by James Luceno
Mara's eyes blinked open and she smiled weakly. "I think it's working," she said softly, wetting her lips with her tongue. She closed her eyes once more, as if luxuriating in what she was experiencing. "I can feel it coursing through me. It's as if every cell in my body were being bathed in light." She groped blindly for Luke's hand and drew it to her breast. "I think I'm healing, Luke. I'm sure I'm healing."
"Oh, Mara," Cilghal said tearfully, coming to the table to lay her webbed hand on Mara's shoulder.
Luke caught sight of the skeptical glances exchanged by Tomla El and Oolos, but he said nothing. Rather, he looked again at Mara through the Force and found her luminous.
A smile of unabashed delight split his face. He put his arm under his wife's shoulders and gently lifted her into his embrace. Her arms encircled his neck, and she clung to him, crying quietly and joyously.
"We have our victory," Luke whispered.
TWENTY-EIGHT Leia hurried through the apartment's front entry onto the skyway balcony. But as eager as she was to give Han and Anakin the good news about Mara, she restrained herself from intruding on their conversation.
"The thing I still can't figure out," Han was saying, "is what put it in my head that Elan's breath was deadly. It was like I heard a voice warning me. That's when I grabbed the multitool."
Gazing out across the city canyon, Han had one foot up on the balcony railing and the survival tool in his right hand. His travel pack sat at his feet. When a long moment had elapsed and Anakin still hadn't responded, Han turned to him and loosed a short laugh.
"Thanks."
Anakin's brooding look changed to one of perplexity. "For what, Dad?"
"For not telling me that I was hearing Chewie through the Force."
Anakin smiled. "Yeah, like I'd even think about saying that to you."
Han raised his index finger. "And don't even think about telling your uncle, either. All I need is for Luke to hear that I'm hearing voices. This is strictly between you and me and the stair pillar, got it?" He turned slightly in Leia's direction. "No offense, sweetheart."
Leia showed him a blatantly counterfeit smile. "Better the stair pillar than the tread, sweetheart ."
Han nodded smugly, stood up, and approached Anakin. "Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for showing up at Roa's ship that day." He proffered the survival tool. "If it wasn't for this ... well, you know all about that."
"Thank Chewie," Anakin said. "He made it."
Han shook his head. "I've already thanked Chewie. This is something between you and me." He grasped Anakin by the shoulders and tugged him into a tight embrace.
Leia thought her heart might break. Her hand flew to her mouth and she fought back tears.
Han moved Anakin away, but he kept his hands on his son's shoulders. "I'm sorry for what I said and the way I've been acting since Chewie died, Anakin. We did everything we could have done at Sernpidal, and Chewie knew that. We both know who's responsible for his dying. But I don't want vengeance prompting you to do anything foolish, you understand? You and Jacen and Jaina are more important to me than you'll ever know."
Anakin nodded and almost grinned. He and Han embraced once more.
"I've gotta get going," Anakin said after a moment. "Uncle Luke is expecting me back on Yavin 4."
"One thing before you leave," Leia said, smiling. "Vergere's gift seems to be working." She cut her eyes to Han. "I just heard from Luke that Mara is stronger than she's been in months. Whatever the tears contain, they're taking a lot out of her, but Oolos and Tomla El are hopeful that Mara will be in full remission in a few weeks."
The three of them fell into a brief, gleeful embrace, which Anakin broke.
"First the Yuuzhan Vong poison Mara, then they send an assassin against us," he said bitterly. "I'll remember what you said about vengeance, Dad, but they've made this war personal."
Leia's eyes clouded over with misgiving, and she gave Anakin another hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Take care of yourself."
"Hey, kid," Han shouted as Anakin was heading for the skyway bridge. "Any chance that Lowbacca's become so busy with Jedi stuff that he and Waroo have forgotten about the life debt?"
"Not when I spoke to him last."
"Blast," Han muttered. "I guess I'm going to have to deal with this sooner or later." He glanced at Leia and smiled. "So Vergere was on the level, after all." He gave his head an incredulous shake. "It's funny the way things work out. You go in search of one thing and end up finding something else. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was the Force at work."
Leia kept quiet.
Han narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Wookiees have an expression, that the real quarry of every hunt is the unexpected. But I guess you tend to forget that when you've been out of the game for a long while."
Leia heard something different and troublesome in his tone. She indicated his travel pack. "That hasn't left your side since you got back," she said, as casually as she could. "Are you going to unpack or are you planning to have it stuffed and mounted?"
Han moved for the pack. "No use in unpacking just yet."
Leia folded her arms under her breasts. "I guess I should have seen this coming. Then you're not really home."
"I've been home too much lately." He grinned at her. "I figured you must be getting tired of seeing me hanging around."
Leia didn't move. "Don't try to turn this around, Han."
He gestured to himself. "Who's trying to turn anything around? I'm only saying that I've got a few things that need doing."
"Such as?"
"Such as finding Roa, for starters. And helping Roa locate his clanmates. He saved my skin, you know - twice."
Leia launched a sardonic laugh to the sky. "Don't tell me you owe Droma a life debt. This is too much, Han - even for you."
His brow furrowed. "You can't expect me to just forget about Roa or leave Droma hanging."
She took a step toward him. "Do Wookiees have anything to say about taking senseless risks? Not a moment ago I stood here listening to you caution Anakin against doing anything foolish, and now you tell me you're going off after Roa and Droma's missing clanmates. Make up your mind which way you want it to be, Han."
"What's wrong with having it both ways?"
Leia snorted. "Relapse complete. Say hello to your former self, Han."
"Relapse, nothing. This is the same me you married, sweetheart. Besides, you're one to talk. While I was moping around here, you were on Dantooine, in Imperial Remnant space, all over the place, taking exactly the same kind of risks."
"Are you saying that if I give up helping refugees, you'll give up your fling with the past?"
"My fling?" he said. "What do you call what you're doing?"
Leis started to say something but changed her mind and began again. "The New Republic is in a tough spot, Han. I could use your help."
Han held up his hands. "I've heard that before."
"And you've usually listened."
Han paced to the railing and back, avoiding her gaze. "In a way I'm already helping you out. I mean with Droma's family being refugees and all ..."
Leia fell silent for a moment. As relieved as she was to see him finally emerging from grief, she couldn't help but sense that he was intent on starting over, as he had done all his life - from abandoned kid to Imperial officer, and from smuggler to Rebel leader - always re-creating himself. From what little she knew of Droma from their few encounters, he seemed cut from the same cloth. For all Droma's concerns about his scattered clanmates, he was a drifter and a rogue at heart, addicted to adventure.
Leia watched Han pace the edge of the balcony. "I don't know how you've done it for so long," she said finally.
He stopped to look at her. "Done what?"
"Raise a family. Walk so far from the edge."
"That was just my 'fling' with stability." He tried out his grin, but it didn't work. "Look, I'm just leaving, okay? I've got obligations."
"What about your obligations to us?"
"Oh, no?" She advanced on him. "I learned a long time ago that you couldn't be bound by anyone's preconceived ideas of who you should be. And I'll admit I love that about you. But keep one thing in mind I'm not Malla, Han. I won't have you dropping by here once a year, using our home as a base for your escapades."
Han curled his upper lip. "You're way off the mark."
She smiled faintly. "I suppose we'll just have to see about that."
Han frowned sadly, then put his arms around her. "Trust me."
She leaned away to show him a dubious look. "I've heard that before."
He raised her hand and kissed the palm. "Tuck that in your pocket for later on."
Scooping up his pack, he made for the sky bridge without looking back.
Elsewhere in the Solo apartment, C-3PO and R2-D2 were just concluding data upgrades that had obliged them to plug into the HoloNet and newsnet feeds. The 3-D images still shone from the HoloNet projectors, but the two droids were paying more attention to their own internal circuitry than to the displays.
"Events couldn't possibly have worked out better," C-3PO was telling his squat counterpart. "Mistress Mara is well on her way to recovery, Master Han has returned home, and the Yuuzhan Vong have suffered a major setback. I couldn't be more content if I'd just emerged from a refurbishing bath at an exclusive oil spa."
R2-D2 rotated his hemispherical head and intoned a series of discomfiting chitters and modulating whistles.
C-3PO gazed at him for a moment. "What do you mean, I need to have my neural processor overhauled? What do you know of events that I don't?"
R2-D2 fluted a reply.
"Master Han has not returned home?"
The astromech droid mewled and directed C-3PO's attention to a display screen fed by the front entry security cam. The screen showed Master Han crossing the sky bridge in the direction of a public transportation balcony, and Mistress Leia, with the fingertips of one hand to her mouth, watching him leave.
"Oh, dear, you're right. But perhaps he's only going on an errand."
R2-D2 warbled truculently.
"Well, how should I know why he has his travel pack with him or why Mistress Leia appears dismayed? I'm certain there's a reasonable explanation."
R2-D2 loosed a lengthy and haughty chirrup.
"What's that you say? The New Republic was tricked into thinking it was victorious at Ord Mantell?" C-3PO adopted an akimbo posture. "I don't know where you're receiving your information, but I suggest you pay closer attention to what's going on around you, and stop spending so much time plugged into the HoloNet."
R2-D2 rotated his head to the newsnet hologram, where real-time images beamed in from a Mid Rim world showed droids of all variety hurrying to escape a riotous mob bent on destroying them.
"Oh, my," C-3PO said in distress, then immediately adopted a peeved tone of voice. "I see that you continue to excel at presenting the worst side of things. But I have some news for those gloomy sensors of yours No matter what you may choose to parade before my photoreceptors, you will never again hear me express concerns about deactivation."
R2-D2's zither approximated a derisive laugh.
"Well, of course you wouldn't understand what I'm talking about, because you have no awareness that fears of deactivation are the result of unhealthy aspirations for uninterrupted activation. With a bit of detachment^ even you will find that all fears disappear."
R2-D2 razzed.
"You just watch your language, you barrel of bits! And so what if I am beginning to think like a human being. You say that as if it was something negative."
R2-D2 hooted and toodled in rebuke.
"Oh, so you're going to remind me of all this when we're both being melted down for spare parts, are you? What makes you think you'll be in any position to remind anyone of anything? And just you try, in any case. I'll have you know that Master Han has promised to store all my memories, so that in the event of the destruction of my metal body, my thoughts and memories could simply be transferred to another - perhaps even to a newer model of the protocol series with the SyntheTech AAA-2 verbobrain."
R2-D2 issued a razz, the meaning of which was beyond dispute, and rolled off toward the doorway.
"Put a restraining bolt where?" C-3PO said in shock. "Why, I've a good mind to forewarn Master Luke that your circuitry is irreparably glitched. Go ahead, roll our on me," he said to the astromech's back. "See where it gets you. You'll soon return, wanting to learn all I know about becoming a real person."
A sudden flutter brought a quick end to C-3PO's tirade, and he tilted his head in consternation. Folks of all manner had frequently characterized him as priggish, fretful, and faultfinding, but his newfound insights into the nature of existence appeared to have boosted those personality traits, as well. If awareness could be achieved only at the expense of logic and dispassion, it might not be such a desirable state after all.
"Why, it's no wonder sentients wage war on one another," he said aloud as he hurried out the door after R2-D2.
TWENTY-NINE Harrar rued the day he had been sent to Obroa-skai. Still recovering from the pummeling Yuuzhan Vong warships had inflicted weeks earlier, the planet sat framed in the command center hull transparency of the priest's black jewel of a ship, enshrouded by gray clouds, as if too traumatized to so much as rotate. Harrar was constrained to suffer the view while he sought to offer explanation for the probable failure of his and Nom Anor's plan.
"At this point, Excellency, we do not know for certain whether Elan and Vergere are in captivity or missing in action."
"Or dead," Commander Tla said from behind him.
Harrar was left to wonder how accurately his dedicated villip rendered his pained grimace for those at the receiving end of the communique - namely the high priest Jakan, father of Elan, chief of their domain, and adviser to Supreme Overlord Shimrra; Nas Choka, supreme commander of the flagship of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet; and Prefect Drathul, administrator of the worldship Harla . Consciousness-linked villips of the three rested in outsize eggcup-like holders positioned between Harrar and the view he found so abhorrent. It was Jakan who responded to Tla's utterance.
"Why do you include death in Harrar's list of possible outcomes, Commander?" While spectacular to behold, the villip scarcely did justice to the high priest's fully reshaped and transfigured visage, with its nub of nose and deeply set eyes.
Tla turned to one of the transmitting villips. "Despite our firing on it, the New Republic ship carrying Elan and Vergere was racing toward our vessel, clearly intent on returning the priestess. The infidels in command must have divined that we had restrained the shuttle, and as well that Elan had exterminated the crew. At the last moment before it altered course and fled, the ship jettisoned an escape pod, but Nom Anor failed to retrieve it."
Nom Anor worked his jaw but offered no apology.
"Then you did attempt to retrieve it?" Jakan asked.
"I did, Excellency," Nom Anor allowed.
"Even in the knowledge that by doing so you would have doomed Harrar's plan to failure?"
Nom Anor glanced briefly at the priest, then nodded.
Supreme Commander Choka's villip spoke, summoning Commander Tla and his scrawny tactician forward. Choka's facial tattoos lent him gravity; his trace of mustache and merest wisp of beard, a noble demeanor.
"As I understand it, Commander, your part in this was to arrange for New Republic victories, to ensure that Elan was well appraised." Choka's decurved eyes - above large bluish sacs - fell on the tactician. "But at what expense to us?"
"It was a costly enterprise, Supreme Commander,"
Tactician Raff began. "Many coralskippers were sacrificed, and several small warships were destroyed. Were our resources replete, the losses would be insignificant. But Belkadan and Sernpidal are overtaxed and resupply has slowed. To continue to guarantee adequate defense for the fleet, we will need to cannibalize some of our larger ships to reinforce the corals
kipper battle groups, or divert from the invasion corridor and replenish by preparing new worlds for yorik coral production."
Raff gestured to Nom Anor. "Executor Nom Anor has assured us that we will receive a warm reception in a nearby sector known as Hutt space, as the reigning species - the Hutts - have no wish to engage us in warfare."
"Nom Anor assures," Choka said contemptuously. "Continue, tactician."
The tactician inclined his head. "Lastly, the New Republic military has deployed its fleets to protect the Core, or perhaps in the aim of mounting a counteroffense. I remain confident that we could repulse an attack, but I am obligated to report that they are learning slowly how to dupe our dovin basals and frustrate our weapons."
"There will be no cannibalizing of ships," Choka ordered gruffly. "I will be arriving soon from our shipyard at Sernpidal with a young yammosk and additional forces. In the meantime, the fleet will divert to Hutt space, under the leadership of Commander Malik Carr."
Malik Carr stepped forward and offered salute.
"Commander Tla and Eminence Harrar are hereby recalled to the Outer Rim."
Tla and Harrar said nothing.
Attention turned to the third villip, consciousness-joined to Prefect Drathul. "I would speak privately with Executor Nom Anor," Drathul said.
When everyone else had filed from the command center, the prefect's wide and broad-browed face took on a minatory look. "Precisely what occurred, Executor?"
Nom Anor gestured in dismissal. "The blame lies with Harrar and Elan. They had no knack for improvisation."
"Were the Jedi involved in thwarting us?"
"They may have had a hand in it."
Drathul's villip nodded. "Word has reached my ear that some of your agents were responsible."
"They were trying to protect our interests, nothing more."
Drathul considered it. "For your sake, Executor, I hope so. After the Praetorite's disaster in the Helska system, Warmaster Tsavong Lah will brook no further failures on your part."
Nom Anor nodded. "I understand, Prefect. I have a new plan in mind, which I intend to launch once the fleet has been relocated to Hutt space."
"Do not disappoint me."
