Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy II: Dark Apprentice

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Furgan had discovered to his surprise that Daala herself had been trained on Carida. Digging through old records, he had uncovered many disciplinary actions taken against her, reprimands in her file. Even then she had been a maverick, performing admirably but refusing to learn her place, insisting that she deserved promotions instead of others. Furgan had no record of her advancement to admiral, but Moff Tarkin had transferred her to his personal staff after one of his brief inspection tours. Furgan had no other information about Daala since that time.

  It angered him that this admiral continued her attacks on the Rebellion without even attempting to get in touch with Carida. Perhaps Daala considered herself a vigilante, but the Empire needed its soldiers to fight as parts of an immense whole. The Empire did not need vigilantes.

  Furgan had tried to contact some of the other battling Imperial commanders to get capital ships for his assault on Anoth. The Emperor and Grand Admiral Thrawn and other depredations had already taken most of the ships available to Carida. On the military training planet, Furgan had access to some of the most sophisticated weaponry and soldiers in the entire galaxy—but because of the perpetual squabbles between the Imperial Army and the spacefaring Imperial Navy, he had no place to go with his troops. This left Furgan in a position of being on the most heavily armed—but useless—planet still loyal to the Empire.

  Furgan absently played with one of the articulated models of the MT-AT fighting vehicle. It would be fascinating to see the marvelous new machine in operation. Even with the death of the Emperor, his loyalty to the Empire and the New Order had never been shaken, not even slightly.

  Furgan kept doing his best to strike vital blows against the New Republic, one way or another. He was pleased to watch indirect reports that gave him evidence of the inexorable progress of Mon Mothma’s “mysterious illness.” She would be dead before long.

  And as soon as Furgan had the grandson of Darth Vader in his possession, all those still loyal to the Empire would have to listen to him.

  25

  When Wedge Antilles wasn’t looking, Qwi Xux stole a glance at the coordinates displayed on his navigation panel. Sitting in the copilot’s seat of the disguised personal space yacht, Qwi used her nimble fingers to tap the coordinates into the navicomputer, requesting a full display.

  Wedge looked away from the starfield and caught what she was doing. “Hey!” he said, then grinned sheepishly as he lowered his gaze. “This was supposed to be a surprise.”

  Qwi laughed, a cascade of short musical tones. “I just wanted to know the name of the planet.” She frowned as the display came up. “Ithor? Never heard of it.”

  Wedge chuckled and reached over to squeeze her slender shoulder. She felt the warmth of his touch linger for several moments after he removed his hand. “Qwi, you’ve never heard of most places in the galaxy. You spent your entire life cooped up in Maw Installation.”

  “Is Ithor a nice place?” she asked.

  He sighed. “It’s beautiful. A pristine natural world covered with forests and jungles, rivers and waterfalls. We’ll be incognito, and you won’t have to worry about anybody knowing who you are.”

  Qwi looked around at the metal-edged control panels of the space yacht, at the synthetic fabric of the seats that felt so smooth and soft. She smelled the recirculated air. Qwi had lived for years inside a completely enclosed environment; she knew nothing about plants and animals and other life-forms. She hoped it would be fascinating.

  “Are you sure we’ll be safe?” she asked, swallowing hard. Her greatest nightmare was that some Imperial spy might recapture her and haul her back to the black-hole research lab where they would tear the weapons knowledge out of her head, no matter how much she resisted.

  “Yes,” Wedge said after a long pause. “Ithor is an isolated paradise. It’s a world where many young couples”—he paused, then swallowed as if embarrassed by the word he had just spoken—“uh, tourists go for vacations. Many people come and go, and the Ithorians welcome everyone.

  “The Empire blockaded this world during the Rebellion, causing some damage as a show of force. But after one of the Ithorians gave the Empire access to the agricultural and cloning information they wanted, Ithor was basically left alone.”

  Wedge looked out at the starfield where the brilliant sun of the Ithorian system gleamed a whitish blue. He increased the thrust from the sublight engines and vectored them toward a bright green planet veined with blue and swathed with white clouds.

  “Just pretend we’re on vacation,” Wedge said. “We’ll be tourists, and I’ll show you what you’ve been missing. I can’t think of a better place to start.”

  “I really look forward to it.” Qwi smiled warmly at him.

  Wedge blushed, then seemed to concentrate furiously on the relatively simple task of entering a low orbit.

  Qwi placed her pale-blue fingers against the side viewport as she stared at the lush vistas below. She had never seen such exotic scenery before, so different from the sterile white-walled rooms in Maw Installation.

  Below her, between the treetops of a tropical paradise, broad rivers furled with white rapids as the current flowed over broken rocks. The space yacht soared above broad meadows splattered with brilliant colors, blooming flowers in red and yellow, blue and purple. The sheer vibrancy of the growing things dazzled her eyes.

  They passed over a chain of oval lakes that glittered and reflected the sunlight, like the string of jewels on the necklace Wedge had given her as a gift a few days earlier. Overhead the sky was a muted lavender.

  “Beautiful,” she said.

  “Told you so,” Wedge agreed, giving her a half smile. “You can trust me.”

  She looked at him, then blinked her indigo eyes. “Yes, Wedge, I trust you.”

  He cleared his throat and turned away quickly, pointing out the front viewport. “The Ithorians allow no damage to their environment,” he said as if reading a data summary. “In fact, they consider it sacrilege even to set foot on the ground of their mother jungle.”

  “Then how do they live?” Qwi asked.

  “Look,” Wedge said.

  As they soared above the treetops, Qwi made out a strange shape coming over the horizon, rapidly growing larger as they approached. “Is that a city?” she said.

  “More than just a city,” Wedge said, “an entire enclosed environment. The Ithorians call it the Tafanda Bay.”

  The enormous disk-shaped construction swelled to fill their front viewport, looking larger and larger—and larger, like a fat coin greater in diameter than the entire Maw Installation. Though the city appeared to be made of plasteel, it also seemed at least partially alive.

  A chaos of platforms, flight decks, transmission antennas, and roving machinery studded the hull of the Ithorian floating city—but the exposed surfaces were covered with hanging moss; large trees grew out of special pockets on the side walls, rising to the sky and looking thicker and greener than the metallic towers.

  On the top flat surface of the disk, greenhouse domes sparkled like a thousand eyes in the sun. Qwi could see through the transparent domes to dense botanical gardens in carefully manicured rows. Small ships flitted like gnats about the landing ports and shipping bays.

  Underneath the Tafanda Bay, banks of diffused repulsorlift engines kept the entire city hovering over the treetops, casting an elliptical shadow over the leafy surface. The Ithorian city slowly drifted along a wandering course with no destination in particular, without touching the sacred ground.

  Wedge keyed in his request for landing coordinates and was answered by an odd echoing voice that Qwi thought sounded like someone speaking through a long, empty tube. After a moment the comm system crackled again with the voice—or was it another one?—changing the coordinates.

  “Excuse us for the oversight, sir. A special representative will meet you at the landing bay. We Hope you enjoy your stay here on our homeworld.”

  Wedge looked suspiciously at the comm unit. “Why would they be
giving us special treatment?” he said to Qwi. “Nobody is supposed to know who we really are.”

  Qwi looked around, and suddenly the cockpit of the space yacht seemed smaller. “Do you think we’re in danger? Should we turn around and find some other place to go?”

  Wedge looked as if that was indeed what he wanted to do. “No, it’s all right,” he said bravely. “I can protect you. Don’t worry.”

  They landed on the pad indicated, and Wedge extended the passenger ramp. He climbed down the gangway first and reached up to take Qwi by the hand, leading her gently down. She could easily have disembarked by herself, but she enjoyed the attention he showered on her.

  Surrounding the space yacht were wide-boled gray-barked trees with low branches that spread out to form a long, flat platform. Brilliant white and blue flowers spangled the leaves. Staring around her, Qwi took a deep breath of the moist air. Everything smelled fresh and alive, filled with a symphony of scents that startled her imagination.

  “Greetings.” Qwi turned to see an exceedingly strange-looking alien hulking toward them, flanked by two ten-year-old human boys. The hunchbacked alien wore a white cape trimmed with braid. Its head looked like a long ladle, as if someone had taken a face made of soft clay and stretched it into an S-curve, looping the front up and yanking out two eye stalks. The mouth was hidden far under the sloping canopy of its head. As Qwi watched, the cumbersome-looking creature took steps forward with a gentle, careful grace.

  The two human boys beside the creature wore similar white capes, over bright-green jumpsuits. Pale-haired and blue-eyed, both wore beatific expressions, but neither of them spoke.

  Wedge must have seen how startled Qwi was by the alien’s appearance. “I guess I should have warned you. The Ithorians are commonly called Hammerheads.”

  Qwi nodded slowly, thinking about other strange creatures she had seen, from the fish-faced Admiral Ackbar to the tentacle-headed Tol Sivron who had run Maw Installation. Perhaps not all intelligent creatures in the galaxy could be as attractive as some humans … such as Wedge.

  “Actually,” the alien said, stepping closer, “we dislike the name Hammerheads. It seems deprecating to us.”

  “My apologies, sir,” Wedge said, bowing slightly.

  “I am Momaw Nadon, and I am honored to be of service to you, Wedge Antilles and Qwi Xux.”

  Wedge took one step back in panic. “How do you know our names?” he said.

  Momaw Nadon made a hollow bubbling sound that came from both sides of his mouth in a stereophonic echo. “Mon Mothma asked me to give you special accommodations.”

  “Why would Mon Mothma tell you we were coming here?” Wedge said. “We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile.” As Nadon gave a slight bow, his ladle-shaped head see-sawed up and down. “I have sympathized with the Rebel Alliance since my days of exile on Tatooine, more than a decade ago. My people banished me to the desert planet, where I could tend the sands rather than our beautiful forests. The Empire had demanded certain agricultural information, and I gave it to them to save our forests from being obliterated—but still my people exiled me. I returned here after the Emperor’s death, and I have continued to make amends ever since.”

  Nadon gestured to the two human boys. “Take their luggage. We will show them their staterooms.”

  The youths moved in unison—without the pell-mell franticness of young boys—entering the space yacht and returning with the slick silvery containers of vacation clothes.

  Nadon led them away from the landing bay, ducking his head under the low-hanging branches that surrounded the landing pad. The passage seemed like a living green tunnel.

  “I was also in the cantina in Mos Eisley when Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first met Captain Solo. I did not know my brush with history at that time, but I remember it clearly, though I was preoccupied with … other concerns at the time.”

  “I’m amazed you could recall a meeting like that after so many years,” Wedge said.

  Nadon indicated a disguised turbolift that opened like a great leafy pod in the wall. They all stepped inside and began to descend deeper within the Tafanda Bay.

  After a long pause Nadon finally said, “Ithorians have long memories.”

  He led them through winding corridors, past small domes that contained specimens of plant life from different parts of the planet. Near a delicately spraying fountain, Nadon pointed to two doors across the corridor from each other.

  “I have assigned you these staterooms,” he said. “Please contact me if you desire other amenities. I am here to serve you.” The two mysterious boys deposited the luggage in the corridor and stepped back to stand on either side of Nadon.

  Qwi finally said, “You haven’t introduced us to the children. Are you their caretaker?”

  Nadon made a rumbling bubbly sound in his twin throats. “They are … seedlings, grown from the flesh of my enemy. They are also a memory of my days on Tatooine.” Nadon hung his ladle-shaped head.

  The two boys remained impassive, and Nadon ushered them off. Without a backward glance he left Wedge and Qwi standing outside their staterooms, wondering what he meant.

  After nightfall on the upper observation deck of the Tafanda Bay, Qwi went with Wedge to watch the moons rise. The lavender skies had turned a deep violet, punctuated by brilliant stars in a wash across the heavens.

  A small moon in full phase climbed over the eastern horizon, while the fingernail crescent of a much larger moon hung close to the western sky, following the brilliant colors of sunset over the edge of the world. High up, two other moons showed swollen quarter phases.

  Qwi took a deep breath of the humid air, smelling a plethora of spicy perfumes from green plants and night-blooming flowers, like a complex mixture of all the perfumes and all the pleasant cooking herbs she had ever smelled.

  The breeze grew paradoxically warmer with nightfall, and she felt her feathery hair drifting about. She straightened it with her slender fingers, knowing that Wedge liked to see her pearly strands glisten in the light. She had changed into a soft wrap swirled with pastel colors that accentuated the ethereal beauty of her wispy body.

  The Ithorian eco-city cruised slowly over the treetops. The gentle hum of the Tafanda Bay’s banks of repulsorlift engines blended with the simmering night sounds of the jungle below. The breeze rustled leaves in the tall hedges and stands of scale trees around the observation deck.

  Other Ithorians arrived, standing in silence or thrumming in their strange stereo language. Wedge and Qwi said nothing to each other.

  She stepped closer, brushed against him, then finally let herself snuggle up to his side. Nervously, it seemed, Wedge slipped an arm around her waist and she—Qwi Xux, inventor of the Sun Crusher, co-creator of the Death Star—felt honored to be under the protection of General Wedge Antilles.

  She knew that Imperial loyalists would be desperate to regain the secret knowledge locked in her brain. But Qwi realized that here, at least, she felt completely safe.

  26

  Jacen and Jaina continued their trek across Coruscant’s dank underbelly. They couldn’t tell if the dim half light that filtered down from high above signified nighttime or day. The air smelled thick with rotted garbage, dead things, corroded metal, and stagnant water. They walked along the widest streets, dodging rubble, clambering over fallen and ancient wreckage. They had seen nothing familiar for hours, and neither of them knew what to do next.

  “I’m hungry,” Jaina said.

  “Me too,” Jacen said.

  The deep underground was smothered in a silence overlaid with white noise. Shadowy creatures, startled by the twins, fled into darker hiding spots. Bumping one pile of debris, Jacen and Jaina sparked an avalanche of frightening clatters. The twins ran from the noise, generating further junkfalls that tinkled and clanged from great heights.

  “My feet hurl,” Jacen said.

  “Mine don’t,” Jaina answered.

  Up ahead they finally saw a welcome sign: a cave dwelli
ng made of shored-up wreckage, walls built from piled chunks of duracrete mortared together with a paste of dried algae, mud, and darker substances. Smoky lights burned deep inside the cave, looking enticing in contrast to the forbidding bleakness of the undercity.

  Jacen and Jaina moved forward at the same time. “Food?” Jacen asked. His sister nodded.

  Outside of the strange slumped cave they saw cables running through lichen-clogged eye bolts mounted at various points. Along the walls and ceilings, metal bands like long fingerbones dangled in a decoration, linked together by sagging segments of chain.

  “In here,” Jaina said, taking the lead. Dimness folded over them, leading them toward the enticing lights.

  Near her head a scratching, scuttling sound came from the shadows. The girl looked to see an elongated spider-roach nearly the size of her head. Bumping against her, Jacen leaned forward to get a better look at the creature. The spider-roach clambered up the lumpy wall and hesitated, turning three glassy amber eyes at them.

  Suddenly, with a ratcheting clatter, a fistful of metal flanges from the ceiling swung loose like a prehensile mechanical hand dangling on chains. Dozens of steel fingers slammed against the wall to trap the spider-roach, clamping it into a makeshift metallic cage. The creature thrashed and flailed, clacking its mandibles. Sparks flew as chitinous forelimbs scrabbled against the impenetrable bars.

  In panic Jacen and Jaina hurried down the tunnel toward the flickering orange lights. But the twins stopped, simultaneously sensing a thrill of danger. They looked up just in time to see a much larger cage, all prongs and sharp metal edges, collapse down around them. Mechanical metal claws surrounded them like dozens of fists chained together.

  “Trap!” Jaina said.