(REX)

"Of course I'll do it."

That's what I told Vader at least, when he gave me this assignment. But how else could I have responded? Telling him no, I won't, wasn't an option; no isn't even in his vocabulary. He simply gives commands, expect us to obey them because we can see death reflected in his ebony carapace of a mask.

The mission: find the quarry, even if it costs you your miserable, too-brief yet far-too-drawn-out life. The quarry: Asajj Ventress, former Separatist war criminal. Known friend of the Jedi, after she ceded from the Seps. Escaped convict—recently escaped, moreover, so the Empire's still smarting from the blow. It's embarrassing, you know, to let a high profile inmate slip through your blubbery fingers.

By now, the good ole' Empire is five years old, so it should be better than this. Be doing better. Reaching farther, clamping it fist around the throats of every star system in sight—but as of right now, it's taking a short break from that. They need to tie up loose ends, apparently, and shear away the final, ragged edges of the past.

Oh, and here's where it gets interesting: I'm going solo on this one. No partners. No back-up. Just me, my years of honed battle training—and Asajj Ventress. Which is fine by me; really, it is. There's no one I'd care to take with me, would want to have at my side—not after Cody passed on, anyway.

I sniper got him, of all things. A lousy, moronic I'm-too-yellow-bellied-to-show-my-face sniper. And it only took one shot from that low-life to end it: plasma singing through Cody's helmet, leaving a searing, flaming tunnel where there should've been brains.

Blast it, I miss him.

So very, very much.

But there's no time to dwell on this. There's not. I have to take my cue from the Empire, make a clean, anti-septic break with the past, and dive in.

Priority one in my brief, yet too-long life: the mission. Always the mission. Never my brothers—not officially, anyway. Officially, I am what Vader had molded me into, a living weapon who stares oblivion in the eyes and refuses to blink.

I have decided that for now, this is what I'll be. I'll humor Vader, indulge him. Placate him.

I have decided on a lot, lately.

(BEN)

"Of course I won't do it."

That's what I tell her, at least. Her, as in the woman seated across from me in my dreadful, force-forsaken hovel. As in the woman who bears a suspicious resemblance to a Dathomiri Witch, with her milky skin and silvered, lupine gaze—the latter of which is nailing me with a resolved glare. "Why not?"

"You know why not," I reply mildly. "And you never answered my question: how did you find me?"

She waves that away with one long, bony hand. "Doesn't matter. What matters is that I've been sent by Commander Tano. And Duchess Kryze—although, she made certain that I clarify the fact that her given name is 'Bo-Katan'."

I sit a tad straighter in my chair, regarding the possible Dathomiri with disguised interest. I know those names, yes. They…waken something in me, bringing to mind a side of me that's slept a long, long while. Long enough for my hair to silver almost completely, and for time and the grueling desert winds to etch new lines in my face.

It's been five years, I think.

Long enough for me to view this new assignment (Hah—I haven't even decided if I'm going to allow myself to be assigned in the first place) in perspective.

I shake my head. "Sorry, but it's too risky. I have my own mission. My own assignment. And tracking down Asajj Ventress simply isn't a part of that; in fact, I believe it will put my current mission at stake."

"You know," she says, finger rummaging through her body-suit's pockets, "Master Kenobi wouldn't have to be the one to find her."

Hearing the title "Master" before my surname makes me stiffen, flinch. I can't let myself go back there. Can't remember being a J—being that—because that memories brings with a dark, labyrinthine forest, the gnarled, cadaverous branches closing in. Intertwining me in the past. "Ben wouldn't go, either. He has things to look after, people who depend on him."

The maybe-Dathomiri cocks a hairless brow. "You're still maintaining your Je—you're still training and everything, right? Still staying sharp?"

"I am," I say, sitting back in my chair. Every night. Under the stars. Under the stars and the twin, milky moons, because really, when did the heavenly bodies ever let your secrets fly into open air?

"Yes. Well, that means you would be easily detectable, then. You're still a…you are what you are, Ben."

"There you go: another reason for me not to embark on your silly little errand."

"It would be," she admits, then produces something greenish and aglow from her body-suit pocket. "If not for this."

Frowning, I pluck the thing from the maybe-Dathomiri's hand. My eyes rove over it, scrutinizing it, weighting it with sight alone. It's a medallion or something, I suppose—and judging by the way it's emanating striking jade light, it's imbued with magic, too. Dark magic, most likely.

I shoot her a look. "Please tell me this isn't what I think it is."

She shrugs. "Sorry, but it is: it's a Dathomiri Chameleon Talisman. And before you ask, no: I am not a Nightsister. Not currently, anyway, so you could say that I'm ex-Nightsister. Whatever floats your ship."

"And Mother Talzin—she just happened to let you keep this Talisman?" Frown deepening, I ran a finger over the thing's luminous surface. "What is this for, anyway? This—what did you call it? A…Chameleon Talisman?"

"What Mother Talzin doesn't know doesn't hurt her—or me, for that matter. And that," she says, implicating the Talisman with a nod, "will help you disappear."