Inferno Page 3

  “I’m not wrong about this,” he said, stepping back. “The Confederation will do what barbarians always do—divide the spoils.”

  Tenel Ka nodded, but moved away from the seating area and stood looking at the wall. He would sense her feelings through the Force, but at least she would not debase her throne by allowing him to see tears in the eyes of the Queen Mother.

  “You’re right, of course.”

  “I’m sorry, Tenel Ka,” Jacen said, starting toward her. “But if you don’t give me the fleet, what do you think the Corellians are going to do to the Consortium? Or the Hutts?”

  Tenel Ka held her hand out behind her, signaling him to stay away. Jacen was right—she had no choice but to give him the fleet. But she had been queen long enough to know that even when there was no choice, there was opportunity.

  “I will give you the fleet, Jacen.”

  Jacen stopped two steps behind her. “Thank you, Tenel Ka,” he said, having the good grace to sound grateful. “You’re saving the—”

  “Not yet, Jacen,” Tenel Ka interrupted. “There is one condition.”

  “Very well,” he said. “I’m hardly in a position to bargain.”

  “That’s right—you aren’t.” Tenel Ka blinked her eyes dry, when drew herself up and turned to face Jacen. “You must make peace with Master Skywalker.”

  A shadow fell over Jacen’s face. “There’s no need to worry about the Jedi,” he said. “They won’t be interfering anymore—you can be sure of that.”

  “I am not worried about interference,” Tenel Ka said. “You need their cooperation.”

  Jacen took a step back, as though he had been pushed. “I’m not sure I can make that happen. It takes two to make peace, and Luke—”

  “Peace, Jacen. That is my condition.” Tenel Ka took him by the arm and started him toward the door. “And may I suggest you start by addressing your uncle as Master Skywalker?”

  two

  Five stories below lay the Morning Court of the new Jedi Temple, a large circular atrium carpeted in living sturdimoss and surrounded by curving walls of mirrored transparisteel. This morning the roof membrane was retracted, and the enclosure was packed with Alliance dignitaries dressed in somber shades of gray and black. On the far side of the crowd, several rows of Jedi Knights in white robes kneeled before a large pyre. Atop the pyre lay a lithe female body wrapped in white gauze, hands folded across her chest, red hair cascading over the logs beneath her.

  The distance was too great to observe the dead woman’s face, but Leia knew that no matter how well the mortician had plied his art, there would be lingering hints of outrage and anxiety, of hostility and fear. Mara Jade Skywalker would have died angry, and she would have died worrying about Ben and Luke.

  Han stopped beside Leia and peered through the transparisteel wall. “I don’t like it. How come she didn’t return to the Force?”

  “That doesn’t always happen,” Leia explained. “Tresina Lobi didn’t return to the Force.”

  “Because her body was evidence. She wanted Luke to see her wounds, so he’d know Lumiya was after Ben.”

  “I’m not sure it works that way.” As Leia spoke, Saba Sebatyne and a group of brown-robed Jedi Masters emerged from a door on the far side of the Morning Court.

  “But it might,” Han insisted. “Maybe Mara’s trying to tell us—”

  “Han,” Leia interrupted. “I’m sure the Masters have already considered that possibility, and it looks like we’re running late.”

  She pointed across the courtyard to Saba and the other Masters, who were escorting Luke and Ben toward the head of the funeral pyre. Both Skywalkers wore gray robes with raised hoods, but father and son could not have looked more dissimilar. With squared shoulders and the heavy gait of a soldier, Ben managed to seem both angry and in control, as though his mother’s funeral had brought his adolescent energies into perilous focus. In contrast, Luke had stooped shoulders and an erratic gait that made him look as though it required all his strength just to be there.

  Leia reached out in the Force to let him know they had arrived, but Luke’s presence was so drawn in on itself that it was almost undetectable—and it shrank even more when she tried to touch him.

  A terrible ache filled Leia’s chest. “We should have been here, Han. Maybe he would have held up better if I had—”

  “We’re here now.” Han took her elbow. “And being here when it happened wouldn’t have changed anything. It’s hard to comfort someone from a cell inside a secret GAG detention center.”

  Leia chuffed out her breath, then said, “I know.”

  She allowed Han to guide her down the corridor, both irked and saddened to be reminded of the detention warrant their own son had issued against them. Jacen had turned so terribly dark that she often found herself wondering why she had failed to see it coming—why she still couldn’t name the thing that had changed him. Had it been his captivity among the Yuuzhan Vong? Or had he lost his way during his five-year sojourn among the stars?

  It hardly mattered. Leia had not recognized the moment when she could have reached out to save him. Her son had simply slipped into darkness one day when she wasn’t looking, and now, she feared, it was already too late to pull him back.

  They rounded a bend in the corridor and came to a turbo-lift station. Han touched a pad requesting descent to the courtyard level. Nothing happened.

  Han struck the pad again, this time with a bent knuckle, and the status light still refused to turn green. He sighed in exasperation.

  “Great.” He started down the corridor to look for another lift. “You’re giving the eulogy, and we can’t even get a—”

  “Wait.” Leia grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Her spine was tingling with danger sense. “I think we’re being watched.”

  “Of course we’re being watched.” Han hitched a thumb at the Morning Court, more or less aiming at the dignitaries on the near side of the enclosure. “Have you seen who’s out there? Every apprentice in the Temple must be monitoring security holos.”

  “Which is why I am surprised you and Princess Leia decided to come, Captain Solo.” The voice was crisp, deep, and behind them. “But I should have known by now not to doubt the colonel. He said you would come.”

  Leia turned to find a shaved-head lieutenant leading a small squad of black-uniformed soldiers around the bend. It took a moment to recognize who they were, for she couldn’t believe even Jacen would set a trap for his own parents at his aunt’s funeral. Yet here Leia was, looking at half a dozen GAG troopers who clearly thought they were going to arrest her and Han.

  Han scowled. “How’d you get in here? This is Jedi territory.”

  “And the Jedi serve the Alliance.” The lieutenant stopped five meters away, his troopers spreading across the corridor behind him, and glowered in Leia’s direction. “At least they’re supposed to.”

  “You’re making a big mistake, Lieutenant,” Leia said, putting some ice into her voice. She and Han had taken elaborate precautions to avoid detection outside the Temple, but sending troopers inside was an inconceivable affront, one that Luke would never tolerate—were he not consumed by grief. “The Jedi Council won’t view this intrusion lightly. You might save your career by leaving now.”

  “The Jedi Council will do what the colonel tells them to—just as I do.” The lieutenant snapped a finger, and the troopers leveled a line of T-21 repeating blasters at the Solos. “Now come along quietly. We don’t want to disturb Master Skywalker’s funeral any more than you do. It would be disrespectful.”

  “Yes, it would.” Leia put the strength of the Force behind her words, at the same time waving two fingers to keep the captain from focusing on the suggestive timbre of her voice. “That’s why my son gave us safe passage.”

  The lieutenant furrowed his brow, then said, “There must be a mistake.” He motioned his squad to lower their weapons, “The colonel gave them safe passage.”

  The troopers continued to aim at the Sol
os, and the corporal beside him snapped, “Sirrr! She’s doing that Jedi thing to you.”

  The lieutenant’s gaze flickered away for a second, then returned clear and focused. “Try that again and we open fire,” he warned. “I’m not weak-minded, you know.”

  “No?” Han asked. “Then how come you’re taking orders from my son?”

  The lieutenant’s face reddened. “Colonel Solo is a great patriot, perhaps even the savior of the … arrrgggh!”

  His voice broke into a scream of alarm as Leia Force-hurled him into the troopers behind him, knocking half the squad off its feet and sending the rest stumbling for balance. She snatched her lightsaber off her belt and started down the corridor in the opposite direction.

  Han was already three steps ahead, tugging his blaster pistol from its holster with one hand and reaching back for her with the other.

  “There’s got to be another lift up ahead. If we hurry, we can still get you there in time to deliver the—”

  “Are you crazy?” Leia was touched by his devotion, but the last thing she wanted to do was cause a firefight at Mara’s funeral—as appropriate as that might seem. “We can’t go out there.”

  “We have to,” Han said. “Why do you think Jacen is trying to catch us now, instead of after the service? If he was going to grab us, wouldn’t it have been easier when we were all broken up and not paying attention?”

  Leia nearly stopped running. “He doesn’t want us to see Luke!”

  “That’s my bet,” Han said. “He must be afraid we’ll buck up the competition or something.”

  Han’s suggestion made perfect sense. Immediately following Jacen’s coup, several Masters on the Jedi Council had publicly condemned the act—condemnations that had no doubt cost Jacen and Admiral Niathal some crucial early support. But since Mara’s death, the entire Council had remained silent, too occupied with Jedi concerns to intrude on Alliance politics, and that silence could only come as a welcome relief to the new Chiefs of State.

  Before Leia could agree with Han aloud, they rounded a bend and found a line of black-uniformed figures stretched across the corridor. There was barely time to recognize them as a second squad of GAG troopers before three poopfs sounded and the air was suddenly blurred by flying webs.

  Leia waved a hand, using the Force to sweep two of the shock nets into the wall. The third sailed past along the far side of the corridor, crackling with energy and trailing tart whiffs of adhesive.

  Han dropped to his belly and began to lay suppression fire, and a trooper collapsed in stun-bolt-induced spasms. Leia extended her hand and, when the next poopf sounded from the firing line, used the Force to hurl the shock net back toward the trooper. He tumbled over backward, gurgling and convulsing as the charged mesh tightened.

  Boots began to pound down the corridor behind them, the first squad of troopers rushing to close the trap.

  “This time, Jacen’s gone too far,” Han growled, still firing down the corridor at the second squad. “We’re gonna have to do something about that kid.”

  “Let’s get out of this first, okay?”

  “Good idea. What’s your plan?”

  Leia didn’t really have one, but she ignited her lightsaber and charged anyway. “Follow me!”

  The four troopers remaining in the second squad threw their net launchers aside and pulled their blaster rifles, but Leia was on them before they could open fire. She took one man out with a roundhouse kick to the head and sent another cartwheeling into the wall with a spinning crescent—then found herself looking down the barrel of an E-11 blaster rifle. When she raised her gaze, it was to see a young recruit only two or three years older than her son Anakin had been when he died.

  The boy’s pupils widened, and Leia knew he was going to blast her. She brought her lightsaber up beneath his arms, slashing them off at the elbows, then spun away feeling sick and sad. This was not right, fighting on the day of Mara’s funeral, drawing blood inside the Jedi Temple, maiming her own son’s troopers.

  The second squad’s last trooper was already on the floor in convulsions, his utilities still crackling with residual energy from Han’s stun bolts. Outside in the Morning Court, Leia glimpsed a few Masters frowning in their direction, no doubt sensing through the Force what the enclosure’s mirrored transparisteel prevented the rest of the audience from seeing. Luke seemed oblivious to the disturbance, but Ben’s attention was fixed on the Masters, and Leia knew he, too, would soon feel what was happening.

  Han ran up beside her and slipped a concussion grenade off the utility belt of the screaming boy whose arms Leia had just amputated, then grabbed her by the elbow.

  “Not your fault,” he said, steering her down the corridor. “That’s on Jacen.”

  Leia started to say that it didn’t matter whose fault it was, but her reply was cut short as the first squad of troopers caught up and loosed a flurry of blaster bolts. She spun around and began to back down the corridor after Han, batting screaming dashes of color back toward their attackers. Unfortunately, the lieutenant and his men had learned from the mistakes of the other squad and were hugging the inner curve of the corridor, using the transparisteel wall for cover and taking care never to present a clean target.

  A bolt ricocheted off the wall above their heads and left a smoking furrow in the transparisteel.

  “Hey, those bolts are full power!” Han complained. He thumbed the activator switch on the grenade he had taken, then turned to face the troopers. “All right, if you want to play dirty—”

  Leia caught his arm. “No, Han. We can’t do that—not here, not today.”

  She thumbed the switch back to its inert position, then took the grenade from Han’s hand and tossed it at their pursuers, using the Force to guide it into their midst.

  The blasterfire fell instantly silent. Cries of grenade! and cover! filled the corridor as the lieutenant and his troopers hurled themselves out of sight.

  Leia took Han’s hand and sprinted down the corridor to the next intersection. When she turned away from the Morning Court, Han looked over and stopped running.

  “Wrong way!” He tugged her in the opposite direction, back toward the funeral. “You’re never going to make it in time—”

  “I know, Han.” Leia remained where she was, using the Force to anchor herself to the floor. “But our presence has already caused too much of a disturbance. We can’t turn Mara’s funeral into a blaster battle.”

  “We’re not the ones to blame!” Han objected. “Jacen sent the goons.”

  “And what does that change?” Leia asked. “If we go out there, they’ll still follow and try to arrest us, and then where will we be?”

  Han’s face fell as he contemplated the alternatives—surrender nicely and be hauled off to a GAG prison, or start a firefight in the middle of Mara’s funeral. Either way, they would not be doing Luke—or Ben—any good. He stopped pulling.

  “Nowhere,” he said. “Looks like Jacen wins again.”

  “For today,” Leia said. She started down the corridor in her original direction, pulling Han after her toward the Temple exit. “But you’re right, Han. It’s time for us to do something about that kid.”

  three

  Saba Sebatyne had been living among humans for well over a standard decade, and still there was so much she did not know about them. She didn’t understand why Master Skywalker seemed so lost right now, why he had stopped talking to his friends and turned all his attention inward. Surely he knew Mara wouldn’t want that? That she would expect him to stay focused and guide the Jedi through this time of crisis?

  But he just stood staring at the funeral pyre, as though he couldn’t quite believe it was his mate up there, as though he expected her to awaken at any moment and climb down to stand beside him. Perhaps he was only trying to understand why Mara had failed to return her body to the Force, wondering—like so many other Masters—whether it still held some clue to the killer’s identity that had been missed during the autopsy. Or he could
be worried that something in Mara’s past had interfered, that she had done something as the Emperor’s Hand so terrible that the Force could not take her back.

  Saba only knew that she did not know; that Master Skywalker had been wounded in some way she could never understand and had lost himself. And she feared that if he did not return to himself soon, something terrible would happen. She could feel that much in the Force.

  Saba felt the weight of someone’s attention and turned to find Corran Horn’s green eyes fixed on her back. He was standing about three meters away, discussing something with Kyp and Kenth Hamner while Cilghal, Kyle Katarn, and the rest of the Masters remained with Master Skywalker and Ben. When he noticed Saba looking, he gave a little head-jerk, summoning her over.

  Saba nodded, but glanced back to make certain the dignitaries filling the courtyard weren’t growing too impatient with the delay. Tenel Ka was in the front row, kneeling in meditation alongside Tesar, Lowbacca, Tahiri, and most of the other Jedi Knights—except Jaina and Zekk, who had been ordered to continue their pursuit of Alema Rar. In chairs behind the Jedi Knights, Admiral Niathal and her entire High Command sat bolt upright, too disciplined to fidget no matter how late the ceremony was running. Behind them sat most of the Senate and the secretaries of every major department, putting their time to good use by chatting with one another in solemn whispers. The only person of note whom Saba did not see was the man who should have been in the vacant chair to Admiral Niathal’s right, the co-leader of the coup government—Jacen Solo.

  Satisfied that the distinguished audience members were not on the verge of departing, Saba excused herself to Ben and a barely cognizant Master Skywalker, then joined Corran and the others. Kyp Durron still wore his dark brown hair long and shaggy, but at least he was cleanly shaven for the occasion. Kenth Hamner, who looked old enough to be Kyp’s father, appeared as carefully groomed and dignified as ever.