Клаудия Грэй - Into the Dark

The vacuum vanished. Reath tumbled to the ground, gasping for air. It took the station’s environmental controls a few more moments to restore oxygen. In those blurry seconds, he looked for what had saved him.

No, not what. Who.

“Geode?” Reath gasped.

Geode stood above him, reassuringly calm and steady. And Reath could feel that now—a connection to a life-form profoundly alien, and yet as vividly alive as any being he had ever encountered.

Reath’s comlink buzzed. “ What just happened? ” Affie’s voice rang out. “ The readings we’re getting—Reath, are you still out there? ”

He managed to reply in a raspy voice: “Thanks to Geode, yeah. Still here. We’re still here. But the Nihil and the Drengir are long gone.”

“ You’re going to have to explain that later ,” Affie said. “ Hang on. We’re coming to get you. ”

He flopped back onto the floor and stared up at Geode. “My hero.”

Geode made no reply, but Reath knew he understood.

Vines had begun tracing their way across the cockpit, signaling the complete enclosure of the Vessel , when their sensors had lit up red. The ensuing panic about the decompression inside the station had distracted them all. But when Orla and the others finally knew Reath was safe and the station was intact, they turned back to see that the vines had not only stopped growing but had also begun turning black. They’d died when the Drengir did.

After that, getting away from the Amaxine station wouldn’t be that difficult. Yes, it took them a long while to cut away all the thick, ropey dead vines entrapping the Vessel , but they had time to work, with no Drengir or Nihil to worry about.

(At least some of the Nihil had survived; their ship remained operational. Probably most of the survivors had been on board when Reath blew the airlock, rather than on the station. But there couldn’t be that many of them—scans indicated that they’d shut down most areas of their spacecraft and were taking stock of the damage. Orla had no doubt the Nihil would want revenge for this someday, but they knew better than to try to take it that day.)

“Is the station completely emptied out?” Affie asked as Leox and Geode ran final systems checks. “Broken? Useless?”

“Honestly, most of it survived in pretty good shape,” said Orla, who had just completed a quick search to check on things. “Several plants had grown outside the arboretum—I imagine they’ll find their way back in, with the help of the Aytees that were in outer sections of the station when Reath blew the lock. All the major systems are intact. However, it has no hyperspace pods any longer, all of which were launched away from their return mechanisms, meaning this place has no more tactical value. It’s just an arboretum now.”

Affie nodded. The girl seemed oddly satisfied by the station’s depowering for some reason, but Orla chose not to pry. It was enough to know that they were all alive—even Dez!—all more or less well, and able to go home.

And with more hyperspace lanes being cleared every day, the frontier couldn’t elude Orla for much longer. Wild open space beckoned, and she couldn’t wait to answer the call.

Reath got to take it easy on the trip back to Coruscant. His injuries from the venting maneuver were minor but numerous: scrapes and cuts on his skin from shards of debris, a slight sprain of one hand from gripping the ladder so hard, plus bruises and a blackening eye from his lifesaving collision with Geode. This meant he got propped up in his bunk with hot tea, blankets, and praise for his heroic actions, which was the best painkiller of all.

For the purposes of keeping their eyes on both patients at once, the other Jedi had taken down the barrier between Reath’s “room” and Dez’s. Unfortunately Dez wasn’t doing nearly as well.

Dez lay on his cot, his breath ragged. His golden-tan complexion had turned ashen, and his skin had gone clammy. Despite being bandaged with synthplast skin, the wounds on Dez’s arms and legs remained livid and tender.

When Master Cohmac came to check on them, he murmured, “Have you tried a healing, Reath?”

“I tried,” Reath said. “Master Jora always said it was worth trying. But I doubt I did much. Not knowing exactly what toxins the Drengir put in his bloodstream—well, that didn’t help.”

Orla poked her head in. “How is he?”

“He’s not getting worse,” Reath said. “But he’s not getting better, either.” It was clear that Dez needed to get a lot better, and fast.

“Pardon the intrusion,” said Leox, who was coming through the door with a cloth-wrapped packet in his hands. “I may be able to provide some surcease of our friend’s pain.”

Orla and Cohmac exchanged glances as Leox went to sit by Dez’s head. Then Reath couldn’t register their reactions, only his own shock, as Leox pulled out pressed leaves that smelled distinctly, strongly, unmistakably of spice.

Leox began pressing the broad, soft leaves to Dez’s chest, then wrapped others around his wounds, and finally laid one across his forehead. By the time he’d finished applying them, Dez had already begun to breathe easier.

When the Masters exchanged glances, Leox said, “I told you it was medicinal.”

Master Cohmac actually smiled. Reath generally didn’t think it was a good idea to keep secrets from the Jedi Council…but this one time might be the exception. Besides, the Council would be unhappy enough with them already.

It had been just over a day since they’d left Coruscant, but the memories felt far more distant. Reath reflected again on the rules they’d broken to get there, the reaction that would inevitably result. “We’ll be disciplined, won’t we? For coming here in the first place.”

“They may decide what we accomplished here is worth pardoning us,” said Master Cohmac. “If they don’t, we’ll not only be disciplined, but perhaps even thrown out of the Order completely.”

Reath blanched. Would his first mission as an independent Jedi be his last?

Then Orla laughed. “Cohmac, take it easy on him, all right? Reath doesn’t have the experience to know the difference between what could happen and what’s likely to.” She turned to Reath and said, “Yes, we’re in trouble. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

Orla was seriously underestimating Reath’s deep, long-standing relationship with worry. He pulled his blanket firmly up to his shoulders and began mentally composing his own defense.

The Vessel ’s return to Coruscant ought to have been a relief. They were safe again, unlikely to encounter the Drengir for a long time to come. The Nihil—well, they were still out there, but at least Affie wouldn’t have to deal with them for a while.

Yet she felt numb. Directionless.

As she trudged through the tasks associated with docking—lubing up the landing-gear joints, putting in Guild bank codes for refueling—she kept thinking about the Amaxine station.

Scover couldn’t use it for its original purposes anymore. The Jedi had seen to that by making the station known. Undoubtedly some entrepreneurial species or group would take it over and turn it into a standard commercial stop. No more desperate, indentured smugglers would be able to make illegal use of it. Scover’s insidious “bonuses” would vanish. Nobody else had to die the way Affie’s parents had.

Yet Scover would keep on using indentured pilots. The Amaxine station was far from the only hazardous place in the galaxy. She would keep coercing those pilots under her control to undertake dangerous missions. It would still be the one possibility to pay out of an indenture before old age.