"Obi-Wan, I wish you would go with us on our trip." Bail spoke the words calmly, but a hint of a plea was evident in his voice.

"You do not understand. I need to leave!" the Jedi insisted.

"Leave and go where?"

But Obi-Wan was reluctant to part with the information of his destination. Bail gave him a hard gaze, and he finally caved in: "Tatooine."

This was territory Bail Organa knew how to handle. He felt a brief twinge of guilt that he was able to handle it so well, but he was merely performing the job entrusted to him: to protect Leia at all costs. Since the death of his wife, Bail's only concerns were to ensure the well-being of his homeplanet and adopted daughters and help overthrow the Empire. Softly, he spoke, "You can do nothing for the boy, Master Kenobi."

As intended, the title caught Obi-Wan's attention, for Bail used it rarely. "You cannot understand," the Jedi sighed, shaking his head. He picked at the brown material of his robe, avoiding Bail's steady gaze. "The boy has been sending out strong waves in the Force that Vader is sure to feel." He was as downcast as Bail had ever seen him.

Bail stood still for a moment and averted his sad brown eyes to the ground. He shifted, his elegant Alderaanian robes rustling. Finally, he spoke in a soft voice. "Then it's back to the choice again, isn't it, my friend? You think you can still save Luke...Obi-Wan, you can either continue to protect the one that you have protected and trained for years, or you can go to the one you know nothing about."

Bail sighed, pausing for a moment before he continued speaking. "I do not wish to sound selfish, Obi-Wan, but you must think over this decision clearly. If you go to the boy, Leia will be vulnerable to the Emperor and Vader. Since her training has not been extensive enough, she will not be able to shield her presence as fully as needed. With a little more time, she would be able to do so, and then you could rescue the boy." The Alderaanian placed his hands on the Jedi's shoulder, getting the man's attention. "Leia's training will make her easier for Vader to control at this critical stage. You cannot pretend you do not believe this—I have heard you mutter such concerns. Luke will be harder to train, harder to control...In the time that you can prepare Leia to survive without you nearby, they will probably not have twisted Luke enough that he could not be turned away." There was fatigue behind Bail's gentle eyes, but there was also determination. "I am afraid that Leia's hatred for the Empire will be an emotion to manipulate instead of an emotion that will pose as an obstacle...And I suspect that is my fault. I'm sorry, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan fixed his gaze on the ground this time, trying to quell the impulsive nature within him that had come from years of being around the now-deceased Qui-Gon. He needed to consider the matter more carefully. "I will meditate on this," he told the Alderaanian prince.

But in the Jedi's heart, he knew Bail was right.

The Force was guiding the future, and if Luke were supposed to fall into the Empire's clutches, then he would. There was nothing Obi-Wan could do to change that.

****

Chinnatah stared at the gleaming, oncoming horns—

—ducking aside at the last instant.

His quick movement meant that the krayt dragon's primary horns were stuck in the rock for a few precious moments before it struggled free of the wall's grasp.

Chinnatah sprinted to grab his gader stick while the creature was distracted, and he gave the weapon a quick once-over. It had certainly seen better times, but it was the best he had. He ran to the still-dazed krayt dragon, jabbing the spear on his gader stick into the creature's side.

He dodged a massive paw that swiped at him and moved as far away from the beast as he could. He paused for a moment by the wall to try and catch his breath, lightly touching Arr't'ni's smooth stone for luck.

An idea suddenly coming to his mind, he waited for the hissing and roaring krayt dragon to move toward him as he sent a quick prayer toward the gods.

With a flicker of satisfaction, Chinnatah noted that the beast had foregone the swiping technique and had turned to try to knock its opponent down with its powerful tail.

But the lithe Chinnatah stepped out of the way just in time, hugging the wall further down, and instead of smashing the Tusken's skull, the tail slammed into the wall with enough force to knock a bantha several meters back.

Parts of the ceiling began to crumble, and stalactites began to fall.

Soon, the krayt dragon, standing in the middle of the cave, was buried beneath the chaos, its death-cry ringing throughout the cavern and bringing even more of an avalanche onto its head. Creatures outside the cave scattered in all directions.

Even though he was still as flat as he could be against the wall, one of the rocks collided with Chinnatah's head, and Darkness grabbed hold of his vision.

****

"I didn't know you were coming with us, Obi-Wan," Leia said, sounding pleasantly surprised. She and Winter had just turned the corner and nearly run into him.

Weakly, Obi-Wan replied, "Neither did I."

He hadn't planned to be on the ship, but there he was. Trying to clear his head, he examined his apprentice with an almost fatherly eye. She was growing into a fine young lady. She held herself in a manner that suited royalty, and she was becoming quite skilled at diplomacy. But whenever the Jedi looked deeply enough into her eyes, he found an impatient, reckless, inquisitive soul in there, looking for an outlet. Much like her mother. Obi-Wan's mood darkened.

"Are you going to the meeting, Master Kenobi?" Winter inquired, ever the polite one. If possible, she looked even more regal than Leia. Her fair skin and fine features certainly made her seem to fit the part of princess more than Leia did. A look into her eyes showed a patient, kind being that just wanted to help others. It was too bad she wasn't a Jedi.

"No, I am going to be waiting here in the ship," Obi-Wan replied. Mentally, he added to himself, Hiding Leia's presence from Vader. He suppressed a sigh at the thought of his former pupil. Why had he gone against Master Yoda's wishes and trained Anakin all those years ago?

A sly smile spread across Bail Organa's face. "But he shall be aiding us with our little side mission, won't you, Obi-Wan?"

"Of course," the Jedi answered, giving a tight smile. The Rebels would certainly welcome a Jedi Master, but if he played it right, they would never even realize that he was one. Sadly, there seemed to be few Force sensitives left in the galaxy. Most had been killed by Vader and Palpatine during the Jedi Purge. Would the fate of the Jedi end up being the fate of Anakin's children? Sometimes he wished that the future wasn't always in motion.

****

"Hey, Winter, I have something to show you," Leia said quietly, catching her adopted sister's eye. Obi-Wan and Bail didn't appear to notice the exchange, as they had begun a conversation of their own. "Follow me."

The two girls disappeared off to the small cabin they were sharing.

"What is it?" Winter asked.

"Well, I do have something to show you," Leia gave a sheepish grin, "but that's not exactly why I invited you in here."

"I suspected as much."

"Well, just so what I said isn't a complete lie, I want you to look at this for a second." The brunette girl extended a datapad toward her light-haired friend, who took it delicately. "The average number of galaxywide deaths a year has risen more than five times that while under the Republic, not even counting the deaths from both sides of Rebel attacks," Leia explained as Winter looked over the data wide-eyed. "A lot of those are civilians. The Empire has to be stopped."

Winter nodded solemnly. "I agree."

"Well, anyway," Leia said, reluctantly dragging her mind away from that issue. When she got into one of her anti-Imperial moods, she could vent for hours on end about the problems of living under an Empire. The fact that most fifteen-year old girls would be talking about boys rather than governments seemed to never occur to her. "Do you know what's wrong with Obi-Wan?"

Winter hesitated. "I am not positive, but I think it might have something to do with whatever is making him not want to come with us on this mission."

"What?" Leia seemed shocked. "He didn't want to come?"

The other girl shook her head. "Not if I read him right...Something is trying to pull him away—or, perhaps, he wants something to pull him away."

Leia frowned, mulling over the possibilities. What could it be?

****

"Awaken," a deep voice came to him distantly. The words meant nothing to him, but he could feel the urgency behind them.

He tried to ignore the voice; he was fine as he was.

The voice quit, and this time he attempted to disappear into complete oblivion, but he was stopped short when emotions—strangely not his own—began tugging at him, trying simultaneously to both coax him and force him into coming out.

He pushed back at the contradictory force that was pressuring him, seeing no reason not to retreat into the blackness.

But the insistence of whatever it was that was tugging at him finally annoyed him enough that he broke through the barrier holding him back just so he could stop the force—

—and he gasped as his senses seemed to explode, his body going into overload.

His head pounded as if a thousand banthas were ramming into his skull; his limbs ached as they never had before; every breath was made with only an intense effort; and he felt a hundred different pains in a hundred different parts of his body that he had never known existed.

He remained motionless, with the exception of his minutely rising and falling chest, trying to hold the pain at bay and figure out where he was and what had happened.

His eyes didn't seem to want to focus, but as he searched his mind for the reason of his pain and found the answer, suddenly everything became much sharper. Including the pain.

Though his body felt as if a million fires were dancing across it, when Chinnatah first saw a dark humanoid figure standing before him, he instantly tried to flee the cave. But he was still pinned beneath some rocks, so his attempted flight was in vain. He struggled with the stones, but he finally had to stop because the effort exhausted him.

Suddenly, the weight from the rocks disappeared. In awe despite his intense pain, Chinnatah watched the rocks float away. He turned his eyetubes back to the tall form before him, trying again to back away, but unable to move because of the pain.

Chinnatah finally resigned himself to whatever fate awaited him, wondering, in the back of his mind, what that strange hollow noise echoing throughout the cavern was.

****

Darth Vader stared down at the small Tusken Raider before him. The Raider's rags were stained with blood, and he didn't need to be able to reach out to the Force to know that the child must be in agony.

At least, this was a younger Tusken, probably a child...That much Vader knew. He was uncertain of the Raider's exact age. During his time on Tatooine, he had not studied Sand People too closely; the creatures were dangerous, that much he had known. And, as if he hadn't heard enough about the viciousness of the Tuskens while enslaved, he'd learned the painful lesson personally years later...

With the death of his mother.

Staring down at the cowering Tusken before him, Darth Vader felt his mood darken. Shmi Skywalker had been killed by the merciless nomads; it was only fitting that he should destroy another of their kind now...Even if Shmi's death had happened in another life.

...But even as such murderous thoughts came to his mind, he knew he couldn't.

He had finally discovered the source of the strange ripples in the Force; if anything, he had to keep the young one alive long enough to escort back to the Emperor and let him decide what to do with the creature.

Darth Vader certainly wasn't appreciating the irony in what he was about do: heal a Tusken Raider. Of course, had he known the true irony in the situation, he might have been even surlier.

He frowned beneath his mask as he regarded the youth. He hadn't known the Sand People were capable of being Force-sensitive, much less sensitive in the magnitude which this one was.

Come to think of it, this Tusken Raider didn't seem to have the same presence in the Force as the other Tuskens. This Raider's mind was indeed more alien than the average human's, but it only felt remotely like the minds of Sand People...It was at a sort of confusing middle.

The Dark Lord of the Sith moved slowly forward, noticing that the Raider had ceased cowering and now seemed ready to fight.

Of course, such was to be expected; after all, the Tusken youth appeared to have taken down a krayt dragon singlehandedly. The knowledge of such an act raised Vader's opinion of the Raider a few notches.

The Sith Lord moved closer.

****

As the sable humanoid came toward him, Chinnatah garnered what remained of his strength. Fighting this black monster would probably kill him where the krayt dragon had failed, but if he were to meet such a fate anyway, it might as well be on his own terms.

Chinnatah inconspicuously felt with his right hand for a weapon and finally found a rock that would fit into his palm. Taking a painful breath, he threw the stone with all of his might toward an area in the humanoid's neck that looked as if it might be vulnerable.

But the projectile stopped before it even came close to its target, hovering in midair for a few moments before dropping onto the ground.

Chinnatah snuck a hasty glance at the entrance; there didn't seem to be anything blocking the way, though it appeared as if a sandstorm were starting to brew outside.

Knowing he was about to do something he would regret later, he sprang to his feet—trying to ignore his protesting legs—dodged the tall figure in front of him, and made for the "doorway," only to find himself suddenly held in place and then suspended into midair.

Angered that his last breaths of life would be due to this fiend, Chinnatah began struggling against the invisible hands that held him in place, feeling a few wisps of fear shoot through his body. Pushing back the fear with his anger, Chinnatah somehow took hold of that elusive power that he'd touched a few times and, with a flicker of thought to Mrekln, pushed, finding himself dropping to the ground.

****

Darth Vader stopped the Raider's rock in midair, somewhat amused. He let it drop to the ground. He would be interested in what the creature would try next.

This time, the youth threw a gaze at the entrance, quickly bringing his eyetubes back toward the Sith Lord. But Vader already knew what he had in mind, and he let the Tusken go only a few feet before being raised into the air. He watched the being's pitiful efforts to struggle with humor. Such efforts could not beat Vader's hold on the Dark Side of the Force.

And then suddenly, Vader found himself backing up a few feet, releasing his Force grip on the Raider as the Dark Side suddenly worked against him. He stood motionlessly, blinking beneath his mask, for a few moments.

What in space had the youth done?

He turned his attention back to the Tusken, half expecting the creature to have already escaped from the cavern, but apparently the last dregs of strength the youth had possessed were depleted. The Tusken Raider lay crumpled on the ground, his legs no longer willing to support any weight and his mind barely staying conscious.

The sandstorm outside began to rage, howling through the nooks and crannies in the rocks. Darth Vader gazed down at the barely-breathing youth.

There was no way the Imperial shuttle waiting outside the cave would be able to take off...and no way the Tusken would be able to survive outside in such weather.

Darth Vader began to say something, but then he remembered he would be talking to a Tusken Raider, a member of a species he barely considered to be sentient, and certainly not one who would be likely to understand him.

His mood even darker, the Sith Lord advanced toward the prostrate Tusken youth. This time, there was not even the shade of an attempt made by the Raider to struggle.

Vader levitated the young Tusken into the air. The Dark Side of the Force was not nearly as adept at healing as the Light Side, something which Vader was loath to admit, but he would make do with the Dark Side. Physical touch always seemed to make it easier when one Force-user tried to heal another, so Vader placed a hand on the youth's chest.

It would be difficult to place the suddenly alert youth in a healing trance without permission, Vader reflected, so he projected a progression of images into the Tusken's mind concerning the results of a healing trance.

Darth Vader could still feel the Tusken Raider's tension, but it was eased somewhat by his images.

It was, Vader considered, probably as much as he was going to get.

He slowly eased the youth into the trance and then lightly lowered him to the ground.

He resisted the urge to sigh.