Shadow Academy

13

The Shadow Academy’s training chamber stood large and empty, a yawning, vacant space walled off on all sides. The doors sealed behind Jacen, imprisoning him with Brakiss, leaving him to face whatever the teacher had in store. The walls were a flat gray, studded with a grid of computer sensors. Jacen saw no controls, no way out.

He looked up at the beautiful man, who stood in silvery robes watching Jacen with a calm, patient smile.

Brakiss reached into his shimmering robes and withdrew a black cylinder about half the length of Jacen’s forearm. It had three power buttons and a series of widely spaced grooves for fingerholds.

A lightsaber.

“You will need this for today’s training,” Brakiss said, broadening his smile. “Take it. It’s yours.”

Jacen’s eyes widened. His hand reached forward, but he drew back, trying to hide his eagerness. “What do I have to do for it?” he asked warily.

“Nothing,” Brakiss answered. “Just use it, that’s all.”

Jacen swallowed and did not meet Brakiss’s eyes, afraid to show how he longed to have his own lightsaber. But he didn’t want to have it in this place, under these circumstances. “Hey, I’m not supposed to,” he said. “I haven’t completed my training. Master Skywalker and I had this discussion just a few days ago.”

“Nonsense,” Brakiss said. “Master Skywalker is holding you back unnecessarily. You already know how to use one of these. Go ahead.”

Brakiss extended the lightsaber handle to Jacen, moving it closer, tantalizing him. “Here at the Shadow Academy we feel that lightsaber skills are among the first talents a Jedi should develop, because strong, able warriors are always needed. If a Jedi Knight is not ready to fight for a cause, then what good is he?”

Brakiss pressed the lightsaber into Jacen’s hands, and Jacen instinctively curled his fingers around it. The weapon felt at the same time heavy with responsibility and light with power. The finger grooves were widely spaced for his young hand, but he would grow accustomed to it.

Jacen touched the power button, and with a snap-hiss a sapphire beam crackled out, indigo at the core but electric blue on the fringes. He flicked the blade from side to side, and the molten energy sliced through the air, trailing a faint smell of ozone. He slashed back again.

Brakiss folded his hands together. “Good,” he said.

Jacen whirled and held the lightsaber up. “Hey, what’s to stop me from just cutting you down right here, Brakiss? You’re evil. You’ve kidnapped us. You’re training enemies of the New Republic.”

Brakiss laughed—not a mocking laugh, but simply an expression of wry amusement. “You won’t kill me, young Jedi,” he said. “You would not cut down an unarmed opponent. Cold-blooded murder is not part of the training Master Skywalker gives his young trainees … unless he has changed his curriculum since I left Yavin 4?”

Brakiss’s alabaster-smooth face seemed exquisitely serene, but he raised his pale eyebrows. “Of course if you do let loose your anger,” he said, “and slice me in half, you will have taken a significant first step down the dark path. Even though I won’t be here to see the benefits, the Empire will no doubt use your abilities to great advantage.”

“That’s enough,” Jacen said, switching off the lightsaber.

“You’re right,” Brakiss agreed. “No more talk. This is a training center.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Jacen said, holding up the lightsaber handle, alert and ready to switch it on again.

“Just practice, my dear boy,” Brakiss said, easing toward the door. “This room can project holo-remotes, imaginary enemies for you to fight, to help you hone your skill with your new weapon. Your lightsaber.”

“If they’re just holo-remotes, why should I fight at all?” Jacen said defiantly. “Why should I cooperate?”

Brakiss crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m inclined to ask you to indulge me, but I doubt you would do that—at least not yet. So let us put it another way.” His voice took on a sudden hard edge, as sharp as razor crystal. “The holo-remotes will be monster warriors. But how do you know I won’t slip in an actual creature to fight against you? You would never know the difference, the holo-remotes are so realistic. And if you stand there and refuse to fight, a real enemy might just remove your head from your shoulders.

“Of course, I probably won’t do that in the first session. Probably not. Or maybe I will, to show you I’m sincere. You’ll be here a long time training in the dark side. You never know when I might lose patience with you.”

Brakiss stepped out of the training chamber, and the metal doors shut behind him with a clang.

Alone in the dimly lit chamber with its flat gray walls, Jacen waited, tense. Except for his breathing and his heartbeat, the room was completely silent, as if it swallowed all noise. He shifted, felt the hard Corusca gem still hidden in his boot. He took comfort in the fact that the Imperials had not found it and taken it away from him, but he didn’t know how it could help him now.

Jacen turned the lightsaber handle in his hands, trying to decide what he should do. Intellectually, he was certain Brakiss was bluffing, that the man would never send in a real murderous monster. But a part of Jacen’s heart wasn’t so sure, and the slight twinge of doubt made him uneasy.

Then the air shimmered. Jacen heard a grinding sound and whirled to look behind him. A door he had not noticed before crawled open to reveal a shadowy dungeon from which something large and shambling scraped forward, dragging sharp claws along the floor.

Jacen’s hobby back at home had been studying strange and unusual animals and plants. He had pored over the records of known alien races, memorizing them all—but still it took him a few moments to recognize the hideous monster that was now emerging from its cell.

It was an Abyssin, a one-eyed monster with greenish-tan skin, broad shoulders, and long, powerful arms that hung near the ground and ended in claws that could shred trees.

The cyclopean creature plodded out of its cell, growled, and looked around with its one eye. The Abyssin seemed to be in pain, and the only thing it saw—and therefore its only target—was young Jacen, armed with his lightsaber.

The Abyssin roared, but Jacen stood firm. He held up his free hand, palm outward, trying to use the soothing Force techniques that had proven so successful when he’d tamed new animals as his pets.

“Calm down,” he said. “Calm down, I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not with these people.”

But the Abyssin didn’t want to be calmed, and stalked forward, swinging its long arms like clawed pendulums. Of course, Jacen realized, if the monster was really just a hologram, then his Jedi techniques would be irrelevant.

The Abyssin pulled out a long, wicked club that had been strapped against its back. The club looked like a gnarled branch with spikes on one end, with a far longer reach than the lightsaber’s. The one-eyed monster could pound Jacen and never be touched by the Jedi blade.

“Blaster bolts!” Jacen muttered under his breath. He flicked on the lightsaber, feeling the power of the energy blade that pulsed in front of him with a blinding blue glow.

The Abyssin blinked its single large eye, then charged forward, its fang-filled mouth wide open. The creature swung its spiked club like a battering ram.

Jacen slashed in front of himself with the lightsaber defensively, instinctively. The glowing blade sliced off the tip of the club as easily as if it were a piece of soft cheese. The spiked end clanged on the metal floor.

The monster looked at the smoking end of its club for just a second, then howled and charged again. Jacen was ready this time—his heart pounding, adrenaline flowing, attuned to the Force and focused on his enemy.

The Abyssin hammered down with the club, too close for Jacen to strike with the lightsaber. He dodged to the side, and the creature swung again, this time with a raking handful of claws.

Jacen made a dive for the floor and rolled, holding the lightsaber at arm’s length to keep from harming himself with the deadly blade.

The Abyssin pounced on him, thrusting with the thick end of the club. But Jacen lay on his back and held the lightsaber up, twisting his wrists to slash the remainder of the club down to a smoldering stump in the monsters hands, then rolled sideways to dodge the heavy wood as it fell to the floor.

The Abyssin tossed away the useless stump and yowled again, then lunged to grab Jacen from the floor. But Jacen held the lightsaber in front of himself, pushing it forward like a spear. The glowing tip plunged into the descending monster’s broad chest, scorching through until it disintegrated the Abyssin’s heart.

With a loud and fading shriek of pain, the creature slumped and fell forward. Jacen winced, knowing he would be crushed by the brute—but in midair the cyclops flickered and dissolved into static, then nothingness, as the hologram projectors shut down.

Gasping and sweating, Jacen turned off the lightsaber. The hissing energy beam was swallowed into the handle with a descending thwoop. He stood up and brushed himself off.

As the door opened again, Jacen whirled, ready to face another hideous enemy. But only Brakiss stood there, quietly applauding.

“Very good, my young Jedi,” Brakiss said. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it? You show great potential. All you need is the opportunity to practice.”