Onslaught: Dark Tide I

by Michael A. Stackpole

  He brought the ship lower and lower until, over the heart of the northern continent, he dropped beneath the level of a mountain ridge to the east. Once it hid him, he pumped power to the engines, killing his airspeed quickly. He dropped the blastboat down low and killed thrust. He flipped the switch again, setting the engines to propel him forward, then he stretched out with the Force and scouted ahead for signs of life.

  He found plenty, and most all of it was within normal limits for what he expected to find. There was some that seemed harsh, almost like clashing colors, and he steered away from these areas. He took the ship north, then darted through a mountain gap and piloted the ship in toward the ExGal site. He brought the ship down to the north and east, well away from the antenna arrays attached to the facility’s communications tower, then shut the engines down and unbuckled himself from the restraining straps.

  “We’re here.”

  Luke opened his eyes slowly, then nodded. “We are. You recognized the sources of the Force out there, yes?”

  “I caught something. It didn’t feel right to me. What do you think it was?”

  “I don’t know. Sentient life-forms, definitely under stress, perhaps diseased. They seem worn away, frayed somehow. What I do know is that I didn’t find them here weeks ago.”

  Jacen’s head came up. “Does Mara ever feel like that to you?”

  Luke’s quick intake of breath suggested the question stung a bit. “Not that, no, but Mara is strong. If it’s the same disease, it might be that they’re in the end phase of whatever she has, but we have no way of knowing that.”

  The younger Jedi led the way from the cockpit. He pulled on a belt from which hung his lightsaber, a pouch with a re-breather, a canteen of water, and a blaster. His uncle joined him, taking a similar belt from the equipment locker, then handed Jacen a pair of goggles.

  Jacen frowned. “What are these for?”

  “You remember Mara’s description of her fight with Carr? I don’t know if the Yuuzhan Vong amphistaff can spit venom to blind you, or if they have some other sort of weapon that will accomplish the same end. Since we can’t sense them through the Force, sight is going to be our most powerful ally, and one we shouldn’t lose by chance.” Luke pulled on his own goggles, then loosened his blaster in its holster. “Mara said their armor turned blaster bolts and even slowed down lightsabers, so shoot well and cut even better.”

  Jacen smiled. “Wow. For a second there you sounded like Dad.”

  R2-D2 hooted a quick comment.

  Luke cocked his head for a moment, then nodded. “It seems that whenever I’m in a situation where the odds against success are pretty substantial, I think about what your father would say or do. Doesn’t mean I do that, but his example is one it’s tough to forget.”

  Luke punched a big red button on the bulkhead, and the landing ramp on the blastboat slid open. He led the way down and crouched at the foot of the ramp. He pressed his hand to the ground, rolled some of the dirt around between his fingers, then sniffed.

  “What?”

  “When I was here last, there was a lot of sulfur in the air, but I don’t smell much at all right now. Something managed to drag it out of the air.” He pointed at some creeping green ground cover that had spread over much of the facility and its walls. “None of that was here, either. Perhaps it was what cleaned the air.”

  Jacen shrugged. “You were the one raised on a farm.”

  “That was a moisture farm on a desert planet.” His uncle looked up at him. “Anything like this in the data files you reviewed?”

  “Nothing I recall.”

  Luke stood and started walking toward the gate in the ExGal facility wall. The gate itself stood open, but the leafy green plant had grown all over it. Luke pushed the vines apart and ducked his head to get through. Jacen followed closely and quickly found himself in a green tunnel.

  He was watching his feet, making certain he didn’t trip, which is why he bumped into his uncle’s back. “Sorry.”

  “No matter. Look at this.”

  Luke stepped clear of the vines and into a small courtyard. Jacen followed him, and R2-D2 rolled up between them. The little droid started bouncing from foot to foot and issued a low, mournful moan.

  Luke rested a hand on the droid’s dome. “I know, Artoo, I know.”

  The green plant overgrew everything save in a wide oval, the end of which included the door to the ExGal facility. Equipment had been placed in the oval, only two meters from the door, and it took Jacen a couple of seconds to identify everything gathered there. He knew what it all was, of course, but he’d never seen it arranged the way it was.

  The centerpiece of the display was an R5 unit that had been decapitated. Where its truncated-cone head should have been sat a fleshless human skull. Rainbow-colored wires came up and out through the eye sockets and mouth, the latter having a wire ribbon roll out like a tongue. Scattered around it like toys spilled from a broken bin lay computer consoles, holo-projector plates, food synthesizers, and a hair dryer from a refresher station. These items had been smashed to the point of uselessness, and the dents in their metal flesh looked as if something had kicked or stomped them.

  Jacen looked at his uncle. “What is it?”

  Luke’s expression sharpened. “A warning, clearly. What I wonder, though, is who it’s directed at.”

  “Whoever it was that you felt out there?”

  The Jedi Master sighed. “That would be my guess, but guesses aren’t what we came here for. Learning the answer—that will be tough. I just hope it’s not too tough, or the answers we get will remain here, on Belkadan, and you and I could spend eternity like this poor fellow: warning others to stay away.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Anakin Solo looked around the Dantooine camp site and slowly nodded. He stood there with his back to the dying sun, watching his shadow stretch out before him. He planted his hands firmly on his hips and felt pleased with his effort. He’d hauled all their equipment up from the Jade Sabre while Mara rested after bringing the ship down in a narrow mountain canyon. He’d located the flat area at the top of a bluff, which made it very defensible and gave them a wonderful view of the lavender plains stretching out before a distant, sparkling sea.

  He’d set up their tents, orienting Mara’s larger one on a north-south axis that would make sure that the dawning sun would warm it, as would the setting sun. His own smaller tent he set up across the clearing from hers. He’d gathered stones and set them around a depression he’d excavated, creating a fire pit. He planned to head north, to a forest of thorny blba trees to harvest dead wood for their fires. While the ship had all the facilities needed to prepare food, Anakin looked forward to eating food cooked over an open fire.

  He knew that desire was kind of silly, but he thought it was fun and hoped Mara would, as well. The purpose of their trip to Dantooine was to let her recover her strength on a world where technology and civilization had not overwhelmed nature. The native Dantari were a simple people, traveling along the coasts in nomadic tribes with little more than primitive tools. Anakin felt fairly certain that if any of the Dantari had seen Admiral Daala’s attack on a colony established when Anakin was barely a year old, they’d have put it down to a war between gods.

  Given that the Imperials sent AT-AT walkers against unarmed colonists, whom the Dantari probably saw as intruders, it wouldn’t surprise me to find the Dantari wearing emblems that remind them of the walkers or the Imperial crests emblazoned on the machines. That thought sent a shiver down his spine. The New Republic’s battle with the Empire had reached its final conclusion six years earlier, but Anakin knew there were people who still harbored some positive feelings for the Empire. And some, like the Dantari, who might do so innocently.

  He took one last look at the campsite and frowned. Back beyond his tent he’d stacked the various equipment crates and cases. He’d lined them all up straight, but one had slipped out of alignment. Anakin reached out with the Force and nudged it back i
nto place, then smiled.

  “Anakin, don’t do that.”

  He whirled and saw Mara, looking pale, leaning heavily against a rock that stood near the path back to the ship. The jacket she wore was buttoned all the way up to the throat, despite the day’s warmth. He steadied her using the Force, then slid a camp chair toward her. “You should have told me you wanted to come up here. I would have gotten you.”

  Her brows furrowed, and he felt resistance to the Force. The camp chair tipped and tumbled toward her, then bounced away as if it had hit an invisible wall. Mara staggered toward it, bent down slowly, and turned it upright again. She rested her hands on the rear posts. Her red-gold hair slid down over her shoulders to curtain the sides of her face.

  Her green eyes blazed with a strength that the weakness in her body mocked. “If I had wanted help, Anakin, I would have asked for it.”

  His head came up at the chilly tone in her voice, then he swallowed hard and glanced down at the ground. “I’m sorry. I should have remembered that from when we were landing. You didn’t need my help.”

  Mara sighed, then slowly lowered herself into the chair. Her head lolled back for a moment, then she looked at him. “Don’t compound things that have nothing to do with each other. I didn’t want you landing the Jade Sabre because I wanted to do it.”

  The youth’s blue eyes narrowed. “It was a tricky landing. You didn’t trust me to do it. You didn’t want me to destroy your ship.”

  Mara pursed her lips for a moment. “Given that our ship is the only way off this rock, I didn’t want it damaged, no.” Her expression softened a bit. “And the ship is special to me. Your uncle Luke gave me the Jade Sabre to replace Jade’s Fire.”

  “But you crashed Jade’s Fire on purpose. You meant to.”

  “I did, and had good reason to do that, but that doesn’t mean …” Mara paused for a moment as her voice sank to a dry whisper. She swallowed, then glanced down at the ground. “Your uncle Luke understood how much the ship meant to me. He knew what it meant to me. He respected what I had done in sacrificing the Fire. He had the Sabre made for me to thank me.”

  Anakin felt his stomach tighten. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  Mara shrugged her shoulders. “I tend to hold tightly to painful experiences and not to share them, so you couldn’t have known. I’ve grown attached to the Sabre because of what it means. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Anakin …”

  “You trust yourself more?”

  Mara actually smiled for a heartbeat. “Pretty perceptive.”

  “Even a blind hawk-bat finds a granite slug now and again.” He glanced at her. “I do want you to know you can trust me. I’m here to do whatever you want or need. I won’t fail you.”

  “I know.” She sat forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I apologize for being weak, for forcing you to be here with me instead of off doing more important stuff.”

  Anakin blinked with surprise. “There’s nothing more important that I could be doing. Uncle Luke has entrusted you to me. There isn’t a more important job out there.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Anakin. The desire to be out there saving the galaxy is in your blood so thick I can hear it screaming from here.”

  “No, really, that’s not true.” Anakin glanced over his shoulder and used the Force to bring him the other camp chair he’d set up. “I am here to help you, Mara. What’s wrong?”

  Mara had frowned as he sat. “Stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Trivializing the Force.”

  “I don’t get it. What do you mean?”

  She heaved her torso erect and sat back in her chair. “Even down in the Sabre I could feel it. I admire your desire to make everything perfect for me, but the Force isn’t something you use to pitch tents or stack crates.”

  “But the Force is the Jedi’s ally. It’s something we use.” Anakin shifted his shoulders uneasily. “Size matters not, you know. I mean, if I’d not used it, I would have had to—”

  “Break a sweat?”

  Anakin’s mouth gaped open. “Um, I guess so. I mean, the ship is half a kilometer back in that canyon, and hauling the stuff up here—”

  “Would have been hard work.” Mara’s steady gaze bored into him. “You quote Master Yoda’s aphorism that ‘Size matters not,’ but that was used to tell Luke that he had to banish self-doubt. You’re using it as an excuse, or a challenge.”

  Anakin winced. “But Luke said that Yoda lifted his X-wing out of the swamp at Dagobah.”

  “To make a point, to show Luke how strong the Force could be, if mastered.”

  “And I’ve mastered it.”

  Her head came up and her gaze sharpened. “Have you, now?”

  Anakin immediately flushed crimson. “Well, I mean, I’ve been trained to it. I know how to use it.”

  “But knowing how to use it is entirely different from knowing when to use it. Think, Anakin, how often do you see your uncle use the Force in raw displays of strength?”

  He frowned. “Well, not so much these days. Not since the war ended, I guess.”

  “Correct, not since he realized that using the Force so directly cut him off from the more subtle aspects of it.” Mara looked up, her gaze searching his face. “You can’t hear a whisper if you’re constantly shouting, and using the Force the way you do is the same as always shouting. Do you see that?”

  Anakin’s brows furrowed. “I guess so. I mean, it makes sense, but I’m still learning. I need that control. I need to be able to make things work.”

  “I agree.” She glanced down at the ground. “But using the Force isn’t the only answer, you know. Chewbacca didn’t use it, and he saved your life, your father’s life, and countless other lives.”

  His expression soured. “Don’t be trying to tell me Chewie’s death isn’t my fault.”

  “I suspect you’ve heard that a lot, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, and don’t try reversing things around and talking me into defending myself, either. I may still be young, but I’m not stupid.”

  “I know that. You’re not stupid, but you are naive.” Mara looked at him and let out a quick chuckle. “That expression of outrage, very becoming.”

  Anakin scowled. “I’m not naive. I’ve been in the thick of things since I was born. I’ve grown up on Coruscant and then at the academy. I’ve been around, you know.”

  “Not my point, Anakin.” Mara gave him the hint of a smile that he found a little bit intriguing and very frustrating. “You’ve spent your whole life involved with the Force. It’s made you weak.”

  “But Yoda said—”

  Mara held a hand up. “You don’t know what you, Anakin Solo, are capable of without the Force. You don’t know if you could have humped all those crates up here. You don’t know how much you would ache or sweat in doing it. You don’t know how long it would take for you to pitch the tents. The fire pit, did you scoop that out with a shovel? Did you place the rocks by hand?”

  “No, but—”

  “You know, I was taught a long time ago that whenever someone uses the word but it means he’s stopped listening. It also means those he’s speaking with tend to stop listening. I know what I’m telling you isn’t easy to hear. There’s probably a reason for that, don’t you think?”

  Anakin squirmed in his chair a bit. “I ’spose.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe …” He fell silent as he thought. “I guess part of it is that you’re making it sound like I’m not a good Jedi Knight, that I’m doing things wrong. It means I’m a failure.” And that maybe Chewie would be alive if I’d not failed.

  “You may not realize that my early training consisted of much more than learning to harness the Force.” Mara clasped her hands together and pressed them flat against her belly. “Running, climbing, fighting, learning to move silently, swimming, zero-g fighting and movement; everything could have been made easier by using the Force. I didn’t all
ow that, though. Why not? What value was there in my learning to rely upon myself?”

  “You learn your limits.”

  “Yes, and?”

  Anakin closed his eyes and thought hard. The answer to her question blossomed full-blown in his mind and dropped his jaw with its simplicity. “You also learn what others are capable of, others who don’t have the Force.”

  “Right, which means you can gauge how much you need to help them.” Mara nodded at him, and Anakin smiled proudly. “Too many Jedi Knights become wrapped up in the fact that they can use the Force, and they employ it as if it were the solution to every single problem there is. This is why Kyp and his followers are so stiff and cold. They come into situations without having an appreciation of what the people can do. They come in and impose a solution. It might be quick, it might work very well, but is it the best solution?”

  She eased herself up out of her chair and turned to face the dying sun. “Do you remember the Taanab exercise: the problem about the flood that you were asked to attack as part of your training?”

  Anakin nodded. “Sure, I got high marks on that simulation. I looked over the data we were given and realized that it was possible to trigger a rock slide that would dump metric tons of rocks in position to shore up a levee. It stopped the flooding from wiping out a village. I just used the Force to loosen some rocks and start the slide, and everyone was saved.”

  Mara’s eyes had closed, and her face was expressionless. She opened her arms to the sun as if seeking to pull as much of its warmth into her as she could. “So, tell me, Anakin, in that example, why was the Taanabian village in jeopardy of being flooded?”

  He frowned. “Well, you know, it was built in a low place.”

  “Had it ever been flooded before?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t check the history?” She glanced over at him. “I know the local history was part of the files.”

  Anakin shrugged. “I guess I didn’t think it was important, because the flood was the main problem.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. The main problem was people building homes in a floodplain. They were doing that because off-world land speculators had bought up their ancestral lands in the hopes of luring Alderaanians there to establish a colony. Greed was forcing those people to build in undesirable places. You might have been able to stop the flood this time, but what about the next, or the one after that?”