Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [91]
On the other hand, he knew all too well what would happen if he failed Vader: the jungle plateau that was home to his tribe would be reduced to incandescent slag.
Could Vader order it done? After all, Haruun Kal wasn’t just another backreach dirtball. Despite its myriad diseases and pestilences and other forms of unpleasantness, it was the only source in the known galaxy for such necessities as lammas wood, thyssel bark, portaak leaf, and other botanical miracles. To eliminate even one tiny part of the arm of a galaxywide industry in what amounted to a fit of pique, well … it seemed ridiculous, on the face of it.
On the other hand …
No, there was no way out of this. He simply couldn’t take the chance that Vader might carry out even part of his threat. It was an obvious case of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few—or, in this case, the one.
Nick wondered if he was trying to wring comfort and justification from the statistics. He shook his head in angry dismissal. He didn’t need justification. He could see what had to be done, for the greater good. It wasn’t his fault. Blame the tall, sinister man in the black mask.
And, after all, it wasn’t like Nick hadn’t fought the good fight. He’d fought plenty of good fights, and a lot of bad ones, too, on more war-torn worlds than he cared to count. When was it time for surcease? When did he get a little easement, a little peace? He’d accepted the fact that the luxury conapt, the wife and kids, the comfortable retirement, all were not part of his future. But being sealed up on a world like Despayre, knowing he’d been responsible for the destruction of hundreds of people, hadn’t exactly been part of the job description, either.
He noticed Jax glance at him, and realized he’d forgotten to damp down his nervous system’s reaction to his dilemma again; quite likely he was broadcasting his distress all over the Force’s bandwidth, so to speak. He hastily shielded himself, hoping the Jedi wouldn’t decide to directly probe his mind. Though Jax’s power within the Force, from what Nick had sensed since he’d known the Jedi, wasn’t nearly as powerful as Vader’s, he knew that Jax could easily sweep aside any feeble mental defenses Nick might try to erect.
Fortunately, Jax did not attempt a direct probe. Instead he moved back to Nick’s rear-guard position. “You okay?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yeah. Just—trying to keep things down to a simmer. I push too far out there, it starts to feel like something’s pushing back.”
“You sense a Force-user? Here?” Jax looked surprised and skeptical.
“No, not like that. But there’s something out there on the fringes.”
Jax frowned. He looked, for a moment, almost sad, Nick thought. And then, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, he got a flash through the Force about Jax. A realization that left him looking at the Jedi in astonishment. He couldn’t have been more surprised if Jax had suddenly been revealed as a Clawdite changeling.
Jax Pavan was losing his connection with the Force.
He had no idea why his own less-than-optimal link had suddenly been given this startling revelation. It happened sometimes; there were no hard-and-fast rules, no discernible laws, by which the Force operated, although the more metaphysically inclined among the Jedi believed that all events were shaped and molded by its revelations. Toward what end it was not given to organic sentient life to understand. Nick had no idea whether this belief was true or utter grasser mopak; all he knew was that this particular datum was a certainty.
Jax’s bond to the Force was sputtering.
Before he could stop staring, Jax looked at him, and it was obvious that he knew what was in Nick’s mind; evidently his faltering link wasn’t that bad. “Yes,” he said, in a low voice. “It’s true.”
Nick had no idea how to respond to that. Even his relationship with the Force, dim as it was, was always there. It might not cast a light very far over