Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 03_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [26]
The turbolift door opened. Kirana Ti charged out, followed by Tionne and Kam Solusar.
“Stop Streen!” Leia shouted.
Kirana Ti reacted instantly. She wore thin but supple red armor from the scaled hides of reptiles from Dathomir. She had been a warrior on her own world, fighting with untrained and unhoned skill in the Force, but she had also fought in physical combat as well.
Kirana Ti launched herself forward on long, muscular legs, ducking her head as she charged into the cyclonic wind that surrounded Streen. The old hermit stood entranced, spinning slowly around with his arms dangling at his sides and his fingertips spread apart, as if trying to catch something.
Kirana Ti staggered as she hit the wind, but she wrenched her head aside, spread her legs, and dug the toes of her bare feet against the stone floor for traction. She shoved forward into the wind and finally shattered through into the dead zone of the storm. She tackled Streen to the flagstoned floor and locked his arms behind his back.
Streen cried out, then blinked his eyes open. He looked wildly around in confusion. Instantly the wind stopped blowing. The air fell still.
High up at the ceiling of the grand audience chamber Leia and Luke plunged toward the unforgiving flagstones below. Luke fell like a doll, and Leia tried to remember how to use her levitation skills, but her mind went blank with panic.
Tionne and Kam Solusar raced forward, stretching out their arms, using what they had been taught. Less than a meter above the crushing stones, Leia found herself slowed, pausing in the air beside Luke’s body. They drifted gently to the floor. Leia cradled Luke against her, but her brother did not respond.
Streen sat up, and Kam Solusar ran over to help Kirana Ti hold him. The old hermit began to weep. Kam Solusar gnashed his teeth and looked as if he wanted to kill the old hermit then and there, but Kirana Ti stopped him.
“Don’t hurt him,” she said. “He doesn’t know what he was doing.”
“A nightmare,” Streen said, “the Dark Man talking to me. Whispering to me. He never lets go. I was fighting him in my dream.” Streen looked around for sympathy or encouragement.
“I was going to kill him and save us all, but you woke me.” At last Streen realized where he was. He looked around the grand audience chamber until his gaze fell upon Leia holding Luke.
“He tricked you, Streen,” Kirana Ti said in a hard voice. “You weren’t fighting the Dark Man. He was manipulating you. You were his tool. If we hadn’t stopped you, you would have destroyed Master Skywalker.”
Streen began sobbing.
On the raised platform Tionne helped Leia lift Luke back onto the stone table. “He doesn’t seem injured,” Leia said.
“By sheer luck,” Tionne said. She wondered aloud, “Did the ancient Jedi Knights have to deal with challenges like this?”
“If they did,” Leia said, “I hope you manage to find the old stories. We need to learn what those Jedi did to defeat their enemies.”
Streen stood, shaking himself free of the gripping hands of Kirana Ti and Kam Solusar. The old man’s face was filled with outrage. “We must destroy the Dark Man,” Streen said, “before he kills all of us.”
Leia felt a grip of unbearable cold in her heart, knowing that Streen was right.
8
Being Chief Administrator of Maw Installation was a great enough burden under normal circumstances, but Tol Sivron had never counted on doing it without Imperial assistance. Standing inside the empty conference room, Sivron stroked his sensitive Twi’lek head-tails and stared out the viewport into the empty space around the secret facility.
He had never liked Admiral Daala and her overbearing manner. In the years they had been stranded in the Maw, Sivron had never felt as though she understood his mission to create new weapons of mass destruction for Grand Moff Tarkin—to whom they both owed enormous favors.
Daala