by Jude Watson
After all, Obi-Wan had told him that Emperor Palpatine was a Sith. Darth Vader was his apprentice. Did they want to build a Sith army?
But what did it matter? There was a pounding inside him, metal against rock. Something fierce and elemental. Grief was pounding him.
This is how it worked, he realized. Each time you think you have comprehension of your sorrow, you get blindsided again. You slide back into your rage and your disbelief.
“All of them,” he said, walking on. “So many.”
And each one represented a noble life, gone.
And then he saw what he dreaded—the lightsaber of someone he loved.
He picked it up. He knew it well. He had even tried to fix it. Little had he known then that a favor for a friend would end up being the beginning of the end of his career as a Jedi.
Tru Veld had been his friend. Tru had been everyone’s friend. His silver eyes, his gentleness, the way he would start a conversation in the middle and circle around to the beginning. The way he had been the one to see past Ferus’s stiff manner into his heart.
He didn’t know what to do with the lightsaber. He couldn’t bear to leave it. But, gazing around, Ferus realized that Tru would want it to lie with the others. He placed it gently back down.
Some stormtrooper, some officer, some featureless clone, some brutal weapon, from the air or the ground, had cut down the brimming life and generous heart of Tru Veld. To the Empire he had been just another score, another Jedi down. Another step toward their goal. To Ferus, he had been full of complexities and ideas and hopes and passions and will. He’d been unique and fully alive. The fact that he was gone—here it was again, that feeling of something being too real, and yet impossible at the same time.
“Ferus,” Trever said urgently. “I hear something.”
And he should have heard it, too, if the roar of sorrow hadn’t been in his ears.
A squad of stormtroopers, by the sound of it.
He whirled around, his gaze searching for what he should have known was there.
“A silent alarm,” he said.
He knew the way they worked, the Imperials. He’d fought them for months on Bellassa. He should have known this.
“They spread the rumors,” he said. “They want everyone to think this is a Jedi prison. They know that any Jedi left alive will come.” He turned back to Trever. “Now I understand. This isn’t a prison. It’s a trap.”
There had to be another way out. There always was, even in storage areas like this one. Ferus knew that the Temple had been designed with an eye toward utility as well as beauty. Energy must be conserved, even physical energy. This space was too vast to have only one way to unload cargo.
“Follow me,” he whispered to Trever. Instead of leaving by the front door, they ran down the aisle, past the lightsabers, past the memories and the sorrow, to the very back of the room. There he found what he was looking for—an entrance to the service tunnels. This should lead them back to the hallway.
First problem: The tunnel was sealed with a door, and the old control panel didn’t work.
Silently and swiftly, Ferus sliced through the door with his lightsaber. It would leave evidence of their presence, but it was too late to do anything else. He could hear the squad now at the very front of the room. Any moment now they would be discovered.
Trever didn’t need an invitation. He bolted through the hole Ferus had created. Ferus followed and they ran down the service tunnel. As he ran, Ferus calculated where the tunnel was taking them. It made a sharp right turn, and he knew that they were now running parallel to the second service hallway.
“If we can get out somewhere along here, we can make it to the turbolift,” he told Trever.
“And go where?”
“Well, anywhere but here is an option.”
Ferus saw a control panel up ahead and, faintly, the outline of a door. He tried the control panel and this time it worked. The door slid open. Good. This way, once the stormtroopers entered the service tunnel, they wouldn’t be able to pinpoint where Ferus and Trever had left it. It slid shut behind them.
They were in another storage room, which Ferus had expected. This one was filled with empty shelves. As they ran toward the door, Ferus suddenly stopped.
“Ferus, come on!”
He bent down and ran his finger along the shelf. “Look. They left marks.”
“What left marks?”
“The bins. This was a food storage area.” He sniffed. “You can still smell the dried herbs.” There’s one for you, Siri. You knew it would come in handy.
“Fascinating. Now can we continue escaping?”
Ferus was thinking fast, remembering. “Dry food storage had a separate delivery system. If the cooks ran out of anything, they could plug in what they needed on tech screens in the kitchen and the information would be transferred down here. Droids would monitor the readouts, find the items, and carry them to vertical lifts. The lifts run on compressed air. They would shoot the cans up to the food halls, where they’d be held in a temporary zero-gravity immersion—in other words, in midair. The lifts are small, but we might be able to squeeze in—that is, if the compressed air system still works.” While he spoke, Ferus was quickly checking the control panel.
“You mean you’re going to blast me up on thin air?” Trever didn’t seem sure of that.
“You’ll have the ride of your life.”
“Can I remind you that I’m not a can of beans?”
“We’re in luck. It still works.”
“Hey, what happens if the zero-gravity part doesn’t work?”
“Look for a handhold on your way down. Trever, it’s the only way to escape the stormtroopers. They’ll never figure it out.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Trever groaned. But he squeezed himself into the small vertical lift, tucking his knees under his chin. “By the way, have you given any thought to how we’re going to get out of the Temple?”
“I’m thinking.”
“That doesn’t sound very promising.”
“I don’t make promises. Only plans.”
“It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Ferus.”
“One last thing—if I can’t make it, try to make it to the landing platform and steal a ship. Meet me back at the asteroid.”
He shut the door on Trever’s incredulous look. The whoosh of air told him that the transport had succeeded.
Ferus crossed to the next lift tube. He flattened himself and twisted, but he could not fit himself into the opening. He slammed his head and bumped his elbow as he tried to jam himself in.
Wait, Ferus.
He focused on remembering.
Siri bent down to help him. He had fallen during a routine hike, just because he hadn’t been paying attention. Fallen from a boulder, straight down, and hit the dirt.
First her expert hands made sure he was all right. Then she leaned back on her heels, balancing expertly despite the fact that they’d been hiking for six hours in rugged terrain.
“When you felt yourself falling, why didn’t you use the Force?”
Because he was only fourteen, and it didn’t come as easily to him. But Ferus didn’t want to tell his Master that. “There wasn’t time.”
“There’s always enough time for a Jedi,” Siri said. “The point is, the Force is always around you.”
Ferus struggled to sit up. He was growing fast, and his legs and arms always seemed to get tangled up underneath him. That’s why he had fallen.
“Our bodies aren’t just bone and muscle,” Siri said. “They’re also liquid. And air. And the ground isn’t as hard as it looks.”
Ferus seemed to feel every bruise. “So you say.”
She sprang to her feet, reached out a hand, and hauled him up, laughing. “You make everything harder than it has to be, Ferus. Even dirt.”
Ferus felt his body relax. The Force moved through him, and his muscles suddenly felt fluid. He bent and twisted easily and fit
into the small space. Then he closed the compartment door and flew upward on a rush of air, so fast that he felt dizzy.
The compartment door opened as he felt himself held up on the zero-gravity field. He pushed himself out and landed on his feet on the floor of the vast Temple kitchen, capable of feeding hundreds of Jedi. Trever was waiting.
“You were right,” he said. “That was some ride.”
Ferus glanced around. The kitchen had always been a busy place. The Jedi who had an interest rotated their service, and they were all willing to sneak a growing youngling a treat at any time of day or night. Now it was more or less intact, but, like most of the places he’d seen, strewn with debris and blackened by smoke. An attempt had been made in one corner to restore its function. He could see that the stove was working and a table had been cleared and set up for dining....
The Force surged, a warning, only a half second before he heard the door open.
He really had to work on his Force connection. What was the use of a warning if suddenly twenty stormtroopers appeared in your face?
“Whoa!” Trever dived to the floor as blaster fire streaked through the air. Ferus’s lightsaber danced, deflecting the bolts.
He spoke urgently under the cover of the noise. “There’s another exit by the stoves. Go, now!” He barked out the order, and Trever took off, running in a crazy pattern that made it hard for the stormtroopers to get a fix on him. Ferus retreated, keeping his lightsaber moving, and thinking, as a Jedi would, three steps ahead.
They would follow him into the corridor. He wouldn’t be able to lose them, not there. But the library was close by, half-demolished. There would be more cover there. If he could get to the second level of the library, he could get out the back door, and from there...from there...
Where?
The answer came to him. Yoda’s private quarters. Now Malorum’s office.
Malorum was away. It would be empty and quiet. And from there they could access files, maybe find a way to get out that they hadn’t considered. And he could find out what Malorum was up to. The stormtroopers would never think someone would be stupid enough to hide in the main Inquisitor’s private office.
The only problem was, he would have to go through too much of the main hallway to get there. They’d be spotted.
Ferus’s mind cleared, and he recalled walking into the Room of a Thousand Fountains. The water system had been destroyed, the upper canopy that had duplicated the sky was tattered and half-falling. Once, that canopy had changed color throughout the day, shading from the pinks of dawn to the deep purple of dusk, as a lighting system mimicked the passage of the sun. Now the damaged canopy revealed the network of catwalks overhead that serviced the laserlights...
...and connected to the power conduit tunnel that ran in the walls. Smaller than the service tunnels, but built so that a service person could squeeze in to work on the circuits at any point.
Trever waited for him in the corridor. Ferus was a few seconds ahead of the stormtrooper squad. He dashed down the hall. He had no doubt that the officer in charge was calling for backup. Soon the hallways would be flooded with troops.
The stormtroopers burst into the hallway just as they scooted around the corner. Blaster bolts ripped into the walls, sending chunks of stone falling on them like rain.
“This way.”
More blaster bolts shuddered down the hallway. They were shooting just to shoot now, even though Ferus and Trever were out of range. It was an Imperial tactic he remembered from his time in the Bellassan resistance—shoot to intimidate as well as kill. Why not? The Imperials didn’t lack ammunition, and they didn’t care about the physical destruction of property.
The door to the main hallway was jammed. Ferus leaped at it, using both feet and the Force. The door burst open, and he and Trever charged through. With a lift of his hand, he closed it behind them with the Force. Instantly it was torn apart by weapons fire.
Ferus darted out and across the hallway, down a short flight of stairs, and turned off with Trever at his heels. He pushed open the heavy doors to the library.
He told himself not to pause for even a moment to grieve again over the lost treasures here, not to notice as he kicked through the rubble left by the broken statues that had been the likenesses of the great Jedi Masters.
The staircase was gone. He climbed up a stack of rubble instead, Trever scrabbling behind him. They reached the balcony and ran down to the rear door.
He slid it open just a centimeter to look out. This time he had a few seconds to monitor the activity outside. A small knot of officers were walking away down the hall while several stormtroopers marched toward them. He’d have to time this carefully so that the stormtroopers would pass and the officers keep going before he and Trever ran out.
Downstairs he heard the squad searching the library. Any moment now they would appear.
The stormtroopers passed. Ferus and Trever had to take the chance.
Ferus slipped out of the library, Trever as close as a shadow. The troops didn’t turn as they continued down the hall.
Ferus raced the short distance to the doors to the Room of a Thousand Fountains and burst through. Trever ran next to him now, keeping up without effort. At the end of the path, Ferus stopped and released his liquid cable line, grabbing Trever at the same time. The line pulled them to the catwalk above.
“I’m starting to get used to this,” Trever grunted as he jumped down onto the catwalk.
There. Ferus saw the small, grated door at the end of an open stairway. He ran up and put out a hand, hoping that the Force would be there. The grated door popped off. He and Trever jumped inside, and he replaced the grate.
The tunnel was dark, but after a moment he could see. Avoiding the circuits and wires, they began to crawl down the tunnel.
“This runs in the wall,” he said in a whisper. “So tread lightly.”
He pictured where they were now, on the same level as Yoda’s private quarters. When he thought they were near the door, he held up a hand and Trever stopped behind him. There was a grate just ahead. Ferus bent down and looked. He was directly opposite Yoda’s quarters. He could see the slats of the window blinds. The hallway was empty. He curled his fingers around the grate, ready to ease it off.
Ferus suddenly heard approaching footsteps.
Malorum. Striding in his Inquisitor’s robes, an assistant hurrying by his side. Stopping outside the door of Yoda’s chambers.
Ferus felt it, a slight disturbance in the Force. Obi-Wan had picked up on what he’d suspected: Malorum was Force-sensitive. He cloaked his own connection to the Force, even though Ferus doubted Malorum was adept enough to feel it.
“Don’t sound the general alarm,” Malorum snapped. “By all means look, but look quietly. Lord Vader has decided to pay us an unannounced visit. I don’t want him to know about this until the intruders are caught.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ferus felt the dark side of the Force surge in a sickening wave, so powerful he inadvertently shrank back. He knew what it meant.
The Sith Lord had arrived.
Ferus’s breath felt sucked from his lungs. Darth Vader was on the other side of the wall. From his position near the floor he could only see the Sith Lord’s boots, but he could hear the rasp of his breath mask.
Their only hope was that Vader wasn’t looking for them.
“The situation is normal, you say,” Vader remarked in a deep, booming voice.
Malorum had taken a few steps forward so Ferus could no longer see him. “Yes, as you can see. I arrived a day early—I like to do that, surprise them. It keeps everyone on their toes, and it’s a good way to learn things that—”
“You came back a day early because I ordered you to. If you can stop complimenting yourself long enough, perhaps you can explain why squads are patrolling the hallways.”
“Strictly routine. I believe in constant readiness.”
“Malorum, do you think I’m a fool?”
“Excuse me, Lord Vader?”
The power of Vader’s anger filled the hallway. “This is a waste of time, and I hate wasting time. I put up with you because you are useful...for now. So I give you a choice. Tell me the truth, or continue your lies.”
Ferus could almost feel Malorum’s calculations. The beat went on a little too long.
“Two intruders were spotted and are being tracked,” Malorum finally said. “I assure you they will be found. You see, in a way, this proves the success of my plan to trap the Jedi. One of the intruders has a lightsaber.”
“Really.”
“So the rumors we spread worked.”
“In order for a trap to work it must capture its prey. You do not have a Jedi in custody. Instead, someone is still on the loose.”
There was a note of false lightness now in Malorum’s voice. “Temporarily, Lord Vader, I assure you.”
“Assurances don’t interest me.”
Lord Vader sounded almost...bored. He treated Malorum with contempt. Ferus had heard that Malorum was Lord Vader’s special pet, his protégé. Obviously this was a piece of unfounded gossip.
“And I recall,” Vader continued, “that you let a Jedi slip through your fingers on Bellassa. And now there is another Jedi somewhere on Coruscant.”
“I have a spy who has infiltrated that Jedi’s group. I am waiting for a report—”
“Your tedious obsession with trapping Jedi has led you to neglect your orders. I have given you a simple task—to clean up Coruscant, level by level, down to the very crust, until it is totally under our domination. You were to ferret out every possible pocket of resistance. You were to plan a strike and wipe out the Erased. We can’t have resisters turning into heroes.”
“Now just a minute, Lord Vader,” Malorum said. “Coruscant is hardly an ordinary assignment.”
“If you are not capable of the job, I’ll find someone else to do it.”
