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“He’s fine. His injuries have been attended to. He’s out cold, though, and should be for some time. These guys did their jobs well on all counts.”

Luke smiled at the still-flustered guard. “We’ll take it from here. Thank you.”

Ben rose and together the two settled themselves and reached out for the Force’s aid. Luke half-hid a smile of fond remembrance. Long ago, when he was only a few years older than his son, he had stood on soggy soil, as he did now, surrounded by the stench of rotting wetness, and tried to levitate a sunken X-wing. He had gasped and panted and shuddered with the effort, only to watch the greedy waters of the Dagobah swamp claim it again.

And then tiny little Yoda had lifted the thing up as if it weighed nothing at all.

His smile grew as he reached out to his son in the Force and they met there, moving as one to surround and support the limp, bruised, and scraped body of Dyon Stad. Ben used both his hands, holding them out as if miming lifting Dyon’s form, and Luke barely moved a finger or two as the figure rose swiftly but steadily upward. When Dyon neared the top, they maneuvered him gently onto the floor.

Ben leapt up first, followed by Luke. Ben looked back down into the old well, then over at Mun and the two guards. “What about him?”

“We have a rope ladder,” one of the guards said.

“We could bring him up.” Luke smothered a grin. Ben had a sabacc face Han would envy at the moment. “Wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I think Rommul will be happy to emerge the old-fashioned way,” Mun said. “Now if you two and your … charge … will follow me, we’ll finish up the paperwork and you can take him out of my detention area.”

Vestara stepped out into the bright sunlight, blinking quickly. She and Ben had been in the holding cell for about a half hour. It was illuminated, but dimly, and moving from the dark, dome-shaped building to full sunlight made her eyes water.

Her father didn’t waste a second. “What do you think you are doing?” he demanded, speaking in Keshiri. He kept his voice modulated and made no attempt to lay a hand on her, but she could feel his anger, narrowly channeled, almost buffeting her in the Force.

She stared at him, utterly confused. “I did what I was supposed to do,” she said. “What you asked me to do. I did not let Ben Skywalker out of my sight.”

“You helped him!” Gavar replied, the anger cold and unyielding. Vestara was taken aback. Her father had never, ever been this angry with her. Irritated, frustrated, of course, like any parent with any child. But most of the emotions she had experienced from him were approval, love, and pride. This wounded her to her core, but even though it was completely new and unexpected behavior, she had been well schooled. She did not let her hurt show. She used the Force to even out her skin tone so that the rush of heat to her face would not betray her, and spoke in a calm, measured voice.

“It was my understanding that we wish the Skywalkers to believe that we share a common goal. We have claimed that our apprentices are going mad, as their Knights are. When one of them began to act erratically, there was no question in my mind that the right course of action would be to subdue him, to preserve the façade of cooperation.”

His anger wavered slightly. “It would have been better if you had been able to contrive to kill, or better yet, capture him.”

“Had I been in a position to do so, I would have,” Vestara said. It was a lie. She watched her father carefully, but he gave no indication that he sensed it. Vestara regretted the necessity, but his apparently irrational reaction warranted the deception.

“I had no weapon, and Ben and I were far from the only ones in pursuit of Dyon Stad. Ben now counts me as a true ally, as I have proven my apparent trustworthiness twice now. Was that not what you asked of me? To win his confidence?”

It was a classic tactic—to turn the argument back on the adversary. Vestara had put her father in the defensive