by Troy Denning
“Not yet, Skywalker.”
The voice was warm and familiar, and it came from beside Luke. He turned to find Mara’s face breaking the surface of the water. Then he saw a hand gripping the back of his biceps and realized that she was floating beneath him, preventing him from sinking.
“Mara, it’s okay,” Luke said. “I’m ready. I want to be with you.”
“Too bad.” He felt his upper body rising as she tried to push him upward. “I don’t want to be with you—not here, not yet.”
“What?” Luke asked, feeling more confused than resentful. “Mara, I’m wounded … badly. Abeloth took something out of me.”
“She wounded him, too.” Mara’s other hand rose out of the water and pointed past Luke’s head, toward the tattooed Sith who had helped Luke kill Abeloth. The stranger was on his feet, limping toward the far shore with both hands clutched to his chest. “If he can do it, so can you.”
Luke forced himself to sit upright. The effort made his head spin and his whole being ache, but he refused to collapse back into the water. He had no idea of the Sith’s true identity, but it did not seem wise to let him return to the physical galaxy alone.
“That’s ridiculous. Their injuries may be different.” This voice came from Luke’s other side, sinister and cajoling … and also familiar. “Besides, Sith are stronger. They have the dark side.”
“Who is he?” Luke asked, turning to find Jacen looking up from the water on his other side. “You know, don’t you?”
“I told you,” Jacen replied. “He’s the one I saw sitting on the Throne of Balance.”
“The dark man of your vision?” Luke asked. This was the best opportunity he would ever have to learn for certain why Jacen had turned to the dark side, and he was determined to take advantage of it. “The one you sacrificed yourself to stop?”
“I saw only one,” Jacen replied. “And you’re letting him win.”
Luke shook his head. “He can’t win, Jacen. Whatever damage you caused to the Force, you accomplished that much. The Sith will never rule the galaxy … not now.”
The tattooed man stopped and whirled, and Luke found himself preparing to dodge a fork of Force lightning. But the stranger was in no better shape to fight than Luke. He had a gaping wound in his chest, just like Luke, and Luke could see that his entire form was shuddering. Instead of attacking, the Sith just stood staring at them, one eye shining yellow and the other an empty socket, his right arm a useless ghost of a limb.
Then, after an eternity that might have been a mere second, he said, “You must not be so certain of yourself, Master Skywalker. You may think you have stopped the Sith, but you know nothing of us … nothing at all.”
“I know that Jacen changed the future,” Luke retorted. “And you know it, too—or you wouldn’t have been here to help me fight Abeloth.”
The stranger dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “There is that,” he said. “But can you be sure the change will last? Perhaps Caedus did not change the future. Perhaps he only delayed it.”
Luke felt his energy and his determination come rushing back. “I guess that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”
A slow grin crept across the stranger’s mouth. “Indeed it does.” He turned and began to limp away. “And we shall see, Master Skywalker. I promise you that.”
Luke returned to his feet and stood watching, until the stranger finally stepped onto the shore and vanished. The man was barely gone before Jacen spoke again, this time from the water in front of Luke.
“What does Abeloth have to do with this?” Jacen asked. “She wasn’t part of my vision.”
Luke studied his nephew’s bitter face, debating how much he should reveal about what Raynar had learned from Thuruht—whether it would be justice or cruelty to let Jacen know that he bore personal responsibility for an apocalypse.
“As I thought,” Jacen sneered. “You’re as much a liar as I am.”
Luke shook his head. “I’m not a liar, Jacen. You are the one who released Abeloth.”
“Me?” Jacen’s tone was snide, but Luke could see the shock in his eyes. He truly did not understand what he had done. “How?”
Luke shook his head. “I’m not sure I should tell you,” he said. “It would do no good.”
“You expect me to believe you’re protecting me?” Jacen scoffed. “Truly? Because, I assure you, I can handle the truth.”
“All right,” Luke said. Jacen had already guessed what had happened, and it would only be cruel to leave him wondering if he had guessed right. “But first, you must answer a question that’s been bothering me.”
“I might,” Jacen said. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.”
“Sometimes it does,” Luke said. He squatted down, then looked straight into Jacen’s dead eyes. “I want to know why you didn’t come to me.”
“About my vision?” Jacen asked.
“About any of it. For a while, I thought it was because I was the dark man you saw on the Throne of Balance—that you were trying to take my place.” Luke gestured toward the shore where the stranger had disappeared. “But if the Sith is the one you saw, that makes no sense. You didn’t have to confront this alone. We could have done it together—”
“No, we couldn’t,” Jacen said, shaking his head. “Because the dark man had nothing to do with my decision.”
Luke frowned. “Then what did?”
“It was who I saw standing with the dark man.” Jacen’s gaze shifted away, and his expression grew at once very determined and very sad. “I saw Allana.”
THE ASSAULT PINNACE RUDE AWAKENING SAT AT THE FAR END OF THE courtyard, hissing and popping as the heat of its fiery descent dissipated into the humid jungle air. Its hull was carbon-scorched and dented, and several deep pits went down through the thick battle armor all the way to the orange circle of an emergency hull patch. The assault vessel had obviously been through a terrible battle—no doubt with Ship, which Abeloth had sent back into space the instant she had debarked with her two prisoners. Ben could only hope that the ancient meditation sphere had suffered as much damage as the Awakening, because otherwise they would be an easy target when they tried to leave the planet.
“What’s taking so long?” Vestara asked. She was standing at Ben’s side, one hand tight on his biceps and holding him steady. “Can’t your people see that you need medical attention?”
Ben glanced over. His vision was still a bit blurry, but with a purple bruise around her throat and a face covered in welts and cuts, she didn’t look much better than he felt.
“We both need medical attention,” Ben said. “You look like you stepped on a Hutt’s tail.”
“Thanks a lot,” Vestara said. “Next time, I won’t mess my hair saving you.”
Ben cocked his brow. “Didn’t I save you?” he asked. “That’s the way I remember it.”
Vestara filled her voice with mock concern. “Poor Ben—you must have hit your head harder than I thought.” Pulling him along by the arm, she started across the courtyard. “We need to get you into a medbay now.”
They had covered about half the distance when a dark rectangle separated from the pinnace’s battered hull and began to descend, slowly folding out into a boarding ramp. A slender female figure appeared in the opening at the top. Her brown hair was pulled into a tight bun, her eyes were sunken with exhaustion, and she had furrow lines as deep as canyons in her brow. So it took Ben a moment to even recognize her as his cousin, Jaina Solo. She was dressed in a combat vac suit and holding her deactivated lightsaber in one hand, and the entire front panel of her suit was smeared in red, frothy blood.
“Jaina!” Ben rushed forward, weaving slightly as he pulled Vestara along. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Jaina’s gaze shifted toward Vestara, and her entire body grew tense and alert. “How about you, Ben?”
“Ben took a blow to the head,” Vestara said, steadying Ben as he stumbled. “He’s lost a lot of blood and is having a few balance problems.”
Jaina’s eyes returned to Ben, and this time there was as much concern in them as wariness. “You’d better come aboard then.”
Ben and Vestara crossed the last few steps to the pinnace, then Jaina raised a palm to stop Vestara from stepping onto the boarding ramp.
“Just Ben for now,” she said. “Please.”
The Force grew cool and still with the tension between the two women, and Ben and Vestara stopped at the base of the ramp. Ben frowned and looked from Jaina to Vestara, trying to figure out why the pair had suddenly grown so wary of each other. Then Vestara lowered the hand she had been using to support him, creating a chain of eddies in the dark aura that continued to cling to her, and he understood. He took Vestara’s hand and started to pull her up the boarding ramp with him.
“You don’t need to worry about that dark stuff, Jaina,” Ben said. “It’s just an aftereffect.”
Jaina moved the hand holding her lightsaber to the waist-high ready positon. “Of what, exactly?”
“I was standing too close to the font when I used the Force,” Vestara explained. “I knew it would taint me, but we needed its power. It was the only way to kill Abeloth.”
“But the taint will fade,” Ben said. “It’s already faded a lot.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Jaina did not take her eyes off Vestara. “But it’s actually your father I’m thinking of, Ben.”
“Dad?” Ben started up the ramp, so shocked that he was still holding Vestara’s hand. “What happened?”
“I don’t really know,” Jaina said, placing herself squarely in the center of the boarding hatch. “It happened beyond shadows.”
Ben’s heart sank. “That’s bad,” he said. Physical injuries could usually be repaired in any decent medcenter, but beyond shadows was the realm of the spirit. No amount of surgery or bacta immersion was going to heal a wound suffered there. “Is he awake?”
“Not yet.” Jaina switched her gaze to Vestara, then said, “I’ve got some repairs to make and my sensors are gone, so I need you to keep watch. Ship could be around somewhere.”
Jaina’s request made sense—and even if it had not, Ben was too worried to protest. He hadn’t felt anything to suggest that his father had died, but he couldn’t sense his father’s presence, either. It was as though Luke Skywalker had gone missing from the Force.
Vestara pulled her hand free, then gently placed her palm on his chest. “Go on, Ben. Check on your father.”
She rose onto her toes and kissed Ben on the lips. It was long and deep and filled with love, and under normal circumstances it would have made his heart skip beats. But with his father lying wounded inside the pinnace, Ben took it as a gesture of support—Vestara’s way of being there for him even though she had to stand watch outside. He allowed the kiss to continue until it finally began to feel a little sad and frightened, then placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her brown eyes.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Ves,” he said. “If Abeloth couldn’t kill us, Ship doesn’t stand a chance.”
Vestara nodded and forced a smile. “I know that.” She stepped back, then flicked her fingers toward the hatchway. “Go on, now. I hope your father is going to be okay.”
“Thanks,” Ben said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
He turned away and, once Jaina had stepped aside, boarded the pinnace. It was a typical elite-forces strike craft, compact and loaded with specialized equipment—much of it cratered, scorched, and shattered by the hits that had breached the hull. The flight deck lay to the right, behind a durasteel bulkhead and an open iris hatch.
Jaina pointed down a narrow corridor that led toward the stern of the craft. “The medbay is aft.” She pressed a couple of buttons on a control pad mounted on the inner hull, and the boarding ramp began to retract. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Ben frowned. “What are you doing?” he asked. “I keep telling you—”
“I can’t check hull integrity with an open hatch,” Jaina interrupted, giving him a look that seemed equal parts sympathy and impatience. “And your girlfriend is fine. It’s Luke Skywalker you should be worrying about.”
Ben could tell by Jaina’s abrupt manner that she wasn’t being entirely honest with him, but it was hard to argue against the need for a hull-integrity test. He studied her a moment, trying to figure out why she was acting so strange—and what she wasn’t saying. Finally, he decided that whatever she was hiding, it could wait until after he had seen his father.
“Okay, but don’t even think about leaving without Vestara,” he said, going down the corridor. “If not for her—”
“Ben, don’t worry,” Jaina interrupted. “The last thing I intend to do is leave Vestara Khai on this planet.”
Ben ignored the sharpness of her tone and continued on toward the medbay. He could tell by the heavy odor of antiseptic and bacta salve that his father was in bad shape. He reached out in the Force, trying to find some hint of his father’s condition, and felt the lukewarm presence of a nonsentient being—or a Jedi so deep in a healing trance that he appeared to be in a coma.
Ben took a calming breath, then stepped through the hatch into a ten-bunk medical bay. As a Void Jumper assault vessel, the pinnace was outfitted for both combat and the aftereffects. His father lay secured in a bunk along the cabin’s back wall, with a breathing tube down his throat and half a dozen IV catheters secured to his arms, neck, and legs. A huge bandage covered the right side of his chest, and while his skin was not dry or flaky, it had turned the color of ash. Whatever Jaina was thinking about Vestara, she was telling the truth about Ben’s father. Luke Skywalker was close to death.
A hollow ache started to build inside, and Ben’s vision suddenly narrowed and went completely black. He thought for a minute that he might be passing out, but there was no dizziness or nausea to suggest that the vision change was the result of a concussion. He braced a hand on the hatch jamb and stood waiting for his sight to return.
Instead, stars and nebulae began to appear in the darkness, rushing toward him at extreme velocity, but with no noticeable red-shift and without spreading apart as they drew closer. He began to feel apprehensive and disoriented, as though he were traveling through a galaxy far different from the one his parents had known. He saw Coruscant’s scintillating golden orb mottled by patches of flickering red flame and black banks of drifting smoke, and beyond it there was a legion of dark silhouettes rising from a shadow-cloaked world, fanning out across the galaxy to meet a much smaller force of luminous shapes.
He saw a pair of tiny disembodied eyes floating through the darkness, collecting wisps of drifting gas and specks of loose dust, in its endless patience swaddling itself in the stuff of cold matter.
And Ben saw his cousin Allana, a young girl sitting cross-legged in front of a white throne, playing with her pet nexu while a small circle of Jedi fought a desperate battle at the foot of the dais, holding off an endless onslaught of beings. There were dark silhouettes and bejeweled women and horned aliens, and every so often a gray tentacle, which would appear on the steps to the dais and attempt to slip past unnoticed before a lightsaber descended to send it skittering back into the darkness.
What Ben did not see was his father, and it was an absence that frightened him more than anything he had seen. With the Jedi facing a future more perilous than he could imagine, the Order was going to need the leadership of its Grand Master more than ever. But Luke Skywalker was only mortal. Even if it was not today, there would soon come a time when he and the other elder Masters were no longer there to guide the Jedi, when the burden of leadership would start to fall on Jaina Solo and her generation. It was an inevitable change, and—considering the new threats the Jedi now faced—probably even healthy to introduce a new way of thinking.
But that did not mean Ben was ready to become an orphan. Jedi Knight or not, he still needed his father, and regardless of what the Force was showing him, he was going to fight to keep Luke Skywalker alive for as long
as possible. He let go of the hatch jamb and stepped into the darkness of his vision, and he found himself abruptly back in the medbay cabin, looking at the skull-like visage of an Emdee droid that had just moved into his path.
The droid extended a hand holding a surgical mask.
“Mask yourself,” it said. Its brisk, no-nonsense tone was probably standard issue for Void Jumper droids, for Ben had spent enough time in the company of elite soldiers to know that short and crisp was their preferred mode of communication. “Then lie down on the examination table, on your side facing the back wall.”
“I want to see the other patient first.” Ben hooked the mask’s retainer loops over his ears, then asked, “What’s his condition?”
“Grave,” the droid replied. “Unexplained coma, unclassified rapid-onset infection, and massive chest trauma—due to loss of second thoracic rib and superior lobe of the right lung.”
Ben frowned. “Trauma due to the loss of a rib and a lung lobe?” he asked. “Isn’t the loss of parts usually the result of trauma, not the cause?”
The droid fixed its beady photoreceptors on Ben. “Are you a physician, soldier?”
“I’m trained in field medicine,” Ben replied.
“And that qualifies you to question an EmDee’s diagnosis?”
“Not at all,” Ben said. He was unaccustomed to dealing with this kind of droid, but he knew enough about elite-force protocol to realize he would learn nothing by backing down. “But I am qualified to know when something doesn’t make sense.”
“I didn’t say the injury made sense.” The droid stepped back, giving Ben a clear path to his father’s side. “The cause of the injury appears to be the spontaneous ejection of the superior lobe. I found nothing to suggest the primary cause.”
