by Claudia Gray
She began working her way upward, glow rod tied to her utility belt so the beam would point up; instead of clarifying her path, it swayed back and forth, casting eerie wobbling shadows. The vines on the ladder were even trickier to work around than she’d thought, because the slightest pressure sent sap running down the rungs and across her palms.
And by then she understood that no matter how narrow the tunnel was, she could still plummet all the way down. She’d just be more likely to break a limb along the way.
Keep going, she told herself, ignoring the trembling in her muscles as she pulled herself even higher up. You have to keep going—
“Affie!”
The echoing voice startled her so badly she nearly lost her grip. Swearing under her breath, Affie steadied herself and pointed the glow rod’s beam downward. “Leox, what are you doing here?”
He’d stuck his head through the access hatch, which showed her just how dangerously high up she was. “Getting you off this station immediately.”
“I’m not done.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore. See, the Drengir want this station. The Nihil want this station. Once they find out about it, my guess is the Republic’s gonna want this station, too, and if not, they’ll blow it to smithereens. Regardless, this place isn’t Byne Guild territory anymore. Even if the Republic leaves it intact, there’s no way Scover can keep using it. Code or no code, no other pilots are going to be forced through here, not ever.”
That should’ve made Affie feel better, but it didn’t. “That’s not enough.”
“Why?”
She ignored this. “I have to keep going.”
“You’re not trying to save the other pilots any longer,” Leox said. “If that was all this is about, you’d have started down that ladder already. What you’re trying to do is save Scover’s soul. That’s not your job, Affie. Only Scover herself can do that.”
Affie leaned her head against the nearest rung of the ladder. Her hands itched; the sap irritated her skin. Leox wasn’t wrong about her reasons—she could see that—but turning back still felt so wrong.
“Affie, please.” The raw pleading in Leox’s voice got to her. “Your life’s not worth one bit less than hers. If you ask me, it’s worth a whole lot more. So will you get back down here?”
She held on for one moment longer, envisioning her long-lost parents in this same tube. If they’d had a way out, they would’ve taken it. They would’ve wanted her to be safe.
It was for them—not for Leox, not even for herself—that Affie finally began descending toward safety.
Recon around the station had only darkened Orla’s take on their chances. She saw no strategic areas to take that would give them an advantage over the Nihil. It took only a few scans to confirm the enormous scale of the Nihil ship; the Vessel would stand no chance in a space battle against it. They literally had no option but to run away and hope they weren’t seen—and with access to the Vessel so limited and hazardous, she wasn’t even sure they’d get a chance to run. And where the heck was Affie?
You need more time, she told herself. So you have to buy some, somehow.
The best way of buying time from an enemy was usually to create a distraction, by making a mess so big that the Nihil would keep themselves busy cleaning it up while the Vessel got away from the Amaxine station.
Exactly how much bigger a mess can I make? The place is already on fire.
Then it hit Orla. I take a mess we already cleaned up and make it messy all over again.
If the Jedi had had so much trouble fighting the Drengir and so much trouble fighting the Nihil, Orla could hardly imagine the trouble they’d have fighting each other.
Sometimes bottling up the darkness only made it stronger. Sometimes you had to let it go.
Running through the broad airlock ring of the Amaxine station, Reath thought, I actually came back to this place of my own free will? I defied orders to do it? Maybe Drengir pollen warps minds.
Once he’d finally gotten within a couple dozen meters of the Vessel without running into any more of the Nihil, he felt encouraged. Better yet was when he caught a flash of white moving amid the shadowy columns of metal—Orla Jareni’s telltale robes.
She looked equally relieved to see him. “Thank the Force. I thought the Nihil might’ve caught up with you,” Orla said, putting one hand on his shoulder.
“They did. Or, actually, Nan did. But she said that since I’d returned her to her fleet once, she’d give me one break. So here I am.”
“At least one of them has a sense of honor, then.” Orla’s expression was skeptical. “But I’m not convinced that’s a value of the group as a whole.”
“Me either,” Reath said. He remembered the way Nan’s finger had remained firm against her blaster’s trigger; she’d wanted to kill him badly enough that letting him go had been hard. It would be a mistake to test her “honor” again. “The Nihil want to use this station as a base of operations for raiding this entire area of space. The Republic has to either hold the Amaxine station as its own property or destroy it.”
“I’d gathered as much,” said Orla.
Reath tried not to feel disappointed that she’d already reached that conclusion without him. “At least we’ve got the Drengir taken care of.”
“About that.” Orla winced. “We’re about to set the Drengir free again.”
“Wait, what? Why?” But Reath instantly realized the only reason that would ever be under consideration. “Is there no other way to sneak off the station without the Nihil seeing us?”
She shook her head. “Not a chance. We have to distract them on a scale that will have every single warrior on that massive ship hurrying onto the station to fight. Otherwise, they’ll blow us to pieces as soon as we’re free of the airlock.”
Reath couldn’t suppress a shiver as he thought about facing the Drengir again. This time, at least, he wouldn’t be at such a disadvantage: trapped on a world not his own, trying to protect someone injured and unable to defend himself. All they had to do was keep themselves from being killed long enough for the Drengir and the Nihil to collide with each other, at which point the Jedi would fall much farther down each enemy’s list of priorities.
But keeping themselves from getting killed that long, with both groups out for their blood—it wouldn’t be easy. More than that, a sense of dread was creeping in at the edges of Reath’s consciousness. Danger lay ahead, in some way they hadn’t yet fully recognized.
“Did you see Cohmac?” Orla said. “He went after you—”
“He found me, and Dez.” The astonishment and joy on Orla’s face erased Reath’s worries, at least for that moment. “There’s a transport area beneath the station, which is why the Nihil and Drengir are so interested in the first place. Dez was accidentally sent to the Drengir homeworld—at least, maybe it was their homeworld; there were a lot of them there—he was badly injured, out of it, and I’m positive they interrogated him harshly.” What simple words for describing a nightmare. Reath pressed on. “Anyway, Cohmac took Dez back to the Vessel. Do you need him to help remove the Force barrier?”
“Dez needs help more right now, and we’re already here. So let’s see if the two of us can handle it,” Orla said. She sounded more confident than he suspected she felt—certainly more confident than he felt. Already she was putting away her saber, preparing for the journey back to the arboretum. “Are you ready, Reath?”
It hit him, then, what she was truly asking of him: to go with her into the heart of the storm.
“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Affie’s hands continued to redden and sting as she and Leox made their way back toward the Vessel. “I think that sap is toxic to humans,” she said.
“I think you may be right. Hopefully some sort of salve or unguent aboard the ship will set you right. Until then, let’s keep moving.”
Leox kept hurrying her along, like he thought she remained on the verge of turning back. That annoyed Affie, even t
hough he wasn’t entirely wrong. She wasn’t going to turn back; she just kept wishing she could.
I guess I’ll have to talk to Scover about it directly, she thought. Make her explain exactly what she was thinking and see if—if she actually understands how wrong she’s been.
If she didn’t…no. Affie wouldn’t even imagine that. Scover would get it. She had to.
The two of them reached the corridor that encircled the arboretum. In the far distance, she could hear rumblings and marching feet that had to be the Nihil. She tensed as she heard footsteps much closer.
“What the—” Leox stopped, then put his hands on his hips. “Didn’t expect to find any friends here.”
Affie peered ahead and sighted two of the Jedi coming toward them through the shadows: Orla Jareni in her white robes, which somehow remained spotless, and a rumpled Reath Silas. Probably Affie didn’t look so great herself.
Orla ignored Leox’s friendly words. “You two need to get back to the Vessel immediately. Prepare to leave within ten minutes. If we haven’t made it back by then, you’re to leave without us.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Leox held up both hands. “What’s this about? I don’t intend to leave anybody behind. It’s the kind of thing that reflects poorly on a commercial pilot.”
That won him half a smile from Orla. “The only way to distract the Nihil long enough for us to escape the station is to release the Drengir.”
Reath gestured toward those trees that had changed location. “That’s what was held in place by the idols. But we have to set them free again, to distract the Nihil.”
“If you set these Drengir free, we’ll have two groups trying to kill us instead of just one.” Affie said.
“The hope,” Reath said, “is that they’ll be too busy trying to kill each other.”
“How do you know they won’t join forces to turn against us?” she demanded. Nobody had an immediate answer for that, which confirmed Affie’s worst suspicions: the Jedi were making this up as they went along.
Look at the bright side, she told herself. If you die, you don’t have to confront Scover.
Orla managed to send Leox and Affie back to the ship before the girl asked any more uncomfortable questions. Maintaining focus was easier when she didn’t think of all the many things that could go wrong.
Many, many things.
She and Reath headed back into the arboretum. The shadows of the petrified Drengir chilled her, but more unnerving by far was the sheer power pulsing around the room, cross-angled through the idols, a power that reverberated in her body. Even though Orla had helped put the barrier in place, the enormity of what they’d done struck her anew.
“It’s not going to be like dropping a curtain, or opening a gate,” Orla murmured to Reath. “It won’t be a gentle impact, like before. The re-created barrier is new. More vital. When the barrier drops, the reaction will be intense.”
“I sense it, too.” Reath braced himself.
She nodded. “Just follow my lead.”
Orla reached out with her feelings, making contact with the edge of the barrier. The tension there was almost aware—all but conscious of its duty to hold the Drengir within.
You are needed no longer, she sent into the swirl of energy that wasn’t quite a mind. You have done well. But you will do better, now, to let go.
Next to her, Orla could feel Reath doing something very similar—reaching into the field in his own way, coaxing it to release. But the field was stubborn, hanging on tighter and tighter as they tugged against it.
Orla redoubled her efforts. Her arms shook as she held them out, physically straining to pull back the powers they had unleashed. It felt to her as if the barrier was not falling but expanding, coming closer and closer, until static electricity raced along her skin and stood her hair on end. Sparks zapped through the air, and for one instant she wondered if they would succeed only in paralyzing themselves, too, trapping them with the Drengir—
Then they lost it. The hold they’d had on the energy field slipped away, leaving them both breathing hard.
“We came close,” Reath said. “If we try again—”
“No.” Orla shook her head. “Two people aren’t enough.” With that she kneeled amid the debris on the station floor and took up a blaster.
Reath frowned. “What are you going to do?”
“Desecrate history,” Orla said. “Sorry about that.”
She aimed directly at the idol of the human queen—right between her golden eyes—and fired.
The field is woven through the idols, Reath was thinking. Destroy one of the idols, and you destroy—
A wave of energy hit Reath like a tsunami, sending him sprawling backward on the floor, sliding for more than a meter. The electric charge of it tensed every muscle in his body and made him bite down on his tongue hard enough to taste blood.
And the Drengir were free.
The Drengir stood there, shuddering, apparently struck by the same charge that had felled the Jedi. It would take them another second or two to figure out they were free again. That gave the Jedi a few moments to escape. Orla looked dazed, maybe semiconscious, as she struggled to stand. He crawled to her and tugged at her white robes. “Get up. We have to move, now.”
As she recovered, so did the Drengir. Frond-like hands pointed in their direction as Reath and Orla clambered to their feet, and already it was time to run.
Running over the arboretum floor was like traversing rocky terrain, covered as it was with vines, debris, and the remnants of 8-T droids destroyed in the explosion. It would’ve been difficult to make good time even if Reath didn’t feel seasick and dizzy from the sheer impact of the Force barrier’s collapse.
Behind them he heard the eerie rustle-thudding that had to be the sound of the Drengir running. Whatever it was, it was getting louder. And closer.
Ahead of him was the entrance to the equatorial ring—which was no longer empty, but filling with dark-clad, breathmasked, blue-striped warriors.
For the first time, and the last, Reath was relieved to see the Nihil.
One of the Nihil threw a gas missile, probably intending to hit the Jedi. But both Orla and Reath ducked it handily while sucking in deep breaths. A Jedi could last longer without breathing than the average sentient being; that gave them a chance to put distance between them and the toxic gas.
Instead, the gas detonated in the heart of the Drengir—
And they weren’t fazed in the slightest.
Gas weapons only worked against beings who breathed the same gases. That didn’t include plants.
The creepy rustling laughter of the Drengir grew louder as they bounded forward—passing Orla and Reath completely—in favor of attacking this new enemy. Looks like the Drengir didn’t just wake up hungry, Reath thought as he kept running. They woke up ready for a fight.
For a split second, the Nihil hesitated. That second was long enough for Reath to recognize that these were raiders, not warriors, and their courage faltered in a conflict where no profit was to be had. But all beings will fight for their lives.
The Nihil shouldered weapons and began firing. Brilliant light from blaster bolts flickered in the darkness as Orla and Reath kept running toward the Vessel.
We have to get out of here, Reath thought. Then—do we just leave this station to the Nihil or Drengir?
We can’t do that.
No matter what.
Returning to the Vessel already felt like surrender. Affie’s mood plunged even further when she and Leox reached the airlock ring to find their way almost completely blocked by collapsed, smoldering debris. Ash still fogged the air. She groaned. “Did I do this?”
“Pretty much.” Then Leox stopped beside her and studied the wreckage more carefully. “Wait. Maybe you didn’t.”
The scene around them was obviously the aftermath of the explosive she’d set off, so Leox’s reaction caught her off guard. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Everything’s been moved. M
ore debris has been shifted into this area.”
That made no sense. “Who would do that?” Affie said. “With all the things happening on this station, who’s got time to rearrange the wreckage?”
Leox picked up one of the smaller beams and tossed it aside. In the newly cleared space, Affie was startled to see vines growing—thick and ropey, spiny like cacti. At least half a dozen vines reached along the length of the floor. “They’ve grown this far in the past several minutes? How is that possible?”
“We don’t have a damn clue what the Drengir can do now that they’ve been set free.” Leox folded his arms across his chest. “Looks like the vines are working their way through the entire station as they grow. Not promising.”
He had a gift for understatement. Grimacing at the twisted vines, Affie said, “Let’s just get to the ship before the vines do.”
“We might be too late.”
She thought Leox was being fatalistic until they made their way toward the airlock, vines underfoot the whole way—and then rising along the walls of the airlock itself, stems poking through every vent and crevice. Affie dashed onto the Vessel and sighed with relief to see the plants hadn’t grown on board. That relief lasted only as long as it took her to reach the cockpit, where she saw thick vines reaching across the entire front of the ship.
Leox sat in the pilot’s seat and began checking sensors. “Dammit, I told Geode to stick around.”
“What could he have done about this?” Affie gestured toward the vines.
“Not a thing. I just wish he were here instead of mixing it up on the station—he never does know when to walk away from a fight.” Leox slumped in his chair. “We’ve got ’em all over us. The Drengir have tied us tight.”
Affie tried to imagine how the vines could possibly live in the cold of space. Probably they didn’t have to survive for long. Dead vines could bind the Vessel in place nearly as strongly as living ones.
“Signal the Jedi,” Leox said. “Let them know we have yet another complicating factor to deal with.”