Shadow Academy

19

Tenel Ka used a Jedi relaxation technique, hoping to quell her nervousness before Vonnda Ra could pick up on it. Waiting beside her at the strip of packed dirt the Nightsisters used for a landing field, Luke looked serene, but Tenel Ka caught a trace of curiosity and excitement in him, as if he were embarking on a great adventure.

“There,” said Vonnda Ra, stretching an arm toward the horizon where a glimmer of silver flickered. As Tenel Ka watched, the streamlined metallic shape grew rapidly larger.

“You are most fortunate,” Vilas said, striding up behind them. Vonnda Ra sent him a questioning look, and he shrugged. “I felt her presence, and I could not help but come to greet her.” He indicated the approaching craft. “One of our most accomplished young sisters, Garowyn herself, will escort you to your new place of training.”

Tenel Ka guessed that Garowyn must also come from Dathomir, since the name was common enough here. Another Nightsister then. How could so many Nightsisters have come together so quickly? she wondered. It was not yet two decades since Luke and her parents had eradicated the old Nightsisters, yet here again was a growing enclave of both women and men who had been seduced by the dark side of the Force, lured by its promises of power. The Empire had been here as well, seeking new allies.

Tenel Ka gritted her teeth. Were her people truly so weak? Or was the temptation of great power, once tasted, too strong to resist? She renewed her resolve: She would not use the Force unless her own physical powers were inadequate for the situation. She didn’t like easy solutions.

Tenel Ka stifled her feelings as a compact, shiny ship settled with effortless precision not far from where they stood. Although she knew it belonged to the Nightsisters—or to whomever had kidnapped Jacen and Jaina and Lowbacca—she marveled at its construction.

The ship was not large, probably built to carry a dozen people, but its lines were clean and smooth, almost inviting Tenel Ka to run her hand along its side. No carbon scoring stained the hull; its surface bore no pits, dents, or evidence of the meteorites commonly encountered in space and atmosphere. The overall design seemed vaguely Imperial, but Tenel Ka could not identify it as any type of craft she had ever seen before.

She heard a low whistle from Luke and a murmured question, as if he were talking to himself. “Quantum armor?”

“Exactly,” Vilas said, sounding pleased.

As an entry ramp extended from the sleek underbelly of the small craft, Vonnda Ra stepped forward to greet the woman who emerged, clasping both of her hands in welcome. When the woman stepped off the ramp, Tenel Ka saw that she was half a meter shorter than Vonnda Ra. Though petite, the newcomer was powerfully built. Long, light brown hair streaked with bronze fell to her waist, secured with just enough braids and thongs to keep it out of her way, as befitted a warrior woman of Dathomir.

Without further ado, the woman pilot broke away from Vonnda Ra and came to stand before Luke and Tenel Ka. Her hazel eyes assessed each of them critically. “You are new recruits?”

Before Tenel Ka could answer, Vilas broke in, as if desperately eager to talk to the pilot. “You’ll find that they have remarkable potential, Captain Garowyn.”

Tenel Ka heard tension and hope—and longing—in his voice. She wondered if Vilas could be secretly in love with Garowyn. Her features were refined, and her creamy-brown skin was set off to perfection by her tight-fitting red lizard-skin armor. The black knee-length cape she wore open at the front seemed to be her only outward concession to the fact that she was a Nightsister, and Tenel Ka guessed from the haughty set of her mouth and her shrewd eyes that Garowyn did not often make concessions.

“Vilas, busy yourself unloading the supplies,” Garowyn said dismissively. “I will test these two myself.” Vilas cringed and shuffled dispiritedly over to unload the ship, but Garowyn did not notice. She threw Luke and Tenel Ka a challenging look and directed a question at them. “What do you think of my ship, the Shadow Chaser?”

“It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Luke replied softly.

“This is a fact,” Tenel Ka said in a reverent voice.

“Yes, this is a fact,” Garowyn said, apparently satisfied. “The Shadow Chaser is state-of-the-art. At the moment she’s the only one of her kind.” Then, seeming to forget that Vonnda Ra and Vilas even existed, she said, “I do not wish to waste time. Come aboard. When the hold is empty we will get under way.”

With that, she turned smartly and headed for the ship. Luke and Tenel Ka followed.

As the Shadow Chaser accelerated into hyperspace and the twinkling lights in the forward view-screen elongated into starlines, Tenel Ka watched Garowyn set her automatic controls and stand up from the pilot seat.

“Our journey will take two standard days,” Garowyn said, moving past them and out of the cockpit. “I may as well acquaint you with my ship. No expense was spared for the Shadow Chaser.”

She showed them the food- and waste-processing systems, the hyperdrive engines, the sleeping cubicles … but most of it was a blur to Tenel Ka.

“And these”—Garowyn pointed toward several hatches at the back of the cabin—“are the escape pods. Each is large enough to carry only one passenger, and is equipped with a homing beacon that broadcasts its location on a signature frequency that can only be decoded at the Shadow Academy, where you will learn your true potential.”

With that, Garowyn resumed the tour, but Tenel Ka flashed an alarmed glance at Master Skywalker, who met her gaze with equal concern. Her mind whirled at the idea that another Jedi academy existed, an academy for learning the dark powers of the Force. A Shadow Academy.

Garowyn decided to test them thoroughly. She questioned Luke and Tenel Ka by turns about their familiarity with the Force. Luke was vague in his answers, but Garowyn—perhaps because she was from Dathomir and considered men to be of little importance—concentrated her efforts on finding out more about Tenel Ka.

When Garowyn asked what experience she had, Tenel Ka answered truthfully. “I have used the Force, and I believe that I am strong. However,” she added, her voice growing hard, “I will not rely on the Force so much that I become weak. If there is anything I can do under my own power, I will not use the Force to do it.”

Garowyn laughed at that, a harsh, cynical laugh that grated in Tenel Ka’s ears. “We will change your mind without too much difficulty,” she said. “Why else would you come to us for training?”

Tenel Ka considered this for a moment and phrased her reply carefully. “I have no greater desire than to learn the ways of the Force,” she said at last.

Garowyn nodded, as if that closed the issue, and turned to Luke. “I refuse to conduct lightsaber drills aboard the Shadow Chaser, but we shall see soon enough how well you sense my intentions using the Force.” She picked up a stun staff in each hand and tossed one of them to Luke. Luke stretched out his arm, fumbled slightly, but caught the staff before it touched the floor.

And so it went for most of the day.

Tenel Ka did the best she could at each stage of the testing, but she could see that Luke was holding back, not revealing the full extent of his power—she had observed Master Skywalker enough to know this.

After seeing him weaken or fail in several of the tests, however, a thread of worry began to weave through her mind. What if Master Skywalker had fallen ill? What if he couldn’t use his powers? Or what if—it hurt to even think it—what if he had been wrong, after all? What if the dark side really was stronger? If so, she and Master Skywalker did not stand a chance of rescuing Jacen, Jaina, and Lowbacca.

Tenel Ka felt weak and drained by the time she had lifted her tenth object to satisfy Garowyn’s sense of completeness. The titanium block wobbled and shook as she lowered it to the floor of the cabin.

Garowyn gave a derisive chuckle. “Your pride in self-sufficiency is your weakness.” With that, she closed her hazel eyes, flung her head back, and stretched an arm out toward Tenel Ka.

Tenel Ka felt the hair on her scalp and her skin prickle as if lightning were about to strike. Her stomach churned, and she felt giddy and disoriented. She bent her legs to sit but found nothing to support her. She was floating a meter above the cabin floor. Tenel Ka stifled a gasp of outrage and attempted to use her mind to wrench herself free.

Garowyn’s creamy-brown face was furrowed with cruel lines of deep concentration. “Yes,” she said in a guttural, triumphant voice, “try to resist me. Use your anger.”

Realizing that this was exactly what she had been doing, Tenel Ka went limp. As she did so, Garowyn lost her grip slightly, and Tenel Ka wobbled in midair. So, she mused, the Nightsister is not as strong as she thinks she is.

Then, pretending to struggle again to hide what she was doing, she removed the fibercord and grappling hook that she carried at her waist and looked around for an anchor point. She soon found something that would work perfectly: the wheel on an escape pod’s pressure hatch.

Garowyn was still amusing herself with Tenel Ka’s “struggles” when, with a practiced flick of her wrist, Tenel Ka flung out her line; the grappling hook caught securely on its intended target. Before the Nightsister could notice, Tenel Ka went completely limp again. When Garowyn’s grasp wavered again, Tenel Ka jerked on the line and wrenched herself free, falling to the floor and landing painfully on her rear.

She looked up to see Garowyn’s petite form towering over her. But instead of an angry rebuke, all she heard from the Nightsister was a short, sharp bark of amazed laughter.

Garowyn reached out a hand to help Tenel Ka up. “Your pride has served you this time, but it may be your downfall yet,” she said.

“That is often true of pride,” Luke said quietly, seeming to agree. His eyes assessed the Nightsister. “I believe I could do that.”

Garowyn’s lips twisted in a derisive smile. “What? You think you could fall on your—?”

“No,” Luke cut in. “I believe I could lift a person.”

“So?” Garowyn chortled, as if rising to a challenge. “Do your best.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, and her hazel eyes dared Luke to move her. Suddenly, her eyes grew wide with astonishment and confusion as her feet drifted off the floor and she rose a full meter and a half into the air.

“I can see that it is time to teach you the power of the dark side as well,” she snapped haughtily. She closed her eyes and wrenched with all her might.

Tenel Ka sensed that Luke loosened his grip—but only partially. Garowyn still floated above the deck, but he allowed the force of her movement to turn her around and send her into a dizzying spin.

Then, never taking his eyes from the twirling Nightsister, Luke said, “Tenel Ka, if you would be so kind as to open that first escape pod.”

She understood his intention immediately, and moved to do as he asked. Within moments they had the gyrating, disoriented Nightsister deposited and sealed within the pod. Tenel Ka’s hand hovered above the automatic jettison switch. Luke nodded.

With great satisfaction, she triggered the launch. With a whoosh and a thump, the escape pod containing Garowyn shot out into deep space.

“Master Skywalker,” Tenel Ka said, her face serious, “I believe I now understand how it might be possible, as you said, to … turn a situation.

Luke looked at her, blinked once in amazement, and laughed. “Tenel Ka,” he said, “I believe you just made a joke. Jacen would be proud of you.”

Later that day, when they dropped out of hyperspace and the autopilot alerted them that they were about to arrive at their destination, Luke and Tenel Ka sat in the cockpit looking vainly for a planet, a space station, anything on which they might land.

But they saw nothing.

Tenel Ka turned to Luke in confusion. “Could the autopilot have malfunctioned?” she asked. “Did we have the wrong coordinates?”

“No,” he said, seeming calm and self-assured. “We must wait.”

Then, as if a curtain had suddenly been drawn aside, they saw it: a space station. A Shadow Academy, Tenel Ka reminded herself. A spiked torus spinning in space, protected by exterior gun emplacements and crowned with several tall observation towers.

“It must have been cloaked,” Luke said.

As they approached the Shadow Academy, docking-bay doors opened automatically, and Luke placed a reassuring hand on Tenel Ka’s shoulder.

“The dark side is not stronger,” he said.

Tenel Ka let out a long breath, and some of her tension drained away with it.

“This is a fact,” she whispered.