Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [111]
“Maybe I can use the Force to contact someone,” he said, “send out a message with my thoughts. I doubt anybody’ll be able to read it, but we have to try.”
Callista slowly pulled the thick fabric of the environment suit over her long legs. “Yes,” she said, defeated, “we have to try.” Before she clamped her helmet in place, she kissed Luke. “Will you be all right?” she said.
He smiled wanly at her. “As long as you’re here to watch over me.”
Luke’s blue eyes fell closed and rolled upward slightly as he sank into himself, using his Jedi techniques to enter a deep trance that walled him off from the rest of the universe.
Callista longed to join him, but her grasp on the Force had become so slippery she could not touch her abilities. She was unable even to begin the deep Jedi trance that Luke brought upon himself.
She watched him, feeling her heart ache with love as she struggled with the silence of the Force in her mind. Once again, she saw the dark shadows of possibilities in her mind, luring her with an easy way to use the Force again—
Join the dark side!
—even if it meant she had to succumb to evil influences.
“No,” she whispered to herself, though she knew she could not disturb Luke now. She fled from the dark alternative, and it frightened her that the persistent shadows had come more easily this time.
The silent cabin grew colder and colder. The environment suit crinkled around her as she curled up next to Luke, conserving energy and wanting to be next to him.
He appeared to be a statue. Frost formed on his cheeks from the faint exhalations of his breath. She desperately wished she could touch his thoughts, share in his efforts to send out a plea for help—but Luke’s mind remained closed to her.
The crippled ship drifted through the outer fringes of the asteroid belt with minimal shields and failing life support, while Callista sat alone in the darkness.
Inside the featureless Force shell he had wrapped around himself and his mind, Luke Skywalker centered his thoughts into a single projectile, a tangible shout across space and time. In his mind his words thrummed along the lines of Force that connected everything in the cosmos.
He recalled hanging on Cloud City’s lower antennas, dangling above the clouds as he held on for dear life. He had issued a similar call then, before he had known the truth about his sister … before he had realized there was a connection between them. Luke had still known whom to ask for assistance.
“Leia!” he called from the far fringes of the asteroid belt, flinging his thoughts undirected across space. “Leia … Leia …”
CHAPTER 39
Exhausted from the fraying effects of constant tension during the diplomatic mission to Durga’s fortress—compounded by the startling knowledge that Admiral Daala was still alive and gearing up for another assault against the New Republic—Leia sat in her comfortable seat in the diplomatic shuttle. Han piloted it away from Nal Hutta, avoiding the Smugglers’ Moon entirely and arrowing out to open space where Ackbar’s fleet waited.
Relieved that he no longer required stuffy diplomatic finery, Han wore his familiar old clothes again: black vest, white shirt, and dark pants that had seen better days. Leia wished she had brought along comfortable clothes herself, but she had forgotten to pack them while preparing for her surprise performance on the Hutt homeworld.
Beside her, Threepio helpfully chattered his list of all the duties waiting for her upon returning to Coruscant. His thin voice rattled off one obligation after another; some she had forgotten, some she had ignored, and some she just didn’t want to remember. As Threepio continued with unbridled enthusiasm for the safe trivialities of a governmental life, Leia found herself lulled into an uneasy doze. The smooth vibrations of the diplomatic ship hummed into her bones like an electronic massage. Her thoughts drifted. Her breathing became more regular.…
And suddenly a spear of