Vision of the future swhot-2

by Timothy Zahn

  "Wait a minute," Mara said. Stall, stall, stall. "You said you wanted to make a deal with me, right? Well, I can tell you flat out that shooting me will definitely not get any such negotiations off on the right foot. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it might put me off working for you entirely."

  "It won't," Fel assured her darkly. "Not when you know the full extent of the threats facing us."

  "Maybe it will, and maybe it won't," Mara countered. "And don't forget Karrde, either. If you really want information, he's the one you're going to have to deal with. And Karrde does not take kindly to anyone who takes potshots at his people. I've seen him take whole organizations apart for that sort of crime. In fact, there was one particular Hutt group—"

  "Yes, I'm sure," Parck interrupted, frowning. "Really, Mara, you're making far more out of this than you need to. Charric burns are certainly serious, but that's hardly even a consideration for someone with the Jedi skills of pain suppression and healing. And General Fel is right: we do need to keep you quiet for a while."

  "Yes, I understand that," Mara said. "And it's a brilliant idea—really it is. There's just one small problem: I don't know how to do either the pain suppression or healing tricks."

  "Come now," Parck said reproachfully, gesturing toward the black-edged hole in her jumpsuit.

  "Your shoulder indicates otherwise."

  "Skywalker put me into the trance," Mara said, consciously relaxing her muscles in anticipation.

  "And he's not here. I could die of shock, or bleed to death—"

  "You'll do neither," Fel assured her. "I know both the power and limitations of Chiss weaponry. Think of it as an added incentive for Skywalker to surrender to us." He caught Brosh's eye and nodded. The Chiss nodded back and lifted his weapon—

  And from it came a brilliant green flash.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Without warning, right in the middle of a step, Mara vanished. Mara? Luke thought desperately toward her, stretching out to the Force. Mara!

  But there was no response. Somehow, they must have gotten past her danger sense and combat skills and had launched a sudden and overwhelming attack.

  And she was unconscious. Or dead.

  "No," he whispered aloud, his pulse pounding in his ears. Once again, a person he'd cared for...

  "No!" he bit out between clenched teeth, the agony in his heart swirling into something dark and deadly as the pain turned into a growing fury. Deal out casual death, would they? If death was what they wanted, he would show them just what death looked like. In his mind's eye he saw himself striding down the spiral slideway, throwing the aliens aside like sand dolls, their bodies slamming against the unyielding black stone and dropping crumpled to the floor. His lightsaber would flash through their ranks, cutting through weapons and bodies and leaving more death in its wake—

  His lightsaber.

  He looked down at the lightsaber in his hand. Not the weapon he himself had made in the oppressive heat of the Tatooine desert, but the one his father had made so many years before. The weapon he had given to Mara...

  He took a deep breath, letting go of the rage and hatred, a cold shiver running through him as he realized the magnitude of what he had almost done. Once again, he had come to the very brink of giving in to the dark side. Had nearly surrendered to hatred and the lust for revenge, and the overwhelming desire to use his power for his own selfish ends.

  If you honor what they fight for... Master Yoda's words echoed hauntingly through his mind.

  "All right," he murmured aloud. No, he would not avenge whatever had happened to Mara, at least not for vengeance's sake. But he would seek out the truth of her fate.

  With an effort, he cleared the last lingering emotion from his thoughts, Mara's picture of songbirds singing inside an ore-crushing facility flickering once through his mind as he did so. Stretching out with the Force, he focused his mental probe toward the spot where Mara's presence had vanished. Unless they had already taken it away, he should at least be able to sense her body... But there was nothing. Not Mara, not the humans or aliens she had supposedly been moving toward when she disappeared.

  In fact, within a certain area, he could detect nothing at all. Almost as if something was blocking his access to the Force...

  Abruptly, his breath went out of him in a rush, relief and chagrin flooding into him in equal quantities. Of course—the aliens had moved ysalamiri into the space between him and Mara. Even given the four-floor distance between them, he should have immediately recognized what was happening. Once again, it seemed, he was having to relearn Yoda's warning against acting while in the grip of strong emotion.

  But there was no time for self-recrimination. Within the ysalamiri effect, Mara's fledgling Jedi powers were useless; and it was up to him to get her out.

  He pulled out his comlink and thumbed it on. "Artoo?" he called softly. "I need you down here—take the nonmoving spiral slideway behind the wall to the right of the hidden exit doorway and come down four floors. Splitter Of Stones, leave someone behind in the stairway to seal the door, and the rest of you come with Artoo. Got that?"

  There was a twitter from the droid and a chirp from the Qom Jha. Luke returned the comlink to his belt and walked slowly across the floor toward one of the level's back corners, stretching out beneath him with the Force as he moved. He could sense beings on the next level down, but none of them seemed to be in this particular area.

  That could be misleading, given that he still didn't have a clear reading on this species. But he would have to risk it. Igniting Mara's lightsaber, the feel of the weapon bringing back a flood of old memories, he gripped it with both hands and dug the blue-white blade into the floor. His big fear had been that like the cortosis ore in the cave below, the strange black stone would resist the lightsaber in some way. But though it felt rather like dragging a tree branch upstream through a rapidly flowing river, the blade sliced through the stone without trouble. Walking in a tight circle, beveling the edge inward so that the plug wouldn't fall through to the floor below, he carved out a round hole a little wider than Artoo.

  Finishing his cut, he confirmed one final time that no one seemed to be below him. Then, stretching out to the Force, he lifted the stone plug out.

  It was heavy—far heavier than anything of such a small size had any business being. Maneuvering it off to the side, he set it down with its edge just overlapping the hole, then dropped flat to the floor and peered carefully down.

  The area did indeed appear to be deserted. Getting a grip on the rim, he eased himself in to hang full-length through the hole. Bracing himself, drawing on the Force to strengthen his muscles, he let go. The floor was about four meters down, a trivial fall for a Jedi. He let his legs collapse as he hit, absorbing the impact and dropping him into a hopefully unobtrusive heap as he stretched out his senses for any sign he'd been seen or heard. But there was nothing. Getting carefully to his feet, he looked around again—

  Master Walker Of Sky?

  Luke looked up. Keeper Of Promises was in the room above him, peering down through the hole in the floor. "Keep quiet," he warned the Qom Jha. "Where are the rest of your people?" They are coming in a flanking curve, Keeper Of Promises said. Some guard your machine—

  it is the slowest.

  "Let me know when he gets there," Luke told him, stretching out with the Force. There were, he could tell, more of the aliens on the next level down, but again they didn't seem to be too close to him. Igniting the lightsaber again, he began cutting a new hole directly beneath the first one. He'd finished the hole and had dropped to the next floor down when a quiet whistle from above signaled Artoo's arrival. "Great," Luke called softly, looking up at the blue-and-silver dome peering cautiously over the lip two floors up as he pulled out his comlink and thumbed it on. The droid backed out of sight, and there was another acknowledging whistle from the comlink.

  "All right," Luke said, glancing around. He'd come down into a deserted room this time, bu
t through the open door he could see glimpses of moving shadows. "You see the control boards over there? I want you to go find a computer jack you can access and plug into it. Try to get a floor plan of the fortress if you can; if you can't, just look around and see what else you can find. When I signal you again, unplug and get back over to the hole as fast as you can. Got all that?" There was a slightly nervous-sounding twitter, and the comlink went dead. Gripping Mara's lightsaber, trying to get a feel for all the minds around and below him, Luke waited. When it happened, it happened all at once. Suddenly, virtually in unison, all the alien minds changed, their various tones and concerns and textures all shifting to focus in the same direction. Not with fear, concern, or even surprise, but with the calm, deadly purpose of professional soldiers. Artoo had tripped the flags Mara had warned him about, and the fortress was mobilizing for action.

  Luke crouched a little closer to the floor, acutely aware that everything now hinged on what exactly that action would consist of. If all the aliens merely settled in where they were and braced for possible attack, he would have no choice but to fight his way through them to get to Mara. If, however, they instead concentrated on the slideway ramps and the floor where the attempted break-in was occurring...

  And they did. Even as Luke held his breath, he could sense the aliens below moving purposefully toward the slideway Mara had taken earlier. If he was careful—and quick—the path to her might just be open.

  Especially if he was quick. Igniting the lightsaber, he set to work carving yet another hole in the black stone.

  He had finished the opening and dropped through to the next level down when his probing senses picked up the cue he'd been waiting for: the subtle change in the alien minds as the assembled assault teams readied themselves. "Now, Artoo," he called softly into the comlink. "Send the Qom Jha to me down the hole, and get over there yourself."

  The droid acknowledged, and Luke stepped beneath the hole to wait. The Qom Jha weren't wasting any time; already they were dropping through like leaves blown from a tree, folding their wings tightly as they passed through each successive hole, opening them up between floors to regain control of their flight. Through the flurry of falling Qom Jha he spotted Artoo's dome lean cautiously over the edge, and caught an echo of the surprised and nervous twitter as the droid saw how much farther down Luke was now than the last time he'd looked.

  A twitter that turned into an electronic gasp as Luke reached out with the Force to pick him up and drop him wheels-first through the hole.

  Luke winced at the noise; but fortunately Artoo quickly realized what was happening and quieted down before the sound of a descending electronic scream could give the whole thing away. Luke got the droid safely to the floor beside him, then stretched out again to the edge of the stone plug he'd left poking over the side of the first hole above. At this distance it felt even heavier; but with alien warriors presumably even now fanning out toward the command center, he had great motivation for speed. Three seconds later, the plug was securely back in place.

  Fifteen seconds after that, working his way down, he had all the rest of the holes sealed as well.

  "Mara's one more level down," he told Artoo and the huddled group of Qom Jha, stretching out with the Force. All the aliens below were gone, and there hadn't been any changes in the overall mental state that would indicate they'd tumbled to his trick.

  Though oddly enough, he could no longer sense the assault teams themselves. Equipped with ysalamiri, perhaps?

  Probably. But for the moment, those groups were too far away to worry him. "Stay close to me," he said, igniting the lightsaber and starting his final cut. "We'll try to keep this as quiet as we can, for as long as we can."

  But if they discover us? Child Of Winds asked anxiously.

  Luke frowned at him in mild surprise. He hadn't realized that the young Qom Qae had come in with the Qom Jha. In fact, he'd intended to give instructions that the child stay behind with whoever had sealed up the hidden door. Clearly, it had slipped his mind; just as clearly, it was too late to do anything about it now. "If the alarm goes up, you're to split up and create confusion," Luke told the aliens. "Draw them as far away from me as you can, then find your own ways out of the fortress and head back home."

  We will obey, Splitter Of Stones said, fluttering his wings.

  "And try not to get hurt," Luke added, finishing the cut and lifting the stone disk out of the hole.

  "Child Of Winds, you stay with Artoo and me."

  He leaned down for a quick visual scan of the empty room below. "All right," he said, slipping his feet into the opening and bracing himself for another drop. "Let's go." From the hazy look he'd had of this floor before his contact with Mara had been cut off, it had seemed fairly well structured, with rooms and wide corridors instead of the random wall segments they'd encountered upstairs. Not exactly an ideal arrangement for quiet skulking. But for the first few minutes it seemed to work. Luke led the way cautiously toward the blank spot that marked the cluster of ysalamiri, splitting his attention between the area around him and the various warrior groups assembled near the slideways. Only half a dozen of the aliens wandered near enough to pose potential problems, and he was able to get his party past them unseen using Force-created noises and other distractions. The warriors on the command center level were clearly the methodical types, and as Luke neared the ysalamiri he began to think he might actually be able to burst in on Mara and her captors unannounced.

  Han might have been that lucky. Luke, unfortunately, was not. They had nearly reached their goal when the illusion abruptly crumbled.

  "They're on to us," he murmured.

  Do they know where we are? Flier Through Spikes asked.

  "I don't know," Luke said, stretching out to the Force and trying to decipher the sudden turmoil in the emotions of the aliens around him. There was no way to tell whether the assault team had discovered the hole he had cut or had simply found the level deserted and come to the logical conclusion.

  What he could tell was that whatever it was they had discovered, their consternation had spread rapidly to the rest of the group. Clearly, they had a superb communications system in here. Which meant that Mara's captors almost certainly also knew he was loose in the fortress. Which meant he was out of time.

  "I'm going in," he told the Qom Jha tightly, easing an eye around the end of the corridor. Just to the right, on the far side of a cross corridor, he could see an unmarked door. At the far end of that room, as near as he could tell, were the ysalamiri. "Artoo, Child Of Winds—come with me. The rest of you, scatter."

  We obey, Walker Of Sky, Builder With Stones said; and with a multiple flutter of wings they were off.

  "Stay behind me," Luke warned the droid and Qom Qae; and with a quick glance down the corridor he launched himself at the door, igniting Mara's lightsaber as he ran. He grabbed the release lever, twisting it and pushing the door open in a single motion, and leaped inside. Only to find that he had miscalculated. The room he was in was long and dimly lit, with most of the left half filled with stacks of crates, and no sign of Mara.

  But a second glance showed he hadn't miscalculated as badly as he thought. Laid out side by side, a group of ysalamiri on nutrient frames had been leaned against the back wall. Artoo warbled questioningly. "She's in the next room over," Luke called over his shoulder as he raced toward the row of frames, a plan of action starting to take shape in his mind. Unless her interrogators were themselves Force-sensitive, they would have no way of knowing whether or not their protective barrier was still in place. If he could move enough of the ysalamiri out of the way to give Mara access to the Force again, the two of them together should be able to turn the tables on her captors and get her out of there. Skidding to a halt in front of one of the frames in the middle of the wall, feeling the sudden disconcerting silence in his mind as he stepped inside the meter-wide range of the creatures' effect, he set the lightsaber down on the floor and lifted up the frame. Fortunately, given that there
was no way for him to enhance his muscular strength this close to an ysalamir, the frame wasn't very heavy. He carried it a few steps away from the wall and propped it up against the nearest crate. Stepping back to the next one in line, he picked it up and crossed toward the first—

  With his Jedi senses blinded by the ysalamiri effect, Artoo's sudden squawk was his only warning. He looked up, dropping the frame and leaping backward, his hand instinctively stretching back toward the lightsaber on the floor. One of the blue-skinned aliens was crouching in a marksman's stance in the open doorway, another of the nutrient frames strapped to his back, his weapon up and tracking. Luke took another step backward, the Force suddenly flooding in around him again as he moved out of the ysalamir's range. He felt the power tingling through his hand as he again called the lightsaber to him, wondering why it wasn't already in his hand—

  And with a burst of understanding it belatedly hit him. He himself was clear of the ysalamiri effect, but the lightsaber wasn't.

  The alien's weapon was lined up on him now. "Do not move," he ordered in accented Basic, his tone making it clear he was serious. Artoo started to roll cautiously toward him; the glowing red eyes flicked warningly toward the droid—

  And with a screech that was half challenge and half pure terror, Child Of Winds dropped from the ceiling to land in full-taloned grip on the alien's gun arm.

  The weapon fired, a brilliant blue flash that went wide, slicing past Luke into one of the nutrient frames along the wall. Luke dived backward in the opposite direction toward the cover of the stacked crates, grabbing for his own lightsaber still hanging from his belt and yanking it clear. His momentum slammed him into one of the other frames, sending it crashing to the floor. And for one brief second, as he caromed off the wall and back toward the crates, he could feel Mara's presence again.