Star Wars_ Rebel Force 2_ Hostage - Alex Wheeler [18]
Obi-Wan was gone. Ferus was alone.
He realized there was a glass of water in his hand. Lost in his daze, he hadn't even noticed the watchful stranger cross the room: Now the man knelt before him, peering intently into his eyes. "You went rather pale again—perhaps it would help to drink something."
Ferus shrank away from the man's touch. There was something in him—not wrong, but missing.
"And you are?" Ferus asked, his voice creaking like he hadn't used it in years.
"Tobin Elad," the man said, offering a hand to shake. Ferus forced himself to accept.
The Force flowed through every being in the galaxy. Good or evil, they all pulsed with different shades of the same energy. But there were a few beings in the galaxy who, for reasons even the Jedi didn't understand, lived beyond the energy flow. They couldn't be categorized into light or dark—they were simply null points, empty, as if they didn't exist.
This man existed, but the Force flowed around him, not through him. Nothing could penetrate the hollow at his center.
Ferus released the man's hand with poorly disguised relief. Touching him had been like grasping a puff of cold air.
"You're ill," Leia said, torn between annoyance and concern. "Is there someone we can call for you?"
Not anymore, he thought sourly, shaking his head.
But that wasn't true, was it? He wasn't alone in the galaxy, not with Luke and Leia standing before him. He need only speak the truth of their united past, reveal himself as a Jedi…It would be a shock for Leia, but perhaps it was time. Wasn't it wrong of him to deny her the truth, that most powerful weapon?
No.
The voice came from inside his head and outside at the same time.
Have patience.
Obi-Wan's voice.
Was his grief so deep that he'd conjured an imaginary Obi-Wan, complete with Obi-Wan's maddening caution? Was it a manifestation of the Force?
Or was it Obi-Wan himself, dead and yet somehow still alive?
The time will come to speak the truth, the voice said. But not yet. Trust me.
For whatever reason, Ferus did.
Why doesn't he tell them? X-7 thought. He could tell from the look in Fess's eye, the tension in his spine, the careful way he avoided touching X-7 when they brushed past each other—Fess knew something was up.
But he said nothing.
Interesting, X-7 thought. But how did he know?
This was the troublesome part. X-7's disguise was perfect. Certainly it should have taken more than a glance and a handshake for the stranger to see through him. As time passed, the struggle to maintain his disguise was proving to be more and more exhausting.
Had he finally slipped?
Perhaps it was simpler than that: After all, one fraud can almost always recognize another.
And if X-7 was sure of anything, it was this: Fess Ilee was a fraud.
Fooling most people was easy—you just manipulated their emotions, showed them what they wanted to see. But X-7 had no emotions, and X-7 wanted nothing. Not in the normal sense, at least.
Which meant he couldn't be fooled in the normal sense.
Apparently this Fess, whoever he was—whatever he was—couldn't be fooled, either.
If you're smart, you'll stay out of my way, X-7 thought. If not, I'll find out who you really are.
And then I'll know how to destroy you.
CHAPTER TEN
He watches her climb out the window and leap nimbly to the ground. She sprints into the shadows.
He follows.
Ferus knows he could alert Bail Organa to his daughter's departure—but that is not his job. He is only to observe and, when necessary, protect.
He has observed a smart, headstrong girl. Too stubborn and too careless, with a fierce sense of justice. He has seen her pick a fight with a boy twice her size, avenging the ill treatment of a wounded thranta. He has watched her do battle with her father over etiquette and homework and when she will be permitted to accompany him to Coruscant—but none of the arguments have changed the fact that she adores him, studies every move Bail Organa makes, wants to be just like him when she grows up.
It is Ferus's job to make sure she has the chance.