The Desperate Mission Read online

  He charged forward, leading with his shoulder, and slammed into the

  officer, knocking him down. Obi-Wan leaped through the opening, and Ferus

  followed.

  The gravsled was empty. Trever must have taken off on foot when the

  alarm sounded. Ferus saw the Firespray on one end of the platform. Another

  silver cruiser was near the checkpoint. As much as Ferus would have enjoyed

  stealing Boba Fett's, the other was closer. They raced toward it.

  Blaster fire suddenly peppered the shell of the cruiser. Stormtroopers

  were pouring after them. Obi-Wan's lightsaber was a dancing arc of light.

  Ferus jumped into the cockpit. He swung the cannons toward the line of

  stormtroopers and blasted away.

  Obi-Wan jumped inside the cruiser. Across the hangar, a dark streak

  dashed. It was Boba Fett, racing for his Firespray. Ferus took off.

  They shot into the sky. Below, the city of Ussa became a small blue

  dot. Within seconds, they had blasted out of the atmosphere and were in

  space.

  "We have to jump to hyperspace. It's the only way we can lose Fett,"

  Obi-Wan said.

  "I know."

  "As long as you remain on the planet, the Empire will use you to

  threaten the citizens. Once we leave, you might not be able to return for a

  long time. Maybe never."

  Ferus gave one backward glance at Bellassa. He thought of everything

  he was leaving. He thought of Roan.

  "I know," he said again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Once they were in hyperspace, they didn't speak for awhile. Ferus felt

  an enormous pain in his heart. He was not a native Bellassan, but he had

  adopted that world. It was his homeworld. He had made a life there. He felt

  as if he had been cut in two.

  Obi-Wan put in the coordinates of a spaceport that orbited a pair of

  dying stars called the Red Twins. The Empire's reach did not extend that

  far, at least in terms of constant monitoring. He ran checks on the

  systems, giving Ferus time to recover. Ferus had gotten to know Obi-Wan

  better over the space of two days than he'd known him in all his years in

  the Jedi Temple. He had always known that Obi-Wan had courage, but he had

  seen his sensitivity to emotion, too.

  "What was it about Polis Massa?" Ferus asked, breaking the silence.

  "You looked as blue as a Twi'lek when I read the name."

  Obi-Wan stared into the depths of the nav computer. The glow of the

  screen made him look suddenly haggard.

  "I can't tell you," he said. "It concerns something... information I

  must keep to myself. If I give it away, it could endanger you, and more

  than you.... It could endanger what you believe in." Obi-Wan turned to face

  him. "This isn't about trust. I trust you, Ferus. But I am returning to

  where I make my exile. If you need me, we can figure out a way for you to

  call on me. You don't understand this, but I believe that the future of the

  galaxy lies in my ability to wait."

  "All right," Ferus said. "That is your task. But mine is to locate as

  many Jedi as I can find. There must be others. The Force-sensitive who need

  help. Jedi who have gone underground. I know they're out there. I'll find

  them. If I can establish a safe place, we can be ready for what comes."

  "Another war?"

  "It is inevitable. Especially since you've told me the Emperor is a

  Sith."

  "All the more reason to wait." Obi-Wan sighed. "But before we part, I

  wanted to ask you something. I always suspected that Anakin played a part

  in your leaving the Jedi."

  "Everyone played a part," Ferus said, evading the question. "What

  difference does it make? They're all dead now."

  He had seen how hard it was for Obi-Wan to say Anakin's name. He must

  miss his apprentice. Ferus wondered how Anakin had died, but he didn't want

  to ask. He didn't want to dredge up a painful memory for Obi-Wan.

  And he didn't want to tell him the real story of his resignation from

  the Jedi. How he suspected that Anakin had deliberately withheld

  information about Tru Veld's lightsaber, knowing it would fail in battle.

  Because of that, Darra Thel-Tanis had died. Yet Ferus had felt responsible.

  He had fixed Tru's lightsaber and kept it a secret, a violation of the

  rules between Master and Padawan. Anakin had known it, and kept it a

  secret, too.

  It was all so long ago. Mistakes made by boys, by Padawans with dreams

  of becoming great Jedi Masters.

  The dreams had died. It was so hard for Ferus to accept that the Jedi

  Order had died, too. He would not believe it. He would not allow himself to

  believe it. He would scour the galaxy until he found every last one of

  them. His cause had been Bellassa. Now it was the survival of the galaxy

  itself.

  "I should have realized it," Obi-Wan spoke up. Ferus realized he was

  still thinking about Ferus's resignation from the Order. "I should have

  asked more questions. Something didn't feel right at the time."

  "It doesn't matter," Ferus said. "I walked away. It was the most

  difficult thing I ever had to do, but in a way I'm glad it happened."

  "You're still a Jedi, Ferus."

  "No," Ferus said slowly. "I'm not. I can never really be a Jedi again.

  Not just because I left the Order." He looked back, in the direction of

  Bellassa. "I have attachments."

  "Once there was something I wanted, something forbidden by the Jedi

  code," Obi-Wan said. "Qui-Gon said something to me then. He said, maybe in

  a different galaxy things will change. The Jedi will change. Here is the

  change, Ferus. And I think... in the new order, attachments will be a

  strength. Maybe this is how the galaxy will be saved. So yes, you are still

  a Jedi."

  Suddenly, a head with spiky blue hair popped out of a storage closet.

  "You're a Jedi, Ferus? You monkey lizard - that's galactic!"

  Ferus rose from his seat. "Trever! What are you doing here?"

  Trever squeezed out of the tiny space and tumbled out onto the cockpit

  floor. He rose, dusting off his coveralls. "What did you expect me to do

  when the alarms went off? I hid."

  "You knew we would be heading for this cruiser," Obi-Wan said sternly.

  "You could have said something before we jumped to hyperspace. Why did you

  stay hidden?"

  "I need a vacation?" Trever said.

  "Great. Enjoy the ride," Ferus said. "As soon as we land, I'm putting

  you on the first transport back."

  "You can't," Trever said. "I was recognized at the checkpoint. They

  have my image in their databank. They'll throw me in prison. Probably

  execute me for helping you escape." He grinned at Ferus's annoyed

  expression. "Looks like you're stuck with me."

  "How lucky can you get," Ferus said.

  So, despite his best efforts to become an exile, he had managed to

  become a Jedi again. Obi-Wan stared down at his lightsaber. Something deep

  stirred in him, and for the first time in a long, long while, it wasn't

  pain or regret. It was purpose. He understood now, more fully than he had,

  that justice would rise again. He couldn't predict when or how, but he knew

  beings like Ferus would be a part of it. When he had told Ferus
that

  attachments could be a source of strength, he had been speaking for

  himself, too. The tug that had brought him to Ferus's side had been more

  than a concern for Luke. It had reconnected him to something he had lost.

  He had spent so many months thinking of the dead. Dreaming of them. Now it

  was time to join the living.

  That was why watching over Luke was so crucial. That was why he

  couldn't lose hope, couldn't falter. Everything he knew was gone, and when

  things changed, they would not change in the way he wanted. He would not

  get back all that he'd lost. He realized now how much of his bitterness had

  been tied up in that simple, childish wish - to have back what he'd loved.

  What he loved was gone forever.

  What would come he couldn't see.

  What he had to do to make it happen, he would do. He would do it out

  of more than duty now. He would do it with his heart.

  They came out of hyperspace close to their destination. The Red Twins

  were hidden in a dense nebula, and they had to use the nay computer to make

  their way. Then, suddenly, they had a visual sighting, a reddish haze that

  looked like one faint star.

  Obi-Wan gave their position to the spaceport, and they were cleared to

  land. Ferus dropped the cruiser neatly into the target landing area and

  then manually guided it to a parking space. He stretched.

  "I could use a meal and a rest," he said.

  "I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit longer for that," Obi-Wan said.

  Foreboding snaked through Ferus. He followed Obi-Wan's gaze out the

  viewscreen to the crowded spaceport. Parked only meters away was the

  Firespray attack ship.

  Boba Fett had found them.