Dark Journey

by Elaine Cunningham

  She dropped her weapon and hurried to her opponent, tugging at his helm, praying that she would see Darth Vader’s face beneath, or even her own.

  The holographic disguise faded away, and Jaina’s heart simply shattered. A lanky boy sprawled on the ground, his brown hair tousled and his sightless eyes looking faintly puzzled.

  Jaina pushed herself to her feet and stumbled back. She hadn’t killed her brother. She had not.

  Her own disguise did not fade away, so she wrenched off the helmet. The visor opened of its own accord. Startled, she dropped the helmet and watched it roll slowly toward Jacen. It stopped, and Kyp Durron’s face gazed out at her. His lips moved, but she could not hear his words.

  Jaina awakened from the vision with a start, breathing as hard as if she’d just run a twenty-kilometer sprint with Tenel Ka. Slowly she became aware of an urgent voice, and turned dazedly to face it. She recoiled at the sight of Kyp Durron’s concerned face.

  “You brought me out of the trance,” she repeated. “Why?”

  He rocked back on his heels and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe I have some sense of what you were going through.”

  She shook him off, but she couldn’t dismiss the vision or its obvious symbolism. And there was something compelling in Kyp’s watchful green eyes that, for once, had nothing to do with the Force.

  “I never had the problems that Jacen and Anakin had with the Force,” she said slowly. “They debated its true nature, and struggled to understand what it means to be a Jedi. I just did what needed to be done. Up to now, that has always been enough. Now I’m being forced to question, and to choose.”

  She told Kyp about Ta’a Chume’s offer. “I’m not considering it, but it made me think. The queen mother operates behind a line I’m not willing to cross.”

  “Which begs the question of what your parameters are.”

  “Exactly. And I realized that I’ve unwittingly crossed a number of lines without paying attention.”

  “I’ve crossed a few myself,” Kyp agreed. “It’s hard not to—the vapin’ things keep moving.”

  She smiled faintly. “This is a decision point: I can back out now, or I can move forward and push this offensive as far as it will take me.”

  Kyp studied her. “You’re going to continue, whatever it costs you.”

  “I don’t see any other way,” she said with a helpless shrug. The way she saw it, a Jedi would willingly sacrifice her life in service against evil. Faced with the Yuuzhan Vong threat, how could she turn away from this darker, greater sacrifice?

  “Did you find the answers you sought?” Kip asked.

  Jaina started to say no, but a brief, vivid vision enveloped her—an image of a tiny Jag imprisoned in the tangle of an X-wing’s circuitry. The mental picture faded as quickly as it came, leaving Jaina with two startling realizations: first, the outer edges of the “maze” actually followed the pattern of the lower levels of the palace. But even more startling, Jaina realized that she could feel Jag’s presence through the Force.

  That should have been impossible, given her particular talents. She couldn’t even connect to her own twin brother. She’d had to feel Jacen’s death through the collective pain of several Jedi. Whereas Tenel Ka—

  Realization slammed into her. She could sense Jag Fel’s presence for the same reason that Tenel Ka had been so open to Jacen. The connection had grown unobserved. Or perhaps it had always been there.

  Kyp took Jaina by both shoulders. “What now?” he demanded, giving her a little shake.

  Without responding, she pulled away and raced off in the direction her vision had indicated.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jaina and Kyp found Jag exactly where Jaina had envisioned him—in a small room hidden deep in a labyrinthine maze.

  Kyp felt her bright anticipation, the excitement that came with her sudden realization. Without realizing it, she was expecting Jag to experience a similar moment of epiphany.

  That dream shattered the moment Jag Fel looked up at his rescuers. He glanced at Jaina, and a shuttered, disinterested expression fell over his face. Kyp felt the young woman’s surge of pain, and her conviction that Jag Fel might admire her courage and talent, but he regarded her as a scruffy and undisciplined rogue.

  The “Jedi princess” quickly swallowed her shock and reached into her pocket for a small multitool. With a few deft flicks she picked the complicated locks—a skill she had no doubt learned from her “scoundrel” father.

  The sound of footsteps echoed through the halls. Kyp and Jaina glanced at each other, then looked to the ceiling. A tangle of pipes crossed it, some five meters overhead. They both leapt, catching hold of the pipes and waiting.

  Jag had the presence of mind to push the door shut. One of the locks clicked, and he settled down.

  His guards took several moments to figure out the locks. When they entered, grumbling, the two Jedi dropped from their perch.

  Jaina stepped over a downed guard and into the corridor. “How did you get yourself down here?” she demanded.

  Jag sent her a quick glance. “After the battle, Shawnkyr took me aside and warned me that in implying that I’d honor you as a commander, I was putting my pilots in the service of Hapes’ future queen. That I was taking sides in a coming coup.”

  Jaina looked dismayed. “Your Chiss friend must have overheard some of Ta’a Chume’s people talking about it.”

  “That’s right. Congratulations, Lieutenant. Or would ‘Your Majesty’ be more appropriate?”

  “These days she prefers ‘Trickster,’ ” Kyp offered. “What’s a queen, next to a Yuuzhan Vong goddess?”

  Jaina shot a quick glare in Kyp’s direction. “Don’t help me. This queen business is ridiculous. It wasn’t my idea.”

  “The queen’s retainers were of the impression that you were another Ta’a Chume, an ambitious woman who would gladly seize this opportunity. They also spoke of eliminating obstacles, a job they were hired to do.”

  Jaina stopped and seized his arm. “Does this have anything to do with my father?”

  “That was my assumption, too. I sought out Han’s ‘assailants’; ambassadors who went to negotiate a marriage alliance between Prince Isolder and Jaina. I feel certain that Han was not attacked so much as subdued.”

  “I know all this,” Jaina interrupted, “but I don’t understand why you were detained.”

  His lips firmed into a grim line. “I was stopped on my way to find and warn Tenel Ka. You’re of legal age and don’t require your parents’ permission. If you wish to marry Isolder, no one can stop you. Logically speaking, what would this obstacle be but Queen Mother Teneniel Djo?”

  Harrar watched as Khalee Lah paced the command center of the priestship. “Our fears have come to pass: the warriors under this command are beginning to voice questions and doubts. This is a more insidious danger than defeat in battle.”

  “Some even question your fitness to command,” one of the guards observed. “Yun-Harla mocks us through her new chosen one …”

  The warrior whirled toward the challenger, his face twisted in fury. “Challenge accepted,” he grated out.

  The priest began to intervene, then decided against it. Khalee Lah required an outlet for his fervor. Better to send a warrior into battle than a zealot.

  “You and you,” Khalee Lah said, pointing to two of the largest warriors. “The challenge will be three against one. We will see who has the favor of the gods!”

  Mere moments later, Khalee Lah stood over the bodies of his challengers. He glanced up at the clanking footfall of the priest’s bodyguard.

  The female strode in, dutifully ignoring the bodies of the slain warriors. “We recovered some debris from one of the ruined ships, Eminence. I thought you would wish to see this.”

  Harrar claimed the small metal device with an expression of extreme distaste. “This is Yun-Harla’s mark! What blasphemy is this?”

  “It was found affixed to a hull fragment—one of the ships sac
rificed in the battle against the Trickster.”

  “One of the ships we accidentally destroyed,” Khalee Lah corrected testily, “and perhaps this abomination will show us why.”

  He took the device from the priest and twisted it as if he would crack the metal in half. Suddenly he went flying upward, slamming into the ceiling of the chamber as if he’d been thrown there by unseen hands.

  “Brilliant,” Harrar murmured as he gazed at the furious, floating warrior. “The device defies gravity, as do our dovin basals. When affixed to a ship, it might override the ship’s gravitic voice. Any ship so marked might appear to our sensors to be a different ship, even the stolen frigate. Since you are considerably lighter than a ship, the effect was far more drastic and pronounced.”

  The warrior managed to switch off the device. He fell to the floor, rolled twice, and came up on his feet. Gathering his composure, he showed the device to the surviving guards.

  “Look on this, and understand your heresy. Go tell the others that this Jeedai is nothing but an infidel, one who will die as easily as any other. Go!”

  The guards went, and Khalee Lah hurled the device to the floor. “In my anger, I have touched a blasphemous device. I am unclean, and will lay that crime at the female’s feet as well!”

  He whirled toward Harrar. “Alert the warmaster, Eminence, and request that all ships in this sector converge. We will find this Jeedai if we have to leave all the worlds of Hapes in smoking ashes!”

  “Teneniel Djo,” Jaina repeated, staring at Jag Fel’s grim face. Though she was stunned by his conclusion, she could not refute it.

  They raced through the halls and into the royal apartments. Guards moved to stop them; Force lightning caught them and threw them aside.

  They found Tenel Ka in her mother’s room, sitting beside the window. She held her mother’s hand in both of hers. Jaina knew at a glance that they all had been too late.

  “Poison,” Tenel Ka murmured. “They did not even give her the dignity of a final battle.”

  Jaina placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We’ll find whoever did this.”

  The Jedi lifted burning eyes to Jaina’s face. “I will not have my mother’s life dishonored by your vengeance.”

  She fell back a step. “Is that what you think this is about? Do you think I’m dishonoring Anakin? Jacen?”

  An alarm sounded, rising in pitch and volume as it sang out the invasion alert. Tenel Ka gently released her mother’s hand and stood. She held out one hand, fingers spread to display the large emerald ring. Then she abruptly clenched her fist, and a hologram leapt into the air between them.

  A nebulous swirl of darkness and mists filled the air. The mists parted to reveal five large starships, and smaller vessels spilling from them.

  “Hapes’s fleet, and my mother’s legacy,” Tenel Ka said curtly. “Colonel Jag Fel, I place these ships under your command.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The council chamber of the Hapan court filled with frantically shouting figures. They fell silent, out of mingled fear and habit, as a slender, red-robed woman rose to speak.

  “Someone must take command until a new queen mother is enthroned,” Ta’a Chume said. Slowly, deliberately, she lifted a delicate jeweled crown and placed it on her own head.

  “The Witch of Dathomir is dead!” someone shouted. “No more Jedi queens.”

  Murmurs of agreement swirled through the room, for it was widely known that the former queen despised her daughter-in-law. But Ta’a Chume sent a slow, glacial stare toward her would-be supporter. A profound silence fell over the hall. She let it reign for several moments before speaking.

  “Yes, Queen Mother Teneniel Djo is dead,” Ta’a Chume agreed, “and the Ni’Korish are responsible. Whatever failings Teneniel Djo might have had, Hapan law demands death to any who raise a hand against the royal family. The Ni’Korish have gone too far. Even now, guards are gathering these traitors. Before nightfall, they will be no more.”

  She lifted one hand, and guards stepped forward to take the man who’d shouted. For several moments the only sounds in the hall were his muffled protests, and the sound of his boots scraping across the polished floor as they dragged him away.

  “What of the refugees?” someone asked in more subdued tones.

  “Expendable,” Ta’a Chume stated flatly. “They may purchase us needed time.” She glanced pointedly toward Isolder. “A new queen will be named very soon.”

  Another faint murmur rippled through the hall, rising in volume as two young women strode forward. The crowd fell back to let them pass.

  Jaina noticed that Ta’a Chume’s eyes flickered from her to Tenel Ka, lingering on neither. The queen removed the crown she’d just donned and handed it to the prince. Through the Force, Jaina felt the woman’s faint, feline satisfaction.

  Suddenly she understood. If Isolder offered Jaina the crown now, at a time of crisis and before a roomful of people, she could hardly refuse it. Ta’a Chume fully expected Jaina to eagerly seize the power. With stunning clarity, Jaina glimpsed herself through Ta’a Chume’s eyes. When the queen looked upon the Jedi pilot, she saw a younger version of herself.

  But for all of Ta’a Chume’s machinations, it was not Jaina who ultimately would hold the throne. No doubt Jaina would soon have met the same fate as Teneniel Djo. Sooner or later, Tenel Ka would have had little choice but to assume the throne. She would not stand and see others die in her place.

  They stopped at the front of the audience chamber. Tenel Ka turned to face Jaina. “There are times when personal inclinations must be put aside,” she said softly. “I will take up my mother’s crown, and I will defend it if I must. But for now, we have a common foe.”

  The Jedi women regarded each other for a long, silent moment.

  “Let’s go,” Jaina said.

  A faint smile touched Tenel Ka’s lips. She strode over to her father and dropped to one knee. Without hesitation he placed the crown on her head.

  Thunderous ovation swept through the room. The newly crowned queen rose and whirled toward the crowd, cutting off their applause with a swift, impatient gesture.

  “I am a warrior, a daughter of warrior women. Teneniel Djo foresaw the Yuuzhan Vong threat and prepared. Shipyards hidden in the Transitory Mists have rebuilt much of the fleet lost at Fondor. These ships are on their way. Go, and fight, and know that Hapes is strong.”

  She strode back toward Jaina, her pace quickening as she went. Jaina fell into step, and together the two Jedi women ran toward battle. The applause began again, with a fervor that swept them along like a gathering storm.

  Jaina noted a familiar group of pilots at the back of the room, a disparate group—Hapans, Chiss, Republic, and rogue—who all chose to fly under Jag Fel’s command. She nodded to Jag and Kyp as she passed. “See you up there.”

  Jag gave her a formal bow and then glanced to Shawnkyr. The Chiss pilots set off for the docking bay at a run, and Kyp fell into pace beside them.

  Impulse struck, and Kyp acted on it at once. “Jaina never intended to marry the prince.”

  Jag looked politely interested. “I see. He is not a Jedi.”

  “True, but that’s not the issue,” Kyp said. “I’m guessing that the only man Jaina would ever take seriously is one who can outfly her.”

  Jag ran along for several moments before answering. “There are not many who fit that description,” he observed neutrally.

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed that,” Kyp responded in kind.

  They skidded to a stop beside their docked ships. Jag extended his hand to Kyp. They clasped hands briefly.

  “Watch her back,” the Chiss commander said softly, and then he swung up into his clawcraft.

  Kyp took his promise very seriously. He stormed over to the Yuuzhan Vong frigate and raced up the deck.

  “Whatever you’re planning, forget it,” he said bluntly.

  Jaina pulled off the cognition hood and stared at him.

  “I get the feeling
you’re about to toss your life away, sacrificing it as Anakin did. Not long ago, you told me that Anakin might have had the answers. We can’t let them just disappear into mist along with you.”

  “Don’t put that on me,” Jaina said slowly. “You really think that I’m on a journey to discover what the Jedi should be?”

  “It makes sense,” Kyp said. “You’ve got the talent, the heritage. Maybe there’s something to all this talk of destiny.”

  Jaina picked up the hood again. “Get out.”

  “Not until you tell me what you’ve got in mind.”

  She rose suddenly, in a fluid blur, one hand thrown toward the older Jedi. Dark lightning crackled from her fingers and surrounded him in a shining nimbus. He flew back and struck the wall hard. His eyes narrowed, and the deadly aura disappeared. Jaina’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “If I can summon it, I can dispel it,” he told her. “You’re not the only one who took that path.”

  Jaina drew her lightsaber. “Outside,” she snarled.

  Kyp gave her a mockingly courtly bow and motioned for her to go first. She shook her head. He shrugged and walked down the ramp, Jaina close behind him. As his feet touched the dock, she leapt into a backward flip and landed in the doorway. She shut off her lightsaber and took a step back. The living portal slammed shut behind her.

  “Stang,” Kyp muttered as he watched the alien ship rise swiftly into the air.

  Jaina reached up to touch the cognition hood. Information flowed from every part of the ship, as it had from the first time she donned the hood. Before, she had always listened to the ship with detachment and distaste, as she might endure the necessary but loathsome companionship of a Hutt informer. Before, she’d had other Jedi aboard helping her interact with the ship. Without Tahiri’s hard-won connection to the Yuuzhan Vong, without Lowbacca’s skill with the organic navicomputer, Jaina could not afford the luxury of detachment. For the first time she opened herself fully to the living ship.

  A strangely familiar sensation swept through her as the link between ship and pilot deepened. She’d experienced something like this twice before—once when she’d built her lightsaber and learned to use it as an extension of herself and her powers, and once again when she attuned the young villips Lowbacca had found in the ship’s hydroponic vats. Now that Jaina considered it, the two experiences had more in common than she would have thought possible.