Tempest: Star Wars (Legacy of the Force) (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force)

by Troy Denning

  “We also have to take into account who they are,” Jacen said, also turning to Tenel Ka. “You know my parents. They’re not murderers. I think we should trust this message.”

  Luke’s heart filled with joy. Clearly, Jacen remained in touch with his emotions—and that meant there was still hope of guiding him back to the light side.

  After a moment’s thought, Tenel Ka nodded to Jacen. “So do I.” She turned to Mara with an apologetic air. “You don’t know of the discrepancies in the witness accounts, but there was some question of whom the Solos were fighting during the attack. Their message clears that up.”

  “Well, it’s your decision.” Despite Mara’s reply, Luke could sense that she was as happy as he was about the results. “I just wanted to be sure you had considered the possibility.”

  “And I’m grateful for that—it could not have been easy.” Tenel Ka turned back to Jacen. “Obviously, this means we both need to cancel the orders regarding your parents.”

  “Orders?” Luke asked.

  “Capture and detain,” Jacen explained. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “But we can’t. If they’re right about a traitor in your court—”

  “And that much seems obvious,” Tenel Ka interrupted.

  “—then canceling the orders would give them away,” Mara finished. “You have to let the orders stand.”

  Jacen nodded. “Anything else could be a death sentence.”

  “Very well—they’ve proven quite adept at eluding us so far.” Tenel Ka fell silent for a moment, then said, “Now we must consider what do we do about AlGray and her Heritage Council.”

  “There’s only one thing to do,” Jacen said.

  “Exactly.” Tenel Ka went to his side. “I have no right to ask you to do this—”

  “Of course you do,” Jacen replied. “You don’t know which of your own fleet commanders you can trust, the Hapes Consortium is a loyal member of the Galactic Alliance, and it’s my duty to aid you any way I can. But I’m afraid the Anakin Solo won’t be enough—as I recall from the intelligence file, House AlGray has a dozen Battle Dragons of its own.”

  “Correct—and I will provide you with a large enough flotilla to assure your victory,” Tenel Ka said. “But that isn’t what I was talking about.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No.” Tenel Ka took his hand. “I must stay here to command the Home Fleet. With Aurra Sing coming after Allana, however, I want her away from Hapes. Until this is over, she will be safer with you aboard the Anakin.”

  “Are you sure?” Mara asked, alarmed. “Jacen may be going into battle.”

  “And I will be,” Tenel Ka replied, almost sharply. “AlGray is not alone on this ‘Heritage Council.’ When we move against her, the others will move against me—and Hapes will become a far more dangerous place for Allana than the Anakin.”

  Mara nodded, a bit taken aback by Tenel Ka’s tone. “Of course. I didn’t mean to question your judgment.”

  “Of course you did.” Tenel Ka’s tone softened. “And I thank you—it is not something I am very accustomed to these days. Besides, Jacen will not have much of a battle. He will have twice the fleet and far better weapons, so he is my best option.” She paused, as though an idea had just occurred to her. “Unless you and Master Skywalker will be returning directly to Coruscant?”

  “Sorry,” Mara said. “Allana wouldn’t be any safer with us.”

  “I’m afraid we have to track down Ben,” Luke explained, “and then take care of some unfinished business with Lumiya.”

  chapter seventeen

  It was not the dark silence of the Missile Hold that Alema found so troubling, nor even all those cylinders packed with detonite and baradium and propellant. It was the cold. The caves of Ryloth, where she had spent the first years of her life, had been hot and dry and dusty, and the Gorog nest, in which she had lived as a Killik Joiner, had been warm and humid and close. But the Missile Hold of the Anakin Solo was frigid, even with a pair of bulky GAG utilities pulled over her own customary robes. Her nose was numb; her lekku were tingling, her teeth chattering, her old wounds aching; and her breath rose in curtains of steam.

  “Alema, if you don’t keep that glow rod on the cut, we’re both going to be sorry.” Lumiya was kneeling in front of a missile rack, using her cybernetic hand to carefully run a fusioncutter down the nose-cone welds of a baradium missile. “This isn’t something I do every day.”

  “You are not making us confident.” Alema shined the light on the missile just ahead of the fusioncutter’s beam. “Why not tell Jacen to have a trained technician remove the … whatever it is you’re after?”

  “The proton detonator charge,” Lumiya said. She was not wearing her face scarf, so her disfigured jaw instilled in Alema a feeling of kinship and togetherness. “And Jacen can’t know about this.”

  “We should have guessed.” Actually, Alema had already guessed, and she was simply seeking confirmation. Even after she had prevented Master Lobi from exposing what Lumiya was doing with Jacen, Lumiya remained secretive about her goals and plans—almost as though she did not truly understand the nature of her partnership with Alema. “But we have told you—Jacen is important to the Balance. We need him alive.”

  Lumiya continued to work, moving down the side of the missile toward the point of the initial cut. Alema counted to five. Then, when she had still received no reply, she moved the light away. The fusioncutter strayed from the weld, causing a shrill hum as it sliced into the skin of the missile cylinder.

  “Crazy bugslut!” Lumiya snapped off the cutting beam. “You could blow the whole ship apart!”

  Alema shrugged. “What does it matter? If Jacen dies, he does not become a Sith. If Jacen does not become a Sith, Leia’s suffering is not equal to mine. If Leia’s suffering is not equal to mine, the galaxy remains out of—”

  “—Balance. You’ve told me.” Lumiya reignited the fusioncutter, but continued to hold it away from the missile. “I’m doing this to help Jacen, not hurt him.”

  Alema continued to shine the glow rod away from the missile. “How?”

  “Jacen asked me to rendezvous with Ben at Roqoo Depot,” Lumiya said. “He’s about to lead a task force to capture one of the coup leaders at the Relephon Moons, and he wants me to make certain Ben rejoins the Anakin safely.”

  Alema frowned. “But Ben is aboard a reconnaissance skiff,” she said. “They can find their way to the Relephon Moons.”

  “Exactly.” Lumiya motioned at the missile. “If you don’t mind, the Anakin will be making her first jump within the hour, and I need to be gone before then.”

  Alema swung the light back toward the missile, but kept the beam focused on the floor. “It sounds suspicious.”

  Lumiya sighed in exasperation. “It sounds suspicious because it is suspicious. Jacen came to me as soon as the Skywalkers ended their little visit. I fear I’ve become a liability.”

  Alema returned the light to Lumiya’s work. “You think Jacen is sending you into a trap?”

  “I know he is. He’s arranging a fight between me and Luke.” Lumiya returned the fusioncutter to the weld and resumed work. “If I kill Luke, it creates an opening for Jacen to take over leadership of the Jedi order. If Luke kills me, then it will look as though I’ve been stalking Ben all along. Luke will assume that his original fears were correct, and the veil of suspicion will be lifted off Jacen.”

  “Jacen is no better than any Solo!” Alema was boiling with outrage. “Leia spawned a pack of lyleks.”

  “Oh, I think she did better than that,” Lumiya replied. “I’d say Jacen is more of a thernbee—sly, ruthless, and deadly. I couldn’t be more proud.”

  She completed the cut, and the nose cone came free. Alema caught it with the Force lest it jar the impact trigger and detonate the proton charge.

  “Proud?” Alema carefully lowered the nose cone to the floor. “For betraying you?”

  “Oh, very proud,” Lumiya said. “I was growing w
orried that Jacen lacked the strength and cunning to fulfill his destiny. His betrayal proves that I was wrong. Jacen is very capable.”

  “We do not understand.”

  “Jacen’s destiny doesn’t allow him the luxury of loyalty,” Lumiya explained. She deactivated the fusioncutter and set it aside. “If he were unwilling to betray me, how could we expect him to betray his entire family?”

  Alema had no answer for that. Even in the ryll dens of Kala’uun, where a dancer’s loyalty was strictly to herself, the one person she had never betrayed was her sister, Numa.

  Lumiya began to sort through the tangle of wires and filaments surrounding the missile’s proton detonator charge.

  “Master Skywalker is not someone to trifle with,” Alema said. “You could be killed.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Lumiya found a bundle of wires leading into the head of the detonator housing and began to sort through them. “I have fought him before, you know.”

  “What about Jacen’s destiny?” Alema asked. “Without you to guide him—”

  “Jacen has the knowledge to complete his journey.” Lumiya separated out an orange wire that ran from the detonator housing into a relay box on the head of the missile cylinder. “All that remains for him is to make his sacrifice.”

  “Then he hasn’t?”

  “Not yet.” Lumiya pulled a pair of wire cutters from the pocket of her utilities and slipped the jaws over the orange wire. “But he will.”

  Alema’s heart leapt into her throat. “Not the safety delay!”

  Lumiya looked up, her brow furrowed in irritation. “Orange isn’t the safety delay. It’s the proximity sensor.”

  “It was on Imperial missiles,” Alema said. “On Alliance missiles, it’s the safety delay. There’s only one wire—see?”

  Lumiya studied the bundle, then reluctantly shifted the wire cutters to the first of a handful of gray wires.

  Alema breathed a sigh of relief, then asked, “How can you be sure?”

  “I assume you’d tell me if I was wrong again,” Lumiya replied sharply.

  “We mean Jacen.” Alema explained. “If he doesn’t make his sacrifice and you are already dead—”

  “He will make his sacrifice,” Lumiya snapped. “Now, about these wires—”

  “Cut,” Alema said. “What are you waiting for?”

  Lumiya cut the first wire, then—when the Anakin Solo did not vanish in a white flash—began to cut the other gray wires.

  “We are not sure we like this plan,” Alema said. “If you are killed, his uncle will try to draw Jacen back to the light side of the Force—”

  “He won’t be able to,” Lumiya said. “Because whether or not I return from this fight, Luke won’t.”

  She cut the last of the gray wires, then exchanged her wire cutters for a hydrospanner and began to unbolt the detonator housing.

  “That is what the proton detonator is for?” Alema asked, finally comprehending Lumiya’s plan. “A combat fail-safe?”

  Lumiya nodded. “As you said, I might be killed.”

  “It seems to us you are planning on it,” Alema replied.

  “Planning for, not on.” Lumiya removed the last fastener from the detonator housing. “But I will admit that being killed is a more likely outcome than I would prefer.”

  “Then why go?” Alema asked. Although she would never admit this to Lumiya, she did not like the idea of Luke dying so soon. The Balance would be better served if he were forced to watch Jacen’s decline, if he struggled to redeem his nephew before ultimately falling on his blade. “Killing Master Skywalker is no good if you don’t survive to enjoy it.”

  Lumiya set the hydrospanner aside, then looked up at Alema with an expression approaching pity. “I’m not doing this for me, you silly dancing girl,” she said. “But there’s no use explaining. You wouldn’t understand.”

  She turned her attention back to the missile, grabbing the detonator housing with both hands.

  Alema, seething at Lumiya’s put-down, deactivated the glow rod. There was a metallic click as the housing contacted the proton detonator.

  “Are you mad?” Lumiya whispered. In the silence that followed her question could be heard the soft, nearly inaudible clicking of an electronic timer counting off second-tenths. “Turn on the glow rod!”

  “We’re trying.” Alema slapped the glow rod against her crippled arm a couple of times. Assuming the housing had activated one of the impact triggers, they had about five more seconds to deactivate before the safety delay expired and allowed the charge to detonate. “But we aren’t smart enough to understand. We’re just a silly dancing girl.”

  “I apologize!” Lumiya snarled. “Now turn on the kriffing light!”

  Alema tapped the glow rod against her arm again. “We’re still not sure we understand.”

  “All right,” Lumiya said. “Have you ever been part of something bigger and more important than yourself?”

  “Our nest.”

  Alema reactivated the glow rod. Lumiya quickly removed the detonator housing the rest of the way from the proton charge, then reached out with the Force and pulled the trigger plunger away from its contact.

  Alema continued her answer. “Individuals died, but Gorog lived on. Gorog was more important than we were.”

  “Exactly.” Lumiya exhaled slowly, then used the Force to levitate the detonator casing while she retrieved the wire cutters and reached inside to snip the rest of the wires. “My situation is not so different.”

  Alema frowned. “How is it not different? You are the … last of … the …” She stopped, suddenly realizing why Lumiya might be willing to risk dying before Jacen completed his sacrifice … why Lumiya seemed so confident he would, even without her to guide him. “There are more Sith?”

  Lumiya floated the housing down to the floor, revealing a head-sized wafer of bright metal with a small tube of liquid deuterium sunk into the center.

  “There is a plan—a plan that will be carried out whether or not I survive.” Lumiya reached over and followed two wires from the top of the deuterium tube to a small circuit board, then unclipped them both. “That’s all you need to know.”

  “We don’t believe you.” Alema did not bother moving the glow rod away, since they were no longer at a crucial point in the disarming process. “Aren’t there only two Sith at a time?”

  Lumiya picked up her hydrospanner and began to unbolt the proton charge. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  There was a cold edge in Lumiya’s voice that rocked Alema back on her heels, and she realized she had probably heard too much already. If there really was a secret organization of Sith—and that was the only reason she could think of for Lumiya’s willingness to sacrifice herself—they were obviously very serious about keeping their existence secret.

  “No, there is no need,” Alema said. “We have heard enough of your lies for now.”

  An amused twinkled came to Lumiya’s eyes. “That is probably for the best.”

  Lumiya removed the proton charge from the missile, then pulled a black combat vest from her tool satchel and slipped the device into a chest pocket. She checked to be sure that the actuation wires would reach from the deuterium tube to a small sensor pad located about where the wearer’s heart would be, but did not affix the clips.

  “Very clever,” Alema said. “You win even if you lose.”

  “It is the Sith way.” Lumiya scooted her tool satchel down the floor to the next missile on the rack. “Bring the light—we’re running out of time.”

  “We don’t understand.” Alema began to have a sinking feeling, but she did as Lumiya asked and shined the light on the nose cone of the missile. “How are you going to wear two proton charges?”

  “I’m not.” Lumiya reignited the fusioncutter, then looked up at Alema. “This one is for you.”

  chapter eighteen

  Ribbons of smoke were still seeping from the hangar mouth and rising into the downpour, but the rest of Villa
Solis had obviously burned out long before the rains came. A couple of proton bombs had reduced the site to a smear of rubble and melted stone, leaving only a few ghostly foundation circles to mark where the habitation domes had once stood. To Ben’s surprise, he felt only a hint of death in the Force. Either the attack had occurred a very long time ago—which seemed unlikely, given the fumes still rising from the hangar—or very few people had died in it.

  The lilting voice of the skiff’s pilot and commander—a Duros junior lieutenant named Beta Ioli—came over Ben’s headset, which he and the rest of the crew were wearing to muffle the roar of the oversized engines.

  “Something bad happened here,” she said. “Chief, you picking up anything?”

  “Negative, ma’am,” Tanogo replied. A Bith chief petty officer who had been in the space navy since before Ben was born sat three meters back in the Rover’s cramped cabin, operating the “snoop station” used to locate and evaluate enemy targets. “There aren’t any signals originating within three hundred kilometers—but we do have a bogey squadron headed our way from Warro Field.”

  “Miy’tils?” Ioli asked.

  “Negative. Looks more like Headhunters.”

  “Headhunters?” Ioli grunted. “You’re kidding.”

  “The planetary militia still uses Headhunters,” Ben said, quoting the intelligence file Tenel Ka had provided when Jacen assigned him the mission. “They’re probably curious about us.”

  “Nobody sends twelve fighters on a look-and-report,” Tanogo repeated. “That’s an attack squadron.”

  “Can’t blame them for being cautious,” Ioli replied. “Somebody did just level their Ducha’s place. Identify us and see if they know what happened.”

  Tanogo acknowledged the order, and a moment later Ben noticed the weapons systems running through a test pattern. Either the skiff’s young Twi’lek weapons tech had taken it upon himself to bring up the systems, or—more likely—the seasoned petty officer had quietly suggested it.