Underworld

  strength of the stone. It was just big enough to squeeze through.

  Well, that takes care of one of my fears, anyway, Ferus thought. They

  wouldn't be stranded on this tower. At least they could get inside.

  He wouldn't think about how they would get out. Yet.

  Ferus Force-leaped up to the opening and balanced. He reached a hand

  down for Trever and hauled him up. They bent over and eased through the

  opening Trever had blasted through the stone.

  They were inside the Temple now, in a place Ferus knew well, but he

  found himself lost for a moment. This bore no resemblance to the Temple

  he'd known. He was in a heavily damaged area, and for a moment he couldn't

  get his bearings. One wall was demolished, another blackened with smoke.

  The corridor he'd expected to turn into was gone. Instead there was a

  mountain of rubble.

  "We'll have to go this way," he said, turning in the opposite

  direction.

  They climbed over a collapsed wall. Ferus stood still for a moment.

  Despite all that had happened, the Force remained present. It was still

  here for him, and he connected to it.

  Suddenly, he felt completely oriented, and very clear.

  The Temple could be a gigantic maze to outsiders, but to a Jedi the

  design made sense. It had been fashioned to conform to the life of a Jedi,

  to make getting around easy. So it followed the rhythms of a Jedi, with

  meditation flowing into physical activity into nature into food into study

  into research and support.

  "This used to be the droid repair area," Ferus told Trever. "So there

  should be an access to the service tunnels here, too."

  Pools of water had collected on the floor. Rain dripped in. The smell

  of smoke rose from the blackened walls. Ferus tried to push any emotion

  away. He needed to focus.

  "I like to look at the droids," Anakin said.

  Ferus nodded. He had come to drop off a small droid for repair as a

  favor to a Jedi Master. To his surprise, he'd found Anakin Skywalker

  checking over droid parts.

  He didn't know Anakin very well. He'd only just arrived at the Temple

  this past year. He'd heard the rumors, of course. How strong Anakin was in

  the Force, how Qui-Gon Jinn had picked him off a remote desert planet. How

  Obi-Wan Kenobi had offered to train him personally after Qui-Gon's death.

  How he could be the Chosen One.

  "I built a droid on my homeworld," Anakin said. Something in his voice

  told Ferus that Anakin was lonely.

  Ferus wished he had the ability to say the right thing, to respond

  with warmth to a boy he didn't know. He wished his awkwardness didn't come

  off as stiffness. He wished he were more like Tru Veld or Darra Thel-Tanis,

  who could talk to anyone and become their friend. But it was hard for him

  to know what to say. He didn't have that gift. His teachers were always

  telling him to be more in touch with the Living Force.

  "I don't remember my homeworld," he said finally. "Or my family."

  Anakin looked at him under a shock of blond hair. "Then you're lucky."

  That lonely boy had grown into an astoundingly gifted Jedi. And now he

  was dead. Ferus didn't know how or where. He'd been reluctant to ask Obi-

  Wan. The look on the Jedi Master's face when Anakin was mentioned was

  enough to stop Ferus. Grief had marked Obi-Wan, and he looked older and

  grayer than his age would warrant.

  Ferus was beginning to make sense of the blackened and twisted shapes

  now. There, the heap of fused durasteel - that had been the shelving that

  had run along one wall. It had held droid parts. Stone had crumbled into

  pebbles that crunched under Ferus's boots as he walked into the echoing

  space. He kicked through some melted parts on the floor. Gaping holes in

  the roof overhead had let in the morning rain. Rustlings told him that

  creatures were living here, scurrying through the debris.

  The protocol droids were eerie shapes, half melted, their eye sockets

  blank. They looked like fallen soldiers.

  The smell of decay was in his nostrils. Decay and failure and ruin.

  And it was only the beginning of what he would see.

  "So where's the entrance to the tunnels?" Trever asked.

  Ferus wrenched his mind back to the task at hand. He gazed about,

  trying to orient himself. "That opening there leads to the grand hall. I

  think we'd better avoid it. The entrance to the service tunnels was over

  there. At least, I think that's where it was."

  They stared across the room at a gigantic pile of rubble.

  "All I can say is, if we have to get through that, you'd better be

  right," Trever said.

  Suddenly they heard the noise of tramping feet.

  "Stormtroopers," Trever whispered.

  Ferus quickly pointed to a towering, misshapen pile of twisted metal.

  It had fused from the heat; it had once been a pile of droids. The jagged

  nature of the heap had created holes throughout. They would be able to

  squeeze inside and hide underneath it.

  Just in time. A squad of white-armored storm-troopers entered the

  space through the blasted-out opening that led to the grand hall. The

  officer in charge spoke through his headset. "Sensors indicate life-form

  activity."

  Trever looked at Ferus, alarmed: Ferus watched as the squad began to

  systematically comb the space, quadrant by quadrant. That was the trouble

  with stormtroopers, he thought testily. They were so efficient.

  Within minutes they would spot them. Ferus had no doubt of that. They

  were circling the droid heaps, checking every crevice, every dark corner.

  Ferus felt something wet and bristling brush his leg. Only the most

  severe discipline of the Jedi, ingrained in his bones, prevented him from

  flinching. A meer rat, fat and bold, waddled by. Before Ferus could warn

  him, Trever jumped slightly, banging his head against the metal. The

  faintest clang sounded through the space.

  "Halt activity." The officer swiveled, training a glow-rod just

  centimeters from their hiding place. "Evidence of intruders. Search and

  destroy."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Trever reached into his pocket. Without making a sound, he withdrew

  the turnover he'd placed there. He tossed it a short distance away. The

  meer rat scudded after it.

  The officer caught the movement. The light from the glow rod was

  jerked toward the sound, and it caught the rat in mid-scurry.

  "Another rat," the stormtrooper said in disgust. "They're so big they

  trip the sensors. I'm getting tired of these false alarms. Come on, let's

  head out."

  Ferus and Trever waited until the sound of the footsteps faded.

  "That was close," Ferus said.

  "And there goes the rest of my lunch," Trever added.

  They wriggled out. Avoiding the rat munching on the turnover, they

  headed toward the area where Ferus was sure they'd find the entrance to the

  tunnels. The debris was piled so high that there was no way to tell where

  the entrance had been. He closed his eyes.

  Ferus concentrated on the memory of his brief conversation with Anakin

  as a boy. He used an exercise that every Padawan had learned. They were led

&nb
sp; to a spot, told to open their eyes, look for five seconds, then close them

  again. Then they were to describe everything they'd seen. Sometimes they

  faced what seemed to be a blank wall, and they would have to note every

  crevice, every irregularity.

  Ferus reached back, past years of events and feelings that could cloud

  his mind, past his child's perspective, and focused on what he had seen. He

  could conjure up the texture of the cold against his fingers, the droid

  parts neatly labeled on the shelves, the banks of computers. When he

  remembered the ding on the dome of a battered astromech droid to Anakin's

  right, he knew he was getting there. The Force helped him to connect to

  memory as much as what was around him now.

  He calculated the distance. He remembered how high the entrance had

  been, how many meters above his head. He remembered his own height and made

  the necessary calculations.

  Then he walked forward. "It's behind here," he said, pointing to a

  spot in the pile. His Jedi memory and the Force had guided him.

  Either that, or he was completely wrong. It wouldn't be the first

  time.

  He unsheathed the lightsaber that had been given to him by Garen Muln

  in the caves of Ilum. From the first moment, it had felt as if it had

  always belonged in his hand. He inserted the lightsaber and slowly rotated

  it until its heat started to dissolve the area around it in an ever growing

  circle. Trever stepped forward, fascinated as always by a lightsaber's

  power.

  When Ferus had cleared enough space, he pushed aside the rest of the

  rocks and debris with his hands and crawled in, holding a glow rod in front

  of him. He could sense, rather than see, that he'd unblocked the entrance.

  He called back to Trever to follow him. He had to crawl for about twenty

  meters, but at last he passed through and was able to stand. Trever joined

  him seconds later.

  It was difficult to get their footing due to the debris and dirt that

  littered the walkway. This had once been a gleaming white tunnel, lit by

  pale blue glowlamps. It had been built to transport droids from repair to

  various points in the Temple. The ceiling was low and the walls curved

  around.

  "This comes out near the living quarters," Ferus said. "That part of

  the Temple, from what I can see, wasn't as badly destroyed as the others."

  "That means we'll be bumping into more stormtroopers," Trever said.

  "I'll do my best to avoid them." Ferus slowly moved through the

  tunnel. "The Padawans used to explore all the service tunnels and little-

  used passageways. Sometimes it was helpful if you didn't want to bump into

  any of your teachers - if you'd forgotten an assignment or had skipped a

  practice session."

  "Aw, Ferus, you've lived up to my expectations. I knew you were the

  kind of renegade who didn't do his homework."

  Ferus snorted. Trever was way off base. Trever knew a different person

  from what Ferus had been. "Renegade" hardly fit the description of his

  Padawan years. Actually, he had never skipped art assignment or a practice

  session. He had striven for perfection in every waking moment. He was

  driven by his need to excel. As a result, he hadn't made friends easily. It

  was only near the end of his apprenticeship that he had grown close to

  Darra and Tru.

  Darra had died on Korriban. He still felt responsible for her death.

  He had left the Jedi Order because of it.

  And there was Anakin. Anakin, whose gifts were so great, who had

  thought of Ferus as a rival. He remembered their squabbles now, and their

  deep rift. He would have done things differently now. He would not have

  judged Anakin the way he did. Now Anakin was dead, along with Tru, along

  with the Padawans he'd lived with for most of his childhood. Even the

  greatest warriors of the Jedi - Mace Windu, Kit Fisto, even Yoda - could

  not defeat the Sith.

  So what made him think that he could?

  I know I can't defeat them. But maybe if we strike enough blows, we

  can hurt them.

  It wasn't in the Jedi nature to act out of anger. But was it really so

  wrong to enter a fight because you were so deeply and thoroughly enraged?

  Ferus held up a hand as they approached the end of the tunnel. He knew

  that it opened into a service passageway that ran parallel to one of the

  main halls. He was betting that the stormtroopers would use the main halls,

  which were larger and led to the grand staircases and turbolifts. The

  service passageways were narrow and had a complicated layout. It was easy

  to get lost.

  "Where do you think the prison is?" Trever asked in a low tone.

  "It has to be in the big storage rooms," Ferus replied. "It's one of

  the only places that could be reconfigured into a secure area. And from

  what I could see through the electrobinoculars, it remains largely intact.

  There was a series of turbolifts at the end of the first service passageway

  that led down to the storage floor. With any luck they'll still be there.

  Even if they aren't functioning, we might be able to get down one of the

  shafts."

  Waiting a moment to ensure that the service passageway was empty,

  Ferus edged out into the hall. Trever followed as he held the glow rod in

  front of him, keeping it down to its lowest setting. Here the walls were

  also blackened from the fire, but the hallway didn't seem too badly

  damaged.

  Only a wall separated them from a main passageway, and they could hear

  the noise of activity on the other side.

  "I don't get it," Ferus murmured. "There seems to be a lot of

  movement. This place must be more than a prison. No wonder there was so

  much activity at the landing platform."

  "The more the merrier," Trever said grimly.

  Ferus reached the turbolift area. He frowned in disappointment. What

  had been a turbolift bank was now a collapsed heap of duracrete. Even

  worse, it blocked the connection to the other service hallways.

  "We're going to have to use the main hallway," he said. "Just for a

  bit, to get to the other turbolift bank."

  He paused in front of a door. He heard no sound, so he cautiously

  eased it open. The hallway was empty. Ferus knew exactly where he was. If

  he followed this hall to the right, it would lead him to the Room of a

  Thousand Fountains. Beyond that was another passage that would get him

  closer.

  Beckoning to Trever, he emerged into the hallway. Moving quickly and

  silently, they hurried down the hall. As they passed the large wooden

  doorway to the Room of a Thousand Fountains, Ferus's footsteps faltered.

  "What is it?" Trever whispered.

  "One moment."

  He couldn't help himself. It had been his favorite place in the

  Temple. He had to see. Ferus pushed open the doors.

  He took a cautious step inside. The first thing that struck him was

  the silence. In his mind he'd been expecting the calming note of splashing,

  trickling water. He had even turned his face upward to feel the cooling

  spray.

  Empty. Desolate. The remains of the fragrant plants and flowers,

  dried, brown. Stu
mps rising like crooked fingers. Dried pond beds, stone

  urns upturned and cracked.

  He turned. He would have to harden his heart against this. He couldn't

  allow every sight to be a blow. It would just slow him down.

  They walked past the Map Room, where once a student could access any

  quadrant of the galaxy, any world. Ferus wasn't tempted to peek. And

  Jocasta Nu's beloved library - without even entering, he could see through

  the blasted doors that it had been systematically destroyed. All that

  knowledge, all that wisdom - gone.

  Gone.

  But I must keep moving.

  They heard footsteps behind them. Ferus yanked Trever behind a tall

  column.

  He pressed himself against the column as the footsteps drew closer.

  It was some kind of Imperial messenger and an officer.

  "You were supposed to be here this morning."

  "It took some time to gather the data."

  "Well, you're here now. Take it to the Inquisitor's office."

  "Location?"

  "Follow this hallway and go through the double doors. It's the first

  door on your right, the one with the windows. Then put it down and leave.

  Inquisitor Malorum isn't here."

  Malorum? At the Temple?