Tyrant's Test

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “Unfair,” Luke repeated. “I’m not sure that’s a strong enough word. Because when you made me another promise, the one that brought me on this journey, you must have known that you couldn’t keep it—that I’d run into a wall of silence if we found the Circle.” He looked back toward Wialu. “Unless you asked me here to tell me more than good-bye.”

  “You can’t ask that of her, Luke—”

  “Why not?” he said, his gaze hardening. “She went to the trouble of scattering signs and markers across five sectors so that one child could come home. But she won’t even come to the door when another one’s standing outside knocking. Can you explain that to me, at least—why Akanah is welcomed back, and I’m being turned away?”

  “Akanah is of the Fallanassi, by blood and affinity both,” said Wialu. “We do not claim you, Luke Skywalker.”

  “You do not claim—what are you saying? That Nashira isn’t my mother? That my mother wasn’t of the Circle?”

  Wialu nodded toward Akanah. “This is the one who must provide your answers.”

  Blinking, Luke stared at Akanah questioningly. She looked away uncomfortably, then sank down onto the edge of the bunk as though it were something fragile.

  “I know nothing about your mother, Luke,” she said in a small voice. “And I have not told you the truth about mine.”

  All of Luke’s emotions save for curiosity were numbed by her words. “What does your mother have to do with this?”

  “You remember what I told you of how it was for me, living on the underside on Carratos, and how my caretaker took my money and left me there—”

  “Talsava,” Luke said. “I remember.”

  Akanah looked up and met his eyes. “Everything I told you about her is true, save one—her name was Isela Talsava Norand, and she was my real mother,” she said in a whisper. “And she was the one who brought the Empire down on the Circle.”

  Wordlessly, Luke sank into a chair. Wialu took up the narrative.

  “We could not allow Isela to remain with the Circle after her betrayal,” she said. “We could not trust her to know where we were bound when we left Lucazec. She was banished from the Circle before that decision was made. But Akanah was not banished—we would have kept her with us, cared for her, continued her training. She would have been loved.

  “But Isela refused our offer, and took Akanah away with her. Isela’s decision distressed us all. She was punishing Akanah for her own transgression. There was much grief and anger in the Circle on the day they left. And in my own grief, I made Akanah a promise—that the way back to us would be marked for her, so that when the choice was hers, she could rejoin the Circle.” She looked at Akanah with an affectionate smile. “So many years went by that I thought we would never see her again.”

  “And I thought I would never leave Carratos.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Luke asked.

  “What I told you of my life there was the truth. The war came, and then I was left alone, with nothing,” Akanah said. “I had to learn the ways of a world run by different rules, with no one to guide me or protect me. I have already admitted to Wialu how I misused what they taught me, to survive. How I became like the ones who had what I needed.”

  Akanah looked down at her hands and smiled as though at a fond and tender reminiscence. “Then there was the miracle of Andras, who created a safe place for me, and brought love back to me—and though I could have left Carratos then, I did not want to.”

  “So why did you make me part of it when you finally did leave?” Luke asked. “You didn’t need me to find the Fallanassi, or to get to them—though you tried to make me think that you did. The Imperial agents on Lucazec—they were another lie, weren’t they? We were never being hunted.”

  “No,” she admitted. “They were never there. It was a test. I had to know who you were—what I could expect from you, where to begin.”

  “The blood,” Luke remembered.

  “A mistake,” she said. “I felt your surprise and thought I had betrayed myself. I had never seen a lightsaber strike flesh. I had to draw your attention to me, to Nashira, or I would have lost you then.”

  “Lost me for what? I still don’t understand. What was the deception meant to gain you?”

  Sad-eyed, Akanah shook her head slowly. “It was not for me, Luke. What you gave me, what this has meant to me—that just happened, unexpected—that wasn’t planned.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because I have been afraid of you,” she said simply.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Luke, I have seen the underside of war, where there are no heroes, only victims. I’ve seen what power is about, how it’s used, what it means not to have it in a world where that’s all that matters.” The weight of her words was echoed in her sad eyes. “I was ten years old when the Emperor’s stormtroopers swept across half the galaxy—I had a childhood in paradise and an adolescence in hell. I have good reason to fear power.”

  “You thought—think—I’m the same kind of threat the Emperor was, the same as the stormtroopers?”

  “It is not just you,” Akanah said. “You are training others to follow your path. Where there was one, there are now many, and there will be many more. I had to know you. I had to see what inside you balances the power you have—I had to see what I could give you of what the Circle had given me. I did not lie to you about my purpose. Something has been missing, something of the Light, something of peace, of acceptance. I tried to help you find it.”

  “By lying to me,” Luke said, his restless emotions bringing him to his feet.

  Akanah smiled ruefully. “As you have seen, the Fallanassi are not above using deception.”

  “So Nashira was nothing but your fantasy? A reflection of what I wanted her to be?”

  “No,” said Akanah. “She was more than that.”

  “Akanah—” Wialu said in a cautionary tone.

  “I have to tell him,” Akanah said with sudden anger. “A secret is too much like another lie.” She stood and took a step toward Luke. “In the second year, a woman came to see Isela on Carratos. She was Fallanassi, but I did not know her—she had not been with the Circle on Lucazec. She stayed with us for five days, and spent hours alone with my mother, talking.”

  Then she turned toward Wialu. “I think that she was sent by the Circle to try to persuade my mother to let me go. Perhaps she would even have taken me away with her when she left, if my mother would have agreed to it. I’ve wondered if my mother got her to agree to something else—a sum of money to be sent later, perhaps, to buy a child’s passage, and a child’s freedom. Who would expect that she would take the money and leave the child?”

  Wialu’s impassive face offered neither confirmation or apology. After a long moment of staring expectantly into her eyes, Akanah turned back to Luke.

  “This woman’s Circle name was Nashira,” she said. “She was beautiful, and kind to me—enough to remind me of everything that Isela was not. She talked to me as if I mattered, and she shared her heart with me. When I asked her why, she said that the Emperor had taken her children from her—a boy and a girl. And all she could do was try to love the children who were near her, and hope that someone was doing the same for hers. When you asked me about your mother, I pictured the woman I wished had been mine. I told you about Nashira.”

  “But it was all about you,” Luke said, shaking his head. “Your pain—your fantasies—”

  “Are they so different from yours?” she asked. “I have seen inside your heart, too, Luke Skywalker. I could only deceive you by knowing you. I could only deceive you with the truth.”

  Luke backed slowly away from her, toward the cabin door. “Enough,” he said. “I’ve heard enough. I can’t believe anything you say. I can’t believe anything that’s happened since Coruscant. There’s more truth in her silence than in your words.”

  He gestured toward Wialu as he spoke the last, then looked to her. “You must think me a fool, chasing after th
e phantom she created. Thank you for the wakeup call. I wish you luck in coaxing her off Isela’s path, and onto yours.”

  Then Luke turned and left the cabin, missing Akanah’s honest tears.

  “Is he coming?” Akanah asked anxiously.

  Etahn A’baht frowned and looked across the loading bay to the open entryway. “Let me check with my people again,” he said, reaching for his comlink and stepping away from the foot of the boarding ramp.

  Akanah looked to Wialu as a Star Morning porter passed between them, carrying their bags aboard. “I have to talk to him. I can’t leave like this.”

  “How long would you have us wait?” Wialu asked gently. “The damage you have done—”

  “I know,” Akanah said. “But I have to make him see that it wasn’t all lies.”

  “There can be one star of deception in a galaxy of stars, but if that is the star before you, you can see nothing else—and if you stare at the deception, you will be blinded by it,” said Wialu. “It will take time, Akanah—more time than we have.”

  Akanah sent an anxious glance toward A’baht, who was returning to them. “If you can’t wait, then I’ll have to stay here.”

  “Akanah, you cannot force the flow to come to you,” said Wialu. “You can only ride it where it goes.”

  The general rejoined them then, his frown deeper than before. “Luke’s not answering. No one seems to know where he is,” said A’baht. “I don’t understand it—he brought you here, and I’d think he’d want to see you off. We owe you a debt—”

  “There is no debt,” Wialu said firmly. “The choice was mine, and I ask for nothing.”

  A’baht grunted. “I still feel I should apologize—”

  “He is here,” said Wialu.

  The others looked toward the entryway, but Wialu directed her gaze toward an empty corner of the compartment. A moment later, Luke appeared there, as though walking through a door no one could see.

  “What the—” A’baht said, then shook his head in disgust. “Jedi.”

  Akanah ran to meet Luke, but stopped a step short of the embrace she wanted, and looked into his eyes for a cue.

  “I came to say good-bye,” Luke said.

  “I’m not sure that I’m leaving.”

  Luke shook his head. “Your place is with them. Wialu is right. Even I can read that in the Current.”

  “There’s something I have to say before I can go,” she said fervently. “Please—don’t judge us by my example. I beg you not to reject the truth because of the lie that preceded it. There is something gentle, and beautiful, and healing in the Fallanassi way—and if I failed to put it before you, the weakness was in me, not in the way of the Light, or the path of the White Current. There is depth there beyond what I’ve mastered, and worth there beyond what you’ve seen.”

  “I’ve seen deception, manipulation—”

  Stepping forward bravely, she touched his breastbone lightly with the flat of one hand. “It is not a way of power, but a way of peace—and I dearly wish for you to have that peace within you. I wish for you to add that strength to the great strength you already possess. I always wanted that for you—I never wanted anything from you.” A tremble entered her voice as she added in a near whisper, “I never wanted to add to your pain.”

  Luke covered her hand with his own and lowered his eyes. “It seems I must choose what to believe,” he said at last. “I will try to believe that first, and perhaps it will guide me through the rest.”

  She looked up at him gratefully. “Then I can go now,” she said, and kissed his cheek softly before backing away.

  He stood and watched as she accepted a final word of thanks from the general, then moved up the boarding ramp past Wialu, who turned and followed.

  Akanah hesitated for just a moment before vanishing through the inner airlock, looking back to him with a final apology in her eyes. Somewhere he found a forgiving smile for her, and then she was gone.

  By then A’baht was approaching Luke. “Comm shack has some messages for you, Luke—a couple of priority flags that came in this morning—” he began.

  “Luke Skywalker.”

  Looking up at Wialu’s voice, he found her standing at the inner airlock. “Yes?”

  “There is one small service I ask of you.”

  Luke cocked his head. “What’s that?”

  “Tell your sister,” Wialu said, “that when she is ready to follow her own path, she would be welcome among us.” Then she turned away, needing no reply and inviting no questions.

  By the time a startled Luke could find his voice again, Star Morning was moving away from the dock, continuing its journey.

  There was no message from Leia.

  The chief librarian’s office on Obroa-skai advised him that his pending request for a contract researcher had moved up to number five on the waiting list, and he should be certain he had the research subject FALLANASSI clearly defined and all supporting materials ready to transmit.

  The senior rehab therapist on board the medical frigate High Haven passed on the word that Han was being transferred again, this time back to the Fleet hospital on Coruscant.

  “It’s not that he’s in any danger—he’s doing pretty well, better than a lot of the folks in here now. And it opens a space up on our ward, which we can use,” said the therapist. “Given that the commodore had his own transportation available, it seemed like the best course.” After a pause and a frown, he added, “Besides, the Wookiees insisted.”

  The third message was from Streen, who had compiled an overly conscientious report on activity at the academy on Yavin 4. In his present mood, Luke found none of it of enough interest to read closely.

  The final message was from Alpha Blue.

  “Hello, Luke,” said Admiral Drayson. “Now that things are a little quieter where you are, I wanted to tell you that I’ve located your missing droids. You can have them back whenever you want, in fact. But, as you’ll see, I’m afraid you’re going to need to pick them up yourself.”

  “Are you sure about this?” asked the senior crew chief, following at Luke’s heels as he carried out his preflight check of the exterior of Mud Sloth. “Even with the losses, I’m sure Captain Morano would be more than willing to put you in most anything else we have—”

  “I’m sure,” Luke said, ducking under the tail plane.

  “I mean, after all, you Jedi swung the fight our way, driving off all those Star Destroyers with your phantom fleet,” the chief persisted. “It just doesn’t seem right to send you away in a low-budget—”

  “That isn’t what happened,” Luke said as he reached the boarding ladder. “And this ship serves my needs right now.”

  The chief scratched his head. “Well, if you say so.” He stole a glance back over his shoulder. “I guess the general’ll be down to see you off, eh?”

  “He doesn’t know I’m leaving,” Luke said, throwing his bag up through the open access hatch. “I’d appreciate it if you weren’t in a hurry to tell him.”

  “That’s a bit of a problem,” the chief said, frowning. “Nothing’s supposed to leave the flight deck without authorization from the hot room.”

  “Not my problem,” Luke said, climbing the ladder. “Civilian pilot, civilian ship. Shouldn’t even be here. Clear me through the patrol screen, will you? She’s not real strong on flash breaks or roll-and-run.”

  “Sure,” said the chief dubiously. “Sure, for you, I can do that. But, look, I have to at least be able to tell the booth where you’re going—you know, for the log.”

  “You’ve never heard of it,” Luke said as he reached for the hatch closure. “Just log me out, Chief—and thank the gang for prepping her so quickly.”

  Not long after, Luke and Mud Sloth plunged into the welcome solitude of hyperspace for the long jump to Maltha Obex.

  By the end of that journey, Luke could feel himself changing. The ship was like a tiny chrysalis, and it was his metamorphosis that was underway.

  He had w
anted time where he and Akanah had spent so much time. He had wanted to hear the echoes of their conversations, feel the residue of the emotions. Luke spent the journey in silence, alternately reflecting and playing with reflections. He inventoried his memories of the last months, discarding some, rewriting others. And he collected a set of drill objects, and spent hours honing the one Fallanassi skill he grasped in its wholeness.

  The work was not yet finished when the galaxy reappeared around him and Maltha Obex appeared before him. He did not know at that moment quite who he was becoming, or what would presage the transformation. He only knew that he welcomed that moment of reconnection, and the possibilities that it offered.

  For days, Lady Luck had been fleeing before the Teljkon vagabond, staying over the horizon from the powerful and unpredictable Qella artifact. Two tasks had occupied them during that time—keeping tabs on the vagabond by means of the equipment at the abandoned surface camps, and scanning for what they hoped would be a task-force-sized entry into the Maltha Obex system.

  But the ship that did finally appear on the scanners was so small that Joto Eckels felt a rush of disappointment rather than relief. “Perhaps it’s some sort of probe,” he suggested at Pakkpekatt’s shoulder. “Don’t you usually send a probe in ahead of the main body?”

  “It’s a civilian skiff,” said Taisden. “No military comm.”

  “Then we have to warn it away at once,” Eckels said. “Colonel, once the vagabond spots it, half an orbit from now—”

  A display screen above their heads flashed on as he spoke. “This is Mud Sloth, hailing the Lady Luck. Lando, report your status, please.”

  Eckels began to look more hopeful as he recognized Luke’s face. “Lando’s not here, Luke—”

  But Pakkpekatt rose from his seat, blocking Eckels from the holocomm as he leaned forward to reply. “Mud Sloth, you are entering an NRI security zone, and you are at risk. Turn your ship about at once and leave this system.”