Under A Black Sun Trilogy

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Lowie growled and gestured toward the outer doors of the cargo bay. If

  they could complete their mission quickly and hide again in the

  tunnels, they wouldn't be found, no matter what Lilmit did. Jaina

  suspected that the terrified smuggler would not want to call anyone's

  attention to his presence. But then again, the little pilot's fear of

  Czethros might just prompt him to report the presence of two

  unauthorized young Jedi....

  Lowie chuffed something again, and the translating droid replied,

  "Indeed, Master Lowbacca, 'What are we waiting for?"

  Togetner, Jaina and Lowie reached the door, grabbed a pair of breath

  masks from a locker, and slapped them over their faces. The slow

  trickle of oxygen would be enough to keep them alive in the harsh

  environment, though the freezing temperatures and the crackling dry air

  would take its toll before long. They didn't have much time.

  Jaina unsealed the hatch, and they passed through. Gusts of wind

  roared after them as air flowed out of the pressurized cargo bay. They

  stood out on the bleak, white alkaline desert of Kessel's surface.

  "Lovely place," Jaina said, her voice muffled by the breath mask.

  Frost clung to the rocks, and steam rose into the air from heating and

  recirculation vents deep in the spice mines. Near the foreshortened

  horizon they saw the metal and wire-mesh flower of the massive

  transmitter. Czethros would use it to send his coded, high-powered

  signal burst announcing that now was the time for Black Sun's ultimate

  takeover.

  The flat, broken land was strewn with boulders and chunks of powdery

  white salt dried into lumps and low pillars. Cracks split the

  landscape. Jaina saw very few places for them to hide; her jumpsuit,

  along with Lowie's ginger-brown fur, would stand out like a striking

  beacon.

  They had no choice but to send Em Teedee.

  His fingers already numb with cold, Lowie bent down to manipulate the

  tiny cords. Using a special quick-release knot, he attached the two

  canisters of explosives below the hovering droid's casing. With her

  hands, Jaina showed Em Teedee the distance he needed to keep between

  his casing and the rough surface of the planetoid.

  "You have this much play between the explosive and the ground right

  now," she said. "We'll need you to fly as low as possible to keep from

  being seen, but don't let the explosives hit a rock."

  "Indeed, Mistress Jaina. I assure you that I won't."

  Lowie grunted something, and Em Teedee snapped, "What do you mean by

  'famous last words'? I intend to follow our plan exactly!"

  Lowie touched the buttons on the shaped charges with his claws and

  chattered to the droid.

  Em Teedee answered in alarm, "Six standard minutes? Do you think that

  will be sufficient time?" The Wookiee shrugged.

  "These aren't high-capacity charges, Em Teedee," Jaina said. "I don't

  think they're made with long timers."

  "Very well, I shall do my best." The little droid hovered off the

  ground and then, with a burst of his microrepulsorjets, skimmed across

  the powdery surface of Kessel like a glinting silver bullet. Keeping

  low, he wove around rocks, over fissures, across the broken and rugged

  terrain.

  A troop of guards would likely be stationed in a protective hut near

  the transmitter, just waiting for Czethros to send his signal. The

  droid had to get there before they saw him.

  Em Teedee increased speed, still painfully aware that he could not

  allow the canisters of explosives to strike against a hard rock or a

  projection of encrusted salt. His internal clock counted down the

  seconds that remained on the bomb timers. The transmitting dish seemed

  very far away.

  Em Teedee pushed his microjets faster and faster, drawing closer.

  Finally, the structure loomed up ahead of him: scooped amplifiers and

  curved screens to focus the communication beam. The miniaturized droid

  rose like a tiny satellite over the lip, then dropped toward the center

  of the flower. There, an aiming antenna would direct the signal while

  the pulse ricocheted off the parabolic petals and increased its power,

  sending it out to all secret receiving stations attuned to the Black

  Sun's command frequency.

  After he landed in the center, Em Teedee gently touched the explosive

  canisters to the central control point, jerked upward against the

  quick-release knots to detach the short cables, then rose into the

  air.

  He had very little time left, and he was anxious to get away. Stealth

  had required him to take longer than anticipated reaching the station,

  and now that there was nothing to delay him, the droid shot upward and

  sped away.

  He must have made a fine glittering target, because two guards barreled

  out of a small hutment beside the transmitting station. They were

  curious at first, gazing up at him, then began shouting. One of the

  men turned back to the transmitting station as if he realized something

  must be wrong. The other guard grabbed for his weapon, but didn't seem

  to know what to shoot at.

  Em Teedee streaked across the rocky landscape and vanished into the

  distance.

  Jaina and Lowie stood up, waving him on toward the doorway that would

  lead back into the pressurized docking bay.

  When the translating droid was only a hundred meters away from them,

  the transmitter erupted in a blossom of orange fire. Shrapnel blew

  sky-high-some of it perhaps even into orbit, because of Kessel's low

  gravity.

  Jaina and Lowie watched as the fires from the explosion slowly

  sputtered out for lack of oxygen. Huge sections of the antenna fell,

  teetering before they collapsed. A few seconds later, the shock wave

  and the sound reached them at the docking bay doors, high-pitched and

  tinny due to the thin air.

  "Let's go!" Jaina said. "They're really going to be after us now."

  They ducked back inside the spice mines of Kessel, hoping they could

  find a safe place to hide.

  When Czethros learned of the disaster, his roar of rage was almost as

  loud as the explosion itself. His blazing cyber-eye scanned back and

  forth, looking for someone to blame.

  "Timing is everything!" he bellowed. "If I don't send my signal, the

  uprising will never commence-and unless we do this all at once, the New

  Republic will find a way to crush each separate little brush fire." A

  guard nodded. "I understand, my Lord Czethros."

  "Of course you understand! An idiot could understand. But what can

  you do about it?"

  "Nothing that I know of, my Lord Czethros."

  The Black Sun lieutenant stormed back and forth in Nien Nunb's office,

  which he had commandeered. He knew his superiors were counting on him,

  and he knew that the leaders of Black Sun were not very forgiving when

  something went wrong.

  "I thought you had imprisoned everyone who could cause problems for

  us," Czethros said, whirling about. "What did you forget to take into

  account? Who is still missing?"

  "I don't know, my Lord Czethros."

&n
bsp; "Of course you don't know, or the situation would already be under

  control!" He pounded a hand on the Chief Administrator's low

  tabletop.

  He wished the Sullustan were taller so that his office and its

  furnishings would have been a bit more comfortable for a man of his

  size.

  Czethros glared at the guard. The other armed mercenaries milling

  about in the hall nervously awaited their turn for a reprimand. Each

  hoped he would survive the wrath of Czethros.

  "It's safe to say we have some sort of little rodents unaccounted

  for.

  The saboteurs know what they're doing, and they intend to ruin my

  plans. Make sure all our prisoners are securely locked away. Then I

  want full teams to comb every inch of the spice mines. We must find

  whoever is responsible for blowing up my transmitting station. I want

  them-dead or alive. I don't care which."

  He turned, not deigning even to look at his crew anymore, then slowly

  glanced back over his shoulder. "Of course, if you don't find them for

  me to torture"-his cracked lips curled in a faint smile-"I'll be forced

  to take out my frustrations on some of you instead."

  Anja had never felt so out of control.

  While the Jedi all around her in the minisub worked with brisk

  determination to diagnose and fix the ailments of the Elfa, she felt

  herself slipping away into a zone of pain somewhere between madness and

  death.

  Her vision narrowed and filled with static at the edges. She found she

  could not concentrate on what her friends were doing-the need for spice

  was too great, no matter how she tried to push it back. The tiny

  claustrophobic vessel felt unbearably hot, stifling, despite their

  arctic prison. Unreasonable quantities of perspiration soaked her

  leather headband, streamed into her large eyes, ran down her neck and

  back to leave damp stains on her clothing.

  The others around her were talking, planning, brainstomng, but it all

  seemed so far away. A deep ache burned in her muscles and ate its way

  down to her bones, igniting liquid agony in every joint of her body.

  Moving her hands or any part of her body produced an instant punishing

  pain. So she did not move. Each breath became a struggle. Her head

  throbbed with unimaginable pressure. She realized now that only one

  substance in the galaxy could put an end to her agony: andris.

  Stupid, her mind raged. How could she have let this happen to her?

  Addiction was for fools and weaklings, not for someone like

  herselfindependent, intelligent, strong-willed. She had never meant

  for the andris to affect her this way. She'd always thought she was in

  charge of her own body, but now she was a prisoner of spice.

  Fool! she snarled at herself Anja had been sure that addiction was for

  other people, weak people. She had convinced herself from the

  beginning that she would be able to handle it. She'd known when she

  started taking spice that many people had been destroyed by

  addiction.

  Anja had watched it, had known it for a fact. And yet, with firm

  conviction, she had believed that it would not happen to her.

  I am strong. Immune. Invincible.

  Anja gave a bitter laugh. Delirious was more like it. Somewhere in

  the back of Ania's mind, a memory stirred, a childhood memory of her

  mother shaking her head and saying, "So like your father. Taking the

  easy way even though it's dangerous, and not thinking for a moment that

  you could be hurt." Anja could not have been older than three or four

  when her mother had said those words. Her mother had died while Anja

  was still young. Yet somehow part of Anja's feverish brain had

  remembered. She didn't even try to control her shuddering.

  So-she and her father had something in common: both took foolish risks,

  both believed themselves indestructible. Anja drew a ragged breath.

  She had to admit now that Han Solo was probably telling the truth. In

  the end, it had most likely been her father's foolishness that had

  killed him-just as her own foolishness would kill her now.

  She gripped the arms of her seat as streamers of fire unfurled in her

  muscles and joints. Short of dying, there was only one way to stop the

  pain.

  "Spice!" she rasped.

  The frenetic activity around her quieted and, as if from a distance,

  she heard Jacen's voice say, "Anja? Are you all right?"

  "Spice," she repeated. "Andris."

  "It's fine. We managed to destroy almost everything."

  Something-a hand?-touched her arm, and where it touched, her suffering

  was more bearable. She blinked hard, trying to focus her vision.

  Jacen's face, complete with lopsided grin, swam into view. "Hey, you

  look terrible."

  "That's because ... I'm dying," she managed in a hoarse whisper.

  Anger flashed in his brandy-brown eyes. "No you're not!"

  Tenel Ka's serious face suddenly appeared beside Jacen's. The warrior

  girl stretched out her single hand and made a brief, thorough check of

  Anja's pulse, skin temperature, pupil dilation, and muscular tremors.

  At each place the warrior girl's fingers touched, the pain eased-just

  for a moment-before she moved on.

  "You will not die, Anja Gallandro," she said. "We will not allow

  it."

  Anja suddenly felt the relief of another Jedi touch on her left hand.

  A pair of emerald-green eyes stared into hers. "It's bad, isn't it?"

  Zekk asked. "Spice withdrawal, right?"

  Anja felt too weak to reply, but Zekk seemed to see the answer in her

  eyes. "I went through something similar. Well, not with drugs. I was

  addicted to using the dark side of the Force. I knew it was wrong, but

  I told myself I had good reasons for what I was doing. Anyway, when I

  wanted to stop, the dark side didn't want to let me go. I almost

  didn't make it." He glanced up briefly at Jacen and Tenel Ka. "If it

  hadn't been for my friends, I don't think I would have."

  Anja shivered. Her teeth rattled together. Tenel Ka reached out and

  pushed a few sweaty strands of hair out of Anja's eyes. Cool, tingling

  relief followed her friend's touch.

  Her friends, Anja thought with distant surprise: Tenel Ka, Jacen,

  Zekk.

  Yes, even Jaina and Lowie. Master Skywalker, too. Why hadn't she seen

  it before? Maybe she'd just been too busy believing the lies Czethros

  told her; she'd lied to herself too much to notice it. Yes, these were

  her friends. They would help her.

  "I need andris. Just one more dose," she pleaded with them. "Then

  I'll find a way to quit. I promise." The effort of her long speech

  left her trembling and slumped over in her seat. She didn't see the

  irony in the fact that she had told herself the same thing last time.

  A soft, melodious voice broke through Anja's pain. "There is another

  way." Ambassador Cilghal stroked a webbed hand against Anja's cheek.

  "It is more difficult, requires more strength, but it can be done."

  Anja shook her head. "Too much pain. I'll die."

  "We won't let that happen," Jacen said, more confidence in his words

  than in his voice.

  "How-?" Ania began.
r />   ' 'I am not simply an ambassador," Cilghal answered, "I am a Jedi

  healer. If you will let me, I can draw the toxins from your blood."

  "Will that end the addiction?" Zekk asked.

  Cilghal shook her fishy head. "I can take away only the poisons of the

  body. The poisons in her mind she must learn to remove for herself. "

  Anja shook her head violently, causing pain to flare in her neck.

  Droplets of sweat flew from side to side. "Too hard."

  "You will not be alone," Tenel Ka said.

  "We'll be here to help you," Jacen said, clasping her hand tightly.

  Tenel Ka covered Jacen's hand with hers.

  Zekk folded both hands tightly around Anja's left hand. "We'll be

  right here with you. All of us."

  Anja felt an impossible comfort and relief flowing from her friends'

  hands to hers. At first, she thought the relief must be in her

  imagination, that her need had fooled her weakened mind. She withdrew

  her fingers from Zekk's. Instantly the pain in her left hand

  returned.

  She gave a wordless gasp and stretched her arm back toward him. When

  he took Anja's hand this time, she knew the relief was real. It began

  in her fingers and tingled in cool waves up her arm.