The sight of a blue electric holo-image blazing in the heart of a Yuuzhan Vong shapers' damutek still felt strange, but the fact that it existed at all was, Ben Skywalker supposed, continued testament to the fact that on Zonama Sekot, anything was possible.
In the weeks since their arrival progress had been slow, but it was happening nonetheless. Thanks to Allana and Syal Antilles back on Coruscant, more data was being transmitted via hyperlink back and forth between the Yuuzhan Vong shapers here and the Alliance's scientists. There was only so much data from Karfeddion to parse, but by looking at it from different angles the two teams began to chip away from opposite directions until they reached something close to a truth.
"We believe the dovin basals used for the weapon are located at these points," Viull Gorsat said as he gestured to the holographic diagram of the worldship. "They're all within the twenty-five percent of the disc closest to the center, and that's not just to help concentrate fire."
"Worldships are grown from the center-out," Kodra Val explained. "Remember, it's not a warship or a machine, it's very much a living creature, albeit closer to a plant than an animal. You can almost think of it like a bora tree accumulating rings as it grows. The center of the worldship's neural network is at the center of its body. When a worldship gets old and large, the regions on its extremities started to die. It was common for shapers to graft supplementary neural nodes into other parts of the hull to keep it functional."
"Think of them as routers that feed directly to the worldship's brain, then spread out impulses to the extremes of the body," Gorsat said.
"What you're saying is that all the dovin basals that control the weapon are located at the core of the neural network, not the routers," Allana said.
The two Yuuzhan Vong nodded. Gorsat added, "It's possible, even probable, that the outer nodes of the network are dead or too badly damaged. Most of the worldships were dying of old age even before our people reached your galaxy. I doubt Vilath Dal- or the Sith, or whoever organized this project- had the resources to rejuvenate the entire body of the worldship. This thing is huge, remember. So they probably focused all their efforts right around the center of its body, where the nerve network was strongest."
Tahiri said, "Because all the dovin basals are at the center of the network, that makes them more powerful, but also more vulnerable."
"What do you mean?" Ben frowned.
"If the dovin basals for the weapon were spread out all over the worldship it would be almost impossible to knock them all out. But if they're close together, and linked to the same central brain, that's a little easier."
Jaina, who'd been listened intently until now, said, "Please tell me there's an exhaust port or something where we can drop of a proton torpedo and call it a day."
"I'm afraid not," said Kodra Val. "Our worldships have no power cores the way your machines do. The central brain is the vulnerable point, but there is no easy way to attack it from the outside."
"I was afraid of that," Jaina said darkly, and Ben was sure her mind was drifting back all those years to the mission on the worldship over Myrk where her brother had died.
Tahiri must have been thinking of it too. "We have advantages now we didn't have during the War. Friendly shapers and friendly ships, for one."
"So you plan to attack this thing?" Allana sounded skeptical.
"We'll need to infiltrate it if we want to destroy it," Gorsat said. "There are sub-nodes directly connected to the worldship's brain. We can develop a poison that will shut down the nodes and carry it to the brain, shutting that down too."
"How long will that take to make?" asked Ben.
Gorsat and Kodra Val exchanged looks. The shaper said, "A week, perhaps two. Similar poisons have been used to euthanize dying ships before, but we only have their genomes recorded in our qahsas. Recreating them will take time"
Allana sighed. "There's no telling what kind of damage they can do in a week or two."
"It's the best option we have," Jaina said. "I think we should go for it."
Ben looked at Allana. "You'll have to let the Alliance know what we're doing. I don't know how the Chief of State will respond, but he should know."
"I agree." She swallowed. "We'll need to do this. With or without approval from the Alliance, this needs to be done."
Ben understood what she was saying. Since the fall of Hapes, Allana had thrown herself into the senator's path, doing everything she could in the political arena to safeguard the Hapan exile community and the battered integrity of the Alliance. All of that might have to be thrown by the wayside the eliminate the worldship, the Sith, and Darth Xoran.
After the Jedi left the shapers' tower they stood on the crest of the ridge, looking out on the Middle Distance. Wind, cool and damp, blew in their faces. The clouds overhead were low and gray but hadn't yet released rain.
"So that's it, then," Jaina said softly. "We're going back to a worldship."
"You don't need to do it yourself, Jaina," Tahiri said.
"The Jedi need to take charge of this," Ben said. "We need someone to stay and safeguard Zonama Sekot, Tahiri. And if Vilath Dal and the Sith have allies here, you need to find them. But I'm going to that worldship."
"And Jade?" asked Allana. She and Tanith had remained back at the damutek provided for them to sleep in these past weeks.
Ben hesitated. His instinct was still to say no, absolutely not, but the women's eyes implored him.
"She's still scared to be around you sometimes," Allana said.
"She's not scared."
"Yes she is. She doesn't know if she can trust you or not because she doesn't think you trust her. You're afraid of hurting each other so every time you could risk getting close you both pull away. And it's made her fragile inside, because what she wants deep down, all she really wants, is to be close to you. Especially since she lost her other parent so young and so tragically."
It was a grim, penetrating assessment but he struggled to deny it. "How can you tell all that?"
"Because it's exactly how I feel around my mother."
That dropped silence like a bomb. Wind blew, tousling long hair, turning their faces away from each other.
Eventually, eyes on the distant treetops, Ben asked, "How many times have you been to see her?"
"Since we arrived? Three. She never… She never changes."
"She's been like that for years," Tahiri said grimly. "Losing Hapes… It was too much for her, I think."
"My mother has been through awful losses. All of us have," Allana said. "I still can't believe that one last thing finally… Finally broke her." In a soft voice, a child's voice, she said, "I always thought my mother was strong."
"She is strong. She's been the strongest person I've known all my life," Jaina squeezed Allana's shoulder. "That's her problem."
"I don't understand."
"Your mother always had an image of what she wanted to be, and she always wanted to be the best as it. A Jedi knight, obviously. A Dathomiri warrior. And when that didn't pan out, a queen for Hapes. And later on, a good mother to you, and a partner for Jacen. I think sometimes that's why it took her so long to see the monster he was becoming. She was always chasing perfection in her head and sometimes she missed reality."
Allana shook her head, confused. "I still don't understand."
"She tried to be all those things," Tahiri said, "Until one by one, she couldn't be them anymore."
"She's still my mother. She'll always be my mother, even if all she wants to be nowadays is some hermit on a mountain."
"But it's cost her so much. Her parents. Jacen. Taryn, Zekk, and Katia. Eventually it's too much guilt."
"None of that was her fault," Allana insisted, weaker than before.
"Sometimes surviving is guilt enough," Tahiri said in soft conviction.
More silence drifted over the ridge. Flecks of rain tickled Ben's face. It felt like a prelude to a heavier downpour. He said, "I want to see her before we leave."
"What about Jade?" asked Jaina.
"She'll want to come," Allana said.
Ben knew that, just like he knew that if Jade died on that worldship, seeking the Sith who killed her mother, it would break him as badly as Tenel Ka was broken.
"I need to think about it," he said. "We still have time."
"Just don't take forever," Jaina warned.
"I won't. Now let me… Let me take a walk. I need to think."
The women let him go as he trudged down the slope and into the town. Drizzle was coming harder and he threw the hood of the Jedi robe over his head. So many of these paths were unpaved and the dirt under his feet was getting damp and unstable, but he kept walking. He thought as he walked but his thoughts kept going round and round in the same damned circles. What Allana had said had cut him to the bone. Losing his mother at a young age had hurt him deeply but in a sad, ironic way it had taken the bond between him and his father, previously awkward and tense, and made it stronger and deeper than it had otherwise been.
Ben knew he hadn't been there for his child the way Luke Skywalker had been there for him. He'd emerged through such trying times into ostensibly peaceful ones, yet all the while he was a lesser man than his father.
His mind was so trapped in grim cycles that he barely noticed as the rain started coming down harder. The dirt began to churn beneath his feet and the Yuuzhan Vong and Ferroans in the street started ducking to shelter. Once he finally realized how untenable this all was, he looked everywhere he could for shelter and finally spotted an animal-skin tarpaulin stretched out from the side of one damutek to protect some boxes of food stores.
He ducked under the shelter and threw off his hood, spraying water. He shook his robes and wondered why, in all their millenia, the Jedi hadn't thought to make their standard garb out of something more water-resistant.
As he shook something darkened to corner of his eye. He looked over his shoulder and saw another figure in another cloak, back turned to him. For a second he thought it was another Jedi; then he sensed a presence in the Force, a presence he recognized but hadn't known for thirty years. Not since the last time the Sith had come to Zonama Sekot.
He wanted to reach out and touch her, but he remembered the last time he'd done that she'd just slipped through his finger like smoke. He knew Sekot could summon more than just ethereal ghosts now, but he was afraid to test it.
So instead he just said, "Hi, Mom."
The cloaked figure turned around. There was no ghostly blue blur around her. Mara Jade Skywalker looked as real as any other being as she stood before him. She didn't take off her hood but even in the dim clouded light he could see the red hair spilling off her shoulders, the pale skin of her face, the piercing green eyes.
His mother as she'd been thirty-five years ago. Her first thought was how impossible, painfully young she'd looked when she'd died. He was nearing that age himself, but seeing her almost reduced him to a child again, a teenage boy who would never stop wanting his mother back and would never totally let go of his guilt for the way she died.
"Hello, Ben," she smiled softly. "My. You've grown."
Ben took a deep breath. "It's you, right? Not Sekot?"
"Of course it's me. I take it you weren't expecting this."
"Not even close, Mom. Although I guess, maybe I was. It's been so long since I last saw you."
"I could tell." Still smiling, softly, loving.
"There's so much, I-" He stopped, tried to figure out how to say what really mattered. "I have a daughter now. I called her Jade."
"I'm honored."
"She's beautiful, Mom. She's got your eyes. Well, your eyes and dad's hair. Longer, though." He choked for a second. "It's just… I'm so glad to see you. I just wish I could have been the father Jade needed."
"You don't think you were?"
"Not even close," he sniffed. "I lost her mother, the way I lost you. And I've been so scared of losing her since then, of failing her. I haven't let her grow."
His mother's specter considered him for a long time. There was no noise but the rain, pattering endless on the tarp above him.
"Being scared is no way to live, Ben."
"I know. And right now there's a chance for us to right some of the wrongs. To heal, just a little. We can try, but if we fail we'll lose everything. I'll lose her."
"Do you know that, Ben?"
"I feel it-"
"In the Force?"
He wanted to say yes, but he hesitated. He'd never been truly certain what the Force wanted from him, not since Katia died. In the fifteen years in which they'd met, fallen in love, married, and created Jade everything had felt simple, righteous, and sure. Hapes had popped a bubble that would never come back but he couldn't stop longing for it.
"It's your fear speaking, not the Force. You have to let go of it."
"What am I supposed to have then?"
She answered by raised up her hand. He stared, frozen in shock as she raised it and placed her fingertips against his cheek. He felt their soft pressure, their warmth. His heart pounded. He wondered if he could lean closer and feel his mother's breath on his face but he was frozen as her fingers ran down to brush the gray hairs on his chin.
"The beard is growing on me," Mara said with a little grin.
"Mom… What am I supposed to have?"
"Faith, Ben."
"In what? The Force?"
"In your daughter. Just like I had faith in you, always. And you never let me down."
Never, she said. The enormity of that staggered him. "I've let myself down, Mom. So many times."
"You've wavered but you've never fallen, never." Her hand went to his cheek again, soft skin against soft skin. "And you never will."
Her conviction, her love, was unshakable. He closed his eyes and savored the warmth against his face, warmth he hadn't known for more than half a life.
He whispered, "Thanks, Mom," and felt a feather-light kiss on his forehead.
When he opened his eyes he was alone. Rain still fell. He stared at the falling water, the dirt turning to mud. Without putting his hood back on he stepped out from under the tarpaulin and raised his head to the sky. Rain kept coming, pounding his face, some drops stinging, others tickling. Rain fell like life and he didn't turn away.
-{}-
Jade and Tanith sat in the doorway of the damutek, cool but dry, and watched the water fall. The others had gone to the shaper's tower to learn the latest about the worldship but they'd stayed behind. Zonama Sekot made Jade feel very small. The Force itself seemed to whisper of great things of which she played no part.
As the rain started to slow Tanith asked, "When you close your eyes, can you see your mother?"
The question came out of nowhere. They'd talked little, even when alone. The sudden question and its personal nature were striking; even moreso was the quaver in Tanith's voice. Even though they were roughly the same age, Jade had found herself thinking of the tall, scarlet-haired Hapan woman as older, or at least more mature. She didn't seem beset by the anxieties Jade had, even though many of their problems were shared.
"I don't remember what she looked like," Jade said. "But I remember holos of her. That's not really the same though, is it?"
"No. But I was wondering if you knew, somehow, because of the Force."
It was because of the pain of her mother's death that Jade had shut herself off from the Force for so long. It was hard to say that to this other girl, this near-stranger. She said, "I don't think it really helps. I can sometimes remember how my mother felt in the Force, but not in a way I can put into words."
"I see." Tanith stared at the rain. "I never had any of that. The Force, I mean, even though my father was a Jedi."
"That's how it works sometimes. Even Jaina's younger son doesn't-" She caught herself. "Davek didn't have the Force."
"I know." Tanith breathed out. "I just thought sometimes…. It could have helped. I would have given anything for it."
Jade was surprised by that. She'd spent many years thinking that if she'd never been cursed with the sensation of her mother's painful death, things would have been different, likely better.
The other girl looked right at her. "Can I give you advice, Jade?"
This conversation, soft against the rain, took one turn after another. "All right."
"I'm not trying to intrude. I don't know you that well. But you and your father seem… distant."
"It's complicated." Jade looked down at her hands.
"Master Solo said its always complicated between parents and kids. I wouldn't know. I never had the chance, just like I never had the Force." She swallowed. "I would have given anything for that too."
Jade could feel Tanith's ache, the loss that would never go away. Everyone had pains that would never leave, some distant and some fresh. Hers was old and new at once.
"You never know how long your family be there for you," Tanith said. "You shouldn't waste the time you have."
"I know what you're saying." Jade looked back at the forest. The rain had died to a drizzle. "Thank you. I'm going to take a walk now." Tanith nodded. Jade got to her feet and started walking.
Their damutek was set on a clearing at the edge of the Middle Distant, halfway up the valley slope. Jade walked upward. Her boots sometimes sunk into wet dirt but the grass gave traction, and it was better, she figured, than slopping through the mud at the bottom of the valley. Rain still got in her face, dampened her white tunic and clung to her hair, but she walked. It was good to walk. Walking let her think: about her father, her mother, about Hapes and Darth Xoran. The Sith had dealt so much pain to her family; not just her and her father but to so many people they were connected with. It was easy to hate Xoran with a black, hot anger. All she had to do was try.
Jade had to resist the temptation. She wandered into the woods, where water rolled in heavy drops off the leaves of the bora trees and splattered nosily on an undergrowth that was merely damp. Unseen birds made songs somewhere above. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds and smelled the air of decay and regeneration. Tahiri had said Zonama Sekot embodied natural balance, the Force as it was meant to be, with everything flowing along in one unified motion. She wondered if this was what true peace felt like: not stillness, but motions in harmony.
"Are you finding answers?" a voice said. It was a familiar voice, but she didn't place it until she turned around and saw the man behind her. Sitting on a fallen log was an old man, beard gone gray, the sandy-blond sapped from his still-shaggy hair. He had light eyes and a gentle smile. She hadn't seen him in a long time.
"Hi, Grandpa." Jade whispered. She looked around. Birds still sang, raindrops still fell. The forest continued on as it always did. "I wasn't expecting you."
"The Force is a fountain of surprises," Luke Skywalker said.
She found her legs stuck in the mulch like tree-trunks. Her hands balled to nervous fists. "Is that what brought you here? The Force?"
"The Force. And Sekot, and you." There was something impish in his smile. It made the old ghost look young. "Who says it has to be just one thing?"
"I don't know. I… I've heard this planet can… summon people. I wasn't expecting it."
"You already said that. You seem to have something else on your mind."
What did you say to a ghost? "I've got a lot of things. It's… a little hard to explain."
"Think about it. I have nothing but time."
She did think about it. She stared into the dirt until she found words, and then she looked her grandfather in eyes that look so real. "It's about Dad. And it's about what really hurt him. Hurt us."
"Your mother's death," Luke said.
"That's right. We know who did it now. I saw her. I felt her. It was a Sith. And until we stop her neither of us is going to have any peace."
"Are you afraid of this Sith?"
"Of course I am. I remember what she did to my mother. I can feel it if I try. But it's worse than that. This Sith, she's spread so much pain to so much people. I remember how you faced the Emperor all those years ago. He was an even bigger monster who destroyed even more lives. How did you face him, knowing how evil he was? How did you fight and beat him without letting all that hate take you over?"
It felt good to get it all out. It was a question she still couldn't bring to ask her father. Luke considered, then said, "I very nearly gave in to that hate. Darkness is powerful, Jade. It drags you in because it promises it will solve all your problems. It seduces you into thinking if you crave something hard enough you can make it so. But it's a lie. The dark side can't give you everything."
"Can the light?"
"No." His smile was bittersweet. "I'm sorry."
"But they say anything's possible with the Force."
"On the Force's terms, not yours."
She felt deflated, empty. "I don't like that."
"No one does. But you have to learn to deal with that and take the losses with the victories and live with both. That's growing up. That's life."
"You never answered my question. How did you fight the Emperor's evil without getting pulled in by the dark?"
"One thing saved me," Luke said. "My father. After everything he'd done, against everything else, he was there for me. I know Ben will be there for you too. You are everything to him."
"I know, Grandpa," she sniffed. Tears touched her eyes. "It's just… It's hard being everything to somebody."
"That, too, is something you'll have to live with."
She pawed tears away with the rain-damp back of her hand. She opened her mouth to ask how he'd gone on after his father's sacrifice and froze. The log on which he'd sat was empty. She looked around the forest. She was alone again.
She lingered in the woods for a while, and when she was ready she walked back down to the damutek. She was a little relieved to see no one waiting outside, but when she got closer she looked back toward the city and saw a man in soggy Jedi robes walking up the path. She waited for her father at the entrance. When he reached her they stood and stared at each other for a moment before either of them could speak.
"You're wet," Ben told his daughter.
"You're wetter," she said, and couldn't keep from smiling.
He patted his soaked robes. "I guess so. I just had an interesting conversation."
"So did I."
"Really." He looked her over a second time. "Do you want to talk about it?"
She swallowed, nodded. "Yeah, Dad. I think it's time to talk."
-{}-
Because there was little else to do, Jagged Fel had followed every scrap of information coming through the newsnets. The broadcasters on the Imperial News Network seemed to take a muted sadistic pleasure in describing the convoluted political mess unfolding on Coruscant, but the facts themselves were accurate. The League of Free Worlds of Senex-Juvex had seceded from the Alliance. A volley of legislation had emerged from subcommittees and made it to the senate floor, but the only one that mustered enough votes to pass had been to level economic sanctions on the Free Worlds for violating the Alderaan Convention. Even the purely symbolic one to declare Savyar a war criminal had failed thanks to debate over specific wording. An attempt to call a no-confidence vote in Chief of State Sevash had failed miserably because no one else was visibly gunning for the job.
The really difficult issue, the one Jagged had been most curious to see resolved, had been what to do about the handful of worlds still loyal to the original Houses. After Karfeddion, the surviving Lords had mostly pulled their security forces to their throneworlds, set themselves up to withstand a siege, and begged to Alliance to intervene on their behalf, citing the Treaty of Anaxes and claiming they were now under threat for a hostile foreign power.
The senate still had to vote to officially recognize that the Anaxes agreement had been broken. They were in the process of arguing the submittal from House Araba when the entire issue became moot.
When the Yuuzhan Vong worldship dropped into orbit over Cyimarra, it hadn't even bothered to bring support vessels. The House Araba security fleet had attacked the behemoth with frankly surprisingly bravery and been ignored. Less than ten minutes after decanting from hyperspace, the worldship had fired its gravity-beam weapon directly into the planet. The impact was reported to have been equivalent to a large meteor strike at high velocity. There was no way to know how many had been killed in the blast, but the number was sure to dwarf the mere two million at Karfeddion.
When the news had come down Jagged couldn't sit still any more and placed a long-range transmission to Coruscant. He knew Cyimarra's devastation would have sparked a frenzy, so he waited patiently until his cousin managed to squeeze in five minutes to talk.
"I'm sorry, Jag, but I don't have long," Syal said. "I just out of one meeting with the other admirals. Now I'm due to talk to Senator Dre'lye and the defense committee."
"What's the Third Fleet going to do? It's been sitting at Asmeru since Karfeddion. Are you just going to keep it there to watch?"
Syal shook her head. "This is hard for all of us, Jag. I've already talked to Admiral Premvold. He knows we need to do something but until we have a way to take out that weapon, any intervention would just get more of our people killed. Have you heard anything from Zonama Sekot?"
"Jaina says they're close to completing something that can disable that worldship. It might take a week yet, maybe two."
Syal hardly looked assured. "A lot can happen in one week, Jag."
"I know. A lot more people can die."
"Jag, even if Jaina does bring some miracle cure back, I'm still not sure we'll get approval to act. Senex-Juvex isn't Alliance territory any more. A military operation there would technically be invading a sovereign entity."
"An entity where the ruling power is committing mass murder."
"I know, but Karfeddion scared people. It scared them bad. A superweapon hasn't been used since Centerpoint thirty-five years ago. Everyone's still hoping that if they look away from the problem it will just disappear, or at least stay bottled up in Senex-Juvex."
"Ignoring genocide doesn't preserve the Long Peace."
"I know. But people vote on what they hope will happen, whether they're citizens or senators."
"What does Sevash say about this? What about Dre'lye?"
"I don't know. Dre'lye will get a bill authorizing intervention out of his committee and onto the senate floor. But after that, I can't guarantee anything. If the Senate votes it down, they'll tie Sevash's hands."
Jag scowled and held back a curse. Sevash was a good enough leader for peacetime but he'd never been bold. Countermanding a senate vote, especially on something like this, would be straight-up political suicide, and Jag could never see him doing that.
Still, he couldn't just sit on Bastion and watch it all unfold over the newsnets, complete with smug INN commentary. He said, "Syal, I'm coming to Coruscant."
She didn't look surprised. "What do think you can do here?"
"I don't know, but I can't sit on a couch and do nothing."
Her smile was faint and tired. An old woman's smile. "I thought as much. I'll be waiting for you. I just hope your wife shows up too."
"Not as much as me, Syal. I'm on my way."
-{}-
As his flier approached the mountaintop campsite, Ben Skywalker found himself going tense behind the controls. All his life he'd found Tenel Ka Djo intimidating. Ever since he was a child he'd associated the Queen Mother of Hapes with a stoic mien and rancor-tooth lightsaber; neither welcoming in itself and especially unwelcoming in combination.
When he arrived at the campsite and found it unoccupied it felt both anticlimactic and aggravating. He assumed Tenel Ka had gone off into the wood somewhere to hunt for food perhaps, or commune with Zonama Sekot, or speak with old ghosts. Whatever it was she'd been doing out here all these years.
He sat himself at the embers of her campfire and waited. The natural silence made it surprisingly easy to meditate, and by the time she appeared he was almost calm.
He had a collection of firewood pinned to her side by her single arm. She walked straight to her tent and set it down before saying, very perfunctorily, "Good afternoon, Ben."
He was glad she didn't call him 'Master Skywalker,' as she'd done for his father for all those years. "Hello yourself."
"Were you waiting long?" She had her back to him and was leaning logs vertically in a row against the tent.
"A little, but I didn't mind. It's calming out here."
"You see why I prefer it, then."
"I don't know. I'd get a little bored with it after ten years."
She stiffened, and without looking at him muttered, "This is a fact."
He watched her lay a few more logs before he decided to get right to the point. The Tenel Ka he'd known had always appreciated that. "Do you know what I just decided today?"
"I have no idea."
"I've decided being a parent is much harder than being a Jedi Master."
She stopped, straightened, and finally turned to look at him. "You only realized that today?"
"I'm a slow learner."
"In my experience, Ben, you've been anything but."
"Maybe we're thinking about different experiences."
"Perhaps." A little reluctantly, she started walking toward him. "I heard you've found the Sith who killed Katia. The Sith from Hapes. That's why you're here, is it not?"
"I didn't find her. Jade did."
Tenel Ka crouched beside him. "I feel very sorry for her."
"There's a lot of people to feel sorry for." It was too easy to feel sorry for themselves. "The Sith- her name is Darth Xoran- is causing more destruction now than ever. She's responsible for killing Davek and millions more."
"I know."
"She has to be stopped."
"Do you believe you're meant to stop her?"
"Who else but the Jedi can stop the Sith?" He looked at her but she was staring into embers.
"Perhaps so," she said, "But why does the Jedi have to be you? Are you sure you don't have other motivations?"
"If you mean revenge, yes. I'd be lying if a part of me didn't want that. But I believe I can kill her without going dark." After his own mother had died, his father had held back from facing Darth Caedus, knowing the thirst for revenge could draw him into the dark. Jaina had had to do it instead. He told himself it was different now. The pain of Katia's loss was an old one, cool instead of raging hot.
"I meant more than vengeance," Tenel Ka said. "Are you sure you're not seeking something more dangerous than that?"
"What's more dangerous than revenge?"
"Atonement."
He frowned. "How is that dangerous?"
"Because it can never be had. It is a false hope and there is nothing worse than that." She picked up a stick and poked cool ashes. "When I was crowned Queen of Hapes it felt like a curse. I never so lonely in my life. Fact. When Jacen came back to me I thought it was a blessing from the Force itself. I thought our love could solve all my problems. Fact."
"Tenel Ka-"
She jabbed the ashes harder. "When he went dark I thought my life was over. In the worst hours I thought I was the one who'd made that monster. I thought my own selfish need for companionship had begun his descent."
"What Jacen did was his choice. It was always his choice."
"Fact," she sniffed. "When Jacen died I thought my life was over again. But then Zekk appeared, and he became attached to Taryn, and together they were a new light in my life. Fact. And later Allana joined us, and I believed I had a family again. Even Jacen found his strange redemption here on Zonama Sekot. I thought my hopes were fulfilled and I would have peace. But that was not a fact. Zekk and Taryn died because I was weak, because I was needy, because I was blind to the threat the Sith represented. Your wife died because of me, and so many others."
"That's not true," Ben snapped.
"It is a fact."
"No it's not! Do you think I haven't spent years with guilt over what happened on Hapes? You think I don't see Katia every time I look at my daughter, every single time? We've all made mistakes, serious mistakes, and we've all had to deal with that."
"Eventually," she said, "It becomes too much."
Ben sighed and looked at the ashes. "Tenel Ka, you can't stay here forever. Allana needs you."
"And you think I don't want to help her. Every time I've thought I was helping people I loved, I destroyed them. Every single time. Do you understand that? Jacen, Taryn, Zekk. Staying away from me is the only way to keep Allana safe."
"You know that's not true. You're just hurting her, Tenel Ka. She doesn't know if she can trust you or not because she doesn't think you trust her. You're afraid of hurting each other so you never risk getting close, but all she really wants is to be close to you. You're the only parent she has left."
"How do you know that?" Tenel Ka's voice wavered.
"It's how my daughter feels about me."
Tenel Ka looked at him, finally. He stared into her gray eyes and remembered the woman she'd been when she was younger, the one who'd always intimidated his childhood self, the one Jacen had fallen in love with and burned a secret passion for. But the face around those eyes was weathered and sagging; the eyes themselves darkened by things that could never be made right. What'd they'd been was gone forever. They were just two old people now, quietly haunted by the ways they'd let their children down.
"Come down from this mountain, Tenel Ka. Your daughter needs you. We all do."
"And what will happen if I do?"
He took a deep breath and looked at the forest, the climbing mountain, the vast open sky. "If Jacen can find even a little redemption, why can't we?"
She dropped her stick in the fire pit and said nothing for a long time. He let her think. He listened to the wind and creaking of tall old trees. Eventually she said, "I remember when I was very young, I was attracted to this kind of life. I thought that if I somehow failed to become a Jedi knight- and yes, I did worry about that- then it would be good to retreat to Dathomir and live a simple life in the wilderness, hunting food and wearing the skin of animals."
"And now?"
She breathed deeply, in and out. "It is not satisfying."
"Maybe you need a change."
"Perhaps I do." She looked up at the sky too, and breathed very deep.
"You haven't seen him, have you?"
"No. He's as frustrating in death as he was in life."
"Yeah. That sounds like Jacen." That got the tiniest smile, sad as it was. He asked, "When do you want to leave?"
"Allow me a few minutes to prepare." She stood up. So did he. She asked, "Do you believe the Force wants you to face Darth Xoran?"
He thought a moment. "I don't know. But I want to. Right or wrong, I want to face her."
"Good." Tenel Ka's face became hard. "So do I."