“Natua has been hissing as she works,” Tekli explained. “I’m beginning to think she’s talking to herself.”
“That’s entirely possible,” C-3PO offered. “The phonetics of many reptilian languages include sibilant root patterns. I’d be happy to assist you in identifying the language, if you wish.”
“A translation would be much more useful,” Tekli said. “It might be helpful to know what she’s saying.”
“See-Threepio is entirely at your disposal,” Leia said to Cilghal. “As are Han and I.”
Cilghal thanked them and led the way to the Asylum Block. Tekli disappeared into the control room to retrieve a pair of stun sticks for the Solos and a tranquilizer pistol for Cilghal, then announced that she would join them with the encephaloscanner once Seff was distracted. Leia and Han secured the stun sticks in the small of their backs, under their belts, then followed Cilghal to a small turbolift and ascended to the second-story catwalk.
The cells arrayed along the catwalk were clearly designed to confine rather than punish, with flowform couches, holographic entertainment centers, and privacy-screened refreshers. Judging by the muffled screel of fingernails coming through the second door, the distinction of purpose was no comfort to Natua Wan.
The first door stood open. Inside the cell, a tall, powerful-looking human Jedi sat meditating, with an upturned palm resting on one knee and a wrist stump on the other. On the floor beside him rested an artificial hand, palm-up, with the thumb and middle finger touching. Dozens of surgeries and skin grafts had repaired his burn scars to the point where his face looked merely plastic instead of horrific, but his ears remained flat and misshapen, and his short blond hair betrayed its synthetic origins in its coarse, bristly nature.
As the group approached his door, the Jedi’s blue eyes popped open, fixing first on Leia, then Han. “Princess Leia, Captain Solo,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“You, too, Raynar,” Han said. “You doing okay in here?”
“Very well,” Raynar said. “Thank you.”
A sad reminder of the price young Jedi too often paid for their service to the galaxy, Raynar Thul had gone missing on the same strike mission that had claimed the life of the Solos’ youngest son, Anakin. He had reappeared years later, badly disfigured, insane, and directing the expansion of the Killik Colony into the Chiss territories. Fortunately, he had not proven too powerful to capture alive, and he had been living in the Asylum Block for more than seven years now while Cilghal helped him put his mind back together. Had Natasi Daala been the Galactic Alliance Chief of State at the time, he would probably have been frozen in carbonite, as Valin and Jysella Horn were—and that angered Leia. Anyone whose mind came undone because of what they had suffered for the Alliance deserved to be nurtured back to health, not labeled a “danger to society” and hung up like wall art in some Galactic Alliance Security blockhouse.
Leia stopped at the entrance to Raynar’s cell. “Cilghal has told us how much progress you’ve made.” Actually, she had told the Solos that all that remained was for Raynar to realize that he was recovered. “Is there anything you need?”
“No, I’m free to visit the commissary myself,” Raynar said. He glanced toward the adjacent cell, where Natua was still scratching at her door, then grinned a bit mischievously. “Unless you care to do something about all that racket? It’s enough to drive a man crazy.”
“No problem,” Han said, reaching for the control pad on the exterior of the cell. “It’ll be quieter if we close this—”
“On second thought,” Raynar interrupted, “I may be growing fond of the noise.”
Han smirked. “I thought that might fix your problem.”
“You should apply for therapist credentials, dear,” Leia said drily. She turned to Raynar. “But seriously, Raynar, if the noise bothers you, why don’t you just change your quarters?”
Raynar’s eyes widened as much as his rigid brows would allow. “Leave my cell?”
“The door has been open for quite some time,” Cilghal said. “And if matters continue to deteriorate with the younger Jedi, we may be needing your room.”
“There are plenty of empty quarters up on the dormitory level,” Han prompted.
Raynar retrieved his artificial hand, then rose and stepped toward the door. “Would I be welcome?”
“That depends,” Han said. “Are you going to do your own chores?”
“The days when I considered myself above doing chores are long past, Captain Solo.” Raynar’s tone was more distracted than indignant, as though he was so consumed in thought that he had failed to notice Han was joking. He stood at the door considering his options, then shrugged and began to reattach his artificial hand. “I don’t know if I’m ready—I don’t know if they are.”
Before Leia could suggest that there was only one way to find out, Raynar turned away and started toward the interior of his cell. Cilghal shook her head in disappointment, Han sighed, and Leia bit her lip in frustration.
“Relax—I’m just going to pack,” Raynar called over his shoulder. “I have been here awhile, you know.”
Leia’s relief was bittersweet. She was happy to see Raynar leaving his cell, but it made her wistful as well, because incarceration and rehabilitation had never been a possibility for her son Jacen. He had been too powerful to capture and too menacing to leave free, and in the end there had been no choice except to hunt him down. Leia would go to her grave wondering how she had not seen him falling until it was too late, whether she had missed some flash of opportunity to save him—and she knew Han would, too.
Once Raynar had retrieved a small duffel and begun to pack his few possessions, Cilghal smiled and thanked both Solos, then started down the catwalk again. As they passed the next cell, Natua stopped scratching at her door locks and pressed herself to the transparisteel, her narrow eyes fixed on Han. A ruddy flush began to creep up her delicate face scales, and she slid a hand along the wall, reaching out in his direction.
“Captain Solo.” Even through the electronic speaker that relayed her voice to the catwalk, Natua’s voice was soft and cajoling. Leia was just glad that the Falleen’s powerful attraction pheromones were safely trapped inside her own cell. “Please … get me out of here. They’re hurting me.”
“Not as much as you’re hurting yourself,” Han said, pointing to the crimson streaks that her bloody fingertips were leaving on the wall. “Sorry, Nat. You need to stay here and let them help you.”
“This isn’t help!” Natua slapped the wall so hard that the resulting tung caused C-3PO to stumble back into the safety rail; then she began to curse in the strange hissing language Tekli had mentioned earlier. “Sseorhstki hsuzma sahaslatho Shi’ido hsesstivaph!”
“Oh my—Jedi Wan is promising to kill Captain Solo and his fellow imposters in a terribly unpleasant way,” C-3PO explained. “Fortunately, it appears she hasn’t thought through her plan very well. I don’t even have intestines.”
“Then you recognize the language?” Leia asked.
“Of course,” C-3PO said. “Ancient Hsoosh is still the Language of Ceremony in the best houses of Falleen.”
“Language of Ceremony?” Han echoed. “Like one they’d use to make formal vows?”
“Precisely,” C-3PO said. “The elite classes have kept it alive for more than two thousand standard years to distinguish—”
“Threepio, that’s not important at the moment,” Leia interrupted. She could tell by the way Han was clenching his jaw that he was truly disturbed to have a mad Jedi making death vows against them. A lecture on the history of ancient Hsoosh might be enough to make him yank out C-3PO’s inner machinery. “Wait here and let us know what else Natua has to say.”
C-3PO acknowledged the command, and Leia and Han followed Cilghal to the next cell. Seff was still kneeling in the far corner, facing away from them with his battered hands resting on his thighs. The slow, steady rhythm of his breathing—apparent from the barely perceptible rise a
nd fall of his shoulders—suggested he was meditating, perhaps trying to calm his troubled mind and make sense of what had been happening to him.
Cilghal glanced back down the catwalk toward the turbolift, where Tekli was waiting with what looked like a meter-long recording rod that ended in a large parabolic antenna. When the Chadra-Fan nodded her readiness, Cilghal stepped closer to Seff’s cell and rapped gently on the wall.
Seff answered without looking away from the corner. “Yes, Master Cilghal?”
His voice came from the small relay speaker near the door, and when Cilghal answered, she angled her mouth toward the tiny microphone beneath it.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked.
“It’s …” Seff struggled with an explanation for an instant, then said, “It’s always you—or Tekli. And Tekli wouldn’t reach that high when she knocked.” He shrugged. “So, no, I haven’t developed the ability to touch the Force through a ysalamiri void-bubble.”
“But you do seem to be feeling better,” Cilghal said.
“I’ll take your word for it.” Seff remained facing the corner. “I don’t have a clear memory of how I was feeling before.”
Cilghal rolled a hopeful eye in Leia’s direction, then spoke to Seff again. “Do you remember why you’re here?”
“That would depend on the meaning of here. I remember trying to rescue Valin Horn from a Galactic Alliance Security facility, and being ambushed by someone who looked a lot like Jaina Solo.” Seff stopped and shook his head. “I assume I’m in the Asylum Block inside the Jedi Temple detention center, but none of it makes much sense.”
“It probably shouldn’t make sense,” Cilghal said. She smiled in a relief that Leia did not quite share. “I’m afraid you’ve been suffering from paranoid delusions lately.”
Seff’s head and shoulders slumped in a fairly convincing manner, and he continued to look into the corner without speaking.
“Seff, you’re going to get better,” Cilghal said. It was something any good mind-healer would say to a patient—whether or not it was true. “This is an encouraging sign.”
Leia couldn’t read Mon Calamari faces well enough to know whether Cilghal was being sincere, but she did know that she wasn’t convinced. She didn’t like the way Seff continued to hide his face. And if he was having trouble remembering what had happened to him, how had he known earlier that it was always Cilghal or Tekli who visited him?
Cilghal continued speaking into the relay microphone. “Seff, you have visitors. Would it be okay if we came inside?”
“Visitors?” Seff finally looked away from his corner. “Absolutely. Come inside.”
Before Leia could express her concerns, Cilghal reached over and entered a code to deactivate the lock. As the door slid aside, Leia glanced toward Han and was relieved to see the same wariness in his eyes that she felt in her gut. If Cilghal was being too optimistic, at least there would be someone else ready to jump on Seff.
“Princess Leia, Captain Solo …” Cilghal waved them into the cell. “After you.”
“The Solos?”
Sounding less surprised than cynical, Seff rose and turned toward them. To Leia’s surprise, there were no alarming glints in his eyes, no suspicious mouth twitches, nothing obvious to suggest that Cilghal’s apparent relief was anything but warranted.
Seff raised his brow in an expression of astonishment that seemed rather rehearsed. “What are you two doing here?”
“We just wanted to check up on you,” Han said, holding out his hand and crossing to the corner so Seff would not have an excuse to approach the door. “Good to see you’re feeling better.”
As Seff took Han’s hand, Leia winced inwardly and readied herself to spring into action at the first hint of trouble. But Seff merely remained in the corner and looked slightly bewildered as they shook hands.
Leia moved her hand away from the stun stick in the small of her back and went to stand with Han. “You do look much better than the last time we saw you.”
Seff’s eyes shifted in her direction. “From what I’m gathering, that wouldn’t be difficult.”
He flashed a self-deprecating smile, and Leia began to wonder if all of the betrayal and disappointment she had suffered over the decades was beginning to make her too suspicious.
“Do you remember when you saw the Solos?” Cilghal asked. She remained just inside the door, as though her presence was an unpleasant requirement and she didn’t want to intrude. “Aside from here on Coruscant, I mean.”
Seff frowned for a moment, and Leia thought he was going to say that he couldn’t recall.
But then he flashed that hangdog smile again and said, “Wasn’t it on Taris, at that pet show?”
“That’s right,” Han said. He clapped a hand on Seff’s shoulder and slipped smoothly around to the other side, so the young Jedi would have to face away from the door as they spoke. “The one where the ornuk took the grand prize.”
“Han, it wasn’t the ornuk,” Leia said in a reproachful tone. She slipped around to Seff’s other side and stood opposite her husband, so they had the young Jedi flanked on both sides and could quickly redirect his attention with a gentle hand on the shoulder. “It was the chitlik.”
Han scowled. “What are you talking about? It was that big ornuk. I should know. It nearly bit off my ankle!”
Leia rolled her eyes and—seeing by Seff’s slack jaw that their distraction was working—shook her head vehemently. “That was the cannus solix! You would have known that, if you hadn’t been off starting fights when the judges explained the difference.”
“Hey, I didn’t start that fight,” Han countered, the edge in his voice so sharp that even Leia wasn’t sure he was acting. “Is it my fault if—”
“How many times have I heard that?” Leia interrupted. Across the cell, she could see Tekli standing in the door, pointing the funnel-shaped antenna of the portable encephaloscanner at the back of Seff’s head. “According to you, it’s never your fault.”
“That’s right—it never is.” Han turned to Seff. “You were at the show, kid. Who did they arrest?”
But Seff was no longer paying attention to Han. He was looking at the same corner he had been facing when they arrived, staring at a wavy blur in the transparisteel that Leia did not recognize as a reflection—until she realized why Seff had known it was Cilghal knocking earlier. Hoping to draw his attention back to her, Leia laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Seff, please forgive us,” she said. When he continued to watch the reflection, she squeezed hard. “After you’ve lived together as long as we have, you develop a few tender—”
Leia did not realize Seff was attacking until she felt his arm snaking over hers, trapping her elbow in a painful lock that she could not slip without snapping the joint. She whirled away, screaming in alarm, and barely managed to keep him from grabbing the stun stick secured in the back of her belt. In the next instant Han was between them, bringing his own stun stick down across Seff’s shoulder.
Seff pulled back, dragging Leia into the path of the strike. He still took most of the blow across his biceps, but she was jolted so hard that her knees locked and her teeth sank deep into her tongue.
Incredibly, Seff did not drop. He drove Han back with an elbow to the face, landed a side kick to the gut that sent Han slamming into the wall, then launched himself across the cell at Tekli and Cilghal.
“No, you won’t!” Seff landed two meters away and nearly fell as his leg buckled beneath him. “I won’t be copied!”
Both of Leia’s legs and one arm had turned to noodles, but she still had one good arm with which to grab her stun stick.
By that time, Seff was only a pace from Tekli and Cilghal.
The phoot-phoot of a tranquilizer gun sounded from the doorway. Seff stumbled again, one arm trying to slap the darts from his chest as he struggled to keep his balance. He took one more step, then Leia activated her stun stick and sent it spinning into the back of his legs. He crashed to the f
loor just centimeters from Cilghal’s feet, then lay there twitching and drooling.
Cilghal turned to Tekli. “You may as well deactivate the scanner.” She sighed. “I think we’ve learned what we came to find.”
About the Author
CHRISTIE GOLDEN is the award-winning author of more than thirty novels and several short stories in the fields of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Her media tie-in works include launching the Ravenloft line in 1991 with Vampire of the Mists, more than a dozen Star Trek novels, and the Warcraft novel Arthas: Rise of the Lich King.
www.christiegolden.com
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents
either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2009 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved
Used Under Authorization
Excerpt from Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Abyss copyright © 2009 by Lucasfilm Ltd
& ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization
Published in the United States by Del Rey an imprint of The Random House
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of
Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51871-2
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