Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 14_ Traitor - Matthew Woodring Stover [80]
They’d been born for it.
But now Anakin and Jacen were dead, and Jaina—
Jaina was making Ganner frighteningly aware that she was the granddaughter of Darth Vader.
What hurt him the worst: there was nothing he could do about it.
Well, no, that’s not entirely true, Ganner thought as he slowly heaved himself to his feet in the camp ship corridor. There is one thing I can do.
Maybe—just barely possibly—she had lost only one brother. Jacen could be alive. Maybe Ganner could prove it. Maybe he could even find him; it might not save her, but it would have to help. And if he failed … well, no harm done.
She had no hopes left to crush.
Ganner nodded to himself, then leaned close to the curtain that served as the chamber’s door. “Excuse me?” he called softly. “Hello? Does anybody here speak Basic?”
“Go away.” The voice that answered from beyond the curtain sounded oddly—vaguely, just barely—familiar. “There is nothing for you here.”
The feeling he’d had, that he was about to get himself killed, swelled into an overwhelming premonition of doom. Ganner’s knees went weak, and a very large part of him wanted to bolt down the corridor and get away—but though he hadn’t been much of a hero, the one virtue he’d never had to fake was courage.
He took another deep breath. The hand he lifted to pull aside the curtain trembled, just a little, and he stared at it until it stilled. Then he gently tugged a gap between the curtain and the wall. “I’m sorry to intrude,” he said. “I won’t bother you for long. I just have a question for you. One question, that’s all, and then I’ll leave you alone.”
From inside, a middle-aged, heavyset human stared at him stonily. “Go away.”
“In a moment, I will,” Ganner said apologetically. “But I understand that someone who lives here claims he saw Jacen Solo alive, on Coruscant, after the invasion. Can I talk to whomever that might be?”
From what little he could see beyond the curtain, there seemed to be only one or two small rooms beyond, and almost no possessions of any kind. The man who blocked his path wore only a long, shapeless white tunic, almost like a loose robe; the others within—all men—wore identical garments. Some kind of religious thing? Ganner wondered, because they all had some kind of aura in common, a similar way of carrying themselves, similar posture or some such, that you sometimes see among members of fanatic cults. Or maybe it’s just poverty and desperation. “I can pay,” he offered.
“There’s nothing for you here,” the man repeated.
One of the others moved up behind the man’s left shoulder, and gestured toward the lightsaber that hung from Ganner’s belt. He grumbled something in a guttural tongue that Ganner couldn’t understand.
“Not everyone who carries that weapon is a Jedi,” the man replied without shifting his blankly hostile stare from Ganner’s face. “Be silent.”
Again Ganner was struck by some weirdly familiar resonance in the voice, though he knew he’d never seen this man before. Somehow he thought this voice should be higher, fresher, more cheerful. He shook his head. He’d worry about that later. He might not be the best sabacc player in the galaxy, but he knew when to turn his cards face-up. “I am a Jedi,” he said quietly. “My name is Ganner Rhysode. I have come to inquire about Jacen Solo. Which one of you saw him alive?”
“You are mistaken. No one here saw anything. You had better go.”
One of the others stepped forward and said something that sounded like Shinn’l fekk Jeedai trizmek.
“Silence!” the man snapped over his shoulder.
Hairs prickled up the back of Ganner’s neck, but his expression remained only politely curious. “Please,” he said, “tell me what you know.” He reached out through the Force to nudge a little cooperation out of this man