Apocalypse (48 page)

The muffled rumble of a battle was reverberating up through the floor beneath Ship, and occasionally the entire hull would shudder with the force of an explosion that was either very close or very powerful. If Ben listened carefully, he could even hear the distant screech
of blasters—though the sound was so faint it might have been nothing more than wishful thinking.

Don’t make me use the gas again
. The words came to Ben inside his mind, as dark and full of menace as always.
You need to see what is about to happen
.

“I
need
water,” Ben croaked. “How long was I out that time?”

Long enough
. Ship never gave information to its captives, but Ben always tried anyway. Sometimes he learned more from what Ship attempted to conceal than he would have from a direct answer.
Sit up
.

Ben raised his legs and rocked upright. A tube dropped down from the ceiling of the passenger compartment and stopped in front of his face. He leaned forward and began to drink. The water was so warm and rank that it tasted foul even to someone as thirsty as he was, but he forced himself to continue. Ship could poison him at will by flooding the cabin with noxious gas, so the bad taste was probably no more than a minor cruelty. And if Ben hoped to recover his strength and escape, he needed to drink.

No sooner had the thought flashed through Ben’s mind than the tube retracted into the ceiling.
Have you not yet learned that there is no escape?
Ship asked.
Not from Abeloth
.

A section of hull grew transparent, and Ben saw that Ship was sitting in the formal reception hall just off Pinnacle Platform. Designed to impress, the hall was an immense, cavernous chamber with alabaster walls and a white larmalstone floor. With a sweeping view across Fellowship Plaza, it had once been used by the Jedi Council to receive the Temple’s most distinguished visitors. At present, however, it was filled with blast rubble, gray fumes, and a small band of weary-looking Sith.

Abeloth was here, too. She was standing in the wreckage of the hall’s grand entry, facing out toward the landing deck, between a pair of laser cannon emplacements. At the ends of her upraised arms, her tentacles writhed in the air—as though she were using them to stir the smoke that was swirling over Fellowship Plaza. Even with her back to him, Ben could see that she was looking toward the distant cylinder of the Galactic Justice Center. Her attention did not waver as a trio of blastboats came roaring toward the platform, their nose guns flashing as they strafed the deck.

The cannon emplacements returned fire immediately. The leading
blastboat lost an engine mount, then spiraled out of sight behind the balustrade. A couple of seconds later, Ben felt the sudden rip of half a dozen lives being torn from the Force, and a boiling cloud of smoke and flame rose into view.

By then the remaining two blastboats were crossing the balustrade seven meters above the deck and decelerating hard. Streamers of smoke trailed beneath their bellies as they poured rocket fire into the Sith laser cannons. Both emplacements vanished into balls of orange flame, and Ben thought for a moment that the boats would stop and begin to disgorge space marines.

No such luck.

The blastboats decelerated as expected, and both nose gunners began to pour blasterfire directly at Abeloth. She ignored the attacks until a bolt that should have blown off her right shoulder merely spun her around, tearing her gaze from the Galactic Justice Center—and redirecting it toward her attackers.

Abeloth’s left arm came up so fast that Ben did not even see it move, and the fire from the blaster cannons began to ricochet back toward her attackers. Still hovering seven meters above the deck, the two blastboats spun around sideways, dipping their flanks so the barrels of heavy laser cannons in their top turrets could depress far enough to open fire. At the same time, Ben knew, the doors on the far side of both craft would be sliding open to drop their space marines.

Abeloth merely flicked her wrist. The rear blastboat tumbled into the leader’s exhaust stream, and the plume of superheated ions melted through the nose armor. The Force lurched with a sudden terror, then both craft vanished inside a cloud of detonating ordnance.

Ben thought for an instant that would be the end of the space marines, but they were not so fortunate. Burning bodies began to drop out of the fireball, limbs flailing wildly and voices screaming as they cooked inside their armor. With their propulsion packs either disabled or blowing white flame over their backs, they had no way to slow their descent. A few lucky ones snapped their necks and died quickly. Everyone else broke arms or legs or spines, whatever hit first, then lay writhing in flames as pieces of blastboat crashed down on top of them. Their pain was pure and fiery in the Force, a searing wave that hit Ben like a grenade blast.

Abeloth remained standing in the wrecked entry, one set of tentacles splayed in front of her, using the Force to shield her from the flame and shrapnel blowing in from the platform beyond. The arm beneath her injured shoulder hung limp at her side, but the tentacles at the end were slowly uncurling. They arranged themselves into a rough cone and began to twitch, and the anguish of the dying marines vanished from the Force.

Abeloth was feeding on the dark side energy of their fear, Ben knew. He had seen her do it on Pydyr, when the entire population of the moon believed they were dying from an illusory plague. And now she was doing it on Coruscant, where the anxiety of the inhabitants had to be mounting by the hour as the battle raged ever more fiercely. With trillions of inhabitants on Coruscant, Abeloth’s harvest would be limitless. Ben could not help wondering if this had been her plan all along—to set Jedi and Sith against each other, then feast on the fallout.

You Jedi are such small thinkers
, Ship said, interrupting his thoughts.
Abeloth wants so much more, Ben … especially for you
.

“Yeah? Well, forget it,” Ben said, recalling how Abeloth had taken possession of
two
of his father’s old girlfriends. “I’d rather die than let her use me to get close to Dad.”

Who said
that
is her plan?
Ship replied.
Or that you have a choice?

“I’m a
person
, not some tangled wad of biocircuits like you,” Ben countered. “I
always
have a choice.”

Ship withdrew in a swirl of dark mockery, leaving Ben alone to contemplate his growing despair. Despite his brave words, he had no illusions about his chances of resisting Abeloth in his current circumstances. Every time he so much as
thought
about escaping, he heard a hiss in the ventilation duct, then awoke later with no real idea how long he had been unconscious. If she wanted to change bodies with him—or steal his, or whatever it was she did when she took possession of someone—there was little he could do to stop her.

And that was the most terrifying aspect of his captivity. Abeloth had not hurt him—had barely even spoken to him. In fact, most of the time she seemed entirely oblivious of him. Yet he could always feel her presence, a cold tendril of fear that had taken root deep inside him, binding him to her in a way that chains could not. Abeloth wanted
Ben for her own. She always had. He had first felt her touch as a two-year-old child, when his parents had hidden him and the other Jedi younglings at Shelter during the war with the Yuuzhan Vong. He had not been there an hour before the tendril had come, a cold aching
need
that had frightened him so badly that he had closed himself off from the Force for years.

Now Abeloth had him for good. He could feel that in how the tendril had knotted up inside him, in the way its cold filaments had anchored themselves into his heart and his entire chest. Even if he couldn’t bring himself to accept it, Ben saw the hopelessness of his position. He was Abeloth’s, pure and simple, and the only fate that awaited him now was the one she had planned for him. He understood that.

The only thing Ben didn’t understand was
why
. There were hundreds of powerful young Jedi in the galaxy, and dozens right there on Coruscant. Yet Abeloth had gone to elaborate lengths to capture
him
, to lure him into a trap and separate him from his companions. There had to be something special about him—something that Abeloth needed from Ben that no other young Jedi could provide.

The obvious answer, of course, was lineage. Ben was the only child of Luke Skywalker, who himself was the only son of the Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker. Of course, Jaina Solo was also a grandchild of the Chosen One—but only one of her parents had the Force. So that had to be what Abeloth needed from him—his bloodline.

But
why
?

Ben was still contemplating this question when a pair of weary-looking Sith walked into view, approaching from the rear of the reception hall. The first was a tall, lavender-skinned Keshiri woman. Though badly tattered, her elaborate robe suggested her status as a Sith Lord. She had probably been beautiful once—a few days ago, in fact—but now her face was so rash-covered and swollen that the skin had actually split in places. The second Sith—a young woman—was every bit as haggard as the first. Had she not been wearing light combat armor under a brown Jedi cloak, it was entirely possible that Ben would not have realized he was looking at Vestara Khai.

Part of his confusion arose from the lightsaber still hanging from Vestara’s hip, and from the fact that she seemed to be walking at the
Lord’s side. Vestara’s hands were not bound in any way that Ben could see, and her escort’s hands were not particularly close to her own weapons. Clearly, the Lord did not feel she had anything to fear from Vestara.

Ben went from stunned to confused to angry in the time it took the two women to walk ten meters to Abeloth, who still stood feeding on the fear and anguish of the dying space marines. He could scarcely believe what he was seeing—Vestara walking free among Sith—and it occurred to him this might be a form of Fallanassi illusion, similar to the one that Abeloth had used to deceive him and Vestara on Pydyr. Maybe Vestara was actually in stun cuffs and unarmed, with a Sith Lord at her back pressing a shikkar to her kidney.

Maybe … but Ben didn’t think so. Her presence with the Keshiri woman explained too much—like the ambush in the water treatment plant, and how the Sith always seemed to be one step ahead in the assault on the Temple.

The conflagration out on the platform abated as the last pieces of blastboat came crashing down on the space marines. Abeloth lowered the arm she had been using to shield herself and turned to greet Vestara and the Keshiri Lord. Like loyal subjects, both women immediately dropped to a knee and dipped their heads.

Abeloth balled the tentacles at the end of her injured arm and held them out toward the Keshiri, who kissed them as though they were a hand, then rose. Abeloth repeated the gesture with Vestara, this time glancing toward Ben with her broad mouth curled into a self-satisfied smirk.

And that was when Ben recalled what Vestara had done on Pydyr. When she had realized that Lord Taalon was falling under Abeloth’s sway, she had killed him. And when her own father, Gavar Khai, had turned up in Abeloth’s service, she had killed him, too. Maybe Vestara
had
been a Sith spy all along … though Ben was once more finding that hard to believe. But he was sure of one thing: Vestara would
never
serve Abeloth willingly. So either Vestara could not see Abeloth’s true form, right in front of her … or she was merely playing along—because she had no other choice.

Abeloth continued to look toward Ben for a few moments after
Vestara had kissed the knot of tentacles. Finally, she motioned her “subject” to rise, then led both Vestara and the Keshiri Lord toward Ben. As the trio approached, a section of Ship’s hull peeled away and became a boarding ramp. Abeloth motioned the Keshiri woman to stay behind, then led Vestara aboard and stopped just inside the cabin.

Vestara did not even make it into the cabin. She stopped at the threshold, clearly stunned.
“Ben?”

Ben raised his chin and stared at her, trying to look as though he were struggling to control his anger.

“Sorry about leaving you behind, back at the water treatment plant,” he said, thinking of Abeloth so he could put some real spite into his voice. “But it looks like you came out okay. Sleemos always do.”

Vestara stepped into the cabin and backhanded him across the face … hard. “Watch your tongue, Jedi, or it will be wagging from the tip of my parang.”

Behind her, Abeloth’s tiny silver eyes twinkled with delight, and Ben decided that—if he was right about Vestara—he just might have a chance of surviving this after all. He glared at her for a moment, then hit her with a Force shove … which she was braced to accept. Vestara merely rocked back on her heels, then flicked her wrist and sent him flying so hard his head nearly slammed into the cabin wall when he hit it.

“Be careful, child,” Abeloth said, speaking in what sounded like six voices at once. She stepped forward and laid her tentacles across Vestara’s forearm, eliciting a barely perceptible shiver. It was just enough to suggest to Ben that Vestara knew exactly who had touched her. “He is no good to me dead.”

Vestara glared at Ben with what appeared to be true hatred in her eyes. “As you command, my Beloved Queen.”

“Good.” Abeloth retreated toward the door. “Ship tells me the boy has been thinking of escape again. You will guard him.”

“And if he tries to escape?”

“You won’t let him,” Abeloth replied. She stopped at the top of the boarding ramp. “Perhaps he will be more inclined to remain if you tell him what you did in the escape tunnel.”

Vestara’s eyes grew wide, and Ben felt a flash of alarm in the Force. Before she could reply, Abeloth turned away and descended the boarding ramp.

Ben waited until Abeloth had turned back toward the reception hall’s wrecked entrance, then looked up and met Vestara’s gaze. Her eyes were softer than before, but she wisely resisted any urge to comfort or console him. She knew Ship’s capabilities as well as Ben did. Ship could not only watch her, it could eavesdrop on the thoughts in the top of her mind.