Trouble on Cloud City

10

In the rain forest sector of the Climateria, Lowie hung upside down from an artificial tree branch, admiring the view. Em Teedee hovered right-side-up half a meter beneath the Wookiee. Anja, who paced back and forth on a limb adjacent to Lowie’s, seemed as edgy and impatient as ever. Two meters lower down Tenel Ka straddled a branch and practiced Jedi relaxation techniques while Jacen searched in vain for tiny creatures on the bark of the synthetic tree.

“Remind me exactly what it is we’re supposed to be pretending to look for while Calrissian and the others are off joyriding,” Anja said with an exaggerated sigh.

Lowie rumbled a reply and, since Anja did not understand the growling language, Em Teedee obligingly translated. “Master Lowbacca points out that we are not pretending to look for anything. We are pretending to enjoy ourselves whilst actually searching for any indication that someone might have wanted Master Cojahn … disposed of.”

“We’re not really sure what we’re looking for,” Jacen explained helpfully. “But while Lando, Jaina, and Zekk are poking around on the Bith homeworld, it’s our job to keep an eye out for anything suspicious here. Any sort of shady dealings Cojahn might have learned about, maybe some sort of espionage, drug dealing, embezzling—who knows?”

“We must remain watchful and follow any leads,” Tenel Ka said.

Anja snorted. “Well, this watchfulness is about as interesting as watching all of you contemplate the Force or think at rocks back on Yavin 4.”

She gave an experimental bounce on the tree branch fifty meters above the ground, took another step and bounced again, then again. Step-bounce, step-bounce. A dangerous game. Lowie gave a cautionary woof, but she seemed utterly confident and tensed like a predatory animal ready to spring. The thought of falling did not seem to worry Anja; in fact, Lowie wondered if it had occurred even to her. Then again, he mused, maybe it had and she found the thought exhilarating.

Jacen, apparently giving up on finding any interesting creatures in the artificial tree, stood up and began pacing and bouncing just as Anja was doing. Lowie growled a warning at him as well. Jacen stopped, inhaled deeply, let his eyes fall halfway shut. His entire body seemed to relax, and he walked with a smooth effortless grace to the far end of the limb he was on, then headed back toward Tenel Ka, who was seated closer to the trunk, drawing in slow, deep breaths.

Anja snorted and continued bouncing along her branch. “And exactly what sort of clues do you expect to find at the top of a tree?”

Jacen glanced up at the young woman—and in that moment she missed her footing. “Oh, Mistress Anja, look out!” Em Teedee cried. Anja tried to regain her balance, but to no avail. Lowie watched her tumble from the branch as if in slow motion.

Before Em Teedee had finished speaking, both Jacen and Tenel Ka were completely alert. Lowie’s furry arm shot out, and he managed to slow Anja’s descent, but he could not get a grip on her. Jacen and Tenel Ka, however, each succeeded in grasping one of her limbs and pulled Anja to safety on their branch.

“Thanks.” Anja’s voice carried an uncharacteristic quaver, and her face was paler than usual, her eyes brighter, with an unaccustomed startled look in them. “I must not have been paying close enough attention. I guess I owe you one.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. That’s what friends are for,” Jacen said. “To be there. All of us young Jedi Knights have saved each other’s hides more than once.”

“This is a fact,” Tenel Ka said, then changed the subject. “And I believe Anja was correct: this treetop will not aid us in our investigation. We should continue our search in a place more likely to yield clues.”

Anja smiled at the warrior girl—a genuine smile. The expression was not a common one for her, especially when addressing either Jaina or Tenel Ka.

“Okay, where do we go then? I’m open to suggestions,” Jacen said.

“Someplace with more people, to start with?” Anja said, making a shaky attempt at humor.

“An area with more construction perhaps?” Tenel Ka offered.

Jacen waggled his eyebrows. “I guess maybe we should get back to our roots, then.”

Tenel Ka nodded. Anja smiled.

“It’s too bad … just when I was starting to branch out,” Jacen went on.

Lowie groaned.

“All right, all right.” Jacen shot him a mischievous grin. “I know it goes against the grain, but maybe we should all leaf now.”

Lowie grumbled a halfhearted protest, reluctantly swung off his branch, and began clambering back down the tree.

“Yes,” Tenel Ka said slowly. “I wood advise climbing down immediately.”

“Great,” Anja said, “I think that’s a vine idea.”

Tenel Ka stared at her in surprise. Lowie gave a curious growl. Jacen’s mouth fell open.

“It’s certainly more advisable than risking life and limb,” Em Teedee added unexpectedly, shocking them all into amazed laughter.

Anja was glad to be on the move again as she and the others trekked through the amusement complex, keeping up their pretense of having fun. All of them seemed to find the physical activity relaxing.

Anja certainly welcomed the relaxation. She’d become increasingly tense as her suspicions had mounted, and she’d begun to believe that Calrissian was right and Cojahn’s death had not been an accident after all. It was even more uncomfortable to know—since she had been enlisted in the search for clues—that Czethros had interests here on Bespin. She had little doubt that if Cojahn had gotten in his way, Czethros would not have hesitated to have the man “removed.” What if Anja found out that Czethros did have Cojahn murdered? Would she be forced to cover up her boss’s actions?

Anja shivered. She couldn’t believe how strongly she had reacted to her minor slip on the tree branch, how grateful she had been for her friends’ help. Jacen and Tenel Ka had saved her. Would Czethros ever have done something so noble for her?

“Get a grip,” she scolded herself quietly as they entered a chilly, dazzling white polar environment chamber.

Jacen Solo was the son of her worst enemy. She could have taken the opportunity in the treetops to throw him off balance; the fall would have looked like an accident. After all, hadn’t she come to Yavin 4 and now to Bespin to find a way to hurt Han Solo through his children? Objectively speaking, what could have been more fortunate than if Jacen had fallen to injury or death?

But even as the thought entered her mind, Anja’s stomach clenched. How could she be so ungrateful—he had been there for her when she needed him. As she looked around at the bleak whiteness of the polar environment chamber, resentment welled up in her. Who had asked Jacen to be so nice to her? His selfless actions just muddled her thoughts and confused her plans.

I do want to hurt Han Solo, she insisted silently to herself. It’s the only way to make him pay for my father’s death. In frustration, she reached down, packed some snow together into a ball, and threw it directly at Jacen’s chest. He laughed as it broke apart into thousands of fluffy white chunks. He retaliated immediately.

A fast and furious snowball fight ensued, and by the time she, Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Lowie stepped back into the central hub ten minutes later, Anja had pushed all thoughts of weakness from her mind.

“Dear me. What was that?” Em Teedee asked, bobbing along above Lowie’s shoulder, a light dusting of snow melting on his silvery casing.

Lowie gave a questioning growl.

“Over there,” Em Teedee said. “It scurried up the access corridor.”

“What did?” Jacen said.

“Someone—or something,” Em Teedee replied. “An Ugnaught, I believe. He was carrying some sort of case with a handle on it. Come to think of it, I do believe that creature was lurking about earlier whilst we were building our fortress in the sand in the seashore environment—he had the same odd patch of missing fur on his head.”

Anja had an unsettled feeling in her stomach as Jacen trotted over to the corridor that the translating droid had indicated.

“I saw him,” Jacen said. “He just disappeared through a trapdoor in the corridor. Let’s find out what he’s up to.”

“What for?” Anja asked in alarm.

“Because he’s acting suspicious,” Jacen replied, as if the answer were obvious. “If Em Teedee is right about his patchy fur, he may be the same Ugnaught foreman who got fired a few days before Cojahn’s death. That’s suspicious, isn’t it? What would he be doing here? He shouldn’t be at the construction site at all.”

Anja’s tension returned with full force, and she had a sudden overwhelming urge to go back to her quarters, where she could think, where she could be alone, where she had stored her spice.

“I don’t find his lurking or his disappearance the least bit suspicious. Maybe the guy just left some tools behind,” she said. “He came, he got his tools, he left. I think you’re all just a bit too desperate to find something to investigate.”

Tenel Ka shook back her red-gold warrior braids and looked directly at Anja. “But I sensed something through the Force: danger.”

“Me too,” Jacen said.

Lowie rumbled his agreement.

“The sentiment appears to be unanimous, Mistress Anja,” Em Teedee said.

“Well, you can count me out,” Anja said. “I’ve had my share of bad experiences with Ugnaughts, and I don’t really want to repeat them. Besides, dark tunnels tend to remind me of explosions—just like in the booby-trapped mines on Anobis.” She shuddered at the thought of the decades-long civil war between the miners of her mountain village and the farmers in the valleys. “Go ahead without me, if you want. I’m heading back to my room. I’ll see you all at evening meal.”

“Okay,” Jacen said doubtfully. “I’m sure we won’t be long. We’ll see you later.”

With that, he, Tenel Ka, Lowie, and Em Teedee hurried up the corridor to the trapdoor the Ugnaught had used. In less than a minute they had disappeared into the floor, following him.

Anja breathed a sigh of relief when they were gone. Why was it that being among these young Jedi brought up such conflicting emotions within her? She walked down another hallway in the direction of her room as fast as her legs would go.

She felt an overwhelming urge to take some andris. She needed it. She had assured her friends that she wasn’t addicted to the spice, but she knew without a doubt that her need for it right now could not be ignored.

She stepped into a turbolift and slumped against its rounded wall. The door slid shut behind her and she noticed that her hands were shaking. Was she addicted? she wondered. As the turbolift shot upward, she shrugged off the idea.

No, it was only natural, given the circumstances, the tension, her near fall from the tree, that she might need a small extra boost. A light sweat broke out on her forehead and her vision blurred for a moment, then cleared. The instant the turbolift door opened, she dashed down the hallway toward her quarters, burst through the door, and scrambled over to the satchel that held her belongings.

Not wanting to waste time searching, she dumped the contents unceremoniously onto the sleeping pad and grabbed for the little black box that held her precious andris. Her trembling fingers fumbled with the catch and she withdrew one of the insulation-wrapped packets. She ripped away the covering that kept the vial chilled and in the process dropped the container into her pile of clothes.

She was panting now and close to tears. She recited half a dozen choice curses that she had never spoken in front of the young Jedi Knights as she rummaged again for the small vial among her belongings.

There. There it was.

Anja had no memory of the intervening few minutes in which she opened the vial and took the spice. The next thing she knew, she felt energy coursing through her body. Her vision was clear and acute, her mind alert, her doubts gone.

Yes, now she could think clearly. She didn’t have to have andris. She could give it up anytime she wanted, of course.

But she didn’t want to. It made her feel so much better.

“Wow. I had no idea all these tunnels were even down here,” Jacen said, gazing at the maze of passages that stretched in all directions beneath the entertainment complex. He kept his voice low in case the Ugnaught they were following was somehow still within hearing range.

The warrens were dimly lit, and just barely tall enough for Jacen to stand up in. Lowie, however, had to stoop to move around.

“Em Teedee, would you please give us a little extra light?” Jacen murmured. “But not too much—we don’t want to be seen.”

“Certainly, Master Jacen,” Em Teedee said in a loud whisper. “I should be delighted to be of service.” He bobbed up to the top of the tunnel and directed the light from his optical sensors down toward the floor of the passage. “But however are you going to locate that Ugnaught now?”

“We must use the Force,” Tenel Ka said. “He cannot have gone far.”

As if to prove her point, Lowie suddenly woofed and pointed to a side corridor about ten meters away.

“Right. I sense it too,” Jacen said, thinking of the seedier areas deep within Cloud City. “He must be heading to lower levels, probably Port Town. Let’s go.”

Em Teedee stopped. “Just a moment, Master Jacen. Dear me! Although I realize I’m not endowed with the Force, I was attempting to reach out with all my sensors, and I believe I’ve just intercepted a comm transmission originating from somewhere extremely close by. The words were in Ugnaught dialogue—with which I am of course quite familiar, being fluent in over sixteen forms of communication—”

Lowie growled and tapped the floating droid with one finger, as if to remind him that they were in a hurry.

“Ah. Aha. What did the communication say?” Tenel Ka asked.

“Yes, of course, I was coming to that. It was something to this effect: Retrieved the spice. Deal is back on. Meet outside tunnel 83, section 11. Bring hard credits only.”

Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Lowie exchanged concerned glances. Jacen gave a low whistle. “A drug deal, then. For hard cash?”

Tenel Ka quirked an eyebrow at him. “So it would appear.”

Lowie gave a thoughtful growl.

“Right,” Jacen said. “If that’s not suspicious, I don’t know what is.”

“I sense him moving away,” Tenel Ka warned.

“Let’s stay with the Ugnaught then,” Jacen said, moving up the tunnel and toward the side passageway. “I’ve got a stronger feeling than ever that this guy knows something about Cojahn’s death.”