As the Ronto neared the nest, it adjusted course, heading out over the plateau toward the freight yard, where a swarm of Taat workers were already assembling to unload it. Jaina thought briefly about going to see the cargo, but Unu did not want that. Unu wanted her to enjoy the beauty of the nest from the veranda of the Jedi barracks.
That freighter should alarm us, Jaina said to Zekk. It can only make war more likely.
It’s too late to stop the war, Zekk replied. But we should try.
Jaina started to rise, then suddenly felt too tired and dropped back onto her seat. Maybe later.
“Yeah,” Zekk said aloud. We’d rather sit here.
There was something wrong with that, Jaina knew. Jedi were supposed to be dauntless, resourceful, resolute. They were supposed to accomplish the impossible, to keep trying no matter how difficult the mission.
They were supposed to have indomitable spirits.
Jaina felt a stirring deep down inside, in the place that had always belonged to her brother Jacen, and she knew he was with her, urging her to fight back, to throw off her lethargy, to break the Colony’s hold on her and reach for that part of her that was just Jaina.
Jaina stood.
Where are you going? Zekk asked. It doesn’t feel like you need the refresher.
“Get out of our-my-mind,” Jaina said.
Jacen was urging her to remember how Welk and Lomi Plo had tricked the strike team on Baanu Rass, how they had stolen the Flier and abandoned Anakin to die. And now Jaina was allowing them to control her mind.
Jaina did not understand how that could be. The entire Colony knew that Raynar Thul was the only survivor of the Crash.
But Jacen seemed so sure. A black fury rose in Jaina’s mind, the same black fury to which she had succumbed when she went to recover Anakin’s body, and finally she felt able to act.
She wanted to find Welk and kill him. She wanted to find Lomi Plo and make her wish for death.
But first, there was duty. To let anger distract her was to let the Dark Jedi win. First, Jaina had to stop the war-then she could kill Lomi and Welk.
Jaina turned toward the hangar.
“Where are you going?” Zekk whined from his bench. “We can’t do anything. It’s too late.”
Jaina opened herself to their meld, then reached out to him and let her anger pour from her heart into his.
I won’t surrender to them. I’m going to stop this war.
Zekk’s eyes widened, then turned a bright, angry green. He slammed his palms down and pushed himself to his feet.
“I’m with you,” he said, catching up. “How are we going to do this?”
“Tell you later,” Jaina said. She did not yet have a plan-and she had no intention of developing one until after they were away from the Taat nest. “For now, let’s just concentrate on getting to our StealthXs.”
They stepped into the sweet dampness of the wax-lined access tunnel and started down toward the hangar. As they progressed, Taat began to fill Jaina’s mind with doubts about her intentions, to make her wonder if she would really be stopping the war-or merely sparing the Chiss a much-deserved defeat.
Jaina thought of Anakin, and her doubts vanished in the black fire of her anger.
Taat workers began to pour into the tunnel, all scurrying up a passage that led only to the Jedi barracks. Jaina and Zekk threatened them with word and thought, but the Killiks continued to clamber past, slowing the pair’s progress to a crawl.
Zekk took the lead and began to muscle forward, using the Force to shove aside the Killiks ahead of him. More Taat poured into the tunnel, convinced they had some urgent errand in the Jedi barracks. Zekk continued to push ahead. Jaina added her Force powers to his, and the entire stream of insects began to slide backward down the runnel.
The Killiks dispersed, and a strange resistance began to rise inside the two Jedi, a cold hand pushing at them inside their own bellies. Their limbs grew heavier, their breathing became labored, their pulses pounded in their ears. They leaned against the cold hand, and still it grew harder to move. Soon, their legs were too heavy to lift, their lungs were ready to burst, their drumming hearts drowned out their own thoughts. They came to a stop, hanging parallel to the floor, and the harder they tried to move forward, the more impossible it became.
They hung there for several minutes, testing their wills against that of the Colony, and only grew more tired. Jaina thought of how Lomi and Welk had betrayed Anakin, and she grew more determined than ever to avenge him-and less able to move.
Jaina began to despair. Her anger was no match for the Will of the Colony. She had to find another way.
The seed of a new plan came to Jaina, a plan that relied not on anger, but on love instead.
Jaina did not nurture that seed. Instead, she buried it deep down in her mind, in that part that was still I instead of we.