The Lost Ones

21

At the observation windows of the mirror station, Jaina stood next to Lowie, her hands outstretched, as if she were trying to pull back the vanished Shadow Academy—and Zekk with it. But, with the exception of a few New Republic ships, the area where the Imperial space station had disappeared remained stubbornly empty.

She let her arms fall back to her sides. Her eyes squeezed shut against the un-Jainalike tears that had suddenly welled up, and her mind sent out a silent cry. Don’t go, Zekk! Come back.

In stunned silence, Peckhum leaned against the station wall next to her. His mirrors were damaged, and Zekk had joined the fragments of the Empire. “He’s gone,” the old man whispered.

When Lowie placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, Jaina felt strength and optimism flow back into her, as soothing as cool water to her burning sorrow. Drawing a deep breath, she searched the observation window again for any sign of hope.

A new movement caught her eye. “There!” she said, turning to grab Lowie’s hairy arm. “Did you see that?”

Peckhum squinted, and the young Wookiee gave an interrogative growl.

“What do you mean, ‘See what?’” Jaina said. “Look—something else is out there, right where the Shadow Academy was.”

Lowie’s rumbled reply sounded hesitant, but Em Teedee piped up to translate. “Master Lowbacca is loath even to suggest the possibility, but might that not simply be a New Republic ship, or one of the pieces of debris you’ve been tracking?”

“Absolutely not,” Jaina said stubbornly. “Besides, any debris with a path that intersected the Shadow Academy would have been destroyed already—just like that shuttle, the Moon Dash.”

Peckhum hunched over the comm system. “Strange. That object seems to be transmitting a pickup signal—if I read this correctly, that is.”

Lowie’s triumphant roar brought Chewbacca from the main stabilizer unit, where he had been attempting manual repairs to the mirror adjustment systems—to no avail.

“Not very big,” Jaina said, studying the mirror station’s crude scanners. “Small enough to be an escape pod, don’t you think?”

Lowie looked up at his uncle, who rumbled a negative.

“Looks more like a message canister to me,” Peckhum said. “Speaking of which, the transmitters are working now, so why don’t we send a message to the New Republic fleet? They’ll pick it up, whatever it is.”

“Well, then,” Jaina said, “what are we waiting for? Let’s raise Admiral Ackbar.”

Lowie transmitted the message while Jaina stared at the screen, still hoping.

“Years ago, Uncle Luke told me about one of his first students, a young man named Kyp Durron, who managed to stow away in a message pod.” Jaina sent her mind out toward the object, trying to gather tiny bits of information with the Force. But she felt nothing, sensed no presence of her dark-haired friend. She heard Lowie croon a sad note beside her, but even without his confirmation, she knew that they wouldn’t find Zekk inside the message pod.

At least not alive.

Jaina bit her lip and tried to look over Peckhum’s shoulder as he piloted his old ship, the Lightning Rod, back toward Coruscant. Her view was all but obscured by the hairy form of Chewbacca, who took up the copilot’s seat and much of the area around it. Thinking about the retrieved message pod from the Shadow Academy—still sealed against the vacuum of space and possibly containing a message from Zekk—filled her with a sense of urgency.

She wished she could tell Chewie and Peckhum to hurry up, that they had to get back immediately so they could be on hand when the message pod was opened. But that would have been foolish, not to mention rude. The two of them seemed to understand her anxiety and had already pushed the Lightning Rod to the highest speed its safety limits would allow. In the compartment behind them, the engines made disconcerting clunking sounds. Jaina bit her lower lip.

Lowie sat in thoughtful silence beside her. Only the deep indentations left by his hairy fingers in the foam padding of the arm cushions told Jaina that the young Wookiee felt a tension similar to hers.

As they reentered the atmosphere, Jaina forced her eyes shut and practiced one of Uncle Luke’s Jedi relaxation techniques. But it didn’t seem to work.

Finally, a gentle thump and the diminishing whine of the Lightning Rod’s engines told her they had arrived at one of the landing pads in Imperial City.

Jaina jumped down onto the landing pad without waiting for the exit ramp to extend fully; she couldn’t even remember having unfastened her crash webbing or opening the exit hatch. She immediately caught sight of her parents, brothers, and Tenel Ka, who were standing near another New Republic ship that had obviously just landed. The message pod from the Shadow Academy was already being unloaded. Jaina ran toward her family.

“Any sign of explosives or weapons?” Leia was asking Admiral Ackbar as he stood watching his troops perform their duties.

“Absolutely none. We scanned it,” he said. “It’s clean. No booby traps.”

“What about biologicals?” Han asked. The admiral shook his fishlike head.

“Can’t be anything dangerous in there,” Jaina said, skidding to a stop beside her parents. “It’s from Zekk—I can feel it.”

Admiral Ackbar looked skeptical, but three young voices spoke up at once.

“Hey, she’s right.”

“I feel it too.”

“This is a fact.”

“Even so,” the Calamarian admiral said, “in the interest of safety, perhaps we should—”

Unable to bear the suspense any longer, Jaina pushed past the two guards who stood between her and the capsule, and activated the message retrieval mechanism. With a small whoosh of depressurization, the double panels slid aside to reveal the contents—a device of some sort, a complicated jumble of knobby plasteel parts and cabling.

“What is that?” Leia asked in surprise.

“Stand back!” Ackbar shouted. The guards tensed, as if expecting an explosion.

Han glanced into the capsule and then looked over at Chewbacca and Peckhum, who had come to join them. “What do you think, Chewie?”

Chewbacca scratched his head and gave a couple of short, surprised-sounding barks.

“Yeah, looks like that to me, too,” Han agreed.

“So what is it?” Jacen asked, exasperated at being unable to follow the interchange.

“A central multitasking unit, of course,” Jaina whispered in amazement and delight. “From Zekk.”

Jaina heard a satisfied grunt from behind her. Old Peckhum muttered, “Kid’s never broken a promise to me yet.”

Then, as if conjured by Peckhum’s words, a holoprojector hummed to life. A tiny image of Zekk resolved itself in the air just above the message pod. Jaina bit down hard on her lip again as the tiny glowing form began to speak. “I’m doing this against the better judgment of my teachers here,” Zekk said, “so I’ll make this message brief.

“Peckhum, my friend, here’s the central multitasking unit I promised you. You always expected only the best from me, and I always gave it. This must be hard for you, but I want you to know that no one has kidnapped me or brainwashed me.

“To Jacen and”—the tiny holographic image hesitated—“and Jaina, it turns out I do have Jedi potential after all. I’m going to make more out of myself than anyone imagined I could be. We were good friends, and I’d never want to hurt you. Sorry I messed up your mother’s diplomatic banquet—but that’s one reason I’m doing this. I have the chance to become something better—a chance that I was never given by anyone in the New Republic.”

Jaina groaned and shut her eyes, but the image continued to speak.

“I know this is something you wouldn’t approve of, but I’m doing it for myself. If I ever come back, I’ll be someone you can all be proud of.

“Don’t worry, Peckhum, I’ll never let you down. You’ve been my truest friend, and if there’s any way I can come back to you, I will.” When Jaina opened her eyes again the tiny image had faded into sparkles, but she wouldn’t have been able to see it anyway through her tears.