Crosscurrent

by Paul S. Kemp

  "Nothing on the scanners," Marr said. "We're alone."

  "No way Reegas gets someone out here this fast," Khedryn said. "We're on the chrono, though."

  Jaden tried to speak, found his throat dry, tried again. "The moon?"

  "Coming around now," Marr said, and they watched an icy moon, as pale and translucent as an opal, come into view, under the scrutiny of the planet's dark eye.

  Seeing it stole Jaden's breath. He stared in silence for a time before he finally managed, "That is it. Marr, put it on the speakers."

  "Put what on the speakers?" Khedryn asked, but Marr understood. The Cerean flicked a few switches, tapped a few keys, and the repeating signal of the Imperial distress call fell over the cockpit, not a recording but the real thing, as faint and regular as an infant's heartbeat.

  Help us. Help us.

  "You all right?" Khedryn asked Jaden, taking him by the arm. "It's just a distress beacon, right?"

  It was more than that to Jaden. "I need to get down to the surface of the moon."

  "What is down there?" Marr asked.

  "I do not know," Jaden said. "I only know that I am supposed to find it."

  Khedryn and Marr shared a look before Khedryn shrugged.

  "We'll take Flotsam," Khedryn said, Jaden assuming he meant the attached Starhawk. "I'm not landing Junker down there."

  "We'll need to break out the envirosuits-" Marr said.

  The rhythmic beep of the proximity alarm cut short their conversation, joining its clarion to the distress signal coming from the moon. Marr spun in his seat to the scanner console. Khedryn leaned over his shoulder.

  "What do we have?"

  Marr bent over the sensor screen, his brow lined with concern. "Unknown, but coming in fast. Very fast."

  "From where?"

  "From out of the system," Marr said.

  ***

  Harbinger was still moving under its own power, blazing through the star system at full speed but no longer lost in the nether region between hyperspace and realspace. It was damaged, but repairable.

  Pleased, Saes turned and found himself facing not only the Massassi but also many of those of the crew who had fled when he had drawn on the Lignan.

  As one, they stood to attention and saluted. Saes returned the gesture and activated his communicator to the channel that would carry his voice across the entire ship.

  "This is the captain. All members of the night-watch bridge crew assemble on the secondary bridge."

  He assumed Los Dor and his bridge crew had died when Harbinger had lost its primary bridge. He needed to figure out where the ship was, then figure out how to get his wounded dreadnought and its remaining ore to Primus Goluud.

  ***

  Without warning, the pod ceased shaking and Relin, his equilibrium still off, struggled to right the spinning craft. A planet flashed in and out of the viewport, a blue gas giant with thick, busy rings of rock and ice, and a large, ice-covered moon that hung against the black of space like a shimmering gemstone. Relin did not recognize the planet or the system.

  Gripping the controls with his remaining hand, wincing at the pain in his ribs, he activated the reverse thrusters to slow the pod and gradually righted it. Using the pod's rudimentary sensor array, he scanned the area around him. He picked up Harbinger, apparently intact and slowing, and another ship near the moon. He did not recognize its signature and turned the pod so that he could see it out of the viewport.

  "Who are you?" he murmured.

  He'd never seen a ship like it-disk-shaped, with an attached boat off the starboard side and what looked like some kind of docking rings aft. He wondered where in the universe the jump had stranded him.

  Wheeling the pod around, he brought Harbinger into view and almost collided with the dreadnought. The Sith ship filled the viewport as it passed under the pod, the charred scar of its destroyed bridge the hole into which Drev had fallen, into which Relin had poured his rage.

  He stared at the ship a long while, the need for revenge a fire in his gut. He knew Harbinger would be blind until Saes got a secondary bridge up and running, so he had a short window of time to operate out of view. He would get back aboard, finish what he had started. He owed Drev that much.

  But he could not do it with a damaged escape pod. It would never survive the jolt through the deflectors.

  His mind made up, he turned and accelerated toward the unknown ship, hoping the pod's small size would allow it to get lost in Harbinger's sensor shadow as he approached.

  He came at the ship from aft, somewhat below its ecliptic plane, and piloted for the docking ring. At best he would get an awkward mating with the pod's universal docking port, but he hoped he could make it last long enough to board the ship. He secured the helmet on his flexsuit, oriented the pod, and piloted it toward the ring.

  ***

  "I have never seen a signature like this," Marr said, studying the enhanced readout from Junker's sophisticated sensor array. "I am getting odd readings." He tapped a few keys, then shook his head in frustration.

  Khedryn examined the readings. "Big ship. Not Reegas. Cruiser size, but that signature is no cruiser I've ever seen. Look at that. One of yours?" he asked Jaden.

  Jaden moved to the scope, looked over Marr's shoulder, and studied the ship's erratic signature. "No. And it's not Chiss or Yuuzhan Vong. What is-"

  Sudden nausea cut off Jaden's words, made his stomach squirm. Marr put two fingers to his left temple and winced with pain.

  "You all right?" Khedryn asked Jaden. "You look a little green. Here, sit."

  Jaden nodded, took the seat Khedryn offered. He realized he was sweating. He felt a tingle in his fingertips, the beginning of a discharge of Force lightning. He fought it down, putting the hand in his pocket as if it were a proclamation of his guilt.

  "Marr, you all right?" Khedryn asked.

  "I am fine," Marr said, but squinted as if at a bright light.

  Khedryn tapped the scanner screen. "What are you doing in my sky, big girl? Especially right here, right now?"

  Marr shook his head as if to clear it, inhaled. "No hails. Getting closer, Captain."

  "Keep us clear of it, Marr. Get us on the other side of the moon if you have to."

  "Copy."

  "Have they pinged us?"

  "No."

  "Odd," Khedryn said.

  "Perhaps not," Marr said. "The ship is showing a lot of damage. I see fires and decompressed compartments all over it."

  "A derelict?" Khedryn asked, brightening, presumably at the possibility of profit.

  "No, sir. Lots of living crew aboard."

  Jaden fought the nausea, the muscles gone weak, and tried to understand his feelings. He finally recognized the source-the power of the dark side. Having put a name to the problem, he put up a defensive screen and the ill feeling passed immediately. He felt it as a pressure in his mind, but it no longer affected his body.

  "Get the ship clear of that cruiser," he said. "Now!"

  "What is it?" Khedryn asked.

  "Sith," Jaden answered.

  "Sith? Get us clear, Marr!" Khedryn glared at Jaden.

  "I thought you said this was not a Jedi grand scheme?"

  ***

  Relin slowed the pod only at the last instant, slamming on the reverse thrusters and hitting the ship in a crush of booming metal. He activated the magnetic seal on the pod's docking port, hoping that it would hold as he scrambled out of his seat and opened the air lock.

  He had a tiny leak in the seal between ships-he could hear its hiss, but not see it-but he had some time before the pod would be depressurized and out of oxygen. He left the pod's inner air lock doors open to increase the amount of oxygen in the linkage. His damaged flexsuit would not protect him from a vacuum-Saes's lightsaber had taken off both arm and suit below his left elbow-but it still functioned enough that it would maintain his body temperature for a time.

  He double-checked his gear: his lightsaber, a few more mag-grenades, his overrider
, and his blaster. Good enough.

  He knelt before the other ship's emergency external air lock control panel-the writing used an odd, stylized version of the Galactic Standard alphabet, but he could make it out-and attached his overrider to it. He had to strip the overrider's tines and improvise a connection because the panel's architecture was nonstandard. He activated it and waited, willing the red light to turn green. He figured he'd blow the inner doors with his remaining grenades.

  "I had no idea," Jaden protested.

  Marr started to bring Junker around when it shook with an impact, knocking Khedryn to his rump and slamming Marr's head against the console. Alarms sounded.

  "What was that?" Jaden asked.

  "Unknown," Marr said, dabbing at a bleeding gash in his forehead and tapping keys.

  "Something hit us," Khedryn said.

  "Debris, maybe," Marr said.

  "Not debris," Jaden said, and activated his lightsaber.

  "What are you doing?" Khedryn said, backing away from the green line of Jaden's saber.

  A second alarm rang out. Marr spun in his seat. "Something has attached to the port docking ring. Someone is trying to board us."

  "Stang!" Khedryn cursed, and drew his blaster.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Khedryn and Jaden sprinted through the ship's corridors, Khedryn leading, alarms blaring along the way.

  Marr's voice sounded over Khedryn's comlink. "They are docked and have overridden the external doors. They are in the air lock."

  "The cruiser?"

  "Now at a full stop. It still has not scanned us as far as I can tell."

  Jaden imagined the tiny freighter facing the huge cruiser across the void of space, a lava flea staring down a rancor.

  "Keep me updated," Khedryn said.

  They sped through the cargo hold, down a hall, and into a side compartment. Jaden could see the black of space through the occasional viewport. Ahead, he saw the twin hexagonal pressure doors that opened onto the air lock and the docking rings. Both remained closed. The green light above the far door indicated a successful dock.

  Jaden put a hand up to slow Khedryn. He pressed his cheek against the nearest viewport and tried to get a look at the ship docked on the ring, but the angle provided poor visibility. The docked ship looked tiny, a small sphere like an escape pod, but no make that Jaden recognized.

  To Khedryn, he said, "Probably best you keep your distance-"

  An explosion blew the inner air lock door from its fittings and knocked Khedryn and Jaden to the ground. The impact of the falling door sent vibrations through the deck. Smoke filled the corridor, the sizzle of exposed, severed wiring.

  Jaden's ears rang, but he still heard the dull clarion of the alarm and, through it, the hum of an activated lightsaber. Adrenaline allowed him to climb to his feet, groggy, his lightsaber in hand. Beside him, Khedryn did the same, blaster in his fist, his other hand on the bulkhead for balance.

  Marr's voice crackled over Khedryn's comlink. "What was that? Khedryn?"

  A human male in silver armor bounded through the breached doors, a green-not Sith red-lightsaber glowing in his fist. Oddly, a cable attached the hilt of the lightsaber to a power pack on his belt. His left arm was a stump below the elbow, the suit-not armor-black and frayed at the joint, as if it had been recently cut.

  Khedryn did not hesitate and fired a series of blaster shots. The intruder's lightsaber turned from line to blurred circle as he weaved a defense that deflected each shot into the bulkheads.

  "Stay back," Jaden said to Khedryn. He augmented his speed with the Force and rushed forward, feinting high and stabbing low.

  Parrying the low stab as he sidestepped, the intruder spun into a reverse strike at Jaden's head. Jaden interposed his blade, met the man's hard eyes through the transparisteel of his helmet, and put a Force-augmented kick into his abdomen.

  The impact slammed the intruder into the wall, elicited a wince and a grunt of pain. He doubled over for a moment, favoring his side. Taking advantage of the opening, Jaden unleashed an overhand slash, but the man spun aside and Jaden's blade cut a black groove in the bulkhead.

  Jaden backflipped high into the air to avoid the intruder's reverse backslash and landed on the other side of the corridor, three meters away, trapping the intruder between Jaden on the one side and Khedryn on the other.

  Jaden could not quite place the man's fighting style. He had seen nothing like it before.

  Khedryn, now with another clear shot, leveled his blaster to fire but the intruder, his eyes on Jaden all the while, gestured with the stump of his left arm and the weapon flew from Khedryn's hand and skittered along the floor until it reached the man's feet.

  Jaden and the man stared at each other, eyes narrow, blades held before them. The intruder's breath came hard, and his hunched posture indicated that Jaden's kick had done lasting damage to his ribs. His eyes moved alternately between Jaden's face and his blade.

  Surprisingly, Jaden felt no additional pressure against his mind from the dark side. He would have expected a more acute thrust in the presence of a Sith.

  Khedryn smashed the glass on an emergency tool bin and removed a hand sledge and ax. Jaden gave him credit for courage if not sense.

  The intruder held his ground, breathing heavily, favoring his side. Seconds passed and no one moved to attack.

  "How's this going to go, then?" Khedryn said, hefting hammer and ax.

  The rhythm of the alarm kept time with Jaden's heartbeat, his breath. He felt the man testing his Force presence, as Jaden did the same to him.

  Instead of the bitter tang of a Sith, he felt the kindred nature of an advanced light-side user, perhaps polluted a bit by anger, but definitely a light-side user. No doubt the intruder felt something similar from Jaden, though Jaden knew it was doubt and not anger that infected him.

  "Who are you?" Jaden and the man asked simultaneously.

  Both lowered their blades, puzzled looks in their eyes. The man touched a button on the control pad on his chest and threw back his helmet. Long black hair streaked with gray contrasted markedly with pallid skin. Dark circles under his eyes tried to bridge the hues of hair and skin.

  "You are a Jedi," Jaden said, the words only half question.

  "As are you," the man said, his voice a thickly accented dialect.

  "Now it's a party," Khedryn said, lowering the hammer and ax.

  Jaden deactivated his saber. "Did Grand Master Skywalker send you?"

  Perhaps R6 had contacted the Order without Jaden's orders- "I know no Grand Master Skywalker." The man glanced around the ship. "Where am I? What system? I do not know this make of ship and you both speak oddly."

  "We speak oddly?" Khedryn said.

  "You do not know the name of Grand Master Skywalker?" Jaden asked, incredulous.

  "I have been away from Coruscant and the Order for some time, on a mission for Master Nadill."

  "Master who?" The name bounced around in Jaden's mind, seeking purchase in his memory. He felt as if he should have known it.

  "There is no time for this," the man said. "My name is Relin Druur. I need to get back aboard Harbinger."

  Khedryn stepped forward. "Back aboard? That damaged cruiser, you mean?"

  "Sith dreadnought," Relin said, nodding. "I tried to bring it down with my Padawan and managed only to damage its hyperdrive. I was caught in its draft when it misjumped. We ended up here."

  "Your Padawan?" Jaden asked, and wished he had not.

  Relin's jaw tightened. Pain stained his eyes. "He's dead."

  "Sorry," Khedryn said awkwardly. "And sorry about shooting at you, but you did ram my ship and-"

  "What are your names?" Relin asked.

  "Jaden Korr. This is Khedryn Faal and this is his vessel."

  Relin took a deep breath, wincing with pain as he did so. "Listen to me, Jaden and Khedryn. Harbinger cannot be allowed to jump away. The cargo it bears, a special ore, enhances the power of those who use the dark side and could turn the
battle for Kirrek into a rout. Unless you wish the galaxy to fall under Sith dominion, you will assist me."

  "Ore? What are you talking about?" Khedryn said. "You need medical attention, man. Look at you."

  Relin's eyes flared and he advanced a step on Khedryn. "There is no time! If Naga Sadow is victorious on Kirrek, we may not be able to stop the Sith at all."

  Jaden's mind tried to make sense of Relin's words. Some kind of ore on the cruiser enhanced the power of a dark side user. The presence of the ore explained the free-floating dark side energy that had caused Jaden such unease as the cruiser had approached.

  "I need to commandeer this ship," Relin said. "I am sorry but-"

  "You aren't commandeering so much as a caf pot, Jedi," Khedryn said, his fists bloodless around hammer and ax. "This is my ship."

  More of Relin's words registered with Jaden, but he could not shape them into anything coherent.

  "Did you say Naga Sadow?" he asked distantly.

  Sadow's name triggered memories of ancient history lessons from Jaden's time in the Jedi academy.

  "Yes, Sadow," Relin said. "His forces marshal at Primus Goluud even now while we debate trivialities. Hear me, Jaden. I need your help and I need it now."

  The pieces of Relin's story started to fall into place-Kirrek, Nadill, Sadow, his ignorance of Grand Master Skywalker, his obsolete lightsaber, the oddly made blaster he bore.

  Jaden's suspicion hit him like an unexpected punch in the stomach. How could this be? How?

  "This is not possible," he whispered.

  Relin mistook his meaning. "It is not only possible, it is essential. I need to get back onto Harbinger." He looked at Khedryn. "Unless this ship can bring it down?"