Dark Warning

  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