Star Wars - Lost Tribe of the Sith 06 - Sentinel Read Online Free PDF Page B

to a tragedy?
    But what Cilghal
didn’t
feel in the Force was the winking out of a life. Valin was still there, a diminished but intact presence in the Force.
    She waved at the assembly, a calming motion. “Be still.” She did not need to exert herself through the Force. Most of those present were Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights who respected her authority. Not one of them was easily panicked, not even the little girl beside Han and Leia.
    Standing between Valin’s and Jysella’s gurneys with her assistant Tekli, Cilghal concentrated on the young man lying to her right. His body still gleamed with a trace of dark fluid: all that remained of the melted carbonite that had imprisoned him. He was as still as the dead. Cilghal pressed her huge, webbed hand against his throat to check his pulse. She found it, shallow but steady.
    The readout board flickered again and the lights came up in all their colors, strong, the pulse monitor flickering with Valin’s heartbeat, the encephaloscan beginning to jitter with its measurements of Valin’s brain activity.
    Tekli, a Chadra-Fan, her diminutive size and glossy fur coat giving her the aspect of a plush toy instead of an experienced Jedi Knight and a physician, spun away from Valin’s gurney and toward the one beside it. On it lay Jysella Horn, slight of build, also gleaming a bit with unevaporated carbonite residue. Tekli put one palm against Jysella’s forehead and pressed the fingers of her other hand across Jysella’s wrist.
    Cilghal nodded. Computerized monitors might fail, but the Force sense of a trained Jedi would not, at least not under these conditions.
    Tekli glanced back at Cilghal and gave a brisk nod. All was well.
    The pulse under Cilghal’s hand began to strengthen and quicken. Also good, also normal.
    Cilghal moved around the head of the gurney and stood on the far side of the apparatus, a step back from Valin. When he awoke, his vision would be clouded, and perhaps his judgment as well. It would not do for him to wake with a large form standing over him, gripping his throat. Violence might result.
    She caught the attention of Corran and Mirax, parents of the two patients. “That was merely an electronicglitch.” Cilghal tried to make her tones reassuring, knowing her effort was not likely to succeed—Mon Calamari voices, suited to their larger-than-human frames, were resonant and even gravelly, an evolutionary adaptation that allowed them to be heard at greater distances in their native underwater environments. Unfortunately, they tended to sound harsh and even menacing to human ears. But she had to try. “They are fine.”
    Corran, wearing green Jedi robes that matched the color of his eyes, heaved a sigh of relief. His wife, Mirax, dressed in a stylish jumpsuit in blacks and blues, smiled uncertainly as she asked, “What caused it?”
    Cilghal offered a humanlike shrug. “I’ll put the monitors in for evaluation once your children are checked out as stable. I suspect these monitors haven’t been tested or serviced since Valin and Jysella were frozen.” There, that was a well-delivered lie, dismissing the monitor’s odd behavior as irrelevant.
    Valin stirred. Cilghal glanced down at him. The Knight’s eyes fluttered open and tried to fix on her, but seemed to have difficulty focusing.
    Cilghal looked down at him. “Valin? Can you hear me?”
    “I … I …” Valin’s voice was weak, watery.
    “Don’t speak. Just nod.”
    He did.
    “You’ve been—”
    She was interrupted by a stage-whispered notification from Tekli: “Jysella is awake.”
    Cilghal adjusted her angle so she could address both siblings. “You’ve been in carbonite suspension for some time. You will feel cold, shaky, and disoriented. This is all normal. You are among friends. Do you understand me?”
    Valin nodded again. Jysella’s “yes” was faint, butstronger and more controlled than Cilghal had expected.
    “Your parents are here. I’ll allow them to speak to you in a