As Luke unlocked the cockpit canopy, R2-D2 responded with a spurt of excited beeps.
Luke consulted the monitor to read the translation of the droid’s message, then said, “No, I definitely haven’t forgotten what Han said about a woman with a lightsaber.”
The astromech emitted more excited beeps.
“No more arguments!” Luke said. “Your job is to stay here and keep trying to contact Han. I’ll check in with you every fifteen minutes. If you don’t hear back from me, take the X-wing into orbit and let the Alliance know where I am. Got that?”
The droid emitted a whimpering whistle.
“All right, then,” Luke said. He checked his lightsaber and comlink, then climbed out of the cockpit, taking his robe with him. As he stepped down to the black rock, he noticed that his legs ached a bit because he’d been traveling in such a cramped cockpit. It was chilly outside. He pulled on his robe quickly, then walked cautiously toward the freighter.
Luke drew his lightsaber as he stepped up the freighter’s landing ramp. He moved cautiously through the ship, searching for any sign of the scouts. Upon entering the bridge, he was alarmed to see the scorched remains of the controls and communication consoles. It looked like someone had fired a blaster at almost point-blank range into the instruments.
Luke had never heard of blood eaters using blasters. He wondered, Did the scouts do this? Or someone else?
Exiting the freighter, he resecured his lightsaber to his belt. He walked away from the two ships, moving around the outcropping until he reached a gulley that led him up over the mountain’s southern shoulder. Although fifteen minutes had yet to pass, he activated his comlink and said, “Do you read me, Artoo?”
R2-D2 beeped in response.
“I’m fine,” Luke said. “Just testing the comlink.” He returned the comlink to his belt before he moved on, heading for a notch between two stony ridges.
He kept his eyes peeled for anything unusual. The landscape was littered with broken black stones. Except for a few small patches of moss, there wasn’t any sign of life. Luke wondered why Imperial soldiers might have brought an Oskan blood eater to Tarnoonga.
The clouds overhead became darker. Luke thought again about the report Han had relayed to him. Could the scouts have really seen a Jedi? Or was it something else? He realized that his heart was pounding unusually fast. He didn’t stop walking but took a deep breath to calm himself.
He spied a small glint of silvery metal against the bleak terrain. He soon arrived at the thing that had caused the glint. It was a little box-shaped object, which rested on the ground between two stones. The object was slightly smaller than his comlink, and he recognized it as a compact emergency beacon.
He picked up the beacon and examined it. It didn’t appear to be damaged. Because the transmitter would have been more effective if it had been placed in a more elevated position, he wondered if one of the scouts had accidentally dropped the device. Maybe they didn’t have time to think about where to put it. He turned in place, scanning the surrounding area for any sign of movement. He saw none. He considered switching off the beacon but decided to leave it activated before he placed it in one of his robe’s pockets.
And then he heard an inhuman roar behind him.
Luke turned fast to see the blood eater running at him. The hulking beast was well over two and a half meters tall. Each of its four arms was tapered into a bladelike claw. Its hunched shoulders were topped by a gaping mouth with concentric layers of razor-sharp teeth instead of a head.
Luke did not pause to wonder where the creature had come from or how it had snuck up on him so fast without making a sound. His hand simply flashed to his lightsaber and he ignited its blade.
The blood eater’s upper left and lower right arms lashed out at Luke. Luke ducked to avoid one arm as he brought his lightsaber up fast to deflect the other. The blood eater howled as Luke’s blade cleaved through a thick layer of skin. Then it swung its other claw-tipped arms at Luke.
Luke jumped and rolled aside as the monster’s claws smashed down into the ground. He sprang to his feet, bracing himself for another onslaught, but then he heard a sound behind him, the distinctive burst and hum of a just-activated lightsaber.
The blood eater stopped dead in its tracks. Luke froze.
And then Luke saw a blue-robed woman leap past him. A hood obscured her face, but, because she was wielding a lightsaber, Luke believed that she had to be the woman who reportedly had rescued the Alliance scouts.
Luke angled his own lightsaber away as the hooded woman swung her lightsaber at the blood eater. The blue energy blade swept through one clawed arm at the elbow. The blood eater yowled as its severed arm fell to the ground, and, at the same time, it reflexively swung one of its other claws out at its attacker.
Luke gasped as the blood eater’s blow connected, sending the blue-robed woman flying into a wall of rock. The woman’s lightsaber spiraled away through the air and automatically deactivated as the woman collapsed upon the rocky ground.
The blood eater howled with rage. Luke jumped forward, raising his lightsaber so that its tip was aimed straight at the monster’s broad chest. The blood eater snatched up its severed claw as it backed away from Luke, then turned quickly and scurried away over the rocks.
Luke looked from the fleeing monster to the woman, who was now sprawled on the ground, lying facedown. She didn’t move. Luke glanced back to where he had last seen the blood eater. The wounded monster had vanished. Then Luke looked at the area where he’d seen the woman’s lightsaber fall, and he saw that it was gone too.
But where? Did the blood eater take it?
Luke deactivated his lightsaber and crouched down beside the motionless woman’s prone form. He gently rolled her body over and discovered she was wearing the uniform of an Alliance scout, which Luke found puzzling.
The woman’s face was still covered by her hood. She moaned. As Luke reached up to push her hood back, he said, “Are you all right?”
And then he saw her face. He recognized her immediately, even before she opened the ice blue eyes that he had not seen since he’d buried her on Hoth.
She was Frija.
Luke was stunned. “Frija?”
The woman’s eyes opened wide with surprise. “You…you’re Luke Skywalker.”
Her voice was just as he’d remembered it. He tore his gaze from her to scan the area again, searching and listening for the blood eater. He saw only masses of dark rock and the shadows between them. The creature seemed to be as stealthy as it was deadly.
Luke returned his attention to Frija and helped her up from the ground. He said, “How…how did you survive? And where did you get the lightsaber?”
“The lightsaber!” Frija said. Her hands flashed out to her sides. “Where is it? Oh, no, I lost it!”
“I think the blood eater got it,” Luke said. “But hang on, how did you survive after—”
“The lightsaber,” Frija interrupted, “it belonged to the Jedi who saved me and Levlonn, the scout who was with me. But another blood eater killed the Jedi and… it got Levlonn too. I only used the lightsaber because my blaster’s power cell died.”
The information was more than Luke could comprehend. “Wait. Let’s start with how you’re still alive. When I left you on—”
“We can’t stay here!” Frija said frantically. “There are at least five blood eaters in the area. They will come back. Where’s your ship?”
“I landed next to yours,” Luke said. “But mine’s an X-wing. I’m afraid it won’t hold both of—”
They heard a shuffling sound behind some nearby rocks. Frija grabbed Luke’s wrist, tugged it sharply, and said, “Hurry!”
A low growl sounded from behind, and they ran in the opposite direction, heading away from the landing site. Luke sprinted alongside Frija as she held tight to his wrist, guiding him around a series of mammoth boulders.
Luke said, “Where’re we going?”
“Someplace safe.”<
br />
“We should go back to the ships!”
“We’d never make it!”
“How did the blood eaters get—”
“Stop talking! Just run!”
They didn’t stop running until they arrived at a high wall of stone that was topped by a wide overhang. At the wall’s base was a black slit, a crevice less than a meter wide.
“Inside!” Frija said breathlessly, tugging Luke after her as she moved into the narrow passage.
The crevice turned out to be the entrance to a cave. They arrived in a large smooth-walled chamber that was without windows and illuminated by a single glowlamp. The glowlamp was propped up against a wall beside several cargo containers. All the containers bore an Imperial insignia. A stairwell was carved into one wall, and the stone steps descended into darkness.
“This is the abandoned outpost?”
Frija nodded. “The blood eaters can’t follow us in here. Are you all right?”
“Yes, but…I still don’t understand.” Luke looked at Frija cautiously. “How did you get here from Hoth?”
“Hoth?” Now it was Frija who looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“But, Frija, I—”
“And how do you know my name?” Frija interrupted. “We’ve never met before.”
Even more baffled, Luke said, “But I thought…you recognized me. After the blood eater fled, and I helped you up, you said my name.”
“Yes, but you’re…well, you’re Luke Skywalker,” Frija said. “Everyone in the Alliance knows what you look like. I’ve seen you on vidrecordings.”
“Vidrecordings?” Luke’s brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of it all. He suddenly realized that there was only one reasonable explanation for the woman who stood before him. “Your father. He was an Imperial governor?”
Frija looked at Luke warily, then said, “Yes, but that’s no secret. The Alliance is aware of who my father was.”
“Please, give me a moment.” Luke took a deep breath as he tried to collect his thoughts. “Your human replica droid. I met her. On Hoth, an ice planet in the Anoat Sector. She was with the replica of your father. She told me how the Empire had created them as decoys. You look like…I mean, the droid looked just like you.”
“Oh, my,” Frija said. “Is she…are the droids still…active?”
Luke shook his head. “They’re both gone. I buried them on Hoth.”
Frija sighed. “To my father, they were just part of his own elaborate escape plan,” she said sadly. “But I could never think of them as mere machines. They were too…too real. Especially my own counterpart. If any droid ever possessed genuine feelings, it was her.”
Luke had thought the same thing. He said, “What happened to your father?”
“He made the mistake of betraying the Emperor. He tried to deliver some secret plans to the Rebel Alliance. The Emperor had him killed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I joined the Alliance right after that. I knew it was the right thing to do. I wanted to make a difference.”
Luke had previously wondered what had become of the droid Frija’s human counterpart, whether she and her father had successfully escaped from the Rebels or the Imperials, or whatever they’d been running from. He had even consulted Alliance Intelligence to find out if they had any information about a renegade Imperial governor and his daughter. They hadn’t been able to turn up anything useful. And yet here she was before him, just as kind and brave as the Frija he’d known on Hoth.
But he still had questions for her. “The lightsaber you used,” he said. “Can you describe the person you took it from?”
Frija nodded. “A woman who wore a black cloak. I only glimpsed her face. She had fair skin. She appeared from out of nowhere, just a moment after the first blood eater attacked me and Levlonn.” Frija bit her lower lip nervously.
“This woman,” Luke said. “She actually identified herself as a Jedi?”
“She had a lightsaber. What else could she have been?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said, but he hoped she hadn’t been a Sith disciple like Lumiya. “Go on.”
“She told us to run for cover. Levlonn and I ran for our ship. I glanced back and saw the Jedi kill the blood eater. We immediately transmitted a report back to the New Hope. Is that how you found out about us?”
Luke nodded.
“We were still transmitting,” Frija continued, “when we heard a scream from outside our ship. It was her. The Jedi. We searched for her body, but all we found was her weapon. I picked it up and…” Frija’s eyes widened.
“What happened?”
“And then…and then they came. The other blood eaters…they came at us! We got back onto our ship, but two of them got inside. We exhausted our blasters on them. We…I…” Her entire body began to tremble. “I got away. Levlonn didn’t.”
Luke stepped closer to Frija. “I’m sorry about your partner,” he said as he placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’re safe now.”
“Oh, Luke.” She reached her arms around him and held him tight. “I’m so frightened.”
The glowlamp was behind Frija, and, as Luke looked into its light, he suddenly had a feeling that he was overlooking some crucial detail. It wasn’t that he doubted Frija, but he thought something was missing in her account of the lightsaber-wielding defender. Granted, he’d seen the lightsaber, but that was hardly evidence that the mysterious woman had been a Jedi.
He pulled back slightly, holding Frija at arm’s length. “Listen,” he said, “this might be important. You didn’t actually see the blood eaters kill the Jedi?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Do you think it’s possible she’s still alive?” Before Frija could answer, Luke’s comlink emitted an electronic chirp. “Oh, no,” Luke said. “I forgot all about Artoo!” He took his comlink from his belt and spoke into it. “Artoo, do you read me? Artoo?” Hearing no response, he shook the device, then repeated, “Do you read me?”
If R2-D2 gave an answer, Luke didn’t hear it. Instead, he heard a loud roar echo down through the passage that had delivered them to the underground chamber.
“The blood eaters!” Frija said with alarm.
And then they heard a loud slam, like a massive hammer striking the chamber’s outer wall. The noise was followed by another slam, and then another. Looking toward the passage, Luke returned the comlink to his belt as he said, “That sounds more like a krayt dragon.”
“A what?”
“A creature from Tatooine,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s big.”
The pounding noise continued and intensified. Frija said, “It’s going to break through!” She turned and ran for the stairwell and plunged down the stone steps.
“Wait!” Luke said as Frija vanished into the darkness. He bent fast to pick up the glowlamp, but, as he angled its light into the stairwell and was about to follow Frija, he caught himself.
He tightened his grip on the glowlamp. He realized he had found the overlooked detail.
The hammering was now an almost deafening din. Luke ignored it and stepped over to one of the Imperial cargo containers. With his free hand, he threw back the container’s lid. He swept the glowlamp over the container.
It was filled with stormtrooper armor.
He lifted the lid of another container. More white armor. And bones too. Human bones.
Luke released the lid. Suddenly, the thunderous pounding ended. Luke’s ears were still ringing as he removed the comlink from his belt. Keeping his voice low, he activated the comlink and said, “Artoo, if you can hear me, leave now. Alert the Alliance to stay away from Tarnoonga. I’ll try to find some other way to contact—”
“Luke!” Frija’s voice carried up from the open stairwell. “Help me!”
It’s a trap, Luke thought as he returned the comlink to his belt. It was all a trap.
He stepped away from the cargo containers. He glanced at the crevice that had served as his entrance to the chambe
r, but he knew he wouldn’t get far if he tried to run. There was no way to hide from the thing in the chamber below.
He knew he had to confront it.
Taking the glowlamp with him, Luke followed Frija’s path. The stone steps deposited him into a cave that was even darker than the upper room. The air was dank, and he could see pools of stagnant water on the uneven floor. Moving the glowlamp back and forth, he saw a row of ancient architectural columns that rose up to a high ceiling.
Off to his left, something made a dripping noise. Then there came a low growl, and Frija’s voice whimpered, “Luke?”
Luke swung the glowlamp to his left and saw a blood eater. It had Frija pinned against one of the columns.
Luke said, “I know that monster isn’t real.”
“What?” Frija gasped. The blood eater dragged its claws closer against her body and shifted its maw directly over her head. “Luke, please!”
“And I know the Imperial outpost wasn’t abandoned,” Luke continued. “At least not before you got here.”
“It’s going to kill me!” Frija cringed as yellow saliva drooled from the blood eater’s serrated teeth.
Keeping his voice calm, Luke said, “You made a mistake. You told me you used the lightsaber that you recovered because your blaster’s power cell died. Why didn’t you transfer the power cell from this glowlamp to your blaster?” He aimed the glowlamp’s light directly into Frija’s face. “That’s what any Alliance scout would have done.”
Frija glared at Luke.
“I know what you are,” Luke said. “A mind witch.”
The glowlamp flickered and went out, and then a wretched cackling echoed through the pitch-black cave. Luke had heard that laugh before.
It was S’ybll’s.
Luke stood still as the hideous laughter ended. A moment later, the glowlamp flickered back on. The blood eater—or rather the illusion of it—was gone, and Frija had been replaced by S’ybll.
Lives & Adventures Page 26