Fate Of The Jedi_ Outcast Part 8

Ben's next comment came as a dry whisper: "I don't think I've ever seen so many brown robes together in one place. It's like a showroom for the world's dullest textile factory."

Luke repressed a snort. "Quiet."

Master Hamner approached, so Luke stepped forward, extending his hand. "Kenth, was this your idea?"

"Leia's, mine, every member of the Council's, and many others' besides. Many had messages, messages they'll deliver personally as you make your way to the front of the hall, but all of them had a message in common." Kenth put one arm across Luke's shoulders and turned him toward the distant main entrance, then gestured with his free hand across the expanse of Jedi Masters, Jedi Knights, apprentices, and friends. "Forty years ago, there was one practicing Jedi in all the galaxy, and the Order and the Temple were just ill-formed notions taken from suppressed rumors. Today, what you see before you-this is your doing, Master Skywalker."

Despite himself, Luke felt his throat trying to close. "Not alone." His words were just a touch hoa.r.s.e.

Kenth nodded. "Not alone. But remove any other contributor from the processes and the end result looks only a little different. Remove you, and it all goes away, like a holodrama switched off in midscene." Gently, he took Luke's bag from his hand. Then he gave Luke a little push forward. "I'll have this put in your speeder."

That was the signal for the others in the hall, who pressed forward singly or in small groups, shaking Luke's hand, offering him embraces or kisses of farewell, some of them with tears glistening on their cheeks. Ben, also relieved of his bag, received these attentions as well, always present in the periphery of Luke's awareness.

There were Kyp and Octa, Kam and Tionne, Saba Sebatyne in all her reptilian majesty, Kyle Katarn, the doubly sad Horn family, visitors such as Jag Fel and Talon Karrde. There was a who's who of the Red Squadron and Rogue Squadron veterans Luke had flown with so many years before and since-Wedge Antilles foremost among them. There were Jedi Knights and apprentices he barely knew, such a change from years before when he had personally trained every member of the Jedi Order, a change both satisfying and a little disquieting.

Leia, Han, and Jaina were among the last to intercept him, and held him the longest. "You'll be home soon," Leia told him, forcing a cheerful tone to conceal the misery she was clearly feeling.

Luke smiled at her. "Define soon. soon."

She shook her head. "Informative answers are not the Jedi way."

"Hey." Ben, wrapped up in the embrace of his cousin Jaina, sounded miffed. "You stole that line from me."

"I first said it twenty years before you were born born. Before I I was even a Jedi." was even a Jedi."

Han took Luke's hand and pulled him into a wampa-like hug. "You know, anywhere you are in the galaxy, give me a shout on the holocomm, or give Leia a squawk through the Force, and the Falcon Falcon will be right there." will be right there."

"I know. You'll take care of Artoo-Detoo for me while I'm gone?"

Han grinned. "Are you kidding? Having Artoo with us means See-Threepio only talks to us half half as much. I should be paying you." as much. I should be paying you."

Jaina tucked herself under Luke's arm for the last few steps out of the Great Hall. "Daala's going to be sorry she did this."

Luke frowned at her. "That sounds suspiciously like a thought of revenge."

"It's not. I just know how things work. Inevitably some mess will arise that she can't solve, that no other Jedi can solve, and she'll know what a mistake she made."

"Be charitable." On the steps outside the hall, in the afternoon sunlight descending in brilliant, steeply slanting shafts through the uneven cloud cover overhead, Luke paused to give Jaina one last hug. "She's trying to do the best she can for the Alliance, the only way she knows how."

"Well, she's not very bright."

"That's not 'charitable.'"

"Oh. I thought you meant 'honest.'"

The airspeeder that had been acquired for Luke and Ben's departure was not the Grand Master's usual one or Ben's red speedster. It was a big white air barge, a model with a built-in droid brain that would return the vehicle to its home when its current users were done with it. Luke let Ben take the controls for the trip out to the s.p.a.ceport while he took in what might be his final view of Coruscant. In this late-afternoon hour, shadows in the canyons between mountain-high buildings were already dark as night, the thousands upon thousands of streams of airspeeder traffic were already putting on their nighttime cruising lights, and the sun, its lower edge peeking out below the layer of clouds in the west, seemed larger and more orange than at any other time of day. He burned it all into his memory, knowing he would miss it.

They spent their trip to the s.p.a.ceport in near silence until they moved out of the high-rise districts and into one of the traffic lanes heading into the hangar portion of the s.p.a.ceport. "Think they'll turn us back?" asked Ben.

Luke gave him a curious look. "Why would they?"

"Because we nearly wrecked the place a few days ago."

"You exaggerate. The fight didn't even spill over into the secure zones."

"True."

Soon enough, they set down outside the hangar where Jade Shadow Jade Shadow was berthed. was berthed.

Luke entered the lengthy access code in the security console beside the main doors, then peered into its optic sensor to give it a retinal reading. Finally the great doors slid aside, admitting a wash of stale air, allowing Luke to look upon his dead wife's s.h.i.+p.

It had started its career as a Horizon Horizon-cla.s.s star yacht from premier s.h.i.+pmakers SoroSuub, but had, over the years, been modified by Mara, family, and friends to become a combat vehicle that was fast and powerful for its size. Low and broad in the beam, with sleek, curving lines, it had a top-mounted airfoil that swept down toward both sides and ended in external ion engine pods. Forward of those, outrigger-style plates stretched from the fuselage and curved down to hold external weapons emplacements. The s.h.i.+p's organic lines gave it the appearance of some nautical sh.e.l.led beast, and its nonreflective gray surface made its name an apt one.

It did not suggest Mara's appearance so much as her manner when she was on the hunt. It was practical and implacable. It scarcely seemed the sort of s.h.i.+p to become home to a middle-aged widower and his teenage son, but it was what he had.

Luke remotely activated its loading ramp and life-support systems, letting it open and expel stale atmosphere while he and Ben removed their possessions from the airspeeder. Luke gave the speeder's droid brain an all-clear order and it lifted off, accelerating away into the darkening sky, its s.h.i.+ny white coating making it visible for a considerable distance.

It didn't take Luke and Ben long to complete a preflight check; the Jade Shadow Jade Shadow's self-diagnostics circuitry and software were first-rate, as were the Skywalkers' technical skills. The engines had lost only a little stored power in the many months the yacht had sat unused. The various compartments within the yacht were a little dusty but otherwise clean. Mara's personal craft, her Z95 Headhunter, an old but reliable predecessor to the X-wing, rested in its tiny launch bay; though it was smaller and slower than its more famous descendant, Mara's Z95, like her yacht, it had been modified and optimized to within a centimeter of its life, and was a far more dangerous starfighter than others of its make and age.

While the preflight check was under way, a delivery speeder arrived. Its crew off-loaded two large crates full of supplies-fresh and preserved foods, water and bottled beverages, replacement battery packs and glow rods. Ben signed for the goods and set about loading them into the Shadow Shadow's storage lockers.

And then it was all done. They had no more reason, no additional excuse to wait. It was time to leave Coruscant.

Solemnly, Luke strapped into the pilot's seat, Ben into the co-pilot's. After a brief comm exchange with the s.p.a.ceport's flight-control center, Luke eased the yacht out of its berth. Many meters from the hangar, out over open permacrete, he raised it on repulsors, then aimed it toward the stars and punched the thrusters.

The yacht's inertial compensators kept the acceleration from being a crus.h.i.+ng experience, but Luke raced upward fast enough to press the two of them far back into their cus.h.i.+oned seats. Behind, in the rear-facing holocam view, the light glaring from Mara's hangar clicked off and its doors slowly rolled shut.

Moments later, they were up past the cloud layer and bound for the stars.

THINGS HAPPENED QUICKLY AFTER LUKE'S DEPARTURE.

Valin was released from Mon Mothma Memorial Medical Center and returned to Jedi custody. Cilghal installed him in her own medical facility again, in a more secure chamber, and let him recover from sedation; though not anxious to face the escape attempts she had every reason to believe would come, she knew that endless sedation would have a damaging effect on Valin's health.

The bounty hunters were mentioned in newscasts, not as bounty hunters, but as a special-missions force answering to the Office of the Chief of State, officially part of her security detail. Their names were not mentioned. Jaina, who had inherited Ben's task of a.s.sembling data on them, noted those details and copied that broadcast for her own reference.

The morning after Luke's departure, Master Hamner called a meeting of the Jedi Masters. He also invited several Jedi who were not Masters but who were influential in the Order, including Leia and Jaina. They met in the Masters' Chamber, sitting among the circle of chairs once used by the old Jedi Council. Additional seating had been brought in for the a.s.sembly-there were, in the face of the Unification Summit and Luke's farewell, more Masters on Coruscant than could be routinely accommodated.

Master Hamner began without preamble. "It seems clear that some of our recent trouble, the public reaction that gave the government so much of its leverage in its action against the Grand Master, arises because of the general public's state of ignorance concerning the Jedi Order."

There was some nodding among the Masters at this statement.

"It is my intent to demystify the Jedi Order to the public as much as is reasonable-without impairing our effectiveness.

"I'd like for one Master to volunteer to be the subject of doc.u.mentary coverage. That Master and his or her apprentice will be accompanied on an a.s.signment or two by a doc.u.mentary crew. The story they produce will be broadcast with, I hope, the result of making the Jedi more sympathetic in the public eye. Volunteers?"

No hand raised. Saba Sebatyne said, "Thiz one is perhapz too ferocious for a doc.u.mentary children will watch."

"I think perhaps you are correct, Master Sebatyne. No one? Ah, Master Ramis. Thank you." Master Hamner consulted his datapad. "An independent producer has contacted us about his plan to create a holodrama about the Jedi. It sounds like mindless, swashbuckling adventure, which ordinarily would stir me to some midpoint between apathy and contempt, but in our current situation I think it will work in our favor. I have denied his rather naive requests to consult our Archives and record certain sequences in the Temple-" There were sighs of relief from among the Masters. "-but I have promised to put forth the request that a Jedi Master serve as technical consultant, and will give my permission to one who does. Here, too, do we have a volunteer? I will not insist ... Ah, Master Durron. You just won me fifty credits. Thank you."

Sitting in one of the chamber's permanent chairs, Kam Solusar, obviously the loser of the bet, scowled.

Now Master Hamner's manner became more grave. "Finally, we have some bad news to face. We have been informed by the Office of the Chief of State that, effective immediately, Jedi will be accompanied by government observers."

Several Masters, as well as both the Solos, raised voices in protest. Leia said, "Are they trying to cripple our effectiveness?"

Hamner waved them down. "One observer will be a.s.signed to each Master-apprentice pairing, and one to each Jedi operating solo-my apologies, Leia, Jaina, I mean each Jedi operating unpartnered. Their stated objective is to act as a gentle reminder to their Jedi of Alliance and local laws. They will not have access to the secure areas of the Temple, but will otherwise be able to accompany their Jedi most of the time, particularly outside the Temple."

Kyp Durron heaved a sigh. "There goes my social life."

Jaina's expression was a fixed frown. "Please tell me that we're not going to do this."

Hamner shrugged. "Actually, we are. For the time being. But I have retained the firm of the Grand Master's advocate, Nawara Ven, to initiate a legal suit, intended to strike down this government measure. Until we have some progress there, though, we simply have to endure this inconvenience. Observers will be a.s.signed in stages over the next several days, Masters first, beginning tomorrow."

As the a.s.sembly left the chamber, Jaina was still wearing her frown. "I'm too young to begin harping about the good old days."

Leia ruffled her daughter's hair. "You're getting there. Just wait, you'll be talking about those blasted kids next."

"Mom ..."

SOLO FAMILY QUARTERS, CORUSCANT.

"I say, Master Han, Mistress Leia, I am so terribly terribly sorry." sorry."

Han opened one eye. Though he was being awakened before his alarm had gone off, meaning it was too early by anyone's standards, he had not yet decided to shoot the tormenter awakening him, C-3PO, and therefore he did not need both eyes yet.

Directly beside him was Leia, rousing just as reluctantly from sleep, her hair a tangled mess splayed across her face and pillow.

Han's voice emerged as a hoa.r.s.e rumble. "Where's my blaster?"

"Under your pillow, as usual." Leia's voice was almost as rough.

"Sir, no." C-3PO, standing by Leia's side of the bed, framed by the curtained viewport that, when bared, offered a vista of Coruscant aerial traffic and skytower tops, waved awkwardly as if to placate Han. "You have a call from Master Calrissian."

Han rubbed between his eyes. "I'll listen to the message in the morning."

"Sir, it's a live holocomm transmission from offworld."

That got Han's attention. He sat up; Leia did as well.

Lando Calrissian was a rich man and a generous one, but he did not waste credits on stunts like holocomm calls just to show off his wealth. As far as Han knew, Lando was nowhere near Coruscant. This had to be important. "Tell him we'll be right there."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. For not shooting me at this time of the morning, sir."

Moments later, wrapped in white robes but not yet fortified by caf, Han and Leia seated themselves at their quarters' comm console and took the main display off hold. The picture snapped from grayness to full-color clarity. Lando sat in a high-backed office seat, industrial gray walls and a closed door behind him.

Dark-skinned and well dressed-the image showed him wearing a maroon dress tunic and a black, sparkling hip cloak-Lando was, Han grudgingly admitted, aging nearly as well as Han himself. His hair had thinned and receded a bit but remained dark, and his features, though more lined, were still handsome and elegant-and still ideally suited to wear expressions of suave self-confidence or comic dismay.

Looking to one side as the picture went live, Lando snapped his attention back to the holoscreen and smiled. "Han! Leia! Good to see you. Oh-is it morning there?"

Leia, binding her hair back with an elastic band, glowered at him. "I'm not a gambler, but I'll bet a thousand credits that you knew exactly what time it was before you called."

"And I am am a gambler, so I won't take that bet. You'd be right." Lando gave her a look of apology. "I need help. Jedi help, I think, as well as friend help. That adds up to you and Han. And about the hour, after the last ... a gambler, so I won't take that bet. You'd be right." Lando gave her a look of apology. "I need help. Jedi help, I think, as well as friend help. That adds up to you and Han. And about the hour, after the last ... event event, we decided that there was no time to waste."

"What sort of event?" Han turned to C-3PO, standing attentively off to the side, and mouthed the word caf caf. Then he turned back to Lando. "And who's we? we?"

"Nien Nunb and Tendra and me. Here, let me show you." Lando reached forward, his hands disappearing to either side of the picture view, as he evidently grabbed his monitor. He turned it, swinging its holocam view off him. Han expected it to focus on Tendra, Lando's wife, or Nien Nunb, his Sull.u.s.tan manager, but instead it settled on a view of another gray wall, this one decorated with a holo of a s.h.i.+ny, skeletal YVH combat droid, which was manufactured by one of Lando's companies, Tendrando Arms.

But it was not the three-dimensional picture of the menacing droid that drew Han's attention. It was the jagged crack in the wall behind it, stretching from upper right to lower left, pa.s.sing beyond the holo-comm's field of view in either direction.

Leia snorted. "What caused that? A Hutt sat on your roof?"

Lando swung the monitor back to face him. "Quakes. Ground-quakes, nasty ones. They're increasing in strength and frequency, and the scientists I've brought in can't figure out why."

Han frowned. Nien Nunb was the manager of Lando's glitterstim spice mines, which strongly suggested where Lando must be now. "You're on Kessel?"

Lando nodded. "I'm in the auxiliary comm center of my main office building. The primary comm center was destroyed in the last quake."

Han grimaced. "Lando, let it go. Kessel is a doomed world." Kessel, an undersized planet near the Maw, was notorious for many things. It was the origin of glitterstim, a drug with just as many illegal applications as legal ones, and the source of a great deal of smuggling activity. Its spice mines were infamous, having been operated by convict labor for so long that, decades after the system had changed, "going to the spice mines of Kessel" was still a fate promised to children to convince them to behave. The planet was also one of the marker points on the smuggler and race route that bore its name, the Kessel Run.

Over time, the low-gravity planet was bleeding atmosphere into s.p.a.ce. Ancient atmosphere generation plants increasingly struggled to keep up with the loss, but they were gradually failing. The world would eventually become a lifeless environment.

Lando shook his head. "It's still a profitable operation, and the only source of glitterstim anywhere. Efforts to transplant colonies of the energy spiders that produce the stuff haven't been very successful."

Han sat upright. "You're trying to get them to survive on other planets?"

"Yes, but they just stop feeding and die-"

"Good!"

Lando waved his outburst away. "We need more time to work on the problem. Lots more time."

Han repressed a shudder. Once, back in his smuggler days, before he'd ever met Luke or Leia, he had dumped a load of glitterstim rather than be caught with it by Imperial investigators, a decision that had resulted in him being hunted for years by hirelings of the spice's owner, Jabba the Hutt. Much later, he had spent time in those mines, among the convicts, and had been one of the first to survive an attack by an energy spider and reveal the species' existence to the galaxy. The experience had left him with bad memories. "You do need a Jedi." He gave Lando a helpful nod. "You need Kyp Durron. He's a Master, he spent a lot more time in those mines than I did ..."

Lando mimicked his tone. "He's impossible to deal with, he hates Kessel more than you do, he's not my friend ..."

"Of course we'll help," Leia said.

Han looked at her. "No, no, no. Wait until you've had some caf. Your reasoning centers will kick in-"

"Hush." She returned her attention to Lando. "We'll launch today."

Lando sighed, relieved. In his impossibly smooth and gracious manner, he said, "Bless you, Leia. And you, too, Han."

Han managed to keep his teeth from clenching. "Think nothing of it. We'll let you know when we're en route, old buddy." He switched off the holocomm connection.