Part 2 (2/2)

”And then our Sabers will come down here in force and raze this little farm. And And that farmer boy of yours,” he said, eyes glinting evilly. ”They already have orders to do so, if I don't bring back your lightsaber.” that farmer boy of yours,” he said, eyes glinting evilly. ”They already have orders to do so, if I don't bring back your lightsaber.”

Ori froze. Suddenly reminded, she looked frantically toward the river. He would be floating home soon.

Flen spoke in a knowing voice. ”We don't care what a slave does, or who she does it with. But you're not a slave until we have that weapon.” The brothers ignited their lightsabers in unison. ”So what's it going to be?”

Ori closed her eyes. She didn't deserve what had happened to her, but he didn't deserve any of it. And he was all she had.

Pressing the b.u.t.ton, she deactivated the lightsaber and threw it to the ground.

”Right call,” Sawj Luzo said, deactivating his lightsaber and taking hers. Both brothers stepped back to their mounts and climbed aboard.

”Oh,” Flen said, reaching for something strapped to his uvak's harness. ”We did have a gift from the Grand Lord-to start your new career.” He threw the long object, which landed at Ori's feet with a thump.

It was a shovel.

Its metal blade made it truly a treasure: she could see it was forged from one of the few bits of debris from Omen Omen's landing. That material had been worked and reworked over the centuries, as Kesh's paucity of surface iron had become known. A final reward for her former life. Shovel in her hands, she heard the Luzos laughing as they soared away to the north.

Ori looked around at what she had left. The hut. The barn. Mound after mound of the man's mud. And the trellises, home to the dalsas that had brought her here to begin with . . .

”NO!”

Anger boiling inside her, she lashed out, striking the frail structures with the shovel. One mighty swing tore the frame apart, sending the flowers cras.h.i.+ng to the ground. The hejarbo-shoot wreckage exploded, blown to splinters by the force of her mind.

Infuriated, she charged through the farm, hacking Jelph's wobbly cart to pieces. So much anger, so little to destroy. Turning, she saw the symbol for her dispossession: the composting barn. Swinging, she smashed the door from its hinges and charged inside. Raging through the Force, she yanked at the sorry tools on the walls, sending them flying in a whirlwind of hate. And there was that mound of manure, large and noxious. Twirling, she brought the blade of the shovel down onto it . . .

Clang! Striking something beneath the surface of the dung, the shovel ripped free from her hands, causing her to lose her footing in the muck. Striking something beneath the surface of the dung, the shovel ripped free from her hands, causing her to lose her footing in the muck.

Calming as she got to her feet, Ori looked in amazement at the pile. There, beneath the stinking mess, was a soiled cloth covering protecting something large.

Something metal.

Recovering the shovel, she began to dig.

He had felt terrible, leaving Ori with a job that would take her all day. But he had his own trap to check, here under the lush canopy. Jelph hadn't caught anything in months, but his best chances always seemed to coincide with the auroras.

Approaching the secluded knoll, he found his treasure, hidden beneath the giant fronds. He breathed faster in antic.i.p.ation. All through the recent days of turbulence and tranquillity, he'd felt somehow that something was about to happen. This might be the day he'd been waiting for, after so much time . . .

Jelph stopped. Something was happening, but it wasn't here. Looking through the foliage to the west, he had that gut feeling again. Something was was happening, and it was happening now. happening, and it was happening now.

He ran for the boat.

Ori found the strange thing sitting beneath the manure-covered tarp. There actually wasn't that much of the foul stuff piled over it; just enough to give the appearance that what lay beneath was something other than it was.

And what it was, was big-easily the length of two uvak. A great metal knife, painted red and silver, with a strange black bubble sitting atop its rear. Protrusions swept back, winglike, in a chevron, each tipped with two long spears that reminded her of lightsabers.

She'd forgotten the smell, now, breathing faster as she ran her hand across the surface of the metal mystery. It was cold and imperfect, with dents and burn marks all along its length. But the true surprise yet awaited her.

Reaching the rounded section in back, she pressed her face against what seemed like black gla.s.s. Inside, tucked into an amazingly small s.p.a.ce, she saw a chair. An engraved plate sat just behind the headrest, bearing char-acters looking similar to the ones she'd been taught by her mentors: Aurek-cla.s.s Tactical Strikefighter Republic Fleet Systems Model X4A-Production Run 35-C Ori's eyes widened. She saw it for what it was. A wayback in. A wayback in.

All his life, Jelph Marrian had feared the Sith. The Great Sith War had concluded before he was born, but the devastation done to his homeworld of Toprawa was so complete that he had devoted his life to preventing their return.

He had gone too far, alienating the conservative leaders who ran the Jedi Order. Expelled, he had sought to continue his vigil, working with an underground movement of Jedi Knights devoted to preventing the return of the Sith. For four years, he'd worked in the shadows of the galaxy, making sure the masters of evil were indeed a memory.

Things had gone wrong again. On a.s.signment in a remote region three years earlier, he'd learned of the collapse of the Jedi Covenant. Fearful of returning, he'd headed for the uncharted regions, sure that nothing could ever restore his name and place with the Order.

On Kesh, he had found something that might-wrapped up in his worst nightmare come true. He'd been caught in one of Kesh's colossal meteor showers, cras.h.i.+ng in the remote jungle as just one more falling star.

Unable to raise help through Kesh's bizarre magnetic field, he'd ventured down toward the lights he'd seen on the horizon.

The light of a civilization, steeped in darkness.

Still meters from the bank, he leapt from the boat.

”Ori! Ori, I'm back! Are you-”

Jelph stopped when he saw the trellises, cut down.

Taking in the damage, he dashed toward the barn.

The door was open. There, exposed in the evening twi-light, sat the damaged starfighter he'd painstakingly floated down from the jungle, a piece at a time. He found something else, beside it: a metal shovel, discarded.

”Ori?”

Stepping into the shadows of the barn, he saw the corpse of the uvak, food for the small carrion birds.

Behind the building, he found the traps he'd sent her to check, abandoned on the ground. She had been here-and gone.

In front of the hut, he found other tracks. Wide Sith boots and more uvak prints. Ori's smaller prints were here, too, heading past the hedge up the cart path that led to Tahv.

Jelph reached inside his vest for the bundle he always carried on trips. Blue light flashed in his hand. He was a lone Jedi on an entire planet full of Sith. His existence threatened them-but their existence threatened everything. He had to stop her.

No matter what.

He dashed up the path into the darkness.

Read on for an excerpt from Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Vortex by Troy Denning

Published by Del Rey Books

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