He checked the primary display and found only bright static; the navigation sensors were awash in elec-tromagnetic blast from compressing gas. The Shadow’s internal sensors were working just fine, however, and they showed the ship’s hull temperature rising rapidly as they penetrated the cloud. It wouldn’t take long for that to become dangerous, Ben knew. Soon the fierce heat inside the accretion disk would start fouling guidance systems and control relays. Eventually, it would compromise hull integrity.
“Dad, how about doing something with those sensor filters?” Ben asked. “My navigational readings are snow.”
“Adjusting the filters won’t change anything,” Luke said calmly. “We’re flying between a pair of black holes ,remember?”
Ben exhaled in exasperation, then cursed under his breath and continued to stare out into the fiery ribbons ahead. At best, he could make out a confluence zone where the two accretion disks were brushing against each other, and the painful brilliance made it difficult to tell even that much.
“How am I supposed to navigate?” Ben complained.
“I can’t see anything.”
Luke remained silent.
Ben felt the hint of disapproval in his father’s Force aura and experienced a flash of rebellion. He let out a mill_9780345519399_2p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 6/4/09 10:1
40
Troy Denning
cleansing breath, allowing the feeling to run its course and depart on a cushion of stale air, then saw how he had been blinded by his anxiety over the navigation difficulties.
“Oh . . . right,” Ben said, feeling more than a little foolish. “Trust the Force.”
“No worries,” Luke said, sounding amused. “The first time I tried something this crazy, I had to be reminded, too.”
“Well, at least Ihave an excuse.” Ben took the navigation sensors offline so the static wouldn’t interfere with his concentration. “It’s hard to focus with your dad looking over your shoulder.”
Luke’s crash webbing clicked open. “In that case, maybe I should get some—”
“Who are you kidding?” Ben shoved the yoke over, flipping the Shadowinto a tight barrel roll. “You just want to bite your nails in private.”
“The thought hadn’t crossed my mind,” Luke said, dropping back into his seat. “Until now,ungrateful off-spring.”
Ben laughed, then leveled out and checked the hull temperature. It was climbing even faster than he had feared. He closed his eyes and—hoping the gas was not so thick that friction would aggravate the problem—shoved the throttles forward.
It did not take long before Ben began to sense a calm place a little to port. He adjusted course and extended his Force awareness in that direction, then started to feel a strange, nebulous presence that reminded him of something he could not quite place—of something dark and diffuse, spread across a great distance.
Ben opened his eyes again. “Dad, do you feel—”
“Yes, like the Killiks,” Luke said. “We might be dealing with a hive- mind.”
A cold shudder was already racing down Ben’s spine.
mill_9780345519399_2p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 6/4/09 10:1
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi:Abyss 41
His father had barely uttered the word Killiksbefore the memory of his stint as an unwilling Gorog Joiner came flooding back, and for the second time in less than an hour he found himself desperately wanting to withdraw from the Force. Gorog had been a dark side nest, secretly controlling the entire Killik civilization while it fed on captured Chiss, and Ben had fallen under its sway for a short time when he was only five.
It had been the most terrifying and confusing time of his childhood, and had Jacen not recognized what was happening and helped Ben find his way back to the Force and his true family, he doubted very much that he would have been able to break free at all.
Thankfully, the presence ahead was not all that similar to Gorog’s. There was certainly a darkness to it, and it was clearly composed of many different beings joined together across a vast distance—most of space ahead, really. But the distribution seemed more mottled than a Killik hive- mind, as though dozens of distinct individu-als were joined together in something vaguely similar to a battle- meld.
Ben was about to clarify his impressions for his father when a familiar presence began to slither up inside him. It was cold and condemning, like a friend betrayed, and he could feel how angry it was about the intrusion into its lair. The Force grew stormy and foreboding, and an electric prickle of danger sense raced down Ben’s spine. He could feel the darkness gathering against him, trying to push him away, and that only hardened his resolve to finally face the specter. He opened himself up, grabbed hold in the Force, and began to pull.
The presence jerked back, then tried to shrink away.
It was too late. Ben already had a firm grasp, and he was determined to follow it back to its physical location. He checked the hull temperature and saw that it mill_9780345519399_2p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 6/4/09 10:1
42
Troy Denning
was hovering in the yellow danger zone. Then he focused his attention forward and saw—actually saw—a thumbnail- sized darkness tunneling through the swirling fires ahead. He pointed their nose toward the black oval, then shoved the throttles to the over-load stops and watched the fiery ribbons of gas stream past the cockpit.
The ribbons grew brighter and more deeply colored as the ship penetrated the accretion disk, and soon the gas grew so dense that the Shadowbegan to buck and shudder in its turbulence. Ben held on tight to the yoke . . . andto the dark presence he was clasping in the Force.
His father’s voice sounded behind him. “Uh, Ben?”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Ben said. “I’ve got an approach lane.”
“A what?” Luke sounded genuinely surprised. “I hope you realize the hull temperature is almost into the red.”
“Dad!”Ben snapped. “Will you please let me con-centrate?”
Luke fell silent for a moment, then exhaled loudly.
“Ben, the gas here is too dense for these velocities.
We’re practically flying through an atmo—”
“ Youridea,” Ben interrupted. The black oval swelled to the size of a fist. “Trust me!”
“Ben, trust medoesn’t work for Jedi the way it does for your uncle Han. We don’t have his luck.”
“Maybe that would change if we trusted it more often,” Ben retorted.
The black oval continued to expand until it was the size of a hatch. Ben fought the turbulence and somehow kept the Shadow’s nose pointed toward it, then the ship was inside the darkness, flying smooth and surrounded by a dim cone of orange radiance. Startled by the abrupt transition and struggling to adjust to the mill_9780345519399_2p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 6/4/09 10:1
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi:Abyss 43
sudden change of light, Ben feared for an instant that the dark presence had led him
off- course—perhaps
even out of the accretion disks altogether.
Then the cone of orange began to simultaneously compress and fade, becoming a dark tunnel, and a far worse possibility occurred to him.