a few
moments.  "With the Jedi fighting art Jar'kai, a swordfighting form
from her native culture Jedi M'yl'ya has fused.  Highly complex this
art form is.  Very advanced."
	The students watched with something like awe as the two young
woman fought, one with incredible speed and aggression, the other with
less raw ability but palpably dogged determination.
	"Master, why don't all Jedi fight with two lightsabers?" one
of the students, a young human girl with red hair and freckles, asked.
	Yoda turned a half-smile to her.  "Mm.  Two weapons make one
twice as powerful, you think?" he asked.
	"Well... " the girl replied, shifting uncomfortably under
Yoda's green gaze.
	Yoda nodded.  "Strong is Jedi M'yl'ya's fighting form, yes...
but not invincible.  Truly invincible no warrior ever is."  Turning to
address the entire class, he went on, "Important this lesson is.
Learn it well you must.  Able to defend yourself and others you must
be... but combat alone will not a Jedi make you."
	"How would you counter her style, Master Yoda?" another of the
students asked.
	"Yes, show us!" a third pleaded.  Off to the side, Obi-Wan hid
a smile behind his hand.  How many times had he seen this, millennia
ago?
	Yoda put his hands on his hips and gave the class a stern
look.  "Hrmph.  Your instructor I am.  Here to amuse you I am not," he
said.
	"Oh, but Master - it would be very instructive," the redheaded
girl who'd spoken first said earnestly, her eyes huge and sincere.
	Yoda gazed with fond skepticism at her for a few seconds.  "A
troublemaker you are, young one.  My eye on you I have."  When she
replied only with a look of such pious innocence that Obi-Wan had to
struggle not to laugh aloud, Yoda mock-grumpily relented, "But very
well.  Demonstrate for you I will."
	The children did their best not to cheer out loud as Yoda
handed the redheaded girl his gimer stick, shrugged out of his outer
robe, and stepped into the center of the dojo.  Immediately Emmy and
Alaia, who had missed the entire exchange with the students,
disengaged again and turned to face him.
	"Excuse my interruption I hope you will, Padawan Alaia," he
said.  "Your training partner I must borrow for a moment."
	Now it was Emmy's turn to blink.  Master Yoda wanted to duel
with her?  She had never heard of Yoda dueling anyone for pleasure,
though it was a popular enough pastime among younger, more martially
inclined Jedi.
	Yoda made a small gesture with his right hand, and suddenly,
out of nowhere, he was holding a pair of flowers - Earth roses, one
violet, one green.  He handed the violet one to Emmy and affixed the
other one to the left breast of his undertunic.  To the quizzical
looks of Emmy, Alaia, and Obi-Wan, he explained,
	"A dueling form adapted from a recently discovered sister
order this is.  Dangerous it is for the unskilled.  In this manner no
Jedi who has not passed the Trials may duel."  He gestured to Emmy.
"Your rose fix as I have fixed mine.  Whichever of us loses it first,
the loser of the duel is."
	Looking at the size of her opponent, Emmy had a bad feeling
about that rule, but she only nodded and squared herself off.  "I'm
ready, Master Yoda."
	Yoda nodded, removed his miniature lightsaber from his belt,
and ignited its emerald blade.  Emmy's twin sabers hissed to life.
For a moment, the two Jedi stood motionless, gazing at each other with
faces perfectly impassive.
	And then...

	       /*  Klaus Badelt  "Skull and Crossbones"
     _Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl_  */

	It was like watching two storm fronts collide, Alaia thought,
over the Jewel Sea of Tarraska IV.  If Emmy's usual approach to combat
rendered her a blur of motion almost impossible to follow, Yoda's made
him less a being and more a... a -hypercomm signal-, seeming to cross
distances instantly and appear in the most improbable places.  He
seemed to be using Form IV, Ataru, already an acrobatic attack form,
but taken to such an incredible extreme to compensate for Yoda's tiny
stature that it was almost unrecognizable - and utterly thrilling to
watch.
	The two bounced from the walls and bounded from side to side
of the room, always intersecting with brilliant flashes of bicolored
light and huge sprays of sparks.  Once Alaia could have sworn she even
saw Yoda -run- for a considerable distance -across the ceiling- before
deigning to acknowledge gravity and dropping onto Emmy's defenses.
	Master Befin had told her once, in one of his many tales of
the Grand Master, that Yoda was the finest lightsaber duelist in the
history of the Order, greater even than Mace Windu.  In her heart of
hearts, she hadn't believed him.  Kindly, tiny old Yoda, with his
funny wrinkled face, his slow, shuffling gait, and his cane?  Did he
even -have- a lightsaber?  Until today, she'd never seen it, and when
he'd drawn it, her first thought had been how much like a toy it
looked.  Like her dirk, a bit, only chunkier.  Even when he'd ignited
it and stood en-garde with Emmy she hadn't believed he could seriously
pose a threat to someone as quick and sure and ferocious as the young
Hyelian.
	Now she believed.  Now Emmy was in the position Alaia usually
occupied in their sparring matches - almost constantly on the
defensive, unable to attack except for quick flashes of advantage
conveyed as much by circumstance as skill.  Against Yoda's incredible
speed and agility, his virtual -omnipresence-, even Emmy's quickness
seemed a half-step behind, like a holo being replayed at the wrong bit
rate.  Next to the Grand Master's grace, Emmy's fluid movements looked
jerky and awkward.  Next to his wild, full-throated ferocity - so
stunning in a creature as normally placid and kindly as Yoda - she
seemed meek and hesitant.
	Of course, these were matters of very fine degree, and to
someone less familiar with Emmy and with lightsaber dueling in general
- someone like Yoda's young students - the whole thing was a simply
breathtaking display on both sides.  This was a day they would talk
about for the rest of their lives: the day Yoda showed them that two
sabers are not necessarily better than one.
	After a few minutes of furious combat - minutes that felt like
hours to the enthralled witnesses - Yoda rebounded through one of the
corners of the room like a gravball, twisted in mid-air, caught one of
Emmy's blades on his own, and whirled the weapon from her hand.  It
sailed in a spinning, glittering arc across the room, its blade
automatically going out, and fell neatly into Obi-Wan's upraised hand.
	Emmy, undaunted, spun her remaining blade into a more standard
grip and adjusted her form to compensate.  By now she could no more
have suppressed the wide smile on her face than she could have stopped
the planet turning.  She -was- one of those who found joy in the clash
of sabers, the immediacy of combat - not in its violence, per se, but
in the physical challenge, the art, the strange and brutal beauty of
it all.  For her, the Force was like a waterfall, and the height of a
well-fought battle was like standing under its full flow.  It was a
sensation she could never tire of.
	It didn't matter at all that this was a well-fought battle she
was destined to lose, and lose it she did a few moments later, when
Yoda knocked her remaining weapon out of position and deftly, surely
vaporized her rose without so much as singeing the fine silk of her
tunic.
	Smiling, she called her other saber back from Obi-Wan's hand,
crossed the blades before her and made a deep obeisance with her head
bowed in the top of the X, just as East Seacoast duelists did at the
end of a match, before switching them off and stowing them in her
sleeves.  Yoda returned her salute by raising his own lightsaber
before his face, then whirling it through one last flourish before
turning it off and tucking it on his belt in the same smooth motion.
	For a second the room was utterly silent; then Yoda's young
students began whistling and cheering madly.  He turned and silenced
them with a stern look, then smiled and shuffled slowly back to them.
	"Nf.  Mrf," he muttered, slowly clambering back into his robe
and taking his cane back.  "Feel that in the morning I will.  Too old
for this I am."  Then, addressing the class, he said, "The lesson, I
trust, satisfactory was?"
	"Oh, yes, Master Yoda," the students chorused.
	"Good.  Proceed to more important matters we must," he said
firmly.  "Your positions take up.  Begin with exercise four today we
will."
	Just as they were about to commence - and as Emmy, Alaia, and
Obi-Wan were about to leave - a teenage student (who, Obi-Wan noticed,
rather resembled the girl who'd goaded Yoda into his duel with Emmy)
appeared at the door.
	"Excuse me, Master Yoda," he said.  "You asked to be notified
when Jedi Hutchins arrived."
	Emmy's face, still glowing from the exhilaration of her duel
with Yoda, lit up further.  "Len's back?  Finally?"
	"Er, yes, ma'am," said the student, slightly taken aback at
being addressed by someone other than Yoda.  "He's just landed.  He
has Padawan Juhani with him.  They're being taken to see Master
Faloon right now."
	Yoda bowed his head, a look of relief crossing his face.
	"Excellent news this is," he said.  "Concerned for Juhani I
have been.  Go to meet them at once we will."  He gave the student a
slow look.  "A favor of you I must ask, Ron.  In hand my class take."
	Ron blinked.  "Me, Master Yoda?"
	Yoda nodded.  "Basic Form I exercises they are doing.
Material you know well it is."
	"Er... very well, Master Yoda," said the young man.  He
stepped hesitantly into Yoda's place and watched with obvious
nervousness as the Grand Master and the others left the room.  As the
door swished shut behind them, Emmy heard his voice crack slightly as
he said, "Uh... right then!  Exercise four, was it?"
	"Putting people on the spot seems to be a Jedi tradition I
wasn't made aware of before," Alaia noted mildly as they made their
way toward the turbolift at Yoda's relaxed pace.
	"A good student young Weasley is, but often overshadowed he is
by his classmates," Yoda told her.  "Learn to stand on his own he
must.  Perform best he does when to challenges he rises."  He nodded.
"Almost ready to become a padawan he is."
	"Have you chosen his master yet?" Obi-Wan inquired.
	Yoda shook his head.  "Not quite," he said.  "A difficult
choice it is.  Serve him well either of two masters would, but train
him only one can."  He tapped the call button for the lift with his
cane, then leaned on it and sighed contentedly.  "When ready he is,
the way the Force will show."

	Len and Juhani were just emerging from Archivist Faloon's
office when the lift deposited Yoda and his companions in the hallway
outside.
	"Len!" said Emmy delightedly.  She trotted down the hall and
jumped up to give him a hug, which he returned with a grin.
	"Hey there, short stuff," he said, earning himself a swat on
the shoulder.  "Long time no see."
	"Too long," Emmy replied.  "It feels weird being on my own
after so long.  I guess I've gotten used to having you around," she
added wryly.
	Len chuckled.  "Well, now that I'm back you'll have time to
get sick of me again," he said.
	"Padawan Juhani," Yoda put in, nodding to the young Cathar.
"Pleased I am to see you again.  Concerned the Council has been for
your welfare."
	Juhani bowed respectfully to the Grand Master.  "I am well,
Master Yoda," she said.  "Thanks to Leonard."
	Yoda's ears inclined.  "Mm," he said.  "To Master Burke you
should go.  Debrief you he must."
	"Yes, Master Yoda."  She turned to go, then hesitated, turned
back, and leaned toward Len, intent on having as close to a private
word with him as she could under the circumstances.
	"Thank you," she said softly.  "I will never forget what you
have done for me."  Then, with quiet determination, she added, "I will
never -dishonor- what you have done for me."
	Len smiled.  "You're welcome, Juhani.  May the Force be with
you."
	"And with you," she said, "always."  She hesitated a moment
more, then turned and walked away down the hall.
	Emmy watched her go, then turned a puzzled look to Len.  "What
was that all about?"
	"It's... kind of a long story," he said.  "I'll tell you
later.  Who're your friends?"
	Emmy looked surprised.  "Oh my - noyyj'ttat, you don't know."
	"Know what?  And where's Lord Vader?"
	"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly.  "News
of this kind a danish requires."

	Some hours later, Len was relaxing in guest quarters, his
long, lanky frame stretched out on a narrow single bed, and trying to
wrap his head around the things Emmy had told him.  Her ancestor
O'bi-Wann, alive - thanks to the collaborative efforts of Emmy and
Darth Vader, no less!  Master Yoda had been right - news of that kind
required a very big danish indeed.
	He was mulling over the implications when the doorchime rang.
"Come in," he said, expecting to see Emmy or possibly Zaerdra when the
door opened; instead, his visitor turned out to be Bolo Burke.
	"Master Burke," Len said, rising.  "What brings you by?"
	"No need to get up," Burke said, a trifle belatedly.  He
entered the room and sat down in the armchair in the corner.  He had,
Len was surprised to note, the air of a very tired man about him.  Len
sat down on the end of the bed and observed the Rodian curiously.
	"I want to thank you," Burke said after resting for a moment.
"Juhani has told me what you did for her."  He steepled his
sucker-tipped fingers and regarded Len over them for a moment.
	Len gave a modest shrug.  "I just followed my instincts, as
Master Gajic taught me," he said.  "It didn't make sense for Juhani to
be acting the way she was because of any deliberate choice on her
part, not so soon after she disappeared.  I was fairly sure something
had been done to her mind.  The trick was to subdue her long enough to
investigate that without getting one of us seriously hurt."
	Burke nodded.  "A less capable Jedi would have been slain, or
forced to kill her.  You did very well."  He took a breath, held it
for a moment, and let it slowly out.  "Juhani's is a difficult case.
She was trained mostly in the field, as you were, by a master who
wanted little to do with the reorganization of the Order.  Members of
her species have always found aspects of Jedi training difficult, but
the ones who have made it through have been powerful Jedi indeed, and
Master Quatra had great hopes for her student... but she died
unexpectedly before she could complete Juhani's training.  Juhani was
nearly ready to face the Trials when she lost not just her teacher,
but in many ways her spiritual anchor.
	"Quatra distrusted the reconstitution of the Order as an
organized entity, but she was on good terms with several Jedi Masters
who did choose to participate, including myself and the Windu
brothers.  When she lost Quatra, Juhani sought out Morpheus, and he
brought her to me.  I did my best to take her in hand, but... " Burke
shrugged.  "My style of instruction doesn't suit her.  I fear that, in
the long term, I have done her more harm than good.  The situation you
found her in is proof of that.  I sent her to Nar Shaddaa because I
felt obligated to give her something to do, and because I thought it
would be a simple, straightforward case.  I committed the cardinal sin
of one in my profession: I failed to plan for hidden dangers."
	Burke rose to his feet.  "It was a serious blunder on my
part," he said, "and it nearly cost Juhani her life - or worse, her
soul.  In rescuing her from my error, you've also salvaged my honor.
I consider that a significant debt, and I will not forget it."
	Len got up as well.  "I'm just glad I was able to help Juhani,
Master Burke," he said.  "What will happen to her now?  If not you,
who will complete her training and prepare her for the Trials?"
	Burke smiled enigmatically.  "That's... already been taken
care of," he said.  "Good night, Leonard.  Thank you for all you've
done.  Though I'm already in your debt, I may call on you again at
some future time."
	Len looked mildly perplexed by Burke's evasion of his question, 
but put it aside and, bowing, assured the Rodian Master that he'd be
happy to help him again someday.

		       SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2412
			       ALDERAAN

	Alaia woke early on Sunday morning, well before she had
planned to rise.  She tried to go back to sleep, but with no success.
She felt almost like there was something important she'd forgotten to
do, though she knew there was nothing.  Finally, with a sigh, she got
out of bed and readied herself for the day.  The sun was rising over
Aldera's towers, tinting the capital in vibrant shades of scarlet and
gold, when she left her room in the students' dormitory.
	She supposed she ought to put in for a change of quarters now
that she wasn't adrift in the Order any longer.  She'd been given a
room in the student area only because that was where visiting Jedi and
the like tended to be quartered.  Now that she was a proper padawan
learner with an assigned master again, she ought to live with or near
that master.  Then again, Obi-Wan didn't have permanent quarters in
the Aldera Temple either, at least not yet.  As far as Alaia knew, he
hadn't decided yet just where his life would take him next.
	Even when my life isn't in flux, it's in flux, she mused.  I
suppose there's some kind of message in that.
	Nobody seemed to be stirring in the student area, which wasn't
surprising this early on a Sunday.  Alaia considered her options.  She
wasn't hungry.  It was too early to find anything to do in the city
beyond the temple walls, for all that she'd been halfheartedly meaning
to explore the place since she arrived on Alderaan.
	Left to her own devices, Alaia did what she usually did at
such times - she went to the library.
	That facility, too, was practically deserted.  Apart from an
assistant librarian on duty at the desk, there was only one other
person in the whole cavernous room.  One of the young pre-padawan
students - the girl with the curly brown hair, Alaia couldn't remember
her name - was in the carrel all the way at the end of Row C, head
down, busily intent on some document or another.  Alaia smiled
slightly and went down Row E, all the way to the end, just like her
opposite number on the other side of the room.
	When she sat down and switched on the terminal built into the
carrel, Alaia saw that there was an all-stations bulletin pending -
from Archivist Faloon, no less!  Curiosity piqued, she opened it.

ALL-STATIONS BULLETIN
FROM: Faloon, Archivist of the Order
SUBJECT: Your help needed

Colleagues,

Jedi investigators recently recovered several artifacts from an
illicit dealer on Nar Shaddaa.  These items included a pair of
holocrons and several lightsabers, initially believed to be ancient
relics.  While the holocrons are such, and efforts are being made to
identify them, I have discovered upon examining them that the
lightsabers are of modern construction.

Since every Jedi's lightsaber is unique, I am posting images of the
recovered sabers here in hopes that members of the Order will
recognize them and help me determine to whom they belong - or
belonged.  If you think you can identify one or more of these weapons,
please inform me immediately.  Your help is very much appreciated.

May the Force be with you,
Faloon

	Hm, that's interesting, Alaia mused, paging down.  I wonder
who's misplaced a - 
	Her heart jumped in her chest and a spike of nauseous vertigo
raced up her spine into the back of her head.  For a moment, she felt
as if the room were falling away around her, as if she might fall out
of her seat.  Only with an effort of will did she collect herself and
retain her composure.
	Moments later, when she was sure she could stand and move
without falling, she rose, took another deep, steadying breath, and
ran from the library.

	Obi-Wan Kenobi was enjoying his morning coffee - remarkable
beverage, this!  Nothing like it on old Atlantis, more's the pity - in
the masters' lounge on the 53rd floor when the door opened and in came
his very own padawan learner, and in something of a state, too.  Alaia
was so intent on her errand and in such a hurry that she cannoned
straight into Master Parker as he was leaving - or would have, had he
not leaped to the ceiling and stayed there until the danger was past.
	"Whoa!" Parker exclaimed, hanging upside down and craning his
neck to watch her pass.  "Where's the fire, Padawan?" - but Alaia
didn't hear him, may not even have noticed him.  She went straight to
Obi-Wan, who looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup with a look
of bemusement.
	"Master," she said, slightly breathless but more under control
than she had been when she left the library.  "Have you seen Master
Faloon's message about the lightsabers?"
	Obi-Wan's puzzlement deepened.  "Yes, why?" he asked.
	Alaia steadied herself, eyes closed, for a moment, then opened
them again and said, "One of them is Master Befin's."
	Obi-Wan's eyebrows rose.  "Are you certain?"
	Alaia nodded.  "I'd know it anywhere."
	Obi-Wan put his coffee cup down and stood up.  "Well, then,
let's go see Master Faloon."

	Later that day, Faloon presented her preliminary report to the
Council and a handful of selected observers.
	"What began as a simple case of trafficking in illegally
recovered Jedi artifacts has become something much more sinister," she
said.  "Not only was Padawan Juhani attacked by an unknown Force-user
during her investigation on Nar Shaddaa, I now have compelling
evidence that the items traced back to him were -not- all of ancient
origin, as we had first assumed.  The exact provenance of several of
the recovered lightsabers has still not been determined, but we know
without question that one of them belonged to the late Jedi Master
Befin ibn Saleh al-Rashid.
	"Additionally, I have determined that the two holocrons
recovered from Nar Shaddaa came from the Jedi Temple on Sarati, where
Master al-Rashid and two of his apprentices were recently slain."
Faloon surveyed the room silently for a moment before adding just a
trifle archly, "It does not require vast powers of intuition to
conclude that their unknown killers must, at the very least, be
connected to the man Juhani encountered on Nar Shaddaa."
	"This is a deeply troubling development," Mace Windu
observed.  "Illicit traffic in ancient Jedi artifacts is nothing new,
but the idea that some... organization... may be hunting Jedi and then
dumping their equipment on the black market is simply unacceptable."
	"It's almost like they -want- us to know they're doing it,"
Zaerdra Kinshasa mused.
	Yoda frowned, his eyes closed in thought.  "Mm.  Puzzling this
is.  I sense... many layers this matter has.  Difficult to see the
pattern is... "  He opened his eyes.  "But that there is one, no doubt
I have."
	Bolo Burke spoke up for the first time.  "I'll follow up on
Juhani's encounter on Nar Shaddaa myself.  She and I will try to trace
the other unidentified lightsabers and see if one of the trails we
find will lead us to the man in the red robe."
	Windu nodded.  "Good.  In the meantime, we have other matters
to address."  He surveyed the small gallery of guests with his dark,
incisive eyes.  "Apart from this council, certain members of the royal
court of Naboo, Prime Sentinel Lock, and Count Dooku, you four are the
only people who know that Darth Vader did not die in antiquity.  You
should know that Count Dooku returned from Naboo this morning with
news of Lord Vader.  He's on Jyurai, where apparently he was involved
in some kind of... altercation a few days ago.  The details are
uncertain at this point, but apparently he's in critical condition in
a Jyuraian hospital.  Count Dooku's source believes he may die."
	Emmy unconsciously closed a hand over the nearest available,
which happened to be Len's; he was mildly surprised by that, but too
intent on what the council chairman was saying to make anything of it.
	"Master Kenobi, you... know Lord Vader best," Windu went on
"We need you to go to Jyurai and investigate the matter.  From one of
our ships, you can report to the council with no fear of eavesdroppers.
Naturally, your padawan learner will remain here until you return."
	Since he was looking at Obi-Wan, he didn't see both Yoda and
Vert adopt almost identical "oh no, dear boy" expressions and shake
their heads in amused resignation.
	Obi-Wan, on the other hand, looked puzzled.
	"I beg your pardon, Master Windu?  What purpose could possibly
be served by leaving Alaia here?  A padawan's place is by her master's
side.  It's how they learn."
	Windu nodded.  "Ordinarily I'd agree with you, Master Kenobi,
but given what she recently experienced, I hardly think it would be
right to put Alaia in a position where she might come face to face
with the Dark Lord himself."
	Obi-Wan gave Windu a merry, twinkling-eyed, I'm-onto-you-son
grin.  "Ahhh, you don't think she can handle it," he said.  "Well, I
think she can.  And with all due respect, Master Windu, she's my
padawan, not yours."
	Atin-Vae Springsteen, herself a former padawan of Windu's,
laughed.  "He's got you there, Master," she said.
	Mace shot her the You're Not Helping look, got back only an
impish grin, and had to smile himself at all the memories of their
travels together it brought back.  Turning back to Obi-Wan, he
nodded.
	"Very well," he conceded.  "Perhaps I'm over-cautious - and in
any case, you're right.  She should be with you."
	Obi-Wan inclined his head graciously.  "Thank you, Master
Windu.  We'll leave at once."
	"Check in when you arrive, and be careful; the Jyurai system
is a legendary navigation challenge.  May the Force be with you."
	Emmy watched her ancestor and his apprentice leave.  With
every fiber of her being, she wanted to ask the council for permission
to go with them, but she sensed that they had another assignment in
mind for her - and she was right.
	"Leonard.  M'yl'ya," Yoda said.  "An important task we have
for you as well.  Master Kinshasa?"
	Zaerdra nodded.  "We need you to investigate the disappearance
of another Jedi Master."  She switched on the room's holoprojector,
causing the image of a heavyset middle-aged human in Jedi robes to
appear in the center of the chamber.  "This is Master Wald Corto.
He's an itinerant who spends most of his time on the Coreward
Frontier, but he maintains ties to the reorganized Order.  He checks
in about once a week... but we haven't heard from him in nearly a
month."
	The image of Corto was replaced by a segment of the galactic
map.  "Our last contact with Master Corto was on October 5th," Zaerdra
said.  The image changed again, zooming in to show first a star
system, then a planet, then a city.  "He called from a pay phone in
the spaceport of Jro City on the planet Grushka, in the Zebulon
sector.  There was nothing unusual in the call.  I spoke to him
myself.  He was just... poking around, as was his habit.  Since
then, nothing.  We've left messages for him in his usual haunts, but
they haven't seen him since before his last call to us."
	"We don't know whether Master Corto's disappearance is in any
way connected to the death of Master al-Rashid, the attack on Lord
Vader, or any other incident," Bolo Burke put in.  "Grushka is a long
way indeed from Sarati.  But the circumstances alone would seem to
call for extra caution."

	All Len and Emmy had to do, after gathering up their few
belongings, was climb aboard Len's borrowed Naboo starship (which Emmy
wryly dubbed "The Ostentation Express") and head out.  Obi-Wan and
Alaia, on the other hand, found themselves prowling the Jedi Order's
equivalent of a motor pool, looking for suitable transportation.
	"Well, I'll be - a Delta-Seven!" Obi-Wan exclaimed in delight
outside one of the long, wide hangar's many parking stalls.  "I flew
one of these in the Vortex Wars," he remarked to Alaia.  "I'm amazed
there are any left, let alone flying."
	"Master Springsteen's ride, that is," a voice remarked from
behind them.  The two Jedi turned to see the amorphous shape of a
Dralasite, partially constrained by a universal tool harness, swishing
across the floor toward them.  "Been rebuilt more times than I can
make pseudopods to count 'em," he added.  "She's very particular about
her maintenance is Atin-Vae.  I don't think I've seen you here
before.  I'm Greb.  I handle maintenance and whatnot down here."
	"Obi-Wan Kenobi," Obi-Wan replied.  "And this is Alaia ner
Ronor."
	"Pleasure," said Greb.  "So you're looking for transport, eh?
Where're you headed?"
	"Jyurai," Obi-Wan said.
	"You're gonna want something with a little room and a good
turn of speed, then," Greb said.  "I got just the thing."
	They followed the shuffling, occasionally rolling Dralasite
down a long row of parking spaces, each containing a tiny U-shaped
starfighter no bigger than an airspeeder.  At the end of the row there
was a larger space, filling the rest of one corner of the hangar.  A
somewhat bigger vessel was parked there.  Vaguely discus-shaped and
with a blunt, squared-off nose, it appeared to Alaia to be some sort
of light stock freighter, designed to fit into the same size bays and
use the same cargo loading facilities as Corellian Engineering's YT
series, but she didn't recognize its precise make.
	"Here we are," Greb announced, forming a pseudopod to make a
sweeping gesture that took in the ship.  "The good ship Ebon Hawk,
fresh from refit.  Don't know exactly what kind of ship she is; odds
are she was a custom job for somebody.  She's got some history, but
you seem like a man who appreciates that kinda thing.  More important,
she's fast.  Fastest ship we have here, apart from Atin-Vae's Delta.
Her hyperdrive motivator's rated at point three three and you won't
find bigger fusion turbines on a ship this size, neither."
	"What kind of history?" Obi-Wan inquired, curious.
	Greb rippled, a Dralasite shrug.  "It's mostly just rumors.
They say she used to be a smuggling ship - and I can believe it, with
that power train - and that the Order took her from a Sith Lord near
the Core a few years ago.  What kind of Sith Lord smuggles spice in
the Core I couldn't tell ya.  I figure at least half of it's just, you
know, tall tales o' the spacelanes.  Anyway, she's a good solid ship.
She'll get you where you need to go - I guarantee it."
	Obi-Wan smiled.  "Good enough."

	"Pleasant fellow," Obi-Wan remarked as he slipped into the
Ebon Hawk's pilot's seat and buckled himself in.  "Not sure what
species he was, but... "
	"Greb?  He's a Dralasite," Alaia replied.  She paused before
taking the co-pilot's position.  If what Greb had said about this ship
was true, she might have a shock in store if she touched part of with
a bare hand... 
	She shook her head.  You can't go around afraid to touch
everything -old-, she told herself, and sat down.  Nothing happened
until she finished strapping in and put her hands on the control yoke,
and then, when the feeling came, it was surprisingly mild.  She didn't
blank out as she usually did, her whole existence collapsing into the
torrent of replaying images; instead, she had a more general sense
that the Ebon Hawk was old, very old, though perhaps not as old as
Obi-Wan's ancient lightsaber.  Touching the yoke gave her the fleeting
impression of many battles fought and won, both by the ship and aboard
her - of a vessel well-loved and relied upon - but no overpowering
flood of moments came.  There was only a sort of nostalgic peace.
	Obi-Wan eyed her across the center console that divided the
two seats.  "All right?" he asked.
	Alaia smiled.  "Fine, Master Obi-Wan," she replied.  "Ready
for pre-start checklist."  She blinked as a thought occurred to her.
"Master, do you have a starship master's certificate?"
	"No," Obi-Wan replied.  "Do you?"
	"No.  I've had some training, but I don't have enough flight
hours to apply for the test yet."
	"Ah."  Obi-Wan mulled this over for a moment, then shrugged.
"Well, we're clever.  I expect between the two of us we're a qualified
person."  And, unconcerned, he began to prep the ship for launch.

		     WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2412
				JYURAI

	No charges had been filed against Rei Ayanami in connection
with the incident in the spaceport service area.  She was, she had
been repeatedly assured by Jyuraian officials, free to leave... but
she didn't.  Instead, she sold off her current cargo contract to
another freelancer and remained on Jyurai, haunting the palace medical
wing's waiting area - silent, unobtrusive, patient.  The staff had
almost gotten used to the sight of her and her ominous-looking droid.
	No one asked Rei why she was lingering, which was just as
well, since she couldn't have explained it if they had.  Part of it
was basic curiosity: She wanted to know who the man was and why he
had such formidable enemies, and if she left she'd never find out.
Part of it was a deeper curiosity: She wanted to ask the man in black
what he meant when he said to her, "The Force is strong."  At the time
she'd told him not to try to talk, but ever since the question had
nagged at her.  Did he mean it was strong in general?  She doubted
that; more likely he'd been trying to say it was strong in her.  And
if that was the case... well, what did it mean?
	Beyond that, though, were other reasons, complex and
unnameable, that fitted together into a web that kept Rei here,
waiting to learn whether her mysterious stranger would survive,
waiting to find out... what happened next.
	HK-47 knew his master's behavior was unusual, but paid the
matter little mind.  Organic meatbags were always subject to erratic
whims and strange compulsions.  It was one of the many things that
made them - even, painful though the admission was, the master -
inherently inferior beings.  HK-47 had found over the centuries that
the best thing a droid could do was just not dwell on it.  Her actions
would eventually make sense, or they wouldn't.  Either way, it wasn't
his concern.  His business was keeping her safe and obeying her
commands, and right now there was precious little of either task to be
done.
	Instead, he paced off the distance to the turbolift at the end
of the hall again and recalculated his escape vectors in the event of
a mass assault on the compound.  He didn't think there was much chance
of that happening, but it always paid to be prepared.

	"That wasn't so bad," Obi-Wan remarked as he and Alaia
descended the Ebon Hawk's ramp after a wild ride through the
Jormundgand Nebula.  "I don't know what Master Windu was fussing
about."
	Alaia might have replied, but the two of them found a Jyuraian
customs official waiting for them at the bottom of the ramp.  It was
the moment she had been silently dreading ever since they left
Alderaan.
	"Good afternoon," said the official, a tall man in an
elaborate uniform.  "I am Lieutenant Kajoda.  Welcome to Jyurai,
Captain... ?"
	Obi-Wan bowed, smiling.  "Obi-Wan Kenobi, at your service.  My
co-pilot and navigator, Alaia ner Ronor," he added, indicating her.
	Kajoda gave her a slight official nod, then turned his
attention back to Obi-Wan.  "I see you've just arrived from Alderaan,"
he said, consulting a datapad that, to Obi-Wan's mild bemusement,
seemed to be made of wood.  "Your vessel's registration appears to be
in order - ah!  Forgive me, Master Jedi, I didn't recognize your robes
at first.  That's all right, then.  May I see your starship master's
certificate, please?"
	Alaia braced herself for Official Difficulties, but Obi-Wan
merely smiled his twinkling-eyed smile, made a slight gesture with one
hand, and said calmly, "You don't need to see my master's certificate,
Lieutenant.  Everything's perfectly in order."
	Kajoda gave him a puzzled look for a half-second, then smiled.
"Well, I don't need to see -your- master's certificate, Captain
Kenobi," he replied cheerfully.  "I'm sure everything's perfectly in
order."  He tapped a couple of things into the datapad, then asked,
"What's your purpose in visiting Jyurai?"
	"I'm here to see an old friend," Obi-Wan replied.  "He was set
upon by bandits or some such in this very spaceport last week."
	Kajoda looked mildly alarmed.  "Oh dear!  I'm sorry to hear
that.  By and large this is a very safe facility," he assured Obi-Wan.
	"You wouldn't know where my friend is being treated, by any
chance?" Obi-Wan asked.  "I'm told he was quite severely injured."
	"Oh, I'm sorry," Kajoda said, looking genuinely regretful.  "I
wouldn't know anything about that, I'm afraid.  We in the Customs
office haven't anything to do with that sort of thing.  You might try
asking one of the security officers on the main concourse."
	Obi-Wan nodded.  "All right, I'll do that.  Thank you,
Lieutenant."
	"Enjoy your stay on Jyurai, Master Jedi, miss," Kajoda said.
Then he tucked his datapad into a pouch on his uniform's decorative
sash, bowed, and withdrew.
	"Charming fellow," Obi-Wan observed as he and Alaia left the
docking bay and made their way up the service corridor toward the
concourse.  "Much nicer than the customs people on Mustafar."
	"Master, I can't believe you deliberately deceived that man,"
Alaia replied.  "Isn't that an abuse of power?"
	Obi-Wan shook his head and explained patiently, "I did him no
harm, Alaia, and dealing with him directly would have made trouble for
us.  We're not going to find Anakyn in a Jyuraian jail."
	"Still.  You can't keep doing that to customs people
everywhere we go," Alaia insisted.
	"What makes you think I'm going to do it to every customs
person we meet?" Obi-Wan asked.
	Alaia had to supress a crooked smile, and she didn't
do it too well.  "Well, you certainly seem to have had practice.  I
can't believe - from the smooth way you handled that - that you've
never done it before."
	Obi-Wan shook his head sadly.  "Tsk, Padawan, has someone been
filling your ears full of malicious stories about me?  You haven't
even met Anakyn yet."  Alaia's smile faded.  "Very well, I'll ask Yoda
if he can sort the paperwork for me when I make my first report.
Satisfied?"
	"I'd feel better," Alaia allowed.
	"Your comfort is my paramount concern, my young apprentice,"
said Obi-Wan without apparent irony.  Before Alaia could respond to
that, they emerged through a service door onto the public concourse.
The difference between it and the industrial anonymity of the service
area was so marked that both of them had to stop and take it in for a
moment.  The concourse was a grand affair, all carved wood and
flourishing greenery.  What Obi-Wan had at first taken for lush
carpeting turned out, on closer inspection, to be grass.  Grass inside
a building?
	"Well," he said, "now what?"
	Alaia said speculatively, "Well, Lt. Kajoda did say we might
try asking a security officer."
	Obi-Wan nodded.  "Right, then.  That's what we'll do!"
	He looked around for someone who might be a security officer,
decided his best bet was probably the chap standing by the exit doors
with what appeared to be a wooden blaster carbine slung across his
chest, and strode cheerfully over to the man.
	"Hullo!  Are you a security officer?" he asked.
	Obi-Wan had the distinct amusement of watching his apprentice
drop her head forward into her hand with a resounding, embarrassed
smack.
	For his part, the man looked vaguely surprised to be asked
such a question.  "Er... yes I am," he replied.  "Can I help you?"
	"My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi," Obi-Wan said, "and this is Alaia
ner Ronor.  We're looking for the Dark Lord of the Sith," he added
with a beaming grin.  Beside him, Alaia kept her face in her hand.
	"... Iwouldn'tknowanythingaboutthatI'msuresir," the security
officer replied, then edged away and began to ostentatiously "patrol"
an area some distance down the concourse.
	"... Hum.  He wasn't very helpful at all," Obi-Wan observed.
"Well, what shall we try next?"  He looked around, and just as Alaia
was opening her mouth to make a suggestion, spotted a counter against
the far wall with a couple of young women behind it.  "Aha!  I know!"
he said brightly.  "We'll ask at the Information Desk."
	Alaia gritted her teeth.  "Of course, Master," she said.
Then, trotting to get ahead of him as he walked briskly toward the
desk, she went on, "Master, let me give it a try, OK?"
	Obi-Wan frowned.  "Do you not like my approach?"
	"Honestly?  Your approach is likely to get us thrown out of
here," Alaia told him.  "Or arrested."
	Obi-Wan only smiled, then gestured her ahead of him.
	"After you, then," he said.
	There was a pause as Alaia eyed her master suspiciously, and
then she muttered, "Din sha," under her breath before she headed
toward the Information Desk.  When one of the elaborately robed young
ladies on duty greeted her with a friendly smile, she said,
	"Good morning, miss.  My name is Alaia ner Ronor.  I'm a Jedi
Pawadan, and this is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.  We've been told that
eight days ago, a cyborg gentleman was accosted and seriously wounded
outside Docking Bay 73.  My master is a very old friend of his.  Do
you know who we might speak to about his condition?"
	The information girl kept smiling.  "Of course, Master Jedi.
Chief Inspector Satu Kadoro is the investigator assigned to that case.
He's at the Public Safety Building downtown.  He'd be happy to speak
with you.  Would you like a map?"
	"That would be lovely, thank you."

	"So I was right," Kadoro said, looking satisfied.  "He -is- a
Jedi Knight."
	"Well... in a manner of speaking," Alaia replied.
	"What's a Jedi doing in the royal court of Naboo?" Kadoro
asked.
	"You'd be better served to put that question to Queen Amidala,
I should think," said Alaia a trifle evasively.
	Kadoro let out a single clipped laugh.  "Not allowed," he
said.  "The Palace grabbed the case as soon as we found out who he
was.  Which is why you'll find him in the Royal Infirmary."  He
pointed to the map of the capital tacked to the wall of his office.
"It's in the east wing of the palace.  I'm sure they'll let you in."
	Alaia gave him a bow.  "Thank you very much for your time,
sir."

	"You were right, Alaia," Obi-Wan observed casually as he
stretched out in the back of the hovercab taking them to the palace,
hands behind his head.  "Things seem to go much more smoothly when you
do the talking."

	At the palace, they did indeed let the two Jedi in.  In fact,
both the security and medical personnel in the palace's east wing
seemed relieved to have someone turn up to claim their strange
patient, as it were.  The two of them were shown immediately into the
presence of Dr. Kirayo Masaki, who welcomed them cordially.
	"Your friend is very lucky," Kirayo told Obi-Wan.  "Anywhere
else in the galaxy, he would have been dead on arrival.  I've never
seen a living person in such appalling condition.  Do you know what
happened to him?"
	Obi-Wan nodded.  "I have a general idea," he said.
	"All four of his limbs replaced with prosthetics above the
central joint.  Bionic life support systems directly - and, I might
say, crudely - integrated with organs so badly damaged he never should
have survived the grafting procedures in the first place.  Third-degree 
burns over almost the entirety of his remaining skin surface, sealed
off with a full-enclosure environment suit in lieu of proper treatment. 
Visual post-processing in his helmet to compensate for serious flare
damage to the retinas."  She shook her head.  "Whatever befell him
must have been horrific."
	"Were you able to make any improvements to his... situation?"
Obi-Wan asked - and, to his surprise, Kirayo laughed.
	"You could say that," she said.  "Master Jedi, you may not be
familiar with the way we do things, medically speaking, on Jyurai.
Our approach is unlike any other in the galaxy.  Besides," she added
with a smile, "the fact that your friend survived his injuries at all
is nothing short of miraculous.  It would offend my professional pride
if I couldn't produce a second miracle to complement the first."
	
	Obi-Wan left Dr. Masaki's office twenty minutes later,
astonished by what he'd just seen and been told.  So preoccupied was
he, turning the doctor's revelations over in his head, that it took
him a few moments to notice that he'd been abandoned by his
apprentice.
	Hmm.  She must have wandered off while I was engrossed in what
the doctor was telling me, he mused.  Well, she won't have gone far.
        Some discreet asking around - for Obi-Wan could be very
discreet indeed when he wasn't deliberately trying to provoke his
padawan into correcting his behavior and demonstrating for him her own
social skills - led him to a small, grassy courtyard not far from the
medical wing.  It was, he realized upon entering, both a meditation
area and a practice space.  Very like a Jedi dojo, in some ways.  He
paused between the trees that marked the entrance to it, then stepped
back.
        Alaia was working her way through the saber drills he had set
her - at close to speed - and to judge from the sweat marks staining
her tunic, she had been working for quite some time.  Her aura in the
Force seethed with supressed frustration as she went from cut to
block and back again, lunging, pivoting, and jumping without pause. 
        She finished the drill, paused for a drink of water, and then
just stood there with her saber lowered for a minute, breathing.  He
could feel her frustrations ebbing slightly as she paused, and he was
about to walk into the clearing to tell her she was doing well when
she reignited her saber and began again - a little faster.  The
frustration came back as more sweat darkened her shirt, and this time,
he caught the thought that went with it:
        << I -will- make him proud of me. >>
        Obi-Wan's eyebrows rose, and he stepped back further from the
mouth of the clearing.  Hmm, he thought.  Perhaps a bit more sparing
on the criticism for the next few days?  I certainly can't fault her
determination.  If she's willing to push herself this hard without my
assistance, perhaps it's time we began work on that other problem of
hers.  If she can keep herself from losing contact with the Force, she
may be ready to take the trials sooner than I thought. 
	The thought gave him an idea.  He slipped away, heading back
to the medical wing.

	When Alaia finished her workout and cleanup (silently blessing
the designer of the fresher near the practice area for including an
autolaundry with the shower facilities), it was her turn to go looking
for Obi-Wan.  She found him in the sitting room of the small guest
suite, actually one of the patient recovery suites, Dr. Masaki had
assigned for the use of the Jedi visitors.  He was sitting on the
couch, legs stretched out in front of him, thoughtfully contemplating
an object sitting on the coffee table.
	It was a black helmet, slightly flared like a samurai's helm,
with an angular, blank-eyed, rather hideous face mask attached.  Alaia
had seen an artist's approximation of it in a historical holocron once.
	"Is that... " she asked quietly.
	Obi-Wan nodded.  "It's Anakyn's helmet.  Darth Vader's
helmet.  Dr. Masaki was kind enough to let me borrow it."
	Alaia sat down at the other end of the couch and regarded it.
"What... what do you want it for?" she asked.
	"Well," Obi-Wan replied, "it's an object of some historical
significance, and one you haven't encountered before.  I thought we
might use it to try and get a handle on your psychometric talent."
	Alaia eyed the helmet warily.
	"I doubt the history associated with -that- is very pleasant,"
she said.
	"No, it isn't," Obi-Wan agreed.  "But it -is- powerful, and
that's what we need.  Come, now.  Center yourself.  You must learn to
control your gift or it will go on controlling you."
	Alaia swallowed.  "Yes, Master Obi-Wan," she said, then pulled
her legs up under her and composed herself for meditation.
	She had attempted something like this before - getting herself
as deeply centered as possible, awash in the calming light of the
Force, before touching an object she wanted to read.  She had hoped
the preparation would give her control, but whenever she'd tried it in
the past, something had always gone wrong.  Either her control had
been insufficient, or the act of rising to consciousness to touch the
item had spoiled her efforts, or... any number of things, really.
	She'd never tried it with a master present to help balance
her, though.  She had always considered the problem a private one,
something she had to confront and defeat on her own terms, before.
Befin had offered his aid on any number of occasions, but Alaia had
always rebuffed him, and her old master had never pressed the point.
Perhaps he'd sensed that the time wasn't right and was biding until
the right moment - but that moment never came before the unexpected
end of his life.
	Now she put all thought aside and fell into herself, expanding
her consciousness outward at the same time that she drew her center
inward.  Obi-Wan's presence stilled the Force around her, blocking out
all outside influences and potential distractions, leaving her free to
concentrate on perfect balance.
	The experience was profound, even in its preliminary stages.
It reminded her of the first time she'd fully touched the Force, with
Master Befin's help - that sense of the entire universe unfolding in
front of her was here, except that in this case the entire universe
was telescoping down to the room around her.  She could actually sense
Vader's helmet on the table in front of her, almost see it, despite
the facts that her eyes were closed and the helmet was merely inert,
unliving matter.  Without looking or consciously thinking about it,
she was able to reach out and, with only the smallest hesitation,
place her hands gently upon it.

	      /*  John Williams  "Learn About the Force"
		_Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope_  */

	As her fingertips touched the cool, smooth surface of the
helmet's armored dome, she felt the usual rush of energy as the focus
of her mind widened to take in the scope of the object's history.  She
almost always had this one moment, before the wave crested, broke, and
washed her away in its undertow, when she could see it coming and
almost believe she could stand against it.
	This time was different, though.  This time she could see from
one end to the other in a single all-encompassing instant - every
memory discrete unto itself but part of a continuum that together made
up the fabric of this object's history.  The balance was precarious.
She knew instinctively that any misstep could bring the whole delicate
edifice of control crashing down and sweep her away just as before -
but her confidence was up and she pressed on, diving deeper, searching
for one moment to focus on.
	There was, as she had expected, much here that was
unpleasant.  Vader's life after he had acquired this helmet was
largely one of violence and conquest, occasionally of stark and
terrible brutality - but there were quieter memories here too, images
of points in time when the order of the day had not been bloodshed
and pain.  Alaia chose one more or less at random and narrowed her
concentration upon it - and suddenly it unfolded around her, like the
universe had when she had first fully touched the Force, and she found
herself a living witness to a moment more than three millennia gone.

	Kahm Santova, the eldest child of the dread Emperor Quevas
XIII, entered Vader's private chamber aboard the mighty space fortress
Devastator, command ship of the Emperor's most special elite strike
force.  Her dark master awaited her within his sealed meditation pod
in the center of the room.  She stopped near the pod and waited, hands
folded behind her back, for him to emerge.

	     /*  John Williams  "Deal with the Dark Lord"
	  _Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back_  */

	A moment later, the pod split along its crenelated equator and
opened jaggedly upward, like some kind of hideous technological
oyster.  Vader rose from his thronelike seat in the center, his masked
visage impenetrable as always, and Kahm lowered herself to one knee,
bowing her head.  She knew that the mechanisms within the pod had just
replaced Vader's black helmet on his head when she arrived.  Once, the
meditation pod had been ajar and she had caught a glimpse of the
process being carried out within.  The memory gave her a mild urge to
shiver even now.
	"Rise, my apprentice," Vader intoned, and Kahm straightened.
"What news have you?"
	"It was as you suspected, my lord," she said.  "The Atlantean
garrison on the third moon of Pryllust was hiding several Jedi
artifacts, but no living Jedi.  Our forces could have reduced it
without my help."
	"The Emperor's intelligence network is not as reliable as it
once was," Vader observed.  "You did well to investigate in person."
	"Father jumps at shadows," Kahm said dismissively.  "He sees
Jedi survivors where there are only false hopes and wishful thinking
among our enemies.  And he wastes our resources extravagantly with his
continued search for Yoda.  Even if one Jedi survives somewhere, what
of it?  We've broken the back of their order.  Their traditions will
die out within my lifetime... if not necessarily within Father's," she
added darkly.
	Vader observed his apprentice impassively for a moment, then
said, "Your father's time will come soon enough.  Your training is not
yet complete.  To challenge him now would be foolish."
	"I know," Kahm replied.  "But I find it... difficult to curb
my impatience sometimes.  I long to feel my hands at the old fool's
throat."
	"Only with the Jedi fully out of the way will we be able to
command the Force completely enough to overthrow your father, Kahm,"
Vader said.  "Until no trace of the light can interfere, we dare not
move against him; but once the Force in this sector is fully in
darkness, even his black wizardry cannot save the last of the Yoma
from the vengeance of the Sith."
	Kahm nodded.  "As always, my lord, I defer to your wisdom,"
she said.  "I will wait for the right time, have no fear... I only
pray that that time comes soon."
	She hesitated then, as if considering something, then stepped
closer to Vader and dared to touch him, placing a hand against his
armored chest next to his diagnostic panel.
	"My lord... " she said softly.  "If only you were not trapped
within your armor, sealed behind your mask.  Our heirs could unify the
entire Galactic Rim.  Atlantis and Santovask, the twin capitals of an
eternal empire."  She bowed her horned head, tears escaping from her
eyes.  "If only... "
	Vader said nothing, merely let her stay where she was for the
few seconds it took her to compose herself.  Presently she
straightened up, shaking her head.
	"I'm sorry, my lord, forgive me," she said briskly.
	Vader nodded.  "Go now," he said.  "Move the fleet to Peladon.
We launch our offensive against the Atlantean remnant in Area 750 as
soon as we are in position."
	"At once, my lord," she said, then turned and left the room.
	Vader stood looking after her for a moment, then went back to
his throne and sat.
	"Indeed, my princess," he mused as his meditation pod's jaws
closed around him again.  "If only."

	Alaia sat back, her fingertips tingling, and opened her eyes
to find Obi-Wan smiling at her.
	"How do you feel?" he asked.
	She blinked.  "I feel... good," she replied.  "Normally I'm
exhausted after... after touching an object's past.  But this was
different, I was... I had control.  And now I feel... energized.  I
saw - "
	Obi-Wan nodded.  "I saw it too," he said.  "I was there with
you the whole time.  That must have been during Anakyn's campaign
against what was left of his father's empire... after he destroyed
Atlantis itself."  He sat back and puffed out a breath.  "I never knew
quite why he did what he did... but now it makes a sort of twisted
sense."
	"Not to me," Alaia admitted.  "Records of that period are
notoriously patchy because of the Jedi Purge.  What was he talking
about, 'vengeance of the Sith'?"
	"Quevas Santova was a Yoma Sorcerer," Obi-Wan said.  "They
were another ancient order of Force-users, maybe even older than the
Jedi or the Sith.  Centuries before the Purge, the Sith and Yoma
fought a massive war for... well, essentially for control of the Dark
Side.  Both sides were nearly wiped out, but in the end the Yoma had
the upper hand - mainly because the Santovasku Emperors were among
them.  For the next few hundred years the Sith 'Lords' basically
served as military commanders for the Santovasku, whose rulers were
among the only surviving Yoma.  When Anakyn fell to the Dark Side and
joined the Sith, he became one of them - eventually rising to become
Emperor Quevas XIII's favorite general and take over the martial
training of Princess Kahm."
	Alaia absorbed that for a moment, then said, "But all the
while he was plotting the Emperor's destruction.  'The vengeance of
the Sith.'"
	"Apparently so.  I must say, this is an insight into Anakyn's
odyssey that I would never have suspected."  Obi-Wan put a hand on
Alaia's shoulder.  "Thank you, Alaia.  You've made progress toward
controlling your gift and shown me something of great value at the
same time."  He smiled.  "Now all you need to do is learn to retain
control without time to prepare or me around to help you."
	Alaia grinned crookedly.  "Is -that- all?  Well, we're home
free, then."
	"That's the spirit, apprentice!" Obi-Wan declared.
	They laughed together at that; then, sobering, Alaia said,
"Master?  How... how did Vader get... the way he was?  You told
Dr. Masaki you had an idea, but I sense you know more than that."
	Obi-Wan sighed.  "Yes.  I do.  I... well, I was -there-," he
said.  "It was on Atlantis, when Anakyn was leading the Santovasku
forces in the sack of his father's capital... "

	Vader stood facing O'bi-Wann Kyn'o'bi across eternity.
	The elderly Jedi Master, bearded, white-haired, but strong,
stood foursquare, his blue-white lightsaber raised.  A wind blew
through the shattered south wall of the Palace-Royal, rustling the
Jedi's brown and white robes, and Vader's black and scarlet ones as
well.  Vader's dark eyes glittered hellishly in the bloody light of
his own saber as they stared across the ruins of King Nemo's throne
room.
	"Do you really think you can stop me, old man?" Vader sneered,
his voice booming from his barrel chest in the eerie stillness.  Mere
miles away, the capital of Atlantis was falling to the Santovasku, and
the Atlantean Empire of Stars with it; but here at the Palace-Royal,
ruined by air bombardment in the early stages of the attack, there was
quiet now.
	"That depends on what you mean," Kyn'o'bi replied equably.
"If you mean stop you from destroying your home, submitting your
people to the yoke of the Santovasku, plunging the galaxy into
twilight... no.  No, at that I have already failed.  But if you mean
stop you from eradicating the last vestige of your family's honor,
drawing the last scion of House Atrados into your darkness... yes."
Kyn'o'bi smiled.  "At that I have already succeeded."
	Behind him, high in the blue-gold twilight sky, a bright
beacon briefly flared, like a distant star going nova.  Vader's eyes
flicked to it, watched it flash and die, and then narrowed.
	"Nadia," he murmured.  Then he returned his gaze to Kyn'o'bi,
and his handsome face twisted into a vicious smile, baring strong,
regular teeth.  "Very clever, old man.  How does it feel to die
victorious?"

	       /*  John Williams  "Anakin vs. Obi-Wan"
	    _Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith_  */

	He propelled himself in a leap across the throne room,
crossing fifty feet of open space as easily as a normal man hurdles
the threshold of a door, and his blade clashed against Kyn'o'bi's.
	The battle was not an easy one, nor short.  It would have
ranked among the greatest one-on-one contests of lightsaber skill on
record, had there been any observers to record it.  The two men, once
closer than brothers, closer than father and son, fought with no
quarter asked or given, and their battle carried them throughout the
ruins of what had been the greatest edifice on Atlantis.
	For all his age, the old Hyelian was still perhaps the finest
duelist Vader had ever seen, his technique and concentration still
absolutely perfect even if his strength and agility were not now what
they once were.  A Grand Master of Soresu, Djem So, its new derivative
Ataru, and Juyo; a ranked master in the other Core Styles and
conversant with dozens of subsidiary forms and techniques - in his
prime, centuries ago, O'bi-Wann Kyn'o'bi must have been all but
invincible.  He could still expect to defeat any normal humanoid, no
matter how strong or skilled, in single combat.
	Darth Vader was not at all a normal humanoid.  He was a member
of the Atlantean royal family, the House of Atrados, trained to
physical perfection even before his initiation into the Order of Jedi
Knights.  Further, he had learned all he knew of technique and
concentration from Kyn'o'bi himself, and as an Atlantean royal in the
prime of his life, he had a distinct advantage in strength and agility.
O'bi-Wann might be able to hold him off for a while, as indeed he had;
he might, with his skill at subterfuge and evasion, lead Vader a long
and infuriating chase into the very bowels of the ruined palace... but
the end of this clash could never be in doubt.
	Unfortunately, as Vader had momentarily forgotten while
totting up these pros and cons in his mind, Kyn'o'bi also had one
other factor which could weight things in his favor:
	The old man had the devil's own luck.
	It was this, then, or the hand of God, or of the Force, or
whatever your cosmology substitutes for the vagaries of chance, that
caused years of metal fatigue and a saber cut left there by Vader
himself earlier in the battle to conspire to weaken the catwalk over
the generator pit.  Caused the section of grating to snap free under
the much heavier Sith Lord's boots as he backed the aged Hyelian
across.  Caused Darth Vader, with victory within his grasp, to plummet
to a fiery doom in the fusion furnaces that had lit the palace of his
fathers.
	Almost doom.
	Almost.
	They found what was left of him and sealed it in black,
grafted him to machines his builders did not understand, and through
this combination of ruined flesh, desperate jury-rigging and the Dark
Side of the Force, he was reborn as the bogeyman himself.
	What Vader would always remember most about the crucible in
which his legend was forged was the light, harsh, actinic, filling his
consciousness as it all but destroyed his eyes.  In his dreams he
still saw it, saw the bones in his hands and arms melting away in it,
just before he hit the bottom and everything went black in a crunch of
shattering skull.
	The light.

			   TO BE CONTINUED