Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [87]
“So no Jedi,” Lando said. “Other than you, of course.”
Leia sighed. “Agreed.”
Tendra looked thoughtful. “So Step One, I guess, is to figure out what we can do to set off those explosives mounds at the times of our choosing.”
DEEP BENEATH THE SURFACE OF DORIN
Though he had expected the trip to take only seconds or, at most, minutes, Ben rode in his unlit coffin for what seemed like forever. He checked his chrono from time to time—fortunately, its tiny screen was lit—and watched ten minutes trickle by, then twenty, then an hour …
The only thing he heard was occasional clattering as the container's grippers traveled over debris or a coupler-joined sections of rail. He shouted on two occasions for his father, but Luke was clearly too far away to hear. Ben could feel Luke out there, though, calm and un-alarmed, so Ben himself had no reason to fret.
He was just bored.
Two hours and five minutes into his trip, the container slowed. Ben breathed a sigh of relief. The container continued to decelerate, and within a minute it came to a complete stop. Ben could see light glimmering along the edges of the lid. Then he heard voices speaking in the Kel Dor tongue and the lid opened. The sudden light blinded him.
Blind or not, he was ready for trouble, using senses beyond sight, but he detected no hostile intent in the three nearest beings, even as they reached for him. He let one take his hand and guide him up and out of the container. Warm, humid air washed across him—all but his face, still enclosed in the breath mask—and he dropped to his feet on a rocky surface.
As his vision cleared, Ben found himself in a stone tunnel, one obviously burned out of the stone rather than a natural formation; the walls were heat-fused rock, clear sign of tunneling devices that used a high-temperature mechanism such as laser drills. One end of the tunnel narrowed into a diameter just large enough to accommodate the containers, and rails issued from it. The rails continued the length of this sixty-meter tunnel and ended in an upraised loop.
Charsae Saal's container was stopped at the loop, and beyond it, five meters away, was a blast-door exit. Charsae Saal stood beside his container, speaking rapidly with two men and one woman, all Kel Dors, dressed as he was. They cast glances back to Luke, who was halfway between them and Ben, standing beside his container, nonchalantly leaning against it. One Kel Dor stood beside him.
Two of Ben's greeters left his side to walk to Charsae Saal's group; the third, a woman, remained behind, eyeing Ben cautiously.
Luke looked toward his son. “Restful trip?”
“The minutes flew by like hours.” Ben stretched, then looked at his Kel Dor companion. “You speak Basic?”
She looked mildly offended. “Of course.”
“I'm Ben Skywalker.”
“You were. Now you are not.”
Ben gave her a puzzled frown. “Come again?”
“You will have to choose a new name here.”
“Why?”
“Because Ben Skywalker is dead.”
After conferring, the black-robed Kel Dors, including Charsae Saal, led Luke and Ben through the blast door. The chamber in which they found themselves was roughly circular, some twenty meters in diameter, with blast doors set in the walls at regular intervals and a black stone support pillar in the center. The Kel Dors did not treat the Jedi as if they were prisoners; their manner was civil but uncertain.
One of the blast doors opened into a tunnel that led to a much larger chamber—forty meters or more in diameter, ten meters high at the center, with eight support columns arranged in a circle midway between the walls and the center of the room. Against the far wall was what Ben had looked for in vain in the Baran Do temple: a raised platform with a large, imposing chair upon it. The chair appeared to have been carved from white stone and had white cushions on the seat and back.
Settling into it was a Kel Dor male, taller than many of the others.