Jaina watched the holo through a third time. She still couldn’t believe what she was seeing—although the heavy feeling in her gut suggested that part of her was at least beginning to.
The holo came from Al’solib’minet’ri City Control, piped up to Pride of Selonia on a secure line. Jaina had returned to the frigate specifically to view it, at the request of her parents who felt she needed to see what had happened to Tahiri. It also gave her the opportunity to get her X-wing serviced and diagnostic checks done on her craft’s weapon systems while things were quiet.
The holo had been taken two hours before in the diplomatic quarters where her parents were staying with Jag, Tahiri, and C-3PO. It showed Tahiri being guided along a corridor by a small contingent of Fian security guards. According to the report Jaina had received from her mother, Tahiri had gone on a brief exploratory mission through the city, after slipping away, with Leia’s assistance, from the Fian escort. It seemed that she had led the guards on a merry chase before they had finally managed to track her down to one particular room where they’d found her lying on the floor in a seemingly dazed state. She had accompanied them without protest, allowing them to return her to the others in her party.
From the casual manner that they carried their blasters, and from their unconcerned expressions, it was obvious that the guards were not expecting any kind of trouble whatsoever. Nevertheless, their leader appeared less than impressed by the runaround that Tahiri had given them.
Jaina watched as Tahiri looked down at something she had clutched in her hand. The cam angle didn’t allow a good shot of what the object was, exactly, but Tahiri’s reaction upon seeing it was both startling and disturbing. The girl recoiled as though struck by a blaster bolt to the forehead, her expression one of absolute horror. In an instant, too fast for the cam to follow, her ice-blue lightsaber was out and at the ready, sweeping to cover her from any attack. The security guards fell back, themselves startled, bringing their blasters up to the ready. The leader barked a warning, but Tahiri didn’t seem to hear or see him. Her eyes were wide as they darted manically from side to side, exactly as if she was expecting an attack. Her lightsaber whipped around in a bright arc as she pirouetted to cover herself from some nonexistent attack from the rear. The guards jumped back a step or two farther at this, confused by the sudden change in the situation. Jaina could understand their fear, too. There was a look on Tahiri’s face that warned of what might happen if she was provoked.
The ranking security guard was marginally braver than the others. Despite his own obvious apprehensions regarding Tahiri, he cautiously stepped forward and demanded she deactivate her lightsaber. If she didn’t, he said, he would be forced to open fire upon her.
Jaina slowed the playback at that point, watching closely as Tahiri listened to the guard’s request. The girl half turned; her expression changed to one of alarm, as though seeing the guards around her for the first time. A procession of emotions flashed across her delicate features: dismay, regret, fear, and, finally, despair. For a split second, Jaina even thought Tahiri might attack the leader who had approached her. Then, as though struck from behind by a stun baton, her eyes rolled back into her head and her legs folded beneath her. Her lightsaber died the instant she released it, the handgrip clattering across the floor and into a wall.
Even then, with Tahiri seemingly unconscious and her weapon nowhere near her, the guards remained wary, keeping their distance with their blasters trained on Tahiri’s prostrate figure. The leader was also reluctant to approach, nervously calling for backup on his comlink. Even when they did find the courage to step up to her and prod her with their feet, Tahiri didn’t respond. It was only when the reinforcements arrived that the girl finally stirred, sitting up with obvious bewilderment. But she didn’t protest against the weapons being leveled at her, or resist when she was loaded aboard a hovercart and examined by a medic. A short time later, she fell into what appeared to be a deep sleep from which she couldn’t be awakened.
By then, the others had been notified and were arriving on the scene. Jaina’s mother came first, along with a Fia who was later identified as Assistant Primate Thrum, followed closely by Jag.
“Is she hurt?” Leia asked the paramedic leaning over Tahiri.
“No,” she was told. “She simply appears to have fainted.”
The leader of the security guards explained how Tahiri had drawn her lightsaber. When pushed on the matter of why she should do something like this, the Fian security guard replied, “That’s just it—I don’t think it was us she was attacking.” When asked to explain, however, the guard was unable to do so. Nonetheless, Jaina knew what he meant.
Even though the holo had been taken at awkward angles that often didn’t allow her to see Tahiri’s face, Jaina could tell that whoever Tahiri had been fighting, it hadn’t been those guards. Her lightsaber was swinging, yes, but her attention had been on something else, something unseen. What that something was, Jaina had no way of telling.
Her mother, using every bit of leverage her diplomatic weight afforded her, convinced the medic, guards, and Assistant Primate that Tahiri would be better off in her own quarters, where she could be examined properly. The anxious procession had wound its way through the empty corridors of the diplomatic quarters to where Jaina’s father and C-3PO were waiting. There, Leia had insisted they be left alone so that they might tend to the girl in peace and quiet. The Fia had agreed to allow this, but clearly with reservations. Even from her position in orbit, Jaina could see that Assistant Primate Thrum was not overly convinced that this was the right thing to do. His job had been to keep an eye on the visitors; what with Tahiri’s unauthorized jaunt and the jamming of the bugs in the diplomatic suites, he wasn’t really having much success at it.
Jaina’s mother had called her as soon as they’d determined that Tahiri wasn’t in any immediate danger and was, as the Fia in charge of the medical droid had diagnosed, simply unconscious. Jaina’s first thoughts were concern that Tahiri’s illness—whatever it was—hadn’t been relieved by leaving Coruscant. Leia agreed: she had hoped that keeping her busy would be enough to clear the angst that seemed to have taken hold of her.
“But perhaps I’m hoping for too much,” Leia said, frowning. “It’s still early.”
Jaina wasn’t convinced it could all be put down to stress. “Whatever’s going on, Mom, I don’t think it’s entirely in her head.”
“Something in the Force, you think?”
“I honestly don’t know. If it is, then it’s something subtle that you’re not picking up.” She shrugged, feeling frustrated at being so far away from her sick friend. “She was a long time without a Master, after Ikrit died. Who knows what’s been going through her mind?”
“Luke wouldn’t have made her a Jedi Knight without being certain she was all right,” Leia said, but something in her expression told Jaina that her mother didn’t really believe it could be dismissed so easily.
Midway through the conversation, C-3PO announced that he’d managed to access a security holo showing what had happened to her before her collapse. The droid succeeded just in time; barely had he appropriated the holo when it was snatched out from under him and secured in a domain he had no access to. The Fia were clearly becoming sensitive to the overactive curiosity of their guests.
Jaina and the others watched the holo, increasingly mystified.
“Tahiri looks terrified,” she said over the secure link with her family.
“Of what, though?” Han asked. “There’s nothing there but the guards. And the most they would’ve done is bore her with details of procedures she should have followed.”
“Well, something upset her,” Leia said.
“Something that none of us can even see,” Jaina mused.
And there the matter rested. Leia insisted that the best thing for Tahiri right now was to let her sleep. She hadn’t been harmed by the Fia; there was nothing out of the ordinary on any of the scans C-3PO took of her. They would have to wait until she woke up to find out exactly what had happened.
“Here’s another mystery,” Jaina’s mother said after a few moments’ silence. “The Fia aren’t afraid of the Yevetha anymore.”
“What?” Han exclaimed. “That’s like standing on the Jundland Wastes in high summer and not being afraid of krayt dragons.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Leia agreed. “But that’s what I was told by Thrum. When I asked him what precautions they’re taking against the threat of another Yevethan attack, he said they didn’t need to take precautions, as N’zoth was no longer a problem.”
“Just like that?” said Han.
Leia nodded. “I asked him about diplomatic ties, thinking that maybe the Yevetha have had a change of heart about alien species. He said that they didn’t exist. There’s no embassy on Galantos; no negotiated peace settlement. It’s like—” She paused, as if unable to find the words to express her thoughts. “I don’t know—it’s like the Yevetha simply gave up and decided to stay at home from now on.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Han said. “It’d be like them to lie low for years while secretly rebuilding and plotting their revenge.” He shook his head. “Mark my words: they have to be up to something. I tell you, if my home was on Galantos, I wouldn’t be taking my eyes off that cluster for a second.”
Leia nodded again and, far above in the ship, Jaina had to agree with the suspicion. Vicious xenophobes didn’t just roll over after a sound beating; they came back twice as nasty and three times as determined. The Yevetha were liable to come bursting out of the Koornacht Cluster at any time.
“Do you want me to take a look?” she asked down the subspace link.
She caught the momentary hesitation on both her parents’ faces as they glanced at each other; but then, equally as fast, their expressions softened.
“Don’t stick around to make any enemies,” Han said. “Just get in and get out again, understood? Don’t make me have to come in there after you.”
Jaina smiled at this.
“And get back to us in one piece,” Leia added.
The only dissenting voice came from Jag. “This is crazy,” he said to her parents. “You can’t be seriously considering sending Jaina off into unknown territory like this.”
“We’re not sending her,” Leia said. “She volunteered.”
“Besides, if the Fia are telling the truth,” Han put in, “then the territory’s likely to be safer now than it ever was.”
“And if they’re not telling the truth?” Jag asked.
“What’s your problem, Jag?” Jaina piped up frostily.
“Look, I don’t mean to imply that you couldn’t handle it,” Jag said. He looked uncomfortable confronting the combined Solo family. “I’m just thinking of the squadron, that’s all. Who’s going to run it with you gone?”
“You, of course,” she said, surprised that she should even have to point this out. “It’ll take me a couple of hours or more to prep for the mission. That’ll give you time to get back up here and take over, won’t it?”
“I guess so,” he said. There was a look of uncertainty on his face that she wasn’t used to seeing. He was clearly uneasy with this whole idea. “But there’s something I want to do here, first, if that’s all right.”
He nodded, still without conviction. “And you’ll take some backup with you, right, Jaina?”
She smiled, suddenly realizing the source of his concern. He wasn’t thinking about the squadron at all; he was thinking about her. He was worried about her well-being, and the fact that he cared so much for her filled her with a warm satisfaction.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “then I’ll take Miza and Jocell along with me.”
She knew that would ease his mind on at least one score. They were two pilots from his Chiss Squadron, so he knew he could trust them.
“Okay, so that’s settled,” Han put in with a look she couldn’t quite fathom. “When you’re ready, Jag, I’d like to go with you to check on the Falcon, to make sure she hasn’t been interfered with. I doubt we’ve given these guys enough time to plan anything like sabotage, but we can’t afford to take any chances.”
“I’ll stay here with Tahiri and Threepio,” Leia said with a slight frown. “Good luck, dear. And do as your father says: don’t ruffle any crests, all right? If the Yevetha have softened, we could really use their help against the Yuuzhan Vong.”
“Understood, Mom.” The sight of Tahiri in the background, unconscious, pale, and vulnerable, gave Jaina a twinge of guilt for leaving. “I’ll be back soon.”
Jacen reached deep inside himself, searching for the wisdom of his last teacher’s words.
“The Force is everything, and everything is the Force,” Vergere had said, shortly before she died. “There is no dark side. The Force is one, eternal and indivisible. You need worry about no darkness save that in your own heart.”
Not even the darkness of others? he wanted to ask her as he stood listening to Moff Flennic’s ranting. The terrible, anti-life obscenities dripping from the mouth of this self-styled savior of the Imperial Remnant was almost more than Jacen could bear.
“Retreat?” the man was growling. “Retreat? I hear that word and I think of cowards; I think of cowards and I find myself reaching for my blaster.” He paused to fix Jacen with a baleful glare, presumably to let him know he wasn’t exaggerating. “There’s not one man under my command who would accept an order to retreat from me without questioning my sanity. They’d sooner relieve me of my command than follow such an order—and they’d have every right to!”
“Moff Flennic,” Jacen said as placatingly as he could, “if you’ll just listen to what I have to say—”
Moff Flennic snorted. “And give you the opportunity to plant your thoughts in my head? I’m not stupid, boy. I’m not senile. Who do you take me for? I was hunting Eloms decades before you were even born.”
Finding solace and strength in the memory of Vergere’s wisdom, Jacen found an island of calm within himself and relaxed his clenched hands.
The solidly built man paced the flight deck in full uniform, waiting out Jacen’s silence with tense energy.
“Well?” he snapped after a moment. “Aren’t you going to tell me that hunting intelligent life-forms constitutes some violation of your weak Jedi sensibilities?”
Jacen shrugged philosophically. “My sensibilities are my own, sir, and I have no wish to impose them upon you.”
“And yet you want me to do what you tell me,” the man scoffed. “Isn’t that the same thing, boy?”
“Not at all. I am merely explaining what, to me, would be your most prudent course of action at this moment. How you choose to respond to my opinion, of course, is entirely up to you.”
“But you won’t like it if I ignore you, will you?”
“If you ignore me, your people will be slaughtered,” Jacen said softly. “And no, I would not like that at all.”
Flennic hesitated, something approximating amusement flickering behind his keen eyes. Then he resumed his pacing, slower, each step more deliberate than the last. “You know, boy, if you were one of my officers, I would have had you shot for speaking to me the way you just did.”
Jacen fought to maintain calm. For all the Moff’s abhorrence at the idea of Jacen implanting ideas in his head, he seemed to have no problem in practicing a few mind games of his own. The constant use of the word boy was no doubt intended to make Jacen feel small and inadequate. It was lame at best, and served only to further Jacen’s frustration.
“Moff Flennic,” he started tiredly.
The Moff raised a hand to silence Jacen. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said. “That you’re not one of my officers—nor would you want to be, I imagine. But I wouldn’t take you even if you wanted me to. And do you know why?”
“It’s not relevant, sir,” Jacen said, trying to maintain his tone of respect even though all he wanted to do was grab the man by the collar of his uniform and shout at him to just listen.
The man stopped pacing and turned to face him. “I have no idea why you’re bothering to talk to me, boy. I’m clearly wasting your time. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
“Actually, sir, I don’t believe for a second that I’m wasting my time,” Jacen said. “If anything, I think you know that what I’m saying makes sense, but you’re just too proud to admit it. You’re desperately trying to convince yourself that I’m wrong.”
“Really?” The word was more of a challenge than a question.
“You’re no fool, sir,” Jacen said smoothly. “Convene the other Moffs, if you want to. Tell them what I’ve told you and see what they have to say. I’d be particularly interested in speaking to Moff Crowal of Valc Seven, since she might have access to something I’m looking for.”
“And what might that be?” asked Flennic.
Jacen smiled slightly at the suspicion that suddenly pinched the man’s face. “Information, of course,” he said. “Understand, sir, that our time in the Empire is limited; our mission lies elsewhere. When we have what we need, we will be leaving.”
Flennic’s eyes narrowed. “And you think Valc Seven would be an ideal fallback position for our fleet when we retreat from Yaga Minor?”
“Actually, that’s the last thing you’d want to do. Valc Seven is on the edge of the Unknown Regions. Fall back that far, and you’ve already lost the Empire. No, my choice of fallback—the place you would do best to lay a trap, if you prefer—would be Borosk.”
The Moff was silent for a long moment. Jacen knew what he was thinking. Borosk was one of several small, fortified worlds guarding the edge of the Empire. The Moff would be wondering if this was part of some convoluted plot on behalf of the Galactic Alliance to gain territory from an old enemy.
But Jacen hoped that even Flennic would see that that was just ridiculous. If the Imperial Remnant lost such a stand, Borosk would fall to the Yuuzhan Vong, not the Galactic Alliance. And the Galactic Alliance had more important things to worry about than a small system on the edge of its territory.
The continuing silence suggested that Flennic was unable, for the moment at least, to fault the plan. Pressing home his advantage, Jacen went on:
“Moff Flennic, if you move quickly enough, you might save Yaga Minor.”
This got a reaction. Yaga Minor was the Moff’s personal holding. When it fell—as it surely would, if the fleet stayed where it was—Flennic would have nothing, regardless of what happened to the Empire as a whole.
“Explain,” Flennic demanded.
“The Yuuzhan Vong are stretched to the limit right now. Thanks to our hit-and-run campaigns, the forces they’ve assembled to knock out the Empire are badly needed elsewhere. They can’t afford to commit here for too long. Knocking out your fleet quickly is their priority. Wherever it is, they’ll go. Once it’s destroyed, they figure they can wipe out your shipyards at their leisure.”
“So if we send them packing now,” Flennic put in, “you’re saying they won’t come back?”
Jacen shook his head. “I can’t guarantee that,” he said. “But if they did come back, it certainly wouldn’t be in such numbers.”
Flennic was pacing again. “And what makes you so sure staging a counterattack at Borosk will work?” he asked, his attention directed to the floor ahead of him.
“Two reasons,” Jacen replied. “One, the spies infiltrating your staff will make sure their warmasters know about the move. And two, we’ll teach you how to fight the Yuuzhan Vong more effectively.”
That pulled the Moff up to a complete halt, swinging his full attention around to Jacen. “In exchange for what?”
“Nothing, actually. My only interest is in saving lives and maintaining the stability of this region. We can haggle over information with Moff Crowal when this matter is resolved.”
Moff Flennic grunted. “ ‘This matter’?” he echoed incredulously. “You make it sound like we’re in the middle of a minor squabble over an asteroid!”
“Please don’t take offense, sir, but from the point of view of the galaxy, that’s more or less what this is. The Empire has dominion over a few thousand systems out of hundreds of thousands of millions. Yes, you have tactical significance, and no, I do not like to see lives wasted unnecessarily; but your failure to survive will make little difference in the greater scheme of things.”
Flennic’s face filled with blood. His jowls quivered from the rage building up inside him. Jacen had gotten the reaction he’d hoped for. Through the Force he could feel the pressure rising like stresses in a neutron star. Any moment now, something would give. The question was: would he explode or implode?
The answer never came. The comm on Flennic’s desk buzzed and the Moff vented his anger on it.
“I told you, no interruptions!” he bellowed into the comm unit.
“But, sir, there’s an incoming call from—”
“I don’t care who it’s from, you fool. Get rid of them now, or so help me I’ll have you ejected into space without—”
He stopped short when another voice issued from the comm unit. “That’s hardly the way to speak to a subordinate officer,” the voice said. “Especially when you’re on my ship.”
Flennic’s features went from startlingly purple to deathly white in the time it would have taken light to cross the room.
“Grand Admiral?” he said unbelievingly. “You’re—alive?”
“Of course I’m alive,” Pellaeon said, his voice oddly muffled but clear. “It will take more than a bunch of overeager Yuuzhan Vong to put me out of the picture.”
“But—”
“What’s the matter, Kurlen? You don’t sound as overjoyed to hear my voice as I’d thought you might.”
“No, that’s not it at all. It’s just—that is, I’m—” The man stammered awkwardly for a moment, then straightened and returned his glare to Jacen. “How do I know this isn’t one of your mind tricks, Jedi?”
It was Pellaeon who answered. “Just take a look at him, Kurlen. He’s as surprised about this as you are.”
That was true. The last thing Jacen had expected was assistance from the man he had last seen unconscious in a bacta tank, looking as though death was but a few short breaths away. It also confirmed something he had been wondering: that Pellaeon had access to more than just audio via his comlink, but was hiding his own visuals.
“It’s nice to hear your voice, Grand Admiral Pellaeon,” Jacen said with absolute honesty.
“Under better circumstances, Jacen Solo, I would say the same.” There was the hint of a smile in the man’s voice. “Thank you for your help at Bastion. I owe the Jedi my life, and I never forget my debts. You can safely assume I shall listen to your thoughts on the Yuuzhan Vong with far more interest than some of my colleagues.”
“It would be my pleasure to discuss them with you, sir,” Jacen said, mindful to keep any conceit from his tone. Even though he would be dealing with Grand Admiral Pellaeon, he still didn’t want to get on Flennic’s bad side. The future was full of unseen waters; it was important to leave as many means of crossing those waters open to him as possible.
“Another time, perhaps,” the Grand Admiral said. “I’ve been a little out of touch these past couple of days, and right now I have a strategic withdrawal to discuss with Moff Flennic.”
“We were just discussing that very thing,” the Moff said, licking his lips nervously.
“Were you, indeed?” Pellaeon asked. “And have you issued directives to the surviving officers?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Assessed possible locations for a more substantial regroup?”
“Borosk was one location that came to mind,” Flennic said, shooting Jacen a warning look.
“A good choice, Kurlen. I suggest you get onto it straight away. The longer we sit here, the more stupid we’ll look when the next wave arrives. Capital ships should start moving within the hour, leaving a small defense force behind. I trust I can leave the arrangements in your hands? I have business elsewhere that needs attending.”
“Uh, Grand Admiral—”
“Yes, Kurlen?”
“Don’t you think this deserves a little more discussion?”
There was a long silence. Jacen maintained an expression of serene patience while Moff Flennic looked increasingly nervous.
When Pellaeon spoke again, it was in a voice with all the cold clarity of a hydrogen bath.
“Understand this, Kurlen: what I just gave you was an order, not an invitation. While I command the Imperial Navy, you will do as I say, regardless of whether or not you agree with those orders. Otherwise—and believe me when I say this—if I have to secede from the Empire in order to ensure this navy’s survival, then I shall do so without hesitation—and I guarantee that we won’t be back to pick up the pieces of your shipyards afterward.”
“I understand, Grand Admiral,” the Moff stammered.
“Good,” Pellaeon returned crisply. “But I’m not finished. This is just the beginning. You will also issue orders to allow Jade Shadow free access to this system, and any system within the Empire. The Moff Council has gravely underestimated the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong against my advice one too many times, and it won’t happen again. I won’t let it happen again. The time has come to take what few assets we have left and ensure that nothing like this ever recurs. If we survive Borosk, the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi will be our best hope of long-term survival, and I intend to take advantage of them while the Empire still exists. Is that understood?”
The large but temporarily cowed man just nodded.
“The connection must be poor, Kurlen, because I didn’t quite catch what you said.”
“I understand perfectly, Grand Admiral Pellaeon.”
“Excellent. Now, send our young friend back to Widowmaker. I want to pick his brain about the Yuuzhan Vong while I still have the opportunity to do so.”
Flennic didn’t look at Jacen as he pushed a button for the door to open. It did so with a faint hiss. Jacen bowed in farewell, but the Moff turned away as though he wasn’t even there.
Hiding his relief to be out of the man’s presence, Jacen walked rapidly down to the docks where the Lambda-class shuttle waited to take him back.
Jaina took her time prepping for launch, hoping to catch Jag when he arrived. But a suspicious-looking scuff mark on the Falcon held him up on the surface and she couldn’t delay forever. As soon as she and her two wing-mates were kitted up and had clearance authorization from Pride of Selonia, she launched her X-wing and powered away from Galantos.
The sight of two clawcraft shadowing her was still a little unnerving. It wasn’t all that long ago that craft with similar cockpits—TIE fighters—had represented fear and hostility for those who had survived the Rebellion and the tumultuous years that had followed. She was too young herself to have any firsthand memories of that time, but Jaina had heard enough stories and seen sufficient footage to have had the same instinct instilled in her. She didn’t know how many times the Empire had tried to kill her parents in all, but she was sure it was in double figures, at least.
At the same time, though, the clawcraft’s four sweeping weapon arms resembled an X-wing’s S-foils. Sometimes she wondered if the Chiss hadn’t deliberately designed their fighters to unsettle and reassure both New Republic and Empire. It was like sitting on the fence, giving the impression that they might have allegiance to either power.
“Locking on to your navicomputer,” Jocell said. A brisk, efficient woman from Csilla, homeworld of the Chiss, she was easy to work with. Miza was the better pilot of the two, but less reliable, as far as Jaina was concerned.
“Last one there’s a flat-lined drebin,” came Miza over the comm unit.
The decidedly non-Chiss phrase immediately caught Jaina’s attention. “Jump laid in,” she replied, figuring she knew where the pilot had picked it up. The frigate accompanying the mission was staffed by navy personnel from all across the galaxy; when Twin Suns Squadron wasn’t on patrol, there was plenty of time for socializing in the mess and picking up on some of the native lingo.
“Be on your guard for when we arrive,” she said. “I’m bringing us in at the edge of the system, but you never know what might be waiting for us. Even if the Yevetha have embraced the idea of peaceful coexistence with their neighbors, they’re not likely to welcome someone barging in through their shipping lanes.”
“Understood,” Jocell said.
“Discretion is my middle name,” Miza added.
“Ready, Cappie?” Jaina asked. Her R2 unit whistled cheerfully as her forward view swung around to face the bright cloud of the Koornacht Cluster. “Then into the Multitude we go.”
Stars suddenly extended into streaks of light as she and her wingmates blasted into hyperspace. From there on it would be up to her navicomputer and R2 unit to ensure that the three vessels reached their destination safely, leaving her with nothing more to do in the cramped cockpit than sit and wait and think …
Tahiri’s frailty worried her more than she was prepared to admit—at least to others. Back on Mon Calamari, the girl had called her that one time before collapsing, but since then she’d barely said a word to her when Jaina had visited her in Master Cilghal’s infirmary. Tahiri had been glad to see her, there was no question about that, but she had been uneasy and troubled at the same time—and maybe even a little embarrassed.
Tahiri had always been so fiery and independent, defying conventional sensibilities in numerous ways, from insisting on bare feet to disobeying direct orders. Showing off for Anakin had been part of the latter, Jaina was sure, but if the impulse hadn’t been there in the first place, then her little brother would never have had such a willing sidekick.
No, Jaina thought. Not sidekick. She really had to dispel the image of Anakin and Tahiri as perfectly matched pals getting into harmless scrapes. Those “scrapes” they’d been involved in could hardly be regarded as harmless. If anything, some of them, such as their adventure with Corran Horn at Yag’Dhul, had been outright dangerous. And their last one together had been fatal, culminating in Anakin’s death …
No, Anakin and Tahiri had definitely been more than just kids, and their relationship had been advancing toward something more than just friends near the end, too. The grief that Tahiri had been suffering was not for the loss of a friend, but for the loss of a loved one. Even if that love never had a chance to fully blossom, it didn’t diminish Tahiri’s pain. The potential for a relationship had been there, and it was for this that Tahiri grieved—a love not fully realized. Jaina imagined that the grief Tahiri suffered was on a par with her own, but at least she had the benefit of being able to focus her grief on what had been lost; Tahiri’s grief was for something that could never be. It was, and might forever be, completely intangible.
Jaina wondered if her mother’s decision to invite Tahiri along on the mission had been entirely sensible. Yes, the girl would do better kept busy rather than lying around in an infirmary, alone and dwelling on her grief. But was being surrounded by the Solo family the right thing for her? If Jag died, Jaina was certain she wouldn’t want to be stuck in the company of General Baron Soontir Fel and Syal Antilles for too long. They would only serve as reminders of what she’d lost.
The image of Tahiri unconscious on Galantos, as pale and thin as she’d been on Mon Calamari, made Jaina’s heart ache. After several awkward visits to the infirmary and a number of silences during the mission so far, Jaina still had no idea what it was Tahiri had wanted when she’d called her that day after Uncle Luke’s meeting of the Jedi. To say she was sorry? To blame Jaina for letting Anakin die? She didn’t know. The black tide of grief made people do crazy things. She knew that firsthand, and so did her parents. But if there was anything she could do to make life easier for Tahiri, she would do it in an instant. The problem was that she doubted even Tahiri herself knew what that might be. All they could do was hope that they could work it out before something else happened …
Too many hours, two system checks, a detailed scan of her R2’s files regarding the N’zoth system, and a halfhearted attempt to learn some words in the fiendishly difficult Chiss native tongue later, her navicomputer bleeped to warn her that they were about to emerge from hyperspace.
“Heads up,” she said to her wingmates. “We’re there. And remember, this is just a surveillance sweep, so don’t provoke anything unless you absolutely have to. Is that clear?”
“Understood, Colonel,” Jocell said. “Preparing to disengage navigational lock.”
“I don’t know about you,” Miza said, “but I’m becoming a little sluggish from all this rest we’re supposed to be enjoying. I’ll almost be glad if we could find something to shoot at.”
“I know what you mean,” Jaina said. “But I don’t want you using so much as a hard stare without my direct authority, Miza. Clear?”
Miza chuckled. “I’ll keep my hands safely in my lap.”
“You do that.” Her R2 unit bleeped again; Jaina glanced at the translator to learn they had five seconds before arrival. “Okay, guys, here we go.”
The first thing that struck her as her X-wing rattled back into realspace was the brightness of the sky. She’d been in close clusters before, but it was easy to forget just how much of a difference it made when a large number of hot, young stars clustered so closely together—especially after spending so much time at the edges of the galaxy, avoiding the Yuuzhan Vong. Because she had brought them in at the outskirts of the system, N’zoth’s primary was hidden in the radiance from the many other suns, and it took her some moments to actually locate it. Bright and blue-tinged, it burned at her with an almost forbidding glare.
Her wingmates dropped out of hyperspace beside her, and immediately peeled away into formation. Sensors swept the space around them; astromech droids chattered via comlinks; intrasystem landmarks were confirmed. According to New Republic records, no one had been to N’zoth since the Yevethan crisis, twelve years earlier. Then, the Yevethan Black Fleet had been routed by New Republic forces after it attempted a genocidal cleansing of the area around the Koornacht Cluster. Jaina agreed with her father that the silence since was probably an indication of frantic retooling rather than peaceful reconsideration. This would be the first opportunity anyone had to find out one way or the other.
“I’m picking up extensive mass readings,” Miza said. “Judging by the uneven distribution, I’d say we have at least three fleets massed in orbit around worlds two and five.”
“Which one’s N’zoth?” Jocell asked.
“Two,” Jaina supplied. “I’m not picking up signatures consistent with old Imperial designs, but that’s not unexpected. The Yevetha were quick to learn, and they would have had to start again from scratch. Why not redesign at the same time?”
“No capital ships that I can see,” Miza said. “Just plenty of small ones, easy pickings.”
Jaina didn’t caution him again; she knew it was just his sense of humor. Still, she would have preferred it if he remained serious like Jocell.
“There are no thrustship exhaust traces, either,” Jocell said. “Rad and IR readings are—odd.” After a brief pause, she added, “Jaina, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Jaina studied her screen. The mass shadows were exactly where Miza had said: clumped in broad orbital corridors around the rocky second planet and a bloated gas giant on the far side of the system. It made sense, she thought, to keep your fleets close to both home and a refueling base. You wouldn’t put them all in one spot. That would be tactically unsound. Just because you weren’t expecting trouble didn’t mean it wouldn’t come to find you.
The probing triangle of ships continued their surveillance of the system. From the Yevetha’s point of view, she supposed, they were trouble, and she didn’t doubt that the xenophobes would have monitoring stations all around the system, ready to spot just such an intrusion as theirs. But where were the flashes of engine exhausts as interceptors launched? Where were the echoes of hyperspace distortions as squadrons of updated thrustships rushed to confront them? Why was there nothing but diffuse mass and heat appearing on the scanners, nothing concentrated in any particular place?
N’zoth was radiating heat like a small sun. Not surprising for a desert world, perhaps, but why wasn’t the heat concentrated around the cities?
Sithspawn, she silently cursed. If her father had been here, she knew just what he would have said.
“We’re going in closer,” she said. “And I have a feeling I know what we’re going to find.”
Neither of the Chiss pilots asked her to elaborate, suggesting that perhaps they had had the same feeling. Instead they silently slaved their clawcraft to her X-wing as she laid in a course for N’zoth.
The hyperspace jump was mercifully short. When they arrived where the two fleets had been in orbit around the Yevethan homeworld, Jaina found the reality of the situation much worse than she had imagined. There was nothing but wreckage. Thousands of thrustships, dozens of capital vessels, and one battle station capable of maintaining the entire lot floated in pieces around the planet below. The wreckage was still hot—it could take months for excess heat to radiate through vacuum—and it was this that had shown up on the scopes. Jaina took her small contingent on a wide parabola around the deathly silent wreckage, moving them in closer to the planet itself.
She didn’t need to look, but she had to. N’zoth had been pounded from orbit, possibly by chunks torn from the wreckage of the fleet above. Lava and sulfuric clouds belched from the bottom of a score of new craters around the globe, and the atmosphere was filled with ash. Where there had once been cities, there were now only great holes in the crust. Every trace of the Yevethan civilization had been reduced to atoms.
For once, Miza didn’t have any smart comments; he was as quiet as the others as they swung around N’zoth’s equator. Jaina turned her sensors toward the distant gas giant, not doubting what she would find there. Someone had attacked the Yevetha, taking them unawares and totally decimating a fleet of considerable size. The Fia stood to benefit most from the destruction of the Yevetha—and it would certainly explain why they no longer seemed to care about the xenophobes in their backyard—but there was no way they could have come by this sort of firepower. No, this could have only been the work of the Yuuzhan Vong.
A cold and uncomfortable feeling spread through Jaina’s stomach as she thought of her parents and Jag back on Galantos—little knowing what she’d found. She reached out with the Force to find her mother, but the distance was too great. And with communications down in the sector, there was no other way to warn them.
She was about to order their immediate return to Galantos when Miza messaged her. “Jaina, I’m picking up a transmission from that small moon we passed a moment ago.”
“Put it on the air,” she ordered.
There was a pause followed by some cold static. Jaina tried to boost the signal, but no amount of switches flicked would clean up the noise.
“Miza? Jocell? Either of you getting anything?”
“Nothing,” Jocell replied.
“Likewise,” Miza said. “It’s like they’re trying to open a line, but for some reason they’re not saying anything.”
“Maybe they can’t,” Jocell suggested. “They might be too badly injured.”
Jaina nodded thoughtfully to herself. It was a possibility, she supposed. Flicking her own comm unit, she said, “Whoever you are, if you can hear this, click your mike twice.”
There was a slight delay, followed by a distinct double click.
“Okay. Now, if you’re injured, click twice again.”
Another delay, followed by two clicks.
“I’m picking up a weak power reading from the bottom of a crater,” Miza said. “It’s consistent with that of a small vessel. I guess he’s been hiding there in the ruins of his thrustship. He probably survived by laying low until whoever did this had passed on.”
Jaina considered this, but quickly dismissed it. It didn’t ring true, somehow. “No, that’s not the Yevethan way. They don’t hide from fights. My guess is he crashed there and was knocked unconscious, awakening only when the battle was over.”
“That’s if he is a Yevetha,” Jocell said.
“What else would he be?” Jaina asked. “You’re not suggesting he might be one of the Yuuzhan Vong, are you?”
“I don’t know. But without a visual, we have no way of knowing.”
“Miza? What do you think?”
“My gut instinct tells me it’s a Yevetha—and an injured one at that. Like you said, Jaina, it’s not in their nature to hide, so why else would he be down there? And it makes no sense for it to be a Vong, either. Whatever caused this was a big fleet. They came in, hit hard, and moved on. What would it serve them to leave a single small ship behind?”
“I agree,” Jaina said. “But I also agree with Jocell that we’re going to need a visual—especially if we’re to rescue the pilot.”
Miza’s clawcraft was veering off before she could give the order. “Already on my way. This shouldn’t take too long.”
“Jocell, keep an eye out for anything unusual. If we have to get out of here in a hurry, then I want plenty of warning.”
“Understood, Colonel.”
Jaina watched Miza’s ship shrink to a tiny speck of light shooting across the face of the moon. She felt uneasy having her wingmate so far away, even though there seemed to be no overt threat anywhere in the system right now. Or maybe she was nervous because there was no overt threat around. It was too quiet for her liking.
To take her mind off everything, she opened a line with the Yevethan pilot.
“We’re going to try to get you out of there. Do you copy?”
Two clicks.
“Hang in there. One of my pilots is on the way down now. He’ll be passing over your head in a matter of seconds. Then we’ll—”
This time a low, malevolent chuckle came over the comm unit, followed by a raspy, fluidy cough.
“Your optimism is as shallow as your compassion,” said the voice—definitely Yevethan, and male. “You care no more for me than I do for you.”
“Not quite the response I was expecting,” Jocell muttered.
Jaina ignored her wingmate. “We do care—why do you think we’re trying to—?”
“Soon I shall join my people,” the Yevetha continued. “Soon the Yevetha shall be no more. But we shall not go down quietly.”
“There is no reason to go down at all! Just let us—”
“In the face of death’s bright dawn,” the Yevetha went on, “I shall offer one final act of defiance, so that when we are talked about in times to come, they will say that the Yevetha were warriors to the end!”
Jaina felt a cold discomfort pulse through her. “Miza, get out of there!”
“Way ahead of you, Jaina!”
“There is nowhere to run,” the Yevetha said. “The galaxy belongs only to those who had the power to destroy our once-mighty race!” A faint and disturbing hiss issued from the comm unit. “Die with me, won’t you?”
“Miza! Talk to me!”
“Almost—”
A powerful flash of energy lashed out from the ball of rock. Miza’s clawcraft vanished into it a split instant before reaching Jaina’s X-wing, sending her tumbling end over end, shields down and cockpit dead.
“You did it!”
Jacen found himself enveloped in a hug the moment he stepped off the shuttle’s boarding ramp. Taken by surprise, he automatically returned the hug before realizing who was giving it to him. The warm, petite body pressed against his; the hair; the delicate yet very female scent …
“I always knew you would,” Danni said, pulling away slightly. “But I was still worried about you. You Solos have a knack for doing things the hard way.”
“It was Admiral Pellaeon, really,” Jacen protested. “If he hadn’t woken up when he did, I doubt I could have convinced Flennic of anything.”
“You’re just being modest.” Danni laughed, playfully punching his shoulder. “I bet Jacen Solo could convince a Selonian to lie if he really wanted it to.”
Footsteps approaching from the docking bay’s main entrance prevented him from responding to this. Danni stepped back, looking embarrassed, as Luke walked around the corner.
“I thought I felt you come aboard,” said Jacen’s uncle, dressed in his customary Jedi robes.
“How long have you been here?” Jacen asked both of them. He hadn’t seen Jade Shadow anywhere near Widowmaker on his return flight.
“Captain Yage sent a shuttle when Gilad woke up,” Luke explained. “By the time Danni and I arrived, they’d used his codes to patch into the Imperial security network without being noticed, and from there eavesdropped on your conversation with Flennic. He insisted on interrupting. I hope you don’t mind us doing that. It wasn’t that we thought you couldn’t manage on your own, Jacen. It just seemed simpler this way, and a chance to prove to Flennic that the Empire’s Supreme Commander is still alive.”
“I’m just relieved that the admiral came out of this all right,” Jacen said. “Can I talk to him?”
“That will be up to Tekli,” Danni said. “He’s still recuperating in the bacta tank. That talk with Moff Flennic tired him out, short though it was.” Then, leaning in slightly toward Jacen, she added, “You know, for someone normally so quiet, she certainly has a lot to say when it comes to her patients.”
Jacen smiled. He had developed a great deal of respect for Master Cilghal’s apprentice. Although not strong in the Force, her knowledge of healing was extensive, and she had clearly demonstrated the ability to handle herself during recent emergencies.
The three of them walked unimpeded through the corridors of Widowmaker. Luke seemed perfectly at ease, explaining as they went that Mara and Saba had stayed behind to keep an eye on events from afar. Jacen had to admire his uncle’s poise. Even surrounded as he was by Imperial trappings, the Jedi Master moved and talked with an air that suggested this ship could have been his own rather than one that belonged to a once-formidable enemy.
They reached the medical bay and were automatically waved through by the stormtrooper guards. Inside they found Tekli studying reports on her patient’s progress while a weary-looking Captain Yage talked to him.
Gilad Pellaeon looked better than when Jacen had last seen him, but not as recovered from his injuries as Jacen would have liked. He was still immersed in the bacta tank, and looked just as terribly thin and pale as before. He was communicating solely via attachments to his breath mask, which gave his voice the faintly muffled tone Jacen had noticed while dealing with Flennic.
“And what about Screed? Is he still alive?”
“Admiral Screed was executed by Warlord Zsinj,” Yage said.
“Really?” As if in thought, Pellaeon paused for the time it took a few handfuls of bubbles to float up past his body. “My memory must be going to have forgotten that. I always had a soft spot for that old hawk-bat.”
Yage glanced at Luke and his companions, realizing for the first time they had company. “You have visitors, sir,” she said.
Pellaeon opened his eyes to peer through the thick nutrient filling the tank, then closed them again. His face was distorted by the curved, transparent wall enclosing him, making it impossible to read his expression with any accuracy.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Skywalker.” There followed a sound like a grunt, but it could just as easily have been a short bleat of amusement. “Come to view the relic, have you?”
Jacen glanced at his uncle. The Jedi Master’s face was calm and unruffled. He offered no response because clearly the comment didn’t deserve one.
“How are things proceeding, then?” the Grand Admiral asked after a few seconds.
“Mara reports that ships are moving in ways consistent with the withdrawal you ordered,” Luke replied. “The jump points are filling up fast.”
“Good.” He nodded slowly, the movement causing his body to swivel gently in the fluid. “It’s nice to know that what Flennic is telling me is the truth. Nevertheless, I’ll wager that he is skimming a percentage off the top to defend his holdings here.”
“I wouldn’t take that bet,” Jacen said. “I don’t think Flennic is going to like sitting here defenseless while the fleet abandons him.”
“You’re probably right,” Pellaeon said. “He’ll be snug and safe where the concentration of firepower is greatest. He wouldn’t do anything that might risk his life. That won’t stop him doing what he can to protect his investment, though.” The Grand Admiral’s eyes opened again, fixing directly upon Jacen. “You did well back there, young Solo, but reason and common sense were never going to bring Flennic around. He understands nothing but force—and I’m not talking about the one you Jedi regard so highly, either. I’m talking about the brute sort.” His eyes closed once more, as if irritated by the solution. “Reminding him of his insignificance, unless he joined the greater scheme of things, might have done the trick, but in the end I’d rather have him angry with me than you. I’m used to it.”
Jacen bowed slightly, even though he was aware that Pellaeon wouldn’t see the gesture. “Moff Flennic is someone whose displeasure I wouldn’t wish to cultivate, Admiral,” he said. “But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, either.”
Pellaeon laughed. “Well put, lad. As indeed was your argument back there. We really do find ourselves in a difficult place at the moment. I fear we won’t have much time to practice the new maneuvers while relocating the fleet—or afterward, for that matter. If what you say is true, then the Yuuzhan Vong will be sure to strike when we are least able to defend ourselves. They’ll want to strike hard and fast like they did in Bastion and leave us too battered to be of any use to anyone. I doubt they’ll be converting our worlds just yet; they’ll come back for those when they have both the time and resources to do so.”
“It could be resources they’re after,” Danni said, “as well as neutralizing a threat.”
“They could get resources from anywhere,” Pellaeon said. “There are millions of uninhabited chunks of rock out there just brimming with raw materials. And they wouldn’t require an army to take them, either.”
“They don’t use them the way we do, Admiral,” Danni explained. “They still need planets for their plantations. But that’s not what I meant, anyway. I was thinking of armies. Coralskippers and yammosks they might need to grow from scratch, but cannon fodder is much easier to come by.”
There was a small silence. “You’re talking about combat slaves?” Pellaeon said. “That would explain why they hit Bastion first, not Yaga Minor. If it had been me ordering the attack, I would’ve done it the other way around. And it also explains something else. Arien, that holo you showed me earlier. Put it back up on the screen.”
Captain Yage tapped at a keyboard and instantly one of the monitors displaying Pellaeon’s vital signs was replaced by a patchy view of the Bastion system. The distributions of Imperial and Yuuzhan Vong forces were marked with sweeping schematics containing thousands of minute details. By scrolling the diagram forward through time, Yage could show how the battle had progressed on any number of fronts, as collated from information gleaned by sensors on all the Imperial vessels.
Jacen noted that the map became patchier as the battle progressed. Great empty spaces appeared in the intelligence as ship after ship was destroyed, along with observational satellites and beacons. Soon it was like trying to watch stars through storm clouds: apart from the area around the gas giant where Pellaeon had made his last stand, the rest of the system was visible only through infrequent, incomplete glimpses.
When she reached the point in the analysis she was looking for, Yage froze the image and zoomed in close on one of Bastion’s poles. There, designated by a ringed dot, was a single ship.
“We don’t know where this came from,” she said. “The last survivors only caught a glimpse of it. Its vector suggests that it came in late into the battle, when the planet was all but taken. That didn’t seem to make sense, since it’s so big.”
She called up some sketchy schematics. The vessel was shaped like a flattened sphere with five trailing stalks of various lengths. It was large enough to hold several of the Yuuzhan Vong carrier analogs Jacen was all too familiar with.
“If it was a military vessel,” Yage concluded, “then why did they wait until the end of the battle to utilize it? But if it wasn’t a military vessel, then what’s it doing there at all?”
“It has to be a slave carrier,” Pellaeon said. “They wiped out the fleets in orbit around Bastion, and that gave them an entire population ripe for capture. Those who couldn’t get away in time are probably already on their way to the nearest processing plant to be turned into mindless drones willing to sacrifice themselves for the warmaster. I saw creatures similar to them at work on Duro.”
“They have been used in many other places since,” Luke said. “In fact, I’m sure that this was the same kind of ship that Saba encountered a few months back at Barab One.”
Pellaeon nodded grimly. “Citizens of the Empire—all people—deserve better than this. Had we known that this was what they were after …” He trailed off, the thought as obviously disturbing for him as it was for everyone else in the room.
“You were outgunned, Admiral,” Jacen offered. “There was nothing else you could have done.”
“Outgunned and poorly organized,” Pellaeon agreed. “Wherever that ship came from, the chances are it’s probably hundreds of light-years away from us by now. The only thing we can think about now is how to stop it from happening again. At Borosk, or anywhere. To anyone.”
As far as Jag Fel was concerned, very little was going right on Galantos. Councilor Jobath was still tied up somewhere on the other side of the planet, Tahiri remained unconscious, and he and C-3PO had yet to determine precisely why communications with Galantos had been disrupted. On top of that, Jaina, the one person he would have liked to have with him right now, was on her way to N’zoth, while he was still stuck on the planet. All in all, Jag felt he’d seen better days—and been on more successful missions.
Finally, after an hour pacing the common room of their diplomatic quarters, he decided that enough was enough. He had to do something. He couldn’t delay rejoining Twin Suns Squadron any longer.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said brusquely.
Thrum stood in alarm from the table at which he was showing Leia plans of recent additions to the planet’s infrastructure. “I don’t think that would—”
“It’s okay,” he cut off the nervous Fia. “I won’t be that long. And I don’t mind if I’m shadowed, either.”
A guard, recently assigned to their door, accompanied him as he strolled through the wide, luxurious corridors, trying to remember the way to where Tahiri had collapsed. There was something about the recording of that moment that had been bothering him. Just before she’d drawn her lightsaber she had looked down. At first he had thought she might have been dizzy and had brought up her hand in the typical response people had to such spells. But then he realized that she’d been holding something, and it was possibly this that had triggered her reaction. No one else had mentioned it, which surprised him, but he had to check for his own peace of mind.
There had been nothing on the holo to indicate what it might have been, though, which meant he had no real idea what he would even be looking for. He still had to try. He’d already checked the pockets of Tahiri’s robes, which had been empty, and he certainly couldn’t ask her directly; so the only chance of finding out just what it might have been was to examine where it had all happened.
He reached the right corridor and strode along it to roughly where he thought the incident had occurred. Sweeping his gaze along the ground, he began a methodical search of the area while his guard watched on curiously.
“My friend lost something,” Jag explained when he saw the deep furrows in the Fia’s brow press down upon his melancholy eyes. “I just wanted to see if she dropped it here when she fell. It could have been overlooked in all the excitement.”
The guard nodded his understanding, but the expression of confusion remained.
After a couple more minutes scouring the corridor, Jag said, “I don’t suppose you could help me look, could you? It might help things along a little.”
“What does it look like?” the guard asked.
That stumped him for a second. The Fia would probably want a detailed description, and he didn’t have the faintest idea what it was.
“You’ll know when you see it,” he said elusively, adding under his breath, “I hope.”
Their search was hampered by the thick weave of the carpet, along with the fact that the ambient light of the corridor wasn’t particularly bright. His back soon ached, and he found himself wondering if he might not have imagined the whole thing. If there was anything there, it was proving harder to find than a flea on a bantha.
“Is this it?” the guard asked after a while. He held out a small piece of transparent plastic for Jag to examine.
Jag climbed to his feet and stepped over to the guard. As he took the proffered object and examined it, he tried not to look as though he had no more of a clue than the guard himself. The object, it turned out, was nothing more than a scrap of packaging missed by the cleaning droids. He didn’t see how it could have provoked such an extreme reaction from Tahiri.
“No, that’s not it,” he said, hoping he was right. Nevertheless, he slipped it into his pocket just in case. “Let’s keep looking.”
Even as he said this, already bending over again to continue his search, he caught a glint of something silver in the carpet farther along the corridor. Cautiously, so as not to lose sight of it, he walked toward it. There, at the edge of the corridor fully four meters from where they’d been looking, was a small object poking out of the carpet. If it was the thing that Tahiri had been holding, then she must have flung it when spinning around defensively with her lightsaber; then, he imagined, it had been pushed deeper into the pile by the large feet of one of the Fia. Otherwise it would have surely been spotted before now.
He reached down and plucked it from the carpet. It was small, about half the size of his thumb joint, and looked to him to be a pendant or charm of some kind. It was metallic in nature, but with a grown texture, rather than forged. There was a hole through which a chain or thong might have been threaded, and on the face were carvings in an unknown language. It was surprisingly heavy.
The creature it portrayed was hideous and completely unfamiliar, but that wasn’t so surprising, Jag thought. There were many different types of creature in the Galactic Alliance, and most of them were unfamiliar to him—just as the various cultures of the Unknown Regions would be unfamiliar to them. One thing about the creature portrayed did trouble him, though: It seemed to be covered in scars.
“Is that it?” the guard asked, peering over his shoulder.
“Yes,” Jag said, quickly tucking the object into one of his flight suit’s pockets. “I’m sure my friend will be glad to see it again. She thought she’d lost it.”
Thanking the guard for his help, Jag let himself be led back to the diplomatic quarters. Nothing had changed: Tahiri was still unconscious, and C-3PO couldn’t give an estimate as to how long she might remain like this.
He sighed wearily. He really couldn’t delay any longer. Jaina was long gone, and he had to get back to his squadron. Being accused of dereliction of duty was, at the moment, more of a concern to him than any of the uneasy feelings he had about the small, silvery object in his pocket and its relevance to the mission.
His clawcraft had been refueled by Al’solib’minet’ri City’s landing field technicians. As he ran through the craft’s maintenance records to double-check what exactly had been done in his absence, a brief note appeared on the computer screen:
Jag stared at it for a long moment, startled. He quickly surveyed the bay for signs of someone watching him, but saw no one suspicious lurking about. Then, when he looked back at the screen, the message had disappeared. He tried to access it again, but the maintenance logs showed no record of it ever having existed in the first place. Whoever had left the message for him had made sure it would be erased as soon it had been read.
But why? And if the sender had been so keen to have him leave, then why put the message in such an inaccessible spot? Placing it in the flight systems, where he wasn’t likely to see it until he was already leaving anyway, seemed redundant. Unless, maybe, the person responsible for the message had no choice but to use this means. Or perhaps the message was intended for him alone, and this was the only way to ensure that no one else saw or heard it.
He fought a growing sense of unease. Tahiri, the pendant, this message … There were too many questions without answers, and none of them sat easily with him. He fleetingly considered staying behind to help Leia and Han, but quickly dismissed the idea. There was no actual evidence that anything was up; there were just a couple of hints and warnings, as well as the workings of his suspicious mind. Besides, Han and Leia could look after themselves; they had had plenty of practice at it, after all.
“This is Twin Suns Leader, Al’solib’minet’ri Control,” he said into the comm unit. “Preparing for ascent to orbit. Do you have a preferred corridor?”
“Not so fast, Twin Suns Leader,” came the patient Fian voice from the other end. “There are still some questions we need to ask before—”
Jag rolled his eyes and activated the clawcraft’s engines. Confident he could avoid any Fian vessels that might get in his way, he ignored the squawking of Al’solib’minet’ri City Control and roared up into the atmosphere.
As he matched orbits with Pride of Selonia, he contacted the two pilots Jaina had left on patrol when she left.
“Nice move, Jag,” Seven said. “Captain Mayn’s been itching to thumb her nose at all of these Fian formalities since we arrived. They’ve been hailing her every time our orbit drifts by so much as a meter.”
There was amusement in Seven’s tone, but Jag remained serious.
“Has there been anything more than that?” he asked. “Anything unusual at all?”
“Are you kidding?” she shot back. “Apart from all the chatter, it’s been quiet. No incoming; no outgoing; nothing. The communications blackout is still in place. Beats me what people do around here.”
Jag focused on that problem instead of the many others batting at him. He had initially assumed that the communications fault would be easily fixed, so they could move on to their second port of call. But when he and C-3PO had analyzed the records automatically kept by the planetary transceiver serving Galantos and the rest of the system, he had found that there was no fault at all. From there they had contacted the nearest intersector network and ascertained that communications between Galantos and the rest of the galaxy could be easily reestablished, once a small routing correction was made. The fact that it hadn’t been made was suggestive, but Jag hadn’t decided of exactly what, yet. It was almost as though the Fia had deliberately cut themselves off.
But why would they do that? With the Yevetha at their back door, along with a wealth of minerals the rest of the galaxy would surely be interested in, contact with the outside would be exactly what they’d want. Except, Jag thought, that the Fia claimed that the Yevetha were no longer a threat, and they seemed to be turning a tidy profit from someone, anyway.
There was something afoot on Galantos, and he’d work it out sooner or later. All he needed was another couple of those puzzle segments …
An urgent bleeping issued from his instrument panel. “Twin Suns,” came the voice of Selonia’s duty officer. “We’re picking up hyperspace disturbances in sector twelve. It looks like we have company. Want to check them out?”
“Twin Seven, on my way.”
“What sort of company?” Jag asked the duty officer as he watched Seven’s X-wing sweep out of formation and accelerate away from the planet.
“It’s hard to tell,” the duty officer returned after a moment’s consideration. “They’re still a long way out. But there appears to be a number of smaller vessels accompanying two much larger ones.”
“Can you at least determine the type of vessel they are?” Jag pressed.
“No can do, I’m afraid,” came the reply. “They could be—”
Another bleeping cut him off.
“Hang on, Twin Leader,” the duty officer said. “More ships. Sector six this time, on the other side of the system. Two small vessels only, and one of them’s an X-wing. The other could be a clawcraft, but its emissions are strange. It’s almost as though—”
“Emergency!” came Jaina’s voice suddenly over the subspace link. “I have an emergency situation. I’ve lost Twin Eight, and Nine isn’t going to last much longer. I need immediate assistance. I repeat, immediate assistance!”
Jag’s mind worked overtime. Eight was Miza, a Chiss Squadron pilot.
“What happened, Jaina? Did the Yevetha attack you?”
“Not quite,” she said, sounding weary. “They were all dead when we arrived, bar one. He chose to blow his drive rather than talk to us, and that’s what did all the damage. I only just managed to patch things together enough to get back here. But this will have to wait, Jag. You’d better watch your back to make sure what happened to N’zoth doesn’t happen here, too.”
“This is Seven,” came the voice of the pilot scouting the far side of the system. “I have a positive ID on those incoming vessels. They’re Yuuzhan Vong—two squadrons of skips and a blastboat analog escorting two larger types I’ve never seen before. They’ve spotted me and have started in pursuit. I need help out here, guys!”
Jag urged his clawcraft up and away from Selonia. “All right, Twin Suns Squadron,” he broadcast to the rest of his pilots. “Let’s scramble!”