Jude Watson: Jedi Quest 5: The School of Fear

"I'm a Jedi," he said. "I'm not really a student at the Leadership School. I was sent there to investigate Gillam Tarturi's disappearance."

"Gillam?" Marit was surprised.

"Don't you want to know what happened to him?" Anakin asked. "And before we left, Ferus Olin disappeared. What if Rolai had something to do with it? What if he's funding the squad with ransom money? He's the one in charge of your treasury, and he's the security expert. He's the one with the connection to Rana Halion. What if she got him to kidnap Gillam? All the pieces fit. Why did he lie to you about this mission? Don't you want to get to the bottom of it?"

Marit looked sad. "I wish you'd told me."

"I'm telling you now."

"You don't understand anything. Gillam — " Marit hesitated.

"So tell me," Anakin said, exasperated. "What about Gillam?"

"What about Gillam?" A mocking voice suddenly came from behind him.

Anakin whirled around. Gillam Tarturi stood, leaning against the wing of a starfighter. He was the same height as Anakin, and their eyes met across the space. Anakin felt shock and dismay ripple through him.

Anakin looked back at Marit. She nodded slowly.

"Gillam is the squad," she said. "It was his idea. He formed it. He made up the bylaws. He recruited us. We wouldn't have done anything without him. We would have been a bunch of miserable outcasts."

"You faked your disappearance," Anakin said to Gillam. "Why?"

"I have my reasons," Gillam replied lightly.

Marit spoke into her comlink. "We need you," she said crisply.

"What's going on?" Anakin asked.

For his answer, he heard the soft sound of her blaster leaving its holster. He could have stopped her easily, but he didn't. Marit pointed the blaster at him, a reluctant look on her face. Within seconds, the rest of the squad rushed into the hangar. Their blasters were drawn. They were all pointed at Anakin.

"I'm sorry," Marit said.

Marit's gaze was sorrowful. Rolai and Gillam looked hardened with purpose. But the others — Hurana, Tulah, and Ze — looked afraid. Why were they afraid? Anakin sensed that there was a conspiracy here. Gillam and Rolai were together, and they had roped in the rest of the reluctant squad.

Except for Marit.

There is something going on here that even Marit doesn't know.

"He disabled the laser cannons on two of the starfighters," Marit told the others. "It's all right — I know how to fix it." She turned to Anakin.

"We're going to have to restrain you until we're safely away."

Anakin looked at Gillam. "Is that so, Gillam? Why don't you tell her what you really have in mind?"

"Sorry, Marit," Gillam said easily. "That's not quite the plan."

"What's the plan, Gillam?" Anakin asked.

Marit gave Gillam a questioning look.

"How would the kidnapping disgrace Senator Tarturi if he wasn't implicated in something terrible?" Gillam said to Marit.

"And we get a very large bonus from Rana Halion, too," Rolai said.

"Think about what it will do for the countermovement, Marit," Gillam said. "The Senator kidnaps his own son to throw suspicion on the lerians.

And then something goes wrong, and his son dies — "

"And it's his fault," Rolai chortled. "He sacrificed his own son so he could keep his power!"

"I don't get it," Marit said.

"I do," Anakin said. "They want to kill me." Shocked, Marit looked from Gillam to Rolai. "That can't be true."

"Actually, we were going to hand you over to Rana Halion for that particular step," Gillam said. "But as long as you pushed the issue…" He flourished his blaster and smiled at Anakin.

"But you're not Gillam — they'll figure that out," Marit said.

"They have a plan to disguise the body somehow," Anakin said. "I'm sure Rana Halion can find ways. I'll be taken for Gillam. And Senator Tarturi will not only be disgraced among his own people, he'll have a war on his hands. He won't be able to investigate, even if he wants to."

"Which he won't, because he won't care," Gillam said. "He'll just care about his Senatorial privileges being threatened."

"It's a brilliant plan," Rolai said.

Marit stared at the two of them. "You're both insane."

Gillam shook his head sadly. "Poor Marit. You lost your nerve on Tierell. That's why we couldn't trust you."

Marit looked at Tulah, Hurana, and Ze. "Are you going along with this?

" The three of them looked uncomfortable.

"Gillam says we must be warriors," Hurana said. "This is the only way.

" "I just do the tech stuff," Ze said.

"This has nothing to do with me," Tulah said.

"Ah, one thing I should point out," Gillam said. "Because of the disappearance of another student, the school has gone into security code green. And that means that all passes have been cancelled. You've missed three of the hour check-ins."

"I knew I should have extended the range on our comlinks," Ze muttered.

"Which means we've been expelled," Hurana said.

"Which means, dear friends, that we have nowhere to go," Gillam said.

"It's a big galaxy out there. We only have one another. And that's a good thing. Together, we can be the best. We can have everything we want, if we just stick together. At first we did it because nobody wanted us. But now we can do it because we're the best. We belong together."

Gillam's voice was low and compelling. Anakin saw the charisma and charm that had led these students to join him.

"Maybe nobody wanted the others," Anakin said. "Or you convinced them that it was true. I don't know about that. But what about you? You're the son of a powerful Senator. Who didn't want you?"

Gillam's face went white with sudden rage, and for the first time, Anakin could see that he was quite capable of killing him. "My father!" he shouted. Gillam regained control of himself with an effort. "And now he'll realize how wrong he was. Everyone will realize who underestimated my resolve. Well, Marit? Are you with us?"

Marit turned to Anakin. "I have nowhere else to go," she said.

"Marit, we're not doing anything wrong," Gillam said. "We're doing what we set out to do. We knew what the stakes were."

Anakin held Marit's gaze. "Did you know the stakes would be murder?"

"No one is asking you," Gillam snapped at Anakin. "You're already dead."

"He's a Jedi," Marit said. "If you think your plan will be easy, think again."

Gillam shrugged, coming closer to Anakin. "He has six blasters pointed at him. Even if you don't fire, I don't think we'll have a problem. I know the Jedi. I've seen them around the Senate all my life. They are basically servants of the Senators. Whatever power they had is gone now."

Anger coursed through Anakin. He saw the privilege Gillam had been brought up with, and how it had corrupted him. He saw that Gillam had counted on the feelings of the others, how they had felt lost and alone in a world he knew and they didn't. He had taken their minds and hearts and fashioned them into a weapon aimed at his father. The squad wasn't about justice. It was about revenge.

Anakin jumped up and kicked out with one foot in a spinning arc, booting the blaster from Gillam's hand while he held out a hand and, using the Force, tore Rolai's blaster from his grip. He landed on one leg and used the other to disarm Tulah with another well-aimed kick, grabbing the blaster from Ze's hand at the same time. He used his knee to dislodge the weapon from a surprised Hurana and then simply took Marit's from her hand.

The entire series of attack moves took only seconds. The squad barely had time to blink.

Now they stared at him, or down at their empty hands. There was a beat, a moment of silence and surprise. Anakin pulled out and ignited his lightsaber, holding it in a posture any Jedi would recognize as offensive.