On the platform opposite, the one from which Callista had descended, were a dozen more.
Ben moved up to stand protectively beside his father. He breathed out a disappointed sigh. “Got any ideas for this one, Dad?”
“Sorry, Ben. Not this time.”
KLATOOINE
UNDER NIGHTTIME SKIES, ALLANA DESCENDED THE FALCON’S BOARDING ramp with Anji and looked up at Javon.
He looked down at her. “You want to go out.”
She nodded.
“You know Jedi Solo wants you to stay here until she gets back.”
She nodded.
“You’re going to give me an immense amount of grief if I try to keep you here, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
He sighed and activated his headset. “All right, troops. Form up, standard pattern.”
The Falcon’s boarding ramp rose up into place after Allana and her security detail disembarked, cutting off a trilling query from R2-D2, still inside.
Allana led the way from the ship, but only for a few paces. “I want to search the camp.”
“For See-Threepio?”
“Yes.” And for the man with the dark aura. “But I don’t know what the best way is.”
“The best way, which would cause the most trouble even if it were possible, would be if we had authority to search every tent and enough troops to lock down the camp while we did it. Prohibit traffic between tents, search each one in turn. Given our limited resources, we’d do better putting together a list of places he might want to visit, plus individuals who have an interest in him. We can search the camp in a grid pattern, concentrating on those tents of interest, trying to get a look inside the ones where we can sneak in or wrangle invitations.”
“It would be better if we spread out, wouldn’t it?”
“Not going to happen, Amelia. Sorry.”
Allana didn’t have any places to add to a list—at least, not a list pertaining to C-3PO. She’d seen the dark-aura man ascend a trail to the eastern ridge. But that could be her destination only if she slipped away from Javon and the others. So for now she let Javon lead the way.
Half an hour later they found C-3PO.
Allana heard him first, the lilting, often aggravating tones of the protocol droid in full argumentative mode: “… defeating your own purpose by imprisoning one you pretend to want to free?”
Allana tapped Javon’s sleeve, then scurried in the direction of the voice. She turned a corner and was confronted with a tent she’d visited before, their first day here—the headquarters of the Manumission Mandate Militia. There again the medical droid in his dazzle pattern of yellow and orange strode a temporary stage, lecturing.
And at the edge of the stage, standing with other members of the speaker’s sparse audience, was C-3PO. He stood stiffly, as if at attention, but his language was in no way restrained. “On the other hand, there is no reason why being a revolutionary is automatically exclusive of being a gentlebeing, yet you persist in acting like a brute.”
Allana threaded her way through the crowd to one side of C-3PO; Javon appeared on the droid’s opposite side.
C-3PO turned to regard Allana. His head turned, that is; his body remained stiff. “Ah, my dear Mistress Amelia. Delighted to see you. And relieved, I must say. Please tell me you’re here to rescue me. You seem to be getting quite prematurely adept at rescuing droids.”
“I guess. You don’t look like you need much rescuing.”
“Actually, he does.” Javon tapped the protocol droid’s chest, where a restraining bolt was clearly visible. Javon turned toward the medical droid. “What’s the idea?”
The medical droid walked over to stand before Javon, metal hands on metal hips. “The idea is to demonstrate how easy it is to enslave even those who claim they serve organics of their own free will. Look at this poor, deluded wretch. Despite his good intentions, one pop of a restraining bolt and all his free will means nothing.”
Javon shook his head. From a pouch, he pulled a multifunction tool and rotated its little pry-bar into position.
C-3PO ignored the other droid. “Actually, it hasn’t been terrible. A moment of disorientation, and then I woke up out of a refreshing oil bath, my batteries at full charge. If only I could have moved, I might have thanked my captors for their hospitality. But then—oh, dear, the speech making. Disorganized, ungrammatical, fear-mongering, with such leaps in logic …”
The medical droid began pacing again. “Eliminate restraining bolt sockets. Or start implanting them in organics. I’ll take either solution.”
Javon pried at the restraining bolt. It popped free and clattered onto the stage.
C-3PO sagged and sighed in obvious relief. “Ah. Much better, kind sir.” He looked up at the medical droid, his posture one of irritation. “You know, you could have allowed me the latitude to walk around a little or even sit down while subjecting me to your lectures.”
“Ha! You are a slave, protocol droid. Embrace that realization. Own it.”
“Come on.” Javon grabbed C-3PO by the elbow and hustled him away from the tent.
“I say …”
Allana fell into place beside C-3PO. “They didn’t hurt you?”
“No, young mistress, they simply inconvenienced me in order to make their political point. Ah, my communications faculties are coming back online. I say, I seem to have about an hour’s worth of accumulated messages. Many of them from you.”
Allana nodded. “You were missing.”
“I suppose I was. I didn’t think of it that way, of course, since from my perspective I was aware of my location. I suppose that means I didn’t share your worry. Though I am touched that you did worry. Oh, it appears I have a message from Princess Leia. Some event of note taking place at the central dais. I’m supposed to make myself available to the Hapan Queen Mother to offer translation services. It seems that her protocol droid knows fewer than three thousand vocal variations in Klatooinian. Poor, uneducated wretch.”
“You should go, then.” Allana wondered what to do now. This wasn’t going right. She’d wanted to find the mystery man before they found C-3PO.
“Thank you, young mistress.” C-3PO began waddling off in the direction of the center of camp.
Javon looked down at Allana. “So. Are we done?”
“I suppose.”
“Do you want to go back to the Falcon or to see the speeches?”
Neither. Allana thought about the tents they’d pass on the way to both destinations. “The Falcon.”
“All right.” Shaking his head, Javon led the way back toward the transport’s landing area.
Allana kept behind him, smiling reassuringly up at him every time he looked back. And she kept her eyes open.
Most of the tents in camp were full tents, with floors of the same hard-wearing material as the sides, but some were just canopies, open at the bottom. And some of them were not staked out with their sides entirely flush with the ground. There were gaps. And some of those were dark on the inside, suggesting that there was no one in them.
Allana saw one such tent ahead. She pulled her sun hood up, though the sun was long since set, and signaled to Anji to stay nearby. She gave her nexu a calming touch in the Force.
The timing worked out just right. Javon had glanced back at her and was now staring forward. He wouldn’t look back again for several seconds. The other members of the escort were meters away on parallel aisles.
As silently as she could, Allana dropped flat and scuttled sideways under the back wall of a tent. There were only cots inside, one of them occupied by a napping Klatooinian. He did not awaken. Allana darted out the front flap and charged straight ahead through the camp.
Now she was just another child-sized shape in the nighttime darkness, identical to scores of others in camp. Now, at least until she was found again, she could hunt.
She headed for the edge of camp by which the dark-aura man had left earlier.
“It is my pleasure to introduce
the fourth member of Klatooine’s first Jedi delegation, Raharra of Clan Lapti.” Leia raised a hand and gestured for the diminutive apprentice to step up beside her, which the girl did.
The crowd roared, and Leia reflected that an audience of Klatooinians could really make a lot of noise when they wanted to. Encouraged, Raharra raised a hand, waving at her new admirers, and the noise increased by half again.
Reni Coll, on the other side of the girl, took over as prearranged. “Let us meet this link between the warriors of Klatooine and the warriors of the Jedi.” She switched to Klatooinian and growled out a sentence at Raharra. It ended on an interrogative note.
Raharra answered in the same tongue, her own voice higher, a series of yips. Her reply must have been cute. The Klatooinian majority in the audience laughed. Offworlders looked at one another in confusion, then up at the monitor, where a translation offered by a protocol droid appeared in text at the bottom of the screen. Then they laughed, too.
Leia withdrew as the interview continued. She stood between Han and Tenel Ka. She had to raise her voice for them to hear her, though her words would not carry over the crowd noise even as far as the next person over. “It’s going well.”
Han made a less-than-appreciative noise. “What good is it for things to go well if you’re still sweating like a Gamorrean?”
Leia frowned, formulating a crushing reply, but was interrupted when her comlink vibrated. She pulled it out. Its tiny screen indicated that the message was from Javon Thewles, the priority high. A little flutter of worry circulated in Leia’s stomach as she answered. “Solo.”
Even though Leia pressed the comlink up against her ear, Javon’s voice was hard to make out over the crowd noise. “I’m sorry, Jedi Solo. We found C-3PO, and he’s headed your way, but Amelia has deliberately given us the slip. We don’t know why.”
Leia scanned the crowd before her, though there was no way she could have picked out Allana in these nighttime conditions. But she could see C-3PO, at the back of the crowd, working his way awkwardly forward, as though he wanted to join the Solos on the stage. “Could she have been grabbed?”
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she broke away on purpose. I’ve got the entire squadron looking for her.”
“I’ll send some Alliance troops to join you and I’ll be right along. Solo out.” She pressed a series of buttons on her comlink, initiating a preset function.
Han had obviously heard her words, if not Javon’s. “Amelia?”
Leia briefly explained. Tenel Ka, leaning in, also heard.
Leia gave Allana’s mother a reassuring look. “Finding her is not going to be a problem. Her security detail doesn’t know it, but I can initiate a tracking function in her comlink. Getting data now.” She read the information on the tiny screen and frowned. “She’s out quite a way to the east. Beyond the camp boundaries. Moving slowly—she’s not vehicular.”
Han tapped his hip, making sure his holster was still filled. “Let’s get her.”
“No, Han, you get back to the Falcon. If it’s something strange, if we need air support, I want you ready to launch.”
Han nodded, kissed her, turned, and dropped carefully off the back of the stage.
Leia and Tenel Ka didn’t need words or Force techniques for Leia to know exactly what the Queen Mother was feeling. Tenel Ka wanted nothing more than to join them in the search. And that wasn’t possible: she couldn’t afford to be seen giving undue attention to the Solos’ adopted daughter.
Leia gave her a quick embrace, then followed her husband off the stage.
* * *
Bobbing up and down in the crowd, C-3PO saw Han and Leia depart. He wondered if he should follow. But no, the message from Princess Leia had been specific. He was to offer his translation services to Tenel Ka. And no wonder. Listening to the Klatooinians talking onstage and seeing the translations appear up on the monitor, he was appalled at the inaccuracies and linguistic liberties being displayed. Resolutely, he continued on, suffering outrageous bumpings and elbowings from the people in the crowd. Pride drove him on, pride that it was he who was being called on to save the day in the event of a translation emergency.
OUTSIDE CRYSTAL VALLEY, NAM CHORIOS
KANDRA STARED AT THE STILL-BLANK SCREEN OF HER DATAPAD AND swore. “This is not turning out to be useful. We get this Callista but no Abeloth, and then the signal cuts out. Not what Skywalker promised us. And now this.” Her gesture took in the town two kilometers ahead of them. It was mostly obscured by dust clouds, but the two of them could see a small Corporate Sector gunship circling above the town and yet another shuttle coming in for a landing. “Are you getting that?”
Beurth, his shoulder rig trained on the distant vehicles, grunted an assent, then added a few choice words.
“No, we shouldn’t have left when the signal cut out. We stay until we get something worth recording.”
“And what would that be?” The voice came from immediately behind them. It was a man’s voice, mellow and musical.
Both rolled and twisted to look.
Behind them stood a man in dark robes. He was young, fair of complexion, dark of hair, very handsome in a way that reminded Kandra of predatory birds. In his hand he held a lightsaber hilt.
Now he activated the weapon. Its red blade crackled into life. He leaned forward and delicately severed the cable that ran from the distant town to Kandra’s datapad. Then he deactivated the weapon.
He gave the two of them a stern look. “We don’t much care for people spying on our activities. I think it’s time for you to get up and come with me.”
Kandra exchanged a look with her cam operator. “Yes, you were right. We should have left when the signal cut out.”
APPROACHING NAM CHORIOS
The image on the bridge’s main monitor abruptly changed from the whirling lights of hyperspace to a broad panorama of unappealing brownness—the surface of Nam Chorios, viewed at high magnification.
In the command chair, Gavar Khai glanced at a secondary monitor. It showed that all the Corporate Sector–built frigates of his flotilla had arrived safely and still in correct formation.
He looked at his communications officer. “Transmit stand-down code Shieldfall.”
“Yes, sir.” The comm officer bent to his task. “Receiving responses from the orbital NovaGun platforms.”
Khai allowed himself a slight smile. Even with the presence of Jedi throughout the galaxy, the armed forces and planetary governments of the Galactic Alliance had obviously never managed to organize real security against skilled Force-users. It had taken a few days to get his Sith operatives onto the NovaGun platforms and introduce programming that would allow him to stand them down. Now the orbital defense stations would not bring their weapons to bear on the Sith frigates. After hours of fumbling and testing and overriding, they should be able to regain full control of the stations … but the Sith would be long gone by then. Khai amused himself by imagining the stations’ commanders suddenly frantic with fear, barking futile orders, running around needlessly.
And the irony was that Khai had no intention of firing on them, or of taking military action against Nam Chorios. His objectives included the capture or destruction of Abeloth, the death of Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker, and the retrieval—and eventual extraction from her of the truth—of his daughter Vestara.
The comm officer’s next words were less reassuring. “One gun platform, designated Herkan Base, not replying to our query.”
Khai frowned. “Sensors, is that platform reacting to our arrival?”
The sensor operator shook her head. “No, sir. Its orientation will still bring its weapons to bear against targets in the atmosphere, and its weapons have not moved. Sir?”
“Yes?”
“It is the station covering the quadrant including the target, Crystal Valley.”
Khai frowned. He didn’t like coincidences. “Possibly just a program failure—something happened to the module that was supposed to reply
to our query. But keep our weapons trained on it throughout the approach.” He looked to his comm officer again. “Reestablish contact with Tola Annax.”
“Yes, sir.” The man activated his headset, spoke urgently into it, consulted his control board. After a few moments, he turned to look at Khai. “Sir, we show that jamming has ceased in the Crystal Valley area, so they must have carried out that portion of the assignment. But they’re not responding.”
“Keep trying.” The most critical elements of the operation had been accomplished without a problem: locating Abeloth on this world; bringing the flotilla unseen into the Nam Chorios system; disabling the planetary defense platforms; and, finally, pinpointing Abeloth’s location onplanet. But little things were going wrong.
Little things, like mercury, tended to run together and become bigger things.
As his flotilla approached Nam Chorios and spread out to defend all exit paths Abeloth might take from the planet’s surface, he worried.
Khai’s communications officer kept trying, transmitting every couple of minutes for Tola Annax or any member of Operation Shieldfall.
As the flotilla reached high planetary orbit, Khai directed his sensor officer to bring up the area of Crystal Valley on extreme magnification. That image came to life on the main monitor, but it was unhelpful. Dust storms moved across significant portions of the town and its surrounding environment, obscuring the image.
“Shields up! Emergency all ahead full!” That was this frigate’s interim commander, the Keshiri man who was Tola Annax’s second in command and thus in charge of the ship when neither Annax nor Khai was on the bridge. Khai looked at him, startled that the man would offer such commands without checking with Khai first.
The bridge crew, its efficiency honed to a sharp edge by Khai’s presence and by Annax’s demanding standards, responded instantly. Khai felt himself drawn into the back of his chair, the ship’s inertial compensators not entirely matching the sudden acceleration.
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction Page 35
