Dark Tide 1: Onslaught by Michael A. Stackpole Read Free Book Online

bursting with clothes and other things she couldn’t bear to leave behind.
I left Alderaan with even less than this. Here I am, a quarter of a century later, a refugee once more—this time of my conscience rather than any external act.
“I should have been ready before this, but things keep cropping up.”
    Before she could even attempt to explain, she saw Elegos’s nostrils flare and his gaze flick past her to the upper landing for the stairs. She turned and found her husband, Han, hanging there in the doorway, his hands on either side of the jamb. She shivered because the haggard look on his face and the position of his hands reminded her far too much of when he had been frozen in carbonite. She wanted to believe the darkness under his eyes was just shadow, but she couldn’t deceive herself that way.
    She heard Elegos rise from his chair. “Captain Solo.”
    Han’s head came up slowly, and his eyes narrowed as he faced the voice. “A Caamasi? Elegos, isn’t it? A senator?”
    â€œYes.”
    Han staggered forward and almost fell down the stairs. He caught himself on the banister, made it down a couple more steps, then slid his way around the curve. He got his feet under him again, leapt the last few steps to the floor, and strode past Leia. With a grunt, he flopped down almost boneless into one of the chairs opposite Elegos. In the viewport’s light, the rainbow of stains on Han’s once-white tunic was evident, as was the grime at cuffs, collar, and elbows. His boots were badly scuffed, his trousers wrinkled, and his hair utterly unkempt. He ran a hand over beard stubble, flashing dirty fingernails as he did so.
    â€œI have a question for you, Elegos.”
    â€œIf I can be of service.”
    Han nodded as if his head were balanced on his spine instead of connected by muscle. “I understand you Caamasi have memories, strong memories.”
    Leia extended a hand toward Elegos. “Forgive me, Elegos. I learned about that from Luke, and I thought, my husband . . .”
    The Caamasi shook his head. “I have no doubt you all are to be trusted with the information about our memnii. Momentous events in our lives create memories. We are able, among our kind, and with certain Jedi, to transfer these memories. They have to be strong memories, powerful ones, to become memnii.”
    â€œYeah, the strong ones do stick around.” Han focused somewhere between the wall and the edge of the viewport. He fell silent for a moment, then fixed Elegos with a hard stare. “So what I want to know is this: How do you get rid of them? How do you get them out of your head?”
    The tortured tone of Han’s voice drove a vibroblade through Leia’s heart. “Oh, Han . . .”
    He held up a hand to keep her back. His expression sharpened. “How do you do it, Elegos?”
    The Caamasi lifted his chin. “We cannot get rid of them, Captain Solo. By sharing them we share the burden of them, but we can never be rid of them.”
    Han snarled, then curled forward in the chair, grinding the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I’d tear them out if that would stop me from seeing, you know, I would, I really would. I can’t stop seeing it, seeing him, seeing him die . . .”
    The man’s voice sank to a bass rumble; rough, raw, and ragged as broken ferrocrete. “There he was, standing there. He’d saved my son. He’d saved Anakin. He tossed him up into my arms. Then, when I saw him again, a gust of wind knocked him down and collapsed a building on top of him. But he got up. He was bloody and torn up, but he got up again. On his feet, he got up and he raised his arms toward me. He raised his arms toward me, so I could save him, the way he’d saved Anakin.”
    Han’s voice squeaked to silence. His larynx bobbed up and down.
    â€œI saw him, don’t you get it? I saw him standing there as the moon hit Sernpidal. The