Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy II: Dark Apprentice

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The Sullustan captain jabbered in a panic, his lips wet with foaming drool. Beside him marched an old-model chrome protocol droid that served as his translator. The droid moved arms and legs with humming, ratcheting motivators as if its computer brain was so scrambled it could no longer control all of its systems at once.

  The droid spoke in a brusque female voice. “Admiral! I’m so glad we’ve finally been brought to someone in charge. Can we straighten out this difficulty? We have done nothing wrong.”

  Beside the droid, the Sullustan captain pushed on the tight skin-cap covering his sloping head. He jabbered away with a monotonous blub-blub-blub.

  The droid translated, “Captain T’nun Bdu demands an explanation—” The Sullustan babbled in alarm and clutched the platinum arm of the droid. “Correction, the captain respectfully requests that you be so kind as to explain your actions. Please tell us if there is anything he can do to avoid a diplomatic incident, as he has no wish to initiate any conflict.”

  The Sullustan captain nodded vigorously. A froth of saliva collected on his lips and ran in runnels between his flappy jowls.

  “Wipe your chin,” Daala said. She looked at the horrendous interrogation chair strapped in the shadows of the room. The walls were covered with unfinished iron plates, held in place by large blocky bolts. Stains marked various places that had not been cleaned after earlier interrogations. The chair itself had angled pipes and tubing, restraints, chains, spikes, most of which served no purpose other than to increase a victim’s terror.

  “What we would like from the captain right now,” Daala said, turning back as if ignoring the chair, “is some information. Perhaps you can provide it to us without our needing to resort to any … unpleasantness.”

  The captain flinched in terror. The platinum female droid shifted from foot to foot and then seemed to reach a decision. The droid looked with apparent adoration at the Sullustan captain and then straightened herself and spoke in a clear, unfluttered voice. “Admiral, I can provide that information. There is no need for you to torture my captain.”

  The Sullustan blub-blub-blubbed again, but the droid seemed not to hear. “We are on a mission to provide supplies and new living units for a small colony on the planet Dantooine. The colony is not affiliated with the Rebellion as of this moment. The colonists are harmless refugees.”

  “How many are in this colony?” Daala asked.

  “Approximately fifty, taken from the old mining outpost Eol Sha. They are not presently armed.”

  “I see,” Daala said. “Weil, Captain, we must liberate your assets. I believe that the cargo hold of a Corellian Corvette routinely carries provisions for up to a year without restocking. I am commandeering those provisions for the service of the Empire. This colony on Dantooine will have to get their supplies some other way.”

  The Sullustan chittered in dismay, and Daala skewered him with a glare. “Perhaps, Captain, you would like to step outside the airlock and file a complaint?”

  The Sullustan shut up instantly.

  The door of the interrogation chamber sighed open again, revealing two stormtrooper guards and Commander Kratas. “Take the captain and his droid back to his ship,” Daala said, then cocked her head down to stare at the Sullustan. “Our crew is already emptying your cargo holds, but General Odosk has set his men to repairing and bypassing the damaged engine. Enough that you could limp to another system.”

  The Sullustan bowed, speaking nonstop in his rodentlike language. The female droid stood at attention and spoke in an astonished voice. “Why thank you, Admiral. That is most respectful of you. We appreciate your hospitality.”

  The storm troopers took them away, clomping down the sterile halls of the Star Destroyer. The doors sealed shut again, leaving Daala alone with Commander Kratas. He turned to her with wide dark eyes below his beetling brows. “Admiral, have we lowered ourselves to the level of space pirates? Attacking transport ships and stealing supplies?”

  Daala removed a datapad from her hip and punched a button to call up her latest readout. She turned it toward him so he could look at the information. “I appreciate your respect for the honor of the Imperial Navy, Commander. However, before I came to see the captives, I received a report regarding the contents of the Corvette’s cargo hold. There are indeed supplies for a new colony, but we also found heavy weaponry, communications gear, and prefabricated equipment for starfighter hangars.”

  She gestured toward the door. “Back to the bridge. I want to see what happens next.”

  “What do you mean?” Kratas said.

  Daala switched off the datapad and looked at him. “You’ll see. Be patient for now.”

  As they left, the door of the interrogation chamber slid shut, sealing behind it the darkness and the smell of fear trapped in the room.

  The close-up image of General Odosk flickered, but she could see the self-satisfied grin on his wide, swarthy face. “Mission accomplished, Admiral.”

  “Excellent, General. I trust you are at a good vantage point?”

  Odosk nodded. “I wouldn’t miss it. Thank you.”

  Daala turned back to the viewing window on the bridge. The wounded Corellian Corvette dropped out of the Gorgon’s hangar bay and drifted free in space. “Back away,” she told the navigator. “Order the Basilisk and the Manticore to do the same.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  The three Star Destroyers spread out and moved away from the much smaller ship. The Corvette’s damaged rocket engine no longer glowed.

  Kratas shook his head. “I still can’t believe you’re letting him go.”

  Daala intentionally spoke loud enough for the rest of bridge crew to hear. She rarely felt the need to explain her orders to underlings, but at certain times explaining her reasoning might make them respect her even more.

  “Ships vanish all the time, Commander,” Daala said. “If we simply destroyed this ship, it could be written off as some accident in transportation. A meteor storm, a breached reactor plate, bad navigation through hyperspace. But if we let this captain send a message first, then the Rebel Alliance will know what we have done. We can accomplish the same task, but increase the terror and chaos. Do you agree?”

  Kratas nodded, but he still looked doubtful.

  The comm officer spoke up. “The transponder we implanted in his comm system has activated. He’s sending a tight-beam transmission to specific coordinates.”

  Daala smiled. “Good, I didn’t think he’d wait until he got clear.”

  The comm officer pressed an ear jack to the side of his head. “He’s reporting the situation, Admiral. Three Star Destroyers … fired upon without warning … taken prisoner and interrogated.”

  “I think that’s enough,” Daala said. She opened the comm channel. “General Odosk, proceed.” She shielded her eyes.

  The thermal detonators planted against the reactor walls of the twelve rocket pods detonated simultaneously, blasting the inferno open and sending a tidal wave of deadly radiation through the Corellian ship. An instant later the raging heat evaporated the entire hull, turning it into metallic steam. The rocket pods blew up in brilliant sunbursts; then the rest of the ship expanded outward in a blinding glare.

  Daala nodded. “I think the survivors of the Hydra have had their revenge.”

  In stunned admiration Kratas smiled. “I believe so, Admiral.”

  She turned to face the rest of her bridge crew. “We now have accurate maps and information on the political situation of the Rebel Alliance. We have struck our first blow—the first of many.”

  Daala drew a deep breath, feeling vibrant and alive with euphoria. Grand Moff Tarkin would have been proud of her.

  “Our next stop will be the planet Dantooine,” she said. “We have a colony to visit.”

  5

  Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, gathered his twelve students in the grand audience chamber of the Massassi temple.

  Diffuse orange light trickled through the narrow skylights. Lush vines clim
bed the stone walls, spreading out in verdant webs in the corners. Most of the flat stones were a nonreflective smoky gray; other lozenges of dark green and vermilion and ocher stone ornamented the enormous chamber.

  Luke remembered standing here as a young man after their brief victory celebration following the destruction of the Death Star. He smiled as he recalled how Princess Leia had presented medals to him and Han Solo and Chewbacca. Now the grand audience chamber stood empty except for Luke and his small group of Jedi candidates.

  Luke watched the students file toward him along the broad promenade. Wearing dark-brown Jedi robes, the candidates walked in eerie silence across the slick floor that had long ago been polished smooth by the mysterious Massassi.

  Streen and Gantoris moved first, side by side; Gantoris looked full of self-importance. Of all those Luke had gathered at his Jedi training center, Gantoris had so far shown the most progress, the most inner strength—yet the man from Eol Sha did not seem to realize that he stood at a crossroads. Gantoris would soon need to decide exactly how he would proceed in his growth with the Force.

  Behind the two of them came Kirana Ti, one of the young and powerful witches of Dathomir, who had left the other Force-wielding, rancor-riding women on her homeworld to learn better control. Kirana Ti and the other witches had been instrumental in helping him recover an ancient wrecked space station, the Chu’unthor, in which resided many records of old Jedi training—records that Luke had studied to develop exercises for his Jedi trainees.

  Beside Kirana Ti came Dorsk 81, a bald green- and yellow-skinned humanoid from a world where all family units were genetically identical, cloned and raised to carry on the status quo. But Dorsk 81, the eighty-first reincarnation of the same genetic attributes, had somehow been dramatically changed. Though he seemed identical in every way, his mind worked differently, his thoughts moved along different paths, and he could feel the Force working through him. With the hope of becoming a Jedi Knight, Dorsk 81 had left his homeworld of identical people for something new.

  Then came Kam Solusar, an older man, son of a Jedi that Vader had slaughtered long ago. Solusar had fled the Empire after the great Jedi purge and had spent decades in isolation beyond the inhabited star systems. Upon returning, Solusar had been captured and tortured by evil Jedi, twisted to the dark side of the Force, but Luke had bested him in the game of Lightsider. Solusar had received advanced training in certain areas, but because of his self-imposed exile, he still knew little about many aspects of the Force.

  As the rest of the candidates gathered at the raised platform, Luke shrugged back his hood and tried to mask his pride at seeing the group. If he successfully completed their training, these candidates would form the core of a new order of Jedi Knights, champions of the Force, to help protect the New Republic against dark times.

  He heard them stirring, not speaking to each other, each one no doubt wrapped up in thoughts of touching the Force, finding new pathways to inner strength and windows to the universe that only Jedi teachings could open for them. Their collective talent amazed him, but he hoped for even more trainees. Soon Han Solo would send his young friend, Kyp Durron; and Luke had strongly hinted for his former opponent Mara Jade to join them, since they had struck an uneasy truce during the battle against Joruus C’baoth.

  At the podium Luke tried to stand tall. He found the core of peace inside him that allowed him to speak with a firm voice. “I have brought you here to study and to learn, but I myself am still learning. Every living thing must continue to learn until it dies. Those who cease to learn, die that much sooner.

  “Perhaps it was misleading when I called this an ‘academy’ for Jedi. Though I will teach you everything I know, I don’t want you merely to listen to me lecture.

  “Your training will be a landscape of self-discovery. Learn new things and share what you have learned with others. I will call this place a praxeum. This word, made up of ancient roots, was first used by the Jedi scholar Karena, distilling the concepts of learning combined with action. Our praxeum, then, is a place for the learning of action. A Jedi is aware, but he does not waste time in mindless contemplation. When action is required, a Jedi acts.”

  Luke repositioned a small translucent cube on the raised dais behind him. He ran his fingers over the cool surface of the ancient knowledge repository Leia had stolen from the resurrected Emperor. The Jedi Holocron.

  “We will invoke a past Jedi Master from the Holocron,” Luke said. “We have used this device to learn the ways of the old Jedi Knights. Let us see what stories it has for us this morning.”

  He activated the precious artifact. In the distant past it had been traditional for each Jedi Master to compile his life’s knowledge and store it within a great repository such as this, which was then passed to one of his students. Luke had only begun to fathom its depths.

  An image formed both inside and outside the cube, a half-tangible projection that was more than just a stored bit of data; it was an interactive representation of the Jedi Master—a stubby alien, part insectile, part crustacean. It seemed to be bent with age or too much gravity. Its head extended into a long funnel, like a beak from which dangled whiskery protuberances. Close-set, glassy eyes stared like glittering pinpoints of knowledge.

  The creature leaned on a long wooden staff, its legs spindly and knobby as it swiveled its funnellike face to contemplate the new audience. Tattered rags covered its body, sticking out in odd directions like clothing or external skin. Its voice came out in a reedy melody, like high-pitched music played under fast running water.

  “I am Master Vodo-Siosk Baas.”

  “Master Vodo,” Luke said, “I am Master Skywalker, and these are my apprentices. You have seen many things and recorded many thoughts. We’d be honored if you would tell us something we should know.”

  The image of Master Vodo-Siosk Baas hung his beaklike head on a jointed elbow of neck, as if in contemplation. Luke knew that the Holocron was simply uploading and sifting through reams of data, choosing an appropriate story through a personality algorithm stored with the Jedi Master’s image.

  “I must tell you of the Great Sith War that occurred—” Here the image paused as the Holocron assessed the current situation. “Four thousand years before your time.

  “This war was caused by a student of mine, Exar Kun, who found forbidden teachings of the ancient Sith. He imitated the ways of the long-fallen Sith and used them to form his own philosophy of the Jedi Code, a distortion of all we know to be true and right. With this knowledge Exar Kun established a vast and powerful brotherhood and claimed the title of the first Dark Lord of the Sith.”

  Luke stiffened. “Others have claimed that title,” he said, “even to this time.” Including Darth Vader.

  Master Vodo-Siosk Baas seemed to lean more heavily on his walking stick. “I had hoped Exar Kun and his kind were defeated once and for all. Exar Kun joined forces with another powerful Jedi and great warlord, Ulic Qel-Droma. Exar Kun worked his invisible threads into the fabric of the Old Republic, bringing downfall through treachery and his distorted abilities with the Force.”

  Master Vodo looked at the gathered students. Gantoris seemed incredibly eager to hear more, leaning forward and staring with wide, dark eyes. The image of the long-dead Jedi Master turned to face Luke. “You must warn your students to beware of the temptations of conquest. That is all I can tell you for now.”

  The image flickered and wavered. With a feeling of deep uneasiness Luke silenced the Holocron. The images returned to swirling pearlescence inside its cubical walls.

  “I think that’s enough for this morning,” Luke said. “We all know that other Jedi have followed the wrong path, bringing not only themselves but millions of innocent lives to doom and suffering. But I trust you. A Jedi must trust himself, and a Jedi Master must trust his apprentices.

  “Explore yourselves and your surroundings, in teams or alone, whichever makes you comfortable. Go to the jungle. Go to other parts of this temple. Or simply
go back to your chambers. The choice is yours.”

  Luke sat down on the edge of the raised stage and watched the students file out of the grand hall. The translucent cube of the Holocron stood mute beside him, a vessel filled with valuable but dangerous knowledge.

  Obi-Wan Kenobi had been Luke’s teacher. Luke had listened to every word the old man had said, trusting it; yet Luke had later learned how often Obi-Wan had obscured the facts, had distorted information—or as Obi-Wan explained it, simply offered the truth “from a certain point of view.”

  Luke watched the robed forms and wondered if his students could handle the knowledge they might discover. What if, like ancient Exar Kun in Master Vodo’s story, they were tempted to uncover the forbidden teachings of the Sith, that so subtly yet crucially differed from the Jedi Code?

  Luke feared what might happen should one of his students travel down the wrong path. But he also knew that he had to trust them—or they could never become Jedi Knights.

  Deep into the night Gantoris hunched over the cluttered worktable, secretly constructing his own lightsaber.

  A blanket of shadows surrounded him, obliterating distractions that might keep him from his task. His dark eyes had adjusted to the tight-beam glowlamp that spilled a harsh pool of light over his debris-strewn work surface, leaving the rest of the room in murk. As Gantoris moved to pick up another precision tool, his shadow flapped like a bird of prey across the ancient stone walls.

  The Great Temple sat silent, like an ancient trap to stifle sound. The other students in Master Skywalker’s Jedi academy—his praxeum, as he called it—had retired to their private chambers to fall into an exhausted sleep or to meditate on Jedi relaxing techniques.

  Gantoris’s neck ached, and his shoulder muscles burned from holding his cramped position for hours. He breathed in and out, smelling the thickness of old smoke and the scratchy moss that had worked for millennia to pry through cracks in the precisely placed temple blocks.