The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  Ben had a well-cooked leg of some avian in one hand. He’d already taken a bite out of it and was chewing furiously.

  “What, don’t you get enough Jedi Temple food to eat?” Jacen commented.

  Ben shook his head. “What’s next?”

  “Transmit.”

  “Don’t you want to do that? You’re the Jedi Knight.”

  “I’m not the one who needs to learn how to do it.” Jacen turned and led the way through the sidewalk traffic. If his bearings were correct, this direction would lead them to the hangars where his shuttle waited.

  With a long-suffering sigh, Ben discarded his improvised meal and pulled the little holocam, a datapad, and a comlink from pouches on his belt. Awkwardly, handling three items with two not-fully-grown hands, he began manipulating controls and keyboards, entering commands. “All right. The data package is being compressed and encrypted.”

  “While it’s doing that, check to see if the shuttle’s holocomm is still live. Remotely activate it and bounce a comm echo off the old lunar New Republic station.”

  “Yes, sir.” This time, Ben didn’t sound as put-upon. This was more of a challenge, something he’d never done before on his own authority. He typed commands into his datapad, relayed them through the comlink. “Holocomm is … live.”

  Kilometers away, the communications system aboard Jacen’s shuttle—a full-fledged holocomm unit, capable of transmitting through hyperspace and thus communicating faster than light—would have just awakened from its power-down status.

  “Querying automated comm systems on Relay Station ADU-One-One-Zero-Four through to Coruscant,” the boy said. His voice, though no deeper, sounded more confident, more mature when he was engrossed in a task like this. “Successful echo.” Another message popped up on his datapad. “Package encrypted.”

  “Transmit it,” Jacen said. He kept a close eye on the pedestrian traffic, but he didn’t anticipate any problems at this point. It would be some time before the operators of the Dammant Killers firm figured out where the Jedi were. “Await confirmation of reception. Request confirmation of decryption.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ben typed in another set of commands, then tucked his holocam back in its pouch; it would no longer be needed. “So how do we get offworld?”

  “We go back to the shuttle and take off.”

  “But the planet’s full of starfighters! One shuttle, even an armed shuttle, isn’t going to be able to fight its way through all of them.”

  “Correct. But why would they attack us?”

  “To keep—to keep—” Understanding dawned in the boy’s eyes. “To keep us from getting offworld with what we found out.”

  “Correct.”

  “But we just holocast it, so it’s too late.” Ben checked the screen on his datapad. “They got the package. They’re decrypting.” His expression turned suspicious. “But what if the Adumari attack us for revenge?”

  “Think it through, Ben. Take your time.” They reached a broad plaza, and Jacen knew his bearings were correct; they were headed back toward the proper hangars, which should only be a couple of kilometers distant.

  “If the package decrypts, and the spies see what we saw, they’ll start talking to the government here.”

  “Military Intelligence. Not spies.”

  “Oh, they’re spies.” Ben sounded scornful of Jacen’s correction. “Mom’s a spy. What we just did makes us spies.”

  “Your mother’s a Jedi. We’re Jedi.”

  “Jedi spies.” The datapad beeped, and Ben looked at it again. He snapped it shut. “The message decrypted. Our spy bosses say ‘Well done.’ So … they’ll talk to the Adumari government, who know that if anything happens to us, things will be worse for them.”

  “Correct.”

  “So we can leave.”

  “And go on to our next assignment.”

  A look of unease crossed Ben’s features. “Do we have to?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “There are going to be a lot of them.”

  “Not as many as we just encountered.”

  “It’s going to be noisy.”

  “Not as noisy as that assembly line.”

  Ben heaved a sigh, defeated.

  A few minutes later, Jacen and Ben boarded Jacen’s shuttle—an armored variant on the old Lambda-class model, fitted with a turreted laser cannon and a holocomm unit—and lifted off. The shuttle’s upswept wings lowered into horizontal position after liftoff, and Jacen oriented the craft toward Adumar’s sky.

  A flight of four Blade starfighters, Adumar’s distinctive split-tail fighter craft, escorted the shuttle until it left the planet’s gravity well and entered hyperspace. Nothing came close enough to fire a shot at the Jedi craft.

  chapter three

  CORUSCANT

  Leia Organa Solo, one-time Princess of the world of Alderaan, former Chief of State of the New Republic, now a Jedi Knight, stood dressed in all-white robes, suitable to either a Jedi or a politician in informal surroundings, before the portal. It was not an ordinary door; though in appearance it was identical to billions of dwelling exterior doors found on the world of Coruscant, in reality it was not. In the recent past, the original low-cost, composite-material door had been replaced with this innocuous-appearing thing of armor. It would hold against blaster assault—for a while, anyway. The cool blue it was painted belied its defensive function.

  Leia’s husband, Han Solo, one of the most famous men in the galaxy, moved up beside her. He was wearing his favorite clothes: dark military trousers decorated with the red Corellian Bloodstripes he had earned when he was a younger man, light long-sleeved shirt, black vest, practical black boots. Except for the lines in his face and gray in his hair, honestly earned through deeds as well as accumulated over the passage of time, he was indistinguishable from the man she’d met aboard the first Death Star so many years ago.

  Her spirit lifted. No matter how badly things went, they were always better with Han at her side.

  Not that she’d necessarily tell him that. His ego hadn’t diminished in all those years, either.

  Han looked gravely at the door. “You figure that’s how they’re going to come at us?”

  She nodded. “That’s the only approach that makes any sense, and you know it.”

  “Well, the only strategy that makes any sense is for us to just open the door for them. They’re less likely to attempt some sort of sneaky side entry if the front is open. We can pick them off as they’re framed in the doorway. Once their numbers become too great for us, we can manage a staged retreat through the inner chambers.”

  Leia considered. “I don’t know. Maybe I should be up front and center to bat back their blaster assaults while you fire on them from the side.”

  “Oh, my.” This third voice was higher-pitched than Han’s and carried just a hint of alarm. “If I may ask, has there been some change of plans?”

  Han and Leia turned. Entering the outer chamber was C-3PO, the gold-toned protocol droid who had served them faithfully—if fussily—for four decades.

  C-3PO moved up to them, his every action accompanied by the barely audible sound of whining servos, and added, “I thought that the plan was to admit them, then feed them the appetizers I have labored for so long to assemble. Appetizers that are laid out in the kitchen. Was I wrong? Will there be shooting?”

  Han and Leia exchanged a glance. “Appetizers would be easier,” Han admitted.

  “Fewer blaster bolts hitting the walls, fewer repairs,” Leia said, nodding. “We could do it that way.”

  “All right, Goldilocks.” Han clapped C-3PO on one shining shoulder, rocking the droid in place. “We’ll do it your way. This time.”

  “You’re toying with me again, aren’t you, sir?” C-3PO’s sigh was audible.

  Han nodded. “It’s more fun and less destructive than hanging meat around your neck and letting the war-dogs loose on you.”

  “Humpf.” The droid turned back toward the door through which
he’d entered. “Not very sporting, I must say.”

  A chime filled the air—the delicate first five notes of “Path to the Sky,” a ballad from Leia’s homeworld of Alderaan.

  Han heaved a sigh. “Not too late to change your mind. We could hold them off for days.”

  Leia smiled at him. “Hush.”

  First through that door were Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker. For this occasion, Luke wore his black Jedi robe and accoutrements, a stark contrast to his still-fair complexion and bright blond hair. Mara wore more traditional Jedi robes in browns and tans, and a red belt that set off her red hair.

  With them was R2-D2, the plug-shaped astromech who had variously served Luke and the Solos for decades, and the little droid made as many musical, wheetling noises of appreciation during their tour of the Solos’ new quarters as the humans made verbal comments.

  Next to arrive, just a few minutes later, were Jacen and Ben. Led from room to room by C-3PO, Jacen made noncommittal noises about the antechamber, living chamber, master bedroom, bedrooms for Leia’s Noghri bodyguards Meewalh and Cakhmaim, guest bedrooms, library, refreshers, furnished balcony, kitchen, dining room, and communications center, all but the last decorated and furnished in warm-colored hardwoods, some with dark carpets and some with pebbled flooring. The communications center, where the majority of the household’s computers and electronics repair equipment was kept, was more modern, all steely surfaces and blue metal rolling racks.

  Ben’s only comment was, “Where are the secret chambers?”

  C-3PO stopped short and leaned awkwardly to look at the boy-man. “I don’t quite understand, young sir.”

  “C’mon.” Ben grinned up at the droid—not far up, as he’d grown centimeters since the last time he’d seen the protocol droid. “Uncle Han is a smuggler. I bet this place is stuffed with secret chambers. They’ll all have blasters in them. Some of them will have identicards in fake names, and credcards, and secret electronics gear, and maybe a disassembled scoutspeeder. Some of them will be hidey-holes for the Noghri.”

  C-3PO’s voice was stiff, even for the droid. “I can assure you, sir, that there are no secret chambers.”

  “Aha!” Ben held up an accusative finger. He sounded as though he’d just found the essential clue to solve a murder. “I can assure you isn’t the same thing as There are no. C’mon, Threepio, say it. Say ‘There are no secret chambers.’ ”

  “I can assure you, sir, that there—”

  “Aha!”

  The droid shot Jacen a look that, as far as Jacen could interpret droid body language, looked hurt. “I say, sir, must every generation of Solos and Skywalkers act like this?”

  Jacen nodded. “Pretty much, yes.”

  In the living chamber, as C-3PO held out his carefully arrayed tray of geometrically shaped cheeses and fungus crackers to Mara, Leia said, “Jaina just called in. She and Zekk are just a few minutes out.”

  Han straightened, irritably, on the couch. “And Zekk. Who, may I ask, invited Zekk? He’s not family.”

  Luke and Mara managed to say “Not yet” simultaneously.

  Han glared at them.

  “I invited him,” Leia said. “Just now. Otherwise, he would have gone off to the Temple, been alone in whatever tiny chamber they gave him, been eating bland Jedi cafeteria food, all alone—”

  “While rain poured on his head wherever he moved and sad synthesized music filled the hallways.” Han shot her a scornful look.

  Leia merely smiled at him, the maddening smile of a politician who won’t be budged from her position. “Han, he’s her partner. Her Jedi partner. If he were her, say, smuggling partner, would you send him off?”

  “Depends on how he looks at her. Y’see, here’s the problem. A father’s got a right to terrorize any young bantha who’s following his daughter around.”

  Leia shook her head. “Jaina says they’re friends. Just friends.”

  Han’s scowl deepened and became almost comic. “Jaina’s got herself blinded. It’s got to be one of those Force abilities—they say the Force can have a profound effect on people who don’t want to believe the truth.”

  Luke snorted. “No, they don’t.”

  “Anyway, it’s my right to scare Zekk out of his hide, but Zekk’s a Jedi. He doesn’t scare easily. So what do I do?” Han considered, then looked around. In corners of the room, motionless, inconspicuous, stood Leia’s bodyguards, Meewalh and Cakhmaim, members of the Noghri species—gray-skinned, no taller than R2-D2, shrouded in concealing cloaks. Like hold-out blasters, they were small, hard to detect, and deadly. “Maybe we could get Meewalh and Cakhmaim to rattle him.”

  “Give it up, Han,” Mara suggested. “Leia, I like your quarters.”

  “Thanks.” Leia settled on the couch beside her sulky husband. “It’s really nice to have someplace that’s permanent, not the hotel of the month, or quarters aboard some political ship, or the living compartment on the Falcon. It’s the first place we’ve been able to really call home since Coruscant fell.” A shadow crossed her face. Coruscant had fallen to the Yuuzhan Vong at almost the same time the Solos’ youngest son, Anakin, had died. Those had been dark times.

  “We almost decided on Corellia,” Han said. “A planet where you can move more than three meters without hitting a wall. But we have too many family and friends here.” The door chime rang again. “Speaking of which …”

  This time it was Jaina and Zekk. Jaina, too, was in standard Jedi robes, hers made of hard-wearing cloth suited to travel and styled to be less conspicuously those of a Jedi Knight. She was of about the same height as her mother, and more slender of build, with dark eyes and delicate features. Zekk, her partner, was in his late twenties, slightly younger than Jaina, but was otherwise her opposite in almost every way—tall enough for his scalp to scrape the top of the doorway as he entered, his long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, he would stand out in any crowd regardless of the cut and color of his traveler’s robes, and so made little effort to conceal his cheerful, energetic appearance. But he was, in contrast with his good nature, quiet almost to the point of shyness during the tour he and Jaina received of the quarters. His one comment was to Leia: “I take it that the Vongforming has pretty much been beaten back from this area?”

  At the height of the Yuuzhan Vong war, when Coruscant had fallen, the Yuuzhan Vong had used their arts to alter the very nature of the world, installing a World Brain to coordinate the reshaping of the planet. Under the brain’s guidance, they introduced overwhelming quantities of fauna and flora to erode the construction that nearly covered Coruscant’s surface and replaced indigenous species with Yuuzhan Vong species, attempting to eradicate every sign that any species but the Yuuzhan Vong had lived here. The process, called Vongforming, would have been complete within a few standard decades, save that Jacen Solo, who had befriended the World Brain during his captivity, convinced it to turn on its makers and help the newly formed Galactic Alliance recapture the world. Now, the Vongforming was slowly being reversed by the aggressive use of technology and toxins, but everywhere on Coruscant there remained signs of the World Brain’s influence—alien molds that lived in cracks and gaps and culverts, insect species that had become a part of Coruscant’s ecosystem, odd and dangerous life-forms who now dwelled in the darkness of the sewers and other subterranean infrastructure.

  Leia shrugged. “A few kilometers from here, you get weirdly overgrown ruins and some areas I can only think of as alien parks. It’s much more normal around here,” she said. “The nearby areas that were, before the change, dangerous after dark or too deep for sunlight to reach are just slightly more so now. It’s like Coruscant used to be … except the shadows have a little more in them, you know what I mean?”

  Zekk nodded, smiling slightly. “I know all about that.”

  The argument began over spiceloaf.

  Spiceloaf was not the cause of it. The traditional Corellian dish, a dense ground meat spiced to the heat tolerance of the diners, was, as Le
ia had prepared it, both mild and savory, and was not likely to cause disagreement all by itself. It was merely the course that was on everyone’s plate at the point Han decided to become argumentative.

  He set his fork down and looked suspiciously at his nephew Ben. “You were doing what?”

  “Making sure they did what the government said.” The boy returned his uncle’s stare, unintimidated. “Stopped making weapons except for the government.”

  “Well, that’s an oversimplification,” Jacen said. “This Adumari company was producing explosive ordnance beyond what was permitted for delivery to the Galactic Alliance armed forces or otherwise legal as per Order GAO-eleven-thirty-three-B—that is, beyond the amounts necessary for their own planetary defense. In other words, they were assembling proton torpedoes and other missiles for sale to other planets, not for delivery to the GA.”

  “So?” Han asked. “That’s not business for the Jedi. That’s a problem for politicians with nothing better to do. Next thing you know, we’ll have Jedi walking the government halls on Corellia and telling us what to do.”

  Leia smiled. Han hadn’t lived on Corellia for decades, but in his heart, he was all Corellian, embodying the swagger, the cockiness, the carefree attitude that the citizens of that system considered essential elements of their culture. His exploits during the Rebellion and up through the present day had made him dear to the hearts of the people of that system. The second best-known Corellian hero of the same era, Wedge Antilles, did live in the Corellian system, but he was more reserved, less brash, and simply hadn’t captured the public’s affection as Han had.

  But Luke wasn’t as amused. “Han, the Corellians are playing a dangerous game. They’re demanding all the advantages of Galactic Alliance membership—trade benefits, use of the GA communications and travel infrastructure, citizenship rights, all of it—but not contributing their fair share of Alliance overhead. They’re dragging their heels on supplying ships and personnel to the military, on providing tax revenues—”