by James Luceno
Silence prevailed until Commodore Brand, former commander of the Fifth Fleet cruiser Indomitable and the most curmudgeonly of the cardinal commanders, drummed his thick fingers loudly on the console.
"All the while I've been sitting here listening to these reports I've been asking myself one question What is it they ultimately want from us? Is this war about territory, resources, religion, some injustice committed by one of us so far in the past we don't even have a record of it? Do the Yuuzhan Vong consider us vermin like the Yeverhan Duskhan League did, or do they want our life energies as the Ssi-ruuk did?"
Anyone who might have been formulating a reply was interrupted by the communications technician. "Sirs," he said, addressing Sovv and his peers, "I have Director Scaur with an urgent message he says should be heard by all of you."
Sovv muttered a curse. "All right. Activate isolation and patch him through."
A half-size hologram of the director of New Republic Intelligence resolved within the sonic containment field that sequestered the commanders.
"Admiral, I just received word of an incident that occurred in the Meridian sector early yesterday, standard time," the cadaverous Scaur began. "The good news is that the light cruiser Soothfast engaged and destroyed an enemy vessel near Exodo II. The better news is that two Yuuzhan Vong who jettisoned in an escape pod were captured alive. But the intriguing news is that the captives have requested political asylum."
His round black eyes even glassier than normal, Sovv reclined in his seat and glanced in astonishment at A'baht and Brand. "Well, gentlemen, it seems we may be about to learn what the Yuuzhan Vong want after all."
NINE "I always knew you had a soft spot for the high life," Roa remarked as he and Han climbed from the repulsor cab that had delivered them to the skyway balcony of the Solo residence, in one of the administrative district's most exclusive neighborhoods.
"Don't kid yourself," Han said. "It's smaller inside than it looks."
Roa went to the balcony railing and glanced down, then up. Though the elegant apartment was well located, there was almost as much building above as below it. "Why, you're scarcely three hundred meters from the top. Practically the penthouse." He smiled roguishly at Han. "You should be proud of your accomplishments. I can't think of another pupil of mine who's done nearly as well."
"Thank my wife," Han muttered in embarrassment. "Her job comes with a lot of fringe benefits."
"Always nice to know what my taxes are paying for."
The door recognized Han and opened. Arms not quite akimbo on his webbed midriff and head tilted to one side, C-3PO was standing in the tile-floored atrium.
"Why, it's Master Solo - and a guest. Welcome home, sir." To Roa, he added, "I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations."
Taking in the domed entryway, Roa whistled softly. "How long before I hear the echo?"
"Cut it out, will you," Han said out of the corner of his mouth. "Besides, we used to have a smaller place in the Orowood Tower, but once the kids started spreading out ..."
Roa stopped him. "You need never rationalize luxury for my sake. I wouldn't live on Coruscant for all the credits in the New Republic Bank, but if you've got to be here, the high life is the way to go."
Han frowned and turned to C-3PO. "Where's Leia?"
"In the master suite, sir. I was just engaged in helping her pack when she sent me downstairs to fetch this." C-3PO held out a shimmersilk scarf Han had purchased for her on their most recent trip to Bimmisaari.
"Pack? Where's she going?"
"Actually, sir, I have yet to. be informed of the destination."
"Must make it difficult to select a wardrobe," Roa commented.
C-3PO turned to him. Had he the necessary parts, his brightly illuminated photoreceptors might have blinked. "Sir?"
Roa merely smiled.
Han glanced at Roa. "You'd better wait down here while I handle this."
Roa nodded. "I agree wholeheartedly."
"Master Solo, sir, it seems that I am to accompany Mistress Leia."
"What of it?" Han asked as he headed for the winding staircase.
"Well, sir, knowing as you do my attitude toward space travel, I thought you might be able to put in a word for me."
Han laughed shortly. "I really feel for you, Threepio."
C-3PO tilted his head in a gesture of pleasant surprise, Han's sarcasm entirely, lost on him. "Why, thank you, sir. Compassion may not rescue me from my responsibilities, but it is refreshing to note that at least one person cares enough to say so. It has long been my contention that you are the most human of humans. In fact, only last week I was saying ..."
The droid's extemporaneous chatter pursued Han all the way to the master suite, where he found Leia laying out items of clothing on the bed. Barefoot, she wore a delft shimmersilk robe. Her hair was clipped behind her head, but loose strands dangled at her cheeks.
"Seems like every time I come up here lately, you're getting ready to leave. Maybe you should just keep a bag packed."
She froze on seeing him. "Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you all morning."
Han rubbed his nose. "Memory Lane. Anyway, I had my comlink switched off." He gestured to the open suitcase. "Threepio tells me you two are going somewhere."
Leia sat down on the edge of the large bed and curled a strand of hair behind her ear. "Ord Mantell, of all places. The refugee problem has become overwhelming, Han. Food shortages, disease, families separated ... On top of everything else, there's widespread suspicion of the New Republic's motives in helping out. The advisory council asked me to meet with the heads of state of several Mid and Inner Rim worlds to discuss possible solutions."
"Suspicion about what?"
"A lot of people feel that the New Republic will be ill a position to annex hundreds of worlds and systems once we've dealt with the Yuuzhan Vong."
"Not if things keep going like they're going."
"I know," Leia said in a troubled voice.
Han cut his eyes to the suitcase once more. "Don't you ever get tired of mercy missions?"
"Mercy begins at home," C-3PO interrupted, then amended, "No, wait. I do believe the phrase is 'altruism begins at home.' Why, I must have picked up a flutter. The anxiety of packing for a space voyage -"
"Threepio!" Han said, thrusting a cautionary index finger at him.
Human body language being among the millions of others with which he was conversant, C-3PO immediately silenced himself.
Leia looked from the droid to Han. "'Mercy missions' are what I do. I'm trying to help any way I can."
Han nodded nonchalantly. "Actually, the timing couldn't be better, because I'll be away for a while myself."
Leia stared at him. "Away where?"
"I'm not sure."
Leia raised her eyebrows. "You're not sure?"
"It's a fact," Han said, glancing down into the foyer, where Roa was appraising a crystal statue Leia had picked up on Vortex.
Leia followed his gaze. "Who's that?"
"An old friend."
"Does he have a name?"
"Roa."
"Well, that's a start," Leia said facetiously. "I don't know where you're going, but at least I know who you'll be with - just in case I need to reach you." She paused. "Are you taking the Falcon ?"
Han shook his head. "Feel free to take her out for a spin whenever you want."
Leia studied him. "Han, what's all this about?"
"We're just going to check up on a mutual friend."
"And you have to leave immediately?"
Han shot her a look. "Now or never, Leia. It's that simple." He grabbed a travel pack from the closet and began to stuff clothes into it.
Leia watched him for a long moment. "Can you at least stay until Anakin gets home? You've been avoiding him all week."
Han kept his back to her. "You can tell him good-bye for me."
Leia moved deliberately into his view. "You two have more to say to each other than good-bye. He's confus
ed, Han. You tell him he shouldn't feel responsible for what happened on Sernpidal, but your silence and anger send the opposite message. You have to help him through this."
Han looked at her. "What's he need me for? He's got the Force." His eyes narrowed. "What was it Luke said to me? Something like, because the kids are Jedi, I won't be able to keep up with them much longer. Well, that's exactly what's happened. They've grown beyond me."
"Luke didn't mean that the way you're taking it." Leia approached him. "Han, listen to me. Anakin's need to avenge Chewie has as much to do with pleasing you as absolving himself. He needs your understanding and your support. He needs your love, Han. Even the Force can't grant him that."
Han blew out his breath. "If you're trying to make me feel guilty, award yourself a medal."
"I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I'm only trying to -" She stopped herself and let her shoulders sink. "Forget it, Han. You know what? Maybe it'll be good for you to get away for a while."
Without comment, Han went to the wall unit and began to rummage through one of the drawers. In a moment he had hold of his thirty-year-old BlasTech DL-44. He ran his thumb over the nub of the front sight blade, then he slipped the weapon into its holster, purposely cut to expose the blaster's trigger guard.
Leia watched him place the handgun in his pack. "Promise me that's for a quick-draw contest," she said worriedly.
At first glance the attache case dangling from the hand of the fair-complected human in the inexpensive trousers looked to be an ordinary valise, something the snatch-and-run thieves who worked the Bagsho terminal on Nim Drovis wouldn't have been interested in. The firmness of the man's grip might have persuaded some that the case was more valuable than it seemed, but the man himself was enough to give even the most desperate thief pause. His walk was entirely too confident and his loose-fitting jacket didn't fully disguise the width of his shoulders. More important, he was trying a bit too hard to appear nondescript.
He cleared immigration without incident and followed a routing line for the pubtrans flitter that would take him to the Sector Medical Facility.
Nim Drovis had changed since the days Ism Oolos had run the facility. In amends for what the Death Seed plague had wrought during Seti Ashgad's reign on nearby Nam Chorios, the New Republic had financed a weather station to regulate the teeming rain that had been a quotidian event, and the Jedi Knights had negotiated an accord between the Drovians and the Gopsoto tribes. The opportunistic molds and fungi that had reproduced so exuberantly had been brought under control, and even the canals of Old Town weren't the fetid swamps they once were. Slug ranching had become big business.
Arriving at the renovated medical center, the man with the attache case took secret delight in the number of armed Drovian guards roaming the grounds, blaster rifles cradled in tentacles or clenched in pincers. Submitting to a routine scan at the entrance, he was admitted to a spacious reception area staffed by Drovians and humans, some of whom may well have been descendants of Nim Drovis's original Alderaanian colonists.
The man proceeded to the Drovian female receptionist at the front desk. "I have an appointment with Dr. Saychel."
"Your name?" she asked, around the quid of zwil lodged in her cheek.
"Cof Yoly."
She motioned him to a seat. Moments later, she motioned him back to the desk, where a human voice addressed him through an intercom.
"This is Dr. Saychel. You asked for me?"
"Yes. I believe I contracted a case of trichinitis on Ampliquen."
"Why didn't you have it treated there?"
"The med center refused to honor my insurance." Saychel fell silent for a moment. "Take the door to the left of the desk and follow the routing lines to the lab."
The routing lines took him past examination rooms and primitive operating theaters, in and out of wooden buildings, and finally through a maze of dimly lighted corridors that ended at the isolation ward, where victims of the Death Seed plague had been quarantined twelve years earlier. Saychel, the station chief of Nim Drovis, was wearing a partially sealed anticontamination suit and macrolens goggles.
"Welcome to Bagsho, Major Showolter," Saychel said warmly. "I didn't figure someone of your stature would come all this way."
"Actually, I won the coin toss," Showolter said. "I guess I can understand everyone's interest." Showolter and Saychel knew each other from Coruscant, where they had worked together in an Intelligence safe house in the bowels of the governmental district, and had occasionally hobnobbed with the likes of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Lando Calrissian. Saychel's thick blond hair had since become a yellow-white helmet, and his cheeks were reddened by patches of burst capillaries.
"I'm certain it's you," Saychel said, "but I'd prefer to double-check."
Showolter nodded and spread his arms for the scanner Saychel produced from one of the biohazard suit's pouch pockets. "That's what we pay you for, Professor."
The scanner quickly located the implant Showolter wore in his right biceps and verified his identity.
"So where are our two prizes?" Showolter asked.
Saychel led him through a retinal-print-secured door to a large, one-way transparisteel window in the rear wall of the lab. Dressed in hospital robes, the two alleged defectors were seated on separate cots in the room behind the window, quietly conversing in what Showolter assumed was their own language. The room also contained a table, chairs, and a portable refresher unit.
Falling on the Yuuzhan Vong female, Showolter's brown eyes widened with interest. "I didn't think the enemy was capable of producing anything so attractive."
"Yes," Saychel agreed, peering through the transparisteel, "she is a handsome specimen."
"And the other is, what - pet or partner?"
"A little of both, I think. They're inseparable, in any case. And the 'pet', for lack of a better word, seems every bit as intelligent as her mistress."
"Her?"
"Indisputably. Perhaps of a species indigenous to the Yuuzhan Vong's home galaxy or vat grown - genetically engineered."
"Any problems with the transfer?"
Saychel shook his head. "Don't ask me where they got it, but the team from the Soothfast brought them down the well in an energy cage. We moved them in here after we completed our initial scans and tests."
"I read the reports. Any surprises?"
"None to speak of."
"What about with the escape pod?"
"Similar to the Yuuzhan Vong fighters, though lacking weaponry. Composed of a type of black coral and propelled by a dovin basal - which unfortunately was dead on arrival." Saychel indicated a nearby counter-top, where a meter-wide, blue-spiked, heart-shaped mass floated in a large flask of preservative.
"More interesting than your standard repulsor engine."
"Quite," Saychel said humorlessly.
Showolter switched his gaze to a second, smaller flask, which held a brownish pod, about the size of a human head and crowned by a nubby ridge. "What's that thing?"
Saychel moved to the flask. "It fits the description of a villip - an organic communicator."
"Is it alive?"
"It seems to be."
"Has it ... said anything?"
"No. But then I didn't think to pose it any questions."
Showolter frowned, unconsciously massaging his right biceps, then turned to regard the captives. "Have they been fed?"
"Routinely. In fact, the little one has quite an appetite for our foodstuffs."
"Maybe that's the way we win this war with food."
"I've heard crazier suggestions,"
"Have you been able to talk to them?"
"The Yuuzhan Vong female - her name is Elan, by the way - speaks Basic. She says she learned it as part of her training."
"As what?"
Saychel grinned. "Are you ready for this? A priestess."
Showolter's thick brows beetled. "You're kidding." He glanced at Elan. "I wonder if they're celibate."
"I didn't th
ink to ask," Saychel said. "But she sounds sincere about wanting political asylum. I ran a voice-stress analysis just for fun, and the test results back me up."
"Have they asked for anything else?"
"To meet with the Jedi. Elan claims to have information about a spore-borne illness the Yuuzhan Vong let loose before they launched their invasion."
Showolter scratched his head. "The pet likes our food; the priestess speaks Basic, knows about the Jedi, and wants sanctuary ... Next thing you'll tell me they have a bet down on the smashball finals." He sighed with purpose. "Director Scaur wants them transported to Wayland for a preliminary debriefing. Discreetly, of course. Our Noghri agents there have already been apprised."
"You'll be handling the relocation?"
Showolter nodded.
"It's obviously a trap," Saychel said. "These two, I mean."
"Of course it is. But this could be our only chance to interrogate one of them, and we're in no position to pass that up. Even if we do have to arrange a meeting with the Jedi."
"Welcome aboard," Roa said as he and Han reached the top of the SoroSuub 3000's carpeted passenger ramp.
A quick look around, and it was Han's turn to whistle. Even stock models of the sleek, arrowhead-shaped craft were considered luxury yachts, but the Happy Dagger raised the ante. From walkways to bulkheads, what wasn't furniture-grade wood was made to appear so, and in every nook and niche stood a valuable work of art or costly hologram. A nearby acceleration couch was upholstered in crosh-hide and shimmersilk.
"Is this Fijisi?" Han asked in disbelief, squatting to run his fingers over a section of parquet.
"Actually it's uwa," Roa said. "Got it out of a salvaged Alderaanian pleasure craft. Pirates had stripped the thing of practically everything else."
Han roamed about, inspecting details and shaking his head. "You know who used to fly one of these? Lando Calrissian. But even his didn't measure up to this."