Aboard the Rude Awakening, in the Maw [three days after leaving Coruscant]

[momslilassassin]

It had been three days since the frigate Redstar had dropped Luke, Jaina and the Fandom folks at the entrance to the Maw, and that meant it had been three days since Luke had first been handed the crumpled flimsi he now held in his hands. On the flimsi was the text of a short S-thread message from Corran Horn, which the Redstar’s communications officer had retrieved as soon as the frigate emerged from hyperspace outside the Maw.

SOLOS OUT SAFE WITH AMELIA.
JEDI WARV KILLED IN SITH AMBUSH LED BY VESTARA KHAI.
FALCON CRIPPLED, BUT TARGET HEALTHY FOR NOW.

The message was only three short lines, but it had done more to incapacitate Luke than any of the wounds he had suffered fighting Abeloth. He had trusted Vestara—had even been the one to persuade the other Masters she would be a valuable asset inside the Temple during the battle against the Sith. He could not have been more wrong. His mistake had cost Bazel Warv his life and—assuming he was correctly interpreting Corran’s conspicuous use of the word “target”—nearly gotten Allana killed.

Now, after three days of meditation, he continued to find himself mired in doubt, wondering what else he might be wrong about, and reluctant to trust his own judgment.

And he was running out of time. The Rude Awakening, a sleek little pinnace infiltrator manufactured for the space marines’ elite Void Jumper units, was already approaching the choke point where Sinkhole Station had once hung suspended in a binary black-hole system. Luke could see the accretion whorls of the two black holes with his naked eye, a pair of fire-rimmed disks centered in the forward viewport, and he could feel Ben ahead, on Abeloth’s hidden planet, reaching out to him in the Force, urging him to hurry.

And still Luke didn’t know what to do, whether he was following the will of the Force by following Ben—or defying it.

Ender	"You're doing the right thing," Ender told him. Even his irrational anger at Luke's brief willingness to sacrifice Ben wasn't enough to keep him from trying to do something to lighten the load on Luke's mind.
Luke	Luke glanced up from his intent staring at the nearest wall and gave Ender a wry smile. "I wish I were so certain."
Ender	"Nothing's certain," Ender told him. "Though many of my religious friends tell me otherwise." He grew a little more serious. "But there are enough times when we have to forsake our humanity for the sake of what's right that we shouldn't seek them out so eagerly."
Luke	Luke's fingers tapped out a tempo on his leg. "Without a Son and a Daughter to bring balance," he said softly, "how do we recontain Abeloth?"
Ender	"If it's what the Force wants, I've come to understand it'll sort itself out, at least according to a large number of your philosophers," Ender said, though he refrained from giving Luke any kind of wry look. "As for Abeloth-- something killed the rest of her family, too, and they obviously didn't need to assume anyone's places to do so."
Luke	"They killed each other," Luke said softly. "I checked the Jedi records to confirm Yoda's story and found Obi-Wan's briefing. The Father wanted Anakin to take his place as the Keeper of Balance. Anakin refused, and the Son ended up murdering the Daughter with a special Force-imbued dagger, the Father tricked the Son by sacrificing himself with the same dagger—so that Anakin could kill the Son." He stared out at nothing again. "What if the Force is trying to balance out my father's mistake by using my son?"
Ender	"Then the question becomes is this dagger still around, and if it isn't-- how was it made," Ender said. He was slanting a look at Luke now. "The definition of religious faith, or so I'm told, is to place one's trust absolutely in something greater than us," he said. "From that perspective, it shouldn't matter what the Force is 'trying' to do, and what we're planning to do, even less. As long as you go in with a clear heart and pure intentions-- it'll guide you towards whatever needs to be done."
Luke	"'There is no emotion, there is peace,'" Luke agreed, nodding. "But I'm filled with emotion. I'm terrified for Ben and it's clouding my judgement." He figured if there was anyone else on the ship that would understand the bone-deep terror that he was feeling right now, it was Ender. "He's been reaching out to me in the Force," he added softly, "calling for help. He's never done that to me in his life."
Ender	Ben, who never asked for help about anything. Ender sucked in a sharp breath. "You're surrounded by strong Force-users who are not as intimately involved," he said quietly. "Maybe it's time to rely on their sense of the Force, too."
Luke	"The Masters have all had the same dream," Luke said. "One of Ben and Vestara facing off against each other in a temple like the one in Petra's demonstration. I'm afraid of what the unbiased advice might tell me to do."
Ender	Ender sighed. "Well," he said, "There are worse reasons to doubt your faith than for the sake of your son."
Luke	"Maybe," Luke said, folding his fingers together. "The Force doesn't exactly send comm messages. Maybe Ben and Vestara aren't meant to be taken literally..."
Ender	"There's probably truth in it somewhere," Ender said. "But god knows where, what and how. I believe the prophecy about your father wasn't as straightforward as it seemed, either."
Luke	"Maybe," Luke said finally, "but I'd give a lot to know what he was thinking when he said no. It might have saved us a lot of trouble down the line if he'd agreed." Of course, then Luke and Leia wouldn't have been born, and neither would Ben, but Luke was tired of taking the long view right now. He was just exhausted.
Ender	"Or it might not have," Ender said. "It might have postponed the problem for another few hundred years. Or maybe he'd have made a terrible guardian of balance. There are too many variables and too few knowns to decided. The same goes for this situation. The best we can do is whatever it is we can live with, and trust in fate, or the Force, or whatever we answer to."
Luke	"Go in, get Ben and Vestara out and hope that we're coordinated enough with Coruscant that when I try to get Abeloth this time, they've gotten her out of the computer system," Luke said with a heavy sigh. "She's survived a hundred thousand years. It's insane to think this is going to work, isn't it."
Ender	"Show me something significant in history that wasn't done by mad men," Ender said, and finally did offer him a wry smile, "Outside of peacetime, anyway. But you haven't had much of that in a while, so I think we're solid." Luke wasn't Ben - Ender suspected he didn't need physical reassurance all that much. That didn't mean he wasn't going to try and make a calculated move, reaching out to put a comforting hand on Luke's shoulder.
Luke	Luke looked surprised, then a little touched, by the gesture. "How are you doing?" he asked.
Ender	"I'm worried," Ender said, electing to understate that as severely as he could without flat-out lying. "But that's not terribly important right now." He wasn't sleeping well in the slightest, his worry too great to allow his mind some rest. But: that wasn't important. He couldn't afford to give into it right now.
Luke	Luke gave him a sympathetic look. "When will it become important?"
Ender	"It won't," Ender said. His facial expression had shifted into the not-quite-bland stoicism of yesteryear. "Though I'm sure we'll revisit whatever effects this has had on my psyche sometime in the future, when we've got Ben back and Abeloth has been dealt with."
Luke	And Luke realized with a pang that the expression Ender was wearing was one Ben used much of the time--the Force equivalent of a stop sign. "You can talk to me now," Luke offered, extending openness through the Force. He smiled slightly. "I'm trying to learn from my previous mistakes."
Ender	"I know," Ender said. His mouth tugged into a brief smile that went nowhere near his eyes. "It suits you well."
Luke	Luke was concentrating on Ender's eyes. "I try to listen to good advice," he said, "so if you have any for this situation...I'm all ears."
Ender	"The main thing I can tell you is partly what you're already doing," Ender said. "Don't let Abeloth decide how you'll play the game. And remember what she cares about most."
Luke	Luke nodded. "And that's not Ben."
Ender	"It's this abstract of family, of being loved and appreciated," Ender said, with a nod. "You and I both know what that feels like, too."
Luke	Luke nodded. "But my sympathy for how she chose to go about getting what she wants disappeared a while ago."
Ender	"It's not about sympathy. It's about understanding," Ender said. He took a breath. "You can't defeat a being like Abeloth without understanding why she does the things she does, and you can't do that unless you recognize the roots of the same desires in your own heart."
Luke	Luke leaned forward, totally focused on Ender. He'd spent the better part of a year chasing Abeloth fruitlessly from planet to planet--understanding what she was looking for had eluded him. "So she wants to recreate the family she poisoned through her previous actions," he said, thinking aloud, "and then recreate the galaxy in her own image." Which would, presumably, include a lot of volcanoes and being afraid.
Ender	"At heart, they're not inhuman wishes," Ender said. "But she has no sense of scale - and honestly, I get the impression she's grasping at straws. I doubt she knows any better than we do whether Ben and Vestara are fit to be any kind of avatars at all."
Luke	"I'm less sure about Vestara," Luke said, "but I'm starting to think she's had her eyes on Ben since he was two years old." And that made Luke really angry, but he couldn't focus on that right now.
Ender	"Shelter," Ender murmured. He sighed.
Luke	Luke nodded. "If we'd had any idea--but we didn't, and second-guessing that is pointless."
Ender	"And it doesn't confirm that Abeloth knows anything about Ben that we don't-- Ben's from a strong Force lineage, and he was located conveniently close at time time," Ender said. He shook his head. "Call me agnostic, but I don't think a malevolent, lonely being's judgment calls should be our most reliable source either way."
Luke	"So you didn't buy the Masters' theory that Ben is intended for a special destiny," Luke replied.
Ender	"I believe Ben is capable of great things," Ender said, "And that if those things occur within the context of the Jedi Order, the Masters will be more than happy to call 'see, we were right'. But that's not the same thing."
Luke	Luke didn't look like he exactly knew how to process that. "Okay."
Ender	Ender watched his expression. "I know you Jedi have your lineages, and your prophecies, which are often true," he said. "I was 'chosen' to save the world, too, and succeeded at what was asked of me... but I was chosen because of what was, in essence, a feat of deliberate eugenics."
Luke	Luke blinked to hear that. "Deliberate?" he repeated.
Ender	"I'm given to understand the International Fleet had been monitoring my parents for quite a while," Ender said. "They'd tapped my older brother as a promising entry into their program well before he was born. Sadly, he didn't quite correspond to the profile they wanted, so they requested my sister. When she also didn't turn out to match up, they waived planetary population restrictions in order to get me."
Luke	Luke leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees, listening intently. "So these are people who would have really appreciated the clone troopers?"
Ender	"Not at all," Ender said, his expression going a little distant. "They didn't want to make obedient soldiers. They felt that what humanity needed was commanders, heroes-- chosen ones. So they went out and bred them. Taught them. Broke them in all the right places."
Luke	Hearing that made Luke reach out instinctively toward Ben as he wondered what Abeloth might be doing to his only child. It also gave him insight into what had brought Ben and Ender together. "Then they put you back together in a way that better suited them?" he asked quietly.
Ender	"In a way that better suited what they hoped would be a solution to our problem," Ender said lightly. "Potential isn't as rare as it seems, that's the thing. It's just that it's not always recognized, nurtured or encouraged. Or shaped."
Luke	"I'd rather Ben not be shaped by Abeloth," Luke replied.
Ender	"He won't be shaped by Abeloth," Ender said. "Or by you." He shot Luke a glance. "Or by me, if that's what you're thinking."
Luke	"Oh, he's already been shaped by you," Luke said. "He's much more analytical now."
Ender	"I've encouraged him to make his own choices," Ender said quietly. "That's different."
Luke	"He's changed by knowing you," Luke said. "It's not a bad thing, Ender. You've changed by knowing him. We don't always have to be shattered and rebuilt from scratch."
Ender	"I know, Luke," Ender said, sounding mildly exasperated. "But there's a difference between shaping someone for a purpose and shaping someone because you happen to fit into their lives, because nature or compatibility or fate or the Force wills it so."
Luke	"You don't think there can be overlap?" Luke asked.
Ender	"I think there's overlap to everything," Ender said, "And I also think that isn't really relevant to the matter of Ben deciding what he does with his own potential."
Luke	Luke focused on the ground again. "Of course, this whole discussion is moot if we don't get to Ben in time. I don't think Abeloth is ruled by the idea of sapient beings making their own choices."
Ender	"No," Ender agreed. He looked at Luke. "But right now I'd prefer to believe we'll pull his ass out of the fire." He wasn't sure what he'd do if they didn't.
Luke	Luke nodded. "No use wasting emotional resources worrying, right?" He'd been telling himself that a lot.

Tara	Tara wandered over, frowning a little. It didn't seem like anything was getting better, and she wasn't sure she saw a way out. "Are you okay?" she asked, then grimaced. "I mean, not okay, okay, but ... as okay as somebody can be."
Luke	Luke glanced up from his intensive study of the wall opposite him and gave her a tiny smile. "Tara, right? I'm fine, but thank you for checking."
Tara	"Tara," she nodded. "And, uh ... I hope it's okay to call you Luke?" Master Skywalker was Anakin. "And it's no problem," she added. "I'm just ... sort of looking for something to do. F-figured finally talking to you counted."
Luke	"Luke is fine. Is this your first time in space like this?" he asked. "Generally we don't take people into the region filled with black holes, but we're making an exception this time."
Tara	Tara shrugged. "I went to Naboo with Ben and Ender last month?" she offered. "But that was ... way less black hole-y. Maybe I should be, uh, excited I'm seeing the secret tour."
Luke	"Jaina's an excellent pilot, and Ender's been this way before too, so we should be fine," Luke said, trying to be reassuring. "Then it's just a matter of finding Abeloth and getting Ben back."
Tara	"So ... the hard part is basically over," Tara said. The sarcasm was so veiled it might be entirely missed.
Luke	Luke snorted lightly. "Oh yes. Abeloth has shown herself to be a completely reasonable--" he shook his head. "I can't finish that."
Tara	"If you ignore the part where she's kidnapping people and sending tentacles down their throats, she ... kind of makes sense?" Tara suggested. "She wants a family. She just doesn't get that -- other people need their families too."
Luke	Luke nodded. "She's taken the idea that you make your own family to new and unhealthy extremes."
Tara	"And I ... don't really want to think about what else she'll do to get what she wants," Tara added grimly.
Luke	"Learning that she can be in multiple places at the same time was not really the highlight of my day at the Senate," Luke admitted. "You said something about protection...spells?...against possession?"
Tara	Tara looked a bit surprised by the change of subject, but nodded. "Yeah. I mean ... nothing I could do would be one hundred percent? But I could m-make it harder. Probably. Assuming magic and the Force ... like each other."
Luke	Luke looked thoughtful. "I think Abeloth is going to need to be fought on more than just a physical way: she attacks people through their minds. The last time Ben and I were in the Maw here, we went on something like a vision quest and learned about her existence." He smiled a little wryly. "That probably sounds a bit insane."
Tara	"No, no, vision quests are a thing," Tara said earnestly. "I helped, um, a friend of mine with one once. She needed somebody to kind of ... tie her to this world while her spirit was off fighting. It's ... not that crazy."
Luke	"You can do that?" Luke looked intrigued.
Tara	"I can," Tara nodded. "It takes a lot out of you, but if it's someone with some mental powers of their own" -- like, say, the Force -- "it's ...a little easier. Many hands make light work and all, right?"
Luke	Luke frowned to himself, weighing the options of using one of Ben's friends this way. "Would you mind trying it with me?" he asked. "I think I could use any advantage we can come up with against Abeloth."
Tara	"I can try, sure," Tara said, after a brief hesitation in which she wondered how hard Ben would kill her if she got his dad dead in the astral plane. "Do you think she can hurt people for real in that dimension?"
Luke	"Yes," Luke said softly, "but it means I can hurt her too."
Tara	Tara's chin wobbled for a second. "Then you just have to hurt her more." Her voice was soft, but she meant it.
Luke	Luke nodded. "The students at Fandom really are quite extraordinary," he said quietly. "Thank you for helping."
Tara	"It feels better to help than not to be able to," Tara said. "And you're welcome." And now she was going to hope she would be able to help.

Ender	Ender was anxious, but he wasn't showing it. It was a technique he'd picked up at Battle School, where showing your emotions could end very, very badly. His face was a mask of calm determination instead; in fact, the consequence of calling back to that time meant even his body was exuding calm right now.
Tony	"You okay?" Oh god, Tony. No. This was like the blind leading the slightly less blind, but still more emotionally traumatized blind.
Ender	"I'll be better once we find Ben," Ender said. Quelle surprise, he sounded excessively calm.
Tara	"Did you guys figure anything out about that?" Tara wondered quietly, after she'd hovered on the edge of the conversation for long enough to be pretty sure she wasn't interrupting. "The hardest part is always when there's not much to do. The waiting."
Ender	"We have some ideas, but it all comes down to Ship," Ender replied. He didn't dignify the last part of her statement with a reply - but only because of how true it was.
Luke	All conversations were suddenly drowned out by the screeching of proximity alarms and target-lock alerts. Jaina started to put the Rude Awakening into an evasive spiral, then glanced at the gravity readings and realized that they were already too deep into the choke point to risk maneuvering. She simply activated the automatic laser cannons and brought up the shields, then watched wide-eyed as lines of color began to fly back and forth between the little pinnace and a dust-sized propulsion halo hanging dead center between the two black holes, blocking their only approach to Abeloth’s hidden world. “Ship?” Luke asked. It really couldn't be anything else.

[OOC: Preplayed with the fantabulous life_inshadow, endsthegame and hoorayimrich.]