Trouble on Cloud City

13

Tenel ka’s normally alert mind went numb with shock as Jacen plummeted out of reach. She hung precariously, still dangling in the Wookiee’s strong grasp. She could have fallen at any instant. But for a full hundred heartbeats she could only stare down into the sea of clouds that had swallowed her friend Jacen.

Jacen…

At his side she had fought Dark Jedi, vicious beasts, bounty hunters, assassins, and misguided patriots. But never, even in her wildest nightmares, had she imagined that he could be taken from her like this—lost in an instant to gravity and some nebulous foe against whom she’d never even had the opportunity to fight.

The sharp pain in her arm did not come close to matching the wrenching pain in her heart, but it did bring her back to reality. Lowie groaned in weariness and despair. Tenel Ka’s booted feet flailed in the air. The only thing that kept her from sharing Jacen’s fate was Lowbacca’s strong grip on her one good arm.

But that couldn’t last forever.

For a split second, she considered letting go, plunging after Jacen into the clouds. At least that would save Lowbacca, and she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of knowing this had all indirectly been her fault.

A long time ago, if she hadn’t been trying so hard to impress Jacen when they’d first built their lightsabers, her pride would not have led her to fight him with a substandard weapon … would not have led to the accident in which her arm had been lost—an arm that would have been there to save Jacen from his fall, had it not been for her own foolishness.

She should have been there to catch him. Tenel Ka had failed Jacen.

Why had she simply not told him how much his friendship meant to her?

Tenel Ka’s sweaty hand slipped in Lowie’s grasp. With a harsh bark of warning, Lowbacca extended his razor-sharp Wookiee claws and dug them deep into her arm. He would not let her fall.

She winced, distracted from her torturous thoughts, and welcomed the pain that brought her mind back to sharp reality. The warrior girl looked up into Lowie’s golden eyes and saw there a reflection of her own anguish … and something more: determination.

Determination to stay alive. Determination not to lose another friend. Determination to warn Jaina, Zekk, and Lando that their lives were in danger too. Determination to find whoever had done this and bring them to justice.

Blood trickled from the deep wounds where Lowie’s talons dug fiercely into her skin. Through the Force she felt his resolve flow into her, like the warm blood that poured down her arm. The wind made her red-gold braids whip wildly around her and caught at the droplets of blood, spattering them across her face.

The braids of a warrior. The blood of a princess.

Tenel Ka gritted her teeth. She would not fall, and she would not allow Jacen’s murderers to go free. Her eyes still locked with Lowbacca’s, she used the Force to steady herself. “I’m ready.”

The Wookiee, who still had one arm wrapped around the sturdy antenna that protruded from the bottom of the city’s structure, pulled himself upward with that arm until he was able to wrap his strong legs around a crossbar. With both hands freed, he pulled her up by one arm and grasped her around the waist with the other. Then, shaking from the strain, he curled upward toward the antenna, as if sitting up and lifting weights simultaneously, until Tenel Ka could grasp the center bar of the antenna herself.

When he withdrew his claws from her arm the gush of blood made the antenna slippery and harder to hold on to, though Tenel Ka hardly noticed. She quickly hooked a leg over the crossbar and helped Lowbacca pull himself upright. For several long moments they clung to the antenna, shuddering from their efforts.

Finally Tenel Ka drew a deep breath. “Thank you, Lowbacca, my friend. Let us continue.”

Lowie roared and pointed up toward the chute through which they had fallen. Tenel Ka looked and saw with despair that the hatch had closed behind them! “You are correct, my friend. We seem to be stranded.”

A split second later the hatch mysteriously slid open of its own accord. Lowie gave a triumphant bellow.

They would still need to find a way to climb inside the sheer tube, but the first hurdle had been overcome. As the two young Jedi struggled to a standing position on the antenna crossbar, a familiar silver ovoid hovered down through the open disposal chute.

“Oh, thank the Maker! Master Lowbacca, Mistress Tenel Ka! You’re alive! Do make haste—I’m not certain how long I can keep this access hatch open.”

Tenel Ka fumbled with the pouch clipped at her waist and removed her grappling hook and fibercord.

“Oh, excellent idea!” Em Teedee said. “There is a ledge exactly three point seven meters above you where an air vent feeds into this disposal tube.”

Tenel Ka felt a strange light-headed sensation as she attempted to swing the grappling hook for her throw. Her fingers were bloody and the hook slipped from her grasp as she made the toss.

Lowbacca’s hand shot out and snatched the cord before the hook could fall. Tenel Ka saw this as if from a great distance. The Wookiee then secured one arm around her waist and the antenna while he used his other hand to draw in the grappling hook, swing, and make the throw. The hook caught and held firm.

“Excellent shot, Master Lowbacca!” Em Teedee said. “I say, wherever could Master Jacen be?”

An angry Wookiee bellow exploded beside Tenel Ka’s ear, but it didn’t matter. A curtain of soft darkness descended upon her mind and she remembered nothing more.

Anja had everything back under control. She had reminded herself of her priorities and her goals, of who she was and who her enemies were. She felt refreshed, invigorated, ready to take on anyone or anything. She was once again convinced that she had not befriended Jacen, Jaina, and their associates. She was merely using them to get to Han Solo.

Well, perhaps she had slipped a bit and begun to think that their silly belief in the Force might actually give them some advantage, some power that she didn’t possess. But the sentiment had been short-lived. Everything seemed so much clearer to her now. She was completely self-sufficient. Anja Gallandro needed nothing and no one except Anja Gallandro. She had her wits, her intuition, her reflexes. And that made her every bit as good as a Jedi Knight.

As these comforting thoughts filled her mind, a heavy knock sounded on the door to her quarters. She hurriedly swept all of her private belongings off the sleeping pad and back into the satchel from which they had come hours earlier, including the empty spice vial. She stepped to the refresher unit and stuffed the satchel into a corner before answering the knock.

She waved her hand over the Open switch, and the door slid aside with a hiss. Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, and Em Teedee practically fell into the room. Em Teedee’s casing had been badly scratched, Tenel Ka’s arm seeped blood from several deep wounds, and Lowie’s ginger fur stuck out wildly in all directions.

Startling as it was to see them in this bedraggled condition, Anja was determined not to lose her composure again. She raised her eyebrows and tried for some humor. “I see you’ve come to appreciate my opinion of Ugnaughts.”

“You were right not to come with us,” Tenel Ka said in a weak voice. Her eyelids drooped, and Anja could now see that the Wookiee was supporting most of the warrior girl’s weight. Blood dripped from Tenel Ka’s wounds to the floor.

“It was a trap,” Em Teedee cried. “Curse my foolish circuits, I should have seen it earlier.”

Lowie growled. “Oh, yes!” Em Teedee translated. “And Mistress Tenel Ka requires immediate medical assistance—immediate!”

“Trap,” Tenel Ka echoed. Her face was pale, her breathing ragged. Lowie picked up the warrior girl and gently deposited her on the sleeping pallet.

Anja pushed a button on the comm unit beside the door. “Emergency medical team to room 0914.”

“Request acknowledged,” a droid voice replied. “Estimated arrival: two point four minutes.”

Anja nodded and turned back toward the two Jedi. “So where’s Jacen?” she asked. “Torturing the Ugnaughts by telling them jokes?”

Lowie leaned back against the wall and crooned a strange note that Anja had never before heard from a Wookiee. Tenel Ka did not reply, but tears appeared from beneath her eyelids. Anja guessed that her pain must be terrible, because she had never seen the warrior girl betray any emotion whatsoever.

The Wookiee crooning grew louder. The miniaturized translating droid spoke in an oddly hushed voice. “If Master Lowbacca were capable of making any reply, he would regretfully inform you that Master Jacen … is dead.” With that, the little droid fell silent and hovered fretfully between the Wookiee and the warrior girl, as if trying to comfort them.

Ridiculous! Anja thought. Jacen could not be dead.

She had seen him only a few hours ago. This had to be somebody’s idea of a joke.

But Lowie’s eerie crooning and Tenel Ka’s tears convinced her that something terrible had indeed occurred—more surely than any words could have.

In subdued tones, the translating droid explained what had taken place.

Anja was not prepared for the storm of conflicting emotions that swept through her. Anger, guilt, hopelessness, loss, despair. Jacen had not deserved to die. He had befriended Anja, amused her, taught her, defended her, learned from her, saved her life. He had been there for Anja. That’s what friends are for, he had said.

But she had not been there for him.

An even worse thought now occurred to her: she might actually have caused Jacen’s death…just as she had always told Czethros she would do someday, given the chance. It had been a lie. She hadn’t meant to. Not really.

But Anja herself had told Czethros of the young Jedi Knights’ arrival on Cloud City and what they were investigating. Now Lowie and Tenel Ka were wounded. And Jacen was dead. If Anja knew Czethros—and she thought she did—these events were not unrelated. That meant Czethros did have something to do with Cojahn’s death and that Anja’s friends had come too close to finding out about it.

She had no one to blame but herself. Her chest began heaving, and deep, wordless sobs wrenched from her throat.

She had lied. She had lied to Czethros. She had lied to herself. Jacen had been her friend. Why should he be dead now?

An icy knife of anguish plunged deep into Anja’s heart. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. She stumbled backward into the refresher unit and shut the door tightly behind her. Racking sobs shook her as she scrambled in the corner for what she needed—what she had to have. There was no choice…. The spice would help her.

A minute later, when the emergency medical team arrived at the door to her quarters, Anja came out of the refresher unit and let them in. She was controlled now, full of energy.

But nothing, nothing, could dull the pain….