by Troy Denning
Though spoken softly, the words struck Anakin like a fist. His own sister did not want him fighting at her side. Had he bungled things that badly?
Jaina joined the others on the firing lines. Anakin squatted behind the dead voxyn and stared into the rustling darkness, alert to any change in sound or in the Force that meant more creatures coming. Though hardly as sensitive to the beasts as Jacen, he could tell that most of the creatures on the other side of the archway were bloodthirsty but defensive—and almost stationary.
“You don’t have to let them push you around,” Tahiri said, dropping to her knees and almost yelling to make herself heard over the battle roar. “You’re still team leader.”
“Some leader,” Anakin said.
Tahiri waited almost a full second before demanding, “What’s that mean?”
“I keep getting people killed.”
“People are getting killed. Who says it’s your fault?”
“I do.” Anakin glanced toward the battle. “They do.”
“Neg that! They just want you to get us out of here.” A concussion grenade shook the corridor and was answered by a dozen sonic screeches. “So do I. Think of something—fast.”
Tahiri kissed him and turned toward the battle, her blaster drawn. So far, the bolt storm was holding the voxyn at bay, but that would change. It would change soon. Several Jedi were already drawing down their last power packs, and eventually the voxyn would mount an attack through Anakin’s archway—unless the strike team left first.
Tesar rasped a curse, hurled his minicannon at a voxyn, and summoned Krasov’s weapon to hand. His target sprang at his head, claws lashing. Raynar Thul caught the creature on a hissing lightsaber, opened a three-meter slash down its belly, then leapt away—into the path of its lashing tail.
The barb penetrated. Raynar winced and retreated into the Jedi ranks, severing the tail a meter from his jumpsuit and leaving the stump to hang. Anakin spun to call Tekli and found her scurrying forward, antidote in hand.
They had to move, they had to move soon.
Anakin turned his glow stick to maximum and tossed it through the archway, catching it with the Force and holding it high in the air. The voxyn belched acid at it, but settled down as they grew accustomed to the radiance. Anakin glimpsed many dozen creatures—probably not a hundred—spread over the tiers of a vast stadium. Most were squatting over the corpses of slaves they had dragged in from the city, glaring and ruffling their neck scales at each other.
No way to levitate across that. Jedi could not fly, after all, and the distance had to be more than a kilometer. Maybe if they used their Force acrobatics …
Jacen came to Anakin’s side and, sensing the drift of his thoughts through the battle meld, peered into the arena. “We don’t want to startle them. They won’t leave their, uh, nests unless they feel threatened. I might be able to keep them from attacking at all.”
“Good,” Anakin said. “It’d be nice if something went right.”
He turned to find Ganner pointing toward an acid-melted voxyn tunnel just up the corridor and yelling that they had to make a run for it. Afraid he wouldn’t be heard over the battle roar, Anakin activated his comlink.
“Right idea, Ganner, wrong direction.” He pointed through the archway. “This way.”
“The arena?” This from Jaina. “You can’t heal—”
“I’ll heal when this is done,” Anakin interrupted. What he wouldn’t do was hole up in some voxyn tunnel and get everyone trapped. “This way.”
Tesar Sebatyne was the first to nod. “As you order.” He laid a barrage of covering fire. “Fall back!”
Lowbacca did the same for those facing the opposite direction, and Jacen led the way into the arena, dropping the battle meld so he could concentrate on soothing voxyn. The closest creatures ruffled their scales and scratched furrows into their tiers. They also remained in their nests and did not attack.
Anakin let out a breath and turned to Krasov. Though her face was covered by Bela’s breath mask, plenty of bones and teeth showed around the rim. Anakin caught Tekli’s eye and raised his brow.
“Not thiz time, Little Brother.” Krasov’s voice was barely a croak. “Allow this one to cover your … departure.”
“No,” Anakin said. “We’ll toss a detonator back—”
“Too late.” Krasov opened her hand to reveal a thermal detonator, fuse set to ignite three seconds after her thumb left the trigger. “This iz better.”
Alema Rar slipped past, pulling a stuporous Raynar Thul along. His condition was due to the antidote, not the poison. Anakin sent Tekli after the pair and laid covering fire for Lowbacca.
“Krasov, secure that trigger,” Anakin ordered. Half a dozen voxyn came boiling down the corridor. He dropped the leader with a bolt to the eye. “Krasov?”
“Krasov iz gone.” Tesar tossed a concussion grenade into the rest of the pack and, as the blast rocked the corridor, kneeled to press his cheek to Krasov’s. He held it there until the residual acid began to make his own scales smoke, then rose and pointed to her thumb, now barely holding the trigger. “This one thinkz we should hurry.”
FORTY-ONE
Anakin ducked through the arch into the arena, Tesar close on his heels. The rest of the strike team was already three tiers below, lighting their way with glow sticks and nervously snaking past a nesting voxyn. The two Jedi started after them, circling around a forty-meter crater that Anakin had made moments earlier with a thermal detonator.
A tumult of snarling and bellowing rumbled through the arch behind them, prompting Anakin and Tesar to launch themselves headlong down the tiers. The thermal detonator Krasov had been clutching when she died would go off three seconds after the ravaging voxyn knocked it from her lifeless hand. Something tore inside Anakin’s wound and sent a half-numbed pain shooting up through his belly. He ignored it and completed his somersault, then landed dead-legged two tiers below and tumbled over the edge.
Two things happened next. First, the voxyn that he had disturbed took offense and opened its mouth to spew acid. Second, the thermal detonator went off above him, flashing a fan of white brilliance across the arena and disintegrating a forty-meter length of wall, and bringing untold tons of yorik coral crashing down into the arena.
Anakin was a lot more worried about the angry voxyn. Fumbling for his lightsaber, he rolled away and leapt to his feet—only to find the beast scratching at its own throat, mysteriously choking on its tongue and dribbling brown acid out the side of its mouth. A dark shiver raced down his spine, and he turned to find Welk standing behind him, one hand curled into a strangling claw, his face contorted into an angry mask of concentration.
“Jacen needs everybody down!” Tenel Ka’s hushed voice came over the comlink. “Stay low and silent!”
Anakin obeyed quickly, Welk less so, and Anakin watched in silence as the Dark Jedi used the Force to strangle the life out of the creature. Certainly, neither Anakin nor anyone else on the strike team would have used the Force to kill directly—calling upon its power to extinguish the very life that sustained it was a certain path to the dark side—but Anakin would have been hard-pressed to call it immoral. Had the situation been reversed, he would not have hesitated to use a blaster or lightsaber to save Welk.
As the rumble of falling yorik coral faded away, the voxyn continued to snarl and scratch at the yorik coral beneath their feet. Anakin felt Jacen reaching out with the Force, soothing the beasts with reassuring thoughts, working to persuade them that this was the last of the disturbances. Given the commotion of the last hour, the task was difficult, but the voxyn were so eager to remain on their nests that they calmed.
“It is okay to move slowly,” Tenel Ka advised. “But do nothing threatening. Under no circumstances must anyone attack.”
As Anakin rose, a wave of dizziness made him brace himself against the wall, but no one noticed. All eyes were focused on Zekk, who was marching over to Welk with fury in his eyes.
“You used
the dark side!” he hissed.
“Better to let the beast kill young Solo?” Lomi asked, placing herself between the two.
“You broke your promise,” Zekk said.
“He saved my life.” Anakin stepped to Zekk’s side, then glanced pointedly around. There were no live voxyn closer than twenty meters, but all of the beasts within the range of their glow sticks were ruffling their neck scales and staring at the strike team. “And if we can feel your outrage, so can the voxyn.”
The heat went out of Zekk’s expression. “Sorry, Anakin.” He glared at Welk and Lomi, then said, “Don’t use the Force again—not around me.”
With that, he spun on his heel and started down the tier after Jacen and Jaina. Anakin watched him go, suddenly too weary to concern himself over Zekk’s rigid view of the dark side. His legs shook from the mere effort of standing. He took a moment to concentrate, using the Force to muster his strength, then waved Welk and Lomi forward and fell in behind.
“By the way, thanks for saving my life,” he said to Welk.
“Then you do not feel tainted by the dark side?” Lomi asked.
“I’m not afraid of it, if that’s what you mean,” Anakin replied. “But Zekk’s right, you did break your promise.”
“Don’t worry,” Welk said, not looking back. “I won’t do it again.”
They descended the tiers in a zigzagging course as Jacen gave the widest possible berth to the nesting voxyn. Even through the breath masks, the stench grew ever more unbearable, and they saw bodies in all states of decomposition, the hopeful mothers still standing guard over the food they expected to nourish their sterile eggs. In a few cases, the voxyn herself had starved to death and collapsed on top of her nest’s bare bones. The sight struck Anakin as morbidly sad, though it did not really surprise him. He knew from his studies—and from Jacen’s endless discourses during long space voyages—that many creatures faced death to bring forth the next generation. This willingness—and the fact that in some species it was even necessary—was tangible evidence of the eternal nature of the Force, Jacen said.
About halfway down, they came to a ten-meter drop, which proved to be another tier of arches similar to the ones out of which they had come. Rather than risk drawing any more nest-less voxyn through these portals, they began to circle the arena—or whatever it was—clambering up and down tiers in order to avoid voxyn nests. The effort quickly began to tell on Anakin, even when he used the Force to assist himself. It was not long before his knees were trembling and his belly burning.
Tahiri, of course, noticed right away. “Anakin, you’re shaking.”
Anakin nodded. “The smell is getting to me.”
“The smell makes no one else shake,” Tesar noted, coming up behind Anakin. “This one will carry you.”
Before Anakin could object, the Barabel scooped him up in his arms. Tahiri insisted on reporting Anakin’s condition to Tekli, whose examination came to an abrupt end when an angry voxyn stuck its head over the tier above and belched acid in their direction. Fearful of agitating the rest of the beasts, the strike team resumed its march, with Anakin cradled in Tesar’s scaly arms.
As they continued around the arena, Anakin saw that the tiers below were better appointed than those through which he and his companions were traveling. The walls were decorated with statues of Yun-Yammka, many showing the god tearing off his own limbs or draining his blood. A few showed Yuuzhan Vong warriors being devoured by the god or emerging whole again from among its tentacles. When he began to glimpse long spikes and sharp hooks protruding from the walls surrounding the arena floor, Anakin thought this was probably a stadium where the Yuuzhan Vong had once entertained themselves by pitting slave gladiators against each other.
Then Anakin noticed the series of ramps extending from the lower tier onto the arena floor and realized he had it wrong. The Yuuzhan Vong had been the ones who fought here—or at least those lucky enough to sit in the privileged lower tier. Viewed in that light, the statues of Yun-Yammka took on a religious tone, and he began to imagine the arena as an enormous church. He could almost see the place filled with Yuuzhan Vong faithful as the worldship hurtled through the darkness between galaxies, the most prominent citizens and celebrated leaders down on the arena floor, honoring their gods with their blood, by their deaths assuring the Yuuzhan Vong of a new home in the distant galaxy of the New Republic.
“Put me down,” Anakin said. Warriors like those would not be defeated by someone who had to be borne into battle in another’s arms. “I won’t be carried, not in here—not until this is done.”
Tesar returned Anakin to his unsteady feet.
Lowbacca groaned, then moaned a question.
“Then how do you expect—”
“Tesar can help me,” Anakin said, interrupting Em Teedee’s translation. He turned to the Barabel. “When Ulaha was being tortured, you gave her strength.”
“It will not be as much,” Tesar warned. “There were three then.”
“I’ll take what I can,” Anakin said. “I just want to finish this on my feet.”
The Barabel showed his needlelike teeth. “Then this one would be honored.”
Anakin felt Tesar make contact through the Force, then experienced a peculiar reptilian chill as the Barabel brought them together emotionally. The world turned strangely crimson, and Anakin felt his weakness pouring into Tesar, and Tesar’s strength flowing into him. With it came a strange sense of loneliness, not quite sorrow as humans knew it, but two aching absences that would never be filled.
Without realizing that he had closed them, Anakin opened his eyes. “I—it isn’t quite what I expected.”
“No?” Tesar rasped. “You wanted scales?”
Astonished to discover he actually understood the joke, Anakin chuckled and started after the others. His connection to Tesar felt similar to the battle meld, save that now it was the Barabel’s strength that was being shared.
A few minutes later, Alema announced that they had circled around the arena to a point opposite their entry arch, and the team began to ascend the stairs. Anakin was able to climb under his own power, but Raynar was still suffering from the effects of the poison antidote and had to be lifted from one tier to the next with the Force. They were only one tier from the exit when Raynar, waiting for Alema to climb up after him, pointed ten meters down the tier.
“Look!” His tongue was so thick that Anakin did not understand him at first. “Eryl!”
Raynar turned and started to stagger in the direction he was pointing, drawing a warning neck rustle from a nearby voxyn. Alema pulled herself up in one swift motion and rushed after the disoriented Jedi, while Anakin and several others reached out with the Force and jerked him back.
The voxyn belched acid and missed, then lunged forward and slashed Raynar twice. The first attack tore through his armored jumpsuit, the second opened four deep gashes. Leaving the wounded Jedi to his companions, Anakin jerked his lightsaber off his harness and activated the blade.
“Anakin, no!” Jacen warned. “Let it go back to its nest.”
Anakin deactivated the blade, but kept the weapon at high guard. Tesar floated Raynar’s babbling figure over to Ganner and Alema, who quickly disappeared behind the edge with him. The voxyn continued to glare down, its beady eyes fixed on the lightsaber in Anakin’s hands.
“Need help, young Solo?” Lomi asked. “I can kill it, but there is that promise—”
“Keep your promise,” Anakin said. He slowly lowered his lightsaber and backed away. “You really don’t want to see Zekk angry.”
“Do not be so sure,” Lomi said. “I hear he is very powerful when he is angry.”
The voxyn retreated to its nest. Anakin dared to breathe again, then he and the others scrambled up the last tier to the exit. Alema and Zekk were already on the other side with Tekli and Raynar, but Jacen and the rest were waiting just inside the arch.
Anakin stepped through and peered at Raynar over the Chadra-Fan’s small shoul
der. Four deep gashes ran diagonally across his chest, but the bleeding was not severe and no bone was showing.
“How is he?”
“Well enough for now,” Tekli said, filling the wounds with cleansing foam. “But much will depend on how Cilghal’s anti-disease agents work.”
Anakin continued to stare at Raynar. Another casualty, this one a close friend of Jacen and Jaina—but they had made it across the voxyn warrens. He felt both sorrowful and relieved, but not guilty. He had chosen as well as he could.
Though Raynar was probably too incoherent to notice, Anakin kneeled down and patted his shoulder. “Can he be moved?”
“Have someone levitate him,” Tekli said. “I’ll ride.”
Zekk had the patient in the air before Anakin could give the order. Alema was beside him, holding Tekli’s medpac, her face distressed. Anakin gave her arm a reassuring squeeze, then gently took the medpac from her and passed it to Tahiri.
“We need you to navigate,” he said to Alema. “Lomi’s never been outside the training course, and everyone else is lost down here.”
Alema thought for a moment, then guided them down the passage in what seemed the opposite direction they had been traveling. This corridor resembled the one they had followed into the arena, save that it lacked acid-scarred caves connected to a parallel tunnel. Eventually, the team passed an intersection that had been blocked with a yorik coral plug, presumably to discourage voxyn from escaping onto the rest of the worldship. Alema passed by the first, then the next, and finally stopped at a third.
“It feels like we’re very near the surface here.” A shudder ran down her lekku as she spoke. “I’m guessing we are far from the gate they were herding us toward. Maybe we can finally take them by surprise.”
Jaina checked her comlink. “Maybe we can. They still haven’t tripped the flechette mine.”
Anakin gestured at the barricade. “Who wants the honors?”
Lowbacca and Tesar ignited their lightsabers simultaneously and set to work. The yorik coral was much harder than that aboard the Exquisite Death, and it required nearly twenty minutes to cut through the meter-deep plug. Anakin spent much of the time in meditation, doing what he could for his injury, but Tekli did not want to open it again. Even if a stitch had popped, there would be nothing solid to reattach it to.