“Where?”
“The surface.”
“I knew that already.” A cold suspicion formed in Han's gut. “Why?”
“This cavern is going to blow up, and then another few, and then the rest all at once, and that's the end for Kessel.”
As they ran, she explained. “That antenna-thing is an electromagnet. A super-electromagnet. When it starts spinning, it will yank the machinery off the walls and drag it all to itself.”
“Not a chance. Across all those kilometers?”
“Han, the makers of this place might also have built Centerpoint Station. Remember how powerful it was?” Centerpoint's gravitic tractor could, in theory, move planets and suns; could collapse and destroy whole solar systems. Han didn't miss its presence in the universe.
“Point taken. Super-destructive.”
“No, that's only the start.” They charged through the fungi toward the nearest wall, almost heedless of the dangers. Leia had her lightsaber in hand, and twice had to cleave red-and-yellow centipedes as they struck at her. Once they raced by a fungus with a crimson spider atop; they were ten meters past before the adrenaline hit Han and gave him a burst of speed, but the spider did not follow.
“Those barrels are explosives,” Leia continued. “I didn't get a sense of how they functioned, whether they're protonic or nuclear or something we don't even understand, but when all the machinery is encrusted onto the antenna, they blow up and incinerate it all … and collapse the cavern.”
“Making getting out of here an especially good idea.” They reached the cavern wall and the banks of machinery they had already passed on the way in, and ran toward the entrance, still kilometers away. “How long before it happens?”
“I don't know. Minutes?” Leia put on a burst of speed.
From long experience, Han knew that when a Jedi was running for her life, normal folk needed to try very hard to keep up.
* * *
The antenna, not visible until Han used his macrobinoculars, was already spinning by the time they reached the cavern entrance. As he watched, a piece of machinery the size of a small refueling station shivered, tore itself off the cavern wall, trailing cables and a field of debris, and rolled across the fungus forest, finally fetching up, deformed, against the antenna.
The antenna was not slowed by the gigantic apparatus now obscuring it. The thing kept spinning, the huge machine spinning atop it. A moment later, when Han imagined that the antenna was pointing toward the cavern mouth, he lurched forward, pulled by his backpack and metal gear. The pull wasn't strong enough to drag him back into the cavern, but it was exerting considerable force.
Then the sensation passed as the antenna kept turning. “Got any ideas, lady?”
“Yes.” Leia shucked her backpack. From within it, she drew out a small holocam, one that Lando had provided them. “Got any strapper tape in your bag?”
“Leia, you're joking.”
She shook her head. “I'm going to set it to record and transmit. If we can get any visual images from this to take back to the surface, it might help persuade Lando what's going on down here.”
Han set his pack down and began rummaging through it. “What is going on down here?”
“Something caused the complex—and Han, the complex is planetwide—to end its sensor operations. Systematically, caverns have been self-destructing. These explosions are tests, sort of proofs of concept, making sure that the ancient program is still achievable.”
“You got all that from kissing a glowing ball of light?”
She glared but nodded. “Because I asked direct, specific questions this time, I think. And because I'd gotten better at communicating with them through practice. Anyway, there are going to be a few more caverns blowing up as the tests come to an end. Then they'll blow all the remaining caverns in a sequence that will crack the world into pieces.”
“You're kidding, right?”
“Han, Kessel has less than a week to live.”
* * *
Leia got the holocam strapped into place on the stone wall, oriented more or less toward the center of the cavern and set to maximum zoom. She set it to broadcast. Han confirmed that he was receiving its signal on the holocam in his own bag.
Then they ran, their great bounding, low-gravity steps carrying them rapidly away from the source of the explosion to come.
“Got any idea how to get out of here?” Han asked between breaths.
Leia nodded. “Sensor leads up to the surface. Shafts concealed topside, but I know what to look for down here. If we survive.”
They passed the mound of rocks and then the wreckage of their speeder.
Han suddenly felt warmth on his back. He saw the tunnel walls all around and ahead of him illuminated, the shadow of the rock mound cleaving the light into two halves. He grabbed Leia's hand and hauled her back, crashing with her to the stone floor just in front of the speeder.
A thunder like he had never known, and a howling wind driving stone and metal roared past, rocking the wrecked vehicle.
Allana awoke, frightened out of a dream she couldn't remember. She pulled her covers tighter around her and looked out the viewport. It showed only the sky above Kessel: a glittering starfield, a sliver of a moon, an empty patch where the Maw was.
R2-D2, at the foot of her bed, offered a questioning tweetle. She wasn't sure exactly what he said, but she had a sense of it. “I don't know,” she said. “But it isn't good.”
Three minutes later, after she lay down and tried to go back to sleep, the groundquake hit.
At first it was just a low rumbling and a sense of dread. She distinctly heard C-3PO say “Oh, dear” from an adjoining room.
Then there were crashes from throughout the building as items fell off shelves and furniture toppled. The walls shook; dust filtered down from the tiles overhead. Allana drew the covers over her head and clamped her hands over her ears, willing it all to go away. She desperately wanted to be in her own little bunk on the Falcon. She'd be safe there, even with Han and Leia gone. She liked Lando and Tendra, but they were almost strangers. She wanted to be with her family.
Before the rumbling had quite subsided, the door to her room crashed open and light sprang up, visible at the edges of and through her cover. She flipped her blanket down and saw Lando, groggy and disheveled, wearing only sleep pants decorated with the insignia of Tendrando Arms. His voice was not as smooth as usual. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Can I sleep on the Falcon from now on?”
He thought about it. “Yes, you can. In fact, I wish I could.” He began to draw the door closed.
“Good night, Uncle Lando.”
“Good night, sweetie.”
CITY OF DOR'SHAN, DORIN
THE CITY WAS OVERCAST AND VERY WINDY ON THE MORNING OF LUKE'S second day of training. Ben could see that the Kel Dors on the streets were agitated; they walked briskly, said little to one another, and all but ignored the humans.
As they came within a block of the Baran Do temple, Ben learned why. A wail, mechanical and unsettling, rose in the distance from several points in the city. Kel Dors immediately ran for nearby doorways and gateways. As far as Ben could tell, they were rushing to homes that were not their own; no one ran farther than two buildings from his or her current position, and residents of those buildings were opening the outer doors and urging them in as they arrived. Some waved for Luke and Ben to enter. A general announcement in the Kel Dor language sounded across both the Skywalkers' comlinks.
Luke and Ben put on a burst of speed and rushed to the temple. Curiously, the walls there were retracting into slots in the ground, leaving the estate seemingly undefended. Luke and Ben made it into the main building's antechamber, running past Tistura Paan, who was on front-door duty, peering outside and urging pedestrians in.
The general announcement switched to Basic, recited by a woman with a pronounced Corellian accent. “This is a general announcement. A force-four storm front is approaching the city
of Dor'shan. All residents and visitors should seek shelter immediately. The storm is approaching from the south and will be at the outskirts of Dor'shan within seven standard minutes. All spaceport traffic is suspended for the duration of the storm event. A force-four storm is characterized by winds of up to one hundred eighty kilometers per hour, periodic funnel clouds in clusters, and rapid lightning strikes.”
She hadn't mentioned rain, but outside the doors the sky was now almost black, and sheeting rain descended as rapidly and unexpectedly as a giant foot. One minute it was dry; the next, rain was hitting the pathway and street beyond so hard that drops seemed to explode upon contact. As Ben watched, the roof of a landspeeder went spinning by as if hurled by a rancor.
Ben whistled. “You don't mess around with your storms, do you?”
Tistura Paan shook her head. “In the old days, the people only had the sages to warn them of storms. Today there are weather stations and satellites, but a storm can still coalesce in moments. Sometimes a sage will know in advance of the most modern instruments.”
“Did you lower the wall to keep it from blowing away?”
“Yes. Most of the time it's up to keep people from wandering around on the grounds, but at times like this we want people to be able to rush in. Besides, a wall is nothing but a big wind sail. One good gust, no matter how strong your welding is, and a section of wall could go flying. And nobody wants to be where it lands.”
She had her attention on the outdoors through her entire speech, constantly scanning for travelers in need of immediate shelter. But the street, now dimly illuminated by lights, was empty of traffic.
The side passage through which they had been conducted on their first night now opened for the Skywalkers. Luke headed through it to his lesson. Ben found a lounge area, packed with Baran Do and a few trapped pedestrians, where a large wall monitor alternated between satellite views of the storm front and holorecordings of the effects of weather around the capital city.
It was a spectacular show, and one that went on for hours. Lightning descended from the clouds, mostly striking harmlessly against lightning rods and shielded antennas, but occasionally hitting the tall, leafy plants that served the Kel Dors as trees; such a strike superheated the fluids within the plant, causing it to explode and spray burning cellulose in all directions. Funnel clouds touched down at several points, twisting and dancing their way along streets or across rooftops, often damaging but not destroying the buildings; but on one occasion an especially vicious funnel swept across a large theater, grinding it into unrelated chunks of permacrete, shredding lengths of tapestries and recognizable padded seats, spraying all the debris out across the surrounding few blocks. One of the non-sage Kel Dor present said something in his own language, then, for Ben's benefit, translated: “I hope they were in their basement levels.”
Ben nodded. “Me, too.”
By midafternoon, the storm front had passed. Several injuries were reported, but no deaths. The visitors to the Baran Do temple thanked their hosts and returned to their lives.
Luke found Ben lingering in the lounge. “All done,” he said.
“You've mastered the technique?”
“And I'm making inroads into the other ‘lightning-rod’ techniques. By the way, we've been invited to Charsae Saal's farewell ceremony. Care to attend?”
“Yeah.” Ben frowned. “It was mentioned a few times here while everyone was watching the storm coverage. I got a strange sense about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“His students, like Tistura Paan, were sad about it. So were the Baran Do Masters, but it was different.”
“Of course it was. Masters tend to have a greater depth of philosophy and understanding about such things—”
“Dad, they were even sadder.”
That got Luke's attention. “What's that again?”
“I got the impression that the Masters had an even deeper regret.”
“Interesting.” Luke frowned as he thought about it. “Now I'm certain that we need to attend.”
It happened at nightfall. Behind the main temple, on a broad paved area, stood a raised hearth surrounded by a bronze-colored metal rim. On the hearth, a pyre had been built. It was not made of wood, for wood did not burn in Dorin's oxygen-free atmosphere; instead, it comprised planks made of a self-contained solid fuel already enriched with oxygen.
For the first hour, as the sun went down and Baran Do and friends gathered, Charsae Saal circulated, greeting guests. He was, by Kel Dor standards, short and burly, meaning that to Ben he looked somewhat less scrawny than the others. He might have been old by Kel Dor standards, but he moved energetically and easily; he had certainly shown considerable combat skill when working with Ben the previous day. He wore a simple draping robe in black. A hood hung partway down his back.
Drinks and tidbits of food were served. Luke and Ben, the only non-Kel Dor present, did not partake.
Eventually, Charsae Saal stood up on a benchlike platform, also made of the combustible material, and addressed those who were gathered. He spoke in the Kel Dor language, but Tistura Paan, standing near the Skywalkers, translated into Basic. “Thank you all for attending. There is no lonelier thought than the idea that you might die alone; there is no more comforting thought than that you may die gently, among friends. I now take that step, moving aside so that others may succeed me. I pray that I will be remembered fondly. I will remember all of you fondly.”
So saying, he flipped his hood up so that it shrouded his eyes. He lay down on the platform upon which he had been standing. He placed his hands together, fingers laced, over his chest.
As the others watched in silence, his breathing slowed. Ben could feel him in the Force, a strong, vital presence.
Then the Force presence that was Charsae Saal faded, became smaller. In moments, it was completely gone, though his body still lay on the platform.
Four Kel Dors approached the platform. They carried what looked like a casket made of the same combustible material. Two poles were slid through hoops along the casket's sides; one Kel Dor held each end of each pole. They maneuvered the casket over the body of Charsae Saal and lowered it, carefully settling it into place. A moment later, they lifted it clear of the platform. The top layer of the platform adhered to the casket's underside. The bearers carried the casket and placed it atop the pyre, then withdrew the poles and stepped back.
Mistress Tila Mong approached the pyre. From the distance of a meter, she extended her hand. A crackle of lightning leapt from the end of her fingers to strike the base of the pyre. Instantly the combustible material caught fire, an odd, purplish flame that rapidly spread across all the surfaces of pyre and casket.
The flame became very fierce, very fast. Soon the Kel Dors and the two humans had to stand farther back so as not to be burned themselves. Purple flames leapt into the sky, rising nearly to the height of the temple roof. The onlookers spoke little, but soberly watched the fire consume the body of their friend.
Not long after, the pyre collapsed. Remains of the casket fell into the center of the burning mass. The flames were still fierce, but dying. One by one, the Kel Dors began turning away, taking their leave.
At an appropriate time, before the last of the Baran Do had left, Luke thanked Tila Mong and led Ben around the building toward the front gates.
“Kind of sad,” Ben said. “He was pretty nice. A good fighter, though he didn't have a lot of weapons experience. Staff, mostly.”
Luke's tone was equally soft. “It always annoys me to be lied to.”
“I wasn't lying to you, Dad.”
“What?” Luke looked startled. “No, not you. Them.”
“What do you mean?”
They passed through the gates. Instead of turning south, toward the spaceport, Luke led them north, toward the mercantile district. “They lied. About Charsae Saal. He didn't die, and they didn't cremate him.”
“Are you kidding? I felt him die.”
“You felt him
vanish in the Force, as I did. A graduated diminishment that was not much different, in the way it felt to Force-sensitive onlookers, from death. Ben, have you ever met anyone who could conceal himself in the Force?”
Ben grinned. “Other than myself? And Jacen? And you? And—” “They put an empty casket on that pyre and burned it. And ordinarily I don't need to pry into other people's secrets. But this one may have something to do with what Jacen learned here, so we have to root out the truth. We're going to find a restaurant for oxygen breathers, have a good meal with our masks off, and then we're going to come back here. And find the truth.”
Two hours later they returned, but not as official visitors this time. Instead of walking up the street, they moved as Jedi knew how to, darting from dark place to dark place, sending tiny distractions into the minds of pedestrians so that they might pass unnoticed. Their dark garments helped, as did the lateness of the hour and the still-ominous cloud cover, which blocked out starlight and moonlight.
Soon enough they found themselves at the base of the durasteel-and-transparisteel walls of the temple. Luke gauged the height and sprang upward. He came to rest atop, one haunch on the transpari steel lip, balancing there. He extended his hand down for his son.
Ben leapt up, letting the Force enhance his jump. He landed beside Luke in a crouch, both boot heels on the transparisteel lip, and grinned at his father. Together they leapt down into the grounds of the temple.
Moments later, they stood by the hearth where Charsae Saal had theoretically burned. The remains of the fire had been mopped up; no ashes remained.
Luke turned his attention to the platform where the Kel Dor had stood for his speech, had lain down to die. “If we assume that this was the means by which he disappeared, there's probably a mechanism here.”
“Or a sensor,” Ben said. “From which they're watching us right now, and plotting our demise.”
“You watch too many holodramas.” Luke stroked the platform along its top.
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast Page 19
