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Seven
(The Gathering Storm)
"We got a call from the Palace while you were in the station," the pilot of their shuttle said as Mara, Luke and Vader boarded. "The Emperor requests a brief audience before you leave."
Vader gestured commandingly with a gloved hand, not even bothering to consult Luke or Mara. "Go ahead," he rumbled, gathering his cloak about himself as he sat down.
"Is this a formal or informal meeting?" Mara asked, glancing briefly in annoyance at her old master as she pulled back her hood.
"Informal," the pilot replied. "Officially, no one knows the three of you came to Coruscant, and for now the Emperor wishes to keep it that way."
"Okay then," Mara said. She glanced over at her husband. "All right with you?"
Luke nodded distractedly, still staring off in the direction of the station's landing pad.
"Let's go," Mara said to the pilot as she sat down. "Hey," she said, nudging Luke's leg with her knee. "What is it?"
"I keep thinking about that man who spoke to me as we were leaving the station," he said, buckling his crash webbing as the shuttle took off. "The one who kept talking about fire."
He briefly described the encounter, and Vader dismissively said, "Demented ravings of a lunatic. Ignore him."
"He knew my name," Luke countered. "I had my hood up far enough to cover my face; he couldn't have recognized me."
"A lunatic," Vader repeated. "Do not concern yourself further. The unstable often seek out those in positions of power."
Luke merely shrugged, still frowning thoughtfully.
We can talk about it later, Mara sent to him through the Force. He gave her the mental equivalent of a nod in reply.
A few minutes later, the shuttle entered the enormous parking garage adjacent to the Imperial Palace and docked in a private space in the upper levels. They were met by a young Zabrak aide in black and dark purple livery, who guided the three of them swiftly through servants' passages to an office near the peak of the enormous pyramidal palace.
The office was small, perhaps fifteen meters square, and done up in the reserved black, gray and red colors of Fel's Empire. There were no windows, and it was lit only by a single harsh white glowpanel in the ceiling.
Emperor Soontir Fel himself waited in a high-backed dark red leather chair behind the black desk at the rear of the office. As usual, Emperor Fel wore a slightly more decorative version of the standard black Imperial officer's uniform, trimmed in dark red and gold, with gold-braid epaulets on the shoulders. His short, impeccably trimmed black hair and beard were both liberally sprinkled with gray, giving him an air of militaristic dignity.
Also waiting in the office were Colonel Jagged Fel and his two Imperial Knights, Zekk and Qeris. Both knights gave the three of them a respectful nod as they entered.
"Thank you for meeting me on such short notice," Emperor Fel said. "I assumed you would not want to advertise your visit."
"Correct," Vader said. "Your son has briefed you on the events at Belkadan?"
"He has," Fel confirmed. "So, the Vong have arrived at last."
Vader removed his helmet and set it on the edge of the desk. Mara noticed Fel give it a wary glance before looking back up at the former Emperor.
"They have," Vader said. "It will require all our strength to hold them back."
"The Imperial military would be honored to work with you once more, Lord Vader," Fel said, a slight note of caution in his voice.
Vader's lips quirked in a small, grim smile. "You may relax, Fel," he said. "I have no intention of reclaiming my throne. The Empire remains yours."
Fel inclined his head respectfully. "Thank you, Lord Vader." He lightly touched a datapad on his desk. "So what do you make of this Galen Marek? Is he Darth Nova returned?"
"He is not," Vader said assuredly. "His story is an odd one, and I have a theory, but I am not certain enough to share it yet. I will take him with me when I return to Belkadan."
"Of course," Fel said. "If you will indulge me, Lord Vader, I would like to send one of my Imperial Knights with you, to aid you in any way you need and act as liaison between our forces. Qeris would be most suited to the task, I believe."
Vader glanced briefly at the statuesque Imperial Knight, who returned his gaze calmly. "Very well," he said.
"Excellent," Fel replied. "My son and his crew will be assisting my admirals in readying the Imperial military for full-scale war. I intend to fortify the border worlds and offer the New Republic our assistance."
"As is your prerogative," Vader said neutrally. "I will send some of the officers of Vanguard Fleet to brief your forces on what they can expect in battle from the Vong." He picked up his helmet. "If there is nothing further…?"
Fel seemed surprised that Vader wanted to leave already, but said, "If you wish to contact me, Qeris has a direct comm to my office."
"Good," said Vader. He put his helmet back on, and a moment later rumbled through its vocoder, "Forgive the abruptness of my departure, but I have further preparations to make. I will relay any relevant information to you through your agent."
Fel nodded once. He glanced past Vader to Luke. "Give my regards to the Chancellor, Master Skywalker," he said. "Please extend to her my offer of Imperial assistance in the fortification of your borders."
"Thank you, Your Highness," Luke said. "I will."
And just as quickly as they had arrived, they left, accompanied by the young Imperial Knight. Mara wondered why Vader hadn't stayed for a longer conference with Emperor Fel, but she was herself impatient to return to Alderaan to begin the New Republic's preparations for war.
[...]
Later, as their shuttle climbed through Coruscant's atmosphere on its way back to the Azure Flame, where the Jade Sabre waited, Vader turned to Luke.
"I assume you will be going to Alderaan?" he said quietly, his helmet off and resting on the seat beside him. His expression was reserved.
"Yes," Luke replied. "I need to check in with the Chancellor and brief the Jedi about the state of the war. We have a lot to do."
"May I accompany you?" Vader asked. "I… have some things to discuss with your Chancellor."
Luke nodded in understanding. "All right."
Ben Skywalker sat in the upper gun turret of the Millennium Falcon, staring up at the sky of the nameless moon through the domed viewport. Their group was again gathered in his uncle's ship, plotting their next course of action. Before they had shut down the sensor buoy to avoid its detection, it had been confirmed that the incoming ships were indeed Yuuzhan Vong.
The present theory was that this battle group had come in search of the one they had engaged at Belkadan; that fleet had been spotted here, so it was logical to assume this battle group was retracing its course.
Even if they had wanted to leave, it would have been a hard fight to get clear of the system; the battle group was arranged as if searching for something, far too densely packed for even the agile Falcon to evade without a strong possibility of substantial damage. Uncle Han had wanted to try it anyway, but Revan and Jenn had talked him out of it.
Ben heard a light tread on the ladder below him and felt the approaching presence of his sister. Ami folded her arms across the top of the ladder and looked up at him, raising her brows briefly in silent greeting.
"So what do you make of this temple?" he asked her.
Ami rested her chin on her forearms. "I dunno."
"You don't know?" Ben said, amused.
Ami shrugged. "Revan seems to think this Generator thing is important enough to stay here and keep the Vong from finding it."
Ben propped his elbow over the top of his seat and leaned his head on his hand. "It's like Jaina said: something like this could be useful in the future. We're going to need stuff like this to win the war."
Ami shrugged again. "I suppose."
"You wish we'd have gone with Mom and Dad," Ben said knowingly, sensing her troubled thoughts.
"Yep," Ami replied. "It would have been better than sitting around here. Who knows how long we're going to have to hide here and wait for the Vong to leave? What if they decide this system would make a nice base and they set up camp here? What are we going to do then?"
"We make sure they don't decide to stay here," Jenn's voice said from the bottom of the ladder.
Ben leaned over to see the Jedi Master poke her head into the ladder well to look up at them. "Come on, you two," she said. "We're going to need your help."
Revan was waiting with the others as they came into the Falcon's main hold. "We're going to use the Force to influence the weather," he said as Ben and Ami sat down. He gestured to Aunt Leia. "Master Organa Solo will use her Battle Meditation to help us link our powers. I will guide one group in making a massive snowstorm to cover up this entire area, while Master Talmak will guide the other in making a bubble of ice over the security shield to shelter the ship and the entrance to the temple." His raptor-like gaze flicked around the group. "Is everyone ready?"
Ben closed his eyes and concentrated, working with Jacen, Jaina and Anakin to help Revan conjure a powerful wind and draw snow down from the clouds. Dimly, he sensed his sister and the others forming a thick dome of ice just above the security shield, reinforcing it as much as they could to bear the weight of the snow.
The elemental fury of the storm surged above them. Ben felt Revan pull them back before they influenced the storm too much; they still wanted to be able to blast out with the Falcon's turrets once they were ready to leave. Briefly, all the Jedi focused on strengthening the ice dome before finally the link faded away.
Ben opened his eyes to see his uncle Han pacing impatiently along the passage to the cockpit. He wondered how long they had been influencing the storm; it was difficult to judge the passage of time when immersed in the Force that deeply.
"Good work," Revan said approvingly, looking around at them. "That should be enough to keep the Vong from finding the temple." He turned to Han. "You should power down most of the ship's systems; I'm not sure what kind of sensors the Vong have, and they might be able to detect us even through the ice. I'm going to go rig the Generator for minimal power, just enough to run the heaters and keep it from getting below freezing in the temple."
"How long are we gonna wait?" Han asked.
"A day, maybe two," Revan said. "In a little while we'll activate the passive sensors on the buoy you left in orbit and see what the Vong are up to."
"Great," Han said, annoyed. "I didn't get quite enough of sitting around ice caves back on Hoth, so this should be a lot of fun."
Aunt Leia gave her husband an amused glance, but said nothing.
Jacen stood and rubbed his hands together. "So," he said with a cheerful smile, "who's up for exploring the rest of the temple?"
"Who's up for pretending to do that and throwing snowballs at Jacen once we get outside?" Anakin said with a grin.
Jaina grinned, also. "Sounds good to me."
Jacen dashed off to the ramp, his siblings in hot pursuit, laughing. Ami and Tahiri shared a brief glance before they ran off after them, giggling.
"They're so funny when they're that age," Leia said with an amused smile. "One minute they can be as serious and mature as any adult, and the next they're off to have a snowball fight."
Han hugged her from behind and kissed the top of her head. "Enjoy it while it lasts, darlin'," he said. "They ain't gonna be kids for much longer."
Ben noticed Revan quietly leave the room and head back toward the crew quarters. He could feel a strong sense of sadness in the Jedi Master through the Force, but knew there was nothing he could do to help.
He knew Revan wouldn't want to talk to him, but now Ben didn't feel like joining the others outside. Turning the other way, he returned instead to the upper turret to meditate.
Jenn noticed Revan leave, and decided to follow him. She found her friend sitting on the lower bunk in one of the crew cabins, staring blankly at the opposite wall. As she entered the cabin, Jenn saw that Revan's eyes were wet, and a tear trickled down his cheek as he looked up at her. She quietly closed the door behind her and sat down on the bunk next to him.
Revan took a deep breath and swiped the tear off his cheek with his thumb. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice thick with emotion.
Jenn touched his shoulder reassuringly. "Don't be," she said. "I understand."
"I just…" Revan paused, looking down at the floor. "I'm never going to get to hold my daughter," he said finally. "Her… her whole life went by while I was trapped in that damned thing." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "She had to grow up without a father because I was too stupid to avoid a booby trap," he said bitterly.
"It's not your fault," Jenn said. "I didn't sense it either, until it was too late."
Revan turned to her sharply. "It is my fault, Jenn. It is. I left Bastila and everyone else behind to go stop the Sith Emperor from attacking the Republic, and I failed. The first planet I got to, I got shot down by the Sith, and I had to steal one of their ships to draw them away from the Hawk and the droids. They chased me into hyperspace, but as soon as I dropped out to try and turn around, I got hit by that ion storm and crashed on that worthless planet where you found me." His expression hardened into frustrated anger. "And not even a day after you rescued me, we got marooned again and my stupidity got us trapped in some damned ancient booby trap for four thousand kriffing years!"
Jenn's brows rose in surprise; in all the time she had known him, she had never heard Revan curse like that. She was unsure of what to say.
"She must have had a peaceful life, at least," she said after a moment. "Your daughter."
Revan looked over at her. "What do you mean?"
"When I was reading Vader's records, I saw that the Sith didn't openly attack the Republic for another three hundred years after we got trapped," Jenn said. "I wasn't able to find any records of what happened to our friends and your family specifically, but there were no major conflicts before that. At least they had peace."
Revan nodded silently, but said nothing for several minutes. They sat in silence, thinking about the past.
"I haven't given up, you know," Revan said finally. He met her gaze, determination behind the sadness in his dark eyes. "I meant what I said, back on the Executor. We can't give up. All we can do is help these people against this invasion."
"I know," Jenn said. "Giving up was never something you did easily," she said with an encouraging smile. She slowly let it fade. "But you're allowed to be sad," she went on. "It would be unreasonable to expect you to just serenely accept losing your family like that."
Revan's lips quirked in a wry, bitter smile. "That's not what the old Jedi Masters would say."
"I was never the most orthodox Jedi," Jenn replied with a wry half-smile of her own. "And neither were you." She shrugged. "Some of the old Jedi might have liked to pretend they had no emotion, but you and I know better." She gestured off to the main part of the Falcon. "And from the looks of things, so do this Luke Skywalker and his Jedi. He's got the right idea; attachments don't compromise the Jedi, not if they learn how to deal with their emotions."
"Old Jolee Bindo said something similar, and I agreed with him." Revan said with a nod. He sighed. "I wish I had something of them, though. At least a picture."
Jenn nodded without replying, thinking. Not only had the Ebon Hawk been wrecked, it had been sitting under a glacier for four thousand years; the chances of her personal footlocker - in which she had left the images Bastila had given her of Revan's daughter - still being intact were remote.
But still, she had to try.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to be alone for a little while," Revan said. "I think I'm going to go work on the Generator."
"Okay," Jenn said as she stood. "I'll be around if you need me."
Revan gave her a slight smile. "Thank you."
While Revan headed outside for the temple, Jenn went back to the Falcon's engine room, where she heard Han and Chewbacca talking quietly as they worked on their vessel.
Han was wiping his hands on a rag, and looked up as Jenn walked in. "Can I help you?"
Jenn looked at him and his Wookiee copilot. "Yes, I believe you can."
"You think he's what?" Mara said incredulously.
They were in the lounge of the Jade Sabre, on their way to Alderaan. Galen Marek was secured in one of the passenger cabins, the door of which was guarded by the Imperial Knight Qeris. Vader had just put forth a very unusual theory about their passenger.
"I said, I think he is from an alternate universe," Vader repeated. "Physicists have long speculated about the existence of alternate universes, realities parallel to or divergent from our own. Based on his testimony and what can be determined about his sudden appearance at Coruscant, I believe this Galen Marek originated in one of these parallel realities."
"I've heard of the theory," Mara said. "Supposedly there are thousands of parallel realities out there, just like ours except for certain changes that make things different there." She gestured to Vader. "I don't know which I'm more surprised by, your hypothesis or your apparent knowledge of theoretical physics." She drummed her fingers on her knee for a moment. "Okay, I'll bite. Why do you think that?"
"His story of how the Clone Wars ended," Vader replied. "Apparently, in his reality, I sided with Mace Windu instead of Palpatine when I went to the Chancellor's office."
"When you chose to become Palpatine's apprentice," Mara said, having heard the story from Vader many times back when she had served him.
"Correct," Vader said with a slight frown. "That seems to have been the point of divergence for Marek's universe. His story is too detailed to be a delusion, and he knows things I never told Nova, things he could not have learned from anyone but me." Vader thoughtfully stroked his beard with the fingers of his natural hand. "It may seem far-fetched, but it is the only possibility that makes sense."
Mara had a sudden flash of insight. "That's why we have his fighter in the cargo hold, isn't it? You want to study it and learn how to duplicate whatever made him cross over from his universe into ours." She stood. "And the reason why you want to do it is so you can find the Star Forge in some universe where it wasn't destroyed."
Vader smiled approvingly. "You were always among the most intelligent of my students."
Mara was speechless with astonishment for a long moment. "That… that is the craziest thing I have ever heard! What you want to do… it's impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible for those who wield the Force," Vader said firmly. "You were there when I revived my wife, and you aided me later when we did the same for Kolos. Who are you to say we cannot cross over into another reality, find an intact Star Forge, and bring it back here, where we can use its power against the Yuuzhan Vong?"
Mara still couldn't think of a response beyond, "That's…"
"Something the Vong will never see coming," Vader finished fiercely. "It will take them entirely by surprise. With the addition of the cloning systems Thrawn and I have developed, we can have an army large enough to crush the Yuuzhan Vong once and for all within months!"
"I don't know whether that's insane or brilliant," Mara said.
Vader merely smiled confidently in reply.
"There's a message for you, Father," Luke said as he entered the lounge from the cockpit.
Mara turned to him; she had been so surprised by her conversation with Vader that she hadn't even noticed the ship dropping out of hyperspace to calibrate their next jump.
"From?" Vader inquired as he stood.
"Colonel Fel," Luke replied. "He says he received a transmission from the Executor, and most of it is encrypted besides a request that it be relayed to you as quickly as possible."
Vader pulled up his sleeve and tugged down the leather gauntlet covering his mechanical arm. He adjusted something near the elbow, and his glowing mechanical eye flashed slightly brighter for a moment. "I will view the message in the cockpit," he said, moving past his son. He closed the door behind himself.
"What was that about?" Luke asked, looking over at Mara.
"Some of his encryption protocols are linked to the control systems of his eye," Mara explained. "He thought it up during the design; certain codes are keyed to the unique systems in his mechanical eye, and can only be decrypted by him personally."
"Hmm," Luke said, impressed. He flexed the fingers of his artificial right hand. "I wonder if I could incorporate something like that into my prosthetic."
"Never mind that," Mara said. "You have to hear this." She quickly described what Vader had told her about Marek.
"Makes sense to me," Luke said once she was done. "According to SoroSuub records, that fighter of his never got past the design phase. The representative I contacted before we left Coruscant said they never even manufactured a prototype, and she was very surprised to hear a working model had been found. She said there was no way Marek's ship could have been made in their factory." He held up a finger. "But, Marek's ship is constructed in such a way that it could only have been made in an official SoroSuub factory, which didn't make any sense to me until you told me about this alternate universe theory."
"So you think Vader could really cross into another universe and bring back an intact Star Forge?" Mara said skeptically.
"That, I'm not so sure of," Luke allowed. "We'll just have to see what his scientists come up with there. I'm no physicist, but it seems possible to me to duplicate whatever brought Marek here."
"An alternate universe," Mara said thoughtfully, sinking back down onto the couch where she had been sitting. She looked back in the direction of the passenger cabins. "So the version of me from his reality…" She shook her head. "I can't imagine ever being married to him. I'll admit to having a bit of a crush on Galen while we were growing up, but once he became a Sith Lord… He was too cruel. Too vicious."
"He isn't Darth Nova," Luke reminded her as he sat down next to her. "In his universe, Anakin Skywalker never fell to the Dark Side, and therefore neither did he. Galen Marek is a completely different person than the one we knew." He gave her a teasingly disbelieving smile. "You used to like Darth Nova?"
Mara shrugged, giving him an equally teasing smile in return. "He wasn't always a murdering psychopath. He was pretty good-looking once, too." She adopted an expression of mock thoughtfulness. "Hmm. Now that I think about it..."
Luke's disbelieving look lost all hint of humor, shifting into genuine alarm.
Mara laughed and patted her husband on the leg. "Relax, farm-boy. He was never as fun to mess with as you." She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"That is not funny," Luke said with a chuckle as Mara stood and walked over to the dispenser to get a cup of water.
"Jade!" Vader bellowed as he opened the cockpit door. "We need to change course!"
"What's wrong?" she asked, setting the cup back in the shelf and closing the door.
"Your friends have decided to go investigate the temple where I found Revan," Vader snapped. "However, Piett has received word from the Judgment that a Vong battle group is headed for the same system. We need to go there immediately."
"Who went?" Luke asked as the three of them moved into the cockpit.
"All of the Jedi and the children left on Solo's ship," Vader said, taking the copilot's seat.
Mara needed no further convincing.
As Jenn had expected, not much was left of the Ebon Hawk. Darth Vader had partially excavated it during his visit to the temple, and what few artifacts his team had found were scattered over a flat area of the ice next to the crumpled, degraded remnants of her starship.
Jenn sighed sadly as she recognized the remains of T3-M4, who was crushed almost beyond recognition. Vader's diggers had just tossed him next to some cargo crates, which seemed an indignity the loyal little droid did not deserve.
"So what are we looking for?" Han asked.
"My footlocker," Jenn replied, looking around the scattered bits of wreckage. "It was hermetically sealed, so, supposing it wasn't blown open by the crash, the contents ought to be intact."
Han gave her a skeptical look. "You really think there's anything left after this long?"
Jenn shrugged. "It was a durable model, designed to survive exposure to vacuum. If it was shielded by the rest of the wreckage, I don't see why not. Can't hurt to look."
Han shrugged himself. "Something to do, I suppose," he said as he picked his way through the twisted hunks of metal and partially crushed cargo crates.
Chewbacca woofed curiously, holding up a bent and twisted hydrospanner out of a mangled toolbox.
"That belonged to one of my apprentices," Jenn said. "His name was Bao-Dur. He… died." She sighed, remembering that last chaotic battle for Telos with Nihilus' forces.
"It never gets easier, losing a buddy in battle," Han said knowingly, looking over at her.
"No, it does not," Jenn agreed. "But at least he made his death mean something. I… I can deal with it that way."
Chewbacca let out a mournful-sounding rumble and gently set the toolbox down on one of the crates. He looked over at her with an interrogative growl, nudging something next to the crates with his foot.
Jenn made her way over to where the big Wookiee stood. "Huh," she said, looking down where he pointed. "What do you know, it did make it."
She knelt down next to her footlocker, looking it over. It was scratched up and one corner was dented, but the seal looked intact. It was stacked with some other footlockers, only a couple of which were in similarly good condition.
With a groan of effort, Chewbacca picked up the footlocker and set it on top of two nearby cargo crates. Jenn nodded her thanks and tugged at the handle. It was stuck, and she had to put some muscle into it, but shortly she was rewarded with a quiet hiss of releasing pressure.
Everything inside was much the same as she had left it, if a little jumbled from being bounced around in the crash. "Got my money's worth out of this thing," Jenn said amusedly, digging through the datapads, spare lightsaber parts, and other odds and ends. After a moment she located the datacard Bastila had given her and gingerly picked it up.
She turned to Chewbacca. "I don't know how well this thing held up," she said, carefully handing the datacard to him. "Could you please see if you can get anything off of it?"
Chewbacca growled his assent, carefully touching only the corners. This model of datacard was designed to be durable, but Jenn didn't know if its designers had intended for it to still work after being locked inside a footlocker for four millennia. That scenario probably hadn't come up in the design process, she thought wryly.
"Too bad we left the little noisemaker back on Alderaan," Han said, gesturing to the datacard. "Artoo's pretty good with this kind of thing."
Chewbacca barked his agreement before heading back to the Millennium Falcon.
Jenn's amused smile slowly faded as she recognized the other item Bastila had given her before she had set out in search of Revan: a cloth-wrapped bundle wedged in one corner of the locker. She picked it up without comment and tucked it into a pocket of her robe.
"Probably not much of anything left," Jenn said as she turned to Han. "We're lucky anything made it at all."
Han smirked. "Another Jedi I knew once would say there's no such thing as luck, only the Force." He shrugged. "If you go in for that mystical stuff."
Jenn smirked back. "'That mystical stuff' works in strange ways, it's true."
A snowball arced over and hit Han squarely on the back of the head, and he ducked, swiping the snow out of his hair. Jenn looked over to see Anakin Solo standing with a surprised, guilty expression near the Falcon, his hand still raised from the throw.
"Sorry, Dad!" Anakin called over. Ami Skywalker, his intended target, giggled at the dirty look Han gave him.
"You're gonna be sorry, all right," Han said, stooping to scoop up a handful of snow.
"Uh-oh," said Anakin, and he dashed off for the other side of the artificial ice cavern.
"Come here, you!" Han shouted with a laugh, in hot pursuit.
"Sometimes I feel like I have four children," Leia said as she walked over to Jenn, smiling fondly at her husband as he chased their son around the cavern, both of them laughing. She pulled up the hood of her white outer robe, then closed the flowing garment against the chill.
"I never had any kids of my own, but I think I know the feeling," Jenn said, chuckling as Han finally tackled Anakin and rubbed snow in his hair. "My apprentices were all in their twenties, but I swear, you wouldn't know it from the way they squabbled sometimes."
"Did the Jedi Order allow you to marry in your time?" Leia asked.
Jenn shrugged. "It was never exactly encouraged, but it wasn't a big deal before the war with Exar Kun, from what I understand. But the High Council adopted a much more conservative and austere interpretation of the Code after that, and started forbidding things." Jenn frowned and folded her arms over her abdomen. "I think they overreacted, myself." She turned her head to look over at Leia. "Why did you and your brother not keep that restriction when you re-formed the Order?"
"Because of Vader, mostly," Leia replied. "Luke says part of the reason he fell was because the old order demanded that he suppress his emotions entirely instead of teaching him how to deal with them, and he simply couldn't do that. Luke's first teacher, Obi-Wan Kenobi, was determined not to repeat the mistakes he'd made with our father. Yoda disapproved at first, but eventually he agreed."
"For what it's worth, I think you're right," Jenn said.
A distant muffled thump drew her attention, and she turned in that direction curiously. "What was that?"
She heard another, closer and louder. Whatever it was, it sounded heavy. A third and a fourth impact were close enough to shake the cavern, knocking a bit of ice from the ceiling which bounced off the Falcon's hull before landing on the ground.
"That's definitely not the storm," Leia said concernedly, looking up at the roof of the ice dome.
"Sounds like… dropships landing," said Jenn, who knew that sound all too well.
A fifth heavy impact rattled the entire cavern, rocking the Falcon on its landing struts and making all the portable glowlamps they'd set up flicker erratically.
"That was almost right on top of us," Han said warily, jogging over to the two Jedi Masters.
"Are we in the middle of a meteor shower?" Tahiri asked, looking up at the ceiling.
"I hope it's only meteors," Han said, his hand dropping to the blaster at his side.
Jacen looked over as two more impacts sounded from somewhere off to the east. His expression slowly shifted into a perfect copy of his father's suspicious dread. "I've got a bad feeling about this…"
Inside the temple, Malysa Kolos also heard the first heavy muffled impacts outside, and turned to Tionne, who was standing a few paces away, examining a wall carving. "You hear that?"
The silvery-haired Jedi Master cocked her head, listening to the next few impacts. "They're close," she said. "Meteors?"
"If we're lucky," Malysa muttered, pulling her lightsaber from her belt.
"What's going on?" asked Revan, emerging from the computer room where he had been working.
"I'm going to go find out," Malysa said, headed off down the corridor.
She sensed Revan and Tionne hurrying along behind her as she headed for the spiral ramp that led to the upper levels of the temple. In only a minute or two, Malysa had reached the door that led to the small courtyard on the roof of the temple between the spires.
She pulled her gloves out of her pocket and slipped them on, then raised her hood and closed her brown robe against the cold. Lightsaber in one hand, Malysa tugged the door open with the other, bracing herself against the biting wind and flurries of snow that swept inside. She held her breath against the cold, crawling over the snow-drifts piled around the upper spires of the temple to squint through the snow at the dark shapes outside.
One hulking broad shape was just outside the snow-covered dome, in the midst of a crater in the snow. Malysa felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as she saw humanoid shapes moving around it. She waved Revan and Tionne back inside, then closed the door behind them.
"Figures," Malysa muttered, looking for a lock.
"Yuuzhan Vong?" Tionne asked.
"Looks like it," Malysa replied grimly. "I couldn't tell if they knew we were here or if they're just checking out the area." She turned to Revan. "If you wouldn't mind, could you pile some snow in front of the other side of this door? We don't want them finding it."
Revan nodded once and closed his eyes, stretching out with the Force.
"I don't see a lock," Malysa said to Tionne. "We'll have to fuse it shut with our lightsabers."
The Jedi historian drew her lightsaber and ignited its silvery-white blade, moving for one side of the large stone door. Malysa took her azure blade to the other, using it to melt the edges of the door and then using the Force to fuse the stone to the frame.
When they were done, Malysa stepped back and frowned. "If they're really determined to get inside, that probably won't hold them for long."
"I counted seven dropships," Revan said. "They look like they could hold twenty or thirty troops each."
"Which means there could be over two hundred Yuuzhan Vong here," said Tionne.
"They're up to something out there, all right," Malysa said grimly. "Let's go tell the others."
-/\-
Author's Note: I do believe there will be some action in the next chapter. ;) Muchas gracias to hairyhen for beta reading. Till next time, thanks for reading!
