Star Wars: The New Rebellion (19 page)

Cole wondered if Skywalker could understand everything the creature said. Probably. He had the Force to help him.

“Okay, okay,” Cole said. “Let me check it out.”

He balanced precariously on the platform beside the X-wing—there was barely enough room for him and the R2 unit—and peered behind the panel.

A green-and-blue Imperial insignia stared back at him.

He whistled, and glanced at the droid. It looked at him wisely. No wonder Skywalker valued this little being.

He pried some wires and chips away from the insignia, and went cold. The insignia was part of the new computer system, buried within the internal workings, unseen except by those who assembled the system.

Cole couldn’t tell if the device was unique to Skywalker’s X-wing or not. It would take some research to find out. Research he would have to do.

Because he recognized the device in the computer system. He had seen it in some of the remains on Tatooine, had watched one of his friends die by switching it on.

The Imperial symbol hid a detonating device of unique capability. The device remained inoperative until a certain command code had been spoken or entered into the attached system. Then, without skipping a beat, the energy polarity in the system would reverse, overload, and the detonator would go off, creating the largest possible explosion with the equipment at hand.

Cole’s hands were shaking. Skywalker had been right not to take this X-wing. If he had, he would have died.

“S
kin … you will …”

Luke thought he heard Yoda’s voice. He listened very carefully, but the words kept fading in and out.

“… lucky … are …”

Just as his consciousness faded in and out. He was warm for the first time in what seemed like forever, but he couldn’t feel anything against his skin. It was like floating in zero G, only without the movement. He was stationary and touching nothing. How very, very strange. He had never been without the sense of touch before.

“… know you … I …”

His eyelids were closed, but the texture of the darkness had changed. Instead of seeing nothing but blackness, he now saw that light brown color he would see when he closed his eyes in Yavin 4’s bright sunlight.

“… feeling …”

Smells, too, were fading in and out. He thought he caught the scent of the meat stew his aunt Beru used to make when ships brought meat into Anchorhead. The meat wasn’t all that fresh, so she stewed it for two days and dished it out as if it were as precious as the moisture they farmed.

“… in time …”

The voice had the same qualities as Yoda’s, but wasn’t his. The same deep, androgynous quality existed, but the twisted syntax that marked Yoda was missing here. The speaker knew the language well. Luke’s ears simply weren’t working. They kept skipping words like a malfunctioning droid.

He concentrated, reached for the Force, found it, and heightened his senses.

Bubbles.

Sizzling.

Pink goo against his skin.

He forced his eyes open, his heart racing.

A woman in her late seventies looked down at him, her wrinkled features breaking into a smile. She had been beautiful once; still was, if truth be told. Her hair was silver and her eyes were the brightest blue he had seen since—

Since—

The memory failed him.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll be all right.”

Actually he heard her say “don’t,” “be,” and “right” and parsed out the rest by reading her lips.

“Not many people survive the mistmakers, and I’ve never seen anyone live who was as covered in their slime as you were. It was touch and go for a while there.” Her smile softened. “You’re lucky I have a bacta tank.”

He came fully awake then. The bacta tank was across the room, its water still holding traces of the pink slime. That stuff had to be really potent for it to last in a bacta tank.

The room had other medical equipment from several different cultures. Through an open door, he saw a regular living area, complete with kitchen. Another door led into still another room that he couldn’t see.

All of this he noticed without turning his head. He
still could feel nothing around him. With an incredible effort, he twisted his neck slightly and saw that he floated several feet above the bed. Air cushions. He had seen them in Imperial medical centers, but had never really been on one. They were reserved for burn patients who had lost most of their skin.

Luke shuddered. He tried to raise his hand to see if he had any skin left, but the woman shook her head.

“The more you try, the longer it will take you to recover. You can’t feel anything because mistmakers numb their victims before eating them. The numbness will wear off soon. An hour, maybe less. Then we can eat. I’ve been afraid to feed you like this. Didn’t know if you’d drown in food or not.”

It was an odd way to listen, hearing half the words and deciphering the rest.

“I know you have questions. It’s better if you don’t say anything.” The woman grabbed a chair, pumped its base so that the chair rose to Luke’s height, and then she climbed in. “I’ll answer what I can.”

He blinked, conveying, he hoped, his gratitude.

“You’re lucky I heard you land. I was hoping—” She caught herself, shook her head as if she were self-censoring, then said, “Never mind what I was hoping. I came to investigate and saw the mistmakers floating around the ship. I was about to turn around when that mistmaker exploded.”

Her eyes widened with the memory. Luke heard the sound, reverberating in his head, the amazing
pop!
that had saved his life.

“Nice work, that,” she said. “You’ll have to tell me how you did it. Those things are even resistant to blasterfire.”

His hearing was slowly coming back. He could make out more words. He also thought he could feel the air currents blowing on his back.

“I ducked. Slime went everywhere. Good thing I was far away, or I might have gotten covered. When I stood again, I saw you.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, or tried to. His lips didn’t work.

“Shush,” she said. “I’d’ve left you there if I weren’t already wearing my protective gear. Would’ve been nothing I could’ve done. By the time I’d’ve gotten my gear and come back, you’d’ve been dead. Luck. That’s all it was.”

And she was trying very hard not to take any credit. He would ask her about that later.

“Lessee. What else would you want to know?” She frowned and tugged at a silver ring on her right hand. “You’ve been here the better part of a day, and your X-wing is fine. Some small stains on the hull where the slime hit it. Nothing more.”

He cleared his throat. Feeling definitely was coming back. He felt as well as heard the sound.

She shrugged. “And me, I suppose. You’ll want to know about me.” She waved her left hand at the room. “Stole most of this stuff when the Imperials left. I should’ve left a long time ago myself, but—” Her pause was too long. That self-editing thing again. “—it’s home. No matter how terrible, there’s no place like home, right?”

He didn’t know. He was glad he didn’t have to answer that. Tatooine was home, but he would never live there again. Although he wasn’t certain if his answer would have been the same if Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen had lived.

“All this stuff has come in handy,” she said. “I can take care of myself, for the most part. Never had a run-in with the mistmakers like yours, though. Never seen anyone else do that and survive.”

The air currents were warm. That was what he had
felt as he had first woken up. Because he wasn’t wearing anything else. Not pants, not a blanket, nothing. He tried to cover himself, but his hands just flopped beside him.

She laughed. “Don’t worry, son. I’ve seen it all and more. I had to uncover you to get you in the tank. And I thought it might be better if we waited for modesty until we were sure you were healed.”

His mouth was dry. Parched, as if he had been in the desert instead of in the mist. He licked his lips. “Water?” he whispered.

This time the word came out. And, he realized, he had feeling in his mouth, of all places.

“Nope.” She sounded positively cheerful as she denied him sustenance. “Worst thing you could have until all the feeling comes back.”

He licked his lips to ask again, and she waved a hand.

“Trust me on this,” she said. “It interacts with the poison the mistmaker put in your system. You don’t want any.”

Although he did. Desperately, now that he had feeling back in his mouth. He strained his mind, reached through the Force again. Strengthened himself as much as he could.

Pain shot through his toes, up his legs, and into his hips. Feeling, he reminded himself. He was feeling things.

And his lips could move.

“I came here—” he said slowly.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “And it wasn’t the brightest thing you’ve done, now is it? When you get your feeling back, you crawl into your X-wing and fly away home. Back to your family. You’ll be better off.”

“I’m looking for someone.” His voice wheezed out of him, like an old man’s voice.

“Well, you found someone.” She lowered the chair, got off it, and turned up the knobs on the bacta tank.
“Sometimes,” she said, as if she were speaking so that he couldn’t, “I miss droids. But only sometimes. Won’t have them anywhere near me now.”

She had said that to provoke him, because in this galaxy, avoiding droids was not only odd, it was difficult. You had to live on a planet as far away as Msst even to attempt it.

“I’m looking for a man who was here when the Empire was.”

The pink slime had faded from the tank. She shut off some of the other equipment, then walked into the main room as if he hadn’t spoken at all.

Luke sighed and concentrated. Feeling in his back, in his legs, in his face. He worked on his chest and his arms. If he closed his eyes, he could make his hands tingle as if he had slept on them wrong. The tingle spread along his skin into his shoulders.

Slowly, cautiously, he raised his right arm. Except for slime trails that shimmered under the glow panels, his skin looked normal. He knew better than to sit up on an air cushion. He would have to float off or find the switch.

The switch was below him. Using the Force, he turned the knob so that the air cushion died gradually. He landed on the regular cushion and suppressed a scream as pain, sharp as needles, shimmered through his back.

He could stand it. He had to stand it.

He sat up. The pain shifted with the pressure points. He eased his legs off the bed and saw his clothes, stacked neatly in a pile on a nearby chair.

His lightsaber was on top of them.

He dressed. Even the light touch of fabric against his skin caused him agony. But he could endure it. She had said it would only be temporary.

Then he hobbled into the main room.

She was seated on a pile of cushions, her back to the
door. A cup of liquid steamed beside her. The room blazed with light, but none of it was natural. Heavy black sheets blocked the windows, almost as if she didn’t want to see outside.

“I can walk,” Luke said, his voice breaking like a teenager’s. “Does that mean I can drink?”

He had hoped for a laugh. Instead she whirled, her face filled with shock.

“You shouldn’t be up,” she said.

He managed a small smile. “The pain is an amazing experience, but I assume it will fade soon. I’m not making anything worse, am I?”

She hesitated a moment, then shook her head. Then she sighed and got up. “Sit, Luke Skywalker. Let me make you a meal.”

He started at her knowledge of his name. A thousand rationalizations came to mind—she might have probed his X-wing; she might have recognized him from long-ago news holos—but he suspected none of those reasons was right.

“You know why I’m here.”

She nodded, her expression miserable. “My son told me you’d come.”

This time Luke did sit down, ignoring the pain that shot from his thighs to his chest. She was Brakiss’s mother.

And she had saved Luke’s life.

“He wasn’t a bad boy once, Luke Skywalker. Really he wasn’t. He was this bright, wonderful baby. He fairly glowed with life.” She stepped into the Kitchen, her hands busy as she spoke. It was as if talking about her son made her restless. “Then they came.”

“The Empire.”

She nodded. “They came into my home, looked at my boy, and they could use him. Him. A baby. And they took him from me.”

Luke stood, about to go comfort her, when she started moving again.

“They let him come back for visits. But he never smiled after that. Not really. Not the kind that reached his eyes.” She turned on the hydroprocessor. It made a quiet whirring sound. “They took something from him.” She turned, leaned on the counter, and looked at Luke. “You tried to give it back to him, didn’t you? At that academy. You tried to bring my baby back.”

Luke was chilled. The Empire had taken Brakiss away as a baby, knowing that he was Force-sensitive. No wonder Brakiss couldn’t face himself. The loss of self, of goodness, of warmth, was deeper than Luke could ever have guessed.

“I tried,” Luke said. “I failed.”

“He came here after that, but he didn’t stay.” The wrinkles on her face seemed to have grown deeper. “He told them at the Imperial site all that you did, and it ate at him. I’d never seen him have a conscience before. It angered him.”