Star Wars: The New Rebellion (2 page)

“You’ll know when it works.” Kueller’s voice was a live thing. It surrounded Brakiss, resonated within him, and held him at bay. Brakiss concentrated, not on the voice, but on Kueller himself.

And finally saw him, standing near the edge, overlooking the city below. Stonia, the capital of Almania, looked small and insignificant from this height. But Kueller looked like a powerful bird of prey, his cape billowing in
the wind, his broad shoulders suggesting great physical strength.

Brakiss took a step forward when suddenly the wind died. The air around him froze and so did he. In that moment, he heard—felt—saw—a million voices scream in terror.

The terror rose in him, and he saw again that moment when Master Skywalker led Brakiss deep into Brakiss’s own heart, that moment when he saw himself clearly and nearly lost his mind—

A scream formed in his own throat—

And died as the other screams exploded around him, filling him, warming him, melting the ice in the wind. He felt stronger, larger, more powerful than he ever had before. Instead of fear, his heart felt an odd, twisted joy.

He looked up. Kueller had raised his arms, his head tilted back, his face uncovered for the first time in years. He had changed, his skin filled with a knowledge Brakiss wasn’t sure he wanted.

And yet …

Yet Kueller glowed, as if the pain of those million voices had fed something within him, had made him even greater than he had been before.

The wind returned, its frigid gusts knocking Brakiss against the stone. Kueller didn’t seem to feel it. He laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that shook the entire tower.

Brakiss braced himself against the stone. He waited until Kueller’s arms fell to his sides before saying, “It worked.”

Kueller slipped the mask over his face. “Well enough.”

Such an understatement for such a great moment. Kueller had to remember that Brakiss was strong in the Force as well.

Kueller turned, his cape swirling around him. He almost
appeared to fly. The skull-like mask that adhered to his face shone with its own internal light. “I suppose you want to return to your paltry job.”

“It’s warm on Telti.”

“It could be warm here,” Kueller said.

Brakiss shook his head almost involuntarily. He hated Almania.

“Your problem is that you do not understand the power of hate,” Kueller said, his voice soft.

“I thought you said my problem is that I serve two masters.”

Kueller smiled, the thin lips on his mask moving with his mouth. “Is it only two?”

The words hung between them. Brakiss’s entire body felt as if it were made of ice. “It worked,” he said again.

“I suppose you expect to be rewarded.”

“You promised.”

“I never promise,” Kueller said. “I imply.”

Brakiss crossed his arms over his chest. He would not get angry. Kueller wanted him to be angry. “You implied great wealth.”

“So I did,” Kueller said. “Do you deserve great wealth, Brakiss?”

Brakiss said nothing. Kueller had put him together after Yavin 4, after the disastrous debriefing that had nearly cost Brakiss the rest of his sanity. But Brakiss had long since repaid his debt. He only stayed because he had nowhere else to go.

He pushed off the wall and started down the stairs. “I’m going back to Telti,” he said, feeling defiant.

“Good,” Kueller said. “But you will give me the remote first.”

Brakiss stopped and looked at Kueller over his shoulder. Kueller had grown taller in the last hour. Taller and broader.

Or perhaps that was a trick of the darkness.

If Brakiss had faced any other mortal, he would have asked how Kueller knew about the remote. But Kueller was not any other mortal.

Brakiss held out the remote. “It’s slower than the controls I built you.”

“Fine.”

“You have to set the security codes. You have to instruct it which serial numbers to follow.”

“I’m sure I can do that.”

“You have to link it to you.”

“Brakiss, I can operate remotes.”

“All right,” Brakiss said. He braced himself as he moved inside the stone hut. It was warmer in there, out of the wind.

He didn’t believe Kueller was letting him leave so easily.

“What do you want from me, when I return to Telti?” Brakiss asked.

“Skywalker,” Kueller said, his voice thrumming with the depth of his hatred. “The great Jedi Master, Luke the invincible Skywalker.”

The chill had reached Brakiss’s heart. “What do you plan to do with him?”

“Destroy him,” Kueller said. “Just as he tried to destroy us.”

L
uke Skywalker was balanced on one hand, his fingers deep in the moist jungle earth. Sweat dripped down his naked back, onto his face, and off his nose and chin. His feet were bare, but he wore an old pair of tight pants that clung to his damp skin. Artoo-Detoo floated in the air above him, along with several boulders and a half-rotted tree. Some of Luke’s students were gathered around him, half a dozen members of his youngest and most powerful class.

He had been in this position since the huge orange sphere of the gas planet Yavin had risen on the horizon of its fourth moon. Yavin was now directly overhead, and although Luke was sweating, he didn’t feel tired or thirsty. The Force flowed through him like cool water, holding Artoo, the boulders, and the tree aloft.

The students were shifting, probably wondering how long they would have to continue watching. Perhaps he would lift them one by one, and then withdraw, leaving them to find the ground delicately or with difficulty, as their talents allowed.

Luke suppressed a smile. As much as he enjoyed teaching, he didn’t always show that enjoyment. Sometimes
the students believed he was laughing at their expense, which was not conducive to a good student-teacher relationship. Still, he had moments of pure pleasure, especially at times like this. Artoo didn’t appreciate this aspect of the training, but it made Luke feel like a boy again.

Instead of lifting one of his students, he eased another boulder into the air. It hovered near the others, bobbing a bit before it found its place. The students watched, suddenly still. Luke scanned their feet, hoping for some sign of annoyance. The first one to look restless would be the first one into the air.

He had learned this method over the years as a way of teaching his students patience, and also as a way of showing them the powers of the Force. Like so many of the methods he used, it worked for some students and didn’t work for others. Often he got an insight into a student’s mind by the student’s reaction to various aspects of training. These class members were still new enough to mimic each others’ reactions. He hoped that mimicry would be gone by the end of the day.

Then a wave of emotion slammed into him—cold, hard, and filled with terror. The pain was worse than anything he had ever felt, worse than the near loss of his leg on the
Eye of Palpatine
, worse than the Emperor’s electric blast on the Death Star, worse than the destruction of his face on Hoth. Mixed with the terror and pain was the shock of betrayal, a shock multiplied by the millions of minds who felt it.

Luke wobbled on his hand, struggling to keep the boulders and tree aloft, to keep them from falling on his unsuspecting students. Artoo screamed as he shot across the sky, the sound mingling with the screams in Luke’s mind. Artoo landed with a metallic bang against the jungle floor, Luke’s students scattered, and the rest of Luke’s control fled.

His arm collapsed beneath him, and he tumbled to the ground, his breath gone from his body. He lay on his back, sinking in the soft dirt, the screams still echoing in his mind.

Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the voices were gone.

“Are you all right?” one of his students asked. The voice was overlaid with his own, filled with the same trembly fear seventeen years ago. “What’s wrong?”

Luke put his left hand over his face. He was shaking. “There’s been a great disturbance in the Force.” He wondered how they could fail to feel it, how he had failed to feel something even stronger, all those years ago.

As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced
.

“Ben,” he whispered. “Another Death Star?”

But he expected no answer. Ben’s comforting presence had left him before the Jedi Academy, before Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Luke closed his eyes, feeling for the location of the disturbance. He found a great emptiness where a moment before there had been life. The residue of pain, the deeply held surprise, the shock of betrayal, remained like an echo of a shout over a canyon rim.

“Master Skywalker?” The voice belonged to one of his most promising students, Eelysa, a young woman from Coruscant. “Master Skywalker?”

He waved his right hand at her. His back hurt from the force of his landing, his chest ached from the lack of oxygen, and his heart ached from the magnitude of the loss. Somewhere in the distance, Artoo whistled, a mournful sound.

He had to sit up, to show them everything was all right, even though it wasn’t.

“Master Skywalker?”

Her voice merged and blended with the echoes in his head. He opened his eyes. In the shade of his shaking hand, he saw Leia’s face, scorched and blood-covered. He reached toward her, and then she was gone.

It is the future you see
.

The destruction did not come from Coruscant. He would know if Leia died. Or Han. Or the children.

He would know.

Artoo whistled again, impatient this time.

“Find Artoo,” he said. His voice sounded haunted, shaky, preoccupied, like Ben’s had after the destruction of Alderaan.

Feet snapped twigs around him as three students left in search of Artoo.

Or as they ran from Luke and his sudden, startling loss of control.

“What happened, Master Skywalker?” Eelysa was crouched beside him, her small, slender body hunched against an unseen enemy. She had been a surprise, a native of Coruscant, born after the Emperor’s death, her Force abilities untainted by the poisons around her. She was young. So very, very young.

“A million people died a moment ago, all in great pain, and with great suddenness.” He pushed himself up on his elbows. A vast evil had returned to the galaxy. That much he knew.

And it threatened Leia.

He knew that too.

For now, the days of teaching were over. He and Artoo had to leave immediately for Coruscant.

Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic, adjusted the belt on her long white gown. She took a deep breath. Mon Mothma placed a hand on her arm. Leia smiled distractedly at her, much as she had as a
young senator, facing Palpatine and his followers in the Imperial Senate.

She let the breath out. That was the emotion she was feeling, something she hadn’t felt since she was a teenager. A sense of loss, of defeat, of the life changing without her permission or control.

Mon Mothma closed the golden carved door and turned the lock. They were in a small dressing room that had been added during Palpatine’s days as Emperor, a room just outside the Senate Assembly Chamber. The room had been used as a secret communications area, but it masqueraded as a dressing room. The walls were gold leaf and delicate. A mirror covered one panel, floor to ceiling, reflecting both Leia and Mon Mothma. In some ways, Mon Mothma looked like an older, calmer version of Leia, although her short hair was now streaked with silver. Tiny lines webbed her skin, lines that had been there since her devastating illness at the hands of Carida’s Ambassador Furgan six years before.

“What is it?” Mon Mothma said.

Leia shook her head. She smoothed her damp hands on her skirts. She didn’t look much different from the girl who had walked into the Imperial Senate filled with hope and idealism, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, the youngest senator, the one who believed that persuasion and reason would save the Old Republic. The one who lost her idealism the moment she stared into Senator Palpatine’s ruined face.

“They’re members of the New Republic now, Leia,” Mon Mothma said. “They were elected fairly.”

“This is wrong. This is how it all started before.” Leia had had this same conversation with Han since the elections. Several planets had petitioned the Senate to allow former Imperials to serve as political representatives. The argument was that some of the best politicians had kept their peoples alive by working with the Empire, as
minor functionaries. They were petty bureaucrats who saved dozens of Rebel lives by overlooking strange troop movements, or unusual faces in the crowds. Leia had opposed the petitions from the beginning, but the arguments in Chamber had been fierce. M’yet Luure, the powerful senator from Exodeen, had finally reminded her that even she had once served the Empire in her role as Imperial senator. She had retorted that she was serving the Rebellion even then. M’yet had smiled, revealing six rows of uneven teeth.
These people were serving the Rebellion too
, he had said,
in their own way
.