[Junior Jedi Knights] -05(8)

“Did Uncle Luke tell you anything about the fortress itself?” Anakin asked.

“I don’t know much about it.”

“Well, I found out as much as I could before we left. Apparently Vader built Bast Castle as one of his private strongholds; he was a powerful man. After both he and Emperor Palpatine died, some of the Emperor’s followers brought a copy of Palpatine’s body here-a clone. This second Emperor was defeated too. Since then, the fortress has been abandoned, as far as we know.”

A cold rain began to drizzle down on the gathered companions. And soon the wind picked up again, chilling them all.

“I still don’t get it,” Uldir said to Anakin. “Why would your grandfather choose to build in such a desolate place?”

Anakin’s teeth were beginning to chatter.

“Guess he didn’t want many visitors.”

Despite the freezing rain and her bare feet, Tahiri had clambered to the top of a rock to get a better view of their surroundings. Her feet looked blue from the cold and Anakin wondered if she really was more comfortable without boots on.

“Um, it looks like they still get at least some visitors,” Tahiri said.

“What do you mean?” Anakin asked, climbing up beside her.

She pointed to a spot a hundred meters away, where a battered old cargo shuttle was half hidden in the shadow of a rocky outcropping. Lightning flashed, brightening the area around the small ship for a moment.

“Looks empty,” Anakin said.

Tahiri nodded.

“I wonder if it’s been there very long.”

The chilly rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, but the wind still howled around them.

“I think we’d better get up to Bast Castle as soon as the weather improves,” Tionne said. “I just hope we’re not too late to find what we came for.”

“Look,” Tahiri gasped, and pointed upward.

The wind that had been making them all shiver had also broken up the clouds and pushed them aside. Towering above them, on a grim stony peak, sat Bast Castle. The fortress was domed and heavily armored, with a craggy spike at the center. Dark and brooding, it looked like a deadly battleship hovering in the sky just above the tip of sharp rock that stabbed upward. Lightning flashed around it like blaster fire. Thunder rumbled.

“It’s hard to imagine,” Tahiri said, “that anyone ever called this place home.”

It was a dark and stormy day. Tahiri shivered as she looked out the Lore Seeker’s viewport at the rain and gusty winds that swept Vjun’s bleak landscape. She yanked at a strand of her damp blonde hair. Now that they had all changed into dry clothes and eaten a warm meal, Tahiri was ready to face the climb up to the fortress.

But the weather, if anything, had gotten worse. It was raining again-much harder this time - and her feet refused to get warm.

“Do you think it will let up?” Anakin asked.

“From what Master Skywalker told me, the weather on this planet is never very pleasant,” Tionne said.

“I guess it’s a good thing we brought thermal liners to wear under our jumpsuits then,” Anakin said. “And our rain gear too.”

“How long are we going to wait?” Uldir asked impatiently. “We don’t know how long this rain will last. It could be days.”

Tionne sighed.

“That’s true. Let’s gather all of our equipment together and get our rain gear ready. We’ll wait another hour. If it hasn’t let up by then, we’ll start anyway.”

Tahiri looked down at her bare feet. They were still cold, and when she wriggled her toes she could hardly feel them. But she detested shoes, and her voice was miserable as she told Tionne,

“I hate to say it, but I think I’ll have to wear those soft boots you had made for me. I hope I’ll only need them for the climb. Once we get to the castle I may take them off again, of course.”

The Jedi teacher’s face was solemn as she nodded at Tahiri and said,

“Of course.”

As it was, the rain her face. Her nose was starting to drip, and the chilly gusts stung her eyes and made her cheeks and ears numb.

“The information broker on Borgo Prime said there was a stairway around the back of the rock,” Tionne said. “Ah, here we are.”

Now that they were getting close, Anakin looked upward.

“Will this lead us to the landing pad?” he asked.

Tionne inspected the stairway etched into the side of the rock pinnacle.

“Not exactly. This takes us to the back of Bast Castle. The last time Master Skywalker was here, there were automatic lasers firing on anything that moved in front of the fortress. He knew about this rear stairway and suggested it might be safer.”