Traitor by Matthew Stover (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

belt. He grumbled something in a guttural tongue that Ganner couldn’t understand.

“Not everyone who carries that weapon is a Jedi,” the man replied without shifting his blankly hostile stare from Ganner’s face. “Be silent.”

Again Ganner was struck by some weirdly familiar resonance in the voice, though he knew he’d never seen this man before. Somehow he thought this voice should be higher, fresher, more cheerful. He shook his head. He’d worry about that later. He might not be the best sabacc player in the galaxy, but he knew when to turn his cards face-up. “I am a Jedi,” he said quietly. “My name is Ganner Rhysode. I have come to inquire about Jacen Solo. Which one of you saw him alive?”

“You are mistaken. No one here saw anything. You had better go.”

One of the others stepped forward and said something that sounded like Shinn’l fekk Jeedai trizmek.

“Silence!” the man snapped over his shoulder.

Hairs prickled up the back of Ganner’s neck, but his expression remained only politely curious. “Please,” he said, “tell me what you know.” He reached out through the Force to nudge a little cooperation out of this man—

And awoke to find himself jogging away down the passage, with no memory of having turned aside, no idea how he’d gotten here.

What? he thought blankly. What?

Dizzily, blurrily, he worked it out: that guy back there could use the Force—could use it as well as the most powerful of Jedi. That middle-aged, average-looking man had brushed aside Ganner’s probe and blasted back with a Force compulsion so strong that even though Ganner knew what it was, it continued to drive his legs in a staggering lope away from the chamber.

He wrenched himself to a stop, gasping, leaning on the pebble-textured wall. The dread he’d felt had vanished; it must have been a Force projection as well: subtle, undetectable. Now, too late, he wished he had broken his promise to Jaina and brought along a dozen Jedi for backup—because now he felt from the chamber behind him only one presence in the Force.

One alone.

Of the other four in there, he felt nothing at all.

His lightsaber appeared in his hand and its blade snapped to life. You’re not the only one who can play games with the Force, he thought, grinning, feeling for a moment the old rush, the familiar buzz of happy anticipation with which he’d always faced sudden danger.

In the old days.

Leave that Ganner behind, he told himself. He released the activation plate and his blade vanished. I’m not like that. I’m cautious. Cautious and unobtrusive.

Slowly, gradually, he began to withdraw from the Force: shutting down his Force presence as though he were still moving away. This left him Force-blind—but also Force-invisible.

He crept back toward the chamber, moving silently along the passage wall.

A powerful Force-user in the camp ship—along with what were very probably masqued Yuuzhan Vong. And this Force-user had knowingly blown his cover when he’d put the compulsion on Ganner; in mere minutes, he could disappear forever into the anonymous millions who crowded the immense ship. Ganner had heard the stories from Yavin 4: he knew that the Yuuzhan Vong had been trying to turn Jedi to their service. If they had finally succeeded, the consequences would be literally incalculable.

He was in over his head. Way over his head.

But what else could he do?

This guy’s stronger than I am. Cold dread prickled up his arms, and this time it wasn’t any Force projection. It was the real thing. And there are five of them.

I really am going to get myself killed.

But he kept moving, creeping along the wall, silent lightsaber loose in his tingling hand. How could he not? He could imagine all too well trying to explain to Skywalker: Well, um, actually—I didn’t do anything about the Jedi traitor and the Yuuzhan Vong infiltrators because of, well, I mean, because of how, uh—well, I’d be really embarrassed if people thought I got killed because I was playing hero again—

He choked off the thought; he was at the chamber door, and his Force trick wouldn’t fool this guy for more than another second or two. No time to plan. Barely time to act.

No killing, he told himself. Not until I’m sure they’re Vong.

With a sigh he relaxed the mental tension that had held him outside the Force. Perception flooded him, and in its surge he felt the Force-user within the chamber blaze like a homing beacon in an asteroid belt.

Ganner flowed into action without thinking, just moving, his blade sizzling to life, slashing away the curtain’s fastenings, gathering it as it fell, bagging the head of the nearest white-robe while he kicked a second aside. He faked another low-line kick and leapt high, whipping an overhand right to crash the handle of his lightsaber onto the top of a third’s head hard enough to drive him to his knees, then used him like a pommel horse, vaulting his legs high for a double kick that flattened the fourth like he’d been shot with a bowcaster. He whirled back to the first just as the white-robe managed to claw the curtain off his head, and dropped him with an elbow across the jaw.

He felt motion behind him and sprang into a Force-assisted back flip that spun him high and wide and ended with him in a perfectly balanced stance one arm’s length from the middle-aged man, the tip of his lightsaber’s blade half a centimeter from the hollow of the man’s throat.

“Nobody’s dead and nobody’s hurt,” Ganner said coolly, voice as even as his lightsaber’s hum, “but that can change. Anytime. It’s your call.”

The four Force-invisible white-robes, scattered around the small chamber off balance or off their feet entirely, hesitated. The middle-aged man stood motionless.

Ganner couldn’t restrain the hint of a smile. Not only am I good at this, he thought reflexively, I do it with style. He squashed the thought the instant it registered, exasperated with himself. Just when I think I’m making progress—

He gathered his caution in layers