by Troy Denning
An angry glint finally came to Daala’s eyes. “If you’re referring to the situation on Blaudu Sextus—”
“And elsewhere,” Jag interrupted.
“And elsewhere,” Daala allowed, “I’m merely trying to keep order.”
Jag took a napkin and placed it in his lap. “At least you’ve shown me the courtesy of not pretending that the Mandalorians were there under someone else’s orders. Thank you.”
“You’re obviously someone who knows how to keep a secret,” Daala replied. “And to be frank, I need your help.”
“To put down the slaves?” Jag’s thoughts started to race through his mind at lightspeed. Daala had to know he would never agree to such a thing, not unless she had something to offer him—or to threaten him with. “I’m sorry, but the Empire isn’t in the habit of lending its military out for those sorts of things.”
Daala allowed her face to harden with anger. “There is more happening here than a simple slave revolt. The entire galactic rim is about to erupt in violence and chaos,” she hissed. “The Alliance can’t prevent that alone.”
“Then you might consider releasing the fleet you’re holding in orbit.”
“And play into Jedi hands?” Daala’s hand came down on the table so hard that Jag’s saucer and cup jumped. “That’s what they want. That’s why they’ve begun this ridiculous freedom campaign.”
Jag’s brow shot up. “You’re saying the Jedi are behind Freedom Flight?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Daala retorted. “By igniting fires along the galactic rim, they compel me to divert my forces.”
“And they give you an opportunity to make yourself look bad,” Jag added, “by doing crazy things like sending Mandos to put down slave revolts.”
“Exactly.” Daala nodded and poured for them. “So you see why we need the Empire’s help.”
“I see why you want it,” Jag said. “But you’re overlooking something important.”
“I doubt that.” Daala returned the carafe to the table and offered the pastry plate to him. “You’re about to tell me the Jedi would never do such a thing, aren’t you?”
Jag tried to hide his surprise by reaching for a cream puff. “The thought had crossed my mind, yes.”
“Of course it had,” Daala said. “But if that’s true, why have they been working with Sith?”
“Sith?” Jag repeated. He sank back in his chair, recalling his last conversation with Jaina, when she had begged him to lend her some Imperial ships. She had hinted that Luke had uncovered something huge on his journey, something that threatened the entire galaxy—and that certainly sounded like Sith. “Okay, maybe they’ve found another Sith. But if you think they’re working with him, you’ve lost your mind.”
Daala sat back, listening patiently, then smiled and said, “Not another Sith, Head of State Fel. A whole fleet of them. Perhaps a whole civilization of them.” She withdrew a small datapad from her tunic pocket, then continued, “And I have not lost my mind. You’ve heard about the trouble on Klatooine, of course?”
Jag nodded. “The Fountain of the Hutt Ancients,” he said. “Someone damaged it, and that’s what touched off the whole slave revolt.”
“Not someone,” Daala said. “Sith. Jaina Solo sat in judgment of them—and released half.”
She slid the datapad across the table to Jag.
“Alliance Intelligence has compiled a report on the matter.” She took a cream puff and cut it in half. “Enjoy.”
Jag activated the datapad, then watched in a growing mixture of fascination and horror as a dour-faced Duros operative detailed what his team had discovered on Klatooine. The incident began when Luke and Ben Skywalker arrived with a fleet of frigates crewed by two separate species of Force-using beings. As the fleet departed, the crew of one of the frigates violated the Fountain of Hutt Ancients. A short time later, Jaina Solo and Lando Calrissian arrived and were asked to sit in judgment of the offenders. The most damning evidence was a brief vid of Jaina and Lando standing behind a Klatooinian elder as he read their verdict—a verdict that condemned the captain and crew of one Sith frigate, the Starstalker, to be executed by Klatooinians, yet left the captain and crew of a second frigate, the Winged Dagger, free to go.
The vid had barely ended before Daala asked, “So tell me, Head of State Fel: who do you think has lost their mind now?”
Jag looked up, his thoughts already leaping ahead to what Daala intended to do with the vid. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Why do you think? The galaxy is at peace … at peace.” Daala’s face grew hard, and she leaned forward in her chair. “And you are going to help me keep it that way.”
The shining crescents of Almania and its three moons were hanging bright against the dark velvet of space, a set of jewel-colored sickles gleaming with the diamond-colored light of the system’s huge A4-class sun. Two of the crescents, the planet itself and the moon Pydyr, were mottled with patches of sapphire ocean and verdant land. Another crescent, the industrial moon of Drewwa, scintillated with the lights of a thousand factories, including those of Tendrando Arms and Amala Casketry. But it was the fourth crescent, the yellow dead moon of Auremesh, that drew Ben’s attention.
The tracking signal they had been following since departing the Maw had vanished from the Emiax’s navigational display. Ben was fairly certain that his father would not have sent the deactivation signal without telling him, so the Jade Shadow must have taken a berthing inside a cave, a bunker, or some other structure with a roof thick enough to block the signal. Given that their quarry would be looking for a place to hide while she nursed her wounds and rebuilt her strength, an empty, deserted moon seemed like a good candidate.
Ben rubbed his thumb across the touchpad on the Emiax’s piloting yoke. A waypoint designator appeared on the navigation display, drifting toward Auremesh.
“No, we’ll go to Pydyr,” Luke said from the copilot’s seat, two meters across the spacious flight deck from Ben. “That’s where she’ll be hiding.”
“Pydyr?”
This came from Vestara, sitting in one of the passenger’s seats at the back of the flight deck. Even after she had helped them steal the Emiax, and fled from her father and Sarasu Taalon back in the Maw, Luke had insisted that she remain in either his presence or Ben’s at all times. Given that she was more familiar with the shuttle’s systems than the two Jedi were, it was a probably a wise precaution—even though Ben feared it would give her the impression that Jedi were just as paranoid and dangerous as the Sith.
“How do you know?” Vestara asked. “Do you Jedi have the ability to track anyone you’ve ever met?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ben glimpsed the hint of a smile coming to Luke’s face, and he knew what his father was thinking. After their first encounter on Sinkhole Station, Luke had used a Dathomiri blood trail to track Vestara halfway across the galaxy. Letting her believe that such feats were easy for Jedi would certainly give them an advantage in dealing with her. Ben glanced over as though seeking permission to answer and received a quick nod in reply. He glanced back at Vestara, whose many bruises had merely faded to pale purple even after a two-day healing trance, then raised his brow.
“You expect us to believe you can’t?” Ben scoffed. His own wound was almost completely healed, thanks to a combination of trance, steristrips, and bacta salve. “Lies like that are what makes it so hard for Dad to trust you.”
Vestara let her gaze drop, though not quickly enough to hide the surprise in her eyes. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m still Sith at heart.”
“You see?” Luke asked, looking over to catch Ben’s eye. “You can’t change her, son.”
Ben shrugged. “At least she’s admitting it.” He felt bad for having spoken to her so harshly. But she was still probing for information on the Jedi, and he was not fool enough to assume that her questions were innocent. “That’s a start.”
The cabin remained silent for a moment, then Vestara asked, “Are you two e
njoying this game?” There was just enough of a tremor in her voice to send a pang of guilt shooting through Ben. “Because if you are, we can continue all day. I was raised to be strong.”
Luke studied her for a moment, then nodded. “And smart,” he said. “I’ll give your Master that much credit. She may not have shown you much about handling a lightsaber, but she did train you to wield that beauty of yours.”
Vestara’s Force aura grew cold and raw, but her voice remained calm. “Why, thank you, Master Skywalker. It’s so good to hear that my training has been of some benefit.” The buckle on her crash harness clicked open. “And now, if you don’t mind, I need to make a trip to the refresher.”
Luke waved her toward the back of the flight deck. “Go ahead,” he said. “Ben and I need to prepare for our approach.”
The surprise that rippled through the Force was as much Ben’s as Vestara’s. His father hadn’t been insisting that they actually accompany her into the refresher when she needed to use it, but he had been adamant that one of them escort her to the compartment and wait outside.
Recovering from her own surprise, Vestara asked, “You’re tired of watching?”
Luke’s smile was bitter and tight. “We’ve got more important things to do,” he said. “But if you misbehave, Ben will get the beating.”
“Me?” Ben asked. His father would never actually beat him—but Vestara probably didn’t know that, and it would be good to see whether it mattered to her. “Why me?”
Luke shrugged. “You’re the one who keeps saying we can trust her.”
“I keep saying we should give her a chance,” Ben corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“So we’re giving her a chance,” Luke replied. “If you’ve got a problem with that, we can always flush her out an air lock.”
Ben let his breath out, then glanced back at Vestara. “Can I trust you?”
Vestara gave him a crooked smile. “This time.” She brought her knees together and began to dance on the deck. “And if you don’t, we’re all going to regret it.”
“Okay, okay,” Ben said. “But don’t make me …”
Vestara was already out the hatch and racing into the day cabin behind them.
Ben waited until her footfalls grew inaudible, then looked back to his father. “Dad, if she really had to go that bad, why wait until she knew where we were headed? I think she was playing us.”
“And you’re surprised?”
Ben nodded. “Well, yeah,” he admitted. “I can’t figure out why you let her go.”
“Because I need to send a coded message to Cilghal, and I can’t do that and fly the ship.” He reached into his tunic pocket and produced a pair of circuit boards. “And because … I also disabled the engineering hatch and the auxiliary comm station.”
Ben smiled. The precautions would prevent Vestara from sabotaging the vessel or reporting its location. “I guess that’s why you’re the Grand Master,” he said, shaking his head in admiration. “But I still can’t figure out one thing. How do you know Abeloth is going to Pydyr instead of Drewwa or Auremesh?”
“Easy.” Luke rose and stepped to the back of the flight deck, then closed the access hatch and secured it from the inside. “I know what Abeloth is looking for.”
Without offering any other explanation, he took a seat at the navigator’s station, then activated the subspace transceiver and opened a channel to the Jedi Temple. When the communications officer at the other end acknowledged the signal, Luke merely began to tap the mike in an irregular pattern that Ben quickly recognized as the Jedi flash code. Without the encrypting equipment aboard the Jade Shadow, it was the only way to communicate with the Temple securely, especially since there was every possibility that the Emiax would automatically—and secretly—be copying every outgoing transmission and sending it straight to Kesh.
And as Ben listened, he began to realize just how important it was that no one but Jedi comprehend the message. His father was not only reporting the latest events in the Maw, but also asking the Jedi to send reinforcements to Pydyr as soon as possible. He was fairly certain that Abeloth had gone into hiding there, and when he and Ben flushed her into the open, they were going to need help destroying her—a lot of help.
The hatch handle jiggled just as Luke finished the message, and Vestara called, “Hey, who locked me out?”
“Uh, sorry, Ves.” Ben glanced back at his father, who raised a finger and silently mouthed one second. “You must have tripped the security protocol when you rushed out of here. Just a minute.”
Luke nodded and remained in his seat as a series of taps and scratches began to sound from the transceiver. Ben listened with growing alarm as they heard what had been happening back on Coruscant—the use of Mandalorians to first storm and then lay siege to the Temple, Daala’s refusal to release Valin and Jysella Horn despite the evidence that all of the other psychotic Jedi had recovered from their illnesses, the vote of no confidence in Grand Master Hamner …
“Ben?” Vestara banged on the hatch. “What’s going on in there?”
“Hold on,” Ben called. “We’re, uh, busy with our approach.”
“Approach?” Vestara sounded doubtful. “Already?”
Ben did not reply. The interruption had caused him to miss a string of code, and he was still trying to figure out what the assassination attempt on Admiral Bwua’tu had to do with the trouble between Master Sebatyne and Grand Master Hamner. The message ended a moment later. Luke acknowledged it with a few quick taps, then urged the Council to send reinforcements quickly and shut down the unit.
As his father turned toward the hatch, Ben caught his eye and mouthed, What’s going on at home? Luke only shrugged and shook his head.
Vestara banged on the hatch again. “Look, if you two don’t want me hanging around—”
“Don’t be silly.” Luke released the lock and hit the control pad on the wall. “We want you right here where we can keep an eye on you.”
The hatch hissed open. On the other side of the threshold stood a sour-faced Vestara, her eyes narrowed in suspicion and her Force aura droning with irritation.
Instead of stepping aside to allow her onto the deck, Luke asked, “Something wrong with the refresher?”
“No, it’s fine.” Vestara’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
Luke’s gaze dropped along her sleeves. “Your hands usually smell like sanitizer when you return,” he said. “This time, they don’t.”
Vestara looked to the floor, attempting to feign embarrassment, but she was not quite quick enough to conceal the way her pupils widened in alarm. Wherever she had gone after leaving the flight deck, it hadn’t been to the refresher.
“I must have forgotten,” she said, spinning on her heel. “Thanks.”
“Not at all,” Luke said, starting after her. “I’ll come along to make sure you remember this time. Ben can handle the approach until we return.”
“Sure, no problem,” Ben called back.
He didn’t know whether to be amused, angered, or saddened by the situation. His father clearly had Vestara figured, which meant she was less likely to cause them problems. But what his father had figured out—that Vestara was still deceiving them—felt like a betrayal not only of Ben’s trust, but of Ben himself. He was doing everything he could to show her that life didn’t need to be so difficult—so filled with treachery and abuse. But Vestara seemed to be doing everything she could to make it clear that she just didn’t care.
And maybe that was to be expected. Ben was trying to convince her to turn her back on not only her parents, but her entire culture, and even the world she grew up on. He could imagine how he would react were someone to try to convince him to turn his back on the Jedi.
Of course, Jedi didn’t use beatings to discipline their students.
The shining crescents of Almania and its moons had grown so large in the forward viewport that they filled its entire expanse and were beginning to drift apart. Ben checked his navigation disp
lay and was not surprised to see approach-control channel designations for Almania and Drewwa flashing over their respective positions. But there was nothing for Pydyr. It was a fairly primitive world, still recovering from the destruction wreaked a few decades before by a Dark Jedi named Kueller, but it did have a spaceport. And that meant it should have had an approach-control system.
Had Ben been flying a StealthX instead of a VIP luxury shuttle, he might have attempted a covert landing. But instead of gravitic modulators and thermal dissipators, VIP luxury shuttles came outfitted with red nerf-leather seats and flight-deck beverage dispensers, and that meant that even if Pydyr didn’t notice the Emiax’s approach, Almania and Drewwa would. There was nothing for him to do but a standard approach, so Ben set a course for the daylight side of the moon and activated the shuttle’s comm unit.
“Pydyr Control,” he commed, “this is the transport shuttle Emiax requesting an approach vector. Repeat: transport shuttle Emiax requesting approach vector.”
Ben fell silent and awaited a reply, watching the moon swell from a crescent to a sea-mottled half sphere as the Emiax continued to draw closer. Half a dozen large landmasses were visible through a thin layer of clouds. Ben brought up a data file on the moon and discovered that the only significant population concentration was in the city of Corocus, located near the equator on the largest continent. He adjusted his course, swinging around the day side of the moon until he saw a geographic configuration that matched the image on his display—a horn of land pointing toward a large island.
“Pydyr Control,” he commed again, “this is the transport shuttle Emiax on approach to Corocus. Please advise entry procedures.”
After a moment, a raspy voice replied over the cockpit speaker. “Negative, Emiax.” Even by the standards of an avian species, the Pydyrian’s voice sounded thin and reedy. “Discontinue approach … divert to Almania. Pydyr is under … quarantine.”
“Quarantine?” Ben pushed back into the pilot’s seat, contemplating the instructions without obeying them. The Pydyrian certainly sounded sick, but that was easy enough to fake over a comm unit. Still, Ben found himself inclined to accept what he was hearing. Something just felt right about the stress in the Pydyrian’s voice, and about the way he had paused to catch his breath. “Why?”