by Troy Denning
“Yep.” Han flashed a cocky grin. “And I charted everything in sensor range on the way out.” The grin grew larger and cockier. “There might be another dozen stars inside the nebula.”
“A dozen?” Leia gasped. Then, not wanting Han to see just how well he really did know her, she assumed a more subdued tone. “So there might be another five or six habitable planets, plus a few moons, if we’re lucky.”
“Five or six? There’ll be a dozen—even two!” The indignation in Han’s voice faded quickly to concern. “But will anyone want to colonize there? It’s still outside the Galactic Alliance, and it’s not easy to reach.”
“The Ithorians will go right away,” Leia said. “The world we came down on is perfect for them. And—given how they feel about violence—it’s about the only chance they have of getting around the Reclamation Act.”
“As long as the rehab conglomerates don’t steal it out from under us again.”
“The Reclamation Act doesn’t apply outside the Galactic Alliance,” Leia said. “Besides, who’s going to tell them?”
Han nodded quietly at the navigator’s station, where Juun was mumbling to himself and shaking his head in frustration. Finally, he banged the side of his fist into his temple and whined something in Sullustan that Leia did not quite catch.
“We’ll just have to keep him close,” she whispered. “At least until we’ve relocated the Ithorians.”
Han let his chin drop. “You really know how to spoil the moment.” He stepped on the flight deck and, peering at the display over Juun’s shoulder, asked, “So, what have—”
Juun jumped out of his seat, the top of his head avoiding Han’s chin only by virtue of his short stature, then spun to face them.
“What are you doing, sneaking up like that?”
Han raised his hands. “Easy. I wasn’t trying to give you a power surge.”
“Actually, Jae, we’ve been standing here talking for a couple of minutes.” Leia leaned down to look at the display. “It appears you’ve been hard at work.”
Juun relaxed somewhat. “I’ve been running a full gravitational analysis, per emergency troubleshooting procedure.”
“Come up with anything besides a headache?” Han asked.
“Nothing that makes sense.” Juun returned to his seat and began to call up columns of stellar deflection observations. “Light is definitely being distorted at a steadily increasing rate, which means that either there’s a very large, completely invisible rogue body dead ahead—”
“Or something big is about to come out of hyperspace,” Leia finished. “Did you do a rate-of-change analysis?”
“Of course.” Juun typed a command and brought up a graph plotting angle of deflection against time. “According to this, space-time should be separating just about—”
Leia’s hair stood on end, then an iridescent flash lit the interior of the cockpit, and tiny snakes of static electric began to drag-race down her neural pathways. The proximity alarm blared to life. She hurled herself toward the copilot’s seat, but lost her footing and hung in midair for a moment, her eyes aching with the brilliance of the silvery flash ahead, her stomach swirling inside her like water down a drain.
Then Leia stumbled into the copilot’s chair and found herself staring out the viewport at an immense, cylinder-studded crevice of durasteel whiteness. Her stomach rose toward her throat as Han put the Falcon into an emergency climb, and her ribs began to throb from an impact she did not remember receiving.
“What is it?” Han yelled.
Leia activated her tactical display and found the top half rapidly filling with transponder codes. It took her a moment to find the Falcon’s own code, surrounded as it was by others of a similar color.
“I . . . I think it’s a battle fleet,” Leia reported.
“Whose?”
A jagged line of familiar white ellipsoids appeared along the bottom edge of the viewport. Interspersed among them were about twice as many thin white arrows.
“Hapan.” Leia did not bother to confirm her conclusion with a code search. She had seen the distinctive ships too many times— at Dathomir, Corellia, and even Coruscant—to need corroboration. “Those are Novas and Battle Dragons.”
“Yeah,” Han agreed. “What are they doing out here?”
“Going to Lizil,” Juun said. “What else?”
The comm channel crackled to life, and a voice with a thick Hapan accent said, “This is Hapes Battle Dragon Kendall hailing Galactic Alliance transport Longshot. Heave to and prepare for temporary impoundment.”
“Impoundment!” Han maintained his course. “Better let them know who we really are.”
Leia was already reaching for the transponder controls.
“Longshot, this is your last warning—”
“Battle Dragon Kendall.” Leia activated the Falcon’s true transponder code. “This is Leia Organa Solo aboard the Millennium Falcon.”
The Hapan voice grew more uncertain. “Millennium Falcon?”
“Yes,” Leia said. “Sorry for the confusion, but we usually travel incognito. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” the voice said.
“Good. If you’ll assign us a safe vector, we’ll move through and let you be on your way.”
“I’m sorry, Princess. We have orders—”
“Then I suggest you let me speak to whoever issued them,” Leia said. “Queen Mother Tenel Ka has been a frequent guest at my dinner table. I’m sure she would be unhappy to learn we were detained as a matter of . . . procedure.”
A new voice came over the comm channel. “Princess Leia Organa Solo?” he asked. “The mother of Jedi Jacen Solo?”
“That’s correct.” Disturbed by the way the man had emphasized Jacen’s last name, Leia reached out in the Force and was relieved to feel no sense that her son was anywhere in the fleet. “To whom do I have the honor of speaking?”
“Forgive me,” the man replied. “I am Dukat Aleson Gray, ninth cousin to the Queen Mother and Duch’da to Lady Al-Gray of the Relephon Moons.”
“Thank you,” Leia said. “I’ll remember you to the Queen Mother the next time we meet.”
“You’re very kind.” Gray’s tone was polite but doubtful. “I’m certain we can trust you to hold our encounter here in the strictest confidence.”
“Of course,” Leia replied. “We wouldn’t want to jeopardize the Colony’s reinforcements.”
The comm fell silent.
“Blast, you didn’t have to say that,”Han groaned. “We know where they’re going.”
“But not why”Leia said. “If a war is breaking out, we need to know.”
“Why?” Han asked. “We won’t be able to tell anyone if we’re stuck in the belly of a Battle Dragon.”
Gray’s voice came over the comm again. “Actually, our mission is closer to peacekeeping than reinforcing.”
Leia shot Han a smug grin, then said, “Yes, that’s what I was given to understand. Do you need navigation data to the Colony gateway?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Gray responded. “We have a course to the Lizil nest, and your son assured us that someone would be waiting—”
“Our son?” Leia interrupted.
“Yes.” Gray sounded confused. “The Queen Mother’s new consort. He was the one who, uh, convinced her to intervene.”
A loud smack sounded from the pilot’s seat. Leia glanced over to find Han holding his palm to his brow.
“You think you know him,” Han said, shaking his head. “And then he tries to start a war.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
THE DOOR SLID ASIDE, revealing the clean-lined interior of the Skywalkers’ uncluttered Ossan cottage. Mara had grown so accustomed to the vague uneasiness she had been feeling in the Force that the sensation barely registered as she crossed the foyer. But this time she paid special attention, closing her eyes and letting her feet carry her toward where it seemed strongest.
“Mom!”
Mara opened he
r eyes and found Ben standing before her, on the other side of low table that was the living room’s only furniture. The sliding wall panels that partitioned the house into rooms were all closed, so it was difficult to tell where he had come from. He pointed at her feet.
“Your shoes!”
Mara glanced down and saw she had neglected to leave her dusty boots in the foyer, as was the custom on Ossus.
“Never mind my shoes.” She started around the table toward Ben. “Did you bring a pet back from Jwlio?”
Ben’s eyes grew round. “A pet?”
“A Killik,” Mara said. The uneasy feeling was as strong as ever, but she could not pinpoint a location. It seemed to be coming from Ben and from all around her. “Is that what you’ve been doing with all that gelmeat and nerfspread?”
“Aren’t Killiks smart?” Ben asked.
“Smarter than I thought. Why?”
“ ‘Cause then she’d be a friend, not a pet.”
Mara cocked an eyebrow. “She, Ben?”
Ben’s mouth fell open, and he backed toward the kitchen. “I, uh . . . they’re all—”
“Stay here.” Mara started around the table. “Don’t even think of moving.”
“But, Mom—”
“Don’t argue,” she ordered. “Your father will talk to you later.”
Mara stretched her awareness into the kitchen and sensed only Nanna inside, but that did not stop her from pulling her lightsaber.
“Mom, don’t—”
“Quiet!”
Mara used the Force to slide a wall panel aside and found Nanna down on her knee joints, quietly brushing morsels of gelmeat onto a sheet of flimsiplast. The rest of the room appeared deserted.
“Nanna?”
The droid looked up, but was so flustered she continued to brush morsels, missing the flimsiplast and spreading them across the floor.
“Yes, Mistress Skywalker?”
Mara’s eyes went to the three gelmeat containers lying empty on the preparation island.
“Don’t worry,” Nanna said. “Ben didn’t eat all that.”
“I hope not,” Mara said. “That would be a good way to earn a memory wipe.”
There was too much YVH droid in Nanna to be intimidated. “That won’t be necessary. My nutritional programming is very up to date.”
Mara pointed the handle of her lightsaber at the wrappers. “Then who ate that?”
The droid peered up at her. “I’m sorry. I can’t say.”
“Then how can you be sure it wasn’t Ben?”
“I’m afraid you’re misunderstanding,” Nanna replied. “I know who ate the gelmeat. I’m the one who opened the food locker. I just can’t tell you.”
“What?” Mara used the Force to jerk the droid off her knees. “Explain yourself.”
“It’s a secret,”Ben said from the edge of the kitchen. “You promised, Nanna.”
“You can’t have secrets from me,” Mara said, holding the droid in the air. “I’m his mother.”
“Under normal circumstances, of course not,” Nanna agreed. “But where there is a danger to the child, my programming—”
“Danger to the child?” Mara demanded. “ What danger?”
Nanna lowered her feet to the floor. “Ben said you would kill him if you found out what he was doing,” the droid explained. “And I must say, considering how angry you are now, his fear certainly seems warranted.”
“Ben?” When he failed to answer, Mara glanced back and found an empty doorway. She turned to go. “Ben! I said—”
Nanna started after her. “I’m sorry, Master Skywalker, but until you calm down I really must—”
Mara whirled on the droid. “Stand down, Beautiful Blaster.”
The override code stopped the droid midstride, darkening her photoreceptors and dropping her chin to her chest.
“I’ll handle this myself.”
Mara continued into the living room and went straight to Ben’s room, where he was busy pushing the closet panel closed.
“Ben, come away from there . . . now!”
Ben pressed his back to the closet. “It’s not what you—”
Mara reached out with the Force and pulled him to her side, then grabbed his wrist and—keeping one eye on the closet door—knelt at his side.
“Ben, we just received a holo from Aunt Leia,” she said. “She was worried that a Killik assassin might have stowed away aboard the Shadow. So if all that gelmeat you’ve been taking is for—”
“Gorog’s no assassin!” Ben said. “She’s my best friend.”
“She’s an insect, Ben.”
“So? Your best friend’s a lizard.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Mara rose and pushed him behind her. “Aunt Leia is my best friend.”
“Doesn’t count,” Ben said. “She’s family. Saba is a lizard.”
“Okay, maybe my best friend’s a lizard.”
Mara was both repulsed and terrified at the thought of her son developing a relationship with a Killik—especially given what Cilghal was learning about the Joiner bonding mechanism. But she was also beginning to worry about the psychological damage Ben might suffer if she slew his “friend” in front of him.
“If Gorog’s your friend, tell her to come out nice and slow. We’ll talk this—”
The muffled groan of a sliding wall panel sounded from two rooms over. Holding her lightsaber at the ready, Mara used the Force to open Ben’s closet—and nearly ignited her blade when an empty exoskeleton tumbled into the room. It was about a meter high, with thick blue-black chitin and barbed mandibles half the length of Mara’s arms.
“Ben!”
“I told you it wasn’t what you thought.”
“Stay here!”
Using the Force to slide the wall panels aside in front of her, Mara rushed two rooms over and found six black limbs—two legs and four arms—sticking out from under the low table that Luke used for a writing desk. The mandibles were protruding from one end, and the whole piece of furniture was trembling as though there were a groundquake.
Ben rushed up beside Mara.
“I told you to stay in your room,” Mara said.
“I can’t,” Ben said. “Gorog’s scared.”
“Okay. Tell her to come out. Everything will be all right.”
A low rumble reverberated from under the table.
“She doesn’t trust you,” Ben reported.
Mara actually looked away from the bug. “You speak Killik?”
“I don’t speak it. I just understand it.” Gorog drummed again, and he added, “She says you’re a killer.”
Coming from her son, the words felt like a vibroblade to the heart. “We talked about that, Ben. Sometimes I have to kill. Many Jedi Masters do.”
Gorog rumbled something else, and it seemed to Mara that there was something sharp in the insect’s rhythm, something spiteful and malevolent.
“Mom, what’s cold blood?” Ben asked.
“Is that what she’s saying?” Mara squatted down so she could look Gorog in the eye. Instead, she found herself staring at a dark sheaf of mandibles and mouthparts. “It means you kill when you don’t have to. I don’t do that.”
The Killik slowly moved away, carrying the table along on her back and drumming incessantly.
“She says you killed lots of people when you didn’t have to, for Palpytine,” Ben said. “Mom, who’s Palpytine?”
“Palpatine,” Mara corrected automatically. She felt as though the Emperor were reaching across time to her yet again, as though to prove how foolish she had been to believe she could ever truly escape him. “A bad man I used to know. How does Gorog know his name?”
A stream of brown saliva shot out from under the table. Mara’s reflexes were too quick for it to come near her face, but in the quarter second it took her to draw away, the insect came flying at her with the table still on its back. She activated her lightsaber instinctively—and heard Ben crying out over the crackle of the igniting blade.
>
“Don’t!” Ben cried. “Please!”
Mara deactivated the blade in a pang of motherly concern and whirled into a spinning back kick instead, her foot landing high because she had to lift her leg above Ben’s head. Instead of launching the Killik across the room, the attack simply knocked off the table and drove the insect to the floor.
A soft sizzle sounded from the wall beside Mara, and a sour, acrid smell filled her nostrils. She put down a hand to push Ben back, and Gorog slammed a mandible into her ankles, sweeping her from her feet.
Mara hit the floor flat on her back. The Killik stabbed a pair of sharp pincer-hands down on her shoulders and brought her head around, a hypo-shaped proboscis pushing out between the mandibles, venom dripping from its tip. Mara smashed her lightsaber handle into the tube, folding it over and drawing a boom of pain from the Killik’s chest cavity.
“Mom!” Ben cried.
“Go to your room!” Mara hooked her elbow around the arm on her shoulder and pulled, dropping Gorog to an elbow. “Now!”
The Killik reached for Mara’s neck with its other two hands.
Mara drove her free hand up under the insect’s jaw, then bridged on her shoulders and flipped it onto its back. She sprang instantly to her feet—and the Killik flexed a wing and flipped instantly to its feet.
Ben remained in the doorway, on the opposite side of the Killik from Mara.
“Ben, I’m very disappointed in you.” Mara’s shoulders were throbbing where the pincers had pierced them, and blood was running down the front of her jumpsuit. She could sense that Luke was only a couple of minutes behind her, but a lot could happen in two minutes—too much to be sure that she would not have to kill Ben’s friend. “You need to start obeying me and go find your father.”
“But you said to go to my—”
“Ben!” Mara brought her lightsaber up and started to circle toward him. “Just do as I say. You’re in enough trouble already.”
Ben’s face grew pale, and the Killik began to pivot with Mara, keeping itself between her and her son. She thought for a moment the Killik meant to use Ben as a hostage, but it was careful to stay away from him—as though it, too, were worried he might be accidentally injured.