Outcast

by Aaron Allston

  As his vision cleared, Ben found himself in a stone tunnel, one obviously burned out of the stone rather than a natural formation; the walls were heat-fused rock, clear sign of tunneling devices that used a high-temperature mechanism such as laser drills. One end of the tunnel narrowed into a diameter just large enough to accommodate the containers, and rails issued from it. The rails continued the length of this sixty-meter tunnel and ended in an upraised loop.

  Charsae Saal’s container was stopped at the loop, and beyond it, five meters away, was a blast-door exit. Charsae Saal stood beside his container, speaking rapidly with two men and one woman, all Kel Dors, dressed as he was. They cast glances back to Luke, who was halfway between them and Ben, standing beside his container, nonchalantly leaning against it. One Kel Dor stood beside him.

  Two of Ben’s greeters left his side to walk to Charsae Saal’s group; the third, a woman, remained behind, eyeing Ben cautiously.

  Luke looked toward his son. “Restful trip?”

  “The minutes flew by like hours.” Ben stretched, then looked at his Kel Dor companion. “You speak Basic?”

  She looked mildly offended. “Of course.”

  “I’m Ben Skywalker.”

  “You were. Now you are not.”

  Ben gave her a puzzled frown. “Come again?”

  “You will have to choose a new name here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Ben Skywalker is dead.”

  After conferring, the black-robed Kel Dors, including Charsae Saal, led Luke and Ben through the blast door. The chamber in which they found themselves was roughly circular, some twenty meters in diameter, with blast doors set in the walls at regular intervals and a black stone support pillar in the center. The Kel Dors did not treat the Jedi as if they were prisoners; their manner was civil but uncertain.

  One of the blast doors opened into a tunnel that led to a much larger chamber—forty meters or more in diameter, ten meters high at the center, with eight support columns arranged in a circle midway between the walls and the center of the room. Against the far wall was what Ben had looked for in vain in the Baran Do temple: a raised platform with a large, imposing chair upon it. The chair appeared to have been carved from white stone and had white cushions on the seat and back.

  Settling into it was a Kel Dor male, taller than many of the others. He had more wrinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth than most Kel Dors that Ben had seen. Other than his placement on the throne, there was no sign of rank about him; his robes were as simple and as dark as everyone else’s. Luke and Ben were led to stand before him.

  He looked down upon them, his expression quizzical. His voice was reedy but not infirm. “Why are you here?”

  Luke gave him a nod of greeting. “We are here in search of answers.”

  “Ah.” The enthroned Kel Dor nodded as if satisfied. “A worthy goal at the end of one’s life.”

  Luke frowned. “You intend to kill us? For what?”

  “No, certainly not. You have come here. This is the place after life. The world below, the world after. You are already dead.”

  Ben spared a look at the other Kel Dors present. None of them reacted to the statement.

  Luke clearly decided not to pursue that subject further for the moment. “May I assume you are Master Koro Ziil?”

  “I was, in life. Now I am hu’aac-du’ul-staranjan.”

  Luke frowned, considering. “That does not sound like a name, especially a Kel Dor name.”

  It didn’t to Ben, either. Kel Dor names tended to follow a pattern similar to that found among Coruscanti humans—personal name first, clan name second, with both names tending to be short, usually one or two syllables; three or more was a rarity. The Kel Dors whom Ben had met always referred to themselves and one another by their full names or by a title and a clan name.

  “It means ‘the one who dwells in darkness’ in our language. Or ‘the hidden one.’ It is my title, for I have no name at all. I have transcended not only life but identity. You, too, will have to choose new names now that you are among us.”

  Luke gave him a look that suggested he regretted being displeasing. “We won’t be staying.”

  The former Koro Ziil smiled. It was not a cruel smile, but a sympathetic one. “There is no way to leave. You are with us forever. Seek your answers among us, but become reconciled to the fact that you will never take those answers away from here.”

  JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT

  Swearing under her breath, Jaina pulled on a robe and moved to the door of her quarters. She nearly tripped over a waste receptacle in the darkness, and decided that it was good her observer hadn’t seen that; it wouldn’t do for word to spread that the Jedi could be klutzes like anyone else.

  In the outer chamber, at the door to the hall, she hit the button to turn on the lights and another to open the door. It slid up, revealing Jedi Tekli in the act of pressing the door-chime button for the third time.

  Not waiting for an invitation, the Chadra-Fan Jedi—fur-covered, with big ears and gnawing upper incisors that gave her a cute, pet-like appearance that caused her no end of trouble with children—rushed in. “Darkmeld, darkmeld,” she said.

  The word sent a thrill of coldness through Jaina’s insides. Darkmeld was a word of Jaina’s own invention, part of a plan she’d put into motion after her last conversation with Master Hamner. Only a few Jedi whom Jaina trusted, and who were not Masters, knew the term—knew that it referred to Jaina’s new circle of conspirators. An even smaller number of non-Jedi knew it.

  Jaina hit the button again to slide the door shut. She found herself whispering without meaning to. “What is it?”

  Tekli stood before Jaina’s desk, putting her weight first on one foot, then the other, an unconscious dance of agitation. “I saw him.”

  “Who?”

  “I was at the prison. Master Cilghal has a plan to keep pressure up on the authorities to let us examine Valin. She visits once per day, staying for an hour or two to annoy them, and I do so in the evenings.”

  “So you saw Valin.”

  “No, Jedi Hellin.”

  Jaina blinked. “Seff Hellin? He’s in prison?”

  “No, he’s outside it. Dressed as a workman, entering the underground through a workers’ access hatch.”

  Jaina whistled. “He has to be evaluating the prison defenses. So he can break Valin out.”

  “That was my thought. He didn’t see me. I don’t think he even felt me. I wasn’t using any Force abilities. I felt surprise when I saw him, but I suppressed it pretty quickly. He made no reaction suggesting he felt anything. I think I got away with it cold. I came straight here, straight to you.” Tekli began pacing, gesturing as she talked. “We have to have him. We can’t study Valin, but if we can get Seff, study him without the government knowing we have him …”

  “Wait, wait.” Jaina’s mind raced. “We need to be sure he has the same condition Valin does.”

  “All evidence suggests it. What’s more, he came back to Coruscant without notifying the Temple he was here, and now he’s staking out the facility where the only other Jedi who behaves like him is being held. Besides, if we’re wrong, we can let him go.”

  “Right.” Jaina checked her chrono. It had been only two hours since Dab had awakened her with one of his random checks of her whereabouts. This meant that, in all probability, she had several hours to act before he’d check again. She should be able to sneak out for a while. “All right. I’m going to mobilize some people I’ve contacted about our little Darkmeld conspiracy. You need to set things up here so that when we bring Seff in, whether it’s tonight or later, we have a secret place to hold and evaluate him.”

  “Understood, understood.” Tekli nodded so fast it made her fur sway, and Jaina wondered what would happen if the Chadra-Fan were to drink a couple of cups of caf while in this state.

  Tekli moved to the door and reached up to slap the button. “Sorry to cost you sleep.”

  “
Don’t worry. It’s worth it.”

  All of them dressed in inconspicuous garments of the sort favored by the middle class when traveling, they met in a tapcaf a kilometer from Valin’s prison—Jaina, Jag, Tahiri, and a lean woman with white hair and elegant, ageless features. Jaina introduced the last: “Jag, this is Winter Celchu, my former babysitter. Winter, this is Jagged Fel, Head of State of the Imperial Remnant.”

  “Galactic Empire,” Jag corrected absently. “You’re married to General Tycho Celchu?”

  Winter nodded.

  “And you’re ex-Intelligence. In addition to ex-babysitter.”

  She gave him a faint smile. “I hate it that people have heard of me.”

  “Well, your husband and my uncle are best friends. It makes some secrets hard to keep.”

  Jaina waved to get their attention. “I’ll make this short. I’ve got the Jedi resources and ways in and out of the Temple, but I’m going to be hobbled by having an observer. Jag, you have unlimited financial resources, at least by our standards.”

  Jag nodded. “I can’t really be a despot if I’m not wasting the Empire’s money.”

  “Tahiri, you have the full range of Jedi abilities, which we’ll need in order to handle Seff, and no observer hanging around your neck.” Jaina did not voice her next thought: that Tahiri had been very easy to convince to help on this mission. Tahiri hadn’t been able to repair much of the damage she’d done in Jacen’s service. It apparently meant a lot to her to be able to help with another Jedi’s mess. “Winter, you have Intelligence skills and contacts. Between the four of us, we’re the core of this operation. We need to set up an observation of Seff, secretly grab him at our earliest opportunity, and get him into the Temple for Tekli to evaluate.”

  The others nodded.

  Tahiri looked doubtful. “And we have to do it without him being alerted to us. He’s a Jedi Knight. This is not going to be like doing surveillance on a bail jumper.”

  “Not a problem.” Winter held her datapad up. “On this is a shopping list. High on the list are holocam droids and security holocams. If it’s mostly holocams watching him, he won’t feel it in the Force.”

  Tahiri shook her head. “Problem. He may know the technique that allows him to fuzz out holocam feeds for a moment or two as he passes in front of them.”

  Jaina gave her a reassuring smile. “Not a problem. We still have the software we used to track Alema Rar when she was using that technique, back when she was sneaking around on the Errant Venture. We can plot Seff’s movements even if he does that.”

  Jag slid a credcard across the table; it fetched up against Winter’s forearm. “There should be enough there for your shopping trip. Let me know if you need more.”

  Winter pocketed the card. “This can’t be traced back to you?”

  He shook his head. “I made sure it was clean. It’s supposedly for gifts and surprises for Jaina, things that shouldn’t be traced back to a Head of State’s expense account.”

  Jaina looked crestfallen. “I’m not getting my presents?”

  The others looked at her. Unable to maintain the pose, she laughed. “You’re just lucky I’m a low-maintenance woman,” she told Jag.

  “That I already knew.”

  CALRISSIAN-NUNB MINES, KESSEL

  In two days, the Solos, Calrissians, and Nien Nunb had much more data and a little more useful information.

  The drones, reinforced by a second shipment, continued tracing the webwork of the tunnels and caverns deep within Kessel and confirmed that the complex encircled the entire world.

  Six YVH 1 combat droids, fresh from the Tendrando Arms assembly plant, arrived and were immediately put into service. Transported into the cavern system through connections with the mines discovered by the sensor drones, they began investigation of the demolition mounds.

  Deployed in two-droid teams, the first thing they discovered was that anytime they approached the mounds, bogeys arrived to investigate them. The bogeys invariably flew through them, crashing the droids’ systems. The automata, unlike the sensor drones, eventually recovered from this electronic mistreatment, but when they continued their approach toward the mounds, the bogeys returned. Unable ever to reach the demolition mounds, the YVH droids retreated to a safe distance.

  One YVH pair, assigned to a cavern chosen as safe to destroy, utilized a long-distance military-grade missile launcher to fire on its mound from the comparatively safe distance of the cavern entrance. On Tendra’s monitor back at the mines, the Solos, Calrissians, and Nien Nunb watched the first explosives package, a concussion missile, roar from the weapon barrel barely visible at the bottom of the screen. The bright flare of its thruster dwindled in the distance as it arced down to hit the ground mere meters from the mound.

  The missile exploded. Viewing the scene through the high magnification of the YVH droids’ visual sensors, the humans and Sullustan saw the explosion kick up soil and shredded fungi from the ground. The antenna-shaped device did not even rock. The barrels in the explosives mound shifted a little but did not otherwise react.

  Lando looked dour. “Not very promising.”

  Tendra keyed the comlink on her control board. “Next package, please.” She switched the microphone off and leaned back. “This will be a thermal detonator, one of the smaller ones YVH droids have as a basic option.”

  “You sound like a speeder salesman,” Han muttered.

  The monitor showed the arms of the droid loading a different, miniature missile into the launcher, then taking aim. Again the missile flew on its ballistic trajectory from the weapon and arced down to land meters from the demolitions mound. It, too, detonated—

  The monitor blanked, going to whiteness. Tendra and the others leaned forward, expectant, hoping that this wasn’t just a comm glitch. For long moments, the screen remained white and silent; then gradually holocam transmissions of sight and audio began to resume, first as bursts of static and then as full-resolution sound and visuals. The images showed a cavern whose center raged on fire, a fungus-shaped cloud of black smoke rising from a scorched crater at its base, a corresponding burned area on the ceiling above. As the YVH droid turned its head for a panoramic view, the onlookers saw machinery against the cavern walls shattered into junk, some of it burning … but the destruction was nowhere near as total as it had been in the cavern whose destruction Han and Leia had witnessed.

  Lando whistled. “Frankly, I didn’t expect that to work.”

  “Some difference in the explosive characteristics of thermal detonators.” Han’s voice came as a distant murmur. “Temperature, probably.”

  “This is good.” Tendra breathed a sigh of relief. “If we’d had to go to proton torpedoes—I don’t know how many we could have gotten in time. But we manufacture these thermal detonators. We can get all we need, and fast.”

  Leia bent close to the monitor. “There, in the distance. Look at the bogeys.” Fifteen or twenty of them were swarming in the vicinity of the crater. Then, as a swirling cloud, they began flying toward the holocam view, toward the YVH droids.

  “Uh-oh.” Lando picked up the comm board’s microphone. “Five and Six, pull out. Immediate full-speed retreat. Return to pickup zone.”

  The droids complied. The holocam view swung around, showing stony tunnel rocking as the droids ran from the cavern entrance.

  Thirty seconds went by, and then the monitor went mostly dark. Diagnostics boxes along the sides began flashing red malfunction indicators.

  Tendra’s expression turned unhappy. “Both offline.”

  “Still, sweetie, it’s a successful test.” Lando rubbed his hands together. “Get enough combat droids down there, and we can do it.”

  Han, solemn, shook his head. “How many is enough, old buddy? A hundred? A thousand? How many can you get here in a day or two?”

  “Not that many.”

  “What we can do, though …” Han frowned, concentrating. He moved to the monitor and entered the command to bring up the schematic of Kess
el and its tunnels. “Here’s what we do. We refit the Falcon and the Lady Luck to launch thermals instead of concussion missiles—”

  Nien Nunb spoke a few words, sounding indignant.

  Han didn’t need Lando to translate. “Yeah, and the Half a Star. I also think we know some crotchety retirees who own their own starfighters and can get here on short notice.”

  Tendra’s face brightened into a smile. “Right. We plot out the best paths through the tunnels.”

  “Won’t work,” Leia said. “As the starfighters fly through and launch their detonators, the explosions will be taking place in just the sort of progressions we don’t want them to.” Then her expression brightened. “Unless we rig the thermal detonators so they don’t blow up on impact, but on timer.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Lando’s eyes scanned back and forth, obviously seeing something other than what was actually in front of him. “Mechanical timers, I think, not electronic. We don’t want the bogeys disrupting them. It can work.” Then his expression turned sad.

  “What is it, honey?” Tendra asked.

  “Time to spend a lot more credits.”

  CAVERNS OF THE HIDDEN ONE, DORIN

  They did call him the Hidden One, these other Baran Do living in the caverns deep beneath Dorin’s surface, and they did not refer to him in hushed tones, which Ben took as a good sign—an indication that they did not fear him as a god or a tyrant. But because the Hidden One was currently too busy administering this tiny subterranean kingdom to bother with time-consuming, mundane tasks, the job of shepherding the Skywalkers around fell to the sage who had accompanied them to these caverns, combat instructor Charsae Saal. His first exploration of the cavern became the Skywalkers’, as well.

  Of course, he was now the former Charsae Saal. He called himself Chara and insisted that the Skywalkers do likewise.

  The three of them walked from chamber to chamber, exploring, unhindered by the other Kel Dors present. Ben thought he had counted twenty different Kel Dors in ten chambers and tunnels so far, but as they were all dressed alike it was hard for him to tell. In addition to the arrival tunnel and the Hidden One’s grand chamber, they had walked along a gallery tunnel with holes leading into private quarters, a large chamber where vegetables and grains of all sorts were grown in circular hydroponics vats, and a storeroom where primitive digging tools such as pickaxes and shovels were hung. Now they moved through a large chamber loaded with recycling equipment—waste and water recyclers, polymer decomposers, tiny foundries for durasteel and transparisteel.