lit in its walls, illuminating its downward length for kilometers.
Marr glanced at Jaden, eyebrows raised. “I thought the tether was a lift system of some kind. It appears I was right.”
Jaden eyed the shaft. “Do we just slide in?”
“It looks that way.”
The thought of taking a ride down a kilometers-long mechano-organic shaft into an unknown environment held little appeal for Jaden. But there was nothing else for it, so he touched his hand to the nearest control panel and it scanned his body as the other had done with Marr. The scan felt like a soft breeze on his skin, and when it was done, the shaft at his feet twisted closed a bit to accommodate his form. Lines of glowing filament lit it up. They looked like they went on forever. Jaden assumed the shafts all had to let out at the same place, though he could not be sure.
“If we end up separated, you stay put and I’ll find you,” he said. “Ready?”
Marr nodded, and they each sat at the edge of their respective hole and began to lower themselves into the shaft. The moment Jaden’s legs entered the shaft, the walls bulged out from the sides, took his legs in a warm, gentle grip, and started to pull him in, a sensation that felt disquietingly like being swallowed. He did not resist it.
“Marr,” he called, as the shaft pulled him the rest of the way in. “Are you all right?”
His last word stretched out into a shout of surprise as the bulges holding him in the shaft rippled down its length, taking him with it, descending so fast he might as well have been falling. He gritted his teeth and tried to keep his stomach from rushing up his throat. He was engulfed in the warmth of the walls, the glow of the lines of light.
He fell a long while before the descent began to slow, then finally, to stop. The shaft released its grip on him when he felt firm floor under his boots.
The shaft had deposited him in a large circular chamber, a mirror of the one above, but with tubes descending from the ceiling rather than holes opening in the floor. Control panels for each of the tubes stood at intervals around the room.
The stink of decay, much stronger now, filled the air. His sensation of the dark side felt more concentrated, too. The soft rainfall of power had become a downpour. Jaden tried to filter it out while he nested himself in the Force and reached out with his mind for the clones.
The intense, uncomfortable feedback of contact with a dark-side user pulled at his consciousness. They were not far.
Beside him, the nearest tube bulged like a serpent’s belly and disgorged Marr. The Cerean stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, staring back up the way he’d come.
“Remarkable,” he said, then turned to face Jaden, his head cocked in a question. “Do you feel that? The dark side is …”
“… stronger,” Jaden finished for him.
Marr nodded. “If the station is Rakatan, and is powered in part with dark-side energy, we could be sensing the power center of the station.”
“We’ll soon know,” Jaden said, and led Marr in the direction he’d felt the clones. A vertical seam in the wall slipped wetly open to reveal a corridor beyond. Filaments glowed like veins in the walls.
They walked through, the dark side growing stronger with each step.
Having watched Jaden and Marr in Flotsam, Khedryn knew the Rakatan station would dock with Junker when he got close. He flew the ship in, maneuvered it near and watched in wonder as the station birthed a docking tube and reached out for Junker. Once the ship was settled, Khedryn unstrapped himself from his seat and patted R-6 on the dome.
“Keep the engines hot, little man. And keep working on that transceiver.”
R-6 whistled an affirmative.
Khedryn took a blaster from the cockpit weapons locker and stuffed it into his hip holster. He started to head off, thought better of it, and took a second blaster from the locker and put it in a thigh holster.
“Can’t have too many,” he said to R-6. “Lock the ship down when I’m clear. And contact me immediately when you have the transceiver up.”
Again R-6 whistled an affirmative.
Khedryn hurried to the airlock and opened it. The warm, organic stink of the Rakatan station wafted into the ship, and … something else, something that caused his hair to stand on end.
“Maybe I’m getting sensitive