Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [117]
“If you plan on staying here,” I-Five said, “I’m with you.” The droid looked at Den, put a hand on his shoulder. “But as much as I want to stay, I’ll only do so if Den agrees to stay as well. He and I have been through too much for me to abandon him now.”
“No,” Den said. He clutched his head with both hands. “No, no, no, this is not happening!” He faced the others. “I know I’ve asked this so often it hardly even qualifies as rhetorical, but—are you all out of your minds? I mean, we’ve got a ship, people—she doesn’t look like much, but she’s got hyperdrive and that’s all we—” He stared at them, then sighed and spread his arms wide in a gesture of defeat. “I give up,” he said. “Okay, Five—if you’re crazy enough to stay here, I guess I’ll have to be crazy enough to stay with you.” He shook his head. “But it’s gonna be broiled bloodrat and rankweed from now on, ’cause I’m out of gear to sell.”
“As to that,” Kaird said, “I might be able to help. I’m not without funds—most of them ill gotten, but even so … I need only enough to buy passage back to Nedij.”
“You’d do that?” I-Five asked. “You might need it, someday—”
“The Empire’s money is no good on my world. It’s yours if you want it. It’ll take a day or two for me to launder the funds, but—” The avian shrugged. “I’ve waited this long; one or two more days will make little difference.”
Den winced. “Don’t say things like that. You’re just asking for trouble.”
Jax sat in the pilot’s chair and watched the dark cityscape race by beneath the Far Ranger. I-Five stood next to him. They passed the gigantic, box-like shape of a monad, its thousands of twinkling lights, each a window, bright against the structure’s dark surface. “So many beings,” Jax mused. “Am I doing the right thing in staying here? Or am I just delusional, thinking I can make any difference at all?”
“The Twi’lek philosopher Gar Gratius said, ‘Even the humblest of beings contains within himself a universe of infinite diversity and wonder. Therefore, when you give aid and comfort to just one being, you are, for that moment, the deity of an entire cosmos.’ ”
Jax looked at I-Five. The droid was staring through the crystasteel cockpit shielding. His photoreceptors were bright, almost shining.
He thought about the sense of accomplishment and pride he’d felt when he’d received the mantle of Jedi Knighthood, created and tuned his first lightsaber, gone out on his first solo mission, during the last days of the Clone Wars. It had also been his last mission; a few weeks afterward the Temple had been attacked and the remaining Jedi, including himself, routed.
He shifted position, and something in one of the pockets of his coat dug into his side. He pulled out the reliquary, opened it, and looked at the jewel within. Exposed to the light once more, it began to glow, cycling from black through the spectrum to purest white.
Kaird noticed the effulgence and peered over Jax’s shoulder. “Pyronium. I have never seen a sample that large and unflawed before. Where did you get it?”
“A gift,” Jax said. “Years ago, from a fellow Padawan. Anakin Skywalker.”
He stared at the glowing element, then closed the container and returned it to his pocket. Anakin, along with nearly all the rest of the Jedi, was gone now. The Order of the Jedi Knights, once a beacon of hope and justice, had been all but extinguished, save for a few fading sparks. But at least one of those sparks could still