The interrogation chamber was a bleak, washed-out yellow room on the third floor of a building painted entirely in the same color. A sickly sweet scent like burned sugar and hair blended with ammonia seemed to ooze from the flaking duraplast, and the sickly light of ancient argon arc fixtures blanched any real color that entered the building.
Brought in in stun cuffs, Anakin and Tahiri had been hauled through a lower floor seething with judicials, prisoners, and clerks to this nearly abandoned area of the building. There the two Jedi had been separated and placed in different rooms. He could still feel Tahiri’s presence, of course, and not far away, which was comforting.
“We have witnesses now who substantiate the charge of murder,” the judicial with the bruised eye—Lieutenant Themion, as it turned out—informed him.
“Right. They killed the Rodian,” Anakin said.
“I’m talking now about the man you killed.”
“We didn’t kill anyone,” Anakin protested. “We saw someone in trouble—”
“A Jedi, like yourself.”
“Yes. We were trying to help him when the Peace Brigaders starting blasting at us.”
“The way I hear it, you attacked them.”
“My friend drew her weapon, yes,” Anakin replied. “They were murdering the Rodian.”
“Then you charged them, fought, and shot one with a blaster.”
“No!” Anakin said. “How many times do I have to tell you this? One of them shot at me, missed, and hit the other guy. I didn’t kill anyone, and neither did my friend.”
“We have witnesses who saw it differently.”
“You mean the other Peace Brigaders, don’t you?”
“And some of the vagrants in the crowd.”
That took Anakin aback. “Why … why would any of them say that?” he wondered.
“Maybe because it’s true,” Themion suggested.
“No, it’s not true. They’re lying, too. Maybe the Peace Brigade forced them to.” Or maybe you did, Lieutenant Themion.
“Let’s back up,” Themion said. “You saw the Rodian struggling with the Peace Brigaders. Rodians are a vile, murderous lot. Did it ever occur to you that maybe he had done something? That the officers of the Peace Brigade were just doing their duty?”
“The Peace Brigade is a collaborationist organization,” Anakin said hotly. “They sell us out to the Yuuzhan Vong.”
“The Peace Brigade is a registered organization,” Themion informed him. “They are licensed to make arrests, and to deal with those who resist arrest.” He scratched his chin. “They are certainly entitled to defend themselves against offworld, troublemaking Jedi,” he added.
Uh-oh, Anakin thought. So his suspicion had been correct. The police and the Peace Brigade were in this together.
“Am I entitled to an advocate?” Anakin asked.
“One has been assigned you.”
“When can we meet?”
“Not until your trial, of course.”
“You mean my sentencing.”
The officer smiled. “It might go easier on you if you tell us the rest. Who sent you. Which ship is yours. Your name.”
“I want to see the ambassador from Coruscant.”
“Yeah? I’m afraid I don’t have that comm ID handy. If you want to call someone on your ship, and have them contact the ambassador, that’s fine.”
Right. Then they’ll get Corran, too.
“No, thanks,” Anakin said.
The officer stepped forward quickly and slapped him so hard his head rang.
Tahiri, wherever she was, felt it. She responded in the Force in one of those rare, clear-as-transparisteel moments.
Anakin! And pain, and fear, and anger.
“Tahiri!” Anakin shouted. “No!”
“Your friend has already confessed,” Themion said. “She was stubborn, too.” He hit Anakin again. This time Anakin faded a little from the blow to reduce the impact, but it still hurt.
Somewhere near, a storm was gathering.
“Don’t hit me again,” Anakin said sternly.
Themion misunderstood. “Aw, does that hurt, little Jedi? Try this.” He pulled a stun baton from his belt.
“Really,” Anakin said.
Themion raised the weapon. At the same moment, the door wrenched open with a squeal of metal. Tahiri stood there, a blaster in one hand.
“Do-ro’ik vong pratte!” she shouted.
Themion, open-mouthed, turned to face her and she hit him with a Force blast that threw him three meters. He would have gone much farther, but the jaundiced wall stopped him with prejudice, and he collapsed, groaning.
“I warned you,” Anakin said.
Tahiri rushed to his side. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I felt them hitting you.”
“I’m fine,” Anakin said, rising from the chair. Unknown to the officer, he’d already unlocked his stun cuffs using the Force; now he shucked them from his wrists.
“You’re not fine,” Tahiri said, touching the side of his head. He winced. “You see?” she said. She turned back toward Themion, who was trying to rise. “You smelly Jawa, I’m going to—”
“You’re going to put the stun cuffs on him and that’s all,” Anakin said.
“He deserves worse. He’s a liar and a coward who beats helpless people.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Stay out of my mind, you stinking Jedi,” Themion snarled.
“Give me the blaster, Tahiri.”
She handed it to Anakin without looking.
“Now,” Anakin said. “You let her put these cuffs on you, or I’ll let her do whatever she wants.”
Themion let her. Then Anakin leaned around the doorway. A blaster bolt greeted him—down the hall, another judicial was rushing forward.
The shot missed, and he ducked the next one. He felt another surge in the Force, and the judicial went flying into the corridor wall. The impact knocked his senses out of him.
“I think we’d better leave,” Tahiri said, from behind him.
“I think you’re right,” Anakin replied. He knelt and took the guard’s blaster and dialed it down to the lowest setting. He took the stun baton, too.
“After we find our lightsabers,” Tahiri said.
“If we can find them,” Anakin cautioned. “They took mine somewhere downstairs. Or at least I think so.”
They reached the turbolift with a minimum of effort.
“Be ready when we reach the bottom floor,” Anakin said. “They’re sure to be ready for us. One of these guys must have called down by now.”
Tahiri nodded, an unsettling smile on her face.
“Tahiri?”
“Yes.”
“Beware of anger.”
“I’m not angry,” she said. “Just ready.”
Anakin eyed her dubiously, but they didn’t have time to go over it now. “Stand against the sides of the lift. They may shoot before it even opens.”
She did as he suggested. A moment later, the doors sighed open.
No sizzling bolts of energy greeted them. Instead they were met by laughter and shouts of encouragement. Puzzled, Anakin peeked around the lift door.
Two judicials stood in a ring formed by their comrades. They were swinging clumsily at one another with lightsabers. One was Anakin’s, the other Tahiri’s.
“Use the Force!” someone hooted, as the man wielding Anakin’s violet blade accidentally sliced a desk in half.
It took only a minor suggestion that they weren’t there for Anakin and Tahiri to walk out of the lift and around the edge of the excited crowd. Apparently, either no one upstairs had called down or—more likely—no one here had bothered to answer the call. In any event, everyone in the building seemed completely engrossed in the “duel.”
“Keep cool, Tahiri,” Anakin said as they drew near the door to the outside. “I have an idea.”
The fellow holding Anakin’s lightsaber made a clumsy jab at the other judicial, who replied with an equally inept circular parry. Anakin took that opportunity to use the Force to wrench his weapon from the officer’s hands—it looked as if the parry had disarmed him. The lightsaber flew high in the air, sending everyone in its possible trajectory scurrying away. It struck the argon arc fixture in the ceiling, then continued on to strike the power grid node on the other side of the room. The room plunged into darkness, save for the two lightsabers, both of which suddenly vanished.
On the street, Tahiri burst into laughter.
“Don’t laugh,” Anakin said. “Run!”
“I’m just thinking we probably saved their lives,” Tahiri replied. “The way they were going, they would have lost at least a hand or two. If—” She stopped as Anakin abruptly halted.
“What?” Tahiri asked.
“Maybe running is the second-best idea,” Anakin said, pointing at the police airspeeder parked in front of the station.
The two jumped into the rusty orange vehicle. It had an old-fashioned computer input, and it took Anakin only a few seconds to slice into the security system. Just as a mob of officers burst onto the street, he bypassed the code and started the speeder. He throttled it up to full as he turned the corner and climbed, ignoring the craft’s artificially frantic warning that he was not in an authorized traffic lane.
A few blaster bolts seared by, along with a number of obscenities. Then the judicial ward was behind them.
By the time they reached the spaceport, Anakin and Tahiri had picked up a respectable tail and were starting to dodge long-range fire. For that reason, when Anakin saw the Lucre’s cargo port open, he drove the nimble craft directly into it, nearly clipping a very surprised Corran Horn while doing so.
“Sithspit!” the older Jedi shouted. “What do you think—”
“Close the landing ramp, Corran! Close it now!”
“What? What have you—”
Several bolts fizzling against the bulkhead cut Corran short. On reflex he slapped the close mechanism, carefully not showing himself through the port.
“I take it we need to fly?” Corran said as Anakin and Tahiri dismounted the speeder. What have you done now, Anakin?
“Might not be a bad idea,” Anakin replied. He was trying not to sound cocky, and failing.
“I’ll be very interested to hear why,” Corran snapped.
“Fly now,” Anakin said, heading for the cockpit. “I’ll explain later.”
“Explain while,” Corran said as they settled behind the controls.
“Right,” Anakin said as the engines begin to whine to life. “It started when we felt a Jedi in trouble …”
“You’re right; it can wait,” Corran decided. Hearing the story was probably only going to make him angrier, a distraction he didn’t need right now. “And I’m flying. You calculate a series of jumps, at least three, and close together.”
“To where?”
“Anywhere. No, strike that. Not back toward the Errant Venture. Coreward. We’ll find the Venture later.”
“Okay,” Anakin said. “Working on solutions now.”
“And hang on. Tahiri, you strapped in?”
“Yes, sir.”
Corran rose on repulsors and kicked the engines violently into light. The Lucre sliced through the murky clouds, where Corran steepened their angle, watching his sensor readouts, wondering how long it would take the Eriaduans to scramble their fighters, trying desperately to remember what he knew of their planetary defense from his days in CorSec.
Soon enough, both questions were answered: not long and not nearly enough, respectively. As several heavily armed interceptors closed from several sides, he cleared his throat.
“Any time now, Anakin.”
“Hang on,” Anakin replied. “I have three jumps. I’m rechecking the last bit.”
“No time. Lay it in and let’s go.”
The transport’s shields trembled beneath a terrific blow. The port opaqued.
“Wow!” Anakin said. “What—?”
“That was no interceptor,” Corran said grimly. “That was a planetary defense laser. Are we laid in?”
“Sort of …”
“Great.” Corran broke atmosphere, engaged the hyperdrive, and the stars sleeted out of existence.
The first jump took them no more than half a light-year, and Corran had time to see that one of the interceptors had correctly guessed their vector before they jumped again, seconds later. The second jump was longer, followed immediately by a third. It was hard to tell, but it looked as if they lost their tail on that one.
“How long is this jump, Anakin?”
“A few hours.”
“Great. Then why don’t you explain to me, in great detail, why you were joyriding on a judicial speeder. And do not leave out the part that explains why people were shooting at me, and why you two disobeyed my direct order.”
“I understand why you did it,” Corran said when the two had finished relating their story. “But you shouldn’t have.”
“Why?” Tahiri demanded. “Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
Corran hesitated fractionally. “No. I felt Kelbis Nu, too, but so dimly I couldn’t figure out where he was. But even if I’d known, I have both of you to think of. As you should have been thinking of me. Anakin, you’ve always been impulsive—”
“This was my fault,” Tahiri interrupted.
“Yes. Emphatically, yes. But Anakin set the example. Didn’t either of you learn anything on Yavin Four?”
“Yes,” Tahiri said. “I learned that the Jedi can count on no one but ourselves.”
“Really? Your dad is no Jedi, Talon Karrde is no Jedi, nor were the people under his command who died trying to rescue you.”
“Well, no one was going to rescue Kelbis,” Anakin pointed out.
“Including you.”
“But we might have. We had to try.”
Corran looked at them both tiredly.
“This isn’t over,” he said. “When we get back to the Errant Venture, we’re going to have this talk again, with Kam and Tionne and anyone else I think of who might be able to get a word past this youthful, idiotic self-confidence of yours. But for the moment—you say Kelbis said something about Yag’Dhul?”
“His last word,” Anakin said. “It took a lot out of him to say even that. He really wanted me to know something. I think Yag’Dhul may be in danger.”
Corran’s eyes narrowed, reflecting a sudden, plunging-stomach suspicion. “Anakin, where is this jump taking us?”
“You said Coreward,” Anakin replied innocently.
“Tell me we aren’t going to pop out in the Yag’Dhul system.”
“We aren’t going to pop out in the Yag’Dhul system,” Anakin told him.
“Good,” Corran said, relieved.
“We’re going to come out really near it, though,” Anakin added.
“Why you—” Corran held back a series of specifically Corellian words he that really wanted to use. But Tahiri was only fourteen. Would he make it through Valin’s and Jysella’s teenage years without turning to the dark side? Probably not. “How close?” he said, trying to sound not quite as irritated as he was.
“One jump. I thought you’d at least like to check it out.”
“Anakin! Supplies! We were just supposed to get supplies, not mount a search-and-rescue–recon mission!” He buried his face in his hands. “Now I understand those pitying looks Solusar was giving me before we left.”
Corran wished Mirax were here. She knew how to deal with this kind of thing. “How long before realspace?”
“Another five minutes.”
“Terrific. Now listen to me very carefully. I am the captain of this vessel. From now on you don’t even visit the ’fresher without my say-so, either of you. You will follow my orders. That means, by the way, that you do not imagine or guess at my orders, but actually wait until you hear them.”
“I was following orders,” Anakin protested. “You said to jump Coreward.”
“Don’t insult us both, Anakin. You’re better than that.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good.” Corran settled himself before the controls and awaited the reversion to sublight speeds.
They reentered realspace with a pockmarked asteroid nearly filling their field of vision. Corran swore and decelerated, cutting hard toward the nearest horizon of the rock. A jagged crater edge loomed, and he knew they weren’t going to make the angle. Desperately he switched on the repulsorlift.
The Lucre squealed a metallic protest as the field bounced them none too gently away from the asteroid. Corran let out his breath and killed their motion relative to the planetoid until he could get his bearings.
A good thing, too, because in the surrounding space he made out hundreds of asteroids, densely packed. It would take a good deal of care to fly out of it unscathed.
“You could have warned me about the asteroid field,” Corran told Anakin.
“I would have if there had been one,” Anakin said in a strange voice.
“It’s still not,” Anakin said. “Look at the sensor readings.”
Corran did, and swore again as everything snapped into focus. Aside from the cratered stone he’d nearly hit coming out of hyperspace, the rest of the objects near enough to see had the organic but all-too-familiar lines of ships grown from yorik coral.
“This is a Yuuzhan Vong fleet,” Anakin said.