CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

Huddled in the rocks within sight of the Yuuzhan Vong camp, Corran glanced over at Jens. The student tech sat with her back to a big rock, her knees drawn up, with a blocky remote balanced on them. She flicked a couple of switches on the device, and a small spherical probe started to hum as it rose from the ground. An antenna telescoped up, and a small suite of sensors deployed themselves from the bottom.

Corran nodded to her, and she sent the probe arcing around to the left, to come in at the camp from the north. The little black ball floated gently down into the camp. It circled several of the smallest shells, then darted directly toward the midsize ones. In front of the one that housed the two Yuuzhan Vong warriors, Jens used a strobe to flash the area, then started the sphere retreating to the north.

The two warriors boiled out of their shells and pointed at the probe. One dashed back into his shell, returning with weapons, armor, and the Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of sandshoes. He dressed himself while still watching the probe, giving the other one a chance to run into his shell and arm himself. When he returned, the two of them began to stalk off after the probe, which had disappeared into the dunes north of the lake bed.

Corran looked at Jens. “Keep them occupied. Once we enter the large shell, get Trista up and flying. She’ll be here in five minutes. She laces the area with the killscent bombs, picks you up, and gets us out. If we are not out in that time, consider us dead and get going. No questions, right?”

Jens nodded. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, you too.”

He looked past her to Ganner. “Ready?”

The younger man nodded and vaulted himself up over a boulder. Corran cut around the stone that had hidden him and ran as best as his sandshoes would allow. Ganner reached the safe sand first and bent to hit the quick release on his bindings. He dropped the sandshoes there and sprinted toward the big shell. He brought his lightsaber to hand, but didn’t ignite it.

Corran kicked himself free of his sandshoes, but scooped them up with his left hand. He ran after Ganner and reached the large shell only a couple of steps behind him. Corran tossed the sandshoes aside at the entrance, then pulled his own lightsaber. He left it unlit, but his right thumb hovered over the ignition button.

Ganner had paused inside the large shell’s throat. The walls and floors—every surface, really—were smooth and varied in color from a dark ivory to a soft pink. Darker gray spots dappled the walls at various points, but Corran could discern no pattern to them. The walls also seemed faintly luminescent, but he allowed as how that might just be sunlight somehow pouring through the shell.

Ganner stalked forward and down a set of steps into the main chamber. Off it ran a number of tunnels that Corran assumed led to other smaller chambers, all of which made him wonder what sort of creature had grown the shell. While the flooring was very smooth, it wasn’t particularly slippery. The only sound they heard came from their own breathing and the rasp of sand beneath their boot heels.

The grand chamber opened up as they came around a curve in the stairs. Ganner gasped and took a step back. Corran’s eyes narrowed, but he made himself step past his aide and onto the main floor. He looked at the two students and really hoped they were dead.

The two of them hung from racks, bound ankle, thigh, and wrist. Their heads remained lower than their feet, and their limbs were locked rigidly. Both men had been stripped of clothing. Little maggot-white crablike creatures the size of a sabacc deck walked across their backs, pinching them with little claws, or digging needlelike appendages into their flesh. Little bloody rivulets striped the men’s flesh and colored the floor.

Beneath them something that looked like more like a tongue than a slug slowly moved across the floor, cleansing it of the blood.

Corran reached out with the Force and got a sense of the students. They were in a lot of pain, but their sense within the Force was coming through strong and unadulterated. They might have been beaten up and tortured, but they were not yet dying.

Ganner stepped forward and waved a hand in Vil’s direction. The pinchers flew off his back and smashed into the wall. They descended into a glistening, slimy pile at the base of the wall. Ganner ignited his lightsaber and pulled it back for a blow that would clip one of the rack arms off, partially freeing Vil.

Corran caught a spike of pain from Vil and held his hands up. “No, Ganner, wait.”

“We don’t have time to wait, Corran.”

“The pain spiked in him after you cleared off the pinchers. Do the same for Denna. See if the same thing happens.”

Ganner nodded, and the pinchers on the other student flew off. Pain spiked in Denna, and Corran caught the related tightening of the arm restraints. “I thought so. The rack keeps them in a constant level of pain.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Corran stared at Ganner with disbelief. “We’re dealing with Vong logic here. I don’t know what they are thinking or why they do what they do. We just have to find a way to get these guys out of these restraints.”

Corran’s comlink buzzed. “Horn, go ahead.”

“Jens here. The Yuuzhan Vong are headed back your way. They stopped chasing the probe.”

“Not good. Buzz them. Do something to attract their attention. We need some time.”

“You won’t have much. Trista is inbound.”

“Sithspawn!” Corran’s nostrils flared. “No time to play, no time to think.”

Ganner raised his lightsaber again. “We cut them free.”

“And if one cut won’t do it? The restraints tighten and pop their arms out of their shoulder sockets or tear them clean off. No good.”

“What do we do?”

Corran raked fingers back through his brown hair, then stepped up to Denna and stabbed his stiffened fingers deep into the man’s armpit. Through the Force, he could feel a jolt of pain running through the man. He also saw the rack’s restraints slacken slightly.

“That’s it. They’re being held in a constant level of pain. If the rack senses too much, it lets the pressure off. We have to put them in more pain, a lot of pain, to get the rack to release them.”

The younger Jedi frowned. “How? Beat them up? Break some bones? Stab them with lightsabers?”

“It would do the trick, but it would kill them, obviously.” Corran smiled grimly. “I will just have to make them think they’re in pain.”

Ganner’s head came up, and he gave Corran a respectful nod. “Ah, yes. Get to it.”

“Not that easy.” Corran began to roll up his left sleeve. “It will take some work.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ever broken a limb?”

Ganner nodded. “My leg.”

“You remember it hurt, right?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t remember how much it hurt. The mind is like that. You forget the really sharp pains so you’ll continue going on. Women forget the pain of childbirth or we’d all be only children.” Corran sighed. “I can project pain into them, but I’ve got to feel it to get it right.”

“How?” Ganner’s question came very tentatively.

Corran moved between the two racks and stood facing Vil, with Denna behind him. “You face Denna. When the machines slacken fully, you’ve got to make one cut, get the restraint straps. You do him, I’ll do Vil.”

“Okay.”

“Now the hard part.” Corran extended his left forearm toward Ganner, with his hand open and palm up. “One of the other Force abilities I have is pretty rare. I can, under certain circumstances, absorb a certain amount of energy without much damage to myself. To get the pain I need, I want you to press your lightsaber against my forearm. Not too hard—I like the limb just fine. Just hold it out, maybe, and I’ll move my arm up into it.”

Ganner’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

“You want to save these two or not?”

“But—”

“But nothing. Are you ready?”

Ganner nodded and extended the lightsaber.

Corran could feel the buzz of it against his flesh as he slowly raised his arm. The blade’s heat vaporized hairs, filling the area with the stink of singed protein. Corran knew that scent was nothing compared to what would follow. He swallowed, once, hard, then flattened his hand and raised his arm another centimeter.

Silver agony flashed right up his arm and into his brain. By reflex he started to use a Jedi technique to shunt the pain away, but then stopped himself. He concentrated, soaking in the energy of the blade. He looked out through slitted eyelids and saw his flesh reddening, then beginning to blister. Smoke rose from it, and the pain built. Then, as he saw the first hint of charring, he latched onto the Force and poured the torment out and into the students.

One second, two, three. Corran let the burning sharpness flow through him and into Vil and Denna. They twitched while he trembled. They shrieked while his flesh crackled. His clenched jaw ground his teeth together, and he tasted blood.

The racks slackened, dropping each student half a meter toward the floor. The restraining straps snapped taut, all glossy and black like wet leather. Corran ignited his own lightsaber and whipped the blade around, severing each strap, then he dropped to his knees and fell over Vil’s prostrate form.

Gasping for air, Corran tried to employ the Jedi technique for shunting away pain, but he couldn’t focus enough to do it. The world began to swim and darken at the edges. He was mindful enough to thumb his lightsaber off, then he wavered between complete collapse and the need to get up, get moving.

He heaved his torso upright and would have gone all the way over but Ganner caught the collar of his robe.

“Corran, are you—?”

“Functional? Yes.” He let the worry in Ganner’s voice appeal to his own sense of vanity, injecting steel into his spine. It just wouldn’t do for Ganner to see me as weak. He struggled to get his left foot under him, and Ganner reached for his left arm to help him up, but Corran hissed a warning. “Don’t touch the arm.”

“How bad is it?”

“Pretty, ah, crusty, I guess.” Corran was thankful his sleeve had slipped down over the arm, but his blackened fingers told him more than he needed to know. He staggered upright, then hugged his left arm to his chest. “How are they?”

“Out cold. We’ll have to drag them—”

A sharp hiss and a whip crack cut Ganner off. Corran slowly straightened up and glanced at the stairway back to the lake bed. The two Yuuzhan Vong warriors stood on it, tall and daunting, their maroon armor and greenish leathery joints accentuating their alien nature. The lead warrior barked an order at the two Jedi and punctuated it with another whip crack of an amphistaff.

Corran forced a bit of a laugh. “Looks like they don’t like the dragging idea, Ganner. Seems another plan will be required to get us out of here.”