JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT
AS KENTH HAMNER SETTLED MORE AND MORE INTO THE ROLE OF INTERIM Master of the Jedi Order, he began rearranging things to suit himself, to increase his comfort and efficiency in the position.
For example, morning briefings. Each day after breakfast was served and consumed, he stood in the Great Hall and allowed the Jedi to gather so he could catch them up on all the news he felt he could distribute. Perhaps sending files to all their datapads would have been more efficient, but he liked to see reactions and get immediate responses. Of course, the observers now stood among the Jedi, an odd contrast in their mix of dress—some civilian, some in day wear comfortably resembling their old military uniforms, some in the current uniforms of Galactic Alliance Security or Intelligence divisions.
This day, Master Hamner began, “As you may have heard on this morning's HoloNet News broadcast, there are rumors that the government is preparing a case against Jedi Valin Horn for criminal actions and damages caused by recent events. We will, of course, resist these proceedings, as it is clear that Jedi Horn was, and remains, of diminished capacity. Both the government and the Jedi Order agree that qualified analysts of mental disorders must be allowed to examine Jedi Horn to evaluate the relevance of his mental state; we are in the process of deciding on specialists agreeable to both sides.”
He consulted his datapad, then looked around, his manner more stern. “On another matter, I will not single out anyone for direct disapprobation, but it is clear that some of the Jedi Knights have been indulging in behavior that makes it more difficult for their observers to do their jobs. Though the Order approves of passive resistance in circumstances of civic unrest, it is not appropriate for Jedi themselves to perform passive resistance against rules agreed to by the Order itself. This will be my last warning unaccompanied by corrective measures.
“Speaking of observers, former Jedi Tahiri Veila has flatly refused to allow her observer to accompany her. Veila's unusual legal status makes her opposition to the government regulation an interesting one, and the Temple's own lead counsel has accepted her case as she and the government countersue each other.
“Master Sebatyne, Jedi Sarkin, Jedi Tekli, please report to me for new assignments. That is all.”
As the assembly broke up, Jaina ducked around a column, the better to remain unseen by her observer, and made her way stealthily to a back set of stairs. Moments later, she was two levels down and entering a conference room little-used because of its low ceiling and un-invitingly dark wall color.
Jag, inside, waited until the door was sealed behind her before taking her in his arms. “You've shaken your pursuit.”
“He's so … friendly. It would be a shame to kill him.” It was a joke, but even in jest, the notion of cutting down Dab, who so resembled her brother Anakin, of killing in a sense a second brother, sent a shudder through her. “This has got to end.”
“The sneaking around?”
“Oh, I'm fine with the sneaking around.” She smiled, her humor restored. “But to actually be followed while I'm sneaking around, I hate it.”
“You could always resign from the Order, come away with me to the Empire, and set up that rival Jedi school.”
“Stop saying that. It's beginning to tempt me.” She spoke in a more serious tone. “Jag, I'm the Sword of the Jedi. I'm the defender of this Order, not of some rival Order, some start-up school. My fate is here.”
“Your fate was that you would live a restless life and never know peace. How can you accept that for yourself?”
“What if I didn't? What if I had rejected it, retired as a Jedi, decided to enjoy myself after the Dark Nest mess? I'd have been off on a vacation world when Jacen became the force he turned into. What if I was the only thing that could stop him, and I never did?”
“It didn't happen that way.”
“No, but the next one might. If I just shed my responsibilities and run off to the Remnant to play schoolteacher, what happens when the Sword is needed next?” Something occurred to her. “You want to spend more time with me? Over the years, instead of just the next few days or weeks?”
“You know I do.”
“Then resign as the Head of State of the Empire. There are plenty of men and women eager to take that position.”
He was silent a long moment. “I … can't.”
“Because it's your responsibility.”
His “Yes” was almost inaudible.
“So don't try to convince me to abandon mine.”
“All right.”
“We'll try to make this work. If we can't … well, at least we'll have this time.”
He leaned down to kiss her, but her comlink beeped, a distinctive pattern of two-then-two tones. Jaina sagged and she let her forehead thud down into his chest.
“What is it?”
“Dab. The observers all have to run checks on their Jedi twice a day, at random times, to make sure we're where we're supposed to be. I have to run upstairs and show him I'm still here.”
“I could kill him for you.”
“I said it before—don't tempt me.”
ABOARD JADE SHADOW, DORIN SPACE
Ben decided that Dorin was just about the ugliest inhabited planet he could remember, and he had seen quite a lot of them. It was also one of the strangest star systems in his experience. Even after having read up on it in advance of arrival, he found that foreknowledge did not reduce the effect of seeing the system through Jade Shadow's viewports.
The Dorin sun was a small, orange thing, and it was situated directly between two large and proximate black holes. The net effect, looking at the system from a stopping point less than a light-year away, was of seeing a dim and distant light illuminating a precarious path with bottomless cliffs on either side. Except Ben, smoothing down the hair on the back of his neck, did not perceive the black holes as dangerous drops, but as lifeless eyes staring at him. “Kind of gets to you, doesn't it?”
His father looked up from the task of inputting the last hyperspace jump. Calculations here had to be very precise. Situated between two such powerful gravity wells, the Dorin system was very complex, and any mathematical error was even more likely than usual to endanger a ship.
Luke nodded. “Black holes are an interesting astronomical phenomenon to scientists, and a vaguely unsettling image for most other people … but Force-users and Force-sensitives have a real dislike or dread of them.”
“Why?”
His father shrugged. “The Force derives from life. Even death is not all that disturbing to a Force-user, since it is a part, a necessary consequence, of life. Black holes are something else. A cessation outside of life. Maybe the way they draw in all energy and trap it forever runs against our instincts. I'm not sure. I do know that the Force-sensitive children we hid at Shelter during the Yuuzhan Vong War did not like being in the Maw, surrounded on all sides by black holes. You're too young to remember, but the Jedi caretakers at Shelter said there was a lot of crying.”
“Did I do a lot of crying?”
“I don't think so. You were pretty much shut off from the Force in those days.”
“Well, good.”
Luke grinned and returned his attention to his calculations. “Ready to jump in ten seconds … five, four …”
When space untwisted around them, they were well within the Dorin system. The sun ahead was bigger but no more cheerful, and its dull hue seemed almost dirty. Ben could see stars above and below the sun, but looking rightward and leftward through the yacht's ports, there was nothingness, no welcoming gleam of stars. He suppressed a shudder.
It took a few minutes for Luke to raise Dorin starship control on the comm. The distant officer spoke Basic with an odd, slightly muffled accent, but she rapidly authorized Luke to land his craft at the spaceport in the capital city of Dor'shan and assured him that replacement air bottles for his breath masks were readily available for purchase.
As Dorin grew in the forward viewport, it became no more appealing to Ben. Dark and mottled, it had a gloomy aspect to it. But he reached out with the Force and felt no such emotion emanating from it. In fact, it was as alive as any low-population world he had visited, and far cheerier under the surface than the malevolent Ziost. He relaxed. Dorin was not a place of hidden dread and evil intent.
They slid through a murky atmosphere and descended toward a twilight city of buildings that were small and isolated by Coruscant standards. Many were domes, ziggurats, trapezoids—all forms much wider at the base than at the summit, and Ben was reminded of what he had read of this world, that its architecture and even, to some extent, the abilities of the Baran Do Sages had developed in response to the ferocious storms that frequently swept across the planet's surface. Ben decided that these squat, unlovely buildings were ideally suited to a population that needed to hunker down and wait out bad weather.
And perhaps they weren't so unlovely after all. Even from a great altitude, he had seen the city as a sea of lights blazing in many colors, and as they got low enough to glimpse details on the face of the buildings illuminated by those lights, Ben saw the Kel Dor geometric and organic patterns painted onto those buildings, disguising their rudimentary shapes with patterns of well-matched colors. Some structures bore tawny browns and golds in color waves that suggested sandstorms, while others were in dappled aquatic hues that would probably half convince someone standing beside them that he was resting at the bottom of a shallow bay.
Then they were over the spaceport. Each building had a domed terminal or hangar, with simple arrows on the roofs pointing to a specific landing circle or set of circles. Luke set the Jade Shadow down on a circle of permacrete next to a smaller white and tan dome. Then he taxied slowly on repulsorlifts, following blinking lights embedded in the permacrete surface, into the adjacent domed hangar, whose doors slid closed and sealed once the yacht was settled. Inside, the hangar was well lit but bare.
Ben unbuckled and rose. “This place isn't as ugly as I thought at first.”
“No, it isn't.” Luke pointed at Ben's seat. “Sit.”
“Huh?”
“Postflight checklist.”
“Oh.” Exasperated, Ben sat again and brought up his checklist on the monitor. “Engines cooling within standard rates. I notice there's no one here.”
“No one here, check.”
“Running engine diagnostics now. And the hangar doors are …” Ben bounced a comm query from his control board to the hangar's. “Locked. We're locked in.”
“Locked in, check.”
“Stop that.”
Luke smiled. “We're supposed to stay here until they complete a routine inspection.”
“Inspection.” Ben felt a touch of outrage. “You're the Grand Master of the Jedi Order.”
“And the brother-in-law of a smuggler.”
“Well, your rank should count for something. Uh, prelim diagnostics run checks out in the green.”
“Full diagnostics on all systems, please.”
Ben initiated the program. As he did so, he saw an oval section of wall stretch itself toward them, elongating slowly toward a side coupling ring. “Here they come.”
Ben and Luke met them at the air lock. It cycled open to reveal two humanoids, lean to the point of emaciation, dressed in black robes decorated in vertical black and sky-blue striping patterns. They were bald, with intelligent eyes that seemed very human, but their lower faces were obscured by breath masks. One carried an apparatus in a black backpack; a metal cable ran from it to a wandlike device, numerous sensor intakes along its length, which he held in his hand. The other had only a small card reader.
The one with the card reader extended a hand, palm up. “Identi-cards, please.” His Basic was unaccented.
Ben handed his card to the Kel Dor an instant after his father. The inspector slid each one for a moment into his reader. “I am Lieutenant Dorss, customs. This is Sergeant Vult. He will conduct a brief inspection of your craft. Are all compartments accessible?”
Luke nodded. “They are.”
Again Ben felt the urge to protest, to tell them, Don't you understand, this is Luke Skywalker. Why are you bothering? But his father seemed unperturbed, so he pretended to be as well. Still, he wondered what good it would do to travel under a name as famous as his father's if it didn't at least lubricate the wheels of bureaucracy.
The second Kel Dor disappeared aft, waving his sensor wand.
Now Dorss began his ritual interrogation. “Purpose of visit to Dorin?”
“Research,” Luke said. “We seek an audience with the Baran Do Sages.”
“Information brokerage, then?”
Luke frowned, perplexed. “I don't think so. I didn't plan to offer any credits for the information I'm looking for. Nor would I charge any for information I provide.”
“No trade goods?”
Both Jedi shook their heads.
The Kel Dor hesitated, then handed back the identicards. “Tourism, then.” There was an air of finality to his decision. “Will you require accommodations?”
“No, for convenience's sake, we'll be keeping quarters aboard the yacht.”
The Kel Dor nodded knowingly. There was something in the gesture, as if he had concluded long before that celebrities were tight with their credits and was happy for Luke Skywalker to reinforce the stereotype, that irritated Ben further.
The sergeant returned and spoke a few words to Dorss in what must have been the native tongue of Dorin. Dorss nodded. “All personal effects within categorical limits. Enjoy your stay on Dorin.”
“Thank you.” Luke waved agreeably as they reentered the air lock.
Ben frowned. “This is worse than traveling incognito. They acted like they'd never heard of you.”
Luke smiled, and there was just a touch of taunt to it. “You've been around, Ben. Wasn't that much nicer than arriving somewhere and finding that everyone is trying to shoot you?”
“Well … yes.”
“Don't get too used to the benefits of fame, son. You'll find yourself making mistakes in order to regain them when they're taken away from you.”
“I guess.”
“Now get on the planetary data grid and find us city maps, city directories, the location of the Baran Do headquarters, contact names, for our datapads. I'll check out our own breath masks to make sure they're up to the job.”
“Right.” Ben returned to the cockpit, wondering if, in deciding to accompany his father, he had somehow consigned himself to ten years of dullness.
No, that was a child's perspective. He had to continue thinking like an adult. Like a Jedi.
Even a Jedi in exile.