There was no chance for Luke or anyone else to talk to Han before he went into the tank. He had apparently been unconscious since before the Falcon jumped out from N’zoth, his already fragile state aggravated by the stresses of the rescue, particularly the high-g escape. And even if Han had been conscious, there was Chewbacca to contend with—the Wookiee hovered over Han so protectively that he got in the way of the doctor and the medical droid, and ultimately had to be dragged back from the triage table by two of his companions.
The four Wookiees made an impressive sight, and their presence in the med ward drew a great deal of curious attention. Luke thought he recognized the injured one as Lumpawarrump, a thought confirmed when Chewbacca made him the next object of his anxious hovering.
Lumpawarrump had limped off the ship under his own power, but the second-degree blaster burn on his right calf was ugly with leaking blisters and needed care as well. A translator droid arrived in time to assist K-1B to negotiate with his patient.
“Skin and hair cell damage is serious. Underlying fat and muscle damage is limited,” said K-1B. “All damage is repairable. Prescribe immersion, one session, ten hours.”
Both Chewbacca and his son looked at the prep table where Han was being fitted with his breather and monitors. Chewbacca drew his upper lip back over his teeth in an expression of disgust, and Lumpawarrump shook his head vigorously as he growled an answer.
The droid’s translation was diplomatic. “The patient has expressed an unwillingness to be immersed.”
K-1B’s head swiveled in a distinctively mechanical fashion. “Topical treatments are of limited effectiveness. Grafts are contra indicated for species with body fur. Scarring is likely without immersion.”
Both Lumpawarrump and Chewbacca answered at once, and their growls had sharply contrasting timbres.
“The patient says that he finds scarring socially desirable. The patient’s guardian expresses his concern that if the injury is not effectively treated, K-1B will experience serious malfunctions and system disruptions.”
Despite the shadow of concern for both Han and Chewbacca’s son, Luke could not contain a chuckle at the droid’s obvious paraphrase. The sound led Chewbacca to look up and in Luke’s direction—the first time their eyes had met since the Falcon had docked. The Wookiee gestured angrily toward Han, and voiced a sharp-edged rebuke. No translation was necessary. The look said, Where were you?
“I didn’t know, Chewie,” Luke said. “It wasn’t even in the TBM. The General says there was a complete blackout on the news. I was away, and no one told me. Not even Leia.” He looked across the room at Han, who was at that moment being transferred from the prep table to the bacta tank. “I just didn’t know.”
Technically, the camp on Pa’aal, the primary moon of the fifth planet of the N’zoth system, was not a prison. Slaves are not housed in prisons.
The camp was the permanent residence of the surviving members of the former Black Sword Command occupation force under Governor Crollick. At its peak, it had housed nearly three hundred thousand—mostly human, and mostly from the crews of the Star Destroyers Intimidator and Valorous, captured intact by Yevethan raiders on what was to have been the final day of the Imperial occupation.
The captives had purchased their lives with service to the viceroy, and in the beginning, that service had been essential. They had taught the Yevetha both the operation of a capital warship and the final secrets of their construction. They had served aboard their renamed vessels under new, alien captains and labored in the shipyards under new, alien overseers. The knowledge in their heads and the experience in their hands made them valuable enough to keep alive—at least until the Yevetha had wrung every last secret from them.
In the first and second year, only the uncooperative were removed from the population on Pa’aal. But in the third year, their keepers began to thin their holdings in earnest. By that time, the overseers had a clearer idea of who had specialized technical skills and who did not. The latter could be replaced in their duties by Yevetha, and were—many trained their replacements before being executed. The former were kept without regard to need, as spare parts for the war machine the Yevetha were building.
Half the population of Pa’aal disappeared during the third year—most at the hands of the Yevetha, but no small number through suicide. Conditions on Pa’aal were desperate and miserable, and hope of rescue had collapsed as the coldly calculated winnowing wore on.
Those who survived to see the fourth year were in many ways a select group—smart, tough-minded, inured to the privations of their existence, astute in the politics of their status. And they had found a replacement for hope, in the form of a leader and a plan.
In the long years since, every slave taken from Pa’aal for a day’s, a week’s, a month’s service to the Yevetha had gone willingly, with a purpose and a mission beyond mere survival. The more useful they were, the more opportunities there would be to advance the plan. They needed access to the ships, to materials and tools, to unsupervised time—all of which could only be obtained through guiltless and systematic collaboration with the enemy.
Despite their efforts, there had come a time when the Yevetha seemed to no longer need them, and Pa’aal had become not a storehouse but a dumping ground. An entire year would pass with no measurable progress and no promise of change. Suicide and the carelessness that went with profound depression once more began to thin the numbers.
But seven months ago, the slavemasters had started coming to Pa’aal again. For the first time since the end of the winnowing, there were Yevetha in camp for more than a few hours, observing, questioning. The additional scrutiny was more than balanced by the additional opportunity, as more and more of the population was called to service and carried off in the parade of shuttles. Before long, Pa’aal seemed primarily populated by ghosts.
Word of the reasons for the change filtered back with returnees—new ships being launched, new crews being trained, new problems with cloned drives and weapons. Gradually the whole story was pieced together, until the prisoners on Pa’aal were more aware of the coming war than the Yevetha themselves.
And through it all, the work went on, at an intense—even dangerous—pace.
“There is a moment coming,” Major Sil Sorannan had told his secret command, “a moment of opportunity that will never be repeated in our lifetimes. If we are not ready when that moment comes, we will all die on Pa’aal.”
Sorannan remembered his words as he gazed at the four tiny pulse-transceiver chips that had just been delivered to him by a courier from a returning work party.
“Major Neff said to tell you that they’d passed all the tests with generous margins,” said the courier. “He has very high confidence that they’re good.”
Nodding, Sorannan gestured to the other man in the room. “Have the controllers brought here.”
From four different parts of the compound, four very different—yet commonplace—objects were rounded up and placed before Sorannan. Using an engineer’s loupe, an improvised jig, and a handheld microwelder, Sorannan added one of the chips to the circuitry concealed inside each of the objects.
The chips were the last pieces missing from the controllers, and Sorannan irreversibly sealed the clever access slides and panels before handing each object over to a courier.
“Deliver this to Dobbatek.
“See that this reaches Jaratt on Valorous.
“This is for Harramin.
“I want this delivered to Eistern on Intimidator. Tell him I will be there soon. Tell him to pass the word that it is almost time.”
Chapter Ten
While Han slept in the healing bath of the bacta solution, the command staff analyzed the latest data from the stasis probes deep inside the cluster, and the Wookiees prepared the Falcon for the battle ahead. Not included in any of those activities, Luke found himself alone and with time on his hands.
He went by Wialu and Akanah’s cabin, intending to reopen the subject of N
ashira. But Wialu was not there, and Akanah would not tell him where he could find her.
“She will be in deep meditation until the time comes, preparing herself,” said Akanah. “This will be very difficult—she must be strong enough to hold the projection even if fighting begins.”
“Will you be helping her?”
“She has not asked that of me.”
“Do you think that I can?”
“Ask me, or help her?”
“Help,” he said.
“No. You have great power, Luke, but this is not a work of power. When you lay your touch on the Current, it is still a thousand times too forceful.”
He digested that in silence. “Did you know that there’s a Fallanassi aboard Pride of Yevetha? At least, that’s how I sort it out, going by Chewbacca’s account. A woman named Enara.” He shook his head. “They had to have some kind of help. Going in there like that was crazy. Wookiee-crazy, the kind that comes from an excess of courage and a shortage of patience.”
“Yes, I know,” Akanah said.
“Will she be able to help Wialu?”
“I do not think so.”
Luke frowned. “You seem to have gotten a lot more reluctant to talk to me since we reached J’t’p’tan.”
“Circumstances have changed,” Akanah said with a small, rueful smile.
“Because Wialu is watching and listening?”
“We have lost more than privacy,” she said. “We are no longer moving in the same direction.”
“If you know that, you know more than I do about where I’m headed,” Luke said, pulling a chair toward him and sitting down on it backward. “I have more questions now than ever.”
“You must be greatly tempted to try to force Wialu to answer them,” Akanah said.
“An occasional, resistible temptation,” Luke admitted. “I know better.”
“It would be an immeasurable mistake.”
“I know that, too,” he said. “But you could answer some of my questions—as my teacher.”
Eyes downcast, Akanah shook her head. “I don’t think so, Luke.”
“Because of what Wialu said about your not having the right to? She said you were a child yourself—”
“She was right,” Akanah said. “I told you on the day we met that I was incomplete—that there was a weakness, an empty space, in me—that the loss of what my mother would have taught me had left me less than whole.”
“I suppose you did,” Luke said. “I guess at the time, I paid more attention to what you were saying about me.”
“It was easy enough for me to forget myself,” said Akanah. “But even a short time with Nori was enough to show me how far I have strayed without guidance. These days in Wialu’s company have shown me how far I have to go to return to the path.”
“Your mother—Talsava—is she with the Circle?”
“No,” Akanah said. “When we are finished here, I will ask Norika to be my teacher.”
Luke folded his arms on the back of the chair and rested his chin on them. “So your journey is over.”
She shook her head. “It is just beginning. I know that I must go back and unlearn before I can move forward again. Do not envy me too much, Luke.”
Luke answered with a tight-lipped smile. “A momentary self-indulgence,” he said. “Well, I suppose I can’t ask you to work with me on the skill of concealment.”
“You will need another teacher if you choose to follow this path and become an adept of the Current,” she said, her expression earnest. “I hope that you will. You have great strength, Luke, but you hunger for lightness. That is part of the gift that you have been denied.”
Frowning, Luke straightened his back and caught the top edge of the chair in his hands. “Maybe you can answer this question, at least—if Enara could conceal the Falcon and create phantom hostages, why couldn’t she protect Shoran?”
“I am sorry for your friend’s loss,” Akanah said, then paused. “I do not know the limits of Enara’s skill. But creating a reflection from the surface of the Current and merging nearby objects with the Current are very different tasks. It is terribly difficult to do both at the same time. And there is something else—a person does not stay settled in the flow the way an object without volition will.”
Luke’s eyes lit up. “Is that why the Circle is still at J’t’p’tan—what you meant when you said they couldn’t leave?” he asked. “Because it sounds as if the Fallanassi could hide the temple from the Yevetha and go away, and it would stay hidden—”
“Yes. Objects which are at rest, or which follow the current without resisting it, will remain merged until they are disturbed,” she said. “All of the effort comes at the beginning, and a single adept can manage it. But hiding the community of H’kig requires the constant attention of a great many adepts, and the effort is never-ending.”
As he listened to her, Luke experienced a flash of intuitive insight. “Yes. Yes, that’s the only way it could be. Do you—”
“I have already said too much,” she said, shaking her head. “Please, Luke, ask me no more questions. Answering you and refusing you bring me equal burdens of guilt.”
“I’m sorry,” Luke said. “I understand.”
“You understand, and you used it to get your answer,” Akanah said sharply. Then she showed a quick smile, taking the sting out of the rebuke. “Please, Luke—go now.”
“All right,” he agreed, standing and replacing the chair where it had been. But when he reached the cabin door, he stopped and looked back. “I’m sorry. I have to ask one more.”
She nodded wordlessly, as though she had expected it.
“Did you see Nashira on J’t’p’tan?”
“No,” Akanah said with regret. “I do not know where she is.”
It was decided early that the “phantom fleet” bluff should be played where it would have the most impact—in the light of N’zoth’s sun, over the capital of the Duskhan League and the home of Viceroy Nil Spaar.
“It’s the strongest Yevethan fleet we’ve located—especially in the wake of the rescue of the commodore,” Corgan explained at the strategy session where the assault plans were first disclosed. “If the Yevetha are still monitoring developments on Coruscant through their spy network, they know that the President’s sending us reinforcements, and that’ll help sell the bluff.
“We’ve planned a feint at Doornik Three-nineteen for the day before, just to keep them jumpy and maybe draw off a ship or two from somewhere else. And on the big day, we’ll turn out in strength at Wakiza, Tizon, and Z’fell, plus go after the shipyard that just turned up near Tholaz. But the big play is at N’zoth—that’s where we have to break them, one way or another.”
Taking Intrepid to N’zoth meant a transfer for Han, from the flagship’s medical ward to a medical frigate delegated to stay behind with the other noncombatants. The transfer, in turn, meant the first conscious moments for Han since he had come aboard.
Both Chewbacca and Luke took advantage of the opportunity. The Wookiee had an emotional reunion with Han while the doctors and K-1B gave him a quick but thorough hands-on exam. Luke did not intrude on that time, waiting instead to hitch a ride with Han on the transfer shuttle.
“Hey,” said Han, craning his head at the sound of Luke’s voice. “I used to know a guy who looked just like you.”
“Whatever happened to him, anyway?” Luke bantered back, finding a perch beside the stretcher and catching Han’s right hand in his own. “How are you doing?”
“You know you’re getting old when you start wondering about what it is that’s finally going to kill you,” Han said with a pained grin. “I guess I’m gonna have to sit this one out, eh?”
“Unless we have a sudden need for underwater commandos,” Luke said. “They tell me you’re due for another five days in the tank.”
Han’s countenance darkened with concern. “Say, do you think you could use your powers of persuasion to get ’em to let me talk to Leia before they dunk m
e back under? Has anyone told her—”
“Already set up for you, Commodore, as soon as we reach the frigate,” said the doctor seated at the head of the stretcher, monitoring the readouts.
“Of course she was told,” Luke said. “The general sent a message as soon as you were aboard, and Chewie talked to her later.”
Luke saw that Han noted the omission. “Well, when you talk to her, make sure you mention I was bothering the lady doctors—otherwise she’ll worry,” he said. “Say, how about Chewie’s kid? He sure hit his growth, didn’t he? Chewie said this was some sort of rite of passage, and he’s taken a new name—Lumpawaroo, I think it was.”
“With Waroo as the familiar,” said Luke. “I think it means ‘son of courage.’”
“Well, that fits—both ways,” Han said. “They said back there that Waroo will be coming over to the frigate, too. I think that leaves the Falcon one hand short.”
“I don’t think I’m welcome to sign on,” said Luke, squeezing and then releasing Han’s hand. “Chewbacca seems to think I abandoned you to the Yevetha.”
“Aw, he’ll get over it. He’s still wound up, that’s all. I couldn’t talk him out of going back to N’zoth with you—figures he owes it to Shoran.”
“There’s no arguing with a Wookiee,” Luke said. “He’ll be all right. There won’t be enough shooting to worry about.”
“Why’s that?”
At that point, the doctor saw on his displays the same fatigue Luke was seeing on Han’s face and ordered an end to the conversation. They completed the trip to the frigate in silence, save for the off-key humming of the shuttle pilot and the wheeze at the end each time Han exhaled. The last third of the run, it seemed as though Han was asleep.
But when the hatch had opened and the orderlies were unstrapping the stretcher to carry Han out, he opened his eyes and found Luke with a steady gaze.
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