“We must return.” Aarn shuffled about on his feet. Nom Anor wondered if Shoon-mi’s blatant statement of faith had unsettled him, too.
“I understand,” Nom Anor said. “But I would very much like to talk to you again. The notion of truth intrigues me, and I’d like to hear as many different versions of Vua Rapuung’s story as possible. If you hear it from anyone else—”
“Then we shall tell you, Amorrn,” Shoon-mi said, nodding. “I’pan should take you to see Hrannik, too. I’ve heard she is also busy spreading the message.”
“I will,” I’pan said. “I know a couple of others, as well. The truth is spreading.”
“The truth is spreading,” Shoon-mi repeated, as though by rote.
Bidding a quick farewell, the two from the surface exited via the abominably right-angled door, leaving I’pan and Nom Anor alone again. His deformed companion opened the sack Shoon-mi had given him and looked inside.
“What is it?” Nom Anor asked.
“Food, some old clothes,” I’pan answered. “The usual stuff. Shoon-mi likes to look after his sister.”
“Why doesn’t she talk about him?”
“Because she believes he is a traitor to the truth,” I’pan said as though the answer should have been obvious. “As far as she is concerned, he should leave his unit and join her rather than paying lip service to the old gods. Until he does this, she will not even acknowledge his existence.”
“But she will accept his gifts,” Nom Anor observed wryly.
I’pan laughed at this. “She is not so proud that she will refuse help,” he said. “Survival is her priority; changing her brother is secondary.”
Nom Anor remembered the way Niiriit’s eyes had glowed in the light during the telling of I’pan’s story. She was a true fanatic, more dangerous to the system than any of the others. There was nothing more lethal than a trained warrior who had turned against her old leaders.
He smiled to himself, confident with the beginnings of a plan that was slowly forming in his head. All he needed now was the source of the Vua Rapuung rumor.
“Are you coming?” I’pan said, breaking into his thoughts.
Nom Anor smiled again, wider this time. “Time to go home, I’pan,” he said, nodding.
I’pan climbed through the fissure in the wall they had entered through earlier, leading him in the direction of the “home” he thought Nom Anor had been referring to.
Jaina watched the holo through a third time. She still couldn’t believe what she was seeing—although the heavy feeling in her gut suggested that part of her was at least beginning to.
The holo came from Al’solib’minet’ri City Control, piped up to Pride of Selonia on a secure line. Jaina had returned to the frigate specifically to view it, at the request of her parents who felt she needed to see what had happened to Tahiri. It also gave her the opportunity to get her X-wing serviced and diagnostic checks done on her craft’s weapon systems while things were quiet.
The holo had been taken two hours before in the diplomatic quarters where her parents were staying with Jag, Tahiri, and C-3PO. It showed Tahiri being guided along a corridor by a small contingent of Fian security guards. According to the report Jaina had received from her mother, Tahiri had gone on a brief exploratory mission through the city, after slipping away, with Leia’s assistance, from the Fian escort. It seemed that she had led the guards on a merry chase before they had finally managed to track her down to one particular room where they’d found her lying on the floor in a seemingly dazed state. She had accompanied them without protest, allowing them to return her to the others in her party.
From the casual manner that they carried their blasters, and from their unconcerned expressions, it was obvious that the guards were not expecting any kind of trouble whatsoever. Nevertheless, their leader appeared less than impressed by the runaround that Tahiri had given them.
Jaina watched as Tahiri looked down at something she had clutched in her hand. The cam angle didn’t allow a good shot of what the object was, exactly, but Tahiri’s reaction upon seeing it was both startling and disturbing. The girl recoiled as though struck by a blaster bolt to the forehead, her expression one of absolute horror. In an instant, too fast for the cam to follow, her ice-blue lightsaber was out and at the ready, sweeping to cover her from any attack. The security guards fell back, themselves startled, bringing their blasters up to the ready. The leader barked a warning, but Tahiri didn’t seem to hear or see him. Her eyes were wide as they darted manically from side to side, exactly as if she was expecting an attack. Her lightsaber whipped around in a bright arc as she pirouetted to cover herself from some nonexistent attack from the rear. The guards jumped back a step or two farther at this, confused by the sudden change in the situation. Jaina could understand their fear, too. There was a look on Tahiri’s face that warned of what might happen if she was provoked.
The ranking security guard was marginally braver than the others. Despite his own obvious apprehensions regarding Tahiri, he cautiously stepped forward and demanded she deactivate her lightsaber. If she didn’t, he said, he would be forced to open fire upon her.
Jaina slowed the playback at that point, watching closely as Tahiri listened to the guard’s request. The girl half turned; her expression changed to one of alarm, as though seeing the guards around her for the first time. A procession of emotions flashed across her delicate features: dismay, regret, fear, and, finally, despair. For a split second, Jaina even thought Tahiri might attack the leader who had approached her. Then, as though struck from behind by a stun baton, her eyes rolled back into her head and her legs folded beneath her. Her lightsaber died the instant she released it, the handgrip clattering across the floor and into a wall.
Even then, with Tahiri seemingly unconscious and her weapon nowhere near her, the guards remained wary, keeping their distance with their blasters trained on Tahiri’s prostrate figure. The leader was also reluctant to approach, nervously calling for backup on his comlink. Even when they did find the courage to step up to her and prod her with their feet, Tahiri didn’t respond. It was only when the reinforcements arrived that the girl finally stirred, sitting up with obvious bewilderment. But she didn’t protest against the weapons being leveled at her, or resist when she was loaded aboard a hovercart and examined by a medic. A short time later, she fell into what appeared to be a deep sleep from which she couldn’t be awakened.
By then, the others had been notified and were arriving on the scene. Jaina’s mother came first, along with a Fia who was later identified as Assistant Primate Thrum, followed closely by Jag.
“Is she hurt?” Leia asked the paramedic leaning over Tahiri.
“No,” she was told. “She simply appears to have fainted.”
The leader of the security guards explained how Tahiri had drawn her lightsaber. When pushed on the matter of why she should do something like this, the Fian security guard replied, “That’s just it—I don’t think it was us she was attacking.” When asked to explain, however, the guard was unable to do so. Nonetheless, Jaina knew what he meant.
Even though the holo had been taken at awkward angles that often didn’t allow her to see Tahiri’s face, Jaina could tell that whoever Tahiri had been fighting, it hadn’t been those guards. Her lightsaber was swinging, yes, but her attention had been on something else, something unseen. What that something was, Jaina had no way of telling.
Her mother, using every bit of leverage her diplomatic weight afforded her, convinced the medic, guards, and Assistant Primate that Tahiri would be better off in her own quarters, where she could be examined properly. The anxious procession had wound its way through the empty corridors of the diplomatic quarters to where Jaina’s father and C-3PO were waiting. There, Leia had insisted they be left alone so that they might tend to the girl in peace and quiet. The Fia had agreed to allow this, but clearly with reservations. Even from her position in orbit, Jaina could see that Assistant Primate Thrum was not overly convinced that this wa
s the right thing to do. His job had been to keep an eye on the visitors; what with Tahiri’s unauthorized jaunt and the jamming of the bugs in the diplomatic suites, he wasn’t really having much success at it.
Jaina’s mother had called her as soon as they’d determined that Tahiri wasn’t in any immediate danger and was, as the Fia in charge of the medical droid had diagnosed, simply unconscious. Jaina’s first thoughts were concern that Tahiri’s illness—whatever it was—hadn’t been relieved by leaving Coruscant. Leia agreed: she had hoped that keeping her busy would be enough to clear the angst that seemed to have taken hold of her.
“But perhaps I’m hoping for too much,” Leia said, frowning. “It’s still early.”
Jaina wasn’t convinced it could all be put down to stress. “Whatever’s going on, Mom, I don’t think it’s entirely in her head.”
“Something in the Force, you think?”
“I honestly don’t know. If it is, then it’s something subtle that you’re not picking up.” She shrugged, feeling frustrated at being so far away from her sick friend. “She was a long time without a Master, after Ikrit died. Who knows what’s been going through her mind?”
“Luke wouldn’t have made her a Jedi Knight without being certain she was all right,” Leia said, but something in her expression told Jaina that her mother didn’t really believe it could be dismissed so easily.
Midway through the conversation, C-3PO announced that he’d managed to access a security holo showing what had happened to her before her collapse. The droid succeeded just in time; barely had he appropriated the holo when it was snatched out from under him and secured in a domain he had no access to. The Fia were clearly becoming sensitive to the overactive curiosity of their guests.
Jaina and the others watched the holo, increasingly mystified.
“Tahiri looks terrified,” she said over the secure link with her family.
“Of what, though?” Han asked. “There’s nothing there but the guards. And the most they would’ve done is bore her with details of procedures she should have followed.”
“Well, something upset her,” Leia said.
“Something that none of us can even see,” Jaina mused.
And there the matter rested. Leia insisted that the best thing for Tahiri right now was to let her sleep. She hadn’t been harmed by the Fia; there was nothing out of the ordinary on any of the scans C-3PO took of her. They would have to wait until she woke up to find out exactly what had happened.
“Here’s another mystery,” Jaina’s mother said after a few moments’ silence. “The Fia aren’t afraid of the Yevetha anymore.”
“What?” Han exclaimed. “That’s like standing on the Jundland Wastes in high summer and not being afraid of krayt dragons.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Leia agreed. “But that’s what I was told by Thrum. When I asked him what precautions they’re taking against the threat of another Yevethan attack, he said they didn’t need to take precautions, as N’zoth was no longer a problem.”
“Just like that?” said Han.
Leia nodded. “I asked him about diplomatic ties, thinking that maybe the Yevetha have had a change of heart about alien species. He said that they didn’t exist. There’s no embassy on Galantos; no negotiated peace settlement. It’s like—” She paused, as if unable to find the words to express her thoughts. “I don’t know—it’s like the Yevetha simply gave up and decided to stay at home from now on.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Han said. “It’d be like them to lie low for years while secretly rebuilding and plotting their revenge.” He shook his head. “Mark my words: they have to be up to something. I tell you, if my home was on Galantos, I wouldn’t be taking my eyes off that cluster for a second.”
Leia nodded again and, far above in the ship, Jaina had to agree with the suspicion. Vicious xenophobes didn’t just roll over after a sound beating; they came back twice as nasty and three times as determined. The Yevetha were liable to come bursting out of the Koornacht Cluster at any time.
“Do you want me to take a look?” she asked down the subspace link.
She caught the momentary hesitation on both her parents’ faces as they glanced at each other; but then, equally as fast, their expressions softened.
“Don’t stick around to make any enemies,” Han said. “Just get in and get out again, understood? Don’t make me have to come in there after you.”
Jaina smiled at this.
“And get back to us in one piece,” Leia added.
The only dissenting voice came from Jag. “This is crazy,” he said to her parents. “You can’t be seriously considering sending Jaina off into unknown territory like this.”
“We’re not sending her,” Leia said. “She volunteered.”
“Besides, if the Fia are telling the truth,” Han put in, “then the territory’s likely to be safer now than it ever was.”
“And if they’re not telling the truth?” Jag asked.
“What’s your problem, Jag?” Jaina piped up frostily.
“Look, I don’t mean to imply that you couldn’t handle it,” Jag said. He looked uncomfortable confronting the combined Solo family. “I’m just thinking of the squadron, that’s all. Who’s going to run it with you gone?”
“You, of course,” she said, surprised that she should even have to point this out. “It’ll take me a couple of hours or more to prep for the mission. That’ll give you time to get back up here and take over, won’t it?”
“I guess so,” he said. There was a look of uncertainty on his face that she wasn’t used to seeing. He was clearly uneasy with this whole idea. “But there’s something I want to do here, first, if that’s all right.”
“Of course,” Jaina said.
He nodded, still without conviction. “And you’ll take some backup with you, right, Jaina?”
She smiled, suddenly realizing the source of his concern. He wasn’t thinking about the squadron at all; he was thinking about her. He was worried about her well-being, and the fact that he cared so much for her filled her with a warm satisfaction.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “then I’ll take Miza and Jocell along with me.”
She knew that would ease his mind on at least one score. They were two pilots from his Chiss Squadron, so he knew he could trust them.
“Okay, so that’s settled,” Han put in with a look she couldn’t quite fathom. “When you’re ready, Jag, I’d like to go with you to check on the Falcon, to make sure she hasn’t been interfered with. I doubt we’ve given these guys enough time to plan anything like sabotage, but we can’t afford to take any chances.”
“I’ll stay here with Tahiri and Threepio,” Leia said with a slight frown. “Good luck, dear. And do as your father says: don’t ruffle any crests, all right? If the Yevetha have softened, we could really use their help against the Yuuzhan Vong.”
“Understood, Mom.” The sight of Tahiri in the background, unconscious, pale, and vulnerable, gave Jaina a twinge of guilt for leaving. “I’ll be back soon.”
Jacen reached deep inside himself, searching for the wisdom of his last teacher’s words.
“The Force is everything, and everything is the Force,” Vergere had said, shortly before she died. “There is no dark side. The Force is one, eternal and indivisible. You need worry about no darkness save that in your own heart.”
Not even the darkness of others? he wanted to ask her as he stood listening to Moff Flennic’s ranting. The terrible, anti-life obscenities dripping from the mouth of this self-styled savior of the Imperial Remnant was almost more than Jacen could bear.
“Retreat?” the man was growling. “Retreat? I hear that word and I think of cowards; I think of cowards and I find myself reaching for my blaster.” He paused to fix Jacen with a baleful glare, presumably to let him know he wasn’t exaggerating. “There’s not one man under my command who would accept an order to retreat from me without questioning my sanity. They�
��d sooner relieve me of my command than follow such an order—and they’d have every right to!”
“Moff Flennic,” Jacen said as placatingly as he could, “if you’ll just listen to what I have to say—”
Moff Flennic snorted. “And give you the opportunity to plant your thoughts in my head? I’m not stupid, boy. I’m not senile. Who do you take me for? I was hunting Eloms decades before you were even born.”
Finding solace and strength in the memory of Vergere’s wisdom, Jacen found an island of calm within himself and relaxed his clenched hands.
The solidly built man paced the flight deck in full uniform, waiting out Jacen’s silence with tense energy.
“Well?” he snapped after a moment. “Aren’t you going to tell me that hunting intelligent life-forms constitutes some violation of your weak Jedi sensibilities?”
Jacen shrugged philosophically. “My sensibilities are my own, sir, and I have no wish to impose them upon you.”
“And yet you want me to do what you tell me,” the man scoffed. “Isn’t that the same thing, boy?”
“Not at all. I am merely explaining what, to me, would be your most prudent course of action at this moment. How you choose to respond to my opinion, of course, is entirely up to you.”
“But you won’t like it if I ignore you, will you?”
“If you ignore me, your people will be slaughtered,” Jacen said softly. “And no, I would not like that at all.”
Flennic hesitated, something approximating amusement flickering behind his keen eyes. Then he resumed his pacing, slower, each step more deliberate than the last. “You know, boy, if you were one of my officers, I would have had you shot for speaking to me the way you just did.”
Remnant: Force Heretic I Page 20
