He stalked through the night, taking great care certainly, but with a growing sense of invulnerability because of what he knew he was heading out to do. His vision was coming true. He was drawing closer and closer to a confrontation that would free the slaves and begin to turn back the Yuuzhan Vong. He knew Luke might not understand, and probably would not approve, but Jacen felt bound to fulfill the destiny the Force had presented to him.
Quickly enough he found himself descending to the shore of the shallow lake. Moonlight filled the troughs between ripples with silver, and more of it pooled in the water on top of the villip leaves. Slaves moved through the stalks, anointing the villips with ladle after ladle of the dark water. The only sounds in the basin came from the splashing of water and the villips’ haunting whispers.
Jacen stopped at the water’s edge and threw back his cloak. He took a deep breath and let calm flow through him. He smiled, just a little, then composed his face in a benign expression. He opened his arms and spread them wide.
“Come to me, people. I will save you.”
The slaves, almost as one, brought their heads up and looked over at him. A series of high whistles coursed back and forth, to be echoed by some of the villips. Jacen recognized the sound as the sort of thing R2-D2 did when the droid was puzzled, so he broadened his smile and waved the slaves toward him.
“Come to me. Your time as slaves is over.”
The slaves began to move, but out of sync with his vision. They’re moving away from me! The slaves slunk away, crouching as if expecting a punishing blow. Those in the front rank watched him while reaching out for someone behind them. The others in the more distant ranks turned and ran as fast as they could, splashing water up over themselves.
Then, toward the center of the slave formation, a part formed. A Yuuzhan Vong warrior clad in armor and bearing an amphistaff stepped down into the water and faced him. He spun the amphistaff in a circle, first between them, then up over his head and finally around his back. He stopped in an eye blink, with the staff trapped between his right forearm and ribs, then lowered himself into a crouch.
Jacen waded out to midcalf and produced his lightsaber. He thumbed the blade to life and let the hiss-crack drown out the frightened mewing of the slaves. His green lightsaber cast a ghastly light over the villips. Jacen whipped the humming blade around in a lazy infinity arc, first slicing through the villip stalk, then slashing in half both falling villips.
The warrior bellowed loudly and started to sprint at Jacen. Water splashed high, but hardly seemed to slow him at all. His amphistaff had begun spinning again, with the point dipping down to nip at the water with each circuit.
Jacen started to rush at his foe, but because he was smaller, the water slowed him. The young Jedi set himself, drawing the blade up high and back by his right shoulder. Then, as the warrior closed, Jacen cocked his wrists so the blade pointed forward, then lunged.
Just as I did in my vision!
The Yuuzhan Vong warrior, however, did not share in that vision. He twisted back to the right, sliding past the green energy blade, and cracked his amphistaff across Jacen’s back. One of the armor’s trauma pads absorbed much of the damage, but the force of the blow still sent Jacen stumbling forward. He went to one knee, then spun, bringing his lightsaber up to parry the next slashing attack.
The lightsaber’s blade did fend off the strike, but didn’t have quite the effect Jacen had expected. My parry should have sheared thirty centimeters off that staff! The young man came to his feet, parried another attack low and to the left, then twisted his wrists and brought the lightsaber up in a slash that should have opened the Yuuzhan Vong from right hip to left shoulder.
Sparks exploded and smoke rose from the alien armor. The warrior stumbled back a step or two, then lunged with his amphistaff. Jacen batted that attack wide, then cut down at the Yuuzhan Vong’s right wrist. More sparks and smoke, and even a sizzling sound to go with it, but the hand didn’t come off.
Surprised, Jacen cranked the green blade up and around for another attack on that arm, but the Yuuzhan Vong had already pulled it back wide. Before Jacen could shift his attack to a slash across the warrior’s belly, the Yuuzhan Vong’s left fist came around and caught the youth in the neck.
The heavy blow staggered Jacen and drove him back. He’d have fallen into the water except that he bumped up against a villip plant and it steadied him. He shook his head to clear it, then ducked as the Yuuzhan Vong arced a roundhouse kick at him. The kick missed Jacen, but exploded one of the villips, drenching him in chunky, viscous fluid that burned his eyes, nose, and mouth.
Choking still, Jacen ducked behind the villip plant, then cut behind another. He splashed a handful of water up to wash his face off, then dodged left and slashed twice quickly at the Yuuzhan Vong. The slashes backed his foe off for a moment, but in the blade’s light Jacen noticed that the furrow he’d cut in the Yuuzhan Vong’s armor had become little more than a discolored scar.
They don’t just grow the armor; it’s living still!
The Yuuzhan Vong held his amphistaff high and brought it down in a crushing blow aimed at Jacen’s head. The Jedi brought his lightsaber up to block, but the amphistaff went from rigid to fluid and, whiplike, wrapped itself around his right wrist. A quick yank pulled Jacen forward, off balance, and into the Yuuzhan Vong’s right knee. The knee caught him in the gut, doubling him over.
Jacen felt the warrior’s viselike grip close on the back of his neck, then he had his face plunged into the turgid water. Water boiled around his lightsaber, but the whip controlled the movement of that arm enough that he couldn’t strike.
The young man shunted away the panic rising in him and immediately summoned the Force. He reached out to pluck the Yuuzhan Vong off him—exactly as he had done countless times with his siblings or comrades when goofing around at the academy. He discovered the flaw with his strategy about the same time his lungs started to burn for lack of oxygen.
I can’t sense the Yuuzhan Vong through the Force. And now I can’t affect him.
It occurred to Jacen, as he sucked in the first mouthful of water, that he could use the Force to lift himself out of the water. The concentration necessary for that act died as his body gagged and coughed. The stale air in his lungs bubbled out, then his body reflexively tried to inhale and breathed in more water, which started him coughing and gagging yet again.
Oh, no, Jacen thought, as the world began to go black, it wasn’t a vision. Or a dream. Just a nightmare . . .
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Anakin crouched in the lavender grasses and peered through them at a small group of Dantari. The native nomads did not appear all that unusual. Humanoid in form, they used a limited vocabulary of spoken words supplemented with hand signals and facial expressions to communicate. They made tools, but had not yet found the secret of working metal. A couple of them did have knives formed from shards of AT-AT armor, but Anakin had never seen the knives being used for anything. He gathered they were a sign of power, since both were owned by large males whose hair was streaked with gray.
For a half second the boy wished C-3PO was there so he could translate the Dantari speech, but the image of the gold droid hiding in the grass was ridiculous enough that he almost laughed aloud.
The Dantari had made camp in a small clearing near a stand of blba trees. One of the elder males had drawn a charcoal design—the Imperial crest—on the upper left side of a younger male’s chest. Using a blba thorn and a stick with which to strike it, the elder began to drive the coal-black ash into the younger male’s chest, tattooing the design there forever.
The young Dantari was not the only one to be sporting that crest. Others had crude AT-ATs tattooed on them, or images of blasters, or the outlines and seams of stormtrooper armor marking their legs and arms. Small children sat and watched in fascination as the tattooing took place. Elders looked on pridefully as the youth said nothing during the tattooing process.
Anakin looked away and tr
ied to shut the tick-tick-tick of stick hitting needle out of his mind. He glanced over at where Mara sat and caught her in an unguarded moment looking very tired. He glanced down immediately, then looked up again. By that time she had composed her face into an expression less haggard and much warmer.
That I could see her looking tired indicates how tired she must truly be. She’d never have let me see her like that if there was any other way around it. Anakin gave her a smile and crawled quietly over to her side. “I would never want to get a tattoo,” he whispered.
“Best to avoid identifying marks, I think.” She glanced slyly at him. “Never can tell when any of those Jedi will be after you and you want to slip away.”
“You don’t have a tattoo, do you?”
“I don’t know, Anakin.” Mara shrugged playfully. “A Jedi caught me, after all, so maybe I do.”
He started to ask a question, but thought better of it and closed his mouth for a moment. “More than that answer I don’t want to know.”
Mara laughed, once, sharply, then covered her mouth with her hand. Anakin reached out through the Force, not sure what he could do, and immediately saw the damage had been done. Several of the Dantari were moving toward them, with three young boys in the lead, and an elder male charging up to get between them and whatever had made that sound.
Without thinking, Anakin shot to his feet and interposed himself between the Dantari and Mara. The male coming toward them towered above Anakin, easily half a meter taller than he was, almost broader across the shoulders than Anakin was tall, and outmassing him by nearly sixty kilos. Shock widened Anakin’s blue eyes for a moment, then he lowered himself into a crouch and bared his teeth.
The charging Dantari male came up short. He raised massive fists above his head and bellowed, but Anakin stood his ground. He didn’t ape the motion; he’d learned enough from watching the Dantari to know that would have been a challenge to a dominance fight. Most Dantari confrontations involved the largest male frightening his foe off, and never had Anakin seen a Dantari as small as he was stand his ground before an elder male.
Still keeping his eyes locked on those of the male, Anakin dropped down on his haunches and rested his elbows on his knees. He knew he could have gathered the Force to himself and compelled the Dantari male to do the same thing, but he left the Force alone. In the week they’d been on the planet, he’d been relying less and less on the Force, and while his body ached and blisters had formed and popped, he did feel good doing things for himself. The Force is an ally, not a crutch. If I learn nothing else from this experience, that will be enough.
The Dantari male bellowed again, but Anakin did not react. He just sat and stared, keeping his body between Mara and the male. The male leaned forward on his fists for a bit, then sank to his haunches, too. Behind him the younger Dantari did the same thing.
Anakin kept his voice a low whisper. “Okay, I have him seated and quiet. Now what do I do?”
“Take this.”
Anakin reached his left hand up to his left shoulder and accepted a small metal disk from Mara. He noticed her fingers were cold as he did so. Then he got a look at the button she’d given him, and a smile blossomed on his face. “I hope this works.”
“Pity it only has the New Republic crest on it, not the Imperial one.”
“It’s shiny, so worth a try.” Still watching the elder, Anakin leaned forward and got on his hands and knees. He crawled forward, stretching out to halve the distance between them. On a bare patch of ground he placed the button from Mara, then retreated and resumed his crouch.
The elder moved forward slowly, cautiously, and reached out a hand toward the silver button. He extended a finger and slowly poked it. He recoiled instantly after touching it once, with the little ones leaping back and screaming as he did so. He crept forward again and sniffed, then touched it a second time. After a half-dozen touches, each lasting longer than the first, he picked up the button and stared at it, utterly enraptured.
Anakin glanced back over his shoulder at Mara. “Might need more buttons if we have to bribe a bunch of them.”
Anakin’s aunt smiled and tugged at the wrist of her right sleeve. “A couple more on the cuffs. If we have to go more than that, I’ll get cold.”
“Let’s hope we don’t get there.”
Anakin looked back at the Dantari elder and found him trying to fix the button to a side-lock braid. The Jedi smiled at the Dantari, and the elder returned the smile. The Dantari then turned and galloped back to the encampment, scattering squealing children and earning some sharp-tongued rebukes from the females in the group. He grabbed something from a fabool-hide pouch, then scampered back to where Anakin sat. He opened his hand above the spot where the button had lain and dropped five white tubers, not much longer than Anakin’s thumb.
The young Jedi knew they were vincha roots. He didn’t know what the Dantari used them for, but he’d seen the Dantari get very excited when they found the plant and were able to dig up the roots. Anakin hadn’t seen many of the plants around, so he took the offering to be very valuable as far as the Dantari were concerned.
Anakin smiled and held his hands up, with palms facing the Dantari. “Thank you, but I can’t take these.”
The elder looked at him, puzzled for a moment, then ran off and returned with another handful. He dropped them one by one on the pile, doubling its size. He hung on to each one longer than the last, and Anakin could sense the pain of his giving them up.
“Help here, Mara?”
“You got yourself into this, you figure it out.”
“It was your laugh.”
“It was your joke.”
“Point taken.” Anakin scratched at the back of his head with his left hand. “Okay, the button is more valuable to him than ten of the vincha roots, and I bet he’d go five more.”
“That could be why some of the females are over there hiding the rest of the inventory.”
“Right. He wants a fair exchange. Matter of pride and honor, I’d guess.”
Mara patted him on the back. “Right course plotted, I think.”
“Then I need to barter vincha roots back for something else, right?”
“Could be, that will work.”
Anakin nodded. He waddled forward and gathered up the vincha, then brought them back to where he had been sitting. He got up and jogged off to the side to gather up some deadfall limbs from a blba tree. He returned and made a small pile of them. He pointed at the elder Dantari, the pile of sticks, and then back to the bluff where he and Mara had their camp. Finally he tossed one of the vincha roots back to the elder.
The elder grabbed the root, then pointed at the pile of sticks and up at their camp. Anakin nodded. The Dantari smiled, then turned on his heel and ran back to the small band he traveled with. He jabbered at them quickly and gesticulated wildly, brandishing the vincha root proudly. The Dantari band all started shouting and leaping about, getting carried away in a joyous frenzy.
Anakin scooped up the rest of the roots and put them in his pocket. He stood and helped Mara to her feet. “I don’t think we want to be here if they decide we should join in on the fun, you know?”
“I concur.” Mara draped an arm over his shoulders and leaned on him for support. “You did well there.”
“And didn’t use the Force once.”
“Right, though you did manage to get out of having to gather firewood.”
The two of them chuckled lightly as they walked along. Anakin made certain to keep his pace slow so Mara wouldn’t tire. They lapsed into silence for a bit. Anakin stopped by some rocks that marked the beginning of the steep ascent to their camp and let Mara lean against one of them.
He swiped a hand across his brow. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.”
Mara gave him a quick smile. “You’re very kind to say that, but you know I’m—”
“Aunt Mara, it’s okay.”
“I’m the tired one here . . .” The effort of saying those wor
ds seemed to take a lot out of her. “Tell me if I get to be a burden for you.”
Anakin adamantly shook his head and swallowed hard against the lump rising in his throat. “Never, Aunt Mara, you’ll never be a burden.”
“If your mother was here, she’d be proud of how polite and mannerly you are.”
“If my mother was here, she’d have negotiated a treaty for this planet to join the New Republic, getting it all for a handful of vincha roots.” Anakin sighed, then looked up into Mara’s green eyes. “I know you’re not feeling well. I know it’s a fight for you, but you keep fighting. I can’t tell you how much that impresses me.”
He flashed for a moment on the fact that his father, in his grief, had scarcely drawn a sober breath. Why can’t you be more like Aunt Mara, Father?
Mara stared at him and through him. “There are times, Anakin, when things overwhelm us. There are times when you can’t fight.”
“But you are still fighting. You’re being brave.”
“It’s because I know what I’m fighting. Others may not be able to identify their enemy, so they can’t fight.”
My father’s enemy is me. That thought sent a shiver through Anakin, but another thought followed on its heels. Or, perhaps, his enemy is the guilt that he’s assumed. If only things had happened another way.
Mara eased herself off the rock and leaned into him again. “Ready to make it up the hill?”
“After you, Mara.”
“Together, Anakin, together.”
That evening the elder Dantari brought a big pile of blba branches. He returned with a second armload, and Anakin gave him a second vincha root. The Dantari retreated into the darkness, then a frenzied round of hooting and hollering began from the distant Dantari camp.
Dark Tide: Onslaught Page 16