by Greg Keyes
“Peace Brigade,” Anakin explained. “And the one ship has friends now, about twelve of them. And they aren’t confused anymore.”
He’d been walking toward Kam while he spoke, and suddenly his old teacher swept forward, clasping his arm. “It’s good to see you, Anakin. And you? You’re alone?”
Anakin nodded. “Talon Karrde is on the way with a flotilla. He’s supposed to evacuate you and the students. Uncle Luke wasn’t expecting the Peace Brigade to show up so soon, I guess.”
Kam’s eyes narrowed. “But you were, weren’t you? You came here without permission.”
“I came against orders, actually,” Anakin corrected. “That’s not important now. Getting the students to safety, that is.”
“Of course,” Kam agreed. “How long before the Peace Brigade can land?”
“An hour? Not long.”
“And Karrde?”
“He could be days.”
Kam grimaced. “We can’t hold out here that long.”
“We might. We’re all Jedi.”
Kam snorted. “You need a sense of your limitations. I have a sense of mine. We might do very well, but we’ll lose kids. I have to think of them first.”
They were approaching the turbolift when the door hissed open and ejected a blond-and-orange blur. The blur smacked Anakin at chest height, and he suddenly found surprisingly strong arms wrapped around him in a fierce embrace. Bright green eyes danced centimeters from his own.
He felt his face go warm.
“Hi, Tahiri,” he said.
She pushed back from him. “Hi, yourself, great hero-from-the-stars who’s too good to keep in touch with his best friend.”
“I’ve—”
“Been busy. Right. I know all about it—well, not all about it because we get the news so late here, but I heard about Duro, and Centerpoint, and—”
She stopped suddenly, either because she saw it in his face or felt it in the Force. Centerpoint Station was a sensitive subject.
“Anyway,” she went on, “you won’t believe how boring it’s been without you. All the apprentices have gone off, and that just leaves these kids—” She stepped away, and for the first time, he really saw her.
Whatever she detected in his eyes cut her off in midsentence. “What?” she asked instead. “What are you looking at?”
“I—” Now his face felt like it had been grazed by blasterfire. “You look … different.”
“Older maybe? I’m fourteen now. Last week.”
“Happy birthday.”
“You should have thought of it then, but thanks anyway. Dummy.”
Anakin found himself suddenly unable to meet her eyes. He dropped his gaze. “You’re, uh, still barefoot, I see.”
“What did you expect? I hate shoes. I only wear them when I have to. Shoes were invented by the Sith to keep our delicate toes in anguish and misery, I’m sure of it. Did you think just because I grew a centimeter or two I’d start torturing my feet?”
She looked up at Kam suspiciously. “What’s he doing here, anyway? I know he didn’t come to see me.”
Anakin flinched at the hurt he heard in that.
“Anakin’s come to warn us of trouble,” Kam replied. “In fact, you’ll need to do your catching up later.”
“Really? Trouble?”
“Yes,” Anakin said.
Tahiri put her hands on her hips. “Well, why didn’t you say so? What’s going on?”
“We need to talk to Tionne and Ikrit,” Kam told her, continuing forward into the turbolift.
“Now,” Anakin added, following him.
“But what’s going on?” Tahiri shouted at their suddenly retreating backs.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Anakin promised.
“Fine.” She ducked into the lift just as the door was closing.
“The Yuuzhan Vong warmaster basically put a price on our heads,” Anakin said. “On all our heads, all the Jedi. He announced that if what’s left of the New Republic will turn over all of its Jedi to him—and Jacen especially—he won’t take any more planets.”
“Boy, that sounds like a lie,” Tahiri said.
“Doesn’t matter. People believe him. Like the people in the ships approaching right now.”
“They want to turn us over to the Yuuzhan Vong? Let them try!”
“Don’t worry, they will.”
The door opened and they emerged onto the second level. Kam started down the main corridor and then through a series of passages that were utterly familiar to Anakin, though they all seemed somehow narrower than when he had last seen them. The Massassi temple that housed the academy had once seemed impossibly huge. Now it seemed merely large.
They reached the central area, and twenty-odd faces turned toward them. Human, Bothan, Twi’lek, Wookiee—more than a dozen species were represented. All were quite young except one—Tionne, Kam’s wife, a graceful silver-haired woman with pearl-white eyes. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise and her lips in pleasure.
“Anakin!” she said.
“Tionne,” Kam said gently but urgently, “we need to talk.”
“Anakin!” Sannah, a girl of thirteen with brown hair and yellow eyes, waved at him. Even younger Valin Horn was waving, though he wasn’t shouting.
“He’s busy!” Tahiri told them. But when Anakin went to talk with Kam and Tionne, Tahiri came along.
“Tahiri—” Kam began.
“Oh, no,” she said. “You aren’t leaving me out of this.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Kam said gently. “I was going to ask you to find Master Ikrit and meet us in the conference room.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She whirled off down the corridor on bare feet.
* * *
Tahiri was back with Ikrit only moments later. The old Jedi Master padded into the room on all fours, his long floppy ears dragging the ground. His normally bright eyes seemed a little dull to Anakin, and he felt an inexplicable pang.
“Master Ikrit.”
“Young Anakin. It is good to see you,” Ikrit replied. “Though you bring troubling news.”
“Yes.” He raced through the details once again, for Ikrit and Tionne.
“They would take our children?” Tionne murmured, more darkly than was her wont.
“The Peace Brigade? Absolutely. Tionne, it’s bad for Jedi out there right now.”
“I understand,” she said, then clenched her fist. “No, I don’t understand. Has the galaxy gone mad?”
“Yes,” Kam said softly. “It’s an old madness, war.”
“You don’t have any ships, do you?”
“No. Streen went with Peckhum in the supply ship.”
“Where to?”
“Corellia. He should be back soon. Though I suppose they won’t, now.”
“We’ll have to hide them here, then,” Anakin said. “Where?”
“Down the river! The cave beneath the Palace of the Woolamander,” Tahiri offered. “Master Ikrit’s cave.”
Anakin raised his eyebrows. “That’s a good idea. They’d be really hard to find there, especially if the Peace Brigade doesn’t start looking right away.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kam said, his voice suddenly cautious. “Why would they delay the search?”
“I’ll stay behind,” Anakin said. “I’ll make it look as if we’re still in the temple trying to make a stand. They’ll waste time shooting their way through while you and Tionne get the kids to safety.”
“You’re leaving out one little detail,” Tahiri said. “What about you? What keeps you safe?”
“I’ll hide the X-wing. I know a good place. I can slip through them. Then I’ll play hide-and-seek until Talon Karrde shows up. Once he’s mopped up the Peace Brigade, I’ll lead him to you.”
“You’ve been thinking about this,” Tionne said.
“All the way down,” Anakin admitted. “It’s the best way.”
“He’s right,” Kam said.
“Kam—” Tionne began.
“He’s right,” Kam went on, “except that he’s not the one staying behind—I am.”
“I’m the better pilot,” Anakin said bluntly. “I’m the only one who can pull it off.”
“Anakin is correct,” Ikrit said in his scratchy voice. “It is part of his destiny. And mine.”
“Master Ikrit—”
“You will say I am no warrior. That may be true—it has been long since I wielded a lightsaber, and it was not what I preferred even then. But it is not lightsabers that will prevail here today, not weapons. Not all uses of the Force are aggressive.”
Anakin pursed his lips, but he couldn’t bring himself to contradict the ancient Master.
Kam gnawed his lip for a moment. “Very well,” he said at last. “I don’t like it, but we don’t have time for a debate. Tahiri, come along. Help me and Tionne get the students on the boats.”
“Fine,” Tahiri said, “but I’m staying with Anakin.”
“No,” Anakin said.
“Yes!” Tahiri retorted. “I’ve been stuck on this mud-ball while you’ve been out fighting the Yuuzhan Vong. I’m sick of it! I’m ready to do something!”
“You’re too young for this,” Tionne said.
“Anakin’s only two years older than me! He was fifteen at Sernpidal!”
“That’s right,” Anakin said, “and I got Chewbacca killed. Tahiri, please go with Kam.”
Her eyes widened in shocked betrayal. “You don’t want me with you! After all we—you think I’m a kid, just like they do!”
No, Anakin thought. I just don’t want to see you killed, too.
“Come on, Tahiri,” Tionne said gently. “There’s no time to lose.”
“Fine. That’s just fine,” she said, and without another glance at Anakin she darted from the room.
Kam placed his hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “It’s been hard on her without you here.”
Anakin nodded. “Anyway,” he said gruffly, “I’d better get to work.”
“Be careful, Anakin. You don’t have to buy us a lot of time. When you need to go, go. We need you alive.”
“I don’t plan to die,” Anakin assured him.
“Most people don’t. It happens anyway. Trust the Force, listen to Ikrit. May the Force be with you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“It will burn you, Anakin,” Ikrit’s pleasant, familiar rasp solemnly pronounced.
Anakin looked up from his work on the intercom. He and the old Jedi were in what had once been the command center when the Great Temple had been a Rebel base. Most of the wartime equipment was gone, but some remained—the various communication systems, including an intercom that piped information throughout the temple and its surrounds.
“Master?”
“Your anger. You have built yourself a vessel to contain it, but the crucible itself will one day melt from the heat. Then you will burn, and others with you. Many others, possibly.”
Anakin slipped the modified data chip in place and straightened. “The Yuuzhan Vong make me angry, Master. They’re destroying everything I know, everything I love.”
“No. You make you angry. People die; you are angry because you could not save them.”
“You mean Chewbacca.”
“And others. Their deaths are inscribed on you.”
“Yes. Chewbacca died because of me. A lot of people have died because of me.”
“Death comes to call,” Ikrit replied. “You cannot hold water in your hands for long. It leaks away, goes where it is meant to go. To the soil and sky. To ions, and then space, where stars are born.”
Frustration hijacked Anakin’s lips. “That’s poetic, Master Ikrit, but it’s not an answer. My grandfather was Darth Vader, and he killed billions. But that was after decades of the dark side. I’m only sixteen, and look what I’ve done. Darth Vader would be proud.”
Ikrit fixed him with luminous blue eyes. “It is to your credit that you feel those deaths, that you mourn. But you did not kill those people. You did not wish them dead and then bring it to pass.”
“No,” Anakin said. “But at Centerpoint I wished the Yuuzhan Vong dead. I wanted to kill every last one of them. If my brother hadn’t stopped me, I would have. I think—often—that I should have.”
“Your brother didn’t stop you.”
“You weren’t there, Master Ikrit. I would have done it.”
“I was there, Anakin. In every important way, I was. Anakin, you must let your anger go. Angry steps have worn a rutted path to the dark side. It is an easy path to follow, difficult to avoid.”
Anakin turned to the power generator remote panel and fiddled with it a bit. “This might work,” he murmured. “I wish I had time to go out to the generator.”
“Anakin.” The Master’s voice carried a note of command.
Anakin didn’t look up from his work. “You know, Master Ikrit,” he said, “I used to dream every night that I would turn to the dark side, become my name, what my grandfather became. Now that seems silly. The Force doesn’t make a person good or evil. It’s a tool, like a light-saber. Don’t worry about me.”
“Listen to me, young Solo,” Ikrit said. “I never said the Force would lead you to evil. I warned you your feelings might.”
“Feelings are tools, too, if you don’t let them control you,” Anakin said.
Ikrit clucked his soft laugh. “And how are you to know when a feeling controls you? When anger guides your hand or guilt stays it?”
Anakin sighed. “With all due respect, Master Ikrit, we don’t have time for this discussion. The Peace Brigade will be here any moment.”
“This is the perfect time for it,” Ikrit replied. “Perhaps the only time.”
“What do you mean?”
Ikrit blinked, very slowly, then scratched out a long breath.
“I am centuries old, Anakin. I came here to Yavin Four to free the spirits of the imprisoned Massassi children, or so I thought. Now I think there was another reason, an even greater one.”
“Master? What could that be?”
“The task that drew me here was beyond my power to complete. It was beyond the power of any adult Jedi. You and Tahiri were the only ones who could have done it.”
“With your help and advice. Without you, we never could have released them.”
Ikrit ruffed his fur. “With or without me you would have done it,” he purred. “That is why I say I was drawn here for another reason, slept for centuries for another cause.”
“What reason?”
“To see something new born in you and Tahiri. And to give you whatever small help I am able to give to see that birth arrive.”
A chill spidered up Anakin’s back. He couldn’t say why, but Ikrit’s words struck something in his core.
Ikrit walked to the window. “They are here,” he said.
Anakin bolted over. Peace Brigade ships were settling everywhere.
“I’m not ready!” Anakin said.
“You are ready,” Ikrit replied.
“Not as ready as I would like. Ten more minutes would have been nice. I could have brought the automated defenses of the power generator on-line.”
“Tell me what you have done.”
“Well, I’ve got an energy shield up, though not much of one, and it’s only over the compound. A little pounding will bring it down.” Anakin switched on the intercom. Faint sounds of speech and movement bustled around them. “It’ll sound like a bunch of us are in here. And this—” He went to what had once been the local sensor control panel. “—I’m using the old sensory array to generate the illusion of small, local movements in the temple.”
“Scurrying,” Ikrit said. “As if we’re running about.”
“Right. Of course, they won’t see anything, if they get close, but their instruments will tell them we’re all over the place.”
“They will see also,” Ikrit said. “Come.”
The Great Temple was a ziggurat with three giant steps. The old command center was on
the second tier. The ancient structure had five openings that led out to the flat, paved surface that was the roof of the lowest tier. Anakin and Ikrit made their way to the one that faced the landing clearing and peeked out.
Beyond the vague distortion of the energy shield, Anakin saw five ships settled in the clearing. Two were already disgorging armed Peace Brigaders.
“I hope they go for this,” Anakin said. “I hope they believe. If they start a search for Kam, Tionne, and the kids now, they might find them.”
“They will believe,” Ikrit assured him. “They will believe the children are here because they want to, and because they are weak. Do not worry, Anakin. As I said, a warrior I may not be, but the Force is not weak with me.”
“I’m sorry, Master Ikrit,” Anakin said. “I should not doubt you.”
“Then do not doubt my words. Search your feelings, every day. Keep careful watch. The worst monsters are not those from without.” Then the Master closed his eyes, humming faintly to himself. Anakin felt a surge in the Force as Ikrit’s will went out to touch the beings below, to nudge their credulity over the edge.
Anakin lifted a remote comm unit and keyed into the outdoor speakers.
“You are trespassing on the grounds of the Jedi academy,” he said. “Please leave immediately.”
At the sound of his amplified voice, some of the Peace Brigaders dived for cover. A moment later, the exterior speakers of one of the ships boomed on.
“You inside the temple,” the voice said. “This is Lieutenant Kot Murno of the Peace Brigade. We have been empowered to take control of this facility.”
“On whose authority?”
“The Alliance of Twelve.”
“Never heard of it,” Anakin replied. “Whoever they are, they don’t have any jurisdiction over this system.”
“They do now,” Murno answered. “We are their authority. Surrender, and you won’t be harmed.”
“Really? You don’t think that the Yuuzhan Vong will harm the children you’ve come to kidnap when you hand them over to them?”
There was a pause this time before Murno answered. “It is the price of peace,” he said. “I regret it, but it is the case. Weighed against what the Yuuzhan Vong could do to every inhabited world in this galaxy, a handful of Jedi isn’t much to ask. You brought this disaster upon us. You must pay the price.”
