by James Luceno
“So they died out,” she continued, “and centuries or millennia later, an operation settled here to mine this asteroid belt. And it wouldn’t have begun mining underneath the directors’ habitat, except someone discovered the caverns and all the metal-bearing ore lodes that had been denuded by the mynocks eating all the silicon-based stone out from around them.”
“I can guess some of the rest,” Jacen said.
“Go ahead.”
“Prolonged exposure of the miners to a well of dark side energy led to weird incidents. People seeing things, Force-sensitives manifesting odd abilities. Perhaps channeling your mynocks, behaving like them, and being considered insane.”
“Very good.” Brisha nodded. “The director of that time hushed up the reports, closed down that mine—the rest of the operation in these asteroids was unaffected—and kept things tightly under wraps. He, too, was a Force-sensitive and had been experiencing things, experimenting, acquiring and testing new powers. When this asteroid belt eventually became less profitable as a mining operation, he closed it down, carefully mismanaged things so that the habitat would be left here and forgotten … and then, leaving it behind, he went out into the galaxy, finding the Sith, apprenticing himself, eventually becoming the Sith Master Darth Vectivus.”
“Never heard of him,” Jacen said.
Brisha’s expression showed a little impatience. “That’s because he did no evil. He didn’t attempt to conquer the galaxy, try to wipe out the population of a star system, or start an all-out war with the Jedi. He just existed, learned. Died of old age, surrounded by family and friends.”
Nelani gave her a skeptical look. “A patron of the arts, supporter of charitable causes, and inventor of the cyclonic highball, favorite alcoholic drink of island tourists everywhere.”
“You mock,” Brisha said, “which is fine, but you mock out of ignorance, which is not. You don’t know anything about Darth Vectivus.”
Nelani gave her a frosty smile. “Including whether he ever existed, or whether he was the jolly nice man you describe.”
“And you can only find out the truth by learning.”
“How did he keep from being ruled, and ruined, by greed?” Jacen asked.
“Ah. That’s easy. He developed a strong ethical code before he ever felt any pull from the dark side. He was an adult, a hardheaded businessman with a keenly balanced sense of both profit and fairness, and when temptation whispered in his ear he could ignore it as easily as he could ignore the importunings of equally destructive softheartedness.” She glanced at Nelani as she spoke those last few words, then returned her attention to Jacen. “The Sith who were famous for being bad, Jacen, were the way they were because they were badly damaged men or women to start with. Not because they were Sith. Usually, they were weak, or deluded, or greedy to begin with. Like your grandfather. I knew him, you know.”
Jacen shook his head. “How could I know? I don’t know anything about you.”
“Conceded. I haven’t been using my true name. It’s inconvenient.”
“So you’re saying that you didn’t lure us here to kill us.”
“Correct.”
“And it wasn’t because you’re lonely, or just wanted to show the place off.”
Brisha’s smile turned genuine again. “No.”
“Then why?”
“Because, down in the caverns, where the dark side power is greatest, there is a Sith Lord, and I didn’t think I should face him alone.”
CORELLIAN SPACE, ABOVE TRALUS
Leia sat in the officers’ mess with Admiral Limpan, steaming cups of caf on the gleaming white table between them. “The GA tends to fall into the old trap of thinking of the Corellians as naughty children,” she said. “They’re not. They’re people who have never lost the pioneering spirit, even though their system has been well settled for millennia. Pioneering spirit, pioneering contempt for authority, pioneering disdain for complication or overanalysis. Think of them as children and you inevitably forget how dangerous they can be.”
Limpan said, “That’s surprisingly candid for one who is married to a Corellian.”
“Han is one of the most dangerous people in the galaxy.” Leia did not look at all abashed by this admission. “And I’ve been proud for more than thirty years of the ways he uses his dangerousness—”
A shrill alarm cut off her words. Uniformed officers at the surrounding tables stood, as did Limpan and Leia. “Intrusion alert,” the admiral said. “I’m needed—”
“I’ll stay with you, if I may,” Leia said.
The bridge was only a few dozen meters away, and when Limpan and Leia charged through the blast doors onto the elevated walkway, it was buzzing with activity. Officers shouted reports to one another, and a hologram of nearby space hung above the walkway. It showed the curved orbital line of distantly spaced Galactic Alliance ships and a formation of incoming craft in three groups, the fuzziness and blob-like nature of the formation informing Leia that its exact composition had not yet been determined by the sensors.
“All vessels and ground control, go to battle stations, launch all ready squadrons,” Limpan shouted. “Scramble all squadrons. Recall all scouting vehicles that can arrive here before or within three minutes after the arrival of that formation. All other scouts, initiate fishnet scout patterns on a slow traverse back toward Tralus. Navigation, what’s their course?”
A male officer, also a Duros, in one of the pits below, called up, “Sixty–forty probability Rellidir or Blue Diver.”
“Starfighter control, route one squadron in four down toward Rellidir, two in four toward Blue Diver, one in four remains with each launching ship.” The admiral’s head whipped around as she studied each station below the walkway.
“Admiral,” Leia said, “I have some experience with starfighter coordination, if I can be of any help …”
Limpan nodded absently. “Back through the blast doors we came in, immediate right—that is, to ship’s port—first door, tell Colonel Moyan to confirm your involvement with my aide. And thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Leia turned to rush back toward the bridge exit. Her words caught a little in her throat. The admiral had just thanked her for volunteering to commit what might end up being an act of treason—for if Leia could help Han survive the battle to come, she would do so, even if she had to act directly against the interests of the Galactic Alliance.
Syal cursed as her Twee cleared the exit doors of Blue Diver hangar and slowly began to accelerate. It still seemed so slow … She and her squadmates, five of them, lined up in a V-formation; her commander, who had been the pilot of the X-wing that bedeviled her during test runs, at point.
Gray One turned to lead the rest of the squadron down into the atmosphere. Syal checked her navigation board, saw that their destination was a point due south of the city of Rellidir. She nodded. The Corellians were coming to take their city back. She didn’t know whether, in her heart, to wish them luck or not.
Panther Flight—Han and Wedge—stayed well toward the rear of the Corellian formation.
Han chafed. It was wrong to be at the rear of any formation. When you were at the rear, spiteful enemy gunners concentrated their fire on you and you got your butt shot off. When you were at the rear, your placement marked you as a slow or indifferent pilot. Even the missile-launching craft were ahead of them; they had to be in place in the skies east of Rellidir before Han and Wedge made their approach.
To make things more irritating, Han still hadn’t heard from Leia. Admittedly, communication between them was going to be tricky and occasional. He glanced at the comm-equipped datapad that he had carefully glued to the Shriek control board once he’d been sealed into the vehicle—its lit screen remained aggravatingly blank.
Worse still, Wedge seemed to be reading his mind. “Don’t get impatient,” he said, his voice so clear in Han’s ears that he could have been sitting in the now empty copilot’s seat. “We’ll get there soon enough.”
“I
mpatient?” Han added an edge of disbelief to his voice. “Sonny, I’m just sitting here playing sabacc with the droid brains.”
“Good. Getting skinned will make you mean.”
Han grinned. He put on a little thrust, bringing him up slightly ahead of Wedge’s Shriek. “And getting your hatches blown off will make you mean.”
Wedge’s voice became less cordial, more military. “Forward starfighter edges now encountering enemy units.”
“Lucky them,” Han said.
RELLIDIR, TRALUS
This time, Jaina spoke each word with brilliant, individual clarity, making it impossible to misunderstand her. “I. Said. Drop. The. Shields. Over.”
“Negative on that, negative.” The groundside officer’s voice sounded young and a little panicky. “The enemy is less than three minutes away and descending rapidly.”
“Goodness,” Jaina said. “At two seconds to drop the shields and two to raise them again after we’re outside, that gives you, what? More than two and a half minutes to dither and still be safe? Drop the karking shields and let us out!” She pounded a portion of her control boards, unoccupied by buttons or readouts, with her fist.
Her squadron circled above downtown Rellidir, confined by the energy shields defending that portion of the city. Other starfighters were buzzing beneath her, but none of the other squadrons seemed as anxious to leave the shielded area.
“Orders are for all squadrons to stay close at hand and defend the center,” the anonymous officer said. “So you’re to stay put.”
“This is Hardpoint Squadron, the Jedi unit.” Jaina’s voice was a hiss of anger. “We’re not part of your immediate command structure. Let us out and we’ll do a much better job of defending you.”
“That’s a negative, Hardpoint. My orders are specific, and I’m not going to bother the commander right now with your request. Out.”
“Cringing, whimpering, mewling idiot,” Jaina said. “I’ve seen mouse droids with more guts and thud bugs with more brains.”
“I doubt he can hear you, One.” That was Zekk’s voice.
“I know.” Jaina sighed. “I guess we’re stuck here. Hardpoints, maintain your flight patterns and call out when the opportunities start raining down on us.”
She received a chorus of affirmatives but was too discouraged to pay much attention to them.
STAR SYSTEM MZX32905, NEAR BIMMIEL
The three Jedi and Brisha rode the turbolift back down to the bottom level of the habitat.
“That’s something you could have mentioned from the beginning,” Nelani said. “There’s a Sith in the basement. Any other home in the galaxy, that’d be the first thing out of someone’s mouth.”
“What’s his name?” Ben asked.
Brisha shrugged. “He hasn’t revealed himself to me, and so certainly hasn’t told me his name.” Then she grinned, suddenly playful. “Darth something, I expect.”
“There haven’t been any Sith in the galaxy since—what? The death of the last clone of the Emperor?” Jacen asked.
“True and not true,” Brisha said. “In terms of the classic Master-and-apprentice Sith structure, ‘there can be only two,’ you’re correct. I’m not sure I even count the Emperor’s clones as Sith. After all, they didn’t earn their Sith knowledge, didn’t acquire it through sweat and sacrifice; they inherited it like a package of downloaded computer programming. I think that the last Sith were gone when the Emperor and your grandfather died on the same day.
“But,” she continued, “plenty of Sith legacy survived. Individuals who were candidates to become Sith and failed for some reason to achieve full apprenticeship. They knew enough to survive, knew enough to continue learning. One may have learned enough to become a Master.”
The turbolift thudded to a halt at the habitat’s bottom level, the level by which they’d originally entered the structure. Brisha led them from there through a side door into a hexagonal room dominated by a tube. Tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, it was a cylinder of transparisteel marked by a pair of metal rails. The tube was just under two meters in diameter, and suspended above it on a metal brace was a sort of metal-wheeled cart. The cart had six seats up front, a copious cargo area in the middle, and a backward-facing set of six seats at the very end. Its nose was partly within the cylinder, pointed downward, the front set of wheels on the rails.
Ben peered at the tube. It led down past the floor into darkness, but as he watched, the interior surface of the tube began to glow. Meters below, he could see the rocky surface of the asteroid, and the tube continuing into the ground. “This is going to be fun,” he said matter-of-factly.
“The boy shouldn’t go,” Brisha said. “He’s not yet strong enough to face a Sith.”
Ben felt a flash of resentment but kept it from his face. “Tell you what, I’ll just resist all temptation,” he said.
Brisha gave him a severe stare. “The last time I met your father, our parting was not pleasant. He may have had time to forgive … but he certainly wouldn’t forgive me a second time if I managed to get his only child killed.”
“Then I won’t do that, either.”
Jacen climbed the skeletal metal stairs up to the mine car and hopped into the front seat. “He comes with us. That way no one can assault him while he remains behind.”
“If you say so.” Brisha followed and settled into the seat beside him.
In moments Nelani and Ben were in the rear seat.
Brisha flipped a button. Gauges and controls suddenly lit up on the mine car’s control panel. “Atmospheric pressure in the caverns is at point nine five of habitat standard,” she said. “Your ears may pop.” She hit a button. The railcar rolled into the tube, picked up speed, and plunged toward the asteroid surface.
And through it, into blackness.
chapter thirty
CORELLIAN SYSTEM, ABOVE TRALUS
The leading edges of the Corellian fighter squadrons hit the defensive screen of Galactic Alliance starfighters and engaged. Subsequent waves of Corellians plowed into rapidly arriving squadrons of GA fighters.
Panther Flight, Han and Wedge, accompanied by two squadrons of Corellian attack fighters, simply went around the engagement zone and screamed down into the atmosphere.
“Ride’s too smooth,” Han said.
“Are you out of your mind?” Wedge asked. “The ride’s too smooth?”
“Right. There should be some vibration, some dangerous-looking heat warnings to indicate that you’re punching through into the atmosphere. These Shrieks, they don’t offer the atmosphere any respect.”
“What you’re saying is, unless a transport is leaving a thin stream of pieces behind, like a trail of bread crumbs, during atmospheric entry, it doesn’t match up to the Millennium Falcon standard.”
“Well … right.”
“You could fire a few blaster shots into your own control panel and deal with the resulting malfunctions if you just wanted to feel at home.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I could get drunk on leave and cause a massive interplanetary incident, then call on you to straighten it out, since you’re my commanding officer.”
“You could do that. Or I could have the mechanics sabotage your hyperdrive so when it conked out you could tell everyone it’s not your fault.”
“Owww. I could arrange for you to receive orders to conquer Coruscant, but your only resources would be twelve drunken Ewoks, four malfunctioning speeders, and forty kilos of beach sand.”
“That’ll take at least two weeks, sir.”
Han grinned.
RELLIDIR, TRALUS
“Incoming fighters,” Gray One called out. “Coming in from orbit, north-northwest.”
Syal could see them on her sensors, big fuzzy blips resolving into two or three squadrons of starfighters and at least two larger targets.
“We’ll do this as a simple strafe,” Gray One continued. “Wait until they commit to a course, and then follow me in. Punch a big hole through everything you see.”
On Syal’s sensor board, orange lines, extrapolations of the intruders’ course transmitted by Gray One, appeared, pointing east of the city—well clear of the layered shields that protected the GA beachhead. As soon as the transmission came, Gray One rolled into a vertical descent, a course that paralleled that of the Corellian squadrons but was well in advance of it. The other Alephs followed.
STAR SYSTEM MZX32905, NEAR BIMMIEL
The railcar plunged through blackness and Ben felt his stomach rise into his throat, then break free and float, like a ghost, away from his body. He almost sent his lunch after it as an escort, but managed, through force of will, to keep himself from that embarrassment. A mere vertical drop wasn’t enough to make him queasy; the railcar must also have left the region of artificial gravity.
In the first moments there was almost no wind in his face, then suddenly the air currents increased and became cold. He guessed that they were now out of the tube and hurtling down through the caverns Brisha had spoken of.
The clattering of the metal wheels on the rails became louder, more echoing, a sign that they were moving through a narrow gap, and suddenly they were in light again—a broad cavern lit at intervals by glow rods affixed to the ceiling and wall surfaces.
Not that it was particularly well or effectively lit. The cavern, in the brief glimpse Ben had of it, was huge, its walls uneven and pitted, and through the vast empty space stretched curious columns of red-brown material. They seemed as ponderous and massive as stone, yet flowing and elongated like rivers of rusty water suddenly frozen into stillness. The glow rods illuminating the landscape were situated at intervals, sometimes on the surface of stone, sometimes within the pits of the walls, sometimes behind the columns of flowing material to silhouette them; the effect was more artistic than it was helpful.
As if sensing his question, Brisha pointed toward one of the columns, which flowed laterally in a curving wave, and called out, “Ferrous ore. Denuded by the mynocks eating around it.”
Then the railcar, continuing its descent, dropped toward another narrow, dark crevasse and plunged into darkness again.
