Reunion: Force Heretic III

by Sean Williams

  “So you caught the traitor,” he said as she neared the end of the story. “And you repelled the Yuuzhan Vong. That’s excellent work, Leia. Did you ever find out why they didn’t want the base knocked out? That’s the only thing I don’t get out of all this.”

  “Han and I interrogated Tegg when things settled down. The best we can work out is that Vorrik gave instructions for Tegg to send a distress call from the base, once Ashpidar was out of the way. The distress call would read that the base was under attack by Chiss clawcraft—and would end with the base being destroyed, for real. We don’t think Vorrik would have left us with an asset like this intact.”

  “But you do think he was continuing that wretched policy of setting neighbors against each other?”

  “Sowing confusion and dissent,” Leia said, nodding. “Absolutely. It would have taken us ages to clear up the mess, and who knows what damage might have been done? Certainly, given what happened to Luke on Csilla, there are enough factions on both sides who don’t want us working together. It wouldn’t be hard for a spark like that to create a fire.”

  “Not this time, though,” he said, smiling in approval. “You’ve done an excellent job, Leia.”

  She smiled politely and changed the subject. “Is Mon Cal safe to come back to?”

  “For now, it is, yes. We’ve picked up some recon traffic on the outer edge of the system, but nothing has tried to get through. There have been only a few major strikes anywhere, for that matter. Sovv thinks they’re regrouping, building up forces for a big push.”

  “Just like us.”

  “Exactly. If you’re thinking of coming back to check in, now might be a good time to refresh those pilots of yours.”

  “Understood,” she said.

  His face took on a serious cast. “I don’t want to risk losing one of the best assets I have, Leia. I’d like you here in case we need you. There are others I can send to take your place in these communications hot spots. Now you’ve identified the problem, it won’t be so hard to fix.”

  “Credit where credit’s due, Cal,” she said. “The Ryn did this for us, and got us out of a nasty scrape. I want them accorded the respect they deserve.”

  “Maybe so, but Gron isn’t going to like dealing with them.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought Marrab would be in any position to dispute an order. After all, his network didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. Nor did the other spy networks, for that matter.”

  Omas nodded. “Believe me, Leia, I take your point.”

  “Good night, Cal,” she said, smiling fondly at him. “We’ll talk again soon.”

  When he was gone, Leia sank back into the seat, using the quiet moment to close her eyes and turn to her thoughts. The peace didn’t last long; a few seconds later the comm unit called for attention with a sharp buzz.

  Leia leaned forward, speaking into the comm. “Is that you, Commander Ashpidar?”

  “It is, Princess,” came the Gotal woman’s reply. “Just letting you know that the antenna array performed adequately, but we would like also to test it in the other direction, away from the Core.”

  “I might be able to help you there,” Leia said. “Give me a second.”

  Before she could activate the comm again, though, she heard her husband’s voice from behind her. She swiveled around to face him, watching as he made his way over to her, sidestepping the few crew members working around the bridge.

  “There you are,” he said, coming over to stand beside her. “Captain Mayn said I could find you here.”

  “Ashpidar has the array working,” she said. “We’re just testing it out.”

  He nodded distractedly, as though not really listening. “Have you seen Droma?”

  “Not recently.” She thought back. “Did he come up with us when we left he base?”

  “I’m pretty sure he did. But I was also concentrating on flying at the time, so …” The sentence trailed off into a shrug as he stood and made again to leave. “Oh, well, maybe Jaina knows.”

  “Before you go,” Leia said, “I was going to see if I could raise Luke, in case you’re interested.”

  A familiar smile broke through his look of concern. “Sure, why not. Let’s see how the old farmboy is doing.”

  Leia tapped in the codes for Jade Shadow and waited as the network searched for the ship’s distinctive signature out of the many in the Unknown Regions. It took a lot longer than it had to raise Mon Calamari, but eventually the face of her sister-in-law appeared in the holodisplay, grinning broadly.

  “Ah, there you are,” Mara said, her expression not hiding her relief. “Finally paid your bills, did you?”

  Elegance Enshrined swooped low out of the trees, emitting a hooting cry that made the leaves and branches shake. Thousands of leaping insects and birds cavorting in the airship’s wake, gleaming a thousand colors, scattered wildly, thrown into chaos. Thin-limbed climbers responded with hoots and howls of their own as they jumped up and down agitatedly.

  Saba, safely ensconced in the ship’s gondola, exposed her teeth in a smile. The air was full of sound and excitement. The sun was warm, and Mobus bulged high in the sky like an improbably colored balloon.

  The hunt was over. Zonama Sekot had agreed to lend its considerable weight to the war effort. Much was yet to be decided—particularly how exactly the living planet would contribute—but the essentials were there. Everything Master Skywalker had set out to do had been achieved. They could finally go home.

  Home.

  The thought held less bitterness for Saba than it had in previous weeks. Despite the obvious differences in climate and topography between Barab I and Zonama Sekot, Saba felt comfortable on the living planet. The air was warm, even when it rained. The constant moisture meant paying frequent attention to her scales and claws to ensure no fungal infections took root, but that wasn’t an insurmountable problem. She had certainly visited a lot less inviting planets in her travels.

  Jabitha had made it clear that she could stay if she wanted, for as long as she needed. It was an invitation Saba appreciated, and although she hadn’t decided one way or the other yet, if she was honest with herself, she had to admit that the offer was a tempting one. Zonama would be a good place to spend time healing—something she hadn’t allowed herself to do since the incident on Barab I. Not properly, anyway. The hunter in her had not allowed it. But she could understand now that it was important. When she closed her eyes to think of her planet, she didn’t want to see fires raging across its face, but the rugged beauty of its once great mountains and valleys. When she slept, her dreams shouldn’t be haunted by the faces of her people spilling from the slaveship, but the faces of all the friends and family she’d had while growing up on Barab I. The time had come, she decided, to stop remembering her homeworld in death, and instead remember it in life.

  Not just hunting the moment, she thought, but hunting the future as well.

  “It’s beautiful, is it not?” Kroj’b, the airship’s companion, came to sit next her as Elegance Enshrined glided effortlessly toward the landing field.

  “This one findz it …” She took her time choosing the word, “Exquizite.”

  “During the Crossings, much of this was destroyed. The boras, the tampasi, the animals.” He swept one hand across the view through the gondola window. Danni, Soron Hegerty, and Tekli listened to the man’s words, although he directed them to Saba. “It was a terrible time. Many of us hid underground, in special shelters Sekot grew for us. Darkness covered the sky, and every leap through the void made that darkness thicker. The world shook until we feared it would crack.” Kroj’b’s gaze drifted off to somewhere in the past. “We all lost someone.”

  “This one iz sorry for your loss.”

  He smiled toothily in appreciation of her words before continuing. “I remember the day the shelters opened for the last time, and the clouds finally parted. We saw Sanctuary hanging in the sky, and we knew that Sekot was happy. We’d found our new home at last.
There were celebrations all around Zonama: dancing, fine foods, drinking—so much laughter. It went on for a week, but being only a young boy at the time, it seemed to me a lifetime.”

  “The thought of going back into the shelterz,” Saba said, guessing ahead to the point of the story, “it worries you?”

  He shook his head. “I thought it would, but it doesn’t.”

  “Even though you might never be able to return to Sanctuary?” Danni asked from the next bench along.

  The airship pilot shrugged. “I figure we’ve had a good run to remain free of hostilities for as long as we have,” he said. “And if Sekot can make the difference that your Jedi Master believes, then maybe it won’t be for too long, anyway. Sekot can win the war for you, and then perhaps we can return here.”

  “Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” said Hegerty, at Saba’s rear.

  Another shrug. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  “I have to admit,” Danni said, “you’re a lot calmer about all this than I expected.”

  “Yes,” Hegerty said. “Certainly more accepting than the likes of Rowel and Darak.”

  The burly Ferroan smiled at this. “They’ll come around to the idea, I’m sure,” he said. “What choice do they have? Sekot has made its decision; we must trust in its judgment. If we don’t, then perhaps we shouldn’t be living here in the first place.”

  “They’re scared,” Tekli said. “Most would be after so long of peace.”

  “I know,” Kroj’b said. “But Sekot will protect us. And it won’t be like the last time. We’ve been busy these long years. We have planetary shields built into the mountain ranges that should keep things intact during the jumps, and you’ve seen how well Sekot can handle itself against an outside attack.” He shrugged. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

  The conversation came to an end as Elegance Enshrined began her final descent to a stretch of wide grasslands. Saba saw Master Skywalker and Jacen Solo standing with Jabitha and Sekot’s Vergere persona near Jade Shadow. Preparations for the journey would begin as soon as the visitors relocated to another community in the region called Middle Distance. There was still much to organize and decide, but Saba was confident that the most important decisions were now behind them. All that remained was to do.

  Elegance dropped the last ten meters with a stomach-wrenching lurch. Saba and the others held on for balance until, seconds later, the tall grass of the field was brushing the underside of the gondola. Then they came to a halt, with the airship’s body above them rippling in strange and hypnotic undulations.

  As the others climbed down the ladder to the ground, Saba held back, staring at the tranquil setting around her. It was green and lush, and the air was both rich and invigorating. Zonama Sekot was indeed a seductive tempter. But she cautioned herself not to become too enamored of the living planet. Beautiful though it was, it held life and death in the same proportions as everywhere else. Its surface teemed with tiny tragedies. It wasn’t an oasis from the evils of the universe, by any means. The only thing its controlling intelligence had done was give it purpose and attempt to make it safe from the outside. Nothing more. Sekot—who had more than adequately demonstrated a capacity to be cruel—was the epitome of nature itself.

  Jacen told it not to fight, Saba reminded herself, but still it comes. Is that the action of a peace-loving intelligence? Or is it the next step in its evolution—from easy prey to hunter?

  She shook her head. The concept was too big for her to deal with right now. It would have to wait for another time—for the future, perhaps, to reveal.

  She clambered over the side of the gondola and made her way down the creaking vine ladder. When her feet touched the ground, she felt an overwhelming sense of completion. Her hunt was over. She had acquitted herself and brought honor to the memory of her people. Whatever fate had in store for her now, she was confident she was ready to deal with it.

  Jaina fumed as Pride of Selonia’s chief medical officer examined her skull with his long fingers. It seemed to be taking forever, and was made all the more irritating because of the humming noise he made while doing it. Jaina endured it for as long as she could before pulling away.

  “Come on, Doc, can’t you just give me a straight answer?” she said, looking up into his large red eyes. “Are you going to let me fly or not? My foot is completely healed.”

  Dantos Vigos turned away to make some notes in her case file. “One more day.”

  “What difference is that going to make?” she objected. “I’m either ready or I’m not.”

  “Then you’re not,” Vigos said. The red eyes turned back to her. “Look, Colonel Solo, I can understand your eagerness to get back to your squadron. But I cannot in good conscience give you the okay to return to duty until your balance has fully returned to normal.”

  Vigos offered a smile, and Jaina was forced to concede the argument. She knew he was right. After the knock to the head she’d received on Esfandia, her sense of balance hadn’t been entirely perfect. That very morning in the Selonia’s corridor, the deck had bobbed beneath her feet when she’d least expected it, and she had completely lost her sense of direction.

  “Okay,” she said with poor grace. “But I’ll be back the same time tomorrow.”

  Vigos nodded his leathery head. “Until then, Colonel Solo …”

  Jaina left the examination room and headed back to the squadron barracks, grumbling all the way about the injustice of the situation. Her mood wasn’t helped any when she got to the squad room to find it empty. Everyone else, it seemed, was out on patrol or helping the Imperials clean up the skies above Esfandia. There was an awful lot of debris floating around, any amount of which could plummet to the planet below and damage the newly repaired antenna array—not to mention disrupting the environment. Now that the Galactic Alliance knew the isolated world was inhabited, extra steps were being taken to ensure that the inhabitants were left in peace.

  She took a seat and watched the cleanup operation on the monitors for half an hour or so, occasionally offering suggestions but trying as hard as she could to stay out of Jag’s way. He was perfectly capable of running the squadron without her, and she knew she shouldn’t interfere. As the orbiting garbage dump slowly took shape, though, swelling in size to resemble a large and craggy asteroid, she couldn’t resist buzzing Jag to suggest that they name it “Vorrik’s Folly” in honor of the Yuuzhan Vong commander who’d given his life to help create it.

  So absorbed was she in her observance of her squadron’s activities that she didn’t even notice when the door behind her opened and someone stepped in.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  Startled, Jaina jumped from her seat and turned toward the voice. “Hello, Tahiri.”

  The younger woman smiled as she stepped closer. Her pale yellow hair was much shorter than it used to be, and she wore her active-duty combat suit everywhere she went, sealed right up to the neck. She was even wearing shoes, which took a bit of getting used to for Jaina. She didn’t know if the girl was attempting to hide her scars with the outfit, or if her combined personality simply liked the uniform. Either way, it made a distinctive sight. Her expression, even behind a smile, was guarded and full of concentration, as though she were feeling her way blind through a very different culture.

  Perhaps that’s exactly what was happening, Jaina thought. The old Tahiri would have found everything familiar, while Riina would be seeing it all for the first time. There was no longer any separation between the two personalities, but the new persona possessed both at the same time. It would be like the opposite of déjà vu, she imagined.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “I wanted to talk,” Tahiri said. “If you have time.”

  Jaina returned to her seat. “It’s not as if my schedule is filled at the moment.”

  Tahiri picked a chair opposite where Jaina had been sitting and perched herself on the edge. All her energy was contained and focu
sed. It made her seem very mature, despite her youthful appearance. Her reopened scars had healed into cold, white lines.

  “I came to say that I am sorry,” Tahiri said.

  Jaina frowned. “For what?”

  “There are many reasons. I wish it known that I regret the hardship you went through on my behalf. And I’m sorry, mainly, that they chose you.”

  Jaina shook her head, confused. “Chose me? Who chose me? For what?”

  “They came to you on Mon Calamari. The old me and Riina had different reasons, but they both chose you. If anyone could help them, it was going to be you.”

  Jaina fought the conceptual complication of Tahiri referring to her previous selves as though they were completely separate identities, and concentrated instead on what she was trying to say.

  “I remember when the old Tahiri called me,” she said. “She thought Anakin was trying to kill her. Was that Riina talking?”

  Tahiri nodded. “Partly—but it was also me, for I was still plagued by guilt. The old me felt as though she had abandoned Anakin by moving on emotionally with her life. She believed she should have done more for him—or perhaps even died with him.” There were tears in the young woman’s eyes, but all other emotions were carefully contained. “We were on the brink of mental collapse, sharing one body, some memories, and little personality. Neither wanted the other to survive, but I think Riina knew first what had to be done. Without merging, both would have died, or lost what sanity we had left. As our fragile equilibrium crumbled around us, we threw ourselves at the only person who could help us, trusting her to do what was right, even if she didn’t know at the time what that was.”

  “I think I’m beginning to understand,” Jaina said soberly.

  “You reminded us of Anakin, Jaina,” Tahiri went on. “You were his sister, and are like him in many ways. We felt we could trust you. We felt sure that you would be there for us should we have needed you.”