Inferno (7 page)

Kenth Hamner stepped to the lectern and thanked everyone for helping the Jedi celebrate the life of Mara Jade Skywalker. He reminded them to keep her example in mind during the difficult days to come and invited them to the remembrance feast being laid out in the Hall of Peace. As the crowd rose to leave, Luke turned toward the courtyard’s rear exit, motioning for Ben, Saba, and the rest of the Masters to follow.

The last thing he wanted to do right now was focus on the Order. With only an aching void where there used to be Mara, Luke felt like the victim of a heart amputation, everything inside burning in grief, his thoughts whirling with memories of Mara’s death…that sudden awful pulling on their Force-bond, as though she were falling into a star, then trying to reach out and draw her to safety, but the bond just snapping and leaving him broken and lost and hurting.

But with Jacen making his first tentative attempts to assert control over the Jedi, the Order needed Luke now more than ever, and as Mara had returned her body to the Force he had realized that she expected him to be strong, to pull himself together and prevent Jacen from using her death to destroy anything else.

Once the group was inside the fern-filled lobby that had served as the funeral’s staging area, Luke turned to Saba.

“Was that really necessary?” he demanded. “We’re not going to bring Jacen back into the fold by antagonizing him in public.”

“We are not going to bring Jacen back at all,” Saba said. “Jacen is beyond saving.”

“That’s not your call,” Luke said. “Mara held on to her body for a reason. She was trying to tell us that if we want to save the Alliance, we have to work
with
him, not against him.”

“I don’t think so,” Kyp said, shaking his head. “Saba’s right. Jacen was just using Mara’s funeral to make himself look more important to the Order.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Luke asked. “It still gives us an opening—and it will be better for the Alliance, for the Jedi, and for the galaxy if we guide Jacen rather than fight him.”

“No, Dad, it
won’t,
” Ben said. “In fact, I don’t think Mom meant the message for you at all—if there even was a message.”

“Of course there was a message,” Luke said, growing confused. “Why else would your mother wait until
Jacen
arrived to return her body to the Force?”

Ben shrugged and avoided Luke’s eyes. “I don’t know, but I don’t think she was telling us to trust Jacen.”

Luke scowled. “Ben, what aren’t you telling me?”

Ben shook his head. “Nothing.”

If Ben was lying, Luke couldn’t feel it in the Force. He considered trying to wait the boy out, but anyone who had witnessed as many GAG interrogations as Ben had would hardly fall for such rudimentary tactics. Instead, he gave up and turned to Corran Horn.

“Is
anyone
going to tell me what’s going on?”

Corran glanced at Kyp, who turned to Kyle, who pursed his lips and looked away, apparently as he debated whether Luke was strong enough to hear the truth.

Luke turned to Kenth. “You said you had a lot to tell me,” he reminded. “Start telling.”

“We didn’t want to upset you during the funeral,” Kenth replied. “But a unit of GAG troopers tried to arrest Han and Leia. That’s why they didn’t make the funeral.”

“They let GAG catch sight of them?” Luke was incredulous. “The
Solos
?”

“It happened inside the Temple,” Kenth explained. “Less than an hour ago.”

This time, Luke was stunned. “A GAG squad, in here?”

“On level six,” Kyp said. “The Solos were coming in from the Ministry of Justice mezzanine.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?”

Even as Luke demanded this, he could see by the troubled expressions on the faces of the Masters that they had doubts about whether they should have told him
now
—and he had only himself to blame. Given the way he had drawn in on himself, what were they to think? Awash in doubt—about himself, about the Force, even about the Order itself—he had shut himself off from everyone except Ben. And he had been playing straight into his nephew’s hands, practically inviting Jacen to step in and take control of the Order.

When no one answered his question, Luke said, “Forget I asked. Where are they now?”

All eyes turned to Corran, who was monitoring the Temple security channels over an ear comm.

“We don’t know,” he said. “They escaped into Fellowship Plaza, and Leia’s been Force-flashing the security cams.”

“Not the Solos,” Luke said. “I mean the GAG squad.”

Corran frowned. “They’re gone, chasing Han and Leia.”

“Can we be sure?” Luke asked. “If we don’t know where Han and Leia are—”

“How do we know the GAG unit iz still chasing them?” Saba finished. “You think the arrest attempt was a diversion?”

“I think it’s a possibility,” Luke said. “The way I’ve been hiding from responsibilities—”

“You haven’t been hiding from anything,” Kenth said. “Your grief is more than understandable.”

“Thanks,” Luke said. “But the fact is, I’ve left us vulnerable. With everyone focused on finding Mara’s killer and worrying about me, there’ll never be a better time to cripple the Jedi.”

“Then we’d better find that unit fast,” Kyp said. He turned toward a turbolift on the far side of the lobby. “If we don’t hurry, there’ll be a whole battalion—”

“It’s okay,” Corran said, catching Kyp by the arm. “Temple security spotted them. They’re outside, escorting Jacen across Fellowship Plaza.”

Saba gnashed her fangs in confusion—or perhaps it was disappointment. “Jacen changed his mind about seizing the Temple?”

Corran shrugged. “Who knows? We have reports of a lot of heavy hoversleds moving away from the Temple—but that doesn’t mean they were carrying GAG troopers.”

A sudden silence fell over the gathering, and the Masters stood looking at one another in a fragile blend of relief and trepidation. Luke could sense how worried they all were that they had just come very close to letting Jacen take control of the Temple—or worse.

It was Ben who broke the silence. “So what are we going to do about it? We can’t let him get away with trying to arrest us.”

Luke looked down in surprise. “
We,
Ben? I thought you wanted Jacen to be your Master.”

Ben’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment. “I might have made a mistake,” he said. “I’m entitled. I’m fourteen.”

In another time, on another day, Luke might have laughed. Instead, he said, “You don’t have to be fourteen to make mistakes. I’ve been making plenty.”

“If you say so,” Ben said, shrugging. “And that’s not an answer to my question. You’re not going to let him get away with this, are you?”

Luke thought for a moment, then said, “Actually, I think we will.”

“What?”
The question came from three Masters at once, and Saba added in all sincerity, “This is a poor time for jokes, Master Skywalker. We have serious troubles.”

Luke nodded. “That’s true—and so is what I said to Jacen about working together.
Somebody’s
got to take the first step.”

“Right into a trap,” Ben muttered.

“Maybe—but Jacen isn’t the only one who knows how to set a trap,” Luke said. He laid his hand on Ben’s shoulder and, feeling more confident than he had since before Mara’s death, started toward the remembrance feast. “And it might be nice to surprise
him
for change.”

four

Even from an altitude of a thousand meters, the Jedi academy on Ossus looked enormous. Spread across a verdant bench-land between a lush mountainside and a gloom-filled rift valley, its tidy sweeps of green turf were surrounded by burgeoning plots of foliage and connected by snaking ribbons of gray paving stone. To Jaina’s surprise, there were no tiny dots dodging among the glistening spires and elegant halls; if not for the Force presences she could detect inside the buildings, she would have thought the place deserted.

Perhaps the Solusars had called a week of meditation out of respect for Mara’s funeral. They would have regretted not being there as much as Jaina did, and the children would need ritual to help them deal with the loss of such an important Jedi Master.

Jaina only wished that she and Zekk and Jag could have afforded the time to join the meditation. She was hurting in a way she had not hurt since the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, when she had lost Anakin and Chewbacca and a hundred other dear comrades. It was taking all her strength to just let the grief come and not retreat into herself as she had during the war.

Jagged Fel’s crisp voice sounded over the intercom of the StarDrive Dactyl that the Alema-hunting team was flying this week. “Sense anything?”

“Negative,” Zekk answered from several meters behind Jaina. He was seated on the opposite side of the fuselage, staring through an observation blister similar to Jaina’s. “Maybe we shouldn’t put so much faith in vector readings. We don’t know anything about that new ship she’s in…and why would she come
here
?”

“Because she’s Alema Rar,” Jaina responded. “And if we waste time trying to figure out why she does
anything,
we’re crazier than she is.”

Jag chuckled—as he usually did whenever Jaina disagreed with Zekk—then said, “To a degree. Does that mean you sense something?”

“Give me a chance,” Jaina replied. “We just got here.”

“We need time to attune ourselves to the local currents,” Zekk explained. “It’s not like that new ship of hers is a dark side beacon. It was just giving off a little aura before.”

“So you’re saying we need to make a second pass?” Jag asked.

“And probably a third and a seventh,” Jaina answered. “It might take some effort to find her, but I’d bet my shirt that Alema is here.”

Jag said, “I accept!” at the same time Zekk said, “Okay!”

Jaina frowned, confused by their enthusiasm.
“What?”

“Your bet.” Zekk leered across the fuselage. “I accepted.”

“Hey, I was first!” As usual, it was impossible to tell from Jag’s tone whether he was joking, but Jaina thought he probably was. The only gambling she had ever seen him do involved starfighters and slim chances of survival. “The bet is with
me.
”

“Ha, ha—very funny,” Jaina said. “What part of
not interested
don’t you two understand?”

Jaina did not bother to keep the irritation out of her voice. She had grown weary of the competition between Jag and Zekk even before Mara was killed, and now it just made her angry. Besides, there wasn’t even supposed to be a competition. Zekk had claimed way back on Terephon that he was over her. And when Jag had reappeared, he had been so angry over her actions during the Dark Nest crisis that a romance had seemed out of the question.

Of course,
that
blissful state had lasted about as long as a soap bubble in an open air lock. As soon as the two men realized someone else was hoping for a place in the family holo, they had begun to knock heads like two bull rontos. Jaina had finally grown so sick of it that, after Mara’s death, she had told them
both
to leave her alone.

The entrance to the academy hangar suddenly passed by beneath the Dactyl, then Jaina’s observation blister filled with sky as Jag rolled the ship on its side and began to swing around for another pass. The Dactyl was a lot less maneuverable than the YT-2400 they had been using as a mother ship until a few days ago, but Jag insisted on changing vessels frequently, believing it would make it more difficult for Alema to spot them coming. At least this one had a private berth for everyone
and
room for StealthXs.

Once Jag had brought the vessel around, he swung away from the academy proper and began to fly low and slow along the adjacent mountainside. Jaina started to suggest that the rift valley would be a more likely hiding place—then remembered how long Jag had been hunting Alema and remained quiet. Half crippled as the Twi’lek was, she was unlikely to hide her vessel anyplace that involved scaling two thousand meters of valley wall.

“This may be our last pass,” Jag said over the comm. “Academy flight control is starting to ask questions.”

“The flyover is making them nervous,” Zekk guessed. “Tell them we’re doing a security sweep.”

“I did,” Jag said. “And flight control command asked what was wrong with
their
security.”

Jaina chuckled. “Tell her we’re bird-watching.”

Jag was silent a moment, then reported, “Command says good luck. We’ll see some magnificent gokobs in the treetops.”

Jaina and Zekk laughed simultaneously.

“What’s so funny?” Jag asked.

“You’ll see,” Jaina said. Gokobs were hairless rodents that spent most of their time rummaging for food around the academy kitchens—friendly, but reviled for their habit of spraying a foul mist when startled. “But if you
do
come across anything big and bright in the treetops,
don’t
go down to take a look.”

“Not a gokob?” Jag asked.

“Not a gokob,” Zekk confirmed. “There are some pretty big tree frogs on Ossus. They’ve been known to bring down Tee-sixty-five trainers.”

“Their tongues are that strong?” Jag gasped.

“That sticky,” Jaina corrected. “If you get a big bunch of ’em dangling from your hull, you lose a lot of lift.”

The Dactyl continued along the mountainside for another half a kilometer before Jaina noticed a faint depression in the forest canopy, about a kilometer upslope. There was no dark side energy in the Force to suggest they had found Alema’s strange ship, but the indentation was about the correct size and shape.

“Mark,” she said.

“Marked,” Jag said, acknowledging that he had recorded their exact location in the navigation system. “Did you sense something?”

“Sort of.” Jaina explained what she had seen, then said, “It’s probably nothing—”

“But we should check it out,” Zekk said, finishing her thought, “if we don’t find something else first.”

Jag fell silent, and a distinct chill radiated through the Force from the direction of the flight deck. Although the Joiner bond between Jaina and Zekk was long dissolved, like any good pair of mission partners they seemed to read each other’s thoughts on occasion—and Jag’s aversion to Killiks was still so strong that he was creeped out by any hint of thought-sharing. If she needed to discourage his advances, Jaina decided, all she’d have to do was rub forearms with Zekk.