by Tim Lebbon
“Not much can shock me,” Lanoree said.
“No. Of course not. You’re a Ranger.” Something of his defense dropped then—she thought perhaps he let it—and she saw behind the slightly awkward, scared-of-heights Twi’lek to the man beneath. And his eyes were ice, his heart a solid lump, and she suddenly believed every word Dam-Powl had told her.
“Fresher,” he said softly. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Don’t get lost,” Lanoree said. She turned her back on him and faced the living area, and as she heard the fresher hatch open and close behind her, she breathed a silent breath. Dam-Powl, just who have you burdened me with?
“Droid. Get busy.”
Ironholgs snickered some choice abuse at her, melted more wires, made more connections. The compartment smelled of electrics, and Lanoree turned the climate conditioning to full to clear the air.
She sat in the flight seat and watched the scanners for trouble.
“Oh, great,” Tre said. “That’s just great.”
Lanoree jerked from a gentle doze, angry with herself for drifting off. That’s not professional, she thought. That’s not good. She climbed from the cockpit and went back to where Tre was looking down at Ironholgs.
The droid had wired a small mobile screen to the shattered comm unit, and now several lines of broken information glowed softly.
“Safe and sound?” Lanoree grinned at him.
The screen showed seventeen recent communications between the Stargazers and an unnamed recipient on Nox.
Nox. Third planet of the system, it was also the most polluted, rich in mineral deposits, and now home to dozens of cities devoted entirely to manufacturing. Five centuries before, the atmosphere had become so polluted that the cities were enclosed with giant domes, and ironically the richest conurbation was now Keev Crater, which manufactured dome components and charged a heavy premium to oversee their upkeep and maintenance. The air outside the domes was acidic and poisonous, and heavily corrosive to any craft exposed to it for too long. Skirmishes were not unknown between competing domed cities. During the Despot War, some had sided with the Despot Queen Hadiya and some with the Je’daii and a few with whomever paid the most. Many of those divisions still ran deep.
Lanoree had been to some dangerous places, but Nox might well be the most dangerous planet in the system.
“Well, drop me off before you go,” Tre said.
“Sure. I’ll open the door.”
Tre glared at her. “I mean it.”
“So do I. They have a head start on us already, and there’s no telling what sort of ship they have. If Kara funds them, there’s a good bet there’s money from elsewhere, too. It won’t be some old space freighter they’re riding to Nox. If I land to—”
“I’m getting off this ship.”
“I’m getting off this planet.” Lanoree turned her back on Tre and slipped into the flight seat. “Come up here and strap in,” she said. “No time to worry about niceties.”
The Peacemaker shuddered and roared as it escaped Kalimahr’s gravity, and the cool embrace of cold, dead space had never been more welcome.
Their time at Stav Kesh is the most intense period of learning Lanoree has ever experienced, both psychologically and physically. She and Dal train hard all day—meditation, combat, Force movement—and in the evenings they prepare food, clean the training classrooms and halls, wash clothes, and learn how to care for weapons. They also descend to the caves beneath the temple, places warmed by deep magma lakes, and here they tend the fruit and vegetable crops grown in vast hydroponic gardens. Food, cleaning, maintenance, water, clothing … no one is simply given things at Stav Kesh, and they have to work together to ensure the temple’s smooth running.
Dal seems to find some form of acceptance in their training. Lanoree can still feel the turmoil of the Force around him as he fights its influence, but for the most part his childlike smile has returned.
For a while, she starts to believe that he is almost at peace.
Until the Darrow sphere.
“The Darrow sphere is your next great test,” Master Kin’ade tells them one morning. The Zabrak Master has taken over from Master Tave several times now, and Lanoree likes her very much. Short, slight, her tattooed skin as dark as Bodhi caf, she might be the most deadly person Lanoree has ever met. Yet with that talent for combat comes an easy manner and a gentle balance, evident in her smooth movements and tranquil expression. Her relationship with the Force is as natural as breathing.
Master Kin’ade has taken them high up toward the top of Stav Kesh, close to the mountain’s top. It is even colder up here than elsewhere, exposed to higher winds and with a thinner atmosphere. There is very little actual climbing to do, but the walk is long and energetic, and by the time they reach the small plateau at the mountain’s top they are all sweating. More accustomed now to the thin air at these altitudes, Lanoree still feels light-headed and adrift. The wind starts to freeze their sweat. Their thin training robes are ineffectual. None of them wants to be there.
Except Master Kin’ade. She lowers the rucksack she has been carrying to the ground and turns to face them all. “No time for sightseeing,” she says. “Here. Watch.” She upends the rucksack, and something falls from it.
But it does not hit the ground.
The sphere glows, hums, shines. It darts up past Kin’ade’s horned head and hovers high up, drifting left and right as if looking at the views. It is the size of a human’s head … and then larger … and then smaller again, fistlike, hard. It flits from place to place and glides. It is smooth, and glimmers like a fluid, hard and spiked with countless protuberances. There are so many contradictions to the sphere, it is so ambiguous, that when it attacks, it takes Lanoree a few moments to figure out what is happening. By then her leg is bleeding and her arm aches, and the other students are in disarray.
The Darrow sphere attacks and then retreats, rises and falls, fires darts of light, and impacts against flesh. One moment it seems intent on killing them all, the next it drifts away, glowing an almost serene shade of blue as it seems to contemplate the views.
It sweeps toward Master Kin’ade, who performs an Alchaka move and kicks the sphere aside.
“Concentrate,” Kin’ade says. “Don’t panic. Don’t get flustered. Let the Force flow with you, sense the sphere’s movement. Know its intent.”
Lanoree tries. She calms her mind and breathes long and deep, remembering all that Master Tave has taught them. The Force within her is perfectly balanced. She feels at one with it, neither master nor servant but—
The Darrow sphere sweeps behind her and delivers a paralyzing charge to her leg. She groans and tips to the ground, massaging the spasming muscle and angry at herself. She remains there for a while as the pain dissipates, watching the other students fall to the sphere. The Wookiee manages to get a hit in with one heavy fist. But perhaps the sphere let her, because she cries out as the hairs on her arm stand on end and her fist sparks and sizzles.
“Enough,” Master Kin’ade says. She performs a graceful gesture with her hand and the sphere sinks to the ground, fading until it is almost transparent. Lanoree has the impression that it is still of its own mind, and that Kin’ade is barely controlling it at all.
“What is that thing?” Dal asks. He is crouched across the small plateau from the rest of them, nose bleeding, knuckles raw from where he has been trying to fight the sphere.
“This is the Darrow sphere,” Master Kin’ade says. “I created it myself to help student training here at Stav Kesh, and this is the only one. A student of mine several years ago called it Je’daii’s bane, and I almost changed its name. I like that.” She looked up at the sky, smiling. “And like anything with two names, the sphere has its ambiguities.” She nods at where the sphere came to rest, and Lanoree is not surprised to see it gone.
“Where is it?” Dal asks.
“There,” Kin’ade says. “Or perhaps not. Are you too trusting of your senses, Dalien Brock?”
/>
“They’re all I have.”
A loaded hush falls over the breezy plateau, even the wind seeming to die down at Dal’s words.
“No,” Kin’ade whispers. “They’re the very least of what you have. And so you can go last.”
“Go last for what?”
Master Kin’ade ignores Dal and gestures Lanoree forward instead. Lanoree walks to her, and as she approaches, the Master starts talking quietly. “Remember, the Force does not lie, although if you’re out of balance you can make lies from it. Feel the flow. Relish the balance.” She delves into her rucksack and brings out a blindfold, a nose clip, earplugs, and a mask.
“If I wear all those—” Lanoree protests, but Master Kin’ade cuts in.
“Then you have to trust in the Force.”
Taking a deep breath, Lanoree nods. She puts them on, and it is like cutting herself off from the world. The blindfold gives perfect darkness. The earplugs mold to her ears and cut out all sound, leaving only her beating heart. The nose clip steals all smell. She can taste snow on the air, but the sphere—
An impact on her leg and she cries out, staggering to the left. She can hear no instruction from Master Kin’ade and realizes this is intentional. Lanoree tries to center herself, breathing long and deep, sensing the Force within her and being a part of it, balanced and level. She draws her sword and waits.
A sting on her shoulder. She shrugs it off.
Something moves past her face, close and quick.
She reaches out and senses everyone else around her, and then—
Spins on her left leg, crouching and lashing out with her sword. She feels the connection and the impact travels up her arm. She rolls forward, then back onto her feet, holding her left hand up with fingers splayed, throwing a Force punch, sensing it strike the Darrow sphere. Her heart is thumping, breathing increasing, and she feels the flow of blood and Force through her veins. It is ecstasy.
The sphere impacts against her back and knocks her sprawling. The blindfold is torn from her eyes, the clip and plugs taken from her nose and ears. Input floods her senses, and the pain kicks in.
“Not bad,” Master Kin’ade says. “Although you did let pride get the better of you. Never assume the danger is gone unless you know for sure.”
Lanoree nods and sits up. The other students are all looking at the Je’daii Master and the sphere floating at her shoulder, pulsing, shifting. All but Dal. He is looking at Lanoree, and she cannot quite read the expression on his face. Resignation? Determination?
“Very well,” Master Kin’ade says, hand stroking accumulated snow from her vestigial horns. “Next.”
They all try, and then there is Dal.
Lanoree watches him having the blindfold fitted and the earplugs and the nose clip. He stands still and patient while Master Kin’ade does so, and she cannot sense any tension or displeasure in him. Though he has seen each Journeyer suffer to some extent at the mercy of the Darrow sphere, he seems calm. She does not probe—that would be wrong, to try to touch his mind before such a test—but he exudes confidence.
Kin’ade steps back and glances at Lanoree, and then says, “Begin.”
Dal ducks left and right, scampers across the ground, tilts his head as if listening. But it is all a show. The sphere drifts in slowly and then powers into his left ankle. He does not see or sense it coming. Its movement is almost smug, and Lanoree wonders how it knew that Dal was faking everything.
He hits the ground. Rolls. And she sees him pulling the blaster from his jacket.
“Dal!” she breathes.
He starts shooting. His shots are wild and aimless, and Lanoree and the others hit the ground, Force-shielding themselves as stone splinters and erupts, falling snow sizzles to steam, someone screams. She feels heat and pain across her hand and arm.
Dal shouts and drops the blaster. Lanoree can see its glow from where it has been superheated, and then Master Kin’ade twists her clawed hand in Dal’s direction. He rises and is immediately thrown back, spinning, fading from view in wafts of snowflakes. For a moment she thinks the Master has thrown Dal too far and that he will plummet over the parapet, falling three hundred meters to find his end on one of the rooftops below.
Then he strikes the ground with a heavy thud. As she reaches for Dal with her mind his fall into unconsciousness becomes, for a moment, her own.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MEMORY OF PAIN
A Je’daii needs nothing but confidence and comfort in the Force. Clothes for warmth, a ship to travel in, food for energy, water to slake thirst, a sword to stab, a blaster to shoot … all these are luxuries. The Force is everything, and without it, we are nothing.
—Master Shall Mar, “A Life in Balance,” 7,538 TYA
Lanoree relaxed in her reclined flight seat. She had plotted the fastest course she could from Kalimahr to Nox, and now she was eager to see if Ironholgs could download more information from the damaged memory cell. Nox was a big planet, and of its almost ninety domed manufacturing cities, almost half might conceivably be capable of taking on a commission for the Gree device. Lanoree had no doubt that the specific expertise required would reduce that number to a mere two or three, but as yet she had no real idea what that ancient technology might entail. She was flying blind into a storm, but that was the only direction to take.
She’d contacted Master Dam-Powl and told her of the situation. The Je’daii Master had promised that she could instruct those few Je’daii currently on Nox to monitor incoming off-planet traffic, but it was a notoriously renegade planet, and the majority of travel to and from Nox was unregistered. Finding Dal and the Stargazers’ ship would be like finding a particular pebble on a beach, especially considering Lanoree still had no clue what type of ship they might be flying.
Dam-Powl had asked if Tre was still with her, and Lanoree had nodded. The resulting silence had been loaded. But the Twi’lek had not moved from Lanoree’s cot to speak to the Je’daii Master, and Dam-Powl had nodded and then signed off.
Lanoree stared at the stars and stroked the scarred mass on the back of her left hand. She still remembered the day Dal had given her that. The beginning of the end.
“So you actually live in this thing?” Tre Sana asked.
“It’s my ship, yes.”
“It’s a bit … bland. Not much of a home. Don’t you get claustrophobic?”
“With this view?” Lanoree hadn’t even raised the back of the flight seat.
But perhaps Tre was growing bored, and confrontation would pass the time.
“I never did like space travel. Always makes me feel sick. We weren’t built to travel through space. However well shielded a ship is, I’m not convinced I don’t get baked by radiation every time I leave the atmosphere. Your grav unit’s configured wrong, too. I feel twice my usual weight, and that’s making me feel even sicker.”
Lanoree raised and turned her flight seat, smiling. “Is that all?”
“No. It stinks in here. I know you’re probably used to it, but … electrics and grease and the smell of you. And let’s face it, your ship is small. You sit where you sleep when you eat. And that fresher … I have to tell you, Je’daii, I’ve been in some of the seediest taverns in the worst of the Nine Houses on Shikaakwa, and even they have better amenities than you. How can you wash in recycled water? Where’s the shower?” His face fell as if he had just recognized a terrible truth. “And what do you eat?”
“Ah,” Lanoree said. “Food. Good idea.” She stood and entered the living area, opening a small cupboard set in one wall. As she did so she nudged the droid where it worked at a drop-down bench. “Anything yet, Ironholgs?”
The droid did not even reply. It was tweaking and adjusting a delicate arrangement of wires and chips on the broken end of the memory cell, and it paused briefly as if disturbed, then continued.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Lanoree said. “Now then, Tre. Here. Take your choice.” She threw a handful of packets across her cot, several of them lan
ding on Tre’s legs.
“What’s this?”
“Dried food. What, you think I’m hiding a hydroponic pod somewhere at the back of the ship?”
Tre picked up a silvery packet and looked at it in disgust. His face wrinkled, lekku drawing back as if from something poisonous. “You eat this stuff?”
“Hot water, some salt. Some of it can be pretty good. Although you’ve got dangbat stir there. Got to admit, that’s not the best.”
“How long do you spend in this thing?” Tre asked, looking around, feigning disbelief.
Lanoree was starting to get annoyed. She hadn’t really wanted him along—didn’t trust him, especially since she’d seen the true, harder Tre behind the quips and false face he displayed. But she was stuck with him now, and he with her. Civility didn’t cost much.
“Once, I was in deep space for over two hundred days, tracking a Special Forces cell from Krev Coeur gone mercenary.”
“Two hundred …” Tre shook his head in despair.
“I don’t need what you need,” Lanoree said. She slipped a food packet into a metal pocket behind the cupboard hatch and charged it with hot water. Delicious smells filled the cabin, soon whisked away by the climate conditioner. “I know what Dam-Powl’s promised you, and I’m sure you’ll get it. But vast estates don’t interest me. Fast ships, great wealth, prominence, standing in the community. Overflowing credit accounts on a dozen worlds.” She took the packet and started eating. “Men. Adoration. Even respect. I don’t need any of that.”
Tre laughed. “Then you’re—”
“Because I know there’s more to life,” she said, cutting him off. She was tired of his inanities and angry that he could be so superficial. In the face of everything she knew, and all that he must know, such shallowness offended her. “There’s the Force. It binds and holds us, and makes everything precious to me. It’s our reason for being. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. And that’s much more precious than fine foods or somewhere comfortable to wash.”
