Chapter 14: Somehow I've Always Known
"Alright, what's wrong?" McCal asked, as he and Keorra did a security check around the perimeter of the safehouse compound.
It was a check that Keorra insisted upon doing every standard hour. Her Upoi Warrior training had drilled into her a sense of discipline that came close, but could not rival, that of a Jedi's. She was young to have completed her Upoi training, an adept at not only the vibrations of the weapon, but a soul reader. One who could read the intentions in the soul of a warrior.
The Upoi Soulreaders were often called upon by the New Republic, and went as far back as the old days of the Old Republic to judge the testimony of those accused of high crimes, many those of war criminals. Keorra had only been called a handful of times, her expertise beyond many of those who had been Soulreaders for years, but were constantly selected for service to the Republic because of their age.
Keorra had become disenchanted with the other warriors of her sect, members who had begun to bicker over her training, and so she had left, with little choice but to take care of herself. She had been a prodigy amongst the group, the fastest to gain the title of Soulreader in the history of the Upoi, and yet they had wished to dominate her.
She wondered what they had done when they had woken up and found their prized jewel gone. It had filled her with a morbid pleasure to think of their fear in her absence, now she just wished to be alone.
Still, she found it incredibly unnerving that McCal could read her so well. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You've got every member of the Security Force doing toe dances around you," McCal clarified with added emphasis. "I've never seen Naggel so strung out. He triple checks himself, and looks over his shoulder as if you were right behind him. I'd rather skip the act and come right out with it."
McCal was like a brother to her, an annoying older brother who knew her far too well. Yes, she snapped extra hard at her team when she was in a particular foul mood, and they all knew not to cross her when these rather rare moods cropped up. All except McCal - he would push her until she almost put her blaster to his temple. Of course, she couldn't kill the annoying man, she loved him too much.
"It's the bosses nephew, isn't it? You're still bugged that he got past you?" McCal guessed, a note of humor dancing in his baritone voice.
McCal was one of the Suul, an ancient race that had once dominated the galaxy and who had soon been nearly extinct because of their growing pride and grasping power. Of course, McCal was nothing like his violent ancestors, although he was a force to be reckoned with if anyone endangered the Boss, one of the reasons Keorra had kept the Suul close to her, and thus close to Karrde. He was a good two feet taller then her, his limbs deceivingly willowy but as strong as durasteel. He was like a drip of molten metal cooled and refined, his skin a glowing silvery color, and his eyes the color of the moon. The dark mop of hair on his head stood out against the rest of him, and he kept it long, in tiny braids that fell over his shoulders.
"No one gets past me," she hissed. "No one has ever got past me, not even you."
"He's Jedi, Keo," McCal reminded.
Keorra growled. "That shouldn't be an issue. I wasn't paying attention, I wasn't myself." Why?
"We all have bad days," the Suul tried to soothe her.
"I shouldn't," Keorra said. McCal didn't understand, he hadn't been raised in the conditions she had been, the expectations upon her that had begun to choke the very life out of her. "Anyway, I'll try not to snap at Naggel. When people get nervous, they also get sloppy, no matter how many times they check their work."
McCal chuckled. "I knew you'd see it your way."
Keorra laughed with him, feeling some of the tensions drain out of her body with the levity. She couldn't wait for Shada to get back. Security was Keorra's department, but Shada made her feel extra sure of the Boss' safety. Of course, Shada wouldn't be back for at least another standard month, and so Keorra would be on her guard, she refused to call it nervous. She wouldn't make a mistake with her employer's life.
"Anyway," McCal continued, slipping the key card hooked to his datapad through the access slot, downloading the names of all those who had come through the door in the last hour. "He isn't just any Jedi, either. He's the son of Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade, that's got to give you some datamarks in the Force."
"And the grandson of Darth Vader. Sure, I love the fact that he's taken up roost here. Why doesn't he go to that damnable Temple of theirs," Keorra said, her irritation rising.
McCal gave her a mock stern look. "I thought you were going to stop snapping."
"Only at Naggel, I never said anything about being civil to you," she teased with a mischievous smile.
He scowled at her over the datapad as he completed the download of names. They never left the security codes in there, in case anyone came in with slicer capability who could access the codes through each door's mainframe. Keorra herself had done it a number of times on their system, hoping to develop one that such breaches could not occur in.
"If I didn't know you would pound me to the tile, you'd be in trouble," McCal joked.
"Oh, I know," she said, with feigned solemnity.
McCal shook his head. "Why does Karrde even put up with you?"
"Cause he values his life," Keorra rejoined, snatching up her own datapad with access card. "I'm going further down, try to save us some time." It was her way of saying that she trusted him.
She could feel his eyes on her as she made her way to the next security check door. The archive of information that Talon Karrde kept here was more valuable than the whole spice mines of Kessel. It had surprised her that Karrde would hire such a young Security Chief, even a Upoi Soulreader, although she had only told him that she had warrior training - nothing about her special gift. Too many times she had seen him looking upon her with almost a fond expression, as though she reminded him of an old friend.
He knew she was a runaway, had known it the moment she had mentioned the Upoi. Background checks were an essential to security, and the Upoi had been deemed her legal guardians. In fact, she was very much a wanted woman. Karrde, however, had not turned her in, but had accepted her as an employee, securing her as much as she did him.
Slipping her keycard through the access slot, she punched her keypad with her override code. Names and code glyphs started to download into her datapad wiping the security door of the residual. The access cards changed randomly, like sabacc cards, every hour, and no one knew their security code except for Keorra and McCal. It was an idea that had come to Keorra during a hand of sabacc she had played with the crew. There was so little uncertainty in the gamblers, and any who came to infiltrate the Boss' safehouse was a gambler.
Looking up, she found Ben Skywalker executing a round of complicated acrobatic tumbles. His feet and back position were so excellent that she wondered briefly if they were Force-enhanced, but she could tell by the slight tremor of his muscles that this was all coming from him. As the names filtered into her datapad, she studied him, allowing herself the opportunity to listen to the hum of him, the opportunity she had missed at his arrival. Of its own accord, her mind noted the dark circles that were not natural that smudged the skin under his eyes, the gaunt look to his features, as though he had not slept nor ate for days. The way each of his exercises became more and more difficult, despite the continued lethargy in his ill-nourished muscles.
Why does he push himself so? she wondered idly.
Again her eyes roved over his features. His coloring was mainly a mixture of his parents', blue-green eyes and ruddy brown hair. A cleft split his chin and he had grown the ginger locks past his collar. She had assumed that the son of Skywalker would have been more refined, not this young roguish boy she saw before her.
He flipped forward, and as his feet came through the air to touch down on the other side, they sprang back like a jumping board, turning his flip to the back. He's fighting himself, she deduced. Or running from something.
Well, she already knew that he was running. The only people who came to Karrde were those who did not want to be found, and they wouldn't be. Karrde had given Skywalker access to the whole building - the security card Keorra had issued for him was on a par to her own. She was well aware of the rapport that the Skywalkers and Talon Karrde had, and she knew that the Boss would do anything, even endanger his own life, for this one remaining member of the family.
Palming her comlink, she set the frequency to McCal's. "Finish the security check. There's something else that has grabbed my attention."
She pocketed the comlink, and once the datapad finished its scrambling of the codes she placed it inside its case, pressing the lock with her thumbprint. Only Keorra and Shada could activate the thumbprint locks, not even McCal had that much clearance. Setting the case down outside of the training room, she activated the door, and walked in silently.
Skywalker was already on to another round of artistic flips and aerial twists. He was the most unique Jedi Keorra had ever met, and their acquaintance had lasted for as long as their sparring in front of Karrde's office and then when she had issued him his security card. What was he running from? Why was he fighting himself?
Just as he was landing from a complicated routine, Keorra rushed him, not exactly sure what had come over her, but wanting to catch a hum of this human weapon. Which wasn't the brightest of ideas. As he landed, he spun, the cylinder at his hip leaping to his hands, igniting it so that a sea-blue laser blade jutted from the pommel. Keorra's feet skidded to a halt, but she feared she wouldn't stop in time.
The lightsaber came within a millimeter of her neck, the pulsing heat warming her skin. He gave her a wry grin that managed to lighten the dimness in his eyes. "Care for a rematch, Mistress Cereaslean?"
She felt herself mimic his grin. "I don't know, are you sure you're up to it? You look a little tired."
By way of answering, he shut down his lightsaber and tossed it, using his abilities in the Force to land it gently in a nearby weapons alcove. "Let's see how tired I am."
"No Force?" she asked.
He nodded. "No Force."
Without further warning, she snapped her foot into the air, seeking to off-balance him with a swift kick to the chest. Indeed he was not tired; he arched his back, throwing himself in such a perfect backflip that she felt envious of his skill. She came in closer with a punch to his face - he blocked it, but did not return the hit that she had left open. He was making it very difficult for her to read the hum of him. Defense was not a weapon, it was a shield, and she needed the thrum of his offense.
Why is he holding back? Leaping into the air, she tossed two kicks at him, each blocked, before she came down. He whirled away from her when she brought her elbow out to smash in his cheek. Sweat was beginning to form and ripple down her back, arms, and legs, staining her unisuit in much the same pattern as Skywalker's. He's playing with me. Gauging me without Upoi training.
He dodged several more of her strikes, and she began to see that his shield was his weapon, he knew that she could not gauge him without him taking the offense and so he worked behind a smokescreen of defense, clearly blinding her from her abilities. It struck her that he had used the same technique when she had believed him to be an assassin, but how did he know that she was Upoi?
"You're good," she breathed, thrusting her hand out to grab his collar and falling backward, using his own weight to send him flying.
He rolled with her, and when he would have hit the tiled floor pumped his leg muscles, so that he came up on his feet. Arching her back and popping her spine, she snapped back to face him. He smiled as he faced her and they began to slowly circle one another. "You are too – however, do you think once you could greet me without trying to attack me?"
"Where would be the fun in that?" she asked, cocky.
"Where indeed?" he said, and she realized that he was enjoying this, the opportunity to fight someone other than himself. She made it a point to find out more about this Ben Skywalker.
She ran a hand through her nearly white hair, that was beginning to chunk due to the sweat pouring from her scalp. Without warning she leaped, expecting him to dodge her with ease. It surprised her when he froze completely, his eyes glazing as though he had suddenly been forced into a trance. She took in all this within a blink of an eye, and she turned in mid-air, straining her muscles so as not to hit him full on. Despite her attempt, her boot heel smashed into the right side of his cheek, causing him to stagger and eventually crumble to the ground.
Rolling out of a misdirected landing, Keorra struggled to her feet and rushed to Skywalker. His eyes were still glazed, and by the way his muscles flexed he was once again fighting himself. Blood was trailing down his cheek in liberal amounts, and falling into her hand that cushioned his head. She rested the mass of ginger locks on her lap and used her tunic to stave off the bleeding.
"Skywalker?" she called, and her heart pounded when he did not answer.
She was about to pull her comlink to call Karrde, and the med team he kept here for emergencies, when Skywalker's body spasmed in her arms, and then his eyes returned to clarity, but they looked alarmingly tired. It was then that she noticed that they were now shot with grey, instead of the blue-green color he normally wore. Those steel-shot eyes roved around the room, gaining his bearings, as if to relocate himself.
Shakingly, he sighed. "Sorry about that. I didn't catch this one in time. I've been so tired, far too tired." And he looked years ahead of his age.
"What was that?" she asked, thankfully keeping the tremor from her voice.
"It was nothing," he said, lifting himself up from her arms, his movements slow and lethargic, very different from the opponent she had just pasted seconds ago.
Anger built up in Keorra. "You're lying," she stated.
"So are you, Soulreader, Upoi Warrior Cereaslean," Skywalker said sagaciously.
She backed away from him as if he had turned into a Nek battle dog, or as though his skin had been drenched in fire. Not even Karrde knew her for a Soulreader! How did he know? Was he sent by the Upoi to bring her back to them? Had they finally learned of her location amongst Karrde and his organization? Fear coursed through her. She could not go back to the Upoi.
"Do not worry, your secret is safe with me," Skywalker said, as though reading her thoughts - considering his Force-ability, he very well might have. He locked gazes with her, and she could see that the steel had left his eyes. "Is mine with you?"
"You mean what just happened here?" Keorra asked, waving her hands vaguely in an attempt to somehow define the frightening moment. "You'll have to tell me what this was first," she demanded.
Tentatively, he touched the wound on his cheek, and did not even wince when he pulled away two fingers dabbled with blood. "That is a difficult thing to explain."
"Try me," she said, giving him a saccharine smile.
"Alright, but you must promise that you will not tell anyone. Not even Uncle Talon. The Council doesn't even know," he answered.
"Promise," she said, running a hand through her sweat encrusted hair.
"I am a Seer, a Jedi Seer, who can see things before they happen. Also the past and present," Skywalker explained. "Thanks to my Father, I can now control them, to a point, but if I'm too distracted or tired, the Force pulls at me." He shrugged. "That's what happened here."
Keorra watched him. "Is that how you knew I was a Soulreader?"
He shook his head. "That came from deduction. You are a most talented Upoi warrior. I could tell that the first time we sparred. This time, I watched for signs to see if you were a Soulreader. You were trying to get me to take an offensive to bare the true nature of my soul."
"Thus you took the defensive, knowing I couldn't read you as well," Keorra finished for him. "But you know, a Soulreader can go beyond the hum of the weapon."
"Would you read my soul, Upoi Cereaslean?" he asked, pointedly.
Keorra was visibly shaken. No one asked to be read, a Soulreader could see far too much in just a glimpse if they tried, and Keorra was the greatest of all Soulreaders. "You ask this of me? Why?"
"It is something I need to know," Skywalker answered. "Please."
The Upoi warrior found it hard not to feel compelled by that 'please'. There was an open honesty in this Ben Skywalker, a fear that wished to be relieved through her, she could see that without her Soulreader capabilities. "I have never had to 'read' a Jedi before. I'm not sure that I can."
"You can, I'm sure you can," Skywalker assured her. "You have to," he mumbled, more to himself than to her.
The eyes are the windows to the soul, her instructors had told her, and she sought a link with Skywalker's green-blue ones. She studied them until everything else fell away, even the color disappeared, the slight jerking movements they made as he tried to keep them still for her. She went past the physical, past the optical nerves that turned over the data the lens saw to the brain where it could be processed. She passed through the realm of reality to the realm of the spiritual, and gasped at what she saw there.
"Un'kalla," she whispered, the word in the ancient language of the Upoi. With an effort, she pulled herself out of the realm of unreality and returned to the physical.
His eyes were expectant on her, as if she were his judge, jury, and advocate all in one. As if she would condemn and defend him in whatever she uttered. "Well?" he asked after a while, and she did not answer the pleading in his eyes. "You said the word Un'kalla. What does that mean?"
"Un'kalla is an old Upoi battle cry. It means 'the sword of destruction that is sheathed,'" Keorra answered hesitantly.
Skywalker swallowed, as if he had known the answer all along and he was forced to face it regardless. "Am I the first Un'kalla you've met?"
"Me, personally, yes. But it is believed that the Emperor and your father were both Un'kalla," Keorra answered truthfully. "The Emperor became 'Kalla' and wreaked destruction, your father remained Un'kalla and brought peace."
"And what would happen if I became Kalla?" Skywalker asked, quietly, unsure if he wanted the answer or not.
"The Emperor nearly destroyed the galaxy; from what I can tell, you have more power than that. If you were to become Kalla..." she trailed off, not wanting to complete such a thought.
Skywalker picked up where she refused to go. "I could destroy galaxies."
"But you are Un'kalla," Keorra tried to argue, as much to relieve her own fears as his. This young man frightened her, and yet she felt as though she could trust him implicitly, a feeling that Keorra had never experienced before. Even Karrde had been circumspect, remained that way in some areas to this day, but Ben Skywalker, she knew without knowing, she could trust.
She drew her attention to the still-bleeding gash on his right cheek. "Let me clean that cut for you," she said, gesturing without touching the wound.
He shook his head, and gingerly touched the laceration once again. "I'm fine."
"Are all Jedi as Gamorrean-headed as you?" she asked flippantly, letting a touch of surliness into her voice.
At the tone his attention was forced on her, and a moment later he smiled. "It runs in the family," he remarked.
Keorra hopped to her feet and reached down a hand to him. He took it tentatively, afraid to spread the taint of possible Kalla on her, but he allowed her to help him up. "And you need to eat," she said, as she felt the thinness under the atrophying muscles of his arm.
"Are you also a medic, Keorra Cereaslean?" he asked, with a touch of her former asperity.
"No," Keorra shook her head. "But you are important to Karrde, and thus you are important to me. I won't let you continue this fight you are waging against yourself while you are under my watch."
"It's a fight you can't stop," he countered. "One I cannot stop. Only the passage of time will see who the victor is."
There was no reply to his crypticism, and so she gestured outside of the training room. "There is a med kit just down the corridor and to the right. We can get that laceration cleaned and bacta on it in no time."
As they walked, Keorra tried to reconcile herself to all that had happened in such a short time. If she were still bound to the Upoi, she would have been forced to report an Un'kalla in the galaxy, especially one as young as Ben Skywalker - yet she was no longer bound, if unofficially. But an Un'kalla was way beyond her expertise. Would she be forced to betray herself to the Upoi to save the galaxy from a boy who might go Kalla?
Then there was the ease in which they trusted each other, she knew that he had given her a piece of leverage when he had revealed himself as a Seer, and yet he had only required a promise from her before he had told her the truth. He would not reveal her as a Soulreader even though he would have return leverage on her.
Skywalker had been trailing her before, but he now stood side by side with her. "Would you mind if I asked you a question?"
"That would depend on what you wanted to know," she retorted smoothly, finding that her Upoi discipline allowed her an even answer.
"Why did you run away from the Upoi? You would obviously be a great asset to them and to the galaxy," he said. She could tell that there was truth running from him, and the high idealism that she had only read about but never had witnessed in the Skywalker family.
"Perhaps it is not my goal to heal the galaxy," she countered, not liking the fact that she was now attempting to lie to him. "Why are you not at the Temple?" She turned the conversation back to him.
There was a flicker of the previous steel in his eyes before he answered. "Because my visions say I will go Kalla," he admitted, and the weight of his voice carried the galaxy in it.
"Visions can be misleading," she returned without thinking.
"You are not Force-sensitive, and yet you speak with the wisdom of the Jedi's teachings," he accused. "How?"
Addle-brained idiot, she cursed herself. "My parents were Jedi; I was their failure child, unable to touch the energy source that enveloped their entire being. They sent me to the Upoi, so that I could learn to be like them, but never be a part of them."
"And where are they now?" he asked, knowing that there were no living Cereasleans at the Temple.
She drew in a shaky breath. "They are dead," she answered.
"I'm sorry, I know how terrible that can be," he consoled her.
But he did not know the whole truth, and she snapped at him in the heat of shocked pain. "What would you know about it?" She regretted the words as soon as they lifted off her ill-disciplined tongue. Of course he knew. He was an orphan just as she was, and by the way he closed his eyes, shielding himself from the memories, he had been there when they had been killed. "You saw it happen, didn't you?"
"Both times," he answered, and this time there was no emotion in his voice, as if a droid had taken place of the living sentient being Ben Skywalker. She recognized the mechanism of a warrior who had seen far too much in such a short time of living, and Keorra knew that it expanded beyond his parents' death.
She touched his shoulder. "I am sorry for my cruelty."
"As I am for mine. I did not mean to bring up such a harsh subject." Sincerity rang through both his words and his features. How could it be possible that this young man, this Seer Ben Skywalker, would go Kalla?
She looked away from that face that held so much expression in it that she could see the Un'kalla without delving into the Soulreader reality. He was now open to her in a way that no one else in the organization had been, even amongst the Upoi she had never felt such a connection to one being. A connection to a young man who frightened her.
"Anyway, I was given into the full custody of the Upoi, and they finished my training, until I decided to leave them over a year ago," Keorra answered.
"Your ability as a Soulreader captivated them," Skywalker urged her on, guessing at the one thing that would make her leave the only home she had ever known. "They have been desperate for young Soulreaders."
His insight surprised her. The Upoi were highly secretive, although they would allow any into their ranks that showed the potential to hear the hum. She nodded. "They began to bicker about my training. I had already surpassed the abilities of my predecessors, and they did not know what to do with me next. I became an object to barter with, a power token, so I left."
"That must have been hard."
"Just as hard as it must have been to leave the Temple," she admitted, once again seeking to turn the conversation from her to him. She never felt comfortable with such close investigation, and those green-blue eyes did nothing but investigate.
Ben squeezed his hands into fists at his side. "I had hoped to save my people."
"You sound as though you have failed," she pointed out.
He shuddered. "My visions of Kalla still persist."