Part 31 (2/2)
Jedi Knight Leia Organa Solo sat at the Millennium Falcon's Millennium Falcon's communications console. She frowned, her lips pursed as though she were solving an elaborate mathematical equation, as she read and re-read the text message the communications console. She frowned, her lips pursed as though she were solving an elaborate mathematical equation, as she read and re-read the text message the Falcon Falcon had just received via hypercomm. had just received via hypercomm.
The silence that had settled around her eventually drew her husband, Han Solo, to her side; his boyish, often insensitive persona was in part a fabrication, and he well knew and could sense his wife's moods. The chill and silence of her complete concentration usually meant trouble. He waved a hand between her eyes and the console monitor. ”Hey.”
She barely reacted to his presence. ”Hm.”
”New message?”
”From Ben.”
”Another letter filled with teenage talk, I a.s.sume. Girls, speeders, allowance woes-”
Leia ignored his joking. ”Sith,” she said.
”And Sith, of course.” Han sat in the chair next to hers but did not a.s.sume his customary slouch; the news kept his spine rigid. ”They found a new Sith Lord?”
”Worse, I think.” Finally some animation returned to Leia's voice. ”They've found an ancient installation at the Maw and were attacked by a gang of Sith. A whole strike team. With the possibility of more out there.”
”I thought Sith ran in packs of two. Vape both of 'em and their menace is ended for all time, at least for a few years, until two more show up.” Han tried to keep his voice calm, but the last Sith to bring trouble to the galaxy had been Jacen Solo, his and Leia's eldest son. Though Jacen had been dead for more than two years, the ripples of the evil he had done were still causing damage and heartache throughout the settled galaxy. And both his acts and his death had torn a hole in Han's heart that felt like it would last forever.
”Yeah, well, no. Apparently not anymore. Ben also says-and we're not to let Luke know that he did-that Luke is exhausted. Really exhausted, like he's had the life squeezed out of him. Ben would like us to sort of drift near and lend Luke some support.”
”Of course.” But then Han grimaced. ”Back to the Maw. The only place gloomy enough to make its next door neighbor, Kessel, seem like a garden spot.”
Leia shook her head. ”They're tracking a Sith girl who's on the run. So it probably won't be the Maw. It may be a planet full of Sith.”
”Ah, good.” Han rubbed his hands together as if antic.i.p.ating a fine meal or a fight. ”Well, why not. We can't go back to Coruscant until we're ready to mount a legal defense. Daala's bound to be angry that we stole all the Jedi she wanted to deep-freeze.”
Finally Leia smiled and looked at Han. ”One good thing about the Solos and Skywalkers. We never run out of things to do.”
CORUSCANT.
JEDI TEMPLE.
Master Cilghal, Mon Calamari and most proficient medical doctor among the current generation of Jedi, paused before hitting the console b.u.t.ton that would erase the message she had just spent some time decrypting. It had been a video transmission from Ben Skywalker, a message carefully rerouted through several hypercomm nodes and carefully staged so as not to mention that it was for Cilghal's tympanic membranes or, in fact, for anyone on Coruscant.
But its main content was meant for the Jedi, and Cilghal repeated it as a one-word summation, making the word sound like a vicious curse: ”Sith.” ”Sith.”
The message had to be communicated throughout the Jedi Order. And on review, there was nothing in it that suggested she couldn't preserve the recording, couldn't claim that it had been forwarded to her by a civilian friend of the Skywalkers. Luke Skywalker was not supposed to be in contact with the Jedi Temple, but this recording was manifestly free of any proof that the exiled Grand Master exerted any influence over the Order. She could distribute it.
And she would do so, right now.
DEEP s.p.a.cE NEAR KESSEL.
Jade Shadow, one-time vehicle of Mara Jade Skywalker, now full-time transport and home to her widower and son, dropped from hyper-s.p.a.ce into the empty blackness well outside the Kessel system. It hung suspended there for several minutes, long enough for one of its occupants to gather from the Force a sense of his own life's blood that had been in the vicinity, then it turned on a course toward Kessel and vanished again into hypers.p.a.ce.
JADE SHADOW.
IN ORBIT ABOVE KESSEL.
Ben Skywalker shouldered his way through the narrow hatch that gave access to his father's cabin. A redheaded teen of less than average height, he was well muscled in a way that his anonymous black tunic and pants could not conceal.
On the cabin's bed, under a brown blanket, lay Luke Skywalker. Similar in build to his son, he wore the evidence of many more years of hard living, including ancient, faded scars on his face and the exposed portions of his arms. Not obvious was the fact that his right hand, so ordinary in appearance, was a prosthetic.
Luke's eyes were closed but he stirred. ”What did you find out?”
”I reached Nien Nunb.” Nunb, the Sull.u.s.tan co-owner and manager of one of Kessel's most prominent mineworks, had been a friend of the Solos and Skywalkers for decades. ”That yacht did make landfall. The pilot gave her name as Captain Khai. She somehow scammed a port worker into thinking she'd paid for a complete refueling when she hadn't-”
Luke smiled. ”The Force can have a-”
”Yeah, so can a good-looking girl. Anyway, what's interesting is that she got a galactic map update. Nunb looked at the transmission time on that to determine that it was pretty comprehensive. In other words, she didn't concentrate on any one specific area or route. No help there.”
”But it suggests that she did need some of the newer information. New hypers.p.a.ce routes or planetary listings.”
”Right.”
”And she's gone?”
”Headed out as soon as her yacht was refueled. By the way, its name is She's a Chancer.” She's a Chancer.”
”Somehow appropriate.” Finally Luke did open his eyes, and Ben was once again struck by how tired his father looked, tired to the bone and to the spirit. ”I can still feel her path. I'll be up in a minute to lay in a course.”
”Right. Don't push yourself.” Ben backed out of the cabin and its door slid shut.
SEVERAL DAYS LATER.
JADE SHADOW, IN HIGH DATHOMIR ORBIT.
Luke stared at the mottled, multicolored world of Dathomir through the forward viewport. He nodded, feeling slightly abashed. Of course course it was Dathomir. it was Dathomir.
Ben, seated to Luke's left in the pilot's seat, peered at him. ”What is it, Dad?”
”I'm just feeling a little stupid. There's no world better suited to be the home of this new Sith order than Dathomir. I should have realized it long before we were on our final leg here.”
”How so?”
”There are a lot of Force-sensitives in the population, most of whom are trained in the so-called witchcraft of Dathomir. There's not a lot of government oversight to detect a growing order within the population. There are lots of individual, secretive tribes.” Luke paused to consider. ”Jacen was here for a while on his five-year travels. I wonder what he learned and whether it relates to the Maw ... And there are mentions in ancient records that there was a Sith academy here long, long ago.”
Ben nodded. ”Well, I'll prep Mom's Headhunter and get down there. I'll be your eyes and ears on the ground.”
Luke gave his son a confused look. ”I'm not going down with you? I'm feeling much better. Much more rested.”
”Yeah, but there's a Jedi school down there. The terms of your exile say that you can't-”
Luke grinned and held up a hand, cutting off his son's words. ”You're a little bit behind the times, Ben. Maybe you need your own galactic map updated. More than two years ago, when the Jedi turned against Jacen at Kuat-”
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