Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [219]
“And you will be able to remain on Coruscant and start a family.”
“Among other things.” I smiled, recalling fondly how much checking out and how little real work Mirax and I had gotten done on the Skate. “Part of what frightened Tavira off was the fact that she didn’t believe the Sun Crusher had been destroyed. The fact that she knew it was out there but couldn’t find it had her convinced it was hunting her. I guess, by staying hidden, I’ll be a surprise waiting for anyone who needs one.”
“So Keiran Halcyon dies here?”
“Not dies, just fades away. Few enough people know I’m him that keeping it a secret shouldn’t really be difficult.” I reached out and rested my right hand on Luke’s shoulder. “You need Keiran for anything, he’ll be there. You need Corran Horn for anything, he’ll be there. Fact of the matter is, without you, I’d be dead, Mirax would still be imprisoned and Tavira would be raiding away.”
Luke smiled. “And without you, I’d be on a slab in a temple on Yavin 4. We’re even. No harm came to my niece and nephew during that time, so I may even owe you.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” I gave him a big smile. “There’s one more thing I want to do to wrap this whole thing up, with your permission.”
Luke nodded. “Name it.”
I did.
I leveled the X-wing out at what Whistler reported to be nineteen point five two meters above the Yavin 4 landscape and hovered there, eyeball to eyeball with Exar Kun’s statue. It actually stood a good five hundred meters off the X-wing’s nose, but those hollow black eyes watched me intensely.
I gave him a big smile.
“Whistler, you got all sensors on full record and you’re feeding the data back to the Skate at the Great Temple?”
His curt blat reminded me that he didn’t forget orders—or go gallivanting off around the galaxy leaving friends behind to be worried circuit-worn about him.
I nodded. “We are good to go and clear to fire.” I flicked the weapons-control over to proton torpedoes and set it for single fire. I dropped my targeting reticle over Exar Kun’s face, then cut my comm unit feed. I didn’t mind folks watching what I was doing, but what I had to say, that was just for me and Exar Kun.
“I know you’re gone, but I also know you planned for that, someday. This temple might be an archeological find of great value, a monument of untold wonder, but it’s also a monument to evil. You used it to infect Kyp, and mere impressions made of the glyphs infected the dark Jedi who killed my grandfather. Your evil created the Jensaarai, and even though they rose above it, people have still suffered and died because of it.
“But this isn’t revenge, which you would have liked. Nope, this is simply a precaution.” I settled my finger on the trigger. “Wouldn’t leave a lightsaber around where a kid could find it, and this temple to you is a million more times dangerous than that.”
I pulled the trigger and sent a proton torpedo streaking out at the statue. The warhead detonated when it hit the bridge of his nose, shattering his skull into thousands of fragments that sprayed out in a shower of sparks and cloud of whitish smoke. The bits and pieces of Exar Kun’s head rained down in a narrow triangle, smashing the lake’s mirror-like surface, forever breaking up the last intact images of that island.
Two more proton torpedoes took Exar Kun off at waist and knees, then I shot the rest of them into the base of the obelisk on which he had stood. It toppled wonderfully, breaking into pieces as it went. The chunks slammed into the ground and crushed walls, then bounced around inside the temple, pulverizing slab after slab of Sith writings. Some eventually ricocheted high enough to escape the temple itself, splashing down in the cold dark lake.
Switching to lasers, I raked fire back and forth across