Abyss (31 page)

The Yaka marched into the seating area without so much as looking at the reporters and went straight to Saba. Even taller and broader than she was, he had a face that was less brutish only by virtue of being covered in flesh rather than scales.

“Are you the Jedi responsible for this intrusion, Shorttail?” he demanded.

It was an exceptionally insulting way to address a Barabel. In other circumstances, it would probably have resulted in the Yaka having one of his massive arms slashed off at the elbow, so it could be used to beat him about the head. But ferocious as Saba was, she was also a Jedi Master, and that meant that she knew better than to let herself be baited into making a foolish attack on live HoloNet.

She merely regarded the Yaka for a moment, then rasped, “Who askz?”

“Colonel Retk,” the Yaka answered.

The shadow of a smile flitted across his face, and Jaina knew that Retk was doing exactly what she had suspected: trying to turn a public relations disaster into a victory by provoking a rash attack from a Jedi Master. Despite their brutish appearance, Yakas were among the most intelligent and cunning beings in the galaxy—an attribute of the cyborg brains with which most were implanted at a young age.

“Colonel
Wruq
Retk,” the Yaka continued, extending his hand toward Saba. “Commander of this facility.”

“Ah.” Instead of shaking Retk’s extended hand, Saba slapped the writ tube into it. “Then you wish to see—”

Before Saba could say
this
, Mirax Horn pushed between her and Retk.

“If you’re the commander of this toxiden,” she said, tipping her head back to look him in the face, “then you must be the son-of-a-schutta who decided to use my children as decorations.”

“Please, it’s not meant to insult them.” A twinkle of amusement came to Retk’s eye, and he turned to face the cams. “I just wanted to put them where I could see to their maintenance
personally
.”

“The
kriff
you did.”

Mirax’s hand came up so fast that even Jaina did not see it. Retk’s teeth simply clacked shut, then his head snapped back and he toppled onto the couch behind him. Like everyone else in the room, his bodyguards were so stunned that they did not react instantly, and that gave Jaina and the other Jedi the half second they needed to reach out in the Force and push the guards’ blaster barrels down toward the floor.

Finally, the troopers shook off their confusion and stepped forward, reaching for Mirax with their free hands and ordering her to surrender. Of course Saba, Cilghal, Kyp, and Corran reacted even more quickly, placing themselves between them and Mirax.

Jaina noticed a hawk-nosed GAS captain eyeing the writ tube, which now lay on the couch next to the unconscious Yaka. She began to have visions of her plan backfiring severely. Without the document itself, there was every chance that the judge who had issued it would deny having done so, and then Daala would have an opening to present the visit as just one more example of Jedi high-handedness.

Taking advantage of the confusion around him, the hawk-nosed captain reached over to retrieve the tube—and nearly fell as Jaina extended a hand and used the Force to jerk it away. The captain looked up in astonishment, then merely spread his hands and shrugged, obviously no more concerned about subverting the law than any common street thief.

By the time Jaina had the writ tube safely back in her grasp, the situation had resolved itself into a standoff. Another GAS captain was demanding that Mirax surrender to face charges for assaulting a security officer. Meanwhile, Corran and the other Masters were standing in a silent guard around her. Mirax’s small form was too well hidden to see her expression, but her Force aura suggested that she was glad she had knocked the big Yaka unconscious.

Jaina groaned inwardly. The plan had been to generate some public sympathy by putting a human face on the Jedi Knights whom Daala had frozen in carbonite. But now the lead story on the evening news was going to be about yet another standoff between the Jedi and GAS, this time in GAS’s own detention facility. And Jaina had only herself to blame. She had known she would be asking a lot for the Horns to keep their heads when they saw their children in carbonite.

As the thought worked its way through Jaina’s mind, she saw again Mirax’s small figure craning her neck to look up at the Yaka, and she knew how to save the situation. Leaving Saba and the others to keep the GAS guards at bay, she turned toward the busily humming cams and sought out Javis Tyrr’s tall, tawny-haired figure.

At first, he was too intent on describing the confrontation in front of him to pay Jaina any attention. But when she used the Force to tug his microphone in her direction, he finally took the hint and turned to face her.

“Jedi Solo, would you care to comment—”

“Not
now
.” Jaina made a cutting motion with her fingers and waited until Tyrr had turned off his equipment, then said, “I’ve got a proposition for you, sleemo.”

Tyrr frowned, but he was too much of a newsman to object to the term—especially when it fit so well. “I’m listening.”

Jaina pulled the cap off the writ tube. “I’ll give you a shot of the writ.”

“Big deal. I can get a copy as soon as we leave here.” Tyrr tried to avoid sounding eager, but Jaina could feel his excitement in the Force. “So I’m not killing—”

Jaina leaned in close. “I just want you to ask one question.” She glanced around at the other reporters, knowing most of them were too ethical—and too wise—to allow the subject of a story to dictate the questions. “It’s a question somebody else is bound to think of anyway.”

Tyrr pretended to weigh this, then said, “Let’s hear it.”

When Jaina told him, he actually smiled. “That’s
good,
” he said. “I shouldn’t even make you pay … but a deal’s a deal.”

He nodded to his camoperator, who waited until Jaina had extracted
the writ and unfurled it to turn on her cam. Of course, the rest of the news teams quickly noticed what was happening and swung around, trying to get their own shots—taking their cams off the confrontation between the Masters and the GAS guards.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Tyrr hissed. “Put it away.”

That wasn’t part of the deal, so Jaina merely lowered the writ until Tyrr and his camoperator had turned back toward the confrontation. Then, once their attention was otherwise occupied, she raised the document so everyone else could get their own shots, too. A chorus of snickers and surprised gasps arose as the other news teams noticed the signature on the writ, but by then Tyrr was sticking his microphone in the face of the blond captain leading the demands for Mirax’s surrender.

“Tell me, Captain Xanda, does GAS really intend to charge a bereaved mother with assault? A distraught,
fifty-kilogram
mother who resorted to
slapping
 …”

As Tyrr asked this, his camoperator panned over to the circle of Masters. After a gentle Force nudge from Jaina, they obliged by stepping apart, giving the cam a clear shot of Mirax’s small form.

Tyrr paused for dramatic effect while the cam swung toward the hulking form laid out on the couch, then continued, “… a Yaka colonel
three
times her size—
after
she discovered he has been hanging her children on the wall …” Again, he paused, this time while the cam swung up to linger on the carbonite pods containing Valin and Jysella Horn. “… as
office decorations
?”

“
No
.” This answer came not from the blond captain, but from the direction of the turbolifts. “GAS certainly will
not
be filing any charges against Mirax Horn. Her grief is entirely understandable—and her actions are completely forgivable.”

Along with everyone else in the chamber, Jaina turned toward the all-too-familiar voice and saw Admiral Daala striding into the room. Following close on her heels were Wynn Dorvan, her security detail, and the pair of very nervous-looking Rodian guards from the lobby.

“What we
cannot
forgive is yet another example of Jedi imperiousness,” Daala continued, marching to the edge of the seating area. “Now Jedi Masters are
forcing
their way into legitimate GAS detention centers!”

The cams swung toward Daala, lighting her up like a Jabori spirit singer on stage, and Jaina’s heart began to pound with excitement. There had certainly been a lot of surprises and a few ups and downs, but suddenly it looked as though her plan was going to exceed all expectations.

Daala basked in the cam glow for a moment, then put on a stern frown. “Is there no
limit
to their arrogance?”

“Actually, Chief Daala, there
is,
” Jaina said. She glanced over at Saba and received an encouraging nod, then held up the writ. “As you can see, we have permission from the proper judicial authorities.”

Daala appeared unabashed. “So I have been told.” She kept her attention fixed on the cams. “But we have all heard about Jedi mind tricks. This is yet more proof of their disregard for the law.”

“If you have heard of our mind trickz,” Saba said, stepping forward. “Then perhapz you have also heard that they work only on the weak-minded?”

Daala turned to smirk at Saba. “I doubt this will come as a surprise to the Jedi, Master Sebatyne, but there
are
a few weak-minded judges serving in the Galactic Alliance.”

“There
are
?” Saba did a credible job of feigning surprise, thumping her tail against the floor and turning to Jaina. “This one
is
outraged!”

A chorus of laughter rolled through the chamber, then Daala’s assistant, Wynn Dorvan, whispered something in her ear. Her expression paled, and she turned back toward the cams, obviously preparing to start backpedaling. Unfortunately for her, the only being more ruthless than a politician with an agenda was a reporter on the trail of a good story. Before she could speak, Javis Tyrr stepped forward holding a datapad with an image of the writ that Jaina had allowed him to shoot.

“Chief Daala, the signature on this writ happens to be that of the judge overseeing your special Jedi court,” he said. “Isn’t it true that
you
are the one who appointed Arabelle Lorteli to this post?”

Daala’s eyes narrowed. “As a matter of fact, it
is
, and I have complete confidence in her abilities.” She turned her gaze, angry and withering, on the Yaka colonel lying unconscious on the couch across from her. “While I am obviously very concerned with the Jedi and their
propensity to disregard the laws of this great Alliance, I am
equally
concerned with the abuse of power by our own institutions. The reason I am here today is because I have just been informed of Colonel Rekt’s tasteless display of the Horn siblings. Rest assured that all parties responsible will be punished. The Galactic Alliance will not tolerate the abuse of power—by
anyone
.”

“So you support the right of the Jedi to visit Jedi Knights being held in secret detention centers?” a Falleen reporter asked. “Even if such detention centers are themselves illegal?”

“Absolutely
. This facility is neither secret nor illegal, but we are all subject to the law.” Daala’s gaze slid toward Jaina—and sent a cold shiver of danger sense down her spine. “And I hope we’ll
all
remember that in the hours and days to come.”

The tingle that kept running down Leia’s spine couldn’t be Jedi danger sense—not with a FloatVan full of ysalamiri right beside her. She and her assistants had already secured thirty potted olbios inside the long cargo vehicle, each tree supporting at least two of the Force-displacing reptiles. So she had to be standing inside a Force void nearly as large as the loading dock itself. Yet she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong, that she simply was not
seeing
some threat to the Jedi patients they were about to move.

Leia looked into the gloom beyond the two-story exit. The opening was covered by a state-of-the-art mirrfield, which allowed her to see
out
without letting anyone see
in
. The labyrinthine depths beneath Fellowship Plaza were among the busiest freight routes on Coruscant, traversed at all hours by a constant flow of cargo vehicles, and beyond the field lay an erratic blur of traffic. Even on good days, traffic was slow, congested, and dangerous, with accidents common and deaths frequent. Today was about average, with hoversleds as long as three
hundred meters lurching down the skylane in a stop-and-go river of running lights.

Han came to stand with her on the FloatVan’s mid-body loading ramp. Three Jedi Knights were already lying in their stasis bunks inside the van, but his attention was not on them. Instead he was looking out into the traffic, the same as Leia was.

“Yeah, I see it, too,” he said. “Those boombuggies don’t belong down here. And they sure the kark don’t have any business parking on the Krabbis.”

Leia looked again and realized that Han’s instincts were, as usual, dead on. The Krabbis Inn was one of the grungy under-plaza hostel towers that provided convenient tourist accommodations at cut-rate prices. Resting in the parking area atop its roof were a pair of ruggedly sleek Aratech BeamStreaks. Used by Coruscant Enforcement Services as pursuit speeders, the BeamStreaks were as pricey as they were perilous, vehicles actually advertised as so fast that to crash one was to die in one.