The Joiner King (14 page)

“
My
error?” Han replied. “I was flying straight and level.”

“Quite so, but the others are all following sine wave trajectories,” C-3PO said. “And may I point out that any system functions optimally only when all elements use the same equations?”

A two-seater rocket plane dropped in ahead of the
Falcon
and bobbed along pouring fumes into their faces, then swerved aside to reveal the bulbous shape of a balloon-bike coming at them head-on. Han rolled into an inverted dive and spiraled past beneath it.

“Now you tell me,” Han said.

“Watch it back there,” Leia warned the
Shadow.
“And have Artoo plot a sine wave trajectory for us—a
safe
one.”

“We’ll send it up in a moment,” Mara promised.

The moment went by, then two, then several. Finally, when her nerves could stand no more close calls—and no more of Han’s grouching—Leia commed back to the
Shadow.

“Uh, we didn’t receive that trajectory.”

“We’re trying,” Luke said. “Artoo’s sort of locked up.”

“Locked up?” Han asked. “An
astromech
?”

“He’s been acting strange lately,” Luke explained. “All we got before he went blank was
not safe, not safe, not safe
.”

“Oh, dear!” C-3PO exclaimed. “It sounds as though he’s trying to resolve an unknowable variable. We’re doomed!”

“Yeah?” Han waved at the traffic outside the forward viewport. “Then how come none of
them
are crashing?”

C-3PO was silent for a moment, then said, “I wouldn’t know, Captain Solo. Their processors certainly aren’t any better than Artoo’s.”

“They don’t
need
processors.” Leia was thinking of Luke’s description of the cantina where Saba met Tarfang, of how the mysterious Joiners had arrived to lead away any patron with
whom he struck up a conversation. “It was pretty clear that the Lizil can communicate telepathically. Maybe the Yoggoy can, too.”

“Probably,” Mara agreed. “And since
we
don’t have any Yoggoy navigators aboard—”

“We’re flying blind!” Han finished. “Better bring the shields to maximum, Leia. We’re going to get some bug spatter.”

“Perhapz not,” Saba commed from the
Shadow.
“Leia, have you been doing your reaction drill?”

Leia felt a stab of guilt. “When there’s been time.”

Saba was kind enough not to remind her that she was supposed to
make
time for her training. That was the obligation of a Jedi Knight—though Leia, in all honesty, had a hard time thinking of herself as anything other than an eternal apprentice. Perhaps that was why she found it so hard to find training time.

“Do the drill now,” Saba said. “But instead of stingerz, imagine the remote is shooting vesselz at you.”

Leia started a breathing exercise, then closed her eyes and opened herself to the Force. She immediately felt something swooping down on them from above.

“Down and starboard,” she said.

The
Falcon
continued on the same course.

“Han—”

“Are you crazy?” he interrupted. “With your eyes open, maybe. But not …”

The
Falcon
dropped five meters, and Leia opened her eyes to see the swollen underbelly of a big Gallofree transport gliding over them.

“
Now
you will … listen … to your nestie!” Saba was sissing hysterically. “Mara is
flying
with her eyes closed.”

“Who isn’t?” Han gave Leia a quick nod. “Whatever you say, dear.”

Leia closed her eyes again and began to call directions. At first Han emitted an alarming string of oaths and gasps, but gradually the sensations grew more concrete—and Han’s willingness to follow the blind more ready. Within the hour, they were bobbing and-dodging along more or less steadily behind the
XR808g
.

Finally, Han said, “Looks like he’s going to ground.”

Leia opened her eyes to see the tracking blip drifting down toward the middle of the display, its color deepening to red as the
XR808g
lost altitude. She looked out the canopy and found the distinctive wafer of a YT light freighter in the distance ahead, descending into the hazy labyrinth of insect pinnacles. Traffic remained heavy above the spires, but there were only a handful of drifting balloon-bikes and slow-moving airspeeders among the towers themselves.

“We’ll take point,” Leia commed. “Why don’t you fly top cover?”

“It’s a plan,” Luke answered.

As the
Falcon
descended, Leia saw that the mottled colors decorating the pinnacles had been created by pressing colored pebbles into the exterior walls. The effect was remarkably calming. If she watched them out of the corner of her eye, or allowed her gaze to go unfocused, the bright blotches of color reminded her of a meadow in full bloom—and, she realized, of the elaborate mosaics inside the spires depicted in
Killik Twilight.

“Could it be?” she gasped.

“Could be anything,” Han answered. “So let’s be ready. Send Cakhmaim and Meewalh to the cannon turrets, and tell Beady to go to ready standby.”

They followed the
XR808g
down to within a hundred meters of ground level, where the balloon-bikes and airspeeders gave way to rivers of racing landspeeders, speeder bikes, and dangerous-looking rocket carts steered exclusively by Yoggoy pilots. Pedestrians were forced to scurry along the tower bases, hanging on the walls sideways if they were insects or keeping themselves tightly pressed against the foundations if they were bipeds.

Juun began to fly erratically, making last-second turns and doubling back on his own trail. If not for the tracking blip, Leia would have lost him a dozen times in half an hour. Finally, they swung onto a large curving boulevard and began to circle a massive complex of fused towers sheathed in an eye-pulling mosaic done in every imaginable shade of red. The
XR808g
eased steadily toward the interior lanes, then abruptly dropped
to ground level and disappeared into the dark mouth of a huge, barrel-vaulted gateway.

“That kreetle!” Han said. “I should’ve blasted him when I had the chance.”

Leia immersed herself in the Force, then reported, “It looks more dangerous than it feels.”

“You sure?” Han gave her a sidelong look. “No offense, but I
know
how much time you have to practice that Jedi stuff.”

“Would it make any difference if I wasn’t sure?”

Han gave her that crooked grin of his. “What do you think?”

He eased the yoke forward and swung the
Falcon
into the murky gateway. Leia activated the forward maneuvering lights, illuminating the interior of a huge, winding passage covered in a wavy pink-and-yellow mosaic. The tunnel was longer than Leia had expected, and each time the ship rounded a new bend, they sent a swarm of insects scurrying for the vault edges.

After a couple of minutes, they emerged in a small, flower-shaped plaza enclosed by a dozen fused towers. The mosaics were bright and disorienting, with solid bands of color gradually paling from deep amber at ground level to pure white at the pinnacletops. At the far side of the area, the
XR808g
sat on its landing struts, its boarding ramp already dropping into position.

Han brought the
Falcon
to within twenty meters and set her down with the missile launchers facing the
XR808g.
“Cakhmaim, Meewalh, be ready with those cannons,” he ordered over the intercom. “Ready—”

“Prepared to open fire, Captain,” the droid reported.

“Not
yet
,” Leia said, unbuckling her crash webbing. “Only if they shoot first.”

“Survival rates decrease thirty-two percent for combatants firing in reaction,” BD-8 objected.

“We’re not shooting first.” Han strapped on his BlasTech holster. “Just stand ready to look tough.”

“Look tough?” BD-8 inquired.

“Intimidation mode one,” C-3PO clarified. He turned to Han. “You really should use the standardized terms with the BD series. Their tactical overlays leave little processing power for semantic analysis.”

Han rolled his eyes. “Yeah, maybe I’ll read the manual someday.”

He led the way off the flight deck, and they descended the boarding ramp to find Juun scurrying toward them in a torn tunic.

“Han! Princess Leia!” he called cheerfully. “I was afraid we’d lost you!”

“Sure you were,” Han replied coldly. He stopped a few steps from the end of the ramp and rested a hand on his holstered blaster. “Your transponder just happened to go on the blink?”

“Of course not!” Juun said. “Our guide disabled it. After the last jump, he found the subspace transceiver.”

BD-8 came up behind Leia and glared over her shoulder, clicking and whirring loudly. Juun stopped three meters away and gawked up at the battle droid. Leia tried to get a read on the his truthfulness, but she felt only alarm and confusion.

Juun raised his hands. “Please! It wasn’t my fault!”

Leia glimpsed movement on the tower walls behind him, then saw several tiers of insect soldiers stepping into view. They looked much like Lizil workers, except they were the size of a Wookiee, with meter-long mandibles and scarlet carapaces covering their backs. The undersides of their thoraxes were bright gold, and their eyes were a deep, haunting purple. In their four hands, they each carried a crude electrobolt assault rifle and a short, thick-shafted trident. It took an instant to realize they were standing on small terraces instead of midair, for human eyes found it difficult to interpret the subtle interplay of hue and shadow that defined each belt of the wall mosaic.

“That does it!” Han said, reaching for his holster. “I’m gonna blast you myself.”

The edges of Juun’s cheek folds turned blue. “What for?”

“What for?” Han waved his blaster at the surrounding walls. “For leading us into a trap!”

Juun’s eyes went wide. “I did?”

Leia reached out to the insects above, searching for any hint of hostile intentions, and felt none.

“Don’t play dumb,” Han said to Juun. He aimed his blaster at the Sullustan’s knees. “It just makes me mad.”

Leia reached over and covered Han’s blaster hand. “Put that thing away!” she whispered. “It isn’t what it looks like.”

“Then what is it?” Han continued to glare at Juun.

“We’ll have a better chance of finding out if you keep that thing in its holster.”

Han allowed her to push the blaster down, but BD-8 was harder to convince.

“Situation serious,” the droid reported. “Suggest withdrawal to transport. Permission to lay covering fire?”

“Denied!” Leia and Han said simultaneously.

“Okay,” Han said to Juun. “Maybe it’s not what it looks like. Where’s Tarfang?”

Juun remained at a distance. “In the medbay. When our guide found the transceiver, there was a little fight.”

Leia began to have a sinking feeling. “What about the guide? It’s not—”

Her question was drowned out by the sudden thunder of insect drumming. The three lowest rows of soldiers raised their carapaces, then stepped off their terraces and added to the tumult the roar of hundreds of beating wings. Leia heard BD-8 ask something she could not understand and ordered him to stand down on general principles—though she did pluck the lightsaber off her belt and start easing back toward the
Falcon
’s boarding ramp.

Juun scurried over to join them, his round ears red with alarm. The soldiers continued to swirl overhead in a dark mass for several seconds, then glided to the plaza floor and formed a tightly packed cordon around the
Falcon
and
XR808g.

“Situation critical,” BD-8 reported. “Permission to return to stand ready?”

“G-granted,” Leia said.

The soldiers thrummed their chests in a single deafening boom, then brought their feet together and snapped their weapons to the attention position against their thoraxes. On the far side of the
XR808g
, the cordon parted to admit a small parade of insects of many different body shapes, ranging in size from that of Leia’s thumb to somewhat larger than an X-wing. Most seemed to be simple variations on the standard Colony pattern, with
feathery antennae, large bulbous eyes, and four arms and two legs. But some had exaggerated features, such as one with slender, two-meter antennae ending in fuzzy yellow spheres, another with five large eyes instead of the usual two large and three small, and several that walked on four legs instead of two. One of the largest had a coat of sensory bristles so thick it looked like fur.

In the center of the procession walked an imposing, melt-faced man with no ears or hair and a mere bulge for a nose. His brows had fused into a single knobby ridge, and all his visible skin had the shiny, stiff quality of a burn scar. He wore purple trousers with a scarlet cape over a gold chitin breastplate.

“Who’s the fashion victim?” Han asked Juun.

“I think it’s the Prime Unu.” Juun’s voice was almost a gasp. “
Nobody
ever sees him.”

“The Prime Unu?” Leia asked.

“You might consider him the chief of the Colony,” Juun whispered. “He’s doesn’t rule it, at least not the way most species think of ruling, but he’s the heart of the whole thing.”

“Sort of the king bee, huh?” Han asked.

Leia felt Luke reaching out to her from above, alarmed by the growing trepidation he had been sensing in her. She filled her mind with reassuring thoughts.

The Prime Unu stopped in front of the
XR808g
, and two of his companions boarded the battered freighter. Leia reached out in the Force, trying to gauge his intentions, and found the same double presence that she had come to recognize in the Joiners of the Lizil nest. But the individual element of his presence felt stronger than most and—to her surprise—somehow familiar. Leia allowed her thoughts to roam freely over the past, seeking their own connections to that familiarity.

Her mind went first to the Jedi academy on Yavin 4, during a time when Anakin was still too young to attend and jealous of his older siblings. The memory brought with it a flood of emotion, and Leia found herself struggling to retain her composure—to avoid the torrent of grief and remembrance that always threatened to sweep her away when she thought of her lost son.