Red cracked a little and we were able to use what we learned from her to bust the rest of the Jensaarai—that’s what they called themselves—wide open. What we got from them was incredibly interesting because it came wrapped in a strange philosophical package that equated Obi-Wan Kenobi with Darth Vader in terms of being a Jedi exterminator. The Jensaarai were trained as Jedi were, even to the point of constructing lightsabers and training with them, but it was not nearly the transitional point for them that it was in the Jedi tradition I knew.
For the Jensaarai, their crowning moment, their full growth into becoming one of the Jensaarai Defenders—they had Apprentices, Defenders and Saarai-kaar, of which there appeared to be only one—was the creation of their armor. They started with a basic armor shell and covered it with spun cortosis ore fibers, providing them some modicum of protection against all sorts of weapons. They styled the armor after whichever creature they felt best possessed or expressed their personal desires for service to the Jensaarai community, and if the armor we’d taken from them was any indication, the creatures chosen were all defensively minded—creatures that remained hidden and dormant until pressed, then they proved very deadly.
The history of the Jensaarai’s involvement with Tavira was one of mistakes from the start. Tavira, fleeing a New Republic task force, jumped to the Suarbi system, in the Quence Sector. The seventh planet, a gas giant, had a big ring of asteroids around it and over a dozen moons. One of those moons, designated Suarbi 7/5, became known as Susevfi to the colonists who had decided to tame the world centuries ago. Though similar to Yavin 4 in size and rotational speed, Susevfi ran to more savannah-like grasslands, much like Noquivzor—a planet on which I had been stationed before Rogue Squadron took Coruscant. A couple of human settlements grew up, and the Jensaarai were located outside the large seaport, Yumfla.
Tavira and some of her people had come down to Yumfla, and she immediately went to work on the local Imperial governor—a petty bureaucrat who made the last mistake of his life by rebuffing her advances. Tavira had him shot, then declared the planet liberated from the oppression of the Empire and in opposition to the oppression of the New Republic. The Saarai-kaar of the Jensaarai went to Tavira and heard everything she wanted to hear from the Admiral. Tavira cultivated trust, then betrayed it, and put the Jensaarai in the position of protecting their fellow citizens—who had not even known of their existence—by serving Tavira. Failure to serve her would result in the annihilation of Yumfla.
The Jensaarai had picked up on Mirax’s intentions when she’d come hunting the Invids. They nabbed her at Nal Hutta and brought her to Susevfi. Tavira had wanted to slay her, but the Saarai-kaar had insisted on keeping her alive and imprisoned in the old planetary governor’s palace.
Learning what we had, Luke and I knew we had to hurry to Susevfi, and we had to make a difficult decision because we could not bring the Jensaarai with us. A change of heart in just one of them could spoil any surprise we could generate, crushing our chances for getting into the stronghold where Tavira was holding Mirax.
We decided we’d leave them on Courkrus in the company of an ysalamiri. We knew we had to trust someone to hang on to them, so we went to Jacob Nive and revealed to him my identity as Keiran Halcyon, Jedi Knight, and that of Luke Skywalker. We explained to him that we were going to finish the Invids and stop Tavira and offered him a choice. We could destroy the last of the Survivors or give them the same chance at a new start that the New Republic had offered other victims of Imperial aggression and coercion.
Nive accepted the chance to start over. With the New Republic gaining strength, and the last vestiges of the Empire in retreat, the Survivors were losing their anti-Imperial focus and just becoming thieves. Without the protection of the Invidious, the New Republic could have and would have smashed them a dozen times over. He willingly exchanged entertaining five guests and an ysalamiri for a new life.
He looked at me hard. “One thing, Jenos, how do I know you’ll succeed?”
“Why did you fight the Empire all those years?”
“To avenge what happened to my friends.”
I nodded. “Right. Leonia Tavira has my wife. I’m fighting so I won’t need to avenge anyone.”
Nive’s eyes tightened. “The two of you alone?”
I winked at Luke. “We’ve got some allies, and one is really big. We’ll do fine.”
Before we left Courkrus, we shot two messages out. One went to General Cracken telling him we had located the Invidious’ home and were going to take the ship out. Data letting him know where we were going was left with Nive, but we didn’t transmit it directly to Cracken because we didn’t want a New Republic task force showing up and alerting Tavira to what was going on before we had a chance to get in and rescue Mirax. If the New Republic made a move, the Jensaarai at Susevfi could still pick up on it and alert Tavira, dooming our rescue attempt.
I also sent a message to Booster, telling him that I’d located Mirax and was going after her. I didn’t give him even as much detail as we gave Cracken, but I did note I expected to have her safe and sound within a couple of days. The message said I’d bring her to the Errant Venture for rest and recovery first thing.
We’d wanted to leave Elegos behind, but he insisted on traveling with us. He and Ooryl had begun to get along famously—a trend I found profoundly disturbing—meaning that the two of them bonded while comparing experiences of sharing quarters with me. Elegos pointed out that the small ship which Luke and Ooryl had brought to Courkrus was notoriously difficult to handle with one pilot, and since he could fly, he should back Ooryl up, just for appearance’s sake if nothing else.
Luke or I could have easily filled the second-seat role, but we were going into Susevfi within the protective bubble of the ysalamiri’s Force repulsion. It would effectively hide all traces of us from any of the Jensaarai Defenders stationed in the planetary ring, as well as those on the ground. The Ring Defenders regularly used their Force powers to get a sense of incoming ships and to subtly direct them away from noticing the faint sensor phantoms of a Star Destroyer hidden in the rings. Even without the Jensaarai hiding the ship, the Invidious would have been tough to pick out of the rings. With the Jensaarai in place such spotting was all but impossible.
Luke stretched out on a padded bench in the small ship’s lounge and draped an arm across his eyes. “If we had more Jedi, we could have accompanied survey ships and probably have picked up on the Jensaarai efforts to hide the Invidious.”
“Could be, but I only noticed them when they were at close range and trying to probe me. When I contacted Tycho at the battle of Xa Fel, they picked me up and I never even detected their presence.” I stood and walked over to the food prep station. I pulled a prepackaged zureber syrup container from the chiller unit. “Want something to drink?”
Luke peeked out at me and nodded. “Sure, toss it.”
I lofted it toward him and it landed with a plop on his belly. He whuffed loudly.
I smiled. “You’re supposed to catch it.”
He sat up, nipped the corner of the package off and spat it out. “I was trying to, but inside the field the ysalamiri puts out, my effort failed.”
I tore open the corner of my syrup container and sipped. “Tough being normal again, isn’t it?”
Luke sighed heavily. “First eighteen years of my life I didn’t have a clue about the Force. I was just a farm boy who liked to fly. I wanted to join the Imperial service and become a pilot. Jedi Knights were ancient history, and old Uncle Owen didn’t encourage me to study that history.”
“I know, it was kind of the same in my house.” I dropped onto the bench at Luke’s feet. “Just didn’t talk about the Jedi that much. I knew my grandfather had known one, worked with one once, but it was kind of like mentioning an ex-wife at a family gathering.”
“Of your new wife’s family, right?”
I laughed. “Yeah, there you go. You know, when I saw my grandfather several months ago and could see the pride he’d taken in helping hide Nejaa Halcyon’s wife and child, I learned how difficult it had to have been for him to keep all this stuff hidden for so long. I think I disappointed him when I rejected my Jedi heritage to pursue the Invids on my own. I’ll have to let him know I’ve reconsidered.”
“I’m glad you did.” Luke sat up and patted me on the shoulder. “Hard to tell what felt worse: having a student turn to the dark side or having someone just walk away because of my teaching.”
I shrugged. “You know us Corellian Jedi—notoriously contrary and bent on going our own way.” My conversation with Elegos flashed through my mind. “I owe you an apology, by the way. I never put aside my expectations for the academy, so I never really gave you a chance to train me.”
“Accepted but unnecessary.” Luke gave me a nod. “I didn’t make it easy for you. I’ve got to remember that parallel tracks are not better or worse, just different. We’re still heading in the same direction.”
“True, but that still doesn’t mean I’m entirely comfortable with things like Kyp’s track. Tavira has it all worked out that Kyp killed the Carida system on orders from the New Republic, and there are going to be a whole bunch of folks who believe her.”
“I know, and I understand how you feel.” Luke drank for a moment, then licked away a blue liquid bead forming at the corner of his mouth. “It could be suggested, though, that the deal we offered Jacob Nive and his Survivors is really a lot like the chance Kyp has been given. In dedicating his life to being a Jedi you know Kyp is really under something of a life sentence.”
“I know, and it’ll be hard labor, too. Killing him wouldn’t make the galaxy any better, so this is likely the best solution.” I drank, leaned my head back and closed my eyes for a moment. “Doesn’t mean I like it and doesn’t mean my inability to come up with a better solution isn’t frustrating.”
“All we can do is our best.” Luke laughed wearily. “So, tell me, did you ever figure you’d be hurtling through hyperspace planning to assault an Imperial Governor’s palace, which is now the stronghold for a renegade Imperial admiral and her crew?”
I opened one eye and screwed it around to look at him. “Tatooine must have been really, really bad if that was the kind of fantasy life you created for yourself.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Right, I was there once. On any other world the Jawas would be the size of Hutts, but on Tatooine, they shrink.”
“Good thing, too, or imagine what they’d cart off.” Luke smiled. “Actually, I have good memories of Tatooine, more than bad.”
“But you wanted off that rock.”
“In the worst way.” His smile died. “And I got it.”
I reached over and grabbed him by the back of the neck. “Yeah, but it brought out the best in you, and that means the rest of the galaxy gets a shot at realizing its best. Losing your uncle and aunt had to hurt, but I bet they are happy with the return the investment of their lives got through you.”
“Think so?”
“Yeah, no doubt.” I smiled at him. Here, within the ysalamiri bubble, Luke seemed to lose some of the brooding oppression that settled on him when he remained aware of the universe around him. The optimism and uncertainty he had known as a boy shone through. “You had no brothers and sisters, right—I mean, you grew up alone?”
“ ’Cept for friends, yeah.”
“Me, too.” I smiled. “And, no, I never imagined I’d be heading out to an Imperial Governor’s palace to face down a renegade Imperial admiral.”
“Oh.”
“For me it was racing off to Nal Hutta to face down a Hutt crimelord in his own den.”
“Talk about stacking the odds against you.”
I laughed. “I’m Corellian, remember?”
“Right, forget I said anything about odds.” Luke finished his drink and crushed the container. “I guess all of us get dealt cards we don’t want in life.”
“True enough. The trick is in how you play them. Some people have the greatest cards in the world and still lose.” I nodded at him. “For a farm boy growing up on dust and dreams, you’ve not done half bad.”
“From a Corellian, that’s quite a concession.”
The bridge-comm squawked. “Ooryl says we have five minutes to reversion, then about an hour to transit to Susevfi. Better get ready lest our reception be hotter than intended.”
I slapped the transmit button. “We copy, Elegos. We’ll be set.”
Luke got up, crossed to the shelf where he’d plugged his lightsaber into a recharger, freed the weapon and clipped it to his belt. He likewise unplugged mine and looked it over. “Nice work. Dual-phase?”
I frowned. “Tried to repeat Gantoris’ feat of engineering. Right now only one phase works. Gotta find a real diamond.”
“Dual-phase blades seem to be something of a fad among Jedi at certain points.” He tossed me the lightsaber. “Still, I like the blade and it seems well made.”
“Little bit ugly, but I used what I had available.” I caught it and screwed the pommel cap on. Standing, I stretched, then clipped the weapon to my belt. “One question before we get going, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.”
“Okay, us Jedi, we’re only supposed to be using our powers to defend, but we’re going to be assaulting a base.”
Luke nodded. “Right. We’re acting to defend Mirax’s life, and the lives of Tavira’s future victims.”
“I’m with you so far, but I’m wondering if we don’t have a little more immediate moral obligation, say, concerning those folks who will see us as aggressors.” I frowned. “I’m guarding something and I see a guy coming at me with a lightsaber, I’m going to shoot. You know, it’s that ‘certain point of view thing.’ ”
The Jedi Master frowned. “I see your problem. When I had to deal with Jabba the Hutt, I warned him to let us go or he’d be destroyed. He didn’t listen and that was, more or less, the end of that.”
“So, warn those who might not realize what they’re doing?”
Luke nodded. “If we can find any down there. An Impstar Deuce ships, what, ten thousand stormtroopers? I don’t imagine the Invidious is fully crewed anymore, but she’s got plenty of folks at her disposal. Want to guess how many are down guarding the palace?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I tightened my robe’s belt. “The Emperor didn’t mint enough of those guys to keep me from rescuing Mirax. They can run or they can die, their choice.”
“Corellians.” Luke shook his head. “No wonder the other Jedi didn’t want you leaving your system.”
I winked at him. “The rest of you were just afraid we wouldn’t leave anything for you to do after we were done.”
“I hope you’re right, my friend.” Luke hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Mission like this, we’ll both have more than enough to do.”
Luke and I had tried, albeit briefly and in vain, to get Ooryl and Elegos to remain behind on the ship and monitor starship traffic in and out of the system. A comlink call could warn us about Tavira’s Invidious moving out, or anything else that could cause us to shift our plans. Ooryl and Elegos had anticipated us and programmed the ship’s computer to pull down all system traffic data, then relay it through a scrambled comlink channel to the datapad Elegos had jury-rigged to receive the signal.
Elegos noted that between his sense of smell, and Ooryl’s ability to see beyond what we humans rather arrogantly called the visible light spectrum, we could move through the night more effectively and without having to rely upon our Force-enhanced senses, delaying our detection by the Jensaarai. I had to agree with that point, and having seen Ooryl in a lightfight before, having him with us didn’t hurt at all. He carried a blaster carbine and a string of powerpacks slung across his chest.
Elegos hefted a blaster carbine and strapped a belt of powerpacks on around his slender waist. I looked at him and narrowed my eyes. “You don’t want to be a part of this, do you? You don’t want memories of the killing here.”
“I am coming with you, and if I do not carry a weapon and assist in our defense, I will be just a burden. If you fail because of me, that memory would be worse, and I will not have it. I intend, instead, to have memories of your saving your wife to carry with me.” Elegos held the weapon up in his left hand and thumbed a lever. “And the stun function on this weapon seems to work.”
I smiled, then looked at him and Ooryl and Luke. “Before we go, I just want to thank you all. Better friends a man’s never had. You’re all insane, but friends nonetheless.”
Elegos looked at Ooryl. “Corellians never know when to stop talking, do they?”
Ooryl’s mouthparts opened. “Other Corellians do.”
Luke laughed, then jerked a thumb at the egress hatch. “Let’s go do something else Corellians never shy from. Let’s beat some long odds.”
We stalked through the darkened streets of Yumfla with impunity, all but unnoticed. Months ago I would have found that to be curious, but not after the time I’d spent with the Invids. In this city, those who were not part of the Invidious crew enjoying leave, or were not patrolling the streets, stayed home. They lived in an occupied city, and while some of them might make money by supplying goods and services to the Invidious’ crew, most wanted nothing to do with the ex-Imperials. I’d felt the same sort of tension in Vlarnya and was glad of the insulation it provided us from the normal folks.
The crewmen themselves presented no problem since they were on leave and only looking to enjoy themselves. This kept them indoors on a hot and humid evening, where a cantina’s environmental control unit could make the night bearable, drinks could make it pleasurable, and company could make it exquisite. Dirt-patrols, meant for picking up sick, stupid or belligerent spacers and returning them to the ship, barely gave us a second glance. Elegos’ nose picked up the scent of the armor well before we saw the stormies, allowing us time to slip away down a sidestreet, or gather on a corner unobtrusively.
Finally we reached a building across a small greensward from the Imperial Governor’s palace. The building itself had an eight-meter-high wall running around it, with towers at each of the four corners that rose up another two meters. A large, recessed, arched entryway split the wall in two, but had been closed for the evening with two massive metal doors. Stormtroopers patrolled in pairs along the walls, and two each stood in the corner towers.
The palace itself had been set up in a triangular pattern with towers at each of the points. Left and right were two smaller towers, each a good fifteen meters in height and twice that in diameter. Directly back from the gate, the triangle’s furthest point had a rectangular tower that rose to thirty meters in height. The central third of it had been shrunk by a couple meters on each side, as if a giant fist had closed around it. It made for an interesting architectural look that differentiated the palace from most of the local buildings. A four-story-tall foundational building connected all three towers, and a private shuttle pad had been built into the roof of the big tower—which is why it had blinking lights crowning it.
“Twenty meters to the gate.” I crouched down, unfastening my cloak and letting it slide off my back. I boosted a pinch of dust into the air and watched it blow toward the palace. “At least we have a tail wind.”
“Good. Ooryl and Elegos cover us, we weave our way there.”
Elegos cleared his throat. “The gate is closed. How do you propose to get in?”
We each brandished our lightsabers. “We’ll knock,” Luke offered, “real loud.”
“What are you doing there?” A stormtrooper and his partner appeared from nowhere around the corner of the building shielding us. “Let’s see some identification.”
“Sure.” I stood slowly and held my lightsaber like a glowrod while I motioned with my left hand as if digging for identification. “I know I have something here.…” I thought that I might be able to project an image into his brain that would get him to go away, but my mind blanked.
The stormtrooper took a half-step toward me. “You look familiar.”
“Me? No, can’t be.”
“Trying to be smart?” The stormtrooper’s blaster came up to cover me. “You’re coming with us.”
I glanced at Luke, then shrugged and depressed my thumb, shooting the silver blade straight through the stormtrooper’s chest. I shoved him back into his partner, knocking his blaster aside. The second stormtrooper still pulled the trigger, spraying shots out into the night. My lightsaber came across and trimmed his shoulders down to the level of his armpits, ending his attack.
Luke stared at me. “You need to work on this idea of warning.”
“Didn’t get a chance with them, no.” I ducked down as the stormtroopers on the palace wall started shouting and firing shots in our direction. Alarms began to blare. “But the others, I think they’re all sorts of warned.… I suggest we go, now!”
Luke and I sprinted toward the palace gate, cutting back and forth to make ourselves difficult targets. As I ran I opened myself to the Force and felt a flood of data pour in. I planted with my right foot, cut to the left and whipped my lightsaber around to the right, batting a blaster bolt out into the night. Another two steps, then hesitation as fire from an E-web mounted in the right tower slashed across my path, then a dive-and-roll over the stream of bolts starting to track toward me. I fended off two more bolts, wishing I could manage, as Luke did, to direct them back at the men who had fired them, then reached the sanctuary of the recessed gate.
I pushed my sphere of responsibility to see what was on the other side awaiting us, but found no one. I pushed further and then smiled. “I have her, Luke. This close, I have Mirax. Tower your side, down.”
The Jedi Master smiled. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”
In tandem we slashed left and right from the center of the gate and down through the big metal doors, carving a hole large enough to admit a landspeeder. I stepped inside, then slashed up and through the elbow of a stormtrooper shoving his blaster carbine down to spray us. He screamed and reeled away. I tugged the carbine from his falling hand and triggered a burst of bolts at a stormtrooper hunkering down from Elegos’ covering fire. I hit, sending him spinning from the wall, then sprinted after Luke.
Luke scattered a half-dozen bolts fired at him, sending four back at the tower from whence they had come. One stormtrooper went down, the other just ducked, but the E-web sparked and started to burn. Luke sliced the barrel from the blaster rifle carried by the lead stormtrooper running from the tower where Mirax lay, then dropped him with a backhand blow that separated the man’s pelvis from everything that normally rested on it.
I snapped the selector lever over to stun, then shot the next man in line. Elegos came through the gate and peppered the next three with stun shots. They all tottered and fell. Luke dashed into the tower doorway. I saw a flash and heard a blaster whine, but the green lightsaber continued to hum.
Ooryl came through the gate and laid down a pattern of suppression fire that held off the stormies coming from the far tower. Elegos and I covered him as he retreated to the tower, then we entered and I sprinted straight for the stairs leading down. This took me past two stormies with their assorted parts scattered in awkward positions. One level down I caught up with Luke at the mouth of an octagonal corridor festooned with sunken doorways.
He stood by a control panel scanning a readout of prisoner names. “Calling up a prisoner roster now.”
I glanced at the list and tapped a name. “That’s her.”
“Holding cell 02021020.”
I nodded and ran down the corridor. “Here it is.” I reached the door, shot the lock and watched the door retract amid a shower of sparks. I took all three steps in a leap, then stopped just inside the doorway.
There she was, just lying there, as Exar Kun had shown me. The little grey device on her forehead flickered with green and red lights, and the silver light from above bathed her in a radiance that left her skin almost pure white. It reflected true from her black hair. She looked perfect and asleep and I felt my throat tighten. You are incredibly beautiful, Mirax, and you’ve been away far too long.
Luke squeezed past me and leaned over by her face. “Don’t think this is what’s keeping her under. Feels like a Jedi hibernation trance. Normally a person can’t be placed in one against her will, but if this device broke down her resistance, it might have been possible.”
I nodded. “I’ve had experience with machines breaking down resistance.” I set my lightsaber and blaster down on her bier. “Take the gadget off, let her wake up.”
Luke pulled the device away and smashed it against the wall. “It’ll take a bit more than that to wake her up.” He reached his hand toward her forehead. “There’s a Jedi technique used.…”
I grabbed his wrist. “Know of it. Read about it in my grandfather’s notes.” I smiled at him. “She’s my wife, I’d like to help. You bring her out of it, and I’ll let her know she’s been missed.”
Luke nodded and waited for me to come around on Mirax’s other side. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it.” I gave him a nod, then leaned down and kissed my wife on the lips.