EIGHTEEN

Early the next morning Prince Isolder followed a guard into the refugee camp, trying to ignore the sharp-eyed warriors following closely behind him. Bodyguards were a necessity for someone in his position, and he could think of few times when he had been truly alone on his homeworld. But as he walked between rows of simple tents, he was keenly aware of how much these people had lost, and how grating the pomp of Hapan royalty must be to them.

His guide stopped before a tent no different from the others. “You may leave me here,” Isolder announced. His blue-eyed gaze swept over his escort, including his bodyguards in this instruction. They bowed and retreated.

He tapped on the support post and received a noncommittal grunt in response. Sweeping aside the opening flap, he ducked into the first of two rooms.

Han and Leia Solo sat at a small folding table. They were both holding steaming mugs, and they looked up at him with weary but keenly measuring eyes.

Isolder was struck by the similarity between the two, something that went beyond any explanation of common experiences and their recent shared losses.

Han Solo fit the image of aging pirate down to the last centimeter. Stories gathered during years of adventuring were written in his collection of lines and scars. Two days’ worth of stubble roughened his face. He’d gotten a little thicker, a little grayer, a little tougher—nothing surprising there.

The change in Leia, however, was startling. Her short hair had begun to grow out and she wore a fitted flight suit. She was thinner than Isolder remembered, and her face looked pale and small without cosmetic enhancement. Despite her casual appearance, or perhaps because of it, she looked far younger than her years. But gone were the artful coils of brown hair, the softly draping gowns, the regal posture—everything that had caught his eye twenty years ago. She could have been any other tired warrior preparing to face another day’s battle.

Then her face changed. Her chin came up, her lips curved in a welcoming smile, and the grief and weariness in her eyes receded behind a well-practiced mask. Princess and diplomat, she rose and circled the table to greet him, both hands outstretched.

“Prince Isolder,” she said warmly. “Thank you for accepting us here. The people of the Hapes Cluster have already given so much.”

He took her hands and raised them to his lips. “Fondor was my mistake, Princess. You tried to warn me about sending the fleet. Let’s have no misunderstanding on this matter, or any other.”

“Sounds like you’ve got things on your mind,” Han observed as he hauled himself out of his chair.

“Stay, please,” the prince told him. “What I have to say concerns you both.”

Han shrugged and dragged a crate over to the table while Leia found another mug. They settled down and took sips of the thick, potent beverage.

“How was your journey?” Leia asked.

“Informative, and also disturbing. I learned several things that might be of importance to your family. Among the Yuuzhan Vong, twin births are considered a portent. One twin battles the other, and the winner goes on to an important role in a pivotal event.”

Han nudged Leia. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You can take Luke. You’ll just have to fight dirty.”

She sent her husband a subtly quelling glance. He held up both hands in mock defense, and his teasing grin brought a spark of mingled amusement and exasperation to her eyes. Isolder thought he much preferred that response to the calm, practiced warmth she turned upon him.

“Please excuse the digression,” she murmured.

“Of course. Tsavong Lah has stated, publicly and unequivocally, his intentions for your son Jacen. It is likely that this ire will now shift to Jacen’s twin sister.”

The warmth faded from Leia’s eyes. “Jacen is still alive,” she stated firmly.

Isolder sent a puzzled glance at Han. “You’ve probably been told otherwise,” Han said. “So have we. But Leia says no, and I’m putting my credits on her.”

She shot him a quick, grateful look and then turned back to Isolder. “Your point is understood, nonetheless. The Yuuzhan Vong seem obsessed with the notion of sacrifice. If twins have so much power in their eyes, they’d probably see a twin sacrifice as an especially potent offering to their gods.”

“There is more,” the prince said. “I have spoken with Tenel Ka, and observed Jaina at work on the Yuuzhan Vong ship. She has named this ship the Trickster, referring both to Yun-Harla, the Trickster goddess, and to herself. She did this to mock a Yuuzhan Vong priest in pursuit of her and the other young Jedi. Immediately thereafter, she confounded their ability to track the stolen ship. It seems possible that she is laying down a challenge, perhaps even goading them on by taking on the role played by their Trickster goddess.”

Han’s eyebrows rose, and a lopsided grin spread over his weathered face. “A goddess, huh?”

Leia sent him an incredulous stare, leaving no doubt that she didn’t share his skewed pride in their daughter’s methods.

He quickly squelched his smile. “You can’t say the kid lacks ambition.”

With a sigh, Leia pushed back from the table. “I’ll talk to my daughter. Jaina has always been impulsive.”

“Not to mention stubborn,” Han pointed out.

“I’m not going to argue with her. I’m going to encourage her to put her plans—whatever they are—on the table. Then we’ll discuss them, with the intention of focusing and refining her logic.”

Han turned a wry look toward Isolder. “Not going to argue,” he repeated. “Do me a favor—make sure this ‘discussion’ takes place in an open space, with no flammable materials around.”

“You’re not coming?” Leia asked.

“I’ve got some work to do on the Falcon. You two go ahead.”

He spoke easily, with none of the competitive tone that had characterized his previous dealings with Isolder. The prince was not surprised. The look that passed between the two suggested a tie no former suitor could threaten, much less sever. Han gave his wife a quick kiss and then poured himself another cup of sludge.

But as Isolder moved the flap aside for Leia to pass, he heard Han’s softly spoken advice: “Watch your back, sweetheart.”

The prince understood that Han was not referring to the dangers implied by a former suitor. And knowing Ta’a Chume as he did, he found himself in complete agreement.

* * *

Leia Organa Solo understood that even during difficult times, certain protocols were inviolate. She could not go anywhere in the palace complex without paying her respects to the reigning queen mother.

She gave her name at the gate and was quickly led to Teneniel Djo’s domain. The uniformed guards took her to a sleeping chamber rather than an audience room. For a moment, Leia didn’t recognize the woman who rose haltingly from a chair to greet her.

When Teneniel Djo first came to Hapes as a young woman, she’d been something of an oddity: a forthright warrior among scheming patricians, a moderately attractive woman in a land whose people were renowned for beauty. Her short, compact build set her apart from the lithe Hapans, as did her ability to sense and use the Force. Leia sensed at once that this ability had weakened to almost nothing.

Teneniel Djo’s reddish brown hair was dull and thinning, and her skin had faded to an unhealthy sallow hue. She was far too thin. Her eyes were deeply shadowed and so devoid of expression that she might have been mistaken for a blind woman. The constant intrigue of the Hapan court must have been a slow poison to the Dathomiri warrior. Leia suspected that the defeat at Fondor and the loss of her unborn child had been merely the final blows.

They exchanged a careful embrace. Teneniel Djo pushed Leia off to arm’s length and regarded her with dull resignation. “You have been chosen?”

Leia hesitated, unsure how to answer, or what to ask. “I came to Hapes with the refugees,” she said, considering this path as safe as any. “Han and I plan to leave shortly.”

None of this information seemed to register in the queen’s eyes. “Tenel Ka has the ring.”

“Of course,” Leia agreed.

The small woman turned away and resumed her sightless study of the garden. Leia tried several times to engage Teneniel Djo in conversation, but nothing pierced the strange fog that surrounded her.

Finally she abandoned the effort and walked quietly from the room. She shut the door behind her and nodded to the two guards who stood watch. They returned her salute, but Leia noticed the irritated expression in one man’s eyes. She tracked his gaze over her shoulder.

A young man sauntered toward them, wearing the bright red color of the royal house and an expression of extreme self-satisfaction. He swept into an extravagant bow.

“An honor, Princess Leia. Ta’a Chume wishes to speak with you.”

From the way he said this, Leia wasn’t sure whether the honor was being expressed or conferred. “And you are?”

“Trisdin Gheer, companion to Ta’a Chume.”

A mottled flush rose in the faces of the guards. Leia felt both anger and embarrassment coming from them and understood that she had just been insulted. Apparently sending a courtesan to fetch her was offensive in the extreme.

This left Leia with two choices: ignore the insult and appear ignorant of Hapan custom, or acknowledge it and appear ungracious. Ta’a Chume, it would seem, was in rare form today.

“Ambassador Gheer,” she repeated pleasantly but pointedly. “I must apologize—your name is unfamiliar to me. I haven’t seen it on the diplomatic rolls, or heard you speak in the senate. Perhaps you’re new to Ta’a Chume’s service?”

His smirk faded. “I joined her household recently.”

“Well, I’m certain we’ll see more of you in the near future. Ta’a Chume’s diplomatic envoys always seem to move on quickly.” She smiled. “Shall we?”

The guards’ silent mirth followed them down the hall. Trisdin set a brisk pace and made no further attempt at conversation. He delivered her to a small audience room and then flounced off.

Ta’a Chume rose to greet Leia, offering no comment on Trisdin. “It was good of you to visit Teneniel Djo. A sad thing, is it not?”

“These are difficult times,” Leia pointed out.

“But there are others who bear greater burdens with grace, you yourself among them.” The older woman inclined her head. “Our condolences for the loss of your sons.”

“Anakin is gone,” Leia said, her thoughts touching briefly on the solemn funeral rites she had attended the night before, and the cleansing awe of feeling her son return to the Force. “Jacen is only missing.”

“Of course,” Ta’a Chume said smoothly and without conviction. “You must find great consolation in your daughter. I wish Teneniel Djo had been able to convey a similar sense of duty to her own daughter, but that is perhaps the least of our queen’s failures. But enough of Hapan woes. I assume you’d like to see Jaina.” She began to walk down the corridor. Leia fell into step.

“Have you any idea of Jaina’s future plans?” Ta’a Chume asked.

Warning sensors hummed in the back of Leia’s mind. “In times such as these, how far ahead can any of us plan?” she responded. “Our best efforts need to focus on survival. Jaina is a fighter pilot, an exceptional one. That requires her complete attention right now.”

“She is a squadron leader, I assume?”

“No. She’s in Rogue Squadron, and feels lucky to be there. Most of the commanders are legends.”

“No doubt she’s creating her own. Wars build legends, even if they accomplish little else.”

“Why this sudden interest in my daughter?”

The queen mother spread her hands. “I lost my oldest son, and as you know, Isolder is deeply involved in this conflict. It is far more difficult for us to see our children fight than it would be to go into danger ourselves.”

It stuck Leia as odd that Ta’a Chume was speaking to her as if they were contemporaries. Before this, she had always endeavored to impress upon Leia her relative youth and inferior status.

“Jaina is no longer a child,” Leia observed. “Neither is Isolder.”

Ta’a Chume’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “You placed those comments in proper order. Isolder has many fine qualities, but the path to wisdom is longer for men. No woman finds an equal in a man her own age.”

“An interesting view.”

“One you apparently share. Han Solo is several years older than you, I believe.”

“He has a running start on that path to wisdom,” Leia responded dryly.

They emerged from the main palace building into bright sunshine. Ta’a Chume nodded toward an enclosed landspeeder, a larger-than-usual vehicle piloted by a well-armed driver.

“Jaina is no doubt working at the royal docking area. It is not far to walk, but I would prefer that you take this precaution.” Her eyes clouded. “There was an attempt on Prince Isolder just yesterday, within the palace grounds.”

Leia thanked the queen for her concern and climbed into the armored vehicle. It rose into the air and glided off toward the docks—far too slowly for Leia’s peace of mind. Although refugee camps could be uncertain and even dangerous, she hoped to persuade her daughter to leave the palace and return to camp with her.

She found Jaina inside the rocklike vessel, poking experimentally at a small, crenulated sphere.

“A familiar sight,” Leia commented with a smile. “You tinkering with a ship.”

Jaina pushed away the little globe. “Nothing works the way it should,” she complained. “No wires, no circuits, no cables. What’s on your mind?”

Leia placed her fingers on her temples to pantomime dizziness. “That was a rather abrupt change of topic.”

“Mom,” Jaina said wearily. “Just spill it.”

“All right. Prince Isolder came to see me.” She related his concerns in a few terse words.

“The Yuuzhan Vong are trying to round up all the Jedi,” Jaina reminded her. “My situation hasn’t gotten much worse than it was. Frankly, I’m more worried about you.”

“Me?” Leia looked startled, then her face cleared. “I see. You must have heard about my initial reaction to Anakin’s death. I felt him go, and something in me shattered. Without your father, I might not have found my way back. He has been a rock.”

“Like you were for him after Chewbacca died. It sounds like the two of you are even.”

Leia smiled faintly. “Depends who’s counting. Let’s get back to you.”

“Not exactly the usual graceful segue, Mom.”

“You want blunt?” Leia demanded. “Then how about this: I can’t feel you through the Force. I can sense when you’re nearby, but not much more.”

Jaina blew out a sigh. “Don’t take it personally. I’m shielding. A lot of things have happened recently that I wouldn’t share with anyone I liked, and half the people I despise.”

“That’s a lot to carry alone,” she said, gentle invitation in her tone.

The young woman shrugged.

Leia started to put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder, then thought better of it. “So. Tell me about this ship.”

Jaina looked relieved at the change of topic. “We’re just starting to figure out the Yuuzhan Vong technology. I’ve been gathering all the information I can get about the blocking device Danni Quee used over Coruscant.”

“As I understand it, the block is a transmitter of sorts that effectively scrambles the signals sent by their yammosk.”

“That’s right. The yammosk communicates mind-to-mind. It’s hard to block that. The scrambler is a device that makes it difficult for the yammosk to think. A small but extremely powerful comm unit is affixed to a projectile weapon and embedded into the hull of the ship containing the yammosk. I hear Danni’s team prepared scores of these to make sure that one of them got through the shielding singularities and managed to adhere. The comm units were designed to receive an extremely high-frequency signal, one that would set up a vibration throughout the ship and prove impossible for the yammosk to ignore.”

“And that’s how you blocked the tracking capability of this ship?”

“No, there’s an important difference,” Jaina said. “The Yuuzhan Vong ships communicate mind-to-mind with their pilots, who in turn communicate with their commanders through villips. It’s the yammosk that coordinates everything. Although the yammosk communicates through mental projection, much of the incoming information comes in other forms. The yammosk tracks individual ships by their gravitic signatures.”

“Go on,” Leia urged.

“Gravitic signatures,” Jaina repeated. “The Yuuzhan Vong space technology is based on their manipulation of gravity. Small gravitic fluctuations provide motive force. The ships not only move through the use of gravity, but shield and even navigate. It’s incredibly sophisticated, how a ship gathers information about its surroundings. And each Yuuzhan Vong ship can be identified by other ships through subtle variations in its pattern of gravitic fluctuations. I call that the gravitic signature. Since these ships are living things, I suspect that their signatures are like fingerprints, with no two alike. I haven’t had a chance to test that yet, but I will.”

“That sounds like a dangerous project.”

“Sure, but think how useful that information would be! Right now we can block their yammosk signals—at least, we can until the shapers figure out how to get around the high-frequency distraction. But consider how much more we could do if we could not only block their signals, but send them misinformation?”

“Enter the Trickster,” Leia murmured.

Jaina’s eyes turned feral. “You’ve got it.”

She regarded her daughter thoughtfully. “How do you propose to do this?”

“I’m still working on that,” Jaina admitted. Her gaze strayed to Lowbacca, who was hunched over what appeared to be an enormous villip.

“Then I’ll leave you to it.”

She caught her mother’s hand as she turned to go. “Thanks, Mom.”

“For what?”

“You didn’t bring up Kyp Durron.”

Leia’s smile took on a sardonic edge. “I never thought you were serious about becoming his apprentice. When your father mentioned in Kyp’s hearing that you weren’t planning to attend Anakin’s funeral, he took after you with all the subtlety of an avenging Gamorrean. I’d assumed the apprentice comment was meant as a jab at him, prompted by his heavy-handedness.”

“Something like that,” she said absently. “Is Dad upset that I almost didn’t go to Anakin’s funeral?”

“Since I nearly had to use a stun baton on him to get him to attend Chewbacca’s memorial, I think he understands. Just make sure that you do.” She started to add something to that, then changed her mind. “I’d hoped to bring you back to the camp, but I can see that’s not going to happen. You’ve got work to do here. Be careful.”

Jaina promised she would, and held on to her impatient sigh until the brisk click of Leia’s footsteps faded away. She picked up the villip and resumed her attempts to attune it.

A tapping at the open portal distracted her. Muttering imprecations, she stomped toward the door. She was momentarily nonplused to learn that her visitor was Jag.

“I came for an apology,” he said without preamble.

Jaina folded her arms. “Fine, but make it quick. I’m busy.”

“Actually, I came prepared to listen.”

Her eyebrows leapt up. “Then I hope your schedule is wide open, because you’re likely to be standing there for a very long time. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You deliberately tried to provoke an argument.”

“Yeah? So?”

He stared at her for a moment, shoved a hand through his short black hair. “How did an Alderaanian princess end up with such a daughter?”

Jaina’s temper flared. “Do you want the short answer, or do you need someone to explain the details to you with charts and diagrams?”

Spots of color appeared high on his cheeks. “That’s not what I meant, as I’m sure you know.”

His discomfiture was oddly satisfying. If this had been a fencing match, Jaina would have awarded herself a point. Scenting victory, she reached out with the Force and considered the emotions she perceived in the young man’s powerful presence. He was angry, more than a little embarrassed, and not entirely certain about his purpose in coming here.

Uncertainty, she decided. Of all the emotions she sensed coming from Jag Fel, that one would bother him the most. So she envisioned a thick fog, then sent it toward Jag like a psychic shove. His brow furrowed, and he glanced around in puzzlement.

“Why are you here, Jag?” she asked, just to twist the knife a bit.

He composed himself quickly. “Tenel Ka told me that you will be training with Kyp Durron. Since Kyp flies under my command, may I assume that you’ll be joining the Vanguard Squadron?”

“Tenel Ka was misinformed. So are you, if you think that Kyp does anything for anyone unless it suits him.”

He studied her for a long moment. “Assuming you’re right, I get the impression that Kyp is not the only one playing some sort of game.”

“And winning,” she added smugly.

“Since that perception gives you such apparent satisfaction, I hope the rules of engagement can be modified for solitaire.” He executed a deep and extremely formal bow and strode off.

To her surprise, Jaina realized she was grinning like a well-fed Hutt. Baiting the Chiss commander was the first truly enjoyable thing she had experienced in a long time. Watching his retreat was satisfying, for more reasons than one. Jag Fel was one of those people who looked good from every angle.

She felt Lowbacca’s presence approaching. He came up beside her and grumbled a question.

“I don’t have anything against Jag Fel,” she commented. “He can be a lot of fun, whether he means to be or not.”

Lowbacca made a derisive comment about her idea of fun.

Her bright mood tarnished as she perceived the likely source of Lowbacca’s concern. “Stow it,” she snapped. “I am in no mood for more dark-side dithering.”

She spun away into the ship. The Wookiee’s furred forehead pulled down in puzzlement as he considered his friend’s outburst. After a moment he shrugged. His uncle Chewbacca had often warned him that humans tended to make everything more difficult than it had to be.

From what he’d observed pass between Jaina Solo and the black-haired pilot, Lowbacca was inclined to agree.