The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  Khedryn’s good eye followed his lazy one away from Jaden’s face. “They combined Jedi DNA with something else and grew it into clones. Dangerous clones.”

  Jaden inhaled, then dived in, speaking to Khedryn the way he might have to R6, the way he did when confessing a transgression. “I suspect they recombined the DNA of Jedi with the DNA of Sith.”

  Khedryn’s lazy eye floated in its socket, fixing on nothing, as if it did not want to see. “Why would they do that? Being a Jedi or a Sith is a choice, isn’t it? It’s not biology.”

  Jaden shook his head. “We didn’t know all there is to know about how biology meshes with Force use. Perhaps they sought to create some kind of breakthrough Force-user, one unbound by the limitations of light and dark.”

  “How is that possible? Light and dark sides are exclusive, aren’t they?”

  Jaden turned off the computer and Dr. Gray disappeared. “The line between light and dark is not as clear as many think.”

  “More reason we should go, Jaden. They created some kind of monsters here and—”

  “Not monsters!” Jaden said, and the harshness of his tone took them both unawares. He hung his head. “I need to go down, Khedryn. If any of them are still alive, I need to … help them.”

  “Help them!” Khedryn exclaimed, then, more softly, “We are not talking about them. And you and I both know it. Jaden, you made a mistake on Centerpoint. An understandable one. Fine. Don’t make another one here. It’s time to go.”

  “I cannot.”

  Khedryn continued, his words like hammerblows. “Subjects A through I. One is dead for certain, but that leaves up to eight clones that could still be alive. I have seen what you can do, but you are one man. Eight, Jaden. And we have reason to suspect they will be hostile.”

  “I know all that.”

  “You are asking me to risk my life so you can save your conscience.”

  “I did not know things would turn out this way, Khedryn,” Jaden said, and meant it. “Go back to Flotsam and wait for me there.”

  “I don’t quit, Jaden. That’s not—”

  Jaden’s thoughts crystallized around the fact that he had asked far too much of Khedryn already. Relin had done the same with Marr. They—the Jedi—were exacting too high a price from those around them. Jaden wanted no more blood on his hands.

  “Listen to me, Khedryn. You are right. This has been and is about me learning something about myself. I … can use light and dark side powers and I do not know what that means for me.”

  The words caused Khedryn to take a half step back, as if Jaden had struck him. His eyes widened. “You can what? Like the clones?”

  Jaden bulled forward without acknowledging the question. “But I think there’s an answer here, in this place. And I do not want you risking anything more than you already have—”

  “I said I do not quit, Jedi.”

  Jaden nodded. “And I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to recognize the fact that you will be able to do nothing for me should I meet the clones. They will be dangerous, too dangerous for you. Go back to the ship. We can stay in contact via comlink. If something happens to me, you can leave, rendezvous with Marr and Relin.”

  Khedryn shook his head, pure stubbornness taking over. “Relin is not coming back. You and I both know that, too. But Marr better.”

  “Go back,” Jaden said. “Go back, Khedryn.”

  Khedryn continued to shake his head, but Jaden saw his resistance crumbling.

  He put his hand on Khedryn’s arm. “Go. Back.”

  “You using that mind trick on me again?”

  Jaden smiled. “Yes, I am. You know why you have no weapons on Junker?”

  “Because I run,” Khedryn said softly, and his lazy eye looked past Jaden and off to the side, no doubt seeing the world askew. He refocused on Jaden. “You are certain?”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t intend to leave without you, though.”

  Jaden knew he had done the right thing. He saw the relief in Khedryn’s body language, his expression. Khedryn seemed to draw a deep breath for the first time since leaving Junker.

  “Understood, Khedryn. Go on.”

  They settled on a comlink frequency and Khedryn headed out, while Jaden studied the schematic that showed the facility’s layout. He put his finger on the drawing of the lift that led to a lower level.

  “There be dragons,” he said.

  Kell slid through the open hatch of the facility, past the guard post, and down the dark hallway. He activated the light-amplifying implants in his eyes and glided through the dim corridors. His mimetic suit rendered him all but invisible against the featureless gray walls. His skill rendered him all but silent.

  For a time, he was easily able to track Jaden and his companion by way of the wet tracks they left behind. When those disappeared, he relied more heavily on his skills. He examined patterns in the dust, depressions in the carpet, noted items—a computer station, a closet door—that appeared recently disturbed. He also kept his keen hearing focused on the way ahead.

  From time to time he heard the hiss of distant voices, the squeak of an opening door, the tread of boots on metal.

  The facility was some kind of secret research lab, though its particular purpose was lost on Kell. He spent little time thinking about it. His appetite pulled him forward. He imagined himself casting a line of fate into an ocean of possibilities and hooking Jaden Korr. All he needed to do now was reel him in and feed.

  His hunger grew with each step.

  Marr slammed his palm into the button that closed Junker’s cargo bay door on the dead Massassi, on the ruins of Khedryn’s Searing, on the ruins of Relin.

  There is nothing certain.

  Once the door began its descent, he took one last look down the freight corridor at the corpses and the destruction, then turned and sprinted for the cockpit. He stopped dead when he hit the galley, his chest rising and falling like a forge bellows.

  The caf pot on the table had been toppled, the caf still dripping off the edge, pattering on the floor. He stared at it as if the spill pattern were a deep mystery whose solution promised wisdom.

  The hard landing had spilled it.

  He started to walk, stopped again.

  If that were true, the caf would not still be dripping to the floor.

  Something else had spilled it. Very recently.

  The clang of an opening hatch sounded from somewhere behind him, one of the corridors on the stern side of the galley.

  His heart revved faster than the Searing. For a moment, fear froze him. His thoughts turned chaotic, coming so fast and inchoate that they made no sense.

  They had gotten in the ship from the landing bay side. They must have pried open an exterior hatch, or cut their way in, or something.

  Another hatch sounded, closer. He heard the soft tread of boots on Junker’s metal floors, a ginger footfall trying and failing to move with stealth.

  The proximity of the danger freed him from his paralysis and he bolted from the galley, clutching his blaster in a sweaty hand as he ran. After he’d cleared the galley, reason overcame fear and he realized that pelting through the corridors would both telegraph his position and potentially send him right into the arms of whoever was aboard. He had no idea where they were, what they were.

  He slowed, his heart still thumping madly, and ducked into a seldom-used crew quarters. The small room featured nothing but twin, wall-mounted bed racks and a round viewport blocked by the gray steel of a security shield.

  He had to get himself under control, think rationally.

  Recalling what Relin had taught him, he tried to retreat into the keep but found it barred. Fear worked against him. He could not seem to catch his breath.

  Gathering himself, steadying his breathing, he thought of the calculations that proved Vellan’s theorem and tried again.

  He relaxed as he fell into the Force. Its touch comforted him, warmed him, steadied him. The Force crowded out his f
ear, leaving him clear-headed and calm.

  Marr realized that Relin had been wrong. There was something certain. The Force was certain, as constant as the speed of light.

  He considered his options and realized that all of them led to a single place—the cockpit. But first he needed to get to the storage locker near the forward air lock.

  He put his hand to the cool metal of the hatch, turned it, and pushed it open. Cringing at the squeak, he exited the quarters and moved in fits and starts along Junker’s corridors. Every windowless hatch was an exercise in controlled terror since he had no idea what he would find on the other side. As best he could, he peeked around corners, listened before he moved. From time to time he heard sounds of movement behind him, the soft chatter of a quieted comlink. Whoever was aboard sounded louder now, more careless than before, as if Harbinger’s crew thought the ship empty.

  He reached the air lock, opened the storage locker, and grabbed an oxygen kit and his vac suit. Not quite a hardsuit designed for long-term exposure to the vacuum, this was a flexible mesh-and-plate garment used for short-term space walks. He’d used it to travel between ships on salvage jobs, make quick repairs to Junker’s exterior, and the like.

  He considered donning it then and there but felt too exposed in the corridor. Instead, he slung it over his shoulder, grunting under its weight, and humped it through the corridors.

  Before he had gone ten meters, a guttural voice shouted behind him. He did not understand the language, but he understood the tone.

  He whirled, saw two of the Massassi in black uniforms, and fired a shot with his blaster. It clicked and fizzed, the charge exhausted. He cursed, dropped it, drew the blaster he’d taken from the dead Massassi back in the freight corridor, and fired.

  He missed badly and threw himself against the wall as the two Massassi tore down the hall toward him, their blasters sending pulses of green energy into the bulkhead near him.

  The spinwheel of a hatch pressed into his back. He fired a couple of shots, forcing the Massassi to slam themselves against the wall for cover, and threw open the hatch. He ducked inside the corridor and closed the hatch behind him. It had no lock. Cursing, he looked around for anything he could stick into the spinwheel’s spokes, but saw nothing.

  He heard the Massassi on the other side of the door, and then the wheel started to spin. Marr grabbed it, but the creatures were far too strong. Desperate, he stuck the Massassi blaster into the spinwheel, wedging it between the wheel and the pull handle. It stuck, halting the wheel’s spin, but Marr knew it would not hold for long.

  Heedless of the danger of bumping into more Massassi, he ran as fast as he could for the cockpit. Adrenaline lent him strength, but the vac suit and oxygen kit weighed him down. By the time he saw the cockpit door ahead, his lungs burned and his legs felt like lead.

  Blasterfire from behind sizzled past his ears and slammed into the bulkhead. The shouts of the Massassi, more than two, rang out behind him. He dug deep, surprising himself when the Force gave him strength and speed, and staggered into the cockpit.

  Pain lit his back on fire as a rain of small metal disks, dozens of them like flying razors, richocheted around the space. Warm blood streamed down his back and he hoped he had not taken a hit to a kidney.

  He threw the vac suit and oxygen kit to the ground, the momentum pulling him to his knees, and turned to close the cockpit security door. Three Massassi sped down the hall, the trunks of their legs chewing up the distance, the thump of their boots like blaster shots on the metal floor. Two others behind the charging three whirled their polearms above their head, jerking them back as Marr hit the security door release. A rain of the tiny metal disks flew from the end of the polearms over the other Massassi, but the door closed and they chimed against it like tinny rain.

  Marr’s breath sounded loud in the close confines of the dark cockpit. A bout of dizziness caused him to sway. He was losing blood rapidly.

  Impacts challenged the security door—shoulders or booted feet—but it held for the moment. Marr did not have much time. He could hear the Massassi growling in their language on the other side of the door.

  He needed to get off Harbinger but he dared not lift the security shields for fear the deck crew would shoot out Junker’s viewports. He would have to fly her on instruments only.

  He climbed to his feet, put the autopilot into launch prep, and methodically donned the vac suit and oxygen kit, all while blasterfire from the Massassi pounded against the security door. Judging from the noise, Marr thought more of the creatures must have joined the first five. Blaster shots challenged the door but did not penetrate it.

  The autopilot completed pre-launch and Marr squeezed into the pilot’s seat. He engaged the repulsorlifts and Junker rose off the deck.

  For a moment, the Massassi left off their attack on the cockpit security door. Perhaps they had felt the liftoff.

  Marr’s mouth turned dry as he rotated Junker on its vertical axis, using only his instrumentation to orient him.

  An explosion from outside the ship rocked it sidelong into Harbinger’s bulkhead. Marr fell from his seat as metal scraped against metal. For a terrifying moment the power on the ship went brown and Junker started to sink, but emergency reserves kicked in and brought it back online.

  He cursed as he climbed back into his seat, fearful that he had perforated his suit, but he had no time to examine it. He checked his board, cursed again when he saw that the explosion had scrambled the readout from his instrumentation. Nonsensical information streamed from the scanners. He activated a diagnostic but could not wait for it to resolve itself.

  In his mind, he pictured the layout of Harbinger’s landing bay. To him, it was all angles, proportions, distances in meters. As he fell into the geometry of his mind, he felt his connection to the Force strengthen. The connection had always been there, but now that he recognized it, he could more readily use it. Mathematics was his interface with the Force.

  Another explosion slammed Junker against Harbinger’s bulkhead. In the corridor outside the cockpit, the Massassi renewed their assault on the door, a more frantic, desperate assault.

  Marr remained calm, though blood loss turned him mildly dizzy. Thinking of Jaden piloting Junker through the rings, he strapped himself into his seat as best he could—his vac suit did not allow for full use of the harness—closed his eyes, trusted his instincts, and piloted Junker in the direction he thought was out. If he was wrong, he was flying not out but deeper into the landing bay. In that case, he would soon be dead.

  He fought down the doubt and continued his course.

  Blasterfire from the landing bay thumped against the ship, like someone knocking urgently for entry. The Massassi outside the security door beat against it like rancors in a bloodlust.

  Blind but not-blind, Marr felt Harbinger’s bulkheads, felt other ships nearby, the faint pulse of Harbinger’s crew around Junker. He was going the right way.

  He understood the interconnection of all things by the Force, understood how Jaden had piloted Junker through the gas giant’s rings. The realization made him smile as Junker flew on its repulsors toward the mouth of the landing bay. He held the smile as blood poured from his back and he began to see spots.

  When he had put some distance behind him and the deck crew, he raised the security shields. The mouth of Harbinger’s landing bay was just ahead and, beyond it, the black of space and the partial arc of the gas giant’s moon.

  The squeal of straining metal turned him around in his seat and sent his heart racing. The Massassi had forced the security door open a centimeter and wedged one of the metal studs they wore in their skin between the door and the bulkhead. One of them must have pulled it from his flesh. Their voices sounded loud and close—too close—through the slit. He could see motion through the gap and ducked as they tried to get the barrel of a blaster through. The opening was not quite wide enough, but it would be soon.

  He heard an exclamation and saw the work end of a pry bar s
lip into the gap. They had taken it from one of the wall-mounted emergency equipment cases.

  He cursed and engaged the ion engines. Junker raced out of Harbinger’s landing bay and into open space. He presumed Harbinger’s deflectors would work on the same outward-facing principle as their modern counterparts so he did not power down and coast. Instead he kept the engines at full and blew through them.

  The door creaked open more, its springs and levers groaning against the Massassi’s strength. Marr looked over his shoulder and saw the hole of a blaster barrel pointed through the slit, one yellow eye of a Massassi fixed on him.

  Marr hunched in his seat out of reflex, though the seat would not so much as slow a blaster shot. He pulled back on the Junker’s control and accelerated to full as the ship went vertical. The sudden shift in direction and velocity poured him flat into his seat and sent the Massassi backward from the door. The crowbar slipped free and the sound of a blaster’s discharge accompanied their frustrated roars.

  Weakened from his injuries, Marr almost passed out from the maneuver. The view through the cockpit window shrank to a tunnel with a few stars as he tried to hold on to consciousness. His blood pumped like a drum in his ears. The drumming gave way to a soft, steady rush, white noise that reminded him of the surf on Cerea. The tunnel of his awareness reduced to a pinpoint. He was falling …

  He fought his way back, seized awareness with both hands, and reached for the lever and buttons that would activate the emergency vent sequence. He seemed to be moving in slow motion, watching himself on a vidscreen.

  He hit the control sequence and an alarm beeped. Designed to put out an electrical fire shipside, the emergency vent would cause rapid depressurization and vent all oxygen in the ship into space. The Massassi would be dead in less than a minute while the vac suit would protect Marr.

  In theory.

  The beeping alarm turned into a prolonged keen, indicating imminent venting. Marr realized that he had never had the opportunity to check his suit. His fall could have pierced it, or one of the Massassi’s sharpened disk projectiles could have damaged it.

  There was nothing for it.