Jedi under Siege

20

As he plodded ahead, Zekk could barely see two meters in front of himself in the murk of Yavin 4’s unfamiliar jungle. Dense underbrush tore at his hair and cape, and his breath came in ragged gasps. His ponytail had come entirely undone. Still Zekk pushed on. Occasionally he glanced back over his shoulder to see if any of Skywalker’s Jedi trainees were pursuing him. He sensed no one following, but he couldn’t be sure. Who knows? he thought. They might have light-side tricks he had never heard of, ways to keep him from sensing their presence.

He had seen many unexpected things today. Strange things. Horrible things. It hardly mattered that the winding path ahead was uncertain and difficult to see: he would have been blind to it anyway. His mind was partially numbed by the sights his eyes had witnessed today. Destruction, terror, failure … death.

Zekk’s foot slipped on a patch of moldy, damp leaves, and he went down on one knee. Grabbing a low branch, he pulled himself back to his feet, then stood disoriented for a moment.

Which direction had he been heading? He knew he was going toward something … but he couldn’t quite remember what. Finally some unconscious part of him remembered, and he set off again.

Suddenly, just ahead of him, a knee-high rodent sprang from the underbrush, its claws extended. Zekk’s Jedi instincts automatically took over.

In one smooth movement Zekk withdrew his lightsaber and threw himself sideways out of the creature’s path. His cheek split open as it smashed against the purplish-brown trunk of a Massassi tree; his thumb pressed the lightsaber’s ignition stud at the same moment. Before Zekk could even blink or breathe, the blood-red blade sprang forth—and sliced through the rodent in mid-leap. With a shriek that broke off abruptly, the two smoking halves of the creature fell to the forest floor.

It reminded him of how he had killed Tamith Kai’s student Vilas in the zero-gravity arena aboard the Shadow Academy station—not a memory that comforted him.

Blood trickled from the cut on Zekk’s cheek, but the pain was too distant, too far away for him to feel. His ability with the Force had protected him just now—after all, he was a Dark Jedi. But what about his companions from the Second Imperium? What of their powers? Why had it all gone wrong? For today he had seen his Dark Jedi, one after another, lose their battles or be captured by Skywalker’s trainees.

He had a terrible suspicion that only he remained.

Oh, the dark side had had its victories. The commando Orvak had obviously succeeded in destroying the shield generators and had no doubt moved on to the next step in his mission. And there had been other times during the day when Zekk had felt the Shadow Academy trainees achieve surges of victory. But each victory had been shortlived.

Brakiss, Tamith Kai, he, and his companions had all been so certain of a quick, decisive triumph. With their training in the dark side, they should have had no problem, Zekk told himself. Wasn’t that what Brakiss had taught?

A few minutes later, Zekk emerged from the darkness into a broad clearing where the wide river ran sluggishly between the trees. His spirits rising ever so slightly, Zekk walked to the edge of the river and stooped to take a drink.

Despite the green color of the water, his reflection was clear. Sunken emerald eyes shadowed with dark circles gazed back at him from the rippling surface. Only the barest spark of his former confidence still lurked in his expression. Tangles of filthy dark hair framed a face as pale as the moon of his home planet Ennth. Blood still oozed from the wound on his face, contrasting nicely with the purpling bruises that surrounded it. It made him think of Brakiss and his finely chiseled features.

A wail of despair echoed through the young man’s head, knocking him to his hands and knees in the mud of the riverbank. In a futile gesture, Zekk pressed his muddy hands over his ears. “Brakiss!” he screamed. “What went wrong?”

Hardly understanding what was happening, Zekk turned his face up toward the sky. For a split second he recognized the spiked ring of the Shadow Academy in low orbit above the jungle moon—

Then, without warning, the space station bloomed into a fireball high above him. Zekk’s jaw went slack at the sight. He had not thought it possible to feel any more pain.

But he had been wrong.

Brakiss. The name whispered now in Zekk’s mind. He knew that the Master had been aboard the Shadow Academy when it blew up. He could feel it. He had felt his teacher’s despair—his mind crying out.

The silvery-robed Jedi had taken Zekk in when the young man had had no hope for his future and no purpose. Brakiss had trained Zekk, given him purpose, direction, position, and skills to be proud of. At the Shadow Academy Zekk had belonged. He had been its Darkest Knight.

Now what was left for him? All that he had trained for and lived for was gone. Pride, comrades, future … all gone. There was no doubt in Zekk’s mind that the Second Imperium had been decisively defeated today, and now his mentor—the only man who had ever believed in Zekk—was dead.

No. Not the only man who had believed in Zekk. A fresh wave of anguish washed over Zekk at the thought. Old Peckhum had always believed in him, too. Zekk had promised never to do anything to hurt or disappoint the old spacer. Today, though, he had fought on the side of Peckhum’s enemies. Despite all the faults that Zekk acknowledged he had, he had never in his life lied to old Peckhum.

Anger jolted through him—at himself, at having been forced to fight his friend, at having been forced to make such terrible choices. His muscles tightened until the tension inside seemed unbearable. With a cry of anguish he plunged his fingers deep into the mud. It was dark, slippery, treacherous. Yet this was what he had chosen: the darkness.

Today he had stood and watched as his comrades blasted the Lightning Rod out of the skies. For all he knew, the only other man who had ever believed in him might also now be dead. Zekk’s hands clenched in the ooze and he jerked up fistfuls of mud and smeared it on his face. The mud stung his cut. Now he could feel pain again. But he didn’t care. He deserved it.

He had failed them all—Brakiss, the other Dark Jedi warriors, old Peckhum … himself. Silent tears dropped unheeded from his eyes as he scooped up more and mud and rubbed it into his hands, his forearms, his neck. Dark mud.

This—this was what he had become. Darkness. He had chosen it, immersed himself in it. He was stained with it.

There could be no turning back for Zekk anymore. He had made his choices, and he was what he was: a Dark Jedi. That could not change now. Though his comrades were defeated or captured, and Brakiss dead, Zekk would never be able to cleanse himself for as long as he lived—however long that might be.

Not even Jaina and Jacen, if they were still alive, would be able to forgive him. Considering the space battles above, the destruction of the Shadow Academy, the attacks here on the ground, Zekk himself was responsible for a hundred or more deaths today. Maybe even Peckhum’s. The twins would know that. They had never believed Zekk’s decision to join the Shadow Academy was the right one, had never believed that he could become anything.

But he had made his choice and he had done his best. He had even warned Jaina on Kashyyyk not to return to Yavin 4, hoping to keep her away from the fighting, though he doubted she had listened.

He pushed himself to his feet and caught sight of his reflection again in the slow-moving water. His once-beautiful cape hung in tatters from his shoulders, its scarlet lining shredded. Mud covered his skin. And the sunken emerald eyes were now bleak and hopeless.

But he wasn’t finished yet. It might not matter anymore what happened to him, but he still had choices. He would show the twins what he was made of. Turning, he headed along the riverbank toward the Great Temple.

Zekk still had one card left to play.