Darksaber

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "An, Durga detests me," Korrda said, blinking bloodshot eyes and bobbing his narrow head. "He keeps me because I am so despicable. He shames me by placing me in situations where I must appear to be important, though it is obvious to anyone with eyes that I am worthless. This makes me feel even more downtrodden--which keeps Durga happy, and therefore, I am content."

  Leia's mind spun with the tangled logic, but she didn't try to argue.

  From their perches, the carrion birds watched Korrda himself, as if he might be their next meal. The creatures squawked as a large lumpy worrt, a long-tongued froglike creature, hopped into the dining hall from one of the outer corridors. Frills stood up around its eyes, and it bobbed obediently as it sat waiting, clasping a message placard in its wide toothless mouth.

  Korrda rushed over to snatch the placard from the creature, then patted its warty head as he scanned the message on the screen. He reared up in delight, his mottled skin growing darker.

  "Ah, good news indeed!" he said. "My master, Lord Durga, is on his way and should be here shortly. He insists that I show you the pleasure of his private bathhouses while you wait. I'm sure you'll find them most enjoyable."

  The concept of a Hutt bathhouse made Leia's stomach churn, but she forced a smile.

  Han raised an eyebrow skeptically, and clasped her hand under the table. "It's for the New Republic ," she said in a martyred tone.

  Korrda beamed with pride as he gestured at the enclosed labyrinth beneath the palace, holding acres and acres of sluggish, steaming water. The walls were covered with mold and bulbous fungus. Dim light filtered from narrow slits in the walls, giving everything a grainy, tarnished appearance.

  "This bathhouse is Lord Durga's pride and joy," Korrda said.

  "Doesn't surprise me a bit," Han murmured, trying to sound polite.

  The maze of canals was an underground catacomb with vaulted ceilings and algae-covered support pillars dipping into the shallow water. Things splashed and swam in the twisted channels, lost in the faint mist.

  "This fresh water is pumped in directly from the bogs," Korrda said, as if confiding a great trade secret. "Lumps and all."

  The canals bubbled, and hairy green weed drifted along the top. Leia hugged herself in the clinging robe Korrda had provided for her. "You expect us to swim in this?" she said.

  "Oh, no!" Korrda flinched backward in horror, whipping his sinuous spine back and forth.

  "These canals are for Lord Durga and other Hutts. We could not allow a ... human to pollute the water."

  "We certainly wouldn't want to offend Durga," Han said with relief.

  "An, no--we have a species-segregated section for some of our honored visitors. I'm sorry we cannot be fully accommodating; this section, alas, has only pure water, with none of the special additives that give Hutt skin such a pleasurable texture." Korrda led them to a warm, crystal-clear pool with rough stone steps leading down into x so they could immerse themselves to shoulder level in the bubbling water.

  "This will do just fine, thank you," Leia said, her gratitude genuine.

  "As long as we've checked it for traps,” Han suggested.

  "Oh, indeed, sir. I have been most vigilant throughout this entire mission," Threepio said. "And I detect no treachery here. I assure you, you may bathe without fear. I'll remain on guard."

  "Oh good," Han said sarcastically, "then I can relax."

  Leia slowly lowered herself into the warm, fizzy water and sighed as the liquid heat swirled around her aching joints. "In spite of myself, I might enjoy this," she said.

  "Please relax," Korrda said. "I must attend to my Lord Durga's arrival."

  "You go right ahead," Han said, waving in dismissal. "Threepio will be here to stand guard, and our New Republic escort is just out in the corridor."

  As Korrda slithered away, Han and Leia sank into the pool, listening to the simmering sounds of other creatures moving in the canals reserved for Hutt bathing. The labyrinth was so vast that they could feel alone in their little corner, although numerous Hutt visitors and the reckless Huttlings swam in other sections.

  "Should we talk?" Han whispered.

  Leia slipped an arm around his waist.

  "No," she said. "We have nothing important to discuss at the moment, and there's no telling whether Durga's listening in. Let's just enjoy a moment of relaxation--for a change."

  Leia grew drowsy, though she remained on guard, half-watching the canals filled with sludgy bog water. Gradually she became aware of ripples stirring the hairy green seaweed; something large moved beneath the surface, easing toward them. She sat up straighter, stiffening.

  "Oh, dear," Threepio cried. "I do believe something's approaching." He pointed with a golden hand just as a large bulk heaved itself out of the bog water near the canal divider opposite Han and Leia. The sloping mound, dripping with water and seaweed, blinked two huge copper-red eyes.

  "Hoo-hoo-hoo," a Hutt voice boomed.

  "Welcome, Leia Organa Solo. I am pleased to see you again so soon."

  Leia recoiled, but managed to mask her shock. She sat back in the pool, maintaining her cool diplomatic composure as she recognized the dark birthmark on the Hutt's wet face. "Lord Durga, welcome home."

  "Your visit comes as such a surprise,” Durga said, heaving himself higher so that the seaweed sloughed off his sloping head and dripped back into the steaming canals. "I did not expect you to come so soon. Does this mean you are anxious now to form an alliance with the Hutt syndicate?"

  "Don't jump to conclusions," Han said.

  "Let me handle this, Han." Leia squeezed his arm. "Our visit is a gesture of good faith on our part, Lord Durga. I'm sure you know how quickly the New Republic can work, once it has made a decision." Han snorted beside her, because she had complained so often about how interminably long even simple processes took. Durga wouldn't know that, however. "If we decide that an agreement with the Hutts is advisable, you can bet we'll move quickly," she said in as businesslike a tone as she could muster. "No sense postponing profit."

  Durga, though, seemed surprised and uneasy. "We need not rush a decision as important as this," he said. "We must take great pains to ensure that all are satisfied with our alliance."

  Leia pursed her lips. "I see," she said, realizing that Durga was just stalling to keep them off balance. His initial overture to her on Coruscant had merely been a ruse to gain access to the Imperial Information Center for the Death Star plans. It was clear now that he didn't want an agreement; he just wanted to keep them chasing false leads while the Hutt superweapon was under construction. Leia was determined to learn the site of the secret project and how far along they had managed to get.

  "I noticed your battle fleet near our system, Madam President," Durga continued. "I can't help but express my concern –“

  Leia raised her hand out of the water with a splash, and trickles ran down her wrist. "Oh, don't worry, they're just engaged in routine military exercises. They could train anywhere, I suppose, but they wanted to accompany me. You know how overprotective bodyguards can get." She sighed. "Nothing to be concerned about--we're going to be allies, remember? If we can work out a deal, of course. I wouldn't let a little thing like a few warships engaged in simulated combat bother you."

  Durga chuckled again and raised his stubby hands out of the bog water. "Bother me? No, you misunderstand. I merely thought there must be some crucial political brushfires on recalcitrant worlds in your New Republic . I'm surprised you have excess warships that can be wasted on games."

  "We haven't had any problems with the Empire at large for a couple of years," Leia said. "Even so, our fleet needs to keep in practice."

  Durga widened his eyes and laughed. "Hoo, the Empire may be doing more than you think." His voice boomed in the enclosed catacombs. "To show you my good intentions, let me offer you a service, something for which the Hutts are justly famous."

  "And what is that?" Leia asked, not particularly interested.

  "Our network has many g
ood sources of information - certain data that could be valuable to your New Republic . While you're here on Nal Hutta, allow me to offer you the services of one of my information brokers. I'll instruct him to check up on what the Empire has been up to recently. I think you may be surprised."

  Han grew suddenly tense and alert beside Leia; under the water his hands clenched into fists. Although she assumed the entire offer was merely another diversion, a ploy to distract them from other lines of inquiry, Leia clasped one of Han's hands and nodded. "I gratefully accept your offer, Lord Durga. The galaxy functions on the basis of accurate intelligence."

  She stood up, dripping in the water. "For now, though, I think I've been in the bath too long," Leia said.

  Threepio bustled off to get towels.

  CHAPTER 25

  As night fell outside the opulent palace of Durga the Hutt, the other inhabitants of the bog planet went about their desperate lives.

  Disguised in tatters, with dirt and weariness smeared across his bearded face--just like any other downtrodden victim of Nal Hutta--General Crix Madine slipped through the gathering gloom with his destination firmly in mind.

  With liquid movements he had developed during years of covert operations, Madine worked his way through the dim streets between rundown prefab shacks in a squatters' village. Locked-down warehouses shone like military bunkers under the wan moonlight and harsh security beams around the heavily guarded spaceport.

  Distribution centers busily processed the raw materials torn from Nal Hutta's surface and shipped the supplies to the moon Nar Shaddaa. Madine watched chains of light, the trails of regular supply ships, lifting through the cloud-strewn skies to the Smugglers' Moon and returning with cargo holds filled with black-market goods that were purchased and laundered on the moon itself.

  The Hutt race had the habit of usurping a world, then using it up, squeezing it dry of resources and polluting the environment. When they eventually destroyed their stolen home planet, the Hutts would move someplace else--and their crime empire was currently in the process of digesting Nal Hutta.

  Slum entertainment centers stood on rickety durasteel stilts in the glimmering wet marshland. The entertainment complex seemed like an afterthought to provide hopeless amusement for those trapped on Nal Hutta. Even from a distance Madine could hear the loud music and louder screams.

  On the other side of the spaceport Durga's palace was lit up with blue-white spotlights that played across its outer walls. The structure rose like a giant ivory edifice, towering and aloof in the midst of the other inhabitants.

  Carrying a partially concealed glowlantern, Madine made his way to the wire-mesh fence that blocked access to the spaceport landing field. Under the security lights Durga's private ship rested, a custom-designed hyperspace yacht, long and vermiform, its smooth iron gray hull adorned with fins and stabilizers for atmospheric travel.

  As he crept to the barrier Madine saw other furtive figures huddling near the fence, staring longingly at the ships parked there, tantalizing reminders of a way to escape this world ... but all the strangers ran away when Madine approached. He wished he could call after them, offer them some hope, promise to rescue them when all this was over--but he could not.

  He reached the fence and held the thin, unbreakable wires like any other dejected dreamer. Armed Weequay guards stood in a tight perimeter around Durga's ship; their wrinkled, leathery faces were stony, and they waited like unflinching statues. Madine knew the Weequays were not terribly intelligent, but they were loyal and vicious--there would be no chance to get close to the ship. But he didn't need to.

  Madine squatted at the base of the fence and pulled the glowlantern from the billows of his ragged cloak. He found the hidden catch and opened the compartment behind the lantern. Madine reached inside and withdrew the small fluttering creature, a moon moth with powder-blue gossamer wings that beat gently as it tried to fly.

  "Not yet," Madine said. "Pause."

  The moth froze in midmotion. Other nocturnal insects buzzed around the brilliant security lights guarding the spaceport landing pad. This moth was a perfect replica of a common insect, crafted by Mechis III's finest droid specialists. The moth machine had limited computer memory--but it knew to follow commands, and it knew its own mission.

  Madine held the moth in the palm of his hand and pointed it toward Durga's well-lit hyperspace yacht. "Acquire target," he said. The moth's antennae gyrated and its wings trembled in affirmation. Madine waited just a moment to make sure, then he commanded, "Launch!"

  The powder-blue moon moth lifted into the air, spiraling on the night breezes. It flew in a careful random pattern, precisely erratic, drawing no attention whatsoever.

  As Madine tilted his head up, cold pearls of rain began to drop, beading on his cheeks. He blinked, rubbed the greasy water from his face, but his beard absorbed the moisture. Staring at the moth as it approached its target, Madine's heart pounded.

  This mission was simple and smooth. The moth machine fluttered down and alit on the outer hull of Durga's yacht, just behind one of the stabilizer fins.

  The moth stayed on the hull for only a moment, paused to deposit its precious egg--a microscopic droplet--then it beat its wings and rose into the increasing downpour. Madine waited until the tiny droid was lost to sight up in the night blackness, flying as far from Durga's ship as the buffeting winds would allow. He felt a twinge of sadness when he reached deep into the torn folds to his pocket for the tiny controls--and pressed the "destruct" button.

  He saw a sparkle of white light, a flash of the tiny detonation. Then he turned and was already moving away from the fence, melting into the shadows around the prefab ghettos. He had plenty of time to reach the rendezvous point.

  The moth's mission had been successful, and now Madine would be able to track Durga's movements, wherever the Hutt went.

  DAGOBAH

  CHAPTER 26

  Luke woke in the middle of the night to see Callista standing over him, her slender body silhouetted against pale watery light, a backwash of reflections that penetrated the polymerized ice walls in the comet quarry.

  He sat up, instantly aware. "Callista, what is it?" Warm mists curled around her like steam, and he had an eerie sense of deja vu, a flash of memory from when he had seen her spectral image while she was trapped inside the Eye of Palpatine.

  "Luke," she said, her voice quiet and troubled, "we shouldn't be here. ..."

  He increased the light from the glowpanels.

  "Why not?" He slid out of bed and stood to hold her. She felt soft and warm, fitting comfortably into his embrace. "This place is beautiful and peaceful. What better spot could there be for us to spend some time?"

  Callista stared deeply at him with her gray eyes. "This is romantic and private, Luke, but ... that's all. The comet quarry has no focus, no connection to anything that matters to us. It's not personal. I've got to work with something personal." She pressed her lips together, then continued with greater conviction, "Oh, Luke, why not take me to where you learned the Force. I'll see it through my own eyes, and you can guide me."

  A silvery tinkle of water spattered from the fountains. The solidified ice walls were thick and muffling. He and Callista seemed isolated, frozen away from everyone else--as she had been frozen inside the computer banks for so many decades.

  He squeezed her tightly. "Yes," he said slowly. "I can show you many places--it'll be like a pilgrimage to the worlds that influenced my life."

  She followed him as he walked out of the sleeping chamber into the common room. He whispered his request to the recessed computer terminal. As the computer search sorted public-access navigation charts, he went over to the food-prep unit and summoned two steaming cups of sweet, soothing jeru tea. He handed one to Callista, and she took it, smiling. This was her favorite beverage, and he had learned to drink it with her.

  Luke sat down on the comfortable chair, and Callista took a seat beside him, running her long fingers across his shoulders, drawing a m
elting line of relaxation. He ran a hand through his ruffled hair to straighten it from the chaos of sleep. He took another sip of the syrupy tea and studied the navigational analysis in an outwardly spiraling list of distances.

  He smiled with a wistful sigh as he found his target. "All right," he said and turned to Callista. "Looks like we'll go to Dagobah first."

  Clouds formed a thick band across the sky of Dagobah, a belt of storms that Luke Skywalker's ship plowed through. He increased the shields to prevent the lightning damage that his X-wing had sustained the first time he had come to find the Jedi Master Yoda.

  Dagobah had many climatic areas, many places not quite as teeming with life as the magnificent swamps; but Yoda had chosen to hide in the marshy areas where his presence could be masked by so many life forces.

  Luke talked of Yoda as he brought their space yacht through a break in the canopy. "The first time I landed here in a bog, and my X-wing sank. I thought I'd never get out until Yoda used the Force to heave my ship out of the water. I thought it was impossible. He told me that's why I failed."

  Luke risked a glance at Callista, taking his attention from the piloting. "Never believe that yourself. You will get your powers back. Don't think it's impossible."

  She nodded. "I know it's not impossible, and I'm going to do it."

  The ship spotlights extended brilliant cones to the wet ground below. Luke located a clearing that looked like a field of white boulders, but as he shone the light down to cut through the creeping ground fog, he saw that the white rocks were actually spherical fungi. As the beam played across them, their sensitive skins burst, showering fine spores. He could hear the faint boom of fungus blasts as the lumps reproduced in the sudden wash of light.

  Luke set the space yacht down, keeping his fingers tense on the controls in case the ship should begin to cant or settle awkwardly. But the ground seemed stable beneath them. He switched off the engines. "Shall we go for a stroll in the swamp?" he said, offering Callista his hand.