Star Wars_ Rebel Force 06_ Uprising - Alex Wheeler [5]
She knew what it meant to have all those lives in your hands, and to be unable to save them. It didn't matter how many people told you it wasn't your fault. It didn't matter if you knew, logically, there was nothing you could have done. If anything happened to those settlers Luke would never forgive himself.
Leia knew that better than anyone.
"Don't think that you can disobey me just because I'm halfway across the galaxy," the man said. "As of now, I'm watching you. And my reach is further than you might expect.
Perhaps you'd appreciate a little demonstration."
But he didn't move. He didn't do anything. "Impressive," Han sneered.
And then the Glymphid screamed.
"What did you do to him?" Leia cried.
"Nothing!" Han shouted, as the alien began shaking in Han's grasp. He dropped to the ground, jerking and twitching. His eyes rolled back in his head. Snorts of pain exploded from his snout.
"We have to help him!" Luke exclaimed. He knelt by the alien's side, but there was nothing he could do.
A wracking shudder tore through the Glymphid's body. A long, low sigh wheezed out of his lungs—and then, nothing.
Luke pressed his ear against the alien's still chest, then rose, looking somber. "He's gone."
"Explain to me again what we're doing here?" Lune Divinian said, hoisting a load of duracrete blocks over his shoulder. The Yavin 4 sun was beating down with unusual strength. Sweat matted his shirt to the back of his neck.
"We're offering crucial assistance to the effort to destroy the Empire," Ferus Olin reminded him.
"We're building 'freshers," Div argued. "Not exactly heroic labor."
Ferus lowered himself down to the ground with a soft grunt. "All labor is heroic," he said. But the words rang slightly hollow. His muscles ached with the strain of the heavy lifting. Even his bones ached. It was tempting to call upon the Force to help ease the job along. But they were working on a heavily trafficked path. Anyone could pass by and catch him calling on his old Jedi skills. Ferus couldn't risk it.
"When you suckered me into joining up with this Rebellion, this isn't exactly the kind of work I had in mind," Div complained.
It wasn't what Ferus had in mind, either. After hiding out for two decades, he was eager to act. It had been a hard decision to join the Rebellion, as he couldn't risk anything interfering with his primary mission, protecting Leia. But in the end, there was no real choice. If he didn't do everything in his power to destroy the Empire, he wouldn't be able to live with himself. And he knew Div felt the same.
Which didn't mean he'd signed up for 'refresher building.
"It's going to take them a while to trust us," Ferus said. "Surely you can understand that."
They had both seen what happened when a rebellion trusted too much, too fast. That made it all too easy for enemies to slip under the radar and ruin everything.
"I just don't see how this is helping anyone," Div said. "If we told them what we could do—"
"We can't," Ferus said. "You know that." The Rebels weren't the only ones slow to trust. No one could know that Div had once been a Force-sensitive child, groomed to be a Jedi. As no one could know that Ferus had grown up in the Jedi Temple, training with the great Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda himself. "Besides, just because they want to keep us out of the loop doesn't mean we need to let them."
He spied a scruffy redhead making his way through the woods, and flagged him down.
Jono Moroni spent most of his time on the Rebel Base doing janitorial work alongside the droids. He was a quiet man who kept to himself, and few people seemed to even notice him. But Ferus's Jedi Masters had long ago taught him the value of silent observers. Jono faded into the background, which meant he saw more than people knew. And he wasn't unwilling to pass it along.
"Good afternoon, Jono," Ferus called out. "How goes it?"
"Couldn't be better," Jono said. Over the last few weeks,