Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [135]
And now they had him here.
Wherever here was.
He blinked. Even his eyes felt grimy. He was still dehydrated. He could feel it in each movement, in each throb of his head. But the rest had given him some strength back. He could get beyond this weakness. He would be able to defend himself now.
The pallet was only a few inches above the floor. The floor was covered with dirt, and beneath it, the surface was made of wood. How unusual.
The light that filtered in, giving the room its grayish-brown color, came from grates above. He suspected the grates opened into another room or the light would have been brighter.
He forced himself to sit up slowly, the very movement pulling on his back, reminding him of the source of his pain. His X-wing was gone. It had exploded over Pydyr, and when he was there, he hadn’t been able to figure out what happened.
But as he had slept, the realization struck him.
Someone must have tampered with the X-wing on Telti. Brakiss couldn’t have done it. He had been with Luke during most of that time. But one of the droids could have, under Brakiss’s orders.
And if the X-wing had exploded on Almania, as planned, Brakiss would have taken care of both of the men he feared: Luke Skywalker and Kueller.
Luke brushed his face, and hit something prickly. He brought his hand down. Straw. He looked down. The pallet was covered in straw.
How odd.
And his hands weren’t bound.
Neither were his feet.
But his lightsaber was gone.
So. Kueller believed there was no escape from this place, but he also believed that Luke might have had use for the lightsaber.
Which meant that Luke would not be alone for long.
He got up slowly, moving with caution so that the throbbing he felt wouldn’t turn into dizziness. The splint enabled him to put some weight on his ankle. Slowly he crept forward.
The room was more like a series of rooms. The ceilings were high enough that he didn’t want to try to jump them with his injured ankle, and the walls were smooth. Yet fresh air flowed in, along with the scent of raw meat.
The thought of such food made his stomach churn, but he knew that food would have value for him, not so much for its nutritional content, but for its moisture. He followed the scent, and discovered more straw on the far side of the room he had awakened in.
Mixed in with the straw were long white hairs, and the faint smell of animals.
The next room was dark. The scent of meat was stronger here. It mixed with the animal odor. Luke wasn’t sure he would like what he was going to find. He squinted, forcing his eyes to adjust.
Nothing.
The room was emptier than the first, with only one pile of straw, and no pallet at all. The raw-meat smell came from a corner filled with large, empty bowls, but no meat rested there. Obviously the meat had been eaten. Only the smell lingered.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He was alone, but it didn’t feel as if he were alone.
He didn’t like the feeling.
He limped back to his pallet and sat down. There was no way to tell how long he had been out. Or exactly where he was. His only hope was to engage one of the guards and to escape by stealing one of Dolph/Kueller’s ships.
But before he did that, he would want to find the source of Kueller’s disturbing power. It had to be near Kueller somewhere. He wouldn’t let it too far out of his sight, whatever it was.
A faint snuffling echoed from the far room. Luke looked up. A large white creature sat in the doorway, nearly filling it. If the creature stretched on its hind legs, it might be able to reach the grates. It obviously had no desire to.
The snuffling continued. Then Luke realized that it was sniffing the air.
It was smelling him.
He sat very still. His lack of restraints made him nervous. This, then, was the thing Kueller had planned for him.
It