Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [128]
Gaeriel pulled her elderly companion toward Luke. This, Leia guessed, had to be Eppie Belden. “Well done, young man!” The tiny woman gripped Luke’s elbow, then seized his hand and pumped hard. “And thanks. If Bakura can ever do something for you, just name it.”
Gaeriel glanced aside, then said to Luke with heartfelt relief, “You’re alive. Did you—”
“Can we talk later? I’ve got a very sick … friend on board, being treated for burns.”
Forget Dev Sibwarra, Leia wanted to shout. He’s dead. This girl has finally come around. Don’t let her go, if you want her!
“Oh,” Gaeriel exclaimed, stepping back. “Go ahead. I’ll wait.”
Leia frowned at her brother’s back. He was already halfway up the ramp, walking stiffly with his head bowed.
Gaeriel touched Leia’s arm. “I’ve never met anyone like him, Your Highness.”
“You never will again, if he leaves you here,” Leia muttered. “Excuse me.” She trotted after Luke.
CHAPTER
21
Luke rejoined Leia at the hatchway. “He’s strong enough to apprentice,” he explained hastily. “And young enough. We’ve got to save him.”
“I’ll help if I can. But, Luke …”
Commander Thanas’s medical corpsman held a mask and clear tubing to Dev’s mouth, and he’d bandaged Dev’s ruined eyes. “Bacta purge,” he said briskly. “It might accomplish something. It might not. At any rate, I gave him something for pain.”
Abruptly Dev lifted one arm. Luke leaned over and tried to smile encouragingly. “Dev? It’s me, Luke.”
Dev pulled the tube out of his mouth. “Wait!” cried the medic. Sticky fluid splashed the deck. Luke grabbed and bent the tube, stopping its flow. The sickly sweet smell evoked wretched, claustrophobic memories of a tank on icy Hoth. The corpsman seized the tubing and locked on a clamp. “Don’t let him talk long, if you really want to save him.”
Luke knelt. “Dev, you can start your real training even before your body heals. It’ll keep you occupied.”
“Oh, Luke.” Dev smiled back faintly. “I could never become a Jedi. My mind is scarred. I’ve been …” He pulled a deep breath and struggled on. “… controlled. By others—for too long, Luke. Thank you for letting me finish cleanly.”
Luke lifted Dev’s scarred hand between his own. “Alliance surgeons can do wonderful things with prosthetics. They’ll treat you at Endor.”
“Prosthetics?” Dev’s eyebrows raised above the bandage. “Sounds like entechment.” He shuddered.
“Don’t let him talk any more!” The medical corpsman shoved Luke out of the way and pushed his mask back onto Dev’s face. Luke tottered against the bulkhead and stretched toward Dev’s presence to reassure him. Dev gleamed in the Force, fully as clean as he had claimed. Dev must have concentrated on healing his spirit, not his body, while he lay in the Jedi trance.
But he seemed to be shrinking. Luke knelt again and enveloped Dev with his own strength, trying to anchor Dev’s presence more strongly to his ravaged body. Dev returned a wash of gratitude.
Abruptly, light flooded out of the Dev-spot in the Force. Luke flinched at its brilliance. “Dev?” he called, alarmed.
The flash faded. Dev Sibwarra’s presence vanished with it into a vast, surging sea of light.
“Lost ’im,” the corpsman growled, glaring at his medisensor. “He really didn’t have a chance, Commander.”
Luke stared. Where’s the justice? he wanted to cry. He’d made a start. He could have learned control.
Couldn’t he? Luke seemed to see Yoda standing on the Falcon’s gaming table, leaning on his stick and shaking his head.
“Sorry.” The medic drained his tubing, coiled it, and swept his other gear back into the carry pack. “I gave it my best try with portable equipment.”
“I’m sure you did,” Leia murmured.
Luke covered his eyes with both hands and coughed.
“You’d better rest, sir,” said the medic. Leia’s voice, and the medic’s, grew fainter and farther away. Luke stayed on his knees, remembering the young man who had suffered, and escaped, and died on the celebration side of victory.
Some time later, a small hand rested on his