Inferno

by Troy Denning

  Alema forced Yas’tua to give her his swoop, and ten minutes later she was streaking toward a notched mountain that Rak’k had pointed to as her destination. The more she saw of Korriban’s parched terrain, the more she doubted that she had found the right place. Could this really be the source of the great Sith conspiracy that Lumiya had hinted at? And yet, the closer Alema drew to her destination, the murkier the light grew, and the harder she found it to continue on.

  But continue on she did, for death meant less to her than the fleeting anguish that might accompany it. Her life mattered only if she used it to serve the Balance—to set matters right between her and Leia Solo. Alema could allow nothing to prevent her from getting the help she needed to save Jacen from himself.

  At last, she came to a dark canyon cutting deep into the mountain at which Rak’k had pointed her. Until a few minutes earlier, the mountain had looked like nothing more than a high peak. But now she saw that it was an entire massif, a gigantic upthrusting of the planetary crust where the world itself seemed to have quaked with the coming of the Sith.

  And standing at the mouth of this grim canyon was the ancient cloister Rak’k had promised, a complex of domed towers enclosed behind a high stone wall. Clinging to the wall exterior were remnants of a blue tile facade, each patch depicting an eye or claw or fang. At its base lay pieces of discarded machinery—portable deflector shields, depleted power core casings, antique laser cannon mountings. All in all, the place looked more like the ramshackle abode of a none-too-tidy hermit than the source of Lumiya’s power—but then the Sith were masters of concealment.

  Alema stopped and dismounted, turning her back to the cloister so she could take the precaution of slipping a defensive dart into the palm of her crippled hand. Then she went to the gate—a four-meter slab of durasteel flaked with red scales of corrosion—and stood for nearly a minute without announcing herself. If there were Sith inside, they already knew she was here. If not, the inhabitants would pay later for making her wait.

  Finally, the gate slowly squealed open to reveal a tall Togorian. His face had been shaved naked to display his tattoo striping, which ran along the top his thick snout, then flared into concentric circles around his dark eyes and upright ears. It was impossible to tell whether the rest of his body was shaved as well; it was concealed beneath dark armor and an even darker cloak.

  Alema smiled and ran her eyes up and down his imposing, powerfully built form. “At last—just what we were looking for.”

  The Togorian lashed out so fast that Alema barely realized his hand had moved, but she felt his claws sinking into the back of her good arm. Without speaking, he pulled her inside and dragged her through a murky archway. A dozen steps later, they entered a large courtyard surrounded by dark balconies and gloom-filled doorways, and he threw her down on a floor of black cobblestones.

  “Tell how you found us, Jedi, and your death will be swift.” He was pinning her down with the Force, his strength so obvious and great that Alema didn’t even try to fight. “Hesitate, and your pain will amuse us every day for a year.”

  “We did not come here for a swift death,” Alema said. “And we will amuse you however long you like.”

  The Togorian’s lip curled.

  Choosing to ignore the reaction—she had a vial of flesh-eating bacteria from Tenupe that she could use to right the Balance later—Alema smiled back at him. “But we will be happy to explain how we found you.”

  “Then I will be happy to let you live until you have done so,” the Togorian replied. “After that, we shall see.”

  “Fair enough,” Alema said. “We followed the navigation string on a datachip.”

  “And where did you acquire this datachip?” the Togorian demanded.

  “No so fast,” Alema said. “We have questions, too.”

  The Togorian placed a foot on her ribs and began to step down, squeezing her chest so ferociously that she could no longer breathe. She used the Force to bring up her crippled arm, driving the dart hidden in her hand into the unarmored flesh behind his knee.

  The foot came off her chest immediately, and the Togorian leapt back. His lightsaber snap-hissed to life, but he did not make the mistake of releasing his Force grasp on Alema.

  “What was that?” he demanded.

  “A warning,” Alema replied.

  This drew a hissing snicker from the courtyard balcony, and a raspy female voice said, “The skeeto has a bite. I hope you haven’t killed poor Morto. He was only following instructions.”

  Alema glanced over at the Togorian, who—aside from the hateful glare he was casting her way—was showing no sign of the fiery pain that she knew must be burning up his leg.

  “He will live,” she said. “Provided he lets me up.”

  “Very well.” The woman must have nodded to the Togorian—Morto—because Alema found herself able to move. “I see no harm in trading questions, Jedi. You are never going to leave here alive.”

  Alema breathed a sigh of relief and rose, then reached into a pocket and withdrew one of the vials she had brought back from Tenupe. She examined the code she had scratched onto the top to make sure it was the correct one, then tossed it to Morto.

  “Rub that onto the wound,” she instructed. “All of it.”

  A wave of relief rolled through the Force as Morto caught the vial, then he knelt and began to unbuckle his leg armor. Alema waited until he began to rub in the Tenupian bacteria, then smiled to herself.

  Balance.

  She turned toward the female voice and was surprised to discover a whole row of cloaked figures standing on the balcony. Save for variations in body size and structure, they all appeared similar to the figure she had seen on Lumiya’s datachip, wearing dark cloaks with the hoods pulled forward to conceal their faces.

  “Your question?” The voice was low and harsh and masculine, and it came from a figure in the center of the rear balcony, one with pale white eyes barely visible beneath the hood. “And no tricks, Jedi. We sith have never been known for our patience.”

  Alema ran her gaze along the balcony railings. “How can you be all Sith?” she asked. “We were taught there are never more than two, a Master and an apprentice.”

  “You were taught the old ways,” the voice said. “We are only one Sith now.”

  Alema had counted more than thirty, but it did not serve her purpose to call the man on his obvious lie. Despite what she had told Morto, her purpose here was not to learn about the Sith Order—though that would obviously prove useful. She only needed to win its help for Jacen. She reached inside her cloak for Lumiya’s datachip—then lifted her brow when the gesture caused thirty lightsabers to ignite in the blink of an eye.

  “Flattering, but we are not that dangerous.” She displayed the datachip she had taken from Lumiya’s habitat. “This is the datachip we—”

  Before she could finish, the chip was torn from her hand and floated up to the Sith with the white eyes. He examined it without bothering to insert it into any sort of datareader, then nodded to the others.

  “It’s the one.” He looked back to Alema. “Where did you find it?”

  “The same place I came by my Sith ship,” Alema said, confident they already had someone in the spaceport watching Ship—if not actually flying it here. “I inherited it from my … master, Lumiya.”

  The white eyes flared with suspicion. “You are very free with your answers. That is two for one question.”

  Alema shrugged. “We have no reason to believe you will cheat us,” she said. “What would be the point, when you are going to kill us anyway?”

  “Indeed,” said White Eyes. “Your question?”

  “We cannot imagine you have a connection to the HoloNet in this hovel,” she said. “But we assume you are aware of Mara Skywalker’s death.”

  “We have our avenues of information, yes,” White Eyes replied.

  “I thought as much,” Alema said. “Are you aware that I killed her?”

  No sound disturb
ed the courtyard’s silence, but the darkness rippled with equal parts surprise and disbelief.

  “You?” White Eyes finally asked.

  Alema nodded. “Us.”

  She could feel White Eyes and the others examining her Force aura, trying to determine whether she was being truthful. They would not detect a lie, because she was, in fact, responsible for Mara’s death. She had worked it all out, using the same logic that had once allowed the Dark Nest to control UnuThul. Since she had been in Hapan space when Mara died, Mara could have been following her instead of Lumiya, which meant that Alema might be the one truly responsible for Mara stumbling across Jacen, and of course that meant Alema was certainly the one who had gotten the hag killed. Simple.

  It didn’t take the Sith long to see that Alema was telling the truth. They deactivated the lightsabers they had ignited when she reached for her datachip, then seemed to regard her with new depths of respect.

  “Very well,” White Eyes said, “you killed Mara Skywalker. Why did you come here? Are you looking for shelter?”

  “Shelter?” Alema was insulted by the question. “Do you take us for a coward? Do you think we seek refuge while Jacen Solo is out there fighting for the Balance?”

  White Eyes shot a puzzled—or perhaps it was chagrined—glance at the Sith to his left, then asked, “If you don’t want shelter, then why did you come?”

  “For help,” Alema answered. “And guidance.”

  The Force rolled with dark confusion, and the raspy-voiced woman asked, “You want … guidance?”

  “From us?” White Eyes added.

  “Exactly,” Alema replied. “Without Lumiya there to guide him, the truth is that Jacen Solo is stumbling badly. He actually took the academy hostage.”

  “So we have heard,” White Eyes said. “What does that have to do with us?”

  Alema began to understand—they had no intention of actually risking their lives to support Jacen. They just wanted to hide here while he did all the work and took all the mortal risks—and delivered the galaxy to them on a platter.

  “Is that how it is?” she demanded. “You create your emperors and just send them out into the galaxy on their own? No wonder all it took to bring Palpatine down was a farmboy and a self-absorbed Princess.”

  There was dead silence for a moment, and even the Force seemed frozen with shock.

  At last, White Eyes asked, “You think we trained Jacen Solo?”

  “Of course. Lumiya said there was a plan.” Alema didn’t bother to keep the disdain out of her voice. How could these cowards be Sith, hiding here in their hovel while one of their own—a single man—conquered the galaxy? “Those were her exact words. There is a plan—a plan that will be carried out whether or not I survive.”

  At last, the white eyes seemed to glow with comprehension. “Lumiya’s plan—not ours. Hers and Vergere’s.”

  Now it was Alema’s turn to be surprised. “Vergere was a Sith?”

  “You didn’t know that?” asked the raspy-voiced woman. “I thought you were Lumiya’s apprentice?”

  “Do you tell your apprentice everything?” Alema countered.

  “Perhaps not,” White Eyes allowed. “In any case, Jacen Solo is not our problem. Nor do we want him to be.”

  “Which is why you won’t be allowed to leave here alive,” the woman added.

  “You keep saying that,” Alema said, “but we’d be dead already if you didn’t have more questions.”

  Despite Alema’s bravado, she knew her time was running out. The Sith were perilously close to believing they had learned what they needed to know about her, and when they were certain of it, they would attack. She just needed to make certain that Morto was not among those who reached her—the last thing her poor body needed now was a dose of flesh-eating bacteria.

  “Whose question is it now?” she asked.

  “Let’s say it is yours,” White Eyes offered. “It’s the least we can do.”

  “How gallant.” Alema pointed toward the datachip she had given him, which had vanished somewhere inside his cloak. “That message you sent Lumiya. If you wanted nothing to do with her plan, why did you invite her here?”

  “It was sent before she developed her plan,” White Eyes explained. “Our Master wanted her to join our organization, but she and her escort were ambushed by the Yuuzhan Vong. Lumiya escaped. Lomi Plo and her apprentice did—”

  “Lomi Plo was one of you?” Alema gasped. “Truly?”

  “How do you know Lomi Plo?” Morto asked, sounding to Alema’s experienced ear like a lust-toad lover. He stepped closer, coming up behind her. “What happened to her?”

  Alema answered without turning around. “Lomi Plo was our, um, Master.” She quickly moved away. “She died at the Battle of Tenupe.”

  “You’re lying.” Morto continued to follow her. “Why would she be fighting Killiks?”

  “She wasn’t, silly.” Alema turned to face him, but—terrified he would touch her and mar what little remained of her beauty—she continued to back away. “She was fighting for Gorog. She was our Queen.”

  Morto stopped in his tracks. “She was a bug?”

  “That’s no way to talk about her!” If Alema hadn’t been afraid to touch him, she would have Force-slapped him so hard his eyes flew from their sockets. “We thought you loved her. Isn’t that so?”

  “Morto’s feelings for his Master are no business of yours,” rasped the woman. “And I thought Lumiya was your Master.”

  “Lomi Plo was before Lumiya. We seem to go through Masters like males.” Alema eased away from Morto, then turned back to the Sith on the balcony. “You had nothing to do with creating Jacen?”

  White Eyes shook his head. “Our Master met Vergere while he was a captive of the Yuuzhan Vong. She liked his vision of One Sith.”

  “But after the first Battle of Bilbringi, she escaped the Yuuzhan Vong and met Lumiya,” the woman continued. “And Lumiya convinced her that our Master’s plan was too slow; that by the time One Sith were ready to act, Skywalker’s Jedi would be too strong to defeat.”

  “So they decided to create Jacen,” White Eyes finished.

  “They did the right thing,” Alema insisted. “And if you don’t help Jacen now, the Jedi will destroy him, and the Balance will be ruined.”

  “The Balance?” White Eyes asked. “Which Balance is that?”

  “You don’t know the Balance?” Alema couldn’t believe that a Sith Master would need to ask such a thing. “Between every user and the Force, there is the Balance. Between every Force-user and her enemies, there is the Balance. We serve the Balance by doing to our enemies what they do to us. If we fail, the Force itself will fall—”

  “Enough.”

  White Eyes raised a black-gloved hand, and Alema found herself choking on her words. He cast an inquiring glance along both sides of the balcony above the courtyard. When they all nodded in response, he turned back to the courtyard and looked past Alema to Morto.

  “I think our questions have been answered.”

  Morto’s lightsaber sizzled to life. To Alema’s surprise, she remained free to act—to reach for her own lightsaber and spin around to defend herself—and she realized the Sith meant her death to be a practice session for Morto. She snatched her weapon off her belt, but instead of igniting it, she backed away and raised it as though asking for permission to speak.

  “Wait.” Alema had to croak the word, for White Eyes was still using the Force to silence her. “Last … question.”

  The Force hummed with impatience, but the pressure suddenly vanished from Alema’s throat.

  “Very well,” White Eyes said. “One question.”

  “Thank you.” Alema tucked her lightsaber under her arm and rubbed her throat, then said, “Luke Skywalker will soon discover who killed his wife. Do you really want him to track us here?”

  The impatience in the Force changed first to misgivings and concern, then to disappointment. White Eyes and the others exchanged a long ser
ies of glances, then, without saying anything, seemed to reach the consensus Alema had expected.

  “Put your lightsaber away, Morto,” the woman rasped.

  When Morto didn’t obey quickly enough, the white eyes flared in his direction and sent him flying. The trip ended with the sharp crack of skull against stone, followed by the sound of crashing armor and a lightsaber snapping off. Alema glanced back and saw the Togorian sitting at the base of a support pillar, one hand pressed to his bloody head.

  “Thank you,” she said. “But we were thinking of more help than that.”

  White Eyes’ gaze turned to Alema. “You will stay the night,” he commanded. “We may have something for Jacen Solo after all.”

  seventeen

  Flying by instruments because visibility was so poor, Jaina dropped out of the smoke and followed the navigation beacon through a gaping hangar mouth into … more smoke. Though she had not seen any flames on her approach, it seemed to her all of Rwookrrorro must have been burning to produce such a pall. She hoped it was all rising from below. On the way in, she had picked up some comm chatter suggesting the fires were spreading most ferociously in the forest’s midlevels, where they could draw more oxygen from surrounding layers.

  A pair of marshaling beacons appeared in the haze, directing her to turn right … and slow down. Jaina grimaced and obeyed, realizing that in her haste to catch Luke, she had entered the hangar far too quickly. All around her, vague blocky forms materialized into StealthXs, fueling sleds, and armament racks.

  No sooner had Jaina set her craft down than a shaggy crew of Wookiees was swarming over it, refueling and checking weapons status. She disengaged her suit connections and extracted herself from the crash webbing, then popped the canopy and sprang out of the cockpit, landing beside a confused-looking Wookiee holding an access ladder.

  “Where’s Luke Skywalker?” she asked.

  The Wookiee pointed through the smoke toward the back of the hangar, where Jaina could barely see a squadron of pilots climbing into their StealthXs. She took off at a run, dodging hoversleds and technicians and coughing on the acrid air. The smoke was less thick inside the hangar than it was outside, but it was clear that the Jedi would be changing bases after their run. She caught up to Luke just as R2—memory-enhanced to help fly StealthXs—was being lowered into the droid socket.