Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 06_ Vortex - Denning Troy [13]
“For now.”
Vestara shrugged and admitted, “For now. But until that changes, what’s the harm in being nice to each other?”
Ben sighed, knowing exactly where the harm lay. After all, this was the girl who had exaggerated her injury to keep him distracted while her father tried to murder his father—and he was wise enough to know she would try it again. Sith girls played rough, and they always cheated.
But her game was the kind two could play, and Ben was just as capable of exploiting an edge as Vestara was. “No harm, I guess. Just don’t expect me to let my guard down.”
Vestara smiled and considered him for a moment, then said, “You haven’t yet.” She glanced aft toward the Shadow’s medbay, where Dyon Stadd had lain in a healing trance for the last two days. “Speaking of being nice, I wonder how our patient is doing. Maybe we should …”
Vestara trailed off and glanced out the forward viewport, frowning and tilting her head. Ben thought for an instant she was just trying to distract him again, but he could feel her surprise fluttering in the Force, and he didn’t think she could fake that. He looked in the same direction she had glanced and saw only Taalon’s shuttle squatting on its S-shaped landing struts, its drooping wings frowning down so far the tips nearly touched the bone-colored beach. A dozen meters beyond the shuttle, a sandy bank rose from the river’s floodplain to become the floor of a jungle valley, and beyond the jungle canopy loomed the volcanic ridge where Abeloth’s cave was located.
When Ben did not see anything unexpected, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Vestara continued to look out the viewport. “Nothing wrong,” she said. “I just felt someone touch me in the Force.”
Ben cocked his brow and waited for her to elaborate.
“My father, I think,” Vestara said, looking back to Ben. “It’s been a while since he did that when he wasn’t angry, so it took me a bit by surprise.”
“Sure,” Ben replied, not buying her story at all. She was volunteering information he hadn’t asked for, and that wasn’t like Vestara. He expanded his Force awareness toward the ruins where Abeloth had died—and where his father was working with Gavar Khai and High Lord Taalon to learn more about Abeloth—and was relieved to feel only the tense wariness to be expected of a Jedi Grand Master in the company of two powerful Sith. “So much for working together.”
“Ben, please. Your father is a Jedi. He doesn’t get angry the way mine does.” Vestara paused to study Ben’s face—no doubt to see if she was having any effect—then seemed to reconsider and looked away, shaking her head and speaking in a soft voice. “You need to understand, if High Lord Taalon found out I had told you something like this—”
“I can keep a secret,” Ben interrupted. “Even for you.”
“Ouch,” Vestara said, recoiling visibly. “Not nice.”
“But deserved.” Ben put a deliberate chill in his voice. “Don’t play on my emotions, Vestara. It reminds me of why I don’t like you.”
A look of hurt came to Vestara’s face, but she raised her chin and met his eyes. “Do I deserve that, Ben?” she asked. “We’re on opposite sides of this thing, and maybe that makes us enemies. But we don’t have to hate each other—that’s a choice we make ourselves.”
To Ben’s surprise, there was a quaver in Vestara’s voice, and everything he had been trained to watch for as a Galactic Alliance Guard officer told him she wasn’t faking it. Her tone and volume were even, she held his gaze without forcing herself, and her posture remained confident yet comfortable. Most of all, he could feel in the Force that Vestara did not want him to despise her—and that it wounded her to think he did.
Ben felt the anger and bitterness of her earlier betrayal drain away, and he started to feel guilty about using them to hide from his true emotions. The fact was, he wasn’t as angry with Vestara as he was with himself.