Jaina shook her head, not comprehending. “You’re saying that it didn’t matter when he became a Sith?”
“Something like that.” Tahiri snapped back to the here and now. “I think it matters more when Jacen broke. Maybe he broke when Vergere tortured him for all that time. Maybe he broke when he was a kid, when he and you and Anakin kept being handed off to nannies and protectors while your mother and father were off doing other things.” Tahiri raised a hand to forestall a biting response from Jaina. “I’m not criticizing. They were being pulled in too many directions at once, by too many responsibilities, and when that happens, something gives.” She frowned, trying to puzzle something out. “I think maybe he broke at some other time, whenever it was he decided that the galaxy was a huge, nasty place that had to be tamed. Whatever gave him that idea, it made such an awful impression that he had to become even more awful to confront it.”
Jag looked dubious. “You don’t think Lumiya broke him.”
“I think she shaped him.” Now Tahiri looked vulnerable, far more open than when Jaina and Jag had first entered her presence. “I’ve been broken. I was broken by the Yuuzhan Vong. I broke when Anakin died. And again when I learned that I could be with him again, in little moments. Every time you break, outside forces can shape you, and you can’t do anything to stop them. No, I don’t think it matters when Jacen became a Sith. I think it matters when he broke.”
Jaina and Jag exchanged a glance. Jaina said, “That’s an interesting theory.”
Tahiri managed a bitter little laugh. “Solo-speak for That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“No, I’m serious. I’ll pass it on to the Grand Master. Right or wrong, it suggests some avenues of investigation we haven’t considered.”
“Oh.” Mollified, Tahiri relaxed. “Thank you.”
As they were departing, Jaina, seized by a sudden impulse, embraced Tahiri, something she had not done in years, and Tahiri held her in turn.
On the walk to the turbolift, Jag said, “I’m afraid I can’t find a way to forgive her so readily. She assassinated a man I respected very highly.”
Jaina nodded. “I had a lot of respect for Admiral Pellaeon, too. But who really killed him? The woman we just talked to, who’s trying to find her way back from a very dark place, or the woman of two years ago?”
“One descends from the other. They’re inextricably linked.” Stopping before the turbolift, Jag pressed the button to summon the car. “Does someone shed all responsibility for what she’s done when she suddenly decides it was wrong?”
“Neither one of us has ever been broken the way she has.” Jaina found her voice was unusually gentle. “Maybe we’re too hardheaded, or too stupid, or we’ve just never run into anything that could damage our core selves the way it happened to her. How do you know what we’d be capable of doing in her situation?”
Jag thought about it and merely shrugged. “The Jedi have more faith in redemption than I do. I’m not saying my way is best. Just that I’m not sure I could do what you do. Forgive something that monstrous.”
“I hope I never make a really big mistake in your presence, then.”
JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT
As a senior Jedi Knight—one who, it was said, was under consideration for the rank of Master—Jaina warranted private quarters when staying in the Temple. They were small and bare, but offered her more peace than the dormitories reserved for younger Jedi Knights and apprentices.
At her desk, she studied preliminary information assembled on her behalf about the Chief of State’s bounty hunters.
The Quarren was almost certainly Dhidal Nyz, an inventor specializing in imprisonment and capture technologies. He had made some of his fortune capturing high-value fugitives, some from patents and military contracts.
The dark-haired woman had given her name as Zilaash Kul to both Luke and the press. There was no mention of her in Jedi files, and she had no criminal record. Holos that showed her lightsaber had been magnified and strenuously analyzed, only to reveal that its hilt seemed to have been modeled on that of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s last lightsaber, the one the legendary Jedi had carried aboard the Death Star on his final mission—a weapon reasonably thought to have been lost when that asteroid-sized spacecraft had been destroyed.
The Skakoan was a known quantity. Hrym Mawaar was a bounty hunter with decades of experience, known for returning to his home system and spending years as an elected member of law enforcement between bouts as a bounty hunter.
The YVH droid, fourth on Jaina’s list, was the one who caused her the most concern. It was not a droid at all. Vrannin Vaxx, a human mercenary from Dorvalla, had distinguished himself during the Yuuzhan Vong War but had been horribly burned and maimed during a personnel shuttle crash late in the war. He chose not to replace with prosthetics the two-thirds of his body that had been irreparably destroyed. Instead, his family, a wealthy mining clan, had somehow acquired a black-market YVH 1 droid and had it repurposed as a cybernetic body for Vaxx. All that remained of his human self was packed into the droid torso.
Only because there wasn’t as much room within Vaxx’s carapace as there was in genuine YVH droids was he less formidably armed than a true Hunter droid, and he more than made up for it with human experience and ingenuity. Jaina had received a report that he had survived Leia’s laser attack on him and was already repaired and back on duty.
Jaina brought up the file of the next bounty hunter, the Rodian sniper, but her door chimed. Absently, she said, “Come.”
The door hissed open and her brother Anakin, dead these sixteen years, walked in.
Jaina froze, a chill running down her spine. This wasn’t Anakin as she remembered him, sixteen and dressed in Jedi garments. He was older, fully adult, and taller, perhaps even a centimeter taller than Jacen had been. He wore street clothes in black and crimson and had a professional-quality holorecorder on a strap around his neck.
He also wore Anakin’s smile as he advanced on her, hand outstretched. “Jedi Solo.”
“Uh.” She stood and automatically took his hand. When their palms came together she realized, with distracted embarrassment, that hers was sweating.
“You probably don’t remember me. It’s been more than fifteen years.” He absently wiped his palm on his tunic. “My name is Dab Hantaq.”
“Dab Hantaq.” Some familiar element in the name kick-started Jaina’s brain. “I know that name.”
“During the war, the Yuuzhan Vong War I mean, I was kidnapped by Senator Viqi Shesh—”
Jaina sagged just a little in relief, the mystery solved. “—and you were used in her plot to try to kidnap my cousin Ben.”
“That’s right. You might remember me better as Tarc, the name she gave me.”
“Right, right, little Tarc.” Jaina sat and made an effort to reassemble her shattered Jedi calm. “Have a seat.”
Dab glanced around. There was no other chair. He smiled again. “I’ll stand, thanks.”
“What can I—what are you—”
“I’ve been assigned to you.” From his belt, he unclipped a small identification folder and opened it. On the left side was the circular shield of an Alliance marshal. On the right was an identicard with a holo of his face, name, and vital statistics. “I’m really a documentarian, but also a licensed investigator because that helps, and there was just a mad hiring scramble for people with certain skill sets and any experience with the Jedi—”
“You’re my observer?”
He nodded and reattached the identity folder to his belt. “The whole Alliance marshal thing is a matter of convenience, really. They gave it to me so I could bully my way through all sorts of obstacles when following you around. I’m really more about capturing the moment—”
“This will never work. Never, never.”
He gave her a look of sympathy. “Because of my resemblance to your brother. I knew when your name came up for me in the random rotation that it was going to create trouble. Since it’s go
ing to cause you distress, I’ll have myself put back in the pool.”
“Yes. I mean, no. I didn’t mean it would cause me distress.” She clamped down on herself, uneasily aware that it had already caused her much more distress than she would ever admit. “I meant, this whole observer thing will never work. In general.”
“Oh.” He fingered the holorecorder on the strap. “Would you let me record a reaction from you on this whole observer program, something expressing your thoughts?”
“No! That’s not part of your observer role, is it?”
“Well, no.”
“You aren’t recording anything for personal or professional use, are you? Everything you record has to be turned over to the government, right?”
“Uh, sure.”
She glowered at him. “Look, I’m in the middle of some record keeping here …”
“I understand. Master Hamner has set up a waiting room for us observers in a chamber off the Great Hall. The old youngling lecture hall, he called it. Did he mean old younglings, or old hall? Never mind. I’ll be there. You need to check in with me if you decide to leave the Temple so I can accompany you. And I have to check in with you at intervals to make sure you haven’t, you know, wandered off. Sorry.”
Stunned, she just nodded. Dab waited a few moments to make sure no further words were going to issue forth, then retreated. The door slid closed behind him, leaving Jaina in merciful silence.
Until she spoke again. “Random rotation, my eye. This is somebody’s idea of a joke, and whoever it is will find himself dumped in a garbage compactor.”
RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT NEAR THE JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT
Tahiri hit the button to open her apartment door. It slid aside, revealing a tall, very old man standing outside. His hair was white and thin, his eyes a surprisingly clear blue. He wore a loose white tunic belted at the waist, along with black trousers and boots. Oddly, although his left arm was prosthetic, no attempt had been made to disguise the fact; it was an ancient replacement, three-quarters of a century old at least, distinctly mechanical despite its graceful, human lines. It was the color of brushed durasteel from the fingertips to where the white sleeve covered it.
He gave Tahiri a brief, cordial smile. “Tahiri Veila?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Commander Trinnolt Makken, Imperial Navy, retired. I’m your government-appointed observer.”
She laughed. Then she thumbed the door closed.
The bell chimed again, and she could hear the commander’s muffled voice. “This is not a joke. I have legal identification.”
She opened the door again. “I heard from friends, I mean contacts, about this observer thing. Commander, I’m not a Jedi.”
“It applies to Sith, too, when they can be identified.”
“I’m not a Sith, either.”
He held up a datacard with his flesh-and-blood hand. “Regardless, your name is on the document.”
She glanced at the card. It rose up a couple of centimeters into the air. It strained as if struggling, then snapped in two. The pieces dropped into his palm.
She fixed him with a look that was no longer friendly. “Not Jedi,” she explained, as if to someone who spoke only a few words of Basic. “Not Sith. Do you fly? Thrusters from metal arm, thrusters from nostrils?”
Grim, he shook his head.
“Then don’t come back until you do, because you may find yourself dropping two hundred stories out a viewport.” She slid the door shut.
This time, the commander did not activate the chime.
JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT
Jaina and Master Hamner encountered each other outside the Masters’ Chamber. They both frowned.
“Have you seen my new observer?” Jaina asked.
“Can you tell me where your mother is?”
“Come down to the old youngling lecture hall, which he seems to think is a schoolroom for old younglings.”
Master Hamner fell into step beside her. “Is that where your mother is?”
“No, that’s where he is,” Jaina said. “And you know, he’s not to blame.”
“Perhaps you know where your father is, and could tell me, and he would know where your mother is.”
“He’s not to blame for looking like my brother Anakin.”
“Your father? Of course he’s to blame for looking like your brother. I would have thought it would relieve him. It does, most fathers.”
“Master Hamner, please concentrate. Having an observer who looks like my brother can’t be a coincidence. It’s a cruel joke or an insult, and if my mother and father see him, it’s going to make them feel very bad.”
“Ah. Excellent. Where might your mother and father be, that they might see him?”
They came to a stop at the doorway of the former youngling lecture hall. The doorway was double-wide and open. Inside, the chamber was mostly unoccupied; round tables had replaced some of the old side-by-side lecture seating. At some of the tables were men and women, many of them older and ex-military by the look of them, the others a mix of ages, all of them apparently very fit.
She pointed to her new observer, who sat with two others, eating a salad and talking. “That one. Tarc.”
Master Hamner looked and tilted his head. “He does look like Anakin Solo.”
“So you think it’s a coincidence?”
“You’d have to ask your father about that, too.”
“No, no, that he was assigned to me.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Really, I couldn’t tell. The assignments are handled out of the Chief of State’s office.”
“Well, I want him swapped out for someone else.”
“Then you shall have to contact the Chief of State’s office. I am certain she will be receptive to the suggestion. The Jedi are among her favorite people.”
Jaina bristled. “Do you have any dead relatives you’d like to be followed around by?”
He took her arm and led her away from the door at a sedate pace. “You know, you have your mother’s mouth. By which I do not mean that the configuration of your chin and lips resemble hers, though they do at certain angles, but that the things that come leaping out of your mouth—words, invective, insults—have a distinctive Organa family flavor to them.”
“Thank you. What were you asking about Mom?”
“Where she is.”
“At home, I suspect.”
Hamner shook his head. “It appears that the Millennium Falcon took off for space at just past dawn this morning, with your father, your mother, and your adopted sister aboard.”
“Oh. Well, perhaps they wanted to take Amelia out for a field trip.”
“Into space.”
“Pretty normal for my family.”
“The comm recorder at their quarters, responding to my code, said to make requests for direct contact to the office of Lando Calrissian, Tendrando Arms.”
“Well, there’s your answer.”
“And the office of Tendrando Arms says they do not know where Lando Calrissian is, but they will pass the message along. So I was wondering if you had any other means to get in touch with your mother, any back-door method.”
“No, I’m afraid not.” That was a bald lie, but one she had practiced so well and for so many years that she doubted Master Hamner would be able to detect the deception in the Force.
He seemed satisfied. “Very well.”
“I apologize, Master Hamner. Parents like mine, they stay out all hours, they never tell you where they’re going, they keep secrets … They’re making me old before my time.”
The Master blinked, and Jaina sensed that, somewhere deep beneath his Jedi calm, he was resisting the urge to throttle her. But all he said was, “Very like your mother.”
“I need to go off and contact the Chief of State’s office. Can I help you with anything else?”
“No, thank you, I’ve had all the help I can endure.”
KESSEL
Even from a high altitude, it was clear that La
ndo’s Kessel mineworks had changed substantially in the decades since Han had been an involuntary worker within them—before Lando had owned them. When he and Chewbacca had been captured and pressed into service here, the main mine entrance had been a huge open pit surrounded by broad salt plains and a few administrative buildings. Now the pit was covered, a low, square gray building in place over it, and the buildings immediately around it were far more numerous—though no more attractive; Lando’s personal sense of style had clearly been no influence in the motley collection of prefabricated gray, off-white, and tan enclosures.
A couple of the larger buildings and several of the smaller ones now lay in ruined heaps, testimony to the power of recent groundquakes in the area.
Following Lando’s navigational beacon, Han found himself staring at a Falcon-sized circle of a bare white salt plain surrounded by irregular chunks of brown synthstone probably scavenged from some of the felled buildings. He set down with the speed of confidence, absently adjusting the length of the Falcon’s landing gear extensions so that the transport would be perfectly level on the irregular ground. Adjusting thrusters and repulsors to zero, allowing the Falcon to settle fully onto her landing gear, he smiled—he might be on Kessel again, but at least his landing had been perfect.
Beside him, sitting on Leia’s lap on the copilot’s seat, Allana asked, “When can I do it?”
“Do what? A landing?”
She nodded, wide-eyed. “Uh-huh.”
“When I think my heart will survive the experience.” Han gave Leia a look as if to say, Or maybe I’ll be lucky and die before then.
Leia gave him a smile that was part amused malice. She looked down at her granddaughter. “Soon, I think he means.”
By the time Han got the boarding ramp lowered, Lando and Nien Nunb were at its base, waiting, wearing the breath masks required to survive Kessel’s thin atmosphere for more than a few minutes. Nunb, Lando’s manager in this enterprise, was Sullustan, with a head that looked oddly as though it had settled in melted layers upon his shoulders; unlike most of his species, he was only slightly shorter and rounder than the average adult human.
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