Read Rebel Stand: Enemy Lines II for Free Online

Luke’s party had so recently been attacked. The woman he addressed—once plump and blond, he thought, now leaner from a subsistence diet,hair streaked with dirt, brown eyes hard from sacrifice and suffering—was Tenga Javik, nominal leader of the Walkway Collective.
    “We’ve rigged photon collection screens and heat harvesters for power,” she said. Her voice was raspy; that, and the light scarf wound around her neck, a curious affectation in the warm, moist air of Coruscant’s landscape of building interiors, suggested that she had taken an injury to the throat in the not too distant past. “One of us worked at a grayweave production plant. Have you ever eaten grayweave, Master Skywalker?”
    “On occasion.” Grayweave was the nickname for a sort of single-cell-organism-based food, manufactured for and sold to the poorest of the poor; in texture, it looked like thick gray felt, but didn’t taste anywhere near as good. Its chief virtues were that it was very inexpensive and lasted a long time without preservation.
    “We stole the grayweave reactors and scattered them all through our territory,” Tenga said. “Well-hidden. We keep them supplied with power and water, water we process through our own stills. We hide from the Vong most of the time, set traps for them when we’re sure we can take them. We’re going to survive, Master Skywalker.”
    “How’s the air?” Bhindi asked.
    Tenga looked into the soup as if unwilling to meet Bhindi’s eyes. “Getting worse,” she said. “We’re working on that. Trying to put together a series of blowers to bring in air from where it’s better.” She didn’t sound confident. “If that doesn’t work, we may have to relocate. Go deeper.” She met Luke’s eyes, her expression suddenly fierce. “When will the fleet come, Master Skywalker? When can we expect relief?”
    “Not soon,” he admitted. “I wish I could tell you differently, but you’re going to have to rely on yourselves for some time to come.”
    Several of Tenga’s fellows sighed or made noises of discontent, but they didn’t direct anger at Luke; his words did not seem to be entirely unexpected.
    Tenga returned her attention to the soup. “We need the fleet,” she rasped, her tone lower; she did not seem to be speaking to Luke. “We need the Jedi.”
    “This is our first mission back,” Luke said, projecting confidence with his voice and through the Force. “And more will come. We’re not going to let Coruscant remain in enemy hands. You have to decide whether you’re going to be alive when the world is liberated. Because the weariness and disillusionment you’re feeling can kill you as surely as the Yuuzhan Vong.”
    “You’ve done very well here,” Bhindi said. “I can show you how to do better.”
    That got Tenga’s attention. “Better how?”
    “Hide better, ambush and defeat Vong patrols better, repair and maintain equipment better.”
    “I’m listening,” Tenga said.
    “First things first,” Mara interrupted. “A little more information. Have any of you seen or felt anything unusual in this region? I mean, unusual in excess of all the changes brought on by the Vong?”
    Most of those present shook their heads, but one, in the second rank of the circle, a thin, middle-aged man with a dark, suspicious look to his features, said, “Lord Nyax.”
    Some of his companions sighed; one or two offered up little groans.
    Luke grinned before he could suppress it. “That’s a children’s story.”
    “He’s real,” Yassat said.
    Mara raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t heard this one.”
    “In ancient times,” Luke said, “on Corellia, Lord Nyax was what parents threatened their children with if they didn’t eat their stewfruit or go to bed on time. ‘If you keep on being a bad boy, Lord Nyax will come for you.’ He was a monstrous pale ghost who took children away, and no one ever saw them again.”
    “A typical folk tale,” Mara said.
    “Yes.” Luke sobered.