Rogue Planet

Chapter 48

Shappa rose high into the mesosphere, on the edge of space, and pushed his ship until her skin glowed from the heat of friction. They were catching up with Anakin's ship, now about forty kilometers ahead and thirty kilometers below them. The air was a deep purple here, and the curve of Zonama Sekot was clearly evident. The forward ports had narrowed against the transmission of heat from the ship's skin, but Obi-Wan could still make out the endless blanket of clouds below, and the peak of the Magister's mountain on the horizon.

Charza Kwinn was now a thousand kilometers behind them, and trouble was following the Star Sea, Flower.

"My people won't hold fire for much longer," Shappa said. "I wonder if they know what they're getting into, attacking us?"

"Clearly, they don't," Obi-Wan said. He could not figure out a reason for any attack on Zonama Sekot. Something had gone awry during the transition, the assimilation of Trade Federation ships into the Republic forces. Perhaps outlaw elements in the Trade Federation had broken ranks and gone off on their own.That would explain the presence of droid starfighters, but not their actions.

"Those are Republic vessels," Shappa said, glancing at Obi-Wan. "Minelayers, I think."

Obi-Wan studied the images from Shappa's sensors. They were indeed sky-mine delivery ships, and above them, ten thousand kilometers out, Corellian light cruisers found only in the Republic forces.

"Forgive me," Shappa said. "But if you represent the Republic…"

"I know nothing of this," Obi-Wan said grimly.

"Little matter," Shappa said. "We have regarded ourselves as outside the jurisdiction of the Republic, the Trade Federation, or any other governing body. Our Magister foresaw our need early on-and the Magister before him. We knew that in time we would have to find an even more obscure hiding place. It is the will of the Potentium."

That word again, a discredited concept from the past.

"Was the original Magister given Jedi training?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Yes," Shappa said with an odd reluctance.

"What was his actual name?"

"That name is sacred to Zonamans, and must not be spoken," Shappa said.

Obi-Wan tried to recall the more obscure bits of the Jedi history he had been taught in the Temple. The Potentium had meant a great deal of trouble for the Jedi a hundred years before. Advocates of the concept had believed that the Force could not push one into evil, that the universe was infiltrated by a benevolent field of life energy whose instructions were inevitably good. The Potentium, as they called it, was the beginning and ending of all things, and one's connection with it should not be mediated or obscured by any sort of training or discipline. Followers of the Potentium insisted that the Jedi Masters and the Temple hierarchy could not accept the universal good of the Potentium because it meant they were no longer needed.

But in the end, those Jedi apprentices who had been caught up in the movement had left the Temple, or were pushed out, and dispersed around the galaxy. As far as Obi- Wan could remember, none of the believers had actually succumbed to the dark side of the Force-something regarded as a prodigy by Jedi historians. From time to time, young Jedi caught up in their first experience of the Force broached the Potentium philosophy and had to be patiently retutored in the history of the Force, in the many and various reasons why the Jedi understood there were definite divisions and pitfalls in life's tenure in space and time.

For days now, a name had remained on the tip of his tongue-a particularly prominent young Jedi apprentice who had left the Temple voluntarily and renounced his training.

"Was your original Magister named Leor Hal?" he asked Shappa.

Shappa stared straight ahead through the port on the pilot's side of the cabin, jaw tight. "I knew you would figure things out soon enough," he said.

"He was a powerful student," Obi-Wan said. "Even after he left, he was regarded with respect."

"He was regarded as a dupe and a fool," Shappa said.

"An idealist, perhaps, but not a fool."

"Well, his own prejudices against any political system or philosophical organization. . they established much of the character of Zonama's settlement."

"He recruited among the Ferroans?" Obi-Wan ventured.

"He did. My people have always been a sunny people, believers in independence and basic goodness. We came here to escape and raise our children in a new state of bliss."

"And when the Far Outsiders arrived…"

"It was a rude awakening," Shappa said. "But the Magister's heir insisted they were outside the Potentium. They knew nothing of its ways, and we must teach them."

"How did he react to the presence of Vergere?"

"He shunned her, for his father's sake," Shappa said. "He gave her no assistance."

"But he built weapons."

"He did. He knew that many could misinterpret the Potentium, and that they might try to destroy us for our differences."

"What did the original Magister build?"

"He was the one who began selling ships. He told us we needed to raise enough money to buy huge hyperdrive cores. And to import huge engines, study them, and use the Jentari to remake them as even more powerful engines, for our own purposes."

"To what end?"

"Escape," Shappa said. He drew himself up. "Now, I believe the time has come."

"But he is dead," Obi-Wan said.

"Nonsense. You met with him."

"No. It is clear now."

"The Magister is not dead!" Shappa cried out, and shook his fist at Obi-Wan. "He sends instructions to us from his palace!"

"Perhaps even the palace no longer exists," Obi-Wan said.

"I will not hear of this!" Shappa shouted. "I will help you rescue your boy, and then. . you must leave!" He turned away, intensely agitated, and studied his displays. "Perhaps the Jedi did send you here to disrupt us. And the Republic ships-

The sky ahead filled with tiny points of light. Sky mines were descending through the upper reaches of the atmosphere, spreading out for thousands of kilometers around like diffuse orange blossoms.

"They're trying to destroy us all!" Shappa groaned, his face a mask of fear and disappointment.