Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 02_ Omen - Christie Golden [62]
Almost.
“Yes, though it was quite exhausting.”
“They’re a very … alien species, aren’t they?” Ben said.
Luke chuckled slightly and took another swig of the water. “Very. It’s absolutely fascinating. I can see why Jacen was so intrigued by them. They’re … like no other species I’ve ever met.”
“So,” Ben asked with fake casualness, “are we going to have the opportunity to meet more of them, or am I going to be stuck watching second-rate holodramas while we head on to the next possible clue?”
“Let me put it this way,” Luke said. “Get used to being licked.”
ABOARD THE JADE SHADOW
“IT’S NOT TELEPATHY, IS IT?” BEN INQUIRED AS HE PLOTTED OUT THE jump according to the information Tadar’Ro had transmitted to the Jade Shadow.
“No. But there’s more of an understanding of specifics than you and I are accustomed to experiencing when we touch someone through the Force,” Luke said. “And it seemed to be enough for them to understand Basic.”
“But how are they going to talk to us?” Ben inquired. “I mean … those tongues don’t look like they’ll operate the way ours do.”
“Tadar’Ro didn’t seem to think there would be any problems once we arrived,” Luke said. Ben frowned a little. He knew that sometimes you simply needed to accept the way a circumstance was, but his father was sometimes so cryptic. Luke caught his expression and said, “Don’t look at me this time. That’s as much as I know, too.”
The jumps were easy and precise. Tadar’Ro had given them directions as to not only where to jump, but also when. It had been calculated down to the second.
“So that’s how they manage it,” Ben said. “They know when it’s safe to jump into one of the corridors. You think it has to do with flow-walking?” Ordinary Jedi could touch the future to a greater or lesser degree, enough to give them a slight edge in combat, but Ben was thinking about Jysella Horn knowing exactly where the hidden security droids would emerge … and exactly when.
“Possibly,” Luke said. “I’m sure we’ll find out. Right now we need to focus on making those jumps.”
Ben sighed inwardly. Luke was still obviously not ready to continue their interrupted discussion on flow-walking. But he felt he was right. If Tadar’Ro thought it useful to calculate the timing of the jump so precisely, they’d be wise to follow his instructions.
They emerged from the last series of jumps to see a plain that was strikingly similar to the moon that Tadar’Ro had selected for their challenge. The atmosphere was similar, but the EMR from the Rift was slightly less and there was at least life on this world. Ben could see bodies of water and patches of green here and there amid the stretches of rock.
“Well, we’re here,” he said. “Now what?”
As if in immediate answer, coordinates began flowing across the screen on the console.
“Set down there and we’ll find out,” Luke said.
THE HABITATIONS OF THE AING-TII WERE DEFINITELY RECOGNIZABLE AS cities, but it was also immediately obvious that the beings they had come here to request aid from strove to be in harmony with their environment. Just as their bodies had evolved to blend in physically with the landscape, the Aing-Tii sought to have their cities do so as well. The landing site, located a short distance away from one of the smaller cities, was in a canyon, surrounded on all sides by steep, almost vertical stone walls. Luke was reminded of Tatooine as he regarded the forbidding landscape, harsh and inhospitable. The patches of green—fertile river valleys—were few and far between and, curiously, seemed not to be where the Aing-Tii chose to dwell. It was as if these beings deliberately sought the harsher areas, as if the challenge was something they desired. If Tatooine was a hot, desert world, this was a colder, rockier one. But as they descended and sped over machinery and homesteads, Luke recognized equipment that he immediately knew was designed to farm moisture. It was not quite the same machinery that he had grown up