The Last Jedi

Forty-Seven


Jax stopped at the sound of the klaxon’s wail. He wondered if there were some protocol that Inquisitors were supposed to follow under such circumstances—battle stations to go to, that sort of thing. It hardly mattered. He knew where he was going.

He was peripherally aware of the response to his decoy, felt the shift of attention to the part of the station where he had set his illusory doppelgänger to show itself—fleetingly—to surveillance equipment, before fading to nothing. While his “ghost” would seem to be coming up from the freight bays adjacent to the commercial sector toward the detention area, meanwhile the real Jax would arrive from the small-craft bays higher up on the northern hemisphere—almost the opposite direction. And he was targeting the medbay two levels below the lockup.

Now that he knew where he was headed, he took a moment to make a general sweep of the area for Force-users. He could do so nervelessly; it would be perfectly reasonable for an Inquisitor to check for the location of his compatriots in such a circumstance.

He opened himself to receiving the energies and was almost knocked from his feet by their violence. It was like being flayed by icy, malevolent whips of pure darkness. The regard of the Dark Lord was like a thick, viscous cable of frigid malice directed toward the Force projection. Around it, in spiraling tendrils of hostility, the energies of the Inquisitors whipped in the same direction. The attention of the stormtroopers and Imperial officers came in unfocused bursts like brittle slugfire.

Jax smiled grimly. So far so good.



To Probus Tesla, the Cerean’s consciousness was a thing of wonder. With one cortex effectively dormant and the other in a dreaming state, the Inquisitor was able to get a real “look” into the rebel’s mind. It was not the mind of a Force-user, certainly, but it was complex, with layers of ideation that overlapped like the currents of the deep.

Moving among the thought-eddies was like trying to glimpse the activity within a series of translucent bubbles that bobbed and moved with the current. The glimpses were tantalizing, and Tesla was certain that if he could but break one of the bubbles open and spill its contents—something he was sure the surgical procedure would facilitate—he would understand the workings of this exquisite mind.

Then, Lord Vader would realize Tesla’s power and potential.

On the heels of this exhilarating thought came a chill stab of doubt: What if the Dark Lord sees that power and potential as a threat to his own position? What then? Perhaps being clever around Darth Vader is not the best of strategies.

Tesla felt Vader’s summons even as he struggled with this dark epiphany. It was not the sort of summons he was used to. Instead of the usual steely command, what he received was a burst of intense awareness—a strange, dense admixture of disbelief, cold rage, excitement … and puzzlement. But all that was gone in an instant as if a door had slammed shut on the flow of sensation.

What was left was a visual image: Jax Pavan.

Tesla staggered mentally and physically, putting out a hand to steady himself on the side of Yimmon’s bed.

No. It couldn’t be. Pavan was dead. Tesla had seen the ship ripped apart by tidal forces. He had felt the sudden silence from the Jedi. The sudden stillness. He sensed nothing, now, that he recognized as a Jedi Force signature.

He wrenched his mind from its contact with Thi Xon Yimmon and stumbled to a comlink, suddenly aware of the bleating of the intruder alert. He shut down the alarm to the medbay and hailed the command center. “What’s happened?”

“There’s an intruder, Inquisitor,” the officer of the watch said, telling him what he already knew.

“What intruder? How did he get in? Where’s he heading?”

“I don’t know how he got in, sir. He simply … appeared on our monitors. He seems to be heading for the detention block.”

Tesla smiled. Yes, of course he was heading for the detention block. Because he thought that’s where his colleague was. The Inquisitor shot a swift glance at the unconscious Cerean, shut down the comlink, and left the medbay, careful to lock it down at the exterior hatch.

He rounded the corner into the main corridor and found himself face-to-face with a tall apprentice Inquisitor. Renefra Ren, of course. Who else would be so arrogant as to forsake protocol to follow personal promptings?

“What are you doing here, Renefra?” Tesla snarled. “You’re supposed to attend our Master under such circumstances, not follow me around. Come, the prisoner is secure and Lord Vader has summoned me.”

He strode past his apprentice and moved down the hallway, realizing belatedly that the wretched creature hadn’t moved. He swung back.

“Are you deaf? Or do you somehow think you can ingratiate yourself with our Master by hovering about his prisoner? Jax Pavan is on the station.”

“Yes,” said Renefra Ren in someone else’s voice. “He is.”

As Tesla registered the alienness of the voice, two things happened: Renefra Ren seemed to shimmer and shrink, and the turbolift to his right opened, revealing an armed stormtrooper, an R2 unit, and a Sullustan. The stormtrooper stepped out of the lift and took aim—pointing his blaster rifle right at Tesla’s head.

“Back against the wall,” the stormtrooper said in a female voice.

“Sacha, look out!” the Sullustan cried. “There’re two of them!”

The white helm swiveled toward the unknown Inquisitor. Tesla acted reflexively, sweeping his left hand up and out. He Force-wrenched the rifle out of the fake trooper’s hands, lifted her off her feet, and threw her against the wall of the lift.

“No!”

The roar of fear and rage hit Tesla’s ears at the same time the emotions behind it struck his consciousness. An accompanying wave of Force power slammed into him and blew him heels-over-head down the corridor. As he surged to his feet, he heard the sizzle of a lightsaber activating, saw the clear aqua beam of light, and knew that the approaching blur must be a Jedi—must be, in fact, Jax Pavan.

Tesla flung himself up and over the Jedi, careening along the ceiling before dropping back to his feet opposite the lift. A swift glance showed that the woman in the stormtrooper disguise was still out. The Sullustan was kneeling next to her.

The droid … where had the droid gone? If it was really Imperial, it would be sending a call for assistance. If it was with these rebels …

Tesla drew his own weapon and turned to face his attacker. The indigo robes were gone now, and there was no question that it was Jax Pavan he faced.

“This is impossible,” Tesla said. “You’re … you can’t be here. You’re—”

“Dead?” the Jedi asked, then shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

“You were up on the detention level.”

“No.” Pavan’s face lit in a slow smile. “He was.”

Tesla shifted his eyes momentarily to where the Jedi pointed. A second Jax Pavan—identical to the first—stood in the intersection of two corridors, lightsaber gleaming in his hand. The instant of distraction was enough; when Tesla turned back, the real Jedi was mere paces away, his lightsaber already in deadly motion.

Tesla had neither heard nor sensed the movement, and the realization both galled and chilled. He brought his Sith blade up to meet the Jedi weapon, barely in time. The two blades clashed in a shriek of energy.

“I don’t have time for this, Tesla,” Pavan growled. He glanced up over the Inquisitor’s shoulder, that same taunting smile on his face, inviting his adversary to look.

Tesla refused the invitation. He didn’t know how the Jedi had done this, but there could be only one Jedi and only one Jedi blade.

He smiled at Pavan. “Clever. But, of course, he can’t be real. You’re the last Jedi, and you have the last Jedi lightsaber.”

He swung his blade down and around, whipping Pavan’s weapon aside and shoving him backward. Pavan stumbled back a step. Tesla, grinning fiercely, continued his own blade’s arc, sweeping it up and over, letting the Force augment the power of the downward stroke that would cleave Pavan in two …

Tesla’s moment of triumph was interrupted by the sound of a second lightsaber, activating so close he could feel static crawling on his skin. He spun about … and was stunned to realize it was a red blade—a Sith blade—sweeping toward him.

His last fleeting emotion was puzzlement; his last fragment of thought was, Impossible …