I think I'll start a whole new tradition: the Annual Post-Castle Season Finale Chapter. Because... Seriously... Last year I was freaking out on the couch. Now I'm freaking out in bed, I scared the shit out of my poor cats that were sleeping beside me because seriously, the noise that came from my mouth wasn't real. It wasn't even a muffled scream. It wasn't just human... Felt more like a damn kiai (martial artists will understand). Way to end an amazing season. Straight in top three of the best cliffhangers I've ever seen on TV. That series is just... wow! Seriously. I think I'm gonna take the last scene, change it and store it for the later stages of Last Of The Runways...

Seriously... what a run!

Chapter 4 - A Shot In The Dark

I felt extremely nervous for most part of the morning and it affected everyone's behavior: the kids were unsufferable, unstable and hard to deal with, the teenagers were snappy and the adults were wary of my own presence in the same room. Only Padmè managed to not bother me in any way, but mostly because, being my wife, she knew prefectly well how do deal with me when I was nervous and kept her distance. I hated she had to keep away from me, but even if with the years I had come to possess a self control I couldn't even image I would achieve when I was younger, I was still a bit unstable.

And considering what was going on, I thought it would have been better for everyone if I kept away from the others for some time. Too bad it took me a whole morning to figure it out.

After lunch, I quickly walked out of the kitchen and out in the garden, letting the sun blind me for a moment before I adapted to the bright summer light. I had to do something to get rid of that feeling of nervousness that filled me and made me snap at everything. The heat of the season wasn't exactly helping, such a hot summer was uncommon and I wasn't used to that heat anymore, and I had to act quickly, before I blew off like a pressure cooker.

Quickly running through the daily training timetable, I realised the combat training area would remain unused for a couple of hours. Perfect way to blow off some steam.

But before that, I paid a short visit to Luke and Leia and found them feverishly working on the segment of holo that Ferus had so kindly allowed them to tear apart. Remnants of the quick lunch we had prepared for them were still scattered on the desk, along with bottles of soft drinks and water. The different styles of arraingnment of the remains, you could easily pick where each of them had eaten: Luke's pile of junk was a mess, Leia's was incredibly ordered and perfectly tidy. Her workstation was spotless, not even a single crumb on the wooden desk in front of her.

"Hey you two, how you doing?" I asked, poking in from the door.

Luke was facing away from me and shrugged his shoulders, continuously typing command after command on the computer, but Leia gave me a more complex answer: she sighed in frustration. I saw it in her eyes, they were as frustrated as I was. And the promise to talk about their trials after that day wasn't exactly helping them. It was a big thing to face, they would have been the first Padawans to become Jedi knights in nearly twenty years, it was a huge responsiblity that was planted on their shoulders, also they had to work on that thing, and that meant watching it over and over while ripping it apart. I wasn't exactly envying them.

"Do you need anything? Have you eaten?" stupid question. I had brought up their lunches an hour earlier myself.

Leia nodded. "Yes, but we weren't exactly hungry. Come back in a few hours and maybe we'll have something for you."

"How's it going?" another stupid question, but I was worried about them. It was their first task and I was nervous also for that, not only for the whole new trouble ahead of us.

"Except for the gore, not bad. We managed to find a usable part of holo for image enhancing. Also, Ferus came here a couple of hours ago with the full footage. He downloaded it from the Alliance mainframe from the ship and uploaded it here. It's not much more, but there are additional cameras showing here, and that means additional point of views. If we're lucky enough, one of these points of view will be useful for what we have to do."

"You'd better get used to the gore, it's what we do." I told them.

Leia arched an eyebrow and smirked. "What? Cut people in half and leave them to die if they're not dead already?"

Put in that way, it wasn't more than simple butchering people, but that's what Jedi do. She wasn't wrong. "Only if we have to. Killing people is extreme measure, the lightsaber is meant as a weapon to achieve peace, not to wage war."

The both stopped typing commands on their work station and looked at me with a blank expression that could only mean "yeah Dad, keep repeating it and maybe you'll convince yourself you're right" then they went back to their work.

Again, they were right. They left me speechless more and more often with the years. Their wisdom, even if still framed by youth, was beyond their age. They knew things weren't the norm as they were, they had been taught that since childhood, but by the time they had reached teenage they sort of jumped the whole phase and became two mini adults. Yeah, sometimes they were whiny and unsufferable, but who wasn't at fourteen, with raging hormones, first crushes and two siblings not yet five?

"Alright, I'll leave you at your work. In case you need or find anything I'm downstairs in the combat room."

"Nervous?" asked Leia.

"Definitely. I need to blow it off one way or another, and I think some solo training will do good."

The twins looked at each other. "Teras kaasi training?"

"You wish! Nope, the moment I'll find a pratictioner to teach us more advanced techniques, I'll start doing it again, but they are sort of keen on killing Jedi on sight so... I think I'll work a little bit with the bag."

And working with the bag for me, meant destroying it. Blow after blow, I had the bad habit to tear apart punching sacks since I was a teenager. It hadn't happened in years, but you never know... I hadn't been that nervous in... well, ages and I didn't really know if the thick fake leather bag of sand could endure a barrage of right hooks, my secret weapon in case of close quarter combat, without weapons. I was pretty good with kicks too, but I preferred good old boxing to fancy acrobatic combat styles. Acrobatic stunts were better for lightsaber combat, in my opinion. For everything else, I was more inclined to brutal efficiency. Years earlier I had started a sort of self taught path of Teras Kaasi, a martial art developed to precisely fight against the Jedi and their lightsabers, and it felt good, it was a nice way to work out both body and mind, but our knowledge was limited and after a while I learned everything from what we had and even if I wanted to go on that path, it wasn't possible. Anyway...

I went straight to the large area we had built from a large hall at the first underground level of the villa, once used for food and wine storage, and relished in the sudden climate change. Being underground, the temperature of the whole area was pretty stable through the year, a nice constant that allowed us to workout in summer without sweating our guts out and in winter without becoming Force Sensitive popsicles.

That place was so much different from all the various gyms and training areas I had seen in my life: it felt... homey. Not only because that place had been my home for three years now, but also because it really had a certain vibe, something different and calming.

I turned on the lights and for a moment my retinas exploded at the sudden brightness.

I didn't really want to stay there, but as a teacher that day I was pretty useless. My kids were working their ass off in their first true assignment and they were doing it because none of us adults could actually work on holo-manipulation good enough to even make up how to softwares worked and anyone else was upstairs doing their jobs while I was six yards underground beating a harmless punching sack that did nothing to me except hanging from the domed ceiling right in front of me.

It was a shot in the dark. What Luke and Leia were doing.

A blind shot.

Like being in complete, utter blackness and trying to push a cartridge into the barrel of another gun. Pretty much impossible even for the best marksman of any army of any planet.

And my kids had the responsibility of finding the identity of that Sith.

With no clear shot of his face.

I didn't envy them. At all.

But there was so little we could do to help them, except taking care of their daily chores while they did our job. With only Artoo as support.

I felt so bad in that moment...

It was awful.

The more I beat the sack, the worse I felt.

I felt worse because the more I stayed down there, the more time I took away from looking for that new unknown enemy. But I was too nervous and agitated to help them.

I punched the sack with a powerful left hook that hurt my hand and wrist.

For a moment, I thought I had sprained my wrist, even with the protective gear I was wearing. I shook it a couple of times and it turned out it was just a minor pain that went away in a moment, and I resumed my brutal boxing session.

After a good half hour of savage beat up I took a break and looked down at my hands: my left knuckles were all scraped and the skin was bright red, and the protective glove was all brittle and damaged, while the right one, being synthetic, was all good and everything. I wasn't even breathing hard.

"Need someone to hold the sack?"

I turned around and saw Ferus on the doorstep. Our relationship had cooled down during the yeras, and while I couldn't yet consider him a friend like we used to, but at least we weren't at each other's throat every day and every moment of our lives. Much changed after he witnessed what kind of pain I had to go through when Lennart was born and when he was nearly killed in that accident in the cargo bay. He stopped being so acid and cold towards me the moment he saw me running towards the infirmary with my screaming and mangled son in my arms. The look of utter terror on my face must have scared him, because his attitude changed in that moment.

"Nah... I think I'm done. Don't want to break my healthy hand. Just needed to vent out some nervousness."

"Hey, I hear ya. It must be terrible, being unable to do anything until your kids come up with something."

"If they come up with something. They're good, but they're not omnipotent."

"It's a shot in the dark, I get it, but if they can find anything, maybe we can stop this threat before it strikes us."

I chuckled and wiped the sweat from my neck with a towel. "You know, I while ago, I thought the same. That this is a shot in the dark. And that we have to be so precise it makes it impossible to make that shot count."

He sat on the benchpress. "I know I'm not exactly a Jedi, but even when I left the Order I let the Force guide me in everything in my life. And when I watched the rough version of that holo, the Force told me to come here. I edited a viewable cut, with much effort I have to say, because I'm totally ignorant in this area, and asked if Jane could take me here."

Stretching my back, I nodded. "Yeah, it was a good idea."

"The Force rarely disappoints me. Well, except for some minor details..."

I knew what he was talking about, but at least he wasn't so caustic as in the past. "I know. I know all too well how the Dark Side can twist our minds. It almost overcame me, that some bad shit I have to deal with."

"Well, good to know it didn't."

A thick but for once not awkward silence fell in the large hall. There was something wrong with him. Not physically, he was in perfect shape, for a 42 year old man that spent most of his time at a desk, but there was something in him, in his "song" in the Force, that was off. As if he was... sad.

"Hey Ferus, you OK? Is something wrong on Yavin?"

He stole a glance up towards me then went back fixating the ground. "It's just... I don't like to spend so much time with Jane in a confined space. It unnerves me, even more than the holo."

"Awkward silence for six hours?"

He hesitated before replying. Something was really off. "Yeah, kinda. The only moment we talked, we actually argued again about the fact that I'm the only suspect on her former homicide case and everything..."

"Hey, that case is what? Nearly nine years old! She's not over it yet?"

He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. "Yep. She took it pretty bad. You know, she's a passionate woman, and she took her job very seriously, I doubt she'll ever get over it."

Yep, something was definitely off with him. It was nervousness or annoyance because of the flight. He liked her! A lot! Like...

I remember that in that moment I was so shocked by the realization that I definitely thought "What the fuck, he's in love with her!" but managed to keep quiet to not make him angry with me again.

"I've had my share of passionate women in my life. Sometimes they can be a pain in the ass, but they're worth it!"

"Damn, you married probably the most passionate woman in the Galaxy! I get you had your share! But I highly doubt she can be a pain in the ass!"

"Tell me that when she questioned every freaking order I gave her for her own safety, practically forced me to go on Geonosis disobeying my Master's order and practically started the Clone Wars! Tell me she's not a pain in the ass sometimes!"

He chuckled. "Yeah, definitely. But she hasn't started a war in twenty years, it can't be that bad now."

"Oh, definitely not. We're doing good now. OK, listen, I've got to take a shower because I reek more than a wet wookie, you needed anything?"

"Yeah, actually... I need the password for the data connection, but I can't find Lysveet and it's urgent."

I nodded. "Sure." I grabbed my datapad and using a software that Lysveet had created, I compiled a new set of data access credential for Ferus and sent the username and password via internal text message to his comlink. It beeped not half a moment later. "There you go. Insert those credential, mind of the block letters and you're good to go."

He did as told and confirmed everything was good. "Thank you. I need to send a couple of documents to the high hierarchy and Senator Organa asked if I could send him a report about what we were doing here."

"Good. Now, I'll take that shower and see if my kids managed to hit that target with that famous shot in the dark."

I took my time in the shower to be at least presentable, dedicating some time to trim my now slightly long beard - Padmè asked me to keep it long some years earlier and she liked it, so I kept it long - and changed clothes, then I ran downstairs to check on the rest of the crew.

"How are things going here?" I asked from the door, looking for Obi-Wan.

"If you're looking for your Master, he's not here." said Jax throwing a ball to one of the kids. Playtime for them.

"Where is he?"

"I think he went upstairs to see how the twins were doing..."

"Right. I was going upstairs myself. You doin' alright here?"

He nodded. "Sure, we're alright. Jane asked if she could help us and we sent her teaching the basics of hand to hand combat to some of the older kids."

I looked at the far left of the garden, the direction he was pointing at and saw Jane slowly showing a way to block a knife attack to a kid. Yeah, she was a good example for them, not just another training. They needed passion, they needed concentration and they needed something new. Yep, Jane was definitely a good addition to the team.

"OK. I'll go and see if they came out with something. Need anything, just call me alright?"

Then I went to see how my kids were doing, only to find Luke pacing around the room with his datapad in his hands, Leia working in Luke's spot and Obi-Wan trying to make Luke calm down and make him sit back on his chair.

"Luke, please, stop pacing like that, you're making me nervous!"

"I... I can't sit. I watched this thing so many times I'm getting nauseated."

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes and raised his hands, defeated. "Sometimes you remind me so much of your father I can't distinguish between memories of him and reality. It's all a long streak of deja vu."

"Hey, is that a compliment or an insult?" I asked.

He looked in my direction and sighed. "More like a constructive criticism. I heard you were going to blow off some steam!"

Immediately, my son shot a deadly glare at my Master. "Oh please don't tell me that..."

It was my time to roll my eyes at him. "No, Luke, no, I didn't ditch the gym to have sex with your mother!"

The three of them looked at me with a face that had stamped "Stuff we didn't want to know" on them then went back to their work. "Anyway, how are you doing?"

"We've isolated some chunks of usable holos, but we still have eight hours of footage to look through and it will take a while." replied Leia, eyes fixed on the holostream projected in front of her. She kept going back and forward in the same scene, looking for the right angle. "Artoo is processing those blocks we thought might be useful, but it's taking a while."

"He's turning them from 3D images to 2D pictures?"

She nodded. "Yes. I found out his image processor is way better than the one I managed to download from the net, and consider it's a shareware copy with limited functions for the free edition..."

"Hey, you're in a hacker's office, crack a serial number and use get the full software!"

"Dad, it's illegal. I don't want to be caught with a pirated software on my computer." the chastising tone she used reminded me so much of her mother it was almost painful.

"If that's what bothers you, I can tell you're already living a life of crime by not being legally existing in the Imperial Tax Registry, so, technically, you're already a criminal. Don't worry about trivial things like piracy, you're a trained Jedi and you're still alive and not under direct Imperial Control. That's way worse."

"Yeah, I get it, but that doesn't mean I have the right to commit lesser crimes just because technically I'm already a criminal, alright? That's how I am."

And that's how I liked my daughter. "OK. Now, I was thinking that maybe I can take down my own computer and help you with the work, you said you have eight hours of footage, one more pair of eyes can help."

And in the span of ten minutes I was there with them, killing my eyes and brain with blurry footage from minicameras mounted on the front of Kota's troops' helmets, crappy close cirquits and everything in between. After an hour, I felt the beginning of a terrible migraine forming right behind my eyes, but at least I had reviewed three hours of footage and found sixteen more usable chunks for Artoo to process and it wasn't even six in the evening.

And after we had viewed everything Ferus had downloaded from his cloud space in the Alliance network, we started back from the beginning and went through it again, hoping that reviewing it would help us find more chunks. And we did.

"By the Force, Artoo's gonna fry a circuit if we keep uploading stuff for the bidimensional processing." stated Luke, breaking the silence that had fell in the small room.

"Nah, I uploaded his cooling systems last year. He'll be fine." I mumbled shoving a mug of now cold coffee away from me. Another long streak of caffeine addition was approaching, I knew it. Better off start soon.

"You'll never stop tinkering on him, won't you?"

"I'll never stop tinker, period. And I doubt you'll ever stop doing it too."

Luke sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "I guess... Hey Artoo, how long till we have some stills?"

He beeped his responce and Luke looked at me for a translation. He wasn't so fluid in droidspeak yet. "He's got about thirty percent of the work done. If we want, he can deliver the first six thousand bidimensional images on our computers immediately."

We all looked at each other. "Who wants to review all the stills?" I asked.

Apparently, no. No one was willing to review the stills, which was even more boring than the review of the already studied footage.

"Right... I'll do it..."