TWENTY-SEVEN
Jaina and Kyp found Jag exactly where Jaina had envisioned him—in a small room hidden deep in a labyrinthine maze.
Kyp felt her bright anticipation, the excitement that came with her sudden realization. Without realizing it, she was expecting Jag to experience a similar moment of epiphany.
That dream shattered the moment Jag Fel looked up at his rescuers. He glanced at Jaina, and a shuttered, disinterested expression fell over his face. Kyp felt the young woman’s surge of pain, and her conviction that Jag Fel might admire her courage and talent, but he regarded her as a scruffy and undisciplined rogue.
The “Jedi princess” quickly swallowed her shock and reached into her pocket for a small multitool. With a few deft flicks she picked the complicated locks—a skill she had no doubt learned from her “scoundrel” father.
The sound of footsteps echoed through the halls. Kyp and Jaina glanced at each other, then looked to the ceiling. A tangle of pipes crossed it, some five meters overhead. They both leapt, catching hold of the pipes and waiting.
Jag had the presence of mind to push the door shut. One of the locks clicked, and he settled down.
His guards took several moments to figure out the locks. When they entered, grumbling, the two Jedi dropped from their perch.
Jaina stepped over a downed guard and into the corridor. “How did you get yourself down here?” she demanded.
Jag sent her a quick glance. “After the battle, Shawnkyr took me aside and warned me that in implying that I’d honor you as a commander, I was putting my pilots in the service of Hapes’ future queen. That I was taking sides in a coming coup.”
Jaina looked dismayed. “Your Chiss friend must have overheard some of Ta’a Chume’s people talking about it.”
“That’s right. Congratulations, Lieutenant. Or would ‘Your Majesty’ be more appropriate?”
“These days she prefers ‘Trickster,’ ” Kyp offered. “What’s a queen, next to a Yuuzhan Vong goddess?”
Jaina shot a quick glare in Kyp’s direction. “Don’t help me. This queen business is ridiculous. It wasn’t my idea.”
“The queen’s retainers were of the impression that you were another Ta’a Chume, an ambitious woman who would gladly seize this opportunity. They also spoke of eliminating obstacles, a job they were hired to do.”
Jaina stopped and seized his arm. “Does this have anything to do with my father?”
“That was my assumption, too. I sought out Han’s ‘assailants’; ambassadors who went to negotiate a marriage alliance between Prince Isolder and Jaina. I feel certain that Han was not attacked so much as subdued.”
“I know all this,” Jaina interrupted, “but I don’t understand why you were detained.”
His lips firmed into a grim line. “I was stopped on my way to find and warn Tenel Ka. You’re of legal age and don’t require your parents’ permission. If you wish to marry Isolder, no one can stop you. Logically speaking, what would this obstacle be but Queen Mother Teneniel Djo?”
Harrar watched as Khalee Lah paced the command center of the priestship. “Our fears have come to pass: the warriors under this command are beginning to voice questions and doubts. This is a more insidious danger than defeat in battle.”
“Some even question your fitness to command,” one of the guards observed. “Yun-Harla mocks us through her new chosen one …”
The warrior whirled toward the challenger, his face twisted in fury. “Challenge accepted,” he grated out.
The priest began to intervene, then decided against it. Khalee Lah required an outlet for his fervor. Better to send a warrior into battle than a zealot.
“You and you,” Khalee Lah said, pointing to two of the largest warriors. “The challenge will be three against one. We will see who has the favor of the gods!”
Mere moments later, Khalee Lah stood over the bodies of his challengers. He glanced up at the clanking footfall of the priest’s bodyguard.
The female strode in, dutifully ignoring the bodies of the slain warriors. “We recovered some debris from one of the ruined ships, Eminence. I thought you would wish to see this.”
Harrar claimed the small metal device with an expression of extreme distaste. “This is Yun-Harla’s mark! What blasphemy is this?”
“It was found affixed to a hull fragment—one of the ships sacrificed in the battle against the Trickster.”
“One of the ships we accidentally destroyed,” Khalee Lah corrected testily, “and perhaps this abomination will show us why.”
He took the device from the priest and twisted it as if he would crack the metal in half. Suddenly he went flying upward, slamming into the ceiling of the chamber as if he’d been thrown there by unseen hands.
“Brilliant,” Harrar murmured as he gazed at the furious, floating warrior. “The device defies gravity, as do our dovin basals. When affixed to a ship, it might override the ship’s gravitic voice. Any ship so marked might appear to our sensors to be a different ship, even the stolen frigate. Since you are considerably lighter than a ship, the effect was far more drastic and pronounced.”
The warrior managed to switch off the device. He fell to the floor, rolled twice, and came up on his feet. Gathering his composure, he showed the device to the surviving guards.
“Look on this, and understand your heresy. Go tell the others that this Jeedai is nothing but an infidel, one who will die as easily as any other. Go!”
The guards went, and Khalee Lah hurled the device to the floor. “In my anger, I have touched a blasphemous device. I am unclean, and will lay that crime at the female’s feet as well!”
He whirled toward Harrar. “Alert the warmaster, Eminence, and request that all ships in this sector converge. We will find this Jeedai if we have to leave all the worlds of Hapes in smoking ashes!”
“Teneniel Djo,” Jaina repeated, staring at Jag Fel’s grim face. Though she was stunned by his conclusion, she could not refute it.
They raced through the halls and into the royal apartments. Guards moved to stop them; Force lightning caught them and threw them aside.
They found Tenel Ka in her mother’s room, sitting beside the window. She held her mother’s hand in both of hers. Jaina knew at a glance that they all had been too late.
“Poison,” Tenel Ka murmured. “They did not even give her the dignity of a final battle.”
Jaina placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We’ll find whoever did this.”
The Jedi lifted burning eyes to Jaina’s face. “I will not have my mother’s life dishonored by your vengeance.”
She fell back a step. “Is that what you think this is about? Do you think I’m dishonoring Anakin? Jacen?”
An alarm sounded, rising in pitch and volume as it sang out the invasion alert. Tenel Ka gently released her mother’s hand and stood. She held out one hand, fingers spread to display the large emerald ring. Then she abruptly clenched her fist, and a hologram leapt into the air between them.
A nebulous swirl of darkness and mists filled the air. The mists parted to reveal five large starships, and smaller vessels spilling from them.
“Hapes’s fleet, and my mother’s legacy,” Tenel Ka said curtly. “Colonel Jag Fel, I place these ships under your command.”