Star Wars: Dark Nest III: The Swarm War Read online

  Lowbacca groaned in bewilderment, wondering how a nest of Killiks had come by a Galactic Alliance Star Destroyer.

  “Who knows? But it can’t be good.” Jacen stopped at Jaina’s side. “Maybe this is why Uncle Luke is trying to call us home.”

  “Maybe,” Jaina allowed. The murk inside began to grow heavy, and the mystery of the Star Destroyer’s arrival began to seem a lot less important than the bomb. “But we still have to find out what that bomb is.”

  “We do?” Jacen demanded. “Or UnuThul does?”

  “We all do,” Zekk said.

  Jaina and Zekk continued toward the top of the dune. Without the barrage churning up sand and dust, the air was beginning to clear, and they could see the crimson wedge of the drop ship descending the last few meters to the sand. Its nose shield was still glowing with entry heat, and the multibarreled laser cannons that hung beneath the wings were hissing and popping with electromagnetic discharge.

  Then the drop ship’s belly turret spun toward the Jedi and began to stitch the slope with fire from its twin charric guns. Jaina, Zekk, and the others raised their lightsabers and started to knock the beams back toward the vessel. Unlike blaster bolts—which carried very little kinetic charge—the charric beams struck with an enormous impact. Several times Jaina, Zekk, and even Lowbacca felt their lightsabers fly from their grasps and had to use the Force to recall the weapons.

  The Jedi Knights continued up the dune in sporadic leaps, taking turns covering each other, seeking the protection of craters or mounds of sand when they could, but always advancing toward the crest of the dune and the bomb. When it grew apparent that the turret guns would not be enough to hold them at bay, the drop ship dipped its nose to give the laser cannons a good firing angle. The blue-skinned pilot came into view through the cockpit canopy. Sitting in the commander’s seat next to him was a steely-eyed human with a long scar over his right eye.

  Jagged Fel.

  Jaina stopped in her tracks, so astonished and touched by old feelings that a charric beam came close to sneaking past her guard. She had been the one to end their romance, but she had never quite stopped loving him, and the sight of him now—commanding the enemy drop ship—filled her with so many conflicting emotions that she felt as though someone had tripped her primary circuit breaker.

  Fel’s gaze locked on Jaina, and a hint of sorrow—or maybe disappointment—flashed across his face. He spoke into his throat mike; then Zekk’s large frame slammed into Jaina from the side and hurled them both into the glassy bottom of a turbolaser crater.

  Before Jaina could complain, Zekk’s fear and anger were boiling into her. Suddenly she was rebuking herself for trusting Fel, then she and Zekk were wondering how she could have been so foolish…and how their minds could have come unjoined at such a critical moment.

  Sand began to rain down from above. They felt the crater reverberating beneath them and realized the drop-ship’s laser cannons had opened fire.

  “You’re—we’re—supposed to be over him!” Zekk said aloud.

  “We are over him,” Jaina said. She could feel how hurt Zekk was by the tumultuous emotions that seeing Fel had raised in her, and that made her angry—at Fel, at herself, at Zekk. Did Zekk think she could make herself love him? “We were just shocked.”

  Zekk glared at her out of one eye. “We have to stop lying to ourselves. It’ll get us killed.”

  “I’m not lying,” Jaina retorted.

  She rolled away from Zekk, then scrambled up the crater’s glassy wall and peered over its lip toward the drop ship. As she had expected, a squad of Chiss commandos had dropped out of the vessel’s belly. Dressed in formfitted plates of color-shifting camouflage armor, they were racing along the crest of the dune toward the unexploded bomb. Instead of the recovery cables or magnetic pads that Jaina had expected, they were carrying several demolition satchels.

  Zekk arrived at Jaina’s side and peered up the slope. They wondered for a moment why the Chiss would go to the trouble of landing a party to blow up the bomb. A few hits from the drop ship’s laser cannons would have done the job more than adequately.

  Then they understood. “Vape charges!” Zekk shouted.

  The Chiss equivalent of thermal detonators, vape charges left nothing behind to analyze. They disintegrated. But they could not be delivered by missile. Like thermal detonators, they were infantry weapons. They had to be thrown or placed.

  Jaina snaked a finger over the edge of the crater and pointed at one of the drop ship’s laser cannons, then used the Force to scoop up a pile of sand and hurl it up the barrel. The weapon exploded, vaporizing one wing and ripping a jagged gash in the fuselage.

  Fel’s eyes widened in shock, and Jaina and Zekk lost sight of him as the drop ship rocked up on its side and flipped. It landed hard in the sand, and a chain of blasts shook the dune as the remaining laser cannons exploded. The vessel rolled back onto its belly and began to belch smoke.

  A pang of sorrow shot through Jaina’s breast, and Zekk said, “We can’t worry about him, Jaina—”

  “He wasn’t worried about us,” Jaina agreed. Her sorrow was quickly turning to rage—at Zekk and at herself, but most of all at Fel—and her hands began to tremble so hard she found it difficult to hold on to her lightsaber. “We know.”

  Now that the laser cannons had fallen silent, Jaina leapt out of the crater and led the charge toward the top of the dune. Half the Chiss commando squad stopped and started to lay fire down the slope, while the rest raced the last few meters to the bomb and began to string a linked line of vape charges around it.

  Jaina and the other Jedi Knights continued their ascent, deflecting the charric beams back toward the Chiss who were working to set the charges. Four of these commandos fell before their fellows realized what the Jedi were doing, but the survivors were too well trained to lose focus.

  By the time Jaina and the others neared the crest of the dune, the charges had been placed and the survivors were scrambling to rejoin their companions. The squad leader fell back behind the rest of the squad and began to punch an activation code into a signaling unit built into the armor on his forearm.

  Jaina pointed in the leader’s direction and used the Force to tear his hand away from the buttons, and the rest of the Chiss turned their charric guns on her.

  Zekk stepped in front of Jaina, deflecting beam after beam into the leader’s chest armor. The impact drove him back toward the wreckage of the drop ship, finally splitting his armor when he came to a stop against the hull.

  Then Tesar and Lowbacca and Tahiri were among the surviving commandos, batting their charric beams aside, kicking their guns from their hands and ordering them to surrender.

  The Chiss did not, of course. Apparently more frightened of becoming Killik Joiners than of dying, they fought on with their knives, their hands, leaving the Jedi no choice but to kill, amputate, and Force-shove. Intent on securing the triggering device, Jaina and Zekk circled past the brawl and started toward the squad leader, who lay crumpled and immobile beside the drop ship.

  And that was when a loud groan sounded from the hull. Jaina and Zekk paused, thinking the craft was about to explode. Instead, it rolled away from them, revealing a dark jagged hole where the near wing had once connected to the fuselage.

  Realizing someone had to be using the Force, Jaina and Zekk glanced over their shoulders and found Jacen looking in the drop ship’s direction. He smiled, then nodded past them toward the vessel.

  When Jaina and Zekk turned around again, it was to find a coughing, brown-haired human staggering out of the fuselage. He was covered in soot, and he looked so stunned and scorched that it seemed a miracle he was moving at all.

  “Jag?” Jaina gasped.

  She and Zekk started forward to help, but Fel merely stooped down and depressed a button on the dead squad leader’s forearm.

  The signaling unit emitted a single loud beep.

  Fel did not even glance in Jaina and Zekk’s direction. He simply turned
away and hurled himself over the far side of the dune.

  Jaina and Zekk spun back toward their companions. “Run!”

  Jaina’s warning was hardly necessary. The rest of the Jedi were already turning away from the confused commandos, Force-leaping toward the bottom of the dune.

  Jaina and Zekk found Jacen and adjusted their own leap so they came down on the slope next to him.

  “You planned that!” Jaina accused her brother.

  “Planned what?” Jacen asked.

  He leapt the rest of the way to the bottom of the dune, where he was joined by Tahiri, Tesar, and Lowbacca. Jaina and Zekk landed next to the group an instant later.

  “The vape charges!” Zekk accused.

  “You helped Jag!” Jaina added. As Jaina made her accusation, she and Zekk were turning back toward the bomb—now about three hundred meters above, still at the top of the dune. “You don’t want us to recover this weapon!”

  “That’s ridiculous. I was only trying to save Jag’s life.” Jacen’s voice was calm and smooth. “I thought you would thank me for that.”

  “Ask Jag to thank you,” Jaina snapped.

  She and Zekk raised their hands, reaching out to grasp the vape charges in the Force, but they were too late. A white flash swallowed the crest of the dune. They threw up their arms to shield their eyes, then heard a deep growl reverberating across the desert and felt the sand shuddering beneath their feet.

  When they looked up, the top of the dune was gone—and so was the bomb.

  ONE

  Star Pond had calmed into a dark mirror, and the kaddyr bugs had fallen mysteriously silent. The entire Jedi academy had descended into uneasy stillness, and Luke knew it was time. He ended the meditation with a breath, then unfolded his legs—he had been floating cross-legged in the air—and lowered his feet to the pavilion floor.

  Mara was instantly at his side, taking his arm in case he was too weak to stand. “How do you feel?”

  Luke’s entire body felt stiff and sore, his head was aching, and his hands were trembling. He tested his legs and found them a little wobbly.

  “I’m fine,” he said. His stomach felt as empty as space. “A little hungry, maybe.”

  “I’ll bet.” Continuing to hold his arm, Mara turned to leave the meditation pavilion. “Let’s get you something to eat…and some rest.”

  Luke did not follow her. “I can last another hour.” Through the Force, he could feel nearly the entire Jedi order gathered in the lecture hall, waiting to learn why he had summoned them. “We need to do this now.”

  “Luke, you look like you’ve been hanging out in wampa caves again,” Mara said. “You need to rest.”

  “Mara, it’s time,” Luke insisted. “Is Ben there?”

  “I don’t know,” Mara said.

  Although their son was finally beginning to show some interest in the Force, he continued to shut himself off from his parents. Luke and Mara were saddened and a little disturbed by Ben’s detachment, but they were determined not to push. The turmoil in the Force during the war with the Yuuzhan Vong had left him somewhat mistrustful of the Jedi way of life, and they both knew that if he was ever going to follow in their footsteps, he would have to find his own way onto the path.

  “Does Ben really need to be part of this?” Mara’s tone suggested the answer she wanted to hear.

  “Sorry, but I think he does,” Luke said. “Now that Jacen has convinced him that it’s safe to open himself to the Force, Ben will have to make the same decision as everyone else. All the students will.”

  Mara frowned. “Shouldn’t the children wait until they’re older?”

  “We’ll ask them again when they become apprentices,” Luke said. “I don’t know whether I’m about to save the Jedi order or destroy it—”

  “I do,” Mara interrupted. “The Masters are pulling the order in ten different directions. You have to do this, or they’ll tear it apart.”

  “It certainly looks that way,” Luke said. With Corran Horn and Kyp Durron at odds over the anti-Killik policies of the Galactic Alliance, it seemed as though every Master in the order was trying to impose his or her own compromise on the Jedi. “But whether this is successful or not, it’s going to change the Jedi order. If some students don’t want to be a part of that, it’s better for everyone to find out now.”

  Mara considered this, then sighed. “I’ll have Nanna bring Ben over.” She pulled out her comlink and stepped to one side of the pavilion. “And I’ll let Kam and Tionne know you want the students there.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  Luke continued to look out over the dark water. He had spent the last week deep in meditation, sending a Force-call to the entire Jedi order. It would have been easier to use the HoloNet, but many Jedi—such as Jaina and her team—were in places the HoloNet did not cover. Besides, Luke was trying to make a point, to subtly remind the rest of the order that all Jedi answered to the same authority.

  And the strategy had worked. In every arm of the galaxy, Masters had suspended negotiations, Jedi Knights had dropped investigations, apprentices had withdrawn from combat. There were a few Jedi stranded on off-lane worlds without transport and a couple unable to suspend their activities without fatal consequences, but for the most part, his summons had been honored. Only two Jedi Knights had willfully ignored his call, and their decision had surprised Luke less than it had hurt him.

  A familiar presence drew near on the path behind the meditation pavilion, and Luke spoke without turning around. “Hello, Jacen.”

  Jacen stopped at the entrance to the pavilion. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  Luke continued to look out on the pond. “Come to explain why Jaina and Zekk aren’t here?”

  “It’s not their fault,” Jacen said, still behind Luke. “We’ve had some, uh, disagreements.”

  “Don’t make excuses for them, Jacen,” Mara said, closing her comlink. “If you felt Luke’s summons, so did they.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Jacen said. “They may have thought I was trying to trick them.”

  Luke finally turned around. “Tesar and Lowbacca didn’t seem to think so.” He had felt three other Jedi Knights return to Ossus along with Jacen. “Neither did Tahiri.”

  “What can I say?” Jacen spread his hands. “I’m not their brother.”

  Mara frowned. “Jacen, your sister used you as a pretext and we all know it. Let’s leave it at that.” She turned to Luke. “Nanna’s on the way with Ben, and Kam says the students have all been waiting in the lecture hall since this morning.”

  “Thanks.” Luke joined her and Jacen at the rear of the pavilion, then gestured at the path leading toward the lecture hall. “Walk with us, Jacen. We need to talk.”

  “I know.” Jacen fell in at Luke’s side, between him and Mara. “You must be furious about the raid on the Chiss supply depot.”

  “I was,” Luke admitted. “But your aunt convinced me that if you were involved, there had to be a good reason.”

  “I was more than involved,” Jacen said. “It was my idea.”

  “Your idea?” Mara echoed.

  Jacen was silent a moment, and Luke could feel him struggling with himself, trying to decide how much we could tell them. He was trying to protect something—something as important to him as the Force itself.

  Finally, Jacen said, “I had a vision.” He stopped and looked into the crown of a red-fronded dbergo tree. “I saw the Chiss launch a surprise attack against the Killiks.”

  “And so you decided to provoke the Chiss just to be certain?” Luke asked. “Surely, it would have been better to warn the Killiks.”

  Jacen’s fear chilled the Force. “There was more,” he said. “I saw the Killiks mount a counterattack. The war spread to the Galactic Alliance.”

  “And that’s why you attacked the Chiss supply depot,” Mara surmised. “To protect the Galactic Alliance.”

  “Among other things,” Jacen said. “I had to change the dynamics of the situati
on. If the war had started that way, it wouldn’t have stopped. Ever.” He turned to Luke. “Uncle Luke, I saw the galaxy die.”

  “Die?” An icy ball formed in Luke’s stomach. Considering the turmoil the order had been in at the time, he was beginning to understand why Jacen had felt it necessary to take such dire action. “Because the Chiss launched a surprise attack?”

  Jacen nodded. “That’s why I convinced Jaina and the others to help me. To prevent the surprise attack from happening.”

  “I see.” Luke fell quiet, wondering what he would have done, had he been in Jacen’s place and experienced such a terrifying vision. “I understand why you felt you had to act, Jacen. But trying to change what you see in a vision is dangerous—even for a Jedi of your talent and power. What you witnessed was only one of many possible futures.”

  “One that I can’t permit,” Jacen replied quickly.

  Again, Luke felt a wave of protectiveness from Jacen—protectiveness and secrecy.

  “You were protecting something,” Luke said. “What?”

  “Nothing…and everything.” Jacen spread his hands, and Luke felt him draw in on himself in the Force. “This.”

  They came to the Crooked Way, a serpentine path of rectangular stepping-stones, set askew to each other so that walkers would be forced to slow down and concentrate on their journey through the garden. Luke allowed Mara to lead the way, then fell in behind Jacen, watching with interest as his nephew instinctively took the smoothest, most fluid possible route up the walkway.

  “Jacen, do you know that you have prevented what you saw in your vision?” Luke asked. He was meandering back and forth behind his nephew, absentmindedly allowing his feet to choose their route from one stone to the next. “Can you be certain that your own actions won’t bring the vision to pass?”

  Jacen missed the next stone and would have stepped onto the soft carpet of moss had he not sensed his error and caught his balance. He stopped, then pivoted around to face Luke.

  “Is that a rhetorical question, Master?” he asked.