Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 08_ Edge of Victory 01_ Conquest - J. Gregory Keyes [17]
She stopped suddenly, either because she saw it in his face or felt it in the Force. Centerpoint Station was a sensitive subject.
“Anyway,” she went on, “you won’t believe how boring it’s been without you. All the apprentices have gone off, and that just leaves these kids—” She stepped away, and for the first time, he really saw her.
Whatever she detected in his eyes cut her off in midsentence. “What?” she asked instead. “What are you looking at?”
“I—” Now his face felt like it had been grazed by blasterfire. “You look … different.”
“Older maybe? I’m fourteen now. Last week.”
“Happy birthday.”
“You should have thought of it then, but thanks anyway. Dummy.”
Anakin found himself suddenly unable to meet her eyes. He dropped his gaze. “You’re, uh, still barefoot, I see.”
“What did you expect? I hate shoes. I only wear them when I have to. Shoes were invented by the Sith to keep our delicate toes in anguish and misery, I’m sure of it. Did you think just because I grew a centimeter or two I’d start torturing my feet?”
She looked up at Kam suspiciously. “What’s he doing here, anyway? I know he didn’t come to see me.”
Anakin flinched at the hurt he heard in that.
“Anakin’s come to warn us of trouble,” Kam replied. “In fact, you’ll need to do your catching up later.”
“Really? Trouble?”
“Yes,” Anakin said.
Tahiri put her hands on her hips. “Well, why didn’t you say so? What’s going on?”
“We need to talk to Tionne and Ikrit,” Kam told her, continuing forward into the turbolift.
“Now,” Anakin added, following him.
“But what’s going on?” Tahiri shouted at their suddenly retreating backs.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Anakin promised.
“Fine.” She ducked into the lift just as the door was closing.
“The Yuuzhan Vong warmaster basically put a price on our heads,” Anakin said. “On all our heads, all the Jedi. He announced that if what’s left of the New Republic will turn over all of its Jedi to him—and Jacen especially—he won’t take any more planets.”
“Boy, that sounds like a lie,” Tahiri said.
“Doesn’t matter. People believe him. Like the people in the ships approaching right now.”
“They want to turn us over to the Yuuzhan Vong? Let them try!”
“Don’t worry, they will.”
The door opened and they emerged onto the second level. Kam started down the main corridor and then through a series of passages that were utterly familiar to Anakin, though they all seemed somehow narrower than when he had last seen them. The Massassi temple that housed the academy had once seemed impossibly huge. Now it seemed merely large.
They reached the central area, and twenty-odd faces turned toward them. Human, Bothan, Twi’lek, Wookiee—more than a dozen species were represented. All were quite young except one—Tionne, Kam’s wife, a graceful silver-haired woman with pearl-white eyes. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise and her lips in pleasure.
“Anakin!” she said.
“Tionne,” Kam said gently but urgently, “we need to talk.”
“Anakin!” Sannah, a girl of thirteen with brown hair and yellow eyes, waved at him. Even younger Valin Horn was waving, though he wasn’t shouting.
“He’s busy!” Tahiri told them. But when Anakin went to talk with Kam and Tionne, Tahiri came along.
“Tahiri—” Kam began.
“Oh, no,” she said. “You aren’t leaving me out of this.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Kam said gently. “I was going to ask you to find Master Ikrit and meet us in the conference room.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She whirled off down the corridor on bare feet.
* * *
Tahiri was back with Ikrit only moments later. The old Jedi Master padded into the room on all fours, his long floppy ears dragging the ground. His normally bright eyes seemed a little dull to Anakin, and he felt an inexplicable pang.
“Master Ikrit.”
“Young Anakin. It is good to see you,” Ikrit replied. “Though you bring troubling news.”
“Yes.” He raced through the details once again, for Ikrit and Tionne.
“They would take our children?” Tionne murmured, more darkly than was