Shadow Academy

10

The next day, Jaina’s joy at seeing her brother again was overshadowed by Tamith Kai’s presence and the fact that they were each being shepherded down the corridor by a pair of well-armed stormtroopers.

When Jacen broke away from his guards just long enough to give her a quick hug, she spoke her words in a whispered burst. “I’ve got a plan. I need your help.”

Rough, armored hands pulled the brother and sister apart. One of the armor-clad guards leveled his blaster pistol at the twins and motioned them to move on.

Jaina smiled in wry amusement. Even with Tamith Kai present, Brakiss still wasn’t certain of their cooperation. The stormtroopers were here to ensure that they caused no trouble.

A slight nod of Jacen’s head told Jaina that he understood her words. “Want to hear a joke?” he asked brightly, purposely changing the subject.

“Sure,” Jaina answered with feigned innocence.

Jacen cleared his throat. “How many stormtroopers does it take to change a glowpanel?”

Jaina cringed inwardly. Her brother certainly was brave—or perhaps foolhardy. Nonetheless, she took the bait. “I don’t know, how many stormtroopers does it take to change a glowpanel?”

One of the guards stepped ahead of Jaina and stopped at the door to a lecture room in which she could see dozens of people seated. She guessed they were probably the other Shadow Academy trainees. The guard with the blaster pistol gestured for them to enter.

“It takes two stormtroopers to change a glowpanel,” Jacen said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “One stormtrooper to change it, and the other one to shoot him and take credit for all the work.”

Jaina tried unsuccessfully to suppress a snort of laughter. Tamith Kai glared violet daggers at Jacen.

Jacen squirmed under her angry regard and muttered, “I can tell you’re from Dathomir. Your people aren’t exactly known for their sense of humor.”

As her two guards took her arms in a bruising grip, Jaina was forced to admit that her brother’s small act of bravado had released something inside her, had shown her that her mind—at least for now—was still free, that she still had choices.

She was dragged into the meeting room, where her guards shoved her into a sitting position at one end of a narrow, backless bench. Jacen’s guards seated him on the opposite side of the room—no doubt to punish him for his joke. Jaina was delighted to see that Lowie sat less than a meter away from her, with only one student between them. He roared a greeting at her and Jacen.

The other students were all human, clean-cut, and wearing dark uniforms. They seemed eager to learn, glad to be at the Shadow Academy, genuine Imperial youth. She had seen people like this before. She, Jacen, and Lowie might be the only ones resisting the training, she knew.

Jaina frowned when she saw that Em Teedee was still not at Lowie’s belt. That would make communication difficult. She wondered what her uncle Luke would do in such a situation. She sat up straight, cleared her mind, and sent a gentle thought probing in Lowie’s direction. She did not feel any pain from him. He was unharmed—of that she was certain—but she did sense tension, confusion, and simmering frustration. She tried to send him soothing thoughts. She wasn’t sure how much got through, but when Lowie briefly reached a furry hand around to touch her shoulder, she knew he understood.

Jaina wondered if she dared speak openly to her Wookiee friend. She would have to find out what the student next to her was like first. He was about her age, and a little taller. Like all the willing students, he wore a tight, sleek-fitting charcoal jumpsuit beneath a flowing robe of purest black. He had blond hair and moss-green eyes, and he glanced at her without any particular recognition or interest.

She sent her thought probe toward the young man, but caught nothing beyond elusive snatches that blared fleetingly in her mind, like disconnected notes from an orchestra tuning its instruments.

“Why are we here?” Jaina asked in a voice just above a whisper.

“Because we are here,” he replied, aloof and a bit defensive. “Because Master Brakiss wishes us to be here.” He looked at her with suspicion, as if she had proved herself mentally deficient. “Are we not all here to learn the ways of the Force from Master Brakiss?”

Before Jaina could reply, Brakiss himself strode into the chamber. The silence in the room was instant and complete. Not a cough or a syllable challenged his compelling presence. Brakiss let his piercing eyes rove across the faces of the gathered students. When his eyes met hers, Jaina felt an inexplicable chill creep down her spine.

Without preamble, he began to teach.

“The Force is an energy that surrounds all living things. It flows through us. It flows from us.”

As his voice streamed around the students, Jaina felt her mind begin to relax. This wasn’t so bad after all. All of it was true. The power in Brakiss’s voice urged action, demanded agreement. Jaina saw the heads of many of the students nodding. She nodded too.

Jaina could not remember the words as Brakiss led them smoothly, logically from one concept to another. All she remembered were the thoughts, the feelings, the lightness of it all.

Then suddenly, for some reason—perhaps it was the light touch of a furry hand on her back—the words came into focus again, began to penetrate the complacent fog of unquestioning agreement that had blanketed her mind.

“You each have the tools inside you to master yourselves, and to master the Force,” the tranquil, confident voice said. “And to draw on the strength of the Force, you must learn to draw on what is strongest in you: strong emotions, deep desires, fear, aggression, hate, anger.”

A resounding No! rang through Jaina’s mind, and she shook her head to clear it. “That … can’t be true,” she whispered. “It’s not true.”

The student next to Jaina flicked his eyes at her with a look of disdain. “Of course it’s true,” he said, as if using indisputable logic. “Master Brakiss said it, so it must be true.”

“What makes you so sure?” Jaina hissed. “Can’t you see that he has a hold on your mind? You should get away from this place and start thinking for yourself.”

“I don’t wish to leave,” he said, his expression implacable. “I wish to study with Master Brakiss and become a Jedi.”

Jaina seethed at his stubbornness. “Have you even thought about this? You can’t just blindly accept whatever he says without bothering to think about it. What if he’s wrong?”

“He is the teacher.” The student’s moss-green eyes blinked at her as if her question made no sense. He stood abruptly, begging Brakiss’s attention.

Jaina took the opportunity to lean behind him and whisper to Lowie. “I’ve got a plan! In a couple of days, I’ll need you to knock out all the station’s power. Be ready.” As she sat back up, her mind finally registered the fact that the stubborn blond student was addressing Brakiss.

“—is trying to convince your other students that they should not believe you, that you do not have the true teachings of the Force. And therefore I suggest that this—this girl is not a worthy pupil for you, Master Brakiss.”

Brakiss’s beautiful, piercing eyes narrowed and came to rest on Jaina. She felt the press of his powerful mind against hers. She tried to resist.

“You are new here,” he said. “You do not know our ways. Listen to my teachings, then make your judgment. Decide for yourself. But do not encourage others to disbelieve me ever again.”

In unison, the students murmured their agreement—with three exceptions.

“At this academy we do not learn only one side of the Force,” Brakiss went on, resuming his lecture, though his comments seemed directed primarily toward Jacen, Jaina, and Lowie. “This is not a school of darkness. I call this a Shadow Academy, for what does life create by its very nature, if not shadows? And it is only through using the full range of your emotions and desires—the light and the dark—that you will become truly strong in the Force and fulfill your destiny. The light side by itself offers only limited power. But when the light is blended with the dark, and you work within the shadows, then you achieve your full potential. Use the strength of the dark side.”

Jaina looked across at Jacen, who was slowly shaking his head. Close beside her, Lowie growled deep in his throat. Unable to contain herself any longer, Jaina stood. “That’s not right,” she said. “The dark side doesn’t make you any stronger. It’s faster, easier, more seductive. It’s also more tenacious. Just as the light side brings freedom, the dark side brings only bondage. Once you enslave yourself to the dark side of the Force, you may never escape.”

A collective gasp went up, but no one said a word as Jaina and Brakiss faced each other over the students’ heads. Brakiss was silent for a long moment, his mind pressing down on hers with suffocating weight.

With a mental heave Jaina flung aside the influence of his mind on hers and challenged him, her eyes filled with pride, her thoughts free.

At last, Brakiss shook his head sadly. “I did not wish to make an example of you. But you leave me no choice. You have chosen to pit your puny light-side powers against my own. I gave you one warning. You will not receive another.”

With that, Brakiss lifted one hand slightly, almost as if to wave a fond farewell. Blue fire danced from his fingertips and surrounded Jaina in a haze of bright agony.

Brakiss’s calm cruelty against Jaina launched Lowbacca into an unbridled rage. Unable to control himself, he leaped from his cramped seat, knocking over the blond student. He howled at the top of his lungs and bared long Wookiee fangs. Ginger-colored fur stuck out in all directions as he yanked up the bench he had been sitting on and raised it over his head.

Alerted by the disturbance, the guards charged into the room, their stun pistols drawn, looking for the source of the chaos—and the enraged Wookiee was not difficult to find.

Lowie threw the bench at the incoming stormtroopers. His blow knocked the first cluster of guards backward into each other, tumbling them down like children’s blocks. Five more stormtroopers tripped over their fallen companions but still managed to wade into the room.

The other Shadow Academy trainees added to the uproar, trying to shout Lowie down. The Wookiee just roared back at them. From the podium, Brakiss urged everyone to be calm, but no one listened.

Another door whisked open, and a new contingent of stormtroopers rushed in from the far side of the room.

Jacen dashed to his unconscious sisters side and cradled her head and shoulders in his lap. With relief, he sensed that she was not seriously injured from the Force blast. She groaned and blinked her brandy-brown eyes, trying to fight her way back to consciousness.

“Jaina,” he called. “Jaina, snap out of it!”

“All right … I am,” she said, struggling to sit up. Then she seemed suddenly to notice the brawl that Lowie had started on her behalf.

The second set of stormtroopers drew their stun pistols as Lowie yanked a bench out from under another Shadow Academy student, sending her to the floor. The student squealed in outrage. Lowie ignored her and raised the bench to throw at the incoming stormtroopers.

They pointed their stun pistols and fired—but the beam caught the front of the bench, doing no damage. Lowie tossed it, and the troopers scrambled out of the way as the bench crashed against the side wall. Lowbacca ducked to pick up something else to throw—and just as he did, the first set of stormtroopers on the other side of the room, finally climbing back to their feet, fired their stun pistols.

Glowing blue arcs shot over Lowie’s back, missing him and striking full against three of the second set of troopers on the other side, stunning them. They sprawled senseless on the floor in a clattering tumble of white plasteel armor.

“Cease this disturbance!” Brakiss shouted. His normally smooth features had lost their serene composure.

One of the stormtroopers in the first group took two steps forward and aimed his stun pistol directly at Lowie’s back as the Wookiee stood up, presenting an easy target.

Jacen watched and—in the moment before the stormtrooper could fire—used his greatest strength with the Force to grasp the troopers blaster and wrench it halfway around, twisting it in the white-gloved hand so that when the guard squeezed the firing button, the barrel was pointed toward his own chest. The stun beam splashed out, knocking the trooper to the ground, unconscious.

“Lowie, I’m all right,” Jaina called, picking herself up and climbing to her feet. “Look, I’m all right!”

More stormtroopers rushed in from both sides of the room, weapons drawn.

“Lowie, calm down,” Jacen said.

Lowbacca looked from side to side, fingers spread, arms ready to tear something apart, until he saw he was clearly outnumbered.

Brakiss stood with his fingers outstretched. A shimmering power curled between them, ready to be unleashed.

“We don’t want to damage you,” Brakiss said, filled with savage intensity, “but you must learn discipline.” The master of the Shadow Academy looked to the stormtroopers. “Return them to their quarters, and keep them separated! We have great work to do here and cannot be distracted by unchanneled displays of temper.”

Then Brakiss adjusted his handsome features until he looked calm and soothing again. He raised his eyebrows in admiration toward Lowie. “I am pleased to see the strength in your anger, young Wookiee. That is something we must develop. You have great potential.”

White-armored guards crushed Lowie’s hairy arms in their unfeeling grip. The stormtroopers marched the three young Jedi Knights out into the corridor and toward their cells.