Crosscurrent

  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 use 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.

  He smiled, thinking he had found his answer, after all. He looked at Marr, seeing in Marr so much of himself when Kyle Katarn had agreed to take Jaden as Padawan.

  “I will teach you more about the Force, Marr.”

  Marr sat up on an elbow. “You will?”

  Jaden nodded, thinking of Kyle. Had his Master known that breaking down certainty was the only thing that might save Jaden from darkness in the long run? He suspected Kyle had known exactly that.

  “You may come to wish you’d never learned from me.”

  Khedryn walked in, cursing, hot caf splashing over the rims of the cups. He distributed the caf, took a long sip, sighed with satisfaction.

  “This is the life, gentlemen,” he said to Jaden and Marr. “An open sky filled with opportunities for rascals.”

  Jaden chuckled, looked out the viewport, and grew serious. “There be dragons.”

  “What does that mean?” Marr asked.

  “We will see,” Jaden answered, and drank his caf.

  For my two little Padawans, Roarke and Riordan

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Paul S. Kemp is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Star Wars: Crosscurrent, as well as nine Forgotten Realms fantasy novels and many short stories. When he’s not writing, he practices corporate law in Michigan, which has inspired him to write some really believable villains. He digs cigars, single malt scotch, and ales, and tries to hum the theme song to Shaft at least once per day. Paul Kemp lives and works in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, with his wife, twin sons, and a couple of cats.

  By Paul S. Kemp

  Star Wars: Riptide

  Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived

  Star Wars: Crosscurrent

  THE EREVIS CALE TRILOGY

  Twilight Falling

  Dawn of Night

  Midnight’s Mask

  THE TWILIGHT WAR

  Shadowbred

  Shadowstorm

  Shadowrealm

  STAR WARS—LEGENDS

  What is a legend? According to the Random House Dictionary, a legend is “a nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical.” Merriam-Webster defines it as “a story from the past that is believed by many people but cannot be proved to be true.” And Wikipedia says, “Legends are tales that, because of the tie to a historical event or location, are believable, though not necessarily believed.” Because of this inherent believability, legends tend to live on in a culture, told and retold even though they are generally regarded as fiction.

  Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a legend was born: The story of Luke Skywalker and his fellow heroes, Princess Leia and Han Solo. Three blockbuster movies introduced these characters and their stories to millions of people who embraced these tales and began to build upon them, as is done with myths everywhere. And thus novels, short stories, and comic books were published, expanding the Star Wars universe introduced in the original trilogy and later enhanced by the prequel movies and the animated TV series The Clone Wars. The enormous body of work that grew around the films and The Clone Wars came to be known as The Expanded Universe.

  Now, as new movies, television shows, and books move into the realm of the official canon, The Expanded Universe must take its place firmly in the realm of legends. But, like all great legends, the fact that we can’t prove the veracity of every detail doesn’t make the stories any less entertaining or worthy of being read. These legends remain true to the spirit of Star Wars and in that way are another avenue through which we can get to know and understand our beloved heroes in that galaxy far, far away.

  —Del Rey Books, May 2014

  Turn the page or jump to the timeline of Star Wars Legends novels to learn more.

  THE PRESENT

  Jaden found himself on his knees, the room spinning. Blood leaked from his right temple, spattered the floor in little crimson circles. More blood oozed from the stumps of his fingers. Pain blurred his vision, clouded his thinking. The short, rapid shrieks of an alarm blared in his ears, rising and falling in time with the dim flashes of overhead backup lights. Strange lights. Like little starbursts buried deep in the green resin of the ceiling. A haze of black smoke congealed near the ceiling and darkened air that stank of melted plastoid, rubber, and ozone. He thought he caught the faint stink of decaying flesh but could not be sure.

  Gingerly he placed his unwounded hand to his right temple, felt the warm, sticky blood, the small hole there. The blood was fresh; the wound recent.

  The rapid flashes of the lights made his movements seem herky-jerky, not his own, the stop-starts of a marionette in unpracticed hands. His body ached. He felt as if he’d been beaten. The stumps of the fingers he’d lost on the frozen moon throbbed, the wounds somehow reopened and seeping pus. His skull felt as if someone had driven a nail through it.

  And he had no idea where he was.

  He thought he felt eyes on him. He looked around the dark corridor, his eyes unable to focus. He saw no one. The floor vibrated under him, as if coursing with power, the rale of enormous lungs. He found the feeling disquieting. Filaments dangled like entrails from irregular gashes torn in the walls. Black scorch marks bordered the gashes. A control panel, a dark rectangle, hung loose from an aperture in the wall, as if blown out by a power surge.

  He found it difficult to focus for long on anything before his field of vision started to spin. His bleary eyes watered from the smoke. The flashing lights and the wail of the siren disoriented him, would not let him gather his thoughts.

  The pain in his head simply would not relent. He wanted to scream, to dig his fingers into his brain and root out the agony. He’d never felt anything like it.

  What had happened to him?

  He could not remember. Worse, he could not think clearly.

  And then he felt it: the faint tang of dark-side energy. Its taint suffused the air, greasy on his skin, angry, evil. He swallowed down a dry throat.

  Had he been attacked by a Sith?

  With an effort of will, he pushed the touch of the dark side away from his core, held it at arm’s length. Having an enemy gave him focus. He steeled himself against the pain in his head and stood on weak legs. Each beat of his heart felt like a hammer blow to his skull. Pound. Pound.

  He tried to hold his ground but the room began to spin more rapidly, the alarm loud in his ears, the floor growling under him, the ringing, spinning, whirling. He wobbled, swayed. Nausea pushed bile into the back of his throat.

  Without warning, the pain in his temple spiked, a white-hot flash of agony that summoned a prolonged scream. His wail rebounded off the walls, carried off into the darkness, and with the scream as a sound track, a flood of memories and images streamed across his consciousness, rapid flashes of colors, faces, a series of half-remembered or half-imagined things. He was unable to focus for long on any of the images, unable to slow them down; they blazed in and out of his awareness like sparks, flashing for a moment, then gone, leaving only a shadowy afterimage.r />
  He squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his mouth closed to cut off the scream. The pain would not stop. His head was going to explode, surely it was going to burst.

  He was teetering, his head pounding, his stomach in his throat, his eyes watering.

  Unable to keep his feet, he sagged back to the floor. The spinning began to subside. The pain, too, began to fade. He sagged with relief. He would not have been able to bear much more.

  Clarity replaced pain, and as his head cleared, images and events refitted themselves into the jigsaw puzzle of his memory, reconstituted him from their fragments. He sank into the Force, found comfort there. He closed his eyes for a time and when he opened them, he looked about with what felt like new eyes.

  He sat in the middle of a wide corridor. The dim, intermittent flashes of the strange overhead lights showed little detail. The walls, ceilings, and floors were composed of a substance he’d never seen before, light green, semitranslucent. At first he thought it was some form of plastoid, or hued transparisteel, but no, it was a resin of some kind. For the first time, he realized that the floor was not merely vibrating under him, it was warm, like flesh. Faint lines of light glowed deep within it, barely visible, capillaries of luminescence. The arrangement looked ordered, a matrix of some kind, and the pattern of their flashes was not random, though he could not look at it long without its flashes disorienting him.

  He tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The architecture, the technology it implied ….

  Where was he?

  A word leapt to the forefront of his mind, a flash that came and went without explanation.

  Rakatan.

  He leaned forward, trying to remember, feeling as if he were on the verge of some revelation. He tried to pull the word back, to force it to take on meaning and make sense, but it eluded him.

  “Rakatan,” he said, and the word sounded strange on his lips. Saying it aloud triggered no more memories.

  But more and more memories were clicking into place, connecting names, events, and faces, the backstory of his life being told just below the level of his consciousness. He must have been hit on the head, hit hard. Understanding would come eventually, or so he hoped.