by Troy Denning
Twenty warriors and a High Lord, all to chase down a single girl. Had the Circle gone mad?
Emerald-Eyes put on a burst of speed, and Vestara felt the hand of the Force close around her. Knowing she needed to break free while she still could, she stopped, changed directions, and launched herself down the corridor behind a Force-enhanced side kick.
A kick that should have caught the woman square in the chest.
But the kick missed—and left Vestara standing on one leg, with Emerald-Eyes behind her.
An arm snaked around Vestara’s waist, and the cold circle of a lightsaber emitter nozzle touched the side of her neck.
“Drop your lightsaber,” the woman ordered. “Move, and you die!”
Vestara dropped her lightsaber and stood very still on one leg. Then she began to think. Sith were not the kind to show mercy, not after a long and grueling chase, not when they had lost several companions to their quarry.
Maybe her pursuers wanted her alive. That would explain all the talking, and the lack of blaster bolts and Force lightning.
“Move and … die?” Vestara gasped, still breathing hard. “Really?”
“Try me.”
“Sure.”
Vestara let her leg collapse, and her weight fell on the arm around her waist. Taken by surprise, Emerald-Eyes failed to catch her, and Vestara dropped like a bag of rocks. When the lightsaber pressed to her throat did not ignite, Vestara knew she was right about the huge effort to capture her. The Sith wanted her—but they wanted her alive.
By the time she hit the floor, Vestara was rolling back toward her captor. She drove an elbow into Emerald-Eyes’s knee and heard a pop. A nice loud pop. The woman screamed, and the crack-siss of an igniting lightsaber sounded above Vestara’s head.
Too late.
Vestara was already grabbing for the wrist. She snapped it at the joint, forcing the blade away as Emerald-Eyes collapsed. Vestara accelerated into her roll, driving her foe down hard, and the hollow crack of skull hitting yorik coral echoed off the walls. Yorik coral was harder. Emerald-Eyes went into seizure, body shaking and mouth foaming.
Blaster bolts and Force lightning began to flash up the corridor, some hitting a meter short, most screaming well overhead—suppression fire, meant to keep Vestara pinned until they could recapture her. She pulled Emerald-Eyes’s blaster and began to spray bolts back down the corridor … not suppression fire.
The first shot took out the man in front of Sashal. The second would have taken the High Lord herself had the Saber next to her not used his own arm to deflect the bolt.
The close call was enough to make Sashal and her followers hesitate—only for a second, but that was all the time Vestara needed. Still firing, she grabbed Emerald-Eyes’s lightsaber and raced down the corridor.
At least, racing was her intent. Instead Vestara’s exhausted body began to stumble and stagger. She drew on the Force even more heavily. Every part of her burned. Every part ached. The Force was feeding on her now, bursting cell after cell, and it would not be much longer before it devoured her completely.
Better that than be taken alive. Whatever the Circle of Lords wanted with her, she had no illusions about how they would extract it. Her torture would be a violation of body and spirit that would leave her a broken, empty vessel unable to recall her own name.
Blasterfire began to screech past her knees. Sashal was trying to cripple her. Vestara hurled herself into a Force tumble, making it impossible to fire at her legs without risking a head hit. The blasterfire stopped at once, but Vestara could not keep tumbling as fast as her pursuers could run.
She came up on her feet and began to pour blaster bolts into the ceiling ahead, aiming for the glow panels. Her pursuers fired on her legs again. The fiery sizzle of a graze burned her thigh, and then she was running in a pool of darkness. Behind her, the blasterfire ceased.
Vestara ran another ten meters before the sensors activated the next glow panel. Her pursuers managed to snap off a couple of shots before she plunged them back into darkness. Sooner or later, a shot would bring her down—and even if it didn’t, the Sith were gaining.
Vestara tipped the blaster pistol over her shoulder and squeezed the trigger, firing blindly. Two shots later, she heard a scream and a thud. She stepped to the other side of the corridor and fired again, and another scream sounded over the steady chirping in her earbud.
Another glow panel activated ahead. Before she could darken it, a blaster screamed behind her. A fiery stabbing took her below the knee. Her leg buckled, and Vestara launched herself into a forward roll and came up firing. The glow panel finally went dark.
Then the guidance chirping began to slow.
Vestara kept rolling, and the chirping in her earbud became even slower. There was a turn coming. She rolled again, then fired back down the corridor. Someone close screamed.
Vestara sprang up on her good leg and limped two steps, then the chirping grew steady. She turned left … and felt the floor disappear.
Forcing herself not to cry out, she tucked herself into a ball and bounced down a steep, rugged ramp. It had probably once been a stairwell, but it lay crusted beneath so much dirt and yorik coral it felt more like a hillside. The fall seemed to last forever, and she did what she could to protect herself, using the Force to slow herself and cushion the blow. Still, every time her wounded leg came down, the impact sent a pang of anguish through her entire body.
Finally, Vestara reached a level surface and stopped. She was lying on her back in the darkness. Her head was spinning and her body felt like one big bruise. She had lumps rising on her forearms and on the shin of her uninjured leg, and the wounded leg felt like the bone was on fire. But at least she was alone, and the only sound in her ears was the chirping of the guidance beacons, now rapid and insistent, telling her to turn right.
Vestara rolled to her stomach and looked back up the stairs—or tried to. The automatic illumination was not working in this part of the Temple, and all she could see was darkness. She removed one chirping earbud and listened to the patter of running boots, somewhere above.
They had missed the stairwell—for now. They would discover their mistake as soon as they activated the next set of glow panels. She returned the earbud to its place and followed the chirp signals into the darkness. The space felt large and open, with warm swirling air and faint plopping sounds that seemed to come from every direction.
A dozen painful steps later, the warm air began to puff directly into her face. The plopping sounds grew more infrequent and more likely to come from behind her. She seemed to be entering some sort of broad passage. She thought about using the lightsaber for illumination, but in that echoing labyrinth the distinctive sizzle would be heard hundreds of meters distant. So she continued to limp into the darkness.
And then she heard it: the soft buphoot of a puff-fungus expelling its spores.
Vespara clamped her mouth shut and exhaled through her nose, then Force-sprang three paces backward.
She ignited her lightsaber. As she had expected, before her was a slender, knee-high mushroom with a web of sticky feeder-threads draping out of a freshly burst cap, still engulfed in its yellow cloud of paralyzing spores. Just beyond was the mouth of a tunnel about three meters high. The passage had probably been completely round before the yorik coral had taken hold, but now it was more of a lopsided oval. Two more of the deadly fungi stood just inside the tunnel mouth, their caps not yet swollen enough to explode.
Vestara spun in a slow circle, using her lightsaber to illuminate the surrounding area. She was standing on a large platform that ended at the mouth of the tunnel. In the small area that she could see, there were at least six more fungi, along with several large patches of gray moss. The mosses were probably acid mats, which enwrapped anything that stepped on them.
Lying just at the edge of the light, she saw a large gray cocoon. The half-meter-long tail of a giant slashrat trailed out of the end, and where it entered the cocoon, the flesh had been
eaten to the bone. Vestara’s heart sank. She had seen such things before, and she knew exactly what they meant.
Abeloth had come to Coruscant.
From the darkness back near the coral-encrusted staircase came a distant Keshiri voice, lyrical but angry. “Back here, you fools! I see a light.”
Vestara did not hesitate. She circled past the puff-fungus—she and Ahri Raas had called them deathstalks on the jungle world—and began to limp down the ancient tunnel. As far as she could tell, the passage had been part of some ancient transportation system. It ran straight and true for over fifty meters, then made a gradual bend to the left and ran straight for another fifty before starting to descend at a gentle angle. By then, she could hear the voices of her pursuers crying out in pain and astonishment as they fell victim to the death fungi. Meanwhile, the guidance chirping was growing stronger. She dared to hope she was at last nearing the end of the evacuation route.
Then the concussion wave hit.
At first, Vestara didn’t understand what had happened. She simply found herself lying on the tunnel floor with ringing ears and a queasy stomach. The air felt inexplicably warm and dry, and she could see a rapidly fading orange glow around the bend behind her.
Grenades.
Vestara hadn’t counted on that. She scrambled to her feet and began to call on the Force again, drawing it into her in a hot torrent of invigorating energy. The time had come to escape or die—and it no longer mattered which, as long as she did not let Sashal take her alive. Using the Force to leap the acid mats and her blaster to clear the deathstalks and smotherveils from her path, she broke into an awkward sprint that was as much hopping and skipping as it was running. Another concussion wave hit even harder than the last, but this time Vestara was ready. She simply threw herself into the air and let the wave carry her an extra couple of meters before she landed on her one good leg … on a level floor.
Three meters ahead stood an iris hatch. It was too covered in mold and mildew to be called shiny, but it was completely free of yorik coral and equipped with a glowing control panel.
The guidance chirping ceased, and a faintly female computerized voice sounded in Vestara’s earbud. “Passcode, please.”
“Ees set nesh oh nee wees,” Vestara barked. She had a memory for numbers, and she had taken care to rehearse the passcode until she could rattle it off in her sleep. “Wees nee oh ees set nesh.”
“I am sorry,” the voice replied. “That is not the passcode. Would you care to try again?”
“Ese!”
“I am sorry,” the voice said again. “The language—”
“Yes!” Vestara interrupted, realizing her mistake. Sashal and her company had been speaking Keshiri, and Vestara had slipped into thinking in her native language without even realizing it. “I would like to try again. Now!”
“Very well,” the voice replied. “But this is your last attempt. Your voice pattern has been recorded and—”
The rest of the warning vanished into static as her pursuers set off another grenade. Vestara used the Force to brace herself against the concussion wave, but they were so close now that the durasteel flashed orange with reflected flame, and she was knocked into the hatch anyway.
“Three seven four zero nine two!” Vestara yelled into her throat-mike. “Two nine zero three seven four.”
“Passcode accepted.”
Vestara stepped away from the hatch, ready to leap through and order it shut behind her.
The hatch remained closed.
A cold prickle raced down Vestara’s spine, and she glanced back up the tunnel to see a trio of Sith Sabers racing into view. The one in the middle was holding a live grenade, while the two flanking him were armed to defend him, one with a blaster pistol and the other an activated lightsaber.
Vestara fired three bolts at the Sith in the center, but his companion with the lightsaber simply stepped forward and deflected the attacks into the walls. She was not surprised when the three men stayed long enough to evaluate her situation, then disappeared back up the tunnel just beyond her view.
“Computer?” Vestara whispered into her throat-mike. “What’s wrong? The code was correct! I know it was!”
“Affirmative,” the voice replied. “The passcode was correct.”
“Then open the sharstung hatch!” Vestara ordered. “This is an emergency!”
“Emergency acknowledged,” the voice replied. “The hatch will open as soon as the outer doors are secure.”
“Override!” Vestara ordered. “Open now!”
“Override authorization code, please.”
“Three seven four …” Vestara stopped herself, realizing that any attempt to bluff her way through an override code was bound to backfire. “Cancel. Just open the hatch at the earliest opportunity.”
“Of course,” the voice replied. “That is the nature of an emergency declaration.”
Vestara put her back against the hatch, then sat on her heels and aimed her blaster pistol up the tunnel. Her situation wasn’t all that bad. All she had to do was hold off the Sabers until the computer sealed the hangar’s outer doors. How long could that take? Five seconds? Thirty, at most?
That might have been a problem, had her pursuers been trying to kill her. But they wanted her alive, and they thought they had her trapped. With that kind of advantage, she could hold them off five minutes, easy.
A woman’s boots came into view, standing on the tunnel floor high enough up the slope that they were all that was visible. Vestara took aim and fired. The tip of a crimson lightsaber swung into view and batted the bolts back toward the hatch. They landed well above her head—but close enough to the control box that she did not want to risk it again.
The boots continued forward another few steps, until Vestara could see the thighs above them. Lady Sashal’s voice rang down the passage.
“We can play this game until you deplete your blaster’s power cell.” The Keshiri dropped to her haunches and met Vestara’s gaze. “The only thing you will accomplish is to make me angry. Surrender now, and you will not suffer while you are in my custody.”
“What about after?” Vestara scoffed, realizing there was more than one way to stall. “Can you guarantee my safety until I speak to Grand Lord Vol?”
A chorus of laughter sounded behind Sashal, and she shook her head. “No one can do that,” she said. “Grand Lord Vol has been replaced.”
“Replaced?” Though Vestara felt not even the slightest inclination to mourn Vol’s passing, her surprise was genuine. “Who could do that?”
“Come and see,” Sashal replied. “The new Grand Lord is most eager to grant you an audience.”
“I’d like to.” Vestara glanced up at the control box, wondering how long it would be before the red status light on its face turned green. “But I’m afraid that would interfere with my mission.”
“Which mission is that?” Sashal scoffed. “The one to reveal all our secrets to the Jedi? Or the one to kill another High Lord?”
“The one to kill the Jedi queen,” Vestara answered. It had been her original assignment, and the claim was just audacious enough to sound plausible. “It was assigned to me by High Lord Taalon.”
This drew a snort of laughter even from Sashal. “When? Just before you ran a lightsaber through his back?”
“In the Maw,” Vestara said. “Shortly before I persuaded the Skywalkers to protect me from him and my father.”
A muffled thunk sounded on the other side of the hatch, loud enough that Sashal’s eyes flicked away from Vestara’s face toward the durasteel she was leaning against.
“Lord Taalon died because Abeloth had taken him,” Vestara said, trying to hold Sashal’s attention for just a few seconds longer. Surely, the hatch would be open by then. “As did my father. I had no other choice.”
“There is always a choice, Jedi Khai.”
Sashal stood, and more boots appeared next to hers. Vestara holstered her blaster pistol and also rose, her lightsaber gripped
tight in both hands.
“My mission is the key to the Sith conquest!” she yelled. She felt a slight vibration, as though something heavy had just settled onto the floor on the other side of the hatch. “Let me prove it!”
Sashal stepped into view, surrounded by her Sith. Some were armed with lightsabers and some with blasters, and a couple were still holding grenades—a sure sign, Vestara knew, that they, too, had sensed the activity on the other side of the hatch.
But the High Lord did not order a charge. She simply locked gazes with Vestara and said, “Very well. Prove it to me.”
Vestara couldn’t believe it. Was her stalling tactic actually going to save her?
“And if I do?” she asked. “You’ll let me go so I can complete my mission?”
A mocking sneer came to Sashal’s face. “Of course,” she said. “If you prove to me that this mission is real, how could I refuse you?”
“You couldn’t,” Vestara agreed. She was beginning to think that her position just might be better than she had dared to hope—that it might even be possible for her to return to the Lost Tribe as a hero and a Lord herself. “I can tell you the identity of the Jedi queen. Would that be proof enough of my mission?”
An astonished silence fell over the entire Sith company, and Sashal’s eyes went wide. The Keshiri studied Vestara for several moments, probing with the Force to see whether she was being truthful. And Vestara let her, because she was telling the truth. She knew the identity of the Jedi queen. And if revealing that secret was the only way to survive and go free, then reveal it she would.
A loud thunk reverberated through the hatch, and Vestara knew she was out of time. “When that hatch opens, it will be too late,” she said. “After I’m seen with you, I’ll never be able to get close to the Jedi queen again.”
Finally, Sashal nodded. “If I believe what you tell me,” she said. “But there can be no doubts. I must believe you.”
“You will.” Vestara deactivated her lightsaber. Hoping to appear more confident than she was, she hung it from her belt. “The Jedi queen’s name is Allana Solo.”
