Chapter 4
Luke shifted in his chair, trying vainly to find a more comfortable position. It was obviously made for a larger frame. In fact, as he looked around at the office where they were waiting for audience with High Councilor Anchuga, he noticed that everything seemed to be on a larger scale. Perhaps it was not coincidence that every Kholasani they encountered thus far in the palace was…large. Excessively so.
"Idiots." Luke was surprised at the vehemence in the whispered word.
"Who? The Milos?"
"Who else, Jedi?" Her voice rose slightly, and Luke glanced at the impassive guards flanking the door in front of them.
"This isn't the best time, Mara."
Fine. How's this?
Better. Just because they didn't change their names, you can hardly insult their intelligence. Force, they live in a citadel.
I'm not talking about thatLuke could sense that she was still inexplicably unsettled, despite the ironclad shields around her mind. I'm talking about the manner in which they are twiddling away their lives in that citadel. Fine if they were tired of their careers. But this… this is a waste. Not to mention completely inhumane.
I'd hardly call them inhumane, he replied mildly. Despite his disability, Kade is a person who deserves to live, you know.
A person! He's not living; the droid does it for him. He's just…
More machine than man? Luke cringed at the inquisitive surprise that followed his interjection. Pull yourself together, Mara, he said quickly, cutting off the question that he didn't really feel like answering. Someone's coming.
What, you don't think I can sense it?
The door to the office opened suddenly, and Luke looked up as a Kholasi entered the room. A beruffled, jingling, enormous Kholasi. The High Councilor Anchuga.
I recall from my education as a child that the Kholasi were physiologically on the small side,Mara sent with a somewhat startled amusement.
Must be that wonderfully nourishing milk, Luke replied with an uncharacteristic flash of irreverence as he rose and bowed respectfully.
"Master Jedi; Ms. Jade," the Kholasi greeted them, returning the bow. His voice was incongruously high-pitched for someone of such stature. "I cannot express the gratitude that resides in the warmest places of the deepest part of my most tender heart at the great sacrifice you have made in traversing the vast deep, the terrors of space to come to our humble people's aid." He inclined his head, sending off a fresh shower of bells.
Close your mouth, farmboy,Mara admonished Luke silently. To his consternation, Luke found that his mouth, was, indeed, slightly ajar. Anchuga did not appear to notice the reaction his welcoming speech caused, however, and waddled around the desk without waiting for a reply, dropping into the massive chair with a sigh of relief.
"Now. To business. As I am sure you have been graciously informed, an unthinkable sacrilege has been committed." Anchuga paused dramatically. "The Great Life Bringer was purloined from Her own temple!" His jowls quivered in righteous indignation. Luke couldn't help noticing that they descended quite far down the Kholasi's chest. A memory floated to his mind of a historical figure they had taught about in school…a senator in the Old Republic…Binks, that's it, who in his old age was quite…corpulent…
With a sharp self-rebuke, the Jedi returned his attention to the babbling official.
"…even now our people are gathered at the door of the dastardly stronghold of our enemies, bound by our faith to move not an iota but merely to keep watch over the vile occupants, to guard them from making good their flight into the oblivion of the universe with that which is most sacred above all to despoil for their own carnal and lascivious wants and greed! I call on you this day for justice! I call on you, who have so valiantly defended the weak, who have so courageously helped the helpless, who have so unshakingly stood by the shaking! I call on you to stand one last time, to engage in one last titanic struggle against evil, to pour all your mighty powers into the conquering of the darkness that so heavily clouds our fair world, er, world…ah yes. And bring the evil perpetrators of this unthinkable act of villainy to their just and holy doom!" By the end of his speech, Anchuga was almost shouting. He sat back expectantly and mopped his brow with a large, ornately decorated handkerchief. Somewhat dazed, Luke did a quick Jedi calming exercise and mentally warned Mara not to laugh.
"We share your concern, High Councilor," he said gravely. Beside him, Mara snorted quietly. "It is to restore your Great Life Bringer to you that we have come."
"Who did it?" Mara asked. Anchuga nodded and reached into a drawer, pulling out a holocube.
"Yes. I perceive you are beings of action, not words. That is commendable; I myself have little use for much speaking, for what are high-handed phrases in times when the fate of a people is decided by swift, decisive movement by courageous beings such as us? Yes, my good Jedi, we have much in common." He flicked on the holocube, and the images of two people rose to hover in the air, ghostlike. Two people, a man and a woman. Luke's breath caught in his throat. They were Syunni and Mikal Milo.
"…lived among our people for years, ever secretive, hiding behind walls of black, the color of dark and the night, concealing their dastardly designs until they deigned the hour to strike arriving at last!" Anchuga was saying.
Mara…? Luke honestly did not know what to say or do. The Force was silent. The Milos…
No more of thisshe snapped back at him. If you were any more expressive, Threepio could read your thoughts. And wipe that grimace off your face.
"Excuse me, High Councilor," Luke said politely. "My comrade and I need to discuss our plans in private."
"Of course, Jedi Skywalker." Heaving his enormous bulk up with some difficulty, Anchuga waddled around the desk and out of the door in a flurry of robes and bells.
Mara quickly glanced over the room. "No surveillance devices. The Councilor must be a private fellow."
"Now," Luke said, studying the holos, "Let me get this straight. The menace that we were assigned to dispose of and the package you were assigned to take off-planet are one and the same? There's a conflict of duty here."
"No there's not," Mara said calmly. "We just do what Karrde wants, and poof, no more Kholasi enemies numbers one and two."
"There's a mob of angry Hutts on legs in front of their house," Luke observed. "You do have a plan, I assume?"
"Of course!" She sounded affronted. "You create a distraction, I slip around back and smuggle them out. Simple and elegant."
"Simple, anyways," he said dubiously. Mara's 'plan' sounded a lot like something he and Han would have cooked up. A lot too much for comfort.
The door suddenly swung open and Anchuga reentered, entire body rolling with agitation.
"Master Jedi, I am loathe to disrupt your grave council of war, but it appears the war is already upon us." His eyes rolled back frantically in his head. "It seems a radical faction of our religion has, ah, placed little faith in the New Republic's power to recover the Great Life Bringer, and is now," he gasped for breath, "now committing sacrilege, attacking the Milo residence themselves!"
"Are they armed?" Luke inquired, springing to his feet.
"Oh, most unfortunately so, Master Jedi. How they managed to acquire such atrocities is beyond my knowledge, but they are prepared to destroy the dwelling at this very moment. In their unholy wrath, even regard for the safety of the Great Life Bringer is forgotten, leaving them seething in the blackest sin of violence, while the fate of our great people hangs by Kukchi thread, our future dangling in the balance of…"
"Thank you, High Councilor, for appraising us of the situation," Mara cut in quickly, moving smoothly and decisively to the door. "With your permission, we will depart now to deal with it." The Kholasi's enormous mouth froze in mid-phrase, heavily lidded eyes wide in shock. Luke realized wryly that he probably had never been interrupted in his life.
"For the sake of your people's souls, High Councilor, we must leave," he added before Anchuga could recover. "We thank you for a most gratifying encounter. If you would…?" He gestured to the door, which the massive Kholasi still blocked.
"Yes, yes, of course," Anchuga muttered, and padded over to his desk. He collapsed into it and mopped his brow, not even noticing that the saturated cloth did little good now. "I do wish to say, though, that knowing as I know the deeply changeable, indeed fickle nature of the majority of even the most devoted, I…"
They were already gone.
Note: Sorry about the delay there. Next chapter will up within a week or so. Is the length of these chapters okay with everyone? They're kind of short, I know.