Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [78]
“Who wants me in Almania?”
Brakiss shivered. The movement was fine, almost invisible, but Luke felt it as well as saw it. Brakiss wasn’t afraid of Luke. He was afraid of the person who had sent Luke the message. The person who wanted Luke in Almania.
“If I were you, Master Skywalker,” Brakiss said, “I’d go back to Yavin 4. I’d forget about everything else. Turn into Obi-Wan and retire. Leave the fighting to those who are ruthless. They’ll win anyway.”
Then he turned and walked out of the room.
Luke clipped his lightsaber to his belt and waited, hoping Brakiss would return. But Brakiss didn’t. Luke started to follow, and then stopped. He couldn’t help Brakiss. Not yet. Brakiss had again turned down his offer to return to Yavin 4.
But Brakiss was getting closer. Brakiss would come eventually. The Brakiss who had stopped fighting, the Brakiss who had spoken this last, was the Brakiss Luke was trying to save.
Luke had never seen such defeat in a man. Or perhaps that wasn’t defeat speaking. Perhaps Brakiss was giving him a hidden message.
Perhaps not.
Almania. Luke had never heard of it.
But he knew that he had to go there.
Or die trying.
Brakiss felt the door close behind him. He leaned on the metal wall in the utility tunnel and let himself shake. Never again did he want to be between Skywalker and Kueller.
Never again.
The line was too fine to walk, and Skywalker was adept at reading him. Skywalker had almost convinced him to return to Yavin 4. In the space of a conversation, Brakiss nearly had abandoned everything.
For Skywalker.
Never again.
If Kueller let him, he would renounce the Force. He would go on to make droids, to live the kind of life his mother wanted for him, a quiet life, lived in obscurity.
It was the best he could hope for as long as Kueller and Skywalker were in the universe. He was not as powerful as either of them, and he knew it.
He put a hand over his face. Kueller had wanted him to move with finesse, to make Skywalker want to go to Almania. Instead, Brakiss had warned him away. His feelings got too confused around Skywalker. It was almost as if Skywalker could turn him with a few words, a glance, an idea.
In the end, Darth Vader returned to the light. So could you.
So could you.
But something had compelled Vader away from the dark side. Rumors were that something was Skywalker.
If that was the case, then Skywalker was more powerful than both Kueller and Brakiss gave him credit for. Brakiss had gone into the meeting wanting to kill Skywalker. By the middle of it, he had begged Skywalker to kill him.
How humbling.
How humiliating.
Master Skywalker still controlled him. And he had warned the man away from Almania.
If Skywalker didn’t go, what would Kueller say?
What would Kueller do?
Brakiss wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
Twenty-one
Cole let the laser wrench fall from his hands. It landed with a clank in the X-wing. He faced the security guards, none of whom he recognized, and said, “My name is Fardreamer. I work here.”
Artoo had inched closer to the X-wing. He moaned.
“Only Kloperians are authorized on the new X-wings,” said the Kloperian guard. It was holding three blasters in its tentacles.
“Not exactly true,” Cole said. “A number of engineers work on the X-wings. I was supposed to check this one’s computer system.”
“Who gave the order?” the Kloperian asked.
“Luke Skywalker,” Cole said. “President Organa Solo’s brother.”
The Kloperian clucked. One of the human guards lowered his blaster. “Keep it on the suspect,” the Mon Calamari guard said. “We have no proof of his statement.”
“Besides, what would a hero of the Rebellion be doing giving engineering orders?” the Kloperian asked.
“When he believes someone is tampering with the equipment, he has the right to give orders,” Cole said. He knew he was on a limb here, but he had to keep going. He had to talk them through this. They didn’t look friendly with those blasters