Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [112]
Once he found the bacta tank, he would start a search for a new ship. He wasn’t sure if he would proceed to Almania, or if he would go back to Yavin 4 until he healed. He didn’t know how much time he had; he wasn’t even certain what he was searching for, and that made him uneasy.
This whole thing made him uneasy.
Luke?
Leia, reaching toward him from a long distance away, her mind filled with concern.
Leia?
But the connection broke; shattered as it never had before. He couldn’t feel her. He reached with his mind, feeling for her familiar sense, and she wasn’t there. It was as if someone had built a wall around his mind.
Leia?
She couldn’t be dead, could she? Her thought for him had been filled with concern, but he thought the concern was for him, not because she was in trouble.
Leia?
He sought out the children, and could feel them, squabbling happily on Anoth. He even got a sense of his students back on Yavin 4, but not of Leia.
Or of anyone close to her. Something was blocking him. Something purposeful.
He sighed. Something more to seek out. Something else to sap his strength. He rubbed his eyes, taking a deep breath before trying again. He leaned forward in the chair made for a form smaller than his when the blast hit him. It knocked him backward, and he yelped with pain as the floor hit his injured skin. But that pain was nothing compared with the ice-cold pain that overwhelmed him. Pain, terror, the shock of betrayal, all at once, expressed in thousands of mental voices that were suddenly, irrevocably silenced.
The chill filled him. Then he remembered Anakin: We made the room hot.
Hot.
He sent heat into the cold, beating it back, cringing from the pain, his arms around his head to protect himself from the pink goo, from the stinging, from the cold, awful pain of death.
Death.
Death.
The chill disappeared, leaving a sour residue in his mouth. He raised his head, uncertain how long he had been on the floor.
It had happened again. Another planet destroyed.
He sent for Leia again, but didn’t feel her. That block: hard, firm, powerful.
He stood, shaking. He had to find a computer connected to the nets or something that would give him information. Even though he knew, deep down, that nothing had happened to Coruscant.
That blast had been deeper, colder, more powerful than the first one. It had been closer.
Much closer.
And he even knew the source of the destruction.
Almania, and the presence that was waiting for him there.
“Who was that?” Admiral Ackbar asked.
“I don’t know,” Leia said. She brushed off her combat fatigues, and pushed back a strand of hair. She was sitting once more at her computer station, sending messages to Han, who didn’t respond, and to the children, who did. Winter said they too had felt the blast, and this time she had known how to help them. She also said that Luke had helped them on his trip to Coruscant and, while they were shaken, they weren’t as terrified as they had been the first time.
Leia spoke to them, reassuring them that she was fine, and then signed off.
“That death mask looked familiar,” Wedge said.
“We used to have a collection of them in the National Museum on Alderaan,” Leia said. “It comes from one of the farthest reaches of the galaxy.”
“How do we know it’s a mask?” the lieutenant asked. “It moved like a mouth.”
“We don’t,” Leia said. “Do you know of any peoples who look like that? Or use masks like that to cover their faces?”
“Not off the top of my head,” Admiral Ackbar said, “but we should check for it.”
“We need to check for many things,” Leia said. “We also need to find out where that transmission originated from.” Her hair had slipped again. She pushed it back. Her hands were still shaking. “We also need to find out who died.”
“I felt nothing, Leia,” Wedge said.
“I know, Wedge. This Kueller, whoever he is, has some Force capability. He knew that I would feel those deaths.