Suiting physical action to mental suggestion, he turned as if to leave the room—and was flayed by a flash flood of Force energy. It pattered against him like static rain. Electrifying. Shocking.
As swiftly as it had come, it was gone, leaving Tesla feeling winded and chilled. He hesitated, and felt an instantaneous tickle of interest from the man seated cross-legged on the floor behind him. He forced himself to keep walking, his feverish thoughts held tightly to him. Was it possible that this Cerean was a secret adept? He thought again of the course of action he meant to put to Darth Vader on his return to Kantaros Station—the physical separation of Yimmon’s dual cortices. If Yimmon was a Force-sensitive, what effect might that have?
Tesla hurried out of Yimmon’s cell, curiosity curling deliciously. He was eager for his Master’s return so that, together, they might dissect Thi Xon Yimmon’s psyche and expose its secrets.
Thirty-Four
In low orbit above Dathomir, Jax carefully considered where to land. The planet was still largely uninhabited, and the existing populations were confined to the broad coastal region of one of three continents. There were a number of clans of so-called Witches tucked into the landscape. New ones formed occasionally, too, peopled by outcasts, ex-slaves, or renegades.
The Nightsisters had been such a renegade group, and there were at least two clans rumored to be made up of men and women who had rejected the matriarchal hierarchy of the female-dominated clans and who aimed to create a more egalitarian society. They might be more kindly disposed to a visit from an outsider than their more isolationist kindred, but he doubted either of these clans could provide him with what he wanted—access to the ruins of the Star Temple.
No, he would have to brave arousing the ire of the Singing Mountain Clan—the tribal group that claimed the territory above the devastated high plain where the temple had once sat.
Any doubts he might have had about his choice of destination were dispelled as he flew over the vast ruin that dominated the Infinity Plain. Tucked into a deep pocket in the skirt of his surcoat, the Sith Holocron resonated with the decaying energies of the place. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to alert Jax to the fact that the crumbling field of slag and rocky debris still held residual power.
The Singing Mountain Clan capital lay in the lap of a major peak in the range that gave the clan its name. The walled township’s avenues wandered the lower slopes of the mountain, hemmed in by a sparse forest.
That the clan would be at full alert by the time he landed, Jax had no doubt. He brought the Delta-7 down on a flat table of rock that lay just beyond the township gates and stepped from the cockpit into the chill mountain air … and into the full sight of half a dozen warriors—all female and all, no doubt, deadly.
He didn’t hesitate, but simply strode to the bottom of the narrow landing ramp, his hands in plain sight, palms out. He moved to within conversational distance of the women and surveyed them carefully.
Two were armed with static lances, each tipped with an energy bolt. Two carried cortosis staffs. The pair at the center of the group were unarmed … unless you counted the Force as a weapon. One was decidedly human; the other was a Dathomiri Zabrak and wore the facial tattoos that declared her adulthood. They ringed her eyes and the bases of her horns and connected the bridge of her nose, upper lip, and chin.
Though neither woman was dressed for battle, Jax had no doubt they were as well-trained in the art of defense as they were in the arcane nuances of Force manipulation.
Sending out gentle ribbons of sense, Jax learned only that these two women saw themselves as co-equal and in the service of another.
“Please,” he said, quietly, “I seek an audience with your clan leader.”
The women exchanged glances. The Zabrak tilted her tattooed chin toward the Aethersprite.
“You fly a Jedi craft. Yet you cannot be Jedi.”
“I am.”
A pause, then: “We have heard rumors of the destruction of the Jedi Order by the Empire.”
“The rumors are exaggerated. I am a Jedi.”
“We felt their dying echoes in the Force.”
Jax ignored the twisting in his guts. “As did I.”
He felt the touch of the others’ Force sense as questing hands that brushed his temples, then swept across his forebrain. He shielded himself against the intrusion.
“You are a Force adept, at least,” the human observed. “Only an adept could block so effectively. Show me your weapon.”
He knew she wasn’t asking to see the blaster he wore in plain sight on his belt. He held his right hand out and called his lightsaber to his open palm. It flew from beneath the thigh-length panels of his coat and landed solidly in his hand.
“Activate it,” the Zabrak commanded.
He did. The blade surged into existence with a hum of raw power—bright, gleaming, and the color of sea foam under a full moon. All but the Zabrak took a step in retreat.
She nodded and exchanged a glance with her human counterpart.
“A Jedi weapon.”
Jax breathed a sigh of relief and sent a silent message of gratitude to the Force that he and Laranth had had time to construct a new lightsaber for him before they’d left Coruscant. Otherwise, he’d have been facing these bitter enemies of the Emperor with a Sith blade in his hand. He doubted he’d have been able to talk himself out of that one. Fortunately, he’d left the Sith blade aboard the Laranth.
The Sith Holocron he’d concealed aboard the starfighter might also pose a threat to his credibility, but he’d meet that challenge when he got to it.
“His weapon may signify nothing,” the human Witch said. “He might have stolen both the ship and the weapon from a dead Jedi.” She turned her gaze to Jax. “You will enter the citadel and allow yourself to be scanned … or you will leave.”
Jax deactivated the lightsaber and inclined his head in acquiescence. “Whatever it takes.”
She held her hand out for his weapon. “This is what it takes. Give me your lightsaber.”
He handed it over to her without hesitation. It would return to him at will, so he had no concern on that count … unless she locked it away somewhere.
She took a step back and gestured for him to pass through their group. He bowed deferentially and moved toward the now-opening gates.
“What’s your name, Jedi?” the Zabrak asked.
It would be futile to lie. “Jax Pavan.”
“Why have you come?”
Why had he come? What did he hope to find? “That’s what I need to discuss with your leader.”
They escorted him into the citadel and swung the massive gates closed behind without the intervention of either being or machine. In the broad plaza just inside the enclosure, Jax felt the pinprick regard of many of eyes. The buildings were no taller than three stories, but people—mostly women and girls—watched from every window and doorway. The streets, too, were filled with onlookers.
His guards took him straight across the plaza to a roundhouse that seemed to be an official greeting center. Its conical, two-story roof was supported by huge columns carved from native tree trunks and capped with metal-clad ornamentation. Each column was adorned with a medallion of worked metal that bore the sigil particular to a neighboring tribal or clan group.
Jax supposed it was auspicious that he hadn’t been immediately marched into a stockade from which he would then be forced to escape. He had no doubt that escape from here would not be easy.
He moved to the center of the roundhouse floor and turned to look back at his hosts. The two women who’d spoken—somehow the term lieutenants seemed to fit them—moved to stand one on each side, facing him. The other four took up positions around the circle.
The two closest to him raised their arms in a parody of an embrace, then the Zabrak uttered a series of tonal words he didn’t understand. He was immediately assailed with the sense that someone had poured a bucket of warm water over his head so that it flowed down into his brain, trickled down his s
pine, and pooled in his gut. It was at once a soothing and nerve-racking sensation, and when it left him, he felt winded and invaded.
He had closed his eyes. Now he opened them to find both women regarding him with increased wariness.
“You say you are Jedi,” the human said, “but there is darkness in you—a confusion of shadow and light.”
Jax took a deep breath and spoke words he had not intended to say. “I lost a companion. My … my mate. A Force adept of great talent. Her death has disturbed the balance of the Force in me. I also lost the leader of my … clan, but not to death—to the Dark Lord. These are losses that must be …”
“Avenged?”
The voice floated down to him from the second-floor gallery that ran the entire circumference of the roundhouse.
He looked up, seeking the source. His eyes found a woman of perhaps fifty-five or sixty standard years watching from above. She was tall, regal, with hair the color of moonlight held back from her handsome face with a circlet of aurodium.
He turned to face her and bowed. “Not avenged, but redeemed.”
She shook her head. “Redemption, Jedi, is a difficult thing to bring about.”
“As you, yourself, know,” he guessed. “You are Augwynne Djo, are you not?”
Her smile was a reflection of the deep sorrow that covered her sere, serene inner landscape like a thin coat of snow. Jax felt an immediate sense of concord with the woman; he sensed that she, too, had been a victim of betrayal and loss. The two Force-users stood, measuring each other, for a long moment—long enough to make the Zabrak warrior move restively. The movement drew her mistress’s gaze.
“Bring him up to me,” said Djo. She turned from the gallery rail and disappeared into the shadows.
Her two acolytes immediately flanked Jax and led him to a flight of stairs that connected the ground floor of the roundhouse with the gallery. At the top of the stairs, two hallways ran away at a forty-five-degree angle to each other. The roundhouse, Jax realized, was connected to the building or buildings behind it. His guards took the hallway to the right and they passed along it briskly, following the flickering shadow of their clan matriarch.
Their destination was a large chamber with walls of reddish stone and a central hearth whose fire burned bright and warm but consumed no fuel. Augwynne Djo was already seated on a wide, padded chair hewn from the same native stone as the slab and bricks that made up the walls and floor.
Jax’s guardians ushered him into the room and placed him before her.
“Thank you, Magash, Duala.” The clan matriarch nodded at each woman in turn. “You may leave us now.”
The Zabrak, Magash, started. “But Mother, he is a stranger. And a man.”
Jax couldn’t tell which bothered her more.
“He is a Jedi,” said Augwynne Djo, as if that was all that need be said. She held out her hand to Magash. “His weapon, please.”
With a glance at her companion, the Zabrak came to her mistress and handed over Jax’s lightsaber. Then the two young women bowed and took themselves out of the room.
“Sit, Jedi,” said the Witch, gesturing with one graceful, long-fingered hand, “and tell me why you have come to us.”
Duala Aidu had returned immediately to the roundhouse to dismiss the guardian warriors there. In her colleague’s absence, Magash Drashi found herself pacing the corridor outside the Clan Mother’s rooms in deep distress. She had never known Mother Augwynne to be so receptive to visitors.
Yes, perhaps this visitor really was a Jedi, and yes, the Jedi were—at least in theory—aligned with the Dathomir Witches against the Sith and the darkness they brought. But he was … well, a man.
She would have to be Force-blind not to have felt the strange sense of familiarity that flashed between her matriarch and this outsider. It had something, she was sure, to do with his revelation about his lost mate.
Her native curiosity kicked in hard, then. What sort of partnership could exist between female and male Force-users? In her culture, men were subservient and inferior to women. They were gatherers of food, workers, breeding stock. Why, they could no more channel the Force than a rancor could study philosophy! But apparently males of other worlds could channel the Force. Jedi, Magash knew, were subservient to no one. Jedi males were apparently as free as their female counterparts to train in the Force, or even to teach its use.
She found herself wanting very much to be in close company with the Jedi Knight, to watch him, see him use the Force without casting spells—something she could hardly imagine—hear his thoughts on his place in the universe and his connection to the Force. She’d felt the Force in him, had seen him summon his Jedi weapon and activate it.
Could he do more? She hungered to know.
A part of her scoffed at her own naïve interest in an outsider. What sort of thoughts could a man have about anything, after all? They thought about eating, sleeping, breeding, working, and spending their few leisure hours playing games with abstruse rules that resulted in the winners mocking the losers. This was her first exposure to a male from another world—another culture. Could they really be that alien?
Well, replied an argumentative voice, doesn’t this Jedi’s behavior demonstrate how different he is from any Dathomiri clansman? The very fact that he flies such a complex spacecraft—
Her thoughts were arrested by the thought of the Jedi starfighter sitting on the apron of rock beyond the gates. With a swift glance at the doors of Augwynne Djo’s chambers, Magash Drashi hurried away to get a closer look at the stranger’s vessel.
Thirty-Five
Den Dhur stared at the patchwork droid as if he’d begun speaking Huttese. “What did you say?”
“I said, Jax is gone. Which somehow doesn’t surprise me as much as it should.”
Den glanced from I-Five to Sacha Swiftbird, who stood behind the droid in the doorway of Geri’s workshop. “What does he mean—Jax is gone?”
The woman grimaced and crossed her arms over her chest. “He fired up the Aethersprite and took off in the middle of the night. A couple of night-duty mech-techs saw him, but—” She shook her head.
The cold flush of dread that coursed through Den’s body sat him down hard on his stool. “And no one thought to stop him?”
Swiftbird shrugged. “He’s Jax Pavan. That makes him a bit of a hero around here. You don’t stop a hero who’s off to do heroic things.”
“I thought no one was supposed to know who he was—outside of the leadership here.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. In a tight-knit community like this? Give us a break. Secret intel is the daily bread around here. I’d reckon that within a day of your first landing, everyone knew there was a Jedi among us. They just didn’t talk about it.”
Den shook his head, looking to I-Five for something to stop his world from wobbling. “So he grabbed the starfighter and took off—to where?”
“I’ve no idea,” said the droid. “He didn’t bother to file an itinerary with Mountain Home flight control. Remiss of him.”
“Don’t be flip,” Den retorted. “You always get flip when you’re angry.”
“I’m a droid. Droids don’t get angry.”
“Oh, don’t fall back on that stupid dodge, Tinhead. You’re mad and you karking well know it.”
I-Five’s optics flashed brighter and he uttered a disgruntled noise, preparatory to issuing a further comment, but Sacha cut him off.
“You two are like an old married couple. This is a waste of time, aye? Pavan has gone missing and we’re down a fighting vessel. Thi Xon Yimmon’s situation hasn’t changed, guys. He’s still at the mercy of the Dark Lord and his slimy little toadies. We need to regroup and figure out what can be done to salvage the situation. Any constructive ideas?”
Both Sullustan and droid turned startled gazes on the ex-Podracer.
A stifled grunt of laughter reminded Den that he hadn’t been alone in the workshop when I-Five and Sacha had burst in. He and Geri had both br
ought their breakfasts down here to eat and had been noodling with ideas to customize I-5YQ’s Nemesis parts. Now the little mech-tech was watching their byplay with undisguised mirth.
“Sorry,” he said, looking as contrite as his Rodian features would allow. “It was just … y’know … funny.”
“Hence the laughter,” said I-Five. “But Sacha is correct. We have no idea what Jax is doing, or where he’s bound. We can only try to deal with the situation as best we can.”
“How?” Den demanded on a rising tide of frustration. “As you said, we have no idea where Jax is going.”
I-Five came fully into the chamber. “Either Jax has returned to Kantaros Station or he has not. If he has, he’ll need our assistance. If he has not, then Yimmon still needs to be rescued.”
Sacha Swiftbird sauntered into the room on the droid’s heels and slid onto the stool next to Geri to pick at the leftovers of his breakfast. The Rodian youth offered no protest.
“Great,” she said. “So, it sounds as if you’re thinking we should go back to Kantaros Station and rescue Yimmon ourselves.”
“We?” I-Five asked.
“You need a pilot, right? I’m a pilot. One of the best, as it happens. I’m also a fantastic engineer.”
“Oh, but you’ll need a mech-tech, too, won’t you?” Geri asked. “I mean, you can’t engineer while you’re piloting, right?”
“No,” the others said in perfect unison.
“Sorry, kiddo,” Sacha said. “This is a dangerous mission.”
“C’mon, Sacha!”
“Aren and Degan would never give you permission. You thinking of disobeying your superiors, cadet?”
Geri screwed up his face. “I guess not.”
Sacha turned back to Den and I-Five. “But Degan’s already offered me to you once. You need redundancy in engineering and at the helm. Which means I’m going with you. Like it or not.”
“Who said we didn’t like it?” Den asked. “Did we say that?”
“Great,” Swiftbird said, polishing off the last of Geri’s breakfast. “So what’s the plan?” She gave I-Five her entire attention.
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