Star Wars - [The Last of the Jedi 03] - Underworld (by Jude Watson)

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Star Wars

The Last of the Jedi

Book 3

Underworld

by Jude Watson

source: IRC

uploaded: 09.I.2006

CHAPTER ONE

Glimpsed through a curtain of cold gray rain, the ruined Jedi Temple

looked more like a trick of the eye than a once-magnificent structure. To

Ferus Olin, the Temple appeared to be a ghost image, like an afterburn on a

vidscreen. He blinked. He felt as though the entire structure was

dissolving before his eyes.

Since the end of the Clone Wars, so much in his life had seemed not

real and hyper-real at the same time. He knew it wasn't logical, but it

made sense to him. One moment he had been leading a peaceful life on a

pleasant world, and the next he was a resistance fighter, then a prisoner,

then a fugitive. And with each new twist and turn, he found himself

wondering: How did this happen?

Get a grip, Ferus, he told himself now. He was here, and he had a job

to do. The Temple was all too real, occupied by Imperial stormtroopers.

He'd absorbed the shock of the Empire occupying the Temple. Except

that seeing it was like being punched in the gut. The Temple looked somehow

terrible to him, like a being that had received a mortal wound.

He had once been a Jedi apprentice. He had left the Jedi, but step-by-

step he was managing to reclaim what he'd lost - the same pure connection

to the Force, the same allegiance to his fellow Jedi - or, now, the memory

of them. Seeing the Temple like this hurt the deepest part of him.

"Ferus? Don't know whether you've noticed? But it's raining."

Ferus turned to his companion, Trever Flume. The thirteen-year-old's

teeth were chattering. The hood he'd pulled over his bluish hair hadn't

done much to keep him dry. A drop of rain rolled off the tip of his hood

and hit his nose.

"Rain" was putting it mildly. Now Ferus felt his sodden cloak, his

clammy skin. Part of his Jedi training had been to learn how to be

impervious to physical discomfort. Feel the rain, feel the cold, then let

it go. But he hadn't been a Jedi in a long time, and he had to admit he was

freezing.

"Not that I'm complaining," Trever said through clenched teeth. "But I

can't feel my fingers. Or my feet. And I'm hungry. There are icicles on my

hair. And I'm - "

"Right. I get the point," Ferus said. "Just a few more minutes."

"Fine. If my toes fall off, just alert me, okay? Stick 'em in my

pocket or something."

Ferus shook his head. He couldn't seem to lose Trever. The boy had

stowed away on Ferus's escape ship from Bellassa, and it had taken Ferus a

few weeks to realize that Trever wasn't going away. He was a smart,

resourceful kid, but Ferus still wasn't crazy about taking him along. Ferus

had given him the option to leave, but Trever hadn't taken it. Ferus didn't

quite know what to do with him, and until he figured it out, he and Trever

were stuck together. Trever had street skills and a kind of stubbornness

that could morph into courage. There were times when Ferus was actually

glad to have him along.

Ferus peered through the electrobinoculars again. The Temple was

definitely being used. It had taken him only a few hours in Coruscant to

pick up the gossip on the street. The Empire was using the Temple as a

prison for captured Jedi. There were whispers that some had survived, that

some had returned to the Temple before the homing beacon was dismantled.

There they had found stormtroopers and an Imperial prison where their home

had been.

That was the rumor, anyway.

Ferus didn't know how much of it was true.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had told him that he'd managed to transform the horning

beacon into a warning beacon before any Jedi had returned. That didn't

match the Empire's story. So part of the rumor was a lie. Even if some Jedi

had returned, there couldn't be many of them. Ferus knew that almost all

had been killed in the purge.

But even if there was only one, he had to get in and see.

He already suspected who was inside: Fy-Tor-Ana, the Jedi known for

her grace with a lightsaber. Ferus had rescued the great Jedi Master Garen

Muln in the caves of Ilum, and Garen had told him how Fy-Tor had left him

and promised to return. She'd been heading for the Temple and had never

come back.

She had to be here. If she'd been free, she would have returned to

Garen. Ferus could only conclude that she was either imprisoned or dead.

Garen himself was recovering on a hidden asteroid that Ferus hoped to

set up as a new Jedi base. He didn't know how many Jedi might be alive, but

they would need a safe place to live.

He noted the comings and goings of Imperial ships. Since the old

hangar had been destroyed, they'd built a new landing platform off the

once-grand front plaza. It protruded like an ugly scar.

Don't think of what was. Think of the next step.

So, it was a prison. He knew prisons.

It was difficult to break out. But not as difficult to break in.

"I know what you're thinking," Trever said as he stamped his boots to

warm his feet. "You're thinking we can do it."

"Well, we can."

"Yeah. Sure. No problem. What's a couple hundred stormtroopers?"

Ferus kept his gaze on the Temple. "I have an advantage."

"Besides me?" Trever smirked.

"They might occupy the Temple, but they don't know the Temple. No one

knows it like a Jedi. I can get us in - and get us out."

"So you say."

Ferus gave him a level look. "Listen, I can do this alone. I'd rather

do it alone. We can have a rendezvous point - "

"No." Trever's voice was fiat. "I'm with you."

They'd already had the argument. Trever saw the shift in Ferus's gaze

that meant he'd accepted the inevitable. "So how do you figure we'll get

in'?" the boy asked.

"I think I have a way," Ferus said. "We drop from a ship straight onto

the burned tower. I can see a place where part of the tower was blasted

away. That will give us some footing. Directly above there used to be a

small, glassed-in garden on the south side. It was used to grow herbs for

the kitchen. If we can climb over that blasted part into where the garden

used to be, we can get into a service hallway. There was a system of

linkage service tunnels that ran to the service turbolifts. With any luck

some of the tunnels have survived, and we can get into the lower levels

that way. That's the only place the prison could be."

"What ship are you talking about?" Trever asked. "We left Toma's star

cruiser at that landing platform. Besides, if we're both going in, who's

going to drive?"

"We're not going to use Toma's cruiser." Toma was a new ally. He'd

just fought a battle against Imperial forces on his home planet of Acherin.

He and his first officer, Raina, had joined forces with Ferus and Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan had returned to his mysterious exile, but Raina and Toma had

remained on the asteroid to watch Garen. "I've got a different idea. We'll

hire an air taxi."

"You mean, jump in an air taxi and say, 'Hey, driver, could you please

drop us on the tower?"'

"Well, it has to be the right driver."

"Okay, let's review," Trever said. "We're going to drop from a moving

vehicle onto a ruined tower to find a maybe-opening that could lead to some

blasted-to-bits tunnels, in order to maybe-make it into a place flooded

with stormtroopers so we can maybe-rescue one Jedi who, if we're lucky,

might still be alive."

Ferus looked Trever right in the eye. "You have a problem with that?"

"Nah," Trever said. "Let's go."

Many things had changed in Coruscant, but some things remained the

same. On one of the lower levels of Galactic City there was still a shadowy

landing platform where private air taxi drivers could be hired to do

illegal and dangerous trips, no questions asked. While Ferus negotiated

with a squat, muscular humanoid with tattooed facial markings, Trever found

a food stand that looked like it might not poison him. He quickly devoured

a veg turnover and downed a carton of juice. When Ferus beckoned, he

stuffed another turnover in his pocket and was ready to go.

They climbed into the back of a battered air taxi and zoomed through

the colorful laserlights of the entertainment district. The driver kept to

the prescribed space lanes - for now. As he snaked his way up through the

levels to the Senate district, they could see the ruined Temple better and

better.

Here the space lanes were crowded with traffic. The driver slid

smoothly into the flow. He kept the engines powered down, but at the last

moment he veered off into a lane closer to the Temple. He dived down and

around the damaged tower and hung in the air.

"Go if you're going," he grunted. "In a moment I'll be on Imperial

sensors."

Ferus activated a liquid cable line and turned to Trever. He saw the

boy pale.

"It will hold you," Ferus reassured him. "And I'll be right next to

you."

Trever swallowed, then nodded. Ferus hooked the second line to his

belt.

Ferus released both liquid cables himself, aiming for a spot above a

jagged edge of the tower that looked like it would hold them. The line

caught and jerked them forward roughly as the driver accelerated. Ferus

cursed the driver in his head for the premature boost as they flew wildly

through the air, the wind whistling against their ears. Rain pelted their

faces like sharp needles. Ferus landed hard on the protruding edge and

grabbed for Trever to guide his landing. Trever smacked against the tower

and hugged it.

"That was fun," he croaked.

"Just don't look down."

"I'll try not to."

The air taxi zoomed off, merging seamlessly back into the flow of

heavy traffic. The whole operation had taken seconds.

Ferus wiped the rain out of his eyes. From his position on the tower,

a good deal of Galactic City was spread out below him. He could see the

sprawl of the Senate complex and the new, massive statue of Emperor

Palpatine that Palpatine himself had commissioned. From here, Ferus and

Trever were invisible to the Imperial traffic heading to the new landing

platform, but he couldn't rely on it for long.

Ferus felt the rough stone of the Temple against his back. Sure, he

would have to break in, but a surge of feeling rose in him, a connection

like no other.

He was home.

CHAPTER TWO

A flexible durasteel arm of a sensor was still sticking out of the

wall. Ferus tested his weight on it, and it held. Using it as leverage, he

was able to hook his fingers over the edge above and boost himself up for a

quick look at the site of the old garden.

With a grunt, Ferus balanced on his palms. The garden hadn't just

succumbed to the fire, he saw - it had been blasted. Chunks of blackened

stone blocked the former entrance. The glass had shattered and needles of

it were still lying about.

He remembered....

Standing next to Siri, as she crushed an herb and held it under his

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