by Jude Watson
Sancor followed the rocket blast with a barrage of blaster fire. Obi-Wan swung his lightsaber, deflecting the fire.
Sancor raced through a doorway, and Obi-Wan followed. He found himself in a dark, oval room. It took a moment for him to get his bearings, and then he realized that he was on an observation platform high above one of the new operating theaters below. The platform was thrust out from the main corridor and held seats for observers as well as vidscreens and computer consoles.
The empty seats were ghostly in the dim light. He could not see Sancor, but he felt his presence. He did not bother to strain his eyes. Instead he called on the Force and listened.
There, in one corner of the room. Sancor was hiding. Waiting.
He heard the hiss of the wrist rocket before it fired. He jumped aside as it whistled past. It blew a hole in the wall as big as a door. But Sancor had underestimated the power of the missile and the structure of the observation platform. The platform began to tip on its supports.
Obi-Wan made a diving leap toward the hole blown in the wall. He somersaulted through it and landed on the corridor floor as the platform tore away from the wall.
Sancor screamed and scrabbled at a console, desperately trying to make his way to the corridor as the floor tilted under his feet.
The platform slowly broke away from the wall. Sancor lost his grip and fell through the air.
Obi-Wan made his way to the edge of the hallway that ended in midair. He looked over the lip of the floor. Sancor had landed far below on a tray of sharp medical instruments.
It was over. Sancor was no longer a threat.
Slowly, Obi-Wan rose to his feet. Sancor’s death wouldn’t help matters. Malorum would wonder why he hadn’t returned.
Either Padmé’s secret was safe, or Obi-Wan had put it in greater peril than ever.
The darkness of the cave began to gray at the edges. Ferus’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light. The cave walls glowed slightly from the crystals embedded in their rocky surface. Pictographs on the walls told stories of Jedi exploits from thousands of years before. Jedi or no, he was part of that tradition.
The Crystal Cave. They had whispered about it as Padawans and had longed to see it. He remembered his journey here with Siri, when he’d come to build his own lightsaber. He had been tormented by the visions, had at one point curled into a ball to escape them. They had accused him of being on the run from his own true nature, of avoiding the Living Force because he was afraid of himself. They said he only pretended humility, that his prowess as the best apprentice pleased him too much.
They showed him a vision of himself in a torn Jedi tunic, his lightsaber broken, and he had known they were showing him that he would never be a Jedi. At the time he’d thought they were warning him that he wouldn’t pass the trials. Now he knew that the vision had come true. He had not become a Jedi Knight.
Back then there was only one who could surpass him—Anakin Skywalker. The visions had told him that jealousy blinded him, and prevented him from being Anakin’s friend. He had seen a dark figure in a cape that had frightened him.
I’m waiting for you, Ferus. I lie in your future, the vision had said in an odd, disembodied voice. He had been terrified by that more than anything else.
Now he understood what he’d seen. Possible futures, glimpses into his own fears. He’d only found freedom when he left the Jedi. Freedom to be himself. Roan had taught him that. Roan had taught him not to care what anyone thought, but to regard everyone’s feelings. It was a distinction he had somehow not been able to learn at the Temple. He had been too busy trying to be perfect.
He knew now that he hadn’t been jealous of Anakin, but he had been afraid of him. Why? He still didn’t know the answer to that question.
And what did it matter? Anakin was dead. Like all the others.
He was older now. No longer a Jedi. What visions could come to him now that would frighten him? He had been through a war. He had been scared down to his boots and kept on walking.
He knew himself. He knew his limits and he knew his capabilities. The cave couldn’t scare him anymore.
“You think so?”
A shimmering image appeared before him. Ferus’s breath caught. Siri. His Master, his friend.
“Here’s the thing,” Siri said. Even though her image shimmered and fractured, the voice in his head was pure Siri—direct, a little mocking. “You haven’t changed a bit. Listen to you—you’re still telling yourself that nothing can touch you, that you’re the best. Is it so important to be the best, Ferus?”
He shook his head. That wasn’t what he was thinking.
Was it?
“Is that why you left us? Because you weren’t the best, and you knew it?”
“No,” Ferus said. “That isn’t why I left.”
Siri crossed her arms and leaned back, but there was nothing to lean against. She stayed oddly propped against the air, her booted feet crossed. “You don’t have to be afraid of what we are. You have to be afraid of what you are.”
“I’m not afraid,” Ferus said aloud, even though he knew Siri was just a vision. It seemed pretty stupid to argue with a vision, but there was no other way through. “I know myself now. I didn’t then.”
Siri’s snort of laughter brought him the pain of her absence. But somehow this time her mockery wasn’t leavened by affection. It felt harsh to him. “Well, you should be afraid. You’re still fooling yourself!” Suddenly she leaned forward. “You want to save the Jedi, all by yourself? Make up for leaving us?”
“No, that’s not why!” Ferus said. “I only want to help, I want to fight the Empire!”
“You want to go back and change your decision,” Siri said. “You want to be a Jedi again. I’ve got a Holonet newsflash for you—you can’t! You’ll never be a Jedi again! All those minor attempts to use the Force—it’s pathetic! What did I always tell you? In your plans lie responsibilities. You’re forgetting that. Again!”
Siri began to laugh. Her features suddenly fragmented into pieces of light. Then her face reassembled in an odd way, as though her features didn’t go together. It was some faceless monster, some image of the dark side of the Force that had appeared to him. How had he forgotten that, the way the images shifted shape until he didn’t know who was a Jedi and who was the dark side of the Force?
Or was he projecting what he saw? Were his fears creating the vision?
Fears he hadn’t even known were there.
Suddenly, Ferus wished he had decided to do anything else—confront the Emperor himself—instead of entering this cave.
He had done it for Garen, for a Jedi he hadn’t even been close to. Someone he couldn’t remember very well, a flash of a smile, an ease with the Living Force, an amazing pilot, Obi-Wan’s friend.
That was enough. The surge of feeling that came when he thought of Garen taught him something. He must still be a Jedi, there must be a part of him that still vibrated with the Force, if he felt that connection. Garen’s life was his life. It was as simple as that. What he had forged in his childhood still rang in his bones.
He walked on, deeper into the cave. Now the walls grew irregular with the chunky crystals that were embedded in the rock. Ferus knew that it would not help him to study the crystals, to find the most beautiful. He must allow the crystals to call to him. If the Force was strong in him, the crystals he needed would speak to him among the thousands that lay around him. Wait. The right ones will appear.
He felt awed, being in this spot. Suddenly it came over him, the fact that he was here. Whether he liked it or not, he was on the Jedi path again.
“Unbelievable.”
It was Anakin Skywalker. For a moment, Ferus thought it was really him. He seemed so solid, so real. Then he realized that Anakin was young, probably about sixteen, the age they were when Ferus had left the Jedi.
“It’s so like you,” Anakin said, “to think that you’re the only one who can do something. That ego of yours. No wonder nobody ever liked y
ou.”
Ferus waited. He knew this was an image, that he couldn’t fight it, couldn’t argue with it. And he’d long ago come to terms with what Anakin thought of him. This wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before.
“Your jealousy destroyed your future,” Anakin said. “You tried to destroy mine, and that didn’t work, so you quit.”
“You knew Tru’s lightsaber was faulty,” Ferus said. He couldn’t help it. The words had been bottled up for so many years. Ferus and Anakin had both put their friend Tru at risk—and even though Ferus hadn’t meant to, he’d accepted the blame. “You were jealous of our friendship, so you said nothing. You hoped we’d get in trouble with the Council. And we did. You knew we wouldn’t step forward and tell the truth about you. And we didn’t. So you kept your silence, and your place in the Jedi, and you let me walk away from it all.”
Anakin shrugged. “Is that your version?”
“It’s the truth. And the funny thing is that it was the best thing that happened to me. I found myself.”
“Right,” Anakin said. “So I hear. Yet I found myself, too.”
Suddenly the crystals dimmed. Ferus couldn’t see the walls of the cave any longer. A wind moved through the cave.
Wind? Ferus thought. Where is the wind coming from? He felt the coldness of fear enter him.
You think you know what fear is?
The whispers began.
Evil was in the cave. He knew it by the icy hand that clutched his heart, by how the strength drained out of his legs.
Had he blundered? Had the dark side of the Force taken over the cave?
Out of the darkness a shadow grew. It was a thing, not a person. A shadow filled with cruel pain. Then the shadow formed and re-formed, and he saw it was a figure. A dark helmet and cape.
Breath entered the cave. A harsh, artificial sound. He heard the indrawn breath, the exhale. It was as though the creature breathed in the darkness and breathed it out.
Darth Vader.
He had heard of him, of course. The Emperor’s enforcer. The one who came down with an iron fist. And now Ferus knew he was a Sith.
The voice was low and chilling.
“It is our destiny to meet. It is my chore to tell you about the truths from which you hide. You are not a Jedi. You will delude yourself that you are. But then, you have always deluded yourself. You might as well give up now. Because you will fail. And you will bring everyone down with you. Watch.”
Ferus saw the vision clearly. Garen, another Jedi who he couldn’t place, and, oddly, Raina. And Roan was there, too. They were looking up at a fireball in the sky. As he watched, the fireball consumed them.
He wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t.
“In your plans lie responsibilities,” Darth Vader said. “But you never think of that, do you? Just your own glory.”
In the middle of his fear, Ferus felt a stubbornness rise, and he grabbed it. The Force was here, and he knew that, even if at the moment he was too afraid to access it. Just knowing it still existed in this cave gave him hope.
With the beginning of hope came courage.
He had almost forgotten this. The Force was everywhere, even where evil breathed.
“These are things that can happen,” he said. “I can make my own path.”
“You have never seen the truth.”
“If this is your truth, give me my illusions.”
Ferus walked forward, straight toward Darth Vader. He was afraid, but he accepted his fear and kept going. If this was to be the end of him, then he would accept it.
The instant he touched the dark cloak, he felt as though he’d been burned. A cry was torn from his throat and he was flung through the air. He hit the ground and moaned.
The dark side of the Force retreated. He felt it sucked out in a vortex.
He was alone.
Through the mist of pain he saw a trio of pale blue crystals, glowing like stars. He struggled to his feet and walked toward them. He put his hand on them, and they were warm. They fell into his hands.
He tucked them into his tunic pocket. He would have to fashion a handgrip somehow. He wasn’t sure how he would do it without the resources at the Temple, the access to design archives, special tools, and power cells. The crystals were the most important, however. He could figure out a way to do the rest.
But the visions weren’t done with him yet. Another vision appeared, an ancient Jedi slumped against the cave wall, his tunic tattered, his eyes closed. It was as though he held the defeat of all the Jedi in his shrunken frame.
Ferus walked toward the vision. He would confront this, too. The sound of his footsteps echoed softly. The vision raised its head.
“Who are you?” it asked.
It was real. It was a man.
Ferus slowly lowered himself to a crouch. “Garen?”
Through cracked lips, the man asked, “Who wants to know?”
“I’m Ferus Olin.”
“I know…that name. Siri’s apprentice.”
“Yes. We met once…long ago. I’m a friend of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s.”
“Obi-Wan. He’s alive?”
“Yes, very much so. He’s too stubborn not to be.”
Garen leaned back against the rock wall of the cave and smiled. “Yes, now I know it’s really you, Ferus.”
“He sent me here to find you. He’s coming back with a ship.”
“Oh, great,” Garen said. “Obi-Wan is going to rescue me. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Everybody has a price to pay for survival.” Ferus grinned.
“We didn’t think any other Jedi had survived.”
“We?”
“Fy-Tor-Ana. She came here, too…but she was going to make it back to Coruscant, see what had happened to the Temple, and come back for me. She never…made it back.”
Suddenly, they heard a terrible noise, a howl of agony. And then the air was filled with horrible cries.
“Visions?” Ferus wondered.
Garen struggled to sit. “No.”
“The gorgodons,” Ferus said. “But why would they be—I’ll be right back.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Ferus dashed back through the cave to the opening. He put his eye to the slit.
Stormtroopers with flechette launchers and flame projectors were systematically destroying the gorgodon nest. The creatures fought back ferociously, but Ferus could see that they were only minutes away from defeat. They fought to protect their shelters, but Ferus saw how the stormtroopers were aiming fragmentation grenades at the boulders and outlying walls to create a shower of debris outside the cave entrance. Even as he watched, a large boulder fell directly in front of him, wiping out his view and sending a cloud of pulverized stone into the cave. Coughing, he backed up.
They knew he was here. They were cutting off his exit. He would have to go out the front of the cave now.
He hurried back to Garen. “We have to leave through the front. They’ll be waiting there for us, I’m sure.” Ferus fumbled at his utility belt. He took out a flask of water and a protein pellet. “Can you swallow this?”
But Garen merely looked at it. He turned his gaze to Ferus, and Ferus saw resignation there.
“You must go. I came here to be with the Force, to rest with the visions of my ancestors. The Living Force is too weak in me now.” He struggled to extract his lightsaber from his belt. He handed it to Ferus. “It needs new crystals. I saw you find yours—the blue ones. Put them in. It’s yours now.”
“I can’t take this,” Ferus said.
“You must,” Garen said. “I will never use it again. It would make me proud to hand it to a fellow Jedi.”
“But I’m not even a Jedi. Not anymore.”
“I feel the Force in you,” Garen said. “That’s enough.”
Ferus handled the lightsaber reverently. Oddly, the handgrip felt perfectly balanced in his hand. Even though it was nicked and battered, and a large dent was in one side, it nestled in his palm as
though he’d fashioned it himself. He touched the latch on the handle and placed the crystals inside. He activated it and the shaft hummed to life, glowing a pale ice-blue.
“Use it well,” Garen said.
“I will. I’m going to get us out of here.” Ferus leaned down and looked Garen in the eye. “The Living Force may be weak, but it’s still in you. It wouldn’t be right to leave you without trying. It would be against the Jedi code.” He held out the water and the pellet. It took a long moment, but Garen nodded.
Ferus helped Garen sip the water and swallow the pellet. Then he helped him to his feet. Together, they moved toward the front of the cave. Ferus didn’t know how he could fight and protect Garen, but he knew it must be done.
He wondered where Trever was. He wondered where Obi-Wan was. He wondered how he had gotten himself into this predicament. He wondered why he couldn’t just find a nice planet for a comfortable exile and try to ignore the Empire. He wondered if the visions were right, if he was taking on this task just to prove he was a Jedi after all.
As they approached the opening to the cave, Ferus moved Garen to the far side, near a large rock. “Stay here while I check this out.”
He crept forward. Just as he feared, there was a full squad of stormtroopers lined up outside in battle formation. He counted fifteen. Not an impossible number for one Jedi, but one Jedi who hadn’t used a lightsaber in a long time might have a problem.
He watched them for a moment, trying to figure out their plan.
And then he knew what it was.
Behind the troops, a Merr-Sonn Mobile Grenade Mortar was angling into position. It was capable of firing a total of one hundred grenades every second or so, with storage of more hundreds of grenades that could be reloaded through a tube. Operated by two stormtroopers on a repulsorlift sled, it could accelerate fast and rise up in the air to thirty meters. In short, it was highly maneuverable, a deadly killing machine.
Garen had somehow found the strength to creep up beside Ferus. He let out a low whistle. “This is not good news.”
“They mean business,” Ferus agreed.