by Greg Keyes
Trisdin entered almost immediately, making it apparent that he'd been listening at the door. Ta'a Chume's eyes turned glacial.
The courtier came over to sit beside Jaina and cupped her hand and the glass in it with both of his.
"Not like that," he advised her, smiling warmly. "Let me show you how. You swirl it around, like so. You must awaken it gently and coax warmth into it. Only then-" "Is the sweetness revealed," Ta'a Chume broke in coldly. "Thank you, Trisdin. Once was rather more than enough. Leave the door slightly ajar behind you as you leave. I want to hear the sound of your fading footsteps. Rapidly fading," she added pointedly.
He sent the queen a puzzled look and rose to do as he was bid. For a moment the two women listened to the courtier's departure. Ta'a Chume turned to Jaina, eyeing her with open respect-and a good deal of speculation. "Your point is well made."
"Too well," Jaina said dryly. "I tried to strip from his memory everything he'd heard me tell you, but appar-
ently I rewound him a bit too far. As you observed, that wine glass trick wasn't worth repeating."
"Even so, this is most impressive," Ta'a Chume mused. "What such skills would be worth to a queen!"
An image of Ta'a Chume as a Jedi flashed into Jaina's mind. She banished it as quickly as possible. "I need to know what those Vong communication devices can do. I promise you, the pirates will remember nothing of the process."
"Why should it matter, if they are in prison?"
"It wouldn't-if they were imprisoned."
"I see." Ta'a Chume smiled faintly, approvingly. "As a means of creating spies or saboteurs, this has promise."
"I'm not trying to change the pirates' allegiance. What I want is a viewport into the Yuuzhan Vong technology. We don't understand much about them, and our lack of knowledge is the best weapon they have. The Republic scientists have been working on finding answers, and they've been making some progress. These implants could be another key to unlock the puzzle of communication."
The queen considered this. "But you lack the expertise," she concluded, once again getting to the heart of the matter.
Jaina grimaced and nodded. "I can fly just about anything that works and fix just about anything that doesn't-as long as we're talking about conventional vehicles. The Vong technology makes no sense to me. I was wondering if someone on Gallinore could be persuaded to help me."
"Gallinore," Ta'a Chume mused. "Yes, that might work."
"I've read that many of Gallinore's unique creatures were bioengineered," Jaina continued. "It seems to me that the Gallinore scientists might be closer in procedure and purpose to the Yuuzhan Vong shapers than most of the New Republic scientists."
"I agree," Ta'a Chume said. "And they have the further benefit of not being New Republic scientists. What they discover, you can share with the Republic, in your own time, and after your own purposes have been met- or not at all."
Jaina held the queen's gaze for a long moment, letting the silence confirm this observation.
The older woman smiled. "I will provide the ships and
supplies you will need for the trip, as well as certain letters
of introduction. Will Colonel Fel be accompanying you?"
Jaina shook her head before she had time to consider
it. It just didn't feel right, involving Jag in this.
"Tenel Ka will go, of course. She is an excellent guide." The Jedi grimaced. "I doubt she'd approve of either the mission or my methods."
"She doesn't need to know. But I can see the difficulty you might face if forced to carry out your plans in secrecy and without assistance. Is there someone else whom you can trust, someone more pragmatic than my granddaughter?"
An image flashed instantly into Jaina's mind-a lean face surrounded by waves of silver-shot black hair, and green eyes that laughed and compelled and deceived.
"I know someone," she said shortly. "I'm just not sure that I can trust him."
Three men slumped in the prison cell, awaiting Hapan justice in glum silence. They were still wearing the red garments they'd had on the day they brought that she-rancor princess aboard their ship. An assortment of bruises and bumps gave painful testament to the Jedi woman's unexpectedly strong resistance.
Soft footfalls echoed down the corridor. The men sat up and exchanged wary glances. It was time to put their whispered plans into action. Escaping was risky and uncertain,
but the alternative was a fast trial and a slow execution. They were unlikely to get a better chance.
Their leader rose and moved into position beside the door with a swagger that belied his churning stomach. Not long ago, Crimpler been a promising Corellian kick-boxer-never yet defeated, with a growing reputation for sizing up his opponents. Then came word of the Yuu-zhan Vong invasion, and he'd been drafted into the Hapan navy and sent into a match that, in his opinion, couldn't be won. The Fondor disaster had merely confirmed what he already knew.
So he'd deserted and turned to pirating, where his knack for finding and exploiting vulnerability could be put to profitable use. He'd underestimated Tenel Ka, and that still grated. For the first time, he truly understood the anti-Jedi sentiments of the Ni'Korish fanatics among them. The way Crimpler saw it, if you couldn't read your opponent, you couldn't win the fight. And that, in his opinion, was why the Yuuzhan Vong were taking over the galaxy.
The man who entered the cell was dressed in the colors of the palace guard, but not the uniform. Crimpler sized him up in one quick glance-tall and strongly built, but no real threat. Muscles built through enhancements and prissy exercise routines were easy to spot, and usually worse than useless. At a distance, he might be taken for a guard, and he was probably counting on that. An assassin, probably. It wouldn't be the first time the royal family had decided to forgo the trial and move straight to the execution.
Crimpler snapped a high kick, aiming for the man's nose. To his surprise, the man managed to fling up a forearm and block the attack.
He pushed into the cell and stepped away from the open door, holding up both hands in a placating gesture.
"Not the face," he insisted. "You'll have to make it look real, unfortunately, but leave the face alone."
Obligingly, Crimpler delivered a side kick that caught the guard just under the ribs and folded him in half. The man went to his knees, wheezing, and held up a hand to indicate that the effort would suffice.
The pirate didn't see things that way. He seized a handful of glossy blond hair and jerked the man's head back. "What is this about? What are you setting us up for?"
His victim's lips worked soundlessly for a moment as he struggled to gather breath. "You're to escape," he managed at last. "Take the transport docked by the guards' post outside the prison. Access and launch codes." He patted a small pocket on his tunic.
Crimpler yanked on the man's hair. "Why?" "You're Ni'Korish," the man said simply, as if that explained all.
And in a way, it did. With war on the horizon and an ailing queen mother on the throne, Hapes was a hive of political intrigue. The anti-Jedi movement was as good a rallying point as any for an ambitious woman on her path to power, and Hapes had no shortage of such women. Crimpler wondered, briefly, which one of them owned this particular pawn.
His curiosity was short-lived, and so was the guard. Crimpler tossed the man's body aside and patted it down. The promised codes were there, and several knives and a small stun baton had been tucked into his boots and sleeves.
Crimpler quickly passed out the weapons and then squinted at the barred transparisteel window placed high on the wall of their cell.
"This one was an idiot, but someone's planning is right on the money," he mused. "It's nearly time for the eve-
ning meal. Most of the guards should be doing rounds. Let's go."
He stepped over the body and sent a glance up and down the hall. The three men hurried down the quiet corridor. As they came to a turn, the laughter of a pair of approaching guards gave sudden warning. They flattened themselv
es against a wall and waited for the moment to strike.
Crimpler leapt out to meet the guards, both feet snapping out high and slamming into the men's throats. He kicked off, bending his body back and landing lightly on his hands. A quick push changed his momentum into a graceful back flip. He landed on his feet, bounced once, and then charged forward.
But the guards were down, silenced by the first attack and finished by the other pirates, who put to good use the knives the Ni'Korish traitor had thoughtfully left them.
The two pirates quickly stripped off the guards' uniforms and donned them. Crimpler walked between them, playing the role of prisoner as they hurried to the guard house.
Six guards sat around a sabacc table. With a quick kick, Crimpler upended the table and pinned down three of them. The rest of the battle went nearly as quickly. Stepping over bodies, the pirates made their way out to the landing.
"Three ships," one of the men muttered. "Seems to me this is a bit too neat and tidy."
The same thing had occurred to Crimpler, but there was no turning back. "Save it for your memoirs. Go!"
The men scrambled to the ships. Crimpler hoisted himself into a battered E-wing and began to power up. But his movements felt oddly slowed, as if he were moving through water, or caught in the throes of a nightmare.
With growing dread, he watched the other pirates take
off, unopposed. His own fingers had stopped as if they'd been stuck to the controls with the Yuuzhan Vong's bio-rash jelly.
The E-wing hatch opened, and Crimpler stared into the face of a lean, green-eyed man.
"This the one you wanted?" the man asked someone beyond Crimpler's limited field of vision.
Small fingers probed his neck, and found the tiny lump where the Yuuzhan Vong had placed the bit of coral- the thing that marked him like a prize bantha and identified him as a trusted collaborator.
"He'll do."
The voice was young and female, and Crimpler caught a glimpse of a pretty face with large brandy-brown eyes peering out from under a fringe of shiny brown hair. There was nothing in that face, those eyes, to explain the shiver of dread that passed through Crimpler's immobile body.
Then the pain came, and darkness began to squeeze at his mind like a huge and pitiless fist.
His reaction, oddly enough, was one of relief. At least this time, his instincts had not betrayed him! The girl was trouble, that was plain enough. Crimpler could still size up an opponent with the best of them. He savored that thought, and took it into the darkness with him.
Ta'a Chume dropped the report into a carafe of deep purple wine and watched as the delicate flimsiplast dissolved into a sodden mess. It was unlikely that anyone could decipher the message, which was written as if from an admirer, styled into a highly formalized poem filled with high-flown language and elaborate code.
To the former queen, the message was unmistakable. Jaina had been right about Trisdin. A closer examination into Trisdin's affairs revealed him to be a spy of Alyssia, one of Ta'a Chume's nieces. A well-placed rumor con-
vinced him that the pirates who'd attacked Tenel Ka were in fact assassins capable of doing away with the current queen mother and her Jedi heir, if only they could escape custody to try again. According to the dissolving message, Trisdin's body had been found in the pirates' empty cell.
And so Trisdin had died as the traitor he truly was. The best way to handle men, in Ta'a Chume's observation, was to allow them to follow their natural inclinations.
Manipulating him into "liberating" the pirates was a most convenient way of disposing of the young man- while advancing the purposes of Ta'a Chume's new protegee.
With Jaina safely away from Hapes, it was time to act. Ta'a Chume reached for a thin sheet of flimsy and began an equally cryptic response. It was time to send another ambassador to solve another problem-a problem Ta'a Chume had faced before, and one of her few and bitterly regretted failures.
Twenty years ago, Han Solo had refused to relinquish his princess to the Hapan royal family. This time, Ta'a Chume intended to ensure that he made a very different choice.
TWENTY
Jag Fel's borrowed landspeeder skimmed along the streets of the Hapan city. Another time, he might have found the ornate buildings and their tropical gardens interesting, but today he was too deep in thought to care overmuch about his surroundings.
For most of his twenty years, Jag had devoted himself to learning military tactics, first from his family and then at the Chiss military academy. He'd devoted nearly as much time to developing logic and problem-solving skills as he'd spent learning to fly. But when it came to Jaina Solo, all this hard-won expertise abandoned him.
Jaina Solo was an excellent pilot, but her skills were no match for his own. In simulated flight, he'd shot her out of the sky nearly every time. For that matter, he could name several Chiss who'd flown under his command who matched her skill, and a few who were even better. Jaina was a Jedi, which was interesting but basically irrelevant.
He'd gone looking for Jaina again this morning, hoping to mend the incomprehensible quarrel between them, only to learn that she'd just left for another world in the far-flung Hapes Cluster. And she'd taken one of Jag's best pilots with her, without any request, formal or otherwise. It bothered him that she hadn't requested a leave of
absence for Kyp Durron. Even a Rogue Squadron pilot should have had more regard for protocol than that!
But she had not, and now she and Kyp were gone.
And Jag was on his way to the refugee camp, which made less sense to him than anything Jaina had done.
But if Jag was honest with himself-which he invariably was, even though he often found it a highly uncomfortable habit-he had to admit that his real purpose was a desire to meet the infamous Han Solo.
Princess Leia had disdained suitable personal and political alliances in favor of a rogue-a disgraced Imperial officer who'd found his niche as a smuggler. If any logic had guided her choice, Jag intended to find it. And if there was none, perhaps the alliance that had created Jaina Solo would serve as enlightenment-or perhaps as deterrent.
Almost before he realized it, Jag had left the city behind. The vast landing docks were crowded with ships and bustling with refugees, most of whom seemed determined to get off world. Tempers were high, and the white uniform of the Hapan militia was much in evidence.
Beyond the landing docks lay vast open areas- parklands and lakes and deep forests that provided hunting and recreation for the citizens of the royal city. This had been given over to the refugees. As Jag approached, he struggled to see something of the land's reputed beauty.
The sheer sprawl of the refugee camp staggered him. Rows of tents stretched across what had once been a park like vista and disappeared into a distant forest. Jag showed his credentials to the perimeter guard and made his way down seemingly endless rows of tents.
A refugee camp was an incredibly noisy, pungent place. The displaced people of Coruscant crowded closely together, and thousands of voices mingled in a loud and discordant symphony. The narrow aisles teemed with beings
of many species. Most brushed past Jag with averted eyes, encircled by the intense, artificial privacy that overcrowded conditions tended to foster.
The only unifying factor that Jag could perceive was the foreboding that hung over the encampment, as palpable as morning mist. No doubt all the residents knew the pattern of Yuuzhan Vong aggression. The presence of refugees was a potent lure to the invaders. He had the feeling that a familiar red button had been pushed, and everyone awaited the coming detonation.
Jag counted off the tents until he came to the one that had been assigned to the Solo family. While he was still several paces away, he heard muffled thuds and grunts coming from the enclosure. The sudden flare of a cooking fire in the small space between this tent and the next sent several silhouettes leaping onto the durasilk-an unmistakable tableau depicting an uneven battle.
Jag drew his one-handed charrik from his weapons be
lt and kicked into a run. He tore open the flap and charged in, leading with the small Chiss blaster.
A fist flashed up over his guard and into his face. Jag's head snapped back, and he staggered back a couple of paces as he shook off the blow.
It took Jag only a second or two to regroup, but by then his assailant had already turned his attention to another foe, a tall man in Hapa n uniform. The brawler delivered a punch that spun the Hapan around and sent him crashing facedown onto a folding table.
A familiar, lopsided leer lifted the corner of the man's split lip, and he hurled himself at a burly warrior who was crouched in guard position. The two of them went down with a crash, taking a makeshift shelf and several pieces of battered crockery down with them.
This, then, was Han Solo, and Jaina's father.
Feeling strangely enlightened, Jag took quick stock of
the battlefield. Han Solo and the man he'd just taken down had struggled to their feet. They lurched about the tent, sometimes grappling for a disabling hold, then the next moment hauling back a fist to deliver a short-arm jab.
The uniformed Hapan was pushing himself away from the shattered table and onto his hands and knees. He lifted one hand to his belt and fumbled for his blaster.
Jag fired a short stun bolt that sent the man pitching forward, then swung his weapon toward the next assailant-a burly Hapan woman who'd snatched up a chair and hoisted it aloft with both hands. This she brought down, hard, in the general direction of the two struggling men.
Jag quickly fired a stun charge, but this only served to send the woman hurtling forward, adding momentum to her already impressive swing. The three combatants went down in a tangle of limbs.
Striding forward, Jag hoisted the uniformed man-the only person still moving-and tossed him off the aging Rebel hero. The Hapan dived for the tent wall and scuttled under the durasilk. Jag briefly considered pursuit, then knelt beside the too-still man.
Han Solo had fallen heavily, facedown, into the broken crockery. There was a large lump on his temple where the chair had struck him. Jag eased him over, and winced at the sight of the deep gash that rose from one cheekbone in a sharp angle, and then up deep into the hairline. The graying hair was dark and wet with blood.
