Another unknown quantity. Jax still had the Holocron, but he had never attempted to access the knowledge it contained. Sith Holocrons were rare, powerful, and reputed to be deeply disturbing to the Force and seductive to Jedi who interacted with them unprepared for the assault that deep a store of dark knowledge could make on reason. The Holocron created a slight disturbance in the Force through its very existence—at least Jax could feel its subtle pull when he was near it—and he had not wanted to risk attempting to activate it.
Truthfully, he doubted he had the capacity to do that now. His fractured concentration rendered his unease with the Sith artifact irrelevant.
Jax glanced up at the shelf the miisai sat upon. The Holocron was tucked into a small trove in the rear wall of the niche created when the shelf was extended from the bulkhead. He was sometimes tempted to lose both the pyronium and the Holocron by entombing them somewhere so he’d never have to think of either again, but he hadn’t followed through on the impulse. The thought of having them fall into the hands of Darth Vader was blood chilling. So he kept them close, reasoning that someday he might find a legitimate use for them.
Certainly, neither had pleasant memories attached. By the time Anakin had given him the pyronium—to keep for him, he’d said—Jax had already had concerns about his friend. He remembered the first time he had glimpsed Anakin in a moment of anger, radiating tendrils of blackest night—whipcords of darkness that had writhed about him, straining outward.
They had been sparring with their lightsabers, and something—to this day, Jax wasn’t sure what—had transformed the other Jedi from an amicable, if distracted, sparring partner into a driven foe. He had suddenly launched himself at Jax like a berserker, forcing him to parry a swift series of blows that might easily have killed him.
Jax had seen darkness in auras before, but never like that and never in a fellow Padawan. Anakin had appeared—in that moment—to stand at the nexus of a whorl of rage and frustration. He was a black hole—sucking light and color from anything or anyone in his gravitational field.
That moment had passed so swiftly that Jax thought he’d imagined it. He’d been left reeling and confused—and embarrassed when Anakin had broken off the attack, grinned at him, slapped his shoulder, and asked, “What’s the matter, Jax? Am I too much for you?”
Later, he’d been on the verge of telling his Master what he’d sensed, but the fact that even Anakin’s own Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, watching from the sidelines, seemed not to have noticed anything had silenced him.
If Jax had spoken of what he’d felt then, would things have been different? Had that been yet another moment in which choice was loss and indecision deadly?
He drew in a sharp breath and tried to marshal his thoughts, slipping the pyronium back into his sash pocket. The tendrils of darkness that he had once thought imaginary he now knew were the threads of Darth Vader’s immense potential power. He thrust down images of the Jedi Temple, the sparring circle, the memories of Flame Night that threatened, suddenly, to intrude. He called back the mental image of I-Five’s tactical display, then reached into it—toward that one, bright spot of crimson—seeking the darkness that always eddied in Darth Vader’s wake.
No.
The uneasiness stopped him just short of putting his “hand” on the trailing edge of that darkness.
He’ll sense you. He’ll know you seek him.
(The Far Ranger, filled with smoke and the smell of burnt flesh, emergency lights flickering, Laranth lying dead behind him on the deck … )
He thrust the memory down and reached again.
Leave it for now. Let him think you might be dead.
Jax hesitated in the act of touching the darkness, wary of his own uncertainty.
(Vader standing in the smoky corridor, coldly taunting.)
Jax opened his eyes and flung himself to his feet, panting. Was there no situation that did not require choice? Was there nothing he might do without indecision?
He looked around him at the snug cabin, laid a hand on the metal bulkhead. It was neither warm nor cool to the touch. The ship was silent. Not even the ventilation system was audible as it breathed warm air into the compartment. He imagined the vessel was waiting for him to do something—to decide something.
He did. He decided to leave the ship and return to his quarters in the underground complex. He left his belongings and the miisai tree behind.
The shakedown cruise went off without a snag. I-Five’s brain was successfully paired with an R2 unit that Geri had scavenged from storage and fitted neatly into the ship’s astrogation system. The setup gave the interceptor the reflexes of a bat-falcon—as swiftly as I-Five could conceive of a maneuver, the ship could execute it. If they found themselves in a battle situation, that ability to make seamless, split-second decisions could mean the difference between success and failure—or life and death.
The shakedown completed, the ship refueled and laden with a couple of crates of I-Five’s “spare parts,” Jax, Den, and I-Five stood on the landing pad in Mountain Home with their hosts. Besides Degan Cor and Aren Folee, there were a handful of others, including Sacha Swiftbird and Geri.
Degan had offered to send Sacha along with Jax to facilitate any necessary repairs on the ship and to serve as emissary from the Toprawan resistance. Jax had declined the offer.
“I don’t know what sort of situation we’re going to be confronting on Coruscant,” he’d explained. “Whiplash is in the process of reorganizing itself; the Imperials may be in a state of heightened security or even heightened aggression. Vader has very likely taken Yimmon there to interrogate him. I don’t want to put anyone else’s life in danger unnecessarily.”
He didn’t add that the presence of a woman on the ship would only underscore Laranth’s absence.
“Put my life in danger?” Sacha objected. “I’d be there to protect you, Pavan, not the other way around.”
“I’m not doubting your capabilities …” He’d started to hedge, but she fixed him with that too-direct gaze and he’d swallowed the words.
“I know what you’re doing. You’re not comfortable with me. I get that. I wouldn’t let it push me into stupid decisions if I were you.”
He’d opened his mouth to respond, and she’d stopped him. “Yeah, yeah, I know—I’m not you.”
“I was just going to say, I don’t think the decision is stupid. You could be of help, yes. You could also be out of your element. Aren says you’ve rarely been off Toprawa and that you’ve never been to Imperial Center. It’s a … a different sort of place.”
She gave him a lopsided grin. “You mean I’d be in the way and possibly call unwelcome attention to myself by gawping at everything.”
“Something like that.”
She’d shrugged and dropped the subject. Neither she nor Degan brought it up again.
Their farewells were brief, and their hold was full of useful items for the Whiplash, including some of the ionite and a selection of droid parts for I-Five and Den to experiment with. They lifted off in the dead of night without running lights, piloted by the droid’s R2 persona. Once in hyperspace, I-Five completed integrating the vessel’s false identity into its every virtual nook and cranny. For obvious reasons, it could not be the Laranth in galactic records. People who knew of Jax Pavan might associate that name with him.
He hadn’t cared what she was called when it came down to it. She was just a ship. Den rechristened her Corsair, and so it was Corsair that bore Jax and his companions back to Coruscant.
Nine
The Corsair—a small, independent freighter registered to a tiny consortium on Toprawa—landed at a satellite docking facility of the Westport that was geared to handle vessels of diminutive size. She nestled in among a dozen or so ships of the same tonnage on a landing platform and disgorged her crew—a human male with dark, unkempt hair, a Sullustan mechanic, and a pit droid that had been tasked with carrying their belongings.
To the casual observer the ship and
her complement were ordinary and unworthy of any particular attention, but to those who had been keeping an eye out for just such an occurrence—the landing of a small ship out of Toprawa with a shiny new registry, for all that it seemed to have been buried in the system for five years—the event signaled the need for quick action.
And so, when “Corran Vigil” and his crew stepped into the terminal building with the intent of taking a turbolift to the deep sublevels, they met with an escort. A Zabrak official wearing a worn, dark long-coat and accompanied by two uniformed officers flashed credentials at them. Jax Pavan didn’t need to see the credentials. He knew whom he was dealing with.
“Corran Vigil? I need to take you in for questioning, if you don’t mind. Actually, even if you do mind.”
Jax stared at the other man. “May I ask what this is about?”
“There’s a little problem with the registration on your ship and a certain connection to someone who’s gone missing.”
Jax nodded, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
The Zabrak regarded him with wry amusement. “I do hope you’re not going to do anything rash, like try to run off on me. I assure you my associates here are used to that sort of thing. They rather enjoy a good run, in fact.”
Jax sighed. “Look, Prefect, I don’t know what this is about, but—”
“Come with me and you’ll find out.”
“Come where?”
“Imperial Security Bureau.”
Den Dhur let out a hiss of breath. “Great Mother of all …”
The prefect pointed a long grayish finger at him. “Language.”
He herded them into a lift and they shot down into the bowels of the terminal, exiting into a cavernous parking area. A pair of police speeders were drawn up to the curbing in front of the terminal’s transparisteel doors.
The two uniforms prodded the prisoners into the backseat of one of the vehicles, carefully locking the hatches from the outside. Then they saluted the prefect smartly, went to their own vehicle, and sped off. The prefect watched them go, then slid into the front seat of the aircar, started it, and took to the lanes.
He said nothing as he drove his passengers deeper and deeper into the duracrete canyons.
Finally, Jax spoke. “Prefect Haus, we’re clearly not going to the ISB. Where are you taking us?”
Pol Haus looked up into the monitor that gave him a clear view of the vehicle’s backseat. “Of course we’re not going to the ISB. What the hell would I be taking you to the ISB for? As for where we are going—we’re there.”
Even as he spoke, Haus pulled in behind an old police barrier and brought the aircar to a stop. Before them was a disreputable-looking building with a blackened façade and street-facing windows that looked like blank eyes. The prefect popped the locks on the doors of the police speeder. They opened with a hiss of hydraulics.
“Everybody out.”
Den’s heart was hammering in his throat as he climbed out of the police aircar and looked around. Haus had brought them to an abandoned transit terminal—some long-dead remnant of the planet-city’s mag-lev system. There wasn’t another sentient in sight—which did nothing to calm Den’s nerves.
“Is this the part where you pull out a blaster and frag all of us?”
Haus turned and looked down at him with an air of exasperated bemusement. “No. This is where I deliver you to interested parties.” He started walking in the direction of the ancient building, his coat fluttering around him like the wings of a hawk-bat.
Den looked up at Jax, who took a deep breath and strode after the police prefect.
“I-Five?” Jax murmured. “Keep a laser eye on him, okay?”
“Done,” said the droid, and Den knew he would be doing exactly that. One of the modifications he had made to his DUM chassis was to replace the light emitter next to his optic unit with a weapons-grade laser.
Pol Haus had sought their help a number of times in the past, and he had helped them in turn, drawing closer and closer to an alliance with Whiplash. But things were inside out now, and for all they knew Haus could be in the service of the enemy—might somehow even be the mole that had leaked their plans to move Thi Xon Yimmon. This fact was not lost on Den.
Jax’s mind was apparently moving along the same avenues, for once they were inside the abandoned terminal he asked the prefect, “What do you know about … the situation?”
“More than you’re probably comfortable with me knowing. This way.”
Haus led on past several long, deserted concierge counters and down a darkened concourse to what was clearly the entrance to a mag-lev embarkation platform. Den peered into the gloom of the tube. The walls were no longer gleaming and smooth, but neither did they look as derelict as he’d expected.
Haus pulled out a comlink and spoke into it. “I have a delivery for immediate pickup.”
There was a curt answer from the other end of the link.
Haus pocketed the device and turned to Jax and Den. “They’ll be here in a few moments. I just wanted to say …” He hesitated, and Den realized he’d never seen Haus show this level of diffidence—feigned cluelessness, irascibility, surliness even, but not hesitance. “I was sorry to hear about Laranth. Yimmon, too, of course, but …” He shook his shaggy head. “I’m just sorry. I know what it’s like to lose someone that close.”
Jax was regarding the prefect with solemn intensity. He held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you.”
“You lost your smart-mouthed droid, too, did you?”
“He did not,” I-Five said crisply, “lose his smart-mouthed droid.”
The Zabrak stared at the little pit droid, then uttered a bark of laughter. “Glad to hear it.”
With a bow wave of cold, oily air and a soft whisper of brakes, a hovertrain glided out of the darkness of the tunnel and stopped at the platform. A door hissed open in the first car.
Pol Haus tilted his head at it. “All aboard.”
Den gawped. “We’re going to HQ on an old mag-lev?”
“Not exactly.” Haus herded them onto the train.
The interior of the vehicle had been stripped of its original passenger seating and now looked more like a vestibule in someone’s corporate offices. Before they could ask whom they were going to see, the door to the next car opened and Tuden Sal appeared.
The Sakiyan’s smile came nowhere near inhabiting his eyes. “Hello Jax, Den—I-Five?”
The droid inclined his head with a click.
“I wish we were reuniting under less …” Sal seemed at a loss for words. “Under less dire circumstances,” he finished, then gestured to the car behind him. “Welcome to Whiplash HQ. Come on in.”
Even as Sal led them into the second car, the train closed its doors and left the station. Den was surprised at that, but even more surprised that Pol Haus came with them into the inner sanctum.
They sat around a low table in the second car—Tuden Sal, Jax, Den, Pol Haus, and four Whiplash captains—a Togruta poetess named Sheel Mafeen, the Amanin owner of Sil’s Place, Fars Sil-at, a Devaronian songstress named Dyat Agni, and a human black-market trader named Acer Ash. I-Five stood between Jax and Den; Pol Haus had taken a seat to Jax’s right—the place Laranth usually occupied.
How long, Jax wondered, would it be before he stopped reminding himself of where Laranth would be or what she’d be doing if she were here?
“Do you have a sense,” Tuden Sal was asking him, “of how Vader might have known where you were?”
Jax shook his head. “None. Maybe they … Maybe it was the ship. She might have been compromised in some way. Maybe there’s a mole—”
“There were only six of us in the room when we made those plans. We swept the safe house for surveillance equipment before we pulled out. There was none.”
“None of us,” Fars Sil-at said, tipping his large head to indicate his fellow captains, “was aware of how Yimmon was getting offworld or when. And clearly the ISB had no idea where our pr
evious headquarters was, else they’d have just come in and wiped us out. They’re not subtle that way.”
“What about your contacts on Toprawa?” Sal asked. “The Rangers. Could one of them or their associates have turned traitor?”
It was a horrific possibility, but a real one—and it made Jax shudder.
“Ostensibly,” he said slowly, “only a handful of people in the Toprawan operation knew about the move: Degan Cor, Aren Folee, a mech-tech named Sacha Swiftbird.”
“Folee could be the spy,” the Sakiyan mused. “She had a mission go belly-up on her last year. Her two accomplices were caught. She wasn’t.”
A chilling thought, but if the Ranger had betrayed them, wouldn’t Jax have sensed something in her bearing—even as he was now sensing the waves of tension and fear washing out from Tuden Sal and his confederates? Maybe not. Maybe not, given the emotional state he’d been in at the time.
“If one of them was a betrayer,” Sheel Mafeen suggested, “certainly Jax or Laranth would have sensed it.”
A wave of relief rolled over Jax. Both he and Laranth had met with Aren before their disastrous mission. Neither of them had sensed anything off about her then. If there was a spy, it was not the Antarian Ranger … or at least not that Antarian Ranger. There was still Sacha Swiftbird. She hadn’t been with the Rangers for that long, and she had tried to make a case for him bringing her back to Coruscant with him …
He looked into the faces of these comrades-in-arms and realized that this rampant distrust was, in part, his doing. It could paralyze them if they let it. They couldn’t let it.
“We have to trust someone, Sal,” Jax said. “If we’re going to get Yimmon back, we have to trust our allies because we’re going to need them … and they’re going to need us. There is … one member of Aren Folee’s group who might bear watching. I’ll make sure Aren is aware of it.”
“If,” the Devaronian repeated gruffly. “If we get Yimmon back. One must wonder what the odds of such a thing are.”
The Last Jedi Page 9
