Bane pushed his mount, urging it into the uppermost reaches of the breathable atmosphere. Above them the nearby world of Onderon grew in size until it completely filled the horizon. Only a few hundred kilometers separated Dxun from its neighbor, an insignifi-cant sliver of distance on the scale of worlds and solar systems. Already he could feel the faint gravitational pull of Onderon trying to draw them in, the larger planet's mass battling for dominance with that of its slightly smaller satellite. Driven by Bane's relentless will, the drexl pumped its wings furiously, gaining speed and elevation with every beat.
Bane began to summon the Force, letting it build until the last possible instant. Then, gathering the dark side around him and his mount like a protective cloak, he spurred the drexl forward, and a second later they broke free of Dxun's atmosphere and plunged into the frozen vacuum of space that separated him from Onderon and freedom.
Chapter 9
The sound of the Star-Wake's autonav update jarred Zannah awake from a restless slumber. She had curled herself awkwardly into the pilot's chair, and now her neck was stiff from sleeping in an uncomfortable position. There were plenty of places to lie down and stretch out properly in the cargo hold at the back, but Zannah couldn't sleep in there. Not with all the bodies.
She had removed Wend and Irtanna from the cockpit in the first few minutes after their deaths. It had been a struggle getting Wend out of his chair, but her adrenaline levels had still been high from the confrontation with Irtanna and she had managed to drag him down the hall to the cargo hold where his father and brother lay.
Relocating Irtanna had been more difficult. She had a soldier's physique, lean and muscular, and easily weighed twice what Zannah did. At first the girl hadn't even been able to budge the corpse. By the time she realized she would have to call upon the Force to aid her, the excitement of the moment was gone. In the aftermath she'd found it much more difficult to summon the dark side; each time she tried to draw upon her inner anger, her conscience had fought against her. Instead of the familiar heat of power, she'd felt only guilt and doubt. Images of Bordon and his sons lying side by side on the cargo room's floor had clouded her thoughts, making it difficult for her to concentrate.
Zannah had tried to block the images and allow the dark side to flow through her, but she'd been only partly successful. In the end she had relied more on determination and sweat than the power of the Force. Grunting and straining, she had eventually managed to drag Irtanna for half a meter before having to stop and catch her breath. She had repeated the process again and again, slowly pulling the body down the ship's corridor until Irtanna lay beside the others.
There had been very little blood; apart from the first glancing shot to Bordon's gut, all the wounds had been cauterized by the heat of the blaster bolts. Yet the lack of gore had done nothing to make the bodies' appearance any less unsettling. Their lifeless eyes had stared up at nothing, compelling Zannah to bend forward and close the lids, her hand trembling as she brushed against the clammy skin. Still not satisfied, she'd hunted around until she found several large blankets to drape over the corpses. Even under the sheets, the profiles of her victims were still somewhat recognizable, but there was nothing more she could do about that. She had only come back to the cargo hold one other time since then, grabbing as many ration kits as she could carry and taking them up to the front, trying not to look at the shrouded bodies at her feet.
In the ensuing seven days she had been both praying for and dreading an end to her journey, when she would be reunited with her Master and begin her training in the ways of the Sith. She never left the cockpit except to use the ship's refresher. Whenever she tried to sleep, she could never manage more than a fitful doze plagued with nightmares in which she relived her killing spree over and over.
Each time she woke she would tear open a ration kit and pick at the food, her body slowly replenishing what it had lost during her weeks on Ruusan. But the rations were meant for a full-grown adult, and she could never finish them. When she was done, she would toss the uneaten portion along with the container down the hall toward the cargo hold. After a few days the smells of a dozen half-finished meals began to mingle into a sickly sweet aroma that hung like a thin curtain in the air. Zannah actually welcomed the cloying scent of rotting food; it covered up the mounting stench of the decaying bodies in the back.
To fight the boredom, she'd tried to imagine what her future would be like as Bane's apprentice. She would focus on everything he'd promised her: the ability to call upon and command the Force at will; the mysterious secrets of the dark side; the power to reach her true potential and fulfill her destiny. Her mind, however, kept returning to the Star-Wakes dead crew. And each time it happened she wondered what her Master would think about such weakness.
The autonav chimed again. Zannah glanced at the readout: The ship would be entering atmosphere in five minutes. She was being prompted to select landing coordinates.
Zannah sat up straight in the pilot's chair, furrowing her brow as she studied the onscreen display. She'd been hoping that the automated systems that had carried the vessel from Ruusan to Onderon would also be programmed to land. Unfortunately, it seemed that task now fell to her… and she had no idea how to bring the ship down safely.
She punched a button on the screen labeled LANDING ZONES. A long list of unfamiliar locations and coordinates began to scroll across the display. She had no clue what any of the numbers meant, and no idea how to select one anyway.
As she stared at the readout-they were entering atmosphere now – Zannah felt the familiar bump of turbulence. Caught between frustration and panic, she reached out and began randomly poking buttons. She stopped only when the autonav beeped twice: Destination accepted.
Heaving a sigh of relief, she collapsed back into her seat and buckled up for touchdown. She tried to peer over the console to get a view through the cockpit window of where she was headed, but she was too short to see clearly. All she could make out was kilometers of thick, green canopy stretching out in every direction. Evidently she had selected a landing zone in a less civilized part of the world.
A sobering question crossed her mind. Does the autopilot know how to land in the middle of a forest? Or will it smash me to bits against the treetops?
As if reading her thoughts, the autonav chimed angrily. Zannah read the update: "Suboptimal conditions detected at selected landing zone. Seeking nearest available alternative site."
She felt the ship bank slightly, veering and leveling off to skim the forest in search of a large-enough clearing to land in.
"Alternative landing zone located," the screen assured her a few moments later, and she felt the nose dip as the vessel began her final descent.
She heard a loud bang and the heavy, staccato pounding of branches striking the exterior of the hull as the Star-Wake plowed through a thin layer of branches en route to her chosen destination on the surface. A second later the ship rocked hard to one side, deflecting off a tree trunk too thick to smash through. Next came a series of heavy, jarring thumps as the ship skipped and skidded across the ground before finally coming to a stop.
Shaken but uninjured, Zannah undid her safety harness and opened the exit hatch. As she descended the vessel's loading ramp, she noticed she was on one end of a large clearing that had been carved from the forest to create a circle nearly two hundred meters in diameter. Much to her surprise, someone was in the middle of the clearing waving her over.