The Crystal Star (22 page)

The children were alone in the cafeteria.

"Let's go out!" Jaina said. She did not know what she could do once she was outside, but she felt

desperate to get away from this cold hard building.

She and Jacen ran down the long dark corridor. All the other children followed them. They burst out into

the light, as the tiny planet's tiny sun leaped into the sky. The little planet spun fast, so its days were much

shorter than regular days. The children shouted and ran and cheered in the warmth.

Jaina and Jacen held hands and leaned backward and spun around and around, just like the little planet.

Jaina whipped her hair back and forth till she felt dizzy. She and Jacen fell down in the sand, panting and

laughing.

Jaina jumped up again and Jacen jumped up beside her.

"Jaina, Jaina, you're okay!" "Jacen, I missed you so much! I don't know where Anakin is!" "If we could

reach for him--" Jacen said. his--we might be able to find him. B--" his--we have to run far away from

that blanket!" Jacen finished their shared thought. Jaina was glad he thought about it the same way she

did, but that did not help them figure out how to get away from it.

"We have to get past the dragon," Jaina said.

"There's no dragon," Jacen said scornfully. "That's just to scare us." He marched straight toward the

canyon fence, straight into the blank space.

Jaina ran after him. The dragon jumped out of the sand and roared and bounced against the fence. Jaina

grabbed Jacen and pulled him back till the dragon could not see them anymore. She did not have to pull

him very hard because he was scared too, but he was also amazed.

The dragon forgot it had seen them and snuffled around the edge of the fence looking for a soft warm

patch of sand.

"Wow," Jacen whispered.

"Maybe I could jump up and down and wave and--" She was thinking Jacen could run around behind

and climb the fence. But then she would still be stuck inside.

"Maybe I could tame her," Jacen said.

"And we could ride her away!" Jaina had no idea how Jacen knew it was a Mistress Dragon and not a

Mister Dragon.

But he was always right about this sort of stuff.

"Ride her?" Jaina said, entranced.

Then Jacen's lips trembled. "But maybe the Proctors would hurt her the way they hurt the myrmins."

"How could they hurt a dragon?" Jaina asked.

"With their lightsabers!" "They'd be too scared! I bet they wouldn't even get close to her." "With a

blaster, then," Jacen said.

"Oh. Yeah." "Maybe we could distract her," Jacen said thoughtfully.

"We better do it fast," Jaina said.

"I need something to throw," Jacen said. He looked around but there was just sand.

The dragon lumbered to the fence and rubbed her nubbly-scaled shoulder against the wire mesh, closing

her eyes and groaning happily.

If Jaina could use her abilities, she could easily distract the dragon. Together with Jacen, they might even

be able to stop the dragon. But Jaina thought that would be a lot to try to do, without Uncle Luke's help.

"I know!" Jaina pulled her multitool out of her pocket.

Jacen grabbed for it eagerly.

"No, wait!" Jaina snatched it back.

"Don't throw it." She opened up the lens and caught the light and flashed it on the ground in front of the

dragon.

"Isn't she pretty?" Jacen said.

When the dragon opened her eyes, she saw the concentrated point of light from Jaina's lens.

She snorted and lowered her head. Jaina gave the multitool to Jacen. He was better with critters than she

was.

He wiggled the light near the dragon's front paws. The dragon put her paw on the place where the light

was. Then she had to put her other paw on top of her first paw, and still the light was not covered. She

pulled her first paw out from under her second paw and lost her balance. She rolled completely over,

snortling and wriggling.

Then she jumped up and looked around for the light.

Jacen moved it around for her to chase. She jumped forward after it, shaking the ground when she

landed, raising great sprays of sand. Jaina laughed with delight.

By now all the other children had gathered behind Jaina and Jacen to watch the dragon play.

Jacen danced the light before the dragon, who gallumphed after it, pouncing to try to catch it.

Jacen skipped the light up the cliffside that projected beyond the fence. The dragon scratched the rock

with her front feet, ripping loose bits of stone. She roared joyously.

She lashed her tail.

All the time, Jacen kept moving closer to the fence, crossing the undisturbed ground till he was right up

against the thick metal mesh. Jaina followed him. The other children stayed back, still frightened of the

dragon.

"Hey, dragon," Jacen said softly.

"Hey, Mistress Dragon." He wiggled the light down the cliff again, and the dragon followed.

The light crept toward the fence.

The dragon followed.

Jacen brought the spark of sunlight right up next to the fence. Jaina caught her breath. Her heart beat very

fast.

The dragon's snout pressed against the fence.

Her big teeth stuck out of her mouth and she drooled in the sand. Her tongue flicked, flicked, flicked

between her lips. Her eyes were the size of Jaina's fists, big and gold. The dragon blinked her heavy

beaded eyelids. Her hot breath ruffled the sand where the spot of light lay.

Jacen was having trouble keeping the light near the dragon because the sun was already falling in the sky.

As the spot of light faded, Jacen put his hand through the fence. Jaina gasped. Jacen touched the

dragon's great eyebrow, and rubbed her smooth scales.

"There, Mistress Dragon," Jacen said.

He rubbed harder. The dragon pressed against his hand, and made a low, rumbling, pleasant snorting

sound. The dragon did not mind that she could no longer play with the light.

"She likes you," Jaina whispered.

"She's all alone," Jacen said. "She's lonely, she's a little dragon, she wants someone to play with." "Hey!

You children!" The dragon jerked her head up, startled by the shout. Jaina turned around. The Head

Proctor stood at the head of the stairwell. The other children scattered away into the twilight.

The dragon roared. The fence rang as she rose up and crashed against it. Jacen snatched his hand away

from the fence, and he and Jaina ran to the playfield. Jacen pressed the multitool into Jaina's hand, and

she hid it in her pocket.

The Head Proctor laughed at them.

"Now you'll believe in the dragon, I think," he said. "You children all line up!

You've been very bad. I told you to get back to your studies." "We couldn't hear you, sir," Jaina said

respectfully. "We thought you said to go outside." He glared at her. He looked very uncomfortable. He

had swelling red bites on his wrists and his neck. He kept moving inside his uniform as if he wanted to

scratch. Jaina looked him straight in the eye without laughing, even though she wanted to laugh.

"That's right, sir," Jacen said. "I thought I heard you say to go outside, and I was much closer to you than

my sister!" "That's right, sir," one of the other children said.

The Head Proctor was wearing a rumpled uniform with a dirty smudge across one arm, and all his

medals pinned on crooked.

I bet he didn't do his laundry when he was supposed to! Jaina thought. I bet he lets it pile up all over the

floor of his room, and he didn't have anything clean to put on when the myrmins and the sand got in his

clothes.

Jaina felt very grateful to Winter, who always encouraged Jaina and Jacen to pick up after themselves.

She had even shown them how to do their laundry if they needed to, if the laundry droid wasn't working

or forgot how you liked your clothes ironed.

"Get in line," the Head Proctor said.

All the other children lined up behind Jaina and Jacen.

The Proctors marched the children back inside.

Jaina sighed. They had not escaped, and now they would have to spend all day staring at the horrible,

dull displays that said how wonderful everything would be when Hethrir made himself Emperor.

Probably Lord Hethrir would come and lecture them, too. She was scared of that. He would probably

know that she had caused all the trouble.

Jaina yearned for her classes back home.

Sometimes she and Jacen read stories to Winter or to Papa and Mama. Sometimes they made up

stories! Jaina was learning number theory and she loved it, it was so beautiful. On Mundo Codru, Jacen

had been studying first aid with Dr. Hyos and her child. Jaina bet Jacen was as bored with these dumb

displays as she was. She bet all the children were bored.

Instead of taking the children to the study desks, the Proctors herded them back to their rooms. Most of

the children groaned.

"Be quiet!" the Head Proctor shouted.

"Your discipline is dreadful! Lord Hethrir will never choose any of you as his helpers at this rate." The

children fell silent. Jaina realized she should have groaned, too, but the truth was that she no longer feared

the dark of her cell. She was overjoyed that she would have a few hours, maybe all the way until

tomorrow morning, by herself, to work and plan.

"You'll spend the day in bed," the Head Proctor said. "So that tomorrow, you'll appreciate the

opportunity Lord Hethrir gives you to learn." He opened Jaina's door and pushed her inside and slammed

the door closed after her.

Bits of sawdust scattered to the floor. But the Head Proctor had not noticed that Jaina had been drilling

the wood.

And Lord Hethrir had not come to lecture them or inspect them.

Finally, outside Jaina's cell, the faint sounds of closing doors and the voices of the Proctors and the

sounds of their boots on the floor stopped.

Jaina rubbed some molecules of air together and created a faint light to work with. She brushed the last

of the sawdust away from the hole she had made, pulled out her multitool, and began to drill again.

For several hours, the Firrerre passenger freighter hovered in space, coming alive. The first thing it did,

long before it reached full power, was to disengage itself from Alderaan.

Leia took her ship out of range of the freighter's propulsion field.

"Good luck," she said, transmitting to the nameless Firrerreo.

He did not reply. The freighter hovered in space, gathering itself for its lonely voyage.

Even if Leia could do any more to help the Firrerre ship, its inhabitants did not want her aid.

Leia checked on Rillao, who remained asleep. But Artoo-Detoo and the medical equipment thought her

body was regaining its strength.

"Thank you for watching her," Leia said to Artoo-Detoo.

Chewbacca came in and looked mournfully at the sleeping Firrerreo.

"What are we going to do?" Leia said. "This is a dead end! The trail is gone." She tried again, reaching

out desperately all around her for any trace of her children.

Rillao's pain had blasted the trail out of existence.

The kidnappers tortured her, Leia thought.

The nameless Firrerreo was wrong: Rillao wasn't left here by the Empire at all. The kidnappers tortured

her so no one could follow them!

Unless... they're the same people.

That would make sense, Leia thought. And it would explain how they knew where to find the passenger

freighters. But it doesn't give me any better clues to finding them.

Chewbacca put one giant hand on her shoulder. The fur of his fingers tickled Leia's cheek. His plaintive

groan conveyed his sympathy and his grief. Leia's family was his family, his Honor Family. He had chosen

to share his life with the people she loved. She could not remain angry at him.

"The Firrerreo was right about one thing!" Leia said. "Our disguise is no disguise at all.

We'll never get anywhere if everyone knows we're Leia and Chewbacca. And if we're up against

Imperial loyalists--come on!" She took Chewbacca to her cabin and pulled out all the cosmetics in the

dressing-table drawer.

Chewbacca looked at them quizzically.

"You didn't think my eyelids were this color naturally, did you?" she asked. "Didn't you notice the color

changes sometimes?" He snorted.

"No, my skin doesn't camouflage itself!" Leia said.

As she spoke, she pulled the pins from her hair and unbraided the long plait. Chewbacca watched with

astonishment.

I so seldom take my hair down, she thought. Hardly anyone has seen me with my hair down in years...

except Han.

She had thought, over the years, of cutting her hair, but the idea was too radical. On Alderaan, adults

grew their hair long and usually kept it bound.

Feeling reckless, Leia brushed her hair loose and free over her shoulders. She stood up. Her hair spilled

almost to her knees. She kept brushing it, till it parted down the center and hung on either side of her face

and draped down over her breasts. It tended to fall across her eyes, so she looked out through a curtain.

All the better, she thought. All the better to hide me with.

She rummaged through the bottles and packets.

Some she had bought on a whim and never even tried.

She kept them on her ship because her ship was her place for whims and fancies.

Leia remembered the first time she had taken Han out on Alderaan. She shook the stirring memory away.

Now was no time for such memories.

Several packets of color-crawlers lay in her hand.

"Aren't you tired of being chestnut all the time, Chewbacca?" she said. She tore open a package of black