Shadow Academy

8

Jacen stood behind Qorl’s pilot chair, biting his lip. The Nightsister Tamith Kai loomed over them, powerful and threatening. He flashed a glance at Jaina, but he didn’t think they could do anything to resist.

Not yet anyway.

Docking doors on the ring of the Shadow Academy eased open in the silence of space, exposing a dark cavernous bay rimmed with flashing yellow lights to guide Qorl’s ship in. The Imperial pilot worked the controls with grim proficiency, and Jacen noticed that his damaged left arm—which had never properly healed when his TIE fighter had crashed on Yavin 4—was now bulkier, encased in black leather from the shoulder down, wrapped with straps and battery packs.

“Qorl, what happened to your arm?” Jacen asked. “Did they heal it for you, like we promised we’d do at the Jedi academy?”

Qorl diverted his attention from the docking maneuvers, turning his haunted pale eyes toward the boy. “They did not heal it,” Qorl said. “They replaced it. I now have a droid arm, which is better than my old one. Stronger, capable of more tasks.” He bent his leather-bound arm.

Jacen caught the faint whirring of servomotors. His stomach clenched in sick revulsion. “They didn’t have to do that,” Jacen said. “We could have healed you in a bacta tank, or a medical droid could have tended you. At worst you would have been fitted with a biomechanical prosthetic that looks just like a real arm—even my uncle has one of those. There was no need to give you a droid arm.”

Qorl’s face was stony, and he turned his attention back to piloting his craft. “Nevertheless, it is done. My arm is better now, stronger.”

The Imperial ship drifted into the docking bay, and lines of pulsing lights continued to illuminate the reflective metal walls. A transparisteel-encased observation bay with angular windows protruded from the inner wall above. Jacen could see small figures running diagnostics, working systems to guide Qorl’s ship in.

The ship settled down with barely a bump. The docking-bay doors closed behind them, sealing the prisoners inside the sinister Shadow Academy.

Tamith Kai spoke into the comm channel. “Engage cloaking device,” she said, her deep voice as irresistible and compelling as a tractor beam.

Though Jacen could see or feel nothing different, he knew that the large space station had suddenly vanished, leaving the illusion of nothing but empty space, where no one would ever find them.

Flanked by a stormtrooper escort, Tamith Kai ushered the children down the boarding ramp, away from the assault ship that had kidnapped them from GemDiver Station. She took them across the bay, toward a broad scarlet door that slid open as they approached.

On the other side stood a young-looking man dressed in flowing silvery robes. His smooth skin and silken blond hair seemed to glow. He was one of the most beautiful humans Jacen had ever seen—perfectly formed, like a holo simulation of an ideal man, or a sculptors masterpiece chiseled out of alabaster. A contingent of stormtroopers stood behind him, blaster rifles resting on their shoulders.

“Welcome, new recruits,” he said in a gentle voice that carried undertones of music. “I am Brakiss, leader of the Shadow Academy.”

Jacen heard his sister gasp and couldn’t restrain his own exclamation. “Brakiss?” he said. “Blaster bolts! We’ve heard about you. You were an Imperial spy planted at Master Skywalker’s academy, trying to steal our training methods.”

Brakiss smiled as if inwardly amused.

“That’s right,” Jaina continued excitedly. “Master Skywalker figured out who you were, but when he tried to turn you to the light side—to save you—you couldn’t face the ugliness inside yourself.”

Brakiss’s smile never faltered. “Ah, so that’s how he tells it? Master Skywalker and I did not agree on the … particulars of training in the Force. But he had at least one good idea: He was correct to bring back the Jedi Knights. He realized that the Jedi were the preservers and protectors of the Old Republic. They unified the decaying old government and kept it alive long after it should have dissolved into anarchy.

“And now that there is anarchy among the remnants of the Imperial forces, we need such a unifying force. We have already found a powerful new leader, a great one”—Brakiss smiled—“but we also need our own group of Dark Jedi Knights, Imperial Jedi, who will cement our factions together and give us the will to defeat the wicked and unlawful government of the New Republic and bring about the Second Imperium.”

“Hey, our mother leads the New Republic!” Jacen objected. “She’s not wicked. And she doesn’t torture people, or kidnap them, either.”

Brakiss said, “It all depends on your perspective.”

“Who’s this new leader, anyway?” Jaina interrupted. “Haven’t you tried to find a single leader before—and ended up with everyone fighting to run what’s left of the Empire? It won’t work.”

“Silence,” Tamith Kai said, her voice thick with menace. “You will not ask questions; you will receive indoctrination. You will be trained as powerful warriors to fight in the service of the Empire.”

“I don’t think so,” Jacen said defiantly.

His sisters face flushed with anger. “We won’t cooperate with you. You can’t steal us away and just expect us to be diligent little students for you. Master Skywalker and our parents will comb the galaxy to find us. They will find us, and then you’ll be sorry.”

Behind them, Lowie snarled and spread his long arms as if longing to tear something limb from limb, as his uncle Chewbacca was rumored to do whenever he lost a hologame.

The stormtroopers suddenly trained their rifles on the infuriated Wookiee.

“Hey, don’t shoot him!” Jacen said, moving between the stormtrooper and Lowie.

Jaina spoke up in an authoritative tone that took Jacen by surprise. “What have you done with Em Teedee, Lowie’s translator droid? He needs to communicate—unless of course all of these stormtroopers can somehow speak the Wookiee language?”

“He will be given his little droid back,” Tamith Kai said, “as soon as it has undergone .. suitable reprogramming.”

Brakiss clapped his hands at the troopers. “We will go to their quarters now,” he said. “Their training must begin soon. The Second Imperium has a great need for Dark Jedi Knights.”

“You’ll never turn us,” Jaina said. “You’re wasting your time.”

Brakiss looked at her, smiled indulgently, and stood in silence for a long moment. “You may find that your mind will change,” he said. “Why don’t we wait and see.”

The stormtroopers formed an armed escort around them as they marched along the clanking metal deck plates.

The Shadow Academy was not comfortable and soft like Lando’s GemDiver Station. The walls were not painted with pastel colors; there were no soothing strains of music or nature sounds over the loudspeaker systems, only harsh status reports and chronometer tones that chimed every quarter hour. Stenciled labels marked the doors. Occasional computer terminals mounted to the walls displayed maps of the station and complicated simulations in progress.

“This is an austere station,” Tamith Kai said as Jacen stared at the cold, heartless walls. “We don’t bother with luxury accommodations like your jungle academy. However, we have made sure that you each have a private chamber so you can conduct your meditation exercises, practice your assignments, and concentrate on developing your Force skills.”

“No!” Jaina said.

“We’d rather stay together,” Jacen added.

Lowbacca roared in agreement.

Tamith Kai came to an abrupt stop and looked down at them. “I did not ask your preference!” she said, her violet eyes blazing. “You will do as you are told.”

They reached an intersection of corridors, and here they split into three groups. Brakiss led the cluster of stormtroopers that surrounded Jaina, taking them down a corridor to the right. A larger group of guards, tense and with weapons at the ready, helped Tamith Kai to escort Lowbacca. The remaining guards closed around Jacen and led him off to the left.

“Wait!” Jacen cried, and turned to look at his twin sister for what felt to him like the last time. Jaina stared back at him, her brandy-brown eyes wide with anxiety, but when she bravely lifted her chin, Jacen felt a surge of courage himself. They would find some way out of this.

The guards hustled him down a long corridor until they stopped at one door in a line of identical-seeming doors. Student chambers, he thought.

The door whisked open, and the stormtroopers herded Jacen into a small cubicle, bare-walled and uncomfortable. He saw no speaker panel on the wall, no controls, nothing that would let him communicate with anybody.

“I’m staying in here?” he said in disbelief.

“Yes,” the lead stormtrooper said.

“But what if I need something? How am I supposed to call out?” Jacen said.

The trooper turned his skull-like plasteel mask to look directly at him. “Then you will endure until someone comes for you.” The stormtroopers stepped back, and the door shut behind Jacen, closing him in, weaponless and alone.

Then, to make things worse, all the lights went out.