Reunion: Force Heretic III

by Sean Williams

  “One step at a time,” Mara said, as though reading his mind.

  Perhaps she was, he thought. Sometimes it seemed to him that his wife’s green eyes could see right into his soul.

  “The journey is changing us, Mara,” he said. “We’re not the same people we were when we set out.”

  “But that’s life, my love,” she said. “Without change, then we may as well be dead.”

  Luke smiled, feeling himself filled with the warmth of her affection. There were so many things he wanted to experience in the future, and all of them were with her. All they had to do was fix the problem of the Yuuzhan Vong and everything else, he was sure, would fall into place.

  “Jacen, would you—?”

  Luke turned to ask his nephew to make sure Sekot and Jabitha weren’t growing restless outside the ship, but Jacen was already gone.

  “Do you think we embarrass him?” Luke said.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe he’s just jealous of what we have together.”

  Luke was silent for a moment. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”

  Danni was talking to the young Ferroan girl, Tescia, under the eaves of a looming boras. The afternoon sun made the air heavy with heat, but in the shade it was almost cool. There was a pregnancy to the undergrowth, as though it might part at any moment to reveal some strange new form of life.

  Jacen paused to lean on a root elbowing out of the ground nearby and listened in.

  “And then,” the Ferroan child was saying, “I want to see where Anakin came from, and Obi-Wan.”

  “You mean Coruscant?” Danni asked, glancing at Jacen and offering a fleeting smile before returning her attention to the girl.

  “Yes,” Tescia said. “It must be the most amazing place!”

  “It was,” Danni said. “I don’t know what it looks like now.”

  “We’ll go there,” Tescia said. “We’ll go there and get rid of the Far Outsiders and rebuild the world of cities.”

  “I hope you’re right, Tescia.” Danni smoothed a stray lock of golden hair from the girl’s forehead. “I really hope you are.”

  The girl smiled up at her new friend, and together they discussed where they’d visit first, when Coruscant was safe again.

  Is this the planet speaking, Jacen wondered as he listened, or a girl brought up on stories of far-off places she never dreamed she would see?

  Whatever the source of the urge, Jacen wondered where he would go if Zonama Sekot helped the Galactic Alliance return peace to the galaxy. There was no easy answer. His memories of Coruscant were a mess of good and bad, spanning his entire life. Part of him was tempted to encourage the tearing down of the city-planet from skyhook to deepest basement, so that something new could be built in its place, but who would decide what should take its place? Who deserved that responsibility?

  Jacen was distracted by a low chuckle coming from the undergrowth. He looked up to see the image of Vergere standing near him, her feathery fringe dancing in a virtual breeze.

  “Things come and go, Jacen Solo,” Sekot said. “We both know that.”

  “Are you reading my mind?” he asked.

  “Perhaps. You still wonder, sometimes, why I woke you first when you arrived here. This, and many other things, you will understand in time.”

  He stared at his hands for a moment. “I wish you wouldn’t appear to me in that form. I find it disconcerting.”

  “Like this, then?” asked the child who would one day become Darth Vader.

  He met the disturbingly blue stare of his grandfather as directly as he could. “Why do you have to take on any form? Why can’t you just be who you are?”

  “Because you couldn’t begin to comprehend who I am,” Sekot said, returning to the image of Vergere. “There are limits to your understanding—just as there are limits to mine. Mine, however, are an order of magnitude removed from yours. Take no offense, Jacen Solo, but my talking to you now is like you talking to a dust mite that crawled across your skin. Do you believe that such a mite could understand you if you were to speak to it normally? Do you think you would even hear a reply if you listened with your normal ears?” Sekot shook Vergere’s head in answer to its own question. “Of course not. In order to communicate between such diverse scales of existence, one or both sides must change. For the moment, I am prepared to make that change.”

  “Only for the moment?” Jacen repeated.

  “We’ll see what the future holds.” Sekot’s expression was concerned, not threatening, yet Jacen felt distinctly unsettled by the conversation. What were they getting themselves into? They were bargaining with a creature literally beyond their comprehension. Who knew what its motives or goals were? Or whether it had some hidden agenda? …

  “Do you know what it is I crave?” said the living planet through the image of Vergere.

  Jacen shrugged. “Peace? Knowledge? A clear conscience?”

  “All those things are required for a good life. And all of them have a price.”

  “That’s what you want, then? To pay the price and earn a good life?”

  Sekot smiled with Vergere’s face. “I think that’s what we all want, Jacen Solo.”

  With those few words, Sekot slowly melted away, and Jacen was left alone to ponder them.

  Tahiri was in one of the Selonia’s empty holds, exercising. She wasn’t hiding as such, but was definitely trying to keep out of the way. It gave her an excuse to work on her technique. Since merging the two halves of her self, she’d been struggling to assimilate more than just ways of thought, speech, and being. The old Tahiri and Riina had fought in very different ways, and she needed to refine the techniques so she could more effectively incorporate both the next time she had to go into combat.

  As she sparred with shadows, tossing her lightsaber from hand to hand and kicking powerfully, leaping gracefully, striking the air with unerring accuracy, her mind kept a ceaseless running commentary: Jedi Force leap, asth-korr throat hold, Sand People high kick, Kwaad double punch …

  “Why’d you let him go?”

  The voice came from behind her and echoed through the hold. Tahiri didn’t break her rhythm even for a moment. She’d known he was coming twenty seconds before he appeared in the entrance.

  She performed one last fluid leap and landed firmly on both feet, her body now fully facing Han Solo. Tahiri extinguished her lightsaber, returning the pommel to her belt. She walked casually toward Han.

  “Let who go?” she asked, even though she knew who he was referring to.

  “Droma!” Han’s voice was thick with frustration. “I was getting worried because I hadn’t heard from him since we docked, so I started asking around. Captain Mayn told me that a Ryn ship called Fortune Seeker docked briefly with the Selonia not long ago, and now Jag informs me that Twin Suns escorted that ship to its hyperspace jump point. He didn’t know whether or not Droma was on board, of course, but I’m guessing that you do—seeing as you were the one who requested the escort for the ship in the first place. So I’ll ask you again: why did you let him go?”

  Tahiri offered a slight shrug. “Because he asked me to.”

  Han took two steps into the room. His expression was clouded—hurt, too, although he would never admit to that. He would claim that he was angry at having been deceived. But really, there had been no deception. He just hadn’t been told.

  “Why you?” Han asked. “Why wouldn’t he talk to me?”

  That was the core of it, she knew. He was transparent to her. She could see through his reserve with the cold clarity of an alien warrior and read his innermost thoughts with the sensitivity of a Jedi. She felt for him, in her own way.

  “Because he knew you would ask questions,” she said. “You’re too much a part of the system he is trying to work around. There can be only so much overlap before the members of the Ryn network lose the thing that makes them special and become like you: blind in subtle ways, vulnerable when you can’t afford to be. For now, you and he must stand apart—
until the day that peace comes.”

  Han shook his head. “Droma wasn’t a part of that network. They turned him down.”

  She smiled at his naïveté. “Do you remember Onadax?”

  “Onadax? What’s that got to—?”

  “Droma gave me a message to give to you,” she cut in smoothly. “He said to tell you that he hopes your timing’s better next time. And that he still doesn’t want your money.”

  “Timing? Money?” Confusion quickly became realization. “The creep who interrogated me at that bar! That was Droma?”

  She didn’t take any pleasure in the way Han had been fooled.

  “He encouraged the riot on Onadax to cover your getaway—and his, too. He’d been running the Ryn network through that operation, the bar, for six months. That was about three months longer than he would have liked, he said, but it was necessary to take that much time to make sure everything was running properly; once he was sure it was, he could move on. When you’re the head of such a secretive organization, he said, you don’t want to sit still too long. Their strength lies in their—”

  “Wait a minute,” Han said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “The head of the organization? Droma? The Ryn?”

  “It makes sense if you think about it. Your involvement with him gave him a very high standing with all the Ryn. His species has been leaderless for a very long time—not that they want what we would traditionally regard as a leader. They’re nomads, born to be wanderers and therefore endlessly exploited. They’re expected to wander all over the galaxy, so few security people will stop them, beyond the usual harassment. And if someone sees Ryn working, they’ll usually leave them alone. The Ryn go everywhere, see everything, and talk endlessly to each other by notes, songs, and rumors carried by trading ships. They’re frequent stowaways, so few people would become suspicious at finding Ryn where they weren’t meant to be.” She shrugged. “What he’s done is take what most people regard as being the Ryn’s weaknesses and turned them into strengths.”

  “Who’d have thought?” Han mused with a smile curling one corner of his mouth.

  She nodded.

  Han shook his head, losing the smile. “I still don’t understand why he had to leave so soon. Or why he couldn’t tell me all this himself.”

  She faced his incomprehension squarely. “The more people who know about him and his Ryn network, the greater the risk he runs. The less evidence exists that he runs the whole thing, the safer he becomes. His family won’t betray him, and neither will you, but there are people farther removed he can’t necessarily trust. The Ryn have learned the hard way not to place their faith in strangers.”

  “And what about you?” Han said. “I’d have thought you were more of a stranger to him than me.”

  “Given the reports he’d received from Goure on Bakura, as well as the Ryn on Galantos, Droma offered to adopt me into the movement.”

  “The fact that you’re telling me this now suggests you didn’t accept his offer.”

  She shook her head. “I was tempted, briefly, but I decided against it. For the moment, anyway.”

  The truth was, it was too early to decide what she was going to do with herself. She was no longer trying to walk two divergent paths simultaneously, tearing herself apart in the process; she was finally walking the one path, and she enjoyed the idea of continuing down that path until she figured out just what she wanted to do—no matter how long that took.

  With a sigh, Han’s hurt softened and became disappointment. “I would’ve liked the chance to tell him how good it was to see him again. You know?”

  “I do know,” she said. “And so did he.”

  “I don’t like the idea of not saying good-bye to my friends. These days you can’t be sure that you’re ever going to see them again.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” she said. “You’ll see Droma again. Maybe sooner than you think.”

  Han’s smile returned, then. He didn’t look convinced by Tahiri’s words of comfort, but he clearly appreciated them.

  “Thanks, Tahiri,” he said.

  “All wounds heal with time,” she said. The words rang with a truth that made her shiver. After so long, she could finally say them with absolute conviction. “All guilt fades, and opposites become one.”

  “Is that so?” he said with a perceptive look. “Perhaps you should try telling that to the people who made you like this.”

  She thought about this as she watched Han walk out of the room and return to his ship. Yun-Yammka, the Slayer, hung around her neck in the form of the small silver pendant that she had found on Galantos. It held no significance for her now at all, except as a symbol. It served as a reminder—sometimes grim, more often triumphant—of everything she had endured while finding her new self.

  Maybe I will tell them, she thought when Han had gone. Maybe I will …

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  #1 New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, SEAN WILLIAMS has published thirty novels for readers of all ages, seventy short stories across numerous genres, and even the odd poem. He has been called “the premier Australian speculative fiction writer of the age,” the “Emperor of Sci-Fi,” and the “King of Chameleons” for the diversity of his output. Best-known internationally for his award-winning space opera series, such as Evergence, Geodesica, and Astropolis, he is also the author of ten linked fantasy novels inspired by the landscapes of his childhood: the dry, flatlands of South Australia, where he still lives with his wife and family.

  BY SEAN WILLIAMS

  The Unknown Soldier (with Shane Dix)

  Metal Fatigue

  The Resurrected Man

  EVERGENCE (with Shane Dix]

  The Prodigal Sun

  The Dying Light

  The Dark Imbalance

  THE BOOKS OF THE CHANGE

  The Stone Mage & the Sea

  The Sky Warden & the Sun

  The Storm Weaver & the Sand

  ORPHANS (with Shane Dix)

  Echoes of Earth

  Orphans of Earth

  Heirs of Earth

  THE BOOKS OF THE CATACLYSM

  The Crooked Letter

  The Blood Debt

  The Hanging Mountains

  The Devoured Earth

  GEODESICA (with Shane Dix)

  Ascent

  Descent

  THE BROKEN LAND

  The Changeling

  The Dust Devils

  The Scarecrow

  ASTROPOLIS

  Saturn Returns

  Earth Ascendant

  Remaining in Light

  COLLECTIONS

  Doorways to Eternity

  A View Before Dying

  New Adventures in Sci-Fi

  Light Bodies Falling

  Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams

  Star Wars: Force Heretic I: Remnant (with Shane Dix)

  Star Wars: Force Heretic II: Refugee (with Shane Dix)

  Star Wars: Force Heretic III: Reunion (with Shane Dix)

  Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

  THE FIXERS

  Castle of Zombies

  Planet of Cyborgs

  Curse of the Vampire (forthcoming)

  Invasion of the Freaks (forthcoming)

  STAR WARS—The Expanded Universe

  You saw the movies. You watched the cartoon series, or maybe played some of the video games. But did you know …

  In The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia Organa said to Han Solo, “I love you.” Han said, “I know.” But did you know that they actually got married? And had three Jedi children: the twins, Jacen and Jaina, and a younger son, Anakin?

  Luke Skywalker was trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. But did you know that, years later, he went on to revive the Jedi Order and its commitment to defending the galaxy from evil and injustice?

  Obi-Wan said to Luke, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republ
ic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.” Did you know that over those millennia, legendary Jedi and infamous Sith Lords were adding their names to the annals of Republic history?

  Yoda explained that the dreaded Sith tend to come in twos: “Always two, there are. No more, no less. A Master, and an apprentice.” But did you know that the Sith didn’t always exist in pairs? That at one time in the ancient Republic there were as many Sith as Jedi, until a Sith Lord named Darth Bane was the lone survivor of a great Sith war and created the “Rule of Two”?

  All this and much, much more is brought to life in the many novels and comics of the Star Wars expanded universe. You’ve seen the movies and watched the cartoon. Now venture out into the wider worlds of Star Wars!

  Turn the page or jump to the timeline of Star Wars novels to learn more.

  ONE

  She was being followed.

  She paused and wiped a damp wisp of yellow hair from her forehead, touching in passing the scars that marked her as a member of Domain Kwaad. Her green eyes scanned through the many-legged gnarltrees, but her stalkers weren’t yet showing themselves to the usual senses. They were waiting for something—reinforcements, probably.

  She hissed a mild shaper’s curse under her breath and started off again, picking her way over moldering logs, through sluggish mists and dense brakes of hissing cane. The air was a wet fever, and the chirps and trills and bubbling gulps from canopy and marsh were oddly comforting. She kept her pace the same—there was no reason to let them know she was on to them, not yet. She did alter her path subtly—no point in going to the cave until this was dealt with.

  Or I could lead them there, she mused, attack them while they deal with their inner demons …

  No. That seemed somehow like sacrilege. Yoda had come here. Luke Skywalker had, too, and so had Anakin. Now it was her turn. Tahiri’s turn.

  Anakin’s parents hadn’t very much liked the idea of her coming to Dagobah alone, but she’d managed to convince them of the necessity. She believed that the human and Yuuzhan Vong personalities that had once shared her body had become one seamless entity. It felt that way, felt right. But Anakin had seen a vision of her, a melding of Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong, and it hadn’t been a pretty vision. She’d thought at first, after the joining that had nearly driven her mad, that she had avoided that outcome. But before she moved on, before she put those she loved at risk, she had to consider the possibility that the fusion of Tahiri Veila with Riina of Domain Kwaad was a step in the fulfillment of that vision.