Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 20_ The Final Prophecy - J. Gregory Keyes [81]
“There’s no place that far away,” Jaina said.
“I’m willing to look,” Prann replied.
Jaina focused the Force on the Toydarian. “He’s crazy,” she told the Toydarian. “Stun him and help me out of this.”
The Toydarian blinked, looked briefly confused, and then laughed.
Prann smiled, too, his tirade apparently over. “So it’s true, then. Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to help get those motivators coupled together. Vel, I’ve changed my mind. Take her to fire control and watch her there. I can’t spare you just to be a guard during this. Just—keep an eye on things, and don’t let her talk to anyone.”
“I want to see my pilots,” Jaina said.
“After we’ve made the jump,” Prann told her. “Not before.”
With that he left the room.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Nothing,” Corran grumbled, folding down to rest on a log. “I must have looked for ten kilometers in every direction, and there’s no sign of natives.”
“Maybe there aren’t that many,” Tahiri said, reaching up to pick an oblong fruit with a serrated corona of leaf at the top. They had dubbed it a pingpear, and it was one of the eight fruits that Nen Yim had identified as edible and nutritious. Since their food stores were limited, Corran had insisted that they eat native food when possible. The gathering expeditions also gave them an opportunity to talk away from the Yuuzhan Vong without leaving them too long unobserved.
“Or maybe we had the misfortune to crash in the one uninhabited region they have left,” Corran said. “It doesn’t matter—we can’t stay here forever. I’ve been trying to think of a way to attract the attention of that Imperial frigate, if nothing else.”
“Any thoughts on how to go about that?”
He nodded. “Yes. I’ll have to go to the one place I’ve been avoiding.”
“Oh. The giant hyperdrive.”
“Right.”
“Which you don’t want the Yuuzhan Vong to know is a giant hyperdrive because you’re afraid it will disillusion them somehow.”
“You get two marks,” Corran said. “But it’s the only sign of civilization around. There might be someone tending it. Failing that, there might be other things—a hyperwave, for instance, or even a subspace transceiver. And Harrar’s been after me to check it out, anyway.”
“How do you think he’ll react when he finds out what it is?”
“You tell me.”
She thought about that for a moment, trying to recall how she had felt when she’d gone to the top of the ridge a few days before.
She held up the pingpear. “It’s like discovering a perfect piece of fruit has a nasty worm in it—after you’ve already taken a few bites.”
Corran nodded. “That’s what I figured. Still, we have to do something, and I can’t imagine he’d let me go without him, not as curious as he’s been about it.”
“How far away do you think it is?”
“I eyeball it at about twenty klicks.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured, too,” Tahiri said. “So when do we start?”
“We don’t,” Corran replied. “Harrar will go with me. I need you to stay and look after the other two.”
“Again? I’m sick of baby-sitting. Don’t you trust them yet? They’re completely moon-eyed over this place, both of them. Harrar is the one we ought to worry about.”
“I do worry about Harrar. That’s why I’m keeping an eye on him. But the other two—they’re still the enemy, Tahiri. No matter how well we seem to be getting along with them as individuals, we can’t lose sight of the fact that our goals might be quite different.”
“I understand that. It’s just that Nen Yim and the Prophet are boring. All they do is poke at bugs and twigs all day. Why don’t you let me go and you stay here, if you think someone has to?”
“Because this is how I want it, that’s why. Brush up on your meditation technique and practice your lightsaber footwork.”
“That’s all I’ve been doing for the past week.