Fate Of The Jedi_ Outcast Part 21

"That I already knew."

CALRISSIAN-NUNB MINES, KESSEL.

IN TWO DAYS, THE S SOLOS, CALRISSIANS, AND N NIEN N NUNB HAD MUCH more data and a little more useful information. more data and a little more useful information.

The drones, reinforced by a second s.h.i.+pment, continued tracing the webwork of the tunnels and caverns deep within Kessel and confirmed that the complex encircled the entire world.

Six YVH 1 combat droids, fresh from the Tendrando Arms a.s.sembly plant, arrived and were immediately put into service. Transported into the cavern system through connections with the mines discovered by the sensor drones, they began investigation of the demolition mounds.

Deployed in two-droid teams, the first thing they discovered was that anytime they approached the mounds, bogeys arrived to investigate them. The bogeys invariably flew through them, cras.h.i.+ng the droids' systems. The automata, unlike the sensor drones, eventually recovered from this electronic mistreatment, but when they continued their approach toward the mounds, the bogeys returned. Unable ever to reach the demolition mounds, the YVH droids retreated to a safe distance.

One YVH pair, a.s.signed to a cavern chosen as safe to destroy, utilized a long-distance military-grade missile launcher to fire on its mound from the comparatively safe distance of the cavern entrance. On Tendra's monitor back at the mines, the Solos, Calrissians, and Nien Nunb watched the first explosives package, a concussion missile, roar from the weapon barrel barely visible at the bottom of the screen. The bright flare of its thruster dwindled in the distance as it arced down to hit the ground mere meters from the mound.

The missile exploded. Viewing the scene through the high magnification of the YVH droids' visual sensors, the humans and Sull.u.s.tan saw the explosion kick up soil and shredded fungi from the ground. The antenna-shaped device did not even rock. The barrels in the explosives mound s.h.i.+fted a little but did not otherwise react.

Lando looked dour. "Not very promising."

Tendra keyed the comlink on her control board. "Next package, please." She switched the microphone off and leaned back. "This will be a thermal detonator, one of the smaller ones YVH droids have as a basic option."

"You sound like a speeder salesman," Han muttered.

The monitor showed the arms of the droid loading a different, miniature missile into the launcher, then taking aim. Again the missile flew on its ballistic trajectory from the weapon and arced down to land meters from the demolitions mound. It, too, detonated- The monitor blanked, going to whiteness. Tendra and the others leaned forward, expectant, hoping that this wasn't just a comm glitch. For long moments, the screen remained white and silent; then gradually holocam transmissions of sight and audio began to resume, first as bursts of static and then as full-resolution sound and visuals. The images showed a cavern whose center raged on fire, a fungus-shaped cloud of black smoke rising from a scorched crater at its base, a corresponding burned area on the ceiling above. As the YVH droid turned its head for a panoramic view, the onlookers saw machinery against the cavern walls shattered into junk, some of it burning ... but the destruction was nowhere near as total as it had been in the cavern whose destruction Han and Leia had witnessed.

Lando whistled. "Frankly, I didn't expect that to work."

"Some difference in the explosive characteristics of thermal detonators." Han's voice came as a distant murmur. "Temperature, probably."

"This is good." Tendra breathed a sigh of relief. "If we'd had to go to proton torpedoes-I don't know how many we could have gotten in time. But we manufacture these thermal detonators. We can get all we need, and fast."

Leia bent close to the monitor. "There, in the distance. Look at the bogeys." Fifteen or twenty of them were swarming in the vicinity of the crater. Then, as a swirling cloud, they began flying toward the holocam view, toward the YVH droids.

"Uh-oh." Lando picked up the comm board's microphone. "Five and Six, pull out. Immediate full-speed retreat. Return to pickup zone."

The droids complied. The holocam view swung around, showing stony tunnel rocking as the droids ran from the cavern entrance.

Thirty seconds went by, and then the monitor went mostly dark. Diagnostics boxes along the sides began flas.h.i.+ng red malfunction indicators.

Tendra's expression turned unhappy. "Both offline."

"Still, sweetie, it's a successful test." Lando rubbed his hands together. "Get enough combat droids down there, and we can do it."

Han, solemn, shook his head. "How many is enough, old buddy? A hundred? A thousand? How many can you get here in a day or two?"

"Not that many."

"What we can do, though ..." Han frowned, concentrating. He moved to the monitor and entered the command to bring up the schematic of Kessel and its tunnels. "Here's what we do. We refit the Falcon Falcon and the and the Lady Luck Lady Luck to launch thermals instead of concussion missiles-" to launch thermals instead of concussion missiles-"

Nien Nunb spoke a few words, sounding indignant.

Han didn't need Lando to translate. "Yeah, and the Half a Star Half a Star. I also think we know some crotchety retirees who own their own starfighters and can get here on short notice."

Tendra's face brightened into a smile. "Right. We plot out the best paths through the tunnels."

"Won't work," Leia said. "As the starfighters fly through and launch their detonators, the explosions will be taking place in just the sort of progressions we don't want them to." Then her expression brightened. "Unless we rig the thermal detonators so they don't blow up on impact, but on timer."

"Yeah, yeah." Lando's eyes scanned back and forth, obviously seeing something other than what was actually in front of him. "Mechanical timers, I think, not electronic. We don't want the bogeys disrupting them. It can work." Then his expression turned sad.

"What is it, honey?" Tendra asked.

"Time to spend a lot more credits."

CAVERNS OF THE HIDDEN ONE, DORIN.

They did call him the Hidden One, these other Baran Do living in the caverns deep beneath Dorin's surface, and they did not refer to him in hushed tones, which Ben took as a good sign-an indication that they did not fear him as a G.o.d or a tyrant. But because the Hidden One was currently too busy administering this tiny subterranean kingdom to bother with time-consuming, mundane tasks, the job of shepherding the Skywalkers around fell to the sage who had accompanied them to these caverns, combat instructor Charsae Saal. His first exploration of the cavern became the Skywalkers', as well.

Of course, he was now the former former Charsae Saal. He called himself Chara and insisted that the Skywalkers do likewise. Charsae Saal. He called himself Chara and insisted that the Skywalkers do likewise.

The three of them walked from chamber to chamber, exploring, unhindered by the other Kel Dors present. Ben thought he had counted twenty different Kel Dors in ten chambers and tunnels so far, but as they were all dressed alike it was hard for him to tell. In addition to the arrival tunnel and the Hidden One's grand chamber, they had walked along a gallery tunnel with holes leading into private quarters, a large chamber where vegetables and grains of all sorts were grown in circular hydroponics vats, and a storeroom where primitive digging tools such as pickaxes and shovels were hung. Now they moved through a large chamber loaded with recycling equipment-waste and water recyclers, polymer decomposers, tiny foundries for durasteel and transparisteel.

"Obviously," Luke said, "you've known about this place for some time before coming here."

"I have." Chara nodded. "It was nearly twenty years ago when Master Koro Ziil, sensing that I might someday be suited to this existence, came to me. He swore me to secrecy and told me of the Hidden One, who then was the former Tokra Hazz."

Ben snorted. It caused a touch of condensation to form on the inside of his breath mask, but the film quickly evaporated. "And the idea of living in a hole in the ground and pretending to be dead was just irresistible to you."

Luke gave Ben a now's not the time to mock now's not the time to mock look. look.

Chara did not seem offended. "It's not an issue of pleasing ourselves. It's an issue of service. Service to the Baran Do, and to the cause of knowledge." Having completed the tour of this chamber, he led them back through the blast door and out into the hallway beyond. "And in a sense, you Jedi are responsible for it."

Luke smiled. "I don't recall sending out a communication asking for arrangements like this."

"Not you personally. Before your time. I was just a child when it happened. The day the Jedi disappeared from the galaxy."

"Oh." Luke sobered. "The purge."

"Yes." The next chamber was not behind a blast door; the entryway was merely curtained. Chara brushed the black cloth aside and entered. He fumbled against the wall on one side and then the other before he found the glow rod activator switch. Light sprang up along the ceiling, revealing racks of depressingly identical black robes. "Ah. You'll want some of these, though they'll have to be adjusted for your diminutive height."

Ben grimaced. "Diminutive. "Diminutive."

Chara switched the light off and led them back into the access tunnel. "Anyway, Master Tokra Hazz was horrified by this. All the Baran Do were, so the story goes, but Tokra Hazz was profoundly affected. Perhaps he felt the deaths of the Jedi through the Force. Tokra Hazz was not so much distraught at the loss of individual life as at the loss of knowledge. Remember, at the time it was believed that all Jedi everywhere had died-that the Jedi Order had completely winked out. Fearing that the new Emperor would extend the same genocidal impulse to other Force-sensitive orders, Tokra Hazz sent many of the Baran Do Masters into hiding and thought about what to do next."

Ben looked around dubiously. "And what to do what to do was to dig a hole in the ground." was to dig a hole in the ground."

"Yes." The next chamber, also behind curtains, proved to be a storehouse of preserved foods, all in bottles or cans. Ben recognized brand names from Dorin manufacturers. Chara continued, "As a repository of knowledge. If the Empire were to come and destroy the sages, a cell would survive, deep in the ground, and would be able to ... communicate its learning to others on the surface."

Luke frowned. "Communicate how?"

"The rails that brought us here are also direct comlink connections with the surface. Not just with the temple, but other places. And should the rails be destroyed, the Hidden One knows a Force technique of mind-to-mind communication."

"Telepathy." Luke sounded dubious.

"Yes."

"Interesting. I've experienced communications through the Force from loved ones light-years away, but they tend to be emotional surges, perhaps a few words, perhaps a vision ... Exchanges of anything but emotions and general impressions are impossible to maintain for any useful length of time. That's not the sort of communication through which you can teach all your techniques."

Chara shrugged. "This technique is known only to the High Masters of the Baran Do."

Luke looked thoughtful. "I'd love to learn it. I'll have to speak to Koro Ziil."

"Koro Ziil is dead. You will have to speak to the Hidden One."

"Yes, yes."

Ben tried to steer the conversation back to Chara's story. "So the old Master, Tokra Hazz, eventually decided on making this underground shelter."

Chara nodded. "He used tunneling equipment to dig the tunnel by which we entered. It's very long, some two hundred kilometers, circling and winding. It eventually reached natural caverns that he decided to use as the center point for his complex. The first tunnel took years to dig, and the caverns took more years to modify."

They reached and pa.s.sed by a communal sanisteam chamber. The next chamber beyond seemed to be a sort of sauna, not currently in use.

"Why such a long tunnel?" Luke asked.

"A practical choice. Tokra Hazz's intent was to recruit only those Baran Do and servants who were fully dedicated to the cause. But in case someone changed his mind ... well, it is impossible for any Kel Dor, or human, to leave by that tunnel. To crawl two hundred kilometers-you couldn't carry enough food or drink and would die in the attempt. Should someone put together a viable means to ascend through the tunnel, like the little rail vehicles they used during the construction days to go back and forth, the Hidden One can, at the touch of a switch or issuance of a special command through the Force, trigger a series of explosions along the tunnel's length, sealing it forever."

Ben felt a little trickle of worry. "So how do Dad and I get out?"

"You've already been told. You don't." Chara looked serene but sympathetic. "Like the rest of us, you are here forever. For your own sanity, you must resign yourselves to the idea that you are already dead-that you now exist only to preserve knowledge."

NOT FAR FROM THE ARMAND ISARD CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, CORUSCANT.

Under an a.s.sumed name, Winter rented quarters in the residential building nearest the prison in which Valin was being held-in which Valin was stored stored, since someone frozen in carbonite needed only monitoring, not a cell and sustenance.

The prison itself was an artifact of early-Imperial-era architecture. Surrounded by a comparatively narrow plaza, which would serve as a kill zone for guards should prisoners escape, it consisted of a tall, tiered single building within an exercise yard surrounded by fifteen-meter walls, all made of black synthstone. Synthstone towers with snipers' nests rose from the corners; spotlights, bright enough to give a sunburn to a target fifty meters away, were mounted atop the towers and at intervals along the walls. Otherwise the only bright points to be seen were on the upper reaches of the building, where lit viewports indicated the quarters of the warden and senior officers. It was a place of gloom and oppression, and the Darkmeld conspirators' new quarters looked down upon it from a distance of half a kilometer.

In those viewports, Jaina's team placed holocams with powerful zoom functions. On nearby desks and tables were banks of monitors for the holocams deployed to watch Seff h.e.l.lin.

Monitoring had been reasonably successful. Using holocam-equipped mouse droids, holocams surrept.i.tiously mounted on government buildings surrounding the prison, and even data feeds stolen from surveillance satellites, the team had not only watched Seff perform his workman deception but had used a mouse droid to follow the rogue Jedi to his temporary quarters a kilometer from their own stakeout. All the darkmeld conspirators took s.h.i.+fts at the stakeout quarters-even Jaina, when she felt she was safe in sneaking away from Dab for a few hours.

She had done so this night, and she and Jag shared duty at the monitors.

Jaina looked up from the screen displaying the notes the others had been keeping. "His timing is as steady as public transportation on Kuat."

Jag, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, nodded. "Seems to be. The eight hours prior to dawn, he's in his workman disguise, mostly underground in front of the prison. The next eight hours he's at his quarters, presumably asleep. The next eight hours we can't reliably track yet, but he seems to use them to acquire gear and maybe get in touch with contacts."

"We need to find out what he's doing in front of the prison. Digging a tunnel? Planting high explosives? Surely he's not that crazy."

"We do." Jag rubbed his eyes and then looked at Jaina. "Armand Isard. Any relation to Ysanne Isard?"

"Her father. She sent him to prison. Not this prison." Ysanne Isard was one of the officers who had acted as temporary rulers of the Empire after Palpatine had died. Earlier in her career, she had won a private power struggle with her equally treacherous father. He had been executed; she had replaced him as director of Imperial Intelligence. "I think it was some sort of act of malicious humor rather than contrition on her part to name a prison after him. Bureaucratic inertia has kept it from being renamed. Or repainted. Or torn down."

"Well, the New Republic only conquered Coruscant, what, thirty-six years ago? The century's still young." He waved the subject away. "At dawn, when Seff leaves, Winter and I are going to do just what you said. See what he's been doing down there."

"Good."

"Got a question for you."

"All right."

"What do you think about bringing Mirax into this?"

Jaina sat back and considered. "Well, she has skills, useful contacts, some funds, and plenty of motivation."

"Right."

"But she'd need to keep it a secret from Corran. He's her husband, a former security investigator, and a Jedi Master. A hard man to keep secrets from."

"Also right."

"And she and Corran are very, very busy right now." That was an understatement. Each of the senior Horns was doing everything possible to free Valin from his carbonite imprisonment and return him to the Jedi Order for evaluation. Corran was calling in favors from his careers before joining the Jedi-from veterans of Corellian Security and Starfighter Command. The latter offered more possibility of success, because many of his colleagues from his piloting days were now senior officers in the Galactic Alliance military, but so far they had demonstrated little effectiveness in this task, as the military officers and other government leaders supporting Valin's sentence were even more powerful. Mirax, similarly, was cas.h.i.+ng in favors she had acc.u.mulated over the years, but her contacts-chiefly traders and smugglers-were having even less luck than Corran's. Jaina had seen Corran several times at the Temple since Valin's sentencing, and it was clear that, as much as he tried to spare his fellow Jedi the pain he felt, he was suffering. Mirax had to be in similar shape.

That decided matters for Jaina. "Let's designate her an in-case-of-emergency resource. Maybe get Winter to approach her on a preliminary basis."

Jag nodded.

Jaina's comlink beeped, a familiar, unwelcome series of notes-two musical tones, a pause, and two more.

Jaina froze. "Oh, no."

"Didn't you say he checked up on you only an hour ago?"

"Yes." She looked stricken. "That should have given me three or four hours more at least. I haven't heard of any of the observers doing their checks an hour apart." She pulled out her comlink and glared at it.

"How fast can you get to the Temple and sneak back in?"

"Nowhere near fast enough. He's going to beep again-"

The comlink did beep again, the same notes.

Jaina winced. "And then he's going to a.s.sume I'm too deeply asleep to hear him. He'll go down to my quarters, which takes only a minute, and start ringing the chimes."

"If he doesn't get an answer then?"

"He'll comm the Master on duty and they'll force the door. But I have one chance." She scrabbled around in her pouch and brought out a second comlink. "I rewired the door intercom with a comlink matched to this one. I can talk to him as if I'm just inside my quarters. Maybe I can bluff him. Maybe I can convince him he doesn't actually have to see me." She knew she didn't sound hopeful. She wasn't.

"What happens if you can't?"