Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [91]
“Oh.” As if suddenly deflated, Ben sat on a boulder nearby. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Sorry that we asked you for help. Well, that Han and Leia did, and that we asked you to stay behind.”
“Don’t be.” Dyon left off his typing for a moment to look at Ben. “You know that, when I was younger, I wanted to be a Jedi. That I was tested and did some training.”
“Yeah.”
“I washed out. Not good enough with the Force. I understood, but it still came down to being told that I just wasn’t good enough. Not valuable enough.”
Ben winced. “That’s not what it meant.”
“I know that, but on an emotional level, that’s exactly what it meant. Well, that’s all right. I found other ways to make my life worthwhile. And now, just these last few days, I’ve been able to give the Jedi—the Grand Master of the Jedi—help that he couldn’t get anywhere else.” He shrugged. “If I die tonight, I want people to know that I didn’t go out thinking there was no value to my life.” He turned his attention back to his datapad and began typing again.
Ben turned to look over the last several dozen clan members straggling in from the forest.
As with Dyon, any of them might die tonight. Just because they wanted to take their clans, to take their culture, in a new direction, one of their choosing. He felt cold anger settle across him, anger for those like Jacen Solo and the Nightsisters and the Sith, those who valued their own goals so far above the very lives of ordinary people like—
“Water?”
He turned. Vestara stood before him. Around her neck was a leather strap supporting a crude leather container, a bucket of sorts, holding water; it rested against her hip. She dipped a long-handled wooden ladle into the water and offered it to him.
He took it, drank, returned the implement to her. “Can I ask you something?”
“I’ll only lie. That, or tell the truth.”
“Where’d you get the credits?”
“What credits?”
“Enough credits to get your yacht fixed.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I have no such fortune, and I have no yacht, and I have authorized no repairs.”
“There’s really no point in lying. We found the yacht in Monarg’s shop.”
“That’s not my yacht.”
“Well, let’s say the one that’s yours by right of salvage, since it was abandoned in the Maw and you retrieved it.”
“Still not mine.”
He sighed.
“Really, Ben.” She returned the ladle to the bucket. “You shouldn’t tell people you consider your enemies what you’re thinking. Didn’t your parents teach you anything?” She turned away and headed for a cluster of Raining Leaves a few meters away.
Ben shrugged. Sure they had. But maybe he hadn’t learned quite enough.
CORUSCANT
So much for transponder codes.
The Star Tripper—an alias for the Millennium Falcon that Han had thought no one else knew—had barely entered Coruscant orbit before a pair of Aleph-class starfighters had appeared out of nowhere and started to follow her down. To Han, the choice of escort craft suggested they were more of a courtesy than a guard detail. Heavily armed and armored, Alephs were well suited to picket duty, but couldn’t hope to keep up with a ship like the Falcon if she decided to run.
Leia spoke a few words of confirmation into the comm board and switched off the transmitter. “They’ve given us landing coordinates. In the plaza outside the Senate Building.”
Han grimaced. “So they want a show for the media—but it can’t be of an arrest.” He jerked a thumb toward the aft, roughly in the direction of the Alephs. “If they want to arrest us, they would have sent something that could catch us.”
“Probably,” Leia said. “But I sent for Jaina, just in case. She has clearance to meet us, to take charge of Allana and Anji.”
From the passenger seat behind Leia, Allana piped up, “She’s bringing Master Cilghal, right?”
“Anji’s condition isn’t critical any longer,” Leia said. “She’ll be fine until you and Jaina take her to the infirmary. Master Cilghal will just need to run a few tests, then she’ll probably send you both home