Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [47]
But not recently.
Luke landed unassisted in the milky-white mist that had given the planet its name. The new X-wing had superb guidance powers, but they didn’t make up for the loss of Artoo.
The landing strip on Msst was in one of the few areas where the constant milky whiteness burned off by midday. Although somehow it hadn’t this midday. Luke hated to think that this might be what the records meant by “burned-off.”
The mist was pale, waist-high, and damp. The dampness sent a chill through him. Most of Artoo would have been lost in the murk. This was where the new X-wings had their biggest failings. Luke flew well enough alone, but landing here, on a planet he had never seen before, without any companionship, seemed wrong. He felt oddly defensive, as if he had no one to watch his back. He hadn’t realized how much he counted on Artoo for the little things: wry observations, quick fixes, and companionship.
Cole Fardreamer had better have the old X-wing in tip-top condition when Luke returned.
A group of buildings rose out of the mist, tall and gray and steely. They had an Imperial seal on them, but time had worn the seal down, made it less ridged, which made it less threatening. The buildings looked abandoned, but he couldn’t be certain.
He half-hoped he would find Brakiss here, but he had no sense of the man. And by now, he would have. He would have known, through the Force, about the presence of someone else with such a natural talent.
Luke thought often about Brakiss—at odd moments, really—and strangely, at times when he thought about Ben. Ben had had a wistfulness, a touch of regret, to him when he spoke of Darth Vader, as if Ben had a certain responsibility in losing Anakin Skywalker to the dark side of the force.
I don’t want to lose you the way I lost Vader.
Those words had reverberated for Luke as Brakiss ran to his ship, as he escaped Yavin 4, as he tried to flee himself.
I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him as well as Yoda.
I was wrong.
The chill Luke felt echoed the frigid cold he had felt on Yavin 4 when all those voices were silenced. It mirrored the cold he had felt in the destroyed Senate Hall when he felt the taint of Brakiss’s presence.
Luke had tried to bring Brakiss into the Jedi way. He had tried to turn him away from the dark side, thinking that once Brakiss saw the good in himself, he would understand that being a Jedi was so much better.
I was wrong.
Instead, Brakiss had fled, and early reports showed he fled here, to the officers who had sent him to infiltrate the Jedi Academy. Luke hoped to find some trace of Brakiss on Msst. He had actually hoped that Brakiss had gone on to live a quiet life, much as Obi-Wan had in his years on Tatooine, guarding Luke Skywalker.
But Luke got no sense of Brakiss at all.
Although something on Msst could be dampening Luke’s Force abilities, much as the ysalamiri did on Mrykr. But Luke had felt a physical effect from the ysalamiri, and he felt none here.
None at all.
Except the cold, damp mist.
And that, in itself, was odd.
His files on Msst had shown that the Empire had done its usual planetary abuse on Msst. They had ripped out essential plant life, made the natives work in the crystal swamps, and had a large colony of slave laborers constantly building buildings that were not needed. But he had no records of them destroying the local wildlife.
Which meant that something else was keeping the wildlife at bay.
And that something else had to be him.
He touched his lightsaber, then glanced at the X-wing. Its upper-level wings were visible above the mist. It looked undisturbed.
What he needed was the emergency kit. It had a fog light, and some rations. Those would carry him to the buildings.
He turned—
—as large pink bubbles floated out of the mist in front of the wing. The bubbles had no faces. Long