Star Wars, page 15
“The noosa fish,” Fee-Na said as she piloted the landspeeder over the marsh roads. “They absorb the sunshine during the day and reflect it back in the first few hours of the night. After about four or five hours, it’ll be pitch dark out here, since Miekos doesn’t have a moon close enough to radiate in the night.”
Vernestra looked over at the landscape, not quite relaxed but enjoying the sight nonetheless. They drove for a few hours, until the marshland fell away, leaving behind the grasses but no sight of any water.
But it was just an illusion, as Vernestra found out when Fee-Na stopped the landspeeder and they all stepped out. The grasses were a hard mat, but there was the squish of dampness underneath.
“Here the water is a meter or two below the grass mat,” Tanabi said, shouldering her pack. “They mound and pile up like a mountain, but they aren’t solid. There’s no rock underneath, just a bunch more of that grass.”
“When my family first arrived here, a mining company came in to see if the planet was viable,” Fee-Na said, holstering a blaster. “Grass straight down, and water after that for leagues. Whatever land mass is supporting all of this is far enough down that scientists have only been able to detect it through ultrasound scanners.”
“Aren’t you worried you’ll all fall into the sea?” Vernestra asked, and Tanabi laughed.
“At some point everything falls,” she said with a shrug. “Why worry about the inevitable?”
It was a strange comment, and for a moment Vernestra felt like she should ask Tanabi to clarify. Tanabi’s words seemed philosophical and prophetic, as though perhaps the Force was speaking through the old woman.
But then they were walking toward the peak, their boots making slurping sounds with each step on the grass mat, and Vernestra was too busy scanning for any potential danger to worry about the remark any further.
She did not have long to wait.
Blaster fire erupted out of nowhere, sending the trio diving into a nearby clump of tall grass. Vernestra crouched, trying to mark the direction of the fire without getting hit. “It looks like it’s coming from the left.”
“The comm tower is straight ahead, that tall outline right there,” Tanabi said, pointing to a dark shape. “But how did they know we were coming here?”
So far away from the marshes, the night was dark, and Vernestra was hesitant to power up her lightsaber for fear it would give away their location.
“Why don’t we split up,” she said. “I’ll distract the shooter while you two make your way to the comm tower, and then I’ll join you.”
Tanabi and Fee-Na nodded, so Vernestra ran quickly through the tall grass, away from where they’d originally been fired on. She wasn’t going to run directly at the shooter; that would be silly. Instead, she made a wide loop to circle behind. Surprise was on her side, especially since she was light on her feet, using the Force to make sure her boots didn’t quite hit the ground.
Too quickly she could see the human woman from the ship kneeling on the thick grass mat with a blaster rifle. Vernestra powered up her lightsaber, the woman turning at the last moment with a swear.
“Jedi,” she snarled.
“Would you like to do this the hard way or the easy way?” Vernestra asked sweetly. “I don’t have much patience for people who hid their ill intentions behind false motherhood.”
“Why are you even here?” the woman demanded.
“Because the Force led me here,” Vernestra said as the woman stood with her arms raised. “Why are you here?”
“Because—”
The woman didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence, as a blaster bolt came from behind Vernestra, striking the woman in the chest.
Vernestra spun around, only to find Fee-Na holding Tanabi, a blaster pointed at the older woman’s head. “Don’t move.”
Vernestra blinked, trying to work out what was going on. “Fee-Na. You’re working with the guild?”
“Of course I’m working with the guild,” she said with a hollow laugh. “You don’t actually believe we can beat them at their own game, do you? The galaxy is in disarray! It’s too dangerous out there. But here, we’re safe. At least we were until Tanabi started going around, riling people up.”
“You hired the people on the ship to try and kill me,” Tanabi said with a laugh. “Well done.”
“You should’ve stayed gone,” Fee-Na growled. “Everything would have been perfect if you’d just stayed gone.”
Vernestra cast about for options. There was no way she could use her lightsaber whip quickly enough; the distance was too great, and it was too dark to aim the plasma beam accurately. She could just as easily hit Tanabi as Fee-Na.
“I understand,” Tanabi said with a sigh. “All I wanted was to see you all happy. The farmers in the southern reaches have already seen their profits drop by half, and so many of your own neighbors are going hungry. What makes you think you’ll be any different?”
“Because I made a deal with the guild,” Fee-Na said with a breathless laugh. “Do you think I’m actually foolish enough to just sit here and hope for the best?”
Tanabi suddenly shifted her weight, flipping Fee-Na over her shoulder. She kicked the blaster out of her hand, sending it off into a nearby clump of tall grass. Then Tanabi placed her foot on Fee-Na’s neck.
“Well, you’re definitely naive enough to believe they’ll uphold their end of the bargain,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Vernestra, do you think you can help me tie her up?”
They quickly tied up Fee-Na with straps from her own knapsack, most likely brought along to secure Tanabi and Vernestra once the double cross was revealed. When she was secured, Vernestra went to check on the human woman, but her body was cold, the life gone from it.
“Fee-Na will stand trial for this,” Tanabi said. “Poor Noparo.”
They made their way to the comm tower in silence, the trip quick and unmarked by any other surprises. Tanabi worked quickly, slicing the comms box before placing a small device within.
“Anyone else tries to open this and there will be an immediate alert sent out to everyone off-planet that the system has been compromised. And my cousin has already pledged her assistance in case the guild tries to start their nonsense again,” Tanabi said.
They began the walk back to the landspeeder, Vernestra using the Force to help carry both Fee-Na and the dead human woman. By the time they arrived at the landspeeder, Vernestra was exhausted, and she felt a measure of relief once she’d secured both of her charges in the cargo area. She was even happier when Tanabi climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Did you want to drive, Jedi?”
Vernestra shook her head, and they began the long trip back to the homestead.
After they arrived, Tanabi called the local sheriff to deal with both the dead woman and Fee-Na, and once they’d gone, she went to discuss the events of the evening with her son, leaving Vernestra to wander the area near the ponds.
She took a deep breath and let it out as she watched the fish swimming, their glow dimmer now that the night was no longer young. Tanabi joined her a short while later, her expression sad.
“How did it go?” Vernestra asked.
“About as expected. He didn’t want to believe his wife would side with the guild, so he went through the message logs and found the payments she’d accepted. She apparently reached out to them shortly after the wedding, when she discovered who I was. All this time she’s been watching her neighbors starve and she was happy to let them suffer. Speaking of which . . .” Tanabi handed Vernestra a token, a small chunk of something organic. In the dim light it looked like someone had woven the marsh grasses into a flat disk.
“You seem like you need a rest, Jedi,” Tanabi said. “You wear your pain so openly, and I have the sense that the events of the past couple years have struck you more than most. There is a planet that few know about. Ibbe. It’s on the edge of Wild Space. It’s a good place to regroup, to heal, and to move on from a tragedy. It is far away from the problems of the rest of the galaxy, and the Ibbe are a serene species who try to live in harmony with the rest of their planet. I myself have gone there when I needed time to think, and it would be a great place to plan your next steps. There’s a hauler with a blue-and-green ship that comes to the planet once a month. Santos. He’ll be here in the next couple of days. Give him that token and tell him I sent you, and he’ll happily give you a ride.”
Vernestra began to argue, but then she found herself tucking the token into the pocket of her tunic. “Thank you,” she said, because she now knew this was why the Force had brought her to Miekos. She would go to Ibbe, her heart aching, and perhaps find a measure of peace. Maybe there was something important waiting for her there.
Or maybe the Force, like Tanabi, simply thought she needed time to heal, and a place without distractions. A place where she could finally get some sleep. Whatever the reason, Ibbe was where she would stay until the Force saw fit to guide her elsewhere. At heart Vernestra was still a Jedi, still connected deeply and irrevocably to the Force, and she would listen to the ebb and flow of the cosmic tides and wait for them to signal yet another sea change.
That was exactly why she was brought to Miekos, and to Tanabi. Vernestra could feel the rightness of the choice, the call of Ibbe, a place she’d never been, as she breathed out long and slow, feeling more centered than she had in months.
There, on Ibbe, Vernestra would heal. And when it was time to begin the next chapter of her life, she would be ready. The Force had gifted her the exact thing she’d been so desperately seeking, and it was almost like a rebirth, knowing that no matter what upheaval the galaxy faced, the Force was strong and steady, a river always flowing to the sea.
Vernestra smiled at Tanabi, inclining her head in respect just as poor misguided Fee-Na had done. “Thank you, Tanabi. This is a generous gift.”
The older woman waved away Vernestra’s gratitude. “Now, let’s get some rest,” Tanabi said.
Vernestra could not agree more.
Bell Zettifar sat on a rock on a cliff overlooking one of Eiram’s many seas. To the horizon, the water was slate, like if you were unlucky enough to be dropped on it from a great height, you wouldn’t fall into and under it but would instead be smashed apart, shattered into a thousand pieces.
Or perhaps Bell was just thinking about Starlight Beacon, which had, more or less, done exactly that.
The great space station had seemed almost a world in itself. Shimmering, filled with light, the very best of the galaxy come together to offer that radiance to anyone who needed it. Huge. Permanent. You didn’t build something like Starlight Beacon unless you expected to be using it for a long time. Generations.
It had lasted little more than a year. Starlight Beacon was destroyed from within, yanked from orbit above Eiram and thrown down into the planet’s endless oceans, first breaking into halves and then disintegrating, burning, along with everyone Bell and his fellow Jedi and the Republic personnel they worked alongside couldn’t evacuate in time.
Don’t think about what you didn’t do, Bell told himself. Think about what you did. You’re a Jedi. The entire Order can be counted only in the thousands, in a galaxy containing trillions upon trillions. The Jedi can’t save everyone. The Jedi can only make sure that wherever they are, the light is protected.
Bell held an object in each hand. In his right, a comlink. In his left, a lightsaber hilt—huge, heavy, as long as his arm from elbow to fingertip, made of a burnished light wood with a golden crosspiece.
You didn’t fail, Bell thought. You did your absolute best. You used all your training, your skill, your instincts, your abilities with the Force, and people are alive now who would not be if not for all that. Many people. You did not fail.
He tapped the lightsaber hilt against his leg, staring out at the sea. It wasn’t his. Bell had gotten it from another Jedi, Elzar Mann, who had gotten it from its owner during the disaster that brought Starlight Beacon down from sky to sea. Elzar had passed the saber along to Bell because the younger Jedi had asked for it, saying he wanted to be the one to return it to its rightful holder. Elzar Mann probably knew the truth behind Bell’s request, but he didn’t say anything. He just gave Bell a long, unblinking look. Then the corner of his mouth twitched up the slightest bit, and he handed over the hilt and turned to walk away. Elzar seemed like a person with quite a bit on his mind.
The lightsaber belonged to Burryaga, a Wookiee from the forest world of Kashyyyk. The wood of its hilt came from one of that planet’s sacred wroshyr trees. Burryaga was a Padawan—a Jedi in training just like Bell—and a friend. A good friend.
Dead now. Lost in the Beacon’s fall, crushed or burned or stabbed or eaten or drowned or dropped from space to smash into a thousand pieces against this blasted stone-hard sea. Take your pick.
That’s what everyone believed. All the other Jedi—from Elzar Mann to Avar Kriss to Porter Engle—counted Burryaga among the casualties. Even those who had held out hope for a while, imagining Burryaga might have found a way to safely flee the collapsing station in an escape pod or get out on one of the rescue ships, had eventually admitted the truth. There was a good reason for that.
A month had passed since Starlight Beacon’s fall. If Burryaga had made it off the station safely, he’d have found a way to reach out, to communicate with the Order. And if he’d made it down but was too injured to send a message or find help, well. . .odds were if he was hurt that badly he’d be dead by now anyway. However you sliced it, whatever scenarios Bell ran in his head, Burryaga could not have survived.
The Order certainly thought that was true. The Jedi Council had ordered Bell back to the primary Jedi Temple on Coruscant, along with every other Jedi posted outside the Galactic Core. Things were getting bad. The people who had brought down Starlight—a darkling, well-organized, Republic- and Jedi-hating group known as the Nihil, led by an amoral killer named Marchion Ro—had erected some sort of impenetrable wall around their territory in the Outer Rim and started making demands. Rumors abounded that the Nihil’s secret weapon, a creature that could destroy Jedi despite all their abilities and training, was loose in the galaxy. People were afraid. People were unsure.
Bell was needed, along with all the other Jedi. Their numbers were few. Every Jedi was crucial.
He had remained on Eiram as long as he could, helping with the disaster relief efforts, watching as his fellow Jedi left to return to Coruscant one by one, promising he would join them shortly. Even Ember was gone—Bell had sent the charhound off with Porter Engle, because he thought the old Ikkrukkian Master needed the companionship. Porter’s light had dimmed of late in some indefinable way, and if Bell really thought about it, he believed it had started all the way back on Elphrona, when they’d first encountered the Nihil. If Ember could help Porter, Bell was happy to let her go. For a little while, anyway.
The point was, everyone had left, making Bell the only Jedi still on Eiram. He was waiting for word of Burryaga. A message. Even a body. Something—so he would know what to do next.
But no sign had come, and Bell was faced with a terrible decision. Another time, he had thought another Jedi was dead and stopped searching for him, and he had been wrong. Terrible things had happened as a result, and that time Bell knew he really had failed. He had failed Loden Greatstorm, he had failed himself, he had failed the Order and perhaps even the Force—and he had been carrying it with him ever since. This time. . .he just would not allow it to happen again. He would not fail. Not in that way. Not again—not if there was anything at all he could do to prevent it.
Bell had come to this cliff to make a decision. One way or the other, he would return Burryaga’s lightsaber to him. There were two ways he might do that. He could hand it to him. Or he could throw it off the cliff into the sea. The decision rested on what Bell Zettifar chose to believe.
I could reach out to the Force for guidance again, Bell thought, but even if it answers, odds are I won’t understand what it’s trying to tell me.
That was always the struggle. Jedi were—supposedly—connected to a fundamental source of truth via the Force. It touched everything in existence. It should be omniscient, and maybe it was. But using it like a database was impossible. It was more like wandering through a library with every holobook ever written by anyone ever, all shelved randomly, and all but a few were in a language you didn’t speak.
Maybe Master Yoda could get useful, specific information from the Force. Bell Zettifar couldn’t.
Still, he tried, searching through the waves and ripples of burning energy that were his mind’s interpretation of the Force, the endlessly animate fire and flame, looking for any resonance that felt like the Wookiee Jedi. He knew. . .he knew Burryaga was still alive.
Nothing.
Bell sighed.
The Force didn’t provide answers. It didn’t tell you what to do. Decisions were made by people.
“All Jedi walk their own path,” Bell said.
“All Jedi walk their own path,” Loden Greatstorm said.
“Uh. . .what other path would they walk?” Bell asked his teacher.
“In this particular case,” Loden said, “the one the Jedi Council think we should. They want us to go back, Bell. They think we can’t do any good here, that we aren’t wanted, that we can solve easier problems more quickly in other places.”
They were sitting on either side of a fire on a hilltop where they had established their camp upon arriving on the planet—a small world known to its residents as Teriona, to travelers in the sector as “the place you detour around unless absolutely necessary” and to the leaders of the great Galactic Republic as a huge, unending headache. Below the hill was a town where Bell and his master had just completed an assignment issued to them by the Jedi Council.
The Republic had recently made one of its periodic attempts at securing peace on this world, sending a team of negotiators to talk to its leaders. Teriona possessed valuable resources and was situated along various trade routes that would have, in theory, made it incredibly useful to the sector. The problem was that the Terionese had no interest in being useful. All they seemed to care about was continuing a generations-long planetary war between small city-states with constantly shifting alliances, begun and fought for reasons no one outside the planet understood.
