The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  Wedge rapped the air lock door. “This was open, shortly before the attack, for about a minute at a time when there is no listing of a ship being docked outside. And note that we’re on the opposite side of the habitat from its outer rim, meaning that this air lock is out of direct sight of the frigate Firethorn—it’s the most inconvenient air lock on the habitat, with the most inconvenient approach, suited only to shuttles and smaller craft. Anyway, a minute later it went through a depressurization cycle, outer door opened and closed, and then repressurized.”

  “So someone arrived here by shuttle, and left here by shuttle,” Jaina said.

  Tycho shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. You bring in a crew of assassins, you open the air lock to let them in. You close it, cycle it, reopen it—why? If you’re just going to leave, why not leave it open for the sixty or ninety seconds until you leave?”

  “Meaning,” Wedge said, “ultimately, what we have is a mystery. Add to it the fact that the security door on the tube to the main station opened a couple of minutes later. So a shuttle left here, and then something cycled through the air lock—to throw out some evidence, maybe?—and then someone left the habitat on foot.” His datapad chimed, and he opened it up to glance at the screen. “Looks all clear,” he said. “Risk it?”

  Tycho said, “Put the children up front.”

  Wedged grinned and typed a series of numbers and letters into the ’pad. The air lock door hissed and slid open. From another pocket, he pulled a pair of thin gloves and donned them. He began prodding at the corners of access panels, running fingers across the tops of glowing WARNING signs, peering into every crack and cranny in the air lock. “Wish Iella were here,” he said.

  “Or Winter,” Tycho added.

  “Both our wives are ex-Intelligence,” Wedge said, his comment directed at Zekk. “Tycho’s wife used to babysit Jaina, in fact. Whatever we’ve learned, we’ve picked up mostly through osmosis.”

  “Normally, we just shoot things,” Tycho added.

  “We keep trying to retire,” Wedge said. “Give up this life of shooting things.”

  Tycho nodded. “We’re really men of peace at heart.”

  Wedge stepped out from the air lock and shrugged. “Nothing.”

  Jaina held out her hand. “Give it over.”

  Wedge looked surprised. “What?”

  “I saw you palm something when you were bent over looking at the floor. Hand it over.”

  Wedge shook his head. “Our lead, our investigation. You and your pole-like shadow can tag along if you want.”

  “Trade,” Zekk said.

  Wedge shot him a curious look. “What?”

  “Trade. I give you my lead, the one I found on my own.”

  “You didn’t tell me you found a lead,” Jaina muttered.

  Zekk ignored her. “You give Jaina your lead. An even trade.”

  Wedge glanced at Tycho. “What do you think?”

  Tycho shook his head. “Jedi bluff.”

  Zekk smiled. “To sweeten the deal, the lead I picked up, if you take it, means you’ll have to commandeer a shuttle or a rescue craft and go flying around outside.”

  Wedge sighed. “It’s always the quiet ones. All right, master motivator, you have a deal.” From a side pocket he removed a clean orange rag that appeared to be wrapped around something. He held it above Jaina’s hand but did not release it. “Your clue?”

  “We were looking for Tawaler, too, as Jaina said. His comlink reads as being off-base,” Zekk said. “So I dismissed it for a while. But then I remembered. Off-base, as a comm term, is normally used on groundside bases. We use the same terms in the order, probably because Master Skywalker is ex-military. Means that the wearer is not onbase, but his comlink is still returning a signal. Right?”

  “Right,” Wedge said. “Oh.”

  Jaina caught it just as fast. “So our suspect’s comlink is still returning a signal from nearby … but we’ve all been assuming it meant that he’d flown off to some planet somewhere. Give it.” She wiggled her fingers.

  Wedge dropped the rag into her hand. The object within it had a little weight to it, perhaps half a kilogram.

  Jaina turned the rag over and unfolded it, revealing what lay within. “Huh,” she said.

  chapter twenty-one

  Throughout the night when diplomats should have been asleep or planning the next day’s negotiations, the Jedi and other investigators scoured pertinent areas of the Narsacc Habitat.

  Wedge and Tycho confirmed with the frigate Firethorn that a shuttle had departed another habitat at about the same time the assault on the diplomatic envoys was beginning. Hyperdrive-equipped, it had headed away from Kuat and her gravity well at a rate that did not elicit suspicion, and it had entered hyperspace before the first alarms were transmitted from the habitat. After the alarm, Toryaz Station Security had locked the station down, permitting no vehicles or vessels to arrive or depart. The obvious conclusion was that the individual or individuals who’d left via the main spoke to Toryaz Station were still there, or had departed on the shuttle.

  Leia and Mara arranged for security operatives familiar with forensics to be brought in to examine the bodies of the attackers. All had been killed either by trauma from blasters or lightsabers, or through the introduction of a powerful alkaloid poison administered by small injectors in their mouths. Preliminary evidence was that each of them had already been dying from incurable illness, as well, and a simple genetics test offered the probability that three-quarters or more of the attackers were Corellian.

  Wedge and Tycho, accompanied by Luke, acquired a shuttle and a sophisticated set of comm sensor gear from Lieutenant Yorvin. After an hour’s careful flying out from the station, they homed in on the signal being broadcast by Captain Tawaler’s comlink. Tawaler, stone-dead, victim of explosive decompression, was still in possession of that comlink. They retrieved his body and brought it back to the station, turning it over to the forensics experts dealing with the attackers’ bodies, but those experts could report only that Tawaler had died of hemorrhaging and exposure consistent with explosive decompression. There were no wounds on or chemicals present in his body; there were no signs that he had been bound. To all appearances, he had willingly stepped out into space and died a gruesome, painful death.

  Jacen, Ben in tow, wandered throughout the habitat, seeking additional impressions that might point to use of the Force. He found them in the auxiliary security chamber now occupied by Lieutenant Yorvin and in the air lock where Tawaler had died. In each case there was a female aspect to the impressions, but Jacen could get no clear sense of them—the harder he looked, the more they seemed to blur.

  Mara and Leia ran a thorough examination of the security auxiliary control room, finding the code modifications that had allowed the shuttle to maneuver into position without being detected by the base sensors. They were able to dig out the true recordings, showing the shuttle’s arrival and quick departure.

  Admiral Pellaeon kept information flowing from one group of investigators to the next and, when not so occupied, lost hundreds of credits to Han Solo in a sabacc game. Luke and his investigators assembled in the lounge again at about the hour they would have been waking up. No one looked weary; the Jedi sustained themselves through Force techniques, while Han, Wedge, and Tycho relied on caf and stubbornness.

  “So what have we learned?” Luke asked. He began counting off on his fingers. “The killers were mostly Corellians, which doesn’t mean anything, since anyone can hire Corellian killers.” He noticed Wedge’s and Han’s stares and amended, “That didn’t come out the way I intended it.”

  “Forget it,” Han said.

  “This was a sophisticated plan,” Luke continued, “at least in its setup. The planner made use of powerful narcotics to subdue the agents on perimeter duty, and a powerful alkaloid to kill assassins who might have otherwise survived. These toxins aren’t easy to get. The planner knew exactly where everyone was sleeping—or, rather, was supp
osed to be sleeping, since Admiral Pellaeon and his personnel occupied different chambers without informing the base security detail. Captain Tawaler appears to have been influenced, both into participating in the plan and into killing himself, by means of use of the Force … meaning that, regretfully, we have to conclude that a rogue Jedi or equivalent is involved. Supporting that point is the fact that the weapons they carried were designed for use against Jedi.”

  Wedge interrupted, “Much the way the Corellian response to some recent missions was optimized against Jedi.”

  Before Luke could reply, Han cut in. “It was Thrackan.”

  “That’s one possibility,” Luke admitted. He couldn’t state the thought that next occurred to him: that if Saxan were determined to achieve peace, she might put the secret Corellian fleet on the table as a negotiating item. If Chief Sal-Solo were indeed behind the building of that fleet, he would take whatever steps he thought necessary to keep it from being negotiated away.

  “Possibility, nothing.” Han’s voice rose. “Does anybody here not know that it was my boy Jacen and Luke’s boy Ben who wrecked Centerpoint Station?”

  Silence fell in the wake of those words. Luke noticed that Ben seemed upset by the announcement. A look crossed his features—Luke would have described it as haunted, and again he wondered whether Ben would ever tell the Solos the portion of the story he’d mentioned only during his Jedi debriefing, the details about the droid that had thought it was Anakin Solo.

  Finally Wedge said, “I’ve seen the security recordings from the assault on Centerpoint Station. As the one person present least likely to know otherwise, I’d have to say the answer is no.”

  “So?” Han asked, his face reddening. “He wants revenge. The damage at Centerpoint throws his plan back years. But if this assault here, last night, had been one hundred percent successful, he’d have avenged himself and cleared the way to take complete control in Corellia. He’s the only one who profits from what happened here.”

  “Not quite,” Leia said. “He only profits if he can take control and then achieve peace. The killing of Prime Minister Saxan reduces the likelihood of peace. The Corellians are going to be hopping mad and pushing for war … Thrackan’s smart enough to realize how ruinous war would be to the Corellian economy. Even if they were to win.”

  “It’s Thrackan,” Han said.

  “Jacen?” Luke leaned toward his nephew. “While you were running around, chasing Sal-Solo as a distraction for Ben, did you get any sense from him that he’d take your actions more personally than an old conspirator should?”

  Jacen thought over the question. In his report, he’d left out the part about him deciding that Thrackan had to die. It appeared that Thrackan had neglected to mention it, too, and now Jacen thought he understood why: by leaving that part of the story out, Thrackan removed a certain amount of motivation that might associate him with this attack. And now Jacen could admit to his attempt on Thrackan’s life—a confession that would further damage Luke’s already diminished ability to trust in Jacen—or deny it and help obscure Thrackan’s association with tonight’s misdeeds.

  Well, it was enough that he, Jacen, knew. He could make his own calculations based on what he knew of Thrackan’s motivations. He shook his head. “No, I really didn’t.”

  Luke leaned back. “We’ll investigate the Thrackan angle, of course. Anything else?”

  “I’ve got something,” Jaina said. From beneath her outer robe she produced a folded packet of orange cloth a bit larger than her fist. She carefully unfolded it and held it out so that the others could see its contents.

  At first Luke couldn’t grasp what he was looking at—it seemed to be something organic, the dried, stringy fruit of a mutant tree. It was a pliant thing with a blue-black central core perhaps a dozen centimeters long. From that core sprang twenty or more tubular branches, narrowest where they were attached to the core and at their tips, only slightly thicker in their centers, each about six centimeters long—and each bearing colors, stripes, and other patterns. One, lumpy and knotted, consisted of red and blue stripes in a spiral pattern; another was straight, an eye-hurting yellow with flecks of red and black; a third was a creamy tan with jittery, jagged markings in black.

  “We found this in the air lock that Tawaler used when he was going out for fresh air,” Jaina said. “I haven’t had time to scan it for inorganic toxins, but there’s no biological activity going on in it. It just seems to be beadwork.”

  “Accidentally dropped, or left for us to find?” Luke asked. “Carried by Tawaler, or someone else?”

  Jaina shrugged. “No way to tell.”

  “Excuse me.” The words came from overhead and all around—a set of public address speakers. Luke recognized the voice of Lieutenant Yorvin. “I have a priority holocomm contact coming in for Admiral Pellaeon. He’s not in his new quarters. Is there any chance he’s still in the lounge?”

  “I’m here,” Pellaeon said. He heaved himself to his feet, and Tycho stood, too. “That’ll be the crack-of-dawn, report-any-changes call, and as soon as I report, this conference is done.” He sighed. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He walked stiffly from the room, and the door closed behind him and Tycho.

  Wedge consulted his chrono. “The Prime Minister will be receiving one of those, too. And though she wouldn’t be obliged to receive it, I will be. If you’ll excuse me?” He rose and departed, as well.

  “Leaving only Jedi,” Zekk said, “and a Jedi-in-law.”

  Han scowled at him.

  Luke stared at the others over his hands, which he held steepled before him in a meditative pose. “I think we can safely say that our mission at this station has been an utter failure. We’ve been outmaneuvered, and we have at least one enemy we didn’t know about before … and we know very little about now. In a few minutes, the delegations will be recalled. It’ll be time for Jedi investigations to get under way for real.

  “Jacen, Ben, please see what you can find out about Captain Tawaler. We need to find out about the Force-user he apparently had contact with. She can’t have left no trace. If you can’t pick up a trail, continue with the shuttle she apparently escaped on.”

  Jacen nodded. “Consider it done.”

  “Jaina, Zekk, I want you to find out whatever you can about that tassel you found. Try to determine whether it was left accidentally or deliberately, where it came from, what it means. When that’s done, please return to the task force at Corellia and take command of Hardpoint Squadron until Mara and I get back from our groundside mission, which I’ll explain momentarily.

  “Leia, Han, I’d like to ask you to continue trying to calm things down between Corellia and the GA. I can’t think of anybody better to run confidential messages between the two governments, even as they become more hostile, or to tell the leaders of two governments when they’re behaving like bantha bulls in roughhousing season.”

  Leia exchanged a glance with her husband. “I suspect we can do that.”

  “Mara and I will travel on to Corellia to see what we can find out about the possible origins of the assault made against us today.”

  “They’re after me, too, aren’t they?” That was Ben, speaking for the first time since the Jedi had reconvened. His expression and voice were somber—not afraid, but far more serious than a thirteen-year-old’s should be, and Luke felt a lump begin to form in his throat.

  “Yes,” he said. “If they’re after Jacen because of Centerpoint Station, they’re after you, too. Your youth may not mean anything to them. But understand me. Regardless of who they are, or how highly they’re placed, I’m not going to tolerate the continued—” He checked himself before he said existence. Revenge was not the way of the Jedi, not even when one’s own son had been the subject of a murder attempt. “—the continued freedom of people who target children for assassination.”

  “How delicately expressed,” Mara said. “I don’t think there’s any way they’ll refrain from trying to kill us if we confront t
hem, Luke. And when they do …”

  “It’s never a good thing to hope for an opportunity to kill, Mara,” Luke said, his voice mild. But he had to admit to himself that the exact emotion was there in his own mind, hovering around his areas of self-control like neks circling a campfire just beyond the reach of its light. “All right. Let’s go. Ben, join me and your mother for a few minutes before it’s time to leave.”

  Once the Skywalkers were out the door, Jacen gestured to get his sister’s attention, to keep her from following Zekk and the Jedi exodus. “Can I see that thing again?”

  “Sure.” She held the tassel out to him.

  Jacen looked it over. Close up, the mystery object proved to be an unusual example of beadcraft. It seemed to be a set of decorative tassels, each shaped and colored in an entirely different pattern, each attached to the longer central strand. At the top of the central strand was a cord, blueblack like the strand itself but unbeaded; it was three or four centimeters long and ended in a break, the cord material frayed. The object could have been caught on a corner, or grasped by the hand of a dying man and yanked free with relatively little effort, its loss unnoticed by its owner. Or, Jacen acknowledged, it could have been left deliberately.

  One of the tassels continued to draw his eye, the tan one with the jagged black markings. Tiny black threads escaped through its surface, poking out from between the close-set beads. Viewed from the distance of a meter, they made the tassel look as though it needed a shave, but on closer inspection they resembled tiny claws.

  The design of this tassel itself—Jacen could almost read the artist’s intent. The smooth tan represents peace, he told himself. The jagged black lines, strife. The curled threads are hooks, or claws. The moral: even a peaceful life will know strife, and strife presents hooks to drag you farther into the strife, a trap for the unwary. There was more to it than that, he knew—or at least felt. There was some sort of story involved in the message, but he couldn’t puzzle it out.

  Abruptly he felt foolish. He was a Jedi Knight, not an art critic. It was not for him to try to wrest meaning out of patterns found on some bauble that probably cost less than a credit on a backwater planet’s street market. But the thing still drew him.