[Legacy Of The Force] - 04(108)

It didn’t occur to Ben to be sorry about the being whose life he had just taken.

CORUSCANT

ERRANT VENTURE

“Alema Rar just commed me.”

Leia stared incredulously into her display. But Lavint seemed earnest enough. “What did she want?”

“You two, of course.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I said you were going to be at Gilatter Eight in a few days. The way I figure it, she’ll go there and get herself blown to pieces. A shame about the why-vee six-six-six, I guess.”

“Well, you didn’t lie,” Leia said. “That’s exactly where we’re going to be.”

“We are?” said Han.

“You are?” On the display, Lavint’s jaw skewed to one side, an exaggerated expression of dismay. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Not to worry,” Leia said. “I didn’t decide until just now. It’s not enough to be told that someone like Alema Rar has been blown to bits. I really need to see it myself.”

“Or even pull the trigger,” Han muttered.

GILATTER SYSTEM

RESORT STATION ORBITING GILATTER VIII

From the distance of several hundred kilometers, Luke watched the activity at the station. He employed passive sensors only, including a holocam utilizing high-grade visual amplification hardware, and knew that Mara, floating less than a hundred meters away in her own StealthX, was doing the same.

Half a dozen vehicles were docked at the station. The crews inside were presumably effecting repairs and making the antiquated station ready for the ceremony that would soon take place.

Luke, Mara, and their fellow pilots-including Corran, Kyp, Jaina, and Zekk, plus jag, finally getting some shift time in Jaina’s StealthX-had scouted out the system pretty thoroughly. There were indeed droid sensor satellites along the standard approaches into the system, but none situated elsewhere, and there were routes to which the sensor array was blind from outside the system to the far side of Gilatter VIII. The Jedi had already led several ships from the Ninth Fleet to orbits within the outer atmosphere of Gilatter VIII. Another vessel they had guided into place was Admiral Niathal’s temporary flagship, the aged but stillmighty Mon Calamari cruiser Galactic Voyager.

Luke shook his head over that choice. Was Niathal simply making use of an available resource? Or, recalling that the Voyager had once been the flagship of Admiral Ackbar, was she trading on the revered strategist’s name to promote herself? Luke didn’t know.

But thinking about that was much better than wondering about Ben.

ZIOST

Ben and Kiara rested the remainder of the day, and from the top of the rock pile, just inside the citadel entrance they watched the shuttle.

It descended from the clouds less than fifteen minute after Ben, Kiara, and the revitalized Shaker reached the entrance. It was an old shuttle with fold-up wings and bronze paint job, and it did not land. It circled the site endlessly, then took off for the skies once more.

Ben was curious about that. Were the crew members afraid to touch down on Ziost? That actually made sense.

Hungry as they were, Ben insisted that they eat no more than half the rations they had scavenged from the TIE fighter. The rest they could eat over the next three or four days. Perhaps by then they’d be able to find more food, or find their way offplanet.

They slept well that night, with Shaker keeping its sensors alert for nocturnal movement. But there was none.



In the morning, glow rods attached to new power packs, they went searching.

It didn’t take long. All Ben had to do was open himself up to the voices. They led him down several levels, to where the corridor floors were coated in ancient muck, to a long side shaft that carried them well away from the citadel proper. It led them to an unlit circular chamber. Its walls were decorated with eighteen niches, each large enough to hold a life-sized statue of an average human, but all empty.

“It’s gone,” Kiara said.

Ben shook his head. The images in his head were clear. The ship was here. “Come out,” he said. He heard laughter.

Kiara seemed to sense it, too. She drew back to stand next to Shaker and stared all around, looking for the source.

Ben frowned. His instincts, and what the voices had whispered to him when he only half understood their words, told him that emotion was the key. Nor would kind, soft, welcoming emotion do.

He deepened his voice, put some anger into it. “Come out!”

Had he tried it the day before, when he’d been at his weakest from lack of food, he doubtless would have failed. But now there was a rumble in the ground, and a crack appeared in the half-dried muck of the floor-a crack as straight as a laser beam, bisecting the room.