Star Wars 390 - The Dark Nest Trilogy I - The Joiner King

by Troy Denning

  She managed to wipe it away by reminding herself that this used to be Raynar Thul.

  “Raynar—good morning.” Jaina pushed her feet into the jumpsuit and continued to dress without embarrassment. There was not much sense in being modest when several thousand nestmates had access to your innermost thoughts. “Come down to see how the drones live?”

  Raynar lowered his stiff brow. “Why do you call us Raynar when you know Raynar Thul is gone?”

  “Raynar’s still in there somewhere,” Jaina said. “I can feel him.”

  Raynar glared down at her, then said, “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps a little Raynar Thul remains in us still.” A glimmer of sadness appeared in his cold blue eyes. “And he will be sorry to see you go.”

  Jaina felt Zekk’s alarm at the same time as her own.

  “Go?”

  “Your task here is done,” Raynar explained.

  “Really?” Jaina thrust her arm through a sleeve. “I hadn’t heard the Chiss were gone.”

  As she said this, the image of a clawcraft reconnaissance patrol appeared in her mind—the scene being relayed to one of the tactical monitors in the Taat control room. The ships were silhouetted against Ruu’s amber disk, flying just above the plane of Qoribu’s golden ring system.

  “It looks like they’re still here to me,” Zekk said, no doubt seeing the same thing in his mind’s eye as Jaina did in hers. “So why would the Colony want us to leave now?”

  “We wish you to return to the Galactic Alliance,” Raynar said, dodging the question.

  “What about our mission?” Jaina rose and closed her jumpsuit. “You brought us here to keep the peace.”

  Raynar stood. “Your starfighters are being fueled. We thank you for coming.”

  “You seem eager to be rid of us,” Zekk said, zipping his own suit. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the Chiss.” Jaina could not tell whether her inference came from her own mind, Zekk’s, or Taat’s, but she knew it was correct. “They’re going to attack.”

  A short, very Raynar-like sigh escaped Raynar’s lips. “There’s nothing more you can do here. And we don’t wish to involve Jedi in this fight.”

  “There isn’t going to be a fight,” Zekk said. “Jaina and I will turn them back.”

  “Not this time,” Raynar said. “The Chiss intend to bring this to an end, and they won’t be intimidated by Jedi tricks.”

  “There’s no harm in trying.” Jaina summoned her utility belt and began to buckle it on. She did not understand why the Chiss were suddenly changing strategy and launching a major assault, but in a war, some things you just did not have time to figure out. “Where are you expecting them? Zekk and I will—”

  “No. We don’t wish to risk the lives of our friends in this matter.”

  “What do you think we’ve been doing?” Zekk asked, buckling on his own belt. “We’re here to keep the peace, and we’re not leaving—”

  “There is no longer a peace to keep,” Raynar said. “And you are leaving.”

  Suddenly his voice felt like it weighed a thousand kilos, and the urge to do as he ordered grew almost overwhelming. There was more going on here than Raynar was telling.

  Ambush.

  The thought had barely flashed through Jaina’s mind before a Taat in Raynar’s retinue began to drum its chest. Raynar listened intently, then met Jaina’s gaze and shook his head.

  “You have always been too headstrong for your own good, Jaina. Do not try to figure this out, or—”

  “It won’t work,” Zekk said, leaping to the same conclusion as Jaina. “If you destroy the Chiss fleet, the next one will only be bigger.”

  Raynar let his chin drop in another old-Raynar gesture. “Now you’ve done it.” The urge to depart suddenly vanished. “Now you must stay.”

  “We weren’t leaving without Lowbacca, anyway.” Jaina sounded more certain than she was; Raynar’s will had felt like it was more than a match for her stubbornness. “And Zekk is right. The Colony isn’t strong enough to destroy the entire Chiss space force.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Raynar said. “We only need to hold them off until the Hapans arrive.”

  “Hapans?” Jaina climbed out of the sleeping cell onto the walkway with Raynar, causing a soft clatter as his retinue scrambled to make room for her. “What are Hapans doing out here?”

  “Defending the weak,” Raynar said. “Jacen convinced Tenel Ka to send us a fleet.”

  At least now Jaina understood why the Chiss were attacking. They wanted to destroy the Qoribu nests before reinforcements arrived to complicate the job.

  “Jacen convinced Tenel Ka, or you used Jacen to convince her?” Jaina was thinking of how Raynar had nearly forced her to leave just a few moments earlier—and of the irresistible call that had summoned her and the others to the Colony in the first place. “Your touch can be very compelling.”

  “Perhaps, but even we are not strong enough to control Jacen,” Raynar said. “He has moved beyond our control—or anyone else’s. You know that yourself.”

  Jaina could not argue. During Jacen’s five-year journey, she had felt him growing steadily stronger in the Force—but also more distant and isolated, like a hermit retreating to his mountaintop. At times, he had seemed to vanish into the Force entirely, and at other times she had sworn he was floating just above her shoulder.

  To tell the truth, it had given her the creeps. She had started to feel like she was sharing a twin bond with a different brother every few weeks—or like he was practicing to be dead or something.

  “Jacen wouldn’t send you a fleet,” Zekk said. He jumped up onto the adjacent side of the sleeping cell, into the middle of a steady line of Joiners streaming past toward the communal refresher. They smoothly detoured down another walkway, and both the conversation and the morning parade continued unabated. “That could start a war between the Chiss and the Galactic Alliance.”

  “Or prevent one between us and the Chiss,” Raynar countered. “Perhaps he is willing to run the risk.”

  “Even Solos don’t like odds that long,” Jaina said. “When Chiss feel threatened, they don’t back off. They get mean and aggressive.”

  “You can’t do this,” Zekk added.

  “What we cannot do is allow the destruction of the Qoribu nests.” Raynar’s retinue abruptly started for the exit, and he turned to follow. “Once the ambush begins, you will be free to fight or leave, as you wish. Until then, you remain our guests.”

  Jaina started after him. “Raynar!” When a pair of knobby-shelled bodyguards moved to cut her off, she used the Force to shove them into a sleeping cell, then said, “This is madness!”

  Raynar continued moving away from her. “It is self-defense.” Again, his voice grew heavy and commanding, and this time it contained an edge that suggested he would abide no more argument. “You will return to your proper barracks and remain there until the battle begins.”

  Jaina felt an overwhelming urge to obey, but there was a darkness in his tone that alarmed her, a hint of brutality so utterly alien to Raynar Thul that she knew it was not him alone speaking. She planted her feet on the walkway and, drawing on Zekk for the strength to resist the compulsion to start toward the barracks, touched Raynar in the Force.

  The murky presence inside him was so caustic that she recoiled and would have lost contact had Zekk not bolstered her through their meld. Jaina began to feel her way through the bitter darkness, searching for Raynar’s pride and idealism, trying to find the core of him that she sensed was still there.

  “They want this war,” she said. “They’re the ones who convinced you to establish your nests so close to Chiss territory.”

  Raynar stopped, but did not turn around. “They? Who is they?”

  “Your shipmates on the Flier.” Zekk stepped past Jaina and, shuffling along the walkway, started toward Raynar. “Lomi and Welk.”

  “Lomi and Welk are dead.”

  Jaina found something pure and compassio
nate inside the Prime and touched it. “Then who attacked the Shadow on her way in?”

  “Insect mercenaries hired by the Chiss,” Raynar answered instantly.

  Zekk stopped a step behind Raynar. “You have proof?”

  “We have no time to look for proof.” Raynar reluctantly turned around, and his retinue of insects began to file back toward the discussion. “We are too busy defending our nests.”

  Jaina sighed inwardly. It was the same circular logic they encountered every time they tried to investigate the mysterious attacks.

  “What about the attack on Saba?” Zekk pressed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me she attacked a Joiner by mistake, and he took her lightsaber away and wounded her?”

  “Yes,” Raynar replied. “That is the best explanation.”

  Jaina tightened her hold on the core of benevolence she had found. “Raynar, they’re blinding you to the truth. The best explanation—”

  “We are tired of telling you!”

  The murky presence welled up inside Raynar and swallowed the pure center that Jaina was holding, and she found herself suddenly adrift in a void of biting darkness. Instinctively, she reached for Zekk and opened herself to their meld, but instead of his strength, all that came to her was cold, stinging shadow.

  “Raynar Thul is gone,” Raynar said.

  Jaina felt herself turning. She tried to fight the compulsion, to lock her gaze on Raynar and keep it there, but she simply did not have the strength to fight him. She stepped away and started for the barracks.

  “We are all that remains.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  A long, golden arrow curved through the heart of the hologrammic flight control display, tracing the route of the stolen skiff from the repair hangar to its current location on the edge of Ossus’s gravity well. The reckless manner in which the skiff had cut through the approach zone of the planet’s primary spaceport suggested the pilot had been eager to get away from the Jedi academy as quickly as possible. But Luke had already known that. Escapees liked to move fast.

  “Thirty seconds before she can jump,” a flight controller reported. A large-headed Bith with an auditory data feed in one ear, he was seated at one of a dozen control stations surrounding the hologrammic display. “She still won’t acknowledge our signal.”

  “Keep trying,” Luke said. He could feel the anxiety of the XJ3 pilots trailing the skiff—a pair of young Jedi Knights flying their first security rotation. They were worried they would have to blast it out of space. “Do we know yet whether she has company?”

  “Not with certainty,” said the Bith’s supervisor, a blue-skinned Duros woman named Orame. She stepped to an empty terminal and clacked a few keys. An inset of a repair hangar security vid appeared at the base of the flight control display. “But we did find this.”

  The inset showed Alema Rar striding through a darkened repair bay, two cases of food goods floating through the air ahead of her.

  “We think that shadow—”

  “Enhance the cases,” Mara said. Along with Han, Leia, and several others, she had accompanied Luke up from the hangar floor as soon as the stolen skiff had streaked skyward. “Bring up a label, if you can.”

  The Duros typed a command, and the carton label filled the image.

  “NUTROFIT GELMEAT,” Mara read.

  “She’s stealing Gorog!” Ben cried.

  The skiff’s trajectory began to flatten as Alema prepared to enter hyperspace. The XJ3 pilots commed for permission to open fire, and Luke reached out to them in the Force, urging them to avoid disabling the vessel.

  “Permission granted,” Orame said over the comm channel. “Open fire.”

  The pilots hesitated. “But—”

  “You heard the order,” Luke said, still reaching out to the pilots through the Force, urging them let the skiff go. “Open fire.”

  The skiff’s trajectory began to weave and wobble as it began evasive maneuvers.

  “She’s getting away!” Ben cried. “Stop her!”

  “They have to be careful, Ben,” Mara said gently. “Or they might hurt Gorog.”

  Ben considered this, then sighed and took her hand. “Let them go. I don’t think Gorog wanted to stay anyway.”

  The skiff’s trajectory reached the edge of Ossus’s gravity well and vanished. The flight controller reported that the stolen skiff had entered hyperspace.

  Han let out a sigh of relief. “Right on sch—”

  “Not now,” Luke interrupted, raising his hand to silence Han. He turned to Ben. “How did you know Gorog didn’t want to stay? Do you still feel her in your mind?”

  Ben closed his eyes, then nodded. “Sort of. She wants me to be happy.”

  Luke felt his own dismay mirrored in Mara. If Ben remained in touch with Gorog after she had entered hyperspace, it could only be through the Colony’s Will. He was part Joiner—Dark Nest Joiner.

  Mara had reached the same conclusion. Luke could feel her alarm and anger through the Force, and she was as quick as he was to realize that they could not discuss their plans in front of their son.

  “Ben, maybe Nanna can take you to the pilots’ lounge for some Fizzer,” Mara said. “We have some things to discuss, then we’ll find you there before we leave.”

  Ben made no move toward the door, where Nanna and C-3PO were waiting.

  Luke frowned. “Ben, I’m sure you heard your mother.”

  Ben nodded. “I heard. But why do I have to stay behind on Ossus?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Han. “Is there going to be another war?”

  Han grimaced, then said, “Not if we can help it, kid.”

  “And certainly not in this part of the galaxy,” Mara added. “Why are you worried about that?”

  “Because this is what you do when there’s a war,” Ben said. “You just dump me someplace with Masters Tionne and Solusar and then never even come to visit.”

  The accusation struck a pang in Luke’s heart, and he felt Mara wince as well. They often wondered how much Ben’s refusal to use the Force had to do with the separation anxiety he had suffered during the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, and Ben knew this particular complaint had an effect on them.

  Even so, Mara refused to be manipulated by an eight-year-old. “Don’t exaggerate, Ben. We had to keep you safe, and you know we came to see you every chance we had.”

  “Besides, they won’t be gone long this time,” Jacen said, stepping out from behind Han and Leia. “There isn’t going to be a war.”

  Ben frowned. “How do you know that?”

  “I know.” Jacen flashed a crooked Solo smile. “Trust me.”

  Luke felt a sudden qualm in Mara, and though her eyes remained fixed on Ben, he sensed that her thoughts were on Jacen.

  “Besides, you’re not going to be alone,” Jacen added. “I’ll be here, too.”

  “You’re not going back?” Ben asked.

  “Not yet. The Masters are worried that some of us have spent too much time with the Killiks already.”

  “Tell me about it,” Ben answered, rolling his eyes.

  “So maybe you and I could hang out together?” Jacen glanced at Mara. “If that’s all right with your mother.”

  “Of course.” Mara answered with no outward hesitation, but Luke detected just a hint of apprehension, as though she did not quite trust the “new-and-improved” Jacen. “As long as Master Solusar thinks Ben is keeping up with his schoolwork—”

  “No problem!” Ben’s smile was as broad as a Hutt’s. “School’s easy.”

  “And as long as you obey Masters Tionne and Solusar,” Mara warned Ben. “No secrets with Nanna, either.”

  “I can’t do that anymore,” Ben said. “Dad altered her program.”

  “Good.” Jacen took Ben’s hand and started for the door. “Why don’t we get that Fizzer now?”

  “Can I have kyleme?” Ben asked, not looking back. “A Blue Giant size?”

  As soon as they were out of earshot, Han said, “Jacen has a knack
with kids. Go figure.”

  “It’s his empathy,” Leia said. “I’m glad to see it’s intact.”

  Leia left unsaid what Luke knew she was thinking: that after the war—after all Jacen had suffered at the hands of Vergere and the Yuuzhan Vong—she was surprised he had any empathy left.

  Luke turned to Han. “Sorry to interrupt you earlier, but we don’t know how much the Dark Nest might be able to glean from Ben’s mind.”

  “No problem,” Han said. “I got a little carried away when I saw how well the plan was working.”

  “I don’t know why you’re surprised,” Leia said. “Alema is still a Jedi. Once Cilghal let her regain consciousness, there was never any question she could escape. The tricky part is going to be following her.”

  “How did you know which vessel she’d steal?” Mara asked.

  “We didn’t,” Leia said. “We bugged them all.”

  “Speaking of bugs, we’d better get going,” Han said. “That transmitter only has a subspace range of fifty light-years. We can’t be too far behind when Alema hits Colony space, or we’ll be stuck guessing where she went.”

  Luke followed Han and the others toward the door. Their intention was to follow Alema to the core of the Dark Nest, then undermine its influence over the Colony by eliminating Welk and—assuming she had survived the Crash—Lomi Plo. Cilghal and Jacen were convinced that at least Welk had survived—and that a Dark Jedi now led the Gorog in much the same way Raynar led the Unu. It was a somewhat ruthless plan, especially in the way it placed Alema’s life at risk without her consent. But it seemed to Luke to be consistent with the nature of modern Jedi themselves. The war with the Yuuzhan Vong had taught the Jedi the folly of valuing sentiment over effectiveness, the wisdom of striking quickly and fiercely at the heart of a problem. Sometimes, Luke wondered whether it was a lesson the Jedi had learned too well; whether in defeating their enemies they had not become a little too much like them.