Doole was a Rybet, squat and soft-skinned. His bright-green coloring and tan highlights looked like worm stripes up and down his cheeks, arms, and shoulders. His skin was dry, but so smooth it looked slimy. As always Doole dressed in the skins of less-fortunate reptiles. His waistcoat looked like something from an ancient history vid. Doole sported a bright-yellow cravat, which meant he was in mating readiness, though Han couldn’t imagine where on the planet Doole would ever find a willing female of his own species.
Doole turned around, displaying a much-changed face, jittered with nervous tics and paranoia. His Rybet eyes were overlarge, lanternlike, with vertical slits—but one of his eyes was now milky white, like a half-cooked egg. He wore a mechanical focusing device over his other eye, strapped onto his smooth head with brown leather straps.
Doole fiddled with his mechanical eye, and the lenses clicked and whirred into place, like a camera unit. His Rybet fingers were long and wide at the end, showing signs of vestigial suction cups as he adjusted the focus and pressed his face close to Han’s. The blind eye stared milkily off in another direction. After a long inspection he finally hissed in recognition. “It is you, Han Solo!”
Han frowned. “Been hitting the spice too heavily, I see, Moruth. Always gets the eyesight first.”
“It wasn’t spice that did this,” Doole snapped, tapping the contraption on his eye. He drew in another long sputtering breath that sounded like a carbonated drink spilled on hot coals. “Why are you here, Solo? I want you to tell me, but maybe I want you to resist just a little bit so I can make this hurt.”
Chewbacca roared in anger. Han tried to spread out his hands, but the stun-cuffs zapped him. “Wait a minute, Moruth! You’d better explain a few things to me. I don’t quite know—”
Doole didn’t hear him, rubbing his splayed hands together and smiling with his squishy lips. “The hardest part is going to be restraining myself from having you dismembered right here where I can watch.”
Han felt his heart pound. “Can we be reasonable for just a minute? We were business partners, Moruth, and I never crossed you.” Han didn’t mention his suspicions that Doole had crossed him in that last spice run. “I apologize if I did something to upset you. Can we work it out?”
He remembered his conversation with the hit man Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina. Once offended, Jabba the Hutt had never been interested in working anything out. He hoped Doole would be more reasonable.
Moruth Doole stepped backward, fluttering his long-fingered hands. “Work it out? What are you going to do, buy me a droid replacement for my eye? I hate droids! Because of you, Jabba tried to have me killed. I had to beg them to take only my eye. I had to beg them to take my eye!” He jabbed at his boiled-egg blind side.
Skynxnex shambled closer to Doole, lowering his voice. “I think you’re confusing him, rather than frightening him, Moruth. Maybe he really doesn’t know what happened.”
Doole sat down at his desk and straightened his lizard-skin waistcoat, regaining his composure. “When you dumped your load of spice, Jabba blamed it on me! He put out a contract on my life. All because of your cowardice.”
Chewbacca roared in outrage. Han barely kept his anger in check. “Jabba put out a contract on me too, Doole. Greedo tried to assassinate me on Tatooine. Boba Fett captured me on Bespin and I was trapped in carbonite, just like your friend there”—he gestured to the gruesome trophy on the wall—“and I got sent to Jabba anyway.”
Doole waved a hand in dismissal. “Jabba’s men had already infiltrated the spice-mining operations, and he wanted to expose me, so his own people could procure the glitterstim directly. One of his hit men fried my eye and half blinded the other. He was about to do more, but Skynxnex killed him.”
At the doorway the scarecrow smiled with pride.
“Jabba forced my hand, and I had to act. We staged the prison revolt. The warden himself was Jabba’s man, but half of the guards were on my side. I paid them well, you see. Luckily, the Empire was thrown into chaos right about the same time. We took Kessel for ourselves. There were a few other upstart slave lords on the other side of the planet, but they didn’t last long. I’ve been stockpiling spice supplies and building up a massive defense fleet with everything I can scrape together. Nobody—and I mean nobody!—is going to come here and take things away from me.”
Doole grabbed his head with his long fingers in a gesture of weariness. “Everything was going just fine before you had to get Jabba angry at me! Everything was safe. I knew just how to play the game. Now I’m jumping at shadows, afraid every moment.”
Doole stared at Han with his mechanical eye. “But ruining my life once isn’t good enough for you, is it? You come back here broadcasting a message from the New Republic. Somehow I thought remnants of the Empire would try to grab the spice mines back first, but big governments are all the same. You are a spy, a particularly inept one. Did you think you could just fly into our space, look around, and go back to your Republic with all the information they need to come take us over?” He slapped his palm on the desktop with a damp splat. “We’ll strike the first blow by killing their spy, and we will be ready to blast them out of the sky the moment your attack ships come out of hyperspace!”
“You haven’t got a chance!” Skynxnex sneered.
Han allowed himself to smile, then actually chuckled. “You boys have it all wrong. Absolutely wrong.” Chewbacca grunted his agreement.
Skynxnex scowled. Doole stared at Han in silence for a moment. “We’ll see about that.”
Doole reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew a small ancient-looking key, which he inserted into one of the drawers of the former warden’s desk. He fumbled with the lock, then opened the drawer. Reaching in, he pulled out an armored strongbox. He hefted the strongbox to the table, then dug in another pocket of his waistcoat to extract a second key.
Han watched, his curiosity piqued, as Doole opened the strongbox and withdrew a smaller sealed container. Doole meticulously slipped both his keys back into his pockets before looking at Han.
“I’d like to spend time interrogating you thoroughly, but I want to know exactly when the New Republic plans to come in and take over, how many ships they are sending, what type of forces they will use. I’ll get the information now, but I may have time to enjoy interrogating you later, just on general principle.”
Doole placed his webbed Rybet palm on the top of the sealed container. With a slight hum a beam of light curled around his fingers in an ID scan; the small container burped as the airtight seal was broken. The lid slid away to reveal a padded interior compartment.
The box was filled with slender, black-wrapped cylinders about half as long as a finger. Han recognized them immediately. “Glitterstim,” he said.
Doole looked at him. “The most potent form of spice. With it I’ll be able to read the truth of what you say. Your errant thoughts will betray you.”
Han felt a sudden sense of relief. “But what if I don’t have any hidden thoughts to betray?”
Skynxnex struck Han’s head with the back of his hand, sending him reeling. Chewbacca tried to stagger forward, but the stun-cuffs silenced his bellows and made him sway dizzily, barely able to keep his balance.
Doole selected one of the slim black cylinders and held it in his fingers. With a deft motion he peeled off the opaque outer wrapper and withdrew a thin bundle of transparent glassy fibers. As Doole held the inert glitterstim up to the light pouring through the broad viewing window, the light-sensitive spice began to scintillate and glow from within, ripening.
Han watched until it was ready for Doole to consume. He swallowed a dry lump in his throat.
Doole opened his mouth when the segment of glitterstim glowed a pearlescent blue. He extended his sharp purplish tongue to wrap around the crystalline fibers, which he drew back into his mouth. The glitterstim crackled and fizzed; as Doole flexed his lips, tiny sparks seeped out the corners.
Han stared as Doole closed his blind e
ye and breathed deep, watery breaths. The spice would act on Doole’s mind, pump up his latent powers. The automatic focusing gears of Doole’s mechanical eye clicked and whirred, spinning around as it tried to make sense of the visions pouring through the Rybet’s mind. Then Doole turned to face Han and Chewbacca.
Han winced as he felt tiny fingers clawing around in his brain, picking through the lobes of memory, images he had stored in his thoughts … searching, searching. He tried to shrink away but knew he could keep no secrets from anyone pumped on glitterstim.
Skynxnex chuckled, then immediately fell silent, as if afraid of directing Doole’s attention to himself, where his own brain could be picked.
Han felt anger growing, outrage that Moruth Doole could dissect the private moments he had with Leia, could observe the births of Han’s three children. But the spice effects lasted only a few moments, and Doole would be concerned mainly with learning why Han and Chewbacca had come to Kessel.
“I really was telling you the truth, Doole,” Han said quietly. “We are on a peaceful mission to reestablish diplomatic contact with Kessel. The New Republic is trying to open up trade and welcome you. We came in peace, but you just declared war on yourself by shooting down their first ambassadors.”
Chewbacca growled.
Skynxnex stiffened, then took a few awkward steps forward. “What is he talking about?”
Han raised his voice. “Read the truth in my mind, Moruth.”
The Rybet’s mouth hung slack, and Han could see glitterstim sparks sputtering around his cheeks. He felt the tiny probing fingers crawl deeper and deeper into his mind, scrabbling around. Doole was frantically trying to find some proof of his suspicions as the spice enhancement faded away.
But Doole could find nothing; there was nothing to find. The only thing he did learn was the power of the Alliance forces that would be arrayed against him. A fleet that had succeeded in overthrowing the entire Empire would certainly be sufficient to destroy a ragtag outlaw operation on Kessel.
“No!” Doole wailed. He whirled to glare at Skynxnex. “What are we going to do? He’s telling the truth!”
“He can’t be!” Skynxnex said. “He’s a—he’s—”
“The spice doesn’t lie. He’s here for exactly the reasons he said. And we shot him down. We took him prisoner. The New Republic is going to come after us, and they’ll wipe us out.”
“Kill the two of them now,” Skynxnex said. “If we work fast, we can cover everything up.”
Han felt sudden fear return. “Now, wait a minute! I’m sure we can fix this with a few careful messages. I am the ambassador, after all! Diplomatic credentials and everything. I wouldn’t want a simple misunderstanding—”
“No!” Skynxnex said, keeping his attention fixed on Doole. “We can’t risk that. You know what Solo has done before. He knows you tipped off the Imperial tariff ships to go after him.”
Actually, Han hadn’t been certain until that very moment. “Now, there’s no need to panic,” he said again. “I can talk to the New Republic Senate. I know Mon Mothma personally, and my wife Leia is a cabinet member, and—” His mind whirled, trying to think of how Leia would handle this. Many times he had watched her smooth diplomatic problems. She had a finesse with words, a way of approaching other people’s concerns and stroking them, delicately maneuvering opposing sides into a compromise. But right now Leia wasn’t with him.
“Yes, I think I agree,” Doole said, tapping a finger against his swollen lips. Han let out a sigh of relief. “I agree with Skynxnex, I’ll review the battle tapes, but I don’t believe you transmitted any messages after coming out of hyperspace. One of our fighters shot off your subspace antenna dish. The New Republic has no way of knowing you arrived safely. With no evidence they will conclude you got swallowed up by the Maw.”
Doole began to pace in front of the large viewing window. “We’ll delete any mention of you from our records. Instruct all my mercenaries to forget about the attack. Yes, that’ll be the safest alternative!”
“You’re making a big mistake!” Han said. He could barely restrain his urge to yank at the stun-cuffs.
“No,” Doole replied, tapping his squishy-tipped fingers together. “I don’t think so.”
Chewbacca bellowed a loud string of guttural words.
“My best bet would be to kill you right away,” Doole answered; then he rubbed his fingers against his blind eye. “But you still owe me for this, Solo. Even if you worked every day for a hundred years, it would never repay me for the loss of my eye. You both are going down into the spice mines, the deepest and most distant tunnels. They’ve been needing quite a few replacements lately.”
Doole grinned with his wide froglike mouth. A final flicker of blue sparks rippled at the corner of his lips.
“No one will ever find you down there.”
5
The former Imperial Information Center lay buried deep beneath the old palace, covered by layers of shielding walls and guarded by tight security at every entrance. To keep the temperatures within tolerable limits for the great data archive machines, vast heat-exchanger systems and powerful cooling units filled the room with a background roar.
Hunched over fourteen consoles were lumpy dull-gray slicer droids, hardwired into the terminals as they meticulously hacked at the security encryption codes and backup viruses set up in the Emperor’s mainframes. The slicer droids had been working for a full year, ferreting out vital tidbits from the labyrinthine databases. Already they had exposed twenty-three Imperial spies in deep cover trying to sabotage the burgeoning New Republic.
The hum of the cooling units and the motionlessness of the slicer droids blanketed the Center with an echoing emptiness. Lonely and fidgety, the protocol droid See-Threepio paced back and forth, his servomotors whirring, as he viewed the room with his optical sensors for the hundredth time.
“Haven’t you found anything yet, Artoo?” he said.
Jacked into one of the information ports, Artoo-Detoo bleeped an impatient negative and continued whirring as he tunneled through the overwhelming amounts of information.
“Don’t forget to double-check everything,” Threepio said, and began pacing again. “And don’t be afraid to follow unlikely leads. Master Luke would call them hunches. This is very important, Artoo.”
Artoo hooted indignantly.
“And remember to check every planet from the Old Republic. The Empire didn’t necessarily have time to update its information on all of them.”
This time Artoo did not bother to reply but continued to work.
A moment later Threepio heard the outer doors open, and a shadowy figure moved toward them with silent grace. As always, Luke Skywalker wore his Jedi cloak, but this time the hood was draped casually over his shoulders. Luke walked with an eagerness in his step.
Threepio was glad to see a resurgence of the excited boyishness that had so characterized young Luke when the droids first met him after they had been purchased from the Jawas on Tatooine. Of late Luke’s eyes had not been able to hide the haunted look and the barely contained power of a Jedi Master.
“Master Luke! How good of you to check on us!”
“How’s it going, Threepio? Found anything yet?”
Artoo beeped an answer, which Threepio translated. “Artoo says he’s going as fast as he can, but he wishes me to remind you of the enormous amount of data he must inspect.”
“Well, I’ll be leaving in a few hours to follow up on some earlier leads I uncovered by myself. I just wanted to make sure you two have everything you need before I take off.”
Threepio straightened in a gesture of surprise. “Might I ask where you are going, Master Luke?”
Artoo chittered and Luke turned to him. “Not this time, Artoo. It’s more important that you stay here and continue the search. I can fly by myself.”
Luke turned to answer Threepio’s question. “I’m going to Bespin to check on somebody there, but first I want to go to an old outpost called Eol Sha
. I’ve got reason to believe that at least one lost Jedi descendant might be there.” With a swish of his cloak, Luke turned to depart from the Information Center. “I’ll check back with you when I come home.” The door slid shut behind him.
Threepio spoke immediately to Artoo. “Punch up the data on Eol Sha—let’s see where Master Luke is going.”
Artoo obliged, as if the idea had been in his own circuits. When the planetary statistics came up on the screen accompanied by ancient two-dimensional images, Threepio raised his golden mechanical arms in horror. “Earthquakes! Geysers! Volcanoes and lava! Oh my!”
When Luke emerged from hyperspace, the starlines in the viewport funneled into points. Suddenly brilliant pastel colors splashed across the universe—magentas, oranges, and icicle-blues of ionized gas in a vast galactic ocean known as the Cauldron Nebula. The automatic dimmers in the pilot’s compartment muted the glare. Luke looked at the spectacle and smiled.
Leaving the hyperspace node, he punched in the coordinates for Eol Sha. His modified passenger shuttle arced through the wispy gas, leaving the nebula above him as the engines kicked in. The double wedge-shaped craft descended toward Eol Sha.
He had wanted to take his trusty old X-wing, but that ship was a single-person craft, with room for only an astromech droid in the back. If Luke’s hunches about Jedi descendants proved correct, he would be bringing two candidates back to Coruscant with him.…
According to outdated records, the settlement on Eol Sha was established a century before by entrepreneurs who intended to use ramjet mining ships to plow through the Cauldron Nebula and scoop up valuable gases. The mineship pilots would distill the gaseous harvest into pure, rare elements for sale to other outposts.
Eol Sha was the only habitable world close enough to support the commercial venture, but its days were numbered. A tandem moon orbited very close to the planet, spiraling in on a death plunge as gravity dragged it down. Within another hundred years the moon would crash into the planet, smashing both into rubble.
Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy I: Jedi Search Page 6
