Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [64]
Visitors seldom came to Telti, and were not welcomed.
Even though that message had been sent, however, Luke had had no trouble with his own entry. He hadn’t really expected it. Brakiss was waiting for him.
Luke wanted to know why.
Something was going on here, something bigger than a failed student-teacher relationship. Brakiss was working for someone—the Empire, probably—and his duty was to lure Luke Skywalker into a trap.
Luke would be lured.
He wouldn’t be trapped.
The landing strip continued to move forward, conveyor-belt style, inching slowly toward a nearby building. Luke could lift off at any point. This movement was not part of the trap, but part of Telti’s day-to-day operations.
One side of the dome ahead of him rose, flattening against itself like a fan. There were no lights inside, just as there had been no lights on the landing strip.
But Luke could sense a presence.
Brakiss.
Not inside the dome, but on Telti.
Waiting.
If Luke could sense Brakiss, it would only be a matter of moments before Brakiss could sense Luke. If he didn’t already know of Luke’s arrival.
Then, perhaps, Luke would have some answers.
He certainly hadn’t received any when he had called up information on Telti. New Republic sources claimed that Telti was an abandoned mining colony, its wealth completely destroyed by Imperial exploitation. A factory remained. It apparently did some business with the New Republic.
The most information Luke had received on the moon had come from Brakiss’s mother. She had said that Brakiss finally had real work. She had been afraid that Luke’s presence would destroy any chance for Brakiss’s future.
Luke had thought she meant that he might kill Brakiss.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
He turned on the X-wing’s front running lights. They worked as a spot illuminating the interior of the dome. It was empty, but it looked like a bay big enough to house dozens of ships. Landing platforms were recessed into the floor. Beyond those was an open door.
And no movement. None at all.
The sensation of barrenness continued. Except for Brakiss, Luke felt no other life. No plant life, no animal life. Nothing. Not even insect life.
He breathed deeply, running through a few mental calming exercises he taught at the academy. Clearly his expectations had been different. Clearly he had expected more life here than just Brakiss.
That should have reassured him, but it didn’t.
The metal runway pulled the X-wing into the building, and with a loud grinding, the door closed. Luke did not look back. He had made his choice. He would continue with it.
As the door closed, lights came on all through the bay. Some illuminated the platforms from below, others from above. A bank of glow panels lit on the ceiling, and a hissing told him that the atmosphere had changed. He checked his monitors. The air was breathable now.
He pushed up the canopy of the X-wing. The air was warmer than he had expected, and smelled faintly of metal, rust, and grease. The rust surprised him. He would have expected nothing like that.
As he levered himself out, he felt as if he had been in this room before. Then he realized that he had been in one just like it on Anchorhead as a boy, back when Jabba the Hutt had tried a few legitimate businesses. He had sold landspeeders, and Luke had gone with his uncle Owen to buy one.
Jabba’s lackeys had put the landspeeders in a large room and placed display lights on them, lights that shone on the clean patches only, and hid the dents and dirt and flaws. Uncle Owen had not bought anything that day, saying that all the speeders had had their ID numbers sanded off. It was years later that Luke realized the speeders had to have been stolen.
Weeks later, Luke and his uncle had returned. Jabba’s business was gone. All that remained were the platforms