by Timothy Zahn
"I've seen the one on Varn, yes," Luke said, the mention of Lando's name throwing a sudden damper on the cautiously growing feeling of excitement at these new revelations. Mara's relationship with Lando...
"Fine," Mara said, either missing the change in Luke's emotions or else ignoring it. "Sometimes small songbirds set up their nests in the upper supports of those buildings. Did you hear any of them singing when you were there?"
Luke smiled tightly. Again, it was so obvious. "Of course not," he said. "It was way too noisy in there to hear anything that quiet."
Mara smiled back. "Pretty obvious, isn't it, once you see it. The Force isn't just about power, like most non-Jedi think. It's also about guidance everything from those impressive future visions to the more subtle realtime warnings I sometimes think of as a danger sense. Trouble is, the more you tap into it for raw power, the less you're able to hear its guidance over the noise of your own activity."
"Yes," Luke murmured, so many puzzles suddenly coming clear. He had often wondered how it was he could rebuild Darth Vader's personal fortress while Master Yoda had become winded doing something as relatively simple as lifting an X-wing from the Dagobah swamp. Clearly, Yoda had understood the choices far better than his upstart pupil.
And even in the short time since Luke had decided to try that same choice he'd already seen glimpses of why Yoda had chosen that path. Subtle bits of guidance, sometimes occurring as little more than vague and almost subconscious feelings, had been showing up more and more protecting him from a quick capture back at the Cavrilhu Pirates' asteroid base, or quietly prompting him to accept Child Of Winds's assistance, which had led directly to this cavern and the pride-motivated aid of the Qom Jha. "I was on Iphigin a couple of months ago helping Han with some negotiations," he said. "The Diamala at the talks told Han that Jedi who used as much power as I did always ended up slipping over to the dark side."
"They may be right," Mara agreed. "Not all Dark Jedi come from botched training, you know. Some of them slip into it all by themselves."
"Not a very pleasant thought," Luke said soberly, thinking about his Yavin academy. Of his successes at Jedi instruction there, and his failures. "Especially given that I started teaching under dark side influence."
"Yes, I noticed that, too," Mara agreed. "Possibly one of the major reasons you didn't do very well with that first batch of students."
Luke made a face. "Is that why you didn't stay?"
"That, and the changes I saw in you," she said. "You didn't seem interested in listening to any warnings about what you were doing, and I decided that when it collapsed around you it wouldn't do either of us any good if I got caught in the rubble, too." She shrugged. "Anyway, Corran was there, and he seemed to have his head bolted on straight."
"He wasn't there very long, though," Luke murmured.
"Yes, I found that out afterward. Pity."
For a moment neither of them said anything. Luke craned his neck to peer to the side, wondering if the end of the fire creeper swarm was visible yet. This introspection was both embarrassing and painful; and besides, they had urgent work to do.
But the black carpet still stretched as far as the passageway's turns and irregularities permitted him to see. "What about you?" he asked, turning back to Mara again. "You were the Emperor's Hand. Why hasn't your life been dominated by the dark side?"
She shrugged uncomfortably. "Maybe it has. It certainly was from the time Palpatine took me from my home till I got rid of that last command he'd jammed into my mind."
Her gaze clouded over oddly, as if she were looking into some private place within herself. "Though it's funny, somehow. Palpatine never really tried to turn me to the dark side, at least not the way he turned Vader and tried to turn you. Actually, I don't think I was ever really in the dark side at all."
"But everything you were doing was the Emperor's work," Luke said. "If he was on the dark side, shouldn't you have been, too?"
Mara shook her head. "I don't know," she admitted. "But I wasn't." Her gaze came back, and Luke could sense the protective barrier going up again, as if she'd suddenly realized her private feelings had been a little too visible. "You're the Jedi Master. You figure it out."
"I'll work on it," Luke promised. Yes, the barriers were back up.
But not as high as they'd once been. Not nearly as high.
"In the meantime," she said, "do those sustained control techniques you taught me work on arm muscles as well as lightsabers?"
Luke focused on her arms, noticing for the first time that they were trembling slightly with muscle fatigue. "They do okay," he said. "But for muscles there's a better technique. Let me show you..."
* * * It was another hour before the swarm of fire creepers finally finished its migration beneath them and disappeared down the cavern passageway. In their wake they left Artoo and everything metal or otherwise indigestible from their packs, though the packs themselves had vanished.
And, of course, Builder With Vines's remains.
Mara glanced once at the scattered bones, then firmly turned her eyes away. Yes, it was the Qom Jha's own fault that he'd gotten himself killed; and yes, on one level it was merely the balance of nature at work; and yes, she'd tried her best to keep Luke from taking any of the blame on himself. But none of that meant she had to like what had happened, or wanted to look at the results. "Good thing the food bars were in metal boxes," she commented, massaging her fingers as she prodded what was left of their equipment with the tip of her boot. "The water bottles didn't hold up nearly as well, though."
"There's plenty of water down here," Luke reminded her. He was standing near their cut, looking up at Child Of Winds. "We just won't be able to carry extra supplies with us. It's all safe now, Child Of Winds. You can come down."
The young Qom Qae didn't budge, that almost-voice going again. "I understand," Luke said gently. "But you have to come down. You're in the way up there, and we don't want to hit you with our lightsabers."
For a moment Mara thought Child Of Winds would decide he preferred to stay high up off the floor and take his chances with the lightsabers. Then, with clear reluctance, he spread his wings and fluttered down to a slightly awkward perch on top of the droid's dome.
"What now?" Mara asked, crossing to Luke's side. "Back to hack and slash?"
Luke shrugged. "The wall's not going to fall apart on its own," he said. "Unless you think we ought to risk using the grenades."
Mara peered down the passageway. Nothing was visible, but after that fire creeper swarm she was feeling a little spooked herself. "Let's stick with the lightsabers for now," she suggested. "If Splitter Of Stones gets back with the reinforcements before we're finished we'll consider it."
"Sounds good," Luke agreed, pulling his lightsaber from his belt and igniting it. "Artoo, keep an eye out for any more trouble."
The droid warbled a slightly nervous acknowledgment and extended his sensor unit again, nearly knocking Child Of Winds off his perch as he did so. "Okay," Luke said, taking his position to the side of their cut again. "Let's get started."
"Right," Mara said, igniting her own lightsaber. Luke's lightsaber slashed and died; Mara's followed similarly
And that, she realized, was that. They'd had the conversation she'd known was coming, and had been dreading, since he first arrived here. And while he'd obviously not exactly been thrilled by the realization of how badly he'd wrecked the past few years, he'd taken the news better than she'd expected him to.
The question now was what he would do with this newfound knowledge. Whether he would take it solidly to heart and commit to what he now knew was right, or whether the lure of power and quick solutions would eventually drag him back to the easy path. The dark path.
She would just have to wait and see.
CHAPTER
16
From behind him came the sound of an opening door, and Han turned his head to see Lando step into the Lady Luck's bridge. "Okay, it's done," the other announced, his ton
e tense and decidedly grumpy. "Everything's been shut down to standby. Engines, sensors, computer systemthe works."
He crossed the bridge and dropped into the pilot's seat beside Han. "And I'd like to go on record right now as saying I hate this."
"I'm not exactly happy about it myself," Han had to admit. "But this is the way it has to be."
Lando snorted. "Says a self-admitted Imperial clone TIE pilot," he added accusingly. "You know, Han, I've done some crazy things in my time, but this one takes the prize."
Han grimaced, gazing out at the stars. It was crazy, all right. Somewhere out there, a hyperspace microjump away, was an Imperial Ubiqtorate contact station, with all the security and firepower and just plain nastiness that that implied.
And here they were, probably well within its defensive perimeter, sitting around like a belly-up gornt with their systems cranked way back to keep from being too visible to any auto-rovers the station might have out wandering the area. Waiting for an Imperial clone to come back and tell them where in the shrunken Empire the capital of Bastion was located. "Leia said he was all right," he told Lando.
"She said he was sincere and not planning to betray you," Lando corrected darkly. "She didn't say he was a competent enough liar to pull this whole thing off. Especially not in front of some congenitally suspicious Ubiqtorate agent."
Han eyed him. "You don't like clones, do you?"
Lando snorted again. "No, I don't," he said flatly. "Palpatine may have talked about alien species as being subhuman, but clones are really down there."
For a minute the bridge was silent. Han gazed out at the stars some more, rubbing his fingertips over his blaster grip and trying not to let Lando's nervousness get to him. Leia had agreed to let him come out here, after all, and Leia was a Jedi. Surely she'd have seen or felt or guessed if something bad was going to happen. Wouldn't she?
"Tell me about this Baron Fel," Lando said suddenly. "I mean the original one. What was he like?"
Han shrugged. "Typical Corellian, I suppose. Well, no, actually he wasn't. He was a farm boy, for one thing, who got bribed with an academy appointment to stop him testifying in a legal action against some big agro-combine official's son. We were at Carida together for a while, though I didn't hang around with him much. He was an honorable sort, I supposeeven a little stiff-necked about it sometimesand a pretty fair pilot."
"As good as you?" Lando asked.
Han smiled tightly. "Better," he said, a little surprised he was actually admitting that out loud. "At least, with something the size of a TIE fighter."
"So how did he wind up getting cloned?" Lando asked. "As I remember the history, he quit the Empire, joined Rogue Squadron, then got recaptured. So the question is, why would anyone clone a guy who'd already turned once? I don't care how good a pilot he was."
"Leia and I asked Carib the same question on Pakrik Minor," Han said. "He told us he didn't know, that it wasn't part of the flash-learning they'd been given in the cloning tanks."
Lando grunted. "Look. They would have had to hold him for three or four years, minimum, before Thrawn got his cloning tanks up and running. Right?"
"They didn't need all of him," Han murmured. "C'baoth cloned Luke from the hand he lost at Bespin, remember?"
"Yes, but Luke's hand was one of Palpatine's trophies," Lando pointed out. "Why would anyone bother keeping parts of Fel in storage? No one even knew Palpatine had all those cloning tanks hidden away, let alone that Thrawn would show up and get them running again."
"Point," Han conceded. "So they probably kept him alive somewhere."
"Right," Lando said. "The question is where?"
"I don't know," Han said. "No one ever found records about him at any of the Imperial prisons or penal colonies we liberated. With his connections to Rogue Squadron, we would have heard if they had."
He hesitated. "The other thing you might not know is that a month or two after his recapture, his wife pulled the same sort of vanishing act."
Lando frowned. "I remember Wedge talking about that once. But you say 'vanishing'I thought it was the Empire who snatched her."
"That's what everyone thought at the time," Han agreed. "But once they started sifting through the evidence, it was a lot less clear what had happened. Anyway, no one ever found a trace of her, either."
Lando shook his head. "If any of this is supposed to reassure me, it's not. The only way Isard could have gotten Fel back on the Empire's side would have been to braintwist him. You want to tell me what kind of clone is going to come from that?"
Han sighed. "I don't know. All I know is that Leia cleared him."
Lando nodded. "Yeah. Sure."
Again, silence descended on the bridge. This time, it was Han who broke it. "What are Lobot and Moegid doing back there?" he asked.
"They were practicing their slicing techniques before you had me shut the computer down," Lando said, still sounding grumpy. "They're probably checking over Moegid's equipment now."
"Did you tell them where we were going?"
Lando's lips compressed briefly. "I told them we were going into the Empire. I didn't tell them exactly where. Or why."
"Maybe you'd better go do that," Han suggested. "Moegid may need to brush up on Imperial computer systems or something."
"I don't think Verpine ever have to brush up on anything," Lando said. But he nevertheless levered himself out of his seat. "Sure, why not? We might as well all be worried together. It's better than sitting around waiting for the hammer to drop, anyway."
"Don't worry," Han called after him as he left the bridge. "It'll work out. Trust me."
There was no response but the metallic thud of the door as it slid shut behind him. Sighing again, Han turned his attention back to watching for Carib's freighter to return.
Trying hard not to worry.
* * * The Ubiqtorate agent seated at his console gazed up at his visitor from under bushy eyebrows. "All right," he said in a voice that somehow reminded Carib of a thousand prasher worms scratching their wings against tallgrain leaves. "Your ID checks out."
"Glad to hear it," Carib said, trying to put some righteous indignation into his tone. To his ears, though, he sounded merely plaintive. "Does that mean you're finally ready to listen?"
The agent leaned back in his seat, regarding Carib coolly. "Sure," he said. "Provided you're ready to hear a list of charges against you if this big news of yours isn't as flacking urgent as you seem to think it is."
He slammed his stylus down on the desk in front of him. "Blast it, Devist, you know you're never supposed to come here yourself. All you people are supposed to know that. Everything you have to report goes through channels. Everything."
Carib remained standing at attention, listening to the reprimand with half an ear and waiting with all the patience he could muster for the other to run out of words. The self-generated tirade, he knew, was one of the Ubiqtorate's classic tactics for rattling someone they wanted to be vulnerable.
But no. That wasn't something he knew. It was something Baron Soontir Fel had known. Something that had been artificially transferred along with his piloting skill to Carib and his brothers. Memories that were not his own, from a person who was not him.
And yet, on some level, was indeed him.
It was a mind-numbing thought, a painful and depressing blurring of identity that had cost Carib many a sleepless night back on Pakrik Minor before he'd finally made the conscious decision to bury it as far back at the edge of his mind as he could.
And he'd done a fair job of keeping it there... until the long-awaited, long-feared orders had come in from the remnants of the Empirecould it really have been only two weeks ago?reactivating his TIE combat unit. Then, all the old uncertainties and questions and self-doubts had surged back to the front of his mind. He was a clone. A clone. A clone...
Stop it, he snarled at the word. I am Carib Devist. Husband of Lacy, father of Daberin and Keena, tallgrain farmer of the Dorchess Valley of Pakrik Minor. Where I
came from and how I came to be don't matter. I am who I am.
He took a careful breath... and as he did so, the doubts once again returned to their uneasy sleep in the deep crevices of his mind. He was Carib Devist; and despite what anyone might say or believe, he was indeed a unique individual.
The Ubiqtorate agent was starting to wind down now, and with a flicker of private amusement Carib realized that for once the old intimidation tactic had backfired. Far from unnerving its intended victim, the tirade had instead given him the time he needed to collect his thoughts and his nerve and to prepare for verbal combat.
"So let's hear it," the agent snarled. "Let's hear this vitally important news of yours."
"Yes, sir," Carib said. "There was an Imperial attack on New Republic High Councilor Leia Organa Solo over Pakrik Minor five days ago. It failed."
"Yes, thank you, we know that," the agent said sarcastically. "Are you telling me you broke security?"
"The reason it failed," Carib continued, "was because"
"I'm talking here, Devist," the agent snapped. "You broke security for a story we could have pulled off Coruscant Hourly?"
"was because," Carib went on doggedly, "they were assisted"
"Will you shut up? I'll have your skin pickled in"
"by an unknown alien ship," Carib finished.
"a Hutt's slimy" He broke off. "What do you mean, an unknown alien ship?" he demanded.
"I mean a ship with a completely unknown design," Carib said. "It had four outboard panels like the two on a TIE fighter, but the rest was definitely non-Imperial."
For a long moment the agent measured Carib with his eyes. "I don't suppose you happened to pull any records of the battle," he said at last, his tone challenging.
"Not of the battle itself," Carib said, pulling a datacard from his side pouch. "But we did get something of the ship afterward."
The agent held out his hand. Carib dropped the datacard into it, mentally crossing his fingers. Solo had cobbled this thing together during the trip here from a pair of records he and Organa Solo had had with them in their ship. Where they'd gotten the originals Carib didn't know.