by Jude Watson
“I built a droid on my homeworld,” Anakin said. Something in his voice told Ferus that Anakin was lonely.
Ferus wished he had the ability to say the right thing, to respond with warmth to a boy he didn’t know. He wished his awkwardness didn’t come off as stiffness. He wished he were more like Tru Veld or Darra Thel-Tanis, who could talk to anyone and become their friend. But it was hard for him to know what to say. He didn’t have that gift. His teachers were always telling him to be more in touch with the Living Force.
“I don’t remember my homeworld,” he said finally. “Or my family.”
Anakin looked at him under a shock of blond hair. “Then you’re lucky.”
That lonely boy had grown into an astoundingly gifted Jedi. And now he was dead. Ferus didn’t know how or where. He’d been reluctant to ask Obi-Wan. The look on the Jedi Master’s face when Anakin was mentioned was enough to stop Ferus. Grief had marked Obi-Wan, and he looked older and grayer than his age would warrant.
Ferus was beginning to make sense of the blackened and twisted shapes now. There, the heap of fused durasteel—that had been the shelving that had run along one wall. It had held droid parts. Stone had crumbled into pebbles that crunched under Ferus’s boots as he walked into the echoing space. He kicked through some melted parts on the floor. Gaping holes in the roof overhead had let in the morning rain. Rustlings told him that creatures were living here, scurrying through the debris.
The protocol droids were eerie shapes, half melted, their eye sockets blank. They looked like fallen soldiers.
The smell of decay was in his nostrils. Decay and failure and ruin.
And it was only the beginning of what he would see.
“So where’s the entrance to the tunnels?” Trever asked.
Ferus wrenched his mind back to the task at hand. He gazed about, trying to orient himself. “That opening there leads to the grand hall. I think we’d better avoid it. The entrance to the service tunnels was over there. At least, I think that’s where it was.”
They stared across the room at a gigantic pile of rubble.
“All I can say is, if we have to get through that, you’d better be right,” Trever said.
Suddenly they heard the noise of tramping feet.
“Stormtroopers,” Trever whispered.
Ferus quickly pointed to a towering, misshapen pile of twisted metal. It had fused from the heat; it had once been a pile of droids. The jagged nature of the heap had created holes throughout. They would be able to squeeze inside and hide underneath it.
Just in time. A squad of white-armored stormtroopers entered the space through the blasted-out opening that led to the grand hall. The officer in charge spoke through his headset. “Sensors indicate life-form activity.”
Trever looked at Ferus, alarmed. Ferus watched as the squad began to systematically comb the space, quadrant by quadrant. That was the trouble with stormtroopers, he thought testily. They were so efficient.
Within minutes they would spot them. Ferus had no doubt of that. They were circling the droid heaps, checking every crevice, every dark corner.
Ferus felt something wet and bristling brush his leg. Only the most severe discipline of the Jedi, ingrained in his bones, prevented him from flinching. A meer rat, fat and bold, waddled by. Before Ferus could warn him, Trever jumped slightly, banging his head against the metal. The faintest clang sounded through the space.
“Halt activity.” The officer swiveled, training a glow-rod just centimeters from their hiding place. “Evidence of intruders. Search and destroy.”
Trever reached into his pocket. Without making a sound, he withdrew the turnover he’d placed there. He tossed it a short distance away. The meer rat scudded after it.
The officer caught the movement. The light from the glow rod was jerked toward the sound, and it caught the rat in mid-scurry.
“Another rat,” the stormtrooper said in disgust. “They’re so big they trip the sensors. I’m getting tired of these false alarms. Come on, let’s head out.”
Ferus and Trever waited until the sound of the footsteps faded.
“That was close,” Ferus said.
“And there goes the rest of my lunch,” Trever added.
They wriggled out. Avoiding the rat munching on the turnover, they headed toward the area where Ferus was sure they’d find the entrance to the tunnels. The debris was piled so high that there was no way to tell where the entrance had been. He closed his eyes.
Ferus concentrated on the memory of his brief conversation with Anakin as a boy. He used an exercise that every Padawan had learned. They were led to a spot, told to open their eyes, look for five seconds, then close them again. Then they were to describe everything they’d seen. Sometimes they faced what seemed to be a blank wall, and they would have to note every crevice, every irregularity.
Ferus reached back, past years of events and feelings that could cloud his mind, past his child’s perspective, and focused on what he had seen. He could conjure up the texture of the cold against his fingers, the droid parts neatly labeled on the shelves, the banks of computers. When he remembered the ding on the dome of a battered astromech droid to Anakin’s right, he knew he was getting there. The Force helped him to connect to memory as much as what was around him now.
He calculated the distance. He remembered how high the entrance had been, how many meters above his head. He remembered his own height and made the necessary calculations.
Then he walked forward. “It’s behind here,” he said, pointing to a spot in the pile. His Jedi memory and the Force had guided him.
Either that, or he was completely wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.
He unsheathed the lightsaber that had been given to him by Garen Muln in the caves of Illum. From the first moment, it had felt as if it had always belonged in his hand. He inserted the lightsaber and slowly rotated it until its heat started to dissolve the area around it in an ever growing circle. Trever stepped forward, fascinated as always by a lightsaber’s power.
When Ferus had cleared enough space, he pushed aside the rest of the rocks and debris with his hands and crawled in, holding a glow rod in front of him. He could sense, rather than see, that he’d unblocked the entrance. He called back to Trever to follow him. He had to crawl for about twenty meters, but at last he passed through and was able to stand. Trever joined him seconds later.
It was difficult to get their footing due to the debris and dirt that littered the walkway. This had once been a gleaming white tunnel, lit by pale blue glowlamps. It had been built to transport droids from repair to various points in the Temple. The ceiling was low and the walls curved around.
“This comes out near the living quarters,” Ferus said. “That part of the Temple, from what I can see, wasn’t as badly destroyed as the others.”
“That means we’ll be bumping into more stormtroopers,” Trever said.
“I’ll do my best to avoid them.” Ferus slowly moved through the tunnel. “The Padawans used to explore all the service tunnels and little-used passageways. Sometimes it was helpful if you didn’t want to bump into any of your teachers—if you’d forgotten an assignment or had skipped a practice session.”
“Aw, Ferus, you’ve lived up to my expectations. I knew you were the kind of renegade who didn’t do his homework.”
Ferus snorted. Trever was way off base. Trever knew a different person from what Ferus had been. “Renegade” hardly fit the description of his Padawan years. Actually, he had never skipped an assignment or a practice session. He had striven for perfection in every waking moment. He was driven by his need to excel. As a result, he hadn’t made friends easily. It was only near the end of his apprenticeship that he had grown close to Darra and Tru.
Darra had died on Korriban. He still felt responsible for her death. He had left the Jedi Order because of it.
And there was Anakin. Anakin, whose gifts were so great, who had thought of Ferus as a rival. He remembered their squabbles now, and
their deep rift. He would have done things differently now. He would not have judged Anakin the way he did. Now Anakin was dead, along with Tru, along with the Padawans he’d lived with for most of his childhood. Even the greatest warriors of the Jedi—Mace Windu, Kit Fisto, even Yoda—could not defeat the Sith.
So what made him think that he could?
I know I can’t defeat them. But maybe if we strike enough blows, we can hurt them.
It wasn’t in the Jedi nature to act out of anger. But was it really so wrong to enter a fight because you were so deeply and thoroughly enraged?
Ferus held up a hand as they approached the end of the tunnel. He knew that it opened into a service passageway that ran parallel to one of the main halls. He was betting that the stormtroopers would use the main halls, which were larger and led to the grand staircases and turbolifts. The service passageways were narrow and had a complicated layout. It was easy to get lost.
“Where do you think the prison is?” Trever asked in a low tone.
“It has to be in the big storage rooms,” Ferus replied. “It’s one of the only places that could be reconfigured into a secure area. And from what I could see through the electrobinoculars, it remains largely intact. There was a series of turbolifts at the end of the first service passageway that led down to the storage floor. With any luck they’ll still be there. Even if they aren’t functioning, we might be able to get down one of the shafts.”
Waiting a moment to ensure that the service passageway was empty, Ferus edged out into the hall. Trever followed as he held the glow rod in front of him, keeping it down to its lowest setting. Here the walls were also blackened from the fire, but the hallway didn’t seem too badly damaged.
Only a wall separated them from a main passageway, and they could hear the noise of activity on the other side.
“I don’t get it,” Ferus murmured. “There seems to be a lot of movement. This place must be more than a prison. No wonder there was so much activity at the landing platform.”
“The more the merrier,” Trever said grimly.
Ferus reached the turbolift area. He frowned in disappointment. What had been a turbolift bank was now a collapsed heap of duracrete. Even worse, it blocked the connection to the other service hallways.
“We’re going to have to use the main hallway,” he said. “Just for a bit, to get to the other turbolift bank.”
He paused in front of a door. He heard no sound, so he cautiously eased it open. The hallway was empty. Ferus knew exactly where he was. If he followed this hall to the right, it would lead him to the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Beyond that was another passage that would get him closer.
Beckoning to Trever, he emerged into the hallway. Moving quickly and silently, they hurried down the hall. As they passed the large wooden doorway to the Room of a Thousand Fountains, Ferus’s footsteps faltered.
“What is it?” Trever whispered.
“One moment.”
He couldn’t help himself. It had been his favorite place in the Temple. He had to see. Ferus pushed open the doors.
He took a cautious step inside. The first thing that struck him was the silence. In his mind he’d been expecting the calming note of splashing, trickling water. He had even turned his face upward to feel the cooling spray.
Empty. Desolate. The remains of the fragrant plants and flowers, dried, brown. Stumps rising like crooked fingers. Dried pond beds, stone urns upturned and cracked.
He turned. He would have to harden his heart against this. He couldn’t allow every sight to be a blow. It would just slow him down.
They walked past the Map Room, where once a student could access any quadrant of the galaxy, any world. Ferus wasn’t tempted to peek. And Jocasta Nu’s beloved library—without even entering, he could see through the blasted doors that it had been systematically destroyed. All that knowledge, all that wisdom—gone.
Gone.
But I must keep moving.
They heard footsteps behind them. Ferus yanked Trever behind a tall column.
He pressed himself against the column as the footsteps drew closer.
It was some kind of Imperial messenger and an officer.
“You were supposed to be here this morning.”
“It took some time to gather the data.”
“Well, you’re here now. Take it to the Inquisitor’s office.”
“Location?”
“Follow this hallway and go through the double doors. It’s the first door on your right, the one with the windows. Then put it down and leave. Inquisitor Malorum isn’t here.”
Malorum? At the Temple?
This could be either a disaster or a piece of good luck. Obi-Wan had asked Ferus to discover what Malorum was up to, if he could. And it sounded like Malorum’s office was right here, in the Temple.
Of course, Malorum knew his face. Not only that, he hated him. Lucky for Ferus that he wasn’t here.
Ferus thought back to the directions the officer had given.
It can’t be. Malorum’s office is Yoda’s living quarters?
“He’s not expected back until tomorrow. He’ll expect everything to be in order then. He’s going to move the base of operations over here from the Imperial Stronghold....”
The words faded as the footsteps did.
“Not that guy again,” Trever moaned softly. He had known Malorum, too, on Bellassa. It was Malorum who had put a death mark on Trever’s head.
“Yeah, he keeps turning up, doesn’t he?” Why would be put his office in the Temple? And why choose, out of all the hundreds of rooms, Yoda’s private quarters?
Because he can.
The arrogance!
They started down the hallway again. It was empty, and they hurried to the bank of turbolifts and jumped inside. Ferus’s heartbeat quickened. At last he would discover if any Jedi remained alive.
The turbolift worked smoothly. It was a piece of luck. It descended all the way down to the storage floor and opened. Ferus was prepared, his lightsaber at the ready, for whatever would lie on the other side of the door. But it opened onto an empty hallway.
He took a cautious step forward. Not only empty, but...dusty.
He listened for sound, for movement. He brought the Force to him and sent it out. True, his Force sense was still rusty at times, but he received nothing. Surely if this were a prison, he would pick up echoes of the Living Force, no matter how faint. Especially from Jedi.
“You look worried,” Trever whispered. “And when you worry, I worry.”
“I don’t feel anything,” Ferus said.
“Is that all?”
“For a Jedi, that’s everything.”
They moved forward cautiously. Ferus wasn’t as familiar with this area as he was with others. They were on the very lowest levels of the Temple now. All Padawans were required to take an extensive tour of the Temple, from top to bottom, and become familiar with the layout, but Ferus had only visited the storage areas infrequently.
Luckily it was a standard layout, just parallel hallways leading to storage rooms of varying sizes. They walked down, peering into one after the other.
Empty.
Empty except for scattered bins, random items stored here and not raided because they weren’t valuable—towels, tarps. Soap. Glow rods and servodrivers. Blankets.
“I guess the Empire found the treasure,” Trever said. “But maybe they overlooked something? Anything down here?”
“What treasure?” Ferus asked.
“The treasure the Jedi had,” Trever said. “You know the Order was rich. All those payments from worlds they protected...”
Ferus was furious. “That was a lie told by the Emperor. The Jedi never took payment for their services. Palpatine was trying to turn the galaxy against the Jedi to justify his crimes. And now you’re repeating the lies!”
“Hey, Ferus, power down. How was I supposed to know it was a lie? Everyone said it.”
“Everyone says the Emperor is on your side, too.�
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“Excellent point.”
In many ways, this was the worst fallout from Order 66, the one that had destroyed the Jedi. History had been rewritten. Palpatine’s lies had changed how the galaxy thought of the Jedi. Their lives of service had become bids for power. Their selflessness had become greed.
“I’m sorry,” Trever said, looking at the expression on his face. “I hear the word ‘treasure’ and I start to salivate heavily. You know me....” He tried to smile, but his eyes were worried. “You forget I’m a thief.”
“Not anymore,” Ferus said. The moment of anger passed. He looked around. “I don’t understand. This is the logical place for the prison. And the word on the street is that the Jedi are down deep in the Temple storerooms.”
“Is there anywhere else they could be keeping them?”
Ferus shook his head. “Anything is possible, but...” He stopped. Just as they passed the largest storeroom, he thought he’d caught a glint of a reflection. Cautiously, he walked forward. There was no Living Force here. But there was...something.
He raised his glow rod.
It took him a moment to make sense of the piles, the jumble of objects. Rows and rows and rows disappearing in the dusky light at the corners of the vast space.
Lightsabers.
Ferus felt his breath catch and his heart stop.
He could not move.
Trever, sensing his emotion, drew back. In a rare display of tact, he said nothing.
Ferus moved forward. His boot hit a lightsaber hilt, and he flinched. He leaned over to pick it up. He ran his fingers along the hilt. He didn’t recognize it. He put it carefully back down.
Row after row after row...jumbles and piles, some laid out neatly, no doubt for identification.
“How many?” he whispered.
He leaned over to pick up a hilt here, another there.
Here was the proof. The Empire must have collected the lightsabers when they could, but for what purpose, he wasn’t sure. To identify Jedi, perhaps. But who would be able to recognize the hilts but another Jedi? Or perhaps they meant to study the lightsabers in order to be able to use them as weapons one day.
