Destiny's Way

by Walter Jon Williams

  As if in deliberate contrast to the brilliant color that rose in profusion behind him, Gilad Pellaeon dressed in the plain white uniform of an Imperial Grand Admiral. He had put on ten kilos since Leia had last seen him, and his hair and bristling mustaches were white. But alert intelligence still shone in his dark eyes, and his pace was brisk and his clasp firm as he walked to the docking port to take Leia’s hand.

  “Princess.” Pellaeon gave her a courtly bow.

  “Supreme Commander.”

  Pellaeon greeted Han as well, but did not bow over his hand. He stepped back and turned again to Leia.

  “I received an urgent message for you from New Republic Fleet Command,” he said. “They failed to contact you and wished me to relay the message to you.”

  Leia took an involuntary step back as her heart gave a lurch. Jaina! During the Borleias campaign Leia had seen for herself the relentless way Jaina was driving herself, both against the Yuuzhan Vong and against the darkness that threatened to claim her soul. Jaina was far too young to cope with the constant tragedy and loss that had been hers since the beginning of the war, her friends and comrades killed in action, her teachers lost, her brother Anakin killed before her eyes, and Jacen gone to … to wherever Jacen had gone. In response Jaina had grown hard, but to grow hard was also to risk growing brittle. Jaina had been riding with death sharing her cockpit for far too long, and it was only her ferocious willpower that was keeping her from toppling over the brink.

  Her willpower, which must one day fail, along with her luck. Which had failed. Leia knew it.

  Han’s strong hands caught Leia’s shoulders and buoyed her up.

  A smile drew itself across Pellaeon’s face. “Good news, Princess!” he said. “Your son Jacen has escaped the Yuuzhan Vong. He’s arrived at Mon Calamari in good health.”

  Leia felt her knees weaken, and willed herself to remain upright. Without Han’s support she might not have succeeded. Whatever minor doubts she might have had about Jacen’s survival had been erased days ago when she’d received his Force message, but still she should have known an official transmission would follow.

  It wasn’t about Jaina after all. It wasn’t about more death, more sorrow, more grief.

  “Yes!” Han hissed in her ear. “Did you hear that, Leia? Jacen’s alive!”

  His arms wrapped her from behind, and she felt the ferocious joy of his embrace. Dizzily she realized that he hadn’t entirely believed her last assurance about Jacen’s survival. He loved her, and so had consciously decided to believe her, an act of will, but still a part of him doubted, and that part wanted official word.

  With effort Leia summoned speech.

  “Thank you, Supreme Commander,” she said. “You’ve—”

  Still wrapping Leia in his arms, Han gave an unrestrained whoop of pleasure that nearly deafened her.

  “You’ve made us very happy,” she finished, more understated than she would have liked.

  “If you would like to use our channels to send your son a message, you are welcome,” Pellaeon offered.

  “Certainly. Thank you.”

  Han’s message—WAY TO GO, SPROUT!—was composed quickly enough, but Leia’s was more measured and took longer.

  “Once again, Jacen,” she dictated into Admiral Pellaeon’s comm, “you have answered a mother’s prayers.”

  “An elegant sentiment,” Pellaeon judged. A wry smile formed beneath his white mustache. “Jacen seems to have inherited his parents’ gift for escaping capture.”

  “As well as our gift for getting captured in the first place,” Han said.

  Pellaeon gestured toward the garden and its profusion of bright blossoms. “Shall I show you my garden?” he asked. “We can speak privately about your embassy.”

  Leia hesitated. “Won’t I need to speak to others as well?”

  “The Empire is not run by committee, Princess,” Pellaeon reminded. “If I find that the Moff Council needs to know the substance of your message, then I’ll be the one who tells them.”

  Pellaeon drew Leia and Han along the rows of blossoms, pointing with obvious pride to his hybrid native orchids, to rainbow-colored fungi from Bakura, to lofty yellow Pydyrian blossoms that so strangely resembled the moon’s tall, aloof sentients. Contentment rose in Leia at the sight and scent of the flowers, at Pellaeon’s pleasure in them.

  “I had no idea you were a gardener, Admiral,” Leia said.

  “Every ruler should have a garden,” Pellaeon said. “It’s always useful to draw lessons from nature.”

  “True.” Leia cupped a vast pink blossom and lifted it to her face, inhaled its scent.

  “From a garden one learns to cull the weak and unfit,” Pellaeon continued, “and to encourage the strong and vigorous.” He held up his thumb and forefinger. “An inferior bud soon feels the strength of my pinch!”

  Leia sighed and straightened, letting the blossom fall from her fingers. She supposed it was too much to hope that she could stay for long on Bastion without being reminded what the Empire was really about.

  Han gave Pellaeon’s pinching hand an appraising look. “And you make your plants grow in rows,” he said.

  “Each receives its proper allotment of space and sunlight, and no more,” Pellaeon said. “That’s fair, don’t you think?”

  “But plants don’t naturally grow in rows,” Han pointed out. “This is only possible—” He gave a deliberate glance at the glass arboretum overhead. “—in a highly artificial environment.”

  Bravo! Leia thought at her husband. I swear I’ll make a diplomat of you yet!

  Pellaeon gave a judicious smile. “You prefer the state of nature, then? I think you will find that in a state of nature, the weak are culled in a far more merciless fashion than you find here.”

  Leia took her husband’s arm. “Let’s say that I prefer a balance,” she said. “There should be enough nature so that the plants can thrive by following their natures, if you see what I mean.”

  “That notion of balance is derived from Jedi philosophy, if I’m not mistaken,” Pellaeon said. “But such hybrid beauty as you see here”—he indicated the blossom Leia had just cupped in her hands—“is not a matter of balance, or nature, but a contest of wills. The will of the gardener, and the will of the plant he must coerce into surrendering her treasure.”

  Leia dropped Han’s arm and sighed again. “I see we’re doomed to talk about politics,” she said.

  Pellaeon gave her one of his courtly bows. “I fear so, Princess.”

  “The New Republic,” Leia said, “would like to request that the Empire furnish us its maps of routes through the Deep Core.”

  “Those,” Pellaeon said, “are among our most closely held secrets.”

  During the Rebellion, the Empire had held out for years in the galaxy’s Deep Core. The Imperials’ knowledge of the narrow, twisting paths among the closely packed star masses was unmatched; though the Rebels had finally cleared their enemies out of the Core, it had been grinding work, and probably a good many of the Empire’s routes lay undiscovered.

  “There are no more Imperial bases in the Deep Core,” Leia said, “so the information has no value to you. On the other hand, you’re aware of how useful such bases would be to the New Republic now that Coruscant is gone. And,” she added, seeing the skeptical look on Pellaeon’s face, “you know that the longer we tie up the Yuuzhan Vong in mopping-up operations around the Deep Core, the less likely they are to look at Bastion as their next conquest.”

  “I have no fear for the safety of my capital,” Pellaeon said.

  Then you haven’t been paying attention, Leia thought. But she knew that Pellaeon didn’t mean this in all truth; it was probably just one of those things that Supreme Commanders of totalitarian regimes were expected to say.

  “Once,” Leia said, “I had no fear for the safety of Coruscant.”

  Which wasn’t exactly true, either.

  “Perhaps you would like some refreshment,” Pellaeon said. He took
Leia’s arm and escorted her down the row of blossoms that seemed to get more extravagant and colorful the farther they traveled. Han followed, pretending interest in the flowers.

  “I hope you can offer me something in exchange for this information,” he said. “The Moff Council won’t want these secrets given up.”

  Leia smiled. “Didn’t you just say that you’d tell them what you wanted them to know?”

  “I will. But unfortunately,” he added, “their busy little minds are capable of drawing their own conclusions, and it would be useful for them to know that something of equal value was given in exchange.”

  Leia had anticipated this. Offer, counteroffer, outright payment, blackmail—all the arsenal of politics. “The New Republic would be pleased to offer in exchange everything we know about the Yuuzhan Vong. Weapons, tactics, communications, internal organization, the whole package.”

  “Communications?” Pellaeon pounced on the word. “You’ve discovered that secret?”

  “We have,” Leia said. Thank you, Danni Quee.

  “Obsolete Core routes in exchange for the greatest secret of the Yuuzhan Vong,” Pellaeon mused. “I predict no trouble with the Moff Council.”

  Leia was pleased to hear this, but if necessary she had been perfectly prepared to give the information to Pellaeon free of charge. As far as she was concerned, anything that weakened the Yuuzhan Vong relative to everyone else was a positive good.

  They came to the end of the row of plants, and Leia discovered a circular space surrounded by the trunks of Gamorrean coolsap trees, with their dense canopy providing an arbor overhead. Beneath the foliage a grand buffet had been laid out on a hollow, circular table, a long array of silver chafing dishes along with great bowls of salads, fruit, and a selection of desserts and pastry. One entire table was covered with a glittering selection of choice liquors. In the center of the circle was a crystal-topped table set for three, the plates arranged around a bouquet of the most exquisite blossoms the arboretum had to offer.

  “Please forgive the informality and help yourselves,” Pellaeon said.

  Han eyed the banquet skeptically. “We’re sharing this meal with which regiment?” he asked.

  Pellaeon smiled beneath his white mustache. “Our previous meetings really hadn’t given me an idea of your tastes. So I ordered a little of everything.”

  “Must be good to be on top of the food chain,” Han commented.

  Leia thanked Pellaeon and thought, Now I know how you gained those extra ten kilos.

  Leia and Pellaeon talked through the meal, but of matters of no importance. Talking of matters of no importance was an important political skill. Later, over cups of naris-bud tea, Leia resumed.

  “After you’ve had the opportunity to review the information we’ve gathered on the Yuuzhan Vong,” she began, “I hope the Empire will accept our offer of alliance against the enemy.”

  Pellaeon raised his white eyebrows. “I expected you to raise the matter earlier,” he said.

  “Dinner first,” Leia said. “War later.”

  Pellaeon laughed. “Very civilized.”

  “The main forces of the Yuuzhan Vong are facing the New Republic now,” Leia said. “You could cut their supply line from the Rim with very little effort.”

  Pellaeon gave her a dubious look. “I can present your offer to the Moff Council,” he said, “but I know what they’d say.”

  “Yes?”

  “They would ask how the Empire would benefit from this action.”

  “Surely the Empire would benefit by helping to rid the galaxy of a menace like the Yuuzhan Vong.”

  Pellaeon considered this, then shook his head. “I would rather not go to the Moff Council with this offer,” he said. “They won’t approve it.”

  Jag Fel’s voice whispered in Leia’s memory. It would really make more sense in the short term for the Empire to join the Vong … Leia found a muscle behind one knee trembling, and she stilled it. “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because, quite frankly, the New Republic is losing its war,” Pellaeon said. “Your forces are undisciplined, your government is in disarray, your capital is lost, and your Chief of State was tortured to death in his own office. Why should the Empire join such a debacle?”

  Leia silently cursed Vana Dorja and the report Pellaeon had doubtless heard before this meeting.

  But maybe that wasn’t fair, she thought; Pellaeon didn’t need Vana Dorja for this.

  “If we join with you now, you’ll only drag us down with you,” Pellaeon continued. He hesitated. “That’s what the Moff Council would say.”

  That’s what you say, Leia translated.

  “Now, if you start to win some real victories,” Pellaeon went on, “then the Moffs’ position would be altered. But you’d have to convince us you’re not dragging us into a disaster.” His dark eyes looked quite solemnly into hers. “And that, Princess, is the truth.”

  “Well,” Leia said, “that’s that.”

  Something shifted in Pellaeon’s face. “On the other hand,” he said, “if you could offer something to the Moff Council. Something concrete …”

  “Such as?” Leia queried.

  “The Moff Council is impressed by real things,” Pellaeon said. “Solid things. For instance, if the Empire could retain any worlds we took from the Yuuzhan Vong, it would impress the Moffs considerably. Not,” he added, at the protest in Leia’s face, “any worlds that still have your population on them. Only those the Yuuzhan Vong have remade for themselves.” He nodded confidingly. “I think the Moff Council is most impressed by worlds, Princess.”

  The Empire could double its size, taking its choice of worlds, and it would cost the Yuuzhan Vong nothing … Again Jag’s voice whispered in Leia’s mind.

  Leia managed to seize control of her whirling thoughts. “I—I have no authority to make such a concession,” she said. “And in any case, there are millions of refugees who want their worlds back.”

  “They would be welcome in the Empire,” Pellaeon said. “I think we could support them better than could your own overstrained resources.”

  Then you can prune and cull to your heart’s content. Leia saw the cynical remark in Han’s brown eyes, but fortunately Han didn’t speak it out loud.

  “As I said,” Leia managed, “I have no authority to make such a concession.”

  “But you will take my words back to your government?”

  Leia nodded. “Certainly.”

  If we have a government when I get back, she thought.

  It wasn’t until long after Shimrra had dismissed them all that Nom Anor thought to question what had happened, and then it was Yoog Skell who spoke the words that made him stop and think. The delegation had walked in procession to the Damutek of the Intendants and broken up, and Nom Anor’s path lay alongside that of his master, walking along the coiled corridors of the damutek, breathing in the healthy organic stench of the building as young intendants dodged respectfully to the side.

  “So,” Yoog Skell said, “you have seen the power of the Supreme Overlord.”

  “Indeed, High Prefect.”

  “You felt his mind on yours, I know, when he interrogated you.”

  Nom Anor recoiled inwardly at the memory of the mental pressure that had squeezed him dry. “Yes,” he said.

  “Never think to lie to the Supreme One. He will know.”

  “Never,” Nom Anor agreed. “I’ll never think it.”

  Yoog Skell gave him a sidelong glance. “Did you feel the Supreme One again when he incited us against Ch’Gang Hool?”

  Nom Anor almost stumbled as he walked alongside his leader. “High Prefect?” he said.

  “Oh yes,” Yoog Skell said, “unless you think it’s normal for high-caste Yuuzhan Vong to scream and rant and drool in that way.”

  The breath went out of Nom Anor in a long, awed hiss. The Supreme Overlord had created that? Turned his closest subordinates into a mob of murderous fiends rejoicing at the fall of one of their number?


  “Oh yes,” Yoog Skell said, “the gods have given him that power, among others.” His voice turned reflective. “Not that Ch’Gang Hool is such a loss. His ambitions always exceeded his talents. I remember an Escalatier Ceremony that he performed for one of my most talented advisers, young Fal Tivvik. A fairly basic procedure, I recall, but—as our high priest would say—‘the gods discovered a flaw’ in the poor girl, and she joined the Shamed Ones. I have myself always wondered whether the flaw might instead have been in Ch’Gang Hool.”

  Nom Anor gave his superior a sharp glance—the high prefect’s words flirted with heresy. But Yoog Skell was in a reflective mood, and he continued.

  “Perhaps you remember Fazak Tsun, another of Ch’Gang Hool’s unfortunates,” he said. He paused as he came before the door to his chamber, and turned to face Nom Anor. He dropped a heavy hand on his subordinate’s shoulder.

  “You have made mistakes, Executor,” he said, “and now you see what happens when too many mistakes come to the attention of the Supreme Overlord.”

  “Yes, High Prefect.” Nom Anor’s mind ran so fast he could almost hear the wheels spinning. “How do you suggest I avoid Ch’Gang Hool’s fate?”

  “Don’t make any more mistakes,” Yoog Skell said blandly. The door behind him quivered open, and he stepped through it.

  “And my particular advice, Executor,” Yoog Skell added, “is that whatever you do, don’t give the Supreme Overlord an itch, particularly one he can’t scratch in public.”

  The door shimmered shut behind him and left Nom Anor alone in the corridor. He was thinking hard.

  The stars streamed aft, and Han sat back in the pilot’s seat and gave Leia a grim smile. “Well,” he said. “That’s that. Next stop, Mon Calamari.”

  The day after their meeting in the arboretum, Leia and Han had returned Grand Admiral Pellaeon’s hospitality by having him to dinner on board the Millennium Falcon. Pellaeon and Leia exchanged disks: he had given her the charts of the Deep Core hyperspace routes, and she gave him everything the New Republic knew about the Yuuzhan Vong. Then formal toasts had begun, with Leia toasting the Empire—it had been getting easier with repetition—then Pellaeon toasting the New Republic, and, very kindly, the success and survival of Jacen Solo.