The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  “I will speak with the pilots later,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Saes cut off the connection to Llerd and opened another, through the Force. He reached out, but tentatively, the way he might have gingerly touched a fingertip on an object that he feared might be too hot.

  Immediately he felt a familiar presence.

  “Welcome back, Relin,” he whispered, surprised to find himself pleased.

  He went to one of the display cases built into the wall of his quarters. Five ancient Kaleesh hunting masks leered out from behind the glass, each of them hand-carved from the bones of an erkush, a fierce reptilian predator native to Kalee. Shamanic runes covered the brow and cheeks of each mask, invoking the spirits to lend the wearer strength, speed, skill.

  Saes opened the case, took a familiar, age-yellowed face from the ancient gallery, fitted it over his own face, and tied it on. He felt himself transformed in that single act, reconnected to the wondrous, faceless savagery of his ancestors.

  He would confront Relin while wearing the mask he had worn when he had been Relin’s Padawan. It seemed fitting that things end just so. He strode from his chamber, hunting a Jedi.

  Snow drifted halfway up the metal and duracrete walls of the facility. Spears of ice hung in thickets from every overhang. Three-quarters of a communications tower jutted upward from the tundra like an accusatory finger blaming the sky for its fate. A faint, snow-blotted light at the tower’s top flashed intermittently, keeping time with the beacon playing over Flotsam’s cockpit speaker, keeping time with Jaden’s heart.

  “Looks abandoned,” Khedryn said.

  Jaden came back to himself, swallowed in a mouth gone dry. “Yes.”

  “Definitely looks old enough to be Imperial,” Khedryn said.

  Jaden forced a nod, though a sense of déjà vu gripped his gut. For an instant he lived in the dreamspace between his Force vision and his real senses and he was suddenly unsure that he wanted to set foot on the moon.

  Fighting down the doubt, he reached out through the Force, expecting to feel the bitter recoil of contact with the Sith from his vision.

  Nothing.

  He took his hand from the stick, made a claw of his fingers, looked at their tips, the fingertips that leaked Force lightning when he was overcome by anger or fear.

  Nothing.

  “Are you all right?” Khedryn asked, taking the copilot’s stick. “What are you doing?”

  Embarrassed, Jaden made as though he were flexing his fingers against stiffness. “Nothing. I am fine.”

  “Maybe a flyover before we set down?” Khedryn said. He did not release the stick and seemed pleased to be in control of the ship.

  “Agreed,” Jaden said.

  Khedryn decreased altitude and speed, flying low over the complex.

  With many of the buildings having lost their battle to the snow, Jaden found it difficult to make out the contours of the complex. Small mounds suggested tertiary structures, though it was hard to tell.

  “Could be a shield generator,” he said, pointing at a dome-shaped mound of snow.

  “You would know better than me,” Khedryn said.

  The central building, a rectangular, single-story mass of ice-rimmed metal, looked like any number of facilities Jaden had seen before. The structure could have been anything from a hazardous materials storage depot to a training complex.

  “That looks like an entrance,” Khedryn said, pointing at a shadowed portico on one side of the central facility. “Can’t see if there’s a hatch.”

  Khedryn fiddled with the instrumentation, tweaking his scanner. “There is still power in the main complex, though not much of it. Life support is online but barely. Some kind of backup or emergency power probably. Good construction to last this long.”

  “Yes,” Jaden said absently, looking at the blowing snow, remembering the ghostly touches of Lassin, Mara, Kam Solusar. The beacon still played over the cockpit speakers, their pleading voices—Help us. Help us.

  “If life support is functioning, someone could still be alive in there.”

  “Unlikely,” Khedryn said. “It’s been decades. Can we turn that off, Jaden? Jaden?”

  Jaden killed the sound of the beacon.

  They completed their flyover, having learned little.

  “Well?” Khedryn said, and looked across the cockpit at Jaden, one eye on him, one eye off on some distant point. “Having second thoughts?”

  “No. Let’s put her down,” Jaden said. He knew he would not find his answer sitting in Flotsam’s cockpit.

  The repulsors engaged, pressing Relin and Marr into their seats as Junker streaked toward the landing bay. Leaving the piloting entirely to Marr, Relin sorted through Harbinger’s schematics in his mind, and decided on the best approach for his attack. Agitated, he unstrapped himself, stood, and checked his lightsaber and gear, speaking to Marr as he did so.

  “About one hundred and fifty meters in, you will see a wide corridor open off the landing bay on our starboard side. It is a freight corridor. Put Junker down against it with the port cargo bay door facing it.”

  Sweat dampened the wall of Marr’s brow. “If you want to block the corridor, it will have to be a belly landing. No skids.”

  “Right,” Relin agreed. He had not thought of that. “No skids.”

  Were Junker to land on its skids, Harbinger’s crew could simply walk or crawl underneath to get into the corridor and at Relin.

  “You should strap yourself back in,” Marr said. “That will be a bumpy landing.”

  Relin sat, and buckled himself in. “I will not need long. A few minutes at most and you get Junker out of there. Lots of side corridors open off the freight corridor. They will not know where I have gone, and I am … skillful at avoiding detection.”

  “Understood,” Marr said as they sped down the throat of the landing bay, the guide lights casting the cockpit in red. Marr did not slow once they were within the launch tunnel, and Junker scraped one of Harbinger’s bulkheads. Metal shrieked and Relin imagined a shower of sparks trailing in their wake. Marr cursed and got the ship off the wall.

  “Calm, Marr,” Relin said, though he did not feel it himself. The touch of the Lignan had his spirit churning.

  They cleared the launch tunnel and moved into the broader landing bay, pelting past a few shuttles on landing pods and a couple of treaded cargo droids. A few of Harbinger’s black-uniformed crew scrambled out of ships or trotted along the landing bay deck, watching them pass, questions on their faces. Relin imagined the reports that must have been heading to Saes and the command crew.

  “It’s enormous in here,” Marr said, eyeing the whole scene with a look of faint wonder, perhaps realizing that he was flying in the landing bay of a ship that had fought in a war five thousand years previous. Or perhaps just surprised that they had made it that far.

  Relin pointed with his stump when he saw the freight corridor.

  “There.”

  Marr nodded and did not slow.

  “Brace yourself,” the Cerean said.

  Three droids were unloading cargo from a lev pallet. Marr slammed into them, crushing all three, while spinning Junker on its repulsors and slamming its port side against the freight corridor opening. The impact rattled Relin’s teeth. Junker protested with a groan of stressed metal. Relin protested with a grunt of pain. It felt as if someone had stuck a knife in his ribs.

  “Are you all right?” Marr asked, unstrapping himself.

  Relin caught his breath, unbuckled his safety straps, rose, and thumped Marr on the shoulder. “Yes. Well done.”

  Marr activated the security system right away. Metal shields slid over every viewport: Junker closing its eyes.

  “That will protect the ship from small-arms fire. But she is still vulnerable to more powerful weapons. I should not leave her here long.”

  “I do not think they will try to blow her up on their own landing deck, at least not before they surround her with a makeshift blas
t wall. We could have loaded her with explosives for all they know. No, I think droids build a blast wall while a security team tries to gain entry.”

  As if to make Relin’s point, blasterfire barked from outside the ship, dull, harmless thumps against the bulkheads.

  “None of which will stop some fool pilots from taking shots at the ship,” Relin said. “We must hurry.”

  He turned to go but Marr’s hand pulled him back around. The Cerean did not make eye contact.

  “How often do Cereans fall to the dark side? In your time, I mean.”

  Relin understood the origin of the question. The touch of the Lignan, and Marr’s conscious use of the Force, had brought him face-to-face with the two poles of potential. Relin remembered that feeling himself from his early days in the Order, the feeling that he stood on a very thin line, and that he might step over it at any moment.

  “The dark side can reach anyone,” Relin said, pained by the truth of the words.

  Marr considered, nodded, released Relin’s arm.

  “Thank you,” he said. “For showing me what you showed me.”

  Relin was touched, but kept his feelings to himself. “I need to go, Marr. Now.”

  * * *

  Relin and Marr sprinted through Junker’s corridors, Marr leading, until they reached the port cargo bay. The bay felt cavernous, as empty as Marr had seen it in years. His speeder bike, Khedryn’s Searing swoop, and a few sealed shipping containers were all that remained. They had spaced everything else.

  They hurried across the bay, their boots beating staccato on the metal floor, until they stood before the cargo door. Marr put his finger on the red button that would lower the door and looked to Relin. He could see that the Jedi was not well. Sweat glistened on his pale skin, pasting his black hair to his scalp. His breathing was labored, pained, like that of a wounded animal. His deep-sunken eyes looked clear, though, lit by some inner resolve, and that heartened Marr.

  “Ready?” Marr asked.

  Relin inhaled and bounced on the balls of his feet, staring at the cargo bay door as if he could burn holes into it with his eyes. He ignited his lightsaber, the green blade humming in the quiet of the bay.

  “Open it.”

  Marr hit the button and the bay door started to descend. The wail of Harbinger’s alarm carried through the opening.

  “Five minutes and go,” Relin said without looking at Marr.

  Before the door got halfway down, blasterfire from the freight corridor sizzled into the bulkheads, scorching the metal. Marr threw himself against the wall, out of the line of fire. Relin did not so much as move while the door continued its trek. More blasterfire poured through the opening. Relin deflected two shots with his lightsaber, almost casually sending the bolts into Junker’s bulkheads.

  Looking straight ahead, Relin started to speak, stopped, then started again, his lips barely moving.

  “May the Force be with you, Marr.”

  Marr heard sadness in Relin’s words, saw tears pooling in the Jedi’s eyes.

  “Relin …,” Marr began, but before he could say more the bay door opened fully and Relin bounded out into a hail of blasterfire, the glowing line of his lightsaber transformed into a figure-eight by the speed of his defense. He roared like a rancor as he sped down the corridor.

  Blasterfire forced Marr back against the wall and he lost line of sight to the corridor. He heard Relin’s shouts answered by throaty growls, heard enough blasterfire to know that Relin was facing a large number of enemies. Blasts carried through the cargo bay and blackened the storage containers.

  A lull in the fire allowed Marr a moment to peek out and down the corridor.

  A pair of bodies—large, red-skinned humanoids in black uniforms—lay in a pool of blood eight meters down the corridor, both decapitated. One of the heads faced Marr, yellow eyes still open, a fleshy beard of finger-length appendages partially concealing a fanged mouth. Marr had never seen such creatures before.

  Relin sheltered in a crouch in one of the many doorways that lined the hall, maybe fifteen meters from Junker’s gangway. More of the red-skinned humanoids, all of them armed with large blaster pistols, crouched at intervals in the other doorways and alcoves that dotted the length of the corridor. Two more sheltered in the middle of the hall behind a treaded droid, which beeped plaintively at its predicament. Marr assumed the creatures to be some kind of security detail. He counted fourteen of them.

  The smoky air carried the acrid tang of blaster discharge and scorched metal. Harbinger’s alarm contined to scream.

  The creatures shouted at one another in deep, gravelly voices, though Marr did not understand the language. Now and again, one of them fired a blaster shot in Relin’s vicinity, but none made as though to advance. They appeared content to keep Relin pinned down. Probably they had already called for reinforcements.

  Relin crouched with his back to the wall, facing Marr, favoring his cracked ribs. Anger twisted his expression so much he could have been another man altogether. His eyes looked like holes. The light from his lightsaber cast his pale skin in green.

  He must have felt Marr’s eyes on him. He looked up and made an angry gesture with his stump, ordering Marr to seal Junker.

  When Marr made no move to comply, Relin snarled and leapt out of the doorway, moving so fast he looked blurred. His lightsaber weaved an oblong shield of light around him. The security detail opened up in full and blaster shots filled the corridor. Relin spun like a top, deflecting the shots with rapidity but no control. Blasts slammed into the ceiling, into overhead lights, sending a rain of glass to the floor, into the cargo bay, close enough to Marr’s face that he felt the heat of its passage.

  Relin closed on the nearest pair of the red-skinned humanoids, gesturing with his stump as he neared them. The creatures’ blasters flew from their hands and they backed off a step, eyes wide, fumbling with the huge metal polearms on their backs.

  Before they could bring them to bear, Relin redirected the blasterfire from their fellows at them and blew holes in both their chests, spattering the bulkheads with their black blood.

  Relin ducked into the alcove where the two dead creatures had sheltered, using their corpses as partial cover. Marr saw him in profile, the pained grimace on his face, the angry set of his jaw. A blaster had winged his arm with the severed hand, though it appeared a minor wound. Scorch marks ringed the frayed holes in Relin’s robes and shirt.

  Blasterfire pinned him to the wall.

  He was moving too slowly, Marr knew. He should already have been gone. They had not expected so much resistance right away. Harbinger’s crew knew where he was, where Junker was, and more and more of them would marshal here to stop him. Relin looked back at Marr and again gestured angrily for him to seal the ship.

  “Close it!” Relin shouted.

  Blasterfire forced him to press himself against the wall.

  From outside in the landing bay, something heavy thumped against Junker and the high-pitched whine of some kind of motor carried through the bulkheads. Marr knew the crew in the landing bay would soon either try to cut their way in or simply blow the ship from the deck. He had little time. If they got into Junker, he’d never leave Harbinger.

  He reached for the button that would close the cargo bay door, let his hand hover over it, and … stopped.

  He remembered the greasy touch of the Lignan on his spirit, its coldness, its sharpness. He did not fully understand its danger, but he knew Relin’s warnings about what the Sith could do with it were true. Relin could not be allowed to fail. He lowered his hand and met Relin’s gaze.

  Perhaps Relin saw Marr’s resolve.

  “No!” Relin shouted. “Go, Marr! Go!”

  Marr nodded, but not at Relin.

  “I am the keep,” he said to himself.

  * * *

  Pulses of blasterfire slammed into the bulkheads near Relin, turning the metal black and warm. Anger, frustration, and pain warred for predominance in Relin. Every breath made his
side feel as if he were being stabbed. He was moving far too slowly, he knew. More Massassi would be coming. Saes would be coming. He had underestimated their ability to respond.

  A shout of rage crept up his throat, but he held it in, pulled it close, used it to focus his mind. The Force flowed strongly through him, but he was unable to use it to reduce his fatigue or replenish his spirit or body. His power, heightened by the Lignan, answered only to his anger, only to his hate. With it, he could only destroy and kill, not heal.

  He knew what that meant but no longer cared.

  He had left what he once was five thousand years in the past. Now he was something different, someone else. He wanted only to destroy and kill, to avenge Drev’s death, to redeem the two great failures of his life in a conflagration of fire and blood. His grief had metamorphosed into hate, and the change pleased him.

  But first he needed to get out of the corridor and deeper into the ship. He’d inhaled as best he could and readied himself to move when a roar from Junker’s cargo bay drowned out the sound of blasterfire. For a moment he could not place the origin of the sound, but then it occurred to him—it was an engine.

  Flotsam set down twenty meters from the large central structure. The craft’s landing threw up a cloud of snow. Jaden unstrapped himself from his seat. Khedryn did the same.

  “You needn’t come, Khedryn.”

  Khedryn smiled, his floating eye staring out the cockpit viewport, his other on Jaden’s face.

  “That’s as true a statement as you’ve uttered, Jedi. But I think I’ll come along anyway.” He winked his lazy eye. “There might be something here worth salvaging.”

  Jaden smiled, grateful for the companionship. “Let’s gear up, then.”

  Both donned environment suits, sealed the helmets, tested the comlinks, and opened the starboard side exit.

  The frozen air and snow of an icy world blew in and dusted the floor at their feet. The enviro-suits blunted the force of the cold, but Jaden’s skin still goose-pimpled. He stood at the top of the ramp, staring out at the drifts and the swirling snow.

  Khedryn’s voice sounded in his helmet. “Jaden? Let’s move. Even with the suits we don’t want to be out in this any longer than necessary.”