by James Luceno
Luke nodded. “More specifically, Admiral Pellaeon sees outright rebellion across many star systems as a direct consequence of continued inaction by the GA. Several of his computer-modeled outcomes point that way, as apparently his instinct does. Other admirals he’s consulted agree, and so Cal Omas has signed off on this plan.”
Jacen took a deep breath, considering. Admiral Pellaeon, for decades the leader who had kept the Imperial Remnant proud, independent, and ethical, had been chosen as Supreme Commander of the Galactic Alliance a few years earlier, sure sign of the Imperial Remnant’s growing status and importance within the GA. If he saw continued Corellian reticence as a sure path to civil war, Jacen would have a hard time arguing with that conclusion. “So what’s the plan?”
Luke circled in around his answer. “Among the scientists and support crew who have been studying Centerpoint Station for Corellia there are GA spies, of course. They would have a very hard time smuggling in squadrons of elite soldiers to damage or disable the facility. One or two infiltrators they could manage. And packing squadrons’ worth of effectiveness into one or two people …”
“Means Jedi.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Travel to Centerpoint Station and disable or destroy it.”
Jacen tapped the hilt of his lightsaber. “Disable or destroy a moon-sized installation with just what I can smuggle in?”
“Others have been destroyed with just a proton torpedo and the right knowledge. We’ll try to get you the right knowledge. And the GA will be initiating an operation elsewhere in the system that should attract the defenders’ attention. Will you do it?”
“Yes, of course. But why me?”
“A few reasons. First, unlike most Jedi, you’ve been there. Second, because of who raised you, you can put on an authentic Corellian accent when you want to—that, and the fact that you’ve inherited a bit of the Corellian look from your father, will make it easier for you to move unobtrusively through the installation. Third, your specialized training in alternative philosophies of the Force makes you more versatile than many other Jedi—than some Jedi Masters, in fact—making it harder to stop you.”
“And what about Ben?”
Luke was silent for a long moment. He and Jacen turned onto a bridge spanning the chasm between two long rows of spacescrapers. It was made of transparisteel embedded with brightly colored sand and gravel, its railing high so that the occasional ferocious gusts of wind that coursed through Coruscant’s duracrete canyons would not toss a pedestrian over the side. Pedestrians could look down through the transparent surface beneath their feet into the two-kilometer depths below them, and they felt the slight sway of the bridge as a gust of wind pushed it. A dozen meters down, a stream of traffic coursed by like a river made of multicolored lights.
Luke’s tone was impassive, artificially so. “That is a matter for you, as his teacher, to decide.”
Even on dangerous missions, Jedi Masters often took their apprentices—it was how those apprentices learned. Sometimes the apprentices died with their teachers. And Luke had considered the question of whether Jacen should take Luke’s own son and put the decision entirely on Jacen’s shoulders.
Luke had responded as a Jedi Master should, not letting his relationship with the apprentice in question cloud his judgment. Jacen would have to do the same.
Ben was bright, inventive, and largely obedient. At the flip of a switch he could act like any precocious thirteen-year-old, as un-Jedi-like as it was possible to be. He’d be an asset on a mission like this. “He’ll come with me.”
Luke nodded, apparently serene in his acceptance of Jacen’s decision.
“It’s going to get ugly when this happens,” Jacen continued. “The Corellians—this is going to infuriate them.”
“Yes. But the other part of the operation, which is in part distraction for your mission, is a show of force. All of a sudden, an entire GA fleet will materialize within Corellian space. Between that and the loss of Centerpoint, Military Intelligence thinks the Corellians will realize that they can’t continue to adopt a we-do-whatever-we-like stance.”
Jacen shook his head. “Whose brilliant idea is that?”
“I don’t know. It was presented to me by Cal Omas and by Admiral Niathal, one of Pellaeon’s advisers.”
“She’s Mon Cal, not Corellian.”
“Well, she indicated that the psychological warfare experts had evaluated the Corellian planetary mind-set and were certain that this operation would have the desired effect—assuming the destruction of Centerpoint Station was effective.”
Jacen snorted. “What do you want to bet that they based their evaluations on old data? Pre-Vong-war data? Maybe even diktat-era. I don’t think they’ve factored in what surviving the war did to the Corellians. It stiffened their pride.”
“I’m sure they’re using up-to-date information. Regardless, that part of the operation is one I don’t have any influence on. It’s going ahead regardless of the opinion of the Jedi order.” Luke’s expression was still serene, but Jacen detected a flicker of regret. “Let’s get back.”
“I think I’ll walk awhile longer. Settle my thoughts. Figure out what I’m going to say to my father when the time comes.”
“Don’t overplan.” Luke clapped Jacen on the shoulder and turned back toward Han and Leia’s building. “The future is to be lived, not prearranged.”
As he reached the door providing access into the Solos’ building, Luke felt a little tickle of awareness, as though someone had materialized just behind him and brushed him with a feather. He turned to look.
No one actually stood behind him. But across the avenue, perhaps thirty meters away, standing on a pedestrian thoroughfare at about the same altitude, someone was watching him.
His watcher stood a few meters away from the nearest light source, wrapped up in a traveler’s cloak not dissimilar to the outer garments he and the other Jedi wore. Its hood was up, and the garment masked the wearer’s build. Luke could tell little more than that the wearer was of average height or taller and looked lean.
But something in this being’s posture reminded Luke of the image from his dream, and caused him to wonder if the watcher had features similar to long-dead Anakin Skywalker, with eyes turned a liquid yellow by anger and Sith techniques.
As Luke watched, the watcher turned, walked the few steps to the nearest doorway into its own building, and entered, vanishing into darkness.
Luke shook his head. He could go over there, of course. But it would take time, and he’d find nothing. Either the watcher was unrelated to Luke’s dream, or it was someone deliberately making contact as a warning or greeting. Either way, no evidence would remain.
Luke entered the Solos’ building.
After all the guests were gone, most of them returning to quarters at the Jedi Temple, and the Solo quarters were dark, Han and Leia lay wrapped in each other’s arms in their bedchamber.
That chamber was against an exterior wall of the building, just below the pedestrian walkway outside, and featured a broad transparisteel viewport that afforded them a view of the traffic lanes outside—or, if Han and Leia were close enough and ducked low enough, of the skies. It was a much thicker plate of transparisteel than most dwelling viewports featured, as was appropriate to a former Chief of State and her equally famous husband, either of whom might become the target of assassins or kidnappers. It was armor suitable to a naval vessel and one of the more expensive features of these quarters. But it was as clear as any more ordinary viewport, and, with the blinds opened, they could watch through it the endless, brilliantly colorful streams of traffic.
“You were pretty hard on Zekk,” Leia chided. “All evening long.”
“You think so?” Han considered. “I didn’t challenge him to any drinking games or ask him about all his failed relationships.”
“Good.” Leia nodded against his chest. “But you could have been … nicer.”
“Nicer to the man who’s chasing my daughter around? What sort of example would that set? I’m her father. Besides, he’s taking advantage of her.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, listen. Since she doesn’t believe that he’s after her, since she’s maintaining her we’re-just-good-friends-despite-anything-that-might-have-happened-before self-delusion, he can stay close and operate without her being aware of it.”
“He’s a good boy.”
“Where my daughter is concerned, nobody is a ‘good boy.’ Besides, nobody that tall should be referred to as a boy.”
“Well, if she likes taller men, it’s probably a preference she picked up from her upbringing.”
“Oh?” Han considered. “You think she’s more comfortable with taller men because of me?”
“No, because of Chewbacca.”
Han looked down at her. A sliver of blue light crossed over the bed and illuminated her eyes, which were open, her expression somehow both merry and artificially innocent.
Chewbacca, Han’s Wookiee copilot and best friend, had died more than a decade ago, at the onset of the Yuuzhan Vong war. After that, it had been years before Han could hear or speak his name without feeling a stab of pain in his heart. Now, of course, there was still sadness at his loss, but with it were years of more glad memories.
“You,” Han said, “should not mock Han Solo, hero of the galaxy.”
“I would never. I was mocking Han Solo, meddling dad and supreme egotist.”
“Now you’re in trouble.”
She laughed at him.
chapter five
CORUSCANT
Two days after the Solo-Skywalker family dinner, Han Solo sat on one of his living chamber sofas, a portable terminal in his lap, scowling at the display screen. Every so often he typed in a series of commands or used the voice interface, but each attempt he made was eventually greeted with a red screen indicating failure.
Leia materialized behind him, leaning over his shoulder, and read aloud the text on the screen. “OPERATION FAILED. YOU MAY BE USING CONNECTION INFORMATION THAT IS OUT OF DATE. Trying to straighten out your taxes?”
“Very funny.” Han didn’t sound amused. “Do you remember Wildis Jiklip?”
Leia frowned. Wildis Jiklip was a mathematics prodigy about Han’s age. Well traveled, with a Corellian mother and a Coruscanti father, she had been educated in both systems and had been licensed to teach at the university or academy level by the time she was in her early twenties. Then she’d disappeared for two decades, and only a few people knew what she’d been doing during that time.
She’d become a smuggler under the name of Red Stepla. She ran unusual routes, carrying unusual cargoes, and had an uncanny ability to get forbidden goods to their markets at a time when they’d be most valuable. Her record for success was unrivaled. Where most smugglers led a hand-to-mouth existence, spending their earnings in port on gambling binges and other recreations, retaining barely enough for fuel and to acquire new cargoes, Red Stepla and her crew led very unobtrusive lives, investing their earnings in a variety of ports all over the galaxy.
A few years before the start of the Yuuzhan Vong war, Red Stepla and her crew retired—by the simple expedient of disappearing. Wildis Jiklip then reappeared, an independently wealthy theoretician who occasionally taught university-level courses on Coruscant and Lorrd, focusing on interplanetary economics, supply-and-demand trade economics, systemic economic reactions to widespread warfare, and related subjects.
Han knew the secret of her dual identity, and Leia had learned it from Wildis herself, who trusted anyone Han would trust enough to marry.
Leia nodded. “Sure. What about her?”
“She’s supposed to be on Coruscant, doing one of her lecture series. I tried to get in touch with her to talk about Corellia. I thought maybe she could give me a hint about the official GA reaction to what’s going on there. But she discontinued her lecture series in the middle, just a few days ago, and all the ways I have to get in touch with her are out of operation—reporting that she’s on leave of absence due to a family emergency.”
Leia shrugged. “So?”
“Well, she has no family. Yeah, I know, that’s not suspicious in and of itself. But I still wanted to talk political shop with other Corellians. So I arranged for a holotransmission to Wedge Antilles.”
Leia felt a moment of surprise but kept it from her face. She knew she was spoiled when it came to finance—she’d lived as a planetary princess, albeit one from a financially responsible family, as a child and young woman; she’d commanded the resources of a rebel government and then a legitimate one. Expenditure had seldom been a consideration for her. Han, who had been reared in poverty and had lived in difficult financial circumstances for the first half of his life, was more stingy, and the fact that he’d been willing to pay for a live, instantaneous conversation with a friend light-years away was quite a concession for him. It told more about the state of his concern over Corellian politics than anything he’d said over the last few days. “And how is Wedge?”
“Well, I couldn’t get through to him via HoloNet. They say there’s some sort of equipment breakdown causing intermittent connections with the Corellian system.”
“So you sent him a message by standard record-and-transmit.”
Han nodded. “Just a heads-up, how’re-you-doing sort of message.”
“And?”
“And it got there, and I got a reply … but it was delayed by several hours. Long enough for my message and the reply to have been intercepted, decrypted, scanned, and analyzed before being passed on.”
Leia didn’t say, Now you’re being paranoid. They were the first words to leap to her mind, but in truth Han wasn’t being paranoid. The GA government was probably keeping a close eye on comm traffic to and from Corellia in light of that system’s ongoing defiance of government edicts. “All right,” she said, “so communications to Corellia are under close scrutiny.”
“So I kept looking around.” Han looked troubled. “Activated some false identities. Bounced message packets to Corellia via Commenor and some other worlds. Checked with some old friends still in the trade, found that anti-smuggling patrols by the GA are intensifying right now … in the vicinity of Corellia and a few worlds that have spoken out in support of Corellia. I’m really beginning to think something’s up.”
Leia moved around to the front of the couch and settled beside her husband. “Something more than just mild harassment by the GA to inconvenience a system that’s not playing by the rules, you mean.”
“Yeah. But I don’t really know how to confirm it. How to take my hunch and make it into a fact.”
Leia considered. As a Jedi Knight her primary responsibilities were to the Jedi order and the Galactic Alliance. If the Galactic Alliance was indeed planning some sort of action against Corellia, her duty was to support it.
But that was only one of her loyalties. She couldn’t just ignore her loyalty to Han, even if he was supporting a foolish cause. Suddenly she grinned. Had he ever supported a cause that, from some perspective, wasn’t foolish, including the Rebel Alliance?
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking about … other ways to figure out what’s going on.”
“Such as?”
She began counting off on her fingers. “One. If the GA is planning some sort of action against Corellia, then a number of people in the GA government know it. Particularly self-serving ones with economic interests on Corellia are going to be doing whatever they can to protect those interests. If they’re sloppy, it would be possible to spot their activities, their transactions.
“Two. If the action against Corellia is going to involve the military, determining which military forces are called up would be very informative. Different forces would be used for an assault or for a blockade, for instance. Now, it’s tricky to find out that sort of information—without being spotted as a spy, especially—but it’s possib
le, and we have a slight advantage in that it’s been a good while since we’ve been at war. Security won’t be as tight as it was at the height of the Yuuzhan Vong war or the war against the Empire, for instance.”
Han nodded. “Good, good.”
“Three. We could formulate some likely plans for action against Corellia, determine the resources needed for those plans … and then attempt to determine whether those resources are actually being moved into place. That would give you some sense of what’s actually going to happen … assuming that your plans are accurate ones.”
“Right.” Han smiled. “I don’t care much for data work or number crunching, but it looks like I’ve just assigned myself a lot of it.”
“I’ll help you.”
“Thanks.”
“After breakfast.”
Han’s smile grew broader. “You’re just not the same tireless, selfless woman I married, are you?”
“I guess not.”
“I’ve corrupted you.”
She sighed dramatically. “Well, you’re the same tireless egotist I married.”
The CorSec officer, trim in her brown and burnt orange uniform, her face hidden behind the blast shield of a combat helmet, leapt into the doorway and raised her blaster rifle. Before it could line up against Jacen, he lashed out with his lightsaber, slicing through the weapon, through the woman. She fell in two smoking pieces, making a resounding bang against the metal floor.
Jacen cast a quick look back the way he’d come, down endless halls packed with twisting cables and mechanical extrusions whose functions no one had been able to discern or divine even after decades of study. Somewhere back there, Ben lay, victim of a blaster shot to the chest, part of a barrage that had been too fast, too heavy for Jacen to compensate for …
