Invincible (23 page)

“Because he’s a
Sith,
” Ben replied. “Because he was working with
Lumiya.
”

“Whom your father murdered in cold blood,” Tahiri replied. “I understand family loyalty, Ben—I even admire it. But you need to see that the Sith aren’t necessarily the criminals here. Isn’t that what a Jedi does? Weighs the facts objectively?”

“My father made a
mistake,
” Ben protested. “You’re twisting things around.”

“Really?” Tahiri said. “Then why don’t you enlighten me, Ben? I’m listening.”

“Okay,” Ben said. She sounded sincere, but he sensed a trap—and he
knew
that he wasn’t going to persuade her on the basis of right and wrong. As far as he could tell, nobody in this war had any claim to the moral high ground. “Look, whatever it is you want—whatever it is that you think Jacen can give you—you’re not going to get it.”

“You’re sure?” Tahiri asked. Her hand remained beneath the waistband of Ben’s shorts, but began to drift up toward his hip. “What is it that I want, Ben?”

Now Ben was really beginning to have trouble concentrating. “Uh, Tahiri?”

Her hand reached his hip bone, and her fingers began to drift over. “Yes?”

“You wouldn’t be trying to seduce me, would you?”

“Ben, that’s a terrible thing to say.” Tahiri’s hand remained beneath the waistband of his shorts. “You’re only fourteen. Still a boy, really.” She lifted her finger, raising the waistband. “Aren’t you?”

“I’m a Jedi Knight,” Ben countered. He twisted his hip, trying to pull it out from beneath her hand—and failing. “And I don’t have any pressure sores up
there.
”

“So you don’t.” Tahiri used a fingertip to trace a circle on his flesh. “Okay, let’s say I
am
trying to seduce you. You have to admit it’s a lot nicer way than torture to, um,
inquire
about the coordinates of the Jedi base.”

“Yeah, I’d have to agree with
that.
”

“So?” Tahiri slid her hand down his hip. “What do you think? Could it work?”

Ben closed his eyes. He truly
wanted
to say yes—and not just for the obvious reasons. He was really,
really
tired of being tortured, and he knew as well as anyone that all those truth drugs Double-Ex kept pumping into him were not doing his brain any good. There was every chance that, sooner or later, the droid would miscalculate a dose, or push an ear probe in a little too deep, or fail to notice the pool of sweat he was lying in when it jacked up the electroshocker, and he would die.

And the possibility that he wouldn’t die—that he would remain rotting on his bunk until his body was one big pressure sore—was even worse. Faced with those choices, who wouldn’t want to say yes to an attractive older woman? Who could resist, when he knew that this very well might be the only chance he was
ever
going to have to say yes?

There was just one little problem: Tahiri was a
Sith.
Saying yes meant betraying himself—embracing the very destiny that
Jacen
had tried to thrust upon him.

And Ben was not going to do that. Not ever. He opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder toward Tahiri.

“You’re too nice to be a Sith,” he said. “They
enjoy
torture.”

Tahiri let out her breath. “I’m learning, Ben.” She grabbed the waistband of his shorts and stretched it outward as far as it would go. “Just remember I
tried.
Whatever happens next, it’s on you.”

Tahiri let the band snap back—directly atop a pressure sore on Ben’s back. His mouth opened in pain, but he did not scream—he wouldn’t give her that, either. He also resisted the temptation to whirl on her. Whatever she had wanted him to believe, he knew that she hadn’t come alone—she would not have given him even that small chance of escape. So he remained facing the wall, waiting for the needle jab or electric shock or the blow to the head that would send him sinking back into oblivion.

Instead, the locks on Ben’s remaining two manacles clicked open and a set of fluorescent green overalls came flying at him.

“Put that on,” Tahiri ordered. “I’m tired of looking at those disgusting sores.”

Ben rolled around and saw a pair of black-armored GAG troopers standing in his cell door, both wearing full face visors and pointing riot-class stun rifles in his direction. Tahiri was still beside him, standing now, her uniform closed to the throat and a lightsaber in her hand.

“You guys know this isn’t going to work, don’t you?” Ben asked, pushing his legs into the green suit. “If your torture droid couldn’t crack me,
you
aren’t going to.”

The two guards glanced at each other, then one said, “Lieutenant, GAG doesn’t
use
torture droids.” Ben recognized his voice as that of Corporal Wyrlan, who had been on the raid with him when he had killed his first man. “You know that.”

Ben frowned. He could sense through the Force that Wyrlan thought he was telling the truth, but his memories of Double-Ex were too consistent—and too detailed—to be hallucinations.

“The traitor is a prisoner, not a
lieutenant,
” Tahiri said. As she spoke, she was careful to keep her attention fixed on Ben. “And guards do not discuss hallucinations, or anything else, with prisoners—especially
Jedi
prisoners. Is that clear?”

Wyrlan straightened. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

“I don’t need your apology,” Tahiri said. “I’m telling you for your own good. The prisoner comes from a family of assassins and murderers. If you relax around him, he
will
kill you.”

“I understand, ma’am,” Wyrlan replied. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Corporal.” Tahiri smiled in his direction. “Lord Caedus can’t afford to lose good men like you. GAG has too few as it is.”

Tahiri waited for Ben to finish putting on his fluorescent green prisoner suit, then had Wyrlan secure him in shock shackles and stun cuffs. After testing her remote by dropping Ben to his knees with a powerful electric shock, she finally motioned him through the cell door.

Outside, Ben found himself standing on a mesh catwalk flanked by long rows of dimly lit cells with front walls of one-way transparisteel. Inside each cell, a single Bothan—shaved completely furless—sat or lay on a durasteel bunk, staring at the floor or ceiling or wall with an expression utterly devoid of hope. Many of the prisoners were missing body parts—mostly eyes, ears, and limbs—and some had fresh scars that suggested recent combat.

“The Bothan assassins,” Tahiri explained. “They just keep coming—sometimes dozens a day. Darth Caedus had to open an entire wing just for them.”

“You mean he doesn’t just execute them?” Ben asked, surprised.

“Oh, he will,” Tahiri said. “But he doesn’t want to do anything that might detract from Admiral Bwua’tu’s concentration right now. After we win the war, they’ll all have a fair trial before the Special Tribunal on Bothan War Crimes. Then they’ll all be properly sentenced to death.”

Ben glanced around, awed by the immensity of the cellblock. It was easily two hundred meters long, with a cell every two meters. And when he looked through the mesh catwalks above and below him, he could see at least nine more levels.

“There must be a thousand units here,” Ben said.

Tahiri nodded. “More—and Caedus has already ordered another wing to be prepared. But enough stalling. We have our own unpleasantness to attend to.”

She took his arm—more to control than to guide him—and started down the catwalk toward the glowing white square of a security booth. Despite the pale glow coming from the cells, the prison was a silent and gloomy place. Every surface was coated in a gray, sound-absorbing synthalex, and the only illumination on the catwalk came from overhead glowstrips that automatically activated and deactivated as they passed.

Ben did not even consider trying to break free…yet. He still needed to find out what had happened to Lon Shevu, and Tahiri seemed to be moving him into a less secure area. So it seemed smarter to wait and learn as much about his situation as possible. They were probably somewhere deep in Coruscant’s Galactic Justice Center, but in a part of the facility he had never visited before—a part, truth be told, that he had never even imagined existed.

They reached the security checkpoint at the end of the cellblock. Then they passed through a series of air locks and scanner chambers and entered a white-tiled processing tunnel so rife with disinfectant that Ben’s eyes began to water. About a dozen Bothan assassins lay magclamped to hovergurneys, being scanned for evidence, sampled, shaved furless, and—finally—implanted with explosive locator chips that could be remotely detonated in the event of escape. All of this was being done under the watchful eye of a dozen YVH battle droids overseen by an equal number of heavily armed GAG guards.

When Tahiri noticed Ben’s gaze lingering on the MD droid at the implanting station, she flipped her remote in front of his eyes—no doubt trying to prevent him from seeing
where
the chip was being inserted. Almost any Jedi would be able to locate and disable such a chip using little more than the Force and meditation—but knowing where to look would make the meditation unnecessary.

“Yes, you have one, too,” Tahiri said. “So don’t even think about trying to escape.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Ben shook the chains hanging from his manacles. “I was just getting ready to make a run for it.”

“Funny boy.” Tahiri thumbed a button on the remote, sending a jolt of electricity through Ben’s ankle that dropped him to a knee. “Ha, ha.”

Ben glanced behind Tahiri’s knees and saw the MD withdrawing an injection hypo from beneath the Bothan’s shoulder blade.

“I liked it better when you were trying to seduce the coordinates out of me,” he said.

“Yes—pity
that
didn’t work,” Tahiri said. “Now we have to do it Lord Caedus’s way.”

She jerked him back to his feet. They went through another security checkpoint at the far end of the processing tunnel, then started down a long corridor. Along one side, a similar checkpoint was spaced every fifteen meters or so; along the other side ran a panel of waist-to-ceiling transparisteel. Through this viewing wall, Ben could see that the hall was actually a balcony. It overlooked a receiving area filled with special security bays, where guards were removing prisoners from GAG Doomsleds and sorting them into groups for final processing. Each bay had its own durasteel blast doors, which opened into a contained marshaling garage. In short, this looked like a pretty unlikely escape route to Ben.

As they approached the end of the corridor, Ben began to sense a lot of beings ahead—and beings in pain. No doubt he was being taken into a specialized torture wing. His mouth grew dry, and he began to think that maybe the receiving area wasn’t such a bad place to try an escape after all—except that he still didn’t know what had happened to Shevu.

Then a terrible thought occurred to him. He reached out into the Force and felt his friend’s presence, no more than fifty meters inside the cellblock. Of course, that might be exactly what Tahiri wanted him to do—so that she could use Shevu as leverage against Ben. It didn’t matter. Now Ben
had
to go in.

As they passed through the next checkpoint, Ben began to realize that something wasn’t quite right with the picture he had been painting in his mind. The security here was not as tight as in the Bothan Wing, and he could sense through the Force that the booth guards were too relaxed for a high-security area. The scanning chambers were almost three meters square as well, as though they were used to transfer cargo or large loads.

When the final air lock opened, the atmosphere grew thick with the singular blend of stericlean and bodily infection, and Ben
knew.
He had smelled that particular combination too many times before, in too many infirmaries, after too many battles. He turned to Tahiri, his anger already rising into his throat.

“How long has he been in here?” he demanded. “His injuries weren’t that bad.”

“There were…complications,” Tahiri said. She started them toward the ward where Shevu lay, staying close to the doors to avoid interrupting the steady stream of droid-orderlies ferrying medicines, supplies, and patients down the corridor. “But he stands a good chance of surviving, depending on you.”

“Me?”

“Of course.” They reached the doorway, and Tahiri turned to look at him. “I’m sorry—are you under the impression I brought you here because I’m too
nice
to be a Sith?”

Ben would have Force-hurled her into the nearest wall, except he was pretty sure she would have blocked him and had the two guards stun him unconscious. Instead, he said, “You’re learning.”

Tahiri smiled and placed her thumb over the security pad on the wall. The doors hissed open, revealing a small four-unit ward. Three of the beds lay empty, with their lowered security panels forming a transparent apron around the base. The fourth bed was fully enclosed, with an ashen-faced man barely recognizable as Lon Shevu sleeping half naked inside. The blaster burns on his torso looked about half healed, but his arms and fingers were mottled with fresh bruises, scorch circles, and other signs of torture.

Ben was so astonished that he stopped halfway into the room and said, “There was no reason to do this. Shevu doesn’t know anything about our operations.”

Tahiri shrugged, closing and locking the door behind them. “It always pays to be thorough. Traitors are everywhere.” She started toward the MD droid standing watch at Shevu’s bedside, then stopped and turned back to Ben. “Of course, nobody knows that better than you.”

Ben tore his gaze away from Shevu. “Eventually, we all betray something, Tahiri. It’s what you stay true to that counts.”

Tahiri’s thumb started to slip toward the shock button on the remote—then she frowned and stopped, probably hearing Caedus’s voice inside her head admonishing her to be the master of her emotions, not their servant. She turned without speaking and went over to the MD droid monitoring Shevu’s vital signs.