Redeemed

Vestara was surprised at how welcoming Coruscant initally seemed. It had seemed a massive and daunting place on the short holos her new companions had shown her, attempting to give her a chance to get accustomed to the scale of the planet she would call home. Her father had been killed, along with the grand master of the Sith by the Skywalkers, and she had found herself playing a part in their escape which forever kept her from Kesh. Now, with Luke Skywalker's exile officially declared over by an inter-rim chief of state, with the preferred chief, Leia Organa, away from Coruscant all three occupants of the Jade Shadow were returning to Coruscant.

As the Jade Shadow approached her landing pad, the area around it was thronging with journalists, dozens of them bearing the tabards of sensationalist media providers, with only a few bearing the tabards of more respectable news organisations like the Perre Needmo newshour. As Vestara looked out over the crowd she asked "Master Skywalker, permission to deploy laser cannons?"

"Denied." Luke's reply was instantaneous. "Vaping journalists, as tempting as it may be, I will admit, is a criminal offence here on Coruscant, even for Force users. However, I do not think that exposing you and Ben to the gutter press is a good idea.

"Dad, you have a plan?" Ben asked, having secretly been dreading the moment when he would be dragged before a news conference.

"yes, I think I do, Luke replied, mentally running through his options.

Once everything was in position, Luke briefly fired the altitude jets, creating a momentary smokescreen around the Jade Shadow. Before the smoke cleared, Ben and Vestara sped out of the aft docking bay, which scissored shut without a clang, making it almost impossible to know that the swoop now heading for the workers canteen had departed from the Jade Shadow. The two riders were dressed in generic work overalls, and there was little evidence of their true identities; aside from Ben's hair colour.

As the swoop reached the picket line of news speeders, one of the craft dropped down onto an intercept course. Ben's response was to floor it.

As the swoop accelerated away, several other speeders, their cam operators panning their cams onto the fleeing swoop as they did so, gave chase.

The swoop, now flat out, was juddering as it approached the sound barrier. Despite the craft's speed, the speeders being driven in pursuit were slowly gaining. Ben grinned, as he rolled towards a busy traffic route.

Luke had barely made it clear of the press conference before he was approached by two CSF officers, who wasted no time in getting to the crux of the matter.

"Master Skywalker," the more senior of the two asked, "where is your son?"

"I have no idea." Luke replied "why are you looking for him?"

"We are looking for him and a human female in connection with a considerable number of traffic offences committed by a swoop bike ridden by them both."

"Do you have any ideas as to the reason for their actions?" Luke asked them, confused.

"It looked like they had a bunch of Journalists sitting on their tails."

At about this time, in a seedy travellers lodge deep in the lower city, Ben and Vestara were checking into a room. After shaking their pursuers via a vertical dive through a traffic jam, they had orbited the main traveller's hotels, looking for an anonymous establishment where they could spend the night, or at least lie low until they felt it safe to go off to the Skywalker family apartment.

As they pushed open the door to their room, Ben was shocked by what he found.

"This is worth 100 credits?" he muttered to Vestara. The room was small and dank, with only a single dim light, held to the ceiling by two lengths of adhesitape.

"The bed is worse than anything on Kesh I ever slept in." Vestara stated, having sat on the side.

"It'll do." Ben told her. "After all, dad is nowhere nearby; the rooms are soundproofed, probably for this purpose."

Then he kissed her, passionately and deeply. She responded with equal passion, and then they fell backwards onto the bed, already writhing in pleasure, his hands releasing her leggings and sliding inside her tunic as they dropped together.