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Chapter Six

Anakin had spent the better part of an hour following Ben throughout the camp, being introduced to the children and a few of the adults. Despite the fact that many of the children were orphans, they seemed relatively well-adjusted. Some of the youngest ones followed after him, laughing as they tugged playfully on his robes. Anakin didn't mind their attention, occasionally making faces at them; he could tell from Ben's reactions that he had not expected him to be good with kids. Again, Anakin wondered what had happened in this time to make Ben so cautious around his own flesh and blood.

Ben led him toward a group of teenagers who were sitting on the sand, eyes closed. "These are the older apprentices," his grandson said with a gesture.

Anakin surveyed the scene. "Padawans?"

"Sort of. There aren't enough masters for all of the children, so we do the best we can." Ben nodded at a middle-aged blonde woman standing with a dark-haired girl. "Karanya over there is Kala Di's mother. She has another daughter and a son, too. Right now she trains both her daughters."

Anakin let out a low whistle. "Yoda would never approve."

"Yoda's not here."

The woman, Karanya, caught sight of them and began walking toward them.

"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes," she said, smiling brightly.

Ben smiled in return. "Karanya, I'd like you to meet Anakin. We picked him up on our journey. Anakin, this is Karanya Nal."

Anakin extended his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

"Please, no formalities. Call me Karanya." The woman must have been very young when she had Kala Di. She looked to be around Obi-Wan's age. "I see you prefer the traditional robes?"

Anakin looked down at his tunic, then over at Ben. "Um… is that bad?"

Karanya shrugged. "I don't know where you're from, but most of the Jedi we know like to be as discreet as possible." She eyed the robes again and grinned. "Although I must say, that style would have stood out even before we went into hiding."

Anakin gave her a half smile in return. Yes, the outfit certainly had stood out. Some Masters had thought his color choice to be evidence of a more disturbing trend. Maybe he just liked colors that didn't immediately remind him of sand.

Karanya turned to Ben. "Kala Di tells me you turned down our dinner invite?"

Ben ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I've already got plans. Sorry."

"Oh, that's okay. You know you're always welcome though."

"I know." Ben kicked the sand. "Hey, is Tahiri around?"

"No, she went off into the desert last night, almost as soon as she got here. I think she wanted time to meditate alone." Karanya looked past Ben. "Hey, Valin!"

Anakin turned to see a brown-haired man walking toward him. The man raised a hand in greeting. As he came closer, a small child emerged from behind him. She clung to the man's pant leg, silent.

Karanya leaned down and smiled at the girl. "Hi, sweetie." When the girl shrank behind her father, Karanya smiled and looked up at Valin. "When did Tahiri say she'd be back?"

"She's on her way now, but she's about two hours out." The man glanced at Ben. "Myri says hi, and she wanted me to tell you that Ulin is still working on the datapad." He grinned. "According to her, 'there's a crazy huge level of security on this piece of junk.'"

Ben groaned. "Any idea how long it will take?"

"Ulin says a day, maybe two."

"Perfect," Ben said, shaking his head. "Just perfect." He paused for a moment before gesturing toward Anakin. "Sorry. Valin, this is Anakin. We picked him up on the way here. Anakin, meet Valin Horn."

Valin shook Anakin's hand. "Nice to meet you." For a moment, Anakin thought he saw a strange look in the other man's eyes.

Karanya spread her arms wide. "Well, I guess we've got some time before this datapad gets cracked. I'd better get back to Dira." She smiled warmly at Anakin. "It was very nice to meet you."

The three men watched her walk away. Ben turned to Anakin and gave him a wry grin. "Overwhelmed yet?"

Anakin mentally counted off all the people he had met that day. "Almost," he admitted. "But I think I can manage one more." He kneeled in the sand and leaned his head to one side, seeking out the child hiding behind Valin. "May I?" he asked.

Valin nodded. "Be my guest."

Anakin held a hand out to the girl. "Hi. I'm Anakin. What's your name?"

The little girl looked up at Anakin with big, dark eyes and smiled timidly. "My name's Carin, and I'm this many." She held up six fingers and giggled.

Anakin let his jaw drop. "You're six! Boy, when I was six I wasn't nearly as grown up as you!"

The girl's face lit up as she took a couple steps forward and gripped Anakin's hand. "Would you like to come over to our tent? I'm helping Daddy with dinner!"

Valin put a hand on his daughter's shoulder and drew her to his side. "That's enough, Carin. I'm sure Anakin already has plans. Why don't you go find your brother?"

The girl lowered her head. "Yes, Daddy." Without another word, she took off across the camp, kicking up sand behind her. Anakin watched her disappear into the waning light.

"She's usually very shy," Valin explained quietly, not quite meeting Anakin's eyes. "Like her mother." The melancholy on his face was unmistakable. He sighed and gave Anakin a half-smile. "Do you have someone waiting for you back home?"

The emptiness again. The feeling of unfamiliarity, of being alone in a galaxy where nothing was the same, not even the fabric of the Force.

"I did."

Valin nodded. "I'm sorry."

Anakin tried to smile, but found that he couldn't. His thoughts turned once again to all of the strange changes that had taken place in this time. Ben had said he would tell him everything eventually. He hoped it was sooner rather than later.

Ben stepped closer to Valin. "Did you bring the boys with you?"

"Yes, Tahiri asked me to. They're back in my tent, sleeping."

Ben raised one eyebrow. "Tired from the trip?"

Valin chuckled. "They couldn't sit still for two seconds the whole trip, and as soon as we got here they crashed."

"Why am I not surprised? Okay, well, Anakin and I are going into the desert for a while; if you hear anything from Myri about the datapad, let me know right away."

Valin clapped Ben on the shoulder. "You got it. Be careful out there."

Anakin watched his grandson adopt a pose that looked eerily familiar. His head tilted slightly, Ben gave Valin a wry grin and said, "I always am."

As Valin headed off in the same direction as his daughter, Anakin glanced sidelong at Ben. "Taking me somewhere special?"

Ben crossed his arms over his chest. "I am indeed. You know how to ride a swoop?"

Anakin shook his head. "You really don't know anything about me."

"Right, I forgot. You raced those pod things." Ben raised an eyebrow at him. "All right, follow me."

"I can pilot a lot of things," Anakin mumbled. He followed Ben as the other man began to walk. "And it's called a podracer."

Ben waved his hand in the air without looking back. "Whatever you say, Gramps."

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The desert was very still tonight.

Oh, no doubt there was a sandstorm brewing on the eastern edge of the Dune Sea, or a herd of dewbacks disrupting the otherwise peaceful evenings of farmers near Mos Eisley. But here, in the Jundland Wastes, all was quiet. Even cruising near top speed on her swoop bike, Tahiri Veila could sense the absolute calm of her surroundings.

She hadn't expected it. In a way, it worried her. In her mind, stillness made the Jedi presence even more obvious. Maybe that was why she preferred daylight on Tatooine. When everyone else was awake, she imagined that their lifeforces were like a shield around the tiny Jedi enclave. It was a silly notion, but one that gave her some level of comfort. She knew she shouldn't worry; the protection she and the other Masters had put on the camp was strong enough.

For now.

The stillness probably wouldn't have bothered her so much if it hadn't come on the heels of several small disturbances in the Force. Alone, they might not have caused much concern. But they had come one after another, first the ripples from the Inner Rim – the attack on Denon, most likely – then that strange, fleeting distortion of the Force somewhere inside Sith space. Now a strong yet unfamiliar presence had come with Ben to Tatooine, and she had to wonder if all these events were connected. Could it be that this stranger Ben had picked up was the reason for the calmness of the desert? Or was she simply reading too much into a peaceful evening?

She'd only been away from Tatooine for a few weeks, checking on the other enclaves, but it seemed much longer than that. There was never any guarantee that she would make it home; each time she left, she wondered if it would be the last time. She was thankful to be here. She was thankful for the sand and the dry desert air and the tents full of younglings that had survived until she could return to them.

She was especially thankful that nothing had happened to the two boys in Valin's care. Yes, they were safe aboard the Errant Venture, but she'd had the niggling feeling that they needed to be here, on Tatooine. Perhaps it had something to do with the string of disturbances she'd sensed.

Or maybe she just missed them too damn much.

The suns were already descending fast toward the horizon. She would barely make it to the enclave before nightfall. Tahiri leaned slightly forward in her seat and listened once more to the stillness.

She kept getting the feeling that something big, something important, was about to happen. The question now was whether it would be revealed in a sudden, Force-driven explosion of clarity, or if, like every other sentient in the galaxy, she would have to wait for the answers.

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Lord Dominius sat across the conference table from his lieutenants, Darths Varice and Misra. Alone in the room, just the three of them, he was reminded of his old history lessons and the tales of the ancient Sith Triumvirate. It had been a flawed system, made up of three incredibly powerful Dark Lords. If Dominius were to resurrect the Triumvirate – hypothetically, of course – he would probably choose these two women as his co-rulers. They were more loyal to him than Sith usually were, and they were not without their gifts. Darth Varice was the polar opposite of her younger brother, Raze; she was calm and calculating, as cunning as she was beautiful. And then there was the fair-haired human, Misra, who possessed a brutal command of the Force and the physical strength to back it up. Yes, they would make for an interesting Sith Triumvirate, if nothing else.

Dominius leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingertips together. Varice and Misra were suitably surprised by his announcement. They exchanged glances before looking over at him.

"You're certain it was Skywalker? He is quite adept at disguising himself. Might it not have been a decoy?"

Dominius was not offended by Lady Varice's doubts. It was merely her way, asking so many questions. She liked to be thorough.

"I am certain of it," he replied. "He may be able to hide from the Force, but he cannot hide from me. I would recognize that face anywhere."

"And it's true that you will be renewing the Jedi Hunt?" Misra scratched at the polished surface of the table, but her eyes were locked on Dominius.

"The decision was made shortly after Denon; Skywalker's reappearance simply pushed our plans up a bit." Dominius gave Misra a sly smile, baring his sharp white teeth. "So to answer your question, yes."

Misra glanced over at Varice and shifted ever so slightly in her seat. "You know how angry the twins will be when they learn that you are leading the Hunt."

Dominius was a patient man, but the thought of those two young upstarts made his usually cool reptilian blood boil just a little. For now, he held his feelings in check. "Ferrus and Festus are the least of my concerns, Lady Misra. You will inform them that they are to remain on Vjun for the time being. No doubt we will be meeting them there soon enough."

"You don't think Skywalker will be foolish enough to actually go there, do you?" Varice was young and hadn't had as much experience with the foolhardiness of the Skywalker line.

"I know that he will be, Lady Varice. And he will be expecting to fight us, too. But for now, let us see if we can't track down any more of their secret enclaves, shall we?"

Varice pulled out a datapad. "The trail went cold after Heibic. We have no new leads."

"What about the information from Denon?"

"The only salvageable communications equipment was a subspace transceiver. It's likely that the Jedi have already changed their frequency, but I think it would be worth our while to continue monitoring subspace using this device."

"The original report mentioned an illegal HoloNet transceiver."

Varice sighed. "That would have been quite a find for us; however, the Jedi destroyed it during the attack."

Dominius stroked the end of his chin with his long fingernails. "Very well. What have you discovered from the subspace logs?"

"A team of Lessers has been following the leads from the logs, but so far they've all been dead ends. We think the Jedi might be using couriers to relay their messages. It would explain why we're having trouble tracking them."

"Or," Misra interrupted, "they might not be in contact at all. Perhaps they've truly isolated themselves from each other, and the transmissions from the Denon enclave have nothing to do with Jedi business."

"No," Dominius said, standing up from his chair. "They were in contact. Skywalker knew what happened there." He paced across the room and pressed a button at the end of the table. A hologram of the galaxy appeared above their heads. "This is what we know," he said, zooming in on the portion of the Inner Rim where Denon was located. "The Jedi hid on a heavily populated planet at the intersection of two major trade routes. We have always assumed this was their strategy: hide amidst a crowd, and no one will notice you."

Varice and Misra were silent, watching him pace.

Dominius zoomed out and shifted the map, focusing in on a single planet. "It was the same on Arkania several years ago. With hundreds of billions of lives, we nearly overlooked Katarn's secret base." He let his hand fall to his side and stared at the glowing blue map.

"My lord?" Misra said after a moment. "Are you saying that's not the reason?"

"We've monitored communications, restricted the HoloNet, spread our web of spies across the Empire and into Alliance space. None of it has worked. Before Organa Solo died, the Jedi were at least more willing to come out and fight us, but now… now they keep to the shadows." He shook his head. "They've learned a thing or two from us, I'm afraid. It's time we stopped thinking like conquerors and started thinking like the old Sith."

"Hide under your enemy's nose," Lady Varice murmured.

Dominius turned to her, eyes wide. "Yes, yes… for a millennium, the Sith hid in the most obvious places. Sidious lived on Coruscant; he kept himself in plain sight! We have the right pieces, but we've been putting them together the wrong way." Dominius shifted the hologram back to Denon. "Here. Denon is good for drowning out Force signatures, but it's also near the border of the Empire. We would never have expected our enemies to be hiding there. They were practically standing right in the center of a potential invasion corridor! Arkania was also directly in our path."

He could feel his skin warming; his pigmentation was already changing from cool green to a light shade of orange. But he couldn't help himself; to think that they were making some kind of progress after years of fruitless searches. And he had to admit, it felt good to be focusing on the Jedi once more. He had missed the Hunt.

"Lady Varice. Lady Misra." He forced himself to settle down and looked from one woman to the other. "The arrival of the Jedi on Vjun is imminent. I expect some of us will be sent there to welcome them. In the meantime, however, I want both of you to go through all the data from Denon, keeping in mind what we discussed. Even if we manage to capture Skywalker and Cain, we will still need to find the other enclaves."

"We understand," Misra said, bowing her head.

"Unless I say otherwise, you are to commit yourselves entirely to this task."

"Yes, my lord."

As the two women turned to leave, Dominius waved Varice over. "Tell Raze to be ready; when I leave for Vjun, I want him at my side."

The Zabrak nodded. "As you wish, my lord."

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Ben left the Jedi enclave at a modest three hundred kilometers per hour, not quite top speed for the old Zephyr-G swoop he was riding. He felt Anakin behind him, but as the camp grew more distant and the desert swallowed him whole, Ben drowned everything else out. There was only the sound of the wind, the sting of sand, the fading heat from the suns. Despite the incredible vastness of the world around him, Ben didn't feel overwhelmed. For the first time in weeks – probably months – he felt some measure of peace.

For a long time he wasn't sure that he got the same thrill from flying as most of the rest of his family, and after a while he realized that he didn't. He was a Skywalker who didn't get excited at the idea of taking off for places unknown or dodging laser blasts in a dogfight. He did, however, enjoy the solitude, the feeling of disconnect he got whenever he flew. For a little while, he could forget about everything that had gone wrong in the galaxy. He could forget about what it was he had to do once he stopped this swoop.

He really wasn't looking forward to that. Not one bit.

Ben had started to untie two of the parked swoop bikes when he noticed Anakin standing off to the side, looking as though he wanted to say something.

"Problem?"

Anakin glanced over his shoulder. There was no one in sight. "Not exactly," he said, taking a step toward the swoops. For the briefest moment, Ben thought he saw tears in Anakin's eyes. "Is your father my son?" he finally asked.

Ben had always assumed Anakin Skywalker was unaware of his wife's pregnancy at the time of his fall. From their discussion aboard the Daybreak, it was clear now that he had known; but did he sense that she was carrying twins? Hadn't Dad mentioned once that Vader was surprised to learn of Aunt Leia's true identity?

What if Anakin went back tonight? Ben didn't know how this time travel stuff worked, and he had no way of knowing if and when Anakin would return to his own time. If he was still going to become Darth Vader, it would be a fatal mistake to tell him about Aunt Leia. The less he knew about the future, the better.

Unless Ben decided to tell his grandfather everything. Every terrible secret.

"Ben?"

"Sorry." Ben looked over at him and blinked. "Is my father your son?" He tried not to look too confused. "Who else would he be?"

"I mean, I'm not your great-grandfather or anything like that, right?"

"No, just a regular grandfather." Not that he'd ever known what one of those was like. "And yes, he was your son."

Everything around Anakin – the air, the Force itself – seemed to go still. "Was…" he murmured.

Ben nodded. "Yeah." He led his swoop away from the others. "Come on. There's something I need to show you."

Ben gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the handlebars. So much for serenity.

It was supposed to be a fairly long trip across the Jundland Wastes, but for Ben it passed by all too quickly. The first of the twin suns was setting when he spotted their destination up ahead. He signaled to Anakin and began to slow down. The small, synstone hut nearly blended into the rocky surroundings, but Ben would have known it anywhere. He'd spent many long hours here over the last few years. Beyond the structure, he saw the top of the Daybreak. Artoo must have already gone inside the hut.

This was where it had all started. Well, Ben thought, from a certain point of view. In many ways, his father's journey had begun here. In many other ways, Luke Skywalker's path had been laid out long before he set foot in old Kenobi's hut. Ben still wasn't sure if the results of his father's life were a matter of destiny, bad decisions, or just plain bad luck.

The home had long since been gutted of anything useful by scavengers, but it would provide shelter enough while Ben talked to his grandfather. Ben parked his swoop next to the crumbling hut and waited for Anakin to join him. The younger man had already dismounted and was standing at the edge of the precipice, his eyes closed as a gentle wind ruffled his hair.

"Everything in this galaxy feels so different now." He shook his head and looked over his shoulder at Ben. "But Tatooine is still the same. The only place that feels right."

Ben tried to smile. "Not everything stayed the same."

Anakin cocked his head to one side as if listening to music only he could hear. "Jabba's gone."

This time Ben cracked a grin. He kept forgetting how long it had been since Anakin had stepped foot on this planet. "Strangled to death by my aunt during a rescue mission."

Anakin nodded and looked back at the hut. "Who lived here?"

"My father's first mentor," Ben answered. "I was named for him, in a way."

"In a way?"

"He changed his name to Ben when he came to Tatooine. 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' was too much of a giveaway, I guess."

Anakin didn't even try to hide his shock. "Obi-Wan lived here?"

Ben nodded. "A long time ago."

Anakin reached out and ran his fingers along the rough exterior. "What happened?"

"It's a long story." A long and terrible story that he wasn't sure he could tell properly, especially not to the man who was responsible for so much of it.

"I have time," Anakin replied.

Ben looked out at the twin suns, the first one already dipping far below the horizon. "You may not be ready to hear it."

"I need to know." There was something in his voice that forced Ben to meet his gaze.

Fear.

The setting suns cast a mixture of gold and purple light across Anakin's face. Ben stared at him for a long moment, the sadness he carried in his heart rising to the surface. He wished he could promise his grandfather that everything turned out fine in the end, but it just wasn't true.

And by the look in the other man's eyes, he could see Anakin already suspected part of the truth. Holding back the rest would be an insult.

"You'd better come inside."

Anakin followed Ben into the hut as the first sun disappeared from the sky.

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