Shards of Alderaan Page 4

  gloating.

  When the ambushing bounty hunter's ship came close enough for a

  ballistic launch, Fett aimed by sight and triggered the spring release.

  A torpedo dart filled with concussion explosives flew across space as if

  spat from a slingshot.

  Boba Fett's aim was true.

  The high explosives penetrated Moorlu's hull, ripping out the fuel pods

  beneath the pinwheel engines, setting up a detonation that left Moorlu

  dead in space. Literally dead in space.

  Fett despised bounty hunters that were too easy to kill, but he supposed

  it cleared the playing field of amateurs. . . .

  It took Boba Fett four standard hours to realign his electrical systems,

  power them up again, and purge the bad signals from his memory banks.

  Moorlu's ion cannon had done significant, but not irreparable damage.

  Finally able to get down to the business of searching for his real

  quarry, Fett returned to the scraps of hull metal he had found earlier.

  He used a tractor beam to haul the shrapnel into his cargo bay, then

  carefully analyzed the burned edges and each outer surface.

  Surprisingly, the scrap hull plates contained a sequence of identifying

  serial numbers, enough to prove that this debris had unquestionably come

  from Bornan Thul's ship.

  But he still couldn't find enough wreckage to account for the entire

  craft. If the vessel had exploded here, there should have been more

  debris.

  No, the amount and the placement of the debris seemed too convenient,

  too. calculated, too easy. He had found only one large piece of

  metal-and it just happened to contain a crucial serial number? Yes . .

  .

  convenient.

  Fett analyzed again and found that all the scraps had been carefully

  removed.

  Nothing was vital. An engine cowling could easily be replaced, and the

  bits of exterior hull had no doubt been stripped away from a portion of

  the vessel that already had double plating, or from some area that could

  afford to be weakened.

  Fett stood up from the pitted pieces of hull metal. Boman Thul had

  planted this debris here on purpose, hoping to convince pursuers that

  his ship had been destroyed in the planetary rim. . . . If the ruse

  had been successful, Nolaa Tarkona would have had no choice but to

  believe her cargo lost and call off the entire bounty hunt Boba Fett

  crawled forward into the cockpit, quite pleased with himself for

  unraveling the ruse. This Bornan Thul was proving to be a much more

  challenging quarry than he had anticipated.

  He would enjoy hunting the man down.

  JAINA STARED PENSIVELY at the wide, greenish-brown river that flowed

  past the Great Temple. Her boots sank into the soft, dark mud of the

  riverbank. In his defeat and despair at the end of the battle with the

  Shadow Academy, Zekk had covered himself with that mud, as if it could

  hide him from what he had done.

  The sunlight that had burned away the earlier mist poured down onto the

  water and reflected back into the air, drenching the jungle with vibrant

  greens, blues, purples, and browns. Insects swarmed about, humming,

  buzzing, reveling in the change of weather.

  Jaina wasn't sure what had drawn her here, but after visiting Zekk's

  room for the third time in as many hours, only to find him still asleep,

  she had decided to take a walk alone, hoping to sort out her thoughts.

  She felt something unsettling in the atmosphere, and she didn't know

  what it was-or perhaps she did. Everything seemed different to her

  somehow. Familiar, yet different. Since the attack by the Second

  Imperium, the Jedi academy had changed.

  Jaina made her way across steppingstones in the river shallows to a

  broad, flat rock. Sitting down on it, she dangled the soles of her

  boots in the warm water, letting the strong current carry away the caked

  mud.

  Why was change so difficult to accept, even when the changes were

  supposedly for the good? The academy felt different.

  Her studies felt different. Jedi trainees no longer spent their days in

  quiet contemplation and individual exercises; they had too much work to

  do repairing the damage from the recent battle-the conflict of Jedi

  against Jedi. Though Luke Skywalker's trainees had won, the Shadow

  Academy had shown them their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses. Nothing

  would ever be the same.

  Even the Great Temple was different, many of its ancient blocks

  shattered in the explosion. Under the direction of her uncle Luke, the

  pyramid would be rebuilt, of course. But it could never be the same

  again.

  Was that bad, though?

  After all, the Jedi academy's greatest outside threat had been

  vanquished. The Shadow Academy station was gone forever, destroyed in

  orbit by its own implanted explosive systems. Yet, in an odd way this

  disturbed Jaina. She had found something comforting in knowing who the

  enemy was.

  Brakiss and the Second Imperium were no longer a threat, and her friend

  Zekk had come back from the darkness. They could be together again, to

  face whatever the future held. So why wasn't she happy?

  Jaina wasn't prepared to handle so many changes at once. @y couldn't

  things go back to the way they were? She was certain she still wanted

  to become a Jedi Knight, but it no longer seemed the only thing to do,

  the only possible path for her life. It no longer seemed like a simple

  choice. In fact, life seemed more complicated than ever before.

  She leaned down and plucked a few pebbles from the shallow water, then

  tossed them one by one toward the center of theriver. In seconds the

  strong current erased all ripples, all signs of the pebble's splash.

  Jaina bit her lower lip. In the end, was that all the effect her life

  would have?

  She wanted to do something significant, not disappear without a trace.

  Jaina gazed down into the murky river, but she could see no farther into

  its depths than she could into the future. She tossed.

  a larger rock this time, making a bigger splash, but with the same

  short-lived result.

  Suddenly, a small flat stone skittered across the surface, bouncing past

  her as easily as sunlight skipping across the ripples, before

  disappearing toward the far shore.

  Jaina turned and saw a dark-haired young man standing ankle-deep in

  water at the edge of the river. "Zekk!"

  "Is this a private game, or can anyone pla3r?" he asked, giving her a

  wan smile.

  He seemed barely able to stand.

  'You look She paused, at a loss for words. His long hair, a shade

  lighter than black, contrasted starkly with the pale skin of his face.

  Purplish smudges beneath his emerald-green eyes made them look sunken

  and haunted. He looked as if he had not eaten for a week. "LTh, you

  look . . ."

  'Alive?" Zekk suggested, smiling faintly.

  Jaina cocked her head and looked him over, raising her eyebrows. 'Well

  .

  . .

  just barely."

  "I must be a pretty awful sight," Zekk said. "I actually feel better

  than I look.
By a little bit, at least."

  Jaina chuckled, feeling dizzy and tonguetied. "Well, that's a relief."

  Somehow, she couldn't think of what to say to the friend who had once

  been so close. "Uh, do you need to sit down or anything?" She indicated

  a spot on the rock beside her.

  Zekk shook his head. "I'm a bit shaky after so much time lying in bed,

  but I feel restless. I thought maybe we could take a walk in the

  jungle?" He spoke hesitantly, as if afraid she might reject his offer.

  "Together?"

  Jaina slid off the flat stone and sloshed over to where he stood in the

  shallows.

  "Well, then," she said with a grin, "what are we wading for?"

  Zekk groaned at the joke. "I think your twin brother is having a bad

  influence on you.

  Jaina spent the next hour with Zekk.

  nmdging through the undergrowth, they made their own path. The two of

  them kept the conversation light, neutral, wandering along the borders

  of uncharted territories in their friendship. They crossed the river

  and made their way through the jungle to the ruins of the shield

  generator station.

  Mangled equipment and chunks of blasted plasteel still lay everywhere.

  "Looks like those commandos did a pretty thorough job," Zekk said in a

  quiet voice.

  Jaina tried to determine if his statement held any pride that the

  Imperials, ostensibly under his command, had succeeded in their mission.

  But he sounded only tired and disappointed.

  Jaina bit her lower lip. 'Not much left here to salvage," she agreed.

  "Mom's sending an all new generator, state-of-the-art.

  New Republic engineers already cleared a fresh site for it right over

  there," she said, pointing toward another clearing just visible through

  the trees. "She's even going to station a military guardian force in

  orbit and upgrade all of our communications equipment. Uncle Luke

  doesn't like all these complications, but the Jedi academy will never be

  caught unguarded again."

  Zekk nodded. "Master Brakiss and I-" His voice broke, but he cleared

  his throat and began again. "We always thought your defenses here were

  pitifully weak. It was stupid-naive at best-to leave Yavin 4 so

  unprotected. We thought it would be Master Skywalker's downfall."

  Jaina swallowed hard. "It almost was.

  He was confident in the abilities of his trainees."

  They stood in awkward silence for some moments. Zekk seemed old to

  Jaina now, much older than his years. Not on the outside, but inside

  -as if the darkness had stolen his innocence, charred his heart.

  "Feels strange," she said at last, "all these changes around us." A dark

  eyebrow raised above an emerald-green eye. "All these new defenses

  being added, you mean? In a way, it's making this place more like the

  Shadow Academy."

  That wasn't what she had meant, but Jaina wasn't sure how to say it.

  "Zekk, do you remember the time on Coruscant when we slipped out in the

  middle of the night and went swimming in the fountain in Dhalbreth

  Square?"

  A distant smile curved the corners of his mouth. 'And the glowfish we

  disturbed made so much light that the New Republic security forces came

  running after us." He took a deep breath. "Of course I remember."

  "I wish we could be like that again, back in those days, without

  everything that happened . . . afterward." Before he could comment,

  Jaina rushed on. "Zekk, if you stay here at the Jedi academy, Uncle

  Luke can teach you the right way to use the Force. We could have

  adventures together again, you and I-and Jacen and Lowie and Tenel Ka.

  We're thinking about going to the Alderaan system to get a gift for my

  mother's birthday. A memento of her home from the asteroid field there.

  You could come with us."

  "I wish I could just go home Zekk murmured thoughtfully.

  "When we get back from Alderaan you could start your training. A fresh

  start."

  "Jaina-"

  "Of course, you might not want to build a new lightsaber at first. It

  might be too painful. You could wait a couple of years for that. I'm

  sure Uncle Luke would-"

  "Jaina," Zekk's voice was firm. "Jaina, look at me." He placed both

  hands on her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake.

  She hadn't even realized that she'd been avoiding his gaze. Her

  brandy-brown eyes swung up to lock with his. Beneath his eyes the dark

  semicircles were like reflections of inner shadows, of hovering guilt.

  "I'm not the same person I was when you knew me before, Jaina. I can't

  be. Not anymore. And you're not the same person either."

  "But you're back now," Jaina objected.

  "We can start over." She knew the words were wrong even as she said

  them.

  Sad. His eyes looked so sad. . . . For her?

  "Maybe you can't understand where I've been . . . or what I've been.

  I'm not an innocent anymore. I've known real power and used it. I've

  killed face-to-face and been proud of it. That's not something I can

  forget."

  Jaina wanted to look away, but his emerald eyes burned with a truth she

  couldn't escape.

  "I can't erase everything and go back to what I was," Zekk said. His

  voice dropped to a whisper. "Even if it were possible, I m not sure I'd

  do it. I can't just pretend that nothing's changed."

  Jaina wasn't sure she understood, but she nodded anyway.

  'You're right about one thing, though," Zekk said. "This is a new

  start. For me, and for all of us. I can't go back, but I can go

  forward."

  Jaina felt the threatening sting of tears and blinked them away. "What

  will you do?" She didn't want him to leave.

  "I don't know yet, but I can't stay here.

  Not at the Jedi academy." Zekles hands gripped her shoulders so tightly

  that Jaina wondered if she'd have bruises. The tension between them was

  almost unbearable. She could sense his inner torment and his need for

  healing . . . for understanding.

  Jaina swallowed hard. Zekk was different, and she had no advice or

  wisdom to give that could help him. He would have to find his own path.

  She offered the one thing she had left to give him. "Wherever you go,

  whatever you decide to do . . . I'll still be your friend, Zekk." He

  loosened his grip on her shoulders and smiled at her. A, real smile,

  with real strength behind it. "I'd like that." Then a mischievous ghnt

  flashed in his eyes. "You know, it's been a long time since we went for

  a swim together. Of course, there aren't any fountains handy, and no

  glowfish in the river, but . . ." Jaina felt a surge of happiness and

  relief. "Race you to the water,' she said.

  ----------------SEVERAL DAYS LATER, from where he stood, Zekk could see

  no more than Jaina's jumpsuited legs sticking out from beneath the

  navigational console in the cockpit of the Lightning Rod. The stained

  brown fabric of her comfortable uniform provided a subtle contrast to

  the tarnished metal plates and lubricant-smeared components scattered

  around the floor.

  After delivering his bad news about Raynar's missing father, Han Solo

  had departed, heading home to Coruscant
. He and Chewbacca had promised

  to return as soon as they could.

  In the meantime, Jaina had vowed to help old Peckhum fix his battered

  ship, which had been severely damaged during the Second Imperium's

  attack. The past few days of working with old Peckhum, Jaina, Jacen,

  Lowie, and Tenel Ka were some of the happiest times Zekk could remember.

  At first Zekk had felt guilty for taking the oung Jedi trainees away

  from rebuilding the Great Temple-since all that horrendous damage had

  been his fault-but Master Skywalker himself had given his blessing to

  restoring the Lightning Rod to working condition.

  "I can't think of any team more competent to repair Peckhum's ship,"

  Luke had said to them. "Leia is sending another crew of New Republic

  engineers, and I have plenty of students to work on the Great Temple in

  the meantime. Besides, I have a sense that getting this old shuttle in

  flying condition will turn out to be very important in ways you can't

  imagine."

  As the companions tinkered not only with systems damaged in the Imperial

  attack, but with old components that should have been replaced years