"Michael Stackpole "I, Jedi"" - читать интересную книгу автора

We spoke of many things that evening, even on the ride back to the estate. I discovered in my grandfather that night some-one I had never known before. Of course, my first relationship with him had been established as a child to a man, which brought with it certain behaviors. By the time I moved into adulthood, I'd joined CorSec, and our relationship shifted to more of a professional one. This was not a deliberate shift but a natural one, since our jobs dominated our lives. While I could speak to him about my romantic entanglements, that again was a youth speaking to an elder. And then, when my father died, the pain we both felt battered us emotionally to the point where sharing feelings hurt too much, so we stoically didn't touch upon subjects that would reopen old wounds.
On this night, for the first time, I was able to relate to him as just one adult to another. It was an odd feeling, yet one in which I took great pride. Here was the man who knew my father and Nejaa better than anyone. If he could like me, if he could respect what I had done, then there was a good chance th<~, would have also. This realization quelled some of the dis-comfort I'd felt since my final encounter with Exar Kun, and that night I went to sleep feeling better than I had in a long time.
Master Skywalker had once said that Jedi do not dream, so when I found myself on a bright, arid world, with my lightsaber unlit but held in my right hand, I wondered at how I had gotten where I was. I saw the emerald sleeves of my Corellian Jedi tunic, and even that did not seem out of place, though the material was finer than that of the clothes I'd been given on Yavin 4. It wasn't until I looked over to my right and saw Ylenic It'kla, resplendent in his purple cloak, and, beyond him, the Jedi General in his brown and khaki desert-born robes, that I realized I wasn't me.
The three of us, spread out sufficiently to give ourselves room to fight, stood in a dusty bowl-shaped depression beneath a duracrete dome. A dozen three-meter-tall pillars scattered around its circumference held the dome aloft, allowing the light from the outside to illuminate the arena. Makeshift tents and storage sheds occupied a quarter of the arena in the direction we were facing. Emerging from the central pavilion, three fig-ures came out to stand opposite us. Each of them bore a light-saber. Their leader, the taller, blond man facing the general, took a step closer to us than his comrades. The red-haired woman aligned herself with Ylenic, while the Anzati, with his proboscises just beginning to peek from the cheek pouches that hid them, lined up to oppose me.
The general-his name eluded me though I knew I recog-nized something about him-spoke very precisely. УYou are meddling with things you cannot control; things that nearly de-stroyed the Jedi millennia ago. We have come to ask you to abandon your evil and return to the light.Ф
The leader laughed slowly, his voice low and laden with con-tempt. УThe weak always fear the strong growing up to replace them.Ф
УAnd the foolish always see themselves as strong.Ф The words came from my throat and I could feel my lips forming them. It almost even sounded like something I'd say, though more formal-more archaic and precise-than I would have liked.
Ylenic's voice came gentle yet strong. УFear marks the wrong path. We offer you freedom from your fear.Ф
Their leader thumbed his lightsaber to life. УAnd we offer you freedom as well.Ф
The Anzati, taller than me, darker, entirely humanoid save for the proboscises uncurling in his excitement, ignited his blue blade and closed with me. Nikkos Tyris-his name came easily to me-held his lightsaber in a guard I'd not seen before. He had his left hand on the hilt fairly close to the shimmering blade, but the blade itself extended out and down from the lower edge of his hand toward the ground. His right hand rode the lightsaber's pommel. Holding the blade out away from his body, with his right hand at the level of his chin, he could waggle the blade back and forth in a triangle of coverage that would ward him well. This triangle style-the thought suddenly came to me like a long lost memory-favored a man who was quick, and would combine sweeping strikes at my legs with a flick of the wrist cut that would open me from groin to chin.
I knew fear, but the person I was in the dream shunted it away. I held my silvery blade in a simple guard, though I tilted the blade forward, pointing it at his throat. We circled, then he struck. His blade flicked out for my right leg. I swept my blade down to block low right, sparks flying as our blades crashed into each other. He bounced his blade up and over mine, and brought it across in a slash meant to decapitate me.
I caught the acrid stink as some of my hair melted beneath the lightsaber's lethal caress, but I ducked the blow by a safe margin. Rotating my wrists, I swept my blade back low, through where his legs should have been, but he leaped up and away from my strike. He flipped backward through the air, displaying great ability with levitation, and landed easily four meters away from me.
His dark eyes blazed for a moment, then an invisible fist smashed into my chest, knocking me backward. He freed his right hand from his azure blade, and flicked fingers at me with the most casual of gestures. A fist-sized stone shot at me from the ground, clipping me on the left shoulder. Pain shot through my arm, leaving it numb. He laughed and hurled another stone toward me. I deflected it with my lightsaber and smiled, then another rock slammed into the left side of my head.
I went down hard, raising a small cloud of dust when I hit the ground. My lightsaber bounced out of my grasp and I didn't see where it landed. I shook my head to try to clear it, but pain and a faint ringing made that difficult.
I could feel blood coating the left side of my face and swiped at it with the left sleeve of my tunic. I heard the crunch of gravel beneath his boots as Tyris approached. Drawing myself up into a crouch, I glanced to my right and finally saw my lightsaber lying there, two meters away. I wanted to call it to my hand, but I knew it would never come. I could dive for it, but his lightsaber would pin me to the ground before I ever got there.
УSo, it is true, what they have said about the Halcyon line. You are wingclipped mynocks.Ф An evil smile spread across Tyris's face as he brought his lightsaber around to display for me the tool of my destruction. УYou are a line of weakness.Ф I smiled, knowing what I had to do. УWe have our strengths.Ф УDo you?Ф He whisked the blade back around to his left, preparatory to sweeping it through me. УBetter summon one swiftly.Ф
In the second of life he left me, I caught a vision of him standing above me and my dead comrades. Our slain bodies faded away, but his mocking laughter did not. I knew with a certainty as clear and hard as transparisteel that if I did not deal with Tyris, my friends and our mission here would be de-stroyed. I couldn't let that happen, so I acted.
I launched myself toward my lightsaber, my right hand reach-ing for it. My body twisted in the air as I flew. I landed on my back, skidding the last centimeters to where my hand closed on the blade's hilt. Even as I tightened my grip, even as I started to bring the blade around in a parry, I knew I would be too late. So did Tyris.
He stabbed his blade down through my chest. The azure blade melted flesh and boiled blood as it went, reducing my heart to sweet smoke and steam. On further it stabbed, explod-ing arteries and burning through my spine. The lower part of my body went numb, though I barely noticed because of the wave of agony surging up through me and into my brain. It threatened to overwhelm me, letting darkness nibble into my sight. I was dying and I knew it and regrets poured in with the pain.
But I was not dead yet.
I was a Halcyon. I was a Jedi.
Jedi do not know pain.
In an instant all physical agony ceased as effectively as if I'd flicked a switch and turned all my pain receptors off. All I was left with was an incredible clarity of mind and a singleness of purpose. I'd dedicated my life to the service of others, to the service of the Force. I would not go out without my duty being fulfilled. I concentrated and employed the greatest Halcyon gift against my enemy.
I sucked the energy out of the Anzati's lightsaber and forced myself to smile as I did so. I tasted blood in my mouth, but that fact elicited no panic. It was inconsequential. More telling was the look of surprise on Tyris' face as his blue blade flickered once, then twice, then went out. I'd drained it of every last joule and let him read in my eyes that he should suddenly be very afraid.
With the energy I'd pulled in I plucked him from the ground in a giant invisible fist. He screamed, I think; at least his mouth worked as if he was screaming. I made the fist convulse once and I felt no resistance as his bones shattered. I let him hang limp in the air for a moment, then hurled him back through the tents to slam him against the dome and a support. I felt a jolt through the Force and saw a blue flash of light, but by then my energy reserves had faded.
As did I. I felt spiky red torments racing in to fill my con-sciousness, but I slipped out of my fleshy prison before they could shackle me to this spot forever.
I sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring off my body. I felt for the burned, crusted hole in my chest but found nothing. My head pounded, but I found no torn scalp, no bump rising from a stone, no blood. A shiver ran down my spine and I realized that I actually could feel my lower body again.
I stumbled out of bed and staggered to my room's refresher station. I started cold water running and splashed it on my face as the station's glowpanels brightened. I drank from my cupped hands, quenching an intense thirst, then lowered my face into the catch basin and let the water flow over the back of my head.
Finally I brought my head up. As water trickled down over my back and chest, I glanced in the mirror and saw my grandfa-ther's face where mine should have been. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Opening them again, amid the tear-tracks wa-ter droplets left on the mirror, I saw Nejaa Halcyon's features fade and mine return. I reached up and touched my own face, letting my fingers confirm what my eyes saw, and that sent a shoulder-shifting shudder through me.
I turned away from the mirror and buried my face in my hands. For the past ten weeks I'd been an idiot. I could have seen it, I would have seen it, but by going to the academy I'd cut myself off from the friends who would have helped make it all clear to me.
My father's saying-УIf you cannot recognize the man in the mirror, it is time to step back and see when you stopped being yourself.Ф-should have been my guide all the way along. In joining Luke I wasn't being myself, I was trying to become my grandfather. And the dream made it abundantly clear that to do that was a disaster. Corran Horn was not a Jedi.
What Corran Horn was was an investigator, trained by Cor-Sec, to deal with all manner of problems just like the Invids. If they'd been a pirate band working the Corellian sector, I'd have infiltrated them, ferreted out their secrets, and busted them up. I'd done that very thing dozens of times in my career. Granted, no organization I faced had been that big, powerful or elusive, but size works against efficiency with criminal organiza-tions, and power allows for greed to be played off against greed, creating discord.
I'd spent ten weeks wasting my time when I could have been out there going after Mirax's kidnappers the best way I knew how. That sort of investigation certainly would take time- months at the very least, but at least I'd be doing something that would get me closer to Mirax. The Jedi stuff I had learned was fine for saving the galaxy, but I only wanted to save one person, and save her I could.
I turned back toward the mirror and nodded to the man I saw there. УGood to see you again, Corran Horn. It's time this Invid business is ended once and for all.Ф
The flight attendant on the shut-tle smiled at me and leaned down so her lowered voice would not carry very far. It really didn't matter, since my seatmate and I were the only people who had boarded and were in the Pre-mier cabin on the shuttle. УForgive me for being so forward, sir, but your pass has an ultraviolet flag on it, and on Tinta Lines, we like to afford such honored customers some privileges. The captain isn't yet on board, but he was wondering if you would care to join him in the cockpit for the release and transit over to the Tinta Rainbow?Ф
I smiled, and would have refused, but Jenos Idanian, who I had become for my trip away from CoreIlia, never would have. УI would be delighted to join him.Ф
A tone sounded from the back. The flight attendant, rather resplendent in her blue and gold Tinta Lines uniform, glanced back into the main passenger cabin. There a Kuati woman was doing her best to stuff a huge carryall into a starboard, over-seat storage compartment and close the door. The flight attendant sighed. УYou, of course, know your way around a Luxuo,-class shuttle, so you can head forward whenever you want.Ф
УThanks.Ф
My seatmate, a young man whose more prominent features were a big larynx and bigger nose, beamed at me. УDo you really know your way around on one of these ships? I've studied them at tech-school and know they have the Astronav P127 Course Plotter, but of course, we're not going to use it since we're just going on an in-system jump, but it's a beauty and can come up with courses very fast, even multiple jumps, and when I've used the one at school I could plot a tough course in sec-onds.Ф
I held a hand up. УSlow down, breathe.Ф
УSorry.Ф He smiled sheepishly at me. УIt's just that forever and ever and ever I've wanted to fly. Ever since I've been a little kid, I mean, really little, I've heard stories about the Re-bellion-well, the New Republic now-and Rogue Squadron and all them and I've wanted to fly just like them. And when Grand Admiral Thrawn showed up I volunteered for service to fight him, but I didn't test out very good, so I went to tech-school to learn how to fix ships and then they found I could do good navigation, so they trained me for that, but then Thrawn was gone and forces got demobilized and so I was looking for a civilian job with the Tinta line .... У
УReally, look, just breathe.Ф I offered him my hand because Jenos would do that sort of thing. УJenos Idanian.Ф
УKeevy Spart.Ф He wiped sweat from his forehead with a long-fingered hand. Freckles covered him. He wore his red hair shorter than mine and was slender enough that he almost re-minded me of Kirtan Loor, but this kid wasn't that stupid or mean. УSo, do you fly one of these things?Ф
УI have, Keevy, the military variant. Back during the Rebel-lion some.Ф I looked around the Premier cabin. УThose shuttles didn't have the accommodations this one does, and we packed soldiers in fairly tightly. And our navicomp wasn't as sophisti-cated as the one you describe.Ф УOh, this is so exciting.Ф I smiled. УTell me about it.Ф
УOkay . . .Ф he began.
I sank back in my seat and kept a smile on my face because that's what Jenos would have done. The morning after the nightmare I had joined my grandfather in the greenhouse and told him what I had resolved to do: to leave Coreilia and infil-trate the Invids. He applauded the plan and immediately set about getting me squared away to do so. He took a look at the identification Booster had provided me and while pronouncing it Уmarginally adequate,Ф he got on the comlink and soon had documents for me that appeared quite genuine.
УThey are, Corran, quite genuine.Ф My grandfather smiled at me. УThey will pass the most rigorous inspection.Ф
I looked at the identification card with my holegraph on it.
УWho is Jenos Idanian?Ф
УOriginally? He was a small-time crook a bit older than you. He vanished, but his record was still on file. I adjusted details and the age to fit you better. You now have some youthful indiscretions in your background, including some ship-theft re-lated problems and some smuggling arrests. Not enough to mark you well-known, but enough to suggest you know what you are doing. For your purposes, Jenos has since reformed, partially because of his participation in the Rebellion, and now works as a broker selling used starships.Ф