Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [52]
“Speaking of observers, former Jedi Tahiri Veila has flatly refused to allow her observer to accompany her. Veila's unusual legal status makes her opposition to the government regulation an interesting one, and the Temple's own lead counsel has accepted her case as she and the government countersue each other.
“Master Sebatyne, Jedi Sarkin, Jedi Tekli, please report to me for new assignments. That is all.”
As the assembly broke up, Jaina ducked around a column, the better to remain unseen by her observer, and made her way stealthily to a back set of stairs. Moments later, she was two levels down and entering a conference room little-used because of its low ceiling and un-invitingly dark wall color.
Jag, inside, waited until the door was sealed behind her before taking her in his arms. “You've shaken your pursuit.”
“He's so … friendly. It would be a shame to kill him.” It was a joke, but even in jest, the notion of cutting down Dab, who so resembled her brother Anakin, of killing in a sense a second brother, sent a shudder through her. “This has got to end.”
“The sneaking around?”
“Oh, I'm fine with the sneaking around.” She smiled, her humor restored. “But to actually be followed while I'm sneaking around, I hate it.”
“You could always resign from the Order, come away with me to the Empire, and set up that rival Jedi school.”
“Stop saying that. It's beginning to tempt me.” She spoke in a more serious tone. “Jag, I'm the Sword of the Jedi. I'm the defender of this Order, not of some rival Order, some start-up school. My fate is here.”
“Your fate was that you would live a restless life and never know peace. How can you accept that for yourself?”
“What if I didn't? What if I had rejected it, retired as a Jedi, decided to enjoy myself after the Dark Nest mess? I'd have been off on a vacation world when Jacen became the force he turned into. What if I was the only thing that could stop him, and I never did?”
“It didn't happen that way.”
“No, but the next one might. If I just shed my responsibilities and run off to the Remnant to play schoolteacher, what happens when the Sword is needed next?” Something occurred to her. “You want to spend more time with me? Over the years, instead of just the next few days or weeks?”
“You know I do.”
“Then resign as the Head of State of the Empire. There are plenty of men and women eager to take that position.”
He was silent a long moment. “I … can't.”
“Because it's your responsibility.”
His “Yes” was almost inaudible.
“So don't try to convince me to abandon mine.”
“All right.”
“We'll try to make this work. If we can't … well, at least we'll have this time.”
He leaned down to kiss her, but her comlink beeped, a distinctive pattern of two-then-two tones. Jaina sagged and she let her forehead thud down into his chest.
“What is it?”
“Dab. The observers all have to run checks on their Jedi twice a day, at random times, to make sure we're where we're supposed to be. I have to run upstairs and show him I'm still here.”
“I could kill him for you.”
“I said it before—don't tempt me.”
ABOARD JADE SHADOW, DORIN SPACE
Ben decided that Dorin was just about the ugliest inhabited planet he could remember, and he had seen quite a lot of them. It was also one of the strangest star systems in his experience. Even after having read up on it in advance of arrival, he found that foreknowledge did not reduce the effect of seeing the system through Jade Shadow's viewports.
The Dorin sun was a small, orange thing, and it was situated directly between two large and proximate black holes. The net effect, looking at the system from a stopping point less than a light-year away, was of seeing a dim and distant light illuminating a precarious path with bottomless cliffs on either side. Except Ben, smoothing down the hair on the back of his neck, did not perceive the black holes as dangerous drops, but as lifeless eyes staring at him. “Kind of gets to you, doesn't it?”
His father looked up from the task of inputting the last hyperspace jump. Calculations here had to be very precise. Situated