Chapter 11: He's An Old Friend of Mine
Keorra Cereaslean was the first to spot the intruder inside her Employer's safehouse. He was a young man of her own age, perhaps sixteen or seventeen human standard years, his red-brown hair catching golden highlights from the harsh illumination banks that hummed overhead. He wasn't especially tall, but had a handsbreadth on her, his footwork was exquisitely sure and quiet, not disturbing any of the other employers that were immune to his presence. He had the walk of an assassin, which Keorra had seen many times before and was paid to make sure didn't get any further, without her, nearer her Employer's chambers. She knew that her Employer liked to see whom it was that had been hired to kill him, and Keorra planned to apprehend this intruder quickly and efficiently.
Her own footwork was just as delicate as the intruder's, and he was at the moment oblivious to her presence. She was a lean girl, with hair so pale it was nearly white, and eyes that were the color of amethysts. Keorra smiled as she rested a hand on her blaster, her slender fingers working over the barrel to check the safety and flip it off. She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the hum of her weapon, drawing on her Upoi Warrior training and catching the amount of energy that was left in the battery without needing to check the gauge.
The way he moved, the absence of hesitation except for the cursory scanning of the corridors as he rounded a bend, told Keorra that he knew the place. [i]Floor plans?[/i] Keorra questioned herself as she continued her avid pursuit. If he had managed to get blueprints of the base's floor plans, that meant that she could have a conspirator in the assassination of her employer. She was more irritated by the fact that it would take extra effort to sniff out the traitor than the fact that there was a double danger to her and her Employer's business.
Keorra went unnoticed all the way to her Employer's workstation; somehow the intruder knew that the boss would be in his office working at his desk. Who was this assassin? In the blink of an eye, Keorra did an assessment of the young man. He was dressed in a black unisuit that fit well to his muscled and compact form, yet there was a slight discomfort that Keorra got from the way he shifted in the clothing, as though the material irritated him. There was a slight smile on his boyish features that pulled the previous smile of concentration from his face, and she wondered at someone so young taking so much pleasure in an assassination attempt.
When hired, Keorra had made it a point to memorize all the bounty hunters and assassins that were known in the New Republic; this boy didn't fit any of the descriptions or holophotos she had seen. However, he had a familiarity to him, as though she had seen him recently, but hadn't noticed him in passing.
As he reached his hand up to the doorplate to activate the entry door to the boss's office, Keorra moved. She was like a pantra cat pouncing on her prey, her leap towards the young man long and sinuous, her hand reaching for her blaster as she leapt. He didn't jerk when she wrapped her arm around his neck in a headlock, nor did he grimace when she pointed the barrel of her blaster into his back, pushing it until she felt the resistance of his skin and then digging the muzzle into that flesh.
"Don't move a millimeter, or I'll pump you full of energy," she hissed in his ear.
He didn't tense, nor did he go slack in her hold, it was as though he was in control of his body at all times. "I think there's been a mistake," he said, in a cultured tone that carried a lilt of an accent Keorra didn't readily recognize.
"I thought I told you to keep still," she said, urging him towards the door.
"I wish I didn't have to do this," he murmured and he went from complete stasis to liquid motion.
His arm bent as he wheeled around like a pinwheel, snatching her arm with the blaster in it before she had time to realize he was moving. Reflexively, she tightened her grip on the blaster, but his fingers came to her wrist like steel tips, delving into the skin until she lost all sensitivity in her arm, the blaster clattered to the ground, skittering away from them as if blown from a sharp gust of air. She made a fatal mistake then, she let the wonder of it all catch her eye, and she watched the blaster as it slid.
That assassin moved with incredible agility and grace. The arm he held pinned in his grip swirled around her, coming to behind her back and he locked it there while he reached out, snatching the other arm, bringing it to join its pair. His hold was incredibly strong, and even as she tugged at it she knew that she couldn't get him to release her.
Now it was his turn to whisper in her ear. "Can we be civil now?" he asked, and he pushed them towards the door with her unsuspecting Employer behind it.
As they neared the door, she used his grip as a lever, and kicked outward with her feet, catching the plasteel wall and running up it as though gravity had ceased to exist in the room and was primarily based on her whims alone. The assassin had no choice but to break his grip or end up with each arm snapped in two. She used her momentum and back-flipped over him, landing exactly behind him. Instantly, she made a dash for her blaster, but again it skittered away, this time she caught the slight gesture of his fingers.
[i]Jedi,[/i] she thought, and that cemented her resolve to best him.
She snapped a roundhouse kick at his chin, hoping to distract him long enough to get to her blaster. He dodged it with ease, side-stepping to catch her ankle in both hands, and held her in the position. For a moment they stared at each other, and there was a glint in those green-blue eyes that sent a shiver through her. Pushing the thought out, she fleetingly wondered why he just didn't snap her ankle; he was in the right position to do so and it was something she would have done to best her opponent. Instead, he allowed her the opportunity to use his counterweight again, and she pushed off her free leg, sending it out for another strike at his head. At the last second she changed the direction, so it flew over her desired object and touched the ground on the other side long enough to spring it back in the air, the arch between her leg and foot catching the assassin on the side of his head.
He rolled with the strike, taking her leg that was still in his grasp with him and together they fell to the floor; the assassin under control, Keorra not so lucky. Her back hit the ground hard, forcing the air out of her chest. He crouched over her as Keorra was held in place by his vice-like hold.
"As much as I enjoy this sparring contest, perhaps you can tell me who you are?" the assassin asked, congenial.
She tried to maneuver out of his grasp, but he was far too skilled. "Shouldn't I ask you the same question, assassin?" she grunted, maintaining the struggle despite its futility.
A crease came between his ruddy brown eyebrows, confusion filling his features. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the sound of the boss's door. Together, they turned to face the sound.
"What in blazes is going on?" Talon Karrde roared as he entered the corridor. His dark eyes locked on the two combatants and a smile came over his mustached face. "Ben, my boy, what are you doing here?"
The assassin, Ben, smiled cheekily at Karrde, but his eyes lacked luster. "I thought I would surprise you, Uncle Talon." His head cocked at Keorra. "However, I got a little side-tracked. Do you know her?"
[i]Uncle Talon?[/i] Keorra questioned in her mind, searching her Employer for any sort of answer for this strange behavior. Obviously, this Ben wasn't an assassin, especially if he called Karrde 'uncle' and addressed him by his first name. Keorra had never known anyone to call the boss by his first name.
Karrde scowled at the younger man. "Ben, you know you're the only one who could ever get away with calling me that."
"My mother taught me to take advantages when I see them," Ben answered.
Keorra decided that she had been ignored for far too long. "Am I to continue to listen to this conversation flat on my back, or could you please release your grip?" There was little graciousness in her voice.
The assumed assassin looked up at Karrde questioningly, his hold on her not loosening until Karrde nodded a go-ahead. Indignantly, Keorra pushed Ben off of her, and he seemed amused by her anger. Ben rolled to his feet as though he were a sapling tree snapping back from the wind. He offered her a hand up, which she snubbed with a twist of her head and snapped to her feet with as much grace as he had. This only increased his amusement. Keorra glared at him.
"Keorra Cereaslean," Karrde introduced, "this is Ben Skywalker. Ben, Keorra."
Skywalker? No wonder she had recognized him, she had seen the press conference Jedi Leia Organa Solo had made concerning her brother's death, and had caught a glimpse of his holo on the tri-D report. That was why the light did not reach his eyes.
Forcefully, solemn in the wake of her baleful glare, Ben Skywalker gave a half bow towards her. "It's a pleasure to meet anyone who can give me such an exercise in hand-to-hand combat."
Exercise? Except for that hit to the head, which she was beginning to suspect he'd allowed, he had dominated the whole battle. And Keorra with a blaster in hand! "The pleasure was all yours," she snapped. She didn't care what Karrde would think of her rudeness, knowing his proclivity towards manners, even to their enemies, let alone their friends and associates.
Reaching out a hand, Keorra's blaster leaped through the air and smacked into the palm of Ben Skywalker. He offered the small hand blaster to her. "It's a good make, old Blastech minicharge if I'm not mistaken."
"That's right," she said, refusing to give up the harsh tone in her voice, begrudgingly respecting that he had been able to identify what would have been construed by others as archaic.
"Come into my office, Ben," Karrde said, guiding his young surrogate nephew through the door he had just emerged from. He deigned to notice his personal aide and bodyguard. "Keorra, make sure we're not disturbed."
"Yes boss," she muttered, and took up post outside the door, trying to let go of her complete humiliation. No one had ever bested her with such ease, her training with Upoi had conditioned her to such a state that her body was like a weapon itself.
What she had neglected to do in the battle was listen to the hum of her opponent; he was as much a weapon as her blaster or the Jedi lightsaber. It was one of the basic rules of a Upoi warrior - to gauge the tone, the hum which a weapon worked on. A Jedi was a honed weapon in the flesh, but a weapon that would choose not to fire if it could help it. Perhaps that was why she had such a hard time catching his hum.
Replaying the whole scene in her mind, she cursed her stupidity in not realizing that he was a Jedi sooner; his hesitance in breaking her ankle, the way he had just disarmed her instead of turning her weapon on her, were all signs she should have noted. She remembered the look in his eyes that had set her shivering, her body had recognized it without her mind following suit. Why had she been so thrown off during that battle?
She needed to do something, acting as sentry for Karrde wasn't going to help her release the pent-up frustration. Snatching her comlink and thumbing it on, she called, "McCal?"
"Yes, Keo," came the response of her next-in-command in security.
"I need two sentries outside of the boss's office, he's in with... a client," Keorra instructed.
There was a pause. "Why aren't you standing guard?"
"Cause I've got better things to do," she growled. "Like finding me a new second-in-command if I don't see two of your guys at this door within a quarter of an hour."
"Alright, alright," McCal said with a laugh. "Any special instructions?"
"Just make sure he isn't disturbed," she ordered, and signed off without a farewell. It was all she could do to keep from charging for the exercise room and working off her frustration - and preparing for another rematch with Ben Skywalker.
Talon Karrde was no longer in the smuggling business, had officially retired since the Smuggler's Alliance had been disbanded after the Yuuzhan Vong war; however, there were still those who sought after the huge information mine that Karrde held. From the profits of his respectable and his slightly-less-respectable businesses, he had chosen an asteroid planet to bring his business to. Convenient for Ben, it was incredibly close to the Naboo system, and he knew that Uncle Talon would not reveal his presence here.
Ben smiled softly at his uncle as he sat on Uncle Talon's desk. "You do pick the most interesting of places to make your home base, Uncle Talon," he pointed out, as he picked up a holo picture of himself as a baby with his mother and father simultaneously holding him. Instantly, he put it down, composing his features to mask the pain that the holo had brought.
"So what brings you here, my boy?" Karrde asked, settling into his conforming chair behind the desk.
"I need your help," Ben admitted.
That piqued Uncle Talon's curiosity and he stroked his goatee. "In what, may I ask?"
"The Jedi High Council is looking for me, I don't want to be found," Ben answered simply.
"And why is that?" Karrde continued.
Uncomfortable, Ben dodged the question. How could he explain that he had left the Order because he would destroy everything he loved? "Who's this Keorra Cereaslean?" he asked instead, cocking his head toward the door where he could sense the nearly white-haired girl. "She's pretty good."
"As good as your mother?" Talon queried.
Ben noted that the question was meant to make him uncomfortable, ruffle him into a state where he might slip and tell Uncle Talon the real point to his visit. He returned his surrogate uncle's stare evenly. He would not slip. "No one was as good as Mother."
Karrde leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and giving off the lackadaisical persona of the smuggler he had once been. "She's a runaway. Trained by the Upoi to be a weapon, I hired her because she reminded me of your mother. A little sentimental, I know, but she is a very effective body guard."
"What happened to Shada?" Ben asked, turning the tables on Karrde, knowing that Shada Dukal, his previous bodyguard, was a touchy subject. [i]Two can play at this game, Uncle Talon.[/i]
"Shada's still a part of the organization, she's now my public representative," Karrde said, mimicking Ben's previous deadpan tone. "She tours around the galaxy, making sure our customers are content."
"Needed the space, huh?" Ben said, adding a teasing tone to his inflection. "Did she ask for a final commitment? Why don't you just marry her?" The young seer was well aware of the relationship that had grown between Uncle Talon and his bodyguard, and that relationship made his usual calm Uncle Karrde as jumpy as a skittish Tauntaun.
"And give Han Solo the satisfaction? I think not, my boy." Karrde scrutinized him from under heavy eyebrows. "You're dodging my initial subject, though. Why would the Council be after you?"
Ben swallowed against the lump in his throat. "My father is dead, Uncle Talon." It taxed him to have to tell Karrde this; it was his punishment for not being good enough, for not being fast enough to stop each of his parents' deaths, to have to relay the news to their friends and family.
"I know, my boy," Karrde replied softly.
Blue-green eyes were shot with liquid steel as he snapped his attention to his surrogate uncle. "You know? How?"
"Your aunt made the announcement the other morning," Karrde answered sympathetically.
[i]The morning of the disturbance of the Force,[/i] Ben thought. He had yet to completely dispel the chill that had accompanied so many deaths, it was another ghost that clung to him. "I had hoped to tell you before that," Ben muttered, again his hand coming to rest on the holo of his family.
He lifted it to eye level. Of its own volition, his finger came up to caress the lines of his mother's, then his father's, faces. They looked so young, much younger then his own memories allowed. Mara had just been healed of the Yuuzhan Vong disease that she had battled to keep from her unborn baby, and her skin was more sallow than usual, her cheeks slightly sunken in, but these features were blotted out by the brightness of her smile as she looked down at Ben and then to her husband.
No one understood more than Ben how much that smile meant.
"I miss them," he said, forgetting for the moment that his uncle was there, that he wasn't alone in the room and that Talon Karrde could see the real grief on his features.
For a moment, he used the same technique he had on Anakin when his cousin had first realized that he had lost fifteen years of his life to the stasis of the [i]oombassl[/i], and reproduced the past in his own mind so it was as though he were that little baby again, clasped in the love and arms of his parents. The phantom hands of his parents touched him, and he could almost hear their breathing, the quiet words of encouragement that had been passed between them, the adoration they had felt for this new little life in a time of such sorrow. At the time of his infancy, Ben was a sign of rebirth in the galaxy. How ironic that he would soon become the sign of death.
"You meant everything to them," Uncle Talon said, coming into his thoughts and obliterating the image with his words.
[i]That's why Dad let me live, that's why he would allow the darkness inside of me to continue,[/i] Ben thought painfully. Luke had brought his own father back from the Dark Side and into the Light. His perception had been based on this miraculous event so much, that he couldn't believe that Ben's visions were engraved in the stone of the Force, that his little boy couldn't become a monster. Ben knew better than that, knew that he was bound to his fate from the visions because they had already come true.
[i]Then why are you here?[/i] Ben asked himself. [i]Why did you come here in the hopes of avoiding the inevitable?[/i] Mainly because he couldn't disbelieve his father.
Did that make him or his father weak, weak to face the truth of the Force, denying it because their heart wished it? If Dad had allowed Ben's death, he would have found his freedom from the truth of the future. Ben had always been taught that compassion was the greatest strength, that it was only dangerous when it took you to passion beyond control, but he found that the very center of his beliefs was being knocked away by his visions. What he was, he would not remain, and what he would become was the thing of nightmares.
"They had grander obligations," Ben said in a jaded tone. "I never wanted to come between them and their duty to the galaxy." Where was this spite coming from?
"Must it be one or the other?" Uncle Talon questioned.
And that was the ultimate question. Could love and duty be reconciled? He used to think so. He hadn't gone over to the Dark Side either time he had seen his parent struck down, although he had come close with his father. Nefarion had killed Luke to get to Ben, and that knowledge only weighed on the young seer more. Had his father broken duty for love? Or had he wanted to save his son whom he thought was the 'Chosen One'? Either way, Ben couldn't help but admire Luke's sacrifice.
[i]Whether I like it or not, I will face my destiny. I just hope that I do so with as much strength as you,[/i] he had said this to his father shortly after his and Anakin's rescue from Linnal. Was he a coward now to hide away from his destiny?
Ben shrugged, unable to answer his uncle's question. "I used to think that there didn't have to be. Now I'm not so sure."
"Ah, Ben," Talon said, rising from his chair and coming to rest a hand on his surrogate nephew's shoulder. "I'm sorry these things had to happen to you."
"Thanks, Uncle Talon," Ben said, some of his earlier teasing rising up in the use of Karrde's first name.
The one-time smuggler chuckled. "Ben, it will be good to have you here. Alright, I will let you stay for a provisionary period. Your parents would probably ring my neck for allowing you to neglect your training, but I can see you need time to reorient yourself. Would you like anything to eat or drink? Keorra could bring anything you'd like."
Ben felt an inner lightening at the old familiar routine that had returned. Whenever he and his parents had visited Karrde, the one-time smuggler had practically forced every luxury upon the spartan Jedi. "I don't think I'm her favorite person at the moment. Who knows what she might slip into anything I might order?"
"Oh, don't let her get to you. Like I said, she reminds me very much of your mother when she first came to work for me. Very isolationist, a tongue that was sharper than a vibroshiv. Which brings me to a different subject. I have a gift for you," Uncle Talon said, returning to behind his desk and opening electronic seals to access his drawer files.
Ben straightened and slid off the edge of his surrogate uncle's desk. "A gift?" he questioned.
"Well, it was actually for your mother, but I couldn't gain all the information before her death, so I continued it for you," Karrde answered as he rummaged through a stack of datacards. "Your mother wanted to know where she came from, wanted a history to give to you. She asked me if I could do a little searching, and I've finally compiled some possibilities."
"Obi-Wan Kenobi was my mother's father," Ben announced.
Karrde stared at him. "That was one of the avenues, yes."
"It's [i]the[/i] avenue," Ben corrected softly. "From the blood records that the Old Order kept, we matched it to my mother's and to mine."
"I always said you would make a great information broker," Karrde replied, drawing one card from the stack and handing it to Ben. "Since you have a narrowing, you should look up Olocia and Aerco Jade, they're your mother's aunt and uncle."
Ben accepted it as though it was the rarest of jewels. "Do you have any information on my grandmother?"
"Oh, yeah. Her name was Zara Valinor, a freedom fighter in her own right. Funnily enough, she began in the [i]ysalamiri[/i] business, and had an avid hatred for the Jedi. Sounds like Mara and her mother had a lot in common," Karrde said with an amused cock of his eyebrow. "Anyway, it's all in that datacard."
Ben looked at the datacard as though it could spring wings and suddenly flit out of his hands. A connection to his mother he had never dreamed to discover. He felt a pang that his mother never got to know the truth of her existence while she lived on this plane. "Thanks, Uncle Talon."
"Your parents were both dear friends of mine, much to my chagrin," Karrde said with a chuckle, but a moment later he seemed lost in the nostalgia of the past. With a shake of his head he snapped himself into the present. "Come on, let's find you a spare room."
Walking out of Karrde's office, they nearly ran over two sentry guards. Karrde frowned. "Where's Cereaslean?"
"She had some things to take over," one of them answered, obviously the higher ranked in Karrde's organization. "She seemed in a right snit, boss."
"Did she head for the training rooms?" Karrde asked.
The guard nodded. "That was the direction she stomped off in, sir."
"Thanks, McCal," Karrde said. Then gestured to Ben. "This is Ben Skywalker. He has full access and full security, do you understand?"
For a flash of an eye McCal's eyes grew wide, but the reaction was instantly smothered. "Whatever you say, boss."
"I'll inform Cereaslean as much," Karrde said, and began to lead Ben through the corridors, waving off the sentries as they began to follow. "The fools. I'm with a Jedi and they think I need protection," Uncle Talon murmured to him. "It's the setbacks of a new staff. Shada took most of them with her. She's also got Ghent and the more important members of the organization."
"So what really keeps you from marrying her?" Ben pressed the subject again. "It can't be that you wish to avoid Uncle Han gloating."
Uncle Talon shrugged. "It's an adventure I was never sure I wanted to take."
"But you love her. I can feel that much. What does Shada think?"
"Why all these questions about my love life?" Karrde asked.
Ben reached inward for the answer. "I'd like to see something happy."
"We'd probably end up killing each other," Karrde remarked. "What about you? Any girls at the Temple that catch your eye? Or what about Keorra? That certainly was an interesting position I caught the two of you in."
Ben gaped at him. "She was trying to kill me. I was only trying to save my neck," he protested. Sometimes he felt that Uncle Talon was more like a brother who couldn't help but tease him about every innocent thing. Sometimes it had been easier to talk to Talon Karrde than his own parents, knowing that there was no judgment. "Believe me, she'd rather kick me to the dirt."
"That's how your mother felt when she first met your father. The Skywalkers often fall in love with people that take them to the brink of insanity?" Karrde questioned.
"I think I'd rather keep my wits," Ben replied wryly.
Talon Karrde threw an arm around his young surrogate nephew. "Finally, a Skywalker after my own heart."
Keorra Cereaslean was the first to spot the intruder inside her Employer's safehouse. He was a young man of her own age, perhaps sixteen or seventeen human standard years, his red-brown hair catching golden highlights from the harsh illumination banks that hummed overhead. He wasn't especially tall, but had a handsbreadth on her, his footwork was exquisitely sure and quiet, not disturbing any of the other employers that were immune to his presence. He had the walk of an assassin, which Keorra had seen many times before and was paid to make sure didn't get any further, without her, nearer her Employer's chambers. She knew that her Employer liked to see whom it was that had been hired to kill him, and Keorra planned to apprehend this intruder quickly and efficiently.
Her own footwork was just as delicate as the intruder's, and he was at the moment oblivious to her presence. She was a lean girl, with hair so pale it was nearly white, and eyes that were the color of amethysts. Keorra smiled as she rested a hand on her blaster, her slender fingers working over the barrel to check the safety and flip it off. She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the hum of her weapon, drawing on her Upoi Warrior training and catching the amount of energy that was left in the battery without needing to check the gauge.
The way he moved, the absence of hesitation except for the cursory scanning of the corridors as he rounded a bend, told Keorra that he knew the place. [i]Floor plans?[/i] Keorra questioned herself as she continued her avid pursuit. If he had managed to get blueprints of the base's floor plans, that meant that she could have a conspirator in the assassination of her employer. She was more irritated by the fact that it would take extra effort to sniff out the traitor than the fact that there was a double danger to her and her Employer's business.
Keorra went unnoticed all the way to her Employer's workstation; somehow the intruder knew that the boss would be in his office working at his desk. Who was this assassin? In the blink of an eye, Keorra did an assessment of the young man. He was dressed in a black unisuit that fit well to his muscled and compact form, yet there was a slight discomfort that Keorra got from the way he shifted in the clothing, as though the material irritated him. There was a slight smile on his boyish features that pulled the previous smile of concentration from his face, and she wondered at someone so young taking so much pleasure in an assassination attempt.
When hired, Keorra had made it a point to memorize all the bounty hunters and assassins that were known in the New Republic; this boy didn't fit any of the descriptions or holophotos she had seen. However, he had a familiarity to him, as though she had seen him recently, but hadn't noticed him in passing.
As he reached his hand up to the doorplate to activate the entry door to the boss's office, Keorra moved. She was like a pantra cat pouncing on her prey, her leap towards the young man long and sinuous, her hand reaching for her blaster as she leapt. He didn't jerk when she wrapped her arm around his neck in a headlock, nor did he grimace when she pointed the barrel of her blaster into his back, pushing it until she felt the resistance of his skin and then digging the muzzle into that flesh.
"Don't move a millimeter, or I'll pump you full of energy," she hissed in his ear.
He didn't tense, nor did he go slack in her hold, it was as though he was in control of his body at all times. "I think there's been a mistake," he said, in a cultured tone that carried a lilt of an accent Keorra didn't readily recognize.
"I thought I told you to keep still," she said, urging him towards the door.
"I wish I didn't have to do this," he murmured and he went from complete stasis to liquid motion.
His arm bent as he wheeled around like a pinwheel, snatching her arm with the blaster in it before she had time to realize he was moving. Reflexively, she tightened her grip on the blaster, but his fingers came to her wrist like steel tips, delving into the skin until she lost all sensitivity in her arm, the blaster clattered to the ground, skittering away from them as if blown from a sharp gust of air. She made a fatal mistake then, she let the wonder of it all catch her eye, and she watched the blaster as it slid.
That assassin moved with incredible agility and grace. The arm he held pinned in his grip swirled around her, coming to behind her back and he locked it there while he reached out, snatching the other arm, bringing it to join its pair. His hold was incredibly strong, and even as she tugged at it she knew that she couldn't get him to release her.
Now it was his turn to whisper in her ear. "Can we be civil now?" he asked, and he pushed them towards the door with her unsuspecting Employer behind it.
As they neared the door, she used his grip as a lever, and kicked outward with her feet, catching the plasteel wall and running up it as though gravity had ceased to exist in the room and was primarily based on her whims alone. The assassin had no choice but to break his grip or end up with each arm snapped in two. She used her momentum and back-flipped over him, landing exactly behind him. Instantly, she made a dash for her blaster, but again it skittered away, this time she caught the slight gesture of his fingers.
[i]Jedi,[/i] she thought, and that cemented her resolve to best him.
She snapped a roundhouse kick at his chin, hoping to distract him long enough to get to her blaster. He dodged it with ease, side-stepping to catch her ankle in both hands, and held her in the position. For a moment they stared at each other, and there was a glint in those green-blue eyes that sent a shiver through her. Pushing the thought out, she fleetingly wondered why he just didn't snap her ankle; he was in the right position to do so and it was something she would have done to best her opponent. Instead, he allowed her the opportunity to use his counterweight again, and she pushed off her free leg, sending it out for another strike at his head. At the last second she changed the direction, so it flew over her desired object and touched the ground on the other side long enough to spring it back in the air, the arch between her leg and foot catching the assassin on the side of his head.
He rolled with the strike, taking her leg that was still in his grasp with him and together they fell to the floor; the assassin under control, Keorra not so lucky. Her back hit the ground hard, forcing the air out of her chest. He crouched over her as Keorra was held in place by his vice-like hold.
"As much as I enjoy this sparring contest, perhaps you can tell me who you are?" the assassin asked, congenial.
She tried to maneuver out of his grasp, but he was far too skilled. "Shouldn't I ask you the same question, assassin?" she grunted, maintaining the struggle despite its futility.
A crease came between his ruddy brown eyebrows, confusion filling his features. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the sound of the boss's door. Together, they turned to face the sound.
"What in blazes is going on?" Talon Karrde roared as he entered the corridor. His dark eyes locked on the two combatants and a smile came over his mustached face. "Ben, my boy, what are you doing here?"
The assassin, Ben, smiled cheekily at Karrde, but his eyes lacked luster. "I thought I would surprise you, Uncle Talon." His head cocked at Keorra. "However, I got a little side-tracked. Do you know her?"
[i]Uncle Talon?[/i] Keorra questioned in her mind, searching her Employer for any sort of answer for this strange behavior. Obviously, this Ben wasn't an assassin, especially if he called Karrde 'uncle' and addressed him by his first name. Keorra had never known anyone to call the boss by his first name.
Karrde scowled at the younger man. "Ben, you know you're the only one who could ever get away with calling me that."
"My mother taught me to take advantages when I see them," Ben answered.
Keorra decided that she had been ignored for far too long. "Am I to continue to listen to this conversation flat on my back, or could you please release your grip?" There was little graciousness in her voice.
The assumed assassin looked up at Karrde questioningly, his hold on her not loosening until Karrde nodded a go-ahead. Indignantly, Keorra pushed Ben off of her, and he seemed amused by her anger. Ben rolled to his feet as though he were a sapling tree snapping back from the wind. He offered her a hand up, which she snubbed with a twist of her head and snapped to her feet with as much grace as he had. This only increased his amusement. Keorra glared at him.
"Keorra Cereaslean," Karrde introduced, "this is Ben Skywalker. Ben, Keorra."
Skywalker? No wonder she had recognized him, she had seen the press conference Jedi Leia Organa Solo had made concerning her brother's death, and had caught a glimpse of his holo on the tri-D report. That was why the light did not reach his eyes.
Forcefully, solemn in the wake of her baleful glare, Ben Skywalker gave a half bow towards her. "It's a pleasure to meet anyone who can give me such an exercise in hand-to-hand combat."
Exercise? Except for that hit to the head, which she was beginning to suspect he'd allowed, he had dominated the whole battle. And Keorra with a blaster in hand! "The pleasure was all yours," she snapped. She didn't care what Karrde would think of her rudeness, knowing his proclivity towards manners, even to their enemies, let alone their friends and associates.
Reaching out a hand, Keorra's blaster leaped through the air and smacked into the palm of Ben Skywalker. He offered the small hand blaster to her. "It's a good make, old Blastech minicharge if I'm not mistaken."
"That's right," she said, refusing to give up the harsh tone in her voice, begrudgingly respecting that he had been able to identify what would have been construed by others as archaic.
"Come into my office, Ben," Karrde said, guiding his young surrogate nephew through the door he had just emerged from. He deigned to notice his personal aide and bodyguard. "Keorra, make sure we're not disturbed."
"Yes boss," she muttered, and took up post outside the door, trying to let go of her complete humiliation. No one had ever bested her with such ease, her training with Upoi had conditioned her to such a state that her body was like a weapon itself.
What she had neglected to do in the battle was listen to the hum of her opponent; he was as much a weapon as her blaster or the Jedi lightsaber. It was one of the basic rules of a Upoi warrior - to gauge the tone, the hum which a weapon worked on. A Jedi was a honed weapon in the flesh, but a weapon that would choose not to fire if it could help it. Perhaps that was why she had such a hard time catching his hum.
Replaying the whole scene in her mind, she cursed her stupidity in not realizing that he was a Jedi sooner; his hesitance in breaking her ankle, the way he had just disarmed her instead of turning her weapon on her, were all signs she should have noted. She remembered the look in his eyes that had set her shivering, her body had recognized it without her mind following suit. Why had she been so thrown off during that battle?
She needed to do something, acting as sentry for Karrde wasn't going to help her release the pent-up frustration. Snatching her comlink and thumbing it on, she called, "McCal?"
"Yes, Keo," came the response of her next-in-command in security.
"I need two sentries outside of the boss's office, he's in with... a client," Keorra instructed.
There was a pause. "Why aren't you standing guard?"
"Cause I've got better things to do," she growled. "Like finding me a new second-in-command if I don't see two of your guys at this door within a quarter of an hour."
"Alright, alright," McCal said with a laugh. "Any special instructions?"
"Just make sure he isn't disturbed," she ordered, and signed off without a farewell. It was all she could do to keep from charging for the exercise room and working off her frustration - and preparing for another rematch with Ben Skywalker.
Talon Karrde was no longer in the smuggling business, had officially retired since the Smuggler's Alliance had been disbanded after the Yuuzhan Vong war; however, there were still those who sought after the huge information mine that Karrde held. From the profits of his respectable and his slightly-less-respectable businesses, he had chosen an asteroid planet to bring his business to. Convenient for Ben, it was incredibly close to the Naboo system, and he knew that Uncle Talon would not reveal his presence here.
Ben smiled softly at his uncle as he sat on Uncle Talon's desk. "You do pick the most interesting of places to make your home base, Uncle Talon," he pointed out, as he picked up a holo picture of himself as a baby with his mother and father simultaneously holding him. Instantly, he put it down, composing his features to mask the pain that the holo had brought.
"So what brings you here, my boy?" Karrde asked, settling into his conforming chair behind the desk.
"I need your help," Ben admitted.
That piqued Uncle Talon's curiosity and he stroked his goatee. "In what, may I ask?"
"The Jedi High Council is looking for me, I don't want to be found," Ben answered simply.
"And why is that?" Karrde continued.
Uncomfortable, Ben dodged the question. How could he explain that he had left the Order because he would destroy everything he loved? "Who's this Keorra Cereaslean?" he asked instead, cocking his head toward the door where he could sense the nearly white-haired girl. "She's pretty good."
"As good as your mother?" Talon queried.
Ben noted that the question was meant to make him uncomfortable, ruffle him into a state where he might slip and tell Uncle Talon the real point to his visit. He returned his surrogate uncle's stare evenly. He would not slip. "No one was as good as Mother."
Karrde leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and giving off the lackadaisical persona of the smuggler he had once been. "She's a runaway. Trained by the Upoi to be a weapon, I hired her because she reminded me of your mother. A little sentimental, I know, but she is a very effective body guard."
"What happened to Shada?" Ben asked, turning the tables on Karrde, knowing that Shada Dukal, his previous bodyguard, was a touchy subject. [i]Two can play at this game, Uncle Talon.[/i]
"Shada's still a part of the organization, she's now my public representative," Karrde said, mimicking Ben's previous deadpan tone. "She tours around the galaxy, making sure our customers are content."
"Needed the space, huh?" Ben said, adding a teasing tone to his inflection. "Did she ask for a final commitment? Why don't you just marry her?" The young seer was well aware of the relationship that had grown between Uncle Talon and his bodyguard, and that relationship made his usual calm Uncle Karrde as jumpy as a skittish Tauntaun.
"And give Han Solo the satisfaction? I think not, my boy." Karrde scrutinized him from under heavy eyebrows. "You're dodging my initial subject, though. Why would the Council be after you?"
Ben swallowed against the lump in his throat. "My father is dead, Uncle Talon." It taxed him to have to tell Karrde this; it was his punishment for not being good enough, for not being fast enough to stop each of his parents' deaths, to have to relay the news to their friends and family.
"I know, my boy," Karrde replied softly.
Blue-green eyes were shot with liquid steel as he snapped his attention to his surrogate uncle. "You know? How?"
"Your aunt made the announcement the other morning," Karrde answered sympathetically.
[i]The morning of the disturbance of the Force,[/i] Ben thought. He had yet to completely dispel the chill that had accompanied so many deaths, it was another ghost that clung to him. "I had hoped to tell you before that," Ben muttered, again his hand coming to rest on the holo of his family.
He lifted it to eye level. Of its own volition, his finger came up to caress the lines of his mother's, then his father's, faces. They looked so young, much younger then his own memories allowed. Mara had just been healed of the Yuuzhan Vong disease that she had battled to keep from her unborn baby, and her skin was more sallow than usual, her cheeks slightly sunken in, but these features were blotted out by the brightness of her smile as she looked down at Ben and then to her husband.
No one understood more than Ben how much that smile meant.
"I miss them," he said, forgetting for the moment that his uncle was there, that he wasn't alone in the room and that Talon Karrde could see the real grief on his features.
For a moment, he used the same technique he had on Anakin when his cousin had first realized that he had lost fifteen years of his life to the stasis of the [i]oombassl[/i], and reproduced the past in his own mind so it was as though he were that little baby again, clasped in the love and arms of his parents. The phantom hands of his parents touched him, and he could almost hear their breathing, the quiet words of encouragement that had been passed between them, the adoration they had felt for this new little life in a time of such sorrow. At the time of his infancy, Ben was a sign of rebirth in the galaxy. How ironic that he would soon become the sign of death.
"You meant everything to them," Uncle Talon said, coming into his thoughts and obliterating the image with his words.
[i]That's why Dad let me live, that's why he would allow the darkness inside of me to continue,[/i] Ben thought painfully. Luke had brought his own father back from the Dark Side and into the Light. His perception had been based on this miraculous event so much, that he couldn't believe that Ben's visions were engraved in the stone of the Force, that his little boy couldn't become a monster. Ben knew better than that, knew that he was bound to his fate from the visions because they had already come true.
[i]Then why are you here?[/i] Ben asked himself. [i]Why did you come here in the hopes of avoiding the inevitable?[/i] Mainly because he couldn't disbelieve his father.
Did that make him or his father weak, weak to face the truth of the Force, denying it because their heart wished it? If Dad had allowed Ben's death, he would have found his freedom from the truth of the future. Ben had always been taught that compassion was the greatest strength, that it was only dangerous when it took you to passion beyond control, but he found that the very center of his beliefs was being knocked away by his visions. What he was, he would not remain, and what he would become was the thing of nightmares.
"They had grander obligations," Ben said in a jaded tone. "I never wanted to come between them and their duty to the galaxy." Where was this spite coming from?
"Must it be one or the other?" Uncle Talon questioned.
And that was the ultimate question. Could love and duty be reconciled? He used to think so. He hadn't gone over to the Dark Side either time he had seen his parent struck down, although he had come close with his father. Nefarion had killed Luke to get to Ben, and that knowledge only weighed on the young seer more. Had his father broken duty for love? Or had he wanted to save his son whom he thought was the 'Chosen One'? Either way, Ben couldn't help but admire Luke's sacrifice.
[i]Whether I like it or not, I will face my destiny. I just hope that I do so with as much strength as you,[/i] he had said this to his father shortly after his and Anakin's rescue from Linnal. Was he a coward now to hide away from his destiny?
Ben shrugged, unable to answer his uncle's question. "I used to think that there didn't have to be. Now I'm not so sure."
"Ah, Ben," Talon said, rising from his chair and coming to rest a hand on his surrogate nephew's shoulder. "I'm sorry these things had to happen to you."
"Thanks, Uncle Talon," Ben said, some of his earlier teasing rising up in the use of Karrde's first name.
The one-time smuggler chuckled. "Ben, it will be good to have you here. Alright, I will let you stay for a provisionary period. Your parents would probably ring my neck for allowing you to neglect your training, but I can see you need time to reorient yourself. Would you like anything to eat or drink? Keorra could bring anything you'd like."
Ben felt an inner lightening at the old familiar routine that had returned. Whenever he and his parents had visited Karrde, the one-time smuggler had practically forced every luxury upon the spartan Jedi. "I don't think I'm her favorite person at the moment. Who knows what she might slip into anything I might order?"
"Oh, don't let her get to you. Like I said, she reminds me very much of your mother when she first came to work for me. Very isolationist, a tongue that was sharper than a vibroshiv. Which brings me to a different subject. I have a gift for you," Uncle Talon said, returning to behind his desk and opening electronic seals to access his drawer files.
Ben straightened and slid off the edge of his surrogate uncle's desk. "A gift?" he questioned.
"Well, it was actually for your mother, but I couldn't gain all the information before her death, so I continued it for you," Karrde answered as he rummaged through a stack of datacards. "Your mother wanted to know where she came from, wanted a history to give to you. She asked me if I could do a little searching, and I've finally compiled some possibilities."
"Obi-Wan Kenobi was my mother's father," Ben announced.
Karrde stared at him. "That was one of the avenues, yes."
"It's [i]the[/i] avenue," Ben corrected softly. "From the blood records that the Old Order kept, we matched it to my mother's and to mine."
"I always said you would make a great information broker," Karrde replied, drawing one card from the stack and handing it to Ben. "Since you have a narrowing, you should look up Olocia and Aerco Jade, they're your mother's aunt and uncle."
Ben accepted it as though it was the rarest of jewels. "Do you have any information on my grandmother?"
"Oh, yeah. Her name was Zara Valinor, a freedom fighter in her own right. Funnily enough, she began in the [i]ysalamiri[/i] business, and had an avid hatred for the Jedi. Sounds like Mara and her mother had a lot in common," Karrde said with an amused cock of his eyebrow. "Anyway, it's all in that datacard."
Ben looked at the datacard as though it could spring wings and suddenly flit out of his hands. A connection to his mother he had never dreamed to discover. He felt a pang that his mother never got to know the truth of her existence while she lived on this plane. "Thanks, Uncle Talon."
"Your parents were both dear friends of mine, much to my chagrin," Karrde said with a chuckle, but a moment later he seemed lost in the nostalgia of the past. With a shake of his head he snapped himself into the present. "Come on, let's find you a spare room."
Walking out of Karrde's office, they nearly ran over two sentry guards. Karrde frowned. "Where's Cereaslean?"
"She had some things to take over," one of them answered, obviously the higher ranked in Karrde's organization. "She seemed in a right snit, boss."
"Did she head for the training rooms?" Karrde asked.
The guard nodded. "That was the direction she stomped off in, sir."
"Thanks, McCal," Karrde said. Then gestured to Ben. "This is Ben Skywalker. He has full access and full security, do you understand?"
For a flash of an eye McCal's eyes grew wide, but the reaction was instantly smothered. "Whatever you say, boss."
"I'll inform Cereaslean as much," Karrde said, and began to lead Ben through the corridors, waving off the sentries as they began to follow. "The fools. I'm with a Jedi and they think I need protection," Uncle Talon murmured to him. "It's the setbacks of a new staff. Shada took most of them with her. She's also got Ghent and the more important members of the organization."
"So what really keeps you from marrying her?" Ben pressed the subject again. "It can't be that you wish to avoid Uncle Han gloating."
Uncle Talon shrugged. "It's an adventure I was never sure I wanted to take."
"But you love her. I can feel that much. What does Shada think?"
"Why all these questions about my love life?" Karrde asked.
Ben reached inward for the answer. "I'd like to see something happy."
"We'd probably end up killing each other," Karrde remarked. "What about you? Any girls at the Temple that catch your eye? Or what about Keorra? That certainly was an interesting position I caught the two of you in."
Ben gaped at him. "She was trying to kill me. I was only trying to save my neck," he protested. Sometimes he felt that Uncle Talon was more like a brother who couldn't help but tease him about every innocent thing. Sometimes it had been easier to talk to Talon Karrde than his own parents, knowing that there was no judgment. "Believe me, she'd rather kick me to the dirt."
"That's how your mother felt when she first met your father. The Skywalkers often fall in love with people that take them to the brink of insanity?" Karrde questioned.
"I think I'd rather keep my wits," Ben replied wryly.
Talon Karrde threw an arm around his young surrogate nephew. "Finally, a Skywalker after my own heart."