Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury

by Aaron Allston

  Wedge snorted. “Good neighbors, if you can stay out of their stew pots.”

  “C’mon.” Luke led him out into the fresh air, heavy with the scents of blooming flowers and forest decay. The door rumbled shut behind them. “How are Iella and the kids?”

  “Iella’s great. She’s spending her time doing holonews analysis and passing her conclusions on to me, to Booster, to Talon Karrde. I’ll have her add you to the distribution list if you like.”

  “Please.” Luke gestured, and the two of them headed, in a different direction from that taken by the fleeing Ewoks, into the cover of deep forest.

  “I don’t hear much from Syal, of course. We’re certainly not estranged, but since she’s serving with Alliance forces, still on the Blue Diver, and I’m an official enemy of the Alliance and an unofficial target of the Confederation, I don’t get much news of her. Myri is still on the Errant Venture, gathering information to pass along to us…and making a fortune gambling.” He shook his head in mock distress. “She’s going to be the first rich Antilles, and not from following an honest career. I don’t know what to think of it. How’s Ben?”

  “Better than I have any right to expect.” They were deep enough in the trees to be out of hearing range of anyone at the outpost, though still close enough to see bits of it through the screen of hanging branches and vines. “So.”

  “So, Corellia. A good friend of mine, a space navy lifer with the Corellian Defense Force—he’s ninety, been retired for a few years—was just returned to active duty and assigned a recommissioned Carrack-class cruiser.”

  Luke offered Wedge a dubious expression. “A Carrack? What’s next? Are the Corellians going to start throwing cans of food at the Alliance fleets?”

  “Yes. It sounds like they’re shoring up depleted units with increasing desperation. But there’s more to it. My old friend is going to be part of a special diplomatic mission to talk to the GA, a hush-hush negotiation that General Phennir, Supreme Commander of the Confederation military forces, wasn’t informed of beforehand. Scuttlebutt has it that when he inquired about it with the Corellians, they told him that it was just a delaying tactic, something to distract Colonel Solo for a few days. Now Phennir’s people don’t know if that’s the truth, or if the Corellians are going to try to spring some sort of trap and kill Solo so they can claim the glory and have a bargaining advantage to give them even more influence within the Confederation…or whether they’re thinking of switching sides.”

  Luke frowned. “Where does the scuttlebutt come from, in this case?”

  Wedge ticked numbers off on his fingers. “One, the granddaughter of my old friend. She got in touch with me by backdoor means to find out if there was any way I could talk her grandfather out of accepting the reactivation of his commission. Two, a pilot formerly under my command, now on Phennir’s staff, querying me about what the Corellian Prime Minister is up to, since I’m obviously a neutral party. Three—”

  “So it all amounts to this guy I know.”

  Wedge nodded. “The fate of galactic civilization might someday hang on an intelligence network consisting of this guy I know.”

  “Thanks for scaring me.” Luke opened himself to the Force for a moment, but the future remained impossibly distant and unclear. All he could detect was the abundance of life around him, including the two Ewoks creeping in his direction. Their emotions consisted largely of curiosity and nervousness, rather than malice or hunger, so he concluded that attack was not on their minds. “If this guy I know could figure out where Jacen is going to be, and when, it could prove very valuable to us. We have a means to track his movements, but that leaves us very reactive—he goes, and if we respond in time, we can follow him. To anticipate his movements would be ideal.”

  “Two days until the meeting with the Corellians. Two days, at a halfway point between Corellia and Coruscant—but that’s still a lot of space to cover.” Wedge frowned, calculating. “In two days, if you could have a StealthX shadow the Anakin Solo out of the Coruscant system, that might give us the exact coordinates. Her course, plus knowledge that the destination will be identical in distance from there to Corellia, as well.”

  “Right—if we’re lucky and he doesn’t send the Anakin Solo through an elaborate, multiple-leg course.”

  “I doubt he will. Whether it is one or not, he has to suspect that it’s a trap. Why worry about elaborate routing when you’re going directly to the adversary anyway?”

  “True.” Luke nodded. “I’ll send out a StealthX immediately.” He turned back toward the outpost and led them in that direction. “Wedge, it’s good to have you here.”

  “Speaking of which—”

  “No, you’re not being paid.”

  Wedge laughed. “Just like the Rebellion days. No, I was going to say, you’ve brought me in for military advice, you’re acquiring personnel and matériel, you have a base of operations and an agenda that involves interacting with two major galactic powers—has it occurred to you that you’re setting up a third government here?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you are. The Jedi are now a cross-planetary, self-governing body, and you’re their Chief of State. You might need to start thinking along those lines.”

  “Huh. You want the job?”

  “No. If it lands on me, I’ll give it to Booster Terrik. He’ll figure out a way to get us paid.”

  ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO

  Caedus relaxed in his Command Salon, away from the bustle and noise of the bridge, waiting for the exit from Coruscant space and the short hyperspace jump to the rendezvous point with the Corellian task force.

  He would have preferred to pass the time in one of two secret rooms near his quarters—Allana’s playroom, or his cramped workshop, where, finally, he was finding the time to build his new lightsaber. It would be a proper lightsaber, with a red blade, the better to announce his new role as Lord of the Sith—though when it would be time to make that declaration, he still did not know.

  The monitor before him, showing nothing but stars and tiny, fast-moving dots that constituted traffic inbound toward Coruscant, suddenly switched to the face of Lieutenant Tebut. A dark-haired human woman with a quiet, no-nonsense manner and an imposing air of efficiency, she had, like all officers aboard the Anakin Solo, survived the most intensive security vetting the Guard could conduct. A candidate for promotion to the position of executive officer, she had, with Captain Nevil’s blessing, begun a program of mastering every bridge officer’s duty, and today she was at the communications officer’s station. Caedus approved of both her ambition and her breadth of skills.

  “The pilot reports readiness for hyperspace jump,” Tebut reported. “But we’re being hailed by a private yacht identifying itself as Love Commander.”

  Caedus grimaced and briefly considered blowing the vehicle out of space. But no, Lando was only nearly useless, and the old gambler’s instinct for self-preservation meant that he often had some helpful information at hand.

  Caedus pressed a button so that his next words would also go to Captain Nevil. “All stop.” He released it and looked at the monitor again. “Put her captain through to me.”

  He waited just long enough for the picture on his display to change from Tebut’s face before he began talking. “Calrissian, give me one good reason—”

  But the face that materialized on the display was not that of Lando Calrissian. It was Leia Organa Solo. “Mother.”

  Leia gave him a slight smile. It seemed to Caedus to be a very sad one. “Oh, I’m not Mom anymore?”

  “Not really, no. What do you need? I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  “I need to speak to you.”

  “And without Father.” Caedus frowned. “Where is the Falcon?”

  “Back on Kashyyyk, putting out fires. Fires you started.”

  “Yes. Fires to punish an enemy of the Alliance. As I must point out, you are an enemy of the Alliance. Is there some reason I shouldn’t start a fire in that ridiculous yacht of
Lando’s right now?”

  “The same reason as before. I need to talk to you.”

  “That’s your need, not mine.”

  Leia simply stared at him, silent, implacable.

  She had to be up to something. Caedus tried to detect what he could of her through the Force. He could sense her, a bright and distinctive presence, alone on the yacht.

  Interesting. So Han wasn’t with her; nor were there any strangers present. No assassins who might be targeting him. No Hapans come to retrieve Allana.

  Well, he’d simply take her aboard, listen to what she had to say, and then throw her in prison, ending the danger she posed to his administration. Han would come after her, and Caedus could throw Han in prison, too. Suddenly he felt cheered by his mother’s unexpected visit.

  He sighed as if giving in. “Very well. Come aboard my personal hangar bay. You’ll be escorted to the Command Salon.”

  “Understood.”

  chapter fifteen

  Minutes later, two security guards entered the Command Salon with Leia between them. They presented a ridiculous picture—two tall men in crisp uniforms, their buckles, buttons, visors, and blasters gleaming, flanking a diminutive graying woman in plain Jedi robes.

  Still, Caedus didn’t think Leia looked diminished enough. She needed to be in restraints, her lightsaber missing from her belt, her expression crestfallen, her eyes defeated. She needed to be suffering for all her misbehavior since the conflict with Corellia began. Well, reality would match his imagination soon enough.

  He gestured at the guards; they spun and left the salon. The door shut behind them.

  He didn’t bother to keep impatience and indifference out of his voice. “Well?”

  Leia looked him over. Clearly, the visual image he presented—a tall, dangerous Force-user in all-black garments and cloak—was again reminding her of her father more than her son, and Caedus enjoyed having discomfited her. But she didn’t let what she was feeling be reflected in her face or voice. “Jacen, it’s time for you to look at yourself.”

  “I’m well aware of what I look like, Mother. I have to cultivate my image carefully for holonews appearances.”

  “I’m not talking about your looks. I’m talking about your life.”

  He sighed. “You know, I was actually hoping you had come up with some exciting, imaginative new argument to sway me from my path. Not that it has a chance of succeeding. But it would be more entertaining. Don’t you have some new heart-wrenching appeal? Some brilliant metaphor to hurl at me and cause me to double over in the anguish of guilt, to reevaluate my whole ethical structure?”

  She shook her head, and there was no missing the sadness in her eyes. “All I have is the truth, and the memory of who you used to be.”

  He pressed a button on the arm of his chair. The door behind Leia slid open. “You’re wasting my time. Leave now.”

  She glanced at the button, and it clicked down without Caedus’s help. The door slid closed again. “You no longer have time for me?”

  “Which you? The mother you used to be, or the interplanetary criminal you’ve become? I’m not the only one who’s changed.”

  “History decides who’s a criminal, Jacen.”

  Finally, real irritation began to stir within Caedus, and he rose to the argument. “No, the law decides who’s a criminal. History just forgives them, and for reasons as stupid as they are varied. Han Solo was a spice smuggler, an unapologetic lawbreaker. You, even when you were a teenager, were a traitor to the legitimate galactic government, a conspirator planning war and overthrow. The puppet government you put in place may have forgiven you both, but you’ll be criminals for the rest of your lives.”

  Her expression graduated to scorn. “Have you ever studied Darth Vader? Clearly, you got your intelligence and your political acumen from your grandfather.”

  He nodded. “There we are in agreement.”

  In the private hangar bay set aside for the use of Anakin Solo’s commander, a team of security specialists, carrying standard scanning gear, walked down the yacht’s boarding ramp. Moments after the last one reached the hangar floor, the ramp rose into place, sealing the yacht.

  Jaina Solo, stretched out on her back in an oppressively enclosed space, watched them leave. She did not watch them directly, but through the portable monitor she held in her hands. A shielded data feed led from the device into the metal wall of this smuggling compartment.

  Beside her, Han stirred but did not open his eyes. “Are they gone?”

  Jaina twisted a dial at the bottom of the screen, flipping its view through all of the Love Commander’s exterior holocam feeds. “No, they’re walking the yacht perimeter, doing a final scan.” Irritated, she checked her chrono. “How long can Mom keep Jacen distracted?”

  Han shrugged. “Hard to guess. My estimate is that he’s not going to fall for guilt, but he’s pretty reactionary these days. If she can push the right argument buttons, he’ll be defending his politics and decisions from now until his next birthday.”

  “How’s that going to make Mom feel?”

  Han’s expression turned sad. “How do you think?”

  An ominous scratching sounded from the far end of the compartment.

  Jaina looked past her feet to the cage situated there on the compartment floor. A cube one meter in each dimension, it was made of thin, brightly painted durasteel bars. Within it was a jagged piece of polymer shaped like a stunted tree bole, and holding on to the sculpture was a reptile—a little over a meter long, greenish, with two sets of clawed legs and a long tail. It stared at them as if waiting for a reply to its statement.

  Jaina wrinkled her nose at it. “I hate that thing.” It was an ysalamir, a lizard from the world of Myrkr—one of a species that had long ago evolved the ability to project an invisible bubble of Force energy in counterbalance to the Force all around it, making everything inside its border undetectable by Force-sensitives outside its range. So long as Jaina and Han, and Zekk and Jag in the next compartment, remained nearby, Jacen could not detect them.

  Of course, Force-sensitives within the bubble were blind to the Force while they remained there.

  Han’s voice turned mocking. “Poor little girl. Suddenly has to rely on just her sight, hearing, and wits—”

  “It’s still like losing one of your senses.”

  “—just like her old man.” He opened an eye and peered down at the reptile. He waved. “Hang on there, little guy. I’ll get you back to Karrde when we’re all done here.”

  As if in response, the ysalamir flicked out its tongue for a fraction of a second.

  Movement on the monitor drew Jaina’s attention. “Sensor crew is leaving. But there are still two guards on the exit, and two just outside.”

  Han leaned over to peer at the monitor. “Got the hangar holocams picked out?”

  Jaina nodded. “Yeah. I don’t want to Force-flash them constantly, but we can use blind spots between parked vehicles a lot of the time. And we have one piece of real luck. Jacen’s shuttle is right here, in this hangar.”

  “Let’s go.” Han exerted himself against the durasteel panel directly overhead and it swung open, admitting cool air from the Love Commander’s atmosphere conditioners.

  They executed their plan in several stages, each accomplished very quickly and with the precision that only Jedi and someone like Han Solo could manage.

  Silently, the four exited the Love Commander through a cargo hatch in the blind spot between her starboard side and the mass of maintenance machinery immediately beside her. Jaina, carrying the electronics package whose construction had been supervised by Iella Antilles—a package now disguised as a mouse droid—reached a wall datajack and plugged the package in.

  Its code, optimized not only for this task but for this specific vessel, as well, sampled hangar holocam feeds, looped them, and extracted visual glitches such as glow rod flickers that might alert viewers they were watching a recording. Then the programming subverted security m
easures—not the ship’s main programming, just those pertaining to the holocams—and began sending the looped recordings instead of the live feeds to the bridge.

  Next, as Han and Jag covered the door from concealed positions, Jaina and Zekk rushed the guards there. The advantage of surprise allowed them to cross meters of distance before the guards could bring their blaster rifles into line, and a few swift blows put them down. The Jedi dragged them aside, out of sight of the door.

  The third stage was just as potentially dangerous, and just as successful. The four of them positioned themselves out of sight of the hangar doors, two to either side, and then opened them. They heard a surprised exchange from the guards there, but no footsteps suggesting additional traffic out in the corridor. Blaster rifles at the ready, the two guards stepped into the hangar.

  As the pair caught sight of the intruders in their peripheral vision, Jag hit the button to shut the doors. Jaina and Zekk stepped forward and launched attacks. Jaina’s kick took her target clean off his feet, breaking ribs despite his chest armor, sending him into deep unconsciousness. But Zekk’s opponent, clearly an experienced hand-to-hand combatant, blocked Zekk’s punch with his rifle butt and swung the barrel around to fire.

  So Han shot him in the face. His blaster pistol was set on stun, and the guard merely spasmed and fell.

  Zekk breathed a relieved sigh—not at the removal of danger, but at his opponent’s size. “This one’s big enough.”

  “Get into his armor and get going.” Jaina took up her ersatz mouse droid and headed toward Jacen’s shuttle. “Despite what Dad says, we can’t guess how long Mom’s distraction will give us.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Han helped Zekk strip the armor from the tallest guard and don it. He lowered his voice to a whisper so Jaina would not hear. “I’m used to her being intense. But I don’t think I’ve seen her flash a smile in, I don’t know, months.”

  “She hasn’t. She’s lost a lot since this war began.”