Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Ascension

by Christie Golden

  “It’s too late for her,” said Vestara, shaking his arm again, “and it’s going to be too late for us if we don’t hurry!”

  He nodded, finding his mask and putting it back on. Just in case. “Yeah. Let’s get out of here!”

  They raced back the way they had come, reaching out in the Force to try to sense the instant before another great, bucking shudder racked the ground and bracing themselves accordingly. Now that they were no longer exploring in a leisurely manner but quite literally running for their lives, the distance seemed much shorter to Ben. They passed where they had encountered the old, brittle bones, crushing them to dust beneath running feet. They had almost made it to the chamber where they had found the lightsabers when Ben sensed another quake about to occur.

  Ben grabbed Vestara and Force-hurled them both back down the tunnel. He angled himself so that she fell on top of him, sparing as much energy as he could to lessen his own fall.

  The roaring sound nearly deafened them, and it seemed to go on forever. Ben clung to Vestara, and she clung back. After what felt like an eternity, the tunnel was still.

  And dark.

  “You okay?” Ben asked.

  He felt her pressed against him, felt her breathing, felt her heartbeat. “Yes,” she said, climbing off him carefully. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  She laughed, shakily. “I’ve—lost my lightsaber.”

  “Me too. Maybe they just got knocked from our hands.” Ben’s ribs were bruised from the hard landing, but he managed to sit up. He winced, knowing Vestara was as blind as he right now.

  He held out his hand. It didn’t matter where the lightsaber lay. He imagined how it would feel in his hand—the coolness of the metal, the familiar weight. And an instant later he felt a gentle smack in his palm as the lightsaber returned to it. Grinning despite his pain, he activated it. The first thing he looked for was Vestara’s face, bathed in soft blue light.

  She was not looking at him. She was looking over his shoulder, in the direction they had been heading.

  Ben turned to follow her gaze—and saw that they had been sealed in.

  “Bloah,” he said glumly.

  They stood staring for a while, then Vestara sighed. “This would go faster with two lightsabers, but let’s get started. We might even get out of this alive if we do.”

  “Oh, we will,” he said.

  “You sound pretty certain.”

  “I am,” he said. “You just recently turned toward the light side of the Force. I promised I’d watch you become a Jedi, remember?”

  With her mask on, he couldn’t read her expression, but she reached over and silently squeezed his arm. He sent her a warm brush of confidence and affection, and went to work on the stones.

  They quickly fell into a rhythm. Ben would cut the stones. Vestara would use the Force both to move the carved-out pieces safely behind them and to keep the “wall” of remaining stone from collapsing in on them. A few more tremors came, but between the two of them the wall held.

  At one point, after several minutes of this, Ben’s breath started to become labored. He thought the mask wasn’t functioning, and started to remove it.

  “Don’t,” cautioned Vestara. “The air … it’s running out. And it feels … hot. Use the Force to control your breathing.”

  He nodded. He did not speak, not after that warning, and did as she suggested—used the Force to make his body absorb as much oxygen as it could from the slow breaths he permitted himself to take.

  After about half an hour, Ben stuck a hand in one of the cracks. “We’re almost through,” he said.

  Vestara waved him over to her, indicating he should stand beside her. He did. She looked straight ahead and mimed pushing. He understood at once and nodded. She lifted her hand and counted down: One. Two.

  Three.

  They Force-shoved with all their strength. The wall of wedged rocks exploded outward as if a thermal detonator had been set off. For a moment, they stood staring at the gaping hole, then started laughing and hugging each other.

  “Quit snuggling, you two,” came a voice. They looked up, shocked, to see Corran Horn. His eyes over the gas mask looked both amused and impatient. “The volcano erupted and you need to get out with me now. Oh, and Vestara—”

  He tossed her an unlit lightsaber.

  “I believe this is yours.”

  OFFICES OF MERRATT JAXTON, CORUSCANT

  MERRATT JAXTON, FOR ALL THAT HE ENJOYED BEING THE CENTER OF attention, found that when he needed to he was very good at keeping his head down.

  He’d started to wonder if something was going wrong when Lecersen fell silent. He’d known something was going wrong when Bramsin died of so-called natural causes and Treen left within hours of his death.

  And when Parova’s body turned up …

  He, who had sent the fake Jedi after Admiral Nek Bwua’tu, did not believe it was the work of Tahiri Veila. Or any other Jedi.

  There were only two of them left. Three, if you counted Suldar, who was supposed to have been the “new boy” and who had suddenly seemed to be running the show and reducing the number of people he needed to deal with right and left.

  He’d liked it when Lecersen was the head of the whole thing—well, the titular head, though Jaxton knew that the whole thing had been Senator Treen’s idea. Now that neither of them was reachable, Jaxton was starting to feel very, very insecure indeed.

  He stared at his comlink, turning it over and over in his hand, then finally clicked it.

  “Yeah,” came the cold, metallic voice.

  Jaxton hesitated. He didn’t know what he was going to say.

  “I don’t like this.”

  “What don’t you like?”

  “Parova and Bramsin are dead?”

  “And we’re alive, so?”

  Did General Stavin Thaal just not get it? “And what makes you think we won’t be next? These blasted Senators, thinking they can control us … No word from good old Palpatine, either,” he added, recalling with distaste the costumed meeting where Lecersen had shown up as Emperor Palpatine.

  A pause. “You know, you have a good point. Let’s get together and discuss it.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll find you.”

  Click.

  Jaxton stared at his comlink, and for no reason at all, he felt a chill.

  The rest of the day passed without comment from Thaal. Jaxton went to a local cantina for a drink, then to a restaurant he was known to frequent for dinner, then came home and poured himself a nightcap. He nursed it, watched some holonews, and found himself relieved that no one he knew was reported dead.

  There came a knock on his door. He let out a sigh of relief. There was the man, finally.

  “Stavin,” he said cheerily as he opened the door, “you are one mysterious—”

  Stavin Thaal was indeed standing outside his door. So were two other men. Jaxton looked askance at them, and then looked back to Thaal. “Personal bodyguards,” Thaal said. “You can’t be too careful these days.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Jaxton, and waved the men in. “Can I get you something to drink?” he said, heading to the bar. “I’ve got a fine selection of—”

  “Merratt,” said Thaal, his mechanical voice oddly quiet.

  Jaxton turned around. The two men were standing pointing small, handheld blasters at him. “Fine, fine, I’ll bring out the good stuff,” he laughed. “Not all that funny, Stavin,” he went on, refreshing his own drink.

  “I’m afraid it’s not really funny at all,” Thaal said. “Come sit down at your desk. You’re going to take dictation for me.”

  “You’re serious,” Jaxton said. Thaal nodded, unsmiling. The men did not lower their blasters. Thinking he could find a way out of this or talk Stavin out of … whatever plot he had in his head, Jaxton obeyed.

  “I’ve got a datapad here—”

  “I’m sure you can find some flimsi and a stylus,” Thaal said. Jaxton r
ummaged around his desk and, sure enough, came up with the requested items. With a shaky hand, using the unfamiliar stylus, Merratt Jaxton began to write.

  “ ‘I leave this note for whoever finds me,’ ” said Thaal.

  Jaxton had gotten as far as whoever. He froze. “What does that mean?” He knew, of course, but he didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t believe it.

  “Why, son, I’m going to kill you once this note is done.”

  Jaxton looked up at Thaal and the two other expressionless men. “If I know I’m going to die, then why should I write this note?”

  “Because you’re going to have a choice about how you die,” said Thaal in his horrible droid’s voice. “You finish that note for me like a good boy, and I’ll make it quick and easy for you. You fight me, your suicide will be so agonizing people will admire you for having the guts to actually go through with it. It’s up to you.”

  Jaxton hesitated, then began to write again. Thaal nodded. “Good. Now, where was I? Oh, right. ‘This began as a noble crusade, for a noble cause, at least as far as I was concerned. To topple the unjust government as embodied in Natasi Daala. I joined forces with Senator Fost Bramsin and Admiral Sallinor Parova to bring this about.’ ”

  Jaxton paused and looked up at Thaal. “I don’t know why this even matters to me,” he said, “but for some strange reason, it does. I know why you want me to leave you off the list. But why not implicate Treen and Lecersen, since you’re naming names?”

  Thaal chuckled. It came out horribly artificial sounding.

  “Because they’re still alive. If they keep their mouths shut, so will I. Don’t even really know what’s up with Lecersen, and Treen’s a sharp old woman.”

  Jaxton licked his lips. “ … I could keep my mouth shut.”

  Thaal shook his head, almost sympathetically. “No, you couldn’t, son. Besides, that’s a nice tidy list of conspirators right there. Three sounds about right; a Senator and two chiefs—all the bases covered. And all three dead makes it tidier still.”

  “We can work something out,” stammered Jaxton.

  “No, son, we can’t. It just wouldn’t work. It’s my business to know beings, and I know that much about you.”

  He thought about asking Thaal if he could talk to someone, but even as the thought formed, he realized there was no one to talk to. No one who would miss him. He didn’t even have a blasted pet that would miss him, like Dorvan did.

  “Keep writing,” said Thaal.

  “ ‘I cannot continue living, knowing that my fellow conspirators have died for what they believe is right. Soon I will join them.’ Now sign it.”

  “No one’s going to believe this,” said Jaxton, even as he affixed his signature. “They’ll know it’s a murder, and they’ll find you.”

  Again Thaal laughed, and Jaxton found himself cringing, ever so slightly, at the sound. “You may be right. Then again”—he nodded to one of his men—“you may not be.”

  The man leaned down and to Jaxton’s shock, offered him the blaster. He stared at it as if it were an exotic animal. He could take it, and probably get off two shots—at least one good one to Thaal—before they took him down. Thaal’s tidy little plan would completely unravel and become most untidy indeed.

  And that was when Jaxton knew, down to his marrow, that he was a coward after all. Thaal was right. He couldn’t have kept his mouth shut if he were interrogated. He’d have cracked, and cracked completely.

  He wished desperately now that he’d just walked into Wynn Dorvan’s office, sat down, and spilled everything. Cooperation could have saved him. His ambition and ego had doomed him. At least the ones he was implicating were already dead. There was something to be said for that.

  He took the blaster and held it quietly, awaiting instructions.

  “Now, put it in your mouth,” said Thaal. “And then, when you’re ready, pull the trigger.”

  Jaxton stared at the blaster, then slowly did as he was told. His breathing came quick around the muzzle, and he tasted and smelled the tang of metal. Odd, how sharp his senses were, now that they would never be used again. He looked up and straight into Thaal’s pale, cold eyes.

  Thaal nodded. “I’ll watch you go,” he said, his voice as gentle as it could be made, hearing the unspoken question.

  Jaxton pulled the trigger.

  Leia couldn’t sleep. She hadn’t slept much since they’d placed her in this cell. The mattress was lumpy and old and uncomfortable. Still, she knew that wasn’t why she lay awake. She had slept on harder ground, softer hammocks, even in trees and in another, more antiseptic and evil prison.

  She couldn’t turn off her brain. She kept going over what Eramuth had said about “Club Bwua’tu.” About how they thought there were conspiracies—plural—afoot. Eramuth said that both she and Han were now “members of the club,” and that she should not despair. “One way or another, my dear,” the old Bothan had rumbled, “we’re getting you out of here. Do not doubt that.”

  She didn’t. But she doubted that they would uncover the conspirators in time. She doubted that Padnel Ovin would see what was right there in plain sight. She doubted—

  Leia heard noises, and saw the darkness in the hall lighten slightly. Someone was coming—two someones, two sets of footsteps—and they had glow rods. She sat up, straining to listen.

  “… highly unusual, sir,” said someone.

  “So is the situation, guard,” came Padnel’s gruff voice. “And Jedi Solo is a highly unusual being. Now open the door and leave us alone, or you’ll be looking for new employment.”

  They appeared at the door. The guard, an annoyed-looking Sullustan, shut down the force field, permitted Padnel to enter, reactivated the field, gave them both dirty looks, and departed.

  “Rank hath its privileges,” said Leia. “What brings you here at this hour? Good news, I hope?”

  Padnel, carrying the glow rod, began to pace. “Not at all, really, though it may be good news in the end. For you, at least.” He paused and looked at her solemnly. “You think I don’t listen. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I do. I thought about what you said, and all that has gone on recently. And I shared your concern with Dorvan. There’s apparently a sort of … club that’s sprung up around such concerns as you raised.”

  Hope rose in Leia, warm and rich and fierce. “Club Bwua’tu,” she murmured.

  He nodded. “I don’t know much about it; don’t need to know. Enough that Dorvan and the admiral are involved. Better that way. They share your opinion. About a conspiracy. They had discovered some kind of connection among Bramsin, Lecersen, and Jaxton—”

  “The poisoning!” Leia remembered her conversation with Javon Thewles. “It was designed to discredit the GAS. And Parova—”

  “Put her people in instead,” Padnel finished. “And now she’s dead, Bramsin is dead, and Treen and Lecersen have disappeared. That leaves only one.”

  “General Jaxton,” breathed Leia.

  Padnel nodded. “That was enough to convince me to plant a small listening device in Jaxton’s office. One sensitive enough to catch both ends of a comm conversation. And this afternoon, before Jaxton left for the evening, I recorded a very interesting conversation. I was only able to listen to it just a short while ago.”

  “What did he say? Who did he talk to?”

  “They spoke about Bramsin and Parova being dead, the ‘blasted Senators,’ and someone he called ‘good old Palpatine.’ They were going to get together tonight to discuss things. Unfortunately, the person Jaxton contacted was not named, and he used a droid voice to disguise his—or her—own.”

  “It’s got to be Suldar,” said Leia. “With everything else that’s going on—”

  “My thoughts exactly. There’s enough on here to bring Jaxton in for further questioning at least.”

  Leia made a face. “If there was enough for me to be brought in, then yes, I agree.”

  Padnel looked remorseful and put a hand on her shoulder. “I never doubted you, L
eia,” he said, “I just thought you were mistaken about the conspiracy.”

  “That’s doubting,” Leia said. At the look on his face, she softened. “I understand why you did, though. It sounded almost as ludicrous as the charges brought against me.”

  “I’ll let you know what—” His comlink beeped. “Excuse me a moment,” he said, speaking into it. “Ovin. What?” He listened, and his eyes widened. Softly he growled. “I see. Be respectful of the body, but bring it in to the Galactic Senate Medcenter for immediate autopsy. No, no, you were right to contact me. Keep me posted.”

  Leia grew cold. “Jaxton,” she said. He nodded. “Murdered, like Parova?”

  He shook his head. “Looks like a suicide. But I don’t believe that for a minute.”

  “Nor do I.”

  Padnel turned to her and took her hands in his. “Leia, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t ever have been brought in here. I thought I was doing the right thing by going along with the Senators and observing, but I should have stopped this the minute I smelled something rotten.”

  “You did what you thought was best. Who knows, perhaps you actually got me out of harm’s way,” she said.

  “I’d like to hope that. I’d like to think I did something right. But now I intend to keep you out of harm’s way.” His olive-green flews pulled back from his sharp, jagged teeth in a chilling smile. “I’ve heard it said that being the Chief of State means when you speak, they have to be quiet. Tomorrow I intend to make them quiet long enough to repair some of the damage I’ve done. And then—I’m going to knock some heads together.”

  Despite the direness of the situation, Leia found herself smiling. “You sound just like Han,” she said.

  “That is perhaps the finest compliment I have ever received,” said Ovin. And Leia had to agree.

  HIGH LORD WORKAN WAS RATHER PROUD OF HIMSELF.

  This political system was so easy to manipulate. One could be physically weak, even unable to use the Force at all, and still rise to power based on being popular and gathering enough beings in one’s corner. There were loopholes everywhere, if one knew where to look, and like a pack of anoobas, Sith excelled at finding weaknesses and using them to destroy. What Roki Kem wanted him to do was not only fairly easy, it was even legal.