Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 14_ Crisis at Crystal Reef - Kevin J. Anderson [49]
One of the guards shouted, "Why don't you surrender, Czethros?
It's the only way you'll come out alive."
"Black Sun will kill me no matter what prison you choose. I don't have a chance anyway."
"But we could try to protect you," the guard argued. Lowbacca roared, urging Czethros to come out.
"All right then. I'll surrender." Czethros's answer came too easily; Jaina sensed a subtle devious intent in his voice. "I'm holding out my weapon. I'm coming out. Don't shoot."
Czethros slowly eased from his sheltered position between equipment, moving around boxlike storage alcoves, cabinets, and engine housings.
He held his blaster in front of him, carefully pointing it away from all the others. They watched uneasily as he crept forward, edging along the side of the carbonite vat where the dead beetle he had gunned down still sprawled.
His face looked cloudy, uncertain, just the way a prisoner's should.
The moment the majority of the guards had lowered their weapons by the merest fraction, Czethros rolled, swung up his blaster rifle, and stepped sideways, screaming, "You won't take me alive!"
But as he let fly a full-power blast from the rifle, his foot came down in a pool of slick, oozing green blood from the beetle he had killed.
He slipped and stumbled over the carcass. With a loud cry, his blaster rifle firing harmlessly toward the ceiling, Czethros lurched backward-and fell into the open vat. The carbonite enveloped him in its fog of absolute, penetrating cold.
Tendrils of white vapor whirled up as the carbonite made quick work of the Black Sun lieutenant. In an instant, Czethros was frozen solid...
perfectly preserved by the frothing liquid.
Grumbling, Lowie crept forward to stand carefully at the edge of the vat.
Guards stood in shock. Nien Nunb chattered under his breath, not sure what to do.
Lowie looked down into the swirling, metallic-gray currents and mumbled something. He felt the unrelenting cold wait up to freeze the fur on his face.
Jaina agreed. "You're right, Lowie. This is one way to capture him.
The minisub that sailed back into the artificial harbor at Crystal Reef was as battered as any starship Zekk had ever seen survive a space battle. Before the companions could even emerge from the Elfa, the treelike harbormaster was there on the dock beside it, making horrified exclamations. To Zekk's absolute amazement, however, the Yarin's expressions of concern were for the passengers, not his damaged ship.
Still fussing and exclaiming, the Yarin ushered them past the queue of waiting customers and into his office. The look of dismay on the treelike alien's face was truly comical, and he waved and rustled his branched arms. Without asking for an explanation, the harbormaster ordered hot drinks and soft warm robes for each of the returned passengers.
"I can't tell you how sorry I am that your undersea experience here at Crystal Reef was not everything that you had hoped." The Yarin eyed their injuries with some trepidation: Zekk's cut and blistered fingers from working in the engine compartment with insufficient tools, the lump on his forehead, the bruise on Tenel Ka's cheek from a chuck of floating ice...
"I assure you we'll attend to your medical needs immediately, but if there's anything else I can do to make it up-"
"Please," Ambassador Cilghal broke in gently, "it is we who should apologize. In our enthusiasm to explore the polar ice cap, we neglected to take into account the... appetites of some of the ocean's larger denizens."
With a look of wonder, the Yarin leaned toward her. "Tell me.
What happened?"
Cilghal, with the help of Zekk, Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Anja, told the story of their encounter with the mighty sea creature, strategically leaving out all information about the andris spice. After all, the Jedi did not know who at Crystal Reef might be working for Black Sun.
The Yarin listened with rapt attention, asking a series of probing