Star Wars - Lost Tribe of the Sith 03 - Paragon

Kessel
    Ben Skywalker shouldered his way through the narrow hatch that gave access to his father’s cabin. A redheaded teen of less than average height, he was well muscled in a way that his anonymous black tunic and pants could not conceal.
    On the cabin’s bed, under a brown blanket, lay Luke Skywalker. Similar in build to his son, he wore the evidence of many more years of hard living, including ancient, faded scars on his face and the exposed portions of his arms. Not obvious was the fact that his right hand, so ordinary in appearance, was a prosthetic.
    Luke’s eyes were closed but he stirred. “What did you find out?”
    “I reached Nien Nunb.” Nunb, the Sullustan co-owner and manager of one of Kessel’s most prominent mineworks, had been a friend of the Solos and Skywalkers for decades. “That yacht did make landfall. The pilot gave her name as Captain Khai. She somehow scammed a port worker into thinking she’d paid for a complete refueling when she hadn’t—”
    Luke smiled. “The Force can have a—”
    “Yeah, so can a good-looking girl. Anyway, what’s interesting is that she got a galactic map update. Nunb looked at the transmission time on that to determine that it was pretty comprehensive. In other words, she didn’t concentrate on any one specific area or route. No help there.”
    “But it suggests that she did need some of the newer information. New hyperspace routes or planetary listings.”
    “Right.”
    “And she’s gone?”
    “Headed out as soon as her yacht was refueled. By the way, its name is
She’s a Chancer
.”
    “Somehow appropriate.” Finally Luke did open his eyes, and Ben was once again struck by how tired his father looked, tired to the bone and to the spirit. “I can still feel her path. I’ll be up in a minute to lay in a course.”
    “Right. Don’t push yourself.” Ben backed out of the cabin and its door slid shut.
SEVERAL DAYS LATER
Jade Shadow , In High Dathomir Orbit
    Luke stared at the mottled, multicolored world of Dathomir through the forward viewport. He nodded, feeling slightly abashed. Of
course
it was Dathomir.
    Ben, seated to Luke’s left in the pilot’s seat, peered at him. “What is it, Dad?”
    “I’m just feeling a little stupid. There’s no world better suited to be the home of this new Sith order than Dathomir. I should have realized it long before we were on our final leg here.”
    “How so?”
    “There are a lot of Force-sensitives in the population, most of whom are trained in the so-called witchcraft of Dathomir. There’s not a lot of government oversight to detect a growing order within the population. There are lots of individual, secretive tribes.” Luke paused to consider. “Jacen was here for a while on his five-year travels. I wonder what he learned and whether it relates to the Maw … And there are mentions in ancient records that there was a Sith academy here long, long ago.”
    Ben nodded. “Well, I’ll prep Mom’s Headhunter and get down there. I’ll be your eyes and ears on the ground.”
    Luke gave his son a confused look. “I’m not going down with you? I’m feeling much better. Much more rested.”
    “Yeah, but there’s a Jedi school down there. The terms of your exile say that you can’t—”
    Luke grinned and held up a hand, cutting off his son’s words. “You’re a little bit behind the times, Ben. Maybe you need your own galactic map updated. More than two years ago, when the Jedi turned against Jacen at Kuat—”
    “Yeah, and we set up shop on Endor for a while. What about it?”
    “We pulled everyone out of the Dathomir school at the time. Jacen’s government shut the school down. The Jedi have yet to reopen it.”
    Comprehension dawned on Ben’s face. “So there’s no school, and it’s legal for you to visit.”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s kind of getting by on a technicality, isn’t it?”
    “All law is technicality, Ben. Get authorization for landing.”
DATHOMIR
    Half an hour later, Luke had to admit that he was wrong.
Most
of law was technicality. The rest was special cases, and he, apparently, was a special case.
    He stood on the parking field of the Dathomiri spaceport. Perhaps “spaceport” was too generous a term. It was a broad, sunny field, grassy in some spots, muddy in others, with thruster scorch marks here and there. Dull gray permacrete domes, most of them clearly prefabricated, dotted the field; the largest was some sort of administrative building, the smaller