by Tim Lebbon
There was a possibility that Lanoree could even close the gap between them and shoot Dal down before he landed. Her customized laser cannons were powerful and accurate, and the Peacemaker carried four drone missiles that were effective at eight hundred thousand kilometers. But if she missed, he would be alerted to her presence.
Yes, that was why she didn’t open fire. The advantage of surprise. She convinced herself of this as she made ready to take to the surface, and Tre watched her every move.
“I wish I could come with you,” he said for the tenth time.
“No, you don’t,” Lanoree said.
“True. I don’t. You take me to the nicest places.”
“Says the Twi’lek who took me to the Pits.”
Tre watched as Lanoree prepared herself. She changed her clothing, and lacking her lost sword, she plucked a spare sword from a cabinet beneath her cot. It was the weapon she had trained with before Master Tem Madog had forged her own. She hefted it in her hands, swung it several times, and remembered its weight. It was a surprising comfort.
“It becomes you,” Tre said.
“It’ll have to do.” She sheathed the sword—the screech lizard sheath remained at her hip—and knelt by the cot again. She removed two blasters from the cabinet and slipped them into her belt. Tre watched, eyebrows raised. Lanoree only shrugged.
A chime from the cockpit signaled that their descent had begun. She felt the familiar shifting in her stomach as they entered the atmosphere and the Peacemaker’s grav units faded out, and she watched Tre, wondering if he’d vomit again. But he held himself together.
She indicated that he should strap himself in, then sat next to him on the cot.
“You don’t want to land the ship yourself?” he asked.
“I will. Once we’re close to the surface. But Tre”—she squeezed his shoulder—“I’m leaving you in my Peacemaker. My ship. This is my home, and I’m trusting you to treat it well.”
“I’ll guard it,” he said.
“Ironholgs can do that, and the ship has its own defenses. Just … don’t touch anything. Anything!”
“Trust me,” he said, smiling. His eyes were watery and weak, his skin pale, lekku limp.
“I have to,” she said.
The Peacemaker rocked and kicked as it sliced down into Sunspot’s violent atmosphere. Lights glowed, warnings chimed from the control panels, and the screens darkened as heat burned across the hull.
Lanoree climbed into her flight seat, taking control of the ship. She checked the scanner, uploaded a terrain map onto another screen, and accessed the ship’s computer to download as much information as she could find about the area.
Dal and his Stargazers had landed at a small mining outpost called Ran Dan’s Folly. According to her records the mine worked a deep source of petonium and marionium, both elements used to power ships’ drives and that could also be weaponized. The mine had been in existence for almost a hundred years, and there seemed to be nothing spectacular about it that set it aside from any other Sunspot business concern. A tragedy thirty years ago in which a hundred miners lost their lives. A strike eighteen years ago that led to violent riots and an eventual buyout by the workforce and their families off planet. Shipping and trade deals with parties on at least three planets, including Tython. If Ran Dan’s Folly was a source of dark matter, nothing had ever been noticed, and no one knew.
No one but Dal.
Lanoree experienced a brief, chilling fear that her brother had found the tracking device she’d planted on him and placed it on another ship. She’d followed for three days, and all the while he had been heading for Tython. Perhaps he had a supply of dark matter already sourced and waiting to be implanted in the device. Maybe even now he was on Tython, down in the Old City, going deeper than anyone had ever been and readying to activate the hypergate. Any moment now …
“If it’s even there,” she muttered. She was still unsure. In all this, the hypergate’s existence was the one nebulous factor. But whether it existed or not, the danger was just as pressing.
“This is Dal,” she said, watching the scanner as it tracked his ship until it landed. The red spot became blue as it fell motionless, and Lanoree dipped the Peacemaker to the south so that she could approach Ran Dan’s Folly over a blazing rift in the planet’s surface. She needed as much cover as possible.
She also needed a plan.
But time was short. Malterra and Sunspot grew closer. Dal was still one step ahead.
She would have to make this up as she went along.
Lanoree crouched behind a rock, looking at the mine and the haphazard collection of buildings around it, and wondered how anyone could live there. The minehead itself was at the base of a slope of shale and tumbled rocks, encased in a rickety steel structure with two giant lifting cranes protruding through the roof. The surrounding buildings were low, built almost entirely from rock, and connected by chains, presumably for navigation between buildings during the terrible storms that swept the area. There were no windows. Three heavily armored land cruisers were parked close against the buildings’ walls, and the wrecks of several more were scattered around the area, slowly corroding into the sterile ground.
Further along the low valley were three landing pads for whatever freighters and other craft could be used in such an atmosphere. Dal’s ship rested on one of these pads, and Lanoree knew now why she had not been able to run him down. His ship was a Deathblaster, and one that had seen action, perhaps even during the Despot War. A great swath of its left flank was scorched black, and areas of the hull had obviously been replaced and repaired judging by their color and styling differences. It was a mean-looking craft, sister ship to the renowned Deathstalkers, except large enough to carry a payload of bombs, equipment, or passengers. They were even rarer than Deathstalkers now—many had been destroyed during the Despot War; many more dismantled afterward by the Je’daii; and those that survived were usually in the hands of mercenaries, Shikaakwa warlords, or at remote criminal settlements out on some of Mawr’s moons. From the speeds Dal’s ship had attained, there was a good chance that it had been customized.
She checked the area one more time from behind the rock pile, then ran at a crouch toward the Deathblaster. She kept to the shadows, knowing that Dal would have left some of his Stargazers preparing the ship for a rapid escape. Probing out gently, she sensed two minds, their thoughts untroubled. The Stargazers were excited; their plans were coming to fruition. She wondered what Dal would say if he knew how much they had lowered their guard.
The moment begged for action, not diplomacy. And though disabling them would have been her preference, Lanoree could not risk even the slightest chance of these two coming around while she was down in the mine. Before she moved, she sought comfort in the Force for what she was about to do. Desperate measures for desperate times, she thought. And she remembered how so many had died in agony on Nox.
Close to the ship’s still-hot engines, the Iktotchi woman didn’t know what had hit her as Lanoree’s sword parted her head from her shoulders and severed the long, distinctive horns. She darted up the ramp into the ship, where the second Stargazer stood comically motionless, head cocked at the strange sound of steel cleaving flesh he’d heard from outside.
“Don’t—” he said, and Lanoree stabbed him through the heart. He was dead before he slumped to the deck.
She glanced around the ship’s hold. Empty, and now deserted but for the dead. She ran back down the ramp and headed for the mine. The blazing air burned her lungs, and she knew she should have donned a protective suit and breathing apparatus. But she did not want her movement and senses impeded in any way, and soon she would be belowground.
At the main mine building she paused and crouched down, peering inside through cracks in the old, dilapidated structure. There was no movement, and she sensed no one inside.
She heard an explosion in the distance. Startled, she turned and raised her sword. Kilometers away, beyond a low rise to the
north, the sky glowed with the huge, pulsing fires of an active volcano. Clouds of smoke and ash billowed kilometers high, lit from within by wild electrical storms. Deadly lava bombs arced through the air. The ground rumbled as if from fear.
Inside the enclosure she approached the two elevators that provided access into the mine. Both were still, shaft doors open, but only one of the cages had descended. If she activated the other, she would alert anyone below.
She looked into the dark, empty elevator shaft. It was a long way to fall.
Sheathing her sword, Lanoree delved into her utility belt and brought out three short lengths of thin, strong rope. She tied two together and formed a harness beneath her arms and around her wrists. Then she clasped the end of the third length tightly in her left hand and, without giving herself time to consider the madness of what she was doing, she leaped, swinging the rope around one of the taut elevator cables, catching the other end, bracing her feet against the steel cable and pulling tight. She shook for a moment as she found her balance, and the air was filled with a gentle hum as the cable vibrated from the impact.
Starting to slide down, she tested the strength of her boots dragging against the cable, only hoping the strong leather would not be burned through by friction in the descent. That would hurt.
She sped up. Darkness whisked by. She probed outward with her Force sense and felt the open space around her, the shaft square and braced at regular intervals with heavy steel props.
Faster than she’d expected the bottom rose toward her, and she pulled at the ropes and pressed her feet hard against the cable to slow down. She misjudged slightly and struck the elevator cage’s roof hard, driving the wind from her lungs and causing a clanging thud that would have been heard by anyone nearby. But there was no reaction, no shout of alarm. After she’d gathered her breath, Lanoree lowered herself down between the elevator car and the shaft’s wall.
At first glance the mine reminded her of the tunnels beneath Greenwood Station’s central tower. There were occasional, flickering lights along the narrow corridor leading in two directions, and the walls and ceiling were roughly formed. But it was hot. Heat simmered from somewhere down below, the floor sizzled her worn boots, and a faint glow seemed to flood into the corridor far away to the left.
She sensed something moving rapidly toward her along the corridor. Holding her old practice sword before her, Lanoree was struck by the gust of hot air and thrown to the ground. She rolled to one side and tried to catch her breath, but the fearsome wind stole it away. The scorching blast—the result of drastic temperature differentials, perhaps—simmered her clothing and stretched her skin. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
Sunspot was trying to bake her alive.
The hot wind growled against the walls and then faded away, and Lanoree took a deep breath.
She smelled sweat.
Opening her eyes, trying to stand, she sensed the heavy rock swinging for her head, gathered all her Force talents to deflect the injury, but she was far too late.
A brief pain, and then darkness fell.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE ALCHEMY OF FLESH
A Je’daii needs darkness and light, shadow and illumination, because without the two there can be no balance. Veer to Bogan, and Ashla feels too constraining, too pure; edge toward Ashla, and Bogan becomes a monstrous myth. A Je’daii without balance between both is no Je’daii at all. He, or she, is simply lost.
—Master Shall Mar, “A Life in Balance,” 7,537 TYA
The blood spite is a shadow with teeth. It trails long tendrils around her that, though thin and easy to break, constrain her. She plucks and kicks at them, and the smell and taste when they snap reminds her of the grassy plains at Bodhi Temple, long summer afternoons, evenings of music and talk with her family. The thing’s body darts in again and again, carried on feathery wings that make no noise at all as they beat at the dusky air. Lanoree sends a clumsy Force punch and the spite reels. Its tendrils flail and teeth clack at nothing.
Its teeth are its hardest point. Wings, tendrils, body, all are light and airy, giving it the feel of a fancy or memory more than a living thing. Its teeth give it form.
The spite attacks again. Lanoree feels warm fluid spatter across her neck, and she’s not sure whether it’s the spite’s sap or her own blood. Her moment of panic abates. She is without weapons, but never without the Force. And while this being’s strange nature might make it immune to any mental assault, Lanoree has studied at Stav Kesh.
She clenches her fist, gathers a Force punch, and heaves it toward the spite.
It is flung back with such speed and power that many of its fine limbs are torn off, drifting to the ground and catching the setting sun. The body drops and squirms for a moment before growing still. Lanoree examines her wounds. The bleeding is not too bad.
Having no wish to wait for more blood spites, she hurries toward the pyramid.
And there is a power here. She is awed by the city, and aware of its deep history, but what she starts to feel is something beyond or apart from that. It is nothing physical—no throbbing in the ground, no charge to the air—but still she is flooded with a feeling of such coiled potential that her teeth grind, her heart thuds. It is the most delicious fear.
Nothing will deter her. She follows Dal’s trail, the only human prints visible on the wind-driven sand and dust. And when his trail disappears for a time she continues anyway, instinct guiding her onward. She has entered something of a dream zone. This is Tython, but she no longer knows when. This is home, but she has never felt so far away. The power she feels below and around her is divorced from the Force; and though she asks that strong, protective energy that is always within her, she finds no answers.
I’m being repulsed by this place, she thinks. Sadly, she is not surprised that Dal is drawn here.
The ruins are so ancient that most of them are long buried by the effects of time or worn down by wind and sand, rain and sun. But here and there among these small hills and shallow valleys are the tips of pyramids, the slouch of fallen walls, or the deep hollows of openings into the ground.
These dark pits yawn and seem to exhale the strange energy she feels. And it is into one of these pits that Dal’s footprints lead.
Before she can consider the folly of her actions, Lanoree goes down.
The small glow rod she always carries gives a gentle but consistent light, but in a way she wishes she could not see.
The alienness of this place strikes at her. Everywhere else she has been on Tython has been created by and for those sentients who inhabit the planet now—humans and Wookiee, Twi’lek and Cathar, many others. Their appearances might be different, but their basic physiologies are the same. The Cathars are relatively short and the Wookiees usually taller than most, but there is a similarity to their features that makes the places they live and work comfortable for all.
These ruins are different. Lanoree drops several levels that she eventually realizes are huge steps, as though built for giants. A passageway she moves along is tall and wide. The very air she breathes—still and stale, old and loaded with the dust of ages—seems suited more to something else. She shivers as if watched, but knows that it is only the depth of history that observes.
But she is not the first to come down here.
Dal’s footprints draw her onward, pressed into the dust. They are far apart and deep, as if he is running, and she wonders how he can find his way down here and what light illuminates his path.
That crushing energy seems to throb through the passageways like a pulse through the veins of a giant, sleeping creature. It is a discomforting image that Lanoree cannot shake, yet she knows it is foolish. The Old City is just that … an old city. Archaeologists have been here. Historians. Some have been, seen, and left again, intrigued but not possessed. Others have spent their lives researching this place. A few have never been seen again, and there are stories of such depths …
But she wonders whether any of them have
ever felt this terrible, pulsing potential, and what they thought of it.
“Dal!” she calls, surprising herself. Her voice echoes from walls and ceiling, fading into the distance yet seeming to persist far longer than she could have believed. Later, descending another giant staircase, she thinks she can still hear her brother’s name traveling through the darkness. Or perhaps it is simply a memory.
Deeper. She starts to wonder what walked these passageways millennia before, and tries not to. So little is known of the Gree, if indeed this was originally a Gree structure. Legend has it that they possessed amazing, arcane technologies that allowed travel among the stars. That they were a nomadic species, exploring the galaxy for unknown ends. There were rumors of Gree sculptures somewhere in the Old City. But some believe the expedition that supposedly found them fabricated them.
Sometimes Dal’s footprints fade in areas where the floor has seemingly been blown free of dust, perhaps by underground storms. Power surges as that incredible energy breaks free, maybe once each year, or once in a lifetime. So much is unknown, but Lanoree’s attention is fixed. Her intention is known. Dal needs saving from himself, and she will strive for this as long as she can.
Lanoree loses track of time. She thinks perhaps a day has passed since she left the surface and ventured down here. She is worried about finding her way back out, but there are footprints—both hers and Dal’s now—and there is the Force. It is a comfort to her, and the only reason she can stay her course.
She’s hungry and thirsty. Water runs down the walls in places, but she cannot bring herself to touch or drink it. She has no idea where it has come from or what, over many centuries, it has been filtered through. There must be countless places that time has forever hidden from view, and countless things that will never be known.