Jacen watched his sister and knew she was lying.
“Cyberfuses still need to be installed,” she continued. “The air-exchange system is clogged; it needs to be—”
Qorl raised the blaster, but did not alter the emotion in his voice. “Today,” he repeated. “You will finish today.”
“Oh, blaster bolts! I think he means it, Jaina,” Jacen muttered. “Show me what I can do to help.”
Jaina sighed. “All right. Collect the box of tools you tripped over yesterday. Get the hydrospanner. I’ll use my multitool to finish some calibrations here in the engines.”
Qorl sat down on a lumpy, lichen-encrusted boulder, using his good hand to brush crawling insects from his legs. The Imperial soldier waited like a droid sentinel, unmoving, watching them work. Jacen tried to ignore him—and the blaster.
Gnats and biting insects swarmed around Jacen’s face, attracted by the sweat in his tangled hair. He passed tools to his sister, trying to find the components and equipment Jaina needed as she crawled and rummaged in the TIE fighter’s engine compartment.
He could sense Jaina’s growing anger and frustration. She couldn’t think of a plan. Yes, Jacen supposed, they could simply sabotage the ship repairs—but Qorl would realize what they’d done almost immediately, and he would get even with them. They couldn’t risk that.
Now Jacen wished that his sister, in all her excitement, hadn’t installed the new hyperdrive unit their dad had given her. He wished that they all hadn’t worked so hard, made so much progress. Now it was almost too late.
Jacen brushed a hand across his forehead, blinking sweat away. His stomach growled. He turned to the TIE pilot, sitting nearby on the rock, still pointing the blaster barrel directly at him. The threat was getting tiresome.
“Qorl,” he said, intentionally using their captor’s real name. “Could we have some water and more fruit? We’re hungry. Well work better if we’re not hungry.”
Qorl nodded slightly and began to stand up. But then he froze, hesitated, and settled back into his rigid position. “Food and water when you are finished with repairs.”
“What? ” Jacen said in dismay. “But that could take all day.”
“Then you will be hungry and thirsty,” Qorl said. The TIE pilot looked somewhat anxious, impatient. “You are stalling. Proceed.”
Jacen realized that Qorl might be worried that either Tenel Ka or Lowie had managed to get back to the Jedi academy and summoned help. They were a long distance from the Great Temple, across a treacherous jungle … but there was always a chance.
Jaina finished adjusting a cooling system regulator. She twisted a knob; a cold, bright blast of supercooled steam screeched up, making feathers of frost on the exposed metal surface. She stepped back and rubbed a grimy hand across her cheek, leaving a dark stain beneath her liquid-brown eyes.
“Qorl?” she said. “Who are you going to see when you get back?”
“I will report for duty,” he said.
“Are you going home? Do you have a family?”
“The Empire is my family.” His answer was rapid, automatic.
“But do you have a family that loves you?” Jaina asked.
Qorl hesitated for the briefest moment, then gestured threateningly with the blaster. “Get back to work.”
Jaina sighed and motioned for her brother to help her. “Come on, Jacen. Take those last packages of surface metal sealant,” she said. “We need to reinforce the melt spots on the outer hull.” She pointed to three stained and vaporized bull’s-eye spots on the TIE fighter’s outer plating—damage Qorl himself had caused the day before by firing his blaster at the twins.
With a cushioned hammer, Jaina pounded the bent plates back into position. Jacen dug into the toolbox until he found a packet of animated metal sealant. The special paste would crawl across the damaged area, smooth itself, and then seal down with a bond even stronger than the original hull alloy. Jacen applied one packet of the patch material and listened to it hiss and steam as it coated the burn spot. Jaina fixed the second spot.
The third melted area lay high on the cargo compartment, close to the open transparisteel canopy that protected the cockpit. Jacen took the last pack and crawled atop the small craft. He popped the seal, applied the patch, and waited for the animated sealant to do its work.
As he watched the gooey substance finish its repairs, Jacen heard small creatures stirring around him. He sensed something nearby and, looking down into the cargo space, saw a glimmer of movement, almost transparent, barely noticeable. Jacen’s heart leaped. He leaned down, reaching deep into the TIE fighter, and grabbed for it. Hope began to fill him.
“Boy, get out of there!” Qorl yelled. “Come back where I can see you.”
Panting, his heart pounding, Jacen pulled himself free. He backed away from the cockpit and jumped to the ground, keeping his hands clearly in sight.
Jaina bent over and whispered to him with concern in her eyes. “What are you doing? What did you find in there?”
Jacen grinned at her, then recovered his expression before Qorl could notice it. “Something that might save us all.”
“No more talking,” Qorl snapped. “Hurry.”
“We’re doing the best we can,” Jaina replied.
“Not good enough,” the pilot said. “Do you need encouragement? If you cannot complete repairs faster, I will shoot your brother. Then you will complete the repairs by yourself.”
Both Jacen and Jaina looked at the TIE pilot in shock. “Qorl, you wouldn’t do that,” Jaina said.
“I received my training from the Empire,” Qorl answered. “I will do what is necessary.”
Jacen swallowed—he knew the TIE pilot was telling the truth. “Yeah, I’ll bet you would,” he said.
With a sigh and an expression of disgust, Jaina stood up and tossed the hydrospanner onto a pile of tools on the jungle floor. She brushed her hands down her thighs, wiping grime on the legs of her jumpsuit.
“Never mind,” she said. “It’s finished. We’ve done everything we can. The TIE fighter is ready to fly again.”
17
Inside the torchlit temples of the Jedi academy, Lowbacca bellowed in confusion and alarm. He waved his lanky, hairy arms to emphasize the urgency of the situation. He didn’t know how to make them understand him; he only knew he had to warn them of the TIE fighter, had to get help for Jacen and Jaina and Tenel Ka.
Tionne and the other Jedi candidates around her grew agitated. None of them could speak the Wookiee language. “Lowbacca, we can’t understand you,” she said. “Where is your translator droid?”
Lowie patted his hip again and made a distressed sound. He’d have never imagined he’d be so upset not to have the jabbering droid at his side.
“Where are Jacen, Jaina, and Tenel Ka?” Tionne asked. “Are they all right?”
Lowbacca bellowed again and gestured out into the jungle, trying to explain everything.
“Was there an accident? Are they hurt?” Tionne asked. Her mother-of-pearl eyes were wide and her silver hair flowed about her as if it were alive. With her long, delicate hands, she clutched Lowie’s furred arm.
Her voice had been so calm and silky when she sang Jedi ballads to the gathered students in the grand audience chamber. Now her words had a hard, crystalline edge, the forcefulness of a true Jedi Knight.
Lowbacca tried to think of how to explain, but his growing frustration made it more and more difficult. He had no words they could understand. Yes, he could gesture back toward the jungle—but how to describe a crashed TIE fighter? A surviving Imperial pilot? The twins taken hostage?
The young Jedi Knights had kept their little project completely secret while they were making repairs to the crashed ship. Jaina had wanted the revamped craft to be a surprise she could show off to the other trainees. But now having kept it a secret was working against them. No one could guess what he was talking about; no one knew about the crash site.