Anakin had been with Ikrit all morning and knew that the Jedi Master
did not have the Holocron. When Anakin saw Ikrit's fluffy white ears droop,
a dozen puzzle pieces fell into place in his mind.
"I'm afraid I know where the Holocron is," Anakin said heavily. "And
Obi-Wan Kenobi's light - saber, too. I think they're in the Sunrider."
He glanced up at Tahiri and watched his friend's green eyes go wide
with shock as she realized what he meant. His teacher Tionne, however,
looked confused.
"Why? Who put them in Master Ikrit's ship?"
Ikrit sprang down from the windowsill.
"We must go after the boy," the white-furred Jedi said, as if the
question had already been answered. "The Holocron is valuable. Although
only a Jedi can use it, the boy could be in more danger than he suspects."
"Who?" Tionne asked again. "Why is the Holocron in the Sunrider?"
Anakin looked at the Jedi teacher.
"Uldir is gone," he said. "Tahiri looked and his rooms are empty."
"No one has seen him since last night," Tahiri put in.
"The Sunrider is also missing," Ikrit added.
Tionne closed her mother-of-pearl eyes and nodded her understanding.
"And now the Holocron and Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber are missing,
too. I see." She opened her eyes again, and her face held a look of
determination. "You're right, Master Ikrit. We'll have to go after Uldir.
There's no time to lose."
"I think I know where Uldir might be headed." Anakin brushed the
fringe of dark hair away from his eyes. Another piece of the puzzle had
just clicked into place. "Exis," he said. "The space station. He probably
thinks that's the best place to learn to be a Jedi."
"And he said that Mage Orloc talked about Exis Station too," Tahiri
reminded him.
"Can you fly us to Exis in the Lore Seeker?" Ikrit asked Tionne.
"Yes," Tionne said. "I remember how to get there. I can program the
coordinates into the Lore Seeker's navigational computers."
Artoo-Detoo warbled and bleeped.
"Of course we'll take you along as our navigator, Artoo," Anakin said.
"I'm sure Master Skywalker would approve," Tionne agreed.
"What if Uldir just left for a little while? Maybe he'll come back by
himself," Tahiri suggested.
"All right. Gather everything you'll need for our trip," Tionne
answered. "I'll have the Great Temple searched again. But if the Sunrider
and Uldir aren't here by this evening, we leave for Exis Station."
Alone at the controls of the ship, Uldir reached up and flipped a few
switches overhead. The Sunrider shuddered and dropped out of hyperspace at
the edge of the Teedio System. Uldir gave a whoop of triumph. He had made
it. He was almost there. For a few minutes at the beginning of his trip,
Uldir had wondered if he would truly be able to navigate and pilot the
Sunrider all by himself, but he was a good pilot and he had succeeded.
Uldir knew from what Ash Krimsan and Tionne had said that the space station
was somewhere in the Teedio System at a safe distance from the sun. The
coordinates for the system had been easy to find in the Sunrider's
navicomputer. Now that he had arrived, he'd have to scan for the station
itself. But something that large, he figured, should be simple enough to
locate.
"Way to go, hotshot," he congratulated himself, proud of a job well
done. "I'll bet you could fly just about any ship if you had to." His
parents, who were shuttle pilots for the New Republic, had taught him well.
He checked his coordinates and began a survey of the Teedio System,
searching for Exis Station.
Within minutes a blip appeared on the control panel in front of him.
The thing was too big to be another ship, Uldir decided. The blip was the
right size, shape, and age, and it was just about where Tionne said she had
left the space station. Uldir grinned and laid in a new course straight to
the station. The distant stars seemed to hold a welcoming twinkle, and
Uldir told himself that he was definitely doing the right thing.
Or was he? Flying the Sunrider alone had been such a challenge that
Uldir had not let himself think about what he had done up to this point.
Now that he was finally close to his destination, though, doubts crept into
his mind. Had the dark side of the Force brought him here?
After all, he had stolen the ship and the Holocron and the light -
saber-no, he had borrowed them, Uldir corrected himself. A new thought sent
a jolt of fear through him.
What if Orloc no longer lived at Exis? Or what if he did, but refused
to help Uldir? Uldir set his mouth in a grim line. Well then, he would just
stay at the space station without the Mage and study until he became a
Jedi. Perhaps in this place that had once held a great library of the Jedi,
the Holocron would work for Uldir. He would learn its secrets and return to
his friends a full-fledged Jedi.
He would show them that he could make something of himself. But what
if he was just falling to the dark side of the Force by coming here?
Uldir snorted. Sometimes a Jedi had to make difficult decisions, he
assured himself. What choices did he have left, after all? Master Skywalker
had said he saw no Jedi potential in Uldir. And outside the cave on
Dathomir, the furball Ikrit had said there was nothing there for Uldir, for
whom the cave had seemed empty.
Tahiri and Anakin had claimed to have strange experiences in the cave,
and Uldir now believed them. What Uldir did not believe was that these
"failures" meant he could never become a Jedi. They simply meant that
traditional teaching didn't work for him. Well, he had seen another chance
and he had taken it. He'd soon find out if the risk had been worth it. He
allowed himself a small smile. At least this time he wasn't a stowaway.
Uldir sat up straighter in the pilot's seat as he caught his first
good glimpse of Exis. It looked like a many-armed sea creature made of
metal, turning slowly in space. It was much larger than he had expected.
The center of the space station was shaped like a thick, solid wheel.
Satellite stations of all shapes and sizes were connected to the central
hub by wide access tubes. He couldn't tell what the smaller stations were
for, but he would ignore them, he decided, and head straight for the hub.
Now came one of the trickier parts of his plan.
He couldn't be sure whether anyone was there on the space station
monitoring the docking bays. However, most space stations had at least one
fully automated emergency dock for use only by captains of damaged ships or
travelers who were injured or ill. Taking a deep breath and holding it,
Uldir sent the age-old signal that identified him as a ship in distress.
For a long moment nothing happened.
Uldir's stomach churned, and still he held his breath. He gritted his
teeth. What if he had guessed wrong? What if he had come all this way and
there was no way to get aboard Exis Station? Suddenly an guessed wrong?
What if he had come all this way and there was no way to get aboard Exis
Station?
Suddenly an opening appeared in the
side of the space station as a
wide bay door slid aside. Rippling rows of bright lights appeared in the
hangar bay walls to guide Uldir's ship into position. Letting out his
breath in a sigh of relief, Uldir took the Sunrider in for a landing.
Except for the usual clanks, hums, buzzes, and thumps made by a
working space station, Uldir was greeted by silence when he stepped out
into the sealed hangar bay. There was plenty of breathable air in the
station-he had checked before leaving the ship. Uldir clipped Obi-Wan
Kenobi's lightsaber to the belt he wore around his Jedi robe. He stuffed
the Holocron into a full supply satchel and slung the strap over his
shoulder. He looked around and snorted.
"Not much of a welcoming committee," he muttered. Then he remembered
that emergency docks were normally sealed off from the rest of the space
station, in case the "emergency" happened to be a transport filled with
spies or a ship about to explode. Even if Orloc was somewhere on Exis, he
probably didn't know of Uldir's arrival.
It was dark inside-not as dark as space itself, but dark enough to
make Uldir shiver. Once the hangar bay doors had automatically shut, the
lights had dimmed again, so Uldir rummaged through his satchel and pulled
out a glowrod. Turning it to its brightest setting, he raised the light
high and looked around. Exis Station's emergency hangar bay was enormous,
able to hold much larger ships than Ikrit's little Sunrider. The light from
the glowrod didn't even reach the ceiling. Shadows sucked away at the edges
of his light.
"Spooky old place," Uldir mumbled.
He jumped at the sudden hissing and ticking sound that came from
behind him, but it was only the Sunrider's engines cooling. He laughed at
himself. He hadn't realized how tense this new situation had made him.
Holding the glowrod with shaking fingers, he headed toward the back of the
docking bay until his light fell on a sealed airlock door. Uldir walked the
length of the wall once, but the airlock door was the only exit. Sealed
with blast-shielding, the door was only large enough to accommodate one
person at a time-probably as a security precaution.
Any intruders who tried to attack the space station from this
emergency hangar bay would have to do so one by one. Not knowing what to
expect, Uldir reached for the airlock control switch. To his surprise, the
airlock door slid open at his touch. It was unlocked and required no access
code. Uldir stepped into the airlock with a smile of satisfaction and let
the door slide shut. Next he threw the switch for the second door. When it
slid open, his mouth fell open too. Waiting for him on the other side was
one of the strangest sights Uldir had ever seen.
About a dozen droids of every shape and description stood, sat,
trundled, or hovered in a rough semicircle outside the airlock. In front of
the droids crouched a handful of large rodentlike creatures with gray-brown
fur. The creatures, who wore purple sashes around their waists and silver
armbands, would have been about as tall as his shoulder had they been
standing. Uldir knew what they were, for he had seen some once on Tatooine:
they were Ranats.
And each of them was holding a blaster - pointed straight at him.
He froze. Before Uldir could even speak, someone or something threw a
rough sack over his head and pushed him to the floor. Tiny fingers with
sharp claws tied his hands and feet together. Uldir thought of calling for
help, but he knew there was no one to call to. When he tried to speak, he
felt a sharp sting, as if a needle had pricked his arm. Then came a fizzy
feeling, like he sometimes had when his foot fell asleep... only this was
all over his body.
Then the darkness inside the sack turned even darker, and Uldir passed
out. Uldir didn't know how long he was unconscious, but when he woke up he
found himself on something hard and flat that was moving. Probably a
stretcher or a repulsorsled, he guessed. He heard the voices of the Ranats
chittering around him. They were not speaking Basic, so he couldn't
understand what they were saying.
The sled hummed and rocked softly as they moved along. Minutes crept
by and became half an hour, then an hour. Uldir stopped trying to keep
track of the time. His arms and legs still had that fizzy feeling. Perhaps
this time they were truly asleep. At last, after what might have been
hours, the Ranats and the clanking droids and the repulsor - sled came to a
stop. The platform Uldir lay on stopped humming, as if someone had flicked
a switch, and he fell half a meter to land painfully on the floor.
He struggled back up into a sitting position. Someone yanked the sack
off his head. Uldir blinked in the sudden brightness of a clean, well-lit
room. The walls and floors were of polished metal, and plush cushions lay
scattered on the deckplates. Suddenly a plume of smoke billowed up from
have a visitor."
When the smoke cleared, Uldir saw a thin man wearing a deep purple
cloak with silver spangles along its edges. The man threw back the hood of
his cloak to reveal long dark hair, tawny eyes, and a small, neat beard.
But Uldir already knew who he was. It was the Mage Orloc.
With afternoon sunlight glinting off its copper - colored hull and its
solar sails spread like dragon wings on either side, the Lore Seeker lifted
off from Yavin 4. Tahiri stared straight forward at the space between
Tionne in the pilot's seat and Artoo-Detoo at the copilot's station. Ikrit
was perched on the droid's head.
"Next stop, Exis Station," Tionne said glancing over her shoulder.
Artoo-Detoo twittered a response. Tahiri wasn't really looking through
the front viewport, though. In fact, she wasn't looking at anything. She
was thinking. Her green eyes were unfocused, and she tugged repeatedly at a
strand of her blonde hair. Beside her, Anakin leaned over to whisper,
"Are you okay?" Tahiri still looked straight ahead. She nodded, then
stopped and shook her head. She spoke in a halting voice.
"While... while we were looking for Uldir, and then when we were
getting ready for our trip, I didn't let myself think about him...."
"But now you're thinking?" Anakin said.
She nodded.
"Me too," he admitted.
In the viewport ahead, the blackness of space deepened and pinprick
stars appeared.
"I've got a strange feeling about this. I can't decide whether I'm
really angry at Uldir or just worried about him," Anakin said. Tahiri
blinked and turned to look into Anakin's ice blue eyes.
"Strange," she said, "I was trying to decide if I felt more guilty or
betrayed."
Ikrit's scratchy voice drifted back from the front of the cockpit.
"Our course is verified."
Artoo-Detoo beeped once to show that he agreed.
"Switching to hyperdrive," Tionne replied.
Out of the corner of her eye Tahiri saw the specks of stars stretch
into long white lines around the Lore Seeker as it jumped to hyperspace.
&n
bsp; "Why?" Anakin asked. "Why should you feel guilty?"
Tahiri shrugged and wriggled uncomfortably in her crash webbing.
Suddenly the ship seemed too quiet. There was no sound except for the low
humming of the hyperdrive engines.
"I feel guilty because I should have been a better friend to Uldir,"
Tahiri said. "Maybe if I'd spent more time encouraging him and practicing
with him, he wouldn't have done this."
"But we did help him," Anakin pointed out.
"If it hadn't been for us, I don't think Uncle Luke would have let
Uldir stay at the Jedi academy." Tahiri sighed.
"Probably not. But if he hadn't stayed, at least the Holocron and Obi-
Wan Kenobi's lightsaber wouldn't be missing. How could Uldir do something
like that?" Anakin's cheeks turned pink, as if he were ashamed. "I don't
know. I thought he was our friend. We fought for him and practiced with
him, but I guess he didn't really trust us. Maybe it wasn't enough that we
tried to be his friends."
"What else should we have done for him?" Tahiri asked, feeling despair
fill her. Artoo-Detoo swiveled his head and whistled twice, the little
droid's signal for no.
"Artoo is right," Tionne said. "You can't blame yourselves. We can
never know exactly why Uldir left, but the reason probably made sense to
him. To understand why people do the things that they do, we need to learn