by James Luceno
Nom Anor placed himself in Elan’s view. “Unfortunately, I know of no accessories that will guarantee your success with New Republic Intelligence. That would depend on you. You would begin by claiming to have information regarding the coomb spores I introduced. You would, however, insist on delivering that information only to the Jedi. But be warned: the Jedi possess a kind of divining ability. They would be quick to discover deception—even in one trained since youth to beguile and mislead. Thus the need for a quick-acting toxin, carried by a quick-thinking host.”
Harrar extended the pinched creature to Elan. “Quickly, Elan, take it in your palm and clench your hand around it.”
Elan stared at him. “Should I do so, I am committed.”
Harrar gazed back at her. “I will not command you to accept this charge, Elan. The choice is yours.”
Elan looked to Vergere. “How would you counsel me?”
Vergere’s oblique eyes clouded over with sadness. “I would counsel you to refuse, Mistress. And yet you have long desired to be tested. To be given a mission worthy of your talents. Sadly, I know of no more unswerving path to escalation.”
Harrar glanced at the priestess’s exotic pet. “Take her along if it pleases you, Elan. She may even prove to be of assistance.”
Elan looked at Vergere once more. “You would accompany me?”
“When have I not?”
Elan took the minuscule creature into her hand and closed her long fingers around it. When she relaxed her hand, the thing had been absorbed.
“It will migrate to your lungs and there mature,” Nom Anor said, smiling. “You will know when the toxin has reached maximum potency. Then you will loose your four breaths against as many Jedi as you can arrange to be gathered in one place.”
Elan looked at Harrar. “What then, Eminence?”
“What’s to become of you, you mean?” Harrar took hold of her fine hand, examining the palm that had absorbed the carrier. “Nom Anor and I will do all we can to monitor your whereabouts, but I cannot promise you rescue, only exaltation. Should you succeed, you will either die with the Jedi or face execution afterwards.”
Elan grinned faintly. “That choice is also mine.”
Harrar patted her hand. “Look to the world beyond for recompense, Elan. I envy you your imminent departure.”
Cordoned off by kshyy vines and Wookiee security guards, the Millennium Falcon sat on landing platform Thiss, alongside the shuttle Luke, Jacen, Anakin, and Lowbacca had flown to Kashyyyk. What remained of a wroshyr limb horizontally pruned close to the trunk, the fire-blackened platform at the edge of Rwookrrorro was large enough to accommodate passenger liners, but the Falcon and the sleek shuttle had the stage to themselves. Not since Chewbacca had piloted the Falcon to Kashyyyk during the Yevethan crisis had the city drawn so many well-wishers, tourists, and curiosity seekers. From Karryntora, Northaykk, the Wartaki Islands, and the distant Thikkiiana Peninsula they came, most in the hope of catching a glimpse of Luke, Han, or Leia, but many to have a look at the Corellian YT-1300 freighter Chewbacca and Han had made famous.
Like a taurill navigating a field of profligate shag ferns, Han edged his way through a throng of vociferous Wookiees intent on snapping his spine with backslapping blows or fracturing his ribs with crushing hugs. By the time he stumbled into the cordoned-off area surrounding the Falcon he looked as if he’d gone one too many rounds in a g-force simulator. Leia, Luke, the kids, and the droids were waiting at the foot of the extended boarding ramp.
“Dad, I thought we weren’t leaving until tomorrow,” Jaina said as Han approached.
“Change of plans,” he muttered. “Did you do a preflight?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then let’s get everyone aboard and raise ship.”
“Why the rush, Han?” Luke said, purposely stepping into his path. The cowl of his Jedi cloak was thrown back, and his lightsaber hung from the belt that cinched his black robes. “Are we running toward something or away from it?”
Han stopped short. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Leia wince and turn to one side. “How’s that again?” he asked Luke.
Luke’s expression was unreadable. “Pressing concerns on Coruscant?”
Han worked his jaw. “Tomorrow, today, what difference does it make? But if you have to know, yeah, pressing concerns. A little matter called the Yuuzhan Vong and the fate of the galaxy.”
“Han—”
“Don’t!” Han interrupted. He bit back whatever he was going to say and began again in a more controlled voice. “Luke, it’s just that I’ve had my fill of sympathy. So let’s just drop it.”
“If that’s what you want, Han.”
Han started up the ramp, then stopped and whirled. “You know, I don’t know what’s worse, everybody’s fumbling attempts to make me feel better or your self-importance. You may think you have me figured out, pal, but you don’t. Not by a long shot. Oh, I know you’ve lost friends and family, and now, with Mara being sick and all, but Chewie gave his life for my son, and that makes it different. You can’t know about that, Luke.”
“I don’t pretend to know about that,” Luke said calmly. “But as you say, I do know something about grief.”
Han held up his hands. “Don’t talk to me about the Force—not now. I told you a long time ago I don’t believe in one power controlling everything, and maybe I was right, after all.”
“After all we’ve been through?”
“What we’ve been through,” Han said, pointing his forefinger at Luke’s face, “had a lot more to do with blasterfire than swordplay, and you know it.”
“It was the Force that brought down the Empire.”
“And just how does that help me?” Han glanced around at Leia, their three children, Lowbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2, all of whom looked uncomfortable. “I don’t have the abilities of a Jedi or the delete functions of a droid. I’m just a normal guy with normal feelings and maybe more than his share of shortcomings. I don’t see Chewie, Luke. Not the way you claim to have seen Obi-Wan, Yoda, and your father. I don’t have the Force at my back.”
“But you do, Han. That’s all I’m trying to tell you. Let go of your anger and bitterness and you will see Chewie.”
Han opened his mouth and closed it. He spun on his heels and hurried up the ramp only to stop and reverse directions again. “I’m not ready to walk this plank,” he grated as he passed Luke.
“Han!” Leia shouted.
He turned, but looked through her at Jaina. “Take the Falcon back to Coruscant.”
Jaina’s eyes widened. She swallowed hard and stammered, “But what about you?”
“I’ll find my own way back,” he yelled over his shoulder as he marched off.
In the command center of Harrar’s faceted ship, a bio-engineered quadruped the size of an Ewok was meandering about the confines of the inhibition field, employing its long snout as a vacuum to rid the area of the carcasses of the carriers birthed by the assassin’s toxic exhalation. The dead captives—along with the body of their assassin—had yet to be removed.
Harrar and Nom Anor stood at the perimeter of the field, watching the creature at work. Elan and Vergere had left the compartment.
“Much hinges on the success of this plan,” Harrar remarked.
“More than you know,” Nom Anor agreed. “Ever since Prefect Da’Gara’s failure at Helska, I am not held in the esteem I once was.”
“I have faith in you, Executor.”
Nom Anor inclined his head in thanks. “Do you think Elan will elect to die with the Jedi, or take her chances that the New Republic will spare her life?”
“I suspect she will die with the Jedi.”
“And that doesn’t trouble you? After all, her domain is very powerful. Her father has the ear of Supreme Overlord Shimrra, does he not?”
“He is a high priest,” Harrar said, then sighed with purpose. “Only Elan can carry this task to fruition. I will lament her death. But it’s often necessary to sacrifice
the bait to ensnare the quarry.”
FIVE
The Millennium Falcon put verdant Kashyyyk behind her. Jaina and Leia sat side by side in the outrigger cockpit, with C-3PO, quieter than usual, behind them in the navigator’s chair. At Streen’s unexpected request, Luke was taking everyone else to Yavin 4. Jaina might have gone along, but Leia had said she didn’t want to pilot the Falcon home alone.
While the navicomputer calculated lightspeed coordinates for the jump to Coruscant, Jaina glanced at her mother, who looked small and fragile in the oversize seat Chewie had occupied for so many years. She had scarcely said a word since lifting off from platform Thiss.
“Not often I get to fly Dad’s ship,” Jaina said casually, hoping to open a conversation.
Leia reacted as if she had been yanked from a trance. “What?”
“I said I was surprised Dad asked me to fly the Falcon home.”
Leia smiled at her. “Record holder at Lando’s Folly … Rogue Squadron pilot … Your father thinks very highly of your skills.”
Jaina was quiet for a moment. “I hope he gets home all right.”
Leia laughed. “Don’t worry, he’ll hop a freighter or a trader’s ship and probably beat us back to Coruscant. He doesn’t need help in that area.”
“Or any other area,” Jaina said, frowning.
Leia made her lips a thin line and took her daughter’s hand. “Don’t confuse refusing help with not needing it.”
“Why is he like that?”
“How much time do we have?” Leia joked. “The short answer is that your father wasn’t raised the way you and I were. He didn’t have the support of a family or the comfort of a stable home.” She shook her head. “He’s been so many things—a swoop racer, a pilot, an officer in the Imperial Navy, a smuggler—but all those occupations have one thing in common: they require extreme self-reliance and a certain amount of aloofness. He didn’t grow up accustomed to getting help, so he’s certainly not about to ask for it.”
“But he’s been acting like he’s the only one who misses Chewie.”
“He knows that isn’t true, and he’s aware of how he’s been acting. When he and I returned to Sernpidal after Chewie died, he told me he suddenly felt that the world had become unsafe—that he’d always thought of our family and close friends as almost immune to tragedy, living in a kind of bubble. How all of us have managed to survive the things we’ve been through is nothing short of astonishing. But all the narrow escapes, the flirting with death, only made Han feel more invulnerable. Chewie’s death changed that. Your father even included Mara’s illness as evidence of how insecure and unpredictable everything has become.”
Leia paused, recalling something. “It didn’t occur to me until later on that I’d heard him express the same doubts once before—just after you and Jacen and Anakin had been kidnapped by Hethrir. Do you remember how protective he became?”
Jaina shook her head. “Not really.”
“Well, you were pretty young. But trust me, your dad wouldn’t let any of you kids out of his sight for months.” Leia glanced at Jaina. “He’d like to have everyone believe he’s a hardened skeptic, but the fact is, he runs on faith.”
“Then why is he keeping such a distance from everyone?”
“Because giving in to his pain would require him to break down and really grieve, instead of shutting himself off from the world. And he’s too slick for that.”
“Is that how he got that nickname?”
Leia shook her head. “That’s another story.”
Jaina tortured her lower lip with her teeth. “Mom, he will come home, won’t he? I mean, we’re all he has right now, right?”
“Of course,” Leia started to say, when C-3PO interjected, “I only hope it’s enough.”
Mif Kumas, Calibop sergeant at arms of the New Republic Senate for two terms running, spread his wings as he rose from his commodious seat on the dais of Coruscant’s Grand Convocation Chamber.
“Senators, I would caution you to refrain from disrupting these proceedings with vocal displays or outbursts, warranted or otherwise.” Kumas waited until everyone had fallen silent, then inclined his maned head toward the speaker’s rostrum that stood opposite the dais on the polished stone floor of the great hall. “Director bel-dar-Nolek of the Obroan Institute has been recognized, and he deserves to be heard out.”
Nodding curtly to Kumas in appreciation, bel-dar-Nolek resumed his tirade. “Furthermore, it is the Institute’s contention that the New Republic has failed to honor its obligation to provide defense where needed.”
A human of considerable girth, he affected custom-tailored suits and a walking cane hand-carved from greel wood. His jowls quivered as he spoke, and he frequently punctuated his remarks by stabbing the air with a chubby forefinger.
“It was clear to the members of this body that Obroa-skai was imperiled, but nothing was done to safeguard us from attack. The Yuuzhan Vong descended on us like velkers, picking our cities clean.” He paused to clear his throat. “I was tending to business on Coruscant at the time, but I have seen the holo reports.”
Hushed utterings, few of them flattering, spread through the hall, prompting Kumas to repeat his appeal for some measure of decorum. Gratified by the commotion his remarks had elicited, bel-dar-Nolek folded his stout arms and rested them on his ample abdomen.
Tiers of randomly positioned galleries, boxes, and balconies loomed on all sides, rising clear to the domed ceiling, with page, protocol, and interpreter droids moving along the ramps, bridges, and stairways that linked them. While placement was not an indication of rank, many of the senators seated in the upper levels represented worlds only recently admitted to the New Republic and were frequently regarded by the lower-tier delegates as audience members rather than participants. As an appeasement to them, there was talk of equipping some of the loftiest galleries with detachable hover platforms, such as had been used in the waning days of the Old Republic, but no one gave the rumors much credence.
From one of those galleries came the voice of Thuv Shinev, spokesperson for 175 inhabited planets in the outer reaches of the Tion Hegemony. Simultaneously, a life-size hologram of the human senator resolved from a projector well on the chamber floor between the speaker’s rostrum and the advisory council’s dais, with its tight arc of heterogeneous chairs. Anyone in doubt as to the senator’s identity could access information on small displays built into the armrests of every chair in the hall.
“I submit to this body that a task force was deployed to protect Obroa-skai,” Shinev argued, “and that all within reason was done.”
Bel-dar-Nolek addressed Shinev’s hologram. “A pair of reconditioned Golan Defense Platforms and a couple of antique warships hardly constitute a task force, Senator.”
“That was all that could be spared, Director,” Bothan Chief of State Borsk Fey’lya growled from his seat on the dais. His violet eyes flashed. “What’s more, I find such recriminations reprehensible, in light of the enemy’s erratic movements and often unpredictable strategies.”
Bel-dar-Nolek spread his hands placatingly. “Chief Fey’lya, I’m simply trying to prevent further errors in judgment. It’s one thing to ignore the pleas of Outer Rim worlds, but to allow a world of Obroa-skai’s prominence to fall into enemy hands—”
“I object to the director’s blatant chauvinism!” the senator from Agamar interrupted. “And by what right does Obroa-skai portray itself as a cynosure?”
Bel-dar-Nolek glowered at the human and flung his words with brutal carelessness. “Obroa-skai’s dedication to the perpetuation of cultural diversity makes it more important than other worlds. I demand that something be done to rescue what remains of our historical documents before it’s too late.”
“Secretary Kumas,” a deep and mellifluous female voice rang out, “I ask to be recognized.”
Kumas spread his wings. “The senate recognizes Senator Viqi Shesh of Kuat.”
A slender, handsome woman of indeterminate age,
Shesh flipped radiant black hair over her shoulder as she rose from her balcony seat. Relatively new to politics, she had quickly become known as a clever deal maker, with a knack for keeping all sides happy. The media had taken an immediate interest in her, to the point where she had been the subject of countless news stories, and her face was almost as widely recognized as that of Chief of State Fey’lya.
“On the matter of rescuing data, Director, it is my understanding that shiploads of important documents were relocated to the Institute’s facility on Coruscant well in advance of the attack on Obroa-skai. Was I misinformed?”
“A fraction of what we had hoped to save,” bel-dar-Nolek countered nastily.
Shesh beetled her fine brows and nodded in a way that combined gravity and conceit. “Forgive my saying so, but the past concerns me far less than the future. While the loss of Obroa-skai is a terrible blow, the New Republic military is hardly in a position to spare ships to retake a world when it is already overextended in defending so many others. The Yuuzhan Vong are widening their hold of key sectors in the Outer and Mid Rims, and unless their advance is thwarted, they could reach the Colonies or the Core in a standard year, leaving even Coruscant itself vulnerable to assault.”
Bel-dar-Nolek studied her stonily. “I see through you, Senator. Obroa-skai was surrendered because it lacks strategic value. When Yuuzhan Vong warships begin to close on Kuat, Chandrila, or Bothawui, I doubt very much that the New Republic fleets will be otherwise engaged. The military was in force at Ithor. Even the Imperial Remnant.”
“And Ithor was despoiled in spite of our efforts,” Shesh said. “I sympathize, Director, but I certainly don’t see what can be done now.”
Bel-dar-Nolek slammed his fist into his open hand. “We can appeal to the Yuuzhan Vong to allow Obroaskai to remain accessible to scholars.”
Denunciations flew from every quarter. While Kumas was attempting to restore order, Borsk Fey’lya got to his feet, his cream-colored fur bristling. “It is not the policy of this body to bargain with aggressors,” he pronounced, in a way that left little room for argument.
