Crisis at Crystal Reef

16

Anja had never felt so out of control.

While the Jedi all around her in the minisub worked with brisk determination to diagnose and fix the ailments of the Elfa, she felt herself slipping away into a zone of pain somewhere between madness and death.

Her vision narrowed and filled with static at the edges. She found she could not concentrate on what her friends were doing—the need for spice was too great, no matter how she tried to push it back. The tiny claustrophobic vessel felt unbearably hot, stifling, despite their arctic prison. Unreasonable quantities of perspiration soaked her leather headband, streamed into her large eyes, ran down her neck and back to leave damp stains on her clothing.

The others around her were talking, planning, brainstorming, but it all seemed so far away. A deep ache burned in her muscles and ate its way down to her bones, igniting liquid agony in every joint of her body. Moving her hands or any part of her body produced an instant punishing pain. So she did not move. Each breath became a struggle. Her head throbbed with unimaginable pressure. She realized now that only one substance in the galaxy could put an end to her agony: andris.

Stupid, her mind raged. How could she have let this happen to her? Addiction was for fools and weaklings, not for someone like herself—independent, intelligent, strong-willed. She had never meant for the andris to affect her this way. She’d always thought she was in charge of her own body, but now she was a prisoner of spice.

Fool! she snarled at herself. Anja had been sure that addiction was for other people, weak people. She had convinced herself from the beginning that she would be able to handle it. She’d known when she started taking spice that many people had been destroyed by addiction. Anja had watched it, had known it for a fact. And yet, with firm conviction, she had believed that it would not happen to her.

I am strong. Immune. Invincible.

Anja gave a bitter laugh. Delirious was more like it. Somewhere in the back of Anja’s mind, a memory stirred, a childhood memory of her mother shaking her head and saying, “So like your father. Taking the easy way even though it’s dangerous, and not thinking for a moment that you could be hurt.” Anja could not have been older than three or four when her mother had said those words. Her mother had died while Anja was still young. Yet somehow part of Anja’s feverish brain had remembered. She didn’t even try to control her shuddering.

So—she and her father had something in common: both took foolish risks, both believed themselves indestructible. Anja drew a ragged breath. She had to admit now that Han Solo was probably telling the truth. In the end, it had most likely been her father’s foolishness that had killed him—just as her own foolishness would kill her now.

She gripped the arms of her seat as streamers of fire unfurled in her muscles and joints. Short of dying, there was only one way to stop the pain.

“Spice!” she rasped.

The frenetic activity around her quieted and, as if from a distance, she heard Jacen’s voice say, “Anja? Are you all right?”

“Spice,” she repeated. “Andris.”

“It’s fine. We managed to destroy almost everything.”

Something—a hand?—touched her arm, and where it touched, her suffering was more bearable. She blinked hard, trying to focus her vision.

Jacen’s face, complete with lopsided grin, swam into view. “Hey, you look terrible.”

“That’s because … I’m dying,” she managed in a hoarse whisper.

Anger flashed in his brandy-brown eyes. “No you’re not!”

Tenel Ka’s serious face suddenly appeared beside Jacen’s. The warrior girl stretched out her single hand and made a brief, thorough check of Anja’s pulse, skin temperature, pupil dilation, and muscular tremors. At each place the warrior girl’s fingers touched, the pain eased—just for a moment—before she moved on.

“You will not die, Anja Gallandro,” she said. “We will not allow it.”

Anja suddenly felt the relief of another Jedi touch on her left hand. A pair of emerald-green eyes stared into hers. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Zekk asked. “Spice withdrawal, right?”

Anja felt too weak to reply, but Zekk seemed to see the answer in her eyes. “I went through something similar. Well, not with drugs. I was addicted to using the dark side of the Force. I knew it was wrong, but I told myself I had good reasons for what I was doing. Anyway, when I wanted to stop, the dark side didn’t want to let me go. I almost didn’t make it.” He glanced up briefly at Jacen and Tenel Ka. “If it hadn’t been for my friends, I don’t think I would have.”

Anja shivered. Her teeth rattled together. Tenel Ka reached out and pushed a few sweaty strands of hair out of Anja’s eyes. Cool, tingling relief followed her friend’s touch.

Her friends, Anja thought with distant surprise: Tenel Ka, Jacen, Zekk. Yes, even Jaina and Lowie. Master Skywalker, too. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Maybe she’d just been too busy believing the lies Czethros told her; she’d lied to herself too much to notice it. Yes, these were her friends. They would help her.

“I need andris. Just one more dose,” she pleaded with them. “Then I’ll find a way to quit. I promise.” The effort of her long speech left her trembling and slumped over in her seat. She didn’t see the irony in the fact that she had told herself the same thing last time.

A soft, melodious voice broke through Anja’s pain. “There is another way.” Ambassador Cilghal stroked a webbed hand against Anja’s cheek. “It is more difficult, requires more strength, but it can be done.”

Anja shook her head. “Too much pain. I’ll die.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Jacen said, more confidence in his words than in his voice.

“How—?” Anja began.

“I am not simply an ambassador,” Cilghal answered, “I am a Jedi healer. If you will let me, I can draw the toxins from your blood.”

“Will that end the addiction?” Zekk asked.

Cilghal shook her fishy head. “I can take away only the poisons of the body. The poisons in her mind she must learn to remove for herself.”

Anja shook her head violently, causing pain to flare in her neck. Droplets of sweat flew from side to side. “Too hard.”

“You will not be alone,” Tenel Ka said.

“We’ll be here to help you,” Jacen said, clasping her hand tightly. Tenel Ka covered Jacen’s hand with hers.

Zekk folded both hands tightly around Anja’s left hand. “We’ll be right here with you. All of us.”

Anja felt an impossible comfort and relief flowing from her friends’ hands to hers. At first, she thought the relief must be in her imagination, that her need had fooled her weakened mind. She withdrew her fingers from Zekk’s. Instantly the pain in her left hand returned. She gave a wordless gasp and stretched her arm back toward him. When he took Anja’s hand this time, she knew the relief was real. It began in her fingers and tingled in cool waves up her arm.

Anja turned her tortured gaze back to Cilghal. “One more dose. Then I’ll accept your help.”

Cilghal said nothing. She simply folded her flippered hands and stared at Anja with calm resolve.

Tears of pain now streamed down Anja’s face along with the perspiration. The pain was unbearable. She knew what she needed to do. Deep down, perhaps she had always known.

“You’re right,” Anja choked at last. “Putting it off won’t help. And I can’t do this alone.” She shuddered. “All right. What do I have to do?”

Cilghal nodded. She gently pushed Anja’s seat back until it reclined. Then she placed one flippered hand on her forehead, one on her stomach. Anja felt Zekk, Tenel Ka, and Jacen press close around her. In all of her life, she had never felt such caring … or such pain.

After the longest and most excruciating half hour of her entire life, Anja slipped into blissful unconsciousness.

Anja came back awake, blinking her big eyes, with a strength and alertness that she could not remember experiencing since before she had begun taking andris.

Andris! To her surprise, though the very thought of the spice still enticed her, she found she could withstand its allure. She pushed herself up in her seat. Around her, the young Jedi were hard at work trying to repair the damaged minisub.

“How long—?”

Tenel Ka checked the chronometer. “Three-point-two hours.”

Anja rocked back on her elbows in surprise. “Then it’s over? I’m cured?”

Cilghal turned to fix her with a fishy stare. “Not cured, my child. Cleansed. The toxins are gone, but your body is still capable of experiencing the craving for spice.”

Anja accepted the news without flinching. Then she glanced around at Jacen, Zekk, and Tenel Ka, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. “Thank you for using your powers to heal me.”

Jacen shook his head. “Hey, most of those powers came from inside you. From your wanting to stay alive and wanting to be healed.”

Anja smiled at them all, a warm, genuine smile. “Maybe. But I don’t think I’d have found that strength inside me if I hadn’t had friends.”