Into the Dark

by Claudia Gray

  He was preparing even before Orla said, “Okay, Leox, bring us to their airlock and prepare for docking.”

  Affie gaped. “You want us to hook ourselves up to the ship on fire?”

  “People inside are in trouble,” Reath said. “Nobody else is around. So it’s our job to get them out.”

  The carrier Journeyman had left Cerea ferrying three hundred souls, through a hyperspace lane that had been thought to be clear. But it had been opened prematurely. Space debris crashed into the Journeyman, turning it from a comfortable passenger ship to a self-contained hell.

  Cohmac ran through the smoke-filled corridors of the Journeyman, inhaling only through the breathmask firmly clenched in his mouth. The haze stung his eyes, blurring them, but he relied less on sight than on hearing, and on the guidance of the Force, to find his way to the main loading bay.

  When he ran into it, he found—as he had expected—more than two hundred people huddled together, gasping through masks or ventilators, or coughing desperately for breath. Although they were mostly Cereans, he spotted Ogemites, Sarkans, humans, and a handful of Wookiees among the crowd.

  Recognition of his golden Jedi robes was immediate. The crowd surged toward Cohmac, surrounding him with a hundred cries: “There’s no way out of here!” “The pod doors aren’t where they’re supposed to be!” “We can’t get to the other launching bay!” “I can’t breathe!” “We’re trapped!” Their frenzy verged dangerously close to panic. When a group of people so large gave way to panic, the result was a mob. No one could save a mob.

  Cohmac removed his breathmask to shout above the din. “Take me to the pod doors!”

  The crowd parted for him, creating a path that showed the way. He saw instantly that internal blast shielding, intended to bolster the ship against just such disasters, had become stuck in place. If it didn’t lift, no one could reach the escape pods.

  With one great leap, Cohmac soared above the throng to pounce on a service platform near the top of the blast shield. It took no time to see the problem: a bent metal beam lodged in the shield’s workings. He ignited his lightsaber and plunged the blade deep into the beam. Almost immediately it began to melt. Waves of heat emanated from it, only kept from scorching Cohmac’s skin through the sheer power of the Force.

  “Move clear below!” he shouted. But the crowd had steadied enough to have understood his plan and anticipated the need. Already they were edging back, leaving a wide semicircle of empty space.

  Just in time, too. The beam broke in two, falling to the bay floor with a tremendous clang that hurt Cohmac’s ears. Even as the sound echoed, the blast shield began tracking upward, clearing the way to the escape pods.

  Cohmac realized he might need to exit via one of the pods himself. Already the corridor he’d arrived through blazed bright with fire. He dropped soundlessly to the floor and joined the evacuating horde, who had already gone from frenzied to steadied by urgent purpose. As he did so, he picked up his comlink. “The main pods will launch soon. Were all other passengers killed in the collision?”

  Affie’s voice came through. “A few people were stuck on the higher decks. Orla got most of them out, and Reath’s supposed to be returning to the ship with the last one—if he can make it.”

  She didn’t have to explain the rest. The Vessel couldn’t remain close to the Journeyman much longer, because the Journeyman would soon explode.

  Rescuing a tiny child from a burning ship sounded heroic in the most classical sense. The reality was less dignified.

  “Ow. Ow.” Reath winced as he tried to readjust the squirming, hairy infant in his arms. “It’s okay, Wookiee baby. Hang on, Wookiee baby.”

  But that was the whole problem—the little Wookiee was hanging on, as all its arboreal instincts demanded in a time of danger, by hooking its claws into the nearest object. Unfortunately, the nearest object was Reath.

  Also, even an infant Wookiee was large and heavy. Reath could handle the weight, but it made unwieldy going as he ducked under damaged beams and tried to dodge smoldering debris on the deck.

  The Wookiee whined pitifully, and Reath tried to pet its head. “Don’t be scared, little Wookiee ba—gahh!”

  As the back of his scalp stung, he saw that the Wookiee had apparently tried to pet his head in return, and in so doing had ripped away Reath’s Padawan braid at the roots. Great, he thought, I have to grow that back, assuming we get out of here at all. At least this had the effect of calming the baby, who promptly put its new acquisition in its mouth.

  Reath coughed. The smoke was getting to him. When he’d picked up the little Wookiee, it had been flailing with fright. One of those flails had knocked away his breathmask. At least they didn’t have far to go.

  Please let the corridor still be clear, please please please—

  He skidded to a halt. The corridor that led to the Vessel’s airlock was on fire.

  Quickly Reath considered his options. Getting to another escape pod in time was unlikely. He could look for another, more roundabout way to the airlock, but even if one existed, there was no guarantee he’d find it fast enough to save their lives.

  The only chance was something he’d never done before—never even tried—but a sense of sureness swept through him, telling him that this power was his to command.

  Balancing the baby Wookiee on one hip, Reath freed one hand, stretched it out, and closed his eyes. With all the might of the Force, he concentrated on the flames, on the molecular movement of the heat itself until his consciousness intertwined with it.

  Then he pushed outward with all his strength.

  With a great roar, the fire rushed out through the holes in the ceiling, clearing the corridor entirely of flames and smoke for one brief moment. That moment was long enough for Reath to dash through with the Wookiee, leaping through the airlock into the Vessel.

  As soon as his feet had hit the deck, before the fire could blaze back, the airlock spiraled shut. “You took your own sweet time,” Leox drawled over the comm. “Hang on!”

  There was no time to make it to the safety harnesses. Reath simply gripped the furry child in his arms and ducked to the floor.

  The Vessel banked sharply left, sending him rolling into the nearest wall. Although the Wookiee child howled in protest, it didn’t relax its grip as their ship accelerated and flew away. Only seconds later, the shock wave of the explosion rolled through them, making the whole ship tremble—but they were safe.

  Orla appeared in the doorway. “And who have we here?”

  Despite her sharp features and forbiddingly pristine appearance, Orla must have somehow come across as maternal to the baby, who immediately crawled to her and clamped its arms around her leg. She reached low to scratch its head as Reath got to his feet. “Too young to speak,” he said. “We’ll have to hope the Journeyman’s manifest can be found.”

  “I’ll take care of him for a bit,” Orla promised. Reath was more than halfway to the bridge before he heard her say to the Wookiee, “What do you have in your mouth?”

  When he walked onto the bridge, he was able to view the full scene for himself. Where the Journeyman had once been was just a blackened, skeletal ruin. At least that wreckage was haloed by a ring of escape pods, each blinking a signal for pickup. “Do we need to retrieve them?” Reath asked.

  Leox shook his head. “A Republic transport’s already signaled they’re on the way to tow ’em to Coruscant. Oughta be here within the hour. They’ll be a lot better equipped to handle that number of people. No way they’d all fit aboard, unless we agreed to get a whole lot closer than I, personally, am comfortable with. Probably not even then.”

  Affie looked up at Reath and laughed. “You need a shower. Or a polishing. Something.”

  “Bet I’ve got soot all over me,” Reath said, realizing his robes were completely ash-stained, except for a clear baby-Wookiee shape on his chest. How had Orla also boarded the ship and remained immaculate? Someday he’d learn her secret. “I can’t wait to get to Cor
uscant. Specifically, to the Temple baths.”

  Over comms came Master Cohmac’s voice. “We have two parents here—they were separated from their very young child—”

  “Are they Wookiees?” Reath asked.

  Master Cohmac responded, “Yes. Their child has mottled-gray fur.”

  “Then you can tell them the baby’s safe and sound on the Vessel.” Reath allowed himself a grin.

  “Thank the Force,” said Master Cohmac. “We’ve seen enough of death.”

  Reath’s smile faded as he thought again of Dez, lost in a flash, forever.

  Upon arriving on Coruscant, it would’ve been acceptable for Cohmac to go immediately to the baths and don his ceremonial garb—or at least to wash his face clean of soot. Instead, he sought an immediate audience with the Council. Somewhat to his surprise, it was granted.

  When he walked into the room, he saw a trio of Masters waiting for him, as much of the Council as could be assembled on such short notice. He knelt—an old-fashioned gesture of respect among the Jedi, but one that felt right to him.

  “Master Vitus,” said Master Adampo, a Yarkoran with magnificent whiskers. “We are pleased to know that you have returned safely, despite the many dangers of the hyperspace disaster. Early reports indicate that you and your ship were instrumental in the rescue of the Journeyman passengers.” In his voice was the unspoken question: So why are you here?

  “While stranded on the Amaxine station, we suffered a loss,” Cohmac said. “I regret to inform the Council that Jedi Knight Dez Rydan was killed.”

  Dismay, then pain, revealed themselves on their faces. Master Adampo asked, “Was this due to the hyperspace damage?”

  Cohmac summarized, as succinctly as he could, the myriad strange factors that had led to Dez’s fatal accident: the ancient station, the idols imprisoning the dark side, the labyrinthine lower rings that had hidden the helix rings until too late. It all sounded very dry and official and correct. Even a droid might’ve spoken with more emotion. This was, of course, as it should be.

  Yet the voice inside his head—the one he tried not to listen to, the one that spoke more and more often—demanded, Why should it be a virtue to hide your feelings? To pretend that they don’t exist?

  Master Rosason, a human woman of advanced years, nodded as he finished. “We await further report on the idols, as well. You have all performed your duty admirably under difficult conditions. Rydan’s loss is a blow to the entire Order.”

  These were phrases that came before farewell.

  You have no more emotion for him than that? Cohmac wanted to say. A young man goes to his death and it’s no more than a line in a report?

  He curbed his anger. Tried to remember exactly what it was Orla had said to him aboard the Vessel about moderation. But Cohmac’s memory, usually excellent, could no longer find the words.

  Coruscant transport logs were incredibly thorough and, to Affie’s surprise, totally open for public perusal. That gave her a chance to dig into realms of information that would normally be closed to her. Even the Byne Guild’s mother ship didn’t have so much data.

  If only she could’ve contacted Scover directly! But Scover often kept quiet about which ships she was traveling on when, and preferred to keep it that way. Affie knew to respect her mother’s discretion, even when it kept her in such wretched suspense.

  Leox took a seat beside her as she stopped scrolling through and pointed at the screen. “Look at this,” she said. “There’s three Guild ships here, so they made it out of hyperspace okay—”

  “And there’s the Rushlight Equinox.” Leox laughed and clapped his hands with real enthusiasm. “Can’t wait to talk to Vishla about whatever her crew got up to while hyperspace was down, though I doubt they’ve got any stories that compare to ours.”

  “I hope not,” Affie said. “Someone got killed.”

  “Makes it a tragic mission, I admit, but there is a certain anecdotal value.”

  Affie would’ve scolded him if she hadn’t known Leox actually did care about what had happened to Dez. Besides, Geode was already giving him the death glare. No point in piling on.

  Plus she still had so much information to scroll through. So many ships. So many courses registered. Coruscant was one of the few places the Guild’s ships could’ve sought safe refuge from the disaster—assuming they’d made it through. Nowhere could she find the mother ship of the Guild.

  “Look at this,” Leox finally said, focusing the screen on one particular packet of data. “Three more Byne Guild ships cleared dock here yesterday.”

  “But not Scover’s.”

  “You’re not looking hard enough. See here?” His jeweled ring sparkled as he tapped the screen. The words there read: Rerouted, Sealed Under Express Guild Authority.

  Only one person had the right to designate something as “Express Guild Authority,” and that was Scover Byne herself.

  “She’s here on Coruscant.” Affie started to grin, then to laugh, even though tears were welling in her eyes. “Scover made it.”

  “Told ya,” Leox said, hugging her around the shoulders. She was pretty sure he’d told her no such thing, but who cared? Her mother was alive.

  The hyperspace disaster had called on all Jedi in one way or another; everyone was involved with rescue, resolution, or analysis. With all the busy activity on every level of the Temple, getting a corridor closed was—as Orla’s créche-minder used to say—a job of work. However, nothing cleared people out of the way faster than announcing, “Dark side coming through!”

  Not that she actually yelled that out loud. She wanted to. But the bare facts had been enough to get the Jedi Council to clear the area fast, which meant she had no excuse, and nothing to distract her from the eerie task ahead.

  First, aboard the Vessel, they carefully transferred each of the idols to an antigravity floater. Then Orla led their procession from ship to station. Her job was to make sure no one accidentally blundered into the “closed” area, while the other Masters followed behind to keep the most careful watch on the idols.

  Dozens of people stood in side corridors, not so much watching as waiting for their pathway to be cleared. However, as Orla led the statues forward, the restive onlookers would hush and go still, until the only sounds were their footsteps and the low hum of the floaters. Even those few civilian guests who couldn’t sense the Force would be struck by the ornate carvings and the sinister cast of each idol’s face.

  As for those who could sense the Force? The protective hold they’d placed on the idols back at the station remained strong; there was no immediate danger. But the hold itself prickled uneasily at the edges of Orla’s consciousness. It was rather like the feeling of knowing, without turning around, that someone has entered a room that was supposed to be locked.

  They were, in fact, about to enter a place that had been effectively locked for a long time—one kept apart from the Temple at large, hidden from the Jedi themselves: the Shrine in the Depths.

  Currently, the shrine on the very lowest levels of the Temple was covered by a meditation area, which had been hastily disassembled upon the Vessel’s arrival on Coruscant. Orla’s heartbeat quickened as they slowly walked through the large, darkened room, over what remained of the floor, until they reached the square dark pit at the center. Stairs had been carved in the stone long before, long enough for the edges to have been blunted. So long before, in fact, that Jedi had not been there at all.

  Few people knew that the Jedi Temple had been built atop a Sith shrine.

  A vergeance in the Force existed there—a nexus of power and energy that could be put to many uses, both worthy and wicked. Vergeances rose of their own accord; they could not be created, only discovered. In the far distant past of the Old Republic, back during the ancient Sith Empire, Sith and Jedi had often warred for control of these vergeances. The Sith had held this one first.

  Maybe, Orla thought, the idols are coming home.

  She was being melodramatic. The Jedi h
ad controlled this vergeance for thousands of years—first through their own shrine, then through the construction of the Temple.

  Still, it was the Sith who had carved the steps.

  Orla led the way down, holding up the hem of her white robes as she entered the darkened shrine. They were underground, and she could feel the damp coolness that forever permeated the space. The air even smelled of dirt.

  Relics and other objects strongly imbued with the dark side of the Force were taken there for purification. There, Orla would work with some of the great Masters to strip the dark energy from the idols in that safe, sacred space, where it could sink into the vergeance, dissipate into the cosmic Force, and again be made whole.

  Orla sighed as she thought, In theory, anyway. Reality might be a whole lot more dangerous.

  Reath took his Wookiee charge to the spacedock infirmary, to reunite it (her, as it turned out) with her parents. This infirmary only handled less critical health concerns: vaccinations, minor injuries, the occasional quarantine from travel. At least, that was the plan.

  Nothing after the hyperspace disaster had gone according to plan. That was made clearer than ever to Reath when a medical droid whirred through the infirmary doors, giving him a look at what might as well have been a war zone. After the first burst of shock, he heard the ecstatic growls of two Wookiee parents coming to retrieve their daughter.

  He submitted to thanks, hugging, and even some grooming before leaving the reunited family happy together. As soon as he had, he hurried toward the doors to figure out how he could help.

  Every flat surface of the infirmary—beds, counters, floors—was almost entirely covered with the wounded from the Journeyman explosion. While those on the floor seemed to have more minor injuries, like broken limbs or lacerations, some of the ones in the beds were hooked up to multiple monitors and regulators. The constant whirrs and beeps could not drown out the moans. While a couple of organic physicians were hurrying from person to person, both they and the handful of med droids were clearly overworked.