“Quarra, you’ve got to see this!”
Poking his head inside, Jogan saw her vanish into the black hole of the stairwell.
“Quarra?”
The gondola quaked in the darkness. “Hurry, fools!”
All the occupants of Candra were moving now, hurling provisions over the side in a desperate attempt to put some elevation between the airship and the ballistae below. The fortification overlooking the harbor fairly bristled with weapons, Edell saw—but they had a limited range. To avoid a fiery fate, a Sith could starve a little.
But the Tribe had to know what lurked here. “Taymor! Send the alarm!”
Glancing aft, Edell saw the telepath kneel. There was no concentrating here, not with Candra buffeting so violently against the crazed uvak’s exertions. The woman steadied herself against the gondola frame with one hand—and screamed as white geysers seemed to erupt from beneath her feet, tearing woman and hejarbo flooring to pieces.
Edell goggled as Taymor fell. With Candra lurching again, he leapt across the new gaping hole in the flooring to land at the side of what was left of the clairvoyant. There was no saving Taymor, he saw—her body was lacerated with dozens of shining stones. He gawked as he recognized the projectiles.
Diamonds!
An uvak screeched past, soaring upward into the night sky behind Candra. Edell thought one of his own wailing creatures had gotten loose—until the uvak seemingly wheeled in midair and turned in pursuit. There was no mistaking: it was the source of the fatal shots. And now as it approached, Edell could see through the murk a Keshiri rider, propping a long tube on his shoulder.
“Look out!”
As Edell dived back over the opening, a mechanical snap sounded from behind. A cloud of shining stones arced upward—some nuggets punching through the rear of the gondola, others whizzing out of sight above. Beneath, Candra’s own uvak, who had never stopped screaming, went abruptly silent.
The captain watched as the attacker soared ahead to be joined by two others, similarly armed. Edell’s eyes widened. The Keshiri had an air force!
* * *
Quarra missed every other step heading down before finally leaping over the railing into the darkness. Landing safely on the floor of the tower—at least the Force had been helpful to her in that—she darted into the kitchen, not even remembering what she was looking for.
Jogan clambered quickly down the steps. “Quarra!”
“I’ve got to go,” she said as she dashed heedlessly from room to room. “Where’s my pack? I need my pack!”
Jogan watched, puzzled, from his perch on the stairs as she charged past in a frenzy. He pointed toward the floor in front of the bedroom doors.
Fumbling in the dark for the bag, Quarra lifted. Fabric tore loudly as she caught the string of the duffel underfoot, and she fell to the floor again with a muffled thud. Clothing spilled from the ripped bag.
Another clamor from outside. Jogan looked up into the heights, torn between watching the destruction of the ancient invaders and a harried woman scrambling in the dark to recover her laundry. He didn’t wait long to decide. Hopping off the staircase, he found her on her hands and knees, futilely stuffing items into a bag that no longer was. He knelt behind her.
“Quarra, you don’t have to go anywhere! We’ve sent our messages. We’re safe here.”
“You’re safe here,” she said, clawing for the last of her wayward underthings. Looking left, she found it—in the bemused signal officer’s hand. “I’m not safe here—because I’m not here!”
Jogan gave her a blank look. “What do you mean?”
She ripped the garment from his hand. “My husband thinks I’m touring the Northern Slope right now!”
“I don’t get out much. Is that what they call what we were doing?”
She returned a glare that assured him she was not amused. Outside, another wooden crack told of more woe for the invading Sith.
He watched as she folded over what was left of the pouch. “But you said Brue’s not in the military,” he said. “I don’t think he’ll find out.”
Clutching her belongings between her arm and torso, Quarra whirled and grabbed Jogan’s hands. She spoke urgently. “Jogan, meeting you is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. You’re a very hopeful and trusting person,” she said. She turned his hands over and clutched them more tightly. “But that out there is the biggest thing that has ever happened, and you and I were out on the balcony watching it! I was the one who sent the thoughtsignal!”
She dropped his hands and stood. “There are going to be a lot of people here soon,” she said, gesticulating wildly. “And everyone on Kesh will know who was here when the Sith came. I can’t be here!”
“It’s history—”
“Keep it!”
Jogan stood. “Quarra, if the state dispatched you, they already know you’re here—”
“That’s just it. They didn’t send me.” She barged past him toward the door. Lit from behind by the low light from outside, she looked back at him plaintively. “I wrote the letter of transit here myself. I borrowed the travel supervisor’s seal to stamp it!”
“You can do that?”
“Not really! It helps that he’s seventy-seven, and too well connected to be sent to work in … I don’t know, a glass factory!”
“There wasn’t a relief order for Belmer?”
Belmer! Her mind raced. No, she hadn’t told her name to Belmer, the thoughtcrier. He would be heading back here now, too—unless the forces at Garrow’s Neck stopped him. She thought back on the captain and his gunners. Did he remember her name? They, too, should be marching up the trail any minute. How was she supposed to get past them? “I’ve got to go!” She ran through the doorway.
“Rising bell damaged!”
Peppin’s warning was no surprise to Edell. Hydrogen hissed from punctures in the gas bag. Not good, he thought, though at least the attackers buzzing around—there were three now—didn’t have the fire-tipped javelins that had killed their companions. But Candra was descending again, soon to be back within range of the ballisteers. There was no choice. They had to deflate the balloon—before someone else did.
Edell forced his way forward. There was a hawser dangling there somewhere, pitching in the dark, which would vent the envelopes in an orderly manner—if he got the time. Outside, the uvak-riders turned for another pass.
“Warriors port and starboard! Prepare to deflect fire,” he yelled. “No lightsabers—use the Force!” This was no time to learn whether igniting a lightsaber would touch off an explosion.
Two uvak converged from either side, their riders unleashing a hail of shining pellets into the night. But even as the Sith warriors gestured to block the spray, the third uvak-rider made his appearance—diving headlong toward the gondola.
The forward section sundered under the brunt of the suicidal attack, smashing the graven image of Candra Kitai backward along with the rest of the prow. Two crew members died instantly from the impact. Edell seized a railing amidships just as the forward cables snapped. What remained of the gondola flipped downward, held to the sighing balloon only by the rear supports. Another warrior and an unanchored Keshiri ambassador disappeared into the darkness.
What remained of Candra hurtled downward, the balloon slinging its hostages violently beneath it. Edell saw faces spinning above him, all clinging desperately to the scraps. Below, the dark harbor yawned wide, as if to devour them. From beyond, he heard the telltale whistles start again, growing more shrill by the second. He screamed for his crew to fall free from the ship—and finally let go himself, surrendering his dream to an eruption of heat and light.
As the surf crashed around the southernmost peninsula, chaos continued to rage to the north. Every launcher on the Six Claws fired wildly into the sky, searching for the last airship. Jogan stood in the open gate, holding his repeating ballista in two hands. A hefty construct of ossified wood and elastic bands under high tension, it was standard issue fo
r the front.
But while the long-awaited war was finally going on across the harbor to the north, Quarra was wandering the knoll looking every which way. Her torn bag sat on the ground, unattended.
“Quarra, what’s wrong?” Jogan asked, striding over.
“My muntok,” she said, waving a stretch of leather cord. “Blasted thing chewed through its tether and ran off!”
Jogan knelt and looked at the tracks in the purple sand. “The explosions spooked it. Can you call it?”
“I would if I knew its name. I checked it out at the corral in Tandry!”
“You didn’t get its name?”
“I was only going to have it for a while. Do you get to know rental muntoks?”
Jogan looked at her in bafflement. “And your job is to keep Uhrar organized?”
“Sorry, it’s my first affair!”
Quarra turned to further argue the point—only to sense a stirring in the Force. Feeling the shadow fall across Jogan before she saw it, she reached out to shove him telekinetically.
Too late! An organic mass slammed into the sandy slope, flailing as it struck the surface. Thrown to the ground by the impact, Quarra stumbled—and looked straight into the lifeless green eye of a behemoth.
“An uvak!” she yelled, struggling to get to her feet. She reached through the darkness, feeling her way around the creature. “Jogan! Are you all right?”
Over her shoulder to the northeast, the last remaining balloon exploded thunderously over the harbor. Quarra paid no mind, feeling around the mammoth corpse until she found Jogan, his frame pinned under the creature’s weighty tail.
Violet face lit by the detonation, Jogan looked up in a daze, blood trickling from his lips. “I think I found your animal,” he said, between coughs. “But I thought … you said you rented a muntok … not an uvak …”
5
The clouds broke, and the sun again mirrored through the glass spires of Tahv. Edell scaled the marble steps to the capital—alone. No escort had greeted him; no parade marked his arrival.
Inside, in the atrium where three great factions had battled a quarter century earlier, Edell found the Tribe working in unison. Sith Lords and Sabers huddled over a replica of Korsin’s secret map, set up as one enormous table in the middle of the room. Edell had looked on it many times in planning his journey—a journey now completed.
“My Lords and Sabers, I have returned!” he said. No one stirred at the table. He called again—and again.
Finally, the Lords dispatched an underling. Not even an apprentice, but a mere Tyro, a third Edell’s age. The youngling sneered. “What do you want?”
“I have news,” Edell said, straightening. “I’ve been to the new continent, and returned in triumph.”
“How did you triumph, exactly?”
“I got us there. I proved it existed.”
“Old news,” the boy said, still sneering. “The conquest is well under way.”
A gap opened between the Lords standing with their backs to him. Edell saw through the opening that the map table was populated with dozens of markers signifying Sith forces and the airships that brought them.
Edell’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t expect you to invade so quickly.”
The Tyro said nothing.
“Very well,” Edell said, stepping forward. “I’m prepared to advise—”
“No.” The Tyro ignited a lightsaber, blocking his way. Ahead, the gap between the planners closed so Edell could no longer see the table.
He protested. “I belong here. I confirmed the continent existed!”
“So? Someone would have done it.”
“I invented the airships!”
“Which we can build without you.”
“But I am High Lord of the Tribe of the Sith—”
“A true Sith would have done something,” the Tyro said, “not merely look around. You’re a tinkerer, no more.” Two hulking guards, previously unseen, grabbed Edell from behind. “Throw him out. He doesn’t belong here.”
Edell gasped and opened his eyes to the night. Clutching the wet sands, he heaved seawater from his lungs.
How long had he been out, he wondered, to dream? It felt like a long time—but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Looking west along the jagged coastline, he saw four of his companions similarly beached and scrambling from the harbor. A kilometer to the northeast, the remains of Candra still blazed on the water. Unseen, he and his party had dropped due north of the signal station; the balloon had carried the wreckage of the gondola farther east. Squinting, he saw uvak buzzing over the remains, while lights moved on the northern shore across the harbor.
They don’t know we’re over here yet, he thought. We have a chance.
Edell stood rockily. Bruised and waterlogged but otherwise unhurt, he staggered up the shoreline to meet the others who had survived. Peppin, the uvak-tender; Ulbrick and Janns, two of the warriors; and one of the Keshiri, whose name didn’t matter. With Edell, they were five. Was this all that remained, from an expedition of thirty?
“Climb!” he said, pointing up a stony tumbledown. Above, atop the western summit, sat a tall white tower ringed by a high wall. Shelter, or more enemies? He didn’t know—but the compound was much smaller than the one on the northern peninsula, and if anyone had fired missiles from here, they weren’t doing it now. “Don’t use the lightsabers,” he whispered. Darkness was ever the Sith’s friend—but particularly now.
The warriors reached the top of the rise first. Edell heard a loud snap. “High Lord!”
Edell scrambled up to see Ulbrick on the ground, clutching a gushing thigh wound. Meters ahead, a uniformed Keshiri woman crouched behind the corpse of an uvak and fired glistening shards from an exotic weapon. The shots just missed Janns, who dived for cover behind a ruined hut. Edell heard the projectiles shatter on impact. Glass, he realized, like little shikkar blades. And even more dangerous, as Ulbrick’s moan attested.
The woman spotted Edell and turned her weapon on him. The High Lord leapt just in time. How many more bolts were in that compartment? He didn’t want to find out. Hitting the ground, he cupped his hand and ripped at the surface through the Force, returning the Keshiri’s fire with a spray of sand. The woman was ready for that, but her weapon refused to fire again. Edell went for the shikkar he kept in his belt—
—only to be punched violently by an unseen power. Edell’s knees buckled underneath him, and he fell backward, dropping the blade. The woman was on it in half a second, grabbing the weapon and lunging. He caught her arm as she pressed it down—and saw her eyes. Wider and set farther apart than any Keshiri eyes he’d ever seen, and full of an angry fear.
Drawing strength from her emotions, Edell heaved mightily. The woman tumbled backward, losing her grip on the dagger. When she landed, she found Peppin and Janns looming overhead. Gloved Sith hands grabbed at her, wrestling her to the ground.
Reaching his feet, Edell looked at their attacker. The Keshiri woman looked to be about his age. She wore a vest wrought of a leather he’d never seen before, almost an armor. The dead uvak behind her he recognized as unlucky Starboard, from the Candra—and near him lay an incapacitated male Keshiri, dressed as the woman was except for an overcoat half swaddled around his body.
Edell looked up to the tower, beyond the wall. Had anyone seen the melee? He signaled to his surviving Keshiri ambassador to see to Ulbrick. “I’ll deal with this one,” he said, recovering his shikkar and stepping toward the injured male.
“Don’t touch him, you filthy Sith!”
All gawked at their conscious prisoner. Edell stammered, “W-what did you say?”
Struggling against her captors, the woman spoke again. “I said, don’t touch him, you—”
“I heard what you said,” Edell said, motioning for Peppin to cover the Keshiri’s mouth. “I’m just surprised to hear you say it.” No one had known what language to expect from the natives of the hidden continent. The best that he’d hoped for was an a
ncient Keshiri dialect, had there been some prehistoric interchange between the cultures; his ambassador was familiar with several variants. But what she was speaking, heavily accented as it was, was the language that the crew of Omen had brought to Kesh!
Calming down, the silver-haired woman looked up at Peppin and spoke in that language again. “You want to release me.”
Peppin did a double take. “Oh, don’t tell me—”
“Yes,” Edell said, golden eyes filling with wonder. “I was right. I thought it on the ocean—and again when I saw her fight. These Keshiri know how to use the Force. Or at least this one does.” He looked back at the bizarre wooden gun lying in the sand. “They have several secret weapons.”
“We prepared for you,” the prisoner said, pinned to the ground.
“Prepared for us? How do you even know of us?” Edell looked through the darkness at the compound wall. “Who else is here?”
“A whole detachment!”
Edell snorted. “A lie.”
Finally, a break. The Keshiri here may have use of the Force, but this woman didn’t have much built up in the way of mental defenses. That boded well. “Your name is … Quarra, I think. And you’re alone.”
Quarra glowered at him—and trembled. To the side, her male Keshiri companion coughed, waking up. Her eyes darted in his direction.
“You don’t want him to die,” Edell said. “Fine. I can use that. Take them both inside the tower, quickly.”
“Careful with him,” Quarra said. “Your blasted uvak landed on him and broke his ribs!”
“You brought the creature down on yourselves.” He cracked his knuckles. “You’re about to bring a lot more down on you.”
“I don’t think so,” Quarra said as she was jerked upright by her captors. “You saw what happened out there! You’ll never get past our defenses.”
“Oh, I think we will.” Edell pointed to the opening in the compound wall. “You left the gate open for us, you see?”
It would take two to bring in the bulky injured native, Edell saw. He suddenly remembered his own injured warrior. In the shadows of the structure, Quarra’s victim slumped woozily against the shoulder of Edell’s Keshiri flunky. A makeshift bandage around Ulbrick’s right leg was completely saturated with blood.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories Page 25
