by Greg Keyes
Han leveled a finger. “Shalo …”
“Hey, it’s not like they have a name and a logo. They just come and pick ’em up.”
“The slaves?” Jacen asked. “What do you suppose happens to them?”
“I don’t know. I don’t ask questions.”
“You know where they go,” Jacen accused.
“I deny that.”
Jacen caught something then, in the Force.
“Hey, Dad?”
“In a minute, son.” Han jerked his chin toward Shalo. “Let him deny it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll check out your story, Shalo, and if it turns out you’re lying to us—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll be back, I know.”
“No. Oh, no. You’re going with us. But for right now, I’m going to turn you over to this nice lady here, okay? I need to talk to my other friends.”
Shalo turned to see the “nice” lady and blanched when his eyes fell on a towering, white-furred, heavily fanged humanoid. The beast hissed and spat something that might have been a language.
“No, H’sishi,” Karrde said gently, apparently answering. “You can’t eat him. Yet.”
Shalo’s face was nearly as white as the Togorian’s fur as she led him off.
“Now,” Han said, “what’s my surprise?”
Karrde smiled. “I had my slicer look into those ships you’ve been hitting, the ones coming out of Kuat. It took some doing, even for him. The funds for the ships were washed so many times they ought to be random molecules by now. But in the end, it looks like the allocation can be traced back to the office of Kuat Photonics.”
“Kuat Photonics?” Jacen asked.
“A privately held corporation.” Karrde handed Han a data card. “A list of the owners.”
“Would Viqi Shesh be on that list?” Jacen asked.
Karrde studied him. “You expect her to be?”
“We had some trouble with her at Duro,” Jacen said. “It was just a feeling.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Karrde said. “Not under that name.”
“Maybe you could check the names?” Jacen asked. “See if they’re legitimate?”
Karrde laughed sardonically and looked at Han. “Is that the Solo sense of humor, or is he serious?”
“I take that to mean no,” Jacen said dryly.
“What he means is,” Han explained, “it would take a long time—a very long time—and probably get us nowhere. Meanwhile, we’d be there instead of here, where we can actually stop the ships. If Shesh is behind this, we’ll hurt her more out here than on Coruscant.”
“The old man has it right,” Karrde said. “The tracks my slicer found are faint to begin with. They could be easily erased.”
“But we might find proof,” Jacen argued. “Real proof.”
“Maybe,” Han said. “Maybe at berths fifteen through eighteen.”
“Are we going to hit them?” Shada asked.
“Hit them? No. They’ll be easier pickings in space.”
“Shouldn’t we at least check them out?” Jacen said.
Shada nodded. “I’ll have look.”
Jacen straightened. “Mind if I tag along?”
“I do,” Han said. “Or didn’t you get that part about the bounty on your head?”
“Jealous, Solo?” Karrde asked Han.
“How’s that?”
“Well, your son is pulling down easily three times what you were ever worth.”
“Inflation. In Imperial credits it works out about the same. And don’t distract me—Jacen goes back to the Falcon.”
“Oh, no. You aren’t my captain on the ground, Dad.”
“Where did you pick up that nonsense?” Han growled.
“You wanted me to help with this business—I’m helping. If Shada will have me, I’m going with her.”
“A lady never minds the escort of a handsome gentleman. Especially one with Jedi powers.”
Han threw up his hands. “Fine. I give up. But you can make that two handsome escorts, because I’m not letting my son out of my sight. I know this slagheap too well.”
Karrde’s eyes narrowed, suddenly, and he drew his blaster. “This is, for the moment, an academic conversation, my friends.”
“Why?” Jacen asked.
His answer came as blasterfire.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Nom Anor, alone in his sleeping chamber, prodded the gablith masquer that gave him the appearance of a Givin, and it peeled off. A little more reluctantly, he coaxed the communication gnullith-villip hybrid from his throat. The sleeping quarters were always pressurized, no matter what, so he ought to be safe. Even Givin could not stand exposure to hard vacuum indefinitely.
Posing as a Givin had more unique challenges than any role he had assumed before, their language not the least. When speaking to one another, they expressed themselves in phrases that more resembled calculus than grammar, though of course the two had much in common. Even with the tizowyrm to translate for him, Nom Anor still often tripped on the language. For that reason alone, many of the Givin knew who and what he really was—it was only with the help of his local agents that he managed to remain disguised to the rest.
This he disliked. Long experience had taught him that Nom Anor could count only on Nom Anor. And if he were discovered by the wrong people …
He put the gnullith-villip back on. Why take chances?
Noting the time on the ridiculously complex Givin chronometer, he withdrew the box that housed his villip and prepared to stroke it to life. He found it already pulsing for attention, and in a few moments he regarded a facsimile of Commander Qurang Lah’s face.
“The Stalking Moon is in this system?” Nom Anor asked the warrior.
Qurang Lah’s features twisted into a glare.
“Your perfect plan develops clots of blood,” he growled.
“You mean the Rodian Jedi?” Nom Anor asked. “Our agents on Eriadu have dealt with him.”
“Yes? And the infidel ship that jumped into the midst of my fleet?”
Nom Anor didn’t blink. He couldn’t. It had rapidly become clear, working with Qurang Lah, that the warrior harbored a deep resentment toward him. This was not unexpected, but it was not trivial, either. Nom Anor had no warriors loyal to him; he had to rely on Qurang Lah to place his fleet and troops when the time came. There would come a moment when Nom Anor was truly vulnerable, and at that moment, Qurang Lah might hold the key to his survival.
That, to Nom Anor’s mind, was the only flaw in his plan, whatever trouble Qurang Lah thought he foresaw.
“Your fleet is on a major shipping route,” the executor said. “The possibility of a chance meeting with an infidel ship was known to us. I’m certain you destroyed it.”
“Almost instantly. But now we have lost contact with the Stalking Moon.”
That was an unpleasant surprise. “Perhaps they’ve merely experienced disorientation after leaving hyperspace. The cloaking shadow it wears is prone to complications.”
“And perhaps your ‘allies’ were waiting for her and destroyed her as she reverted.”
“That’s not possible,” Nom Anor said. Or was it? The Givin were stranger even than the humans, much harder to read. Had he miscalculated so badly?
No. This was a minor setback, nothing more. The plan was good.
“We have some hours, yet,” Nom Anor assured the warleader. “I shall discover what troubles, if any, the Stalking Moon is having and report promptly back to you.”
“See you do,” Qurang Lah snapped.
Non Anor’s expression soured as the villip calmed. If something had happened to the advance ship, could he still convince his Givin allies to perform their act of sabotage?
Of course he could.
But he smelled Jedi in this somewhere, beyond the lone Rodian who had identified Nom Anor as Yuuzhan Vong when visiting Yag’Dhul Station. It had been easy enough to have him tracked and murdered, and his Peace Brigade contacts on Eriadu assured him that the
Rodian had never had a chance to communicate to anyone else.
But then the Peace Brigade had been known to lie before, when they thought it made for better groveling, and the Jedi had the power to send thought without words.
Nom Anor sat and composed his ideas carefully. If there were Jedi here, what would they do?
He had to be ready for them when they came. He would be. And perhaps, added to the conquest of Yag’Dhul, Givin slaves, and the threat to the source of bacta in the nearby Thyferra system, he would have another jewel or two to hand Tsavong Lah.
TWENTY-NINE
Luke gripped Mara’s hand and tried to keep his tears at bay, tried to make his mind still, free of pain, fear, and grief.
“Cut it out, Luke,” Mara said. “You’re giving me the creeps.” Her voice was a dry croak, barely louder than the stridulations of larval tlikist.
Luke took a shuddering breath and tried to smile. “Sorry,” he said. “Not one of my better days.”
“It’s got to be better than mine,” Mara said.
Her hand in his felt papery and hot. He gripped it harder, feeling the disease beneath. It was in furious motion, mutating at rates that medical science had once considered impossible. The only still point in her body was that place where their child floated. Somehow, even now, when her skin had gone blotchy and her hair was falling out, when the chain reaction that was fast approaching meltdown raged in her flesh, she still kept their child safe.
“Maybe—maybe it’s time to let Cilghal induce labor,” he said.
“No.” Mara’s voice cracked on the word, but it was the loudest noise she had made in days. Her eyelids dropped over her pale orbs. “I told you,” she whispered. “I can feel it’s wrong. If I do that, we’ll both die.”
“How can you know that?”
“How can you ask? I know. The Force.”
“But this is killing you, Mara,” he said. The words sounded as if someone else were saying them, like an unknown language.
“No. Really? I would never … have … guessed.”
He felt her fluttering toward unconsciousness again.
“Mara?”
“Still … here.”
Luke glanced at the sleeping form of Cilghal on a nearby cot. The healer worked night and day, using the Force to slow the progress of the disease. The results were hardly noticeable. Only Mara had ever been able to control it, but her terrific will was too focused now.
“Mara,” he said softly. “Mara, you have to let me in.”
“I can manage, Luke.”
“Mara, my love … no games this time. You want to do this your way, and I respect that. Now you have to respect me. That’s my child, too—and you, you’re the best part of my world. Let me help.”
“Selfish,” Mara said.
“Yes, maybe,” Luke admitted.
“Meant me,” Mara corrected. “Help our child.”
Luke reached into her, then, into the maelstrom. He felt how truly feeble her life was. Her pain racked his body; her dark fevers gnawed at the fringes of his brain. It was overwhelming, and the most profound sensation of hopelessness he had ever felt shuddered through him.
No. I’m not here to take her pain. I’m here to add my strength. He knew it, but it felt beyond his control. There was too much, coming too fast. He pushed at it, forcing it away, trying to flow a river of vigor into her, but she wasn’t there to receive it, to use it as only her body knew how. He was at the mercy of her disease as much as she was.
He heard a noise and realized he had cried out.
Calm. I am calm. I bring calm with me, and tranquility. I am tranquility.
But the sickness laughed at him. Starbursts of images and sensation exploded everywhere. He saw Palpatine’s leering face, saw his own, younger features through a veneer of hatred. He was a child on the street, cold and lonely.
All negative feelings, all fears and hates and greeds. Only the worst of Mara was here, where the disease had its way.
He fought the despair, but it pooled in his feet and slowly, slowly filled him up, sap climbing inside a tree.
He knew in that moment he could never save her. Mara was lost to him, forever.
THIRTY
“Oh, Sithspawn,” Corran swore.
“The Givin are in league with the Yuuzhan Vong?” Anakin said doubtfully. “The Givin build ships. The Yuuzhan Vong hate technology.”
“Yeah, but their real estate isn’t all that promising,” Corran said. “Maybe they figure that if they cooperate, the Yuuzhan Vong won’t bother ’em much.”
“I don’t understand,” Tahiri said.
“Yag’Dhul has three moons,” Corran explained. “The tidal forces are so strong that at times and places the atmosphere itself gets rolled back, exposing the surface to space. The Givin actually evolved to survive in vacuum for short periods of time. What would the Yuuzhan Vong want with a planet like that? The location, yes, because it’s strategic for purposes of their conquest. But they probably wouldn’t settle the planet.”
“I think they’re waiting for a reply,” Anakin noticed, gesturing at the tiny image of the Givin.
“Tahiri, tell them in Yuuzhan Vong we’re having some minor difficulties, and we’ll be back in touch in a moment.”
“Sure.” She said something into the comm unit. Then she looked back up. “They want to know why we aren’t using the villip. They have theirs with them.”
“Brother. This gets worse and worse.” Corran stared at the row of villips. One was pulsing slightly. Was that it?
“Tell them it’s none of their business,” he said. “Make it sound like we’re mad about something. No—wait. Tell them—tell them the sound of them speaking the Yuuzhan Vong language so poorly is insulting to us. Tell them we’ll speak the infidel language, Basic, and that the commander is about to speak to them.”
Tahiri did so, after which Corran took up the comm unit. Keeping the visual off, he tried to remember the cadence of Shedao Shai’s accented Basic, back when he had dueled with the man.
Here goes nothing. He started to open his mouth, then quickly changed his mind. “Tahiri, Anakin—give me a name. A credible name.”
“Hul,” Anakin said. “It’s a warrior’s name.”
Corran nodded, flicked the comm back on. “This is Commander Hul Lah,” he snarled. “Is everything prepared?”
“All is in readiness, Commander,” the Givin answered. “The defense grid will fail in 15.08357462 standard hours. You may bring your fleet from hyperspace then.”
Corran blinked. Something about that …
“There is no suspicion, then?” he asked.
“None. The Body Calculus is completely unaware of our vector with you. The failure of the defense grid and longrange communications will seem accidental. Only when you take possession of our system will the truth be known. We have hidden our factors carefully.”
“Commendable. We will verify this, of course, but you may rest assured that if you are telling the truth, the glorious Yuuzhan Vong will honor our agreement with you.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
“Hul Lah, out.”
Corran pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Those guys aren’t the government,” he said. “Or at least, not all of it. It’s just some faction.”
“Let’s contact the real government, then,” Anakin suggested. “Let ’em know what’s going on before their defense grid fails.”
“That’s a problem,” Corran said. “We don’t know anything about who we just dealt with. It might be the local chapter of the Peace Brigade, or it might be a faction in the Body Calculus. Either way, the odds of contacting the wrong people are way too high.”
“Maybe we should just get out of here and alert the New Republic military, then,” Anakin suggested.
“It’s an idea, but it will lose us Yag’Dhul. There’s no way to get a fleet here in fifteen hours. If the Givin had their own fleet scrambled, there might be a chance of holding the Yuuzhan Vong off long enough for a N
ew Republic force to arrive, assuming the Senatorial Oversight Committee releases them to do so. No, we’ve got to get the attention of the right people, before the defense grid goes down.”
“Umm,” Anakin mused.
“What? Out with it.”
“Well, I have an idea, but you aren’t going to like it.”
“I’ll take anything I can get right now. Talk.”
“We attack Yag’Dhul before the grid goes down. Whoever comes out to stop us, that’s who we want to talk to.”
“I don’t like it,” Corran said.
“I didn’t think you would.”
“I don’t like it, but it will work. Anakin, calculate a jump that will put us as close as safely possible to Yag’Dhul—or better, the space station. Tahiri, can you figure out how to lay it in?”
“Sure. All I have to do is see it in my mind.”
“Let’s get cracking, then. I want to do this before common sense sets in.”
They reverted two hundred kilometers from the orbit of Yag’Dhul’s farthest moon, a short distance from the military station that Booster Terrik had once commanded. Corran had fond memories of the place, because it reminded him of his early days with Mirax. It felt strange to be attacking it.
The station, which had been Rogue Squadron’s base during the Bacta War, was now part of an expanding Givin military-industrial complex. Unhappy with having their system being used as a battleground by foreign forces, they had demanded and been ceded the station a few years after the truce with the Imperial Remnant. It now protected their shipyard.
“I’ll bet they’ll notice us,” Anakin remarked, watching through a transparency that Tahiri had opened up to give them a view of surrounding space. “Hyperwave dampeners or not, rocks this size don’t just appear out of nowhere.”
“Unless the grid is already down,” Corran replied.
“Oh, I don’t think it is,” Tahiri said. “Or at least, that would be a big coincidence. Twenty somethings are on their way.”
“Twenty what?” Corran asked. “Starfighters, corvettes, capital ships?”