Vision of the future

He had finished the opening and dropped through to the next level down when his probing senses picked up the cue he'd been waiting for: the subtle change in the alien minds as the assembled assault teams readied themselves. 'Now, Artoo,' he called softly into the comlink. 'Send the Qom Jha to me down the hole, and get over there yourself.'

The droid acknowledged, and Luke stepped beneath the hole to wait. The Qom Jha weren't wasting any time; already they were dropping through like leaves blown from a tree, folding their wings tightly as they passed through each successive hole, opening them up between floors to regain control of their flight. Through the flurry of falling Qom Jha he spotted Artoo's dome lean cautiously over the edge, and caught an echo of the surprised and nervous twitter as the droid saw how much farther down Luke was now than the last time he'd looked.

A twitter that turned into an electronic gasp as Luke reached out with the Force to pick him up and drop him wheels-first through the hole.

Luke winced at the noise; but fortunately Artoo quickly realized what was happening and quieted down before the sound of a descending electronic scream could give the whole thing away. Luke got the droid safely to the floor beside him, then stretched out again to the edge of the stone plug he'd left poking over the side of the first hole above. At this distance it felt even heavier; but with alien warriors presumably even now fanning out toward the command center, he had great motivation for speed. Three seconds later, the plug was securely back in place.

Fifteen seconds after that, working his way down, he had all the rest of the holes sealed as well.

'Mara's one more level down,' he told Artoo and the huddled group of Qom Jha, stretching out with the Force. All the aliens below were gone, and there hadn't been any changes in the overall mental state that would indicate they'd tumbled to his trick.

Though oddly enough, he could no longer sense the assault teams themselves. Equipped with ysalamiri, perhaps?

Probably. But for the moment, those groups were too far away to worry him. 'Stay close to me,' he said, igniting the lightsaber and starting his final cut. 'We'll try to keep this as quiet as we can, for as long as we can.'

But if they discover us? Child Of Winds asked anxiously.

Luke frowned at him in mild surprise. He hadn't realized that the young Qom Qae had come in with the Qom Jha. In fact, he'd intended to give instructions that the child stay behind with whoever had sealed up the hidden door. Clearly, it had slipped his mind; just as clearly, it was too late to do anything about it now. 'If the alarm goes up, you're to split up and create confusion,' Luke told the aliens. 'Draw them as far away from me as you can, then find your own ways out of the fortress and head back home.'

We will obey, Splitter Of Stones said, fluttering his wings.

'And try not to get hurt,' Luke added, finishing the cut and lifting the stone disk out of the hole.

'Child Of Winds, you stay with Artoo and me.'

He leaned down for a quick visual scan of the empty room below. 'All right,' he said, slipping his feet into the opening and bracing himself for another drop. 'Let's go.' From the hazy look he'd had of this floor before his contact with Mara had been cut off, it had seemed fairly well structured, with rooms and wide corridors instead of the random wall segments they'd encountered upstairs. Not exactly an ideal arrangement for quiet skulking. But for the first few minutes it seemed to work. Luke led the way cautiously toward the blank spot that marked the cluster of ysalamiri, splitting his attention between the area around him and the various warrior groups assembled near the slideways. Only half a dozen of the aliens wandered near enough to pose potential problems, and he was able to get his party past them unseen using Force-created noises and other distractions. The warriors on the command center level were clearly the methodical types, and as Luke neared the ysalamiri he began to think he might actually be able to burst in on Mara and her captors unannounced.

Han might have been that lucky. Luke, unfortunately, was not. They had nearly reached their goal when the illusion abruptly crumbled.

'They're on to us,' he murmured.

Do they know where we are? Flier Through Spikes asked.

'I don't know,' Luke said, stretching out to the Force and trying to decipher the sudden turmoil in the emotions of the aliens around him. There was no way to tell whether the assault team had discovered the hole he had cut or had simply found the level deserted and come to the logical conclusion.

What he could tell was that whatever it was they had discovered, their consternation had spread rapidly to the rest of the group. Clearly, they had a superb communications system in here. Which meant that Mara's captors almost certainly also knew he was loose in the fortress. Which meant he was out of time.

'I'm going in,' he told the Qom Jha tightly, easing an eye around the end of the corridor. Just to the right, on the far side of a cross corridor, he could see an unmarked door. At the far end of that room, as near as he could tell, were the ysalamiri. 'Artoo, Child Of Winds—come with me. The rest of you, scatter.'