Bloodlines

by Karen Traviss

  The Quarren shifted their stances, opening a place for Alema, and turned their heads slightly toward her.

  Now Alema spoke in her normal voice. “Where do you suppose he was going?”

  Three Tentacle turned to face her. “Who? Solo?”

  Alema nodded.

  “Where do you think he was going?” Three Tentacle retorted. “To see It, of course.”

  “It?” Alema had spent enough of her life wallowing in the underbelly of the galaxy to know that illicit enterprises were often referred to only in vague terms. Did Jacen have a secret vice—an addiction he was hiding, or a compulsion he had picked up in captivity and been unable to shake? She looked back to the Quarren. “What are we talking about? Spice dens? Death games?”

  Now the second Quarren turned toward her, his tentacles straightening in his species’ equivalent of a frown. “Is that supposed to be a joke? He’s here for the same reason everyone is. To see It. The friend.”

  “The friend—of course.”

  Alema knew the kind of “friends” males kept hidden in places like this … the kind they would dare visit only in the anonymous depths of an undercity. Jacen’s time with the Yuuzhan Vong must have left him more bent than even she had realized. She pointed her blowgun out the door, gesturing at the fallen Nikto, then spoke in her Force whisper again.

  “Your companion was attacked by an intruder,” she said. “You saw the intruder kill him, and soon the intruder will want to come inside.”

  “To kill It?” the second Quarren gasped.

  “Yes, to kill It,” Alema agreed. “You must stop the intruder from entering.”

  Three Tentacle pressed a nerve bundle, closing the door, then both Quarren pointed their blaster rifles at the heart of the membrane.

  “Good,” Alema said.

  She turned away from the door, confident the two Quarren had already forgotten her. During her time with the Killiks, the queen of her nest—a Dark Jedi named Lomi Plo—had helped her develop a slippery presence in the Force. Now, as soon as Alema vanished from someone’s sight, she also vanished from memory.

  Alema left the vestibule and entered a warren of winding, tunnel-like passages lit by the bioluminescent lichen typical of Yuuzhan Vong–converted buildings. She selected the largest, most heavily trodden corridor and started forward at a brisk pace. She had to work fast if she wanted to be the one who killed Jacen; whoever was behind her would not be delayed for long by the Quarren.

  The air quickly grew hot and dank, and puffs of what smelled like ammonia and sulfur started to roll up the passage. Alema wrinkled her nose and began to wonder just what kind of pleasure den this was. No spice she had ever used was so harsh; if the odor grew any stronger, it would be foul enough to quell a rancor in rut.

  She had just reached a short side passage when the distant shriek of blaster rifles sang down the corridor—the vestibule guards opening fire on her mysterious stalker. Alema peered down the side passage and saw that it opened into something vaguely reminiscent of a Kala’uun joy cave: a central chamber surrounded by a number of privacy cells. Was that where she would find Jacen and his friend?

  A strange chorus of snap-hisses erupted from the entry vestibule, and the blasterfire ceased as suddenly as it had begun. By the sound of it, whoever was following Alema was using some sort of strange lightsaber technology—and using it well. The Quarren had bought Alema even less time than she had expected.

  But which way had Jacen gone—into the joy cave, or deeper into the building? Searching for him in the Force would do no good—indeed, would probably prove disastrous. Even if he wasn’t concealing his own presence, he would feel her looking for him, and Alema could not best Jacen Solo in a straight duel—not with one half-useless arm and one clumsy half foot.

  Fortunately, Alema knew males, and males—especially important males who pursued their secret passions in low places—did not like to wait for their pleasure.

  She went down the side passage and was surprised to find no panderer there to greet her, nor any spice dealers, nor any glitter girls waiting for new clients. There wasn’t even a beverage center, only a fountain gurgling in the center of the room and a refresher tucked away into a rear alcove. The doors to most of the privacy cells were open, revealing small dens containing beds, nesting basins, or simple raised pallets.

  But a handful of the cells were closed, and Alema could sense beings in them all. She went to the first and, holding her blowgun ready to shoot, pressed the nerve bundle beside the door. The membrane retracted to reveal a pair of Jenet curled up on large floor cushions, their limbs pulled in tight and their snouts tucked close to their legs. Neither opened an eye, even when Alema grunted in disbelief.

  There were no spice pipes in the cell, no aphrodisiacs, not even an empty ale mug. They were sleeping—just sleeping.

  Alema moved on, opening two more doors. She found a lone Duros behind one and a trio of Chadra-Fan behind the other—all sleeping. Apparently, she had stumbled into some sort of staff dormitory. She cursed under her breath. What kind of pleasure den had its staff quarters in front?

  Alema started back toward the main corridor and glimpsed her pursuer’s shadow on the far wall. She ducked out of sight and made sure that her Force presence was damped down, then peered around the corner and watched as a thin woman in a scarlet robe came down the corridor.

  The woman was middle-aged, with red hair and a thin nose, and she kept the lower half of her face concealed behind a black scarf. In one hand, she held a coil of strands—leather and gem-studded metal—attached to what looked like the hilt of a lightsaber.

  Alema was so shocked that she almost let her feelings spill into the Force. At the Jedi academy on Yavin 4, she had studied the story of an Imperial agent named Shira Brie: how Brie had attempted to discredit Luke in the eyes of his fellow pilots, only to be shot down and nearly killed; how Darth Vader had rehabilitated her, turning her into as much a machine as he was, then training her in the ways of the Sith; how she had constructed her lightwhip and returned to trouble Luke Skywalker time after time in her new identity as Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith.

  Could it be that Lumiya had returned once more? Alema saw no room to doubt. The woman was the right age and appearance, she concealed her lower face beneath the same dark scarf that Lumiya wore to hide her scarred jawline, and she carried a lightwhip—a weapon unique in the era of modern Jedi.

  And she was hunting Jacen Solo.

  Alema drew back around the corner, her thoughts whirling as she struggled to sort through the implications. She knew from the histories she had studied that Lumiya hated the Skywalkers and Solos almost as much as Alema herself did, so it seemed likely their goals were the same—to destroy the Solo-Skywalker clan. But Alema could not permit Lumiya to steal her kills. If the Balance was to be served, Alema had to destroy the prey herself.

  She filled her lungs with air, then raised the blowgun to her lips and spun around the corner to attack.

  The corridor was empty.

  She stepped back around the corner, expecting Lumiya to attack from the cover of a Force blur or drop off the ceiling at any instant.

  When nothing happened, Alema stood and stepped away from the door. Still, Lumiya did not appear. Alema expanded her Force awareness, searching for the Sith’s dark presence.

  Nothing.

  She cautiously peered around the corner again. When no attack came, she studied the walls, ceiling, and floor carefully, searching for any odd shadows or blurred areas where Lumiya might be hiding. When there was still no attack, she advanced up the short side passage to the main corridor and did the same thing.

  Lumiya was gone, vanished as quickly as she had appeared.

  Alema grew cold and empty inside, and she began to wonder if she had really seen Lumiya at all. Maybe it had been a Force-vision … or maybe her fever had returned. Once, near the end of her first year marooned in the Tenupian jungle, she had spent days exploring the Massassi temples on Yavin 4 with her d
ead sister, Numa—only to find herself stranded high on a Tenupian mountain when the fever finally broke.

  But another explanation seemed just as likely: Lumiya had continued after Jacen.

  Alema started down the corridor at a run, growing more worried with each step that Lumiya would beat her to the kill, no longer taking the time to move quietly, barely paying attention to which way she was going, just moving deeper into the building, deeper into the heat and the dankness and that horrid smell of ammonia and sulfur.

  Twice she ran headlong into surprised Ferals, and twice she had to kill them for attempting to lie to her before finally pointing the true way to It. Another time, she heard a large group of armored Ferals clattering up a ramp she was descending. She pressed herself against the wall between two patches of glow-lichen, then drew a Force shadow over herself and watched impatiently as they rushed past to search out the intruder.

  Finally, the ammonia-and-sulfur smell grew almost overpowering, and Alema began to hear strange gurglings and splashes. She emerged onto a narrow mezzanine balcony and found herself gazing across a huge well of yellow fog. It looked nothing like the pleasure den she had been expecting, but she stepped out of the passage and crossed the balcony without hesitation. In typical Yuuzhan Vong fashion, there was no railing to keep pedestrians safe. The yorik coral floor simply ended twenty meters above a vast pool of steaming slime.

  A constant supply of bubbles was rising from the depths of the pool, speckling the surface with flashes of light as they burst into scarlet and yellow glimmers. The surrounding walls were mottled with patches of bioluminescent lichen, barely visible through the thick fog. Higher up, several tiers of balconies curved away on both sides and vanished into the steam. Scattered along the balcony edges were the shadowy silhouettes of Ferals, usually in the process of tossing animal carcasses—or even lifeless bipeds—into the pool below. The splashes were always followed by a short gurgle, as though the bodies were too heavy to float on slime.

  Alema furrowed her brow, trying to decide exactly what she was looking at. In Coruscant’s savage undercity—especially the part that was still Yuuzhan’tar—dead animals were invariably devoured by Ferals or other scavengers long before the meat spoiled. So it seemed unlikely the pool was some sort of garbage pit. Instead, the Ferals had to be feeding something—something that Jacen was interested in, as well.

  Alema was about to back away when a voice murmured up through the fog. It was impossible to make out what it was saying over the gurgling of the pool, but Alema didn’t care. She recognized that voice: its dark timbre, its careful rhythms, and—unmistakably—its patronizing inflections.

  Jacen.

  Alema focused all her attention on that voice, trying to pinpoint its source. The fog and the pool worked against her, muffling Jacen’s words and drowning them out with gurgles. But eventually she grew attuned enough that she shut out everything else and began to understand what he was saying.

  “… let me worry about Reh’mwa and the Bothans.” Jacen sounded irritated. “Leaving the Well was foolish. I can’t protect you here.”

  The only response Alema heard was a long liquid purl, but Jacen responded as though he had been spoken to.

  “That’s ridiculous. I’d know if I had been followed. Not even Bothan assassins are that good.”

  Ever so carefully, Alema used the Force to clear the fog between herself and Jacen. She was running the risk that Jacen would feel her drawing on the Force, but she would have only one shot, and she needed to see her target. Besides, Jacen was likely too preoccupied with his conversation to notice such a subtle disturbance.

  After another long purl, Jacen’s voice grew concerned. “Inside the building? You’re sure?”

  There was a short gurgle.

  “Of course I’d care,” Jacen replied testily. He snapped his lightsaber off his belt. “You’re the Guard’s most valuable asset. Without you, we couldn’t track a tenth of the terrorist cells we do now.”

  The fog cleared, and Alema was astonished to see Jacen addressing a fleshy black monstrosity that had come up from the slime. The thing was so large, she could not even tell how much of it she was seeing. Its eye had a pupil the size of a Sullustan’s head, its tentacles were as big around as Alema herself, and—like everything in this part of the undercity—its appearance was distinctly Yuuzhan Vong.

  The creature blinked … and thrashed its tentacles across the surface.

  “I can’t ban Bothans from the planet,” Jacen replied. “That would push Bothawui straight into Corellia’s camp.”

  Alema began to suspect what this creature was. While Jacen had been held captive by the Yuuzhan Vong, he had supposedly struck up a friendship with the World Brain, a sort of genetic master controller whom the invaders had created to oversee the remaking of Coruscant. Before escaping, Jacen had persuaded it to thwart its masters’ plans, to cooperate only partially in their efforts to reshape Coruscant. Later, during the final days of the war, he had convinced his “friend” to switch sides and help the Galactic Alliance retake the planet. Now he was using it to spy on Corellian terrorists.

  Clever boy.

  Alema raised the blowgun to her lips and, using the Force to hide the cone-dart, expelled her breath.

  The dart had just left the blowgun when, somewhere above Alema and to her right, a throaty female voice cried out, “Jacen!”

  Jacen spun, igniting his lightsaber as he turned. But the dart was tiny, swift, and still hidden in the Force, and Alema realized with a bolt of satisfaction that his blade was not rising to block.

  Then Jacen cried out and flew backward, as though hurled by an invisible hand, and the dart flashed past, eliciting a liquid roar of pain as it disappeared into the enormous eye of the World Brain.

  Alema was astonished, dismayed, angry—but she was not stunned. She had been in too many death fights to let herself be paralyzed by any surprise. She pivoted toward the voice that had alerted Jacen.

  Five meters across the Well’s edge—and one balcony up—stood the fog-blurred silhouette of a thin woman in a scarlet robe. Her arm was still extended toward the slime pool, leaving no doubt that she had been the one who Force-hurled Jacen to safety.

  Lumiya.

  As Alema backed away from the balcony’s edge, Lumiya pointed toward her. “There, Jacen!”

  Alema turned to run, but the fog suddenly flashed blue, and a tremendous crack sounded from behind her. In the next moment she found herself sliding across the floor, snakes of Force lightning dancing across her anguished body until she finally passed from her attacker’s sight.

  Alema did not understand what had just happened—had Lumiya really warned Jacen? had he been the one who hurled the Force lightning at her?—but there was no time to figure it out. She forced her cramped muscles to drag her into the nearest corridor, then rose to a knee and drew a Force shadow over herself. She reached into her pocket for another dart … and that was when she realized the Force lightning had made her drop her blowgun.

  Jacen alit on the edge of the balcony, so obscured by yellow fog that he was barely more than a silhouette. But he was burning with a rage that Alema had not thought possible for him, an anger so fierce that it warmed the Force like fire. He ignited his lightsaber, casting a green reflection that made his eyes shine with murderous intent. His gaze fell on the blowgun, and he started forward.

  An ear-piercing screech rang out from the Well of the World Brain, then a dozen black tentacles rose out of the fog. They began to thrash about wildly, gashing themselves on the balcony and spraying the walls with blood. Jacen’s eyes darkened to the color of black holes, and he started forward, his gaze shifting to the corridor where Alema was hiding.

  Though Alema knew she lacked the power to kill Jacen with one attack—and that she would not have time for two—she opened herself to the Force, preparing to blast him with lightning.

  Then a second silhouette—this one a slender woman with a veiled face—dropped out of the fog, landing
on the edge of the balcony and dancing past the thrashing tentacles as only someone trained in Force acrobatics could.

  Alema extended her hand. Lumiya was not going to steal her kill.

  But instead of attacking Jacen, Lumiya merely caught him by the arm and spun him toward the thrashing tentacles.

  “Jacen, those are convulsions,” she said. “We have to slow the poison now, or your spy is dead.”

  Alema’s jaw dropped. Lumiya’s tone was one of command—a Master to a student.

  “But the assassin—”

  “Would you rather have vengeance or preserve an intelligence asset?”

  “This isn’t about vengeance.” Jacen looked toward the corridor where Alema was hiding. “It’s about justice. We can’t let the assassin—”

  “The assassin is only the tool,” Lumiya interrupted again. “It’s the hand wielding her we need to stop. It’s Reh’mwa and his lieutenants.”

  Jacen continued to stare at Alema’s corridor, his fury and desire to kill pouring into the Force.

  Lumiya released Jacen’s arm, pulling her hand away in disgust. “I can see it was a mistake to pick you. Go on.” She waved him toward Alema’s hiding place. “You are a servant to your emotions, not a master to them.”

  “This has nothing to do with my emotions.”

  “It has everything to do with your emotions,” Lumiya countered. “You’re angry because your friend was hurt, and now you can think of nothing but bringing the attacker to ‘justice.’ You’re hopeless.”

  Lumiya’s last comment seemed to sting Jacen. He continued to glare into the corridor for a moment, then glanced away long enough to summon her blowgun.

  “Tell Reh’mwa we’re coming,” he said, pointing the blowgun in Alema’s general direction. “This won’t go unanswered.”

  Jacen turned away. He and Lumiya danced past the thrashing tentacles of the World Brain and dropped into the fog. Even after they were gone, Alema remained in hiding, too shocked to move.

  Jacen Solo, apprenticing with a Sith.