Her granite-gray eyes narrowed, as if she suspected a veiled insult. "l
could carry you, if I had to."
Jacen chuckled, then groaned as he held his aching head. "Yeah, I think
she's just fine.
* 20 *
UP ON THE mirror station, Jaina worked with Lowie and Chewbacca to patch up
as many of the worn-out subsystems as they could manage.
After scraping together the few spare components they could find, they added
their own ingenuity to come up with alternative solutions. Although it was
impossible for them to program the food synthesizers to create anything
remotely resembling gourmet fare, Lowie and Chewbacca did manage to produce
a passable midday meal.
Jaina completed the task of reconnecting the communications systems, making
it possible to send brief messages, though the transmissions were still
plagued with bursts of static. Chewbacca set to work inspecting the
life-support systems, the environmental controls, and the station heaters.
Peckhum watched, performing the few duties expected of him on his monitoring
shift. He bubbled over with gratitude, emphasizing again and again how much
he appreciated all the effort Jaina, Lowie, and Chewbacca were putting in on
his behalf. "If I had waited for the New Republic to get around to fixing
these things, Zekk would have been an old man by the time--" Peckhum broke
off with a sad shake of his head.
With the major and obvious repairs completed, the young Jedi Knights had
little to do while Chewbacca continued poking around. Lowbacca devoted his
energies to finishing the orbital-debris plotting that he and Jaina had
volunteered to do. Jaina had helped Lowie with the task, but tracking
thousands of pieces of debris was just too daunting for her at the moment.
Lowie, on the other hand, had extreme patience for a Wookiee, especially
around computers. He diligently plotted one blip after another, noting the
more dangerous space lanes in the heavily traveled orbits around the capital
world.
Jaina glanced at Lowie's three-dimensional map, but soon turned back to the
puzzling images on her own datapad. She reviewed file copies of the newsnet
videoclips that showed the mysterious Imperial attack on the supply cruiser
Adamant. On the day after the attack, she, Jacen, and Lowie had easily
identified the modified assault shuttle, with its Corusca-gem teeth,
recognizing the craft that had been used to kidnap them from Lando
Calrissian's GemDiver Station. Admiral Ackbar had verified their
descriptions.
The theft of military equipment was undoubtedly part of the evil work of the
Shadow Academy . From Ackbar's description, Jaina knew that the Imperial in
command of the attack had been none other than Qorl, the TIE pilot she and
Jacen had tried to befriend near his crashed ship on Yavin .
She sighed and shook her head, watching the footage yet again. Jaina had
hoped Qorl would see the error of his ways--and though the TIE pilot had
trembled on the verge of surrender, the Imperial brainwashing had won out in
the end. And now Qorl continued to cause trouble for the New Republic .
She replayed the videoclip of the Adamant's capture a third time. The film,
taken by New Republic forces as they'd rushed from Coruscant to defend the
supply cruiser, had low resolution. But something about the clip bothered
her in an indefinable way, as it had since the first time she'd seen it.
Jaina chewed on her lower lip. "Something just isn't right." She watched the
shark-mouthed assault ship appear out of nowhere, while shots from the
flanking Imperial ships took out the Adamant's communication arrays and
weapon systems. She turned her attention back to the replay--and suddenly
sat up with a jolt. She had been watching Qorl's ship--but it was the other
imperial fighters that didn't fit.
"That's it!" she cried. "It can't be."
Chewbacca growled a question as he stood up from his cramped position in the
control modules for the life-support systems. Jaina focused her attention on
the images of the smaller ships, pointing. "I know my Imperial fighters,"
she said. "Dad taught me to identify every ship ever recorded . . . well,
almost every one." She leaned closer to the image. "Those are short-range
fighters." She jammed her finger at the image on the screen. "Short-range
fighters! They had to come from somewhere nearby. Their base is
close--hidden somewhere in this system!"
Chewbacca growled a surprised comment.
Lowie, wedged into a chair built for humans with his knobby knees thrust
high and his arms reaching almost to the ground, cradled his datapad in his
lap, studying coordinates of the known items of space debris. He roared his
own question, and waved the datapad in the air.
"Attention! Excuse me!" Em Teedee shrilled. "Master Lowbacca believes he has
also found something of utmost importance, an inconsistency in the positions
of orbital debris. I can't see it myself since he hasn't shown me the
datapad"--the miniature droid huffed--"but I trust it's something highly
unusual for him to become so excited. You really must calm down, Master
Lowbacca, and explain yourself."
Jaina rushed with Chewbacca to look at the thousands of dots plotted in the
three-dimensional map of space around the planet Coruscant.
"That can't be right, either," Jaina said immediately She was still puzzled
by her own results, and now Lowie had made the mystery even deeper. "It's
pretty much the opposite of what we expected."
Lowie barked his confirmation. Jaina sighed, biting her lower lip again. The
entire reason for their mapping project had been to discover uncatalogued
debris that posed a danger to navigation. Instead of revealing the uncharted
hazard that had destroyed the Moon Dash, though, Lowie's map of space
wreckage showed absolutely nothing in the marked zone. In fact, it was more
like a forbidden area in space, an island empty of all known debris, as if
somehow it had already been swept clear. But they knew the Moon Dash had
struck something large enough to destroy it. . . .
With a burst of static from the communications system, words filtered across
the small, confined space. "Hello! Hello, Mirror Station? Can anyone hear
me? Jaina, are you there?''
Peckhum perked up. "Well, now we're sure the communications system works."
"That sounded like Jacen!" Jaina rushed to the comm unit and flicked a
switch, but was greeted by a flash of sparks from a burnt-out fuse. The
sudden heat stung her fingertips. Scrambling, she yanked off the panel face
and stared at the singed wires. She probed with the Force, following the
path of the short circuit, and rapidly managed to hot-wire the damaged
system well enough that she could answer her brother.
The speakers crackled back to life. "--are you there? Jaina, answer me! This
is important. We've found Zekk." A burst of static disrupted his next words.
". . . bad news . . ."
"Zekk!" Peckhum hurried forward, leaning over Jaina's shoulder. "Hello?" he
shouted into the speaker. "Where is he? Is he all right?"
Jaina tossed her shoulder-lengt
h brown hair out of her eyes. "Wait. I
haven't got the transmitter back on-line yet." She plucked out a melted
cyberfuse and popped in a replacement yanked from her datapad. "That should
do it," she said. "Okay, Jacen--we read you. Are we coming through?"
His voice came over the speakers, sizzling and broken. ". . . some
disruption, but . . . understand you."
'... What about Zekk?" she asked with an indrawn breath. "He's not? . . ."
"Dead?" Jacen finished for her. The transmission was clearer now, and his
voice sounded stronger. "No. We found him--and then Tamith Kai and a couple
of others from the Shadow Academy knocked us out."
"Tamith Kai!" Jaina gave a startled cry. Lowbacca roared, and even Em Teedee
emitted a squeak of dismay. "But what would she be doing on--"
"They've recruited Zekk and a handful of the Lost Ones gang," Jacen said. "I
don't know where they took him, but Zekk seemed to be with them willingly.
Tamith Kai said she was going to train him to be a Dark Jedi! They're going
to the Shadow Academy ."
Lowie growled a curious question, but Jaina asked it without waiting for Em
Teedee's translation. "But how could they train Zekk? He's not a Jedi--"
"Apparently he has the potential," Jacen said. "Remember, Uncle Luke found
lots of candidates who never knew they could use the Force. Zekk had a knack
for finding things to salvage, even in places where other people have
scavenged already We just never noticed, never put the pieces together."
Jaina hung her head, thinking of all the time they had spent with Zekk, all
the fun they had had together, without her ever having recognized his true
potential. "So where is he now?"
Jacen's voice became sad. "I don't know," he admitted. "They stunned me and
Tenel Ka, then disappeared. Mom and Anakin came to find us, but that was
hours ago. They've probably managed to get off planet by now. I have no idea
where they might have gone."
Jaina covered her face with her hands. "Not you, Zekk. Not you!" Then she
raised her tear-damp face and looked directly into Lowbacca's bright golden
eyes. "The Shadow Academy !" she whispered.
"Remember, the cloaking device makes the whole station invisible, like a
hole in space--just like on your orbital map!" He snarled in agreement.
"Oh, my!" Em Teedee said, too flustered to provide a translation.
Jaina turned back to the comm system. "We know exactly where they are,
Jacen." She glanced at Lowie's datapad and the projected map, zeroing in on
the empty spot in space. Jaina shouted into the voice pickup. "Tell Mom to
contact Admiral Ackbar. We've got to mobilize the New Republic fleet.
Lowie's going to send you some coordinates. We need to strike fast, before
the Imperials realize we've caught them in the act."
"Great," Jacen said. "What are you going to do?"
Jaina smiled. "We're going to shine a little light on the subject."
Old Peckhum sat strapped into the command chair in the monitoring station as
it dangled beneath the giant solar reflectors, working the outdated attitude
adjustment controls. Jaina crouched over the chair, whispering excitedly
into his ear. "Turn the mirrors," she said. "Turn, turn, turn!"
"I'm already beyond the maximums," Peckhum said in despair. His jaw was
clenched, his neck muscles taut, and beads of sweat glistened on his brow.
"These are delicate sheets of reflective material. Well tear the solar
mirrors if we whip 'em around too fast."
Jaina looked out the observation viewports, spotting the New Republic fleet
launching from orbit and streaking toward their invisible target. Their
weapons powered up as they homed in on the mysteriously empty zone. Before
they arrived, Jaina and the others had to expose the Shadow Academy .
Lowie groaned a question, which Em Teedee translated. "Master Lowbacca
wishes to inquire if the focusing apparatus has condensed the beam of
reflected sunlight to its full-power configuration."
"That's for sure," Peckhum said. "Once we get this thing turned, we'll
really make them hot under the collar."
Hanging in orbit over Coruscant, the big mirrors finally swung into
position, focusing their bright beam of condensed sunlight into the empty
void. The mirror beam cut a swath through space like a searchlight.
The light should have kept flying across the solar system, but when it
struck the empty coordinates, space itself seemed to shimmer like golden
smoke. The high-intensity flood of sunlight continued to bombard the cloaked
area, finally overwhelming the invisibility shields around the Shadow
Academy .
"There!" Jaina cried triumphantly.
The Imperial station rippled into view and then snapped into perfect focus,
a large circular ring bristling with spiked gun emplacements and observation
towers.
Lowie and Chewbacca roared in unison, and Jaina shook her head. "They were
hiding right on our doorstep all along. That's why they could use
short-range fighters to attack the Adamant. That's how Tamith Kai and her
companions could slip down to the city and steal Zekk away!''
"Zekk must be aboard the station then," Peckhum whispered. "That's where
they've taken him."
"And the Lost Ones," Jaina added.
Chewbacca snarled, then pointed as the exposed Shadow Academy began to move.
Thrusters along the equator of its donut shape burned blue-white on one
side, nudging it away from the bright beam of concentrated sunlight.
"Turn the mirrors," Jaina said. "We can't let them get away before the ships
arrive."
"Oh dear," Em Teedee said. "I do hope our fighters manage to apprehend that
Shadow Academy . I'm still exceedingly vexed with them for reprogramming me
when we were all taken prisoner there."
Peckhum punched new coordinates into the mirror directional systems, but the
sudden acceleration and the change in direction proved too much for the
already-stressed silvery sheeting. The long webs of cables that held the
great mirror in position tore free, and a wide gash began to open up,
spilling a seam of stars and black night through the glittering reflector.
'We can't hold it," Peckhum shouted. "It's too much!" He shook his head. "We
could never target a moving object anyway." Then he looked up and moaned.
"My mirrors!"
The Shadow Academy continued to accelerate, and Jaina watched the approach
of Admiral Ackbar's vengeful fleet, silently urging them to greater speed.
But she could see they would not arrive in time.
"The Shadow Academy must already have been preparing to leave," she said.
"Of course. They've got Zekk and some other recruits. They've stolen a
shipment of hyperdrive cores and turbolaser batteries. They were only
increasing their danger by staying here."
Though its ringed shape made it appear unwieldy, the Shadow Academy picked
up speed as it headed toward its appropriate hyperspace jump point.
The first of the New Republic ships soared ahead, firing laser bursts at the
Shadow Academy . Several shots struck home, leaving dark blaster scoring on
the outer hull; the intensity of the solar mirror must have burned out some
&nb
sp; shields.
Jaina reached out with her mind, searching for Zekk, still marveling at the
thought that the handsome, dark-haired street boy might have the potential
to be a Jedi Knight. Or a Dark Jedi. She muttered to herself, feeling
guilty, "He was our friend, and we never even imagined he might become a
Jedi, too. Now it's too late."
As the New Republic ships arrowed toward their target, firing numerous laser
bursts, the Shadow Academy suddenly shot forward with a bright flash of
light. Its acceleration stretched space and bent starlines, then it vanished
to its unknown hiding place deep in Imperial territory.
The Shadow Academy was gone. Again.
Jaina swallowed a lump in her throat. And this time the Imperials had taken
a friend with them.
* 21 *
AT THE OBSERVATION windows of the mirror station, Jaina stood next to Lowie,
her hands outstretched, as if she were trying to pull back the vanished
Shadow Academy -and Zekk with it. But, with the exception of a few New
Republic ships, the area where the Imperial space station had disappeared
remained stubbornly empty.
She let her arms fall back to her sides. Her eyes squeezed shut against the
un-Jaina-like tears that had suddenly welled up, and her mind sent out a
silent cry. Don't go, Zekk! Come back.
In stunned silence, Peckhum leaned against the station wall next to her. His
mirrors were damaged, and Zekk had joined the fragments of the Empire. "He's
The Lost Ones Page 14