Джон Миллер: Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Sentinel

«Oh, we let Badolfa deliver your messages,» Sawj Luzo said, squeaky voice high with delight. «Your mother made another deal.»

«What?»

«Yes,» Venn said, turning and hobbling back inside. «She didn’t think your discovery existed — and she didn’t think the other High Lords would come. So she alerted us to the meeting here.»

Ori looked horrified. «In exchange for what?»

Venn licked her dry lips. «Call it… improved working conditions. Had any High Lords arrived, I would have had them for treason.» She gestured to the space vehicle. «But this is a much better prize.»

Straining against her captors, Ori looked around.

Jelph was out there, she knew — but there were so many of them. And now the elder Luzo brother was helping the Grand Lord through the partially dug manure in the stable toward her discovery.

«I did it,» Venn said, triumphantly. «I’ve lived to see the day.» She released her hold on her escort’s arm and leaned against the starfighter. «Life is a cruel joke, Lord Luzo. You spend your years reaching the pinnacle of power — only then everyone thinks it’s time for you to die.»

«None of us, Grand Lord.»

«Shut up.» She stroked the cold metal of the vehicle. «Well, Lillia Venn’s life is not over. There is another peak, another place to conquer. I will begin again — in the stars.» Vaguely aware of the shifting feet of her allies behind her, she added: «I will take you all with me, of course.»

«Of course, Grand Lord.»

Outside, two of the guards — once Ori’s fellow Sabers — stepped away from Ori, their attention drawn to the excitement inside. Neither they nor her two remaining captors noticed the discarded, unopened sack of blasters behind them, silently levitating toward the bushes beside the farmhouse. But Ori did, beginning to move even before she heard Jelph’s mental call.

Ori! Down!

Instead of wresting free to run, Ori threw her weight to the ground, surprising the men holding her arms. The distraction was enough for Jelph, who emerged from the farmhouse firing. Brilliant beams not seen on Kesh since the first century of occupation struck the two guards from behind. Ahead, the remaining Sabers turned in shock.

Inside, Venn’s aged form came alive. She glared at her new Lords. «Secure this place!»

Jelph charged the yard, firing anew. The remaining Sabers, who had never deflected a blaster bolt in their lives, moved frantically to parry the energy. Ori rolled on the ground, trying to find one of the fallen guards’ lightsabers. Ahead, she saw the Luzo brothers standing guard in the doorway to the stable — while behind them, the Grand Lord had somehow clambered atop the starfighter.

No, she saw with a start. Not atop the vessel. Inside. Ori spun toward Jelph, who’d arrived beside her. He saw it, too. For a moment he froze, his blasterfire stopping. The crone was inside his precious starship. He grabbed Ori’s arm and helped her stand.

Firing again at the Luzos and their guards, he pulled at her arm. «Ori, let’s go!»

Suddenly thrown into motion, Ori looked back at the barn. He clearly didn’t understand. «Jelph, no! The Grand Lord is here,» she called. «What are you doing?»

Jelph didn’t answer. Instead he pushed her forward. Away from the barn — toward the river.

Inside, the old woman reached for the throttle.

A tinny voice came from the compartment. «Automatic navigation system engaged. Hover mode activated.» Venn’s eyes opened wide as she began her ascent.

Outside the Aurek, the Luzo brothers ordered the surviving Saber to guard the entrance against Ori and her unknown protector. The rear stable doorway accommodated wide-winged uvak; it would easily permit the exit of a hovering starfighter.

«Such power,» Sawj Luzo said, watching the metal monster rise. «She won’t even need us to sever the moorings.»

«Moorings?» Flen looked beneath the ship. Two tiny monofilament cords tied around the landing struts were just visible now in the light. As the lines pulled taut, the young Lord’s yellow eyes darted to the other ends, buried in the muck where the vessel had parked.

There, in the ground, tiny pins snapped — and brought down a Dark Lord’s dreams.

The security device had gone in before Jelph had brought the first starfighter part down from the jungle. The Aurek had sat hidden beneath a mound of manure in the barn — but beneath it was buried something else: two of the ship’s proton torpedoes, surrounded by thousands of kilograms of ammonium-nitrate-based explosive. Transforming the fertilizer into something fit for an anti-theft system had required much patience and care — but it had given Jelph a way to turn his nominal job into something helpful to his mission.

Now the anti-theft system worked exactly as planned. When the cables yanked upward, triggers snapped shut on the torpedo warheads. The weapons detonated, igniting the surrounding explosives.

Thunder struck the farm as the fireball ripped and tore itself free from the surrounding clay, consuming the stable and its occupants in milliseconds. Outside, Jelph tackled Ori, plunging them both into the water even as the shock wave shredded the ground behind them.

Jerked through the disintegrating barn roof, the strikefighter rode aloft on a geyser of heat and force. For a split second the woman inside rejoiced at the motion, assuming it a natural demonstration of the vehicle’s power. Her elation ended when, the vessel’s shielding inoperative, the other four torpedoes detonated in their launch tubes. Night laborers as far away as Tahv saw the new comet flash into being and die just as quickly, bathing the southern sky with an eerie light.

Lillia Venn had found her way to the sky.

The little hut was taking shape. Under a dense canopy of foliage no uvak scout could penetrate, the new structure sat atop a relatively dry lump in the middle of the thicket. The hejarbo shoots grew much stronger up here in the jungle; if it weren’t for Jelph’s lightsaber, Ori never would have cleared the grounds.

Eight weeks had passed since the blast claimed the farm. Jelph and Ori had descended from the jungle only once, under cover of night, to investigate what was left. There wasn’t anything to see. The entire riverbank had fallen into the Marisota River. Dark waters eddied and swirled over the blast crater. All that remained was the stub of a weed-covered path terminating at the river’s edge. The pair had returned to the jungle that night confident that no one would learn there had ever been a starfighter on Kesh. Ori had laughed for the first time in days, quoting her mother’s favorite line.

«The Confidence of the Dead End.»

Since that trip, their focus had been entirely on carving a place for themselves in hiding. There was no returning, Ori now realized; not after her mother’s betrayal. Venn’s death certainly had been broadcast through the Force — and just as certainly, would have set the remaining High Lords against one another all over again. The game was renewed; maybe Candra might even find a role to play. Ori wanted nothing to do with any of it. That part of her was past.

And if no one mourned Lillia Venn, no one had come to look for Ori and Jelph, either. In fact, the two of them had spied fewer Sith and Keshiri in the surrounding lands of late than usual. Presumably, a Grand Lord vanishing mysteriously in an area feared as haunted since the tragedy of the Ragnos Lakes would have that effect.

It was fine with her. Ori had a new vision for herself now — based on an old story she’d heard as a child. Keshiri legend held that soon after the Sith arrived, some of their native population had escaped over the ocean. They’d chosen a one-way trip to privation and likely death over lives of service to the Tribe. Today’s more devoted Keshiri told it as a cautionary tale: choice of destiny was a luxury reserved for the Protectors, not their servants. The cost of arrogance, for a servant, was isolation.