Dark Nest_ The Joiner King Part 26

"That would fall under the heading of military intelligence, Captain Solo," Jag replied. "But rest a.s.sured, the Jedi Wookiee has been recovered. He'll be treated with all the rights and privileges due any enemy combatant-as will the rest of your rogue Jedi, when we capture them."

SEVENTEEN.

In every base, there was a place like this, someplace dark and hot and deserted where a Barabel could go to hunt and clear her mind, someplace filled with the smell of local soil and the rustlings of alien prey. Saba was deep below the Taat nest, creeping down a crevice at a speed only a reptile would recognize as motion, her darting tongue stinging with the acrid odor of Jwlio's fractured bedrock, her mouth filled with the bitter taste of Jaina's insubordination.

Master Skywalker had allowed his niece to take part in the rescue mission only on the condition that Saba was in command. Yet when matters had grown difficult, Jaina had submitted-as always-only to her own emotions. Saba did not consider herself worthy to question Master Skywalker's judgment, but she did fail to understand his wisdom in permitting the disorderliness that encouraged such behavior.

Disobedience led to chaos, and chaos led to ineffectiveness.

The crevice opened into a cavity ahead, and the faint odor of meat that Saba had been following grew stronger. All her thoughts went instantly to the hunt, for the prey was often near its litter. She did not know what she was stalking, of course, but the smell suggested another predator. Herbivores rarely dragged fresh carca.s.ses back to their lairs.

To her Barabel eyes, which saw well into the infrared spectrum, the entrance looked like a dark diamond opening into the cool gleam of Jwlio's bedrock. She crept another step forward and heard the soft scratch of movement inside the lair. She waited, every muscle tensed to pounce on anything that poked its head out. She had been careful to mask her own odor by rubbing her scales in crevice dust, but such efforts were never entirely successful-and a worthy quarry usually smelled the predator long before the final attack.

Another rustle sounded from the cavity. Saba started steadily forward, a tenth of a meter at a time. If the prey had not fled or showed itself by now, it was not going to. The musty odor grew stronger, with just a hint of Killik sweetness, and she came to the entrance. The edge dropped away into a cold darkness that gave her the impression of a sizable emptiness. She stopped there for ten heartbeats, listening and testing the air with her tongue, twenty, fifty, a hundred.

No more rustles.

Saba slipped over the edge and crawled down a fissured rock face into a three-meter hollow. She could not sense any other presences in the area, but the spines along her dorsal ridge had risen on end, and that usually meant something exciting was about to happen. She continued across a floor of jumbled stones, licking the air, following her tongue toward the musty odor ahead. A few steps later, Saba peered over a boulder and found the source of the rustles.

A flat stone ahead was littered with about two dozen cuticle exoskeletons, all empty and split down the spine from molting. They ranged in size from smaller than Saba's thumb to a little larger than her hand, and they were so light that even the unfelt movement of the cavern air made them quiver and rustle. Scattered among the empty sh.e.l.ls were dozens of small bones, enough to make six or seven wabas. Most were stripped of their flesh and cracked open, but a handful in the center of the pile still had some meat on them.

Fresh meat.

Sensing that she was closing on her prey, Saba activated a glow rod and went over to the exoskeletons. They were a familiar dark blue, but with thick k.n.o.bby chitin like that of Raynar's guards. Starting to feel puzzled- and therefore short-tempered - Saba blew aside several of the smallest ones and s.h.i.+ned her light into a tail-width cleft that ran a meter down the center of stone. It had been precisely cut, as though by a laser saw-or perhaps a lightsaber.

Her prey was growing more interesting.

The cleft held four hexagonal cells, each about five centimeters in diameter and constructed of Killik spitcrete. One of the cells remained covered by a plug of dusty wax, but the other three were empty.

A soft rustle rose as the empty exoskeletons were stirred by an air movement so gentle Saba did not feel it. She flicked out her tongue and tasted a bitter hint of apprehension, but felt nothing in the Force except a faint stirring of her danger sense. Strange prey. Her tail twitching with antic.i.p.ation, she sc.r.a.ped the last cell open, using the talon of her smallest finger to pluck out the insect egg inside. It was withered, gray, and dry-not worth eating.

The bitterness in the air grew stronger. The scales between Saba's shoulder blades rose in excitement, and she swept her tail around in a swift arc that ended in a knee-crunching impact. Her prey landed with the crisp slap of a practiced warrior, winning Saba's instant respect by not crying out in either pain or surprise. She spun on her haunches, s.n.a.t.c.hing her lightsaber off her utility belt, bringing it around from the direction opposite her tail.

A crimson blade sizzled into existence and blocked, then a Force wave blasted her across the chamber into the wall opposite. The air left her lungs as her skull slammed against stone and a ring of darkness formed around the edges of her vision. She could see only her prey's red lightsaber and his seated silhouette. She felt nothing in the Force from him, only the same vague danger as before.

Now, this would be prey worth taking.

The shadow man returned to his feet and remained where he was, gathering himself to continue or arrogantly waiting for Saba to ask who he was. First mistake. Saba sprang, sissing in delight, ignoring the murk in her head, bringing her arms around in a vicious overhand slash. Her prey- she wasted no time wondering who he was-limped two steps back, then brought his crimson blade up and stopped her swing cold.

Saba brought a knee around, driving for his rib cage, and felt like she had struck a statue. He slipped a palm-heel under her guard and caught her in the chin, sent her staggering back.

Strong, too.

Saba kicked a fist-sized stone off the floor, then used the Force to hurl it at his head and followed it in with a cut at his knees. He pivoted past the stone and met her attack, catching her blade on his and sweeping it up in a disarming counterarc, power-fighting against a Barabel and winning.

At the top of the arc, Saba released her lightsaber and raked her claws down in a vicious one-two slash, the first strike opening her prey's face from temple to jaw, the second strike slicing an eye apart.

He whirled away, still silent but screaming in the Force, and planted a spinning stomp kick in Saba's belly. She went with the blow, rolling into a quick backflip and losing half a meter of tail to his lightsaber.

This time, the shadow man gave her no time to recover. A fork of blue lightning crackled from his hand and caught Saba square in the chest. Every nerve in her body became a conduit of blazing agony, and she dropped her to her knees, teeth gnas.h.i.+ng, scales dancing, muscles clenching-paralyzed.

Continuing to hold the Force lightning on her with one hand, the shadow man limped forward. In the light of his red lightsaber, Saba saw her prey clearly for the first time. Dressed in an amalgam of black plastoid armor and blue Killik chitin, he was surprisingly gaunt, with a sinewy frame and a twisted posture that looked ready to collapse beneath his humped shoulder. His face was even more melted and shapeless than Raynar's, just two eyes and a lipless slash in a scarred oval of flesh, and one of his arms was as much insect as human, turning tubular and chitinous at the elbow before ending in a hooked pincer.

Raynar and the Killiks had lied, Saba realized. Welk, at least, had also survived the Crash.

The Dark Jedi stopped a meter and a half away. Having learned the folly of hesitation, he brought his arm up quickly, swinging at Saba's neck-then pitched backward as her Force shove buckled his injured knee.

His lightsaber sc.r.a.ped along Saba's skull, flooding her mind with a pain so hot and blinding that she could not tell whether the Force lightning had stopped. She sprang anyway and slammed into his chest, driving her prey the last half a meter to the ground, clutching blindly at his weapon arm, biting into his throat.

Her fangs barely sank two centimeters. She tried to rip the wound open, but lacked the strength to keep her jaw clamped and came away only with a mouthful of blood.

Still, the bite took her prey by surprise. She found herself in the grasp of the Force, flying back through the darkness. She reached out, calling her lightsaber to hand, and had it in her grasp when she hit the cavern wall.

Fighting off a black curtain of unconsciousness, Saba slid down the wall and landed on her feet. Her vision was blotchy at best, and she could not even hear the customary snap-hiss as she ignited her lightsaber. She sprang at her prey anyway, covering the distance in three short bounds, and nearly lost her balance when she landed in his blood.

Welk retreated two meters and leveled another fork of Force lightning at her. She deflected it with her lightsaber and pivoted past, sissing in excitement. It was turning into a good hunt, a very good hunt.

She rushed to close the distance. He brought his lightsaber to a middle guard and retreated another step.

Saba attacked high, but her reflexes were fading and his lightsaber flashed up to block. He retreated another step. She launched a spinning advance, bringing her blade around in a shoulder slash, whipping her bloodied tail around at his legs.

She was smooth but slow. He blocked the shoulder slash and hopped over the tail sweep, then rolled his blade over Saba's in an excellent block- a.s.sault conversion.

The attack might have opened her throat, had there been a way for him to block Saba's trailing foot. As it was, she swept his feet from beneath him and continued into a second spin, bringing her lightsaber down across his pincer-arm, then planting a foot on his remaining arm and rolling her blade around to add a neck wound to the arm he had just lost.

That was when Saba's blotchy vision proved costly. She sensed something flying at her from behind and turned to look, but saw only dark against dark.

The rock slammed into her head wound, and then she was kneeling on the floor, her lightsaber in a high guard, with no recollection of how she had landed there. Her sight was worse than ever, narrowed to a tiny circle, and her senses of smell and taste had gone the way of her hearing.

This was becoming a hunt to remember.

Seeing nothing ahead but a narrow cone of rock, Saba stretched into the Force and felt more danger than before. It seemed to have her surrounded, as though her prey had extended his presence over the entire chamber. She began to weave her lightsaber in a blind defensive pattern and rose. Something spongy and warm landed on her shoulder beneath her head wound. She hoped it wasn't her brains.

Saba began to spin in a slow circle, and finally her narrow cone of vision fell on her quarry, fleeing toward the cavern wall at a fast limp, blood pouring from his neck wound, the cauterized stump of his severed arm waving useless in the air.

Good. The prey was weakening.

Saba shut down her lightsaber and bounded after him, her heart pounding in antic.i.p.ation of the final kill. She reached the cavern wall three steps behind him... and hissed in surprise as something landed on her back and pierced her neck scales with a st.u.r.dy proboscis.

She reached over her shoulder and felt a creature about the size of her head. Cursing her fading senses, she pulled it off and found herself looking into the dark eyes of a small blue-black Killik.

It spread its mandibles, and a stream of brown fluid shot from its tiny mouth. Saba barely turned away in time to protect her eyes. The slime instantly began to eat away at her cheek scales.

Acid.

Saba felt her dorsal spines rise and knew another attack was coming. She dropped into a crouch, and a small boulder slammed into the slope above. She jumped out of the way as it rolled back toward her, then, holding the Killik at arm's length, glanced up to see Welk glaring down at her in disbelief. Saba jammed her lightsaber against the Killik's abdomen and activated the blade.

The discharge that followed was not quite an explosion. She lost only two fingertips instead of an entire hand. The fireball did little more than scorch her scales and bedazzle her eyes, but... exploding Killiks?

When Saba looked up again, Welk had started climbing for an exit crevice. She sprang after him and collapsed to her knees two steps later, feeling weak and nauseous. She touched the bite on her neck and found it already swollen and oozing.

Venom?

What kind of bugs were these? Saba should have stopped and gone into a healing trance. But her prey was wounded and escaping, and if she let him go, he would only be that much harder to track and capture next time. She continued her pursuit.

Her muscles obeyed reluctantly, stiffly, as though she were dropping into a hibernation-without the sleep. She drew the Force into her, calling on it to strengthen her, to burn the poison from her body, and staggered after her quarry.

Saba was only three meters behind when a second proboscis pierced her leg. She glanced down and found another small Killik latched onto her calf. She plucked it off and, holding it so it could not release its corrosive bile in her direction, tossed it high into the air.

The insect extended two pairs of wings, then spread its mandibles and came diving back at her, weaving and dodging past her flas.h.i.+ng lightsaber to alight on her chest. Before Saba could grab it, the Killik's head dipped, and its proboscis pierced her scales. She plucked it off and held it away from her, trying to decide how to kill it without losing any more fingers.

Saba sensed another boulder flying in her direction. Still holding the insect at arm's length, she pivoted around and reached for the stone in the Force, redirecting it up the hill toward her prey. Her effort was rewarded with a dull thud and a cry that seemed equal parts surprise and pain.

The little Killik drummed its chest, then began to squirm and flap its wings, trying to escape. Saba caught a handful of wing and tore it off, then tossed the insect into the air.

Her reflexes were so slowed by the paralyzing poison that, by the time she ignited her lightsaber, the insect had already hit the ground.

It took three strikes before she finally detonated it.

Saba turned instantly upslope, but her prey had already vanished into his exit crevice. Feeling half dead from poison already and not wanting to take yet another shot of venom, Saba remained motionless for a long time, trying to listen through her deafhess, trying to taste the air with her dead tongue, trying to see outside her narrow cone of vision.

She felt nothing, only the dark loneliness of the underworld.

Recalling that there had been three cells and only two Killik attacks, Saba went to the escape crevice and peered inside.

Nothing.

Her prey was gone, and so was the third Killik.

Every Barabel instinct urged her to continue the pursuit, to follow the quarry's blood trail until she ran it to ground. But the rational part of her mind knew better. A hunter needed a quick wit and sharp senses, and Saba's injuries had taken a toll on both. She was slow and beginning to tremble, and soon she might not be able to move at all.

Besides, Saba had a sinking feeling that the third Killik had left the nest early, and she could think of only one reason it would have done so: the departure of Jade Shadow.

EIGHTEEN.

"Ben!"

Mara's voice came over the Shadow's intercom so sharp and loud that Luke nearly dropped the micropoint he was holding in R2-D2's deep-reserve data compartment.

"Ben, come to the galley this instant!"

"Uh, that might not be such a good idea," Luke said into the intercom. He flipped up his magnispecs and looked across the utility deck to where Ben sat, surrounded by crate covers and s.p.a.cing rods, covered head-to-toe in servomotor lubricant. "At least not until he's had a good saniscrubbing. He's on the utility deck with me."

"Doing what?" Mara demanded.

Luke caught Ben's eye and pointed his chin toward the intercom wall unit.

"Working on my Killik," Ben said meekly. His expression struck Luke as both guilty and worried. "Nanna said I could."

"Stay where you are!"

Luke c.o.c.ked a brow at his son. "It sounds serious."

Ben nodded. "I guess."

"Any ideas?"

Ben returned to working on his "Killik" droid. "Maybe."

Deciding they would both find out what was troubling Mara in a minute, Luke returned to the sequestered sector he had found on one of R2-D2's deep-reserve memory chips. Judging by the tarnished break in the service circuit, the fault had occurred years-maybe decades-earlier, and had been entirely benevolent until a microscopic sliver of casing bridged the break. Given that R2-D2 had been functioning well with the fault for most of his service life, Luke was wondering how long it had been since anything was written to the sector.

The access hatch iris opened next to Luke, and Mara stepped through with an empty gelmeat container in her hand. Her irritation was obvious in the briskness of her step-and in the turbulent aura she projected in the Force.

"Hold on a second, Artoo," Luke said, setting the micropoint on the workbench. "This looks important."

R2-D2 tweedled a worried response.

"Of course you're important," Luke said. "But I need a break anyway. I'll want to be sure my hands are steady."

R2-D2 whistled his encouragement.

Luke started across the deck toward his wife and son, where Ben was still sitting inside his crate-cover Killik sh.e.l.l, looking up at Mara.

"Did Nanna say you could have a whole can of gelmeat, young man?"

Mara asked.

Ben's eyes grew round. "She said I could have a slice."

"Does this look like a slice to you?" She held the empty container down for him to see.

Ben shrugged-rather bravely, Luke thought. "I thought she meant one can."

Luke felt Mara's patience snap. When she started to wave the container at Ben, he gave her a gentle Force tug and urged her to calm down.

Mara paused, collecting herself while she pretended to examine the container label.

"Nanna is the one who found the container, Ben," Mara said, handing it to him. "She says we've gone through a whole case since we left Jwlio-and I don't think anyone else eats this."

"Tesar might."