Remnant: Force Heretic I

by Sean Williams

  “And the rooms?” Leia asked.

  “Bugged, of course,” he said. “But it’s okay; I’ve jammed them. We’re clean.” Jag glanced at Tahiri when he said that, then quickly looked away. “We should be safe here now.”

  “You wouldn’t think these people would have a need for listening devices,” Han said. “They’re so busy talking all the time.”

  Leia ignored his griping. “The Fia are all right,” she said. “Actually, it makes a nice change from people who don’t talk enough. But then, that’s not to say that I’m entirely happy with what I see here, either.” She fixed her husband with a sober stare. “I’m getting a bad feeling about all of this, although I hate to say it.”

  “About what?” Tahiri asked.

  Leia paused as if reaching out into the Force for an answer. “I’m not sure,” she said shortly, shaking her head. “Everyone seems happy enough to see us, and Galantos is obviously a fairly peaceful place, but—”

  “But it’s almost too peaceful, right?” Han offered.

  “Maybe,” Leia said. “And there’s still the question of the communications blackout. Jag, will you contact Captain Mayn and ask her try to patch into the planetary transceiver? Galantos had one when it joined the New Republic; if it doesn’t anymore, I want to know what happened to it. Failing that, have her attempt to contact the nearest intersector network and see if she can get a message to Mon Calamari directly. We might be able to fix the problem locally, if it’s just a technical hitch, and move on elsewhere without wasting too much time.”

  “I’ll second that,” Han muttered.

  “In the meantime, Tahiri and I are going for a walk.”

  C-3PO instantly shuffled forward, only to be stopped by Leia putting a hand to his metal chest.

  “Alone, Threepio,” she said.

  “I do not think that this is advisable, Mistress Leia,” Threepio squawked in protest. “For just the two of you to be out there alone—”

  “Someone has to talk to our hosts,” she cut in gently but firmly. “Otherwise we shall appear rude.” When he started to voice his objections again, Leia said, “I appreciate your concerns, Threepio, but they’re not necessary. We’ll be fine. And besides, Han and Jag will need you to talk to the planetary transceiver—that’s if they can get it on-line.”

  “But Mistress, I really must—”

  “The Princess will be safe,” rumbled Cakhmaim, one of the Noghri bodyguards who escorted Leia everywhere she went.

  “See?” Leia said, not just to C-3PO but also to Han, who was looking as dubious about his wife’s plan as the droid sounded. “And anyway, I’ll have Tahiri with me to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.” The Princess winked at her. “That’s if the conversation doesn’t put her to sleep, of course.”

  Warmed by Leia’s trust in her, Tahiri smiled. “I’ll try extra hard to stay awake.”

  “Just be careful,” Jag said. “And call us if you need any assistance, okay?”

  “Stop worrying,” Tahiri insisted, thinking: Why does he keep looking at me like that? It was difficult, she found, to regain self-confidence when those around seemed to have their own doubts about her. “You just concentrate on the housekeeping while we get on with the serious work.”

  She and Leia left the anteroom with the Noghri in tow, startling the small contingent of Fia who were huddled together outside in the hallway, whispering animatedly among one another.

  “Oh, Princess Leia,” exclaimed a relatively broad-faced Fia with orange robes and pointy elbows. They all took a step back as Leia stepped out into the hall. “You surprised us! I am Assistant Primate Thrum. I was discussing a matter of some minor importance with the diplomatic staff here. I apologize if we disturbed you in any way.”

  “Not at all,” Leia said, stopping directly in front of Thrum. “May I ask the nature of the matter you were—discussing?”

  “It is nothing,” Thrum said, glancing awkwardly to the other Fia around him. “It is just that there appears to be an electrical fault in the quarters we have given you and we must ask—”

  “Regretfully ask,” put in one of the others leaning in close to Thrum.

  “Regretfully ask,” Thrum corrected himself, “that you consider moving—”

  “We have noticed no such faults,” Leia said imperiously. “My husband is sleeping. When he wakes, though, I shall have him look more closely. Until then, I’d appreciate if he were left in peace. He is extremely tired after our long journey.”

  “Ah, yes, of course, Princess, of course.” Thrum bowed low, sweeping his spindly arms in undulating movements that Tahiri suspected were meant to indicate abasement. “We would never dream of disturbing the great Han Solo during a rare moment of rest.”

  Tahiri hid a smile. She had no doubt that the “minor electrical fault” they were talking about lay in the listening bugs that Jag had jammed. It must have frustrated the Fia no end that the only way they would find out what Leia and her entourage wanted was by good old-fashioned questions and answers.

  “Thank you,” Leia said, casting a brief and conspiratorial smile in Tahiri’s direction. “I know he will appreciate that. For now, though, I was hoping that if it wasn’t inconvenient, perhaps my friend and I could have a tour of your city.”

  Thrum straightened almost with a snap, his face beaming with pride. “Of course, Princess! We would like nothing more than to show off our magnificent home.” He snapped his fingers twice and his fellow conspirators quickly scattered. “I shall arrange immediately for some-one to notify Councilor—”

  “That will take time,” Leia said, sweeping forward and forcing the fussing Fia to half run just to keep up. “And I’m really not in the mood for waiting. Like I said, it’s been a long journey, and I need to stretch my legs. Why don’t you just take me around, Assistant Primate Thrum? It will make things so much easier.”

  He nervously followed along, clearly agitated. “But what of Councilor Jobath and Primate Persha?” he babbled. “I shall need to inform them—”

  “I’m sure they can catch up in their own time,” Leia went on, not even slowing her pace. “You know, they say that travel broadens the mind, and after a few days cooped up in an old freighter, I can assure you that mine is in some serious need of broadening. Now,” she said, turning a corner at random, “what do we have down here? I don’t think we came this way before. I must say, I like the architecture. Simple yet elegant. Are these corridors deliberately reminiscent of the Old Republic style, or did that come about purely …”

  And so it went on, with Leia rarely giving the Fia a chance to speak—or, indeed, to protest that he simply didn’t have time to escort them at the moment.

  Tahiri let herself fall behind, enjoying the sight of Assistant Primate Thrum trying to get a word in edgewise. Glancing over the Fia’s flat head, the Princess caught her eye and indicated for Tahiri to take another corridor. Tahiri hesitated, then inconspicuously slipped away, her bare feet padding silently along the stone floor.

  She felt slightly guilty going off on her own in this manner. And nervous. As Leia’s voice slowly faded, Tahiri put her hand on the lightsaber at her hip and attuned her senses to the world around her. The diplomatic quarter of the city was extremely quiet, and for the most part deserted. This didn’t overly surprise her, though. Galantos wouldn’t receive many visitors, despite the mineral wealth of its soils, so she imagined that this section of the city was probably empty most of the time. Borsk Fey’lya’s dismissal of Galantos many years ago had led to an avoidance of the place by New Republic officialdom. No other councilors had visited the planet and, following the Yevethan crisis, it seemed that Galantos had, for all intents and purposes, fallen off the map.

  It was odd, then, Tahiri thought, that the Fia had invested so much money in opulent quarters for guests who never came. And it wasn’t just that the buildings and rooms were well maintained; it was more that they were actually brand new. Why would they build them now? Tahiri wondered. In the m
iddle of a war?

  Assuming she was being watched, Tahiri resisted her urge to break into some of the other guest rooms. She suspected that someone, recently, had stayed in the newly built quarters, and she would have loved for the chance to find out exactly who that had been. It was only a gut instinct, but she had learned to pay attention to her gut feelings—especially those originating in the Force, as this one seemed to. Someone had been here; she was sure of it. If not within the last few days, then certainly within the last month or two. Perhaps on her way back, she decided, when she had scoped out the rest of the place and getting caught wouldn’t be so much of a problem, she would chance taking a closer look.

  Following her instincts, she wove her way through numerous corridors until she reached a guard station separating the rest of the city from the diplomats’ quarters. Two guards were busy discussing the details of a recent regulation change. They didn’t seem to have been alerted to her presence. She gently reached out with the Force and encouraged them to leave their post for a moment, chasing a suspicion that they had perhaps seen someone lurking around a corner. While they were gone, she walked through their post as nonchalantly as she could.

  The city outside the security perimeter was noisier than the guests’ section. The corridors were plainer here, but had numerous skylights or light-tubes allowing natural daylight to filter throughout. She noticed species other than the Fia about the place, too—a couple of mournful Gran and a group of Sullustans chattering among themselves. She presumed this area of the city contained government offices of some kind, since most of the Fia she passed wore similar clothes: not uniforms, but more the conservative kind of garb one might find in an office anywhere. They noticed her, too, but did nothing to stop her. In fact, some even went out of their way to avoid her, almost as if alarmed to see her walking these corridors.

  This troubled her as much as the newness of the diplomatic quarters. Why should they be so frightened of her? Perhaps it wasn’t of her as such, she thought, but of a human loose in the city. But still, what had they seen to encourage such ill feeling? A Yevetha she could understand, but Gran and Sullustans?

  Tahiri set aside the thought for now; she would address it later, with the others in the security of their quarters. For now she concentrated on looking both lost and curious, choosing routes with the least pedestrian traffic, and constantly checking over her shoulder for a sign of the guards she felt sure would by now be coming after her …

  Her comlink bleeped. Without breaking stride, she raised her wrist and said, “Hello?”

  “This is Leia. Where are you, Tahiri? Assistant Primate Thrum pointed out that we seem to have lost you. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed. I was so wrapped up in the tour.”

  Tahiri smiled to herself. “Sorry,” she said, playing along with the charade. “I should have called you before now. I went to go back to my room to get something and must have taken a wrong turn along the way.”

  “Would you like us to send someone to fetch you?”

  “No, that’s all right. I can find my way back.”

  “Are you sure?” Tahiri could hear Thrum babbling something behind Leia’s words, but couldn’t quite make it out.

  “I’ll call you if I can’t retrace my steps. Until then, I’m sure I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  There was no good argument to that. It wasn’t as if she was out on the streets where a criminal element might threaten her; she was inside a government building populated by clerks. And Thrum could hardly insist that she return because they were nervous about her.

  “That’s fine, Tahiri,” Leia said. “Come back when you’re ready. Have fun while you’re young, that’s what I say. And I’m sure Assistant Primate Thrum would agree.”

  The line went dead. Tahiri smiled even wider, imagining the frustration Thrum must have been feeling in the face of Leia’s incessant chattering.

  The thought of the talkative locals brought something home to her then. The Fia around here were conversing with none of the driven intensity of Primate Persha or her assistant. They were discussing the everyday occurrences of their lives in some detail, yes, but nothing more than that. She couldn’t help wonder if the endless chattering of the Fia she had been formally introduced to was the nervous prattle of someone hoping to avoid awkward questions.

  She continued through the building for a while longer before coming to the realization that she wasn’t about to learn anything new this way. The corridors were remarkable only in that they all appeared almost exactly the same, and the only doors she found to be open led to nothing more interesting than storerooms or offices, often occupied by gossiping bureaucrats. Because she didn’t know what exactly to look for, beyond anything that might explain the communications blackout to Galantos, she didn’t have any clear objectives. And besides which, after an hour or more, she was starting to get a little bored with the game.

  Deciding to make her way back to the others, she found a turbolift and dropped ten floors; she walked around briefly before going back up the same shaft to the floor she had started on. Then, figuring that if she had any pursuers on her tail, this would set them back a little, she wound her way back to the security post she had snuck through earlier. The same guards were there when she returned, both looking tremendously relieved to see her.

  “Mistress Veila! You have returned!”

  “Please forgive our lack o courtesy when you came by earlier,” said one, approaching her. “It was remiss of us not to be here to give you directions.”

  “It’s really nothing,” she said breezily. “I had a nice stroll.”

  “Please allow me to escort you back to your rooms,” he said obsequiously. “We would hate for you to become lost again.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Tahiri said, with a small wave of her hand. “I can find my own way back.”

  “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” the second guard said, stepping up beside the first.

  His partner nodded. “She can find her own way back,” he said, and gestured her through without another word.

  In fact, Tahiri did know her way back to her rooms, but that wasn’t where she was heading. She was letting her instincts, not her head, guide her again. Someone else had stayed in these rooms—she was more convinced of this now than she had been before. She half closed her eyes to shut out the distraction of her physical senses, walking where her feelings led her, reaching out with the Force to make sense of her suspicions. Whoever it was who had been the Fia’s guest, she could feel their echoes and shadows all around her: in the walls, the carpets, the gilt-edged cornices, the carvings …

  She moved along the corridors, the feelings becoming stronger with each step she took, finally reaching their peak when she turned into one long passage leading to a wide viewport. The viewport itself looked directly out into the clear skies of Galantos, the sunlight through the decorative and colored glass casting rainbow hues across the numerous doors that lined the passage.

  She stepped uneasily forward, her hands reaching out to touch each door in turn as she passed. They all seemed devoid of anything out of the ordinary, and yet the corridor rang with an odd, discordant resonance. The feeling was so strong now, in fact, it was almost tangible. Someone—

  She stopped abruptly. Her entire body tingled as her fingertips came into contact with the door at the far end of the corridor. She wasn’t normally able to sense individuals so strongly, particularly in the ambience of an unfamiliar world. So what made this one so special? Why was her stomach churning at the thought of opening this door? What exactly was it in these echoes that disturbed her so intensely?

  You are being foolish, she chided herself. You are a Jedi Knight and that is an empty room. There’s nothing in there to be frightened of, but fear itself.

  The door slid open when she touched the keypad: nothing to hide, it would seem, or else the door would have been locked. But the mysterious presence hit her like a wave of stale air, making her flinch.

  Somewhere
in the distance she thought she heard voices calling her, so, despite her apprehensions, she stepped into the room. Her movements were slow and awkward, as though she were trying to take strides in a Mimban swamp.

  As expected, the room was unoccupied. It was far from being empty, though. The feelings were so strong now that her entire body felt as though it was about to explode—and, such was the discomfort they were giving her, right then she would have been happy if it had.

  Still allowing her instincts to guide her, Tahiri stepped over to the bed, lifting the quilt covering it to look underneath. Finding nothing, she lifted the entire mattress.

  There.

  At full stretch, she could just manage to get her fingers on the tiny silver object that lay on the dusty floor. And the moment she touched it, a shock went through her that sent her reeling. She lay on the floor, clutching the object, panting to catch her breath and fighting to hold the darkness at the back of her mind from sweeping in.

  This was it: this was what had been calling to her. Just like the voices were calling to her now …

  “Mistress Veila! Are you all right?”

  Was it a Fia who had called her name? She couldn’t be sure; she was too busy trying to stay conscious.

  “You must come with us, please,” the owner of the voice continued. “You should not be here!”

  She felt herself actively complying with the request, even though she seemed to have no real control over her body. It was as if she were lost in a vague fog, her movements as clumsy as a puppet’s.

  Turning, she saw three Fia guards at the door, one stepping in to take her arm and guide her out into the corridor. There, the other two took position close behind her. They were speaking, but she couldn’t quite make out the words, as though she were disassociated completely from her body, looking down from above on all that was happening. And it was all because of the thing in her hand …

  She brought the pendant up to examine it more closely. It was silver in appearance, but fashioned from a substance unfamiliar to her, and molded in the shape of a bulbous-headed, many-tentacled jellyfish—a bizarre cross between an Umgullian blob and a Sarlacc.