Refugee: Force Heretic II (38 page)

Wyn backed away a few more steps, straight into the arms of one of the guards. Aabe drew his blaster and approached her.

Jacen had heard enough. Before, it might have just been possible that Aabe
was
following orders, but now there was no mistaking his intentions.

“I really think it’s in your best interest to lower that weapon and let the girl go, Chief Navigator,” Jacen said, activating his lightsaber as he stepped out from the shadowed corridor.

Aabe spun around, redirecting his blaster’s aim at Jacen. Then, seeing Irolia with him, his face crumpled into a frown. “What is the meaning of this? I demand an explanation!”

“Funny, but I was about to say exactly the same thing,” the commander said, drawing her own blaster.

“I need explain nothing to you, Commander,” Aabe sneered. “I’m your superior officer. Remember? And I am ordering you to turn around and return to your normal duties.”

“As an officer of the Expansionary Defense Force, I believe it is my duty to ensure the safety and security of the Chiss realm. That directive, as you are well aware, supersedes
all
others. It is my firm belief that I am following that directive right now.” Irolia raised her blaster and sighted Aabe along the barrel. “So, if you wouldn’t mind dropping your weapon,
sir
…”

“You fool!”

Jacen felt the Force rush through him an instant before Aabe fired. His instincts moved him forward, swinging his lightsaber up and across to intersect the bolt before it could hit Irolia. A split second later she, too, fired. Jacen didn’t hesitate: his lightsaber came down again, deflecting that bolt also.

“What are you doing?” Irolia snapped.

Jacen didn’t have time to explain to the commander that it was unnecessary for
anyone
to die; he was too busy advancing on Aabe as the chief navigator slowly retreated. The guards stood behind him, frozen with indecision.

“You cowards!” Aabe yelled back at them. “He’s only a boy!
Take
him!”

But the guards took another step away from him,
making it clear to Jacen and Irolia that Aabe was on his own in this. When the commander indicated for them to lower their weapons, they did so without hesitation, laying them on the floor at their feet. Whether they had been part of the conspiracy or simply following orders was something that would have to be determined later.

Realizing his situation, Aabe grabbed Wyn and shoved her forcibly between himself and Jacen; then he turned to run for the open iceway carriage door, his only chance at obtaining freedom. Jacen took three long strides to bring himself within reach of the fleeing man, his lightsaber raised, tensed and ready to strike.

A single exertion of will, backed up by the Force, wrenched the carriage doors closed. Aabe crashed into them at full tilt, toppling back onto the ice at Jacen’s feet, his blaster flying out of his stunned grasp and clattering across the floor. Wyn was quick to pick it up and point it at him.

“There’s nowhere to run,” Jacen said, the steady thrum of his lightsaber sounding in the cold air.

He felt Wyn watching in amazement as he stood over Aabe, willing the man to give up. Defiance lingered in Aabe’s eyes, but then suddenly flickered and died. The man sagged back to the floor with a defeated sigh.

Jacen stepped back, lowering his lightsaber, glad that the crisis was over—and that nobody had been hurt.

He activated his comlink, and it bleeped immediately. It was his uncle.

“Jacen? Is everything all right?”

“It is now,” he answered.

“And Wyn?”

“She’s fine. I’ll fill you in on all the details later.”

“Well done, Jacen. You’ve defused a potentially difficult situation.”

“Thanks, Uncle Luke,” he returned, deactivating his
lightsaber and reattaching it to his belt. Irolia was already busy speaking into a wall communicator, calling for backup. “How’s everything there?”

“Under control. We’ve heard from Tekli; someone made a halfhearted attempt to break through
Jade Shadow
’s
air lock, but they failed and haven’t come back. Port security is already looking into the incident. It looks like we’ve weathered the storm rather well, don’t you think?”

As Jacen watched the guards hoist Aabe onto his feet, he found he could only nod in silent agreement. A failed attempt to put them out of the picture would almost certainly bring the Chiss more firmly behind them—as well as Fel. The real leaders behind the attempt—assuming Aabe wasn’t as high up as they went—would no doubt lie low for a while, fearing reprisals from either Chiss loyal to the existing command structure, like Irolia, or the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, which was bound to take an attack on peaceful diplomats poorly. It might also mean that the two-day deadline would be extended.

“How long do you think before you’ll get back?” he asked his uncle.

“Probably within the hour,” Luke said. “We’ll resume our search, then.”

Jacen nodded to himself again, glad to be able to put the incident behind them and get back to work.

“And Jacen?” Luke said. “Don’t assume that everything that happened here has been unimportant. The smallest action can have the largest consequences. The good work we’ve done today may have far-reaching consequences—consequences we can only guess at right now.”

“I know, Uncle Luke,” Jacen said. “I’ll see you when you get back, okay?”

“Take care, Jacen.”

“You, too.”

He closed the line and returned the comlink to his belt, reflecting upon the simple truth of his uncle’s words. He couldn’t help but wonder at what the consequences of this day would be. Perhaps saving Wyn would enable her to achieve her ambition of seeing Coruscant. One day, when the war was over, the girl could easily follow in her brother’s footsteps and leave Chiss space in favor of the Galactic Alliance. He sensed strength and determination in her, as well as a keen intellect. If she wanted to do something badly enough, he had no doubt that she would find a way.

What will become of you, Wyn Fel?
he wondered to himself. Only time would tell, he supposed—and if he could give her nothing else, he would do his best to give her that, at least. The time to realize her potential: her and the Chiss, as well as the galaxy itself.

He shrugged off the train of thought, forcing himself back to the present. Wyn was standing to one side, the blaster in her hand trembling slightly. She was staring at him with something approximating awe.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

She nodded once. “A little shaken, but I’ll be okay.” She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him. “Thank you for coming when you did. You were amazing!”

He felt himself flush slightly, at the compliment as well as the girl’s obvious admiration for him that had prompted it. But he forced himself to ignore it. There were much more important things to concern himself with. Bigger than Wyn or Aabe—bigger even than himself. The search for Zonama Sekot was of paramount importance. Everything else was just a distraction.

“All in a day’s work,” he told Wyn, with a smile that he hoped would hide his discomfort at her adoration. “The life of a Jedi is not a boring one.”

*  *  *

Mom? Mom!

In the aftermath of the explosion, Jaina’s mind was filled with psychic pain. She sent her mind out among the wounded and dying, searching for her mother. She found her mother and father down in the thick of it, fighting their way through the panicked crowd, trying to get to where help was needed the most.

Jaina sat up in the gloom of the room’s emergency lighting. The locker was filled with dust, but it had remained intact—just as Harris had anticipated it would. Malinza was climbing to her feet, shaking her head groggily. Vyram and Goure were clambering upright, too, both coughing violently as the dust caught in their throats. Salkeli lay curled in a ball, looking up with a grin on his face, triumphant that their best efforts to stop the bomb had failed. Harris remained where Jaina had left him: out cold in the corner.

She collected the comlink from the floor where she’d dropped it and quickly activated it.

“Mom?” She opened the locker door to reduce the interference. “Mom, can you hear me?”

It took a few moments before Leia answered. “I hear you, Jaina.” Relief rushed through her at the sound of her mother’s voice. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. But, Mom—Tahiri!”

“I know; I felt it, too.”

“Do you think she’s okay?”

“I don’t know, Jaina.”

“I’ll never forgive myself if she’s—”

Leia didn’t let her finish. “You aren’t to blame for anything that has happened here, Jaina.”

Jaina knew that wasn’t true. If she hadn’t been so closed off to the girl in the first place, if she’d tried to help her confront her problems earlier instead of …

She broke away from the guilt-ridden thought.

“How bad is it up there, Mom?”

“It’s utter chaos. The blast took out the Prime Minister’s stalls. Security is trying to clear the area now.”

Jaina caught flashes from her mother: frightened faces, tangled wreckage, and blood
—lots
of blood.

Before she could ask if there was anything she could do, Salkeli took the opportunity to gloat. “You look a little concerned there, Jedi,” the Rodian said with a half smile, half sneer. “Not so sure of yourself now, are—”

Vyram didn’t ask this time; he just shut the Rodian up by stunning him with the butt of his blaster. “What do we do now?” he asked, stepping up to Jaina.

“We go topside to help,” she answered. “Besides, security has to know about these two.”

“I’ll go,” Malinza said.

Jaina shook her head. “They might not believe you.”

“No,” the girl said, “but they
will
listen.”

“And I can stay here and keep an eye on these two, if you like,” Vyram said.

Jaina thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, and I’ll back you up when I get there.”

“Wait a minute,” Goure said. “Where are
you
going?”

“To find Tahiri.”

“Then I’m coming, too,” he said. The Ryn had a look in his eye that Jaina recognized from her father—the kind that said there was no point arguing.

Jaina shrugged helplessly and let him follow her out as they retraced Tahiri’s steps through the damaged corridors, updating Leia as they went. The stadium’s structure had held, but it was going to require an extensive overhaul. The closer they got to the center of the blast, the more damage there was. Ceilings had come down, ferrocrete had cracked, stanchions were twisted, and the air was full of dust.

“Through here, I think,” she said, following the vague impressions she’d received from Tahiri’s mind. Everything had looked so different then, with the smooth,
clean corridors. Now they were in ruins, open to the sky. The cries of the wounded were very real from such close quarters, and the smell of smoke and dust was powerfully strong.

At the heart of the destruction, they found a clear space about two meters across. The blast had destroyed everything around the area, but nothing within it. And there at its center lay Tahiri, curled up like a child hiding from a nightmare.

Jaina came to a halt at the edge of the unaffected area, her heart pounding sickeningly fast in her chest. She tried reaching for the girl through the Force, but she still couldn’t find her.

“What happened here?” Goure asked.

“She must have put a Force bubble around herself,” Jaina said. She looked around, surveying the damage more closely. “Looks like it deflected the bulk of the blast away from above.” She reached out cautiously with her hand, feeling for the bubble, and was surprised to find nothing there. “It must have closed when she passed out.”

Goure moved to the girl’s side and rolled her over. Tahiri turned without resistance and lay on her back with her eyes open. “Tahiri?” The Ryn felt for a pulse in her throat when there was no response. “She’s alive.”

Jaina tried to reach her through the Force one more time.
Tahiri?

Nothing. Jaina had never felt anyone so empty before. The girl felt hollow in the Force, almost—

She stopped the thought, not wanting to introduce the idea into her mind. But it was too late.

Almost invisible
, she thought.
Like the Yuuzhan Vong!

Jaina’s comlink beeped.

“Jaina?” Her mother’s voice came again over the comlink.

She turned away from Tahiri and raised her comlink. “Yes, Mom?”

“Rescue teams have reached the epicenter of the blast.”

Looking up, she could see movement through the hole. “We’re directly below. Are you with them?”

“Yes. They’ve started pulling bodies out of the rubble.”

A sickening sensation swept through her. If she’d only acted faster, not wasted time assuming the bomb could be defused …

“How many?” she asked.

“Four so far. And—”

Leia’s hesitation told her there was worse to come.

“What is it, Mom?”

“It’s Prime Minister Cundertol. He’s dead.”

Jaina looked down into Tahiri’s empty, almost accusing eyes. The hollowness she exhibited was catching.

“Jaina? Did you hear me?”

“I heard you, Mom. I’m on my way up.”

Goure took Tahiri into his arms and together they negotiated the rubble. As they reached the surface, Malinza’s words about the Cosmic Balance came back to haunt her.
Good works lead to evil results
. Jaina had been trying to do the right thing, but it had all gone so terribly wrong. Salkeli had betrayed her; Zel and Jjorg were dead; Tahiri was unconscious; the Prime Minister had been murdered—all of this, despite her best efforts.

It wasn’t just her, either. Uncle Luke had liberated the Bakurans from the Empire only to see them turn their backs on the Galactic Alliance. The New Republic had created the Bakuran Defense Fleet to protect the planet from the Ssi-ruuk, but half of it had been destroyed elsewhere in the galaxy, leaving Bakura vulnerable again. Bakura had never been the aggressor, yet bad things kept
happening to it. No wonder its people were eager to look for alternatives.