Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 05_ Allies - Christie Golden [128]
“You’re all fakes,” he said. “You’re all the enemy. I’ve got no reason to believe you and every reason to think that you’re trying to fool me.”
She smiled. “You’re smart, Dyon Stad. Even drugged, you’re smart. But what would I have to gain? You’re already locked up. What would I get out of tricking you?”
He frowned. He couldn’t think of anything. But he was sure there was something.
She moved closer. In one hand was a syringe filled with a pale blue liquid. Her other hand closed tightly around something he couldn’t see.
“Those of us who are Sith—we’re really on Abeloth’s side,” she said. “And Abeloth knows exactly what’s going on, and how to stop it.”
Dyon stopped breathing for a moment. How did she—
“Think about it, Dyon. I know it’s hard with the drug in your system, but think. Who did the Sith ally with? Who does Ship serve?”
“Abeloth,” Dyon whispered. It was all wrong, terribly wrong. The fake Jedi evil, the fake Sith good? It went against everything he had been taught to believe, everything he had believed. But then again, nothing was the same, not since the coming of the Others.
“Think about Ship.”
“Ship?”
“Ship is a Sith training vessel. And it’s here … protecting Abeloth. It’s not fake, it’s not been replaced—it’s just a vessel. And it’s serving Abeloth.”
A tendril of thought, cold, piercingly clear, stabbed into his brain. If Ship was a Sith training vessel, then it served the dark side. And if it served the dark side, and now served Abeloth, then Abeloth must—
White-hot pain blossomed in his temples. He cried out and sagged against the restraints.
What had he just been thinking of? He’d just had some thought, some idea, but it had slipped away. The drug hadn’t permitted him to hang on to it. It was something important, something key to understanding what was going on—
A shadow fell over him. It was Not-Vestara, the good fake Sith. He looked up at her, mute, shaking with the agony that still shivered through him. She knelt down beside him, put her face to within centimeters of his.
“Abeloth calls to you. And we—the beings who have replaced the Sith—we are on your side. Can you lead us to her?”
He nodded, the gesture causing pain to shoot through him. “I can,” he rasped.
“Will you?”
Again, a shadowy tendril of clear thinking tried to force its way into his brain, to be batted aside and ruthlessly crushed.
“I will.”
She smiled, a sweet smile, her brown eyes warm. “I have a medication that will clear the drug from your system,” she said. “But first … time to fool the fake Jedi.”
She went over to the monitor and waved a hand over it. Dyon watched as the indicators that represented his pulse and brain activity both slowed down. Not-Vestara gave him a smile.
“Now Luke will think I gave you another dose of the drug to keep you docile, and not the antidote.”
She returned to the bed and pressed the needle into his skin. He heard the pop, felt the hot little jolt of pain. For an instant, he wondered if he was wrong to trust her, if this was a fatal moment of weakness, if this needle was the delivery method of death. Instead, a heartbeat later, the confusion cleared from his mind like mist evaporating under a hot sun. He blinked, startled.
She’d kept her word.
“I’ll be back shortly. When I return, I’m going to unlock the stun cuffs.”
“No,” he pleaded, “unlock me now. I must go to her!”
“You will,” Not-Vestara promised. “But not right now. What I need from you is for you to pretend to be unconscious if Luke or Ben comes in. Then, when the time is right, I’ll free you. But if you betray me, if you reveal I helped you, then everything is lost. Do you understand?”
He nodded, slowly. “You promise you will be back?”
“I do.” She smiled at him one more time, then turned and left. Alone in the sick bay, Dyon Stad closed his eyes.
She had helped him. She would help