Anakin nodded.
“Then what is it, little Jedi?” Luke kept his voice soft, soothing. And suddenly he knew. His own words had brought it clear to him. But before he could say anything, he heard his name. Jacen and Jaina were running toward him, looking as ravaged as Anakin.
“Hey, guys,” he said, gathering them around him.
“Uncle Luke,” Jaina said. “Daddy said you could talk to us.”
He didn’t know if they had felt the cold and heard the screaming. Many of his students hadn’t. But his students weren’t as talented in the Force as the children. Or maybe the children had felt some impact from the explosion. Whatever had happened to them, though, had traumatized them in a way the other adults weren’t able to deal with yet.
“Come on,” he said. He led them to a bench alongside the metallic wall. A medical droid passed without giving them a second glance.
“Did we do it?” Anakin asked.
“Do what?” Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t this.
“Hurt Mama.”
Luke set Anakin back on his lap. Jacen and Jaina squeezed beside him. They had obviously discussed this. Luke suppressed a sigh. Raising Force-sensitive children was more a trial than anyone had thought. Each time something new came up, he found himself wishing he could talk with his aunt Beru. She had managed with him despite his uncle Owen’s hostility, on a planet so far away that no one knew about it.
Except Ben.
She had probably talked with Ben.
“How could you have hurt your mother?” Luke asked.
All three children started to speak at once, hands moving, arms waving, voices raised in concern.
“Wait, wait, one at a time,” Luke said. “Jaina, you explain it, then you boys can add if you want.”
Jaina glanced at Jacen as if for support. The movement always made Luke’s heart ache. Would he and Leia have been like that if they had been raised together? They would never know.
“Something came into our nursery, Uncle Luke,” Jaina said. Her small face was a replica of Leia’s, round and beautiful, sincere brown eyes, and small, purposeful mouth. “It was cold and it yelled with a thousand voices. And it hit us all at once.”
As he had suspected. They had felt the deaths. Just as he had. As Leia had. He resisted the urge to close his eyes. When Leia was better, he had to talk with her. They had to realize that the children, though young, felt everything as strongly as others trained in the Force did.
“So we joined—” Jacen began.
“I’m telling it,” Jaina said. “We joined hands and beat it back.”
That caught Luke by surprise. “You what?”
“We made the room hot,” Anakin said. Jaina shot him a malevolent glance, but he ignored it. “It was my idea.”
“It was not,” Jacen said.
“Was too.”
“Anyway,” Jaina said loudly, “we pushed it out of the room, and then a little while later, the whole … the whole …” She took a deep breath. “The whole …”
“The whole building shook,” Jacen said, clearly finishing for her. “And Mother nearly died.”
“And sometimes,” Anakin said softly, “when I don’t plan it, something I do hurts somebody.”
Luke nodded. A lot of things he had done had inadvertently hurt someone. If he hadn’t bought Artoo and Threepio, his aunt and uncle would still be alive. But if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be sitting here now, with these precious beings beside him. But he couldn’t explain that. It would sound patronizing. Ben hadn’t tried when Luke returned from the ruined farm. Luke shouldn’t try either. They would learn it on their own.
“What you felt,” Luke said, “was something pretty terrible. Somewhere in the galaxy, thousands, maybe millions, of people died at one time. I felt the same thing, that deep cold, and all of their pain.”
“Did Mom feel it?” Jaina asked, her voice still quivering.
Luke nodded. “And a few of my students on Yavin 4 felt it too. That’s part of being a Jedi. When something destroys life on a grand scale, we feel it as if it happened to us. Because, in a sense, it did. It ripped the fabric of the Force for just an instant.”
The children’s faces were serious. Jacen’s mouth was set in a thin line reminiscent of Han’s when he was angry.
“Sending heat to that cold place was brilliant,” Luke said. “I wish I had thought of it. It’s like sending love to a place that’s only known hate. We can’t go back in time and make those lives reappear, but we can help the people who have felt the loss heal.”
“Or make the people who caused it pay,” Anakin said.
The bloodthirsty one. Luke put his hand on his nephew’s, knowing that he would always have to give this boy special attention. He understood what Leia had been doing in naming Anakin after her father—she had been trying to reclaim a good part of her past—but the name made Luke give extra attention to the recklessness behind Anakin’s fierceness. Recklessness that Anakin shared with his uncle at times.
“If we’re not careful, Anakin,” Luke said, “that kind of vengeance will make us turn to the dark side. Then we are no better than those who fail to value life.”
Anakin looked away, a slight flush staining his cheeks.
“Look at me, children.” Luke spoke firmly. He wanted their full attention for this next. “You did the right thing creating warmth. Your actions had nothing to do with the explosion that hurt your mother. Nothing at all.”
“You promise, Uncle Luke?” Jacen asked. His voice was quivering too. He tried to be tough, just like his father, but beneath he was one of the most sensitive hearts Luke had ever met.
And that, too, was like Han.
“I promise,” Luke said. He gathered the children close and hugged them. They squeezed him back. He held them, letting his own warmth comfort them, as he thought about the conversation.
The children were on to something. But they had it backward. The deaths happened, and then, a short time later, an explosion occurred in the Senate Hall on the opening day of the new session. If the events weren’t related, then that was a startling coincidence.
And the older he got, the less Luke believed in coincidence.
“Come on,” he said when the children started squirming. “Let’s go see your mother.”
The children slid off the bench, and he let them lead him to a large room. Leave it to Leia to insist that she was not given any special treatment. Five other senators filled beds in the room, with curtains between them. Leia’s was at the far end. Her curtain was open. Han sat beside her, while Chewbacca stood at the foot, holding his paws together, as if this were a state function and he didn’t know how to dress. A medical droid placed medication on Leia’s bedside table, then disappeared through the pulled curtain beside her.
Winter was sitting in a chair beside the wall. When she saw Luke, she smiled. Sometimes he wondered if she had special powers besides her fantastic recall. She rarely let the children out of her sight, and yet they had found him at exactly the right moment.
“Luke,” Han said as he stood. “Leia’s been asking about you.”
She turned her head then on its pillow. Her face was a mass of bruises and cuts. Even though she had clearly been in the bacta tank, she still wore bandages on her hands indicating serious injuries that needed several more tendings.
“Oh, Luke.” Her voice was unusually loud. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Luke sat beside the bed. “Me, too.”
She frowned slightly.
“I don’t think she understood you,” Han said. “She can’t hear.”
Luke glanced at Han. He seemed remarkably calm.
“They say her hearing will come back in a few days. It was the strength of the explosion.” Han smiled tightly. “It’s been rather humorous, actually, watching the medical staff deal with a hundred deaf patients. No one is following instructions.”
His tone implied there was no humor in it. In any of it. Luke had already gotten the statistics when he landed
. Twenty-five senators dead, a hundred more wounded seriously, and another hundred bruised. That didn’t count the support personnel or all the destroyed droids.
“Any idea what happened?”
Winter stood. “I think, children,” she said, “we’ve been here long enough today.”
“Daaaad,” Jaina wailed. She took his arm. “They always make us leave when the conversation gets interesting.”
“I’m not going,” Anakin said.
Chewie growled at him. Anakin ran to his sister’s side.
“That’s telling ’em, Chewie,” Han said, but it sounded more like a reflex response. “Go with Winter, kids. I’ll be back to tuck you in.”
They hugged their mother good-bye, and left without further protest, which made Luke wonder if they wanted to stay as much as they pretended. The last day or two had been very stressful for them. He would have to talk with Han about their fears before he left.
“Leia believes the new Imperials in the Senate caused this,” Han said. “I’m not so sure.”
“I am,” Leia said. She had obviously become adept at lipreading since the explosion. Some of her abilities probably were Force-enhanced. Luke would have to test that theory later.
“What do you think happened?” Luke asked.
“An old buddy of mine surfaced at a convenient time,” Han said. “I was with Jarril in the Crystal Jewel when the explosion happened.”
“A decoy to keep you away?”
“Maybe,” Han said. “Or maybe he was trying to warn me and was too late. I tried to find him afterward, but he was gone.”
“Any idea where he went?” Luke asked.
Han shook his head. “His ship was gone too, and no one saw it leave, which I find odd. Jarril’s ship is distinctive. He took the Falcon’s design and crossed it with an A-wing.”
“I saw that ship,” Luke said. “The defenses were up when I got here. It took me a bit of convincing to get in, but when the shields lifted, a ship like that shot out, as if it had been waiting for just a moment like that. I notified Space-Traffic Control but they didn’t even register it as a blip on their equipment. It’s not often I get told things are a figment of my imagination anymore.”
“Some figment,” Han said.
“This means nothing,” Leia said too loudly. Luke wasn’t sure how much she followed. “It was the Imperials.”
“You have less proof than I do,” Han said. “Your people don’t even know what kind of bomb hit the Senate Hall.”
“My people?”
Luke put a hand on Leia’s arm. “What makes you think it was the Empire?”
“They have new members in the Senate. It would be just like them to destroy something they had gained.” She had turned her head toward him so that she could see him clearly. “First rule in investigation, Luke. Look for the changes. The answer lies in the changes.”
“You have no proof either,” Luke said. He suppressed a sigh. “Let’s see what the experts turn up. Maybe once we know what hit the Hall, we’ll be better informed.”
“The other thing you look for is money,” Han said. “Jarril told me a lot of smugglers are getting rich, and then dying.”
“But he could have been lying,” Luke said.
Chewie growled. He clearly agreed with Han.
“I’m not dismissing him, Chewie,” Luke said. “I just don’t want us to make suppositions before we have information.”
He hadn’t expected to arrive and be the voice of reason. The stress was taking its toll on the whole family. He had seen it in the children, and now in Han and Leia.
“He said I could find out more at Smuggler’s Run,” Han said.
“It might be another diversion,” Leia said.
“Or it might be unrelated,” Luke said.
“Or it could be something we need to know,” Han said.
Chewie mumbled his agreement.
“You can’t leave now, Han,” Leia said. She clearly knew her husband. “The children need you.”
Han smiled, but he seemed distracted. “They need you too, sweetheart,” he said. “The whole Republic needs you. And we almost lost you.”
Luke cleared his throat. “Let me do a little investigating of my own,” he said. “I may turn up something none of us expects.”
See-Threepio followed Artoo-Detoo’s rounded frame through the permacrete corridors. Ancient oil stains mingled with skid marks and other stains of unknown origins all over the floors and walls. The glow panels flickered, as if they didn’t have the same access to power as the rest of Coruscant. Artoo led with purpose, his silver body tilted back, his wheels outstretched.
“I don’t know how you always get me involved in these things, Artoo,” Threepio said as he hurried, hands raised for balance. “You’ve only been here a few hours and already I feel as if we’re in trouble.”
Artoo whistled, then blatted at him.
“You did invite me,” Threepio said. “You said you believed they were doing something to Master Luke’s X-wing and we needed to investigate.”
Artoo tweebled.
“All right, then. You knew they were doing something to Master Luke’s X-wing, and you said you were going to investigate. But you told me. That’s like an invitation.”
Artoo speeded up, chirruping and twittering as he glided forward on the filthy floor.
“I will not stay behind,” Threepio said. “Over the years, you’ve gotten us into too much trouble going off on your own like this. Besides, as I told you upstairs, Master Luke’s X-wing has been scheduled for upgrade for more than a year.”
Artoo blatted again. His head swiveled as he investigated a portal in the wall. Apparently it was not the one he wanted.
Threepio didn’t even look at the portal as they passed. “I think it’s arrogant of you to believe that Master Luke will tell you all of his business.”
Artoo bleeped loudly.
“All of his business concerning the X-wing, then. It’s not as if you own the machine. You’re a droid.”
Artoo warbled.
“Really, Artoo. Another astromech droid could run the X-wing,” Threepio said. “It’s not as if you’re that special.”
Artoo gave Threepio a raspberry.
“Maybe they should have wiped your memory. Your so-called exploits went to your head after the Battle of Endor. I don’t know why I continue to put up with you.” Threepio’s patter stopped when they reached the closed maintenance-hangar doors. “How odd. Doors in the maintenance area are supposed to remain open at all times.”
Artoo didn’t respond. Instead a compartment opened on his side, and a thin metal service arm extended. He jacked into the door panel, and beeped softly to himself.
Threepio peered through the small square transparisteels. Ships and parts were scattered all over the floor. Droids worked carefully, supervised by Kloperians. Kloperians were short, squat gray creatures, with a series of tentacled limbs running along their sides like filaments. They had hands at the ends of many of the limbs. Their necks could extend as well. Their physical makeup and their talents around all things mechanical made them among the best mechanics and engineers in the Republic.
Artoo bleeped.
Threepio turned away from the transparisteel. “Of course it’s a routine maintenance order,” Threepio said. “I don’t understand why you’re so surprised. All of the X-wings have been upgraded in the last few months.”
Artoo bleebled some more.
“I’m sure Master Luke did know of it,” Threepio said. “I’m sure they notified him. Really, Artoo. You get upset about the strangest things.”
Artoo whistled repeatedly and rocked on his two wheels.
“I will not ask Master Luke down here,” Threepio said. “We don’t even know what they’re going to do to the X-wing.”
Artoo whistled louder, a piercing shriek that echoed in the enclosed space.
“Artoo!”
The clank of his rocking treads added to the shrillness.
“Yes, I understand that you have a bad feeling about this,” Threepio said. “But Master Luke didn’t, and he is the expert on feelings.”
At that moment, the maintenance doors opened. A Kloperian stood behind them, six of its tentacles crossed over its squishy chest. “You want to explain to me why you’re illegally jacked into our computer system?” it asked.
Artoo removed his jack and pulled his service arm inside its case. “We meant nothing,” Threepio said. “Our master had sent us here to check on his ship. We couldn’t get in and my counterpart here was trying to open the door.”
“That’s the door panel,” the Kloperian said, pointing with a seventh tentacle at a small panel on the other side of the maintenance doors.
“Oh, dear, Artoo,” Threepio said. “I told you not to touch anything.”
The Kloperian’s bulbous eyes narrowed. “All right, you two. Get inside. We’re going to check your hardware.”
It grabbed Threepio and Artoo with four of its tentacles and pulled them in the maintenance bay. The metal doors clanged shut behind them. Fifty Kloperians stared at them. Dozens of droids stopped work to watch.
“Artoo,” Threepio whispered. “I have a very bad feeling about this.”
Seven
Kueller stood on the sandstone streets of Pydyr, his legs spread, hands clasped behind his back. The air was warm and dry with a touch of salt, reminding him that an ocean loomed over the artificially created hills. In the arid heat, the death’s head felt like a mask. He was sweating beneath it, destroying its delicate calibration with his skin.
He couldn’t remain on Pydyr long. The mask, a finely tuned instrument, only worked properly in certain environments.
This wasn’t one of them.
He hated to think of what it was doing to his face.
But if he was uncomfortable, the troops were as well. The stormtrooper uniforms, cleaned up and repaired, looked fine. Menacing. The memories of the Empire were embodied in the white suits and the elaborate helmets, memories of power he hoped to arouse.
Image was everything, as Pydyr once knew.
The empty streets spoke of wealth. The sandstone blocks wore down after only a few days. The Pydyrians had a special droid designed specifically for street care, another designed for building wash. Pydyr’s wealth was the stuff of legends, its aristocratic class the inspiration for stories told all over this section of the galaxy.
Star Wars: The New Rebellion Page 5
