“Now that is just not right,” Han said, adding his own special counternote to the concert. “Why didn’t she marry Jag Fel when she had the chance?”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Leia said, following Han’s gaze. “If we don’t get her out of here soon, she might be spending more time than we like with Jag-being interrogated in his…”
Leia saw what Han had been looking at and let her sentence trail off. On the near side of the swarm, Jaina, Zekk, and Alema were frisking through the dance steps amid an eddy of dancers. The three Jedi were holding their hands above their heads, waving them in unison with the Killiks’ antennae. Every few seconds, Jaina and Zekk would bow forward with the entire nest and rub forearms with the antennae of whatever insect they happened to be facing. Alema bowed as well, but rubbed lekku instead of arms.
“It does look a little… unnatural,” Leia admitted.
“Not at all,” C-3PO assured them. “It’s a bonding dance, welcoming the birth of the new day. They perform it once a week, before they go to the Harem Cave to mate.”
Stomach tightening in alarm-or perhaps it was revulsion - Leia turned to Han. “We’ll talk to them as soon as the dance ends. You’re okay with the plan?”
“For what good it’ll do,” Han grumbled. “Kidnapping her would be easier-and we both know how well that would work.”
Leia grew exasperated with his pessimism. “Since when did you start worrying about the odds? You’re starting to sound-“
She was saved from uttering the lethal like Threepio by the thunderous reverberation of an alarm rumble. She turned and found all the Killiks looking toward one of the passage entrances that ringed the dance-field. The insects were holding their antennae vertical and motionless, and their mandibles were spread wide in menace. Most of the Joiners were mimicking the gesture to the extent that their various anatomies allowed, but Alema was the only Jedi doing the same.
“That doesn’t look good.” Han turned to scan the sky. “Chiss?”
“I’ll be happy to ask,” C-3PO said.
He shot a burst of squelch at a nearby Killik.
“The Taat speak Bocce?” Leia asked.
“Why, yes, Princess Leia. I’ve yet to discover a language the Killiks don’t understand. It seems they learn every language their Joiners know.” A second Killik turned and answered C-3PO’s question with a series of mandible clacks. “For instance, that was just Snutib click code.”
“And?” Han asked.
“It was quite fluent,” C-3PO said. “Though that particular dialect predates-“
“We’re more interested in what it said,” Leia clarified.
“My apologies.” C-3PO sounded disappointed. “I believe it concerns Jedi Sebatyne.”
“Saba?”
“Apparently, she appeared in the depths of the nest rather badly injured.”
A knot of Taat emerged from the tunnel, tumbling and staggering as they attempted to keep ahold of a flailing mass of scales. The rest of the Killiks turned as one to look in Han and Leia’s direction, then thrummed their chests.
“In fact, Taat is rather hoping that you might help calm down Master Sebatyne so their healers can close the small hole in her skull.”
Han took off at a sprint, with Jaina and the other young Jedi forcing their way across the dance-field behind him. Leia asked Meewalh to fetch the emergency medpac from the Falcon, then started running.
She arrived to find Saba strapped to a primitive stretcher, an elliptical slice of scalp and skull missing from one side of her head. Han was already standing at the Barabel’s side, trying to quiet her.
“I know they’re creepy looking,” he was saying. “But settle down. They’re trying to help.”
“No!” Saba’s eyes twitched as though she was trying to throw her head back and forth, but the head itself remained motionless. “Azzazzinz!”
Her lisp was more pronounced than usual-a bad sign, given the head wound. Leia also saw a number of other injuries-a circle of broken scales around her temple, some lost fingertips, a third of a tail missing, and some suspicious swelling on her neck and calf. Lying on the stretcher, strapped next to the injured tail, was something that hadn’t come off Saba-a human bicep fused at the elbow to a chitinous Killik forearm.
A blue chitinous forearm.
The Killiks holding Saba drummed in protest.
“They point out that Jedi Sebatyne’s brain is showing,” C-3PO translated. “She’s quite delusional.”
C-3PO rose into the air and began to spin like a pinwheel.
“What? Stop!… Put me down, you overgrown newt!”