The Unseen Queen (16 page)

When Luke did not follow Han toward the exit, Han took his arm and began to pull. Raynar’s eyes barely narrowed, but the Unu immediately moved to cut off their escape, mandibles spread.

“Uh, Luke?” Han said. “If you’re going into a trance or something, now isn’t the time. Really.”

“Don’t worry. Everything’s under control.” Luke passed the X-wing replica to Han, then pulled free and turned toward the nearest furnace, where there was a banthasized mound of dried spin he did not remember seeing a few moments before. “Just keep Raynar busy a second.”

“Sure,” Han said. “I’ll let him explode my brain or something.”

Luke used the Force to open a path through the Unu and
started toward the heap. His entire back began to nettle with danger sense; then Han’s voice rose behind him.

“You know what I don’t get? The
pilot
. How do you get that kind of detail inside—”

“Out of my way!” Raynar roared.

But that was all the time Luke needed to pull his light-saber off his belt. He gathered himself for a Force leap … and that was when Alema Rar emerged from behind the spin mound, dressed in a midnight-blue jumpsuit with a plunging neckline and side slits.

“We are very impressed, Master Skywalker.” Her lip curled into a smile that came off as more of a sneer. “But you won’t need your lightsaber. We are not here to harm you.”

“Is that so?” Luke deactivated his lightsaber—and allowed himself a small smile of triumph. Given the revulsion Raynar had shown on Kr when he saw the Dark Nest’s slave-eating larvae, Luke felt certain that exposing the Dark Nest’s presence now would redirect Raynar’s hostility to where it belonged. “Then why were you hiding?”

“How could we have been hiding? We only just arrived.” Alema started forward. “It came to our attention that we needed to correct a misunderstanding about what you saw in the forest.”

“No misunderstanding,” Han said. “We know what we saw.”

“Do you?”

Alema slipped past Han without a second glance and continued toward Raynar. Luke tried to follow, but it was slow going. The mass of Unu seemed to part to let the Twi’lek pass, then crowd in behind her to gather in Luke’s way.

“The rods
were
fuel rods, nobody is arguing that.” Alema kept her gaze fixed on Raynar. “But maybe it was
the
Jedi
who brought them to Woteba. Maybe Gorog discovered what you were doing and was there to intercept the reactor fuel.”

“What?” Han cried. “That’s backward. And a lie!”

Unu erupted into a tumult of clacking mandibles and booming thoraxes, and C-3PO reported, “Now Unu is saying
we
must have brought the rods!”

“That’s ridiculous.” Luke spoke in a calm voice, addressing Raynar directly, confident that Raynar’s revulsion toward the Dark Nest would soon show itself. “Why would the Jedi bring reactor fuel to Woteba?”

Alema stopped two meters from Raynar. “Perhaps because you know more about the Fizz than you’re saying.” Though her words were addressed to Luke, her gaze remained fixed on Raynar. “Perhaps the Jedi knew it would trigger the Fizz. Perhaps that is why they sent reactor fuel to
all
of the Utegetu worlds.”

“Wait a minute!” Han gasped. “You’re saying
all
the Utegetu worlds have problems with Fizz?”

“Yes.” Raynar’s tone was bitter. “All the worlds you traded to us are poisoned.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Luke said, finally coming up behind Alema. “But the Jedi didn’t know—and we
didn’t
send reactor fuel to any of the worlds. We have no reason to wish the Colony harm.”

“You serve the Galactic Alliance, do you not?” Raynar asked. “And the Alliance feels threatened by our rise.”

“How do you figure?” Han scoffed. “Because you’re harboring a few pirates and running some black membrosia? That’s O-class stuff. If you were inside Alliance territory, you’d barely be a crime syndicate.”

Raynar’s face began to twitch beneath its scars, and it grew clear that he was not going to turn on Alema—at least not without some nudging.

“UnuThul, Han is right,” Luke said. “The Galactic Alliance would like the Colony to be a good neighbor, but it is
not
afraid of you. The Dark Nest has been using your own fear to deceive you.”

Given the Killiks’ fluid sense of truth and fact, Luke knew his argument would be a difficult one to make—but the alternative was to ignite his lightsaber and cut a path back to the spaceport.

“Perhaps you are the one who is being deceived, Master Skywalker,” Alema said. She turned to look at him, her eyes now smoky and dark and as deep as black holes. “Perhaps Chief Omas and Commander Sovv haven’t told you just how afraid of us they really are … and perhaps
they
are not the only ones deceiving you.”

Luke tried to puzzle out the Twi’lek’s implication, then gave up and frowned at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

As soon as Luke asked the question, he began to feel smoky and raw inside, and a cloudiness came to the edges of his vision.

“Have you given any more thought to why Mara lied to you about Daxar Ies?” Alema asked.

“No,” Luke said. “And I doubt Mara did lie.”

But even as he said it, Luke began to see why Mara could have been reluctant to tell him. She knew how much learning more about his mother meant to him, and being the one who had deprived him of that opportunity would have weighed heavily on her conscience. She might even have found the prospect to be more than she could bear.

Alema stepped closer, then spoke in a coldly alluring voice. “Of course, we hope that you’re right, Master Skywalker, but, for everyone’s sake, it’s important that you consider the possibility that you’re wrong—that you’re being deceived by those close to you.”

“There
is
no possibility,” Han growled.

“Then no harm will come of considering it.” Alema kept her gaze fixed on Luke, and the cloudiness at the edges of his vision began to darken. “But Master Skywalker must make up his own mind. That is why we have decided to give him the next code.”

R2-D2 gave a little squeal of protest, and Luke said, “I don’t want it.”

Alema’s voice grew sultry and knowing. “Now who are you deceiving, Master Skywalker? It is not us.” She turned to C-3PO. “Remember this sequence. Master Skywalker will want it later.”

She started to rattle off a string of numbers and letters, but Han pushed in front of her.

“All right, that’s enough,” Han said. “He said he didn’t—”

“It’s okay.” Luke pulled him away. “Alema’s right.”

Han turned to face him. “You’re sure?”

Luke nodded. “A code sequence isn’t going to hurt us.”

He knew, of course, that the sequence
would
hurt him; the Gorog’s Night Herald would not be giving it to him otherwise. But Luke wanted the code anyway, not because he believed anything he might learn from R2-D2’s files could change his love for Mara, or even because the smoke inside him was growing darker and harsher and harder to ignore every moment. He wanted the code because it had frightened him—and if he allowed himself to be afraid of what he did not know, then the Dark Nest had already won.

After giving the rest of the code sequence to C-3PO, Alema turned to Luke.

“You are as brave as we recall, Master Skywalker.” The Twi’lek sent a cold shiver through Luke by trailing a finger down his arm, then added, “We don’t know what Mara is
trying to hide from you, but we hope it has nothing to do with your mother’s death. It would be very sad if Daxar Ies was not her only victim.”

The suggestion rocked Luke as hard as she intended, leaving him stunned, his mind clouded by the acrid smoke that had been rising inside since he had given her that first opening.

Not so with Han.

“What?” he roared. In a move so fast that even Luke barely saw it, Han pulled his blaster and leveled it at the Twi’lek’s head. “Now you’ve just gone too far.”

Alema calmly turned to look down the barrel. “Come, Han.” She flicked her finger in the air, using the Force to send the barrel of Han’s blaster jerking toward the ceiling. “If you were going to pull the trigger, you wouldn’t have wasted your one chance talking about it.”

She turned her back on Han, then went over to Raynar, rose up on her toes, and kissed his scar-stiffened lips.

“We’ll see you in our dreams.” She remained there for a moment, then dropped back down and looked toward Luke and Han. “And keep a closer watch on these two. We can’t have them stirring up any more Fizz with those reactor rods.”

Raynar spent a moment studying Luke and Han over Alema’s head, then nodded and released her hand without looking at her. She slipped past and moved off through the mass of Unu, and though Luke was careful never to take his eyes off her, he somehow missed the moment when she vanished from sight.

Once Alema was gone, Raynar said, “We have decided to keep a closer watch on you two. We cannot have you two stirring up any more Fizz with your reactor rods.”

“You don’t say?” Han’s tone was sarcastic. “Does she
tell you when to sanibrush your teeth and use the refresher, too?”

“She?” Raynar lowered his brow. “She
who
?”

“Alema Rar,” Luke prompted. “The Night Herald?”

Raynar frowned, and Unu drummed their thoraxes.

“The Killiks seem to have no idea who you’re talking about,” C-3PO informed them. “Unu claims it has never met Alema Rar.”

“
Burrurruru ubburr
,” one of the insects added. “
Uuubu burru
.”

“And everyone knows the Night Herald is just a myth you tell the larvae,” C-3PO translated, “to make them regurgitate.”

Han scowled and pointed his blaster at the ground in front of Raynar. “That myth was just standing there kissing you.”

“Had we
ever
kissed Alema Rar, we are sure we would remember,” Raynar retorted. “And we certainly were not
just
kissing her. Alema Rar is dead.”

“Don’t tell me,” Han said. “She died in the Crash.”

“Of course not,” Raynar said. “She died at Kr, with the rest of the Dark Nest.”

“Just great.” Han let his chin drop. “Here we go again.”

“We do not understand why you persist in this fantasy, but you are not going anywhere. That is the point.” Raynar extended his hand. “You will give us your weapons.”

Han’s knuckles whitened around his blaster grip. “When Hutts ride swoops!”

“We would rather have it now,” Raynar said. Han’s blaster twisted free of his grasp and floated over, then Raynar turned to Luke. “Master Skywalker?”

Luke hated to yield his weapon—especially with Alema Rar running around loose—but he would have an easier time recovering it later than fighting to keep it now. He removed
the focusing crystal from the handle—the Jedi equivalent of unloading a weapon before surrendering it—and handed both the crystal and the lightsaber over.

“A wise choice,” Raynar said. A swarm of large, orange-chested worker insects began to gather around Luke and Han. “Saras will see you to your new quarters. Please do not force us to harm you by attempting to leave before Princess Leia returns with a way to stop the Fizz.”

In the middle of the Murgo Choke hung the white wedge of an
Imperial
-class Star Destroyer, its hull lit by the harlequin blaze of four different suns. To its left hung two of the suns, an orange and yellow binary system well matched in both size and color. To its right hung an odd couple, a blue giant orbited by a crimson dwarf so small and dim Leia could barely tell it was there. And directly behind the Star Destroyer, stretched between the two sets of binary stars like the web of some enormous spider, was the sapphire veil of the Utegetu Nebula.

“You see? This one did not miscalculate!” Saba was perched on the edge of the
Falcon
’s copilot’s chair, squinting out at the Star Destroyer. “We were
pulled
out of hyperspace.”

“Maybe,” Leia said. Threading its way between the two pairs of binary stars, the Murgo Choke was the trickiest of the many complicated hyperspace transits connecting the Rago Run to the Utegetu Nebula. “But there are a hundred things in the Choke more likely to revert us than the mass of a single Star Destroyer.”

Saba hissed in annoyance. “The Star Destroyer’z
masz
did not pull us out—itz artificial gravity generatorz did. That is the
Mon Mothma
ahead.”

Leia frowned at her tactical display, but the electromagnetic
blast of the four stars was overpowering all the
Falcon
’s sensor and comm systems. She saw only a cloud of static on the screen.

“You can’t know that,” Leia said.

“This one findz your lack of faith disturbing, Jedi Solo.” Saba ruffled her neck scales in what Leia had come to recognize as disappointment. “You must learn not to doubt your Master.”

“You keep telling me to doubt everything,” Leia pointed out.

“And do you listen?” Saba held her hand out. “You are a terrible student. Give me your lightsaber.”

Leia shook her head. “The last time I did that, you hit me on the head with it. I had a knot for a week.”

Saba’s voice grew harsh. “So you are disobeying?”

Leia frowned. Saba kept saying that she needed to learn to obey—but Leia was not about to make the same mistake twice. She held out her own hand.

“First, give me
your
lightsaber.”

Saba’s eyes widened, then she began to siss. “You are so funny, Jedi Solo.” She lowered her hand. “But at least you have learned
something
.”

“Thanks,” Leia said. “Now, how sure are you that’s the
Mon Mothma
up there?”

“How sure are you that it is
not
?”

“This is no time for games, Master. I need to know.”

“
Life
is a game, Jedi Solo,” Saba said. “If you need to know, find out.”

Leia let out her breath in exasperation, then reached into the Force. She felt Mara and three more Jedi StealthX pilots hanging off the
Falcon
’s stern. Because of the close tolerances involved in transiting the Choke, all five craft had needed to make their own jump calculations, and the likelihood of the entire flight making a mistake that brought
them out so close together was practically nil. They had definitely been pulled out of hyperspace by an artificial gravity well.