Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [14]
As he packed, he thought about the chaos of the last few months, of the deaths of his colleagues, his mentors, and his friends. In particular, he wondered what had been the fate of Anakin Skywalker.
Anakin had always been something of an enigma to Jax and the other Padawans. He was nearly the same age as Jax, and they had studied and dueled together often. While it was true that no one could really get close to Anakin—he had always maintained an aloofness, a reserve, that none could penetrate—still, Jax had counted himself as one of the troubled young Jedi’s few confidants. Anakin had even mentioned once to Jax his belief that Obi-Wan Kenobi, his Master, was trying to prevent him from reaching his true destiny. There had been a disturbing glint in his friend’s blue eyes as he spoke of this, a look of utter certitude. Even more disturbing had been the reaction within the Force. For a brief moment Jax had seen threads of blackest night writhing and radiating outward in all directions from Anakin—more than he had ever seen on anyone. It had been as if the young Skywalker were the locus of a vast and complex network of rage and despair that reverberated through space and time. But it had only been for an instant. Then the connection had vanished, so quickly that Jax wasn’t even sure he’d seen it, and Anakin had been his smiling self once more. He had never brought it up again, and Jax had eventually forgotten about it, until the Purge.
He often wondered, these days, if he should have spoken to Master Kenobi, or Master Piell, or anyone else on the Council, about the disturbing vision. But would they even have believed him? After all, the most august members of the Council, those closest and best informed by the Force, saw nothing untoward in Anakin’s aura; quite the contrary, in fact. There were even rumors that some of them thought he was the Chosen One. How could a mere Padawan such as Jax pierce a veil that they could not?
He shook his head. Anakin was almost certainly dead now; if not, Jax was sure he must have fled Coruscant to any of the hundreds of thousands of known worlds in the galaxy. No one would ever really know if he had indeed been the one destined to bring balance to the Force.
Yet perhaps, in a strange way, he had. For certainly, after centuries of tolerance and enlightenment, the dark side now held sway over the galaxy. The scales had tipped. How long things would stay in this new equilibrium, Jax didn’t know; nor did he know what, if anything, Anakin had to do with it. All he knew was that the Jedi were now prey. And given the sudden and searing sense of loss Jax had felt reverberate last night through the Force, the hunt wasn’t over yet.
five
“ ’Nother cooler,” Den Dhur said to the pubtender. “Jus’ keep ’em comin’.”
The tender, a Bith, gazed at Den with large, lustrous black eyes. Those eyes had astonishing visual acuity, capable of focusing to a resolution of 0.07 on the Gandok Scale. Den knew this. He was a reporter. He knew lots of things.
He informed the Bith of this fascinating fact. “That means you c’n see real good,” he explained.
“Good enough to tell you’ve had enough,” the Bith said.
Den wagged a disapproving finger at him. “Not to worry, m’good friend—don’ you know it’s pract’illy imposs’ble t’get a Sullustan drunk?”
“Congratulations, then. You’ve achieved the impossible.” He took Den’s mug away. “I’d advise taking an air taxi home. Good-bye.”
Den concentrated on walking out of the pub without too much noticeable weaving. Once outside, the various reeks and stenches of uncollected trash, assorted life-forms who hadn’t bathed in far too long, hydrocarbon emissions from antiquated vehicles banned centuries