Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 04_ Exile - Aaron Allston [140]
“You did well, Ben.”
“I found it on Ziost, in case you want to know. And that’s where I got the ship, too. Someone tried to kill me, and I grabbed the first thing I could to escape.”
The attempt on Ben’s life didn’t hit Jacen as hard as the mention of Ziost—the Sith homeworld. Jacen hadn’t bargained on that. Ben wasn’t ready to hear the truth about the Sith or that he was apprenticed—informally or not—to the man destined to be the Master of the order. Jacen felt no reaction from Lumiya whatsoever, but she had to be hearing this. She was still lurking.
“It was a dangerous mission, but I knew you could handle it.” Lumiya, you arranged this. What’s your game? “Who tried to kill you?”
“A Bothan set me up.” Ben said. “Dyur. He paid a courier to take the Amulet to Ziost, framed him as the thief, and the guy ended up dead. I got even with the Bothan, though—I blew up the ship that was targeting me. I hope it was Dyur’s.”
“How?”
Ben gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “It’s armed. It seems to have whatever weapons you want.”
“Well done.” Jacen got the feeling that Ben was suspicious of the whole galaxy right then. His blue eyes had a gray cast, as if someone had switched off the enthusiastic light in him. That was what made him look older; a brush with a hostile world, another step away from his previous protected existence—and an essential part of his training. “Ben, treat this as top secret. The ship is now classified, like your mission. Not a word to anyone.”
“Like I was going to write to Mom and Dad about it…what I did on my vacation, by Ben Skywalker, aged fourteen and two weeks.” Ouch. Ben was no longer gung-ho and blindly eager to please…but that was a good thing in a Sith apprentice. Jacen changed tack; birthdays had a way of making you take stock if you spent them somewhere unpleasant. “How did you fly this? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Ben shrugged and folded his arms tight across his chest, his back to the vessel, but he kept looking around as if to check it was still there. “You think what you want it to do, and it does it. You can even talk to it. But it hasn’t got any proper controls.” He glanced over his shoulder again. “It talks to you through your thoughts. And it doesn’t have a high opinion of me.”
A Sith ship. Ben had flown a Sith ship back from Ziost. Jacen resisted the temptation to go inside and examine it. “You need to get back home. I told your parents I didn’t know where you were, and hinted they might have made you run off by being overprotective.”
Ben looked a little sullen. “Thanks.”
“It’s true, though. You know it is.” Jacen realized he hadn’t said what really mattered. “You did exceptionally well, Ben. I’m proud of you.”
He sensed a faint glow of satisfaction in Ben that died down as soon as it began. “I’ll file a full report if you want.”
“As soon as you can.” Jacen steered him toward the hangar exit. “Probably better that you don’t arrive home in this ship. We’ll shuttle you to the nearest safe planet and you can get a more conventional ride on a passenger flight.”
“I need some credits for the fare. I’m fed up stealing to get by.”
“Of course.” Ben had done the job, and proved he could survive on his wits. Jacen realized the art of building a man was to push him hard enough to toughen him without alienating him. It was a line he explored carefully. He fished in his pocket for a mix of denominations in untraceable credit tokens. “Here you go. Now get something to eat, too.”
With one last look at the sphere ship, Ben gave Jacen a casual salute before striding off in the direction of the stores turbolift. Jacen waited. The ship watched him: he felt it, not alive, but aware. Eventually he heard soft footsteps on the deck behind him and the ship somehow seemed to ignore him and look elsewhere.
“A Sith meditation sphere,” said Lumiya.
“An attack craft. A fighter.