Remnant: Force Heretic I (49 page)

Luke forced a reassuring smile, fighting back a sudden apprehension about his journey. The Unknown Regions were large and contained hundreds of millions of stars. How long it would take to find Zonama Sekot was impossible to tell, but he knew it was going to take a lot of luck and a strong faith in the Force to find one planet out of so many.

“Soon,” he said, “I hope.”

“Where are you headed?” Mara asked of the fuzzy holograms.

“Bakura,” Leia said.

“Bakura?” Luke’s apprehension shifted and intensified immediately.

“Hey, relax,” Han said. “It’s not like we’re going in alone. We’ve got
Pride of Selonia
to watch our backs. We’re going to be just fine, kid.”

Luke smiled again, and this time it came easier—even though the thought of trouble at Bakura made his skin crawl. The right people were going there to fix it, if there
was
trouble to be found.

“I hope you have better luck than you did with the Yevetha,” he said. “How’s Tahiri?”

“She says she’s feeling fine,” Leia said. “There was an episode on Galantos, but she seems to have bounced back. She might need a little bit more rest, I think, before she puts the pieces together.”

Leia turned away, then, as if her attention was attracted by something off to one side. She turned back again a couple of seconds later.

“We’ve just had word that
Selonia
is ready to leave,” she said, “so we’re going to have to say our good-byes.”

“That’s okay,” Mara said. “We’re just about to leave, also.”

“You take care, Luke,” Han said, with his cocky half smile.

“You, too, my friend,” Luke said. “Good-bye, Leia.”

“Good-bye, Luke,” his sister said. “And may the Force be with you all.”

Mara waved. The image crackled and died, and silence once again filled the cabin. Luke sat back in his seat with a weary sigh.

“Luke?” Mara said. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “These good-byes just feel … different, somehow.”

His wife’s hand came over to rest on top of his. “We’ll see them again soon enough,” she said. “You’ll be fine once we get going.”

Her hand left his and joined the other flickering over the controls, completing her preflight checks. Luke smiled at her reassuring words, but they didn’t convince him. Something was still troubling him and he couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Was it just the mention of Bakura? Or had it been the look on Leia’s face when he’d asked about Tahiri?

She might need a little bit more rest
, Leia had said,
before she puts the pieces together.

Together, not
back
together. Yet he hadn’t spoken to Leia about Tahiri before they’d left. His gut feeling was that there was nothing to worry about, in the long run, but Leia had looked concerned.

He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Most probably, he decided, his unease came from seeing Ben by hologram earlier—the harsh reminder that his son was growing up fast thousands of light-years away while he was off on some crazy mission to find something that might not even exist. He could only hold tight to the faith that Vergere had known what she was talking about. Because if she did, the fate of more than just Ben could be at stake.

Word came over the comm unit that the last of the TIE fighters had just docked in
Widowmaker
’s flight deck.

“We’re ready when you are,” Mara said, then turned to him. “Artoo has laid in a course for a planet called Yashuvhu.” Luke’s much-traveled R2 unit whistled confirmation from the droid station behind them. “Imperial first-contact specialists list it as nonhostile, and our specialist in comparative religions has listed it as one of the places that’s heard of Zonama Sekot.”

“
Our
specialist?” Luke echoed.

Mara looked up at him. “Dr. Soron Hegerty,” she said. “You did know she was coming along, didn’t you?”

Luke shrugged. “Never heard of her, actually.”

“She was flown in from Valc Seven especially to advise us on local folklore that might help us trace Zonama Sekot,” Mara said. “Captain Yage assured me that you knew about this.”

They exchanged a long glance before Luke finally laughed. “Sounds to me as though someone might be trying to play both ends against the middle,” he said.
“Still, it should stop the trip from becoming boring, don’t you think?”

Mara didn’t smile, but he could see amusement in his wife’s deep green eyes.

“
Widowmaker
is at your command,” Captain Yage said when the frigate’s hyperdrive engines had cycled through a routine warm-up sequence. “Course laid in; all systems green. Just say the word, Mara.”

Mara glanced at Luke, who nodded. She relayed the command, and Luke settled back into the copilot’s seat, not needing to do anything with her and R2-D2 at the controls. The stars ahead were bright and too numerous to count. Somewhere within their far-flung tangle was a single world that might be the key to ending the war with the Yuuzhan Vong.

We’re going to find you, Zonama Sekot
, he thought to himself.
Wherever you are, we’re going to find you …

Engines surged and the stars stretched into lines as hyperspace enfolded them. They were on their way again.

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EAN
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Yoda explained that the dreaded Sith tend to come in twos: “Always two, there are. No more, no less. A Master, and an apprentice.” But did you know that the Sith didn’t always exist in pairs? That at one time in the ancient Republic there were as many Sith as Jedi, until a Sith Lord named Darth Bane was the lone survivor of a great Sith war and created the “Rule of Two”?

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Luke Skywalker scrambled up the rocky slope, his lungs burning with each heavy breath he took. He was relieved to hear his nephew beside him also panting for breath, because that meant his own difficulties with the climb were in no way a reflection of his age or fitness; it was simply that the atmosphere on Munlali Mafir was thin, that was all.

Behind them came the terrible baying of the Krizlaws. The sound was high-pitched and piercing, even through the rarefied atmosphere, and sent a shiver down his spine. With their great rancorlike heads bent low, sniffing for a scent, Luke knew that the smooth- and pink-skinned aliens wouldn’t be too far behind, converging from around the ruined palace to join in the hunt for the landing party.

He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting to see them snapping at his heels already. Thankfully, though, they weren’t that close. But even as he looked, he saw seven of them emerge from a decorative archway at the base of the nearest wall, tripping over one another and slipping on the rubble in their haste as they headed for the ceremonial mound. Another three jump-rolled from a window, scurrying out of sight behind a statue.