Fate of the Jedi: Backlash (40 page)

But none of their comlinks was fully charged. The power source on Dyon’s might last another hour, or another three. It would not last all night.

Ben saw his father’s head tilt. Luke’s eyes came half open. “Something’s changing.”

“Is she moving?”

“No. Not yet.”

Halliava smiled broadly as Vestara emerged from behind a thornbush. The offworld girl was as silent as a floating leaf, visible only in tiny slivers of moonlight slanting through the forest canopy overhead. She was a fine student. She would become a fine Nightsister, a natural leader for the next generation.

Halliava embraced the girl. “You took some time getting here.”

Vestara’s face was no longer visible in the moonlight, but her voice carried a note of irritation. “Olianne had a couple of chores for me. It took some time to get done with them and then descend the hill.”

“It is nothing. I was hoping to be present for the landing of your Sith sisters.”

“Give me my gear. I’ll see what I can do.”

Halliava passed over the lightsaber and data tablet. Vestara activated
the latter object, pressed a blinking icon, read the text message that the tablet displayed.

“What does it say?”

“Request for immediate contact and information. So they know exactly how much gear to bring down for the sisters.” Vestara keyed in a series of commands and held the tablet up beside her ear and mouth.

Halliava heard a voice buzzing from the device, a woman’s voice. Vestara answered, “Vestara Khai, confirmed … Same coordinates. Twenty-two Nightsisters and myself, eighteen rancors … Understood. Khai out.” She slid the tablet into her pouch, hung the lightsaber from her belt.

“You don’t wish me to carry your gear?”

Vestara shook her head. “You plan to destroy the Bright Sun Clan tonight, yes? Before they ever see another sunrise. We no longer need to hide who I am.”

Halliava struck off into the forest, moving along a game trail that could not be seen in the darkness but whose contours she had memorized during the day. For now it led in the approximate direction of the meadow where the Nightsisters would meet the Sith. She’d gone only a few dozen paces, though, when she felt something, a ripple of distant awareness. She stopped.

“What is it?”

“One of them is aware of me. One of the offworld men.”

“Let’s lead them in the direction of their deaths, then.”

Halliava nodded and resumed her movement.

It was different this time, though. The alien men had followed her before, and would eventually adjust themselves to her movements. But this time, whenever the game trail took a new direction or she and Vestara stopped briefly, their trackers adjusted themselves instantly to the change. It was as though she and Vestara were under the eyes of their enemies, when Halliava knew they could not be.

She explained this to Vestara.

The girl didn’t have to think about it long. “We’re carrying a tracking device. A second device, I mean. I was already carrying one to lead the Jedi around.”

“What’s a tracking device?”

“It’s as though we’re constantly shrieking at the top of our lungs, but only our pursuers can hear us. They’ve slipped something into our possessions. But let’s keep it for now. When we get near the meadow, we can put it on a bird or something and let them chase it for a while. By the time they figure out they’ve been misled and return to find us, we’ll have the Sith weapons and will be able to destroy them.”

“I like that.”

They continued on.

“Halliava, why is it so important that things remain as they always were?”

Halliava shrugged, though she knew Vestara could not see the motion. “It just is.”

“But that’s foolish. Change is inevitable.”

“I agree with you. And unlike some of us, many of us, I do not find men objectionable. I do not even insist that they be slaves. But for any group, there can be only so many rulers. If I am to rule, if the sisters I have chosen are to rule, there is no room for anyone else. And new ways mean more people gain the skills and the desire to rule.”

“That makes sense. But why stay on Dathomir, then? With your powers, you could go elsewhere and rule many more people than you can here.”

It took Halliava a while to formulate her answer. “To go elsewhere would mean starting all over. Learning as a child does. I have been a child already. I will not yield one bit, one speck of the power and influence I have now.”

“Even to gain more, ultimately?”

“Even so. Surrender is failure. I refuse to fail.”

Vestara’s chuckle was insufficiently respectful. Halliava decided to let it pass. The girl was an offworlder, after all, not brought up with proper manners. She would learn.

“And if the Bright Sun Clan had stayed two clans, not joining with the Broken Columns, in order to gain power, would you have killed Olianne and Kaminne and Firen? Your friends?”

Halliava offered a disdainful sniff. “Kaminne stopped being my friend when she decided she could accept that Hapan man as her mate and equal. Not just a man, but a man without the Arts! I would have no regrets about killing her. That would make Olianne my enemy, so
of course I would have to kill her. Firen—now, Firen is a follower at heart. She would follow me. Why do you ask?”

“I suppose I was just thinking about how you looked on betrayal.”

“We live in the natural world, Vestara. Affection may be real, love may be real, but alliances can only be based on mutual need. The first person to recognize that a need is no longer mutual is the one who can profit by breaking the alliance. She who profits is stronger, her line is stronger, they are better suited to crushing their enemies.”

“I agree. You are a good teacher, Halliava.”

They continued in silence for a while, until they were less than a kilometer from the meadow. Now Halliava brought them to a halt.

“Our pursuers?”

“Still with us. I think it is now time to find this tracking device.”

They searched their gear by touch. It took Halliava a minute to find an unfamiliar bulge in her waterskin. She pulled the item free and held it up into a sliver of moonlight. It was a comlink like those the offworlders carried, like those the members of the Raining Leaves traded for.

Vestara smiled, all white teeth surrounded by darkness. “That’s it.” She took it.

“I’ll find an animal.”

It took Halliava only another couple of minutes to make good on her promise. She detected and grabbed an albino night-hunting lizard before it was even aware of her. Immature, no longer than her arm, it thrashed helplessly as she carried it back to Vestara.

With a thong, Vestara securely tied the comlink to the creature’s neck. Then, from her pouch, she drew a small stoppered transparisteel vial holding a small quantity of brownish dust. This, too, she affixed to the thong.

Halliava frowned at the addition. “What is that?”

“Blood. Luke Skywalker’s blood. It took me a while, coming to Dathomir, to figure out how he was tracking me. Once I understood that it was through sensing his own blood, I’ve waited for a chance to use it against him.”

“Ah.”

Halliava released the lizard. Together they watched it disappear into the night.

“Now,” Halliava said, “we make ourselves small in their senses.”

“Small in the Force.”

“Yes.”

They did, each carefully willing her presence in the Force into a smaller and smaller glow. So good was Vestara at it that Halliava lost all sense of the girl before Halliava herself was through with her own spell.

They waited. Distantly, Halliava could feel their pursuers—there were moments of puzzlement, then the sense of the three offworld men changed in direction and distance.

They waited a few minutes more.

“Done.” Halliava smiled. “They are led astray. It will be some time before they find us again.”

“Good.” Vestara held her lightsaber up into the moonlight. It was, of course, not lit, but the hilt gleamed. “Would you like to know something lightsabers are good for, other than cutting?”

“What?”

“Hitting.” Vestara drove the hilt into Halliava’s solar plexus.

The blow, backed by physical strength but not accompanied by strong emotion, came as a complete surprise to Halliava. It also drove all wind from her body. She bent over, momentarily helpless.

She felt the hilt hammer into the side of her head. Stars of pain exploded through her vision. She fell to the moist, leafy ground, not quite unconscious. She tried to move, to rise, but could not. Vestara held her down.

She became aware that she was flat on her face, her arms twisted up behind her. A thong was being tightly wrapped around her wrists, binding her fingers. Moments later Vestara went to work on her ankles. Soon, too, they were bound.

Vestara rolled her onto her back. Still dazed, Halliava had at least managed to recover a little of her breath. “What—”

As Halliava’s mouth came open with the question, Vestara stuffed a ball of cloth into it. Then she took a final length of thong and wrapped it around Halliava’s mouth, binding the improvised gag into place.

Finally Vestara blew a sigh of relief and smiled down at Halliava. “I imagine you were asking what I was doing. What I’m doing is granting you a favor. A
tremendous
favor.

“I’ve told you I admired you, and why. I wasn’t lying. But, Halliava, you must understand. You’re a savage. Unsophisticated, unschooled, unbathed. In a little while, though, you’re going to go up and live among the stars. You’ll teach and you’ll learn. You’ll surrender for now and rule even more because of it. You thought you were doing me a favor by making me a Nightsister. I’m returning that favor and multiplying it—someday you’ll be a
Sith
. You’re going to have to get used to the fact that half the Sith are men, but, well, ridding you of stupid preconceptions will be the job of your teachers for the next few years.”

Vestara took a few moments to rid Halliava of her gear—weapons, supplies, even boots. Then she hauled the woman up and took her across her shoulders in a rescuer’s carry.

“Oof. You’re not the only one who makes foolish mistakes. I should have done this when we were
much
closer to the meadow. Oh, well. Live and learn.” She set off at a slow walk, every step pressing her narrow shoulders into Halliava’s gut.

Halliava screamed in frustration, in anger, but the muffled sound carried only a few meters.

B
Y
D
ATHOMIR STANDARDS, IT WAS A FORMIDABLE FIGHTING FORCE
. Nearly two dozen Nightsisters moved out of the forest verge. With them, in three groups, were nearly as many rancors—trained, obedient, monstrously powerful.

Ahead, halfway across the meadow, the first shuttle touched down and slid to a smooth stop. It was boxy, silvery, with wings that extended a considerable distance but raked back as soon as the vehicle was still. Two more such shuttles, visible as silvery needles, descended toward a landing.

The woman at the center of the Nightsister gathering was clearly their leader. Tall, broad-shouldered, gray-haired, carrying on her face and elsewhere on her skin the blotches that were the mark of pride of a user of the dark Arts who was not afraid to show it, she was dressed in lizard-hide garments dyed as black as night and studded with precious gems taken as prizes from a hundred raids and duels. Dresdema
was her name, and the clan she had once belonged to was long gone, hunted unto extermination by enemies of the Nightsisters.

But the Nightsisters lived on, and tonight they would become an invincible force.

As they walked, she caught the eye of the sister to her right. “Halliava?”

“Any minute, I think. I felt her nearing us not long ago.”

Dresdema nodded. She would not delay these proceedings because one girl was foolishly late. Halliava was a valuable sister, clever and inventive, but clearly had no sense of time. Tonight, once the Bright Sun Clan was destroyed, perhaps Halliava would come to live with Dresdema’s core group and learn some discipline.

By the time the Nightsisters were halfway to the first shuttle, the other two had landed. They waited, their boarding hatches still closed. Dark shapes moved in the cockpits, then passed through the cockpit hatches into the shuttles’ main compartments, out of sight.

Dresdema breathed deeply. “Can you smell it, sisters? The dark Arts on the wind, like a flower.”

She saw heads nod in silhouette to the right and left of her. They could feel the power.

Of course, if these Sith women showed the slightest sign of weakness or treachery, the Nightsisters would set upon them, kill them all, take their weapons and their shuttles. That was the way things were. Surely the Sith understood that.

The Nightsisters and their rancors arrayed themselves in a semicircle around the central shuttle. Dresdema stood ahead of the others. She raised her voice to be heard at a distance. “The Sisters of the Night are gathered. We welcome you, the sisters of the Sith.”

The boarding hatch of the central shuttle swung down, transforming into a set of stairs. Two robed, cloaked figures descended. The boarding hatches were lowering on the other shuttles as well, and two figures could be seen in each glowing portal.