Star Wars: Fate Of The Jedi: Omen Part 11

"SO," BEN SAID, WITH EXAGGERATED NONCHALANCE. WE'RE GOING TO go see the Aing-Tii."

"Yes ... we are." Luke's voice held a question.

"We're going because Jysella Horn flow-walked, and you suspect that Caedus might have used flow-walking to kick off the whole Jedi-going-crazy thing in the first place."

"Right again. Perhaps you'll tell me my name next, or who my sister is?" Luke's voice held no irritation, just mild amus.e.m.e.nt. He was trying to figure out what Ben was getting at. Ben continued.

"So ... I'm thinking that the best way to understand something is to learn about it."

"Ah. Now I see where you're going with this."

"Well, you wanted to master the ha.s.sat-durr, even when the Baran Do Sages were leery of teaching you," Ben offered. "Even when they thought it might turn you into another Caedus."

"True enough."

Ben waited, but Luke offered nothing further. He waited longer, patiently, but still no more words came. So he tried again.

"It's not a dark side ability per se," Ben said. "Not exclusively. It isn't inherently a harmful thing, like Force lightning or Force grip. I mean-you can't even really change anything substantial, from what I understand. And Jedi already are able to look into the future a little bit-that's why our reflexes are so sharp and fast."

"We use the Force to do that."

"And don't you use the Force to flow-walk?"

"True, but ... Ben, it's not what you are imagining it to be like."

"You don't know what I'm imagining."

"I bet I've got a good idea, because believe it or not, I was once sixteen, and I know what I would think it was like," Luke said, a smile softening what was starting to develop into an argument.

"But you were a very young sixteen," Ben said with a slight touch of arrogance.

"Also true," Luke admitted readily, chuckling softly. "Even so, some things are universal. I don't think I want you learning flow-walking, Ben." He held up a hand as Ben opened his mouth to protest. "No, wait, hear me out. It's not because I don't think you are strong enough to use it wisely, but because-" He stopped suddenly.

Ben inhaled swiftly, his green eyes flying wide open.

They were everywhere.

Dozens-no, hundreds of them. They emerged from every nook and cranny on the suddenly ominously dark vessel, squeezing up from hairline cracks, flooding out from under chairs and consoles. Their legs were waving frantically, and they moved with astonis.h.i.+ng speed up the chair, across his boots, up the legs of his pants- "I see them, too," Luke said. His voice was completely calm. "Nothing but hallucinations, Ben. Remember what we talked about."

Ben did remember, but it was difficult to focus on remembering that these were simple mind tricks when he could feel the vaping things crawling up his legs and arms. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, falling back on logic when his mind kept feeling those myriad tiny little legs scurrying across his skin.

For one thing, such a profusion of arachnids would have been noticed immediately during the preflight check. And even if somehow this many living things got missed both by technology and human eyes, he would be able to sense them in the Force now-and he couldn't. For another, the s.h.i.+p couldn't even contain them all. All logic concluded that the spiders did not exist.

The thoughts, calming and settling, flitted across his brain in less than a second. He opened his eyes and, of course, saw nothing. He turned and met his father's approving gaze.

"Good job, son. What did you see?"

"Spiders," Ben said.

"Me too."

The adrenaline was fading now. The meditation, even as brief as it had been, had sent calming endorphins through Ben's system. "It seems kind of odd that the hallucinations are so universal, you know? Why not something more specifically tailored to the individual? I mean, there are a lot of things that rattle me more than a bunch of spiders."

As he spoke, he thought back to the several nights he had spent on Ziost a few years earlier; of the voices, first in dreams and then when he was awake, telling him to do horrible things ... leading him to want to do them. He also thought of the torture that his cousin had put him through, attempting to temper him like a piece of metal.

Oh, yes-there were a lot of things scarier than a s.h.i.+p full of bugs.

"I'm not sure. We'd have to study the type of radiation we're being bombarded with, and the effects it has on human chemistry. It's possible that it simply activates a basic, primal fear center. Spider bites could be deadly on a primitive world. Strange creatures hovering around us could be, too. Fear is a logical reaction."

"But ... bugs, Dad. Squish. End of problem."

Luke gave his son a glance. "Still scared you at first, though, didn't it?"

Ben felt his face grow hot. Not for the first time, he cursed the pale, freckled skin he had inherited from his mother.

"I was just-surprised, that's all. Now that I know what to expect, I won't be."

Luke shrugged. "We know the spiders and the mysterious beings are typical hallucinations. They might not be the only ones. We should be cautious. Anything distressing, out of the ordinary-we shouldn't automatically a.s.sume it's real."

"Agreed."

Ben decided not to try to pick up where they had been interrupted on the conversation about flow-walking. He did not think he was in a strong position to argue that he was ready to learn such a discipline when he'd just been taken aback-even momentarily-by an illusionary bunch of spiders.

They continued on for several hours, carefully planning short jumps. Luke's ha.s.sat-durr technique proved consistently useful, although it did seem to drain him. Ben started to get a sense for navigating the corridors, extending himself in the Force to a.s.sist his father in determining which way felt right in a place where everything was constantly changing.

The series of short jumps that sometimes felt like one step forward, two steps back, eventually led them to planets. The concentration of corridors was greatest here; it was what permitted life to evolve at all. But each planet proved to be a disappointment. What life there was was primitive and stunted. And a sick suspicion rose in Ben.

He was reluctant to voice it, but he knew he had to. "Dad," he ventured at one point, "what if we're completely wrong?"

"I'm always prepared to entertain that suggestion," Luke said. "The universe is nothing if not humbling. What do you think we might be wrong about?"

"Well-everything we have says that the Aing-Tii live inside the Kathol Rift. But what if they don't? What if everyone is just a.s.suming that?"

"Good question. But you taught me the importance of following the evidence, remember? If everything points to them being here, clearly this is the first place we should look."

"Well, yeah, under normal circ.u.mstances," said Ben. "But 'looking around' here is not good for the Jade Shadow or her crew."

Luke eyed him. "That's true. Do have a better suggestion?"

" ... uh. No." Ben was inordinately pleased that Luke freely admitted that he, Ben, had taught him something. He was less pleased that he hadn't been able to come up with a better idea. "I guess we follow the evidence."

Luke grinned. "Then let's be about it. It'll take as long as it takes. After all, Ben, we've got a decade to kill."

Ben grimaced.

This time Luke let him plot the jump, checking to make sure Ben had calculated properly. The planet they found, though, could be almost immediately ruled out. Ben took a break to eat and drop into a healing meditation for about twenty minutes, then he and his father traded off.

Luke rose from the pilot's seat and Ben slipped into it. His dad patted his shoulder as he headed back to the galley to get a bite to eat.

Ben didn't like to admit it, but he was starting to get bored. He re-focused his attention on what he was doing, because he was wise enough to know that when you got bored, you got careless, and when you got careless Bad Things often happened. He was refreshed, fed, and alert, and his mind wasn't wandering, but he really, really wished they'd hurry up and find the Aing-Tii. Despite Luke's quip earlier, and despite the beauty of the Rift, he didn't want to spend the next several years hopping from corridor to corridor.

Suddenly there came a harsh beeping sound. The lights on the console began chasing one another around like lampflies in summer. The vessel began to shake, but there was no storm- "What the-" yelped Ben. He stabbed at the controls, damping down a quick spike of fear and harnessing the adrenaline to sharpen his reflexes instead. But his reflexes suddenly didn't matter.

He was staring at readings that told him that he was not inside the Kathol Rift, but in orbit around Coruscant. A blink of an eye later, the readings insisted that the s.h.i.+p was in imminent danger of tearing itself apart. Then they were picking up signs of a s.h.i.+p that wasn't there.

Another illusion. Ben almost smiled to himself. Maybe this was what happened in the Rift-the hallucinations started out as generic and became more and more specific. Although the whole Coruscant thing was kinda stupid, because Ben knew good and well that- Luke came racing back from the galley, dropped into the copilot's seat, and began, swiftly but with control, to bring the Jade Shadow back in line. Ben felt him extend his senses in the Force, and the s.h.i.+p seemed to quiet, almost like a living animal responding to the calmness of its master.

"Oh," Ben said. "That ... wasn't a hallucination."

"No," Luke said, his blue eyes narrowing as he gazed at the readings. "Although I can see how you thought it was." On the screen was a "reading" of Tatooine.

Then there was that s.h.i.+p.

There was a sudden bright flash, and the s.h.i.+p that had appeared on the readings was right in front of them.

It was huge, it had come out of nowhere, it was discordant, and it was directly on top of them. For an instant Ben was reminded of the Yuuzhan Vong s.h.i.+ps, but if their vessels were organic in a plant-based fas.h.i.+on, this was living stone. It was a sphere, sort of, but nothing so precise. Strange projections jutted out-exhaust ports? thruster ports?-seemingly at random. It was covered with thick hull plates that were etched with some kind of writing or symbols. And it was moving steadily toward them.

"Well, Ben, looks like we can stop searching. The Aing-Tii have found us."

It had to be. The Sanhedrim s.h.i.+ps could move from one place to another in the blink of an eye. And clearly, they had the ability to affect or confuse readings. As he started to think more clearly, Ben realized that what he'd seen had been stored images and information on the planets, not actual live readings.

"When you can't trust your eyes," Luke said, and Ben finished for him, "Trust the Force."

Ben softened his gaze and dropped into a receptive state, extending his feelings and senses out into the Force that had once so frightened him and was now such a source of strength, knowledge, and even comfort.

It took a while, and he kept part of his attention on the enormous s.h.i.+p in front of them. It made no attempt to contact or fire upon them, but neither did it move away. Ben was certain that the Aing-Tii were watching them as surely as he and Luke were watching their s.h.i.+p.

And then Ben felt them.

They were like no other energy he had ever encountered in the Force. They felt-s.h.i.+fting, weaving in and out of the Force-like they were not really a part of it, although Ben knew that all living things were part of the Force. They were there, and they were not, and they managed both at the same time, and holding that contradiction in his mind was starting to give Ben a headache.

He felt his father reaching out, a strong, clear, bright, calm presence in the Force. There were no words, but Luke was open and inviting. Luke was still as stone, his eyes, like Ben's, open, seeing and also focusing inward.

The response all but took the wind out of him, so powerful was it.

There was a definite sense of-not hostility, but not-wanting. They were not welcome, but neither were they being repulsed. Yet.

They were to be tested. They must prove themselves. There was a hint of softening, and Ben realized that somehow the Aing-Tii knew why they had come, and would at least give them the chance to speak. The softening suddenly turned hard, cold. Ben knew that if they failed the test, they would be refused ... and he got a definite sense that that "refusal" would not be anything pleasant.

He felt his father agree, and then Luke took a deep breath. Ben felt him withdraw from the Force as a conscious presence. He still sensed Luke-he would always be able to sense him, unless Luke himself deliberately chose otherwise. Just as Ben sometimes chose not to be present in the Force. He, too, withdrew, and ground a palm into his tired eyes.

"You agreed to their test," he said.

"I don't really think there was a choice, Ben."

"I don't either. But how do-"

Their screen blinked. Coordinates suddenly appeared on it.

"Never mind," Luke said. "Let's go."

ABOARD THE JADE SHADOW.

AFTER ALL THE STRUGGLING, GUESSWORK, AND SHEER TEETH-RATTLING endurance Ben and Luke had suffered through over the last several days, their current situation had a definite air of relief about it.

Soon after Luke had conveyed his agreement to the Aing-Tii's proposal, coordinates had begun scrolling across the screen. It was a series of jumps that proved to be shockingly easy. On the third jump, Ben said, "You know, we should have been able to figure these out on our own."

Luke replied mildly, "Seems to me that we've spent several days attempting to do precisely that, and that the jumps we're now executing had not occurred to either of us. Besides, we had no specific direction-we were simply trying to cast our net as wide as possible."

Ben sighed. "I know ... I just feel a little foolish. It's so obvious, now that I look at it."

"Things are usually obvious when you're on the other side of them," Luke replied. "Also, if we had arrived unexpectedly in orbit around the Aing-Tii homeworld, we might well have been attacked and killed before we could even present our case properly."

Ben threw up his hands in surrender, laughing. "You win. I don't know why you needed to hire Nawara Ven. You argue a case well enough on your own."

Both fell silent, though, when after the final jump they found themselves...o...b..ting not a planet full of sentient beings but a small, uninhabited moon.

"Dad," Ben said slowly, "do you think we just walked into a trap?"

Luke shook his blond head. "No. If they had wanted to kill us, they had a perfect opportunity to do so earlier. I'd hoped that the test would be conducted on their homeworld, but apparently this is the site they've selected."

Ben touched the controls. The moon was rocky and inhospitable. "It has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, which is good, although the oxygen is a bit lower than ideal. And we're not entirely protected from the EMR of the Rift, but the ha.s.sat-durr technique should keep us safe enough," he said with just a touch of uncertainty.

"Will we need breath masks?"

"No." Thank goodness. "We should be all right outside the Shadow for a few hours. And there's a single life-form. Mammalian."

"Our welcoming party," said Luke, "who will no doubt be the one administering the challenge."

The surface was as rocky as it had appeared from s.p.a.ce. As they maneuvered the Shadow in for a landing, still following the extremely precise coordinates they had been given, they saw the Aing-Tii vessel. The s.h.i.+p was clearly of the same make as the Sanhedrim s.h.i.+p that had confronted them earlier, but on a smaller, more personal scale. It still looked unsettlingly organic to Ben. There were similar protrusions extending from its ovoid, but he could see no doors or ramps. Nor was there any sign of the Aing-Tii representative they had antic.i.p.ated would greet them. Ben and Luke exchanged glances.

"Maybe it will disembark once we show good faith," Luke suggested.

"I hope so. This is all feeling pretty weird."

"I'm afraid I have to agree."

Luke settled the Shadow on the rocky soil, near but not too close to their host's vessel. Ben reached for his cloak-after all that time spent on Dorin lugging around a breath mask and a.s.sorted canisters, he wanted to take only the minimum he'd need.

"Leave the lightsaber," Luke said, already unfastening his own. "We're not coming antic.i.p.ating a fight."

"What if they give us one?"

"The Force will give us enough to rely on if we have to defend ourselves. But Ben-this is the species that Yoda sent a man to for healing. I don't think this challenge is to the death."

Ben wasn't so sure. "Yeah, and they sometimes appear out of nowhere and ram s.h.i.+ps, too." But he left his lightsaber behind as his father wished.