Into the Dark

by Claudia Gray

  “That would be preferable,” said the Mizi, straight-faced.

  It was really the only next step. But Reath couldn’t stop himself from wondering whether they couldn’t take what they’d learned last time and use it tactically. Master Jora always said, “If you use your defeat to learn the path to victory, it was no defeat at all.”

  Everyone shifted, about to disperse. Before they’d begun, though, Reath blurted out, “I have an idea. It’s either really good or completely ludicrous.”

  “If it’s ludicrous, it’s probably great.” Affie’s enthusiasm had been renewed. “I’ve learned that working with Leox and Geode.”

  No doubt. Reath turned to Dez. “The Aytees are programmed to attack any threats to the plants on this station, right?”

  “Sure looks like it.” Dez rested his hands on his hips. “What’s this about, Reath?”

  “Watch.” Reath went to one of the smaller plants on the station, a budding yellow flower in a fist-sized round container. Many of them lined the walkways; the containers seemed to operate as makeshift nurseries for the 8-Ts. Gently he eased the container from the soil. As he brushed away some of the dirt, a handful of 8-Ts swiveled to stare at Reath. This behavior was clearly suspect.

  Very carefully, he tucked the flower’s container into the folds of his robe jacket, then snugly tied the belt around it. His knot was so secure that he could’ve done an acrobatic flip in the air without bruising a single petal. The 8-Ts stared for another second or so before turning to go about their business.

  “There,” he said. “They realize this doesn’t count as damaging the plants. And if we wear these on our mission—”

  “They won’t attack us,” Nan said. “Because hurting us would mean hurting the flowers!”

  Dez grinned, too, and even the Mizi nodded. Affie, however, folded her arms. “So you’re saying that we’re taking plants as hostages. Using them as body shields.”

  When she put it that way, it sounded worse. But—“Well, yeah.”

  “Ludicrous,” Affie said. The smile she’d hidden so well before finally shone. “And great.”

  Within a few minutes, each member of the party was wearing their own flower. The 8-Ts found them more interesting now that they wore plants, but otherwise took no actions as they made their way back to the tunnel and began their descent.

  “Now for that energy field.” Dez stared at the flickering, purplish light. “Nothing to do but get down there and take a closer look.”

  “Agreed.” Reath started the climb down, followed by the others. To his dismay, the 8-Ts whirred closer and started down the tunnel walls again.

  Dez swore under his breath. “Looks like they’ll sacrifice a few flowers for the greater good.”

  “By the greater good, you mean killing us.”

  “That’s what they mean by it, I think.”

  But Dez was wrong. The 8-Ts swarmed along the tunnel walls all the way down to the very edge of the lower ring, extended various tools—and then, in the next instant, the purplish light disappeared.

  “The droids turned the energy field off for us,” Reath said in wonder. “To make sure we wouldn’t fry the plants!”

  Dez actually waved at the 8-Ts. “Don’t worry,” he said, patting the planter that rested against his chest. “We’ll bring them back safe and sound.”

  Were the droids relieved? Plotting revenge? Reath didn’t know and couldn’t care, not when they’d finally reached the last, most secret part of the Amaxine station.

  Once Affie had clambered into the lower rings, she felt vaguely let down. It wasn’t all that different from the upper rings—same tilework, same rails—except that it was entirely devoid of plant life, and she didn’t yet see any signs of smugglers’ code on the walls. Yet.

  The ring that welcomed them was very narrow; other curving corridors, yet unexplored, must’ve made up the rest of the circumference. Without the purple glow of the energy field, the only illumination came from the station above. Still, they had glow rods, so that was enough light to search by.

  “So, let’s split up,” Affie suggested. “Check different passageways on our own.” Could you be any more obvious? she scolded herself.

  But apparently nothing about her suggestion struck Dez or Reath as suspicious. “Sure,” Dez said. “Doesn’t seem like there’s anything too dangerous down here. Might as well cover ground as quickly as possible.”

  Affie nodded like that was exactly what she’d been thinking.

  Finally they broke up, and she was free to delve into one of the passageways by the light of her glow rod. Affie wondered whether she’d find codes, whether the others would, too, and whether they’d be able to make sense of them as quickly as she had.

  Sure enough, after the first bend, the first lines of writing appeared. She went right up to them, eager to translate as best she could. Above all, she hoped to find something that would vindicate her mother and prove to Leox that there was a corrupt element at work within the Guild.

  “There,” she whispered. Her fingers touched the metal just next to the star symbol of the Byne Guild, still stark against the whitish background. This hadn’t been written that long before—a decade at most, she’d guess. She tried to follow along, uncertain how to interpret the next few marks, until she came to a small drawing of a bird of prey, beak down, tail feathers up.

  Affie stared until the image seemed to be burning into her eyes. She recognized it immediately but refused to believe that it could mean what it so clearly seemed to mean.

  There could be tons of other interpretations, she told herself. True.

  But her parents—her biological parents, the ones she only dimly remembered but still dearly loved—their ship had been named the Kestrel’s Dive.

  Whoever wrote this had been talking about her parents.

  That, or it had been written by her parents themselves.

  Reath’s journey through another tunnel was shorter, or at least the part he took alone. It was darker down there, so much so that his glow rod seemed weaker—an optical illusion, surely, but a disquieting one. Every one of his footsteps sounded unnaturally loud as he ducked his head under the curved arches of the tunnel’s beams.

  If plant life has taken over almost every other part of this station, Reath wondered, why did it never come down here? Was that energy field meant to protect what lies down here—or protect us from it?

  His passage and Dez’s intertwined after only a few meters, with nothing but a handful of storage lockers and some scribbles on the wall to mark the significance of the spot.

  “Looks like we share the same destination,” Dez said. “C’mon. Let’s check it out.”

  He felt a quiver of pride. What would his friends say, the ones who so idolized Dez Rydan? There they were, on a mission together! Partners!

  Okay, Dez was possibly too excited about plunging into the dark unknown, but it was like Dez had said earlier: if some people disliked adventure, some others had to love it.

  “Look at this,” Dez said. He was gesturing at a circular door ahead. Its hinges were at top and bottom center, suggesting that it rotated to open.

  “That’s weird. Why build it that way?”

  “Could mean something. Could mean nothing.” Dez readjusted the planter cradled against his chest, making sure not to crease any of the leaves. “Come on, let’s see if anything interesting is on the other side.”

  Reath reached out with the Force, knowing Dez was doing the same. He sensed no sentience on the other side, no echoes of darkness. “Nothing alive, anyway.”

  “So it would seem.” Dez walked ahead quickly, leaving Reath several paces behind. “Now, is this locked, or—”

  The door flipped around, rotating on its central axis hinges so fast that it knocked Dez off his feet, spinning him around to the other side. Reath blinked, suddenly alone. “Whoa. Dez, turn that around.” It had actually looked pretty funny; Dez had enough of a sense of humor to appreciate that.

  But Dez w
asn’t laughing. He wasn’t speaking. The door didn’t flip again.

  Vibrations began to shudder through the floor, the walls. Through the thin slits of the doorway, stark white light beamed out so strong that Reath winced and lifted one hand to shield his eyes. “Dez?”

  A strange grinding sound—like engines, or some other vast machinery—began. Whatever was happening didn’t sound good, and Dez Rydan was trapped in the middle of it.

  Dez shouted wordlessly, a sound that betrayed pain. Reath ran toward the door, ignoring the blinding light, and tried to force it open. But the hinges that had swung so easily before refused to budge.

  The light flared even brighter, so much so that Reath had to shut his eyes. Through his own eyelids he saw a lacing of fragile veins and capillaries, silhouetted against dull red.

  In the next instant, it was dark. The vibration and sound had stopped.

  It took Reath a moment to recalibrate. “Dez? Are you okay?”

  No reply.

  Reath pushed at the door once more without much hope. This time it swung open immediately. The door was surprisingly heavy; the heft of it nearly knocked Reath down, the same as it had done to Dez. He could see into the tunnel—and it was narrow, thickly grooved.

  Dez was not inside.

  Carefully Reath leaned in to get a better look. Still no Dez, but he glimpsed two helix rings, ancient but still unmistakable. Helix rings were incredible energy boosters, the equivalent of enough pure coaxium to fuel forty or fifty large spaceships; they were seldom used because they generated too much power for almost any non-hyperspace purpose.

  They had a tendency to malfunction, especially when older, and created energy surges capable of melting metal, blowing circuits, or—

  Or disintegrating a human body, down to the atoms.

  The first hint came with a wave of panic and sorrow, one so strong it pierced Cohmac’s consciousness like a fine silver needle. He stood up in the cockpit, nearly knocking against Geode. “Something’s wrong.”

  “We live in an imperfect universe,” said Leox, who was chewing on a stick of something that smelled minty. “So that’s a given.”

  “I mean, something’s wrong with our people aboard the station, this moment.” Cohmac hurried toward the airlock. Leox was only a few steps behind; all his laid-back torpor had vanished at the first hint that Affie Hollow might be in trouble.

  They had only just made it into the leafy glade of the station when they were met by Nan, who was breathing hard and, for some reason, had a potted flower tucked into her pocket. Behind her Cohmac could see the Mizi hurrying toward his own people, and Reath Silas emerging from the vines, his face white. Nan gasped out, “We heard this loud sound—but we didn’t see—Reath’s the only one who saw—”

  “Saw what?” Cohmac resisted the urge to put his hands on the girl’s shoulders. It would probably comfort a Padawan, but to Nan it might come across as a threat. “Tell me.”

  “Dez is gone,” Nan whispered.

  Gone. What did that mean? He had traveled to another part of the station? Away from the station entirely? None of the docked ships had left—the Vessel’s sensors would’ve picked that up.

  Or did she mean… ?

  Affie was finally emerging from the trees near the tunnel. Leox called to her, “What’s happened to Dez?”

  “We don’t know.” Her voice was strangely flat, as though she was in shock, which seemed strange to Cohmac. The young woman hardly knew Dez. “But it’s—it’s not good.”

  Finally Reath reached them. He brought his face slowly up to meet Cohmac’s eyes. Everything about him radiated misery and grief.

  Already, Cohmac knew. It has happened again. Just as it happened to Master Simmix. The resonances warned me, but I did not see in time. This part of the galaxy has claimed its price.

  Yet he still had to say the words. “Tell me how Dez fell.”

  The next few minutes were a blur of details that didn’t make sense (plants as hostages?), but the gist remained the same.

  “Helix rings?” Leox said gravely. “And nothing left inside? That usually means—” He trailed off as he looked sidelong at Cohmac. No wonder. It was a difficult thing to say aloud. But it had to be said.

  “Vaporized,” Cohmac said. It came out evenly, a logical conclusion, no more. “The likeliest explanation is that Dez Rydan was vaporized instantly.”

  Affie had finally reached them, and somehow Cohmac had shocked her—as though she had been thinking of something else altogether. Affie said, “You mean he’s dead?”

  “Yes.” Cohmac reached out with the Force, trying to find any scrap of the young Jedi’s mind and spirit.

  He was answered with nothing but silence.

  It took Orla a few minutes to piece together exactly what had happened, getting her information only from the exhausted, shell-shocked Reath and Affie. Cohmac had already walked back through the length of the ship, toward his bunk, declaring his intention to meditate. No doubt he was remembering Master Simmix. Orla had her own grief to bear, but she’d always been able to put emotions aside until there was time to deal with them. Cohmac felt things more deeply, and more immediately. His equilibrium was more difficult to maintain.

  Had there been anything to do—any immediate hope—Orla knew that Cohmac wouldn’t have retreated; he, like the rest of them, would’ve done anything to get Dez back.

  But there was no such hope. Nothing to do but accept that a courageous, compassionate young man had been killed.

  It would’ve been better if he’d died in battle, Orla thought. Or during a rescue mission. Then his death would at least have had meaning. This? Some malfunctioning equipment on an ancient space station? It’s so arbitrary, so unfair.

  So was life.

  “All right,” Orla said to the assembled group, taking charge in Cohmac’s place. “Is everyone else okay? No injuries?”

  “No,” Reath said, which seemed untrue, given that he had severely bloodshot eyes and a stripe of sunburn along his forehead. But he was upright, moving and talking, so a radiation scan could wait until later. Affie looked like she was in shock, understandably enough. The Mizi had gone back to his own people. Nan seemed completely unaffected, though she wore a saddened expression, probably out of consideration for the feelings of those who’d known Dez longer. That little thing’s sturdier than she looks, Orla decided. I wonder what she’s seen out here.

  “So nobody needs medical attention,” she said. “Okay. Here’s what I need you all to do. Reath, Affie, clean yourselves up and rest for a few minutes. Nan, if you’d be good enough to explain this to the other refugees, it would be appreciated—and don’t worry, that bastard with the red scarf is long gone.” Nan brightened, then realized her smile was inappropriate and squelched it. “And take these flowers back where they belong, would you? The Aytees are hovering around the edge of the airlock. The last thing we need is an invasion.”

  “I got that,” said Leox, who had been standing quietly at the edge of the group. He carefully took a small planter from Affie, who didn’t look up at him once.

  “There are no good words to say,” Orla began. “We lost a good man and a great Jedi. We’ll have to search for answers about what happened, and soon. First we owe him, and ourselves, a little while to reflect on who Dez Rydan was, and to acknowledge his oneness with the Force.”

  The group broke up awkwardly, shuffling in various directions in silence. Orla put her head in one hand just long enough to take a few breaths.

  She couldn’t allow herself the same time to reflect she’d granted Cohmac and Reath. Not when she had to figure out what to do with the idols.

  Affie took a quick shower in the Vessel’s tiny head, waving the wand all over. The process had become strange, as if her body were now foreign to her. It seemed to live in another galaxy entirely, one she no longer inhabited and could only watch from a great, silent distance.

  Afterward she knotted her long dark brown hair back into a braid and put on a fres
h coverall. Normally this made her feel better, regardless of how she’d felt to begin with. Instead her fingers kept finding the embroidery of the Byne Guild crest, tugging at the threads, but they never came loose.

  When she emerged from the head, Leox stood in the hallway, waiting. “It’s free,” she said dully.

  “Not my immediate concern. I’m more worried about you. Looks like you got run over by a stampede of gundarks.”

  “I went on a routine search and somebody died,” she snapped. “Am I supposed to throw a party?”

  “Of course not,” he said, maddeningly calm. “But you’ve got a core of durasteel. It takes more than that to knock you flat.”

  The Kestrel’s Dive. Who would be writing about the Kestrel’s Dive? Affie kept turning that over in her head. She’d interpreted other symbols as ships’ names before, but she must’ve misunderstood something, because it had looked to her as if—as if the pilots were writing about their own ships. Which had to be impossible, because otherwise it meant that her parents had been there, on that very station. They wouldn’t plot against Scover. I know they wouldn’t. I hardly remember them, but I feel so sure—

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Leox said.

  “What if I don’t have a core of durasteel?” Anger blazed within Affie, white-hot, infusing her with renewed strength. “What if this is exactly enough to knock me flat? If I’m able to feel compassion for other people?”

  Leox held up his hands. “I’m not saying—yeah, it’s a hell of a thing, losing Dez. But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

  “No.” With that she turned and walked away.

  Walking away from Leox, unfortunately, meant walking away from her cabin. It led toward the mess, though. If she grabbed a couple of nutrient bars, that might tide her over for a day or more. She could hide in her bunk, seeing no one, saying nothing. That sounded good.

  Affie walked into the mess to find Geode. He had more sense than to interrogate her.