Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 08_ Ascension - Christie Golden [187]
“Yes, but it will happen,” C-3PO translated. “She seems quite sure of it.”
Raynar let out his breath, taking a moment to calm himself, then looked into the queen’s nearest eye. “That can’t happen,” he said. “You remember last time, when I became UnuThul.”
The queen dipped her head a little, and let out a series of soft booms.
“You won’t make the same mistake again,” C-3PO translated. “You have grown in years and in wisdom.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Raynar said. “The Chiss wouldn’t like it. They would go to war.”
The queen’s reply grew a little softer.
“What the Chiss don’t know will never hurt us,” C-3PO said.
“They already know.”
A low rumble sounded from the insect’s thorax, and C-3PO translated, “You told them?”
Raynar shook his head. “No, but they have spies everywhere.” As he spoke, he was trying to figure out why Thuruht seemed so determined to have him as a Joiner. Visitors became Joiners after they had been exposed to Killik pheromones for enough time. But hives rarely engaged in deliberate recruitment—not unless they were in need of something a new Joiner could provide. “If I don’t return to the Galactic Alliance soon, the Chiss will mobilize for war—and they will attack the Kind.”
The queen studied him for a long moment, then tipped her head and rumbled a question.
“Thuruht asks why you came, if your presence is such a danger?”
“Because a greater danger threatens the Galactic Alliance, and we need Thuruht’s help to defeat it,” Raynar explained. “We need to know everything Thuruht can tell us about the Celestials—and a being who calls herself—”
The queen’s entire body shuddered. “Ruur ub?”
“It seems we’re in luck, Jedi Thul,” C-3PO said. “She asks if the name is Abeloth.”
Raynar nodded. “Then you know who Abeloth is?”
The queen gave several short, nervous booms.
“Indeed she does,” C-3PO responded. “Thuruht is the one who imprisoned her.”
Raynar’s heart began to pound. “Good. The Jedi need to know everything Thuruht can tell us about her.”
“Ub?”
Raynar needed no translation. “Because Abeloth has escaped,” he said. “And we don’t know where she went.”
The queen raised her head and let out a rumble so thunderous that Raynar’s own torso began to reverberate. Workers started to pour into the chamber from all sides, some bearing orbs of membrosia and others rushing to clean the dust from the cell pits in the floor. The nursery attendants dropped into the nearest clean pit and began to exude wax, creating a comb of fresh incubation cells.
Raynar turned to C-3PO, who was watching the sudden flurry of activity with an attentiveness that suggested a major portion of his processing power was engaged to make sense of it.
“Threepio,” he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the rumbling queen. “What’s all the booming about?”
“I’m afraid it makes no sense, Jedi Thul,” the droid replied. “I must be misunderstanding.”
“Tell me anyway,” Raynar ordered.
“Very well,” C-3PO said. “Thuruht keeps saying that the hive must spawn and prepare.”
“Spawn?” Raynar echoed. “Prepare? For what?”
“That’s the part that makes no sense, considering her determination to restore her hive,” C-3PO answered. “Thuruht keeps saying that the galaxy is dead. She keeps saying that the end of times is here.”
THE OLD REPUBLIC
(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights.