Well, perhaps she had slipped a bit and begun to think that their silly belief in the Force might actually give them some advantage, some power that she didn"t possess. But the sentiment had been short-lived.
Everything seemed so much clearer to her now. She was completely self-sufficient. Anja Gallandro needed nothing and no one except Anja Gallandro. She had her wits, her intuition, her reflexes. And that made her every bit as good as a Jedi Knight.
As these comforting thoughts filled her mind, a heavy knock sounded on the door to her quarters. She hurriedly swept all of her private belongings off the sleeping pad and back into the satchel from which they had come hours earlier, including the empty spice vial. She stepped to the refresher unit and stuffed the satchel into a corner before answering the knock.
She waved her hand over the OPEN switch, and the door slid aside with a hiss. Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, and Em Teedee practically fell into the room.
Em Teedee"s casing had been badly scratched, Tenel Ka"s arm seeped blood from several deep wounds, and Lowie"s ginger fur stuck out wildly in all directions.
Startling as it was to see them in this bedraggled condition, Anja was determined not to lose her composure again. She raised her eyebrows and tried for some humor. "I see you"ve come to appreciate my opinion of Ugnaughts."
"You were right not to come with us," Tenel Ka said in a weak voice.
Her eyelids drooped, and Anja could now see that the Wookiee was supporting most of the warrior girl"s weight. Blood dripped from Tenel Ka"s wounds to the floor.
"It was a trap," Em Teedee cried. "Curse my foolish circuits, I should have seen it earlier."
Lowie growled. "Oh, yes!" Em Teedee translated. "And Mistress Tenel Ka requires immediate medical a.s.sistance-immediate!"
"Trap," Tenel Ka echoed. Her face was pale, her breathing ragged.
Lowie picked up the warrior girl and gently deposited her on the sleeping pallet.
Anja pushed a b.u.t.ton on the comm unit beside the door. "Emergency medical team to room 0914."
"Request acknowledged," a droid voice replied. "Estimated arrival: two point four minutes."
Anja nodded and turned back toward the two Jedi. "So where"s Jacen?" she asked. "Torturing the Ugnaughts by telling them jokes?"
Lowie leaned back against the wall and crooned a strange note that Anja had never before heard from a Wookiee. Tenel Ka did not reply, but tears appeared from beneath,her eyelids. Anja guessed that her pain must be terrible, because she had never seen the warrior girl betray any emotion whatsoever.
The Wookiee crooning grew louder. The miniaturized translating droid spoke in an oddly hushed voice. "If Master Lowbacca were capable of making any reply, he would regretfully inform you that Master Jacen... is dead." With that, the little droid fell silent and hovered fretfully between the Wookiee and the warrior girl, as if trying to comfort them.
Ridiculous! Anja thought. Jacen could not be dead. She had seen him only a few hours ago. This had to be somebody"s idea of a joke.
But Lowie"s eerie crooning and Tenel Ka"s tears convinced her that something terrible had indeed occurred-more surely than any words could have.
In subdued tones, the translating droid explained what had taken place.
Anja was not prepared for the storm of conflicting emotions that swept through her. Anger, guilt, hopelessness, loss, despair. Jacen had not deserved to die. He had befriended Anja, amused her, taught her, defended her, learned from her, saved her life. He had been there for Anja. That"s what friends are for, he had said.
But she had not been there for him.
An even worse thought now occur-red to her: she might actually have caused Jacen"s death... just as she had always told Czethros she would do someday, given the chance. It had been a lie. She hadn"t meant to.
Not really.
But Anja herself had told Czethros of the young Jedi Knights" arrival on Cloud City and what they were investigating. Now Lowie and Tenel Ka were wounded. And Jacen was dead. If Anja knew Czethrosand she thought she did-these events were not unrelated. That meant Czethros did have something to do with Cojahn"s death and that Anja"s friends had come too close to finding out about it.
She had no one to blame but herself. Her chest began heaving, and deep, wordless sobs wrenched from her throat.
She had lied. She had lied to Czethros. She had lied to herself.
Jacen had been her friend. Why should he be dead now?
An icy knife of anguish plunged deep into Anja"s heart. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. She stumbled backward into the refresher unit and shut the door tightly behind her. Racking sobs shook her as she scrambled in the corner for what she needed-what she had to have.
There was no choice.... The spice would help her.
A minute later, when the emergency medical team arrived at the door to her quarters, Anja came out of the refresher unit and let them in. She was controlled now, full of energy.
But nothing, nothing, could dull the pain....
Jacen fell.
And he kept on falling.
As he plunged down from Cloud City, the giant hanging metropolis seemed to shoot up and away from him like a s.p.a.cecraft rocketing toward orbit.
In the first several seconds he let out a panicked cry for help. But he kept dropping... dropping, with no bottom in sight. A cold wind rushed past his face, roaring in his ears, rippling his clothes, making it hard for him even to draw a breath. He quickly realized that screaming only wasted his precious energy.
Jacen concentrated, trying to use what Jedi powers he possessed to help him stop his endless fall. He had to think of a way. With the Force he could make himself lighter, perhaps slow his descent... for all the good that would do him-it would only prolong the inevitable.
He felt as if he were floating and envisioned the Force as an invisible hand cradling him, lifting him up... but he knew that was only an illusion. No matter how hard he concentrated, how much he tried to use his Jedi skills, he could not push himself back up to the now-distant Cloud City.
Worse, Bespin was a gas giant, a huge ball of atmospheric mixes, with no true surface, only a superdense liquid core hidden under thousands of kilometers of clouds. Jacen would keep falling into denser and denser gases, but he would be crushed long before he ever reached the central sphere. He would just fall forever into the gas giant, until the pressure squashed him flat.
The clouds swirled below, streaming in spirals like a whirlpool far, far beneath him. With each instant he fell closer and closer to oblivion.
In his mind he tried to call out to his sister Jaina or to Tenel Ka, but he couldn"t seem to make contact. In any case, there was nothing they could do... at least, not in time.
He did use his Jedi training to keep himself calm, remembering the techniques that Master Skywalker had taught him. Great, he thought with a flash of griryi humor, at least I"ll die calm.
But he was not ready to give up yet. He lay back and continued to fall and fall and fall, sending out a silent cry for help... though he didn"t know where to direct it.
The wind and gases burned his eyes. He let them drift halfway shut.
Even so, the sunlight dazzled him, creating tiny rainbows through the ice crystals high in Bespin"s atmosphere, and the colors of the pink and orange airborne algae seemed painfully bright.
Then, curving out at the edge of his vision, he saw a flicker of dark wings swoop through a nst of clouds and streak away. He blinked and spun around in the air. The gusting winds caught at his clothes.
He saw the shape again. It flitted by, closer this time. Suddenly, with a burst of speed, the flying creature cruised closer still to examine him like some giant curious hawkbat with a smooth bullet-shaped body and fleshy wings.
A thranta! "Help!" Jacen shouted. The colorfully painted rider on the creature"s back gently tweaked the harness, directing the thranta.
Jacen continued to drop, and the flying creature swooped down as well, effortlessly sweeping the air aside with its broad wings. Jacen heard the flapping sounds and a faint squeal that might have been a high-pitched subsonic call. As they streaked downward together the thranta rider met Jacen"s eyes, nodded, and brought the creature under him, matching the speed of the young man"s descent. Then he nudged upward so that Jacen dropped gently onto the creature"s broad back, as if caught in a safety net.
The rider tossed Jacen the loose end of a st.u.r.dy rope that he had tied about his own waist. Jacen clutched the rope, trembling as the realization that he had almost died caught up with him. He gasped, but for a long moment could say nothing more than "Thank you."
Seeing Jacen secured on the back of his mount, the rider gave the harness a light snap and nudged the thranta with his knees. The creature took off with glee, soaring toward a white cloud bank far from the gleaming technological island of Cloud City, which was now only a silvery sparkle in the distant sky.
As he sweated and shuddered, just trying to catch his breath, Jacen pulled himself forward and held on to the skinny thranta rider by the waist. He was a young male, earless, with smooth skin that was painted or tattooed in swirling colors and patterns that made the thranta rider himself look like an optical illusion. The rider glanced over his bony shoulder at his unexpected pa.s.senger, smiling and flashing ebony teeth like polished gems.
" That"s not a very good acrobatic routine you have, my friend," the thranta rider said. "You really shouldn"t jump unless you know your mount will be there to catch you." The rider"s voice was high-pitched and musical, in contrast with the roaring air around them.
"I... I didn"t mean to jump," Jacen admitted, then heaved a huge sigh of relief His entire body shuddered. "We were ambushed by a.s.sa.s.sins.
My two friends managed to catch themselves on an antenna beneath Cloud City, but I couldn"t hang on."
"Ambushed and fell," the thranta rider said. He nodded, his face pinched and sorrowful. "Yep. I"ve seen that before." He flew on without further explanation.
Jacen held on tightly, gradually regaining his composure, and finally he introduced himself "I suppose I should tell you whose life you saved. I"m Jacen. Jacen Solo."
The thranta rider said, "My name is M"kim. I practice with the sky rodeo troupe, but I"m not a full-fledged member of the performing team... yet."
The boy snapped the reins of the thranta, and it dove like a meteor, then pulled up into a sharp loop in the air. Jacen was afraid he"d fall, but the thranta circled, somersaulted, and became level again.
At any other time, he might have enjoyed the brief rush of exhilaration, but he"d already had enough thrills for one day.
" So most days I come out with my friend here." M"kim patted the solid fleshy side of the flying creature, and the thranta ducked and bobbed in the air, showing off. "Just to practice."
"Hey, I"m certainly impressed," Jacen said. He held on, and found he was actually enjoying himself as the thranta soared and danced. Life seemed so sweet and exhilarating after his long fall and near brush with death.
Suddenly he realized with a sick jolt that if Lowie and Tenel Ka had managed to rescue themselves under Cloud City, they would believe he had fallen to his death. He couldn"t let his friends live with such grief a moment longer.
" I"ve got to get back," he said, shouting into M"kim"s ear hole. "I need to let my friends know that I"m alive."
But the thranta rider set his face in a grim expression and flew on, arrowing deeper into the clouds below, and away from Cloud City.
"If I take you back too soon," M"kim said, "those who tried to kill you might still be waiting. Better for now to let them think you"re dead."
"But that means everybody else thinks I"m dead too," Jacen said.
"And my friends may need my help."
The thranta soared through a layer of mist that slapped Jacen in the face; he spluttered in the cold moisture and smelled a strong chemical tang of gases that drifted up from the deep cloud-deck layers below.
"We"ll go here first." M"kim released the harness and gestured ahead in the direction of the thranta"s flight.
Behind an obscuring veil of white mist, a heavy green-brown cloud floated like a mat above the other layers of vapor. The dark island in the sky seemed solid enough, and as the thranta brought them closer, Jacen saw that the sludgy raft-cloud was actually a huge cl.u.s.ter of algae nodules.
The airborne sacs of gas-filled plant life drifted at an equilibrium level in the clouds and photosynthesized by soaking up sunlight, water vapor, and chemicals from the clouds.
"Amazing!" Jacen said. "It"s like a living island."
The thranta flapped its sail-like wings and drove them closer to the spinning, bobbling raft in the sky. "This is a place of solitude," M"kim said. "We can talk here and rest without fear of being discovered.
There"s no hurry. You"re not at risk with me."
Jacen nodded. He was still deeply concerned about his friends, though, and worried about what else might be happening to them while he wasn"t there to help. He didn"t even know for certain that the two Jedi Knights had managed to rescue themselves from their precarious perch beneath Cloud City, but he believed his friends were resourceful enough to get themselves out of a fix like that.
The thranta hovered over the floating algae island. Uncertain, Jacen looked down at the squishy surface. But M"kim deffly danced off the back of his flying creature and landed on the soft cl.u.s.ters of algae sacs, bouncing on the surface of the green-brown nodules as if he were swim ming.
The thranta rider lay back, gesturing for Jacen to join him. "Come on.
We can watch the clouds go by and talk about what"s really happening over there in Cloud City." His face turned grave. "I have a feeling you need to know this."
Still holding the harness, Jacen stood up on wobbly legs and balanced on the back of the thranta. Then he jumped.
)acen fell for the second time that day, but this time he landed on the soft, squishy mat of tangled algae cl.u.s.ters. It was like a damp organic mattress that floated aimlessly, carried by the winds. The b.u.mpy green ma.s.ses made a soft, uneven surface, like a cl.u.s.ter of lighter-than-air pillows.
Watching him, M"kim lay back laughing as Jacen stumbled, then fell on his face into the wet algae nodules. The greenish cl.u.s.ters shifted like a living ma.s.s of solid bubbles. One greenish-brown bubble popped with a splat in front of him, spraying Jacen with the strong, earthy smell of compost.
He struggled to wipe away the sticky juice, but finally lounged back and forced himself to relax. He could change his clothes later, and he desperately needed a rest.
Rootlike tendrils dangled from the bottom of the algae island to soak up moisture droplets and nourishing chemicals. Jacen listened to the breeze rustling the tendrils. He heard the little fluttering noises of small flying creatures darting in and around the tangled organic mat.
He spotted tiny insects and colored plantlike things that made up the island complex, forming an entire ecosystem.
"I"m surprised there"s so much life around here," Jacen said. "I thought Bespin was just... just an empty gas giant."
"Nothing in the universe is really empty," M"kim said. "Our troupe has traveled all over, and I"ve found very few places that are truly dead.
Life is... tenacious."
"Yeah, I sure didn"t expect to still be alive after that fall."
Bespin had many different levels where life clung, whether in artificial cities, gas-storage refineries, or - temperate-layer algae islands.
Thunderheads gathered in the vast sky overhead.
Jacen crawled to the edge of the squishy algae platform and looked over the edge toward the soup of clouds far below. He saw flashes of lightning and deep glows that skittered beneath the surface. Large storms rose up as deep heat currents in the lower layers of the gas giant stirred and shifted. It still looked impossibly far down.
Jacen gulped. If M"kim hadn"t rescued him on his thranta, he would still be falling....
Free of its rider, the thranta swooped above and below them, circling the algae island, nibbling at the tender ends of the dangling root threads and playing in the sky. Watching the exuberant creature, M"kim laughed.
Jacen turned to the thranta rider. "What did you mean when you said that other people were ambushed and fell off Cloud City? Someone we know recently vanished off a balcony. The official report said he jumped to his death." He shuddered, thinking of Cojahn and the long, long terror he must have endured during his drop through the clouds.
M"kim looked nervous and sad. "When was this? When did it happen?"
Jacen counted back. "It would have been... six standard days ago, I guess."
M"kim nodded, pursing his lips. "Twelve Bespin days. Yes, that"s what I thought."
"You know something about it?" Jacen jerked and tried to sit upright too quickly; the algae nodules shifted under him, and he had to squirm to regain his balance. "Please, tell me."
M"kim looked away. His thranta swooped overhead again, giving its near-silent high-pitched call. "I saw it with my own eyes," the thranta rider admitted.