Dark Nest_ The Joiner King Part 11

"I'm sorry to disrespect the Crash," he said. "But my friend may be down there."

"Bru bur, ruu," a ghostly pale insect informed him.

"Obviously." Jacen continued to cut. "I still need to find him."

This occasioned a flurry of thrumming and clicking among the other insects.

"No." Jacen began to feel sick, though it was impossible to say whether this was from the smell of melting metal, the stale stench rising from below, or the insects' question. "I'm not going to eat his remains."

The insects continued to clack and drum. They seemed to be debating whether he should be allowed to continue if he wasn't going to return his friend to the Song. But Jacen was inferring as much as translating, and there was so much he did not know about the Colony that it was equally possible they were talking about eating him. He shut the words out and tried to hear through the Force, as the Theran Listeners had taught him, and was relieved to sense that they were arguing over whether they should eat the dead.

Jacen finished cutting, then used the Force to lift two disks of metal out of the hole he had cut in the double-floored deck. The smell of ash grew overwhelming, and rustling filled the air as the insects eased forward behind him. Jacen lowered his light through the hole and felt his heart sink.

The cabin below had been so incinerated that only the twisted remains of a row of double bunks, hanging upside down on the far wall, identified it as the crew's quarters. What had once been the ceiling lay barely two meters below, blackened, crumpled, and strewn with ash and twisted metal. The remains of several mattresses lay in the corner beneath the bunks, half burned and covered in black mold.

Being careful to avoid touching the white-hot edges, Jacen dropped through the hole and found several shattered tranqarest vials under one of the half-burned mattresses. Under another, he found a melted lump of casing and circuitry that might once have been Lowbacca's translation droid, Em Teedee. He tried to pick it up and discovered it had been fused to the floor.

Under a third mattress, he found the singed remains of one of the molytex jumpsuits the strike team had worn on their mission to Myrkr.

There were four slashes across the chest, where Raynar had been wounded before being put aboard the Flier.

A series of soft patters sounded from the middle of the cabin.

Insects began to swarm over the "floor" and walls, sweeping their antennae over the bunks and other debris and raising a choking cloud of ash. Jacen made his way forward through the galley and wardroom, dropping into a crouch as the s.p.a.ce between the crumpled ceiling and the old floor grew too short for him to walk upright. The walls and other surfaces in these rooms were covered with a thick layer of pink powder, the residue of a fire-fighting foam.

On the bridge, the foam lay so thick that he kicked up clouds of pink dust as he moved. The canopy that had once enclosed the flight deck on three sides was buckled and broken, with dirt spilling through long rents in the transparisteel. A string of gray emergency patches ran diagonally across the forward view-screen, roughly parallel to a line of destruction that had left the navicomputer, sublight-drive control relays, and hypers.p.a.ce guidance system in a burned shambles. It was no wonder the ship had crashed; the Dark Jedi crew had done well to escape the Myrkr system at all.

The crash webbing at all the flight deck stations hung down beneath the chairs in a melted tangle, but a faint drag mark beneath the pilot's and copilot's seats led through the foam residue toward the engineering cabin. Jacen dropped to his knees to peer through the c.o.c.keyed hatchway, and his nostrils filled with the caustic stench of charred bone.

Jacen began a slow breathing exercise. The harsh smell burned his nostrils at first and threatened to make him nauseous, but as he centered himself in the Force and slowly detached from his emotions, the odor grew less biting, its implications less painful. He placed a hand on the wall and imagined it growing warm under his touch.

The staleness seemed to fade from the air inside the wreck, then the smell of old soot turned to the acrid bite of smoke. Jacen's eyes started to water as he looked back through the Force. His lungs were racked by an endless fit of coughing, and the cabin grew hot and orange.

Where he was touching the wall, his palm began to sting and blister. He held it in place and looked over his shoulder.

The flight deck was hidden behind a curtain of smoke and rolling flame. Geysers of fire r.e.t.a.r.dant rose from the ceiling nozzles, creating swirling ghosts of pink fog. Howls of human anguish drowned out the scream of buckling metal.

A single figure crawled out of the smoke, hairless and coughing and blistered raw. His face was unrecognizable, but four gashes ran diagonally across his chest, the wound hanging half open where the fleshglue had dissolved in the heat. One hand trailed behind, dragging a pair of levitated shapes along by their cloak collars. The two shapes were still burning, writhing in the air and flailing against each other in their pain.

Smoke began to rise from beneath Jacen's palm, and the smell of cooking flesh filled the air. He kept his hand pressed against the wall.

Pain no longer troubled him. Pain was his servant; he had learned that from Vergere.

The crawling figure reached the hatchway and paused, turning in Jacen's direction. The face was too scorched and swollen to recognize, but the eyes belonged to Raynar, questioning and proud and so terribly naive. The two of them locked gazes for a moment, then Raynar c.o.c.ked his head in confusion and started to open his mouth...

Jacen pulled his hand from the wall. The figures vanished instantly, returning him to a flight deck filled with the stale smell of ash and clouds of pink dust.

An insect brushed its antennae over his scorched hand. "Rurrrrruu,"

it drummed in concern. "Urrubuuuu?"

"Yes, it does hurt." Jacen smiled. "It's nothing."

He removed a small canister from his equipment belt and sprayed a coating of synthflesh over his palm. Raynar had been the misfit of their childhood group, trying a little too hard to fit in and often the b.u.t.t of jokes for his arrogance and showy clothes. He had never impressed anyone as exceptional Jedi material, and there had been a few conversations in which fellow candidates had expressed reservations about his judgment and initiative. Yet what Raynar had done on the Flier, risking his own life to save those who had betrayed his friends and abducted him, was the essence of being a Jedi Knight. Jacen doubted he would have done the same thing-and Jaina would have stayed to watch them burn. Given what the theft of the Flier had meant-that Anakin would certainly die of his wounds-Jacen might even have joined her.

Floating his Force light ahead of him, Jacen crawled into the engineering cabin and followed Raynar's trail through a cramped maze of toppled equipment. The stench of charred bones grew stronger, and Jacen feared he would only find their burned remains trapped in some dead-end corner, or simply lying in the middle of the aisle where Raynar had succ.u.mbed to smoke inhalation. His fears began to seem justified when he started to find scorched bones in the middle of the aisle-first, a few finger and toe and hand bones, then a forearm and a shin, then finally a femur. The s.p.a.ce between the floor and ceiling grew smaller and smaller, and he had to drop to his belly, and he began to sense the residue of Raynar's panic in the Force.

Then Jacen came to the shoulder blade, lying half buried in a pile of dirt that had poured in through a rent in the hull, and he knew. He began to dig, pulling the soft dirt under his body and pushing it back with his feet, and a moment later he felt a welcome draft of fresh air.

Raynar had reached an exit-but in what condition? Had he survived? Had either of the others?

His chest tight with hope and fear, Jacen belly-crawled through the hole, out into the bottom of the crater... and was surprised to find his guide waiting. In its hands, the insect held a new starfighter helmet and flight suit.

"Ubu rrru ubb." Without waiting for Jacen to stand, the guide offered the helmet and suit to him. "Urru bu."

Jacen stood. "Why would I need a starfighter helmet?" Instead of taking either item, he began to brush himself off. "I fly a skiff."

The guide raised one of its four hands toward the crater rim, where one of the Reconstruction Police's new XJ5 X-wings sat with an open c.o.c.kpit.

Jacen had a sinking feeling. "I'm happy with my skiff."

The guide thrummed a long explanation, which seemed to a.s.sert that he would be much happier serving the Colony in a Chas.e.x than his skiff, which the Colony was already using to ferry a group of Togot pilgrims back to the s.p.a.ceport.

Jacen did not bother to demand its return. He had already learned that the Colony insects had no real understanding of private property.

The skiff would be put to use-and, fortunately, well maintained-until he was ready to track it down again.

"Why would I want to serve the Colony?" Jacen asked. "Especially in a combat craft?"

A membrane slid over the guide's bulbous eyes and rose again, and it continued to hold the helmet and flight suit out to Jacen.

"It's a simple question," Jacen said. "If the Colony expects me to kill people, you'd better be able to tell me why."

The guide c.o.c.ked its head in incomprehension, and Jacen knew he was asking too much. As social insects, Colony residents obviously had a very limited sense of self-and absolutely no concept of free will. He might as well have been asking a beldon to take him fishing.

Always the preacher. The voice was the same that had come to Jacen back in Akanah's teaching circle-save that now the words were raspy and booming instead of faint and wispy. You still think too much, Jacen.

"I usually find it preferable to catastrophic blunders," Jacen said. The voice was so harsh and deep he found it even more difficult to place. It might have been Raynar-or it might have been Lomi or Welk or someone else altogether. "You seem to know me. You couldn't believe I would just start killing for you."

We do know you, Jacen, the voice said, not unkindly. We know what you will fight for.

As the voice spoke, an immense murky presence rose inside Jacen's mind, overwhelming his defenses so quickly he had no chance to shut it out. In the midst of the presence, he saw Jaina and the others, their faces filled with surprise and revulsion and pity. They were all in their flight suits, haggard and travel-worn, but healthy enough and unafraid.

They serve the Colony, Jacen, the voice said. Will you join them?

Will you help your sister?

Jacen did not answer, even in his thoughts. A day ago, he had felt Jaina growing small and cold in the Force, the way she always did before a battle. But there had been no indication afterward of anything alarming, not even the usual weary sorrow that always came of taking lives. He reached out to her, probing to see if there was anything amiss.

She responded with a welcoming warmth that let him know she was looking forward to seeing him.

But there was more, just a hint of the murky presence that had pushed its way into Jacen's mind-not hostile or ominous or threatening, just there.

The guide drew Jacen's attention back to it by pressing the helmet and flight suit into his hands. "Buu buur urub ruuruur."

Jacen pushed the equipment back into the guide's hands. "I haven't said I'm going."

"Buu rurr. Ubu ur."

"Perhaps," Jacen allowed. The murky presence had withdrawn from his own mind, once again leaving him solely with his guide. "Once I've found out what happened here."

He squatted on his haunches and ran his fingers through the dirt, searching for any sign that Raynar and the others had died here. When he found no more large bones, he pictured the raw and blistered face he had seen on the flight deck, then called on the Force again, trying to reach into the past and learn what had become of Raynar.

But this time, the Force opened itself to him in its own way.

Instead of the smoke and scorched flesh he had smelled on the flight deck, the odor it brought down to him was fresh and fragrant and familiar, a smell he had known since childhood.

Jacen looked up at the crater rim and was puzzled to find an image of his mother there, frowning across the gap at the Flier's blast-pocked hull. She was wearing a white blouse with a brown skirt and vest that reminded Jacen of his father's swashbuckling style, right down to the holstered blaster hanging on her hip. There were some new strands of gray hair and a few more laugh lines around her mouth, but she looked healthy and content, and Jacen's heart leapt at the sight of her. The last time he had seen her face had been over five standard years ago, before leaving on his odyssey of self-discovery, and he was astonished at the joy even a vision of it brought to him.

Jacen swallowed his surprise and tried instead to simply concentrate on what the Force was revealing to him. He knew that she was not actually standing there now, but at some other time. And, since his mother was the only figure he could see, she was probably the link to discovering what had become of Raynar.

She turned to someone he could not see, then asked, "What happened to the crew?"

There was a pause while she listened to the reply. Jacen could imagine only one thing that would bring his parents this deep into the Unknown Regions, the heart of the Colony itself. They had to be looking for the strike team.

His mother looked back to the Flier. "I mean the rest of the crew.

We know Raynar survived."

Jacen had his answer, but he was not ready to release the vision-not yet. He looked up at his mother's image, reaching out to her in the Force to strengthen their contact.

"h.e.l.lo."

Her gaze dropped toward Jacen's voice, then she furrowed her brow and reached out, as though grasping for someone's arm. "Jacen has been here."

Has. So they were still behind him.

The guide snapped its mandibles next to Jacen's ear. "Bubu ruu bu?"

"No one. Sorry." Continuing to hold the vision through the Force, Jacen finally took the helmet and flight suit. "Okay. Where am I going?"

The guide replied that Jacen wouldn't recognize the name of the system. It was on the Chiss frontier.

Up on the crater rim, the vision of his mother frowned. "Jacen? I'm having trouble hearing you."

Jacen ignored her and continued to speak to the guide. "Humor me.

In case something happens and I need to find my own way."

The navigator spread its antennae. "Burubu," it answered. "Ur bu Brurr rubur."

"Jacen?" His mother's face grew pale. "How? You're not-"

"I'm fine, Mom," he said. "I'll see you soon."

The guide turned a bulbous eye toward the crater rim.

"Qoribu," Jacen said, looking up at his mother. "In the Gyuel system."

NINE.

As the Falcon dropped toward the mottled pinnacles below, Leia found herself straining against her crash webbing, almost gasping at the bustling vastness of the Colony's central nest. The Yoggoy towers, brightly adorned in wild splashes of color, stood hip-to-hip across the entire planet, and the air was so thick with flying vehicles that she could barely see the surface.

"Kind of looks like old Coruscant," Han said, speaking to Leia and-over the comm-to Luke, Mara, and everyone else aboard the Shadow. "So big- and all that bustle."

Leia continued to strain forward over her controls, peering out the lower edge of the canopy. As the Falcon descended, she began to see that while the pinnacles came in every size, they were all distinctly cone-shaped, and they all had horizontally banded exteriors-like the insect spires in Killik Twilight.

She started to say as much, then decided she was letting her imagination run wild. Cones were a basic geometric form. Creating them out of mud rings was probably as common among intelligent insects as was erecting stone rectangles among social mammals.

"I'm gonna blast that can of corrosion back to quarks!" Han said.

Leia glanced over to find Han frowning at his tactical display, then checked her own screen and saw that the XR808g's transponder code had disappeared. "Did Juun land already?"

Han shook his head. "The little earworm shut off his transponder."

Knowing better than to ask if Han had remembered to run a code search, Leia activated her throat mike.

"We've lost the Exxer"

The report was greeted with a troubled silence. Right now, the XR808g was their only hope of locating Jaina and the others.

"Any ideas?" Han asked. "I'd like to find these kids before they become a bunch of bughuggers."

"That's not going to happen." Even over the c.o.c.kpit comm, Luke's voice was calm and rea.s.suring. "They're Jedi."

"What's that have to do with the price of spice on Nal Hutta?" Han demanded.

"They're too strong, Han," Mara said. "Especially Jaina."

"Yeah?" Han asked. "If they're so strong, how'd that Force-call drag them all the way out here in the first place?"

The troubled silence returned.