SENTINEL - Chapter 39

The current subsided, depositing him in a collecting pool—lower down, but still many meters above the nearby rooftops.

He struggled to the shallow end, unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, and lit it. Blue light flashing in the night, Jelph staggered about in the waist-deep water, looking for his assailant.

"Liar!"

The call had originated up the flume. There Jelph saw the silhouette of a woman launching toward him, brandishing a crimson lightsaber.

With both hands on his weapon, he deflected the powerful blow, allowing the force of the woman's attack to carry her into the reservoir with him. She regained her footing quickly and struck again.

"Liar!" Ori repeated, her normally brown eyes blazing with orange.

"You found it," Jelph said, bringing his lightsaber against hers in a crackling deadlock. It was all he could think to say.

Ori snarled something inaudible and kicked through the water at him. Jelph sidestepped the move, causing them both to lose footing—and causing Ori to lose her lightsaber to the deeper portion of the basin.

Seeing her splashing about, looking for the weapon, Jelph stepped back to give her room. "You found it," he said, deactivating his lightsaber. "You found it—and you destroyed the garden. I don't blame you."

"I blame you!" Standing again, she jammed her hand in the water, fruitlessly. "You're a liar. You're a Jedi!"

"I was," he said. There was no point in denying it.

"That was my spaceship you found. Thank the Force you didn't try to get inside—"

"What? You don't think I'm smart enough?" Dripping, she glared back at him.

"I'm just some stupid groundling to you—no better than the Keshiri!"

"That's not it!"

"We came from space, you know. And we'll be going back! Is that what you're afraid of?"

"Yes—among other things." Suddenly remembering where he was, Jelph looked nervously above. The reservoir was too high for them to be heard from beneath, but he'd seen aerial sentries earlier. At least he'd found her. "What… what are you doing here?"

Ori stomped around in the water, still unable to find her lightsaber. "I came to Tahv to tell them about you! To warn them!"

"Up here?" He'd expected her to head off to see someone of importance. He studied her as she shook the water from her hair.

"Wait. You did see someone important. Your mother."

The Sith woman simply glowered.

"I thought your mother wasn't in power anymore—"

"That'll change!" Ori's face filled with rage. "With what we know now, she'll be back! I'll be back!"

Jelph stepped backward, as if shoved by the force of her words. "This isn't like you," he said. "The person who stayed with me those days didn't care about that anymore. That person—"

"That wasn't me," Ori spat. "That was defeat!"

"But I liked the other you—and I don't care what you call it. That was a part of you."

"That person wasn't Sith!" She pointed to the stars, peeking out from the clouds high above.

"Those belong to us! It's not just about me. We've lived here a thousand years, waiting to get back there. Waiting to get back to what's ours!"

Jelph began to say something, but stopped. "That's right," he whispered, calculating. The Tribe was a remnant from the Great Hyperspace War, more than a millennium before. She didn't know what had followed.

He had a weapon. History.

"There are no more Sith," Jelph said.

"What?"

"There are no more Sith," he repeated. "They're extinct."

"You're lying," Ori said, wading toward the edge. "That vessel you were hiding was a warship! Those big… prongs on either side of it. Are you telling me those are for decoration?"

Jelph shook his head. "Yes, we have enemies. And we've even fought Sith in living memory. A Jedi, Exar Kun, fell to the dark side and revived the movement. But they were eradicated. Hunted down—all of them." Carefully, he edged his way toward her.

"As far as I know, your people are the only Sith left alive in the galaxy. Feel my thoughts. You'll know I'm telling the truth."

Breathing hard, Ori looked back at him. Her anger spent, she hoisted herself onto the edge of the basin and pulled off her boot. Water poured from it. "We'll rise," she said, calmer now. "Alone against one Jedi, or a billion. We'll take our chances."

"You'll be crushed by the Jedi."

"Does anyone even know we exist?" she asked. "If the Sith haven't been looking for us, I doubt the Jedi have."

"They're looking for me," he said. "And believe me, the Jedi are looking for you." He didn't know what had become of all the members of the Covenant since he'd fled—but he knew as long as Lucien Draay lived, someone would be watching for the Sith.

Ori rubbed her forehead, exasperated. "If I can't save my family—and I can't save my people—then what am I supposed to do?"

"Supposed to do?" Jelph laughed. "You're the one that always says you set your own course." He waded toward her perch on the edge. "Just decide what you want."

For a long moment, Ori looked at him, standing in the starlit water before her. Finally, she closed her eyes and shook her head. "We'll never be able to trust each other," she said.

Jelph looked at her searchingly.

She opened her eyes and glared at him. "I can feel it in your thoughts. You think I'm beautiful. You think you want me. You want to trust me. But you're looking behind every word I say, trying to find me out, trying to trap me. Because of who I am."

Jelph looked down at the water. He hadn't known why he had come all this way when so much was at risk. Not until now. "I think I know who you are, Ori." He stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. She shrank at his touch.

"Jelph," she said, grabbing at his hand but not pushing it away.

"I can't be the person I was back at the farm. If the only way to be with you is to be weak, I just can't do it."

"You can be strong," he said, reaching for her and pulling her off the ledge, down into the water before him. Her feet touching the bottom, she looked up at him. "You are strong," he said. "You just don't have to rule the galaxy."

She looked away from him, down at the pool. "It's what we're born to do, you know. To rule the galaxy."

"Then the Tribe is built on a trick," he said. "A deception. Everyone is fighting over something that only one person can have. Just one. Which means that to be a Sith—is to be an almost certain failure. Almost everyone who follows your Code is doomed to fail, even before he starts." Jelph chortled.

"What kind of philosophy is that?" Nudging her chin upward with his hand, he looked into her eyes, brown again. "Don't be tricked. You can't lose if you don't play."

He kissed her, uncaring what any Sith aerial sentry saw. Ori returned the embrace before pulling back. "Wait," she said. "We're already playing. It's in motion. I can't stop it."

"What do you mean?"

Dark brow furrowed, Ori explained what her mother had suggested she do. "I've already sent word to the rival High Lords," she said. "They're going to meet me at your farm to see the spaceship."

Shocked back to reality, Jelph released her. "What … what did you say to them?" Stunned, he climbed out of the reservoir.

Ori followed, appealing to him. Her mother had given her a phrase to use—code within the tiny High Lord community for a discovery of Kesh-shaking importance. "I didn't tell them about the spaceship, but they know it's important," she said. "They're supposed to meet me there tomorrow at sunset."

"Sunset!" Jelph sagged. It had taken him a full day and night just to get here on foot. "How were you going to get there?"

"I was going to steal an uvak," Ori said, standing atop the ledge and pointing up to a dark figure in the sky. "It's why I came up here—I knew from the aqueduct, I could lure one of the aerial sentries down here." She looked back at him petulantly. "Of course, that was when I still had a lightsaber."

"Lucky thing you made a friend," he said, standing on the ledge beside her and looking up at the hovering sentry. He smiled. "You know, Ori, you're the first Sith I've ever fought."

"You may need to try harder against this one," she said, watching his lightsaber come to life. "We're not all so easily charmed."