The transports lined up underneath the lake, their mineral skins tinted blue-green for camouflage. They waited for the signal from Captain Typho. Ferus exchanged a glance with Trever. He no longer bothered to order Trever to stay behind. It was a waste of breath.
Solace, Ferus, and Oryon would leave first. They were to head immediately to Imperial headquarters and break in. Ferus would split off and go for Malorum. Solace and Oryon would head off any attempt of Imperial officers to escape. Usually the higher up the officer, the more you could count on their having a separate escape route from the rest of the battalion.
Clive had begged off being included. "I'm a solo act," he told them. "Wars make me nervous."
Solace had snorted her disapproval.
The signal came. The Gungan ships rose slowly and then burst through the surface. Ramps slid out and connected with the land. Ferus, Solace, and Oryon raced off the ship.
The Naboo security force was already mobilizing in the streets, marching toward headquarters. Ferus could see several panicked stormtroopers racing to return to the building. Already ranks were forming lines on the building's wide steps. The first fire rang out from the front lines.
He would join the fight, but first he had to find Malorum.
They raced around the corner of Imperial headquarters and released liquid cables. It brought them up to the first bank of windows. Ferus had already networked with the Naboo and knew where the officers were located.
Solace paused. The sounds of battle had escalated. "May the Force be with you," she said.
Ferus nodded and took off through a window. He ran down the halls, which rang with confusion as officers scrambled to load data onto computers, no doubt following some sort of Empire protocol for a surprise attack. Others ran toward the back of the building where Ferus knew it connected with the Theed hangar.
That was where Malorum would be headed. He wouldn't stand arid fight. He would cut and run.
Ferus's increased his speed, mowing down stormtroopers that got in his way: The thud of his boots sounded out his purpose. He held his lightsaber aloft.
He burst through the grand double doors of the hangars. Amid the gleaming ships and stacks of cartons he saw the flicker of a red cape. Malorum had seen him and was running away. He chased him down a long hallway that connected to another grand building.
The hallway opened up into a gigantic circular area. Platforms and bridges were stacked hundreds of meters high. The space was filled with a low-level hum. He was in the Theed power generator.
The knowledge thudded through his brain. This was where the great Jedi Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, had fallen. Every Padawan had heard the story.
It was here, Ferus thought. This is the place Obi-Wan fought Darth Maul to the death.
But now it was different. He wasn't fighting a Sith. He was fighting an Imperial Inquisitor — skilled, with powerful weapons, yes. But not a Sith.
Then Malorum turned, baring his teeth in a smile. And showed Ferus his lightsaber.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ferus was startled. He and Obi-Wan had both felt that Malorum was a Force-sensitive. But that was a long way from being proficient with a lightsaber.
Where had he received lightsaber training? Malorum held the lightsaber easily in a classic ready stance, the red shaft projecting downward.
Ferus circled him slowly, holding his dark gaze. So. A former Jedi and a Sith pretender were about to fight. Interesting.
Malorum charged. The two lightsabers clashed. Ferus felt a surprising amount of power from Malorum. Maybe this wouldn't be so easy.
But it would be done.
He whirled around in a one-hundred-eighty degree turn, kicking out with his foot at the same moment. He missed Malorum's chin by a whisker.
Ferus liked to fight with his boots as well as his lightsaber. He had learned to fight without a lightsaber when he'd been a regular citizen of Bellassa. Sometimes that meant fighting dirty. Looking for openings, using whatever materials came to hand. He could still street-fight if he had to.
He fought without urgency just yet, circling Malorum, challenging him, watching him for weaknesses. Ferus ticked them off in his head. Malorum relied on agility but had little grace. He had strength but did not know how to use it effectively. But most of all — and this was what Ferus was sure would defeat him — Ferus could feel Malorum's emotion in his style. Anger fueled his attacks. It was a mistake many made. Not a Jedi.
After feints and attacks, they came to a long passage with curving walls. A series of energy gates ran down it. Electron rays pulsed in a rhythmic fashion. Ferus remembered this from the story he'd heard as a Padawan. The energy gates had slowed Obi-Wan and he'd been unable to come to his Master's aid in his final battle with Darth Maul. In those crucial seconds, he'd watched Qui-Gon receive the fatal blow and fall, right before his eyes.
Here he was in the middle of a battle, and he was suddenly pierced with a sharp sympathy for Obi-Wan. For the past weeks he'd been intimidated by the Jedi Master, irritated by his silences, upset at his decisions. Now he fully realized how little he understood of what lay beneath.
I can't imagine what he's seen. How he's suffered. What he's lost.
He made it through the first energy gate but suddenly they buzzed shut behind and ahead of him. Malorum was in the next chamber. How odd it was to see your enemy and be unable to move.
He could just make out Malorum's words.
"You can't stop me," Malorum said. "You can only slow me down."
"Oh, I'll stop you," Ferus replied. "Even though I'll miss our conversations."
The energy gates sprang open. Ferus jumped forward, swinging his lightsaber. Malorum parried and came a little too close to connecting to Ferns's shoulder. He had to leap backward, and the energy gates shut again.
"I've learned from the best," Malorum grunted through his teeth.
"SIN Tachi. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Soara Antana. Yoda himself." Ferus didn't know if Malorum could hear him, but he felt the names of his teachers resonate inside him like a powerful chant. "You don't know what the best is."
The energy gates opened again and Ferus surged forward, driving Malorum backward. "Want to be a Sith, Malorum?" he taunted. "Is that it? Palpatine's puppy is tired of biting ankles?"
Rage darkened Malorum's face. Good. Exactly what he'd hoped.
Malorum sprang forward in a fast combination that Ferus had a tough time parrying. The dark side of the Force hummed with him now as his anger grew.
Okay, maybe it was time for a new strategy.
Malorum reversed directions and was able to run out onto a catwalk. Ferus leaped to follow him. He wondered if Malorum was heading for an exit. He knew if Malorum was able to get out of here, he would lose him. It was almost as if Malorum knew the way and was leading him on. Maybe he was trying to lead him back to the Imperial army, hoping they were still fighting.
They fought furiously now, using every inch of catwalk. They fought around the deep central core, hundreds of meters down. Ferus used his advantage of Force agility to leap and somersault, giving power to his thrusts. He fought using the lightsaber only, saving another kick or an elbow for when he needed it, when Malorum wouldn't be looking for it.
He pushed Malorum back, forcing him to rely on balance to avoid falling into the pit below. Malorum twisted and turned, but he was beginning to sweat.
Ferus saw his chance. He left himself slightly open, and Malorum charged. As he came in, Ferus slammed his elbow directly into Malorum's forehead. It stunned him for a split second, and Ferus used the hilt of his lightsaber to smash Malorum's lightsaber out of his hands. The lightsaber shot outward, directly over the pit.
Malorum's mouth opened in a cry that echoed off the walls. "No!" he shouted. Ferus could feel the Force pulsing as Malorum leaped into the air, straining to catch the lightsaber as it spun. Straining to harness the Force to push the lightsaber hilt toward him and carry him safely to the next catwalk.
Don't . . strain ... Ferus watched Malorum make the elemental mistake of any early-year Jedi student.
He saw that Malorum was blinded by need. If he lost the lightsaber, he would be disgraced. He would never be a Sith.
Malorum's lightsaber dropped like a stone. Still in midair, Malorum lost his grip on the Force. His cape flapped around him, and Ferus saw the panic in his eyes.
Then he dropped down, down, down, into the central core. And Obi-Wan's secret went with him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The battle was over. Smoldering stormtroopers lay on the streets. Fallen officers were in the building where they'd taken refuge.
Captain Typho strode toward Ferus as he emerged from the Theed generator. "Your friends are all safe," he said, before Ferus could ask.
Ferus saw a blur of brown and blue, and Trever ran toward him, his blue hair flying, his tunic torn. "Did you get Malorum? Did you stop him?"
"He fell into the central core of the generator."
"So the secret is safe," Solace said, coming up to them. "Whatever it is."
"We'll clean up quickly," Captain Typho said. "There will be no trace of battle. We've been monitoring the comet system. Coruscant Imperial Control is trying to raise the battalion here but getting no response. They're sending a ship to investigate from a nearby system. It could be here within the hour. It's time to blow the weapons cache."
"Looks like we're up, mate," Clive said to Ferus. "It'll be a mite tricky, but I think I've got the explosives figured out so we can get out in time."
Ferus blinked at him. "You think?" he asked.
Clive grinned. "Your pal here helped me with a few ideas."
Ferus looked at Trever.
"Don't look at me that way," Trever said. "I'm not coming with you this time. Do you think I'm crazy?"
Clive and Ferus entered the great Theed hangar, empty now of all personnel. The area around the hangar had been cleared of people and any valuables, just in case the hangar blew up the surrounding area. Theed pilots had flown a few ships to safety, but they would have to sacrifice some of their fleet so that the blast wouldn't look suspicious.
"The trick is to arrange the stuff so that it blows here, in the center," Clive said. "The shock wave will go down, not out. But this side wall has to pack some explosive power so that it blows the Imperial headquarters, too. We have to account for the loss of those stormtroopers."
"Let's do it," Ferus said.
They approached the boxes cautiously. Clive began to open them with a vibro-cutter.
"Some of this is highly volatile baradium," Clive said, eyeing the instructions on the durasteel boxes. "Just don't drop anything."
"Right," Ferus muttered.
Carefully, they picked up the boxes and bins and moved them to the center of the hangar. They took the highly volatile synthetic explosive and pushed it against the wall. Then Clive carefully walked through, setting the sequence charges. "Trever fixed these so that they'll disintegrate with the blast — no trace of metal or explosive will remain. They'll never know we blew it."
"So how are we getting out in time?" Ferus asked.
"The pattern is designed so that one alpha charge will set off an explosion that will set off the next, and the next, and so on, until it gets so bloody hot in here that the whole place goes up. It's going to be one crazy blow," Clive said fondly.
"Clive? How are we getting out?" Ferus asked, enunciating each word.
"Oh. I have a plan." Clive placed the last alpha charge against a drum of missile fuel.
"Good," Ferus breathed in relief.
"We run." Clive placed the last charge down and set it. "Now!"
Ferus spurted after Clive, cursing him in his head. Clive was one of those insane individuals who enjoyed extreme danger. Ferus felt the first explosion at his back. He felt the heat on his neck. He charged toward the doors. The next explosion gave him a push at the small of his back that almost sent him sprawling. The third made the air come alive. He rode a wave of air out the double doors and landed on his knees on the street. Clive rolled over, laughing.
"Come on, it's not over yet," he shouted.
The Imperial headquarters blew as they raced under a pedestrian bridge. The bridge fell in a shower of mellow ochre stone. Ferus grabbed Clive and Force-leaped to safety.
Sprawled on their backs, they watched as half the hangar burned and Imperial headquarters collapsed in a heap of rubble and a giant cloud of dust.
Coughing, they made their way to Solace, Oryon, Keets, Curran, and Trever, who were standing with Captain Typho watching the awful spectacle.
"I'm sorry about the building," Ferus said. "It was a gracious part of Theed. It will take a long time to rebuild that hangar."
"It is a thing," Typho said. "The people of Naboo are more important."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The orbiting space platform in the Rainbow Nebulae was somewhere between Naboo and nowhere, and it was a good place to stop. The group refueled there. It had been imperative that they take off from Naboo immediately.
They all stood together while their ships were hooked up to the refueling stations. The sky above vibrated with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
"I heard from Typho on the way," Ferus told the others. "The Empire is investigating, and it's already clear that they're going to engineer a coverup. There will be no retaliation on Naboo. And it appears that Malorum died in the explosion."
"Love it when a plan works like a well-timed chrono," Clive said.
There was a pause. It was time to say good-bye, but no one was sure who was going where.
Ferus was anxious to return to the roving asteroid base. There were things to do, systems to set up. He needed to contact Obi-Wan and tell him that the threat posed by Malorum was over.
"I have a safe place," he told the others.
"You only have to navigate through an atmospheric storm to get there," Trever amended.
"You are all welcome," Ferus said. "Each one of you is now an outlaw from the Empire. You'll need fresh text does, a place to lie low."
Ferus looked at Solace. He was creating the base for surviving Jedi. Solace had told him she wanted no part of it. He hoped she would change her mind.
"All right, I'll come," she said gruffly. "But just to check it out."
Oryon looked at Keets and Curran. "We've been talking. As the Erased, we've hidden away for too long. We want to return to Coruscant. But we would welcome a place to be quiet and make plans."
"After this little adventure, I could use a rest," Clive said.
"You're going to come?" Solace asked disdainfully. "I thought you were a solo act."
"Must be your sparkling personality," Clive said.
Ferus's comlink signaled. That was strange. There were only a few people in the galaxy with access. He walked a few steps away from the others. The message played, a miniature hologram.
He stared, listening, and ice entered his veins.
He walked back to the others and placed his comlink on his palm. He held it out. "I think you need to see this."
An image of Emperor Palpatine shimmered in the air. "Greetings, Master Olin, for I think you deserve that title. Times have changed, and you've changed with them. I think our departed Inquisitor Malorum was a bit too hard on you. On behalf of the Empire, I'd like to offer you amnesty."
"Hey, what about me?" Clive demanded of the message.
"And I'm issuing you an invitation," Palpatine's message continued. "Come visit me on Coruscant. I give you my personal word that you will have safe passage. Let us speak together, and if what I offer doesn't interest you, you may take your amnesty and go. This offer stands for twenty-four hours from the receipt of this message. I hope to see you soon. We have much to discuss. Until then, farewell."
The hologram faded.
Ferus looked at his friends. "So," he said, "what should we do? Accept a date with the Emperor?"
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Jude Watson, Death on Naboo
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