Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [78]
Kyp gestured to an identical-looking thicket of raven-thorns, spotting the invisible maze of a relatively simple path. “You have the potential to become a Jedi Knight,” he said. “How can you consider that a failure?”
Dorsk 81 clawed his way out of the tangle he had become trapped in. Stains from crushed berries and flower petals dotted his uniform. “It is unsettling … to be different,” he said.
Kyp spoke partly to himself and partly to his companion. “Yes, but sometimes it’s exhilarating to know you can rise above the others who are trapped down below.”
He ducked into the low tunnel of gloomy foliage and dangling mosses. Tiny gnats flew away from his face. The deep shadows suddenly made him think of the black spice mines of Kessel where he had been forced to work as a slave.
“The Empire ruined my life,” Kyp said. “My parents were political resisters. They marked the anniversary of the Ghorman Massacre, and they protested the destruction of Alderaan—but by that time the Emperor had lost all patience with political objections.
“Stormtroopers came in the middle of the night, battered their way into our home on the colony of Deyer. They took my parents, stunned them in front of our eyes, leaving them paralyzed and twitching on the floor. My father couldn’t even close his eyes. Tears ran down his cheek, but his arms and his legs kept jittering. He couldn’t get up. The stormtroopers dragged him and my mother out.
“My brother Zeth was five years older than me. They took him. He was only fourteen, I think. They put stuncuffs on his hands. They kicked him, pushed him out, and then they stunned me.
“I found out later that they took Zeth to the Imperial Military Academy on Carida. They put my parents and me in the Correctional Facility on Kessel, where we had to work in the spice mines. I spent most of my days in pitch-darkness because any light straying into the mine shafts spoils spice crystals. My parents died there after only a few years.
“I had to take care of myself even when the prisoners overthrew the Correctional Facility and took over. The crime lord there, Moruth Doole, tossed the captured Imperials down into the spice mines. Doole let some of the prisoners out—but not many and not me. Our masters had changed, but we remained slaves.”
Dorsk 81 looked at him with his glittering wide-set eyes. “How did you escape?” he said.
“Han Solo rescued me,” Kyp answered; warmth filtered into his voice. “We stole a shuttle and fled into the black hole cluster. There we stumbled upon a secret Imperial research installation, and we were captured again—this time by Admiral Daala and her fleet of Star Destroyers. Han got us out of there after Daala had placed a death sentence on me.”
Anger curled through him, making his head buzz, making him feel stronger. He tapped into that strength. “You can understand why the Imperials make me so furious,” he said. “It seems that every step of my life the Empire has tried to beat me into submission, tried to take away the rights and pleasures that other life-forms enjoy.”
“You can’t fight the Empire alone,” Dorsk 81 said.
Kyp didn’t answer for a long moment. “Perhaps not yet,” he said.
Before Dorsk 81 could say anything, Kyp parted a dense clump of blueleaf branches. He felt an electric thrill down his spine as the Force told him they had arrived.
“This,” Kyp whispered, “this is our destination.”
In front of them the jungle gave way to a circular pond that shone like a flat quicksilver mirror, completely free of ripples. In the center of the lake stood a small island dominated by an obsidian split-pyramid of sharp angles showing the distinctive markings of Massassi architecture: another temple, the same one Gantoris and Streen had located weeks before, but Luke Skywalker had not yet explored it. Exar Kun had told Kyp all about it.
Between the bifurcated spire of the tall pyramid stood a colossus, a polished black statue of a dark