Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Exile by Aaron Allston

Author:Aaron Allston
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Star Wars, Video Game Adaptations, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Movie Tie-Ins, Movie, Space Opera, Fantasy, TV, Adventure, Literature & Fiction, Science Fiction, Genre Fiction
ISBN: 0345477537
Publisher: LucasBooks
Published: 2008-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

chapter seventeen

ZIOST

Every morning Ben awoke with the memory of the voices in his ears. Some part of his mind tried to listen to them, to puzzle out what they were saying. The rest of him worked harder to avoid comprehending. He knew, deep down, that if he listened long enough to understand, he’d want to do what they told him, and that what they told him would be very, very wrong.

So sleep was not restful for Ben, even on the nights when his fire burned through all the darkness hours and Kiara huddled against him, sad but trusting.

During those nights, he often awoke to a sense of worry or a beep from Shaker to see eyes gleaming from the other side of the fire. Nocturnal predators, Jacen would have called them, and Ben could feel them in the Force. They were big, powerful presences there, suffused with energy … and wrongness. He could feel that they were as twisted as the blighted trees of this place.

So far they hadn’t attacked, but Ben made sure that Kiara was never more than a step or two from him—except when either of them needed to perform some private business in the trees. Then he made sure Shaker stayed near the girl. The droid’s presence seemed not to violate her sense of privacy.

There was another presence, too. The day after Ben found Kiara, at about noon, they had stopped for a quick meal of canned rations. Ben sat, consuming some grease-packed meat product, and eating quickly so that he wouldn’t taste the stuff. Wary of the wild beasts he still had not seen, he had his physical and Force-awareness stretched to their limits, and abruptly he was certain that someone was looking at him.

He stood, looking around, and grabbed his lightsaber, but nothing approached. And after a few moments the sensation faded.

The next day, again at planetary noon, it happened once more, this time as they reached the remains of what must have once been a road. Now trees protruded through it, but there were long stretches where it remained flat and level, and Shaker could make much better time. The astromech had just assumed its tripodal wheeled configuration for greater speed when Ben felt the eyes upon him again. Once more, after less than a minute, the sensation faded.

The next day at noon, he was waiting for the sensation, and it did not fail him. In the few seconds he had, he sought the viewer through the Force.

And he was successful. Whoever was staring at him was doing so from straight up. Ben peered up through the canopy of leafless branches. But there was nothing for him to see, just the sun gleaming dimly through a layer of clouds. He said, “Shaker, passive sensors only, look straight up.”

The astromech chirped an affirmative.

Again the sensation faded. Ben pulled out his datapad. “Did you see anything?”

I DETECT A FAINT ION TRAIL.

“The ion trail—the kind that a TIE fighter would leave?”

CORRECT.

So the person who had blown up both the YT-2400 and the Y-wing was shadowing them.

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