Dark Nest_ The Swarm War Part 24

"You can see her, too?" Mara asked.

"Sure," Jacen said. "Either that or I'm still unconscious."

"You're awake," Luke a.s.sured him. He shrugged out of his combat harness and sent it toward Jacen. "Keep an eye on Artoo-"

"I'm not that fuzzy," Jacen said. "I'm coming with you."

There was no time to argue, for Lomi Plo had spotted Luke and was staring right at him. The face inside the carapace was the same one Luke had glimpsed during their fight a few months earlier: a half-melted, noseless face with bulbous multifaceted eyes and a pair of stubby mandibles where there should have been lower jaws. The mandibles moved behind the faceplate, and the Gorog warriors raised their shatter guns and started to turn to fire.

Luke sprang toward Lomi Plo, at the same time grabbing her in the Force and pulling her toward him. She launched herself into a backflip, trying to wrench free, but Luke had her too tightly. It was all she could do to bring herself back around before he was on her, igniting his blade and thrusting at her abdomen.

She brought her purple blade down and blocked-then Luke glimpsed a white flash sweeping toward his helmet and had to throw himself sideways. Her second lightsaber swept past his shoulder, barely missing. Luke used the Force to accelerate his spin, whipping his feet up over his head. He landed a Force-enhanced kick to her faceplate, the tip of his blade tracing a smoky curve up the side of her carapace.

Lomi Plo whipped both lightsabers around in a counter-strike, the short purple one driving for Luke's abdomen, the long white one sweeping toward his knees. He switched to a one-handed grip, meeting the white blade with his own and blocking the other attack by spinning inside and striking across her elbow, forcing her to lock her arms with both blades extended. She countered by bringing her knee up into his helmet, sending him flipping away, and then they fell into a vicious contest of strike and counterstrike, neither one probing for weaknesses or trying to set up a fatal trick later, both of them fighting just to survive two more seconds, all their attention focused on blocking the next blow, pouring all their strength and speed and skill into landing their next attack just a little quicker, hitting their foe's blocks just a little harder.

Luke was vaguely aware of the larger battle raging around him. He could feel Mara and Jacen protecting his flanks, keeping Lomi Plo's bodyguards at bay with blasters and detonators and the Force. He could sense more StealthXs gliding into the battle zone, lighting it up with their laser cannons and penetrating deeper into the rubble, preventing more Gorog from reaching their queen. He could hear Kyle Katarn issuing commands over the suit comms, ordering Jedi Knights to leave their StealthXs and form a protective ring around their Grand Master.

Then Mara set off the first dazer. A shrill whine filled the comm channels, and the battle zone s.h.i.+mmered with a rainbow iridescence. The air inside Luke's helmet suddenly smelled like fresh-cut pallies-a side effect, he knew, of the aura-deadening pulse Cilghal had developed to disrupt the collective mind of the Killiks.

Deprived of the thoughts and feelings of their nest-fellows, the Gorog warriors froze or launched suicidal attacks or simply collapsed in trembling heaps. And Lomi Plo hesitated, her white lightsaber hanging above her shoulders for a heartbeat too long, her lower blade caught out of position defending a flank attack that was not coming.

Luke launched a furious a.s.sault, slipping under her upper lightsaber and catching her lower guard on the back-swing, then driving forward and slas.h.i.+ng at her midsection. She pivoted, dropping one side back, and Luke switched to a lunge, driving the tip of his blade deep in the belly of her carapace.

For a breath, the queen did not seem to realize she had been hit. Seeing Luke stretched forward and off balance, she snapped her mandibles in delight and brought her short blade around to attack his arm while her long blade descended on him from above.

Luke thumbed off his lightsaber and rolled away sideways, watching in alarm as her long blade slashed past his head just a centimeter from his visor. He rolled once more and saw vapor billowing from the abdomen of Lomi Plo's pressure carapace, then brought his feet up over his head . . . and found himself hanging upside down, caught in a net of golden Force energy.

Luke knew what was coming next: the Myrkr strike team had described how Lomi Plo had used a similar net to dice a Yuuzhan Vong captor into bits. Luke began to push out with the Force, stopping the net from constricting any further and slicing through this vac suit. But he was not strong enough to break the attack outright. Cilghal's Dazer had cut Lomi Plo off from the collective mind of the Gorog, but not from the Force. She could still draw on her nest to enhance her Force potential, and as strong as Luke was, he was not strong enough to overpower an entire nest of Killiks. He would simply have to hold on-and hope she ran out of air before he ran out of strength.

A black, tarry substance began to boil from the puncture in Lomi Plo's pressure carapace, and the vapor plume disappeared. The queen had plugged the hole. She turned and started to float toward Luke, the mandibles on the other side of her faceplate spread so wide he could see the smiling row of human teeth they concealed.

There was no question of reaching out to Mara or Jacen for help. They were busy fending off Gorog warriors, somersaulting and spinning and Force-deflecting shattergun pellets. Instead, Luke risked a split in his concentration and used the Force to send a Wookiee-sized lump of spitcrete hurling toward Lomi Plo's head.

The attack never reached her, of course. She sensed it coming and raised her hand, deflecting it straight into Mara.

The impact sent Mara spinning, and a Gorog shatter gun pellet slammed into the small of her back. A puff of vapor shot from the hole, then quickly vanished as the vac suit sealed itself.

Luke still felt Mara's jolt of surprise, and to some extent even the numb, deep ache of the wound itself. A fierce rage boiled up inside him, and perhaps that was what gave him the strength to break Lomi Plo's Force-net .

. . or perhaps she had just been distracted by the boulder Luke had hurled at her.

It did not matter. Luke pushed, and the net dissolved. He flew at Lomi Plo, determined to finish this now, but terrified that he would not be fast enough . . . that he was not good enough to kill the Unseen Queen in time to save Mara.

Lomi Plo turned to meet him, and suddenly she seemed the size of a rancor, with bristling bug arms three meters long and reflexes so quick that her whirling lightsabers were nothing but a blur. Luke drew up short, trying to shake his head clear, trying to calm himself so he could determine the truth of what he was seeing.

But it was no use. Luke was too frightened for Mara. He could feel her starting to slip, feel her fighting to control the pain . . . and the Gorog were still attacking. Luke hurled himself at Lomi Plo again. It did not matter that he would never get past her guard, or that he did not understand what he was seeing. He just had to kill her.

But Lomi Plo had grown weary of fighting Luke. She spun away, her long upper arms las.h.i.+ng out toward Mara. Luke locked his blade on and drew his hand back to throw-then found that his arm would not come forward. Nothing would move at all; his mouth would not even open to voice the scream that rose inside him as Lomi Plo's white lightsaber came arcing down toward the crown of Mara's helmet.

Then Jacen was there, slipping in front of Mara, his lightsaber flas.h.i.+ng up to block. He caught the blow above his head and whipped his blade over Lomi Plo's and sent her white lightsaber spinning away into the rubble.

But Lomi Plo had two lightsabers, and she brought the second one up under Jacen's guard, pus.h.i.+ng it into the abdomen of his vac suit. The purple tip came out through his back, and still Luke could not move. If anything, he was more paralyzed than ever; he could not breathe, could not blink . . . it seemed to him that even his heart had stopped beating.

The tip of Mara's power blaster appeared under Jacen's upraised arm, and Luke could feel the anger that was driving Mara, the rage at what had happened to their nephew. A blinding bolt flashed from the barrel, taking Lomi Plo full in the chest and sending her tumbling head over heels, leaving her purple lightsaber hanging in Jacen's body.

And suddenly Luke could move again. He used the Force to pull himself over to Jacen and Mara, then deactivated Lomi Plo's lightsaber and tossed the handle aside. By the time he had finished, Mara was already placing a patch over the holes in Jacen's vac suit.

Kyle Katarn arrived in the same instant, emerging from the flotsam with half a dozen other Jedi. They quickly drove the last of the Gorog warriors away, lacing the darkness with blaster bolts and flinging thermal detonators around like confetti, using the Force to create a protective sh.e.l.l of rubble around the Skywalkers and Jacen.

"Where's Lomi Plo?" he asked. "I can't see her. Is she still here?"

Luke barely heard. He could sense that Mara was in pain but still strong, and she remained lucid enough to have applied a pair of emergency patches to Jacen's vac suit. But Jacen's presence had grown as elusive as when he had been knocked unconscious, and the pattern of dark spray around the suit patches suggested that he had lost a lot of blood.

"Jacen?"

"Don't . . . worry about . . . me!" Jacen's voice was anguished but calm, and his words carried the sharp edge of command. "You're showing Lomi . . . your weakness!"

"It's okay." Luke peered over his shoulder, but saw no sign of Lomi Plo or her Gorog anywhere. "Mara drove her off."

"I did?" Mara asked. Obviously, she had not been able to see Lomi Plo, either. "You're sure?"

Jacen shook his head. "We don't ... know." He grabbed Luke's sleeve and pulled him closer. "You showed her .. . your fear, and she used it . . . against you."

Mara caught Luke's eye, then nodded past his shoulder. "I'll take care of Jacen," she said. "You take care of Lomi Plo."

Luke took Jacen's power blaster and slowly turned around, quieting his own thoughts and emotions, surrendering himself to the Force so that he could feel its currents and search for the cold stillness that would be Lomi Plo. He felt nothing, not even the telltale ripples of her Gorog warriors.

"I think she's gone," Luke said. "I can't see her anymore."

NINETEEN.

Interrogation cells were the same the galaxy over: dark, cramped, and stark, usually too hot or too cold. The interrogator usually had a breathing problem, some wheeze or rasp or even an artificial respirator that suggested he had been cuffed to a chair a time or two himself. This interrogator, a blue-skinned Chiss in the black uniform of a Defense Fleet commander, spoke with a wet snort. It was probably caused by the old wound above his black eye patch, a thumb-sized dent deep enough to have collapsed his sinus cavities.

As the officer approached, Leia's nostrils filled with the harsh stench of charric fumes-probably what pa.s.sed for deodorant aboard a Chiss Star Destroyer. He stopped a meter and a half from her chair, running his good eye over her as though contemplating what a Jedi woman looked like beneath her robes. Leia pretended not to notice. The "undressing" was an old interrogator's trick, designed to make a prisoner feel more powerless than she really was. Leia had endured such scrutiny more times than she wanted to remember-and that applied especially to the time the interrogator had been Darth Vader.

Finally, the interrogator met her gaze and said, "You're awake. Good."

"I'm glad one of us thinks that's good," Leia said.

"Frankly, I would've preferred to sleep until my head stops hurting."

The interrogator's red eye glimmered as he filed this tidbit away for future use. Again, Leia pretended not to notice. She intended to lay a trail of such tidbits for him . . . a trail that would lead straight to the ident.i.ty of the person who had betrayed their mission.

"Yes . . . the knockout gas." The interrogator's impediment caused him to p.r.o.nounce gas as khas. "After the trouble we had taking Jedi Lowbacca into custody, we felt it necessary to be prudent with you and Master Sebatyne."

"You could have asked politely."

The interrogator offered her a thin smile. "We did. You destroyed two of our clawcraft."

Leia shrugged. "There was a little misunderstanding."

"Is that what you call it?" His voice remained steady, but there was an angry heat to it. "Then perhaps we should make certain there are no more misunderstandings."

He stepped back and gestured toward a sizable display screen hanging in the corner. On cue, an image appeared, showing Han cuffed into a chair similar to Leia's. Another Chiss officer, younger than the one in Leia's cell but with a harder blue face, stood next to Han. On a nearby table lay an array of nerve probes, laser scalpels, and electrical clips-a virtual smorgasbord of torture.

Leia gasped, her heart suddenly hammering hard. She turned to her interrogator, struggling to regain her composure. "Captain Fel promised there would be no torture."

"If you surrendered." A wet rumble sounded from the back of the interrogator's mouth as he inhaled. "Instead, you continued your attempts to escape until he trapped you against the Shattered Moon."

"A Chiss is going to hide behind a technicality?"

Leia knew that the contempt in her voice only confirmed to the interrogator that he had found his leverage, but she could not help herself. After discovering that the moon cl.u.s.ter was filled with Killiks, she had been the one who argued against making a run for the planet. With a faulty control system and Zark Squadron and two Star Destroyers ready to blast the Falcon to s.p.a.ce dust, it had just seemed wiser to surrender and escape later. Now she wasn't so sure. To he willing to break promises and threaten torture, the Chiss had to he in desperate circ.u.mstances-and a desperate foe was the most dangerous kind.

The interrogator remained silent, giving Leia's emotions time to build, trying to move her from fear to anger to hopelessness as quickly as possible.

But Leia had already regained control of her feelings and hid her fear behind a cool voice. "I see I'll have to revise my opinion of the Ascendancy."

The interrogator spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "That is entirely up to you . . . as is your husband's fate."

On screen, the young officer picked up a laser scalpel and activated the blade. Han responded with a sneer, but Leia could see the fear beneath his show of disdain. The officer brought the blade close to Han's eye, then made a very precise serpentine cut down Han's cheek-just proving that there were no rules for this interrogation. The letter S appeared in faint crimson, and blood began to dribble down Han's face.

Han held his sneer, not even flinching. "I can only get prettier."

Please, Han, don't provoke him, Leia urged silently.

"It's just a scratch," the interrogator said. "As long as you cooperate, it's the worst your husband will suffer. But if you refuse, my protege will be required to demonstrate his skills."

A surge of hatred rose inside Leia, and she had the sudden urge to show this little man who was really in control here, to reach out with the Force and squeeze his throat shut. Instead, she swallowed her anger and settled for narrowing her eyes.

"This may surprise you, but I'm willing to tell you whatever you wish to know." She turned toward the hidden vidcam she sensed to one side of the display screen. "You're already aware of the Falcon's mission, and the Jedi have nothing else to hide."

The interrogator followed her gaze and smiled. "Impressive. Others might guess that a cam exists, but not its precise position. I'm sure you have many such talents, Jedi Solo." His smile faded abruptly, and he leaned in close, breathing fetid air in her face. "But I must warn you against using those talents to escape. Regardless of whether you succeeded, your husband will be in no condition to join you."

He glanced at display screen again. When Leia looked, the cam panned back. Behind Han stood two Chiss guards, their charric pistols pointed at his head. Leia took this in, her hatred of the interrogator now growing to include his superiors and all the others whom she knew were watching, and she expanded her Force-awareness around her.

As expected, she felt two Chiss guards standing behind her, as well. But she also felt a more familiar pair of presences lurking above and behind the guards, approximately where a ventilation duct might be. Cakhmaim and Meewalh had escaped custody-or, more likely, they had never been captured in the first place.

Leia turned her attention back to the interrogator.

"I don't appreciate your threats," she said. It was a code phrase that would alert the Noghri to the fact that she was about to give an order. "But threats are sometimes effective. While Master Sebatyne and I can take care of ourselves, I would be very unhappy if any harm were to come to Han or the other members of our crew."

The interrogator frowned, confused by what seemed only an indirect response to his warning. "If you are asking for a guarantee of their safety-"

"I'm not asking anything, Commander ..." Leia paused, waiting for the interrogator's name to rise higher in his thoughts. ". . . Baltke. I'm telling you that whatever happens to Han and the others, I'm going to do the same to you." She turned to the hidden vidcam. "And to you."

The tightening of Baltke's lips was barely perceptible, but Leia knew that his superiors would point it out to him later as the moment he had lost control of the interrogation. For now, however, he seemed to believe he was still in charge. He spent a moment trying to stare Leia down-snorting softly with each breath-and she felt the Noghri withdrawing to carry out her instructions.

Finally, Baltke stepped to Leia's side and extended a hand toward one of the guards behind her. The hand returned holding a hypoinjector.

"Don't be afraid, Princess." Baltke pulled up the sleeve of her robe and reached down to press the hypo to her forearm. "This is only something to help you relax . . . and a.s.sure that the answers we receive from you are true."

"Oh, I'm not afraid, Commander."

Leia created a loud Force-thunk in the corner behind her, then used the Force to redirect the hypo into Baltke's thigh and depress the injector. He gave a startled cry and pulled the hypo away so quickly that even Leia barely saw what had happened. Given that the vidcam's view had been partially obscured by the commander's back, she hoped the monitors in the control room had not seen it at all.

"Commander?" asked one of the guards behind her. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Leia said rea.s.suringly. Normally, she could influence only weak minds with the Force-but the drug was designed to make minds weak. She just hoped that it was fast. "I flinched, and Commander Baltke nearly injected himself instead of me."

Baltke frowned and looked at the hypo in his hand. "Commander?" the second guard asked.

"She flinched." He pa.s.sed the hypo back to the guard. "I nearly injected myself."

Leia let out a long breath. "The drug must be working, Commander. I'm feeling more relaxed already."

"Good. Slo am I." Baltke's slur was barely perceptible, but it was there. He stepped back in front of Leia, wobbling slightly. "I think we're ready to begin."

"There's no need to stand, Commander," Leia suggested. "Sit down and make yourself comfortable. You're going to find me very cooperative."

"She's going to cooperate." Baltke looked to one of the guards. "Bring me a chair."

Leia felt a growing wave of concern from the two guards, and she did not hear either of them move to obey.

"Forgive me for inshruding." Leia slurred her words to reinforce the impression that she was not fully under control. "But washn't that an order?"

"That's not for you to say, prisoner," the guard retorted.

" 'S not my fault," Leia retorted. "I'm not the one who injected me with a truth drug."

"That was indeed an order," Baltke scowled at the guards. "Do I have to vocode it?"

"No, sir."

The door whirred opened, and a moment later a black-uniformed guard placed a chair behind Baltke.

"Thank you."

Baltke sat down and studied Leia, snorting softly, his brow furrowed as though he was having trouble remembering what he wanted to ask her. She was going to have to work fast. It would not be long before his superiors realized something was wrong and relieved him.

"I imagine you want to know what the Jedi's plans are," Leia prompted.

Baltke shook his head. "Already know 'em."