Star Wars: Dark Nest 1: The Joiner King

by Troy Denning

  At the door, Han ran headlong into a short, gawky man with a heavily tattooed face and unruly blue hair. Without apologizing for—or even seeming to notice—the collision, the newcomer pushed past Han and stopped in front of Luke. R2-D2 followed close behind.

  “Here you are,” the man said. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”

  “I don’t understand why, Ghent,” Mara said. “We told you we were leaving on Jedi business.”

  Ghent furrowed his brow. “You did?”

  “Several times.” Luke saw Han tapping his wrist impatiently. “And we have to leave soon.”

  “Oh.” Ghent’s eyes dropped, then slid back toward R2-D2. “I guess this can wait.”

  “What can wait?” Leia asked. Luke had told her about the holo hidden in the sequestered sector in R2-D2’s memory, and she was as eager as he was to learn more about the mysterious woman. “Did you find something?”

  Ghent shook his head. “Just a few seconds of holo that I managed to relocate before I tripped a security gate. What I wanted to ask is if I could—”

  “Holo of what?” Luke asked. “A brown-eyed woman?”

  “That’s right,” Ghent said. “But it’s really not very much. If I can—”

  “Can you show it to us?” Leia sounded even more excited than Luke felt. “Before we leave?”

  Ghent frowned. “Of course.”

  An uneasy silence fell as Luke and the others waited.

  “Ghent, we want to see the holo,” Mara said. “Now. As Luke said, we haven’t got much time.”

  Ghent’s brow rose. “Oh.”

  He squatted and inserted the plug of a homemade diagnostics scanner into one of R2-D2’s input slots, then hastily typed a command.

  “Show them.”

  R2-D2 piped an objection, and Han groaned and looked at his chrono.

  “Don’t make me scramble your sector tables again,” Ghent warned. “This time, I won’t restore them.”

  R2-D2 let out a long, descending trill, then activated his holoprojector.

  The hand-sized profile of the same brown-eyed woman that Luke had seen before appeared on the control room floor. She seemed to be standing alone, facing someone outside the hologram.

  “Has Anakin been to see you?” asked a male voice.

  “Wait a minute,” Han said. “That guy sounds familiar.”

  “He should,” Luke replied. The voice was much younger than when they had known him, but there was no mistaking its clarity and resonance. “That’s Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

  Ghent tapped a key on his diagnostics scanner, stopping the holo. “Do you want to see this or not?”

  “Of course—we’re sorry,” Leia said. “Please continue.”

  Ghent punched the key again, and R2-D2 restarted the holo from the beginning.

  “Has Anakin been to see you?” Obi-Wan’s voice asked.

  “Several times.” The woman smiled, then said, “I was so happy to hear that he was accepted on the Jedi Council.”

  “I know.” Obi-Wan walked into the hologram, wearing a Jedi cloak with the hood down. He was still young, with a light brown beard and an unwrinkled face. “He deserves it. He’s impatient, strong-willed, very opinionated, but truly gifted.”

  They laughed, then the woman said, “You ‘re not just here to say hello. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  Obi-Wan’s face grew serious. “You should be a Jedi, Padme.”

  The name shot an electric bolt of excitement through Luke— and he could sense it had done the same to Leia.

  “You ‘re not very good at hiding your feelings,” Padme said.

  Obi-Wan nodded. “It’s Anakin. He’s becoming moody and detached.” His holoimage turned half away. “He’s been put in a difficult position as the Chancellor’s representative, but I think it’s more than that.” The image turned back to Padme again. “I was hoping he may have talked to you.”

  Padme’s expression—at least what could be seen of it in the small hologrammic image—remained neutral.

  “Why would he talk to me about his work?”

  Obi-Wan studied her for a moment. “Neither of you is very good at hiding your feelings, either.”

  Padme frowned. “Don’t give me that look.”

  Obi-Wan continued to look at her in the same way. “I know how he feels about you.”

  Padme’s eyes slid away. “What did he say?”

  “Nothing,” Obi-Wan answered. “He didn’t have to.”

  Padme’s face fell, and she turned and walked out of the hologram. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know you both too well.” Obi-Wan followed her out of the frame. “I can see you two are in love.”

  There was no answer, and the hologram ended.

  Luke could see Han biting his tongue, forcing himself to remain patient while the distance grew between them and Alema’s skiff, but this was important—at least to him and Leia.

  “That’s all?” Luke asked.

  Ghent nodded and tapped R2-D2’s silver dome. “Artoo’s blocking me. When I tripped that security gate, he encrypted the rest of the data.”

  R2-D2 whistled an objection.

  “It’s not your place to decide what is good for Master Luke,” C-3PO said. “You’re only a droid.”

  R2-D2 trilled an angry reply.

  “No, I don’t know the secret you’re keeping,” C-3PO answered. “And if I did know, I’d tell Master Luke instantly.”

  R2-D2 responded with a low, slurpy buzz.

  Luke frowned at the exchange, but turned back to Ghent. “Look. We’ve got about two minutes before we have to launch. Is there any way to see the rest now, without Artoo’s cooperation?”

  Ghent sighed. “Sure.” He pulled his scanner plug out of R2-D2’s input socket. “All I have to do is overwrite his personality sectors—”

  The rest of Ghent’s explanation was lost to R2-D2’s screech of objection.

  “Don’t expect me to translate that,” C-3PO said. “That’s what happens to arrogant droids like you. I suggest you extend your cooperation immediately.”

  R2-D2 trilled a sad refusal.

  Luke glanced at the droid, then asked, “I mean without a personality wipe.”

  “Not in two minutes—and maybe not in this lifetime,” Ghent said. “This droid hasn’t had a memory wipe in decades. His circuits are one huge personality fault.”

  “I know that,” Luke said. “What about the spyware?”

  Ghent looked confused. “Spyware?”

  “The spyware that’s keeping me from accessing those memories.” Luke was losing patience with the programmer. “The memories concerning the woman we just saw?”

  “Oh, that spyware,” Ghent said. “There isn’t any.”

  “There isn’t?” Luke frowned. “Then how come Artoo won’t give me access?”

  Ghent sighed, sounding as exasperated as Luke felt. “That’s what I’m trying to explain—”

  “Maybe you can explain on the way to the pilots’ lounge,”

  Mara interrupted. She motioned them out the door. “We can finish talking on the way. We’ve still got a Twi’lek to catch, remember?”

  “Right.”

  Luke was so excited by the hologram that he had let it overshadow the mission for a moment. Anakin—his father—had been in love with a beautiful woman named Padme. And Padme did not look so different from Leia. Did they finally know their mother’s name? He could sense that Leia thought so—but she was too afraid to say as much out loud. So was he.

  Luke fell in beside Ghent. “You were explaining why Artoo won’t let me access those memories?”

  “Because he thinks he’s protecting you,” Ghent said. “He’s a very stubborn droid.”

  “But you can get around that, right?” Leia asked. “I’ve seen you slice codes on units far more sophisticated than Artoo’s.”

  Ghent turned around and looked at Leia as though she had asked for the name of the last girl he had tried to pick up in a can
tina—they never told him their name.

  “No,” he said. “Artoo units were designed to military standards. That means their security protocols will destroy the data before they let it fall into unauthorized hands. If you try to force access, a doomsday gate will reformat the entire memory chip.”

  “And there’s no way to beat that security without wiping Artoo’s personality first?” Luke asked.

  “I didn’t say that,” Ghent said. “There’s a way—but you’d have to help me, and you probably can’t do it.”

  “Try us,” Han said.

  “Okay,” Ghent said. “Bring me the Intellex Four designer’s datapad.”

  “What for?”

  “Because he had to have a way to access the data when his prototypes developed glitches like these,” Ghent said. “And if he’s like most droid-brain designers, that hatch became part of the Intellex IV’s basic architecture. It’s a very complicated computer unit, so there’ll be a long list of passwords and encryption keys on that datapad.”

  “That shouldn’t be too difficult, assuming it wasn’t destroyed in a war,” Luke said. “Who was this designer?”

  Ghent shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. The Artoo was originally an Imperial design, and the Imperial Department of Military Research kept the identities of its top scientists secret.”

  “You must be joking,” Leia said. “You want us to find this guy’s datapad without knowing anything about him?”

  “It’s not quite that bad,” Ghent said. “Do you remember when Incom’s design staff defected to the Rebellion with the X-wing prototypes?”

  “Of course,” Leia said cautiously.

  “Well, this guy was consulting with them on the Artoo interface,” Ghent said. “And after the defection, Industrial Automaton never made another design modification to the Intellex Four.”

  “They were afraid to,” Han surmised. “Because this guy was the only one who could do it right, and he had defected with the X-wing designers.”

  “No, not because he had defected,” Leia said. She was studying Ghent intently. “If he had, we’d know who he was. Right?”

  “Right,” Ghent said. “He just disappeared.”

  Luke had a sinking feeling. “When you say disappeared, do you mean—”

  “Nobody knows.” Ghent turned to Leia. “That’s what disappeared means, right? Nobody knows.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  THE SKY HAD BEEN DARK for hours beneath clouds of dartships, roaring into the Taat nest to refuel and refresh life-support systems, roaring back out to await the arrival of the Chiss assault fleet. Jaina had given up trying to estimate how many craft the Colony had assembled for the ambush, but the number had to be over a hundred thousand. The Taat hangars alone were servicing six swarms an hour, and there were three other nests in the Qoribu system.

  It makes us proud, Zekk said through the Taat mind. No other species could mount such an operation.

  The Chiss will be surprised, Jaina agreed. Somewhere deep in her mind, she knew that this was a bad thing, that it would make her mission as a Jedi more difficult—but it did not feel that way to Taat. To Taat, it felt like their nests were finally going to be saved. They will pay a terrible price.

  Good, Zekk said.

  Good, Jaina agreed.

  The roar of arriving dartships faded to a mere rumble, and the kilometer-long oval of a top-of-the-line Gallofree medium freighter descended out of the rocket smoke. The well-maintained hull was finished in the scarlet-and-gold flames of the Bornaryn Trading Company, with an escort of corporate E-wings providing security.

  Jaina wondered what the vessel was doing so far from home, but Taat did not know. Unu wished the nest to welcome Roaming Ronto, and so Taat welcomed Roaming Ronto. Taat had heard, though, that similar vessels had landed on Ruu and Zvbo carrying a big surprise for the Chiss.

  As the Ronto neared the nest, it adjusted course, heading out over the plateau toward the freight yard, where a swarm of Taat workers were already assembling to unload it. Jaina thought briefly about going to see the cargo, but Unu did not want that. Unu wanted her to enjoy the beauty of the nest from the veranda of the Jedi barracks.

  That freighter should alarm us, Jaina said to Zekk. It can only make war more likely.

  It’s too late to stop the war, Zekk replied. But we should try.

  Jaina started to rise, then suddenly felt too tired and dropped back onto her seat. Maybe later.

  “Yeah,” Zekk said aloud. We’d rather sit here.

  There was something wrong with that, Jaina knew. Jedi were supposed to be dauntless, resourceful, resolute. They were supposed to accomplish the impossible, to keep trying no matter how difficult the mission.

  They were supposed to have indomitable spirits.

  Jaina felt a stirring deep down inside, in the place that had always belonged to her brother Jacen, and she knew he was with her, urging her to fight back, to throw off her lethargy, to break the Colony’s hold on her and reach for that part of her that was just Jaina.

  Jaina stood.

  Where are you going? Zekk asked. It doesn’t feel like you need the refresher.

  “Get out of our—my—mind,” Jaina said.

  Jacen was urging her to remember how Welk and Lomi Plo had tricked the strike team on Baanu Rass, how they had stolen the Flier and abandoned Anakin to die. And now Jaina was allowing them to control her mind.

  Jaina did not understand how that could be. The entire Colony knew that Raynar Thul was the only survivor of the Crash.

  But Jacen seemed so sure. A black fury rose in Jaina’s mind, the same black fury to which she had succumbed when she went to recover Anakin’s body, and finally she felt able to act.

  She wanted to find Welk and kill him. She wanted to find Lomi Plo and make her wish for death.

  But first, there was duty. To let anger distract her was to let the Dark Jedi win. First, Jaina had to stop the war—then she could kill Lomi and Welk.

  Jaina turned toward the hangar.

  “Where are you going?” Zekk whined from his bench. “We can’t do anything. It’s too late.”

  Jaina opened herself to their meld, then reached out to him and let her anger pour from her heart into his.

  I won’t surrender to them. I’m going to stop this war.

  Zekk’s eyes widened, then turned a bright, angry green. He slammed his palms down and pushed himself to his feet.

  “I’m with you,” he said, catching up. “How are we going to do this?”

  “Tell you later,” Jaina said. She did not yet have a plan—and she had no intention of developing one until after they were away from the Taat nest. “For now, let’s just concentrate on getting to our StealthXs.”

  They stepped into the sweet dampness of the wax-lined access tunnel and started down toward the hangar. As they progressed, Taat began to fill Jaina’s mind with doubts about her intentions, to make her wonder if she would really be stopping the war—or merely sparing the Chiss a much-deserved defeat.

  Jaina thought of Anakin, and her doubts vanished in the black fire of her anger.

  Taat workers began to pour into the tunnel, all scurrying up a passage that led only to the Jedi barracks. Jaina and Zekk threatened them with word and thought, but the Killiks continued to clamber past, slowing the pair’s progress to a crawl.

  Zekk took the lead and began to muscle forward, using the Force to shove aside the Killiks ahead of him. More Taat poured into the tunnel, convinced they had some urgent errand in the Jedi barracks. Zekk continued to push ahead. Jaina added her Force powers to his, and the entire stream of insects began to slide backward down the runnel.

  The Killiks dispersed, and a strange resistance began to rise inside the two Jedi, a cold hand pushing at them inside their own bellies. Their limbs grew heavier, their breathing became labored, their pulses pounded in their ears. They leaned against the cold hand, and still it grew harder to move. Soon, their legs were too heavy to lift, their lungs were ready to bu
rst, their drumming hearts drowned out their own thoughts. They came to a stop, hanging parallel to the floor, and the harder they tried to move forward, the more impossible it became.

  They hung there for several minutes, testing their wills against that of the Colony, and only grew more tired. Jaina thought of how Lomi and Welk had betrayed Anakin, and she grew more determined than ever to avenge him—and less able to move.

  Jaina began to despair. Her anger was no match for the Will of the Colony. She had to find another way.

  The seed of a new plan came to Jaina, a plan that relied not on anger, but on love instead.

  Jaina did not nurture that seed. Instead, she buried it deep down in her mind, in that part that was still I instead of we.

  Keep trying, she urged Zekk. Don’t stop, no matter what.

  Never! he assured her.

  Good.

  Jaina let the pressure push her away from the hangar, back up the passage.

  “Hey!” Zekk’s voice was strained. “Where are you going?”

  “The barracks,” Jaina said. “I’m giving up.”

  “What!”

  “I’m not as strong as you.” It irked Jaina to say this, but it was the one way to be sure Zekk would continue to struggle. “I’ll see you later.”

  As Jaina retreated up the passage, the pressure gradually diminished. Finally, she was able to simply walk back to the barracks. She could sense Zekk down near the hangar, feeling puzzled and angry and a little bit abandoned, but he remained determined not to quit, to show Jaina he was as strong as she believed.

  Once Jaina reached the barracks veranda, she returned to her bench and began to contemplate the beauty of the Killik mind. Every member of a nest worked flawlessly with all the others, executing unbelievably complex tasks—such as refueling and restocking several thousand rocket ships an hour—in near-perfect harmony. There were seldom any of the accidents or shortages or confusion so common to any military operation— and there were never arguments or disagreements or territorial spats.

  Would it truly be so bad if there was a war, and the Colony won? For once, there would be true galactic peace—no vying for resources, no clashes of interest, no territorial conquests, just all the peoples of the galaxy working together for the common good. Was that so wrong?