With an effort, he cleared the last lingering emotion from his thoughts, Mara's picture of songbirds singing inside an ore-crushing facility flickering once through his mind as he did so. Stretching out with the Force, he focused his mental probe toward the spot where Mara's presence had vanished. Unless they had already taken it away, he should at least be able to sense her body... But there was nothing. Not Mara, not the humans or aliens she had supposedly been moving toward when she disappeared.
In fact, within a certain area, he could detect nothing at all. Almost as if something was blocking his access to the Force...
Abruptly, his breath went out of him in a rush, relief and chagrin flooding into him in equal quantities. Of course— the aliens had moved ysalamiri into the space between him and Mara. Even given the four-floor distance between them, he should have immediately recognized what was happening. Once again, it seemed, he was having to relearn Yoda's warning against acting while in the grip of strong emotion.
But there was no time for self-recrimination. Within the ysalamiri effect, Mara's fledgling Jedi powers were useless; and it was up to him to get her out.
He pulled out his comlink and thumbed it on. 'Artoo?' he called softly. 'I need you down here—take the nonmoving spiral slideway behind the wall to the right of the hidden exit doorway and come down four floors. Splitter Of Stones, leave someone behind in the stairway to seal the door, and the rest of you come with Artoo. Got that?'
There was a twitter from the droid and a chirp from the Qom Jha. Luke returned the comlink to his belt and walked slowly across the floor toward one of the level's back corners, stretching out beneath him with the Force as he moved. He could sense beings on the next level down, but none of them seemed to be in this particular area.
That could be misleading, given that he still didn't have a clear reading on this species. But he would have to risk it. Igniting Mara's lightsaber, the feel of the weapon bringing back a flood of old memories, he gripped it with both hands and dug the blue-white blade into the floor. His big fear had been that like the cortosis ore in the cave below, the strange black stone would resist the lightsaber in some way. But though it felt rather like dragging a tree branch upstream through a rapidly flowing river, the blade sliced through the stone without trouble. Walking in a tight circle, beveling the edge inward so that the plug wouldn't fall through to the floor below, he carved out a round hole a little wider than Artoo.
Finishing his cut, he confirmed one final time that no one seemed to be below him. Then, stretching out to the Force, he lifted the stone plug out.
It was heavy—far heavier than anything of such a small size had any business being. Maneuvering it off to the side, he set it down with its edge just overlapping the hole, then dropped flat to the floor and peered carefully down.
The area did indeed appear to be deserted. Getting a grip on the rim, he eased himself in to hang full-length through the hole. Bracing himself, drawing on the Force to strengthen his muscles, he let go. The floor was about four meters down, a trivial fall for a Jedi. He let his legs collapse as he hit, absorbing the impact and dropping him into a hopefully unobtrusive heap as he stretched out his senses for any sign he'd been seen or heard. But there was nothing. Getting carefully to his feet, he looked around again—
Luke looked up. Keeper Of Promises was in the room above him, peering down through the hole in the floor. 'Keep quiet,' he warned the Qom Jha. 'Where are the rest of your people?'
'Let me know when he gets there,' Luke told him, stretching out with the Force. There were, he could tell, more of the aliens on the next level down, but again they didn't seem to be too close to him. Igniting the lightsaber again, he began cutting a new hole directly beneath the first one. He'd finished the hole and had dropped to the next floor down when a quiet whistle from above signaled Artoo's arrival. 'Great,' Luke called softly, looking up at the blue- and-silver dome peering cautiously over the lip two floors up as he pulled out his comlink and thumbed it on. The droid backed out of sight, and there was another acknowledging whistle from the comlink.
'All right,' Luke said, glancing around. He'd come down into a deserted room this time, but through the open door he could see glimpses of moving shadows. 'You see the control boards over there? I want you to go find a computer jack you can access and plug into it. Try to get a floor plan of the fortress if you can; if you can't, just look around and see what else you can find. When I signal you again, unplug and get back over to the hole as fast as you can. Got all that?' There was a slightly nervous-sounding twitter, and the comlink went dead. Gripping Mara's lightsaber, trying to get a feel for all the minds around and below him, Luke waited. When it happened, it happened all at once. Suddenly, virtually in unison, all the alien minds changed, their various tones and concerns and textures all shifting to focus in the same direction. Not with fear, concern, or even surprise, but with the calm, deadly purpose of professional soldiers. Artoo had tripped the flags Mara had warned him about, and the fortress was mobilizing for action.
Luke crouched a little closer to the floor, acutely aware that everything now hinged on what exactly that action would consist of. If all the aliens merely settled in where they were and braced for possible attack, he would have no choice but to fight his way through them to get to Mara. If, however, they instead concentrated on the slideway ramps and the floor where the attempted break-in was occurring...
And they did. Even as Luke held his breath, he could sense the aliens below moving purposefully toward the slideway Mara had taken earlier. If he was careful—and quick—the path to her might just be open.
Especially if he was quick. Igniting the lightsaber, he set to work carving yet another hole in the black stone.
