by Timothy Zahn
“Just like back on Myrkr,” Luke agreed, using his lightsaber to cut away another of the thornbushes they’d become all too familiar with in the past few hours. “You know, I never did find out what happened after we left.”
“About what you’d expect,” Mara told him. “We cleared out about two steps ahead of Thrawn’s AT-ATs. And then nearly got caught anyway when Karrde insisted on hanging around to watch.”
“Is that why you’re helping us?” he asked her. “Because Thrawn’s put a death mark on Karrde?”
“Let’s get one thing clear right now, Skywalker,” she growled. “I work for Karrde, and Karrde has already said that we’re staying neutral in this war of yours. The only reason I’m here is because I know a little about the Clone Wars era and don’t want to see a bunch of cold-faced duplicates trying to overrun the galaxy again. The only reason you’re here is that I can’t shut the place down by myself.”
“I understand,” Luke said, cutting a second thornbush and closing down his lightsaber. Reaching out with the Force, he lifted the two bushes off the ground and lowered them into the creek bed. “Well, it won’t stop anything that’s really determined to get at us,” he decided, studying the makeshift barrier. “But it should at least slow them down.”
“For whatever that’s worth,” Mara said, pulling out a ration bar and stripping off the wrapping. “Let’s just hope this isn’t one of those lucky places where all the really big predators come out at night.”
“Hopefully, Artoo’s sensors can spot them before they get too close,” Luke told her. Igniting his lightsaber again, he cut two more thornbushes for good measure.
And he was preparing to shut it down when he caught the subtle change in Mara’s sense. He turned, to find her staring at his lightsaber, ration bar forgotten in her hand, a strangely haunted expression on her face. “Mara?” he asked, “You all right?”
Her gaze shifted almost guiltily away from him. “Sure,” she muttered. “I’m fine.” Throwing him a quick glare, she bit viciously into her ration bar.
“Okay.” Closing down the lightsaber, Luke used the Force to move the newly cut thornbushes into place on top of the others. Still not much of a barrier, he decided. Maybe if he stretched a few of those vines between the trees …
“Skywalker.”
He turned. “Yes?”
Mara was looking up at him. “I have to ask,” she said quietly. “You’re the only one who knows. How did the Emperor die?”
For a moment Luke studied her face. Even in the fading light he could see the ache in her eyes; the bitter memories of the luxuriant life and glittering future that had been snatched away from her at Endor. But alongside the ache was an equally strong determination. However badly this might hurt, she truly did want to hear it. “The Emperor was trying to turn me to the dark side,” he told her, long-buried memories of his own surging painfully back again. It had nearly been him, not the Emperor, who’d died that day. “He almost succeeded. I’d taken one swing at him, and wound up fighting with Vader instead. I guess he thought that if I killed Vader in anger, I’d be opened to him through the dark side.”
“And so instead you ganged up on him,” she accused, her eyes flashing with sudden anger. “You turned on him—both of you—”
“Wait a minute,” Luke protested. “I didn’t attack him. Not after that first swing.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “I saw you do it. Both of you moved in against him with your lightsabers. I saw you do it.”
Luke stared at her … and suddenly he understood. Mara Jade, the Emperor’s Hand, who could hear his voice from anywhere in the galaxy. She’d been in contact with her master at the moment of his death, and had seen it all.
Except that, somehow, she’d gotten it wrong.
“I didn’t move against him, Mara,” he told her. “He was about to kill me when Vader picked him up and threw him down an open shaft. I couldn’t have done anything even if I’d wanted to—I was still half paralyzed from the lightning bolts he’d hit me with.”
“What do you mean, if you’d wanted to?” Mara said scornfully. “That was the whole reason you went aboard the Death Star in the first place, wasn’t it?”
Luke shook his head. “No. I went there to try and turn Vader away from the dark side.”
Mara turned away, and Luke could sense the turmoil within her. “Why should I believe you?” she demanded at last.
“Why should I lie?” he countered. “It doesn’t change the fact that if I hadn’t been there Vader wouldn’t have turned on him. In that sense, I’m probably still responsible for his death.”
“That’s right, you are,” Mara agreed harshly. But there was a moment of hesitation before she said it. “And I won’t forget it.”
Luke nodded silently, and waited for her to say more. But she didn’t, and after a minute he turned back to the thornbushes. “I’d go easy on those things if I were you,” Mara said from behind him, her voice cool and under control again. “You don’t want to trap us in an area this size if something big comes over the bushes.”
“Good point,” Luke said, understanding both the words and the meaning beneath them. There was a job to do, and until that job was finished, she still needed Luke alive.
At which point, she would have to face the destiny that had been prepared for her. Or would have to choose a new one.
Closing down his lightsaber, he stepped past Mara to where the others were busy setting up camp. Time to check on the droids.
CHAPTER
17
The door to the Assemblage chamber slid open and a small flood of beings and droids began pouring out into the Grand Corridor, chattering among themselves in the usual spectrum of different languages. Glancing at Winter as the two of them walked toward the crowd, Leia nodded.
It was show time.
“Anything else come in that I should know about?” she asked as they passed along the edge of the flow.
“There was an unusual follow-up to the Pantolomin report,” Winter said, her eyes flicking casually around the crowd. “A bounty hunter there claims to have penetrated the Imperial shipyards at Ord Trasi and is offering to sell us information about their new building program.”
“I’ve dealt with my share of bounty hunters,” Leia said, trying not to look around the crowd as they passed through it. Winter was watching, and with her perfect memory she would remember everyone who was close enough to overhear their conversation. “What makes Colonel Derlin think we can trust him?”
“He’s not sure we can,” Winter said. “The smuggler offered what he said was a free sample: the information that there are three Imperial Star Destroyers within a month of completion out there. Colonel Derlin said Wing Commander Harleys is drawing up a plan to confirm that.”
They were out of the Grand Corridor now, following along with the handful of beings who hadn’t yet split off toward offices or other conference rooms. “Sounds dangerous,” Leia said, dutifully running their prepared script out to the end. “I hope he’s not just going to do a fly-by.”
“The report didn’t give any details,” Winter said. “But there was an addendum asking about the possibility of borrowing a freighter from someone who does business with the Empire.”
The last of the officials turned off into a cross corridor, leaving them alone in the hallway with an assortment of techs, assistants, admin personnel, and other low-ranking members of the New Republic government. Leia threw a quick glance at each, decided there was no point in going through another script for their benefit. Looking at Winter, she nodded again, and together the two women headed toward the turbolifts.
They’d needed some place where Ghent could set up shop without word or even rumors of the project leaking out, and a search of the Palace’s original blueprints had found them the ideal spot. It was an old backup power cell room, closed down and sealed years earlier, wedged in between the Sector Ordnance/Supply and Starfighter Command offices down on the command floor.
Leia had cut a new entrance from a service corridor with her lightsaber; Bel Iblis had helped them run power cables and datalines; and Ghent had set up his decrypting program.
They had everything they needed. Except results.
Ghent was sitting in the room’s single chair when they arrived, staring dreamily off into space with his feet propped up on the edge of his decrypter desk. They were both inside, and Winter had closed the door, before he even noticed their presence. “Oh—hi,” he said, dropping his feet to the floor with a muffled thud.
“Not so loud, please,” Leia reminded him, wincing. The officers working on the other sides of the thin walls would probably ascribe any stray noises to the adjacent offices. But then again, they might not. “Has General Bel Iblis brought the latest transmissions in yet?” she asked.
“Yeah—about an hour ago,” Ghent nodded, whispering almost inaudibly now. “I just finished slicing ’em.”
He tapped a key, and a series of decrypted messages came up on the display. Leia stepped up behind his chair, reading down them. Details of upcoming military deployments, what seemed to be verbatim transcriptions of high-level diplomatic conversations, tidbits of idle Palace gossip—as always, Delta Source had covered the whole range from the significant to the trivial.
“There’s one of ours,” Winter said, touching a spot on the display.
Leia read the item. An unconfirmed intelligence report from the Bpfassh system, suggesting that the Chimaera and its support ships had been spotted near Anchoron. That was one of theirs, all right. “How many heard that one?” she asked Winter.
“Only forty-seven,” Winter told her, already busy with Ghent’s data pad, “It was just before three yesterday afternoon—during the second Assemblage session—and the Grand Corridor was fairly empty.”
Leia nodded and turned back to the display. By the time Winter had finished her list she’d identified two more of their decoy messages. By the time Winter had finished those, she’d found another five.
“Looks like that’s it,” she said as Winter handed Ghent her first three lists and got to work on the others. “Let’s go ahead and run these through your sifter.”
“Okay,” Ghent said, throwing one last look of awe at Winter before turning back to his console. Three days into this scheme, he still hadn’t gotten over the way she could remember every single detail of fifty separate one-minute conversations. “Okay, let’s see. Correlations … okay. We’re down to a hundred twenty-seven possibilities. Mostly techs and admin types, looks like. Some offworld diplomats, too.”
Leia shook her head. “None of those are likely to have access to all of this information,” she said, waving at the decrypt display. “It has to be someone considerably higher up the command structure—”
“Wait a minute,” Ghent interrupted, raising a finger. “You want a big fish; you got one. Councilor Sian Tevv of Sullust.”
Leia frowned at the display. “That’s impossible. He was one of the earliest leaders in the Rebel Alliance. In fact, I think he was the one who brought Nien Nunb and his private raiding squad over to us after the Empire forced them out of Sullust system.”
Ghent shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that he heard all fifteen of those little teasers that wound up on Delta Source’s transmitter.”
“It can’t be Councilor Tevv,” Winter spoke up absently, still working at the data pad. “He wasn’t present during any of these last six conversations.”
“Maybe one of his aides heard it,” Ghent offered. “He didn’t have to be there personally.”
Winter shook her head. “No. One of his aides was present, but only for one of these conversations. More importantly, Councilor Tevv was present for two conversations the day before yesterday that Delta Source didn’t transmit. Nine-fifteen in the morning and two-forty-eight in the afternoon.”
Ghent keyed up the relevant lists. “You’re right,” he confirmed. “Didn’t think about checking things that direction. Guess I’d better work up a better sifter program.”
Behind Leia their makeshift door swung open, and she turned to see Bel Iblis come in. “Thought I’d find you here,” he nodded to Leia. “We’re about ready to give the Stardust plan its first try, if you want to come and watch.”
The latest scheme to locate the swarm of cloaked asteroids Thrawn had left in orbit around Coruscant. “Yes, I do,” Leia said. “Winter, I’ll be in the war room when you’re finished here.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Leia and Bel Iblis left the room and headed single-file down the service corridor. “Find anything yet?” the general asked over his shoulder.
“Winter’s still running yesterday’s list,” Leia told him. “So far we’ve got around a hundred thirty possibilities.”
Bel Iblis nodded. “Considering how many of us there are working in the Palace, I’d say that qualifies as progress.”
“Maybe.” She hesitated. “It’s occurred to me that this scheme will only work if Delta Source is a single person. If it’s a whole group, we may not be able to weed them out this way.”
“Perhaps,” Bel Iblis agreed. “But I have a hard time believing we could have that many traitors here. Matter of fact, I still have trouble believing we have even one. I’ve always thought that Delta Source might be some kind of exotic recording system. Something Security simply hasn’t been able to locate yet.”
“I’ve watched them do counterintelligence sweeps,” Leia said. “I can’t think how they could possibly have missed anything.”
“Unfortunately, neither can I.”
They arrived in the war room, to find General Rieekan and Admiral Drayson standing behind the main command console. “Princess,” Rieekan greeted her gravely. “You’re just in time.”
Leia looked up at the master visual. An old transport had left the group of ships standing guard in far orbit and was making its careful way down toward the planet. “How far in is it going to come?” Leia asked.
“We’re going to start just above the planetary shield, Councilor,” Drayson told her. “The postbattle analysis indicates that most of the cloaked asteroids probably wound up in low orbit.”
Leia nodded. And since those would be the ones most likely to sneak through if they opened the shield, it made all the more sense to start there.
Slowly, moving with the tentative awkwardness of a ship under remote control, the transport came closer in. “All right,” Drayson said. “Transport One control, cut drive and prepare to dump on my command. Ready … dump.”
For a moment nothing happened. Then, abruptly, a cloud of brilliant dust began to billow from the aft end of the transport, swirling around lazily in the ships wake. “Keep it coming,” Drayson said. “Harrier, stand by negative ion beams.”
“All dust is clear of the transport, Admiral,” one of the officers reported.
“Transport One control, pull her away,” Drayson ordered.
“But slowly,” Bel Iblis murmured. “We don’t want to carve exhaust grooves through the dust.”
Drayson threw an annoyed look back at him. “Take it nice and slow,” he said grudgingly. “Do we have any readings yet?”
“Coming in very strong, sir,” the officer at the sensor console reported. “Between point nine-three and nine-eight reflection on all bands.”
“Good,” Drayson nodded. “Keep a sharp eye on it. Harrier?”
“Harrier reports ready, sir,” another officer confirmed.
“Fire negative ion beam,” Drayson ordered. “Lowest intensity. Let’s see how this works.”
Leia peered up at the visual. The shimmering dust particles were beginning to clump together as ions from the departing transport’s drive created random electrostatic charges throughout the cloud. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the hazy line of an ion beam appear on the master tactical display and sweep across the cloud. Charging all the dust particles with the same polarity so that they would repel each other … and suddenly the coalescing du
st cloud was expanding again, spreading out across the visual display like the opening of some exotic flower.
“Cease fire,” Drayson said. “Let’s see if that does it.”
For a long minute the flower continued to open, and Leia found herself staring intently at the hazy glitter. Unreasonably, of course. Given how much space there was out there, it was highly unlikely that this first dump would happen to be in the path of any of the orbiting asteroids. And even if it was, there still would be nothing for her to see on the visual. Except at the moment before its collapse, the cloaking shield seemed to twist light and sensor beams perfectly around itself, which meant there would be no dark spot cutting visibly through the dust.
“Cloud’s starting to break up, Admiral,” the sensor officer reported. “Dissipation ratio is up to twelve.”
“Solar wind’s catching it,” Rieekan muttered.
“As expected,” Drayson reminded him. “Transport Two control: go ahead and launch.”
A second transport emerged from among the orbiting ships and headed down toward the surface. “This is definitely the slow way to do this,” Bel Iblis commented quietly.
“Agreed,” Rieekan said. “I wish they hadn’t lost that CGT array of yours out at Svivren. We could sure have used it here.”
Leia nodded. Crystal gravfield traps, originally designed to zoom in on the mass of sensor-stealthed ships from thousands of kilometers away, would be ideal for this job. “I thought Intelligence had a lead on another one.”
“They’ve got leads on three,” Rieekan said. “Problem is, they’re all in Imperial space.”
“I’m still not convinced a CGT would do us all that much good here,” Bel Iblis said. “This close in, I suspect that Coruscant’s gravity would swamp any readings we got from the asteroids.”
“It would be tricky—no doubt about that,” Rieekan agreed. “But I think it’s our best chance.”
They fell silent as, on the visual, the second transport reached its target zone and repeated the procedure of the first. Again, nothing.
