[Dark Nest] - 1(171)

“If we saved Lomi and Welk, we did this.”

“You should get a medal for saving them,” Han said. “What happened later, that’s not your fault.”

That got Raynar’s attention. He stopped and turned to Han. “This is not our fault?”

“No way,” Han said. “All you did was save their lives. That doesn’t make you responsible for what they did later.”

“We are not responsible.” Raynar’s voice was filled with relief, and Unu’s clacking died away. “That’s right.”

The spray of shine-ball light slowly began to contract back toward Raynar, and Leia felt Kyp reaching out to her, demanding an explanation, but she could not sense what he wanted explained.

“Maybe this is a Chiss ruse,” Raynar said, talking more to himself than Han now. “It must have been a trick to convince the Jedi that the Colony is in the wrong.”

Saba shined her helmet lamp into one of the cells. “To this one, it lookz like the trick was on the Chisz.”

“The Chiss are ruthless,” Raynar said. There was an ominous note of insistence to his gravelly voice. “They would sacrifice a thousand of their own kind to turn the Jedi against us.”

“That doesn’t explain the Gorog that attacked us on the way in,” Leia said. She was alarmed by how Raynar was trying to reshape reality, by how he seemed to be searching for a story that worked. “They weren’t Chiss-and neither are all these larvae.”

“Yes, it was a very insidious plan,” Raynar said. “The Gorog must have been brain-slaves. They were forced to fight-and to feed on Chiss volunteers.”

“Perhaps,” Leia allowed carefully. In a human mind, she would have called Raynar’s thought process a psychotic break; in the collective mind of the Colony, she didn’t know what to make of it. “But there is another explanation.”

“The Chiss are creating Killik clones?” Raynar asked.

“I don’t think so,” Leia said.

The Unu entourage began to return, many of them drawing the helpless, wide-eyed forms of the Chiss survivors that the rescue team had been pulling out of the cells. Kyp and the other Masters were also approaching, pouring their displeasure into the battle-meld. Saba reached out to them, urging them to stand by, assuring them Leia was in control.

Thanks a lot, Leia thought.

“Do you remember what we were talking about?” Leia asked, continuing to address Raynar. “The Dark Nest?”

“Of course. Our memory is excellent.” Raynar’s eyes turned bright and angry. “Han said we were not responsible.”

‘That’s right,” Leia said. Her vision began to dim around the edges again, and the heavy presence she had experienced before returned to her chest. “But that doesn’t… mean…”

The murky weight inside grew heavier, and Leia began to understand that Raynar had been damaged as much on the inside as on the outside. Hopelessly marooned, in unimaginable anguish, dependent on a bunch of insects-the shock had just been too much. Raynar had dissociated from the situation, literally becoming UnuThul so he would not recall all the terrible things that had happened to Raynar Thul.

“We understand what not responsible means,” Raynar said. “It means that just because the Dark Nest exists, we are not the ones who created it. ” He pointed to the nearest captive, a frightened-looking male wearing the black shreds of a CEDF gunnery officer’s uniform. “The Chiss did.”

The officer’s face paled to ash, and his eyes grew even wider - the only signs of fear that his paralyzed body could still exhibit.

“What we do not understand,” Raynar said, “is the purpose of this nest.”

An unintelligible groan rose from the Chiss’s throat, so weak and low that Leia took it to be more of a pained whimper than an attempt to speak.

“Tell us!” Raynar commanded.

The officer moaned again, but the noise sounded even less like words than before.

“We know you are lying.” Raynar’s tone was ominous, and the officer’s face grew white. “Do not insult us.”

“I don’t think he means to,” Leia said. She felt certain that the officer had not said anything at all; Raynar’s shattered psyche was just imposing its own meaning on the Chiss’s incoherent groans. “I’m sure he doesn’t even know that the Chiss created this nest.”

Raynar turned back to Leia. “You are sure?”

“Perhaps confident is a better word,” Leia corrected. Again, the weight pressed down inside, and she knew she had to tell Raynar something he wished to hear-something that would make him agree to her plan. “What if the Chiss didn’t even know they created the Dark Nest?”