Star Wars: The New Jedi Order 17: Force Heretic 02: Refugee by Sean Williams; Shane Dix

Author:Sean Williams; Shane Dix
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction.Star Wars
ISBN: 9780345428714
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2003-04-29T07:00:00+00:00

Mom? Mom!

In the aftermath of the explosion, Jaina’s mind was filled with psychic pain. She sent her mind out among the wounded and dying, searching for her mother. She found her mother and father down in the thick of it, fighting their way through the panicked crowd, trying to get to where help was needed the most.

Jaina sat up in the gloom of the room’s emergency lighting. The locker was filled with dust, but it had remained intact—just as Harris had anticipated it would. Malinza was climbing to her feet, shaking her head groggily. Vyram and Goure were clambering upright, too, both coughing violently as the dust caught in their throats. Salkeli lay curled in a ball, looking up with a grin on his face, triumphant that their best efforts to stop the bomb had failed. Harris remained where Jaina had left him: out cold in the corner.

She collected the comlink from the floor where she’d dropped it and quickly activated it.

“Mom?” She opened the locker door to reduce the interference. “Mom, can you hear me?”

It took a few moments before Leia answered. “I hear you, Jaina.” Relief rushed through her at the sound of her mother’s voice. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. But, Mom—Tahiri!”

“I know; I felt it, too.”

“Do you think she’s okay?”

“I don’t know, Jaina.”

“I’ll never forgive myself if she’s—”

Leia didn’t let her finish. “You aren’t to blame for anything that has happened here, Jaina.”

Jaina knew that wasn’t true. If she hadn’t been so closed off to the girl in the first place, if she’d tried to help her confront her problems earlier instead of …

She broke away from the guilt-ridden thought.

“How bad is it up there, Mom?”

“It’s utter chaos. The blast took out the Prime Minister’s stalls. Security is trying to clear the area now.”

Jaina caught flashes from her mother: frightened faces, tangled wreckage, and blood—lots of blood.

Before she could ask if there was anything she could do, Salkeli took the opportunity to gloat. “You look a little concerned there, Jedi,” the Rodian said with a half smile, half sneer. “Not so sure of yourself now, are—”

Vyram didn’t ask this time; he just shut the Rodian up by stunning him with the butt of his blaster. “What do we do now?” he asked, stepping up to Jaina.

“We go topside to help,” she answered. “Besides, security has to know about these two.”

“I’ll go,” Malinza said.

Jaina shook her head. “They might not believe you.”

“No,” the girl said, “but they will listen.”

“And I can stay here and keep an eye on these two, if you like,” Vyram said.

Jaina thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, and I’ll back you up when I get there.”

“Wait a minute,” Goure said. “Where are you going?”

“To find Tahiri.”

“Then I’m coming, too,” he said. The Ryn had a look in his eye that Jaina recognized from her father—the kind that said there was no point arguing.

Jaina shrugged helplessly and let him follow her out as they retraced Tahiri’s steps through the damaged corridors, updating Leia as they went.

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