Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens the Weapon of a Jedi: A Luke Skywalker Adventure (12 page)

The remotes streaked in. Luke couldn’t say that
he saw them, but the blade of his father’s lightsaber was there to block their energy bolts. He couldn’t say that he heard them,
but he turned whenever one tried to get behind him, blocking its attack vector with his blade.

He was no longer aware of Threepio’s encouragement, or Artoo’s beeps. The chirping birds no longer registered in his ears, nor the chuffs and snorts of the pikhrons.
He didn’t
notice the sweat running down his neck, or feel the growing heat of the day.

There was only the Force, its currents stretching into the past and future, and he was part of it, trusting it to take him where he needed to be. His muscles and nerves moved his arms and legs,
shifting effortlessly among the four defensive postures that formed the foundation of lightsaber combat. But
who was commanding those muscles and nerves?

The remotes broke off their attack and floated quietly in front of the pillar. Luke looked around the courtyard, faintly startled. The sun had passed directly overhead and was now descending
from its zenith in the sky.

“How long…how long since I was last hit?” he asked.

“Three standard hours, eleven minutes, and forty-three seconds,” Threepio
said. “Perhaps you ought to rest, Master Luke. You must be perilously low on charge.”

“I feel great,” Luke said with a smile, wanting nothing more than to sink back into the Force and lose himself in it.

The pikhrons began to snuffle and snort, tossing their heads. The matriarch brought her front feet off the ground and slammed them down, calling urgently to the rest of the group.

“Now what’s gotten into those peculiar creatures?” Threepio wondered.

“I think they sense something,” Luke said. “They’re acting like banthas did back home when a krayt dragon was on the hunt.”

Then he could feel it, too—new ripples in the Force, advancing like waves to crash into the gentle ebb and flow of life in the glade.

He raised his lightsaber, and the remotes rose up to face
him.

“No,” Luke said. “We’re not training now. Something else is happening.”

He lowered his weapon, and the remotes backed away—which was when the laser blast knocked him off his feet.

T
HE STORMTROOPERS clambered over the rubble of the ruined outbuildings with their blasters raised.

“Oh no, I’ll be captured!” yelped Threepio, throwing his hands in the air.

The pikhrons huddled together in terror, bellowing.

Luke scrambled to his feet. He glanced quickly at his gun belt, but it was on the other side of the fountain. He’d never reach it in time.

“Surrender,
rebel,” said the lead trooper.

“Come get me,” Luke said, his feet automatically assuming the ready position as he raised his lightsaber.

The stormtrooper adjusted his rifle’s controls, no doubt setting it for stun.

I can’t let them capture me,
Luke thought.
They’ll figure out who I am and make a symbol out of me. The destroyer of the Death Star, brought to justice. And then many
worlds that might have joined the Alliance will retreat in fear instead.

The lead trooper fired at him, blaster emitting rings of concentric blue. Luke barely intercepted them with his blade, the energy dancing along it and vanishing.

And of course if they capture me I’ll be executed,
Luke thought.
I’d rather avoid that, too.

The stormtrooper paused, then nodded at his fellows. The
squad began to spread out, advancing across the glade toward him.

Let the Force guide you,
Luke thought. But he turned uncertainly one way and then the other as the troopers executed a flanking maneuver.

There’s too many of them,
shrilled the voice of doubt in his head.
Three remotes isn’t anything like eight living adversaries.

Behind the troopers came a slim man wearing the olive-green
uniform of an Imperial officer, dragging along a smaller figure. It was Farnay. Their eyes met and Luke saw the anger in her
gaze—anger and fear.

“Drop your weapon,” the officer said, inclining his chin at the girl in his grip. “Otherwise someone could get hurt.”

Luke took a step back. He was outnumbered nine to one, and the Imperials had Farnay. He sighed and held his finger over the
lightsaber’s activation stud.

Then a hum reached his ears, followed by a surprised beep from Artoo.

Luke risked a glance backward. Sarco was striding through the archway that led into the Temple of Eedit. He was carrying a staff whose ends were crowned with cycling purple sparks. The weapon
howled and crackled in his hands, and Luke found himself thinking that this was not the Sarco
he’d met in the jungle—the being crossing the courtyard radiated both confidence and
malice.

“Hyperspace scout,” Sarco said. “Historian. Farm boy. And yet here you are with a Jedi laser sword in your hand, like you mean to use it.”

“Be quiet,” the Imperial lieutenant said. “You’re under arrest, both of you.”

“I don’t think so,” Sarco replied, twisting a dial on his tool belt. Artoo
let out an electronic shriek, Threepio stopped and flung his arms in the air, and the troopers
clutched their helmets.

“What was that?” Luke demanded.

“Electromagnetic pulse to block their transmissions,” Sarco said. “Well, Marcus? Let’s see what you’re capable of.”

The faceless alien whirled the staff in his hands as he strode across the courtyard. The weapon let out a strange howl,
purple lightning flaring from either end. One of the troopers fired at
Sarco, a panicky shot that went wide, and the alien speared the trooper with his staff, sending purple energy coursing across his armor. The trooper flopped on the ground, spasming, then lay
still.

The lieutenant drew his sidearm, but Farnay drove her elbow into his stomach, breaking his grip. She scrambled away from
him, head down. The officer aimed his blaster at her, and Luke raced
forward, lightsaber held at his waist.

A trooper fired at him—the shot was to kill, not stun—and Luke deflected the bolt into the chest of the lieutenant. The man fell forward with a strangled cry. Luke brought his
lightsaber down on the trooper’s helmet, then spun away from the falling soldier and blocked a shot at point-blank
range, sending the laser blast back into the chest of the trooper
who’d fired it.

The pikhrons broke into a run, charging over the rubble behind the troopers, seeking safety.

Sarco brought his staff down like a club on a trooper’s head, then thrust the end into the fallen Imperial’s breastplate. He grunted as a blaster bolt struck the middle of the staff
but held on and charged the
trooper who’d tried to disarm him, screaming like a Tusken in the Tatooine night.

Something told Luke to duck. He did, then smelled his hair burning. He swung around, thrusting his lightsaber up and through the armored breastplate of a trooper. He spotted Farnay crouched
behind the rim of the fountain, watching the fight anxiously.

The remaining two stormtroopers were between Luke and
Sarco. Sarco swung his staff forward as one trooper fired wildly. The alien’s weapon hooked the soldier’s blaster and ripped it
out of his hands. The other trooper dropped to one knee and raised his rifle at Luke, who deflected the bolt back at him. The soldier ducked, and the reoriented bolt struck his squadmate in the
back of the helmet. Then Sarco stepped over the armored body and brought
his staff down on the last trooper’s head.

Luke stepped back, lowering his lightsaber. It had all happened so quickly.

“I don’t know why you followed me,” he said to Sarco. “But I’m glad you did.”

The stormtroopers had been the danger he’d sensed in the Force. But he’d defeated them—thanks to the mystical energy field, and help from his friends. His vision hadn’t
been completely
accurate—he hadn’t slipped on a flagstone, for one thing—but it had been close enough to warn him.

“Are you all right?” he called to Farnay.

She nodded, eyes wide.

Sarco turned his head in the girl’s direction, then walked past Luke and shoved one of the motionless troopers into a pit blasted in the flagstones.

“What are you doing?” Luke asked.

“Making it harder for the Empire
to figure out what happened here,” Sarco said, dragging another trooper over to vanish into the darkness. “Pity. Their weapons and armor would
be good salvage.”

Luke hesitated, but disposing of the troopers made sense. The two of them shoved the other fallen soldiers into the pits.

“Look out!” Farnay yelled.

Luke looked up to see Sarco spinning his staff slowly in one hand.

“Stay away from him!” Farnay yelled.

“What are you going to do about it, brat?” snarled Sarco. “This is no business of yours.”

He cocked his head at Luke, to the left and then to the right.

“What are you, Marcus?” he asked. “I’ve been considering that since back in the jungle. You’re no hyperspace scout, that’s for sure. And you can use that
sorcerer’s weapon better than you let on.”

Luke took a step backward, raising his lightsaber. The remotes rushed forward, thinking he meant to resume the exercise. Luke slipped on a loose flagstone, nearly falling to his knees. He looked
from the flagstone to Sarco in sudden realization.

“The Force wasn’t warning me about the stormtroopers,” he said. “It was warning me about
you
.”

“Oh no,” Threepio moaned.

“The Force,”
Sarco said. “So you’re a Jedi, then? I don’t think so. I remember them from when I was small—you don’t have their skills. So what are you?
What was the word the sorcerers used, before the Empire came for them?
Padawan
—that was it. So that’s what you are—a learner. An apprentice. But what good’s an
apprentice without a master?”

Sarco skirted the edge of a pit, walking toward Luke like he
had all the time in the world. Luke found his feet assuming ready position, noting with relief that the remotes had finally concluded
something other than a training exercise was taking place.

“Nobody’s Padawan, the last apprentice of an extinct religion,” Sarco said. “Care for a duel?”

Luke felt his anger rising. Sarco had proposed the one thing he wanted most—a chance to show off his
new skills and show the arrogant alien what a mistake he’d made.

He exhaled slowly, lightsaber held at his waist, as Sarco spun his staff in a blur of deadly purple.

“I should thank you, Nobody’s Padawan,” he said. “I’ve been looking for a way into this place for years—and now you’ve been good enough to find one for
me.”

“And now you know there’s nothing left here for you to steal.”

Sarco’s vocoder erupted in amused static.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Nobody’s Padawan. The Empire bombed the temple, but the vaults and storerooms below are intact. I’ve got debts to pay, and what’s
beneath our feet will take care of that and more. Pity you won’t get to see the wealth your precious sorcerers left behind.”

“The Jedi didn’t stockpile wealth like that,” Luke said. “The
only treasures here are what’s around you.”

Sarco turned his chitinous mask to take in the broken statues and uprooted flagstones, then returned his scrutiny to Luke.

“Do you know what I’m going to do after I defeat you, Nobody’s Padawan?” he asked. “First I’ll sell whatever’s left of you to the governor. Then
I’ll sell your fighter and melt those droids into scrap. As for your saber,
it will fetch good credits from some collector. Or perhaps I’ll keep it as one of my trophies.”

“None of those things is going to happen,” Luke said, and leapt forward, lightsaber held over his head.

S
ARCO FELL BACK, and Luke’s vicious downward cut bit into the flagstones, sending up sparks. The alien held his staff up to parry as Luke
stalked him.

“You don’t know the first thing about Jedi,” Luke said. “Starting with their weapons.”

Sarco raised his staff, and Luke brought the saber down, expecting the ancient weapon to cleave the Scavenger’s staff in two. But the saber met
resistance as Sarco’s staff caught the
blade and held it, sending a shock up Luke’s arms. Sarco gave way, and Luke stumbled forward. Then the alien kicked the young rebel in the face, sending him sprawling.