[Dark Nest] - 1(121)

“I don’t speak it. I just understand it.” Gorog drummed again, and he added, “She says you’re a killer.”

Coming from her son, the words felt like a vibroblade to the heart. “We talked about that, Ben. Sometimes I have to kill. Many Jedi Masters do. “

Gorog rumbled something else, and it seemed to Mara that there was something sharp in the insect’s rhythm, something spiteful and malevolent.

“Mom, what’s cold blood?” Ben asked.

“Is that what she’s saying?” Mara squatted down so she could look Gorog in the eye. Instead, she found herself staring at a dark sheaf of mandibles and mouthparts. “It means you kill when you don’t have to. I don’t do that.”

The Killik slowly moved away, carrying the table along on her back and drumming incessantly.

“She says you killed lots of people when you didn’t have to, for Palpytine,” Ben said. “Mom, who’s Palpytine?”

“Palpatine,” Mara corrected automatically. She felt as though the Emperor were reaching across time to her yet again, as though to prove how foolish she had been to believe she could ever truly escape him. “A bad man I used to know. How does Gorog know his name?”

A stream of brown saliva shot out from under the table. Mara’s reflexes were too quick for it to come near her face, but in the quarter second it took her to draw away, the insect came flying at her with the table still on its back. She activated her lightsaber instinctively-and heard Ben crying out over the crackle of the igniting blade.

“Don’t!” Ben cried. “Please!”

Mara deactivated the blade in a pang of motherly concern and whirled into a spinning back kick instead, her foot landing high because she had to lift her leg above Ben’s head. Instead of launching the Killik across the room, the attack simply knocked off the table and drove the insect to the floor.

A soft sizzle sounded from the wall beside Mara, and a sour, acrid smell filled her nostrils. She put down a hand to push Ben back, and Gorog slammed a mandible into her ankles, sweeping her from her feet.

Mara hit the floor flat on her back. The Killik stabbed a pair of sharp pincer-hands down on her shoulders and brought her head around, a hypo-shaped proboscis pushing out between the mandibles, venom dripping from its tip. Mara smashed her lightsaber handle into the tube, folding it over and drawing a boom of pain from the Killik’s chest cavity.

“Mom!” Ben cried.

“Go to your room!” Mara hooked her elbow around the arm on her shoulder and pulled, dropping Gorog to an elbow. “Now!”

The Killik reached for Mara’s neck with its other two hands.

Mara drove her free hand up under the insect’s jaw, then bridged on her shoulders and flipped it onto its back. She sprang instantly to her feet-and the Killik flexed a wing and flipped instantly to its feet.

Ben remained in the doorway, on the opposite side of the Killik from Mara.

“Ben, I’m very disappointed in you.” Mara’s shoulders were throbbing where the pincers had pierced them, and blood was running down the front of her jumpsuit. She could sense that Luke was only a couple of minutes behind her, but a lot could happen in two minutes-too much to be sure that she would not have to kill Ben’s friend. “You need to start obeying me and go find your father.”

“But you said to go to my-“

“Ben!” Mara brought her lightsaber up and started to circle toward him. “Just do as I say. You’re in enough trouble already.”

Ben’s face grew pale, and the Killik began to pivot with Mara, keeping itself between her and her son. She thought for a moment the Killik meant to use Ben as a hostage, but it was careful to stay away from him-as though it, too, were worried he might be accidentally injured.

“Ben, I think Gorog wants you to leave, too.”

Ben glanced at the Killik, then asked Mara, “Are you going to kill her?”

“Ben, I’m the one who’s bleeding here.”

“But you’re a Jedi Master,” Ben said. “It doesn’t matter if a Jedi Master bleeds.”

“You’ve been watching too many action holos,” Mara said. Nevertheless, she hung her lightsaber on her belt. “But, okay, I promise-if you leave right now.”

Gorog rumbled something that caused Ben to scowl.

“Maybe you should just be nice,” he said to the Killik. “Then maybe Mom would let you stay.”

Gorog thrummed, and Mara began to wish C-3PO were here to translate.

“She doesn’t always lie,” Ben protested. “Not even most-“

Gorog raised two hands and shooed him toward the door.

Ben sighed and left the room.