by James Luceno
Saes stumbled forward, lightsaber held high. Filled with power, Relin used the Force to pull Saes’s lightsaber from his fist. It leapt through the air and landed in Relin’s hand. He rose to his knees and Saes fell to his before Relin, still clutching his throat.
Relin had nothing more to say to his former Padawan. He drove Saes’s own lightsaber into and through his chest. Saes fell face-first to the deck without a sound.
Relin stared at the red lightsaber blade in his hand. He had resolved that he would not fight with a Jedi weapon and he had not. He had fought with a Sith weapon and it had been appropriate.
His body felt charged, so filled with the dark side of the Force that he no longer felt human. He had transcended. He sagged to the floor among the flaring ore. The metal of the deck felt cold under him. Blood poured out of his face, his nose. Chunks of Lignan dug into his flesh. With Saes dead, he suddenly felt his injuries, and agony accompanied each breath.
But the pain of his body paled in comparison with the pain of his spirit.
He shouted, trying to purge the pain and despair in a wail that shook the crossbeams of the cargo bay. But both were infinite. He could have shouted for eternity and found no relief.
Still, he refused to fail again.
Saes had called his rage days old, but it was more than that. It was a conflagration, the sum total of all the repressed emotion of Relin’s life compressed into a tiny singularity of self-consuming anger and despair from which nothing could escape, not even him.
And that, he realized, was the unspoken, unacknowledged pith of the dark side—it consumed all who turned to it. Yet he did not turn away. He wanted nothing more than to be consumed, to be reduced to oblivion, annihilated. He welcomed it.
But he would not go alone.
He continued to draw in the power of the Lignan, to feed it into the hole he had become, to let it amplify his hate and despair even as he died. Power burned in him. He was vaguely conscious of the remaining crystals around him flaring, a brief flash of life before he consumed their power and turned them dull and dead.
Unbound by concern for his continuing survival, he took in as much energy as he could control. Spirals of energy formed around his body. He felt his torso growing lighter, the flesh becoming diaphanous, transformed by power to become one with the energy.
Barely able to feel his own flesh, he nevertheless reached out for his dead Padawan. His fingers closed over Saes’s forearm and slid along until he held his former Padawan’s hand.
Tears flowed as energy gathered, turned on itself, grew stronger. Coils of blue power, like long lines of Force lightning, shot out from his flesh, roiled in the air above him, striking the ceiling and the storage containers, penetrating the ship.
He drew in more power, more, until the entire cargo bay was lit with a network of twisting, jagged lines of energy, a circulatory system through which flowed his rage. The lines spread from the cargo bay and through the ship like veins, like an enormous garrote that would strangle Harbinger to death. Relin’s mind became one with them. Power and hate pulsed along them with each beat of his heart. They were an extension of him and he felt them as they squirmed through the ship, wrapping it in their net, from the rear section, along the spin, to the forward section with the black scar of Drev’s grave gouged into its face.
He was ready, then.
He knew he was lost, and yet he was found.
“Laugh even when you die,” he whispered.
He squeezed Saes’s cold, scaled hand, imagined Drev’s face, and laughed for joy as the power crescendoed and began to consume Harbinger in fire.
Marr perceived a light through his eyelids. He struggled to open them but they felt as if they weighed a kilo. Finally able to pry them open, he winced against the glare blazing through Junker’s cockpit viewport.
Harbinger fell into the moon’s thin atmosphere and skidded along, an ever-lengthening spear of flame in its wake. Bleary-eyed, he saw fire consume the entire ship until the massive vessel exploded in a cloud of smoke and flame.
Relin had done it, he realized, but he felt no elation.
There is nothing certain.
The autopilot was flying Junker straight into the aftermath of the explosion but Marr did not trust himself enough to change the ship’s course. He needed to reach the surface and hope that Jaden and Khedryn would see him and help him.
He was dying, he knew. Already the pain in his back was diminishing—not a good sign—and he felt a creeping cold enshrouding his body.
He tried to reach for the emergency distress beacon, thinking he would activate it and that matters would end as they had begun, with the beep of someone in distress.
But he could not reach it. His body no longer answered his commands.
Pain and blood loss drew him back into darkness.
Jaden and Khedryn stepped through the hatch and into the blowing snow and ice. Jaden welcomed the elements, the freezing air, and the pain. He inhaled deeply, hoping to cleanse his lungs of any residuum of Mother or the facility. Khedryn pointed ahead.
“Flotsam is still there.” His voice sounded metallic through his helmet’s external mike.
Jaden saw. Shields still secured the ship’s viewports. The clones had not gotten in, which meant they had not gotten off the moon … yet.
“The Anzat had a ship.”
“Right,” Khedryn said, and started trudging through the snow. “Let’s get aboard Flotsam and get into the air. We can find it that way.”
They had not taken five strides before a ship streaked into view, flying low, its engines a barely audible hum over the wind. Jaden recognized the silhouette immediately from the low profile and wide wings—a CloakShape fighter, modified with a hyperspace sled and coated in the black fiberplast typical of a StealthX. It would have been almost invisible against a field of stars. In atmosphere, it looked like a piece of outer space had descended planetside.
Jaden knew that it was too late to seek cover. Khedryn must have realized the same thing. He took station beside Jaden, freed the shoulder stock on the E-11, and aimed it at the ship’s cockpit. Jaden activated his lightsaber and held his ground. The weapon’s hilt was unsteady in his two-fingered grasp. He switched to his left hand, where it felt awkward, but at least he could hold it.
The CloakShape slowed, maneuvered over them, and hovered at maybe ten meters. The energy from the engines warmed the air. The barrels of the laser cannons looked like tunnels that went on forever. Jaden and Khedryn stood still on the frozen ground, cloaked in the fighter’s faint shadow. The ship dipped its nose so that the cockpit had a clear view of them and they of it. The transparisteel was dimmed so that they could not see within. Jaden reached out with the Force—even that small effort tried him, after all he’d been through—and felt the Force presences of ten beings.
“They do have children aboard,” he said. “Or there were more clones than we thought.”
Khedryn lowered his blaster, a symbolic gesture only. The blaster could not have penetrated the CloakShape’s hide.
“Maybe they don’t know who we are or what … happened.”
Jaden shook his head, his eyes fixed on the cockpit. “No. They know I killed one of them. The holo-log said they had an empathic connection, maybe even a telepathic one. They know.”
“Stang,” Khedryn murmured.
For a time they stood there, staring up at the unseen crew through the swirl. Finally Jaden shouted up at the cockpit.
“If you leave I will have to come after you.”
He gave that a moment to register and still received no response. He deactivated his saber, turned away from the fighter, and walked through the cold and snow for Flotsam.
“Let’s go, Khedryn.”
“Go?” Khedryn said, and hurried after him, looking back over his shoulder at the fighter.
“We are either dead or we’re not. Their choice.”
Khedryn fell in beside him, partially hunched as though in anticipation of a blow.
>
Jaden did not flinch—though Khedryn did—when a shriek tore through the sky, not the cannons on the CloakShape fighter, but the wail of engines failing, of superstructure collapsing.
Jaden turned, already flashing back to his vision, and looked up to see the sky on fire. An enormous ship—it could only be Harbinger—streaked across the upper atmosphere, leaving a fat line of fire kilometers long.
“Stang,” Khedryn said in a hush.
With the suddenness of a blaster shot, the cruiser exploded, the fireball starting in the rear engine section and racing forward along the length of the ship until the entire vessel vaporized into a billion-billion tiny, glowing particles that lit the sky like pyrotechnics.
Jaden watched, not breathing, as they started to fall to the surface, a rain of evil. He lived alternately in the present and the memory of his vision. He felt the oily touch of the Lignan, the familiar nudge in his very being impelling him to darkness. The feeling did not elicit in him the horror he remembered from his vision and he wondered what that meant. He resisted the pull—his will, his ability to choose, was something internal, unconstrained by the external.
The CloakShape fighter’s engines fired and Khedryn and Jaden watched it accelerate skyward, its form a black silhouette against the still-glowing sky.
“It is heading right into the debris,” Khedryn said. “What are they doing?”
Jaden understood exactly what they were doing. They were taking in the Lignan’s power.
“I will have to come after you,” he said again, more softly, unsure how he felt about the words.
Another boom sounded far above them, not an explosion but a sonic boom, a ship entering or leaving atmosphere. At first Jaden assumed it was the CloakShape exiting the moon’s atmosphere, but instead he saw a familiar disk cutting its way through the sky, falling out of the ruin of Harbinger’s death. Junker looked wounded, incomplete without Flotsam attached to its fittings and Khedryn in its cockpit.
Jaden imagined it passing the CloakShape fighter and its crew of dark side clones on its way down, imagined paths crossing, lines meeting at angles, currents intersecting. He thought of Relin and felt profound sadness. He knew the ancient Jedi would not be aboard Junker.
“That is Junker!” Khedryn said. He took Jaden by the shoulder, shook him with joy. Jaden winced from the pain but could not stop smiling himself.
With the ship so close, Khedryn tried to raise Marr on his suit’s comlink. No response.
“Look at the way she’s flying,” Khedryn said, joy giving way to concern in his tone. “She’s on autopilot.”
Jaden reached out with the Force, felt Marr’s faint Force presence, felt, too, that the Cerean was near death.
“Let’s move,” he said, and they ran for Junker as it started to set down.
Khedryn’s voice exploded over the comlink.
“He’s awake!”
Jaden jumped up from the table in the galley, spilling caf, and hurried to the makeshift medical bay aboard Junker. Khedryn had converted one of the passenger berths off the galley into a rudimentary treatment room. Transparent storage lockers held a disorganized array of gauze, scissors, stim-shots, antibiotics, bacta, synthflesh, and any number of other miscellaneous medical supplies and devices. Jaden had to credit him for thoroughness if not orderliness. Khedryn and Marr had already seen to their wounds as best they could. They could get better treatment when they returned to Fhost.
Marr lay in the rack, a white sheet covering him to the chest. He blinked in the lights, trying to shake the film from his eyes. Khedryn held his hand the way a father might a son’s.
“Jaden,” Marr said, and grinned through his pain. Jaden had never been so pleased to see a chipped tooth and could not contain a grin of his own.
“It is nice to see your eyes open, Marr. Things were touch-and-go for a while. You’d lost a lot of blood.”
Marr looked away and spoke softly. “My eyes are opened.”
Jaden did not know how to respond, so he filled the moment with a question for which he already knew the answer.
“Relin did not get off Harbinger?”
Marr shook his head, still looking away. “He never intended to.”
“No,” Jaden said. “He didn’t.”
Jaden saw in Relin his own fate. A slow drift toward the dark side. He had never gotten an answer to his questions. He remained as adrift as he had before receiving his Force vision. He wondered at the purpose of it all.
Wireless pads attached to Marr’s body fed information to the biomonitoring station beside his bed. Jaden eyed the readout. Khedryn followed his eyes.
“Not bad, eh?” Khedryn said, smiling. Deep purple colored the skin under his eyes. His broken nose looked more askew than his multidirected eyes. A flexcast secured his shattered wrist, though he’d need surgery when they reached Fhost. “Tough as ten-year-old bantha hide, this one.”
Marr smiled. Blood loss had left him as pale as morning mist. Jaden sat next to the bed, looking on two men who had shed blood for his cause.
“That nose looks bad,” he said to Khedryn.
Khedryn nodded. “I thought I’d wear it this way for a while. Goes with my eyes. But maybe it’s a bit much. What do you think, Marr?”
“Keep it as is,” Marr said. “Then I won’t have to worry about you spilling secrets to dancing girls.”
“Good point. Fix it I will. As soon as we get back to Fhost. The nose and the wrist.”
“How did you break it?” Marr asked Khedryn.
Khedryn swallowed, put a finger to the side of his nose. “Long story, my friend. I will tell you the whole thing over our third round of keela back in The Hole.”
“We found the bodies on Junker,” Jaden said.
“Massassi,” Marr said. “That’s what Relin called them.”
Jaden knew the name, though he had never thought to see one in the flesh. “What happened on that ship, Marr? They looked to have died from decompression.”
“Long story, my friend,” Marr said. “I will tell you everything over our fourth round of keela. Good enough?”
“Good enough,” Jaden agreed.
“You’re buying, Jedi,” Khedryn said.
“I am, indeed.”
Silence descended, cloaked the room. Only the rhythmic beep of the monitoring station broke the silence. Jaden knew he had to report back to the Order, tell Grand Master Skywalker of the cloning facility, the escaped clones, the Lignan and what it could do, but for the moment he simply wanted to enjoy the company of the two men who had bled with him.
“What’s next for you, Jedi?” Khedryn asked. “You’re welcome to fly with us for a time.”
Marr nodded agreement.
Jaden was touched by the offer. “Thank you, both. But I’m not sure that will work well. As soon as possible, I will report back to the Order via subspace. Then I’ll have to track down the clones.”
“Clones?” Marr asked. He started to sit up, hissed with pain, lay back down.
“Like Khedryn said,” Jaden said. “Long story.”
Khedryn ran a palm along his whiskers. “No reason we can’t help with that, Jaden. Few know the Unknown Regions as well as us.”
“What?” Jaden and Marr asked as one.
“You heard me,” Khedryn said. “Man can’t salvage his whole life, right?”
“There’s no pay in it, Khedryn,” Jaden said, and immediately wished he had not.
Khedryn winced as if slapped. “I am not a mercenary, Jedi. I just try to get by. But I value my friends.”
Jaden noted the plural. “I do, too. Hunting those clones will be dangerous work.”
“Yeah,” Khedryn said, and stared off into space.
“How about some caf?” Marr said to Khedryn, lightening the mood.
“Sure,” Khedryn said. “Jaden?”
“Please.”
Khedryn patted Marr’s arm, rose, and left the room. The moment he exited, Marr spoke.
“Relin taught me how to us
e the Force.”
Jaden was not surprised. “I wish he had not.”
Marr’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Knowledge can be painful, Marr. It just raises questions.”
Marr looked away, his eyes troubled, as if remembering a past pain. “Yes. But what is done is done. I am not sorry he taught me.”
“Then I take back my words. I am not sorry, either.”
Marr studied Jaden’s face for a moment. “Will you teach me more?”
The question took Jaden aback. “Marr, as I explained—”
Marr nodded. “Yes, my age. The narrow focus of my sensitivity. I understand all of that. But still I ask.”
Jaden heard the earnestness in Marr’s question. “I will confer with the Order.”
“I can ask nothing more. Thank you.”
Khedryn’s shout carried from the galley. “A spike of pulkay?”
Marr nodded at Jaden, and Jaden shouted back to Khedryn.
“Yes. For both of us.”
“I knew I liked you, Jedi,” Khedryn called, and Jaden smiled.
“Relin asked me to tell you something,” Marr said.
Marr’s tone made Jaden feel like an ax was about to fall. “Say it.”
Marr closed his eyes, as if replaying the encounter in his mind. “He said that there is nothing certain, that there’s only the search for certainty, that there’s danger only when you think the search is over.” Marr paused, added, “He said you would know what he meant.”
Jaden digested the words, his mind spinning.
“Do you know what he meant?” Marr asked.
“He thinks—thought—that doubt keeps us sharp. That we should not consider its presence a failure.”
Marr chewed his lip. “I saw what happened to him, Jaden. I think he was wrong.”
Jaden had seen what happened to him, too, and thought he might be right. And as his thoughts turned, Marr’s observation became the gravity well around which the planets of recent events orbited, aligned, and took on meaning. In a flash of insight Jaden surmised that events had not been designed to rid him of doubt; they had been designed for him to embrace his doubt. Perhaps it was different for other Jedi, but for Jaden doubt was the balancing pole that kept him atop the sword-edge. For him, there was no dark side or light side. There were beings of darkness and beings of light.