[Last Of The Jedi] - 04(9)

Keets was able to smile wanly. “If ever there was a last resort, this is it.”

“I’ll help Keets, too,” Oryon said.

Trever made a silent vow that if they made it to safety, somehow he would learn how to swim. He felt like a baby bird, flapping his arms and legs, desperately trying to propel himself. He was making progress, but at every moment he was certain if he hadn’t been tethered to Oryon, he would sink.

Oryon moved more slowly, more cumbersomely through the water now, saddled with Keets and Trever. Solace had disappeared. Trever saw how Keets was straining to make himself light in the water, keep himself moving. The effort, Trever saw, was exhausting him. Keets’ skin was so pale it shone like a pallid moon. His mouth was stretched over his teeth in a grimace. He was shaking uncontrollably. Still, he kept kicking his legs, swimming to safety, pushing his body past his own endurance.

Just when Trever thought he would gladly give up and sink under the cold water, they saw the glint of durasteel and suddenly the starship was above them, hovering. They could see Solace in the pilot’s seat. The ramp lowered, just above the surface of the water, and Oryon pushed Keets onto it. He managed to crawl forward until Solace slipped down and picked him up easily, gently, and brought him aboard.

Trever felt Oryon’s push and scrambled up onto the ramp awkwardly, as if he had hooves instead of feet. He tumbled into the cockpit. Oryon followed. He had abandoned his boots in the water and was barefoot, his furred feet bloodied. They fell more than sat in the cockpit seats. Solace had placed Keets on a bunk.

Without a word, she pushed the engines and they shot out through the cavern. Trever didn’t know where they were headed … and he was too exhausted to care.





CHAPTER SIX


Escape would feel good right about now. If only Ferus could figure out how to accomplish it. Without a lightsaber, he would have to be much more resourceful. And that, of course, was the problem. He was running out of resources, fast. Including his own strength.

Ferus had been here for only two days, but already he was feeling the effects of too little sleep, not enough food, and crushing, repetitive work.

Every day they were marched into a factory. Ferus could see that it had been recently built, perhaps shortly after Palpatine had declared himself Emperor. It had been thrown up hastily, so there were already cracks in the floor and ceiling, cracks that let in both a stinging rain and a barrage of fat, hungry insects with strong pincers that drew blood.

If you flinched, you received a blow from the guards, so you learned never to flinch. You worked.

Ferus couldn’t tell what they were manufacturing, only that it was a piece of something larger. The inmates were switched day to day from one task to another. Were they working on weapons? Machinery? Droids? The parts were too small or too obscure to tell. There were murmurs about an “ultimate weapon,” but Ferus couldn’t figure out what it could be.

Every so often prisoners were pulled off the line and taken away, and no one ever saw them again. Ferus knew his days were numbered. He would die at the whim of Malorum. Most likely the Inquisitor was delaying his execution just to make him suffer.

Everyone avoided him now. His cellmate planned to fake an illness to get into the infirmary. Ferus spoke to him just before lights out.

“But you said that nobody who gets transferred there ever gets out,” Ferus reminded his cellmate in a whisper.

“I’d rather be killed with a shot in the arm by a med droid than be caught in the crossfire with you,” he answered.

“Listen,” Ferus said, “I can handle myself. And I don’t intend to die here.”

His cellmate looked at him, his tired gaze rueful. “You’re one of those who think they can escape. All the more reason for me to go. You’re trouble because you don’t get it. There’s no way out.”

“There’s always a way out.”

“Well.” The cellmate stretched out his legs and laughed. “You have your way and I have mine.”

His laugh, to Ferus, was the loneliest sound in the galaxy, a winter wind on a world of high deserts. He could hear in that laugh the sound of someone ready to die.

Four guards came and escorted him out roughly. Ferus watched him go with sorrow. He had a feeling that in another life, he would have liked his cellmate’s company. He had never known his name.

Morning. Or, at least, he guessed it was morning. He hadn’t seen the sun since he’d arrived. Or the moon or the sky. All this duracrete was starting to get to him. He was locked in a world of gray rock. He could see around him how the skin tones of the others, even the blue or green skin of other species, were all turning gray.