by James Luceno
“I’d rather be up here than up there,” Garth noted.
“But a threat up here are you,” Yomin Carr said.
“What?” Garth asked, turning about, his expression curious.
Yomin Carr stole that look, and stole the man’s breath, by stiffening two fingers and stabbing them hard into Garth’s windpipe. The man gasped and grabbed at his throat with one hand, and Yomin Carr, with those same two fingers, struck him a blow on the wrist that broke his grasp on the tower.
Garth flailed wildly, trying to catch a hold, but Yomin Carr’s hands were always in the way, deflecting him, keeping him at bay. And then, out of nowhere it seemed, the Yuuzhan Vong warrior produced a small, shining blade and thrust it menacingly at Garth’s face. That was only to pull the man’s arms in, though, for Yomin Carr fast reversed his attack, slashing the sharp blade upward, catching the taut rope right where it looped over one of the tower cross poles.
Garth’s arms worked in wild circles as he tried desperately to hold his balance. “Why?” he gasped.
Yomin Carr could have finished the task with a simple push, but he held back, thoroughly enjoying the look of the sheerest horror on the man’s face, the frantic and futile efforts.
And then the scream as Garth Breise tumbled over backward, plummeting down the side of the tower, striking one cross pole and launching into a somersaulting fall.
Yomin Carr was glad that Garth had redirected all the floodlights—they gave him a better view of the final descent and the bone-smashing impact. Because you gave me an excuse, the Yuuzhan Vong silently answered desperate Garth’s last question.
He had one moment of regret: when he considered that Garth might have crushed some of his pet dweebits.
Already far, far away, Danni Quee looked out her rear viewer at the receding Belkadan, and her expression fast changed from wistful to curious. “Bring us about,” she instructed Bensin Tomri, who was at the controls.
“The straighter the line to Helska, the better,” Bensin replied, obviously unsure of the craft’s condition. “I was about to make the jump to hyperspace.”
“No, you have to see this,” Danni replied.
The third member of the team, a short, dark man with hair the consistency of wool, Cho Badeleg, came up beside her. “Heck of a storm,” he remarked, seeing, as Danni had, the roiling clouds on the edge of Belkadan’s rim.
Bensin Tomri gasped when he brought the Spacecaster about; then all three stared in horror when they noted the scope of the storm, and the greenish yellow tint of it, something that reminded Danni of the sunsets she had been witnessing of late.
“Call the compound and tell them to secure everything,” she instructed.
“The tower’s not likely fixed yet,” Cho Badeleg reminded her.
Danni pulled out her portable communicator. “Bring us in close,” she instructed, and Bensin Tomri agreed, though they all experienced some second thoughts when he skipped off the edge of Belkadan’s atmosphere and the Spacecaster shook so violently that it seemed as if it would fall apart.
“Tee-ubo?” Danni called, and she winced at the amount of static on the normally clear communicator. “Can you hear me?”
“Danni?” came a broken reply, and then Tee-ubo said something. The three thought they heard mention of Garth Breise, but they couldn’t make it out.
“There’s a storm south of you,” Danni said slowly and distinctly. “A big one. Did you hear?” She repeated it several times, and Tee-ubo replied as much as she could, though only single words, sometimes only single syllables, came through the increasing static.
“Probably from the storm,” Cho Badeleg remarked, and Danni gave up and clicked off the communicator.
Danni let her questioning gaze fall over each of the other two.
“You want to go back,” Cho Badeleg reasoned.
“If we go back down there, we probably aren’t coming back up anytime soon,” Bensin Tomri put in. “Especially if that storm rolls in. We’re lucky this thing broke orbit in the first place.”
Cho Badeleg spent a long moment staring out at the spectacle of the storm. “It doesn’t seem well developed,” he noted. “No noticeable swirl, no defined eye.”
“You think they’ll be all right?” Danni asked.
“Once we get away from this static, we can relay the information with the ship’s communicator,” Bensin Tomri offered. “You’ve got to make the decision. Do we go on, or go back?”
Danni thought long and hard on that one. In the end, though, she was a devoted scientist, and certainly it seemed to her as if she and the other two were taking a greater risk than any of those they had left behind. “Tee-ubo said something about Garth,” she reasoned. “He’s probably got the tower fixed.”
“On we go, then,” Bensin Tomri said, and he turned the Spacecaster about and started again to make his calculations for the jump to lightspeed.
As they left the planet far behind, Danni went to the ship’s communicator and gave a detailed report of the storm in the west, then waited a moment to see if a reply would be forthcoming. When no call came back, she hoped that they had heard her, and that the repairs on the tower simply hadn’t been completed to the point where they could respond.
Nom Anor’s eyes twinkled with the reflections of the plumes trailing the missiles launched toward the enemy city of Osa-Prime, an extraplanetary attack he’d been planning for weeks. Tamaktis Breetha had opposed the strike, knowing it would lead to open warfare between the planets, but when several high-ranking Rhommamoolian officials had been found murdered, the former mayor had found little support for his arguments.
Nom Anor hoped that the Mediator wouldn’t detect the launch in time to get its starfighters away to intercept the missiles, but that, too, had not been left to chance. For hours and hours, the executor and Shok Tinoktin had studied the planetary courses and the positioning of the New Republic ship and had launched the missiles from a point where the initial explosive liftoff and subsequent burn would be most difficult to detect. Once they broke orbit, the missiles would all but shut down, seeming as insignificant specks, and by the time their rockets fired again, entering Osarian’s atmosphere, it would be too late for the Mediator to get at them.
To further the probability of success, Nom Anor had spent hours that morning talking to Commander Ackdool, acting conciliatory and explaining that, now that the meddlesome Leia Solo was gone, he and the commander might strike a deal to bring an end to the conflict. They had even scheduled a meeting on the Mediator between Nom Anor and his delegates and a diplomatic party from Osarian.
Commander Ackdool liked the thought of scoring such an unexpected diplomatic victory, Nom Anor knew. It was said that Ackdool had been given the ship primarily because he was a Mon Calamarian, who, with the retirement of Ackbar, were underrepresented among the fleet. Ackdool had heard the quiet murmurs of discontent concerning his appointment, of course, and that would make him all the more eager. Furthermore, the commander was so secure about the overwhelming power of his ship compared to the meager power of the people on the two planets that he would never suspect the ruse.
Of course, the fallout from this attack would be great and would likely force Nom Anor to flee Rhommamool altogether. But that was fine with him, for his mission here was nearly complete, and if those missiles hit Osa-Prime and brought the war to full conflagration, then he would happily move on. His job now was distraction, to keep the New Republic so concerned with the explosions near to the Core that they didn’t get a chance to turn their eyes outward.
The longer Prefect Da’Gara could operate in obscurity, the more entrenched Nom Anor’s people would become, and the more worldships they could get into place.
Three hours later, Nom Anor received the outraged call from Commander Ackdool. Missile plumes had been detected in Osarian’s atmosphere.
Nom Anor took full responsibility, justifying the attack in response to the assassinations of several officials—officials he had secretly ordered k
illed. Then he curtly cut Ackdool off.
He and Shok Tinoktin focused on the video screen, tuned to an Osarian broadcast channel. They heard the frantic reporter in Osa-Prime detailing the confusion and panic and then, after a pause, solemnly reporting the sight of the missile trails.
The holocam turned up in time to catch the descending lines of fire streaking through the night sky.
Other missiles and scores of starfighters went up to meet them.
But they couldn’t get them all.
Moments later, Osa-Prime was in flames.
Nom Anor thought it a particularly glorious day.
“You fought with Anakin again,” Luke remarked to Jacen when he found his older apprentice sitting on the wall surrounding the Millennium Falcon’s current dock, an open courtyard on the planet Reecee. Han and Chewie had flown here from Coruscant, explaining to their passengers, Jacen, Anakin, C-3PO, and Leia, only that they needed to make one stop before bouncing out to the Outer Rim. Leia had managed to elude Bolpuhr on Coruscant, leaving the Noghri behind in a den with his kin. She didn’t want his overprotectiveness—especially now, when she honestly felt that she needed a break from the layers of intrigue and bureaucracy that her standing had forced upon her. Bolpuhr, despite his good intentions—and the good intentions of the Noghri in general—toward her, could be more than a bit smothering. Getting away from Bolpuhr was a small personal victory for her, a symbol that she was breaking free of her station and responsibility, if only for a little while.
The Jade Sabre, with Mara and Luke aboard, had just put down in the bay next to the Falcon, and all of them were now awaiting the arrival of Jaina, who, to her absolute delight, was flying Luke’s personal X-wing, along with R2-D2.
“I found him practicing with his lightsaber,” Jacen replied honestly. “He wanted to see how far he’s come, and so did I.”
“I’m not talking about the sword fight,” Luke explained. “Though I don’t think that your father would be happy to hear that you two were wrestling with lightsabers in the main compartment of his ship. I’m talking about your war of words.”
That caught Jacen by surprise, and he stared at his uncle, his mentor, looking for some sign concerning Luke’s feelings on the subject.
He couldn’t read the man at all.
“An honest difference of opinion,” Jacen said, turning away. “That’s all.”
“Concerning the role of the Jedi,” Luke said.
“Concerning the role of the Force,” Jacen corrected, turning back to face him.
“Do you think you could enlighten me?” Luke asked. There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice, nothing mocking at all about the way he phrased the question.
But Jacen, too awed by his uncle’s seeming omnipotence, didn’t see it that way. He sighed and shook his head, and turned away yet again.
Luke hopped up to take a seat on the wall beside him. “You know the decision I face,” he said.
“I thought you had already made up your mind,” Jacen replied.
Luke conceded that with a nod. “Almost,” he said. “But if you’ve got something to tell me, some insight about why I shouldn’t reconvene the Jedi Council, then now is the time to speak.”
Jacen looked long and hard at his uncle and was surprised to find honest respect staring back at him. He was a sixteen-year-old kid—so often at odds with the adults around him that he wasn’t used to being valued by them. Even Luke, whom he admired so much, was in place in the role of teacher—and a teacher of often harsh lessons.
“I don’t know how to tell you,” Jacen tried to explain.
“Just speak what is in your heart,” Luke prompted.
“It’s just that …” Jacen paused and sighed again. He stared at Luke intently then, seeing the calm contentment on the man’s boyish face, the wistful smile. Above all else, Uncle Luke, with all of those harrowing experiences behind him, and despite the obvious trials ahead of him, seemed to Jacen to be in a place of spiritual comfort, a place of harmony. Here was this man, the epitome of what it was to be a Jedi Knight, and Jacen, though he recognized that truth, meant to argue that very philosophy against him. “The Force seems so pure a thing to me, a clean truth of who I am, of who we all are,” he began tentatively. “I don’t know; putting a governing bureaucracy in place for the Jedi seems kind of like putting a blue-spotted preaky bird in a cage, or even like killing one and stuffing it to keep it safe so that you can continue to enjoy it.”
Luke spent a long while mulling over those words. “I’m not sure you’re wrong,” he said. “Those are the same fears I’ve had. I think we feel pretty much the same way about the Force. But,” he said, raising a finger to quiet Jacen before the young man could enthusiastically jump in, “the Jedi are possessed of powers beyond the understanding and control of those people around them. And with those powers come responsibilities.”
“To people like Borsk Fey’lya?” Jacen asked sarcastically.
“Yes,” Luke answered simply. “To the people making the decisions that affect the lives of so many others.”
“Borsk Fey’lya’s not deserving of your time,” Jacen spat, but Luke’s reaction surprised him.
“I’m afraid of your words, and the way you speak them,” Luke said in all seriousness, eyeing his nephew with an expression that reflected his sincere concern.
Jacen didn’t understand.
“Pride,” Luke explained, shaking his head.
Jacen echoed the word aloud, and as he said it, in more of a questioning manner than a statement, he began to understand. “Pride?” By diminishing Borsk Fey’lya, he was, in effect, elevating himself above the Bothan.
“A dangerous flaw,” Luke warned. “We’ve all got it—too much of it, usually—and we’ve all got to work hard to keep it from constantly holding us back.”
“I just fear—” Jacen started to say.
“Control,” Luke finished for him. “The regimen. You don’t even like the academy any longer, according to your brother.”
“My brother’s got a big mouth,” Jacen replied.
Luke laughed, and certainly didn’t disagree.
“I don’t like the academy,” Jacen admitted.
“It gave you much of what you have today,” Luke reminded.
“Did it?” the young man questioned. “I was strong in the Force—it’s in my blood—and how much purer might it run if I had been trained as you were trained, one-on-one with Yoda?”
Luke didn’t argue the point, just looked at Jacen with admiration. It was good for a Jedi to question, he knew. Discipline was necessary, but unquestioning obedience was a limiting thing, not a growing one. And Jacen’s point about the one-on-one training had hit home to Luke; even he felt that the academy had gone too far away from that, thus leaving too many potential Jedi Knights without the necessary guidance to find their full power and, even more importantly, to resist the tempting dark side. That’s why they had gone back to the master-apprentice system, and Luke right now was one of only a few Masters with more than one student.
“I’m not even going to tell you that you’re wrong,” Luke said, putting a hand on Jacen’s shoulder. “But I will assure you that, as you grow older, you’ll come to see things a bit differently.”
“The more complete picture?” Jacen asked, a bit of sarcasm evident in his tone.
“You think I like dealing with Borsk Fey’lya?” Luke asked with a tension-breaking burst of laughter. He patted Jacen’s shoulder and started to walk away then, but as he neared the Falcon’s lowered landing ramp, Jacen’s voice stopped him.
“Uncle Luke!” And when Luke turned about, Jacen added in all seriousness, “Choose right.”
“Oh, do be careful, Lady Vader,” C-3PO said, his tone, if not his wording, mimicking that of Bolpuhr, and mimicking, too, the title many of the Noghri used for her.
Leia turned to the droid and scowled fiercely, and even more so when she heard Mara laughing behind her.
“You call me that again and I’
ll send you into an oil bath with an open flame,” she promised C-3PO quietly.
“But you informed me that I was to be your Noghri bodyguard on this journey,” C-3PO protested in all seriousness.
“Only to keep you quiet before you let Bolpuhr in on my plans to get away from him,” Leia returned, and the droid, though he really couldn’t change the metallic expression on his face, truly seemed perplexed. Leia couldn’t help but laugh at it all. Sometimes—no, all the time!—C-3PO took her words far too literally.
Across the room, the bridge of the Jade Sabre, Mara surely understood. “Feeling a bit trapped by the attention?” she asked.
Leia turned and nodded. “I don’t know,” she said with a shake of her head. “Maybe I’ve reached a point in my life where I want to think of myself as Leia. Not Princess Leia, not Councilor Leia, not Chief of State Leia, and not,” she finished, turning to stare pointedly at C-3PO, “Lady Vader. Just Leia.”
When she turned back to Mara, she found the woman nodding her agreement.
“Do you think that selfish?” Leia asked Mara.
Mara smiled all the wider. “I think it human,” she answered. “Once we’re past saving the galaxy, we have to spend some time saving ourselves.”
Coming from Mara, the woman so obviously balancing on the precipice between life and death, that statement carried even more weight.
“But you’re my age,” Leia dared to remark. “Yet you want children now. I can’t imagine doing that again.”
“Because you’ve already done it,” Mara replied. “Physical age and stages of life are two different things, I’ve come to believe.”
Leia paused a moment to consider the truth of those words, to consider her own perspective of the universe around her, how she had willingly, eagerly, run away from her expected responsibilities at the Core, even leaving her bodyguard far behind, of how she wanted, truly desired, to turn down the dial of her life’s work, to sit back for a while and enjoy all the prosperity that her actions and sacrifices had helped bring about in the galaxy. Then she contrasted her desires against those of Mara, who wanted to begin the adventure of children, who wanted to remain vibrant and in the middle of things, tutoring Jaina, living through Jaina.