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Tessaflo: Yeah, I know; I'm evil :P The characters just can't seem to get past my angsty streak. Is there a particular OC that you noticed was edging toward Gary Studom? Thanks for the heads up, btw ;) I'll keep a closer eye on their development. If things are too vague, I apologize. It's the first time suspense has played such a large role in one of my stories. takes notes Thank you for reading!
Eowyn Skywalker: Ah, cliffies. Gotta love them – or you'll learn to ;) There's a few of them to go. JC's an awesome site…once you known your way around. It's more of a community, which makes it funner but more difficult to break into, sometimes :P I'm glad I managed to throw you off a little :D Thanks!
Kazzy: Aren't you used to cliffies yet, though? I mean, it is me ;) People generally don't die in here. At least, if they do, and they come back, it's because they weren't really dead… But that's another story evil grin I hear you on the computer thing! Arrgh…we just recovered from a virus. I was ready to kill my computer.
Ameri: The creature thing? Do you mean BadGuy? You'll start to see in this next post. As for Kyp, however… He's not really until the sequel. Until then, you'll just have to wonder O:) Zekk was, indeed, mentioned in here, and——actually, I can't say anything else. You'll see.
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Chapter Seventeen: Molair(Note: words between / and / are spoken through a bond. The passages in italics are largely flashbacks.)
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It
was late and Garik should have been asleep, but his eyes refused to
close. He'd lain on the bed for several hours before giving up and
taking up his project once more. Coruscant never slept, and the
diplomat was able to bring up a shopping site and the room plans with
little trouble.
With some quick arithmetic, a glance at his
chrono told him that it was just dinnertime on Glipta. When he was
unable to remember what Jaina's favourite, manageably sized tree from
Yavin 4 had been, he had his excuse to call.
He rolled his
chair back to the mini holo-centre and dialled Jaina's number. The
screen hummed for several minutes before Jaina's voice said, "I'm busy,
avoiding you, or out of reach. Leave a message – Goddess out."
Garik clicked it off, smiling ruefully. Jaina had probably gotten sick
of his mothering and turned her com-link off. It was the kind of
irrational thing she would do, after all. Never mind that people might
want to check in with her – she didn't want to hear anything.
The diplomat returned to his computer. It looked as if he'd be fixing up the new Jedi residence by himself.
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It had been two days.
A few years ago, Tiran had had his family and friends. A few years ago,
he would have dismissed Solo's prolonged absence as trivial.
After Lin-Ta, nothing was trivial.
Jaina had been gone a day longer than she told him to expect, and (if
she was telling the truth) there was an obsessed fan out there.
Tiran had not expected to be this worried.
The crazy, obsessed person was supposed to be a joke
– at most, the product of something in the food. When Jaina had first
told her apprentice about the stalker, he'd informed her that she was
insane. Someone on the Jedi warpath, he could understand. The past six
years had made a bleak picture of the Jedi.
But someone who
wanted Jaina to train them so badly that they had tried to kill Tiran
for being in the same room as her? It made no sense. He couldn't even
believe this was his life anymore. It all sounded like some kind of bad
novel.
The trill-and-buzz of a com-link hail entered Tiran's
consciousness slowly. It wasn't the familiar, blaring horn that
signalled his own device, and he stared around the room blankly before
realizing that it must have been Jaina's.
Just as it sank in
that Jaina had left her com-link in her haste, the buzzing stopped.
Tiran panicked. What if that had been Jaina? What if it had been
someone who knew where she was? What if it had been that sick fanatic,
demanding ransom?
Tiran tripped to the other side of the tent
and rummaged around in Jaina's bed covers until he found the small
device. Fumbling in nervousness, he managed to hit the "call back"
button, and he waited impatiently as the com-link buzzed.
After a few rings, he heard someone pick up. "Solo?" a man's voice said clearly. "Have you decided to stop avoiding me?"
Not a kidnapper, then – unless it was a trick.
"Who is this?" Tiran demanded, clenching and unclenching his left fist.
The other man paused before replying. "You would be Solo's…apprentice,
Tiran Lee-droy, correct?" Without waiting for an answer, the man
continued. "I am Garik Klamath, a friend of Miss Solo."
"Miss
Solo?" Tiran spluttered, his paranoia fading to the background. He
called Jaina "Princess", but only in mockery; she was one of the
least…Lady-like women he had ever met! Who did this guy think he was,
anyway?
Garik bit down on an angry retort. "Might one assume
you have an acceptable excuse for calling me – on your master's
com-link – at such a late hour?"
"You called first," Tiran replied stupidly.
"True enough," the diplomat cut out. "But why did you
return my call?" Garik's voice was becoming increasingly cold as the
conversation progressed. He had not fully believed Solo's complaints
about her apprentice, but he was beginning to think he should have put
more faith in her. If it had not been for the fine edge of anxiety in
the other man's voice, Garik would not have continued the conversation
for half its length.
Tiran swallowed twice before he could speak. "She's missing. Jaina's…she's gone."
"Already?" It was all Garik's mind was able to put forward before his
heart squeezed into a ball. Very briefly, the galaxy shrunk around him.
I suggested this mission.
"What…do you mean?"
"She up and left yesterday morning – she didn't say why – but she said
she'd be back today at the latest," Tiran explained in a rush.
"And she has not yet returned," Garik finished, his world mechanically
coming back into order now that his mind could chew on something else.
"Did she take the ship?"
"Yes."
"Did you attempt to communicate with her through the ship?" Garik pressed.
"No, I just realized now that she left her com-link," Tiran replied quietly.
"All right then," Garik said, forcing his mind back into gear. "I
suggest you try that immediately, although I doubt you will have
success… Do you have any idea why she left?"
Tiran shook his
head. "No. She left a note, but it's basically illegible." When Garik
sighed in disgust, the apprentice hurried on defensively. "Jaina said
it was only instructions for me, anyway."
On Coruscant, Garik
leaned back in his seat and did his best to maintain his calm. "She
expected to be back within a day, so she can't be far," he reasoned out
loud. "Within the sector at least." Unless she misjudged the trip, in which case there's nothing to worry about,
Garik amended silently. But he knew that was unlikely; the Solo
children had grown up in the cockpit. Not even Jacen, who had been
completely engrossed first in animals and then in the Force, could have
miscalculated.
She had been detained, and Garik didn't think
it was because Zekk suddenly came back from the dead, making her too
delirious with joy to remember to call.
"I will send you a
list of potential destinations," Garik continued almost mechanically.
"Meanwhile, I suggest you begin looking."
"Right," Tiran said, increasingly nervous. "Uh, did she mention the Dark…"
Apparently, she had. "I strongly
advise you to find her, Mister Lee-droy," Garik responded, his voice
hard with threats, "both alive and quickly. I do not care what you
think of her; she is important to me, and I can be dangerous when
pushed. Do you understand me?"
Tiran swallowed. He was past
the stage of guilt that made him wish he had followed his friends and
family to death. "Perfectly," he croaked.
"Excellent."
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Tiran's imagination was going wild with the possibilities.
Finally, after imagining Jaina on various, archaic, gruesome torture devices, Tiran managed to sink into a half-decent meditation. That he had relaxed enough surprised him, but not for long.
/Hello, brother/
Tiran almost jumped right off the ground.
/Sorry, kid; I guess I should have given you a little more warning/
Before Tiran's disbelieving, meditation-fogged eyes, his brother's form appeared, grey eyes solemn under cocked eyebrows. "But you…Molair, you're…"
Molair's face fell. "You thought I died. No…" The eldest Lee-droy son hesitated, then pushed on. "I can't really…remember what happened – I only recalled who I am a short while ago."
Tiran reached out to Molair, but he missed. His eyes were too blurry with tears for him to find his brother properly. "By the stars, Molair…"
My brother is alive! Molair is alive!
"Yes," Molair beamed crookedly, "I'm really alive." Abruptly, his face became shadowed. "But if you don't hurry, I won't be able to say the same about your…about Jaina."
Tiran was only able to properly comprehend his brother because the image of a faceless Garik, storming and glaring, suddenly appeared in his mind. "Jaina? What do you – do you know where she is? Is she all right?"
The princess probably would have rolled her eyes if someone told her Tiran was concerned, but the apprentice was far more upset than he had expected.
"I didn't remember anything for so long. I'm afraid I fell in with a rather…dangerous crowd," Molair rambled, apparently trying to explain – or defend – something he had done. "One of the guys was obsessed with Jedi – Jaina Solo, in particular. I'd been working with him for so long…I – I got immune to it. I didn't think he'd actually do something."
"He did, though," Tiran said flatly. "He kidnapped her." The mechanic swore under his breath, and the gruesome images danced in his head once again. "What will he do to her?"
Tiran didn't want to know, and he hoped Molair wouldn't answer, but the words came out anyway.
Molair began to pace. "I'm staying nearby – assisting him, I admit; I was hoping to help her. Better me than some of the…others. Rialom – my…master – seems set on Jaina training him. He will do anything to convince her."
Tiran felt his insides bunch and knot. Jaina had told him that she would never train this…Rialom. Never. And if Tiran had learned anything while being trained by Jaina, it was that his master could be horribly stubborn. "What will he do if she won't?"
Molair didn't speak for a long moment. "You should know," he said slowly, "that Rialom is very adept with potions. He'll convince her, or no one will," Molair finished, raising his eyes to Tiran's.
Tiran gulped. "Where are you?"
Molair clasped his hands in front of him. With his blond-grey hair and black clothes, the man looked a little like Luke Skywalker from the old holos of the Rebellion days. "Meet me on Myrkr, and I will lead you to them."
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It was all over. His world was nothing – nothing, without Leila or Trihs. His wife and daughter – both slaughtered in the middle of the town. Trihs had been splashing in the pool while Leila watched nearby.
Leila was cleaved in two when she tried to save their daughter, and the pool was red with her blood. Trihs drowned in the pool, her skin permanently scarlet from the blood.
He had come too late, prepared his surprise picnic off-world for too long. How could he go on, now?
It was all dead.
He wished he could say the same for himself.
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Jaina came to slowly, painfully. A specific spot on the back of her neck felt like it had been attacked with a knife. The rest of her upper body throbbed, and it felt like shards of metal had been injected into her blood.
Somehow she got the feeling it wasn't all from confronting the past.
"Rise and shine," someone sang.
Jaina rolled onto her side, grimacing in pain the whole time. She was greeted with the sight of a man in his middle- to late-twenties. She tried to ask where was, what had happened and who he was, but all that came out was a cough.
"Don't bother trying to talk," the man told her, his voice somehow pleasant, despite the circumstances. "The poison numbs your brain, among other things. You'll think better if you don't provoke it."
Fuzzily, she realized she was a captive.
"Rialom wants to see you now," the man continued. "Try to walk, but crawl if you must. It is excusable; your muscles are still recovering." He shrugged, as if to apologize for being unable to help her himself.
For whatever he is, Jaina thought as she rolled to her stumbling feet, he's rather nice.
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A Brigga tree – clean, simple and rumoured to dispel stress. Well, Garik had been staring at it for almost two hours and he hadn't started to freak out yet, so maybe it was true. The diplomat finally bought it, annoyed by the looks he was receiving from the staff.
One of his closest friends was in mortal danger, and he probably looked like some kind of crazed person who'd finally broken free of confines… But did that give others the right to stare so?
Garik was dangerously close to being illogical, which scared him almost as much as did Jaina's capture.
Tiran had left a cryptic message about a lead on Solo's location. The only thing the apprentice actually affirmed was that Kyp's warning was true, and Solo was now in the hands of some monster named Rialom.
Of course, no one had deigned Garik worthy of knowing anything. As usual.
Just think of hotel decorating. The stone is already laid down in Solo's rooms. Now you just have to buy the plants and…
Maybe I should reserve a med-room, just in case, he thought with a sigh of frustration that drew stares. It was probably his most logical thought all day – after all, one never knew how little Solo had taught her apprentice about healing.
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How long did he lie there? Three hours? Three days? He was too weak – from pain, from thirst, from relief – to run when the 'Vong rushed him.
He waited for everything to disappear, but instead he heard buzzing, and black struck the warrior down, seeming to swallow the alien up. His heart plunged. It could have been over. He could have joined his beloved and his daughter in the afterlife.
The black moved forward to him and his eyes were able to barely recognize the form as an intricately tattooed woman. "Not yet," she murmured, her voice like water over thorns. She smiled; maybe it was his grief, but he thought her teeth looked like fangs. "Oh, no; there's still much to be done before you join them."
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"Brigga tress have healing components," the illusion told Jaina for the third time. "Brigga leaves and bark – as a salve, you know," he insisted.
Jaina really didn't care. Jacen had kept one or two of the trees in his Jedi Academy room, and she knew they were too fragile to use while attacking something. It made no difference, now, what Briggas did.
"It will," the illusion offered.
She groaned. "Sure I will. And maybe I'll start tap-dancing in a few moments."
He gave a harmless grin. "I'm Molair, by the way."
The name tickled at her memory, but Jaina shrugged it off. "I'm a captive, Molair; the only reason I want anyone's name is so that I'll know who I should seriously maim for this."
"I'm sorry about that," Molair said contritely, watching sorrowfully as Jaina stumbled along.
She glared. "Words without action," her pride retorted.
They had approached a door, and Jaina took advantage of the pause. For a brief second, she considered escaping, but her muscles almost gave way at the thought. Besides, she didn't think she was clear-headed enough to plan anything or even find her way out.
"Place the salve on the poison's entry point," Molair sang, smiling once more before the heavy doors sprung open.
She didn't need to look over to know Molair was gone. Squaring her shoulders made her shudder in pain, but she stepped through the doors…and stared.
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