Chapter 10: Shadows In The Hall
I wasn't sneaking out.
Let's just get that clear. Sneakingimplies guilt. And while I may have been out past curfew, bare feet slapping against the Temple's polished floors, that was purely for honorable purposes. Very noble. Very Jedi.
…Okay, fine. Snacks.
But in my defense, I hadn't eaten since dinner, and Jedi rations were smaller than a Mandalorian's sense of humor. I needed something to keep me alive through my late-night tinkering—because those holo-decipherers and saber hilt adjustments weren't going to invent themselves. And if I just happened to know that the refectory kitchen droids left the pantry unlocked during rest cycles—well, that was hardly my fault.
So yes, not sneaking. Merely walking briskly. Stealthily. With purpose.
That's when I heard it.
At first, I thought it was just the hum of a scrubber droid. The hall outside the Council's wing was usually quiet, except for the occasional sweeping machine singing to itself about dust. But then I caught actual words. Low voices. Serious voices.
I froze.
It was coming from one of the side antechambers, door half-closed. And it wasn't just any voices.
Mace Windu. Ki-Adi-Mundi. And—oh stars—Yoda. And those were just the ones I recognized!
I should've kept walking. I knew that. Curiosity is the path to trouble, and trouble is the path to getting caught and having to scrub refresher units with your toothbrush. But then I heard something that rooted me to the spot.
My name.
Not clearly. Just a faint syllable, swallowed by the hum of the air vents. But I'd recognize it anywhere.
"Ben…"
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
I inched closer, pressing myself against the wall like some kind of professional spy instead of a hungry eleven-year-old with crumb dust on his tunic. My ear hovered just near the doorframe, and I caught more fragments.
"…Mandalore…"
"…attachments risk…"
"…divided loyalties…"
I swear my heart stopped.
They knew.
They knew everything. Satine. Korkie. The letters. My totally subtle habit of staring too long at the holo-news whenever Mandalore came up. I imagined Master Windu turning toward the others, gravely intoning: This child is dangerous. He must be dealt with.
Dealt with how, you ask? Oh, I had plenty of ideas.
Mind-wipe. That was top of the list. They did it to Revan, didn't they? Wiped the Dark Lord of the Sith like a malfunctioning datapad. Who's to say they wouldn't do it to me? And sure, I wasn't exactly an evil Sith bent on galactic domination—but maybe they were being proactive this time. Preventative memory scrubbing.
Or worse, exile.
I pictured a solemn Council chamber, Masters lined in a circle. Yoda raising his little three-fingered hand, voice grave. Out, young Kryze must go. Cast into the Outer Rim, he shall be.
Then Windu, looming over me. This Council does not grant you the rank of Padawan. In fact, this Council doesn't grant you anything. We're confiscating your toothbrush.
Even Ki-Adi-Mundi, with his very large head, chiming in: There can only be seven wives on Cerea, but zero Mandolorians in the Temple.
I think I blacked out for a second.
When I came to, the voices were fading. Chairs scraping. Footsteps moving deeper into the chamber. I stumbled backward, nearly tripping over my own robe hem. My snack raid had officially transformed into a survival mission.
I sprinted back toward the dorms, all stealth forgotten. My imagination was already ten steps ahead: packing my things, sneaking onto a freighter, living on the run. Ben the Outcast. The Prodigal Prodigy. It had a certain ring to it. Better than Exile at any rate.
By the time I skidded into our quarters, Ahsoka was sitting up in bed, montrals drooping, eyes half-lidded with sleep.
"You're loud," she muttered. "Did you fall in the hallway again?"
"No time," I hissed, diving onto my bunk. "The Council's onto me."
That woke her up.
"Onto you?" she whispered. "What did you do?"
"Nothing! That's the problem. They're inventing crimes to kick me out. I overheard them—Windu, Ki-Adi, Yoda. They said Mandalore. They said attachments. They said divided loyalties!"
Ahsoka blinked, clearly debating whether to be concerned or just amused.
"Maybe they weren't talking about you."
"They said my name!"
"Or someone else named Ben."
"How many Bens do you know in this Temple? Exactly one. Me. Case closed."
She rubbed her face. "Okay. So you think the Council held a super-secret late-night meeting just to talk about you."
"Obviously. What else would they do with their time? Play dejarik? No. They sit around plotting how to exile small children from the galaxy."
Ahsoka groaned and flopped back against her pillow. "You're panicking."
"I'm not panicking. I'm… preparing. For exile. Or a memory wipe. Maybe both."
"You are panicking."
"You stop panicking!"
"I'm not panicking!"
"Well, then stop not-panicking so loudly!"
We stared at each other across the dark room. My heart was still hammering, my brain racing with worst-case scenarios. Then Ahsoka rolled over and muttered into her pillow, "If they were going to throw you out, they'd have done it already."
That… was almost reassuring. Almost.
Still, I lay awake long after she drifted off, staring at the ceiling. Mandalore. Attachments. Loyalties. They were watching me. I just knew it.
And if the Council thought they could out-paranoia me, they had another thing coming.
...
The hum of the cruiser's engines was steady, almost soothing. Almost.
Obi-Wan Kenobi sat stiff-backed in the co-pilot's seat, hands folded neatly in his lap, eyes fixed on the streaks of starlight that blurred past their viewport. It wasn't that he disliked space travel. Not exactly. He disliked piloting through space travel—an endless sea of nothing with only fragile shields and inertia between one's body and a fiery, instantaneous death.
Which was precisely why he was letting his Padawan fly.
"Ease the stabilizers, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, without turning his head. "You're drifting one-point-three degrees off course."
"I know," Anakin muttered, his hands dancing over the controls with the casual confidence of someone who didn't fully grasp the value of his own life. "I'm adjusting for the pull of that gas giant's gravity. See? Smooth as silk."
The ship shuddered just enough to make Obi-Wan's stomach tighten. Smooth as silk, indeed.
"I still maintain," Obi-Wan said mildly, "that starships were not intended to be handled like podracers."
Anakin flashed him a grin, quick and boyish. "And yet you keep letting me do it."
Obi-Wan cleared his throat, carefully not answering. He had let him do it—because Anakin was a prodigy, because his skill at the helm was undeniable, and because, deep down, Obi-Wan would much rather have Anakin at the controls than himself. But it wouldn't do to admit that. Not out loud.
Instead, he checked the navicomputer for the fourth time. "We should be nearing the system soon. If Kamino exists, it ought to be here."
The name lingered in the air, carrying weight Obi-Wan couldn't shake. A missing planet. A file erased from the Jedi Archives. Jocasta had been polite—so polite—but he had felt the disapproval simmering under her calm words, as though his inquiry had struck at something personal. And why wouldn't it? Tampering with the Archives was tampering with the very memory of the Jedi.
He frowned faintly. Who would dare? And for what purpose?
Anakin leaned back in the pilot's chair, feet tapping against the deck in idle rhythm. "So. This Kamino. You think it's really out here?"
Obi-Wan folded his arms. "That is what we're here to find out."
"Uh-huh." Anakin pulled a face. "Translation: you don't know."
"Sometimes, Anakin, the hallmark of wisdom is admitting what one does not know."
"Yeah, well, sometimes it's also knowing when someone's hiding something. The Council's being cagey." His jaw tightened, and for a moment the boy's age fell away, replaced by the sharp edge of suspicion. "Why send us instead of a team of archivists?"
"Because," Obi-Wan said evenly, "we are Jedi. Our duty is to follow where the Force leads us."
Anakin snorted. "That's not an answer."
It wasn't. Obi-Wan knew that. The truth was that he didn't understand it any better than Anakin did. Why them? Why now? And why did the thought of a missing world leave a cold thread of unease running down his spine?
He adjusted his robe, smoothing it across his lap. "Patience, Anakin. Answers will come."
"Sure. After we've already found the trouble."
Obi-Wan allowed himself a small smile. "That does seem to be the pattern, doesn't it?"
...
The ship's beacons pinged as they entered the coordinates. A cluster of stars lit up on the screen, surrounding a narrow band of darkness.
"Here we are," Anakin said, leaning forward. His eyes shone with anticipation. "Let's see if your mystery water world wants to show up."
Obi-Wan straightened, watching the scanner carefully. Nothing. Just the emptiness of the void. He felt his mouth tighten.
"Strange," he murmured. "According to the star charts, this system should host at least one habitable planet. Yet there's nothing on record."
"Maybe there was. Until somebody erased it," Anakin said pointedly.
Obi-Wan gave him a look. "The possibility has occurred to me."
"Then maybe we should stop pretending it's just an 'administrative error' like the Council keeps saying."
There was that edge again—the frustration, the questioning. The boy's faith in the Order was thinner than he realized. Obi-Wan felt a familiar tug in his chest: worry, responsibility, and beneath it all, the quiet weight of guilt. He had left Ben behind in the Temple, sleeping peacefully, his small face softened in the glow of the dorm lights. He hadn't had the heart to wake him. Not when words failed so often between them.
Ben deserved stability, not goodbyes Obi-Wan didn't know how to make.
And now Anakin was pressing at the edges of obedience as well. Two Padawans. One official, one not. Obi-Wan found himself stretched thin between them, torn between what he owed the Jedi, owed Qui-Gon, and what he owed to Satine's children. To his children.
"Don't slouch," Obi-Wan said suddenly, if only to break the thought.
Anakin rolled his eyes but straightened in his seat. "Yes, Master."
The scanners beeped. Both men leaned forward. A faint anomaly flickered across the display—like a shadow where no shadow should be. Or rather, an entire world, precisely where it was meant to be.
Anakin grinned. "Got you."
Obi-Wan's pulse quickened. He reached for the manual override, hands moving with steady precision despite the knot in his stomach. "Bring us in closer. Slowly."
"Slowly?" Anakin's grin widened. "You're no fun."
"I am alive," Obi-Wan said dryly, "which is generally more useful than fun."
Anakin's laughter filled the cockpit, bright and irreverent. Obi-Wan hid his relief behind a faint smile. For all his doubts, for all his gnawing unease, at least they had found something.
A missing world. A hidden secret. And a mission that might be far more dangerous than either of them realized.
Obi-Wan's hands tightened on the armrest as the ship banked toward the anomaly. "The sooner we finish this," he muttered under his breath, "the sooner I can stop flying."
"Did you say something, Master?" Anakin asked, voice projecting innocence.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes briefly. "Just… focus on not killing us, Anakin."
"Relax," Anakin said, pulling them smoothly into descent. "I've got this."
Obi-Wan let out a very quiet, very skeptical sigh.
...
Look, sometimes being a Jedi-in-training means noble acts of service. Protecting the innocent. Preserving the peace. Other times, it means a midnight infiltration run for contraband soup packets and a blanket.
That's where I came in.
"We strike fast, strike quiet," I whispered, crouched at the corner of the corridor like some kind of holovid commando. "Two shadows in the dark, undetectable. Ghosts."
"We're not ghosts," Ahsoka muttered, crouched beside me. "We're idiots sneaking past Temple curfew."
"Correction—brilliant idiots. With codenames. You're Fulcrum."
Her eyes narrowed. "Why am I Fulcrum?"
"Because it sounds mysterious. Pivotal. Like you're the hinge of fate itself." I jabbed a thumb proudly at my chest. "And I'm Starkiller."
Ahsoka blinked, then hissed, "That's not even remotely Jedi-sounding."
"Neither is Fulcrum!"
"You picked it!"
"You did it first," I whispered back indignantly. "I just… uh… coined it for you before you did. I saw it in a vision. And the For the Force trumps all, end of story."
Ahsoka's eye twitched. "That is the dumbest excuse—"
"Shh!" I pressed a finger to my lips. "Sound discipline, Fulcrum. You'll blow our cover."
Her sigh was loud enough to wake half the dorms. But when she peeked around the corner with me, she was grinning.
Target: Maris Brood, sick as a bog-rat and too stubborn to admit it.
Objective: smuggle supplies into her room without anyone catching on.
It wasn't like she'd asked for help. Maris never asked for anything. She just lurked in shadows and coughed when she thought nobody was listening. Which made it myproblem. Because apparently if you befriend the brooding loner once, you're on the hook forever.
Curse my weakness for goth girls.
"You know she could've just gone to the Halls of Healing," Ahsoka whispered as we crept along a side hall.
"She could have," I agreed. "If she wasn't stubbornly refusing to admit she's sick. Or if she wasn't already so pale, the healers wouldn't assume it's just her 'aesthetic.'"
"Her aesthetic is 'half-dead wraith.'"
"Exactly. She's blending in too well for her own good."
Ahsoka tried not to laugh. Tried. It came out as a snort.
Our first checkpoint: a supply room tucked past one of the meditation wings. Problem: locked door.
"Okay," I said, pressing a hand to the panel. "Here's how it works. I slice the door, grab the goods, and we're out before anyone notices."
Ahsoka crossed her arms. "You don't know how to slice."
"Correction—I don't know how to slice well." Holographic locks, encryptions, codes, those were my bread and butter. Physical hardware? I prefer to use my lightsaber as a key. Sadly, this is a stealth mission, and plasma holes aren't very discrete.
Her groan was almost fond. Almost.
I fiddled with the panel, poking wires until sparks nearly singed my fingertips. The door beeped irritably and stayed shut.
Ahsoka nudged me aside, keyed in three swift inputs, and the panel glowed green. The door hissed open.
I blinked. "How did you—"
"I pay attention in tech lessons. Unlike somebody."
"Fulcrum," I whispered reverently, "you complete me."
She shoved me inside before anyone could hear.
Five minutes later, our packs bulged with contraband: soup sachets, extra blankets, a spare datapad preloaded with holotoons. I might've thrown in some candy cubes for good measure. (For Maris. Definitely for Maris. Not me.)
"All right," I said, tugging my strap tight. "Exfiltration route: through the west archives. Fewer patrols."
"West archives?" Ahsoka frowned. "That's restricted."
"Technically, less restricted. If we follow someone in, it doesn't count as breaking rules."
"That's not how rules work."
"It is if you bend them really hard."
Ahsoka gave me that look—the one equal parts exasperation and reluctant amusement. But she followed anyway.
...
We shadowed our mark: an absent-minded Knight balancing datapads in his arms. Perfect cover. He keyed into the archives, the door swishing open, and we slid through just as it closed.
For two glorious seconds, it felt like victory.
Then the door hissed shut inches from my heel.
"Too close," I muttered. "Way too close. Almost lost a foot."
"You'd deserve it," Ahsoka said, wide-eyed and grinning despite herself.
The archives loomed around us: towering shelves, endless datastacks glowing faint blue. Even whispering felt dangerous here, like the books themselves might tattle.
We crept between aisles, every creak of our boots echoing like a blastershot. My heart hammered with the thrill of it—every shadow an enemy, every glow-panel a spotlight.
"This is ridiculous," Ahsoka whispered. "We're going to get caught."
"Correction—we're going to succeed heroically. Trust the plan."
"The plan is you winging it."
"Yes. Heroically."
She muttered something un-Jedi-like under her breath but kept moving.
The mission went sideways two corridors later. A door slid open ahead of us, and a tall figure stepped out, datapad in hand.
I froze. Ahsoka froze. The figure turned—
And sneezed. Loudly.
Ahsoka yanked me into a side alcove. We pressed flat against the wall as the archivist shuffled off, muttering about dust filters.
I exhaled shakily. "See? Easy."
"You almost got us killed by a sneeze."
"That was a deadly sneeze," I insisted. "Could've leveled us both."
Ahsoka smacked my arm, but she was laughing under her breath.
...
The thing about spy missions is, you can't plan for everything.
You can try. Check your boxes for exits, entrances, contacts, and doublecrossers. But there's always something you can't account for. Someone, or something, at the right place, at the right time, can cause a lot of trouble, in the most unexpected ways.
We'd just made it past the archive wing—smooth, silent, undetected—when the real enemy struck. Not a Knight, not a Master, not even a nosy Padawan with questions.
A service droid.
The squat, boxy kind that trundled along the halls humming cheerfully to itself. I think they're called Mouse Droids, basically just glorified roombas. Normally harmless. Except this one coughed sparks as it rounded the corner, jittered on a busted wheel, and smacked straight into the wall panel.
The wall groaned. Then the ceiling did too.
"Oh no," Ahsoka breathed.
"Oh yes," I corrected. Because the universe clearly hated me.
The droid fizzed, a light fixture blew, and suddenly chunks of ceiling gave way.
The crash was deafening. Duracrete and plating came down in sheets. One jagged slab hurtled right above Ahsoka.
I didn't think. I just moved.
I lunged, grabbed her arm, yanked her hard toward me. She stumbled, nearly toppling us both—but the slab missed her by a heartbeat, smashing where she'd stood.
That should've been the end of it. Except the next wave of debris was coming straight for me.
Instinct flared hot in my chest. My hands shot up—too fragile to shield, too late to run—
And the Force caught it.
The slabs froze a handspan above me, humming with invisible strain. My knees shook, teeth clenched. Every muscle screamed like I was holding up a starship, not just a ceiling panel. This is why you always do your Force stretches, people. Never skip a good warmup unless you want to be crushed to death.
Only it didn't crush me.
Didn't even touch me.
Slowly, carefully, I shoved it aside. The duracrete slab thunked onto the floor, safe and harmless.
My breath tore out of me in a laugh. A wild, victorious laugh. "Ha! Did you see that?!"
Ahsoka gawked at me, her body stiff, eyes wide as moons.
"I saved your life," I told her, voice climbing higher than I meant. "And mine! And I didn't even die! I'm amazing!" I swept a hand dramatically toward the wreckage. "Write that down in the Archives. Jedi Knight material, right here."
My pack sagged on my shoulder. I glanced down—half our contraband was intact. Blankets, soup, datapad. All good.
Except the candy cubes.
Gone. Crushed beneath a mountain of rubble.
I pressed a hand to my heart. "They were too young."
Ahsoka just stared at me, breathing hard. Finally, she managed, "Ben… you almost got flattened."
"Keyword: almost." I grinned like an idiot. "As in: not really. Because I'm awesome."
She didn't grin back. Her voice was quieter, shaky around the edges. "I'm serious. That—if you hadn't pulled me—"
I caught the look in her eyes then. Not exasperation. Not amusement. Real fear.
For me.
For a second, my giddiness faltered. I wanted to say something comforting, something heroic. Instead, I blurted, "Well, next time duck faster."
Her expression said she wanted to smack me. But she just exhaled, slow, grounding herself.
"Thanks," she whispered at last. Simple. Honest.
I nodded, trying not to bounce with leftover adrenaline. Because yeah, I was bruised, filthy, candy-less. But I'd done it. I'd saved her.
And for one shining second, I felt like a real Jedi.
...
The dorm wing was hushed, night-cycle lights dimmed to a sleepy blue glow. Most of the Padawans were out cold by now, sprawled across bunks or curled up under thin Temple blankets. She should be joining them. Resting her body, and preparing for the demanding training their crèche has been going through since they forged their lightsabers.
But Ben had one last mission to complete.
Ahsoka lingered at the doorway, arms folded, as he tiptoed into Maris's cubicle with all the ceremony of a hero delivering treasure to a queen. His pack bulged with the spoils of their ridiculous adventure—blankets, soup packets, a slim datapad loaded with holo-toons he'd insisted Maris would be too shy to ask for.
Personally, Ahsoka believed no one should ever feel embarrassed for watching holo-toons. She actually preferred them on some levels, due to the sheer effort both the animators and the actors had to take to craft their story.
Maris sat up groggily, her horns catching the faint light. Even sick, even pale, she still managed a look of suspicion sharp enough to cut durasteel. That softened the instant Ben handed her the goods.
"Thought you could use these," he said, tossing it off like it was nothing, and they hadn't risked life, limb, and detention, because Maris was too proud for the Halls of Healing. "You know, because you look like death warmed over. In a dignified way."
Her lips twitched. Somehow, she accepted it as a compliment.
Then she surprised them both. She leaned forward and hugged him.
Ben stiffened like someone had stuck a training saber up his back, then awkwardly patted her shoulders in return. His face was all embarrassed pride, like he'd just been knighted on the spot.
Over his shoulder, Maris's eyes found Ahsoka's.
Oh, she was clever about it—her expression softened the second Ben pulled back, all doe-eyed gratitude, the picture of frail innocence.
But for that heartbeat when he couldn't see, she glared.
Right at Ahsoka.
As if to say: Mine. Back off.
Ahsoka narrowed her eyes right back. Nice try, friend-stealer.
Neither of them said a word, though. That would risk Ben catching on, and neither of them were willing to jeopardize that.
Ben, blissfully unaware, scratched the back of his neck. "So, uh, don't tell anyone we broke into half the Temple for this, alright? Master Windu might add 'contraband smuggling' to the list of things I'm not supposed to do."
Maris gave a small smile. "Thank you, Ben." Her voice was soft, worn, but real.
He shrugged, grinning too wide. "Don't mention it. Literally. Don't mention it."
When she curled back beneath the blanket, datapad tucked against her chest like a prize, Ben backed out with exaggerated stealth. He shot Ahsoka a wink. "Mission success."
She rolled her eyes, but she couldn't deny the warmth in her chest.
Because beneath all the bravado, all the jokes, she could see what it meant to him. Helping someone. Making a difference, even in the smallest way. He wore his heroism like a mask of sarcasm, but it was there, bright as any lightsaber.
And maybe that was why he butted heads with the Jedi rules so much. Not because he didn't care about being a Jedi. But because he cared too much about people. He needed to prove—to himself, to everyone—that he could be both.
A good Jedi.
And a good friend.
She tugged her blanket tighter around her shoulders, watching him flop into his bunk across the room with all the grace of a wounded bantha.
He was snoring within minutes, still smiling.
Ahsoka lay awake longer, staring at the ceiling.
For all his jokes about starting his own Order with dessert rules and free hugs, maybe he wasn't entirely wrong. Maybe he was seeing something the rest of them were too scared to.
She didn't say it aloud. She didn't even want to think it too loudly.
But as she drifted toward sleep, one thought stuck with her.
If Ben really did try to change the Jedi…
She wasn't sure she wouldn't follow him.