[Galaxy Of Fear] - 04(26)

Zak knew. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name, and he said it quickly. “We could lose each other.”

The battle droid was closing in on them. “My worst fear isn’t being attacked by technology, or eaten by a rancor, or even losing Uncle Hoole. Tash, my worst fear is losing you! My sister!”

The battle droid was almost upon them.

“Don’t you see? We haven’t faced our worst fear yet because we’re still together!”

Zak’s urgent words cut through Tash’s brain like a laser. In the time it took to think a thought, she realized: “My intuition. It has been working all along. It’s been trying to tell me, Zak. ‘One of us must die!’ Get it?”

A blaster bolt melted the gems in the path at their feet.

Zak looked around, and his eye settled on the airlock door. He pushed open the first door, and stepped into the airtight room beyond. Now just one thick door separated him from the lifeless void. He pointed. “Should we go together?”

Tash shook her head. “I think we have to separate. That’s the fear. Being apart. Losing each other.”

He nodded and reached for the button that would open the second door. “Zak!” Tash burst out. “Listen, I tease you a lot, but you’re my brother, and- “

“Yeah,” he said, happy to interrupt his sister for once

in

a conversation. “Me too.”

Zak put his hand on the button and looked hack. The battle droid was almost in reach of Tash. At the last moment, he hesitated. A new fear chilled his heart. What if Tash were a hologram, too? What if she were an illusion designed to trick him into destroying himself?

He shrugged. That was just another fear he was going to have to face.

He pushed the button.

Zak felt like the hands of an invisible giant had thrown him out of Fun World. Head over heels, he found himself spinning out into… nothing. It wasn’t air, it wasn’t water. It was the void, and it was so cold that his hones turned instantly brittle.

Everything went black.





CHAPTER 17


Zak woke with a jolt, as though his mind had suddenly slammed back into his body. He was lying on cold metal. For a moment, he could not move. His body felt heavy. His arms and legs were numb. He felt like he’d been sleeping for many hours. He could not open his eyes.

Straining with his ears, Zak heard a soft, wet, squishing sound, like the sound of liquid passing through a suction tube. The sound was very close. He listened carefully.

The sound was coming from right between his own eyes.

Because he was blind, his other senses sharpened, and Zak felt the skin on his forehead.

Something was stuck to the skin of his head. Something was stuck into the skin of his head.

Gathering all his strength, Zak forced his eyes to open. He was staring into a bright light and he blinked once, twice, three times, before his vision cleared.

He was lying down, looking up at the ceiling of The Nightmare Machine.

Between him and the ceiling, on a pedestal, crouched the brain creature. It screeched angrily at him. Zak managed to sit up.

Tash was lying on a table next to him, and she, too, was waking up. Beyond her was another table, and still another, where other victims lay unconscious. Each of them had a thick, wet tentacle attached to their foreheads. The strings of flesh stretched from each victim back to the fearsome creature’s gaping mouth.

Zak’s stomach turned when he realized that he, too, had a tentacle attached to his head. Gagging, he grabbed at the tendril. It ripped away from his skin with a sickening squish, and The Nightmare Machine creature wailed. Beside him, Tash freed herself the same way.

The creature squealed in pain and rose up to its full height. Its weird spindly arms thrashed through the air.

Then it fell back into a quivering crouch, snarling at Zak and Tash.

Zak and Tash backed away from the creature. The monster took one menacing step off its pedestal.

Zak felt his back touch a wall, and at the same time, he realized someone on the other side was pounding desperately on it. He turned, saw a door, and quickly slapped the opener. The door slid back.

Lando Calrissian leaped into the room, a small holdout blaster in his hand. The brain creature took another step forward, snarling at the newcomer. Without hesitating, Lando leveled his weapon and fired. An energy bolt pierced the creature’s oversized head, shattering its skull.

“Lando!” Zak cried joyfully. “You’re alive!”

The gambler’s roguish grin was gone. “I could say the same for you, kid.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Don’t count your dragon eggs before they’re hatched. We’re not out of this yet.”

“I’m afraid Master Calrissian is correct,” said a familiar voice. Deevee stepped into the room. The real Deevee, Zak knew. He did not bother to greet his two charges. “The stormtroopers are closing in.”