Apocalypse (14 page)

“A
former
Sith,” Ben corrected. “Come on, Jaina. Her own father tried to kill her.”

“Okay, a former Sith,” Jaina said, barely glancing at him. “I’m serious, Vestara. If going into battle unarmed bothers you, then stay here.”

“And how will the Jedi know who the High Lords are?” Vestara asked. “How will they know when they have found the Grand Lord?”

“We’ll get by,” Jaina replied.

“Or blame
me
when something goes wrong.” Vestara climbed the step and placed a hand on Ben’s hip. “You’re not going anywhere without me. I need to be there to watch your back—even if I don’t have a weapon to defend it.”

An impatient tweedle sounded from the pumping station’s interface panel, and the R9 unit plugged into the dataport began to flash its projection lamp at them.

“I guess we’d better get in,” Ben said. “We’re holding things up.”

Vestara climbed into the capsule and stretched out on the passenger’s couch, then waited in the antiseptic-tinged air as Ben slipped in beside her and pulled the pilot’s yoke up between his knees. The hatch sealed automatically, and a soft green light filled the interior. As soon as Vestara had strapped in and brought the navigation display online, Ben activated the control thrusters.

A muffled
thump
sounded behind them as the droid opened the pipe again, then a loud gurgling echoed through the capsule, and Vestara felt her stomach rise as they slowly accelerated. Ben’s gaze went straight to the navigation display. It showed nothing ahead but a long stretch of uninterrupted pipe.

Vestara allowed an uncomfortable silence to hang between them for the first hundred meters of travel, then asked, “So, where are we going? Besides the Jedi Temple, I mean.”

Ben didn’t reply for a moment, keeping his eyes on the display and obviously struggling over how much to tell her.

“Oh, right. I’ll find out when we get there.” Vestara turned her gaze back to the padded hatch cover hanging just a dozen centimeters above her face. “And I’ll be sure to tell Jaina how careful you were to keep me in the dark.”

Ben sighed. “It’s not that, Ves,” he said. “I’m just not sure how to explain it to you.”

“It’s okay, Ben.” She pulled her arm away from her side, so that it was no longer touching him, and folded it across her stomach. “I understand.”

“Look, all I know is that it’s Level One-seventy-five, Sector Twelve, Twenty-two North Eighteen,” Ben said. “Does that mean anything to you? Because it sure doesn’t to me.”

“Level One-seventy-five?” Vestara asked. “That’s pretty high up, isn’t it?”

“Sure—if you’re a granite slug,” Ben scoffed. “But it’s still farther down than I usually go. It’s one of the mechanical cores, I think.”

“Core?” Vestara echoed. “As in,
central core
?”

“Yeah, Ves,” Ben replied. “That’s where the ‘core’ usually is. In the center.”

“I suppose so,” Vestara said, allowing some of her growing—and
very real—fear to seep into her voice. “Maybe I should have listened to Jaina.”

Ben glanced over at her, his brow arched. “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t think the Masters have thought this through,” she said. “Ben, I come from a planet with
tens of thousands
of Sith. And half of them are probably right here on this planet, hiding inside the Jedi Temple.”

Ben dipped his chin, trying to conceal a smile. “That’s kind of what we’re counting on, Vestara.”

Vestara’s stomach went hollow. She had expected their team’s objective to be the capture of a cargo dock, so the Jedi would have a bridgehead from which to invade the rest of the Temple. But this sounded like they planned to emerge well inside the Sith perimeter and attack outward—and if that was their intention, it could only mean that the Jedi knew a way to disable the shields and open the Temple remotely.

“The Jedi have a secret override, don’t they?” she asked. “You’re just going to open the doors and let all those space marines come in shooting?”

“Something like that.” Ben looked over at her, his eyes soft with concern. “Does that bother you?”

Vestara hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I guess it does.” It would have been useless to say anything else; Ben would have sensed the lie in two heartbeats. “There’s not one Saber in there who wouldn’t ignite a lightsaber through the back of my head, so I know it shouldn’t. But …”

“But they’re your own people.” Ben nodded. “You wouldn’t be human if seeing them killed didn’t bother you.”

“Thanks, Ben. I’m glad you understand.”

“No problem,” he replied. “I know it’s not easy.”

An alert ping sounded from the navigation unit, and a Y-intersection appeared on the screen ahead. Ben’s knuckles paled as his grasp tightened on the steering yoke, and Vestara saw him begin a silent count as he prepared to make the turn into the Temple. She found herself trying to imagine a life with him that didn’t involve being a Jedi
or
Sith, just two regular people trying to make their way
in the galaxy. Of course, they would never be
too
regular. But she could see them being happy as professional gamblers, or even a husband-and-wife bounty hunter team—providing, of course, that she could persuade Ben to use the Force for something other than saving the galaxy.

Ben’s gaze locked on the navigation screen, and he eased them through the turn, bouncing off the pipe wall just once before he brought the capsule back under control. Almost instantly another intersection appeared at the bottom of the display, along with a small inset schematic showing a tangled network of navigable conduits.

“It won’t be long now, I guess,” Vestara said.

“Only a couple of minutes,” Ben answered. “We just crossed into the Temple.”

“Ben?” Vestara asked. Her dream of making a life together outside the Jedi Order was as much a fantasy as had been those letters she had written to an imaginary loving father, but she had to know—to be
certain
—before the battle began. Ben deserved that much. “Have you ever thought about not being a Jedi?”

“Sure,” Ben said, surprising her. “But not since I was a kid.”

“You didn’t want to be a Jedi when you were young?”

Ben shook his head. “Not at all.” He rolled the capsule up on its side, preparing to enter a riser pipe they were approaching. “I was in Shelter when Abeloth contacted the younglings.”

“And you weren’t affected?”

“Only because I withdrew from the Force.” Ben’s gaze remained fixed on the display, and he seemed to be only half listening. “I don’t remember a lot about it.”

“What about now?” Vestara asked. “Can you see yourself doing something else?”

Ben tipped the steering yoke away, his brow furrowing in concentration as he swung them into the riser.

“Why
would
I?” A knell rang through the capsule as it slammed into the pipe, then it hit the other side, and Ben cursed under his breath. “I need to concentrate on piloting this thing. Can we talk about this later?”

“No need,” Vestara said. “It was a silly question anyway.”

She had her answer—and it made her feel like a black hole inside.

Vestara could never be a Jedi, not in any true sense of the word. Ben could be nothing else. Their love had been doomed from the start—from five thousand years before they were born—and now all that remained was for her to accept reality and find a way to survive without the Jedi to protect her from the Lost Tribe’s vengeance.

Fortunately, if it came to it, Vestara would have something to trade. At first, she had not understood the significance of the conversation between Master Skywalker and Bazel Warv. Most young girls had secrets, so it had taken her a moment to grasp the significance of Amelia Solo’s “secret name.” But Master Skywalker’s reaction—and how quickly he had ended the conversation when he realized they were not alone—had certainly suggested to Vestara that Amelia’s secret was one the Jedi themselves took
very
seriously. The final confirmation had been the wave of alarm she had felt when she rounded the corner and stepped through the door with Ben, when Master Skywalker—and even Ben, to a certain extent—had realized what she had just overheard.

After that, it had been a simple matter for Vestara to complete the puzzle. At the Pool of Knowledge, she had glimpsed enough of the face that High Lord Taalon had seen on the Throne of Balance, and that glimpse had been enough to know the Jedi Queen was a redhead who bore a striking resemblance to the Hapan Queen Mother, Tenel Ka. It was well known that Tenel Ka and Jacen Solo had been classmates at the Jedi academy on Yavin 4, and the gossip media suggested they had remained “friends” until Jacen set fire to Kashyyyk.

It was a fact that Tenel Ka had given birth to a baby girl name Allana, whose father she refused to identify. Allana had reportedly been killed during the Second Civil War, when Moffs attempted to assassinate Tenel Ka’s entire family with one of their nanoviruses. At about the same time, the Solos had adopted a Force-sensitive war orphan of the same age.

But most telling, now that Vestara thought back, was the day she had seen Han and Amelia together in a hologram. She had been aboard the
Jade Shadow
when Han Solo commed to report that Leia had been arrested, and Amelia had been in the holo with him. Vestara had suggested that Han take the child along when he went to seek his
wife’s release from Chiefs of State Padnel Ovin and Wynn Dorvan. At the time, she had thought she was merely reacting to how cute Amelia was. But now she realized it was more than that—she had been reacting to a family resemblance.

Amelia Solo had Han Solo’s eyes and mouth. Even more telling, there was a hint of a crooked grin in Amelia’s smile. Vestara closed her eyes and looked back in her memory, using meditation and the Force to sharpen her recall, to bring every detail of the little girl’s head into clearer focus—and she saw the last bit of proof.

Amelia’s hair was not naturally black. It had red roots—golden-red, as a matter of fact. And golden-red was the color of the Hapan Queen Mother’s famous tresses.

So Amelia Solo was destined to become the queen whom Lord Taalon had seen in the Pool of Knowledge. The Skywalkers knew it. Bazel Warv knew it. And now Vestara Khai knew it, too.

For the time being, she would keep the knowledge to herself. Until she knew the circumstances of her new life, there was nothing to be gained by revealing it to anyone, and she owed it to Ben to hold the secret—at least until she could trade it for something very important.

Like saving her own skin.

They banged through a dozen more intersections, then the entire display flashed yellow and Ben eased back on the throttle. He slipped the capsule into a bypass line and came to a dead stop. A liquid squeal reverberated through the hull as the control valves were adjusted, and the water began to gurgle away.

Ben unbuckled his restraint harness and glanced over at Vestara. “Ready?”

Vestara nodded. “You have no idea
how
ready,” she said, unbuckling her own harness. “After today, no Jedi will have any doubts about me. I promise you that.”

A look of concern came to Ben’s face. “Don’t do anything reckless, Ves,” he said. “Just point out the High Mugwumps. You don’t have anything to prove.”

Vestara forced a smile. “Not to you, maybe.”

The muffled clang of a shifting access panel sounded from above, then the capsule’s hatch broke its seal and hissed open. Ben let his gaze
linger on Vestara and whispered, “I mean it—be careful,” then climbed out.

Vestara followed a moment later and found herself standing on the bypass platform next to Ben and the Horn siblings, Valin and Jysella. Valin extended a hand to Ben.

“Welcome home.”

“Thanks,” Ben said. “It’s good to be back.”

Jysella eyed Vestara as though considering whether to offer a similar greeting, then simply gestured toward the inspection capsule.

“Come on,” she said. “Help me pull this out of the way.”

“Of course.”

Vestara extended a hand toward the crane hook affixed to the rear end of the capsule and used the Force to lift it out of the bypass pipe. Jysella did the same with the front, and together they stowed it atop a growing stack of capsules piled at the far end of the platform.

“Thanks.” Jysella turned to Ben and pointed toward the front of the murk-filled chamber. It was packed with filtering units, pump motors, and purification tanks. “Your father’s somewhere in front. He said to see him for assignments as soon as you arrived.”

Ben acknowledged the message with a quick nod and motioned for Vestara to lead the way. Instead she remained where she was, slowly expanding her Force awareness out into the gloom. Something felt wrong, but she could not quite decide what it was.

The room was the size of a starfighter hangar, but so packed with equipment, cabinetry, and spare parts that it felt more like an underground labyrinth than the huge chamber it was. Everywhere she looked, dripping pipes ran from one processing unit to another, then climbed into the overhead darkness in bundles as big around as tree trunks. Some pieces of equipment were the size of cargo sleds, and the noise level was loud enough to make her wish she had a pair of sonic dampeners handy. The conditions were ideal for hiding a sentry or a spy. Considering the importance of the room—and the direct access to it from outside the Temple—Vestara could not believe the Sith would have failed to take such a basic precaution.

When she did not sense any dark presences lurking in the area, she asked, “How many guards did the first Jedi Knights kill in here?”

“None,” Jysella replied. “The place was empty.”

Vestara turned to look at her. “And that doesn’t strike you as strange?”

“Master Skywalker did have a team search the entire room, just in case,” Valin said. “But right now, there are Jedi-led companies of space marines outside the Temple, assaulting thirty different entrances. Master Skywalker thinks the Sith have moved all their sentries to the exterior doors and down into the underlevels.”

“That
was
the plan,” Jysella added, flashing a half smile. “And sometimes, plans actually work.”