by Tim Lebbon
There seems to be no wind lifting the sand, no disturbance in the ground that might raise such a thing. The sculpture looks about the size of a human, though distance can be deceptive. It seems fluid, moving and dancing as the billions of sand particles within constantly shift and flow. The shape is ambiguous.
Dal should see this, Lanoree thinks. Yet she knows she cannot wake him with a thought, and to move him might break this moment.
Reach, Ter’cay says, and Lanoree reaches. The Force is alive within her and she probes outward with her senses, feeling that distant sand sculpture is slightly warmer than the surrounding sand, its smell is like something long buried exposed at last. And, most amazingly of all, within its confines the sand sings out loud. The sound is confused and seems to make no sense. There are no words there that Lanoree knows. Yet she can sense something of unbridled freedom and passion in the noise, and for a few beats of her heart she is filled with a blazing optimism that puts the sun to shame.
Then the shape disintegrates, and with one more heartbeat it is returned to the desert. The sound has vanished. The movement has ceased. Lanoree is left breathing hard with excitement, and as she glances across at Ter’cay she catches his smile.
What is that?
A mystery. You should wake your brother. Your training starts again now.
They spend the rest of that day, and the two following, training in the Silent Desert. Lanoree is delighted with the talents she possesses and those she is introduced to, and thrilled at how adept she already seems. Ter’cay pushes her. Tests. And she performs, pushing back with silent requests for harder tasks, more complex problems. Her relationship with the Force expands rapidly in that silent place, and she feels fully a part of it for the first time. Suggestion, telepathy, control, her skills grow and expand with each passing moment. She enjoys her time there with Master Ter’cay. And yet many times she realizes the strength of her pride when she forgets that Dal is not finding any of this easy.
He cannot flow with the Force, and the more Ter’cay works with him, the less Dal wants to try. Lanoree becomes frustrated and annoyed with his frequent displays of petulance. In the evenings, when they are eating and relaxing, she tries communicating with him. A sisterly touch on his mind, borne of love and concern. Yet she’s met with a deluge of chaotic thoughts—frightening, furious, and yet scared.
As dusk falls on the third day and they make their way back to the temple, Lanoree is enlivened by her successes and saddened by Dal’s failures.
She takes his hand, surprised when he holds on. And she smiles at him.
She has an idea.
A subtle push and—
They are walking along the river back at home, close to Bodhi Temple. This is the one place where Dal feels most at peace with himself. Weave birds have been here recently, and countless golden threads are carried on the breeze. The river flows fast and heavy, swollen by recent rains in the hills of the Edge Forest. The air smells of blossom and hangs heavy with the promise of a family meal that evening, when their father will cook rumbat stew and their mother will read some of her poetry. It is beautiful.
It is false.
Dal squeezes her hand so tightly that she feels bones grinding, and the hook hawk wounds start to bleed again. Then he crumples to his knees in the sand and vomits.
Lanoree kneels beside him, wondering if she has done wrong. He hates her touching his mind, using the Force to invade his thoughts. They have fought about it more than once. But after so long in this strange place, she’d thought that perhaps he would have welcomed those thoughts of safety and calm, those images of home.
When he looks up at her, she sees the venom of his gaze.
She cannot touch his mind again to say sorry.
CHAPTER FOUR
HIS OWN MAN
Never place all your reliance in the Force. It’s always there, but that does not mean it can always be called upon. Each Je’daii is his own person with his own talents. Learn to use them. Nurture them. If the Force is the dream, you are the dreamer, and sometimes you have to wake up. Sometimes, you are all you have.
—Master Shall Mar, “A Life in Balance,” 7,523 TYA
Tre Sana had already told her more than the Je’daii Masters who had sent her on this mission. They had mentioned a loose network of rich Kalimahr apparently involved in Dal’s Stargazer sect, and Tre had backed that up with talk of tracking down a particular person to question. They had spoken of dark matter being used to attempt activation of a supposed hypergate. But they had not mentioned the Gree at all.
What was known about the Gree was so far back in history, so deep in time, that it had taken on the sheen of myth and legend. Lanoree wanted to get back to her ship’s computer to find out what she could.
But first she had to discover who, or what, was following her.
She imagined that this district of Rhol Yan must be somewhere at the lower end of the tourist experience—the streets were grubby; some vendors very probably dealt in illegal goods, services, or substances; and the clientele of the various establishments displayed little evidence of being mere visitors. A rough area, but not one in which Lanoree felt out of place. Every city on every planet had them, and she had visited many.
Sometimes, she fit right in.
Cloud Chasers drifted above, speeders buzzed along a slightly raised roadway in the center of the street, and several types of indigenous beasts of burden carried people on their backs or limbs. But Lanoree chose to walk. It meant that she had complete control of her movements, and it would be easier to keep watch. She wanted to draw her follower out, not escape from him or her.
She used the polished shine of speeders, the glass of display windows, and the reflections in the eyes of those passing by to look behind her. And when she could not see, she blinked slowly, casting her senses back to try and discover who and where her pursuer was.
It was frustrating. She felt observed, and it could no longer be the usual curiosity for a Je’daii Ranger; she had removed her Ranger star to try to blend in.
The end of the street opened up into a large market, stalls built across a wide marble-paved square and suspended on three massive treelike structures around the square’s perimeter. Small Cloud Chasers moored at some of these trees, ferrying people and freight to and from the larger vessels that buzzed and drifted above. Lanoree trotted down the curved stone steps that led to the square. Then she stopped, turned, and ran back up.
She paused on the top step and looked around. The street she had walked along was bustling. She looked at people walking toward and past her, human and otherwise. She watched many more walking away. Probing with her senses, touching the pulse of the Force, she felt for any image of herself in someone else’s regard … and found it.
Just standing there, watching, don’t forget she’s a Ranger, dangerous, mysterious—
She touched the haft of her sword and pulled it partway out of its sheath, turning, seeing a Cathar family paused twenty paces from her while the mother and father fussed over their six children. Standing just behind them, pretending to be a part of their group and yet so obviously not, was a shape that did not belong.
The man was small but stocky, wearing an expansive gray robe and a large mask. Lanoree was sure he was Noghri—reptilian, skilled fighters, prized assassins. As she laid eyes on him, he looked up and met her gaze.
She raised one hand, ready to Force-push him to the ground for the moment she’d need to reach him.
He pulled a laser blaster and fired into the family group.
Screams. Panic. People running, fleeing, falling. The Noghri fired again, shooting at random.
Lanoree drew her sword and ran at the shooter. He was already fleeing, blaster in one hand and something else in the other. She could not make out what the device was. She reached for him, shoved, but he dodged sideways, and her Force punch tripped a beast of burden, spilling its three passengers.
As she passed the Cathar family, she glanced down and saw the woman o
n the ground, blood pulsing from a terrible, black-tinged wound in her furry scalp. The father was trying to pull the children away while crying out in mad grief. Lanoree wanted to stay and help, but there would be others to do that.
She would best serve the dead woman by catching her killer.
The Noghri had flowed down the steps and was sprinting toward one of the mooring stations. When they saw him coming, most people moved away, his violent intent obvious. But when two militia crouched before him and aimed long, spearlike weapons at him, he shot them both. The movement was almost too quick to be seen, and as they fell back dead the killer was already entering the shadow of the mooring tree.
He was well trained. It would take someone who knew what he was doing to bring down those two guards without pause.
She was gaining on him as he entered one of several doorways into the Cloud Chaser mooring structure. He was still doing something with the object in his other hand, and she paused and reached for him, concentrating, willing the Force his way, her clawed hand closing slowly as she struggled to grasp him. But there were too many other people around, and the panic was too great.
More laser blasts erupted from the interior lobby of the mooring platform, and more screams.
Lanoree used the Force to increase her speed, willing her muscles to stretch and contract faster, pumping her arms, pushing blood through her veins. There were a hundred travelers and merchants in the lobby, and two people were on the ground with blood spattered around them, others rushing to help. But she saw the Noghri immediately.
He was plugging the device into a comm column. He glanced back over his shoulder but did not raise his blaster.
More concerned with sending whatever he has to send, she thought. And as she ran at him she reached for the comm column, probing, frowning in concentration. She had to stop him sending, and if—
She heard the dry cough of a blaster and raised her sword, and it was only that instinctive reaction that saved her. The shot struck the sword and she stumbled backward, then fell, her weapon clanging against the marble floor. She still grasped its haft—she would never let it go—and she could feel the heat dispersing from the exquisite blade.
Lanoree shoved, and forty paces away the Noghri was lifted from his feet and smashed back against a wall. The blaster dropped from his hand and skittered away across the floor.
The crowd of people had scattered and hidden as well as they could, leaving only the two shot people behind. Lanoree sensed that they were both dead.
Anger throbbed through her but she reined it in. It would feed her action, but it could also cloud her senses. Using the Force while harboring rage could upset the balance within her, and that would lead to mistakes.
She jumped to her feet, and she was the only person standing.
“Stay down!” she shouted. She held out her hand and Force-pressed her observer to the ground. Heard him gasping for air. Pressed a little harder.
Walking forward, sword held protectively before her, Lanoree glanced at the comm column and the device he had attached there.
A flurry of movement and she knew what was coming, lifting the sword to deflect the blast a blink before it came. Another followed. She shifted to the left and raised her blade to the right. The shot was swallowed by the hot metal.
He’d been carrying a second, concealed blaster.
Lanoree grunted in frustration, then reached out and lifted the Noghri above the ground, grasping him there, tight, tighter.
“Drop it,” she said. Though quiet, her voice carried all across the open lobby.
He dropped the weapon. She raised him even higher … then let go.
The sound of breaking bone as he struck the ground was followed by the collective gasps of those watching.
Lanoree ran to him. He was writhing, his gray-skinned leg twisted, protruding bone visible beneath his loose robe. Keeping an eye on his big, clawed hands and feet, and conscious of the Noghri’s reputation as fighters and killers, she kept her sword drawn in case he had other concealed weapons. And as she knelt by his side, she reached for his mask.
“Hold him!” someone called. Militia. Lanoree cursed inwardly, knowing that this would now get complicated. She wanted to get him somewhere quiet to interrogate him, and handing him over to Kalimahr militia would gain her nothing. She sighed and looked up at the two uniformed women running her way, wondering if she could persuade them otherwise.
“He shot them and just—”
“She chased him in here, and she threw him, she must be Je’daii and—”
“Dead, my brother’s dead, and leaking his brains all across—”
There was a flood of voices as terrified people started speaking around the edges of the concourse. And in that cacophony, one shout from a child that saved Lanoree’s life.
“Look out!”
As she looked back down at the injured Noghri, she saw the shell of his mask peel back and a wisp of smoke from within. Voice activated! she had time to think, and then she put every shred of strength and every measure of power she had in the Force into shielding herself from what came next.
She barely heard the explosion.
For a moment, as she saw the Wookiee’s face and felt its strong, furry hands hauling her to her feet, she thought she was back on Ska Gora with her fingers hovering over laser cannon triggers. Then she remembered what had happened and smelled acrid smoke on the air.
“I’m fine,” she said. Dizziness swept over her and she composed herself, breathing deeply. The female Wookiee grumbled a question, and Lanoree nodded. “Really. Fine.”
The few people around her—the Wookiee; several humans; a tall, eyeless Miraluka with slatted mask—observed in stunned silence. When Lanoree looked beyond them, she understood their amazement at her survival.
The Noghri had packed quite a blast. There was nothing left of him, and the site of the explosion was the center of a wide swath of blackened and broken marble. Detritus littered the lobby. He had killed himself without a second thought, and it was incredible that no one else had been caught by the blast.
I was there, Lanoree thought, looking at the small, cracked crater in the marble floor. She had been blasted across the lobby, protected and shielded by the Force that she was so rich in, and for a few moments she tingled with something approaching ecstasy. She took a deep breath and felt a rush of well-being. Perhaps it was relief. Or maybe she was simply realizing that it was good to be alive.
“You!” a voice called. “Je’daii!” It was one of the militia who’d been approaching when the Noghri had killed himself. The other was bloodied and being helped to her feet. As the woman drew closer, Lanoree glanced quickly around at the comm columns. One side of it had taken some of the blast, but it remained standing, though bent and twisted. She could see the comm point in which the Noghri had plugged his device.
She ran.
“Stop!” the militia woman called again, angry. Lanoree would have to be careful. The woman was shaken, and in the confusion she might decide to take a shot.
Lanoree raised one hand, smiled, then slowed to a walk. “Just here,” she said, pointing. “Just going here.”
“Stop or I’ll—”
“You’ll wait for me,” Lanoree said, pushing softly.
“I’ll—I’ll wait for you,” the woman said, frowning even as she stopped running. She looked around as if confused, and then Lanoree reached the comm column.
She examined the device briefly, then plucked it from the socket. It was a small black box with several connectors and a screen on one side. A camera, among other things. Lanoree tapped the screen and scrolled down the list of stored images.
They were all of her.
“When a Ranger comes, death always follows,” the man said.
“I thought the saying was ‘danger always follows’?”
“Whatever.”
They had taken her to the nearest militia post, and Lanoree had gone without argument. Her assignment had already become more
complex than she had hoped, and making herself a fugitive would mean answers would be even more difficult to come by. People were dead. She owed it to the Kalimahr authorities to answer their questions.
Besides, she would be meeting Tre again at dusk. She had time to kill.
The captain was Lorus, a tall member of the proud Sith species, powerfully built and obviously used to being a leader and having his orders obeyed, and demands met, without question. He seemed unperturbed at holding a Je’daii in his restraining cell. He must have known that she could likely escape at any moment, but that would cause a diplomatic incident. So for now there was a gentle balance between them, an act from which both sides might benefit. The fact that they both knew this made things easier. At any other time it might have been amusing.
“Something funny, Je’daii?”
“No, not really. And I’ve told you my name.”
“I prefer to call you Je’daii.”
“Very well, Lorus.”
“You should address me as Captain Lorus.”
“I should?”
The captain sighed and leaned against a wall. The two human militia who had brought her in stood in the corners of the room at either side of the door. They both looked afraid, and stared at her in open wonder. Probably the first time they had seen a Je’daii in action.
The room was a little larger than the main control room on her Peacemaker, with one door, several chairs around the edges, and the single containment cell at its center. The cell was too small to lie down in, and consisted of an archaic heat field instead of bars. Lanoree could feel a touch of heat where she stood—the generator was old and leaking—and knew that she’d be singed to a crisp if she moved too close to the shimmering walls. She also knew that she could knock out the generator with a single thought, and with a little more effort she could shield herself and walk straight through the heat field.
But she had no wish to fight Captain Lorus and his constables.
“Five dead,” Lorus said.
“Six, sir,” one of the militia women said. Lorus stiffened but did not turn around, and the woman became suddenly nervous. “Er … including the bomber.”