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Her eyes widened and he tasted her pleasure in the Force. “Thank you, sir. May I ask which vessel?”

“The Winged Dagger,” he said. “I’ve informed Captain Syndor of his new position as your second in command.”

A slow, sly smile spread across her pretty lavender face. “I see,” she said. “I will collect my belongings and immediately transfer to the Winged Dagger to take command. What is your first assignment?”

“One which you yourself brought to my attention,” Taalon said, and told her.

Ben and Luke went through the prelaunch systems check. Luke seemed completely at ease, even upbeat at the thought of finally heading out toward the Maw. Ben, however, was still upset by what he had learned.

He’d pretended that he’d expected such betrayal and manipulation from her, and in a way, he had. But that didn’t lessen the sting when it had actually happened. Worse, he couldn’t even confront Vestara about it. Luke had advised against tipping their hand. “If she doesn’t know we can translate her conversations,” Luke had said, “then she won’t try to hide them. Nor will she inform any of the other Sith that we have a way to understand them. This means that we have a chance to learn more—and Ben, we have to learn as much about them as we can in the time we spend with them. You know that.”

Ben did know that. It didn’t make anything any easier. He sensed her standing at the entrance to the cockpit. “Vestara, you shouldn’t be in here.”

“Why not?” she said. “I’ve already piloted a ship almost exactly like this. I won’t learn anything new and highly secret.”

Luke glanced over his shoulder at her, then returned his attention to the checklist.

“Okay, true enough. What do you want?”

“I wanted to ask you to tell me about your sick bay.”

Ben turned to glare at her. “Why?”

She folded her arms across her chest and gave him an arch look that somehow reminded him of Jaina. “Two reasons. If anything happened to the two of you, I’d be the only chance you have of getting patched up.”

“Like you wouldn’t light a bonfire and dance a jig if we got injured.”

A bright, sharp flicker in the Force—the remark had hurt her. She covered it quickly. “You might still be of use to us. Or maybe we’d just want to keep you alive so we could torture you.” Yeah, she was angry all right. Despite himself, Ben felt bad.

“I’m saying this a lot to Sith today, but you do have a point, Vestara,” Luke said. “But surely you already know the basics of a sick bay. You yourself said it—you’re familiar with SoroSuubs.”

“Master Skywalker, you shouldn’t play ignorant. It’s not becoming. You know as well as I do that the Jade Shadow is no ordinary vessel. I’m sure there are quite a few things in that sick bay that aren’t standard equipment for this class of ship. Also, in case you’ve forgotten, you have a crazy man held prisoner in there. I need to know how to best subdue him in case something happens. Which, by the way, would necessitate that you stop locking me in my room when you leave the vessel.”

Ben really wished his dad had opted to take someone else hostage back at Sinkhole Station.

“Dad?”

Luke sighed and rose. “Back in a moment. This won’t take long.”

Ben rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, then stretched. He wished Vestara wasn’t so … well … He wished she was uglier, or stupid, or unpleasant. But she wasn’t any of those things. He knew she was a Sith, knew that she was trying to manipulate him—but blast it, he also knew that on some level, she cared. She was trying to drag him over to the dark side, but what if he could bring her to the light side? There was good in her. He’d felt it in the Force. She wasn’t like Jacen, not yet—she was much more like Tahiri. True, she’d been born Sith and raised with a whole planet full of them. But maybe she was Sith because that’s all she knew. Maybe if she was shown another path, she’d take it.

After all, even in her conversation with Gavar Khai, she’d admitted that she liked him. A question formed in his mind. His father returned a few minutes later. Vestara