Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [91]
There were also sentries on street corners in the Newcomers’ and Latecomers’ portions of town—uniformed police.
Everywhere there was to be seen the aftermath of Force storm damage. There were smashed landspeeders and speeder bikes here and there, one landspeeder atop another in a ruined heap just in front of a garage, another speeder nose-first halfway into a raised dome. One building in ten showed damage characteristic of battering by flying junk; one in twenty had collapsed entirely.
He handed the macrobinoculars to Ben. “They’ve been through a lot.”
“They have.” That was Vestara. She had her comlink in hand and an earpiece in place in her left ear, occasionally visible when she turned her head and her cloak hood gaped. Clearly, she was listening to broadcasts. “And we’re being sought by the authorities.”
“That’s crazy.” Ben studied the damaged town. “They’re blaming us for the storms?”
“No, for the murder of Dr. Wei. We let a lot of people know that we were searching for him. Then we disappeared and someone else found his body out in the wilderness. The whole matter of trumped-up evidence suggesting he was engineering a new species of drochs seems to have been forgotten. Then there’s the assault on Mayor Snaplaunce. He was stabbed at the site where he handed over the shuttle to us—most people seem to think we did it to steal his shuttle.”
Luke glanced at her. “Did he survive?”
“Yes, and he’s out of the hospital now. But he doesn’t remember the circumstances of his stabbing, or whether it happened before or after we left.”
Luke grimaced. “Force techniques may have been used to mess with his memory.”
“Probably.” Vestara hesitated before suggesting something Luke knew she never would have proposed a few weeks earlier. “Perhaps you should bring in some more of … your people.”
Luke and Ben exchanged a look. Luke was still behaving according to the dictates of his plea bargain, not issuing orders to the Jedi. Ben, under no such restrictions, had listened to his father and, before planetfall on Nam Chorios, sent off a holocomm transmission with some suggestions. But none of that would lead to Jedi coming to this world to aid in a ground search. The Jedi were needed elsewhere.
Luke merely shook his head. “We’re on our own.”
Ben raised the macrobinoculars to his eyes again. “Besides, it’s a planet with an itty-bitty population. Two Jedi and a Sith should be able to handle anything they throw at us.”
Vestara snorted. “Not necessarily including Abeloth.”
Luke pulled his cloak more tightly around him. “Come on. Let’s go in.”
It was slow, careful work entering Hweg Shul. The task was made easier by the fact that it wasn’t a walled community and by the fact that the damage to the lighting grid made it harder for the locals to detect them.
Staging their movements, remaining alert in all directions, and never yielding to impatience, the three made their way through the city outskirts and to the Newcomers’ district, avoiding guards and eluding the views of elevated security holocams.
That brought them, half an hour before dawn, to the front of Teselda’s dome.
Ben and Vestara kept an eye out while Luke leapt up to the entryway and ran a bypass on the entry keypad. A moment later the door slid open and the three of them entered.
The dome interior was mostly dark, illuminated only by colorful lights gleaming from various electronics, with only the hum and hiss of a heater to be heard—and then, from above, Sel’s voice. “Is someone there?”
Luke gestured for the others to remain quiet.
A spiral metal stairway descended from the ceiling near the living room’s back wall, unfolding like a musical squeeze box, and Sel descended. She was dressed in a downy nightshirt and leggings all in dark blue, and in her hand was an unlit lightsaber. When she caught sight of Luke and the others, she visibly relaxed and lowered the weapon. “Master Skywalker. I was worried about you.”
Luke loosened his cloak, allowing some of the room’s warm air to flow over him. “We’re fine. We weren’t quite shot down.