Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy III: Champions of the Force

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Look, kid,” Han said, “I don’t claim to understand anything about the Force. In fact I once said it was a hokey religion full of mumbo jumbo. But I do know that what you’re saying sounds dangerously close to the dark side.”

  After a deep pause Kyp said haltingly, “Han … I—”

  “Got it!” Lando whispered.

  Han nodded, and Lando punched in the control sequence.

  A rapid succession of lights twinkled on the control panel as the override command was transmitted across the narrow bridge of space. In the black gulf lit only by a backwash of dull light from the exploded red-dwarf star, the Sun Crusher suddenly went dark: the lights in its cockpit, the aiming beacons on its laser cannons, and the blaze of plasma at the end of its toroidal torpedo generator.

  “Yes!” Lando shouted. Han gave a whoop of triumph, and the two of them reached out to slap their hands together.

  “Let me talk to him,” Han said. “Does he still have power to his comm system?”

  “Channel open,” Lando said. “But I don’t think he’s very happy—”

  “You tricked me!” Kyp’s voice screamed through the speaker panel. “You claimed to be my friend—and now you’ve betrayed me. It’s just like Exar Kun said. Friends betray you. A Jedi has no time for friendship. You should all die.”

  Astonishingly, the power in the Sun Crusher surged back to life again, despite Lando’s overrides. The lights came on in a blaze.

  “It’s not my fault!” Lando squawked, scrambling to reroute the command. “I didn’t know he could bypass it so fast!”

  “Kyp can do things with the Force that you and I can’t understand,” Han said.

  The energy torpedo launcher fired up with a flare of intense plasma, brighter than before, ready to launch at the Falcon.

  And this time Kyp did not hesitate.

  15

  Streen dozed cross-legged on the cold flagstone floor before Master Skywalker. He folded his arms over his knees, comfortable in the many-pocketed jumpsuit he had brought with him from his lonely days as a gas prospector on Bespin. He could no longer smell the bitter sulfurous taint of rich plumes of deep-layer gases.

  Now Streen had a greater mission—to guard Master Skywalker.

  Low-slanted light from outside elongated the shadows in the grand audience chamber. Twelve candles, one placed by each of the Jedi trainees, flickered around Luke’s body, shedding a faint but protective glow into the motionless air. The small bright points glittered as the darkness gathered all around.

  Streen muttered to himself. No, he would not listen to the Dark Man’s words. No, he would not serve Exar Kun’s purposes. No, he would not do anything to harm Master Skywalker. No!

  In his lap, cool and hard against his callused hands, he held the handle of Luke’s lightsaber.

  This time he could fight it. This time the Dark Man would not win. Some of the other Jedi trainees had expressed grave misgivings about letting Streen near Master Skywalker, especially armed with a lightsaber. But Streen had begged for his chance at restitution, and Kirana Ti had spoken on his behalf.

  The others would watch over him. Master Skywalker would be in danger, but they had to take the risk.

  Streen let the fuzzy caress of sleep work its way into his mind. His grizzled head nodded to his chest. Whispering voices sounded like breezes in his mind, forming gentle words, soothing phrases … cold promises.

  The words demanded that he wake up, but Streen resisted them, not knowing if they were evil suggestions or the insistences of his companions. When Streen felt he had waited long enough, he allowed himself to snap awake.

  The voices fell silent as he blinked his eyes. Another voice, external this time, replaced the silence. “Wake up, my student. The winds are blowing.”

  Streen focused on the black form of Exar Kun in the center of the throne room. In the flickering candlelight and dim rays from the dying day, Streen could see chiseled features on the onyx silhouette, more detailed than he had ever seen before on the shadow of the Dark Man.

  Exar Kun turned a well-defined face toward him, completely ebony as if molded from lava stone: high cheekbones, haughty eyes, a thin, angry mouth. Long black hair like carbon wires swept across his shoulder, gathered in a thick ponytail. Padded armor covered his body, and the pulsing tattoo of a black sun burned from his forehead.

  Streen climbed slowly to his feet. He felt calm and strong, angry at how the Dark Man had set a sharp hook in his own weakness and had dragged him along. “I won’t do your bidding, Dark Man,” he said.

  Exar Kun laughed. “And how do you propose to resist? You are already mine.”

  “If you believe that,” Streen said, and took a deep breath, strengthening his voice, “then you have made your first mistake.” He brought up the handle of Luke’s lightsaber, igniting it with a loud snap-hiss.

  Exar Kun’s shadow flinched backward, much to Streen’s surprise and satisfaction.

  “Good,” Kun said with false bravado, “now take the weapon and cleave Skywalker in two. Let us be done with this.”

  Streen took one step toward Exar Kun, holding the green lightsaber before him. “This blade is meant for you, Dark Man.”

  “If you think that weapon will have any effect on me,” Kun said, “perhaps you should ask your friend Gantoris—or have you forgotten what happened to him when he defied me?”

  A vision flashed through Streen’s mind: Gantoris’s crisped corpse incinerated from the inside out, his body turned to ash from the incredible fires of the dark side. Kun must have intended for that memory to drive Streen to despair; Gantoris had been his friend; he and Gantoris were the first two trainees Master Skywalker had found on his Jedi search.

  But rather than causing panic or dismay, the memory increased Streen’s determination. He strode forward, staring down the shadowy man. “You are not wanted here, Exar Kun,” he said. To his continued surprise the shadow of the ancient Sith Lord drifted back from him, down the promenade.

  “I can find other tools, Streen, if you prove difficult. I will show you no mercy when I have gained control once more. My Sith brothers will use the power stored within this network of temples. If you defy me, I can find new ways of inflicting pain far beyond the capabilities of your imagination—and you will endure all of them!”

  Kun’s shadow drifted farther away … and a tall figure emerged from the left stone stairwell into the grand audience chamber: Kirana Ti clad in her polished reptilian armor, her muscles rippling in the pale candlelight, her curves making her look supple yet deadly.

  “Are you running away, Exar Kun?” Kirana Ti said. “Frightened off so easily?”

  Streen held his position, still gripping the lightsaber.

  “Another foolhardy student,” Kun said, whirling to face her. “I would have come to you in time. The witches of Dathomir would be fine additions to a new Sith Brotherhood.”

  “You’ll never get a chance to ask them, Exar Kun. You are trapped here. You won’t leave this chamber.” She pressed forward to intimidate him by her very closeness.

  Kun’s shadow distorted, but he held his ground. “You cannot threaten me.” Kun loomed over her.

  Streen felt a stab of cold fear at the movement, but Kirana Ti ducked swiftly, fluidly, into a fighting stance. She reached to her waist and snatched one of the tools hanging there.

  A loud crackle seared the air, and she stood holding another ignited lightsaber. A long amethyst-and-white blade extended from the handle, humming like an angry insect. She thrashed the lightsaber from side to side.

  “Where did you get that weapon?” Kun demanded.

  “It belonged to Gantoris,” she said. “He once tried to fight you and failed.” She slashed with the lightsaber, and Kun flinched back toward Streen. “But I will succeed.”

  Kirana Ti stalked toward the platform where Luke’s body lay, where Streen stood on guard with the other lightsaber. Kun was trapped between them.

  Another Jedi trainee emerged from the r
ight-side stairwell—grim and wiry Kam Solusar. “And if she fails,” he said, “I will pick up the lightsaber and fight you.” He marched forward, closing the distance to join her.

  Then Tionne came from the opposite stairwell, throwing her challenge at Exar Kun as she walked up to the platform. “And I will fight you as well.”

  Cilghal stepped in with Jacen and Jaina, each holding one of her hands. “And we will fight you. We will all fight you, Exar Kun.”

  The remaining Jedi trainees flooded into the chamber, converging in a group that surrounded the Dark Lord of the Sith.

  Kun raised his opaque arms in a sudden brisk gesture. With a flicker of wind the twelve candles around Master Skywalker’s body snuffed out, plunging the room into deep shadow.

  “We’re not afraid of the darkness,” Tionne said in a firm voice. “We can make our own light.”

  As his eyes adjusted, Streen saw that all twelve of the Jedi candidates were limned with the faintest sheen of an iridescent blue glow that grew brighter as the new Jedi converged around Exar Kun.

  “Even joined together, you are too weak to fight me!” the shadowy man said.

  Streen felt his throat constrict, his windpipe close. He choked, unable to breathe. The black silhouette turned, staring at those who resisted him. The Jedi trainees grasped their throats, straining to breathe, their faces darkening with the effort.

  Kun’s shadow expanded, growing darker and more powerful. He towered over Streen. “Streen, take your lightsaber and finish these weaklings. Then I will allow you to live.”

  Streen heard the blood sing in his ears as his body strained for oxygen. The rushing sound reminded him of blowing wind, gale-force storms. Wind. Air. He grasped the wind with his Jedi powers, moving the air itself and making it flow into his lungs, past Kun’s invisible stranglehold.

  Cool, sweet oxygen filled him, and Streen exhaled and inhaled again. Reaching out with his power, he did the same for all the other Jedi students, nudging air into their lungs—helping them breathe, helping them grow stronger.

  “We are more powerful than you,” Dorsk 81 said, gasping, in a tone that mixed challenge with amazement.

  “How you must hate me,” Exar Kun said. Desperation tinged the edges of his voice. “I can feel your anger.”

  Cilghal used the silken ambassadorial voice she had worked so hard to develop. “There is no anger,” she said. “We don’t hate you, Exar Kun. You are an object lesson for us. You have taught us much about what it is to be a true Jedi. By observing you we see that the dark side has little strength of its own. You have no power that we do not have. You merely used our own weaknesses against us.”

  “We have seen enough of you,” Kam Solusar said grimly from the edge of the circle, “and it’s time for you to be vanquished.”

  The Jedi trainees stepped closer together, cinching the circle around the trapped shadowy form. Streen held his lightsaber high, while across the circle Kirana Ti raised hers to a striking position. The nebulous glow around the new Jedi Knights grew brighter, a luminous fog that joined them in an unbroken ring, a solid band of light forged by the power of the Force within them.

  “I know your flaws,” Kun said stridently. “You all have weaknesses. You—” The shadow lunged toward the streamlined form of Dorsk 81. The cloned Jedi candidate flinched, but the other trainees gave him strength.

  “You: Dorsk 81, a failure!” He sneered. “Eighty generations of your genetic structure were perfect, identical—but you were an anomaly. You were an outcast. A flaw.”

  But the olive-skinned alien would not back down. “Our differences make us strong,” he said. “I’ve learned that.”

  “And you”—Exar Kun whirled to Tionne—“you have no Jedi powers. You are laughable. You can only sing songs about great deeds, while others go out and actually do them.”

  Tionne smiled at him. Her mother-of-pearl eyes glittered in the dim light. “Someday the songs will tell of our great victory over Exar Kun—and I will sing them.”

  The glow continued to brighten as the synergy between the trainees grew more powerful, weaving threads to reinforce their weak spots, to emphasize their strengths.

  Streen wasn’t sure exactly when another image joined the Jedi candidates. He saw a new form without a physical body—short and hunched, with withered hands held in front of it. A misshapen funnel face, whiskered with tentacles, stared with small eyes hooded by a shelf of brow. Streen recognized the ancient Jedi Master Vodo-Siosk Baas, who had spoken to them from the Holocron.

  Kun’s image also saw the ancient Jedi Master, and his expression froze in a sculpted grimace of astonishment.

  “Together Jedi can overcome their weaknesses,” Master Vodo said in a bubbly, congested voice. “Exar Kun, my student—you are defeated at last.”

  “No!” the shadow screamed in a night-rending voice as the silhouette fought to discover a part of the circle he could breach.

  “Yes,” came another voice, a strong voice. Opposite Master Vodo glimmered the faint, washed-out form of a young man in Jedi robes. Master Skywalker.

  “The way to extinguish a shadow,” Cilghal said in her calm and confident voice, “is to increase the light.”

  Kirana Ti stepped forward with the lightsaber that had been built by Gantoris. Streen met her with Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. The two stared into each other’s eyes, nodded, and then struck with the brilliant luminous blades.

  Their beams crossed in the middle of Exar Kun’s shadowy body—pure light intersecting pure light with an explosion of lightning. The flash of dazzling white seemed as bright as an exploding sun.

  Darkness flooded out of the shade of Exar Kun. The blackness shattered, and fragments flew around the circle, seeking a weak heart in which to hide.

  Streen and Kirana Ti kept their lightsabers crossed, the energy sizzling and searing.

  With the Force, Streen touched the winds again. The air inside the grand audience chamber swirled with increasing coriolis force to form a whirlwind. The cyclone grew tighter in an invisible knot around the shredded shadow, trapping it and carrying it up toward the rooftop and out, flinging it into the vast emptiness.

  Exar Kun vanished with only a brief, curtailed scream.

  The Jedi Knights stood joined together for a final moment, relishing the shared Force. Then, in exhaustion and relief and triumph, they separated from each other. The unearthly glow dissipated around them.

  The image of the alien Master Vodo-Siosk Baas stared toward the ceiling, as if to catch a last glimpse of his conquered student, and then he too disappeared.

  With a wheezing cough as he expelled long-trapped air from his lungs and drew in a fresh breath, Master Skywalker groaned and sat up on the stone platform.

  “You’ve—done it!” Luke said, gaining strength with each lungful of cool, clean air. The new Jedi Knights surged toward him. “You have broken the bonds.”

  With squeals of delight Jacen and Jaina ran to their Uncle Luke. He pulled them into his arms. They giggled and hugged him back.

  Luke Skywalker smiled out at his students, his face glowing with pride for the group of Jedi Knights he had trained.

  “Together,” he said, “you make a formidable team indeed! Perhaps we need no longer fear the darkness.”

  16

  In the Sun Crusher’s pilot seat Kyp Durron crouched over the controls. He stared at the Millennium Falcon as if it were a demon ready to spring at him. His fingernails scratched down the metallic surface of the navigation panels like claws trying to dig into flesh.

  His mind had been swimming with the bittersweet memories of happy times with Han, how the two of them had careened over the ice fields in a frantic turbo-ski run, how they had made friends in the blackness of the spice mines, how Han had pretended not to be all choked up when Kyp left for the Jedi academy. Part of him was appalled at the idea of threatening Han Solo’s life, that he would want to destroy the Millennium Falcon.

  It had seemed an easy threat, the obvious thing
to do. But it came from a dark shadow in the back of his mind. The whispering voice chewed at his thoughts, haunted him constantly. It was the voice he had heard during his training on Yavin 4 in the deepest night and in the echoing obsidian pyramid far out in the jungles, and on top of the great ziggurat from which Kyp had summoned the Sun Crusher out of the core of Yavin.

  Troubled by that voice, Kyp had stolen a ship and fled to the forest moon of Endor to meditate beside the ashes of Darth Vader’s funeral pyre. He had thought to go far enough away to escape Kun’s influence, but he no longer thought that was possible.

  Kyp had traveled to the Core Systems, but still he felt the chains binding him to the Dark Lord, the malevolent obligations required by the Sith teachings. If he tried to resist and think for himself, the angry tauntings returned with full force, the snapped words, the coercions, the veiled threats.

  But Han Solo’s words tugged at him too—weapons of a different sort that made his heart grow warm, melting the ice of anger. Right now Exar Kun’s voice seemed distracted and distant, as if preoccupied with another challenge.

  As Kyp listened to Han’s words, he realized that his friend, knowing little about Jedi teachings, had put his finger on the truth. He was following the dark side. Kyp’s weak justifications crumbled around him in a storm of excuses built on a fragile foundation of revenge.

  “Han … I—”

  But just as he had been about to speak warmly to Han, to open up and ask his friend to come talk with him—suddenly his controls went dead. An override signal from the Falcon’s computer had shut down the Sun Crusher’s weapons systems, its navigation controls, its life support.

  The black net of anger fell over him, smothering his kind intentions. In outrage Kyp found the power to send a burst of controlling thought through the integrated circuits in the Sun Crusher’s computer. He flushed the alien programming, wiping pathways clean and rebuilding them in an instant. He remapped the functions with a sudden mental pinpoint that made the Sun Crusher whole again. The systems hummed as they returned to life, charging up.