Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars

A Shift in the Force: Chapter Twenty-Seven: Lives Cut Short

AN: Don't worry, you lot, there's more Jedi Shadow stuff in this chapter because I have a serious addiction to writing it.

The really good stuff is a few chapters away, but what can you do? I've started nursing school so updates will be less frequent, if they ever were.


Somehow Talik had come to view Dagobah rather fondly, which was an odd thing to consider, because half the time she was being run into the ground or having to eat something that looked relatively revolting, though she was still impressed with Sabé's ability to consume the food from the planet and not flinch at the taste.

Now they were on their last few days on the planet, though, and as much as Talik was grateful for the opportunity to train there, she was rather missing Coruscant.

"You've grown quite a bit," Sabé mused and Talik almost made a joke about her height, which had hardly improved since their arrival, but she held her tongue. "Your Jar'Kai is much better…I'd consider your fighting style now to be fair."

Dejection washed over Talik at that. Fair was not good, and fair definitely wasn't great.

"As long as you keep up your training then I'm sure your progression will continue," Sabé added with some assurance when she saw the look on Talik's face. "Now, for your final test."

She curled her fingers towards Talik, indicating for her to follow after her, which she did, though at a much slower pace than her master. "Not another spar?" she asked with a sense of growing unease.

"No, something a bit more challenging," Sabé's eyes glittered as she glanced back and Talik couldn't help but hate how mysterious her master could be.

"When Master Yoda brought me here there was one place he took me to before we returned to Coruscant," Sabé explained.

"What was it?" Talik asked with intrigue as she ducked under a stray branch that caught her lekku, making her wince.

"Rather indescribable, I thought," Sabé mused thoughtfully and Talik rolled her eyes behind Sabé, unable to see Sabé's lips twist up into a smirk when she sensed the action. "It's a cave."

"That's it?" Talik asked dryly, but then she was struck so suddenly that she actually had to pause.

Talik had only been in the presence of the Dark Side twice in her life, the first was on Naboo when Sabé had played the part of decoy queen and Talik had sensed the Zabrak Sith that Obi-Wan had fought, and the second was now.

It was like a wave of cold had washed over her, freezing her in her tracks as she looked past her master towards the source of the intense cold. It was a cave with a number of gnarly trees surrounding it, giving it an even more ominous feeling.

"What is this place?" she asked, her voice quiet with unease.

"It has no name," Sabé said, considering the cave in question, "but I gave it the nickname Cave of Evil after I came out of it."

Talik eyed the cave. It wasn't as though the name didn't fit.

"Several centuries ago this was where the Jedi Minch battled and killed a Bpfasshi Dark Jedi, and when he died, his Dark energies were absorbed into the surroundings." Sabé gestured towards the cave in general. "Even now after several hundred years it's still tainted."

Talik's eyes were blown wide. "The Dark Side can do that?"

Sabé thought about the presence in the air when they'd landed on Hoth on their way from returning from Naboo, the one that had seemed to hang in the air even so long after the Great Galactic War.

"Yes," Sabé said.

Talik's eyes flitted from her master to the cave. "What am I going to find in there?"

"Only what you take with you," Sabé responded ominously.

"That's not very helpful," Talik muttered before moving past her master, making her way into the cave on cautious feet, her hands just grazing the hilts of her 'sabers. She missed the smile that graced Sabé's lips; she didn't look back, just took one deep breath and dove right in.

It was dark and cold and Talik breathed out slowly, feeling around the edge of the cave over damp roots and avoiding one that held a serpent coiling along it. She shuddered and tried to imagine Sabé young at sixteen with the metallic arm still new and anger burning under her skin in her position.

Sticks crunched under her boots and her lightsabers felt so cold now, as though the Dark Side had touched them as well.

Then she pulled up short at the sudden sight of a figure looming in the darkness.

There hadn't been anyone there a moment ago, but now there was. Talik unclipped her lightsabers quickly, but she didn't power them on, the fear almost drowning her.

She recognized those pale hands and that slender 'saber grip. Talik had seen how Sabé's hands shook when she handed it over to Kit. She didn't even need to see the long white face adorned with facial tattoos that she knew lurked under the hood of the cloak.

The crimson blade ignited and anger flowed through Talik in the place of her fear –or, perhaps in spite of her fear– and she lunged forward, green 'sabers activating with a snap-hiss.

Korinth'Kel moved swiftly, just as Talik remembered, but there was a strength in her strikes against Talik that sent her crashing into the cave wall with the red lightsaber aiming at her throat. Talik only just managed to duck out of harm's way.

And then she took her left 'saber and sliced down from head to navel, and Korinth'Kel fell back.

Talik swallowed thickly, breathing hard and trying to manually calm the thrum of her heart as she moved from where she was slumped against the cave's curving side to step cautiously to the body.

She pushed back the hood and drew back in startled surprise, because those sightless eyes were hers, that mauve-colored skin and twin lekku was hers.

The person she'd been fighting wasn't Korinth'Kel at all, it was herself.


Rattatak was in flames. Asajj didn't understand how things could have gone so far south so fast, even with the current state of Rattatak, which had been the entire reason that she and her master had been sent along in the first place, with warlords and warring tribes.

Blaster bolts were coming from every direction and Asajj wasn't quick enough to catch all of them, even with her two 'sabers, and Ky Narec wasn't faring well either, but the battle had been raging for some time now.

The planet was one without connection to the other systems, so calling the Jedi Order for help was completely out of the question.

A blaster bolt was fired towards Asajj and she would have missed it completely if her master hadn't thrown himself on top of her to block the strike from colliding with her.

Their master-padawan bond snapped in a single instance and the shock burned through her veins as she rolled him over, trying to make sure he was breathing, even with the truth so clear to her senses.

"Master!" she screamed, clutching at his robes until she caught sight of his murderer and then fury burned through her as she ignited her 'sabers and leapt with a roar that demanded retribution.


All the Jedi that were a part of the Council of First Knowledge were present, barring Sabé, of course, who was still off-world in order to train her padawan, so in her place on the empty seat in the council room sat her wavering hologram as they went over the usual matters that occurred on a weekly basis; the Jedi Academy changes being made, Jedi Archives additions and security, and Jedi Shadow duties.

"Knight Amidala," T'un, the Caretaker of the First Knowledge, turned towards the hologram and Sabé inclined her head to indicate that she was listening, "I'm sure you've been made aware of your fellow Taria Damsin's progress on Pamina Prime?"

The hologram made it difficult to be sure, but Maw was certain that Sabé's lips had formed into a slight smirk. "Yes, we've spoken," she said dryly, "she was in need of some assistance in translating some Sith terms."

Jocasta Nu regarded her curiously and she wasn't the only one, Even Piell had looked rather surprised. "I wasn't aware you could understand the Sith language, Knight Amidala."

"Not very well, but I'd say I can comprehend it better than most," Sabé conceded, "though that might have to do with so few attempting to decipher it."

T'un hummed in understanding; the Sith were a sort of taboo subject, which was undoubtedly why there were so few Jedi Shadows because few wanted to be involved in Sith matters.

"She did send me a holo yesterday," Sabé added, "she wished for Talik and I to make a detour to Pamina Prime to assist her in translating and documenting what she found there…I presume that's what you wished to discuss."

"Yes," T'un concurred. "Taria has made her appeal to the Council as well. She believes your insight will be…invaluable."

If she'd been in the room, Maw was sure that Sabé's cheeks would've flushed with color. "Taria can be a flatterer when she wants to be," she said before something came barreling into the holo from the left side and it didn't take much to ascertain the furious form of Talik Shala. "Talik," she said, her voice tinged with warning, "I'm in the middle of some—"

"I almost died in there!" the padawan raged, jabbing a finger back towards where she had come from as Sabé twisted to look at her in annoyance.

"Masters, I think it would be wise to cut this short," she said coolly, drawing her eyes back from Talik. "We will make our way over to Pamina Prime once Talik's training is completed within the next day."

"Very good," T'un said and Sabé's hologram winked out as she stood on Dagobah to look down on Talik.

"That was inappropriate," Sabé said, her eyes narrowing and Talik balked.

"You never agree with the Council anyways—"

"I never agree with the High Council," Sabé disagreed, which was very true, and you'd be hard to find someone in the Jedi Temple that wasn't aware of that fact, there were many things they disagreed on, not everything but some, "that was the Council of First Knowledge which I am a part of…interrupting a council session isn't something I would do unless I deemed it necessary."

Her eyes bored holes into Talik's and her padawan swallowed; it wasn't often that she annoyed Sabé.

"I apologize," she said swiftly, bowing lowly to her master, "my actions were inappropriate and unbefitting of a Jedi."

"And?" Sabé prompted, arching an eyebrow for good measure.

"I will be making a formal apology to Masters T'un, Maw, Nu, and Piell?" Talik guessed with a wince.

"Yes, you will," Sabé said dryly, "now, what were you so angry about?"

"That cave almost killed me!" Her anger came back as swiftly as it had left. "Why would you even send me in there?!"

Arthree, who had formed the holographic projections of Sabé and the other members of the Council of First Knowledge gave a beeping titter and Talik shot the astromech a glower.

"The Cave is…an unwinnable scenario, shall we say?" Sabé smirked as she tapped a stylus over her datapad. It looked like she was plotting a course to a different planet. "It isn't possible to defeat whatever the Dark Side comes up with as a foe for you to face…at least, not if you're young and prone to angry outbursts."

Talik flushed violet in her embarrassment.

"Your results were expected, just as mine were when I was young," Sabé said, remarkably unconcerned.

"You expected me to fail?" Talik's tone was rather bleak.

"Everyone's got a bit of anger in them." Sabé shrugged before frowning. "Well, maybe not Yoda, but he's had centuries of experience."

Talik rolled her eyes.

"Who did you see before yourself?" Sabé asked and Talik chewed on her lip.

"Korinth'Kel," she said and that made Sabé pause, the smile on her lips falling, and Talik was sad to see it go. "What about you?"

"Darth Maul," Sabé said absently, dropping her eyes back to the datapad, twisting her metallic arm like she was uncomfortable with it.

"So, what're we doing now?" Talik asked, propping an arm on Arthree.

"Heading out to Pamina Prime to join up with Taria on a Shadow mission." Sabé shut the datapad to scrutinize Talik as her shoulders sagged.

"Dropping me off at the Temple?" she asked in disappointment.

"No," Sabé said, and Talik's head shot up so fast that her lekku swung around her as she stared at her master, her lips parting in surprise. "You'll be joining me. I think it will do you some good to broaden your horizons of the Jedi Order, regardless of your choice to specialize in healing."

"But-but Shadow stuff is your thing!" Sabé spluttered.

"Well, you wouldn't be wrong," Sabé laughed. "Seeing some Jedi Shadows in their natural habitat will be good for you, Tali, trust me."

And when she picked up her bag, the completed holocron weighed it down within.


"I can't believe you actually made a holocron," Taria's awed voice was coming in over the comlink which had been switched to private since Sabé and Talik's Starfighter had entered warp.

"You sound jealous, Taria," Sabé laughed and Taria's snort accompanied her.

"To be fair, no one's made a holocron in about a couple hundred years, so it's a serious thing," Taria retorted. "I swear it's like you're trying to upstage me."

Sabé smiled.

"So what's it look like?"

Sabé spun the holocron around between her hands, her fingers lightly tracing over its completed dimensions. All the holocrons were vaguely metallic in appearance, looking similar to paneling, but Sabé went back to the source, just like she had with her 'sabers; the design of her holocron went with the idea of how the Force created, the metallic ferns spiraling across each face of the holocron.

"It's a dodecagon," she said and a stilted silence followed her words.

"Uh, what?" Taria asked, befuddled.

Sabé rolled her eyes. "It's a twelve-sided polyhedron."

"Twelve? Holy kriff, why?" Taria demanded, and Sabé shrugged, faintly amused with how high her friend's voice had gone.

"Seemed like a good number," Sabé said, watching the pulsating violet color the holocron emanated with interest from the single purple crystal she had inserted upon its completion; Sabé had a curious number of spare purple crystals in case her own were damaged, including one hidden inside a thick bead attached to one of her long braids.

"I'll let you see it when we get there," Sabé promised with a laugh.

"You better," Taria grumbled.


Taria and Sabé, Talik decided upon their arrival of Pamina Prime –which, by the way was a terrible planet and rained consistently– were a pair of nerds. If there was anything the both of them could talk about for hours it was ancient artifacts and the Dark Side of the Force.

Taria had practically squealed when Sabé had handed over some curious-looking object that gave off an eerie purple glow, questioning Sabé about so much of it within the first ten minutes of their arrival before she decided to show them the inside of the cave, which was illuminated by the presence of several glowsticks.

"All right, so after you sent me a few translations back –most of it probably had to do with terrible lighting, now that I think about it– I started trying to piece things together," Taria explained, illuminating the wall for them to see a number of symbols carved there.

They were old, very old, but Sabé moved forward with interest, tracing her fingers over the sharp indents in the stone.

"I think that at some point some Sith were hiding out here," Taria added and Sabé hummed in agreement.

"How long ago?" Talik asked with interest.

"Impossible to tell," Taria sighed with genuine disappointment before looking to her friend. "But now that you're here, I figured that you'd be able to translate better than a couple symbols."

Sabé arched an eyebrow, trying to ascertain if Taria was goading her before holding a hand out for the glowstick, which Taria handed over easily.

"There was a battle…most of the Sith were killed," Sabé said, slowly, frowning as she sounded out guttural sounds that Talik couldn't understand before speaking the meaning in Basic. "They fled here for a time, this one," She tapped her finger against one symbol, "this one means 'safe haven'. Then there's some phrasing I can't really understand…" Sabé moved the glowstick as she walked from one end of the cave to the other, her face morphing into awe. "This had to have been almost four thousand years ago."

"How can you be sure?" Taria asked eagerly.

"You see this symbol?" Sabé smoothed a hand over one as Taria joined her by the wall, nodding.

"Yeah, that's the one you said was 'crystal'."

"Yes," Sabé's eyes were positively gleaming, "you have no idea what a treasure trove you found, do you?"

"I'm guessing it's pretty significant," Taria smirked, "I don't think I've seen you this excited since Obi-Wan actually started to loosen up."

Talik hid her giggled in her hand and Sabé ignored that comment.

"Its talking about when the Jedi and Sith moved from Force-imbued swords to lightsabers," Sabé said, breathlessly. "This is where the Sith's first synthetic crystals were made."

That meant absolutely nothing to Talik, but clearly it excited Taria, because she clapped her hands together in excitement.

"Congratulations, Taria, I think you've found the find of the century."


"Why don't we have any of the Sith's synthetic crystals?" Talik asked later that night when they were all camped around a fire in the deepest part of the cave, only feet away from where they had found several crimson crystals, hidden away and forgotten. "You know, for research purposes."

"We used to have one with the lightwhip that once belonged to the Sith Lord Githany," Taria said, looking up from one of the gems, "but it broke several centuries before we were born, didn't it?" She looked to Sabé who frowned.

"I think that's what happened."

"What was that guy Githany like?" Talik probed.

"She was rather dangerous," Sabé said dryly and both of Talik's eyebrows rose in surprise. "She fought in the New Sith Wars and was killed in the midst of a 'thought bomb'."

"A 'thought bomb'?" Talik's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Basically the Sith Lord that was the leader of the force opposing the Jedi used the number of Sith he had on his side to his advantage," Taria explained, brushing back a loose lock of aquamarine hair. "He was able to use their focused willpower in order to unleash the explosive nature of the Dark Side. It turned everything it touched to ash, including Githany."

Talik paled. "Sith can do that?" she asked horrified.

"Depends on the number of Sith," Sabé said, looking at some scans of the walls they had made that day. "It's an old Sith ritual and it is usually done with more than ten powerful Sith…I'm not exactly sure how many, I don't think the Archives are either."

"Your padawan asks a lot of questions," Taria added with a smirk, playing with Sabé's holocron with a deep-seated interest, fingers trailing over the outer designs.

Sabé looked up from the scans to glance towards where Talik was resting against the ground, swathed in the blankets that she'd been using as a sleeping bag of sorts to protect herself from the muddy ground on Dagobah and now to shield herself from the cold. "She's a curious sort," Sabé said fondly.

Talik blushed a violent violet to the tops of her lekku.


Anakin—

I'm so glad to hear that you're doing so well. A hostage crisis already? I'm impressed. How did your training session with Tiplar and Tiplee go? If you did end up training with them, that is. I haven't heard much from Sabé and Talik either, so we're in the same boat. Although, there are some times where I don't hear from Sabé for a few weeks to months only for her to come back and tell me: 'Don't worry, I had to fake my death again, but it'll be fine in a few days, trust me'.

Things in Theed are rather slow and there haven't been any recent attempts on my life, so my head of security was a bit confused why I wanted to learn to duel with a sword. Personally, I blame you Jedi for that.

Sola and Darred are a bit at war over the kind of name to give their daughter, even though that's a few months away, it almost makes me glad that I don't live with her anymore!

Thoughts,

Padmé


She was running, running faster than she'd ever run before. It was a good thing that she'd left her padawan behind so that he wouldn't have to subject himself to a painfully short life, because that was all she had, for sure.

Her long cloak had been ditched early on after several blaster bolts had caught it and she'd ditched it in order to move a bit more freely.

The lightsaber clasped at her waist swung violently with every minute as she ducked around abandoned structures and through hidden tunnels, searching for a place to hide, but his Dark presence was around her; she couldn't stop.

Now everything made sense, even those little things that she hadn't even consider, things she hadn't even thought about, like why Sabé had shut herself off from the Force as a child, clutching her head and screaming like someone was hammering down on her skull.

She regretted how she'd dismissed that behavior, she regretted so much. She regretted her cold indifference towards Sabé that stemmed from her envy of her abilities, she regretted not being closer to Bant Eerin when there were so few females in the Jedi Order, much less in her own year, she regretted not being a better master to her young padawan, barely several months into training. She should have done more, so much more.

But how was she going to be able to tell anyone the truth of what she had seen, the power of the Dark Side that made everything make so much sense? Who would believe her, believe what she had seen?

How could the whole Order be blind to it all?

She took a moment to regain her breath, but even that was just barely minutes in one place. She didn't dare stay in one place for too long, not as long as she didn't want to be found, and she'd really prefer not to be found, if given the choice.

Her hair fell into her eyes and she brushed it back impatiently as she made her way out of the tunnel and into the hangar bay that had been clearly shut down for more than a few years.

Her comlink was jammed, but maybe they had come kind of data-computer that she could access and get a signal out.

She moved quickly, entering the hangar bay, glancing around to make sure she wasn't followed before making her way towards a data-computer that was tucked into a corner. She had to move quickly, or she'd be seen or sensed, and she was doing her best to shield her Force signature, but his Force abilities surpassed hers by far; it wouldn't be long before he found her, she was sure.

Fingers tapping across the buttons caused it to whir to life and she plugged her datachip into it, scrambling the information in code before typing out a destination, barely managing to hit the button to send the information before something white hot was driven through her chest from behind.

She could feel her life fading as she looked down on the crimson lightsaber through her chest, and it was the last thing she felt, the last thing she saw before her eyes slid shut and she crumpled to the ground, not breathing and not moving.

The one who had claimed her life kicked her aside with a hiss of "Jedi" before looking on the screen with yellow narrowed eyes.

Recipient: Sabé Amidala

AN: Wow, my first update in awhile and you guys get a couple of bombshells! Asajj's fate on Rattatak hasn't changed and you'll see her again, come later book two and on. But who was the Jedi that was killed? And why? I actually just came up with that plot today, but I won't deny it's pretty amazing, leading into some pretty awesome stuff coming up.

It's doubtful I'll update for awhile, nursing school and all.

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!