A/N: This story is still alive. It's just damn hard to write, and RWBY's been taking up a lot of my time. But I have returned, for the, what, three of you reading this?

Those three or four people who care, welcome back. Please, enjoy.

Chapter Four

The Smuggler

"As it happens, smuggling's my specialty."

"Right," Hethus said as he ducked behind cover. He gave the armored trooper to his right a sidelong glance. "This is dumb."

"It's always the same with you, isn't it?" grumbled Risha from his left. "'It'll just be an easy drop,' you say. 'I know they guy, we can trust him,' you say."

Hethus doesn't make a habit of learning from his mistakes, Bowdaar barked in agreement, Hethus' translator implant converting the sound of Wookiee into the meaning of Basic words.

"Hey!" Hethus complained. "I do so learn from my mistakes! Remember when I got stabbed in the back by a senator I thought liked me, and almost turned Akaavi against the ship, all because I was a bit irresistible?"

"That's code for 'sleeping around,' right?" Risha drawled.

"Aw, you know I'd never do that to you, darling," Hetus cooed over the sounnd of blaster fire.

"Right," Risha said, "because you'd literally lose a damn kingdom if you did."

Can we shoot the Imperials now, Bowdaar suggested, and argue the Captain's loyalty later?

"I'm a very loyal person," Hethus began.

"Can it," Risha advised. "Start shooting."

Hethus leaned out of cover, guns first, and took two potshots at two particularly light-armored Imperials. They both went down, helmets twisted and molten where the bolts had struck. He was just aiming to fire a burst at a more heavily-armored lieutenant when the man was bisected by Bowdaar.

"Hey!" Hethus exclaimed. "That one counts as mine!"

What are you, a Trandoshan? growled Bowdaar good-naturedly as he blocked an Imperial vibroblade. We don't keep score here, Qyzen.

"Feh," grumbled Hethus, firing several shots into the chest of another soldier. "I'd be winning if we were."

"Only because you go groundside for every mission." Risha glared at him from behind the crate she was using for cover. "I tell you to stay safe, you take it as an invitation to get shot at even more."

He grinned over at her. "Hey, it's nice to know you care."

"Probably wouldn't have..." Risha was interrupted by ducking a shot. Hethus paid the imperial hotshot back with a dozen of his own. "...Married you if I didn't" she finished as though the pause hadn't happened, already firing at another trooper.

"Yeah, fair enough," Hethus conceded. "Anyway..." he stood and took out the last trooper. "...Let's get moving," he said. "We've got a two-timing son of a Hutt to get our intel from, and a station to blow up."

Can we get off it first this time? Bowdaar asked plaintively. I didn't enjoy having to find an escape pod in under a minute last time.

"Wasn't exactly my idea of a good time either, buddy," Hethus agreed, patting the Wookiee on the arm as he passed him. "'Least we're not dead."

"Yet," Risha grumbled. "I swear, careful's not even in your vocabulary."

He grinned back at her. "I built a criminal empire from the ground up and married a pirate queen, sweetheart," he said with a chuckle. "Exactly which part of that screams 'careful' to you? Or, y'know, anything besides dashingly impulsive?"

"I prefer psychotic," Risha said drolly.

Hethus shrugged as he began slicinng into an important-looking door's electronic lock. "Girls like a bad boy."

"We do tend to prefer them to stay outside of insane asylums, though," Risha advised. "Just a tip."

He snorted. "I'm a married man, Risha," he said dryly. "I don't do tips."

"I'm sure the whole senator thing had nothing to do with your sudden shift into monoamory," Risha grunted.

He did say he learned his lesson, Bowdaar barked.

Hethus rolled his eyes. "So maybe a swift kick in the pants helped me sort things out a bit," he conceded. "I mean, all's fair in love and war, right? And it was a war zone on Corellia." He stepped back. "Also, door's open."

Bowdaar kicked the metal. It slid away to reveal a large room full of cargo. No, Bowdaar corrected. Now it's open.

Hethus frowned at him. "All right, you lead the way, wiseass."

Bowdaar laughed as he led the way into the hold of the freighter.

A few hours later, they were filing back onto the Kestrel. Hethus' contact, a weaselly little Nautolan named Algon, had been reminded of why it was a bad idea to call Imperials to a drop for the Voidhound. He was now waiting, bound, for Republic forces to come and pick him up for a lovely stay in a cell.

Hethus smiled as he entered the ship. "I'm back!" he sang. "Did you all miss me too much?"

"Not really, captain," Corso said casually, looking over from where he was cleaning one of his many blasters. "Where we headed next?"

Hethus shrugged. "Don't really have anything lined up," he said. "Why don't we call Shepard and see if she's got something?"

"Apparently, she's on vacation," grunted Akaavi disgustedly, coming out of a corridor. "She and the Cathar, Jorgan."

Hethus nodded understandingly. "Right, honeymoon," he said. "I see. Well..." he shrugged. "Maybe Amrell has something? Man never takes breaks."

Corso shrugged. "Call him," he suggested.

Hethus did.

"Captain," the Zabrak Jedi Master said with a smile as he picked up. "It's good to see you. How have you been?"

Hethus shrugged. "Another contact just tried to turn me in to the Empire," he said. "Nothing new. How about you?"

The Jedi held out his arms in a gesture of ambivalence. "Much the same," he confessed. "The same things as always going wrong and right, as they do."

"Hey, Hethus!" Kira Carsen crossed into the hologram, grinning.

Hethus smirked. "Hey, sweetheart," he greeted smoothly. Risha punched him before he could continue.

"Forgive him," she said, joining him on holo. "Training him is ongoing."

Amrell laughed lightly. "Of course. Kira, did you want something?"

"I had an idea," she said quickly. "Am— Master, that job we've got the SIS agent, Kothe on... Do you think Port Nowhere would be a good place?"

Amrell frowned at her. "For the meeting?" he asked. "I thought the Sith set the meeting at Quesh?"

Kira rolled her eyes. "For what comes after the meeting, silly."

Amrell's eyes widened. "Ah," he said. "Yes. Hethus, I have a favor to ask."

Hethus cocked an eyebrow. "Fire away."

"In a few days, an SIS agent working for me is going to go to a meeting with the Sith Lord Darth Pyrus," Amrell began, his voice serious. "Have you heard of him?"

Hethus frowned. "I don't make a habit of keeping up on Imperial affairs..." he began.

"Yes," Akaavi said from behind him. He turned to look at her. She was slightly stiff and looked wary. "He's the one they call the 'Emperor's Wrath; replaced your Lord Scourge, correct?"

Amrell nodded. "That's the one," he said. "Apparently, he's also leader of the elite squadron 'Fury Team.' They're sort of the Imperial response to the Coruscant Aegis."

"Huh," Hethus said appraisingly. "They got anyone as charming as me?"

Amrell rolled his eyes. "We know as little about the members of that team as we hope they know about us," he said. "We know there are four members. Two are Sith. We think another is a Mandalorian. The fourth... we have no idea."

"And that's one thing you want to find out from this Darth Pyrus, right?" Risha guessed.

Amrell nodded. "Among other things," he said. "Taking the Wrath out of play will be a serious blow to the Empire in any case. They say he's as powerful as any member of the Dark Council."

Hethus frowned. "Does this 'they' have any idea how powerful that means?"

Amrell shrugged. "I'm going to be there in person," he said. "It'll be dangerous of course, but he can't really be any worse than the Emperor, can he?"

"And Ardun Kothe—that's the SIS agent—has Jedi training," Kira added. "And I'll be there too. This Sith won't stand a chance."

Hethus shrugged. "I hope you know what you're doing," he said. "Just be careful."

"I will," Hethus promised. "But I can't exactly keep the man aboard the Greenblade, and I can't take him either to Tython or Coruscant."

"So you want to use Port Nowhere," Hethus finished. "Fine, makes sense. On one condition: I want to be on the station while all this is happening."

Amrell nodded. "Of course; it's your station."

"Exactly," Hethus agreed. "Can't have you people blowing it up while I'm away."

Hethus Meiron was not a good man. Others might disagree. They were probably wrong.

Good men didn't lie to their wives and friends. Good men didn't kidnap their kid sister. Good men didn't pretend not to know their siblings.

God men didn't betray their government and family.

Hethus sighed and got out of bed. Risha didn't wake.

He quietly crept out into the hold and surveyed the cargo. There were a few crates of armor in one corner, for a drop they were going to make in a few days on Ord Mantell, resupplying the troopers there. There was a shipment of focus crystals headed for Corellia for the weapons factories that were finally starting to function again, now that the planet had been retaken from the Empire.

And tucked away in a small lockbox, hidden in plain sight, were two artifacts Hethus was carrying only for himself.

He crossed the room, knelt by the box, and punched the code into the digital lock. The box clicked, and he removed the lid.

Before him were two identical lightsabers. They were simple things, cobbled together patchwork from whatever parts he'd been able to scrounge together over his time, but they functioned.

Unbidden, his right hand reached down and grasped one. Then he stopped.

His teeth clenched.

With a visible effort he unclasped his fingers and pulled them away from the hilt. He closed the box and locked it again.

He sat back with a heavy sigh.

If I took that thing out now, I just know Corso would walk in two seconds later, he thought ruefully. Explaining to the kid why I have a pair of red 'sabers would not be a fun conversation.

Hethus Meiron was not a Sith Lord or a Jedi. He wasn't even much more Force-Sensitive than most. But he knew his way around a lightsaber, and sometimes, when no one was aboard the ship with him, or he was groundside on his own, he would reach out and touch the Force, just to remind himself that it was there.

He brought a hand to his face and rubbed his tired eyes.

Something's happening.

He knew it. He could feel it, if only slightly, through his atrophied connection to the Force. That worried him more than just knowing that the Force was sending out warnings; if he was feeling it, then the Force must be practically screaming… or it must be calling to him in particular.

He didn't know which was more unsettling.

Sometimes he wished he could come clean with someone; Amrell, maybe. The Zabrak Master would be good to talk to about this. He'd be able to confirm or deny what Hethus was feeling, and help him figure out what was going on.

But if there was one flaw to Amrell's character, it was his tendency to categorize people, and Sith were a very strong and clear category. Hethus didn't want to be tarred with that brush…

…And more importantly, he couldn't let it get near Vanna.

Sometimes he felt more like a spy than a smuggler. At least smugglers could come clean with their closest allies.

A smuggler always had people watching his back. No one was ever close enough to a spy to watch theirs.

He stood in an impulsive, sudden motion and left the hold. He walked down the corridor until he reached an escape pod, turned on his heel, and started back. He wasn't going anywhere, but sitting still made him paranoid.

Why sit still, he thought wryly, when I could keep running away?

He'd thought a few times about going back to Dromund Kaas. Not to apply for citizenship or rejoin the Empire, of course, but just to try and find out what had happened, in the end. His disappearance would not have gone unnoticed by his father, and while Arteis might not miss the weaker of his sons, he would certainly miss the powerful daughter he had only just started to mold.

Had he blamed Nellya? Had the family been split by his flight? Had Hethus' mother even survived?

And where was Mysvaleer now? Training under a Darth, no doubt; he had likely been named a Lord already. He would be about twenty-six now, and would likely be named a Darth within a few years, if he was as powerful as Hethus remembered.

The pilot shuddered slightly, rubbing his arms to ward off a sudden chill. An image swam in his mind, half-formed, of an eleven-year-old boy he barely remembered, dirty-blond hair shifting slightly in a breeze. In the boy's hand was a red lightsaber, and in his head were two eyes that Hethus remembered looking coldly at him from across a Force choke…

Hethus gritted his teeth and shook himself roughly, like a nexu shaking off water. Mysvaleer was gone, as surely as if he was dead. Hethus knew this; had known for years.

There was no such thing as a good Sith. Mysvaleer would have been shuffled off to Korriban, and there he would have been replaced by the same monster that raised them.

Mom was an exception, said a traitorous little voice in his head.

She wasn't Sith, Hethus answered shortly. She was a woman born to a Sith family who, like me, was too weak to be trained.

Hethus stopped and realized his idle feet had taken him to the cockpit. He looked out, surveying the stars arrayed before him. Without even looking at the map to his right, he was able to pick out the Coruscant system coreward of the Kestrel, the slight orange tint of the aging star, coupled with its proximity to the great central mass of light that was the core, giving it away. Rimward of their position he could see the blue-white illumination of the Kaas system, the small, cold star only able to warm the chilly Imperial capitol into habitability with the help of ancient terraforming technology, long since lost to the ages.

The stars were innumerable, and navigation in space without a computer was functionally impossible, but this was Hethus' home. He'd lived in space since he was ten, and on this ship since he'd bought it at sixteen with the money from that heist over Taris. He knew the sky like almost no other. He couldn't navigate, per say, but he could always find his way to two or three key worlds.

He sat heavily in the pilot's chair. They were out of hyperspace, floating in the void away from any planet. They had nowhere to be, and had seen no reason to approach any potential boarders or conflict without a destination.

Now Hethus had one. He consulted the galaxy map and brought the Kestrel to bear.

"Come one, old girl," he said to the ship, his voice a low, almost loving murmur. "Let's go see what this 'home' we've found is like."

He plotted a course for Dubrillion and entered hyperspeed.

The inertial dampers he'd picked up a few months back did their work, and the jerk of breaking the warp barrier was barely enough to put a gentle pressure on his neck. He felt confident that none of the crew would have woken.

He leaned back in the synthleather chair and looked out at the fractal light of the warp. A smile touched his lips.

People, especially people who worked aboard starships, tended to take warp travel for granted. He was guilty of it himself. The ability to travel faster than light was one that had been formative to galactic history. It had allowed for the creation of extrasolar alliances, and for the fighting of extrasolar wars. It was the foundation for all interspecies communication and interaction. It was impossible for any citizen of the Galaxy, whether Republic, Empire, or anything in between, to even begin to imagine a time before lightspeed and the hyperdrive. Most people didn't even realize that such a time had once existed.

But Hethus, whose livelihood depended on keeping up-to-date on breakthroughs in starship technology, knew better. Lightspeed, like all other starship technology, had been discovered. There was a time, long ago, when the black was utterly empty. No hyperlanes, no starships, nothing. When no battle fleets, no freighters, no passenger liners, and no smugglers had wandered the stars as easily as a man on foot could wander a planet, or easier.

He liked, sometimes, to imagine what life must have been like, back then, in starships so slow that their travel time, even between two planets within a system, could be measured in days. He wondered how the first humans, leaving their still-developing planet of Coruscant, had reacted to finding out that there were other peoples, other species, in the stars who were just as powerful in the Force as they were, or more so.

He imagined what it must have been like to live in the generation that invented the hyperdrive; to be alive to see the sudden transformation of the Galaxy from an impassable, empty, hostile sea of nothingness into a bustling network of activity. And it would have been sudden; the moment the hyperdrive was invented, it would have been everywhere, sold to every people the developer could find to facilitate interaction.

He looked over at the great barrel-shaped casing that housed one of the Kestrel's thrusters and sighed.

The hyperdrive had been invented, and subsequently shared, so that its makers could save themselves from solitude. Hethus, looking back out at the fractal lights of transit, wished he could do the same.

There was no feeling in the galaxy quite like being in deep space with only oneself, one's three-year-old sister, a barely-spaceworthy junker, and half the collective galactic navy intending to fry said junker if possible.

Getting out of Imperial territory, however, was less difficult than it might have been. The ten-year-old pilot had half expected the collective Empire to come down on him like a ton of bricks before he'd left Kaas' atmosphere, but that hadn't happened, and from there it was just a matter of getting out of the Seat of the Empire and into neutral ground for refueling and then contacting the Jedi Temple.

Of course, that just opened other avenues for nerves.

"Let me get this straight," said the Nautolan customs officer slowly. "You're a refugee from the Empire, right?"

Hethus sighed. Were all of Nar Shaddaa's Republic agents this slow? "Yes," he answered, exaggeratedly slowing his voice. "And my sister is force-sensitive." He shrugged so that Vanna, on his shoulders, was jostled. She giggled.

"And you want to give her to the Jedi." The Nautolan was studying his sister like he'd never seen such a thing before.

"Yes."

"Why?" the alien asked blankly.

Hethus looked up at the dark sky, the clouds lit from below by neon lights of various colors. "Have you ever met a Sith?" he asked.

"Nah. Heard it's a cushy job though."

"And being a Jedi isn't?" Hethus asked him with a raised brow.

The Nautolan snorted. "Have you ever met a Jedi?" he asked.

Hethus blinked. "Ah," he said. "I see. I'd rather her not be a wealthy noble dictator than be dead."

The Nautolan nodded amiably. "Right, fair enough," he said. "Empire threatening people's lives, now that's familiar territory. Follow me; I'll get the two of you bunked somewhere and then I'll get a line to the Jedi temple."

"Thank you."

It seemed only minutes after they'd settled into the room that the Nautolan came back in.

"Well," he said, looking wry, "Apparently the actual Grand Master thinks this is important, so that was a surprise."

Hethus blinked at him. "You're joking," he said flatly.

"Nope," the Nautolan said with a snort. "I wish; she's scary. She wants to talk to you."

Hethus sighed to hide the sudden rush of terror. "Well," he said lightly, "wouldn't do to keep the headsman waiting."

He picked up Vanna and followed the Nautolan down the hall and into a large, cylindrical room, dominated by a central holocommunicator. The blue image it formed was of a woman in her early forties, whose face, though smooth, seemed somehow aged with care.

"Thank you, Officer Narm," she said to the Nautolan. "Could we have a few minutes of privacy?"

The Nautolan nodded, and then bowed, seeming uncertain as to what was expected of him. "Uh, of course, Grand Master," he said. Then with an apologetic glance at Hethus, he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Hethus took a deep breath. "Grand Master," he said, keenly aware of the Imperial lilt to his voice. "I wasn't… I didn't expect you to…"

"Deal with this personally?" the woman finished for him, unsmiling. "Normally, I likely wouldn't. Then again, nothing about this situation is normal, is it?"

Hethus swallowed. "What do you know?" he asked thickly.

"Little," the woman admitted, her voice betraying nothing. "The Force told me I would be receiving a call, and that it required a personal hand. Why, exactly, I don't know. Perhaps you can enlighten me?"

Hethus looked at her, Vanna, on his shoulders, held his head tightly.

"I want to put my sister into the care of the Jedi," he said slowly, clearly. "It's the only place I know she'll be safe from the Sith."

"The Sith don't come into Republic territory, as a general rule," the Grand Master said coldly. "What makes this girl so special that they would hunt her down?"

"My father would," Hethus said quietly. "And if not him… they'd still look for her. And me."

"Answer the question," the woman demanded sharply. "Why?"

"Because we're nobility!" Hethus retorted angrily. "Because daddy dearest is a kriffing psychopath, and I don't want my little sister to turn out anything like him!"

Like Mysvaleer will. Hethus looked away, one hand coming up to claw at his aching chest. Please be okay, big brother. Even as the thought—the hope—formed, he already knew it was vain. Mysvaleer was Imperial and Sith, and if they ever met again it would be Hethus' last day alive.

"My name is Hethus Meiron," he said quietly. "Second son of Earl Arteis Meiron of Dromund Kaas. If I'd stayed there much longer, I'm afraid my father would have killed my sister." He looked back at the Jedi, heedless of the tears in his eyes. "Please," he begged. "You have to help me."

She studied him, an odd look in her eye. Then she sighed. "A ship will be deployed to Nar Shaddaa today," she said. "It should be there sometime tomorrow. It'll take you to the Jedi Temple on Tython. We'll talk more there."

He sagged. "Thank you, Grand Master," he whispered, bowing on instinct.

"Don't thank me yet," said the Grand Master grimly. "There's still work to do." She studied him for a moment. "My name's Satele Shan," she said. "'Grand Master' is cumbersome. 'Master Satele' will do fine."

Hethus blinked at her. "Shan?" he asked slowly.

She frowned at him. "Don't go there," she advised.

"Yes, Master Satele."

She snorted. "You learn fast," she said. "Sure you don't want to join your sister as an apprentice?"

Hethus swallowed. "I'm not sensitive enough," he said.

"That's for other people to judge," said Master Satele. "Sorry to keep you, though; you must be exhausted. Send in Officer Narm and get some sleep."

Hethus nodded. "Thank you, Master Satele," he said, and left.

Of course, sleep was hard to come by; taking care of a three-year-old will do that even to an adult, even with a child as well-behaved as Vanna. Hethus was only ten. But he was feeling much better when the ship came the next day.

"Hethus, correct?" said a brown-robed Jedi as he disembarked the droid-piloted ship. The Togruta's voice was businesslike, almost disinterested. Hethus had a feeling Master Satele hadn't told him the details.

Hethus nodded absently, holding Vanna tightly to him as he looked around the spaceport… if it could be called that. It was just a small, open-air dock on the edge of a cliff. The world he found himself on was lush and green in a verdant, bright way quite unlike Dromund Kaas.

"Wait here for a moment, please," said the man, palming a communicator and speaking into it. "Master Satele, your visitors are here."

"Thank you, Master Quane," said the woman's voice from the speaker. "I'll be there momentarily. Please have them wait for me."

The Togruta nodded at Hethus. "You heard her," he said, pulling out a datapad. "You don't mind if I work while you wait, do you?"

Hethus shook his head mutely, looking around and drinking in the greenery around them while Vanna played with his hair.

A minute passed, two, and then there was the sound of a pressure door sliding open.

"Hethus," said the Grand Master as she approached. "Please, follow me."

He did. The outside of Jedi Temple was a veritable garden. She led him across a courtyard of emerald grasses, dotted with circular, enclosed training pads and split by a cobblestone pathway that led up to the great structure of the Temple behind.

The building itself was a strange, mushroomy thing; ornate and built of carefully molded durasteel, painted in earth-tone colors. A pair of Jedi initiates in their teens, clad in long brown robes, glanced at him and the baby in his arms curiously as he passed them on his way into the main doors.

The inside of the temple was staggering. A vast, high chamber, cylindrical, and bordered by twin spiraling walkways up towards the ring-like second floor. In the center of the room, what looked like a massive holocron of some kind floated in the air above a hoverpad; a twelve-sided gold and brown monument to the Jedi's long history.

For a moment, Hethus was staggered by a sense of awe. These were the people his had been trying to destroy for generations; millennia, even. This gorgeous temple was the greatest haven and hearth for the people who had defended the Republic from the Empire for as long as either had existed.

It was humbling, and also more than a little terrifying. If these are the Jedi, what must Korriban be like?

Satele rested a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Welcome to the Jedi Temple," she said, not unkindly. "Are you sure you don't want to stay?"

Hethus closed his eyes. If he was honest, some part of him did. "What am I going to do once I leave?" he asked quietly. "How will I survive? I'm a ten-year-old kid half a galaxy away from my parents. As bad as Dad was, at least he fed me."

"We can feed you," Satele said firmly. "Feed you, clothe you, house you."

He sighed. Then he shook his head. "I haven't told you everything," he confessed. "You don't want me as a Jedi."

She considered him for a moment, her face impassive. "Come," she said. "We'll talk in my study."

She led him down a side passage and into a small, cozy room. The door shut behind them.

She sat in a simple chair behind a desk and turned to face him. "Speak," she ordered. "What haven't you told me?"

He swallowed. "One time…" he began, and stopped. "My father was hurting Vanna," he explained. "He was… she wasn't going to die, probably. He was just… torturing her. Because she was a daughter, because she'd displeased him, because he wanted to… I don't know. And I… I couldn't let him do that. I had to stop him. I was… I was so angry."

He shook his head. "I don't remember much. I know my mom saved me… but I used Force Lighting on him, and then he turned on me."

She was looking at him gravely, a slight frown on her face and a cool empathy in her eyes. "I'm sorry that happened to you," she said gently.

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter now," he said firmly. "I'm never going back there. But… well, you Jedi reject anger, right? I've used the Force in anger before. And that was the only time I really did; other than that, the best I can manage is being a little bit better with a speeder. I don't… I don't think I can let go of that."

"You could try," Satele suggested, but there was a wry note to her voice.

He shook his head. "I don't want to," he said. "I've been powerless my whole life except the one moment I got angry enough to fight back. I don't… I can't go back to that."

She nodded. "I understand," she said simply. "I trust you won't be going back to the Sith. We'll find you lodgings somewhere offworld. If not being a Jedi, what would you like to do?"

Hethus shrugged helplessly. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I guess I'd like to fly?"

"There's a flight school on Coruscant," Satele suggested. "It's a boarding school, so they'll put you up. I can give you the opportunity to take the entrance exam, and house you until you're accepted."

Hethus blinked at her. "Are you serious?"

"Very," she said with a slight smile. "We Jedi aren't quite the barbarians you may be used to, young man."

He smiled back. "Thank you," he said earnestly. "I… I won't forget this, Master Satele."

She chuckled. "Think nothing of it," she said. Then she considered him. "I do have one request," she said slowly. "And I understand it will be difficult, but it's important."

Hethus nodded. "I'm listening," he said.

"I must ask you not to reveal your relationship to Vanna once she's grown," Satele said softly. "If we are to train her, it must be as a foundling. Neither she, nor anyone else, must ever become aware of her heritage. That means you must never reveal yourself, lest she wring the truth from you. Can you do that?"

He twitched. Swallowed.

"She'll be safe?" he asked.

"She will," Satele promised.

He closed his eyes. "I'll do it," he swore.

And the rest is history.

A/N: As with all my writing, reviews and comments are appreciated but not solicited. I will respond to any that merit response. Thank you, and I'll see you when I finish the chapter for Yskalan, the Sith Inquisitor.

Be advised that there is now a SpaceBattles mirror for this story. It may update slightly more frequently in smaller chunks, and-if it gets to be more active than it has been thus far-may become a place for discussion of the story. You are all welcome to join in over there.