by Various
Jyl nodded. “Let me—” This was briefly interrupted by a coughing fit; her throat felt raw and unused. “Let me guess. You’ve been bribed by the Geonosians to get rid of me?”
“Geonosians are notorious for underpaying their employees,” said Pandoor. His clear tenor voice gave the impression of civilized discussions in lecture halls on esoteric issues. “We’re freelance.”
‘“We?!” said Jyl, cocking an eye at Frayne.
“Pandoor originally tried to join my expedition using credentials stolen from a research assistant he waylaid. When his ruse was uncovered, I daresay I astonished him not by turning him in, but by asking to join him.” She shrugged, disarmingly. “The Republic pays nearly as poorly as the Geonosians.”
“It’s a perfect partnership,” said Pandoor. “She can identify and find the Geonosian technology that remains, and I can get it past the Republic blockade.”
“So you’re just another smuggler,” said Jyl.
“I think of myself as a scholar,” said Pandoor, in a tone of mock offense.
“Actually, Pandoor, Jedi Somtay has categorized your species with the unerring precision of a scientist,” said Dr. Frayne. Jyl and Pandoor turned to Frayne just in time to see her draw a blaster from behind her back.
As Pandoor fumbled for his sidearm, Jyl tried to use the Force to jerk the weapon from Frayne’s hands, but she was too late. It sounded once, and Pandoor fell. Then it sounded again.
Waking up this time, Jyl’s pain was even worse. Surrounded by absolute blackness, she feared for a moment she was blind. But the Force told her she wasn’t blind, and she wasn’t alone. She was seated on a hard, packed surface, kept in a sitting position by someone behind her whose hands were bound together with hers. It took no Force-granted insight to guess his identity.
Using a brief Jedi meditation to tamp down her pain, Jyl turned her head and hissed, “Pandoor, wake up!” She rocked from side to side and finally the weight behind her stirred.
“Sh—she betrayed me!” His voice was harsh and raspy. “The witch double-crossed me!”
Despite the circumstances, Jyl chuckled. “I’m sure you couldn’t have seen that coming.”
“Neither did you, Commander Jedi.”
“I didn’t know what she was. What’s your excuse?”
“Me? I just wanted some time alone with you.”
Jyl sighed. “That’s not helping.”
“Neither is your fidgeting like that.”
“I’ve been trying to untie your bonds,” said Jyl. “But they’re too tight.”
“And here I just thought you wanted to hold hands,” replied Pandoor.
“Will you take this seriously?”
“But I am, Jedi Somtay. I’ve decided that Dr. Frayne must have wanted to torture me.”
“Torture you? Why?”
“Because she didn’t tie us front-to-front.”
Jyl again wished she had her lightsaber, though she had an entirely different use for it in mind.
“I wonder where we are?” said Pandoor, finally.
“Smell the air? That’s soil. And it’s moist. From the echo of our voices, I’d say we’re in a deep cavern. Frayne must have disposed of us here.”
“Yes, probably with one of those antigravity carts used for hauling large specimens. I think one of us has been insulted.”
“That would be me,” said Jyl, “left here tied to you.”
“I wonder why she did leave us here, rather than just killing us?”
“Because she knew something would do it that wouldn’t point to her,” replied Jyl. “Hear that?”
“No, I don’t—”
“Hush! Be ready to move when I say.” She automatically closed her eyes, despite the total blackness of their pit, and concentrated. She heard a faint stirring of dirt, disturbed and pushed to one side. The scrape of appendages on the ground as something—a lot of somethings—approached. With them came the guttural sounds of a language spoken from the very back of the throat, syllables interspersed with frequent clicks and glottal stops.
Geonosians. The Jedi knew at least several thousand of them remained behind. None of the Republic forces had seen them, though the evidence laid in a footprint here, a small job of sabotage there.
Pandoor heard them then. He stirred restlessly. Jyl jabbed her elbow into his back as hard as she could with minimal movement. They could learn more if the Geonosians thought them unconscious.
Something stroked her face. She heard the faint rasp of metal, certainly weapons being drawn. That was all she needed to know.
“Now!” she shouted, and sprang to her feet. Pandoor followed her lead—he could do little else, with his hands bound to hers—and she was rewarded with a chorus of voices, frightened and startled by the sudden activity.
Something hard struck her, and Jyl accessed the Force, shitting rapidly to one side. Something heavy brushed past her in the dark, barely missing her. She swung Pandoor around, his feet striking several of their attackers, his astonished cries doing almost as much damage by startling them.
“Stop it! Ow! What are you—no!”
Jyl felt the manacle binding them begin to give and spun faster, trying to use the Force on the locking mechanism. There was a metallic clatter nearby and then, suddenly, the echoing whine of one of the Geonosian sonic blasters.
Jyl expected this and pushed herself backward, the shrieks of both Pandoor and the Geonosians remarking on the unexpectedness of the maneuver. In the brief, verdant blast, she saw the low ceiling and close walls of the cavern covered with Geonosians, and more pouring from a narrow tunnel, wings scraping against each other with a chitinous whisper.
“Oh, blast!” shouted Pandoor, seeing the odds against them. Finally there was a metallic rasp, and Pandoor flew from her, screaming like a soprano in a Coruscant opera as the
manacle binding them gave. Jyl sprang forward and tackled the nearest pile of limbs. Whatever she struck had to be an enemy, while whatever they struck would likely be an ally. The clatter and ticking of the Geonosian voices were punctuated with several utterances she took to be cries of pain.
Then she felt a long, smooth shape, narrowing to a point at one end while expanding to a heavy weight at the other. She wrenched it from the hands of its wielder and began swinging. In the strobing bursts of the sonic blasters, she saw Pandoor seize a weapon, fiddle with its controls, and quickly toss it away.
From across the chamber a mechanical keening pierced the air, sounding ever higher. All movement from the Geonosians ceased for a moment, then they rushed past Jyl in a flow of whispers and clucked imperatives.
Jyl recognized the sound and, waiting until the precise moment, seized the nearest native, slammed the heavy end of her weapon against its head, and held its unconscious form between her and the mechanical keening, wing side out.
The sonic blaster overloaded, its artificial scream culminating in an explosion that sounded louder in the confined space than it was. Jyl was inundated by a spray of dirt from across the chamber.
She saw pale lights through the clearing dust. Jyl dropped her shield, crouched low and hurried toward the light.
Even the stars of the night sky seemed exceptionally bright to her. She emerged in a gully between two of the Geonosians’ towering spire-hives. Behind her, she heard countless dry limbs withdrawing deeper into the spire-hive.
A pair of hands grabbed her. She whirled, jamming the sharp end of her weapon forward.
“Ow!” Naj Pandoor fell backward, left hand flying to his right forearm, from which now issued a copious flow of blood. “I’m on your side!”
“And so was Dr. Frayne,” observed Jyl. “Turn around and start marching. It can’t be too far to my base in the Trade Federation ship. I can cobble up a makeshift brig.”
Her captive stared at her incredulously. “You’re turning me in?”
“A self-confessed smuggler bearing false credentials on 3 planets filled with dangerous technology? The thought had crossed my min
d. For all I know, you intended to bury me back there when you overloaded that sonic staff.”
“I almost buried myself as well, you might have noticed,” he replied. “But given our position, I thought the odds acceptable.” More than anything else, he resembled a body excavated from a mudslide, but the moonlight softened the gauntness of his features, she noticed, and his deep-set eyes gave him an air of intrigue.
“Look,” he continued, “you need me. I know what Frayne was up to. You stand a better chance of stopping her with me than without me.”
Jyl removed the ring from her ponytail and shook her hair, sending a fine film of dirt into the night air. “Just tell me what she was up to, and I’ll put in a good word for you—if it’s the truth.”
“That’ll take too long. She could be escaping right this moment. In my ship,” he added, bitterly. “At least let me alert The Republic blockade.”
Jyl pointed. “That way. The nearest comm station is in the main lab, just a kilometer or so away.” She set off on a brisk
run and Pandoor, after a moment, set off after her, stifling a groan.
As they ran, Jyl regarded the planetary ring that seemed to bind the Geonosian sky. An occasional flash of light pierced the night sky, followed by a trail of smoke and a fearsome shriek as a sizable object embedded itself in the planet’s surface.
“Asteroids from the planet’s ring,” said Jyl, catching her breath. “That’s one reason so many of the natives live deep in the catacombs.”
“What’s that glow on the horizon?” puffed Pandoor. “It’s quite beautiful.”
“And deadly. Radiation storms. They can be more or less predicted, but if you see one coming at you, dive for cover.”
“Into a catacomb. With the Geonosians.”
“Nice place, isn’t it?” commented Jyl, dryly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Pandoor, looking at her. “It has its attractions.”
Minutes later, the lab came in sight as they topped a dune. “I wish we had the time to get fresh clothes,” she said, “I’m squirting dust from every pore.” She didn’t want to imagine what she must look like. Then she wondered why that bothered her.
“To me,” replied Pandoor, “you look like an angel.”
Jyl felt her cheeks flush. “A smooth talker, too. You smugglers always are.”
“I didn’t set out to be a smuggler—”
“I know all the stories. Did you come from a broken home, are you a rebel against an unjust system, or are you earning the fee to buy your sister out of slavery?”
“Actually,” he said, “I was a graduate student in Xenoarchaeology at the University of Ketaris. But when the University went bankrupt, it took my academic career with it. From Xenoarchaeology to smuggling is a more direct route than you might think.”
“Especially if you cut Ethics class.” They were in the main lab’s shadow now. Although the main hatch was open, the place was dark. From either side of the doorway, Jyl saw various trickles of light from consoles, but no motion. Reaching out with the Force, she felt no life inside, but she wouldn’t have cared to bet hers on that assumption.
After several seconds, however, Jyl lifted a few pebbles with the Force and flung them inside. The stones bounced off the floor with a clatter, but caused no other commotion. “I think it’s safe,” said Jyl, sidling inside. “She wasn’t expecting us to return. An empty lab doesn’t necessarily indicate trouble. A booby-trapped lab does.”
“Beauty before age,” said Pandoor.
Jyl ran to the comm board and quickly called the Republic flagship. “They report no attempts to run the blockade,” she said, minutes later. “Frayne must still be planetside.”
“That’s something,” said Pandoor. “I was worried sick she’d get herself blown up.”
“I didn’t think you were that concerned about her.”
“I’m not—but she could get my ship blown up with her.”
“You won’t have any need for a ship where you’re going.” Pandoor had no comeback to that.
Activating the main display, Jyl quickly picked out the technology reading Frayne had shown to her earlier. “There she is.”
“Not quite,” said Pandoor, leaning past her and working the console. “She built a 15 percent displacement differential into the readings. You could search those coordinates for days and not find her.” The holographic map shuddered, went blank, and then flickered into life again, showing slightly different readings. “That’s where she is,” nodded Pandoor, pointing to the brightest light.
“She’d better be,” said Jyl. “That’s an odd place for a cache of Geonosian technology.”
“That’s why you need me. I know her whole operation, but I can’t do you any good from a Republic cell.”
“All right,” said Jyl, after a long moment. “But the first time you try anything—”
“There won’t be a first time,” he said. Pandoor cast a glance around the cavernous lab as they left. “This whole planet gives me the creeps.”
“I know. All this technology. . . but it’s all hidden, all underground. There’s something wrong about it.”
“You see?” Pandoor smiled charmingly. “We have a lot in common.”
“We’re both carbon-based life forms,” replied Jyl, “that’s all.” They took a small troop transport to the coordinates indicated and found themselves standing in the middle of a patch of desert composed of nothing but drifting sand, save for one feature.
“The cache must be below that stalagmite,” said Jyl, “Let’s go.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any good to suggest waiting until some clone troopers arrive as reinforcements?”
“No, it wouldn’t,” she said, with a grim smile. “I don’t want to give Frayne any more time.”
“At least I got a smile out of you,” said Pandoor, following her footprints in the sand. “That’s a start.”
The stalagmite was a massive protuberance of rock created when the planet was in its birth throes thousands of centuries earlier. Despite its age, its surface seemed as rocky and barren as the day it was formed.
“There must be an access point,” said Jyl, moving slowly along the slab of rock, her Song fingers running over its craggy surface. “Yes, look here.”
She moved toward a surface of rock then, seemingly, through it and was gone.
“Hey!” said Pandoor, rapidly approaching the same spot and finding nothing. “Where are you, Angel?”
“Here,” came Jyl’s voice, echoing in the darkness. Pandoor shone his torch on the area, and saw that what seemed to be a natural curve of rock was actually two layers, concealing a narrow cut of space between them, Jyl looked up at the beam of light that danced before her. “Come down,” she said, “Frayne’s got to be down here. And put out that light, it’ll take that much longer for your eyes to adjust.” Pandoor obliged, reluctantly. The crevice was a tight fit, even for his lean build. Once past the entrance the crevice widened, giving onto a fairly large corridor of natural volcanic rock. “A perfect hiding place,” he said, his voice echoing off the walls. “You could hide anything down here.” “That’s what I’m afraid of,” came Jyl’s solemn reply. “Let’s keep the lights off, and the noise, to a minimum.”
“Anything you say, Angel.”
“That’s the kind of noise I’m talking about.”
“Sorry. . . Jyl.” But he didn’t sound sorry.
The cavern walls gave off a kind of phosphorescence in which it was easier to distinguish shapes than details. Still, Jyl hoped he could make out her frown. “You will address me as ‘Jedi,’” she said tightly.
“Sorry, Jedi Somtay.”
They proceeded slowly, Jyl casting ahead with the Force, hoping to sense any kind of life that might be waiting within. But trying to differentiate between native fauna and life that carried hostile intent was useless. Everything on this planet seemed hostile.
Just then came a juicy thwack, like a melon being hit. “What was that?” asked
Jyl.
“Just a rock I kicked,” replied Pandoor.
“Are you sure? That didn’t sound like a rock, it was. . . wetter, as though it was filled with liquid, or—” Spurred by a sudden spike in what was either the Force or her native instincts, she activated her beamlight.
There was Dr. Frayne—or at least, her head.
“She was decapitated by something long and sharp,” said Jyl, after a cursory examination. “That’s all I can tell without a lab. Maybe her body will provide some clues.”
“If we can find it,” said Pandoor, cautiously, from the other side of the cavern. “There’s not much else of her left.”
The only other evidence that Frayne had been present was her equipment, which had been scattered all around the chamber.
Around the cavern lay splotches of blood of varying sizes. In the cavern’s dim light, the surface of the blood seemed to move, as if of its own accord. Pandoor knelt to examine this phenomenon, but Jyl grabbed his wrist in an iron grip.
“Don’t touch that,” said Jyl. Pandoor saw the blood was covered by what must have been hundreds of thousands of tiny insects, swarming in what at first looked like a random pattern, but was too purposeful to be meaningless. “Rogas,” she said, “fierce insects.”
Pandoor nodded. “Yes. . . some scientists theorize the Geonosians evolved from them.”
“Evolution’s done pretty well by them as they stand,” replied Jyl. “If they swarm over you, you won’t have too long to worry about it. But they didn’t kill Frayne.”
“No, that was some kind of animal,” said Pandoor, his beam-light shaking only a little. “She probably disturbed it in its lair.”
“More likely it was put here to guard whatever the Geonosians left behind,” said Jyl, rapidly sorting through the erratically distributed contents of a backpack. “Do you see?”
From across the cavern came a familiar snap-hiss and a turquoise radiance, eerie in the phosphorescence. Jyl turned, springing to her feet.
“I found your lightsaber, Angel,” said Pandoor, his tone very quiet. He drew it back and forth before him, accustoming himself to the torsion the weapon acquired when activated. He slashed out at an inoffensive stalactite, sending its fragments showering about the cavern. “I can see why you Jedi favor this weapon,” he said, in the same tone. “It’s. . . unique.”
