Star Wars - Thrawn Trilogy - Dark Force Rising 02 (43 page)

The official escort-or guards, or soldiers; Lela wasn't quite sure how to think of them-remained silent as they walked in arrowhead formation in front of the landspeeder. The rest of the crowd was alive with whispered conversation, most of it between the city dwellers and the villagers. What they were saying Leia didn't know; but wherever her eyes turned the Noghri fell silent and gazed back in obvious fascination.

The city was smaller than Leia had expected, particularly given the limited land area the Noghri had available to them. After only a few minutes, they arrived at the Grand Dukha.

From its name Leia had expected it to be simply a larger version of the dukha back in the village. It was certainly larger; but despite the similarity in design, there was a far different sense to this version. Its walls and roof were made of a silver-blue metal instead of wood, with no carvings of any sort on their surfaces. The supporting pillars were black-metal or worked stone, Leia couldn't tell which. A wide set of black-and-red-marbled steps led up to a gray flagstone entrance terrace outside the double doors. The whole thing seemed cold and remote, very different from the mental picture of the Noghri ethos that she'd built up over the past few days. Fleetingly, she wondered if the Grand Dukha had been built not by the Noghri, but by the Empire.

At the top of the steps stood a row of thirteen middle aged Noghri males, each wearing an elaborately tooled garment that looked like a cross between a vest and a shawl. Behind them, his arms and legs chained to a pair of upright posts in the middle of the terrace, was Khabarakh.

Leia gazed past the row of dynasts at him, a ripple of sympathetic ache running through her. The maitrakh had described the mechanics of a Noghri public humiliation to her; but it was only as she looked at him that she began to grasp the full depth of the shame involved in the ritual. Khabarakh's face was haggard and pale, and he sagged with fatigue against the chains holding his wrists and upper arms. But his head was upright, his dark eyes alert and watching.

The crowd parted to both sides as the landspeeder reached the dukha area, forming a passage for the vehicle to move through. The official escort went up the stairs, forming a line between the crowd and the row of dynasts. "Remember, we're not here to fight," Leia murmured to Chewbacca; and summoning every bit of regal demeanor she could muster, she stepped out of the landspeeder and walked up the stairs.

The last rustle of conversation in the crowd behind her vanished as she reached the top. "I greet you, dynasts of the Noghri people," she said in a loud voice. "I am Leia Organa Solo, daughter of your Lord Darth Vader. He who came to you in your distress, and brought you aid." She held out the back of her hand toward the Noghri in the center of the line.

He gazed at her for a moment without moving. Then, with obvious reluctance, he stepped forward and gingerly sniffed at her hand. He repeated the test twice before straightening up again. "The Lord Vader is dead," he said. "Our new lord the Grand Admiral has ordered us to bring you to him, Leia Organa Solo. You will come with us to await the preparation of transport."

From the bottom of the steps Chewbacca growled warningly. Leia quieted him with a gesture and shook her head. "I have not come here to surrender to your Grand Admiral," she told the dynast.

"You will do so nonetheless," he said. He signaled, and two of the guards left their line and moved toward Leia.

She stood her ground, again signaling Chewbacca to do the same. "Do you serve the Empire, then, or the people of Honoghr?"

"All Noghri of honor serve both," the dynast said.

"Indeed?" Leia said. "Does serving Honoghr now mean sending generation after generation of young men to die in the Empire's wars?"

"You are an alien," the dynast said contemptuously. "You know nothing about the honor of the Noghri." He nodded to the guards now standing at Leia's sides. "Take her into the dukha."

"Are you then so afraid of the words of a lone alien woman?" Leia asked as the Noghri took her arms in a firm grip. "Or is it that you fear your own power will be diminished by my coming?

"You will speak no words of discord and poison!" the dynast snarled.

Chewbacca rumbled again, and Leia could sense him preparing to leap up the stairs to her aid. "My words are not of discord," she said, raising her voice loud enough for the whole crowd to hear. "My words are of treachery."

There was a sudden stirring from the crowd. "You will be silent," the dynast insisted. "Or I will have you silenced."

"I would hear her speak," the maitrakh called from below.

"You will be silent as well!" the dynast barked as the crowd murmured approval of the maitrakh's demand. "You have no place or speech here, maitrakh of the clan Kihm'bar. I have not called a convocate of the Noghri people."

"Yet the convocate is here," the maitrakh countered. "The Lady Vader has come. We would hear her words."

"Then you will hear them in prison." The dynast gestured, and two more of the official guard left their line, heading purposefully toward the steps.

It was, Leia judged, the right moment. Glancing down at her belt, she reached out through the Force with all the power and control she could manage-

And her lightsaber leaped from her belt, breaking free from its quick-release and jumping up in front of her. Her eyes and mind found the switch, and with a snap-hiss the brilliant green-white blade flashed into existence, carving out a vertical line between her and the line of dynasts.

There was a sound like a hissing gasp from the crowd. The two Noghri who had been moving toward the maitrakh froze in midstride:and as the gasp vanished into utter silence, Leia knew that she'd finally gotten their complete attention. "I am not merely the daughter of the Lord Vader," she said, putting an edge of controlled anger into her voice. "I am the Mal'ary'ush: heir to his authority and his power. I have come through many dangers to reveal the treachery that has been done to the Noghri people."

She withdrew as much of her concentration as she could risk from the floating lightsaber to look slowly down the line of dynasts. "Will you hear me? Or will you instead choose death?"

For a long minute the silence remained unbroken. Leia listened to the thudding of her heart and the deep hum of the lightsaber, wondering how long she could hold the weapon steady in midair before losing control of it. And then, from halfway down the line to her left, one of the dynasts took a step forward. "I would hear the words of the Mal'ary'ush," he said.

The first dynast spat. "Do not add your own discord, Ir'khaim," he warned. "You see here only a chance to save the honor of the clan Kihm'bar.

"Perhaps I see a chance to save the honor of the Noghri people, Vor'corkh," Ir'khaim retorted. "I would hear the Mal'ary'ush speak. Do I stand alone?"

Silently, another dynast stepped forward to join him. Then another did so; and another, and another, until nine of the thirteen stood with Ir'khaim. Vor'corkh hissed between his teeth, but stepped back to his place in line. "The dynasts of Honoghr have chosen," he growled. "You may speak."

The two guards released her arms. Leia counted out two more seconds before reaching a hand up to take the lightsaber and close it down. "I will tell the story twice," she said, turning to the crowd as she returned the weapon to her belt. "Once as the Empire has told you; once as it truly is. You may then decide for yourselves whether or not the Noghri debt has been paid.

"You all know the history of how your world was devastated by the battle in space. How many of the Noghri were killed by the volcanoes and earthquakes and killer seas that followed, until a remnant arrived here to this place. How the Lord Darth Vader came to you, and offered you aid. How after the falling of the strange-smelling rains all plants except the kholm-grass withered and died. How the Empire told you the ground had been poisoned with chemicals from the destroyed ship, and offered machines to clean the soil for you. And you know all too well the price they demanded for those machines."

"Yet the ground is indeed poisoned," one of the dynasts told her. "I and many others have tried through the years to grow food in places where the machines have not been. But the seed was wasted, for nothing would grow."

"Yes," Leia nodded. "But it was not the soil that was poisoned. Or rather, not the soil directly."

She signaled to Chewbacca. Reaching back into the landspeeder, he picked up the analyzer unit and one of the kholm-grass plants and brought them up the steps to her. "I will now tell you the story that is true," Leia said as the Wookiee went back down the steps. "After the Lord Vader left in his ship, other ships came. They flew far and wide over your world. To any who asked they probably said they were surveying the land, perhaps searching for other survivors or other habitable places. But that was all a lie. Their true purpose was to seed your world with a new type of plant." She held up the kholm-grass. "This plant."

"Your truth is dreams," the dynast Vor'corkh spat. "Kholm-grass has grown on Honoghr since the beginning of knowledge."

"I didn't say this was kholm-grass," Leia countered. "It looks like the kholm-grass you remember, and even smells very much like it. But not exactly. It is, in fact, a subtle creation of the Empire:sent by the Emperor to poison your world."

The silence of the crowd broke into a buzz of stunned conversation. Leia gave them time, letting her gaze drift around the area as she waited. There must be close to a thousand Noghri pressed around the Grand Dukha, she estimated, and more were still coming into the area. The word about her must still be spreading, she decided, and glanced around to see where they were coming from.

And as she looked off to her left a slight glint of metal caught her eye. Well back from the Grand Dukha, half hidden in the long early-morning shadows beside another building, was the boxy shape of a decon droid.

Leia stared at it, a shiver of sudden horror running through her. A decon droid with unusual curiosity-Threepio had mentioned that, but she'd been too preoccupied at the time to pay any attention to his concerns. But for a decon droid to be in Nystao, fifty kilometers or more from its designated work area, was far more than just over developed curiosity. It had to be-

She squatted down, mentally berating herself for her carelessness. Of course the Grand Admiral wouldn't have just flitted away on the spur of the moment. Not without leaving someone or something to keep an eye on things. "Chewie-over there to your right," she hissed. "Looks like a decon droid, but I think it's an espionage droid."

The Wookiee growled something vicious and started pushing his way through the crowd. But even as the Noghri made way for him, Leia knew he would never make it. Espionage droids weren't brilliant, but they were smart enough to know not to hang around after their cover had been blown. Long before Chewbacca could get over there it would be off and running. If it had a transmitter-and if there were any Imperial ships within range-

"People of Honoghr!" she shouted over the conversation. "I will prove to you right now the truth of what I say. One of the Empiror's decon droids is there." She pointed to it. "Bring it to me.

The crowd turned to look, and Leia could sense their uncertainty. But before anyone could move, the droid abruptly vanished around the corner of the building it had been skulking beside. A second later Leia caught a glimpse of it between two other buildings, scuttling away for all it was worth.

It was, tactically, the worst decision the droid could have made. Running away was as good as admitting guilt, particularly in front of a people who had grown up with the things and knew exactly what the normal behavioral range of a decon droid was. The crowd roared, and from the rear perhaps fifty of the older adolescents took off after it.

And as they did so, one of the guards on the terrace beside Leia cupped his hand around his mouth and sent a piercing half-scream into the air.

Leia jerked away, ears ringing with the sound. The guard screamed again, and this time there was an answer from somewhere in the near distance. The guard switched to a warble that sounded like a complicated medley of birdcalls; a short reply, and both fell silent. "He calls others to the hunt," the maitrakh told Leia.

Leia nodded, squeezing her hands into fists as she watched the pursuers disappear around a corner after the droid. If the droid had a transmitter it would right now be frantically dumping its data :

And then, suddenly, the pursuers were back in sight, accompanied by a half dozen adult Noghri males. Held aloft like the prize from a hunt, still wiggling uselessly in their grip, was the droid.

Leia took a deep breath. "Bring it here to me," she said as the party approached. They did so, six of the adolescents lugging it up the stairs and laying it on its back on the terrace. Leia ignited her lightsaber, her eyes searching the droid as she did so for signs of a concealed antenna port. She couldn't see one, but that by itself didn't prove anything. Steeling herself for the worst, she sliced a vertical cut through the droid's outer shell. Two more crosswise cuts, and its internal workings were laid out for all to see.

Chewbacca was already kneeling beside the droid as Leia shut down her lightsaber, his huge fingers probing delicately among the maze of tubes and cables and fibers. Near the top of the cavity was a small gray box. He threw a significant look at Leia and pulled it free from its connections.

Leia swallowed as he laid it on the ground beside him. She recognized it, all right, from long and sometimes bitter experience: the motivator recorder unit from an Imperial probe droid. But the antenna connector jack was empty. Luck, or the Force, was still with them.

Chewbacca was poking around the lower part of the cavity now. Leia watched as he pulled several cylinders out of the tangle, examined their markings, and returned them to their places. The crowd was starting to murmur again when, with a satisfied murmur of his own, he pulled out a large cylinder and slender needle from near the intake hopper.