As morning sunlight spilled across the lower cloud banks, painting them with a golden glow, Jaina heard a loud musical fanfare from the outwardly directed speakers mounted on the scaffolding and on launching platforms.
“It’s starting!” Jacen said, scooting closer to Tenel Ka.
“I look forward to the performance with great enthusiasm,” Tenel Ka said in a neutral voice. The barest hint of a smile quirked one corner of her mouth.
With silent, flapping wings, a swarm of thrantas burst out, streaked away from Cloud City, and circled in the clouds. The skirling music rose and fell in a hauntingly beautiful melody. The thrantas looped about, dancing a sky ballet in time to the notes. The tattoos and body paintings on the cloud riders were so bright, they dazzled like rainbows as the thrantas whirled through the air.
Two of the performers unfurled a brilliant fluttering ribbon, tossing it from one rider to another, hurling the fabric ever higher to weave a colorful pattern like a cat’s cradle in the sky. All the thrantas continued to fly in perfect formation, the cloud riders holding on to their corners of the long ribbon.
Then a second troupe of thrantas launched themselves from their docks on Cloud City, flitting ahead of and around the colorful ribbon structure in the sky. They swarmed through openings and loops in the fabric-mesh, flying so close that their wing tips almost, almost touched the fluttering banner. But Jaina saw no mistakes, no slipups.
Then, at an unspoken signal, the cloud riders exchanged positions, shifting the pattern of the woven ribbon, reshaping it like a bright laser-light design in the sky.
Jacen stood up, hooting, applauding, and yelling at the top of his lungs. The second squadron of cloud riders broke free and darted back toward Cloud City. Jaina watched in amazement as one of them stripped out of formation and buzzed past the hover-scaffolding where they all sat. A thin young rider waved a broad hand and grinned from the back of his thranta.
“That’s M’kim!” Jacen shouted, waving.
Directly in front of them, the barefooted rider did a backward somersault in the air and landed effortlessly on the flying creature’s back. The thranta streaked off to rejoin the rest of the performing group.
“It looks like they’re letting him be an official part of the troupe at last,” Jacen said. “He’s finished his training.”
Tenel Ka nodded, a contented look on her serious face. “Training must end eventually, and then the real work begins.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t always learn something new,” Zekk added.
Lando, still watching the sky rodeo, turned back to the young Jedi Knights. “Speaking of which, it’s about time I got you all back to Yavin 4.”
21
With the oppressive sounds and smells of the jungle moon around her once again, Anja did not know what she was going to do. She sat alone on a high stone ledge of the Jedi academy’s Great Temple. The chipped, weathered stone, covered with moss, felt cold and uncomfortable. But she didn’t care.
Anja stared out above the tangled forest to where the orange pastel ball of the gas giant planet Yavin dominated the sky. She felt trapped on this humid, overgrown moon—helpless. She hated to feel helpless. No one knew her secret, though she wasn’t sure how much it mattered now. She was at her wits’ end, torn between incompatible loyalties.
Yes, Anja had pretended to show surprise at the news that had so interested the young Jedi Knights, but in her heart she had greeted it only with a kind of stoic dread. As they had feared, Czethros had disappeared completely, draining all readily available credits from his accounts and shutting down his respectable warehouse and shipping business on Ord Mantell.
He had gone underground, vanished without a trace. New Republic troops had confiscated everything that remained in his stripped offices, while investigators searched for clues to his whereabouts… but Anja knew Czethros well enough. She was certain that the Black Sun lieutenant had left no loose ends, no evidence, no information through which he could be traced.
Czethros was gone. She had no way to contact him.
And her last precious supply of andris spice was almost gone!
What could she do when it ran out? She had no idea where she might obtain another supply. It wasn’t fair. She’d worked so hard, done all of the devious things Czethros had demanded of her. They’d had a partnership of a sort: he had requested small tasks of her, in return for which he had set her up with Han Solo and his children and given her the opportunity for her ultimate revenge.
But now, the moment the tide turned against him, Czethros had abandoned her. He had run, leaving her to fend for herself. Anja was certainly good enough at that. She’d taken care of herself all her life, since her father had died when she was an infant—shot by Han Solo.
Or had that truly happened? Anja was no longer certain. She had never wanted to believe that the great Gallandro, her father, might have been responsible for his own situation. She had wanted to find a scapegoat, someone to blame for his murder… and Han Solo had fit the bill perfectly. What better revenge could Anja take than to go after his children?
Czethros had been true to his word there, at least, but now she felt as if she’d been set adrift, abandoned….
Laughing, Jacen bounded out of the temple shadows and ran across the stone platform on the roof of the rebuilt Massassi temple. He skidded to a halt in surprise when he saw her sitting there alone, deep in thought.
“Hey, Anja!” Jacen said. “Zekk and Jaina and Lowie and Tenel Ka and I are going out into the jungles, do a little exploring. You want to come along? There’s plenty to see out there—the strangest plants and insects you’ve ever imagined. I’ll even show you a piranha beetle if you want. They look just like your tattoo.”
“No thanks,” she said automatically, without even thinking about her response.
With a beep and a twitter, Artoo-Detoo trundled out behind Jacen. The astromech droid flashed his sensor light, assessing the situation.
Jacen shrugged. “Okay, but remember, we want you to feel like you can participate in stuff that we’re doing. I know Uncle Luke doesn’t believe you have real Jedi potential, but that doesn’t matter. You can still learn. You can still improve yourself—your reactions, your abilities.”
“I know all that, Jacen,” she said snappishly. “I’ll make up my own mind, okay? No need to treat me like a baby.”
Jacen stepped back, startled. “Hey, I wasn’t treating you like a baby,” he said. “I was treating you like a friend.”
Then he turned and followed Artoo-Detoo back into the temple. The small droid twittered and gave a mournful whistle, as if scolding Anja. She just glared at the polished domed head as Artoo rolled back inside.
She stared out at the jungle again, her thoughts in turmoil.
Everything had been so clear until she’d gotten to know the Solo twins better. She hadn’t had any doubts in the beginning. Her resolve had been firm. Why was it so difficult now?
And did she really want Jacen and Jaina to be harmed in retaliation for something that had happened long ago to Gallandro, a man who—she had to face it—she’d never really met?
Czethros, her supposed mentor, might never show his face in open sunlight again. He would be too easily recognized. He was a hunted man now.
And that left her here, to continue the charade. Anja didn’t know what she could do in this place. She certainly didn’t want to be a Jedi! She reached down, picked up a pebble, and tossed it off the edge of the ziggurat toward the jungle. She watched as it fell into the underbrush below.