Star Wars - Lost Tribe of the Sith 06 - Sentinel

and scanned the streets leading to the great palace. Would she have gone there, even knowing what Grand Lord Venn had done to her family? Straining to see farther, he dared to stand.
    “Ori, where
are
you?”
    Suddenly an unseen hand slammed him backward into the coursing water. The macrobinoculars tumbled from his grasp, bouncing once on the ledge and shattering unseen on a marble rooftop far below. Once he touched bottom in the meter-deep canal, Jelph kicked his work boots against the greasy stone floor and launched himself up—only to go flying back again, pushed by the Force. Unable to right himself, he tumbled down the flume.
    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 rememberingwhere 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.