Клаудия Грэй - Into the Dark

“Good thinking,” Cohmac said to Orla. “This is our chance.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

Orla let the battle fall away from her memory, the tension from her body. She inhaled deeply, inhabiting only the moment. From the depths of her mind, she called upon the Force to answer.

As she opened her perception further, she became more able to sense Cohmac beside her, doing the same thing. His courage rallied her own. With renewed determination, she traced the outlines of darkness, formed it in the shape of a sphere, felt Cohmac’s effort doubling her own. Then she centered that energy within the idols, squaring the circle—

A burst of brilliant greenish light lit up the entire station for a moment. Orla’s first impulse was that something had gone wrong with the inner illumination, or worse, that internal systems were beginning to explode. Then she realized the light had been only in her mind’s eye, her consciousness attempting to make sense of the pure power of the Force.

In that instant, the fight between the Drengir and the 8-Ts ended. Once again the Drengir blended into the murk of the jungle. Orla could almost have lost them. The 8-Ts whirled in brief confusion, then got back to the important work of gardening.

Would this hold the Drengir in place?

“That’s the seal,” she said, almost in a daze. “It’s working.”

“Hopefully forever, but at least for a short while.” Already Cohmac had fully recovered and had once again pulled up the hood of his robe in preparation for travel. “That gives us time to escape and reconnect with Reath. I hope Affie has finished with the code.”

“If she hasn’t, we’ll make Leox and Geode call her back.” Orla pushed up the sleeves of her spotless white robe. “Let’s move.”

They hustled toward the door that would lead to the airlock ring. Sensing their approach, the door slid open, revealing the darkened space. But in the middle of that area stood a slender, stooped figure. As Orla’s eyes adjusted to the light, she recognized who had found them.

“I’m afraid I have to ask you to stay right here,” said Hague, leveling his blaster straight at them.

Cohmac and Orla crept along behind Master Laret through the cave tunnels. They were getting closer to the kidnappers’ lair—they all could sense that—but pinpointing their precise location was proving difficult. The problem was compounded by the reality that choosing the wrong path to the hostages could lead them straight into armed guards, or explosive booby traps.

Orla brought up the rear, where it was darkest. Her own faint silhouette was only one of the many shadows surrounding them. They were, at this point, too close to risk activating their lightsabers or even using their glow rods at any but the lowest setting.

She didn’t doubt Master Laret. Finding pathways through the Force was a known gift of hers. More important, Master Laret’s judgment was invariably, inarguably correct . It wasn’t a matter of slavishly following the Order’s dictates—Laret Soveral made up her own mind, no matter what, as Orla had learned when trying in vain to sway her judgment. But in making decisions, her master always had some rule in mind, whether it be ethical, legalistic, or otherwise. All those rules urged them to keep doing what they were doing, namely, searching for the royal hostages.

Orla, however, always felt the urge to follow her instincts first, rules be damned. At the moment, her instincts were telling her to stop.

Just to stop. Not to search. Not even to reach out with her feelings. To stop and wait for a sign that would tell them more.

You’re scared , she told herself, resolutely gripping the hilt of her lightsaber. Don’t give into fear. That’s all this is.

Monarch Cassel whispered, “I’ve been thinking.”

That must be a first , Thandeka said to herself, then felt guilty. On Eiram, the jokes about Cassel’s intelligence, or lack thereof, were common…and perhaps not completely wrong. But after hours physically bound to him, she’d learned whatever the man lacked in cleverness, he made up for in kindness. “What about?”

Cassel glanced over at Isamer before answering. The Lasat was too busy stuffing his face with barely cooked meat to pay any attention to their mumblings. Reassured, Cassel said, “He keeps sending his guards out to look for the Jedi, so the Jedi must be fairly close to us.”

“It’s a possibility,” Thandeka said. She wouldn’t extend her hopes any further than that. Thandeka had resigned herself to death hours before—at least, mostly. The one part she couldn’t fully accept was never seeing her wife again. “Why do you mention it?”

“I was thinking that we could do something to get their attention,” Cassel said, his Pantoran face flushing dark blue. “Shout at the top of our voices, something like that.”

“We’re surrounded by solid rock. I don’t think shouting will do us much good.” Then Thandeka considered it. The particulars of Cassel’s suggestion might not be useful, but the basic idea…

She looked around the miserable lair with fresh eyes. Before, she’d only been searching for a means of escape (none) or the weapons that would likely be used for her execution (blasters). This time, Thandeka looked for communications equipment. Nothing in there would broadcast a signal offworld, or even to the surface. But if the Jedi had come close enough to their location, then maybe she could reach them.

One of the handheld comm devices used by the Lasat’s guards sat atop a nearby crate. Thandeka nodded toward it. Cassel stared at her in consternation, but then his jaw dropped as he caught on.

She glanced back at their captor. Isamer was still gulping down his food, oblivious to anything else. They had a brief chance.

Together she and Cassel wriggled a few centimeters to the left, just far enough for her toes to touch that crate. Thandeka thumped it as hard as she could. The comlink tumbled down, landing on the soft edge of her robe, which muffled the sound of its fall. (Not that Isamer was likely to hear it over his growling and smacking.) Using her foot, she pulled the comm unit back toward them.

Cassel and Thandeka’s eyes met in shared glee. Still, getting the comm unit was one thing—effectively using it was another.

The cuffs on her hands made it difficult to grab the comm unit, but she managed it. There was no question of bringing it to her mouth so she might whisper a message; anything she could say loudly enough to be heard at that distance would immediately alert Isamer.

Different kinds of messages could be sent over comms, though, not just voices. Various codes and signals—none of which Thandeka knew—but her message didn’t need to make sense. She only needed the Jedi to detect something, anything , coming from their location.

With her thumb, Thandeka hit a switch, closed her eyes, and thought, They say the Jedi can do anything.

We shall see.

Orla’s comlink began to vibrate against her hip. Confused, she picked it up and saw no message, heard no words. Signal bursts were sometimes used to send codes, but this was just one long burst—static, basically.

Still, it was being sent from very close by, closer than any ship could possibly be.

The kidnappers would communicate with each other intelligibly , Orla reasoned. So this is either a malfunction, or a botched attempt at reaching us.

Either way, it had given her a means of tracing the signal’s location.

Relief washed through Orla. She hated nothing so much as the feeling of being trapped, and wandering around in that maze had felt too much like imprisonment.

But now they could escape.

Keeping both lightsabers crossed in front of him, Reath began backing toward the transport pod. With his shoulder he was able to nudge Dez along, but not quickly.