by James Luceno
The man proceeded to the Drovian female receptionist at the front desk. “I have an appointment with Dr. Saychel.”
“Your name?” she asked, around the quid of zwil lodged in her cheek. “Cof Yoly.”
She motioned him to a seat. Moments later, she motioned him back to the desk, where a human voice addressed him through an intercom.
“This is Dr. Saychel. You asked for me?”
“Yes. I believe I contracted a case of trichinitis on Ampliquen.”
“Why didn’t you have it treated there?”
“The med center refused to honor my insurance.”
Saychel fell silent for a moment. “Take the door to the left of the desk and follow the routing lines to the lab.”
The routing lines took him past examination rooms and primitive operating theaters, in and out of wooden buildings, and finally through a maze of dimly lighted corridors that ended at the isolation ward, where victims of the Death Seed plague had been quarantined twelve years earlier. Saychel, the station chief of Nim Drovis, was wearing a partially sealed anticontamination suit and macrolens goggles.
“Welcome to Bagsho, Major Showolter,” Saychel said warmly. “I didn’t figure someone of your stature would come all this way.”
“Actually, I won the coin toss,” Showolter said.
“I guess I can understand everyone’s interest.”
Showolter and Saychel knew each other from Coruscant, where they had worked together in an Intelligence safe house in the bowels of the governmental district, and had occasionally hobnobbed with the likes of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Lando Calrissian. Saychel’s thick blond hair had since become a yellow-white helmet, and his cheeks were reddened by patches of burst capillaries.
“I’m certain it’s you,” Saychel said, “but I’d prefer to double-check.”
Showolter nodded and spread his arms for the scanner Saychel produced from one of the biohazard suit’s pouch pockets. “That’s what we pay you for, Professor.”
The scanner quickly located the implant Showolter wore in his right biceps and verified his identity.
“So where are our two prizes?” Showolter asked.
Saychel led him through a retinal-print-secured door to a large, one-way transparisteel window in the rear wall of the lab. Dressed in hospital robes, the two alleged defectors were seated on separate cots in the room behind the window, quietly conversing in what Showolter assumed was their own language. The room also contained a table, chairs, and a portable refresher unit.
Falling on the Yuuzhan Vong female, Showolter’s brown eyes widened with interest. “I didn’t think the enemy was capable of producing anything so attractive.”
“Yes,” Saychel agreed, peering through the transparisteel, “she is a handsome specimen.”
“And the other is, what—pet or partner?”
“A little of both, I think. They’re inseparable, in any case. And the ‘pet,’ for lack of a better word, seems every bit as intelligent as her mistress.”
“Her?”
“Indisputably. Perhaps of a species indigenous to the Yuuzhan Vong’s home galaxy or vat grown—genetically engineered.”
“Any problems with the transfer?”
Saychel shook his head. “Don’t ask me where they got it, but the team from the Soothfast brought them down the well in an energy cage. We moved them in here after we completed our initial scans and tests.”
“I read the reports. Any surprises?”
“None to speak of.”
“What about with the escape pod?”
“Similar to the Yuuzhan Vong fighters, though lacking weaponry. Composed of a type of black coral and propelled by a dovin basal—which unfortunately was dead on arrival.” Saychel indicated a nearby countertop, where a meter-wide, blue-spiked, heart-shaped mass floated in a large flask of preservative.
“More interesting than your standard repulsor engine.”
“Quite,” Saychel said humorlessly.
Showolter switched his gaze to a second, smaller flask, which held a brownish pod, about the size of a human head and crowned by a nubby ridge. “What’s that thing?”
Saychel moved to the flask. “It fits the description of a villip—an organic communicator.”
“Is it alive?”
“It seems to be.”
“Has it … said anything?”
“No. But then I didn’t think to pose it any questions.”
Showolter frowned, unconsciously massaging his right biceps, then turned to regard the captives. “Have they been fed?”
“Routinely. In fact, the little one has quite an appetite for our foodstuffs.”
“Maybe that’s the way we win this war: with food.”
“I’ve heard crazier suggestions.”
“Have you been able to talk to them?”
“The Yuuzhan Vong female—her name is Elan, by the way—speaks Basic. She says she learned it as part of her training.”
“As what?”
Saychel grinned. “Are you ready for this? A priestess.”
Showolter’s thick brows beetled. “You’re kidding.” He glanced at Elan. “I wonder if they’re celibate.”
“I didn’t think to ask,” Saychel said. “But she sounds sincere about wanting political asylum. I ran a voice-stress analysis just for fun, and the test results back me up.”
“Have they asked for anything else?”
“To meet with the Jedi. Elan claims to have information about a spore-borne illness the Yuuzhan Vong let loose before they launched their invasion.”
Showolter scratched his head. “The pet likes our food; the priestess speaks Basic, knows about the Jedi, and wants sanctuary … Next thing you’ll tell me they have a bet down on the smashball finals.” He sighed with purpose. “Director Scaur wants them transported to Wayland for a preliminary debriefing. Discreetly, of course. Our Noghri agents there have already been apprised.”
“You’ll be handling the relocation?”
Showolter nodded.
“It’s obviously a trap,” Saychel said. “These two, I mean.”
“Of course it is. But this could be our only chance to interrogate one of them, and we’re in no position to pass that up. Even if we do have to arrange a meeting with the Jedi.”
“Welcome aboard,” Roa said as he and Han reached the top of the SoroSuub 3000’s carpeted passenger ramp.
A quick look around, and it was Han’s turn to whistle. Even stock models of the sleek, arrowhead-shaped craft were considered luxury yachts, but the Happy Dagger raised the ante. From walkways to bulkheads, what wasn’t furniture-grade wood was made to appear so, and in every nook and niche stood a valuable work of art or costly hologram. A nearby acceleration couch was upholstered in crosh-hide and shimmersilk.
“Is this Fijisi?” Han asked in disbelief, squatting to run his fingers over a section of parquet.
“Actually it’s uwa,” Roa said. “Got it out of a salvaged Alderaanian pleasure craft. Pirates had stripped the thing of practically everything else.”
Han roamed about, inspecting details and shaking his head. “You know who used to fly one of these? Lando Calrissian. But even his didn’t measure up to this.”
“Unless Lando’s changed since I knew him, he probably spent more on tracking devices and weapons than it cost me to outfit the entire ship.”
“Maybe, maybe.” Han grinned at Roa, grateful for the opportunity to get back at him for the ribbing he’d taken at home. “So, what do you do, rent out cabin space to traveling jizz orchestras?”
Roa laughed shortly. “I make no secret of the fact that the tax-and-tariff agents I employed on Bonadan made me a wealthy man. But now this ship is all I have.”
He clapped Han on the shoulder and steered him toward the main forward hold, where a burnished silver protocol droid stepped from a forward compartment to intercept them. “Pardon me, Master Roa, but a stranger is approaching the ship.”
“Han, meet Void,” Roa said. “He esc
aped destruction at the hands of some antidroid zealots on Rhommamool, but the incident was so traumatizing he had to undergo a memory wipe. I picked him up for a song, but it cost me five hundred Coruscant credits to get him up to speed.”
Roa instructed Void to show him the stranger the security scanners had zeroed in on in the docking bay. A console screen instantly displayed video of a slight, brown-haired, blue-eyed teenager wearing an off-white, rough-weave tunic over brown leggings.
“You recognize him?” Roa asked.
Han’s eyes narrowed. “My younger son.”
Anakin was already at the foot of the Happy Dagger’s ramp by the time Han appeared. The scanners had captured the boy’s agitation. Now the disquiet turned to wariness. “Hey, Dad,” he said carefully.
Han stormed down the ramp and planted his hands on his hips, thumbs backward. “How’d you track me down?”
Anakin took a step back. “Mom said you were traveling with someone named Roa, and that you weren’t taking the Falcon. Wasn’t all that hard to locate the right docking bay.”
Han’s expression hardened. “I hope she didn’t send you here to find out where I’m going, because it’s like I told her, I don’t know yet.”
Anakin frowned. “She didn’t send me. I came on my own.”
“Oh,” Han said softly and awkwardly. “So …”
“I—I have something for you.” Anakin unclipped a small leather case from the belt that cinched his tunic. “Consider it a going-away present.”
The lightweight cylinder Han prized from the case was shorter than his hand and no more than four fingers wide. Scored along its length, it appeared to be made of some sort of shape-memory alloy.
“I give up,” he said at last. “What is it?”
“A survival tool.” Brightening slightly, Anakin took back the device and ran through procedures for accessing a score of miniature utensils, including knife blades, spanners, a luma, and the like. The tool even featured a macrofuser and a miniature transpirator.
For a moment, Han didn’t know what to say. “Look, kid, it’s a clever piece of hardware, but I don’t have any hiking trips planned for the near future.”
“Chewie made it for me,” Anakin said evenly.
Han’s face fell. “All the more reason I can’t take it, if he made it for you.”
Anakin placed it in Han’s hand nevertheless. “I want you to have it, Dad.” His eyes darted nervously.
Han started to protest but thought better of it. The tool was a peace offering, and refusing to accept it would only widen the rift that had separated them since Sernpidal.
“First, Chewie’s bowcaster and shoulder bag, now a survival tool. I usually don’t do this well at birthdays.” He forced a smile and turned the tool about in his hands. “Who knows, maybe it’ll come in handy.”
“I hope it does,” Anakin muttered.
Han lifted an eyebrow. “Why’s that sound like some cryptic remark your uncle would make?”
“I only meant that Chewie would get a kick out of your using something he made.”
“Yeah, he probably would at that,” Han said, averting his gaze. “Thanks, kid.”
Anakin was about to speak when Roa called down to Han from the top of the ramp.
“We’re cleared for liftoff.”
Han turned to Anakin. “Time to go.”
“Sure, Dad. Take care.”
They embraced, stiffly and briefly. Han started for the Happy Dagger but stopped halfway up the ramp and swung back to Anakin. “It’s going to be all right, you know.”
Anakin stared at him, blinking back tears. “What is—the war, my feeling terrible about Chewie, or your taking off without letting anyone know where you’re going?”
TEN
Imposing in size, coloration, and carriage, Commander Tla paced back and forth at the foot of the rough-hewn command platform at the heart of Harrar’s ship. Dangling from the points of his broad shoulders, the commander’s long campaign cloak swished as he swung to face the priest and Nom Anor.
“Destroying the spawn ship was a profligate act,” Tla bellowed. “You should have found some other way to place Elan in their hands.”
“Other stratagems might have proved even more costly in the long run,” Harrar countered. “As it was, the crew of the spawn ship went willingly to their deaths, content to be ennobled by the importance of the sacrifice.”
Tla cast an angry glance at his tactician. Promoted in the wake of Shedao Shai’s death on Ithor, Tla wore his rank like a scowl.
“All respects, Eminence Harrar,” Raff said, “but this isn’t some game that can be decided by cleverness. We’re waging a holy war.”
“Ah, but any war is always a game of sorts. We needed to make certain that Elan’s flight from us appeared credible.”
Tla scoffed. “You’re newly arrived in this arena, priest. You don’t give the infidels enough credit. They will lay your artifice bare before long.”
“Indeed? Would it surprise you to learn that Elan has already been taken into protective custody?”
Tactician Raff showed Harrar a dubious look. “I would advise you not read too much into that, Eminence. Elan is the first of us they have managed to capture alive.”
“Of course. But the point is that I know where she is, and I know where she is to be taken next.”
Tla turned skeptically to Nom Anor. “Is this the doing of your dupes and agents, Executor?”
Nom Anor smiled faintly, but shook his head. “Unfortunately, no, Commander.”
“Then how do you know?” Tla demanded.
Harrar motioned to one of his acolytes, who carried forward, as one might a newborn, a light-brown and slightly oblate villip. Carefully, Harrar took the villip into his hands, then cradled it in his left arm.
“Elan’s captors were beguiled enough to bring this little one’s twin along with Elan. It has been most dutiful in reporting back to us.” Harrar stroked the villip’s ridge with his three-fingered right hand. “Come, little one, repeat what you told me earlier.”
Commander Tla and the tactician moved closer in interest.
The puckered tissue at the center of the nubby ridge expanded, and the villip began to turn inside out. Fully everted, the creature did its best to mimic Elan’s comely features.
“Way-land,” the creature said. “Way-llland.”
* * *
Slowed by braking thrusters, the civilian shuttle Segue coursed above the craggy northeastern uplands of Wayland’s principal continent. Dense, canopied forest cloaked the southern slopes of now truncated Mount Tantiss, but to the east lay vast areas denuded by the seismic explosion that had destroyed Emperor Palpatine’s storehouse more than fifteen years earlier.
One of three passengers in the shuttle, Belindi Kalenda, NRI’s deputy director of operations, pressed her face to the window to soak in as much of the view as possible. As the shuttle continued to descend, a small city came into view at the base of the mountain.
“I’m shocked,” Kalenda remarked to her seatmate. “I was picturing New Nystao as little more than a hamlet.” Slim and dark-complected, with widely spaced eyes and a husky voice, she had been with NRI for only twelve years, but her success in foiling a dangerous conspiracy in the Corellian system had resulted in rapid advancement.
Xenobiologist Joi Eicroth leaned toward the window to have a look. “It started out that way. Now there are close to ten thousand living in the immediate area. Myneyrshi, Psadans, and humans, in addition to the five hundred or so Noghri that founded the place.”
“And everyone gets along?”
“So far.”
Kalenda laughed, mostly to herself. “The Noghri despise anything related to Palpatine, but they’re fine living on a world he named.”
“It has never been documented that Wayland was Palpatine’s code name for the planet,” Dr. Yintal said from the seat behind the two women. “I submit that human colonists conceived the appellation long before the Emperor decided to use Mount
Tantiss as a treasure vault.”
An analyst for Fleet Intelligence, Yintal was a small pensive man, and the suddenness of his outburst prompted Kalenda and Eicroth to exchange secret smiles of amusement.
“And where else would the Noghri get to pile dirt on anything that belonged to Palpatine, right, Doc?” Eicroth asked over her shoulder.
“That’s certainly a contributing factor to their contentment with the arrangements,” he observed coolly.
The shuttle circled, then settled down on a landing pad in the center of New Nystao. The three passengers gathered their belongings and waited at the hatchway. Wayland greeted them with resplendent light and crisp, sweet-smelling air.
A hodgepodge of wattle huts, wooden buildings, and stone mansions, the burgeoning city reflected its mix of cultures. Perplexing, however, was the profusion of hotels and ethnic restaurants that surrounded the landing pad. Kalenda was about to quiz Eicroth when Major Showolter arrived on the scene perched atop an old SoroSuub Corvair landspeeder. Out of passenger compartments missing their folding access panels climbed two Noghri.
Showolter was sporting tinted driver’s goggles and a locally purchased poncho. He saluted Kalenda and shook hands with Eicroth and Yintal. Then he introduced everyone to Mobvekhar and Khakraim of clan Hakh’khar, who were attached to NRI’s safe house. The pleasant sunshine did little to soften the savage brawn and vampiric hideousness of the gnomish gray beings.
Kalenda peered dubiously into the passenger compartment of the battered landspeeder. “Is there room for all of us in this thing?”
“I thought we’d walk,” Showolter said, making it sound like a question. “It’s not far.”
Kalenda made an ushering motion with her hand. “Lead on, Major.”
The Noghri insisted on carrying the bags. The narrow pressbonded lanes were crowded with spindly Myneyrshi, armored Psadans, humans, and Noghri, but interspersed among them were small groups of Bimms, Falleen, Bothans, and other species, lingering in front of hotels or sipping drinks at streetside café tables.
