THREE
Dustil was running, stumbling, really, catching himself on his hands so often that they were torn and bleeding. The only sound he could hear was the high-pitched wheezing from his lungs. He couldn't see what was behind him, but he knew it was faster than he was. He pulled desperately at the Force to Boost himself forward, but he was down to his last reserves. He stuttered to regular speed and found himself two meters from the edge of a chasm. Dustil flung himself backward and slid to a stop with his heels hanging over the edge. He looked in both directions, but the chasm stretched out as far as he could see.
There was nowhere to go. Dustil got unsteadily to his feet and yanked his lightsaber from his belt. Its green glow looked weak against the gloom. "Show yourself!" he shouted.
The seconds ticked by, and then a black shape leapt toward him. Dustil shouted and raised his blade, but the shape crashed into him. He stumbled backward, lost his balance—
—and felt nothing but air underneath him as he began to fall.
Dustil snapped open his eyes, heart pounding loudly in his ears, to see the gray metal ceiling of the Ebon Hawk above him. He caught his breath. It had been a dream, at least this time.
He wasn't sure how long he had spent trying to follow Case, but at some point he had started back toward the ship. It was slow going because of the knife wound in his leg. He had been panicked, maybe a little delirious, but he was sure something had started stalking him. He had run and run and eventually hit the chasm.
That was where things got fuzzy. He remembered the shape leaping at him, and he dreamed the sick feeling of falling every night, but he didn't actually remember falling. He didn't remember anything, in fact, until he woke up on his ship with his leg healed and his lightsaber in his hand.
He had lost three weeks, somehow, and that terrified him.
Dustil sat up slowly and scrubbed his hands across his face. He hadn't told anyone about the missing time—how could he explain it? He told them he had blown his navicomputer and made several bad hyperspace jumps before finally reaching Onderon. The Jedi his father called the Exile kept looking at him suspiciously, but so far no one had questioned his story.
What really terrified him about the missing time, though, was that he had also lost time on Onderon, where the Exile told him he had attacked her and possibly killed three men. And he had lost time on Citadel Station, where Bastila told him he had Force Choked Dol Grenn nearly to unconsciousness. He had passed off those two outbursts as stress from escaping the True Sith, but he didn't think anyone really believed him. They were letting it go so he could lead them back to Case. But why the hell couldn't he remember?
His father had spent the first week of their trip interrogating him about where they had been, how many enemies he expected, their weaponry, their strengths and weaknesses. Dustil did the best he could, but he didn't know enough to satisfy his father. Carth wanted to make a battle plan, something organized and predictive, but he'd finally given up. They would have to approach the enemy as they found it. Carth had only asked him one question about Case—was she all right when he last saw her—in the entire time they had been together. Dustil could feel the fear and frustration that Carth was compressing inside of him, and it only added to the general sense of foreboding that permeated the Ebon Hawk.
Dustil pushed down the unease that rose in his throat by feeling through the Force for everyone on the ship. His father was in the cockpit, Bastila Shan was in the other quarters, and Pellek Tran was in the cargo hold. There was a faint blip near her, which meant one of her ghosts was with her. Out of habit, Dustil let his mind wander toward the Force Bond that he had with Case, the tiny filament in the Force that he had accidentally created between them five years ago. He felt her familiar grayish aura and then suddenly, he was consumed by fear, panic reaching around his throat and choking him. He was trapped, he was trapped—
The door to his quarters banged open and Bastila stood illuminated in the doorframe. Her eyes were wide. "Dustil, what is it?"
Dustil clenched his eyes shut and forced up a heavy block against his connection to Case. The panic in his head receded. It was Case's fear, of course, and it was all he could do to keep it at bay. As if he didn't have enough to worry about.
Dustil laughed thinly and hauled himself to his feet. "Nothing unusual, Jedi Shan," he said, "I'm just losing my mind, that's all." They were still three days from the Sith planet, and Dustil wasn't sure he could control Case's panic long enough to get there. It was getting worse the closer they got, like a thousand bees in his head.
Bastila frowned at him. "You are Bonded to her." It was not a question.
Dustil looked at the woman closely. She was older than him, though not by more than a few years. She looked better now than she usually did, because her hair was disheveled and falling out of the prim tails she kept it in. He must have woken her up.
She noticed him staring and cleared her throat, yanking her brown Jedi robes into place around her slim figure. "I beg your pardon, Padawan," she huffed.
Dustil grinned lazily. "Case said you used to wear something besides Jedi robes. I hear it was pretty tight—"
"My apparel is not a proper topic of discussion among Jedi," she said haughtily. "Though I suppose your Master was never one for proper behavior."
"Hey, who the hell are you to judge her?" Dustil snapped. "She was out saving the Galaxy while you were learning to float datapads at the Academy."
"The Jedi Code is not optional, Padawan. It is what keeps us from falling to the Dark Side," Bastila said.
Dustil sneered at her. "Right, and it worked so well for all three of us, didn't it?"
Bastila flushed pink and tightened her lips. The sudden shame in her eyes was enough to make Dustil sorry he'd provoked her. Case had told him that Bastila had never forgiven herself for falling under Malak's torture. He reached out a hand to her arm. "Jedi Shan, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"
She lifted her chin, all traces of emotion wiped away. "It is of no consequence, Padawan. The Jedi Code is imperfect because it is followed by imperfect sentients. But it is all we have." Something dark shone in her eyes, like regret. "But I did not come to you to discuss philosophy. Can you feel her proximity through your Bond?"
Dustil nodded. "We're close. I can't tell anything more than that, though, because I get caught up in what she's feeling and can't separate myself from it. It's like I'm actually feeling it, too."
"Yes, I remember," Bastila said quietly. Dustil recalled that she had been Bonded to Case, too, back when they were searching for the Star Forge. Until Malak. She gripped his shoulder. "We must find her, Padawan. Not just for your sake or your father's, but for her own." The urgency in her voice took him by surprise. What did she know that he didn't?
Dustil was suddenly conscious that the two of them were standing in their sleep clothes in his quarters in the middle of the night. He was surprised, though, to actually feel a little more normal after talking with the prim Jedi. "Well, I guess I'm not going to get any more sleep tonight. I think I'll see if I can relieve Father at the helm. He gets little enough sleep as it is."
She acknowledged his change of tone and ran a hand over her disheveled hair. "Yes, of course. I think I'll try to—"
The ship suddenly jerked to the right, tossing Dustil into the flat panel of the sidewall and Bastila into him. The hyperdrive engine bucked and screeched and then went silent. Dustil righted himself and dashed into the central room, Bastila right behind him. Pellek ran in from the cargo hold.
"What the hell's going on, Admiral?" the Exile snapped into the comm.
The ship bucked and Dustil gripped the central panel to keep himself upright. His father's voice came over the comm. "Something just dragged us out of hyperspace, and it's not friendly. I'm going to try to outrun them, but someone get on the rear turrets, just in case."
All three of them looked at each other. Dustil had never operated gun turrets before—their little ship, the Outlander, just had small forward lasers for protection. Pellek shrugged. "I haven't touched a gun turret in ten years," she said. They both looked at Bastila. She raised her hands. "No, I'm afraid I don't—"
A explosion sounded near the control room, and emergency klaxons started blaring. "Someone get on the damn guns!" his father roared through the comm.
Pellek took off at a run and swung herself up the shaft for the turrets. A moment later, the sound of lasers told Dustil that she had at least figured out how to make them work. Dustil looked over at Bastila and saw her standing perfectly still with her eyes closed. Only a small line between her eyebrows told him how hard she was concentrating. Battle Meditation, he realized.
Dustil left her and jogged up to the cockpit. He wasn't the world's best pilot, but at least he wouldn't be standing around uselessly.
His father's hands were flying over the controls, eyes fixed on the viewscreen before him. Dustil could see three small fighters ahead of them and, from the tactical overlay, three more blips behind them. The space lanes were crossed with red laser fire.
"I don't know how they found us in hyperspace, but we can't make another jump until we're clear of that gas planet," his father told him, eyes never leaving the viewscreen.
Dustil swung into the copilot seat and pulled down the gunnery overlay. The Ebon Hawk had small forward cannons, hardly more than blaster rifles, but they would keep the three fighters far enough away to avoid the tractor beams they were throwing.
Dustil got into the rhythm of firing, hearing no sound in the cockpit besides the click of the controls and the occasional curse from his father as they dodged torpedoes. Dustil could feel Bastila's Battle Mediation surrounding them, increasing their acuity and speed. If it was slowing down the fighters around them, though, he couldn't tell.
A small moon emerged from the back of the swirling yellow gas giant. Dustil pulled up the sensors. "Its atmosphere is breathable," he reported. "It looks familiar—Case and I may have stopped there for supplies a couple years ago. I think we can land safely."
His father shook his head. "If we land with them behind us, we're sitting gizka. We've got to try to clear the system."
They pitched forward as something crashed in the midsection of the ship. His father glanced down at the diagnostic. "Damn. Right rear hyperdrive is blown. We'll never make it to hyperspace alive." He paused, then blew his breath out sharply. "We're going to have to land on the moon. Can you get me a flight path?"
Dustil let the computer create the best landing approach and sent it over to his father's monitor. Carth considered it, still dodging enemy fire, and nodded. "I can work with this," he said finally.
A stream of unintelligible language came at them over the comm from one of the ships around them. Dustil couldn't understand it, but he could hear the intent through the Force, and it wasn't a welcome message.
Before he could warn him, Carth opened a comm channel. "Repeat in Basic, over."
A long moment, and then, heavily accented, "Unidentified freighter, you have been disabled. Surrender and prepare to be boarded."
His father grinned, and Dustil was suddenly reminded of Case. "Unidentified fighter, this is the Ebon Hawk. Go to hell." He closed the channel with a click. "Hang on," he said to Dustil.
Without any more warning, they pulled suddenly to the right and rotated on their axis. Two of the fighters miscalculated their vectors and crashed into one another, creating brief fireballs before the oxygen dissipated. The four remaining fighters pulled into formation behind them, concentrating their fire on their standard engines. Dustil knew they'd die a quick death if the engines were hit.
His father, though, seemed oblivious to the danger, hands flying across the panel like he was part of the ship. He tugged them out of their spin and made a quick dive toward the moon's surface. He flipped open the internal comm. "Exile, concentrate on that first ship—If we take it out, the others will lose their formation."
"Right," was the short response from the turrets. With all the ships behind them, the front cannons were of no use, so Dustil gripped the arms of his seat and watched the moon get large in the screen.
His father was executing evasive maneuvers like he dodged laser fire every day. The only sign of any tension was the sweat on his forehead—his hands were completely steady. Dustil could see why his father was considered one of the Fleet's best pilots. There was a sudden explosion behind them and Dustil saw in the rear monitor the lead ship breaking into pieces, taking two of the following ships with it into oblivion. The fourth ship pulled up and veered away from them.
Dustil resisted the urge to cheer. "Nice shooting!" Carth said. "Everyone brace for atmosphere!"
Dustil had landed plenty of ships in the last five years, but he'd never come down on a planet as fast as they were going. Warning lights and sirens lit up the panel. "Warning, velocity exceeds maximum recommended entry speed," the computer intoned. "Warning—"
Carth kicked under the panel and the voice stopped. Dustil secured his harness and held his breath.
They hit the atmosphere like it was a titansteel wall. Dustil bounced hard back against the restraints and heard the wind go out of him. They streaked toward the surface, the air turning pink around them, wide green plains stretching ahead. Dustil checked the landing vector he'd given his father. "Wait, this isn't the right spot!" he shouted.
His father shook his head, teeth clenched and sweat pouring down his neck. "Too many cities nearby," he grunted, all his weight against the landing stick. "Had to change the vector."
"In your head?" Dustil cried, forgetting the ground looming up at them for a moment. "No one can change vectors in their head!" There were too many variables—speed, wind, even ocean currents, to manage without the navicomputer. His father was going to kill them all. The ground got huge and Dustil clenched his eyes shut.
The rear banged first, then scraped for what seemed like forever before the front of the ship hit. Dustil was thrown forward in the restraints, and he thought he must have blacked out for a second. He blinked a few times and shook his head.
Green prairie stretched as far as he could see in the viewscreen. The blue sky glimmered above them. They were alive.
Carth was limp in the pilot seat, hand over his eyes and breathing heavily. He unbuckled his restraints, and Dustil saw his hand shaking for the first time. "You okay, son?" he asked.
Dustil grinned. "You're going to have to teach me to do that."
Carth wiped the sweat from his face. "Like hell."
They secured the nav controls and exited the cockpit. Bastila was leaning against the central console, and Dustil thought she looked a bit green. She smiled shakily at them. "I am reminded again of your skills. Thank you."
The Exile dropped down from the gun turrets. "Not bad, Admiral. My pilot's landings were twice as rocky."
The ghost she called Atton Rand glowered from the doorway. "Whatever, babe. This ain't exactly Malachor."
Carth came back from the engine room, grim. "The hyperspace engine is blown all to hell. We're going to have to get some replacement parts or we'll never get out of this system." He turned to Dustil. "Did you say you and Case had been here?"
Dustil nodded and pulled up a quick map from the computer. "There's a city about four kilometers from here. We were never there, but it looks decently sized on this map. They're sure to have a parts store or a scrap yard."
"Good. Two of us should stay with the ship in case someone saw us come down," Carth said. "Bastila, you and Dustil wait here, and the Exile and I will go into town."
Bastila nodded serenely, but Dustil protested, "What do you mean, stay here? I'm the only one who's been on this moon before, remember?" He wasn't five years old, and he wasn't going to hide on the ship while someone twice his age did all the work.
Carth was unmoved. "Someone who can fly the ship needs to stay here with it in case you need to get back into space. You can't leave the system without hyperdrive, but if those fighters come back, you can at least get clear." His tone left no room for argument, and Dustil felt his blood boil.
"I'm not one of your soldiers, Father," he growled.
Carth looked at him sharply. "You will stay here on the ship. Is that understood?"
Dustil opened his mouth to retort when he felt Bastila's gaze on him. He flushed, realizing that he looked like a disobedient teenager in front of everyone. He clenched his jaw and nodded, almost keeping down the growl in his throat. "Fine."
Was it his imagination, or did his father look relieved as he turned away? Carth checked his holsters and nodded to Pellek. "Ready to go?" The two headed toward the gangplank.
Atton strolled by. "Don't forget to make your bed while we're gone, kid," he drawled.
If Dustil knew how to punch a ghost, he surely would have decked Atton Rand.