Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [32]
He guided her to the front of the line, steadied her bowl while one of the women ladled a dipper full of pale-brown steamed grains, mixed with a few bits of dried fruit. Then he got himself a bowlful and grabbed two mugs of imitation caf.
They took a seat on a long slab of duracrete. Jaina gripped her spoon halfway up the handle and got a bite into her mouth.
“Bland,” she said, “but not bad. I’m sorry I was lousy company last night.”
“This can’t be real easy for you.”
“Always understanding everybody else’s viewpoint, that’s my little brother.”
He smiled wryly. For about two years, she had been taller.
She shook her head, then turned aside, so he saw the reflection of a Ryn family on her faceplate. “I hate this,” she said. “I’m the older sister. The ace pilot. Did you know, I almost got as many kills in the last three weeks as the squadron’s top ten percenters? Do you realize what that means to me?”
“Yes. You’re one of the hottest pilots there ever was.”
“I’m scared to lose that, Jacen.”
“Of course. But I read your diagnosis pad last night. You really are expected to get better. Fast.”
“Then why did they send me here?” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“I told you last night. The med facilities are bursting.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And do you know they haven’t been able to raise Mom?”
“I don’t understand that.”
“Well, they didn’t try real long and hard. But I hope nothing happened to her.”
“We’d know if …” Jacen trailed off.
“So where is she?”
He shrugged. “Working refugees. She could be here on Duro, and we’d never know it. We can’t keep the comm cables up, the murk’s too thick for line-of-sight, and we haven’t gotten a good antenna from SELCORE yet.”
Jaina finished her breakfast and patted the duracrete, looking for her mug.
As Jacen shoved it toward her hand, he spotted motion at the edge of his field of vision. An immense, tan-colored blob of motion.
“Uh-oh,” he murmured.
“What?” Her head whipped around.
“Randa,” he said quickly, “our resident Hutt. Wants revenge on the Yuuzhan Vong. He’ll try to get you into his own plans for combat. He’s been working on me.”
“Tell him I can’t.”
“You tell him,” Jacen said. “Here he comes.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two days later, Jacen adjusted his breath mask and leaned against Thirty-two’s duracrete main gate, waiting for the CorDuro supply shuttle. The gray dome faded toward a foggy height. SELCORE couldn’t afford to equip its refugees with costly enviro-suits, only cheap chem suits and cumbersome rebreathers like Jacen’s. There were times when he’d gladly blast off again.
Randa’s offer rose back to his mind, but he rejected it. If he turned to aggression, that would betray everything he’d promised to stand for, not to mention his vision.
But couldn’t he fight without using the Force?
On his right, the sealed end of a retracted, tube-shaped cofferdam lay along one edge of a blasted-out crater. That tube could be run out to mate with a freighter’s cargo hatch. Thirty-two had been promised a load of chemical fertilizers for its hydroponics operation. Without them, the new crop of foodstuffs would wither in the tanks.
Still, it didn’t take a Jedi Master to realize this freighter wasn’t coming. Frowning, Jacen slipped into the wide gate, a modified airlock. He paused to let air currents whisk most of the crud off of his clothes, sloshed his boots in a settling tub, then paced up the dome’s edge to the control shed.
“It isn’t coming,” a deep voice rumbled.
Randa had positioned his belly in front of the control board. Two older humans sat cross-legged on the floor, playing a tile game. Beyond them, the viewbubble looked out on the landing zone’s blast crater.
“Any word out of Nal Hutta?” Jacen asked gently.
“The Glorious Jewel,” Randa fumed, “is under remote bombardment. Missiles are bursting in her atmosphere. They are causing no damage my people’s sensors can pick up from