The Wookiees' camp was several klicks north from where Qui-Gon and Ben had killed the gundark. Apparently, they had been tracking the beast for several hours when it had picked up the Jedi's scent from upwind.

«As grateful as I am to see you - and that you have killed another one of those dreadful things,» Attichitcuk was saying as they picked their way through dense foliage, «I'll admit I'm disappointed that we were not able to follow it further. We need to know where they roost.»

"It is a true infestation, then," Qui-Gon said, watching his feet carefully as they descended down a steep embankment. Ahead of him, the Wookiee leader nodded.

«When we arrived, we thought we'd chosen land far away from their hunting grounds. But no sooner had my son Chewbacca and his agemate Shoran arrived than four gundarks attacked our camp at once. We were able to take them down on our own. But it has triggered a never ending war with the beasts. I don't know if gundarks hold grudges, but these ones might.»

Beside Qui-Gon, Ben spoke up a dry tone, "I do not believe gundarks have the brainpower for that sort of thing, though what they lack in biology they make up for in sheer obstinance. Perhaps your camp is in their territory after all," he mused, rubbing his chin and wincing slightly when he realized he had no beard. He drew his hand away. "Then again, as far as we know, they could consider this entire moon their territory."

"Whatever the case," said Qui-Gon in that indelible, encouraging calm that had defined Ben's adolescent years, "we will do all that we can to help eradicate the pests - at least from this part of the moon. How many Wookiees do you have to spare?"

Attichitcuk eyed the three Wookiees that had accompanied them, the one up ahead and the two flanking on either side. «Just fourteen. We had more, not so many cycles ago.» He looked down at the ground, weighed down by some invisible burden. «One gundark, four, even, is no match for a pair of Wookiees, but they haven't stopped coming. Even our strongest are beginning to feel the strain. If we lose any more, the beasts might win after all.»

"It will not come to that," Master Jinn assured gently as they plodded along. "You've been tracking them," he said briskly, "what have you learned?"

Attichitcuk ducked under a low branch and when he came up, the sadness in his face had been replaced by cool determination. «They don't travel in packs. They seem to network with their own kind, perhaps even nest with them, but they hunt alone. We don't know the lay of this land well enough to say where the most likely spots are.»

"Gundarks nest in caves, do they not?" Ben asked. "Have you found any cavern complexes nearby?"

«Small ones,» Attichituk replied, «None big enough for the monsters we'ves seen. We're still looking, but we're running out of time. These forests are uncharted. The Republic had the moon surveyed by satellite years ago, but those maps are not detailed enough for what we need.»

"Are you keeping your own maps, then?"

«Yes, a clanmember, Khaati, is our cartographer. She can show you what we know.» The Wookiee pointed to a bright green spot coming into view. «Our camp is just there.»


Set into modest, brightly lit forest clearing, the camp was small and understaffed. A Wookiee holding a bowcaster by the perimeter nodded to them as they passed. Upon entering the camp, no longer confined to the dense wood, the arriving party spread out. Qui-Gon and Ben stayed close together, taking in the sights of the camp.

There were four main prefab buildings which seemed to be operations and facilities, while a dozen or so smaller huts, little more than tents in their own right, lay farther off in the grassy clearing. A large, unidentifiable insect flew past Ben's nose. Qui-Gon smiled. Ben sighed.

Oblivious to the divergence of tastes going on behind him, Attichitcuk waved the two Jedi to join him as he entered one of the large, domed shelters. «In here,» he told them. «We can show you what we know.»

Although it was sunny out, inside the prefab shelters, the shades had been drawn to allow for the large holotable.

«Our camp is here,» the cartographer called Khaati said, pointing to a large yellow marker on the rotating holomap. A scattered mass of blue dots appeared on the terrain, concentrated most densely around the camp. «These are all of the gundarks we've seen,» she said, and tapped at the controls. Approximately half of the blue dots turned red. «And these are the ones we've killed.»

Ben rubbed at his chin - he had never been aware that it was such a routine habit, until now that his beard was gone and the sensation shocked him every time. He fiddled with his hand and eventually thrust both thumbs through his belt. "This one here," he pointed to a red dot some klicks away, against a sharp ridge above the valley. "That is the one we killed today, is it not?"

«It is. We spotted it first here, just a klick away from our eastern perimeter. We tracked it to where you killed it. We've tracked two other gundarks going in a similar direction.»

"So you believe the nest could be somewhere past this point," Qui-Gon said, pointing to the woods beyond where the gundark had been heading.

«We don't know. That's the problem, Master Jinn. You see, we've observed gundarks travelling in all directions from the camp. It could be that one direction is their hunting grounds, another is their nest, or perhaps they have more than one of each. But we have no way of knowing, not until we can follow one all the way to its destination.»

"It's very hard to follow a gundark unseen," Ben concluded.

«And once seen, it is very hard to leave them alive and escape with your own life,» Khaati said. She shook her head. «You see why we have so little data to go on.»

"How long have you been attempting to track them?" Qui-Gon asked, stroking his beard idly in thought. Ben wondered privately if his master was where he'd picked up the habit.

«Three months, now,» Attichitcuk stepped forward to examine the map. «Killing them all as they come at us is a dangerous, risky business. Even for us. Constant vigilance isn't enough. We must be proactive in hunting down our enemy if we have any chance of long-term survival.»

"Of course," Qui-Gon put his hand down, away from his chin. "Perhaps we can be of some help. Jedi senses may aid your efforts in tracking."

Attichitcuk grinned. «One of the many reasons I am glad for your aid, Master Jedi.»

Qui-Gon gave him a friendly grin. Khaati deactivated the holotable even as Ben stood studying it, and lifted the shades to let in sunlight. Drawn from his own thoughts, Ben looked up to see Qui-Gon and Attichitcuk walking side by side out of the shelter, ducking under the low door frame.

"Aside from the gundarks, how are operations proceeding?" Qui-Gon was asking, squinting into the mid-day sun and looking around at the shelters set up around in the clearing. Ben jogged to catch up as Attichitcuk responded,

«Slow but steady. The vegetation here is similar to our home on Kashyyyk, and the soil will be good for our plants as well as our livestock. We already have a greenhouse set up, just there,» He pointed to one of the larger prefab shelters, this one outfitted with clear flimsiplast on the roof, «It yields us a large percentage of our food. And over there, that's where we'll keep the bantha and greyclimbers for meat and milk. Unfortunately, we can't transport any here until we're sure the gundarks will not snap them up like they do everything else.» The Wookiee sighed. «Those beasts have caused us a great deal of trouble. It's no wonder your Jedi were driven away from their temple eons ago.»

"The gundarks are an imported species," Ben said, "and they've taken over."

Attichitcuk chuckled. «I suppose I cannot begrudge them their success - after all, what am I? But aside from gundarks, there's hardly any wildlife to speak of. They'll be hunting each other, soon. Their blind greed for land and progeny have upset the balance of this whole moon.»

Balance was, of course, something Jedi sought to uphold in all things. "We will do what we can to rectify the situation," Qui-Gon assured. "At least, in this region."

«Of course.»

They walked several long strides in silence, worn grit paths crunching under their boots and claws. In the quiet, Ben was struck by a memory.

"Attichitcuk," He said, rather suddenly, "Before we left the temple, one of our brothers there mentioned that they've spotted unusual activity in some sectors of the sphere. Do you know what he was referring to?"

The Wookiee tilted his head in thought. «There is not much to know. I know of what he spoke, that is, that there have been unusual movements in the forest, but the Jedi have been too understaffed to investigate, and we've been too preoccupied with the gundarks to look into it.»

"I see," Ben frowned, mind caught on a bizarre feeling. "What, then, made you aware of this activity at all?"

Attichitcuk waved a paw, and turned toward one of the large, common shelters. «I'll show you. Come with me.»

They followed the Wookiee into the hut, which seemed to be a supply stash; electrical equipment, generators, motors, a spare speederbike, and extra bowcasters. He went to a corner and rummaged around for something, which he eventually found and plonked onto the tall worktable sitting in the middle of the room. «We found this shortly after we first arrived here.»

The Jedi approached the table to examine the object. It was a power cell, damaged and likely irreparable. The glass reactor case had been broken, stained a faint green by the lost coolant. Its metal parts still shone dully; it was recently made, and recently lost. A cool, unpleasant feeling fell over Ben's senses.

"You found this as soon as you arrived?" Qui-Gon asked, examining the object. "It's not one of yours?"

«No. But we're not sure whose it could be - the surveyors never actually landed on the moon's surface,» Attichitcuk told them.

Ben was staring at the thing, vision tunnelling to absorb every detail of its structure; the three reinforcing rods, the triangular base and the spots for rivets, the capped glass and rusted coils. He'd seen this cell before. Not this particular one, but a thousand just like it. He'd seen it… where? Anakin had shown it to him on more than one occasion, he remembered. But what those occasions had been, and what events had precipitated the need to understand such technology was beyond Ben's recollection.

"Ben?" called Qui-Gon, deliberately. Ben shook himself out of thought and looked up at the other man. By the look on his face, Ben realized that it was not the first time he'd called his name. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he said, perhaps too quickly. "Sorry, I was…thinking. It seems familiar."

«You recognize it?» Attichitcuk perked up.

"Not exactly," Ben took the device from Qui-Gon to turn it over in his hands. "I'm not sure." He studied it while the other two watched. There was no insignia, no markings, no inscriptions. His mind wandered back to the talk of 'unusual activity', and brushed up against memories of what Qui-Gon had told him after returning from this mission. Unfortunately, the words were still fog in his mind. "You may not be the only sentients on this moon after all."

«Chief!» A Wookiee burst through the door, «Gundark, just outside camp!»

Attichitcuk straightened to attention. «Has it seen us yet? Can we track it?»

«I'm afraid it's tracked us, sir,» replied the Wookiee, «and it's hungry.»

Both Jedi drew their sabers. Attichitcuk took up a bowcaster and sighed with anger and a leader's sense of duty. «We'd best be quick, then.»

This gundark was smaller than the one they'd encountered before. Between the Wookiee's practiced response and the Jedi's swift saberwork, the beast stood little chance.

"They must be getting desperate," Ben said to Qui-Gon, who was wincing at the pathetic creature; he'd been the one to deal the final blow. "One this small shouldn't have tried to pick off and entire camp by itself."

"I thought you said they were obstinate creatures?"

"Obstinate, yes, suicidal, not quite." He turned away to let the butchers do their work. "I hadn't realized the infestation would be this bad."

"I never mentioned it?" Qui-Gon asked, dry humor running sour.

"Maybe you did," Ben snapped, mind wrestling with images of the gundark, of the power cell, of Qui-Gon pouring tea in their apartment and talking for hours. Nothing came of it. "Damn my memory."

«Masters Jedi,» Attichitcuk interrupted before Qui-Gon could prod the apparent amnesiac any further, «The beast left a trail on it's way into our camp. We must hurry before it goes cold.»

"Of course," Qui-Gon turned, and brushed Ben's arm as he passed. "Focus on the moment, padawan, not your memories."

Ben stood there for a moment, frowning. That was the second time Qui-Gon had called him that. He hadn't the heart to correct him. "Of course, master," he mumbled to himself, and trudged on after the tracking party. Force willing, their tracking would lead them to their goal sooner rather than later.


The trail went cold after just a few short clicks. Despite this, they kept at it for days, trudging up and down the forest hunting for any sign of gundarks, living, angry, hungry, or otherwise.

"You know," Ben muttered to Qui-Gon one afternoon as they hiked up a viney slope, "You always told me that when one goes looking for trouble, one usually finds it." Upon cresting the hill, he looked out across the lifeless forest and sighed. "But then again, I suppose you never included a timetable in that maxim."

Qui-Gon, who was also growing weary of this game, had sighed with him. "All in good time," he'd said, half to himself. "The Force will provide a solution." The unspoken 'eventually' was mutually understood.

A whole week went by, and several more days after that, and still they had no leads save for the trail that the juvenile gundark had plotted on his way to their camp. The dots on the holomap yielded no helpful patterns or new insight, and every day that went by without a gundark sighting put the camp occupants more and more on edge.

"Is that stubble I see?" Qui-Gon asked one morning, smirking at his companion as he brewed their bitter, field ration tea. Ben had glowered over his breakfast.

"Not much of one," he'd said. Past puberty, Ben had never suffered from the inability to grow facial hair. However, the hair on his face was even more persistently ginger and fine than the hair on his head, and was difficult to see until it was longer.

"I thought you wanted it back before we return to Coruscant?"

"I do. And at this rate, I'll have it down to my chest before we return to Coruscant." He drank his tea and winced at the subpar flavor.

Qui-Gon had chuckled, but didn't try a rebuttal. His sentiments mirrored Ben's too closely for petty debate. He drank his tea, and winced as Ben had.

"Having fun reconnecting with nature, Master Jinn?" The younger man wanted to know. It was Qui-Gon's turn to glower.

The following day, they made a breakthrough. They found not one, but two gundarks on the trail.

"What are they doing?" Ben whispered the question as they watched from afar. The gundarks ahead seemed to be doing nothing much at all, rummaging around for tubers and burrowing prey. "I thought you said gundarks did not travel together?" He asked of Attichitcuk.

The Wookiee leader shrugged. «There is much we do not know about them, Master Kenobi. Besides, they must travel together sometimes - where would the little ones come from?»

Ben ticked an eyebrow, conceding the point.

They followed the pair further into the forest than they had with any other creature. Apparently distracted by each others company (and competition for food, if the mealtime brawls were anything to go by) the two gundarks remained oblivious to their sentient pursuers. It was ironic, Ben thought, how two gundarks could become less trouble than one.

«We're getting close to their nest,» Attichitcuk had said to their camp on the fourth night of their pursuit, «I can feel it.»

Ben and Qui-Gon had considered the notion for themselves. The Force was an ally in many ways, in sensing life and its directions. But on a moon so covered in life, in plants, insects, gundarks and Wookiees alike, the motions and patterns of migration were hard to decipher. "Perhaps," Qui-Gon had said somewhat less confidently than his Wookiee colleague, "If we are, we will have to be more vigilant than ever."

It was timely advice. The following morning, just as the dew was beginning to fade from the ground, the wind shifted and the gundarks' nostrils filled with the scent of Wookiee and human. As one, their heads jerked up, eyes turning this way and that until they landed on the bush that concealed the enemy. One growled low in his throat.

Qui-Gon ignited his saber and burst from the cover, charging at the beast with exaggerated motions. "Don't shoot them!" he yelled at his bewildered comrades, "scare them! It'll keep them running back to their nest!"

It was a viable plan, and Attichitcuk was more than happy to use it. With great bellowing war cries, he and five Wookiees leaped from their cover and charged. Ben brought up the rear, lightsaber blazing to life in a blinding blue flash.

The element of surprise was an advantage even against gundarks. Upon seeing six heavily armed Wookiees and two humans wielding fire-hot lightsticks, the gundarks screamed some wordless obscenities at them, turned tail, and fled. Not wasting a moment, the sentient crew followed in hot pursuit.

Leaves and branches smacked at their sides and their arms as they ran, keeping the dark red fur of the gundarks in their sights. Suddenly, the two monstrous bodies diverged, one veering left and the other right.

"Attichitcuk, you follow that one!" Ben pointed to the one that had turned right - south. "Qui-Gon, and I will track this one."

«Starspeed, Jedi!» bid the clan leader as the two parties split.

The Jedi chased the gundark further and further into the forest, wasting no energy on talking or planning. If ever the beast looked ready to retaliate, they would nip at it's heels with their sabers, compelling it to continue on its headlong flight. The Force augmented their endurance, legs pumping, chests heaving long after a normal human's would have given way. The gundark had no such luck. They could hear it's labored pants as it galloped along, growling occasionally, swerving and slowing in indecisive patterns.

"Wait," Ben called, shooting out an arm to call for a halt. The pair decelerated together, breathing heavily. "It's tired, if we push it any more it'll try to make a stand. We need it to keep going," Ben explained between breaths. "Let it go. We'll follow from further back."

Qui-Gon nodded, catching his breath. "Good thinking."

They tracked it for another hour. Then, out of nowhere, light screeched up ahead and the gundark bellowed in pain.

"Blasterfire," Qui-Gon said, drawing his saber. Beside him, Ben was momentarily frozen in place, muscles twitching against his sleeves, his too-soft, gauntlet-less sleeves.

"No," he said, uncomfortable flashbacks crowding his senses, "that's cannon fire."

"Cannon fire?" Qui-Gon frowned at him, "are you sure?"

If he could have, Ben would've forgotten the sound years ago. "It's a very distinctive sound," He said.

Another blast, and a great, creaking thud told them that the gundark was dead.

They approached in crouched ready stances, sabers-drawn, eyes alert. Ben was shifting his hands against his saber, trying to remember how to hold it comfortably without gloves on.

The gundark's corpse came into view first, a gaping, smoking hole in its throat. Qui-Gon winced and looked on it with sympathy, but Ben was too busy looking around them to care. "There," he pointed. Through the trees, the silhouette of a massive ion cannon loomed.

"What in the hels is that doing here?" Qui-Gon asked, eyeing the gundark.

"Unusual activity…" Ben was muttering, eyes growing wide as revelation dawned. "That powercell, I knew I recognized it from somewhere. It's from a droid."

"Droid? What kind of droid?"

Ben turned to stare at Qui-Gon, past Qui-Gon, to the realm of memory surfacing in his mind. "That's what I forgot," He said suddenly, breath quickening, "that's what you told me, what I forgot, it was the droids - the Wookiees weren't the only ones here, the damned Federation is here, too." He snuck closer underneath the trees to look at the canon from afar.

"The Trade Federation?" Qui-Gon asked in a whisper, not understanding Ben's alarm. "The Neimoidians, you mean?" He snuck up beside Ben.

"Yes, they wanted this moon, during negotiations, they fought with the Coalition over colonization rights." The image of Sheev Palpatine rose unbidden in Ben's mind, eyes cold, smile wickedly smug. He shook his head. "Back then, last time… You told me they'd set up illegal warehouses here, something they claimed was a storage outpost for their goods in transit. You stumbled across some of their security droids by mistake, that's what kept you so long here, that's what you spent so long talking about."

The Jedi crept along the forest floor until the soil dropped off into an expansive cove. Hiding in the foliage, they stared grimly at their discovery. The cove was filled with massive, thick-walled durasteel structures, each crawling with droids. Cannons lined the high cliffs of the cove, and every droid on the ground wielded a blaster. They marched in formation, their clanking tan bodies moving in unnerving unison.

"Those aren't security droids," Qui-Gon whispered, "And those aren't warehouses. They're bunkers."

Ben could not speak. He could not fathom what he was seeing, what he was feeling; it was the war all over again. It was the beginning, all over again. Palpatine's plans, already coming to fruition - and Obi-Wan was still a padawan. Had they overlooked it for this long, the last time?

"Hey!" exclaimed a painfully familiar voicebox, "What are you doing-"

Ben stood, drew his saber, and decapitated the droid before it could finish speaking.

"B1 battle droids," he told Qui-Gon, taking the severed droid head and skewering it with his saber for good measure. "Manufactured by the Trade Federation."

"You know them?"

"I've fought too many of them not to. We need to report this to the council. Now." Ben could not tamp down the panic rising up from his gut.

"What are they doing here?" Qui-Gon was still watching the bustling cove below.

"Amassing an army. A droid army. But… it's too soon. They aren't supposed to be here. They aren't supposed be anywhere. Not yet." Ben gulped. But there were battle droids here. And if they were here, there were sure to be more elsewhere. Where? Geonosis? Naboo? Coruscant?

"What on earth could the Trade Federation want with a droid army?" Qui-Gon asked in confusion.

"To take over the galaxy, that's what," Ben snapped, slinking away. "But they're not the puppet masters. We need to contact the Council. I need to speak with Mace Windu, now."

"Ben, what are you talking ab-"

PEWSZZING! A red blaster bold ricocheted off a tree branch above Ben's shoulder, and he ignited his saber. A barrage of shots arrived in short succession, beating out a path moving toward Qui-Gon's head.

"Get down!" Ben yelled, stepping up to deflect the fire.

Qui-Gon flattened himself, but rose back up again as soon as the danger had passed. "Well this would explain who's been driving the gundarks toward Attichitcuk's camp," He said, as another round of blaster fire traced a burning line toward him.

"Damn it Anakin, I said get down!" Ben shoved the man to the ground. One bolt missed its mark by centimetres, leaving a scorching hole in the tree trunk where Qui-Gon's head had been.

"What did you call me?" Qui-Gon asked, bewildered. Ben was not listening.

"These droids are horrible shots, but there are too many of them. We have to fall back and draw them out; they won't send more than a squad after us. We'll take care of them and rendezvous with the others, contact the Council." He stood and began retracing their path back toward the dead Gundark. "Come on!'

Qui-Gon remained where he was a moment longer, listening to the robotic shouts of, "Let's move!", and "Find them, now!" before lifting himself up off the ground and following Ben's hasty retreat toward the trail.

He found Ben running back along the way they'd come. Before Qui-Gon could ask any questions, the droids were on them. Blaster bolts pinged off the trees and the ground, spraying sparks in every corner of his vision. Ben's saberwork was tight and neat in dismantling them limb by limb. "Destroy the heads," the younger man advised, "they're not really dead until you've got the head."

Qui-Gon put the advice to use as quickly as he could, taking out two droids in a single turn, headpieces sliced in two. "Look out!" he yelled as a droid came up behind Ben.

The man turned and sliced the droid's blaster in half, ignoring its sudden cries of "Uh, no wait, please!" as he cut its head from its neck and soldered it into the jungle floor. Two other battle droids and a surveillance probe fled the scene, leaving their fallen brethren behind.

"Come on," Ben said frantically, disengaging his saber and pulling Qui-Gon by his elbow, "There could be more of them. We need to get back to base and report this to Master Windu as soon as possible."

"Ben, you're not making any sense, you need to calm down and explain."

"I already did," Ben snapped, baring his teeth just slightly, "those are battle droids, manufactured and armed by the Trade Federation, and currently being stored in illegal bunkers on Alaris Prime. It's what I forgot, what you told me - only it's worse, this time. It's not just damned warehouses, it's bloody battledroids." He was shaking his head as he trudged onward down the path. "It's too soon for this," he muttered to himself.

"Ben," Qui-Gon followed him, confused but doing his best to exude calm, "We will report to the Council, there is no need for this."

"Force, how's he gotten this far?"

"Ben."

"It's sped up. Everything has sped up. We need to move quickly."

"Ben, you need to stop centering on your anxieties."

Unexpectedly, Ben wheeled on him. "Don't say that," he spat, "Force, I hate it when you say that. Don't center on my anxieties? Well, why don't you live through a war, why don't you fight those things and worse every day, watch everything and everyone you love crumble to ash, die at the hand of a man you once called friend, come back forty years in the past to live it all over again, and we'll see how well you deal with your anxieties."

He regretted every word as soon as it was out of his mouth. Ducking his head in embarrassment, anger, and shame for both, Ben trudged onward. Qui-Gon came closer to him as he sensed the edge of his fear melt away.

"I'm sorry," Ben grunted eventually.

Qui-Gon pursed his lips. He hated the cloud of questions and irresolution hanging between them, but this was not the time or place for apologies and explanations. "Transmissions will be difficult in the bush. There are long-range comms at Attichitcuk's camp. We will contact the Council from there." He pulled out his pocket holomap and marked the location of the Federation bunkers. "For now, we must focus on the mission at hand."

Logic. Cool, experienced, level-headed logic. Ben wondered if he'd ever learned to use any of it at all. He felt tired. "Yes, Master," he resigned, but still looked over his shoulder as they walked.


Before the Jedi made it back to the main path where they had diverged from their Wookiee friends, Attichitcuk had comm'd them with important news: they'd found the gundark nest.

"And what is your plan, now that you have found it?" Qui-Gon asked.

A moment of hesitation before Attichitcuk's low growl came back over the comm: «We will drive them out, if we can.»

"And if you can't?"

«We do not yet have herds of bantha, Master Jinn. We must get our meat from somewhere.»

Qui-Gon ticked an eyebrow. "I see. We'll be there as soon as we can."

«I would appreciate your lightsabers at my side. I doubt this will be an easy fight.»

"With gundarks," Ben piped up, voice dry, "it rarely is."

True to expectations, it was not an easy fight. There had been no time to talk or strategize. No sooner had the Jedi stepped within speaking distance of their Wookiee allies than had a mother gundark spotted them from down in the nesting caves and raised the alarm for all to hear. The ensuing brawl would become stuff of legend on Alaris Prime.

As Ben had learned firsthand during the Clone Wars, there was very little in the galaxy that could stop a Wookiee. They did not scare easily, they were resilient against injuries, had remarkable physical endurance, and, if allowed to gather in numbers greater than two, were practically unstoppable. They fell into combat with gusto, bowcasters, blasters, claws, and electrified spears all playing their part to bring down their enemy.

The Jedi employed the shepherding tactics they'd already developed over the past weeks to chase the gundarks out of the wide, rocky tunnels. Some fled, some turned and fought. Those that did fell to the ground soon thereafter, and did not get back up again. Before sundown, the Wookiees had taken down over half of the nest's occupants, and the Jedi added to the count. Finally, as the sky pinkened at dusk, there remained only one: the biggest, meanest, angriest female. The mother.

She put up a nasty fight, batting one Wookiee off his feet and straight into a wall, where he folded in on himself and made no move to get up again. Attichitcuk fired at her, blast after blast, but the fire seemed to only anger her further.

"Qui-Gon," Ben asked in a peculiar tone of voice, watching the huge beast work her jaw in threatening chomps, "You know what I told you before, about defeating a gundark weaponless?"

"With rocks?"

"Yes," Ben pointed to the giant stalactites hanging off the ceiling.

"Even better," Qui-Gon said, putting his saber away.

"All of you, stand back!" Ben warned, putting away his weapon so he and Qui-Gon could reach out toward the sharpened stones as one. The Wookies, though limited in their knowledge of the Force, took the hint. They fell back to a safe distance, putting in a few last shots as they did. The mother gundark roared in rage, hind legs bunching up to launch her forward, mouth wide open for the kill.

With a great crack, a dozen pointed stalactites detached from the cavern ceiling and followed gravity to the earth; the unfortunate gundark between them and their destination met with the laws of physics, yelped, whimpered, and lay still.

The Wookiees all cheered, raising their bowcasters high and bellowing with all their might. Even Qui-Gon Jinn, who detested violence against nature, allowed himself a satisfied smile. He turned to Ben to share their moment of victory, but stopped when he saw the man's face. Ben did not look victorious or inclined to cheer. He only looked exceptionally tired.

«We will camp here tonight» Attichitcuk announced, «And proclaim our victory over the whole nest. We've beat the beasts, at last!»

With understandable enthusiasm, the Wookiee clan cheered for the safety of their colony, their people, and their future.

That night, while the Wookies basked in their victory, Ben sat outside, high up on an outcropping of slate. Qui-Gon went to the cave entrance and watched him fiddle with the long-distance comm that Attichitcuk had leant him. Quietly, he climbed up the path toward his former apprentice. Still a ways off, he could hear Ben speaking into the comm,

"-illegal presence. We have to bring them to task on this, Mace."

"It could be risky tipping our hand so soon," Mace Windu was saying, interrupted by static. "If the Sith begin to suspect-"

"They are the ones who have tipped their hand. If we do nothing, it would be more suspicious than if we send the whole Order on their trail. This is not some quaint warehouses out on a backwater moon, this is fullscale invasion - or at least preparation for it. That's how I see it, that's how the Senate will see it. They're either very cocky, or very desperate."

"That is a very crucial 'or', Kenobi."

"Our response must remain the same for both, and in full accordance with the law and the Alaris Agreement. If you would, please forward my intel on to Bail Organa. He's the only senator I trust right now."

"Trust or no, you put a lot of pressure on him, Ben. That's going to get dangerous sooner or later."

Ben sighed. "I know. But right now, it's the only option we have. You know how corrupt the Senate has become."

"Unfortunately, I do."

In the ensuing silence, Ben seemed to realize that he was not alone. He glanced back at Qui-Gon, unsurprised to see him waiting a respectful distance off. "I need to go," He told Master Windu. "We will speak of this in more detail when I return."

"Yes," said the Master of the Order, voice heavy, "we will. May the Force be with us all." He cut the transmission bluntly.

"Mace has always been one for theatrics," Qui-Gon chuckled softly as he approached and lowered himself into a seat beside Ben, joints groaning in complaint. Ben remained silent. Qui-Gon waited a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking. "What you said earlier, Ben," he began.

"I'm sorry," Ben interrupted, "I shouldn't have said those things. You were right. I focus on my anxieties too much. It is all I've known how to do for years. I forgot myself, let my fear get the better of me." He hung his head. "Thank you for reminding me."

Qui-Gon hesitated. "I was going to say," he resumed at a deliberate cadence, "that you were right." He gave a pause so that Ben could look up and stare his fill. "As long as we've known each other, I still have no idea what it is that you've been through, what you've lost. I doubt I ever will. Were I put in your shoes, allowed to relive my most trying years all over again…" he considered Xanatos, Tahl's death. "I'm not sure I would handle it as well."

"I haven't handled it well at all," Ben scoffed.

"You've handled it better than I could ever hope to," Qui-Gon reminded. They both knew it was true. As emotional as Ben could be, he had the temperament of a saint. The fact that he'd ever found his breaking point spoke volumes. "Earlier, you called me Anakin," Qui-Gon stated, and waited for Ben for comment.

Ben let out a long breath and looked down at his hands. "Technically, he was my apprentice," he said at length. "But in the later years… he was my brother. We were so much closer in age than any other master and apprentice, I… It was easier to be friends with him when he graduated. We fought together in the War, all the time. We looked after each other. Saved each others' skins more often than I care to remember." He shrugged. "Seeing the droids again, the blasters... I forgot myself."

"So there was a war," Qui-Gon surmised. He'd guessed it privately ages ago, but to hear it out loud was jarring.

"A huge war," Ben said. "A staged war, fought with puppet armies, all marching to the tune of a man who killed the Republic."

This disclosure made Qui-Gon turn and watch Ben very carefully. He was a notoriously secretive individual, particularly where the future was concerned. "You wouldn't tell me that unless it was practically on top of us," the master said. Ben folded away the clunky comm unit, fiddling with its antennae and wires.

"The droids made up one side of the board. He's setting up his chess pieces already. I thought we had time."

"We do have time," Qui-Gon soothed. Ben shook his head

"Not as much as I thought we did. I thought I knew what to expect, I thought the board was still clear." He shook his head harder. "He's already set up his pieces."

"And you know where he will move them." He, being, of course, the nameless Sith behind it all.

"No, I don't," Ben let out a mirthless, hysterical laugh. "That's just it. They're not meant to be here, they're not meant be, at all. Not yet. He's moved the pieces around, shifting them forward sooner, and I've not even set mine in place yet."

"You have," Qui-Gon insisted. "Need I remind you - I'm still here. You thwarted that future when you took out his apprentice, and how many more of his plans did that alter? You are the one who is one step ahead, Obi-Wan."

The name had slipped out by mistake, pure, innocent habit. Neither said anything, but hearing it stripped Ben to his core, leaving him vulnerable in front of the only man he'd ever seen as a father. "I'm supposed to know," he said, very softly. "That's why the Force let me come back, I'm supposed to know how things turn out, how to fix them. And I've tried. But now it's all changing, and I'm not sure of anything."

"Then you must trust in the Force, and in your own senses," Qui-Gon concluded. "You know, Obi-Wan's instructors have been telling me for years that he'll make one of the best strategists in the Order. But I've known that since the day I first spoke with you." Ben looked up at him. "This… Sith Lord, he might have all his pieces in different places, but you can still see them. You know where to look. He doesn't know that. He can't see you. He can't see your pieces. You have the advantage over him."

"For now," Ben said miserably.

"Now is all that we have," reminded the master. "When I say do not center on your anxieties, I do not mean forget them. I mean that you must set them aside so that you can seize your moments of action with clarity." This was something that Qui-Gon had never fully explained to Ben, when he was an apprentice. "Anxiety has its purpose in every game of chess, but not when you are moving your pieces."

Ben took in a deep breath, held it, and let it out again. He nodded. Qui-Gon quietly put a hand on his back, offering him silent support. They sat there for a long while, staring out over the forest, admiring the vastness of space and its nighttime constellations, free from the light-polluted air of Coruscant.

After a long stretch of silence, Qui-Gon looked over at Ben and chuckled.

"What?" the younger asked.

"You were right," Qui-Gon smiled at him, giving him a firm pat on the back. "You really haven't aged at all since you were twelve."

Ben scoffed and rolled his eyes. Qui-Gon laughed, using Ben's shoulder to help him stand. "You ought to rest. Maybe your beard will grow back overnight." The taller man strolled back down and into the cave, where the warm glow of the campfire flickered against the walls.

Ben shook his head and looked out at the stars. A million different threads of thought ran through his mind, begging for investigation, for action, for immediate attention and answers. Where was the rest of the droid army? Was the production of the Clone Army already underway? If so, where did that put Sifo Dyas? Was Dooku a part of it? Was he Palpatine's new apprentice?

He closed his eyes and reached out to the Force, relinquishing his anxieties to its endless depths. They would be there for consultation, when the game demanded a cool analysis. But here and now, it was nighttime on Alaris Prime, and he was in need of rest. Exhausted from carrying his worries and determined not to let them follow him to bed, he left his perch swiftly, found a hard sleeping mat, fell onto it, and slumbered until morning.a