The Crystal Star - Vonda N McIntyre, ebook
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Star WarsTHE CRYSTAL STARby Vonda n. McIntyreChapter1The children had been kidnapped.Leia ran headlong toward the glade, leaving behind the courtiers and thechamberlain of Munto Codru, leaving her attendants, leaving the young pagewho--completely against protocol--had stumbled into Leia's receiveg room,bleeding from nose and ears, incoherent.But Leia understood her: Jaina and Jacen and Anakin had been stolen.Leia ran, now, through the trees and down a soft mossy path that led intoher children's playground. Jaina imagined the path was a starship course, setto hyperspace. Jacen pretended it was a great mysterious road, a river.Anakin, going through a literal phase, insisted that it was only a paththrough the forest to the meadow.The children loved the forest and the meadow, and Leia loved exclaimingin wonder at the treasures they brought her: a squirmy bug, a stone with shinybits trapped in its matrix--rare jewels, perhaps! - - or the fragments of aneggshell.Her vision blurred with tears. Her soft slipper snared in the tangledmoss. She stumbled, caught herself, and plunged onward, holding the skirts ofher court robe high.In the old days, she thought, in the old days, I'd be wearing boots andtrousers, I wouldn't be hampered and tripped by my own clothing!Her breath burned in her throat.And I'd be able to run from my receiveg room to the forest glade withoutlosing my breath!The green afternoon light shifted and fluttered around her. Before her,the light brightened where the forest opened into a water-meadow, the meadowwhere her children had been playing.Leia ran toward it, gasping, her legs heavy.She was running toward an absence, not a presence, toward a terriblevoid.She cried out to herself, How could this happen? How is this possible?The answer--the only way it could be possible - - terrified her. For ashort time, her ability to sense the presence of her children had beenneutralized. Only a manipulation of the Force could have such an effect.Leia reached the meadow. She ran toward the creek where Jaina and Jacenhad splashed and played and taught little Anakin to swim.A crater was ripped into the soft grass. The leafy blades had beenflattened into a circle around the raw patch of empty dirt.A pressure bomb! Leia thought in horror.A pressure bomb had gone off, near her children.They aren't dead! she told herself. They can't be, I'd know if they weredead!At the edge of the blast area, Chewbacca lay sprawled in a heap. Bloodflowed bright against his chestnut coat.Leia fell to her knees beside him, oblivious to the mud. She feared hewas dead--but he was still bleeding, still breathing. She pressed her handagainst the deep gash in his leg, desperate to stop the flow of blood and savehis life. His powerful pulse drove the blood from his body. Like the page, healso bled from ears and nostrils.A dreadful, grieving, keening sound escaped him, not a groan of pain buta cry of rage and remorse."Lie still!" Leia said. "Chewbacca, lie still! The doctor is coming,you'll be all right, what happened, oh, what happened?"He cried out again, and Leia understood that he felt such despair that hewanted to die. He had adopted her family as his own, his Honor Family, and hehad failed to protect the children."You can't die!" He must live, she thought. He must. Only he can tell mewho stole my children. "Come back! Come back to me!"Her aides and the chamberlain hurried out of the forest, trampling thedelicate high grass, exclaiming in outrage when the slender blades cut them.Leia's children had wandered the meadow at liberty, neither leaving footprintsnor receiveg any harm. The grass parted before them like magic.Magic, for my magic children, Leia thought. I thought I had protectedthem, I thought they could never come to any harm.Hot tears ran down her cheeks.The courtiers and advisers and guards gathered around her."Madam, madam," said the chamberlain of Munto Codru. Out here in the wildsun and the wind, Mr. Iyon's face was flushed and he looked uncomfortable."Did you bring the doctor?" Leia cried. "Get the doctor!""I sent for her, madam."Mr. Iyon tried to make her get up, tried to take over staunching the flowof blood from Chewbacca's wound, but she pushed him away with a sharp ^w.Chewbacca's pulse faltered. Leia feared he was failing.You will not die, she thought. You must not die. I won't let you die!She drew on her inadequate knowledge to strengthen him. She bitterlyregretted the responsibilities of statecraft that had prevented her from beingproperly trained in the ways of the Force.Leia knew that if she allowed Chewbacca's hot blood to gush past herhands, his life, too, would stream away.The doctor ran across the field. Her wyrwulf loped behind her, carryingher equipment and supplies. The doctor's wyrwulf reminded her that Mr. Iyon'swyrwulf had been playing with her children.It had disappeared as well.Dr. Hyos knelt beside Leia. She observed Chewbacca's wound and Leia'sfirst aid with a glance. "Ah," she said briskly. "Good work.""Come away, now, Princess," the chamberlain said."Not yet!" Dr. Hyos exclaimed. "I have only four hands, after all. Theprincess is quite all right where she is."The wyrwulf sat on its haunches between Leia and Dr. Hyos. Leiashuddered. The wyrwulf turned its massive head, slowly, gently, staring at herwith great limpid liquid blue eyes. Its coat was thick and brown, with longcoarse black guard hairs.The doctor's wyrwulf panted and slavered, its tongue lolling over itspitted fangs. Its face was grotesque. Its hot bitter breath made Leia flinch.Dr. Hyos's four hands, so languid at rest, moved quickly over thepanniers strapped to the wyrwulf's sides."Do you see what I am doing, my dear?" she said softly. "The bleeding ismost important. Our princess has stopped it."The doctor spoke to the wyrwulf, explaining everything she did.Dr. Hyos drew pressure bandages from one compartment as she chose theproper medicine from another. Always, she told the wyrwulf what she was doing.Her long gold fingers were deft and sure.Leia allowed herself a moment of hope, even with her hands covered withChewbacca's hot blood. He had closed his eyes; he had stopped moving."As the bandage seals itself, my princess," Dr. Hyos said, "move yourhand from the wound."Leia obeyed. Dr. Hyos pressed the bandage to Chewbacca's flank. Thebandage pressed itself against Leia's hand, clasped itself to Chewbacca, andwound its connectors through his fur. The wyrwulf watched, its tongue lolling.Leia sat back on her heels. Her hands were sticky and her robes weresmeared and she viewed everything in the clarity of horrified belief.Dr. Hyos examined Chewbacca, frowning over the drying streaks of bloodthat had trickled from his nose and ears."Pressure bomb..." she said.Leia remembered, as if from a distant dream, the sound of a single clapof thunder. She had thought--her thoughts had been so slow--t the morning musthave turned from fair to rain; she had thought, fondly, that Chewbacca wouldsoon bring the twins and Anakin in from the meadow. She could take a momentfrom her duties to cuddle them, to admire their newest treasures, to see thatthey had their lunch.Now it was mid-afn. How could it be so late in the day, when such a shorttime ago it had not yet been lunchtime?"Madam--" Chamberlain Iyon said. But he did not try again to make Leiacome away."Close the port," Leia said. "Block the roads. Can the page bequestioned? Check the port controller--is there any chance the kidnappers haveleft the planet?"As she spoke, she feared any measures she might take would be useless,and if not useless, too late.But if they've fled, she thought, I could chase them in Alderaan. I couldcatch them, my little ship can catch anything--"Madam, closing the port would not be wise."She glared at him, instantly suspicious of a man she had trusted only amoment before."They took your--" She hesitated, unsure what to say."My wyrwulf, madam," he said. "Yes.""Your wyrwulf. Don't you care?""I care very much, madam. And I understand our traditions, which you--Ibeg your pardon--d not. Closing the spaceport is unnec.""The kidnappers will try to escape Munto Codru," she said.Mr. Iyon spread his four hands."They will not. There are traditions," he said. "If we follow them,nothing will happen to the children--that too is the tradition."Leia knew of Munto Codru's traditions of abduction and ransom. That waswhy Chewbacca had been staying so close to the children. That was why extrasecurity surrounded and guarded the ancient castle. For the people of MuntoCodru, coup abduction was an important and traditional political sport.It was a sport in which Leia did not care to participate."It's a most audacious abduction," the chamberlain said."And a cruel one!" Leia said. "Chewbacca is wounded! And the pressurebomb--my children--" She fought for control of her voice andof her fear."The coup-counters detonated a pressure bomb only to prove that theycould, madam," Mr. Iyon said."But no ...
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