Stars in my hands like grains of sand

Disclaimer: I do not own, or profit from Naruto or Star Wars and all associated media.

A/N

"…"

- Darklighter

"Thoughts"

"Speech"

"Abnormal sentient thoughts"

"Abnormal sentient speech"

Chapter 16

It was funny. Despite everything that had happened the night before it was completely hilarious that Sasuke recognized the blond instantly. It was an insane kind of mirth, and he knew that he was cracking, but Sasuke couldn't help himself.

The first look they had shared was identical to the last that he remembered. That last look that he remembered from when he was a kid and Uzumaki Naruto was just a non-entity. That last look by the river when he and the other had shared a side-long glance full of rivalry and recognition. Things were different now though…

Now they were no longer on the same side.

The meeting room was spacious and well appointed. Last night had been a disaster. Some of the words being spewed would turn it into an interstellar crisis if care was not taken.

"If you would deign to give pause to thought you would see," Osvaldus the openly Sith Lord purred in a smirking way, "That the council had no involvement in last night's ghastly incident which no doubt emanated from realms beyond our purvey."

To Sasuke the man was just droning at this point. There were larger issues on his mind, for example the lack of a single Kage in sight. After last night's battle that in itself was a message, but it was one that the Jedi Knight couldn't quite decipher.

Were they absent because they were complicit in the assault? Or were they saying – 'here deal with your most hated enemy – lets see how your Jedi cool works then,'

Whatever the intention – the latter was working. The Jedi had just lost friends and compatriots and grief had already frayed their nerves. They had known that Osvaldus was on planet. They had been drawn like filings to a lodestone by the Sith Lord's presence. Everything else was just a pretext as far as the wider order was concerned. \

But to figure that he had the authority to speak on behalf of Sasuke's planet's ruling body? Not a single one of the Jedi Knights in system had dared to believe that his tendrils sank so deep, and after last night's events it was no wonder that they all unconsciously fingered Osvaldus as the responsible party. The spacious room was rendered claustrophobic with tension.

"Nonetheless it was your Council that granted the core leave to establish an embassy here – with the Jedi Order at its head," Pav Qeral stated calmly.

Against all the odds in the universe she had survived the conflagration that had consumed her Speeder. Although she would bare the scars of her ordeal in the flaming vehicle for the rest of her life – just as the rest of them could still see those very same scars.

"We are aware that the Council you… represent… does not speak for this whole world – we find it hard to fathom an attack of this magnitude occurring in your Council's Capital without forewarning," Mistress Qeral said.

"Are you saying that the Jedi Order is going to hold Terrra responsible for these unfortunate events?" Osvaldus inquired mildly. "Take care Mistress not to let your judgment be clouded by your own…" he leered and seemed to gain pleasure from her bandaged form, "Grievous injuries. As you have yourself noted we are your hosts, and it would not do to test our hospitality with insults."

The tension racked up – although there were only six beings in the room. The two leaders were flanked by dangerous and veteran warriors. On the Sith Lord's side of the room Sasuke had already noted Naruto. Tall and looking older that he should have been Uzumaki stood next to a girl of average height who had red hair and wore glasses.

Not for the first time since returning to his home planet Sasuke marveled at how different their lives had turned out. Although he had already gathered that Uzumaki Naruto had become something of a celebrity on Terra he could not help but note how stark the contrast in their upbringing in the stars was.

He could see that it unsettled Hinata. It seemd as if she could look nowhere but at the blue eyed nin, and Sasuke saw pity, disbelief, and apprehension in the silvery pools of her eyes.

Mistress Pav Qeral was a Jedi ideal. No matter what Osvaldus, the Sith Lord, said it seemed he could not unsettle her, and there was no way that he could divert her from her path.

"What I am saying is simple. Unless we are allowed to conduct our own investigations concerning this matter – and given leave to call those ultimately responsible to task – then we will leave with the medical schematics that the Core has seen fit to trade in good faith," Pav Qeral said.

Out of the three of them no one had accepted the seats or refreshments offered. Her final words may as well have been a motion to stand up because all three Jedi in the room made to leave simultaneously.

"Relay my message to your Masters," Pav rounded off with a smile. To Sasuke's surprise Naruto burst out into loud laughter – unsettling the red head with spectacles and drawing an angry frown from Osvaldus. There was nothing a Sith Lord hated more than any inference that his own strings were not his to pull.

As Sasuke followed Mistress Pav and reluctant Hinata out of the meeting place he convinced himself that he imagined more than felt Naruto's piercing cold cobalt eyes painting a target on his back.

The meeting had taken place in the heart of the city's diplomatic quarters and the interior that had shelled their deliberation had been cool and air conditioned.

Outside the sun was boiling. It illuminated the broad boulevards and leafy avenues that linked expansive manses which were all surrounded by chain link fences and barbed wire. The launch pad their shuttle rested on stood out like the sorest of thumbs. The durasteel construction stood at odds with the wood and paper screen architecture all around that Sasuke remembered from his youth.

"Will the Core allow you to withhold the schematics?" Hinata asked. There was no challenge in her tone. The time for that was past.

"I hope it doesn't come to that," Pav said. "But I'll open a dialogue with Othelius. Thankfully he survived."

Othelius stood at the head of the diplomats who had accompanied the Jedi. He was one of the gibbering wrecks who had been in Sasuke's Speeder.

"He'll come around if it comes to it," Sasuke said wryly and cryptically – drawing glances from the other two.

"I pray it doesn't come to that," Qeral sighed. She adjusted her robe with a slight flick, but she could not conceal the bacta-bandages that reached up to her elbows and concealed half of her beautiful oval face. Sasuke knew that more lurked beneath the soft amber material she wore.

"The Order… and the Core cannot afford to appear weak." Pav continued. "Not with the Chiss already on this world. Not to mention the re-emergence of the Sith. Normally we would counter malice with light… but the people of this world…" The Jedi Mistress grasped for words.

"My people respect strength," Hinata said firmly.

Although last night's events had left her wings sorrowful and clipped in the end she had been proved right. Mistress Pav simply nodded.

"The worst move is inaction," Sasuke agreed as the three of them finally entered the safe confines of their shuttle.

There was temporary darkness as the shuttle's cleansing unit sprayed all three of them with a mist that would eradicate any and all Terran germs and vectors… encapsulated in that inky darkness images of the hours before flashed to Sasuke's mind as his eyes closed against the spray..

The terror afterwards when he had witnessed Pav Qeral's burns first hand and the corpses of the slain Knights and Diplomats.

The flashing amber lights of medical speeders and planetary forces rushing to the various scenes of carnage.

The white lit room where Sakura had tended his minor wounds caringly. They had both been in shock and delirious, but for some reason the soft pink of her lips stood out in his memory.

And finally the sick elation he had felt as he reversed the blade of his dueling saber – parallel to the ground - and with full force punched it deep into the throat cavity of the unnamed Shinobi he had dueled.

The smell of cauterized flesh came to him then, but it this was not a memory of the slain enemy. Rather the lights were blinking on and it was just the after odor of the cleansing agents that had just scoured their forms. Sasuke followed Mistress Pav and Hinata through on leaden steps.

There was something hard in Naruto's eyes as he watched Sasuke, HInata, and their Jedi companions depart. Seeing the two of them together like that aroused something deep inside. Feelings he thought had had purged that came way back from his lonesome days in Konoha's Shinobi academy.

But now he was a Captain. He had almost snorted when he had seen the soft 'combat' uniforms the three Jedi wore, and he did so now, but his ironic mirth was aimed at his own weakness.

"What's so funny?" Osvaldus barked – still smarting from Qeral's parting barb. Sith could be so self absorbed.

"Your face," Naruto responded casually, but every fiber of his being literally begged the further incensed Sith Lord to try something. Not only had he been promoted, but he was no longer under Osvaldus's chain of command. His feud with the Zabrak had not gone undetected, and the Kages who sat in Council were no fools. Osvaldus was useful… but they would never trust him.

However although the Zabrak Sith Sorcerer was not trustworthy he was far from stupid. The raging angry mist only clouded his face for a fraction before his etched features drew pensive.

"That meeting didn't go as well as I had planned. I had thought that they would be far more off kilter and unreasonable," he said instead.

"But… perhaps some on the Council foresaw this result," he said with a private smile and steeped fingers.

"What do you mean," Karin demanded - reflecting some of Naruto's hostility. "The Council foresaw your unwise attack on the Jedi? Or foresaw their reaction?"

"Their reaction," Naruto said as he grasped Osvaldus's train of thought, "and Osvaldus didn't order the hit on the Jedi convoy," he added.

"Oh?" the Zabrak demanded with arched eyebrows.

"Yeah…" Karin finally saw it, and she blanked out the Sith Lord. "This isn't his style. He's too cowardly."

Instead of getting angry Osvaldus seemed to purr with pleasure. "Yes," he said. "It's obvious. We will let the Jedi perform their investigation only on the condition that the two of you take part as Terra's representatives," he concluding.

Despite the contempt in which he held the Sith Lord Naruto found himself in automatic agreement. As he nodded he said: "We'll use this chance to find out what the Core is really after. I'm certain their not here just to give us tech, and if this is a play against the Chiss…" he paused and his hard eyes seemed to become iron. "I won't let my world become a battlefield," he concluded. Seeing Sasuke and Hinata had infused his being with a certain motivating intensity.

"I already know what they want," Osvaldus snapped – drawing a glare from Karin who was over protective wherever her 'Captain' was concerned. "They would see the two of us dead… and the Sith Order extinct," he would have sighed, but the Zabrak was not capable of such an action. "That's what the Jedi always want," he said.

"Speak for yourself," Naruto replied. The young Captain stood up abruptly. Looming over the Sith Sorcerer just so it was obvious why Osvaldus had declined to rise to he and Karin's verbal bait.

"No Jedi will see me dead," Naruto locked his cobalt eyes on the Zabrak's sickly yellow.

"And I'm not Sith," he said with finality.

"Really?" Osvaldus demanded. Fear wormed its way into his gut.

"What are you then?"

Karin had risen with Naruto, and over time she had come to gain an intricate understanding of the blond.

"Idiot," she stated as they strode out – leaving Osvaldus to his solitude.

"He's a Shinobi."

Later when they were out of earshot Karin turned her face towards his, and Naruto knew that she wanted to say something.

"So what's the next step?" she asked. "I know Osvaldus isn't on our side but it won't do to annoy him unduly now that the Council has decreed that we work with him." She herself was preening Naruto noted as they walked together. While he had been made a Captain she could now call herself lieutenant.

"Say's the Shinobi who called him an idiot," he smirked. Naruto was distracted by recent events but his eyes were still sharp. Constantly he scanned their perimeter and the boulevard for incoming threats. He couldn't help it.

"I was just following your lead," came the retort. "Besides he was practically begging for it," now a wry smile graced her light purple lips.

They had come to a halt before the mass transit center. There were designated vehicles inside that would take them from the Diplomatic quarters and back to the Shinobi encampments that ringed the city like some sort of great wall.

Naruto blacked out from the conversation. It wasn't surprising considering that within forty-eight hours he had reconnected with his lost heritage, been promoted, and was now assigned the most unorthodox mission of his career. Despite Karin's groaning when the bus came he boarded in silence, and when he nodded off Karin let him rest his head on the petite shoulder that edged him.

Sakura waited apprehensively for Sasuke and Hinata to return. Everybody aboard the ship was still tense. They had all heard what had happened. Even the techs and orderlies were aware. Nobody could remember the last time that so many Jedi had died on a first time diplomatic mission. There were rumors though, but none of them were good.

To her mind yesterday's events were precedent, but she was far from idle as she waited for her compatriots to return from the terrifying and dangerous surface. On the one hand she grieved for the knights who had died. Knights she had not known… had not taken the time to know.

On the other she worked diligently. The ambush had not only produced fatalities. There were a plethora of burns to treat. Burns sustained by Jedi and diplomats alike – and any number of psychological profiles to build on those that had managed to survive.

It was such a slog that despite her eagerness to hear from her compatriots it was a full five hours before Sasuke ambled into the infirmary, and she had been so distracted that she was not among the party that had gone to meet them.

She was rounding up at a terminal when her partner from Coruscant's underbelly showed up. Although she was meek an average in most things healing was her forte. She was so engrossed in the data gathered from her patients that almost ten minutes flew by before she noticed a lanky clump of his midnight hair hanging over her shoulder, and gently brushing up against her clavicle.

"How's it going?" he asked sincerely as she started.

"F-fine," she responded. "I'm almost done, and thankfully we didn't lose anybody to injury," she said.

"Good," he said – straightening up now that he had her attention. She leaned back and looked up to meet his gaze. "I'm glad," he said simply, and there was a silence, but it wasn't awkward.

"Did you know any of the Knights who passed?" she asked finally. She did not know what else to say.

Sasuke shrugged by way of response. "One… the wookie – Baccaktchewa," he admitted.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said. The emotion was heartfelt but it simply drew another shrug from her champion companion. However he laid a hand on her shoulder.

In the past such an action on his part would have had her devolving into squeals, but it seemed that the Order had changed the both of them for the better.

"It's ok," Sasuke said. Death is in the job description."

They pondered this for a while before he added the most poignant afterthought.

"I saw him," he said.

"Who?"

Uzumaki Naruto," he answered. The answer was more than a name. There was regret and something fierce there.

"Oh…" Sakura exhaled deeply closing her eyes. Almost unconsciously her hand came up to clasp his – which still rested on her shoulder. Sasuke's grip on her body tightened.

"What was he like?" she asked – remembering how the boy had been as infatuated with her as she with Sasuke.

"Sith," Sasuke responded. His tone was simple, but it was also fearful.

"Oh…" Sakura said.

A/N

This is a bridge. The next chapter will be of the usual average length.