Star Wars: Crosscurrent Read Free Page A

but more knowledge, deeper understanding. Be at peace with that.
    But Jaden never had been at peace with that. He feared he never would. Worse, he feared he never should . After completing his training, Jaden had done some research into unorthodox theories about the Force. He had come to think—and fear—that his Master had been right.
    "Show yourselves," he called into the darkness, and the howling wind devoured his words. He knew the Sith would have sensed his presence, the same as he had sensed theirs.
    They were all around him, closing fast. He felt vulnerable, with nothing at his back, unable to see. He sank into the Force and denied his fear.
    Finding his calm, he stood in a half crouch, eyes closed, mind focused, his entire body a coiled spring. Even without his lightsaber, a dark side user would find him a formidable foe.
    "Jaden," whispered a voice in his ear, a voice he'd heard before only on vidscreen surveillance.
    He spun, whirled, the power of the Force gathered in his hands for a telekinetic blast, and saw…only darkness.
    Lumiya.
    It had been Lumiya's voice. Hadn't it? But Lumiya was long dead.
    A hand clutched at his robe.
    "Jaden," said another voice. Lassin's voice.
    He used the Force to augment a backward leap, flipping in midair, and landed on his feet three meters behind Lassin, a fellow Jedi Knight who should have been dead, who had died soon after the Ragnos crisis. Lassin's voice unmoored him from his calm, and Force lightning, blue and baleful, came unbidden and crackled on his fingertips…
    He saw nothing.
    The hairs on Jaden's neck rose. He stared at his hand, the blue discharge of his fingertips. With an effort of will, he quelled it.
    "Jaden Korr," said a voice to his left, Master Kam Solusar's voice, but Jaden felt not the comforting presence of another light-side user, only the ominous energy of the dark side.
    He spun, but saw only darkness.
    "What you seek can be found in the black hole on Fhost, Jaden," said Mara Jade Skywalker, and still Jaden saw nothing, no one.
    Mara Jade Skywalker was dead.
    "Who are you?" he called, and the wind answered with ice and screams. "Where am I?"
    He reached out again with his Force sense, trying to locate Lumiya, Lassin, Solusar, and Skywalker, but found them gone.
    Again, he was alone in the darkness. He was always alone in darkness.
    It registered with him then. He was dreaming. The Force was speaking to him. He should have realized it sooner.
    The revelation stilled the world. The wind fell silent and the air cleared of ice.
    Jaden stood ready, tense.
    A distant, sourceless cry sounded, repeated itself, the rhythm regular, the tone mechanical. It could have been coming from the other side of the planet.
    "Help us. Help us. Help us. Help us…"
    He turned a circle, fists clenched. "Where are you?"
    The darkness around him diminished. Pinpoints of light formed in the black vault over him. Stars. He scanned the sky, searching for something familiar. There. He recognized only enough to place the sky somewhere in a Rimward sector of the Unknown Regions. The dim blue glow of a distant gas giant burned in the black of the sky, its light peeking diffidently through the swirl. Thick rings composed of particles of ice and rock belted the gas giant.
    He was on one of the gas giant's moons.
    His eyes adjusted more fully to the dimness and he saw that he stood on a desolate, wind-racked plain of ice that extended as far as he could see. Snowdrifts as tall as buildings gave the terrain the appearance of a storm-racked ocean frozen in time. Cracks veined the exposed ice, the circulatory system of a stalled world. Chasms dotted the surface here and there like hungry mouths. Glaciers groaned in the distance, the rumbles of an angry world. He saw no sign of Lumiya or Lassin or any of the other Sith imposters he had sensed. He saw no sign of life anywhere.
    His breath formed clouds before his face. His left fist clenched and unclenched reflexively over the void in his