"Ben! Ben, wait!" Luke called as he chased after his son along the sidewalk that led away from Vestara's apartment.
Before Luke could catch up to his son, the latter made it to a crosswalk while there was still a red light in front of him; obviously, in his emotional state, Ben didn't care about whether or not he could cross the street.
However, just a split second before Ben would have been run over by a landspeeder coming in from his left, Luke used the Force to pull his son back to the sidewalk, where Ben collapsed to his back. As if by instinct, the teenager turned prone to the ground and hid his face there while his body was wracked by sobs.
When Luke finally arrived to his son's side, he bent down and gingerly placed his natural hand on Ben's shoulder. The teenager, without hesitation, shooed his father's attempt at a comforting touch away while still crying upon the pavement.
"Ben, come on," Luke said as gently as he could. He didn't even care that he and his son were attracting attention from passersby; he just wanted to help Ben the best he could, and the pavement of Ta'a Chume'Dan wasn't exactly an ideal location for that. "Let's get you back to the Palace. We can-"
"It's all Jacen's fault!" Ben screamed as he looked up to his father. His face was already red from the crying. "If he hadn't come along, Ves and I would have been happy!"
Luke looked confused. "She left because of Jacen?"
"Just leave me alone!" Ben said as he stood up and headed back to where he was originally running. This time, there was a green light, so there was no threat (at least from this crosswalk) that he would have been run over while being distracted by his emotions.
"Ben!" Luke called out again. He proceeded to resume his chase.
But by the time Ben made it to the next crosswalk, he looked back at his father for a moment before leaping up and forward onto the roof of a passing hoverbus. He then leaped off of it to land on the sidewalk across the street.
Seconds behind his son, Luke leaped over the tops of three passing speeders before finally making it to the same sidewalk that Ben landed upon. But once he did, he looked around, finding no sign of the teenager; Luke couldn't even sense his Force-presence with a passive scan.
He was about to initiate a more thorough Force-scan of his son that would break through all of his defensive barriers when Jacen's voice said from behind him, "Let him be. For now, anyway."
Luke turned around to appraise his nephew with a questioning glare. "Let him be? He was so distracted he was nearly run over by a speeder. If I hadn't used the Force to pull him back-"
"If he's actively hiding his Force-presence from us, Uncle Luke," Jacen interrupted, "it means he's not only making more of an effort to be left alone, he's probably more likely to look left and right before crossing the street."
"Or it means he could be even more distracted if he's actively hiding himself from us," Luke countered. "Jacen, you brought me here to help you help Ben; now's not the time to give him his privacy when he can get himself killed out here!"
"Quite frankly, Uncle Luke, I think you're the one who's getting distracted right now," Jacen said. "You're right to worry about Ben, but not in the way that you probably should."
"What do you mean?"
Jacen held up the piece of flimsiplast that Ben was given before he ran away from Vestara's apartment. "Take a look at this," Jacen said as he gave his uncle the sheet.
When Luke was done reading it, he looked back up at Jacen and opened his mouth to say something before a thought stopped him. Then he reread the note and his brows furrowed at it suggested.
"If she really cared about him," Luke said, "she would have told him to move on. But she didn't; and, somehow, I don't think that it's because she was running out of time to write this. Or because she really cared about him. She's deliberately manipulating Ben with that last sentence; making sure that he can't move on."
Jacen nodded. "There's something more going on with that girl, Uncle Luke. But Ben needs some time, and we can't just tell him about this manipulation to him right away."
"Why not?"
"Given his current frame of mind," Jacen said, "he'd probably just dismiss it out of hand. He could definitely tell us we're reading into this manipulation thing when it might just be an innocent goodbye note. Either way, we have to let him have his space; but at the same time, we gotta make sure Vestara makes no further contact with him."
Jacen then walked past Luke to make his way back to the Fountain Palace. Luke stayed in place for a few seconds before he called out, "Jacen?"
"Yeah?" Jacen looked back to address his uncle.
"Do you think Vestara might be a Sith?"
"I hope not. If that's the case, Ben might be in more trouble than we think."
. . .
Ben returned to the Fountain Palace minutes ahead of Luke and Jacen. And there, as he rushed to his bedroom, tears still streaming from his eyes, a passing handmaiden asked, "Ben Skywalker?"
He didn't stop; he didn't care. He just wanted to be alone. No one else was worth talking to other than-
"Vestara sent me."
That stopped Ben dead in his tracks. He looked back in surprise. "What?"
The handmaiden approached him with another piece of flimsiplast and gave it to him. She said nothing more before she turned away and resumed her course down the corridor.
Ben opened up the note without hesitation and read it.
Ben,
Burn this after you read it. Go to the Fountain Palace's hangar bay. You'll meet a woman there; she's waiting for you. She's scheduled to leave at 3 p.m. today. If you don't leave with her by then, you'll never see me again.
-Vestara
Ben looked at his chronometer. He only had five minutes to get to the Palace's hangar bay. Quickly, he unhooked his lightsaber from his belt, activated it, and set the note upon it; it burned away into smoke. Then he deactivated his weapon, replaced it upon his belt, and hurried for the hangar.
He made it in two minutes. The woman waiting for him said nothing to him, nor he to her, as she led him into her cargo ship. They were out into the air in no time, and right before Luke and Jacen set foot in the Palace again.
It was too late for anyone in the Palace to notify Hapes Orbital Control of their departure before the cargo ship jumped into hyperspace.
. . .
Down in the Fountain Palace's interrogation room, the handmaiden who gave Ben that last note, Freika, had been sat down to view the holofootage of her interaction with the runaway teenage Jedi.
When the footage ended, the interrogator, Chief of Security Rejay Deeho, asked from the opposite side of the desk from Freika, "How could you make such a stupid mistake? You knew the holocams were there."
Freika looked shocked and scared. "What did I do wrong? All that girl asked me to do was just give Jedi Skywalker that note. And I thought, what would be the harm in it?"
"For a handmaiden who serves directly under the Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium," Deeho said evenly, "you seem overly naive about potential security threats. For all you knew, that note was laced with a dormant explosive compound that could have blown up the Fountain Palace and assassinated our Queen Mother. The fact that it wasn't doesn't excuse your carelessness and outright idiocy."
"Well, I'm sorry, I'm still new to this!" Freika cried. "I didn't know that I had to make sure a note didn't have an explosive compound or whatever!"
"Your action will be up for review," Deeho said. "So unless the Queen Mother herself allows you to continue to serve in this Palace, I would say that the likelihood of your services continuing here are extremely remote."
"Oh, no, please, I need this job to support my family!"
"We all do; but that's no excuse to potentially endanger the Queen Mother."
"Look, can't I get a refresher course on security matters? I promise I won't make the same mistake again!" Freika cried.
Before Deeho could say anything in response, the interrogation chamber's door opened and Jacen Solo walked in.
"Can I take over from here, Chief Deeho?" the Jedi asked.
"By all means."
After Deeho vacated her seat and left the room, Jacen filled in for her.
"Now, Freika," Jacen said, "I know you're telling the truth. I could sense it within your Force-presence. I could sense that you genuinely care for your family and that you had no idea of any potential security risks of bringing that note into this Palace; you made a mistake, and luckily for you, it wasn't a fatal one. So that means you have a higher chance of continuing your services here than Chief Deeho lets on; after all, as the adoptive father to the Queen Mother, I have pull with her. So I can convince her that you're still worthy of serving directly under her.
"But first, you have to tell me this: who was that girl who gave you the note to pass onto Ben? When and where did you meet her? And how did she know you?"
Freika swallowed nervously before she began. "Well, I met her about a month ago, while I was in Ta'a Chume'Dan, you know, shopping for food. She spoke to me first, mistaking me for a friend of hers. I told her I didn't know who she was, she was mistaking me for someone else. She then asked if I was a handmaiden to Her Majesty."
"What made her think that?" Jacen asked. "Were you wearing anything that might give that away?"
Freika shook her head vehemently. "No, I wasn't. I wore plain civilian Hapan clothing, as ordered whenever I was in the city. And I denied working for the Queen Mother. But somehow, I don't know how, I swear it on my life, but she said that I was lying. She knew that I worked for Her Majesty."
"What did you do afterward?"
"Nothing. Actually, she ended the conversation then and there and left the shop, didn't even buy anything. And I didn't even see her again until just this morning when she told me to give your cousin that note."
"So why were you so compliant?" Jacen asked.
"I... I..." Freika looked away as she tried collecting her thoughts. "I can't remember. Wait."
"What?"
"I do remember something," the handmaiden said. "She... waved her hand in front of me, telling me to give the note. I said I'd do it. I still don't know why I did it."
Now Jacen looked worried. He said nothing more to Freika before he stood up and left the room. He met Luke and Deeho in the room behind the two-way mirror that was facing the interrogation room.
"We have to leave, Uncle Luke," Jacen said with an urgent tone. "We have to find Ben. And wherever he is, Vestara might be there, too."
"Where do we start?" Luke asked, his concern mirroring Jacen's.
"Obviously, with the last known coordinates of that cargo ship that took Ben. Chief Deeho, get Orbital Control to give the Palace that ship's hyperspace coordinates and transmit them to the Jade Shadow."
"Right away, Jedi Solo," Deeho replied. "But what about Freika?"
"Oh. Um, tell the Queen Mother about this incident, but also tell her that I said that Freika shouldn't be fired because of it," Jacen said somewhat impatiently. "Have her suspended from duty with pay until Luke and I get Ben back."
"Very well."
"All right, Uncle Luke, let's go."