Title:  The Dark Times

Author:  Jonathan Evans

Author email:  noggins@btinternet.com

Summary: Ten years before Episode IV, Obi-Wan Kenobi meets
someone that changes his perspective of the way he is to lead
his life in the future.

Disclaimer:  George Lucas owns everything and I'm not making any
money off of this nor do I intend to (I'd like to but that's not the 
point).  You can distribute this freely provided that it's
complete with this disclaimer.

THE DARK TIMES
By Jonathan Evans

Obi-Wan walked many miles through the hot sands of Tatooine before
reaching the nearest moisture farm.  The owner, an old figity man
reminded him of Owen.  Owen.  The name would have brought a tear
to his eye if not for the Jedi Code.  There is no passion, there is
serentiy.

Having obtained enough water to keep him alive until he could fix
his own barely adequaete vaporator, he began the long walk home.
The wind blew over his face.  He pulled a bandage to cover his mouth
and eyes but it was no where near enough to stop the stinging pain of
the sand that whipped his already hardened skin.

A sandstorm was building up quickly.  There was no way he would
make it back to his hut on the jundland wastes.  He could just
give up now and forget it all. He could die and all of the
troubles that had plagued him would be gone.  That, of course,
was wishful thinking.  There is no death, there is the Force.

Ben Kenobi heard a voice behind him.  It was full of youth
and ached for excitement.  It sounded so much like... him
all those years ago.  He turned to see a dark haired teenager
catching up with him in a landspeeder.

The speeder stopped next to him and the boy smiled.
"Need a lift anywhere, old timer?"
Ben shook his head.  "No thank you, my boy.  I should make it."
"Don't look like it," he replied.  "I can give you a lift to
Mos Eisley if you want.  I'm headed there now."

Ben decided to take him up on his offer.  Once this storm was 
over he could get home much quicker.  Plus he did not want to
reveal the hut to an outsider.  He knew that people considered
him an old wizard and didn't want the attacks on his tiny
homestead that had befallen many other strangers on Tatooine.

*	*	*

Upon reaching Mos Eisley, the boy went to a hardware store
for tools to repair the motivator in his speeder's engine.
Ben looked for a Cantina to spend what it seemed would be a
long night.  It wasn't a difficult thing to find in such a 
wretched hive of scum and villainy.

He walked down a stairwell into the smoke filled den.  Ben had
not seen so many different races since... before the dark times.
He walked to the bar and ordered a drink.  The change he received
from the water he purchased was barely adequate but enough to
buy something of strong alcoholic content.  And he needed it
even if his Jedi training all those years ago had forbidden it.

He sat down alone on a table for two. A sip from the cup in front
of him brought a smile to his lips, aged beyond their years.  He
looked at his reflection in the liquid and saw a man ten years
older than himself.  He was only forty five but the reflection
made him look almost elderly. He frowned sadly but, realising
that this brought his wrinkles out more, settled with a more
neutral expression.

After some time a small alien came up to him.  Ben mistook the
Chadra-Fan for a mere child and shooed it away.
"Go away," he hissed.  "Someone of your age should not be in
this place."
"Me could say same thing," the creatured replied in very
broken basic.
A quick probe with the Force revealed to ben that his companion
was in its fifties, much older than any other of its race he
had met.  It jumped onto the seat opposite Ben.
"Me Frad.  Who you?"
"Call me Ben," he replied.
"But that not you real calling."

Ben looked to the creature.  It... he was extremely wise.  Almost
as much as Yoda, the old human smiled wryly.
"No, it isn't."
"What is you real calling?"
"I'd much rather it if you called me..." Ben sighed.  What difference
would it make?  "My name is Ben.  I am a Jedi Knight."
Frad smiled a little.  "Ah, Jedi.  You kind gone almost, yes?"
"It is true.  We have been hunted down and killed.  And it is
my fault."

The Chadra-Fan put its hands on the table and folded them.
"You want forget things, right?" Ben nodded affirmatively.  Frad
continued.  "That no good. You must talk."
"About what?" Ben sighed.  "About how all this is my fault.  About
how if I had not let Qui-Gon die that things may have been so
different."
Frad nodded, talking this all in and trying to work out Ben's almost
cryptic fashion of talking.
"And who this Qui-Gon?  Important to your?"
"He was my teacher.  All those years ago.  He was like a father to me
when I needed a father and like a brother to me when I needed a brother."

Frad clicked his teeth several times before speaking again.
"Bad when you lose one like this.  I lose one like that."
"But you can't have made things worse like I did.  I promised to
train a young boy in the ways of the Force but I knew I couldn't
do it like Qui-Gon."
"You no put self down.  That no good."
"But I didn't notice when he was tempted by darkness.  Fear was
his weakness and it was exploited by those who knew it all too
well."
Frad nodded.  "I see what you mean."
"Do you, though?" Ben muttered.  "Have you ever felt that you were
not the right person to do a job yet everyone's faith in you
gives you the delusion that you can?"
"Many time," his companion agreed.  Why did he do that all the time?
Ben knew that his creature could not have understood things the way
he did yet he was so insistant.

Ben continued his speech.  "I thought I had saved the boy but perhaps
if he had embraced the Dark he wouldn't be dead now. I shouldn't be
saying this. If it wasn't for *him* thing wouldn't be like they are now"

"'Him'?" Frad asked inquisitivly.
"Palpatine," Ben said after looking around him in case any of the
Emperor's sinister agents were in the Cantina.  Frad spat onto the
floor at the sound of the name.
"He bad," the little creature uttered.

"No one realised how clever he was.  He rose to power using the Dark
Side of the Force yet not even the Council could sense him.  He was...
is the embodiment of the Dark Side.  Pure hate."
The Chadra-Fan spoke again.  His tone was that of testing the waters.
"Not as bad as Vader.  Vader pure evil."
Ben flinched at the name.
"Know of Vader, eh?"
"He... he was the one who killed the boy, my student."
"Thought as much," Frad nodded.  He didn't offer any explanation for
his unique intuition.

"When Vader made Anakin fall into the molten pit after that battle I
thought he was dead. I was too quick to use my anger in defeating
the Sith. Perhaps Anakin's death was the only thing that allowed me
to defeat Vader. I was almost glad, the Force help me.  I thought
I had conquered the Dark Side forever.  I thought I had prevented the
Sith uprising. I didn't think until later that I had lost my closest
friend doing so."
"Overconfidence bad," Frad noted.

Several spacers entered the Cantina and commented on how the storm was
calming down.  Frad turned to Ben.
"Walk, will you?"
Ben nodded.  "I think I need some air, my friend.  No matter how dry it
is."

The two left the smoke and entered the main Mos Eisley street.  Frad
stopped walking after some time and looked at Ben with an intense glare.
"How feel you now you talk over?"
Ben shrugged the kind of shrug he gave Qui-Gon when asked a similar
question when he was merely a child.  "I guess I feel a bit better," he
commented.

"It good to talk," Frad smiled.  "It get things in the air.  Now let me
tell something..."
"I would be glad to hear what you have to say," Ben said.
"I die soon."
"How soon?" Ben asked.  He concern for a creature he had only known for
a short amount of time surprised him.
"Soon," Frad said with some weakness present in his voice.  Ben hadn't 
noticed it in the noise of the Cantina but realised it had always been
there.  The alien continued.  "I hide here when things get bad.  I
coward.  Many die by me.  All my fault."

"How can you say that?" Ben asked.
"I was to lead battle. I couldn't face it. I ran here. Many... died."
"Many Chadra-Fan?"
"Many Jedi."
Ben was struck back. How could this little guy say this? How could his
abandoning a battle cause the death of Jedi?  This wasn't possible.
"Explain," the old Jedi said.

Frad nodded. A group of Jawas shuffled passed so he ushered Ben into the
shadows of a nearby alleyway.  He took a deep breath before continuing.
"In Clone Wars. Me lead Jedi into battle. My brother die. He only young.
I not take part in more battle. I scared. I thought me not being there
would save Jedi. I wrong."
Ben still could not understand this but he had to offer consolation.
"I'm sure those Jedi are now with the Force and forgive you."
"I hope so.  I be with them soon.  May the Force be with you."
Frad walked further into the shadows until Ben could no longer see him.
His voice was heard once more.
"There is still hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  You will see."

Ben ran into the shadows but the alien was no where in sight.  A glint
of light caught the corner of his eye and bent down to see a small
lightsaber, small enough to fit into the hand of a Chadra-Fan.  He
suddenly realised who he had been speaking to.

During the Clone Wars a battle took place on the seventh planet of the
Yelloa System.  The Jedi and Republic lost due to the disappearance of
the leader of a strategically important team who were to break through
to the cloning facilities so the others could destroy it.  He became
known in the Republic as "Grinfrad, Traitor of Yelloa Seven".  That's what
he had been called by those under the influence of Palpatine.  It spread
quickly.  The Jedi understood that this may have not been the case but
it was during the period when their name was getting blackened by the
soon to be Emperor.

Ben picked up the lightsaber and pressed the button to ignite it.  Nothing
happened. He opened the casing to find a missing focusing crystal.  In its
place was an old holo crystal.  Turning it on, Ben saw the picture of two
young Chadra-Fans, the older in Jedi robes with his arm hung proudly around
the other.  Ben turned it off and walked out of Mos Eisley into the desert.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Outside his homestead, Ben buried the lightsaber with the crystal still in
it. He held his own ignited lightsaber aloft as a sign of respect. He
would have said "The Force is with you, Jedi Grinfrad.  There is no death,
there is the Force," but the silence seemed more effective.  After several
minutes he entered his hut and put his own weapon away next to that of
Anakin Sywalker.

"There is still hope," Frad had told him.  Obi-Wan Kenobi honestly
wanted to believe that was true...

				THE END