by Timothy Zahn
“Payment for which requires that much more service from your sons.” Leia nodded, grimacing. Permanent debt—the oldest form of covert slavery in the galaxy.
“It also encourages the sending away of our sons,” the maitrakh added bitterly. “Even if the Empire allowed it, we could not now bring all our sons home. We would not have food for them.”
Leia nodded again. It was as neat and tidy a box as she’d ever seen anyone trapped in. She should have expected no less from Vader and the Emperor. “You’ll never be entirely out of their debt,” she told the maitrakh bluntly. “You know that, don’t you? As long as you’re useful to them, the Grand Admiral will make sure of that.”
“Yes,” the maitrakh said softly. “It has taken a long time, but I now believe that. If all Noghri believed so, changes could perhaps be made.”
“But the rest of the Noghri still believe the Empire is their friend?”
“Not all believe so. But enough.” She stopped and gestured upward. “Do you see the starlight, Lady Vader?”
Leia looked up at the concave dish that hung four meters off the ground at the intersection of the wall support chains. About a meter and a half across, it was composed of some kind of black or blackened metal and perforated with hundreds of tiny pinholes. With the light from the inside rim of the dish winking through like stars, the whole effect was remarkably like a stylized version of the night sky. “I see it.”
“The Noghri have always loved the stars,” the maitrakh said, her voice distant and reflective. “Once, long ago, we worshiped them. Even after we knew what they were they remained our friends. There were many among us who would have gladly gone with the Lord Vader, even without our debt, for the joy of traveling among them.”
“I understand,” Leia murmured. “Many in the galaxy feel the same way. It’s the common birthright of us all.”
“A birthright which we have now lost.”
“Not lost,” Leia said, dropping her gaze from the star dish. “Only misplaced.” She looked over at Khabarakh and Chewbacca. “Perhaps if I talked to all the Noghri leaders at once.”
“What would you say to them?” the maitrakh countered.
Leia bit at her lip. What would she say? That the Empire was using them? But the Noghri perceived it as a debt of honor. That the Empire was pacing the cleanup job so as to keep them on the edge of self-sufficiency without ever reaching it? But at the rate the decontamination was going she would be hard-pressed to prove any such lagging, even to herself. That she and the New Republic could give the Noghri back their birthright? But why should they believe her?
“As you see, Lady Vader,” the maitrakh said into the silence. “Perhaps matters will someday change. But until then, your presence here is a danger to us as much as to you. I will honor the pledge of protection made by my thirdson, and not reveal your presence to our lord the Grand Admiral. But you must leave.”
Leia took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said, the word hurting her throat. She’d had such hopes for her diplomatic and Jedi skills here. Hopes that those skills, plus the accident of her lineage, would enable her to sweep the Noghri out from under the Empire’s fist and bring them over to the New Republic.
And now the contest was over, almost before it had even begun. What in space was I thinking about when I came here? she wondered bleakly. “I will leave,” she said aloud, “because I don’t wish to bring trouble to you or your family. But the day will come, maitrakh, when your people will see for themselves what the Empire is doing to them. When that happens, remember that I’ll always be ready to assist you.”
The maitrakh bowed low. “Perhaps that day will come soon, Lady Vader. I await it, as do others.”
Leia nodded, forcing a smile. Over before it had begun … “Then we must make arrangements to—”
She broke off as, across the room, the double doors flew open and one of the child door wardens stumbled inside. “Maitrakh!” he all but squealed. “Mira’kh saar khee hrach’mani vher ahk!”
Khabarakh was on his feet in an instant; out of the corner of her eye, Leia saw Threepio stiffen. “What is it?” she demanded.
“It is the flying craft of our lord the Grand Admiral,” the maitrakh said, her face and voice suddenly very tired and very alien.
“And it is coming here.”
CHAPTER
13
For a single heartbeat Leia stared at the maitrakh, her muscles frozen with shock, her mind skidding against the idea as if walking on ice. No—it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. The Grand Admiral had been here just last night—surely he wouldn’t be coming back again. Not so soon.
And then, in the distance, she heard the faint sound of approaching repulsorlifts, and the paralysis vanished. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “Chewie—?”
“There is no time,” Khabarakh called, sprinting toward them with Chewbacca right on his heels. “The shuttle must already be in sight beneath the clouds.”
Leia looked quickly around the room, silently cursing her moment of indecision. No windows; no other doors; no cover except the small booth that faced the wall genealogy chart from across the dukha.
No way out.
“Are you certain he’s coming here?” Leia asked Khabarakh, realizing as she spoke that the question was a waste of breath. “Here to the dukha, I mean?”
“Where else would he come?” Khabarakh countered darkly, his eyes on the maitrakh. “Perhaps he was not fooled, as we thought.”
Leia looked around the dukha again. If the shuttle landed by the double doors, there would be a few seconds before the Imperials entered when the rear of the building would be out of their view. If she used those seconds to cut them an escape hole with her lightsaber …
Chewbacca’s growled suggestion echoed her own train of thought. “Yes, but cutting a hole isn’t the problem,” she pointed out. “It’s how to seal it up afterward.”
The Wookiee growled again, jabbing a massive hand toward the booth. “Well, it’ll hide the hole from the inside, anyway,” Leia agreed doubtfully. “I suppose that’s better than nothing.” She looked at the maitrakh, suddenly aware that slicing away part of their ancient clan dukha might well qualify as sacrilege. “Maitrakh—”
“If it must be done, then be it so,” the Noghri cut her off harshly. She was still in shock herself; but even as Leia watched she visibly drew herself together again. “You must not be found here.”
Leia bit at the inside of her lip. She’d seen that same expression several times on Khabarakh’s face during the trip from Endor. It was a look she’d come to interpret as regret for his decision to bring her to his home. “We’ll be as neat as possible,” she assured the maitrakh, pulling her lightsaber from her belt. “And as soon as the Grand Admiral is gone, Khabarakh can get his ship back and take us away—”
She broke off as Chewbacca snarled for silence. Faintly, in the distance, they could hear the sound of the approaching shuttle; and then, suddenly, another all-too-familiar whine shot past the dukha.
“Scimitar assault bombers,” Leia breathed, hearing in the whine the crumbling of her impromptu plan. With Imperial bombers flying cover overhead, it would be impossible for them to sneak out of the dukha without being spotted.
Which left them only one option. “We’ll have to hide in the booth,” she told Chewbacca, doing a quick estimation of its size as she hurried toward it. If the slanting roof that sloped upward from the front edge back to the dukha wall wasn’t just for show, there should be barely enough room for both her and Chewbacca inside—
“Will you want me in there as well, Your Highness?”
Leia skidded to a halt, spinning around in shock and chagrin. Threepio—she’d forgotten all about him.
“There will not be room enough,” the maitrakh hissed. “Your presence here has betrayed us, Lady Vader—”
“Quiet!” Leia snapped, throwing another desperate look around the dukha. But there was still no other place to hide.
Unless …
She looked at the star dish hanging over the middle of the room. “We’ll have to put him up there,” she told Chewbacca, pointing to it. “Do you think you can—?”
There was no need to finish the question. Chewbacca had already grabbed Threepio and was heading at top speed toward the nearest of the tree-trunk pillars, throwing the frantically protesting droid over his shoulder as he ran. The Wookiee leaped upward at the pillar from two meters out, his hidden climbing claws anchoring him solidly to the wood. Three quick pulls got him to the top of the wall; and, with the half hysterical droid balanced precariously, he began to race hand over hand along the chain. “Quiet, Threepio,” Leia called to him from the booth door, giving the interior a quick look. The ceiling did indeed follow the slanting roof, giving the back of the booth considerably more height than the front, and there was a low benchlike seat across the back wall. A tight fit, but they should make it. “Better yet, shut down—they may have sensors going,” she added.
Though if they did, the whole game was over already. Listening to the approaching whine of repulsorlifts, she could only hope that after the negative sensor scan from the previous night, they wouldn’t bother doing another one.
Chewbacca had reached the center now. Pulling himself partway up on the chain with one hand, he unceremoniously dumped Threepio into the star dish. The droid gave one last screech of protest, a screech that broke off halfway through as the Wookiee reached into the dish and shut him off. Dropping back to the floor with a thud, he hit the ground running as the repulsorlifts outside went silent.
“Hurry!” Leia hissed, holding the door open for him. Chewbacca made it across the dukha and dived through the narrow opening, jumping up on the bench and turning around to face forward, his head jammed up against the sloping ceiling and his legs spread to both sides of the bench. Leia slid in behind him, sitting down in the narrow gap between the Wookiee’s legs.
There was just enough time to ease the door closed before the double doors a quarter of the way around the dukha slammed open.
Leia pressed against the back wall of the booth and Chewbacca’s legs, forcing herself to breathe slowly and quietly and running through the Jedi sensory enhancement techniques Luke had taught her. From above her Chewbacca’s breathing rasped in her ears, the heat from his body flowing like an invisible waterfall onto her head and shoulders. She was suddenly and acutely aware of the weight and bulge of her belly and of the small movements of the twins within it; of the hardness of the bench she was sitting on; of the intermingling smells of Wookiee hair, the alien wood around her, and her own sweat. Behind her, through the wall of the dukha, she could hear the sound of purposeful footsteps and the occasional clink of laser rifles against stormtrooper armor, and said silent thanks that they’d scrubbed her earlier plan of trying to escape that way.
And from the inside of the dukha, she could hear voices.
“Good morning, maitrakh,” a calm, coolly modulated voice said. “I see that your thirdson, Khabarakh, is here with you. How very convenient.”
Leia shivered, the rough rubbing of her tunic against her skin horribly loud in her ears. That voice had the unmistakable tone of an Imperial commander, but with a calmness and sheer weight of authority behind it. An authority that surpassed even the smug condescension she’d faced from Governor Tarkin aboard the Death Star.
It could only be the Grand Admiral.
“I greet you, my lord,” the maitrakh’s voice mewed, her own tone rigidly controlled. “We are honored by your visit.”
“Thank you,” the Grand Admiral said, his tone still polite but with a new edge of steel beneath it. “And you, Khabarakh clan Kihm’bar. Are you also pleased at my presence here?”
Slowly, carefully, Leia eased her head to the right, hoping to get a look at the newcomer through the dark mesh of the booth window. No good; they were all still over by the double doors, and she didn’t dare get her face too close to the mesh. But even as she eased back to her previous position there was the sound of measured footsteps … and a moment later, in the center of the dukha, the Grand Admiral came into view.
Leia stared at him through the mesh, an icy chill running straight through her. She’d heard Han’s description of the man he’d seen on Myrkr—the pale blue skin, the glowing red eyes, the white Imperial uniform. She’d heard, too, Fey’lya’s casual dismissal of the man as an impostor, or at best a self-promoted Moff. And she’d wondered privately if Han might indeed have been mistaken.
She knew now that he hadn’t been.
“Of course, my lord,” Khabarakh answered the Grand Admiral’s question. “Why should I not be?”
“Do you speak to your lord the Grand Admiral in such a tone?” an unfamiliar Noghri voice demanded.
“I apologize,” Khabarakh said. “I did not mean disrespect.”
Leia winced. Undoubtedly not; but the damage was already done. Even with her relative inexperience of the subtleties of Noghri speech, the words had sounded too quick and too defensive. To the Grand Admiral, who knew this race far better than she did …
“What then did you mean?” the Grand Admiral asked, turning around to face Khabarakh and the maitrakh.
“I—” Khabarakh floundered. The Grand Admiral stood silently, waiting. “I am sorry, my lord,” Khabarakh finally got out. “I was overawed by your visit to our simple village.”
“An obvious excuse,” the Grand Admiral said. “Possibly even a believable one … except that you weren’t overawed by my visit last night.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Or is it that you didn’t expect to face me again so soon?”
“My lord—”
“What is the Noghri penalty for lying to the lord of your overclan?” the Grand Admiral interrupted, his cool voice suddenly harsh. “Is it death, as it was in the old days? Or do the Noghri no longer prize such outdated concepts as honor?”
“My lord has no right to bring such accusations against a son of the clan Kihm’bar,” the maitrakh spoke up stiffly.
The Grand Admiral shifted his gaze slightly. “You would be well advised to keep your counsel to yourself, maitrakh. This particular son of the clan Kihm’bar has lied to me, and I do not take such matters lightly.” The glowing gaze shifted back. “Tell me, Khabarakh clan Kihm’bar, about your imprisonment on Kashyyyk.”
Leia squeezed her lightsaber hard, the cool metal ridges of the grip biting into the palm of her hand. It had been during Khabarakh’s brief imprisonment on Kashyyyk that he’d been persuaded to bring her here to Honoghr. If Khabarakh blurted out the whole story—
“I do not understand,” Khabarakh said.
“Really?” the Grand Admiral countered. “Then allow me to refresh your memory. You didn’t escape from Kashyyyk as you stated in your report and repeated last night in my presence and in the presence of your family and your clan dynast. You were, in fact, captured by the Wookiees after the failure of your mission. And you spent that missing month not meditating, but undergoing interrogation in a Wookiee prison. Does that help your memory any?”
Leia took a careful breath, not daring to believe what she was hearing. However it was the Grand Admiral had learned about Khabarakh’s capture, he’d taken that fact and run in exactly the wrong direction with it. They’d been given a second chance … if Khabarakh could hold on to his wits and poise a little longer.
Perhaps the maitrakh didn’t trust his stamina, either. “My thirdson would not lie about such matters, my lord,” she said before Khabarakh could reply. “He has always understood the duties and requirements of honor.”
“Has he, now,” the Grand Admiral shot back. “A Noghri commando, captured by the enemy for interrogation—and still alive? Is this the duty and requirement of honor?”
“I was not captured, my lord,” Khabarakh said stiffly. “My escape from Kashyyyk was as I said it.”
For a half dozen heartbeats the Grand Admiral gazed in his direction in silence. “And I say that you lie, Khabarakh clan Kihm’bar,” he said softly. “But no matt
er. With or without your cooperation I will have the truth about your missing month … and whatever the price was you paid for your freedom. Rukh?”
“My lord,” the third Noghri voice said.
“Khabarakh clan Kihm’bar is hereby placed under Imperial arrest. You and Squad Two will escort him aboard the troop shuttle and take him back to the Chimaera for interrogation.”
There was a sharp hiss. “My lord, this is a violation—”
“You will be silent, maitrakh,” the Grand Admiral cut her off. “Or you will share in his imprisonment.”
“I will not be silent,” the maitrakh snarled. “A Noghri accused of treason to the overclan must be given over to the clan dynasts for the ancient rules of discovery and judgment. It is the law.”
“I am not bound by Noghri law,” the Grand Admiral said coldly. “Khabarakh has been a traitor to the Empire. By Imperial rules will he be judged and condemned.”
“The clan dynasts will demand—”
“The clan dynasts are in no position to demand anything,” the Grand Admiral barked, touching the comlink cylinder pocketed beside his tunic insignia. “Do you require a reminder of what it means to defy the Empire?”
Leia heard the faint sound of the maitrakh’s sigh. “No, my lord,” she said, her voice conceding defeat.
The Grand Admiral studied her. “You shall have one anyway.”
He touched his comlink again—
And abruptly the interior of the dukha flashed with a blinding burst of green light.
Leia jerked her head back into Chewbacca’s legs, squeezing her eyelids shut against the sudden searing pain ripping through her eyes and face. For a single, horrifying second she thought that the dukha had taken a direct hit, a turbolaser blast powerful enough to bring the whole structure down in flaming ruin around them. But the afterimage burned into her retina showed the Grand Admiral still standing proud and unmoved; and belatedly she understood.
