[Legacy Of The Force] - 01(124)

The water had been drained from the giant container-hence the liquid darkening the plaza for a considerable distance around it. At the bottom of the aquarium, inside, was the skyline of downtown Lorrd City, including the most prominent university’s administration building, styled as a white tower, and the broad, welcoming student assembly building. They were reproduced in miniature and in gaudier colors than the original buildings enjoyed. Huddled among these buildings, stumbling across the colored stones, gravel, and dying aquatic life-forms that littered the aquarium bottom, were representatives of many species-Ben saw humans, Bothans, Mon Calamari, and Verpines among them. All of them paid close, fearful attention to the being that now stood at the aquarium’s southeast corner.

He was a human, huge, two meters tall and at least 150 kilos, of which a significant portion was muscle. He had dark hair, mustache, and beard, cut close but styled rakishly, as if he viewed himself as a space pirate from a children’s holoseries. He wore severe black garments. In his left hand was a blaster pistol and in his right, some smaller object the Jedi could not make out.

He also wore a human man. Strapped to his back by a series of bands of binder tape was a middle-aged, dark-skinned man of average height. He was strapped to the larger man back-to-back, so that they faced in opposite directions.

“This man,” Nelani said, “is obviously crazy.”

According to witnesses, a few hours earlier the aquarium had been full of water and of aquatic life-forms going about their usual business of idly swimming or eating one another. Then a crew of workers orthugs had arrived, led by the big man. While some of them opened emergency vents on the aquarium, spilling its water out across the plaza, others had rounded up visitors to the museum portion of the academy, led them here, and forced them to climb the stairs and jump down into the water before too much of it was drained. There they had bobbed, frightened and unhappy, while the thugs had strapped one last hostage to the leader’s back, then fled. Once the Lorrd Security Forces had begun arriving, the captor had leapt in and bobbed along with the others until the water had reached floor level in the aquarium.

“What do we know about this one?” Nelani asked.

Lieutenant Samran, a couple of meters away, directing the activities of his security officers via comlink, glanced at her and shook his head. “We don’t know who he is. When you talk to him, do us the favor of finding that out … We do know that he gave his comlink frequency to one of our officers.” He held out a little scrap of flimsi, which Ben took. Ben began tuning his comlink to the frequency written there. Samran continued, “Also that he claims there are explosives packed in between his back and his hostage’s. The thing in his right hand is supposed to be a triggering device. Oh, and he wants to talk to Lorrd’s pet Jedi.” He gave Nelani an apologetic look. “His words, my lady, not mine.”

“Of course.”

“Have you had any luck tracking down his men?” Jacen asked.

Samran shook his head. “They were all garbed in simple dark clothes and stretchcloth masks. When they fled, they could have mingled with crowds in the streets or in any of several dozen public buildings. They could be anywhere.” He gestured to the near edge of the crowd.

“I think,” Jacen told Nelani, “that this time I will exercise my prerogatives of seniority, and speak to the man first.”

“Just remember that this time you can’t blow him up without taking an innocent life,” she said.

“Let’s go.” Jacen led the other Jedi on the long walk across the empty plaza. As they walked, Ben took Jacen’s comlink and adjusted it, too, to the kidnapper’s frequency.

They were only twenty meters from the imposing transparisteel wall of the aquarium when they saw the captor’s lips move. Jacen’s and Ben’s comlinks carried his words: “Hello, Jedi.”

Jacen stopped, and the other two drew to a halt behind him. “I would say Good morning,” Jacen said, “except that you’ve kept it from being a good morning for several people. Myself included; I was looking forward to sleeping late.”

The captor swung around to look at his captives. He did so apparently without even noticing the weight of the man strapped to his back. The Jedi had a glimpse of this captive, a balding man with fear on his face, before the captor swung back to look at them. “They were bored,” the captor said. “Else why would they be here? Now they’re not bored. They’ll be able to talk about this day for the rest of their lives. I’m doing them a favor, allowing them to tan themselves in the glare of my transitory importance.”