by Jude Watson
“I lost all systems in that last dive,” he said. “Even the manual control blinked out. Thanks for the help.”
Stormtroopers poured into the hangar, firing as they came. Obi-Wan deflected the fire with his lightsaber as they ran toward the remaining ship. Raina leaped aboard and started the engines. Toma helped Trever up the ramp.
Ferus and Obi-Wan turned their attention to the stormtroopers. Obi-Wan deflected fire and used the Force to push several stormtroopers backward, knocking them into the formation and sending several of them tumbling, hampered by their armor.
Obi-Wan and Ferus took advantage of this to jump aboard. The ship lifted off and streaked outside. Dodging cannonfire, Raina guided the ship through the smoking city.
“I can’t believe it,” Raina cried. “I can’t believe they’re destroying the city!”
But she didn’t have time for reflection. Starfighters were chasing them, hammering at them with cannonfire.
“They’ve locked a missile on our position,” Obi-Wan called.
“I’ve got to take us through the standing stones,” Raina said.
“Isn’t this ship a little big?” Ferus asked. “There’s no room to maneuver.”
“I’ve done it before on a training exercise,” Raina assured him.
“That was in a starfighter,” Toma pointed out. “And you crashed your ship.”
“Is he kidding?” Trever asked.
Raina shook her head. “Toma never kids.”
“Oh, good.” Trever gulped.
Raina flew over the walls that circled the city. She dove down into the canyon of standing stones. She did it so fast that the torpedo crashed into a standing stone with a roar.
Obi-Wan gripped the console as a giant stone came at them. Raina flipped the ship sideways, then zoomed around another stone.
It’s almost like flying with Anakin, Obi-Wan thought. For a second, this made him happy. Then he remembered the rest of it, and it pierced him. Anakin.
The starfighters overhead dipped down to follow them. One of them tipped a wing into a stone and spiraled out in a fiery crash. The spaces between the stones were so narrow that their starship barely made it through, even when Raina tipped them sideways.
Most of the starfighters gave up and lurked above in airspace, waiting for them to emerge. But one determined pilot swooped behind them. It was a race now, and Raina’s face was set with determination. She headed straight for a narrow opening between two standing stones.
“You’ll never make that one,” Obi-Wan said. Inwardly he thought, I really do hate flying.
Raina didn’t answer. It seemed as if she meant to kill them all. She still headed for the opening at top speed, the starship behind her screaming through the stone field.
At the last moment, she dove to the ground and cut her speed. Obi-Wan didn’t think any ship could handle such a maneuver without stalling out, but this one did. With a great shudder, it hovered only meters off the ground. The starship tried to flip sideways and make the opening between the two stones, but the pilot must have been distracted by Raina’s sudden maneuver. It crashed headlong into the stone.
Raina gently eased the ship close to ground level through the rest of the stone field. They were reaching the end of the canyon, and the standing stones were farther apart now.
“The starfighters are still up there,” Ferus said, his eyes on the nav screen.
Obi-Wan watched Raina. She was going so slowly. Why?
The sun was slipping down in the sky. Suddenly it hit the stones and lit them with orange fire.
“We call this the flames of Eluthan,” Toma said.
At the same time that the stones lit up, the canyon walls surrounding them went deep black with shadow. Raina put on a burst of speed and entered the canyon, losing herself in the shadows.
“This ship has a cloaking device,” Toma explained to the others. “It drains a lot of power, so we can’t use it for long. In the meantime, we’ll make it hard for them to get a visual sighting.”
Raina did some amazing flying, pushing the speed and hugging the contours of the canyon wall.
Trever was impressed. “If you ever want to give piloting lessons, sign me up,” he said.
Raina only nodded for an answer. Her face was set in grim lines. She knew how slim their chances were to outrun and outfox a squad of Imperial starfighters.
Wide navy blue sky loomed ahead. They were almost out of the canyon. Raina shot out into the dusky sky and headed up into the outer atmosphere, now pushing the speed to maximum.
“We made it!” Trever crowed.
“We’re losing the cloaking device,” Raina said.
“Just a few…more…seconds,” Toma said, scanning the sky.
But Obi-Wan’s eyes were on the screen. He saw the blinking dots reverse direction.
“They’ve spotted us,” he said.
The starfighters were gaining on them. The first missile streaked from the lead starfighter.
Raina pushed the craft left, then right, leading them on a zigzagging path that made them dizzy. The missile zoomed past them on the right.
“Any volunteers for the gun pods?” Toma asked. He flipped a switch, and gun stations opened up below the cockpit.
Ferus and Obi-Wan ran to the forward gun pods and strapped themselves behind the guns. They waited until the starfighters came into range. Ferus felt the Force gather and grow as they pounded the starfighters behind them.
But the starfighters were relentless, and more were sent from the surface. It was clear that the Imperial commanders knew that Toma had escaped on this ship. The starfighters zoomed toward it, grouping and regrouping, and pounding the ship with fire. They took one hit, then another.
“We’ve got to lose them!” Ferus shouted.
Bent over the nav computer, Toma shook his head. “We’re in deep space now. There are no neighboring systems.”
“Hold them off for a minute,” Obi-Wan told Ferus before running back to the cockpit. Ferus watched him out of the corner of his eye. What was he up to?
“I have an idea,” Obi-Wan told Toma. He quickly bent over the nav computer, making a wide search of the area. “On the way to Acherin we were caught in a fast-moving star tunnel. The kind that spins out from a vast atmospheric storm.”
“And you want to find the storm?”
Obi-Wan looked up at him. “It’s one place to lose the starfighters. We’re heavier and more durable. How much do you trust your ship?”
“I trust my ship,” Toma said. He glanced at Raina. “I trust my pilot more.”
“Here.” Obi-Wan found what he was looking for. “If we can hold them off just a little longer, we can make it.”
“I’ll go to maximum speed,” Raina said.
Obi-Wan went back to the gun pods. They kept up a steady barrage of fire. Raina flew fast in a series of dizzying turns and circles.
The ship started to shake alarmingly.
“Coming up on that storm,” Toma called. He whistled. “It’s a bad one. I’ve got indications of space shears and shifts.”
Space shears could tear apart a class-A cruiser, if a pilot wasn’t careful. At the sign of shears, pilots were happy to make detours of thousands of kilometers if they had to.
“We can still get around it,” Toma said.
Raina gritted her teeth. “No. This is the only way to shake them. Obi-Wan is right.”
They flew straight into the atmospheric storm. The jouncing of the ship turned into a violent bucking.
“She can take it,” Toma said to a visibly nervous Trever. “The ship is double-hulled and triple-bolted. We have backups on every system. I built this myself during the Clone Wars. It’s not an ordinary starship.”
“This isn’t your ordinary storm,” Trever said as a space shear hit them broadside.
Trever skidded across the cockpit floor and came to rest against the console. He grabbed it and held on.
A current of energy sent them spinning off out of control. Rain
a went with the spin, letting the ship find its own balance. “The trick with these energy shifts is to fight them as little as possible,” she said.
Ferus had to admire her nerve. The hardest thing for a pilot to do was let the ship take over. Raina watched the indicators, her gaze steady, not interfering with the ship’s attempt to right itself. It did no good to fire the cannons. They were spinning too crazily.
“The starships are retreating,” Ferus called. “They’re more afraid of the storm than they are of their admiral.” Or else, he thought privately, they figure that we’re doomed.
Raina began to take over the controls again, easing the ship through the buffeting storm. On and on they flew, slammed by currents of energy that sucked them into vortexes and spun them out like droplets of water. The ship staggered and lurched, sometimes close to stalling out the engines. Ferus started to worry when he noticed that Raina looked concerned.
“We’re almost out of it,” Toma called in relief.
The ride smoothed out, but suddenly they could see nothing. It was as though a curtain had dropped over the cockpit windscreen. They had entered an atmospheric cloud so dense that space outside was just a gray, roiling mass.
“Even the sensors can’t penetrate this,” Raina said. “I can’t get any readings. There must be some sort of energy field—”
Suddenly Ferus felt something surge, a warning.
“Ferus…” Obi-Wan said.
“I felt it.” He strained his eyes ahead.
Suddenly an asteroid loomed ahead, seemingly close enough to touch. It had appeared without warning and they were headed straight for it.
“Look out!” Trever shouted.
Raina pulled back on the speed. Just in time, the craft pulled up, and they zoomed just meters above the pitted surface while she desperately searched for a place to land.
“There.” Obi-Wan pointed.
Raina skimmed over the rocky ground and gently set the ship down on a large, flat rock.
Raina peered through the cockpit canopy. “Where are we?”
Toma scanned the nav computer. “This asteroid should have made it onto star maps. It’s large enough, and it has an atmosphere. But there’s no trace of it.”
Obi-Wan activated the canopy and hauled himself up and out. He looked above. The sky was a dense blue haze. He couldn’t see a star.
“I think this asteroid is locked into the force field of the storm,” he said. “It can’t break out, so it travels constantly as the storm travels.”
“And cruisers avoid the storm, so the asteroid isn’t mapped,” Ferus said, hauling himself up and out of the cockpit to stand beside Obi-Wan. “Let’s take a look around.”
They explored the area around the ship, but all they found were craters and dust.
“At least we’re safe,” Raina said. She stretched. “And I could use a rest.”
“Yeah, getting pounded by the Empire’s starfighters and then pulverized by a galactic storm will do that to you,” Trever said. “Not to mention, we missed lunch.”
Raina laughed and slung an arm around Trever. “You’re starting to grow on me, kid.”
“Yeah, just like goblin moss,” Trever said.
Raina and Trever headed off to prepare a shelter. Toma turned to Obi-Wan.
“You have been waiting to speak to me,” he said.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan said. “Tell me about the death of Garen Muln.”
Toma looked startled.
“Death?” he said. “But Garen Muln isn’t dead…he’s alive.”
“We were together when it happened,” Toma said. “At our headquarters in Eluthan. We were negotiating the terms of the truce. That didn’t take long, but we were enjoying each other’s company. We had thought we were enemies, but we found we had much in common. Then it happened.”
“The clone troopers,” Obi-Wan said.
“He was in the operations base with me,” Toma said. “We had the vidscreens on, and we saw the clone troopers attack. Like someone had thrown a switch—it was clear they had orders to hunt down Garen and kill anyone who got in their way. He wanted to go out and fight, but it was too late. I had to convince him to stay with me, that I could hide him. And I did. I had a secure place in the volcanic caves outside the city, a place I had created in case the worst happened. I never thought the worst would happen to the man who had once been my enemy, and that I would protect him.”
“Did they search for him?”
“For weeks,” Toma said. “I was interviewed by a special group called the Inquisitors.”
“We’ve heard of them,” Ferus said drily.
“Was one of them named Malorum?” Obi-Wan asked.
Toma shook his head. “No. Why?”
I guess all roads don’t lead to Malorum, Obi-Wan thought. But that didn’t make him any less of a threat.
“It’s not important,” the Jedi said. “Please continue.”
This time, Toma nodded. “Finally,” he said, “the Inquisitors gave up. They assumed, I think, that he had escaped the planet. Once things had quieted down a little, Garen told me it was time to go. I gave him a ship.”
Obi-Wan could not believe what he was hearing. He had grown used to casualty after casualty after casualty. He had walled himself against hope, as a way of keeping away the inevitable disappointment and sadness. Even though he knew there was a slight possibility that Jedi other than himself and Yoda had survived, with every day the possibility had seemed slighter and slighter, until it seemed a mere thread against the whole weight of the Empire.
But now…he felt the hope rise inside his chest, a feeling that was so unfamiliar it felt brand-new. His good friend, Garen. Possibly alive. He was afraid to believe it, but he was desperate for it to be true.
“Do you know where he went?” he asked Toma.
“He was going to make his way to a place called Ilum,” Toma said. “He told me that I should only inform another Jedi of this, and they would know why.”
Ferus and Obi-Wan exchanged a glance. Ilum was the site of the Crystal Cave, where every Jedi apprentice went to forge his or her own lightsaber. It was sacred to the Jedi.
“Ilum,” Ferus said. “Of course.” He grew excited. “I never thought of it before. Others could have gone there, too.”
“He’s probably hiding in the cave,” Obi-Wan said, knowing that is what Garen would do: Find a safe place that the Jedi knew better than anyone else.
Toma went to join Raina and Trever and build a shelter. Ferus paced up and down, excited at the news.
“We have to go there,” he said to Obi-Wan. “Who knows how many Jedi could be there? There could be more of us than we know.”
Ferus didn’t even know what he was saying until the word was in the air. Us. This was the truth: Even though he had left the Jedi, he still felt like he was one with them. Not one of them, but one with them. He could no more disconnect from the Force than he could disconnect from his own thoughts. It was a part of him. He could not deny it. This new hope made the bond even clearer, as if the course of action had shone a spotlight on his attachment.
Obi-Wan did not comment on Ferus’s choice of words, but Ferus could see him taking everything in, just as he always had.
“You are not here to be punished, least of all by yourself,” Obi-Wan had told him when he approached the Jedi Council for the last time, to resign from the Order.
“I must go on living,” Ferus had responded. “That is my punishment.”
He knew Obi-Wan hadn’t wanted him to leave. If he’d been Obi-Wan’s Padawan, it would have all been different. Everything would have been different.
But instead Obi-Wan was left with Anakin, and Ferus was left with nothing. Before he’d exiled himself from the Temple, he’d told Anakin, “If the Jedi ever need me, I will be there.”
Now here he was, among the last of the Jedi.
“You remember the caves?” Obi-Wan asked.
“Of course,” Ferus answered. How many times had he and the other
Padawans—his friends—talked about the things that happened there, about the tests that would lead to the creation of their lightsabers? His Master, Siri, had taken him there when he was thirteen. She had left him in the caves to fight off his greatest fears—and although it had been terrifying, he had somehow maintained his calm. He made it through, and forged his own blade.
Then, in what seemed like no time at all, he gave up the lightsaber. Let it go.
But not entirely.
“I can forge a new lightsaber,” he said now, thinking how helpful this would be. “If I can get the crystals, I can do it again.”
Obi-Wan nodded, but he felt hesitant. Ferus was no longer a Jedi. His hold on the Force was growing, but it was still erratic. By the time an apprentice came to the caves at Ilum to find crystals, they were at the peak of their preparation. If Ferus were his Padawan, he would make him wait.
“I know what you’re thinking, Obi-Wan,” Ferus said. “But you are not a Master, and I am not an apprentice.” Ferus’s face was flushed. “You seem locked in an old pattern.”
“I don’t think so,” Obi-Wan answered gently. “The caves are a difficult trial, even for a fully prepared apprentice.”
“I know that. I’ve been through them. I know there are things I’ve forgotten, but I can’t wait until I’ve relearned everything again. Do you really think we can afford to wait? Perhaps Jedi caution is what paved the way for their destruction.”
The accusation stung, but hadn’t Obi-Wan thought the very same thing?
His own caution…it had paved the way for Anakin Skywalker to turn into Darth Vader. He had felt uneasy about his Padawan, but he had never imagined how corrupted he could become. As a Padawan, Ferus had seen something dangerous in Anakin. But Obi-Wan had not done anything about it.
Now he must learn from his mistakes. It was time to be bold.
Obi-Wan was torn. He wanted nothing more than to find his friend Garen alive. But he also knew he had to keep his attention on the real threat—Malorum. On Bellassa they had learned that Malorum had sent an investigator to Polis Massa. Obi-Wan was sure that Luke and Leia’s birth had been covered up completely…but could he be absolutely certain?
