by Troy Denning
Wait.
Jacen spoke the word with his mind instead of his mouth. At the same time, he was expanding his Force presence into Sing’s mind, opening himself fully to the Force and using its power to push himself deeper into her mind, to crush her own presence and force it deep down into the bottom of her being.
“Wait,” he repeated.
Sing fought back, trying to push him from her mind, but Jacen had taken her by surprise. He had the power of his anger and his fear and his hatred behind him, and she simply was not strong enough.
Jacen started forward again, then dropped his blaster pistol and retrieved his comlink.
“Double-Ex, open—”
The doors to his stateroom slid open, grating loudly as the damaged area scraped past the jambs. Jacen stepped into the foyer of his suite, where beads of molten durasteel were still popping and hissing on the stone decking. To his right, the walls above the galley and dining area were pocked with scorch marks. Allana’s Defender Droid lay to his left, a heap of severed limbs and smoking circuits scattered along the edge of a sunken conversation area.
Sing stood with her back to Jacen, about five paces beyond the droid, on the other side of a smoldering couch. In one hand, she held her still-ignited lightsaber. In the other was a class-C thermal detonator with a disintegration radius large enough to kill herself, Jacen, Allana, and probably half the personnel on the decks directly above and below.
As Jacen started toward her, she looked over her shoulder with an expression in her pale eyes that seemed equal parts hatred and awe.
“Don’t ever touch me like that again.”
Jacen did not reply. Sing was still struggling to free herself of his domination, and all his concentration was focused on keeping the pressure on until he drew close enough to strike.
Sing flashed him a cold smile. “But then, I don’t think you’ll have the chance.”
Her thumb twitched.
The activation light on the thermal detonator began to blink, and that was enough to shatter Jacen’s concentration. He felt Sing slip free, and suddenly he was completely outside her mind, watching in horror as she pitched the detonator toward the refresher where Allana was hiding.
Jacen’s heart dropped through the bottom of his stomach. His arm shot out without conscious thought, and the detonator floated into his hand almost before he realized he had summoned it.
Sing was already whirling, leaping toward him with her crimson blade coming around at neck height. Jacen brought his lightsaber up automatically and blocked, then pulled the detonator’s thumb slide back.
He never saw whether the activation light darkened. Suddenly Sing’s knee was sinking into his stomach, driving the breath from his lungs and sending him tumbling over a couch. The detonator clattered to the floor somewhere in the galley. He came down on a beverage table, smashing it apart, then Sing was over him, her crimson blade arcing down.
Jacen whipped his lightsaber around to block, catching her blade about halfway up the shaft and filling the air with a sizzling shower of sparks. Sing grabbed her hilt with both hands and began to push, slowly driving the tip of her lightsaber down toward his eye.
The glow was as blinding as the heat was searing, and Jacen’s vision blossomed into a fiery red blur. He brought his free hand up to brace his weapon arm and tried not to worry about whether his eyeball would melt, not daring to turn his head or even look away for fear that he would slip.
Sing kicked him in the side. The tip of a small, wedgeshaped blade scraped against his ribs and sent a blazing bolt of pain shooting into his body.
“Never—” She kicked him again, sending another bolt of pain deep into his stomach. “—violate—”
She kicked again.
“—my—” Another kick, more pain. “—mind!”
Sing kicked again, this time catching him near a kidney. A wave of fiery anguish rolled through his body, stealing his breath, so hot he could not even scream. The pain would have paralyzed anyone else, left him on the floor praying to die before he drew his next breath.
But pain was an old friend of Jacen’s. He had learned to embrace it during his imprisonment among the Yuuzhan Vong, and now it no longer troubled him. Now it served him.
He turned the palm of his bracing hand toward Sing and pushed with the Force.
The move did not surprise her as much as he had hoped. As she flew away, Sing rolled the tip of her blade over his, and his lightsaber went flying. He held his Force shove until he heard her thud into the wall opposite, then sprang to his feet.
A fiery blur continued to blind one eye, and his sight in the other was still splashed with crimson blotches. But he could see clearly enough to be worried. Sing had landed near the refresher where Allana was hiding—close enough to fulfill her contract, if she was willing to risk Jacen attacking her from behind.
Jacen did not give her that chance. He opened himself fully to his fear and anger, using the power of his emotions to bring the Force flooding into him, and his body began to crackle and burn with dark energy. He raised his arms in Sing’s direction, hands held level and fingers splayed wide.
That was when the door to the refresher hissed open, and a pair of small gray eyes peered out. They were wide open and locked on Jacen with an expression that might have been awe or fear or both.
“No, Allana!” Jacen could not bring himself to release the Force lightning while she was watching; even if Tenel Ka had not yet taught her that the dark side was evil, his own childhood training remained strongly enough ingrained that he did not want his daughter to see him using it. “Close the …”
Jacen had to let the order trail off when Sing took advantage of his hesitation to leap at him. Allana screamed from inside the refresher, then Sing was three paces away, lightsaber coming in for a midbody strike. Jacen lifted one foot as though to pivot away, and Sing took the bait and stopped, dropping one leg back as she continued her swing.
Instead of spinning past as he feinted, Jacen cartwheeled over her blade and came down on the other side. Sing reversed her attack so fast he barely had time to grab her wrist, much less turn her own weapon against her as he had intended.
So Jacen kicked her in the knee as hard as he could.
The joint dislocated with a sickening pop, and Sing collapsed to the floor shrieking. But she did not release her lightsaber. She did not even stop fighting, rolling into him in an effort to break his grasp and slash him open. Jacen started to pivot out of the way, intending to bring her arm around for a clean break behind her back.
But Allana suddenly appeared on the other side of Sing, charging forward with her dark brows lowered and what looked like a small recording rod clutched in her hands.
“Allana, no!”
Allana kept coming.
Determined to keep Sing from striking out at his daughter with any of her weapons, Jacen Force-leapt backward, dragging the assassin away from his daughter. Allana took two more steps and raised the silver rod over her head … then dived.
Sing raised her uninjured leg, cocking her foot to kick Allana with the stubby knife in the toe of her boot.
Jacen screamed and whipped Sing’s arm around, twisting her away from his daughter. Her lightsaber flashed by so close he nearly lost an ear, but the assassin’s legs spun around with her body, and the kick-knife flashed past half a meter above Allana’s head.
Allana landed on Sing’s other leg and jammed the silver rod into her injured knee. The hiss of an autoinjector sounded from its tip, and Sing cried out in astonishment.
“You little shrew!”
Sing drew her leg back again to kick … then let it drop to the floor. Her eyes widened in anger—or perhaps it was fear. She craned her neck around, staring at Allana, and began to convulse. Jacen quickly pulled Sing’s lightsaber from her unresisting hand, then held the still-ignited tip to the assassin’s neck.
“Allana, what—”
“She’ll be awright, Jacen.” Allana sat up and straddled the assas
sin’s leg, no longer afraid—if she ever had been. “It was just my safety stick.”
“Okay.” Jacen was too numb and relieved to ask more—or to chastise Allana for not staying in the refresher. He simply waved her off Sing’s legs. “Get off. She could still be dangerous.”
“That’s not what Doctor Meala says.” Despite her protest, Allana climbed off Sing’s legs. “She says the bad person won’t be dangerous again until someone gives her the antidope.”
Allana came to Jacen’s side, then squatted and looked into Sing’s hate-maddened eyes.
“But don’t be scared,” she said. “Yedi never kill helpless people—even bad ones like you.”
“That’s right.” Jacen took Allana’s hand and, surprised by how right her words felt, pulled her up to stand at his side. “We just put them in a confinement facility for a very, very long time.”
chapter twenty
Outside the Falcon’s canopy hung a streaming veil of blue and white brilliance, so intense that it made Han’s eyes hurt like a Fogblaster hangover. He hesitated at the back of the flight deck, trying to make some sense of what he was seeing, half convinced that it was the efflux tail of some Death Star-type megaship.
And if it was some big new superweapon, Han knew he and Leia would end up trying to destroy the thing before it blew up Tenel Ka’s throneworld or something—and he had no doubts about how that would turn out. Han was already older than Obi-Wan Kenobi had been when he’d died aboard the original Death Star, and on crazy missions like that, wasn’t it always the wise old man who got killed first? If it happened, Han only hoped his kids would figure out he and Leia had been no part of the assassination attempt on Tenel Ka. Dying, he could take—he just didn’t want to go out with people thinking he was some kind of terrorist.
But the longer Han studied the blazing sheet ahead, the more he realized he could not be looking at any kind of efflux tail. There were actually two bright streams, one broad and curving and fan-shaped, the other thin and straight and braided.
He finally realized what he was seeing.
Scowling toward the pilot’s seat, which had become Leia’s until his shoulder was healed enough to fly, Han stepped onto the flight deck. “Are you flying my ship into a comet?”
“Yes, dear.” Leia met his gaze in the canopy reflection, then shot him a brief frown—one he knew was meant to remind him that they still had a lot to learn about Morwan and the usurpers. “We agreed to return Lady Morwan to her Ducha, remember?”
“Of course I remember.” Han glanced at Morwan, who was in the copilot’s chair, then dropped into the navigator’s seat behind Leia. “But no one lives on a comet.”
“Actually, a surprising number of beings inhabit comets,” C-3PO offered from the communications station. “Hermits, pirates, fugitives, political exiles—”
“AlGray’s no hermit,” Han grumbled. “And even if she was, she must own a dozen empty moons already.”
“Actually, all of the Relephon Moons are inhabited,” Morwan said. “But we’re not meeting Ducha AlGray at her residence.”
Han glanced down at the navigation display and saw that they weren’t anywhere near Relephon—far from it, in fact. “The Hapan system?” he asked. “What are we doing here?”
“The answer to that is obvious,” Morwan replied. “And you shouldn’t be out of medbay. You need that hydration drip to keep your electrolytes in balance. Blaster burns remove a lot of fluids from your system.”
“My fluids are just fine.” Han had the sinking feeling that he knew exactly why they were in the Hapan system, and he was fairly sure that Tenel Ka could not be ready. With so much of her Royal Navy assigned to the Galactic Alliance, she would need support from the nobles still loyal to her—support that would take time to arrive. “And stop changing the subject.”
“Fine,” Morwan replied. “Your health is no concern of mine. If you’re truly having trouble figuring out the situation, just look through the viewport.”
Han squinted out at the comet. Once his eyes had grown accustomed to the glow, he saw a dark crescent of empty space at the starboard edge of the canopy, just in front of the boiling brilliance of the comet’s head. Clustered close behind the head were about seventy tiny black ovals, arranged in a three-dimensional diamond commonly used to attack planetary defenses.
“Oh, that,” Han said, trying to conceal the alarm he felt at how fast the usurpers were moving. “I meant what are we doing here? You can’t intend to be a part of this fight.”
Morwan scowled over her shoulder at him. “You doubt my devotion?”
“That’s not what I said.” Han raised his hands defensively. “But the Falcon ain’t much of a warship.”
“I won’t be aboard the Falcon after we rendezvous,” Morwan replied. “And I suspect you won’t be, either.”
“Is that a threat?” Han demanded, starting to worry that she’d discovered he and Leia were spies. “Because if it isn’t, you’d better clear things up real fast.”
“Even if it were a threat, you’re hardly in any condition to do anything about it,” Morwan replied. “But all I mean is I’ll be aboard the Kendall, and you’ll most likely be with your friends from Corellia.”
“Corellia?” Han glanced back toward the battle formation and realized that the three silhouettes in front were several times the size of the others. “I was wondering if those were our Dreadnaughts.”
As Han said this, he tried to catch Leia’s gaze in the canopy reflection. But her eyes had that distant, unfocused look they got when she was caught up with something in the Force. With any luck, she was reaching out to Tenel Ka, trying to warn the Queen Mother about the trouble coming her way.
“Dreadnaughts?” Morwan repeated. “I really don’t know what they are, only that Corellia promised to send a fleet that could defeat Hapes’s defenses.”
“They did,” Han assured her. “Those Dreadnaughts will punch through in no time. By this time tomorrow, AlGray will be the new Queen Mother.”
“That’s not the reason she organized the overthrow,” Morwan said. “Her only concern is for the Consortium’s independence.”
“Whatever you say,” Han said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
He switched the navigator’s display to tactical. None of the vessels in the usurpers’ fleet was broadcasting a transponder code, but the Falcon’s threat computer had used a combination of mass and energy bleed-off patterns to classify the contacts as Battle Dragons. The three eggshaped vessels at the head of the fleet—the Corellian Dreadnaughts—it had designated UNKNOWN, assigning them an estimated threat level approximately twice that of Imperial-class Star Destroyers.
The Dreadnaughts were surrounded by a screen of light frigates configured for fighter defense, and the Battle Dragons had a number of Nova battle cruisers interspersed among them. After a moment of study, Han noticed that the Battle Dragons were grouped in clusters with nearly identical masses and energy bleed-off signatures. It only made sense; the noble houses would be operating as subunits within the larger formation, and their vessels would tend to have standard configurations.
Han stored a screen shot of the tactical display—then noticed that one of the Nova cruisers had dropped out of formation and was turning to intercept them.
“Anyone in that fleet know we’re coming?” he asked. “They’re sending out a welcoming party.”
“Ducha AlGray won’t be expecting me to arrive in—” Morwan paused to glance around the flight deck. “—a common freighter,” she finished.
“Then maybe we’d better turn this freighter around,” Han said, bristling at the disdain in her voice. “Because they’re not going to look in the windows before they open fire.”
“That won’t be necessary, Captain Solo,” Morwan replied. “Open a ship-to-ship channel. I’m sure the Ducha will understand if I break comm silence to avoid being fired upon.”
“Yeah—I suppose so,” Han said, reasoning that a comm wave was a lot less noticeable than
a turbolaser volley. “Go ahead, Threepio.”
C-3PO opened the channel. “Just activate your microphone, Lady Morwan.”
Morwan checked the comm status panel—no doubt to make sure the channel was on a tight beam—then activated her microphone. “Heritage Fleet Nova. This is Lalu Morwan, a true guardian of Hapan independence, arriving aboard alternate transport …” She glanced down to see what transponder code the Falcon was using. “Longshot. Request clearance to join formation and rendezvous with the Kendall.”
“Longshot acknowledged as our fellow guardian,” came the cruiser’s reply. “Continue approach, stand by for instructions.”
Han studied Morwan with a raised brow.
“Don’t say it,” Morwan warned. “I’ve heard all the ‘lulu’ jokes I care to.”
“Han dated a lot of lulus before he met me,” Leia said, finally returning from wherever her attention had been. “I think he’s just surprised you gave us your real name earlier.”
Morwan shrugged. “I didn’t have much choice—Aurra Sing found me, remember?”
“Pardon me,” C-3PO said. “But we’re being hailed by the Kendall. Shall I put it on?”
“Of course!” Morwan replied.
C-3PO tapped a key, and a crisp, middle-aged voice came over the cockpit speakers. “You’re late!”
“I apologize,” Morwan replied. “It’s Lalu, your fellow guardian.”
“Yes, yes, we’re both true guardians of Hapan independence,” AlGray said, clearly irritated at having to use the recognition phrase. “Now tell me why you’re late—and why you’re arriving in that wreck.”
Han scowled and would have objected, except that he was busy with his tactical display, attaching the designator KENDALL to the Battle Dragon from which the comm signal was coming.
“Actually, this is the Millennium Falcon,” Morwan explained. “I was forced to turn my yacht over to … our agent, and Princess Leia was kind enough to offer me a ride.”
