Arcadia, chapter 4

[wombat1138]

Chapter 4: La Belle Dame Sans Merci hath thee in thrall


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General Kenobi walked from shadow to shadow, bending to wake the refugees huddled under frigate hulls and transport crates. When Anakin and Arcadia emerged from the Perceptor, he sent a yawning cadet toward the remaining sleepers. "Restful night?" he asked the pair.

Arcadia did not meet his gaze. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"And how about you? All patched up?" When Anakin flexed his healed arm in demonstration, Kenobi nodded. "Nice work, Dia. Though you don't seem to've finished yet."

"Sir?"

"That's a nasty bruise on Anakin's neck. Bang into something, did you?"

"Now see here," Anakin began.

Kenobi narrowed his eyes. "I'm trying to. Are those toothprints?"

Anakin made an indeterminate sound, caught between indignation and preening. Less ambivalent, Arcadia reached over his collar and erased the marks. "Sir. How did Denis come here?"

Kenobi was successfully deflected. "It'd be better for him to say, as soon as we're all gathered." He indicated the corner where Denis was waiting. With a last flicker, he added, "You should have time to finish fastening your uniforms before we start."

Anakin grinned and began to realign his fasteners as he sauntered ahead. Arcadia followed more slowly at Kenobi's side. "You told me to win his trust, didn't you?"

"His trust, yes. But this?"

She flinched away as if slapped. Anakin and Denis both looked up at the sudden movement; Kenobi nodded pleasantly and joined their conversation. Arcadia retreated to one side, her shoulders taut against the wall. In bleary-eyed clusters, the others trickled to join them.

When the assembly was complete, Denis repeated the Nechti terms of surrender to them and withdrew toward his sister. He spoke to her under cover of the debate erupting behind him. "I have news from Alderaan, but it seems General Kenobi already told you."

She cradled her brother's face, smoothing the bruises from his skin. "Told me what?"

"Castra Gatou is pregnant."

Her hands fell away from him. "I didn't know that."

Denis edged his chin in Anakin's direction. "No? Bail said he wanted us to know before Danah finds out. To give us time to prepare ourselves, he said. Not that it matters now."

Both turned back to the assembly as Kenobi's voice rose. "We have no supplies in this hangar, not even water, and the air will go stale within days. If we had any other options--"

"Don't we?" Anakin said. "Denis, how do these teleporters work?"

"I hardly think this is the time for a technical discussion," Kenobi began.

"I'm not asking for ion-flow charts. All I want to know is, are they more like a ferry or a gate?"

"What?"

Arcadia ventured, "Denis, does the beam lock onto a single target and teleport that, or does it establish an open portal for a set amount of time?"

Denis tensed, brushing against her arm, but her attention remained fixed on Anakin. Reluctantly, Denis said, "Maybe more like a portal. On the Dovecote, they all poured onto the bridge at once."

Anakin's face kindled into a grim smile. "So what's to stop us from going through with you? How do they know where to open the portal, anyway?"

"They gave me this." Averting his eyes, Denis pulled aside the collar of his uniform. Embedded in the hollow of his throat was the crescent insigne of the Nechti. The crystal pulsed crimson as his blood rushed through it.

Arcadia examined it with revulsion. "How did they-- no, I don't want to know. Do you want me to remove it?"

This time, instead of merely touching her arm, he took hold of her wrist and compressed it. "There's nothing else I can add to this conference. I'd like to rest." While he spoke, he stared into his sister's eyes. She saw him give the familiar warning signal: one blink, two. One blink, two.

"Denis, I really think--" Kenobi began.

Denis released her arm and pulled a data pad from her pocket. Unclipping his comlink, he spliced it into the pad and displayed the linked devices. Quickly, Arcadia said, "He does need rest, and I'd like to examine him further. Denis, go to the Perceptor and wait for me."

As Denis stumbled toward the research frigate, Anakin took two long strides toward Arcadia and shook her. "What are you doing? He's got the only information we have for escape. Or do you want to surrender?"

She twisted away. "There's something he wants to write down. If that crescent transmits a homing signal, what else can it do?" Exchanging Denis' handiwork for a fresh data pad, she disappeared into the frigate herself.

It took a few minutes to match the data frequencies. The words from the pad in the _Perceptor_ flashed onto the screen in Kenobi's hands, and the coupled comlink read them out in synthetic tones. The group clustered around to listen. "The crescent is sending anything within hearing range back to the Nechti. The teleporter locks onto the crystal's carrier alone, unless they decide otherwise."

"Can we slip through by maintaining physical contact?" The data pad transcribed Kenobi's voice and sent the question back to Denis.

"They tried that on the Dovecote. Captain Sherrin lost his fingers that way."

Anakin leaned over Kenobi's shoulder. "Couldn't we just remove the transmitter and put it in a box?"

"I wouldn't want to try it," Denis replied by proxy. "When one of us tried ripping it out, it exploded. Took his head and hands off."

Undiscouraged, Anakin asked, "A Jedi could probably map out a diagram of the thing, right? Deactivate the self-destruct mechanism?"

"Perhaps." Kenobi grimaced. "Electrical engineering is not a Jedi forte. Not that Jedi engineers don't exist, but the only one we have-- has Rannis revived yet?"

"No," Nisca said. "And Lisel was the Jedi half of their team."

The data pad scrolled on. "And if the Nechti retrieve the transmitter without me, they won't treat us any more kindly for outwitting their technology. I take it you don't want to surrender, then."

"Why, do you want us to?"

Although the transcription had no way of conveying Anakin's tone, Denis apparently deduced it for himself. "Not particularly. You have to admit it would make things easier, though."

"We don't join the fleet for easy."

"But if there's no way to escape, why not accept the Nechti terms of surrender?" As the others turned toward Kenobi, their expressions ranging from anger to dismay, he continued, "Once they've extracted us from here, other captives might help us escape."

"With Nechti listening devices sunk into our flesh? What good would we do to the Republic like that?" Nisca unconsciously fingered his throat as he spoke.

"We might have a chance if they don't implant the devices right away. Denis?"

Denis erased what he had begun to write. He did this several times. Finally, he responded, "If you surrender without a fight, they might be less harsh. But when they finally defeated us on the Dovecote, they hacked some of us apart on the spot to patch their cyborgs. We had casualties they might have used instead, but they said fresh parts were better. I can't imagine it was a coincidence they chose our command crew for parts.

"The rest of us they lined up against the wall and shoved the devices through our skins. They weren't too careful about it. One of the younger cadets-- I think her name was Sariene-- bled to death when they pushed hers through an artery."

Nisca swallowed painfully. "My daughter."

As Kenobi turned to Nisca, Anakin fiercely rounded on the others. "How kindly do you think they'll treat us? We imploded an entire squadron of theirs. You think they'll consider that a peaceful action?

Sweeping his hand around at Kenobi and Nisca, he continued, "If we surrender, we officers'll become spare parts, just like so many gaskets. And what'll happen to the rest of you? You cadets may have to invade your own home systems, with Nechti crescents sunk into your blood. But if there's no military use for the noncombatants, do you think the Nechti will waste any resources on them? Where do you think they get the skin coatings for their cyborgs?" He flung out one arm toward one of the gutted transports, hull peeled away and coolant reservoirs seeping out. "If we surrender, we'll end up like that."

* * *

In the Perceptor, Denis peered at the data pad. Arcadia rested her hand on his arm, sluicing blood under the skin to wash away the bruises and dark scars. "Does anything else hurt?"

Intent on keying his latest response, he merely brushed the Nechti transmitter before returning his hand to the data pad. Arcadia touched the wafer of crystal in his throat. Although it appeared to be a narrow crescent, that was only the visible portion; she could feel the remainder of the disk within the crescent's inner curve, buried under his skin. When she extended her senses through it, she could feel the minute channels and circuitry, fine veins of metal and space.

Denis winced. "Sorry," she murmured, and took her hand away. The transmitter was now perched on her fingertip like a bird, the disk's edge slicing down into her bloodstream. As he stared at it, she wrapped a fold of her robes around her hand to muffle off sound. "I couldn't tell you beforehand, after all," she said quietly. "If you can find a volunteer to go back in your place, I can put the transmitter into someone else when the time comes."

* * *

"Denis?" Kenobi said questioningly, tapping the data pad. "Are you--?"

Denis screamed. Not through the spliced comlink, but his own voice reverberating through the Perceptor's walls. "Dia, no!" A pillar of light leapt from the frigate's hull, leaving it as featureless as before.

Anakin reached him first, Kenobi and Nisca close behind. Denis was holding Arcadia's lightsaber hilt, a fragment of her belt still caught in the clip. There was no other trace of her. "Where is she, Denis-- if that's who you are?"

"He can't answer you unless you loosen your grip," Kenobi said. He tucked the coupled data pad and comlink into his pocket, freeing his hands to pry the cadet away from Anakin's vengeance. "So you defected after all."

Gasping, Denis said, "No. The Nechti sent me to find her, but I didn't know they'd do this. How could I know she'd take out my transmitter?"

Kenobi's face was grim. "So the self-destruct killed her instead of you."

"We'd both be shreds if she triggered it. They ported her up, I'm telling you."

Anakin straightened. "That does it. We're getting out of here, and we'll need a ship to do it. Any other engineers with us? No? Get Rannis up."

Nisca protested, his voice still frayed. "He's barely breathing as it is. If I give him enough stimshots to revive, he'll be dead within hours."

"Then we'd better hope he can patch a ship together by then, hadn't we?"

* * *

In the command center of Ikatya base, Siona Brabanconne buried her face in her hands. She had spent thirty years in the fleet, only to come to this. Despite herself, she saw her ship as it had been, the hull's proud arc gleaming with distant starlight. But now the Despoena was gone, a crippled derelict left adrift; the remnants of her crew were confined to Ikatya until the Nechti flagship could join the captured Alderaani fleet.

She heard approaching footsteps and looked up at two recent recruits with a captive between them. "Captain Brabanconne? We caught her."

"Where's our bait?" she asked. "I thought you caught her giving him a transfusion."

"That's what we thought from the cell readings. But it looks like she transplanted the crystal somehow."

"We have her now, at least. They've probably killed him as a traitor," Brabanconne said, dismissing the matter. "Bring another chair, and something hot to drink. Then get back to your posts, or Commander Danville will never finish repairs in time."

Newly seated, Arcadia chafed her wrists, unobtrusively shifting the transmitter disc from fingertip to palm. She saw her hands trembling and thought of Lisel. Brabanconne's lean, weary features were intent on the pot of tisane; even when the two cups were full, the Nechti captain did not turn to her. "Captain," Arcadia finally said. "I was told you wished to question me."

Brabanconne extracted a cluster of gems from one pocket, a few pale facets held in broken links. "Arcadia Antilles? This was in your quarters. Where can we obtain more?"

Arcadia glanced down at her torn belt, where her saber had hung. "Isn't six years' booty enough for you?"

"Booty?" Brabanconne repeated. "No. Each of our ships requires a compound lens of one hundred stones for its translight drive. Each planetary mantle has yielded three or four."

"Three or four lenses? How many ships do you have?"

"I meant three or four stones," said Brabanconne. The lines in her face seemed to deepen with the words. "Admiral Jordan will bring the flagship to rendezvous here in a few hours. If you give us more crystals, we will take them and go. If not, she will continue to strip planets with the Rahab."

Stalling, Arcadia asked, "Why did you come here at all?"

Brabanconne set the broken necklace on the table between them, staring at it as if trying to read fate from the facets. Despite her obvious strain and exhaustion, she related the journey to Arcadia. "My ship Despoena was testing the new drive system that brought us to your Republic. Two others followed us, but at the same cost: the long-range leap shattered the energy lenses. The crystals salvaged from all three ships were only enough to rebuild two lenses, and we would not leave Despoena.

"Admiral Blackthorn took the Empresa to Erenat to seek more stones for Despoena, and she and her crew were slaughtered. As her successor, Circe Jordan destroyed the Empresa and its lens when Erenat used them against us. You will understand that Admiral Jordan prefers firepower to parleys now.

"Despoena was lost in our last battle, but we brought her crystals to this ship. The ones from your quarters nearly complete our lens. Will you give us more stones, or must we put you to further questioning?"

"I can't obtain more stones for you myself," Arcadia warily said. "But there is a person on this base who knows how to construct them."

"I see. Do you know if she's still alive?"

"If the group I was taken from is still alive, yes."

The Nechti did not quite smile. "I see. And you'll identify her only after we port out the entire group. I expect I would do the same." The crescent in her throat glowed as she touched it. "Commander Danville," she said. "Move the remaining survivors to a holding cell on the Sphinx."

Danville's voice replied through the crescent. "Bevan already has his full inventory there."

"I meant the ones in that other hangar. Can you get them out?"

"It'll be tricky to focus the beam into there."

"That was not my question."

Danville grumbled under her breath. "Yes. But we're in the middle of incorporating those new stones into the lens, and if I leave it the whole dome will collapse. One of my aides will have to port them out."

"You know their skills better than I. Which one?"

"I'd have more trust in Malison to bring them out alive, all things considered."

"Very well," Brabanconne said. "Send Malison in. And bring me more tisane while she's at it."

* * *

The crystal in Malison's throat was sunk in a nest of bruises, as were her eyes. Her cropped hair was the same muted russet as the gashes in her uniform. "Follow me, please," she said to Arcadia.

They moved from Ikatya's command center into the hangar, which now bore little resemblance to Arcadia's former view of it. The once-gleaming support pillars and walls were splashed with char and blood. As Malison led her onto one of the captured vessels, Arcadia asked softly, "Which ship were you taken with?"

Malison glanced around them, at the ship's scarred corridors and the Nechti crew members passing by. "The Sphinx. We surrendered when our planet was destroyed."

"Can you help us?"

Malison touched the crescent in her throat, wincing as she did so. "No." They entered the bridge of the Sphinx, where a faceted coil floated in one corner. She examined the stone set in Arcadia's hand and lowered the crystal helix around her. "You'll have two minutes to gather everyone in a ten-meter radius, and then I'm porting you into a holding cell."

* * *

Anakin glared at the restraining field, or the space it occupied in the doorway. "I still think this is a terrible idea."

"Perhaps if you ask the Nechti very nicely, they'll port you back into the hangar," Arcadia said, taping a metabolizer kit to Rannis' arm. The engineer leaned against the wall, shaking and painfully alert.

"Or you could have chosen to stay there in the first place," Kenobi helpfully added. "Although Dia hasn't yet told us why the Nechti have this sudden concern for our welfare."

She relinquished Rannis to Nisca's care and surveyed the cell, some twenty organics and droids crammed into the space of a middling turbolift, then told them Brabanconne's demands.

Kenobi stared back at her. "I see."

Malison returned with several heavily-armed Nechti. Unlike her attentive escort, she barely glanced at the prisoners in the cell. In the same dead tones as before, she said, "Captain Brabanconne wishes to speak with the collaborator you promised, Antilles."

"I didn't promise--" Arcadia began, only to be interrupted by Anakin.

"Votary? Is that you?"

Startled, Malison looked up. "Anakin? How did you get here?"

"I think we both know that already," Anakin coolly said. "On the other hand, you're the one who dedicated yourself to Leucothea's service. And here you are, outside my cell again."

Votary Malison went pale. "Leucothea was destroyed five days ago. We engaged one of the Nechti ships, but their flagship arrived on the far side and razed the entire planet. They took the Sphinx as a replacement for their own casualties. I thought I'd never--" The crystal in her throat flared to painful brightness, and she clutched it, gasping.

A man in blue entered the antechamber, shaking his head. "I hope you're not changing sides again, Votary. It'll take us forever to replace you. Now, have you identified the one Siona wants?"

Kenobi stepped forward, his face grim. Behind his back, he unclipped his saber; Denis promptly hid it away. "I believe I'm the one you're looking for. General Obi-Wan Kenobi of the Aldea sector fleet."

Malison's chider nodded cordially, entering a code on a keypad. "Doctor Bevan Meda, at your service." He beckoned Kenobi out as the barrier invisibly hummed down.

The Nechti guards trained their weapons into the cell. Kenobi remained where he was, blocking the doorway. "Do I have your assurance that the rest will remain unharmed?"

"I can't authorize that, I'm afraid," Meda smiled. "You'll have to speak with Captain Brabanconne about that. Among other things. But now that you mention it, I'd be much obliged if the rest of you would disarm."

Kenobi glanced back at Arcadia as he stepped out of the cell and out of the guards' massed line of fire. Reluctantly, Anakin and the others relinquished their weapons. Meda regarded the pile at his feet with satisfaction, glancing back at the prisoners to prompt a few laggards. "That's a very nice thermal detonator you have there, but we can't allow you to keep it. Thank you. We wouldn't want you to get hurt, after all."

"We already have casualties."

As he resealed the barrier, Meda countered Kenobi, "The sooner you cooperate with us, the sooner I can help them. Let's not keep Captain Brabanconne waiting, shall we?" The guards incinerated the pile of weapons before escorting the two men away.

Malison lingered by the cell a moment longer. "I'm sorry to have things end this way, Anakin," she whispered. "In spite of everything you did, I'm sorry."

Anakin watched her flee down the corridor, beyond the smoking pool of blaster slag. "You're not the only one," he muttered in her direction before turning back to the others.

* * *

No flicker of expression betrayed Palpatine as he refused the engraved card his aide proffered. "I'm afraid it will be quite impossible for me to meet with Her Highness of Alderaan, especially in light of what took place this week."

"Yes, my lord," the man said, but remained where he was.

It took a few minutes for Palpatine to deign to notice him again. "You may go now," he said pointedly.

"My lord, it's not my place to say this, but--"

"It certainly isn't."

"Will you at least read the card, my lord?"

Palpatine looked up from his Senate notes with a fine look of martyrdom, and the aide knew he was doomed. Quickly, he left the gilded tray on the table and slipped out. No doubt to compose his suicide note, Palpatine thought with minor satisfaction. He glanced at the card on the tray with somewhat less complacence. Didn't that trollop have any more sense than morals? Or was this an attempt at blackmail?

He lifted the card with the very tips of his fingers and without really looking at it, as if it were a laundry item of dubious hygiene. Regardless of her personal laxness, she would stint no formalities on her visiting card: Her Royal Highness Castra, the Vicereine and Princess-Consort of Alderaan. When he actually read the card, his grasp tightened considerably. Instead of the closely-spaced lines he had imagined, the card held only two words. "Danah Antilles," it said.

He emerged into the antechamber just as Danah was concluding a conversation with the doomed aide. Bowing deeply, Palpatine said, "You honor me with your presence, Your Highness."

Danah settled back into her chair. "I had been led to believe otherwise. A misunderstanding, I trust?"

"A tragic one, alas," Palpatine told the aide as much as her. "I hope it is a happier cause which brings you here," he said truthfully.

"Perhaps. You may have mixed feelings to hear that my son's consort has stepped down from the Senate."

"I may indeed. I trust she is well?"

"Yes, and no," Danah said thoughtfully. She looked up at the young Coruscanti hovering by them. "Please don't let me keep you from your duties."

As the aide fled, she continued, "I shall occupy the Alderaani seat until Bail returns. A fete will be held for Castra's resignation tomorrow evening. We would be honoured if you could attend."

"Your Highness, I fear you mock me," he said. How much did she know? "Her disgraceful behavior toward me has passed all bounds of propriety."

"If your schedule permits your attendance, we should be delighted. As for amending her transgressions, we shall broach that subject anon. As your schedule permits, of course." She rose and inclined her head, not quite curtseying. "You have a strong resemblance to your father."

"You flatter me," Palpatine said, his mouth tense. "It will be a pleasure to see you again in the Senate this afternoon, Your Highness."

* * *

Anakin was doing his best to pace within the cell's narrow confines when the Nechti guards returned. He took up Kenobi's former posture across the doorway.

"Your general asked us to bring this to you," one guard said, displaying a small sack. She hooked it over the end of her plasma rifle and dangled the package in front of Anakin's chest as she unkeyed the cell barrier. He gingerly reached for it, expecting ionized death, but she allowed him to take the sack.

The reclosing barrier singed the sack's fabric as he snatched it back within the cell. The Nechti laughed amongst themselves as they left, and he regarded the sack with deep suspicion. "I hope it's not Kenobi's head."

Arcadia had returned to tending Rannis with Nisca, and did not look up at Anakin's words. "It's not," she said quietly. "I'd know if he were dead. What did they bring?"

"Nechti rations, I think," Anakin said, shaking a foil pouch. He parcelled out the glossy tubes and packets, leaning against the wall at Arcadia's side to consume his own portions.

Slumped in the corner, Rannis tremblingly waved at a droid which whirred about before beeping a reply. "One vidcam at the other end of the hall," the engineer interpreted. "But no surveillance ports in here. Improvised from a storage compartment and field generators, I'd say."

Arcadia glanced at the cell's control pad, but Anakin shook his head. "Maybe you could lower the barrier from here, but that vidcam would raise the alarm. We wouldn't have a chance against them with our blasters gone, and we don't know where they've taken Kenobi."

Denis slipped forward from the back of the cell, pushing his way through the other cadets' fluster and murmuring. The objects he took from his pocket looked like his rations at first glance. "Would these help?"

Anakin leaned down and intercepted the two lightsabers, ignoring Denis' other offering. He hefted the hilts, Arcadia's and Kenobi's. "They might. You could fight our way out of here, right?"

"No. I could not."

Her timbre set him aback, but only for a moment. "Why not?"

Nisca answered for her, still crouched beside the gasping Rannis. "The Healer's Oath forbids any deliberate injury, except when necessary to aid a patient."

"And this wouldn't aid us? What about when you stepped in for Lisel?"

She saw Rannis and Nisca flinch at the woman's name. "That was purely defensive work. I will not do this, Anakin."

He stepped close to her then, bending his face down to hers. Softly, he murmured, "Your scruples are going to leave us penned in here for the slaughter." From his close vantage, he could see the pulsebeat just behind her ear, where he had kissed her last night. He did so again.

Denis and the others only saw Anakin whispering to her, and thought he had persuaded her when her hand rose to grasp his arm. Anakin may have thought so as well, but when he backed away, she shook her head. "I will not do this," she repeated.

He absently wrenched his arm away from Arcadia as he turned toward Nisca. "I suppose this means you won't help us either," he said to him.

Nisca smiled tightly. He said past him to Arcadia, "He learns quickly, doesn't he?"

Her face went very blank. "Yes, he does," she said.

The same thought had occurred to Anakin, and he whirled back on her. "You won't cut our escape for us, and neither will Nisca. Then I will."

She took a deep breath. "You have no training with the lightsaber. You can't possibly launch an offensive with it by yourself. Who's asking for his death now?"

The reckless light in his eyes precluded any thought of that. "Don't have much of a choice, do we? Once we secure the bridge, we can be under startrails in no time." He surveyed his cadets. "Once we deactivate the field, advance just like that last drill I put you through, except for getting yourself shot, Rouvel. Damesta, Anset, get your units in order."

He looked down to see Arcadia taking Kenobi's lightsaber from his hands, leaving him with her own. "I knew you'd come 'round," he grinned at her.

She looked resigned, but not utterly so. "If you're determined to do this, I'll employ defensive measures. But nothing more."

His grin faltered a fraction. "So I'm still leading the charge, am I?"

"Thought you could completely bluff me into it?" Arcadia said lightly. Seeing a flicker of anger, and perhaps a little fear, she reached out to him with more tenderness, tracing his wrist with her fingertips, and the edges of his mind with hers. "You don't have to rush into your death unprepared. There is another way."

Before he could ask how, she fanned out her memories before him. As he absorbed them in a rush, he experienced her lightsaber training, from the first stumbling days of singed hands, through sessions of attack stratagems she had later forsworn, until the time she was presented with the saber Anakin now held, one which Kenobi had made for her. Anakin blinked away the flood of images, Kenobi's face in memory overlapping Arcadia's before him, and flexed his shoulders, sensing the proper stance fall over him like a cloak.

She glanced behind him, at the cadets falling silent in anticipation of the sortie. "It'll only persist in your mind for a few hours. Will that do?" she asked him.

"It will have to, won't it?" The recklessness had returned to him with new fire, as bright as the blade springing up from his hands. She lowered her lids, and the cell barrier evaporated as the watching vidcam spattered into sparks. By the time she looked back up, Anakin was halfway down the corridor. "Nisca, drape Rannis over that droid, and try to stay in the middle of the group. Now let's get the hell out of here."

* * *

"You must understand what this means for both our people and yours," Captain Brabanconne said. "If you have a reliable source for these crystals, you must tell us."

Kenobi gazed calmly back. "Must I?"

At Brabanconne's side, Doctor Meda inspected an array of fine tools. "Oh, I really think you must." He held up a curiously whorled blade. "Most of these instruments are probably unfamiliar to you. If I were you, I'd want to keep them that way."

They were seated in a medical bay of La Belle Dame. Now that Kenobi knew of the ships' capture, battle damage to the Sphinx had been obvious when he was escorted from the cell on the Leucothean craft. The Dovecote bore similar scars, but he was perplexed that of the three vessels, the Belle, the former Alderaani flagship, seemed scarcely bruised. Brabanconne saw him inspecting the walls from his pinioned chair and said, "If you're looking for the lens, it's several decks away."

"Near the ion-drive chambers? You're using this ship?" Kenobi asked her.

"It's in the best condition. And perhaps it might buy us more time. You cleared it to enter Ikatya, after all."

"So I did." He examined his binders as if lost in thought, then shrugged. Freeing himself unarmed would mean only a quick death: perhaps something to be sought in a few hours' time, but not yet, nor alone. "How many crystals do you need?"

"As many as you can provide." Meda casually gestured with his scalpel, and Brabanconne eyed him sharply.

"Bevan, please," she said. "Just finish that patch for Danville's aide." Meda industriously bent to work, his hair gleaming red above the red flesh pinned before him.

Brabanconne turned back to Kenobi. "In theory, we may only need a few from you. Antilles had an enormous number of them in her quarters: sixty stones spliced into a cable. They weren't aligned for a teleportation or weapons coil; I don't suppose you can tell me what the cable's function was?"

"Its function?" Kenobi's pale eyes darkened. "It didn't accomplish what I intended when I made it. How can I say what it was good for?"

"You made that many crystals?" Brabanconne gave each word its own emphasis. "What materials do you need? How long does the process take?"

He seemed to face a distant vision, not the Nechti captain at all. "That chain took me one year and my heart's blood. All of it was wasted."

"If you can make one crystal every few days, you must be using more common elements," Brabanconne said. "And yet their optical resonance is nearly identical to the stones we have already."

Kenobi snapped back to the present. "Can I examine your scanning equipment? If I'm to make these stones, I'll need to check the matrix continuities."

Captain Brabanconne nodded, satisfied. "I knew you would see reason. We'll bring you to Commander Danville. She can supply you with whatever materials you need." She looked at the chrono on the wall and amended, "Or rather, Doctor Meda will take you to her. It's nearing the rendezvous time, and I must return our ships to orbit before I can join you."

As Brabanconne left, Kenobi turned his attention back to Meda, who was still at work. Eyeing the thin layer of flesh pinned to Meda's tray, he asked, "Is that what's intended for me once your lens is complete?"

Meda made a few final adjustments before tucking the tray under his arm and pulling Kenobi to his feet. "Oh no. Why should you stop at one lens? Admiral Jordan might want a few more ships before we return home."

* * *

The Sphinx shuddered underfoot as a Nechti sentry tapped the crystal in her throat. "Comm systems on this level are crashing, both audio links and vidcams. Requesting permission to investigate."

"You may not leave your post," the reply came. "It may be only energy drain from the ongoing launch. If the problems persist after we've achieved orbit, you may be given further latitude."

The Nechti's grudging assent was cut off by a lightsaber hurled through her throat, burning the crystal away with her life. As Anakin retrieved his saber, he took the sidearm from her belt. He beckoned the others into the turbolift alcove. "Anyone else still need a blaster? The bridge should be three levels straight above us."

Rannis' support droid communed with a data socket; the engineer watched the display panel with feverish eyes. "It's a small turbolift. We'll need two trips," he said.

"Even better," Anakin said. "Seal off the bridge except for this shaft. Some of us can secure it while the rest of you wait here."

"I'll just short the shipwide comm backbone while we're here," Rannis muttered, nearly to himself. "And the Nechti transmitters are on a different frequency than ours-- I'll see what I can do about those."

Troubled, Arcadia checked the metabolizer on his arm. Over her shoulder, she said to Anakin, "They're launching the Sphinx. What if General Kenobi is no longer on this ship?"

Anakin had already stepped into the turbolift with most of the cadets, blasters in hand. He clipped her lightsaber to his belt, setting it aside for the more familiar weapon. "We'll worry about that later. Colton, come on."

Denis examined the last item from his pocket. "I'd like to wait here, sir."

The turbolift slammed shut and shot upward. Arcadia looked questioningly at her brother, who showed her the datapad in his hand. Still coupled from afar to the comlink in Kenobi's pocket, it bore a rolling transcript of his conversation with the Nechti.

* * *

His binders in Meda's grip, Kenobi watched Danville and her aide anneal the new facets into the lens. Captain Brabanconne closed her eyes against the whirling refractions as she entered the ion-drive chamber. "Is the lens complete? I'd like a demonstration for Admiral Jordan when she arrives."

"We're still a few crystals short," Danville said. "If you really want a demonstration, we can borrow a few from the teleportation coil. You can make up the difference in a few days, can't you?"

Kenobi nodded, his expression curiously serene.

"Very well," Brabanconne said. "I see Malison's patch is done. Commander Danville, before you disassemble the coil, send your aide over to the Sphinx. Their comm systems were breaking down and seem to've failed altogether. Maybe he can straighten things out."

* * *

On the bridge of the Sphinx, the last Nechti officer raised her hand a second too late. Her features crumbled into ash as her dead fingers touched them. Three seconds later, the intact crystal in her throat detonated, leaving a smoldering crater in the wall where her upper body had been.

Another flare of light burst from the far corner. Anakin ferally grinned, anticipating renewed combat, but relaxed as he recognized the newcomer. "Votary!" Anakin called over the din, lowering his blaster and nudging a cadet toward the turbolift.

"You! How did you--" Malison's face was obscured by a shower of sparks as the aide limped through the debris, wiping a trickle of blood away from her cheek. "Where are you going?"

"Out." He idly twirled his blaster. "Do you know where General Kenobi is? The man they took from our cell?"

"They're still questioning him." Her voice was lower than before, and one hand went to the silent crystal in her throat. "Where are the others? You didn't leave them there, did you?"

The turbolift returned, disgorging the other escapees. Rannis immediately stumbled toward the drive controls, escorted by the two healers. Denis joined the Leucotheans, ignoring Anakin's contemptuous look. "Can't you port him over from the Belle?"

Malison averted her face from Denis. Her attention seemed fixed on Rannis, all but buried under a cascade of control cables; Arcadia knelt beside him while Nisca reprogrammed a crashed medical droid. "This ship isn't going anywhere. It wasn't much better than a cruiser-sized escape pod from that planet we seized it from. And besides, he doesn't have a transport key."

"The teleportation coil in the corner is still intact," Denis pointed. "The captain's key must be coded into the system. If you pull in a ten-meter radius around her, we're sure to get General Kenobi as well."

"Holding the captain hostage won't buy you anything but time."

In an undertone, Anakin said, "Denis, don't press her. Votary's been through enough already."

"You're right." Denis began to turn away, but suddenly seized her throat. As Anakin moved to defend her, Denis shoved hard with his datapad. Caught by the edge, Malison's face slid off in a bloody, crumpled shroud.

Denis repeated to the not-Malison, "Bring your captain and General Kenobi onto our ship."

Anakin took the unmasked Nechti agent from Denis' grasp. The eyes were still eerily human in their frame of stripped flesh. Hilt pressed firmly into his captive's wrist, he reactivated Arcadia's lightsaber. The blade sprang out like a striking snake, incongruously soft blue light welling up through the reek of burnt bone. As the agonized scream rang out, Arcadia and Nisca sprang up from Rannis' side. Frantically, the captive appealed to the healers. "Lady Arcadia! Help me!"

Arcadia swallowed hard, glancing at its erstwhile disguise and back at the masquerader's ruined features and the brown hair above them. Where Malison's had been kissed by flame, this shone in randomly gilded streaks. "Justin, Lord Semble."

Anakin said coolly to Semble, "I am holding you firmly enough to support your weight, but not enough to fully restrain you. If you make any sudden moves, the blade will likely burn off your hand, and whatever other parts you place in my way. Now, would you care to fetch General Kenobi for us?" The pair moved gingerly toward the teleportation coil.

Rannis crawled out from the hyperdrive console, his blast helmet a tapestry of scorch marks. Denis tapped his sister's arm. "Dia, snap out of it," he said in an undertone. "Rannis isn't going to make it, is he?"

She knelt down again, easing the blast shield back from Rannis' face. "We've pushed his nerves too far. There's nothing more I can do for him."

Rannis himself answered her, straining for breath. "Just give me a little more time. Malison--" his eyes flicked to Semble in the corner, reluctantly shifting levers. "Malison must have kept them ignorant of the hyperdrive. It's still functional, but the control couplers are inverted."

Denis donned the blast shield and burrowed under the console, whistling Rannis' droid to his side. "Reversion's going to take more power-- maybe I can reroute some from the other systems." As an afterthought, he ducked his head back out. "Even if Semble does fetch General Kenobi, he'll probably port himself back to the Belle."

Arcadia closed her eyes, trying to ease Rannis' pain, but the engineer struggled to speak. "Don't let me die like this. No reason. No meaning..."

Nisca appeared at her elbow. "I've got the medical droid working again, but without osmotic filters, we can't--"

Rannis sat up in a last surge of strength. Beyond them, the teleportation coil was just beginning to spin. "Not like this," he said clearly. "Send me back to Lisel. Help me up."

Arcadia bowed her head in understanding. She folded her hand over his; when she withdrew it, the Nechti crystal she had taken from Denis was a fading rose inlaid into Rannis' skin. Ghostly whispers curled out from the crystal as Denis' repairs progressed, drawing energy away from the field that was jamming the Nechti comm signals. With Nisca's help, she half-dragged the engineer to Anakin and Semble, who were too intent on the coil to notice them.

As Denis had predicted, Captain Brabanconne materialized with Kenobi in her periphery, as well as Doctor Meda. The cadets swarmed around the newly-arrived Nechti officers. Anakin turned to watch the prisoners, and Semble tore out of his grasp. Pressing one last lever with his remaining hand, he bore out Denis' further prediction by darting into the teleportation coil himself. Nisca pushed the faltering Rannis in beside Semble. The coil's glow erased them both.

A low rumble and burst of static came from Brabanconne's and Meda's crystals. Anakin peered out the bridge port at the Belle, and saw smoke and a reddish glow inside the other ship as it began to turn toward them. Evidently bemused, and just as evidently not intending to admit it, he said, "Well, that's that. Denis, what are you doing down there?"

Denis emerged and began, "Rannis said--" before realizing Rannis had vanished, and Kenobi and the two Nechti officers had taken his place. "General Kenobi, sir?"

Anakin cut him off. "Can that hyperdrive be salvaged or not?"

"I restored the polarities," Denis said. "All we need to do is set a course."

Kenobi stepped forward. "There's a starbase at Galliae. We can gather reinforcements there and send a delegation to the Senate. Commander Skywalker, how do matters stand with your squadron?"

"Sir," Anakin said through gritted teeth, "This is hardly the time for a formal report, is it?"

Kenobi folded his arms. "Is it any better a time for insubordination? Cadet Colton, arm all shields-- the Belle has heavy turbolasers. And set coordinates for Galliae."

Denis conveyed an excellent mixture of diligence and invisibility as Anakin glowered down at Kenobi. Before further escalation occurred, Arcadia stepped between the two men. Without looking at either of them, she said, "Crescent Squadron began with thirty-five cadets, of whom we still have eighteen. We also have four other personnel and one each of medical and technical systems droids."

Kenobi nodded. "Thank you. That wasn't difficult, was it?"

Captain Brabanconne spoke up, directly addressing Kenobi. "Thanks to your stones, our drive lens is now complete. The Belle will follow you, and bring the Rahab after it to destroy whatever harbor you find."

The bridge reeled as the Sphinx's tattered shields were breached. "Coordinates set, sir," Denis reported to Kenobi.

"Punch it!" Anakin barked, then looked at Arcadia and Kenobi. "What stones? Your necklace?"

It was Denis who answered him. "Our mother's necklace. The crystal matrices were unstable in the path of sustained coherent energy. Nice jewelry, but too flawed for anything useful."

Brabanconne looked up in horror. "Flawed?"

The Sphinx shot into hyperspace. Framed by streaked petals of stars in the rear viewscreen, the traitor Belle kept pace with them for less than a minute before blooming into flame. The shouts of panic, made tinny from their transit through Brabanconne's crystal, fused into a single bright sound before evaporating in the void.