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Callista’s voice turned a touch despairing. “We were.”

“Well … remind me.”

Callista touched her forehead to Luke’s.

Now there was more than just the flavor of their individual presences in the Force. Ben began to catch glimpses of distant memories. Luke’s face, much younger, as if seen through a holocam. The Jedi academy at Yavin 4, the distinctive foliage surrounding it, the ancient ruins.

“Dad …”

“Quiet, son. I’m reliving the past.” And below that, just the touch of a thought, Luke beseeching him to wait, to know trust.

Vestara nudged Ben with her elbow. He looked away from his father, followed her gaze.

Valin, no longer glassy-eyed, had his comlink up to his ear and was speaking urgently. In the distance, Ben could hear faint echoes of durasteel clangs … and then blasterfire.

Valin lowered his comlink and grabbed his lightsaber from his belt. “You brought Jedi to attack us.”

Ben shook his head. “You, your sister, Dad, and I are the only Jedi on Nam Chorios. I think we’re under attack by the Sith.” The absolute truth, artfully presented to achieve disinformation. His uncle Han would have been proud.

“Liar.” Valin ignited his lightsaber. Its blade, a cool green, sprang to life.

Ben slipped his datapad back in its pouch. He skidded sideways to his right, onto the pathway Callista had walked between prone Listeners, getting a few meters clear of Luke. He brought up his own lightsaber and activated it. “Don’t be an idiot, Valin.”

Vestara went the other way, crossing past Luke and Callista, stepping over bodies, moving up on Valin’s other side, and activated her own blade. She said nothing.

Valin sighed. “I hope Master Skywalker will forgive me … if I have to kill his son.” And he lunged at Ben.

Ben caught the blow. It was a simple strike, fast but not too powerful, not followed by others in a combination. In short, it was a probe. He saw Vestara dart in from behind Valin. Standard tactics would call for Ben to shove Valin back, throw him off-balance, but Ben suspected that this was exactly what Valin wanted, that Valin would use the redirection and momentum to launch an attack against Vestara. Instead Ben gave ground, drawing Valin onward.

Valin spun anyway, a graceful reversal, and caught Vestara’s slash. His lightning-fast riposte nearly severed her weapon arm—she withdrew just far enough that Valin’s blade merely caught hers, angling it up.

Ben continued a step to the right, putting Valin directly between him and Vestara, and thrust. But Valin continued his spin, stepping on a Theran Listener’s chest as though it were rock-steady ground, and came around to face both opponents.

* * *

Luke could not help but keep track of the fight with some small part of his mind. That was his son at risk. He recognized Ben’s tactic, Ben and Vestara spread out in a loose screen between Luke and Valin. It could be a bad fight—two to one, yes, but Valin had more than a decade’s experience on Ben and Vestara. Ben needed to remember Valin’s lack of strength in moving objects with the Force …

Yet most of Luke’s concentration was wrapped up in Callista. Her memories flooded him, her presence suffused him. And beneath it, beneath the love for him that was all she wanted him to feel, was pain, decades of pain and loneliness experienced in her death-union with Abeloth.

And Abeloth herself. Luke could sense her at the fringes of Callista’s presence. No matter how she sought to conceal herself, Abeloth was too strong, too alien to hide successfully.

There were buzzes and zaps from the fight. The three were in the tentative stages of testing one another with feints and defensive flurries. Luke forced himself to ignore that conflict. He had to have all his awareness, all his resources available to him.

Luke could see a kaleidoscope of images, all drawn from Callista’s past, much of it with him, some of it from more ancient times. He marveled at her strength, the power it had required her to survive the loss of her original body, the strength it took her to remain partly Callista in the