Джон Миллер: Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Sentinel

Ori rubbed her forehead, exasperated. «If I can’t save my family — and I can’t save my people — then what am I supposed to do?»

«Supposed to do?» Jelph laughed. «You’re the one that always says you set your own course.» He waded toward her perch on the edge. «Just decide what you want.»

For a long moment, Ori looked at him, standing in the starlit water before her. Finally, she closed her eyes and shook her head. «We’ll never be able to trust each other,» she said.

Jelph looked at her searchingly.

She opened her eyes and glared at him. «I can feel it in your thoughts. You think I’m beautiful. You think you want me. You want to trust me. But you’re looking behind every word I say, trying to find me out, trying to trap me. Because of who I am.»

Jelph looked down at the water. He hadn’t known why he had come all this way when so much was at risk. Not until now. «I think I know who you are, Ori.» He stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. She shrank at his touch.

«Jelph,» she said, grabbing at his hand but not pushing it away. «I can’t be the person I was back at the farm. If the only way to be with you is to be weak, I just can’t do it.»

«You can be strong,» he said, reaching for her and pulling her off the ledge, down into the water before him. Her feet touching the bottom, she looked up at him. «You are strong,» he said. «You just don’t have to rule the galaxy.»

She looked away from him, down at the pool. «It’s what we’re born to do, you know. To rule the galaxy.»

«Then the Tribe is built on a trick,» he said. «A deception. Everyone is fighting over something that only one person can have. Just one. Which means that to be a Sith — is to be an almost certain failure. Almost everyone who follows your Code is doomed to fail, even before he starts.» Jelph chortled. «What kind of philosophy is that?» Nudging her chin upward with his hand, he looked into her eyes, brown again. «Don’t be tricked. You can’t lose if you don’t play.»

He kissed her, uncaring what any Sith aerial sentry saw. Ori returned the embrace before pulling back. «Wait,» she said. «We’re already playing. It’s in motion. I can’t stop it.»

«What do you mean?»

Dark brow furrowed, Ori explained what her mother had suggested she do. «I’ve already sent word to the rival High Lords,» she said. «They’re going to meet me at your farm to see the spaceship.»

Shocked back to reality, Jelph released her. «What… what did you say to them?» Stunned, he climbed out of the reservoir.

Ori followed, appealing to him. Her mother had given her a phrase to use — code within the tiny High Lord community for a discovery of Kesh-shaking importance. «I didn’t tell them about the spaceship, but they know it’s important,» she said. «They’re supposed to meet me there tomorrow at sunset.»

«Sunset!» Jelph sagged. It had taken him a full day and night just to get here on foot. «How were you going to get there?»

«I was going to steal an uvak,» Ori said, standing atop the ledge and pointing up to a dark figure in the sky. «It’s why I came up here — I knew from the aqueduct, I could lure one of the aerial sentries down here.» She looked back at him petulantly. «Of course, that was when I still had a lightsaber.»

«Lucky thing you made a friend,» he said, standing on the ledge beside her and looking up at the hovering sentry. He smiled. «You know, Ori, you’re the first Sith I’ve ever fought.»

«You may need to try harder against this one,» she said, watching his lightsaber come to life. «We’re not all so easily charmed.»

It felt good to fly again. Ori looked down at the countryside slipping away beneath the uvak’s beating wings. Every so often, she turned back to see Jelph, clinging to her as she pulled the reins. He was still smiling. Flight was no mystery to him, she knew — but he’d lived for three years on the ground, looking up at flying Sith. This was a welcome change.

She wondered what flying in his spaceship would be like. She knew now why he hadn’t simply flown away in it earlier — but now that they’d found each other, they needn’t be bound to Kesh any longer. They’d be an uncomfortable fit in the one-seat vehicle, and she knew he wanted to reinstall some kind of communications system before departing. But even though they hadn’t discussed it, she fervently hoped for that escape.

What would life be like for her, a child of the Tribe in a Jedi-dominated galaxy? Much like Jelph must have felt these past years, she imagined. She was beginning to think that way now. Empathy was a trait the Sith understood only as a means of better knowing one’s enemy; it had no practical purpose otherwise. Ori had begun to see things differently.

Take Candra, for example. There were many reasons Ori had wanted to restore her mother’s past position — but most revolved around pride, vengeance, and shame over her current state. It was more important, she now realized, to simply improve her mother’s life by getting her out of Venn’s clutches. The four High Lords could do that, Gadin Badolfa assured her when she’d contacted him. She just needed something to give them in trade instead of Jelph’s spaceship. Jelph had suggested the four functioning blasters he had hidden at home; she could claim to have discovered them in a grave somewhere. All the weapons they had from Omen ’s crew were long since exhausted. The discovery of charged ones could make a difference in the violent politics of the High Lords.

«We’re not going to make it in time,» Jelph said. Their uvak hadn’t wanted to carry two strange riders and had fought them all the way. «What’s that up there?»

Ori looked up to see a flying V of uvak — a lone figure trailed by three more on either side — soaring through the air high above them. «Blast it!» They’d found the jet stream, she realized. «They’re going to get there first!»

«Steady,» Jelph said. His hold on her tightened. «But faster!»

Ori allowed Jelph to leap free out of sight of the farm before touching down. She watched as he nimbly hit the dirt and rolled into the cover. It was so surprising to see him in action, as physically able in every way as a Sith Saber. And stealthy, too. The visitors, their creatures parked behind the farmhouse, hadn’t seen a thing. Taking a deep breath, Ori dismounted. The sack of blasters was right where Jelph had said it was, beneath the mixing trough. They looked much like the ones she’d seen in the museum. Hopefully, they’d be enough to buy her mother’s redemption — and to make the visitors leave.

Under her breath, she rehearsed what she would say as she rounded the farmhouse past the destroyed trellis. She knew which four of the High Lords to expect. Sensing familiar dark presences, she called out. «My Lords, I have what you’re looking for…»

«Yes, I think you do.»

Ori turned ashen at the sound of the croaking voice.

The Grand Lord!

Pale and shrunken, Lillia Venn emerged from the stable. Raising a mottled hand, she grasped Ori through the Force, immobilizing her. Four of her loyal guards appeared from behind the barn and took physical hold of Ori. Turning, the Sith leader called into the barn. «Lords Luzo!»

Ori felt her spine turn to jelly as Flen and Sawj Luzo opened the stable doors behind Venn, revealing the metallic mass of the Aurek strikefighter inside. She’d heard from Badolfa that Venn had elevated Flen and Sawj Luzo to Lordships for their loyalty. Now the conniving brothers had returned to the farm — with her worst enemy. «How did it happen?» Ori asked, struggling against the guards. «Did Badolfa betray me?»