Star Wars: Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force (10 page)

Jax and Laranth traded glances. “Yes,” Jax said. “Usually. Only I didn’t choose this lightsaber. The one I
had, the one I built and trained with, was destroyed. This one”—he patted the hilt—“was given to me by … someone who knew I needed one.”

Laranth moved restively. “I hate to break this up, but we have a logistical problem—how to get Kaj onto friendly turf.”

“Yes, but which friendly turf?” Jax met her eyes, which made his stomach feel strange. “I can take him back with me, or you can smuggle him to Thi Xon Yimmon.”

“Yimmon has a lot on his plate,” the Twi’lek said. “I can’t conscionably give him yet another consideration without asking.”

Kaj, who’d been sitting against a pile of rubble, scrambled to his feet. “I’m not a consideration. I’m a Jedi. At least, I
want
to be a Jedi,” he amended when the weight of dual gazes fell on him. “I want to be trained. I want to—to learn to use the Force. To control it instead of having it … burn through me like it does. It—it scares me sometimes. The way I feel. The way
it
feels.”

He ran down, his hands tugging at his cloak, his eyes pleading. He looked and sounded so very young and fragile … which made what he’d done to the Inquisitor back there all the more astonishing.

I-Five’s words came back to Jax at that moment—what the droid had said about Jax being needed to train the next generation of Jedi. Perhaps that need was already presenting itself.

“We’ll take him to the conapt,” he told Laranth. “But be sure to give Yimmon a full report. Maybe it’s best for him to train with you, learn the ways of the Paladins.”

“Maybe it’s best he gets the high points of both philosophies,” said Laranth. “Circumstances being what they are, mutual exclusivity is a luxury the Jedi can’t afford.”

She was right, of course. They were stronger together
than apart. Which brought Jax’s mind forcibly around to the fact of her leaving their team. He opened his mouth to say something about it, to suggest that she come back, but she was already moving into the alcove, craning her long, graceful neck to scan the vertical shaft with its inset hand- and footholds.

She flicked her green gaze back to Kaj. “Can you do a controlled leap when you’re
not
under attack?” she asked, and Jax thought that her lips curled slightly at the corners.

The boy moved to peer up the ferrocrete tube. He nodded. “I think so. At least I’ve leapt as high as that cross-shaft.” He pointed straight up.

Jax joined them in the small access, following the boy’s gesture to a point roughly ten meters up, where a durasteel catwalk skirted the shaft, halving its diameter.

“Good,” Laranth said. She drew one of her blasters. “I’ll go first. Follow me up.”

She leapt, reaching the metal platform easily and lighting on it with a soft tap of her booted feet. Kaj glanced at Jax, who nodded encouragingly, then followed, overshooting the catwalk by almost a meter. Laranth snagged his cloak and reeled him in before leaping away to a higher perch.

Jax took that as his cue to move, and joined Kaj on the catwalk. The boy peered at him in the twilight gloom, his eyes betraying fear.

“Won’t they feel us? The Inquisitors, I mean. Won’t they feel us using the Force?”

“Probably. But they certainly felt that big explosion you set off back there, and hopefully that’s where they’ll concentrate. It’ll take only a few seconds to reach the bazaar, and once we’re there, we can blend in. Now go on up. Laranth is waiting for you.”

They got him back to Poloda Place without incident. The market was, in fact, curiously empty of Imperial
presence, and Jax, despite stretching to the limit of his Force senses, detected not even an Inquisitor—or, rather, the “hole” in the Force that would suggest the use of a taozin cloak such as some of the Inquisitors used to hide their presence from other Force-sensitives.

Jax was surprised when Laranth accompanied them all the way to the conapt. Rhinann and I-Five were both connected to the HoloNet when they entered the living area. Rhinann glanced up with obvious surprise, whether at seeing Laranth or their guest or both, Jax couldn’t say. I-Five’s photoreceptors blinked once, then settled on Kaj.

“Are Dejah and Den around?” Jax asked.

“Dejah Duare is out,” said I-Five in his obedient-protocol-droid voice. “Den Dhur is in his room composing a correspondence.”

Jax smiled at how jarring it was to have this particular protocol droid behaving in ways that were normal for a protocol droid. “It’s all right, I-Five. Kaj is … Kaj is a friend. And he’s a Force-sensitive. He just took down an Inquisitor single-handedly and unarmed.”

“He did what?” Den Dhur stood in the doorway to his quarters, his already large eyes looking huge in the wash of full-spectrum light from the room’s cleverly concealed indirect illumination.

“Kaj, this is Den Dhur. A member of our team.”

The short, stocky Sullustan came farther into the room, his eyes on the newcomer. “Oh, great. Sure. Let’s make polite introductions while every Imperial stormtrooper on Coruscant is out looking for him.”

Jax shook his head. “Den, didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Yeah, I heard what you—”

“Kaj is a potential Jedi,” said Jax patiently. “The Inquisitor was after him. He didn’t get him. That’s
good
news.”

“Good news? He’s a potential time bomb, Jax. Can’t you—” He cut off as I-Five’s metal hand came down on his shoulder.

“Den, it’s rude to talk over someone as if they weren’t there. I know—people do it to me all the time. What Jax is telling us is that the Emperor failed to get yet another valuable prize. For all his trying, he has failed to capture Jax, and now he’s failed to capture our new friend—” The droid tilted his head toward the boy, who blinked.

“Uh,” Kaj said. “Kajin. Kajin Savaros.”

Jax steered Kaj around the Ves Volette light sculpture that Dejah had installed in their living space and into the seating area. He sat him down in a formchair, then moved to sit on one corner of the couch, facing him. “Are you hungry, Kaj? Thirsty? It can’t be easy living out there on the street like that.”

“I’m starved actually. I’d stolen some stuff from the market, but the Inquisitor smoked me out before I could eat much of it.”

Jax started to rise, but I-Five waved him down. “Allow me. Laranth, would you also like some refreshment?”

The Twi’lek opened her mouth, glanced at the droid, then simply nodded and followed him over to the beverage dispenser.

“The Inquisitors are after you, too?” Kaj asked Jax, pulling his eyes from the light sculpture’s kinetic, ever-changing display. “Because you’re a Jedi?”

“That’s the official reason, I guess. It’s really a lot more complicated than that. What about you? How long have you been dodging Inquisitors?”

“Since I turned fifteen six weeks ago. That was when the Force really woke up in me. Before that, I was just another street kid who occasionally made strange things happen.”

“But you haven’t always lived on Coruscant.”

Kaj shook his head, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the plate of ghibli fruit and a tall glass of some sort of red tea that I-Five carried toward him on a tray. One of I-Five’s soothing concoctions, Jax figured. The boy accepted the food and took a healthy bite before answering Jax’s implied question.

“I got here about … oh, seven months ago, I guess. From M’haeli.” The expression on his face froze, and Jax could feel the cold, swift stab of grief that lay behind it. “My parents’ farm was destroyed by Imperial troops. My father was a local elder. They wanted to make an example of him—show that they were the leaders now. So they sacked the farm and drove us off it. Mother and Father put me on a transport to Coruscant, hoping …” He shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of fruit. “I’m not sure what they were hoping. My parents knew I was different. Since I was a baby I’d occasionally, like I said, make strange things happen—you know, levitate something to make it come to me, that sort of thing.” He drank most of the tea in a single gulp. “They knew the Jedi Temple was gone, but I think my mother was hoping I might find someone …” His eyes sought Jax’s, then moved to Laranth, who had come back into the room behind I-Five.

“Someone who would train you,” Jax finished.

“Train who to do what?” Dejah Duare swept into the room, unwinding a long, pale scarf of translucent golden synthsilk from her deep crimson hair, which blazed when the light hit it.

Jax felt his throat constrict and used a tendril of the Force to fend off the effects of Dejah’s sensual aura. At first he thought she must have caught something of the tenor of their discussion and that concern had caused an unconscious spike in her pheromones. Then he realized that her gaze was not on Kaj, but on Laranth.

The Twi’lek didn’t so much as twitch a muscle, but
she disappeared from Jax’s sense of the Force almost as effectively as if she’d put on taozin-scale armor.

“I need to report to Yimmon,” she said. “Let me know what you decide, Jax. Good-bye, Kaj. May the Force be with you. You’ve found a good teacher.”

She glided past Dejah without so much as a glance. Jax opened his mouth to call after her, but couldn’t think of anything to say. He shrugged mentally; that was just Laranth’s way. He should be used to it by now.

“Report what to Yimmon?” Dejah asked coming farther into the room, settling the scarf about her shoulders. “Decide what? What’s she talking about?”

Den, who’d been hovering between anteroom and living area, scuttled quickly out of her way and took a seat next to Jax on the couch.

Only when she’d rounded the chair Kaj was sitting in did her eyes fall on him. She smiled, radiantly, her smile like a benediction.

Kaj’s eyes widened, then flicked toward Jax as if seeking instructions. “You’re a Zeltron,” he said with something like awe in his voice.

“Oh boy,” Den muttered.

Jax elbowed him. “Dejah, this is Kajin Savaros from M’haeli. He just had a narrow escape from an Inquisitor. Laranth and I were lucky enough to have witnessed Kaj’s powerful use of the Force in defeating that Inquisitor. Alone. Unarmed.”

Dejah drew in a deep breath and exhaled, her eyes meeting Kaj’s. “Remarkable. Then … are you a Jedi?”

“I
want
to be. I’m hoping Jax will teach me.”

Dejah’s regard swung to Jax. “That’s what you meant, then. Teach him to become a Jedi. You want to take him on as a Padawan. There, you see, it’s just like I-Five said: if the Jedi Order is to be rebuilt, you’ll have to have a hand in it. Surely you can see that now.”

“I wasn’t blind to it before,” said Jax gently. “I was just aware that there are other priorities.”

“What could be more important than that?” Dejah demanded. “What could be a more valuable thing for you to do than to train this young man?”

She was trying to make points with him by flattery, of course, Jax realized. Trying to convince him to stay out of Tuden Sal’s plottings. He smiled, warmed by the fact that she cared so much for him.

Den growled. “What a bunch of bilterscoot.”

I-Five stirred and made his throat-clearing sound. His sudden reappearance in the conversation startled Kaj. Jax saw the boy’s reaction as a sudden appearance of a multitude of Force spikes that darted out and receded as soon as he registered the source of the sound and movement.

Jax frowned. That had been an involuntary reflex; Kajin Savaros was wearing the Force awfully close to the surface. If it was that easy for Jax to sense him, how much easier would it be for an Inquisitor?

“While I agree with Dejah Duare in principle,” I-Five said, “it does seem to me that in light of the way Kaj came to be among us, we should be prepared to move him—and ourselves as well—if it becomes necessary.”

“Why would it become necessary?” asked Dejah, looking from Jax to the droid to Kaj.

“Maybe you didn’t hear Jax clearly, Dejah,” said Den acerbically. “Kajin, here, defeated an Inquisitor. Which probably means that the entire College of Sith flunkies is about to come down on our heads.”

Dejah swung around to look at Kaj. “But you killed him, surely?”

“I—I don’t know,” Kaj stammered, then looked to Jax. “Is there a way we can tell?”

Jax shook his head. “All I can tell you is that he wasn’t
conscious when we left the area. I didn’t detect any Force threads from him at any rate.”

“Force threads?” repeated Kaj.

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“What difference does it make if he’s dead?” Den asked sharply. “The Inquisitors aren’t loners. They stay connected to their boss. If you killed him, then he just became a big, fat blank spot on Vader’s sensors, and if he’s still alive, he’ll go scurrying back to his lord and master to make a full report.”

“He’s already a big, fat blank spot, Den,” Jax explained. “Laranth told me that the Inquisitors have started using some sort of taozin by-product to block detection.”

“How much danger do you think we’re in?” Dejah asked.

“No more than we were before. But I do need to start Kajin’s training.”

“Good,” said I-Five. “That should give you incentive to complete the lightsaber you’ve been working on. And, if we can find another crystal, you might even be able to retrofit the lightsaber you’re carrying now to emit a less sanguinary hue.”

Dejah laughed, the sound trilling and warm. “I resent that remark,” she said without rancor. “I find crimson a most appealing color … don’t you, Kajin?” She cocked her head pertly to one side, sending a thick lock of burgundy-colored hair over one eye.

The boy nodded mutely.

“Oh please …” Den slid off the couch and disappeared into his room. After a moment, I-Five followed him.

Jax looked at Kaj. The boy’s eyes were still on Dejah, but they seemed unfocused, vague. “You up for starting your career as a Padawan?” Jax asked.

The boy shook himself visibly. “I’m pretty tired. Is there someplace I could sleep for a while?”

Jax took Kaj to the sleep alcove in his own quarters and bedded him down, hoping he wouldn’t have any Force dreams. With power like Kajin Savaros had shown, a Force dream could wreak havoc on their homestead.

He’d soft-pedaled that just now, he realized, and he said nothing of his concern to Dejah when he returned to the living room to find her sitting in the chair Kaj had lately occupied.