CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Luke rose from the chair he’d been occupying in the office of the director of the University of Garos library and paced out into the outer office before answering his comlink. He left Mara and Mirax behind to deal with the director’s questions. The director was a bureaucrat who took great pains to explain every procedure she was doing as she went along, reducing her work pace to something slower than that of a wet tauntaun on Hoth.

If she’d just let Artoo jack into her system, we’d be done in no time.

“Skywalker here. What is it, Anakin?”

“Greetings, Master Skywalker.”

“Daeshara’cor?” A jolt ran up Luke’s spine. He sought through the Force for a sense of her or Anakin. He found them, but very distant and small, as if they were actively trying to diminish their presence in the Force. “Anakin had this comlink frequency.”

“He is fine. A bit sore, but unharmed.” Static ate at her voice, erasing traces of stress. If there is any. Luke realized she’d dialed down the signal power to make it more difficult to trace. If she keeps with training, this conversation will be short, then she will move.

“Daeshara’cor, we need to talk. What you are doing is not right. It will not help the situation.”

“Master, if I thought you could understand, I would have spoken to you. I know you cannot and it is not a failing of yours.” She hesitated for a moment, then plunged on. “You’ll be blocking access to the information I need, so I propose a trade. The data I want, for your nephew. Think about it. Daeshara’cor out.”

“Blast!” Luke wasn’t really aware he’d yelled out loud until Mara and Mirax both came out of their chairs and into the antechamber. The anxiety rolling off them reached him before he focused on its mirror on their faces. “Daeshara’cor found Anakin, somehow, and took him.”

Mara’s green eyes narrowed to malachite slits. “How could she? Do you know she has him? Perhaps she just nabbed his comlink.”

“I can’t get a good feel for him through the Force. Her, either. She’s definitely hiding, and he’s holding himself close, much as he did when you two were running on Dantooine. Her getting his comlink means he’s out and about somewhere—and that somewhere has got to be with her.”

Mirax snapped a comlink into a socket on her datapad, then frowned as words scrolled up on the screen. “Whistler says Chalco talked Anakin into checking out local information sources. Says it’s a standard investigative technique, though Whistler’s got the old CorSec disdain for amateurs playing detective. They left the Skate about an hour ago, and Whistler’s not heard from them since.”

Luke closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead. He felt Mara’s hand stroke his back and smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“What do you want us to do?”

The Jedi Master opened his eyes and sighed. “Daeshara’cor wants to trade Anakin for data files relating to the Eye of Palpatine or anything else, I suspect. Now, if what little I’ve understood from what the director is telling us is true, there are no such files. So, no exchange.”

“That’s one problem.” Mara scowled. “The second is that Daeshara’cor can’t let Anakin go, since she knows we won’t let her get away and continue this search. She has to keep him. She may not have figured that out yet. She will, though, and she isn’t going to like it. She’ll know we have to move against her.”

“But without data to trade, we can’t even get close.”

Mirax held up a hand. “Look, negotiations and trading are what I do. We could dummy up a data card and stuff it full of reports and things that only the swelled brains here can understand. We slice a few to have key phrases she can scan for, and she’ll think it’s all legitimate at first glance. That’s all we need to draw her out. Do you think she would put Anakin in a life-threatening situation?”

Mara nodded, but Luke disagreed. “I don’t get that feel from her.”

“Luke, she’s seeking superweapons.”

“I know, but I don’t think she’s really considered what the result of their use is. We all know the story of Alderaan. We know what happened to Carida. We remember the Krytos virus, but somehow, getting your brain around the idea that billions of people are dead is very tough. You can feel very bad, devastated, over the death of one person, but can you multiply that a billion times when a planet is destroyed?”

“Especially a planet full of the enemy?” Mara shrugged.

“Despite what she has done so far, Mara, she’s not yet strayed to the dark side. She has always been good.” He sighed. “If we knew what had set her off, we could help her.”

“Big if.” Luke’s wife nodded slowly. “I think Mirax’s plan has merit. Let’s do it.”

Luke smiled and returned to the director’s office. “Forgive me, but something urgent has come up. I really need your help.”

The woman smiled. “I’m ready to assist in any way I can.”

“Good, thank you, then just back away from your terminal.” Luke glanced at R2-D2. “Yank down everything you can on the Eye project’s history, then a data card’s worth of the most technical stuff you can find. We’re baiting a trap and we can only afford bait that’s irresistible.”

Anakin shifted uneasily. He’d gotten his first inkling of how serious Daeshara’cor was about her quest when she’d threatened to kill him if she so much as sensed him reaching for the Force. Now she sat, two lightsabers on her lap, comlink in hand.

She switched off the comlink and looked over at him. “You heard. It will be you for the data. You won’t be hurt.”

Kneeling there in the corner of a dingy, unfurnished apartment, with his hands bound behind his back and to his ankles, Anakin sighed. “You mean I won’t be hurt more than I am already.”

“That can’t be helped. I can’t have you loose.”

“That’s not what I meant, Daeshara’cor.” He shrugged as much as he was able to. “I always admired you, how hard you’d worked. Why are you doing this?”

She sighed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“No? Why not? Because I’m not a Twi’lek? Because I grew up on Coruscant and then at the academy?” He frowned at her.

Before she could say anything, the apartment door flew in with a crash. Chalco stepped into the doorway, a blaster carbine in one hand, and a ratty gray thing wrapped around his throat. It looked as if someone had yanked a strip of hide off a Talz and made it into a stole, which then had been dragged behind a Podracer during some endurance rally.

“Hold it right there, Daeshara’cor.” Chalco growled in low tones. “Don’t worry, kid, you’re safe now.”

“Think so?” The Twi’lek brought her lightsaber to hand and ignited it. The blade splashed bloody highlights over Chalco’s face. “Leave now and you won’t be hurt.”

“I’m not the one who’s going to hurt, sister.” His trigger finger twitched, launching a blue stun bolt at the Jedi. Her lightsaber came up with ease and around, batting the blue bolt back at him. It hit Chalco in the right knee, then raced like lightning up his body and around his belly. The involuntary twitching of his muscles quickly erased the shocked look on his face, then he collapsed to the floor.

Using the Force, Daeshara’cor dragged him into the room, then shut the door behind him. She kicked the blaster from his hands and slid him over next to Anakin.

The man lay there for several seconds, then blinked and began to whisper. “I don’t get it.”

“Get what, Chalco?”

“She wasn’t supposed to be able—” A shiver shook him. “They said it would make a Jedi powerless.”

Daeshara’cor frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

“The miriskin.”

Anakin arched an eyebrow at his friend. “Ysalamiri skin? Is that what that thing is?”

“Yeah. Cost, too.”

“Um, Chalco, that only works if the ysalamiri is alive.”

The Twi’lek sniffed. “And the closest that thing you’re wearing ever was to being alive was being touched when someone pulled it off a loom.”

Chalco groaned.

“Did you tell Skywalker?” She extinguished her lightsaber. “No, you wanted to get me yourself. Okay, I still have a little time.”

Anakin looked up at her. “You were going to tell me why you’re doing this.”

“No, I was going to tell you why you couldn’t understand.” The Twi’lek’s eyes hardened. “You come from a life of privilege, Anakin. You and your siblings were hailed as heroes from the moment you were born. You held a fascination for billions. Expectations for you were great, are great, and to your credit, you shoulder all that very well. Still, it puts you where you cannot understand the rest of it.”

“What I can’t understand is why you want to find some weapon capable of killing billions. Could anything have been that bad in your life to inspire that?”

“Can you not imagine wanting to kill billions?”

“No.”

“Not even to protect your family? To save your mother? Your father?” She regarded him openly. “Wouldn’t you trade the life of a billion Yuuzhan Vong to bring back Chewbacca?”

A lump immediately choked him. Anakin fought his face scrunching up. He tried to blink away tears, but felt them searing his cheeks. He sniffed and tried to wipe his nose on his shoulder, but couldn’t. His lips trembled and he remembered Chewbacca as he last saw him, brave and defiant. And then nothing . . .

Anakin sniffed again, then lifted his chin, stretching his throat. “A billion lives or ten billion lives would not bring him back. And the killing of a billion Yuuzhan Vong still wouldn’t match the heroism of his death. Chewie went through so much. He was a slave my father freed—”

“Then he would understand.”

Anakin frowned. “I don’t—”

“No, and you never could.” She turned away and began to fiddle with the comlink’s settings. “I need to talk to your uncle again.”

Chalco slowly roused himself and pulled himself up against the wall. “I’d try to untie you, kid, but, ah, my fingers aren’t working too good yet. My head . . . my head is throbbing.”

“Mine, too.” Anakin shoved off from the wall and righted himself again. His head hurt, his knees were sore, and his throat ached. Daeshara’cor’s comment about Chewie had hurt horribly.

He caught sight of a vein pulsing at Chalco’s temple. It kept time with the pounding in his own head, as if it were hammering his braincase. He sighed.

His head came up for a second, then he let it hang again lest Daeshara’cor notice him. Carefully, slowly, concentrating very hard, he pushed his discomfort aside and touched the Force.

Daeshara’cor spun as he gathered it to himself. She took one step toward him, then the blaster carbine rose from the floor and careened solidly into her forehead. Her eyes flickered, then she sagged to the floor.

Anakin sank back on his heels and reached out through the Force to find his uncle. He did, and quickly, for Luke was far closer than Anakin expected.

Anakin opened his eyes and saw Chalco looking at him with a huge, self-satisfied grin. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re lucky I happened along. Without me, she’d have gotten away cleanly.”

“You think dealing with you tired her out?”

“No, not hardly.”

“And klonking her with the blaster, that was something you did?”

“Nope.” Chalco shook his head. “But if I’d not brought it along, you’d have had nothing to use against her.”

Sighing, Anakin used the Force to slide the blaster carbine over to Chalco. “Now, pump a stun bolt into her to keep her out, and then you can see if your fingers are well enough along to untie me.”

“Give me a minute.”

“I would if we had one, but my uncle is on his way.” Anakin gave the older man a smile. “Now, knowing he’s going to be upset that we’re here, in this situation, do you think it’s better I’m all trussed up, or free?”

“Gotcha. You are a smart kid.” Chalco whipped the miriskin from around his neck and tossed it off into another corner. “Our secret about that?”

“Sure, Chalco, our secret. We’re in enough trouble as it is.” Anakin smiled. “My uncle doesn’t need to know everything.”