[Dark Nest] - 1(87)
“We all can,” Zekk added. “No daughter of mine-“
“-is going to become a bughugger,” Alema finished.
“Hey, no fair!” Han objected. “Just because I don’t like bugs doesn’t mean I’m wrong. There’s something sneaky going on here-and Raynar’s in it up to his neck.”
“You don’t know that,” Jaina said.
“This is the third time we’ve been attacked,” Leia reminded her. “And Raynar did tell us he was afraid we’d try to take you away.”
“Then he can stop worrying, because we’re not going anywhere until the Chiss leave,” Jaina said. “So hurry up and make that happen.”
She opened her arms to embrace Han, but he stepped back shaking his head. “No, Jaina, I’m not giving this my-“
“I wasn’t looking for your blessing, Dad.” Jaina’s voice had grown hard-not angry, just hard. “And I guess I’d be foolish to hope for anything else.”
“If you’re going to be ronto-brained about this, yeah,” Han said. “I’ll tell you what. You take Saba back in the Falcon, and your mother and I’ll stay here to handle the Chiss.”
“And recover Lowie,” Leia added.
“You’d let me fly the Falcon home?” Jaina asked, cocking her head in an all-too-Killik-like fashion. “Alone?”
“Well, with Alema and Zekk,” Han said. “Sure.”
Jaina scowled. “Who do you think you’re talking to, Dad? I know how you feel about insects.” She turned her back on Han and held her arms out to Leia. “Mother?”
“I wish you’d listen to your father.” Leia’s chest grew heavy, for she could see Han’s frustration with Jaina turning to anger. “You do know you might be the real prize in this conflict? Raynar isn’t the earnest young man who went to Myrkr with you. He’s desperate and lonely. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had instigated the whole border conflict just to draw you-“
“Mom, sometimes you think too much.” Jaina lowered her arms, then turned and started away. “You’d better get the Falcon off this moon. I’ll try to warn Aunt Mara through the Force.”
“Jaina!” Han barked.
Jaina ignored him.
Zekk said, “Do what you can with the Chiss. We’ll keep things in check here.”
He turned and started after Jaina.
“This isn’t over, you know!” Han said to their backs. “We’re going to come back.”
Jaina waved over her shoulder, but Alema remained where she was, in front of the Solos.
“I’ll be going with you,” the Twi’lek said to Leia.
Jaina and Zekk both stopped and whirled around in surprise.
“You will?” Jaina asked.
“We didn’t expect this,” Zekk said.
“They’ll need a guide,” Alema explained. “They can’t go back the same way they came without stopping at Yoggoy, and that may not be a good idea-at least not until we know who’s behind these attacks.”
Jaina scowled at the unexpected change of plan, but nodded and turned to her father. “Do you have room on the Falcon?”
“Sure,” Han said. “Why don’t you all come?”
TWENTY
Even curled into the primal egg position on the Falcon’s medbay bunk, staring dead ahead with glazed eyes, Saba looked more annoyed by her wounds than pained by them. Her pebbly lips were drawn back in a frozen sneer, with the tips of her forked tongue showing between her fangs, and the claws on her hands were fully extended. She held her bandaged tail wrapped tightly around her hindquarters, and if she was breathing at all, Leia saw no sign of it in her constricted nostrils and motionless chest.
“She looks like she’s dying,” Alema whispered over Leia’s shoulder. “Is she dying?”
“I don’t know.” Leia checked the monitors and found a single spike on the cardio-line. There was a barely discernible upward slope on the respiratory chart. “I think it’s just a healing trance.”
“Well, she looks like she’s dying,” Alema said.
Saba’s tongue shot out and snapped the air, drawing a surprised gasp from both Leia and Alema, then returned to its place between her teeth. The Barabel’s eyes remained fixed and glazed.
“Healing trance,” Leia concluded.
“Do you think she’ll survive?”
Leia studied the silken bandage that covered half of Saba’s skull. “With that head wound, anyone else would be dead already,” she said. “But Saba’s a Barabel. Who knows?”
Alema’s only answer was a long, concerned silence.