A Shift in the Force: Chapter Fifty-Four: Restless Nights

AN: To the one that asked: I have the Jedi Path book that describes a lot about the Jedi, including how the Jedi Shadows are a part of the Jedi Sentinels


Sabé had thought she was over this, over waking up from her slumber in a cold sweat. Her skin stung with the ache of the electro-staff and Sabé breathed in and out deeply, gazing at the ceiling of her room on The Dawning.

She sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of her bed, fumbling for her comlink, almost thumbing a Jedi frequency only to pause.

What time was it on Coruscant, anyways?

Sabé pursed her lips, thinking about their last disagreement, and then she punched in the frequency.

"Kenobi," came his familiar voice and Sabé's heart ached.

"Obi-Wan," she said, her voice cracking slightly from disuse in the night and she rubbed at her eyes tiredly.

"Sabé?" His surprise was easy to make out.

Sabé was so paranoid about making long distant comms that she didn't even call her sisters or her parents, but her head was pounding and her heart was racing.

"I need you to distract me," she said seriously.

"I –what?"

"Obi-Wan, distract me," Sabé responded shortly, "I don't know, something trivial."

She could hear her blood pulsing in her ears and the silence was oppressive.

"Anakin and I are currently on a ship heading for Lothal, looking over a survey that is being conducted in their water supply," Obi-Wan informed her.

Sabé swallowed, trying to regulate her breathing. "Sounds trivial."

His laughter was soft, turning to static. "It does doesn't it…what about you? Travel anywhere interesting?"

Sabé's eyes narrowed at his tone of voice, just a bit far too knowing, if you asked her. "I take it that Depa Billaba did give Yoda my message?"

"Evidently whatever it was had Master Jill raving," Obi-Wan responded.

"What a surprise," Sabé said dryly. "Knowing him, he was probably on the verge of an apoplectic fit…maybe he should step down and find a nice planet to retire to."

"You wouldn't see him anyways," Obi-Wan pointed out.

"It's more the principle than anything else," Sabé shrugged even though he couldn't see it.

She knew he was smiling, she knew him well enough to know that, but then the silence dragged on and she knew that he wasn't.

"Sabé," he said her name slowly and sent a tingle down her spine, "are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Sabé said, but it sounded far more like she was trying to convince herself than she was trying to convince him. "It's just a bad dream."

"A dream or a vision?"

Always right to the point. Her lips twitched slightly in amusement, but she supposed he had to be, given Sabé's history with visions that came in the form of dreams.

"Memory," Sabé said instead, rubbing at her head, wiping away any of the sweat that remained on her brow, "from Korriban."

There must've been something in her voice that put him on edge. "Ah," was all he said and the silence was oppressive. "Did you want to talk about it?"

"Nothing really to talk about…nothing but a lot of pain, the Rakata weren't very talkative," Sabé conceded, glowering at the side of her room. They talked even less when they were dead, but Sabé thought it was best to keep that thought to herself. "Someone else would've broken under that kind of assault…but Shadows have always been trained to endure."

"That's the thing that made you want to quit at the start, wasn't it?" Obi-Wan couldn't help but point out.

Sabé rolled her eyes, sulking just slightly. "Maybe," she replied petulantly. "It was hard work but it was worth it in the end."

"Even though it made you lose your way?"

Sabé thought about Nordia Gral's words. "We all have a Journey to make, this is just mine…but you and I will see each other again, Obi-Wan, I know that."

Her lips tingled, remembering the last time she'd been in his presence, the farewell kiss she'd left him with. She didn't dare use the word 'love' for their relationship, whatever it was, as it was still far too soon to be putting any labels like that on it.

"Then I look forward to the day we do," he said warmly and Sabé could feel her cheeks warming with color in response.

"Obi-Wan," she said, his name faltering slightly on her tongue, "thank you, for talking, for listening, I know it wasn't really much, but it was helpful."

She was calmer now, the echoes of her nightmares fading, leaving her with a sinking cold that often accompanied them, that often accompanied the Dark Side.

"I'm glad I could be of help…and it's always nice to hear your voice," he couldn't help but sheepishly admit the second part, and Sabé wondered if he knew she was smiling now.

"Good luck on your mission, Obi-Wan," Sabé laughed instead, a flush high on her cheeks as she laid back on her bed, shutting off the comlink and placing it at her bedside once more.

Sabé was far too old for this, far too old to be thinking about Obi-Wan's hazel eyes that seemed almost gold if you caught them in the right light, or how his beard had scratched against her cheek and chin when he kissed her.

She was far too old to be remembering when Sola had once asked her what she would name a daughter if she ever had one.

Besides, Sabé wasn't cut out to be a mother.

Talik turned out all right, her mind reminded her.

Shut up, she retorted.

She had raised Talik to the best of her abilities, she couldn't deny that, and Aayla had filled in the spaces that Sabé had left open…but the dark side of her mind said that if she really cared about Talik's Padawanship, she would have forsaken her duties as a Shadow and focused all her effort on raising the young Twi'lek, but much of who Talik had become was due to having a Shadow for a teacher and Sabé was proud of the young woman she had become.

Sabé closed her eyes, rubbing at them with one hand when another voice echoed within her mind, one that she'd heard on Mustafar, the one she'd heard those months ago within the depths of her own mind, the one she'd heard as a child, whispering the words that had soon after become her mantra.

"Come to me," it said.

And Sabé's eyes jarred open.


"I thought you were going to shut me down for the night," Jay-Seven complained as Sabé filtered through the planetary charts once more, the Force guiding her hands.

There was an empty space in the records that the Force hummed loudly at, and that was where Sabé needed to go.

Atollon, the Force hummed in agreement.

"I was," Sabé agreed before transferring the coordinates into the ship and pulling down the lever that sent them forward into Hyperspace, "but I need you to monitor our course, Jay."

"You can do that," the droid pointed out with a bit of aggravation.

"I," Sabé said, her voice belying her exhaustion, "am going to get some sleep, since that is what I need to recharge my batteries. Man the fort, Jay."

"What does that even mean?" Jay-Seven's doubt couldn't have been plainer.

"I'm certain you can figure it out," Sabé said, the corners of her lips twitching as she stood, walking past Arthree on her way to her room.

[Mistress]SabéAmidala needs sleep for optimum functioning, the astromech beeped and Sabé spared him a small smile, patting his domed head as she did so, before sliding her door open and shut behind her, practically collapsing onto her bed.

The pieces of armor she'd collected over the months –the green upper arm guard, the twin black forearm guards, and the grey single shin guard– lay in a pile next to the Chu-Gon Dar Cube, where it pulsed ominously where Sabé had set it once the outer shell had cooled.

And Sabé, curving with her back towards the Cube, didn't notice when her armor gleamed faintly in the darkness before fading.


Sabé didn't really understand half of her dreams anymore, and she was starting to think that the Force was mangling and mixing the images on purpose, leaving her more confused than when she'd started.

Recently all her dreams had conveyed were darkness, but this dream was something else, something new.

Sabé was used to the darkness now, it wasn't something she feared anymore, but neither was it something she basked in. The same could be said of the light.

"Once a secret is known," the voice piercing the darkness warned, "it can never be unknown…so what will you choose, Sabé Amidala, former Jedi, former Sith?"

There was the hum of lightsabers activating in her ears and Sabé turned to see thirteen silhouettes, then there was a bright flash that burned into her eyelids, forcing Sabé to shut her eyes quickly.

"General?" a new voice inquired of her and Sabé opened them again, this time to stare at a man wearing armor she didn't recognize, kneeling before her.

And it was startling enough to hear someone refer to her as General, much less anything else her dream had shown her.

She shot up in bed and almost banged her head against the bunk above hers before flopping back down onto her mattress.

Sabé pressed her hands into her eyes. What did it even mean?

She wished she knew.

Perhaps Atollon would shed some light on the answers she so desired.


The paranoia remained with Sabé as The Dawning touched down on the planet's surface. She kept her blasters strapped to her legs, the neuronic whip at her hip, and her quarterstaff in her hand.

Jay-Seven voiced his concerns at that, after all, if she was that prepared, then surely it would be best for him to come along too, after all, he was a rather fair shot. But Sabé had refuted that, telling him to remain with the ship as she descended the ramp, his mutinous tone echoing dully throughout the ship, Arthree's harsh beeps an answering menace.

The Force was strong on Atollon as the dirt crunched under her boots with each step out of the ship. It resonated like a steady flowing stream.

The planet was drier, though, not like Ilvira or Naboo, made mostly of sharply jutting rocks and sparsely growing tufty plants despite the heat.

Sabé couldn't but think that it was a good thing she'd left her jacket back in her room, because with the heat around her she wasn't entirely certain that heat stroke was out of the question.

She flexed her left leg briefly before stepping over stone. The leg guard was a new acquisition, but one that she'd discovered as Carina and hidden away. It was a part of Sith trooper armor from the Great Galactic War, some three thousand years previously. Really, the armor had been in remarkably good condition for its age, but Sabé suspected that had been the point when it had been crafted. The grey piece of armor was a little heavier than her other pieces, though not by very much and much more durable.

A chuckle echoed in her head as she descended into the wide canyon, landing lightly on her feet as a few small snail-like creatures skittered around at her feet. "So prepared for a fight, are you?" the voice inquired.

Sabé looked around, her eyes narrowed, but she saw nothing.

"I've learned the hard way to never go anywhere without a weapon," she said out loud.

"Does a Jedi not draw their weapon unless they are prepared to take a life?"

Sabé paused, her surprise widening her eyes and lifting her eyebrows. "I am no Jedi," she said the words, content in all that they implied.

"Perhaps…but perhaps not," amusement rang clear and Sabé frowned. "That remains to be seen."

Sabé could hear the scuttling, much louder than the small creatures that had once been and she twisted, her eyes fixating on the creature standing there, watching her.

She'd never seen anything like it before. It was vaguely spider-like with long thin white legs with a long white torso and large bulging eyes with clicking pincers just underneath.

Someone a bit more jumpy and trigger-happy would've pulled their weapon seconds, but Sabé wasn't like that, particularly when she was trying to conserve her ammo.

The creature watched her in what could only be considered a vague sort of interest, as if it was waiting to see what she would do.

Sabé expelled a sharp breath from her lips, extending a hand slightly to rest against its hard-shelled body. It shifted under her hand, weight transferring from leg to leg. The shell was cold against her fingers despite the heat of the planet; this was a creature accustomed to darkness and the cold it brought.

She could sense its unease at her presence. She was an anomaly, one that this creature couldn't trust. She was an invader on this presently peaceful planet.

Sabé's lips curled faintly as she opened her mind to send a gentle wave of calm. "I am not here for you," she assured the creature, "it's all right."

The creature's nervousness calmed, but it still watched her as she descended further, following the vein of the Force pulsing through the air.

"I know you're here," she called out, her feet coming to a stop. "Why have you summoned me?"

For a moment there was nothing, nothing but the silence and the sounds of native creatures skittering around in the desert and then the great rock formation before her shifted and Sabé's eyes grew impossibly wide as it was revealed to be a part of a creature's head and back with large silvery eyes gazing down on her.

"Sabé Amidala," the creature said, her name ringing in her ears like an ancient incantation, "Daughter of the Force…welcome."


"You seem conflicted, sister."

Depa looked up from staring into the dark corner of the meditation room that had needed to be repaired after Sabé ripped a hole in it with ripping her own mind open. Her younger sister, Sar Labooda was smiling at her as she pulled one of the round seats closer so the pair were sitting side by side.

"What's wrong?" Sar inquired, her dark eyes probing and the jewels on her brow, so like Depa's, gleamed in the darkness.

"I am just thinking about…Sabé Amidala," Depa admitted.

Sar's eyebrows arched. "The Exile? I heard you ran into her on a mission, that she saved your life."

Depa could still remember the look in Sabé's eyes. "I'm not ready to let another Jedi die because of me."

"She did," Depa agreed, her own eyes distant.

"So, what about her bothers you?" Sar leaned forward into the single slice of light streaming in through the window. "It's not what others in the Temple say, you've never believed much in those rumors."

Her lips twisted faintly, but Sar wasn't wrong. She wouldn't say that she had the luxury of being a close personal friend of Sabé's even before her Fall, but she had known her, perhaps not exceptionally well, but well enough to know that Sabé had believed completely in the choice she had made.

Depa closed her eyes remembering how young she had been once, barely knighted when a small Initiate had tripped over the edge of her robes while carrying a datapad, thoroughly engrossed in its contents.

The girl had yelped, crumpling to the ground and sending her datapad painfully into Depa's shins, but she'd been quick to apologize, eyes wide and mind open. Depa had been able to sense her unease quickly, how uncomfortable she felt around masters and knights that were waiting on her to fail.

The girl could've been no one other than Sabé Amidala, the Great Guide, the child with the highest midi-chlorian count in the Temple.

A tingle had brushed against the back of Depa's mind and in her mind's eye she could see the potential; a small ten year old extending two violet crystals to her, beaming, a thirteen year old thoroughly engrossed in studying the ancient sides of the Force, a sixteen year old weary and doubtful, questioning the Code at every turn, a twenty year old, newly knighted and already inducted into the Jedi Shadows, a proud of where she found herself. Depa had seen her hand in her training…but Depa had turned away. She was barely knighted, she didn't think she had the capability to teach someone like Sabé Amidala.

"She could've been my student," Depa admitted and Sar blinked. "I could sense it, sense what she could become under my tutelage…but I didn't think I could be a teacher, I was barely a knight."

It was an excuse, she knew, and not a very good one. Sabé had taken her own Padawan at the tail-end of her twenty-third year.

"I think you would've been a great master," Sar informed her, a soft smile on her lips. "Maybe even better than Yoda to Sabé."

"Sar!" Depa reproached her sister quickly as Sar tapped her fingers against the hilt of her lightsaber, an absentminded habit that she'd picked up over the years.

"Master Yoda is wise," Sar replied easily, a slight smile on her lips, "but he is old and perhaps Sabé's beliefs on how the Order could change are not things that should be considered to be negative, besides, many of the things she believed in were things the Order did as well, at one point."

Depa considered her silently. Her sister had never spoken of her own views on the Code, but now Depa couldn't help but wonder if they were more in line with Sabé's.

Sar reached out to clasp Depa's shoulder, sending calming waves through the Force. "Whatever you are meant to be, to do, I'm certain that the Force will show you the way."

Depa could only hope.


"No one's, um, ever called me that," Sabé admitted, her tongue suddenly too swollen for her mouth.

The creature chuckled. "But it's true, is it not? The Force created you; you would not exist without it."

Jobal and Ruwee Naberrie's faces swam before Sabé's eyes and she felt a sudden pang. She hadn't seen her family since the day she'd left Naboo. She'd almost postponed leaving with her father's sudden sickness but he'd kindly waved her off.

"Go see the galaxy, Sabé," he'd said with a smile. "Don't stick around for little old me."

"You're not little or old," Sabé had pointed out, a smile lightening her mouth, but she had still kissed his brow and promised to name a star after him, earning her a laugh as he bid her farewell.

"Who are you?" Sabé asked, unable to silence the question parting her lips. It seemed fair, after all, the creature, whoever and whatever it was, seemed to know who she was. "I've heard you before, your voice…I thought it was the Force at first, but when the Force whispers to me, it has no voice."

"Good, good," the creature seemed pleased by that. "Very few can hear my voice, much less over such a great distance, but you are no simple Force-wielder, are you, Sabé Amidala?"

Sabé's lips thinned into a line.

"I am the Bendu," the creature informed her and Sabé brow wrinkled. "Familiar with the term?"

"Yes, it's part of the Je'daii beliefs." Sabé stared up at him, trying not to break the unflinching gaze. "The Ashla is the Light Side of the Force, the Bogan is the Dark…the Bendu is when the Light and the Dark are used as one, some call it the Gray."

"An apt assumption, I am the one in the middle," Bendu agreed. "And what of you, Sabé Amidala, Force-wielder? What do you believe in? The Bogan? The Ashla? The Bendu? Or perhaps something more?"

"I believe in the old ways of the Je'daii Order," Sabé said instead, "that the only away to achieve balance within yourself is to achieve balance in the Force."

"A wise answer," Bendu hummed above her, moving slightly so Sabé wasn't leaning back quite so much. "Wisdom from experience, I think."

Sabé sighed, descending to sit before him, rubbing at the back of her neck. "I was once a Jedi," she admitted, something that he might've already been aware of, "I became a Sith and once I returned to who I was, the Jedi Order exiled me."

"I see," Bendu said simply, "and did you fall to the Bogan for power?"

"No!" Sabé's response was rather heated, but then she faltered. "And yes."

Bendu didn't speak and Sabé couldn't help but get the feeling he was coaxing her to speak.

"I believed that the Sith Holocron of Korriban was in danger…if the Sith ever got their hands on it, it would be devastating. The only way I was even going to make it onto Korriban in the first place would be to fall to the Dark Side."

"Yes," Bendu agreed, almost thoughtfully, "the Bogan is thick and strong at Korriban, certainly deadly to any Jedi that approaches…but you did not hand over the Holocron to the Jedi as you had originally intended?"

"No," Sabé admitted, her expression darkening.

"This is the Sith Holocron of Korriban," Sabé had once explained to Obi-Wan, showing him it on the image-caster, "it's the genuine article and I am its keeper. But the Jedi won't be getting it. They've already gotten the Gauntlet of Kressh the Younger. The Holocron would be too much power to allow the Jedi."

"My time as a Sith has made me…jaded about the Jedi," she admitted, "and I knew enough about the ancient history of the Jedi Order before my Fall to know that even the Jedi have done terrible things in the name of their cause."

"Worried of the misuse of the Holocron, were you?" Bendu sounded a little like her old master and that made Sabé more bitter.

"Partially, but it's not as though they could've read it," Sabé had to concede. "The Old Tongue isn't something that can be translated. No one among the Jedi can read it."

"Are you so sure?"

Sabé blinked, and then her thoughts drifted to Taria and Maw.

"Your thoughts dwell on your fellows," Bendu noticed. "Perhaps they are capable of translating what you cannot."

Sabé frowned. Taria could translate even less than Sabé could prior to her Fall, but Maw…

"Ah, you fear the intentions of one of your fellows."

"I believe that he might've caused the death of one my friends, and I believe he'd sabotaged several of my Shadow missions," Sabé confessed. Siri Tachi should've never been sent on that Shadow mission in the first place, but she hesitated to accuse him of her murder directly. There were too many unknown factors.

"Hm," Bendu said, "I can sense your worry for your friends, the ones you love among the Jedi…but you do not return to their side, despite the possibility that they could be among a Jedi-killer."

Sabé couldn't help but flinch. "I am no longer a Jedi…I can't involve myself in their affairs."

"But you warned one of him, did you not?" Bendu's head tilted and Sabé wondered how it was that he knew so very much about all that she'd done.

"Taria has worked with him for years…even if I'm no longer a Jedi, she deserves to know whether or not she can trust the Shadow beside her."

Sabé pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing quietly.

"Much of the conflict within you is tied to the Jedi," Bendu observed. "Tied to the choices they have made and you have made…their distrust of you like the young boy from Tatooine. Power has always made them uneasy."

Sabé looked up at him, surprised at the statement, but she found he wasn't wrong; power was something that was so often in line with Sith beliefs, the kind of thing the Jedi frowned upon.

"I was brought to the Temple when I was very young…they put so many expectations on me that I felt I couldn't even breathe." Sabé's chest grew tight at the memory of it, of being so young and shying away from the stares, the whispers, the doubts. "Things didn't really fall into place until after I tried to cut myself off from the Force and became Yoda's Padawan."

"But even then you couldn't help but feel as though a different teacher was meant for you."

Sabé thought of Depa Billaba who she had sometimes caught watching her rather curiously. Sabé had always had a warm sensation in the back of her mind around the young knight when she'd been made barely a Padawan, and it was Depa that always inspired her not to simply state the precepts of the Code but to thoughtfully examine what they themselves meant and apply them to her own life.

Yoda was wise but Depa had wisdom.

Sabé closed her eyes and she was fifteen dressed in an almost identical skin-tight garb as Aayla, goggles hanging around her neck, a 'saber on either side of her hip, beaming as she stood before Depa.

"Well done, my Padawan," Depa smiled.

Sabé opened her eyes. "I was meant for a different master," she said with certainty. "But nothing can be changed now…I am where I am meant to be."

"So you are, Sabé Amidala, Force-wielder," Bendu agreed. "Keeper of Holocrons."

That caused a laugh to bubble briefly from Sabé's lips. "I'm afraid the only Holocron I possess is one of my own making."

"You may not have the Sith Holocron of Korriban on your person, but that does not make it any less yours," Bendu countered.

"I'm sure the High Council is very approving of that," Sabé's words were dry and she couldn't restrain from rolling her eyes, "if they did believe me in the first place…they think the Holocron is evil."

"You don't," Bendu mentioned, his eyes gleaming.

"Do you?" Sabé arched an eyebrow and he chuckled at her fire.

"An object cannot make you good or evil. The temptation of power, forbidden knowledge, even the desire to do good can lead some down the path of darkness, something I am sure you are familiar with."

Sabé's jaw tightened.

"Your paths within the Force are converging, Sabé Amidala, Force-wielder," Bendu said before she could offer a reply. "If you want to see where they lead…then go to Malachor."

"Malachor?" Sabé's surprise widened her eyes. Malachor had always been off-limits to Jedi, much like Korriban was. It hadn't helped the nightmares she'd been prone to as a child.

Sabé turned back towards Bendu, but he had vanished, leaving her behind confused.

What would she find on Malachor?


She had been foolish to send a transmission. He could track her now, no matter where she went.

There was no rock Sabé Amidala could hide under.


AN: I kind of adore Bendu, and his beliefs fall in line with Sabé's, so I had to have them meet…and I wonder what Sabé will find on Malachor…

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!