The Last Jedi

Twelve


The Imperial Palace grew up out of the crust of Coruscant like a malignant coral reef, a mountain of native stone, duracrete, and transparisteel with a crown of spires that reached greedily into the sky. The Senate District, Security Bureau, and Eastport were mere satellites of the massive structure, and existed in its shadow.

Though many kilometers away from the Palace itself, Jax still felt it as if the ISB sat atop the world and watched.

Shaking off the sensation, he looked away from the Palace and turned his attention to the forecourt of the Imperial Security Bureau. Guards were plentiful. Fortunately, they were all Imperial Guards, and all human, with not a Force-sensitive among them. Farther in, with Darth Vader in residence, there would be stormtroopers … and Inquisitors.

Jax was prepared for that.

He crossed the broad plaza without hesitation and approached the first checkpoint that would require him to present identification. He offered his identichip, keeping the Force tightly coiled within him. He’d added blond hair and blue eyes to his disguise—his own Master wouldn’t have recognized him.

The guard—a human—scanned the identichip, obviously bored. Boredom was good.

“Lieutenant Kwinn?”

“That’s right.”

The guard raised an eyebrow. “From the Zi-Kree Sector? I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Where’s the usual courier—Sergeant … what’s his name?”

Jax met the question with the most subtle tendril of the Force possible.

“I’ve been on this duty for months. I carry the most important dispatches. You’ve seen me here before.”

The man looked up into Jax’s eyes and frowned. “Wait, I know you. I’ve seen you here before.” He glanced at the diplomatic pouch. “That must be quite important. Not something a prefect would task a sergeant with.”

Jax smiled and stepped through the checkpoint. “Exactly.”

“So, what is it, Lieutenant? What’s in the pouch?”

His core suddenly twenty degrees colder, Jax turned on his heel, a plastic smile on his face. “You know what? I have no idea. They hand me a bag and they say, ‘Take this to Security.’” He shrugged. “It’s all need to know. And I don’t. Just a beast of burden, I guess.”

The guard laughed. “Aren’t we all?”

Jax moved across the broad permacrete courtyard, feeling the tiniest wriggle of concern that perhaps Vader was strong enough to sense even that infinitesimal use of the Force. He hoped not. If there were any Inquisitors about, their emanations would surely mask it. On the other hand, if he met one of them … well, he’d just have to think fast.

He knew that the ISB’s internal landing platforms were fairly deep within the complex. He also knew that security would be much tighter there. It was a chance he’d have to take. He kept his head up and his steps confident.

What he wanted was a vantage point from which he could see Vader’s transport clearly. A vantage point like the one offered by the high walkway that ran between the control tower and the hangar bays that housed the bureau’s contingent of stealth fighters. The only problem was that, to reach it, he’d have to pass through the offices of Airspace Control.

He’d planned for that.

Jax made his way to the interior of the bureau, presenting his “credentials” to a series of guards. When he was confronted with his first stormtroopers, he knew he was getting close to the goal.

He strode briskly up to the checkpoint and presented his identichip.

The stormtrooper’s assessment of Jax’s ID was perfunctory, at best. He barely glanced at the data scrolling across the screen of his reader. He didn’t cross-check it with security files—which would have revealed that Lieutenant Pel Kwinn had retired over a year ago and moved home to Corellia. Stifling a yawn, he handed the identichip back to Jax, who received it with what he hoped was a commensurate amount of boredom and moved on.

Almost too easy, he thought; then, just beyond the stormtroopers’ checkpoint, he was confronted with a whole set of choices: left, right, and straight on. A short flight of natural stone steps led down into a broad, high-ceilinged gallery that was different from what had come before. This was the oldest section of the ISB complex, and also the most secure. The ribs of the gallery’s vaulted expanse were durasteel and clearly intended to withstand a major assault. A sign at the far end of the corridor proclaimed this area to be isb airspace control.

Jax glanced left. An armored archway led to the offices of Airspace Security. To the right, a set of thick doors led out into a manicured garden courtyard that flanked the gallery. He could see the full length of it through the transparisteel windows that ran down the right-hand side of the hallway, admitting a shimmering wash of natural light.

The garden contained sculpted foliage, walkways, and benches placed so the visitor could admire the statues and moving holographic images of Imperial heroes. Jax recognized an alumabronze sculpture of Palpatine in his Senate robes, as well as one of Phow Ji, the hero of the Drongaran occupation. No doubt there was an effigy of the Emperor in one of his guises in every display of statuary in the complex.

Jax started down the steps, head high, stride certain—the model of a policeman and official courier. He’d gone only a few steps when he felt a ripple in the Force. A moment later, the doors of the control center glided open and a hooded figure stepped out across the threshold.

An Inquisitor.

For Jax, time slowed to an impossible crawl, though his feet still moved him forward. He could not pass the Inquisitor in such close quarters. A particularly adept one would almost certainly sense that there was something different about this particular policeman, and while Vader had ostensibly sent his best and brightest offworld, all Inquisitors were, by virtue of their station, high-level adepts.

Jax stopped. With a feigned air of annoyance, he produced his comlink and pretended to be speaking to someone. As the Inquisitor moved toward him down the long gallery, Jax turned and exited through the right-hand doors into the courtyard, continuing to ask questions of a pretend superior on the other end of the link. He kept walking until he had put the statue of Palpatine between himself and the Inquisitor.

He could see the through the arched windows along this side of the corridor that the other Force-user did not hesitate, but exited the hall without even a nod at the troopers guarding it.

Jax sat on a bench in the lee of the statue, still pretending to be in conversation with someone, and scanned the garden courtyard. There was another door at the far end, diagonal to the Flight Control entrance. That was the only other access. He had no doubt that there were cams everywhere in this restricted area. Under normal circumstances they wouldn’t be a problem—he could make them see what he wanted them to see—but with Vader so near …

Jax wished, for the hundredth time, that he had some idea what long-term effects the bota had had on Vader’s Force abilities. Not being able to gauge an adversary’s resources accurately was nerve racking. Jax got up and paced around the statue of Palpatine, his eyes taking in the surveillance cams. Drawing on the merest breath of the Force, he calculated what was perhaps the only blind spot in the area and made for it, his steps meandering as if he were more intent on his feigned dialogue than where he was putting his feet.

If he’d had more time, he would have tried to procure some taozin scales to mask his Force signature—but he should have thought of that back at the market. He had what he had—his own native intelligence and creativity, the Force, and the fact that there were other Force-users in the complex whose presence would offer some camouflage.

Between two holograms of some long-dead Imperial luminaries, which screened him from two holocams, and blocked from a third by a bronze free-form sculpture with some iconic meaning he couldn’t begin to guess at, Jax pocketed his comlink and pulled a long, hooded robe out of the diplomatic pouch. It took him mere seconds to draw the robe on over his uniform and pull the cowl down over his face. Pel Kwinn, police lieutenant, disappeared; it was an Inquisitor who stepped out from between the holograms and reentered the gallery at the far end, the diplomatic pouch hidden beneath his robe.

The doors to Flight Control slid open, and he strode inside.

Jax took a moment to orient himself. Before him was a pristine room filled with ISB functionaries. Beyond them, a huge expanse of transparisteel looked down on the landing stages. He could see the shaft of the control tower at the far right, the walkway stretching from it to the hangar bays. Straight ahead, the wing tips of a Lambda-class long-range shuttle peeked above the railing of the walkway.

He might, he realized, actually be able to see the landing platform from the windows right here in the offices. But Inquisitors didn’t, as a rule, tend to loiter around staring out windows. He turned right and made his way to a set of doors that would take him outside and allow him access to the base of the control tower.

There were two more stormtroopers stationed at the tower entry. They didn’t even look at him as he passed by. In fact, both averted their gazes.

But once inside the tower, he realized his dilemma: A Jedi could manipulate a sentient being. But he could not control a turbolift AI that was asking for his security clearance before allowing him to ascend.

Jax considered going back outside and Force-jumping to the walkway, then discarded that as too great a risk—the area was too open, the guards would have to be distracted. There must be emergency stairs …

He had turned to look for those when the turbolift behind him was activated from above. The lift was going up! Jax moved swiftly to the doors and pried them open. High above his head the lift continued to ascend the fifty or so floors toward the top.

The walkway access was half that distance.

Jax swung himself into the lift tube and Force-jumped. He’d no more than left the ground when he realized the lift had stopped short of the top and was descending again. Swiftly.

Time slowed to a crawl for the second time that day. Jax’s gaze sought the doorway to the level he needed to reach. He would get there at approximately the same time the lift would.

There was no escape that way.

Nine or ten meters from the first floor, he reached out both hands and called the Force to his fingertips—just enough to buffer his impact with the descending lift. It was still a bone-jarring jolt, one he was sure the occupants of the lift car felt. Grasping the undercarriage, Jax let momentum carry his body into contact with the steel box. His feet found purchase on a crossbar that ran along one edge.

Air rushed by him, roaring in his ears as the lift descended. The long robe he’d affected was molded to his body‚ the hood obscuring his vision. He shook his head, and the hood lifted away—he almost wished he hadn’t bothered. Now he could see the floor of the turbolift shaft rushing up to meet him.

It’d be all right, he reminded himself, as long as the carriage didn’t use the entire depth of the shaft to halt before bobbing back up to its stop. Of course, if he was really lucky, it would stop on the second level.

He wasn’t that lucky. The turbolift shot down to the premier level, and its antigravity cushion engaged. Jax, caught in the field, was suddenly weightless. The cloak billowed. He held on with his entire will, knowing that gravity would return with a vengeance when they reached bottom.

The car dived below the first-level exit, the ground floor rushing up to meet it. Jax coiled the Force within him, knowing that if he had to use it save himself he would very likely give himself away.

The lift stopped and gravity reasserted itself. Jax felt at once the pull of the planet and the light pressure of a padded crossbeam against his back before the car bobbed lightly back up to the exit portal. It vibrated as its doors opened and its occupants exited.

Now, would it just sit here until someone else called for it, or …

The lift hummed. In moments, it was ascending again with Jax still clinging to its underside. He watched the portals for each level as they slid by. He wanted Level Nine … and there it was.

He swung his legs down and let go of the lift’s undercarriage, then used the Force—gently, oh so gently—to slide down the curving wall of the shaft to the Level Nine portal. There was just enough room for him to stand on the lip of the entry. He applied the minimum amount of effort to opening the doors and all but fell through them out onto the high walkway.

In the lee of the tower, he adjusted his cloak and hood, then slid slowly down the sparkling length of permacrete until he could see the target.

Vader’s shuttle sat in the center of the largest landing stage, dwarfing the smaller vessels close to it. The Lambda-class shuttle, its wings folded, tips pointing skyward, was well armed and well guarded. Stormtroopers—no doubt members of Vader’s Fist—stood at intervals, facing outward as if to accost anyone who might approach the ship.

Standard procedure? Or evidence that there was a special passenger on this trip?

Jax felt a chill down his spine. He’d been sweating during his encounter with the turbolift, but now he was freezing cold. Did that shuttle contain Thi Xon Yimmon? Was there any way he could find out without revealing himself?

He’d been moving more and more slowly along the walkway, his head tilted as minimally as possible toward the shuttle. His spirit was not quiet. He wanted to fling himself over the parapet, rush to the ship, and tear it open to reveal what—or who—was inside. He willed himself to calmness, to dispassion.

Impossible. He settled for focus.

He had come here at great risk and could not go back without knowing something. Gritting his teeth, he reached questing tendrils of Force sense toward the vessel, seeking Yimmon. He applied himself to the bow of the ship first, reasoning that a prisoner of such importance would be kept in or near the detachable forward section of the vessel in case an emergency forced them to separate the bridge from the cargo and passenger sections.

His steps slowed further as he concentrated. There were people aboard the vessel, but their similar energies told him most were the cloned soldiers of Vader’s guard.

But here was a different signature … and there.

He withdrew slightly. That, surely, was the taozin-blurred energy of an Inquisitor. He moved on, feeling every inch of the vessel as if it were a model he held in his hands.

He finished with a deep sense of disappointment. Maybe Yimmon was in the building beneath Jax’s feet. Maybe he simply hadn’t been put aboard yet. Jax wanted Yimmon to be here. Desperately, he now realized. He wanted …

He had no further opportunity to consider what he wanted. The ramp of the ship was extending from the port side of the vessel. Two Imperial officers descended to stand at the lower end.

Jax stopped walking and turned to face the ship. Below him, someone moved from the shadow of the walkway and strode toward the vessel in a swirl of black robes.

Every hair on Jax’s body stood on end.

Vader.

I should keep walking, Jax told himself. He should seem to be just one more Inquisitor going about his mysterious duties. He tried to make his feet move, but his gaze refused to let go of Vader.

He had left his lightsaber aboard the Laranth and now regretted it. He could still throw himself over onto the landing platform. He didn’t need the weapon to use the Force effectively—something Laranth had always been at pains to remind him. She thought the Jedi were too obsessed with uniformity as opposed to unity. You could have one without the other, she had argued. A Jedi shouldn’t limit him- or herself to a particular weapon or even to a particular way of doing things. Successful life-forms were also adaptable life-forms. But Laranth was dead and the man responsible for her death was, even now, crossing the duracrete surface of the landing stage.

Or … was the man responsible standing atop this walkway, looking down at his nemesis?

The thought struck Jax hard enough to make him take a step backward. Below, on the sun-washed platform, Darth Vader had paused to speak to the officers awaiting him at the bottom of the ramp. The conversation was brief and one-sided. At its conclusion, the Dark Lord took a step onto the landing ramp.

Then he hesitated, and turned to look up at the man on the walkway.

One’s face was obscured by a mask, the other’s by the shadows of an Inquisitor’s hood, yet still Jax felt naked before the touch of Vader’s regard.

Do you know who I am?

It took the full force of Jax Pavan’s will to bow his hooded head deeply to the Dark Lord, then turn and resume his slow, gliding walk. He entered the Flight Control facility on the opposite side of the walkway. Only once inside did he quicken his pace.

He passed one or two Inquisitors on his way out of the building. He did not acknowledge them in any way, nor they him. He passed through checkpoint after checkpoint, glad that the Inquisitorius inspired such fear that the guards were reluctant to even look at him.

When he left the bureau complex and recrossed the broad plaza, the space between his shoulder blades itched. In his mind’s eye he saw that masked face with its obsidian goggles turned up toward him, stripping away layers of skin and bone to ultimately bare his identity.

Or so it had felt.

But …

He didn’t know me, Jax told himself. If he’d known me, he would have challenged me. He would never have let me walk out of there alive. If he’d known me, I would have felt it.

Still in Inquisitor’s guise, Jax returned to the Westport, hoping that by the time he got there he would have stopped shaking.



At the point Den realized he was checking the chrono every five minutes, he stopped glancing at it. Jax had been gone for over two hours without a word, and the Sullustan wished desperately—not for the first time in his life—that he wasn’t stone deaf when it came to the Force. At least then, he told himself, he’d know if Jax was all right or if he’d been discovered … or worse.

“Why didn’t he take us with him, Five?”

The question had been revolving in his mind since Jax had set off for the Palace District. It was driving him crazy. He turned his gaze from the landing pad to look at the droid, who was tinkering with a new chassis design through his onboard holodisplay.

“I mean, if Yimmon was there, and Jax had any hope of rescuing him, he’d need backup, right?”

I-Five swiveled his head so that the oculus was aimed at Den. “Jax may have reasoned that a lone Jedi would have a better chance of rescuing Yimmon than a Jedi encumbered with a couple of miniature sidekicks.”

“Okay, I can see why he might not take me. I’m frankly not that quick or stealthy or impressive. But you? You’re not a liability by any stretch of the imagination. Especially since we got those laser units installed. You can do just about anything but fly.”

The droid’s monocular optic spun as if in contemplation. “Antigravity generators come in fairly small packages these days. With perhaps a repulsor unit for swift ascensions—”

“Stop it!” Den exclaimed. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I know you, Tin Man,” Den said, pointing a stubby digit at I-Five’s lens. “You’ve been wondering the same thing, haven’t you? Why would Jax leave you behind?”

“I can’t say that I have.” Five shut off the holoimage of a souped-up I-5YQ unit. “What I have been doing is sorting through possible reasons why he may have done this. The most obvious one is that he’s afraid of putting us in harm’s way.”

“That’s not his decision to make, blast it! It’s ours.”

“It could be reasonably argued that someone had to stay with the ship, keep it liftoff-ready.”

“Like I said, I could have seen him leaving me here, but not you. He needs you, Five. Probably more now than—” Den broke off when a flicker of movement at the periphery of the landing platform tugged at his eye. “What was that?”

I-Five turned his gaze to the exterior view. “I saw nothing—which, given my monocular vision, is unsurprising.”

Den half rose from the copilot’s chair. “It was there. Over there by that fuel port.” He pointed at the bright yellow housing of a robotic unit that dispensed liquid metal fuel.

I-Five tapped the control panel and brought up the displays showing views starboard, port, and aft. Den flicked his gaze from one screen to the next.

“Are you sure—” I-Five began.

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m—there! Right there!”

A cloaked figure flitted from shadow to shadow, passing from the fuel port to a stairwell on the port side of the landing pad.

Den felt as if every drop of blood in his body had congealed.

“An Inquisitor,” I-Five said with irritating calm. “Perhaps we should let him know he’s been seen.”

Den shook his head. “No. Let’s just … keep an eye on him … or three. Let’s not tempt fate, okay?”

“What if Jax returns while he’s out there?”

Mother of Sullust, he has to ask?

Den licked his lips. “We should ping Jax.”

“And if he’s doing something stealthy at the moment we ping him? We were instructed to keep radio silence.”

“I hate this,” Den said. “A lot.”

They watched for several minutes as the Inquisitor made a circuit of the ship—once, then twice.

“I don’t get it,” said Den. “What’s he doing?”

“Sniffing, perhaps? Trying to see if he can ‘smell’ a Jedi.”

That made sense. And it meant that if Jax returned while Vader’s little Force hound was out there …

Den got up and slipped into the short corridor that connected the tiny bridge to the body of the ship. He popped open the weapons locker and took a blaster from the rack.

“What are you doing?” I-Five was standing in the hatchway.

“I’m gonna go chase him away.”

“No, you’re not. I am.”

The droid scuttled past Den and made for the air lock. He had let down the loading ramp before Den could get to him. With Den standing in the hatch, his heart beating hard enough to sway him back and forth, I-Five stalked down to the bottom of the ramp and looked around.

“Thieves!” he squeaked in a high, tinny voice. “I saw thieves, Captain Vigil!”

His head performed almost a 360-degree swivel before swinging back in the opposite direction. When his oculus was pointed away from the Inquisitor’s last known position, he raised a slender arm, pointed a finger 180 degrees away from where he was looking, and fired a bolt of blue energy from his fingertip. It struck the housing of the umbilical cabling—now retracted—that had powered the ship’s systems while she was docked.

There was a sudden flurry of sound and movement and then … nothing. Or at least as much nothing as there could be on a landing stage at a busy spaceport. Den held his breath, blaster in hand, and tried to listen—to sense—the shadowy presence of the Inquisitor. It was a vain attempt. When it came to the Force, Den Dhur was an inert lump of protoplasm.

I-Five moved into the shadow of the ship’s keel. “Perhaps, Captain,” the droid said, “you should go monitor the pad from the bridge. I’ll stay down here. Just in case.”

“Uh, copy that.” Den swallowed, then hastened back to his seat in the cockpit. He turned his eyes to one display after another: bow, port, starboard, aft. The shadows of the dockside equipment seemed almost solid in the glare of Coruscant’s sun. He scanned every one of them, repeating the process—once, twice, three times—before his heart rate began to assume a more normal rhythm.

At the end of his third cycle, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wishing Jax would return. Praying to the Great Mother that he would return with Yimmon and this nightmare would simply be over.

“I’m coming back aboard, Captain.”

I-Five’s voice came to him through the droid’s comlink. Den took a breath of relief.

“Okay. Okay. Great.”

He opened his eyes to watch the little droid climb back up the landing ramp and saw the Inquisitor step out of the shadows of the spaceport directly behind him.

“Five! Your back!” Den yelled, but I-Five couldn’t hear him—in his panic, Den hadn’t activated the comm.

Still, the droid turned to face the Sith operative. Den saw the light on the laser port built into his oculus flash red as it charged up.

The Inquisitor stopped, raised his hands as if to forestall attack, then put back his hood.

Den all but melted into a puddle on the deck of the bridge. He was still lounging limply in his seat when I-Five and Jax entered. Jax had removed the Inquisitor’s cloak and looked more or less as he had when he’d left earlier.

“Why did you do that?” asked Den.

Jax frowned. “Do what?”

“The …” Words failing him, Den briefly pantomimed a hunched-over sinister form, large eyes narrowed to slits, finger crooked, clawlike.

“Oh. A precaution. Vader and his lackeys expect Force signatures from Inquisitors, not members of the local constabulary.”

“Okay. I get that, but why all the skulking around the ship? You afraid we might have picked up a bug or a bomb or something? I mean, you scared the mopak out of us. Or, well, out of me, anyway.”

Jax’s frown deepened. “What skulking?”

I-Five made a soft bleep. “We’ve been monitoring an Inquisitor for the last fifteen minutes or so making a circuit of the ship. I thought I’d just driven him off. We assumed …”

Jax’s face had paled above his uniform. “That wasn’t me. I just got here.”