The Unseen Queen (6 page)

Luke began to quiet his mind again, searching for another set of unexplained Force ripples.

“Worried, Master Skywalker?” Alema stopped a dozen paces away and stared at him, her eyes as steady and unblinking as those of an insect. “There’s no need. We’re not interested in hurting you.”

“You’ll understand if I don’t believe you.”

Though Luke had noticed no other suspicious Force ripples, he pivoted in both directions, scanning the shadows beneath nearby ships, the churning Killik swarms, the hexagonal storage cells along the walls, and anywhere else an attacker might be lurking. He found nothing and turned back to Alema.

“I don’t suppose you’re here to ask the Jedi to take you back?”

“What an interesting idea.” The smile Alema flashed would have been coy once, but now seemed merely hard and base. “But no.”

Fairly confident now that Alema was not going to attack—at least physically—Luke moved his hand away from his lightsaber and advanced to within a few steps of the Twi’lek.

“Well, what are you doing here?” Knowing it would upset her and throw her off balance, Luke purposely allowed his gaze to linger on Alema’s disfigured shoulder. “Just stopping by to let us know you and Lomi Plo are still alive?”

Alema gave a low throat-click, then said, “Lomi Plo died in the Crash.”

“With Welk, I suppose.”

“Exactly,” Alema said.

Luke sighed in frustration. “So we’re back to that, are we?” He had slain Welk during the fight at Qoribu, only a few minutes after he had cut Alema’s shoulder half off, and he had good reason to believe that the apparition that had nearly killed
him
—and Mara—was what remained of Lomi Plo. “Alema, you were at Kr. You saw Welk before I killed him, and it had to be Lomi Plo who pulled you out of the nest at the end.”

“You killed BedaGorog,” Alema said. “She was the Night Herald before us.”

“The person I killed was male.” Luke suspected he was arguing a lost cause. The Dark Nest remained determined to hide the survival of Lomi Plo behind a veil of lies and false memories, and—as a sort of collective Unconscious for the entire Colony—it was adept at manipulating the beliefs of Joiners and Killiks alike. “He had a lightsaber, and he knew how to use it.”

“BedaGorog was Force-sensitive.” A lewd smile came to Alema’s lips. “And as we recall, you did not take the time to check inside her pants before you killed her.”

Luke let his chin drop. “Alema, you disappoint me.”

“The feeling is mutual, Master Skywalker,” Alema said. “We have not forgotten the slaughter at Kr.”

“There wouldn’t have been a slaughter if you had done your duty as a Jedi.” Luke sensed a familiar presence creeping toward him, skulking its way under the stern of the old Star Barge, and realized that Han had returned to the hangar without C-3PO. “But you let your anger make you weak, and the Dark Nest took advantage.”

Alema’s unblinking eyes turned the color of chlorine. “Don’t blame us for what—”

“I’ll lay the blame where it belongs. As a Master of the Jedi council, that is
my
duty—and my privilege!” Hoping to keep Alema’s attention too riveted on him to notice Han sneaking up behind her, Luke moved to within lightsaber range of the Twi’lek. “Now I ask you one last time to return to Ossus. I know it will be hard to face those you betrayed, but—”

“We are not interested in ‘redemption’ … or anything else you have to offer, Master Skywalker. We are here with—”

Alema stopped in midsentence and cocked her head, then reached for her lightsaber.

Luke had already extended his arm and was summoning the weapon to himself, literally ripping Alema’s belt off her waist and leaving the Twi’lek with an empty hand as Han hit her in the flank with a stun bolt.

Alema dropped to her knees, but did not fall, so Han fired again. This time, the Twi’lek collapsed onto her face and lay on the hangar floor twitching and drooling. Han leveled the weapon to fire again.

“That’s enough,” Luke said. “Are you trying to kill her?”

“As a matter of fact, yeah.” Han scowled at the setting switch on the barrel of his blaster, then thumbed it to the opposite position. “I could have sworn I had it set on full power.”

Luke shook his head in dismay, then used the Force to turn the weapon’s barrel away from Alema. “Sometimes I wonder if I still know you, Han. She’s defenseless.”

“She’s a Jedi,” Han said. “She’s
never
defenseless.”

Still, he flicked the selector switch back to stun, then stood behind the Twi’lek and pointed the barrel at her head. Luke removed her lightsaber from her belt, then squatted on the floor in front of her and waited until she started to come around—which was incredibly quickly, even for a Jedi.

“Sorry about that,” Luke said. “Han’s still a little sore about what you did to the
Falcon
.”

Alema opened one eye. “He always did carry a grudge.” She struggled to bring Luke into focus, then said, “But perhaps you should make something clear to him. We are not at
your
mercy.”

A tremendous clamor rumbled through the hangar as
nearby insects began to drop their loads and scurry toward the Star Barge.

“You are at
ours
.”

Luke began to slap Alema’s lightsaber against his palm, allowing his frustration to pass, trying to remind himself that the Twi’lek was not in control of herself, that it was impossible for her to separate her own thoughts from those of the Dark Nest. But Jaina and Zekk had found themselves in a similar situation, and they had not turned their backs on the Jedi. The difference was, they had
tried
to resist.

Finally, Luke tucked Alema’s lightsaber into his belt and stood. “You could have fought this,” he said. “Maybe you still can. Jaina and Zekk became Joiners, and yet they remained true to their duty.”

“You place too much faith in others, Master Skywalker.” Alema braced her good arm on the floor and pushed off, then brought her feet up beneath her. “That has always been your weakness—and soon it will be your downfall.”

A cold shiver of danger sense raced up Luke’s spine, and he resisted the temptation to ask Alema’s meaning. This
was
the reason she had come to the hangar, he felt certain. She was trying to trap him, to draw him into some dark and twisted maze where he would become as lost as she was.

Unfortunately, Han did not have Jedi danger sense. “Too much faith? What’s
that
supposed to mean? If something’s going on with Jaina—”

Alema glanced over her shoulder at Han, pouting at the blaster still pointed at her back, then said, “We didn’t mean to alarm you, Han. Jaina and Zekk are fine, as far as we know.” She looked back to Luke. “We were talking about Mara. She has been dishonest with Master Skywalker.”

“I doubt that very much.” Luke saw what the Dark Nest
was attempting, and he could not believe they would be foolish enough to try such a thing. Nobody was going to drive a wedge between him and Mara. “And even if I didn’t, I would hardly take the Dark Nest’s word over that of a Jedi Master.”

“We have proof,” Alema said.

“And I doubt
that
.” Han glanced at her skintight bodysuit. “You don’t have a place to put it.”

“We’re glad you’re not too old to notice,” Alema said. “Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

The smile Alema flashed Han was both knowing and genuine. “Sure it was.” She turned back to Luke, then glanced at R2-D2. “But we should have said
you
have proof.”

Luke shook his head. “I really don’t think so. If that’s all you have to say—”

“Daxar Ies wasn’t the Emperor’s
accountant
,” she interrupted. “He was an Imperial droid-brain designer.” She glanced again at R2-D2. “He designed the Intellex Four, as a matter of fact.”

Luke’s mind raced back to the year before, to his discovery of the sequestered sector in R2-D2’s deep-reserve memory, trying to remember just how much Alema might have learned about those events before fleeing the academy.

“Nice try.” Han had clearly noticed her glance toward the droid as well. “But we’re not buying it. Just because you heard someone say that Luke was looking for information on the Intellex Four designer—”

“Han, she couldn’t have overheard that,” Luke said. “She was already gone. We were in flight control when Ghent told us about his disappearance, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t leave bugs all over the place,” Han pointed out.

“We didn’t—as we are sure your eavesdropping sweeps have already revealed.” Alema continued to stare at Luke. “Do you want to find out more about your mother, or not?”

Luke and Leia had long ago guessed the woman in the records R2-D2 had sequestered—Padmé—might be their mother, but hearing someone else say it sent a jolt of elation through him … even if he
did
feel certain that the Dark Nest was counting on exactly that reaction.

Han was more cynical. “So Anakin Skywalker was making holorecordings of his girlfriend—I know a lot of guys who used to do the same thing. It doesn’t mean she’s Luke’s mother.”

“But it means she
could
be—and we can help Master Skywalker learn the truth.” Alema shot Luke a sardonic smile. “Unless you prefer ignorance to knowing that Mara has been deceiving you. Daxar Ies was no accountant. He was the one being who could have helped you unlock the secret of your mother’s past.”

“Nice story,” Han said. “Hangs together real well—until you get to the part where Daxar Ies is the Intellex Four designer. Why would the Emperor have his best droid-brain designer
killed
?”

Alema’s face grew enigmatic and empty. “Who knows? Revenge, perhaps, or merely to keep him from defecting to the Rebels, too. That is not as important as the reason Mara lied to you about who he is.”

“I’m listening.” Even saying the words made Luke feel hollow and sick inside, as though he were betraying Mara by hearing the Twi’lek out. “For now.”

Alema wagged her finger. “First, what
we
want.”

“That does it,” Han said. He thumbed the selector switch on his blaster to full power. “I’m tired of being played. I’m just going to blast her now.”

Alema’s gaze went automatically to Luke.

Luke shrugged and stepped out of the line of fire. “Okay, if you have to.”

“Please …,” Alema said sarcastically. She flicked a finger, and the selector switch on Han’s blaster flipped itself back to stun. “If you were really going to blast me, you wouldn’t stand here discussing it.”

“You’re right.” Han flicked the selector switch back to full power. “We’re done dis—”

“Perhaps you will be more inclined to hear us out after we have proved that we can access the records,” Alema said to Luke. She gestured at R2-D2. “May we?”

Luke motioned Han to wait. “May you what?”

“Display one of the holos, of course,” Alema said. When Luke did not automatically grant permission, she glanced up and added, “If we wished to harm him, Master Skywalker, we would already have sprinkled him with froth.”

Luke looked up at growing blister on the ceiling, then let out a breath. Alema was telling the truth about that much, at least—it would have been a simple matter to use the Force to pull some of the gray froth down on them. He nodded and stepped aside.

As the Twi’lek approached, R2-D2 let out a fearful squeal and began to retreat as fast as his wheels would carry him. Alema simply reached out with the Force and floated him back over to her.

“Artoo, please show …” She paused and turned to Luke. “What would you like to see?”

Luke’s heart began to pound. He was half afraid that Alema’s claims would prove hollow—and half afraid they would not. While he was extremely eager to find some way to retrieve the data that did not involve reprogramming R2-D2’s personality, Luke was also keenly aware that the
Dark Nest was trying to manipulate him to ends he did not yet understand.

“You choose.”

Alema let out a series of throat-clicks. “Hmmm … what would
we
want to know if we had been raised without our mother?” She turned back to the beeping, blinking droid she was holding in the air before her. “We have an idea. Let’s look for something that confirms the identity of Master Skywalker’s parents, Artoo.”

R2-D2 whistled a refusal so familiar that Luke did not even need a translation to know he was claiming to have no such data.

“You mustn’t be that way, Artoo,” Alema said. “We have your file security override code: Ray-Ray-zero-zero-seven-zero-five-five-five-Trill-Jenth-seven.”

“Hey,” Han said, “that sounds like an—”

“Account number, yes,” Alema said. “Eremay was rather special—she barely knew her own name, but she never forgot a list of numbers or letters.”

Artoo let out a defeated trill; then his holoprojector activated.
The image of a beautiful brown-haired, brown-eyed woman—Padmé—appeared before the droid, walking through the air in front of what looked like an apartment wall. After a moment, a young man’s back came into the image. He seemed to be sitting on a couch, hunched over some kind of work that was not visible in the hologram
.

Without looking up, the young man said, “I sense someone familiar.” The voice was that of Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. “Obi-Wan’s been here, hasn’t he?”

Padmé stopped and spoke to Anakin’s back. “He came by this morning.”

“What did he want?”

Anakin set his work aside and turned around. He appeared tense, perhaps even angry
.

Padmé studied him for a moment, then said, “He’s worried about you.”

“You told him about us, didn’t you?”

Anakin stood, and Padmé started walking again. “He’s your best friend, Anakin.” She passed through a doorway, and the corner of a bed appeared in front of her. “He says you’re under a lot of stress.”

“And he’s not?”

“You
have
been moody lately,” Padmé said
.

“I’m not moody.”

Padmé turned around and faced him. “Anakin … don’t do this again.”

Her beseeching tone seemed to melt Anakin. He turned away, shaking his head, and vanished. “I don’t know,” he said from outside the image. “I feel … lost.”