Chewbacca shook him again.
“I yield!” the Proctor screamed. “Please, stop!” Chewbacca shook him again and let him fall. The Proctor cowered on the floor.
All the children were running around, shouting and screaming, holding on to the Proctors’ legs, sometimes biting them, tripping them and running away. Lusa and Mr. Chamberlain’s wyrwulf played with them together. Lusa rushed up and turned to kick, while the wyrwulf crouched behind the knees of the Proctor. The Proctor would step back and fall over the wyrwulf. Lusa and the wyrwulf laughed and howled and ran away.
If the Proctor did not step back, Lusa kicked him. Sometimes she kicked even when she did not really have to.
The Proctors had bullied some of the guests into a corner of the theater. Jaina did not know why they were trying to keep the guests inside. Maybe Hethrir wanted to feed them to the gold monster. A lot of the guests had escaped, leaving the children behind.
The Proctors could have escaped if they had let all the guests run away. They might even have won the fight. There were a lot more of them than of Jaina’s friends. But without the use of their lightsabers, and without Hethrir to tell them what to do, they were lost.
Chewbacca picked up another Proctor and shook him and dropped him on the floor. When he tried to stand, Chewie picked him up and shook him again and held him higher and dropped him again. He stayed where Chewie put him.
The person who had come down the hill with Papa and Uncle Luke let several of the Proctors rush her, then spun and ducked out of their way. When the Proctors ran into each other, she grabbed their arms and twisted them and made the Proctors fall down. She ripped their sleeves to the elbows and tied their arms together behind their backs. She ripped their pants halfway up their legs, and tied their knees together.
Chewbacca and Papa’s friend advanced on the last two Proctors. The Proctors brandished the handles of their useless lightsabers. Jaina was glad the Proctors could not turn their lightsabers on in this strange place. But she was sorry too, because it meant she could not do anything to help.
I wish I had four legs and hooves, she thought. Like Lusa! Or big fangs like Mr. Chamberlain’s wyrwulf!
The last two Proctors dropped their lightsaber handles and fell to their knees.
As Papa’s friend bent to tie them, Jaina slipped from Chewbacca’s back, climbing down his fur, and ran to Lusa. She embraced her. Lusa bent down and hugged Jaina, and rubbed her forehead, and her horns, against the top of Jaina’s head. Lusa’s horns had broken through their velvet. Now, instead of being soft red-furred knobs, Lusa’s horns were transparent, as bright as diamond, cool and ridged and smooth.
“Thank you, Jaina. Thank you, thank you,” Lusa whispered.
Jaina started to cry.
A few of the guests tried to sneak out of their corner. Chewbacca snarled at them. They cowered away from him.
Unafraid of Chewbacca’s roaring, the children all clustered around him. Papa’s friend joined them.
“Do you remember me?” she asked Chewbacca. “I’ve changed, but I’m Xaverri.”
He snorted in surprise, then put one huge gentle hand on her shoulder. She patted his wrist.
“Papa,” Anakin wailed. “Papa, come back!”
They all turned toward the molten sphere. Anakin stretched out his hands, yearning toward the shining surface.
There was no sign of Papa or Mama or Uncle Luke.
“We have to rescue them!” Jaina said. She ran toward the golden sphere. Lusa leaped in the air and followed.
Chewbacca roared in distress. He ran after Jaina and scooped her up. She struggled, but he hugged her and she cried against his rough fur.
“Chewie, what are we going to do?”
He faced the dais and roared.
Anakin shouted again. “Papa! Mama!”
“Uncle Luke!” Jaina and Jacen cried. “Mama! Papa!”
“Solo!” Xaverri shouted.
Lusa joined them in calling out, and the wyrwulf howled again. The other children crept around them and gathered around Chewbacca’s feet, and they yelled too.
Tigris stared at Hethrir, stunned. “My father—?”
“A traitor, and a liar,” Hethrir said. “What do you expect, from someone who would abandon her oath to the Empire? To Lord Vader. To me!”
“What of your vows to me?” Rillao asked sadly.
“You gave up any right …”
Tigris realized that his mother was telling the truth. Hethrir had been caught in a lie. Tigris had never before seen him at a loss for words.
“Were you so disappointed in me,” Rillao asked, “that you couldn’t acknowledge our son?”
“Our son,” Hethrir said, with pure contempt, “deserved no acknowledgment. He can never fulfill my legacy. He is ordinary.”
Tigris’s face burned with humiliation.
Hethrir turned away from Rillao, from Tigris, and leaped onto the dais.
“Waru! The time has come! You have Skywalker! Keep your promise to me, Waru! Make me omnipotent!”
Tigris tried to follow him, but Rillao grabbed him and held him and stopped him.
“Let me go!”
“He isn’t worth your loyalty! He isn’t worth your life!”
Han struggled to keep his grip on Leia’s hand, struggled to swim up out of the whirlpool.
“Swim!” Han shouted. “Please, Leia, I love you, swim!”
But she was captured by Waru’s promises, by Luke’s fascination. Her fingers slipped from his hand. Her beautiful hair waving around her, hiding her like a cape, she dove and descended into the golden light.
“Leia!” He dove after her, toward the cold darkness.
Leia basked in the siren song of Waru’s promises. The melody distracted her from the voice calling behind her. She followed Luke toward—
“Mama, Papa, Uncle Luke!”
She hesitated. The whirlpool pulled her into a spiral. She slowed, trying to remember what those words meant. She swam a few strokes as the wordless assurances of Waru drew her deeper.
“Mama! Come back, Mama!”
She remembered the sound of Jacen’s voice, her joy when he kissed her cheek, her wonder and delight as he and Jaina grew and changed and learned.
“Mama!”
She remembered the glow of Anakin’s spirit.
Leia stopped, floating, spinning dizzily. The gold light opened beneath her, and pressed her down from above.
“Papa! Mama! Uncle Luke!” Chewbacca’s roar pushed the children’s voices through the light.
Below her, Luke hesitated in his headlong plunge. He was very close to the point of darkness. If he touched it, he could never escape. He would be destroyed.
“Luke,” Leia whispered. “Luke, we have to go back.”
Han appeared beside her, shining in Waru’s radiance. He took her hand.
“Luke—!”
“Leave him to me,” Waru said. “Leave him, and I will free you.”
“No!” Leia cried. “Give him back to us, why do you want him?”
“He can help me return to my home.” Waru’s voice softened. “Won’t you help me? You know what it is to miss your home. I can see that I’ve been away so very long.”
Waru’s voice was so sad that Leia let herself drift closer, deeper.
“How can we help you?”
“Leia!” Han tried to draw her back. “Don’t listen!”
“His power can help me open a portal—”
Luke raised his head. His eyes were empty.
Leia gasped. She barely recognized him as her brother.
She knew that if he helped Waru, he would be destroyed. She tried to reach him, tried to pull him up out of the whirlpool. He struggled against her.
The darkness opened, expanding, reaching hungrily after them, swirling at Luke’s feet.
“Uncle Luke!” Jaina cried.
Luke shivered. He closed his eyes. He shook his head.
When he opened his eyes, he looked confused, but he
was Luke again.
“Where—? What—?”
“Come with us!” Leia said.
Luke kicked fiercely. Leia and Han pulled him.
They escaped the night by a hairsbreadth. Holding Luke in her arms, Leia gasped with relief.
They all fled, plunging away from the pursuing night, fighting their way through Waru’s illumination. The whirlpool burst into chaotic eddies and erratic spirals, knocking Leia back and forth as she fled.
She reached toward the shimmering golden surface. Her fingertips brushed it, broke it, reached through into the air.
Leia fell out onto the dais, drawing Han and Luke along with her. She lay on the stage, panting for breath. She staggered to her feet and slid off the stage, wanting only to get away from Waru’s touch. Luke lay collapsed behind her. She helped Han drag him from the altar.
Jaina and Jacen and Anakin ran to her and launched themselves at her. She knelt to hug them, tears streaming down her face. Chewbacca loomed over her. Han swept Anakin into his arms, and Luke picked Jaina up. Leia stood, still hugging Jacen, and Chewbacca wrapped his arms around them all
The children were safe.
Waru’s voice filled the theater. “You did not keep your promise, Hethrir. You did not give me the child. You did not give me the Jedi. I owe you nothing. I am hungry, Hethrir, I am hungry and lonely and dying, and I want to return home.”
“No—!” Hethrir cried in terror.
The golden surface expanded, quick as a snake’s strike. It broke over Hethrir, surrounded him, engulfed him.
Hethrir disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a scream.
Something happened. All three children whimpered. Lusa jumped straight up in the air. Rillao flinched, and Luke moaned, and Leia felt as if a gong were ringing in her head. It was as if for an instant the Force had disappeared from the universe.
The feeling vanished, leaving Leia breathless and shaken.
Unaffected, unaware of the disturbances raging all around him and tearing at the fabric of space-time, Tigris broke free of Rillao and jumped up onto the stage after Hethrir. Rillao lunged and grabbed his ankle. She held on to him with tenacious desperation. Xaverri ran to help her.
“Let me go!” Tigris struggled. Rillao was too shaken to hold him. He broke away just as Xaverri reached for him.
Rillao cried out in despair.
Tigris flung himself against Waru’s golden shell.
The gold yielded, then rebounded, flinging him away. Waru’s shell rang, a great low-pitched bell. Tigris fell to the stage.
The ringing slowly faded.
The only sound was Tigris’s anguished sobs.
Waru’s golden shell solidified.
It began to contract.
Rillao and Xaverri drew Tigris from the stage.
“Tigris,” Rillao said, “my sweet son—”
“Leave me alone!” he snarled. “Never say my name! Never!”
He ran a few steps, then stood, shaking, with his shoulders hunched.
“Mama?” Jaina said.
“I’m all right, sweetheart.” Leia looked into Han’s eyes, and smiled. She hugged Jacen, she held him with one arm and touched Luke’s face with her free hand, then squeezed Chewbacca’s arm, as he held all his human friends, his Honor Family, in a protecting embrace. “We’re all all right. We’re going home.”
Jaina surveyed the theater from the vantage point of Uncle Luke’s shoulder.
“All those Proctors escaped!” she said. “And the other people, too!”
Once the Proctors were tied up, the guests had fled. Xaverri had tied the Proctors with their uniforms. They had ripped the cloth, untied each other, struggled free. They had all run away. Bits of light blue uniform and the dead handles of lightsabers littered the floor.
Jaina was wrong about all the Proctors. One was left, the one who had just been promoted. No one had stopped to untie him, and he had not been able to free himself. He struggled, but could not rip his knotted uniform.
“We should go after them,” Papa said.
“They’re no threat, without Hethrir,” Xaverri said. “The ones you must worry about are those Hethrir placed within the Republic.” She smiled wryly. “But I suspect they will soon find themselves unemployed.”
“We’ll deal with them,” Papa said. He sounded mad. “The guests, too, the damned slavers! They all ought to be in jail!”
“I will tell you where to find them,” Xaverri said. “Soon. When I am done with them. When you complete an important task: return these children to their homes.” Her smile vanished. Her voice was shaking. “These children still have homes.”
“Xaverri—” Papa said.
“Good-bye, Solo.” She turned to Mama. “Good-bye, Princess Leia. I’m glad to have met you.”
“Good-bye,” Mama said. “Thank you, Xaverri.”
“Good-bye, Xaverri,” Papa said.
She strode away without another word, walking up the slope of the theater. She paused long enough to cut loose the last tied-up Proctor, to fling away his lightsaber, and then she walked out of the theater without looking back.
The Proctor staggered to his feet. He looked so funny, with the arms and legs of his uniform cut off, that Jaina laughed. He glared at her, but there was nothing he could do. He glanced after his lightsaber, but he was too frightened to retrieve it. Stumbling, awkward, he fled.
On the stage, the gold sphere contracted to the size of a ball. Hethrir must be squished up inside it.
Jaina felt safe.
Leia feared for no one for the first time in too long. She worried about Rillao and Tigris, reunited, yet separated by Hethrir’s lies. But she could not bear more fear.
“Let’s go home.” Han stared at the diminishing sphere that had been Waru. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“It gives me a headache,” Rillao said. “I do not like this system at all. It is … disconnected.”
Leia went to her brother. She set Jacen on the ground and reached up for Jaina, still on Luke’s shoulders.
“Come down, sweetheart,” she said. “Your Uncle Luke is tired.” Jaina dove into Leia’s embrace and hugged her tightly, then jumped down and wrapped her arms around Luke’s waist.
“You lean on me, Uncle Luke!” she said.
Luke looked gray with fatigue and pain. “Thank you, Jaina,” he said. His gaze kept returning to Waru’s sphere.
“What did it want from us?” Leia asked. Waru whispered to my brother, she thought, and told him—tempted him …
“It was stranded,” Luke said. His gaze was haunted. “It could only gain energy by annihilating the Force of our universe with the anti-Force of its own.”
“And Waru reached the Force …” Leia said, horrified.
“Yes. Through people. By destroying people.”
“Lusa said it eats people,” Jaina said.
“The Ithorian child,” Han said.
Luke nodded. “But Waru didn’t always kill its victims. Sometimes, if it was satiated, it would feed the power back. It really could heal people, or strengthen them. That’s what happened to Hethrir’s Proctors if they survived—if they were reborn. And that’s what Hethrir wanted for himself. To have his connection to the Force strengthened and refined. It is … a very tempting offer.” Luke shook his head as if flinging off a memory. “Hethrir had to satiate Waru before he’d risk himself. He needed someone stronger than he was, someone Waru would prefer—yet someone Hethrir could control.”
“Anakin,” Leia whispered. Han smoothed Anakin’s dark hair, holding him protectively.
“Anakin get down!” Anakin said. Reluctantly, Han let him down. Anakin ran to Luke, and gazed up at him.
“Waru didn’t care what Hethrir wanted,” Luke said. “Waru needed enough power to rip a path through space-time back to its own universe. Like an electron and a positron. Bring them together, and—” He clapped his hands together. “Annihilation. Unimaginable energy.” He closed his eyes, “Hethrir thought he’d be able t
o tap into that power. And … for a moment, so did I.”
“Is it gone for good?” Han asked.
Luke nodded. “And Hethrir, too. Waru wanted to go home.”
Leia could not make herself feel the least sympathy for Waru.
Luke drew Jaina and Jacen and Anakin into an embrace. He kissed them each on the forehead.
“Thank you, young Jedi Knights, for calling me back.”
“You’re welcome, Uncle Luke,” they said.
“Hey,” Han protested. “Don’t Leia and I get any credit?”
Luke hugged the children, and smiled.
Leia and Chewbacca gathered the stolen children together. Rillao put her arm around Tigris. He shrugged it off angrily. He tried to pick up the gold sphere that had been Waru, but he could not lift it, he could not move it. He ran out of the theater, leaving Rillao behind. Leia took Rillao’s hand and squeezed it, hoping to give the Firrerreo some comfort.
“Oh, Lelila,” Rillao said. “My sweet son …”
“Give him time.”
“Yes. And peace, if we can find it.”
“I’ll help you,” Leia said. “Luke can help—”
“No!” Rillao gripped Leia’s hand intently. “Tigris has been too much under the influence of Hethrir. He cannot counter it. He must be left alone, to find himself. If he returns to me, it must be of his own free will.”
Leia’s eyes filled with tears of sympathy for the distress in Rillao’s voice.
“I know a place where you can rest, and think, and talk, and play—a refuge, for as long as you need it. A place of peace.”
Rillao tensed. It was not the custom of her people to accept charity or even sympathy. Leia was afraid Rillao would snarl, “Who asked you for your help?” and stalk stiffly away.
“My family owes yours so much!” Leia said sincerely. “We’ll always be in your debt, Firrerreo.” I’ll never speak Rillao’s name in public again, Leia realized. I’ll never again use that power over her. “Please let me repay you a little.”
Rillao hesitated. “I accept, Lelila,” she finally said.
The Crystal Star Page 31