[Legacy Of The Force] - 01(114)

Ben found he could actually feel the pilot there, as a hard knot of pain and confusion that faded and swelled, moving in and out of the boy’s perceptions.

“Do you have any indication of whether he actually has live concussion missiles and how he got them?” Jacen asked.

Samran nodded. “He sent us the telemetry from his weapons board-a one-way feed, blast it, else we’d have been able to slice into his controls and solve this without calling you in. He has a full brace of missiles aimed at the student housing districts-precisely where, we can’t be sure. As for how he got them-he doesn’t have a credit left in what had been a decent-sized savings and investments account. With all the weapons smuggling going on these days, it’s no surprise that an old pilot with lots of connections could get his hands on ordnance like that.”

“What can you tell us about him?” Nelani asked.

Samran opened his datapad and consulted it. “Ordith Huarr, age eighty-one standard years. Human male originally from Lorrd. Back in the Old Republic and Empire days, he was a shuttle pilot. At the height of the Rebel Alliance, he joined them and spent the war as a Y-wing pilot, during which time he scored one-half of a kill. His record as a Rebel pilot was undistinguished.”

Nelani shot Samran an admonishing look. “He was no less brave than pilots with better kill records.”

Samran held her stare, unruffled. “The comment about his record was offered as a possible key to his mental state. In my experience, people with mediocre skills and unremarkable records are more likely to come unhinged. They experience more frustration, less appreciation. Or do you disagree?”

Nelani’s expression relented a bit, to one of milder disapproval, and she turned away to stare at the old starfighter again.

“Anyway,” Samran continued, “he became a flight instructor after the Empire fell, and eventually retired and returned to Lorrd. He came out of retirement a few years back to shuttle Yuuzhan Vong war refugees around, and the records suggest that being kicked around from planet to planet unwilling to accept refugees did something bad to his outlook. After the Yuuzhan Vong war, he came back again, bought some rural property with his wife, and spent the next several years living off his pension and shooting blasters at intruders.”

“Any children?” Nelani asked.

“No children,” Samran said. “And his wife died about two years ago.”

“Two years,” Jacen said. “What happened recently that put him behind a missile board, threatening students?”

Samran shook his head.

“I guess I’d better talk to him,” Nelani said. She turned back to Jacen. “Unless you’d like to? You’re senior.”

Jacen shook his head. “No, I have another tactic I’ll explore.”

She nodded, made sure her robes were suitably straight and that the lightsaber hanging at her belt was clearly visible, then marched across the plascrete parking area toward the Y-wing.

When she was fifty meters from the starfighter, the pilot’s voice, broadcast over an external speaker system, boomed at her. “That’s close enough.” The voice was thin, raspy.

Nelani cupped her hands around her mouth to shout her reply. “Whatever you say. Huarr, you didn’t have to endanger all those students to talk to me. My station office can be reached by planetary net or comlink.”

Ben felt the pilot’s pain and confusion surge, stronger than he’d experienced it previously.

“You wouldn’t have taken me seriously,” the old man said. “You only understand force. Force and the Force.” He laughed, a bitter noise, as if briefly entertained by his own play on words.

“Not true, but we don’t need to argue the point,” Nelani shouted. “I’m here now. Why did you want to talk to me?”

“What is a Force ghost?” Huarr asked.

Nelani was silent for a long moment. “It’s a survival, a sending from someone who has died but still exists in a certain way.”

“My wife is a Force ghost,” Huarr said. “She talks to me. But she can’t, can she?”

Nelani took another step forward. Even distorted by shouting, her voice sounded dubious. “Was she a Jedi? Or did she ever do things that suggested she might see things, feel things that normal people don’t?”

“No.”

Caught up as he was in the dialogue between Nelani and Huarr, Ben had lost track of Jacen. Now he became aware that his mentor was concentrating, channeling the Force.

Jacen reached out and pulled a handful of air toward him. Simultaneously the Y-wing’s ion jet pods skidded backward across the duracrete, sending up showers of sparks, just until the starfighter’s nose slid off the barrier and crashed to the ground, facing directly into the duracrete.