Conquest: Edge of Victory I (7 page)

Kam gnawed his lip for a moment. “Very well,” he said at last. “I don’t like it, but we don’t have time for a debate. Tahiri, come along. Help me and Tionne get the students on the boats.”

“Fine,” Tahiri said, “but I’m staying with Anakin.”

“No,” Anakin said.

“Yes!” Tahiri retorted. “I’ve been stuck on this mud-ball while you’ve been out fighting the Yuuzhan Vong. I’m sick of it! I’m ready to do something!”

“You’re too young for this,” Tionne said.

“Anakin’s only two years older than me! He was fifteen at Sernpidal!”

“That’s right,” Anakin said, “and I got Chewbacca killed. Tahiri, please go with Kam.”

Her eyes widened in shocked betrayal. “You don’t
want
me with you! After all we—you think I’m a kid, just like they do!”

No
, Anakin thought.
I just don’t want to see you killed, too
.

“Come on, Tahiri,” Tionne said gently. “There’s no time to lose.”

“Fine. That’s just fine,” she said, and without another glance at Anakin she darted from the room.

Kam placed his hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “It’s been hard on her without you here.”

Anakin nodded. “Anyway,” he said gruffly, “I’d better get to work.”

“Be careful, Anakin. You don’t have to buy us a lot of time. When you need to go, go. We need you alive.”

“I don’t plan to die,” Anakin assured him.

“Most people don’t. It happens anyway. Trust the Force, listen to Ikrit. May the Force be with you.”

“It will burn you, Anakin,” Ikrit’s pleasant, familiar rasp solemnly pronounced.

Anakin looked up from his work on the intercom. He and the old Jedi were in what had once been the command center when the Great Temple had been a Rebel base. Most of the wartime equipment was gone, but some remained—the various communication systems, including an intercom that piped information throughout the temple and its surrounds.

“Master?”

“Your anger. You have built yourself a vessel to contain it, but the crucible itself will one day melt from the heat. Then you will burn, and others with you. Many others, possibly.”

Anakin slipped the modified data chip in place and straightened. “The Yuuzhan Vong make me angry, Master. They’re destroying everything I know, everything I love.”

“No.
You
make you angry. People die; you are angry because you could not save them.”

“You mean Chewbacca.”

“And others. Their deaths are inscribed on you.”

“Yes. Chewbacca died because of me. A lot of people have died because of me.”

“Death comes to call,” Ikrit replied. “You cannot hold water in your hands for long. It leaks away, goes where it
is meant to go. To the soil and sky. To ions, and then space, where stars are born.”

Frustration hijacked Anakin’s lips. “That’s poetic, Master Ikrit, but it’s not an answer. My grandfather was Darth Vader, and he killed billions. But that was after decades of the dark side. I’m only sixteen, and look what I’ve done. Darth Vader would be proud.”

Ikrit fixed him with luminous blue eyes. “It is to your credit that you feel those deaths, that you mourn. But you did not kill those people. You did not wish them dead and then bring it to pass.”

“No,” Anakin said. “But at Centerpoint I wished the Yuuzhan Vong dead. I wanted to kill every last one of them. If my brother hadn’t stopped me, I would have. I think—often—that I
should
have.”

“Your brother didn’t stop you.”

“You weren’t there, Master Ikrit. I would have done it.”

“I was there, Anakin. In every important way, I was. Anakin, you must let your anger go. Angry steps have worn a rutted path to the dark side. It is an easy path to follow, difficult to avoid.”

Anakin turned to the power generator remote panel and fiddled with it a bit. “This might work,” he murmured. “I wish I had time to go out to the generator.”

“Anakin.” The Master’s voice carried a note of command.

Anakin didn’t look up from his work. “You know, Master Ikrit,” he said, “I used to dream every night that I would turn to the dark side, become my name, what my grandfather became. Now that seems silly. The Force doesn’t make a person good or evil. It’s a tool, like a light-saber. Don’t worry about me.”

“Listen to me, young Solo,” Ikrit said. “I never said the Force would lead you to evil. I warned you your feelings might.”

“Feelings are tools, too, if you don’t let them control you,” Anakin said.

Ikrit clucked his soft laugh. “And how are you to know when a feeling controls you? When anger guides your hand or guilt stays it?”

Anakin sighed. “With all due respect, Master Ikrit, we don’t have time for this discussion. The Peace Brigade will be here any moment.”

“This is the perfect time for it,” Ikrit replied. “Perhaps the only time.”

“What do you mean?”

Ikrit blinked, very slowly, then scratched out a long breath.

“I am centuries old, Anakin. I came here to Yavin Four to free the spirits of the imprisoned Massassi children, or so I thought. Now I think there was another reason, an even greater one.”

“Master? What could that be?”

“The task that drew me here was beyond my power to complete. It was beyond the power of any adult Jedi. You and Tahiri were the only ones who could have done it.”

“With your help and advice. Without you, we never could have released them.”

Ikrit ruffed his fur. “With or without me you would have done it,” he purred. “That is why I say I was drawn here for another reason, slept for centuries for another cause.”

“What reason?”

“To see something new born in you and Tahiri. And to give you whatever small help I am able to give to see that birth arrive.”

A chill spidered up Anakin’s back. He couldn’t say why, but Ikrit’s words struck something in his core.

Ikrit walked to the window. “They are here,” he said.

Anakin bolted over. Peace Brigade ships were settling everywhere.

“I’m not ready!” Anakin said.

“You are ready,” Ikrit replied.

“Not as ready as I would like. Ten more minutes would have been nice. I could have brought the automated defenses of the power generator on-line.”

“Tell me what you
have
done.”

“Well, I’ve got an energy shield up, though not much of one, and it’s only over the compound. A little pounding will bring it down.” Anakin switched on the intercom. Faint sounds of speech and movement bustled around them. “It’ll
sound
like a bunch of us are in here. And this—” He went to what had once been the local sensor control panel. “—I’m using the old sensory array to generate the illusion of small, local movements in the temple.”

“Scurrying,” Ikrit said. “As if we’re running about.”

“Right. Of course, they won’t
see
anything, if they get close, but their instruments will tell them we’re all over the place.”

“They will see also,” Ikrit said. “Come.”

   The Great Temple was a ziggurat with three giant steps. The old command center was on the second tier. The ancient structure had five openings that led out to the flat, paved surface that was the roof of the lowest tier. Anakin and Ikrit made their way to the one that faced the landing clearing and peeked out.

Beyond the vague distortion of the energy shield, Anakin saw five ships settled in the clearing. Two were already disgorging armed Peace Brigaders.

“I hope they go for this,” Anakin said. “I hope they believe. If they start a search for Kam, Tionne, and the kids now, they might find them.”

“They will believe,” Ikrit assured him. “They will believe the children are here because they want to, and because they are weak. Do not worry, Anakin. As I said, a warrior I may not be, but the Force is not weak with me.”

“I’m sorry, Master Ikrit,” Anakin said. “I should not doubt you.”

“Then do not doubt my words. Search your feelings, every day. Keep careful watch. The worst monsters are not those from without.” Then the Master closed his eyes, humming faintly to himself. Anakin felt a surge in the Force as Ikrit’s will went out to touch the beings below, to nudge their credulity over the edge.

Anakin lifted a remote comm unit and keyed into the outdoor speakers.

“You are trespassing on the grounds of the Jedi academy,” he said. “Please leave immediately.”

At the sound of his amplified voice, some of the Peace Brigaders dived for cover. A moment later, the exterior speakers of one of the ships boomed on.

“You inside the temple,” the voice said. “This is Lieutenant Kot Murno of the Peace Brigade. We have been empowered to take control of this facility.”

“On whose authority?”

“The Alliance of Twelve.”

“Never heard of it,” Anakin replied. “Whoever they are, they don’t have any jurisdiction over this system.”

“They do now,” Murno answered. “We are their authority. Surrender, and you won’t be harmed.”

“Really? You don’t think that the Yuuzhan Vong will harm the children you’ve come to kidnap when you hand them over to them?”

There was a pause this time before Murno answered. “It is the price of peace,” he said. “I regret it, but it is the case. Weighed against what the Yuuzhan Vong could do to every inhabited world in this galaxy, a handful of Jedi isn’t much to ask. You brought this disaster upon us. You must pay the price.”

“You’re blaming the Yuuzhan Vong invasion on the Jedi?” Anakin asked incredulously.

“Jedi have provoked this war at every stage, hoping to use it as a way to embellish their own power. Your plans
for the domination of this galaxy have long been known. This time, your tactics have reverse-throttled on you.”

“That’s the biggest trough of bantha fodder I’ve ever heard anyone spit up in my life,” Anakin said. “You are cowards and traitors. You want us? Come and get us.”

He fired his blaster through the narrow window and ducked as return fire heat-spalled the ancient stone. Particle shields like the one he had erected did nothing to stop energy blasts. The thick jungle air filled with the hiss and whine of blasters as the fire expanded to other parts of the temple complex.

“What are they shooting at up there?” Anakin wondered aloud.

“Ghosts of mist and madness,” Ikrit told him.

“They don’t notice no one is shooting back?”

“Not yet. They believe they see the bolts of energy weapons.”

“How long can you keep that up?”

“Longer if the occasional bolt is real.”

“Got you,” Anakin said, leaning around the door frame. Aiming carefully, using the Force, he blew a blaster rifle out of a hooded man’s hands. He continued that way for about twenty minutes, picking his shots carefully. Each second felt like a burden lifted from his shoulders; each movement of the chrono took Tahiri and the rest farther from danger.

“They’ve found the generator,” Ikrit murmured. “Your shield will be down soon.”

“It’s okay,” Anakin said. “We’re almost done here. Even after it’s down they’ll come in cautiously. We’ll have plenty of time to get to the hangar and get my X-wing out. Then all we have to do is run their little blockade.” He’d noticed three of the five ships had landed facing the closed hangar doors. No surprise there, but what they didn’t know was that one of the ion cannons that guarded the hangars was still operational—and had a self-contained power supply good for at least a blast or two.

He leaned out for a parting shot.

A blaster bolt seared by over his shoulder, lanced down into the Peace Brigaders. Anakin jerked his head around.

“That shot came from above us!”

“Yes,” Ikrit said. “Didn’t you notice? Didn’t you know she would come?”

“Notice who?” But in a flash he knew. Tahiri was up there, Tahiri and two other people. All Jedi.

“Hutt slime!” he swore. “Just what I need!” He turned to Master Ikrit. “There won’t be room for all of us in the X-wing. Meet me in the deep grotto. I’ll think of something on the way.”

With that he raced down the corridor, blaster in one hand and lightsaber in the other.

   He found them in the refectory—Tahiri, Valin Horn, and Sannah. They had barricaded the outer door with tables and had two blasters between them, no telling where they had gotten them. When Anakin entered, Tahiri waved the gun at him.

“What are you doing?” Anakin exploded.

“Helping you,” Tahiri said with a grin.

“How did you—”

“Kam thought we were on Tionne’s boat, Tionne thought we were on his. Simple, with a little planning.”

“But Valin? Valin’s only eleven!”

“Twelve!” Valin said very seriously. “I can help.”

“This is insane.”

“Fine one you are to talk, Anakin,” Tahiri snapped. “You’re the one who left Coruscant without permission, aren’t you? You get to do everything while we just run away and do nothing? I don’t think so, best friend.”

“Yeah? Well, my plan was to get away in the X-wing. Now we have too many people for that. What does the brilliant Tahiri propose we do, exactly?”

“Oh.” Her green eyes went round. “I hadn’t thought that far.”

“No, I guess you didn’t.”

The floor suddenly vibrated like the shell of a Hapan lute.

“What’s that?” Sannah asked.

Valin, peeking out the window, answered. “The shield is down. Now they’re shooting at the doors. Some men are coming up the stairs, too.”

“No more time,” Anakin said. “We’ll have to think as we go. I told Ikrit to meet us in the grotto.”

“Then we’ll be stuck underground.”

“I didn’t have much time to put this together, Tahiri.”

“You mean there’s more to your plan than hiding in the grotto?”

Anakin blew out a deep breath. “Sure. We’ll take a Peace Brigade ship.”

Tahiri smiled. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

They reached the turbolift just as a clump of Peace Brigaders appeared at the end of the corridor facing onto the outside stairs.

“Hey! Stop!” one of them shouted.

Two blaster shots pinged against the doors as they closed. Anakin let out a breath as the lift started to descend, then sucked it back in.

“It’s going to stop,” Anakin said. “At the second level.”

“Override it.”