Part 30
Long, light brown hair flashed at the citadel's entrance and a giant drum sounded. When Ben blinked, there was no trace of his cousin anywhere. That must have been his cousin's signal to enter and it would not be surprising if Sil could afford to appear only momentarily. He shouted. "Charge!"
The excitement of the crowd of heretics wiped all thought from his mind and the Jedi led the maddened mob into the citadel as fast as he could. Countless guards met the stampeding crowd and as Ben prepared to square off with one warrior when a hand plucked him from the massive fight.
"Sil, what is the meaning of this?" Ben demanded when he recognized his cousin as the one who pulled him from battle.
"I saw some suspicious looking statues in the reception hall. If they're who I think they are, then it would be a crime to not show you."
"You're not making any sense."
"I know I don't sound like I am right now, but please, follow me and help me." Sil begged as she led Ben to the strange statues.
"What do those statues look like?" Ben hoped his question would test Sil's claims. Before his cousin could answer, however, a Yuuzhan Vong creature leaped off of the nearest wall and bit into Ben's right wrist, threatening to devour his hand. In his pain, his muscles tensed and he inadvertently activated the saber that he forgot was still in his palm. The creature's eyes popped and the hound-like animal collapsed into a boneless heap onto the uneven floor.
Ben grinned as he flexed as many fingers as he could without dropping his weapon. If that bite was meant to sever his hand, then he was the luckiest Skywalker yet.
"Are you okay?" Sil asked as she disgustedly cleared the body from the Jedi's path.
"It's nothing more than a dog bite. What do those statues look like?" Ben returned to the original subject.
"I didn't get a really good look. It's just a gut feeling because I know they don't look like Vong."
"What? You mean you're dragging me all the way here just because you had some gut feeling?" The outraged Ben almost shouted at his cousin.
"No. I mean yes. I mean no. Never mind the yes and no part. I couldn't get a better look because the only my hiding place wasn't full of guards."
"That doesn't add up. I don't see anyone." Ben snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. A typical, careful Hapan was running on intuition rather than logic?
"They all went out to greet you. Now, if that ventilation duct corresponds with this path, these statues are just past this portal." Sil pressed some invisible thing against a pad of soft tissue next to the portal and portal opened immediately. The room was not at all lit, so Ben stepped in first and used his lightsaber as a light source. He gasped when the blue light landed on a frozen face that he recognized immediately from the Holos. The Jedi in the statue must have gone through the Yuuzhan Vong version of carbon freezing.
Ben recovered from his surprise and continued to illuminate the impossibly spacious chamber with his lightsaber, discovering a total of six people in rock form. He reached out to the six through the Force and all six touched Ben back, confirming that they were all alive. Sil's suspicion must have come from the Force.
"Jeedai. Shimrra will be pleased to add you to his collection." A voice interrupted Ben's mixture of emotions. The Jedi held his blade in the direction of the voice and the light revealed a warrior atop a shaped rancor.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we're not collectable. We don't belong in any set." Ben replied.
"All Jeedai heads are collectable, intruders." The Yuuzhan Vong ignored Ben's humor and launched himself at the older Jedi, leaving Sil to square.
"Heads? I thought you wanted us all in one piece." Ben carried on the verbal joust as the saber in his right hand met the warrior's amphistaff.
"There are two of you; that would have to make at least two pieces, thus, it's not possible to take you all in one piece." The warrior made a chop at Ben's neck, which the Jedi ducked. In the fraction of the second he was under the warrior's arm, Ben activated his second saber with a snap-hiss and severed the Yuuzhan Vong's arm.
Sil wanted to laugh at Ben's comments, but the rancor's swipes kept her busy panting as she struggled to put on her huun cloak and at the same time toggle hiding places. She activated her silvery white saber in an attempt at self-defense, but the rancor's claws proved impenetrable and the princess was forced to run. One large, meter-thick arm descended in front of the girl to swipe her, and Sil, in response, tried to jump. As she began to lift from the floor, a bloody mass tripped her and sent her landing on her belly.
The princess looked down to see a one-armed warrior rising from the floor and at the same time drinking the torrents of pain from losing an arm. The warrior made a grab for his lost arm and amphistaff, but Ben quickly took possession of the serpentine weapon and hit the warrior with the flat of the blade, knocking the Yuuzhan Vong unconscious.
The rogue Jedi wanted to finish the warrior off with a deathblow, but his Jedi conscience stopped him. Ben blew up enough Yuuzhan Vong in space; he did not need to add to the kill list if he was to return to the Jedi, for Jedi aimed to stop, not to destroy. He then made a mad lunge for his cousin, but he was too late and the rancor already threw Sil over a wall into another room with its right arm. When it noticed Ben, the mountainous animal knocked the remaining Jedi in the direction of the frozen people.
Ben expected to fly into the ceiling, but he narrowly avoided two statues and slammed into the wall, for he was heavier than his cousin. He felt six bumps against his back initially, but they disappeared and the statues began to move. Ben suddenly became disoriented as the Force flooded through his head and carried with it a vague cry for help and a direction for him to go.
Ben took a bone-crushing hit to the shoulder and turned to see a lightsaber stud bouncing off of his body. On his way to the wall, the flailing Ben must have cut loose a dangling lightsaber.
As he landed, the Jedi deactivated one of his weapons and held the other to the ceiling. Several glittering objects hanging from the ceiling responded strongly to his light source and Ben recognized them as lightsaber crystals, which meant that Shimrra used those weapons as decorations. When the rancor charged at him, Ben pulled every weapon off of the ceiling with the Force and activated them simultaneously before disabling the massive beast.
Ben wanted to find some way of revealing that the original mission to overtake the citadel ended in some sort of freeze rather than failure, but he had the feeling that his place was nowhere near any authority for the next few hours, if not days. Instead, he used the Force to project his voice and hoped that the other Jedi could hear him. "Masters, welcome to forty-four years after the Battle of Yavin. We're trying to take back Coruscant again and we'd really appreciate your help. I'm…" Ben trailed off as he felt a surge through the Force.
Ben realized that his foresight, his most prominent and unpredictable Force ability, had returned when he saw at least ten Jedi marching through the citadel and waving lightsabers. The blurry scene flashed and he saw Sheng Lah spear-heading an attack on a Vong structure. The picture then disappeared and he felt two fading presences in the Force and a sense of unimaginable destruction. A lightsaber rolled along the floor as a strange-looking speeder melted in a bath of acid and other chemicals. When he inquired himself about the vision, he saw himself in the scene and the bleak foreboding left.
A sense of urgency drove the Jedi to the room's exit, but when one of the recovering Jedi Masters asked him to wait, Ben paused. I can't wait. Anytime but now.
"I'm really sorry I can't stay and give you details. I gotta go and we'll see each other when this is all over." The red-haired rogue Jedi briefly finished his sentence before retracing his way to the entrance and fleeing the citadel at an inhuman pace.
Next: I suppose it's gotta be either Sheng or Shimrra