Dark Nest_ The Joiner King Part 21

A bang sounded back in the engineering bay as a power circuit overloaded, then the lights dimmed as R2-D2 redistributed s.h.i.+eld power.

Luke felt a surge of anxiety from Mara, but pushed it to one side so he could concentrate on the task at hand. He formed an imaginary picture of the Shadow's exterior, then expanded it into the Force, moving it from his mind out into the c.o.c.kpit.

Mara turned around and inspected the image carefully, then said, "Looks good."

Luke continued to enlarge the image, extending it into every corner of the vessel, taking his time to absorb the attributes that made up the Shadow's sensor signature. He began to grow tired, but ignored his fatigue and expanded the illusion until it covered the entire s.h.i.+p like an imaginary skin.

Another bang sounded in the engineering bay. This time, before R2-D2 could redistribute power, the sound was followed by the m.u.f.fled thuds of several hull hits. Mara hit the crash alert, closing all airtight doors and activating the pressure stop-loss systems, then spoke over the intercom.

"Nanna, get Ben into his vac suit."

"I've already done that," the droid responded. "We're waiting at our evacuation station now. Perhaps you should come-"

"Nanna, you short-circuit!" Ben's voice said. "We're fine. Dad said so!"

Trying not to be distracted by his son-or by the steadily growing shudder of the barrage of darts.h.i.+p attacks-Luke brought to mind another image of the Shadow, this time with a black, star-speckled veneer that resembled the emptiness of deep s.p.a.ce. Instead of absorbing the s.h.i.+p's sensor signature, however, he blanketed it with a layer of cold emptiness.

Once the illusory skins were in place, he carefully adjusted them, drawing the masking image tight against the hull here, pus.h.i.+ng the counterfeit out a little there. The effort of maintaining both illusions began to deplete the energy running through him, so Luke opened himself up completely, using his fear for Ben's life, his anger at the insects that were threatening it, to draw more Force into himself. Every centimeter of his body began to nettle with its sting, and a faint aura arose from his skin.

A third bang sounded from the engineering bay.

"How about that decoy, Skywalker?" Mara asked. "Our s.h.i.+elds can't take-"

Luke released the outer skin. "Go!"

Mara shoved the throttles to overload, then, half a second later, shut down the drives. The Shadow slid out of her double and-still masked by the dark veneer Luke had constructed - glided quietly away from the Force illusion.

The shuddering stopped. Luke continued to maintain both illusions, the Force pouring through him like fire, burning more fiercely every moment. He was drawing more energy than his body was conditioned to endure, literally burning himself up from the inside. It was not really a dark side act-to a modern Jedi, the dark side was more a matter of intent than deed-but it felt that way to him. According to Mara, this was what happened to Palpatine, and Luke believed her. He could feel himself aging-his cells weakening, the membranes growing thin and the cytoplasm simmering, the nuclei coming apart.

The air around him began to crackle with static.

R2-D2 extended a fire extinguisher and started toward Luke, squealing in alarm.

"It's okay, Artoo!" Mara said. "He knows how far to push it. He's not going to ignite."

I hope, she added silently.

On Luke's tactical display, the illusionary Shadow-the real one was not visible even to her own sensors-was slowly drifting toward the bottom of the screen, still surrounded by a cloud of attacking darts.h.i.+ps. A small inset was counting down the seconds remaining until the Force-cloaked Shadow would be far enough from the darts.h.i.+ps to restart the drives and flee. The way Luke was hurting, thirty seconds seemed like an eternity.

"We're bringing Juun and Saba aboard now," Leia commed. Her voice was filled with the concern that Luke felt in the Force. "Do you need help?"

They could not answer for fear that the darts.h.i.+ps would notice the comm waves and discover the Shadow's true position. Instead, Mara reached out to Leia through the Force, trying to a.s.sure her that everything was fine. Though the message would have been clearer coming from Luke, his body was starting to tremble and spark, and he needed all his concentration just to fight his exhaustion.

The XR808g began to drift away from the Falcon on the tactical display, and the Solos started a sweeping turn back toward the "battle."

Luke felt Mara protesting through the Force, but the Falcon only began to pick up speed. Leia was angry with them for trying to be heroes; the situation wasn't that bad.

"Stang!" Mara cursed. "That-"

"Moommmm!" Ben called, peeking around the corner. He was in his vac suit, with the helmet visor open. "Dad says we're not supposed to say stang."

"Your father's right," Mara said. "Aren't you supposed to be at your evacuation station with Nanna?"

"We were, but then the shuddering stopped and..." Ben's gaze drifted over to Luke's glowing, anguished form, and his eyes bulged with horror. "What's wrong with Dad?"

"Nothing. I'll explain later." Mara activated the intercom. "Nanna- ".

The droid appeared behind Ben. "Master Ben!" She swept him up and retreated aft. "The drill is never over until we hear the all-clear."

Luke's skin felt as dry as a Tatooine lake, and tiny haloes of golden light were starting to appear around his fingertips. The Falcon was on a straight heading and accelerating toward the darts.h.i.+ps. The inset on the tactical display showed three seconds, two...

Mara brought the sublight drives back online. Luke let the illusions drop and slumped into his chair, his skin p.r.i.c.kling and his hair standing on end as the last of the Force energy left his body.

Han's voice came immediately over the comm. "What the blazes?" The Falcon made a hard turn away from the confused darts.h.i.+ps. "Did you just tele-"

"Didn't I tell you not to look back?" Mara asked, her voice still that of a reproving mother. "Now fall in behind us and stay there."

"Uh, sure." Han sounded more confused by her tone than he had been by the sudden change in the Shadow's location. "Whatever you say."

The comm went silent, and Mara let out a breath. "Chubba. Don't tell me I just talked to Han like he was a-"

"It's okay," Luke a.s.sured her. "At heart, he's just an overgrown kid anyway."

She activated a mirror section and looked back at him. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I grabbed a powerfeed," he said. "Why is that so much harder than pus.h.i.+ng a Star Destroyer around?"

Mara smiled. "Just don't make a mess on my flight deck."

Feeling in danger of doing just that, Luke started to rise - then caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored section of canopy. His face was puffy and wrinkled, his skin sallow and dry, his eyes sunken and baggy and rimmed in red. He was starting to look like Palpatine.

Not by half, Mara a.s.sured him through the Force.

"But get some rest," she said aloud. "If you push that stuff too hard, there's no telling what might happen."

FIFTEEN.

The AWOL Jedi stood waiting in front of their makes.h.i.+ft squadron, a small eye of calm in a frenetic storm of insect activity. The Knights were still wearing their rumpled flight suits, staring at the Shadow and Falcon as they landed. Tesar and Zekk had the good grace to wear guilty expressions as well, but Jaina and Alema merely looked defiant. Jacen and Tahiri betrayed no emotion at all.

Mara took her time closing down the s.h.i.+p's systems, allowing their suspense to build-and giving herself a few moments to search the cavernous hangar for any hint of danger in the Force. There was no chance that Jaina or any of the others had been involved in the a.s.sault on the Shadow, but someone had attacked her family-and that someone had certainly looked like Killiks. Unlike Luke, she was utterly convinced that Raynar Thul would do anything he thought necessary to keep Jaina and the others in the Colony- even if that meant ambus.h.i.+ng his old friends.

Finally, when she could not find even a hint of danger, Mara joined the others in the Shadow's main cabin. Despite a twenty-minute rest trance, Luke still looked like an escapee from a spice mine, with sallow skin and red-rimmed eyes. Ben was bright-eyed and eager to meet his cousins. He kept looking from his father to the door.

Mara took his hand from Nanna. "Ben, you understand that we have important business with Jaina and the others, don't you?"

"I'm not a Gamorrean, Mom," he said. "I know we wouldn't come all the way out here if it was unimportant business."

"Good. You can say h.e.l.lo to your cousins, but then Nanna will take you to stay with Cakhmaim and Meewalh on the Falcon." She looked to Nanna. "Ask them to lock down the s.h.i.+p - I don't care if it does offend the Killiks."

"I was about to suggest the same thing myself," Nanna replied.

Mara nodded, then opened the boarding hatch to the cloying, fuel-laced mugginess of the big hangar. Ben was off like a blaster bolt, racing down the stairs and throwing himself into Jaina's arms. She laughed and gave him a warm hug.

"Nice to see you, too, Ben," Jaina said. She stepped back and ran an appraising eye over him. "You've grown."

"It's been a whole year." He smiled mischievously, then added, "Boy, are you guys in trouble!"

Mara, who was still only halfway down the stairs, cringed inwardly, but Jaina only smiled.

"I imagine we are."

"Well, I hope they don't take away your lightsaber or anything."

This caused Jaina's eyes to flash, but Ben didn't seem to notice.

He turned to Jacen, who had matured into a handsome man with a thick beard and brooding brown eyes, and seemed unable to decide what he should do next.

Jacen smiled and extended his hand. "h.e.l.lo, Ben. I'm your cousin Jacen."

"I know you." Ben took the hand and shook it. "You went away when I was two. Did you find it?"

The question puzzled Jacen less than it did Mara. "Some of it,"

Jacen answered.

Ben's face fell. "So you're going back?"

"No." Jacen's tone changed to that of a person addressing an equal.

"What I haven't found, I doubt I ever will."

Ben nodded sagely, then glanced toward the Falcon, only now lowering her boarding ramp. "I have to go, but we can talk later."

"Yes," Jacen said. "I'll look forward to that."

Ben took Nanna's hand and started toward the Falcon, leaving nothing but an awkward silence between Mara and the AWOL Jedi. Though Luke was the informal leader of the Jedi Order, they had decided that she would be the one to confront them and put them on the defensive. That would leave Luke free to a.s.sume the role of judge, mentor, or friend-whatever was needed.

Mara stopped a few steps away and studied the young Jedi Knights in silence, meeting each of their unblinking gazes in turn, trying to gauge their moods but finding only the unreadable durasteel of veteran killers.

She did not recall when they had grown so hard. The Yuuzhan Vong had come, and it seemed to Mara that they had gone almost overnight from being teenage Jedi-in-training to seasoned warriors. After what they had seen in battle-after what they had done-it seemed ludicrous to think of them being "in trouble."

Jaina tolerated the scrutiny for only a few seconds, then stepped forward to give Mara a tentative hug. "This is a surprise."

"I'm sure," Leia said, arriving from the Falcon with Han, C-3PO, and Saba. "Raynar didn't make it easy for us to find you."

The glance of silent thanks that Leia flashed to Jacen did not go unnoticed by Jaina or the others, but Mara saw no sign that anyone seemed upset by it.

"Raynar is afraid you'll try to take us back." Tahiri Veila said.

Over the last five years, she had matured into a sinewy blond woman-so much so that Mara might not have recognized her, if not for her bare feet and the three vertical scars the Yuuzhan Vong had left on her forehead.

"And isn't that why you've come?"

"It's good to see you, too, kid," Han taunted. "What do you say we let Luke answer that and just say h.e.l.lo?"

Tahiri's face melted into an expression of joy and chagrin. "Sorry-we were kind of in the middle of something." She opened her arms and went to Han, giving him a big, Wookiee-style hug. "It is good to see you, Han."

When she started rubbing her arms across his back, Han shuddered and looked vaguely nauseated. Tahiri released him with a grin and embraced Leia as well, and the awkwardness finally faded between the two generations of Jedi. Han and Leia hugged Jacen and Jaina long and hard, fondly telling them both they had a lot of explaining to do and making them promise to do so later aboard the Falcon. Then the group exchanged greetings all around, and when they were done, Jaina quickly seized the initiative again.

"So what are you doing here? Without us, I didn't think the council would have any Jedi to..."

The sentence trailed off as her eyes drifted back to Luke's weary face, and her expression changed to one of dismay and fear.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Are you sick?"

"I'm fine-just a little worn," Luke said. "We came to, urn, talk about what's going on here."

Jaina's relief was obvious-as was that of her companions. Only Jacen's expression did not change-and he had seemed unconcerned in the first place. He had been gone five years, and still he seemed less surprised than anyone by Luke's temporary appearance.

Though Mara was being careful not to stare, Jacen gave her a small smile, letting her know that he had sensed her scrutiny. There was nothing menacing in the gesture, but it sent a cold p.r.i.c.kle down her spine. As Palpatine's a.s.sa.s.sin, her life had often depended on her ability to hide her thoughts-both physically and in the Force. Yet Jacen had sensed her attention casually, the way he might have caught a young woman studying him from afar.

Mara pretended not to notice and kept her gaze riveted on Jaina.

"You've let down the entire order," she said, deliberately forcing the younger Jedi to try to excuse their actions. "Losing one of you would have been bad enough, but there's no way we could fill the holes left by all five of you."

As Mara had expected, Jaina would not be intimidated. "Then how could the order spare four Jedi to come 'talk' to us?"

"The council felt the situation warranted it," Luke said. "And now the order is short nine Jedi."

"Situation, Master Skywalker?" Tesar rasped. "Has something happened?"

"You first," Mara demanded. This was not the way the council normally dealt with its Jedi Knights, but she did not want this group taking advantage of Luke's patience-or his regret over the outcome of the Myrkr mission. "What, exactly, are you doing here?"

Jaina and the others shared a moment of silent communion, then, to everyone's surprise, Alema Rar stepped forward.

"We're trying to prevent a war," she said. "Isn't that what Jedi are supposed to do?"

Luke would not be baited into making this a discussion. "Go on."

Zekk spoke next. "You know about the call we'd all been feeling..."

Luke nodded.