A Shift in the Force: Chapter Fifty-One: Unexpected Intervention

AN: I'm glad people enjoyed Aayla and Talik's conversation, and Talik trying to play off her huge ass crush on Tiplar, ohmygods, it's wonderful.

In other news: we are officially nine reviews away from hitting three hundred! So thanks for the continued support!


Kit still went to Sabé's apartment in 500 Republica, even when it hadn't been hardly touched since Sabé's disastrous mission to Korriban. He remembered the first time he'd gone there when Sabé was twenty, newly knighted and irritated that her father had given her such a gift.

"A Jedi shouldn't accept such gifts," she'd grumbled at the time, but there she'd gone specifically looking for plants to cover the veranda with so that it practically pulsed with the vibrancy of the Force. It was like the Room of a Thousand Fountains in the Temple, but the veranda was preferable when the Temple got to be too overwhelming, which did happen from time to time.

Kit made sure to water the plants before settling down on the circular seat that remained out on the veranda from his last visit and closing his eyes, keeping his breathing regulated.

He hadn't expected to enjoy taking on Nahdar, and he still thought that the he wasn't the best choice for a master, but he would see Nahdar through to completion, unless that choice was taken from him.

Like Sabé.

His thoughts lingered on his wayward friend and a familiar voice echoed in his ears.

"You should be focusing inward in meditation, not outwards."

Kit opened his eyes, finding himself in an unfamiliar place, a worn cockpit of a small freighter. There was a cartoonish security droid head and R3 unit head painted on the console and a crest or two that Kit wasn't familiar with.

He was looking out of the viewport into what appeared to be an asteroid field, the ship docked on a particularly large asteroid, and it was only then that he noticed the feet crossed on console, stuffed into sturdy boots and military grade pants with blasters strapped to both legs.

There was a datapad open on her lap, her attention fixed on it as Kit's own eyes widened.

Sabé's curls swung free now, barring a single small braid of beads, and her eyes had lost the yellow gleam of the Sith.

"Staring, Kit," Sabé mentioned lightly and Kit blinked, looking around.

"Where am I?" he asked instead as Sabé put the datapad down in favor of grabbing a detonator from the bag by her feet, fiddling with the wiring.

"Well, you're on The Dawning, but we are currently in the Ashes of Korr."

Kit almost banged his head on the side of the cockpit. "We're what?!"

The Ashes of Korr was a debris belt at the edge of the Horuset system and the system contained a single planet and seven moons, and that single planet was Korriban. It wasn't a place recommended to visit, particularly if you were a Jedi, when near proximity to the Sith Home World would echo screams in your head.

"We had to pull out of hyperspace when we hit a space anomaly," Sabé gestured before them. "Sith Space is mostly unchartered; I almost crashed into the Korriba Scar debris belt on the way to Korriban last time. Could be worse, though, could be an imploded star cluster; those things are nasty."

Kit was fixing her with another stare, this one a bit surprised, but, then again, he knew nothing of Sabé's time as Carina; Talik certainly wasn't saying anything out of respect for her master.

"You look better than the last time I saw you," he mentioned lightly and a smirk curled her lips that was faintly reminiscent of Carina's, her eyes gleaming.

"You know that seems to be everyone's opening line with me," Sabé remarked dryly. "One would think you Jedi would come up with something a bit more original than that."

Kit's lips twitched, the smile falling slightly at how she had firmly separated herself from the Jedi, something he wouldn't have thought possible.

"Oh, don't give me that look," she added, "I like your smile much better."

He gave her one just for that comment and she laughed.

"I missed your laugh," Kit admitted and her smile softened as she reached a hand over to cup his green cheek and he held it there. Even though this was some sort of dream-meditation connection, he could still feel her warmth. "Aayla and I both…the Temple isn't the same without you."

"We both know I didn't like the Temple nearly as much as I seemed," Sabé said, removing her hand from his cheek, but remaining in his grasp, her smile faltering slightly. "And…I'm afraid to go back, I think."

"Afraid?" Kit couldn't help but snort. "You?"

"Fear keeps you alive when you're on your own," Sabé sighed, looking out into the asteroid field. "A Shadow has to –had to– think differently than a Jedi. A Sith even more so."

There was a flash of yellow in the reflection that flared across her eyes that made Kit uncomfortably think of Carina.

"And what are you now?"

Sabé paused thoughtfully. "Vagabond," she decided after a very long moment. "It suits me, don't you think? Traveling around, no home in sight…a girl with her two droids."

"You're a bit old to be a girl," Kit pointed out and she laughed again.

"You know what I mean," she said, running a hand through her hair before casting a glance towards him suspiciously. "The High Council hasn't been asking about me, have they?"

"They did have a lot of questions when Obi-Wan and Anakin came back with Talik and your message," the Nautolan admitted. "I think they would've preferred something a bit more tangible as proof that you did actually find that Holocron, but, then again, they didn't really like having someone outside the Order in control of it."

"Wow, imagine that, the High Council not approving of my life choices, what a shock."

Kit's large eyes crinkled in the corners as Sabé looked out into the stars.

"You know I used to hate space travel?" she brought up absently. "I forgot how beautiful it could be out here. I never took the time when I was a Jedi."

"Well, you were rather busy being both a Shadow and a master to a Padawan," Kit pointed out and she chuckled.

"I was, wasn't I?" she murmured, her eyes lightyears away. Her hands were playing now over a dodecahedron pulsating and purple. Kit recognized it from the description Talik had given, though he'd never seen it.

"You and Holocrons," he said wryly and Sabé blinked in surprise, looking down at the Holocron in her hands, frowning thoughtfully.

"Me and Holocrons," she agreed, eyes shifting up as the whole ship shook. "Time to wake up."

She winked and that was the last thing Kit saw before he opened his eyes, wondering if it was a dream or a vision or if he'd actually seen her, while, lightyears away, Sabé Amidala opened her eyes, rubbing her fingers over one hand, remembering his cool touch.


Sabé's fingers roved over the carved patterns into the old Jedi Temple Guard mask as Arthree and Jay-Seven finished a few last recalibrations.

Jalindas had been trying to get into contact with her lately, undoubtedly after meeting Sola and Sabé had a surprising number of missed comms on her old frequency as Carina, but Sabé could only avoid the bounty hunter for so long.

She slid the mask onto her face and opened a comm channel frequency. "Jalindas, as lovely as ever."

The woman arched an eyebrow at the sight of Sabé's new way of hiding her identity, though, Sabé was finding that she really missed her crimson-painted Mandalorian armor, that thing was handy. "You have to come up with better ways to greet us, Darth. Nice mask, by the way, not exactly your style, but from what I hear from your sister, a Jedi mask suits you."

"Sola talks too much," Sabé grumbled, her voice distorted by the mask. "I am no Jedi, and they have seen to that quite effectively."

Jalindas didn't comment on her bitter tone. "Would you prefer not to be known as Darth?"

Sabé blinked in her surprise. It honestly, hadn't even occurred to her to change the name. Darth had a lot of negative connotations, but generally only to the Jedi, and Sabé was done regarding the past as something to be forgotten rather than to be learned from.

"You can keep calling me Darth, I don't mind," she said finally. "My real name isn't something I want said over long-distance comms."

"Extra paranoid, I missed that," Jalindas chuckled and Sabé rolled her eyes behind the mask. "You're barely in range, where are you?"

"Sith Space," Sabé said, leaning back briefly to look out into the vacuum of space, "part of the Esstran Sector. It's pretty far out from, well, anything."

Jalindas arched an eyebrow. "Is there a reason for that, or did you just get tired of dealing with people?"

Sabé laughed. "You know me, Jalindas, I can only handle people so long."

"Before you kill them?"

"Before I get bored," Sabé corrected with a grimace. "Haven't been doing a lot of killing lately."

Jalindas made a soft humming sound. "You'll have a story or two to tell me when we meet again, Darth."

"Sounds like you want me for a job," Sabé probed as Arthree beeped out a confirmation that the reconfigurations were complete.

"How do you feel about making your way towards Falleen?"

"Depends on the job," Sabé responded flatly, patting a hand on Arthree's domed head as he rolled into view.

"Good old-fashioned thievery." Jalindas was grinning far too widely. "We're branching out, optimizing our potential like the other guilds wouldn't dream of."

"I am running low on fuel," Sabé muttered to herself, "Falleen wouldn't be too hard to reach. I'll leave you a calling sign when I get there."

"How will I know it's you?"

"Trust me," Sabé snorted. "You'll know."

And then she cut the transmission and pulled the mask off her face, considering the worn away color.

"Arthree, find me some airbrushes, I'm going to need them…and set course for Falleen."

Arthree beeped in an affirmative, saluting his mechanical arm as Jay-Seven made a snide remark about him.


Jalindas arched an eyebrow at Darth's so-called call sign. It certainly was obvious given the mask she'd answered the comm wearing, the paint across the cracked wall was yellow into a clearly hastily graffitied vine-like symbol that had been on the mask that she'd worn, and had several security guards positively gawping.

"Not your usual style," Jalindas muttered as she came to stand beside a figure close to the back of the crowd.

Darth shrugged. "Things change."

Darth preferred reds and blacks, and abandoning the armor for casual military wear certainly wasn't like her.

"Where's your droid?" Jalindas queried, unease pooling in her stomach, keeping one hand at her hip over her holstered blaster. She hadn't yet seen Darth's face to know if the woman before her was indeed the one she'd met those months ago on Kalla VII.

"He's manning the ship with Arthree, despite his rather vocal disapproval." The voice behind the mask filtered with amusement before she jerked two fingers towards Jalindas, nodding towards a nearby alley.

She moved first, probably because of how wary Jalindas was being and knowing that Jalindas knew never to turn her back on an unknown.

Darth darted into the darkened alley first, reaching up to remove the mask in order to show Jalindas her face.

Her eyes were brown.

Jalindas couldn't accept it.

"Something happen to the yellow eyes?" Jalindas asked, relaxing at the familiar sight of her old friend.

Darth grimaced. "Let's just say the yellow eyes was a temporary thing for me."

She sounded like herself, just not as coarse and crude, and she seemed lighter somehow. Jalindas couldn't quite explain it.

"The brown eyes suit you," Jalindas said instead and Darth rolled her eyes, her lips twitching as she settled the mask over her face once more. "I liked the graffitied symbol, though, not your best work, I think."

Darth laughed behind the mask. "I'm no artist, that's for sure. But I figured it was obvious enough even for you…so what's the plan?"

"Maybe we should get out of town first?" Jalindas suggested, looking back to the street before fixing her gaze one the mask's eye holes.

"Good idea," Darth agreed, tilting her head back to see how high the building beside them was, "it'll only take me one jump."

Jalindas considered her. "You don't have your jetpack," she pointed out.

There was an obvious snort from behind the mask. "Don't need one," Darth said, stepping forward to pull one of Jalindas' arms over her shoulders, tensing her knees and then shooting up into the air.

It was only because of intensive training that Jalindas didn't yelp in surprise as they launched up into the air to land on the roof.

"You've been holding out on us," she accused Darth and she was so sure that the woman was smirking behind that mask.

"So, what's the job?" Darth asked, peering over the top of the building to see the streets below.

"We're expanded HQ, which means we're going to need a lot of power generators, luckily, there's a rather large storage of them at the abandoned power plant a few klicks east in the possession of a up and coming gang." Jalindas' eyes positively gleamed and she could practically hear Darth's grin.

"Wouldn't it be tragic if we relieved them of some?"

"We missed having you around," Jalindas said with certainty and Darth bumped her shoulder against her own.


Yvanna Kron was a Twi'lek that was as beautiful as she was deadly and almost completely hidden under shrouds of black that didn't hide the red color of her skin, nor the dark purple of her eyes. It wasn't her usual style, Sabé recalled, but perhaps that was the point.

Yvanna often partnered with Janildakara, the former slave that specialized in poisons, and had what House Renliss liked to call a kiss of death. Yvanna left no marks on the bodies of her victims, her name was spoken in whispers not plastered on wanted signs like Sabé had been as Darth.

"Darth, you're looking so well that I could almost kiss you," Yvanna's voice was muffled but her eyes positively glowed, sending a shiver down Sabé's spine.

"Killing me would be a great reunion, I'm sure," Sabé side-stepped, "but I think we might be on a clock here."

Jalindas rolled her eyes as the two parted from their embrace. "Honestly, you wouldn't think any of us were cut-throat murderers the way you all act."

Sabé grimaced behind her mask and one of her hands tightened, a movement that Yvanna's eyes tracked. She'd rationalized her way through all the murders she'd committed, but it wasn't easy. All the Rakata on Korriban were dead because of her desire for vengeance after six months of constant torture, the gang members that had outmanned her and threw her in the cell that Anakin and Obi-Wan had found themselves in were dead, and all those Sabé had killed as a bounty hunter and under other Shadow aliases.

Her hands were drenched in blood.

They were not the hands that a Jedi should've had.

"Sounds like Jalindas is jealous that you like me more," Yvanna commented lightly, her accent thicker than Aayla's.

Sabé laughed and Jalindas rolled her eyes. "Got a ship?" she asked instead, turning their attention to the matter at hand.

"Definitely," Yvanna said, nodding towards Jalindas. "Who do you think dragged Renliss around?"

Jalindas rolled her eyes for good measure. "Let's get going," she grumbled and Yvanna knocked her hip against Sabé's with a wink for good measure.

All in all, Sabé was practically glad to be sneaking around in the shadows again. That was one of her best skills: infiltration. It was one of the things she'd liked best about being a Jedi Shadow; the secrecy. You could learn how to fire a blaster without too much difficulty –though whether or not the blaster bolts were fired with accuracy was a different story all together– but training yourself to be and move unseen was much harder.

And it was lucky for them that Yvanna had come in the previous night and locked the ship vertically on the cliff-side, close to where the abandoned power plant was located.

Their security system wasn't as good as they'd thought it was, and certainly not for three bounty hunters. The blasters were off the table, which Sabé was slightly sour about, but she'd learned how to work with what she got.

The first gang member they ran into Sabé Force-suggested into fainting which earned her an appraising look from Jalindas.

"You've been holding out on us," Jalindas hissed and Sabé smirked behind her mask, making a 'so-so' gesture.

They ducked behind a few crates to fix their eyes on the red-colored generators not too far away from where the gang members were gathered, speaking angrily to a figure dressed in a cloak.

The cloak shifted slightly and Sabé paused to stare at the woman's face beneath, the two jewels at the center of her forehead and brow.

"Depa," Sabé murmured out loud.

"You know her?" Yvanna asked, nodding to the woman speaking in calm tones.

Depa Billaba was on the High Council, one of the younger Jedi for such a position, but she was exceptional. Sabé had talked with her a few times, even when she had still been Yoda's Padawan, Depa had sensed her discontent and had actually sat down and talked with her, her expression kind and her eyes soft. Sabé had always been surprised at that quality for the former Padawan of Mace Windu, the Master of the High Council.

"I knew her," Sabé said finally, "haven't seen her in years, though."

That was true, technically. Sabé hadn't been back to the Temple since she'd left Coruscant for Korriban. Sabé hadn't seen hardly anyone from the Temple in years.

Sabé shook her head. "Never mind. I can bring the generators over here while they're all distracted."

"Another Jedi trick?" Jalindas quirked an eyebrow and Sabé hushed her, extending a hand and focusing.

The Force came easier than it had before the Korriban mission, responding to her will, lifting the generators slightly into the air, subtle enough that if any of the gang members were to look over, all they would think that they saw would be power generators rolling across the floor.

"You have to teach me that trick," Yvanna insisted with a soft hiss as the first one came into her grasp.

"It can't really be taught."

"Figures," the Twi'lek grumbled before grabbing the first generator and making back in the direction of her ship.

Jalindas considered Sabé as the second one approached. "You're better than I thought."

Sabé shrugged. "Practice makes perfect."

Jalindas almost laughed, stifling it in favor of grabbing the power generator and moving to follow Yvanna who was on her way back.

They worked like that, in sync, for a few minutes as the power generators trickled slowly over to their side and the arguing of the gang members with Depa increased. Sabé would've been more concerned about the master noticing her presence, but one of the requirements for Jedi Shadows was the ability to employ Force Stealth, which could conceal a Jedi's Force signature, and Sabé had gotten rather used to using it that it was practically subconscious now.

"How many are left?" Yvanna asked on her next pass.

"Three," Sabé said quietly, "but I think they're—"

"Thieves!" came a screech followed by the firing of blaster bolts and Sabé forced Yvanna's head down quickly, a bolt singing into the spot where her head.

"Stay down!" Sabé barked, pulling her twin DC-17 hand blasters in a single movement, firing off her own bolts in reply. Unfortunately for the gang members, she was a far better shot, that and half of them were preoccupied with trying to kill Depa, who had activated her green lightsaber to combat against them.

Sabé gritted her teeth behind the mask as Jalindas appeared at her side, her own blaster shooting off with a quieter hum.

"Yvanna, take off!" Jalindas barked.

"What about—?"

"I'll get her out on The Dawning," Sabé replied, pressing a finger to her comlink on her arm. "Jay, I'm going to need a pick-up, things got complicated."

"Why am I not surprised?" Jay-Seven inquired in clear disdain and Yvanna raced towards the edge of the power plant, leaping over the cliff into the ship parked there. The Crow fired up its engines, detaching from the cliff-face and shooting off into the sky before making the jump to hyperspace.

"Just get over here!" Sabé barked, ducking behind a crate. She could hear the crackle of blaster bolts colliding with Depa's lightsaber and her own hands itched to have the familiar weight of her own in her hands.

"How d'you feel about an explosion?" Sabé asked Jalindas and the woman grinned widely where she was perched behind another crate, grimacing as the blaster bolts collided with the opposite side.

"Oh, you know me too well, Darth," Jalindas returned easily.

Sabé rolled her eyes, tapping the side of her blaster against the metallic edge of the power generator. "I throw, you shoot," she advised and Jalindas nodded.

The flash of pain sizzled through the Force, but Sabé didn't have time to think about it as she rose the power generator into the air, launching it with hardly a thought, giving Jalindas the opportunity to duck out from behind her crate and fire off a scarily accurate shot.

There was a blaze of heat and fire, the shockwave knocking the gang members to the ground.

"That was shockingly effective," Jalindas remarked, but Sabé wasn't focused on her, she was focused on the figure in brown robes, sprawled on the ground. There were burns from the blast, but there were also singes from blaster bolts.

"We're at the back of the power plant, ready to take off at moment's notice," Jay-Seven's voice filtered through the comlink and Jalindas took off in the direction before stopping when she realized that Sabé wasn't following her.

"Darth, come on!" She followed the line of sight of Sabé's mask. "Leave her, we've got to go!"

The Force was silent.

Make your own choices, it seemed to say, and Sabé scowled, stepping through the bodies to reach the Jedi Master's side, hoisting her up over her shoulder and Depa didn't so much as twitch.

And then she ran with Depa's weight on her shoulder, the Force swirling around her as she took a flying leap to land on The Dawning's extended ramp.

"Make the jump, Jay!" Sabé snapped over the comm.

"Making the jump to hyperspace," the droid grumbled as Sabé leaned down to deposit Depa on the floor as gently as she could manage.

"A Jedi isn't really a good thing to have around in our line of work," Jalindas pointed out, a sour expression on her lips.

"She's not staying," Sabé said, brushing off the comment about the Jedi. "I may no longer be a Jedi, but I'm not willing to let another die by my own actions."

Korinth'Kel's face burned into her mind, Sabé's lightsaber buried in her chest.

"Not this time," Sabé murmured.

AN: The House Renliss is something I'm going to be delving into a bit more, especially with both sisters being a part of the organization.

And Depa is here! Her appearance in the fic will be brief, she's a minor character after all, but she'll pop up from time to time.

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!