Star Wars: I, Jedi

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “Make it brief. I’m heading out as soon as I can get my stuff together.”

  I hit the button for the turbolift. “You can’t go with Terpfen. He’s a known traitor.”

  She preceded me into the lift. “I can handle myself on that count.”

  “Despite the assurances that Ambassador Cilghal gave you that we can protect your twins, you can’t leave them here.”

  Her brown eyes sparked dangerously. “So, what, I load them into a fighter with a known traitor and take them off to a world where Imperial assassins are going to be trying to kill them?”

  “No, but leaving them here, where a four-thousand-year-old Dark Lord of the Sith is turning apprentices into puppets isn’t much of a choice, either.” I shook my head. “You don’t know any of us. How can you trust all of us with your kids?”

  “I can’t trust all of you.” She poked a finger square in my chest. “I’m trusting you.”

  “What?”

  Her expression sharpened as the lift doors opened and she started down the hall to her room. “When my husband left here, he said I could trust you. Not an easy man to earn trust from, my husband. That got me wondering and you’d be surprised what the president of the New Republic can learn when she’s curious and has got a HoloNet connection. The fact that my brother picked you to be here counts a lot in your favor, but the rest of your record doesn’t hurt at all. I think my children are safe with Corran Horn.”

  “Look, since you know who I am, let me fly you to Mon Calamari. I’m a hot hand with a fighter. I can help when you get to Anoth.”

  She shook her head. “Can’t do it—and that’s because I do know who you are. I know that if you wanted to be my chauffeur, you’d not have come to me privately. You want something else, and I’m willing to bet that something else means you’re going to be staying here. Let me have it.”

  I nodded as she started shoving clothes into a satchel. “First, I think the apprentices who are vulnerable to Exar Kun are those who have had some brush with the dark side in the past. Streen once asked me about something I considered minor, but it might be the vector in for Exar Kun. Can’t confirm that about Gantoris or Kyp, but it would make sense since those who have fallen once can more easily be lured back to old paths of behavior.”

  Leia paused for a moment. “That would put Kam at risk.”

  “He’s pretty tough, but, yes, there’s a chance.” I glanced down. “Streen remains a risk. Can’t pinpoint any others, though Brakiss has an Imperial background that would make him prey.”

  “Right. What else?”

  “We have a basic problem if we’re going to figure out a way to deal with Exar Kun. If we exclude everyone who is suspect, he could know something is afoot because of that fact.”

  “And he could use any paranoia that develops as a way into those who aren’t yet tainted.” She zipped up her bag. “So is there a solution to this problem, or do we evac Yavin?”

  “With Kyp running around in an invincible ship? No way. We’re all that can stand between him and his returning with a way to move Exar Kun off this ball.”

  “Evac is out. The problem still stands then.” She watched a smile grow on my face. “I hate it when a Corellian smiles like that. Usually means Han’s about to lose the Falcon to Lando in some sabacc game.”

  “Well, it’s Exar Kun’s chance to lose this time, because he overplayed his hand.” My smile broadened. “Your brother identified an ability in me, one to project thoughts into others. How well I know them, the degree of contact I feel for them, determines how much I can pump through. Exar Kun came to me last night, after I helped take Streen down by projecting into him the idea that he’d succeeded at what he tried to do. Kun tried to bring me over to his side, but I resisted. He got a good read on me and tried to play me.”

  Leia smiled and it became easy for me to see why thousands of Rebel hearts had been broken when she married Han Solo. “And while he was playing you, you got a good read on him. You can track him, when he’s active?”

  “I think so. I also think these displays take a lot out of him. I think he’ll be keeping a low profile, probably tapping in on Streen, to find out what we’re doing.”

  She nodded. “And you can feed enough back through that connection to deceive him?”

  I nodded. “Giving us time to find a way to deal with him.”

  “Good, very good.” Her eyes sharpened. “I can’t leave you in charge—he’d notice the change in routine and spot you as a danger.”

  “Right. I’ll have to keep a low profile, too. I’ll keep quiet unless things aren’t going to work or start going really badly.” I moved from the doorway as she headed out toward the turbolift. “I know I can buy us time, but not much. At the rate he recovers, Kun should be ready for something tomorrow, maybe tonight.”

  “I know you’ll do what you can.” She stopped at the turbolift and offered me her hand. “May the Force be with you.”

  “And you.”

  “I hope so.” She smiled at me grimly as the turbolift doors closed. “I have a feeling we’ll both need it.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I spent the rest of the day working on the Headhunter, finishing the repairs. I asked Streen to help me. I didn’t need the help, I just wanted to keep him close. Some of the other students were shunning him, and given what had happened, that came as no surprise. By having him help me I could keep an eye on him and gently monitor him in case Exar Kun tried to influence him again.

  I also offered Kun the Headhunter as bait through Streen. The old gas prospector knew enough about flying a ship that he was able to hover the fighter and bring it into the hangar proper from the landing pad, but he didn’t seem able to work the weapons. Mara’s ship no longer had the standard weapons package it had been built with. The concussion missile launchers had been scrapped and replaced with a center-mounted ion-cannon. Each wing still sported a triple-blaster, but they were hardwired for dual-fire mode, which isn’t a choice I’d have made.

  I told Streen enough about the weapons to make him think he could work them, but I didn’t tell him about having installed a command override code that was required to use them. If weapons were engaged without the code, the Headhunter would cut thrust to zero, click in the repulsorlift coils, and hover. The onboard computers also had the Great Temple designated as a passive flight zone: there would be no running it up to speed and slamming into the Temple. The navicomp would just take over and land the ship in the face of such an obvious pilot error.

  My thinking was that Kun, still taxed from his having funneled enough power through Streen to create that cyclone, would take the chance at having Streen use the Headhunter to kill Luke. I tried to make it easy for him by giving Streen little flying tips and telling him Rebellion pilot stories, but Exar Kun never took the bait. I felt a bit disappointed in him at that, but didn’t push the issue for fear of tipping him to our connection.

  It wasn’t until that evening, as I was trying to drop off to sleep, that I realized Kun wasn’t quite as sophisticated as I had expected. Alarms triggered by Artoo, who was stationed in the Grand Audience Chamber, jolted me out of bed. I stretched out my senses and caught spiky impressions of creatures that just felt wrong up at the ziggurat’s pinnacle.

  I didn’t even think about hitting the stairs or waiting for the turbolift. I sprinted to the Headhunter, punched in the ignition code and enabled the weapons. I overrode the passive flight directives and cruised out of the hangar into the orange twilight of the night. I looped and rolled the fighter and took a pass above the Temple, but all I could see was the hint of a triangular wingtip slipping through one of the skylights.

  Frustration rippled through me, but I shoved it away. Those creatures are not my problem right now. Exar Kun is. Stretching out my senses, I discovered slender ebon threads of influence, three of them, linked to the creatures the Dark Lord had sent to kill Luke Skywalker. The creatures were mindless beasts, far easier to control than Streen, affording Kun maximum d
estruction with a minimal amount of energy expended.

  I overshot the Temple, then killed my thrust and cut in the repulsorlift coils. This left me hovering four hundred meters above the ground. Using the Headhunter’s etheric rudder, I twitched the ship around until the nose pointed off toward where I felt Kun’s influence originating. I hit a button on my console, locking in that heading.

  Nudging the throttle forward, I rolled to starboard and cruised back past the Great Temple by a kilometer. I killed thrust again, hovered and pointed the nose off in the direction I felt Kun’s influence coming from. I logged those coordinates in the navicomp.

  My comm unit beeped and an “all-clear” signal from Artoo appeared on my main screen. I smiled and felt the little link tendrils withering and retreating back to Exar Kun. I pushed my feelings, focusing them tightly, hoping to pick up a flash of anger or disappointment from him, but I got nothing of the sort. Instead I found four more of the anomalous lifeforms winging their way to the Great Temple from deep in the jungle.

  I allowed myself a low laugh. The one problem with starfighter targeting systems is that they are built around a sensor package that recognizes the durasteel and other components that make up other starfighters or ships or anything else that can legitimately be classed as a target. Additional software uploads can define new targets, allowing systems to be updated as new foes and new equipment come online. And while these creatures did have metal claws, they actually had less metal content than the average civilian strolling around on Coruscant. As far as the Headhunter was concerned, they just weren’t really targets.

  As a Jedi, I found them to be big fat targets.

  They flew in toward the Temple, no more able to recognize the Headhunter as a threat than it was able to recognize them. The huge creatures were easily as tall in body as a man, with a huge wingspan of ugly, fleshy wings. They had two heads, each with a low enough cranium to only be sporting a cubic centimeter of brains. They also each had a muscular tail that ended in a nasty crystalline stinger. Decidedly scary and lethal.

  Unless you’re a pilot in a starfighter.

  My first shot crisscrossed twin blaster bolts in the thorax of the lead creature. Flesh boiled and scales melted, then the bolts burst out of its back and flew on only slightly spent. The creature’s heads curled inward, looking down at the smoking hole in its chest, then the wings collapsed. The creature dropped to the ground with the speed of a droid ejected from a fighter. It impaled itself on the branches of a massive Massassi tree below.

  My shot at the next beastie came fast and much sloppier—only one bolt hit. The single energy projectile did the job, however. It burned a wing off the one it hit. The creature flapped furiously with the one good wing, but to no discernible benefit. Screaming, the beast spiraled down and smashed into the Temple’s stone base.

  For the last two monsters I switched to the ion cannon. The initial shot from it caught the third monster in the pelvis. The blue ion bolt shattered into hundreds of little lightning tendrils. The bolt fired all of the creature’s nerves at once, making the creature’s limbs spasm. Its tail jerked backward and forward so violently that it stabbed itself. The creature’s heads struck at its own tail, tearing great jagged hunks out of it, then its wings folded in on it and the falling beast splattered itself down the pyramid’s north side.

  The last beast proved more agile than the others and, freed of Kun’s waning influence, wheeled through the sky and dove at the Headhunter. I got the nose up and flicked on the shields in time to intercept its attack. The beast rebounded off the forward shield, but stabbed out with one clawed foot and snagged hold of the Headhunter’s nose. Sparks shot through the cockpit as the forward shield failed, and the short circuit killed the ion cannon. The beast grabbed the nose with its other foot, durasteel screaming as it sank its talons in. It hunched forward over the fuselage, its wings wrapping the Headhunter in an embrace, as its heads snapped at me in the cockpit.

  The blasters couldn’t hit it and the ion cannon wouldn’t fire. I could have hovered the craft, opened the cockpit canopy and engaged the monster with my lightsaber, except I’d left it back in my room. As one thrusting head ricocheted off the transparisteel canopy, I knew it was only a matter of time before the canopy gave way.

  “Fine.” I smiled. “You want to play? Let’s play.”

  I pointed the nose up and kicked the thrusters in full.

  At top speed it only took a handful of seconds to reach the edge of the atmosphere. Air pressure slammed the beast against the hull and kept it laid out there like a blanket. The friction heated up the ship’s durasteel hull, causing bits and pieces of the creature’s wings to fry. When it tried to rear back and unfurl its wings to get them off the hot metal, the air pressure snapped both of them and swept them in around the monster, then pitched it forward and smashed it down on the hull again.

  Once outside the atmosphere, a different problem presented itself for the creature. The vacuum of space effectively cooled the hull, sucking all the heat out of it. It did the same thing for the creature, leaving the angry and fearful expressions on both of its faces frozen there for an eternity. I killed thrust as the beast cooled, letting the Headhunter drift as my nose ornament chilled rather quickly. I was quite relieved to see the beast wasn’t suited to surviving in space’s cold void, but then I’d not thought anything originating on Yavin 4 would be.

  Finally, when I thought it had gotten cold enough, I hit the right rudder hard. While the ship’s inertial damper field kept me and the Headhunter from feeling any of the effects of such a violent maneuver, the creature was not so lucky. Its body sheared off at the ankles and started a rolling tumble off toward the gas giant, while I looped the Headhunter and started back down toward the Temple.

  Kam met me in the hangar as I brought the Headhunter to a stop. I popped the cockpit canopy and hopped down to the deck. Kam regarded me with cold eyes as I swung under the fighter’s nose.

  “There was an attack on Master Skywalker. Where were you?”

  I smiled, then reached up and plucked a talon from where it had lodged in the Headhunter’s nose. I tossed it to him. “Target practice.”

  “That’s not the sort of thing you should do on your own.”

  I frowned at him. “It was the only thing I could do, Kam. I couldn’t get up there fast enough to help inside, so I stopped Kun’s reinforcements.”

  “You don’t know it’s Kun.”

  “I know.”

  Kam shook his head and jerked a thumb toward the audience chamber. “But we just learned that, from Luke.”

  “Luke’s awake?”

  “No, but his nephew and niece can hear him. He said Exar Kun was behind the trouble.” Kam’s face darkened. “We have to defeat Kun if we are to get Luke back. We’re preparing a council of war right now to figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “Council of war, good. Right now, not good.” I sighed. “Kun has been defeated tonight. He’s not going to be coming back right away.”

  “How do you know that?” Hints of betrayal and confusion arced through Kam’s question.

  “Trust me on this, Kam, I know it.” I reached out with a hand and laid it on his shoulder, but he shrugged me off. “Look, if I was on Kun’s side, I’d not have vaped four of his pets, would I? I’ve got my own lightsaber and I could have filleted Master Skywalker on any of my watches. You can trust me.”

  “But you have secrets.” Kam’s eyes became crescent slits. “You and Master Skywalker have not been wholly forthcoming.”

  “True, but there are good reasons for this, reasons Master Skywalker himself gave me. His sister, despite the dire circumstances here, chose not to violate those confidences.” I looked him straight in the eye. “You have your reasons for being here, so you can shore up your personality against the weaknesses that allowed you to be seduced by the dark side. My reasons for being here are different, but no less important to me. I want Exar Kun’s influence as dead as you do. Together we can accompli
sh this, each doing our parts. Mine are just going to be different than yours.”

  Kam considered my words for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I’ll tell the others you think tonight is not a good time for planning against Kun.”

  “Leave me out of it. It’s only logical that working on things now will be to no one’s benefit. Let’s get some sleep and plan tomorrow, during the day. Kun doesn’t seem to strike effectively during the day.” I gave him a solid smile. “We are going to win against him, you know.”

  “We’ve got no choice.”

  “Agreed.” I slapped him on the shoulder. “Kun’s picked the wrong people to fight at the wrong time, and that’s the last mistake we’ll let him make.”

  The council of war convened in what had once been the Rebel command post for the first strike on the Death Star. Dust shrouded the various artifacts that hadn’t been hauled away by Imperial survey teams or New Republic museum curators. What remained was largely serviceable and permitted all fourteen of us to sit around comfortably. Despite there being ample room for me at the central table, I hung back and pushed my sphere of responsibility out to fill the room and monitor what was going on with my fellow apprentices.

  I immediately picked up a jet-black strand connecting Streen to Kun. I was sure the old gas prospector had no idea it was there. He was still mortified at his near-murder of Master Skywalker and his dwelling on what he had almost done was what allowed Kun to maintain the link. More fortunately, Streen’s emotional turmoil meant any information coursing down that line to Kun was unreliable, carrying with it dour emotional impressions.

  If that were not enough to make Kun think we were hopelessly incompetent, Ambassador Cilghal’s curious logic must have convinced him of it. She dismissed Dorsk 81’s fear that Kun could listen in on our planning sessions by saying, “We must operate on the assumption we can still fight him. We have enough real problems to confront—there’s no need to manufacture worse ones from our imagination.” As a warrior, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than our side remaining willfully ignorant of the possibility that our enemy knew what we were planning, but in the espionage-laden world of diplomacy, that didn’t appear to be so important.