Inside the maw cluster

The large, spinning cylinder ringed by a dozen attached tubes that had been Sinkhole Station was nowhere to be seen. All that was left of the enormous station, and those beings who had lived on it—if you could call Mind Walking living—was chunks of debris. Huge pieces of what were once the gray-white domes, looking like broken eggshells, hung in the icy cold of space, with flotsam and jetsam that were once vessels of all varieties. They were not close enough yet to see bodies, but bodies there would be as well.

In addition to managing his own shock, Luke attempted to send calm to the rest of the fleet even as he continued to maneuver the Shadow. He sensed the astonishment and almost—affront?—of the Sith, as if they were offended that anything would dare get in the way of their plans.

"It's—just gone," Ben said quietly, It was stating the obvious, but the shocked silence had to be broken.

"Detecting no life signs, no infrared," Luke said. "Whatever happened to it did a fine job of destroying it completely."

Vestara was silent. Ben glanced at her over his shoulder.

"This wasn't anything you did, was it?"

She had been staring, wide-eyed, as they had been, but now she snorted derisively. "Oh, of course, I planted a bomb that was able to blow apart the entire station, but was unable to escape from two Jedi. Right."

Ben flushed. "Sorry. Just—really shocked, you know?"

She seemed slightly mollified. "Yeah, I know. I am, too. This does seem the sort of thing Jedi would do rather than Sith—destroy technology rather than let bad people have it."

"Oh, trust me, we wouldn't want to destroy this," Ben said. Luke shot him a quick look.

"Oh? Why not?" Vestara asked.

A bright flash of light caught Luke's eye. "Blast it," he said. "Who among your Sith is foolish enough to keep going into this mess?"

Sure enough, a pair of the Chase master frigates had decided to ignore what seemed to Luke as common sense and instead had moved forward at far too great a speed to negotiate such a debris field. Doubtless the hapless captain was hoping to score points with Taalon by gathering some information or perhaps looting a body. Daring, but foolish. Luke, Ben, and Vestara watched as, too late, the frigate realized its mistake and tried to avoid a collision.

That was when something very large moved into place, as fast as it could but with agonizing slowness. Luke caught a strong hit of determination as the Rockhound activated its extremely powerful tractor beam and tried to catch both frigates with it.

One of them slowed, stopped. The other one slowed, but not enough to keep it from its fate. Ben, Vestara, and Luke all watched, not averting their eyes at the sudden bright flash of light. Luke felt the dozens of lives aboard the frigate wink out, some immediately, some more slowly.

"What a waste," Luke said. "A useless sacrifice. All they've done is create more debris."

He felt a surge of anger, quickly shuttered, from Vestara. "One might expect more compassion from a Jedi," Vestara said.

"Compassion is for those who deserve it," Luke said.

"Looks like Lando was able to get one anyway," Ben said before Vestara could retort. "You're right, Dad. I'm sure to the crew of that frigate the Rockhound is the most gorgeous thing in the universe." The Rockhound was now towing the surviving vessel away to a safe distance. It moved ponderously back toward the debris that had been fatal to the ChaseMaster, extended telescoping stabilizer legs, and sunk them deep into the chunk of what had once been a station, or perhaps a ship. It was hard to tell.

"Abeloth," said Vestara, breaking the silence.

"You think she could do this?" Luke asked.

Vestara shrugged. "She has great power. She is very strong in the Force. But the Maw strikes me as an enormous place, so it's possible something else did this."

It was, Ben had to admit. No one knew exactly what was contained in this vast cluster. It was large enough to contain Shelter, and Daala's Maw colony, where she had hidden for many years rebuilding her fleet. Neither organization had had a breath of knowledge about the other.

Ben was not a big believer in coincidence.

"A pity," Vestara continued, "that we lost the option to explore the station more."

"I feel pity not for us, but for those beings who were destroyed," Luke said quietly. "It's impossible to calculate how many lives were lost in this…incident."

Lando's Rockhound continued to clear a path through the debris. It , was slow but steady, and after just a few moments Luke felt it was safe to begin moving forward.

"I wonder how long it will take to clear the debris field," Vestara said. "My people are impatient."

Luke glanced over at her and wordlessly pointed at the wreckage of the ChaseMaster frigate.

Vestara fell silent.

Luke was now more certain than ever that Sinkhole Station had been designed to contain Abeloth, and that she was, as his beloved Mara had said, something very old, and very dangerous. It had probably been suicidal to think that he and Ben could have approached her alone. Even though he had asserted to the Sith that he wanted to try to reason with her, understand her, he suspected that such overtures would not be welcomed. He suspected, in fact, given what he was looking at now, that they might be flattened like insects.

Vestara had reported the bare bones about Abeloth, but now, as they crept through the litter of what Luke suspected was that being's latest struggle for freedom, he said quietly, "Looks like we have a lot of time to kill. Tell us about Abeloth."

She looked at him warily. "You have everything I have told my own people."

"So tell us something you haven't told them. Tell us about how you felt around her. What she was like."

She narrowed her brown eyes. "Come on, Ves," Ben said, and Luke wondered if his son was even aware that he was calling the girl by a nickname, "the only reason you haven't told the Sith is because you've not had a chance. We're in this together—and it was your High Lord who proposed the alliance."

Whether it was the logic or Ben, Vestara nodded. "Abeloth…she strikes one emotionally. I know you Jedi don't like that."

"On the contrary," Luke said, "we are taught to trust our feelings."

"Really? Interesting. Abeloth…" She paused for a moment, then spoke with more sincerity than Luke had ever sensed from her before. "Her world is, as I have told you, unnatural. And terribly dangerous. We—we lost many. And when we found her…it was just such a relief to not have to be constantly aware of everything around you that you were grateful to be with her. And she was lovely—at first. She—captivating, I think is the word."

"Physically beautiful?" Luke inquired.

"More than that. You couldn't stop looking at her, whatever she chose to look like. It was all you wanted to do—look at her, be around her. Like an intoxicant."

Luke and Ben exchanged glances. "Her looks varied, then?"

"From day to day, or depending on whomever she was around," Vestara said. "Always more or less human, though. Sometimes fair hair, sometimes brown, sometimes long, sometimes short. The features shifted, the eye color changed a little. Until…" Vestara paused. "Until the moment I really saw her."

Ben leaned forward. "What happened?"

"I told you, everything obeys Abeloth. That's why we wanted to be with her—because she kept us safe. But at one point, the plants attacked Lady Rhea. While Abeloth was still there. She let them. That's when I understood that we had been betrayed, and the next time I saw her—"

Vestara had a great deal of self-control. She was a Sith, from an entire Tribe of them. She had to have self-control. But Luke saw her pale slightly, and her gaze dropped for an instant. And when she spoke, her voice was slightly unsteady.

"Her hair was long and yellow and fell all the way to the ground. Her eyes were tiny, sunk deep into black eye sockets—like two small stars. Her mouth was—it reached literally from ear to ear, and her arms were short, stunted—with writhing tentacles instead of fingers. She was hideous."

Luke nodded. "She was. She is," he said. "I've seen her."

"What? And you did not see fit to tell us? When did you encounter her?"

"It wasn't a literal encounter," Luke said, "but a sort of spiritual one. The people on Sinkhole Station taught me a technique called Mind Walking. One can leave the physical body and travel elsewhere. I'm beginning to think the places I visited were real. Certainly Abeloth was. And—other things."

"Leaving the body," Vestara said. "All those living corpses…that's what they were doing, isn't it?"

Luke nodded. "It's very appealing. Most of them don't want to go back."

"And you saw her? Through Mind Walking?"

"You described her perfectly."

"Well," said Vestara with false cheer, "at least we three will recognize her when we see her."

* * *

They had entered orbit around Abeloth's planet having expected to be attacked every light-year along the way. That nothing had happened worried Ben much more than an open attack.

"I still don't sense her at all," said Luke. "She's deliberately concealing herself."

"A spider in her web, waiting for the flies to come to her," muttered Ben. "She—"

And then he felt, not Abeloth's presence, but another one. A familiar one.

Ship.

Vestara's eyes widened at the same time, and a soft, almost tender smile touched her lips. Ben shuddered at the thought that she felt such affection for the Sith training vessel.

"Ship," he told his father. "It's here. And…" He frowned, trying to put a name to what he was sensing from the Sith meditation sphere.

He had expected Ship to be gleeful. It served Abeloth, who was clearly tremendously powerful and utilized dark side energy. Ship was designed to seek out strong wills, and to obey them. It was created to serve the Sith, and presumably, it would be just as "happy" with Abeloth. But instead he sensed…

"It's despairing," he murmured. "It's…lost."

Vestara's eyes darted to him. He couldn't read her expression.

"Elaborate," Luke said.

"It's hard to say but…I don't think it likes having to serve Abeloth very much."

"She tried to use it against us," Vestara said. "Abeloth set Ship against the Sith—the beings who created it, whom it was made to serve. It could not perform one duty without betraying another, and this troubles it."

Ben made an amused sound. "A dark side meditation sphere and training vessel with a conscience," he said. "Who'd have thought it?"

Ship reminded Ben that he was a very complex vessel, and Ben was forced to agree.

"Then we should be prepared for it to happily attack us, Ben," Luke said. "We're the one target Abeloth can send it after that won't cause it any discomfort to kill."

Ben nodded. "And Jaina and Lando."

"If we can free him from her will somehow, Ship would be a powerful ally," Vestara said. "He likes me. He doesn't want to be used to harm me, or the Tribe. But he can't resist on his own."

"That may be," Luke said, "but let's take this one step at a time. I'm happy enough it's not firing on us at the moment. Time to go planetside and see what's there."

He and Ben were in the pilot and copilot's seat. There was still no way to communicate with the Sith aboard the frigates, so Ben waited until they were all assembled in orbit. Each frigate opened up to emit two well-armed atmospheric vessels, no doubt crammed to the gills with Sith.

"Stang," said Ben. "We'll have to land the Shadow, won't we?"

"Yes…Why? Is that a problem?"

"Dyon," said Vestara, as if reading Ben's thoughts.

"Yep. Abeloth might try to free him somehow."

Luke glanced over at the monitor. "He's conscious, though still under the influence of the drug."

"Let me go check him out while you two take the Shadow down," Vestara said.

"Give him another dose," Luke called after her.

The drug was coursing through his system. Dyon Stad could feel it, could sense it, even though he knew on one level he shouldn't be able to. He knew that it was clouding his mind, slowing down his body, holding him hostage to the physical needs of his form as surely as the stun cuffs held his body hostage here in this sick bay.

It was not sufficient, however, to shut her out.

Tears leaked beneath his closed lids as he struggled, futilely, inevitably, against the restraints, and his heart ached as if it were squeezed by an invisible hand.

Come to me. Come home.

A sob escaped him, hastily bitten back. The Others couldn't be permitted to think they had broken him. If he could, he would happily tell them, as he spat in their faces, their perfect replica faces, that it wasn't they who had broken him. In fact, he was not broken at all. He was actually awakening to what had been going on for who knew how long. To the truth. And he was here, here where the greatest strength of understanding and resistance could be found.

He knew her, and he did not know her. All he knew was that she was kind, and good, and understanding, and somehow she held the answers he sought.

You are true and real, Dyon. There are others. You are not alone. Come to me, find me—

He was not alone.

His eyes snapped open, red from crying, but sharp and hard. He stared at the Sith girl—or rather, the Other who was masquerading as the Sith girl—and remained silent, waiting for her to speak.

"She's calling to you, isn't she? Abeloth?"

He said nothing.

She stepped closer. Her face, sweet, innocent-looking, no doubt as perfect a replica of the original Vestara as the Not&Luke was of the original Jedi Grand Master, furrowed slightly in speculation.

"I know that you think we're all imposters," she said quietly. "I know that Luke and Ben keep telling you that you're wrong, that you're insane. I know you're sure you're not."

Dyon Stad said nothing. This was likely a trick.

She smiled, a little sadly. "The real Vestara would be trying to play you. She was a Sith, after all."

His eyes narrowed. "And you're standing there telling me that you're not Vestara." It was a statement, not a question. She nodded slowly, dark brown eyes watching him.

"You know the imposters who have taken the place of Luke and Ben—you know them to be hostile. I play along with them, but there are some of us that are secretly opposed to them. Think about it. Do you think that Jedi and Sith would ever really agree on anything?"

"But you're not really a Sith."

"No. But I am one who opposes those who have taken the places of those who were Jedi, And I'm trying to fight them. All of us who have opted to replace the Sith are."

He blinked, the drug coursing through him, making him feel like thick honey was flowing through his veins instead of blood. It didn't make sense. The imposters were taking over everybody. Why would "good" imposters choose to be Sith and "bad" imposters choose to be Jedi? They were all the same.

"You're all fakes," he said. "You're all the enemy. I've got no reason to believe you and every reason to think that you're trying to fool me."

She smiled. "You're smart, Dyon Stad. Even drugged, you're smart. But what would I have to gain? You're already locked up. What would I get out of tricking you?"

He frowned. He couldn't think of anything. But he was sure there was something.

She moved closer. In one hand was a syringe filled with a pale blue liquid. Her other hand closed tightly around something he couldn't see.

"Those of us who are Sith—we're really on Abeloth's side," she said. "And Abeloth knows exactly what's going on, and how to stop it."

Dyon stopped breathing for a moment. How did she—

"Think about it, Dyon. I know it's hard with the drug in your system, but think. Who did the Sith ally with? Who does Ship serve?"

"Abeloth," Dyon whispered. It was all wrong, terribly wrong. The fake Jedi evil, the fake Sith good? It went against everything he had been taught to believe, everything he had believed. But then again, nothing was the same, not since the coming of the Others.

"Think about Ship."

"Ship?"

"Ship is a Sith training vessel. And it's here…protecting Abeloth. It's not fake, it's not been replaced—it's just a vessel. And it's serving Abeloth."

A tendril of thought, cold, piercingly clear, stabbed into his brain. If Ship was a Sith training vessel, then it served the dark side. And if it served the dark side, and now served Abeloth, then Abeloth must—

White-hot pain blossomed in his temples. He cried out and sagged against the restraints.

What had he just been thinking of? He'd just had some thought, some idea, but it had slipped away. The drug hadn't permitted him to hang on to it. It was something important, something key to understanding what was going an—

A shadow fell over him. It was Not&Vestara, the good fake Sith. He looked up at her, mute, shaking with the agony that still shivered through him. She knelt down beside him, put her face to within centimeters of his.

"Abeloth calls to you. And we—the beings who have replaced the Sith—we are on your side. Can you lead us to her?"

He nodded, the gesture causing pain to shoot through him. "I can," he rasped.

"Will you?"

Again, a shadowy tendril of clear thinking tried to force its way into his brain, to be batted aside and ruthlessly crushed.

"I will."

She smiled, a sweet smile, her brown eyes warm. "I have a medication that will clear the drug from your system," she said. "But first…time to fool the fake Jedi."

She went over to the monitor and waved a hand over it. Dyon watched as the indicators that represented his pulse and brain activity both slowed down. Not&Vestara gave him a smile.

"Now Luke will think I gave you another dose of the drug to keep you docile, and not the antidote."

She returned to the bed and pressed the needle into his skin. He heard the pop, felt the hot little jolt of pain. For an instant, he wondered if he was wrong to trust her, if this was a fatal moment of weakness, if this needle was the delivery method of death. Instead, a heartbeat later, the confusion cleared from his mind like mist evaporating under a hot sun. He blinked, startled.

She'd kept her word.

"I'll be back shortly. When I return, I'm going to unlock the stun cuffs."

"No," he pleaded, "unlock me now. I must go to her!"

"You will," Not&Vestara promised. "But not right now. What I need from you is for you to pretend to be unconscious if Luke or Ben comes in. Then, when the time is right, I'll free you. But if you betray me, if you reveal I helped you, then everything is lost. Do you understand?"

He nodded, slowly. "You promise you will be back?"

"I do." She smiled at him one more time, then turned and left. Alone in the sick bay, Dyon Stad closed his eyes.

She had helped him. She would help him more.

After all…he seemed to remember that the Sith always kept their promises.

CHAPTER THIRTY