The Crystal Star (17 page)

because their place in Lord Hethrir's plan was now at an end.

The children who remained in the school still had a chance to be promoted, to be purified, to be reborn in

the Lord's service, to wear the Lord's colors, to receive his orders.

Tigris glanced down at Anakin. The child was heavy. Tigris's arms ached with holding him. But Tigris

bore the pain gladly.

You're lucky, small child, Tigris thought.

You'll do much more to help my lord than I can ever hope to.

Lady Ucce transferred the payment from her accounts to those of Lord Hethrir.

"And naturally," she said, "I too will make a contribution, without recompense, to the cause of the Empire

Reborn." Lady Ucce glanced again at the display of her new purchases. She said nothing, but her eyes

were hungry.

"Power," Lord Hethrir whispered to her.

"Power is what is important." She gazed at him.

"Power over other sentient beings," the Lord said.

A slow smile curved her lips.

"You may do me a service," Lord Hethrir said.

"Gladly, my lord." Again, Lord Hethrir's signal was undetectable to Tigris.

The newest member of the Empire Youth entered silently, proud in his new coat, carrying a bottle of fine

wine and three delicate glasses on an inlaid tray.

"You may take this boy into your service, and establish him within the Republic." "It will be my pleasure

to secure a position for him, Lord Hethrir." "I will settle upon him... a substantial trust." The Youth could

not hide a smile of pride.

He opened the bottle and poured a splash for Lord Hethrir to taste. Tigris admired his lord for never

using a food-tester, even when he was away from his own kitchens and wine cellars. His actions

demonstrated his bravery, his invulnerability, better than any ^ws.

Lord Hethrir picked up the wineglass. The crystal was so delicate, so fine, that it rang when the Lord

touched it. The high clear note filled the chamber. Hethrir put the glass to his lips. The music stopped.

Hethrir tasted the wine, closed his eyes, swallowed, smiled.

Lord Hethrir allowed the Youth to fill his glass, and Lady Ucce's. But Lord Hethrir himself filled the third

glass, and gave it to the Youth. They all pointedly ignored Lord Qaqquqqu, who watched unhappily.

Lord Hethrir raised his glass. Lady Ucce and the Youth mirrored his gesture.

Tigris bowed his head.

Anakin struggled around to watch, his ice-blue eyes wide.

"To the Empire Rebornffwas "To the Empire Rebornffwas "To the Empire Rebornffwas

The airlock door of the passenger freighter slid aside, opening onto darkness. This far from any star

system, too little starlight existed to illuminate the cavernous entrance.

Leia's pressure suit clasped her warmly, shielding her from the frigid airlessness of space. Artoo-Detoo

followed her, with Chewbacca bringing up the rear. He looked strange and sleek in his form-fitting

pressure suit. Cautiously, Leia entered the freighter.

Nothing happened. No security system queried her presence; no light responded to her motion.

The freighter's power had been cut to such a low level that the gravity barely functioned.

Leia's feet touched the floor, but she could jump up and bounce off the ceiling, twice her height, if she

chose.

Silent in the vacuum, Artoo-Detoo accelerated to pass her. In the low artificial gravity, the droid's treads

catapulted him upward and forward in a long, uncontrolled bounce. Artoo-Detoo landed on the other

side of the airlock, bounced off the bulkhead, and finally came to rest. The droid circled slowly and

unhappily, searching for danger.

Chewbacca's surprised snort echoed in Leia's comlink. He loomed behind her. He was stiff and sore and

he probably could not move very quickly--not that moving quickly was a good idea in these

conditions--but she was glad to have him backing her up.

Leia turned on her searchlight.

Artoo-Detoo flashed his spotlights into the corners of the big cubical freight-loading airlock. Leia found

the interior controls. The last thing she needed was to be trapped inside the freighter with only Alderaan's

cleaning droids left to try to get her out. But neither Artoo nor Chewbacca had been willing to stay

behind, and she certainly would not send them in alone.

The controls responded to her commands. She set the air-lock to cycling.

The outer door slid shut. It made no sound, but its vibration rumbled through Leia's boots. Despite the

warmth of her suit, she shivered. The last streak of black space and distant, pinpoint stars vanished.

Air entered the freight dock. The air pressure crept upward. Leia fidgeted, wishing she could run the

process at full speed.

But the power plant had been damped down almost to nothing. She could not risk draining the

life-support systems of the sleeping passengers.

Chewbacca made a plaintive cry.

"I don't know what I'm looking for," Leia said. "The kidnappers stopped here, and I don't know where

they went next. If you have a better idea I'd love to hear it." Chewbacca snorted.

Leia's pressure suit sampled the air.

It was breathable, though rather low in oxygen. It would be safer to stay in her suit and not worry about

contamination--or passing out from anoxia.

Finally the inner door slid aside and admitted Leia to the passenger freighter. The ship was divided into

huge sections, each filled with racks of sleep coffins. The life systems balanced on the edge of failure.

Some coffins had gone dark; the people inside had died.

Chewbacca moaned in memory and despair.

Leia touched his hand in sympathy. These people had been stolen, as he had been. Their fortune had

failed them.

Leia rubbed the dust from the transparent carapace of one of the sleep coffins. Beneath the glass, a

humanoid lay like a fairy-tale prince. His long hair, striped gold and brown, curled in tangles around his

face and grew along his chin, like sideburns.

"From Firrerre," Leia said. She swiped her glove along the windows of several of the other sleeping

coffins. All the people were from the same world.

"The Empire wiped them all out--wiped out everything on their world. They used a biological weapon...

but it's so dangerous no one ever dared land there again. I thought the people were extinct...." If she

could save them, find them a suitable world to settle, they could rebuild their civilization.

Leia wished she could find a shipful of people from Alderaan.

Maybe I will, she thought. Maybe one of those other ships carries people from my homeworld. Maybe

--somehow--maybe the Empire abducted some of my people. Before it destroyed my world.

Leia set the first sleep coffin to "wake." "Can you find the controls of this ship?" Leia asked Chewbacca.

"Can you get the power back?" He set off down a dark corridor. Leia hurried after him, walking with a

low-gravity skiing bounce. Artoo-Detoo followed, whistling plaintively. Every time the droid tried to

speed up, he left the ground and spun his treads uselessly until he came to rest.

Chewbacca loped unerringly through several intersections and took several turns through the complex

corridors. Either he was familiar with passenger freighters from his own experience, or he had found

reason to study their plans. Leia decided not to question him; if he wanted to tell her his experiences, he

would.

In the depths of the ship, he found a small chamber with no portholes, not even any viewscreens to the

outside. The room was close and stuffyou. Displays glowed faintly with low readouts.

Chewbacca studied the levels for a moment, then traced a pattern into the controls. The ship came alive

around them, lights brightening, air shusshing through the ventilation. Even the brittle cold eased. Leia's

pressure suit stopped straining to keep her warm.

"Good," Leia said. "Thank you. I'm going back to the sleep coffin so the Firrerreo doesn't wake up

alone." Chewbacca growled in negation and showed her a separate readout.

"What is it?" But he was already loping out of the control room, bounding in long low-gravity leaps along

the corridor. Leia followed as quickly as she could.

She had little experience in very low gravity or free fall; she did not want to go tumbling in the air like

Artoo-Detoo.

Chewbacca's cry of grief and rage echoed through the hallway.

Leia found him in a cabin as white and clean as a surgery. He stared upward.

A Firrerreo hung from strange, writhing webbing that hugged her body against the ceiling.

Her eyes were open and staring. Her sharp-featured face was gaunt. Her long hair, striped with black

and silver, drifted in the air currents as if it were alive. The webbing cut into her golden-tan skin. She

moved.

"She's alive!" Leia cried.

The webbing tightened, cutting into her emaciated arms and legs. The Firrerreo froze without a sound.

Only her eyes moved; her gaze touched Leia for a moment. Nictitating membranes crept across her

black irises, making her look blind.

"Get her down, quick--c you reach her?" Chewbacca stretched upward and tentatively poked at a stray

web filament.

"No..." The Firrerreo's voice was hoarse, growling.

Chewbacca snatched his hand back as the filament whipped into a spiral that nearly captured him.

Behind them, someone snorted in disgust and amusement.

Leia spun toward the new voice.

Chewbacca grabbed for his blaster.

Unfortunately, he was unarmed.

The Firrerreo Leia had awakened stood in the doorway, clutching the frame to keep himself on his feet.

"You can't get her down like that," he said. "You can only get yourself tangled in the web." "It's torturing

her!" Leia said. "We have to free her." Artoo-Detoo extended connectors into the cell's data port. Like a

locksmith, the droid tested one connector module, then another.

The data port violently ejected Artoo-Detoo's module. Spinnerets popped out of the wall and spurted

web silk over the droid. Artoo-Detoo squealed and spun his treads backward. This time the low gravity

aided him, for he backflipped into the air and ripped the webbing away before it could immobilize him.

The Firrerreo laughed.

"Stop it!" Leia snapped. She grabbed the web silk and pulled it away from Artoo-Detoo's carapace. She

could remove the soft, delicate fibers, but she could not break them. When she tried, they cut into her

skin. She brushed them quickly from her hands, before they drew blood. Artoo-Detoo backed away

from the filaments.

Chewbacca growled, glaring at the Firrerreo.

"What's your name?" Leia asked. "How can you think this is funny?" "I might ask you the same thing," he

replied. "After all, you're the intruder." "I woke you up. I probably saved your life." "Who asked you to?"

he said, his voice a low snarl.

Taken aback, Leia paused to collect herself.

I'm a diplomat, she thought. I can manage this.

"I don't mind telling you my name," she said.

She minded very much telling him her real name.

She told him her false identity, the identity that owned Alderaan. It felt strange to call herself by her

nickname from childhood.

"I'm Lelila, and this is my companion Geyyahab." She nodded toward Chewbacca, who gave her a

quizzical look. She had chosen for him a name from Wookiee mythology, from a story the twins loved to

hear. But the character was not entirely heroic. Leia wondered if Chewbacca was offended by her

choice--or if it were religiously offensive, even blasphemous, for her to give him a mythological alias.

I don't know much about his people's religion, Leia realized.

The Firrerreo sneered. "I do not care to tell you my name," he said. "But her name is Rillao." The name

sounded like a snarl, the information like an insult.

Leia gestured toward the ceiling. "Please help me free her." "She's not my clan," he said. "I owe her

nothing. I owe you nothing." "If I pay you, will you owe me?" "I have no use for money here." "What will

it lose you, to help me?" "Nothing," he said. But he did not act.

"What do you want?" Leia cried.

"What are you?" he asked. "A pirate?

Or an Imperial flunky sent to torment us?" "I'm neither," she said. "Do I look like a stormtrooper? Did

you see troopers when you came down here?" He regarded her suspiciously. "I want my freedom," he

said.

"It's yours," she said instantly. "Please.

Help us." His eyes narrowed till they nearly closed, then abruptly he made a decision and bent over the

console that had defeated Artoo-Detoo. He was familiar with its workings, and that made Leia

uncomfortable. This cell in the depths of the ship had no purpose other than punishment and torture.

Perhaps he was a collaborator. Perhaps the Empire had built the freighter with a prison cell so some of

the passengers could wield power over others.

He stood back from the controls and glanced at Leia with a smirk. When he looked over her shoulder,

she followed his gaze.

Rillao drifted slowly from the ceiling. The webworks stretched, then contracted, pulling away from her

body, pulling out of her body. The ends of the silver strands were dark with her blood.

Chewbacca's growl was soft and low and angry and nearly inaudible. He caught Rillao gently.

She did not move.

"Let's get her to--ffmy ship." Leia almost gave herself away by revealing the name of Alderaan. It was

too good a clue. She would have to give her ship an alias, too.