by Timothy Zahn
"Like what?"
"I can't tell yet," Leia said again. "But something very strange."
"You're telling me." He nodded toward the viewport. "Well, whatever it is, we ought to find out about it pretty soon. Looks like we're already coming down."
He was right. They had passed over a line of low hills and the TIEs had now dropped to barely treetop height. Rolling along beneath them were vast fields of tallgrain, the neat rows rippling with the wind of their passage. They passed an access path, more fields, another path, still more fields. At the far side of this set were another collection of hills, taller than the group they'd passed a few kilometers back.
And at the base of the tallest of the hills, little more than a dark spot in the hazy afternoon sunlight, was a cave.
"Yeah, that's where we're going, all right," Han said. "Nice and private, unless whoever owns these fields happens to be out working them. Got a reception committee already waiting, too, I see." Leia nodded, squinting against the sunlight at the figures standing outside the cave. "I count... looks like ten of them."
"Plus the four TIE pilots, plus whoever else is hanging around inside," Han agreed, reaching under his control board and retrieving his blaster and holster from the storage niche there.
"You have a plan?" Leia asked, eyeing the blaster.
"Not really," Han said as he buckled on the holster. "I'm not going to charge out shooting, if that's what you're worried about. If they wanted us dead, they would have just let us crash."
"Maybe they think the children are with us," Leia said, a shiver of unpleasant memories running through her. After all the times her children had been kidnapped or threatened...
"If they do, they're going to be real disappointed," Han said, his tone deadly. Deliberately, he checked his blaster and shoved it back in the holster. "And in a lot of trouble, too." He nodded toward her waist. "Almost time for the party, hon. Shouldn't you be getting dressed, too?"
"Right," Leia said, pulling her lightsaber out of her board's storage compartment and hooking it to her belt. Calming her thoughts, she reached out to the Force for strength and wisdom. "I'm ready." A minute later they reached the hills; and directly in front of the cave, as Han had predicted, the TIEs slipped into full repulsorlift mode and eased the Falcon smoothly to the ground. They released the grappling mags and reeled them back in, and with practiced ease lined up and began maneuvering one by one into the cave.
"At least that explains how they showed up from nowhere," Han commented as he shut down what was left of the Falcon's systems. "Three'll get you the hand pot this is one of Grand Admiral Thrawn's sleeper cells."
"I always thought those were just a myth," Leia said, gazing into the darkness of the cave.
"Disinformation the Empire came up with after Thrawn—well, after we thought he was dead."
"I'm still not convinced he isn't," Han growled, standing up and stepping back toward the door.
"No point in putting this off. Let's go see what they want."
One of the reception committee was waiting at the bottom of the ramp as Han unsealed the hatchway. He was a tall man, roughly Han's height and strongly built, with dark eyes and a thick shock of long black hair. "Hello," he said, nodding as they started down the ramp. His voice was genial enough, but there was a definite tension in his face and stance. "Either of you hurt? Councilor, you're bleeding."
"Just a scratch," Leia assured him, rubbing at the dried blood. That odd sense she'd felt with the TIE pilots was back again, stronger than ever. "It's already mostly healed." The man nodded, some of his black hair dropping across his eyes with the movement. "Yes, of course. Jedi healing techniques."
"Where's the rest of your group?" Han asked, glancing around as they reached the bottom of the ramp.
"Checking out your ship," the man replied, pointing behind them. Leia turned. The others they'd seen waiting were walking around under the Falcon, looking and poking as they assessed the damage. "That second Korlier did a number on you, didn't it?" the first man continued. "You're lucky—if he'd rammed you a little higher up, he'd have taken out your power core and probably breached your hull along with it."
"So those were Korlier Flashships, huh?" Han said, his tone that of one professional exchanging shop talk with another. "I've heard of them, but never seen one before."
"They're not very common," the man agreed. "But since the Korlier Combine doesn't put serial numbers on any of their models, they're a favorite of people who don't want their identities traced."
"Sort of just the opposite of TIE interceptors," Han said pointedly, nodding back toward the cave opening.
The man gave him a bittersweet smile. "Something like that," he said. "My name's Sabmin Devist, by the way. Welcome to Imperial Sleeper Cell Jenth-44."
"Nice to be here," Han said with only a hint of sarcasm. "So what happens now?"
"We talk," a voice came from their right.
Leia turned. Coming around the side of the Falcon was a man dressed in a TIE pilot's flight suit. About Sabmin's height and build, she noticed, with a shorter version of his same black hair and a well-trimmed beard. "My name's Carib Devist, Councilor Organa Solo," he said as he crossed toward Sabmin. "I'm sort of the spokesman for this group."
"You're Sabmin's brother?" Leia asked. The family resemblance was obvious. Carib smiled faintly. "That's what we tell people," he said. "Actually..." He stepped to Sabmin's side. "Seeing as you're a Jedi, I don't suppose it'll take you long." Leia frowned, wondering what he was getting at. The two of them just stood there, watching her, Sabmin's hair rustling in the breeze...
And then, abruptly, it hit her. Sabmin, Carib—
She twisted her head. Behind them, the men who'd been examining the Falcon had come out from under the ship and were standing silently in a row, also watching. Different clothing, different hairstyles, some with beards or mustaches, here and there a scar—
But otherwise identical. Completely identical. "Han...?"
"Yeah," he said; and as she focused on his thoughts, she knew that he'd caught on, too. "Brothers, huh?"
Carib shrugged uncomfortably. "It sounds better," he said quietly, "than clones." For a long minute the only sound was the soft hiss of the breeze rustling through the tallgrain stalks. "Ah," Han said at last, his voice studiously casual. "That's nice. So what's it like being a clone?" Carib smiled bitterly—the exact same smile, Leia noted with a private shudder, that Sabmin had shown a minute earlier. "About as you'd expect," he said. "It's the sort of secret that gets heavier with time and age."
"Yeah," Han said. "I can imagine."
Carib's face hardened. "Excuse me, Solo, but you can't possibly imagine it. Every time one of us leaves this valley it's with the knowledge that every outside contact puts our lives and those of our families at risk. The knowledge that all it will take will be one person suddenly looking at us with new eyes, and the whole carefully created soap bubble of the ever-so-close Devist family will collapse into the fire of hatred and rage and murder."
"I think you're overstating your case a little," Leia suggested. "We're a long way past the devastation of the Clone Wars. The old prejudices aren't nearly so strong anymore."
"You think not, Councilor?" Carib countered. "You're a sophisticated woman, a politician and diplomat, fully accustomed to dealing with the whole spectrum of sentient beings. And you're good at it. Yet you, too, are feeling uncomfortable in our presence. Admit it." Leia sighed. "Perhaps a little," she conceded. "But I don't know you as well as your friends and neighbors do."
Carib shook his head. "We have no friends," he said. "And if we're a long way past the Clone Wars, we're not nearly so far past Grand Admiral Thrawn's use of soldiers like us in his bid for power."
"Is that who you're working for now?" Leia asked, studying Carib's face. There was something disturbingly familiar about him...
"The orders have come in over Thrawn's name," Carib said cautiously. "But of course, you can put any name on any order."
&
nbsp; Beside her, Leia felt Han's sense suddenly change. "I got it," he said with a soft snap of his fingers.
"Baron Fel. Right?"
"Baron Soontir Fel?" Leia asked, her stomach tightening with the sudden realization. Yes, that was who Carib reminded her of: a young Soontir Fel. Once the Empire's top TIE pilot, Fel had married Wedge Antilles's sister and then been forced to strike a reluctant deal with Rogue Squadron to save his wife after Imperial Intelligence Director Ysanne Isard set out to kill her. The rescue had succeeded, but an impeccably laid trap had subsequently snared Fel himself back into Isard's hands. At that point he'd disappeared, presumably to a brief trial and a quick execution. Except that all that had happened only a few months after Endor, years before Thrawn had returned from the Unknown Regions and begun his cloning operation. Which left the question—
Han got there first. "So how come Fel lived long enough for Thrawn to get the cloning tanks up and running?" he asked.
Carib shook his head, a brief flicker of pain crossing his face. "We don't know," he said in a low voice. "Our flash-learning didn't include any of Fel's personal history. We assume—" He hesitated.
"We can only assume that whatever sympathies he might have had toward the New Republic were burned out of him by Isard."
"Or by Thrawn?" Han asked.
"Or by Thrawn," Carib agreed heavily. "Otherwise, I doubt Fel would have been thought reliable enough to have clones taken from him. No matter how good a pilot he was." There was another moment of silence. Leia stretched out with the Force, but if Carib was disturbed by the discussion of wrecked minds, it was masked by the odd clone-sense surrounding all of them. "Yet you saved our lives just now," she reminded him.
"Don't give them too much credit on that one," Han growled. "If they'd left us alone, we'd have hit dead center in this valley of theirs. You think their secret could have stood up to all the investigators who'd have swarmed over the place?"
"Yet our secret is now out anyway," Carib reminded him calmly. "Depending on what you decide to do."
"Maybe," Han said, his hand dropping casually to hover beside his blaster. "Or maybe depending on what you plan to do."
Carib shook his head. "You misunderstand. We have no intention of harming you. Nor do we wish to fight for Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Empire."
Han's forehead wrinkled. "So, what, you're surrendering?"
"Not exactly." Carib seemed to brace himself. "What we want—all that we want—is your word that we'll be left alone here."
Han and Leia exchanged glances. "You want what?" Leia asked.
"What, is that too high a price to pay for saving your lives?" Sabmin demanded. "Considering what you owe us—"
"Wait a minute," Han said, holding up a hand. "Let me get this straight. You were created by Thrawn?"
A muscle in Carib's cheek twitched, but he nodded. "Correct."
"This is Grand Admiral Thrawn we're talking about, right?" Han persisted. "The guy who wants to bring the Empire back? The guy who picked the best and most loyal TIE pilots, AT-AT drivers, and whatever to run through his clone tanks?"
Carib shook his head again. "You still don't understand. Certainly Baron Fel was loyal to the Empire, or at least what the Empire was before insane butchers like Isard took over. In his era, the Empire stood for stability and order."
"Which you in the New Republic could use a little more of at the moment," Sabmin put in pointedly.
"Let's leave the politics out of this," Leia put in quickly before Han could come up with a good retort. "I'm still confused. If Baron Fel was loyal to the Empire, and if you see the need to reestablish that kind of order—"
"And if Thrawn's really back," Han muttered.
"And if Thrawn's really back," Leia agreed, "then why would you want to sit this one out?" Carib smiled sadly. "Because for once, the great Grand Admiral Thrawn miscalculated," he said.
"There was one thing Fel cherished more than personal glory or even galactic stability." He waved a hand around him, the gesture taking in the fields surrounding them. "He loved the soil," he said quietly. "And so do we."
And finally Leia understood.
She looked at Han. "He's kidding, right?" her husband asked, his expression and thoughts clearly not believing any of it. "I mean—look, Luke couldn't wait to get off that farm on Tatooine."
"Luke was on a moisture farm in the middle of a desert," Leia reminded him, letting her gaze sweep slowly across the neat rows of tallgrain, her own memories of the rich vegetation of Alderaan tugging at her. "It was nothing like this."
"You feel it, too, don't you?" Carib said softly. "Then you understand." He looked around the fields. "This is our life now, Councilor. Our land and our families are what matter to us. Politics, war, even flying—that's all in the past." He brought his gaze back. "Do you believe us?"
"I'd like to," Leia said. "How far are you willing to go to prove it?" Carib braced himself. "As far as necessary."
Leia nodded and stepped up to him, sensing Han's flicker of uneasiness as she left his side, and locked eyes with the young clone. Calming her mind, she stretched out to his mind with the Force. He stood impassively, allowing the probe without flinching... and by the time she stepped back again, she had no more doubts. "He means it, Han," she confirmed. "They all do."
"So that's it, huh?" Han said. "We're just going to head off and leave them here?"
"We'll repair your ship first, of course," Carib said. "The MX droids that handle maintenance on our fighters can probably have it running in a day or two."
To Leia's surprise, Han shook his head. "Not good enough," he said firmly. "You're asking us to protect an Imperial sabotage group. That's a pretty big risk for us, you know." The group off to the side stirred. "What are you trying—?" someone began. Carib silenced him with a gesture, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You always were an operator, Solo," he said dryly. "What do you want?"
"You don't want to fight anymore," Han said. "That's fine; neither do we. But if we don't get this Caamas thing resolved fast, none of us are going to have any choice in the matter."
"Your point?" Carib asked.
"We need to find out which Bothans were involved in the hit on Caamas," Han said. "And there's only one place we know we can get those names from."
Carib's lips compressed briefly. "The Empire."
"Specifically, the central Imperial records library on Bastion," Leia said, seeing now where Han was going with this. "The problem is that we don't know where Bastion is."
"We don't either," Sabmin said. "Our orders come from the Ubiqtorate through a special channel. We've never been directly in touch with Bastion or the current Imperial leadership."
"Sure, but there must be some way you can get an emergency message to them," Han said.
"Imperial ops procedures can't have slipped that badly." Carib and Sabmin exchanged glances. "There is a place at the edge of Imperial space where we can go," Carib said doubtfully. "But it's not supposed to be used unless there's vital information that can't wait for proper channels."
"I think we can come up with something that qualifies," Han said. "If we can, will you take me out there?"
"Wait a minute," Leia cut in. "Don't you mean take us out there?"
"Sorry, hon," Han said, shaking his head. "But if there's one person everyone in the Empire knows by sight, it's you."
"Oh, really?" Leia countered. "You think you're any better?"
"I wasn't ever president of the New Republic," Han pointed out. "Besides, one of us has to go."
"Why?" Leia demanded, a dull ache around her heart. Han had done a lot of crazy things in his life; but walking into the heart of the Empire was beyond even his old smuggler's rashness. "The New Republic has other people they could send."
"Yeah, but which ones can we trust?" Han asked. "Besides, we don't have time to go back and hunt up a team. The whole New Republic's balanced on a blade edge right now."
"But you can't go alone," Leia insisted. "And
don't forget I'm a Jedi. Any trouble you get into—"
"We've got company," one of the clones announced suddenly, pointing. Leia looked. Just clearing the distant hills, a low-flying craft was burning through the air toward them. "Carib, you'd better get the others into the cave," she told him, running through her Jedi sensory-enhancement techniques and squinting at the approaching vehicle. "Better yet, you'd better all go. That looks like our Noghri guards' Khra shuttle."
"Too late," Carib said, his eyes on the approaching vehicle as he gestured the others to stay where they were. "If there are Noghri in there, they already have us under surveillance. Trying to slip out of sight now will just make things worse."
The shuttle was almost to them, skimming low over the tallgrain and showing no sign of stopping. Han made an unintelligible noise in the back of his throat, and even Leia felt a twinge of uncertainty. It looked like a Khra shuttle, but at the speed it was making, that was impossible to confirm. If it was instead a follow-up attack...
And then, at almost the last second, the craft braked hard, coming to a midair halt. A short gray figure dropped out the passenger-side door, and the shuttle shot off again, swinging high over the cave and hills before circling back toward the group gathered around the Falcon.
"Councilor," Barkhimkh said gravely, recovering his balance quickly after his three-meter drop and marching toward them. He had no visible weapons, but with a Noghri that didn't mean a lot. "The Pakrik Defense monitor said that a ship had come under attack, and surmised it was yours. We are pleased to find you uninjured."
"Thank you, Barkhimkh," Leia said, keeping her voice as gravely unemotional as his. What he really wanted to do, she knew, was to express his deep shame and self-loathing that he and Sakhisakh hadn't been there to help protect them from the attack. But he would never reveal even a hint of such feelings in front of strangers. "We appreciate your concern," she added. "As you see, we were able to land safely among friends."
"Yes," the Noghri said, his eyes measuring the group with a single well-trained glance. "I presume you will now be"—his voice faltered just slightly—"returning with us?" An almost undetectable slip; but for Leia it was enough. "No, it's all right," she said quickly, taking a step toward Carib. "They're not going to hurt us."
