Reunion: Force Heretic III

by Sean Williams

  I think it’s time to get out of here, she thought.

  When she attempted to break the meld, however, she found that she couldn’t. The illusion of the worldship seemed to close in around her like the walls of a cage, and she realized with alarm that she was trapped.

  Ash’nagh vruckuul urukh, mocked the voice of Riina from the shadows. Esh tiiri ahnakh!

  Jaina saw an image of Tahiri hunting her shadow flashing out of the void. Jaina quelled a sense of dread and frustration rising in her. There had to be something she could do. She just hoped she could find it in time …

  Luke’s thoughts should have been clear when the time came for the meeting with the Magister, but instead they were an untidy tangle. Ever since Jacen had told him about his encounter with the young Ferroan girl, that was all he’d been able to think about.

  Anakin killed the Blood Carver without a lightsaber …

  He could understand Jacen’s initial confusion. At first he, too, had assumed that Tescia had meant Anakin Solo. But he knew that wasn’t possible. Luke’s youngest nephew had never come to the Unknown Regions, and he certainly couldn’t have kept his encounter with a living planet a secret if he had. No, the girl had clearly been referring to Luke’s father. Before Zonama Sekot had vanished into the Unknown Regions, Anakin Skywalker must have come here—and he’d come with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Why they had done so, though, Luke couldn’t imagine. To look for Vergere, perhaps? In search of the same thing she’d been after: the planet’s biological technology? And what had happened to them here? What did it mean that the boy had killed a Blood Carver without using a lightsaber? That he had used the power of the dark side?

  Without more information, it was all just speculation. Nevertheless, he found it difficult to turn his thoughts away from the matter. His mind was still spinning with possibilities when Darak and Rowel finally came to inform them all that it was time.

  Luke took a deep, calming breath and let himself be led with the others from the habitat. Night had fallen, turning the tampasi into a vast, starless space that chattered with half-heard rustlings and strange calls from unseen animals. The only light came from balls of bioluminescence balancing atop slender stalks. Standing a meter taller than Luke, they cast a bright greenish glow across the undergrowth. A double row of these lightstalks led a path around the bulk of a nearby tree, a path that Darak and Rowel took them along without ceremony or conversation. Far above, where they’d been tethered for the night, the massive shapes of the kyboes shifted restlessly in their sleep.

  The light-stalk path wound through the trees for several hundred meters before culminating in a large, bowl-shaped depression. There, gathered in a circle, a dozen Ferroans awaited them. Standing in the center of these was the black-robed figure of the Magister. She bowed her black-maned head respectfully as they entered the natural amphitheater. The Ferroans—four men and eight women—offered no such gesture; they just stared at the visitors with undisguised suspicion and hostility.

  Darak and Rowel guided the group to the center of the depression, then stepped back to stand symbolically at the end of the path that had brought them there. The Ferroans now surrounded them: to leave the meeting place they would have to break the circle.

  When all was still, the Magister spoke.

  “Once again the Jedi come to us,” she said. Her voice was soft, like a cool breeze on a hot night, but it carried clearly to those gathered around her. “As always, you bring more questions than answers.”

  “We are here to answer those questions,” Luke said, wondering why the Magister looked different. Her presence in the Force was strong, but much more muted than it had been on the landing field. The impression nagged at him, even as he put it aside to concentrate on the conversation. “There are many we would ask of you, too.”

  She inclined her head slightly, then straightened. “There are some among the council who would have me ask Sekot to send you away immediately. You come to us, by your own admission, as harbingers of doom. I have heard it said that you are more than that; that you bring a direct and deliberate threat to us and to our way of life.”

  “What do you mean?” Jacen asked. “We haven’t made any threats. We mean no harm.”

  “Three times, now, we have had to defend ourselves,” the Magister explained, “and each time Jedi were present. You cannot blame us for wondering: is it the circumstances that attract you, or are the circumstances a result of your visits?”

  “Magister,” Luke said, “if these attacks upon you are in any way connected to our being here, then I assure you it is unintentional on our part. The Far Outsiders arrived before us; we had no idea they would be here until we arrived. Their presence here is a mystery to us. Perhaps we can solve it together, if you allow us to.”

  “How would you have us do that?”

  “We begin by talking. As I have said before, we are here to discuss our common enemy—the ones we refer to as Yuuzhan Vong. It is a long story, but perhaps in its telling you will come to see the truth of what I say—and the sincerity of our intentions.”

  The Magister pondered this for a long moment. Again Luke sensed a fundamental difference between their first meeting and the present. Where before she had been curious about the Jedi, welcoming them cheerfully and openly, now she seemed wary and protective. He wondered what had changed her mind.

  Her gaze swept the visitors gathered before her. With a slight nod, she seemed to come to a decision. Her legs folded beneath her and she sank gracefully to the ground. Her robe pooled around her on the soft undergrowth.

  “My name is Jabitha,” she said. “We shall hear your story.” She indicated for Luke and the others to likewise sit upon the grass. The other Ferroans, perhaps pointedly, remained standing. “Sekot invites you to talk freely.”

  Luke took a deep breath, and began. He started from the time the Yuuzhan Vong had first come to the attention of the New Republic on Belkadan, when Danni Quee had witnessed the launch of their invasion. The grim progression of the war was burned in his mind: from Sernpidal, where Chewbacca died, to Helska 4, Dubrillion, Destrillion, Dantooine, Bimmiel, Garqi, Ithor, Obroa-skai, Ord Mantell, Gyndine, Tynna, Fondor and its shipyards; Kalarba, Nal Hutta, Nar Shadaa, Sriluur, Druckenwell, Rodia, Falleen, Kubindi, Duro; the Jedi academy lost with Yavin 4, Ando, Myrkyr, where Anakin Solo fell, and Coruscant, the capital, where for a while all hope seemed lost.

  He talked about the hundreds of billions of deaths across the galaxy, trying to capture in words how it felt to watch everything he had loved slip away—not just the government he’d helped form from the ashes of the Empire, but also the principles on which it had been based. As the Senate had dissolved into bureaucracy and corruption during the last days on Coruscant, he had seen former allies turn against each other, driven by fear and self-preservation—but in the end only hastening the Yuuzhan Vong’s steady march.

  He talked about biological technologies, and the Yuuzhan Vong’s philosophy of pain and sacrifice. He described worlds succumbing to insidious growths, free people plucked from their homes and turned into blaster fodder, spies sent to disrupt the peace by spreading lies about those encouraging the survivors to band together against the enemy. He talked of desperation and of genocide, of plans to end the oppression that were rooted in the very same evils, of the Jedi’s hope to find a middle ground, to keep the people of the Galactic Alliance free of the stain of mass murder. He spoke of his love for Ben, and his hope that his son might one day grow to know a peaceful life in a galaxy in which war was not the norm.

  “What does this have to do with Zonama Sekot?” the Magister, Jabitha, asked when Luke had finished. “What is it that brings you here, so far from your home, from your war?”

  Jacen took up the thread of the story to answer her question.

  “We have come here because my teacher, Vergere, advised that the answer to our problems might lie on Zonama Sekot.” He described their mission to find the living planet through the Unknown Regions, not omitting the
defense of the Empire or the tense internal conflict in the Chiss territories. He followed their path through the Chiss library, tracing legends and folktales of the wandering planet. He successfully evoked the despair they’d felt when it seemed that the living world might slip through their fingers, despite their best efforts. The realization that Zonama Sekot might be masquerading as a moon rather than an independent planet, he told Jabitha, had been the key to resolving the mystery. The location finally found, they’d set off immediately from Csilla to find their objective.

  At the conclusion of his speech, Jabitha frowned, confused, and shook her head. “But this still does not explain why you are here. In what way did Vergere expect us to be able to help you?”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out,” Mara said. Luke could feel her impatience kept carefully in check. The attitude of the Ferroans had rankled her from the start, but he trusted her not to say anything precipitous.

  “We are but one world with a small population,” Jabitha said. “What can we do against this invading horde you have described? Our strength lies in defense, not offense.”

  “That may be so,” Danni said, “but if we’d had your defenses at our disposal in the first place, we may have stood a better chance of repelling the Yuuzhan Vong at the borders of the galaxy.”

  The Magister’s frown deepened. “Your words make it sound as though Zonama Sekot is all-powerful. But this is not so. Although it did once manage to repel the Far Outsiders, it was not without suffering major damage to itself. The attack traumatized it greatly. Our defenses are not impenetrable.” She looked down at her feet, then back at Luke. “You should know that the conflict you witnessed has also scarred Sekot deeply, mentally if not physically. The appearance of the Far Outsiders came as a terrible shock. Sekot was not anticipating them; there was no reason to suspect that they were nearby. They tried to study us without being noticed, but our sensors are acute. Sekot’s defenses were activated, and the Far Outsiders took that as an aggressive reaction. They, too, reacted defensively. It is not clear who struck the first blow. The conflict was sparked by fear and uncertainty, as many conflicts are. We do not wish to be party to another such conflict.”

  “I understand,” Luke said, although there was much about the situation that remained mysterious. He had assumed that the Yuuzhan Vong had opened fire on the living planet, as they had once before. “We would not want to place Sekot in any more peril than it already faces. But you must be aware that you are in peril already. The Yuuzhan Vong have stumbled across Zonama Sekot twice now, on different sides of the galaxy. They are not so many that this could have happened by chance.” Although he lacked hard evidence to back up the claim, Luke pressed on with the point. “They must be looking for you—and they will keep looking until they find you again. If so much as one ship survived the fleet that found you this time, they will descend upon you en masse, and you won’t be able to defend yourselves.”

  The Ferroans shifted restlessly, unnerved by the image, but Jabitha didn’t flinch from it.

  “And what would you have us do?” the Magister asked Luke. “You speak of consciences, of right and wrong, and of the horrors perpetrated upon you and the galaxy by the Far Outsiders. You speak of their wish for genocide. And yet, do you not wish the same for them? Do you not wish them removed from the galaxy as they wish you?”

  “Absolutely not,” Luke said. “We have, in fact, fought hard to prevent just such an outcome,” he added, the horror of the Alpha Red virus still fresh in his mind.

  “The Yuuzhan Vong aren’t all warriors,” Jacen said. “They are women and children, too. They are slaves, and outcasts, and scientists, and workers. They have as much right to life as we do. There is no question about that.”

  “Then why have you come here? What possible help can we give you?”

  “We must work together to find that out,” Luke said.

  “Must?” Jabitha echoed. “It is true that all have a right to life. It is also true that everyone must decide what to do with it. Sekot chose to distance itself from the rest of the galaxy when our attempts to trade peacefully were met by aggression and suspicion. We have suffered greatly to find peace. Why must we suffer again on behalf of those who do not have the fortitude to free themselves?”

  “Because the living Force requires it,” Jacen said.

  Jabitha’s eyes flashed at Jacen. “What is that? You dare presume to speak for the Force?”

  Silence fell around the amphitheater. The air was thick with tension. Luke could feel the situation rapidly slipping from their control. In the hope of rekindling the welcome they had first received from the Magister, he decided to try another tack.

  “You say that you have been attacked three times,” he said. “We know of two instances, both perpetrated by the Yuuzhan Vong. Were they behind the third, too?”

  “No,” the Magister said. “That force consisted of forces of the Republic, led by a Commander Tarkin.”

  Luke’s eyebrows raised slightly. That was a name from the past he recognized only too well. “Is that when you fled? When you went into hiding?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that was the same time the Jedi were last here?” he persisted. “After Vergere’s visit?”

  “Yes.”

  Luke detected a slight softening of Jabitha’s expression. That was the encouragement he had been hoping for.

  “Tell me about them,” he said. “Tell me about Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

  The silence seemed to stretch forever. It felt to Luke as though everyone had stopped breathing. Even the soft night breeze rustling through the branches above seemed to stop.

  “They came looking for Vergere,” Jabitha said eventually. “And they came out of curiosity, wondering at the living ships we once sold to a select few. Under the guise of clienthood, they passed a testing ritual designed to see if they were suitable for partnership with one of our ships. The youngest, Anakin, was a mystery to us all. Normally, during the ritual, three or so seed-partners would bond with the client to form the basis of a new ship. Anakin drew twelve to him. His ship was a thing of beauty.” Jabitha paused, her gaze distant as though recalling long-forgotten times. “The Force shone brightly in Anakin. He was, briefly, my friend.”

  A strange feeling crawled into Luke’s stomach. “You met him?”

  “He saved my life,” she answered. “And he revealed to me the truth about my father.”

  The words that Jacen had told him about the Blood Carver once again echoed in Luke’s mind.

  “There was a Blood Carver,” he prompted.

  “An assassin sent to kill Anakin,” Jabitha explained, nodding. “He used me to gain leverage over Anakin, and Anakin became very angry. He killed with the strength of his mind. Until that moment, we had not known that such things were possible.”

  “They are possible,” Luke said, ignoring the emotions pouring through him at the revelations concerning his father, “but killing out of anger is wrong. The power of the dark side is seductive and dangerous. The Jedi have never countenanced its use.”

  “Yet Anakin used it.”

  Luke tried to find the words that might easiest convey Anakin Skywalker’s fate. “It came at a cost,” he said after some reflection.

  Her gaze focused on him, sharp as a Tusken Raider’s gaderffii. “You are his son, aren’t you? And I don’t just mean that because you share the same name. He is in you.” She faced Jacen. “And you, too.”

  “He was my grandfather,” Jacen said; Luke just nodded.

  “Sekot recognized the echoes of my friend in you both when you came here. That is in part why you were allowed to land. But you dismiss Anakin’s actions as though they were an aberration, a mistake. We do not remember them that way. He loved our world, and we will not allow anything you say to damn his memory.”

  “The dark side is the dark side,” Mara pronounced. “If you’d met Luke’s father when he was older, you wouldn’t be so quick to defend him.”
>
  “That Anakin did what he did out of good is more important to us than the means he chose. He was a child, and you will not damn him for that here. He saved me.”

  Luke countered her defensiveness with a calming gesture. “It is true that I once abhorred all my father stood for, but I have not held such thoughts in a long time. You see, he saved me, too, when the Emperor, his Sith Master, tried to kill me. I no longer wish his spirit ill will; his name lived on through my family, who found no shame in it. I would count a friend of Anakin Skywalker a friend of mine, were I permitted to.” He held Jabitha’s gaze without flinching. “But the shadow of Darth Vader, the man he became when he embraced the dark side, still hangs heavily over us. We have fought long and hard to free ourselves from his oppression—and we will not succumb to the same mistake he made in order to fight the Yuuzhan Vong. That would make a mockery of everything my father stood for, at the beginning and end of his life.”

  Jabitha bowed her head in acknowledgment of his short speech, but whether he’d convinced her or not was uncertain.

  “It is late,” she said. “You have had a long journey and must be tired. If you will allow us, we will provide you with shelter for the night.”

  Luke felt disheartened. “Does that mean that our discussions are at an end?”

  “I need time to talk with the council.” Jabitha indicated the ring of stony-faced Ferroans standing around them. “We will take into consideration all that has been said here this night and decide whether or not there is anything more to discuss.”

  “Then I advise you to consider very carefully,” Mara said. “The Yuuzhan Vong don’t keep treaties, and they don’t take prisoners. If they do overrun this galaxy, then they will ultimately destroy you, too. No matter how powerful Sekot thinks it is, no matter how far it runs, it won’t be able to hold them off forever. And it’ll be too late then to look for allies, because we’ll all be dead.”

  “My wife’s words are blunt, but truthful,” Luke said. “If you have any doubts about the Yuuzhan Vong’s motives, we can show you the history of the war in more detail.”