Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 06_ Vortex - Denning Troy [76]
A heaviness came to the jungle air, and the flattery of a moment earlier became a burden Vestara felt ill prepared to carry. She knew she was strong in the Force, but the Skywalkers were mighty, and even Ben was a battle-tempered warrior whose experience went far beyond hers. The only advantages she could claim were her charm and her treachery, and she was not fool enough to believe they would make her the equal of Luke Skywalker or his son.
When Vestara’s astonishment kept her silent longer than was proper, her father stepped in to cover. “So our goal must be to discover this queen’s identity?” he asked. “And kill her before she can assume the throne?”
“Let us not limit ourselves, Saber Khai,” Taalon said. “It may be that even the Jedi do not know their queen’s identity yet. Perhaps she has not even been born.”
“My lord Taalon,” said Khai, “if the queen has not yet been born, how do we know there is anything for Vestara to learn? Or that the Jedi know any more than we do?”
“Because of when they attacked,” Vestara said, recalling how quickly the fight had erupted after High Lord Taalon saw the image of the Jedi on the throne. “Ben tried to get me to pretend we hadn’t found the grotto. Then, once we were inside, his father attacked the instant High Lord Taalon saw their queen.”
“Precisely.” Taalon stepped away and turned to peer into the fungus jungle. “The Jedi know something about this queen … and I know Vestara. She will discover what that is.”
WHIRLING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WAS A BLIZZARD OF BIRD-MOTHS. THEY were as bright as jewels, saballine blue and rardo red and coratyl yellow, and they were squeaking and chirping like a thousand tiny astromechs during an ion barrage. Some were as small as a human fingernail, but a few were the size of a Bith’s head, and nothing was trying to eat any of them. The stalks of the club mosses had grown knobby with tree turtles, and the ferns sagged with the weight of dangling wing-snakes. Most disconcerting of all, the ground tremors had stopped and the volcano had ceased rumbling.
It was, as the saying went, all too calm. And as Luke reached the jungle’s edge, where a sandy bank descended to the beach, he saw why.
Dozens of huge drendek lizards were wheeling over the river, their great wings blotting out the blue sun. Closer to shore, a colony of long-legged reptiles that looked like a cross between eopies and emaciated nerfs stood ankle-deep in the crimson water, drinking in peace while a carpet of golden smotherpads floated nearby. Thirty meters from the shore, the Sith’s Emiax sat squatting on its S-shaped landing struts, its drooping wingtips hanging down so far they almost touched the azure sand.
“Hey!” Ben said, stopping at the jungle’s edge beside Luke. “The Shadow’s gone!”
“Very observant, Jedi Skywalker,” Luke said. “But if you expect to impress me, tell me who took her.”
“Too easy, old man.” Ben looked high into the sky, suggesting that he had come to the same conclusion Luke had—that Abeloth had stolen the ship and escaped the planet. “I suppose this makes me a Master?”
“Not quite.” Luke glanced over, quietly checking to make sure Ben’s wound had not come unglued—and that he was holding up okay after their long run from the Pool of Knowledge. “To make Master, you’d have to bring her back.”
“The ship? Or just Ab—?”
Ben’s question was cut short by a muffled crackle of Force-lightning coming from deep in the jungle behind them. They dropped over the sandy bank and whirled around to peer back through the foliage. Even drawing on the Force to sharpen his vision, Luke could see only twenty meters or so through the bird-moth blizzard and tangled curtain of fronds. He extended his Force awareness in the direction from which the sound had come and sensed only the planet’s primordial miasma of life, voracious and alien and tinged with