The Last Jedi

Seventeen


Jax hated waiting. He wanted to act, to move, to do something. Not dangle upon Tyno Fabris’s whim. What if the Arkanian decided not to sell him the information he wanted? What then? What did he have that might tip the balance?

He’d already mentioned the Holocron, but there was no way he could actually let that fall into someone else’s hands—least of all someone like Tyno Fabris.

He got up from his mat and moved to the tree, opening the small compartment in its vessel and removing the Sith artifact. It tingled against his palm, glowing faintly the red of oxidized iron. To someone not endowed with a sense of the Force, it would look like a pretty little puzzle box—a geometrical container with sleek, rounded vertices and elaborately incised faces. Something one might keep jewelry in.

Few knew what it really contained.

Jax stared at the object vibrating in his hand and wondered—not for the first time—if it might hold information he could use in his present situation. It contained—ostensibly hidden in layers of memory below the more recent additions pertaining to Imperial strategic moves—the writings and lab notes of the Sith savant Darth Ramage. Some of the information was irrelevant now—the information on using pyronium to increase the yield of a dose of bota, for example—but Jax had heard rumors of the sort of experiments Darth Ramage had done, and some of them held terrifying implications.

Ramage was alleged to have done experiments in the manipulation of time.

Jax ran a finger down one beveled, etched face. Impossible. Cephalons could see through time, into it, past it, around it. Everyone else was destined to live in its stream and, eventually, to drown there. No one could swim against it, or strike out across it to stand with the Cephalons—and the few other species who shared their abilities—on the far shore.

Jax had asked Aoloiloa once what his perception of the Force was. He had gotten an answer that was typically metaphorical and vague: “Force is sea. Force is drop. Force is all. Force is not all.”

If time was a stream, then it flowed into that sea—drop by drop. Laranth’s drop. His drop. Perhaps what he should have asked the Cephalon was Could I swim to shore and, having reached the shore, walk upstream?

It wasn’t possible, of course, but if it were, would he want to take that walk? Who hadn’t thought, If I only had this to do over. If only I could turn back time, I’d do this right next time.

If h could manipulate time, could he rewrite his past?

Even that was not the real question. The question that haunted Jax Pavan was: was there something he could have done—should have done—to save Laranth?

He thrust all the questions aside. It was human nature to want to rewrite past mistakes, but that fantasy did not alter the fact that Darth Ramage’s Holocron was rumored to contain some information that could be of great use to a Jedi. He just had to figure out how to open it.

Jax held the Holocron up before his eyes, feeling the warmth and weight of it; feeling the power that shivered in it. Every holocron was different. A simple data holocron could be opened verbally or manually or electronically by anyone with the proper password, combination, or key. A Jedi or Sith Holocron was a different sort of puzzle altogether, and the “key” could take any number of forms. Some required both a Force key and a physical one—often a crystal. The Force key opened the box; the crystal allowed the possessor to access its contents.

Jax had no idea how Darth Ramage had secured his Holocron, but he suspected one would almost have to be a Sith to figure it out—or at least have some knowledge of the dark side of the Force.

Yet the artifact spoke to him, quivered in his hand, sent frissons of power through his bones. Maybe …

Holding the Holocron flat on his palm, he closed his eyes and focused his attention on the heat and pulse of it. His hand throbbed with the energies in it as his Force strands reached out to wrap themselves around it.

A stab of alarm rippled through him. What are you doing? You don’t know what you’re doing. This isn’t right. Stop now.

Thoughts disrupted, he opened his eyes and was startled to see the red glow of the Holocron enveloping his hand, creeping up his wrist. The heat of it went to the marrow of his bones. He swallowed, closed his eyes again.

Stop. Stop!

The hatch panel pinged, jarring Jax’s concentration. He tried to ignore it, but it pinged again. Frustrated, he swept his free hand at the hatch.

“Come!”

I-Five stood in the open hatchway, with Den beside him, the two so close in height and posture that it was almost comical. The warring urges to laugh and rage collided.

“What?” Jax asked, the word half growl, half chuckle.

I-Five didn’t beat around the bush. “This contact you’ve made here on Mandalore—who is he?”

“I told you. He’s a businessman. An information broker.”

“His name? His affiliation?”

“Why is this important?”

Den stepped into the little cabin. “Tyno Fabris. That’s his name.”

Jax stared at the Sullustan. “How do you know that?”

“I overheard it. In a conversation you were having with Tuden Sal.” He shook his head. “Why, Jax? Why didn’t you tell us you’ve been in contact with Black Sun?”

“More to the point,” said I-Five, “why do we need to be in contact with Black Sun in the first place?”

Now Jax almost did laugh. “Why not? What’s my alternative? Reach out with the Force and poke around until I poke Vader? Do I need to remind you that if I do that, he may find us?”

Den muttered, “You’d get his attention, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t want to get his attention. I want to catch him looking the other way.”

“If you believe that can still happen, you’re in denial. You thought he sensed you at the bureau.”

“He sensed the Force, yes. But he saw an Inquisitor. He didn’t strike at me or pursue me. He didn’t even attempt to touch me. He thought I was one of his. If he hadn’t, I’d have had to fight him then and there.” That was what he’d told himself, over and over again in the days since his ill-advised infiltration of the ISB. Vader would have come after him with tooth and claw if he’d recognized Jax.

“I’m going to catch him by surprise. I just have to figure out how.”

“And for that you need Black Sun?” I-Five asked wryly.

“I need—we need—whatever resources will help us find Yimmon.”

“Yimmon? Or Vader?”

Jax shook his head. What was the droid talking about? “Where we find one, we’ll find the other.”

“And if not?”

“What do you mean?”

“If Vader and Yimmon have separated?”

Jax looked at the droid with honest perplexity. “I doubt that will have happened. He’s sent his special legion through here to wherever he’s holding Yimmon. He’s sent his Inquisitors there. He’s going there, himself. That’s the only thing that makes sense. We just need to find out where ‘there’ is.”

The droid was relentless. “What if Vader has left Yimmon somewhere and gone back to his other business? Which path will you pursue?”

Jax felt a niggle of irritation. He breathed it in and let it flow out again. “I’ll go after Yimmon. And I’ll find him. Whatever it takes. Even brushing shoulders with Black Sun. Why are you grilling me like this?”

“Forgive me,” said I-Five. “I merely want to be certain that we’re in agreement on the goal.”

“The goal is to get Thi Xon Yimmon out alive and intact.”

In the back of Jax’s mind was the havoc Vader had wrought with his erstwhile Padawan, Kajin Savaros—what the Dark Lord had been able to do to the boy’s mind. But Yimmon, he told himself, was not an unschooled child. He was a Cerean and an unusually disciplined even for one of his species. He had displayed an almost Jedi-like ability to think above the physical dimensions and to shepherd his thoughts. Jax prayed that ability would help him withstand Darth Vader’s formidable array of tools.

“We don’t have to do this alone,” I-Five said, “or with Black Sun. We could return to Toprawa and enlist the aid of the Rangers. We can trust them.”

“We don’t know that. Not for sure. One of them may have betrayed us to Vader in the first place.”

“But you trust Black Sun?” Den asked incredulously.

“Not at all. Not one bit. But I know I can’t trust them. And I won’t. But with the Rangers … I can’t trust them all and I can’t treat them all as if I don’t trust them. Paradox. And by trying to tread a middle ground, I’ll put the traitor in a position of power and the loyal in harm’s way.”

“We can’t talk you out of this?” asked Den.

Jax sighed. “Look, I’m supposed to see Fabris tomorrow to find out if he’s even willing to sell us the information we need. He may still shut that door in our faces.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll see what the deal is. Frankly, I don’t have that much to bargain with. I told a pretty glib fib to get my foot in the door.”

“Great,” Den muttered. “We’re dealing with a demon and we’ve got no leverage.”

Jax smiled wryly. “I didn’t say we don’t have leverage. I’ll create leverage out of thin air and spit if I have to.”

I-Five tilted his head, obviously focusing his optics on the Holocron in Jax’s hand. “Using that?”

“Using whatever it takes.”



Pol Haus carefully read the report that had just dropped into his datapad. The ISB had been moving resources about in a most intriguing way, and now the Emperor was on the move, as well. In a matter of days he’d be going to a villa on the shores of the Western Sea. Several members of the Imperial Senate were also planning trips to the seashore. Pol didn’t believe for a moment that this was coincidental.

The Emperor’s villa was small—at least compared with the Imperial Palace—and part of it sat out over the water. This last bit of information would likely be of interest to Tuden Sal. Pol could see that it might be possible to approach the villa by water with the right personnel and resources.

He returned the datapad to the pocket of his coat and looked up as the Whiplash Express—as he’d come to think of it—glided into the run-down transit station in a whisper of air.

Tuden Sal would view this windfall as a sign that it was time to put his plan into action … which was precisely why he should not know of it.