Star Wars - I, Jedi Part 21

"If that's how you repay debts, I'll catch remote bolts for you any day."

"But not today." She reached out and took my left hand. "I'll slave your s.h.i.+p to mine and we'll go back to the Great Temple."

"Right, see if Luke is okay."

Mara paused for a moment, then nodded. "He is, and they know you're incoming wounded."

I rolled myself forward and stood with her help. "They succeeded?"

"They did. Exar Kun is no more." Mara smiled unguardedly. "The Jedi academy, it seems, has gotten rid of a Dark Lord, and produced itself a crop of Jedi."

Exar Kun's attacks had messed me up more than I knew. My left leg and right arm were broken, as well as my right hand. I'd cracked a half-dozen ribs and had bruises and lacerations on my liver and kidneys. My blood chemistry was all off and the Two-Onebee that looked me over thought I'd ejected from a cras.h.i.+ng fighter and never had my parasail open.

In reality I wished I actually felt half that good.

Upon my return I got immediately dunked in the bacta tank that Tycho had s.h.i.+pped out with the medical team for Luke barely a week and a half earlier. I'd been in bacta tanks more than I cared to think about in my life, but this was the first time in one of the emergency ones. Most tanks are vertical tubes, but this one was a horizontal box. I got to lie there being very still because there was no place to go, and the treatment was broken up into six hour stints because the bacta had to be drained, filtered and replaced.

Luke visited me a couple of times, and I read Mara's data-card while not doing a bacta-soak, but I was pretty well out of it in the beginning. As I started to come around, Kyp Durron was returned to Yavin after Han Solo had gotten him so Luke Skywalker could judge him for his crimes. I was back in the tank when that took place and by the time I got back out, Luke, Kyp and Cilghal had departed Yavin to destroy the Sun Crusher and heal Mon Mothma of a mysterious malady. Tionne did her best to keep me company after that, and fill me in on details of the academy life, but I wasn't really fit to be around.

The physical damage Exar Kun had done to me had healed on schedule-had I had access to and used Jedi healing techniques I might have been fitter faster, but that really didn't matter. The battering my mind had taken shook me badly. I knew Kun had only plucked my fears from my mind and displayed them for me in all their ugly glory, but I still had to deal with the fact that they were my fears, generated by me and mine alone to conquer.

After Master Skywalker returned with Kyp from destroying the Sun Crusher, and after Kyp had healed up from his injuries, I asked to speak to Luke alone. We met in the simple room where he lived. He looked a bit weary, but buoyant nonetheless. "What is it, Keiran?"

I leaned against the doorjamb with my right shoulder, taking pressure off my left leg. "I can't stay here any longer."

Looking up from the bed where he sat, Luke stared through me for a moment. "Not you, too."

I wasn't certain what he meant by that remark. I suspected it might have had something to do with Mara Jade and her quick departure after delivering me back to the Great Temple. Tionne had said that Mara looked in on Luke while he slept, but left without speaking to him. Luke had clearly a.s.sumed that she had come to Yavin when she heard he had fallen ill, and his discovering that was not the case seemed to cause him some discomfort.

"I can't stay because there are things here that just are not working." I glanced down and added in a smaller voice. "For me, they're not working."

"Things have not been perfect by any means, but that's no reason for you to leave." Luke frowned at me. "There could be adjustments. We can fix things."

I shook my head. "I don't think you can."

"Give me an example."

I stepped into the room and found both of my hands balled into fists.

"It's a lot of things. Just the way you run this place. If it weren't for the bugs, the monsters and the Dark Lords of the Sith, this place would be a holiday resort. I've had more challenges learning how to eat Twi'lek food."

Luke's jaw dropped open. "How can you say that?"

I tapped my breastbone with my right hand. "I've been through a training academy, remember? I recall having my life radically altered. A training camp breaks you down and rebuilds you into the person the organization wants you to be."

The Jedi Master's face darkened. "I don't want to be turning out Jedi clones."

"You're missing the point. Training academies don't turn out clones. They don't erase the personality of the people they're dealing with, they merely make sure that individual is prepared to handle all of the challenges their new job will thrust at them." I spread my arms wide.

"While we did manage to deal with Exar Kun, we could have done things more efficiently and more effectively had we been a team before that, not becoming one because of it."

Luke closed his eyes for a second, then nodded. "I understand what you are telling me. There certainly is room for change. I can look at the CorSec Academy and see if there are things we need to adapt. You can help me do that."

"You can get New Republic Armed Forces drill instructors to do that sort of stuff." I hesitated for a moment, then glanced down at the floor. "The fact is, I can't remain here with Kyp."

"He's changed, Keiran, changed a lot."

"I don't doubt it. Murdering billions will do that to a fellow." My eyes narrowed as I looked up. "I know the New Republic turned him over to you for judgment and he pa.s.sed some sort of test..."

"Yes. I took him to Exar Kun's temple .... "

"You what?" My mouth hung open. "You took him back to that Sith stronghold?"

Luke nodded calmly. "In that domain of evil he was able to come to grips with his dark side. He has been able to lay his past behind him."

"And that's it?!"

"No, he further atoned by helping to destroy the Sun Crusher." Luke's face sharpened. "He almost died doing that."

I pulled a chair out from Luke's desk and dropped myself down in it. "I'm sure it was harrowing for him, but I have a hard time with someone who destroyed star systems being made a Jedi Knight and held up as an example to the people of the New Republic."

Luke stiffened. "Don't you believe he could be redeemed? Don't you believe it is possible for people to learn their lessons and refrain from evil in the future?"

~'Sure. I believed that of many of the criminals I arrested with CorSec, but that doesn't mean I think they should be released from Kessel before their sentences are up."

"Compa.s.sion is a Jedi's strength."

"And how compa.s.sionate is it to the friends and relatives of Kyp's victims to see him free and exalted?"

The Jedi Master regarded me warily. "The blood of millions is on my hands, too. The crew of the Death Star. The people slain while I served the Emperor reborn."

I sat forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "The Death Star was a military installation and self-defense, pure and simple. While you served the Emperor, yes, people did die-but you sabotaged the Imperial effort, saving the lives of many more than you killed. In a time when all choices are evil, choosing the least of the evils is a virtue."

I paused for a moment. "Punishment for a crime serves a mult.i.tude of purposes. It proves there is a consequence for violating the social contract that binds us all. It serves as a deterrent to others who contemplate committing such acts. Lastly, and most important here, is that the infliction of just punishment estab-lishes and sustains the moral authority of a group. In trying to reestablish the Jedi Knights, this is important."

Luke shook his head. "And I think it is just as important to show that evil can be forgiven, amends can be made. I think you also need to remember Kyp was under Exar Kun's control when he committed his crimes."

I shook my head. "I don't believe it. Under his influence, perhaps, but not under his control."

"How can you say that?"

"It's simple." I looked at him openly. "If Kyp had been under Exar Kun's control, you'd be dead."

"What?"

"Think about it, Master Skywalker. Kun uses Kyp to force you out of your body, then spends the next ten days trying to get someone else to kill you? He uses ancient monsters and poor old Streen to get the job done, when all he needed to do was have Kyp strap your body to the Sun Crusher and fly on out into s.p.a.ce. Or, to make it simpler, though messier, Kyp just parks the Sun Crusher on your unconscious form. Why didn't that happen? Because Kyp didn't want to kill you. You weren't his enemy, only Exar Kun's enemy. Kyp wouldn't have attacked you except that you would have stopped him from taking the Sun Crusher out and killing Imps."

"No, that's not possible." Luke stood and began pacing be-side his bed, then glanced over at me. "I think your time with CorSec has made you too suspicious. You think too much about this stuff."

"Oh?" My head came up and I felt anger beginning to rise in me. "I think, sometimes, you don't think enough, Master Skywalker."

That stopped him. "Really?" His blue eyes became as icy as the tone of his voice. "Would you care to enlighten me?"

I sat back and held my hands up. "You don't want me to do this."

Luke nodded and opened his hands toward me. "No, please."

"You're the Jedi Master. You know better than I what you're doing."

Luke's expression hardened. "Tell me what you think, tell me where you think I am going wrong."

"Okay." Gathering my courage, I kept my face impa.s.sive and my voice even.

"Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi and Yoda both knew your father had been Anakin Skywalker, and had become Darth Vader. You and your sister were separated at birth and hidden away from him to keep you safe, correct?" Luke nodded.

"Then how is it that you were brought to live on Tatooine? Wasn't that Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi's homeworld? You were allowed to live under the name Skywalker. Did they expect Vader's people would overlook such a reference? And weren't you trying to get into the Imperial Academy at Carida? Wouldn't Vader's people notice that name on your application?"

Luke focused distantly. "Are you trying to say they were using me as bait to lure Vader into a trap where Obi-Wan could confront him?"

"I don't know, but from a certain point of view, that could appear to be the truth, couldn't it? Or it could be something as benign as wanting you to grow up with the Skywalker name to provide you with greater motivation to want to redeem it. And they could have had you on Tatooine so there was a logical reason why traces of Obi-Wan's presence would be detected there-where he once lived-in case your guardian's attempts to keep himself hidden failed somehow." I watched him care-fully. "I do think, however, your education has channeled your thinking into certain pathways, just as you suspect my training has done with mine."

'Such as?"

"You see everything in black and white-cleanly defined absolutes. I think, whatever they had intended at first, Obi-Wan and Yoda decided they needed to shape you into a weapon they could use against Vader and the Emperor. Why didn't they tell you Vader was your father? They knew, as an orphan, you wanted to know who your father was. They didn't let you see him that way so you would not be vulnerable. When he told you who he was, he blunted their strategy, but he didn't count on your strength. You saw his admission to you as a covert cry for help, a bid for salvation. From what you've said, your mentors doubted it, as did the Emperor. You fooled them all and succeeded. Now you've turned that success into a validation of everything you were taught, even though what you were taught doesn't support the results you got."

Luke stared hard at me. "You do not think there is only light and dark?

If you leave here with that thought in your mind, you will be vulnerable to the dark side. You will be seduced by it."

I shook my head slowly. "I've nothing to fear from the dark side."

Luke's voice became cold. "You're as good as lost to it, then. You know nothing of its power, its draw. You know nothing of its temptations."

I stood abruptly, tipping my chair over backward and I poked a finger toward his chest. "No, Master Skywalker, you know nothing of what I have been through in my life. I've been eyeball to eyeball with the dark side more than you will ever know. You stand back and see good and evil on grand and cosmic scale, but I've been right down there, right at the point where light meets dark. I know that border intimately and while I've toed the terminator line, I've not strayed as much as a micron over it."

I tried to tamp down my anger, but I found it very difficult to do. "I've been called out to a domestic disturbance and walked into an apartment where the woman of the house is lying there on the floor, in a pool of blood and vomit. Her nose has been pulverized. Her eyes have been blacked and are swollen shut. Her throat has bruises that show a hand and fingers, and fading bruises cover the rest of her body. Standing over her are two teary-eyed toddlers the age of your niece and nephew. And lying there, on the couch a room away, is her glitbiting husband, his fists still raw and b.l.o.o.d.y from the beating, his clothes spattered with her blood. His snores are enough to cover her sobs. I've seen that and had every fiber of my being wanting me to give that animal the rudest wake-up he's ever had. I've wanted to beat him so badly he'd look like a rancor's chew-toy, but I didn't. I pulled back.

"I've walked into a warehouse and arrested a spicelord in his office. He opened a case and it had over a million credits in it. A million-more money than I'll ever see in my lifetime. It was mine, he said, if I'd just take it and walk away. No one would ever know." I narrowed my eyes.

"But I'd know, and I didn't do it."

He started to say something, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

"My father died in my arms, his life leaking out of him. I had no good-bye. I had no chance to tell him I loved him. I had to hold him, feeling his life fade, hoping for a response, anything to let me know I'd not failed him, and I didn't get it.

"I went out and I found the bounty hunter sc.u.m that killed my father, and I arrested him. There wasn't a person in CorSec that would have whispered in protest if I'd shot him resisting arrest.' I could have marched Bossk into One CorSec Plaza, right there in the lobby, and blown his head off in front of hundreds of witnesses, and they'd have all said the prisoner was escaping and a threat to others. I could have killed him, I could have avenged my father, and I didn't. And when our Imp liaison officer let Bossk go, I didn't hunt either one down."

I tapped myself on the breastbone again. "I don't know if you think that makes me weak or just stupid. Maybe by not taking revenge I can't be the kind of Jedi you want, maybe by not having wallowed in the dark side and returning you can't be certain of me. I don't know, but don't tell me I don't know the dark side, that I don't know its temptations. I've been there, and I've walked away."

Luke looked ashen-faced, then glanced away from me. "I don't think you are weak or stupid. I think you will make a fine Jedi Knight." He hesitated for a moment, then plunged on. "I am concerned, though, that you think I'm an incompetent idiot. You don't like how I run the academy, my choices concerning other students and my view of the way the universe works."

I shook my head slowly. "No, I just don't think those things work for me.

Couple of points here. You were trained to be a Jedi Knight, and you have become a Jedi Master. I accept that and respect you for all you've been through and learned. What you've done I never could do." I softened my tone as I realized I was jumping all over him while he was at a low point. Though I had problems with the academy, he didn't deserve to be beaten up.

"Despite all that, there's no guarantee you're going to be an ace at teaching, especially the first time out. That said, you've done a fine job with the majority of the students. Even tossing Gantoris, me, Mara, Cilghal and Kyp into the mix, your first cla.s.s only has three failures out of fifteen. That's only a twenty percent failure rate, and I don't think Mara was really a failure. Me, neither.

"As for what I said, that's just one opinion. As we used to say in CorSec, if one guy calls you a Hutt, ignore him. If a second calls you a Hutt, begin to wonder. If a third calls you a Hurt, buy a drool bucket and start stockpiling spice."

The Jedi Master smiled for a second. "You really are going to leave?"

"I have to." I closed my eyes for a second, then opened them again. "You told me, Tionne has told me and even the Holocron told me about how the Corellian Jedi tradition was different from other traditions. We have the Jedi credits and tended to keep more to our home system. You invited me here to bring part of that tradition with me, but I'm not truly following it unless I head out and discover more about it myself."

Luke nodded slowly. "I am still concerned about you and your development.

There are things, in the future, challenges you will face .... "

"I know." I shrugged. "I can only face them as I find them."

He sighed. "Well, you have some time to reconsider. It will take a while to get a s.h.i.+p out here to take you away."

"I have Mara's Headhunter."

Luke frowned. "I thought the hyperdrive motivator was shot."

"True."

Before I could finish my explanation, Artoo rolled into Luke's room, bleating frantically.

Luke squatted in front of the droid. "What is it, Artoo?

What's the matter?"

The droid's holographic display unit glowed. Hovering in the s.p.a.ce between us I saw the image of an Imperial Star Destroyer in orbit over the academy.

The Jedi Master groaned. "What now?"

I patted him on the shoulder. "I wouldn't worry too much, Master Skywalker."

"An Imperial Star Destroyer shows up here and we shouldn't worry?"

"Nope," I said, letting a smile grow on my face, "that's just my ride."

Fore far enough away, the Errant Venture looked like an Imperial Star Destroyer. There was no mistaking that daggerish shape or the tall bridge. The s.h.i.+p's stark bone-white color and sheer size invoked memories of the days when the Empire's need for discipline often dispatched such s.h.i.+ps to punish worlds that harbored Rebels. It was truly a sight to behold, and one from which I would have flown as fast as possible if I did not know what the Errant Venture really was.

I brought the Headhunter up and around in a loop over mids.h.i.+ps on the ImpStar. Its normal complement of weapons had been stripped down, leaving it two tractor beams, ten ion cannons and ten heavy turbolaser batteries.