Invincible (30 page)

She began to back out of the chamber until Tahiri said, “Wait.”

Caedus glanced down his shoulder at her. “You have a good reason for countermanding my command?”

“Uh, if you don’t mind, my lord,” Tahiri said. “I’d like to know the purpose of the sample. Does it have something to do with the Empire’s nanokiller?”

Before answering, the lieutenant looked to Caedus for permission.

“Go ahead,” Caedus said. “An order from my apprentice is an order from me.”

“Thank you, my lord,” the lieutenant said. She turned to Tahiri. “That’s correct, ma’am. Since the prisoner is a granddaughter to Boba Fett, the Moffs thought it might be wise to develop a strain targeting him.”

“That
is
a good idea,” Caedus said. Mirta’s fear was a boiling cloud in the Force—and with good reason. A sample of her blood would accomplish in a needleprick what he had expected to spend days—perhaps even weeks—working on. “And how long will it take to develop that strain?”

“Their close family relationship will make it fairly easy,” she reported. “No more than three days. It might be as fast as one, if we’re allowed unlimited access to the prisoner.”

Caedus half turned, looking back at Mirta’s horrified face. “I think we can arrange that,” he said. “Would you like me to hold her head so she doesn’t try to bite you?”

“That would be very kind, Lord Caedus.” The lieutenant started forward, already removing the sterile cover from her collection kit. “Thank you.”

“Wait!” This time, the countermand came from Mirta. “I’ll tell you who was on my team.”

Caedus raised his hand to stop the lieutenant. “I
thought
you might have a change of heart.” He began to put the power of the Force behind his words again. “How touching. You’re actually trying to
protect
the man who sent you into this mess.”

Mirta ignored his sarcasm. “No samples.” She pointed her chin at the hypo in his hand. “And I get my injection. Agreed?”

“And you really believe that I’ll keep my word?” Caedus asked. The question wasn’t an idle one. He was actually interested in how the rest of the galaxy perceived him. “Or do you have some proposal to guarantee that I do?”

“Not that I have any other choice, but I’ll trust your promise,” Mirta said. “If you’d lie to a woman in this condition, you really are a supreme sleemo.”

The insult made Caedus’s stomach clench in anger, but he recalled what had happened the last time he hadn’t controlled his anger and nodded.

“You keep your part of the bargain, and I’ll keep mine,” he said. “Who was with you?”

“There was only one Jedi,” Mirta said. “Your sister, Jaina.”

“My
sister
?” Caedus roared despite himself. “You expect me to believe that?” He waved the stump of his arm at her. “That Jaina did
this
?”

“I don’t know
who
did that, but Jaina was the only Jedi I saw.” Mirta seemed completely unimpressed by his anger. “And don’t look so surprised. She’s been training with Mandalorians.”

“Then why didn’t she share their disposal barge?” Caedus demanded. He turned to the lieutenant. “Take your sample.”

“What?”
Mirta seemed genuinely shocked. “You’re a Jedi! Can’t you tell I’m not lying?”

“I’m a
Sith,
” Caedus corrected. “And I don’t need the Force to know you’re lying. There were two Jedi there. I fought them both.”

Mirta did a good job of appearing completely confused—even in the Force. “I don’t know about that, but the only one who came with
us
was Jaina.”

“Then how did
Luke
get in?” Caedus demanded. He whirled on the lieutenant. “What are you waiting for? I gave you an order.”

“Of c-course.” The frightened lieutenant stepped to the foot of the bed—where the prisoner could not even attempt to bite her—and pulled the sheet off Mirta’s feet. “Sorry, my lord.”

Mirta watched in horror as the lieutenant raised a vein, then, just before the needle was inserted, said, “Okay, Luke was with us.”

The lieutenant looked to Caedus for instructions.

Caedus ignored her. “I know
that.
How did he get into the planning forum?”

“With us.” Mirta’s answer sounded more like a question than an answer, and Caedus realized she was
still
lying to him—he could even sense it in the Force. “We had control of the Nickel One security system and help from the Verpine—”

“Yes, I know all that, too,” Caedus said. “I’m interested in Luke—in how he
really
slipped into the asteroid. This is your last chance.”

Mirta’s eyes grew desperate. “I
told
you,” she said. “We came in through a gun emplacement, then blew a reactor core to cover our breach point.”

Incredibly, Mirta was still lying about something. Caedus could sense it in her desperate Force aura—that she was being mostly truthful but misleading him about something crucial.

“At least
something
you said is true,” he said. He passed the hypo to the lieutenant. “Take your sample—and give her this injection. She told half the truth, so I’ll keep half my word.”

Mirta began to curse him again, and Caedus knew he had made all the progress he was going to that day. He motioned Tahiri to follow him, then left the room and started down the corridor toward his quarters, deep in thought as he puzzled over how Luke had really gotten into the room.

It
always
came down to Luke. It had been Luke’s eyes into which he had been looking when his arm was taken, it was Luke’s face that haunted his dreams, it was Luke who he saw in his visions. Sometimes Luke was chasing him through a desert landscape filled with spires and arches, sometimes Luke was driving a crimson lightsaber through his heart…sometimes Luke was wearing Caedus’s black robes, sitting on
his
dark throne, ruling
his
Sith Empire.

“That was a lot of trouble,” Tahiri said, finally tearing Caedus out of his thoughts. “If you were going to betray your promise, why bother justifying it? It’s not like anyone there was going to talk about it.”

Caedus stopped in the middle of the corridor. “I
didn’t
betray my promise,” he said. “Mirta was lying about
something.
”

“Sure, after you started pressing her,” Tahiri said. “But I didn’t sense the lie the first time. If Luke was there, she didn’t know how he got there.”

“Luke
was
there,” Caedus insisted.

“Sorry,” Tahiri said, not quite cringing. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“No—forgive
me,
” Caedus said, finally realizing what he had overlooked—what the Force must have been telling him all along. “I was just coming to a decision.”

Tahiri remained silent, waiting for his pronouncement.

“Have Mirta transferred to the
Anakin Solo,
and inform the Moffs that I would like them to place their assets at my disposal and select a command committee to accompany us.”

“Very well,” Tahiri said. “Shall I inform them of our objective?”

“My uncle.” Caedus began to walk again. “I’ve been growing more and more convinced that killing Luke Skywalker is the key to winning this war—and I’m
sure
of it now.”

What’s the difference between a lightsaber and a glowrod? About two thousand degrees!

—Jacen Solo, age 15

I
T FELT GREAT TO SWEAT AGAIN
. T
HE OUTDOOR SPARRING SESSION
wasn’t the only exercise Jaina had performed since returning to the secret base at Shedu Maad—since she’d
limped
back after failing to kill Caedus at Nickel One. But today was the first time Cilghal had allowed her to really let go—to prove to Luke and everyone else that she was ready to attack again.

Jaina sprang at Zekk, doubling him over with a powerful thrust kick to the gut, then dropped to her haunches—and realized
why
when an electrostaff came swinging through where her neck had been a split second earlier. She immediately spun into a squatting leg-wheel, hooking her heel behind a furry stump of a leg and sweeping it forward.

Lowbacca roared in surprise and tried to transfer his balance to his other leg, but Jaina was already coming up on his flank, driving her shoulder into him and sending him tumbling. The electrostaff came down across Zekk’s shoulder, emitting a sharp crackle as it discharged its immobilizing shock. Jaina slapped the flexible “blade” of her own staff across Lowbacca’s back, then heard Jag rushing in behind her and sent him flying with a back kick to the belly.

Tesar was on her like a rancor, driving her back with a flurry of scaly-footed kicks and cane strikes, his dark Barabel eyes bulging with the joy of the fight. Jaina parried a head strike, blocked a gut kick by driving an elbow into his instep, then hook-trapped a blazing-fast head slap and hung off his enormous arm as she swung up, wrapping her legs around his waist and shocking him three times in the ribs before his reptilian neural system registered the incapacitating jolts and finally dropped him to the grass in a heap of quivering scales.

Jaina rolled over her shoulder and came up ready to face her last unzapped opponent, but Jag was still sitting on the far side of the courtyard. He was trying to catch the wind that had been knocked out of him and rubbing a red welt where he had apparently struck his forearm with his own electrostaff.

“You didn’t have to shock
yourself,
” Jaina teased. She deactivated her electrostaff. “You could have just said stop.”

Jag didn’t smile, but a twinkle did come to his durasteel gaze. “I’m not so sure,” he said. “You had that wild look in your eye again.”

Jaina did not need to ask
what
look. She knew the one he meant; it was the one she had learned in Keldabe, when Beviin taught her the art of losing herself to the fight. She looked around at her four opponents, who were all still resting on the grass, trying to catch their breath and let their neural systems recover from the jolts they had received.

“You four want to go again?” She looked around the courtyard perimeter, where her parents, uncle, and several Masters stood watching the workout session. Behind them loomed one of the amber-stained mine buildings the Jedi were now calling home, with the billowing crowns of a few dozen kolg trees showing above the structure’s corrugated roof. “Maybe we could get Master Durron to help out.”

If
that
didn’t prove to them that she was ready to go after Caedus again, nothing would.

“No more sparring today, Jedi Solo,” said Cilghal. The Mon Calamari Master stepped into the practice area, holding a large bioscanner in her flipper-like hands. “Even if your injuries no longer trouble you, they are not healed.”

“They’re healed enough,” Jaina countered. “
Caedus
is recuperating, too, you know.”

“Then perhapz someone else should harry the prey a bit while you recover,” Tesar said, still sitting on the mat. “This one would love to take over the hunt.”

Jaina glanced over. “No offense, Tesar,” she said, cocking her brow. “But if
I’m
not ready, how come
you’re
the one on the ground?”

Tesar’s pebbly lips drew back in reptilian surprise, then he slapped his tail on the grass and began to siss almost uncontrollably.

“No offenssse!”
He slapped his tail down again. “Truly funny!”

Lowbacca chuffed in puzzlement, then looked over at Tesar and shook his head. Barabel humor remained inscrutable—at least to Wookiees.

Zekk rose, looking a little embarrassed, and stepped over to Jaina. “Okay, maybe you’ve got a point,” he said. “But if you reinjure yourself training, where will you be then? Caedus will have healed, and you won’t.”

Jaina considered this, then sighed. “You
would
have to be the voice of reason.” She raised her arms so Cilghal could run the bioscanner over her ribs. “All right. Let’s grab a set of shatter panels.”

“Panels?”
Jag started toward her. “Jaina, listen to Zekk. You’ve got to—”

“Shatterpoint is a Force technique, Jag, not a physical one,” Luke said, speaking from the edge of the courtyard. “And Jaina does need to practice. It shouldn’t aggravate her injuries.” He turned to Cilghal. “Right?”

Cilghal studied the bioscanner for a moment, then nodded. “As long as you don’t twist your body too violently, Jedi Solo.”

“Thanks,” Jaina said. “I won’t.”

As Zekk and the others fetched a set of panels from the edge of the practice mat, Jaina closed her eyes and began a breathing exercise to clear her mind. During one of her debriefings with Luke, she had described how Jacen had used shatterpoint to destroy Roegr’s
beskar’gam.
Luke had surprised her by suggesting that he teach it to her.

Jaina should not have been surprised that her uncle had mastered the technique himself—but she was. So she had foolishly blurted out something about it being a lost art, and that hardly anyone could master it. Luke had simply smiled and replied that an art was not lost just because it could be wielded only by a handful, and that if her twin brother was one of the few capable of learning it, so was she.