Jedi under Siege

12

The thick branches of the damp and shadowy jungle closed around him, pressing in. It reminded Zekk of the murky lower levels of Coruscant. It felt almost like home.

He and his troops of Dark Jedi had fallen from the skies, buoyed by repulsorpacks. After coming to rest in the upper branches, they’d worked their way down to ground level and spread out to surround the fleeing Jedi trainees Master Skywalker had brainwashed into supporting Rebel philosophies.

Zekk knew little about politics. He understood only who his friends and supporters were—and who had betrayed him. Like Jacen and Jaina … especially Jaina. He had thought she was his friend, a close companion. Only later, after Brakiss had explained it, did Zekk understand what Jaina really thought of him, how easily she dismissed his Jedi potential and the possibility that he might be an equal to her and her high-born twin brother. But Zekk did have the potential, and he had proved it.

In spite of this, he hoped Jacen and Jaina would not fight him, because then he would have to demonstrate his power—and his loyalty to the Second Imperium. He remembered his first test against Tamith Kai’s prize student Vilas, and Vilas had paid with his life.

In the upper branches of a tree overhead, one Dark Jedi fighter had become tangled. Zekk watched as the bright arc of a lightsaber blade slashed boughs out of the way, clearing a path for the fighter to descend to the lower levels.

Overhead a wing of TIE fighters roared across the skies, firing into the forest. The Dark Jedi spread out, looking for potential victims on their own. Zekk gathered three of the nearest fighters to his side and they marched along, crashing through the underbrush.

They reached the edge of the wide river, whose brown-green currents lapped quietly through the jungle, stirring overhanging fronds. Farther downstream, closer to the tall Massassi temple ruins, he saw Tamith Kai’s hovering battle platform.

Zekk stood beside his Dark Jedi companions on the riverbank. The other fighters exchanged glances and pointed skyward. Zekk nodded, knowing what they wished to do. “Yes,” he said. “Let us conjure a storm, a great wind to knock the jungle flat and send these Jedi cowards scurrying.”

He looked up into the clear blue skies and reached deep within his heart, finding a shadow of anger, the pain he had felt in his life. He knew how to use anger as a tool, a weapon. Zekk gathered the winds. Beside him, he felt the other dark-side warriors doing the same, drawing thunderheads until lumpy black clouds rolled in from the horizon.

The wind picked up and grew colder, charged with static electricity. Zekk’s scarlet-lined cape rippled around him. Stray strands of his dark hair whipped around his face as the wind snatched them free of his ponytail. Flashing bolts of lightning skittered from one thunderhead to another. The rumble of noise drowned out even the sound of TIE fighters crisscrossing overhead.

Zekk smiled. Yes, a storm was coming, a victorious storm.

But as the clouds continued to swell, releasing a powerful weather energy, he heard sounds of repeated laser cannon fire and glanced to the sky, where another battle was taking place: a one-sided dogfight. A smoking ship careened overhead, pursued by a lone TIE fighter that shot its energy bolts again and again, mercilessly pummeling its prey.

Astonished, Zekk recognized the clunky patchwork form of the Lightning Rod, the cargo ship of his old friend Peckhum, the man with whom he had lived for many years.

Peckhum! They had been close companions, good friends despite how little they had in common. Too late, he remembered that the old spacer earned extra credits by making occasional supply runs to Skywalker’s Jedi academy. Could it be that his old friend had been here on the jungle moon when this morning’s attack began?

His heart sank, and a wrenching dismay filled his stomach. His concentration on the storm faltered.

In the backlash, winds whipped the trees closer to him, blowing back branches as the other Dark Jedi struggled to retain control of the gusting squall.

“No, Peckhum,” Zekk said, looking up as he watched the TIE fighter blasting the hapless Lightning Rod. A small explosion flared on its hull, and Zekk knew that the battered supply ship had just lost its shields.

The Lightning Rod was going down—and there was nothing he could do about it.

He heard shouts of surprise next to him as the Dark Jedi Knights completely lost control of the gathering storm. The winds continued to snap branches and uproot saplings, then gradually dissipated as the dark-side warriors stopped manipulating the weather.

Their attention had been drawn to a young Jedi trainee they discovered in the underbrush—someone who had either been creeping up on them or simply hiding from Zekk’s advance.

The boy scrambled out of the weeds, spiky pale hair blowing around his flushed face. His clothes and robes were so ridiculously garish—bright purples and golds and greens and reds—that they hurt Zekk’s eyes. How could this young man have thought to hide while dressed like that?

The boy appeared frightened, but determined. He thrust his lower lip out and stood with his hands on his hips, his rainbow-colored robes rippling around him in the last vestiges of the angry wind.

“Very well, you give me no choice,” the boy said, then cleared his throat. “I am Raynar, Jedi Knight … uh, in training. You will either surrender now—or force me to attack you.”

Two of Zekk’s companions laughed in wholehearted amusement, ignited their lightsabers, and stalked toward the trapped young man. Raynar stepped backward until he bumped against the rough trunk of a tree. He squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to concentrate. He held his breath until his face turned bright red, then purplish.

Zekk felt a slight invisible push as the boy attempted to use the Force to drive them back. The two lightsaber-bearing Dark Jedi seemed not even to notice.

Zekk found, though, that he had no stomach for outright slaughter. This boy seemed proud and brash, but there was something about him—an innocence …

Thinking quickly, before his two companions could drive in and make short work of Raynar, Zekk reached out with the Force, grabbed the boy by his bright robes, and yanked him off his feet. With a flick of his mind, he hurled Raynar over the heads of his companions, tossing him out into the river. Raynar yowled as he flew, then plunged belly-first into the thin, muddy waters.

The two Dark Jedi whirled, looking angrily at Zekk. Out in the water, Raynar splashed to the shallows, completely soaked in mud, his robes covered with river slime.

“It is a greater victory to utterly humiliate your enemy than simply to kill him,” Zekk said. “And we have humiliated this Jedi in a way he will never forget.”

The dark warriors next to him chuckled at the observation, and Zekk knew he had defused their anger … for the moment, at least.

Then he looked longingly into the sky, hoping to spot any trace of the Lightning Rod, but he saw only a dissipating cloud of smoke overhead. He wished he could find some way to help his friend; would he be forced to count the loss of Peckhum as part of the cost of victory?

The wounded ship had passed out of sight to where the battle would reach its foregone conclusion. He was certain he would never see the Lightning Rod or Peckhum again.