cut.
Jaina looked around, still searching for Jacen. Only a few meters away,
though she hadn't noticed him before, Lowie lay flat in the grass,
moaning quietly and clutching his side.
Around the edges of the clearing, Tionne, Luke, and Lando helped the
injured stragglers. There was still no sign of Jacen, though.
"Lowie, are you all right?" Jaina asked.
The Wookiee rumbled something noncommittal and waved a hand, as if to
tell her to finish caring for Tenel Ka first.
'Oh, Mistress Jaina! Thank goodness you're here," Em Teedee cried. The
little droid's voice sounded strange, and Jaina noticed that the speaker
grille was bent.
"You have simply no idea what the three of us have been through today.
Master Low186 bacca and Mistress Tenel Ka were forced to dive from the
battle platform in order to avoid being blown up. Which was a good
thing, since the battle platform crashed only moments later.
"When we fell to the trees, Master Lowbacca was able to catch himself,
but Mistress Tenel Ka struck her head on a branch.
She nearly fell all the way to the forest floor, but Master Lowbacca
dove after her, caught her arm, and broke their fall by landing
stomach-first on a wide limb. Oh, it was bravely done, I assure you,
Mistress Jaina.
I'm no medical droid, of course, but I'm afraid you'll find that Master
Lowbacca has a dislocated shoulder and at least three broken ribs."
Raynar pressed a fresh compress over Tenel Ka's head wound and began
winding a bandage around it to hold it in place. "You go ahead," he
said, nodding toward Lowie. "I'll finish here."
When two more wounded Jedi students staggered into the clearing, Jaina
looked up hopefully, but neither was Jacen. "Have you seen my brother?"
she asked Raynar as she went to Lowie's side and knelt to examine his
injuries. "He went in the Lightning Rod with old Peckhum to call for
reinforcements.
He should be back by now."
Raynar frowned and shook his head.
"Well ... well ... 'I saw the supply shuttle the Lightning Rod. I . . .
think one of the TIE fighters hit it."
Jaina gasped. "Did they crash?"
Raynar looked away. "I don't know. The ship seemed to be going down, but
- - ." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Anyway@ it was hours ago."
Jaina bit her lower lip and closed her eyes, reaching out with the
Force, searching for Jacen. "He's not dead," she said at last.
"But that's all I can tell. Can't feel old Peckhum-don't have a link
with him like I do with Jacen-but my brother's definitely out there
somewhere."
A genuine smile broke out on Raynar's face. "Well, good," he said.
"That's good."
"That's the last of them, I think," Lando said, striding up and kneeling
beside Jaina.
"How are you doing, Lowbacca, old buddy?
You look like you've seen some hard action."
Lowie gave an urff of agreement.
"I think we got everybody who's in the neighborhood now," Lando said.
"We did find one more," Luke said, coming up to join them. He pointed
toward the edge
^ of the clearing, where Tionne was tending a treelike Jedi with a
broken limb.
Jaina looked up at her uncle. "What about Jacen?"
'He's alive Luke said slowly. "We don't know any more than that."
"Yes," said Jaina, "but where is he?
Shouldn't we go look for him?"
"We need to get the injured back inside the Great Temple first," Luke
said. "If old Peckhum and Jacen managed to get the Lightning Rod going,
the first place they'd head is the landing field. They wouldn't be able
to land in a small clearing like this."
Jaina's spirits brightened. It was true.
She looked at Lowie. "Can you walk?" she asked.
Lowie groaned an affirmative reply.
"Master Lowbacca believes himself to be quite capable of perambulation
with only minimal assistance," Em Teedee supplied.
"Okay then," Jaina said, "let's get back'to the Jedi academy." She was
anxious to see her brother again, eager to know that he was all right.
It was close to an hour later when the band of hobbling, limping Jedi
trainees finally emerged from the jungle near the Great Temple's landing
field. To Jaina's dismay, the flat patch of cleared ground stood empty.
"Don't worry, little lady," Lando said. 'I'll help you look for them."
Jaina heaved a sigh and nodded. Even though she knew that Jacen was
alive, she had a feeling of foreboding, of impending danger. "All
right," Jaina said. "Let's get the wounded inside first. They'll be safe
and protected in the temple. We'll have to take them in through the
courtyard door, though.
The hangar bay's blocked shut."
Crossing the landing field to the flagstone courtyard seemed to take
longer than Jaina remembered it, but finally the entrance was only ten
meters away. Seeing her goal so close, Jaina smiled and sped up.
Suddenly, a ragged figure lurched out of the shadowy doorway. His face
was bloodied and bruised and covered with a thick layer of mud, but
Jaina would have recognized him anywhere.
Zekk raised his chin proudly and stood barring the doorway.
"No one goes inside the temple," he said.
^ -----------------FACE-TO-FACE WITH HER old friend Zekk again, Jaina
could find no words.
Her breath refused to move in and out. It seemed to have frozen in her
lungs like a chunk of winter. Her heart raced, and her palms grew
sweaty.
Zekk didn't move.
Luke came forward to stand beside Jaina.
On her other side, still partially supported by her, Lowie voiced a soft
growl. And behind her, Jaina suddenly felt the presence of all the
remaining Jedi trainees-people who had never met Zekk before today when
he had led the attack against the Jedi academy. They saw him only as an
enemy, without a glimmer of his being anything else.
Her eyes still fixed on Zekk's mud-covered face, Jaina said, "This is up
to me, Uncle Luke. I need to handle this alone."
Luke hesitated for a moment. Jaina knew
^
^ that her request was difficult for him. His voice held an undercurrent
of warning when he spoke. "This isn't a broken machine that you can
tinker with and fix."
"I know," she said softly. "I'm not sure he'll listen to me, but I know
he won't listen to anyone else."
"I remember thinking the same thing," Luke said, "when I set out to turn
Darth Vader back to the light side. It's a dangerous thing to attempt .
. . and success is so rare." He sighed, as if thinking of Brakiss.
Jaina tore her eyes away from Zekk and turned to look at her uncle.
"Please let me try," she said. Luke studied her for a long moment and
then nodded.
Jaina focused her full attention on Zekk now, shutting out all other
distractions as Luke took Lowie away across the courtyard.
She drew strength from the Force, but was at a loss as to what to say to
the young man.
Where did one start when talking to a Dark Jedi?
Zekk, she reminded herself. This was her friend.
She took a step toward
him and raised her voice, though only enough so he could hear. "The
fighting's over now, Zekk.
We just need to get inside to tend our wounded."
^ Zekk shuddered from an inner chill. He backed up a step and spread his
arms across the temple entrance. "No. There'll be a lot more injuries if
you don't stop where you are.
Jaina balked at the threat. She would need to try a different tack.
Zekk's eyes darted from side to side, as if he were assessing the
strength of the Jedi trainees, with their various wounds, wondering how
many he could kill before they took him down.
"Let me be your friend again, Zekk," Jaina said. "I miss being your
friend." He flinched as if he had been struck. 'Let go of the dark side
and come back to the light. Remember the fun we always had together, you
and Jacen and I? Remember the time you salvaged that old slicer module
and we tapped into the computers at the holographic zoo?"
Zekk nodded warily.
"We reprogrammed all of the animals to sing Corellian tavern songs," she
went on. A wistful smile tugged at the corner of her mouth at the
memory.
"We got caught," Zekk pointed out quietly.
"And the zoo restored the original programming."
^
'Yes, but so many returning tourists requested it that a few months
later the zoo added our singing animals as a separate exhibit." Jaina
thought she saw some flicker of acknowledgment in his emerald eyes, but
then they became hard as chips of green marble.
"We're not those children anymore, Jaina," he said. "We can't go back to
the way it was before. You don't understand that, do you?"
His gaze darted around the courtyard and he rubbed one hand across his
forehead and eyes, smearing the mud there.
Jaina said, "All right, I don't understand.
Explain it to me."
Zekk took a deep breath and began to pace in front of the dark doorway,
like some wild creature trapped in an invisible cage.
"There's no place where I belong anymore, Jaina. The Shadow Academy
became my home. It's gone now-completely destroyed.
Where can I go? The dark side is a part of me."
"No, Zekk," Jaina said. 'You can give it up. Come back to the light."
Zekk laughed, a sound filled with anger and a touch of madness. He
clawed at his cheek with one hand and held out his fingers so that she
could see the mud there. A
wound on his cheek seeped blood, but he seemed not to notice. "The dark
side isn't like this mud," he said. "You can't just wear it for a while
and then scrape it awaywash it off like some child who has finished
playing in the dirt."
Zekk wiped his hand on his tattered cape.
"I'm a different person now than the uneducated street kid you knew on
Coruscant. I don't belong there anymore. Vere could I belong? I've been
trained as a Dark Jedi."
His expression turned bleak. "And now my teacher is dead, too. He taught
me and believed in me, gave me skills and a purpose."
"Peckhum always believed in you, too," Jaina said in a gentle voice.
Zekk put a muddy hand to his matted hair, and a wild look came over him.
"But he's dead, too-he must be. I saw the Lightning Rod go down."
Jaina felt as if she had been rammed in the stomach by a mad herdbeast.
The Lightning Rod had crashed? Then Jacen could be badly injured.
"I failed my teacher, Brakiss, and he's dead," Zekk said. He gestured as
he spoke.
led the Shadow Academy into battle, and all of my comrades were killed
or captured.
^ And if Peckhum's dead, then that's my fault too." Zekk's eyes looked
glassy and feverish; his breathing was fast and shallow.
Jaina set her jaw in stubborn determination. 'Well, Zekk, I don't want
to see any more people die because of you. Just let me into the temple
so we can take care of our wounded."
Zekk stopped pacing and whirled to look at her. "No! Stay back."
Jaina took a step forward. "Zekk, there's nothing left to fight about.
What can you possibly hope to gain?"
Zekk shook his head. "You never did listen to my advice. You always
thought you knew better." Despite his obvious agitation, Zekk's
movements were eerily smooth as he drew his hghtsaber from his belt and
Then, in a move so instinctive that a moment later she couldn't even
remember it, Jaina found her own lightsaber in her hand, its
electric-violet beam humming and pulsating.
A feral grin spread across Zekk's face, almost as if he was glad that it
had come to this.
'You see, Jaina," he said, taking a step toward her and twitching his
energy blade
^ from side to side, "once you let it in, the dark side is like a
disease for which there's no cure." He lunged toward her, and their two
blades met in a sizzling struggle of red against violet. "And the only
way to remove the disease"-he lunged again and again and Jaina
parried-"is to"-thrust-"cut"thrust-"it"-thrust-"out!"
Jaina spun away and kept a wary eye on Zekk while she circled, waiting
for his next move. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Luke
watching the battle with calm acceptance.
At that moment Jaina realized that she had been trying to force Zekk to
turn to the light side. She had been trying to fix him.
But she couldn't. It had to be his choice. She drew a deep breath,
letting the Force flow through her, and backed away from Zekk.
"I won't fight you anymore, Zekk," she said, switching off her
lightsaber and tossing it to the ground. "There's still good in you, but
you'll have to decide which direction you want to go-starting now. It's
your choice, so make the right one for you."
Surprise and anger and confusion chased each other across Zekk's face.
"How do you know I won't kill you?"
From the corner of her eye, Jaina saw
^ Lowie step forward as if to protect her, but Luke put a restraining
hand on the Wookiee's shoulder.
Jaina shrugged. "I don't know that. But I won't fight you. Make your
choice." Jaina pushed back her straight brown hair and looked directly
into Zekk's eyes with calm assurance-not assurance that he wouldn't harm
her, but assurance that she had done the right thing.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" she whispered.
With slow deliberation, Zekk raised his glowing red lightsaber over
Jaina's head.
^ IMPERIAL COMMANDO ORVAK finally awoke, feeling thick headed and
groggy. e fought away nightmares that were filled with serpent fangs and
invisible pre ators, slipping out of cracks in the wall. When he shook
his head, a wave of dizziness and nausea pounded through his skull.
Orvak couldn't remember where he was or what he was doing. The stone
floor felt hard beneath his sprawled body. He had fallen in an
uncomfortable position and apparently slept there for some time. His
hand throbbed, and he saw two small wounds there-punctures-before his
vision blurred and lost focus again.
He must have taken his gloves off, and his helmet. What had he been
doine. Where was he?
He heard no other sounds of combat around the Jedi academy. What could
be happening?
^
^ Then Orvak remembered creeping into the ancient temple, his important
mission for the Second Imperium . . . and the invisible glistening snake
that had struck at his hand. For some reason, its venom had knocked him
unconscious.
He brought his hand close to his eyes, but clarity of focus continued to
evade him.
Some kind of poison . . . he had been d rugged, but now he was coming
out of it. Was he a captive of the Jedi sorcerers?
Orvak heaved himself to a sitting position, and the universe turned in
giddy circles around his head. He clutched at the cool, smooth floor for
support. He had come here to the temple to plant explosives, to wipe out
the great stone pyramid. Then everyone would see the weakness of the