by James Luceno
Shryne’s deflection shot dismantled another droid. “Now shut the power down before we’re shot to death or entombed in here!”
A moment later the droids returned to their inert status, and the control room was plunged into darkness. Five lumas provided just enough light to see by.
“I trust that someone knows the way out of here,” Forte said.
“I do,” Dix said, her antennae standing straight up.
“Then let’s hope the exit’s still open,” Shryne said.
Filli nodded. “It is. I got a look at the security screen before we cut the power.”
“Good job,” Shryne started to say, when blasterfire erupted from somewhere outside the control room.
“You said you zeroed it, Filli,” Jula snapped.
He spread his hands in confusion. “I did!”
Shryne listened closely to the distant discharges. “Those aren’t droid blasters,” he said after a moment. “Those are DC-fifteens.”
Starstone stared at him. “Stormtroopers? Here?”
Jula’s comlink chimed and she grabbed for it. “Archyr,” she said for everyone’s benefit.
“Captain, we’ve got company,” Archyr said from the drop ship. “Troopers from the Jaguada garrison.”
Shryne traded looks with Starstone.
“Whoever’s at the Temple didn’t waste any time,” she said.
Shryne nodded. “They must have been monitoring us from the start.”
“How many troopers?” Jula was asking Archyr.
“A couple of squads,” he said. “Skeck and I are pinned down on the landing platform. But most of the troopers have headed inside.”
“I can try to seal the entrances …” Filli said.
“No, don’t,” Shryne cut him off. “You think you can you rig a delay to the power generator?”
His luma grasped in his teeth, Filli began to riffle through his tool kit. “I’m sure I can cobble something together,” he said.
Shryne turned to Jula. “How long will it take us to reach the front entrance, closest to the cliffs?”
She threw him a questioning look. “That’ll dump us way down valley, Roan. A good kilometer from the drop ship.”
He nodded. “But we avoid engaging troopers on the way out.”
Her brow continued to furrow. “Then why do you want Filli to—” She grinned in sudden revelation and turned to Filli. “Set it to power up in a standard quarter, Filli.”
“That’s cutting things pretty close, Captain.”
“The closer, the better,” she said.
By the time a holotransmission from the commander of the Jaguada garrison reached the Temple beacon room, Vader already knew that something had gone wrong.
“I’m sorry, Lord Vader,” the helmeted stormtrooper was saying, “but we’re trapped inside the facility with several hundred reactivated infantry and destroyer droids.” The commander dodged blaster bolts and returned fire at something distant from the holocam’s transmission grid. “All accesses sealed when the facility powered up.”
“Where are the Jedi?” Vader asked.
“They left before the facility went online. We’re trapped in here until we find a way to blow one of the doors.”
“Did you destroy the ship the Jedi arrived in?”
“Negative,” the commander said as bolts lanced the air around him. “The smugglers detonated a magpulse while the second squad was advancing. My troopers were expecting it, but in the time it took our hardware to reboot, the Jedi got their ship airborne.”
Off cam a trooper said: “Fallback positions two and three have been overrun, Commander. We’ll have to make a stand here.”
“There’s just too many of them!” the commander said as diagonal lines of noise began to interfere with the transmission.
Abruptly, it derezzed completely.
Armand Isard and the ISB technicians busied themselves at the beacon controls, if only to avoid having to look at Vader.
“Lord Vader,” Appo said, “Jaguada base reports that jump points are limited in that system, and that they are scanning for vagrant traces of the Jedi ship. They may be able to calculate possible escape vectors.”
Vader nodded.
Infuriated, he turned and stormed from the beacon room, wishing he had the power to simply reach out and pluck the Jedi from the sky.
Conclude their extermination.
Sidious was wrong, he told himself as he hurried through the empty hallways.
They are a threat.
The Drunk Dancer tore through mottled hyperspace, leaving desolate Jaguada light-years behind. Skeck had sustained a nasty blaster burn to his right arm during the troopers’ attempt to disable the drop ship, but no one else had been hurt. Emerging from the facility moments before Filli’s time delay initiated the power generator, Shryne and the others had raced up valley to the landing platform and had arrived in time to catch a squad of Imperials in a crossfire.
Sealed inside the facility, the remaining squads were up to their T-visors in reactivated battle droids.
After Skeck’s wound had been bandaged, Shryne had retired to the dormitory cabin space Jula had provided for the Jedi. He had always had a fondness for hyperspace travel—more, the sense of being outside time—and was kneeling in meditation when he sensed Starstone approaching the cabin. Simultaneous with her excited entry he rose to his feet, eyes on the sheaf of flimsiplast printouts she was holding.
“We have data on hundreds of Jedi,” she said, rattling the printouts. “We know where more than seventy Masters were at the end of the war—when the clone commanders received their orders.”
Accepting the proffered flimsies, Shryne thumbed through them, then glanced at Starstone. “How many of these hundreds do you think might actually have survived the attacks?”
She gave her head a quick shake. “I’m not even going to try to guess. We can begin our search with systems closest to Mossak, and fan out from there toward Mygeeto, Saleucami, and Kashyyyk.”
Shryne shook the flimsies. “Has it occurred to you that if we have this information, then so does the Empire? What do you think our adversaries were doing in the Temple beacon room, playing hide-and-seek?”
Starstone winced at the harshness of his tone, but only briefly. “Has it occurred to you that our adversaries, as you call them, were there precisely because a good many Jedi survived? It’s crucial that we reach those survivors before they’re hunted down. Or are you proposing that we leave them to the Empire—to Vader and his stormtroopers?”
Shryne made a start at replying, then bit back his words and motioned to the edge of the nearest cot. “Sit down, and try for a moment to stop thinking like a HoloNet hero.”
When Starstone ultimately lowered herself to the cot, Shryne sat opposite her.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” he began. “Your goal couldn’t be more noble. And for all I know there are five hundred Jedi scattered throughout the Rim in need of rescue. My point is, I don’t want to see your name added to the casualty list. What happened at Jaguada is only a foretaste of what’s in store for us if we continue to band together.”
“I—”
Shryne stopped her before she could go on. “Think about the final beacon message we received at Murkhana. The message didn’t tell us to gather together and coordinate a strike on Coruscant, or on Palpatine, or even on the troopers. It instructed us, each of us who received it, to hide. Yoda or whoever ordered the transmission knew that the Jedi were in a fight we couldn’t win. The message was a way of saying just that—that the order is over and done with. That the Jedi are finished.”
He hid his ruefulness. “Does that mean that you have to stop honoring the Force? Of course not. All of us will live out our lives honoring the Force. But not with lightsabers in hand, Olee. With right action, and right thinking.”
“I’d rather die honoring the Force with my lightsaber,” she said.
He had expected as much. “How is dying honoring the Force, when yo
u could be out doing good works, passing on to others all that you’ve learned about the Force?”
“Is that what you plan to do—devote yourself to good works?”
Shryne smiled. “Right now I only know what I’m not going to do, and that’s help rush you into a grave on some remote world.” He held her gaze. “I’m sorry. But I’ve already lost two Padawans to this rotten war, and I don’t want to lose you to it.”
“Even though I’m not your learner?”
He nodded. “Even though.”
She sighed with purpose. “I appreciate your concern for me, Master—and I will call you that because right now you’re the only Master we have. But the Force tells me that we can make a difference, and I can’t turn my back on that. Master Chatak instilled in me every day that I should follow the Force’s lead, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
She adopted an even more serious look. “Jula believes that you can turn your back. The Force is with her, but she’s not a Jedi, Master. You can’t unlearn overnight the teachings and practices of decades. Even if you should succeed, you’ll regret it.”
Shryne firmed his lips and nodded again. “Then you and I will be parting ways at Mossak.”
Sadness pulled down the corners of her mouth. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, Master.”
“That doesn’t begin to say how I feel about it.”
They stood, and he hugged her tenderly.
“You’ll tell the others?” he said while she was gathering up the flimsies.
“They already know.”
Shryne didn’t watch her leave. But no sooner did she exit the cabin than Jula entered.
“Jedi business?”
Shryne looked at her. “You can probably figure it out.”
Jula averted her gaze. “Olee’s a fine young woman—they’re all decent beings. But they’re deluded, Roan. It’s over. They have to realize that and get on with their lives. You told me that attachment is the root of many of our problems. Well, that includes being so attached to the Jedi order that you can’t leave it behind. If being a Jedi means being able to accept what has happened and move on, then they honor the order best by letting go.”
She looked at him now. “For some of them it’s all about the loss of prestige, and the power to decide what’s right or wrong. To believe that everything you do is motivated by the Force, and that you always have the Force on your side. But that’s not always the way it works. I’ve no love for the order, you know that. Sometimes the Jedi caused as many problems as they solved. Now, for whatever reason, whether it’s Palpatine or the fact that the Jedi couldn’t accept the idea of taking second place to the Republic—the Force isn’t necessarily your best ally.”
She reached for his hands. “They took you from me once, Roan. I won’t let you go a second time without a fight.” She laughed lightly. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes my little speech.” Gazing at him, she said: “Join us.”
“In crime, you mean.”
A fire came into her eyes. “We’re not criminals. All right, we’ve done some questionable things, but so have you, and that was in the past. If you come aboard, I promise we’ll stick to taking contracts that will allow you to keep on doing good deeds, if that’s what it’s going to take.”
“Such as?” Shryne said.
“Well, we already happen to have a good deed on deck. A contract to transport a former Senator from the Core to his home system.”
Shryne allowed his skepticism to show. “Why would a former Senator have to be smuggled to his home system?”
“I don’t have all the details. But my guess? The Senator doesn’t share the ideals of the new regime.”
“Is this a Cash Garrulan contract?”
Jula nodded. “And maybe that’s another reason for you to say yes to accepting the offer. Because you owe him for arranging for your escape from Murkhana.”
Shryne pretended scorn. “I don’t owe Cash any favors.”
“Okay. Then you’ll do it to honor his memory.”
Shryne stared at her.
“Imperial troopers caught up with him soon after all of you left Murkhana. Cash is dead.”
From the high-backed chair that was his seat of power, Sidious watched Darth Vader turn and march from the throne room, long black cloak whooshing, black helmet burnished by the lights, anger palpable.
Atop a pedestal alongside the chair sat the holocrons Sidious had asked his apprentice to search out and retrieve from the Jedi archives room. Pyramidal in shape, as opposed to the geodesic Jedi version, the holocrons were repositories of recorded knowledge, accessible only to those who were highly evolved in the use of the Force. Arcane writing inscribed on the holocrons Vader had fetched told Sidious that they had been recorded by Sith during the era of Darth Bane, some one thousand standard years earlier. Sidious didn’t have to imagine the content of the devices, because his own Master, Darth Plagueis, had once allowed him access to the actual holocrons. The ones stored in the Temple archives room were nothing more than clever forgeries—Sith disinformation of a sort.
Vader didn’t realize that they were forgeries, of course, although he was certainly smart enough to have puzzled out that the holocrons were hardly the reason Sidious had ordered him to return to the Temple. But Vader’s obvious anger hinted that something unexpected had occurred. Instead of helping Vader come to terms with his choices, the specious mission had muddled his emotions, and perhaps made matters worse.
What is to be done with him? Sidious thought.
Perhaps I will have to send him back to Mustafar, as well.
He mused on a strategy for a moment; then, depressing a button on the control panel set into the arm of the chair, he summoned Mas Amedda into the room.
The tall-horned Chagrian, now the Emperor’s interface with sundry utterly dispensable Senatorial groups, moved cautiously between the Imperial Guards who flanked the door, inclining his head in a bow of respect as he approached Sidious.
Through the open door to the waiting room, Sidious glimpsed a familiar face. “Is that Isard outside?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Why is he here?”
“He asked that I inform you of an incident that occurred while he and Lord Vader were in the Temple.”
“Indeed?”
“I’m given to understand that unknown parties accessed certain databases, by means of the beacon.”
“Jedi,” Sidious said, drawing out the word.
“None other, my lord.”
“And Lord Vader was on hand to witness this remote infiltration?”
“He was, my lord. Once the source of the transmission was located, Lord Vader ordered a local garrison of troopers to descend on the Jedi responsible.”
“The troopers failed,” Sidious said, leaning forward in interest.
Mas Amedda nodded gravely.
More of his fugitive Jedi, Sidious thought. He has not allowed himself to be done with them.
“No matter,” he said at last. “What business originally brought you here?”
“Senator Fang Zar, my lord.”
Sidious interlocked the fingers of his fat hands and sat back in the chair. “One of the more vocal of the illustrious two thousand who wished to see me removed from office. Has he had a sudden change of heart?”
“Of a sort. You will recall, my lord, that following your announcement that the war had been won, Fang Zar and several other signatories of the Petition of the Two Thousand were briefly detained for questioning by Internal Security Bureau officers.”
“Come to the point,” Sidious snapped.
“Fang Zar was instructed not to leave Coruscant, and yet he did, managing to reach Alderaan, where he has been in residence at the Aldera Palace ever since. Now, however, the conflict that engulfed his home system has come to an end, and Fang Zar is apparently determined to return to Sern Prime without attracting the notice of the ISB or anyone else.”
Sidious considered it. “Continue.�
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Mas Amedda spread his huge blue hands. “Our only concern is that his sudden return to Sern Prime might prompt dissension in certain outlying systems.”
Sidious smiled tolerantly. “Some dissension should be encouraged. Better they rant and rave in the open than plot behind my back. But tell me, does Senator Organa know that Zar was questioned before he fled Coruscant?”
“Perhaps he does now, though it is unlikely he knew when he granted refugee status to Fang Zar.”
Sidious grew interested once more. “How is Zar planning to reach Sern Prime without, as you say, attracting attention?”
“We know that he made contact with a crime lord on Murkhana—”
“Murkhana?”
“Yes, my lord. Perhaps he wishes to avoid involving Senator Organa in his predicament.”
Sidious fell silent for a long moment, attuned to the currents of the Force. Currents linking Vader and Murkhana, and now Zar and Murkhana. And perhaps fugitive Jedi and Murkhana …
Into his thoughts came the words of Darth Plagueis.
Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength, so I will know how best to undermine you; tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face; tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you; and tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you …
“Perhaps it would be more prudent for Fang Zar to remain on Alderaan awhile longer,” he said finally.
Mas Amedda bowed his head. “Shall I inform Senator Organa of your wish?”
“No. Lord Vader should deal with the situation.”
“To deflect his hunger for the Jedi,” the Chagrian risked saying.
Sidious shot him a look. “To sharpen it.”
Perhaps it was because Alderaan presented such a pleasant picture from deep space that it had enjoyed such a long history of peace, prosperity, and tolerance.
Even deeper into its intoxicating atmosphere, closer to its montage of alabaster clouds, blue seas, and green plains, the picture held. Coruscant’s neighbor in the Core was a gem of a world.
The pacific impression didn’t begin to diminish until one reached street level on the island-city of Aldera, and only then as a result of the day’s activities, which demonstrated that for tolerance to endure, voice had to be granted to all, even when free expression challenged the perpetuation of peace.