Inferno (28 page)

It didn’t take the Sith long to see that Alema was telling the truth. They deactivated the lightsabers they had ignited when she reached for her datachip, then seemed to regard her with new depths of respect.

“Very well,” White Eyes said, “you killed Mara Skywalker. Why did you come here? Are you looking for shelter?”

“Shelter?”
Alema was insulted by the question. “Do you take us for a coward? Do you think we seek
refuge
while Jacen Solo is out there fighting for the Balance?”

White Eyes shot a puzzled—or perhaps it was chagrined—glance at the Sith to his left, then asked, “If you don’t want shelter, then why
did
you come?”

“For help,” Alema answered. “And guidance.”

The Force rolled with dark confusion, and the raspy-voiced woman asked, “You want…
guidance
?”

“From us?” White Eyes added.

“Exactly,” Alema replied. “Without Lumiya there to guide him, the truth is that Jacen Solo is stumbling badly. He actually took the academy
hostage.
”

“So we have heard,” White Eyes said. “What does that have to do with us?”

Alema began to understand—they had no intention of actually risking their lives to support Jacen. They just wanted to hide here while he did all the work and took all the mortal risks—and delivered the galaxy to them on a platter.

“Is
that
how it is?” she demanded. “You create your emperors and just send them out into the galaxy on their own? No wonder all it took to bring Palpatine down was a farmboy and a self-absorbed Princess.”

There was dead silence for a moment, and even the Force seemed frozen with shock.

At last, White Eyes asked, “You think
we
trained Jacen Solo?”

“Of course. Lumiya
said
there was a plan.” Alema didn’t bother to keep the disdain out of her voice. How could these cowards be
Sith,
hiding here in their hovel while one of their own—a single man—conquered the galaxy? “Those were her exact words.
There is a plan—a plan that will be carried out whether or not I survive.
”

At last, the white eyes seemed to glow with comprehension. “
Lumiya’s
plan—not ours. Hers and Vergere’s.”

Now it was Alema’s turn to be surprised. “
Vergere
was a Sith?”

“You didn’t know that?” asked the raspy-voiced woman. “I thought you were Lumiya’s apprentice?”

“Do
you
tell your apprentice everything?” Alema countered.

“Perhaps not,” White Eyes allowed. “In any case, Jacen Solo is not our problem. Nor do we want him to be.”

“Which is why you won’t be allowed to leave here alive,” the woman added.

“You keep saying that,” Alema said, “but we’d be dead already if you didn’t have more questions.”

Despite Alema’s bravado, she knew her time was running out. The Sith were perilously close to believing they had learned what they needed to know about her, and when they were certain of it, they would attack. She just needed to make certain that Morto was not among those who reached her—the last thing her poor body needed now was a dose of flesh-eating bacteria.

“Whose question is it now?” she asked.

“Let’s say it is yours,” White Eyes offered. “It’s the least we can do.”

“How gallant.” Alema pointed toward the datachip she had given him, which had vanished somewhere inside his cloak. “That message you sent Lumiya. If you wanted nothing to do with her plan, why did you invite her here?”

“It was sent
before
she developed her plan,” White Eyes explained. “Our Master wanted her to join our organization, but she and her escort were ambushed by the Yuuzhan Vong. Lumiya escaped. Lomi Plo and her apprentice did—”

“Lomi Plo was one of you?” Alema gasped. “Truly?”

“How do you know Lomi Plo?” Morto asked, sounding to Alema’s experienced ear like a lust-toad lover. He stepped closer, coming up behind her. “What happened to her?”

Alema answered without turning around. “Lomi Plo was our, um, Master.” She quickly moved away. “She died at the Battle of Tenupe.”

“You’re lying.” Morto continued to follow her. “Why would she be fighting
Killiks
?”

“She wasn’t, silly.” Alema turned to face him, but—terrified he would touch her and mar what little remained of her beauty—she continued to back away. “She was fighting
for
Gorog. She was our Queen.”

Morto stopped in his tracks. “She was a
bug
?”

“That’s no way to talk about her!” If Alema hadn’t been afraid to touch him, she would have Force-slapped him so hard his eyes flew from their sockets. “We thought you loved her. Isn’t that so?”

“Morto’s feelings for his Master are no business of yours,” rasped the woman. “And I thought
Lumiya
was your Master.”

“Lomi Plo was before Lumiya. We seem to go through Masters like males.” Alema eased away from Morto, then turned back to the Sith on the balcony. “You had
nothing
to do with creating Jacen?”

White Eyes shook his head. “Our Master met Vergere while he was a captive of the Yuuzhan Vong. She liked his vision of One Sith.”

“But after the first Battle of Bilbringi, she escaped the Yuuzhan Vong and met Lumiya,” the woman continued. “And Lumiya convinced her that our Master’s plan was too slow; that by the time One Sith were ready to act, Skywalker’s Jedi would be too strong to defeat.”

“So they decided to create Jacen,” White Eyes finished.

“They did the right thing,” Alema insisted. “And if you don’t help Jacen
now,
the Jedi will destroy him, and the Balance will be ruined.”

“The Balance?” White Eyes asked. “Which Balance is that?”

“You don’t know the
Balance
?” Alema couldn’t believe that a Sith Master would need to ask such a thing. “Between every user and the Force, there is the Balance. Between every Force-user and her enemies, there is the Balance. We serve the Balance by doing to our enemies what they do to us. If we fail, the Force itself will fall—”

“Enough.”

White Eyes raised a black-gloved hand, and Alema found herself choking on her words. He cast an inquiring glance along both sides of the balcony above the courtyard. When they all nodded in response, he turned back to the courtyard and looked past Alema to Morto.

“I think our questions have been answered.”

Morto’s lightsaber sizzled to life. To Alema’s surprise, she remained free to act—to reach for her own lightsaber and spin around to defend herself—and she realized the Sith meant her death to be a practice session for Morto. She snatched her weapon off her belt, but instead of igniting it, she backed away and raised it as though asking for permission to speak.

“Wait.”
Alema had to croak the word, for White Eyes was still using the Force to silence her. “Last…question.”

The Force hummed with impatience, but the pressure suddenly vanished from Alema’s throat.

“Very well,” White Eyes said. “One question.”

“Thank you.” Alema tucked her lightsaber under her arm and rubbed her throat, then said, “Luke Skywalker will soon discover who killed his wife. Do you really want him to track us
here
?”

The impatience in the Force changed first to misgivings and concern, then to disappointment. White Eyes and the others exchanged a long series of glances, then, without saying anything, seemed to reach the consensus Alema had expected.

“Put your lightsaber away, Morto,” the woman rasped.

When Morto didn’t obey quickly enough, the white eyes flared in his direction and sent him flying. The trip ended with the sharp crack of skull against stone, followed by the sound of crashing armor and a lightsaber snapping off. Alema glanced back and saw the Togorian sitting at the base of a support pillar, one hand pressed to his bloody head.

“Thank you,” she said. “But we were thinking of more help than that.”

White Eyes’ gaze turned to Alema. “You will stay the night,” he commanded. “We may have something for Jacen Solo after all.”

seventeen

Flying by instruments because visibility was so poor, Jaina dropped out of the smoke and followed the navigation beacon through a gaping hangar mouth into…more smoke. Though she had not seen any flames on her approach, it seemed to her all of Rwookrrorro must have been burning to produce such a pall. She hoped it was all rising from below. On the way in, she had picked up some comm chatter suggesting the fires were spreading most ferociously in the forest’s midlevels, where they could draw more oxygen from surrounding layers.

A pair of marshaling beacons appeared in the haze, directing her to turn right…and
slow down.
Jaina grimaced and obeyed, realizing that in her haste to catch Luke, she had entered the hangar far too quickly. All around her, vague blocky forms materialized into StealthXs, fueling sleds, and armament racks.

No sooner had Jaina set her craft down than a shaggy crew of Wookiees was swarming over it, refueling and checking weapons status. She disengaged her suit connections and extracted herself from the crash webbing, then popped the canopy and sprang out of the cockpit, landing beside a confused-looking Wookiee holding an access ladder.

“Where’s Luke Skywalker?” she asked.

The Wookiee pointed through the smoke toward the back of the hangar, where Jaina could barely see a squadron of pilots climbing into their StealthXs. She took off at a run, dodging hoversleds and technicians and coughing on the acrid air. The smoke was less thick inside the hangar than it was outside, but it was clear that the Jedi would be changing bases after their run. She caught up to Luke just as R2—memory-enhanced to help fly StealthXs—was being lowered into the droid socket.

Jaina had not commed or reached out to let Luke know she was coming, but he did not seem surprised as he turned to greet her.

“Hello, Jaina. I hope everything is under control at the academy.”

Jaina nodded. “Jag and Zekk are looking after things until we can get some more Jedi Knights there. Most of the GAG troopers were pretty appalled at Serpa’s orders, and the rest aren’t exactly spoiling for a fight—especially after we returned the lightsabers to the Wampas.”

“Good.” Luke seemed distracted, as though his mind was anywhere but on the coming fight. “Still, Serpa’s battalion isn’t all we have to worry about. If Jacen is willing to do
this…
”

He let the sentence trail off and waved vaguely around them, the gesture taking in all of Kashyyyk.

“I understand, but there’s something you need to know, and I have to tell you in person.” Jaina looked around the hangar, trying to pick out a human form that
wasn’t
wearing a StealthX flight suit. “Is Ben here? He should hear this, too.”

Luke shook his head. “He’s supposed to be on his way from Coruscant.”

“Supposed to be?” Jaina asked. To her alarm, Luke did not seem at all curious about what she had come to tell him. “Ben is overdue?”

“Not exactly,” Luke said. “I sent a message to him…after we left Kuat. But I can’t tell where he is. Ben is shutting himself off from the Force again.”

Jaina
really
didn’t like the way Luke was sounding.

“Your parents left last night,” Luke added, as though he thought they might have been a substitute for Ben. “They have a plan.”

“They always have a plan,” Jaina said. “Uncle Luke, are you feeling all right? You seem kind of, well, distracted.”

Luke glanced up into the smoke. “We’re going after your brother. I don’t like doing it.”

“He’s the one who started this,” Jaina said. “But if you’re hesitant because he’s your nephew—”

“I’m
not.
”

R2-D2 whistled down from the droid socket, indicating it was time for their flight check.

“I’ll be right there,” Luke said. He turned back to Jaina. “What did you need to tell me?”

“Uh, maybe now isn’t a good time,” Jaina said. “It looks like you’ve got enough on your mind.”

“I’m the Jedi
Grand
Master, Jaina,” Luke said. “I know how to keep my concentration.”

His tone wasn’t exactly sharp, but it
was
commanding, and Jaina knew that trying to hold back now would only distract him even more.

“It’s about Alema,” she said. “She took out a freighter crew at Roqoo Depot shortly after Mara died.”

“That’s not surprising,” Luke said. “Roqoo Depot is on the way to Terephon, and we know she ended up with Lumiya’s ship after we…after I killed her.”

Jaina shook her head. “This was
before
your fight.”

Luke’s expression seemed more puzzled than shocked.

“Roqoo Depot is between Kavan and Terephon,” Jaina prompted. “Alema was right
there,
the timing was right, and she was in a very nasty mood—she killed half a dozen beings for no reason we could figure out.”

Luke’s brow shot up. “So you think
she…
” He let the sentence trail off, unable—or unwilling—to say it aloud. “How solid is this?”

“Well, we
do
know that Alema likes to use poisons,” Jaina said. “That’s how she killed two of those people on Roqoo, and Jag said that when he found her cave on Tenupe, it looked like she’d been making them for hunting and self-defense.”

Luke closed his eyes, and his Force aura trembled with anger and sorrow. After a few seconds, he nodded and started up the access ladder into his cockpit.

“It certainly seems to implicate her. Thank you, Jaina. I’m sure you’ll bring her to justice.”

Jaina scowled. “Don’t you mean
we
?”

“After my mistake with Lumiya?” Luke shook his head. “It’s better for someone else to handle this. Talk to the Council Masters if you need additional resources.”

“The
Masters
?” Jaina echoed. Now she felt sure there was something wrong. “What aren’t you telling me about this mission?”

Luke dropped into his cockpit. “I haven’t told you anything yet, as I recall.”

“Then it’s time to change that.” Jaina grabbed the access ladder and pulled herself up until she was eye-to-eye with Luke. “I’m not letting you go until I know why you’re acting this way.”