Into the Void: Star Wars (Dawn of the Jedi) (34 page)

She clenches her fist, gathers a Force punch, and heaves it toward the spite.

It is flung back with such speed and power that many of its fine limbs are torn off,
drifting to the ground and catching the setting sun. The body drops and squirms for
a moment before growing still. Lanoree examines her wounds. The bleeding is not too
bad.

Having no wish to wait for more blood spites, she hurries toward the pyramid.

And there is a power here. She is awed by the city, and aware of its deep history,
but what she starts to feel is something beyond or apart from that. It is nothing
physical—no throbbing in the ground, no charge to the air—but still she is flooded
with a feeling of such coiled potential that her teeth grind, her heart thuds. It
is the most delicious fear.

Nothing will deter her. She follows Dal’s trail, the only human prints visible on
the wind-driven sand and dust. And when his trail disappears for a time she continues
anyway, instinct guiding her onward. She has entered something of a dream zone. This
is Tython, but she no longer knows when. This is home, but she has never felt so far
away. The power she feels below and around her is divorced from the Force; and though
she asks that strong, protective energy that is always within her, she finds no answers.

I’m being repulsed by this place
, she thinks. Sadly, she is not surprised that Dal is drawn here.

The ruins are so ancient that most of them are long buried by the effects of time
or worn down by wind and sand, rain and sun. But here and there among these small
hills and shallow valleys are the tips of pyramids, the slouch of fallen walls, or
the deep hollows of openings into the ground.

These dark pits yawn and seem to exhale the strange energy she feels. And it is into
one of these pits that Dal’s footprints lead.

Before she can consider the folly of her actions, Lanoree goes down.

The small glow rod she always carries gives a gentle but consistent light, but in
a way she wishes she could not see.

The alienness of this place strikes at her. Everywhere else she has been on Tython
has been created by and for those sentients who inhabit the planet now—humans and
Wookiee, Twi’lek and Cathar, many others. Their appearances might be different, but
their basic physiologies are the same. The Cathars are relatively short and the Wookiees
usually taller than most, but there is a similarity to their features that makes the
places they live and work comfortable for all.

These ruins are different. Lanoree drops several levels that she eventually realizes
are huge steps, as though built for giants. A passageway she moves along is tall and
wide. The very air she breathes—still and stale, old and loaded with the dust of ages—seems
suited more to something
else
. She shivers as if watched, but knows that it is only the depth of history that observes.

But she is not the first to come down here.

Dal’s footprints draw her onward, pressed into the dust. They are far apart and deep,
as if he is running, and she wonders how he can find his way down here and what light
illuminates his path.

That crushing energy seems to throb through the passageways like a pulse through the
veins of a giant, sleeping creature. It is a discomforting image that Lanoree cannot
shake, yet she knows it is foolish. The Old City is just that … an old city. Archaeologists
have been here. Historians. Some have been, seen, and left again, intrigued but not
possessed. Others have spent their lives researching this place. A few have never
been seen again, and there are stories of such depths …

But she wonders whether any of them have ever felt this terrible, pulsing potential,
and what they thought of it.

“Dal!” she calls, surprising herself. Her voice echoes from walls and ceiling, fading
into the distance yet seeming to persist far longer than she could have believed.
Later, descending another giant staircase, she thinks she can still hear her brother’s
name traveling through the darkness. Or perhaps it is simply a memory.

Deeper. She starts to wonder what walked these passageways millennia before, and tries
not to. So little is known of the Gree, if indeed this was originally a Gree structure.
Legend has it that they possessed amazing, arcane technologies that allowed travel
among the stars. That they were a nomadic species, exploring the galaxy for unknown
ends. There were rumors of Gree sculptures somewhere in the Old City. But some believe
the expedition that supposedly found them fabricated them.

Sometimes Dal’s footprints fade in areas where the floor has seemingly been blown
free of dust, perhaps by underground storms. Power surges as that incredible energy
breaks free, maybe once each year, or once in a lifetime. So much is unknown, but
Lanoree’s attention is fixed. Her intention
is
known. Dal needs saving from himself, and she will strive for this as long as she
can.

Lanoree loses track of time. She thinks perhaps a day has passed since she left the
surface and ventured down here. She is worried about finding her way back out, but
there are footprints—both hers and Dal’s now—and there is the Force. It is a comfort
to her, and the only reason she can stay her course.

She’s hungry and thirsty. Water runs down the walls in places, but she cannot bring
herself to touch or drink it. She has no idea where it has come from or what, over
many centuries, it has been filtered through. There must be countless places that
time has forever hidden from view, and countless things that will never be known.

She starts calling after Dal more and more. The echoes of her shouts seem to argue,
and sometimes she thinks she can hear choirs of Lanorees imploring her brother to
return, to turn around, to come to her and home. Lanoree thinks she is hallucinating
but can’t be sure.

The ruins are so old that nowhere is untouched by time’s finger—sometimes they are
ravaged, sometimes merely stroked by a reminder that entropy cannot be denied. She
passes along large passageways with smaller tunnels leading off, and sometimes by
alcoves in the walls that might once have been doorways but that have long since been
closed off. These smaller tunnels offer tantalizing and terrifying possibilities,
but Lanoree will not be shaken from her course. This is not
an exploration, it is a rescue. There are much larger caverns—almost hallways—with
strangely shaped pits in the floor that might once have held water, and upright structures
with the remains of metal shapes. Perhaps this is technology, rotted away over time.

She feels she is closing on Dal.

A metal bridge spans a deep, dark ravine, from the depths of which flows a warm breath.
The bridge groans as she crosses it. The darkness beckons. It smells of dusty bone
and wet fur, and Lanoree crosses the last third of the bridge at a run.

Beyond is another large cavern where ranked levels all around look much like seating
areas, and a central dais bears the remains of several upright mechanical objects.
Lanoree pauses to catch her breath.

In the distance she hears a scream.

Lanoree was being dragged. Voices sounded, urgent and angry, making no effort to hide.
She felt heat on her body as they threw her down. She rolled onto her side, feeling
for wounds. But there were only the bumps and bruises she was already familiar with,
and a few more besides. She still wore her weapons and wrist unit. They hadn’t even
bothered disarming her. Either they were clumsy, or they no longer viewed her as a
threat.

Hit on the head again
, she thought. Master Kin’ade would be disgusted. She tried to see away some of the
pain, losing it to the Force, and a calm numbness descended.

“I’m almost done. I’ll let you watch.”

Dal! But he was dead, wasn’t he? She’d come down here looking for him and found—

But, no, that was another place, another time. That was in the past.

Lanoree opened her eyes and gathered herself, sitting up, hugging her knees to her
chest.

The air in the mine shivered with heat. Several humans, growth stunted and dressed
in reflective clothing and visored helmets, fussed around some mining equipment. Dal
stood close to her, blaster in his hand aimed in her direction, and five Stargazers
accompanied him. They were faceless to her, followers of his madness. It was Dal who
held her attention.

“You left me for dead,” she croaked. Her throat felt dry and swollen, her tongue like
a rock in her mouth.

“Yes, left you. I can’t make that mistake again.”

Woozy, weak, Lanoree tried to touch his mind.

Dal pointed the blaster at her face, his lips pressed tight, whole body tensed. She
could Force-shove him aside, and perhaps she’d be able to get to her feet before the
other Stargazers shot her. Maybe, somehow, she could distract them all. Perhaps, like
Master Tave, she could lose herself in the Force, become unseen by them for long enough
to disarm and defeat them.

But she thought not.

“So shoot me,” she said to her brother. As she spoke her mind was deluged with a flood
of memories of their childhood, their dear mother and father, and the good times that
were all now past. She was sad but incredibly angry as well.

“You and your Force—”

“Enough with the talk, Dal! Just shoot me and get it over with!”

“You’ve come this far,” he said, smiling. “Don’t you want to see my second-greatest
moment?”

“Second?”

“The greatest is yet to come.” He nodded past the mining equipment at where the device
rested on the ground, exposed now, the Stargazers standing at a respectful distance.
It was surprisingly plain: a round metal shell, several connecting ports around its
circumference. It did not look amazing.

The miners were checking display screens and working the machinery, and though it
ran with barely a whisper, Lanoree wondered whether the deep rumbling she felt was
caused by what they did here.

“No,” she said. “I’m bored. You’re going to kill me, so why not now instead of later?
Brother.” She spat the last word, hoping for a reaction. But his gentle smile remained.
She was trying to goad him into action, hoping that before he pulled the trigger there
would be a moment of hesitation, an instant of regret and doubt of which she could
take advantage.

But Dal was in charge here. Lanoree felt the flow of the Force and knew that she was
just as powerful and rich in it as ever, but her sick, mad bother was still in control.

“There,” a miner said. The machinery before him vibrated slightly and then grew still,
and a square metal box rose from a hole in the floor of the mine. Lanoree had seen
this before in holos and knew what it was—a marionium cube, bearing one of the most
unstable yet desirable elements found in Sunspot’s mine.

But what of the dark matter? Was everything she had seen, heard, learned wrong?

“In the device,” Dal said. “You know what to do.”

Three Stargazers stepped forward and lifted the cube, moving it toward the device.

Lanoree thought of Force-shoving them against it, but she didn’t know what effect
that might have. They were dealing with arcane, ancient technology, and she remembered
her journey down into the Old City nine years before, the power she had sensed there,
the fear it had instilled.

I have to stop them!
she thought.
But I can’t risk triggering the device
. Stuck between the two, she felt the gravity of both possibilities tearing at her.

“No,” she said as the Stargazers slid aside a panel. The insertion was simple. The
marionium glowed softly as they tipped it into Dal’s device, and then they closed
the panel and stood back.

“So what will it—?” one of the miners asked. He did not finish his question.

The device finished it for him. It started to turn.

Dal gasped, and Lanoree realized with dreadful certainty that he really had very little
idea what he was doing. He was following old plans, chasing a childhood dream. He
was running blind.