Chapter
1
15:3:21 ABY:
Air!
That was the first coherent thought that came to Zak Arranda's mind when consciousness flooded back to him. After a few more minutes in which he centred his thoughts, he looked around at the inside of the stasis tube. The exterior was frosted over, save for a spot right in front of his face that had been swept away by someone recently. The temperature inside the tube was starting to climb to something more tolerable than the chill that had frozen him, but it was still cramped—it wasn't built to hold a human.
A clank, and then another. The locking mechanisms popping. He recognised the sound. It was almost the exact inverse of what he had heard when Fenb Peub had sealed him inside and started the stasis cycle. His throat still felt raw from the screaming.
Another coherent thought.
How long had he been trapped here? Days? Weeks? Had Tash tried to free him? What about Deevee, his uncle's faithful assistant droid. Surely he had come looking for Zak—surely? Or he might have assumed the worst from the start and informed the authorities. Perhaps that was who had released him from his frozen prison cell.
Gloved fingers pried into the crack between the hatch and the casing and wrenched the door open roughly. Natural air washed over Zak then; damp, and smelling of mould and volcanic rock, but it was more welcome than the air recycled within the stasis tube. He barely paid any mind to the dying hum of the machinery shutting down, more intent on taking in great big heavy gulps of the new air as he fell forward. He crashed to his knees on hard rock when his leg muscles, disused for who-knew how long, could not keep him up any longer.
When he had satisfied himself with the hot, dry air of the Sullustan cavern he recognised, and he had the strength to do it, he lifted his head to take a look around. But there was no sign of DV-9, or any officials that had been brought to his rescue. In fact, he could see only two people, and one of them was a girl he judged no older than six standard years.
He didn't recognise them. Sure, there was something about the girl that gnawed on his still-sluggish mind, something that was somehow familiar, though he knew he had never met her before. He realised soon enough that these two strangers had been the ones to rescue him from his cold hell, and he decided that anything they asked of him wouldn't necessarily be off-limits.
Muscles aching from that simple act of looking around, he dropped fully to the floor, tasted dirt on his lips.
"Help him up, Jaina," came a hard, deep voice he didn't recognise. He knew it had to be the older man that was with the girl—her father?
He waited, and though he didn't feel any hands grasping at his clothes, or arms wrapping around him to help him to his feet, he was lifted up from the ground. It boggled his mind. He could not recall putting any effort into the act of getting up. In fact, he would have been content to just remain on the ground for a few more years, just sucking in air.
When he was upright, he looked to the strangers again to see that the girl's eyes were slightly narrowed, and that her small hand was outstretched in his direction, her fingers splayed. He tried to speak, to ask them what was happening, but his throat still chafed from his protests, and his lips were slightly cracked, dry.
"Water, Jaina," the man said. He was standing nearby, mostly but not entirely obscured by shadows. "But be mindful how much you give him."
"Yes, Father," the girl replied.
She withdrew a small flask from her belt with her free hand and approached Zak slowly, as if to assure him that she wasn't a threat. Zak almost laughed at the thought; a girl as small as she, as young as she, couldn't possibly be a threat to him. But then he remembered that she was somehow holding him upright without even laying a hand on him. He wondered how that was possible, and he knew that if she could do that, she could do more.
Jaina stopped just before Zak, the top of her head barely past his waist, and he felt himself being lowered slowly until he was on his knees again, looking her right in the eyes.
She smiled. "Open up," she said.
It took Zak a few tries to open his mouth, but when he finally managed it, he was rewarded with the heavenly sensation of cold water dripping into his mouth and sliding down his throat. There wasn't much of it before the girl withdrew the flask, replaced the lid, and hung it from her belt again.
He swallowed the last few drops of water, and found that his muscles were slowly starting to gather strength, and that his throat, mouth, and lips were on the mind as well.
"Who are you?" he asked finally, unable to think of anything else.
The man reached up and scratched at an itch on his chin idly before stepping out of the shadows and smiling at Zak. He had close-cropped, dark blonde hair and high cheekbones. His eyes were dark blue, hard but not quite menacing. His teeth, which Zak could see through the smile, were straight, clean, and well maintained, so he knew that the man wasn't a resident of Sullust; the humans here seemed to forego basic hygiene.
Then he spoke in that deep voice again. "My name is Brakiss," he said, taking a couple of steps forward.
"How long …" Zak couldn't quite articulate the question, and he found that there was something else nagging at the back of his mind; some small voice that kept telling him that there was something he was forgetting, something more important than the identity of his saviour.
"According to the records on the control board, you have been locked in the pod for the past eleven years."
"E–e–eleven years?" Zak stammered. "Then Deevee didn't find you? He didn't find me?"
He felt something strange then. It was almost like something invisible brushing gently against the inside of his head, touching memories. "No," the man called Brakiss replied, almost sympathetically. "And I cannot say I know what became of the droid in the time that you were here. What is the last thing that you remember?"
Zak thought about that for a moment. He remembered his uncle's murder on the landing platform the afternoon Fenb had betrayed him. The memory sent a spike of anger through him, and he vowed that, when he sufficiently recovered, if he ever caught up with Alitha, she was going to pay for what she had done. He remembered being found, covered in Shi'ido blood and remains by the planet's security division, remembered dimly being taken away and questioned for hours without end. They'd known of his innocence, but they hadn't counted on him being too shocked to be able to cooperate with them and give a description of the culprit. Then he remembered being picked up by—
"Tash!" He whirled around to face the other two pods, breaking free of whatever invisible force held him in place. He crashed forward again, braced himself against the ground with his palms.
The pod on the far end had been smashed by a boulder. Its frame was twisted, and shards of plexiglass lay all around it, ready to stab unsuspecting passers-by. The one closest to his was in similar shape, though not by similar cause.
Plexiglass lay everywhere and the frame around the hatch was twisted and warped—by what he couldn't even guess. Wires and power chips were visible, fried and broken, from a dozen different places.
And inside the pod, he could see the motionless form of his sister. Her long, blonde hair was limp around her shoulders, and her normally sparkling blue eyes stared out at him, cold, lifeless, without the spark he remembered in his day to day life.
"No!" he gasped in disbelief. The realisation hit him slowly, painfully, and his stomach twisted itself into a hundred knots. Hot tears stung his eyes, and he found himself trying to get back to his feet so he could cross the space between them.
A strong arm looped under his own and around his back; Brakiss helped him to his feet and, seemingly knowing what it was that he was after, guided him closer to the broken stasis pod. Zak was let down gently, and he crawled the remaining meter until he could reach through the shattered plexi for his sibling. He pulled her slowly, and with difficulty lay her across his lap, cradling her, hoping against all reason that she would spring to life in that moment just because he wanted it to happen.
But he knew that she wouldn't. He'd finally lost the last of his family, now. First Alderaan had been destroyed, and then his second cousin on Coruscant who had spoken out against the Emperor after the Death Star's demonstration, and then Mammon Hoole on Sullust at the hands of the woman Zak had trusted … even cared for. Now Tash was gone, her life snuffed out by something or someone unknown. And why?
Why did she have to die? The Empire had been defeated! Why couldn't he make it happen? Why didn't he have that power?
Anger welled up inside of him, and he turned his gaze on Brakiss. He glared, his teeth clenched tight and his eyes narrowed. And suddenly, without Zak knowing how it happened, Brakiss was lifted off his feet and sent flying across the cavern. He crashed hard into the rock wall on the other side, and Zak heard the sound of breaking bones before he turned back to Tash and brushed a lock of her beautiful golden hair away from her face. He gently closed her eyes and then looked back up at Brakiss.
"Why?" he demanded.
The man hesitated. "I did not kill her," Brakiss said, pushing himself back to his feet and hissing as a spike of pain shot up from his wrist. Zak could somehow feel it, but felt nothing akin to sympathy. He adjusted his hold on Tash, clutched her tighter.
"Liar!" he hissed.
"He didn't do it!" the little girl, Jaina, said stubbornly from only a meter away. Zak glared at her too, but found himself unable to feel any hostility towards her. Whether it was because she was so young, or because of the look on her face, he just couldn't.
He turned his gaze back to Brakiss, the hate starting to melt. "Who did it? Who and why?"
In response, Brakiss lifted his good arm and gestured to his side. He flicked his wrist toward Zak, who watched as another lifeless body—this one clad in the tunic of a spaceport labourer—was flung from the darkened corner into the light around himself and the pods.
The dead man was perhaps in his late forties, with dark hair and a thin ring of bristles around his mouth. From his belt hung a communicator, a blaster, a grapple cable and a small pouch—not usually the necessary equipment for a labourer. There was a scorched hole in the middle of the man's chest.
"Who is he?" Zak demanded. He was irritated now, irritated that his revenge had been taken from him.
There was still Alitha. And in a way, killing her would be avenging Tash as well. If their uncle hadn't been murdered, they'd have left Sullust safely. All of them. Tash would still be alive. Tash …
"His identity eludes me," Brakiss said with a dismissive wave. "And honestly, I don't care enough to find out. I do know that he was a Jedi Knight. Evidently, his intention was either to kill you both, or kill her and acquire you. I cannot fathom a reason for either. To my knowledge, neither of you are overly important."
Zak's glare came back. "Jedi?" he said incredulously.
He and Tash had met a couple of Jedi during the civil war against the Empire. The first had been Luke Skywalker. He'd been amazed at Tash's grasp of that mystical thing called the Force. Though he had been too busy with the war to teach her anything about it. And Yoda, a funny little creature on Dagobah, had said that both of them were especially strong in the Force. Zak dimly recalled being told by that strange hermit that the Force was an invisible power that bound the universe together. In fact, he had been starting to explore his own potential with Alitha when she had betrayed them and killed Hoole.
"You know Skywalker?" Brakiss asked curiously. He'd obviously taken the memory from Zak's mind. This man, too then, could use this Force.
"A long time ago," he said, looking back down at his sister and gently caressing her cheek.
She was cold, but Zak credited that to the stasis tube more than a time of death. That the wound in the Jedi still smoked a little led Zak to believe that it hadn't happened too long before his revival.
"We met on D'vouran. Tash really looked up to him, and I respected him and his companions a lot. I used to look to them as the kind of people who would bring peace to the galaxy. I'd heard stories of the old Jedi growing up, and after meeting him I remember thinking that he could do great things." Zak paused, took a breath. "But if his kind could do something like this to someone so …"
"Beautiful," Jaina offered when Zak choked on the word.
"Yes." He continued to caress her cheek in silence while the other two watched him. "If they could do this to her … Luke Skywalker wasn't the person I thought he was. Even if he didn't sanction this, that he'd allow someone like that to join his Jedi is inexcusable! Inexcusable!"
"You're not the only one that thinks so," Brakiss said. He paused as Zak gently lay his sister down and forced his leg muscles to obey him. Slowly, he stood, and swiped away the tears that stung his eyes and cooled his cheeks before looking up at Brakiss again.
"What are you?" he asked the man. Brakiss had a lightsaber hanging from his belt. Jaina too, though hers was much smaller in design. He couldn't get passed how odd it was for a child so young to be so armed. And he remembered that Luke Skywalker had also had one of those strange laser swords. "Are you a Jedi?"
Then again, he considered, Darth Vader had also had a lightsaber. He had most certainly not been a Jedi. "No," Brakiss said in a tone that was almost a snarl. Perhaps Zak's comment had stung him. "I am what is known to that antiquated order as a Dark Jedi. I was trained by an associate of Skywalker's, but I turned my back on what she tried to instil in me. In the eyes of the Jedi, I went dark. In my view, I came to understand that my own needs were more important.
"Jaina is my student, and, for all intents and purposes, my daughter."
"For all intents and purposes?"
"I'm an orphan," Jaina explained. She came to Zak's side and looked up at him. "Father found me abandoned on Coruscant five years ago. Abandoned by the Jedi."
"I've raised her ever since," Brakiss added, "and, seeing her enormous potential, have begun to train her in the ways of the Force so that she will have the tools she needs to see to her wants in the future."
Zak's gaze was drawn again to the infantile lightsaber at her hip. "The weapon is not lethal," Brakiss said, catching the gaze. "Merely for training. It will do no more harm to her or anyone she strikes with it than holding your hand over an open flame for a time."
Zak cringed. Painful indeed, but also not lethal just as Brakiss had claimed.
"Why are you telling me all of this?" Zak asked after a few moments of silence. "I appreciate that you helped me. I really do. But when you say that you put your own desires against those of others or that of a greater good, helping one boy trapped in a freezer seems to be a contradiction."
He was somewhat glad that his brain was working at proper speed now. His reasoning skills were coming back to him. And so was the suspicious mind born of dozens of conflicts with the Empire since losing Alderaan.
Brakiss and Jaina exchanged a look that Zak could not read before the former addressed him. "Because even in stasis I could sense your potential, boy. You're right to suspect my motives. Suspect everyone around you, it will keep you alive. But you have the potential to be one of the greatest users of the Force I have ever seen. If I could teach you to harness than power, you would be great indeed."
"And the catch?"
"Just eternal remembrance of who it was that taught you, who it was that freed you from your hell. I don't expect worship, or eternal gratitude. But if I need something, I would expect you to try to assist me."
"An alliance of self-interest," Zak guessed. When Brakiss nodded, Zak looked back over his shoulder at Tash's body. She looked almost asleep now, except for the fact that she was starting to pale. "And will you teach me?"
"That depends on whether you want to learn. I am capable of teaching you, surely. And I sense your desire for vengeance against those who have wronged you." Brakiss paused. "But if you decide that that path is not for you, then I cannot do half-measures. I cannot teach you some things and not others, and I will not teach you if you even consider there's a possibility of going to the Jedi later."
Zak growled. "I will not go to those butchers! I want to learn all that I can about the Force. A Jedi Master once told me that I have a strong connection. I want to explore it. I want to exploit it. I want to know what there is to know, and what there is yet to discover. I want power."
"The power to avenge her death? To find and kill the ones that ordered or even turned a blind eye to this Jedi's actions?"
"Yes!" The word was a growl.
He looked down when he felt something grabbing his hand. Jaina looked straight back up at him, smiling sadly with tears of happiness brimming. She clutched tightly to his right hand with both of hers. Though smiling, Zak could somehow feel the waves of sympathy coming from her, the desire to help him with his loss somehow, though she didn't know how.
"She seems quite fond of you," Brakiss pointed out. Zak looked back over at him as he gently pulled his hand free and laid it on her shoulder. He drew the little girl closer to him, and was somehow made better just by that closeness. It was almost like having Tash by his side. Almost.
"We're both orphans, now," Zak told him, and gently squeezed Jaina's shoulder to convey that he was grateful that at least she knew something of what he felt. "Will you show me the ways of the Force?"
"If that's what you truly want."
His eyes narrowed at the man, trying to gauge if he was being tested again. If he was, he wanted to let the man know that it wasn't at all appreciated. Brakiss could only glean the facts of Zak's pain from his mind by using the Force. He did not feel it, and Zak doubted he even sympathised. It was as if this man had hardened himself to the pain and loss of others, as if those issues didn't matter to him at all.
And he realised that they didn't. That was the core of what Brakiss stood for, the path he was choosing. Self-interest. The problems of others did not concern Brakiss, and they should not concern Zak. But to take that path meant to survive the pain he felt now, to harden himself to it, as much as that would kill him.
"That's what I want," he said decisively.
Brakiss's hand shot out and something made of metal was flung through the air at Zak so fast that it was naught but a blur. On instinct, Zak's free hand shot out ahead of it, and his fingers wrapped tightly around a cold, cylindrical, slightly studded surface before it hit him.
He looked down at it, and gasped. It was a lightsaber, though looking over at Brakiss, he saw that it was not his. A spare? Had he anticipated Zak's determination? Or … no. It had to have belonged to the Jedi. Revulsion welled up, but Zak stamped it down with reason.
He examined the weapon closely, allowed himself to become familiar with its exterior. It was polished, with blue rubbed grip strips encircling the fore-half of it. The pommel was braced with blue and thinned as it went along. Close to it was a round clip, a pair of lights—one green and one red—and a red button with a grey dial beside it.
Curiously, he held the weapon out with the pommel aimed at the ground and pressed down on the red button. A turquoise blade of energy shot out of the top end of it for a little over a meter in length. The glow of the lightsaber lit up the area around them all. The addition of the blade, Zak noted curiously, added nothing to the weight of the weapon at all. That surprised him.
"That is yours," Brakiss said before Zak could ask the question that next came to his mind. He still cradled his broken arm, but it seemed less stiff now than it had been moments ago, as if it had healed some. "Consider it your training 'saber, though it is far deadlier than Jaina's. You will not be getting another, so take care of it until you have mastered it and are ready to construct your own."
"So it isn't mine to keep?"
"By all means do what you will with it. It is my experience from my own training, however, that a lightsaber should be built to complement and synergise with its owner. You may decide when you are ready that this one is good enough for you, and that will be fine as long as you're confident of that. But you may also want one that suits you more."
Zak nodded. "What happened to your arm?" he asked.
"You broke it," Brakiss responded plainly. "You tapped into your feelings of grief and hatred and your belief that I was responsible for your sister's death and used them as a weapon. Your feelings intensified to the point where your connection to the Force was beyond conscious thought. You reacted without intending to, and inflicted harm upon someone you perceived a threat without the knowledge of how."
"I … I'm sorry."
"Apologies are not necessary," Brakiss said with another dismissive wave. "The arm will heal. Another miracle of the Force. But that was your first step towards knowledge. You will be able to consciously harness that power one day. And those that would stand in the way of your ambitions will fall."
He turned on his heel and started towards the turbolift set into the wall that would take him back up into the house proper. Zak felt a small hand touch his own on Jaina's shoulder, and he looked down in time to see her wrap her fingers around his hand tightly. "Let's go," she said.
Zak almost started walking. But then he looked down at the lightsaber in his hand, and then over his shoulder at Tash's body, and he stopped, freed his hand from Jaina's little grip.
"I'll be with you shortly," he said. "I would like to bury my sister first. And say goodbye."
Though nothing more was said, Zak could feel the genuine understanding that came from Brakiss in that moment, and he was grateful for it. Jaina hurried off after him when she was sure Zak would be fine on his own.
