PART THREE

ABDUCTION

Wet leaves slapped at Jacen’s face as he ran through the tampasi. Despite their size and weight, he didn’t let them impede his progress; he just kept running, allowing the Force to guide him in his search for Danni.

He could sense her somewhere up ahead, but the reading was vague and distorted, as though something was interfering with the Force. But if he concentrated he could detect the young scientist’s life signs, and was able to at least get some idea of which way they were taking her.

Leaping over fallen logs, ducking heavier branches, Jacen hurried through the dense undergrowth. The ground cover was so thick he couldn’t see where to put his feet, and on more than one occasion he stumbled when the ground dropped out from beneath him. The rain fell in a heavy mist all around, plastering his hair and clothes to his skin and blurring his vision. It was all irrelevant. All that mattered was reaching Danni and making sure no harm came to her. He stayed focused on her spark in the Force and continued to push himself harder and faster through the vegetation.

Without warning, he burst out of a dense knot of ferns and onto a narrow path. He turned to follow it, knowing instinctively that this was how the Ferroans had made such speedy progress. Moving steadily along the path, he cast his mind out into the Force again to check the area. He found Danni’s spark—faint and flickering, but there nonetheless. He couldn’t detect Saba, though—whom he had sensed following some time ago—nor hear her movement in the tampasi around him. He didn’t have time to dwell on it. He had to stay focused …

His pace quickened, feet splashing noisily on the wet ground. He could tell that he was closing in fast, and this goaded him on. He could sense the kidnappers now, also: five in all, each with a certain calm to their thoughts. They were relaxed, exuding a confidence that came from the belief that they had gotten away with their crime—along with the fact that they were being joined by other conspirators.

Yes, thought Jacen, reaching out farther into the Force. There they were now. The two groups were coming together in a clearing up ahead, greeting one another with laughter and congratulatory handshakes, none of them exhibiting the slightest hint of fear or concern.

Removing his lightsaber from his belt, he increased his pace even more. The kidnappers were so close now that he could hear their voices just off in the distance, could even see faint movements through the gaps between the mighty boras that stood between them and himself.

If you’ve hurt her in any way …

Using the fallen trunk of a boras as a springboard, Jacen leapt into the small clearing where the kidnappers were gathered, somersaulting in the air as he went and igniting his lightsaber at the same time. When his feet touched the ground he was already in a defensive stance, ready to deflect the three bolts of energy that spat from the tips of the kidnappers’ lightning rods harmlessly into the ground.

He raised his lightsaber above his head, poised in a double-handed pose to strike if anyone came too close. The kidnappers froze, and an uneasy silence fell over the clearing.

He looked down at Danni lying on a stretcher made from two thick branches with a crisscrossing of vines in between. He couldn’t tell whether she was all right, but she didn’t seem to be moving at all, and that didn’t bode well.

“We’re prepared to fight,” one of the kidnappers said, stepping forward. The weapon in his hand trembled uneasily.

Looking around at the startled conspirators, he could see from their faces and postures that they weren’t experienced fighters, and he had no doubts that he could take them all on with little effort. But that wasn’t what he wanted. That wasn’t who he was. There had to be a peaceful way of resolving this and getting Danni back safely …

“You can’t win,” another said with marginally more confidence. “It’s fifteen against one.”

Jacen was about to lower his weapon and try another tack when an ear-piercing roar broke the rainy quiet. A dark shape leapt out of the trees as Jacen had and dropped heavily into the clearing. Saba’s lightsaber sliced through the air, turning the rain to steam with a menacing hiss.

“Fifteen against two,” she snarled.

Half the kidnappers fled in panic at the sight of the mighty Barabel, not even attempting to put up a fight. Seven remained, all clustered around the stretcher, putting themselves between Jacen and Saba and their hostage. Five of them raised their clubs, ready to fight, while the other two flashed their gnarled lightning rods.

“Wait!” Jacen called out over the rain. If he was going to defuse this situation, he knew it would have to be now. “Please, just lower your weapons!”

Heads turned to him as he deactivated his lightsaber and returned it to his belt. He raised both hands defenselessly in the air.

“Do you really want to die here tonight?” he asked the Ferroans.

“You’re the ones outnumbered, Jedi!” one of the kidnappers spat.

Jacen extended his will through the Force toward the lightning rod in the man’s hand. With a small gesture, he pulled the weapon to himself. The Ferroan glanced down at his empty hands, then up at Jacen, surprise fighting with panic in his eyes as he took a nervous step back.

“Looks can be deceptive,” Jacen said, dropping the weapon to the ground.

Caught between the snarling ferocity of a Barabel and Jacen’s calm confidence, the group tightened their grip on their remaining weapons and moved in threateningly close to Danni.

Jacen stepped forward, one hand upraised, keen to stay any violent acts they might intend. “There has to be another way.”

“Such as?” asked the one whose weapon had just been confiscated.

“We could try talking,” Jacen said. “Perhaps if you told us why you’re doing this, we might be able to work things out without violence.”

“I don’t trust them,” said another of the Ferroans, a woman with black hair and round features. “I don’t trust any outsiders!”

“There’s no reason to be frightened of us,” Jacen said. It was the truth, of course, but he pushed the words anyway into the more receptive parts of their minds to reassure them.

“We’re not frightened of you,” the woman snarled. “We just don’t want you here!”

“But we are here,” Jacen said. “And we’re here by Sekot’s invitation.”

“Then Sekot is wrong,” the first man said. “As Senshi says, it’s—”

“Quiet!” snapped one of the kidnappers at the back, a narrow-eyed man whose hair came to a sharp widow’s peak above his forehead. “Tell them nothing!”

Jacen thought quickly. This “Senshi” who had been mentioned was obviously someone of influence in their conspiracy—perhaps even their leader. This was the person he needed to be speaking to, rather than wasting time arguing in the rain. As easy as it would have been to rescue Danni now and return to camp, he knew that in the long run this wouldn’t solve anything. The problem wouldn’t have been dealt with, which meant further attempts on their lives would be made. This needed to be resolved now.

“You came looking for hostages,” he said, “and you’re returning with one. But three would be better, don’t you think?”

“What are you saying?” the woman asked, frowning.

“I’m saying that we don’t need to fight.” He indicated Saba, who still had her lightsaber raised and at the ready. “Saba and I will accompany you, as prisoners, so that we can talk this out properly with Senshi.”

“I still don’t trust them,” the woman said. She spoke to the other Ferroans, but her eyes flitted back and forth between Jacen and Saba.

“If you fight, you’ll lose,” Jacen said simply. “And possibly even die. But my way nobody has to die, and you get to return to Senshi with more hostages than he or she could have hoped for.” Jacen put the weight of the Force behind the suggestion, trying again to breach the barrier of their minds. He felt the words find purchase in their thoughts—especially the mind of the man at the back whose comment had silenced everyone. “You know it makes sense.”

The man nodded slowly. “It does make sense,” he agreed.

The woman at the front turned on him, the look on her face one of perplexity and anger. “Have you gone mad, Tourou? We can’t take them to Senshi! They’ll kill him for sure!”

“Nobody’s going to kill anyone,” Jacen assured her. “Here, look.” He unclipped the lightsaber from his belt and tossed it to her. “You can hold my weapon for me, if my word’s not enough.”

The woman stared at the lightsaber pommel with something akin to horror—as though shocked to be given it, but terrified of what it might do.

Jacen nodded at Saba, who, after an initial hesitation, deactivated her blade and tossed it to the man Jacen had disarmed. If she was unnerved by Jacen’s decision, she didn’t show it. She was a picture of impassivity, awaiting further instruction.

“Very well,” Tourou said. He gestured, and the group broke apart. Two came cautiously around Jacen’s side to stop him from getting away, while another two did the same with Saba. “Pick up the stretcher,” Tourou ordered his two new captives. “You’ll carry your friend. That way you won’t be in any position to try anything.”

Jacen did as his captors told him, taking the rear handles while Saba took the front ones. Her tail swished agitatedly, flicking the puddles of water on the ground. Then they were moving again through the tampasi, with three Ferroans leading the way and four at the back.

Jacen looked down at Danni’s limp form on the stretcher. Her clothes were soaked and muddy, and there was a bruise on the side of her head that looked quite nasty. Hopefully she would wake up soon; if she did, a larger degree of his uneasiness would be laid to rest, and he could concentrate on settling the grievances of the rebellious Ferroans. For now, though, he concentrated on walking, as well as trying to send his uncle some reassurance that they were okay. But he found it difficult to reach through the Force, and the farther they went into the tampasi, the fainter the life signals of the others back at the Ferroan camp became. Not for the first time since leaving them behind at the settlement, he wished he’d brought a comlink with him so that he could have at least let them know what was happening. Saba, he presumed, would have left hers behind, also, probably under the collapsed habitat with all the other gear. With nothing but the clothing they were wearing, they were both grossly unprepared for a mission that would take them farther away from their friends.

If I handle this correctly, he thought, then maybe we won’t be away for long …

As they walked, Saba glanced over her shoulder and said, “This one hopez you know what you are doing.”

He shook his head. “Not really. But it’s uncertainty that make life so interesting, don’t you think?”

Saba didn’t smile at his attempted levity. She just returned her gaze to the path ahead and continued walking in silence.

Tahiri’s scream was like a cold knife to Jaina’s heart. She felt the darkness flex around her. Sudden, striking emotions stabbed at her from all directions: fear, pain, surprise, hurt. There was no way to separate them, and no way she could offer succor.

Then an image came to her of Riina crouched before Tahiri, blood dripping in a steady stream from a wound in her hand. Tahiri dropped, too, clutching her own arm. Her blue-white lightsaber fell from her hand, leaving a broad, black scorch mark as it hit the ground.

Jaina was confused for a long moment as to what had happened. In a previous memory-image she had seen the two women confront each other. Something had happened, and Riina had been injured. Now Tahiri appeared to be injured, too. Was their mental dueling finally drawing blood?

Tahiri, are you all right? Sithspawn! You have to hear me!

Jaina rattled at the confines of her mental cell. As before, Tahiri’s mind was in no hurry to let her out, and she was unwilling to force the issue for fear of doing more damage. There was no one outside who could help, and she wasn’t certain that her presence here was irrelevant. If she couldn’t get out, then something wanted her there, even if both Tahiri and Riina appeared to be ignoring her for the moment.

Jaina had seen enough of the fight to know that Riina fought with all the skills of an alien warrior plus Tahiri’s mastery of the Force. The ferocity of a Yuuzhan Vong combined with the skills of a Jedi would make Riina a formidable enemy if she ever took over Tahiri’s body. More than ever, Jaina knew she couldn’t let the Yuuzhan Vong girl win this battle. Jaina’s mind urged Tahiri to get up.

A memory flash showed both women stirring. Blood shone blackly in the blue light. Only then did Jaina realize that Tahiri had inexplicably incurred exactly the same injury as Riina, but on the opposite arm.

Realization flashed like lightning in her mind. Tahiri and Riina were mirror images fighting each other to the death. What one did to the other, they did to themselves. If Tahiri defeated Riina, then she would defeat herself in the process. Neither could win!

There was a brief but intense moment in which Tahiri and Riina seemed to be arguing with each other without using words—as though some kind of communication was taking place on an altogether higher plane, one that Jaina was not privy to. Then, in unison, two sets of green eyes turned to look into the darkness.

The memory-image faded, but for a terrible second Jaina knew that they were talking about her. She felt definitely threatened by the double stare.

Another image. Both girls had risen to their feet, each releasing the wounds they’d been nursing. Their bloodied hands reached for their lightsabers. Both weapons flew through the air into their hands, the blades leaving identical, shining streaks of light through the dark.

Anakin is dead. Tahiri’s voice came clearly from the darkness. The grief caught in her throat on the last word. I cannot bring him back.

The terrible, never-forgotten sadness rose in Jaina again, made all the more terrible in this nightmarish setting. She pushed it back and concentrated on sending Tahiri feelings of love and assurance.

I’ve run for too long. Tahiri advanced with her lightsaber raised. Riina matched her step by step. It’s time I faced my fears.

Jaina tensed, unsure what she could do.

As though from a great distance, she thought she heard Jag’s voice calling to her.

I love you, Jaina, the voice whispered over the darkened landscape. Please come back to me …

It was an illusion, she knew, a product of wishful thinking. Jag may have felt such sentiments, but he’d never actually say them. But just the thought of him saying such things was enough to give her the strength she needed.

Face your fears, Tahiri, she told the shadowy world around her.

The dreamscape began to tremble, as though about to dissolve away.

“Krel os’a. Hmi va ta!”

The darkness firmed at the sound of the harsh alien voice, and the dream tightened once again.

Leia held on as the shock wave from another near miss rattled the Falcon’s bulkheads. C-3PO’s stiff arms went up in the air as he squawked in alarm.

“Oh, my,” he exclaimed. “I do believe that’s the closest one yet. It’s only a matter of time before one hits home, and then I’m afraid we’ll all be done for.”

“Keep it down, Goldenrod,” Han bellowed from a service hatch in the ship’s belly. “The Ryn are easily jinxed, you know.”

“Only in ships like this,” Droma fired back. The two of them were hastily working on the shield generator power couplings, hoping to gain a few extra points of efficiency.

“There’s nothing wrong with the Falcon,” Han said as his head emerged from the service hatch. “Hand me that hydroclamp, will you?”

Droma shook his head as he passed Han the requested tool. “This must be the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard.”

“Which part?” Leia asked wryly.

“All of it! But especially this. The only thing keeping us alive right now are the shields. If we accidentally shut them down while we’re tinkering with them—”

“We’re not going to shut them down,” Han grumbled.

“And your confidence comes from having done this kind of thing so many times before?”

Droma’s dig prompted Han to stick his head out from the hatch again and point the clamp at the Ryn.

“Hey, just because I’ve never actually done this before doesn’t mean I couldn’t do it anytime I wanted.”

“So why haven’t you?”

“Because I haven’t needed to!” He looked to Leia, who was leaning against the door arch, and said, “Take him back to the cockpit, will you?”

Then he disappeared again into the hatch.

C-3PO turned to Leia in despair. “We’re doomed,” he keened.

“And take Goldenrod with you!” Han called out.

“Where are they, Princess?” the droid asked, seemingly oblivious to Han’s annoyance. “Surely they should have been here by now?”

Leia shook her head, not having an answer for him. Therein lay the problem. They’d sent the message to Captain Mayn asking for help, but so far there’d been no reply—nor any sign of the help they’d requested. She was beginning to have one of Han’s “bad feelings.” But she didn’t say anything; it would have only upset C-3PO further, which in turn would have annoyed Han.

“Try that, Leia!” her husband called.

She quickly returned to the cockpit and attempted to up the shield strength. It did increase, but only slightly. “Getting there,” she called back.

Her husband appeared through the cockpit entrance a few seconds later, dropping heavily into the seat next to her and fiddling with the controls as he tried to wring every last megajoule out of the shield generators.

“Come on, girl,” he muttered under his breath. “Show us what—”

A violent explosion from somewhere disconcertingly close suddenly thundered around the cabin, almost throwing them from their seats. Out in the corridor she heard the clattering sounds of C-3PO falling over, followed by another plaintive cry. Han furiously punched controls with one hand while clinging on to the console with the other.

“Doomed, I tell you,” they heard C-3PO moan.

Droma entered the cockpit. “I’m with the droid on this. The only thing in our favor right now is that the Vong don’t know our exact whereabouts. But if they keep shelling the area like this—”

“Your concerns have been duly noted,” Han said. “In the meantime, though, why don’t you go back there and have a game of dejarik with Cakhmain and Meewalh or something.” Then, louder, “Threepio? How are our hangers-on out there? They’re a lot more fragile than we are.”

The droid waddled into the cockpit and proceeded to warble a message to the Brrbrlpp huddled in the Falcon’s protective shield. In the aft screen, they could be seen clustered together, the edges of their flowerlike bodies all touching to form one large, quivering mass.

“The Brrbrlpp assure me that they are managing well enough,” C-3PO reported after the aliens had replied. “But they fear—as I and Master Droma do—that it will only be a matter of time before destruction befalls us. They would like to know if we have any other plans.”

“Do they really think we’d be sitting here like this if we did?” Han said irritably.

“Just tell them we’re working on it, Threepio,” Leia said.

The droid relayed the message while Leia sat back in her seat to try and think of a plan that might get them out of their predicament.

“I think the time has come to move,” Droma said bluntly.

“We can’t move,” Han said. “We’ll melt our guests.”

“They’re going to be melted anyway when those shields fail—and then we’ll all die.”

Han nodded. “Drawing the fire of the Yuuzhan Vong seemed a good idea at the time, but it kind of relied on those upstairs getting our message.”

“Maybe they did get it and just can’t do anything about it right now,” Leia said. “Who knows what might be happening up there.”

“Can we use repulsors?” Droma asked.

“We might get a kilometer or two,” Han replied, “but we’ll still be in the blast range—and we’re just as likely to be hit moving as staying still.”

“Then what about letting our passengers go and blasting out of here once they’re clear? That way we can draw fire away from them and fight back at the same time.”

“But how many will be killed on the way?” Leia said. “And how many Yuuzhan Vong will be waiting for us?”

“Okay, then how about digging in?” Droma pressed. “The ground is really just cold sludge here. A good, hot blast would probably melt a sizable hole into—”

“Yeah, and would stand out like a huge target for any Vong passing over us.” Han shook his head. “Sorry, pal. The same argument stands against sending another message for help: once those scarheads detect it, they’d be onto us in a flash. No, I think we’ve gone and dug ourselves into a—”

He stopped. A grave, Leia knew he’d been about to say, but the words were too close to the truth. A cold, dark grave on the edge of the known galaxy, with no possible way out.

Leia shook her head, frustrated. There had to be another solution—a way that didn’t involve killing any more innocent locals, or ending up in a worse position than before!

“I suppose faking surrender is not an option,” Droma offered.

“That doesn’t work with the Vong anymore,” Han said. “They’re wise to that game.”

The Ryn nodded and looked at the floor, his tail dropping limply behind him. Outside, the pounding of Esfandia rolled on like thunder, sometimes close, other times farther away. Whenever the floor beneath her shook, Leia tensed, each time expecting the shields to fail around them. The only other sound was the burbling of the planet’s indigenous life-forms, issuing softly from the speaker.

“Well, then,” Droma said, “seeing as we have no way out, there’s something I should probably tell you.”

“Excuse me,” C-3PO interrupted, his photoreceptors glowing. “I think the Brrbrlpp may have the solution to our problem.”

Han turned in his seat. “They do?”

“Yes, sir. The Brrbrlpp suggest that we take shelter in their nearby nesting area. It is underground, and easily large enough to fit our vessel. Or so they say.”

“Why now?” Han interrupted, his expression one of annoyance and exasperation.

“Sir?”

“Why are they suggesting this now? Why didn’t it occur to them before? They have a love for dramatic irony or something?”

“I don’t believe so, sir,” C-3PO answered, unaware of Han’s sarcasm. “It would appear, though, that we have earned their trust. Protecting these few at great risk to our own lives has demonstrated that our past wrongs were clearly committed out of ignorance, not malice.”

Han turned to Leia. “What do you think?”

“Can we get there on repulsors alone?” she asked the droid.

“The Brrbrlpp assure us that the nesting area is only a short distance away.”

“Then—”

Her reply was cut off by another explosion, this one so close that it felt as though the entire world was breaking in two. The lights went out for a couple of seconds, then returned, flickering. Leia’s ears rang as Han checked the instruments.

“One more like that and we’re done for,” he said.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Droma said, collecting himself from the floor, “but I think the locals’ suggestion sounds wonderful.”

Leia nodded at C-3PO. “Let’s do it.”

C-3PO conversed with the Brrbrlpp for a moment. “They will move to the front and guide us. We are to travel in the direction they indicate.”

Han nodded as the wafting aliens propelled themselves to the fore of the Falcon’s missile tubes. There they arranged themselves into a line pointing ahead and slightly to starboard.

Han fired up the repulsors and lifted the ship from Esfandia’s surface. Dense air swirled around them, but the Brrbrlpp didn’t appear disturbed. Protected within the shields, their ride would have been as smooth as it was for those inside the ship. Even when Han nudged the ship forward, their position with respect to the hull remained unchanged.

As the freighter turned to starboard, the line of Brrbrlpp straightened. Han took them gently through the murk, around a knobby protuberance that bulged out of the ground and vanished high above them, like a mountain. They dipped into a crater left behind by one of the Yuuzhan Vong’s missiles, and out again, across an undulating plain. From their slightly higher perspective, they could see numerous bright flashes in the distance that revealed the continuing Yuuzhan Vong bombardment. It was disturbingly thorough. It was only a matter of time before one of those missiles got lucky.

“Is it much farther?” Han asked, obviously sharing Leia’s concern. She felt more exposed moving around than they had been in hiding.

“We should be there at any moment,” C-3PO reported.

“Does anyone else feel as though we’re exchanging one tomb for another?” Droma asked. “What if the good guys lost the fight up in orbit and we’re stuck down here forever? All the Vong will have to do then is wait us out.”

“I don’t like the look of this,” Han muttered, his eyes darting nervously across the console before him. Several blips had appeared on the edge of the long-range scanners, dodging the bombardment sites. They traveled in formation at first, but then split up in different directions and zigzagged across the scope.

“They’re sweeping the area at close range,” Han said.

“Guess they got tired of trying to flush us out with bombs alone,” Droma said, “and have decided to do the dirty work themselves.”

Han nodded. “We’re not going to be able to hide like this for much longer.”

“Excuse me, sir, but the Brrbrlpp are changing direction.” C-3PO pointed at the line of aliens guiding them across Esfandia, which was now angling down instead of forward.

“I don’t understand,” Han said, sweeping the forward cam across the stony surface. “I don’t see anything. No caves, no tunnels, no—”

A red light began to flash on the scanners.

“Whatever we’re supposed to be seeing, Han,” Leia said, “I’d work it out fast if I were you. That’s a coralskipper heading our way.”

“Ask them what we’re supposed to do, will you, Threepio?” Han guided the Falcon down as far as he could go.

A wall of gray dirt and rounded pebbles confronted them. Further warbling was exchanged between C-3PO and the aliens as the droid tried to impress upon the Brrbrlpp the urgency of the situation.

“Hurry it up, Threepio,” Han muttered anxiously. “We don’t have all day!”

“We don’t even have a minute,” Leia said. “That skip is coming in fast.”

“Right,” Han said, clenching his jaw as he flicked switches. “I’m warming up the weapons systems and the engines. I don’t care what’s waiting for us out there, I’m making a break for it.”

“Han, wait—” Leia started.

She stopped in midsentence. The ground ahead of them erupted. At first she thought that one of the Yuuzhan Vong missiles had hit them, but it wasn’t an explosion. The ground opened up like a giant, fanged maw, spreading wide to swallow the Falcon whole. Leia had time only to gasp in horror at what looked like a thousand yellow eyes gleaming at her from the blackness within. Then the mouth came down upon them, and they were engulfed.

Tahiri struggled to think through a haze of tears. The voice of the shadow, the thing that had come to her, made her mind quake with fear. She didn’t know what it was, or what it wanted. It was simply implacable, unstoppable.

And Riina wanted her to attack it …

What am I doing? she asked herself. All she felt was blackness—an oppressed, choking blackness that constantly threatened to close around her and devour her whole.

Whatever it is, Riina said, it has to be better than fighting yourself.

You’re not me!

And you’re not me; but apart, we’re not anyone at all.

No! The exclamation came as much from grief as it did anger. The emotion was a reaction to Riina’s words, but she directed the word at the shadow-creature. She wanted to destroy it, utterly—along with any unwanted truths it represented to her.

I don’t—She stopped, afraid that to utter the words meant admitting defeat. The shadow-creature fell back a few steps, waiting for a renewed assault. I don’t want to lose who I am.

Riina’s expression changed to one of anger—an anger that Tahiri felt course through her own body. Neither do I!

The Yuuzhan Vong girl lunged at the shadow. Perhaps something flinched, but Tahiri couldn’t be sure. Was there really something out there, or was she just dreaming it?

Anakin would have known …

The thought of her friend—the one she loved—brought with it renewed grief, but not from within. This grief emanated from the darkness around her. She dropped her head, to hide from Riina the moisture gathering in her eyes. Nothing seemed to erase the pain that his death had brought her. No amount of tears could wash away the thought that there must have been something she could have done to save him. All the determination in the world couldn’t stop her wishing that he could have lived, and that they were still together now, with every possible future ahead of them.

Even with the reptile god slain by her acceptance of her guilt, the grief never went away. It had returned as this shadow-creature. Clearly, it wasn’t about to let her go. Unless …

A cool breeze blew in from the dark, touching the moisture on her cheeks.

I’m scared, she admitted quietly. This world scares me.

This world is all I’ve known since Yavin Four, Riina said.

Tahiri looked at her, then, understanding the simple truth of her situation for the first time. This isn’t a dream, is it?

I’m as real as the shadow-creature we’re fighting.

But Anakin killed you! You were dead!

Anakin thought he killed me, Riina said. But he hadn’t. He just forced me down deep into your unconscious. In many ways I suppose I was dead. I had no body, no senses, nothing to call my own. There was just me, trapped in this darkness. It was like a nightmare from which there felt like no escape. At times I thought I might go mad. In the end, though, I began to surface, and with me came my suffering and torment—the torment that has been affecting you all this time.

Tahiri trembled at the notion. She knew it was the truth; she’d always known it. She just hadn’t wanted to accept it.

It took me months to piece it all together, Riina went on. And as I recovered, you weakened. It soon became clear to me that I didn’t have to stay in this nightmare world. So I started to fight. Sometimes I even won. You had blackouts, and it was during these times that I was able to emerge. But my purchase on reality was feeble, and you kept pushing me back here. There were many times that I thought I’d be here forever—or worse, disappear altogether!

I wish you had, Tahiri said. She couldn’t help the bitterness.

Even then I knew I couldn’t, Riina said. Instead I decided to fight back all the more. I came after you, wanting to chase you down into the shadows of this world—to make you live here instead of me. I wanted you to experience this living death so that it would be you who’d wish to disappear. But then something happened: your guilt came after both of us! It was then that I realized that the two of us were inseparable. My torment was your torment; your guilt was my guilt. And impossible as it seems, Tahiri, we’re stuck with each other. We either live together, or we die together. There is no in between.

No! There has to be another way!

There isn’t. Riina’s voice was firm and inflexible. Your hand is proof of that. Cut me and you bleed; kill me, and you die.

Tahiri glanced at the wound Riina had inflicted on herself, which had affected her, too, as though by magic. Blood steadily seeped through the cauterized gash: the truth continued to trickle from it. Although Riina’s words felt as heavy upon her shoulders as a thousand tombstones, she knew that the Yuuzhan Vong girl spoke no lies. There was no point denying it anymore. Her mind was inextricably linked to Riina’s, tangled together like the roots of trees—and they had been ever since Yavin 4. There was no way to cut out one without injuring the other. They were conjoined twins, connected at a place where no surgeon’s scalpel could ever reach: their minds.

So what are we? she asked. Yuuzhan Vong? Jedi?

We’re both, Riina said. And we are neither. We need to accept this and embrace this hybrid creature we have become. We need to merge, Tahiri, and become one.

But who will I be?

You’ll be someone new, Riina said. You’ll be someone strong.

Tahiri couldn’t talk any longer. Her tears choked her thoughts, blurred her vision again. She stared into the shadows around them, seeking out the guilt-creature hiding there. Was this how she was to “embrace” Riina? By killing this creature? Would they then, together, awaken from this terrible nightmare? It felt right on some level, and yet on another it seemed … dark. It felt wrong. And yet there seemed no other way!

A cry sounded out from the darkness. The shadow-creature, her guilt, was calling out to her again. She couldn’t understand the words, but the sentiment was there in her tone.

My guilt calls out to me, she said.

You have nothing to feel guilty for! Riina insisted.

My love is dead, and I am alive. And I carry with me the kiss he wanted me to share with him. I told him to collect it later, but there was no later. Was there?

Do you think that’s what you’re accused of? They are not the words of your guilt, Tahiri; those are your own words!

How do you know what I’m feeling?

How do I know? Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been saying? We are one and the same mind!

Tahiri recoiled in revulsion at the idea, although she knew it to be the truth. She was just still railing against it. Her thoughts had been open to her alien twin all along.

You’ve been punishing yourself, punishing us, Riina said, and it has nothing to do with Anakin’s death or holding back on a kiss.

Then what is it?

You feel guilt for having gotten on with your life. It’s not that you are alive; it’s that you’ve learned to live without Anakin. It’s that you have healed, and you don’t think you should have by now.

Tahiri wanted to refute it, but she couldn’t. The truth burned her in ways she couldn’t ignore.

You have to let go, Tahiri. There is no shame in that. The time has come to stop grieving. You have already stopped; you just don’t know it yet. That’s all.

Bitterness clouded Tahiri’s vision. She hated Riina for speaking words that revealed the truth of her feelings. Angrily she hurled her lightsaber into the dark. It spun wildly through the air, lighting up the shadows as it went, illuminating the rocks and crags of the worldship they stood on. And as it cut through the darkness, she could feel her grief ease and part; she could feel a sense of awakening.

I know what to do now, she told Riina. Even as she spoke the words, she quailed, thinking of everything she might be leaving behind. The Solo family, her duty as a Jedi, her memories—

But, she suddenly asked herself, how much of it was hers at all? Anakin’s family wasn’t hers. The Jedi Knights could carry on well enough without her. And her memories only served to bring her pain. As long as she didn’t fall to the dark side, she could turn her back on it all with a clear conscience …

The time for thinking was over. Slowly, with a feeling like falling, she reached out, and her lightsaber flew back into her hand.

At the same time, the shadows seemed to part. She saw the thing that had come for her and Riina with startling clarity. It wasn’t a god from the bowels of an alien mind; it wasn’t the dark side; it wasn’t her guilt, or her despair.

It was Jaina.

Tahiri turned to face her mirror image one last time.

I know what you’re thinking, Riina said. You mustn’t listen to what she’s saying. She’s telling you lies, making things worse. She doesn’t want to help. She only wants to keep you caged, with me. Riina stepped closer, her injured hand outstretched. Join me now; together we will do what we need to do to be free.

Yes, Tahiri said slowly. I think I understand now.

So let’s not think. Let’s just do it.

Shakily, Tahiri reached out and took Riina’s hand. Together they faced the darkness.

“If we don’t start getting some answers soon,” Mara said hotly, “I’m going to start giving you people reasons to be afraid of the Jedi.”

Luke attempted to placate his wife by putting his hands on her shoulders beneath her red cascade of hair. But she was too angry to see reason right now, and ignored his efforts.

“I’m telling you the truth,” returned the Ferroan woman called Darak. “We don’t know who is responsible for this attack!”

“Somebody must know!” Mara argued. “Dissident groups like this don’t just pop up overnight. They take time to form.”

“The idea of a dissident group is preposterous,” Rowel said. “There hasn’t been any unrest on Zonama for decades!”

“Well, there is now! I’m telling you: that attack was well planned and organized. Look,” she said, “I’m not trying to be critical of you or your way of life here. I just want to know what’s happened to our friends. The fact that you don’t seem to care annoys me.”

“But we do care,” Rowel said. “We care that strangers are wandering loose on our planet doing untold damage. We care—”

Luke didn’t give him chance to finish; he was only going to anger Mara further. “Perhaps Sekot could help us,” he said. “Is it possible to ask it if it knows of their whereabouts?”

The Ferroans exchanged glances. “Sekot has been regenerating after the attack of the Far Outsiders,” Darak said. “Its attention has been elsewhere, so it is unlikely to know the whereabouts of your friends.”

“We could at least ask,” Mara pressed. “What about the Magister? She could ask for us.”

“She is resting.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to put her out, would we?” Mara said dryly.

“Please wake her for us,” Luke said, his calm tone a counterpoint to Mara’s growing irritability. “After all, I’m sure she would want to be informed about a development as important as this, don’t you?”

The Ferroans exchanged another glance, then Darak hurried off to do as the Jedi asked.

Luke felt little satisfaction at having accomplished that much. It was only the first of many hurdles. The rain was still falling, dripping down from the trees in a steady, fat-dropped stream. Somewhere deep in the tampasi, Jacen, Saba, and Danni remained hidden from his senses. If they didn’t return of their own accord, he would be hard-pressed to find them without Sekot or the Magister’s help.

“You are mistaken to believe that Sekot is aware of all things taking place on its surface,” Rowel said. “It is no more capable of this than you would be of tracking every cell in your body.”

“It seemed to find us easily enough when we arrived,” Mara said.

“Out in space it is different. A grain of sand is immediately noticeable if it gets in your eye, but that same grain of sand would be almost impossible to find on a beach.” The Ferroan looked uncomfortable. “We have notified surrounding communities to be on the lookout for anyone moving through the tampasi. Darak will also try to coax the airships into flying in this weather. Perhaps they can discern something from above that we are missing on the ground.”

“That’s a good start,” Luke said. “Thank you.”

“Please don’t believe that this kind of behavior is normal for my people. We are peaceful. This sort of thing simply doesn’t happen here.”

“Fear of that which is new or different can make people act irrationally,” Mara said, putting on a conciliatory tone. “But all that concerns us now is finding our friends.”

“I can assure you that they will be found. We will make every possible effort.”

A sudden feeling came through the Force. Luke closed his eyes in order to focus on it. It was coming from some distance away, but the intense life energies of the tampasi made it impossible to tell which direction it came from.

Mara touched his arm. “You feel it, too?”

He opened his eyes, nodding. “It’s Jacen. I think he’s safe for the moment. I sensed no immediate danger.”

“Are they on their way back?” Hegerty asked.

“I’m not sure,” Luke said. “I don’t think so.”

“What about the others?” Hegerty pressed. “Are they all right?”

“I can’t tell,” Luke said, reaching into the Force in an attempt to understand the message that Jacen was trying to send. “But I think they’re all okay, for the moment.”

“We should still try to find them, though,” Mara said.

Luke nodded. “Yes.”

Rowel opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the sudden return of Darak. Her expression was one of profound alarm.

“She’s gone!” she exclaimed.

“Who?” Mara said. “Who’s gone?”

“The Magister!” The panic in her voice gave her an air of vulnerability Luke hadn’t seen before. “She’s been taken from her rooms!”

“What do you mean ‘taken’?” Rowel asked, aghast. “Why would anybody do that?”

“I think I know,” Luke said. “The kidnap of Danni was just a distraction. She wasn’t who the kidnappers were after. It was Jabitha. While you were busy here trying to sort things out, they moved in on her.”

The alarm in Darak’s and Rowel’s eyes increased tenfold at the suggestion.

“First Danni,” Mara said, “then Jacen and Saba, and now the Magister. Could anyone else possibly go missing before tonight is over?”

Jag reached Tahiri’s room in record time. There he found Pride of Selonia’s chief medic, Dantos Vigos, and Selwin Markota, Captain Mayn’s second in command. Both looked up, startled, as he skidded through the doorway to a halt.

On the bed beside Tahiri was Jaina, her outstretched form dressed in the clothes she usually wore about the ship. Her eyes were shut, her face expressionless, and her breathing was fast and shallow.

“What happened?” he asked, wrenching off his flight helmet. He was unable to take her eyes from her face.

“Relax, Jag,” Markota said. He put a hand on his shoulder, but Jag shrugged it off.

“I’ll relax when I know what’s going on.”

“That’s the problem,” Vigos said. “We don’t know what’s going on. We found Jaina unconscious shortly after arriving around Esfandia. No one noticed before then because of all the confusion and the fighting. She was slumped beside Tahiri, having collapsed onto the bed. Their hands were locked together. We’ve scanned them both and found no signs of physical abnormalities, but their minds are furiously active.”

Jag faced the medic with a frown. “How do you account for this?”

Vigos shrugged. “I don’t.”

“But you must have an idea,” Jag said. “You must have a theory, at least!”

Vigos sighed wearily. “Okay, but it’s only a theory based on what I’ve been told of Tahiri’s background and recent behavior. In my opinion, Tahiri has retreated into herself. She has a split personality that is fighting for dominance over the body. I think Tahiri has deliberately internalized that conflict—she’s keeping it in her head so that neither personality has access to the outside world.”

“I can understand that,” Jag said. “But what does this have to do with Jaina?”

“I think they’ve melded,” Vigos said. “I’m not a Jedi, but I suspect that Jaina may have attempted this in an effort to assist Tahiri. She’s helping Tahiri survive.”

Jag studied Jaina’s face. Despite the appearance of being asleep, she looked exhausted.

“So why won’t she respond?” he asked. “If she’s in there voluntarily, why doesn’t she just wake up and tell us what’s going on?”

“It’s impossible for me to say for sure,” Vigos admitted. “I’m sorry.”

A bizarre image came to Jag then—one he couldn’t quite get his head around. He pictured Tahiri’s mind as some sort of animal trap, snaring anyone who ventured within it. Jedi after Jedi could throw themselves in and be lost forever. But how could this possibly serve Riina?

The three men stared at the two unconscious women for a long, frustrated moment. Jag didn’t want to let the matter lie there, but he wasn’t sure what he could do about it. Had he been Force-sensitive, he wouldn’t have hesitated to try to join the meld. The woman he—

His mind retreated from the admission, then grasped it and kept going. Yes, the woman he loved was in danger. There had to be something he could do.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe you have done everything you can to help her. But I can still try.”

Vigos glanced uncertainly at Markota, then back to Jag. “What did you have in mind?”

“I’ll talk to her,” he said. “If she is in there, she’ll be able to hear me.”

“Colonel, we’ve tried—”

“Just leave me alone with her, okay?” Jag interrupted.

Markota hesitated, then nodded to the medic. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

Vigos acquiesced. “Okay. But call if there’s any change in her condition.”

“I will,” Jag promised.

When they were gone and the door had shut behind them, Jag put his flight helmet down on the end of the bed and sat beside Jaina. He took her free hand in both of his. It was limp and lifeless, and cool to the touch. Despite his determination to want to help her, now that he was alone he had to admit that he really didn’t know if there was anything useful he could do. There was no enemy he could line up in a targeting reticle and fire upon; there was just Jaina, locked in the mind of a very sick young woman who also needed help.

“I’m here,” he whispered close in to her ear. “And I’m not going anywhere, Jaina. Not until you wake up. You know what that means, don’t you? It means that Twin Suns Squadron is unattended. And we can’t have that, can we?”

He stared at her face in silence. He hadn’t really expected his words to have an immediate impact upon her condition, but he couldn’t help hoping they would—that just hearing his voice would be enough to make her come back. But when he searched her expression for any sign of recognition, he found none. She remained still, emotionless, sleeping …

He squeezed her hand between his. Although he knew the room was probably being monitored, he didn’t care who saw him, who heard him, or who might disapprove of his sentiments. All he cared about right now was Jaina. And from the way his heart ached, that’s all he felt he could ever care about.

“I love you, Jaina,” he said. The words came easily for him. “Please come back to me.”

Saba kept all her senses alert as she matched her pace to that of the Ferroan kidnappers. The path they’d been following had run out half an hour earlier, and they were now moving through unbeaten wilds of the tampasi. Despite the lack of any obvious trail, though, the Ferroans seemed to know where they were going. They moved as one with silent determination through the dense undergrowth. Every now and then they gave directional orders to her or Jacen, but never allowed themselves to enter any conversation. Nor were they prepared to come within a meter of her—although Saba had no doubts that this would change once they reached the camp where Senshi and the other conspirators were meant to be located. Security of numbers would inevitably make them feel less intimidated by the Jedi Knights.

The farther they traveled, the more uneasy Saba became—mainly because of Danni’s condition. She knew that Jacen would never knowingly put Danni’s life in jeopardy, and the fact that the young scientist remained unconscious was obviously weighing heavily on his mind, but Saba still felt compelled to take the girl and try to find a way back to the others in the hope of getting her some medical attention. The only thing that stayed her urges was her trust in Jacen’s judgment. He saw things differently from her, on a deeper, more fundamental level, and for that reason she was prepared to bow to his command.

They came to a bridge formed from a massive tree trunk that stretched across a swollen river. Three of the Ferroans crossed first, then waved for Saba and Jacen to follow. Once they were on the other side, the remaining four Ferroans crossed also, then the trek continued through a dense thicket of wild, red-leaved bushes. Sharp thorns slashed at Saba’s tough green skin. She did her best to avoid the worst of it, and to keep Danni from being scratched, subtly using the Force to push the thicket branches aside.

Finally they came to a cliff face that was hidden from view by a stand of enormous boras. At the base of the cliff was an overhang five meters high and stretching a dozen meters into the rock. Jacen and Saba were directed under its shelter, where a larger group of Ferroans waited.

They gathered around the new arrivals as they entered the shaded, sandy area, parting only to admit a very old Ferroan male to the front. His face was as heavily lined as Jabitha’s, but his rich, deep black hair was short to the scalp. The pale blueness of his skin made him look as though he were composed entirely of ice, and his gold-and-black eyes regarded the new arrivals with ill-disguised contempt.

His gaze flickered across Saba, Jacen, and the comatose Danni. “I ask for one of the visitors as a hostage, and you bring me the entire group. What is the meaning of this?”

A look of confusion passed over Tourou’s face. “Three seemed better than one, Senshi …” The residue of the implanted suggestion from Jacen had faded, and the kidnapper’s sentence trailed off uncertainly.

“You fool,” the old man said. “The outsiders have ways about them—ways to make their words seem reasonable.”

“It’s true that I influenced their decision to bring us here,” Jacen said, “but I only did so because I wanted to speak with you. It’s important that you see reason. We didn’t come to your planet to cause trouble; we came because—”

Senshi’s laugh cut him short. “Don’t try to win me with your words, Jedi! I respond to actions, not empty words or promises. The recent actions against our world speak volumes!”

“Those attacks came from the ones you refer to as Far Outsiders,” Jacen said. “They had nothing to do with us.”

“You are all outsiders in our eyes,” he argued. “The actions of one reflect intentions of the other.”

“And what about your actionz?” Saba asked. “What does kidnapping say about you?”

Before Senshi could reply, a peal of thunder rumbled through the tampasi, and rain began to crash down with renewed strength outside the overhang. As the thunder died in the distance, Senshi looked triumphantly at his hostages and ignored Saba’s question completely.

At that moment, another group of Ferroans stumbled in from the rain, bearing another body on a stretcher, covered from head to foot with a tarpaulin. Her first thought was that the kidnappers had returned for Soron Hegerty and somehow snatched the elderly woman from the care of Master Skywalker and Mara. But when the new arrivals set down the stretcher and pulled back the tarp, Saba’s concern quickly changed to puzzlement. It wasn’t Hegerty at all; it was the Magister.

Senshi stared down at the unconscious figure, smiling thinly. “Now they won’t be able to ignore us.”

There was a murmur from the Ferroans standing around him.

Jacen stepped forward. “Why would you do this? Why take the Magister?”

“Because she has forgotten,” he sneered. “She has forgotten the pain and suffering we endured the last time strangers came here after years of searching: the fires and the groundquakes; the terrible losses as whole villages fell; the hurricanes that tore entire boras out by their roots; the smoke that covered the sky. She forgets that we all lost loved ones, and that we stand to lose more if we allow her to throw away everything we’ve worked for. We didn’t come here to rest and rebuild and then just throw everything away on a whim! We came here for sanctuary.”

“You remember the time before the Crossings?” Jacen asked.

“As clearly as if it were yesterday,” Senshi said, his expression haunted. “I lost my children, my partner, my parents, and my brother and sister. And I lost too many friends to even count! I was alone, wishing that I had died with them. But I was spared; I lived on. I endured with Sekot as we searched for sanctuary, and I rejoiced when we finally found the peace we had so long yearned for. And now I feel misgivings at the return of the Far Outsiders—as well as the Jedi.” He indicated the storm raging anew outside the overhang. “We have seen this combination before; we know what it means. I will not let the Magister plunge us into another cycle of death and destruction.”

“Sekot welcomed us here,” Jacen protested.

“Did it? I have only the Magister’s word on that.”

“Why would she lie?”

“Because by forgetting, she has become confused. And that confusion weakens her, putting us all at risk. I for one do not want to become cannon fodder in someone else’s war.”

Saba could sympathize with the man. She felt his pain as keenly as she felt her own. Had she been faced with the possibility of losing her loved ones and her homeworld over again, she, too, would probably take drastic steps to prevent it. But she couldn’t imagine the Magister ignoring either the will of her people—if Senshi’s feelings were widespread—or the will of Sekot. That would run counter to her purpose. It was unlikely that Sekot would tolerate such behavior in the person it had chosen to act as mediator between itself and its citizens.

“So what happens now?” Jacen asked. “What do you hope to achieve by all this?”

“We have achieved as much as we dared dream,” Senshi replied. “We’ve shown that we cannot be easily ignored. When the Magister wakes, she will have no choice but to listen to us. And if that fails, if she still turns her back on us, we still have you to bargain with. Either way, disaster will be averted.”

“But by turning your backs on us,” Jacen said, “you risk a much greater disaster.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the domination of the galaxy by a power more destructive than you could possibly imagine. Once that power has consolidated its forces on the ruins of our worlds, it will come for you. The Far Outsiders may have been repelled once, but they won’t be so easily repelled when this system is filled with their warships. They will seed every planet in the system with biological factories in order to replace every ship you destroy. They’ll place interdictors across the entrances to this hyperspace bubble to make sure you can’t escape. And what happens then, Senshi? Who will you call upon for help when everyone else in the galaxy is gone?”

The young human spoke with the confidence of one in possession of a cold, hard truth, and Saba could see through Senshi’s glare that what Jacen was saying was having an impact—even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“You will never convince me that we need your help.”

“Thankfully it’s not you we need to convince,” Jacen replied. “It’s Sekot. And if you truly have the best interests of the planet at heart, then you’ll abide by its decision. Whether it listens to me through you or the Magister, it will hear my words—and then it can decide for itself.”

A low rumble rolled in across the tampasi at the conclusion of Jacen’s challenge. Saba felt an involuntary muscular contraction ripple down her spine. The Ferroans were silent, transfixed by the confrontation between Senshi and Jacen. There was fear in their eyes, as well as uncertainty.

“It’s been a long day,” Senshi said after a few moments. “We are all tired. Unless the Magister wakes before, we will rest until dawn. By the light of day, things may be clearer.”

“We will stay until then,” Jacen said. His tone was soft, but there was no escaping the antagonism of his words.

“You’ll stay until I decide you can leave,” he returned coldly.

“This one iz prepared to argue the point,” Saba said, matching his frosty tone.

The Ferroan leader shot her a baleful glare, but didn’t challenge her. He turned his back on them and issued orders to the rest of the kidnappers. The group slowly dissolved into clumps of people unfolding bedrolls and breaking out supplies. Tourou guided Saba and Jacen to a niche at the rear of the overhang, where they lay Danni’s stretcher down and covered her with blankets. There, surrounded by nervous Ferroans, they made themselves comfortable for what little remained of the night. Saba had no intentions of sleeping, and neither, clearly, did Jacen. He sat up, his face glowing in infrared as he stared past the Ferroan guard to where Senshi stood talking to a couple of his people.

“What now?” Saba asked, interrupting his thoughts.

He faced her in the dark. “Now we wait.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“None at the moment, except to demonstrate to Senshi that we don’t mean them any harm—no matter how much they try to provoke us.”

“We don’t have to cause them harm,” Saba said. “This one could carry Danni while you free the Magister. Together—”

“Too difficult,” Jacen responded. “There are too many of them. Someone’s bound to get hurt. We can afford to be patient a little longer.”

Saba wasn’t so sure.

“Danni haz been unconscious a long time, Jacen,” she reminded him. “She will need medical attention soon.”

Jacen looked down at the unconscious scientist. One hand reached out to brush damp strands of hair from her face. “She’ll be all right,” he said. The Force stirred at his touch, to help promote healing. “I’m sure she will.”

But he couldn’t look at Saba as he said it, and he didn’t sound convinced.

*  *  *

Tahiri trembled as she felt the shadow of Jaina, lost in the prison of her mind.

Let’s kill her! Riina said, her voice full of eagerness. She’s vulnerable in here, and we’ll take her by surprise.

No, Tahiri said simply. No, we mustn’t. I mustn’t. To do so would not relieve me of my grief; it would compound it. To kill her would send me to the dark side. And that’s what you’d like, isn’t it, Riina? That’s why you clouded my sight, so I couldn’t see!

The Yuuzhan Vong girl seemed infinitely smaller than she had a moment earlier.

You spoke the truth when you said we could never be separated, but you feel that if I embrace the dark side then I will become a prisoner of these shadow lands, allowing you to become the dominant personality.

Riina said nothing in return.

Tahiri shook her head. I would sooner we both stay here forever than unleash you upon my world!

Riina snarled and tried to pull away, but Tahiri held tight. Their fingers were slick with blood, but her will was strong.

It’s time, she said. I’m tired of being lost.

The ragged edges of their wound sought each other and sealed as though it had never existed. Tahiri gasped at the unsettling sensation, and heard Riina do the same. She watched with alarm as their entwined fingers melted into each other, as though their skin had wrapped around both hands, binding them together. Tahiri met Riina’s eyes and recognized the horror she saw there. Then the two of them stared as the lumpy knot of flesh that was their combined hands began to spread along their arms. Tahiri could see the bones moving beneath, testing their new environment. Then the knot began to move up their forearms, drawing them closer together.

Riina continued to try to fight it, but Tahiri refused to relent—even though she shared the Yuuzhan Vong girl’s fear and revulsion for what was happening to them.

There’s still time to change your mind, Riina cried as she struggled. We don’t have to do this!

You’re wrong, Tahiri said. We do have to do this. It’s the only way.

Despite her determination, though, the words didn’t ease the dread tightening in her chest. While she felt sure that this was what needed to be done, she really didn’t know what the result was going to be.

The knot reached their elbows, and Tahiri felt her hand sliding under the skin to Riina’s shoulder. It felt as though an outside force were at work, pulling the mirror image of herself into a tight embrace.

Tahiri met Riina’s wide-eyed stare again.

We must embrace, she told her Yuuzhan Vong counterpart. Our cultures, our beliefs, our knowledge.

Some of the fear ebbed from Riina’s gaze, then. We must embrace, she concurred. Our emotions, our lives, our selves.

Tahiri took a deep breath as the knot of skin reached their heads and slowly pulled them together so that their noses were almost touching.

The good and the bad, Riina said, her lips brushing lightly against Tahiri’s own.

The light and the dark, Tahiri said. We must embrace …

“It’s a trap!” Droma’s cry of alarm was echoed by C-3PO, who threw himself backward as the floor tipped beneath them and Millennium Falcon was sucked down into the gaping maw.

Leia hung on desperately while Han struggled to reach the controls in front of him. From his annoyed expression, she knew that he was about to blast their way out of danger—and he wasn’t about to consult with the aliens before doing so, either.

But there was something about the unfolding space ahead of them that caught Leia’s eye. Still gripping her seat, she leaned forward in the hope of getting a better look.

“I think I know what it is!” she said.

“I don’t care what it is! Anything intending to eat us is trouble!”

“That’s not what it’s doing. Look!”

All eyes in the cockpit turned to the display just as the maw fell shut around them. The light-enhancing algorithms adjusted to this new level of darkness, searching out infrared and other frequencies for information on their new environment. The Falcon seemed to be surrounded by numerous vertical columns, like teeth in an enormous mouth.

But if it was a mouth, it wasn’t eating them. There was no rending, no crushing, nothing at all to indicate that they were about to be ingested into the belly of some giant subterranean beast.

“See those columns?” Leia said, pointing at the display. “They’re legs. And as for the eyes …” She watched carefully as the sensors scanned the ceiling.

Han chuckled before she could finish what she’d been about to say. “Portholes, right?”

“The relay base?” Droma sounded as though he could hardly believe his eyes—or his luck.

“It was here all along,” Han said, cutting power to the repulsors and letting the Falcon settle to the bottom.

“Perhaps not.” Leia watched as a slender wire snaked out of the gloom and attached itself to the hull of the battered freighter. “Don’t go giving your Solo luck any medals just yet.”

“This is Commander Ashpidar of Esfandia Long-Range Communications Base,” came an emotionless, female voice from the comm. Leia identified its speaker as a Gotal, which seemed appropriate. The bi-horned, energy-sensitive beings would perfectly suit a gloomy place like Esfandia. “I’m sorry we took so long getting here. Word travels slowly among the Cold Ones.”

“You know who we are?” Leia asked, making sure to reply the same way Ashpidar’s communications arrived—along the wire. The Yuuzhan Vong search parties were too close to risk any sort of broadcast.

“We know you came to help us, and that’s all that matters. We were sheltering in some nesting plains several dozen kilometers from here when word arrived. The tunnels connecting the plains are cramped but easy enough to negotiate. We came as soon as we could.”

“How many are there under your command?”

“Fifteen,” Ashpidar replied. “We lost two when the bombardment began. They were servicing one of the detectors when the Yuuzhan Vong destroyed it. The rest of us are in here, though—safe for the moment.”

Leia hoped that remained the situation. Taking in the Falcon had been a calculated risk with the Yuuzhan Vong searching so fervently above. She would hate to be responsible for any more lives lost.

She quickly identified herself, Han, and Droma, and put a name to the ship. Then she explained what they were doing there, and who they’d brought with them to defend the base.

“Imperials?” the Gotal said, surprised. “They’re the last people I expected to see you working with.”

“Times change,” Han said. “But listen, we’re going to need to work out what we’re going to do next.”

“I will organize a docking umbilical to enable us to meet and discuss this in person.”

“That’s a good idea,” Leia said. “We’ll have to find a way to keep you safe until the Yuuzhan Vong leave.”

“We’re safe enough right where we are,” Ashpidar said tonelessly. “Unless we break comm silence or expose ourselves, we could hide here indefinitely.”

“Assuming their tactics don’t change, of course.”

“Speaking of which,” Droma said, waving for silence. “Listen.”

Leia and Han did so, but the only sound to be heard was that of the air scrubbers recycling air through the cockpit.

“I don’t hear anything,” Han said.

The Ryn nodded, his tail sweeping the floor behind him. “The bombardment has stopped. And that can only mean one thing.”

“They’ve given up?” Han said.

Droma frowned. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines that they’re coming down for a closer look.”

Leia’s stomach sank. She liked the sound of her husband’s suggestion better, but she knew Droma was right.

“Commander, you’d better get that umbilical across fast,” she said. “I think we’re going to be having company real soon.”

Luke and Mara stayed up with the Ferroans as they attempted to locate the kidnappers. Airships came and went throughout the night, moving across the stormy sky like ghostly clouds. A vast root system covered the entire planet, Luke learned, linking boras to boras, tampasi to tampasi in a vast organic network. Communications traveled along the network with representatives of far-flung sections of the globe getting involved in the discussion of the abduction. Some had suggestions to make; others just called to express their fear and uncertainty at the thought that the Magister might be in any danger.

Darak and Rowel assured them all that everything would work out in the end. Their voices were calm, but Luke knew that they were more worried than they were prepared to admit.

That worry only increased as hints began to emerge from the boras network, reports of missing people and notes offering the first hints into the minds of the kidnappers. A sketch of a conspiracy formed, one that had acted exceedingly quickly to take advantage of the Jedi Knights’ arrival. Almost too quickly, Luke thought …

“Any idea what this Senshi might want?” Mara asked.

Rowel shook his head. “None, I’m afraid.”

“I know of Senshi,” Darak said. “He comes from one of the settlements farther north. He has a plantation up there where he grows rogir-bolns—the white fruit whose pulp you were served earlier. He’s known for his talks on the Crossings and what it was like. He’s also very vocal about his ideal of a perfect and pure Zonama—which involves the exclusion of any outsiders.”

“Does he have any history of active dissent?” Luke asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Darak said. “But he does have a lot of supporters. He’d certainly have the resources and contacts to put such a plan into motion.”

“Is it possible he’s taking the hostages to his plantation?” Mara asked.

“No.” Darak was firm on this. “The plantation is in the opposite direction from the one we know they took. We have people waiting there, in case they’ve doubled back, but I don’t expect them to find anything.”

Luke sighed tiredly. The occasional wave of reassurance came from Jacen, but his nephew’s presence in the Force was still weak and indistinct. Nevertheless, that he was getting anything at all was a good sign, and for that he was thankful.

After a seemingly endless night, a greenish dawn finally began to filter through the treetops. The rain eased slightly, and some of the forest’s fauna emerged from hiding. Gleaming birds swooped through the long branches, while lithe, long-limbed climbers emerged from shelters in the nooks of tree trunks to collect and munch on fronds and flowers. Sinuous tentacles swayed around the bases of the massive boras, almost as though licking at the mobile fungi that moved around the trunks in search of sunlight.

Everywhere Luke looked, he saw life stirring. Resources moved up the food chain as one creature ate another, then back down via waste and decay. There was a dynamic joyousness to the scene that put some of his concerns in perspective. No matter what happened to Jacen, Saba, and Danni, or even Jabitha, life here would continue to go on, much as it had before.

Captain Yage called from the Widowmaker as Zonama’s terminator rolled westward around the planet, bringing dawn wherever it touched.

“Everything’s quiet up here,” she said. “I’m maintaining the orbit we’ve been given, not deviating a centimeter. I’ve sent probes across the system, but there’s no sign of the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“Any word from Mon Calamari?”

“Not a peep. Either they’re ignoring our hails or someone’s cut communications between here and there.”

“I’ll give you one guess who that someone might be,” Mara said.

“Have the Chiss reported any concerted troop movements on the border of the Unknown Regions?” Luke asked.

“Not on their side,” she said. “But if someone’s taken out the relay bases between here and home, they wouldn’t need to come that far.”

“Well, here’s hoping someone else is doing something about it,” Mara said. “I’d hate us to have good news and no one to tell it to.”

Luke clicked his comlink and called Tekli. The Jedi healer was awake and had little to report. Jade Shadow was still held fast by the planet’s vegetation, but nothing had made a move on her so far, which Luke was thankful to hear. It seemed that the policy of nonaggression was having exactly the response that he and Jacen had hoped for. Sekot clearly wasn’t about to do anything unless they attacked first …

As the light of day strengthened, it became apparent that the kidnappers weren’t about to be found in a hurry. Even with the storm easing, they were still no closer to finding Jabitha or Jacen, Saba, and Danni.

After nibbling at slices of fruit that had been served in bowls for breakfast, Hegerty stood up to stretch. The doctor looked weary and haggard after the long and troubled night. Luke had suggested she try to get some rest on a couple of occasions, but she had said there was no way she could sleep—not with the others still missing and the kidnappers still at large. The doctor was no fighter, and the attempt on her life the night before had left her understandably rattled.

“Are you okay, Soron?”

The doctor nodded. “Just thinking.”

“What about?”

She stepped back up to the group around the fire. “Well, Senshi has to have kidnapped the Magister for a reason, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, it seems to me that, if it wasn’t to harm her or ask for a ransom, then it could have only been for one reason.”

“Which is?”

“He wants to talk to her.” She nodded thoughtfully for a moment. “Maybe she didn’t want to give Senshi the implied approval that would bring before now. Maybe she did listen, but ignored him. But since all of our attempts to locate his group have so far failed, she may now have no other choice.”

“You sound like that would be a bad thing,” Luke said.

“That depends entirely on what he’s got to say, I guess.” Hegerty rubbed the bump on her head left by the attempted kidnapping. “And on how convincing he can be …”

Pellaeon stood on the bridge of Right to Rule, savoring the silence but in no way relaxed by it. The withdrawal of the Yuuzhan Vong to a geosynchronous orbit high above the western hemisphere of Esfandia was fortunately timed, allowing exhausted Imperial pilots to return to their base ships and restock. But it was only a temporary reprieve, prompted by Jag Fel’s superb disruption of the northern flank. Commander Vorrik still had the superior force and could wield it whenever he wished. Once he had regrouped, Pellaeon had no doubt that he would do just that. For now, though, a tense but stable stalemate persisted.

The surface of Esfandia was safe from heavy bombardment, at least. With the chaos of battle behind them, it was much easier for both sides to detect and intercept anyone trying to reach the surface. That meant, effectively, that it was off limits to both sides, and that whoever was currently down there was safe for the time being. And stuck there.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Pellaeon’s aide, standing patiently to attention behind him. “I have the information you requested.”

He didn’t know how long she’d been there. It could have been minutes; he’d been so caught up in his thoughts. “Go on,” he said without turning.

“Close analysis of telemetry reveals at least two surface landings during the battle,” she said. “One was almost certainly Millennium Falcon.”

“I should have known that’s where they’d go. Right into the thick of it, as usual.” He nodded, hiding his relief at the news. “And the other?”

“A yorik-trema landing craft. The Seventy-eighth destroyed two other such craft also attempting to land, but lost this one during the fighting. It was assumed to have burned up on entry. We now suspect otherwise.”

He faced the aide. “Do we know where it put down?”

“We have an approximate region, one hundred kilometers across. But it is possible that it has since moved under the cover of the atmosphere.”

“So we’ve lost it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Millennium Falcon?”

“The same. We weren’t actively looking for either, sir, otherwise—”

“I suggest we start looking for them immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about that concentrated bombardment we saw? Could that be related?”

“That is possible, sir. It’s equally possible that the Yuuzhan Vong detected some sign of the relay base in the region.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I guess the main thing is that we’ve stopped them firing on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good work.” He looked the aide over briefly, and saw deep lines of exhaustion on the woman’s face. “And now I’d like you to excuse yourself from the bridge and get some rest.”

“Sir?”

“I’ll summon you when things heat up again. Of that I can assure you.”

“But—”

“That’s an order. I need my crew fit and alert, first and foremost. That applies to everyone. See to it that all crew are rotated so that they receive both rest and nourishment. It might be some time before we have another breather like this.”

She saluted, but the formality didn’t hide the gratitude in her eyes.

When she was gone, he turned his attention to the officer nearest to him.

“Get me Captain Mayn of Pride of Selonia,” he ordered. “Right away, sir.”

Seconds later, her hologram was visible before him.

“Grand Admiral, how may I help?”

“We’ve noted the presence of the Millennium Falcon on the surface of Esfandia. What is the nature of her mission there?”

The woman hesitated, as though warring with herself whether or not to answer his question.

He sighed tiredly. He didn’t have time for suspicions. “Captain, may I remind you that we are on the same side?”

Military training took over, then, and she visibly stiffened at his tone. “They are attempting to assist the crew of the relay base. An opportunity arose for them to break the blockade, and they took it.”

“Have you heard from them since?”

“There was a garbled transmission from the region most recently targeted by the Yuuzhan Vong, but it was jammed. We suspect it was from the Millennium Falcon, advising us of their intentions, but the content of the message, and its source, is unknown.”

He nodded, wondering again just how far he should trust the Galactic Alliance officers he had been pressed into dealing with. If there was something else going on, something Leia Organa Solo wanted kept secret even though it might jeopardize the lives of his officers and crews, would this Captain Mayn tell him? Her initial reluctance in answering his question made him doubtful.

“Commander Vorrik has sent a landing party after them,” he said. “We believe they’re both looking for the same thing, possibly in the area most recently under fire. Do you have any plans for a recovery operation?”

“None at the moment,” she admitted. “But no doubt we’ll put something into effect once—” She hesitated minutely, then concluded, “Once the situation here is stabilized.”

“Is it possible to advise me in advance of any such operation being put into effect?”

“We will advise you of our intentions,” she said evenly.

He wondered if she shared his suspicions. Did she question whether he could be trusted? Was she afraid that he would attempt to stop them from saving the Solos?

“Excellent,” he said. “We might even offer our assistance in that venture, should the opportunity arise.”

Mayn nodded, and the hologram faded out. He longed to rest his feet, to take the strain of standing off his healing back muscles, but he had one more job to do before he could think of retiring.

“See if you can raise Commander Vorrik,” he said. A muted rustling swept through the bridge at the request, and the comm officer bent seriously to the task. They hadn’t directly communicated with the enemy since chasing them from Imperial Space, and each time they had it turned out to be quite a show.

Pellaeon forced himself to relax, affecting a look of casual amusement. He didn’t know how well the Yuuzhan Vong had learned to appreciate human expressions, but he wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to unsettle his opponent.

A snarling, scarred visage appeared on the bridge’s main screen. Visual communications with the Yuuzhan Vong were primitive, reflecting the fundamentally different technologies applied by each culture, but there was no mistaking that face. Vorrik had had his skin peeled back from his cheeks, exposing ribbed muscle tissue and pulsating veins. His scalp had been similarly flayed, leaving thin, jagged strips of hair where the scalping hadn’t been completed. Tattoos blackened what skin was left, lending the commander a truly horrific appearance.

“I foul my senses every second I endure your likeness, infidel,” came the ragged, hate-filled voice. “Be quick, so I can erase your sight from my eyes.”

“This is just a social call,” Pellaeon said, smiling in response to the commander’s insults. “I was wondering how Kur-hashan was faring?”

“You dare mock me with your trivial—”

“Mock the great commander? I wouldn’t dare.” Pellaeon couldn’t hide his amusement. “I leave that to your superiors, who send you off on a fool’s errand while they bask in the glory of the Core.”

The roar of rage he received in response was gratifying. Vorrik was easily rattled. He was about to launch another string of invective at the Grand Admiral when Pellaeon spoke over the top of him.

“I thought it was time to discuss the situation,” he said, loudly enough to be heard. “We have something of a standoff in place at the moment, Vorrik. I trust some thoughts on how to break it would have crossed that flat-browed mind of yours?”

Vorrik looked like his flayed head was about to explode. “It will break when we crush your puny fleet!” he roared. “When we squash you like bugs beneath our feet! Then I will break you personally—bone by bone, nerve by nerve, until you are nothing but slime.”

“Am I to take it, then, that negotiating a withdrawal is not an option?”

“Withdrawing is not the Yuuzhan Vong way.”

“That’s odd, because I seem to recall you withdrawing at Borosk.” Pellaeon paused long enough to allow the commander to think of a response, but not enough time to actually utter it. “And here I was thinking that we were finally managing to breed some sense into your barbaric species. Now I see we still have some way to go.”

The black blood drained from Vorrik’s face, leaving him gray with rage. With a snarl, he struck the oggzil villip transmitting his side of the conversation. There was a blue flash, an organic squelching sound, and then nothing.

Pellaeon turned away from the projector, eminently satisfied. Vorrik would be too enraged to think clearly for some time now. His tactics would be clouded and more ineffective than they would otherwise have been—and that could only be a good thing. Pellaeon had to survive until Vorrik was reminded that his orders almost certainly didn’t include wasting his time on some out-of-the-way worldlet while more pressing battles called for him elsewhere.

Pellaeon’s smile gave way to a look of exhaustion as he finally stood down for the shortest possible rest period he would allow himself. Given that the Imperial and Galactic Alliance forces were in a position that was untenable in the long haul, he hoped that Vorrik’s superiors wouldn’t take too long.

Jacen lifted himself out of a recuperative trance at the same time that Saba beside him stirred. He’d been lending his strength to Danni, who was still out cold, while Saba had been exploring the life fields of the planet in an attempt to ascertain exactly where they were concentrated. The question of whether Sekot existed uniformly through the planet’s biosphere or focused in particular areas was still very much open. If Sekot’s mind was focused nearby, there was a chance they could contact it and, through it, talk to the others.

What had roused them from their meditations was the sound of the Magister’s voice resounding through the cave.

“Tell Senshi I wish to speak with him,” she said evenly. Her supine body was still bound and blindfolded, yet she commanded authority.

One of the Ferroans who had been assigned to watch over the prisoners hurried off to find Senshi. The remaining four guards stepped away from Jabitha, as if the Magister might somehow attack them even in her trussed state.

Senshi soon came and crouched down beside the Magister’s body. “You’ve been listening in on us, I see,” he said. There was amusement in his voice.

“You must have known I would,” she replied. “In fact, you probably wanted me to. Otherwise you would have blocked my ears as you had covered my eyes.”

He reached down at this and removed the blindfold. Even from where Jacen was sitting, they could see the dawn’s greenish hue reflected from the woman’s black irises as she blinked in the sudden light.

“Sit her up,” Senshi said, and two Ferroans hoisted her up so she was resting with her back against the rocky wall of the cave.

“I suppose untying me is out of the question.”

Senshi ignored the request. “You brought outsiders here,” he said instead, glancing at the Jedi. “That was a mistake.”

“I do only what is best for our planet.”

He shook his head in disagreement. “You’ve put us all in danger, Jabitha.”

“If I have, then it’s at Sekot’s behest. It recognizes the Jedi; it is curious about their kind.”

“We recognize them, too,” he said. “But that doesn’t automatically make them our friends. You recognize the Far Outsiders. Would you invite them here, too?”

“You know as well as I do that the Far Outsiders would not be not welcome here. They don’t participate in the endless flow of life as Jedi do.”

“That fish swim in the same direction along a stream doesn’t make them the same species,” he argued. “Nor does it mean they’ll get along together.”

“The Jedi have done us no harm, Senshi. I don’t understand why you’ve gone to such lengths to protest actions that have been sanctioned—”

“Please do not continue to suggest that Sekot has willed this,” the elderly Ferroan interrupted sharply. “Sekot is not happy, Jabitha.”

“How could you possibly know this? I am the Magister; I am the interface. If anyone can claim to know Sekot’s thoughts, it would be me.”

“If you do, you are not sharing them all with us.” He stood, his outstretched arms attempting to indicate everything around them—in the cave and beyond. “The mind of a living world is vaster in scope and depth than any of us could hope to comprehend. We could live a hundred lifetimes and not grasp more than a fraction of its thoughts on any single matter.”

“It makes its will known to me,” Jabitha said defiantly, “and I pass it on to you. This method has served us well for decades. Why do you question it now? How have I changed to suddenly become untrustworthy?”

“You haven’t changed, Jabitha. The times have. And we must change with them.”

“I agree,” Jacen said, gently easing into the debate. When both Senshi and Jabitha faced him, he continued: “That’s exactly why we’re here. We want Sekot to leave its place of sanctuary, to abandon the security it’s found in Klasse Ephemora system and rejoin the rest of the galaxy—a galaxy that is at war with the Far Outsiders. It is a war we might not win. If you join us, you’ll be risking your lives. But if you don’t join us, and we lose without you, there’ll no longer be anything to stand between you and the Far Outsiders. This is the unpleasant message we bring to both Sekot and your people. If you wish to live in this galaxy, then you must address the issue of the Far Outsiders once and for all. Now.”

“And what’s in it for you?” the rebel Ferroan asked. “Why do you want us so urgently? What does one more world matter in this war of yours?”

“This iz not just another world,” Saba hissed. “There are no worlds az marvelous as Zonama Sekot anywhere in the known galaxy.”

The skepticism emanating from Senshi was so intense it was almost tangible. “And you’ve agreed to this?” he asked Jabitha. “You’ve set us on this path to destruction?”

“I’ve done no such thing!” she snapped back. “I, too, have seen the horrors of war; I, too, know what the Crossings cost us. I want this as little as you do, Senshi—but I will not send these people away or treat them as though they’re criminals simply because they come to us for help! They deserve better than that.”

“Why? Because they’re Jedi?”

“Because they do not mean us harm.”

“Is that your opinion or Sekot’s?”

“Sekot’s.” Here Jabitha faltered, her jaw tightening. “I have counseled caution, just as you do. We cannot accept the word of strangers without question. But at the same time we must not make new enemies. If the Jedi are right about the Far Outsiders, we might need them as much as they need us.”

“And is that Sekot’s thought or yours?”

“That is mine,” she admitted.

Senshi’s expression was scornful. “You are gambling on your feelings when all our lives, as well as the life of Sekot itself, are at stake.” He shook his head firmly. “I can’t allow you to do this, Jabitha.”

The Magister’s expression hardened. “And what will you do if I refuse to stand down? Kill me? Kill the Jedi?”

“That iz not an option,” Saba hissed, standing.

Senshi glanced at the Barabel. There was a flicker of nervousness behind his eyes as they danced back to Jabitha. “I talk to you knowing that your eyes and ears are the eyes and ears of Sekot. It will hear me and make its own decision. It will know the truth.”

“You have told it nothing it hasn’t already heard, Senshi.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “I’ve told it that we are prepared to do whatever it takes to protect our peace. It has never heard our defiance before. Soon, though, it will see just how far we are prepared to go.” He turned aside to issue orders to one of his co-conspirators. “We’re moving out in five minutes. Blindfold the Magister. I don’t want her to see where we’re going.”

“What about the Jedi?” Jabitha asked.

Senshi met Jacen’s stare. The nervousness and uncertainty were still there, even though he was desperately trying not to show it in his expression. He knew that there was no way he could keep them if they didn’t want to stay.

“If they wish to come with us, then let them,” he said. “After all, the more witnesses we have, the better. But they can leave if they wish to. Even if they return straight to the settlement, they won’t get back in time to bring help, and we have no need for additional prisoners.”

“Trust me,” Saba said. With hands outstretched and a simple tug of the Force, the two lightsaber pommels flew from the belt of the Ferroan looking after them back into her hands. She handed Jacen his. “We were never your prisonerz.”

The Ferroan guard became agitated by the display of power from the Jedi, but Senshi remained impassive.

“If you try to interfere in any way,” he said, “then we will fight back. We might not be able to defeat warriors such as yourselves, but we will fight back.” He turned to address the Ferroan guards. “Blindfold her—now.”

Senshi turned and moved away, dismissing them. Jacen and Saba exchanged concerned looks, then faced Jabitha. She, too, had worry in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, Magister,” Jacen said. “We’re not about to leave you.”

“No harm will befall you in this one’z care,” Saba added.

Jacen nodded as reassuringly as he could, but doubt was beginning to flower at the back of his mind. Looking down at Danni’s comatose figure, he couldn’t help wonder what he and his friends were getting into.

Jag felt Jaina’s hand move within his. He jerked out of an exhausted half sleep and leaned over her. Her eyelids were half opened, and the fingers of her hand clutched his.

“Jaina? Can you hear me?”

“Jag?” Her voice was ragged.

She started to say something else, but was interrupted by a low moan from the bed next to hers. Jag’s relief was muted by the realization that Tahiri was waking, too. He reached across Jaina to call Selonia’s chief medic.

“Vigos, I think you’d better get down here!”

The medic didn’t ask for explanations, or waste time replying. With a click to indicate that he’d heard the message, the line went dead.

“Don’t …” Jaina swallowed. Her lips were dry and cracked.

He handed her a cup of water with a straw feeder and let her drink, all the while uneasily watching the blond girl stirring on the bed beside her. Green irises appeared through fluttering eyelids. Who was waking up? Tahiri or Riina?

Jaina must have seen the apprehension in his stare. “It’s going to be all right,” she croaked. “I think.”

Before he could ask her what she meant by this, Dantos Vigos and a full medical team burst into the room. Tahiri moaned again, and suddenly jackknifed on the bed, limbs flailing. Whatever she was trying to do, her muscles weren’t responding properly. Vigos and his team surrounded her instantly, gently restraining her while taking readings. Two of the medics came to check on Jaina’s vital signs. She assured them that she was fine, but they checked just the same.

Jag believed her. Jaina’s eyes were red and her skin was pale; she looked as though she’d been run through an ice harvester.

“I heard you,” she whispered.

He frowned at this. “What do you mean?”

“In my dream, I heard your voice. I heard what you said.”

Her smile filled him with incredible warmth, and he realized that the sentiments he’d expressed to her earlier were being reciprocated. She didn’t have to say anything; he just knew from that smile that she loved him, too.

“Tahiri?” Vigos spoke close to the girl’s face, gently prizing open her eyes with his fingers to flash a light in to check her pupil reactions. “Can you hear me, Tahiri?”

“My name—” The girl’s dry lips cracked open and emitted a voice like a desert wind. She swallowed and tried again. “What’s my name?”

Jag’s stomach went cold.

“Ish’ka!”

He stood and put himself between Jaina and Tahiri—the thing in Tahiri’s body! “Call Captain Mayn,” he instructed Vigos. “Tell her—”

A hand gripped his forearm, and he looked down in surprise to find Jaina restraining him.

“Wait,” she said. “Let’s hear her out.”

“If she doesn’t know who she is, then how do we know she’s Tahiri? I’m not giving Riina the chance to get better so she can stab us all in the backs with Tahiri’s lightsaber!”

“I am—” Coughs racked Tahiri’s body as whatever inhabited it struggled to speak. “I am not—”

“I saw them, Jag.” The strength returning to Jaina’s voice held him still despite all the sirens sounding in his mind. “I won’t pretend that I saw or understood everything, but I saw them together, in Tahiri’s mind. Riina was there, fighting her. It was like a dream. They were fighting, then hunting something—me, I think—then it looked like Riina was trying to convince Tahiri to turn on me.” She hesitated slightly. “Perhaps even to kill me. But it didn’t happen. Tahiri found another way. She—”

Jaina hesitated again, as though searching for words.

“Tell me, Jaina,” Jag urged her. “Tell me why I shouldn’t sound the alarm and have her restrained.”

“Not just Tahiri,” the girl beside them croaked, her voice slowly firming. “I’m not just Riina, either. I’m someone new.” The girl’s eyes bored into his with startling clarity. “I’ve changed, but my face has not.”

“Changed?” Jag heard Vigos’s voice as though from a great distance.

“She’s neither one nor the other,” Jaina said. “But both of them. Tahiri could no more get rid of Riina than the Yuuzhan Vong makers could get rid of her. They had to join together. It was that or go crazy.”

The idea intrigued Jag. How did two completely different minds join? And would Tahiri be anything like she had been before? What if her Yuuzhan Vong half led her astray? A thousand questions rushed his thoughts, none of them, he was sure, easily answered.

“For the first time in years, I feel … whole,” the girl said. “And that has to be right, surely?” She looked at Jaina. “I remember you being there, trying to help me. You didn’t do anything; you were just there. Even when part of me wanted to attack you, you didn’t fight back. That convinced me that fighting was wrong. Your example helped heal my wounded mind. We would have destroyed each other had it not been for you.”

The girl’s hands moved weakly, made a strange gesture in front of her face. Then she reached out to take Jaina’s hand.

“That’s known as us-hrok,” she said. “It indicates my indebtedness and loyalty to you for your help. I offer it to you not as a Yuuzhan Vong, nor as a human who knows a few foreign traditions. This is from me.” The girl’s certainty seemed to falter for a second, then her determination firmed. “I will be grateful to you forever, Jaina Solo, sister of the one I loved. I will always consider you family, and will protect you with my life. I vow this on my honor, with all my strength.”

Jaina glanced briefly at Jag, flustered. “Thank you.”

Jag, too, was thrown by the girl’s newfound confidence. Where before there had been uncertainty and doubt, now he saw strength and surety.

“This is going to take some getting used to,” he said.

Tahiri nodded weakly. “For all of us,” she said.

“Well, you’re going to be okay.” Vigos stepped between them. “Your respiration is even and your pulse strong. You haven’t been out long enough for serious muscle deterioration to begin. You should be on your feet in no time.”

Tahiri tried to reply, but choked on her dry throat.

“Mom will be pleased to hear that,” Jaina said, filling the silence. “Where is she, by the way?”

Vigos glanced at Jag, who said simply, “On the Falcon.”

There was no keeping anything from her. “What’s happened, Jag?”

“A lot, to be honest. I wouldn’t really know where to start.”

“Just tell me what’s going on,” she said, sitting up in the bed, concerned.

“We’re in orbit around Esfandia. The Yuuzhan Vong are here, and so is Pellaeon.” He debated whether to tell her about the little surprise the Grand Admiral had ordered, but decided to save that for later. “The relay base itself has gone into hiding, and your parents went to look for it. They’re trapped somewhere on the surface right now. We can’t get in to them, and they don’t seem able to get out, either.”

She raised her eyebrows and shook her head, dumbfounded. “I must have been out for some time.”

“Don’t worry,” rasped a dry throat from the other bed. Tahiri’s eyes were fixed on Jaina. “The one thing a warrior never does is abandon her family. We’ll find them and bring them back, I promise.”

“Rest first, then fight,” Jaina said, smiling at the young girl. “And I’m sure we can fit a ‘fresher in there somewhere, too. I barely feel human at the moment. I dread to think how you feel.”

“Like a vua’sa’s armpit.” Tahiri laughed and Jag felt some of the residual tension ease from his posture. He didn’t need to understand the reference to get the joke.

Jaina looked up at him then, and her eyes were shining. That convinced him that it was all going to be okay. Jaina had expressed no reservations about Tahiri’s “new” character, or held any concerns for the girl’s recovery. She was absolutely confident that what had happened was to the young Jedi Knight’s benefit. That spoke volumes in her favor. On the strength of that, and as long as Tahiri stayed fighting on the right side, he would gladly call her a friend.

Nom Anor’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. Instantly awake, but disoriented, he tried to work out what it was that had awoken him. Had he been dreaming? Had he forgotten to do something? It took him a good ten seconds to realize that the answer lay all around him. When he had reclined on the cot to rest his eyes, he had left a single yellow lichen torch glowing over his desk. Now the room was dark.

He lay silently in the darkness, listening. A soft movement came from the middle of the room, and he tensed, wondering what he should do. He could yell for the guards outside the door, but the chances were that if intruders had made it into his quarters, they’d already taken care of the guards anyway. He could reach for his coufee where it lay beside his cot, but he would have to expose his throat to do so. He could launch himself at where he thought his attacker was standing, judging by the sounds he’d heard, but it would be too easy to miscalculate and miss, or accidentally throw himself into the path of a ready weapon. Numerous possibilities tumbled through his mind, but each was quickly dismissed.

His plaeryin bol tensed automatically, reacting to the stress hormones that had begun to surge through his blood. If he could get in just one good shot at his attacker—

“Now!”

The word spat out of the darkness, and in an instant Nom Anor was rushed from two sides at once. He felt hands clutching at him, trying to pin him down. He fought them off as best he could, but it was difficult, surprised as he was by both the attack and the number of people involved.

He faced the assailant to his left in the hope of getting a better look. It was impossible. All he saw were shadows within shadows. He could make out an outline of the figure, however, and that was enough for now. Relaxing as though in defeat, he focused on the individual and fired his plaeryin bol directly into the attacker’s face. He fell back with a cry. With his arm now free, Nom Anor swung his clenched fist at the one restraining his other arm and struck him firmly on the side of the face.

There was a grunt of pain, but this attacker continued to hang on.

“Hold him!” someone cried, and suddenly more figures emerged from the shadows.

Hands clutched at his skull and something pressed tight against the eye socket containing the plaeryin bol. It spasmed but was unable to fire.

How many are there? he thought desperately, kicking out at the new attackers trying to restrain both his legs and arms. It was hopeless. Soon two of them had managed to pin down his shoulders, while his legs were being crushed beneath the large torso of a third. In the end he let the fight genuinely leave him and his body sag back onto his cot. There were simply too many of them. Better to conserve his strength than waste it on a pointless struggle.

He took deep and steady breaths in order to relax and focus. Battles were rarely won with blind rage, he reminded himself. He needed to know his enemy before he could beat them, and here in the shadows he knew nothing about them whatsoever.

A lambent flared from the doorway, casting a dim light across the faces of those holding him down. He didn’t recognize the two pinning his shoulders, although that hardly surprised him. They might have been members of his own group, but he rarely paid attention to any but those important to his plans. Whoever they were, they were just the lackeys of whoever was the mastermind behind the attack. A traitor, presumably.

The figure holding the lambent was another story altogether. Shoon-mi stepped forward with a coufee in his other hand. The light gleaming off it matched the light in his eyes: cold, hard, and deadly.

Nom Anor frowned, feeling both confused and, strangely, delighted at the impudence of his religious adviser. This was not what he had expected at all.

“Shoon-mi?” he said, feigning debilitating surprise.

The Shamed One stared down disdainfully at Nom Anor, the blue sacks beneath his eyes pulsing with repressed delight. He shook his head slowly, as if in disapproval of his master.

“You see?” he said to his lackeys. “He is no god!”

“Nor have I ever professed to be, you fool!” Nom Anor responded. “Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve taught you—”

“But you could have been.”

A sense of the absurd rolled over Nom Anor as he lay there, pressed flat to the bed. He was unable to resist a bark of laughter. “You are either far more intelligent than I gave you credit for, Shoon-mi, or more stupid than I could have ever imagined.”

The Shamed One uttered a vitriolic hiss and struck Nom Anor across the face with the back of the hand holding the coufee. Then, flipping his hand over, he pressed the blade firmly against the ex-executor’s throat. “You dare call me stupid when I am the one holding your life in my hands?”

“Holding the power of life or death over another doesn’t automatically give you intelligence, Shoon-mi,” Nom Anor retorted. “You have me at a disadvantage at the moment, that’s all.”

“At the moment?” Shoon-mi laughed. “You believe you can escape your end here, Master?”

There was only a hair’s breadth of skin between Nom Anor’s artery and the coufee. A simple push was all that separated him from death. Nevertheless, he didn’t allow alarm to show on his face.

“The question is not whether I will escape my death,” he said slowly, carefully, “but rather how you will escape yours.”

Shoon-mi glared down at Nom Anor. “You threaten me even when you stand on oblivion’s precipice?”

There was a manic look in Shoon-mi’s eye—a desperate need to prove himself against the one who’d had him at such a disadvantage for so long.

“I’m in no position to threaten you, Shoon-mi,” he said. “I’m merely wondering how you ever expect to get away with this. The faithful will rise against you when they find out. You know that, don’t you? Without me, there will be nothing to hold them together.”

“That would only be a problem if they knew you were dead.”

“Ah.” Nom Anor would have nodded, but with the coufee against his throat, it wasn’t advisable. “The Prophet will not be dead, although I might be. You’re planning on becoming me, is that it? Using the masquer, you intend to use my public face to hide your own and take control of the heresy.”

Shoon-mi allowed himself a slight smile, then. “Yes, I do.”

“And you’ll explain your own disappearance by mutilating my body and saying it’s yours. Then you’ll announce that you narrowly averted assassination by killing the one who was supposed to be your most loyal supporter.”

“It seems a practical plan,” Shoon-mi said. “I shall hide the truth behind the truth—a practice I have learned from you, Master.”

Now Anor allowed himself a faint smile; even now, Shoon-mi still didn’t know the entire truth of Nom Anor’s identity.

“And what of these you have turned against me? What have you promised them, Shoon-mi?”

The Shamed One hesitated, glancing at those holding Nom Anor down. That brief hesitation was all Nom Anor needed to know what lay in store for them: they would be killed at the first opportunity because they knew too much about Shoon-mi and his ambitions.

“They will stand beside me as we attain our freedom,” the Shamed One said. “They will be the personal bodyguards of the Prophet.”

“Indeed. And they expect you to show them the same sort of loyalty as you’ve shown me this night, Shoon-mi?”

“I would have remained loyal to you until the end,” the Shamed One said earnestly. “For a while I even believed in you. But now …” He shook his head. “This movement needs clarity of vision; this movement needs a true leader.”

“But you’re forgetting one thing,” Nom Anor said.

“I’m forgetting nothing,” Shoon-mi hissed.

“No, you are,” Nom Anor insisted. He knew he had to keep Shoon-mi talking, keep playing for time. Every second he stayed alive was a second longer that a chance to reverse his situation might present itself. And the best way to do this was to play upon the Shamed One’s insecurities and uncertainties. “In fact, I can’t believe you’re so naive as to have missed it.”

“If you think for a second that that I won’t kill you—” Shoon-mi started, and the coufee pressed harder into Nom Anor’s throat.

“I have no doubts that you would kill me, Shoon-mi,” Nom Anor gasped placatingly—although there was a look in Shoon-mi’s face that made Nom Anor wonder if the Shamed One really could kill him. He was certainly taking a long time about it. “My life is most definitely in your hands; I don’t deny this. But why are you really betraying me? Because I ordered you around? Because I kept you in the dark about certain things?”

Shoon-mi pulled back slightly. Nom Anor took the opportunity to catch his breath.

“Tell me, please, so that I may at least understand why I am to die at your hand.”

“Because you offer your followers no better than what they had under Shimrra!” There was such vitriol in the Shamed One’s tone that it startled even those holding Nom Anor down. “People came to us, and you used them as though they were nothing to you. You sacrificed them without even the decency of learning their names, while yours was on their tongues constantly. They believed in you; they believed in the Jeedai!” Shoon-mi shook his head. “The Jeedai would never have done what you did, Amorrn. All of this has been for nothing but your own glory. You have not spread the word of the Jeedai for the sake of the Shamed Ones; you have used it for your own benefit!”

“As you do now for yours, Shoon-mi?”

The blade was once more against his throat, this time hard enough to break the skin. Nom Anor felt blood seep around the edges of the coufee and trickle down his neck.

“I should—”

“Yes, you should,” Nom Anor interrupted. “Kill me! Come on, Shoon-mi! I’m sure you have more pressing things to do than stand around here talking to me. You need to start planning your freedom, remember?”

“You mock me even with death’s breath upon you?”

Nom Anor allowed himself a wide smile. His display of fearlessness had clearly rattled Shoon-mi.

“You know, perhaps I was wrong about you, Shoon-mi. Perhaps I was wrong when I said you’d forgotten something. Perhaps you never really knew it at all.”

“Knew what?” It was clear that, despite the obvious advantage, Shoon-mi wasn’t as self-assured as he was prepared to admit.

Nom Anor smiled. “That it’s not going to work.”

“Nonsense. You’re as good as dead—”

“Not me, you idiot: Shimrra. You’re never going to convince him to give your freedom and honor back. Why would he listen to you? Why would he care the slightest atom about what you want? You can’t see what’s going on under your misshapen nose, let alone in the court of a ruler a million times more powerful than the Prophet will ever be—irrespective of who wears the mask. Whatever power you gain tonight will vanish upon your death, and the death of everyone tainted by your foul stench. Your life was forfeit from the moment you entered this room. My only sadness is that I won’t be there to see it happen.”

Instead of showing doubt, the Shamed One smiled back. “Don’t think you can trick me, Amorrn. I know you’re only trying to—”

Something jolted Shoon-mi from behind, causing him to fall forward and lose his grip on the coufee. Nom Anor twisted to avoid the razor-sharp edge as Shoon-mi fell across him, dropping the lambent and turning the world to darkness.

Sudden commotion in the blackened room renewed Nom Anor’s desperation to survive. He struggled wildly, ineffectually, under the heavy weight of Shoon-mi’s body. Voices in the dark, the sound of painful grunts, the slashing of blades, the soft, wet sound of tearing fabric and flesh, the clash of weapons—all filled the air in a grisly cacophony. The hands that had been holding his shoulders down and his plaeryin bol closed had gone, but he was still pinned beneath Shoon-mi, who was breathing heavily, painfully. An agonized cry came from someone nearby, followed by the sound of a body crumpling to the floor.

Nom Anor finally rolled from under Shoon-mi’s limp body, removing the coufee from the Shamed One’s hand as he did. Shoon-mi hit the ground with a grunt and whimper, but didn’t make any attempt to move or defend himself. Then Nom Anor collected the lambent and cast the light in the direction of the fighting. The sudden light upon the two combating warriors was enough to startle one into turning marginally. It was all Kunra needed to gain the advantage and dispose of his opponent. Crouching low, he swung his long blade and buried it deep in the other warrior’s side. The eyes of the Shamed One died as they stared at Nom Anor, then the body sagged to the ground with the others, cut virtually into two halves.

Kunra straightened, wiping the flat of his blade clean on his robes.

“You all right?” he asked.

Nom Anor nodded, glancing around at the bodies lying about his chamber. “I will be now.”

“Sorry it took me so long,” the ex-warrior said. “Three of them jumped me in my room. I figured when they didn’t kill me right away that it wasn’t me they were after. They just wanted to keep me out of the way until Shoon-mi had finished with you. I guess they thought I might decide to join up with them once he’d taken over role of leader.”

Nom Anor put a hand on Kunra’s shoulder. “Either way, that was astoundingly good timing.”

“Not really. I stood outside for a while, listening.” Kunra’s flat, gray eyes looked away.

Nom Anor studied the ex-warrior. “Of course you did. You thought about letting Shoon-mi kill me. Then you could have killed him at a later date and taken over as Prophet yourself, right?”

“Perhaps.” Kunra placed his weapon beneath his robes. There was no sign of an apology, but Nom Anor didn’t want one. He didn’t mind treacherous thoughts, as long as the end result was loyalty.

“You would have made a better Prophet than Shoon-mi could have ever hoped to.” Nom Anor looked down at the Shamed One on the floor, moaning piteously with the handle of a coufee protruding from his back. The blade had severed his spinal column, rendering his limbs useless.

“What you said to him just then,” Kunra started, then stopped, unsure of either himself or the question he was about to ask.

Nom Anor faced him. “What about?”

“You told him the plan to reclaim our honor couldn’t work,” he said. “That the Supreme Overlord would never listen to us.”

“I was merely bluffing.”

Kunra shook his head. “No, I could tell from your voice that you meant it.”

Nom Anor nodded, understanding Kunra’s doubt. Was their quest a hopeless one? There were very real uncertainties in his mind—particularly after seeing Shimrra in all his splendor in the palace again.

“Who knows, Kunra? Shimrra is powerful; there’s no questioning that. But maybe we can convince him. If I had a thousand more warriors as loyal as you by my side, I would have no doubts whatsoever.”

Nom Anor glanced down again at Shoon-mi. With his foot he rolled the Shamed One over, pushing the coufee in Shoon-mi’s back even deeper. Shoon-mi cried out in discomfort, his pathetic features staring up pitiably at Nom Anor.

“Forgive me, Master,” he whimpered. “I was a misguided fool! You truly are one of the gods!”

“No, Shoon-mi,” he said. “You were right the first time. I’m not one of the gods. I spurn them as readily as I spurn you. I prefer the company of the living.”

With that he reached down and took the Shamed One’s throat in his hands and crushed the remaining life out of him. The terror of death in Shoon-mi’s eyes lasted no more than thirty seconds before being replaced by an almost serene emptiness.

Standing upright, Nom Anor faced Kunra.

“Get rid of the bodies,” he said dispassionately. “I don’t want anyone knowing about this. The last thing I need is for others to get the idea into their heads that the Prophet is vulnerable.”

“I understand,” Kunra said, and immediately began to drag the corpses to the door.

Nom Anor reached up to touch the seeping wound at his throat that Shoon-mi had inflicted. “I need to see to this,” he said. Before he left the room, he faced Kunra one last time. “You did well this night, Kunra. I won’t forget it.”

Kunra nodded solemnly, then continued with his grisly work.

Luke listened to the news from the boras network with a feeling of foreboding.

“Senshi’s made no attempt to talk to anyone,” he said when the latest reports came to an end. “But he’s up to something.”

“I agree,” Mara said. “Did he give you any idea what that might be?”

“Something dramatic, decisive, attention getting.” Luke steepled his fingers under his chin and tried to think. They were seated on the upper floor of one of the mushroom-shaped habitats. Large pores in the ceiling and walls admitted air and light into the domed space. Bowls of aromatic tea had been served on a table around which they had gathered to consider their next move.

“It would help if we knew where they were going, at least,” Mara said, scowling into her bowl. Both she and Luke had tried to sense Jacen through the Force, but they had given up after an hour; the eddying life fields of the planet simply proved too difficult to penetrate. It was now afternoon, and Luke had yet to ascertain whether such interference was normal, or somehow manufactured artificially.

“We are narrowing down the possibilities,” Darak said from the edge of the habitat. She had taken to pacing nervously, worrying at her hands as she pondered the Magister’s fate. “It’s not easy; the tampasi is very dense in that region, and the trail isn’t marked, but I believe I can guess at his destination.”

Mara looked up hopefully. “Where?”

“To the northeast of here lies a stand of rogue boras. Sekot permits their existence in order to encourage genetic diversity.”

“Rogue?” Mara frowned. “How?”

“Boras can be very dangerous and territorial when allowed to grow wild,” Darak explained. “They are as strictly contained as they can be.”

Hegerty’s expression was one of incomprehension. “Wild trees?”

“Boras are more than mere trees.” There was rebuke in Rowel’s words. “Boras seeds are mobile. They migrate to a nursery every summer, where lightning called down by the boras launches them on the next stage of their life cycle. There are many different types of boras, and correspondingly many different ways that mutants can be harmful.”

“Particularly during a thunderstorm,” Darak added. “So why would Senshi be taking them there, then?” Mara asked.

“Maybe he’s unaware that the mutant stand is in his path,” Hegerty suggested.

“It’s not important why,” Luke said. He fixed Darak with a sober gaze. This was the best lead they had had in hours. “Is it possible to cut them off before they reach it?”

Darak shook her head. “Even our fastest runners couldn’t get there in time. They’ll be there within two hours.”

“What about airships?” Luke pressed.

“The boras will prevent them from landing.”

“Jade Shadow could do it,” Mara said. “I can summon her here with the slave circuit. If you’ll release her from the landing field, we could be there in less than an hour.”

“We can try to ask Sekot,” Rowel said, “but it will be difficult without the Magister.”

“Try anyway,” Luke said. The Ferroan bowed and left the habitat.

Luke’s comlink buzzed, and he answered it. The voice at the other end belonged to Captain Yage.

“Master Skywalker, telemetry is picking up gravitation readings on the third moon of Mobus.”

“Source?”

“Unknown. But M-Three is little more than a rock. There can’t be anything big enough down there to generate gravity waves.”

“It could be a damaged coralskipper,” Luke said.

“Or one that’s working just fine,” Mara added.

“That was my thought,” Yage said. “We’d like to send a couple of TIEs to investigate.”

A glance at Darak confirmed to Luke that their hosts would be less than happy at the thought of Imperial fighters swarming over the small moon. “I’ll get back to you on that, Arien,” he said, and clicked off the comlink.

Before he could speak, Darak was shaking her head. “We will not permit what you are about to ask.”

Luke sighed, fighting to keep his tone even and reasonable when he spoke. “Please understand that we wish you no harm. We have done nothing so far to hurt you or your world. In fact, we may have found a security breach that you missed. All it would take is one ship to escape from here, and your Sanctuary will be shattered. Instead of being afraid of us, you should be letting us help you.”

“Perhaps.” Darak still wasn’t convinced, but at least she was listening. “We shall check our own observations. If there really are gravity waves coming from that moon, we will detect them and take action for ourselves.”

Luke nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”

“But don’t take too long,” Mara said as the Ferroan woman exited the room. “I don’t like being stuck here while who knows what might be warming up their drives over our heads.”

“Sekot will protect you,” Rowel assured, returning to take Darak’s place.

“And who’ll protect Sekot?” Mara’s words were steeped in annoyance and frustration, although beneath them Luke sensed a genuine sympathy for the Ferroans. “You’ve been out here too long. You’ve forgotten how big the galaxy is. Maybe Sekot has forgotten, too. I admire your faith in this planet you live on, but I’d hate you to get a rude reminder of how things really are.”

“You know little about Sekot,” the Ferroan said. “Your information is decades old, scavenged from rumors and legends. You have no concept of what Sekot is capable of.”

“Which is why we’re here,” Luke said. “We want to know, because Sekot is at the core of our solution. With that knowledge, perhaps we can find peace in a way that won’t involve the death of trillions.”

“We’re going in circles,” Hegerty said. “And until Sekot decides to trust us, we’re just going to keep on going that way.”

“Sekot has no reason to trust you,” Rowel stated flatly.

“Then we’ll just have to give it one,” Mara said.

Luke nodded in agreement, thinking: But what? What would Obi-Wan do in my place?

The thought that Obi-Wan and his father had been here, long ago, still nagged at the back of his mind. If there were any way to summon the spirit of his lost teacher, he would have done so immediately.

What happened to you when you were here, Ben? Does it have any bearing on what’s happening to us now? And what of my father? Was his fate bound in any way to what happened to him here?

His thoughts, of course, received no answer, so he released them with a sigh. He returned to the discussion with the others, empathizing fully with Mara’s growing frustration …

The corridors of the Esfandia Long-Range Communications Base were narrow but surprisingly tall. Obviously, Leia thought, it had been designed that way with its Gotal commander in mind, whose twin energy-sensing horns stretched a meter above Leia’s head. On the Millennium Falcon, Ashpidar would have had to crouch at all times; here the commander had to duck only occasionally on her tour of the base.

The heights of the rest of the crew, however, were on the whole decidedly below average. Three slight Sullustans made up the core engineering and technical expertise on the base, while five stocky Ugnaughts were there for grunt work. There was a Noghri security chief called Eniknar who came up to Leia’s shoulder; his assistants were two squat Klatooinians. Two human communications specialists and a Twi’lek science officer defended the average.

The tour, given by the commander and her security chief, shouldn’t have taken long, but Ashpidar insisted on introducing Leia and Droma to everyone they met. Her Noghri bodyguards hovered close behind at all times. They were quiet and unobtrusive, but Leia could always sense them there.

Droma had chosen to accompany her to the base because he’d said he needed to get out of the Falcon for a while. After what they’d just been through, he was feeling a little claustrophobic. Han had opted to stay back with his ship, because he felt that someone needed to keep an eye on her. Besides which, he said it would give him the chance to do diagnostic checks on the engine and shield generators.

“This is our extravehicular bay.” Ashpidar opened an internal air lock to reveal five speeder bikes. Next to them stood a cupboard containing enviro-suits suitable for the dense, frigid atmosphere outside. “Although the base itself is mobile, there are times when we must travel individually to the sensor stations to perform minor repairs. The sensors are temperamental devices, requiring frequent maintenance.”

Leia nodded. Half a plan was forming in her mind; if the other half fell into place, the speeder bikes would be essential.

Outside the base, silence still reigned. While the pounding stopped, the Brrbrlpp were safe. She was grateful for that, at least; it gave her time to think.

“Sensing transmissions from the Unknown Regions is just half the story, surely,” Droma said. “You’d have to broadcast them again, into the rest of the galaxy. Where do you do that?”

“The sensors accomplish that task, also,” Ashpidar droned. Her flat, monotone voice made it hard to feign interest. “Every signal detected by more than one sensor is error-checked and boosted toward the Core by at least half of the remaining sensors. Juggling the reception-and-transmission load is one reason why the system is so delicate, and why we try to maintain a healthy margin for error. I endeavor to operate on a fifty percent surplus capacity.”

“How many sensors have you lost due to the Yuuzhan Vong?” Leia asked.

“Thirteen out of forty.”

“Could you function normally with that?”

“As long as there are no further bombardments, then yes, we could operate for a time. But we would require additional resources to bring up that safety margin.”

“I’ll do everything I can to make sure you have them,” Leia said. And quickly, she added to herself. Who knew what messages Luke might be trying to send her from the Unknown Regions?

When the tour was complete, Ashpidar took them to her cabin, which doubled as an office. She took a seat on one side of her expansive desk, while Leia, Droma, and the security chief sat on the other. Leia’s bodyguards stood just outside the door.

“This is a secure environment,” Eniknar assured her in his sibilant voice. The Noghri was whip-slender and corded, his reptilian face a picture of intensity. “What you’re about to see has not been revealed to the rest of the crew.”

Ashpidar opened a safe on the wall opposite them and revealed a leathery ball with a supple, ridged surface. A vein pulsed at its base, indicating that it was a living thing. A wiry husk surrounded the creature, culminating in a long, tapering tail.

“A villip,” Leia said. “Is that how the Yuuzhan Vong knew you were here?”

Ashpidar agreed. “They were summoned here. Exactly when or why we have no way of knowing. There must have been another on Generis, too.”

“This one was found two days ago in a maintenance recess deep in the belly of the base,” Eniknar said. “Anyone could have hidden it there. The person who owns it must know by now that it’s been discovered, but they have not revealed themselves. Therefore, unfortunately, our betrayer still walks among us.”

“We’d just begun conducting low-key security sweeps when the Yuuzhan Vong arrived,” Ashpidar said. “Obviously survival takes preference in the short term. Until we can locate the traitor, I’ve kept the villip here, where no one can access it but me.” So saying, she closed the safe and locked it. “All other forms of communications are sealed tight. Nothing and no one gets out of this base without my authorization.”

Leia indicated her approval. “We can show you how to sweep for Yuuzhan Vong in disguise. We have mouse droids designed to do so discreetly. You don’t have to be a Jedi to do that.”

The expressionless Gotal inclined her head. “My thanks.”

“All we need to do,” Leia said, “is ride out the crisis. Once the Yuuzhan Vong have been knocked out of orbit, you’ll be able to emerge and conduct a proper inquiry.”

“That is my hope. I do fear, however, that—” Ashpidar’s desk comlink bleeped, interrupting her. “Yes?”

“A message from the Millennium Falcon,” reported one of the commander’s communications officers. “Coded telemetry data has arrived from orbit.”

“Patch it through, Ridil.” A holodisplay came to life on Ashpidar’s desk. It showed the disposition of the Yuuzhan Vong and Imperial forces over opposite hemispheres, keeping each other at bay. Flashpoints came and went as either side probed the defenses of the other or attempted to drop forces down into the atmosphere. No one was getting through. As Leia watched, the image zoomed in to the surface to show entry points for a small Yuuzhan Vong force that had managed to make it down to the atmosphere while the battle had been raging.

“We’ve got company,” Droma said.

“So it would seem,” the security chief said.

“If they’re combing the area,” Leia said, “then it will only be a matter of time before they find us.” A distant pressure slipped into Leia’s mind. Relief rushed through her as Jaina’s mental presence made itself felt. It wasn’t some strange psychic attack, but a long-distance version of a Jedi mind-meld. The link was tremulous, severely attenuated. It was obviously taking a great deal of effort to keep open, and it soon ebbed and faded altogether.

“Princess?” Leia broke from her thoughts now to face Ashpidar, who was looking at her with some concern. “Are you all right?”

“I’m sorry,” Leia said, standing. “As long as no stray emissions alert the Yuuzhan Vong to our presence here, we should be safe for the moment. The traitor inside the base is what we need to be focusing upon. Come with me to the Falcon and I’ll equip you with mouse droids. While you’re addressing that problem, we’ll work on the other.”

Ashpidar stood and bowed her high, horned head. “I am grateful for your assistance.”

Eniknar escorted them back to the Falcon. No one spoke for the duration of the short trip, but once they were safely back on board the freighter and the security chief had gone, Droma immediately turned to Leia and shook his head.

“I don’t like him,” he said.

“Who? Eniknar?”

“Yeah, Eniknar,” Droma said. “Did you see his expression when that telemetry came through?”

Leia nodded. “There was something not quite right about him.” She turned to her Noghri bodyguards. “Did you recognize Eniknar’s clan-scent?”

“We do not know him,” Meewalh said. “He has distanced himself from Honoghr,” Cakhmain agreed.

“Or was never part of it,” Droma said. “Let’s set those droids on him and see what happens.”

“They’ll only detect a Yuuzhan Vong hiding under a masquer,” Leia said, “and I would have noticed that already. If he is a traitor, then we’re going to have to force him to reveal himself.”

Droma’s eyes studied her closely. “You have a plan?”

“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “But I have someone to talk to first.”

Captain Mayn brought Grand Admiral Pellaeon up to date via the comm unit. Jaina was still with Tahiri, Jag by her side, listening in via the comm unit in the Selonia’s medical wards. Pellaeon came through loud and clear from Right to Rule. Jaina’s mother had managed to open contact with those in orbit via a transmission from a modified research droid. The droid, little more than a repulsor unit with a subspace transmitter strapped to its back, had been quickly redesigned to receive the same radio frequencies employed by the planet’s native life forms. In order to further avoid giving away the relay base’s location, the Falcon had communicated with it only by brief laser pulses on that frequency. Even so, the transmission from the droid relay had barely lasted long enough to bring all parties up to date. Within moments, a Yuuzhan Vong volley had cut the conversation dramatically short.

“So the Falcon and the relay base are effectively trapped,” Pellaeon said once Captain Mayn had finished.

“That’s correct, sir.”

“And there’s been no sign of those ground troops yet?”

“None, sir.”

“That won’t last long. Commander Vorrik is impatient. He won’t allow them to sit on their hands down there; he’ll want results, and he’ll want them fast.”

“Their first task,” Tahiri said in low, confident tones, “will be to search the bombardment sites for signs of wreckage. When they’ve been cleared, the spaces between will be examined. They’ll begin at the center of the bombed region and work outward. Although they have effectively missed, they will assume that their information was correct and that the relay base is most likely near the middle.”

“And where is it, exactly?” Pellaeon asked.

“Near the edge,” Captain Mayn said. “The bombed region centers on the approximate location of the Falcon’s last transmission. They won’t know that it’s moved.”

“So we have them at a slight disadvantage,” Pellaeon said.

“All we need is a window of opportunity in which to act,” Jaina said. “Our first priority is to get someone down there to help them. At the moment, Vorrik is hanging in there because he feels confident of finding the base. If he has priorities elsewhere, then his time isn’t unlimited. Make it harder for him to find the base and he might just decide that it’s not worth it.”

“It would give me immense pleasure to force that battle-clouded fool to retreat from a fight.” There seemed to be a hint of a smile in the admiral’s voice.

“What about the traitor on the ground?” Jag asked. “How are we going to coordinate any sort of action knowing it could be undermined at any time?”

“That’s a risk Mom is prepared to take,” Jaina said. “She thinks they’ve already identified the traitor.”

“The mouse droids?” Jag asked.

Jaina shook her head. “They didn’t pick anything up. But she’s keeping an eye on him, in case he tries anything.”

“We can do little about the traitor down there,” Pellaeon said. “Our issue is to focus on how to get a team onto the surface. Vorrik has Esfandia effectively closed off. Neither of us can get down there.”

“I think I might be able to help,” Tahiri said. “All I need is access to a Yuuzhan Vong hulk. I’m sure there must be at least one floating around out there left over from the battle.”

“Actually, we have the orbits of six charted,” Pellaeon said. “But I doubt you’ll get away with taking one of them down to the surface. After Colonel Fel’s performance, they won’t fall for that trick in a hurry again.”

“That’s not what I intend. There might be a living villip choir on one of them. Give me that, and I’ll give you the window you require.”

The blond girl’s expression was fiercely determined, almost stern; she was a far cry from the confused, broken girl who had come to Mon Calamari for help prior to setting out on the mission.

“And how will you do that, exactly?” Pellaeon asked.

“I will tell Vorrik that I intend to lead the Falcon and the relay base into a trap,” she said. “I’ll tell him that I plan to betray Princess Leia and Captain Solo in the bargain.”

Pellaeon seemed uncertain. “He’ll suspect a double cross.”

“Perhaps,” Tahiri said easily. “But he won’t be able to afford not to take advantage of the offer. A quick and easy victory will enable him to move elsewhere without disgrace.”

The Grand Admiral still didn’t seem convinced, and Jaina could understand why. What if Tahiri really did betray Han and Leia, not Vorrik at all? What if she was planning a triple cross with Pellaeon himself on the receiving end?

“I trust her,” Jaina said. At some point she knew that they were going to have to let Tahiri prove herself worthy, and now seemed as good a time as any—especially since the combined knowledge of Tahiri and Riina might be the only thing capable of getting them out of the mess they had found themselves in. Besides which, her gut instincts told her that Tahiri was whole and strong. “I trust her with my life.”

Her bold declaration had the required effect.

“Very well,” Pellaeon said after a moment’s thought, seemingly satisfied.

Beside her, Jaina also noticed the tense set to Jag’s shoulder ease noticeably. She even felt a slight lessening of intensity from Tahiri.

“I’ll leave you to organize the details with the Falcon and the relay base, once they open communications again,” Pellaeon went on. “I ask only that you advise me of the outcome. I’ll maintain the situation up here as long as I can. If you need assistance, you have but to ask.”

The admiral’s small speech was stiff, almost formal. Jaina suspected she knew why, and it surprised her.

“Of course we’ll need your assistance, Admiral,” she said. “We’re not going to get through this blockade on our own. You loaned Captain Mayn a TIE squadron during the initial advance. I’d like to requisition another one to Twin Suns Squadron for the time being. Would this be acceptable?”

“Jaina Solo,” he said with some amusement, “you’re as much a politician as your mother.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“As it was intended.”

When the line to the Grand Admiral closed, Jag faced Jaina with a frown.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

It was Tahiri who answered him.

“Trust,” she said. “If we don’t use the Imperials, they’ll feel as though they’re being left out, and then they’ll wonder why. If we’re not actively keeping secrets from them, then we should let them participate in everything we do. I suspect that this is why peace accords with the Empire have failed in the past. A lack of fighting isn’t peace; it’s just a temporary cessation of war.”

Jaina nodded. “If we’re going to work together, the Empire and the Galactic Alliance have to not just communicate with each other, but use each other, also. Talking isn’t enough. Until we fight together, risk our lives alongside one another, we will always be apart.”

“I’ll give the squadrons some work to do until you’re ready to commandeer what you need,” Captain Mayn interjected into the conversation. “As the ranking Jedi here, I’ll take your instructions on what you require the Selonia to do in support of your mission.”

It hit Jaina, then, that she was effectively in charge. Yes, she was relaying her orders, but the finer points would be under her command. Even the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Fleet was prepared to take her recommendations. It was strange, but she didn’t feel discomforted by the authority she suddenly found herself carrying.

“Tahiri and I will confer,” she said. “I’ll issue instructions within the hour. Keep everyone on red alert. If our situation changes, we’ll need to act immediately.”

“Understood,” Mayn said. She signed off.

“Well,” Jag said, nodding as if impressed. “Check out Chief Jaina.”

“You should watch yourself,” she said. “I could have you up for insubordination with talk like that.”

“Is that so? You may be able to throw your weight around here, Colonel Solo, but when next we meet on the sparring mats it will be a different story altogether, I assure you.”

“Funny, but if I recall, it was me who had the upper hand last time we clashed, back on Mon Cal.”

Tahiri’s laugh surprised them both. Together they turned to face her.

“What’s so amusing?” Jaina asked.

“You two,” Tahiri said. There was a smile on her face the likes of which Jaina hadn’t seen in a long time. She’d smiled before, but not like this—not so completely. “If Anakin were here, I’m sure he would have told the two of you to get a room or something.”

Jaina returned the smile, certain that both of them felt the same pang of grief below the happy memory—and certain, too, now, that Tahiri was going to be all right.

Saba felt as though she were drowning in fragrance. The kidnappers, many of them riding giant, three-legged creatures they called carapods, followed Senshi down a steep, wriggling path into a deep valley, the sides of which hung with thick vines that cascaded down the slopes like a green, still-life waterfall. As they descended, the air grew thicker and hotter, and was heavily laden with pollens and moisture. It made Saba’s head spin; her pulse raced and her skin itched as her body worked to combat the extra heat.

The steady rainfall wasn’t helping, either. The air was so humid that evaporation was almost impossible. She felt as if she were surrounded by a boiling fog, a swirling glow in infrared that turned the green of leaves and moss to crimson.

“How much farther?” Jacen asked the Ferroan ahead of them, a muscular woman with her hair folded back in a fat bun.

“Not far,” the woman said without looking back.

Saba could feel the young Jedi’s irritation. He was concerned about Danni, who was strapped to the carapod behind them—just as Jabitha was to another beast ahead of them. She still hadn’t woken from the blow that had knocked her unconscious. That worried Saba, too. Neither of them was a healer, and they had exhausted their ability to help her very early on. Danni didn’t seem to be worsening, but neither was she improving. If she remained as she was for much longer, getting her to Tekli would become a priority.

Saba then fixed her thoughts on their destination. She sensed a knot of darkness ahead, deep in the valley; a break in the flow of life sweeping through Zonama. When she probed at it and tried to picture it in her mind, the image that came was of a whirlpool storm in the atmosphere of a gas giant. Normal flows continued around it more or less undisturbed, bending only slightly to make way for its presence, but anything that came too close was sucked in and devoured.

Senshi was leading them down into that heart of darkness. It called Saba through the fog, whispering directly into her mind. But the darkness wasn’t deliberately calling her, she knew; it was just triggering the darkness that was already in her—the doubts of her self-worth, and the residual guilt for the loss of her homeworld …

No! she told herself firmly, pushing the emotions from her mind. She wasn’t about to allow this darkness to take hold of her thoughts. It was not real; she had to stay focused!

Thankfully, the dark allure receded slightly in response to her determination, and she continued resolutely to follow Senshi on their downward trek.

Everything was ready. A shuttle supplied by the Imperials had stocked the gutted yorik-stronha picket ship analog that had once been called Hrosha-Gul—a name that meant “price of pain,” Tahiri knew. Jaina had immediately rechristened it Collaborator upon assuming control.

Tahiri stood amid the wreckage that had once been the bridge and pondered what that name indicated for her future. Things seemed to be going well in her mind, but she was ever vigilant for signs of disturbance. While the part that had once been Riina had reservations about attacking the Yuuzhan Vong, there was no resistance to the plan Jaina had devised.

The part that had once been … The words seemed strange, irrelevant. She was thinking with one mind now, not two. Her thoughts were her own, and the time when her body had carried both Tahiri and Riina was little more than a bad dream—an increasingly distant one at that. The knowledge they shared didn’t come in words, as though from separate minds. It felt more as one would converse with a conscience, a part of oneself. It felt right.

The Yuuzhan Vong did this to me, she told herself. Whether I was Tahiri or Riina, they abused my mind and left me to suffer. And then they took Anakin away from me. For that, if nothing else, I will fight them.

Earlier, she had located the lingering remnants of a villip choir. Setting up a primitive nutrient feed, she had coaxed it back into a semblance of functionality. She didn’t know how well it would work, but it would definitely transmit, and possibly receive, too. The latter depended on how fundamentally the coral hull of the picket ship had been damaged. The equivalent of an antenna threaded through the yorik coral in the form of spiraling fibers, attuned to the subtle vibrations of the Yuuzhan Vong communications system.

Tahiri took a deep breath and activated the choir. She could feel the stares of the others in the mission, staying silent and watchful out of range of the villips. For the moment, everything depended on her performance.

The villips folded themselves inside out and the two surviving beacons quivered to life.

“I, Riina of Domain Kwaad, seek to humble myself before Commander B’shith Vorrik,” she said, loudly and clearly in the Yuuzhan Vong language.

The villips fluttered like aquatic creatures feeding in an inrushing tide. Strange patterns fluttered across the choir’s field of view, tantalizing but never quite taking coherent form. A liquid, static-filled voice tried to speak to her but emerged as nothing but grating vowels.

She tried again. “Riina of Domain Kwaad calls from the valiant husk of Hrosha-Gul. I abase my unworthy self in hope of an audience. My service to Yun-Yuuzhan’s glorious cause has not yet ended.”

More grating sounds, then suddenly a harsh, guttural voice coalesced out of the noise.

“The commander does not waste time with failed domains.”

“Domain Kwaad did not fail. I am Riina, a warrior, shaped to obey. Hear me out if you wish your enemies delivered.”

“Your words are lies, and your lies are empty.”

“My only lies are to our mutual enemies. It is they I send to their deaths.”

There was a slight delay. Then, after a pause sufficient to be insulting, a new voice growled at her:

“Speak, feeble one.”

“Do I have the honor of the commander’s attention?”

“No. You are unworthy to inhabit the same universe as him. Speak!”

“I bring intelligence of the enemy’s movements,” she said. “The infidels have taken me into their trust. I will betray their conspiracy in order to further Commander Vorrik’s glory.”

“And who are you to promise such things?”

“I am Riina of Domain Kwaad. I am the one-who-was-shaped.”

Another pause. “I have heard of this heresy. You are a Jeedai abomination.”

“I am the pride of Yun-Harla. The shapers made me to obey. I abase myself now in the hope that you will allow me to perform my sacred duty, so that I might return to the fold of the mighty Yuuzhan Vong.”

Yet another pause, this one longer than the previous. She suspected she was being transferred to someone still higher along the hierarchal chain. Sure enough, when the quiet was finally broken, the voice belonged to another warrior.

“Your claims offend my ears. You have the time it would take for me to drain the blood from a heretic to convince me not to blow your worthless life out of the skies!”

And so it went. The process was laborious, but necessary. Every Yuuzhan Vong leader relied on this process of trial by underling to ensure that anything reaching him was worth listening to. If it wasn’t, every one of those underlings in the chain would pay dearly, and they knew it. But with every underling she convinced, Tahiri became increasingly certain that she would soon be talking to the commander himself, and that she would be able to convince him as she had his underlings.

Finally, the roughest, foulest voice of all spoke to her from the damaged villip choir. It had to be the commander. His insults echoed those she had already received in regard to content, but the tone was infinitely more malicious.

“Your visage offends my eyes,” he said slowly, precisely, venom dripping from every syllable. “Your very existence is an affront to the proper order of the universe. You will offer yourself as sacrifice to Yun-Yammka at the first opportunity to ensure that no others attempt what the Kwaad heretics attempted.”

Tahiri lowered her eyes. She had expected something like this. “Lord Commander, I shall obey. The Slayer may take me through your very hands, if you wish. Once I have delivered victory over the infidels to you, I will have no further reason to live.”

This seemed to please him, marginally. “Speak, then, of how this victory may be accomplished.”

“I have convinced the Jedi that I can be trusted, and that I will provide safe passage onto the surface of the planet Esfandia. In exchange for their trust, and for your assistance in expediting our safe journey, I will betray them at the first opportunity and reveal to you the location of the communications base you seek.”

“How do I know that you can be trusted? You speak as a Yuuzhan Vong, but your appearance is that of an infidel!”

“You can see me that well, Great Commander?”

“The image is poor, but clear enough to cause me revulsion.”

“As it should, Commander. Were I not to be sacrificed, I would beg the shapers to give me a body more suitable of service to Yun-Yammka.” She took a deep breath and concentrated. “As it is, I wish only to prove my dedication to the gods. I am a faithful servant of Yun-Harla. The Cloaked Goddess protects me among the infidels. She keeps my true face hidden. But it is there, beneath this foul visage. I ask her for a sign that will prove my loyalty to you. I beseech the Trickster for one last chance to cleanse myself of the stain of abomination!”

Tahiri tipped her head back. The old scars on her forehead burned as she sent the Force through them. Inflicted by the Shaper Mezhan Kwaad during the implantation of Riina, Tahiri had kept the scars as a memento of her trials. They had come to symbolize everything from her loss of self on Yavin 4 to the death of Anakin. They were to play a much more important role now.

Under her will, the deep wounds opened afresh. Blood trickled down her temples and face as her skin parted and peeled back. She was careful not to show any emotion but joy, keeping her mind focused on the Force rather than the pain. The villip would be showing Commander Vorrik everything. The slightest flicker of humanity, and he would know that she was lying.

Eventually Vorrik spoke. “Enough,” he said. “You will be given the chance you request.”

Tahiri tipped her face forward. Blood dripped from her chin to her chest, but she ignored it. “I am not worthy, commander.”

“Today, abomination, Yun-Harla favors you. That is enough for me. The yorik-stronha you have commandeered will be allowed to enter the planet’s atmosphere. Any other craft attempting to escort you, however, will be destroyed.”

“Yes, Great One. This vessel will appear to descend under an uncontrolled burn. The Imperial infidels will ignore it, as they would ignore any other piece of space junk. I ask only that you ignore it, too.”

“It shall be done. We shall await your signal. Do not fail me, Riina of Domain Kwaad, or this will be merely the beginning of your torment.”

Tahiri bowed. “I won’t, Commander.”

Tahiri straightened and stroked the villip choir’s control nodule. The ball-shaped organisms inverted with a sigh, as though they knew that their usefulness had been exceeded, and that they could now die in peace. As soon as she was sure the choir had ceased transmitting, Tahiri let herself relax.

“Hu-carjen tok!” she cried out as the pain of her reopened wounds rushed in.

Jaina ran out of hiding to soothe her. “You didn’t need to do that,” she said. “Are you all right?”

Tahiri nodded, but didn’t argue about need. There had been little choice. She wasn’t little Tahiri any more; she was someone new—and this someone didn’t balk at what had to be done.

Jag was looking at her in a way he had never done before—almost as if he was reevaluating his opinion of her.

“We’ll start the burn in five minutes,” Jaina went on, applying synthflesh to the wounds on Tahiri’s forehead. “That’ll give you an hour to go into a healing trance. And I’m ordering you to do just that, okay? I need as many hands on deck as possible.”

Tahiri nodded. She was a warrior and a Jedi, and both sides of her knew to follow orders when they made sense. After receiving a spray hypo of painkiller, she took a crash couch at the rear of the hollowed-out space and closed her eyes.

The Millennium Falcon seemed empty without Droma and Han. Leia had little do but wait as the plan was put into effect. The mission to the communications transponder had left two hours earlier. Leia had been there as Han had suited up and tested the controls of his speeder bike.

“Sure you don’t want to come?” he’d asked her, his voice muffled behind the transparent visor of his flexible enviro-suit. He’d smiled wryly and added, “Could be romantic, the two of us slipping away from the others to do a bit of sight-seeing.”

She’d laughed at this. “Sight-seeing on a planet with an atmosphere of methane and hydrogen? I think I’ll pass, thanks all the same.”

The suits were designed to keep the deep cold of Esfandia at bay as well as provide the right atmospheric mix for several species. They could accommodate many different body types, which was fortunate given the people on the mission. As well as Han, there was another human communications technician, the Noghri security head, Eniknar—“Where I can keep an eye on him,” as Han had put it—a hefty Klatooinian security guard, and Droma, whose tail was snugly tucked away down one leg of the suit.

“Besides,” she’d said as she watched the motley bunch ready themselves for the mission, “somebody needs to stay behind to mind the ship.”

He couldn’t argue that point. As much as he would have loved for Leia to be with him, he was practical enough to know the importance of keeping an eye on his freighter.

She had kissed his visor and wished him luck. Once outside the base and beyond the confines of the nesting plain tunnels, the five speeder bikes were under strict comm silence. The slightest transmission would alert the Yuuzhan Vong ground teams to their whereabouts. If they maintained the ban on emissions and kept low to the surface, it was unlikely they would be discovered—unless, of course, they were unlucky enough to run into one of those ground teams along the way.

Commander Ashpidar had offered Leia a refreshment in her office, and she had accepted. They had talked for perhaps half an hour about anything other than their situation, and she couldn’t help wonder if the mood-sensitive Gotal was trying to distract Leia from her concerns. Ashpidar talked about life on Antar 4, where she’d met a commercial interpreter and planned to raise a family. Her mate had died in a mining accident, however, and Ashpidar, stricken with grief, had left her home to explore the larger galaxy. That was twenty standard years ago, she said, and she’d never looked back.

“Tell me about the Cold Ones,” Leia said, using the commander’s own term for the species of intelligent life indigenous to Esfandia—a term considerably easier to pronounce than Brrbrlpp. “When were they taught to speak trinary? And by whom?”

“That was the previous base commander,” Ashpidar replied. “Before my time. Communications traffic was less, then, and the full-time crew correspondingly smaller. Commander Si was an exiled Gran, and lonely with it. In his off-duty hours he studied the Cold Ones and deciphered their calls, noting what no one else had: despite the lack of physical evidence such as tools, it was clear that the creatures had a culture. As proof of this, he taught them to speak trinary, which is much easier to understand than their native tongue. They communicate exclusively with us in that language now, keeping us informed of their movements so we’re aware at all times of their whereabouts.”

Leia nodded solemnly. “That way you avoid accidental deaths like the ones we were responsible for.”

“Exactly.”

“Do they communicate with you often?”

Ashpidar came as close to smiling as Leia had seen, but her tone remained dull and lifeless. “The Cold Ones love to talk. Their calls can travel great distances. Sometimes the whole planet seems alive with their chatter.”

“Are there many of them?” Leia asked.

“They’re not a bountiful species, and never have been. We estimate their numbers to be in the thousands.”

“That’s not a lot.”

“No, but then Esfandia isn’t the sort of world that can support a large and varied ecosystem. As the core temperature winds down, the available niches are contracting. The fact that there are no tides or seasons tends to mean that the same species have propagated across the entire planet. What Esfandia has at the moment is a sort of equilibrium. Relatively speaking, the Cold Ones are like rancors, at the top of the food chain, eating anything they can get their mouths around farther down. They tend vast gardens that stretch for kilometers, and herd flocks of flying insects that they trade for trace minerals filtered from the air. It’s a complex system that’s very gradually devolving, but it serves them well for the moment.”

“And now the Yuuzhan Vong have come along and disrupted everything.”

Ashpidar nodded her great horned head. “Explosions and vehicular wakes have a profound effect on the biosphere. That’s why this base’s design was structured on that of an All Terrain Armored Transport. In time, perhaps, the energy input to the system will actually increase growth in some areas, but initially it causes nothing but widespread destruction. I have suggested that the Cold Ones take shelter in the nesting plains until the crisis is over, but they are a curious species. Many of them, particularly the younger ones, would happily risk death for just a little excitement in their lives.”

Later, back in the Falcon, it was these words that Leia found herself pondering. Some things, it seemed, were universal. Her own children were no different from those of the Cold Ones—and they were no different from how she had been at their age, either. What was it about youth, she wondered, that sent them on such extreme quests for selfhood and experience? What was the point of finding out who you were if it meant dying in the process?

“I must be getting old, Threepio,” she said to the golden droid.

“We all are, Mistress,” he chirped mournfully in reply.

The atmosphere was gloomy and close when they reached the floor of the valley. Jacen looked warily around him, sensing hostility but not able to identify its source. Hanging vines and ropelike roots, sliding in and out of cracks in the rock like snakes, hid the steep V of the valley below. High above, the dense canopy formed a distant ceiling from which rain fell steadily. He felt as though they’d entered a vast underground chamber.

Their destination wasn’t far away. A narrow river flowing noisily along the bottom of the valley had been blocked by a rockfall, forming a dam around which a stand of boras grew. These trees clawed their way through the stone walls and floor of the valley, their trunks coiling around each other, knotted in a dense and sinister-looking mat. Jacen sensed a furious struggle caught in the posture of the trees, as though the boras had been frozen in the act of trying to devour one another. The strangely motile limbs of the giant trees swayed and snapped between the trunks, unnervingly like the tentacles of a sarlacc, seeking prey.

“We’re going in there?” he asked the Ferroan ahead of them.

“Yes,” she replied, as curtly as she had to every other question he’d asked.

“Mind telling me why?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” she said.

The carapod bearing Danni plodded along behind them. Jacen felt a strange excitement brewing in the creature’s mind—as though it recognized this place—but he could get nothing more from it than that. Its hide was as thick as a bantha’s, and oddly rich in metals, glinting occasionally in the poor light.

At the edge of the stand of boras, Senshi stopped the party. The Ferroans riding carapods quickly dismounted. Danni’s and Jabitha’s stretchers were unloaded.

“We walk the rest of the way,” Senshi said.

“Wait a minute.” Jacen shouldered his way through the knot of kidnappers to the Ferroan leader. “I don’t like the look of that place.”

Senshi shrugged. “That’s not my concern. You chose to accompany us, and this is where we are going. You can either come with us or leave. The choice remains yours.”

“There iz a third choice,” Saba hissed menacingly. Jacen put a hand on her arm to stay any hostile actions. He could feel her muscles vibrating like overtightened wires beneath her scales. “We’ll come with you,” he said. “But if you make any attempt to harm—”

“What?” Senshi interjected sharply. “What will you do, Jedi? All I hear are empty words. Make good with your threats or stay out of my way!”

Without another word, the kidnappers continued into the stand of boras. Their silent compliance unnerved him as much as their destination. Senshi seemed to have them all hypnotized.

They circled the muddy lake and came to the natural dam that was its genesis. It rose like a scar across the bottom of the valley, ten meters high, blocking off the river. Waterfalls trickled down the far side of the dam, creating a series of smaller rivers that joined up farther down the valley. The stand of boras was densest there, towering above them. Their trunks merged and joined in one particular space, isolating a blackened pit with a stone floor. Charred tentacles rose from its edges like frozen smoke.

Jacen looked nervously around him as the party continued their descent. He and Saba kept to the rear, stepping carefully from root to root down the steep slope. The air around them smelled of damp charcoal, as though countless fires had been kindled and quashed here over the years.

At the bottom of the pit, the kidnappers came to a halt again. Senshi ordered the stretcher bearing the Magister to be placed on the buckled stone floor, Danni’s beside her.

“This one iz concerned,” Saba muttered to Jacen, her eyes searching the gloom. “The life energies here are … tangled. We are all in danger.”

Jacen wasn’t about to argue with that; he had exactly the same reservations. He confronted Senshi with his concerns. “What is this place, Senshi? Why are we here?”

“Boras have a complex life cycle,” the head kidnapper said. “They are a magnificent species in all respects. Their seeds are more like animals than plants. They channel lightning to fuel complex organic processes, deep within their trunks. Their roots link and merge in a communications network that spans the globe. We cohabit the surface of Sekot, the boras and us, and we respect each other’s differences.”

The ground seemed to tremble beneath their feet. “Just like all organic systems,” Senshi went on, “there can be injuries, diseases, cancers. This is one such place, where the natural patterns of Sekot have been stunted, twisted. There are malignant boras, just as there can be malignant people. On the whole, such boras are perfectly safe—unless you disturb their seeding grounds, of course, in which case you are in great danger.”

Jacen felt compelled to ask, even though part of him already knew the answer: “Where are they, these seeding grounds?”

A sudden swirling of antipathy swept around them, radiating from the boras.

Senshi smiled. “We’re standing on them.”

Saba had had enough. She snatched her lightsaber from her side and ignited it with a touch of its activation stud. Everyone around the pit turned to her, their faces painted by the bright red glow from her blade.

The action seemed to whip the malignant boras to a new level of excitement. Saba felt subsonic rumblings pass through her claws to the pads of her feet as the tentacles of the trees flailed over their heads, snapping and crackling like an angry brushfire.

“Saba, wait!” Jacen called out.

“We cannot stay here.” She kept her stare fixed on Senshi as she spoke. “It’z not safe. And Danni needz attention! This one iz telling you to take us out of here now.”

She flexed her muscles to add her considerable Barabel weight to the request.

“No,” Senshi returned, unmoved by either her words or her posturing.

“It’s okay, Saba,” Jacen said, stepping up to her and motioning for her to lower her weapon.

She stared at him, confused. Couldn’t he see the danger they were in? Couldn’t he sense through the Force that something wasn’t right here?

“Please,” he urged. “Trust me.”

Despite her reservations, she deactivated her lightsaber and lowered it as he requested. He nodded his appreciation, then faced Senshi.

“Please, before someone gets hurt, can’t you explain to us what is going on? What is it you hope to achieve by bringing us here?”

“That all depends on what you intend to do about it.”

“What does that mean?” Jacen said in obvious exasperation. “I don’t understand.”

“You will, soon enough.”

“Great is the Potentium …” A low chant came from the combined voices of those around them. “Great is the life of Sekot.”

Saba felt the energies of the boras gathering together. The trunks shuddered and stretched, as though reaching for the sky. She felt a gathering potential in the air, building with every second. Whatever was going to happen, it was coming fast.

“All serve and are served,” the crowd chanted. “All join the Potentium!”

Jabitha moaned. Before Saba had chance to react, Senshi was on the ground beside the Magister, one hand across her throat and the other pressing one of the organic lightning rods against her temple.

“Move and I’ll kill her,” he said to the stunned Jedi Knights.

Saba froze, her thumb hesitating over her lightsaber’s activation stud.

“This isn’t what I expected,” the Magister said, her eyes flickering open to look at those gathered around her.

“That was the idea,” Senshi hissed, dragging her and the stretcher closer to the edge of the pit. “Now what, Jedi?” he asked Jacen. “Now what?”

“Now we’ll see,” Mara whispered as Darak hurried back into the habitat—armed, Luke hoped, with the results of the analysis of the anomalous gravity readings from Mobus’s third moon.

Darak whispered to Rowel in a language that Luke couldn’t understand. Then, as one, both the Ferroans turned to face him.

“Our sensors detect no gravitic anomaly,” Rowel said.

“What?” Mara said. “You’re saying you detect nothing?”

Rowel nodded. “Your comrades must have been mistaken with their readings.”

“Either that,” Darak put in, “or you have been attempting to mislead us.”

“Or you could be wrong,” Mara said angrily.

“We have studied this system for decades,” Rowel said, rearing back defensively. “We know its moons intimately. We are not wrong.”

“Perhaps you are being lied to,” Luke said, trying to ease the growing tensions. “Tell me, who did your information come from?”

“From Sekot, of course, via the boras network,” Rowel replied in a tone that suggested Luke had to be a fool for even asking. “Everything on Zonama begins and ends with Sekot.”

Luke nodded his understanding, raising the comlink to his lips. “Captain Yage, I want you to send a flight of TIEs to investigate that anomaly.”

“I have a flight on standby now, sir,” Yage responded immediately, clearly picking up on the more formal tone in Luke’s voice. “They’ll break formation in ten seconds.”

“What—?” Darak stepped forward, her face pinched in alarm.

Luke ignored her, speaking to Yage again via his comlink. “Good work, Captain. You may authorize them to use destructive force if necessary.”

“You can’t do this!” Darak protested heatedly. “You don’t have the authorization to maneuver in our vicinity—let alone take aggressive measures!”

“If you aren’t prepared to do what needs to be done,” Luke said smoothly, “then I will do it for you.”

“This is unacceptable!” Rowel exclaimed. “Recall those fighters immediately or—”

Mara rose to her feet and placed both hands defiantly on her hips. “Or what, exactly?”

“You don’t intimidate me,” Rowel said—although the tremor in his voice belied his words. “Nor do you intimidate Sekot! Remember, it is only by its goodwill that you are here at all. Push that goodwill too far, and your fate will be the same as that of the Far Outsiders!”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mara said. “Maybe that’s why you’re lying to us—to provoke us into getting on your precious planet’s bad side!”

“That’s preposterous! Why would we bother going to such lengths—”

“You tell me,” Mara said, coming around the table to face Rowel.

He retreated a step, eyes widening. “Great is the Potentium,” he whispered hastily, as though in prayer. “Great is the life of Sekot!”

Luke sent a mental prompt to Mara, and she backed off. “We’re not here to threaten you,” he said to Darak. “We’d just like to help, that’s all.”

Rowel snorted. “Sekot is the only help we require.”

“Really?” Luke said. “Suppose one of the Far Outsiders’ ships managed to survive the attack we saw; what do you think would happen if the pilot of that ship slipped out of your bubble of safety and reported to his superiors about what he found here? The next thing you know, you’d have a fleet ten times bigger than the one you saw here yesterday bearing down upon you. Could Sekot defend you against that?”

“Easily,” Darak said.

“And the fleet after that?”

“Of course!”

“And the one after that?” he pressed.

She hesitated this time, the notion of repetitive attacks clearly dawning behind her confident facade.

Before anyone could speak again, Luke’s comlink bleeped. He answered the call. “Yes?”

“The fighters are approaching the moon,” Captain Yage reported. “I’ll patch a live telemetry feed through to Jade Shadow. Tekli can relay the information to you from there.”

There was a delay of two seconds before the Chadra-Fan’s voice came over the line.

“I’ll do my best to describe what’s going on,” she said. “There are three TIEs closing in on the source of the gravity waves.”

“I insist you turn them back,” Rowel said.

With a look from Mara, the Ferroan fell silent and stormed from the room.

“The source is steady,” Tekli continued. “It’s a regular pulse coming from behind M-Three.”

“Does it match any known dovin basal patterns?”

“No, it’s not something we’ve seen before. It could be a beacon, or a long-range carrier wave of some kind.” There was a slight pause. “The TIEs are conducting a preliminary survey of the moon now. It’s old with a rugged, heavily cratered surface. Deep and cold—it’s perfect for hiding in. There seems to be traces of several recent flybys.”

“We occasionally mine this moon for selenium,” Darak said when Mara faced her questioningly.

“Recently?” she asked.

“No, but—”

“They’ve found the source,” Tekli said. “It’s a deep pit on the far side. Very deep, in fact. One of them is going in to investigate.”

“Tell them to be careful,” Luke said.

“They’re taking every precaution,” Captain Yage assured him over the line. “They’re following standard Imperial search procedures. Two remain back while one sweeps the location. If they see anything they’ll pull back immediately to report. Depending on the data—”

Yage came to an abrupt halt.

Luke stiffened, feeling a premonition through the Force. “Captain Yage? Tekli? Report!”

“The emissions just spiked,” Tekli said after a few seconds’ silence. “There’s definitely something in there. Whatever it is, it reacted when the TIE came closer to take a look. The TIE is moving in for a second pass. The gravity waves are all over the place and there are seismic vibrations—”

Again the transmission ceased in midsentence. The break was only for two seconds, but it felt longer to Luke. “It’s out!” Tekli cried. “They flushed it out! It looks like a coralskipper, and it’s making a break for it!”

Luke spoke rapidly into the comlink. “That ship cannot be allowed to leave the system! Captain Yage, you must deploy all available forces to intercept. Whatever is required, it has to be stopped!”

“There is no ship,” Darak fumed as she hurriedly exited the room also. “This is just a ruse to allow you to mobilize your forces against us!”

“Check your sensors if you still don’t believe us,” Mara called after her. “You couldn’t possibly be missing this.”

“The Widowmaker has deployed all its TIEs and broken orbit itself,” Tekli reported. “The skip is evading pursuit, using Mobus’s gravity to whip itself out to the edge of the system. The three TIEs that found it are following as best they can.”

“Is it going to get away?” Luke asked.

There was another pause. “It might.”

Luke could hear Mara’s teeth grinding in nervous tension. “If we had Jade Shadow, none of this would be a problem.”

Darak returned with Rowel, with a small contingent of Ferroan guards in tow.

“Our sensors show nothing,” Rowel said. “The system is empty! You have betrayed our trust—just as we knew you would!”

“Seize them!” Darak pointed and the guards moved in on Luke, Mara, and Dr. Hegerty.

In a flash, Mara was on her feet, lightsaber in hand. Luke joined her, his bright green blade in front of him and the doctor safely behind.

The guards hesitated, and in the brief silence before anyone spoke, Luke found himself wondering in dismay how the quest for Zonama Sekot could have come to this. Whatever Vergere had intended by sending them here, it now looked like it was going to come to naught.

“This isn’t going to solve anything,” Hegerty said. “There has to be an explanation for what’s going on!”

“Name one that doesn’t involve your duplicity,” Darak sneered.

“Bioscreens,” the elderly scientist suggested quickly. “Something the Yuuzhan Vong have developed that interferes with your sensors, perhaps, but not ours. They could have been spying on you for ages without your knowing—until we came and flushed them out!”

“If there are any intruders in our system,” Darak said, “then Sekot will be able to deal with them. We don’t need your help.”

“If we can’t catch this thing,” Mara said, “then how do you expect to?”

“Sekot has powers far beyond your own. If it so chose, it could reach across this system and snuff the life out of a single cell.” Then, with a dark expression, she added, “It could sterilize your Widowmaker with little more than a thought.”

Luke sensed his wife beside him tense at the threat. While he questioned Darak’s statement, the thought of Yage and her crew being destroyed made him feel ill.

“If you insist there is something in our system evading our senses,” Darak went on, “then Sekot can choose to destroy everything in that sector, just to be on the safe side.”

Mara glanced at Luke. “That would certainly fix the problem. We should tell Yage to get those TIEs out of there and let Sekot do its stuff.”

“I’m not saying it will do this,” Darak said. “Sekot takes its own counsel. The decision does not lie with you or me.”

Mara was watching Luke closely, waiting for his decision. But for the moment he had no words to offer, no orders to give. His mind was stuck on how Sekot could act across such a vast distance quickly enough to stop the fleeing coralskipper. Conventional weapons simply wouldn’t work in this instance, he knew, and the Force, of course, wouldn’t work against the Yuuzhan Vong. And even if it did …

Great is the Potentium, Rowel had said. Great is the life of Sekot.

The Potentium was an unusual view of the Force, and not one that Luke found he could easily relate to. Its teachings didn’t acknowledge the existence of the dark side. Jabitha had indicated that she regarded the intention behind an action to be more important than how the act was executed: the same argument, in other words, that others had advocated in the early days of the war against the Yuuzhan Vong. The ends justified the means. But the dark side was ultimately corrupting, and would turn anyone who used it against the very ones they were trying to defend.

Anakin killed with the strength of his mind. Until that moment, we had not known that such things were possible …

“Sekot must not act,” Luke said finally.

“What?” said Mara and Darak at the same time.

“Call it off,” he insisted. “I don’t care how you do it, but Sekot must not attack that coralskipper!”

Renewed suspicion filled Darak’s eyes. “You would only say that if you’d been lying all along. There is no coralskipper, is there?”

Luke didn’t have time to argue his case with the stubborn Ferroan. He closed his eyes, looking for inspiration and strength to do what his instinct told him he had to do.

Taking his comlink, he quickly contacted the Widowmaker. “Captain Yage, recall the TIEs and return to orbit. Under no circumstances are you to provoke Sekot.”

There was uncertainty in the heartbeat of silence before Yage spoke. “Understood.”

“The TIEs are turning back,” Tekli confirmed a couple of seconds later. “The skip has a clear run for the edge of the system.”

Mara was staring at her husband as though he’d lost his mind. “Luke, if that skip gets away—”

“I know, Mara,” he said. “Trust me.”

Better that the coralskipper escapes and tells the Yuuzhan Vong where Sekot is, he thought to himself, than Sekot turns to the dark side.

The thought of a living planet serving the forces of destruction and terror—the same planet that was the symbol of the Yuuzhan Vong occupation of the galaxy—was a disturbing one. All it would take was a single step in the wrong direction for Sekot to begin the long, inevitable fall. And that step could be something as simple as the destruction of that Yuuzhan Vong skip …

“The coralskipper,” Tekli said over the comlink, breaking into his thoughts. “Something’s happening to it!”