Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy II: Dark Apprentice Page 2

  “You’ve got to admit I’m qualified for the job,” Wedge said. “Besides, I got tired of doing demolition work in the armpit of Imperial City, and before that I got tired of cleaning up wrecked spacecraft in orbit around Coruscant. I figured a delivery driver was better than a garbageman.”

  Wedge flicked a glance over Luke’s shoulder, and another smile dimpled his cheeks. Gantoris came forward from the cargo bay and gave Wedge a quick, almost brutal handshake as he locked eyes with the pilot. “General Antilles, have you any word from my people? I trust they have all been safely shuttled to their new home on Dantooine?”

  “Yes, Gantoris, they’re all settled in and doing fine. We drop-lifted an entire settlement of self-erecting living modules. We sent them programming units and agricultural droids so they could establish a viable colony right away. Dantooine is a very mild planet—plenty of animals to hunt and native vegetation to eat. Trust me, they’ll be much more comfortable than they were on Eol Sha.”

  Gantoris nodded solemnly. “That I do not doubt.” His glittering eyes looked past Wedge to the treetops. Orange light from the rising gas giant made his eyes flicker like the lava pools he had made Luke walk across on Eol Sha.

  “Gantoris, Streen—please start unloading the supplies,” Luke said. “I don’t think you’ll have trouble lifting the crates with a little nudge from the Force. Consider it a test. Artoo, please call Kirana Ti and Dorsk 81 from their quarters to help.”

  Streen and Gantoris moved to the corrugated ramp from the loading bay. Artoo-Detoo hummed across the landing grid and disappeared into the shadowy hangar of the Great Temple in search of the other Jedi candidates.

  Luke clapped his friend on the shoulder. “I’m starving for news, Wedge. I hope you brought some gossip with you.”

  Wedge raised his eyebrows. His narrow chin and soft features made him look more youthful than Luke. They had been through a lot together: Wedge had flown beside Luke on his triumphant run down the Death Star corridor, had assisted in the defense of Echo Base on the ice planet Hoth, and had fought against the second Death Star over Endor.

  “Gossip?” Wedge asked, laughing. “That doesn’t sound like something that would interest a Jedi Master.”

  “You got me there, Wedge. How are Leia and Han? How is Mon Mothma? How are things on Coruscant? When is Han going to bring Kyp Durron to my training center? That boy had enormous potential, and I want to start working with him.”

  Wedge shook his head at the volley of questions. “Kyp will be here, Luke, don’t worry. He spent most of his life in the spice mines of Kessel, and he’s only been out a month. Han’s trying to show the kid how to live a little first.”

  Luke remembered the dark-haired teen Han had rescued from the black spice mines. When Luke had used a Jedi testing technique to see if Kyp had potential to use the Force, the boy’s response had knocked Luke across the room. In his entire Jedi search, Luke had never encountered such power.

  “And what about Leia?”

  Wedge considered, and Luke appreciated that he didn’t just answer with a simple “Of course everything’s fine.” “She seems to be spending more and more time with her duties as Minister of State. Mon Mothma has been handing off a lot of important responsibilities to Leia while she herself stays in her private chambers and rules from a distance. It’s got a lot of people disturbed.”

  That behavior seemed highly unusual for the strong, compassionate ruler Luke remembered. “And how is Leia handling it?” He longed to know a thousand things at once, wishing he could be in the thick of it all again … while another part of him preferred the peace of Yavin 4.

  Wedge sat on the edge of the sloping ramp. He propped one leg next to a support strut, then balanced his helmet on his knee. “Leia’s doing a wonderful job, but she’s trying to do too much, if you ask me. Even with baby Anakin still in hiding, she does have the twins to watch over now. Threepio helps, but Jacen and Jaina are still only two and a half years old. It’s more than a full-time job, and Leia is getting exhausted.”

  “She could come here for a rest,” Luke suggested. “Have her bring the twins, since I need to get them started on basic Jedi skills.”

  “I’m sure Leia would love to come here,” Wedge said. They turned and watched as Streen and Gantoris emerged from the barge carrying tall crates. The two Jedi candidates walked smoothly, carrying loads that seemed impossible, and Wedge’s eyes widened at the impressive feats of strength. “I had to have labor droids put those boxes onboard. I couldn’t budge one myself.”

  “Then my students must be showing some progress.” Luke nodded. “What about you, Wedge? You going to be a delivery driver the rest of your career?”

  Wedge smiled; then with a flick of his wrist he tossed the helmet up the ramp and into the open cockpit. It clacked and thumped across the floor. “No. In fact I came here because I have a new assignment, and I won’t get a chance to see you again for some time. The New Republic Council feels that Dr. Qwi Xux may be in danger from espionage. Admiral Daala is still out there somewhere with her fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers, and any time now I expect her to start blasting planets at random with hit-and-run strikes. She may try to get Qwi back.”

  Luke nodded gravely. Qwi Xux had been the top scientist in the Imperial research facility from which Han Solo had escaped—with Qwi’s help. “If Admiral Daala doesn’t want Dr. Xux back, I’m sure someone else will.”

  “Yeah,” Wedge said, “that’s why I’ve been assigned as her personal bodyguard and escort. In the meantime the Council still hasn’t decided what to do with the Sun Crusher weapon that Han captured.” Wedge sighed. “That’s just scratching the surface of everything going on back on Coruscant.”

  Luke stared at Gantoris and Streen as they continued to unload the cargo bay, marching across the clearing to deposit their crates in the empty, cool hangar. Artoo-Detoo rattled out of the temple, leading two other students.

  “Sounds like you need the new Jedi Knights more than ever,” Luke said.

  Wedge agreed emphatically. “More than you can know.”

  2

  Fidgeting from the long voyage in the expanded B-wing fighter, Leia Organa Solo rode in silence beside Admiral Ackbar. The two of them sat in the cramped, metallic-smelling cockpit as the ship plunged through hyperspace.

  Being Minister of State kept Leia on the move, shuttling from diplomatic event to ambassadorial reception to political emergency. Dutifully, she hopped across the galaxy, putting out fires and helping Mon Mothma hold together a fragile alliance in the vacuum left by the fall of the Empire.

  Leia had already reviewed the background holos of the planet Vortex dozens of times, but she could not keep her mind on the upcoming Concert of the Winds. Diplomatic duties took her away far too often, and she used quiet moments to think about her husband Han, her twin children Jacen and Jaina. It had been too long since she had held her youngest baby, Anakin, who remained isolated and protected on the secret planet Anoth.

  It seemed that whenever Leia tried to spend a week, a day, even an hour alone with her family, something interrupted. She seethed inside each time, unable to show her feelings because she had to wear a calm political mask.

  In her younger days Leia had devoted her life to the Rebellion; she had worked behind the scenes as a princess of Alderaan, as Senator Bail Organa’s daughter; she had fought against Darth Vader and the Emperor, and more recently against Grand Admiral Thrawn. Now, though, she felt torn between her duties as Minister of State and her duties as Han Solo’s wife and as mother to three children. She had allowed the New Republic to come first. This time. Again.

  Beside her in the cockpit Admiral Ackbar moved his amphibious hands fluidly as he manipulated several control levers. “Dropping out of hyperspace now,” he said in his gravelly voice.

  The salmon-colored alien seemed perfectly comfortable in his white uniform. Ackbar swiveled his gigantic glassy eyes from side to side, as if to take in every detail of his craft. Through the hours o
f their journey, Leia had not seen him fidget once.

  He and the other inhabitants of the watery world Calamari had suffered much under the Empire’s iron grip. They had learned how to be quiet, yet listen to every detail, how to make their own decisions, and how to act upon them. Working as a loyal member of the Rebellion, Ackbar himself had been instrumental in developing the B-wing class of starfighters that had taken such a huge toll on the Imperial TIE fighters.

  As Leia watched him pilot the stretched-out, cumbersome-looking fighter, Ackbar seemed an integral part of the gangly craft that appeared to be all wings and turbolaser turrets mounted around a dual cockpit. Ackbar’s crew of fishlike Calamarians, led by his chief starship mechanic, Terpfen, had expanded the former one-man craft into Ackbar’s personal diplomatic shuttle, adding a single passenger seat.

  Through the curved dome of the cockpit windows, Leia watched as multicolored knots of hyperspace evaporated into a star-strewn panorama. The sublight engines kicked in, and the B-wing streaked toward the planet Vortex.

  Leia’s dress uniform felt damp and clingy, and she tried to adjust the folds of slick fabric to make herself more comfortable. As Ackbar concentrated on the approach to Vortex, Leia pulled out her pocket holopad, laying the flat silvery plate on her lap.

  “Beautiful,” she said, peering out the viewport to the planet beneath them. The blue and metallic-gray ball hung alone in space, moonless. Its atmosphere showed complex embroideries of cloudbanks and storm systems, racing spirals of clouds that swirled in horrendous gales.

  Leia remembered her astronomical briefings about Vortex. The sharp tilt of the planet’s axis produced severe seasonal changes. At the onset of winter, a vast polar cap formed rapidly from gases that froze out of the atmosphere. The sudden drop in pressure caused immense air currents, like a great flood going down a drain; clouds and vapor streamed southward in a battering ram to fill the empty zone where the atmosphere had solidified.

  The Vors, hollow-boned humanoids with a rack of lacy wings on their backs, went to ground during storm season, taking shelter in half-buried hummock dwellings. To celebrate the winds, though, the Vors had established a cultural festival renowned throughout the galaxy.…

  Deciding to review the details one more time before they landed and the diplomatic reception began, Leia touched the icons etched into the synthetic marble frame of her datapad. It would not do for the New Republic’s Minister of State to make a political faux pas.

  A translucent image shimmered and grew out of the silvery screen in a miniaturized projection of the Cathedral of Winds. Defying the hurricane gales that thrashed through their atmosphere, the Vors had built a tall ethereal structure that had resisted the fierce storm winds for centuries. Delicate and incredibly intricate, the Cathedral of Winds rose like a castle made of eggshell-thin crystal. Thousands of passageways wound through hollow chambers and turrets and spires. Sunlight glittered on the structure, reflecting the rippling fields of windblown grasses that sprawled across the surrounding plains.

  At the beginning of storm season, gusts of wind blew through thousands of different-sized openings in the honey combed walls, whipping up a reverberating, mournful music through pipes of various diameters.

  The wind music was never the same twice, and the Vors allowed their cathedral to play only once each year. During the concert thousands of Vors flew into or climbed through the spires and windpipes, opening and closing air passages to mold the music into a sculpture, a work of art created by the weather systems of the storm planet and the Vor people.

  On the holopad Leia skimmed to the next files. The music of the winds had not been heard for decades, not since Senator Palpatine had announced his New Order and declared himself Emperor. Objecting to the excesses of the Empire, the Vors had sealed the holes in their cathedral and refused to let the music play for anyone.

  But this season the Vors had invited representatives from the New Republic to come and listen.

  Ackbar opened a comm channel and pushed his fishlike face closer to the voice pickup. Leia watched the bristly feelers around his mouth jiggle as he spoke. “Vortex Cathedral landing pad, this is Admiral Ackbar. We are in orbit and approaching your position.”

  A Vor voice like two dry twigs rattling together crackled back over the speaker. “New Republic shuttle, we are transmitting landing coordinates that take into account wind shear and storm systems along your descent. Our atmospheric turbulence is quite unpredictable and dangerous. Please follow precisely.”

  “Understood.” Ackbar settled back into his seat, rubbing broad shoulder blades against the ridged back of the chair. He pulled several black restraint strands across his chest. “You’d better strap in, Leia,” Ackbar said. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

  Leia switched off her holopad and tucked it beside her seat. She secured herself, feeling confined by the webbing, and took a deep breath of the stale recycled air. The faintest fishy undertone suggested Calamarian anxiety.

  Staring ahead, Ackbar took his B-wing into the swirling atmosphere of Vortex, straight toward the storm systems.

  Ackbar knew that humans could not read expressions on broad Calamarian faces. He hoped Leia did not realize how uneasy he felt flying through such hellish weather patterns.

  Leia did not know that Ackbar had volunteered to take the mission because he trusted no other person to pilot someone as important as the Minister of State, and he trusted no other vehicle more than his personal B-wing fighter.

  He turned both of his brown eyes forward to watch the approaching cloud layers. The ship cut through the outer layers of atmosphere, zooming into buffeting turbulence. The sharp wings of the starfighter sliced the air, curling wind in a rippling wake. The wing edges glowed cherry-red from the screaming descent.

  Ackbar gripped the controls with his flipper-hands, concentrating on fast reactions, split-second decisions, making sure everything worked just right. In this landing there would be no room for error. He cocked his right eye down to scan the landing coordinates the Vor technician had transmitted.

  The craft began to rattle and jitter. His stomach lurched as a sudden updraft knocked them several hundred meters higher and then let them fall in a deep plunge until he managed to wrestle control back. Blurry fists of high-rising clouds pummeled the transparisteel viewports, leaving trails of condensed moisture that fanned out and evaporated.

  Ackbar tracked from side to side across the panels with his left eye, verifying the readouts. No red lights. His right eye cocked back to catch a glimpse of Leia sitting rigid and silent, held in place by black restraint cords. Her dark eyes seemed almost as wide as a Mon Calamarian’s, but her lips were pressed together in a thin white line. She seemed afraid, but afraid to show it, trusting in his ability. Leia said no word to distract him.

  The B-wing headed down in a spiral, skirting an immense cyclonic disturbance. The wind hooked the rattling wings of the fighter, knocking the craft from side to side. Ackbar deployed the secondary aileron struts in an attempt to regain stability and retracted the laser-cannon turrets to minimize wind resistance.

  “New Republic shuttle, we show you off course,” the brittle-twig voice of the Vor controller came over the speaker, muffled by the roaring wind. “Please advise.”

  Ackbar turned his left eye to double-check the coordinate display, and saw that the starfighter had indeed veered off course. Calm and focused, he tried to force the craft back onto the appropriate vector. He couldn’t believe he had gone so far astray, unless he had misread the coordinates in the first place.

  As he yanked the B-wing toward a wall of spiraling clouds, a blast of gale-force winds hammered them into a roll and slammed Ackbar against his pilot seat. The fighter spun end over end, battered by the wild storm.

  Leia let out a small scream before clamping her mouth shut. Ackbar hauled with all his strength upon the levers, firing stabilizer jets in a counterclockwise maneuver to counteract the spin.

  The B-wing responded, finally slowing
its crazed descent. Ackbar looked up to see himself surrounded by a whirlwind of mist. He had no idea which direction was up or down. He accordioned out the craft’s set of perpendicular wings and locked them into a more stable cruising position. His craft responded sluggishly, but the cockpit panels told him that the wings were in place.

  “New Republic shuttle, please respond.” The Vor did not sound at all concerned.

  Ackbar finally got the B-wing upright and flying again, but found he had missed his coordinates once more. He angled back into them as easily as he could. His mouth felt desiccated as he checked the altitude panels and saw with alarm how far the ship had dropped.

  The metal hull plates smoked and glowed orange from tearing through the atmosphere. Lightning slashed on all sides. Blue balls of discharge electricity flared from the tips of the wings. His readouts scrambled with racing curls of static, then came back on again. The cockpit power systems dimmed, then brightened as reserve power kicked in.

  Ackbar risked another glance at Leia and saw her fighting wide-eyed fear and helplessness. He knew she was a woman of action and would do anything to help him out—but there was nothing she could do. If he had to, Ackbar could eject her to safety—but he did not dare risk losing his B-wing yet. He could still pull off a desperate but intact landing.

  Suddenly, the clouds peeled away like a wet rag ripped from his eyes. The wind-whipped plains of Vortex spread out below, furred with golden-brown and purple grasses. The grasslands rippled as the wind combed invisible fingers through the blades. Concentric circles of bunkerlike Vor shelters surrounded the center of their civilization.

  He heard Leia gasp in a deep wonder that sliced through even her terror. The enormous Cathedral of Winds glinted with light and roiling shadows as clouds marched overhead. The high lacy structure seemed far too delicate to withstand the storms. Winged creatures swarmed up and down the sides of the fluted chambers, opening passages for the wind to blow through and create the famous music. Faintly distant, he could hear the lilting, eerie notes.