The Last Jedi

Five


The Rangers’ small stealthy vessels—which they called darts—scooped up the life pod carrying Jax and his companions at the fringes of the Twins’ gravity well, docked with it, transferred them to Aren Folee’s ship, and carried them back to Toprawa.

Jax spent the entire journey in a state of mental lockdown. After that last explosion of anguish, he was a pit. A hole. A yawning gravity well into which light fell without effect. He watched the mouth of the abyss from a high, detached point within his mind—the invisible seethe of emotions at the bottom could not be allowed to rise to the surface, or to leak out.

Vader would believe him dead, broken down into free ions by the Twins’ plasmatic inferno, and he feared that even a whimper in the darkness of his soul would expose him.

He felt Den’s gaze on him, and Aren Folee’s when she turned from the ship’s helm. He could even feel I-Five’s regard. He still hadn’t gotten used to that.

He relaxed his guard a bit when they reached Toprawa, even noticed when the ship dived straight at a rocky cliff and—at the point of impact—simply slipped through the holographic disguise and into a great, hollow cavern that was not entirely natural.

There were over half a dozen ships of various sizes ahead on the cavern floor. Overhead, the roof of the mountain disappeared into darkness punctuated by pale yellow lights. They twinkled in the mist of a waterfall that plunged like a ribbon of crystal from an unseen source down hundreds of feet to the cavern floor. Jax followed its silver path with his eyes—the group of ships ahead were on an island in the middle of a small lake.

“This is amazing,” said Den quietly. Then to Jax, “When you said they had an underground, I didn’t think you meant it literally.”

“Welcome to Mountain Home,” Aren told them.

She guided her dart expertly to the island and set down in the lee of a larger vessel that Jax recognized as a Helix-class interceptor. The small, armed freighters had been outlawed by the Empire because of their speed, maneuverability, and firepower. The first ships off the Arakyd assembly line had barely reached their new owners when the Emperor had commanded them to either strip the vessels down or get rid of them. Most had obeyed—apparently, some hadn’t.

This interceptor was fully armed and seemed to be undergoing repair.

As Aren Folee settled the dart to the sand, Jax emerged from dormancy enough to examine the other ships nearby. He recognized several: A Kuat Systems CloakShape fighter that was in the process of being fitted with new missile launchers, a Cutlass patrol fighter, and a third ship that couldn’t be what it appeared to be.

Jax took a deep breath. “Is that a Delta-7?”

Aren shut down the engines. “It is. Want a look?”

Want. That was an alien idea. He nodded anyway. They disembarked—Jax still carrying the miisai tree, Den carrying I-Five’s head—and the Ranger led them over to the sleek, wedge-shaped vessel. It was damaged—so badly scorched that the original color of the ship was almost obliterated. It had been red, which meant it had belonged to a specific Jedi. The Delta-7s—officially, the Aethersprite series—had been used by the Jedi so extensively most people had simply called them Jedi starfighters. Jax had never had the opportunity to pilot one.

He moved around it, beneath its sharply pointed bow, feeling as if he’d entered a shrine. He put a hand up to touch the port wing, noticing as he did that the droid socket was empty.

“Whose was it? Do you know?” he asked the silent Ranger behind him. He could feel her gaze on him as he moved aft under the wing.

“No. When it was found, it was drifting, empty. The astromech was gone.”

Jax turned to look at her. “At Geonosis?”

“After. But it had drifted so far out into space, no one has any idea how or even when it got there. The navicomp had been wiped clean.”

Jax touched the vessel again, trying to glean from it any sort of energy signature he might recognize—something that might suggest to him which of his fellow Jedi might have piloted the vessel. There was nothing identifiable, only a diffuse imprint. He took his hand away, wiped his palm on his tunic.

Aren stepped over to him and laid a hand on his arm. “We should go. You’ll want to contact your people on Dantooine and Coruscant.”

He pulled away from the Jedi vessel. “Where are we going?”

“Foothill. That’s where our headquarters is.”

“Foothill, Mountain Home—code names?” asked Den, who’d trailed them at a short distance.

“More like generic descriptors. There’s a network of subterranean passages that run under the spaceport and right up to the edge of town. We give them street names. It makes you seem a bit less shadowy when you can walk and talk openly in daylight about your super-secret underground township. People just think you’re talking about locations in Big Woolly.”

I-Five made a clicking sound. “Township?”

Aren looked at the droid remnant and smiled, as if talking to a bodiless machine was something she did every day. “You’ll see.” She turned and led them toward where the waterfall met the cavern lake, sending up plumes of mist.

“How was this all made?” Den asked.

Aren shook her head. “The big vault—we honestly don’t know. It was something we stumbled across at the beginning of the war. Most of the townward part we carved out of the rock and soil.”

She led them past work crews and pilots, who watched and sometimes waved. They crossed a wooden bridge that seemed to end at a ragged pile of boulders. Beyond those, screened from the cavern itself, was a pathway that ran around the perimeter of the cave on the outer shore of the lake. Aren turned left and led them right up to the waterfall. The pathway ran behind it and into a tunnel wide enough for the three of them to walk abreast.

Perhaps calling the Ranger outpost a “township” was too grand, but it was more than a mere bunker. There were branching corridors, storage rooms, living quarters, a dispensary/infirmary, a meditation chapel, and a small cantina of the type you might find aboard a space station.

The place was populated, if sparsely, with sentients from a number of worlds, though most seemed to be human. All found Jax and his companions of interest; all clearly knew Aren Folee well.

“Where are you taking us?” Jax asked as they reached an intersection with a second tunnel.

“That depends on you,” Aren said. “On how you feel. I can take you to quarters. You could rest—sleep for a while—”

“No,” said Jax, more sharply than he meant to. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Eat, then?”

When Jax didn’t answer, Den said, “I don’t think either of us is hungry right now. What’s option number three?”

“I take you to Degan.”

“Degan?” I-Five repeated.

“Degan Cor. He and I share leadership here. I represent the Rangers. He represents other interested groups. Are you—that is, do you want to meet him now? I could at least show you to some quarters so you have a place to put your … your tree?” Her voice lifted questioningly.

Jax glanced down at the miisai—the only thing in his possession he needed a place for. Besides the clothing he wore, he now had exactly four other belongings: two lightsabers—the Sith blade an anonymous someone had given him and the new one he and Laranth had made—the pyronium that Anakin had given him long ago “for safekeeping,” and the Sith Holocron his father had bequeathed to him. These he carried on his person.

“I’ll keep it, thanks.”

She nodded, though she radiated bemusement.

“I’ll keep this, too, thanks,” said Den, lifting I-Five’s head. The wide corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

Jax realized, suddenly, that he wasn’t alone in his grief. How could he have felt that he was? He turned to Aren Folee. “We’ll need a droid tech, if you can spare one—to help us with I-Five.”

She gave the droid’s head a long look. “I thought that looked like an I-5YQ unit. It seems unusually … curious.”

“Long story,” Jax told her. “But Five is … more than just a droid. He’s been my companion and friend for—” He found himself unable to finish the sentence.

“I understand,” said Aren.

Though she couldn’t possibly have understood the relationship between man and machine, Jax knew she understood grief and loss. She had no doubt experienced it herself in recent years, given that the Empire took as dim a view of the Rangers as they did of the Jedi and had tried to wipe them out, as well.

“Follow me.” She turned left into the intersecting tunnel, which was even wider than the first and better lit. The floor underfoot was a polished, pale gray stone with streaks of green.

“It so happens that Degan Cor is a mechanical genius,” Folee went on. “He’s retrofitted most of the systems on the vessels that have come through Mountain Home. He’s not an expert on service and human adjunct droids like your YQ unit, but he knows a lot about artificial intelligence in general. He runs a vessel and vehicle repair facility up top.” She glanced up at the rocky roof overhead. “Has a reputation as the go-to guy for broken hyperdrives. I don’t know if we have any parts lying around for an I-Five, but I’m sure he can do something to help you out.”



Degan Cor was a tall, lanky man in his prime with dark eyes of indeterminate color and hair so black it seemed to absorb light. He wore a mech-tech’s coverall beneath a long vest of many pockets whose contents were a mystery. Den would not have pegged him for a resistance leader in a million years—which was probably part of what made him an effective resistance leader.

He had no parts for an I-5YQ lying around, but he did offer Den access to his workshops and an assistant of sorts to help patch together a body for the shattered droid. Den was grateful for anything he could get. Repairing I-Five dominated his thoughts, and he let it. It was vastly better than what strove to push his constructive agenda aside. There was an image in the back of his mind: a dark passageway clogged with smoke and fitful light, a twisted ladder, a broken body …

Den shook himself and tried to focus on what the Toprawan resistance leader was saying. Something about their loss.

Yes, their loss. Jax’s loss. Whiplash’s loss.

Den was overwhelmed for a moment by the sheer magnitude of it: Laranth gone, Yimmon taken, the ship gone, and Five … He gripped the droid’s head more tightly and realized he was shaking.

“Do you mind?” a scratchy voice said from beneath his arm. “You’re covering my audio inputs.”

Den laughed reflexively and set I-Five’s head on the low table in front of the hassock on which he sat. He didn’t take his hands off it, though. He had a horrible feeling he’d collapse if he did that. Glancing at Jax, he wondered if the Jedi didn’t feel the same way about the little tree that sat between his booted feet and that he caressed with his fingertips.

Degan Cor handed Jax, then Den, a cup of steaming amber liquid. Aren Folee served herself from the carafe on the table as her co-leader folded himself into a chair diagonally to Jax and across from Den.

“It’s shig.” Degan nodded at the cups. “We grow the behot for it locally. I find it bracing. Figured you might need bracing after what you’ve been through.”

What we’ve been through. Den found himself back in the smoky passageway again. He dragged himself out. He figured he’d be doing this for a while, and he also had the feeling it wasn’t going to get any easier as time went on.

“Thanks,” Jax said, and sipped the beverage.

Den sniffed at his. Citrus-y. He sipped it, feeling it burn its way down to his empty belly. It really did feel bracing. He closed his eyes. It was dark behind his eyes.

Dark in the passageway.

He opened his eyes and inhaled again the perfume of the shig. How long would it be before he could close his eyes and not go back to the Far Ranger’s last moments … Laranth’s last moments?

Degan Cor was watching Jax soberly. “I took the liberty of alerting your people on Dantooine that something had happened—that there had been a problem. I thought maybe I should let you tell them the details. Unless, you’d rather I—”

“No.” Jax shook his head. “No, I need to do that. And I’ll need to get through to the Whiplash on Coruscant, too.”

And tell them what? Den wondered.

“Of course,” said Degan. “What did happen? How did Vader know where you’d be?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. I hate to think it was simply that he’s now able to sense me.”

“Simply?” repeated Aren, and Degan’s dark eyes widened.

“At our last encounter he ingested a powerful biotic agent that … I think it opened the floodgates on his Force perception and overwhelmed him. Initially, anyway. Like trying to put that waterfall out there through a small tube. Or passing all the power from a hyperdrive through a single bus. There’s no way to be sure what effect that may have had on his Force sense. Although I wouldn’t have bet that it would have become more sensitive as a result.”

Degan was nodding. “Right. Usually if you overload a sense, it’s deadened for at least a while after. Although, it can also become hypersensitive—or even both in turns. It’s equally likely there’s a mole in your organization.” He grinned mirthlessly. “Not sure which is worse—a hypersensitive Sith or a spy.”

“I’ll take the spy,” I-Five said. “I think we may have a chance of discovering who that is.”

The two Toprawans blinked at him in surprise.

“It almost had to be someone in the room when we made the plans to go to Dantooine,” I-Five continued. His voice was thin and reedy without the resonating chamber his torso afforded. “Or someone in the Far Ranger’s prep crew.”

Jax shook his head. “Could have been someone at Westport Control. We did file an itinerary.”

“Yes, but the Twins weren’t on it. Only Whiplash operatives knew at what point we were going to depart from the itinerary. As did a handful of people here.”

Jax glanced up at Degan Cor, who shrugged.

“The droid is right, Jax. And that’s something … we’ll have to consider.” He exchanged glances with Aren Folee.

“What will you do now?” Aren asked. “Go on to Dantooine?”

“No reason. We’ll go back to Coruscant. Regroup. Figure out how we can get Yimmon back.”

Degan and Aren exchanged glances again. Then the lanky mech-tech leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “You could work out of Toprawa, Jax. You’re not only welcome here, you’re needed. This is where the battle will be won. Out here, where the Empire has to spread itself thin. A number of the squadrons out here are for show. They don’t do anything but maintain a strategic presence—unnerve the locals. We let them think they’re doing that while we build a fleet right under their noses. You could be part of that—command your own wing of fighters.”

Den held his breath, watching Jax’s expressionless face intently.

“Why me in particular?” Jax asked finally.

“Aren and I both know you’re Jedi, though no one else here does … or at least, they’re not supposed to. Your talents could be very useful out here. And you could have a ship. Any ship you wanted—even that old Jedi starfighter. More than that, though—there are pockets of resistance to the Empire that are working independently. Sometimes we get in each other’s way. Sometimes we end up working at cross purposes. One group of rebels wants to go for blood, another wants to play a waiting game. With you in the vanguard, I’m convinced we could bring all of them together under one mandate. Get them working in concert with us instead of at odds. You could unify this effort, Jax. They’d rally behind a Jedi. You’d be a miracle to them, because right now they think the whole Order’s dead.”

Jax’s face grew even paler. He reached down and brushed the boughs of the tree with the tips of his fingers. He shook his head. “I have to find Yimmon and free him.”

“Understood. But—”

“Vader could have killed him, but he didn’t.” Jax’s gaze moved from Aren to Degan. “After months of trying to assassinate him—striking blindly, wildly—suddenly they spring a well-set trap and capture him. Yimmon said something before we left Coruscant that I should have listened to. He said it felt as if we were being herded. Encouraged to do just what we did—leave Coruscant. I don’t suppose it matters at this point whether the whole thing was a plot or whether they just got lucky at the end. The result was that they have the one man whose knowledge about Whiplash could completely destroy it. If we don’t get Yimmon away from Vader before he gets that information, Whiplash is dead—and any other parts of the resistance Yimmon has knowledge of.”

Degan Cor shook his head. “Jax, what makes you think Vader doesn’t already have that information?”

Den found it suddenly hard to breathe. In all the craziness, he hadn’t even considered that. From the grim expressions on Aren Folee and Degan Cor’s faces, he could see that they had.

“Thi Xon Yimmon is the undisputed leader of Whiplash,” Jax said doggedly. “He was leader of Whiplash from the beginning and had at least one Jedi Master who was content to be one of his operatives. There was a reason for that. Yimmon has more mental discipline than some Jedi I knew. He’s exceptional, even for a Cerean. And none of us, except maybe Laranth—” He stopped, licked his lips. “I’m not sure even Laranth knew how sensitive he was to the Force.”

“Still …”

“And there’s something else,” Jax said. “On the ship, when Vader reached out to control him, Yimmon seemed to lose consciousness. Or rather, to give it up. To me, it felt as if he just disappeared or—or shut off before Vader could control him. For a moment, I thought Vader had done it, but it seemed to surprise him. He had to react quickly to keep Yimmon from collapsing. If Yimmon has some way of suppressing his consciousness or denying Vader access to it, he may at least be able to buy some time. But I have no way of knowing how long he can hold out.”

“What do you intend to do?” Degan asked.

“First, we’ve got to warn Whiplash. Tuden Sal needs to know what’s happened, because chances are he’s going to have to dismantle and rebuild the entire network and that’s going to take time—time he may not have. Then we need to find Yimmon.”

The resistance leader nodded. “We can give you a secure relay to your contacts on Coruscant. But what if you can’t find Yimmon?”

“I can’t think that way,” Jax told him. “I have to believe that I can find him. That I will find him. And soon. You said I could have a ship. I’m going to need one to get back to Coruscant. Unless we find out otherwise, I have to assume that’s where Vader will take Yimmon.”

Degan nodded.

“How close is that old interceptor to being repaired?”

“A couple of days.”

“Can I—”

“Of course,” said Aren. “With one stipulation—that you’ll seriously consider coming back to Toprawa and joining the Rangers … whatever happens with Thi Xon Yimmon.”

Den took a deep breath in unison with Jax. The Jedi nodded. “I’ll consider it. Seriously. Right now, I need to use your hypercomm to see if I can get a message to Whiplash.”