by Claudia Gray
He trusted in his ability as a Jedi, and in the ways of the Force. His lightsaber remained at his side. So Reath could prepare himself to deal with whatever came.
But preparing himself included accurately assessing the situation he’d found himself in, which was in fact extremely terrible.
“I am in a hyperspace pod,” Reath said out loud. The rounded interior of the pod caught sounds and shaped them strangely. “No navicomputer on board that I can see, and besides, this has to be too small to have a hyperdrive of its own. I think…I think this has to be some kind of one-way transit vehicle, the human-sized equivalent of a probe droid.”
He tried very hard not to dwell on the words one-way. Panic couldn’t help him, while analysis…probably wasn’t going to help much, either, but it was at least worth trying.
“I don’t know where I’m going, what I’ll find there, or how to get back. Okay. That more or less sums it up.”
Hyperspace journeys could last anywhere from a few minutes to several weeks. Without any way of knowing how long this one would be, Reath began to be concerned about the lack of food, water, and an evac tube. But no sooner had he noticed that than the pod suddenly jolted out of hyperspace. He blinked as he stared at the thin windows in the hatch, the ones that had just blinked from electric blue to black night. A star field lay beyond. Had the pod deposited him in the middle of nowhere?
The one sensor within the pod began to blink, and Reath felt the rumbling that could mean only one thing: a tractor beam.
“At least I’m going someplace,” he said, taking his lightsaber from his belt. Whatever came next, he intended to be ready.
The pod tilted as it began descending through an atmosphere. Clouds didn’t vary that much planet to planet—assuming they were water vapor and not methane, which Reath profoundly hoped to be the case. He wasn’t going to be able to tell much on the way down; investigation would have to wait for the planet’s surface.
The tractor beam pulled the pod down inexorably, but in a controlled descent. Reath felt no more than a small thud as the pod settled into…something.
He looked through the thin hatch windows and saw nothing but greenery: trees, bushes, a sort of marshy landscape. In fact, he recognized the vines from the station; some seeds must’ve made the same journey in the past. This strongly suggested that the atmosphere was breathable by humans. Nobody was waiting to kill him, either, which was always a good sign.
Reath pushed the hatch door open and stepped outside. Thick clouds filtered, but didn’t conceal, a white sun’s light. The air was warm and damp, and it smelled like loamy soil, salt water, and thick green marsh plants. Wet ground had to be nearby. However, the pod had come to rest on a spar of rockier land.
A spar that must have been chosen, very long before, as the base for this hyperspace pod.
As Reath stepped farther back from the pod, he got a better look at the mechanism. The small, almost spherical pod he’d been in was only part of the whole—the “cabin,” as it were, at the head. Behind it stretched the rest of the mechanism, long and slender, what he had to assume was the hyperdrive. Another such pod, identical to the one he’d traveled in, rested farther along the sinuous track. It curves through the tunnels, he realized. It’s an ancient, fully automated mechanism. There must be multiple pods still within the Amaxine station. People step inside a pod, and it travels to predetermined coordinates.
So where have these coordinates taken me?
He paid attention to his immediate surroundings first. He recognized the circular motifs of the Amaxines in the landing platform, which coiled around, clearly setting up the hyperspace pods for their return trip. Helix rings hung in place there, too, which meant there was probably power and fuel enough for more than one voyage. Reath had to hope so; otherwise, this was his new planet of residence. Although moss had grown over some of the central hub—the controls?—all the equipment appeared to be in working condition.
Which meant he probably had a way to get back to the Amaxine station. He just had to figure it out.
Then he heard rustling in the leaves, in the reeds. Reath whirled around, lightsaber in hand, to see…nothing. Just trees. Just plants.
Yet as he stood there, he could feel an oppressive weight settling over him—the presence of the dark side, powerful, acute, and focused. Someone was approaching him with ill intent, seemingly from every direction at once.
It occurred to Reath that he could make a run for the pod controls. This technology appeared to be highly automated; he might be able to launch a return trip to the Amaxine station within only a few minutes. Another pod had been waiting for no telling how long. That meant he had two chances to get himself out of there, to return to the others and the important mission at hand.
But the Force told him he had to stay. That whatever was on the planet—dangerous as it might be—was of critical significance. That he could learn something he and all the Jedi badly needed to know. The secrets of the Amaxine station would not remain on the station; they would expand far past their old boundaries, into the galaxy at large. The Jedi had to be ready.
Reath took a deep breath, settled into defense stance, and ignited his blade.
Cohmac’s research into Force artifacts and lore had taught him that the containment of the dark side usually took one of a very few forms: the echo of a Sith or other servant of darkness; a specific memory of an atrocity, usually the remembrance of those who had committed it; or a more amorphous, unfocused energy.
What he felt now—on the unbound, unprotected Amaxine station—was something entirely different. As impossible as it was, or ought to be, this was consciousness. Sapience. Individual will…
No. The will of multiple individuals, every single one possessed of murderous intent.
“Did you ever hear of the clay warriors of Zardossa Stix?” Cohmac murmured as the two Jedi moved deeper into the forested glade in the center of the station.
Orla said, “Sure. The ancient statues of a fallen army. The Zardossan legends claimed that the statues were the only things keeping the warriors dead—that if they were ever destroyed, the army would spring back to life. Now I’m asking myself why you’d bring that up at this particular moment, and none of the answers are good.”
“I think these idols,” said Cohmac, “may have been holding back a sort of army, or some other dangerous group.”
Orla stopped in the middle of the glade and held out her arms. “I’m not seeing any army.”
“But you can sense one,” Cohmac said as the impressions became more tangible. His stance shifted from merely alert to battle ready. “Reach out with your feelings.”
“I feel something,” Orla replied, “and I sense its malice. Still, we made a pretty thorough search of this station. Are you telling me we somehow managed to miss an entire military force?”
Then they heard the first footstep.
Both Jedi whirled around until they stood back to back, a single fighting unit. They ignited their lightsabers in the same instant, two white beams from Orla’s double-bladed saber and Cohmac’s lone blue beam shining into the murky patches among the vines.
The rustling grew louder with every heartbeat, yet the more Cohmac heard, the less he understood. None of the approaching enemies wore boots; nor could he hear any telltale clicks of metal hinting at weaponry. And the sound was off, somehow, unmistakable and yet strange.…
He saw a tree sway toward their clearing, as if pushed. Then it came closer and he realized it wasn’t a tree at all.
The creature that stood before them was two meters tall, gnarled and hulking. It possessed nothing as central as a trunk; instead it seemed to be a slithering mass of thorned vine tentacles, many of them plated in bark-like armor. There did seem to be a kind of “head,” one antlered with thorns and possessed of a wide, grinning mouth like the trap of a carnivorous plant, designed to snap shut on its prey. Coming up behind it were at least a dozen more of the same species, all of them enormous. Cohmac realized the
se things had blended in perfectly with the thickly overgrown greenery within the Amaxine station, but earlier, the creatures had been still.
Dormant.
Until the Jedi had set them free.
“Finally,” their leader said in a low, rumbling voice. “Some meat.”
“Stop hiding,” Reath called to his unseen foe. “Show yourselves.”
The vines around the pod launcher swayed. Branches rustled. Still, Reath saw nothing but plants.…
His eyes widened as he took in the incredibly huge forms approaching him, crawling toward him on dozens of vines, or tentacles. If anything they looked like swamp matter compressed together, plated with bark, then studded with thorns. Only one detail clashed with their arboreal appearance: in their…stems? stalks?…they held blasters that looked both extremely old and extremely lethal.
The enemy hadn’t been hiding in the plants. Somehow they were plants.
“Whoa,” he said. The researcher in him had overtaken the warrior. “That’s amazing. You guys are botanical rather than animal, but you’re sentient?”
They all looked at each other, apparently nonplussed. Whatever reaction they’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.
Reath had already collected himself, but he sensed that keeping the enemy off guard was a smart strategy. His initial response had done that pretty well, so he’d stick with it.
Slightly lowering his saber (while keeping it at the ready), he said, “Your mouths look a little like flytraps. Is that what they are? Or is that the kind of creature you evolved from? Do you have histories that go back that far? I hope I’m not being rude. Just—wow. I’ve never met a species like you.”
“It speaks more than the other one,” said one of the swamp beings to the others. “But it too has forgotten the name of the Drengir.”
“Never heard of the Drengir before,” Reath said truthfully. He was only guessing that was the name of their species, but since none of them contradicted him, it must’ve been an accurate guess. “Or anything remotely like you. There are sentient plants in the galaxy, sure, but they tend to be rooted in place. Literally rooted. Not you guys.”
None of them looked at him even once. One Drengir said, “I think it is younger than the other.”
The Drengir leader snarled, “All meat looks alike to me.”
Meat was really not a descriptor Reath wanted to hear applied to himself. He plowed on as though nobody had spoken, mentally taking the tally the entire time. “I’m a human. My name’s Reath Silas. Coming here was an accident, so if I’m intruding, uh, very sorry about that.” Seven Drengir in the party. Two keep their weapons at their sides and may be noncombatants. Vulnerable spots uncertain, but watch for the thorns.
“If it is younger, then it is even less likely to have information than the one we have,” the Drengir leader continued. “It will not know how this relay works. Pieces of foolish meat tumble out of the pods and we learn nothing. But two visitors means we have confirmed—our landing space remains intact. We can again find our brethren. And we can stop asking questions of our prize. At last we can eat it.”
Nobody was talking to Reath, but he thought he should weigh in, if only to get past being called meat. Could they not hear him? Or understand him? Their accents were strong, more like the way people had talked centuries before. Still, he’d try. “Probably those other people didn’t mean to come here any more than I did,” he guessed. “We thought that was Amaxine technology—”
“The Amaxines!” All the Drengir made a snap-rustling sound that must have been their version of laughter. So, Reath thought, they can hear me. They just think I’m not worth talking to.
The Drengir leader continued, “One of our first great conquests. They built this relay to make war on us, attempting to take our planet as they had many others. Instead, we defeated and devoured them.” Even this comment was more of a pep talk to his fellow Drengir than a statement directed at Reath. “We made their station our own. From there we planned to wreak havoc on many worlds. But then our people fell silent. None of them returned in either glory or defeat.”
We haven’t seen your people on the station, Reath wanted to say—but was stopped by two realizations.
First, they had seen Drengir on the station. Now that he looked at them, he recognized the curl of their thorns, the particular dark yellowish-green of some stems. The Drengir had been there the whole time, silent and still. Were they the darkness that had been held in check by the ancient idols?
Second, only a few moments before, the Drengir leader had said another person had recently come through in a hyperspace pod. How recently?
“Who else has come to your planet via the pods?” Reath asked, tightening his grip on his saber.
“This one is fresh,” said one of the Drengir, still ignoring Reath. “Not like the wilted one with sap running from his head. Maybe it can answer more questions.”
Reath ignored the implied threat of interrogation. He realized who the other human who’d gone there had to be. “Bring him here,” he said, calling on the Force to shape their wills. “Bring Dez Rydan to me.”
The last cogent, coherent thought in Dez Rydan’s brain had been: That hatch is going to hit me square in the face.
Pain had smashed into his forehead, jolting through his entire body like electricity, the agony of it reaching his gut, his fingers, his feet. Everything after that had been dark for a long while, and silent, but not painless. The agony was the only sensation left to him, and his only desire was for it to stop. If it stopped because he died, that seemed fair. As long as it stopped.
There came a time when he was turned over and forced to see sunlight; his head throbbed so badly at the sensory input that he’d vomited. Something had lashed him cruelly across the back as punishment. A whip? A vine? Dez didn’t know and didn’t care. He only wanted his head to stop hurting.
As the days went on, he should’ve either felt better or died. Instead, although he could feel the swelling in his face and neck going down, Dez remained in a terrible kind of stasis. Was he being poisoned? They pricked him with thorns, after which he would feel sleepy and nauseated. His eyes refused to focus, but whether that was because of his injury or what was being done to him, he couldn’t tell. The Drengir kept asking him questions, but he couldn’t understand exactly what they wanted to know. He wasn’t even sure Drengir was the right name. If he could’ve explained things to them, he would have. But the world swirled around him, sickening and blurry, beyond his comprehension.
Dez suspected they had caged him, as unnecessary as that was. Branches encased him on every side. He couldn’t have stood up if he wanted to. He didn’t want to.
One of the Drengir approached; by then he knew the scent of them and associated it with pain. But even as he braced himself, the Drengir whispered, “There is more meat here.”
Maybe. Dez wasn’t totally sure what he’d said. It didn’t make any sense, but nothing else did, either.
“We wish to see what your people think you can do with these.” Between the branches, Dez could see the Drengir dangling what they’d taken from him when he first arrived unconscious: his lightsaber. “Kill him, and we will let you go free.”
“The lightsaber is not—is not the tool of a murderer.” Dez coughed. He couldn’t even stand up; how could they expect him to fight? He had no idea who or what was here—a pirate? A smuggler? Leox Gyasi? It didn’t matter. He refused to slay another sentient being for the Drengir’s amusement. “Let him go free instead. Kill me.” Then, at last, it would be over.
“That tells us nothing,” the Drengir said. He was speaking to himself as much as to Dez. “We wish to see more than that.”
Another thorn pierced Dez’s flesh, and he cried out in pain—but in the very next heartbeat, the pain vanished. He sensed that it wasn’t gone, only masked, but that alone felt like reason to live.
Whatever had been injected into him had other effects, too. His heart beat too fast, and his muscles began to tighten a
nd shake. Adrenaline, whispered some part of his brain that was still functioning but was all too far away.
“Fight and the pain stops,” the Drengir said. Through his blurry vision, Dez saw the door of the cage swing open. “Fight and be free.”
His mind no longer mattered. Dez was nothing but his body, nothing but anger and desperation and a wild chemical frenzy. He clutched for his lightsaber, and the Drengir let him take it. Instantly Dez swung the lightsaber in a long, low arc, slicing straight through the Drengir, which fell in two pieces to the ground.
Was that what he was supposed to do? He’d killed something; would they set him free now?
Each part of the Drengir twitched. Then twitched again. Then began to grow tendrils. Dez’s vision doubled, trebled, then doubled again as the tendrils reached toward each other. They grew fast and thick, splicing the Drengir back together until he stood intact.
“Very good,” said the Drengir. “Now we will take you to the new intruder, and you will do that again.”
Using the Force to shape another’s will came instinctively to some Jedi. The teachers even had problems, occasionally, with younglings who’d gotten the hang of it but didn’t yet understand not to play with others’ minds. For other Jedi, however, it was a trick that could take years or even decades to master.
Reath was in the latter category. So when one of the Drengir returned to the clearing, dragging a human figure behind it, Reath was at first even more astonished than pleased. I actually did it?
Any thoughts of his own accomplishment vanished the second he recognized the man being pulled forward. Reath had known who it had to be, but his face split in a smile as he yelled, “Dez!”
Dez didn’t call back. His gaze was unfocused, his breaths came too quickly, and his face was flushed. Reath’s grin faded as he saw the purple swelling around one of Dez’s eyes, and that his black hair was matted with blood. Worse than Dez’s appearance was that of the Drengir, whose flytrap mouths were smiling.