Her hands still bound by the drying vine, she leaned forward and opened her mouth to bite into the bright fruit. The explosion of tart citrus-tasting juice proved surprisingly invigorating and delicious. She chewed slowly, savoring the taste, and swallowed.
Jacen also ate his. They nodded their thanks to the TIE pilot, who fixed them with a stony gaze.
Sensing an opening, Jacen asked, "What are you going to do with us, sir?" He tried to rub his chin against his shoulder to wipe off the juice dribbling from his lips.
The TIE pilot stared unnervingly at him for several moments before he turned his face toward the bushes. "Not yet determined."
Jaina's chest muscles constricted. All of this had been an accident, a mistake. From the thick bushes, the TIE pilot had probably watched them tinker with his ruined ship for days. But Jacen's accidental discovery of his primitive shelter had forced him to react.
What could the Imperial soldier do with them? He didn't seem to have many options.
"What's your name?" Jaina asked.
The TIE pilot snapped upright and looked down at the black leather glove covering his twisted arm. He turned slowly toward her, like a droid with worn-out servomotors. "CE3K-1977." He rattled off the numbers as if he had memorized them. Service rank and operating number only.
"Not your number," Jaina persisted. "Your name. I'm Jaina. This is my brother Jacen."
"CE3K-1977," the TIE pilot said again, without emotion.
"Your name?" Jaina asked a third time.
Finally her question seemed to perplex him. He looked at the ground, looked at his tattered uniform. His mouth opened and closed several times, but no sound came out, until finally he said in a croaking voice, "Qorl ... Qorl. My name was Qorl."
"We're staying at the academy in the old temples," Jacen said, wearing a small grin--the kind that always disarmed their mother when she was angry at him. But it didn't seem to be working with the TIE pilot.
"Rebel base," Qorl said.
"No, it's a school now," Jaina said. "Everyone's there to learn. It's not a base any longer. It hasn't been a base for... twenty years or so."
"It is a Rebel base," Qorl insisted with such finality that Jaina decided not to pursue the subject any further.
"How did you get here?" she asked, leaning closer on the smooth rock. The campfire crackled between them. "How long have you lived in the jungle?" The tight vines constricting her circulation made her hands numb. She flexed her fingers as she bent toward the fire. The smoke smelled rich and sweet from the fresh jungle wood.
The TIE pilot blinked his pale eyes and stared into the crackling flames. He looked as if he had been transported back in time and was watching a newsloop of his own buried memories.
"Death Star," Qorl said. "I was on the Death Star. We came here to destroy the Rebel base after Grand Moff Tarkin blew up Alderaan. This was our next target."
Jaina felt a pang as she remembered her mother talking of the lovely grass-covered planet Alderaan, the peaceful windsongs and tall towers rising above the plains. Princess Leia's home had been the heart of galactic culture and civilization--until it was wiped out in a single blow by the incredible cruelty of the Empire.
"We must obliterate the Rebels at all costs," Qorl continued. "Rebels cause damage to the Empire."
He recited a litany of what seemed to be memorized phrases, thoughts that had been brainwashed into him. "The Emperor's New Order will save the galaxy. The Rebels want to destroy that dream, and so we must eradicate the Rebels. They are a cancer to peace and stability."
"You were on the Death Star," Jacen prompted. "That was over twenty years ago. What happened?"
Qorl continued to stare deeply into the fire. His scratchy voice was barely more than a whisper. "The Rebels knew we were coming. They fought. They sent their defenses against the battle station. All TIE squadrons were launched.
"I flew with my squadron. All my companions were destroyed by X- wing defensive fire. I was damaged in the cross fire... one solar panel out of commission. I spun away from the Death Star, out of control.
"I needed to get back to effect repairs. All comm channels were jammed, filled with dozens of requests for assistance. My orbit was decaying, and I spun toward the fourth moon of Yavin. I kept trying to hail someone on the comm channels. When I finally got through, I was told I would have to wait for rescue. They instructed me to make a good landing if I could--and to wait."
"So you crashed," Jaina said.
"The jungle cushioned my fall. I was thrown out of my craft into the dense brush... when one of the solar panels caught and lodged in the trees above. I limped over to my TIE fighter. Stayed as close as I dared, afraid that it might explode. My arm--" He held up his left arm in the black leather gauntlet. "Badly injured, ligaments torn, bones broken.
"I looked up into the sky just in time to see the Death Star blow up. It was like another sun in the sky. Flaming chunks of debris fell through the air. It must have started dozens of forest fires. For weeks, meteor showers were like fireworks as the wreckage rained down onto the moon.
"And I stayed here."
The firelight bathed Qorl's face with a dancing, yellowish glow. The jungle sounds burred in a hypnotic hum all around them. The TIE pilot gave no sign that he realized his two captives were listening. Only his lips moved as he continued his tale.
"I have waited here, and waited, as ordered. No one has come to rescue me."
"But," Jaina said, "all those years! This place has been abandoned for quite some time, but people have been at the Jedi academy for eleven years now. Why haven't you turned yourself in? Don't you realize what's happened in the galaxy since you crashed?"
"Surrender is betrayal!" Qorl snapped, glaring at her as anger flickered across his weathered face.
"But we're not lying," Jacen said. "The war is over. There is no more Empire." He took a deep breath and then plunged ahead. "Darth Vader is dead. The Emperor is dead. The New Republic now rules. Only a few remnants of old Imperial holdouts are still buried in the Core Systems at the center of the galaxy."
"I don't believe you," Qorl said flatly.
"If you take us back to the Jedi academy we can prove it. We can show you everything," Jaina said. "Wouldn't you like to go home? Wouldn't you like to be free of this place? We could get your arm treated."
Qorl held up his glove and stared at it. "I used my medi-kit," he said. "I tended it as best I could. It is good enough, although there was much pain ... for a long time."
"But we've got Jedi healers!" Jaina said. "We've got medical droids. You could be happy again. Why stay here? There's nothing to betray: there is no more Empire."
"Be quiet," Qorl said. "The Empire will always rule. The Emperor is invincible."
"The Emperor is dead," Jacen said.
"The Empire itself can never die," Qorl insisted.
"But if you won't let us take you back to get help, then what do you want?" Jaina asked.
Jacen nodded, chiming in. "What are you trying to accomplish?"
"What can we do for you, Qorl?"
The TIE pilot turned away from the campfire to stare at them. His haggard, weather-beaten face held new power and obsession, springing from deep within his mind.
"You will finish repairs to my ship," he said. "And then I shall fly away from this prison moon. I'll return to the Empire as a glorious hero of war. Surrender is betrayal--and I never surrendered."
"And what if we won't help you?" Jacen said with all the bravado he could manage.
Jaina instantly wanted to kick him for provoking the TIE pilot.
Qorl looked at the young boy, his face coldly expressionless again. "Then you are expendable," he said.
Chapter 15
It took Em Teedee several moments to recalibrate his sensors after he dropped from Lowbacca's fiber-belt. He had fallen, bouncing, crashing, and bonking through the canopy until he finally came to rest on a dense mat of leafy vines that tied together the lower branches.
"Master Lowbacca, come back!" he said, amplifying his voice circuits to their maximum volume levels. "Don't leave me! Oh, dear. I knew that was a bad idea."
He adjusted his optical sensors so he could see better in the dim light of the lower levels. He was surrounded by thickets that were nearly inaccessible to anyone as large as even a young Wookiee.
"Help! Help me!" Em Teedee shouted again. He decided it would be most effective to continue shouting every forty-five seconds, because he calculated that was the minimum amount of time necessary for anyone nearby to come within earshot.
Unable to move and scout out his location, Em Teedee's best guess was that he was still twenty meters above the ground. He hoped that no slight jarring of the branches would cause him to break free and tumble down again. If he fell that far to the ground, he might strike one of the rough lava outcrop-pings and split open his outer casing. With his circuits spilled across the jungle floor, no one would ever be able to put him back together again in the proper fashion. His circuits buzzed at the thought.
Forty-five seconds had passed. He called out again for help, then waited. He shouted repeatedly for the next hour and eleven minutes, hoping desperately to attract some sort of attention, someone to come rescue him.
But when he finally did attract a curious investigator, Em Teedee wished he had kept his vocal circuits switched off.
A large pack of chattering woolamanders scurried through the lower canopy, stirring up leaves and cracking twigs in their hectic passage. The arboreal creatures were loud and agile, able to clamber from thin branches to thick ones and back again without losing their balance. They seemed to be engaged in a contest to see who could yowl and chatter the loudest in the jungle silence as twilight deepened.
Somehow, over all the ruckus, they managed to hear Em Teedee's cries for help.
Em Teedee knew from his limited database of Yavin 4 that woolamanders were curious, social creatures. Now that they had heard him, they began to search. In only moments, with their sharp, slit-eyed vision, they had spotted the translator droid's shiny outer casing in the jungle shadows. The pack of colorful, hairy creatures swarmed toward him.
"Oh, no," Em Teedee cried. "Not you. Please--I was hoping for someone else to rescue me."
The woolamanders came closer, rattling branches, rustling leaves. Their bright purple fur bristled with suspicion and delight.
"Go away! Shoo!" Em Teedee said.
The woolamanders let out a loud, shrieking celebration of their discovery. A large male snatched Em Teedee from his resting place in the vines.
"Put me down," Em Teedee said. "I insist that you let go of me at once."
The large male tossed Em Teedee to his mate, who caught the translator droid and turned him over and around, poking at the shiny circles. She dug her grimy finger into the gold circle of his optical sensors.
"That's my eye--get your finger away from it! Now I'm upside down. Straighten me out ... put me down!"
The female shook and rattled him to see if he would make other noises. When she went to a thick branch and made ready to smash him down on it, as she would crack open a large fruit, Em Teedee set off his automatic alarm sirens, shrieking and whooping at such volume and at such a painful pitch that the female dropped him. He bounced on another leafy branch, then came precariously to rest.
"Help!" Em Teedee wailed.
One of the smaller woolamanders rushed in to snatch him from his resting place. With loud chattering and squeals of delight, the young woolamander dashed along the lower branches, holding his prize high as Em Teedee continued to howl for assistance. The other young woolamanders chased after the youngster, clamoring for the prize.
Em Teedee, in such a panic that he could no longer stand it without overloading his circuits, shut down so he wouldn't have to see what was about to happen to him.
Sometime late in. the night he powered back on again to find that he could see nothing: his optical sensors were covered with thick fur.
He detected a gentle motion... breathing, snoring. Then the young woolamander stirred in its sleep. It shifted, allowing Em Teedee to discover that the small creature now lay sleeping in the crotch of a tree branch, contentedly hugging his new toy to his fur-covered chest.
Around them, the other family members of the large arboreal group sighed and dozed, resting peacefully. Em Teedee had an im pulse to cry out again for help, still hoping that someone might come to rescue him.
All the noisy woolamanders were finally asleep, though, and Em Teedee decided to treasure this moment of peace. He could only hope for something better to happen the next day.
Chapter 16
Dawn came fast and hot, as the distant white sun climbed around the fuzzy ball of Yavin. Jungle creatures awoke and stirred. The air warmed rapidly, thick with humidity that rose from low hollows where mist had collected in the night.
Jacen and Jaina had slept awkwardly, their hands still tied with the resilient purple vines. Jacen fervently wished he had spent more time practicing delicate and precise Force exercises. He didn't have the skill or the accuracy to nudge and untie the thin knotted vines with his mind.
As soon as there was light enough to work, Qorl emerged from his tree shelter and shook the twins awake. He gave them each sips of cool water from a gourd he dipped in the stream, then used a long stone knife to saw off the vines binding their wrists.
Jacen flexed his fingers and shook out his hands. His nerves tingled and stung with returning circulation.
The Imperial soldier pointed the blaster at them, gesturing for the twins to move. "Back to the TIE fighter," he ordered. "Work"
Jacen and Jaina trudged through the jungle, stumbling through vines and shrubs; the TIE pilot followed directly behind them. They reached the site of the crashed ship, where it lay uncovered and glinting in the early morning light. With a knot forming in his stomach, Jacen saw burned patches from where Qorl had shot his blaster at Tenel Ka and Lowie.
"I know you are nearly finished with repairs," the TIE pilot said. "I have been watching you for days. You will complete them today."
Jaina blinked her brandy-brown eyes and scowled at him. "We can't possibly work that fast, especially with just the two of us. This ship has been crashed for twenty years. We haven't finished cleaning the debris from the sublight intakes. The power converters all need to be rewired."
Jacen watched his sister and knew she was lying.
"Cyberfuses still need to be installed," she continued. "The air-exchange system is clogged; it needs to be--"
Qorl raised the blaster, but did not alter the emotion in his voice. "Today," he repeated. "You will finish today."
"Oh, blaster bolts! I think he means it, Jaina," Jacen muttered. "Show me what I can do to help."
Jaina sighed. "All right. Collect the box of tools you tripped over yesterday. Get the hydrospanner. I'll use my multitool to finish some calibrations here in the engines."
Qorl sat down on a lumpy, lichen-encrusted boulder, using his good hand to brush crawling insects from his legs. The Imperial soldier waited like a droid sentinel, unmoving, watching them work. Jacen tried to ignore him--and the blaster.
Gnats and biting insects swarmed around Jacen's face, attracted by the sweat in his tangled hair. He passed tools to his sister, trying to find the components and equipment Jaina needed as she crawled and rummaged in the TIE fighter's engine compartment.
He could sense Jaina's growing anger and frustration. She couldn't think of a plan. Yes, Jacen supposed, they could simply sabotage the ship repairs--but Qorl would realize what they'd done almost immediately, and he would get even with them. They couldn't risk that.
Now Jacen wished that his sister, in all her excitement, hadn't installed the new hyperdrive unit their dad had given her. He wished that they all hadn't worked so hard, made so much progress. Now it was almost too late.
Jacen brushed a hand across his forehead, blinking sweat away. His stomach growled. He turned to the TIE pilot, sitting nearby on t
he rock, still pointing the blaster barrel directly at him. The threat was getting tiresome.
"Qorl," he said, intentionally using their captor's real name. "Could we have some water and more fruit? We're hungry. Well work better if we're not hungry."
Qorl nodded slightly and began to stand up. But then he froze, hesitated, and settled back into his rigid position. "Food and water when you are finished with repairs."
"What? " Jacen said in dismay. "But that could take all day."
"Then you will be hungry and thirsty," Qorl said. The TIE pilot looked somewhat anxious, impatient. "You are stalling. Proceed."
Jacen realized that Qorl might be worried that either Tenel Ka or Lowie had managed to get back to the Jedi academy and summoned help. They were a long distance from the Great Temple, across a treacherous jungle ... but there was always a chance.
Jaina finished adjusting a cooling system regulator. She twisted a knob; a cold, bright blast of supercooled steam screeched up, making feathers of frost on the exposed metal surface. She stepped back and rubbed a grimy hand across her cheek, leaving a dark stain beneath her liquid-brown eyes.
"Qorl?" she said. "Who are you going to see when you get back?"
"I will report for duty," he said.
"Are you going home? Do you have a family?"
"The Empire is my family." His answer was rapid, automatic.
"But do you have a family that loves you?" Jaina asked.
Qorl hesitated for the briefest moment, then gestured threateningly with the blaster. "Get back to work."
Jaina sighed and motioned for her brother to help her. "Come on, Jacen. Take those last packages of surface metal sealant," she said. "We need to reinforce the melt spots on the outer hull." She pointed to three stained and vaporized bull's-eye spots on the TIE fighter's outer plating-damage Qorl himself had caused the day before by firing his blaster at the twins.
With a cushioned hammer, Jaina pounded the bent plates back into position. Jacen dug into the toolbox until he found a packet of animated metal sealant. The special paste would crawl across the damaged area, smooth itself, and then seal down with a bond even stronger than the original hull alloy. Jacen applied one packet of the patch material and listened to it hiss and steam as it coated the burn spot. Jaina fixed the second spot.
Star Wars - [Young Jedi Knights 1] - Heirs Of The Force Page 10