overhead, emitting short blasts of sound that the musicians
incorporated as a counterpoint to their piece.
Jaina listened, enjoying the exotic tune. She had never heard music
like this in her life, and she knew it was an experience she wouldn't
forget. She winked at Zekk. "This is almost better than dry clothes,"
she said.
Zekk flashed a grin back at her. "Not quite," he said. "But it's
interesting."
When it was finally time to go, Lando and the two young Jedi took their
leave of the forlorn Biths sitting in their run-down huts, hiding out
in the middle of the swamp.
"You'll have an audience soon enough, Figrin," Lando said softly.
"Once we take care of Black Sun, you can come back and play to your
heart's content. I'll even double your wages for the first week."
Figrin raised a big-knuckled hand. "Just make sure you have an open
sabace table for me, Calrissian." The band kept playing as their
unexpected visitors turned to leave.
"What, you want to lose all your wages again?" Lando said over his
shoulder.
"I always win 'em back," Figrin answered, waving goodbye.
The band's melody turned sour and skeptical at these words, and Jaina
sensed that Figrin's companions didn't have much confidence in their
leader's gambling prowess.
Tenel Ka's normally alert mind went numb with shock as Jacen plummeted
out of reach. She hung precariously, still dangling in the Wooklee's
strong grasp. She could have fallen at any instant. But for a full
hundred heartbeats she could only stare down into the sea of clouds
that had swallowed her friend Jacen.
Jacen ...
At his side she had fought Dark Jedi, vicious beasts, bounty hunters,
assassins, and misguided patriots. But never, even in her wildest
nightmares, had she imagined that he could be taken from her like
this-lost in an instant to gravity and some nebulous foe against whom
she'd never even had the opportunity to fight.
The sharp pain in her arm did not come close to matching the wrenching
pain in her heart, but it did bring her back to reality. Lowie groaned
in weariness and despair. Tenel Ka's booted feet flailed in the air.
The only thing that kept her from sharing Jacen's fate was Lowbacca's
strong grip on her one good arm.
But that couldn't last forever.
or a split second, she considered letting go, plunging after Jacen into
the clouds. At least that would save Lowbacca, and she wouldn't have
to live with the guilt of knowing this had all indirectly been her
fault.
A long time ago, if she hadn't been trying so hard to impress Jacen
when they'd first built their lightsabers, her pride would not have led
her to fight him with a substandard weapon. . . would not have led to
the accident in which her arm had been lost-an arm that would have been
there to save Jacen from his fall, had it not been for her own
foolishness.
She should have been there to catch him. Tenel Ka had failed Jacen.
Why had she simply not told him how much his friendship meant to her?
Tenel Ka's sweaty hand slipped in Lowie's grasp. With a harsh bark of
warning, Lowbacca extended his razor-sharp Wookiee claws and dug them
deep into her arm. He would not let her fall.
She winced, distracted from her torturous thoughts, and welcomed the
pain that brought her mind back to sharp reality. The warrior girl
looked up into Lowie's golden eyes and saw there a reflection of her
own anguish ... and something more: determination.
Deten,nination to stay alive. Determination not to lose another
friend. Determination to warn Jaina, Zekk, and Lando that their lives
were in danger too. Determination to find whoever had done this and
bring them to justice.
Blood trickled from the deep wounds where Lowie's talons dug fiercely
into her skin. Through the Force she felt his resolve flow into her,
like the warm blood that poured down her arm. The wind made her
red-gold braids whip wildly around her and caught at the droplets of
blood, spattering them across her face.
The braids of a warrior. The blood of a princess.
Tenel Ka gritted her teeth. She would not fall, and she would not
allow Jacen's murderers to go free. Her eyes still locked with
Lowbacca's, she used the Force to steady herself. "I'm ready."
The Wookiee, who still had one arm wrapped around the sturdy antenna
that protruded from the bottom of the city's structure, pulled himself
upward with that arm until he was able to wrap his strong legs around a
crossbar. With both hands freed, he pulled her up by one arm and
grasped her around the waist with the other. Then, shaking from the
strain, he curled upward toward the antenna, as if sitting up and
lifting weights simultaneously, until Tenel Ka could grasp the center
bar of the antenna herself.
When he withdrew his claws from her arm the gush of blood made the
antenna slippery and harder to hold on to, though Tenel Ka hardly
noticed. She quickly hooked a leg over the crossbar and helped
Lowbacca pull himself upright. For several long moments they clung to
the antenna, shuddering from their efforts.
Finally Tenel Ka drew a deep breath. "Thank you, Lowbacca, my
friend.
Let us continue."
Lowie roared and pointed up toward the chute through which they had
fallen. Tenel Ka looked and saw with despair that the hatch had closed
behind them! "You are correct, my friend. We seem to be stranded."
A split second later the hatch mysteriously slid open of its own
accord. Lowie gave a triumphant bellow. They would still need to find
a way to climb inside the sheer tube, but the first hurdle had been
overcome. As the two young Jedi struggled to a standing position on
the antenna crossbar, a familiar silver ovoid hovered down through the
open disposal chute.
"Oh, thank the Maker! Master Lowbacca, Mistress Tenel Ka!
You're alive! Do make haste-I'm not certain how long I can keep this
access hatch open."
Tenel Ka fumbled with the pouch clipped at her waist and removed her
grappling hook and fibercord.
"Oh, excellent idea!" Em Teedee said. "There is a ledge exactly three
point seven meters above you where an air vent feeds into this disposal
tube." Tenel Ka felt a strange light-headed sensation as she attempted
to swing the grappling hook for her throw. Her fingers were bloody and
the hook slipped from her grasp as she made the toss.
Lowbacca's hand shot out and snatched the cord before the hook could
fall. Tenel Ka saw this as if from a great distance. The Wookiee then
secured one arm around her waist and the antenna while he used his
other hand to draw in the grappling hook, swing, and make the throw.
The hook caught and held firm.
"Excellent shot, Master Lowbacca!" Em Teedee said. "I say, wherever
could Master Jacen be?"
An angry Wookiee bellow exploded beside Tenel Ka's ear, but it didn't
matter. A curtain of soft darkness descended upon her mind and she
remembered nothin
g more.
Anja had everything back under control. She had reminded herself of
her priorities and her goals, of who she was and who her enemies
were.
She felt refreshed, invigorated, ready to take on anyone or anything.
She was once again convinced that she had not befriended Jacen, Jaina,
and their associates. She was merely using them to get to Han Solo.
Well, perhaps she had slipped a bit and begun to think that their silly
belief in the Force might actually give them some advantage, some power
that she didn't possess. But the sentiment had been short-lived.
Everything seemed so much clearer to her now. She was completely
self-sufficient. Anja Gallandro needed nothing and no one except Anja
Gallandro. She had her wits, her intuition, her reflexes. And that
made her every bit as good as a Jedi Knight.
As these comforting thoughts filled her mind, a heavy knock sounded on
the door to her quarters. She hurriedly swept all of her private
belongings off the sleeping pad and back into the satchel from which
they had come hours earlier, including the empty spice vial. She
stepped to the refresher unit and stuffed the satchel into a corner
before answering the knock.
She waved her hand over the OPEN switch, and the door slid aside with a
hiss. Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, and Em Teedee practically fell into the
room. Em Teedee's casing had been badly scratched, Tenel Ka's arm
seeped blood from several deep wounds, and Lowie's ginger fur stuck out
wildly in all directions.
Startling as it was to see them in this bedraggled condition, Anja was
determined not to lose her composure again. She raised her eyebrows
and tried for some humor. "I see you've come to appreciate my opinion
of Ugnaughts."
"You were right not to come with us," Tenel Ka said in a weak voice.
Her eyelids drooped, and Anja could now see that the Wookiee was
supporting most of the warrior girl's weight. Blood dripped from Tenel
Ka's wounds to the floor.
"It was a trap," Em Teedee cried. "Curse my foolish circuits, I should
have seen it earlier."
Lowie growled. "Oh, yes!" Em Teedee translated. "And Mistress Tenel
Ka requires immediate medical assistance-immediate!"
"Trap," Tenel Ka echoed. Her face was pale, her breathing ragged.
Lowie picked up the warrior girl and gently deposited her on the
sleeping pallet.
Anja pushed a button on the comm unit beside the door. "Emergency
medical team to room 0914."
"Request acknowledged," a droid voice replied. "Estimated arrival: two
point four minutes."
Anja nodded and turned back toward the two Jedi. "So where's Jacen?"
she asked. "Torturing the Ugnaughts by telling them jokes?"
Lowie leaned back against the wall and crooned a strange note that Anja
had never before heard from a Wookiee. Tenel Ka did not reply, but
tears appeared from beneath,her eyelids. Anja guessed that her pain
must be terrible, because she had never seen the warrior girl betray
any emotion whatsoever.
The Wookiee crooning grew louder. The miniaturized translating droid
spoke in an oddly hushed voice. "If Master Lowbacca were capable of
making any reply, he would regretfully inform you that Master Jacen
...
is dead." With that, the little droid fell silent and hovered
fretfully between the Wookiee and the warrior girl, as if trying to
comfort them.
Ridiculous! Anja thought. Jacen could not be dead. She had seen him
only a few hours ago. This had to be somebody's idea of a joke.
But Lowie's eerie crooning and Tenel Ka's tears convinced her that
something terrible had indeed occurred-more surely than any words could
have.
In subdued tones, the translating droid explained what had taken
place.
Anja was not prepared for the storm of conflicting emotions that swept
through her. Anger, guilt, hopelessness, loss, despair. Jacen had not
deserved to die. He had befriended Anja, amused her, taught her,
defended her, learned from her, saved her life. He had been there for
Anja. That's what friends are for, he had said.
But she had not been there for him.
An even worse thought now occur-red to her: she might actually have
caused Jacen's death ... just as she had always told Czethros she would
do someday, given the chance. It had been a lie. She hadn't meant
to.
Not really.
But Anja herself had told Czethros of the young Jedi Knights' arrival
were wounded. And Jacen was dead. If Anja knew Czethrosand she
thought she did-these events were not unrelated. That meant Czethros
did have something to do with Cojahn's death and that Anja's friends
had come too close to finding out about it.
She had no one to blame but herself. Her chest began heaving, and
deep, wordless sobs wrenched from her throat.
She had lied. She had lied to Czethros. She had lied to herself.
Jacen had been her friend. Why should he be dead now?
An icy knife of anguish plunged deep into Anja's heart. Hot tears
spilled down her cheeks. She stumbled backward into the refresher unit
and shut the door tightly behind her. Racking sobs shook her as she
scrambled in the corner for what she needed-what she had to have.
There was no choice.... The spice would help her.
A minute later, when the emergency medical team arrived at the door to
her quarters, Anja came out of the refresher unit and let them in. She
was controlled now, full of energy.
But nothing, nothing, could dull the pain....
lacen fell.
And he kept on falling.
As he plunged down from Cloud City, the giant hanging metropolis seemed
to shoot up and away from him like a spacecraft rocketing toward
orbit.
In the first several seconds he let out a panicked cry for help. But
he kept dropping ... dropping, with no bottom in sight. A cold wind
rushed past his face, roaring in his ears, rippling his clothes, making
it hard for him even to draw a breath. He quickly realized that
screaming only wasted his precious energy.
Jacen concentrated, trying to use what Jedi powers he possessed to help
him stop his endless fall. He had to think of a way. With the Force
he could make himself lighter, perhaps slow his descent ... for all the
good that would do him-it would only prolong the inevitable.
He felt as if he were floating and envisioned the Force as an invisible
hand cradling him, lifting him up ... but he knew that was only an
illusion. No matter how hard he concentrated, how much he tried to use
his Jedi skills, he could not push himself back up to the now-distant
Cloud City.
Worse, Bespin was a gas giant, a huge ball of atmospheric mixes, with
no true surface, only a superdense liquid core hidden under thousands
of kilometers of clouds. Jacen would keep falling into denser and
denser gases, but he would be crushed long before he ever reached the
central sphere. He would just fall forever into the gas giant,
until
the pressure squashed him flat.
The clouds swirled below, streaming in spirals like a whirlpool far,
far beneath him. With each instant he fell closer and closer to
oblivion.
In his mind he tried to call out to his sister Jaina or to Tenel Ka,
but he couldn't seem to make contact. In any case, there was nothing
they could do ... at least, not in time.
He did use his Jedi training to keep himself calm, remembering the
techniques that Master Skywalker had taught him. Great, he thought
with a flash of griryi humor, at least I'll die calm.
But he was not ready to give up yet. He lay back and continued to fall
and fall and fall, sending out a silent cry for help ... though he
didn't know where to direct it.
The wind and gases burned his eyes. He let them drift halfway shut.
Even so, the sunlight dazzled him, creating tiny rainbows through the
ice crystals high in Bespin's atmosphere, and the colors of the pink
and orange airborne algae seemed painfully bright.
Then, curving out at the edge of his vision, he saw a flicker of dark
wings swoop through a nst of clouds and streak away. He blinked and
spun around in the air. The gusting winds caught at his clothes.