The ambush had been perfectly planned. Before the dozing recon-X pilots and startled shuttle passengers even understood what was happening, their ships were bracketed in a furious ion-cannon crossfire. The fighters were disabled almost at once, then left drifting, ignored. The unarmed but better-shielded shuttle took more subduing but was soon dead in space, unable to maneuver or escape.
Shortly after, Tampion was moving away from its escorts on a new course, under tow alongside one of the spherical thrustships. Raging over his impotence, unable even to signal the other pilots, Plat Mallar watched the pair jump out toward Koornacht. The Cluster filled the entire sky on the starboard side of his ship, like a painting of a swarm of night sparks.
Mallar was never so sure of death as he was when the shuttle vanished. Helpless as the fighters were, any one of the five remaining ships could have dispatched them at leisure.
Instead, the five ships gracefully arrayed themselves in a V, with the Interdictor in the lead position. Moments later they jumped away from the ambush point, their mission seemingly complete.
Why did they leave us alive? Mallar wondered.
An answer came to him almost at once, and it made him feel sick inside. So we could tell the Fleet, tell Coruscantywhat happened to the commodore. So we would know that they have him.
Han was brought before Nil Spaar not as a trophy, but as an object of curiosity.
The encounter was in private, with no one else present except for Han’s guards—two immensely strong male Yevetha who carried no weapons and seemed unlikely to need any, given how Han was bound. And the setting for the encounter was puzzling—not a throne room or arena of humiliation for the conquered, but a tile-wrapped chamber with floor gutters and valve jets mounted high on the walls. It made Han think of a shower stall, or an abattoir—and he wished he hadn’t thought of the second possibility.
As the Yevethan viceroy slowly circled his prisoner, he took particular interest in the bruises and burns Han had acquired by resisting when the soldiers boarded Tampion. Nil Spaar leaned in close to study the marks but was careful not to touch Han, even with gloved hands.
“You are the mate of Leia.”
“I guess that secret’s out,” said Han, deciding to try to take his captor’s measure. “And you’re Nil Spaar. I’ve heard a lot about you, all of it bad. You’ve moved right to the top of my least favorite people list. I had to drop Jabba the Hutt off to make room for you. It’s only fair to tell you that my number one goal in life is to outlive everyone on the list. I was halfway there before you replaced Jabba.”
The Yevethan ruler did not seem to take any notice of Han’s goading. “What sort of vermin are you?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘scoundrel,’ as in ‘Corellian scoundrel,’” Han said. “I’ve also answered to ‘rascal,’ ‘pirate,’ ‘smuggler,’ ‘wretched scum,’ ‘toad-licker,’ and a few others. Not all of those are considered polite where I come from, though—so I don’t always answer politely. Just so you’ll know, ‘vermin’ probably counts as impolite.”
“You are stronger than she,” Nil Spaar said, cocking his head. “Why do you follow her? Why do you not lead?”
Han answered with a contemptuous gaze and a shake of his head. “I was gonna tell you that grabbing me was the biggest mistake you ever made,” he said. “Now I see it’s the second biggest. You’ve misjudged Leia from the beginning. Day in and day out, she might just be the strongest person I know. And you’re gonna find that out the hard way now.”
Saying nothing, Nil Spaar retreated to the far end of the chamber, as if to leave. Then he gestured to the guards and spoke a few words in an unfamiliar language. One guard stepped away from Han to stand against the wall. The other, the crests at his temples swelling, stepped in front of Han and swung on him with such speed that Han could not duck away.
The blow fell on his right arm, right above the blaster burn from Captain Sreas’s panicky, mistimed shot. The force of the blow drove the ball into his shoulder joint, leaving the arm suddenly numb. The next was aimed at his face, and Han was able to soften the impact by turning with it. But it still scalded him with pain.
The beating seemed unpracticed, experimental. Nil Spaar stood calmly watching, as though waiting for something—an almost clinical curiosity, with no sign of gloating. Han wondered if the guard had ever seen a human before and tried to make note of how and where he was struck, thinking it might offer clues to Yevethan vulnerabilities.
It lasted only until a head shot left Han crumpled on his side on the floor with blood running from his mouth and nose. Then Nil Spaar spoke sharply to the guard, who immediately backed away. The viceroy approached Han and crouched down beside him, peering curiously at the injuries. He reached out with one gloved hand and dabbed the fingertips in the small pool of blood collecting by Han’s head. Bringing the glove up to his face, he passed the bloody fingertips through the air over the ridges of his face, as though sniffing them.
“Your blood is weak—as weak as any vermin’s,” Nil Spaar said. “It does not cause the heart to rise. It does not feed the mara-nas. It does not ripen the birth-cask. I do not see why she has given herself to you. I do not see why you did not die unmated.”
Then he stood, stripped off his gloves, and dropped them on the tile. “Tar makara,” he said to the guards. “Talbran.”
Both knelt and offered their necks to the viceroy. “Ko, darama,” they murmured.
When Nil Spaar was gone, the guards scrubbed Han and the chamber down with equal diligence and vigor, then took him away, back to the cell where Lieutenant Barth and the body of Captain Sreas were waiting.
Admiral Ackbar returned to the family room wearing a longer face than he had when he left a few moments before. He looked at Leia, who was sitting in the middle of the floor, her arms wrapped around Jaina, whispering words of hope and comfort to her, and knew that those words could not possibly reach the anguish in Leia’s own heart.
“Leia.” Ackbar cleared his throat. “Will you come with me, please? There is something you must do, and I’m afraid it cannot wait.”
She looked at him with a plaintive look that said, Please. No more. But she let Winter take Jaina and followed Ackbar out of the room and into the yard.
“Have you heard something more about Han? Something from the Yevetha?”
Ackbar shook his head and gestured down the walk toward the gate, where a messenger stood waiting outside.
Throwing Ackbar a disbelieving look, Leia moved down the path to where S-EP1 was vigilantly guarding the entry.
“Princess Leia, I have been sent by the acting chairman of the Ruling Council of the Senate to deliver this summons into your hands.”
She reached out and took it from him. As she did, she saw Behn-kihl-nahm standing a few steps behind the messenger, hovering at the edge of the shadows.
“I’m sorry,” he said, moving forward. “There was nothing I could do.”
“Let Bennie in, Sleepy,” Leia said, stepping back to make room on the path. “Who? Who would do this to me now?”
Behn-kihl-nahm’s face wrinkled, as though he was reluctant to answer. “The summons is at the initiative of Chairman Beruss.”
Bail Organa’s old friend, and second only to Bennie as her ally. The name hit her like a roundhouse punch. “Why?” she asked plaintively.
“Doman feels that someone less personally involved must make the decisions now,” Behn-kihl-nahm said gently. “He hopes you will understand this and step down on your own. He fears that you may act—precipitously.”
“Precipitously!” Her laugh had a bitter edge. “Oh, he knows me—I’d like nothing more than to send the Fifth in to burn the Yevetha off the face of N’zoth. But how can I? How can I do anything, Bennie?” she asked, her voice pleading for an answer. “The Yevetha have my husband. My children’s father is in the hands of Nil Spaar.”
nter>
Shield of Lies Page 32
