Chapter 23

Chapter 23

MIARA WENT OVER the circuitry as carefully as their current predicament allowed. Generally speaking, it was not a good idea to rush explosives. Plus, she needed these ones to blow discreetly. It wouldn’t do them any good to blast the hillside, only to have whatever was out there follow the explosion back to its source. She kept her head clear and calm and worked with steady hands. Beside her, Kolvin was not so patient.

“Will you stop that,” she said, when his fidgeting got to be too much for her slowly fraying nerves.

“It’s getting closer, Miara,” Kolvin said.

“I know that, you idiot,” she said. “But if I rush now, I might blow you up instead.”

“Right,” said Kolvin. “Sorry.”

“Just go stand somewhere else, would you?” she requested. “You’re blocking my light.”

He gave her some space, and she went back to work. Just another couple of switches and she’d be ready to go. Fortunately, when she’d first rigged this, she had anticipated a stealth blast would be necessary. Everything was already in place. She just needed to lay the final ignition sequence.

“Okay, Kolvin, back into the tunnel,” she said, closing up the final circuit board.

“You’re really going to blow me up?” he asked, but he was already moving.

“No,” she said. “Though it’s tempting. It’s going to get dusty in here, that’s all. Most of this blast is directed downward.”

Kolvin crawled into the tunnel and she followed him. When they were both entirely covered by the lower ceiling, she hit the detonator. There was a quiet rumble beneath them and a louder clamor behind them as the rocks fell inward. They both started coughing.

“Go,” she said, sputtering. It was going to take her weeks to get the taste of the smoky crap out of her mouth.

Kolvin went, and she followed. A few seconds later, they emerged into the main cavern. Kaeden was still playing crokin with poor Neera, but she got up and walked over as soon as she saw Miara, and started dusting off her sister’s back and shoulders as well as she could with one arm.

“Hey, hey, cut it out,” Miara said, though to be honest, it felt nice to know that Kaeden was watching out for her.

“I’m sorry,” Kaeden said. “I just really hate all this waiting, even when we’re not split up.”

“I know,” Miara said.

They had never spoken about it, but the night and day Miara had spent waiting for Kaeden to come back after the raid was the worst time of Miara’s life. Even though she’d known, logically, that Kaeden wouldn’t be able to return until it got dark, every minute of daylight seemed to taunt her. When she’d heard Ahsoka’s ship take off, she’d almost given up and run out onto the hillside, screaming like Neera. Kolvin had practically sat on her chest until she’d calmed down. When Kaeden had finally arrived, her hair a mess and her poor arm trailing uselessly at her side, it was hours before Miara was willing to leave her.

“I hope Ahsoka does come back,” Miara said. “I mean, obviously I’d like her to rescue us again, but more important, I want to tell her that I’m sorry.”

“You have strange priorities, little sister,” Kaeden said. “But I guess I already got to apologize.”

“Yeah,” Miara said. “I don’t really blame her for anything that happened. I know she helped us as much as she could.”

They didn’t talk about the others, about Vartan and Selda, or any of the rest of the farmers who hadn’t been part of the raid. Not knowing was bad, but speculating would only make it worse.

They waited.

Neera lost interest in the crokin board and started pacing in a corner, muttering under her breath. Kolvin went off to check on the vaporator, which had been making strange noises for a few days. The rest of the insurgents checked their weapons, even though nothing had changed since the last time they used them. Anything to keep distracted while they waited to see if the mysterious creature would find them.

Then, from outside the cave, there came a very loud voice.

“Kaeden Larte! I know you are in there.”

Kaeden started, jerking her arm painfully. Miara’s eyes widened, and everyone in the cave, even Neera, froze.

“Come out, Kaeden Larte,” the shouting continued. “Surrender or I will collapse your little hiding spot, and your sister and your friends will die gasping for air.”

Kaeden was on her feet before Miara could stop her.

“What are you doing?” Miara said. “You can’t just go out there.”

“I can’t stay here, either!” Kaeden said. “We knew they’d get us somehow, and we knew they wouldn’t fight fair when they did. I’m just the name they know, that’s all.”

“He might blow us all up anyway.” Neera materialized next to them, her face completely still and her blue eyes focused in a way they hadn’t been since her brother died.

“Ahsoka picked the escape doors because they have lines of sight with each other,” Kaeden reminded her sister. “I’ll go out the smallest one, and you can keep watch from the others. Maybe you’ll get a clean shot.”

“If he didn’t bring any friends,” Kolvin said.

“Kaeden Larte,” came the voice again. “I grow tired of waiting.”

“Look, just get in position,” Kaeden said. “I’m going.”

“I’m coming, too,” Miara said. “You said it yourself. We shouldn’t be separated.”

Kaeden locked eyes with Neera, hoping the older girl would understand. Kaeden couldn’t watch her sister tortured the way she had been. Then she would definitely tell the interrogator everything he wanted to know. Neera nodded and raised her blaster. It was a newer model, stolen from a stormtrooper during the raid, and it had a stun setting. Miara never knew what hit her.

“Tell her I’m sorry,” Kaeden said, and then she was gone.

It was difficult to crawl through the connecting tunnel, even though she picked the shortest one. She couldn’t put any weight on her right arm, so it was more like dragging herself through the dust. Fantastic, she thought. Not only am I about to be captured by Imperials again, but I’m going to be absolutely filthy when they catch me. If they grant me a last request, I’m going to have to ask for a bath. At least her slowness gave the others time to get into position.

She studied the creature before she walked out to meet him. He was tall with broad shoulders, and of a species she had never seen before. His face was gray, and it didn’t look like the color was natural. There were other markings, too uniform to be scars, on his cheeks, nose, and chin. They gave his face an evil look, though Kaeden imagined that without them, and without those piercing ice-blue eyes, he wouldn’t be so intimidating. As it was, he was intimidating enough. He wore a gray uniform, too, but not a typical officer’s. There was no rank insignia. It was like he had been designed to be as unremarkable as possible, except for one thing: he held a massive double-bladed red lightsaber.

Somehow, Kaeden found the courage to keep walking.

She stumbled out of the cave, squinting against the brighter light, and stood before him, waiting for him to tell her what to do next.

“I’m Kaeden,” she said. “Now leave my friends alone.”

The gray figure laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

“But they’ve all come out to see us off,” he said, and reached out a hand.

Kaeden had seen Ahsoka use the Force twice. The first time when she’d turned the Imperial blasters away and the second when she’d rescued Kaeden by lifting her through the window of the prison cell. This was nothing like that. Kaeden could almost sense the unnaturalness, the wrongness of it, and then Kolvin was dragged out of the cave to her left, clutching at his throat while his knees scraped along the ground.

“Stop!” Kaeden said. “I surrender, I surrender, just stop !”

But the gray creature didn’t listen. Kolvin’s struggles grew weaker and weaker as the life was choked out of him, and then everything got even worse. The hillside around Kaeden erupted in blaster fire as her remaining friends tried to shoot the creature down.

They did their best, and they were decent shots, but they didn’t come close. The gray creature was more than a match for them, and he was without pity. His lightsaber spun so fast that it looked like a ring of red light instead of a blade, deflecting all the shots back at whoever had fired them. Kaeden heard the screams as her friends were wounded, and then she heard the silence as they died. When it was quiet again, she realized she was still standing and Kolvin was still fixed in place beside her. He’d stopped struggling, nearly all the light gone out of his massive eyes. She couldn’t stop looking at him. Ahsoka had made her look away from death before, but now there was no escape from it.

“This is what happens to those who would resist the Empire,” the gray creature said.

He threw his still-spinning lightsaber at Kolvin and sliced him in half. Kaeden screamed, expecting fountains of blood, but both halves of the body thudded cleanly to the ground and did not so much as twitch. The coldness of Kolvin’s death was almost worse. The lightsaber flew back into the gray creature’s hand. He turned it off and stowed it somewhere behind him. Kaeden didn’t even think of trying to steal it. She wouldn’t make it three steps.

“What are you?” Kaeden asked, surprised she had any voice at all.

“I am the future,” the gray creature said. “And the only reason you are alive is because I need you to make my future come to pass.”

He grabbed her good arm and forced her to walk in front of him. She thought about resisting, forcing him to kill her there and then, with the others, so she couldn’t be used to further his ends. He had to be after Ahsoka. It was the only reason she could think of that anyone would target her specifically. Ahsoka had already rescued her once. They must want her to try it again. If she died now, then Ahsoka wouldn’t have any reason to come back, and Kaeden would get to lie in the dust with the rest of her—

Miara . Who hadn’t wanted to leave her. Who was lying unconscious back in the cave, thanks to Neera’s quick thinking. Neera who was dead but who had saved Miara without even knowing it. Kaeden had to live for a little bit longer so she could get this terrible creature away from her sister.

“All right, all right,” she said, shaking her arm free. It hurt—her whole body hurt—but she could do this. “I can walk on my own.”

“Excellent,” the gray creature said. “We want you to be in your best shape for when your little Jedi friend gets here to save you.”

He laughed again, cruelly, and pushed Kaeden between her shoulder blades. She stumbled but managed not to fall. She walked back toward the town as quickly as she could, not knowing how long an Imperial stunner would keep Miara out. She was sorry that Miara would wake up to discover the bodies of her friends, particularly Neera’s, but at least she’d wake up. She was smart, too, Kaeden knew. She’d go to Vartan or Selda or somewhere else before she tried anything stupid like staging a rescue.

As for Ahsoka, she was a Jedi. She’d fought in the Clone Wars, and somehow she’d managed to survive the Jedi purge when the Empire began. That meant she was resourceful and quick thinking. She’d know it was a trap. She’d leave Kaeden to die, or she’d come prepared to fight.

Kaeden clung to that hope as though she had two good arms, grit her teeth against the pain, and kept walking.

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