Repercussions from the dark side's fatal seduction of Jacen Solo and the mysterious plague of madness afflicting young Jedi continue to wreak havoc galaxy-wide. Having narrowly escaped the deranged Force worshippers known as the Mind Walkers and a deadly Sith hit squad, Luke and Ben Skywalker are in pursuit of the now Masterless Sith apprentice. It is a chase that leads to the forbidding planet Dathomir, where an enclave of powerful dark side Force-wielders will give Vestara the edge she needs to escape -- and where the Skywalkers will be forced into combat for their quarry and their lives.
Meanwhile, Han and Leia have completed their own desperate mission, shuttling madness-stricken Jedi from Coruscant to safe haven in the Transitory Mists and beyond the grasp of Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala. But the bold maneuver has intensified Daala's fury, and she is determined to shatter Jedi Order resistance once and for all.
Yet no greater threat exists than that which still waits in the depths of the distant Maw Cluster: A being of pure, ravenous dark-side energy named Abeloth calls out across the stars to Jedi and Sith alike. For some it may be the ultimate source of answers crucial to their survival. For others it could be the ultimate weapon of conquest. But for all, it is a game-changing -- and life-altering -- encounter of untold magnitude and a tactical gambit with unimaginable consequences.
Dathomir Rain Forest
The rain forest air was so dense, so moist, that even roaring through it at speeder bike velocity didn't bring Luke Skywalker any physical relief. His speed just caused the air to move across him faster, like a greasy scrub-rag wielded by an overzealous nanny droid, drenching all the exposed surfaces of his body.
Not that he cared. He couldn't see her, but he could sense his quarry, not far ahead: the individual he'd crossed so many light-years to find.
He could sense much more than that. The forest teemed with life, life that poured its energy into the Force, too much to catalog as he roared past. He could feel ancient trees and new vines, creeping predators and alert prey. He could feel his son, Ben, as the teenager drew up abreast of him on his own speeder bike, eyes shadowed under his helmet but a competitive grin on his lips, and then Ben was a few meters ahead of him, dodging leftward to avoid hitting a split-forked tree, the recklessness of youth giving him a momentary speed advantage over Luke's superior piloting ability.
Then there was more life, big life, close ahead, with malicious intent --
From a thick nest of magenta-flowered underbrush twice the height of a human male, just to the right of Luke's path ahead, emerged an arm, striking with great speed and accuracy. It was human-like, gnarly, gigantic, long enough to reach from the flowers to swat the forward tip of Luke's speeder bike as he passed.
Disaster takes only a fraction of a second to bring about. One instant Luke was racing along, intent on his distant prey and enjoying moments of competition; the next, he was headed straight for a tree whose trunk, four meters across, would bring a sudden stop to his travels and his life.
He came free of the speeder bike as it rotated beneath him from the giant creature's blow. He was still headed for the tree trunk. He gave himself an adrenaline-boosted shove in the Force and drifted another couple of meters to the left, allowing him to flash past the trunk instead of into it; he could feel its bark rip at the right shoulder of his tunic. A centimeter closer, and the contact would have given him a serious friction burn.
He rolled into a ball and let senses other than sight guide him. A Force shove to the right kept him from smacking into a much thinner tree, one barely sturdy enough to break his spine and any bones that hit it. He needed no Force effort to shoot between the forks of a third tree. Contact with a veil of vines slowed him; they tore beneath the impact of his body but dropped his rate of speed painlessly. He went crashing into a mass of tendrils ending in big-petaled yellow flowers, some of which reflexively snapped at him as he plowed through them.
Then he was bouncing across the ground, a dense layer of decaying leaves and other materials he really didn't want to speculate about. Finally, he rolled to a halt. He stretched out, momentarily stunned but unbroken, and stared up through the trees. He could see a single shaft of sunlight penetrating the forest canopy, but not far behind him it illuminated a swirl of pollen from the stand of yellow flowers he'd just crashed through. In the distance, he could hear the roar of Ben's speeder bike, hear its engine whine as the boy put it in a hard maneuver, trying to get back to Luke.
Closer, there were footsteps. Heavy, ponderous footsteps.
A moment later, the owner of that huge arm loomed over Luke. It was a rancor, standing upright but bent forward.
The rancors of this world had evolved to be smarter than those elsewhere. This one had clearly been trained as a guard and taught to tolerate protective gear. It wore a helmet, a rust-streaked cup of metal large enough to serve as a backwoods bathtub, with leather straps meeting under its chin. Strapped to its left forearm was a thick, round durasteel shield that looked ridiculously tiny compared with the creature's enormous proportions but was probably thick enough to stop one or two salvos from a military laser battery.
The creature stared down at Luke. Its mouth opened, and it offered a challenging growl.
Luke glared at it. "Do you really want to take me on right now? I don't recommend it."
It reached for him.
* * *
The rancor's extraordinary musculature gave it speed not usually found in creatures so large. Luke kicked downward, propelling himself into a backward somersault, and rose to his feet as the rancor's fingers plowed into the soft, mossy ground where he had just been lying. He put an edge of anger and fearsomeness into both his voice and the Force. "It's time for you to leave before you get hurt. Badly hurt."
But the rancor merely bellowed at him again, apparently unfazed by the Jedi mental touch. It did not bother trying to grab Luke a second time; with its other arm, it swung its ponderous shield down at him, the object's circumference making it a huge weapon, difficult to avoid.
Difficult for an ordinary man to avoid. Luke leapt over it as it swung at him. He landed directly in front of the rancor. He could feel the giant beast's resistance to his Force nudge, and that resistance was not natural. Something nearby was feeding the rancor thoughts and motivation, also through the Force. And that individual would be the more dangerous of the two, but Luke could scarcely turn his back on the rancor to go looking for the Force-user.
In the distance, he heard Ben's speeder bike end its tight turn and settle into something closer to straight-line flight as it hurtled back toward Luke's position. Through the Force, Luke sent a feeling of caution, warning Ben to be mindful of other possible hazards. At the same time, he unclipped and ignited his lightsaber, then lunged at the rancor's extended shield hand, still sweeping away from him.
His energy blade caught the rancor's wrist and cut a bloody trench from that point deep into the forearm, severing the shield's laces, leather or sinew cables as thick as those used on ancient seafaring ships. Lightsaber attacks normally cauterized the flesh they contacted, but the rancor's limb was too thick, the wound too deep for that. Dark rancor blood gouted up, and the shield dropped away from the arm.
The rancor howled and straightened. It glanced at the injury -- Luke knew it not to be a life-threatening cut by rancor standards, for all that his strike would have severed a tauntaun leg or wampa arm -- and glowered at Luke. Then it took a step back, looked left and right, and saw what it wanted, a fallen tree trunk some eight meters long. It sidestepped to the trunk and, using both hands, unimpaired by Luke's attack, lifted it by one end, clearly intending to use it as a club.
In his peripheral vision, Luke saw movement, the bob-and-weave of Ben's speeder bike.
At almost the same moment Luke felt a pulse in the Force from the opposite direction. He spun around, dropping into a ready crouch.
Ten meters away, standing in front of a thornbush, stood a human woman. Luke saw a mane of black hair, strands of white animal teeth hanging from it to frame her face, and abbreviated garments and accoutrements fashioned from ruddy tanned hide.
Then it was as though Luke, the rancor, everything within sight was enveloped in a ball of lightning. Arcs of electricity a few centimeters thick and several meters long snapped and crackled between ground and sky, incinerating vines, igniting leaves, causing the rancor to howl as though it were witnessing the end of the galaxy. As the barrage began, Luke let the Force flow through him, let it direct his instincts, and leaped where it guided him, bounding forward-left-right in a seemingly random pattern that kept all but a few errant lightning strikes from hitting him. The woman vanished from his sight and other perceptions as he moved.
The lightning strikes that hit Luke did not seem too dangerous, though he felt the hair all over his body stand on end. Suddenly his lightsaber switched off.
The engine howl of Ben's speeder bike turned into a series of coughs, then cut out entirely.
And then the lightning storm was over. Luke saw the oncoming speeder bike dip, nose-down, toward a rock outcropping. Ben leapt free, clearing the jagged black stones by less than a meter, and somersaulted toward a trio of tree trunks.
Luke raised a hand, extending control through the Force, and directed his ballistic son to one side of the trees, slowing Ben's velocity as he did so. By the time Ben came to ground, he was hurtling at a pace his gymnastic skills could handle. The boy shoulder-rolled through a shallow patch of algae and came to his feet, slick green slime adhering to his back and right arm, poised and ready to fight.
But their visible opponent was no longer interested. The rancor looked around, an almost human expression of fear on its face, then glanced again at its forearm injury. It turned away from the two Jedi and plunged into the forest, heading directly away from them.
Ben frowned and prepared to give chase, but Luke gestured for him to stand down. "That's not our real enemy. Look for a Force-user."
"That woman? Who was she?"
Luke shrugged. "A Dathomiri Witch, I expect."
They cast about in the Force, but the woman was not to be found. They could feel teeming rain-forest life in the Force, could detect the lumbering rancor moving away from them at high speed, and Luke could still feel, distantly, his own blood the Sith girl was carrying, but there was no pulse to suggest that anyone was using the Force.
Ben sighed. "What was that all about?"
"Somebody did not want us to proceed." Luke reignited his lightsaber. It came on, but its snap-hiss of ignition was more faltering, more unsteady than usual, and the weapon remained lit only a few seconds. Its energy blade retracted from view. "Try yours."
Ben did so. The blade did not ignite. "Stang." He scowled, then checked his comlink and datapad in turn. "Fried, Dad."
"Mine, too."
"How is it that your hand's still working?"
Luke looked at his right hand -- the prosthetic one. He had lost the original when he was only a few years older than Ben. "The artificial skin offers a fair amount of insulation." He balled his hand into a fist, felt no indication that it was damaged. "Come on, let's get out of the immediate vicinity -- in case our enemies return -- and then see if we can get any of these electronics working again. A Jedi without a lightsaber -- "
"Is a lot less dashing to the girls."
"Not what I was going to say, but probably true."
