“Come on.” Her tone was not wheedling, but commanding.
Shaking his head, sure it was a bad idea, Zekk approached her again. He thumbed on his lightsaber—
Before he could even bring it into line, Jaina gestured. The hilt popped out of his hand and flew into Jaina’s grip. Anticipating her rush, he twisted out of the way as she dashed up to him. He ducked under her attack, grabbed the hilt of her own unlit lightsaber, and yanked.
But she did not release it. Using his own strength to augment her move, she somersaulted over him. Then, as she landed, she kicked out, hammering the side of his knee.
He fell, rolling away from her follow-up blow, and felt a chill of fear. “Hold it! End practice!”
She paused, annoyed, and looked down at him. “What?”
“If I don’t have a lightsaber, I can’t parry.”
“Well, you should hold on to yours.” She switched it off and tossed it to him. Then she retreated to her start position and took up her ready stance again. “Come on.”
“We’re switching to training lightsabers.” Scowling at her, Zekk moved to the pack of workout gear they had brought. He dropped his lightsaber on the blanket beside the pack. Then, from inside, he drew out two practice weapons. Made for use by Jedi trainees and apprentices, their energy blades delivered a painful shock, but no accident with one could sever an arm…or a head.
“I’m not going to learn anything from facing a shock weapon. Come on, pick up your lightsaber.”
Zekk shook his head and approached her, one training weapon in each hand. “You’re not going to learn anything from practicing with me unless you switch to shock weapons. Because otherwise I’m not going to be a part of it. Jaina, you’re playing too rough. You’re a danger to yourself and others.”
“Zekk, you know you can trust me.”
“I know I used to be able to. Before you turned into…” Zekk saw what was approaching them from the direction of the Millennium Falcon hangar and his voice trailed off.
Jaina’s eyes narrowed, as though she saw through his simple trick and was offended by it. Then, either through the Force or simply by being convinced by his expression that someone was indeed approaching, she turned to look.
Walking toward them was Jacen Solo.
He was clad head-to-foot in a black Guard uniform. He wore thick jackboots and thick gloves. His helmet’s full-face visor concealed his features. His cape billowed behind him as he strode.
Zekk felt a chill of almost supernatural dread. In his full regalia, Solo looked so much like Darth Vader that anyone allied with the Jedi, remembering or having studied the bygone times of the Jedi Purge, would be similarly affected.
Jaina’s voice came as a whisper: “Too short.”
“Yeah, Vader was much taller.”
“Too short even for my brother, idiot.” She raised her voice so the intruder could hear her. “Whoever you are, that’s not funny.”
Reaching the edge of their practice clearing, their visitor pushed up his visor, revealing the features of Jag Fel. “I wasn’t trying to be funny. But, Zekk, you should have seen your face.”
Zekk blinked at him. “Trying to get a date with an Alliance loyalist?”
“No.”
“Because you’re not going to find many on Kashyyyk.”
Jag gestured at Jaina. “I came to spar with her. You know, lightsabers.”
Jaina gave him a scornful look. “Jag, do you even know how to use a lightsaber?”
“I know Lesson One. Don’t grab the glowy end.”
Jaina paused, obviously uncertain as to how to respond to his curious request. She walked up to face him. “Jag, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I have every respect for you as a pilot, as a tactician, as a soldier. But in hand-to-hand combat, you’re nowhere near my equal. And you can’t begin to simulate Jacen’s abilities. I won’t get anything out of a practice session, and you might get hurt.”
“I might indeed.” He looked around. “Which are the real lightsabers, and which are the fakes?”
Zekk handed him one of the practice weapons. “This is one of the safe ones.” He handed Jaina the other. “Show him what you’re talking about, Jaina. I could use the rest.”
Unwillingly, she handed Zekk her lightsaber. “He knows exactly what I’m talking about. He’s studied Alema Rar for years. He knows what she’s capable of. I’m worse.”
“Well, then this won’t take too much of your time or energy.” Jag looked down at himself, then gave his thigh a slap. “Here, give me a jolt. So I know what I’m in for.”
Shaking her head in exasperation, Jaina lit the training weapon. Its violet blade leapt into life with a softer snap-hiss than that of a true lightsaber. Then, slowly, she leaned over to strike Jag’s leg.
The blade made a crackling noise. Jag’s leg jerked, a muscular spasm, and he almost fell.
He put weight on it again, took a few experimental steps around. “Ah. Got it. I bet that teaches the young Jedi the virtues of not getting hit.”
Zekk nodded. “It does.”
“All right, let’s do it. Zekk, you call it.” Jag flipped his faceplate down, becoming a believable, if slightly short, simulacrum of Jacen Solo. He thumbed his training lightsaber into life and raised it in a credible two-handed grip.
“Go.”
Almost faster than the eye could follow, Jaina lunged. Jag moved his blade laterally to sweep her point out of line, a clumsy maneuver suited to a first-year sword student. Jaina disengaged before their blades met and thrust, popping her blade across the side of Jag’s neck.
Jag let out a yell and staggered back, patting at the point of the blow. “Wow.”
“Necks aren’t too bad.” Zekk rubbed his own in sympathetic memory. “Wait until you catch one across your eyelid. Or groin.”
Recovered, Jag stood once more in ready position. “Again.”
“Go.”
This time Jag initiated the attack, a basic vertical slash. He was strong enough to give it a lot of power.
Jaina stepped aside and her lateral blow hit him across the upper arm.
“Ow. Blast it.” Jag rubbed the spot of the injury.
Jaina gave him an exasperated look. “Technically, this bout isn’t over, because all I did was take your arm off, in theory. A Jedi might be able to continue for a while with a wound like that. But let’s call that one a win for me.”
“Sounds reasonable. Jaina, you’re fast.”
“I’m going to keep going until I think I’m fast enough. Are we done?”
“Oh, I’m not bright enough to be done yet.” Jag resumed the ready position. “Again.”
Zekk snorted, amused. “Would it be wrong of me to admit that I’m really starting to enjoy this?”
“Yes.”
“Go.”
Jag tried the same maneuver. Jaina stepped aside again, swung—
Jag took the blow on his left forearm. The glowing blade bounced. Jag’s arm didn’t twitch, didn’t react at all to the electric shock.
He reached out with that arm. Fast as a blaster duelist drawing and firing, he caught the hilt of Jaina’s practice weapon just above her hand and squeezed.
The weapon crumpled. The beam cut off.
Jaina, caught off guard for only a fraction of a second, stepped back, chambered her leg, and kicked Jag in the solar plexus.
His solar plexus went konk, a metallic noise.
Jag rapped his training sword against her support leg. It spasmed and she fell. She rolled out of her fall, but Jag was already swinging in the direction of her roll. His blade caught her across the back of the neck. She completed her roll, ending up on her back, looking up at him with a pained expression. “What was that?”
Jag shrugged and pushed up his visor again. “I won.”
Jaina’s face twisted in anger. “Flying’s what you’re best at. So fly.” She gestured as if pushing the air before her.
Jag’s feet left the ground. He hurtled backward five meters and cra
shed into the bole of the glade’s shade tree. Then he slid down atop the tangled roots. Leaves rained down on him.
“Jaina!” Zekk ran up to Jag, bent over him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Jag grimaced. “Punishing me. For embarrassing her.”
Jaina flipped acrobatically to her feet and stalked toward Jag. “I am not embarrassed. You tricked me.” She was shouting now, and Zekk saw distant heads turning to look—Wookiees working in the area, humans in the Falcon hangar.
“What part of tricking you would be impossible for Alema Rar or Jacen Solo to do?” Stiffly, Jag began to rise, and accepted a hand from Zekk for aid. Jag’s gloved hand felt, to Zekk, rigid and metallic.
Once Jag was on his feet, Zekk rapped the man’s forearm with his knuckles. “What have you got on under there?” He repeated the experiment on Jag’s chest, which also rang metallically.
“The crushgaunts and beskar breastplate from the other day.”
Jaina came to a stop in front of Jag, almost spitting in her anger. “What are you trying to prove?”
“That you’re training yourself to lose. To die.”
That stopped her. She stared up at him, her anger vanishing in an instant, replaced by surprise…and doubt.
“Jaina, I’ve watched you for a long time now, preparing yourself for a confrontation with Alema and—and you’re not kidding anyone here—your brother. You’ve trained and trained and sweated and persevered, and as far as I can tell you’ve done a brilliant job at the wrong task.”
“Explain that.” Her eyes searched his.
Zekk was surprised not to see more anger in hers. She must have been afraid of exactly what Jag was talking about and, in typically Jaina-ish fashion, not discussed it with anyone, not dealt with it except through avoidance.
“Sword of the Jedi. That’s what you are, even though nobody’s sure what it means. But I’m sure of this. There are two important words there. Sword and Jedi. You’ve been sharpening yourself into an amazing sword, but you’ve forgotten what it means to be a Jedi.”
“You’re not qualified to say that—”
“Answer me this. What Jedi do you know who would have thrown me into that tree that hard for winning a practice bout? You didn’t know my armor protected my back. You could have broken my spine. The helmet didn’t protect my neck. You could have broken that. What Jedi would have done that to a friend?”
She shook her head. It was as though Jag’s arguments were blaster bolts, and she was batting most of them harmlessly out of the way—but the occasional bolt was getting through, striking her, searing her.
“So. You’re a good Sword and a rotten Jedi. But even if you get back to being a good Jedi, you’re going to die. You know why? Because you’re training in Jedi skills as though you’re going to have a straight-up Jedi duel with your enemies, all lightsabers and light-side Force tricks. But you need to be thinking like someone who hunts Jedi. Like me.” He stepped so close to Jaina that Zekk thought for a moment he was going to stoop and kiss her. “That’s what I did. And I beat you.”
“Once.” Her words were soft, uncertain. “The third time.”
“Are you absolutely sure that if I’d tried that tactic on our first bout, it wouldn’t have worked?”
She was silent for a long moment. Then she shook her head.
Jag unbuckled his helmet and took it off, holding it at his side. “Jaina, as your commanding officer, I’m ordering you to take today off. No training, no strategizing, nothing. Report to me first thing in the morning. At that time, if you think you need another day off, I require you to tell me so. You’ll get it.”
“Yes…Colonel.”
Jag nodded at her and Zekk, then spun and headed back to the hangar.
Jag maintained his brisk walking pace until he reached the Falcon’s hangar. Then he looked around and, seeing no one within sight, moved more slowly and heavily to the Falcon’s boarding ramp. He sat on its slope, leaning away from its angle of descent to remain upright. He set his helmet down, then slowly peeled the thin black gloves off the crushgaunts, staring blankly at the floor as he did so.
“I expected—”
The voice came from the tall, dark figure who seemed to materialize in front of Jag. Jag jumped up, reaching for a blaster pistol that was not there, then relaxed as he recognized the speaker.
“—you to be jubilant.” Zekk frowned down at him. “Not jumpy. And morose.”
Jag sat again and scowled up at the Jedi. Carefully, he used his right hand to pull his left-hand crushgaunt free of his arm. He set it down beside the helmet. “I’m not morose.”
“And I’m a Sullustan.”
“Yes, the ears tipped me off.”
Zekk managed a brief grin. “I just wanted to say congratulations.”
“For what?”
“For getting through to her. She looked as shocked as if you’d clobbered her with a force pike. Now she’s thinking.”
“Good.” Jag pulled the other crushgaunt free and set it down. He looked at his palms, which were red and sweaty. “I didn’t like shouting at her.”
“Well, you don’t shout much.”
“That’s not it.” Jag’s eyes focused past the floor, to some distant place and time. “Years ago, I thought I could see my future in her eyes. My future, maybe even the future of my line, my name. Since then, she’s slipped away from me. I helped that happen. Out of anger. Out of pride.” He shook his head and met Zekk’s gaze again. “But I can’t let her slip away from what it is to be human.”
Zekk was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was unusually gentle. “Jag, I’m going to let you in on a secret. You’re an irritant, like itching powder in an enviro-suit.”
Jag glared at him.
“On top of that, you’ve got no sense of humor, you’re more Force-blind than a rock, you handle a lightsaber like a drunken Hutt, and you’re short. But after today, I’m exceedingly proud to have you as a comrade-in-arms.” He extended his hand.
Jag looked at it as if expecting a final insult to be written on its palm, then shook it. “Thanks.”
“So do I have today off, too?”
Jag’s shoulders slumped. “Sure.”
“Go have a drink or something, Colonel.” Zekk spun and headed out through the hangar’s main entrance, walking toward the base crew quarters.
Jag sat where he was for long minutes, then collected his gear and left.
Leia, silent, stepped out from the shadows at the top of the boarding ramp and shook her head. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Han?”
“Yeah, sweetie.”
“How do you teach a man not to be a noble, long-suffering, self-sacrificing idiot?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. Mostly I shoot them.”
“I’ll consider that.”
chapter thirteen
CORUSCANT
The war raged on.
Back in control of his portions of the Alliance military and no longer distracted by Allana’s absence—for, secretly, she accompanied him everywhere, smuggled between GA government buildings and the Anakin Solo in shuttles, guarded by only the most trusted officers and YVH-908—Caedus found himself stymied on some fronts, wildly successful on others.
First, there was the Hapes situation. Tenel Ka did not immediately turn over her fleets to his control. Instead she withdrew them to Hapes Consortium space and cut off all communication with the Galactic Alliance…and with the Confederation, with the world of Kashyyyk, and, as far as anyone could tell, with the Jedi. Caedus did not know quite what to make of this maneuver. Tenel Ka could have been killed by the explosion that allowed Caedus to escape her palace, or subsequently deposed, her successor choosing to return the Consortium to a neutral position. Or Tenel Ka could be taking what she must see as a terrible chance with the life of her daughter. Either way, Caedus had still been able to turn the situation into a victory. By using his Intelligence resources to suggest to Confederation analysts that Tenel
Ka’s nonaggression treaty with them was now void, Caedus ensured that the Confederation maintained resources to monitor and safeguard against possible Hapan attack, and that gave Caedus some breathing room. Soon enough, he could determine whether Tenel Ka still ruled the Consortium, get in touch with her…and persuade her that Allana’s life was forfeit if she did not cooperate fully.
While waiting to reach Tenel Ka, Caedus concentrated on other things.
Such as the Jedi. They had been quite successful at going underground after the battle at Kuat, so much so that the only sign he had seen of their activity had been the futile attack on him a few days before. He dispatched Tahiri in her StealthX to run down her own leads and sources, to find out where the Jedi had headquartered themselves. He had thought she could simply use her association with other Jedi to find out the information, but no, it appeared that Tenel Ka had managed to communicate her suspicions of Tahiri to the other Jedi at Kuat. Tahiri still had no answer for Caedus; it was a big galaxy and she was, in his eyes, a stupid girl—and a needy one, constantly importuning him for new chances to flow-walk into the past and reexperience the wonders of Anakin Solo in the days and hours before his death.
Caedus shook his head over that. He had seen so much of Anakin in recent months that he had come to despise the brat. The reasons why he had ever held the boy in any regard, why he had chosen to name his Star Destroyer for him, were now lost to Caedus.
Meanwhile, the war raged on. With the Hapans back in play, the Alliance no longer had to worry about staging a fighting retreat. The balance of power was now once again slightly in the Alliance’s favor. Caedus personally led new fleet operations at Kuat and on the outskirts of the Corellian system, commanding elements of the Fifth and Second fleets, respectively, and his Sith battle meditation ability helped his forces inflict heavy losses in both theaters of operation.
Commenor retaliated for the asteroid bombardment, and in savage fashion. The first sign of it was a statistical spike in the number of head colds among humans who had recently passed through Galactic City Spaceport—civilians and military personnel alike. Within days those head colds developed into raging fevers and dangerous dehydration, and the infection spread like Kashyyyk’s forest fires through the ranks of the armed forces and lower social classes. Left untreated, the illness could kill. It was affliceria, caused by an airborne bacterium, the cure for which had been discovered a century before, with the illness pronounced extinct not long after.
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury Page 10
