[Dark Nest] - 3(83)

“I did?” Mara asked. Obviously, she had not been able to see Lomi Plo, either. “You’re sure?”

Jacen shook his head. “We don’t … know.” He grabbed Luke’s sleeve and pulled him closer. “You showed her… your fear, and she used it … against you.”

Mara caught Luke’s eye, then nodded past his shoulder. “I’ll take care of Jacen,” she said. “You take care of Lomi Plo.”

Luke took Jacen’s power blaster and slowly turned around, quieting his own thoughts and emotions, surrendering himself to the Force so that he could feel its currents and search for the cold stillness that would be Lomi Plo. He felt nothing, not even the telltale ripples of her Gorog warriors.

“I think she’s gone,” Luke said. “I can’t see her anymore.”





NINETEEN


Interrogation cells were the same the galaxy over: dark, cramped, and stark, usually too hot or too cold. The interrogator usually had a breathing problem, some wheeze or rasp or even an artificial respirator that suggested he had been cuffed to a chair a time or two himself. This interrogator, a blue-skinned Chiss in the black uniform of a Defense Fleet commander, spoke with a wet snort. It was probably caused by the old wound above his black eye patch, a thumb-sized dent deep enough to have collapsed his sinus cavities.

As the officer approached, Leia’s nostrils filled with the harsh stench of charric fumes-probably what passed for deodorant aboard a Chiss Star Destroyer. He stopped a meter and a half from her chair, running his good eye over her as though contemplating what a Jedi woman looked like beneath her robes. Leia pretended not to notice. The “undressing” was an old interrogator’s trick, designed to make a prisoner feel more powerless than she really was. Leia had endured such scrutiny more times than she wanted to remember-and that applied especially to the time the interrogator had been Darth Vader.

Finally, the interrogator met her gaze and said, “You’re awake. Good.”

“I’m glad one of us thinks that’s good,” Leia said.

“Frankly, I would’ve preferred to sleep until my head stops hurting.”

The interrogator’s red eye glimmered as he filed this tidbit away for future use. Again, Leia pretended not to notice. She intended to lay a trail of such tidbits for him … a trail that would lead straight to the identity of the person who had betrayed their mission.

“Yes … the knockout gas.” The interrogator’s impediment caused him to pronounce gas as khas. “After the trouble we had taking Jedi Lowbacca into custody, we felt it necessary to be prudent with you and Master Sebatyne.”

“You could have asked politely.”

The interrogator offered her a thin smile. “We did. You destroyed two of our clawcraft.”

Leia shrugged. “There was a little misunderstanding.”

“Is that what you call it?” His voice remained steady, but there was an angry heat to it. “Then perhaps we should make certain there are no more misunderstandings.”

He stepped back and gestured toward a sizable display screen hanging in the corner. On cue, an image appeared, showing Han cuffed into a chair similar to Leia’s. Another Chiss officer, younger than the one in Leia’s cell but with a harder blue face, stood next to Han. On a nearby table lay an array of nerve probes, laser scalpels, and electrical clips-a virtual smorgasbord of torture.

Leia gasped, her heart suddenly hammering hard. She turned to her interrogator, struggling to regain her composure. “Captain Fel promised there would be no torture.”

“If you surrendered.” A wet rumble sounded from the back of the interrogator’s mouth as he inhaled. “Instead, you continued your attempts to escape until he trapped you against the Shattered Moon.”

“A Chiss is going to hide behind a technicality?”

Leia knew that the contempt in her voice only confirmed to the interrogator that he had found his leverage, but she could not help herself. After discovering that the moon cluster was filled with Killiks, she had been the one who argued against making a run for the planet. With a faulty control system and Zark Squadron and two Star Destroyers ready to blast the Falcon to space dust, it had just seemed wiser to surrender and escape later. Now she wasn’t so sure. To he willing to break promises and threaten torture, the Chiss had to he in desperate circumstances-and a desperate foe was the most dangerous kind.

The interrogator remained silent, giving Leia’s emotions time to build, trying to move her from fear to anger to hopelessness as quickly as possible.

But Leia had already regained control of her feelings and hid her fear behind a cool voice. “I see I’ll have to revise my opinion of the Ascendancy.”