Part 22 (1/2)

The Nightsisters pa.s.sed in the narrow corridor, and one woman's black skirts slapped against Teneniel's. And then they were past.

The Nightsisters stopped, and Luke could feel Teneniel's fear, could feel how she wanted to run.

”Halt! You there!” a Nightsister shouted at their backs, her voice dry and crackling like rotted leather. As one the group stopped. The Nightsister demanded, ”What were you doing so late at the prison?”

Han turned, answered through his helmet microphone. ”Trouble in cell block C.”

The Nightsister nodded her head thoughtfully, began to turn away, but looked back at them. ”What trouble? Why wasn't I notified?”

”A minor scuffle between inmates,” Han said. ”We did not wish to disturb you.”

The Nightsister pulled her hood back, and in the brilliant lights, Luke was struck with horror. Her white hair was unkempt and matted. Her bloodshot eyes were a vivid crimson. But most horrible was her face?a purplish monstrosity from ruptured blood vessels, gray and dead in the cheekbones.

”I feel your fear,” the Nightsister said. ”What would a Nightsister have to fear here?in our domain?”

”With so many guards gone, there are rumors of an impending riot,” Han said, stepping forward, inserting himself between Teneniel and the Nightsisters. ”I'm afraid there may be some truth to those rumors.”

The Nightsister nodded thoughtfully. Luke could feel her trying to probe them, and he almost pulled his blaster. Instead, he channeled the Force, let it flow into the witch, quiet her suspicions. ”I will pay a visit to block C. My presence should cow the rabble,” she said. ”Thank you for alerting me.”

Han nodded, and the Nightsister turned, pulled up her hood and proceeded to the elevator.

Han led the way into the gla.s.s tower. He opened a door and marched them through some kind of common room.

A dozen Nightsisters dressed in black robes lounged on plush couches in a circle, engrossed in the spectacle of watching ghostly floating images of beautiful men and women. The Nightsisters sat snacking on exotic foods, and did not even seem to notice them pa.s.s.

Han led them to an elevator, and as the door closed, Teneniel nearly collapsed. ”The Nightsister we pa.s.sed,” she said. ”That was Gethzerion. I was sure she'd recognize me.” She swallowed a deep breath.

Luke stood looking at the elevator door, and suddenly he felt as if he were very high in the air, looking down at Dathomir below, and all of it was black. All of it was frozen. Every bit of it. Everyone, everything was dead. He closed his eyes, tried to rest for a moment, thinking that perhaps his fatigue was affecting his vision, but the blackness remained, and a tremendous sense of despair and urgency filled him. He stared into the blackness, knowing it for what it was: A vision of the future.

”What?” Leia said, turning to Luke. ”What is it?”

”We can't leave here,” Luke said, the words feeling dry in his mouth. ”We can't leave this world yet?not this way.”

”What do you mean?” Isolder asked, and Han said, ”Yeah, what do you mean?

We've got to leave!”

”No,” Luke said, staring away. He pulled off his helmet, gasped for breath. ”No, we can't. Everything here is so wrong. There's so much darkness.” He could feel the darkness coming, the cold, seeping into every fiber of his muscles.

”Look,” Han said. ”We're going to get some spare parts for the Falcon, then the whole bunch of us are going to fly our tails back to safety. As soon as we get back to Coruscant, we can send a fleet in, you can command a million troops?whatever it takes!”

”No,” Luke said with certainty. ”We can't go.” He was frightened. But he had no plans. He couldn't go back up to the Nightsisters and attack them.

They couldn't afford a confrontation now.

”Listen to Han,” Isolder said. ”These people have been trapped here for years! They don't need us to martyr ourselves for them tonight. They'll last until we can get back to rescue them.”

A pale light of certainty seemed to flash through Luke, and the Jedi turned to Isolder, glanced quickly at all of them. ”No, they can't.

Watch, and you'll see. Believe me, the powers of darkness are gathering rapidly. Isolder, you said your fleet will be arriving in six days. But if we don't stop it before then, this planet will be destroyed!”

Han shook his head doubtfully. ”Listen, kid,” he said. ”Don't go getting all crazy on me. I know you're under a lot of pressure. You've got a few problems now?and I really do sympathize?but if you keep talking like that and scaring these folks, I'm going to have to bust you in the chops.”

Luke could feel Han's nervousness. He didn't want Luke upsetting the others. Perhaps rightfully so. The elevator jarred as it hit bottom, and Luke hit a keyplate. The doors hissed open, but Luke still had his back to the door. ”Go ahead, Han,” Luke said, gesturing at the immense storage chamber behind him without bothering to turn around. ”Here is what you want.”

Luke turned to see three dozen damaged s.h.i.+ps?three nearly demolished Imperial lift-wing carriers, a dozen TIE fighters melted halfway down to slag, parts of broken hover cars. Han surveyed the damaged vehicles, and gasped. In the center of the junkyard, with footlights s.h.i.+ning under them, sat a nearly completed TIE fighter and a stock light freighter that looked almost exactly like the Millennium Falcon. Most of the forward sensor forks were painted rust-orange, while the hull was a faded olive and the rear drives were an old s.p.a.ce-pirate blue. Weld marks showed where parts of three s.h.i.+ps had been cobbled together.

”They've almost got themselves a s.h.i.+p!” Han said, pulling off his helmet to get a better look. ”It looks like all they need is a few more cells for the sublight drives.”

”We couldn't be that lucky,” Leia said.

”Hey, these old Corellian stock light freighters were some of the most popular in the galaxy in their day,” Han said. ”And you still can't find a s.h.i.+p that's more durable.”

Isolder pulled off his helmet, took a deep breath of the fresh air. ”More overweight and clunky, you mean.”

”Same thing,” Han said.

Han headed down a shallow ramp toward the s.h.i.+p, and Leia said, ”Wait!”

Han stopped, and Leia studied the s.h.i.+pyard suspiciously. ”These are pretty valuable pieces of equipment,” she said. ”They're here underground, lighted. Don't you think it's odd that they aren't guarded?”

”Who needs guards?” Han asked. ”These s.h.i.+ps won't fly. Besides, you saw the stormtroopers marching off. The place is a little understaffed tonight.”

”What about alarms?” Luke asked. He picked up his macrobinoculars, scanned the room, adjusted the dials. ”I don't see any laser alarms, but this place could be rigged with anything?motion detectors, magnetic field imagers?and in this junk pile, we wouldn't even know where to begin looking.”

”So what do you want us to do,” Han asked, ”just stand here? We've got to check this s.h.i.+p out.”

”Come on,” Leia said, touching Luke's shoulder. ”He's right.”

Han and the group crept forward, scanning the ground, the surrounding junk piles. The Corellian freighter's hatch doors were closed, and Han stopped a moment, studying the access keypad. ”If I were going to guard this s.h.i.+p, the place where I'd put the alarm is right here,” Han said.

”If someone punches in the wrong sequence, bzzzt. The alarm goes off.”

”What's the right sequence?” Teneniel asked. Luke placed his hand over the keypad, but no one had touched it in a long time. He couldn't feel the sequence.

”I don't know,” Han said, studying the characters. ”Every captain has his or her own code. But of course the port authorities have overrides, depending on what systems you're registered in. Here are the licenses.”

He pointed out a column of characters. Some of the alien scripts were tiny, delicately curved. Others were in pictographs, while still others were blockish and bold with crude knife shapes, as if they'd been designed by some warrior race. ”Whoever ran this s.h.i.+p did a lot of traveling in the Chokan, Viridia, and Zi'Dek systems. I used to know some of those port access codes back in the days of the Old Republic, but this character was running for the Imperials. They changed all of the codes.

d.a.m.n, I wish I'd done more pirating.”

Isolder stepped up to the s.h.i.+p, punched in the code fifteen-zero-three-eleven. The hatch swung down. ”Chokan Imperial port authority code,”

Isolder said, smiling.

Han looked at him, astonished. ”You worked the Chokan system? Even with that nasty plague?”

Isolder shrugged. ”I knew a girl there.”

”Must have been some girl,” Leia said.