Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 03_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [34]
Looking up, he spotted several of the Jedi candidates, tiny figures atop the temple. As the jungle moon orbited around the gas giant, the configuration of the system set up an unusual phenomenon that had filled the Rebels with wonder when they first established the small moon as a secret base.
Bright sunlight streaming through the upper layers of the Yavin primary refracted in many different colors, then struck the moon’s atmosphere, filtered through the rising mists to let loose a shower of rainbows that lasted only minutes with each dawn. The Jedi trainees, gathered to watch the rainbow storm high above, had seen his ship land. They were coming.
In a slick fighter jumpsuit that bore no insignia, Terpfen felt his heart pounding, his mind whirling. Confessing his traitorous acts frightened him the most—but Terpfen had to face it. He tried to rehearse his words, but decided that it would not help. There was no good way to share the terrible news.
He felt dizzy, ready to faint, and grasped the cool, moss-covered blocks of the temple with one flippered hand. He feared that Carida had somehow found him again, that Furgan was sinking his clutches into the organic components that had been substituted for parts of Terpfen’s brain.
No! It was his mind now! He had not felt the tug from his Imperial controllers for over a day now. He’d forgotten what it was like to think his own thoughts, and he had tested the new freedom with growing wonder. He fantasized about overthrowing the Empire, about throttling bug-eyed Ambassador Furgan.
And during these thoughts no shadowy presence squashed his mind. He felt so … free!
He realized the faintness was just his numbing fright. The feeling passed, and Terpfen stood straight again as he heard footsteps approach.
The first to emerge into the bright daylight was Minister of State Leia Organa Solo herself. She must have run to the turbolift, expecting that the B-wing fighter carried some emergency message from Coruscant. Her hair looked mussed and windblown, and shadows haunted her eyes. Her face wore a concerned frown, as if something else already troubled her.
Terpfen felt the cold despair increase within him. She would be even more agonized after he told her that the Imperials knew the location of her son Anakin.
Leia stopped and looked gravely at him, sizing him up. Her brows drew together in thought, and then she said his name. “I know you. Terpfen, right? Why have you come here?”
Terpfen knew that his battered bulbous head and the lumpy mappings of scars made him recognizable even to humans. Behind Leia came several Jedi students Terpfen did not recognize, until he saw Ambassador Cilghal. The female Calamarian’s large round eyes seemed to bore into his soul.
“Minister Organa Solo …,” Terpfen said in a quavering voice. Then he collapsed to his knees, partly in abject misery and partly because his legs refused to support him any longer. “Your son Anakin is in grave danger!”
He hung his scarred head. Before she could fire off laser-sharp questions, Terpfen confessed everything.
Leia stared down at Terpfen’s scarred head and felt as if she were being strangled. Luke and Ackbar’s intricate security and secrecy about Anoth had been breached! The Empire knew where to find her baby son.
Leia understood little about the defenses on the sheltered, hellish world. Now her servant and friend Winter was the only protection baby Anakin had.
“Please, Minister Organa Solo—we must go to Anoth at once,” Terpfen said. “We must send them a message, evacuate your child before an Imperial strike squad can reach him. While I was under Furgan’s influence, I transmitted Anoth’s coordinates to Carida, but I did not keep a copy of them. I destroyed that information. You must take us there yourself. I will do whatever