Chapter 9

Right at the end of the battle, the other nine Jedi students began to concentrate all of their fire at Zeek, who had proven quite hard to hit. When he wasn't throwing dirt clods with the Force, he was using larger clumps of dirt to block those thrown at him. When all nine started pitching clods at him mercilessly, Zeek literally dropped everything. His ammo clods and his shield clumps fell to the ground. He was facing the other nine, who had paused in their onslaught when Zeek had dropped his defenses. Not wanting Zeek to get off so easily by surrendering, the nine, including Jyo and Cordell, smiled mischievously. Each one then gathered three dirt clods in front of themselves and then launched all twenty-seven of them at once. Zeek spread his legs and braced himself. He raised both hands over his head palms open and facing up. The twenty-seven dirt clods quickly closed the gap. Just when the front most one came within two feet of Zeek, he swung his arms down so that his open palms faced the bombardment, and pushed hard at all the dirt clods. All twenty-seven of them stopped instantly. Then, just as suddenly, all twenty-seven started moving again … twice as fast … in the opposite direction! Jyo, Cordell and the others had no time to react, as each and every one was pelted with exactly three dirt clods. And then it was over. Zeek stood victorious, if not exhausted. The nine he had returned the dirt clods to, sat up and began to laugh, and Zeek joined them. They simply enjoyed the moment of being kids and not Jedi. As Zeek approached the others, they cheered. Many besides Jyo and Cordell slapped him on the back and congratulated him. They all commented on how impressive his abilities were. They had known Zeek was strong in the Force, but now with all this space available, they were able to see his full potential. Zeek blushed and took the praise modestly, just nodding and smiling. They waited for Jyo to return from retrieving his book then headed back to what they had decided to call a Jome, or Jedi home.

The ten young Jedi, covered in dirt and grass, trudged back inside their new home. The only one that looked none the worse for wear was Zeek. They entered the almost empty lounge of the Jome.

Zeek said he was going to hang out and mess around on the computers a little bit before going to bed. "No offense you guys," Zeek said with a grin, "but you all need a bath."

Jyo, Cordell, and the others looked at their dirty, grass-stained clothes and laughed. They waved at Zeek as they headed toward their rooms.

Jyo looked around, but Denz and that other kid were not among those remaining in the lounge. He followed the rest of the Jedi students through the far doorway. Cordell said good night and went inside his room. Before doing so himself, Jyo knocked on Denz's door and received no answer. Assuming he had gone to bed, Jyo decided to do the same. He sniffed. "Phew! Just as soon as I get the stink out of my clothes and off my body! Man I reek!" Jyo shook his head and made a mental note not to get into a dirt clod war with Zeek again. With that he entered his room, tossed his clothes into the cleaner inside the refresher, and took a shower before climbing, exhausted into bed.

Lowbacca shooed all the young Jedi, including Zeek out of the lounge, motioning for them to get to bed. He code locked the door to the lounge and growled a good night to the last few young Jedi. Zeek, not knowing Jyo had done the same, also knocked on Denz's door to say good night and got no reply. Zeek sighed and thought about pelting Denz with dirt clods. He entered his room and wondered if he would be able to sleep in a new place on the first night. It turns out that the Force radiated in such a way on this planet that, if you let it, it would lull you to sleep. As a result, it was not long until Zeek was off sawing Z's, which had greatly stressed Denz who once shared a room with him.

Denz, however, was not in his room as the others had thought. In the basement of the Jome, Denz was piling parts and pieces onto one of the worktables. When he was sure he had everything he needed, Denz removed his outer cloak and laid it on the floor. He then placed all that he had gathered in the center of the cloak. Denz folded the cloak in such a way that it acted as a sack. He slung it over his shoulder and almost fell over backward from the weight of his load. He concentrated on using the Force to make the sack lighter as he inched his way toward one of the turbolifts. Denz laid the sack on the floor of the turbolift and rode it up to the main floor. When the turbolift door slid open he realized that everyone else had been sent to bed. He checked his chronometer. Curfew was ten minutes ago! The hallway was only dimly lit by emergency lights every two or three doorways. He focused again on making the bag lighter as he quickly walked three-quarters of the length of the hallway to his room, his boots on the metal floor the only sound. He was in front of Jyo's door when he heard another sound, a beep, coming from the door to the lounge. Not wanting to be caught out of his room after curfew, Denz picked up the pace for the last few feet and hustled into his room, his door swishing closed just as the one to the lounge slid open.

Tahiri stepped through the doorway and re-encoded the lock. Her bare feet made no sound as she walked down the hallway toward her room. She thought she had heard something that sounded like metal hitting metal, and assumed it was the climate control adjusting to the lower temperatures outside. Tahiri approached her room, positioned across from Lowbacca's and next to the turbolifts. She stepped up to her door and then jumped back. It felt as though she had stepped on something. Tahiri reached down with her left hand, swept the floor just in front of her right foot, and found it. She held it up to one of the emergency lights and saw that it was a small piece of wire. Tahiri shook her head. Only Denz would be into the stuff downstairs already. She tucked the piece of wire into a pocket on her jumpsuit, rubbed her bare foot where she had stepped on the wire, and entered her room. It had been a long day.

"First thing's first," Jake Microx was saying. "Stop reaching out to your father; there is a reason he is not responding."

"OK, so what's the reason?" Ben wanted to know.

Jake seemed to struggle for an answer, "Well, actually … I don't know."

"What do you mean 'you don't know'?"

"Luke didn't really trust me enough to tell me anything specific, only that if you kept yourself small in the Force "IT" wouldn't find you. As close as I can figure, the Vong have created another sort of super warrior."

Kyp began to reply, but Jake cut him off, "I know what you're gonna ask, and no, the Vong never told me anything about it either because THEY didn't trust me." Jake shook his head, "Ironic isn't it? I worked for both sides and yet I know the least about it."

"You said that in the past tense," Jaina acknowledged. "I suppose that means you want to rejoin the ranks of the Jedi."

"Of course! I mean if Master Skywalker lets me."

They rode in silence for a ways. The forest that Jake had directed them to became swampier. Over the treetops ahead the four Jedi saw what looked like stone structures. They left the cover of the swamp-forest and entered a clearing where several of the magnificent structures stood. There were five in all. Two had collapsed into a heap of rubble, and the other three were almost completely covered over with moss and plant life. Each temple, as Jake referred to them, was about seventy-five to one hundred meters tall. From afar they probably looked a lot like mountains as they greatly outstood the twenty-meter trees. Jake pointed them to a crevice in the closest temple. Inside there were a couple of other speeders. Jake said this was their "garage". They exited the vehicle and left the cover of the temple on foot.

"Wait a minute," Jaina said as they walked down a rough path that led them between the giant structures. "You must have at least seen this new threat on your scouting missions."

Jake smiled meekly and shook his head, "Master Skywalker was the only one to ever actually see this new weapon. In my scouting missions I always got to the sites of the attacks too late and only saw the wake of destruction and death." He shrugged, "Master Skywalker and his wife were the only two to actually live to tell about it. I confess that after seeing the Yuuzhan Vong once again display such power I began to doubt the successfulness of our fight. I thought I was choosing the easy way out when I formed an alliance with the Vong who are always looking for Jedi that are willing to assist them."

"Then my father showed up," Ben added.

"Right. And I thought 'What better way to prove my loyalty to the Vong than to deliver their enemy's leader into their hands?'"

"I take it things didn't go as planned."

"He didn't say it, but I knew Skywalker didn't trust me. I immediately put a block on my mind so he couldn't see what I was planning. Needless to say that made him more wary of me. When we received word that Jag Fel was sending help to back up our team, we had no idea he was talking about you three. Master Skywalker said, in so many words, that if I wanted to prove that I was loyal to the Jedi Order, I would have to go and bring the reinforcements back to base without revealing the location."

"It sounds like he trusted you enough to give you that job."

"Oh, don't worry. He told me if he even smelled a trick that he and the rest would be long gone before I got back."

Jake stopped in front of what looked like a pile of moss and shrubs. He swept some aside to reveal what looked like an ancient well, "There is a ladder on the one side there, or you can do it the easy way and jump dooown!" Jake yelled at the top of his lungs when Jaina nudged him into the hole.

"Oops," Jaina said with an innocent look on her face.

"You're bad," Kyp said with a laugh.

Down in the well they heard a splash and an "OW!"

Jaina called down, "Thanks for checking for traps, Jake."

They could hear Jake mumble something like "very funny", and then the other three followed suit and jumped into the hole. They used the Force to steady themselves as they floated down about ten feet. The three set down in a shallow pool and saw a disgruntled Jake Microx rubbing his rear. Jaina smiled sweetly, and Jake snorted, "Come on," he said gruffly as he headed down a sparsely lit tunnel. It was dank and smelled of mildew. There was much moisture in the surrounding soil making their boots slosh every step they took. They reached an intersection where the main tunnel branched off into three smaller shafts. Without hesitating, Jake reached above the tunnel on the right and depressed a secret switch. This made the floor drop out in the center of the room. Jake motioned toward the hole, "Ladies first," he said with a smirk.

Jaina gave him a sarcastic smile back and jumped in. Ben followed, but Kyp refused to go until after Jake did. With a sigh Jake hopped in and Kyp a second later. At the bottom of this shaft Jake depressed another button resealing the hidden door above. The tunnel they were now in was manmade. The walls, floor and ceiling were all metal. You could go left or right in this tunnel. Jake started going left without a word. The hallway made a right at one point, but Jake didn't turn right.

"Make a wrong turn?" Kyp asked Jake.

Instead of answering, Jake placed both hands, palms flat on the wall in front of them. Jaina, Kyp and Ben look at one another and raised their eyebrows. Has Jake lost it?

Suddenly, the wall in front of them shot up and revealed a room filled with computers, personnel, and two dire looking Jedi.

"Hello, Jake," Luke Skywalker said with a sad expression on his face.

"We have much to talk about," Mara added from beside him.