The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  Marr drummed his long fingers on the table, taking it all in. He gave a noncommittal grunt that Khedryn liked not at all.

  “No, this isn’t just a Jedi concern,” Jaden said. “It concerns you, too. Consider all the things I mentioned, the synchronicity of them. It is not chance that we are here together at this moment.”

  “It could be chance,” Khedryn said halfheartedly, but he did not believe his own words. “Marr could put a probability to it, had he a mind. No, I am not doing this.”

  Relin slammed his fist on the table with the suddenness of a lightning strike, startling them all. Caf and tea jumped over cup brims. “You are a stubborn fool, Khedryn Faal.”

  Khedryn could handle anger more easily than Jaden’s inexorable reasonableness. “Better a live fool than a dead fanatic, which is the course you’ve charted for yourself. You’ve got radiation poisoning, broken ribs, a severed arm. You haven’t even paused long enough for treatment. You haven’t even asked for some pharma for the pain or bacta to help the healing.”

  Relin rose to his feet, anger in his eyes. Khedryn’s mouth went dry but he held his ground and made certain nothing on him shook.

  “I do not stop for treatment because I will not shirk doing what needs to be done. Even if it causes me pain. You cannot always run, Khedryn.”

  Khedryn stared into Relin’s haggard face, saw there a deeper pain than that of his wounds. He wilted under its weight, sighed, sat.

  “You spilled your tea,” he said quietly.

  Silence took the head chair for a time, everyone letting time deflate the tension. Relin sat, too, his anger at Khedryn seemingly dispelled as fast as it had appeared.

  “Marr is Force-sensitive,” Jaden said. “Did you know that? Did either of you?”

  Khedryn spilled some of his own caf. “What?”

  “How do you know that?” Marr said, and Khedryn thought he did not sound overly surprised.

  “I can sense it. Relin can as well, I am sure.”

  Relin nodded absently, mostly lost in the depths of his teacup.

  Jaden looked to Marr. “I apologize for springing this on you. I thought I would tell you after we returned to Fhost. If I mentioned it at all.”

  “What does that even mean, Force-sensitive?” Khedryn asked.

  “It means he has an intuitive connection to the Force,” Jaden said. “Were he younger, it would mean he was trainable. But given your age, Marr, even with your mathematical gifts, training is probably out of the question.”

  The possibility, even if remote, of losing Marr to the Jedi Order opened a hole under Khedryn’s feet, and he started to slip. He held up his hands. “Whoa. Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves a bit?”

  “Yes, we are,” Marr said, and looked at Jaden. “Why did you tell me this now?”

  “Because I want all of us to realize that the Force brought you to that signal. You may not have known it, but that is what happened. You selected the route back to Fhost, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  “He’s the navigator,” Khedryn said.

  “I chose the course,” Marr acknowledged.

  Jaden nodded, obviously unsurprised. “It was not chance that you chose this system. The Force is moving through you, through all of us.”

  “Not through me,” Khedryn said before he could wall the words off behind his teeth. He knew they sounded petulant. He felt the odd man out on his own ship.

  Jaden put a hand on Khedryn’s shoulder, and that only made it worse. “The Force touches all of us. Look at us. Look.”

  Khedryn did, and had to admit that it would have taken an odd coincidence to bring all of them together, at that place, at that time.

  Marr, staring at his hands, said, “I do not wish any training.”

  Jaden did not seem surprised. “Understood. I simply wanted you to see what is happening here. I want all of us to see it.”

  “Jaden is right,” Relin said.

  Khedryn tried to get his head around events, but could not. He faced the fact that perhaps Jaden was, in fact, right. Could he simply run as he usually did?

  “Time is our enemy,” Relin said. “Khedryn, please.”

  Khedryn downed the last of his caf, pleased to find the final sip heavy with bitterness from the pulkay. He was almost to the point of surrender. “What are you asking us to do?”

  “Help us accomplish what needs to be accomplished,” Jaden said. “I need to get down to the surface of the moon. There is someone down there who needs help.”

  Khedryn fired the last of his ammo. “And if you go down there and there’s nothing? Have you considered that? I’ve seen that happen before.”

  Jaden shook his head, a bit too fast, a bit too forcefully. “That won’t happen. Something is transmitting that signal.”

  “Jaden—” Khedryn began.

  Relin cut him off. “I cannot go down to the moon.”

  Khedryn set down his caf cup and stared across the table. “No, you want to get aboard the cruiser. You said that. It remains crazy even when repeated often. Antique or not, that ship packs more firepower in its shuttles than we do on all of Junker.”

  “Relin,” Jaden said. “I don’t think—”

  Relin held up his stump, perhaps forgetting that it had no upraised hand attached. “You seemed surprised when I mentioned Lignan earlier.” He swirled his cup. “Were you?”

  “Yes,” Jaden said.

  “And that tells me that you have never before heard of it or its power. Yet Khedryn mentioned Sith, so I know they still exist in this time. Putting the Lignan in their hands would be dangerous, yes?”

  Jaden nodded. “It would, if it does what you say.”

  Relin’s voice frosted. “You felt it. Do you doubt what I say, too?”

  “No,” Jaden admitted. “But …”

  Relin ignored him, continued. “And Saes, the captain of Harbinger, should he figure out what has happened, may try to do exactly that: take it to the Sith. Or he may hoard it for himself. But he is very dangerous in either case. I need to destroy either the Lignan or the ship. And if he leaves this system, we may never get another chance. I do not have much time. Harbinger’s hyperdrive is damaged. The whole ship is reeling from the misjump. This is the moment.”

  Khedryn thought he could see Jaden bend under some weight known only to him. The Jedi very much wanted to go down to the moon’s surface. When his expression fell, Khedryn knew that Jaden, too, had just surrendered.

  “You are right,” Jaden said. “The ore is the greater concern. I am being influenced by … personal concerns. The moon can wait. I will accompany you aboard Harbinger.”

  Relin stared into his teacup. “No. Unless you can suppress your Force presence altogether, you are unwelcome. Saes will detect you easily.”

  “You could screen me.”

  “Your presence is too strong, Jaden,” Relin said. “Masking it from Saes would be difficult and an inefficient use of my power.”

  Listening to their exchange, Khedryn perceived two men trying to give the other an excuse to do what he wished, all while purporting to want its opposite.

  “Heed your own words,” Relin said to Jaden. “The Force called you to the moon, and that is where you should go. Look to your feelings.”

  “I don’t trust my feelings.”

  The admission seemed to take Relin aback. “You cannot accompany me, Jaden. This is for me to do.”

  “My Force presence is not strong,” Marr said, his words surprising everyone. “I could accompany you.”

  For a long moment, no one said anything.

  Khedryn was too stunned to speak. Finally, he said, “Why would you do that?”

  Marr sighed over his caf, shrugged, tilted his head, finally found words. “I told Jaden how I once calculated the probability that my life would go this way or that. Do you remember me telling you the same thing?”

  Khedryn nodded.

  “Do you know why I did that? It was not just the math. I wanted to confirm that my life would
mean something, that I would do something important. But then … other things got in the way.”

  “Marr …,” Khedryn said.

  “I do not regret a moment. You are my great friend. But is salvage all I want to have left behind me? This is a chance to do something meaningful. I concur with Jaden that something other than chance brought us to this moment. It is more likely that you’d win at sabacc than all of this to happen by chance.”

  Khedryn smiled despite himself. “That’s sayin’ something.”

  Marr continued, “Our lives have led us up to this place at this moment. How can I run away from that?”

  Marr did not say it, but Khedryn understood Marr to be asking him the same question, and he had no good answer. For him, running away was simple habit. He’d been running away from roots and responsibility since he’d become an adult. It had worked pretty well for him.

  Marr looked to Relin. “I will go, if you will have me.”

  Jaden started to speak, stopped.

  Relin stared across the table at Marr. “You’ve only just met me, and you do not know what I have in mind.”

  “Whatever it is, it will require a ship. You’ll need a pilot who knows the ship, not to mention one with two hands.”

  Relin tilted his head to acknowledge the point. “The Lignan will affect you more strongly up close. You’ve felt some … unease since Harbinger appeared?”

  Marr nodded. “A headache, mostly.”

  “The feelings will be more acute when you are near its source.”

  “For you, too,” Jaden said to Relin.

  Marr’s brow was smooth, his eyes untroubled. “Even so.”

  “You’re certain?” Relin asked.

  “Too certain, I’d say,” Khedryn said.

  “Yes,” said Marr, eyeing first Relin, then Khedryn. “I am certain.”

  “Very well,” Relin said.

  Khedryn shook his head, finished off his caf. “We are all crazy on this boat. I need another caf. Anyone else?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Drinks all around, then,” Khedryn said, and started to rise.

  “I will get it, Captain,” said Marr. The Cerean rose, placing his hand on Khedryn’s shoulder as he passed, the small gesture a reminder of the years they had been friends.

  “Let’s talk specifics,” Khedryn said to the Jedi. “What are your plans?”

  Relin gestured for Jaden to go first.

  “I fly down to the moon. Find what I am supposed to find.”

  “Alone?”

  Jaden nodded.

  “No,” Khedryn said. “I am not leaving my ship down on that moon if you … find something unexpected. I can shuttle you down in Flotsam. We’ll be able to dodge the cruiser’s sensors and get you into the atmosphere. From there you can locate the source of the beacon. But I expect more when we’re done. The Order owes me. Another five thousand on top of what we already agreed. Yes?”

  “Agreed.”

  “You hear that, Marr?”

  “Heard it, Captain.”

  Haggling over fees made Khedryn feel more like himself, more in control of events. He looked to Relin.

  “And what about you? How do you plan to get aboard that cruiser?”

  “I need Marr to fly me in.”

  “In where?”

  “Into the ship.”

  Khedryn scoffed, then frowned when he saw that Relin was serious. “That isn’t happening.”

  Relin’s jaw tightened, and loosened, masticating his thoughts. “My Padawan died trying to bring that ship down. I am going back aboard and destroying what needs destroying. There’s only one way for me to do that. We fly this ship right down its throat.”

  “Fly my ship, you mean.”

  “Yes, your ship.” Relin’s tone turned earnest. “Listen to me. Harbinger’s weapons systems are down. They have to be. Otherwise they would have blown your ship from space already. Saes had to deploy fighters to attack you rather than his batteries. So Marr flies your ship out of the rings and into the landing bay before they can stop us.”

  “You look a lot less sick when you’re talking about risking lives,” Khedryn said. “The ship has active deflectors. How do you propose getting through those?” He felt a pang of guilt even asking the question.

  Relin’s expression fell. “The shields? I … don’t know.”

  Khedryn did know but could not bring himself to mouth the words.

  “There has to be a way,” Relin said.

  Khedryn stared at Marr, who was pouring caf, willing him to hold his silence, but the Cerean ignored him. “We could use the power crystal to open a temporary hole in the shields.”

  Khedryn blew out an irritated sigh.

  Jaden looked startled. “You have a power crystal?”

  Khedryn glared at Marr, at Jaden, at Relin. “We’ve used it twice, to board uncrewed derelicts when the autopilot kept the shields operational.”

  “Where did you get it?” Jaden asked.

  “There’s a whole lot of things floating in the black, Jedi. I told you that. Just need to know where to look.”

  Jaden looked around, as if he expected a power crystal to burst out of a closet. “Where is it?”

  “In my pocket,” Khedryn snapped, then recovered himself. “Mounted on the beam projector behind Junker’s dish.”

  “It is a power sink,” Marr said. “We’ll have to divert most of our power to operate it. But it should work.”

  “The problem appears solved,” Relin said. “Thank you, Marr.”

  “Yes, thank you, Marr,” Khedryn said.

  Relin went on as if he had not heard Khedryn’s sarcasm. “Saes will not expect it. He thinks we’re destroyed. The Blades flying patrol will be too far out and none of the fighters on the ship will scramble in time to intercept us.”

  “That is madness,” Khedryn said. “Marr, did you hear this?”

  “I heard it, Captain.” Marr returned to the table, distributed the caf.

  Khedryn raised his eyebrows. “And?”

  “What other choice is there?”

  “We go back to Fhost, forget this whole thing,” Khedryn said, but everyone responded as if he had not spoken at all. Events had passed him by.

  “That gets you aboard,” Jaden said. “How do you get back?”

  Relin hesitated a beat too long, Khedryn thought. “Marr need only drop me off and get back out. He could jump anywhere he wanted to after that. Or he could flee back into the rings until you and Jaden return from the moon.”

  Marr pulled back a chair, sat. “The fighters will pursue and I cannot pilot Junker through the rings. I’d have to jump out and return later.”

  Khedryn tried to sip his caf but his hand was shaking. Embarrassed, he put the cup down. “You are seriously entertaining this? This is not a plan. It’s madness.”

  “That tells us how Marr gets out,” Jaden said, and leaned forward. “How do you plan to get out?”

  This time Relin answered a beat too quickly. “Escape pod, same as before.”

  Jaden and Relin shared a long look before Relin buried his eyes in the depths of his tea.

  “When does all this happen?” Khedryn said, dreading the answer.

  Relin looked up. “Now.”

  * * *

  Kell held Predator at a distance from the cruiser and followed on his scanner as the fighters nosed up and out of the rings and returned from their pursuit of Junker. There were several fewer than had entered.

  Kell decided that they had either lost the freighter or simply called off the pursuit. He knew they had not destroyed it. The skein of Fate was too strong. Jaden Korr’s destiny was not to die in laserfire. It was to die in Kell’s hands, as Kell devoured his soup and transcended.

  Content that his destiny was unfolding as it should, he engaged Predator’s low-output ion engines and piloted the ship near the edge of the rings. His baffles and screens would keep him invisible to the scanners of the cruiser. There he waited, a lurking spider.


  The opalescent moon glittered against the black of space. He watched it turn, the featureless ball where his life would find fulfillment. He could have surveyed the moon, reported his findings back to Darth Wyyrlok. But he would not. He would wait, watchful, and descend to its surface only when Jaden Korr did so. Their lines were knotted together in a common fate, tethered to each other, and he would put down on the moon only when pulled down by Jaden. He could no more go to the moon’s surface without Jaden than a Twi’lek could separate its lekku.

  His hands were shaking, partly from hunger, partly from exaltation. He had not fed since leaving Fhost, nor would he. His next meal would be, had to be, Jaden Korr.

  He powered down Predator but for the scanners, life support, and the speaker, which played the Imperial beacon, the sound that had summoned all of them to this one place, at this one time, and waited.

  “I will prep Junker,” Marr said, and rose to leave. Khedryn put his hands on the table, pushed himself up as if he weighed a thousand kilos. “And I will … do something else. Stang, I cannot believe I agreed to this.”

  The two Jedi said nothing, and he turned to go. When he stood in the hatch leading out, Khedryn glanced back and said to Relin and Jaden, “Listen, when we get back to Fhost, we gamble, all of us together. Yes? As reckless as you two are, I might actually win some credits. As long as Jaden doesn’t cheat. You have credits in your time, Relin?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then you’ve got something I can win. You play sabacc?”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “I will teach you.” Apparently thinking better before his exit, he returned to the food locker, poured and drank a final jigger of pulkay. “I’ll get Flotsam prepped. Then I will pray.”

  Jaden smiled him on his way. After Khedryn had gone, Relin, too, rose but Jaden halted him with a word.

  “Stay.”

  Relin eased back into his chair, grimacing at the pain in his ribs.

  But Jaden knew that physical pain was not driving him. He waited until he was sure Khedryn would not return.

  Before Jaden spoke, Relin said, “You do not need to say it.”

  But Jaden did. “Anger is pouring off you. I feel it more strongly than I do the effect of the Lignan.”

  “Saes must pay. My Padawan—”