The tall woman’s black hair flowed like waves of darkness down her shoulders, and her ebony cape sparkled with bits of polished gems, swirling around her like a starry night sky. Her violet eyes blazed in a face so pale it seemed carved from polished bone. Her lips were a dark wine color, as if she had just eaten an overripe fruit. The woman was beautiful—in a cruel sort of way.
“So, Jedi Knights, you are awake at last,” she snapped. Her voice was deep and thick, without the hissing edge Jaina had expected. “I must begin by saying how disappointed I am in you. I had hoped for more resistance from such powerful students already trained in the Force. Your Jedi defenses were pitiful! But we shall change that. You will be taught new ways. Effective ways.”
The woman spun on one heel, and her black cloak swept around her like trailing smoke. “Follow me,” she said, and stepped into the corridor.
“No,” Jaina responded. “Who do you think you are? Why have you brought us here against our will?”
“I said follow!” the woman repeated. When they made no move to comply, she pointed her polished nails at them and twitched her fingers.
Suddenly, it felt as if a resilient invisible cord had wrapped around Jaina’s throat. The woman crooked her finger, yanking at Jaina as if she were a pet on a leash. Jaina lurched as the invisible rope hauled her out of the cell.
Lowbacca and Jacen strained against similar bonds of Force, the Wookiee yowling his defiance. Despite their struggles, all three children were dragged on Force leashes tripping and stumbling into the corridor.
“I can do this all the way to the bridge, if you like,” the woman said, her deep red lips curved into a mocking smile. “Or, you can save your energies for more productive resistance later.”
“All right,” Jaina croaked, sensing that this woman had dark Jedi powers she could not match—at least not yet.
When the Force bonds dropped away, the companions stood gasping and trembling. They looked at each other in angry humiliation, knowing they were beaten.
Jaina was the first to recover. Swallowing hard, she stood straight, put her chin in the air, and followed the woman in black. Her brother and Lowie fell in behind Jaina. “Who are you?” Jaina asked after a while.
The woman paused in midstep, as if considering, then answered. “My name is Tamith Kai. I am from a new order of Nightsisters.”
“Nightsisters? You mean like on Dathomir?” Jacen asked.
Jaina remembered the stories their friend Tenel Ka told when it was her turn to scare them before they practiced Jedi calming techniques—stories of the horrible evil women who had once twisted civilization on her world.
Tamith Kai looked at Jacen, her wine-dark lips set in something between a scowl and a smile. “You’ve heard of us? Good. My planet is rich in Force-wielders, and the Empire has helped to bring us back. Now perhaps you’ll realize you can’t resist. Cooperation, on the other hand, will be rewarded.”
“We won’t cooperate with you,” Jaina challenged.
“Yes, yes,” Tamith Kai said, as if bored. “All in good time.”
“Hey, where are you taking us?” Jacen asked, walking quickly to keep pace with his sister. Lowie strode behind them, grumbling and fumbling at his waist as if he actually missed Em Teedee.
“You’ll see soon enough,” the Nightsister said. “We are almost ready to leave hyperspace.”
All four of them stepped onto a lift platform that carried them up a level and opened out onto the bridge of the fleeing ship. The single pilot sat with his back to them in a padded high-backed chair, hunched over the controls. Ahead, through the bridge viewports Jaina could see the swirling colors of hyperspace.
The pilot reached out with his right hand and grabbed a lever as a countdown trickled to zero. Then he yanked the lever, and hyperspace suddenly unfolded, washing away into the star-studded darkness of normal space.
“We’re near the Core Systems,” Jaina said immediately, looking out at the rich starfields and the streamers of interstellar gas clotted together near the center of the galaxy.
The crowded Core Systems were the last bastions of Imperial power; not even New Republic forces had been able to flush them out completely. But they had arrived nowhere close to any system. They found themselves merely hanging, out in the middle of the star-strewn blackness.
“We have reached our destination, Tamith Kai,” the pilot said, swiveling in his tall chair.
Jaina’s heart leaped as she recognized the weary, hard-bitten face and iron-gray hair of the former TIE pilot who had been stranded on Yavin 4 for so many years.
“Qorl!” Jacen exclaimed.
Lowie roared in anger.
Qorl had attacked them in the jungles when the young Jedi Knights had found his crashed TIE fighter and tried to fix it. The Imperial pilot had shot at Lowie and Tenel Ka, who had managed to escape into the undergrowth, but Qorl had taken Jacen and Jaina prisoner.
“Greetings, young friends. I never did thank you for fixing my ship and allowing me to return to my Empire.”
“You betrayed us!” Jaina cried, feeling a surge of anger toward the brainwashed man. While being held captive, the twins had befriended Qorl, exchanging stories with him around the campfire. Jaina had felt sure the TIE pilot was softening, realizing that the ways of the Empire were filled with lies. But in the end, Qorl’s military conditioning had been too strong.
“I returned as any soldier would and gave my report,” Qorl said in a dull voice. “These people accepted me and … reindoctrinated me. I told them of your existence—powerful young Jedi Knights just waiting to be trained to serve the Empire.”
“Never,” Jaina and Jacen snapped in unison, and Lowbacca agreed with a roar.
Tamith Kai looked down at them mockingly. Standing beside Qorl, the dark-haired woman seemed even taller than before, more intimidating than ever. “Your anger is good,” she said. “Fuel it. Let it grow. We will use it when your training begins. But for now … we have reached our destination.”
Lowie gave a growl of disbelief.
Jaina looked out the front viewports, trying to calm herself. Master Skywalker had said that giving in to anger was a path to the dark side of the Force. She must not lash out, she knew; she must think of some other way to fight back.
“We’re in the middle of empty space,” Jaina said. “What is there for us to see?”
“Space is not always empty,” Tamith Kai said. Her thick voice held a singsong quality, as if her mind was thinking of something else. “Reality is not always what it seems.”
At his station Qorl verified the coordinates, then punched in a security code. “Transmitting now,” he said.
Tamith Kai turned her sharp violet eyes toward the young Jedi Knights. “You are about to begin a new phase of your lives,” she said, pointing to the viewscreens. “Behold.”
Space shimmered like a blanket of invisibility peeling away. Suddenly a space station hung in front of them, torus-shaped, like a donut. Weapons emplacements ringed the station’s entire perimeter, pointing in all directions, making it look like a spiked disciplinary collar for some ferocious beast. Tall observation towers rose like pinnacles on one side of the station.
Jaina swallowed hard.
“Cloaking device off,” Qorl announced.
“Take a good look,” Tamith Kai said, but she did not glance at the viewscreens. Her eyes glittered with violet fervor at the children. “Here you’ll be trained as Dark Jedi … for the Empire.”
Qorl spoke up, reminding her. “We must commence docking immediately and reactivate the invisibility shielding.”
The Nightsister nodded but did not seem to hear, never taking her eyes off the young Jedi Knights. “Welcome to the Shadow Academy,” she whispered.
7
Tenel Ka slid a hand under the crash webbing of the copilot’s seat and scratched at the rough-woven, unfamiliar material of her disguise. She wished for the dozenth time that she could wear her comfortable reptilian armor, which was as supple as it was protective and never irritated her skin.