Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #6: Sentinel Read online

  If Cilghal’s predictions were correct, Valin and Jysella would be reaching full cognizance right about now, if they had not already. And if the madness that had caused them to be subjected to carbonite freezing were still in effect, their voices would be raised in moments with accusations: “What have you done with my real mother, my real father?”

  That was the insanity that had visited them, the manifestation of the dark-side effect of their connection with the monster known as Abeloth. But recently, Abeloth’s power over the “mad Jedi” had been broken. They had all returned to normal—all but these young Horns, their recovery delayed by their suspended state.

  Valin’s voice was raised in a complaint, but it was not an accusation of treachery and deceit. “I can’t stop shaking.”

  “It’s normal.” His father sounded confident. “Han went through it years ago. He said it took him quite a while to warm up. This gurney is radiating a lot of heat, though. You’ll be warm enough before you know it.” He frowned. “He also said his eyesight was gone right after he woke. How is it that you’re seeing so well?”

  “We’re not.” That was Jysella, raising her arms above her to stretch, an experiment that caused her to wince with muscle pangs. “I’m seeing mostly with the Force.”

  Valin nodded. “Me, too.”

  Cilghal and Tekli exchanged a glance. That was a relief. The conversation was idle chat, and would soon turn to minute discussions of who had been up to what while Valin and Jysella slept. All was well.

  Unless … Cilghal still had one more test to run.

  She raised her voice to catch the attention of all the Horns. “Excuse me. I must interrupt. We have to let the monitors get several minutes of uninterrupted data, and all this talking is interfering. I must ask you two to withdraw for a while.”

  Mirax gave her an exasperated look. “After all the time we’ve waited—”

  Tekli held up a hand to forestall her. “After all that time, you can afford to indulge in a few minutes of quiet relief with your husband.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Out.”

  Grudgingly, the older Horns withdrew. They’d be joining the others in the waiting area.

  From a cabinet, Cilghal took a pair of self-heating blankets. She approached the gurneys and spread one blanket over each patient. “Tekli and I need to make some log entries about your recovery. Josat will be here in a moment—ah.” As if on cue, and it was indeed on cue, a teenage Jedi apprentice, cheerful and maddeningly energetic, entered the chamber. Red-haired, lean with a teen’s overactive metabolism, he offered Cilghal and Tekli a minimally acceptable respectful nod and immediately moved over to the nurse’s station monitor to familiarize himself with his two charges.

  Cilghal finished adjusting Jysella’s blanket. “If you need anything, Josat can provide it, and if he is not here, say ‘Nurse’ and the comm router will put you in contact with the floor nurse.”

  Jysella glanced over at her brother. “I have just been tucked in by a large fish.”

  He smiled, and when he spoke, there was amusement in his voice. “Maybe you’re hallucinating.”

  The waiting room was a long chamber decorated with plants from a dozen worlds and a wall-side fountain shaped to simulate a waterfall on the planet Alderaan, destroyed so long ago. The air here was fresher than that in the infirmary chambers, smelling of oxygen from the plants, mist from the waterfall—

  Fresher in most ways, fouler in others. Leia turned to Allana and crossed her arms. “Sweetie …”

  “I know, I know.” The child did not sound at all childlike, but she hugged her pet nexu to her with what looked like a need for reassurance. “We smell bad.”

  “What did you get into?”

  Allana’s shrug was uncommunicative. “I don’t know.”

  Leia glanced at Barv, but the Ramoan Jedi Knight, big and green with ferocious tusks, avoided her eye.

  Well, of course he didn’t want to explain. He’d been entrusted with watching over Allana, and he’d failed to keep her out of mischief. This was the sort of humbling experience young Jedi needed to have from time to time.

  Han leaned into the conversation, but his attention was on his wife, not his granddaughter. “Garbage Compactor Three Two Six Three Eight Two Seven.”

  Leia scowled at him. “Oh, shut up.”

  Han grinned and there was a bit of mockery in the expression. He switched his attention to Allana. “Sweetie, I can remember when your grandma smelled just like that. And unlike you, she was rude and ungrateful, too.”

  “Han—”

  “Go get cleaned up, and sanisteam Anji if you can, while your grandma and I discuss the impossibility of keeping children—or teenage princesses—clean.”

  “Yes, Grandpa.” Allana scurried while the scurrying was good. She didn’t have to look back to detect the glare Leia was visiting on Han.

  Cilghal and Tekli walked toward an office at the far end of the hall from the Horns’ chamber, just short of the waiting room.

  Cilghal had Josat’s script timed and running in her head. He would now be moving around the Horns’ chamber, humming to himself, cautioning Valin and Jysella not to move or talk—the monitors needed stillness to do this evaluation—but he could talk, fortunately, for it was impossible for him to keep quiet, or so his family said …

  Tekli interrupted the holodrama in Cilghal’s head. “So, what did cause the pod monitor to fail?”

  “Maybe what I said. And maybe it was a spike of the ability Valin manifested when he went mad.”

  “The one that blanked out the encephaloscan?”

  “Yes. He was probably using the technique when he was frozen. The monitor failure would have been the last bit of that usage.”

  “Hmm.” Tekli didn’t comment. She didn’t need to: Cilghal knew what she was thinking. Retention of that scanner-blanking ability was not an indication that Valin retained the madness, as well, but neither physician liked mysteries.

  When the two of them entered their office, the main monitor on the wall was already tuned to a hidden holocam view of the Horns’ chamber. They could see Josat indeed bustling among the cabinets, assembling a tray full of beverages, receptacles for medicines, blood samples, swabs.

  Tekli heaved a sigh. “So far, so good.”

  Cilghal offered a noncommittal rumble. “Time will tell.”

  Josat moved to Valin and then Jysella, offering drinks. His voice was crisp over the monitor speakers. “We gave you the farthest room from the turbolifts and offices and waiting room. Much quieter here. If there’s an emergency, though, it’s safer to head to the stairs instead of the turbolifts. Right next door, take a left when you leave this chamber, it’s the door straight ahead, you can find it in pitch darkness. That can be important. I never used to pay attention to things like that, but since I started studying nursing, I have to know these things. Jedi Tekli will make me run laps if I ever don’t know where the emergency exits are from any of my stations. Were your Masters always assigning you exercise when you messed up? Don’t answer, the monitors need quiet.”

  Cilghal blinked, pleased. “He worked that in very well.”

  “About the punishment?”

  “About the stairs.”

  “I know.”

  Cilghal sighed. “Mammalian humor. Deliberate misinterpretation.”

  “Tends to drive a Master crazy, doesn’t it?”

  Josat now stood beside Valin’s gurney, his lightsaber swaying on his belt within Valin’s easy reach. The apprentice eyed one of the wall monitors. “Slow progress on your evaluation. No matter. Nobody will come back to bother you until it’s run its course. Half an hour at least, I’m guessing.”

  Cilghal nodded. “The last of the bait. He is not a bad actor.” Under ideal circumstances, Valin or Jysella might feel a trace of deceit from him through the Force, but now, still suffering a little from the aftereffects of carbonite freezing, they were unlikely to.

  They were, however, likely to add up four important d
etails. First, they were in a room at the end of the corridor, away from most visitors and medical personnel. Second, they were next to stairs that would allow them to reach any level of the Temple while bypassing well-traveled turbolifts. Third, they had half an hour before their absence would be noticed. And fourth, they had ready access to a lightsaber.

  If they were still mad, and merely concealing the fact, could they resist the bait?

  But neither Horn made a grab for the lightsaber.

  If they had done so—well, it wouldn’t have been too damaging. The lightsaber would not have ignited. Switching it on, or having Cilghal or Tekli press a button on the comlinks they carried, would cause the false lightsaber to emit a powerful stunning gas. The Horns would have been felled without violence, never having even reached the corridor. Josat would have been felled as well, but it would have been easier on him than being thrashed by two experienced Knights.

  But, clearly, escape was not a priority for them. Which meant that they, too, were sane. Cured.

  Valin had felt nothing but warmth and relief from his parents—

  From the man and woman masquerading as his parents.

  As he lay listening to Josat’s endless, maddening blather, Valin forced himself to remain calm. Any distress might send a signal through the Force to his captors, a signal that their deception had been detected.

  And perhaps, perhaps, the man and woman who wore the faces of Corran and Mirax Horn didn’t even know that they were imposters.

  What a horrible thought. Perhaps they were clones, implanted with memories that caused them to believe, in their heart of hearts, that they were the real Corran and Mirax. What would happen to them when the truth was revealed? Would they be killed by their secret masters? Were they even now implanted with strategically-placed explosives that would end their lives when they were no longer useful?

  Valin clamped down on that thought, suppressing it.

  Again Josat came near, chattering about his studies, about politics, about the best mopping techniques for apprentices assigned to clean Temple corridors. Again his lightsaber swung invitingly just within Valin’s reach.

  But, no. He and Jysella needed to know much more than they did now if they were to stage a successful escape. They needed to be rested, informed, and somewhere other than deep in the enemy-occupied Jedi Temple before they struck out on their own.

  So he looked at his sister and offered her a smile full of reassurance. That emotion, at least, was real. In all the universe, the one person he knew to be true was Jysella. He’d known it from the moment they had reached for each other in the Force. Dazed, barely conscious, dreading what they would find, they had still connected, and they knew they were not alone.

  She smiled back at him, an expression he felt more than saw.

  They had each other, and for now, that was enough.