[Dark Nest] - 1(28)
Alema smiled at the memory, then said, “Nesting wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Lowbacca banged his bowl down on the bench next to him, groaning in distaste and weary resignation. After the war, Jaina and the other strike team members had begun to notice unexplained mood swings whenever they were together. It had taken Cilghal only a few days to diagnose the problem as a delayed reaction to the Jedi battle-meld. Their prolonged use of it on the Myrkr mission had weakened the boundaries among their minds, with the result that now their emotions tended to fill the Force and blur together whenever they were close to each other.
Sometimes Jaina believed the side effect was also the reason so many strike team survivors found it difficult to move on with their lives. Tenel Ka was doing well as the Hapan queen, and
Tekli and Tahiri seemed to regard Zonama Sekot as both a friend and a home, but the rest of them-Jaina, Alema, Zekk, Tesar, Lowbacca, even Jacen-still seemed lost, unable to maintain a connection with anyone who had not been there. Jaina knew that was why she had failed to reconnect with Jagged Fel during their desperate rendezvous when he had still been serving as Chiss liaison to the Galactic Alliance. She loved him, but she’d just grown increasingly distant from him. From everyone, really.
Sensing that she had let her dour mood affect the others, Jaina forced a smile. “I do have some good news,” she said. “Jacen is coming.”
As she had hoped, this lifted spirits instantly-especially those of Tahiri, who shared a special kinship with Jacen by virtue of the time they had spent in Yuuzhan Vong torture dens.
But it was Alema-always quick to take an interest in males - who asked, “Can you tell how soon?”
“It’s hard to say,” Jaina answered. No one bothered to ask if she had actually spoken to her twin brother; there was no HoloNet in the Unknown Regions-and even if there had been, they were too close to the Chiss frontier to risk being overheard by a listening post. “But it feels like he’s made it past whatever was delaying him.”
“How will he find the Colony?” Tahiri asked. Though she could certainly sense Alema’s interest in Jacen as clearly as Jaina did, she seemed more amused by it than irritated. “Tekli and I would have been lost without Zonama Sekot’s help.”
“I left a message for him with the coordinates of the Lizil nest,” Jaina said. “So, assuming he tries to comm…”
She let the sentence trail off when she felt a sudden alarm. The sense did not ripple or grow or rise. It simply appeared inside Jaina, instantly full-blown and strong, and at first she thought she was feeling something inside her brother. Then bowls of thakitillo began to clack down on the spitcrete benches, and her companions started to rise and reach for their lightsabers.
“You feel it, too?” Jaina asked no one in particular.
“Fear,” Zekk confirmed. “Surprise.”
Lowbacca rawwled an addition.
“Resolve, too,” Jaina agreed.
“What the blazes?” Tahiri asked. “It’s like the Taat were a part of the meld, too.”
“Maybe they’re more Force-sensitive than we thought,” Alema suggested.
Jaina gazed around, searching the faces of her companions for any indication that the sensation had felt even remotely like a normal Force perception to someone else. She found only looks of confusion and doubt.
A familiar rumble rose deep inside the nest. Long plumes of black smoke began to shoot from the exhaust vents above the hangar cave, then a cloud of dartships poured into the air above the valley and began to climb toward Qoribu’s ringed disk.
“Looks like another defoliator squad coming in.” Jaina was almost relieved as she started toward their own hangar. After the unexpected feeling of alarm, she had feared something worse. “Let’s turn ‘em back.”
EIGHT
The wreck was a CEC YV-888 stock light freighter. Jacen could see that much from its tall hull, and from the stubs of the melted maneuvering fins on the rear engine compartment. The crash had occurred sometime within the last decade. He could guess that much from the faint odor of ash and slag that still wafted down the flowery slope from the jagged crater rim. But the vessel’s hull was too thickly covered in insects for him to be certain this was the ship, the one that would explain why he and Jaina and the others had been called so deep into the Unknown Regions.
Jacen waited for a throng of thumb-sized insects to scurry past on the enclosure wall, then placed a hand on top and vaulted over. A harsh rattle rose behind him as other, larger visitors pulsed their
wings
in disapproval. He paid no attention and started up the slope, feeling his way with the Force to avoid stepping on any tiny beings hidden in the flora. The Colony species came in an enormous variety of sizes and shapes, and any insects he happened to crush on monument grounds were more likely to be other visitors than foraging bugs.