want to check the med droids."
"If I wanted to talk to a med droid, I would summon it. Who else had
access to your ordering at that time?"
"I do the ordering."
"Does anyone check your orders or see them after you submit them?"
"No."
Sancor looked at him, not believing him. The long fingers stroked the
keys. "Let's check the employee list."
One by one, names and photos popped up. Suddenly Obi-Wan felt uneasy.
"I'm sure I can help you," he said. "I just need to familiarize myself
with some details."
"Surely you can remember something that happened so close to the end
of the Clone Wars."
"It was a chaotic time."
"On the contrary. Things were slow in this quadrant; you were an
adjunct on an archeological dig. The action was elsewhere." Sancor turned
and looked at Obi-Wan, his antennae twitching.
Behind Sancor's head, the name OSH SCAL popped up, together with a
likeness not at all like Obi-Wan's. All Sancor had to do was turn and he
would see the truth, that Obi-Wan was impersonating the supply officer.
Obi-Wan reached out for the Force.
"You've seen enough for now, and I can go," he said.
Sancor shook his head. "I have certainly not seen enough."
Sancor's mind was too strong to influence. But Obi-Wan had to prevent
him from turning.
Obi-Wan stood up abruptly. "I can access the files more quickly on the
other port."
"Then do it."
He almost got away with it. But Tuun suddenly poked his head in. "Are
you almost done?"
Sancor swiveled to see Tuun, and his gaze swept the screen. He saw the
name and the image.
When he turned back to Obi-Wan, he had a blaster in his hand.
"Suppose you two tell me what's going on," he said. He smiled, and
they saw small, pointed teeth. "I didn't know if you had something to hide.
But now I'm sure."
Obi-Wan felt the surge of the dark side of the Force before it
happened. He activated his lightsaber just as Sancor fired at Tuun. Obi-Wan
was able to deflect the fire as Tuun leaped back. Some of the blaster bolts
streaked through the air and thudded into the wall. Obi-Wan sprang forward,
his blaster activated and ready. He saw the flare of surprise in Sancor's
face, and then he ran, brushing past Tuun and taking off down the hallway.
"He's heading toward the main hangar," Tuun said. "We can't let him
go. He has the disk!"
Obi-Wan took off. Sancor threw back the sleeves on his robe, and Obi-
Wan saw the glint of a wrist rocket.
"Get down!" he yelled to Tuun, even as he dived for cover.
The rocket exploded, sending chunks of the ceiling raining down on his
head. Obi-Wan rolled out of the way and charged.
Sancor followed the rocket blast with a barrage of blaster fire. Obi-
Wan swung his lightsaber, deflecting the fire.
Sancor raced through a doorway, and Obi-Wan followed. He found himself
in a dark, oval room. It took a moment for him to get his bearings, and
then he realized that he was on an observation platform high above one of
the new operating theaters below. The platform was thrust out from the main
corridor and held seats for observers as well as vidscreens and computer
consoles.
The empty seats were ghostly in the dim light. He could not see
Sancor, but he felt his presence. He did not bother to strain his eyes.
Instead he called on the Force and listened.
There, in one corner of the room. Sancor was hiding. Waiting.
He heard the hiss of the wrist rocket before it fired. He jumped aside
as it whistled past. It blew a hole in the wall as big as a door. But
Sancor had underestimated the power of the missile and the structure of the
observation platform. The platform began to tip on its supports.
Obi-Wan made a diving leap toward the hole blown in the wall. He
somersaulted through it and landed on the corridor floor as the platform
tore away from the wall.
Sancor screamed and scrabbled at a console, desperately trying to make
his way to the corridor as the floor tilted under his feet.
The platform slowly broke away from the wall. Sancor lost his grip and
fell through the air.
Obi-Wan made his way to the edge of the hallway that ended in midair.
He looked over the lip of the floor. Sancor had landed far below on a tray
of sharp medical instruments.
It was over. Sancor was no longer a threat.
Slowly, Obi-Wan rose to his feet. Sancor's death wouldn't help
matters. Malorum would wonder why he hadn't returned.
Either Padme's secret was safe, or Obi-Wan had put it in greater peril
than ever.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The darkness of the cave began to gray at the edges. Ferus's eyes
adjusted to the lack of light. The cave walls glowed slightly from the
crystals embedded in their rocky surface. Pictographs on the walls told
stories of Jedi exploits from thousands of years before. Jedi or no, he was
part of that tradition.
The Crystal Cave. They had whispered about it as Padawans and had
longed to see it. He remembered his journey here with Siri, when he'd come
to build his own lightsaber. He had been tormented by the visions, had at
one point curled into a ball to escape them. They had accused him of being
on the run from his own true nature, of avoiding the Living Force because
he was afraid of himself. They said he only pretended humility, that his
prowess as the best apprentice pleased him too much.
They showed him a vision of himself in a torn Jedi tunic, his
lightsaber broken, and he had known they were showing him that he would
never be a Jedi. At the time he'd thought they were warning him that he
wouldn't pass the trials. Now he knew that the vision had come true. He had
not become a Jedi Knight.
Back then there was only one who could surpass him - Anakin Skywalker.
The visions had told him that jealousy blinded him, and prevented him from
being Anakin's friend. He had seen a dark figure in a cape that had
frightened him.
I'm waiting for you, Ferus. I lie in your future, the vision had said
in an odd, disembodied voice. He had been terrified by that more than
anything else.
Now he understood what he'd seen. Possible futures, glimpses into his
own fears. He'd only found freedom when he left the Jedi. Freedom to be
himself. Roan had taught him that. Roan had taught him not to care what
anyone thought, but to regard everyone's feelings. It was a distinction he
had somehow riot been able to learn at the Temple. He had been too busy
trying to be perfect.
He knew now that he hadn't been jealous of Anakin, but he had been
afraid of him. Why? He still didn't know the answer to that question.
And what did it matter'? Anakin was dead. Like all the others.
He was older now. No longer a Jedi. What visions could come to him now
that. would frighten him? He had been through a war. He had been scared
down to his boots and kept on walking.
He knew himself. He knew his limits and he knew his capabilities. The
cave
couldn't scare him anymore.
"You think so?"
A shimmering image appeared before him. Ferus's breath caught. Siri.
His Master, his friend.
"Here's the thing," Siri said. Even though her image shimmered and
fractured, the voice in his head was pure Siri - direct, a little mocking.
"You haven't changed a bit. Listen to you - you're still telling yourself
that nothing can touch you, that you're the best. Is it so important to be
the best, Ferus?"
He shook his head. That wasn't what he was thinking.
Was it?
"Is that why you left us? Because you weren't the best, and you knew
it?"
"No," Ferus said. "That isn't why I left."
Siri crossed her arms and leaned back, but there was nothing to lean
against. She stayed oddly propped against the air, her booted feet crossed.
"You don't have to be afraid of what we are. You have to be afraid of what
you are."
"I'm not afraid," Ferus said aloud, even though he knew Siri was just
a vision. It seemed pretty stupid to argue with a vision, but there was no
other way through. "I know myself now. I didn't then."
Siri's snort of laughter brought him the pain of her absence. But
somehow this time her mockery wasn't leavened by affection. It felt harsh
to him. "Well, you should be afraid. You're still fooling yourself!"
Suddenly she leaned forward. "You want to save the Jedi, all by yourself?
Make up for leaving us?"
"No, that's not why!" Ferus said. "I only want to help, I want to
fight the Empire!"
"You want to go back and change your decision," Siri said. "You want
to be a Jedi again. I've got a Holonet newsflash for you - you can't!
You'll never be a Jedi again! All those minor attempts to use the Force -
it's pathetic! What did I always tell you? In your plans lie
responsibilities. You're forgetting that. Again!"
Siri began to laugh. Her features suddenly fragmented into pieces of
light. Then her face reassembled in an odd way, as though her features
didn't go together. It was some faceless monster, some image of the dark
side of the Force that had appeared to him. How had he forgotten that, the
way the images shifted shape until he didn't know who was a Jedi and who
was the dark side of the Force?
Or was he projecting what he saw? Were his fears creating the vision?
Fears he hadn't even known were there.
Suddenly, Ferus wished he had decided to do anything else - confront
the Emperor himself - instead of entering this cave.
He had done it for Garen, for a Jedi he hadn't even been close to.
Someone he couldn't remember very well, a flash of a smile, an ease with
the Living Force, an amazing pilot, Obi-Wan's friend.
That was enough. The surge of feeling that came when he thought of
Garen taught him something. He must still be a Jedi, there must be a part
of him that still vibrated with the Force, if he felt that connection.
Garen's life was his life. It was as simple as that. What he had forged in
his childhood still rang in his bones.
He walked on, deeper into the cave. Now the walls grew irregular with
the chunky crystals that were embedded in the rock. Ferus knew that it
would not help him to study the crystals, to find the most beautiful. He
must allow the crystals to call to him. If the Force was strong in him, the
crystals he needed would speak to him among the thousands that lay around
him. Wait. The right ones will appear.
He felt awed, being in this spot. Suddenly it came over him, the fact
that he was here. Whether he liked it or not, he was on the Jedi path
again.
"Unbelievable."
It was Anakin Skywalker. For a moment, Ferus thought it was really
him. He seemed so solid, so real. Then he realized that Anakin was young,
probably about sixteen, the age they were when Ferus had left the Jedi.
"It's so like you," Anakin said, "to think that you're the only one
who can do something. That ego of yours. No wonder nobody ever liked you."
Ferus waited. He knew this was an image, that he couldn't fight it,
couldn't argue with it. And he'd long ago come to terms with what Anakin
thought of him. This wasn't anything he hadn't heard before.
"Your jealousy destroyed your future," Anakin said. "You tried to
destroy mine, and that didn't work, so you quit."
"You knew Tru's lightsaber was faulty," Ferus said. He couldn't help
it. The words had been bottled up for so many years. Ferus and Anakin had
both put their friend Tru at risk - and even though Ferus hadn't meant to,
he'd accepted the blame. "You were jealous of our friendship, so you said
nothing. You hoped we'd get in trouble with the Council. And we did. You
knew we wouldn't step forward and tell the truth about you. And we didn't.
So you kept your silence, and your place in the Jedi, and you let me walk
away from it all."
Anakin shrugged. "Is that your version'?"
"It's the truth. And the funny thing is that it was the best thing
that happened to me. I found myself."
"Right," Anakin said. "So I hear. Yet I found myself, too."
Suddenly the crystals dimmed. Ferus couldn't see the walls of the cave
any longer. A wind moved through the cave.
Wind? Ferus thought. Where is the wind coming from? He felt the
coldness of fear enter him. You think you know what fear is?
The whispers began.
Evil was in the cave. He knew it by the icy hand that clutched his
heart, by how the strength drained out of his legs.
Had he blundered? Had the dark side of the Force taken over the cave?
Out of the darkness a shadow grew. It was a thing, not a person. A
shadow filled with cruel pain. Then the shadow formed and re-formed, and he
saw it was a figure. A dark helmet and cape.
Breath entered the cave. A harsh, artificial sound. He heard the
indrawn breath, the exhale. It was as though the creature breathed in the
darkness and breathed it out.
Darth Vader.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He had heard of him, of course. The Emperor's enforcer. The one who
came down with an iron fist. And now Ferus knew he was a Sith.
The voice was low and chilling.
"It is our destiny to meet. It is my chore to tell you about the
truths from which you bide. You are not a Jedi. You will delude yourself
that you are. But then, you have always deluded yourself. You might as well
give up now. Because you will fail. And you will bring everyone down with
you. Watch."
Ferus saw the vision clearly. Garen, another Jedi who he couldn't
place, and, oddly, Haim. And Roan was there, too. They were looking up at a
fireball in the sky. As he watched, the fireball consumed them.
He wanted to cry out, but he couldn't.
"In your plans lie responsibilities," Darth Vader said. "But you never
think of that, do you'? Just your own glory."
In the middle of his fear, Ferus felt a stubbornness rise, and he
grabbed it. The Force was here, and he knew that, even if at the moment he
was too afraid to access it. Just knowing it still existed in this cave
gave him hope.
With the beginning of hope came courage.
He had almost forgotten this. The Force was everywhere, even where
evil breathed.
"These are things that can happen," he said. "I can make my own path."
"You have never seen the truth."
"If this is your truth, give me my illusions."
Ferus walked forward, straight toward Darth Vader. He was afraid, but
he accepted his fear and kept going. If this was to be the end of him, then
he would accept it.
The instant he touched the dark cloak, he felt as though he'd been
burned. A cry was torn from his throat and he was flung through the air. He
hit the ground and moaned.
The dark side of the Force retreated. He felt it sucked out in a
vortex.
He was alone.
Through the mist of pain he saw a trio of pale blue crystals, glowing
like stars. He struggled to his feet and walked toward them. He put his
hand on them, and they were warm. They fell into his hands.
He tucked them into his tunic pocket. He would have to fashion a
handgrip somehow. He wasn't sure how he would do it without the resources