Tarfang shrank back, but Juun seemed untroubled.
"Double-cross Han Solo?" the Sull.u.s.tan asked. "Who"d be crazy enough to do that?"
SEVEN.
Down in the valley, the Taat were scavenging along the flood-plain, their thoraxes glowing green in Jwlio"s hazy light. With the rest of their foraging territory brown and withering from a Chiss defoliant, the workers were stripping the ground bare, leaving nothing in their wake but rooj stubble and mud. It was a desperate act that would only deepen their famine in the future, but the insects had no choice. Their larvae were starving now.
In the midst of such poverty and hardship, Jaina Solo felt more than a little guilty eating green thakitillo, but it was the only thing on the menu tonight. Tomorrow, it would be brot-rib or krayt eggs or some other rarity more suitable to a state dinner than a field post, and she would eat that, too. The Taat would be insulted if she did not.
Jaina spooned a curd into her mouth, then glanced around the veranda at her companions. They were all seated on primitive spitcrete benches, holding their bowls in their laps and using small Force bubbles to keep the dust at bay. Despite the gritty winds raised by the tidal pull of Qoribu- Jwlio"s ringed gas giant primary-the group usually took their meals outdoors. No one wanted to spend more time than necessary in the muggy confines of the nest caves.
After the curd had dissolved, Jaina tapped her spoon against the bowl. "Okay," she asked. "Who"s responsible for this?"
One by one, the others raised their gazes, their faces betraying various degrees of culpability as they examined their thoughts over the last week or so. Shortly after arriving, the team had discovered that whenever they talked about a particular food, the Taat would have a supply delivered within a few days. Concerned about squandering their hosts" limited resources, Jaina had ordered the group to avoid talking about food in front of the Taat, then to avoid mentioning it at all.
Finally, Tesar Sebatyne flicked up a talon. "It may have been this one."
"May have been?" Jaina asked. "Either you said something or you didn"t."
Tesar"s dorsal scales rose in the Barabel equivalent of a blush.
"This one said nothing. He thought it."
"They can"t eavesdrop on thoughts," Jaina said. "Someone else must have slipped."
She glanced around the group, waiting. The others continued to search their memories, but no one recalled talking about food.
Finally, Zekk said, "I"m just happy it"s thakitillo instead of some skalrat or something." Seated on a bench next to Jaina, he wore his black hair as long and ragged as he had in his youth, but that was all that remained the same. A late growth spurt had turned him into something of a human giant, standing two meters tall, with shoulders as broad as Lowbacca"s. "I thought Barabels liked to catch their own food."
"When we can, but this one was thinking of our last meal aboard Lady Luck, and he alwayz tastes thakitillo when he rememberz Bela and Krasov and..." Tesar trailed off and glanced briefly in Jaina"s direction, quietly acknowledging the bond of grief they had come to share through the Myrkr mission. "... the otherz."
Even that gentle reminder of her brother"s death-even seven years later-brought a pained hollow to Jaina"s chest. Usually, her duties as a Jedi Knight kept her too busy to dwell on such things, but there were still moments like these, when the terrible memory came crashing down on her like a Nkllonian firestorm.
"So maybe the Taat are eavesdropping on our thoughts," Tahiti said, bringing Jaina"s attention back to the present. "If we"re sure no one said anything, that has to be it."
Lowbacca let out a long Wookiee moan.
"I suppose we will have to avoid thinking about food," Jaina agreed. "We"re Jedi. We can"t keep eating like Hurts while the Taat larvae starve."
"It certainly takes the fun out of it," Alema Rar agreed. The Twi"lek slipped a spoonful of thakitillo into her mouth, then bit into a curd and curled the tips of the long lekku hanging down her back. "Well, most of the fun."
Zekk ate a spoonful, then asked, "Does it bother anyone that they"re listening to our thoughts?"
"It should," Jaina replied. "We should feel a little uneasy and violated, shouldn"t we?"
Alema shrugged. "Should is for narrow minds. It makes me feel welcome. "
Jaina considered this for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "Same here-and valued. Zekk? You brought it up."
"Just asking," he said. "Doesn"t bother me, either."
"I feel the same," Tekli agreed. The furry little Chadra-Fan twitched her thick-ended snout. "Yet we avoid the battle-meld now because we dislike sharing feelings among ourselves."
"That"s different," Tahiri said. "We get on each other"s nerves."
"To put it mildly," Jaina said. "I"ll never forget how that blood hunger came over me the first time Tesar saw a rallop."
"Or how twisted inside this one felt when Alema wanted to nest with that Rodian rope-wrestler." Tesar fluttered his scales, then added, "It was a week before he could hunt again."
Alema smiled at the memory, then said, "Nesting wasn"t what I had in mind."
Lowbacca banged his bowl down on the bench next to him, groaning in distaste and weary resignation. After the war, Jaina and the other strike team members had begun to notice unexplained mood swings whenever they were together. It had taken Cilghal only a few days to diagnose the problem as a delayed reaction to the Jedi battle-meld. Their prolonged use of it on the Myrkr mission had weakened the boundaries among their minds, with the result that now their emotions tended to fill the Force and blur together whenever they were close to each other.
Sometimes Jaina believed the side effect was also the reason so many strike team survivors found it difficult to move on with their lives. Tenel Ka was doing well as the Hapan queen, and Tekli and Tahiri seemed to regard Zonama Sekot as both a friend and a home, but the rest of them-Jaina, Alema, Zekk, Tesar, Lowbacca, even Jacen- still seemed lost, unable to maintain a connection with anyone who had not been there. Jaina knew that was why she had failed to reconnect with Jagged Fel during their desperate rendezvous when he had still been serving as Chiss liaison to the Galactic Alliance. She loved him, but she"d just grown increasingly distant from him. From everyone, really.
Sensing that she had let her dour mood affect the others, Jaina forced a smile. "I do have some good news," she said. "Jacen is coming."
As she had hoped, this lifted spirits instantly-especially those of Tahiri, who shared a special kinship with Jacen by virtue of the time they had spent in Yuuzhan Vong torture dens.
But it was Alema-always quick to take an interest in males - who asked, "Can you tell how soon?"
"It"s hard to say," Jaina answered. No one bothered to ask if she had actually spoken to her twin brother; there was no HoloNet in the Unknown Regions-and even if there had been, they were too close to the Chiss frontier to risk being overheard by a listening post. "But it feels like he"s made it past whatever was delaying him."
"How will he find the Colony?" Tahiri asked. Though she could certainly sense Alema"s interest in Jacen as clearly as Jaina did, she seemed more amused by it than irritated. "Tekli and I would have been lost without Zonama Sekot"s help."
"I left a message for him with the coordinates of the Lizil nest,"
Jaina said. "So, a.s.suming he tries to comm..."
She let the sentence trail off when she felt a sudden alarm. The sense did not ripple or grow or rise. It simply appeared inside Jaina, instantly full-blown and strong, and at first she thought she was feeling something inside her brother. Then bowls of thakitillo began to clack down on the spitcrete benches, and her companions started to rise and reach for their lightsabers.
"You feel it, too?" Jaina asked no one in particular.
"Fear," Zekk confirmed. "Surprise."
Lowbacca rawwled an addition.
"Resolve, too," Jaina agreed.
"What the blazes?" Tahiri asked. "It"s like the Taat were a part of the meld, too."
"Maybe they"re more Force-sensitive than we thought," Alema suggested.
Jaina gazed around, searching the faces of her companions for any indication that the sensation had felt even remotely like a normal Force perception to someone else. She found only looks of confusion and doubt.
A familiar rumble rose deep inside the nest. Long plumes of black smoke began to shoot from the exhaust vents above the hangar cave, then a cloud of dartships poured into the air above the valley and began to climb toward Qoribu"s ringed disk.
"Looks like another defoliator squad coming in." Jaina was almost relieved as she started toward their own hangar. After the unexpected feeling of alarm, she had feared something worse. "Let"s turn "em back."
EIGHT.
The wreck was a CEC YV-888 stock light freighter. Jacen could see that much from its tall hull, and from the stubs of the melted maneuvering fins on the rear engine compartment. The crash had occurred sometime within the last decade. He could guess that much from the faint odor of ash and slag that still wafted down the flowery slope from the jagged crater rim. But the vessel"s hull was too thickly covered in insects for him to be certain this was the ship, the one that would explain why he and Jaina and the others had been called so deep into the Unknown Regions.
Jacen waited for a throng of thumb-sized insects to scurry past on the enclosure wall, then placed a hand on top and vaulted over. A harsh rattle rose behind him as other, larger visitors pulsed their wings in disapproval. He paid no attention and started up the slope, feeling his way with the Force to avoid stepping on any tiny beings hidden in the flora. The Colony species came in an enormous variety of sizes and shapes, and any insects he happened to crush on monument grounds were more likely to be other visitors than foraging bugs.
Jacen"s guide, a chest-high insect who had been waiting at the Lizil nest to serve as his navigator, scurried to his side and began to rumble objections.
"You"re the one who said we didn"t have time to wait in line,"
Jacen reminded him.
"Rububu uburu," the guide responded. With a yellow thorax, green abdomen, and bright red head and eyes, it was one of the more colorful strains that Jacen had seen. "Urb?"
"I told you," Jacen answered. "I might know this ship."
Jacen reached the crash crater and climbed to the rim. Ten meters below, in the crash bottom, a sagging tangle of heat-softened durasteel so covered in crawling insects that it took a moment to realize he was looking at a small starship bridge. The vessel had crashed upside down.
The guide thrummed impatiently.
"Not yet." Jacen pointed at a place near the bow where a dozen Jawa- sized insects were sticking their antennae through a twisted rip in the hull. "Ask the ones near that breach to clear a s.p.a.ce. I need to see if I can read its name."
"Ub Ruur" [The Crash.]
"I need to know the name of the freighter," Jacen explained. "It"s written on the side of the hull. In letters."
Like most species of intelligent arthropods in the galaxy, the Colony insects recorded their language in pheromones instead of writing, but Jacen felt certain the Joiners would have explained the concept of letters.
"U." The guide curled its antennae forward. "Burubu ru?"
"Maybe," Jacen said uncertainly. He was relying the Force and his empathic connection with other life-forms to infer his guide"s meaning, and he could not always be sure that he understood all the nuances. "But we"ll certainly be on our way sooner than if I have to piece the letters together through their legs."
The guide clacked its mandibles in frustration. It drummed its chest loudly, then the insects near the rip began to mill about in confusion. Jacen did not understand what they got out of crawling over the wreck, but insects were very tactile creatures, and he suspected they were establishing some sense of connection to it. Finally, a s.p.a.ce began to clear where Jacen had requested. The durasteel was so caked with carbonization that he could barely make out a handful of dark, upside-down letters.
... ACH.. ON F... ER.
"Tachyon Flier," Jacen said. It was the ship in which the strike team had planned to depart the Myrkr system-until they were betrayed by two Dark Jedi they had rescued from the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen turned to his guide. "What happened to the people aboard that ship?"
"Bu ruub ubu buubu," the guide said.
"And he"ll keep waiting until I have my answer."
"Ubu buubu ru ruubu." [Unu must not be kept waiting.]
"Your rules," Jacen answered. "Not mine."
Seeing no easier way down, Jacen stepped off the rim and used the Force to slow his descent. The insects on his side of the Flier watched in stunned silence as he caught hold of the rip in the hull and brought his fall to a gentle stop.
The guide boomed a question from above.
"The people who brought this ship here had a friend of mine with them, " Jacen said. "I"m not leaving here until I know what happened to him."
"Rur ruru rr ubu buubu bub!" the navigator drummed.
"I don"t wish to see Unu at once." Jacen knew he was being rude, but he had learned from the Fallana.s.si to see through the illusion of authority, to free himself of the expectation of blind obedience by respecting his own desires first. "It makes no difference to me if Unu can"t wait."
Jacen pulled himself up and peered through the hull breach. The Flier"s presence certainly lay at the heart of the mysterious summons that had brought him here, but that told him little. Before he allowed himself to be drawn farther along this current, he needed to find out what had happened aboard the ship. He needed to know who had called the strike team survivors here... and why.
The interior of the vessel was dark and acrid smelling, lit only by the shafts of light pouring through several dozen hull breaches. A few of the holes were large and twisted, like the rip beneath the vessel"s name, and had probably resulted from the crash. The rest were oblong, small, and surrounded by the metal spatter-beads a.s.sociated with hits from Yuuzhan Vong plasma cannons. The Tachyon Flier had clearly taken a beating as it left the Myrkr system. It was surprising the ship had held together long enough to fly into the Unknown Regions.
As his eyes grew attuned to the dim light, Jacen realized that he was looking into the hold area. The adjustable cargo decks had left their tracks in the crash and fallen into what had been the top of the ship, burying the bridge and crew quarters beneath a tangle of twisted, half-melted durasteel. Seeing that no insects were crawling over the inside of the ship, he closed his eyes and listened for any stirrings in the Force that might explain their reluctance to enter. He heard the whisper of a long-spent inferno and the faint scream of twisting metal, but nothing to alarm him now.
Jacen swung a leg up and slipped into the Flier"s hold. The acrid smell grew stronger. It was more than just ash, it was carbonized synthplas and iron slag and charred fibercrete. He slid down the hull, calling on the Force to hold himself against the wall and slow his descent. About two- thirds of the way to the bottom, he came to the jumble of decks and stopped, then used a Dathomiri Force spell to kindle a sphere of bright light.
A chorus of sharp clacks sounded above, and Jacen looked up to see a carpet of insects large and small crawling down the hull behind him, their feathery antennae sweeping the surrounding durasteel. Worried his invasion of a sacred site might be considered an outrage, Jacen touched them through the Force. He felt astonishment, curiosity, a little wariness, but no anger or indignation.
"Be careful," Jacen called, a little puzzled by their willingness to follow him into the vessel. "It might not take much to shift the debris down here."
The insects answered with the full range of thrums, chirps, and thuds.
Jacen used the Force to slide several tons of cargo deck into a secure position, then walked over to the edge and discovered the reason for the insects" earlier reluctance to enter the wreck. Several large exoskeletons lay crushed beneath a twisted cross-brace. Though the rest of the jumble was every bit as tangled as it had appeared from above, Jacen could now see that many decks had fallen against each other, creating a tent effect that might have protected the bridge from being crushed-at least from above.
Jacen turned to the insects. "I"d appreciate it if everyone stayed here for now."
The insects gave a confirming clack. Floating his sphere of Force light behind him, Jacen threaded his way down to what had been the underside of the bridge, where the metal was buckled and discolored from a conflagration below.
Jacen began to fear the worst.
Seeing no convenient hatch in the vicinity, he ignited his lightsaber. .. and was startled by the sudden clicking of mandibles behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and found a long ribbon of golden eyes reflecting the glow of his Force light and green lightsaber.
"I asked you to wait," Jacen said.
"Uu rrrruub." The thrum set up a sympathetic vibration in the jumble above, inducing a long metallic scream as a deck edge slid down an underbrace. "Brrr brru!"
"I am being careful." Jacen used the Force to stabilize the twisted metal above their heads. "Just be quiet."
The swarm rustled its agreement-then clicked madly as he plunged his lightsaber blade into the floor of the bridge.