The Joiner King (30 page)

“Dad,” Ben’s voice asked, “what’s kriffing?”

Luke turned to find his son standing at his side, mouth agape at his father’s unaccustomed display of anger.

“Nothing—a bad word,” Luke said, calming himself. With a little luck—and the proper equipment—the memory chip could be restored and the booby trap bypassed. Things were never as bad as they seemed. “Your mother won’t be happy I said it in front of you.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell.” An innocent smile came to Ben’s small face. “Maybe I can have a tube of nerfspread?”

With the dance-field glowing in the iridescent light of Qoribu’s reflection and a thousand Taat swirling through the intricate patterns of the Little Dawn Rumble, Leia felt as though she had stepped a thousand centuries into Alderaan’s past, when the Colony still ruled the planet and human expansion remained a dark storm on the galaxy’s horizon. The Killiks were “singing” their part of the Song of the Universe as they danced, chirping melody through their tiny proboscises, tapping time with their mandibles, drumming bass in their chest cavities. Alien and primal though the music was, the performance was as flawless as anything Leia had ever heard in Harmony Hall on Coruscant, a thousand instruments played by a single artist.

“Now
that
is just not right,” Han said, adding his own special counternote to the concert. “Why didn’t she marry Jag Fel when she had the chance?”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Leia said, following Han’s gaze. “If we don’t get her out of here soon, she might be spending more time than we like with Jag—being interrogated in his …”

Leia saw what Han had been looking at and let her sentence trail off. On the near side of the swarm, Jaina, Zekk, and Alema were frisking through the dance steps amid an eddy of dancers. The three Jedi were holding their hands above their heads, waving them in unison with the Killiks’ antennae. Every few seconds, Jaina and Zekk would bow forward with the entire nest and rub forearms with the antennae of whatever insect they happened
to be facing. Alema bowed as well, but rubbed lekku instead of arms.

“It does look a little … unnatural,” Leia admitted.

“Not at all,” C-3PO assured them. “It’s a bonding dance, welcoming the birth of the new day. They perform it once a week, before they go to the Harem Cave to mate.”

Stomach tightening in alarm—or perhaps it was revulsion—Leia turned to Han. “We’ll talk to them as soon as the dance ends. You’re okay with the plan?”

“For what good it’ll do,” Han grumbled. “Kidnapping her would be easier—and we both know how well
that
would work.”

Leia grew exasperated with his pessimism. “Since when did you start worrying about the odds? You’re starting to sound—”

She was saved from uttering the lethal
like Threepio
by the thunderous reverberation of an alarm rumble. She turned and found all the Killiks looking toward one of the passage entrances that ringed the dance-field. The insects were holding their antennae vertical and motionless, and their mandibles were spread wide in menace. Most of the Joiners were mimicking the gesture to the extent that their various anatomies allowed, but Alema was the only Jedi doing the same.

“That doesn’t look good.” Han turned to scan the sky. “Chiss?”

“I’ll be happy to ask,” C-3PO said.

He shot a burst of squelch at a nearby Killik.

“The Taat speak Bocce?” Leia asked.

“Why, yes, Princess Leia. I’ve yet to discover a language the Killiks
don’t
understand. It seems they learn every language their Joiners know.” A second Killik turned and answered C-3PO’s question with a series of mandible clacks. “For instance, that was just Snutib click code.”

“And?” Han asked.

“It was quite fluent,” C-3PO said. “Though that particular dialect predates—”

“We’re more interested in
what
it said,” Leia clarified.

“My apologies.” C-3PO sounded disappointed. “I believe it concerns Jedi Sebatyne.”

“Saba?”

“Apparently, she appeared in the depths of the nest rather badly injured.”

A knot of Taat emerged from the tunnel, tumbling and staggering as they attempted to keep ahold of a flailing mass of scales. The rest of the Killiks turned as one to look in Han and Leia’s direction, then thrummed their chests.

“In fact, Taat is rather hoping that you might help calm down Master Sebatyne so their healers can close the small hole in her skull.”

Han took off at a sprint, with Jaina and the other young Jedi forcing their way across the dance-field behind him. Leia asked Meewalh to fetch the emergency medpac from the
Falcon
, then started running.

She arrived to find Saba strapped to a primitive stretcher, an elliptical slice of scalp and skull missing from one side of her head. Han was already standing at the Barabel’s side, trying to quiet her.

“I know they’re creepy looking,” he was saying. “But settle down. They’re trying to help.”

“No!” Saba’s eyes twitched as though she was trying to throw her head back and forth, but the head itself remained motionless. “Azzazzinz!”

Her lisp was more pronounced than usual—a bad sign, given the head wound. Leia also saw a number of other injuries—a circle of broken scales around her temple, some lost fingertips, a third of a tail missing, and some suspicious swelling on her neck and calf. Lying on the stretcher, strapped next to the injured tail, was something that hadn’t come off Saba—a human bicep fused at the elbow to a chitinous Killik forearm.

A
blue
chitinous forearm.

The Killiks holding Saba drummed in protest.

“They point out that Jedi Sebatyne’s brain is showing,” C-3PO translated. “She’s quite delusional.”

C-3PO rose into the air and began to spin like a pinwheel.

“What? Stop!… Put me down, you overgrown newt!”

“Not … deluzional,” Saba growled.

“Saba, it’s okay.” Leia reached out to the Barabel in the Force,
trying to assure her that they did not doubt her. “We believe you.”

C-3PO stopped spinning, and Saba’s gaze shifted to Leia. The pupils of her eyes were hugely dilated. “Yezz?”

“Sure.” Han let his gaze linger on the forearm.
“Something
happened to you. Anyone can see that.”

“Why don’t we take care of these wounds?” Leia wished Tekli had not left with Luke. She and Han had certainly patched up their share of wounds, but this was beyond their skill. “Then you can tell us about it.”

“Now
,” Saba insisted. “This one will tell you … now.”

“Okay.” Leia gestured to the Taat healers cowering on the edge of the sled. “As long as you’ll let them work on you while we talk.”

Saba narrowed a pebbly eye. “This one … thought you believed her.”

“Saba, some of your wounds are cauterized,” Leia pointed out. “Does that mean you shouldn’t trust anyone who carries a lightsaber?”

The Barabel snorted.

“Look, we’ve got some concussion missiles on the
Falcon
,” Han said. “If they kill you, we’ll blast the place.”

“Blazt it?” Saba began to siss weakly. “You are alwayz joking!”

“He wasn’t joking,” Leia said. “Do we have a deal?”

Saba eyed the healers cowering on the edge of her stretcher, then nodded. “Deal.”

She lowered C-3PO to the ground again.

“Thank goodness!” He clunked over to stand behind Leia, then said more softly, “They say she’s been an impossible patient!”

A dozen Killik healers crawled onto her body and went to work, sterilizing her wounds and spinning silken bandages. As they labored, Saba recounted—in a halting voice—her discovery of the empty exoskeletons and the attack by Welk, then ended by noting that she had found
three
empty egg cells and killed only two immature assassins. She was worried that the third had left early to stow away aboard the
Shadow.

One of the healers squatting over her opened skull purred an opinion, which C-3PO translated as, “Patients with head wounds often suffer from hallucinations.”

“It waz no—”

“Allow me.” Leia laid a calming hand on the Barabel’s shoulder, then pointed to the arm lying next to Saba’s truncated tail. “If it was a hallucination, how do you explain that?”

One of the Killiks holding the stretcher began to clack its mandibles.

“The healers sometimes make grafts for the injured,” C-3PO translated. “In her delirium, Saba must have mistaken a Joiner for a Chiss. The nest is searching for his body now.”

Saba raised her head. “It waz no—”

“Let us handle this, Hisser.” Han motioned Saba down, then asked, “Then how’d she get delirious in the first place? Where’d all these wounds come from?”

It was one of the healers on her neck that answered.

“Oh, dear!” C-3PO exclaimed. “She says Saba must have fallen after she was poisoned.”

“Poisoned?”
Leia gasped.

“Did this one not mention … that?” Saba asked.

The healer on her head purred a comment.

“Head wounds often cause forgetfulness,” C-3PO translated. The Killik on Saba’s neck added, “And they’re very sorry about the poison. They hope you won’t blast the nest.”

“Blast the nest?” Leia looked to the healer that had spoken. “What’s that mean?”

It was the healer on Saba’s leg that thrummed an answer.

“It’s a powerful neurotoxic venom,” C-3PO said. “It causes permanent paralysis—and they have no antidote.”

Saba cocked her brow up at Leia. “Told … you.”

“You’re not dead yet,” Leia said. “How do you feel?”

“Worze than … it lookz.”

Wondering if Saba had any idea how bad she looked, Leia turned to Han. “She might beat it with a healing trance, but—”

“We’ve got to take her back.”

He looked as worried and frustrated as Leia felt. There was no question of
not
taking Saba back. The Barabel was clearly in
danger of dying or being permanently paralyzed, and Cilghal—the Jedi Master-healer—had an infirmary and a lab back on Ossus that would have the best resources to help her.

Han turned to Cakhmaim. “Catch Meewalh and start prep-ping the
Falcon.”

The Noghri nodded and raced off toward the tunnel that led down to the hangar.

“And don’t wake Juun up!” Han yelled as an afterthought. “The last thing we want is a Sullustan slowing things down with procedure.”

Leia motioned the stretcher bearers after Cakhmaim. “Let’s get her to the
Falcon.”

“Not zo … fazt,” Saba said. The Killiks paid no attention to her and started across the dance-field after Cakhmaim. “The third azzazzin … we muzt warn Mazter Zkywalker.”

Leia exchanged a concerned look with Han, then said gently, “Saba, the
Shadow
is gone, remember? We won’t be able to warn them until we reach Galactic Alliance space.”

Jaina appeared alongside the litter with Zekk and Alema.

“Saba, are you
sure
about the assassins?” Alema asked. “It really doesn’t sound like—”

The inquiry was cut short when the severed arm rose off the stretcher and hit the Twi’lek in the chest.

“Yezz … zure.”

They reached the tunnel leading down to the hangar. Leia sent C-3PO on with the Killiks and Saba, then stopped at the entrance and turned to Jaina.

“How soon can you be ready?”

Jaina’s jaw fell. “Ready?”

“Yeah, to leave,” Han said, coming in on cue. “You can’t have much stuff to pack.”

Jaina continued to look shocked for a moment, then a shadow of her father’s crooked grin came to her lips. “Nice try, guys.”

“Try?”
Han managed to sound outraged. “We had a deal!”

“You can’t hold us to that!” Zekk cried.

Jaina raised a silencing hand to him. “Let me handle this, Zekk. I’ve had practice.”

“Jaina,” Leia said sternly, “we
did
go after Lowie.”

“Don’t try the Desilijic shift on me,” Jaina said. “The terms were that we had to bring him back.”

“Yeah, well, you should have told us your ex-boyfriend was sitting on him,” Han countered. “You held back.”

“Didn’t know,” Jaina said, “and it wouldn’t matter if I did. Lowbacca’s still out there. We’re not going back without him.”

As Jaina folded her arms, the gesture was simultaneously mimicked by the swarm of Killiks that had gathered around them. But Leia was not ready to give up.

“Jaina, you know you’re only making the situation worse,” she said. “The Chiss are escalating things because of your presence.”

“That’s right,” Han said. “And you proved on the rescue mission that your judgment isn’t exactly sound.”

Jaina did a good job of maintaining a neutral expression, but Leia was too adept at reading faces to miss the glimmer of hurt that flashed through their daughter’s eyes.

“Jaina, if you really want to help Lowbacca, you’ll come back with us.” Leia switched her gaze to all three Jedi. “You know the Chiss are an honorable people. Stop making the situation worse and give us a chance to work this out diplomatically.”

Jaina and Zekk actually dropped their gazes, but Alema was ready with a response. “And while you’re still trying to make contact, they’ll send in a fleet of defoliators to finish what they began.”

Jaina nodded. “Diplomacy is good,” she said. “But it’s better when there’s something to back it up. Go ahead and make contact with the Chiss, but we’re staying.”

“That’s one option,” Leia allowed. “But I’m concerned that you really don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

Jaina’s scowl of confusion was mirrored by the other two Jedi.

“We’re not talking about the Chiss,” Han explained. “You three are in way over your heads here—unless you think Saba really
did
imagine those assassin bugs?”

Alema’s eyes flashed at the word
bugs
, but she was the first to shake her head. “They were real.”

“But they weren’t Taat,” Zekk added.

“That’s one of the things we’ll be working on,” Jaina said.

“Until when?” Once again, Leia was unnerved by how easily the trio were finishing each other’s sentences. “Until you become Joiners?”

Jaina and the others shared a glance, then Zekk said, “That depends.”