He was staring at readings that told him that he was not inside the Kathol Rift, but in orbit around Coruscant. A blink of an eye later, the readings insisted that the ship was in imminent danger of tearing itself apart. Then they were picking up signs of a ship that wasn’t there.
Another illusion. Ben almost smiled to himself. Maybe this was what happened in the Rift—the hallucinations started out as generic and became more and more specific. Although the whole Coruscant thing was kinda stupid, because Ben knew good and well that—
Luke came racing back from the galley, dropped into the copilot’s seat, and began, swiftly but with control, to bring the Jade Shadow back in line. Ben felt him extend his senses in the Force, and the ship seemed to quiet, almost like a living animal responding to the calmness of its master.
“Oh,” Ben said. “That … wasn’t a hallucination.”
“No,” Luke said, his blue eyes narrowing as he gazed at the readings. “Although I can see how you thought it was.” On the screen was a “reading” of Tatooine.
Then there was that ship.
There was a sudden bright flash, and the ship that had appeared on the readings was right in front of them.
It was huge, it had come out of nowhere, it was discordant, and it was directly on top of them. For an instant Ben was reminded of the Yuuzhan Vong ships, but if their vessels were organic in a plant-based fashion, this was living stone. It was a sphere, sort of, but nothing so precise. Strange projections jutted out—exhaust ports? thruster ports?—seemingly at random. It was covered with thick hull plates that were etched with some kind of writing or symbols. And it was moving steadily toward them.
“Well, Ben, looks like we can stop searching. The Aing-Tii have found us.”
It had to be. The Sanhedrim ships could move from one place to another in the blink of an eye. And clearly, they had the ability to affect or confuse readings. As he started to think more clearly, Ben realized that what he’d seen had been stored images and information on the planets, not actual live readings.
“When you can’t trust your eyes,” Luke said, and Ben finished for him, “Trust the Force.”
Ben softened his gaze and dropped into a receptive state, extending his feelings and senses out into the Force that had once so frightened him and was now such a source of strength, knowledge, and even comfort.
It took a while, and he kept part of his attention on the enormous ship in front of them. It made no attempt to contact or fire upon them, but neither did it move away. Ben was certain that the Aing-Tii were watching them as surely as he and Luke were watching their ship.
And then Ben felt them.
They were like no other energy he had ever encountered in the Force. They felt—shifting, weaving in and out of the Force—like they were not really a part of it, although Ben knew that all living things were part of the Force. They were there, and they were not, and they managed both at the same time, and holding that contradiction in his mind was starting to give Ben a headache.
He felt his father reaching out, a strong, clear, bright, calm presence in the Force. There were no words, but Luke was open and inviting. Luke was still as stone, his eyes, like Ben’s, open, seeing and also focusing inward.
The response all but took the wind out of him, so powerful was it.
There was a definite sense of—not hostility, but not-wanting. They were not welcome, but neither were they being repulsed. Yet.
They were to be tested. They must prove themselves. There was a hint of softening, and Ben realized that somehow the Aing-Tii knew why they had come, and would at least give them the chance to speak. The softening suddenly turned hard, cold. Ben knew that if they failed the test, they would be refused … and he got a definite sense that that “refusal” would not be anything pleasant.
He felt his father agree, and then Luke took a deep breath. Ben felt him withdraw from the Force as a conscious presence. He still sensed Luke—he would always be able to sense him, unless Luke himself deliberately chose otherwise. Just as Ben sometimes chose not to be present in the Force. He, too, withdrew, and ground a palm into his tired eyes.
“You agreed to their test,” he said.
“I don’t really think there was a choice, Ben.”
“I don’t either. But how do—”
Their screen blinked. Coordinates suddenly appeared on it.
“Never mind,” Luke said. “Let’s go.”
ABOARD THE JADE SHADOW
AFTER ALL THE STRUGGLING, GUESSWORK, AND SHEER TEETH-RATTLING endurance Ben and Luke had suffered through over the last several days, their current situation had a definite air of relief about it.
Soon after Luke had conveyed his agreement to the Aing-Tii’s proposal, coordinates had begun scrolling across the screen. It was a series of jumps that proved to be shockingly easy. On the third jump, Ben said, “You know, we should have been able to figure these out on our own.”
Luke replied mildly, “Seems to me that we’ve spent several days attempting to do precisely that, and that the jumps we’re now executing had not occurred to either of us. Besides, we had no specific direction—we were simply trying to cast our net as wide as possible.”
Ben sighed. “I know … I just feel a little foolish. It’s so obvious, now that I look at it.”
“Things are usually obvious when you’re on the other side of them,” Luke replied. “Also, if we had arrived unexpectedly in orbit around the Aing-Tii homeworld, we might well have been attacked and killed before we could even present our case properly.”
Ben threw up his hands in surrender, laughing. “You win. I don’t know why you needed to hire Nawara Ven. You argue a case well enough on your own.”
Both fell silent, though, when after the final jump they found themselves orbiting not a planet full of sentient beings but a small, uninhabited moon.
“Dad,” Ben said slowly, “do you think we just walked into a trap?”
Luke shook his blond head. “No. If they had wanted to kill us, they had a perfect opportunity to do so earlier. I’d hoped that the test would be conducted on their homeworld, but apparently this is the site they’ve selected.”
Ben touched the controls. The moon was rocky and inhospitable. “It has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, which is good, although the oxygen is a bit lower than ideal. And we’re not entirely protected from the EMR of the Rift, but the hassat-durr technique should keep us safe enough,” he said with just a touch of uncertainty.
“Will we need breath masks?”
“No.” Thank goodness. “We should be all right outside the Shadow for a few hours. And there’s a single life-form. Mammalian.”
“Our welcoming party,” said Luke, “who will no doubt be the one administering the challenge.”
The surface was as rocky as it had appeared from space. As they maneuvered the Shadow in for a landing, still following the extremely precise coordinates they had been given, they saw the Aing-Tii vessel. The ship was clearly of the same make as the Sanhedrim ship that had confronted them earlier, but on a smaller, more personal scale. It still looked unsettlingly organic to Ben. There were similar protrusions extending from its ovoid, but he could see no doors or ramps. Nor was there any sign of the Aing-Tii representative they had anticipated would greet them. Ben and Luke exchanged glances.
“Maybe it will disembark once we show good faith,” Luke suggested.
“I hope so. This is all feeling pretty weird.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree.”
Luke settled the Shadow on the rocky soil, near but not too close to their host’s vessel. Ben reached for his cloak—after all that time spent on Dorin lugging around a breath mask and assorted canisters, he wanted to take only the minimum he’d need.
“Leave the lightsaber,” Luke said, already unfastening his own. “We’re not coming anticipating a fight.”
“What if they give us one?”
“The Force will give us enough to rely on if we have to defend ourselves. Bu
t Ben—this is the species that Yoda sent a man to for healing. I don’t think this challenge is to the death.”
Ben wasn’t so sure. “Yeah, and they sometimes appear out of nowhere and ram ships, too.” But he left his lightsaber behind as his father wished.
Ben felt slightly light-headed the moment they stepped down the ramp, but the sensation wasn’t extreme. They approached slowly, giving the Aing-Tii plenty of time to exit his own vessel. Several large, gray rocks were clustered within a few meters of the ship. Ben wondered why the Aing-Tii had chosen such a landing site when a few hundred meters to the north there was a large area that was completely clear.
Luke slowed the pace even further the closer they drew. He frowned a little, revealing that he was as puzzled as Ben. “Perhaps this is part of the challenge,” he murmured slightly.
And then one of the rocks near the ship moved.
It uncurled slowly, languidly, extending a long tail, two powerful lower limbs, two smaller forelegs, and a large head on a sinuous neck. It fixed them with large, dark, unblinking eyes as it curled its tail beneath it and sank back on its hind legs. Ben instinctively knew that the slow revelation of its presence was deliberate and for their benefit. This creature could probably transform from appearing to be a simple rock formation to a deadly threat in a heartbeat. Even now that it was not curled up but rather sitting, it still blended in with its environment.
It was much more imposing than the holographic image Ben had studied. Something about its plating and its stillness was unsettling. Ben glanced at his father.
Luke bowed politely and Ben followed suit. “I am Jedi Luke Skywalker. This is my son, Ben. Thank you for being willing to meet with us. We have come as requested to accept your challenge.”
Ben and Luke waited. The being did not move. Ben took in the geometric designs on certain pieces of the jointed plating that covered its body. He recognized a few of them as being the same as some of those he had seen on the Sanhedrim ship. This close to the creature, he could see now that the patterns were not simply painted on but were etched into the Aing-Tii’s shell and then stained. Ben wondered if it had hurt, or if, as it appeared, the plating was more like armor or some kind of exoskeleton than like skin.
“I don’t think he understands Basic, Dad,” Ben said quietly after a few minutes.
“Doesn’t look like it, no.”
Ben glanced at the vessel. “They seem to be highly advanced technologically. And we know that they’ve been able to communicate with humans before. So why is he not making use of his equipment? How’s he supposed to tell us what our challenge is?”
Luke smiled slightly. “Because I’m willing to bet that our challenge is to figure out a way to communicate with him without the use of technology. Which is going to be a fine challenge indeed, as the Aing-Tii communicate among themselves by tasting, smelling, and touching one another with their tongues,” he added.
As if it had heard and completely understood everything that had been said, the stone-still creature suddenly opened its mouth. Six thin, bright green tendrils shot out and flickered about wildly.
“Oh gross,” said Ben.
Then he wondered if the Aing-Tii actually had been able to understand everything they had said, and he blushed a little.
The Aing-Tii withdrew its glistening green tongues and was as still as if it had never moved at all.
“How are we supposed to learn that kind of language?” Ben asked, his voice slightly sharp. He would have died before admitting it, but the sudden movement of the previously motionless being—particularly when that movement involved green tongues—had startled him.
“We don’t,” Luke said quietly. His gaze was locked with the dark, shiny, fist-sized orbs of the Aing-Tii. “We don’t learn his language, and he doesn’t learn ours.”
“But we have to communi—” Ben blinked. “Wait a minute. How do you know it’s a he?”
“The same way I intend to communicate with him,” Luke replied. His voice was softer, slightly deeper, and although he was still regarding the Aing-Tii, Ben realized that his father wasn’t really seeing the being. Luke took several steps forward, closing the space between himself and the Aing-Tii, and then eased himself to the rocky ground to sit facing it. Him.
And then Ben got it.
Without another word, he followed his father’s example, moving to sit cross-legged beside Luke, turning his face up—for even seated, the Aing-Tii was taller than they—to the alien. He let his gaze soften but did not close his eyes, and slowed his breathing despite the thinness of the atmosphere.
He felt a touch on his hand, and turned it so that his father and he were clasping hands. Luke needed physical contact if he was to extend the hassat-durr technique to protect both himself and Ben. Ben wasn’t accustomed to holding hands with his dad, but he felt a slight tingling and was grateful for the shielding Luke was offering.
He sensed his father in the Force immediately, of course. Luke Sky-walker was a bright, shining presence to anyone who was Force-sensitive, and his bond with Ben enabled the youth to connect with him at once.
Ben did not sense the being before him, and wondered if the Aing-Tii knew the same technique for masking his presence in the Force as he, Ben, knew. He felt a little puzzled. He was certain his father had gotten it right. But if this being truly wanted to communicate with them in the Force, then why the—
And then suddenly he was there, shining as bright as Luke Sky-walker but in an entirely different way. Tadar’Ro, for suddenly Ben knew his name, was a completely different type of Force-user than any Ben had ever encountered. His presence felt—splintered somehow, but not in a negative way. This was not a splintering caused by being broken, but by choice, by design. It was as if Tadar’Ro’s Force self was a sort of fabric, woven of many threads, and he was now permitting the Skywalkers to see and comprehend this.
Ben had felt it when people’s life essences had winked out of the Force. He was accustomed to the sickening sensation. He had been told that his namesake, Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi, had staggered and appeared faint when Alderaan had been blown to bits by the Death Star. So many deaths all at once had to have been traumatic.
What Ben experienced now, though, while overwhelmingly intense, was not horrifying, not at all. He realized his breathing had speeded up, and that the air that he was sucking into his lungs wasn’t quite doing the trick, and the shimmering, many-stranded being that was Tadar’Ro had somehow gotten hold of him in the Force and—
He had no option. Ben abruptly withdrew from the Force and slammed the door shut.
He realized he was sweating heavily and shaking. He turned to look at his father, who had lifted a hand in a dismissive yet gentle gesture.
“Go back to the Shadow, Ben,” Luke said. He was still gazing raptly at Tadar’Ro. “I’ll be there soon.”
Ben felt his face flush a second time. He hadn’t been able to handle it—whatever it was.
He rose and walked back to the ship. As he started to ascend the ramp, he turned and looked back to see Tadar’Ro’s long, thin green tongues flickering and caressing his father’s upturned face.
BEN WAS GLAD TO RETURN TO THE MORE FAMILIAR, COMFORTABLE ARTIFICIAL atmosphere of his mother’s ship. Once back on board, though, he threw himself into his studies of the Aing-Tii as a sort of penance for what he perceived as a failure, only to realize how very little specific information there actually was. He therefore amused himself with a holodrama, embarrassed that he was doing such a thing but too agitated to bestir himself to do anything else.
He was lying back in the flowform chair, going over what he had experienced with one part of his mind and observing the acting with the other, when he heard the door slide open and Luke’s voice calling him.
“Ben?”
Ben turned off the holodrama quickly. “Dad … How did it go? What was he doing? I’m sorry I couldn’t—”
“You did just fine,” Luke said reassuringly. “Even I’ve never experienced anyt
hing like what Tadar’Ro tried to share with me.”
He did look a bit drained, Ben thought. The knowledge mitigated his own feeling of falling short.
“Did you communicate with him in an acceptable way?”
Luke got a glass of water, gulped it down, refilled it, and dropped into the chair beside Ben. Ben seemed to notice, really notice, the creases in his father’s face and the gray in his blond hair. The fingers that curled around the glass were strong and calloused and nicked. Luke Skywalker looked quite mortal at the moment, and Ben realized that the revelation made him uneasy. Then he thought about how wiped out he’d felt after a much shorter stay in the thin atmosphere, and convinced himself his father was just fine.
Almost.
“Yes, though it was quite exhausting.”
“They’re a very … alien species, aren’t they?” Ben said.
Luke chuckled slightly and took another swig of the water. “Very. It’s absolutely fascinating. I can see why Jacen was so intrigued by them. They’re … like no other species I’ve ever met.”
“So,” Ben asked with fake casualness, “are we going to have the opportunity to meet more of them, or am I going to be stuck watching second-rate holodramas while we head on to the next possible clue?”
“Let me put it this way,” Luke said. “Get used to being licked.”
ABOARD THE JADE SHADOW
“IT’S NOT TELEPATHY, IS IT?” BEN INQUIRED AS HE PLOTTED OUT THE jump according to the information Tadar’Ro had transmitted to the Jade Shadow.
“No. But there’s more of an understanding of specifics than you and I are accustomed to experiencing when we touch someone through the Force,” Luke said. “And it seemed to be enough for them to understand Basic.”
“But how are they going to talk to us?” Ben inquired. “I mean … those tongues don’t look like they’ll operate the way ours do.”
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi II: Omen Page 14
