The Lost Ones

14

Inside his plush new quarters at the Shadow Academy, Zekk awoke feeling oddly refreshed and exhilarated. He had slept deeply and well, as if he had somehow needed recharging. He wondered if Brakiss had placed some sort of drug in his food. Even if that was the case, he thought, it was worth it, because he had never felt so alive or so enthusiastic.

He tried to stop thinking positively, tried to summon up some anger at being kidnapped and dragged off to the Imperial station. But Zekk could not deny that he was being treated with more respect than he had ever experienced before. He gradually began to think of this place as his room rather than as a cell.

He showered until his body tingled with warmth and cleanliness, then spent altogether more time getting ready than he should have. He didn’t care, though. Let Brakiss wait. It would serve him right. Zekk didn’t want to be here, no matter how much attention the leader of the Shadow Academy paid him.

He was concerned about old Peckhum and knew that his friend must be wild with worry for him by now. He was pretty sure that Jacen and Jaina would also have sounded the alarm. But Zekk guessed that Brakiss knew how to deal with that. Zekk just had to bide his time until he could come up with a plan.

While he showered, someone had taken his tattered clothes and replaced them with a new padded suit and polished leather armor, a sleek uniform that looked dark and dashing. He looked around for his old outfit, not wanting to accept more of the Second Imperium’s hospitality than necessary, but he found nothing else to wear—and the fine new clothes fit perfectly….

Zekk tried his door, expecting to find it sealed, and was surprised when it slid open at his command. He stepped out to find Brakiss waiting in the corridor. The calm man’s silvery robes pooled around him, as if knit from shimmering shadows.

A smile crossed Brakiss’s sculpture-perfect face. “Ah, young Zekk—are you ready to begin your training?”

“Not really,” Zekk muttered, “but I don’t suppose it makes any difference.”

“It makes a difference,” Brakiss said. “It means I haven’t explained well enough just what I can do for you. But if you’ll open a chink in the wall of your resistance—just to listen—perhaps you will be convinced.”

“And what if I’m not convinced?” Zekk said with more defiance than he felt.

Brakiss shrugged. “Then I will have failed. What more can I say?”

Zekk didn’t press the point, wondering if he would be killed if he didn’t fall in with the plans of the Second Imperium.

“Come to my office,” Brakiss said, and led the boy down the curving, smooth-walled corridors. They seemed to be alone, but Zekk noticed armed stormtroopers standing in doorways at rigid attention, ready to offer assistance if Brakiss encountered any problems. Zekk stifled a smile at the mere thought of him posing a threat to Brakiss.

The Academy leader’s private chamber seemed as dark as space. The walls were made of black transparisteel, projecting images of cataclysmic astronomical events: flaming solar flares, collapsing stars, gushing lava fields. Zekk looked around in awe. These violent and dangerous images showed a harsher edge to the universe than the galactic tourism kiosks on Coruscant had.

“Sit down,” Brakiss said in his calm, unemotional voice. Zekk, listening for any implied threat, realized that at this point resistance would be futile. He decided to save his struggles for later, when they might count for more.

Brakiss took his place behind his long polished desk, reached into a hidden drawer, and withdrew a small cylindrical flare stick. Gripping both ends in his fine, pale hands, he unscrewed the cylinder in the middle. When the two metal halves came apart, a brilliant blue-green flame spouted upward, shimmering and flickering, but giving off little heat. The cold fire, mirrored on the office walls, threw its washed-out light against the images of astronomical disasters.

“What are you doing?” Zekk asked.

On his desk Brakiss balanced the two halves of the flare stick against each other, forming a triangle. The pale flame curled upward, strong and steady.

“Look at the flame,” Brakiss said. “This is an example of what you can do with your Force abilities. Manipulating fire is a simple thing, a good first test. You’ll see what I mean if you try. Watch.”

Brakiss crooked one finger, and his gaze took on a faraway look. The bright fire began to dance, swaying back and forth, writhing as if it were alive. It grew taller and thinner, a mere tendril, then spread out to become a sphere, like a small glowing sun.

“Once you’ve mastered the simple things,” Brakiss said, “you can try more amusing effects.” He stretched the flame as if it were a rubber sheet, creating a contorted face with flashing eyes and gaping mouth. The face melted into the image of a dragon snapping its long head back and forth, then metamorphosed into a flickering portrait of Zekk himself, drawn in blue-green fire.

Zekk stared in fascination. He wondered if Jacen or Jaina could do anything like this.

Brakiss released his control and let the flame return to a small bright point glimmering on the flare stick. “Now you try it, Zekk. Just concentrate. Feel the fire, like flowing water, like paint. Use fingers in your mind to draw it into different shapes. Swirl it around. You’ll get the feel of it.”

Zekk leaned forward eagerly, then stopped himself. “Why should I cooperate? I’m not going to do any favors for the Second Imperium or the Shadow Academy—or for you.”

Brakiss folded his smooth hands and smiled again. “I wouldn’t want you to do it for me. Or for a government or institution you know little about. I’m asking you to do this for yourself. Haven’t you always wanted to develop your skills, your talents? You have a rare ability. Why not take advantage of this opportunity—especially you, a person whose life has had, if I may say, too few advantages. Even if you return to your old life afterward, won’t you be better off if you can use the Force, rather than relying on what you once thought of as a ‘knack’ for finding valuable objects?”

Brakiss leaned forward. “You are independent, Zekk. I see that. We’re looking for independent people—people who can make their own decisions, who can succeed no matter how much their so-called friends expect them to fail. You have your chance, here, now. If you aren’t interested in bettering yourself, if you don’t bother to make the attempt, then you fail before you’ve even begun.” The words were sharp, reprimanding, but they struck home.

“All right, I’ll try it,” Zekk said. “But don’t expect much.”

He squinted his green eyes and concentrated on the flame. Although he didn’t know what he was doing, he tried different things, various ways of thinking. He stared directly at the flame, then saw it out of the corner of his eye, tried to imagine moving it, nudging it with invisible fingers of thought. He didn’t know what he did or how to describe it—but the flame jumped!

“Good,” Brakiss said. “Now try again.”

Zekk concentrated, retracing the mental path he had taken before, and found it with less effort this time. The flame wavered, bent to one side, then jumped and stretched longer in the other direction. “I can do it!”

Brakiss reached forward and snapped the flare stick together again, extinguishing the flame. Immediately, Zekk felt a sharp disappointment. “Wait! Let me try it one more time.”

“No,” Brakiss said with a smile that was not unkind. “Not too much at once. Come with me to the docking bay. I need to show you something else.”

Zekk licked his lips, feeling hungry somehow, and followed Brakiss, trying to squelch his impatience to try again with the flame. His appetite had now been whetted—and part of him suspected that was exactly what the leader of the Shadow Academy had intended….

Inside the hangar bay Qorl and a regiment of stormtroopers worked to unload the precious cargo they had stolen from the Rebel cruiser Adamant. Brakiss came in leading Zekk, who stared at all the ships stationed at the Shadow Academy.

“I wish I could show you our finest small ship, the Shadow Chaser,” Brakiss said with a look of regret, “but Luke Skywalker took it when he charged in here to capture our trainees Jacen, Jaina, and Lowbacca.”

Zekk scowled, but refrained from telling Brakiss that it served the Shadow Academy right, since they had kidnapped the three young Jedi first, for their own ends. He looked away.

Up in the control room overlooking the cavernous docking bay, the black-haired Tamith Kai stood watching the activities through slitted violet eyes. Beside her were two dark allies from Dathomir, Vilas and Garowyn. Zekk flinched, his lips curling downward in anger as he noted that these were the ones who had stunned him and taken him from Imperial City.

“Pay them no mind,” Brakiss said with a dismissive gesture. “They’re jealous because of the attention I’m paying you.”

Zekk felt a surprising flood of warmth and wondered if the comment was true, or just something Brakiss had said to make him feel more special.

One of the stormtroopers stopped in front of them and saluted. “I have an update for you, sir,” he said to Brakiss. “Our repairs on the upper docking tower are almost complete. We should have it fully functional in two days.”

“Good,” Brakiss said, looking relieved. He explained to Zekk, “I still find it difficult to believe that a Rebel supply shuttle could have been so unfortunately clumsy as to smash right into the cloaked Shadow Academy! These Rebels cause damage even when they’re not looking!”

Qorl hefted one of the small weapons cores from a sealed crate. Zekk guessed from the melted, blackened craters around the control panel that the stormtroopers must have used blasters to break the cyberlocks. The hyperdrive core was long and cylindrical, with yellows and oranges pulsing through translucent tubes where condensed spin-sealed tibanna gas had been charged to power the drives.

“These are fine new models, Lord Brakiss,” the old TIE pilot said. “We can use them to power our weapons systems, or we can convert more of our fighters to lightspeed attack vessels, like my own former TIE fighter.”

Brakiss nodded. “We must let our leader make that decision, but he will be greatly pleased to see this new increase in our military capabilities. Be careful with those components, though,” he said sternly. “Make sure that not a single one gets damaged. We cannot afford to squander resources in the Second Imperium’s quest to regain its rightful power.”

Qorl nodded and turned away.

“You see, Zekk,” Brakiss said, knitting his pale eyebrows together, “we are truly the underdogs in this struggle. Although our movement is small and somewhat hopeless—we know we’re right. We are forced to fight for what is ours against a blundering New Republic that continually seeks to rewrite history and force its chaotic ways upon us all.

“We believe that can only lead to galactic anarchy, with everyone following their own ways, invading one another’s territories, disturbing people, neither caring nor respecting the rule of order.”

Zekk placed his hands on his leather-clad hips. “Okay, but what about freedom? I like being able to do what I want to do.”

“We believe in freedom in the Second Imperium—truly we do,” Brakiss said with great sincerity. “But there’s a point at which too much freedom causes damage. The races of the galaxy need a road map, a framework of order and control, so they can go about their business and not destroy the dreams of others in their own pursuits.

“You are independent, Zekk. You know what you’re doing. But think about all those aimless people displaced by the changes in the galaxy, beings who have nowhere to go, no dreams to follow, no goals … and no one to tell them what to do. You can help to change that.”

Zekk wanted to disagree, wanted to refute Brakiss’s words, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. He clamped his lips together. Even if he couldn’t come up with any good arguments against what Brakiss said, he refused to agree openly.

“No need to give me your answer yet,” Brakiss said in a patient voice. Then he withdrew the flare stick from the pocket of his robe. “Take as long as you need to think about what I’ve said. Ill show you back to your quarters now.”

He handed the flare stick to Zekk, who took it eagerly.

“Spend some time playing with this, if you’d like.” Brakiss smiled. “And then we’ll talk again.”