The Crystal Star (34 page)

The service droid wrestled the collapsed droid onto its carrying surface and rolled away into the

shadows.

Anakin stared at the service droid, and at the comatose purple and gold droid, with wide, frightened

eyes.

"Mr. Threep," he whispered.

Lord Hethrir put one hand on his forehead and gazed down at him.

"It can't be of use to you, little one," he said.

"We're the ones who will take care of you."

In the Proctors' large, airy dormitory, Leia and her comrades moved the beds together to form a sleeping

platform big enough for all the children. The cupboards held extra blankets and comforters, enough for

everyone to be toasty warm even with the windows open.

Rillao and Artoo-Detoo went to handle the worldship's controls during the entrance into hyperspace,

while Chewbacca and Leia tucked the children in. Jaina and Jacen sat on the sleeping platform but did

not get under the covers.

"I want to stay with you, Mama," Jaina whispered. "Me, too," Jacen said.

"You aren't too sleepy?" Jacen shook his head. Jaina yawned.

"I have to go over to Alderaan," Leia said.

"Would you like to come with me, and sleep in my cabin?" Both twins nodded energetically.

"The ground is going to shake," Leia said to all the children. "Just for a little while. It means the worldcraft

is moving. There's nothing to be scared of. Chewbacca will be right here with you." The children snuggled

contentedly under their blankets.

Chewbacca crooned a cradle song from his homeworld. As Leia left the dormitory with Jaina and Jacen,

several of the little ones climbed out of bed and scampered to the Wookiee, to cuddle against his

brindled fur. He put his arms around them all, and continued his ^wless song.

Leia smiled. Children took to Chewbacca instantly.

Leia took Jaina and Jacen to her cabin and tucked them into her bunk and sat with them.

Jacen's four-winged bat fluttered up to the ceiling, landed against the wall, and clung there.

Alderaan shuddered beneath them. The worldcraft and its tiny sun pulled at each other, accelerating, and

the ground quaked and rumbled.

Jaina sat up, excited, and Jacen patted the bulkhead beside him.

"It's like taking off!" Jaina said.

"Exactly like," Leia said.

The worldcraft transited into hyperspace. The shuddering stopped. Jaina wriggled back down under the

covers.

"We're going to rescue Anakin, aren't we?" she asked. "And Lusa--bbf they cut off her horns!" "Yes,"

Leia said, hoping she was telling the truth. Now that they were in hyperspace, she looked and listened for

Anakin. She could find no trace of him.

"I missed you so much, Mamaffwas Jaina said, holding her hand.

"I missed you, too, my darling. Do you know I followed you through hyperspace? I could feel you calling

to me. I almost lost you--but then I heard you again." Jaina flung herself into Leia's arms. "Every time we

tried to use the Force, Hethrir stopped us! We tried to use the barrier! To protect Anakin. But he

stopped us! I know I wasn't supposed to do anything else, without Uncle Luke, but I thought--we

tried--he's still stopping us, but we could do little things--" "It's all right, Jaina. It's all right.

I'm so proud of you both." She tucked them in, pulling a warm blanket up around them.

"Mama?" Jaina asked.

"Yes, sweetie." "Can you make him stop?" "Make who stop? Stop what?" "Jaina and I can't hear each

other," Jacen said, "like Uncle Luke taught us." Leia frowned with concern.

"Sweetheart, why not?" "Because Hethrir won't let us!" "But he isn't here, darlings. He's nowhere near, he

can't touch you." Both children stared at her, wanting to believe her but afraid.

"He still can," Jaina whispered.

Leia closed her eyes and opened herself to the widest range of her perceptions.

She found nothing. She reached, as far as she could. She could feel her children's fear, she could feel

what they had experienced while Hethrir controlled them. Her heart trembled, near breaking.

"He isn't here," she said again. "You're safe now." Jaina and Jacen hugged each other. The glimmer of

their barrier shone around them, then vanished like a spark, beneath the waterfall of their fear. Hethrir

was gone, but he had left behind him such fear that Leia could not touch it.

Leia scooped her children up and hugged them.

Jaina and Jacen held her desperately tight.

Rillao ran into the cabin, her hair flying and her eyes wide.

"What are you doing? Who are you? Who--" She stared at the children, then turned her gaze to Leia.

"You are Jedi," she said.

Leia shook her head. "No," she said.

"I'm untrained, the children are just beginning their training--How did you know?" "You just gave me the

worst headache I have ever suffered in my life." "Make Hethrir go away, Mama," Jacen said.

"He's gone, dear one. He can't touch you now." But Jaina and Jacen stared at her, unable to believe

Hethrir had no distant control over them.

Rillao sat on the bed beside Leia and her children. With the tip of her finger, she stroked Jaina's hair, then

Jacen's, delicately. They both looked up, wide-eyed, frightened and fascinated.

"Your mama is right," Rillao said.

"Hethrir has no power to touch you anymore." Rillao spoke softly. As she spoke, as she stroked the

children's hair, the strands of terror within Jaina and Jacen disappeared beneath her touch.

Leia watched, astonished.

"Better, now?" Rillao asked.

Jaina and Jacen hesitated for a moment, as if they had been shut away from sunlight for so long that they

could not believe its return. Then Jaina laughed aloud and Jacen smiled. They leaped up.

They grabbed hands and spun around and around; they grabbed Leia's hand, and Rillao's, and drew

them into their circle. The children's barrier spiraled up around them all like a glowing whirlwind. Their

laughter filled the room.

They fell down, deliberately, laughing and giggling. Leia fell down beside them and hugged them.

Rillao sat on her heels nearby, watching, with a silent smile.

"Thank you, thank you!" Jaina cried. Jacen watched Rillao gravely. "Yes, thank you," he said.

"You're welcome." Rillao turned to Leia. "We must speak." "Yes. We must." Leia gathered up the twins.

"You're getting so big!" she said. She put them back into her bunk and tucked them in again.

They were exhausted, but calm. She kissed them and sat beside them. In a moment they had fallen

asleep.

Rillao had left the cabin. Leia found her in the copilot's chair, staring out the forward port, into the

worldcraft's sky, her face illuminated by the lights of hyperspace.

"Who are you?" Leia asked. "You're a Jedi, aren't you? A real Jedi Knight." "I was," Rillao whispered.

Leia sat in the pilot's chair and turned toward the Firrerreo.

"Tell me." "I was a student... of Lord Vader." "But--" Leia protested.

Rillao stopped her with a gesture. "He taught us in secret. Even after the Empire declared our people

subhuman, and destroyed us, he kept me... and one other." "And when the Empire fell, you both fled."

Leia spoke coolly, holding herself under tight control so she would not reveal her horror.

Rillao, a pawn of the Empire?

"It is not quite that simple," Rillao said.

"When we were young, just beginning our studies, we both... we fell in love.

"Lord Vader believed we would produce a child with extraordinary talent, one he could bend to the use

of the Empire." "And... did you?" Leia asked. She thought, This could be the cause of the rumors Luke is

investigating. What is my brother facing? A youth as talented as Anakin, trained by my father, Darth

Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith.

She shivered.

Rillao smiled gently. "We produced a child. An ordinary, sweet child. Tigris... I was so happy when I

realized he had no talent for the Force." "Happy!" Leia exclaimed, simultaneously shocked and relieved.

"Even before our child, I became... a disappointing student to Lord Vader." "But you're extraordinarily

talented," Leia said. "How could you be disappointing?" "Can't you guess, my friend?" She smiled,

fiercely this time, showing the sharp tips of her unusually prominent canine teeth.

Leia waited.

"I was not tempted to the dark side," Rillao said. "It repelled me. I had no desire for power over other

people. I could not understand Lord Vader's compulsion to gain it, any more than he could understand

my desire to escape it." "At the end of his life," Leia said, "he would have understood." "Then perhaps he

found peace. I am glad. But when I knew him, he was driven. He had no patience for my weaknesses.

Lelila, I am possessed of a gift. I can heal, and strengthen, and soothe." "As you healed and soothed my

children," Leia said.

Rillao nodded. "Lord Vader forbade me to exercise my healing talents. In turn, I resisted his instruction.

Both Lord Vader and my lover found me undependable." Her quiet breathing deepened, and she closed

her eyes.

"I could not bear it," she said. "Lord Vader treated me with scorn. My lover... ceased to love me. His

feelings for me did not vanish.

I could have borne that. I could have borne hatred in place of love. But contempt..." She paused for so

long Leia was afraid she would not--cd not--complete her story. Leia placed her hand gently over

Rillao's.

"What happened?" "Lord Vader appointed my lover--y understand that he is the one whose name I

spoke to you, you understand that he is Hethrir?--Procurator of Justice.

He charged him with the destruction of our world, and the abduction of a freighter full of our people."

"Your own world! His own people! How--" But she knew how. It was not even rare.

"He did it to prove his loyalty, his loyalty above all to the Empire. He thought, if he proved himself, the

Empire would declare him human after all." She laughed bitterly. "I wondered, after our world died, why

anyone would want to be considered human." Leia nodded. After the destruction of Alderaan, she had

wondered the same thing.

"Before our child was born, I fled. After the child came, I hid us on the smallest, meekest, most

backward worlds. Lord Vader had great hopes for my son, and I feared what he might do when he

discovered my son could not fulfill his ambitions." "Neither could his own," Leia whispered. "No, never

mind, it's too complicated to explain, I didn't mean to interrupt you." "When the Empire fell," Rillao said,

"I thought perhaps we were safe. I did not know what had happened to my lover. I grieved that he was

dead. I grieved for my world, ruined by the arrogance of the Empire. I grieved for my people, sent I

knew not where into space to a far destination. My child and I lived happily. As happily as we could,

alone. I could not even answer my child's questions about his father. I practiced my craft, but in secret.

"And then," Rillao said softly, "I discovered that I need not have grieved for my lover's death. The one I

had loved discovered us. He had been seeking us constantly. He has vast resources. He foresaw the fall

of the Empire, and he prepared for it. We struggled." She looked away, ashamed. "He overcame me."

"You'd practiced healing. He practiced for war." "He overcame me," Rillao said, turning aside Leia's

excuses for her. "He imprisoned me. He took our child. He has had our child for five years." And, Leia

realized, Hethrir had imprisoned Rillao in the passenger freighter, under torture, for five years.

"What did he want of you?" Leia asked softly, meaning, He could have killed you cleanly, but he chose to

torment you, for all that time.

"He wanted to win me back, of course," Rillao said. "Or break me to his will. It made no difference to

him, I think, as long as I surrendered to his bidding. He wanted a partner, or a pawn, to strengthen his

rule of the Empire Reborn." She stretched out her hands, spread her long fingers, turned her hands over

to reveal the scarred palms, and clenched her fists.

"And he wanted our child to be his heir. To the Empire Reborn and to his dark power." She smiled again,

but her eyes were full of tears.

"My sweet son... I fear what Hethrir has done to him, in five years. He cannot fulfill his father's ambitions

for him. He cannot gain, for Hethrir, full access to the dark side. He could be a fine scientist, or an artist,

or an explorer-diplomat. He cannot be a Jedi." "And you haven't even seen him in five years!" Leia

exclaimed in sympathy. She tried to imagine missing Jaina and Jacen for five years. She did not think she

would survive.

"I have seen him," Rillao said. "He came to the chamber with his lord. He called me traitor, and weakling,

and fool." She scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, dashing the tears away angrily.

"I must find him, Lelila," she said.

"Perhaps he's already lost to me... lost to himself.

But perhaps Hethrir has not yet extinguished his sweetness. What your children said of him gave me

hope." "My name isn't Lelila," Leia said.

"You need not tell me--" "It's Leia. And when we rescue Ti--when we rescue your son, and mine, we'll

go home to Coruscant. You'll have a safe haven.

You'll have colleagues. Luke--my brother, Luke Skywalker--w be so excited to meet you!" To her

astonishment, Rillao dropped to one knee before her, awkward in the cramped pilot's cabin.

"Princess Leia of Alderaan," she said.

"Freedom fighter, destroyer of the Empire, and founder of the New Republic. I pledge you my loyalty. I