Book 1 - Outcast by Aaron Allston

Author:Aaron Allston [Allston, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Star Wars, Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9780345509062
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2009-03-24T07:00:00+00:00

CALRISSIAN-NUNB MINES, KESSEL

HALF AN HOUR LATER—A TIME THAT WAS MERCIFULLY UNINTERRUPTED by energy spiders—the bogey's residual energies that had crippled their electronics began to dissipate. The monitors in the speeder came up with patches of static; Leia tested her lightsaber and it came on, fitfully in the first few seconds and then reassuringly steady. Han got behind the speeder's controls and tried to coax the vehicle into life; a few minutes later, its repulsors kicked in and lifted the vehicle off the floor.

As Leia climbed in, Han mopped imaginary sweat from his brow. “Ready to go back up?”

“No, we haven't really found anything.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“While we were waiting, I felt more of them in the Force.”

“Bogeys?”

She nodded. “Deep, deep down. Maybe they're somehow related to the groundquake phenomenon. I've also traced paths of lower life-forms that I think correspond to tunnels.”

“Going down, I assume.”

“That's the direction I was looking.”

He sighed and put the speeder into motion. “Point the way.”

Kilometers up and to the southeast, in the surface buildings of the Calrissian-Nunb Mines, Allana sat in a secondary conference room that had been pressed into service as a playroom. Chance was gone, having been bundled off by Nanna for a nap. Allana was alone with C-3PO and R2-D2.

She wanted to glare at them, but that would be showing her true feelings, and her mother—her real mother—had always said that only loved ones deserved or needed to see your true emotions. And not even them, if you needed to convince them of something.

“I'm tired of waiting,” she told the droids. “I want to do something.”

C-3PO looked down at her where she sat on the carpeted floor. “Why, you are doing something. You're reading on your datapad.”

She closed the electronic device with a definitive snap. “No, I want to do something good. Something nobody's ever done before.”

“I have done things that no one has ever done before, and I can assure you, it is usually a dangerous and alarming sort of activity. Not suited to little girls.”

“What have you done?”

“Well, I have been mistaken for a golden god, and in so doing helped strike down the Galactic Empire. Let me tell you that story—”

“No.” She grapped her backpack, tossed in her datapad, and dragged out her breath mask. “Let's go outside.”

“Not advisable, young miss. Every new world is a place of new, un-cataloged dangers—”

R2-D2 interrupted him with a series of notes.

“What did he say?” Allana asked.

“He asserted that we could protect you in the unlikely event of danger. In short, he undermined my already precarious authority. Oh, very well. The outside offers no comfort, you know.”

“Maybe, but I like to bounce.” Kessel's gravity, lower than that of most worlds where humans settled, had given her the opportunity to make some extraordinarily high leaps on the short walk from the Falcon to this building.

Not that bounding had anything to do with her desire to go outside.

Quietly, so as not to alert the Calrissians, Nien Nunb, or any of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.