Star Wars 396 - The Dark Nest Trilogy III - The Swarm War

by Troy Denning

  Han placed his hand over Leia’s. “Thank you, Syrule—you’re right.” He looked down toward the Mon Calamari Sailfish sitting below them in the middle of the hangar floor. “And I think I know just where to start looking.”

  FIVE

  With most of the Jedi order off chasing pirates or reconnoitering for Admiral Bwua’tu in the Utegetu Nebula, the Knights’ Billet on the tenth floor of the Jedi Temple was next to deserted. The only Jedi Knights present were the trio Luke had ordered to meet him here—Tesar, Lowbacca, and Tahiri—and the air had a stale, uncirculated smell. Tesar and Lowbacca were waiting in the conversation salon near the snack galley. Tahiri was in the exercise pen at the far end of the suite, working on a lightsaber form with thirteen fist-sized remotes whirling around her. Judging by the smoke haze visible through the transparisteel walls, the remotes’ sting-bolts were set high enough to inflict burns.

  Luke leaned close to Cilghal, who stood next to him with an armload of sensor equipment. “Can we do this in the salon?”

  “We can detect aural fluctuations anywhere,” she said, nodding. “But you know that won’t answer your real question.”

  “It’ll help,” Luke said. “If their minds are still joined, then it’s more likely they have fallen under Raynar’s control.”

  “And if we find their minds aren’t joined?”

  “Then I’ll know that telling Madame Thul about the debate over Raynar was their own choice,” Luke said. “And I’ll take action.”

  Luke led the way toward the salon. He could feel how concerned Cilghal was by his angry reaction to the Jedi Knights’ betrayal, but he felt amazingly certain of himself. The other Masters had left him no choice but to play the Grand Master fully—to run the order as he thought best and demand full obedience from everyone in it.

  As Luke and Cilghal drew near, Tesar and Lowbacca rose from the snack table where they were sitting and watched the two Masters approach with an unblinking, insect-like stare. They were both wearing their formal robes, but not their equipment belts or lightsabers. Tahiri remained in the exercise pen, concentrating on her lightsaber form and paying no attention to the arrival of the two Masters.

  Luke motioned Cilghal and her equipment to the adjacent table, then took a seat opposite the pair and motioned them to sit. He did not summon Tahiri from the exercise pen. Madame Thul had not actually named Tahiri as one of the Jedi who had warned her about the plans to target Raynar, so Luke was content to let the young woman continue exercising—for now.

  He remained quiet, studying the two Jedi Knights across the table while Cilghal completed her preparations. Nothing in the Force suggested they were under the Colony’s control, but that meant little. Unless Raynar happened to be exerting the Colony’s Will at that very moment, Luke suspected there would be nothing for him to sense.

  Lowbacca watched Cilghal prepare her equipment, his scientific mind seemingly more interested in her calibrations than in the reason he had been recalled to the Jedi Temple. Tesar, on the other hand, was so nervous that he began to hiss and smack his lips in an effort to keep from drooling.

  Finally, Cilghal nodded that she was ready. Luke did not bother to explain the equipment. Like all Jedi who spent more than a few days among the Killiks, Lowbacca and Tesar had submitted to dozens of aural activity scans as part of Cilghal’s research.

  “I’m sure you know why I ordered you to meet me here,” Luke said.

  Lowbacca nodded and groaned, saying that it probably had something to do with what they had told Aryn Thul.

  “We can explain,” Tesar added.

  “I doubt it.” Luke’s tone was sharp. “But please try.”

  “We had no choice,” Tesar said.

  Lowbacca growled his agreement, reasserting the argument that destroying the Colony would be immoral.

  “And so would assazzinating a friend,” Tesar added. “Raynar was our hunt-mate. Killing him would be wrong.”

  “Maybe,” Luke said. “But that decision isn’t yours to make.”

  Lowbacca countered with a long, stubborn rumble.

  “Jedi Knights do serve the Force,” Luke answered. “But now they serve it through the Jedi order. We’ve seen what happens when everyone goes in their own direction. We paralyze ourselves, and our enemies flourish.”

  Lowbacca rowled the opinion that being paralyzed was better than following a yuugrr out on its limb.

  Luke frowned. Yuugrrs were dim-witted predators famous for stealing Wookiee children out of their beds, then trying to shake their pursuit by going out on a thin limb. More often than not, the limb broke, plunging the yuugrr, the child, and sometimes the pursuers into the depths of the Kashyyyk forest.

  “If you’re calling me a yuugrr, I’m not sure I follow your analogy.” It was a struggle for Luke to keep an even tone; he felt so betrayed by the pair that it required an act of will to remain interested in their reasons. “What’s it supposed to mean?”

  “Not that you are a yuugrr,” Tahiri said, joining them. Sweat was still pouring down her face, and there were several holes where the remotes had burned through her jumpsuit and raised burn blisters. “You’re following one—and you’re taking the whole order with you. We had to do something.”

  “We?” Luke asked. He resisted the urge to send Tesar to fetch some bacta salve from the first-aid kit. This was no time to appear nurturing, and besides, Tahiri’s mind still had enough Yuuzhan Vong in it that she probably enjoyed the pain. “Madame Thul didn’t mention your name.”

  “Only because these two didn’t tell me what they were doing.” Tahiri shot Lowbacca and Tesar a dirty look. “Otherwise, I would have been right there with them.”

  Luke did not bother to hide his disappointment. “I appreciate your honesty, but I still don’t understand.”

  “It’s not complicated.” Tahiri took a seat between Lowbacca and Tesar, rubbing her forearms against theirs in the Killik manner. “You listen to Jacen as though he were a senior Master, and his advice can’t be trusted. He has his own agenda.”

  “Jacen isn’t the one who broke confidentiality,” Luke retorted. “And he doesn’t know what I’ve decided about Raynar, either.”

  “But you do lizten to Jacen,” Tesar rasped. “You cannot deny that.”

  Lowbacca grunted his agreement, adding that both Luke and Mara gave more weight to Jacen’s opinion than to anyone else’s. They seemed to think, Lowbacca continued, that taking a five-year furlough made him a better Jedi Knight than the Jedi who had been serving the order and the Alliance all along.

  “Jacen’s experience is unique,” Luke said. “We all know that.”

  Even to him this sounded more like an excuse than a reason. The truth was that he valued his nephew’s opinion because of what Jacen had learned about other Force-using traditions—but also because Jacen was the only person whom Ben would trust to be his guide to the Force. And that certainly did make Jacen a favorite in the Skywalker family—they were parents, after all.

  Luke glanced over at Cilghal, reaching out to her in the Force with a single question in mind. She raised a webbed hand and gave it an ambiguous flutter that Luke interpreted to suggest a moderate correlation in the aural activity of the three Jedi Knights—enough to suggest there was still a link, but certainly not the complete fusion typical of Joiners.

  Luke returned his gaze to Tahiri and the others. “But I value your opinions just as highly. If Jacen has a different agenda, what is it?”

  All three Jedi Knights let out nervous throat-clicks. Then Tahiri said, “We haven’t been able to figure that out.”

  “But it had zomething to do with the attack on Supply Depot Thrago,” Tesar said.

  Lowbacca added a long growl noting that Jaina had refused to fly with her brother since the attack. She was convinced Jacen had deliberately been trying to provoke the Chiss.

  “I’m sure he was,” Luke said. “The way he explained it to me, that was the only way to prevent the Chiss from launching the surprise attack he
saw in his vision.”

  Lowbacca and Tesar shot uncomfortable glances at each other, but Tahiri kept her unblinking eyes fixed on Luke.

  “We think Jacen may be lying about his vision.”

  Luke’s brow shot up. “I didn’t sense any lies when he told me about it.”

  “Were you trying to?”

  “Jacen is very good at hiding his emotionz,” Tesar added.

  Lowbacca nodded and grunted that half the time, even Jaina could not feel him in the Force anymore.

  “Then you’ve caught him lying?” Luke demanded. “These are very serious charges.”

  “We haven’t actually caught him,” Tahiri said.

  Lowbacca oorrwwalled a clarification, explaining that the facts just did not add up.

  “The Chisz were still stocking the depot with fuel when we attacked,” Tesar added.

  “And there were half a dozen frigates mothballed there,” Tahiri finished. “They hadn’t even fired the main reactors.”

  “Your point being?” Luke was growing impatient with their innuendo. It was the favorite weapon of the character assassin, and he expected better of Jedi. “Had Jacen told you the Chiss surprise attack was imminent?”

  Tesar and Lowbacca glanced at each other, then Tahiri shook her head. “No, Jacen never said that.”

  “But when the Chisz did attack, their assault was improvised,” Tesar said. “They did not have enough forward support.”

  Lowbacca nodded emphatically, adding that the secret weapon they had deployed against the Iesei had obviously been rushed through development. Otherwise, the bomb would not have failed to detonate on its initial use.

  “The failed bomb—and everything else you’ve told me—tends to support Jacen’s vision, not cast doubt on it,” Luke said. He had found the trio’s report about the failed bomb as worrying as it was incomplete. Given the Chiss willingness to deploy Alpha Red during the last war—and to run the risk of wiping out the entire galaxy along with the Yuuzhan Vong—he viewed the mysterious bomb in a very ominous light. “Clearly, the Chiss have been making war preparations. Forcing their hand may have been the only way to salvage the situation.”

  “You’re saying Jacen did the right thing?” Tahiri gasped.

  “Even if the Chisz were not ready to attack?”

  Luke nodded. “Sometimes it’s better to hit first—especially if you see the other guy reaching for a thermal detonator.”

  He stared into the unblinking eyes of each Jedi Knight for several moments, wondering where he could have gone so wrong in their instruction. Perhaps he had been too hesitant to impose his own values on such a diverse group of students, or perhaps he had failed to present them with enough moot dilemmas to develop a proper moral center. All he knew for certain was that he had failed them somewhere, that he had not prepared them to face the soul-corrupting ruthlessness of the war against the Yuuzhan Vong, or instilled in them the strength to withstand the power of Raynar Thul’s Will.

  After a few moments of silence, Luke stood and stared down at the three Jedi. “You are not going to blame Jacen for your actions. Even if he had lied about his vision—and I don’t believe he did—what you did was inexcusable. In going to Madame Thul with this, you betrayed me, you betrayed the other Masters, and you betrayed the Jedi order.”

  The three Jedi Knights were not disconcerted in the slightest. Tahiri and Tesar met Luke’s gaze with an unblinking glare that was somewhere between anger and disbelief, and Lowbacca let out a very Killik-like chest rumble that suggested he was more angry than remorseful.

  “You are a fool to place your faith in Jacen!” Tesar rasped. “He is nothing but a shenbit in a snake’z skin. You trust him with your hatchling—”

  Lowbacca snarled a warning to the Barabel, telling him that he was only going to make Luke angrier by mentioning that.

  “Mentioning what?” Luke demanded.

  “Nothing,” Tahiri said. “We didn’t see it for ourselves, so we don’t even know if it’s true.”

  “If what’s true?” Luke demanded.

  Lowbacca gave Tesar a sideways glare, then grooowled a long reply explaining that Jaina and Zekk had caught Jacen blocking some of Ben’s memories.

  “Blocking memories?” Luke asked.

  “Ben saw something upsetting,” Tahiri explained. “Jaina and Zekk caught Jacen using the Force to prevent him from remembering it.”

  Luke scowled, the anger he already felt rising to rage. “If you’re making this up—”

  “We are not,” Tesar insisted. “Jaina and Zekk saw it. They saw Jacen rubbing Ben’s brow and felt something in the Force.”

  Lowbacca weighed in with a low rumble, explaining that Jacen had told them it was a technique he learned from the Adepts of the White Current.

  “I never heard of anything like that from them,” Luke said. “What memory was Jacen trying to block?”

  Tahiri shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him—he’s not much into sharing these days.”

  Luke could sense that Tahiri was telling the truth, but even without the Force he would have believed her. While Jacen had returned from his five-year sojourn with remarkable skills, he had also returned a far more mysterious person, often deflecting or flatly refusing to answer questions about his experiences. It was as though he believed that no one who had not taken such a retreat for himself was entitled to share in the wisdom it yielded.

  “I’ll certainly ask Jacen about the memory blocking,” Luke said. “But I fail to see what that has to do with your betrayal.”

  Although he was still fuming inside—especially at the trio’s efforts to deflect his anger onto Jacen—Luke paused to give them an opportunity to make the connection for him.

  When they did not, he asked, “Then I am to assume that you’re not suggesting Jacen has blocked my memory of something?”

  Even Tahiri’s eyes widened with shock, and Tesar said, “Yesz—I mean no—we have no reason to believe he has blocked your memoriez.”

  Luke looked to the other Jedi Knights for confirmation, then nodded when they remained silent.

  “Very well,” he said. “Before coming here today, I gave this matter a great deal of thought, and nothing you’ve said has convinced me I was wrong.”

  Lowbacca began to moan, asserting that everything they did was for the good of the order—

  “I know that’s what you think,” Luke said, raising a hand to silence him. “But what I think is that you would rather believe Jacen has betrayed his family, friends, and the order than admit that the Colony is on the brink of plunging the galaxy into the eternal war he saw in his vision.”

  Tesar ruffled his scales. “That is zilly! We are not under the Colony’z influence!”

  “I’m sorry, Jedi Sebatyne,” Cilghal said, speaking for the first time since the discussion had begun. “But we can’t know that for certain. Your minds are still connected, at least rudimentarily, and Raynar was able to exert a considerable influence over you even before you were exposed to the collective mind.”

  “So you’re going to base your decision on the possibility that we’re Joiners?” Tahiri stared at Luke as she asked this, her green eyes as hard and emotionless as olivon. “That’s not like you, Master Skywalker.”

  “If you’re asking me to give you the benefit of the doubt, you’re right,” Luke said. “There are many questions about why you betrayed the order, but there are none as to whether you did. You tried to influence my decision by bringing pressure to bear from Madame Thul.”

  The three Jedi Knights continued to stare at him, their emotionless eyes neither blinking nor flicking away as they awaited the rest.

  “Your actions cast serious doubt on your desire to remain Jedi Knights,” Luke said. “I suggest you go to Dagobah to reflect on the subject.”

  “Dagobah?” Tesar rasped. “You are sending us on vacation?”

  “On retreat,” Luke corrected. “To meditate on what it means to be a Jedi Knight.”

  Tahiri and Lowbacca
exchanged glances, then Tahiri asked, “For how long?”

  “Until I send for you,” Luke replied. “And if you have any desire at all to remain members of the Jedi order, you will obey me in this. I’ll take any failure—for any reason whatsoever—as your resignation.”

  SIX

  Leia watched in confusion as Han started down the wall, picking his way through the crowded transaction hangar of the Lizil nest toward the suspicious Sailfish. With Defense Force Intelligence actively searching for the Squibs, the Lizil nest seemed a likely place for the trio to take refuge—and Han clearly intended to use that fact to find Jaina. What Leia did not understand was how—and, if she knew her husband, neither did Han.

  Leia instructed C-3PO and the Noghri to stay with the Swiff, then descended the ramp and started after Han, her feet squeck-squecking in the soft wax that lined the interior of the nest. It took only a few steps before the microgravity, the lack of perspective, and the cloying smell began to unsettle her stomach. She clamped her jaws shut and focused her thoughts on Han, trying to guess what outrageous plan he was developing—and whether it had any chance of working.

  A few steps later, Leia caught up to Han and leaned close. “Han, what are you doing?”

  “Maybe they’re interested in a Magcannon Max.” Han pointed at the Sailfish, now close enough for a visual inspection. The black box behind the rectenna dish was, indeed, one of Lando’s distinctive LongEye boosters. “It looks like they’re dealers.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” Leia hissed. “We can’t let the Squibs know we’re here!”

  “Sure we can,” Han said. “They’re not going to tell anybody.”

  “They’re not?”

  “No way.” Han glanced around, then whispered, “Juun and Tarfang used to work for those furry little backstabbers. And the last thing they want is for me to tell Lizil that it was their employees who helped me and Luke escape Saras on Woteba.”

  “You don’t think they’ve already told Raynar?” Leia asked.