Not wanting to be left behind, Raynar and Jacen accompanied Jaina, scurrying forward, keeping low. Tenel Ka hesitated, looking around in the dim tunnels instead of ahead. “We must be cautious.” Then she felt a cold shiver of warning up her spine.
Jaina spun around, also sensing it, just as Em Teedee let out a thin wail. “Oh dear, they’ve found us.”
Tenel Ka whirled to face a large group of one-eyed Abyssin armed with spiked clubs, a towering Trandoshan reptile, and a wolfman who appeared to be the leader. He grinned with triumph, showing off his fangs.
Tenel Ka grabbed for her lightsaber, but the alien soldiers already had their blasters drawn.
The wolfman barked a quiet order. “No lightsabers, Jedi Knights,” he said, “or we will cut you down where you stand. I am Hovrak, and every soldier here obeys my orders.”
An Abyssin reached up to snatch Em Teedee out of the air.
“Let me go, you brute! Be careful—you’ll scratch my casing.”
“No outbursts, no noise,” Hovrak warned. “You will come with us quietly.”
From another tunnel a second group of soldiers emerged. With them stood Raaba, chocolate fur bristling, red headband cinched around her head, and armlets pushed high on her biceps.
Jacen looked desperately at the Wookiee woman. His eyes pleaded.
“Hey, Raaba, tell them who we are! We just wanted to talk to Lowie.”
But the plea was wasted. Raaba glared at them.
In a smooth motion their captors swept them into a side catacomb, away from the computer center. Jaina drew a deep breath to shout for Lowie—but the Trandoshan clapped a rough reptilian hand across her mouth.
“Kill humans,” he gargled, as if in anticipation.
The monsters hauled the young Jedi Knights off as prisoners. The guards remained wary, keeping their blasters pressed against their sides.
The companions could never coordinate their Jedi powers all at the same time to divert so many blaster bolts.
Jaina swallowed hard. They would fight to escape—but now was not the time…
Back in the computer center, Lowie sensed a great uneasiness in the Force. He looked up from a difficult problem at his terminal, glanced around the computer center, and then darted his gaze out through the transparisteel walls into the shadowy corridors beyond.
Although the interior light caused quite a glare, and he could make out only a few details, he thought he saw a flicker of shadows, a movement of bodies disappearing into a corridor … but he could not be sure.
Once again he felt the heavy loneliness he had almost forgotten during his deep concentration.
He loved working with computers, and this programming problem was a great challenge. He stared out the windows for a long moment, but nothing reappeared. Then with a low sigh he sat back down at the keyboard and returned to work.
It was probably just his imagination. Lowie missed his friends terribly, and he must have been seeing only what he wanted to see.
9
Struggling in Hovrak’s grip, his wrists tied behind him, Jacen cast about in his mind for some way of using his Jedi abilities to free himself. The wolfman’s claws dug through the sleeve of his flightsuit piercing his skin and drawing a few sticky droplets of blood. Jacen barely felt the pain, though.
He looked over at his sister, then at Tenel Ka, to reassure himself that they were all right. The warrior girl showed no sign of agitation, but when her granite-gray eyes flicked toward him, he saw grave concern. He drew a deep breath and called on the Force for the calm courage he needed, to keep up a good face for her.
The Diversity Alliance attackers didn’t deserve the satisfaction of seeing their fear.
The other young Jedi Knights remained silent as Hovrak and the guards marched them through an endless maze of corridors until they finally emerged into Nolaa Tarkona’s throne room grotto.
The Twi’lek woman sat stately in her stone chair on the dais, leaning forward. Her glittering pink eyes intent, she watched them with barely disguised loathing.
Jacen stared back at the scarred leader of the Diversity Alliance. Her skin was pale and cadaverous, and the masculine uniform and padded body armor Nolaa wore beneath her flowing black robe hid any feminine curves she might possess. Even so, she radiated power as she watched the young human captives.
“Ah, a gift for me,” Nolaa Tarkona said. “Or perhaps a snack for Hovrak.”
Hovrak’s hot breath blew down Jacen’s neck.
“We’re not a gift for anyone,” Jaina snapped. “Or a snack.”
Nolaa’s tattooed head-tail twitched. She displayed a set of perfectly pointed teeth. “You are trespassers—intruders, spies. Worst of all, you are human.” She spat the word and scowled with distaste. “Humans have always tried to destroy what alien species have built. This is my private sanctuary, a place of freedom for all species. Still you have crept in and contaminated this place with your presence. You were caught near the computer center, no doubt attempting sabotage.”
“No way!” Jacen said. “We only wanted to see our friend Lowbacca.”
He struggled in Hovrak’s grip and looked over at Raaba, pointing at her with his elbow. “Raaba knows. We’re friends of Lowie’s. We just need to talk to him.”
The chocolate-furred Wookiee woman took this as her cue to march toward Nolaa Tarkona with the three lightsabers the soldiers had confiscated, as well as the silver translating droid, which had been powered down for storage.
Nolaa looked at the Jedi weapons and then up at Raaba. “You know these humans? How so?”
Raaba averted her eyes, flashed a venomous look at Jacen for having embarrassed her, then growled an answer. Even with Em Teedee switched off, Jacen could understand many of her words. Raaba explained that these were Jedi trainees from Master Skywalker’s academy on Yavin 4. They were former companions of Lowbacca’s, but now that Lowie was with the Diversity Alliance, Raaba was certain he knew who his true friends were.
“This is a fact,” Tenel Ka said. “And we’re his true friends. For this we do not need to tell him lies, as you do.”
Hovrak lashed out to cuff Tenel Ka, backhanding her with a hairy paw.
She reeled at the blow, but did not cry out in pain.
Jacen struggled backward, hoping to kick Hovrak, but to no avail.
Then he calmed himself. He was a Jedi, he reminded himself. He would use the Jedi way. Letting his eyes fall half shut, he reached out with the Force and detached all fourteen of the glittering medals Hovrak so proudly displayed on his precious uniform.
To the wolfman’s surprise, the emblems sprang away from his shirt to scatter jingling on the floor. The Adjutant Advisor roared and bent down to grab the medals, but they leapt from his hands and fell tinkling to the rock floor again.
“They must die,” he said, glaring at the companions.
“Eat them,” the Trandoshan heartily agreed. “Kill humans.”
Standing beside Nolaa Tarkona, though, Raaba glanced sidelong at the young Jedi Knights. She seemed uneasy, and Jacen wondered if perhaps the Wookiee woman felt guilty about what she had done.
Raaba took a step closer to Nolaa’s stone chair.
In a low voice, she argued against the Adjutant Advisor’s brutal suggestion, insisting that the young Jedi Knights were too important to be killed. Their deaths could cause significant problems for the Diversity Alliance … but if the need arose, they could fetch a fine ransom or be used as hostages. The Solo twins were the children of the New Republic’s Chief of State. The warrior girl was a princess of the powerful Hapes Cluster.
Raaba hesitated, then looked at young Raynar as a growl built in her throat. Her words to Nolaa were so husky and quiet that Jacen had to strain to hear them. And this young man, she told her leader, was the son of Bornan Thul.
The Twi’lek woman’s face lit up with delight.
“Bornan Thul is your father?” She ran her tongue along the sharpened points of her teeth.