Inferno

by Troy Denning

  “Mara once told this one that all it took to lift the Emperor’z veil from her eyes was a long walk in the forest with this man.” Saba extended her arm toward, Luke. “That after she had come to know Luke Skywalker, it was easy to step into the light.”

  Tears welled in the eyes of both Luke and Ben, Ben at least had the pride to turn away and wipe his face, but Luke merely let his tears flow, his gaze never straying from the top of the pyre as Mara’s body paled from a radiant ghost to a shimmering blur of light.

  When it had finally vanished altogether, Luke closed his eyes and let out a soft breath, then laid an arm over Ben’s shoulder. “She’s with the Force now, son,” he whispered. “She’ll be with us always.”

  “Yeah, Dad.” Ben’s voice did not even come close to cracking, and Jacen was proud of him for that. “I know.”

  Jacen reached over to give Luke’s shoulder a comforting squeeze—then felt the weight of Saba’s gaze and looked up to find her glaring at him, her eyes filled with anger and sorrow and warning.

  “And that is the lesson of Mara’s life,” the Barabel said. “If we wish to live in goodness, all we need do iz open our heartz. If we wish to bring justice and peace to the galaxy, all we need do is step into the light.”

  Jacen lowered his hand and returned Saba’s glare with a tight smile. The embarrassment she had caused him here did not matter. He had won Tenel Ka’s fleet, and now he would have the strength to lay a trap and crush the Confederaton—and once he had done that, the public would not care what Saba or any Master thought of him. They would realize that it was Caedus, not the Jedi, who was the true guardian of the Alliance.

  Saba slipped out from behind the podium and—making a point of ignoring Jacen—bowed to Luke and Ben, then stepped to the foot of the empty pyre. Instead of setting the wood ablaze, as she would have done had there still been a body, she simply faced the other masters, and together they began the traditional recitation of the Jedi Code.

  THERE IS NO EMOTION; THERE IS PEACE.

  THERE IS NO IGNORANCE; THERE IS KNOWLEDGE.

  THERE IS NO PASSION; THERE IS SERENITY.

  THERE IS NO DEATH; THERE IS THE FORCE.

  As soon as they had finished the recitation, Jacen left Luke’s side and went straight for Saba.

  “A touching eulogy, Master Sebatyne.” He kept his voice angry, but not quite menacing. “Very instructive. I’ll remember it for a very long time.”

  “Good,” Saba replied evenly. “This one only hopes you come to understand it, as well.”

  A series of gasps and titters betrayed the eavesdroppers in the front rows of the audience, and Jacen realized he was in danger of looking weak. He dropped all pretense of civility and glared at Saba in open hostility.

  “Your humor has always been a mystery to me, Master Sebatyne,” he said. “It’s a wonder I haven’t taken offense before this.”

  “And I hope you’ll forgive us now.” Luke stepped to Jacen’s side, then said, “None of us are quite ourselves today. Please don’t let that stop you from joining Ben and me after the ceremony, I meant what I said about healing the rift between us.”

  “That would be best for everyone,” Jacen said. His gaze slid toward Ben and lingered there. “We must think of the future.”

  Ben only shrugged and looked away.

  The hostility was painful, though hardly surprising. Jacen had known when he killed Mara that he was sacrificing his cousin’s devotion—but that should not have occurred until after Ben learned the identity of her killer. So either the boy was taking his mother’s death harder than Jacen realized, or he suspected the truth and was telling no one.

  Caedus wondered whether it would prove necessary to kill Ben to protect the secret of Mara’s death a few days longer. Jacen hoped not; he still saw potential in his young cousin, and a part of him believed it might be possible to make a proper apprentice of him yet.

  Deciding that it was best to let Ben mourn in private—for now—Jacen assumed a grave air and turned back to Luke. “I’m afraid I can’t join you today, Master Skywalker,” he said. “I’m due topside earliest.”

  Luke’s brow fell in confusion. “Maneuvers?”

  “No, I’m accompanying the Fourth Fleet into action.” Jacen cast an accusatory glance toward Kenth, Kyle, and the other Masters. “I’m surprised the Council didn’t tell you. I requested Jedi StealthXs.”

  Luke frowned at Saba, who could only and say, “We didn’t think you should be disturbed.”

  The irritation in Luke’s eyes changed to comprehension. His face clouded with something that might have been shame, then he frowned at Saba and the other Masters.

  “You can fill me in later.”

  It was Kenth Hamner who answered. “We’ll be happy to.” He glanced in Jacen’s direction and added, “There are a lot of things you need to know.”

  Luke narrowed his eyes, but turned to Jacen. “I understand—duty calls. But I hope you’ll think about what happened here today.”

  “I will be thinking about it,” Jacen said. “You can be sure of that.”

  “Good. May the Force be with you.”

  “And with you.”

  Jacen turned and strode down the aisle, driving his boot heels into the sturdimoss and using the Force to gently move people aside. Luke watched him go in equal parts hope and dread. If anything remained of the gentle-hearted boy he remembered from the Jedi academy on Yavin 4, he could no longer find it. Jacen was swaddled in a darkness deeper than any he had felt in recent memory—perhaps since the days of Darth Vader and the Emperor—and it was not at all clear that he could be drawn back into the light. Yet Luke had to try—if not for Jacen, then for Leia and even the Alliance … but most of all for himself. After the mistake he had made with Lumiya—after his erroneous vengeance killing of her—he could not bear the thought of making such an error with his own nephew. If there was still a way to reach Jacen, he had to try.

  Kenth Hamner stepped to the lectern and thanked everyone for helping the Jedi celebrate the life of Mara Jade Skywalker. He reminded them to keep her example in mind during the difficult days to come and invited them to the remembrance feast being laid out in the Hall of Peace. As the crowd rose to leave, Luke turned toward the courtyard’s rear exit motioning for Ben, Saba and the rest of the Masters to follow.

  The last thing he wanted to do right now was focus on the Order. With only an aching void where there used to be Mara, Luke felt like the victim of a heart amputation, everything inside burning in grief, his thoughts whirling with memories of Mara’s death … that sudden awful pulling on their Force-bond, as though she were falling into a star, then trying to reach out and draw her to safety, but the bond just snapping and leaving him broken and lost and hurting.

  But with Jacen making his first tentative attempts to assert control over the Jedi, the Order needed Luke now more than ever, and as Mara had returned her body to the force he had realized that she expected him to be strong, to pull himself together and prevent Jacen from using her death to destroy anything else.

  Once the group was inside the fern-filled lobby that had served as the funeral’s staging area, Luke turned to Saba.

  “Was that really necessary?” he demanded. “We’re not going to bring Jacen back into the fold by antagonizing him in public.”

  “We are not going to bring Jacen back at all,” Saba said. “Jacen is beyond saving.”

  “That’s not your call,” Luke said. “Mara held on to her body for a reason. She was trying to tell us that if we want to save the Alliance, we have to work with him, not against him.”

  “I don’t think so,” Kyp said, shaking his head. “Saba’s right. Jacen was just using Mara’s funeral to make himself look more important to the Order.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Luke asked. “It still gives us an opening—and it will be better for the Alliance, for the Jedi, and for the galaxy if we guide Jacen rather than fight him.”

  “No, Dad, it won’t,” Ben sa
id. “In fact, I don’t think Mom meant the message for you at all—if there even was a message.”

  “Of course there was a message,” Luke said, growing confused. “Why else would your mother wait until Jacen arrived to return her body to the Force?”

  Ben shrugged and avoided Luke’s eyes. “I don’t know, but I don’t think she was telling us to trust Jacen.”

  Luke scowled. “Ben, what aren’t you telling me?”

  Ben shook his head. “Nothing.”

  If Ben was lying, Luke couldn’t feel it in the force. He considered trying to wait the boy out, but anyone who had witnessed as many GAG interrogations as Ben had would hardly fall for such rudimentary tactics. Instead, he gave up and turned to Corran Horn.

  “Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Corran glances at Kyp, who turned to Kyle, who pursed his lips and looked away, apparently as he debated whether Luke was strong enough to hear the truth.

  Luke turned to Kenth. “You said you had a lot to tell me,” he reminded. “start telling.”

  “We didn’t want to upset you during the funeral,” Kenth replied. “But a unit of GAG troopers tried to arrest Han and Leia. That’s why they didn’t make the funeral.”

  “They let GAG catch sight of them?” Luke was incredulous. “The Solos?”

  “It happened inside the Temple,” Kenth explained. “Less than an hour ago.”

  This time, Luke was stunned. “A GAG squad, in here?”

  “On level six,” Kyp said. “The Solos were coming in from the Ministry of Justice mezzanine.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?”

  Even as Luke demanded this, he could see by the troubled expressions on the faces of the Masters that they had doubts about whether they should have told him now—and he had only himself to blame. Given the way he had drawn in on himself, what were they to think? Awash in doubt—about himself, about the Force, even about the Order itself—he had shut himself off from everyone except Ben. And he had been playing straight into his nephew’s hands, practically inviting Jacen to step in and take control of the Order.

  When no one answered his question, Luke said, “Forget I asked. Where are they now?”

  All eyes turned to Corran, who was monitoring the Temple security channels over an ear comm.

  “We don’t know.” he said, “They escaped into fellowship Plaza, and Leia’s been Force-flashing the security cams.”

  “Not the Solos,” Luke said. “I mean the GAG squad.”

  Corran frowned. “They’re gone, chasing Han and Leia.”

  “Can we be sure?” Luke asked. “If we don’t know where Han and Leia are—”

  “How do we know the GAG unit iz still chasing them?” Saba finished. “You think the arrest attempt was a diversion?”

  “I think it’s a possibility,” Luke said. “The way I’ve been hiding from responsibilities—”

  “You haven’t been hiding from anything,” Kenth said. “Your grief is more than understandable.”

  “Thanks,” Luke said. “But the fact is, I’ve left us vulnerable. With everyone focused on finding Mara’s killer and worrying about me, there’ll never be a better time to cripple the Jedi.”

  “Then we’d better find that unit fast,” Kyp said. He turned toward a turbolift on the far side of the lobby. “If we don’t hurry, there’ll be a whole battalion—”

  “It’s okay,” Corran said, catching Kyp by the arm. “Temple security spotted them. They’re outside, escorting Jacen across Fellowship Plaza.”

  Saba gnashed her fangs in confusion—or perhaps it was disappointment. “Jacen changed his mind about seizing the Temple?”

  Corran shrugged. “Who knows? We have reports of a lot of heavy hoversleds moving away from the Temple—but that doesn’t mean they were carrying GAG troopers.”

  A sudden silence fell over the gathering, and the Masters stood looking at one another in a fragile blend of relief and trepidation. Luke could sense how worried they all were that they had just come very close to letting Jacen take control of the Temple—or worse.

  It was Ben who broke the silence. “So what are we going to do about it? We can’t let him get away with trying to arrest us.”

  Luke looked down in surprise. “We, Ben? I thought you wanted Jecen to be your Master.”

  Ben’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment. “I might have made a mistake,” he said. “I’m entitled. I’m fourteen.”

  In another time, on another day, Luke might have laughed. Instead, he said, “You don’t have to be fourteen to make mistakes. I’ve been making plenty.”

  “If you say so,” Ben said, shrugging. “And that’s not an answer to my question. You’re not going to let him get away with this, are you?”

  Luke thought for a moment, then said, “Actually, I think we will.”

  “What?” The question came from three Masters at once, and Saba added in all sincerity, “This is a poor time for jokes, Master Skywalker. We have serious troubles.”

  Luke nodded. “That’s true—and so is what I said to Jacen about working together. Somebody’s got to take the first step.”

  “Right into a trap,” Ben muttered.

  “Maybe—but Jacen isn’t the only one who knows how to set a trap,” Luke said. He laid his hand on Ben’s shoulder and, feeling more confident than he had since before Mara’s death, started toward the remembrance feast. “And it might be nice to surprise him for change.”

  four

  Even from an altitude of a thousand meters, the Jedi academy on Ossus looked enormous. Spread across a verdant bench-land between a lush mountainside and a gloom-filled rift valley, its tidy sweeps of green turf were surrounded by burgeoning plots of foliage and connected by snaking ribbons of gray paving stone. To Jaina’s surprise, there were no tiny dots dodging among the glistening spires and elegant halls; if not for the Force presences she could detect inside the buildings, she would have thought the place deserted.

  Perhaps the Solusars had called a week of meditation out of respect for Mara’s funeral. They would have regretted not being there as much as Jaina did, and the children would need ritual to help them deal with the loss of such an important Jedi Master.

  Jaina only wished that she and Zekk and Jag could have afforded the time to join the meditation. She was hurting in a way she had not hurt since the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, when she had lost Anakin and Chewbacca and a hundred other dear comrades. It was taking all her strength to just let the grief come and not retreat into herself as she had during the war.

  Jagged Fel’s crisp voice sounded over the intercom of the StarDrive Dactyl that the Alema-hunting team was flying this week. “Sense anything?”

  “Negative,” Zekk answered from several meters behind Jaina. He was seated on the opposite side of the fuselage, staring through and observation blister similar to Jaina’s. “Maybe we shouldn’t put so much faith in vector readings. We don’t know anything about that new ship she’s in … and why would she come here?”

  “Because she’s Alema Rar,” Jaina responded. “And if we waste time trying to figure out why she does anything, we’re crazier than she is.”

  Jag chuckled—as he usually did whenever Jaina disagreed with Zekk—then said, “To a degree. Does that mean you sense something?”

  “Give me a chance,” Jaina replied. “We just got here.”

  “We need time to attune ourselves to the local currents,” Zekk explained. “It’s not like that new ship of hers is a dark side beacon. It was just giving off a little aura before.”

  “So you’re saying we need to make a second pass?” Jag asked.

  “And probably a third and a seventh,” Jaina answered. “It might take some effort to find her, but I’d bet my shirt that Alema is here.”

  Jag said, “I accept!” at the same time Zekk said, “Okay!”

  Jaina frowned, confused by their enthusiasm. “What?”

  “Your bet.” Zekk leered across the fuselage. “I a
ccepted.”

  “Hey, I was first!” As usual, it was impossible to tell from Jag’s tone whether he was joking, but Jaina thought he probably was. The only gambling she had ever seen him do involved starfighters and slim chances of survival. “The bet is with me.”

  “Ha, ha—very funny,” Jaina said. “What part of not interested don’t you two understand?”

  Jaina did not bother to keep the irritation out of her voice. She had grown weary of the competition between Jag and Zekk even before Mara was killed, and now it just made her angry. Besides, there wasn’t even supposed to be a competition. Zekk had claimed way back on Terephon that he was over her. And when Jag had reappeared, he had been so angry over her actions during the Dark Nest crisis that a romance had seemed out of the question.

  Of course, that blissful state had lasted about as long as a soap bubble in an open air lock. As soon as the two men realized someone else was hoping for a place in the family holo, they had begun to knock heads like two bull rontos. Jaina had finally grown so sick of it that, after Mara’s death, she had told them both to leave her alone.

  The entrance to the academy hangar suddenly passed by beneath the Dactyl, then Jaina’s observation blister filled with sky as Jag rolled the ship on its side and began to swing around for another pass. The Dactyl was a lot less maneuverable than the YT-2400 they had been using as a mother ship until a few days ago, but Jag insisted on changing vessels frequently, believing it would make it more difficult for Alema to spot them coming. At least this one had a private berth for everyone and room for StealthXs.

  Once Jag had brought the vessel around, he swung away from the academy proper and began to fly low and slow along the adjacent mountainside. Jaina started to suggest that the rift valley would be a more likely hiding place—then remembered how long Jag had been hunting Alema and remained quiet. Half crippled as the Twi’lek was, she was unlikely to hide her vessel anyplace that involved scaling two thousand meters of valley wall.