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Star WarsThe Last of the JediBook 3Underworldby Jude WatsonCHAPTER ONEGlimpsed through a curtain of cold gray rain, the ruined Jedi Temple looked more like a trick of the eye than a once-magnificent structure. To Ferus Olin, the Temple appeared to be a ghost image, like an afterburn on a vidscreen. He blinked. He felt as though the entire structure was dissolving before his eyes.Since the end of the Clone Wars, so much in his life had seemed not real and hyper-real at the same time. He knew it wasn't logical, but it made sense to him. One moment he had been leading a peaceful life on a pleasant world, and the next he was a resistance fighter, then a prisoner, then a fugitive. And with each new twist and turn, he found himself wondering: How did this happen?Get a grip, Ferus, he told himself now. He was here, and he had a job to do. The Temple was all too real, occupied by Imperial stormtroopers.He'd absorbed the shock of the Empire occupying the Temple. Except that seeing it was like being punched in the gut. The Temple looked somehow terrible to him, like a being that had received a mortal wound.He had once been a Jedi apprentice. He had left the Jedi, but step-by- step he was managing to reclaim what he'd lost - the same pure connection to the Force, the same allegiance to his fellow Jedi - or, now, the memory of them. Seeing the Temple like this hurt the deepest part of him."Ferus? Don't know whether you've noticed? But it's raining."Ferus turned to his companion, Trever Flume. The thirteen-year-old's teeth were chattering. The hood he'd pulled over his bluish hair hadn't done much to keep him dry. A drop of rain rolled off the tip of his hood and hit his nose."Rain" was putting it mildly. Now Ferus felt his sodden cloak, his clammy skin. Part of his Jedi training had been to learn how to be impervious to physical discomfort. Feel the rain, feel the cold, then let it go. But he hadn't been a Jedi in a long time, and he had to admit he was freezing."Not that I'm complaining," Trever said through clenched teeth. "But I can't feel my fingers. Or my feet. And I'm hungry. There are icicles on my hair. And I'm - ""Right. I get the point," Ferus said. "Just a few more minutes.""Fine. If my toes fall off, just alert me, okay? Stick 'em in my pocket or something."Ferus shook his head. He couldn't seem to lose Trever. The boy had stowed away on Ferus's escape ship from Bellassa, and it had taken Ferus a few weeks to realize that Trever wasn't going away. He was a smart, resourceful kid, but Ferus still wasn't crazy about taking him along. Ferus had given him the option to leave, but Trever hadn't taken it. Ferus didn't quite know what to do with him, and until he figured it out, he and Trever were stuck together. Trever had street skills and a kind of stubbornness that could morph into courage. There were times when Ferus was actually glad to have him along.Ferus peered through the electrobinoculars again. The Temple was definitely being used. It had taken him only a few hours in Coruscant to pick up the gossip on the street. The Empire was using the Temple as a prison for captured Jedi. There were whispers that some had survived, that some had returned to the Temple before the homing beacon was dismantled. There they had found stormtroopers and an Imperial prison where their home had been.That was the rumor, anyway.Ferus didn't know how much of it was true.Obi-Wan Kenobi had told him that he'd managed to transform the horning beacon into a warning beacon before any Jedi had returned. That didn't match the Empire's story. So part of the rumor was a lie. Even if some Jedi had returned, there couldn't be many of them. Ferus knew that almost all had been killed in the purge.But even if there was only one, he had to get in and see.He already suspected who was inside: Fy-Tor-Ana, the Jedi known for her grace with a lightsaber. Ferus had rescued the great Jedi Master Garen Muln in the caves of Ilum, and Garen had told him how Fy-Tor had left him and promised to return. She'd been heading for the Temple and had never come back.She had to be here. If she'd been free, she would have returned to Garen. Ferus could only conclude that she was either imprisoned or dead.Garen himself was recovering on a hidden asteroid that Ferus hoped to set up as a new Jedi base. He didn't know how many Jedi might be alive, but they would need a safe place to live.He noted the comings and goings of Imperial ships. Since the old hangar had been destroyed, they'd built a new landing platform off the once-grand front plaza. It protruded like an ugly scar.Don't think of what was. Think of the next step.So, it was a prison. He knew prisons.It was difficult to break out. But not as difficult to break in."I know what you're thinking," Trever said as he stamped his boots to warm his feet. "You're thinking we can do it.""Well, we can.""Yeah. Sure. No problem. What's a couple hundred stormtroopers?"Ferus kept his gaze on the Temple. "I have an advantage.""Besides me?" Trever smirked."They might occupy the Temple, but they don't know the Temple. No one knows it like a Jedi. I can get us in - and get us out.""So you say."Ferus gave him a level look. "Listen, I can do this alone. I'd rather do it alone. We can have a rendezvous point - ""No." Trever's voice was fiat. "I'm with you."They'd already had the argument. Trever saw the shift in Ferus's gaze that meant he'd accepted the inevitable. "So how do you figure we'll get in'?" the boy asked."I think I have a way," Ferus said. "We drop from a ship straight onto the burned tower. I can see a place where part of the tower was blasted away. That will give us some footing. Directly above there used to be a small, glassed-in garden on the south side. It was used to grow herbs for the kitchen. If we can climb over that blasted part into where the garden used to be, we can get into a service hallway. There was a system of linkage service tunnels that ran to the service turbolifts. With any luck some of the tunnels have survived, and we can get into the lower levels that way. That's the only place the prison could be.""What ship are you talking about?" Trever asked. "We left Toma's star cruiser at that landing platform. Besides, if we're both going in, who's going to drive?""We're not going to use Toma's cruiser." Toma was a new ally. He'd just fought a battle against Imperial forces on his home planet of Acherin. He and his first officer, Raina, had joined forces with Ferus and Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan had returned to his mysterious exile, but Raina and Toma had remained on the asteroid to watch Garen. "I've got a different idea. We'll hire an air taxi.""You mean, jump in an air taxi and say, 'Hey, driver, could you please drop us on the tower?"'"Well, it has to be the right driver.""Okay, let's review," Trever said. "We're going to drop from a moving vehicle onto a ruined tower to find a maybe-opening that could lead to some blasted-to-bits tunnels, in order to maybe-make it into a place flooded with stormtroopers so we can maybe-rescue one Jedi who, if we're lucky, might still be alive."Ferus looked Trever right in the eye. "You have a problem with that?""Nah," Trever said. "Let's go."Many things had changed in Coruscant, but some things remained the same. On one of the lower levels of Galactic City there was still a shadowy landing platform where private air taxi drivers could be hired to do illegal and dangerous trips, no questions asked. While Ferus negotiated with a squat, muscular humanoid with tattooed facial markings, Trever found a food stand that looked like it might not poison him. He quickly devoured a veg turnover and downed a carton of juice. When Ferus beckoned, he stuffed another turnover in his pocket and was ready to go.They climbed into the back of a battered air taxi and zoomed through the colorful laserlights of the entertainment district. The driver kept to the prescribed space lanes - for now. As he snaked his way up through the levels to the Senate district, they could see the ruined Temple better and better.Here the space lanes were crowded with traffic. The driver slid smoothly into the flow. He kept the engines powered down, but at the last moment he veered off into a lane closer to the Temple. He dived down and around the damaged tower and hung in the air."Go if you're going," he grunted. "In a moment I'll be on Imperial sensors."Ferus activated a liquid cable line and turned to Trever. He saw the boy pale."It will hold you," Ferus reassured him. "And I'll be right next to you."Trever swallowed, then nodded. Ferus hooked the second line to his belt.Ferus released both liquid cables himself, aiming for a spot above a jagged edge of the tower that looked like it would hold them. The line caught and jerked them forward roughly as the driver accelerated. Ferus cursed the driver in his head for the premature boost as they flew wildly through the air, the wind whistling against their ears. Rain pelted their faces like sharp needles. Ferus landed hard on the protruding edge and grabbed for Trever to guide his landing. Trever smacked against the tower and hugged it."That was fun," he croaked."Just don't look down.""I'll try not to."The air taxi zoomed off, merging seamlessly back into the flow of heavy traffic. The whole operation had taken seconds.Ferus wiped the rain out of his eyes. From his position on the tower, a good deal of Galacti...
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