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

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UNDERWORLD

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 nose. "What does it say to you?"

"It's an herb," he said.

"But what does it say?"

"I don't understand, Master." What did she want? Ferus was only thirteen, just beginning his

apprenticeship. He was afraid all the time of doing or saying the wrong thing.

"This is part of the Force, too, Ferus. Connection to living things. Close your eyes. Smell. Good.

Now. What does it say?"

"It says . . . lunch."

Siri barked her short laugh. "Not very imaginative, but I guess it will have to do. Let's try another. . .

"Master? Yoland Fee doesn't like anyone to pick his herbs. It's a rule for the Padawans."

Siri turned to him, her hands full of edible flowers and green herbs. She smiled.

"You know, Ferus, if you could manage to get some of that starch out of your tunic, we'd get along

much better."

Ferus felt the strain shoot through his arms from holding himself up. He dropped back to his perch.

He hadn't fully realized that entering the Temple put him at risk from more than Imperial troops. He'd

take stormtroopers over memories any day.

Siri had been right, of course. Thinking back to that moment, he remembered how careful he'd been

to keep his spine straight, his gaze level. He had been conscious of his every word, tailoring it to what the

perfect apprentice should say or do.

Every time Ferus looked back to a memory of himself as a Padawan, he wondered how anyone

could stand him. It was only later, on Bellassa, through his friendship with Roan Lands, that he had

learned to unbend from the rigid contours he had set for himself, to see that perfection was a prison he

had built that kept him apart from others.

He missed his old life with Roan as much as he missed the Jedi. War and the Empire had torn his life

in two, as it had for so many in the galaxy. At first he hadn't recognized the change. Palpatine's grab for

power had been so slow, so careful. So fiendishly smart. He had known that in times of turmoil beings

looked for leadership — and didn't examine too closely what that leadership was up to. When the reality

behind the mask emerged, it was too late.

"The stones have collapsed around the opening," he told Trever. "We'll have to blast one. Think you

can manage it?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

He had discovered that Trever was something of an explosives expert. Trever could calmly take

apart an alpha charge and amp it or weaken its power without batting an eye. His brother Tike had been

part of the resistance movement on Bellassa and had taught him. Tike had died, along with Trever's

father, at the hands of the Empire. After that, Trever had made his living on the streets of Bellassa, and

had picked up plenty of knowledge on the way. He was a product of war and suffering, old before his

time, hiding the vulnerabilities of a boy that still crouched underneath his bravado.

"We'll need a half charge, just enough to blow a small hole," Ferus told Trever. "We don't want to

attract any attention."

Trever fished an alpha charge out of his utility belt. "This should do it. Boost me up."

Ferus gave him a boost. He held onto the boy's feet as Trever wriggled, positioning the charge

between the massive stones.

"Let's take cover," Ferus said, easing Trever back down.

"It's only a half charge."

The blast almost blew Ferus off the ledge. He grabbed at the protruding sensor and swung in midair,

caught by a buffeting wind. It grabbed at his body and twirled it like a reed. He decided to take his own

advice to Trever and not look down.

He swung his legs back onto his old perch. Trever had squeezed himself into the carved-out opening.

"That was a half charge?" Ferus asked, incredulous.

"It's not an exact science, you know," Trever replied sheepishly.

"Let's just hope the stormtroopers didn't hear it. Come on."

Ferus boosted himself up once more to inspect Trever's handiwork. Despite the power of the blast,

the hole was small, a testament to the strength of the stone. It was just big enough to squeeze through.

Well, that takes care of one of my fears, anyway, Ferus thought. They wouldn't be stranded on this

tower. At least they could get inside.

He wouldn't think about how they would get out. Yet.

Ferus Force-leaped up to the opening and balanced. He reached a hand down for Trever and hauled

him up. They bent over and eased through the opening Trever had blasted through the stone.

They were inside the Temple now, in a place Ferus knew well, but he found himself lost for a

moment. This bore no resemblance to the Temple he'd known. He was in a heavily damaged area, and

for a moment he couldn't get his bearings. One wall was demolished, another blackened with smoke. The

corridor he'd expected to turn into was gone. Instead there was a mountain of rubble.

"We'll have to go this way," he said, turning in the opposite direction.

They climbed over a collapsed wall. Ferus stood still for a moment. Despite all that had happened,

the Force remained present. It was still here for him, and he connected to it.

Suddenly, he felt completely oriented, and very clear.

The Temple could be a gigantic maze to outsiders, but to a Jedi the design made sense. It had been

fashioned to conform to the life of a Jedi, to make getting around easy. So it followed the rhythms of a

Jedi, with meditation flowing into physical activity into nature into food into study into research and

support.

"This used to be the droid repair area," Ferus told Trever. "So there should be an access to the

service tunnels here, too."

Pools of water had collected on the floor. Rain dripped in. The smell of smoke rose from the

blackened walls. Ferus tried to push any emotion away. He needed to focus.

"I like to look at the droids," Anakin said.

Ferus nodded. He had come to drop off a small droid for repair as a favor to a Jedi Master. To his

surprise, he'd found Anakin Skywalker checking over droid parts.

He didn't know Anakin very well. He'd only just arrived at the Temple this past year. He'd heard the

rumors, of course. How strong Anakin was in the Force, how Qui-Gon Jinn had picked him off a remote

desert planet. How Obi-Wan Kenobi had offered to train him personally after Qui-Gon's death. How he

could be the Chosen One.

"I built a droid on my homeworld," Anakin said. Something in his voice told Ferus that Anakin was

lonely.

Ferus wished he had the ability to say the right thing, to respond with warmth to a boy he didn't

know. He wished his awkwardness didn't come off as stiffness. He wished he were more like Tru Veld

or Darra Thel-Tanis, who could talk to anyone and become their friend. But it was hard for him to know

what to say. He didn't have that gift. His teachers were always telling him to be more in touch with the

Living Force.

"I don't remember my homeworld," he said finally. "Or my family."

Anakin looked at him under a shock of blond hair. "Then you're lucky."

That lonely boy had grown into an astoundingly gifted Jedi. And now he was dead. Ferus didn't

know how or where. He'd been reluctant to ask Obi-Wan. The look on the Jedi Master's face when

Anakin was mentioned was enough to stop Ferus. Grief had marked Obi-Wan, and he looked older and

grayer than his age would warrant.

Ferus was beginning to make sense of the blackened and twisted shapes now. There, the heap of

fused durasteel — that had been the shelving that had run along one wall. It had held droid parts. Stone

had crumbled into pebbles that crunched under Ferus's boots as he walked into the echoing space. He

kicked through some melted parts on the floor. Gaping holes in the roof overhead had let in the morning

rain. Rustlings told him that creatures were living here, scurrying through the debris.

The protocol droids were eerie shapes, half melted, their eye sockets blank. They looked like fallen

soldiers.

The smell of decay was in his nostrils. Decay and failure and ruin.

And it was only the beginning of what he would see.

"So where's the entrance to the tunnels?" Trever asked.

Ferus wrenched his mind back to the task at hand. He gazed about, trying to orient himself. "That

opening there leads to the grand hall. I think we'd better avoid it. The entrance to the service tunnels was

over there. At least, I think that's where it was."

They stared across the room at a gigantic pile of rubble.

"All I can say is, if we have to get through that, you'd better be right," Trever said.

Suddenly they heard the noise of tramping feet.

"Stormtroopers," Trever whispered.

Ferus quickly pointed to a towering, misshapen pile of twisted metal. It had fused from the heat; it

had once been a pile of droids. The jagged nature of the heap had created holes throughout. They would

be able to squeeze inside and hide underneath it.

Just in time. A squad of white-armored storm-troopers entered the space through the blasted-out

opening that led to the grand hall. The officer in charge spoke through his headset. "Sensors indicate

life-form activity."

Trever looked at Ferus, alarmed: Ferus watched as the squad began to systematically comb the

space, quadrant by quadrant. That was the trouble with stormtroopers, he thought testily. They were so

efficient.

Within minutes they would spot them. Ferus had no doubt of that. They were circling the droid

heaps, checking every crevice, every dark corner.

Ferus felt something wet and bristling brush his leg. Only the most severe discipline of the Jedi,

ingrained in his bones, prevented him from flinching. A meer rat, fat and bold, waddled by. Before Ferus

could warn him, Trever jumped slightly, banging his head against the metal. The faintest clang sounded

through the space.

"Halt activity." The officer swiveled, training a glow-rod just centimeters from their hiding place.

"Evidence of intruders. Search and destroy."

CHAPTER THREE

Trever reached into his pocket. Without making a sound, he withdrew the turnover he'd placed there.

He tossed it a short distance away. The meer rat scudded after it.

The officer caught the movement. The light from the glow rod was jerked toward the sound, and it

caught the rat in mid-scurry.

"Another rat," the stormtrooper said in disgust. "They're so big they trip the sensors. I'm getting tired

of these false alarms. Come on, let's head out."

Ferus and Trever waited until the sound of the footsteps faded.

"That was close," Ferus said.

"And there goes the rest of my lunch," Trever added.

They wriggled out. Avoiding the rat munching on the turnover, they headed toward the area where

Ferus was sure they'd find the entrance to the tunnels. The debris was piled so high that there was no

way to tell where the entrance had been. He closed his eyes.

Ferus concentrated on the memory of his brief conversation with Anakin as a boy. He used an

exercise that every Padawan had learned. They were led to a spot, told to open their eyes, look for five

seconds, then close them again. Then they were to describe everything they'd seen. Sometimes they

faced what seemed to be a blank wall, and they would have to note every crevice, every irregularity.

Ferus reached back, past years of events and feelings that could cloud his mind, past his child's

perspective, and focused on what he had seen. He could conjure up the texture of the cold against his

fingers, the droid parts neatly labeled on the shelves, the banks of computers. When he remembered the

ding on the dome of a battered astromech droid to Anakin's right, he knew he was getting there. The

Force helped him to connect to memory as much as what was around him now.

He calculated the distance. He remembered how high the entrance had been, how many meters

above his head. He remembered his own height and made the necessary calculations.

Then he walked forward. "It's behind here," he said, pointing to a spot in the pile. His Jedi memory

and the Force had guided him.

Either that, or he was completely wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.

He unsheathed the lightsaber that had been given to him by Garen Muln in the caves of Ilum. From

the first moment, it had felt as if it had always belonged in his hand. He inserted the lightsaber and slowly

rotated it until its heat started to dissolve the area around it in an ever growing circle. Trever stepped

forward, fascinated as always by a lightsaber's power.

When Ferus had cleared enough space, he pushed aside the rest of the rocks and debris with his

hands and crawled in, holding a glow rod in front of him. He could sense, rather than see, that he'd

unblocked the entrance. He called back to Trever to follow him. He had to crawl for about twenty

meters, but at last he passed through and was able to stand. Trever joined him seconds later.

It was difficult to get their footing due to the debris and dirt that littered the walkway. This had once

been a gleaming white tunnel, lit by pale blue glowlamps. It had been built to transport droids from repair

to various points in the Temple. The ceiling was low and the walls curved around.

"This comes out near the living quarters," Ferus said. "That part of the Temple, from what I can see,

wasn't as badly destroyed as the others."

"That means we'll be bumping into more stormtroopers," Trever said.

"I'll do my best to avoid them." Ferus slowly moved through the tunnel. "The Padawans used to

explore all the service tunnels and little-used passageways. Sometimes it was helpful if you didn't want to

bump into any of your teachers — if you'd forgotten an assignment or had skipped a practice session."

"Aw, Ferus, you've lived up to my expectations. I knew you were the kind of renegade who didn't

do his homework."

Ferus snorted. Trever was way off base. Trever knew a different person from what Ferus had been.

"Renegade" hardly fit the description of his Padawan years. Actually, he had never skipped art

assignment or a practice session. He had striven for perfection in every waking moment. He was driven

by his need to excel. As a result, he hadn't made friends easily. It was only near the end of his

apprenticeship that he had grown close to Darra and Tru.

Darra had died on Korriban. He still felt responsible for her death. He had left the Jedi Order

because of it.

And there was Anakin. Anakin, whose gifts were so great, who had thought of Ferus as a rival. He

remembered their squabbles now, and their deep rift. He would have done things differently now. He

would not have judged Anakin the way he did. Now Anakin was dead, along with Tru, along with the

Padawans he'd lived with for most of his childhood. Even the greatest warriors of the Jedi — Mace

Windu, Kit Fisto, even Yoda — could not defeat the Sith.

So what made him think that he could?

I know I can't defeat them. But maybe if we strike enough blows, we can hurt them.

It wasn't in the Jedi nature to act out of anger. But was it really so wrong to enter a fight because you

were so deeply and thoroughly enraged?

Ferus held up a hand as they approached the end of the tunnel. He knew that it opened into a service

passageway that ran parallel to one of the main halls. He was betting that the stormtroopers would use

the main halls, which were larger and led to the grand staircases and turbolifts. The service passageways

were narrow and had a complicated layout. It was easy to get lost.

"Where do you think the prison is?" Trever asked in a low tone.

"It has to be in the big storage rooms," Ferus replied. "It's one of the only places that could be

reconfigured into a secure area. And from what I could see through the electrobinoculars, it remains

largely intact. There was a series of turbolifts at the end of the first service passageway that led down to

the storage floor. With any luck they'll still be there. Even if they aren't functioning, we might be able to

get down one of the shafts."

Waiting a moment to ensure that the service passageway was empty, Ferus edged out into the hall.

Trever followed as he held the glow rod in front of him, keeping it down to its lowest setting. Here the

walls were also blackened from the fire, but the hallway didn't seem too badly damaged.

Only a wall separated them from a main passageway, and they could hear the noise of activity on the

other side.

"I don't get it," Ferus murmured. "There seems to be a lot of movement. This place must be more

than a prison. No wonder there was so much activity at the landing platform."

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摘要：

UNDERWORLD CHAPTERONE Glimpsedthroughacurtainofcoldgrayrain,theruinedJediTemplelookedmorelikeatrickoftheeyethanaonce-magnificentstructure.ToFerusOlin,theTempleappearedtobeaghostimage,likeanafterburnonavidscreen.Heblinked.Hefeltasthoughtheentirestructurewasdissolvingbeforehiseyes. Sincetheend...

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

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