Trapped (5 page)

“Apparently not good enough for you to tell them the truth about who you really are.”

“If you'll let me explain, I think you'll see why it's important Luke not know I'm a Jedi,” Ferus said, stalling for time. What was he supposed to say:
I'm keeping the secret because the ghost of a dead Jedi Master warned me that Luke wasn't ready
?

“Oh, I see,” Lune spat out. “If the Empire knew the truth, you'd be a target. And if the Rebels knew the truth, they might expect you to
do
something. But you've become a coward. So you stay hidden.”

“You think that little of me?” Ferus asked.

“I don't think of you at all,” Lune said. “Not since I was a child, and you abandoned us all to die.”

“I never abandoned you,” Ferus said. “You had your mother and Clive, and—”

“And
I
was supposed to protect him, isn't that right?” Lune said sourly. “That's what you told me, before you left, that I should
take care of Trever.
I was a child. A
child
! You were a
Jedi,
and who were you protecting? Only yourself.”

Ferus shook his head. “I thought you would be safe,” he said desperately. “All of you. I had a mission—”

“So did they, that day,” Lune said bitterly. “They all had missions. My mother. My father.
Trever.
”

Ferus flinched at the name.

“You think you know what happened to them,” Lune said. “I can see it on your face.”

“And I'm so sorry for your loss,” Ferus began.

“But you can't know. Not unless you were there. Like
I
was. But I was only fifteen, and they wouldn't let me go with them. Even though I could have helped. So I watched them from a hill overlooking the factory. Like lizard-ants, swarming across the grounds, shooting, running, dying.”

Ferus wanted to stop listening. As Lune went on, relating their deaths in horrifying detail, Ferus wanted to summon the Force around his ears like a thick blanket, drowning out the noise. But he made himself hear it all. A Rebel mission betrayed from the inside. An ambush. His old friend Clive cut down where he stood, ripped through by blasterfire. Lune's mother, Astri, fierce and proud, blown to bits by an Imperial grenade. And Trever. Trever, who had survived as an orphan on the streets of Bellassa when he was only a teenager, until Ferus had turned him into a soldier and a fugitive. Trever, who had died a prisoner, trapped inside the munitions factory when the concussion missiles rained down and the building imploded.

“Enough!” Ferus finally cried. He laid Luke's body out on a narrow cot, then lowered himself to the edge, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder. Only then did he notice that his hand was trembling. “Please, Lune,” he said quietly. “Enough.”

“It's Div.”

And Ferus nodded, acknowledging that it was true. “I'm sorry for what happened to them,” he said. “And for what's happened to you.”

“Nothing happened to me.”

Ferus sighed.

“Don't,” Div said harshly. “Don't you dare judge
me.
So I'm different from the kid you remember? Look at
you.
Those people we used to be? They're gone. Erased. Whatever it takes to survive, right? That's what makes you and me special. Not the lightsaber, not the Force. We're survivors. Whatever it takes.”

The words were proud, but the tone was ashamed. Ferus lowered his head. Lune was just trying to wound him, Ferus knew. He was lashing out, angry about the past, angry about having a reminder of all the things he'd worked hard to forget. Angry that Ferus had left in the first place, then had had the temerity to come back. They were just words.

But shame flooded him nonetheless. The truth hurt.

Luke opened his eyes. The world was blurry. “What happened?” Gradually, the blurs of color before him resolved themselves into faces. Ferus and Div peered down at him, wearing curiously similar expressions.

“You passed out,” Div said, then hesitated. He locked eyes with Ferus, and for several moments, a heavy silence settled between them. “You must have hit your head harder than you thought,” Div said. “In the ship.”

Luke rubbed the spot where his head had slammed into the bulkhead. He felt a small lump, painful to the touch. Still, something seemed off. “My head doesn't hurt that much,” he said dubiously.

“Head injuries can be tricky,” Ferus said quickly, helping him off the cot. “All the more reason to return to the Rebel Base. And quickly. We have work to do.”

“Work? What do you mean?”

Ferus and Div exchanged another of those mysterious glances. Luke wondered how long he'd been out and what had happened between the two of them. It was as if they'd known each other for years rather than minutes.

“That ship you commandeered was on a rendezvous course with an Imperial Star Destroyer,” Ferus explained.

“I noticed,” Luke said, rubbing the lump on his head again. If they hadn't escaped in time...Speaking of which...“What were you doing in a TIE fighter?” Luke asked suddenly. “And how'd you find us? And—”

“It's a long story,” Ferus said. “And I can tell you on the way. Right now all you need to know is that the pilot of that ship—the one who kidnapped you, Div—was an agent of Darth Vader. The information he gathered is crucial to the Rebel cause. To you in particular, Luke. It's the key to saving your life...and, if we're lucky, to ending Vader's.”

I
t had been foolish to hope that Leia would be happy to see him. Ferus knew that.

But he'd hoped anyway.

Was it his destiny to seemingly disappoint everyone he cared about?

It was so good to see Lune again—
Div,
he reminded himself. And to see him with Luke and Leia, as if the Force itself was drawing them together, readying them for the fight to come.

But it was also unsettling. Years before, Ferus had worked hard to bring Jedi and Force-sensitives together, to draw them out of hiding, prepare them for battle. Obi-Wan had warned him against it, had said it was too soon. (Just as he now said, from beyond the grave, that it was too soon to alert Luke and Leia to their destiny.) But Ferus had gone forward anyway—and they had all died.

Was it all happening again? Was the Rebel Alliance just another doomed resistance? Were Luke and Leia marked for death, or worse?

No,
Ferus thought, stepping into the Rebel briefing room, readying himself to face the Rebel leadership.
It's different this time.
It has to be.
Two decades earlier, a preliminary version of the Death Star had destroyed the kernels of a resistance movement—and nearly everyone Ferus trusted and valued.

But
this
time, Luke had destroyed the Death Star.

The tables were turning. Ferus and Obi-Wan had waited a long time. But Ferus sensed that their wait was almost at an end. He knew well that what felt like instinct could easily be wishful thinking, desire overwhelming good sense. But nonetheless, he needed to believe that this time, they would win.

They would survive.

The Rebel leaders sat at a long table, watching him expectantly: General Rieekan, General Dodonna, Wedge Antilles. Luke, flanked by Leia and his friend Han. Ferus had watched carefully as Leia saw Luke, safe and sound, for the first time. He saw the tears of relief welling in her eyes, and noticed how quickly and surely she wiped them away. He saw that she was still reluctant to leave Luke's side, as if determined to keep him safe, no matter what it took.

They deserve to know,
he thought.
Orphaned children, alone in the galaxy. They deserve to know they are family.

But even without the truth, it was obvious they still had each other. Some part of them must have known the truth.

Div slouched against a wall in the back of the room. Ferus had requested his presence, and the Rebel leaders had agreed. Div had been slightly harder to convince. But in the end, he had stayed.

“I've spent the last two months tracking Darth Vader's actions,” Ferus explained to the assembled group. It had been a difficult task. If he ventured too near, Vader would surely sense his presence and the game would be up. So he'd shadowed the Dark Lord from afar, searching desperately for some clue to his agenda—and some way to foil it. He'd arrived on the Star Destroyer in a TIE fighter equipped with an illegal hyperdrive—his escape route. Keeping the elaborate modifications secret meant keeping the TIE under his sole control. This was the only reason he'd made sure to be behind the controls when the fighters were scrambled. If he hadn't been there, Luke would have flown straight into the Empire's arms. Only luck had saved him. And they couldn't count on luck to do it again. “And among other things, I've learned that Vader has become very interested in an Imperial commander named Rezi Soresh.”

“I've never heard of him,” General Dodonna said.

“Not surprising,” Ferus said. “Soresh keeps a low profile. He's a master bureaucrat—just shuffling flimsiplast, to all appearances. But he's managed to amass a surprising amount of power, and he's ambitious for more. He has a new plan for currying favor with the Emperor: killing the pilot who destroyed the Death Star.”

Every head in the room turned toward Luke.

“Soresh is the man who hired the assassin you know as X-7,” Ferus continued.

In the back of the room, Div shifted his weight. It was his only reaction to the words. His face remained blank, his eyes facing forward. But Ferus could sense the shame rolling off him in waves.
He told himself he wasn't working for the Empire,
Ferus observed.
He's been lying to himself for too long, and now it hurts to face the truth.

He would have borne that pain himself if he could have. But it was Div's burden—and it might be exactly what he needed.

“X-7 has dropped off the radar,” Ferus continued. “Even Soresh has lost track of him. But Vader is on his tail. He has agents sweeping the galaxy for any record of his attempts on Luke's life, anyone he may have hired...”

Now the faces turned to look at Div. Ferus nodded. “Yes. Lune Divinian is Vader's last link to X-7. That Firespray's files contain all the information Vader's agent has been able to collect on X-7. He was on his way to deliver that—and Div—to Vader.”

“I don't understand,” Leia said. “Why does Vader care what this Soresh is up to? And why is he so determined to find X-7?”

“That's still unclear,” Ferus said, although he was increasingly sure he knew exactly what Vader was up to. And it terrified him. According to Ferus's sources, Vader had learned that Luke was the one who'd destroyed the Death Star. He'd made it a priority to hunt down the Rebel pilot himself—and had made it clear to his men that Luke was
not
to be killed.

It sent a chill up Ferus's spine. Because if Vader was keeping Luke alive, it could mean he knew who Luke really was.

And had plans for him.

“What we do know is that X-7, Soresh, and Vader are all bound together—and I believe if we can find X-7 before they do, we might be able to use him.”

“We can find him,” Luke said confidently. “We just need the right bait. And obviously—”

“No!” Leia exclaimed. She turned to Luke. “It's too dangerous.”

“I can handle it, Leia,” Luke said, visibly annoyed.

“I'm not saying you can't handle it. I'm saying it's a foolish risk.”

“It's a
worthwhile
risk.
You'd
want to do it.”

Ferus cut in. “It's the wrong strategy,” he explained. “We don't want to draw X-7 into an attack. We certainly don't want to
kill
him.”

“Who's
‘we'
?” Han drawled. “Because trust me, I want to—”

“As I say, we want to
use
him,” Ferus said, pressing on. “The records on the Firespray indicate that X-7 is trying to hunt down traces of his former identity, from before he was inducted into the Imperial assassin program. He remembers none of it, and he's been completely wiped from the system. But what if he
were
to find some clues to his past? And what if those clues gave him reason to despise the Empire as much as we do? What if instead of killing X-7, we could
turn
him to our side—against the Empire?”

General Rieekan shook his head. “Something like that would require extensive access to Imperial computer systems. I'm not sure we have the resources to spare.”

Ferus smiled. Little did they know they were looking at one of the best slicers in the galaxy. Long ago, before Alderaan, before he'd turned himself into an invisible man, he'd been a galaxy-class slicer, specializing in creating false identities. “That won't be a problem,” Ferus said. “But in my experience—”

“Your experience as a botanist and courtier?” Leia asked, raising her eyebrows.

“I wasn't always a botanist, Your Highness,” he said. “I know about creating false pasts, for men who need them. And I can tell you that just as the best lies always contain a kernel of truth, the best false identities are always based on real ones. Especially when time is short. What we need is an identity to appropriate, a man around X-7's age who died or disappeared a decade ago. Just at the moment when X-7 entered the Empire's program. Someone whose entire family was destroyed by the Empire, someone with reason to want revenge. Perhaps someone with a single remaining relative who can fill in a few carefully selected blanks.”

“That's a pretty specific order,” General Dodonna said.

“Yes,” Ferus said evenly, swallowing the emotion that threatened to consume him. “It is.”

Div gave him a look of pure disgust. Then he turned his back on the proceedings and left. Ferus had known that Div would catch on.

And he knew that the younger man wouldn't be easily convinced.

“We give X-7 the identity he's looking for,” Ferus said, careful not to betray his distress. “We tell him exactly what we want him to hear—and unleash him on the Empire.”

“You want to brainwash a brainwashed man?” Leia asked incredulously. “Then turn him into a weapon?”

“He's already been turned into a weapon,” Ferus pointed out. “We're just pointing him in the right direction.”

Div closed his eyes and tipped his face up to the sun. The chill water of the creek lapped against his bare ankles. The wind whispered through the leaves, making it easy to imagine ghosts peeking through the spindly Massassi branches. But when he opened his eyes, he was totally alone. Just as he wanted it. The clearing was only a kilometer away from the Great Temple that served as the Rebel Base, but the hidden pocket of jungle was so quiet and still he felt like he was the only man on the moon. It was the kind of spot where he could hear himself think.

It was the kind of spot where he could hide forever.

But of course Ferus found him.

Ferus sat beside him, silent. It was another thing that was different about the Jedi after all these years: The Ferus he remembered had been a talkative, joyful man—at least before things had become really bad. Something dark had settled over Ferus after the day he'd watched Darth Vader murder his dearest friend. A shadow across his face, across his heart. In the end, Ferus had fought off the dark side of the Force, and the light had returned to his eyes. But Div wondered if those days had left a permanent scar.

“You can't mean it,” Div said finally. “You can't possibly expect that—”

“I do,” Ferus said. “I'm sorry.”

Div struggled to control his temper. Ferus obviously thought that Div hated him. But that wasn't the case. It was just that seeing Ferus again hurt, and it was a pain he'd tried long and hard to forget. For years, he'd asked himself,
Why couldn't I protect them?
And he'd wondered whether Ferus could have saved them.

But he hadn't been there. And yes, part of him hated Ferus for that. But not as much as he hated himself. For failing.

“I suppose you're going to tell me it's the only option,” Div said sourly.

“No.” Ferus paused. “Just the best option.”

Div exploded. “How is it the best
anything
to abuse Trever's memory like that? And you honestly expect me to go along with it? For what? To help
them
?” He jerked his head at the path that led back to the Rebel barracks. “You think Trever would want that?”

Ferus tilted his head. “Trever risked his life for this cause, time and time again. He died for it.” He swallowed hard. “Using his identity in this way...it could give his death meaning.”

“Nothing can give his death meaning,” Div shot back angrily. “All death is meaningless.”

“And all life?” Ferus asked mildly. “Is that the next logical conclusion?”

Div didn't respond. He remembered this from his childhood, the Jedi way—small, innocent questions designed to guide you to one big answer. Ferus always liked to claim he wasn't a
real
Jedi—after all, he'd left the order as a teenager, before becoming a Jedi Master. He'd given up that life and spent nearly a decade living as an ordinary man. But from where Div was sitting, Ferus was just like the rest of them—sure of his own wisdom, sure he was right. Full of secrets. Whatever the technicalities, Div thought, Ferus was a Jedi.

It wasn't a compliment.

“This won't work without your cooperation,” Ferus said. “But I didn't come out here to convince you.” He stood up, brushing the dirt off his clothes. He'd borrowed the ill-fitting shirt from General Dodonna. It was strange to see him dressed as a Rebel soldier—nearly as strange as it had been to see him in Imperial garb. “The choice is yours, Div.” He patted Div on the shoulder. And as much as he wanted to, Div didn't squirm away. “I trust you. I always have.”

Maybe you shouldn't,
Div thought as Ferus left him.
You trusted me to look after Trever, and look how that worked out.

It had been a long time since anyone had trusted him, and since he'd dared trust anyone else. Trusting people was the kind of thing that got you dead in a hurry. And letting other people trust you was nearly as dangerous. It meant their lives were your responsibility—and so were their deaths. It was easier to be alone.