Star Wars: The Last of the Jedi, Volume 4 (12 page)

I can’t imagine what he’s seen. How he’s suffered. What he’s lost.

He made it through the first energy gate but suddenly they buzzed shut behind and ahead of him. Malorum was in the next chamber. How odd it was to see your enemy and be unable to move.

He could just make out Malorum’s words.

“You can’t stop me,” Malorum said. “You can only slow me down.”

“Oh, I’ll stop you,” Ferus replied. “Even though I’ll miss our conversations.”

The energy gates sprang open. Ferus jumped forward, swinging his lightsaber. Malorum parried and came a little too close to connecting to Ferus’s shoulder. He had to leap backward, and the
energy gates shut again.

“I’ve learned from the best,” Malorum grunted through his teeth.

“Siri Tachi. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Soara Antana. Yoda himself.” Ferus didn’t know if Malorum could hear him, but he felt the names of his teachers resonate inside him like a powerful
chant. “You don’t know what the best is.”

The energy gates opened again and Ferus surged forward, driving Malorum backward. “Want to be a Sith, Malorum?” he taunted. “Is that it? Palpatine’s puppy is tired of
biting ankles?”

Rage darkened Malorum’s face. Good. Exactly what he’d hoped.

Malorum sprang forward in a fast combination that Ferus had a tough time parrying. The dark side of the Force hummed with him now as his anger grew.

Okay, maybe it was time for a new strategy.

Malorum reversed directions and was able to run out onto a catwalk. Ferus leaped to follow him. He wondered if Malorum was heading for an exit. He knew if Malorum was able to get out of here, he
would lose him. It was almost as if Malorum knew the way and was leading him on. Maybe he was trying to lead him back to the Imperial army, hoping they were still fighting.

They fought furiously now, using every inch of catwalk. They fought around the deep central core, hundreds of meters down. Ferus used his advantage of Force agility to leap and somersault,
giving power to his thrusts. He fought using the lightsaber only, saving another kick or an elbow for when he needed it, when Malorum wouldn’t be looking for it.

He pushed Malorum back, forcing him to rely on balance to avoid falling into the pit below. Malorum twisted and turned, but he was beginning to sweat.

Ferus saw his chance. He left himself slightly open, and Malorum charged. As he came in, Ferus slammed his elbow directly into Malorum’s forehead. It stunned him for a split second, and
Ferus used the hilt of his lightsaber to smash Malorum’s lightsaber out of his hands. The lightsaber shot outward, directly over the pit.

Malorum’s mouth opened in a cry that echoed off the walls. “No!” he shouted. Ferus could feel the Force pulsing as Malorum leaped into the air, straining to catch the
lightsaber as it spun. Straining to harness the Force to push the lightsaber hilt toward him and carry him safely to the next catwalk.

Don’t…strain…
Ferus watched Malorum make the elemental mistake of any early-year Jedi student.

He saw that Malorum was blinded by need. If he lost the lightsaber, he would be disgraced. He would never be a Sith.

Malorum’s lightsaber dropped like a stone. Still in midair, Malorum lost his grip on the Force. His cape flapped around him, and Ferus saw the panic in his eyes.

Then he dropped down, down, down, into the central core. And Obi-Wan’s secret went with him.

The battle was over. Smoldering stormtroopers lay on the streets. Fallen officers were in the building where they’d taken refuge.

Captain Typho strode toward Ferus as he emerged from the Theed generator. “Your friends are all safe,” he said, before Ferus could ask.

Ferus saw a blur of brown and blue, and Trever ran toward him, his blue hair flying, his tunic torn. “Did you get Malorum? Did you stop him?”

“He fell into the central core of the generator.”

“So the secret is safe,” Solace said, coming up to them. “Whatever it is.”

“We’ll clean up quickly,” Captain Typho said. “There will be no trace of battle. We’ve been monitoring the comm system. Coruscant Imperial Control is trying to
raise the battalion here but getting no response. They’re sending a ship to investigate from a nearby system. It could be here within the hour. It’s time to blow the weapons
cache.”

“Looks like we’re up, mate,” Clive said to Ferus. “It’ll be a mite tricky, but I think I’ve got the explosives figured out so we can get out in
time.”

Ferus blinked at him. “You
think
?” he asked.

Clive grinned. “Your pal here helped me with a few ideas.”

Ferus looked at Trever.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Trever said. “I’m not coming with you this time. Do you think I’m crazy?”

Clive and Ferus entered the great Theed hangar, empty now of all personnel. The area around the hangar had been cleared of people and any valuables, just in case the hangar
blew up the surrounding area. Theed pilots had flown a few ships to safety, but they would have to sacrifice some of their fleet so that the blast wouldn’t look suspicious.

“The trick is to arrange the stuff so that it blows here, in the center,” Clive said. “The shock wave will go down, not out. But this side wall has to pack some explosive power
so that it blows the Imperial headquarters, too. We have to account for the loss of those stormtroopers.”

“Let’s do it,” Ferus said.

They approached the boxes cautiously. Clive began to open them with a vibro-cutter.

“Some of this is highly volatile baradium,” Clive said, eyeing the instructions on the durasteel boxes. “Just don’t drop anything.”

“Right,” Ferus muttered.

Carefully, they picked up the boxes and bins and moved them to the center of the hangar. They took the highly volatile synthetic explosive and pushed it against the wall. Then Clive carefully
walked through, setting the sequence charges. “Trever fixed these so that they’ll disintegrate with the blast—no trace of metal or explosive will remain. They’ll never know
we blew it.”

“So how are we getting out in time?” Ferus asked.

“The pattern is designed so that one alpha charge will set off an explosion that will set off the next, and the next, and so on, until it gets so bloody hot in here that the whole place
goes up. It’s going to be one crazy blow,” Clive said fondly.

“Clive? How are we getting out?” Ferus asked, enunciating each word.

“Oh. I have a plan.” Clive placed the last alpha charge against a drum of missile fuel.

“Good,” Ferus breathed in relief.

“We run.” Clive placed the last charge down and set it. “Now!”

Ferus spurted after Clive, cursing him in his head. Clive was one of those insane individuals who enjoyed extreme danger. Ferus felt the first explosion at his back. He felt the heat on his
neck. He charged toward the doors. The next explosion gave him a push at the small of his back that almost sent him sprawling. The third made the air come alive. He rode a wave of air out the
double doors and landed on his knees on the street. Clive rolled over, laughing.

“Come on, it’s not over yet,” he shouted.

The Imperial headquarters blew as they raced under a pedestrian bridge. The bridge fell in a shower of mellow ochre stone. Ferus grabbed Clive and Force-leaped to safety.

Sprawled on their backs, they watched as half the hangar burned and Imperial headquarters collapsed in a heap of rubble and a giant cloud of dust.

Coughing, they made their way to Solace, Oryon, Keets, Curran, and Trever, who were standing with Captain Typho watching the awful spectacle.

“I’m sorry about the building,” Ferus said. “It was a gracious part of Theed. It will take a long time to rebuild that hangar.”

“It is a thing,” Typho said. “The people of Naboo are more important.”

The orbiting space platform in the Rainbow Nebulae was somewhere between Naboo and nowhere, and it was a good place to stop. The group refueled there. It had been imperative
that they take off from Naboo immediately.

They all stood together while their ships were hooked up to the refueling stations. The sky above vibrated with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

“I heard from Typho on the way,” Ferus told the others. “The Empire is investigating, and it’s already clear that they’re going to engineer a coverup. There will be
no retaliation on Naboo. And it appears that Malorum died in the explosion.”

“Love it when a plan works like a well-timed chrono,” Clive said.

There was a pause. It was time to say good-bye, but no one was sure who was going where.

Ferus was anxious to return to the roving asteroid base. There were things to do, systems to set up. He needed to contact Obi-Wan and tell him that the threat posed by Malorum was over.

“I have a safe place,” he told the others.

“You only have to navigate through an atmospheric storm to get there,” Trever amended.

“You are all welcome,” Ferus said. “Each one of you is now an outlaw from the Empire. You’ll need fresh text docs, a place to lie low.”

Ferus looked at Solace. He was creating the base for surviving Jedi. Solace had told him she wanted no part of it. He hoped she would change her mind.

“All right, I’ll come,” she said gruffly. “But just to check it out.”

Oryon looked at Keets and Curran. “We’ve been talking. As the Erased, we’ve hidden away for too long. We want to return to Coruscant. But we would welcome a place to be quiet
and make plans.”

“After this little adventure, I could use a rest,” Clive said.

“You’re going to come?” Solace asked disdainfully. “I thought you were a solo act.”

“Must be your sparkling personality,” Clive said.

Ferus’s comlink signaled. That was strange. There were only a few people in the galaxy with access. He walked a few steps away from the others. The message played, a miniature
hologram.

He stared, listening, and ice entered his veins.

He walked back to the others and placed his comlink on his palm. He held it out. “I think you need to see this.”

An image of Emperor Palpatine shimmered in the air. “Greetings, Master Olin, for I think you deserve that title. Times have changed, and you’ve changed with them. I think our
departed Inquisitor Malorum was a bit too hard on you. On behalf of the Empire, I’d like to offer you amnesty.”

“Hey, what about me?” Clive demanded of the message.

“And I’m issuing you an invitation,” Palpatine’s message continued. “Come visit me on Coruscant. I give you my personal word that you will have safe passage. Let us
speak together, and if what I offer doesn’t interest you, you may take your amnesty and go. This offer stands for twenty-four hours from the receipt of this message. I hope to see you soon.
We have much to discuss. Until then, farewell.”

The hologram faded.

Ferus looked at his friends. “So,” he said, “what should we do? Accept a date with the Emperor?”