Star Wars The New Jedi Order - Vector Prime - Book 1

by R. A. Salvatore

  The holocam turned up in time to catch the descending lines of fire streaking through the night sky.

  Other missiles and scores of starfighters went up to meet them.

  But they couldn't get them all.

  Moments later, Osa-Prime was in flames.

  Nom Anor thought it a particularly glorious day.

  Chapter 8 Layers "You fought with Anakin again," Luke remarked to Jacen when he found his older apprentice sitting on the wall surrounding the Millennium Falcon 's current dock, an open courtyard on the planet Reecee. Han and Chewie had flown here from Coruscant, explaining to their passengers, Jacen, Anakin, C-3PO, and Leia, only that they needed to make one stop before bouncing out to the Outer Rim. Leia had managed to elude Bolpuhr on Coruscant, leaving the Noghri behind in a den with his kin. She didn't want his overprotectiveness - especially now, when she honestly felt that she needed a break from the layers of intrigue and bureaucracy that her standing had forced upon her. Bolpuhr, despite his good intentions - and the good intentions of the Noghri in general - toward her, could be more than a bit smothering. Getting away from Bolpuhr was a small personal victory for her, a symbol that she was breaking free of her station and responsibility, if only for a little while.

  The Jade Sabre , with Mara and Luke aboard, had just put down in the bay next to the Falcon , and all of them were now awaiting the arrival of Jaina, who, to her absolute delight, was flying Luke's personal X-wing, along with R2-D2.

  "I found him practicing with his lightsaber," Jacen replied honestly. "He wanted to see how far he's come, and so did I."

  "I'm not talking about the sword fight," Luke explained. "Though I don't think that your father would be happy to hear that you two were wrestling with lightsabers in the main compartment of his ship. I'm talking about your war of words."

  That caught Jacen by surprise, and he stared at his uncle, his mentor, looking for some sign concerning Luke's feelings on the subject.

  He couldn't read the man at all.

  "An honest difference of opinion," Jacen said, turning away. "That's all."

  "Concerning the role of the Jedi," Luke said.

  "Concerning the role of the Force," Jacen corrected, turning back to face him.

  "Do you think you could enlighten me?" Luke asked. There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice, nothing mocking at all about the way he phrased the question.

  But Jacen, too awed by his uncle's seeming omnipotence, didn't see it that way. He sighed and shook his head, and turned away yet again.

  Luke hopped up to take a seat on the wall beside him. "You know the decision I face," he said.

  "I thought you had already made up your mind," Jacen replied.

  Luke conceded that with a nod. "Almost," he said. "But if you've got something to tell me, some insight about why I shouldn't reconvene the Jedi Council, then now is the time to speak."

  Jacen looked long and hard at his uncle and was surprised to find honest respect staring back at him. He was a sixteen-year-old kid - so often at odds with the adults around him that he wasn't used to being valued by them. Even Luke, whom he admired so much, was in place in the role of teacher - and a teacher of often harsh lessons.

  "I don't know how to tell you," Jacen tried to explain.

  "Just speak what is in your heart," Luke prompted.

  "It's just that ..." Jacen paused and sighed again. He stared at Luke intently then, seeing the calm contentment on the man's boyish face, the wistful smile. Above all else, Uncle Luke, with all of those harrowing experiences behind him, and despite the obvious trials ahead of him, seemed to Jacen to be in a place of spiritual comfort, a place of harmony. Here was this man, the epitome of what it was to be a Jedi Knight, and Jacen, though he recognized that truth, meant to argue that very philosophy against him. "The Force seems so pure a thing to me, a clean truth of who I am, of who we all are," he began tentatively. "I don't know; putting a governing bureaucracy in place for the Jedi seems kind of like putting a blue-spotted preaky bird in a cage, or even like killing one and stuffing it to keep it safe so that you can continue to enjoy it."

  Luke spent a long while mulling over those words. "I'm not sure you're wrong," he said. "Those are the same fears I've had. I think we feel pretty much the same way about the Force. But," he said, raising a finger to quiet Jacen before the young man could enthusiastically jump in, "the Jedi are possessed of powers beyond the understanding and control of those people around them. And with those powers come responsibilities."

  "To people like Borsk Fey'lya?" Jacen asked sarcastically.

  "Yes," Luke answered simply. "To the people making the decisions that affect the lives of so many others."

  "Borsk Fey'lya's not deserving of your time," Jacen spat, but Luke's reaction surprised him.

  "I'm afraid of your words, and the way you speak them," Luke said in all seriousness, eyeing his nephew with an expression that reflected his sincere concern.

  Jacen didn't understand.

  "Pride," Luke explained, shaking his head.

  Jacen echoed the word aloud, and as he said it, in more of a questioning manner than a statement, he began to understand. "Pride?" By diminishing Borsk Fey'lya, he was, in effect, elevating himself above the Bothan.

  "A dangerous flaw," Luke warned. "We've all got it - too much of it, usually - and we've all got to work hard to keep it from constantly holding us back."

  "I just fear -" Jacen started to say.

  "Control," Luke finished for him. "The regimen. You don't even like the academy any longer, according to your brother."

  "My brother's got a big mouth," Jacen replied.

  Luke laughed, and certainly didn't disagree.

  "I don't like the academy," Jacen admitted.

  "It gave you much of what you have today," Luke reminded.

  "Did it?" the young man questioned. "I was strong in the Force - it's in my blood - and how much purer might it run if I had been trained as you were trained, one-on-one with Yoda?"

  Luke didn't argue the point, just looked at Jacen with admiration. It was good for a Jedi to question, he knew. Discipline was necessary, but unquestioning obedience was a limiting thing, not a growing one. And Jacen's point about the one-on-one training had hit home to Luke; even he felt that the academy had gone too far away from that, thus leaving too many potential Jedi Knights without the necessary guidance to find their full power and, even more importantly, to resist the tempting dark side. That's why they had gone back to the master-apprentice system, and Luke right now was one of only a few Masters with more than one student.

  "I'm not even going to tell you that you're wrong," Luke said, putting a hand on Jacen's shoulder. "But I will assure you that, as you grow older, you'll come to see things a bit differently."

  "The more complete picture?" Jacen asked, a bit of sarcasm evident in his tone.

  "You think I like dealing with Borsk Fey'lya?" Luke asked with a tension-breaking burst of laughter. He patted Jacen's shoulder and started to walk away then, but as he neared the Falcon 's lowered landing ramp, Jacen's voice stopped him.

  "Uncle Luke!" And when Luke turned about, Jacen added in all seriousness, "Choose right."

  "Oh, do be careful, Lady Vader," C-3PO said, his tone, if not his wording, mimicking that of Bolpuhr, and mimicking, too, the title many of the Noghri used for her.

  Leia turned to the droid and scowled fiercely, and even more so when she heard Mara laughing behind her.

  "You call me that again and I'll send you into an oil bath with an open flame," she promised C-3PO quietly.

  "But you informed me that I was to be your Noghri bodyguard on this journey," C-3PO protested in all seriousness.

  "Only to keep you quiet before you let Bolpuhr in on my plans to get away from him," Leia returned, and the droid, though he really couldn't change the metallic expression on his face, truly seemed perplexed. Leia couldn't help but laugh at it all. Sometimes - no, all the time! - C-3PO took her words far too literally.

&nb
sp; Across the room, the bridge of the Jade Sabre , Mara surely understood. "Feeling a bit trapped by the attention?" she asked.

  Leia turned and nodded. "I don't know," she said with a shake of her head. "Maybe I've reached a point in my life where I want to think of myself as Leia. Not Princess Leia, not Councilor Leia, not Chief of State Leia, and not," she finished, turning to stare pointedly at C-3PO, "Lady Vader. Just Leia."

  When she turned back to Mara, she found the woman nodding her agreement.

  "Do you think that selfish?" Leia asked Mara.

  Mara smiled all the wider. "I think it human," she answered. "Once we're past saving the galaxy, we have to spend some time saving ourselves."

  Coming from Mara, the woman so obviously balancing on the precipice between life and death, that statement carried even more weight.

  "But you're my age," Leia dared to remark. "Yet you want children now. I can't imagine doing that again."

  "Because you've already done it," Mara replied. "Physical age and stages of life are two different things, I've come to believe."

  Leia paused a moment to consider the truth of those words, to consider her own perspective of the universe around her, how she had willingly, eagerly, run away from her expected responsibilities at the Core, even leaving her bodyguard far behind, of how she wanted, truly desired, to turn down the dial of her life's work, to sit back for a while and enjoy all the prosperity that her actions and sacrifices had helped bring about in the galaxy. Then she contrasted her desires against those of Mara, who wanted to begin the adventure of children, who wanted to remain vibrant and in the middle of things, tutoring Jaina, living through Jaina.

  Leia felt no jealousy at all in that moment of revelation. Just sadness, wishing there was some way she could help Mara rid herself of the dreaded disease and get all that she desired - and deserved.

  "You'll get it," Leia said quietly.

  Mara stared at her curiously.

  "All that you want," Leia clarified. "That disease, or whatever it is afflicting you, won't slow you down."

  Mara's smile showed contentment and courage. "I know."

  "Watch my back," Han said to Chewie as they entered Riebold's Foam and Sizzle, a notorious drinking hole known for murder, mischief, and mayhem. The place was loud and rowdy, with thugs from several worlds - human, Bothan, Rodian, Tervig, Vuvrian, Sniwian - milling about, cutting deals and cutting each other. If you killed a rival in the Foam and Sizzle bloodlessly, and disposed of the body, nobody noticed or cared; if you made a mess in the process, you had to flip over a few coins to cover the cost of cleaning.

  Han glanced up at his Wookiee friend as he spoke, and took comfort in that old fire in Chewie's eyes, the eager light that he and his hairy friend had shared so many times in their earlier years. He and Chewie weren't strangers to places such as this, certainly, but it had been a while, and they were getting older.

  A drunken Gamorrean staggered over and bumped the pair, rebounding off Han to slam against Chewie, who didn't budge a centimeter. The Wookiee looked down at the porcine creature and growled, and the Gamorrean stumbled away, tripping to the floor and not even bothering to try to get back up, just crawling away from the huge and imposing Wookiee with all speed.

  Han liked having a Wookiee beside him.

  Chewie looked down at him and issued a series of protesting grunts and groans.

  "I know, I know," Han conceded, for he didn't like being in this place any more than his big hairy friend. "But I'm not going out to see Lando without learning a bit more about what he's got going on out there. It's got to be more than mining - with his connections, he could get mining rights to a thousand lucrative sites near the Core. No, he's up to something, and before I come bouncing in on him with my family along, I want to know what it is."

  Han snapped his fingers, ending in a wide smile. "Bagy," he said, pointing to a Sullustan across the way.

  Chewie recognized the target, a notorious con artist named Dugo Bagy, and gave another less-than-enthusiastic groan.

  The pair bumped their way through the establishment, through the crowd, and when they finally had a straight line of sight to Dugo Bagy, and Dugo Bagy to them, the Sullustan scoffed down his drink and started to move away.

  Han signaled left, and Chewie circled that way, while Han went right. Dugo Bagy, apparently focusing on Han, started right, but skidded to a stop and darted back to the left - to thud into Chewie, Dugo Bagy's face barely reaching the Wookiee's belly, and the Sullustan's momentum not budging huge and powerful Chewie a centimeter.

  "Ah, Han Solo," Dugo Bagy said, when Han moved up behind him. "So good to see you."

  "Sit down, Dugo," Han replied, pulling a chair out from a nearby table.

  "You be buying, I be sitting," Dugo Bagy said with an obviously nervous chuckle, and he moved to the seat even as he spoke, Han taking a chair on one side of him, Chewie on the other.

  "Why are you so nervous?" Han asked after all three were in place.

  "Nervous?" Dugo Bagy echoed skeptically.

  Han shot him "the stare," as his kids had come to call it, that look of complete disregard for the obvious lie coming out of Dugo Bagy's mouth that shut up the Sullustan and made him glance around nervously for a waitress.

  "Hey," Han prompted, pulling him back around.

  "Forgive me," Dugo Bagy said somewhat calmly. "I am surprised to see you in here, as many others are. Just to talk with you makes me suspect."

  "I haven't gone that far over," Han assured the smuggler. "And I haven't been giving any of these guys any trouble at all. In fact, I've gone out of my way to intervene on behalf of a few over the last couple of years." He said the last part loudly, a reminder that he wanted all the nefarious characters who knew him to clearly hear.

  "And I'm not in here to give you any trouble, either," he said seriously. "I just want a little information about an old friend."

  Dugo Bagy perked up his ears and leaned forward, his suddenly interested look telling Han beyond doubt that the Sullustan was expecting some reward for his cooperation.

  "I'll owe you one," Han, who had little money with him, said.

  Dugo Bagy leaned back and held up his hands helplessly. "A businessman, I am," he explained, but then Chewie leaned over him and growled.

  "Owing is good," Dugo Bagy readily agreed.

  "I'm going to see Lando," Han explained. "I just want to know what he's doing out there."

  Dugo Bagy visibly relaxed - an easy question. "Mining asteroids," he replied.

  Han gave him "the stare" again.

  "He is," Dugo Bagy insisted.

  "And ... ," Han prompted.

  "Why more would there be?" Dugo Bagy asked. "Very profitable."

  "And ... ," Han said again.

  With a sigh, Dugo Bagy leaned in, and Han and Chewie did likewise, the three going into an informal huddle.

  "Lando seeks new techniques," Dugo Bagy explained. "There's a lot to be taken, if they can only figure out how."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Kerane's Folly," Dugo Bagy said.

  "The asteroid?" Han asked.

  "In the Hoth system," Dugo Bagy confirmed. "Platinum pure, but too many other asteroids contacting to get to it. Many have died in trying. Lando will see the way."

  "I thought they just couldn't find the thing anymore," Han remarked.

  Dugo Bagy smiled wryly.

  "So Lando's just using his operation way out there as a testing ground, coming up with better ways and tools to mine the asteroids so that he can franchise them out across the galaxy," Han reasoned, and that made sense, sounding more like the entrepreneurial Lando he knew.

  "Other things, too," Dugo Bagy said with a wink, a too-cute expression on the face of a Sullustan.

  "Running the belt?" Han asked. "Some game, right?"

  "To some a game," Dugo Bagy corrected. "To others ..."

  "Training," Han finished, catching on. "So Lando's working with the smugglers, letting them use his running-the-b
elt game to perfect their skills at getting away from hunters."

  "Hunters trained by Luke," Dugo Bagy said, and his tone revealed clearly to Han why he had been so nervous when first confronted. The smugglers were obviously getting a bit edgy about the problems at the Outer Rim concerning these predatory Jedi - and Han's connection to the Jedi, and the academy, via his brother-in-law, his wife, and even his kids, was undeniable.

  "Who is it? "he asked.

  "Kyp Durron," Dugo Bagy replied. "And his do-gooder buddies. The Dozen-and-Two Avengers," he said dramatically, rolling his eyes. "Problems they cause, money they cost."

  Han nodded. He knew all about Kyp, and now it made sense to him. Kyp had always been a bit of a loose ion cannon, and to make matters even worse, Kyp's parents had been killed due, in part, to the actions of a notorious smuggler, Moruth Doole.

  "Why are you going to see Lando?" Dugo Bagy asked.

  "A vacation," Han answered dryly, and he rose, and Chewie did, too, and when Dugo Bagy started to get up, Chewie put a huge paw on his shoulder and pushed him back down into his seat.

  "Well, this should be fun," Han said to Chewie as they exited Riebold's Foam and Sizzle.

  Chewie gave a great howl in reply, as if to remind Han, "Wasn't it always?"

  Chapter 9 The Honor of Dying With a heavy pack strapped across her back - what she wouldn't have given for a simple transporter disk - Tee-ubo led a team of four out of the compound. Normally, they wouldn't have left ExGal-4, for the sturdy station could handle almost any weather Belkadan could throw at it. Danni's call had made it clear that this storm was exceptional, though, and one needing some investigation.

  Also, though none of the four spoke of it openly, having a mission now helped them get through their grief over the accidental death of Garth Breise. They had all known the risks when they had come out here, of course, into a wild and unexplored land, but still, losing one of the team had hit many of them hard, especially Tee-ubo. She knew that Bensin Tomri would be devastated by the news, if they could find some way to relay it to the now-distant Spacecaster.