“Jacen, now isn’t the time,” he said in a rough voice.
A brawny boy with close-set eyes and thick eyebrows stood up, glaring. “I don’t recall inviting you two.” Jacen recognized the bully Norys.
Zekk gestured behind him to calm the burly gang leader. “Let me handle this.” Anger showed clearly in Zekk’s face as he shook his head at Jacen. “Why couldn’t you have left me alone for just a little longer?”
Jacen scratched his tousled hair, completely baffled. When he stepped forward in confusion, Zekk flinched. “Go away,” he whispered, “you’ll ruin everything!”
The other Lost Ones stood up from their places like a pack of nek battle dogs zeroing in on a target. Jacen swallowed. Beside him, Tenel Ka placed a protective hand on his shoulder, in case they would be required to fight.
“Zekk, it’s us,” Jacen pleaded. “We aren’t going to ruin anything—we’re your friends.”
Just then, one of the corroded doors at the far side of the chamber scraped open. “They are not your friends, young Lord Zekk,” said a woman’s voice, rich and low. “You know better than that now. They may claim to be your friends, but you’ve seen evidence of just how much they truly value you.”
Jacen and Tenel Ka both whirled to see the ominous form of the black-cloaked Nightsister, with her static-charged ebony hair and blazing violet eyes. The upthrust spines on the shoulders of her cloak looked like spears. Two others dressed in similar fashion stood on either side of her: a young dark-haired man and a petite powerhouse of a woman, both of whom looked as rigid as the towering Nightsister herself.
“Tamith Kai … ,” Jacen acknowledged. “Charming as usual, I see.”
“And Garowyn. And Vilas,” Tenel Ka said with an astonishing and unexpected expression—a feral smile—on her normally serious face. “So, how is your knee?” she asked Tamith Kai. Her grip on Jacen’s shoulder felt tight enough to crack a bone.
The tall woman’s face roiled with a thunderstorm of anger. Her wine-dark lips curled down, and she barely controlled her rage at being reminded of how Tenel Ka had humiliated her during the young Jedi Knights’ escape from the Shadow Academy. “Jedi brats,” she snarled, “you should learn when to leave well enough alone.”
“And you should have figured out not to mess with us after the first time,” Jacen responded in a challenging tone. “Zekk, what are you doing with these clowns? What sort of nonsense have they been telling you?”
Zekk seemed to waver for a moment, but his voice was strong. “They’re offering us—all of us—an opportunity. A chance we never had before.”
“Like what?” Jacen said, genuinely mystified. “What could these losers possibly offer you?”
“They’re taking us back to the Shadow Academy to train us!” the burly gang leader, Norys, said. “Now we’ll have our own shot at being powerful.”
“But not everybody has Jedi potential,” Jacen said reasonably, trying to keep Zekk talking until he or Tenel Ka could figure out what to do.
“I do. You would have known that if you’d bothered to test me,” Zekk said defiantly. “And anybody who joins us but doesn’t have the talent will be recruited into the Imperial military forces, given responsibilities and a chance for advancement in the Second Imperium.”
“Oh, Zekk,” Jacen said, shaking his head, “those are all lies designed to lure you into dropping your guard—”
“They are not lies!” Tamith Kai interrupted, her melodious voice holding the potential for deadliness. “We will keep our promises. You will all be given equal opportunities, without regard to your social status in the Rebel worlds. The Second Imperium won’t judge who you are—only what you do for us.”
“Zekk,” Jacen cried, “how can you trust them? These are the people who kidnapped me and Jaina.”
“Yes,” Tamith Kai continued, “and we have learned our lesson. Highborn noble pups such as you are no more worthy of being Imperial Dark Jedi than any other student.” Her violet eyes glared daggers at Tenel Ka.
“Zekk,” Jacen whispered quickly, “this is your chance. Trust me on this: You’re in great danger. You could escape now. Get away!”
But his formerly happy-go-lucky friend gave him a look that was somewhere between pity and a plea for understanding. Jacen thought he saw a glimpse of the deep sadness that touched the young man’s heart.
Zekk said, “You don’t understand, Jacen. You can’t because you’ve always had too much. You’ve never wanted for anything. These people”—he gestured toward the evil Nightsister and her companions—“they’re offering me something I never had in my old life. With them I have a chance to be someone.”
“Not much of a chance, if they’re the ones offering it,” Jacen muttered.
Tenel Ka tensed, holding her hands at her utility belt, ready to draw a weapon.
One by one, each of the gang members stood and glared at the two young Jedi. The burly Norys and the other Lost Ones seemed to have been hypnotized, and Jacen wondered if Tamith Kai or the others were using some sort of Force trick to make them more susceptible to insidious suggestions.
Tenel Ka whispered, “Jacen, we must leave while we can still bring help.”
Jacen tensed, ready to turn and run. He clicked on the comlink, hoping to signal Anakin and Threepio, but before he and Tenel Ka could sprint to the door, Vilas pulled out a blaster.
“We can’t risk any more of your meddling,” Garowyn said. “There’s too much at stake.”
Jacen and Tenel Ka managed to take a few running steps before stun bolts slammed into them from behind. They plunged headfirst into helpless unconsciousness.
18
Brakiss sealed the locking mechanism on the door to his private office, changing the access code to make absolutely certain no one could disturb him. He wouldn’t allow even Tamith Kai to eavesdrop on his special communications with the great Imperial Leader.
Brakiss always found inspiration on the walls of his Shadow Academy office, where the exploding stars, broken planets, and cascading glaciers reminded him of the fury locked within the universe. By using the dark side as his focus, Brakiss tapped into that incredible energy and used it for his own benefit, to help pave the way for the return of the Empire.
He set the glowpanels to low as he waited for the contact, checking his chronometer. Speaking with his ominously powerful leader filled Brakiss with both terror and awe, and he was forced to use a Jedi calming technique, though patience was very difficult.
The Great Leader of the Second Imperium had enormous burdens and responsibilities. He was frequently late for his scheduled communications—not that Brakiss would ever dare mention it. The Leader set his own schedule; Brakiss was merely the dutiful slave who knew his place in the grand scheme.
Just as the Rebels depended on the overestimated protection of their vaunted Jedi Knights, so the new Leader would have his own secret weapon: an army of Dark Jedi who could use the dark side of the Force to carve a broad place in history for the Second Imperium.
But Dark Jedi were notoriously dangerous and unstable, prone to delusions of grandeur. Realizing this risk, the Great Leader had taken precautions to protect himself from the Shadow Academy. The huge ring-shaped station was riddled with deadly explosives, detonators threaded through the life-support systems, the hull, and thousands of other places that Brakiss neither knew nor wanted to consider. The moment his Dark Jedi gave hints that they might get out of control, the Great Leader would detonate those explosives and end the experiment without remorse.
Brakiss had to show success after success to keep his powerful master happy—and the Shadow Academy had recently had several spectacular accomplishments indeed.