Part 35 (1/2)

The duracrete slab in the center had been lased down into an amphitheatre with a flattened dais at the north end where Shala spread himself out.

I've heard it said that young Hutts can be quite muscular and powerful, which must mean that Shala is older than dirt. If a rock could be described as obese and it drooled, that would be Shala. Shala tended to mumble a lot, then laugh, which made his cronies laugh, too. The 3PO droid he had translating for him did a fairly good job, but Shala hit him so often to correct him that the droid's right arm looked like it had been dragged behind a speeder bike going at high speed through Vlarnya's narrow streets.

I smiled at the droid. ”Tell your master I find his hospitality most generous, but an allergy to most insects means I'll have to decline snacking on those crunchbugs.” I nodded to Shala and pa.s.sed the bowl of chirping bugs back to him, licking my lips enviously. I turned my attention back to watching two little mammals with tusks trying to tear each other to pieces. They fought hard, apparently not knowing Shala would eat the victor.

The most interesting thing about Shala's warehouse was that the building was actually smaller on the inside than it was on the outside. The absolute glut of junk in the place made it difficult to tell that fact from the inside, and I would have missed it save for spreading my senses out to see if he had hidden guards located in various spots where they could snipe at interlopers. I didn't find any at that time, but I did discover people working behind false walls and in other sunken pits buried beneath piles of sc.r.a.p metal and plasteel.

I smiled and gently flicked away a droplet of tuskette blood that hit my right cheek. The victorious tuskette screamed as Shala snapped its spine and bit its head off. He offered me a raw haunch, but I declined, so he tossed it to another of the warehouse's denizens, and a fight ensued for it. I sincerely hoped for the sake of the RodJan who won the prize that Shala would be sated by tuskette, lest another victor end up on the evening's menu.

By far the most secretive of the groups in Vlarnya was the Blackstar Pirates. While they made a cantina called the Mynock Hole their home, most of them pa.s.sed through it on their way to another location. Way off in the back of the common room, in a corner where visitors never got seated, members would punch a code into a keypad and be admitted beyond a sliding door fitted into the wall. I had no idea what went on back there, though the relief of pirates allowed to leave their public station and retreat to the back radiated off them like heat off a fusion reactor.

While collecting data, I did my best to limit my uses of the Force. I wanted to avoid detection, of course, but I also wanted to avoid having things that seemed anomalous happening before I started taking overt action. The fact was that the easiest solution to dealing with the Invids was to put together a light-saber and harvest a bunch of heads. Decapping the pirates would certainly cause a quickening of the Invids' downfall, but then I'd be the only one left on Courkrus, which would provide Tavira with a big clue as to which one of us was the source of her problems.

Even more of a problem than that, of course, was the fact that I'd be committing wholesale murder. While it was true that none of these folks would ever be elected Humanitarian of the Year, they didn't all deserve death. Caet and Timmser, for example, were just good pilots who had fallen in with the Invids. Had they joined the Rebellion, they could have been plotting Tavira's downfall. I wanted to give them a chance to redeem themselves, I guess, which meant I needed to convince them that what they were doing was wrong and to walk, run, slither or fly away from it.

In this I had an invisible ally: all my targets were s.p.a.cers. Something about traveling through the vastness of s.p.a.ce, never knowing if a jump will go bad, dropping you into a sun or leaving you stuck in hypers.p.a.ce forever, that makes s.p.a.cers a bit superst.i.tious. For years I'd worn a Jedi Medallion as a good luck charm. I'd infiltrated the Invids because I read an omen in a dream. If enough things began to go wrong, if there were enough signs of impending doom, even the hardcore Invids would begin looking elsewhere for planets to plunder and places to stay.

In all of the places I went I did my best to memorize what I could.

Knowing as much as possible about various layouts was vital if I was to slip in and slip out again. The game I was going to play was very dangerous, but it was one that I had to win, so I did everything I could to control all the variables.

After a week, I had enough information to start planning my campaign. I laid everything out, figured who I would hit first and how, then where I would move next. I had to hit hard to keep the pressure on, yet I had to strike at random so I could not be antic.i.p.ated and trapped.

It wasn't going to be easy, but then if it was, it wouldn't have been a job for a Jedi.

Only one last thing needed to be accomplished before I could begin.

I needed a lightsaber.

Elegos uncovered my grandfather's instructions on how to create a lightsaber fairly early on, and my heart almost sank. The datafile was rather specific about the various supplies that would be needed to create the weapon, so I had a shopping list. Beyond that, however, the file detailed the steps needed to put the weapon together and included the various meditations and exercises a Jedi apprentice should go through with each step along the way. The process Nejaa laid out, if followed precisely, would take almost a month, and I didn't have a month. I knew impatience and haste were part of the dark side, but really hoped things could be truncated so I could actually succeed in my task.

I took the first step by collecting the various parts. The light-saber, while an elegant and deadly weapon, actually was not that complex.

Getting the parts to put one together was not difficult at all. To serve as the hilt, for example, I salvaged the throttle a.s.sembly and handlebar tube from a junked speeder bike. I took it from where the wreck hung in the Crash cantina and no one so much as noticed me make off with it. I got the dimetris circuitry for the activation loop from an old capital-s.h.i.+p-grade ion cannon fire initiation controller-won that piece of junk from Shala betting on another tuskette fight. The recharger port and wiring came from a comlink. A milled down Tri-fighter laser flashback suppressor became the parabolic, high-energy flux aperture to stabilize the blade and I pulled the dynoric laser feed line from the same broken laser cannon to act as the superconductor for energy transference from the power cell to the blade. b.u.t.tons and switches were easy to find, and dear old Admiral Tavira, with her gift of the brandy decanter and snifters, provided me all the jewels I needed to make a half dozen lightsabers.

The most difficult part of creating a lightsaber was producing the power cell that stored and discharged the amount of energy necessary to energize a lightsaber blade. That said, the parts list called for a pretty basic power cell-in fact, because of the age of the instructions, I had a hard time locating one that ancient. Newer power cells were more efficient than the one my grandfather had specified, but I didn't think that would present a problem. After all, as I read the instructions I came to realize that the nature of the battery was not as important as how it was integrated with the rest of the components.

The core of the Jedi ritual for creating a lightsaber came down to charging the power cell that first time. My grandfather ridiculed the popular superst.i.tion stating a Jedi channeled the Force through his lightsaber. He suggested that this was a misunderstanding of what it took to charge it initially and tie it to the rest of the weapon. The Jedi, carefully manipulating the Force, bound the components together-linking them on something more than a mechanical or material level, so they worked with unimagined efficiency. Without this careful seasoning and conditioning of the lightsaber, the blade would be flawed and would fail the Jedi.

Before I could figure out how to put Tavira off for another month, Elegos decoded an annotation to the instructions for constructing lightsabers.

It turned out that during the Clone Wars, Jedi Masters developed a way to create a lightsaber in two days. Nejaa included this method, noting it was to be used only in times of pressing need, but not in haste. I read it over and felt a certain peace settle upon me. I knew the words had not been written for me, but they sank deep into my core. Urgency without panic, action without thoughtlessness.

I began by calming myself and simplifying my lifestyle. I drank only water and ate noodles that were all but unflavored. I cleared Tavira's gifts from my bedroom, or hid them away in closets. I sat in the middle of the floor, with the parts for the blade laid out in a semicircle around me. I studied each one and used the Force to enfold it and take a sense of it into myself. My hands would fit the pieces together, but I wanted the parts to mesh as if they had been grown together. The lightsaber would be more than just a jumble of hardware, and to make it I had to see the parts as belonging together.

I fitted the activation b.u.t.ton into its place on the handlebar shaft and snapped the connectors into the right spots on the dimetris circuit board. I worked that into the shaft itself, then inserted a strip of s.h.i.+elding to protect it from even the slightest leakage from the superconductor. Next I snapped into place the gemstones I was using to focus and define the blade. At the center, to work as my continuous energy lens, I used the Durindfire. That same stone gave my grandfather's blade its distinctive silver sheen. I used a diamond and an emerald in the other two slots. I wasn't certain what I would get in the way of color tints from the emerald, and with the diamond I hoped for a coruscation effect.

Onto the end of the hilt where the blade would appear I screwed the high-energy flux aperture. It would carry a negative charge which would stabilize the positively charged blade and provide it a solid base without allowing it to eat its way back through to my hands. Controlling a lightsaber blade was difficult enough without having it nibbling away at fingers.

I clipped the discharged energy cell in place, then connected the leads to the recharging socket. I screwed the recharging socket into the bottom of the hilt but didn't fasten on the handlebar's original b.u.t.t cap that would protect it because I needed to charge the power cell for the very first time. I reached over and took the charging cord from the small transformer I'd borrowed from our tech bay, and plugged the lightsaber in.

With my finger poised on the transformer b.u.t.ton that would start the energy flowing, I drew in a deep breath and lowered myself into a trance.

I knew that manipulating matter sufficiently to meld the part and forge the weapon would have been all but impossible for anyone but a Jedi Master like Yoda, but doing just that as part of the construction of a lightsaber had been studied and ritualized so even a student could manage it. It was very much a lost art, a link to a past that had been all but wiped out, and by performing it I completed my inheritance of my Jedi legacy.

I hit the b.u.t.ton, allowing the slow trickle of energy to fill the battery. I opened myself to the Force and with the hand I had touching the lightsaber's hilt, I bathed the lightsaber with the Force. As I did so subtle transformations took place in the weapon. Elemental bonds s.h.i.+fted allowing more and more e-ergy to flow into the cell and throughout the weapon. I was not certain how the changes were being made, but I knew that at the same time as they were being made in the lightsaber, they were being made in me as well.

In becoming a conduit for the Force for this purpose, the final integration of the people I'd been occurred. The fusion became the person I would be forever after. I was still a pilot: a little bit arrogant, with a healthy ego and a willingness to tackle difficult missions. I was still CorSec: an investigator and a buffer between the innocents in the galaxy and the slime that would consume them.

And I was Jedi. I was heir to a tradition that extended back tens of thousands of years. Jedi had been the foundation of stability in the galaxy. They had always opposed those who reveled in evil and sought power for the sake of power. People like Exar Kun and Palpatine, Darth Vader and Thrawn, Isard and Tavira; these were the plagues on society that the Jedi cured. In the absence of the Jedi, evil thrived.

In the presence of just one Jedi, evil evaporated.

Just as with the lightsaber, the changes being made in me were not without cost. What the Force allowed me to do also conferred upon me great burdens. To act without forethought and due deliberation was no longer possible. I had to be very certain of what I was doing, for a single misstep could be a disaster. While I knew I would make mistakes, I had to do everything I could to minimize their impact. It was not enough to do the greatest good for the greatest number, I had to do the best for everyone.

There was no walking away from the new responsibility I accepted. Like my grandfather I might well choose when and where to reveal who and what I was, but there was no forgetting, no leaving that responsibility at the office. My commit-ment to others had to be total and complete. I was an agent of life every day, every hour, every second; for as long as I lived, and then some.

I heard a click and looked up, blinking my eyes. ”Elegos?”

Elegos stood over me, offering me a gla.s.s of water. ”It's done.”

I blinked, then took the water and greedily sucked it down. I lowered the gla.s.s and felt water dribbling down around my goatee. I swiped at it with my right hand and felt the stubble of beard on my cheeks. ”How long?”

”Two and a half days.” The Caamasi smiled and took the gla.s.s back from me. ”Not as fast as your grandfather, but acceptable.”

”Anyone notice I was missing'?”

”Several people inquired, but I told them you were down with the brandy ague. They said they could understand your celebrating your change in fortune.” He set the gla.s.s on my dresser, then walked back into the suite's parlor. ”While you were engaged in here, I found something else to do, and made good use of one of Tavira's gifts to you. I estimated the pattern based on my merehis of your grandfather.”

He held up a green Jedi robe, with a black belt and black overrobe. ”I think it should fit you well.”

I nodded and brandished the lightsaber. I punched the b.u.t.ton under my thumb, giving birth to the silver blade 133 centimeters in length. ”A lightsaber and robes. Looks like a little justice has arrived on Courkrus, and it's about time.”

I decided to build upon the excuse Elegos had fas.h.i.+oned for me by spending more time drinking-or, at least, appearing to be drunk. A little Savareen brandy spilled on a tunic will leave you reeking of the stuff, and if you keep swirling it around and are sloppy when you drink it-spilling more on yourself in the process-folks notice. The people I was spending my time around had no trouble believing I was three jumps from sober at all times.

Being drunk gave me far more freedom because, as long as I was not obnoxious, lost at sabacc, and was generous with Tarira's money or gifts, I was everyone's friend. People looked forward to seeing me, found it easy to ignore me, and even treated me as if I was not there on those occasions when I feigned sleep.

I chose the Survivors as my first targets. I knew them better than I knew anyone else, so I had an edge on getting into their minds. The Survivors were also the most disciplined of the Invids, so if I could break them, make them skittish, the nervousness would bleed over into the other groups. My move against them would be the prelude to my attacks on the other groups, so I wanted it to be especially chilling.

Elegos and I worked hard on it, programming it into my datapad, then projecting it out of the holoprojector pad in my suite. We ran it over and over again, allowing me to memorize it from every angle, and practice my part in it. I had to be careful and quick, but if it worked right, it would shake the Survivors to their core.

I took a seat in the Crash cantina at a table very much in the back.

Captain Nive normally sat there, and not too long afterward he joined me.

Jacob had not been paying me court as had the other pirate leaders-he trusted in the friends.h.i.+p we had built up during the time he commanded my squadron. I actually liked him and the way he managed the Survivors, but from the conversations we'd had, I knew he was not wholly comfortable with all he had done in his life. That confidence, expressed to me late one night, was about to come back and haunt him.

Jacob sat with his back to the corner of the room. I sat at his left, with my back toward a wall, but slightly exposed along my flank. Another chair sat across from him and could not be seen by most of the rest of the room because of a pillar. I had a bottle of Savereen brandy sitting in front of me, and a snifter in my right hand. Jacob drank lum, but never enough to get roaring drunk, just mildly suggestible. We sat there, chatting in low voices about the latest rumors concerning Shala the Hutt, when I pushed the empty chair out with my left foot, as if someone were drawing it back to sit.

I tapped the Force, letting it fill me, but turned my head toward the chair and away from Jacob. ”You can't sit here. This is a private table.”