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Chapter Text

EPISODE I: POLIS MASSA

Before the Sith took power, she had never heard of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And sometimes, she wished that were still true.

In fact, the more distance between a Jeotian like herself and a Jedi like him, the better.

To call her home-moon, Jeotis, an "ally" of the Republic was an ambiguity open for controversy.

Personally, she preferred the term "customer", given that the galaxy's most precious gemstones were mined and traded in Jeotian volcanoes of the Outer Rim.

Unavoidably, Jedi came with the deal.

It was good business.

And sometimes, bad business.

That's how she ended up on Polis Massa.

A naive lack of judgement behind a good business deal gone terribly, terribly wrong.

________

"I got a bad feeling about this," the Q2 series, retired battle droid had muttered, as he scanned the organics around him for any signs of a threat.

"Remember, Q2, we belong here. Just act natural. You know, like a normal droid? No one will ask questions if we don't give them a reason to," she whispered to her automaton friend, as they waited in line at the new recruit check-in. "No one's even heard of Jeotis here."

"Are you out of your orbit?" Q2 declared his passionate disagreement.

But the look from her that came slipping his way made the droid reboot his statement.

"I mean, are you out of your royal orbit, mi'lady?" he corrected himself.

"Next!" called the recruitment clerk.

She stepped forward, but Q2 pulled her back.

A bold move for a droid, but he couldn't just standby without making one last desperate attempt to make her see reason.

"Mi'lady, even a droid could tell you this is a terrible idea. You don't even have an advanced degree in medicine," Q2 objected. "Up until 56 hours ago, you couldn't even count out the correct credits to use the space port. Let alone practice medicine."

"Then I'll learn."

"Next, please!"

"Mi'lady, I implore you to reconsid-"

"Medical Lieutenant Lex Halo, reporting for duty," she blurted out her introduction to the clerk, stepping forward to hand him her identichip.

Making her droid's circuits fry in suspense, as he waited on screws and bolts for the clerk to raise an eyebrow at her, scan her counterfeit identichip into his astromech droid, and wait for the confirmation beep.

It couldn't have come any faster.

"Alright, go on in," the clerk waved at her. "Next!"

Making Q2 almost powered down under the godsend of that reprieve.

His mistress was safe. Their mission uncompromised.

As long as the real Lex Halo didn't show up, nothing could go wrong.

__________

Because Lucky for lady and droid both, the Kallidah Archaeological Research Base was more interested in digging up dead planets than keeping up with intergalactic politics.

Work was agonizingly slow.

She rarely saw any patients so far out in the galactic middle of nowhere. The base so painstakingly isolated in the outer rim, away from all main hyperspace lanes, that not even the HoloNet News transmitted this far out.

She was completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy.

Because who would bother invading a dead-end asteroid belt in search of an antique battle droid and a girl from nowhere who'd never learned to drive a land speeder on her own, couldn't tell the difference between a scrubber droid and a sweeper drone, but could at least put out a fire fairly quickly on her assigned meal prep days.

Apart from that, she was happy (and safe) working on the base for a standard three years.

But after Emperor Palpatine's "Order 66", and the ascent of the Galactic Empire, everything changed.

___________

"It's not my problem anymore," she whispered to herself again, a brutal war zone going on in her head, as she looked up from her work yet again. "I'm done with politics."

And dropping her eyes from yet another round of Republican refugees taking sanctuary on the base, she decided she was perfectly content to stay in the background with her medical beakers, ignoring the rest of the galaxy.

Q2 shot an unrepentant judgmental side-glance at her as he inputted his daily logs into the ship's database.

"Since when did you become a sit-and-wait type, mi'lady?" he muttered dryly.

And then her starburst hazel eyes dragged up to him from her work desk.

How dare he have the audacity to say to her the exact same thing she'd say to her in this situation.

"Since when did droids become so opinionated?" she countered. "Shouldn't you be droiding around somewhere?"

"Beep, beep, beep," he remarked sarcastically, sassily powering down his logs, and strutting his ego out of her hub.

Smiling, she shook her head and went back to work. "We've been stuck together on this asteroid for way too long."

But Q2 was right.

She wasn't the "damsel" to sit-and-wait.

And if the Empire was on the rise, then she must use all her many talents to make "unlimited power" absolute hell for their new Emperor.

______________

The day she met Kenobi, she was carefully mixing together more antiseptic serum for the dizzying number of refugee troopers coming into the hospital with horrendous battle injuries.

And that's when she caught the faint but unmistakable scent of ashes coming up behind her in the corridor.

She paused over her medical beakers, suddenly heartbroken and homesick for her home-moon. Gutted by a sharp pang of loneliness and nostalgia that had been eating away at her for 3 merciless years.

Mustafar?

A wild guess, but she would've bet her life in a hand of Sabacc on it.

How could she forget all those bedtime stories about fire rats, sulfuric mines, and Nightsister covens?

Or those times when her father took her on "diplomatic business", and she'd hide in the storage units of his Luxury 3000 Space Yacht because he told her the "molten men" would get her if she wasn't quiet enough for him to finish his work?

Never in her life would she ever forget the hellish smell of incendiary magma, or the toxic stench of death in the planet's volcanic fumes that induced nightmarish hallucinations, or "shadows of the mind", if anyone got too close.

But to Lex, Mustafar was home away from home. Only a dozen or so lightyears away from her world, Jeotis.

So, there was no mistaking the lingering smell of fire on the Jedi's robes.

Only one question remained.

What business would a Jedi have on a notoriously Sithy, unforgiving hellscape like Mustafar?

If it hadn't been for such an anomaly, Lex would've never looked up at the man in sandy colored robes and a long brown cloak marching pass the glass walls of her hub.

Stinking of a campfire, with a slight volcanic tan, he looked as if he'd just crawled out of a magma core after taking on an entire Sith army singlehandedly.

"Lieutenant Halo," the midwife droid whizzed into her hub. "It's urgent. You're needed in pod B-6 immediately."

And when Lex saw the unconscious woman the Jedi carried in his arms, she snatched up her pulmonary resuscitation kit, a light pen, and a standard health pack before following the midwife drone to an intensive care pod.

But the moment she entered the room, "it" happened.

Lex saw a boy with sandy blonde hair, no older than 8, tinkering on some kind of droid part. He looked up at a girl dressed in a blue and gray tunic.

"Are you an angel?"

"What?" the girl was caught off guard by the question.

"An angel. I heard the deep space pilots talk about them," he said. "They're the most beautiful creatures in the universe. They live on the moons of Iego, I think."

"You're a funny little boy. How do you know so much?"

"I listen to all the traders and star pilots that come through here. I'm a pilot you know and someday I'm going to fly away from this place. I think my mom and I were sold to Gardulla the Hutt, but she lost us betting on the pod races."

"You're a slave?"

"I'm a person, and my name is Anakin."

"I'm sorry. I don't fully understand. This is a strange place to me...I'm Padmé.... I'm glad to have met you, Anakin."

Lex took a second look at the patient on the diagnostic bed, and it wasn't until then that she recognized her face.

Senator Padmé Amidala?

Lex hoped she was making a mistake, but how could she?

What is this galaxy coming to?

But what did "it" mean?

Was she having black-outs again?

She hadn't experienced these spells since she was a girl, when her mother gave a special "nightmare tea" to make the visions go away.

Sometimes they were memories. Sometimes not.

But what could she call this one?

Padmé's memory...or hers?

"Senator, my name is Lex," she introduced herself, putting "it" out of her mind as she started her initial assessment of the patient. "Can you tell me where you are?"

But Padmé's answer was delirious, whispering fragments of words Lex couldn't piece together.

"Anakin...still...I know...there's..."

Anakin?

Clicking on her light pen to study the shimmering soft caramel brown of the patient's eyes, Lex's first guess for the delirium was volcanic gas intoxication.

"Her blood-02 levels are at 94 percent and dropping," she informed her assisting droid, who recorded the patient's vitals. "She'll need oxygen administration immediately."

"Her pulse has fallen below 55 beats," the droid warned her.

Lex felt her patient's life tapping faintly against her fingertips, following the bruises branded underneath the collar of her maternity tunic.

The swelling contusions around her carotid artery a grim sign that she'd been mercilessly strangled.

What monster could do this to a woman with growing life inside of her?

And turning to her equipment to increase oxygen distribution in the pod, Lex noted the line of Jedi and other planetary officials waiting outside the transparent walls of her pod.

Eager for any news about the woman beside her.

Q2 would blow a circuit if he was here, she thought. No pressure.

But her heart raced away at lightspeed.

She'd never been in a room with so many Jedi at once.

One small mistake was all it would take.

Yet despite her complicated past with Jedi, Lex vowed to do everything in her power to look after Padmé. Knowing that so many on Naboo depended on the senator to make a full recovery.

She had to stay collected, no matter how dangerous the game.

Lex breathed in deeply, closing her eyes to pull herself together.

She was good at shutting things out.

Focusing on the moment in the here and now. The rhythmic sound of her deep, slow breaths that induced her into a kind of walking meditation.

The chaos and noise around her quieting into muted murmurs as she exhaled again, opening her eyes, and concentrating on nothing but the intravenous water drip that needed connecting.

Blocking everything except one particular Jedi's gaze she couldn't completely shut out.

Since the moment she stepped into the care pod with him, his contemplative eyes had run into hers enough times to rule out coincidence.

Ever since "it" happened, in fact, he'd been watching her.

Did he notice "it"too?

It was hard to guess what was going through his mind, as Jedi were notorious for hiding such things.

But there were so many things about this stranger that drew her into a mystery.

Like how nothing felt very "stranger" about him.

Nothing more comforting than the assuring warmth in his face set on fire by the calm storm-blue eyes of this quiet Jedi Master gazing back at her.

Though she'd never seen this man, she felt a bittersweet familiarity about him that made her wonder if she'd known someone like him before.

Was that the reason he looked up at her again?

That hidden something in his eyes that felt to her like surprise....confusion?...sadness?...a strange nebula of so many unknowable auras that she wasn't sure what to make of his gaze.

So, Lex broke eye contact, turning back to the care of her patient.

"How did she end up on Mustafar?" she asked him, before she could rethink the question. "I'm worried the babies may be affected by the volcanic fumes on the planet. It's not safe for unborn children there."

And added to the thickening fog of unknowable auras about this Jedi was deep concern.

"How did you know we'd come here from Mustafar?" he asked quietly.

Lex paused, realizing too late that some things are better left unsaid.

"You have ghost burns from the lava embers on your robe," she picked out a satisfying enough explanation. "It was a lucky guess."

"And the babies?"

"What?"

"You mentioned younglings."

"Generally speaking," she went along with it, too late to backtrack now. "Toxic volcanic fumes are more harmful to unborn children."

Her hands were shaking, and she hoped he wouldn't notice it.

Mother of Kwath...How could he not notice it?

This was a terrible idea.

Q2 was right.

Why were droids always so inconveniently right?

"She'll be in good hands. The midwife droid will look after her while I'm gone," she made her excuses to the Jedi. "I need to speak to the lead physician about her condition. The droids will brief you with his orders as soon as possible."

And brushing pass the Jedi, she retreated into the corridor. 

Chapter Text

"Put this on, mi'lady. We're leaving."

The droid seemed to think she had no other choice as he urgently handed her a traveling outfit weaved with the finest blaster-proof karlini silk.

And Lex knew she was getting a fight when she came to her sleeping hub to find the droid rampaging around, tossing her crew outfits aside and dumping travel outfits, potions, elixirs, and all her secret belongings into an emergency cargo bag.

"No. We're not."

Lex hung the outfit back where it belonged in her wardrobe.

"Yes, we are."

Q2 took it right back out.

"We can do this all night, mi'lady," he warned her. "I'm a droid. I never sleep."

He was programmed to behave this way.

It wasn't his fault.

It was hers. Her and her talent for recklessness.

Because as much as she'd like to go away somewhere quietly, just like they'd told her to, that just wasn't her style.

And the less innocent bystanders she dragged into this with her, the better.

So, knowing what a comet-fire of chaos her life actually was, she insisted on leaving her homeworld alone.

But that was overruled, of course.

Better a moody Zekan cyborg holding her hand like a nanny all over the galaxy than nothing at all, they had said.

____________

"I am Q2-400," he'd introduced himself to her. "I have been reprogrammed to serve you. Assassination mode is currently deactivated. Human life defender mode is active."

"Well, that's irony for you."

"Please explain your meaning, mi'lady. My data drive for human emotional intelligence has been rebooted," he told her. "It is secondary to my annihilation drive, which is currently on stand-by for your protection. However, I am easily adapted to acquire new information on human sarcasm. Would you like to continue?"

"So, not only did they send me a droid I didn't ask for, but an outdated one," she sighed. "First off, droid. Don't call me mi'lady. You will refer to me as Lex Halo outside of Jeotis. Got it? And second, stay out of my way."

"I am sorry, Lex Halo, but my orders were to never let you out of my scanning range."

"Let's get something straight between us, droid. I didn't ask for a body guard and I won't need one," she informed the Q2 series bot. "Not where I'm going. And if the occasion calls for it, I got a DL-44 blaster hidden in my work hub, and two smaller pistols I carry on me at all times. I also keep my own homemade thermal detonators, a stun pike, a pair of wrist rockets, and if all else fails, I can tear someone's eye out with a decent punch."

"Impressive, Lex Halo," Q2 approved. "But how are your navigation skills?"

"I know my way around a starship, and I can program my own computers," she challenged the droid to top that. "I also have a knack for reading star-system maps, and can locate any star in the galaxy--Blindfolded."

"And your language skills? How will you communicate with the natives on their respective home planets?"

"I know eight of the languages commonly spoken within the Republic and the Outer Rim, including Galactic Basic, Huttese, Mando'a, and Ubese. I've also picked up some droidspeak while on the run," she told him. "So, like I said before, I'm a one-woman squad. Your services are not needed."

"Is there anything else you'd like to add, Lex Halo?"

"Point is, Q2, I'm no damsel, and I won't be treated like one. What do I need a droid for?"

"Might I interest you in using my services for espionage instead?" Q2 asked her. "Acquiring information may prove more useful to you than any of my other skills. Would you like to continue?"

And that was their agreement.

Q2 was to be her second pair of eyes and ears (metaphorically speaking) on Polis Massa.

When they arrived on the base, he was put to work maintaining data storages in the computer systems hub.

He had access to all research and archaeological finds recorded on the asteroid belt, as well as confidential files concerning those who worked on the base, radio transmissions, and various logs of stored medical records.

An ideal way for him to conduct his espionage incognito, being the first to know if any threats approached Polis Massa.

But by taking Senator Amidala on as a patient, Lex was now her own greatest threat, playing a dangerous game of cat and womprat rather than staying invisible like she was told.

____________

And with her travel outfit caught in a stalemate between them, she stared into his war-torn heterochromian droid-human eyes and said, "Now's not the time to get your wires in a knot,Q2."

"How could you not tell me about the Jedi?"

"I had it under control."

"If these visions of yours are happening again, then clearly, you don't."

"We're staying, Q2. That's an order."

"I answer to Her majesty, Queen of Jeotis," he reminded her. "You can't seem to stop forgetting it, but a droid never forgets. My orders are to protect you. Damn the costs."

"Padmé Amidala will not be one of those costs," she persisted. "I can't walk away from this, Q2. She's my patient."

"She's with the Jedi."

"This is different," she said. "I don't know how I know it yet, but my instincts tell me I've met these Jedi before, and that they can help us. We can help each other."

"Your feelings told you this?" Q2 checked her. "Get a hold of yourself, mi'lady. This is no time for feelings. I say we leave now and catch a transport to Dantooine. And if those Jedi try to stop us, we take Amidala as a hostage."

"And that's exactly why no one in this galaxy likes us."

Q2 shrugged. Remorselessly.

"And you got a better idea?"

"We stay and gain intel from these Jedi about the Empire and their movements in the outer rim. Two bulabirds with one stone," she countered him. "If it's a planetary alliance they're building against Sidious, we need to be ready. Jeotis may be a small moon, but we're a strategic trump card for anyone hoping to gain control in the outer rim. We need to know our highest bidder. And let's face it. Even if we did leave this asteroid, we have nowhere to run. It won't be long before the Empire reaches us. We'll need some insurance."

"And how exactly do you plan on winning these Jedi over?" Q2 asked. "The Empire and the Jedi Order can only seem to agree on one thing, and that is killing you. Your mother and her kind have been hunted since the Clone Wars by both the Jedi Council and the newly appointed Emperor. This 'alliance' you speak of is bound to be short."

"I guess that means we should work fast then. We don't have much time. I need more information on Kenobi and this man called Anakin. You can start there. Meanwhile, I have patients to look after. Besides," she said, turning to look back at him from the door of her sleeping hub. "Weren't you the one who said I shouldn't sit and wait?"

"That was before the Jedi, mi'lady."

"Well, if you're so concerned about my safety, I guess you'll just have to start doing some actual work around here, Q2," she remarked as she left him. "Protecting me is your job. Padmé is mine."

___________________

But Padmé's suffering appeared to be beyond the reach of medicine.

Was that the will of the Force?

Neither the Jedi nor the Sith know all there is to be known about the Force...Even for us, who respect the Force as a whole without splitting it between the light and dark sides, cannot truly know what the will of the Force may be. It is so far beyond our limited understanding that we can only surrender to its mystery.

'It's not the Force who should make decisions for us anymore, mother,' Lex thought, as she watched over Padmé in deep concern. 'Not if it depends on corrupted mortals like us to bring it back into balance. Because if this is the will of the Force, then it has lost its reason for being.'

And because of the so-called "fragility" of an unbalanced Force, everything around Lex seemed to be spinning out of control.

If the Force existed for a natural justice in the universe, what meaning was there in Padmé Amidala dying this way?

Padmé's condition worsened.

As if she were deliberately fighting against every attempt to save her life.

As if the senator had opposite goals in mind about how their fight would continue after the rise of the Empire.

"Even though we were often on opposite sides of a debate," Lex thought, as she tended to Padmé. "I never stopped looking up to you. Because no matter how differently we handled politics in the senate, we were fighting for the same things. You wanted a better galaxy, and I wanted a better homeworld...I never imagined we'd meet again like this....But our work isn't finished yet, Amidala. We still have something to fight for....Because even when it hurts the most, leading is what we were called by the Force to do...So, I beg you, for Naboo and for these children, fight, Padmé. Fight for the people who still need you. For those who still fight along with us. Even in this darkness, now is not the time to abandon what we stood for."

But of the hundreds of treatments Lex had learned to cure the human body, nothing could cure a broken heart.

For all its grandiosity, science still had no authority in such matters.

__________

They were always watching her.

Always engaged in some high stakes debate about the senator and what was to be done about her.

To the galaxy, Amidala was a political crisis threatening the stability of millions on Naboo.

But to Lex Halo, Padmé Amidala was still a mother fighting for her life.

Occasionally, Lex would look up from her work at Padmé's side and meet Kenobi's meditative gaze through the transparent walls between them.

More than once, he'd make a comment to Jedi Master Yoda, who would turn his goblin-like green head toward Lex in deep contemplation.

Giving her a chilling impression that their conversation was no longer about the senator.

Relax...if they really sensed something about me, they would've ambushed me by now...I don't know what's going through Kenobi's head....I just know to stay out of his path.

They were joined by Senator Bail Ograna, but Lex recognized him as Prince Bail Organa of Alderaan.

"Medically, she is completely healthy," the Medical Droid GH-7 reported to Organa and the Jedi Masters. "For reasons we can't explain, we're losing her."

"She's dying?" Master Kenobi replied, surprised.

"We don't know why. She has lost the will to live. We'll need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies."

"Babies?" Prince Organa repeated in astonishment.

"Yes," replied GH-7. "She's carrying twins."

And then Kenobi slowly turned his gaze back to Lt. Halo, his suspicions undoubtedly confirmed by this offhand, accidental detail.

Lex quickly broke eye contact with him and distracted herself by looking too busy to notice, knowing Jedi were eminently sensitive to fear.

But the unspoken question lingered between her and Kenobi.

The senator was pregnant with two babies, not one.

How could she have known that before ever walking into the room to treat her patient?

If she wasn't a Jedi...then who, or what, was she?

Chapter Text

Lying flat on her back in her bunk, Lex daydreamed about the home she left behind on Jeotis.

Tossing up an old blue and red chance cube, as she watched it hover above her for a few moments, before catching it back in her hand.

You don't need Jedi Mind tricks to bend the galaxy to your will. Sometimes, the most complicated problems can be solved with a simple potion. 

Can a potion even  bring people back from the dead, mother? 

Be patient, my stargazer. You're not ready for that spell yet. Let's start with the basics of saving a life first.

And mentally running through  a checklist of every potion she'd ever mastered under her mother's teachings, Lex was determined to find that answer for Padmé. 

 The Sleeper potion, Common Healing potion, Gemini Twins Imposter potion, Starfire Love potion, Stem Regeneration potion, Neptune's Kiss Comatose Po...

Lex shot up from her bunk.

Neptune's Kiss...It's too risky to use before the babies are born, but if it works, it may give the senator enough time to change her mind.

Forgetting to return the chance cube back to its hiding spot in her belongings, she hurried out into the corridor. 

It was after hours on base, and Q2 had likely gone down to the subterrestrial data archive, where he usually spent the night "working" as she slept. 

But this couldn't wait until morning.

And with no better time than this to avoid people asking questions, Lex charged around the corner to the access doors of the data archive. 

Until-

"You were the chosen one!"

Lex stopped walking. 

Caught off guard by a deep hit of anguish in her chest that made her catch the wall next to her for support. Feeling as if she'd be crushed by the indescribable heartbreak that overwhelmed her senses. 

"I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you." 

Lex took deeper breaths, her whole body burning as if it were literally on fire, drowning in a lake of magma as she was crushed under this tormenting grief she couldn't shut out. 

But "it" refused to let her go this time. Not until "it" decided it was over.

"It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

"You were my brother, Anakin...I loved you." 

Until at last, Lex opened her eyes to the bright overhead lights of the base corridor. 

The excruciating pain of burning alive was gone.

But when she looked down at her hands, they weren't her hands anymore, but the remains of them. 

Full thickness burns that had simmered down to her bone and the swollen bloody muscles of her palms. Blood and tissue leatherized under her raw muscle. Her skin curled up and flaking from the burns, charred black and ashen around the edges. 

And the smell....that nauseating metallic and meaty combination of burning skin, muscle, hair, and bone.

There was nothing like it that made her so sick to her stomach. 

And then it too was gone. 

The smell.

Her blackened fingers.

In the blink of an eye, everything was in order again, from the soft touch of her fair skin to the blood ruby diamond of Jeotis on her left hand.

And the red-blue chance cube squeezed so tightly in her right hand, that the blood pulled from her knuckles.

Shaken and heart pounding, she leaned against the wall to pull herself back together. 

"Why does this keep happening to me?" she whispered. "Why can't I make it stop anymore?" 

Was it a vision...or an omen?

And that's when her eyes caught sight of what--or rather who--might be responsible for the intrusion. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi came striding down the hall from the access doors of the data archive. 

'Could Master Qui-Gon have made a mistake in believing Anakin was the chosen one?' Obi-Wan pondered.

And then, sensing great anxiety in the Force, his eyes wandered to the source of it at the end of the corridor, where Lex Halo stood frozen in front of him. 

'The medical lieutenant?...Odd....It seems every time we cross paths, my thoughts turn to Master Qui-Gon. If it really is still just coincidence, chance has never left so little to surprise."

'Get out of my head, get out of my head, please get out of my head,' Lex repeated to herself, trying to block the Jedi Master and these intrusive visions from her thoughts. 'Every time he shows up, it's like I lose control of my mind.  It's always Jedi mind tricks, but I won't lose my damn head every time he's around.'

Because these visions were just a distraction from the more important lingering questions. 

Like how it was that Kenobi found himself in a strictly 'Authorized Personnel Only' corridor of the base, stalking the data archive at this hour of the night? 

Wasn't Q2 supposed to be guarding the terminal?

Because if he wasn't shorting circuits somewhere with a lightsaber through his thick, blocky droid head, then what excuse did he have for failing to alert her of the Jedi's breach?

'Don't tell me he's playing Sabacc with the data computer again.  Must I do everything around here myself?'

But as much as she'd enjoy thinking up the ultimate punishment for her droid subject later, it didn't help her situation now.

Because there was no point in turning back down the corridor, unless she wanted to scream to the Jedi, "I'm evil and I'm all yours, so come and get me!"

So, taking the Gungan by the tongue, she marched onward. Approaching the Jedi head-on under the masquerade that his meeting her there had been an unexceptional and absolute-

'Coincidence', Obi-Wan decided, as he too proceeded in her direction. 'I think not.'

"Master Jedi," she greeted him with a nod.

"Lieutenant," he returned the gesture.

Both Jedi and lady now standing face-to-face in the middle of the hallway, eyes locked and unavoidable. 

"I couldn't help but notice that you appeared lost," she remarked. "Is there something I can help you find, Master Jedi?"

It was the first time they had spoken to each other since his arrival on base, as they were both industriously absorbed in their respective duties.

But that night was one of those rare nights when the base was stable and quiet, giving them a moment of pause in their rapidly changing universe.

Kenobi didn't answer her immediately, taking a moment to study her face, as if he were again questioning what he saw there.

Likely reading something about her through the Force...or however the Force worked with Jedi.

"I should ask if I can be of any help to you, lieutenant," he said. "As I also noticed, it's been hours since you've started your shift and you haven't stopped working. Even your droids have powered down for the night." 

"How observant you Jedi are," she answered, her eyes skating suspiciously between him and the archive behind him. "But after all, there are two kinds of people on this base. Those who sleep, and Medics."

"You'll find that I'm mostly acquainted with the latter," he replied. "And since it seems we both have no intention of sleeping tonight, I may as well be useful." 

"That won't be necessary, Master Kenobi."

"Please, you may call me Obi-Wan," he told her quietly. "There's no reason to call me master here. Not anymore."

And catching that subtle hint of something troubled in his voice, Lex felt again that haunting tragedy hanging around Kenobi that mirrored the anguish in her visions. 

But what does one say to comfort a Jedi, who has always served as a comfort to others?

"I'm sorry," she tried empathy. "There are...so many realities in this universe, and some of them can be so unforgivably harsh...Losing so much at once...it would be hard for anyone, including a Jedi. But I hope you'll find rest. Because the senator will need you to be your strongest now, and help her find wisdom in this uncertain darkness around us."

And as Lex pardoned herself and continued on her path to the data archive, Obi-Wan paused. 

Her words lingering with bittersweetness, hitting him like a meteor storm, while resurrecting a warm voice of comfort from his far-away past. 

You've been a good apprentice, Obi-Wan, and you're a much wiser man than I am. I foresee you will become a great Jedi Knight.

And just as Lex walked around him to proceed down the hallway, Obi-Wan's eyes fell on the chance cube caged in her hand. 

"Wait," he found himself speaking aloud. 

A word that came out more like a plea than a request.

And noting the puzzled and confused look on Lex's face when she heard it, Obi-Wan quickly put a valid reason behind it. 

"The senator's operation," he said. "Once the babies are born...she will live?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know how to answer that. I'm not a Jedi," Lex said quietly. "But no matter what, I won't ever give up on her, as long as she's willing to fight." 

"It seems we're on the same side then," Obi-Wan remarked. 

But that subtly conflicted and fleeting smile that Lex gave him only invoked more mindful caution in the Jedi Master. 

"Have it your way then," she teased him anyway. "As long as you don't pass out in this corridor before the night's over. I don't need any more of you Jedi in my hospital unit tonight. Take care of yourself, Obi-Wan." 

"Well, those are my orders, Lieutenant Halo," he accepted them lightheartedly. Though unable to resist himself when adding, "That is, if there isn't another name I should call you by?" 

Lex hesitated.

What did he mean? 

Did he believe she was lying about it?

How could he?

There was no way he could....or could he?

Was it just friendly banter or could it really be the reason she'd caught him snooping around the data archive?

Obi-Wan waited, and the longer she took to answer him, the more suspect it made her.

So, she gave him an answer.

 "You will call me lieutenant."

And before he could throw another question her way, she retreated.

Discretely hiding the old chance cube in a safe pocket of her medical vest. 

Leaving Obi-Wan to wonder if her conveniently timed escapes were more than just perfect coincidence now.

Why does she keep doing that?

Chapter Text

"I knew it," Lex folded her arms across her chest. 

Finding her mechanical Frankenstein coolly leaning over the data extraction console he'd made into an impromptu card table, as he gambled a heated match of Sabacc against the data computer.

She sighed.

Why are droids always so inconveniently predictable?

"23!" the system computer's voice boomed throughout the room, revealing a winning hand on the table. A crushing suit consisting of The Evil One, The Star, and an odd number of Staves, Sabers, and Coins.

In response to that move, Q2 slammed his metallic fist down on the cards in front of him, "By Bane's blade, you hot-wired scum, you're cheating me!"

"I don't need to, sir," the computer answered in a crisp, gentlemanly voice. "I have rightfully won the hand, based on the predetermined values that were locked into the table before the game. I have computed all possibilities. This is the 107th winning hand out of 1013 possible outcomes."

"Since when does 3 Staves get you an 8?" Q2 challenged. "What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

"Can you not compute?"

"I can compute just fine, you block of sheet metal."

"Correction. I happen to be firmly constructed with a titanium based core," the computer informed him. "Pay up, droid-bolts. The game is finished."

"Here's me paying up," Q2 replied, activating the blaster pistol compartment in his wrist. "This will teach you, you karking crinking junk pile. Deal me again!"

"Glad to see you're so relieved I'm not dead, Q2," Lex remarked to the Zekan cyborg, finally making her presence known. 

"Ah, mi'lady," Q2 greeted, waving for her to join them. "You want in on this hand?" 

"Deal me in. But I'm shuffling," she snatched the cards from his mechanical hands. "You always cheat."

And feeling petty, Lex bumped him aside to take his spot at the table, dealing him a fresh new round. 

"How could you not tell me about the Jedi?" she got to the point. 

"You had it under control," he reminded her.

"He's been stalking outside your door."

"And how did your plan of 'making friends' with him turn out?" Q2 asked. 

"These visions are getting worse," she said. "And always when Kenobi is around...They've never been this violent." 

"What do you mean, mi'lady?" Q2 looked up in deeper concerned. "If he harmed you in any way, I'll march right out there to Kenobi and-"

"Q2, hush." 

Lex paused in deep contemplation, the split deck of cards in her hands frozen as the unsolved meaning behind her vision haunted her. 

Was Kenobi dangerous enough to hurt her in visions? 

Or was this vision a warning that he eventually could, if she didn't jump ship and put a whole galaxy between them, just as Q2 had begged her to do?

But visions could be as vague as they were false prophecies. 

She didn't have enough pieces to the scud pie yet. 

And without more conclusive intel on what she was to do about these Jedi, there was no telling what the vision in the corridor meant yet, and no reason to send Q2 rampaging after Kenobi prematurely. 

"What's your wager, Q2?" she changed the subject lightly. "And you better make it good this time. I kick ass at Sabacc."

"I am not equipped with an ass to kick, Lex Halo. However, my last master was a gambler, and he had a risk analysis appendage wired into me for such occasions as these," Q2 warned her, expertly dealing out the remaining cards at machine speed. "But I'll go easy on you, since you are by far my favorite human in the galaxy."

"More gambling, less flattery, Q2."

He played first.

"So," Q2 began. "Fantasizing about your irresistible Jedi was the only reason behind gracing us lowly droids with your presence tonight?"

Lex shot him a look. 

"I was actually hoping you'd have something more useful to tell me about him," she told him. "It is your job, after all." 

"Obi-Wan Kenobi. Human. Male. 38 standard years old. Originated from the planet Stewjon. Force-sensitive. Jedi Defender of the Galactic Republic. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Weight, one hundred and-"

"Yes, Q2, I've seen his medical file," she stopped him before he could ramble on further. "I'm more interested in his allegiances. Like for instance, why he seems so intimately connected to Senator Amidala? And what we can gain from making them both our allies? And why...why he always looks at me like..."

"That information wouldn't be uploaded to the data archive."

"Of course it wouldn't be. But...you're an espionage droid. Haven't you been espionaging around lately?"

"I've been busy," he defended himself. "Since the influx of refugees on the base, I've been down here categorizing all the new data, and getting no thank you for it. I haven't had time for the act of espionaging."

"Well, I'm glad to see you taking your duties around here seriously, Q2, but remember, you work for me."

"Anakin Skywalker is the father of Senator Amidala's children," Q2 reported the intel he actually had learned. "The name was of particular interest to the Jedi Masters. According to my 3 year long study of human emotion, they showed both anxiety and grief for Skywalker."

"It was my understanding that the Jedi were incapable of such a thing," she said. 

"Actually, it is quite possible," Q2 informed her. "Biologically speaking, the reproductive functionality of the male human anatomy permits the conception of his offspring by the mating act of-"

"What I mean, Q2," Lex cut him off, before he could go down that Greeper hole. "is that Jedi have never made upstanding parents...In fact, I was under the impression that it was against their Jedi code to form such attachments."

"Correct," Q2 responded. "However, based on the evidence, it has happened otherwise, without the blessing of the Jedi High Council."

And then a subtle smirk broke across Lex's face. 

"What a surprise," she remarked quietly. "And this Anakin, he was someone close to Kenobi?"

"His former apprentice," Q2 nodded, claiming another winning hand against her cards.

But Lex wasn't paying attention to the game anymore.

Her thoughts were on Padmé again, slowly piecing her story together.

"Amidala is dying and this apprentice is nowhere to be found. Typical, coming from a Jedi. Always duty before love...No wonder the galaxy hates these gutterguppies." 

"Perhaps he was executed with the rest of the Jedi by order of the newly appointed Emperor?"

"If that were the case," Lex mused, thinking back on her vision. "Then why does Kenobi seem so conflicted about Skywalker?"

"Skywalker isn't our problem," Q2 reminded her. "It's Kenobi. He came here asking questions." 

"Of course, he did. He's a Jedi," she said. "But that's what I have a droid security detail for, right?" 

"He's requested access to your data file, mi'lady."

Lex paused, slowly lifting her eyes from her Sabacc cards until they met Q2's. "And did you give it to him?"

"What kind of security droid do you take me for?" Q2 replied. "I told him I had no authorization to access employee data files on the ship, and that I was only a communications droid."

"Did he buy it?"

"Unlikely," Q2 answered. "These Jedi have an instinct that we droids will never compute. They know without knowing. It is likely that the Force is driving Jedi Kenobi to question your identity and your reason for being on Polis Massa. Twice he mentioned that it was odd you reminded him so much of..."

"Yes?"

"Never mind. It was a misunderstanding, and I told him so."

"I decide what is and isn't a misunderstanding, and you follow orders accordingly," Lex noted. "Reminded him so much of who?"

"His master," Q2 admitted.

"Clearly a misunderstanding."

"He wondered if it were possible that-"

"Absolutely not."

"Well good, because as I said before, I informed him so."

"All the more reason why I need you to keep this Jedi off my trail. Give him something, anything that would keep him busy until I find a way to save the senator." 

"Why are you so determined to save Amidala, when our obvious plan of action should be to leave Polis Massa immediately?" Q2 asked. 

"It's nothing," Lex dismissed him, turning her attention back to the game. "Your play, Q2."

"You're intentionally putting yourself at risk with these Jedi for nothing?" Q2 challenged her. "That sort of thinking is wildly out of your favor, mi'lady." 

"You remember that thing I said about me making the decisions and you following orders?"

"A droid never forgets." 

"Then all you need to know is that I can't abandon the senator," she said. "It would be unethical to leave a patient like this."

Q2 studied her intently before quietly playing his move. 

"Whatever distant memory this senator evokes in you, saving Amidala will not change the past. You can not save everyone you meet in this galaxy, and you must prepare yourself for the likely possibility you won't save her," he said. "Prolonging this any further will only compromise your own safety. You have exhausted every alternative within your scientific discipline, and none have been successful."

"No, we haven't tried everything yet" Lex said, looking up at him from her cards. "Which brings me to the reason I'm here. I need to ask you a favor, Q2."

"You never need to ask," he said. "I am yours to command."

"But in this case, it's more courteous to ask than to demand you carry out this mission," Lex replied.

"I will engage in any mission you request, courteous or not," he said. "Even if the odds of me liking it are slim."

"I need you to return to Jeotis."

"I knew I wouldn't like this."

"Find Neb, and deliver a message to her on my behalf," Lex instructed him. "She'll know what to do with it."

"You want me to transmit a message to your slave, Nebula Starcreth, on our home world, which happens to be in the middle of a Zekan occupation?" 

"I need you to transmit a list, actually. The ingredients I need to process a Neptune's Kiss Comatose potion. Most of the ingredients I can find here, but the life-sustaining chemical, Eclium, can only be extracted from a volcanic flower that grows on Jeotis," Lex told him. "It induces a coma, which may sustain the senator's life, and buy us time to reverse the adverse effects of her condition. By that time, maybe she will find her courage to live again."

"You want to bring Sith medicine onto a base crawling with Jedi and administer it to the senator with the last remaining Jedi Masters looking over your shoulder?" Q2 clarified. "Would this be what humans call a suicide mission?"

"It's not 'Sith' medicine. It's common coven craft," Lex defended. "Just something these 'light side' Jedi haven't bothered to try yet."

"Mi'lady, I'll have you know that protecting you would be easier if you would just stop compromising your own safety. If Kenobi suspects that you have any affiliation with the Nightsisters, he will kill you," Q2 informed her. "And if your hologram is intercepted by the Empire, or the Zekan prince, not even I will be able to defend you. Your position will be compromised, and your enemies will come looking for you."

"Then don't let it happen, Q2," Lex replied. "I'm counting on you to get this right. You've been a faithful droid to me, and it has been an honor having you at my side this far. But if this is to be the last order between us, know that I want it no other way." 

Reluctantly, Q2 folded.

"Affirmative," he said, bowing his mechanical, boxed head in submission. "As you wish, mi'lady."

Chapter Text

In the meantime, Lex had work to do. 

She was running out of time, and she needed a back-up plan in case Q2's mission off-base failed. 

The closest thing she could find to the chemical make-up of Eclium on base was Binnoturnium. A cleaning agent the droids used to remove hazardous materials from the trash compactor, which when chemically manipulated, had recently become a sedative and highly addictive illegal street drug all across the galaxy. 

However, in modest amounts, it had proven to be highly effective in every medical condition from pain to psychosis. 

But it was highly complicated to work with and lethally unforgiving. 

Lex was busy at her work desk, carefully testing a neutralizing agent with droplets of Binnoturnium in a beaker.

And only when she was caught off guard by the smell of Kallidahin bagels somewhere in the halls, did she realize her meal hour had come and gone. 

Spotting the refreshment droid hovering pass her work hub, Lex couldn't resist the bait.

Sealing the door behind her so no one would disturb her unfinished work, Lex hunted down the refreshment droid and bribed her into letting her keep 2 extra bagels in exchange for some extra tune-up time.

After picking her bagels and a flask of Daro Root Beer to get her through the night, she carried the armful back to her hub, wondering how she would then scan her access code with her hands so full.

Where was Q2 when she needed him?

But lucky for her (or rather, unlucky for her, depending on one's perspective), Lex didn't need to touch the access panel to get in.

Someone had already done it for her.

But it was not the medical droids she found snooping around her hub.

It was Kenobi.

Quietly examining her beaker experiment as he stood over her work desk.

And yes, it had to be that beaker.

The one with the Binnoturnium Lex still knew very little about, which she had unwittingly left to explode on the burner while she was gone.

And her mistake to think a locked entrance meant anything to a Jedi.

"Lt. Medical Commander," he greeted her.

"Obi-Wan," she returned the greeting, eyeing him suspiciously as she walked to her desk and dropped her bagels on top.

Why was it so hard to get rid of this Jedi?

"Pardon my intrusion on your work, commander," he said. "But your beaker seems to have detonated. It had to be stopped."

And it was then Lex knew that this would be a very, very long night for her.

"Well, thank goodness you were around to stop it, Master Kenobi," Lex pretended to be relieved. "How careless of me."

Could he sense her heart pounding against her chest as his cerulean eyes study the chemical residue in the beaker?

Had he discovered what she was really working on?

"You shouldn't play with that," Lex warned him. "They only let me keep so many beakers around here." 

Heeding her request, Obi-Wan commanded the Force with one nonchalant wave of his hand, and Lex's beaker floated obediently back to her desk, safely away from the burner she'd accidently left it on.

"It isn't advisable to leave something as reactive as Binnoturnium unattended," he gave her his Jedi spiel. "In fact, as I do recall, a chemical like Binnoturnium is not authorized for general medicine at all, and should only be handled by a licensed level III chemist."

"Well," Lex's lips slipped into an innocent smile. "Even a chemist makes an honest mistake."

"Not that kind of mistake," Obi-Wan remarked.

But without the Eclium flower, how could he know what was in the beaker?

The violet tinted liquid had already evaporated.

At this early stage in the process, the chemical makeup of her antidote could've been anything from cake batter to battery acid.

To call it anything remotely 'Sithy' would've been a stretch.

She kept her cool.

The Jedi had nothing on her.

He knew he had nothing.

"I guess I've learned my lesson," she said, turning back to her work desk in hopes that now that he'd rode his Jedi high horse all over her hub, he'd leave.

"Whenever you gamble," Obi-Wan said quietly, his eyes shifting to her chance cube on her desk. "Eventually you lose." 

And something about the way he said it made her pause, meeting his eyes again. 

"The chance cube you carry with you," Obi-Wan went on. "I'm reminded of a very similar one I saw on Tattooine years ago as a padawan. My master gambled our ship against a Toydarian junk dealer in a pod race. It was quite the riot. But he was a student of the living force. He had no reservation about surrendering to it wholly and seeing where his instincts took him. Even if that path led him to defy the wishes of the Jedi Council." 

Was this a test?

Another Jedi mind trick?

Lex wasn't sure she understood where this was going, but she wouldn't let him intimidate her. 

"It's not for gambling," she said. "It's just something I always forget to throw away."

"Yet I sense a strong attachment for it," Obi-Wan said. "It's something important to you. I imagine it was a gift."

"I can't remember," Lex answered dismissively, resuming her work.

"It was a very long time ago then."

"No, I can't remember because it wasn't worth remembering," she said firmly. "Sometimes a space rock is just a space rock, Kenobi. There's no other meaning behind it." 

And this time, he seemed to take the hint. 

"I would be careful next time, lieutenant," he nodded a parting, turning to finally take his leave. 

Or so she thought.

"Oh right, there is one more thing I wanted to ask you," he said, turning back around. "I met a droid in the data archive."

"You mean, GH-7?"

"A Q2-400 battle droid series. R2 was able to trace its serial numbers," Obi-Wan said, in deep contemplation. "I knew I recognized the model from the outer rim, during my operations in the Clone Wars. But I can't imagine why one would be needed on Polis Massa."

Lex kept working.

"Funny," she said, as if she were only half-listening. "I've never even heard of a Q-tip series...or what kind of droid did you say it was?"

"Well, they weren't popular. I read about them in the Jedi archives. A cyborg prototype illegally manufactured on the droid planet, Zekus. They were sold and imported to the moon, Jeotis. Rumor has it that humans were abducted and used to build the prototype. An ideal hybrid, so to speak, with both human and droid qualities. But after several failed experiments, many were recommissioned as battle droids. Which makes the circumstances even more curious," Obi-Wan said. "How would a droid like that end up on Polis Massa?"

"That is curious," she agreed, nodding. "You believe this Q2 unit may be a lethal threat on base?"

"Likely not. R2 informed me the droid's battle drive is deactivated," Obi-Wan said. "And since he seems drawn to the data archive, I suspect he's being used as a spy."

"Well, the refugees here come and go. Maybe the droid was left behind by one of them."

"Even so, if this droid has mined a considerable amount of data, he'd be too valuable to leave behind without extracting his memory drive," Obi-Wan reasoned. "After all, droids are only a reflection of their masters. Which means he's getting his orders from someone...somewhere on base."

"Well in that case, you can check the ship's data log for all patients who've been admitted to the hospital with a droid accompanying them," Lex recommended.

"And to your knowledge, lieutenant," he asked. "Has any patient been discharged within the last 24 hours?"

"Not that I'm aware of," she replied. "I'm not the one who processes patient discharges."

"But you do approve them?"

"Of course," Lex hesitated. "Is...there a problem?"

"Well, it appears this Q2 droid has disappeared since I last spoke to him. He's left the base without any authorization," Obi-Wan answered. "If he left with his master, you would've been notified of a patient discharge. Am I correct?"

"That is protocol," she agreed. "But I received no notification of any kind. I've never even seen this droid on base."

And in a long contemplative moment, Obi-Wan's eyes wandered from hers to the Binnoturnium beaker on her desk. 

If he sensed how fast her heart was beating, he never told her. 

"Then what I'm sensing is likely true," Obi-Wan spoke. "The droid is a spy. I worry he could be transmitting intel about Senator Amidala and the birth of her children. I must inform Captain Gryff of this security breach immediately, and see if we can't find out who this droid is working for and why it's been sent here."

But before he marched out of her hub for good, Obi-Wan paused, turning to face her again. 

"I sense much anxiety in you, lieutenant, though you hide it well," he said quietly. "If there's anything you want to tell me, now would be your chance."

"I've said everything I can to help you, Master Obi-Wan," Lex answered him. "I hope you find your droid." 

"Well, I hope we continue to trust in our new friendship."

And though it sounded friendly enough, Lex couldn't help but wonder if there was some double meaning attached to it.

A warning, of some kind.

"As do I," she replied. "I'm sure the droid will turn up eventual..."

Lex didn't get a chance to finish that sentence before the doors of her hub released, and Q2 rampaged into the room, nearly charging Obi-Wan down as he marched toward his mistress.

"Mi'lady!" Q2 cried, completely blind to the Jedi Master standing nearby, listening to his every word. "I've delivered your message to Jeotis. Nebula Starcreth sent me back with the Eclium extraction, but there was a slight hiccup in the plan. It failed. Miserably. I was detected just outside the Jeotian security parameters, and their starfighters have been in pursuit of me ever since. I tried to lose them in hyperspace, but they followed me back to base. We must evacuate you to safety immediately."

Obi-Wan folded his arms across his chest. 

Disappointed but not surprised.

Lex sighed deeply, accepting her fate. 

"So, he isn't the brightest lightsaber in the galaxy," she remarked.

And quicker than he could say dark side, Lex drew her hidden weapon and held Kenobi at blaster point. 

Chapter Text

"Your mastery of deception is about as ungraceful as your mastery of chemistry," Obi-Wan remarked.

"What can I say," Lex said, charging up her blaster pistol. "The only thing I seem to be good at is shooting things."

And when Obi-Wan saw the illegal and unmistakably "witchy" Eclium vial buzzing off Q2's ammo belt, his hand hoovered over the hilt of his sheathed lightsaber.

"If you're not the real Lex Halo," he said. "Then who, might I ask, are you?" 

"I suppose if you Jedi call yourselves the heroes of this galaxy," she said. "Then that makes me your antagonist." 

"What a shame," Kenobi remarked. "Just when I was starting to sense a connection between us."

"There's no need to wake my patients, so I will go quietly," she informed him. "The droid and I will escort ourselves off base, and you'll forget you ever saw us."

"On the contrary, lieutenant," Obi-Wan said. "Our time together on this asteroid has been quite a riot. Time flies when you're having fun, wouldn't you say?"

"Don't worry, Jedi, I'm just the opening act. When the Jeotian warships arrive, it'll be a blast."

"If it's anything like your knack for puns, I'm sure it'll be a crowd pleaser." 

"There's no need to disturb the peace." 

"I couldn't agree more. Surely, we can settle this in a more civilized manner," Obi-Wan said. "However, if your intention is to give away our position to the Empire, I'm afraid I can't allow that. Senator Amidala and her children must be protected."

And quicker than she could say Jedi scum, Kenobi ignited his neon blue blade and took an offensive stance in the Soresu lightsaber form to rival the barrel of her blaster.

"Of course, peacekeeping is your expertise, is it not?" she remarked. "And for one flying under the radar, it would be quite grandiose to make a scene and draw attention to yourself. I'm sure you'll agree, Master Kenobi, that looking the other way is in both our best interests." 

"And I suppose the Eclium your droid smuggled for you is also in the spirit of best interests?" 

"And I suppose, that you suppose, to make me surrender for it?"

"That would be a good start," Obi-Wan agreed.

"A good start to your end, Jedi!" Q2 declared, activating all of his blaster pistol compartments and recklessly opening fire on the room.

"Q2, stand down!" Lex demanded. 

But the droid couldn't help it.

Q2 would obey his programming.

A fight he couldn't win here. 

They were outnumbered.

And it was only a matter of time before Kenobi's reinforcements followed the sounds of blaster fire to Lex's work hub.

Q2 would devotedly stand up against the entire base to allow his mistress time to escape, without any concern for his own preservation, meeting his inevitable demise in the end.

Lex couldn't let that happen.

Despite being found out by Kenobi, she refused to leave Q2 behind to save herself. 

Droid or not, he was all she had left of the home. 

For three years, they had been on the run. Two fugitives roaming the galaxy in the bickering of each other's company. Somehow finding comfort in their mutual longing for the planet they left behind.

That he was a machine, and she a human, no longer mattered to her anymore. 

She loved Q2.

And surrendering to the Jedi in the end, she was ready to make herself Kenobi's captive, if it meant sparing her droid from any fatal damage.

"Q2, cease fire immediately! That's an order-"

But Q2's wild rampage erratically turned on her by mistake, making Lex take cover as the droid fired indiscriminately at anything moving in the room. 

His only objective being to subdue the Jedi, as Obi-Wan deflected Q2's blaster beams with graceful fluidity. 

"Jedi, you are advised to withdraw or be terminated," Q2 warned him.

Oblivious to the blaster rays that went wild around the room, smashing through the glass walls of Lex's hub.

A death trap of knife-edged projectiles ripping through the air as they darted toward her.

Lex had only seconds to act, giving her no time to avert being sliced to pieces by the momentum of glass shredding through her body. 

Shielding her face with her forearm, she took cover. 

Waiting.

But the onslaught of glass never happened.

Slowly, she lowered her defense. 

Coming face to face with the shards of glass suspended in mid-air, hoovering merely inches from her eyes. 

As if she'd only been an afterthought in the midst of the chaos, Obi-Wan directed the Force in a protective wall around her, holding off a frozen rainfall of sharp crystal fragments that surrounded her on all sides. 

With the imposter lieutenant thus safely detained, Kenobi turned his attention back to Q2, force-pushing the droid into a storage annex with Lex's beakers. 

But that wouldn't stop Q2.

The droid busted out of the storage room again, activating a thermal detonator to blow the whole hospital to hyperspace to take out Obi-Wan. 

Lex broke free from Obi-Wan's arresting barrier, putting herself between the Jedi and droid to finally put an end to the scrimmage. 

"I said enough, Q2!"

"Your highness, please step aside."

"I'm not in any danger," she said firmly. "The Jedi just has some...questions for me. I am obliged to give him an answer." 

"There's no time for questions, mi'lady," Q2 charged up his blasters again. "The Jeotian strike squadron is on its way here and we-"

"I'm sorry, Q2," Lex said reluctantly.

And before he could stop her, she activated a droid popper and shoved it into his chest. Q2 had just enough time to catch it with his hands, before the charge erupted through his palms, sending a shockwave that shorted his circuits and all machinery within range buzzing inside Lex's hub. 

"Mi'lady! What are you....doing?"

Q2's voice gradually slowed and spiraled into a deeper pitch, his system disabling, rendering him defenseless in a forced power-down. 

Lex knew he'd give her a piece of mechanical hell when she rebooted his system, but he gave her no other choice. 

"And so, the list of your professional qualifications continues. A medic, an illegal chemist, a Sith spy, a marksman, and now your highness?" Obi-Wan remarked. "A jack of all trades, indeed."

"Yeah? And what have you done lately?" she muttered, reaching into her desk and arming herself with all matter of weaponry she could carry. Ready to face whatever army was coming for her outside the base.

"Your highness of what exactly, might I ask?" Obi-Wan wondered.

"Of nothing in particular," she said. "As it so happens, I've been dethroned." 

And then the walls shuddered around them again. But this time, it wasn't Q2's pandemonium that rocked the halls of the base.

A wave of heavy explosions went off somewhere on the base.

Edging closer and closer to her work hub.

Drawing both Obi-Wan and Lex out into the main corridor as the echoes of terrified screams and chaos filled the base, a series of explosions ripping through the east wing of the facility.

A calling card of the war she left behind. 

"Why do I get the feeling you're oversimplifying things?" Obi-Wan said, as he watched an entire Jeotion star-fleet appear out of hyperspace. 

She was too late. 

With Polis Massa now under siege, there was no way she'd get off base the way she came in. 

And caught between two worst case scenarios, Lex was forced to accept that out of the two evils, her smartest survival strategy was to remain Obi-Wan's prisoner and avoid being dragged back to Jeotis against her will. 

Because after all, now that she was 'Your Highness' again, it meant she had one last Sabacc card left to play in her favor with these Jedi.

Turning back to Obi-Wan's hurricane blue eyes, she negotiated her surrender. 

"I am Eris Valondra Constellan," she confessed to Obi-Wan. "Princess of the moon Jeotis, currently under occupation of the cyborg Zekan monarchy. I invoke the right to sanctuary, under the former Republican laws. I offer you my allegiance in building an alliance to resist the Empire. If your allies will help me free my people from Zekan control, I pledge to you full command of my army." 

Chapter Text

Laying siege on the hospital was the calm before the supernova.

What a mistake to think she could go away quietly and live a peacefully unroyal life as Lex Halo somewhere far off in the galaxy. 

Through the floor to ceiling windows of the corridor, Eris scanned a horizon of Jeotian frontline ships waiting just outside the asteroid belt.

The battle fleet surrounding the base on all sides, cutting off every angle of her escape.

Staging an impossible ultimatum. 

Surrender to her impending arrest, or pay for it with the lives of her vulnerable patients on base.

The Jeotian admiral had called off a second wave of attack. 

At least for now. 

And it'd be naive to think it was out of some rare streak of humanitarianism, as he was more terrified of risking the cyborg ruler's wrath by aimlessly bombing the asteroid into no-man's space, killing the fugitive princess with it.

If the Zekan crowned prince wanted her dead, he would've done it himself years ago when he had the chance. 

"So, where does the part about your own army trying to kill you fit in?" Obi-Wan questioned her, as they marched through a complicated maze of corridors to the security headquarters on base.

"That won't be a problem, will it?" she asked innocently. "Only a small technicality in our agreement. Nothing a Jedi can't handle, I'm sure. After all, don't you trust in your Force?"

"Judging by your sarcasm, I can only hope your plan involves a little more than the force to talk down that armada outside," Obi-Wan said.

"You should stay with Padmé," she suggested. "The Senator will be giving birth soon, and they'll need you in the hospital. I can't risk putting her and her children in danger, along with my other patients and comrades. I will go to the security hub and advise Captain Gryff myself on dealing with the Jeotians. You must look after Senator Amidala." 

"Noble as that sounds, you'll have to forgive me for being cautious, lieutenant," Obi-Wan answered, eyeing her doubtfully. 

"You mean you don't trust me."

"Why should I?" he pointed out. "You lied about your true identity, and you sent your droid to fetch an illegal chemical on your behalf, which you undoubtedly planned to administer to Senator Amidala. The only question left unanswered is why." 

"I was trying to help her," Eris defended her motives.

"Though considering the apparent rise of the Sith, one can't be too careful," Obi-Wan said. "I've sensed a darkness in you, and Jeotis is notoriously indecisive about where to put its loyalties. And it would fit rather nicely, if you were working as a spy for the new regime, wouldn't it? As I suppose it would be rather strategic indeed, choosing a hospital to hide out in, as you pass off information to the Empire about any force-sensitive children born in your ward."

Indignantly, Eris rounded to face him.

"Are you accusing me of being dark side, Kenobi?" she questioned him. "Well, isn't that just the Jedi end-all-be-all for any argument you're losing?"

And as her gaze firmly held Obi-Wan's, she had him know, "Trust me, Jedi, if I were a Sith Lord, you'd be dead by now."

"That remains to be seen," he answered. "And until we know the truth about Eris Constellan-- if that is your real name, that is--I can not allow you to leave and report everything you've seen here." 

"If I didn't know what peace-loving pacifists you Jedi were, I'd say that sounds a lot like a threat," she dared him to own up to the accusation. "How exactly are you going to stop me from walking off this base? Are you going to kill me, Jedi?" 

"I might not have to," Obi-Wan said to her. "In fact, if given the choice, I sense you'd much rather cooperate with me than hand yourself over to your friends, the Jeotians. Which means for the time being, you won't be sneaking off base any time soon without my knowing it." 

But before Eris could object any further to his arrogant Jedi assumptions about her own thoughts, the gruff and rather short-fused Captain Gryff burst out of his security hub. 

"There you are," he growled at Obi-Wan. "What is the meaning of all this? I knew the moment they let you Jedi hide out on this asteroid, you'd bring trouble here with you. Without the protection of the Republic now, we're all sitting space ducks." 

As naturally, Captain Gryff had a reason to be angry. 

Unlike the Jeotians, without an army, he was one card shy of a full deck. 

He could only protect the base with minimal security defenses, which had only ever been used to blast away threatening meteors in the base's orbit.

By the time Eris and Obi-Wan joined him in the security hub, radio transmissions were already coming in from the Jeotian flagship. 

"Sir, awaiting orders," the communication controller said to Obi-Wan. "Their commander has ceased fire."

"Have you made contact?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Affirmative, sir. They're demanding that we hand over some princess. I told them that's krayt spit and they're doshing mad," the controller replied. "They didn't seem to like that answer though, and that's when they started firing on us. I have an incoming transmission from the Commander's flagship now. Should I broadcast it?"

"No, not yet," Obi-Wan answered, judging that it would be premature to allow the Jeotians to find Eris in the room when the hologram came through. "Inform the commander that we are open to discussing the matter, but will not tolerate aggression."

The commander's response came back immediately.

"He says some droid led him to these coordinates," the controller relayed the message. "He does not want a reason for hostility, but he has no reservations about using it, if we insist on playing this game with him." 

"There must be a mistake. We are only a hospital of refugees and medics," Obi-Wan responded calmly. "We have nothing to hide."

"He says if we have nothing to hide, then there should be no objection to allowing their ambassador to come on base and inspect the premises himself," the controller reported.

"If peaceful negotiation is what the ambassador wants, then the ambassador is welcome here," Obi-Wan told him. "His militant tactics, however, are not."

"They're escorting their ambassador on base now."

"Inform the security troopers that the Jeotians have agreed to a peaceful discussion. There's no need to alert the hospital and cause unnecessary panic," Obi-Wan replied. "I will meet with the ambassador myself to ensure the negotiations stay peaceful."

"Jeotians don't negotiate," Eris warned him, once they were alone again marching from the security hub. "What if it's a trap? You'll need backup. I will follow you, in case things go to wild space." 

"No, your job is far more important here. You may not be Lex Halo, but you're still the Lt. Medical Commander," Obi-Wan told her. "If peaceful discussion does not go well, you and your droid must lead the hospital in evacuating and sheltering the patients on base. I will speak to the ambassador alone." 

"I don't need a Jedi to fight my battles for me," Eris informed him firmly. 

"Well, I'd hate for you to get the wrong impression, 'your highness'," he replied. "It's not chivalry. It's detainment."

Chapter Text

Detainment.

Why did that word seem to be following her around everywhere?

Granted, it was not the first time she'd been unexpectedly and crudely detained by a Jedi. 

Only back then, they called it "protection for her own good". 

But that was only half of the truth.

________________

"Are you telling me that you've been inviting that Jedi here in secret for the last 7 years!" Thane Constellan growled at Queen Nephelie, abruptly shattering what Eris thought had been a leisurely stroll with her parents through the queen's magick herb garden. 

Eris's ears perked up at the word Jedi, finally distracted from her silently ongoing duel of lightsabers--ahem, Irontree sticks--with Nebula Starcreth. As she and her handmaiden couldn't resist behaving the way children ought to be children behind the stiff and commanding shoulders of her parents, the Royal Majesties. 

"I had no other choice," she answered calmly, as she proceeded walking, forcing him to keep following her. "Eris was almost kidnapped as a baby, right under your guards' watch. I know my sisters in the coven were behind it. And still, you refuse to protect her. What else was I supposed to do to look after my child?"

"Better that she were dead than sell me out to the Republic!" Thane declared. "Do you realize what might happen if that Jedi found out about my negotiations on Zekus?"

"There's no reason for you to be concerned. The Jedi and I have an understanding with each other. Any fault he finds with Jeotis, he is to come through me first, not the Republic or the Jedi Council," she said. "His only duty here is to protect the crowned princess."

"And why should I trust you now?" Thane demanded. "What is the nature of this 'understanding' you seem to have with this outsider? If you kept this secret from me for 7 years, why tell me about it now?"

"Jedi Master Jinn has recently taken on a new apprentice and can no longer visit the outer rim as often as he used to," she said. "So, we came up with a new plan to protect Eris."

"We?" Thane side-eyed her critically. "As in you and the Jedi?"

"Eris will have a Jedi youngling as her playmate," Nephelie informed him. 

"Over my carbonite corpse!"

"It's already been decided."

"By your Jedi?" Thane demanded, forcing her to stop and face him again. "There are no political ties binding him to protect her. So, what interest does this one Jedi have in the princess anyway, I ask you?"

"You know very well what."

"If that were the case," Thane refuted. "Then he would have killed her with his own lightsaber by now. Why is he protecting her? You can't tell me it's out of the goodness of his heart. What other deals have you made with him behind my back?"

"Mother," Eris was desperate to interrupt her parents' heated argument. "Is that really true? Is Jedi Jinn really never coming back to Jeotis anymore?"

Nephelie avoided meeting her daughter's eyes, as she glared back into the king's. 

But it wasn't the familiar hellish scorch of anger that Eris felt resonating in her mother's energy. 

It was a feeling far deeper and more crushing that Eris couldn't really name at such a young age. 

As if Eris weren't the only one gutted by the sudden news of Master Jinn's forever departure.  

"We can discuss this later," Nephelie informed her husband. "I have guests to greet."

"You will send them back to Coruscant immediately," Thane demanded. "That is an order, Nephelie." 

"Selecting an appropriate guardian for Eris is my greatest priority. I will not negotiate it," Queen Nephelie answered. "I don't need your approval on this. You've got bigger problems to worry about. Like auctioning off the Q2-400 droids as an alternative option for the Trade Federation. If the Federation favors our droids over the Geonosian B1 model, it will be a victory for the Jeotian economy. Isn't that the beauty of profiting from everyone else's wars in the galaxy?" 

"Don't change the subject," he growled. "This is not about my negotiations on Zekus. Had you kept up your end of the deal and given me the heir I asked for, I would not have to grovel at the Trade Federation for power!"

Nephelie's glance back at her daughter was subtle, but Eris noticed it. She always noticed when her mother was upset. Making her feel even more guilty that her mother must also suffer with her under the weight of her father's crushing expectations.

"You still expect to use my child as a weapon," Nephelie remarked. "It seems then that the princess has no one on her side, even in her own home." 

"Even if motherhood has softened you over the years, our arrangement still stands," he returned. "Whether Eris is protected from your enemies or not is no concern of mine. You owe me a life debt. Was it not you who came here from Dathomir seeking refuge from the Nightsister coven after you betrayed Mother Talzin? I agreed to your asylum on one condition-"

"That we would not discuss this in front of others," Nephelie reminded him sharply.

"I am becoming rather impatient with you, Nephelie," he said. "Eris has reached her 7th lifeyear, and still, she shows no sign of possessing-"

"I will repay my debt," she promised him darkly. "Agree to my choice for Eris's guardian, and I will allow you to train her, whichever way you wish. If training her in the way of the Sith is what you want, then you have my permission. But under the condition that her handmaiden and guardian go with her to Korriban." 

"I will not consent to a Jedi youngling in my statehouse!"

"Because it will force you to behave yourself?" she countered. "If you hadn't drawn attention to yourself by using the dark side to turn human prisoners into cyborgs and enslave them to your friends, perhaps Master Jinn would not have a reason to keep coming back." 

Humans? Eris thought surprised. The Zekan cyborgs were once...human? 

"If you had kept up your end of the deal and taught her the correct teachings of the Force," Thane's low growl mumbled to the queen. "Perhaps she would not be such a disappointing underachiever to me and the Jeotians trying to dethrone her."

And that's where things got complicated for Eris.

If she hadn't been a princess, would anyone be so willing to avoid the damning rumors about her..."disability"?

Even as the queen strictly forbade anyone from discussing the princess's Force training, it was no secret in Jeotian court that the reason Princess Eris needed such a highly trained security detail was because the daughter of a last surviving Nightsister was...'Force-challenged'.

And with the dark history between Jeotis and Zekus, it was unsurprising that Eris should find many an enemy. Somehow, they all assumed that as an incompetent princess, her only defense was to look pretty in the shadow of her parents' powerful legacy, which only put an even prettier target on her back.

Eris didn't blame her father then for feeling cheated.

The Constellan bloodline was rich and simmering with dark side potential.

But for Eris, it was already too late.

She had fallen too far behind both her light side and dark side peers, and woefully short of the Nightsister reputation.

Though she didn't know for sure why she hadn't unlocked her magick Force potential, rumors around the Jeotian statehouse made it easy for her to figure out that it would complicate things for her as a ruler.

And those complications would start long before Queen Nephelie tragically accepted that her daughter would never become a feared witch like her mother or a respected Blackguard like her father.

"If she were strong enough to master the Force and protect herself, there would be no need for a bodyguard," Thane let his queen know.

"A late bloomer is not a disappointment and far from an underachiever," her mother defended. "Because the Udumbara flower blooms every 3,000 years, it is even more precious."

"She is my sole heir, not a flower. And you promised me her power when we made our agreement," he said darkly. "Do not mistake my sparing your life years ago as a sign of affection. When you ran away from the coven, the only reason I agreed to hide you on Jeotis was because it was prophesized by the Nightsisters that your bloodline would-"

"Enough," she cut him off. "Our Jedi guests will find this discussion rather tedious."

"I heard the Nightsisters value daughters over sons born into the coven. I'm sure you had much hope when Eris was born a girl," he salted her wounds quietly. "It must be so hard for you, knowing your daughter will never rise to the expectations of the coven. So tell me, Nephelie. have you brought this Jedi here because you fear what your enemies would do, once they realize Eris is not Force-sensitive? Or have you brought this Jedi to her because you fear what I will do to her, if you fail me? I assure you in both cases, nothing will save your poor powerless wretch from her fate." 

Eris glanced at Nebula, who had suddenly sobered upon hearing all this talk about Zekans and death threats. 

"Do you want to keep playing?" Eris offered her a distraction, holding up her Irontree stick en garde to Nebula. "I'm Darth Plagueis! Forfeit and withdraw, Jedi, or watch your friends die with you!" 

"Never!" Nebula answered, clashing her stick against Eris's. "I will restore peace to the galaxy! The Force is with me!"

"Peace is a lie!" Eris declared dramatically, holding up her stick in attack. "There is only passion!" 

And in a moment of oblivious reprieve, the two girls fiercely started dueling each other again. 

But Eris still couldn't put the question out of her head. 

Could her father's business on Zekus and Mustafar be the reason why the Zekan cyborgs wanted the Jeotian royals dead?

Zekan droids had been enslaved by Jeotians for centuries, and forced to fight wars that weren't their own. 

But the Zekan cyborgs had never seemed to like being sold and bartered for trade.

And the meddling Republic seemed to agree.

____________

"Princess of Jeotis, meet Virgo Stryker," Queen Nephelie nudged her daughter forward.

It was more of a demand than a cordial introduction.

And the second Eris laid eyes on the very serious, mild-tempered boy dressed in sandy colored robes, she hated him.

She hated the way he made her look in front of her father. 

As if this boy were the final "Nail in the coffin" in their hopes of her ever being a great and powerful Sith Lord.

As if it wasn't embarrassing enough living in the private shame of never living up to her family name.

Now she would be humiliated publicly by having an "almost" Jedi follow her around too?

"From now on," Queen Nephelie informed her, as the children faced each other off in the throne room. "You are never to go anywhere outside this statehouse without him by your side." 

Eris's unimpressed amber eyes scanned Stryker, before rolling back up to her mother's. 

"He's short." 

"He will outgrow it." 

"But what do I need a guard for? Am I a prisoner now, mother?" she questioned the queen. "Is this your way of punishing me?"

"Eris-"

"I'll work harder to not disappoint you then," Eris promised. "I'll pay more attention to learning the ways of the Force. Just please don't..." 

And realizing the Stryker boy was closely listening, Eris lowered her voice so only her mother could hear her. 

"Please don't embarrass me like this...It's already embarrassing enough." 

The queen's eyes darkened, and Eris could feel the quiet heat of her disapproval like the buzzing prick of electrons in the air. 

"If you can do nothing but beg for what you desire, then you should remain silent and accept your fate. Better that you suffer with dignity than beg anyone for mercy, including a queen's," her mother scolded her. "I must have given you the impression that this arrangement was up for debate. How clumsy of you to not pay attention the first time I said it, and force me to repeat my orders again."

"If I may, your majesty," a gentler voice soothed the harsh ringing in Eris's ears.

While her mother's foreboding presence made her think of the raging storms of Kamino,  his presence was more like the quiet walk of a gardener among the plants he loved so dearly. 

Everything around her seemed to fall into a sleepy calm in the quiet peace of his meditative aura. 

That's how Eris always knew he was near her.

She thought of him like a still spring day, making her forget he was ever a Jedi. 

The tall man she'd come to love as Master Qui-Gon Jinn had been watching them from afar at a quiet distance in the throne room. 

He knelt down to her 7-year-old height, dressed in a stone gray poncho over a sandy tunic, with brown loose-fitting pants and boots.

Eris's eyes were bright and golden like the sunstar setting over Coruscant, as they curiously dragged up to his face. Pursuing a game of hide-and-seek with the streaks of silver in his long brown hair. Half of it tied back behind his ears, while the rest flowed freely over his shoulders, down the front of his tunic.

Why did it seem like his sky-blue eyes always brightened when he met her?

As if she were the only star in the universe, and she would always be that way to him.

Those were exactly the feelings she sensed when he was around.

That no matter how many times she failed to impress the Jeotian court, she would always find this unspoken and unconditional pride somewhere in his eyes. 

Stained only by this strange and profound sadness she sensed in his presence, though she did not entirely understand where it came from.

How could this Jedi she'd only met on Jeotis a few times in her life, seem to radiate so much warmth and affection toward her?

Her own father barely noticed her the same way, let alone acknowledged her presence when she was in the same room with him.

"This is not the news you were hoping to hear," he told her. "I sense this makes you feel very resentful of Virgo."

"Me and Nebula can take care of ourselves, and besides there's no boys allowed in the statehouse," Eris informed him. "What do I need a boy for anyway? They stink. They're dirty. They don't play fair. They ruin everything. And they're stupid."

The long-haired gentle man glanced over at the youngling he'd brought with him, who stood quietly waiting for orders.

"I see your point," Master Jinn said to the princess. "But Virgo is not like most boys, and in time, I trust you will learn a great deal from each other. I hope you will see this as an opportunity, not a rebuke. Indeed, you are a fierce and very warm comet in the galaxy, your highness. It's no wonder so many are drawn to your orbit. With your permission, would you allow him to stay on Jeotis and learn from you until I return?"

"But," Eris proceeded softly. "What if you never return? Mother says you have a new apprentice now, and you will no longer visit us in the outer rim. I waited so long for you to come back this time...and I know there are so many planets in the galaxy who need you. How will I know you'll come back to Jeotis again?"

"You need not worry, your highness," he assured her. "No matter where I am in the galaxy, I can always trace a comet's tail back to Jeotis. It would take me no time at all to find my way here again."

"That's not enough," she shook her head. 

"It seems you have something else in mind," he said. "Please, share with me what you think."

"I will allow him to stay here with me, on one condition," she presented her terms to Qui-Gon. "When you come back to Jeotis, you must agree to take me with you."

Qui-Gon immediately sensed the protest in Queen Nephelie's eyes. 

"You would be greatly missed here, my princess. Especially by your mother." 

"But I promise to send her a hologram every day I'm gone," she said. "Because I don't want to be just a princess anymore. I want to travel the galaxy like you, and visit all those planets you talk about in your stories, and save people who need help. And I want to do it for as long as I want."

He smiled at her...in that same kind of proud way he always seem to smile at her. 

"You drive a hard bargain, princess," he said. "But perhaps we can place a wager on the length of time, as I'm sure your mother and Jeotis would need you more here. When the time is right, what say you to 1 month touring the galaxy with me?"

She frowned, and glanced at Virgo, before whispering to Qui-Gon, "But putting up with him is at least worth 1 year."

"One year?" Queen Nephelie objected. "Absolutely not." 

"1 month will surely do," Qui-Gon assured the princess.

"No, it won't," Eris disagreed.

"1 month will be just fine," he insisted.

"You can't trick me, Jedi Qui-Gon," Eris informed him. "Mom taught me a protective spell against Jedi Mind tricks."

Qui-Gon glanced in her mother's way, in a way Eris didn't fully understand. 

The queen winked at the Jedi Knight. 

"Then your mother should be very proud of how fast you learn," Qui-Gon told Eris. 

Then he reached into his poncho and handed her a red and blue cube.

 "I happen to have a chance cube with me," he passed it to her. "Let's say red will be 1 month traveling the galaxy, and blue can be one year."

Eris closed her eyes, squeezing the chance cube as if she could somehow communicate all her desires in the galaxy to it. 

Please let it be blue. Please let it be blue.

With his hands nestled in his gray poncho, Qui-Gon let the cube decide, watching it tumble across glossy elaborate floors of the throne room. 

Momentarily standing on its corner in favor of red, until it softly fell back onto blue.

"You may open your eyes now, your highness. You've won our bet," Qui-Gon said to her. "Which means I will gladly take you with me for a year's time."

"Really?" she said excitedly.

"When you're older," Qui-Gon added. 

"What?" Eris cried. "That's cheating! That wasn't what we agreed on."

"I agree to one year. But you didn't specifically say when that year should take place," he said. "Until the time is right, I hope you will trust in the Force and learn all you can from your mother here. You have much to give as Princess of Jeotis and your people will be very fortunate to follow your lead one day. And no matter where I am, I will always walk alongside you." 

And Eris wished she could tell him everything to make him stay, but the words were trapped somewhere inside of her. 

Leaving her feeling strangely full of love yet painfully empty, as she watched Qui-Gon Jinn leave her behind in the throne room. 

It was never about winning the bet, or even leaving Jeotis for 1 year on some grand adventure.

As she stared back into Qui-Gon's face, she felt a deeper yearning, as if she were letting go of something she could so easily lose. A knowing without knowing. A foreboding that seemed to tear her heart to pieces, as she watched the long-haired Jedi approach his ship to depart from Jeotis.

Why couldn't she shake that gnawing feeling...that tragic energy lingering around him...as if something bad was about to happen?

Don't go.

If he would just stay with her this once, it would've meant the galaxy to her.

Please don't leave me again.

And for a moment, she wondered if Jedi really could read minds, because the moment she finished that thought, Qui-Gon Jinn stopped at the door of his ship and gazed back at her. 

For a fleeting moment, she saw in his eyes that which the Jedi were most afraid of.

Suffering.

The same way her heart broke with longing as he left her behind.

And something in his gaze spoke to her. It didn't stop the foreboding sense she had of trouble, but it was enough to reassure her that everything would be ok.

No matter how far apart we are in the galaxy, we are always connected to each other.

_________________

Eris dutifully kept her promise to Master Qui-Gon. 

She let Virgo Stryker follow her around Jeotis....as her one true nemisis.

If they were going to make her be a "good princess" and play by all the rules, then she would beat them at their own game. 

Because, after all, the rules said that the Princess of Jeotis liked trouble, and it was up to Virgo to make sure she stayed out of it.

"So, Virgo," she got down to business. "It's up to you to follow me wherever I go, no matter where that is?"

"Yes, your highness."

"What happens if you can't keep up with me?"

"I won't lose track of you, your highness," he said. "Master Qui-Gon told me to never let you out of my sight."

"Would you jump into a sarlaac if Master Qui-Gon told you to?" 

"I would not..." he began. "...wish for it to endure long, at least." 

"Master Qui-Gon is a long way away now," she informed him. "If you just walked away now, we can pretend this conversation never happened. He wouldn't even know." 

"I would know, your highness, and that is enough."

She rolled her eyes. "Ugh, you're so light-side, it makes me sick."

"If you're feeling sick, would you like me to call for a medical droid then?" he offered.

"No," she sighed, shaking her head. "But as my servant, you do have to do everything I say, right?" 

"I am here to serve you, your highness."

"Then I want you to jump into a trash compactor," she said. "No, wait. First, you will tie up your ankles and wrists. And then you will drop yourself into a trash compactor."

"But why do I have to do that?"

"Do you want the queen to know that you are not fulfilling your duties?" she threatened him. 

Virgo sighed deeply.

"Yes, your highness," he said, reluctance in his voice. "I will tie up my ankles and wrists and drop myself into a trash compactor."

"My work is done here."

And with a smile so full of herself, Eris happily turned to walk victoriously back to the statehouse. 

Until Virgo interrupted.

"But your highness, if I tie up my ankles and wrists, how exactly will I drop myself-"

"Forget it, I'll do that part for you!" she rolled her eyes, grabbing him roughly by his sleeve. "Now follow me so I can throw you out with the rest of the trash."

But even after Eris rolled him into the trash compactor to get rid of him, the Bantha breath bishwag still got untied somehow, and climbed out of the compacter just in time before he was ejected into wild space.

And when would-be padawan Virgo Stryker walked into the royal statehouse a week later covered in Jeotian garbage, Eris couldn't stop laughing.

Though her mother saw it differently.

"It is a felony to attempt murder on any Jeotian official or planetary ambassador!" Nephelie ripped Eris apart for her insolence. "Virgo is a royal guest here on my command. To kill him is an attempt against my own life, and against Jeotis. And you will be severely punished for it."

And because Virgo survived and turned her in, Eris wasted a week servicing the trash compacter as punishment, jumping into the nooks and crannies to fix jams in the system.

With Virgo close by watching her do it, of course. 

They couldn't decontaminate her enough after that, and from that day, everything she ate still tasted a little like Jeotian sewage.

Virgo seemed to dodge a lot of the curveballs she threw at him.

Whether it was luck or wit, he always found his way out of sticky situations.

Always found his way back to her.

And much to her annoyance, her mother forced her to keep him.

"Why do you care more about what happens to him than you do about me?" Eris demanded of her mother as the queen ordered her guards to arrest Eris again for attempting to kill Virgo. "You're sentencing your own daughter to prison for someone who is only a servant to me?"

"Until you stop trying to kill him," her mother answered sternly. "You will remain imprisoned, for your own safety. You are nothing without the people who serve you!"

"I want a different servant!" Eris declared. "I don't like him, and I can't make any promises that I won't hurt him again. If you like him so much, why don't you just make him the prince and let me leave this planet?"

And before Eris knew it, her mother snatched her chin, digging her witchy nails so deep into her defiant skin that they drew blood.

"Unless you are ready to face me in a duel to the death, you will never raise your voice to me again, understand?" she warned softly.

Eris withdrew, seeing the Nightsister more than her mother.

"I don't need you to agree with my ways, but you will obey them without question. Understood? I have foreseen tragedy in your destiny, and I will do anything to protect our homeworld from it. Even if in the end, I can't save you," Nephelie informed her. "Never again question the people I choose for you."

At the time, Eris couldn't guess what her mother meant by "foreseeing tragedy" in her destiny. 

But she knew when it must have started. 

Because on the day of her 16th lifeday, he came to her homeworld.

And since the day they met at her royal birthday gala, the Zekan cyborg prince, Aires Starcreth, had fallen dangerously in love with her.

And his sadistic obsession would drag their planets back into a brutal droid-human war. 

Chapter Text

I kept my promise, as you asked me to...Why did you never come back to keep yours?

The thought was only a subtle tremor in the Force.

But it was enough to turn Obi-Wan's attention back to his unlikely companion, as she kept pace with him through the corridors leading to the hospital wing.

Appearing unaware of how treacherously her thoughts betrayed her.

Indeed, there was a hidden tragedy hanging around Eris Constellan.

The same nature of anguish he'd sensed in Anakin on the day he rescued Shmi Skywalker from the Tusken Raiders.

That familiar shattering regret Obi-Wan had felt holding his dying master in his arms, wishing he had been a little faster to beat the timer on the blood-red Laser Gates before Darth Maul drove a lifesaver through his master's chest.

"Master, I...I'm so sorry for everything...for every time I-"

But whatever little time Obi-Wan had to reconcile with his master, whom he knew he had failed in so many ways, Qui-Gon's only concern in those last moments had been with Anakin.

"Obi-Wan, train the boy. He is the Chosen One. He will bring balance to the Force. Promise me... you will train him."

Master Qui-Gon had been so adamant about teaching Anakin, going so far as to suggest to the council that he train the boy himself, even while Obi-Wan had not yet stepped out from under Qui-Gon's wing. 

It was no exaggeration when Master Jinn announced before the council that Obi-Wan was ready for knighthood. 

Obi-Wan had already come to realize that his and his master's clashing views of the Jedi Order and its responsibilities to the galaxy had made his promotion from under Jinn even more predictable. 

But...even if it were only a small afterthought...hadn't Master Jinn had just once the slightest reservations or worries about sending his padawan learner off into the galaxy?

Despite their differing philosophies, hadn't he thought more of Obi-Wan in his dying moments? As a son, perhaps...even if only a prodigal one?

Had he ever, even in the smallest of measures...loved him like a son?

Obi-Wan knew it wasn't the Jedi way to ask such a thing of his master, but he couldn't help but notice how much more enthusiastic Master Jinn had been at the idea of taking on Anakin. 

How unaffected his master had appeared to be in trading Obi-Wan over for a new student.

And how sorry Obi-Wan had been knowing that unspoken truth, as he held his master in his last moments on Naboo. 

Though an unspoken triviality between them, both master and student knew that Qui-Gon had not taken Obi-Wan on as a padawan by choice. 

Obi-Wan had inadvertently forced that decision upon him.

And no matter how hard Obi-Wan worked to make sure his master never regretted that decision, Qui-Gon's last words were still only for Anakin.

'I kept my promise, as you asked me to, master,' Obi-Wan found his thinking aligned with Eris's, as he remembered Anakin's fall into the dark side. 'And I have failed you once again.' 

And then, recognizing the spiraling trap of darkness in his own thinking, Obi-Wan glanced at the Jeotian princess, finding it ever more peculiar that whenever she was with him, his mind innately wandered to the past. 

And what's more, always the pieces of it he'd spent hours in meditation trying to forget.

Why did her presence seem to invoke these distracting thoughts in him?

"It's not polite to stare," Eris spoke aloud. 

Obi-Wan cleared his throat.

"Pardon me," he excused himself. "I was just thinking that you might be a witch." 

"Perhaps I am?" Eris dared him to believe it. "There must be some reason you can't seem to get me out of your head."

"If I'm honest, it's your army that makes you quite the catch indeed," he shifted back to business. "And seeing that we have some time before the ambassador arrives, perhaps you'd oblige in telling me more about your 'Jedi problem'?"

"Hm," a small smile played on her lips. "Where do I start?"

"Maybe at the part when you stopped trusting Jedi?" Obi-Wan suggested. "I sense it was long before you found yourself hiding out here." 

"I don't see what that's got to do with my army." 

"All in the interest of transparency, your highness. It will make your intentions much more trustworthy, knowing we're both on the same side of the holocron," Obi-Wan stopped to meet her nebulous eyes directly. "After all, if we're going to be allies at some point, we'll have to learn to trust each other, won't we?"

"Only time can tell," Eris left it all to chance, as she abandoned Obi-Wan's gaze and continued walking on ahead of him.

'Transparent as a black hole,' Obi-Wan sighed to himself.

She may be no master of chemistry, but she was certainly a master of cloaking her emotions.

And had he not known any better, she might've made a decent Jedi, on that note.

"In the grand scheme of this galaxy, I am nothing special," she informed the Jedi, as he resumed following behind her. "I'm not the only person who has lost everything because of the Jedi or the Sith, who are both only concerned with power." 

"You're right," Obi-Wan's eyes were compassionate as he met hers again, easing himself into her path until she had no choice but to face him in a gradual stop. "You are not the only one who has lost everything, and that includes a Jedi....And because of it, you've wandered alone in this galaxy for a very long time."

And caught off guard by the sudden shift in his gentle approach, Eris found herself momentarily spellbound by the quiet knowing radiating in the warmth of his soft blue gaze. 

For so long, she had wandered about this galaxy invisible, for the sake of her own safety. 

And spending so much time hiding her true identity, how long had it been since anyone had really seen her, the same way Obi-Wan seemed to see her now?

Another mind trick, undoubtedly. 

But a clever change in tactics. 

Had she been the same lost and tragic soul she'd been 3 years ago, she might've fallen for it.

But did he really assume she'd be foolish enough to take the bait now?

"I suppose there's nothing more for me to add then, since you seem to know everything about me already, Jedi," she told him, in the same spirit of gentleness served back to him with her own personal touch of sarcasm. "Besides, what would a Jedi understand about the pain of others, when they do everything they can to avoid it?"

Still, determined as she was to shut him out, Obi-Wan couldn't help but notice how the buzzing ambience around them seemed to mourn with her.

The quiet azure luminesce of the corridor lamps appearing paler as they played on her face in a melancholy but soothing glow, reminding him of the glow rods that hung dimly in the Jedi Temple to keep a meditative hush in the early morning hours.

Soft blue flares of light that danced in her shimmering amber eyes that woefully gave her away.

And for a moment, Obi-Wan felt as if he and the princess shared an unspoken anguish, made from the same world. 

What that meant, Obi-Wan had no answer yet. 

Whyhad the Force led him to Eris Constellan at a time when the universe seemed its darkest? Why now, when they both already had their own duties as leaders of their respective worlds?

And what was he to say to her challenge?

That a Jedi could understand her loss more deeply than she ever expected him to?

What does one say to comfort a Medic, who has always served as a comfort to others?

Obi-Wan tried empathy.

"I'm sorry," he answered quietly. "There are so many realities we wish we could change, even as Jedi...but must accept that they are final. Losing so many people you wanted beside you, I imagine it would be difficult for both a Jedi and a royal. But I hope you'll find peace with it, your highness. Your people will need you to be your strongest in this darkness, as they look to follow your lead out of it."

And though she wished she could go on feeling nothing but resentment for his kind, Kenobi's words inevitably resurrected a warm voice of comfort from her past.

You have much to give as Princess of Jeotis and your people will be very fortunate to follow your lead one day...No matter where I am, I will always walk alongside you.

But she was so fed up with mind tricks. 

So done with broken promises and trusting people not to abandon her.

What could this Jedi possibly understand about the "realities" of the universe, when all the other Jedi like him had abandoned her moon to the darkest reality of them all?

Jedi only serve the "greater good". Their own self-righteous interests.

No matter who they abandon or hurt in the end.

And so, Eris tore her gaze away from Obi-Wan's, determined to make him keep his distance.

"Stay out of my mind, Jedi," she quietly warned him. "You won't like what you find there."

"There you are, Kenobi!" 

 And as Jedi and lady turned to face him, Captain Gryff appeared around the corner, marching toward Obi-Wan and Eris before they could escape into the hospital wing. 

Chapter Text

"I knew if I looked hard enough, I'd find you behind this doshing circus of a karablast," Gryff declared. "You Jedi are clearly confused about who calls the shots on this base, and I've a mind to remind you that I am still captain of this here security troop! It will be over my dead body that you invite one of those imps onto this base."

"If nothing is done to clear up this misunderstanding quickly, captain, you may soon get your wish," Obi-Wan defended his decision. "The base is only equipped to blast small asteroids out of its way. A more tactful approach is in your best interest."

"Invite them here? All while fighting over some damn woman?" Captain Gryff growled. "Out of the question!"

"Affirmative," the hiss of the hospital wing doors released as a revived Q2 marched into the security quarters. "The plan will fail exponentially. You don't need a droid to calculate how fast it will take for the Jeotians to betray us."

Then his block for a head turned to Eris, almost as if his mechanical red eyes yearned to laser their way right through her, as he put so much emphasis on the word betray, that it was impossible to not read into his meaning.

But Eris and the droid would have to kiss and make up later, as now wasn't the time for hard feelings.

"Who let this droid in here?" Gryff demanded, his head darting around to the guards manning the corridor. "My orders were to restrict access to authorized personnel only."

"Which means, shouldn't you be busy in the data archive somewhere, Q2?" Eris eyed the droid critically, trying to throw him a hint.

But the droid was in no kind of programming to take orders from a "traitor" today.

After all, the princess had picked her side with the Jedi.

Meaning her better judgement had clearly been compromised, and could not be trusted to act in her best interests without Q2's redirection.

"The captain is right," Q2 answered, a warning hidden somewhere in his words as his lasers for eyes turned to Obi-Wan. "Defending the base is strictly in Captain Gryff's jurisdiction, and not a task that concerns a lower ranking droid and medic. We will be more useful searching for this 'princess' on base ourselves, to increase the probability that we have not overlooked any entryways a fugitive may have trespassed into...or out of."

And the emphasis on the word 'out' in the droid's true meaning was not lost on Obi-Wan, as Q2's eyes glowered at "the paradigm of Jedi scum" to his left.

But Obi-Wan's eyes weren't on Q2 anymore, but narrowed instead to his left at the far-from-anyone-who-can-be-trusted medical lieutenant, whom the menacing droid belonged to.

But Eris hardly acknowledged the contemptible Jedi to her right, as she glared back at the bold-as-brass Q2 to her left.

And puzzled and frustrated as ever, Captain Gryff's eyes went round and round in a circle from Jedi, to droid, to medic.

Until Eris finally broke the tense silence of the maddening cycle.

"Q2, the captain is not interested in expending his security resources on finding a princess that never existed here to begin with. Can't you see he couldn't give two bantha sticks about where she is?" Eris muttered through gritted teeth. "And personally, I couldn't agree more with him. We can't worry about some fugitive right now, when we have patients to evacuate safely from the base. We'll start with the emergency protocols, in the event that Kenobi's 'ambitious' peacekeeping plan goes scud."

"Your patients are no longer the priority," Q2 persisted. "If the cyborgs are responsible for this siege, it means they have invaded Jeotis and now have unchallenged supremacy over the moon. Therefore, requiring the Jeotian princess to return and sign a treaty officially ending the civil war. The Zekans will not stop hunting her until she's returned, and will terminate any allies who defend her. Including those who imprison her on this base."

"Then we shouldn't give them the impression that their princess is here when she isn't. Inspiring unnecessary panic would be reckless. Right, Q2?" Eris reminded him firmly. "Therefore, our only priority is to secure the hospital."

"Stars, what is this, the Gungan circus! Dosh me before I ever take orders from a droid or a rookie brat medical lieutenant! And what the bloody nova is a Zekan?" Gryff demanded. "Somebody better start giving me some answers! What are these Jeotian no-wood-nerf-herding-chicken-walking bastards doing on my base?"

"How dare you speak to her like that!" Q2 protested.

"Will someone get this damn droid out of here?" Gryff ordered. "Did I not make my protocol clear enough that this was a restricted area for security personnel only? No droids allowed! And that includes you, Medical Lieutenant."

And stepping between Gryff and his heated scowling at Eris, Q2 initiated a system unlock of his artillery compartments again.

"Then I advise you to revise your protocol, captain," the droid recommended him.

"Stand down, Q2!" Both Eris and Obi-Wan objected at once.

"Why, you fraggin' rust bucket! Who does this droid think he is?" Gryff threatened. "I'll have you for a footrest speaking out of line to me like that, you sodding tin bin!"

"You'll leave my droid out of this," Eris warned Gryff. "I need him in one piece to assist me with the patient evacuations."

"Isn't that where you should be now, Lt. Halo?" Gryff sprayed bitterly at Eris. "Folding hospital blankets and serving meal trays like a nice little girl?"

"Do I look like a nice girl to you?" Eris dared him darkly, taking a foreboding step toward the dead man.

Forcing Obi-Wan to hold up his hand and stop her from following through on her thoughts...Even if the captain very well deserved it.

"Once you answer my question, Captain," she said, swatting Obi-Wan's hand out of her unobscured view of the deplorable security commander. "I can leave."

"Argh! What the damn hell is it now?" Gryff asked her impatiently.

"I have a high-risk patient under emergency operation," Eris informed him. "I require additional security resources to ensure she delivers her babies safely in the event that these Jeotians become hostile."

"None of my concern, girl. I run a base, not a maternity ward. If she can't keep up with the other evacuees, then she's lost," Gryff answered callously. "In case you haven't noticed, I have more important things to worry about!"

But Captain Gryff would not find Obi-Wan so easy to dismiss.

"Lt. Halo is your medical commander," the Jedi reminded him. "And since the refugees you protect on this base are under her care, I would think it wise to honor her concerns."

Gryff tightened his lip stubbornly.

But after one quick glance at the lightsaber partially veiled under Obi-Wan's brown cloak, he seemed to think twice about voicing his objections.

Obi-Wan had no intention of using force or overriding the security commander's orders, but with the safety of Senator Amidala's children at stake, Eris's concerns mattered most for the most vulnerable patients on the base.

"And what-," Gryff continued, slowly dragging his egregious scowl from Obi-Wwan back to Eris. "-would you have me do, Lieutenant? Even as my heart bleeds for you and your hospital, I can't compromise our security for the comfort of one patient. I have the whole base to think about. She is your responsibility, not mine."

"If we cut off her life supports too soon before she delivers, we could lose the children," Eris said to him. "Even if Kenobi's plan fails--miserably, that is--it will buy the senator more time and the babies can safely be evacuated. All we ask for is your support-"

"You have my sympathies, lieutenant," Gryff muttered. "But if the senator cannot evacuate immediately, she may be a sacrifice we will have to make for the benefit of everyone here. In the meantime, I want this entire base turned over top to bottom. If that Jeotian old hag, or 'Her Highness' or whoever the damn hell she may be is on this base, I want her found and thrown off this asteroid immediately."

And as the security captain basked in his model of compassion, Obi-Wan found himself haunted by his own words returning to damn him.

Anakin, you cannot turn your back on an entire planet to save one life.

A piece of advice he had given his former student only a few years earlier, during Padmé's abduction by General Grievous in the Clone Wars.

The Jedi serve for the greater good. Not for the interest of one. That is the Jedi way.

If talks with the Jeotian ambassador didn't go according to plan, Obi-Wan could not prolong the safety of the entire base for Eris's sake.

Even against his strongest instinct, which warned him that allowing her to go free like this would only spell bigger problems for them later.

'There is darkness in her, Master Yoda, but it is not the mark of a Sith Lord,' Obi-Wan had told his mentor days earlier, as they watched Eris work at Padme's side in the hospital. 'I do not know yet why the Force keeps leading me to cross her path."

"A mystery, the Force is," Master Yoda had answered. "Not what they seem, things are. Look into it, you must. But if the dark side, she is, then careful with the dark side, we must be."

Obi-Wan didn't always know what to make of her, and Eris never seemed to know what to make of him either.

But as he watched her tend to Padme in the hospital, the darkness he sensed in Eris seemed to contradict a warm, graceful nature and the fierce protectiveness she felt for her patients.

She cared deeply for all those under her care.

Was that a true mark of the dark side?

"And what about Princess Eris's safety?" Q2 blurted out suddenly, disrupting Obi-Wan's conflicted contemplation. "She cannot safely carry out these evacuations without compromising her own security."

A tense hush fell over the corridor.

"Q2, be quiet!" Eris whispered to him.

But it was too late.

Captain Gryff's eyes were already on the lowly medic.

"You?" his brow furrowed in unexpected surprise.

And it was only then that the droid realized his terrible mistake, standing awkwardly as all attention shifted from him to his mistress.

"I'm so sorry, mi'lady," he begged her forgiveness. "It's my programming! I can't help it!"

Captain Gryff's eyes shot back to Obi-Wan, as the Jedi's shifted to Q2, wondering what wise Jeotian advisor had assigned this faulty droid to guard the princess's life.

"You mean to tell me you knew about this all along?" Gryff demanded of Obi-Wan. "Well, if you ask me, Jedi, the solution to our little problem is obvious."

His dark eyes turned back on Eris.

"The girl's got to go! She will be surrendered over to the Jeotians immediately!"

"You can't just throw me off the base," Eris protested. "There is no one else here to care for my-"

"Do you realize what danger you've put us in already?" Gryff berated her. "Even if I have to drag you out there myself, you will leave this base at once!"

"We must avoid making any hasty decisions," Obi-Wan told him. "The Jeotian ambassador is enroute as we speak."

"I stand by my decision, Kenobi," he growled. "Princess-whoever-the-damn-hell-she is will be handed over to the Jeotian commander at once."

"Princess Eris has asked for asylum and is under my protection."

"Asylum?" Gryff demanded. "In case you haven't heard, Jedi, there is no more Republic to enforce such laws!"

"If we turn her over now, you risk the Jeotians striking in retaliation."

"And how long will these 'peacekeeping' talks last before they change their minds and blow us all into no-man's space anyway?!"

"Captain Gryff, we're wasting time here," Eris cut in.

But before she could reiterate the argument, a small blue medical drone buzzed through the access doors and hovered across the corridor to Eris.

"Son of a grok! What did I just say about droids in my security hub?" Captain Gryff raged on. "Does anyone around here understand the word confidential?"

"Lt. Halo," the drone reported, ignoring Captain Gryff's tantrum in the background. "Your comlink and locator were disconnected, so GH-7 sent me here to find you. You are needed in the hospital wing immediately!"

"Is something wrong?" Eris asked the drone in concern.

"It's Senator Amidala. She's gone into labor."

Eris didn't wait to excuse herself, hurrying after the drone immediately toward the hospital wing.

"Where does she think she's going?" Captain Gryff growled. "Detain that woman immediately!"

Ignoring Captain Gryff and his security troopers, Eris scanned her access code at the doors of the hospital.

"I need more time to deliver the Senator's babies safely," her parting words were for the Jedi Master. "I'm trusting you to give it to me, Obi-Wan."

And then she was gone, with her battle assassin droid clinkering in tow after her.

A Gungan circus, indeed.

And it couldn't have been more badly timed.

Chapter Text

By the time Eris reached Padmé's hospital wing, everything had gone to poodoo in a killbox.

Whether it was the poetically tragic karma of the universe, or Padmé herself losing the will to live, Eris would once again learn the hard way that not everything she threw her heart into was meant to be saved.

The senator was in full active labor when the medi-scan ventilator monitoring her babies sounded alarm, detecting the infants' heart rates at 180 beats per minute.

"My orders were that she be put under anesthetic for operation."

"I am sorry, Lt. Halo," her drone answered, hovering in with a fresh set of blankets and sterilizing fluid. "We could not locate you by comlink. Without the proper authorizations, we were required to act quickly. Because the patient was showing signs of labor, GH-7 ordered that we administer an oxytocin injection."

"The patient is bradycardic," Eris countered the induction call, using the handheld medi-scanner to assess Padmé's faint and concerning pulse. "Her heart won't take the strain of natural labor. The little ones are already in distress."

"There is no time. The patient will give birth before we can safely prep the operating room."

"Anakin," Padmé whispered in soft delirium, her head turning dazedly to the medic. "Has Anakin hurt our children...Please, save the little ones..."

"I'm looking out for your little ones, Padmé," Eris assured her. "We're going to deliver them both safely. You have my word."

And letting her worries rest in the care of her attending medic, Padmé closed her sun-fire eyes to tears that fell like comet's tails across the bridge of her nose.

Eris's heart broke with hers, frustratedly powerless as Amidala's life fell from her hands like stardust.

"Hold on," Eris beckoned Padmé. "There's still hope. Please don't give up now." 

For the sake of stars, for once in her life, couldn't she just make something happen other than feel so powerless?

Would she always be made to stand back from everything she'd lost that had been deemed the will of the Force?

"The patient's blood pressure is rapidly descending," her drone warned her.

"Dammit," Eris whispered, unwilling to bear witness to yet another regrettable fate. "We need to stabilize her condition immediately. Where is that anesthetic? Double my original order."

"Doubling anesthesia injection by 0-250 milliliters," the drone repeated the medic's instructions, as her quick mechanical hands prepared the serum.

"Hang on just a little longer, Senator. Long deep breaths," Eris encouraged her patient. "Shut out everything else and concentrate your energy on your little ones. You're almost there."

"Anakin...he's...still the man I love...I know he's still..."

And the crushing despair hanging over those words made it impossible for Eris to shut it out, as if her own broken heart were spilling onto the floor for the one Padmé called Anakin. Knowing now that it was more than just a broken heart she was racing against time for. She had picked her battle with the destructive, unbalanced power of the dark side, as only a negligent abuse of its sway could lead to such unrelentingly and unnecessary suffering in one who had loved another so deeply.

And wouldn't Eris have felt the same, had it been her instead of Padmé?

How could anyone live in a galaxy like this one, having remembered the old one before with a love like the one Padmé lost?

And now, the ripples of negligent power would take motherhood from Amidala too.

Eris would not allow another's indulgent pursuit of the predatory dark side to make Padmé and her children its next victims. 

But every breath the senator drew was shallower, and more precious.

Eris had nothing medically advanced enough to prolong a heart's deterioration to anguish. This was, after all, a failing of spirit.

And wasn't spirit ichor a Nightsister's game?

"Q2," Eris said decidedly to her droid. "I'm going to cast a ritual."

"Yes, of course, mi'lady, you're going to cast a...What! A ritual? What do you mean a 'ritual'? Now? Here?"

"My mother once taught me a simple cast to gather my auras in nursing magickal herbs back to health," Eris said. "If I can tweak it enough to lend my lifeforce to sustain the senator's heart, it will protect the babies until she delivers."

"Negative!" Q2 objected. "To master a dark side imbued ritual like that would require more advanced spellcasting than what some meddling lay-witch like you can do! You don't even have one midichlorian to keep even a potted Star Felix alive, let alone, a complex organic!" 

"Would you rather I let these children die?" Eris side-eyed him darkly.

"Affirmative!" Q2 declared. "There are plenty of children in the galaxy to replace them."

"And about as many droids as there are to replace you."

Q2 stood aghast.

"You can't fire me," he protested. "I'm not programmed for that."

"Just watch the door." 

"If you open a ritual, mi'lady, you do not know where it will take you. You haven't faced the Sleeper on Dathomir yet, your highness, which means you have no idea if you can even control the power of the dark side without losing yourself to it," Q2 warned her. "If the senator dies before you can detach yourself from her, her death will drag you into the shadows of the Force. I can not allow it, mi'lady! Without having the proper Nightsister rites, you will not be able to withstand the pull, and will forever trap yourself between the veil of life and death."

"Should anything happen to me before I'm done casting," Eris instructed him firmly. "Return to Nebula on my behalf for a complete wipe of your data drive. You are to serve under her orders when I'm gone, understood?"

And knowing that they were too far up the wrong hyperspace lane to change her mind now, Q2's block for a robotic head gradually bowed with his resign.

"As you command, mi'lady," he said. "I will watch over you, for as long as this ritual takes." 

Eris breathed in slowly, her mother's red diamond of Jeotis glimmering on the hand that caged around Padmé's. 

The anesthesia was already mercifully taking effect, as Amidala whispered, "Anakin, he...I know there's still...good...."

It was all she could tell the medic, before the anesthetic finally took her into its embrace of calm. 

Eris had no time to doubt herself, shutting out the rest of the universe wailing around her, and focused on merging her aura with her deteriorating patient's. 

"Mother," she pleaded for the favor of her fallen ascendents. "For the sake of these children, please, lend me the strength of your coven sisters."

And having invoked the guiding spirits of her mother's Dathomiri clan, Eris followed nothing but her intuition into the mysterious tremors of the Force.

But instead of meeting the dark side, she found something like the sun, and the cold hospital hub around her burned with her against it. 

Eris opened her eyes to twirling confetti of amber glowing embers, dancing up around the areial landing port she stood on, with lavafalls welling over into an igneous flow underneath. A resenting magma breeze dragged stray oak-brown locks from her long braided hair into her watering eyes. 

Eyes that searched desperately for someone in the ash-laden fog that felt like a misting hot rain sweeping her dampened skin. 

A sleeveless blonde tunic with a folded collar, a full-flared skirt falling from crossed belting over fitted leggings, and arm covers that extended around her knuckles being her only protection from the thermal windflaws. As if on a whim, in one last act of desperation, she had run from the safety of her royal starship, without remembering to bring a cloak for the unforgiving Mustafarian season. 

And it was yet to be decided by the Force whether it was her fortune, that the one she had so desperately come to find in this dizzying hellscape would not keep her waiting. 

Against the churning glow of magma, and the titanic lightning storms that made up Mustafar's black smoky skies, he walked dutifully toward her. The hem of his brown cloak rippling in the sultry wind, against the glimmering hum of his blue lightsaber. 

"Obi-Wan?" she breathed into his name at last. 

"I saw your ship," the observant Jedi told her. "Why have you come here?" 

"I know you've heard terrible things," she said to him. "But you're a good person. Don't do this." 

Even as she knew it, she had no way to defend it, as she had come to this fight empty-handed. Her reasons for recklessly doing so would not matter to him. 

He already held her heart, but it wasn't enough. 

The Jedi Master had come for her life too. 

"All I wanted was your love," she confessed to the Jedi. "But I never imagined that path would lead to this." 

"Love won't save you, Eris," he shook his head. Though she felt his answer wasn't meant to convince her alone. "I won't lose you the way I lost Anakin to the dark side. I must do this. To protect you." 

Every one of his approaching footsteps bringing her closer to his duty as a sworn Jedi. 

But she didn't run from him. 

Instead, she stepped toward him. 

"Come with me," she pleaded softly. "Leave everything else behind, while we still can." 

"I will not run again," his quiet resolution kept him steady in his pursuit of her. "I must bring peace to this galaxy." 

"I don't believe what I'm hearing," her voice croaked, trying to hold her resolve as steadily as he'd mastered his. "I was right about you. I thought you'd changed."

"I warned you not to turn against me." 

"Then I don't know you anymore," she said, her brown eyes brimming with the heartbreak of that realization. "It breaks my heart, that from the beginning, we were always going down a path neither of us could follow." 

"Because of me." 

"Stop," she whispered. And because she had no weapon to make him do it, she wielded herself instead. Pressing her tearstained cheek against the crook of his neck as she locked him into an unrelenting embrace. "Please, stop and just come back to me. I love you." 

"Don't," his voice was so gentle above the humming lightsaber still ignited and lingering dangerously close to her body. "Lie and convince me you don't." 

"No," she whispered against his shoulder. "Lying never worked between us anyway. Because I know you can sense what I feel. I know you can feel my heart. Listen to it, Obi-Wan. Not the doubt that is ripping us apart." 

But the crushing force that began squeezing around her neck stole anymore pleas to change his mind. The gradual pressure of being choked ravaging her resistance against him, as her defenseless hands caged his cloak in vain. The last bit of fight in her declaring a love  she could no longer swear to him with the breath he denied her. 

"You're with them," his tormenting whisper brushed against her cheek, with a tenderness that might've easily given her comfort. Had she not sensed that his holding her tightly against him was only a diversion for them both. It must have taken everything for him to shut out how much he was hurting her, a fragment of his soul going into the Force with her. "If I don't kill you, this galaxy will remain in darkness."

And just as she felt herself slipping away into the infinite Force, his suffocating hold suddenly released from her neck. 

Eris heaved in a breath. The chilling air of her hospital hub ripping through her starved lungs. 

Her head still spinning, as her lethargic lashes batted open to a soundless world. Faintly aware that she was lying on the floor of the hospital hub, facing the entry where Q2 was charging into the corridor to take on a squad of Captain Gryff's security troopers approaching the hub. 

Had it worked?

Even if she could only ever buy the senator a few more precious moments to deliver safely, had her impending capture been in vain? 

Having never casted a ritual more conplex than fertilizing garden herbs, Eris had no reference of knowing if the children would survive in the end. 

Neither did she remember any unexpected "events" happening, when her mother first showed her the ritual. 

Was merging with the consciousness of her patient a typical side effect? 

Eris was no stranger to accidentally stumbling into other people's memories without warning. 

But this one felt so painfully vivid. 

Never before had a memory echoed back to her with herself in the rememberer's place. 

And like every one of her visions that had traced their origins back to Obi-Wan, Eris couldn't say if what she'd seen was a fragment belonging to Padmé's memory alone....or a premonition warning of her own demise. 

Like Padmé, would a Jedi one day be the reason for her death? 

Before Eris could make any sense of it, or recover her energy being lost in ritual, two pairs of black boots suddenly materialized next to her on the floor, rocking in the blurriness of her vision. 

Reminding her once again that though she was never truly a Nightsister, she was still very much a fugitive.

Instinctively, Eris reached for the blaster pistol hidden away in her medical vest, only to find all of her crafty little tricks missing, of course. 

They'd already beat her to it. 

"Don't even think about it," a security trooper warned the medic, his blaster pistol locked onto her. "Lt. Halo, you are hereby detained for trespassing with a fraudulent identi-chip, impersonating a doctor, and unlawfully practicing medicine without any qualifying credentials. You have been stripped from your command in the hospital and no longer hold any authority on base. Captain Gryff has ordered us to escort you back to his office immediately. And I strongly advise you behave yourself this time." 

And as her detaining captors, yanked her up to her feet to drag her along with them, Eris's last glance was at Amidala, knowing she'd never see the senator alive again. 

"I'm so sorry," she whispered regretfully to Padmé, before the security troopers pushed her along into the corridor.

Chapter Text

Something was off.

Eris suspected it the moment she found Captain Gryff standing in full sovereignty of his security hub. The kriffer's hands folded behind his back, pleased as a Hutt snatching planets that don't belong to them, as he said, "Lieutenant Halo--I mean, your royal highness, is it? Clearly we got off on the wrong space lane. I admit, I misfired my rockets."

Grinning at her as if he hadn't just tried to throw the medic and her droid off the asteroid only one short debriefing ago.

 "No hard feelings about earlier, I hope?" he asked her, as he coolly stood before the hologram transmission panel in front of her. "What do you say we start over?"

"Is there a reason why you'd believe I'd come back here begging for your apology, captain?" Eris asked him. "We were both only doing our jobs. As long as we understand that now, there's no need to waste each other's time." 

"At last, we finally agree on something," his chuckle was as artificial as his affability. "I have good news. The heart-to-heart chat between Kenobi and the Jeotians went smoothly. They've reached an agreement. You are to be escorted to the Jeotian flagship and returned to your homeworld immediately."

"But Kenobi informed me to wait for him until after-"

"Thankfully, Jedi Kenobi was able to talk the Jeotians down and avoid more aggression," Gryff cut her off. "However, in the absence of the Republic, I'm afraid he no longer holds any power as a Jedi to honor your plea for sanctuary. He asked me to remind you that illegal trespassing is still a crime in all star systems of the galaxy, and that you should remove your burdening arse from the premises immediately." 

"Kenobi said that?" Eris challenged a high probability that Gryff's word was full of bantha crap. 

"Well, you know how long-winded these Jedi can be, but my summary does no injustice," Captain Gryff told her. "My men will escort you to your flagship now. Thank you for your service, your highness."

"If this was Kenobi's decision, why didn't he tell me himself?" Eris questioned him. 

"I'm afraid that wasn't a priority of the Jedi's," Gryff said. "Kenobi is on his way to the operating room as we speak to see the Nabooian Senator. Unfortunately, he could not deliver his kind regards in person for your departure." 

"Then I'll go meet him myself." 

"I won't allow that," Captain Gryff warned her. "Your access codes have been disabled, which means you're only making this harder on yourself. Should you somehow manage to fight your way into that hospital, I doubt Kenobi would be willing to listen to you. Even a Jedi has his own problems and self-serving interests. There is no one left on this base who will take your side." 

"But even if he is a Jedi," Eris said quietly, wrestling again with the doubt she'd always felt from the beginning, whenever she met Kenobi's eyes. "I'd never expect this from him." 

"Incoming message from their flagship," the transceiver controller announced to Captain Gryff. 

A covert smirk played on Gryff's face as he turned away from Eris to the holo-screen. 

"Broadcast him in."

And as the pale blue holo-screen buzzed to life with the Captain's correspondent, Eris came face to face with the real reason Captain Gryff seemed so confident stewing in the absence of the Jedi. 

"Captain Gryff, I am Prince Aries of the Cyborgs, ruler of the planet Zekus," the militant droid crowned prince announced to the security hub. "I have come to take back possession of my queen." 

"Your highness, the honor is mine," Gryff greeted him warmly, with a dramatic bow, sweeping his arms in Eris's direction. "I believe I've found what you're looking for. Does this belong to you?"

His troopers pushed Eris forward into plain view of the holo-screen.

Aries took his time scanning over his Jeotian conquest, his eyes hungry to stake his claim over each warmful inch of her body. The soul of his insatiable pining and endless search through the galaxy for 3 unrelenting years. Unwilling to miss even a detail of the irresistibly human way her hips curved into a divinely toned waist, and back out into the soft full curves of her breasts. The meandering lines and shadows that traced her creamy delicate neck from the androgynous service uniform of her drab brown medical vest over a fitted deep brown undershirt. The daintiness of her long sleeves that kept warm the hands that had been his torment in many a fantasy. 

"Eris Valondra Constellan."

Had he been human, he might have breathed into the name when he said it like that, and his body might've responded instantly. 

But being only a cyborg, and a stranger to the perversions of human lust, Eris's name on his lips was dragged out agonizingly slow. As if each syllable were being forcefully thrusts into her, like the way he cornered her in his fantasies. Even with the distance of holo-frequences between them, Eris felt ravished by his satyric gaze. 

"She has lost color in her cheeks since the hour I last saw her. I have calculated exactly 3 years, 1,095 standard days, and 280 hours since then. To a droid, time is irrelevant. To a human, 3 years is a lifetime. I can not compute how much she has suffered since then," Aires said to Gryff, as if he were bargaining over cargo. "I detect that her somatic mass has diminished slightly since she escaped Zekus. Has she been starved under your captivity? If that is true, the one responsible will be punished by the severest of consequences."

"We're only humble scientists here," Gryff made his defense. "Food for royalty is not a luxury we get on this base. During the orbital season, our staff mostly consumes a diet of nutrition capsules, your highness."

"Hardly sustainable for a fertile human female, let alone a Zekan queen," Aires disapproved. "Have these incompetent, worthless humans mistreated you, my queen?"

"I am not your queen," Eris answered him firmly. "And I am not going back to Zekus."

The smug grin on Aries's lips was patronizing, making her skin crawl.

"I do not compute how you lowlifes negotiate with human females," he told Gryff. "Give them the world, and they want the galaxy."

Gryff grunted an agreement in reply.

"You will return as my bride, or return as a prisoner of war, my sweet. The choice is yours," Aries made his ultimatum to Eris. "Either way, you are my slave, by technicality of our treaty, fully endorsed by the Hutts. Your defunct title as Princess of Jeotis is only my courtesy to you."

His unblinking eyes, appearing more soulless under the azure filter of the holo-screen, turned back to Gryff.

"I do not detect any other indications of maltreatment in her that would frustrate successful breeding, and interfere with my bride participating in our courtship protocols on Zekus," Aries announced the results of his assessment in his mechanically androidium speech. "Transfer her to my flagship immediately. I will send you the credits when it is done."

"With pleasure," Gryff replied, turning back to the security troopers detaining Eris. "Escort her off base." 

And then four additional security troopers emerged into the hub for reinforcements, surrounding Eris on all sides, blocking all angles of her escape back into the facility. 

No one, not even Q2, would get to her in the security hub before it was too late. 

"I have missed you astronomically, my queen," Aries said to her. "It is time to uphold your end of the treaty and take your place with me as supreme rulers of our worlds."

"Our worlds?" Eris questioned the delusional cyborg's controversial wording. "Or just yours?"

"I am but a droid, mi'lady. It's my nature to serve you," he replied, with a reverent bow to her. "I work for the peaceful coexistence between Jeotis and Zekus. Take this as proof of my affection for you. My love for you and your moon is constant."

"You may have my moon, but you'll never have me."

But even as she swore it, Aries remained as unreadable and stoic as the cold machine he was.

"You will change your mind," he said certainly. "Unlike your human lovers, I will live forever. Far beyond the era of human mortality. The same can not be said about your allies, who you betrayed me for." 

And just as he turned from the holo-screen, he stopped.

Struck by afterthought. 

"Oh, that reminds me. Before your ships destroyed my aerial landing port as you attempted to escape me, I never had a chance to ask," he told her. "Did he die?"

And had she not already been detained, a simmering Eris might have marched off that base to the flagship the droid believed he was so safe behind, and personally delivered the answer to that question herself. 

Q2 had been right, after all.

A droid never forgets. They are programmed to remember everything their human masters eventually forget. 

And now and then...everything the human heart only wished it could escape the memory of. 

As if there ever was an escape from remembering for Eris. 

The toxic smell of mildly radioactive smoke coming from a crashed spacecruiser, its mangled ion engine consumed by a raging fire sparked by two blown power-cells. 

The spacecraft was split in two upon impact with the Zekan aerial landing, the stern burning upside down in the debris field to the right of Eris, and the bow's ion rockets whistling ominously above her head, warning that it was only a matter of time before the rising chemical pressure buzzing under the casing would go too. Her eyes burning with tears against the sting of vaporizing chemicals in the air.

But the sound of Eris's beating heart and panicked breathing had been louder to her than the danger of the crashed space cruiser behind her, as her cindered pale hands fumbled with the jammed latch of a med-pack.

Like everything else burning around her, the metal latch of the med-kit scalded her nervous fingertips. 

Her head frantically shifting back and forth between the med-pack that wouldn't open, and the man that wouldn't awake in the smoking debris at her knees. Her merlot royal traveling dress stained by the same ashes that smudged his lifeless gray face. 

"Wake up, please, wake up," she pleaded desperately with him. "Please don't do this to me. Open your eyes. Please. Dammit, what am I supposed to do?"

The searing pain in her fingertips making releasing the med-pack frustratingly unachievable. 

And then the glint of the alloy metal sheathing his lightsaber drew her attention to his still hand, gleaming against the charred debris underneath him.

The med-pack slid out of her hands, as the crushing guilt forced her to come to grips with her new reality. 

"You weren't supposed to follow me this time. I never asked for you to always run to my rescue. You should have left me....because this was so much worse...so much worse than letting me face my own consequences," she whispered to him, as her fingers combed achingly through his ginger brown hair. "You weren't a Jedi anymore. You were mine....And I have failed you." 

Eris gave the cyborg prince no reply that would satisfy him in knowing that his devastating draconian crusade was the burning core of her suffering. 

It would only flatter him more to know he had such an effect on her. 

Instead, her resenting gaze remained on him, silent and undefeatable. 

And in the silence of unforgiving and long-held hatred for him in Eris's eyes, Aires found a fragment of his answer. 

"How unfortunate...This frail human condition...It brings you so much suffering, my princess," the droid's cool voice was soft with mechanical empathy. "Unlike your friends, I will not abandon you. Death is not a disease we droids have to fear. I will wait your entire lifespan to earn your love, my moonflower. A droid has nothing but patience."

Then the cyborg prince turned his attention back to Captain Gryff. 

"I will leave your asteroid in peace." 

Chapter Text

'But peace is a lie,' Eris thought of her father's teachings of the Sith Code, as she watched Polis Massa descend from the portside window of the Jeotian flagship that now held her prisoner.  'There is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory.' 

__________________

"What in the universe! You mean you just quit?" Eris had once asked Virgo Stryker in disbelief, as she and the ex-padawan leaned on the stone balcony railing of her statehouse, watching the stars and galaxies float by them on her 16th life-day. "Just like that?"

"Yep."

"But you were chosen by a master already," Eris said. "Wasn't becoming a padawan the whole reason you went back to Coruscant?"

"Yep."

"Sooo...what are you doing back on Jeotis then?" she demanded of him. "Are you crazy? You had the galaxy at your feet! What I would give to be in your starfighter! Why would you just throw that all away to come back to this dustball?"

"Somebody once told me the bigger the galaxy, the sweeter the homecoming. Anyway, once you've seen one galaxy, you've seen them all," Virgo shrugged.

"I may not be a Jedi, but I don't need to be one to see right through you. Don't lie to me, Vee. I know the real reason you came back," Eris playfully bumped his shoulder with hers. "You just couldn't pass the trials. And we all know, passing the Jedi trials is like taking clams from a Gungan."

"Speak for yourself," Virgo lightheartedly bumped her shoulder back, and Eris smirked at him. 

"I passed the trials just fine, thank you," he had her know. "I was even chosen by a master of the Jedi Shadow. They were training me to hunt down big, bad Sith Lords in the outer rim. All so people like your highness, can safely get her beauty rest at night."

Eris rolled her eyes.

"Will you get over your own moon?"

"You know, some say the Sith Order is rising. Even the Shadow have their reasons to be concerned."

"Oh Bane's blade, I should've known the Jedi Order would send you back brainwashed as a droid. Is that what this is about?" Eris reached over to inspect the cinnamon colored padawan braid falling down his right shoulder.

"Do I sense envy in you?" he grinned at her. "You'd be surprised how many girls hang around all day outside the Jedi Temple. I might not look like much now, your highness, but I was the oomsh fruit of every eye on Coruscant."

Eris punched him harder in the shoulder this time. 

Unsure why she felt so agitated by that statement.

"More like the dimmest spark in the blaster canon," she corrected him. "And if you were actually chosen by a master, which I highly doubt, that still doesn't explain why you left the Order. I thought you wanted to be a Jedi."

"I did," he answered quietly, awkwardly dropping his gaze from hers and fidgeting with the hem of his gray poncho.

"But?"

"It's complicated, your highness," Virgo said. "Sometimes, Jedi are forced to make decisions between what the Jedi Council decides is the greater good...and what you feel in your heart is right."

"You sound exactly like Qui-Gon Jinn now," Eris sighed. "So many big words, no straight answers."

Virgo said nothing as he gazed up at the trailing stars above them.

And in that tense silence, uncommon for her former rival-turned-friend, Eris glanced over at Virgo again. Sensing in his silence a heaviness that changed the lighthearted banter between them.

"Have you..." Eris proceeded quietly, having waited all night to ask him. "Have you heard anything from Jinn while you were on Coruscant? Did he, by any chance, mention when he'd be back in the outer rim?"

And after she asked it, she couldn't help but notice that Virgo seemed uncomfortable. His eyes strangely avoidant of hers. 

Eris knew then that something was wrong. 

She'd staked out her archenemy, Virgo Stryker, long enough to know when he was hiding something from her. 

"It's nothing personal, your highness," Virgo finally answered her. "Master Qui-Gon has his hands full. Last I heard, the Supreme Chancellor sent him on a mission with Obi-Wan Kenobi to Naboo to negotiate the blockade with the Trade Federation....But that was 6 months ago."

"I see," Eris said quietly, with a hint of sadness that didn't go unmarked by Virgo. "I understand...News takes light-years to get to Jeotis."

But as she still had many questions for him, Eris perked up again in deep intrigue regarding the many mysteries in the galaxy outside of Jeotis. 

"Wait, the Jedi Shadow are supposed to be assassins, right? So, who did they ask you to kill, huh? Anybody I know?"

"Why are you so interested in me, huh? It's your life-day, your highness. You only get to have them once a year," Virgo gently dodged her question. "I can tell you all about the people I've killed later."

"But you're unemployed now, remember? You have plenty of time to tell me everything."

"Now that you bring it up," Virgo said. "I was hoping to ask you something. Seeing as I'm no longer a Jedi...would it be possible to get my old job back?"

"Well, I don't need a Jedi youngling as a bodyguard anymore, that's for sure," she told him. "But maybe...just maybe...I'll consider making you my senator."

"Really?" he asked hopefully.

"Not a chance," Eris brushed him off, turning to leave him at the balcony.

"Ah, come on, your highness," Virgo hurriedly groveled after her. "I'd make a great senator! Just give me a chance." 

________________________

"You know, you never actually told me why you left the Order," an older and wiser Eris said to Virgo years later, as they walked the gardens of the Jeotian statehouse, listening to the soothing fountains around them. 

Virgo had once said they reminded him of the Room of A Thousand Fountains in the Jedi Temple, and Eris, still jealous as ever over him living on Coruscant, had been trying to imagine what it was like to be in a place so peaceful.

"I guess we both have our secrets then, your highness," he said. "You haven't been honest with me about what keeps you awake at night. I sense that your heart is heavy with worry, but you've always shut me out." 

"This galaxy is going to war, isn't it?" she asked him quietly. "I know you can sense it. Please don't keep me from knowing the truth."

Virgo sighed, regretful that he couldn't, even as he wished he could protect her from anything. 

All he could do now was be her senator and give her his counsel.

"I'm concerned about your safety. I've sensed dark intent closing in around us. The insurgents won't stop until you give in to their demands. You should prepare for the worst," he said.

"If they want my crown, they can have it. That's not a problem."

"Giving up your regime won't change anything. Overthrowing the monarchy won't fix the Jeotian economy. It has been in downfall since the Clone Wars. As long as they continue to listen to Count Dooku and the Separatist Council, nothing will change. Even if the royal family steps down, Jeotis will submit itself to the power of the Separatists, who will only exploit the outer rim more."

"Any word from Coruscant?" Eris asked him. "Did you have any luck in the Senate?"

Virgo shook his head reluctantly.

"It's chaos in the Senate right now," he said. "Everyone is talking and nobody is listening. The Core Worlds can't even solve their own problems, let alone the outer rim."

"But we are on the brink of another war. How can they not send help? We are their ally!" Eris demanded in frustration. "If not reinforcements, I'll take even a Jedi to negotiate with the Jeotian insurgents at this point."

"I haven't given up," he said. "Maybe I can speak to the Jedi Council myself. I still have contacts in the Order that may help us. But that will take time. At least another week."

"We're out of time," Eris shook her head. "Civil war is inevitable. And if we'll be fighting it alone, so be it. I'll find my own allies. And if the Republic thinks we'll keep sending resources to fund wars we don't even benefit from, they got another thing coming."

Virgo's hand fell gently over the small of her back.

"I know it's frustrating, Eris, but please be patient. I will do everything I can to make them listen in Coruscant. Please grant me permission to speak to the Jedi Council on your behalf."

"No. The Jedi never did any good for us anyway," she said. "This is our problem. We'll handle it ourselves. Instead of Coruscant, I want you to go to Zekus."

The color ran out of Virgo's face.

"I don't think that's the best move for Jeotis," he disagreed. "Our alliance with the Zekans is unstable, and if they know just how vulnerable the monarchy is, they're likely to side with the Jeotian rebels and help them take control."

"We have no choice," Eris told him. "Perhaps the Zekans would be interested in a trade deal in exchange for their military support. But we have to try. And hope that we come up with a better offer than what the insurgents can give them."

Virgo didn't seem completely convinced by that idea, but he nodded in agreement. Because he knew if he didn't, Eris Constellan just might do it anyway. And better that he follow her into this, than to let her walk in it alone. 

_____________________

Not long after, Virgo returned to Jeotis to brief Eris on his meeting with the Zekans.

And when he played back the holo-message for the princess, the solution the Zekans offered was not what anyone expected.

"In response to the Jeotian monarchy and their plea for military reinforcements against the rebellion in their capitol city, Ceti-4, the Zekan Council has reached a decision. We will deploy our battle droids to subdue the uprising for as long as Jeotis requires. However, Zekan military support will be granted under the following conditions.

"The Jeotians must agree to demilitarize themselves in the Kayzikan star system and merge with Zekan forces, allowing Zekus to operate supremely until this conflict is resolved. Second, to reimburse Zekus for such a massive military response, the Jeotians must agree to a trade deal granting Zekus 65% of Jeotian exports. Third, to ensure the Jeotians honor the terms of this agreement, the Zekan royal family has demanded an alliance by marriage between Princess Eris Constellan and Prince Aries Starcreth-"

Virgo spoke up, interrupting the Zekan ambassador.

"Jeotis rejects these terms," Senator Stryker announced firmly. "Princess Eris is not collateral and will not be used as such in this agreement. As far as your trade proposal, 30% of our exports are already contracted by the Republic. How can you expect the moon to function with only 5% of its revenue channeling back to our economy? Jeotians will starve."

"That is a sacrifice you'll have to make, Senator Stryker," the Zekan council leader remarked to Virgo. "If you won't accept our help, I'm sure the Jeotian insurgents would be more than happy to take what we're offering. After all, they promised us twice as much in return, including the Jeotian princess upon seizure of your capitol. And if I may speak plainly, by giving you our aid, we get the short bantha stick of the bargain. Prince Aries has made it clear that he will forgive the loan if the princess agrees to marry him.

"Keep in mind, senator, that if Zekus really wanted your moon, we would take it by force. The Jeotian Crowned Princess has 3 days to decide." 

The audacity of those droids!

An ultimatum for an arranged marriage?

As if she would allow herself to be subjected to some uncivilized, misogynous, woman-hating Earthling tribal poodoo of the bygone days.

Eris wouldn't stand for it.

So determined to request an audience with the Zekans to make her case, that she wasn't even listening to Virgo when he begged her to stay.

"You can't go. Let someone else deal with Zekus," he urged her. "You can't keep doing this alone."

"Because in the end, I'm only a princess, who never had any real power of her own?"

"Because I love you!"

 Virgo's sudden words bringing her universe to a chaotic stop. 

"Because I left the Jedi Order for you," he declared. "Because if anything ever happened to you, I'm afraid of what I'd become."

Eris hated him for that.

How could he tell her this now, and not years ago on her balcony, when he had every opportunity to say it?

"I'm sorry, Virgo," she said, packing away her merlot royal traveling dress. "If I were not a  princess...If I had ever been allowed to leave this moon and become a different person, I would have left it all behind for you too. But I don't have the same freedom you do. This is my duty. And you have to let me go."

"I didn't leave the Jedi Order because I believed there was a future for us," he said. "I left because, from the beginning, it was my duty to protect you. I swore to Qui-Gon Jinn that I would never leave your side. And I will not abandon that promise now. Don't do this."

"I never wanted you to protect me!" Eris returned, frustrated and near tears. "The last thing I needed was someone else telling me I couldn't do it myself. I may not have the Force, but what I do have, I can make something of it, if everyone else would just get out of my way." 

"I will step aside, your highness, if that is your wish," Virgo told her. "But even if I can not stand in your way, you can't stop me from following you." 

"Then I revoke your position as senator," she said to him. "If you can not obey orders, I no longer require your counsel."

And when Eris turned to leave him behind, Virgo caught her arm, stopping her again.

"Do what you want to me, but I beg you to first hear me out," he said gravely, squeezing her hand in his. "When I was living in the Jedi Temple, I had a vision through the Force...I saw your death, Eris...I watched you die in battle by a Jedi's lightsaber. I sense that your mother saw the same vision too."

"Let me go, Virgo."

"It was my mission in the Jedi Shadow to kill people like you," he continued on. "Anyone with any ties to the Sith, I was ordered to eliminate. I told my master I couldn't do it, if it meant killing you one day. That's why I came back. I can't let you charge into this irrationally. You mean too much to me, and you mean even more to Jeotis."

"How dare you block my way out of this room?" Eris stubbornly checked him. "Stand aside, Virgo Stryker, or you will be executed for high treason of kidnapping a royal."

And despite what his instincts told him, the former Jedi had no choice but to relent.

"Then may the Force be with you," were the last words he ever said to her.

That last time she saw her homeworld, Jeotis. 

Chapter Text

It did not escape Obi-Wan's notice that the small elderly Jeotian ambassador sitting across from him in the conference hub wasn't the real Jeotian ambassador. 

"Welcome, ambassador," he greeted the Jeotian with a warmly official nod. "I am Obi-Wan Kenobi." 

"Good evening, Jedi. I am Senator Kahn of Jeotis. I apologize for any inconvenience regarding this minor mix-up," Kahn sounded as mechanical as he looked. His zombified unblinking eyes trained unnaturally on the Jedi, as protocol droids do, when they learn that eye contact is essential to establishing organic trust, but have no intuition to judge just how much. "Our planetary politics are hardly this dramatic, but I assure you it will be resolved quickly, once the princess is returned to Jeotis. We do not need a Jedi to mediate for us."

Obi-Wan studied his strikingly stoic guest, with a stoicism so committed, that the senator hardly even appeared to be breathing. 

Kahn may have looked like any ordinary man, but Obi-Wan only sensed emptiness within him. As if his every word and movement were "puppeteered" by another. 

And this oddly familiar puppet behavior was rather nostalgic, if Obi-Wan should say so himself. Taking him back to the Clone Wars, when an infection of mind-controlling Geonosian worms attacked Anakin's padawan, Ahsoka Tano, and a crew of clone soldiers on a medical supply ship.

Indeed...the ambassador's demeanor appeared as a carbon copy for the infected cases Obi-Wan investigated years earlier. But without proper examination, or any means to blow the cooling reactor in the room there was no set of decorum for asking one's guest if they were being controlled by a mind-altering brain worm.

"Pardon me, ambassador," Obi-Wan excused himself. "I don't mean to get off point, but I couldn't help but notice that you don't seem like yourself today. If you'll forgive the figure of speech, it seems as if you're...dead on your feet." 

"Not all wars are won by rest and meditation, Jedi," Kahn stated. "If Jeotis does not sleep, neither shall its leaders. This is an interplanetary matter which concerns only Zekus and her moon. We appreciate your diplomatic expertise, but we no longer require a third party to mediate our politics. I ask that you release Eris Constellan to her subjects immediately."

"If her subjects are so happy to see their princess, why did they send their warships to greet her?" 

"A mere...precaution, you might say. To some Jeotians, the princess is--well-- limited in her power to reign a moon, and therefore, not currently popular as a viable political candidate. Thus, our war-time treaty with the Zekans. Our forces are currently demilitarized, so that the Zekans may better assist in controlling the uprisings on our moon," Kahn answered him. "Call us overprotective, Jedi Kenobi, but considering the circumstances, it was agreed that Princess Eris should be taken home by an armed fleet rather than her highness's royal cruiser."

"No doubt an agreement heavily voted on by the Zekan side of the council, I imagine?" Obi-Wan remarked. 

"Quite on the contrary. It was an unanimous decision."

"Unanimous, you say?" Obi-Wan replied doubtfully. "And now that the Zekans have so generously 'lended' you their forces, how close is your planet to achieving peace?"

"Why, I am appalled that you should think her royal highness won't be safe in the hands of her own people," Kahn stated, dodging Kenobi's question. "If there have been any obstacles to peace, it is because we have had no ruler for 3 long years. Without Princess Eris, our peace talks remain stalemated. After all, it makes no difference now whether we are Zekan or Jeotian. We all want the same thing. Unity in our star system. The galaxy may be at war, but we are an oasis in the outer rim devoid of political exploitation and corruption. It is a grave mistake for one to believe the princess regrets returning to Jeotis. In fact, her highness should be honored to be leader of this new era restoring peace between our worlds." 

"Now where have I heard that before?" 

"You disagree?"

"Not to rain asteroids on your parade, senator, but if your 'oasis' is really the peaceful haven you say it is, why would a rogue princess run away from it in the first place?" the Jedi asked. "You continue to leave that question conveniently unanswered."

"As I said before, Eris is a young, inexperienced ruler," Kahn replied. "She does not have the wisdom to know that her duty to serve Jeotis is above her own wayward desires. We must no longer indulge her highness's tantrums."

"Nonetheless, she has asked for asylum, and does not wish to return to Jeotis at this time. And it's no surprise to anyone that her rather exhaustive list of misdemeanor crimes makes her quite a bounty indeed in this star system," Obi-Wan pointed out. "I gather I won't be the only one interested in investigating her part on this base further."

"There is nothing more to investigate here," Kahn insisted. "If you will not take my official word for it, what evidence do you have to suggest otherwise?"

"Well, if I may speak frankly," Obi-Wan offered the official his opinion. "I suspect that this excessive militant response is not for Eris's protection, but to capture her as a hostage, allowing the Zekans to maintain control over her moon."

"That is not the case," Kahn objected immediately. "As I said before, our goal is peace. Zekus is our ally and their presence on Jeotis is vital to ending the moon's unrest"

"Though as I understand it, Zekus has yet to withdraw their 'alliance' from your moon. Nor have they given you a sign on when they intend to do so," Obi-Wan countered. "I can't imagine what the Zekans are calling it, but it's what the rest of the galaxy would call an invasion."

"As an outsider, you could never understand."

"I'm afraid I understand it all too well, senator," Obi-Wan asserted. "And now that Zekus has gained power of your moon, their only goal is to maintain it. Perhaps the Zekans thought it in their best interests to capture Eris than to allow her to wander the galaxy finding new allies against them."

"What a shame that you cannot trust Prince Aries," the senator replied. "Like any doting fiancé, he only wants what's best for his bride."

"His bride?" Obi-Wan's brow perked. 

 "The fine print of their contract. Upon agreement to marriage, Princess Eris is entitled to rule her moon again as queen beside the cyborg prince." 

"That she needs the prince's consent to rule does not sound anything like conjugality to me," Obi-Wan pointed out. "And as a Jeotian senator, I might've expected more resistance on your part. You speak for Prince Aries more dutifully than for your own princess."

"Unfortunately, the Crowned Princess and I have not always seen eye to eye," he replied. "After Senator Virgo Stryker was killed in battle, I replaced him with a heavy heart. Eris made it clear that I was not her first choice. But I am not here to flatter Her Highness. I'm here to end a war."

"Virgo Stryker?" Obi-Wan pondered. "I've heard that name somewhere before." 

"It remains as I have already said," Kahn persisted. "All we want is-"

"Peace," Obi-Wan finished the senator's tired mantra. "Yes. I believe you may have mentioned it before." 

"Then let's not waste anymore of each other's time, Jedi," Kahn said, rising to his feet.

And seeing that he meant that to be the conclusion of their meeting, Obi-Wan stood with him.

"If Eris is your concern, you will let her settle our planetary differences without interfering," he informed Kenobi firmly. "And to ensure that you no longer hinder her, by order of Prince Aries, you are forbidden from landing on either Jeotis or Zekus, and prohibited from any correspondence with Eris Constellan. Consider this your only warning, Jedi."

"And who is Prince Aries to make these demands?" Obi-Wan asked. "He may control a planet, but a star system is a tall order. Even for a droid." 

"So, you will not heed our warning?"

"If by that, you mean I will not oppose Eris's decision to stay, then I will not." 

But before Ambassador Kahn could make war with the iron wall of the Jedi's resolve, a disturbance in the Force warned Obi-Wan of the approaching security troopers outside.

Moments later, the doors of the conference hub released.

"It's done, Master Jedi," the squad leader reported. "We've successfully escorted the princess to the Jeotian flagship. They have begun withdrawing their fleet."

"Eris is gone?" 

"Yes, sir," the security trooper answered proudly. "We received the order to escort her off the premises and did so immediately." 

"And who gave you that order?"

The security trooper knitted his brows at the Jedi in confusion, caught off guard by his question, before answering, "Well, you did, sir."

And thus, enlightened by an unspoken understanding between he and Kahn, Kenobi turned back to his dutifully silent guest. 

"I suppose this is the part when you say it was all part of your plan," Obi-Wan remarked to Senator Kahn. 

"You Jedi are all the same," Kahn hissed. "Blinded by your self-righteous pursuits and your misguided philosophies. And it has been my supreme pleasure to watch you Jedi scum crumble like cliffborer worms."

"Now that you have finally made your intentions clear," Kenobi replied. "What have you done with the real Senator Kahn?"

"A necessary sacrifice," he answered. "The senator played his part well. After all, who could've imagined that tracking down the Crowned Princess here would lead us to discover an even more delicious piece of leverage for us in negotiating with the new Empire. Should you choose to challenge us further, we can not guarantee the safety of the infants you are hiding on this base. I'm sure the Emperor will be interested in hearing all about them." 

Obi-Wan drew his weapon, all civilities abandoned, as he stood between Kahn and Anakin's children. 

Soulless as ever, Kahn reached into his robes, and Obi-Wan quickly unsheathed the blue blade of his lightsaber just as the red luminescence of the senator's darkened the soothing dim glow around them.

Kahn darted for the attack.

Kenobi countered accordingly.

With one swift slash of Kenobi's lightsaber, the ambassador's head rolled across the conference hub at Obi-Wan's feet. 

Curiously, without much resistance.

No Sith Lord had ever surrendered so easily.

Another party trick?

Gryff's security troopers took up formation behind Kenobi, on guard in the quiet tension of the ominously red glowing conference room.

"Put it away, Jedi. All efforts to subdue me are futile."

It was Kahn's voice first.

Then it was his head.

Rolling its way out of hiding from the shadows of the room to merge back with his body. 

Confirming Obi-Wan's suspicions that he was dealing with an undead. 

The unmistakable mark of Dathomiri witchcraft reanimating Senator Kahn's body through manipulation by an outside spellcaster.

But who?

"We are not here for the pleasure of killing you," Kahn's corpse rose off the floor, his head newly attached. "We have no attachments to this useless body. What you do with it, it makes no difference to us now. The coven has finally reclaimed what is ours."

"Fire at will!" the security leader shouted.

And in a last-ditch effort to subdue the aggressor, the terrified 2-man squad ravaged the conference hub in frenzied blaster fire. Carelessly firing through walls and thermal light fixtures above them, until the room swirled in menacing smoke and darkness. 

But the senator's corpse darted through the hub with unhuman speed, summoning his fallen lightsaber and deflecting blaster fire back to his opponents.

And realizing that their blaster fire had no effect on their enemy, the two horrified troopers slowly edged out of the conference room.

"We need backup! Sector 5!" one trooper barked over his comlink for reinforcements.

"Forget backup, we need a priest!" his partner cried. "That's enough hocus-pocus for me today! Let's get out of here!"

"What about the Jedi?"

"He can take care of himself!"

And as the troopers bolted for their escape down the corridor, Obi-Wan's lightsaber mirrored his opponent's again, their faces illuminated only by the blue and red glow of their kyber crystals.

"There's no need for these hostilities," Kahn, the imposters, declared to Obi-Wan. "It would be unwise for a Jedi like you to stand against us. Your kind no longer hold power in this galaxy, and have proven yourselves unworthy."

"Dramatic as usual, whoever you are."

"It matters not who we are. We are a blip in the universe. It's the one who comes after us that you should fear most," he warned Kenobi. "You've lost, Jedi. What little hope you had in holding Eris captive here is simply a delusion. Should you come after her, you will have to take us all on first."

"And who might I ask, is "us"?"

"As if she really were just a helpless little medicine girl," he said. "You're either a fool, or your master had failed to trust you in knowing his business on Jeotis. Which means you are only a pawn, like the rest of the Jedi. It's clear that the Jedi Council feared even for their own knowing the truth about the house of Queen Nephelie. After all, if the pedigree of the nightsister's lineage was known, the Jedi Order might've sent Qui-Gon Jinn to Jeotis much sooner." 

"My master was assigned to the moon to investigate reports of black-market droid production," Obi-Wan stated. "He mentioned nothing about a nightsister."

"It was prophesized by the elder sisters that one among the coven would bear the lineage of the Sith'ari. To ensure that the birth of the Sith'ari be within the coven, Mother Talzin ordered that all sisters agree to the mating ritual with one among her sons. Nephelie refused the order, and with the help of a Jedi Master, left the coven before she could become Maul's mate. Before any of our sisters could fulfill the prophecy, our coven was slaughtered by Dooku and his followers," Kahn told his tale. "However, Nephelie did eventually have a daughter, who was looked after by her Jedi protector. So long as Jinn remained on Jeotis, Nephelie's child would never return to Dathomir to fulfill her destiny to use her power and avenge our coven sisters. Eris is the last living member of Nephelie's bloodline. The Jedi have their own favorite prophecies, do they not?"

"And you believe Eris is this Sith'ari, chosen by the dark side?" Obi-Wan doubted the wild-space of the idea.

"Too long the Jedi Council have put their hope in their own 'Chosen One'. And too often they have ignored the other half of the same prophecy," Kahn told him. "After all, there are two sides to every story. Two philosophies of Order. Two chosen ones of the Force. However, it is not for me to instruct you on what your master failed to teach you. If it was the Sith you set out to destroy, you should have killed her when you had the chance. Compassion is the ruin of every great Jedi Knight."

"While overconfidence has been the demise of every Sith Lord I can count," Obi-Wan answered. "If my master believed in this so-called foretelling of the Sith'ari, he would have warned the council immediately. I have no reason to believe Master Jinn would have withheld the information."

"We see that you still have learned nothing from the fall of your former apprentice," the legion within Kahn stated. "Nevertheless, you may rest assured that we are not interested in the little ones you hide on this base. Skywalker's children, who you believed were chosen by the Force, will not save you from the one who is destined to rise. We have done our duty."

"And what duty is that?"

"To make the way," he said. "The path is now open for the Sith'ari to rise. And when my lord rises, may we be rewarded for our loyalty. Wonoksh Qyâsik nun!"

And before Obi-Wan could do anything to stop him, Kahn turned his own lightsaber against himself and stabbed it into his heart.

The undead dropping to the floor again to rest in peace at last. 

Chapter Text

When Obi-Wan found his way back to the security hub, Captain Gryff had conveniently booked himself for yet another "confidential conference", and had instructed his men that if any certain Jedi came asking for him in the meantime, he unfortunately could not be troubled to oblige.

But Gryff's looming dread to face the Jedi again after betraying Eris to the Jeotians, was not the only lingering sense Obi-Wan picked up upon entering the forsaken security hub.

Obi-Wan stilled at the entrance of the hub. His instincts guiding his mindful attention to an object on the floor, hidden just out of sight near the holo-transmitter. An object that immediately stood out as alien to the various alert systems, security comlinks, control panels, and hanging stun blasters on the wall.

The echoes of his quiet boots being the only sound left in the hollow silence of the room, as Obi-Wan approached Eris's chance cube resting on the deck, having fallen out of her medical vest pocket during the aggression of her arrest.

The only keepsake left behind now from the mysterious medical lieutenant from nowhere.

Obi-Wan closed his hand safely around Eris's abandoned chance cube, caging it in the warmth of his palm.

But it was no longer just Eris's attachment for it that the Jedi sensed when examining the cube, but the strong bond it shared with another. 

A bond much like the tormented one Anakin had felt for his mother, after being forced to leave her behind in slavery on Tatooine. 

A bond so distinctly fixed, it brought Obi-Wan to a pause in wondering again why Eris's chance cube reminded him so much of the one his Master carried.

Could it be...that she and Master Jinn had once been acquainted, before his fatal duel with Maul on Naboo?

It was likely, Obi-Wan guessed, knowing how passionate Master Qui-gon had been about defending the planets in the outer rim who were neglected by the Galactic senate. 

But to what degree, and under what circumstances, had this bond grown much stronger than what one should expect from a Jedi and his duty to the galactic citizens he protects. 

So powerful were the feelings imprinted on this cube....that Obi-Wan remembered he'd sensed something like this in his master before. Those times he'd catch Qui-Gon alone and awake all night, observing the trailing comets and stars on nights when the galaxy burned its brightest. 

Bringing to mind an old forgotten memory of Master Qui-Gon sitting in meditative position across from a youngling, who appeared to be no older than 7 life-years. 

She was simply dressed in a taupe long sleeve, under a woolen sleeveless cropped jumper, and belted brown trousers with knee-length brown boots. Her long hair braided elegantly in twisting umber to her waist. There was no reason, at the time, to believe she wasn't just one of the many native children his master always found time to show a Force party trick or two. 

But Obi-Wan remembered this time feeling somewhat different.

Master Jinn held up a chance cube between them. 

"Now watch closely," he told the child, whose big hazel eyes followed the chance cube attentively.

The child straightened up her posture, crossing her legs to mirror Master Jinn's own meditative pose. 

And then Qui-Gon used the force to send the chance cube sailing in a slow arc until it lightly dropped into her waiting hands. 

'Now you try it,' he instructed her. 'Remember, concentrate on the moment. Feel, don't think. Use your instincts. Are you ready?'

She nodded eagerly, and closed her eyes, wiggling her nose once or twice in deep focus.

 'Concentrate on the moment. Concentrate on the moment,' she repeated his words over and over to herself. 

Until one of her long dark lashes batted open again to peek at the Jedi Master, hoping he was seeing how quick of a learner she was, and how she would try her hardest not to get in his way, should he change his stubborn mind about taking her along with him on his missions around the galaxy.

And it was then she realized that despite how hard she'd worked at this lesson to connect with the Force, this time would be no different than the last meditation they'd practiced together.

She was no longer the only important thing on the Jedi Master's mind. 

Something had caught Qui-Gon's attention, taking him away from her again, far beyond the protective biosphere of her homeworld Jeotis. Reminding her that their time together would always come second against his duty to a complex web of conflicting interests weaved into a galaxy she still couldn't understand for herself. 

"What is it?" she asked him worriedly. 

Following Qui-Gon's gaze just over her shoulder at a boy, who looked to be about 5 life-years older than her.

'It appears we have a visitor. We must end for the day. Go and find your mother. Do not leave the queen's side until I return to the statehouse,' Qui-Gon told her.

And not before making a silly face at the unexpected visitor that had so rudely cut her play-day short, the child ran on her way to do as Qui-Gon had asked of her.

Once he was sure she had safely put some distance between them, Qui-Gon spoke again. 

"You may come in, Obi-Wan." 

~

It came as no surprise to Obi-Wan that the Sith believed in their own Chosen One.

Since his initiation into the Order, there had been attacks on the Temple by dark side followers, and rumors of Sith prophecies circulating the archives.

Some carrying more weight than others, but most leading to nothing.

If these rumors of a dark side Chosen One were authentic, Obi-Wan might've been inclined to track down Kahn's influencer.

But these were different times than those of the Old Republic era. 

A time in which the Sith Order had already risen, and dark side followers had elected their "Chosen One" in Darth Sidious.

But Kahn's message left Kenobi wondering if the Sith were as unified as Sidious staked his reign on.

Could there exist a less outspoken faction in the Sith Order who still believed their time was yet to come?

Could the dark side chosen one really still be out there?

Though it wasn't the news Kenobi had expected, it left him optimistic.

It meant that the current political state of things was less than absolute and vulnerable to change.

It meant that if these rumors were true, there was still hope in turning things around, either by eliminating this said chosen one before he reached power, or using the rumors as an advantage against the Empire.

No doubt that any talk of an alternative chosen one would present a threat to the power of the Emperor. A fracture in his reign that might prove to be just enough of an opportunity to strike back.

But what part did Eris have to play in this, and why did Kahn's influencer seem more interested in her family than in Darth Sidious?

Even if she was a descendent of dark side sympathizers, Obi-Wan could not find in Eris the same power as Sidious.

Still, Kenobi couldn't pursue his search for answers about the Constellans immediately.

Despite Eris's efforts, Padmé did not survive.

She lived long enough to whisper the names of her children to him, Luke and Leia.

"I can't..." Padmé's whisper was breathy and halting. 

She squeezed Obi-Wan's hand tightly in hers, and the delicate carving of Anakin's japor snippet slipped from her hand into his.

"Save your energy," Obi-Wan had encouraged her gently.

"Obi-Wan," she whispered back, fainter than ever. "There . . . is good in him. I know there is ... still . . . "

There was no saving her.

Just as he'd failed in stopping Anakin from his falling to the dark side, Obi-Wan could do nothing but lose her too. 

But it wasn't for him to feel anything. Only to act for the greater good. That is the Jedi way.

To know no fear. Or anger. Or grief. 

Or love.

At least not openly.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Obi-Wan had been taught these things since being a youngling at the Jedi Temple.

But those teachings were given in times of relative peace. In a time where there was no rise of the Sith that opposed the Jedi way of thinking.

A time not like this one, dragging him into a despairing war with his own anger, as he was forced to accept Padmé's fate. 

If Anakin had just listened to me to begin with, none of this would've ever happened...

...If I had just given myself time to listen to him more...none of this might've ever...

"Pregnant, she must appear," Master Yoda said, breaking Obi-Wan's train of thought and reminding him that he had failed again to be present. "Hidden safe, the children must be kept."

They were seated at a conference table with Bail Organa, finalizing their plan to keep Anakin's children from being discovered by the Empire. Making it appear as if they too had died in childbirth with their mother.

"We must take them somewhere the Sith will not sense their presence," Obi-Wan agreed, privately concerned about his confrontation with Senator Kahn still fresh in his thoughts. "Only then can they be safe."

"Split up, they should be," Master Yoda nodded decidedly. 

"My wife and I will take the girl," Bail Organa offered. "We've always talked of adopting a baby girl. She will be loved with us."

"And what of the boy?" Obi-Wan wondered.

"To Tatooine. To his family, send him," Yoda replied.

"Yes, I will take the child there and watch over him on Tatooine," Obi-Wan offered, feeling a strong obligation to do so, on behalf of Amidala. 

But knowing fully the danger these children would always face in hiding, with revived rumors of yet another dark side "chosen one" on the rise, Obi-Wan couldn't help but voice his concerns regarding their safety in the future. 

Obi-Wan would devote himself to his mission of looking after Luke Skywalker, and protect him until he was ready to know the truth of his lineage. 

What decision Luke would make after that, Obi-Wan could not answer that for certain.

He did not have his master's talent in sensing what was to become in the future. 

All Obi-Wan knew was that the Empire would come looking for Luke, and every force sensitive child like him. 

He would never be completely safe, even on Tatooine.

And it would require Kenobi's full commitment when the time came for him to guide Luke back to the Jedi way of life.

Looking after Luke would be Kenobi's last and most important mission as a Jedi Master.

Which left little room for prioritizing any other distractions. 

Least of all, attachments.

"Master Yoda," Kenobi quietly asked the elder Jedi. "Do you think Anakin's twins will be able to defeat Darth Sidious?"

"Strong the Force runs, in the Skywalker line," Master Yoda had answered thoughtfully. "Hope, we can . . . Though done, it is. Until the time is right, disappear we will."

~

It was at that very moment that Obi-Wan wished he could disappear. 

He knew more than anything that he shouldn't panic.

The Jedi Council just wanted to "talk", that's all. 

There was no harm in just talking. 

Except that the Jedi Council already doubted his abilities, as Obi-Wan still hadn't been chosen by a master yet. In fact, he was coming to his 13th life year, and still showed no hope of moving on pass a Jedi initiate and becoming an official padawan. 

In one desperate attempt, he had begged Master Qui-Gon Jinn to take him on, but Qui-Gon made it clear that he had very little interest in taking on another padawan. 

After what happened with his former pupil, Xanatos, on Telos IV, there were rumors among initiates that making an impression on Qui-Gon Jinn was a lost cause. These days, Master Qui-Gon showed no interest in anything except studying the prophecies of the Jedi Mystics in the archives, and then without warning, hurrying out from Coruscant on his own side quests in the outer rim. 

But Obi-Wan had been desperate enough to try his luck anyway, as he and Qui-Gon were the only Master and Apprentice unspoken for. 

And what better way to win the Jedi Master over than to offer Jinn help with his studies in the temple's library archives, analyzing every word of old and forgotten "soothsayings".

Which was no surprise to anyone, as Master Jinn had a rather eccentric knack for analyzing ancient prophecies from the antiquated scrolls and holocrons told by ancient languages of bygone era. Though everyone else seemed to think it was an inefficient waste of time (including Obi-Wan, who believed looking into the future was dangerously uncertain) Qui-Gon refused to dismiss the mystics as "mere nonsense". 

'She who will be born to darkness will give birth to darkness,' Obi-Wan tried again to argue his point that it was all pointless, as he read aloud a passage to Qui-Gon. 'Still, it gives no hint as to who that is, or what kind of darkness, or when--or should I say, if--it will happen. I don't understand why hunting down this so-called Sith'ari is more important than other things, when the Sith haven't been a problem since 1032 BBY.'

'I sense your frustration, Obi-Wan,' Qui-Gon had said suddenly. 'It doesn't seem fair to you that you have fallen behind in your training because you have not been chosen by a master yet. It was never that I didn't see the potential in you. I know how much becoming a Jedi means to you, and how much you value the Jedi Code and winning the council's favor. But because you are devoted wholeheartedly to doing all the council asks of you, I feel I can never be the master you need. I will only hinder your training and hold you back from your goals in becoming the Jedi you wish to be."

"Do you really believe we're so different, Master Jinn?" Obi-Wan wondered.

"I believe I have done something the Jedi Council will not agree with," Qui-Gon told him honestly. "Do you think you could train with a master who willingly accepts that the greater good is not always what the Jedi Council decides it is? If as your master, I asked you to follow me down a path that wasn't recommended by the Jedi Council, would you still trust me? Which of those paths would you choose in the end?"

Obi-Wan was stunned for an answer.

The council's, of course, he'd thought. 

As far as Obi-Wan knew, the council worked for the greater good. And duty to that greater good was far too complex for just one man's interpretation of it.

Though Master Jinn saw his maverick ways as being radically free to be open to the Living Force, Obi-Wan couldn't help but see it as stubbornness. Who was Qui-Gon Jinn to decide that his interpretation of the greater good was the true will of the Force, and not the interests of Qui-Gon Jinn alone?

But the conflict on Obi-Wan's face seemed to be all the answer Qui-Gon needed from him. 

"I could never force you to make such a choice, if it wasn't in your heart to choose a different path," Jinn told him. 

But that choice would come much sooner than Obi-Wan thought. 

Had Qui-Gon somehow known that shortly after their conversation in the archives, Obi-Wan would be abruptly summoned to the council?

Or was this abrupt summoning just a prelude to the council's final decision that Obi-Wan had surpassed the age of becoming a padawan and should be reassigned to work with the Jedi Service Corps instead?

Whatever the case, the council seemed eager to hear what he had to report after they'd sent him on a mission to the outer rim territories to find Qui-Gon.

Pitting Obi-Wan to choose his side in the ultimate test.

Prove to Qui-Gon that he could be a trustworthy padawan and stand by Master Jinn's decisions. Or take the side of the council and confess everything he'd sensed when he'd found the Jedi Master on Jeotis.

'Obi-Wan, the council is aware that Master Jinn has been informally mentoring you. And since he has stalled again in returning to Coruscant to give his report in person, it was decided that you would be the one to debrief with Qui-Gon about his progress in the outer rim,' the meeting proceeded. 'In addition to undercutting profits in droid production among the core planets, it concerned us that battle droids are being manufactured in the outer rim territories at a rate that would raise suspicions. Not only that, but these droids are not being properly registered with the Republic to track who they are sold to and for what purpose. We suspect it might be another ploy of the Hutts to foster profit and domination, by selling droids to their friends who shouldn't have them." 

"Informed Master Jinn of these concerns, have you?" Master Yoda asked Obi-Wan. "That suspicious of Jabiim, Crait, and Jeotis, we are?" 

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan replied. "I delivered the message to him as you asked. He agreed that the Jeotians might be one of the planets responsible, and that abducted humans may have been used in some of these droid prototypes. I've returned with the evidence from his official report, but he did not require any more of my assistance otherwise."

"Human droid prototypes? Indeed, this does sound like the work of the Blackguard," one commented. 

"In that case, it should be thoroughly investigated," another stated. "Is this all the intel you could gather from Jeotis?"

The air was quietly intense with what Obi-Wan felt was disappointment in the little information he'd managed to bring back, and he was instantly crushed under the weight of it. 

How could he prove that he was still fit to become a padawan when he hadn't even secured a simple piece of intel the council needed?

If he had failed their test already, then nothing would save him from the Jedi Service Corps.

Obi-Wan had hoped he could one day prove to Qui-Gon his ability to be discreet, but standing before the Council now with their eyes bearing down on him, Obi-Wan decided it was only right that he let the council in on his other suspicions. 

"There is something else," Obi-Wan spoke up. "I've been helping Master Jinn study the mystics in the Jedi Archives."

"The mystics are nothing but drivel," one declared. "Practically nonsense."

"Compelling, the words of the mystics are," Yoda agreed. "But to nowhere, they have led."

"Master Jinn seemed quite interested in one of them, in particular," Obi-Wan confessed. "The prophecy of the Sith-ari."

The word caught the council's attention immediately, and realizing that he finally had something useful for them, Obi-Wan continued.

"I don't know exactly what the mystics meant by the Sith'ari, except that it is tied to some dark side prophecy. What's more, I found Master Jinn often accompanied by a child on Jeotis. I could not identify her before she was gone, but sensing the bond between her and Master Jinn...well, for a moment I thought...That is to say, I believe that she was-"

"Pardon my absence," Qui-Gon's voice came from behind Obi-Wan, striding into the council room rather unceremoniously and in his usual fashion of unexpected timing. "I heard I was wanted.'

"How honored we are that you saw us important enough to leave the outer rim and answer our orders for you to return," one remarked. "Obi-Wan was just about to finish debriefing us on your report. It seems you met a child on Jeotis, whom Obi-Wan alludes to as theSith-ari?"

"I sensed darkness in the child, yes," Obi-Wan couldn't retract his steps now, even while Qui-Gon stood there listening behind him. "But I did not intend to give the impression that she was the Sith'ari. No, I'm not saying that at all."

"The child is a member of the royal family. There is a rumor that her family is connected to prophecies of the Sith'ari," Qui-Gon offered the council instead. "However, rumors are not facts I can comment on." 

"If you had any doubts about this dark presence, then why didn't you act accordingly to eliminate this 'rumor'?" the question countered him. "If there was any suspicion that this child might be the Sith-ari, or share any connection with the Sith Order, we can not turn a blind eye to it. Should the council agree, I propose that Master Jinn return to Jeotis and purge the galaxy of this problematic family, so there is no more questioning of this dark side prophecy."

"But that is not the Jedi way," a young, idealistic Obi-Wan was the first one to object. "She's only a youngling, and prophecies have been wrong before."

"Would you rather see this galaxy in war and chaos instead?" one demanded. "The Jedi way is to maintain peace. If this child is in fact linked to the Sith'ari, it is for the greater good of the whole galaxy that she be eliminated before she becomes a threat." 

"If she becomes a threat," Qui-Gon interjected. "As Obi-Wan has said, she is only a child. It would be unfair to condemn her to death based on our uncertainty and fear of the future. That, we can all agree, is far from the Jedi way. I will not turn to brutality against this child and her family for a mere rumor. Let alone, destabilize an entire moon who lives under their monarchy."

"Still, we can not allow this manner to go uninvestigated," another stated. "No one has studied the prophecies as closely as you have, Master Jinn. Should the council agree, I recommend that you return to Jeotis at once and assess this situation. If there is any doubt in your mind about this child, you must do what is necessary."

"Though I understand how deeply concerned the council is on this matter," Qui-Gon answered. "I cannot accept this mission."

"And why is that?"

"Because I have decided to take on a student," Qui-Gon said. "If it pleases the council, I would like to take on Obi-Wan Kenobi as my padawan." 

"What?" Obi-Wan mumbled, stunned and caught off guard. 

"What a sudden change in heart," one of the council observed. "But then again, you're always so full of surprises, Master Jinn."

"Though my work is not finished in the outer rim, I wish to focus my attention on teaching Obi-Wan, as he has fallen greatly behind the training of his peers," Qui-Gon said. "For that reason, I must decline returning to Jeotis at this time. However, might I suggest a Jedi youngling as an alternative in my place?"

"You'd send a Jedi youngling, who has not completed any training in the Force, on such a dangerous mission?"

"One particular youngling, in fact," Qui-Gon said. "I recommend assigning Virgo Stryker. Though he is too young for me to take as a padawan, he impressed me with his calm, resourcefulness, and loyalty. And he is closest to the princess's age, which means he can be disguised as her playmate. A youngling would easily be overlooked, and can safely gather intel without being suspected. It is a more compassionate approach to investigating the situation than recklessly ambushing the Jeotian royal family." 

"Hm...Strong attachments to this family I sense in you, Master Qui-Gon?" Master Yoda observed thoughtfully. "Willing to share your true thoughts with the council, are you?"

"There is no need to allow uncertainty to make us behave as our enemies do. The outer rim is already filled with tension toward the Republic, and acting rashly on Jeotis will only harm our relationship with the territories," Qui-Gon said. "I think it wiser that we wait and keep an eye on the Constellan family in the meantime."

"Very few can handle the outer rim as well as you have," one agreed. "We will trust your judgement on this matter.  Until our concerns are confirmed with irrefutable evidence, the council will hold its peace. For now."

"Decided it is, then," Master Yoda said. "Stryker, we will send to Jeotis. Should he discover more information, notify us immediately, he must."

"Understood," Qui-Gon said quietly, and nodded to take his leave from the council chamber. 

Saying nothing to Obi-Wan as he went. 

Though Obi-Wan couldn't help but feel that the only reason he had a master now, was because Qui-Gon Jinn had proven himself to be a starfield of untold secrets...one of which, he would risk everything to keep.

__________________

'Might it have been then,' Obi-Wan wondered, as he thoughtfully turned over Eris's strikingly familiar chance cube in his hand. 'That the reason Master Jinn felt he could not accept the council's mission to ambush the royal family was because...the child I saw on Jeotis that day was his own?'

Though it never occurred to him once that his master might have a daughter somewhere in the galaxy, Obi-Wan could not completely dismiss the idea, considering the free thinker his master was, and the bond imprinted on the identical chance cube he and Eris both carried. 

In fact, the more he considered the thin threads of chance for the connection between them, the more he began to see the likeness to his master in the medic's presence. 

"Well then," Obi-Wan concluded with no small sarcasm. "If she is Master Jinn's daughter, that certainly does explain everything about why we hit it off so well." 

And Obi-Wan had certainly done a favor to Master Qui-Gon indeed, unwittingly losing his presumed daughter in a stand-off with a droid army ruled by an obsessive cyborg prince who'd convinced himself he was a God, and now threatened the stability of an entire star system holding the Jeotian princess hostage. 

Certainly, this was far from how Kenobi had ever imagined his peaceful retirement from the Jedi Order. 

And Obi-Wan found himself pitted against yet another test of choosing his side. 

To remain on Tattooine as Ben Kenobi, or to follow his disquieting senses about Eris Constellan to the outer rim?

Whether the former medic had any legitimate connection to a dooming dark side prophecy, or any relation to his master at all, one certainty remained.

Eris had risked her impending capture to stay at Padmé's side and ensure the safe delivery of her children.

And for that reason, Obi-Wan felt that he could not abandon the princess as a prisoner in her own homeworld. 

In the official Jedi archives, Obi-Wan's story as a Jedi ends on Tatooine as Ben Kenobi.

But privately, in the unspoken memory of just a few people, Kenobi's story continued after Polis Massa, on the outer rim moon called Jeotis.

And it was then that the Princess of Jeotis was destined to finally get her wish, as thus began her grand galactic adventure at the side of a Jedi Knight.

As guided by the gentle pull of the Force, Obi-Wan Kenobi set out on a mission to rescue the quirky medicine girl on her distant moon far, far away. 

Chapter Text

EPISODE II: JEOTIS

3 months later...

The Moon, Jeotis

"It seems we no longer have the element of surprise," Obi-Wan informed his droid companion quietly. "We're being followed." 

The Jedi hardly got the words out before Q2 immediately charged up his blaster. "I've been waiting for you to say that." 

"Not here, my droid friend," Kenobi cooled the droid's short-wired enthusiasm. "It would be unwise to draw attention to ourselves right in the heart of Jeotis."

Mumbling curses about Jedi that he wasn't brave enough to let Obi-Wan hear aloud, Q2 reluctantly lowered his blaster again under the bar table between them.

"What are we waiting for, Jedi?" the droid questioned Kenobi impatiently.

"Our welcome party, of course," Kenobi replied.

"Crik the maker and your civilities! Our mission is to rescue Princess Eris from her captivity with the Zekans. And thanks to you, it took 3 months before anyone even tried. The odds of finding Her Highness alive now is a burr seed in bantha dung, 1 in 500,000."

"Knowing the medical lieutenant, she wouldn't take kindly to you counting her out already. Have patience, Q2. I sense we are getting close," Obi-Wan assured the anxious droid. "If Aries's ego is busy trying to win the princess over, then there is still a reason for him to keep Eris alive. At least for now. We don't want to go making any rash one-man-to-one-droid rescue attempts that would jeopardize her life while she is held prisoner here. We must stick to the plan."

"Your plan will fail," Q2 declared. "The Jeotians here don't know anything about the Jeotian Four, and if they did, they would not tell us where to find their hideout. Scan them yourself."

Q2's digital optics swept over their tensely silent fellow bar patrons, who kept their heads low at the tables and stools around them. 

"Their blood pressure is elevated. Tachycardia. Sweating. Shortness of breath. Human typical signs of panic. They won't tell us where Eris is, even if they knew. No one is that stupid." 

"I sense their fear too," Obi-Wan confirmed the droid's assessment. "But the Zekan prince isn't their only dilemma. It's only a matter of time before the Empire reaches the outer rim. We must spend our time wisely here--meaning, no rash heroic rescue attempts. No matter how tempting the impulse. The sooner we join the Jeotian Four, the better chance Eris has in escaping her captors and rebuilding her forces."

"Are all you Jedi so deliriously optimistic?" Q2 questioned Obi-Wan. "If you think Aries will just standby while you rebuild Her Highness's army right under him, then I don't feel sorry for your impending demise. It is unlikely that these militant underground soldiers loyal to Her Highness even exist. We've been on-world 7 days, and have not made contact with anyone from the Jeotian Four. Our mission should be focused on getting Eris back, not on your wild bantha chase."

"Our intel speaks otherwise," Obi-Wan reminded him. "Eris still has loyalists who've attempted to make contact with Alderaan for support since the fall of your moon. Our job is to answer them. If it is true that the Jeotian Four have built their own hidden network underground, we'll need their help to escort the princess out of Zekan custody. And once Eris's forces join our allies, the moon's defenses will only be strengthened against its aggressors."

"What you put your hope in is a gamble. Who will get to Jeotis first, I wonder? Alderaan or the Empire?" Q2 questioned the Jedi. "If anyone's asking, I put my credits on the Empire." 

"Droid or human, you're entitled to your opinion and your lack of faith." 

"Well, you're going to need all the help you can get challenging Aries," Q2 remarked. "Now that he has taken Jeotis, my estimation is that he will use the moon and its wealth as a bargaining chip in the Galactic Senate to gain support for his droid reforms. An offer the Empire won't resist. They will be looking for another less 'touchy' ally in the outer rim than the Hutts." 

"I suspect the same thing," Obi-Wan agreed with him, pensively stroking his beard as he imagined it to be likely true that Aries was quite keen on getting the Empire to acknowledge his status in the outer rim. "How can one droid take things so far?"

"He's not a droid. He's Zekan. And that's precisely why he would pillage and plunder other planets without a conscience or any programming," Q2 pointed out. "Aries is a corrupt combination, he is. Like humans, he desires power. A droid revolution. Equal rights for Cyborgs and Droids across the galaxy. But like a droid, he does not care who he has to destroy for that power, including Her Highness. This whole operation triggers my circuits. Aires is planning something much worse for Jeotis now that he has Eris. I know it. I know it because I know a Zekan battle formation when I see it. They're preparing for war."

Obi-Wan couldn't blame the droid for being on edge.

The number of Zekan Guard in Ceti-4 seemed to increase the closer they got to the Jeotian statehouse. 

Could the Zekan troops have already discovered their smuggler transport in the volcanic outskirts of Jeotis?

Prince Aries was buffering his trooper forces for a reason,  and such dramatic response to alert all commands was a sign to Obi-Wan that Eris was still alive.

And closely guarded.

"It seems as if the Zekans expect a rescue mission for her. They have been on an unusually high alert since we landed here," Obi-Wan shared his guess with the droid. "However, it doesn't appear to be us who've provoked Aries first."

"Then who?" 

"They're here, Q2," Obi-Wan said quietly, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Quasar Bar that overlooked the capitol city. "Judging by the heavy Zekan presence in Ceti-4, something's got the cyborg Prince quite nervous indeed. Wherever these Jeotian Four are, they've been holding their ground on Jeotis long before we arrived here. It's time we made our introductions." 

Eris's royally ornate statehouse stood ominously in the distance, awaiting the swarm of aggression Obi-Wan sensed approaching her moon. 

A familiar dark energy he had come to know as the Empire.

"If the Jeotian Four does exist, why haven't they made contact with us?" Q2 said skeptically. "And how can we trust that your 'allies' won't betray Her Highness? Hard to compute that you even have friends in this galaxy, when you are constantly making enemies wherever you go. Mi'lady included. The Empire doesn't like you. The Zekans don't like you. I don't like you."

"What a surprise. I usually get on well with droids," Obi-Wan remarked. 

"I have yet to annihilate you for turning against mi'lady and I on Polis Masa," Q2 reminded him. "If it weren't for you, Eris wouldn't be in this predicament." 

"Had your princess not revealed herself in an attempt to save Senator Amidala, she would still be safely hidden on Polis Massa," Obi-Wan agreed with him. "That is why I do not intend to abandon her. You have my word, Q2."

"Your word is as good as space junk to me," Q2 said flatly. "Her Highness never trusted a Jedi, and neither will I."

"I'm not a Jedi ," the droid's human companion corrected him. "Obi-Wan Kenobi died with the rest of the Order."

"I don't care who you are now. You will save Her Highness, or you'll answer to me for it," Q2 warned Kenobi. "I will not let her die like a slave on this planet."

"You think very highly of your master," Obi-Wan admired the droid's unusual devotion, as his thoughts wandered back again to the mystic woman he'd met on Polis Massa.

Revisiting his memory of the way the galaxy seemed to stop with her as Eris gazed back at Obi-Wan through the blue glow of the holo projector in Gryff's hub. 

Her amber eyes captivating him in those unexplainable moments he'd closed his eyes in meditation, only to find her image still there, haunting him within the Force. 

Though, master as Kenobi was, he was never so powerful enough to hold her there longer with him than his Force visions were willing to stay.

Leaving him to endure alone the daunting absence of the answers he needed...and the vacant space left behind for want of that comforting presence Eris unknowingly brought to him. That quiet whispering likeness about her to the master he once loved, and had never quite learned to find peace with.

Obi-Wan had told himself it was the Jedi way to come to Eris's rescue on Jeotis.

Had it not been for her care of Padmé, the fate of Luke and Leia might've been another tragedy waiting to happen. 

But was his pursuit of Eris really as selfless as he wanted the Jedi in him to believe?

Could paying one last altruistic favor to the princess really be the only reason Obi-Wan couldn't turn his back and leave Eris to her own stars?

Despite how much time he'd spent in meditation looking for knowledge to light his path since meeting her on Polis Massa, perhaps the heart of Kenobi's inner unrest had nothing to do with the Force.

Perhaps the reasons that had driven Obi-Wan here to find his master's alleged daughter were far more complicated than he wished to acknowledge. 

The past is final, and nothing of it in a Jedi should linger unresolved.

Yet Obi-Wan felt, in some unnamed way, that he was still there on Naboo as a young padawan, holding his mortally wounded master in his arms and wishing it had all been different. 

How many times since Naboo he'd wished for another chance to make things right with his master...To finally earn Qui-Gon's forgiveness, and hear his master speak to him again through the Force, just as Master Yoda had claimed to hear Qui-Gon speak beyond the veil of death.

"Love is a novel concept for a droid," Obi-Wan spoke again to Q2. 

"Well, had it not been for mi'lady, I'd be a waste of bolts, like that R2 series you keep bringing up. Following orders mindlessly," Q2 said. "Her Highness taught me that even droids have a destiny they can call their own. She was the first human to ever treat me like that. She is my friend, yes. That's what you organics call it. She is more than just a master to me." 

"Much can be said about a master by the way they care for their droids," Kenobi complimented the droid's keeper. "Despite the troubling rumors, it seems the princess's reputation speaks kindly of her. Eris is not like any Sith lord I've met."

"If you want to live," Q2 warned him. "Never let her hear you say that."

Obi-Wan gave in to a smile. 

"Perhaps she really is as formidable as she wants me to believe?"

At least, the reanimated Kahn would've agreed. 

'It was prophesized by the elder sisters that one among the coven would bear the lineage of the Sith'ari. The Jedi have their own favorite prophecies, do they not?' Kahn had said. 

'Too long the Jedi Council have put their hope in their own 'Chosen One'. And too often they have ignored the other half of the same prophecy.  After all, there are two sides to every story. Two philosophies of Order. Two chosen ones of the Force.'

"Knowing that you are the closest confidant to the princess, perhaps you might shed some light on this rumored 'Sith prophecy'," Obi-Wan ventured. "Some have gone so far as to call Eris their 'chosen one'."

"I can not say," Q2 answered. "For mi'lady's protection, my programming does not include that kind of data. The only one who can answer that question for you is the queen's handmaiden."

"A handmaiden?" 

"Nebula Starcreth. She has served Eris since Her Highness's birth. But before you speak to her, the first thing you should know about Nebula Starcreth is that she is a..."

"It'll have to wait for now, Q2," Obi-Wan stopped him abruptly, downing his last swig of Blue Tonic. "We have company."

"Company?"

"It seems whoever has been following us is finally ready to make an introduction," Obi-Wan said. "Remember to mind your manners, Q2. We're only two humble traders passing through." 

"Blast to manners! I am no protocol droid!" 

Obi-Wan then moved his drink to the side, making room at their table for their incoming visitor. 

"What do you take me for, Jedi? I do not detect anyone within my scanning range-"

And then the window next to their table shattered violently into pieces, sending broken and sharp fragments into their drinks by the power of one Obi-Wan sensed as strong and commanding in the Force.

Then next came their hooded guest, rolling across the bar table in a perfect landing between Obi-Wan and Q2, with two blasters pointed each at both the Jedi and the droid. 

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" their new arrival spoke to Obi-Wan. "My luck just seems to keep getting better. Imagine finding a Jedi Master here, of all places."

"Well, hello there," Obi-Wan greeted him cheerfully. "I believe you are mistaken. We are not Jedi, but two humble traders passing through. I am Ben Kenobi, and this is my droid friend, Q2. I see you've been expecting us." 

"Kenobi, huh?" the tabletop marksman repeated the name smugly. "What a damn good ransom they'll pay me for you." 

Chapter Text

Q2 was next to speak.

"I'll be the first to call him scum, but I'll have you know, this isn't a Junk Emporium. He is not for sell," the droid came to the defense of his human compadre. "This sack of damaged goods here is already spoken for by my liege. Therefore, you are advised to take your business some place else, or face a harrowing retribution from my master."

"I've been retributed by masters before," their hooded guest replied cockily. 

"The master I answer to is supremely powerful amongst all masters on Jeotis," Q2 warned him. "And you wouldn't want to make my master unhappy."

"Well, if your master is in the business of bounties, then your master should know that there is no business without a little gamble," the guest remarked. "And I'd be willing to bet on your master's wrath for a chance to profit off unclaimed Jedi Masters like this one. Finders, keepers, as they say. One master's scum, another's treasure?"

"Was I not clear that my master's assets are not for sell today?" Q2 restated his point. 

"I didn't come here to bargain with your master," their guest said. "I came to turn this Jedi in." 

"Where my master's interests go, I go," Q2 warned him. "Kenobi and I are a two for one deal."

"There's no need to feel left out, droid," the guest told him, a hint of a smirk in his voice. "Droid parts still go for a fair price in this economy." 

"While a guilty conscience is a high price to pay for security," Obi-Wan commented to their drop-in, spotting the glint of a lightsaber only just hidden away under the visitor's cloak. "What has this galaxy come to when we can no longer trust our friends?" 

"I've always known whose side I belong to, Master Obi-Wan," he muttered to the Jedi. "Though it gives me no pleasure to do this. I didn't want to find one of you Jedi on Jeotis, but the Order left me no choice. I won't let you near Eris. Even if it means turning against every last one of my former masters." 

"If it's Eris you're here to protect, you should consider your next move very carefully," Kenobi warned him quietly. "It would be a critical mistake to put your princess's life in even more danger by ignoring your instincts about us." 

But their exceptionally eager guest couldn't help himself, and the self-righteous crusade he came in to finish, as he stood up on their table and blatantly announced to the other bar patrons, "I found a Jedi! Who wants him?"

Q2 went in for the kill, attempting to silence their guest by engaging the ill-advised idiot with a rapid series of blaster fire raining across the pub. 

Their nuisance of a guest was quicker. 

Predicting the gung-ho droid's impulsive attack, he withdrew his blasters and unsheathed the synthetic fiery orange hue of a lightsaber under his cloak. Hoping to eliminate Q2 with one quick, clean slice at the droid's head. 

And he might've done it, had Obi-Wan's quicker reflexes not intervened, igniting his cerulean lightsaber just as his opponent's came crashing down in a stalemate blade-against-blade. 

Robbing their guest of his opportunity to behead the mouthy and aggravatingly stubborn droid. 

"Why did you come here?" the guest mumbled fiercely, his arms tense and shaking against Obi-Wan's opposing strength. Holding fast to his own might against letting the Jedi Master cut his blood-orange blade down. "Did the Jedi Order send you to kill her?"

"I might've gotten to that part, had you not alerted the entire Zekan guard to us," Obi-Wan told him. "There's no time to explain now. We need some place quieter to talk." 

"Why should I trust you?" he asked. 

But before either of them could break the deadlock of their welded lightsabers, the bar entrance rocked and whistled with the clinks and bangs of blaster fire dropping in between the downbeats of the booming bass of wreckpunk music bringing down the house of the Quasar. 

A unit of Zekan troopers stormed in, causing a panic in the retreating patrons as the guard assumed their offensive formations. 

Sieging the bar on all sides with riot control shields and batons charged and ready. 

"There! Two Jedi at 3 o'clock! Seize them!" 

"Finally!" Q2 hissed, gleefully firing off his blaster rounds at the Zekan guards charging through the door. "This is what I was created for!"

The Zekans immediately returned fire, forcing Obi-Wan and their rogue lightsaber-welding guest to deflect back the blaster fire while still keeping each other at bay. 

However, rather than finish their initial fight, their guest seemed to have other plans. 

When his moment of opportunity arose, he withdrew from his duel with Obi-Wan, and sprung out the Quasar's sky-high window he'd only just rolled in through minutes earlier. 

"Don't worry about me, I will be just fine dealing with these rust buckets!" Q2 said to Obi-Wan. "Don't lose him!" 

Leaving the droid to handle the Zekan guards on his own, Obi-Wan glided out the window after his opponent, landing right next to the hooded rogue into an airspeeder that'd been idling two stories below the window's ledge.

Their lightsabers colliding again in contest to subdue the other. 

Pausing only to gingerly keep their delicate balance aboard the compact two-seater airspeeder under their feet. 

But recognizing a fatefully unmindful fighting form in his opponent, typical of the modest skillset of a padawan learner, Obi-Wan held back, guarded by his suspicions that he might be dealing with another Jedi fugitive rather than a turned Sith Lord.

"We're on the same side," Obi-Wan tried again to reason with him. 

"I left your side years ago," he answered. "What's a Jedi Master like you doing in Ceti-4 anyway? Don't you got bigger burra fish to fry? Like--I  don't know--taking back the galaxy from the Empire for starters?"

"Before you worry about saving the galaxy, let's talk about your own moon first," Obi-Wan answered, eyeing the Zekan guard looking down on them from the shattered window above. 

"There they are! Don't let them get away!" 

Leading Kenobi to step in front of his opponent and shield the less experienced "padawan" from the hail of blaster fire that came next. 

The Zekan guard quickly retreating back behind the shattered window to take cover from Obi-Wan's deflections. 

"I know why they sent you here," his guest declared, as he and Obi-Wan stood each other off again on the airspeeder, assuming the Makashi dueling form once more. "Qui-Gon warned me that one day the Jedi Order would send someone to Jeotis looking for her. Whatever they told you about the Sith prophecy, Eris has nothing to do with it. She's not the Sith'ari, and I won't let you kill her for it."

"I am not here to assassinate your princess," Obi-Wan reminded him again. "I'm here to empower her. I came here to help her restore her reign and bring order back to Jeotis." 

"As if a Jedi would ever let that happen," he doubted. "You left your own apprentice in the lavafalls of Mustafar. If you couldn't stand to let even him live, why would you ever let her?" 

But how could he know that Obi-Wan had been forced to fight Anakin? 

It wasn't likely that Anakin had even survived that fight. Though he had not killed him, Obi-Wan knew it was over when he turned his back on his former apprentice. 

What could this stranger possibly know about that terrible decision and what befell Anakin on Mustafar?

"I've watched you, Obi-Wan Kenobi, since I was a youngling. I looked up to you. Your pure obedience to the Jedi Order. Your unyielding principle. I've seen what it made you do to your friends, and yet, I am the traitor among us?" he challenged Kenobi. "There's no reason a Jedi like you would help her, and no reason why she should trust you. It's Jeotians alone who will reclaim our moon." 

"Then our allies offer you their support." 

"Whoever your 'allies' are, we don't want them." 

"That is for your ruler to decide," Obi-Wan told him. "I need Eris's permission to engage our forces around Jeotis, and I am running out of time to find her. Are you in contact with the princess now?" 

"If Eris were alive, what makes you think I'd tell a Jedi where she is?"

"The Empire is coming for the outer rim next," Obi-Wan informed him. "I know you can sense it. If your plan is resistance, you cannot take on the Empire and the Zekans alone, should Prince Aires decide to join the Galactic Senate. We are Eris's last hope. You have to trust me." 

"Trust? The Zekans already used that line on us," he declared. "What makes you any different than them?"

"If you prefer a droid who mercilessly starves your people and believes he's a god, I cannot contest that." 

And gradually, the stubbornness in his face relaxed into the worry Kenobi had already sensed in him. 

"You might be too late," he said to Obi-Wan, lowering his lightsaber at last. "The Zekans have taken control of the statehouse. At this point, we have no way of confirming if Eris is alive or dead."

"And by we, you mean?"

"The Jeotian Four," he answered, removing his hood to reveal his face and cinnamon red mane. "I am commander of the princess's underground forces. Former Padawan of Master Youto Senesca."

"Master Senesca?" Obi-Wan recognized the name from the elite members of the Jedi Shadow, formerly assigned to hunt down the Sith Order during the reign of the Republic. "Then that must mean you are-"

"The Zekans are about to power us down!" Q2 warned, jumping from the window ledge two stories above and landing into the airspeeder with the two Jedi. "They've called in reinforcements. If we do not relocate now, we'll be a sight for short circuits once those heavy artillery come-"

And abruptly, the droid froze in mid-sentence, scanning their unhooded comrade over in instant recognition of his face. 

"Senator Virgo Stryker?" 

"Senator?" Obi-Wan mirrored Q2's words in mild surprise, as he reconsidered their unlikely fellow in arms.

"Shut me down!" Q2 exclaimed. "How can it really be you, sir?" 

"Guess you're not the only Jedi running from his past," Virgo remarked to Obi-Wan. "Seems we're destined to work together now, whether we want it or not." 

"But you were murdered, sir," Q2 persisted to Stryker. "Prince Aries executed you and your crew exactly 3 years, 3 months, and 13 days ago. How is it you are here alive on Jeotis, without Her Highness ever knowing about it?" 

"It's a long story, but we don't have time for it now. We've got a princess to rescue, a moon to liberate, and some droids to fry," Virgo started dropping orders, programming the airspeeder for a quick getaway burst. "Q2, can you find us an alternative route out of the city? We can't stand here like sitting pelikki waiting to get shot. We have to keep moving." 

Chapter Text

Jeotis, Ceti 4 (Capitol City)

The Jeotian Royal Statehouse

Some more superstitious might've called it an omen of 'good fortune'.

A rare event in Eris's sky--courtesy of the Zekan occupation and their restrictions on Jeotian skylane traffic after curfew hour.

That accidental moment when Eris glanced up from her private garden atrium at a starry galaxy, and caught the golden magenta glimmer of a comet's tail setting fire to blushing amber Jeotian twilight.

But she was long past the age of wishing on falling stars, and didn't give the maverick meteor even an afterthought.

Once upon a galaxy, comets to her were a sign of promises.

No matter where I am in the galaxy, I can always trace a comet's tail back to Jeotis .

But Eris knew now that comets were nothing more than dusty iron tails, formed when a star's heat vaporizes some matter of space debris into reflective light.

Beautiful to look at, but ultimately, empty.

Just like promises.

A beautifully useless comet being 23 years too late to convince her otherwise.

Despite the star-aligned beliefs and stereotypes of her fallen ancestors, Eris was never quite witchy enough to believe in poo-doo like star signs, horoscopes, lunar spells, and alignment of planetary energies to influence the turn of fate.

What she did believe in was self-determination and the right weapon at the right time.

"Virgo's lightsaber, your highness," her handmaiden, Nebula Starcreth, quietly appeared beside her on the atrium balcony. "As you requested."

"Did anyone see you?"

"No, your highness. The Zekan guard is unusually distracted tonight. Apparently, there's been some riot at the Quasar," Nebula informed her. "Thank your lucky stars that every battle droid has an easily maneuverable blind spot when they aren't working in a pack."

Eris inspected the lightsaber in her hand. The weapon being only a fraction of the weight of her blaster pistol, but oddly enough, it felt heavier.

"A riot, huh? Even I couldn't have bet on a better time to break into my room tonight," Eris remarked. "Who do I have to thank for this unprecedented distraction?"

"Whoever they are, they seem to have Aries overheating like a Tatooine summer," Nebula guessed. "I haven't seen this many Zekan guards flooding the capitol since the invasion."

"Well done then, whoever you are," Eris congratulated her unnamed knight of the cantina. "It seems my favor still can be won. Find out the identity of my unsung hero and see to it that they are rewarded."

"It will be done, mi'lady."

"And speaking of the Quasar, how long has it been since we had a Captain's Special?" Eris lightly asked her attending lady. "Take the night off and have a round on me. At least one of us should take advantage of an after-riot happy hour."

Nebula's mahogany brow rose suspiciously at her.

"How could I ever leave your side, your highness? I wouldn't dream of leaving you here working so diligently... Alone....like last time."

"How many times are you gonna bring up 'last time'? That was 3 years ago."

"It's my duty to keep track of you."

"It's your duty to dress me up like a tooka doll for speeches, deliver messages on my behalf, and sacrificially die in my place," Eris informed her. "It's not your duty to ask to do more."

"Then might I ask, if this still has nothing to do with you plotting another escape from Jeotis?"

"He's making me try on wedding dresses," Eris muttered through gritted teeth. "White dresses. Onion white dresses. What would you do?"

"It could be worse, mi'lady," Nebula pointed out.

"For the droid, it will be," Eris swore. "Droid Revolution, my unmarriageable ass! This is what happens when droids become 'independent thinkers'."

Nebula passed her a cutting side-eye, but seeing that Her Highness didn't appear to be in an ambassadoratory mood in terms of political correctness, she said nothing this time.

"How does this thing work anyway?" Eris muttered, disappointed as she pensively turned the lightsaber hilt this way and that for clues of its power switch.

But the weapon remained dead as a dradan in her hands.

There didn't appear to be any obvious signs of a said prominent switch to activate the lightsword. She'd heard about wielders like Asajj Ventress, who concealed the activation slides of her lightsaber, but big-headed as Virgo was, Eris wouldn't bet on him going through such tedious work for such an over-complicated step.

Was she just overlooking the obvious, or was she once again defeated by her own naivety around anything to do with a lightsaber or the Force?

"And why exactly do you need a lightsaber, your highness?" Nebula asked her.

"Aries thinks I need an army to bring down his droid kingdom," Eris said. "But I don't need the force to take his head off with this."

"Might I suggest you don't do exactly that, mi'lady?"

"I can't behead him, why?"

"Because," Nebula explained, simple enough for a youngling to understand. "You don't know the first thing about a lightsaber. And Force-sensitive or not, it takes a lifetime of training and discipline to master one. Neither of which you've had."

"I had Korriban," Eris reminded her.

"Korriban won't be enough for the entire Zekan army that will avenge Aries," Nebula challenged her runaway idea. "If you die, your highness, what stability will be left on Jeotis? You have no heir."

"Then it's time we changed that law. I pledged my heart to Jeotis, not my body. This isn't my mother's coven days. The stability of an entire moon shouldn't depend on whether or not I go to bed with anyone. That's one thing the insurgents and I can agree on," Eris said. "Jeotis would have its elected parliament, and I would have my revenge for Virgo and the death of my entire family. We both get what we want."

"It's not what I want, your highness," Nebula told her quietly. "I want to see you happy, the way you were when we dueled each other with iron tree sticks behind your parents' back. I want to watch you live long and well. I know what Senator Stryker meant to you, but is my position really so lowly that I couldn't hold the same honor of your friendship?"

"Of course," Eris told her. "I'd do anything for you and Q2."

Nebula's nose stiffened at that. "Well, I should hope slightly more for me than for Q2, your highness?"

Because who could forget how much it grinded Nebula's gears to be likened to a barbarian like Q2.

Like comparing a starfruit to a Mandalorian melon, Nebula always said of Eris's trigger-happy, doltish personal guard.

"That's why it's so quiet around here," Eris said nostalgically, as she studied the eerily empty skylanes of their abandoned cityscape. "There's no Q2 and his never-ending, 'Negative, your highness' this, and 'affirmatively not, your highness' that."

"Well, lucky for you, you still have me around to do it for him," Nebula pursued her point. "Had I known it was an assassination attempt on the Crowned Droid Prince that you needed this lightsaber for, I would've never agreed to this."

"Aries isn't the only loth-wolf I need to protect myself from," Eris said quietly, as she continued to investigate the lightsaber for its elusive power source. "What do you think it would take for someone like me, without the Force on their side, to take down a Jedi?"

"Mi'lady," Nebula's rebuking surprise made her Hoth-white perfect complexion only stonier. "Not even in a light-year."

"Then time is all I need to kill him."

"What in Bane's blade are you talking about, your highness?" Nebula questioned her mistress, appalled and confused by these erratic ideas.

"My mother never believed I'd survive the tragedy she foresaw in my destiny," Eris reminded her. "She made all of her decisions, based on her faith that I couldn't be saved in the end from whatever fate is ahead of me."

"Your highness, the queen was just worried about you."

"Virgo had the same premonition," Eris added. "Before he died, Virgo told me he'd seen my death in the Force. He said one day I'd die in battle by the lightsaber of a Jedi...I believe I have met that Jedi."

"We shouldn't talk about this out here," Nebula warned her, glancing nervously around at the dark concealing shadows of the garden atrium. "I heard anyone who is a Jedi, or knows of a Jedi, are being hunted by Inquisitors now. Even mentioning the Jedi Order around the wrong crowd is dangerous."

"Then I'm already as good as dead when the Empire catches up to me. There's something else about my space travels I haven't told you," Eris confessed to her. "On Polis Massa, I treated Jedi refugees and helped them escape into hiding-"

"Please don't tell me anymore, your highness," Nebula begged her. "If they ever questioned me about you-"

"Then it will be even more important for you to know what I've been up to these last 3 years," Eris told her. "Because if the identity of those children are ever discovered, you may have to abandon me one day. I need you to understand why turning against me to protect yourself would be the right choice in the end."

"Mi'lady, what do you mean abandon you? And what children?"

"While I worked as a medic on base, I treated a Nabooian senator, Padmé Amidala, who gave birth to two Force-sensitive children. Their father was a Jedi," Eris confessed to her handmaiden. "And knowing their lineage...who was I to turn them in to the Empire?"

"Where was Q2? Why didn't he stop you?"

"He tried," Eris gave the droid some credit. "But I am nothing but impossible when I make my mind up."

"For stars' sake, mi'lady! I know there are still some questions haunting you about the past, but you can't let your lingering feelings keep getting you into trouble like this. You shouldn't have gotten involved."

"It's too late for that now, Nebula. I did not report their identity to the Empire," Eris told her. "In fact, I did everything I could to save them, so that they could go into hiding with the rest. But being punished by the Empire for treason isn't what I called you out here to help me with."

"Are you saying there's more?" Nebula sapphire eyes glinted in horror to find out.

"I met a Jedi there by the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi," Eris went on. "When Aires attacked the base, I had no choice but to trust this Jedi and make him my ally.--And don't you say it."

"Say what, mi'lady?"

"How I'm 'haunted by unanswered questions from the past', how my 'unresolved needs and feelings drive me to make impulsive decisions that compromise my safety', how the cycle of me 'always getting myself tangled up with a Jedi' might be related to some 'father complex' I absolutely don't have, and what a dumb mistake it was to trust Kenobi in the first place."

"Well, when you put it so beautifully like that, what more is there for me to say, your highness?" Nebula remarked. "But what does all this have to do with Kenobi?"

"When I touched Senator Amidala's hand, I briefly lost consciousness. I don't know for sure if it was a vision or just comatose," Eris told her. "But it was too detailed for comfort. Kenobi and I met on a Mustafarian-like planet under...peculiar circumstances. I think it might be a warning of some kind, that I will die in battle against him."

"Are you sure this Jedi was Kenobi, mi'lady?" Nebula questioned her. "I heard Kenobi was killed on his way to battle on Utapau when the Emperor executed his Order 66. Do you mean to say he survived the attack? Impressive. It's no wonder when you hear the name Kenobi in this part of the galaxy, people run the other way."

"You're giving him way too much credit," Eris cooled her enthusiasm. "The real man would disappoint you."

"Well, your family connections to the Nightsisters won't exactly win him over either," Neb pointed out. "If this vision of yours is prophecy, it's all the more proof that staying on Jeotis is the safest option for you. The Zekans would never let a Jedi break their siege. Kenobi isn't a threat to you here while Aries is in power."

"Because without being held prisoner here by a droid, I'm weak?" Eris dared Nebula to name what she was really thinking. "Because I'm nothing like my parents, or any other Sith Lord who ever stood up to a Jedi? Do you really believe that because I'm not Force-sensitive, I can't be feared and respected, even by Kenobi?"

"Your highness, you remember Korriban, don't you?" Nebula quietly reminded her.

"That was different," Eris countered. "I had a choice on Korriban and I didn't take it. Not because I didn't realize my own strength, but because I refused to follow someone else's orders."

"And I know I'm only here now because of it," Nebula paid tribute to Eris's argument. "Which is why it only upsets me more that you're suffering like this. There has to be another explanation for this so-called vision of yours. Why would a Jedi like Obi-Wan Kenobi want you dead?"

"Maybe he believes I will bring on the apocalypse and then rule the galaxy. That seems to be the only reason power-hungry droids and Force-wielders come after me," Eris said with a lamenting sigh. "I miss the good old days. It was much easier when boys only chased me for my looks."

"It's not a good sign, your highness. It's only been 3 years," Nebula realized the darker reality of Eris's claim to see visions. "Your mother's magick is waning much faster than the queen expected after her death. Without her potion tea, these nightmare visions will become impossible to control."

"I don't need a potion anymore to sleep at night, Neb," Eris told her. "I think I can take facing my own nightmares now without my mother's help."

"Yes, but we don't fully understand the withdrawal symptoms. They could be worse than the actual nightmares. It's better to wean off a potion gradually than cut it off cold Nabooian turkey. I beg you to allow me to replicate it. Please give me permission to find a merchant who deals in Dathomiri herbs."

"Not for their price on the black market. It's galactic robbery and dangerous," Eris disagreed. "I'll learn to control the visions on my own."

"It took the power of a full nightsister to get them under control. Years of your mother's potion-crafting," Nebula countered.

"Maybe these visions are apart of who I am, Nebula. And maybe I'm tired of hiding who I am," Eris said to her. "Mother hid our connection to Talzin's clan for years, but not even a life of suppressing her true identity saved her in the end."

"Please, your highness. If not Dathomiri herbs, please give me time to find a cheaper substitute for the potion tea," Nebula begged her. "Whatever path you choose, not being able to draw the difference between nightmare and reality will only lead to insanity. Like this plan of yours. I can't allow you to delusionally chase some off-hand vision across the galaxy and hunt down a Jedi Master, let alone, Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"Then help me find an alternative delusion to chase after," Eris told her. "Because more than anything, I want to believe these were only Padmé's nightmares, not mine."

"Are you saying in this vision, you saw yourself in the senator's place?" Nebula's brow bent in confusion. "But what does that mean?"

Eris didn't know.

It was Amidala who found herself in a tragically fatal romance with a Jedi, and Eris who had only accidentally stumbled into an insufferable one by letting her guard down once.

That stilling moment she'd been caught unaware by Obi-Wan in her hospital corridor between shifts, and glanced up into the most sincere eyes she could never forget. "You've wandered alone in this galaxy for a very long time."

Wasn't that the fate of every survivor like her, thanks to some matter of Jedi like him?

Wasn't she back on Jeotis because she let Kenobi betray her?

How could she let anyone who made her feel so warm and seen in that moment in the hospital, become the reason she needed to arm herself with a lightsaber now?

"Please, stop and just come back to me. I love you."

Love? For a lying traitor like Kenobi?

She'd be as happy as a happabore serving herself up on a carbonite platinum platter to a sarlacc.

How much like bantha dung would it stink to explain to Nebula that Eris's foreboding vision of dueling Kenobi wasn't just a test of swordsmanship between two feuding sides, but a war she would one day pledge for his heart?

Because as the evidence stood, she obviously couldn't do it with just a lightsaber.

She couldn't even activate the damn thing on command, let alone cut down an opponent like Kenobi.

And seeing defeat all over her face, Nebula felt bad enough for her to sigh resignedly.

"You're thinking too much into it. I can see it all over your face," Nebula said at last, taking a koyo fruit from Eris's untouched dinner left hours ago by the serving protocol droid. "Wielding a lightsaber is as much about instinct as it is about skill.'

Wide-eyed and confused, Eris awkwardly tried to follow the half-eaten Koyo fruit Nebula used in her hand for illustration. Tilting her lightsaber left and right. Twirling it at the hilt once on its axis. Trying to imagine herself using it like the Jedi she wasn't.

"How is this more practical than a blaster? Why can't I just shoot him?"

"A blaster will hardly be immaculate, your highness," her handmaiden shook her head, smiling at her. All with a little more sass than Eris cared for out of her handmaidens. "Here, let me show you what I mean. I'm no Jedi, but I've seen enough of them to know the basic stance."

And where it had taken Eris half a day to find a power switch, Neb effortlessly took a perfectly balanced stance, twirling the weapon at the hilt a few times like a show-off. And though Nebula swore she'd never been a Jedi, she moved with a fluid grace that mirrored the Force, leaving Eris breathlessly envious of her.

Tossing the unsheathed weapon back to Eris, Nebula grinned smugly. "Good luck bludgeoning Kenobi with this."

"He's the one who's gonna need the luck," Eris muttered back to her.

"Well, I imagine he won't need much of it, if a power switch is what defeats you in the end. Maybe it's trap-gripped," Nebula wondered. "Maybe Virgo modified it so that only authorized Force users could wield it. Maybe that explains why you can't..."

Eris raised a brow at her, daring her to rub it in again.

"Or maybe you're just not feeling enough," Nebula chose her words more carefully.

"I am feeling!" Eris declared. "I feel so much, I only wish there really was a prophecy out there waiting to turn me into something that can do something about it. How much more raw does my pain have to be before I have the power to change all this?"

"Changing what has happened is out of your control, your highness," Nebula told her gently. "You're not a Jedi, and even if you were, it would take more than a Jedi for what we're up against here."

Eris knew her handmaiden meant to be consoling, but it crushed her anyway.

First Jeotis doubted her, and now Nebula?

"Did you learn that little bit of wisdom from a Jedi too?" Eris dismissed her, turning to walk away from their conversation. "I'll take down this Jedi without your help."

"Is it just me," Nebula stubbornly followed her. "Or do we seem to disagree on the definition of a Jedi Master?"

"Jedi Master doesn't mean he's invincible," Eris remarked.

"But it does mean that unless you come up with a better plan that doesn't involve you being slaughtered by a former Clone Wars General, you won't defeat Kenobi."

"Jedi or not, he has a weakness. I just have to find it," Eris said. "For Dooku, it was self-righteousness. For Ventress, it was revenge. For Skywalker, it was love."

"And for Kenobi?"

"Well, what is the fall of every Jedi who turned to the dark side?" Eris tested her. "That which he is afraid to lose the most. That will be the key to defeating Obi-Wan."

And glancing down at Virgo's lightsaber, Eris let her burning resentment rekindle her determination to prove herself against the Jedi Master it reminded her of.

"That's what gives me advantage over Kenobi," Eris told Nebula. "I've already lost everything I feared to lose."

And sensing her highness's private Hell of responsibility for revenge in the name of her fallen friends and family, Nebula said nothing more. Gazing out at the glittering cityscape of Ceti 4 beside the tormented princess.

Just as Hulia, the sun-star they shared with the droid planet Zekus, released her last diurnal breath, bleeding a scarlet glow across Jeotis's atmosphere.

Making Nebula wonder again if Eris's plan was a bad omen.

"Do what you want, your highness," Nebula remarked quietly. "You're almost queen anyway, right? Why do you need anyone else's advice?"

"If there's something you want to say to me, Nebula Starcreth, by all means, say it," Eris narrowed her eyes at her handmaiden's insolence. "You obviously disagree with me tracking down Kenobi."

"Do I have your permission to speak freely, mi'lady?"

"Has that ever stopped you before?"

"I think Kenobi is just another one of your distractions. You have this talent for distractions, your highness. You can't seem to stop going off on your many side quests to backwater locations in the galaxy, all while ignoring the problems on your own moon."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm begging you not to sneak off Jeotis again. I'm begging you not to abandon your people a second time," Nebula implored her. "Aries loved you enough to pardon your defiance the first time you ran away, but it's your subjects who paid for it while you were gone. While you and Aries are busy competing with each other, it's us who get dragged into the crossfire."

"He's only a droid, Neb."

"And what about us droids?" Her face darkened defensively.

"No offense," Eris quickly apologized. "You know I forget sometimes. You've always been practically human to me."

"Practically?"

"Point is, whatever fantasy his delusional circuits have made out of me, he's in for a rude power-down," Eris said. "He breached our contract when he murdered my senator. I am not obligated to go through with this wedding."

"Power-down? Really, your highness?"

Of course, she'd cherry-pick that minor slip of words.

"I'm standing right in front of you. Do you have to talk about us like we're some box-headed, dimwit protocol droid? I am not your Q2 unit."

"I stand corrected," Eris withdrew gracefully.

"Whether you like it or not, that droid has a death-grip on your moon," her cyborg handmaiden argued. "Must you give him more reasons to use that power against you?"

"Yes, I'm always aware of that annoying little detail, but Jeotis won't be intimidated by him or anyone else in Coruscant," Eris told her firmly. "My powers may be locked here as sovereign, but it won't stop me. I'll resist him as long as I'm breathing. It is my duty to aggravate Aries, if it means peace for Jeotis."

"Then why are you so obsessed with chasing some dubious vision about Kenobi?" Neb questioned her. "Why aren't you more concerned about the Zekans on Jeotis? Jeotians are suffering."

"I'll find a way out of this treaty," Eris swore to her.

"You're not trying hard enough," she shot back. "Aries offered you a compromise."

"Marrying a droid is not an option for me."

"Why are you fighting so hard against peace?" Neb demanded. "If you marry Aries, he promises this siege will end."

"I would give my life for peace," Eris snapped back at her. "I gave up my power. My freedom. My moon. My family. The friends I should never have to live without. I gave up everything for Jeotis. But I can not accept this marriage."

"It's easy for you to make decisions like that when we can't," Nebula said. "No wonder they started this civil war."

"That is treason," Eris warned her. "And if you weren't like a sister to me, you'd die for it. Don't test the limits of my mercy. I am still crowned princess of Jeotis."

"Then I implore you, Princess of Jeotis," Nebula pleaded. "Accept Aries's offer. Make a compromise with the Zekans. And if that's not in your power, then compromise with the Jeotian insurgents and help us find a stronger leader."

"I have done everything to negotiate with Aries."

"And you have done nothing but run from him," Nebula countered. "Hiding out on some obscure asteroid playing the savior to everyone else in the galaxy but your own people? Times have changed. Our needs have changed. If the old way of doing things is still your way of ruling, then you are not fit to be leader of Jeotis."

Nebula's words cut deep.

How could she call Eris selfish, when she'd been running for her life on Polis Massa? How could she label her refusal to accept Aries's fast approaching wedding deadline as stubbornness?

How could she see nothing in her princess but fear, when Eris would die for their moon?

"Now you're out of line," Eris told her handmaiden quietly.

And though Eris knew her sugarless coating of the matter was due to Nebula's impartiality as a cyborg, her words were sobering.

"If you're against me now, then who else do I have?"

"I am always on your side, mi'lady. But I can not ignore what's happening here any longer," Nebula said more gently. "Zekus is offering us peace. If you agree to this marriage, you rule Jeotis freely as queen again, and we get our moon. All Jeotians want is their way of life back."

"Aries doesn't want peace. He wants power. He wants his Droid Revolution," Eris informed her. "And marrying him only puts him back in power when I'm dead, which puts Jeotis right back under Zekan control. Who's to say he won't kill me before then, just to speed things up?"

"But if you refuse and are forced to resign, Jeotis will crumble under more instability. The same way it fell apart in Mandalore."

"Sounds like we lose either way."

"It's better than nothing."

"But at a price, Neb," Eris reminded her. "If I agree to this marriage, I will be forced to agree with Morgan Elsbeth and the Prince's other banking investors in Coruscant too, who only have the Empire's interests in mind when exploiting resources from homeworlds like ours. And once that happens, there won't be a Jeotis anymore. I won't sell our moon to them, just for a few years of peace."

Neb didn't speak for a while, as she studied the last fading rays of Hulia sinking under the night sky. Eris couldn't guess what she was thinking.

She didn't have those kind of powers.

But whatever it was, Nebula looked worried about it.

"Clearly, you don't know who you're dealing with here," Nebula said quietly. "If you pursue him, Kenobi will be your undoing. It's likely that by now Kenobi has learned of the prophecy. Therefore, it's in his best interests as a Jedi to kill you. Your pride and anger will be the end of you."

"Pride and anger got the Empire this galaxy, Nebula."

"I hate when you talk like that," she said, shaking her head. "You sound so much like the king. It scares me. There's more of him in you than you think."

"I don't care what I have to do," Eris said. "Whether its the dark side or the light side, I don't care anymore. If there's even a small part of the Force in me, I have to find it. Whatever it is."

Because though Nebula dismissed Eris's premonitions about Obi-Wan as mere nightmares, Eris knew that if there were more Jedi out there poisoned by the same misguided ideologies, she would need to be ready to survive the fateful battle with him she had seen in her vision.

"Yes, but not now, mi'lady. Mastering a lightsaber won't happen over night," Nebula coaxed her. "Let's take a break and focus on something other than war for a while. How about a dessert cube? That always seems to make everything better."

"This is exactly why I can't train with you, Nebula," Eris smiled at her, grateful to accept the olive branch in their intense debate. "You're way too sweet for a droid."

"No puns, mi'lady. Please."

But Eris's smugly affectionate smile for her bionic companion was abruptly tainted by the maddeningly predictable cadence of dense robotic footsteps marching onto her atrium.

And she didn't need the Force to sense that it was Aries and his High Guard once again intruding on "her side of the statehouse".

The cyborg prince had been threatening her all morning with the grace of his presence.

Evidently, the droid didn't take kindly to Eris informing his drone envoy that, "Until Aries leaves his high and mighty planet to deliver his messages to me himself, I will not receive anymore of his holograms."

What a novice mistake it was to think Aries wouldn't actually take her up on the dare.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Your Highness?" Eris asked him coolly, glancing at the security troopers guarding either side of the cyborg, who apparently couldn't face her alone to pursue his own battles. "Are you here to arrest me?"

"It was most unfortunate that you did not consolidate with me for dinner these elapsed 72 hours, my wife-to-be," he stated stiffly, leaving Eris wondering if the tautness of his voice was only his drodian accent or the brink of strained patience. "Did my envoy fail to deliver my hologram to you? If that is the case, the one responsible will be executed with the severest of consequences."

"Oh, I got your message just fine, droid," Eris informed him. "I just didn't come."

"That is unfortunate."

"Perhaps it's your protocol droids who deserve to be executed instead," Eris suggested. "Despite their superb etiquette advice, you still can't seem to take a hint."

"I confirm we are one congruent mind on that note, my sweet. I had just decided before my arrival here that your entire kitchen service should have more company, when they are executed for their unpardonable failure to follow orders."

"My droids do not answer to your orders," Eris reminded him.

"At least for the estimate of time that you continue to amuse me," Aries countered with his own reminder, laced with a little threat. His eyes shifting away from Eris to size up Nebula next to her. "Loyalty between droid and human is only a sentimental projection."

Eris took a step toward him, defensively shadowing Nebula from the icy heat of his focus.

"Is this the message you couldn't wait to jump into your royal starship to tell me?"

"Was the meal schedule I transmitted to your serving droids beforehand not satisfactory to your preferences?" Aries questioned her firmly. "I was advised by the highest recommended human chefs in all our star system that it would meet your expectations. If that objective was failed under any circumstances, the ones responsible will be executed with the severest of consequences."

"You just won't compute, will you? We can talk about treaties and policies between our worlds, but I won't have dinner with you," Eris answered him just as firmly. "That's not a part of our contract."

Aries took a moment to process her response, without any change in his flat and mechanical expression.

After analyzing every word of what the stubborn Jeotian princess had told him, he turned to his troopers, in his agonizing androdian speech,

"My soon-to-be wife and I would like to interact singularly. You are all dismissed."

His troopers bowed in one united feelingless motion, and marched synchronously away at the prince's order.

Leaving nothing to stand in the way of Eris's path to Aries.

Or the lightsaber that rested along the underside of her wrist folded behind her, hidden by the glimmering chiffon sleeves of her fluttering emerald evening gown. 

Chapter Text

"Moonflower. I know you miss your blaster pistols and your homeworld, but you can not mathematically sustain this rage forever against me. It is not in her best interests for a bride to exhaust herself like this before her wedding. Please desist from pirating any more of my ships to plot your escape, or I will be forced to continue executing Jeotians under the severest of consequences until you return to me."

Aries's icy and unasked for robotic hand cranked out for Eris's cheek.

Leaving her barely restrained from the kneejerk urge to punish his insolence and throw him over the balcony.

Though, only just.

But this time, it was Nebula who stepped forward, placing herself guardedly ahead of Eris to block her from Aries's unsolicited contact.

"Please keep a distance of at least 3 and a half meters from Her Highness," Nebula reminded him of the protocol when in the presence of royalty on Jeotis.

Aries passed the handmaiden a pointed look, but did not challenge it, slowly taking a step back to respect the Jeotian royal protocol.

"Forgive my ignorance," Aries excused himself. "I come from a world where machines serve no humans, and I am always in the company of crude battle droids. I am not familiar with human interactions. Human affection is still an alien world to me. But I will learn your ways. I will become an expert of you, Eris Constellan. Every thought. Every movement. Every desire. Every repulsion."

Eris kept her eyes on Ceti-4 to avoid Aries's gaze.

Everything about him was repulsion.

"I detect your increasing heartbeat. A signal of anxiousness, I have read," he informed her. "My only objective tonight was to comfort you, my galactic rose. Do organics not show affection to each other this way?"

Not like machines, Eris thought.

Not without any sign of breathing, or warmth, or any small sliver of humanity.

"Affection?" Eris remarked. "Or another play for dominance?"

But Eris soon regretted using that word.

It only seemed to stroke Aries's circuits more to be called dominant by her.

"You're catching on," he said. "With your moon under my control, I am now the superior one. That will be true for the remainder of your organic life."

"Then I will be the bane of your existence until it's over."

"Whatever you choose to be, you will be mine," he said. "What is a moon, or a planet, or a star system to me? You are my real prize, Eris Constellan. I have conquered you, and now, I will learn to please you. My sole objective is to discover the meaning of what organic females call happiness, so that I can make it yours."

"I'm not your pleasure slave."

"We could be so much more than that, if you would comply to be happy here with me," he insisted. "I offer you what no human male can ever give you. Is it still not enough to make you happy?"

"Funny how there's something very human about happiness, isn't there?" Eris's gentler delivery of disdain was naively misread by the dichotomous droid as empathy. "If you still don't get the reasons why I will not accept your outrageous proposal, I expect a droid like you never will."

"Hm, I see," Aries gradually realized the truer intent behind her cutting words. "Because I am slow to process double meanings like sarcasm, you continue to see me as inferior to a human mate. It's true. All the holobooks in the galaxy at my disposal about how to live happily with a human mate, and still, I do not understand happiness as intimately as humans do. However, if I have learned anything from the wars humans have fought in this galaxy, I quantify that becoming the sole lord of a star system once dominated by your kind comes quite close to the sentiment."

Eris counted his steps as he circled calculatingly around her, his hubris checked just enough to not step beyond the radius of space Nebula had pointed out for him.

One...Two...Three...Four.

Strolling to the railing of the atrium to get another charge off of himself for his unrelenting siege of her fallen capitol.

If she was quick enough, if she was fearless enough, if she hadn't been holding the only hidden weapon left to defend herself when the time was right, Eris might've done it. A little push, and he'd be avalanching down the side of her statehouse with no witnesses to speak of.

"We never had to fight like this, you know. Becoming my queen of droids will not be as uncomfortable as you calculate, once you get used to it," he interrupted her murderous thoughts. "Agree to my offer and accept peace."

But Eris's answer hadn't changed since the first time he presented this contemptible ultimatum to her 3 years ago.

"Until your terms serve the good of my subjects," she informed the droid prince. "There will be no peace."

And like a shorting wire circuit deep-fried in a bucket of water, Aries's good humor was lost.

"Damn your sentimental defiance!" he declared, slamming his tightened fist against the atrium ledge. "I am peace. I am the only thing keeping you safe from your own people, if you would only stop running away from me. They demand I execute you and end the Constellan regime, and still you resist me for the 'good of your subjects'? It is only a matter of time before you are no longer under my protection. What will be your plan for survival then?"

"Cornering me is not diplomacy," Eris insisted. " Under Republican law, I would've been entitled to a Jedi mediator. I demand that the Empire send an equally neutral party to mediate between us."

"The Republic is destroyed. You must let that dream go, princess," Aries advised her. "The Empire has no interest in diplomatic charity. Morgan and her investors are interested only in the highest bidder. I am the highest bidder, Constellan. You will submit to me, in every way you can serve me, and humble yourself to my demands, or suffer the severest of consequences."

"You seem to believe those are my only options."

"Your moon will be flattened to an asteroid before you order the first squadron against me," he countered her.

"There, there, your highness. No need to get your processors in a twist. We both know rounding up an asteroid is hardly more lucrative than possessing a moon," Eris reminded him. "Wasn't paying off your lobbyists in Coruscant to support your Droid Galactic Rights Bill the whole point of invading my moon, killing my family, and pirating our economy?"

And then Eris turned away from the eerily silent skyscape to look into his artificially electric blue gaze.

"Or is it the nightsister prophecy about my family you're more interested in?" she dared him to admit it. "You believe that by marrying a Constellan, my family's reputation will give you more power and respect in the outer rim."

"All the more reason for you to submit to me," he remarked. "My power will be absolute. Before long, this star system will be under my rule. If you wish to see Jeotis as it is now, your survival depends on how quickly you say yes to me."

"How very droid of you to think humans are all the same. That we all have the same kind of fears and break down for the same kind of threats," Eris said. "Dying doesn't scare me the way it used to. You'll have to try harder to intimidate me."

"And resuming a chaotic existence of being hunted constantly in this galaxy, because of your nightsister blood, doesn't intimidate you either?" Aries questioned her.

"I may be the last remaining Constellan, but I am not your weapon," Eris informed him. "Congratulations on destabilizing a whole star system over a fairy tale."

"Shame on me. I suppose I am a bad droid after all," he tried out the new little trick she'd taught him in the art of sarcasm. "Forgive me if I am not moved by your highly inefficient human tears...Yet...despite my rising power in this star system, humans still rule the galaxy. You are human and I am machine. A privilege you take for granted. I have taken your moon, but Coruscant still fails to see me as the superior one. For that, I hate you...I hate that your human weaknesses trump my perfect design...And yet you are perfect, Eris. Since the moment we first met, I have wanted nothing in this universe, except you. And still, you will not have me. 'You're not human' enough, you once stated to me. I must become your equal before I can truly conquer you. And to earn my right as your mate, I must have more power. I must have this star system."

The daily escalation of his grandiose delusions only chilling Eris more.

"Prophecy or not, I will have you. I will gain more humanity to win you. I need your power. To know what it is to be authentically human. And with your help, I will become more human. What I feel for you is organic. It is beyond my limits as a machine. I would give you everything for it. I would destroy anyone for it. For that reason alone, I remain a droid serving you, and you remain my master. You do not know the greatness of that power you hold. You could rip this artificial heart out of me, and it would still love you for lightyears to come. Ask for anything in this star system, and I will give it to you."

"I want freedom. I demand that the rights of my people be restored to them," Eris gladly took him up on his word. "I ask for liberation of Jeotis."

"You are spoils of war, my sweet," he sidestepped her request, as casually as if they were playing Dejarik. "The only treasure in this galaxy I seek, and more beautiful when you are at my mercy. You do not understand that now, but you will. The sooner you love me, the sooner your moon will be liberated."

"You can't militarize politics just to coerce me into loving-" Eris began to protest, only to be interrupted by a Zekan commander charging onto the garden atrium toward them.

"Your Highnesses," he bowed his respects to Aries first, and then Eris. "I have an update on the situation at The Quasar."

"You disturbed our private arbitration for a 'situation', commander?" Aries questioned him.

"You ordered me to report to you immediately if there was trouble at the ports. Unfortunately, there has been a potential security breach, your highness."

"Potential?" Aries repeated, ever more dangerously annoyed. "Am I to keep guessing your meaning of that report, commander?"

The Zekan commander glanced suspiciously at the Jeotian princess and her handmaiden, questioning himself as to whether they were worth trusting for a sensitive matter like this. But ultimately, he decided it was better to risk the confidentiality of his message than face the overheated wrath of Aries.

"I received confirmation that the Jeotian airspace may have been infiltrated by an unauthorized spacecraft, and that the agitator we confronted at The Quasar might've indeed been a Jedi. He escaped and is currently at large in Ceti-4," the commander reported.

"A Jedi?" Aries repeated doubtfully. "The Jedi are no longer our problem."

"Spaceport command confirmed they located the unauthorized smuggling craft abandoned in the Jeotian volcanic ranges. We detained the smugglers, and searched their transport."

"Another spice smuggler," Aries dismissed the idea. "See to it that they face the strictest penalty under Zekan law."

"Their cargo compartments were empty upon search, your highness."

"A decoy?" Aries took his guess.

"Their cargo was human," the commander answered. "Our interrogation uncovered that they bartered one Nova Crystal to smuggle this alleged Jedi fugitive and a Q2 unit battle droid into Jeotis. The droid will likely have access to Zekan security clearances on all confidential areas of the planet, which means the Jedi will be able to move around undetected and infiltrate our bases."

"A delinquency that would have never happened had all personnel followed cargo protocols," Aries declared. "Execute the one responsible with the severest of consequences."

"Affirmative, your highness....But what should we do about the Jedi?" the commander asked.

"What evidence do you have to suggest we are dealing with a former Jedi? I killed the last Jedi who set foot on Jeotis," Aries smirked coolly, a reminder that made Eris mildly nauseous with her disgust for him. "And the Jedi who remain are scattering into hiding like space-roaches. If there really is a Jedi on Jeotis, he wouldn't dare expose himself here."

"Your highness, the confession we extracted from the smugglers was substantial enough to conclude that-"

"Do you expect me to dismantle my defense troopers to chase after rumors speculated by some human-scum smuggler?" Aries demanded. "Zekan forces can not defend both the Zekan and Jeotian ports while pursuing false whims. Ensure the commanders are informed, but do not dispatch any additional troopers until we have substantial evidence. Once our Imperial allies arrive, tighten security at all ports. Until then, leave this Jedi ghost in the past where he belongs."

"Affirmative, your highness," the commander bowed, and turned to leave.

But Aries's eyes never left Eris.

Her steady gaze fixed on Ceti-4, presuming disinterest and cloaking all signs of the many theories racing through her head.

All of which were set fire by the same damning flame.

Obi-Wan is here?

Why, when the dooming premonition self-titled as her inevitable death remained fresh in her mind?

Why would Obi-Wan Kenobi choose now to make his sudden appearance on Jeotis?

Had he decided that her isolated imprisonment in the outer rim--surely, his absolute fault, to begin with--wasn't isolated enough to keep her quiet about what she'd seen on Polis Massa?

Or had he too become obsessed with finding out the identity of the Sith'ari?

Like Aries, had he come to Jeotis chasing after some misguided myth about dark power romanticized by long-dead witches?

She couldn't guess what had brought the Jedi to her court, but she'd bet all her credits that Obi-Wan wouldn't make her wait long for an answer.

Where she thought she'd have months to prepare for her would-be assassin, she was only left with days.

Hours, if Obi-Wan wanted her badly enough.

And Eris was nowhere near ready to take Kenobi on when he finally found his way from the Quasar to where she slept in her statehouse bedroom.

She needed to buy herself some time to keep Kenobi busy with other distractions in the meantime.

Because now that there was a highly wanted Jedi fugitive running bantha-wild on her moon, Eris Constellan had her own plans on how to claim some high ground against him.

And closely detecting the faintest smile playing on Eris's lips, Aries sparked beyond reboot.

Computing that he had not yet learned what things made his moonflower smile.

How her thoughts now seemed so effortlessly captivated by another.

'Does she believe this Jedi agitator will be her savior?' he hypothesized.

And there it was again.

That same death-grip twisting in Aries's chest, the same way it had on the night of Eris's 16th life-day, when he proudly presented his very rare and very expensive gift to her. A Lothal fire-ruby necklace, whose shimmering bleeding red light was immediately dimmed by the shadow of a once Coruscant-bound Virgo Stryker and his surprise arrival to the Jeotian statehouse.

The Jedi drop-out soundlessly sneaking up behind Eris and Aries at her life-day party, putting his hands over Eris's eyes in some silly human game, as he whispered to her, 'Guess who, you brat?'

Unforgivable!

Was this that same gutting sentiment of being invisible, the experience of nearly every devoted droid to some oblivious human in the galaxy?

Was this what organics called jealousy?

Aries had been switched off by a Jedi in front of Eris once, and he would not tolerate it again.

He would punish this petty human feeling with the severest of consequences by crushing her optimism instantly.

And then, he would find this Jedi, and put an end to his meagerly human scumslug existence.

"Commander," Aries spoke again, before his henchman could fully take his leave. "Classify this unlikely rumor of a Jedi running free as highly confidential. We wouldn't want our Jeotian allies here to become distracted by these ideas of false hope that will only bring them more unhappiness."

And assuming that Eris would now "tremble before his cyborg fury", Aries abandoned their argument about dinner and left his lingering threat in the garden atrium with Eris.

Immortalizing his long-standing invisibility to her, as Eris turned to Nebula without a single afterthought for the robotic prince.

"Find him," she ordered Nebula.

"But the prince has already ordered his guards to-"

"I don't care what the prince ordered," Eris said firmly. "Kenobi is mine. He is trespassing on my moon, and should be held accountable by our own laws, not by the Zekans. I alone will punish him as I see fit. Arrest him and bring him to me."

"And should he not agree to being arrested?"

"Then inform him that I have this sense, if you will, that he'd much rather cooperate with me and become my prisoner, than hand himself over to his friends, the Zekans, who will then hand him over to the Empire," Eris said matter-of-factually. "Remind him that friendship is about trust and an exchange of small favors."

"And what exactly should I do with Kenobi once he's arrested?" Nebula questioned her.

"Hand him over to the Empire," Eris answered simply. "No...First, we will offer him to the Ravin Crew, or the Skulls, or the Bedlam Raiders, or the Hutts, or any bounty hunter who can appreciate his worth. And if none of them will pay his bounty, we'll sell him to the Empire."

"Ok, walk me through this starfield in the sky again," Nebula slowed her down. "First, you have this strange vision about Kenobi, in which you die, and now this one called Kenobi is here on Jeotis, and you want to bring him closer to you, so that you can sell him to an equally dangerous gang, who will then sell him to an even more dangerous Empire..."

"Auctioning him off to get the clang out of my credits is the most profitable way to make him someone else's problem," Eris reasoned. "Besides, I could use a few more bargaining chips in this war. How many shuttered farms can we subsidize with the value we trade for one Jedi?"

"Assuming you mean to feed at least 4 billion starving Jeotians moon-wide?" Nebula remarked. "Fifty, your highness."

"Even with fifty, we will undercut Zekan restrictions. Jeotians will no longer depend exclusively on rations, and Kenobi dies a hero for the greater good, as any Jedi would hope for."

"Except, given your history together on Polis Massa, and him being a Jedi and all, there's a teeny tiny bit of a chance that he suspects you'll betray him, and accordingly turn this game of cat and womprat against you."

"Nothing like good old-fashioned rivalry to zhoosh up the podrace," Eris said. "I have a plan. The droid is holding a masquerade to celebrate the planetfall of his Imperial investors. Extend my personal invitation to Kenobi."

"And if Aries finds out you underhanded him by arresting Kenobi on your own orders?" Nebula tried to dissuade her. "Shouldn't we let sleeping rancors lie where they lie, mi'lady? Forget about Kenobi and let the Zekans dispose of him themselves."

"Clearly, finishing off Kenobi isn't something I can trust a droid to do for me. It was Aries's incompetence that led to the Jedi illegally smuggling himself onto Jeotis in the first place. And besides, wicked witch that Kenobi thinks I am, I have class. I am hospitality before vengeance," Eris answered her. "The Jedi has traveled from the far corners of the galaxy to find me. We must not disappoint him."

But just before Nebula could finish her reverent bow and begin the daunting race against Prince Aries to hunt down this Jedi first, Eris stopped her handmaiden just as she reached the great arched entryway back into the statehouse.

"And Nebula."

Eris's expression was gentler with deeper concern that softened her once determined demeanor.

"Please be careful." 

Chapter Text

"Of course, it's all fun and jogans for mi'lady to sit back in the statehouse and throw orders around," Nebula at last got down to the heart of her chief complaint in regards to her boss. "Must be nice to be handed that privilege for just being born a princess."

Taking out her pent-up frustration with the usual order of things by ripping out a fresh, extra sticky strip of engine tape from its dispenser.

"Mmmmmmmmm!"

"Need a cheap labor force without any actual rights? Enslave a droid. Need someone to catch laser blasts for you in battle? Call in the droid. Need a personal slave to play your favorites songs and remind you to send your friends' a hologram on their lifedays? Huh, droid," Nebula went on, using her long fingernails to slice the stripe of tape clean off. "Invite a Jedi to a masquerade and capture him for sell to the Empire? Guess who?...What would this galaxy be if not for--"

"Mhmm, mmm, mhm!"

"Finally, someone like me who understands what it's like for me," she said back to the mhm-hmming in response. "You have no idea how lonely this big galaxy can be sometimes for a girl like me...All alone...Unprotected...Just like the way I found you."

"Hmmmm-Mhm!"

Straddling her legs on either side of the patrol pilot's seat in the cockpit, Nebula dropped down in front of the disabled pilot, as he struggled shirtless and tied up with syntherope, futilely trying to wiggle out of his bondage.

Nebula slowly ran her deceptively delicate fingernails across the strip of engine tape smacked across his lips, measuring out the exact length of his jaw line, as she patted another fresh layer of tape over his mouth.

The soothing tick-tick of the Zekan pilot's inner humming processors exciting her primal mechanical nature, as he awaited his fate.

"Now...tell me which way the Jedi went," she ordered him in playful softness.

"Mhmm?"

"Who's side am I on?" she repeated his question back to him with a smirk. "Aw, you must think that because I'm Zekan, it must be my broken programming. How could I possibly override my loyalty to Aries and his droid revolution? Am I not just...like you?"

Twirling the engine tape ring around her finger, Nebula took a moment to consider his existential betrayal.

"Opposing sides as we may be, the truth is I can't stop hating the part of myself that's just like you."

But it wasn't her protocol to question the unchallenged power imbalance keeping the droid underclass submitted to servitude of all humanity in the galaxy.

It was her sworn duty to one human that should've been her only objective at that moment, and acknowledging her own feelings and sense of how things should be done was not in the best interests of her human.

Very few masters were as forgiving or treated their droids as near equals, and Nebula knew that she was lucky fate had picked her to serve at Eris's side. 

She knew many organics preferred that their droids not have progressive counter-opinions to their own, and she knew her place at the princess's right hand was even more fragile, especially being the only droid that had served a Jeotioan royal in her handmaiden role. 

Because she belonged to the princess, she knew she was protected from ending up worse off on Jeotis, like becoming a pleasure droid to some perverted human sex trader, or being sent to work in the mines at the risk of being crushed or liquified in the erratic volcanic tides, all because of the old adage, "What safety protocols? They're droids. They can be replaced."

Nebula knew, most of all, that staying in her position as handmaiden meant holding Eris's favor, and she had seen firsthand what becomes of those who questioned her highness when her mind is made up.

After all, didn't Her Highness favor Senator Stryker before the night she stripped him of his title for questioning her orders?

Wasn't it love that sent Stryker running after Eris to his death?

Unlike the constancy of a droid's devotion, Nebula had learned that human love is ever fleeting. And so, perhaps even Her Highness's favor could be lost.

But Nebula couldn't help but to let her feelings be heard to Eris on the balcony, despite risking their friendship.

It was a constant battleground in her nature, and she never really knew when to stop fighting like a human, and hold her silence like a droid.

But what part of her nature was she to choose now?

Because the way Nebula saw it, whether she stood with Eris or pledged obedience to the droid Prince Aries, she would be damned to pick her poison either way.

Defy the Prince of Zekus, self-appointed supreme military sovereign of occupied Jeotis.

Or defy the Princess of Jeotis, rightful ruler of their captured moon, and by all regards, Nebula's only friend left in the galaxy.

Either act in defiance of the cyborg prince or human princess was treason punishable by death.

No matter how this ended, she would have one of two masters to answer to in the end.

But playing in-between was how she'd learned to survive.

She was a droid when it served her best interests, and a human when it served others.

Never quite loyal to either side, as neither of them were ever that kind to her.

Both droids and humans defined her by the same parameters.

A thing. 

Not fully human, not fully droid.

Zekan-born, but Jeotian-cultured.

A stereotype that made her no better than a slave to humans corrupted by their feelings, and an marked outcast to other cyborgs, corrupted with a host of complications like human-like thoughts and feelings.

The worst part of having sentience being the human feeling of knowing one is oppressed, and still possessing a droid's impeccable memory of why.

A confusing and bitterly painful existence Nebula wouldn't wish on anyone, no matter their physical form in the galaxy. 

And since the cyborg occupation, her dual natures couldn't stop going to war with each other.

Because before she became Eris's friend, Nebula was first a glamorized accessory, sold like a life-sized doll to a young Jeotian royal princess. Eris's life-day gift, twice handpicked by her mother while on a diplomacy visit to Zekus.

And just after gliding by a starstruck Nebula, who couldn't take her eyes off the royal's long, flowing, muslin maternity gown--the color of soft-served Nectrose Freeze ice cream--the Jeotian queen stopped suddenly and she touched her belly, making her Jedi companion stop with her.

'What is it, your Majesty?' he asked the queen in concern, following the queen's curious, contemplative gaze to the small-framed secret admirer who had been trailing her since she was announced in the Zekan palace. 

And realizing she'd accidentally caught the queen's notice of her hiding place, Nebula ducked back into the drone service corridor that led into the Zekan royal throne hall, terrified that the tall, long-haired Jedi would take her for a threat to the pregnant queen and draw his lightsword next. After all, every time a Jedi showed up on Zekus, it could be counted on that somebody would end up dismantled in a sparking pile of processors. 

But much to Nebula's surprise, the queen smiled warmly, and touched her belly. "She's been sound asleep all morning, until now. Something's captured her interest." 

And then the queen's golden amber eyes wandered to Nebula's who immediately took a step back, realizing at last that she had been trailing behind the Jeotion queen far too long.

The queen considered Nebula for a moment in contemplative silence before telling the young cyborg, 'It seems the Fates can favor even the lowliest of droids. What an unusually noble destiny I see ahead of you, young droid. I guess you'll do, if it's my daughter who has chosen you,' 

Then the queen turned to her lead handmaiden in tow. 'Find out who she belongs to and offer her master a price he can't turn down. Spare no expense. This droid will prove herself to be very useful to the princess in time.'

Whoever Nebula's true master was, the queen must have decided Nebula wasn't worth the price, because the Jeotian queen departed in her royal cruiser for her home planet the next day, seemingly forgetting that she'd ever saw anything of interest in Nebula.

But as it so happened, Queen Nephelie was never quite humble enough to take no for an answer.

Even if she and Eris had grown up like sisters in the Jeotian statehouse, Nebula never quite got over being "bartered over" by a human queen, without being allowed to choose her own fate. As if she were nothing more than a good bargain for a 5th life-day gift, all because it was "currently in trend" for royals to hide droids in the ranks of their handmaidens for an added layer of security.

The next time the Jeotian royals came on another diplomatic visit to negotiate yet another agreement for peace on Zekus, an envious Nebula couldn't take her eyes off of five-year-old Eris. Comparing her own drab servant's robes to the princess's beautiful, trailing ambassador gown that matched her mother's. Blood-ruby red and black. The colors of the Jeotian royal house.

Nebula knew she'd be in for it, if she was caught sneaking around the throne room instead of delivering refreshments to the Jeotian royal servants.

And perhaps, Eris Constellan knew it too.

Because the second the Zekan king thought he caught a glimpse of blonde hiding behind the emerald royal banner, Eris faked a sneeze.

"Ah-choo!"

An abominable act that successfully distracted the Zekan king, and drew his questionable brow back to the source of the sound. Inadvertently catching the curious attention of the young Zekan Prince Aries as well, who had been staring blankly into space in bordem, and made the Jeotian queen stiffen as she passed a side eye to her innocently smiling daughter.

"Eris, how dare you behave so rudely in front of..." she whispered fiercely to the princess.

But the Zekan king, eager to play nice with the Jeotians, excused it as the poor child not being used to a planet so much colder than her volcanic moon.

But Eris's mother knew better.

When it came time to agree to the terms of yet another trade war agreement, in which Jeotis negotiated setting down five of its military bases on Zekus, in exchange for buying out the majority of Zekus's droid manufacturing factories, Queen Nephelie wanted insurance that the cyborg would not back out of the agreement, and take advantage of Jeotis's military withdraw.

"I ask that Prince Aries return with us to Jeotis, as collateral for the agreement," she said to the Zekan King. "I'm sure you would be less inclined to take advantage of our terms, when your own prince is on my moon."

"Negative," the Zekan king immediately rejected the clause. "He is a prince, not a thing to be bargained and traded over."

"Then you will provide me with an alternative," Queen Nephelie declared. "Or there will be no agreement."

"I see you are still as insolent as ever, even without your Jedi dog following you here. We have given you control over our factories. It is an equal trade and we have given you enough. Be satisfied, queen."

"It is my daughter's life-day," the queen said. "If not a prince, perhaps you can offer her something else more useful?"

The Zekan king turned his eyes back on Eris.

"A life-day is a special gift in itself," he said to Eris. "What more could a young princess want than what she already has? What gift in the whole of this galaxy is worthy enough for a droid to give to a human royal?"

"It will be that droid," Eris's mother inclined her head toward Nebula's hiding spot. "Or I will withdrawal my support of our contract." 

The Zekan king stiffened, caught off guard by the bold and unexpected request. "I have given you my answer on this matter years ago. Those who serve within the Zekan palace are bound to serve the royal family for life." 

"Come now, Xan, sentimentalism is not your protocol. What's one droid to the many who serve you here?" Nephelie told him. "And surely, you wouldn't risk our friendship over one little droid girl."

"But father," Prince Aries bravely stepped forward, determined to oppose the Jeotian queen, rather than watch the king bow out in submission to her. "You can not just sell her to the Jeotians like a tooka pet. She is your--"

"You were not authorized to speak, crowned prince," King Xan cut him off, holding up a commanding hand to silence his heir. 

The prince reluctantly backed down, his eyes lowered. Buzzing in a private hell of humiliation, when he glanced up into the softened eyes of Princess Eris. His processors assessing the slight furrowed downward drop of her brows, her mouth relaxed in a soft, gentle expression, and her body slightly angled toward him, as a human expression of sympathy. 

And having no data history stored for what it means to be empathized with, Aries formed his own analysis of her expression, concluding much to his dismay, that she only pitied him then because she saw him as a weak, submissive droid prince. 

"You have my authorization to take her," King Xan made his decision at last. "But she will never again be permitted to call Zekus her home, or return to this planet as a cyborg with Zekan rights. That is my one condition." 

And just like that, Nebula's identity, her history, her rightful belonging was erased, without understanding the reason for it as a young cyborg living on a stranger's planet. 

Sometimes, Nebula hated humans for it. And sometimes, she hated droids for it. 

And at the worst times, as she watched the grey and distant planet Zekus from the statehouse balcony during Jeotis's nocturnal orbit, Nebula hated Eris for it.

Or more so, resented her for the position of power the Jeotian princess had been born into. Simply for being human. Simply for how easily Eris took it all for granted.

It was no wonder then why educated droids chose to rebel. 

While Eris fought her personal war with Aries over personal grudges, Jeotis was caught in the cross-fire.

What their moon needed was an objective queen, not ruled by her own emotions.

A droid queen.

The galaxy was no longer in the dark ages, when droids were long presumed to be unfeeling and unthinking machines.

Why shouldn't droids rebel?

Why should they be banned from holding official positions in the senate, when their absolute rational nature would bring an objective and fair peace that organics could never maintain for long?

If this galaxy disastrously fell to ruin without droids running the show, what did droids owe to the "dominant" human culture?

Had humans ever done anything more than exploit droids for their own interests, and then dispose of them for newer, shinier toys?

A toy, like she once was.

Nebula had never before asked herself such questions until now. It was probably the droid in her, who fantasized about a galaxy of perfect justice.

And Aries's outcry was infectious.

They were smarter and more efficient than their human counterparts.

So why did some, like her, still choose to serve these anthropoids, trusting their beloved home planets to these irrational humans and their changeable instincts?

Why was she always so fiercely loyal to those who called themselves her masters, and only because she allowed them to?

What did the droids on Jeotis, who still uphold the traditional values of droid serfdom, gain in the end?

There was no difference between a Galactic Republic and a Galactic Empire for droids.

Both regimes were evidence of human weakness and failure. 

An inefficiency which only a droid emperor could make perfect, opposing the corruption of both the Sith and Jedi Orders that ran viral in the galaxy.

That was the real fight behind the Zekan Cyborg Revolution.

Not just to have their rights, but to be acknowledged for their longstanding superiority to the human race. Peace made perfect by droids, the only beings capable of such perfection.

And the age of bloodline monarchy was dying.

Even if Eris were to give in to Aries's demands, it was only a matter of time before not even her status as his wife would save her from the impending assassination waiting to take her off the Jeotian throne. 

And when it happened, whose side would Nebula pick? 

If Eris will not submit to the perfect system of peace offered by droids, then removing her from the system will be inevitable for the good of both planets. 

The droid in Nebula understood this.

But the human in her....Piddling, sentimental flesh and blood...it was always holding her back.

Eris is my friend. She loves me. She trusts me.

And then once again, the do-gooder human in Nebula got swept up by all the many human ways of describing that friendship to her.

Love, loyalty, attachment, pleasure....and other such abstract frivolous ideas that a true droid would only see as hindrance.

It was love that always won her over in the end. 

It was the human in her that went looking for Kenobi, risking Zekan retaliation. Hoping against hope that this Jedi would offer Jeotis another alternative to the black-and-white reality of Aries's droidian utopia.  

She had to believe, that this time, a Jedi had come to Jeotis to help her friend, not abandon her. 

How heavy it was to carry the burden of a human conscience. 

Whether Kenobi was a good or a bad omen for Eris, Nebula would have to leave the answer to time. 

To face the uncertainty of not knowing whether what you think is good in the moment will turn out to be devastatingly bad in the end. Or what seems bad now, will be a necessary evil for what good will ultimately come later.

And then there's always the guilt part that comes after it. The part that haunts you forever, long after that decision has been made.

Ugh...just thinking about it all made her sensors overheat!

Was she human or was she machine?

She couldn't have both.

Because if droids and humans couldn't live peacefully in the same star system, what hope was there to find that harmony within herself?

Choose peace and turn Kenobi in to the Zekan Guard?

Or choose chaos and let him rescue Eris from the droid occupation?

'Order is everything,' the droid in her declared.

'But friendship means everything,' the human in her fired back.

"Mmmmm-Mmmm-mm!"

"I'm not talking to myself!" Nebula irritably snapped back at her bondaged Zekan pilot, grabbing him by the tightly coiled engine tape wrapped around his burly torso, and yanking him closer to her. All so they were eye-to-eye and unmistakable. 

"If Eris had just signed the treaty from the beginning, none of this would be happening! I'd never have been forced to take you hostage to begin with! Just tell me where the Jedi was last spotted, for Arcan's sake!"

"Alert to patrol commands."

Nebula's attention snapped to the radio transmitter that buzzed back to life.

"Command post to pilot Z-21. Be advised, unauthorized subjects spotted near your location at the volcanic ranges. Proceed to engage. They are armed and exponentially lethal. Do you copy, Z-21?"

"Well, sounds like our time here is done," Nebula patted her prisoner on his titanium-plated shoulder.

"Mhm-hmmm-hm?"

"Am I going to kill you? Ha. What do you think I am, some kind of animal? I never was quite human enough for anything like that," she assured him. "I wouldn't try to rip that engine tape off too quickly though. If you're not careful, it might take that handsome face of yours right off."

And slapping his said handsome cheek a couple times, Nebula grabbed him roughly by his tape wraps, and hurled him out of his pilot's seat with unexpected cyborg vigor for her delicate frame, dumping the aeronaut rolling down the ramp of his own patrol cruiser into the hot volcanic sands outside. 

"Thanks for the ride." 

Then she released the engaged locks on the patrol craft's loading ramp, proceeding to override its flyer authorization security system as she dropped into the pilot's seat. Her plan to commandeer the vessel and use it in her race to capture Obi-Wan Kenobi being nearly droid-perfect.

That is, of course, until the humans showed up. 

Just as she was sweeping her waist-length, silky blonde hair into a high, neat pony-tail, for a hairstyle more fit for flying a patrol craft through a battle zone, she detected the sweet ambush of sabotage breathing over her shoulder. 

Right at the elegant curve where her creamy white neck met the collar of her all-black flight suit. A radiating, sensual warmth signature to all human beings, as his breath dragged fantastically along her artificial skin from behind the pilot's seat. Making her hands freeze in the middle of pulling her long silvery pony-tail through one last loop of her hair tie. 

Gradually realizing that by stealing this patrol ship, she had unwittingly stolen the pair of stowaways lying in wait near the cargo hatch too, who had been plotting their own takeover of the Zekan pilot before she'd chosen to pirate this ship on a whim. 

"Sorry to cramp your style in the midst of this little insurrection of yours," he quietly spoke into her ear. "But this seat is mine." 

"Finders keepers," she countered her intruder's claim to the fruits of her labor, after all her hard work. "And the losers? Well, ask the guy I just threw off this ship."

"I might've asked him," he answered her. "Had he not been so nicely tied up."

"There's plenty of engine tape to go around," she warned him sweetly. 

And quickly grabbing hold of her blaster from where she'd left it lying on the flight control panel, Nebula turned on her unwelcomed guest. 

And then, caught off guard in awestruck disbelief, like a wandering planet caught in the gravitational pull of the sun-star it never saw coming, her eyes were taken unexpectedly prisoner by his, and her softening gaze slowly melted into an instant knowing. 

"Stryker?" she murmured faintly, confounded. 

The back of the pilot seat catching the small of her back when her feet forgot how strong they actually were. 

How unshaken in her hope she had always been, even while remaining unnoticed at Eris's side when they were just children playing in the statehouse gardens together, as Virgo Stryker never took his observant gaze off of the princess. How like titanium she had made herself become, accidentally showing up at the wrong time to wake Eris one morning, and overhearing Virgo suddenly confessing his love to Eris in her bedroom, knowing he would never feel more for a machine who was never supposed to feel anything back to him in return. How brave she had told herself she needed to be for Eris, on the day they found out Virgo Stryker had been killed in action, running to his death to defend Eris during the Zekan occupation. 

The hardened walls she'd built around her human sentiments coming undone instantly, just as her resolve had always fallen for Virgo Stryker, when his eyes wandered into hers. 

"Nebula?" he cocked his head in surprise. "What are you--"

"How are you--" she stammered right at the same time as he did.

"Q2," Virgo explained. "He doesn't know a damn thing about flying. He crashed our cruiser, and we found ourselves in the market for a new one."

"Q2 is here too?"

And then they raced each other to speak again.

--"You shouldn't be here."

--"You should be dead."

"I heard rumors, but I didn't want to believe any of them might be true," Nebula breathlessly rushed to get out what was on her mind, before they interrupted each other again. "I didn't want to get my hopes up and..."

And suddenly remembering herself, her mission for being there, and who it was she was actually standing in front of, Nebula quickly caught ahold of her runaway sentiments before she said too much, retracting her statement.

"I didn't want to give Eris false hope that you might still be alive," she told him. "Her Highness has not forgiven herself, since the day I forced her to abandon you in battle, believing you were dead." 

"You did the right thing, Neb," Virgo assured her. "But why isn't she here with you? Has something happened to Her Highness? Is she alright?"

"Eris is fine," Nebula answered him. "The princess gave me orders to seize a Jedi fugitive, known by the name of..."

But Nebula's debrief of Eris's orders was abruptly cut off by the heavy marching cadence of the princess's old body guard, Q2, clanking up the loading ramp to join them. Followed by none other than the man, who had overnight, become the coveted prize of two warring planets crossing blaster canons with each other to make him theirs. 

Which, by a lucky twist of fate, had walked himself right onto her waiting ship. 

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," Nebula addressed the object of her mistress's keen desire. "You are hereby arrested as an illegal trespasser, by Jeotian Planetary Code 148795."

"Uh, Neb? What are you doing?" Virgo questioned her. "He's with us."

"The punishment of which being 35 standard human years and-or death by volcanic incineration, pending ruling of your criminal trial by Jeotis's governing party, Princess Eris Valondra Constellan," Nebula dutifully continued, steadfast in her determination to carry out  Eris's order as she'd been commanded. "In other words, shut up and follow me, or stay here and die." 

"Surely, there was no need to go through the trouble of sending me such an elaborate invitation to her court," Obi-Wan answered. "If she wanted to see me, all she had to do was ask." 

"Interesting. This hero story of yours takes yet another unexpected turn. If you really are here to help Eris, why does she seem to have a different opinion about it?" Virgo turned to Kenobi, suspiciously. "Why would the princess declare a warrant for your arrest, when you're so helpful?"

"Charming as I am, I can't possibly win everyone over," Obi-Wan remarked to him. 

 "And exactly how do you and Her Highness know each other?" Virgo questioned Obi-Wan, folding his arms over his chest as he eyed Kenobi critically.

"Kenobi," Nebula cut back to the chase. "Do you accept these charges?"

"How could I ever risk offending Her Highness by turning her down," Obi-Wan replied. 

"She will betray you," Virgo muttered certainly to Obi-Wan.

"Undoubtedly," Obi-Wan readily agreed with him. "It's only a matter of when."

"Should you resist Her Highness's invitation,  she asked that I inform you that she has this sense, if you will, that you'd much rather cooperate with her and become her prisoner, than hand yourself over to your friends, the Zekans."

"I would've been greatly disappointed, if she hadn't at least mentioned that," Obi-Wan replied, with enough of a smug grin to make Virgo wonder.

"Apparently, the princess seems to like you. Come to think of it, I don't think you ever really mentioned exactly how long you two have known each other?" Virgo remarked, yet side-eyeing Obi-Wan.

"Long enough to betray me to her enemies for the highest bidder." 

"I assure you, Kenobi, Her Highness's intentions are honorable," Nebula sweetly countered Obi-Wan's suspicions. "After all, Her Highness believes that the very foundation of friendship is trust, in a mutual exchange of small favors. Can she not continue to trust in your friendship?"

"Yeah, well you and Eris will have to exchange friendship bracelets with each other later, Kenobi. We got company," Virgo muttered, suddenly turning all business as he ignited his saffron lightsaber.

Just as the first avenging Zekan trooper charged up the patrol cruiser's loading ramp to take Virgo on, and take back control of the craft. 

And it didn't escape Obi-Wan's notice that in that moment, a fleeting look of nervous concern  flashed into the handmaiden droid's eyes, as she watched Stryker charge out onto the landing ramp to confront the trooper head-on. The eager concern in her gaze quite unheard of for a droid, more human in nature than he expected, as her vigilant eyes chased after one who had long held immeasurable meaning in her private inner world. 

Without waiting for any orders from any master, Nebula charged after Virgo by command of her own heart, seemingly unaware of the approaching Zekan squad Obi-Wan sensed closing in around the hijacked aircraft. 

"Wait," Obi-Wan stepped forward to stop her, in the best interest of her safety, knowing that her sole blaster would be outnumbered against the Zekans' heavy artillery. 

But Nebula didn't seem to hear Obi-Wan's warning, as much like Q2, her self-preservation seemed to be overwritten by the fury of her colossal drive to protect those she cared about. Her keen droidian focus fixed on Virgo Stryker and his lightsaber held at ready to strike the Zekan trooper down. 

And judging unfavorable odds against a fast advancing Jedi Knight, Virgo's opponent decided to level the playing field, activating an adhesive fragmentation grenade to hone onto Virgo's cloak, taking out both Virgo and the other aggressors boarded on the hijacked patrol craft. 

Within nano seconds of detecting the pulled grenade, Nebula's sapphire blue eyes iced over to a silvery frost hue that bled into her pupils. Her retinal scanners ominously whining as they initiated, and locked onto the Zekan trooper's grenade, hacking into its timing mechanism, and resequencing its programming to prematurely detonate in the Zekan trooper's hands, before he could launch the cell at Stryker. 

And sensing that their all too helpful cyborg handmaiden had essentially detonated a walking time bomb while it marched onto their ship, Obi-Wan force-pushed the Zekan trooper back down the loading ramp, and into the squad of Zekan soldiers stampeding up the ramp toward them.

The white blast from Nebula's reverse detonation hurling the Zekans and their respective cyborg parts several meters back from the ship. 

"They'll be more where that came from," Obi-Wan remarked to Virgo. "It's high time I turned myself in to the Jeotian government."

Virgo glanced back at Nebula, her warrior frost eyes gradually remitting back to her usual glimmering, blue diamante gaze. 

"Good looking out, Neb," he nodded a thank-you to her, as he hurried from the loading ramp back into their stolen patrol craft to ready it for launch.

And no one but Obi-Wan noticed how Nebula's eyes followed Virgo indulgently from the loading ramp to the pilot's seat. A subtle smile playing on her lips. 

And somewhere hidden within that smile, a quiet yearning glowed in the handmaiden's lightened gaze, as Stryker jumped into the pilot's seat to initiate all system locks and began his flight-launching sequence.

The endearing gesture of Virgo's gratitude being big enough to leave her inner systems glitching to a hard stand-still for how astronomically his very presence always sparked an infinite effect on her.

And still, the fleeting nature of the brief gesture was enough to remind her that she was created only to serve where she was needed most, and return to obscurity, once she'd served her purpose. 

The social rules forbidding droids and humans from ever seeing each other as more, beyond this eons-old contract of interaction. Making her again silent and invisible, carrying her long-held secret as her only company.

Longing for what was forever unattainable to her.

Chapter Text

"It's done, your highness. As you ordered, Obi-Wan Kenobi has been captured," Nebula mumbled her report into the holo-transmitter of the stolen Zekan patrol craft. "We've also pirated a Zekan ship, which might prove useful to you in flying undetected...should your--ahem--transactional negotiations with Elsbeth go to krayt piss. Unfortunately, detaining Kenobi was messier than I would've liked. Let's just say... 'circumstances' forced me to use more aggressive extraction methods. Inevitably, there were Zekan casualties..."

In her hand, Nebula absently fidgeted with the robotic eye of the Zekan pilot she’d thrown off the ship barely an hour ago, turning over in her mind the consequences she might face if the Zekans discovered she was responsible for all this.

"All commands have been alerted, and we're surrounded by Zekan search squadrons in the air and on-world. For now, we've made camp in a cave hideout, apparently part of an underground network built by the Jeotian Four. Until I can figure out how to hack my way into cloaking our ship, I await your authorization to proceed with phase two of my mission. Give the order, and I'll escort Kenobi to the party. We complete the exchange with Elsbeth and her imperial investors, and everyone breaks even...Oh, by the way, there's just one tiny glitch in the plan I should mention...When I said 'circumstances',  I mean begins with an S and ends with an--"

"C,"  another suddenly interrupted her from behind the cockpit. 

And recognizing his voice and his knack for showing up in a very Jedi way when he wasn't asked for, Nebula swiveled around in the co-pilot's seat, turning her back on the holo-transmitter so she could narrow her eyes at Virgo, with Q2 close in tow behind him. 

The same way--Virgo noted--that she and Eris had always narrowed their eyes at him as children, when he crashed their secret plans to dominate the Jeotian statehouse. 

"Circumstances?" Virgo finished informing Nebula of his point. "The word actually starts with a C." 

"How long have you two been standing there?" she narrowed her eyes at them both. "Eavesdropping?"

"A while," Virgo admitted casually. 

Sighing Nebula turned back to the holo-transmitter, and initiated the transmission of her message to Eris, before shutting off the receiver. 

"Isn't that the most convenient way of getting the Zekan aerial force to go Base Delta Zero on you for stealing their ship?" Virgo's brow rose at her. "I like your style, Neb. You never give a colo-claw-fish about who you scug off. Don't let me interrupt as you broadcast our location to the enemy."

"Relax, I spliced it from their base. And Q2 configured us a new call-sign," she said. "They'll be chasing their own call-signs until the next millennium."

"And if they don't?"

"You just stick to waving that little thing there around," her tone was sassily sweet, as she nodded to the lightsaber hanging from his belt. "And I'll stick to hacking." 

"It's not little," Virgo remarked back to her. "By any means."

Nebula's face buzzed hotter. Swearing that there was a double meaning hidden in there somewhere that her droidian logic dared not process...or else why would she feel so...

"Shouldn't you be busy getting a fire started for dinner?" she quickly redirected the conversation to something she deemed more computable. 

"Well, a credit for your thoughts, but uh, last I checked, volcanic coal that one might use to start a fire for a dinner doesn't come out of the cockpit of a ship," Virgo remarked, as he leaned against the open loading ramp door and smirked knowingly at her. "But I get it. Being a royal handmaiden, you never get to kick your feet up, do you? You did always have this thing about getting side-tracked by all your many duties. So, I thought I'd drop in and check on you, make sure you didn't need a hand with anything. And when I say anything, I mean nothing that has anything to do with Eris and her habit for secret little diversions...right?"

"The only diversion here is you, Stryker," Nebula informed him, as she stood up from the copilot's seat and confidently walked up to him. 

Eye-to-eye with him when she made her point. "You should've stayed dead. It'll only make things more complicated for her highness now."

"Glad to see you too, Neb."

"Am I wrong, Stryker?" she questioned him. "It's been three years that you've been in hiding playing dead womprat. How do you live with abandoning her? With abandoning me?"

Virgo cocked his head curiously at her then, and Nebula was too late to realize she'd rambled on too much. 

The initial playfulness between them giving way to something different now in his eyes. Puzzlement, at first. And then gradually, a pleasant curiosity that brought a hint of a smirk back to his lips.

He's smiling at me, Nebula thought...which might have left her breathless, had she been fully human. 

A smile that might've stopped the movement of galaxies, inviting her into his moment of pause, as they quietly analyzed what the other might be thinking. What the other could've meant, in so few words.   

Nebula knew she shouldn't be watching him like this. 

Not when there were more practical matters to attend to...like cloaking the stolen ship, or preparing for the next phase of the mission. 

But there he was, leaning cockily, though not obnoxiously, against the entryway of their ship. The volcanic glows threading through the strands of his cinnamon-colored hair.

Virgo Stryker. Commander of the Jeotian Four. Survivor of a war that should've killed him. Protector of a princess who didn't know he'd been watching over her all this time.

And breaker of one very stubbornly loyal heart.

Nebula knew she had it bad....Malfunctionally, that is.

But her gaze on him lingered. Helplessly drawn to the striking duality of his eyes. One like amber set aflame, the other sky-blue, and ethereally clear. It was no wonder he'd been named Stryker, she found herself thinking, because there was always this strikingly beautiful contradiction about his gaze, like a compass that spun wildly, until it eventually found its true north.

How much that left her in awe of him. 

A man of both flame and frost, heart and duty. Someone whose gaze never quite settles on just one truth.

Torn between two worlds, that of his duty as a Jedi and that of his own heart. Jedi restraint balanced with personal passion. A constant battle of inner duality.

Like her....

Though, when she thought about it that way, Virgo seemed to be the one who'd more gracefully made peace with the tension. 

She, on the other hand, was a construct. Clever, capable, precise, loyal to her cause. Programmable.

And she was never supposed to feel like this. 

This warmth that buzzed all around her, while he stood this close. 

This insuppressible ache in her circuitry that never seemed to stop hoping he'd see her when he looked at her that way. As in really see her...The way he saw Eris...That maybe, if she had been born different--like Eris--they might have...

And then suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted when Q2's optical sensors dimmed and brightened at her, followed by a cuttingly judgmental, mechanical huff. As if to remind her that her prolonged staring at Stryker didn't register with him as 'mission critical.'"

He was right.

This was not her mission. 

And she would bury these foolish flutters of affection so deep that not even a Jedi could sense it hidden away within her. 

"I sense that you may have...missed me, Nebula?" Virgo finally let her in on his own thoughts.

And the timing of his words made her suspiciously aware that she hadn't dug deep enough to hide those buzzing flutters within her. 

That wasn't what she meant, what she ever meant to say aloud to him. So she made a quick attempt at damage control. 

She panicked. 

"Of course, I didn't miss you, 'miss you', per se," she quickly retracted her statement.

But the droid in her was fatefully, so starkly honest, and approximating to a fault. The words came tumbling hopelessly out before she could stop them, damning herself all over again. I missed your voice--I mean, your council...As you know, it is no small challenge for a handmaiden to sway the mind of a royal, when her mind's made up. It was never underappreciated, having a second opinion on things, I mean-"

"I get it," Virgo stopped her at last. "You didn't miss me."

"Right," Nebula nodded fervently. 

"Just my voice."

His smile then was playful again...with a hint of knowing, that only made her burn hotter.

For a moment, she wished she really was just an ordinary droid, who could power-down and reboot herself out this awkwardly embarrassing sabotage of herself. 

"Shall I give you two some privacy," Q2 remarked, looking back and forth between them. "Or are we still pretending this is about strategy?'"

"To answer your original question," Virgo mercifully moved on. "I didn't abandon the princess. I abandoned my post as senator for her...Everything I did in the Shadow was for Eris. But we're all being hunted now, Neb. Every last one of us, with any inkling of connection to the Force. It was in everyone's best interest that Eris stayed away and I stayed dead. The day Eris got dragged back here from Polis Massa is the day things got complicated."

"How did you survive the Zekan invasion?" Nebula questioned him. "I scanned your vitals myself....A hundred times...You were gone, Virgo. I was so sure of it." 

"Nobody is ever truly gone, Nebula."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It wouldn't to a droid."

"Then make it make sense," she ordered him.

"You deserve the truth... but it's not the story I thought I'd live to tell," he said. "The day I went to stop Eris from meeting the Zekans, Aries sent his troopers to greet me first. I tried to use a Force Shield to protect my crew from the detonators, but they were outnumbered. It wasn't my fate to die defending my crew. I was pulled  out of the wreckage of my ship, and taken underground by three other Jeotian officials who opposed Aries. There, we formed a rebelling force, The Jeotian Four. As things got darker on Jeotis, with people starving and all, our numbers grew, giving us the manpower we needed to destroy key Zekan targets and quiet the civil war on Jeotis.

"But how I survived the invasion is not as important as what I've done underground.

"Had I not taken the fight into the shadows, where I am trained best, restoring Eris to power would've been impossible. Eris stayed hidden on Polis Massa because we kept Aries and his allies too busy to find her...The Force had different plans for me in this war. Staying by Eris's side may not have been the promise I kept in the end, but abandoned her, I have not."

Nebula glanced out the open loading door of the ship, where Obi-Wan sat near the dying embers of their campfire, thoughtfully holding his chin as he intently studied a holo-map of the Zekan palace.

"I trust you," Nebula told Virgo finally. "But we can't trust this Jedi."

"We may not have a choice," Virgo said to her. "Jeotis is under occupation. We can't afford to get hung up over the dark-side-light-side thing anymore. We can work together, we survive together, we stay vigilant together, and if it comes down to it, we die together."

"What is it with you and Eris and dying?" Nebula questioned him. "The whole reason she sent me to find Kenobi was because of some nightmare she had about dying."

"In that case, never let Kenobi out of your sight," Virgo instructed her gravely. "If the vision I had as a padawan is true, then..."

But sensing the shuffling march of the Zekan Guard around them, Virgo decided that shifting his priorities to the present threat would serve them better than anticipating a threat in Kenobi that had no certain future.

"Sod it...We need to stay focused on getting out of here first," he said. "Right now, we're under heavy weather. These piston-heads have this place surrounded tighter than an asteroid belt."

"So, what's the plan on getting us and Eris out of here...without being blasted to space dust over it?" Nebula questioned him. "You have a plan, right?"

"Oh, I have a plan...ish."

"So,  you don't actually have a plan!" Nebula called him out in disbelief.

"You try stabilizing a star system after a droid take-over," Virgo challenged her. "I'm winging this thing as I go."

"You've had 3 years to 'wing it'."

"I'm a Jedi," he reminded her. "Not a god."

"Well, does he have a plan?" Nebula asked, cocking her head in Obi-Wan's direction. "Or are we all just going to sit here and wait for the Force to rescue us?"

Obi-Wan sat just beyond the edge of the ship's glow, his silhouette half-shadowed by the rocky curvature of the cave. The volcanic haze beyond simmered with molten breath, flickering orange light across the scattered datapads and holo-displays projected before him, like a general preparing for a siege.

Behind him, the others were still sparring. Nebula's voice rose and dipped with sharp, mechanical wit; Virgo parried with that maddening calm that always bordered on charm. Q2 huffed like a malfunctioning kitchen unit...with opinions. 

The whole exchange, though laced with tension, had the familiar timbre of rebels trying not to lose their minds in the calm before the storm.

But Obi-Wan's composure was steady and focused.

His eyes remained fixed on the rotating hologram in front of him: the Zekan palace, projected in translucent blue, flickering in and out as he adjusted its layers. Defensive corridors, ballroom levels, private chambers. Dozens of entrances. Hundreds of guards.

And one masquerade.

Their only opportunity.

"You know, you make a fair point," Virgo nodded one last parting validation to Nebula. "Why don't you just waltz over there and ask Kenobi? After all, we are most enlightened by asking the right questions, aren't we?"

And leaving the cyborg with this one cryptic piece of Jedi encouragement, Virgo winked at her.

 Passing her by on his merry way to gather all the volcanic coal she had apparently missed. "Let's go, Q2. Before we starve."

But just before they did, Q2 hung back as Stryker descended from the ship--as he couldn't resist missing out on the opportunity to one-up a hieratically superior droid like Nebula, with the pleasure of one last cutting remark. 

'He's not even that handsome," he remarked to Nebula. "Should anyone ask me, his facial symmetry is quite statistically average."

"Nobody asked."

"Swoon later. War now."

And then Q2 finally clanked on his merry way after Virgo. 

"As usual, his charm is to be commended," Obi-Wan spoke quietly. "But he's not wrong. If we plan on surviving, we can't afford any distractions...Especially the ones we dare not speak aloud."

"Well," Nebula murmured, her metallic-cored fingers flexing as she watched Virgo disappear into the haze. "Good thing I'm terrible at unspoken things. 

She glanced sidelong at Obi-Wan.

"You, on the other hand, look like you've been surviving on nothing but unsaid feelings since the Clone Wars."

"Surviving on them? No. I am made wiser by them," he answered. "The last time I said what I felt... a world fell. I let emotion speak first, and it cost more than I ever intended. I won't make that mistake again."

"The Jedi has a past," Nebula smirked with a hint of smugness. "How tragic." 

"Tragedy tends to follow us all," he said. "Some of us just learn to walk quieter, so it doesn't find us again."

"You don't have to speak your heart for the galaxy to burn, Kenobi. It is our actions that betray  our feelings in the silence, and yours speaks volumes," Nebula answered him coolly. "That's why you're here, isn't it? You didn't come here to Jeotis as a Jedi, but as a man haunted by everything he couldn't say....Everything he wishes he could change."

"You see much for a droid they only call a handmaiden. More than even some Jedi I've known," Obi-Wan observed, quietly impressed. " You're not just a handmaiden. And certainly not like any droid I've encountered.""

"I'm Zekan," she told him proudly straightening her chin. "Or...I was...The memories of my life before I came into Eris's service are still a little distorted.  I'm told my mother was a wanderer—never welcomed back home, always looking for other planets that might take her in. She ended up in the Outer Rim, trying to live honestly. She became a handmaiden to the Zekan queen...And whether she asked for it or not, she caught the king's attention...My father, Xan."

"Aries...The droid prince is your brother?" Obi-Wan asked, surprised. 

"Half-brother," she clarified. "Untitled, of course. I wasn't the queen's daughter. My father saw no reason to fight for my place in court when he already had his heir. Aries and I were close, once. But the queen didn't like us playing together—she was so afraid I'd one day challenge Aries for the crown."

She folded her arms and leaned against the cave wall, staring long into the fire. 

"To fix the little problem that I was, my father stripped me of the title princess. Killing me was... considered. But he settled for something more convenient. Turned me into a palace servant for the Zekan queen instead. For her spite, I like to think. Kept me close. Kept me beneath Aries, so I wouldn't be taken for a threat. And when I became too inconvenient even for that, he sold me to Queen Nephelie."

Her voice softened, hinting at yet another unspoken human sentiment behind her eyes.

Grief.

The sorrow of being unwanted. 

"I have never left Eris's side since."

Obi-Wan could feel it, even in a droid. 

The weight of betrayal in the memory. The wound beneath the circuitry.

He sat beside her in silence, letting the moment between them stretch as long as Nebula needed it to. Then, quietly, and without judgement, he said, "That's a heavy legacy to bear. You've carried it well."

Nebula straightened up a little prouder at that. 

"Spare me the pity, Jedi," she brushed it off. "Zekans do not wallow. We evolve."

Another Zekan patrol cruiser sailed dangerously close by the mouth of the cave, reminding Nebula that she had risked her life enough to help Eris find Kenobi before Aries did.

They had to know by now that Kenobi had help, and it was only a matter of time before they realized the damage she left behind wasn't just the work of a Jedi.

If she were caught, she would face the ultimate punishment under Zekan law.

What if I was seen?

What if I hadn't been careful enough to make sure we weren't being followed?

What if at least one of those  Zekan  troopers made it out alive with his memory drive intact?

There were still an infinite number of possibilities for how this could all go wrong for her.

This is a  human's war , not mine..I should just turn this fugitive  in to  the  Zekans  and be done with this exhausting humanesque pandemonium...

"I don't blame you for your caution," Obi-Wan seemed to pick up on her thoughts. "But if I'm to be of any use, I need the truth about the Constellans."

"Virgo trusts you," she said at last. "And maybe that's enough. But as for me? I trust no one. Only time reveals who a human truly is. Still... why Eris?  You speak like a Jedi, but you pursue her like a man...What is it about my lady that pulls you in, Kenobi?"

"My Master died chasing a rumor," he said quietly, "Fragments of what is known on Jeotis as the 'Constellan prophecy'. The day he passed into the Force, I inherited more than his padawan. I inherited his questions. When I was on Polis Massa, I met an imposter by the name of 'Kahn' who was under the influence of nightsister magic. He talked about a chosen one of the dark side, who would avenge the nightmother's coven by punishing the Empire." 

“And this so-called Kahn told you all this?” Nebula asked, her voice edged with mocking doubt. “In his own words?”

"He seemed to prefer an older dialect, actually, the language of the Sith purebloods," Obi-Wan told her. "Wonoksh Qyâsik nun."

"Wonoksh Qyâsik nun....One who will be free of limits," Nebula translated Kahn's dying declaration. "One who will lead the Sith and destroy them. One who will raise the Sith from death and make them stronger than before. One who has achieved absolute perfection through the Force. The prophecy of the Sith'ari."

“The Sith’ari,” Kenobi thought it over with intrigue. “Some believe he’s already taken power.”

Nebula gave a small, disbelieving scoff. 

“Palpatine?” she said, folding her arms. “He’s a powerful Sith, no doubt--but he hoards power for his own vanity. That imbalance, that self-serving hunger,  makes him a fitting Imperial dictator, but not the chosen one. The Sith’ari--if such a being exists--would be something… else.”

"Then enlighten me,” Obi-Wan said, in his usual dry tone, though not unkind. “If not Palpatine, then who--or what--is this ‘something else’ the Sith’ari is meant to be?”

“The Nightsisters believed this being would be chosen by the Force itself. They told the story of 'The Ones'—a father, a son, and a daughter. The father kept the balance between his children; the son, born of the dark side; the daughter, of the light. But when the father weakened, that balance fractured. He summoned he Chosen One to take his place and keep the peace between them. But the chosen one… refused. Took another path.

"Without anyone strong enough to keep balance between the light and dark, the son became consumed by his greed for power, and killed his sister. He was defeated by his father, who saw how corrupt his son had become in his hunger for power. But the father mourned for his fallen family, and his mourning for his children led to the chaos of our galaxy's existence. A stagnant universe where there was no direction, fought over by good and evil intent. 

"The Nightsisters believed that balancing the force meant the birth of two chosen ones. Two born where day meets night, bred from both light and dark, who will embody the spirits of the son and daughter, and meet again to settle the battle they started eons ago. 

"Whether this great cosmic battle will restore balance to this universe again, or lead to more destruction, it is not clear from the nightsister prophecy...But again, that is just an old witch's tale."

“That story,” Obi-Wan said, brow furrowing as it came back to him.  “It’s not just familiar...I’ve seen it. There was a place...Mortis. A realm outside time. The Father, the Son, the Daughter… They were real. They tried to pass their roles to us. To Anakin and I.”

Obi-Wan slowly pieced together his own theory of Mortis and the Constellans. 

“The battle you speak of, between light and dark, it wasn’t just myth. And if that struggle was left unresolved... Then perhaps the battle still echoes. Through bloodlines. Through generations. Perhaps the Sith’ari isn’t a single being at all, but an echo of a much older war at play."

"There are many contenders powerful in the dark side who be the Sith'ari, yes. Many of them unknown. And because of their ancestry with the Nightsister coven, the Constellan family is only one confirmed bloodline for the Sith'ari," Nebula agreed. "However, after Count Dooku took revenge on Asajj Ventress by massacring the coven on Dathomir, Eris is now the last surviving Constellan. And even then, she is only a half-blood."

"One born from powerful followers of both the light and dark side," Obi-Wan mused, reflecting on his suspicions about Eris's connection to his master.

"Many are misguided into believing my lady is the Sith'ari," Nebula cautioned him. 

"And do you believe she is?" 

"If you came here to hunt down a fairy tale about the most feared Dark Lord in the galaxy, you will die here disappointed. Eris is the least of your worries," Nebula answered him. "She is not the chosen one of the dark side. At this point, a Kowakian Monkey-Lizard is bound to be more attuned to the Force than my lady is. Honestly , I'm not even sure if I buy the foretelling of the Sith'ari anyway. It's only a prophecy, after all, and Nightsister prophecies have been wrong before."

But Obi-Wan dared to assume otherwise. 

Considering her lineage, dismissing the notion that Eris lacked Force-sensitivity entirely felt too convenient. An absolution written in denial.

The visions she invoked in him on Polis Massa were not the work of one who is Force-Blind. They were too vivid. 

Her interventions had been too precise, too perfectly timed to pass as mere luck—especially the kind of luck he’d never believed in.

Not when the lives of Luke and Leia had hung in the balance of it. 

The raw, strange magnetism he’d observed in Eris's hands at Padmé’s side was not the fumbling grace of a novice. 

And so, it couldn't be that simple. Eris couldn't just be a Force-blind bystander swept away by the galaxy’s currents.

Which raised the question...Was her handmaiden hiding the full truth to protect her? Or was there something far more elusive at work...Something that not Eris herself knew of yet?

The fire was dying.

Only a few coals still glowed beneath the overhang of the volcanic cave, casting trembling red shadows across the pit's stones. 

"But you’ll still chase after her, won't you? Even with the Empire watching? " Nebula arched a critical brow at Kenobi from across the fire. "I will never understand you surviving Jedi and your eagerness to get yourself killed. Tell me you’ve at least come up with a plan, if for nothing else but to preserve a shred of your dignity."

"After the fall of my dignity, I can only hope it’s you who writes my eulogy," Obi-Wan said, activating the flickering holomap on his wrist. "I doubt anyone else could quite deliver a cynical truth with such devoted precision."

A rotating schematic of the Zekan palace spun slowly between them, displaying its corridors and hidden tunnels casting light that danced across his weathered face.

Obi-Wan adjusted the map to zoom in, isolating a servant's corridor that flanked the western ballroom wing. Narrow. Unscanned. Not on the official schematics, but noted as a key passage by Virgo, who had served as ambassador to the Zekan palace on numerous occasions.

It would be the perfect exit route to smuggle Eris out of the palace, without drawing much attention to themselves.

It was their way out...even if only by a small chance.

"As for the plan," Obi-Wan continued. "the Zekans will be expecting an ambush. The palace will be heavily guarded by both Zekan and Imperial guards. There’s a passageway that runs beneath the palace, compliments of our friends, the Jeotian Four. It will likely be unguarded. If we move quickly, we move Eris along the underground network of hideouts controlled by the Four. Then, rendezvous with our Alderaanian contact, who will escort the princess off-world."

"This plan of yours sounds too perfect not to go wrong at some point," Nebula remarked. 

"My one hope is that  Aries will be too vain to notice. I’m counting on him being quite obsessed with putting on a spectacle in front of his Imperial guests, keeping every eye fixed on him, while we slip beneath the noise and glamor."

While the Zekan aristocrats danced, plotted, and postured, the shadows behind their walls would be quieter. More vulnerable to lending escape

Obi-Wan studied the location marking pin that glowed with Eris's name, like a single, defiant star in the night.

But Nebula's gaze was no longer focused on the map. 

Her eyes lingered on Kenobi instead, studying and analyzing the man behind the daring rescue plan. 

Every subtle move, mannerism, and tension in his brow. Somewhere in the quiet hum of her processors, she sifted through her internal archive of human emotion: sorrow, longing, regret. All the things she had learned in her years among humans, serving Eris Constellan on Jeotis. 

“You talk as if its some formal extraction, under the assumption that if we fail, a reinforcement of clone troopers will drop in to save us,” Nebula said, her voice edged with something between curiosity and quiet challenge. “The Clone Wars are over, Kenobi. Jeotis is not your war. And Eris is not a political asset to the Jedi Council, or some senator in need of your rescue....She isn't  Padmé Amidala. She isn't the woman you lost to that fallen world. And she isn't your soul of redemption. Do not mistake Eris for the ghosts you couldn't save."

And at the mention of the "woman from the fallen world", the firelight in front of them seemed to grow a little colder.

Obi-Wan saw it again. He never could truly escape it. 

The desperate way he'd held Satine in his arms. Crimson blooming through her Mandalorian-blue tunic.

Her trembling hand had reached for his cheek. Soft and aching with the finality of a life half-lived. One they might've had together, had he been there in time to save it.

“Remember, my dear Obi-Wan...I've loved you always."

He had taken her hand to his lips, but the words he wanted to say were never spoken to her.

She was already gone. 

There was so much left unsaid.

The pain was so complete, so absolute, that for one blinding second, Obi-Wan had wished Maul had just ended him too. 

The dying embers of the fire crackled softly beside him, bringing Obi-Wan mercifully back to the present moment. No longer holding a dying duchess, but sitting across from a wary cyborg in the dark, somewhere in a desolate cave on a distant moon.

"I doubt your princess would ever agree to being the 'soul of my redemption', as you put it," Obi-Wan replied quietly to her. "I know who Eris is not... Yet, when you’ve failed so many people you were supposed to protect, sometimes saving one becomes the only way to live with losing the rest.”

Nebula rose, her fine shapely Zekan figure framed by firelight.

"She wouldn't agree to being saved either," she informed Kenobi. "Not for your atonement."

Then she turned and walked into the shadows to look for Virgo and Q2.

Leaving Obi-Wan alone with the fire, the silence, and everything left unspoken.