Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime (33 page)

But the goo spread to pace her and caught her by the feet, rushing to encompass her ankles and hold her fast. Yomin Carr howled in apparent victory.

Mara’s lightsaber swished down, cutting through the goo easily, separating it into two parts, but each of those parts continued to move, grabbing stubbornly.

“You’ll not defeat it,” Yomin Carr promised, and indeed,
each passing moment and each passing movement brought both the jellies up higher on her legs, trapping her even more.

R2-D2 wheeled out into the hall, aware of what was happening with Mara and knowing well that there was nothing he could do to help her directly.

But Luke could, the droid understood, and so he wheeled down the corridor, squealing and clicking. A security holocam mounted high on the wall gave him an idea, and he rushed to the wall, knocking clear the security console and whirring through the codes, tapping into cam after cam until he spotted Luke, scrolling through some screens on a computer in a private room.

Accessing a complete diagram of the station, R2-D2 soon isolated the room, and off he went, still screeching and beeping.

The goo grabbed at Mara, but despair surely did not. She kept her head and her cool, and moved her lightsaber through a wild blur of motion, slashing, cutting, the tip even brushing against her pants leg as she sliced the gel from her body. On and on she went, seemingly wild but actually precise—so much so that she soon had the goo chopped up into little pieces—and she still kept the presence of mind to arch her blade back out in front to intercept yet another thud bug zooming for her.

The warrior came on, staff sweeping down, and Mara ducked at the last moment, came up tall, and sent her lightsaber up high with a rolling motion that kept the staff out wide.

Yomin Carr dropped to one knee and brought his staff horizontally above him, hands out wide, to intercept.

Mara fully expected that her powerful lightsaber would shear through the staff and end the fight abruptly, but amazingly, the tattooed warrior’s weapon caught the lightsaber, accepting the brunt of the hit without apparent damage, and
Yomin Carr twisted his hands to the side as he came up fast, throwing Mara’s blade off aim.

She should have stepped back to regroup, but the jelly, the many tiny jellies, still held one of her feet firmly, and she could only twist back so far, and not far enough for her to bring her lightsaber in to parry.

Yomin Carr stabbed with the snake-head end of his weapon, and to Mara’s horror, that head opened wide its maw, fangs dripping venom. She slapped her hand inside the angle of the blow, against the shaft just below the head, and was quick enough to retract it as the snake head turned in to bite at it.

The lightsaber’s glowing blade swooped in an up-turning circular parry between the two, forcing Yomin Carr back, and with that moment of pause, Mara slashed it down beside her foot again, cutting in half the last piece of jelly large enough to hold her. Then she leapt back, though not far—it was as if she had wads of gum stuck to the bottoms of her feet.

“You are worthy,” Yomin Carr congratulated, and started to nod and used the ruse to swing about quickly, his staff elongating and becoming supple suddenly, more a whip than a bludgeoning weapon.

Mara tried to leap back, but the jelly, still grabbing at her, slowed her down. She pivoted to the side, bringing her weapon out to intercept.

The whip snapped around the lightsaber, a strike so perfectly aimed that the head still came in across the woman’s arm, fangs cutting deep scratches.

Yomin Carr howled in victory, but Mara took the burning hit, focused her energies suddenly on that part of her body, and forced a blood rush out of the wound, washing away the poison before it could begin to take hold. She accepted then that this opponent possessed weapons that she could not anticipate, and so she went on the offensive immediately, charging ahead and launching a series of thrusts and slices that had
Yomin Carr backing, and all the while, he tried to retract his weapon to staff form, to give him something with which to parry.

But his retreat was short-lived. He flicked one hand in a reverse movement, sending the remaining length of whip, ending in that wicked snake head, back out at her.

She dropped her left knee down and back, pivoting away from the warrior, and brought her lightsaber in a rolling motion down and then stabbing back over her dipping left shoulder, a perfect angle to intercept the rushing snake head, the tip of her blade diving into its opening mouth. She came up in a rush, arm pumping and slashing, tearing the snake head apart, and then she bore on, right up to the large warrior.

His backhand got inside her movement, though, the other, hard end of his weapon smacking her across the shoulder and knocking her to the side. She rolled with it, accepting the blow, and spun down low, swiping across at his knees.

He leapt above the cut, and then again as Mara came across with a backhand, and then brought his weapon, now fully a staff again, down at her seemingly exposed head. Mara turned and brought her elbows flying up, her lightsaber coming across horizontally to intercept and hold the weapon at bay.

Yomin Carr did not relent, pushing down with all his strength—frightening strength to Mara for, indeed, she, even with all of her inner power and determination, could not hold him up. She reached into the Force then, trying another tactic on the man, and then she nearly buckled, for there was … nothing.

That was the only way she could describe it. Nothing. It was as if the Force was not a part of this warrior, as if he refused to acknowledge its existence in such a profound manner that it did not exist for him.

Mara had to rely strictly on her fighting skills, pitting her speed and precision against this opponent’s brute force. With a sudden, desperate twist, rolling her left hand over her right,
she snapped the descending staff harmlessly down to the side and in front of her, and then she started up, thinking to come in at the warrior up high.

But she had jelly on one knee, goo that halted her progress abruptly and nearly sent her sprawling to the floor. That proved fortunate for Mara, though, for Yomin Carr reacted more quickly than she believed possible, straightening and slashing his staff across viciously, a blow that would have taken her across the head or neck if she had continued upward.

Quick to improvise, she stabbed the warrior, who was as surprised as she by the fact that she was still down low, in the knee. Then, as he howled in pain, she slashed her lightsaber across, taking him out at the knees and dropping him hard on his back. He started to roll toward her, bringing his staff across for her head, but she had the tip of her weapon out in time, pointed at his breast, and his own momentum drove him into it, the lightsaber finding a crease in that magnificent plated armor where the blaster had not, puncturing the coat and Yomin Carr’s chest, poking into his heart.

He froze in place, staring hard at Mara. “You are worthy,” he said once more, and then he just stared at her, and it seemed again as if he somehow knew her. “Jedi,” he whispered.

That flicker of recognition went away, all light in Yomin Carr’s eyes faded, and he lay very still.

The door burst open and Luke came rushing in, a squawking R2-D2 hot on his heels.

It all hit Mara then, the exertion, the wounds, and something about the very nature of this poisoned planet that tugged at her insides, as if this disease within her fed off the perversion that was Belkadan. “Get me out of here,” she whispered to Luke, trying to rise.

She needed his help, especially in cutting away the last of the stubborn jelly.

“Finish the download,” he instructed R2-D2 as he helped
Mara into a chair. “Do you know who that was?” he asked her, and he moved to the dead warrior, inspecting the tattoos, the disfiguring wounds, the strange plated armor and weapon.

“His name is Yomin Carr.” Mara shook her head. “I think he knew me,” she said, and Luke gave her a curious stare, one she could not in any way answer.

Luke went back to his inspection. “Artoo, bring up images of all the scientists,” he instructed. “Let’s see if this was one of them.”

The droid whistled and did as instructed, but none of the records showing those stationed on Belkadan bore any resemblance to this barbaric warrior.

Luke looked back to the body and shook his head. “There must have been another species living on this planet,” he reasoned. “Or they invaded.”

The droid was finished soon after and the three left the control room, with Luke carrying the heavy warrior over his shoulder, and Mara, unsteady on her feet, carrying his staff and using it for support They got to the
Jade Sabre
without incident, and Luke settled the exhausted Mara into place.

“Will you two be all right for a few minutes?” he asked.

Mara looked at him, surprised, but then nodded.

“We’ve got to find out,” Luke explained.

“He had weapons we don’t know of,” Mara told him. “Living missiles, and the stubborn jelly. And that staff,” she said, indicating the snakelike creature. “There may be other enemies.”

Luke nodded and started away.

“And, Luke,” she finished, “I could not use the Force to gain any insights on him. It might be some kind of training against Jedi tactics. If he has allies similarly trained, they’ll be upon you before you expect it if you try to sense them.”

Luke paused, considering the information. “Get the ship into the air,” he decided. “Run a guard for me over the compound
and be ready to blast open holes in the walls if I call to you.”

“Will the communicators even work?” Mara asked.

“Let’s see,” Luke said, and he exited the
Jade Sabre
. Once outside, he called through his comlink, and though the signal was weak and full of static, Mara and R2-D2 could indeed hear him.

Luke went back into the station cautiously, while R2-D2, with help from the exhausted Mara, put the
Jade Sabre
into a sentry pattern just above the compound.

Luke returned a short time later, having completed his search, bearing a sack bulging as if it had two Taikawaka kicking balls inside.

Mara looked at him curiously. “I found them in room B7,” Luke explained, looking to R2-D2, who ran a quick check on his downloaded schematics and brought the name
Yomin Carr
up across the viewscreen.

Luke reached into the bag and pulled out a brown leathery item that looked like a ridged ball.

“A helmet?” Mara asked.

Luke shrugged. “I found just these two, on a shelf in the closet,” he explained, and then he looked at his wife hard. “I think they’re alive.”

Mara, having witnessed a living staff and apparently living jelly, was not overly surprised. “Put them in a safe place,” she replied. “They’re probably bombs.”

Luke started to chuckle, but realized almost immediately that she wasn’t kidding. He took the bag and its contents to a strong locker at the back of the
Jade Sabre
’s bridge and closed it up tight.

The departure from Belkadan was no easier or smoother than the entry, and it quickly became apparent to Luke that his wife was not faring well. Even after they had cleared the clouds and broken out of Belkadan’s turbulent atmosphere, Mara’s face remained blanched, and her head lolled about weakly.

“Did he hurt you?” Luke asked.

“No.”

Luke stared at her, his concern clear on his face.

“It was just being there,” Mara tried to explain. “I started feeling worse as soon as we neared Belkadan. Down there …” She paused and shook her head helplessly. “It was as if this disease within me was somehow bolstered by the plague affecting the planet.”

“And the beetles?” Luke prompted, nodding toward the two specimen jars Mara had put on a shelf at the side of the control console.

His wife picked up the one containing the living beetle, bringing it right before her eyes.

“You believe they somehow caused the damage to Belkadan,” Luke remarked.

Mara looked at him, having no practical response, no real evidence.

It was just a feeling, a slight sensation that these creatures were simply too foreign, and it was a feeling that Luke surely shared.

But could it all—Belkadan, the beetles, the barbaric warrior, Mara’s illness—be somehow connected? And what about Mara’s insistence that this warrior was somehow devoid of, or rather, unconnected to, the Force? Hadn’t she just had a similar experience with another, a troublemaker in a civil war?

“The man I fought—Yomin Carr,” she began, again shaking her head, at a loss. “I don’t know if it’s me, if this illness has caused some holes in my sensitivity to the Force, or if …”

“Just like you said about the Rhommamoolian rebel, Nom Anor,” Luke prompted, and Mara nodded.

“I couldn’t sense a thing, with either of them.”

“But didn’t you say that Jaina and Leia shared your perceptions of Nom Anor?”

“Or maybe they were just reading my own failings,” Mara
reasoned. “Maybe I was projecting something, some kind of a Force shield over the Rhommamoolian even as I was trying to read him.”

Luke let it go at that, but he didn’t believe the explanation at all, and neither, he could tell, did Mara. Something very strange was going on here, something bigger than Belkadan or than the Rhommamoolian rebel, something that might even have implications for Mara’s illness.

He could feel it.

They turned as one, hearing a voice behind them. At first, they thought it was R2-D2, but the droid was in place, still running his analysis on the multitude of downloaded files.

The voice came again, from the closed locker, and while the first part of the speech was too garbled to decipher, both Luke and Mara thought they heard the name
Carr
clearly.

Luke ran to the locker and pulled it open, then brought forth the bag and dumped it onto the floor.

And then he jumped, and Mara cried out in surprise and horror at the disembodied head that seemed to have replaced one of the leathery balls.

“Torug bouke
, Yomin Carr,” the head said. Neither Luke nor Mara recognized the language. “
Dowin tu gu.”